Death at the Jesus Hospital (3 page)

Sir Peregrine had gone out on Silkworkers Company business. Arthur had long suspected that there was something suspicious going on in the world of silk. His master was more shifty and more devious than usual, if that were possible, about his activities in those quarters.

Arthur Onslow left a note on Sir Peregrine’s desk. ‘He has served in Army Intelligence in India,’ he wrote, ‘and led that branch of arms in the Boer War. He has been employed by the royal family and by a previous prime minister and by the Foreign Office. The man you want is Lord Francis Powerscourt, and he lives in Markham Square, Chelsea.’

‘Do you think I should tell him?’ Number Nineteen, a tall, very thin man called James Osborne, with a few white hairs left on the side of his head, was talking to his friend from Number Eleven. Number Nineteen was next door to the apartment of Abel Meredith, still interred in the hospital morgue. Inspector Fletcher was working his way round the almshouse, questioning each old gentleman in turn. Number Eleven, from the other side of the quadrangle, was, in contrast to his friend, short and rather fat with a full head of curly brown hair. His name was Archie Dunne and his last job had been as a car mechanic.

‘For the fifth time, James,’ Number Eleven said, ‘I think you should tell the Inspector. It can’t do any harm.’

‘I’m not sure, I’m not sure at all. It might get me into trouble. What would happen if they threw me out of here? I’ve got nowhere else to go.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not going to throw you out. If you don’t tell him, you’ll just worry about it for days.’

‘Oh dear.’ James Osborne, Number Nineteen, began rubbing his hands together, as if he were a reincarnation of Lady Macbeth, a sure sign that he wasn’t happy. ‘What am I going to do? That policeman will be here in a minute. Oh dear.’

‘Well, he won’t want me here when he does come,’ said Number Eleven. ‘You should tell him, James. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do, for God’s sake. What
would Mabel say if she was here? You know perfectly well what Mabel would say. Tell him, that’s my last word on the matter.’

Even as he said it, Archie Dunne, Number Eleven, realized that mention of Mabel was probably a mistake. Mabel’s passing, after all, just over a year before, was the reason Number Nineteen was in the Jesus Hospital, unable to cope on his own.

‘Don’t mention Mabel, please. Don’t set me off again. I couldn’t bear it.’

There was a light knock on the door. Inspector Fletcher said a polite good morning and sat down in the second chair. Deprived of a place to sit, Archie Dunne from Number Eleven made his excuses and left.

The Inspector was learning fast about the memories and afflictions of old men. They were, he thought, the most unreliable collection of witnesses he had ever come across. They weren’t lying, or if they were, they weren’t aware of it. They weren’t lying deliberately. They were also, although he didn’t know it, well suited to his temperament, the pauses, the hesitations. A more vigorous officer might have flustered the silkmen so much they would have said anything at all to be rid of him.

‘How kind of you to give up your time to see me this morning. I’m sure all you old gentlemen are still shocked by the events of yesterday.’

Number Nineteen did not feel it necessary to tell the policeman that his next fixed appointment was the weekly game of shove ha’penny at eight o’clock in the evening at the Rose and Crown in five days’ time.

‘It’s all very upsetting,’ he said, and gave a pause the policeman would have been proud of, ‘most unexpected.’

‘Now then.’ Inspector Fletcher opened his notebook and wrote Number Nineteen in large letters at the top of a clean page. ‘I have to write things down too, you see. Otherwise I forget them. They go clean out of my mind.’ The Inspector
managed a little smile at this point. ‘What I would like you to do is just tell me in your own words everything you did yesterday morning, from the time you woke up until the body was found.’

Number Nineteen looked alarmed, as if this was an awful lot to remember in one go.

‘Well,’ he began, ‘I must have woken up some time around seven, half past maybe. I don’t have a watch, you see, so I take my bearings from the light and the people moving around outside. I got dressed as usual. Thursday is my day for a clean shirt so I put that on. I’d polished my shoes the night before, I don’t know why, I usually do them after breakfast. Then I went downstairs and out into the court. Most of the men were talking over by the hall. Number Fifteen, he’s not been right in the head for weeks now, that Number Fifteen, he was crying like a baby. I’d seen plenty of dead bodies in my time in the army so I wasn’t that
bothered.
Shocked, mind you, shocked that such a thing should happen in a place like this.’

