Death Called to the Bar (8 page)

The last paragraph was the most difficult to read. Even Lady Lucy, a veteran and expert in decoding Johnny’s messages, was stumped. He was going to watch some birds for a day. Wigeon?
Pigeon? Redwing? It was hard to tell. These creatures were expected to come, or was it go, at this time of year over the mudflats of . . . Essex? Sussex? Wessex? Powerscourt doubted if Johnny would
be going there. The problems with the decoding became less serious once the last sentence had been deciphered. Johnny would not want Francis to think he was being abandoned. He would be back in
London the day after tomorrow. But of one thing he could be sure. Whoever had killed Dauntsey, it was not Winston Howard.

The following morning a bizarre meeting was taking place in the Powerscourt dining room in Manchester Square. All the chairs, except three at the top end, had been taken away
from the table and placed against the wall. Stretching round the table were a series of cardboard labels, roughly inscribed with a thick black pen, with the legends nine to ten, ten to eleven,
eleven to twelve and so on all the way round the clock to seven to eight. And standing behind the three chairs were Powerscourt, Detective Chief Inspector Jack Beecham and his detective sergeant,
an absurdly young-looking man called Richard Gibson whose uniform was slightly too big for him. Looking at Sergeant Gibson, Powerscourt wondered if his mother thought he hadn’t finished
growing yet. And piled up on the table in front of the trio was an enormous heap of paper, the typed records of the detectives’ interviews with the inhabitants of Queen’s Inn, and the
two black notebooks where Powerscourt kept his own records of his interviews. And, to complete the display, several pairs of scissors.

Chief Inspector Beecham set out the rules. ‘We’re most grateful to you, Lord Powerscourt, for inviting us here. What we want to do is to sort all this lot out in terms of time of
day.’ He pointed to the small mountain of paper. ‘We have here the records of all the people we have talked to in the Inn. Sergeant Gibson, despite his tender years, is an expert not
only in the shorthand but in the typing department. The training school of the Metropolitan Police believe his is the fastest hand they have ever seen, faster than all those young ladies you see
going off to adorn the offices of the City of London. Now, the procedure is quite clear. If the transcript mentions a time between eight and nine then it goes over there.’ The Chief Inspector
pointed to the relevant cardboard label. Powerscourt noticed that the nails were bitten down to the quick. Perhaps the detective was very highly strung.

‘And if,’ he continued, ‘the interviewee saw him twice at different times of day, then we just cut the paper at the relevant point and move the new section to the later time. I
don’t think it should take us very long.’

Gradually the piles of paper began to decrease. And all three of them found it easier to talk as they entered their material under the relevant time. A ghostly history of Dauntsey’s last
hours began to emerge, a plainchant between two policemen and an investigator that followed a man to his death.

‘Eight thirty or just afterwards. Dauntsey seen by the porter coming into the Inn.’ This in a solemn voice from the Chief Inspector.

‘Eight forty, clerk of chambers reports exchanging Good Mornings as he enters his chambers.’ This from the sergeant in a nervous voice.

‘Eight forty-five, meeting with Edward in his room about forthcoming fraud case.’ Powerscourt, wondering how much effort it cost Edward to pass on the information.

‘Ten fifteen, meeting with clerk about forthcoming cases.’ The Chief Inspector again.

‘Ten forty-five, leaves his chambers. Meeting in chambers of Woodford Stewart about forthcoming fraud case.’

‘Twelve thirty, leaves Inn with Stewart, lunches in the Garrick, returns shortly after two.’

The piles were growing around their cardboard sentries, Powerscourt noticed. But the bulk of the replies were still on the table in front of him. He presumed that the feast, with the largest
number of lawyers present, must also have contained the largest number of sightings. The paper round continued. Powerscourt paid particular attention when it reached five o’clock. The doctors
were still not sure what time the poison must have been administered but the earliest possible hour was five o’clock.

‘Ten past five,’ said the sergeant. Dauntsey had been in the library since four thirty-five, looking up some precedent for the fraud case. ‘Dauntsey back in his own chambers.
Has tea with Edward during further meeting about fraud case. Edward leaves Dauntsey still wearing normal clothes at five forty-five.’

