Johnny Fitzgerald was carrying an enormous bunch of keys. ‘The Dean’s man wasn’t about,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I had to interrupt the Dean in the middle of a meeting for him to fetch me the keys. He looked pretty cross.’ Johnny began inspecting the bunch for the key of the west door, Powerscourt trying not to become impatient beside him.
‘I think it might be this one,’ he said, inserting an enormous key into the lock. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Backed a loser there. Hold on, Francis, sorry about the delay.’ The second key didn’t work either. Neither did the third, Powerscourt feeling desperate by his side. The fourth did. Johnny Fitzgerald handed Powerscourt a lantern and they set off together up the nave, dramatic shadows falling across the tombs and the chantry chapels of the dead. They kept together by long custom, remembering from years of experience that two might make quicker progress separately, but that one person on their own is easier to kill. The sound of their boots went echoing up into the roof. They spoke in whispers. Powerscourt felt relieved when they passed the high altar and found it empty. He had been wondering if the murderer’s macabre imagination could have left Lucy on top of it, like the victim of a human sacrifice. He tried to remember if his historians had talked of any women being put to death during the agonies of the Reformation. There was only one he could recall, a woman widely believed to have been a witch who had been burnt at the stake. He shuddered as they passed into the Lady Chapel behind the altar. A host of medieval saints and sinners peered down at them from the stained glass. But of Lady Lucy there was no sign.
Lady Lucy was on the fourteenth step now. Just one more to go before the end. The tears were back in her eyes as she thought of her children growing up without her. She would never see Thomas and Olivia married, she would never hold their children in her arms. Perhaps Thomas would become a soldier like his father and ride off overseas in some resplendent uniform to fight his country’s battles. She felt very cold, shivering now as the waters approached. Then she thought she could hear some faint noise outside the door. Down at the bottom of the crypt, in amongst the pillars and the thick stone arches, you could hear nothing at all. But higher up it was different. She decided to make one last try for life. ‘Help!’ she shouted. ‘Francis! Francis!’ She thought it would be fitting if she perished with her husband’s name on her lips. But there was no reply, only the mocking swirl of the waters that were coming to envelop her. She carried on regardless. ‘Help! Help! Francis! Francis!’
It wasn’t Powerscourt who heard the noise but Johnny Fitzgerald. He stopped suddenly and held Powerscourt back with his hand. ‘Listen, Francis, I thought I heard a noise, coming from down there somewhere to the side of the choir.’ They strained forward. They were over a hundred yards away from the entrance to the crypt. The next time they both heard it. ‘Lucy! Lucy’ they shouted at the tops of their voices as they sprinted down the south ambulatory, bumping into the tomb of Duke William of Hereford as they went. They stopped in the south transept and listened once more. This time they heard it more clearly. ‘Francis! Francis!’ There was hope in the voice now. Lucy thought she heard the sound of footsteps drawing near to the crypt.
‘The crypt, Francis, the crypt. Over there in the corner. God knows which one of these bloody keys it is. Christ, why do they have so many? There’s enough here to maintain a decent-sized prison.’
Powerscourt was banging on the door, calling out to Lucy inside. Johnny found the key at last. They rushed down a narrow passageway of twelve large steps to the second door. Water was now swirling round their feet. Johnny took one look at the second door and pulled out a vicious-looking iron crowbar.
‘To hell with this bunch of keys, Francis,’ he said. ‘God knows what the divine punishment is for damaging cathedral property but I’ll take my chance.’
With that he struck two mighty blows at the lock. Then he produced another instrument from his bag and wrenched the lock out of place. The door fell forward and with it a very wet Lady Lucy. She was crying. Powerscourt took her in his arms and carried her back up to the body of the cathedral.
‘It’s all my fault, Francis, it really is. If only I had listened to your advice about the choirboys.’
‘Don’t worry, my love,’ said Powerscourt, stroking her hair, and striding fast towards the west door. ‘You’re safe now. You can tell us what happened later. We’re going to take you to Anne Herbert’s house. I’m sure you can have a bath and borrow some dry clothes.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was packing up his tools. Powerscourt suddenly remembered his conversation with Chief Inspector Yates in the cloisters where the policeman had told him about the diverted stream and the sluice gate.
Powerscourt shook his head. When was this murderer going to stop? he said to himself. John Eustace, Arthur Rudd, Edward Gillespie. He’d tried to kill Powerscourt once. Now he’d tried, perhaps, to kill Lady Lucy. Let Easter Sunday come quickly, he thought. Then there may be an end of it.
Two days later Lord Francis Powerscourt was walking up the cobbled street of the Vicars Close. Two rows of ancient houses, with pretty little gardens in the front, ran up the hill away from the cathedral. Not Compton Cathedral this time, but Wells, a couple of hours away by train. For two days Powerscourt had sat at Lucy’s bedside. The long exposure in the crypt, the cold and the water, had left her weak and feverish. Privately Powerscourt blamed himself. They should have left her in Anne Herbert’s house rather than bringing her on yet another journey back to Fairfield Park. Dr Blackstaff was a regular visitor and prescribed a couple of medicines and a lot of rest. When the fever was running high Lady Lucy would plead with Francis to find out about the music. She was certain that the Protestant choirboys were being forced to learn the tunes and the words of the Church of Rome. She was sure the boys were not allowed to tell their parents for fear of some terrible punishment. Only that morning, Palm Sunday, as the procession of palms made its way round the cathedral and then up to the high altar inside, she had pleaded with him again.
Powerscourt had not told her about the singing he had heard on the way to the rescue. But it had stayed in his mind. Dr Blackstaff, a veteran of many West Country choirs, had written on his behalf to the assistant choirmaster in Wells. The doctor understood only too well why Powerscourt might not wish to pursue his queries in Compton.
Michael Matthews opened the door himself. He was a cheerful young man, almost six feet tall, with curly blond hair and merry brown eyes.
‘You must be Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘Welcome to Wells. Do come in. We should have time to sort out your problem before Evensong.’
He showed Powerscourt into a little sitting room. His house was at the top of the Close, looking down towards the chapter house and the north transept of the cathedral. The first thing Powerscourt noticed was a large piano which occupied most of one wall of the tiny room. The second thing was a wall full of books, many of them lives of the composers. And the third thing was that the floor was covered with musical scores, Byrd and Thomas Tallis, Purcell and Handel, Mozart and Haydn, the great choral tradition of Western Europe scattered in random piles across the fraying carpet. In one corner of the room Powerscourt thought he saw some Gilbert and Sullivan, a touch of the profane hiding among the sacred.
‘Please forgive me, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Michael Matthews, waving towards his floor, ‘I’m in the middle of a tidying-up session. If you’d been half an hour later, all of this lot would have gone.’
‘Don’t worry at all,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘there’s always a lot of confusion when you’re in the middle of a clear-out.’
‘How can I help you, Lord Powerscourt?’ said Matthews, ushering him to a small chair by the side of the piano.