Powerscourt paused beside the chantry chapel of Robert, Lord of Compton, passed away sometime in the fourteenth century, he remembered. The light from the great windows was very faint now. The stained glass didn’t seem to let very much of it in. Powerscourt’s hand felt the dust from the falling masonry already lying thickly on the stone. Half the monuments in the cathedral must be covered with it already. He wondered if the murderer was coming back to make sure he was dead. Or had the murderer watched the explosion from some high place up there on the scaffolding? Powerscourt didn’t think he could have seen anything through the storm of dust that poured out of the broken floor. Had the murderer rushed off to close all the doors? Did he believe that Powerscourt was dead, one unfortunate victim of the accident to be discovered by the verger in the morning? Or was he intending to come back and finish Powerscourt off?
Powerscourt looked around for a means of defending himself. If he had the power, he reflected, he could raise a formidable host of warriors from inside the building itself. Those stone knights, facing east to meet their maker, could come clanking out of their tombs, stone swords in stone hands to terrify their enemies. There was a whole window partly filled with soldiery who had fought with Edward the Third in France in the Crecy campaigns in the fourteenth century. Powerscourt couldn’t see the detail in the darkness, but he thought there was a good selection of cavalry, some infantry and some archers, sharpshooters he could deploy to cover all the doors. Across the choir from where he now stood was the Soldiers Chapel, with flags and banners from the past two centuries hanging proudly from the stonework. Fierce sergeant majors with enormous moustaches could come back from their earlier campaigns to lead the standards into the thick of battle. There was a stained glass window there too, Powerscourt remembered, filled with the bloodied infantry of Britannia’s wars.
His shirt was not proving very effective as a bandage. Blood was dripping through it and trickling slowly down his cheek. Extremely gingerly, Powerscourt reached up and twisted it through ninety degrees so a drier part was now in place to stem his wound. His leg was throbbing fiercely. What, he wondered, had caused this attack by masonry? It couldn’t be for what he knew about the deaths of John Eustace or Arthur Rudd, unless the murderers were appraised of Johnny’s inquiries into the Eustace coffin. In truth he knew very little. It had to be for what he might find out, what he might discover in the future rather than what he knew in the present. Was the assault linked to his forthcoming interview with Organist Wyndham? Did somebody not want him to speak to the organist? Perhaps the organist knew too much. There must be some terrible secret at the heart of Compton Minster. To preserve this secret Arthur Rudd had been strangled, his body roasted on the flames, his journals stolen and almost certainly burnt. He must have known the secret. Had John Eustace known it too?
Powerscourt thought of Patrick Butler and what the Grafton Mercury might make of the attack. Murder by Masonry in the Minster? Investigator Inches From Death? He couldn’t think clearly any more but he felt certain that he wanted no publicity for the events of this night. He thought of Lady Lucy, back in Fairfield Park by now, no doubt. She would think he had gone to talk to Johnny Fitzgerald and would be late home. He thought of the Chief Inspector, back home with his family, maybe looking through another of his architectural volumes. He tried to imagine the Bishop or the Dean or the Archdeacon or the Dean’s enormous servant, two hundred feet above their transept, preparing to pull the rope that would pour all those stone slabs down on to their cathedral floor, killing somebody in the process. He thought of Thomas and Olivia, getting ready for bed, being spoilt by their grandmother, entirely ignorant of what had happened to their Papa. Maybe Compton is a more dangerous place than South Africa, he said to himself, for I went through a year and more of the Boer War without a scratch.
The bells made him jump. They were terribly loud in this empty building as they struck the hour of seven. Powerscourt felt sure that the dust moved again, swirling off the surfaces where it had settled before to find new resting places on chantry chapel or choir stall. Powerscourt knew he could not fall asleep in case his enemies found him in the dark. He looked at the choir, all dark outlines in the gloom. He needed to sit down, he decided. A sudden inspiration lightened his mood. I may be going to bleed to death in this bloody cathedral, he said to himself, but I shall go out with style. He hobbled slowly to the other side of the choir. He settled himself into the great chair. His fingers felt for the inscription on the back. This would be a good way to go. Episcopus, Beatus Vir. The Bishop, a holy man. Powerscourt, a holy man.
The real Bishop was hosting an important conference in the study of his Palace. The front of the building looked out over the Cathedral Green but the study was at the back. In daylight there was a peaceful view over the Bishop’s garden, said to be one of the largest and finest of its kind in the country. On the desk, large enough to intimidate any passing prebendary, sat the wooden box found behind the coffin during the excavations in the crypt. Two gentlemen sat across from the Bishop, inspecting the documents contained inside. To Moreton’s right was Octavius Parslow, senior keeper of documents at the British Museum, a man with a reputation for scholarship that stretched across the great museums and universities of Europe. To his left, Theodore Crawford, Professor of History at the University of Oxford and one of the leading scholars of the sixteenth century in Britain. They both wore fine gloves as they passed the document from hand to hand. From time to time Crawford, a thin man in his early forties with a goatee beard, would snort rather loudly and make a jotting in his dark red notebook. Parslow had placed a large magnifying glass in front of him and would raise it to peer earnestly at the writing. The Bishop had an enormous volume by his side, bound in fading brown leather, which contained the early records of the cathedral.
The Bishop coughed slightly and smiled at his guests. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you have now had over an hour and a half to peruse these documents. Would you be so kind as to give me your preliminary thoughts on them?’
The two scholars looked at each other, both reluctant to speak first.
‘Could I ask you, if I may, Bishop, as to your own view on the matter?’ Octavius Parslow was playing for time.
‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘I am a mere country bishop, as you both know. My speciality is in the early textual analysis of the Gospels. But I have consulted widely in the district. It is surprising how much expertise you can find in these rural parts if you know where to look for it.’