The policeman was beginning to grasp just how difficult this investigation could turn out to be. These lawyers were used to cross-examining policemen in the witness box, trying to undermine their evidence and their credibility. They would not appreciate it when the boot was on the other foot.
‘I am not at liberty, sir, to say how the murder was carried out at this stage.’
‘Heavens above, young man,’ Barton Somerville banged his fist on the table and raised his voice to nearly a shout, ‘I am the Treasurer of this Inn. Surely I have the right to know how one of my own benchers died? Surely I have the right to ask for that?’
The policeman had had enough for now. It was time, Jack Beecham thought, for a little salvo back just to let this pompous and self-important man know that he could look after himself.
‘The position remains as I outlined it earlier, sir,’ he said. Then he paused and looked Somerville straight between the eyes. ‘I will tell you more when I can, sir. But for now, I’m afraid, you are a suspect in this case, just like all the other members of your Inn. At the moment I don’t see how anybody can expect preferential treatment. And now, with your permission, sir, I and my team would like to begin questioning the people in Mr Dauntsey’s chambers and on his staircase.’
With that the policeman picked up his hat and strode from the room. Barton Somerville stared after him in fury. He composed a sulphurous letter of complaint to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police and had it sent round by one of the porters. He demanded the removal of Detective Chief Inspector Beecham at once. If his request was not granted, he went on, he would be forced to request his barristers to offer the police the minimum co-operation necessary to comply with the law. And, he concluded, he was going to take steps to ensure that the Inn was in a position to conduct its own investigation which would, he felt sure, be more likely to succeed than any inquiry conducted by the infant or cadet branch of the Metropolitan Police. After that he walked north to Gray’s Inn to confer with a man he knew who had some expertise about London’s private investigators.
Shortly after six thirty that evening a tall man in a very beautiful suit knocked on the front door of the Powerscourt house in Markham Square in Chelsea. Inside he found chaos. There were packing cases everywhere, all along the hallway, in the dining room, stacked high at the bottom of the stairs. Upstairs further noises of departure could be heard, trunks or suitcases being dragged along the floor, small children shouting, a bath being run. The reason for all this confusion and excitement had to do with the two people who knew least about it – the twins. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy had decided that they needed more room with the extra nurses and probably the need for extra bathrooms and bedrooms. It might have looked as if they were moving house but the move was only temporary. Powerscourt had solved the problem of space by buying the house next door, which had come on the market after the sudden and unexpected death of its owner. The family was going to Manchester Square in Marylebone while various alterations were made, alterations which were likely to make more dust than would be good for the twins.
‘Powerscourt!’ said the man in the beautiful suit, as he saw a rather harassed owner descending the stairs with a small green valise in his hand.
‘Pugh, by God! Charles Augustus Pugh!’ said Powerscourt, sprinting down the stairs to shake his friend by the hand. In an earlier case involving art fraud an innocent man had been put on trial for his life. Powerscourt and Pugh, with the assistance of some splendid forgeries displayed in court, and the forger himself, had secured his acquittal. Ever since, they had kept in touch with lunches and the occasional dinner at the Pughs’ beautiful house by the river.
‘I see your crimes have finally caught up with you, Powerscourt,’ said Pugh, waving a hand at the packing cases and surrounding confusion. ‘Leaving the country before the law comes knocking at the door? I could offer my services free, you know, if they try to deport you.’
‘If moving to Marylebone constitutes leaving the country, my friend, then we are indeed in flight. But come upstairs, the drawing room is still free of all this paraphernalia.’
‘I’m sure you must be very busy, I could come back another day, or in the morning if that would be convenient. I don’t want to get in the way.’
‘You’re never in the way, Charles, certainly not in a suit as elegant as that.’
As Pugh seated himself on the sofa, Powerscourt organized the drinks and wondered, not for the first time, what the judges and juries made of the Pugh clothes. Would the juries be jealous of a man who could afford such expensive clothes? Would the judges wish that they had such a fine figure to show off the tailors’ best? One thing was certain. Both judges and juries would remember Charles Augustus Pugh. Maybe that was the point of it all.
‘Had a visitor this afternoon,’ Pugh began, ‘man by the name of Somerville, Barton Somerville. Can’t say I care for the fellow very much. He’s the Treasurer – Head Boy, if you like – at Queen’s Inn. They had a dramatic death there the other day. Man dropped dead into his soup in the middle of a feast.’
‘What sort of soup?’ said Powerscourt flippantly.
‘Borscht. Beetroot variety, laced with some potent Russian vodka. Possibly laced with something else too, some sort of poison. Post-mortem says Dauntsey – that’s the name of the corpse – was poisoned. The point is this, Powerscourt. Somerville has fallen out with the police in a spectacular fashion. Policeman in charge of the inquiry far too young for Somerville, he must want some greybeard with a limp who’s about to shuffle off. Anyway, letter of complaint has sped off to the Commissioner and the case is barely a day old. It has to be said, mind you, that Somerville could fall out with the angels inside half an hour of arriving in heaven. Anyway, he comes to see me to ask about you, Francis. Was it true that you were the most accomplished private investigator in London? Were you discreet? Would you respect the privacy and the private lives of his members? And so on. Naturally enough I gave you a very good write-up, Francis. You would have been proud of me.’
With that Charles Augustus Pugh flicked a speck of dust that had had the impertinence to land on the cuff of his jacket to the floor. ‘I shall of course be expecting my normal slice of the fee. You could charge for this one in the way we barristers do, Francis, a charge of five hundred guineas for retainers and refreshers at fifty guineas a day. I could do with some new shirts.’
‘Did this Somerville inquire about my age, Charles? You can never be too careful.’
‘Must have been the only thing he didn’t mention,’ said Pugh, ‘but it’s a pound to a penny you’re going to get invited into their lair tomorrow and asked to take the case on.’
‘I suppose it’s one way to get out of the chores of moving,’ said Powerscourt ruefully. ‘Whole business bores me to tears and the truth is I’m completely useless at it. Lucy knows by instinct where everything ought to go while I wander round like the proverbial lost sheep. But tell me, Charles, you know this world, what is your opinion of Queen’s Inn?’
‘Queen’s?’ said Pugh thoughtfully and he stared at the fireplace, temporarily lost for words. ‘The surface things are easy. Smallest Inn of Court. Youngest too, only about a hundred and forty years old. Founded in 1761 as a tribute to George the Third’s new bride, his Queen a brood mare called Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who produced fifteen children for him. Situated right next to the Middle Temple on the river. They think they’re special, those people in Queen’s, they’re arrogant to a man, all of them. I think the best way I can put it, Francis, is that they’re like a fashionable cavalry regiment that isn’t quite as special or as fashionable as it thinks it is.’
Powerscourt, who had known many cavalry regiments, fashionable and unfashionable, in his time in the Army, smiled. ‘And what of the dead man? Did you say his name was Dauntsey?’