‘Six o’clock, Dauntsey leaves his rooms in evening clothes to attend pre-feast drinks party in the Treasurer’s chambers in Fountain Court.’ The Chief Inspector added his
paper to the pile and shuffled it into a neat package.

‘Two of these reports, sir.’ the sergeant held two pieces of paper aloft as if they were suspects. ‘Unknown person spotted on staircase of Dauntsey’s rooms shortly after
five forty-five. Another witness saw the person shortly after six o’clock. Described as of average height, slim, with light brown hair, late twenties or early thirties. Smiled, but did not
speak to our witnesses, sir.’

‘Who the devil do you think it was, Powerscourt?’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘Not normal for total strangers to be wandering about an Inn of Court that time of day, is
it?’

‘A murderer?’ said Powerscourt quietly. ‘A murderer of average height with light brown hair, come to drop something into Dauntsey’s tea or his gin or his sherry if he had
started to drink at this time? I don’t suppose there are any reports of him entering Dauntsey’s room, sergeant?’

‘No, sir, there aren’t. There’s nothing between Edward leaving and Scott, the man in the chambers above, seeing him set off for Barton Somerville’s rooms a couple of
minutes after six.’

The sergeant had been scrabbling around in the papers left on the table. ‘I hadn’t connected this person with the mysterious visitor, sir, but here we go. The porter at the gate
reported somebody leaving the Inn at about ten past six. If you weren’t a very quick walker, that’s about the time it would take you to get to the lodge from Dauntsey’s rooms,
sir. The porter said goodnight and the man nodded but didn’t speak, sir. Wonder why he never opened his mouth, sir?’

‘Foreigner perhaps?’ murmured the Chief Inspector. ‘Strong regional accent?’

‘Sore throat?’ said Powerscourt flippantly. ‘Dumb visitor? Both pretty unlikely.’

‘You don’t suppose, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘that the visitor might have had something to do with the feast? Something to do with the catering arrangements?’

‘If he had,’ said the Chief Inspector firmly, sounding as though he had a pretty poor view of this particular theory, ‘he’d have gone to the kitchens or the Hall, not to
a barrister’s room.’

‘Client of Dauntsey’s? Any mention by the clerk of our mysterious visitor?’

‘No, sir, there isn’t,’ said the sergeant.

They continued the distribution of the papers, an enormous pile in the seven to eight section when the guests at the feast turned into witnesses to a murder.

‘There we are, sir,’ said the Chief Inspector at half past eleven. ‘Sergeant Gibson will type up an hour-by-hour version for us all. I’ll make sure you get a copy first
thing in the morning.’

Powerscourt had ordered coffee and biscuits as a reward for finishing the job.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘that is an excellent morning’s work. But there is one area where I know I have not been able to talk to the relevant people, and that is the
steward and his waiters who served the food and drink. The steward has been ill, I understand, and without him there is little point in speaking to the waiters, half of whom, I think, were brought
in from outside.’

‘That is correct, Lord Powerscourt,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘but the steward will be back in the next few days. Would you like to join us when we speak to him?’

‘Very much so,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I would venture a further suggestion. We need to talk to the steward and the waiters in the Hall itself. We need to put them back in
exactly the roles they had at the feast. There is a catering committee here in the Inn and I spoke to its senior member yesterday about the way things are handled at the feast. And,’
Powerscourt paused for a sip of his coffee, ‘from what he told me, it would have been extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to poison Mr Dauntsey at the feast.’

Powerscourt strode up and down the table, putting the chairs back in position and signalling to the sergeant to move the timetable documents somewhere else. From a large press to the side, he
brought out a pair of glasses and a couple of soup bowls.

‘Let us pretend, gentlemen, that my dining room is the Hall of Queen’s Inn. This dining table,’ Powerscourt pointed dramatically to his right, ‘is the High Table at the
top of the room where the benchers and their guests were sitting. Down there, at right angles to us up here, are three other long trestle tables housing the rest of the barristers.’
Powerscourt waved airily at the imaginary area below him. ‘Now, Chief Inspector, if you would, if we place you here at the very end of our High Table you could be Mr Dauntsey. Sergeant, would
you like to be a waiter, or Mr Dauntsey’s neighbour?’

The sergeant grinned. ‘Don’t think I’d like to be next to Mr Dauntsey when he goes off, sir. Might be a suspect. Think I’ll have to be a waiter.’

