‘I believe Dr Blackstaff told you I am investigating a series of murders in Compton,’ said Powerscourt.
‘He certainly did,’ said the young man. ‘I pray we may never be afflicted with anything similar here in Wells.’
‘Things in Compton at present, how should I put this, Mr Matthews, are rather delicate. We have not found the murderer, though I hope we shall do so soon. However strange it may sound, I must ask you to keep our conversation absolutely confidential. You have not seen me. We have not spoken. We did not meet.’ Powerscourt knew he was sounding melodramatic, perhaps a little mad, but just one scribbled note from Wells to Compton might spark another round of murder.
The young man began to laugh, then stopped when he saw how serious was the face of his visitor.
‘Secrets,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Have no fear, Lord Powerscourt. I shan’t tell a soul about today. Now then,’ he moved away from his mantelpiece and sat down by the piano, ‘what is this piece of music you want to have identified? Perhaps you could hum it or sing it if you can remember it.’
Powerscourt hummed about six or seven bars. Matthews tapped them out on his piano with his right hand. Then he added an accompaniment with his left.
‘Something like that, Lord Powerscourt?’
Powerscourt shook his head. ‘The last three or four notes sound right, but not the beginning.’
‘Try to remember exactly where you were when you heard this piece. Now close your eyes. Now try again.’
Powerscourt delivered another opening, slightly different from the first. Again the young man picked out the notes with his right hand.
‘Just one more time, if you would, Lord Powerscourt. I think I’ve got it.’
Powerscourt closed his eyes again, remembering the noise coming to him across the Close from the choristers’ house as he searched for Lady Lucy. This time the young man was delighted.
‘Splendid, Lord Powerscourt, splendid. Not exactly the piece of choral music you would expect to hear floating across an English cathedral close.’ Michael Matthews played a very brief introduction. Then he sang along with a powerful tenor voice.
‘Credo in unum Deum
Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae.’
I believe in one God the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and earth, Powerscourt muttered to himself.
‘You might think it’s a musical version of one of the Anglican creeds, words virtually identical,’ said Matthews, abandoning his singing but keeping the tune going on his piano. ‘But wait for the great blast at the end.
‘Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum.
Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum,
et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.’
Michael Matthews played a virtuoso conclusion, a great descant swelling through the higher notes.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church, Powerscourt translated as he went, we acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
‘The music you heard, Lord Powerscourt, is the Profession of Faith of the Catholic Liturgy, to be used on Sundays and holy days. When the congregations get to the line about one holy and apostolic and catholic church, they belt it out as if they were singing their own National Anthem. No, better than that, it’s their equivalent of the Battle Hymn of the Republic’
Powerscourt looked closely at Michael Matthews. Matthews didn’t think he was at all surprised. As Powerscourt made his way out of the little house and back down the Vicars Close to Wells station, the assistant choirmaster stood at his window and watched him go. What on earth was going on down there in Compton? Why were the choir singing the music of a different faith? Ours not to reason why, he said to himself and sat down once more at his piano. The window was slightly open. Powerscourt could just hear the strains of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’, played with great sadness, pursuing him down the street.
There was a telegraph message from William McKenzie waiting for Powerscourt on his return to Fairfield Park. It seemed to have taken rather a long time to reach Compton, despatched from the Central Telegraph Office in Piazza San Silvestro on Wednesday morning and only arriving at its destination on Friday afternoon. Maybe, said Powerscourt to himself, the wires were down somewhere along the route.
‘Subject reached destination safely,’ the message began, couched in the normal cryptic of McKenzie’s despatches. ‘Subject has spent his days in conclave with high officials of the parent organization.’ Christ, thought Powerscourt, McKenzie could have been describing the activities of a bank manager rather than a priest in conspiratorial meetings with the College of Propaganda. ‘Evenings in restaurants with prominent citizens dressed in strange colours?’ What in God’s name was a prominent citizen dressed in strange colours? Powerscourt asked himself. A member of the Swiss Guard charged with the protection of the Pontiff? A member of the Italian Upper House – did they wander round the streets of Caesar and the Borgias looking like members of the British House of Lords? Was McKenzie’s prey, Father Dominic Barberi, dining with one of the cardinals, the scarlet robes of the descendants of St Peter tucking into some Roman speciality like carpaccio tiepido di pescatrice, brill with raw beef, or mignonettes alla Regina Victoria, veal with pate and an eight-cheese sauce? Then Powerscourt reached the most important part of the message. ‘Subject and two colleagues returning London, arriving Monday night. Meeting would be beneficial.’
Powerscourt looked up and saw that Johnny Fitzgerald had come in and was reading the Grafton Mercury on a chair by the garden. There was a final sentence, straight from McKenzie’s heart. ‘Local food inedible. Much worse than Afghan.’ Powerscourt smiled. The unfortunate McKenzie suffered, indeed he had suffered all the time Powerscourt had known him, from a weak stomach. It was his only failing. Powerscourt remembered him surviving six weeks of an Indian summer on a special diet of hard boiled eggs for breakfast, hard boiled eggs for lunch and yet more hard boiled eggs for supper. Johnny Fitzgerald always maintained that McKenzie only attained dietary peace in his native Scotland where he survived on home-baked scones and a regimen of lightly boiled fish with no sauce.
‘William’s been having trouble with the food in Rome, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Johnny. ‘He’s a lost hermit, that William McKenzie, he’d be perfectly happy with bread and water for the rest of his life.’
There was another letter waiting for Powerscourt. ‘Here we go, Johnny,’ he said, ‘I think this is a reply from the Lord Lieutenant. I don’t hold out much hope here.’
‘Read it out, Francis, why don’t you. I’ve reached the Births Marriages and Deaths section of our friend Patrick’s paper. I think I might get through another few hours of life without any more of that.’
‘“Dear Powerscourt,”’ the recipient read, walking up and down the room, ‘“thank you for your letter. I am most grateful to you for bringing your views to my attention.”’
‘Frosty start, Francis,’ said Johnny. ‘Don’t think you’re about to receive an open invitation to Lord Lieutenant Castle or wherever the bugger lives.’
‘Here we go, Johnny, second paragraph. “I have played cricket with the Bishop of Compton. I have hunted with the Dean. Both of them and their senior colleagues have been frequent guests at my table. I have had the honour of receiving Communion from their hands and instruction and enlightenment from their sermons. Five out of my six daughters were baptized in their font and three of them were married at their altar.”’