Death Called to the Bar (30 page)

This admission, although Edward did not know it at the time, gave a slight opening and, it must be said, some hope to Mrs Henderson. The idea that Edward could not have managed his success
without Sarah’s presence was grist to her mill.

‘Are you going to do more work in court, Edward? I know Sarah thinks you should.’

‘I’m not sure yet, Mrs Henderson, not sure at all. I want to wait until things have cleared up at Queen’s Inn.’

‘But if you did more speaking work, Edward, would you be better paid? Would you be able to settle down?’

Edward had a faint suspicion now of where the conversation was going. He supposed that if there were no fathers around to ask a girl’s young man his intentions, then it fell to the mother.
But he wasn’t going to make life easy for the old lady. Sarah should be back soon.

‘Settle down?’ said Edward, as if this was a custom followed in some remote Patagonian island rather than in Acton, London W3. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Mrs
Henderson.’

The old lady was taken slightly taken aback. Surely everybody knew what settling down meant. ‘I don’t know, Edward,’ she said sadly, ‘in my young days people meant
getting married, finding somewhere to live, that sort of thing, starting a family, all that was settling down.’

Something in the sadness of her voice touched Edward. He was now absolutely sure what she wanted to know. He thought she was looking rather ill. Just then they heard a slamming of the front door
and a cry of ‘I’m back’ from Sarah.

‘It’ll be all right, Mrs Henderson.’ Edward had just time to speak before Sarah came into the room. ‘I promise you.’

Edward and Sarah had called round to Manchester Square and Edward had deposited a great pile of documents for Powerscourt to read. These were the remaining wills of the
benchers and Edward had promised to come and discuss their contents in the next few days. Powerscourt began to work through them. He was sitting on the sofa in front of the fire in the drawing room
on the first floor of the house in Manchester Square. Josiah Beauchamp, died 1861, he read, had left five thousand pounds and two houses in Holborn to the Inn for the relief of poor retired
barristers. Horatio Pauncefoot, passed away 1865, had bequeathed seven thousand pounds for the upkeep of poor persons in pupillage. John James Tollard, died 1870, left five thousand pounds for
bursaries for poor pupils. The names and the figures were swimming in front of him now. He wondered if he wouldn’t be more comfortable lying out on the sofa. Richard Woodleigh Fitzpaine.
Peter Stirling Netherbury. Christopher John Knighton. Gradually the names faded from view. He was seeing huge numbers now, dancing across the courts of Queen’s Inn, besporting themselves over
the Temple Gardens. A giant eight was walking south down Middle Temple Lane towards the river. On the far side of the road a pair of threes who looked as though they might have been hand in hand
were dancing their way into the Royal Courts of Justice. A spindly eleven was mincing its way north through the gardens of Gray’s Inn. A fat four was wobbling east from the Inns of Court
towards the City of Numbers above Ludgate Hill. Then the numbers disappeared. There was a strange distant noise that might come from a funfair. And then he was in the funfair, staring at one of
those steam-driven roundabouts where people ride round on wooden horses adorned in bright colours that go up and down in regular patterns. Here was Mrs Dauntsey, still dressed in black, smiling
enigmatically at him as she rode sedately around, her position never changing. Behind her on a ridiculously small pony was Porchester Newton, those butcher’s hands enormous as they held the
reins, glowering at Powerscourt as his horse carried him round and the up-and-down motion rocked him on his way. There was Mrs Catherine Cavendish, riding in chorus girl costume, arm in arm with a
friend, their long legs kicking out towards the spectators. Behind them on a black horse Barton Somerville himself, decked for some reason in fool’s gaudy, as if he was an aged Fool in
attendance on the demented Lear. Round and round his suspects went. Behind the fool he saw another strange figure he did not at first recognize. It was clad in a very long white coat with a knife
in its hand. Powerscourt realized it must be Dr Cavendish, come to lighten his last months with a spell on a wooden horse. The only person absent from this funfair of suspects was the missing
Maxfield.