Powerscourt managed to lay a primitive place setting for the Chief Inspector, mat, two sets of knife and fork, a couple of spoons, a cheese knife. He thrust two soup bowls into the
sergeant’s hands.

‘The important thing,’ said Powerscourt, ‘about the service at the feast, gentlemen, according to my man, is that it is served from two ends.’ He took the sergeant down
to the bottom of the room, at the opposite end to the dining table. ‘The food comes from down here. The kitchens are on the far side of that wall with a passage between them and the Hall.
Don’t come to serve the soup until I say so, sergeant.’ Powerscourt strode back to the other end of the room and grinned at Jack Beecham. ‘But the drink,’ Powerscourt had
found a couple of empty bottles at the back of his cupboard and carried them, one in each hand, to the door into the dining room, ‘the drink comes from the opposite end, what they called the
buttery in my college in Cambridge. The white wine will have been kept cool and opened as late as possible. It will, my man informs me, have been served in its original bottles. The red would have
been decanted and placed in those elegant French containers the benchers are so proud of. But, alas, we are not concerned with the red here, for Dauntsey was dead before it came on the scene. The
bottles will have been lined up on a great bench on the far side of the two Gainsboroughs here on the Inn walls, gentlemen. The only people allowed in there would have been the waiters. Anybody
else would have been suspected of wanting to steal some of the Inn’s finest wine and kicked out. If you were a murderous waiter, you could pop your poison into a bottle at a special place,
but you could not be sure that somebody else would not pick it up first and kill the wrong person. I am just going to pop out and return as a wine waiter complete with bottle.’

The Chief Inspector smiled. The sergeant waited patiently, his two soup plates filled with imaginary soup. Powerscourt looked quickly up his hall. It was empty. He returned with the bottle in
his right hand.

‘Right, gentlemen, let us suppose I am the murderous waiter. I have managed to pop the poison into this bottle in the few seconds it takes to pass from the buttery into the top of the Hall
here. But the gentlemen are drinking at different speeds. Maybe Mr Dauntsey’s glass is still full, refilled by one of my colleagues. Let us further suppose that I have come back with just one
glassful in my bottle. Mr Dauntsey doesn’t want any of it. But two places away the Treasurer himself beckons you over. He likes this Meursault very much. He would like some more. He would
like some more this minute. Do you kill the wrong man?’

The Chief Inspector looked in horror at Powerscourt. ‘My God, Powerscourt, you don’t suppose that it happened as you describe? Only Dauntsey was the wrong man. Some other bencher was
meant to be murdered.’

Powerscourt paused. ‘I think not. I don’t know why. If I could complete the demonstration, I think the same problem applies to the soup. The soup is served at the top end of the
kitchen. There is a parade of four to six waiters bringing it up in relays.’ Powerscourt waved at his very own waiter to come forward. ‘Suppose you have somehow managed to drop the
poison into one of your soup plates, gentlemen. Hidden up your sleeve perhaps and released by some secret and ingenious mechanism. You have no idea if Mr Dauntsey has been served his borscht or
not. If he has, what do you do? You can’t very well turn round and take your deadly cargo back to the kitchens. Everyone will think you are a bit mad and somebody may send the soup out again
to kill some other innocent barrister. It’s all very risky, poisoning at the feast.’

‘If you’re right, Lord Powerscourt,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘the poison must have been administered earlier. Either in his rooms, or at the Treasurer’s drinks
party.’

‘I think we need to wait,’ replied Powerscourt, ‘until we get hold of the steward and all his waiters at the same time in the Hall and hear what they’ve got to
say.’ Powerscourt began putting the soup plates back in their cupboard when another thought struck him. ‘Chief Inspector, sergeant, I’ve had a mad idea. You know how people never
notice anything when murders are being committed because they don’t know a crime is going on?’

The two policemen nodded. ‘Why don’t we restage the feast? The whole lot, food, drink, everything. These people can certainly afford it. We hire an actor to play Dauntsey.
Immediately afterwards we interview every single person there about what they remember, in case there’s anything that’s just come back to them.’

‘Wouldn’t that give the murderer the idea that we think the man was poisoned at the feast?’ said the Chief Inspector.