By this stage in his career Inspector Fletcher had mastered the art of looking at his interviewee and writing his notes at the same time.

‘That all sounds very normal, Mr Osborne,’ he said. ‘Can you remember anything unusual?’

This was the moment Number Nineteen had been dreading. This had been the subject of his discussion with Number Eleven and the unfortunate invocation of the dead Mabel. What was he to do? He waited for so long before he spoke that the Inspector knew his man had heard something in the night. It would have been too dark to see anything at the time of the murder. The Inspector thought there was only one thing it could have been but he might be wrong. He leant forward in his chair.

‘There was something,’ he said very gently, ‘something in the night, wasn’t there? I wonder if it was something you heard.’

‘I won’t get into any trouble, will I?’ The old man looked very frightened now.

‘No, no, there won’t be any trouble. Not unless you killed him and I don’t think you did that!’

They both managed a laugh of sorts. Gallows humour, said the Inspector to himself, making a mental note to tell his wife about it that evening.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ For a brief moment the Inspector thought James Osborne, Number Nineteen, was going to confess all. ‘For not having a watch, you see. I can’t tell you what time it was. When I heard the noises, I mean.’

He had said it now. It hadn’t been that bad. He began to feel a little better after the start of his confession.

‘Can you be any more specific about the time? Was it nearer the dawn than the middle of the night?’

Number Nineteen paused for thought. ‘Forgive me for
bringing
in personal details, Inspector, but I usually have to go to the bathroom two or three times during the night. The last time, I think would be about six o’clock. I’d only been twice when I heard the noises. Four o’clock? Something like that? Is that helpful?’

‘Very helpful,’ said the Inspector, wondering what a brutal QC at the Old Bailey, would make of this strange method of timekeeping. ‘And now perhaps you could tell me what you heard.’

‘I heard somebody coming down the stairs,’ Number Nineteen began. ‘And there was a bump as if he was bringing something heavy down with him. It wasn’t very loud. The walls here are pretty thick so you don’t hear very much from next door.’

‘Did you look out of the window? To see where the person went, I mean?’

‘Well, I did take a little peep out of the window, but I couldn’t see anything much. It was too dark.’ Number Nineteen leant back in his chair and sighed, as if he had just come through a long ordeal.

‘And that was all? There wasn’t anything else?’ Inspector Fletcher thought his man had said all he was going to say, but he had to be sure.

‘That’s all I can remember.’

The Inspector felt that the information was useful but hardly sensational. Somebody in the little community was likely to have been aware of something, the man who lived next door more likely to have heard it than most. What was interesting, as he said to his sergeant that evening over a pint at the Marquis of Granby near the Maidenhead police station, was that the unorthodox timekeeping of James Osborne, Number Nineteen, placed the murder somewhere between four and six in the morning, which was exactly the same as Dr Ragg’s conclusion, who had at his disposal all the latest scientific expertise.

Lord Francis Powerscourt received his commission and his instructions in the morning post. He had a head of unruly black hair and a pair of blue eyes inspected the world with detachment and irony. He thought that Sir Peregrine did not waste much time on pleasantries. There was no mention of whether he would wish to take the case or not. There was no thank you for helping out at the end. He was told in no uncertain terms that the doctor was a milksop, the Warden a crook and the policeman one of the most useless specimens ever to put on a uniform. Lady Lucy was intrigued by the idea of the almshouse. She had heard of them, of course, but she had never actually seen inside one. Would Francis be able to arrange that? she wondered aloud, passing him another slice of toast. Her husband muttered darkly about such places maybe having it written in the rules and
regulations
that women were not allowed on the premises, being too likely to provoke excess excitement in the old gentlemen and thus be harmful to their health. Lady Lucy was tall and slim with blonde hair and a pretty little nose. Her eyes
were a deep blue, deeper than her husband’s, and quite disconcerting when they were wide open.