Lady Lucy called his name as she was entering the room, unaware that her husband had fallen asleep. ‘Francis,’ she began, then stopped when she saw that his eyes were closed. She
smiled at him.

‘Lucy,’ he began, ‘I’ve been having a most peculiar dream. All the suspects were going round on wooden horses at a funfair.’

‘Did any of them whisper in your ear that they were the murderer?’

‘I’m afraid not, my love. If only they had.’

‘This has just come for you, Francis.’ She held out a letter for him, the writing slightly shaky.

‘Half past twelve tomorrow morning, Lucy. My appointment in Harley Street with Dr Rivers Cavendish.’ He gave Lady Lucy a firm hug. At the back of his brain those fairground horses
were still going round and round.

There were two lions on the left-hand side of the fireplace, their stuffed features looking quizzically at the patients as if nothing would give them greater pleasure than to
return to life and make a quick meal of the nearest humans. On the right-hand side was a tiger, a rather weary tiger, who looked as though the long journey from his place of capture to the waiting
rooms of Harley Street had exhausted him. On the left-hand wall there were merely a couple of stags’ heads, complete with enormous antlers, looking rather mundane and civilized compared with
the other wild life. And on the remaining wall Powerscourt saw what he presumed was a cheetah, the fastest of them all. He wondered if his children would like to come and inspect these savage
heads. He wondered too if it was Dr Cavendish or his predecessor who had captured this collection on safari in Africa. Maybe he had some more at home to keep Catherine Cavendish in order, though
Powerscourt suspected the animals would have had to be alive to have much impact on that young lady.

He was rather disappointed in the reading matter on display. Surely this room warranted magazines for explorers or geographical journals with detailed accounts of the latest expeditions to the
lands where tigers roamed. Instead there were the normal daily newspapers and a religious magazine that had no details of any foreign ventures at all, not even to a missionary station. As the last
patient before him went into the consulting room, he wondered how Catherine and Rivers Cavendish had actually met. He should have asked her. Lucy had been most indignant, he recalled, when he had
been unable to answer her question on that point.

‘Lord Powerscourt.’ The receptionist was waving him through to the holy of holies. The woman before him in the queue seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps she had been eaten by one of
the lions. Dr Cavendish’s consulting room had two huge windows looking out into the garden. The decoration on these walls could not have been more different from the waiting room. Here
reproductions of the religious masterpieces of the Renaissance held sway. Powerscourt thought he recognized a Filippo Lippi Annunciation from San Lorenzo in Florence, a crucifixion by Tintoretto
and the Noli Me Tangere from the Accademia Gallery in Venice.

‘Good morning, Lord Powerscourt. How may I be of service?’

Rivers Cavendish was a small thin man, with white hair, a tightly trimmed white beard and a nervous way of looking about him. If you were feeling unkind, Powerscourt said to himself, you could
describe him as a frightened rabbit. All he needed was the tail.

‘My business is personal rather than professional, Dr Cavendish, but before we get down to details, may I ask if you were responsible for the remarkable collection of wild life in your
waiting room? I was most impressed.’

The little man roared with laughter. ‘My goodness me, Lord Powerscourt, what a compliment you pay me! I’m afraid that was my predecessor in these rooms. He was always going to Africa
and shooting things. It was the death of him in the end, mind you. He went on one final expedition and missed his shot. Rather than his taking the lion, the lion took him instead. Not very much of
him left at the end, the native bearers said, certainly not enough to bring home.’

Powerscourt thought the story of his predecessor’s unhappy demise seemed to bring great pleasure to the little man. ‘My business, Dr Cavendish, concerns the death of a barrister
called Alex Dauntsey, poisoned at a feast at Queen’s Inn, and the subsequent shooting of his colleague Mr Stewart. Perhaps you are aware of the business, Dr Cavendish?’

The doctor bowed. ‘My wife has told me all she knows, Lord Powerscourt. And I believe she has spoken at length to you, is that so?’

