As the clergy were led away, escorted by police and cavalry, Patrick Butler found Powerscourt staring at the departing figure of the Dean.
‘Well done, my lord, at least you and Johnny Fitzgerald brought the reinforcements here in time.’
‘Well done, do you say, Patrick? Well done? I failed to prevent all this happening this morning. And there’s another failure to be laid at my door.’
‘What’s that, my lord?’ said Patrick.
‘The Bishop and the parsons may all be locked up, Patrick,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I still have to find the murderer.’
25
Lord Francis Powerscourt was pacing up and down in front of Anne Herbert’s cottage. Inside the Herbert household the Chief Constable was talking to a young canon from Exeter called Gill who had been an unobtrusive witness to the morning’s events. Chief Inspector Yates and his men, accompanied by a section of Colonel Wheeler’s horse, were ensuring the safe dispersal of all the visitors to their trains. Patrick Butler had departed to his office to write up his notes while they were still fresh in his mind. Johnny Fitzgerald and Lady Lucy were indoors, discussing the Bishop’s sermon.
Powerscourt thought of the murder that had brought him to Compton in the first place, John Eustace, one of England’s richest men, despatched in his own bed. He thought of Arthur Rudd, roasted after his death on the spit in the kitchen of Vicars Hall, the flesh falling off the cremated body. He thought of Edward Gillespie, hung drawn and quartered, sections of his frame dumped all across the surrounding countryside. He wondered again about the murderer. The Dean with those organizational skills? The Archdeacon, longest known convert to Catholicism, with his secret visits to celebrate Mass at Melbury Clinton? The Bishop himself, so secure and comfortable that morning in his new role? The Dean's monosyllabic servant, strong enough to tip that pile of masonry over Powerscourt in the minutes before the cathedral closed? The mysterious Italian from Civitas Dei, Father Barberi, companion of the Archdeacon? Five of them, he thought, like the Five Wounds of Christ. Then it struck him. There might just be a way to bring the matter to a conclusion. It would be risky, it would be dangerous, there could be yet another death in Compton. He rushed inside to fetch Canon Gill. As the Bishop had said, Time is short.
The two men walked along the path that led to the west front. The statues were still there in their niches, staring past the sinners below them towards John Henry Newman’s long eternity. Powerscourt did most of the talking. Canon Gill was in his early thirties, clean shaven with a distant look in his soft brown eyes.
‘I think it could be done,’ the Canon said at last. ‘It wouldn’t be the real thing, of course, but then that wouldn’t matter for your purposes. And I would need another Anglican priest. But I’m sure we could rustle up one of those from a neighbouring parish.’
‘You do realize, Canon,’ Powerscourt was very emphatic at this point, ‘that it could be very dangerous. It could even prove fatal for somebody if we’re not careful.’
The Canon smiled. ‘Of course I realize that, Lord Powerscourt. But in my profession we are not meant to take any account of such things.’
‘Forgive me if I ask this question, Canon. Do you have a wife and children? You do realize that you could leave them without a husband and father if things go wrong?’
‘I believe, Lord Powerscourt, that you too have a wife and children. Shall we return and confer with the Chief Constable?’
Johnny Fitzgerald looked very closely at his friend as he came back into the room. ‘I know that look, Francis,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I don’t think you’ve been discussing the finer points of Reformation theology out there. I think you’ve been concocting some scheme or other.’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘I have indeed. Lucy, Chief Constable, Johnny Anne, Canon Gill from Exeter, let me put forward a plan that might get us out of some of our difficulties.’
He removed a one-legged teddy bear, property and victim of one of Anne Herbert’s children, from the corner of a chair and sat down. ‘In all the excitement of the past few days, I have not lost sight of one thing. I am here to investigate a murder, not to participate in any religious wars. I want to see if you agree with my hypothesis about this murderer.’
He paused and accepted a cup of tea. ‘We presume that he has killed to ensure that the service earlier today went ahead. His three victims were all slaughtered because in one way or another they threatened to expose the plans to make Compton a Catholic cathedral once again. I have been extremely concerned in the days of Holy Week that any possible threat to his plan would make him kill again.’
Lady Lucy was watching her husband’s hands which were twisting round each other as he spoke. The Chief Constable was looking closely at Powerscourt’s face. Johnny was watching Canon Gill from Exeter who was looking something up in the appendix to a very small and very battered Book of Common Prayer.
‘Now,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘you might think that the murderer will be able to rest on his laurels, as it were. His mission has been successful. His work is done. But what do you think would happen if there was a sudden reversal in the position of the cathedral?’
‘What do you mean, Powerscourt?’ said the Chief Constable.
‘My plan is very simple. We set a trap to catch the murderer. The cathedral should be reconsecrated to the Anglican faith at the earliest possible opportunity, tomorrow if it is not feasible today. The murderer will have to try to stop that, by fair means or foul, since it would mean all his efforts had been in vain.’
‘But,’ the Chief Constable interrupted again, ‘the murderer is surely under house arrest. How is he going to stop it?’
Johnny Fitzgerald had seen Powerscourt carrying out a similar manoeuvre in a murder case in Simla. ‘I presume, Francis,’ he said, ‘that you are going to suggest that word is put about to all those under house arrest that the cathedral is going to be rededicated at a particular time. Discreetly, of course. But the gossip must be swirling round all those houses like wildfire. Then you would flush him out.’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘Absolutely right, Johnny. Your men, Chief Constable, would have to relax their guard at the appointed time. The murderer or murderers would have to be allowed to escape from their confinement to go to the cathedral. Johnny and I would be hiding inside. After ten or fifteen minutes from the start of the service your men and Colonel Wheeler’s horse would surround every known exit from the building. We wait for the murderer to make his move. Then we pounce. Then this terrible affair might be at an end.’
The Chief Constable looked apprehensive. ‘Could you do it?’ he asked Canon Gill. ‘Rededicate the cathedral, I mean?’
Canon Gill looked up from his prayer book. His voice was very soft. Outside they could hear the local children playing on the Green. ‘The answer is No and Yes,’ he said. ‘No in the sense that I must confess I do not know the precise form of service to be used in these circumstances. But I am not sure that matters. I just need another Anglican priest to assist me. We can cobble together some form of service that might not be entirely correct but would be sufficient to convince the murderer. We could quote from the Act of Supremacy that you invoked earlier, Chief Constable. We could read the Thirty-Nine Articles. I’m sure I could make it pretty convincing.’
Lady Lucy intervened for the first time. ‘Wouldn’t the murderer know that it was the wrong form of service? If he’s been pretending to be an Anglican all these years wouldn’t he realize that this wasn’t the proper way to do it? And therefore that the re-dedication would be invalid and the cathedral still be a Catholic one? So he wouldn’t have to stop it.’