Powerscourt thought about his children as he drove off down to Marlow in his Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, freshly polished by Rhys the butler and chauffeur. Lady Lucy’s son by her first marriage, Robert, was now in the Royal Navy, believed at that moment to be on manoeuvres in the Pacific. Thomas, eldest son of Powerscourt and Lady Lucy, with his mother’s mouth and his mother’s eyes, was seventeen years old with a flair for languages and mathematics. The boy attended Westminster School and was virtually fluent in German, Russian and French. Powerscourt felt Thomas could have picked up Hottentot at record speed if required. Olivia, the eldest daughter, was at St Paul’s School for Girls, eager to be an art historian and continually dragging one or both of her parents to exhibitions of people they had never heard of in obscure parts of London. On one occasion Olivia had persuaded her parents to take her to Paris where the entire city seemed to Powerscourt to be filled with blotches of paint on canvas masquerading as modern masterpieces. The twins, eight years old, were tormenting the teachers at a nearby school. Powerscourt was certain that a successful career in international crime awaited them if all else failed.

But it was Thomas he worried about. He had told Lady Lucy of his deepest concerns two days before, and she had confessed that her fears were exactly the same. Powerscourt was fairly sure there was going to be a war with Germany. This wasn’t unusual – some of the newspapers had been prophesying such a conflict for years. And, unlike some commentators who predicted a quick war, Powerscourt felt it would be long. And very bloody, with a great many deaths. Maybe it would be like the American Civil War all those years ago. All the young men would want to go and fight for their country. Many of those would go and die for the cause. Including one Thomas Powerscourt who could be called up if there was a war that started as early as next
year. What were they to do? For the moment neither of his parents had any idea.

Inspector Fletcher had not been told he was coming. Neither had Monk the Warden. Neither had the old men. So Powerscourt’s first moments in the Jesus Hospital were spent showing parts of his letter of commission and generally persuading them that he was a bona fide investigator.

‘I’m not surprised you’re here, mind you,’ said the Inspector after a call to his superiors at Maidenhead had convinced him Powerscourt was genuine, ‘I don’t think Sir Peregrine cared for me at all.’

‘Never mind,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully. ‘He’ll think differently when you’ve solved the murder.’

Fletcher told Powerscourt all he knew about the case over a hasty lunch at the Rose and Crown. It was an old coaching inn, the Rose and Crown. The front was festooned with red and white roses, appropriate to the origins of the name, in spring and summer. The back room with its eight small tables was the destination of choice for the old men of the Jesus Hospital, its walls and faded curtains stained with centuries of smoke. Powerscourt wanted to know if he could see the body and the room where Abel Meredith had lived.

‘What do you know of livery companies, my lord?’ asked Fletcher. ‘We don’t have any of those things in Maidenhead or Taplow or Pinkneys Green. One or two of the old men drone on about them and I don’t understand it.’

‘I doubt if I know much more than you do, Inspector. They’re very old, going back to the fourteenth century, those sort of times. To start with they were guilds, defensive guilds, if you like, formed to look after the common concerns of brewers or bakers or fishmongers, or silkworkers, who banded together to look after their own particular interests. They had special uniforms and great halls where they held their feasts and so on. Most important,’ he paused to digest a portion of the local steak and kidney pie, ‘they are now rich, very rich. Many of the members left property
to their company in their wills. Number Sixteen Lombard Street might have been worth five or six pounds in thirteen ninety, it’s worth a lot more now. Hundreds and hundreds of times more, I should think.’

Powerscourt took himself to the Maidenhead Hospital immediately after lunch. The Inspector had telephoned before they went to the Rose and Crown to ensure that the body was not moved yet. Powerscourt introduced himself and his mission to the old attendant. He thought, as he often did when looking at corpses, how quickly life moved out of people. A moment before they had been alive with fluent features and eyes and faces that expressed their emotions. Then they were transformed into something you could have found on a butcher’s slab.

He looked for a long time at the marks above the heart. ‘Have you seen anything like these before?’ he asked the elderly attendant who looked as though he had been a curator of corpses since the Crimean War, if not before.

‘Nope, I have not, my lord. Neither has any doctor in this hospital. You know what they’re like, doctors, with the new and the unexpected, they’ve flocked down here, peering at the mark and prodding at it like they’ve never seen a dead body before. One of them said it was the sign of some African witch doctor, stamped on the bodies of the dead to improve their passage to the next world. I ask you. We don’t have no Africans or no witch doctors in Marlow, not even over in Reading, if you ask me.’

Powerscourt stared again at the thistle-like marks on the body.

‘Were you here when they undressed him?’ he asked.