‘It is indeed, Dr Cavendish. I hope you will forgive me if I begin with a most unusual question. It is not meant to sound rude, I have no wish to pry into your affairs, but it is something
which would, if true, colour every other facet of our conversation. Your wife tells me you have but a short time to live. Pardon me, Dr Cavendish, but is that true?’

The doctor’s reaction was the last one Powerscourt would have expected. He smiled, no, he beamed with pleasure.

‘It is indeed, Lord Powerscourt. Three months left, maybe a bit less. I’m afraid I don’t wish to go into the details of my condition in any way, but that is the time I have
left, thank God.’

Powerscourt was astonished at the attitude of the little man. ‘Dr Cavendish,’ he said, with a puzzled frown on his face, ‘most people grow fearful, apprehensive, terrified
sometimes at the prospect of death. You look delighted. May I ask why?’

‘Of course,’ the doctor said. ‘I believe.’

‘You believe?’

‘I believe in the Anglican faith. Always have.’

‘One God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius
Pilate?’

‘Totally. You left quite a bit out there by the way, or you’ve forgotten your Creed.’

‘And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father and he shall come again with glory to judge both the
quick and the dead?’

‘Completely.’

‘One Catholic and Apostolic Church?’

‘Yes.’

‘One Baptism for the remission of sins?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you look for the Resurrection of the dead?’

‘I do,’ said Dr Cavendish, ‘and the life of the world to come.’

‘Christ!’ said Powerscourt.

‘Him too.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Powerscourt, leaning back in his chair. ‘No sad cadences from Dover Beach for you then, Dr Cavendish.’

‘“Dover Beach”. . .’ You could see the little man’s brain pursuing the poem as if it were some erratic tumour. ‘Author Matthew Arnold, most moving and famous
verses about the loss of faith in Victorian England.’ He closed his eyes for a second. ‘The eternal note of sadness in the movement of the waves, heard by Sophocles long ago, reminding
him of the turbid ebb and flow of human misery,

‘Let me tell you a little story about “Dover Beach”, doctor, if I may,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It concerns a young man reading for the Anglican priesthood at one of
those Oxford theological colleges. After a year or two, the young man becomes afflicted by doubt. Did God create man or did man create God? Book of Genesis can’t be true if the geologists are
right. Creation story can’t be true if Darwin is right, can one person be man and God, the usual cocktail of doubt. And he is terribly affected by “Dover Beach”. If he can only
recite the poem on Dover Beach itself, at the evening time mentioned at the start of the poem, he says to himself, then surely his doubts will be resolved. So, he takes the evening train bound for
Maidstone, Ashford, Canterbury, Dover. By Ashford or thereabouts the young man is word perfect on the verses. There he is at last on the beach. He advances to the water’s edge and begins his
recital in his most powerful voice. I should say that the wind is coming in fairly hard from the Channel at this point so the Matthew Arnold is being carried back towards the town. By the end he is
nearly in tears with the beauty of the words and the idea that this world which seems a land of dreams,

‘What happened to him, Lord Powerscourt?’ said the doctor eagerly. ‘Did his faith come back?’

‘I’m afraid his faith didn’t come back, doctor. What came instead were two burly members of the Kent Constabulary who were on patrol looking out for smugglers. They heard
these, to them very strange, words and couldn’t decide whether the young man was a lunatic or not. They clapped him in the cells for the night – would you believe an explanation like
his must have been? – and he was bound over to keep the peace by the magistrate the next morning for a period of thirty days. They say that by the time he got to Maidstone on his return
journey, his faith had completely disappeared.’

The doctor smiled. ‘Very fine story, Lord Powerscourt. But no Dover Beach for me. I still believe. I believe I shall see God. I believe I shall be reunited with my dead parents and my dead
first wife. Now, how can I help you?’

‘Could I ask where you were on the evening of Friday, the 28th of February?’