Death of a Chancellor (7 page)

Patrick Butler was wondering if he should reprint the Dean’s sermon in his next issue. Depends on how long it is, he said to himself. Patrick didn’t think the Dean would approve if
his words were cut. Powerscourt was remembering the words of the Latin tag.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
Speak only good about the dead. And then he remembered the impious adaptation given by
his Cambridge tutor after attending the funeral service for a famously unpopular professor,
De mortuis nil nisi bunkum.
People only speak rubbish about the dead.

‘One of the definitions of the word meek in the Oxford Dictionary,’ the Dean went on, ‘is kind. To be meek is to be kind. Meek is merciful. To be meek is to be merciful. John
Eustace was famous throughout our little city for his generosity. He was a man blessed with great wealth. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Chancellor Eustace had already
inherited a large portion of the wealth of this world. Such people do not always take the time or the trouble to seek out the hungry and the afflicted, the poor and the bereaved. John Eustace did.
Our late Chancellor was one of the greatest benefactors the poor of Compton have ever known. The houses he had built for the poor and the destitute of this city will be a permanent memorial to his
life and his generosity.’

Some of the congregation’s heads were beginning to slip as the sermon went on. Behind the coffin the six pallbearers waited to resume their duties. The acolyte with the cross waited
patiently at the bottom of the pulpit steps.

‘Today is a time of great sadness,’ said the Dean, laying aside his spectacles and looking around at his listeners, ‘for one of our number has been taken from us before his
time. He would have had many years of service to give to this cathedral and to this city. But is also a time for rejoicing.’ The Dean’s delivery lost a fraction of its former conviction
at this point. The most acute of the sermon connoisseurs, the second tenor in the body of the vicars choral, who had attended theological college before losing his faith, later attributed the
change to the Dean’s suspicion that his listeners no longer believed in heaven or hell. Assuming they ever had. The Dean ploughed on.

‘For if ever a man was going to take his place in the kingdom of heaven, that man was John Eustace. We rejoice today that he has gone to be with his Father in heaven. Though worms destroy
my body, as the prophet Job tells us, yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. John Eustace, a good man, a meek man. Blessed are the
meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek for they shall also inherit the kingdom of heaven.’

The Dean collected his papers. The acolyte escorted him back to his position. As the choir began an anthem by Purcell, the six pallbearers brought the coffin back down the nave of Compton
Minster. A fleet of carriages waited to take it and the mourners to the little cemetery behind Fairfield Park. The funeral of John Eustace was over. In forty-eight hours’ time, in the offices
of Drake and Co., solicitors of Compton, his last will and testament was to be read to his survivors.

Lord Francis Powerscourt decided to walk the five miles from Hawke’s Broughton into Compton the following morning. He was exceedingly angry. He took no notice of the fine
scenery he was passing through, the February sun casting its pale light across the hills and the valleys. The incident that caused his wrath had occurred just after breakfast. Mrs Augusta Cockburn
was decidedly tetchy this morning, he had noticed. The nose seemed to have become more pronounced, the cheeks more hollow. She snapped at the servants even more than usual. But nothing could have
prepared him for the onslaught.

‘And when do you intend to start work, Lord Powerscourt?’ had been the opening salvo.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Powerscourt, half immersed in the
Grafton Mercury.

‘I said, Lord Powerscourt, when do you propose to start work? You have been accommodated here at my wish and at my expense to investigate the circumstances of my brother’s
death.’ She lowered her voice slightly and peered crossly at the door in case any of the servants were listening. ‘So far as I can see you have done absolutely nothing except potter
around this house and take advantage of your privileged position to attend various functions like my brother’s funeral and the small reception we gave here after the burial ceremony. If I did
not know of your reputation, Lord Powerscourt, I should say you were a shirker and a scrounger. We have not discussed money but I am most reluctant to pay you a penny for anything you have done so
far.’

Powerscourt had not been told off like this since he was about twelve years old. Then his reaction had been to hide in the top of the stables for as long as he could. This morning, he felt that
charm would be the most potent form of defence.

‘My dear Mrs Cockburn,’ he began, ‘please forgive me if I appear to be moving slowly. As I explained to you the other day I felt it was important to win the trust of the
servants here before questioning them closely. If I appear as an unknown person from an unknown world I shall automatically seem hostile to them. Very soon, I know, I shall have to come out in my
true colours. But not yet. Not until I judge the time is ripe. On that, I fear, you just have to trust me. In all my previous cases the people who asked me to look into murder or blackmail or
whatever it was have always left me to my own devices. I would be more than happy to provide you with some references if you wish. I could start with the Prime Minister.’

Mrs Cockburn snorted slightly. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ she said, ‘but I shall be watching, Lord Powerscourt. I shall be waiting for results.’ And
with that she had marched out of the room.

Bloody woman, Powerscourt said to himself on his walk, bloody woman. He could see the minster spire now, rising out of the valley like a beacon. As he entered the streets of the little city he
saw that flags were still flying at half mast from the Bishop’s Palace and County Hall in memory of the late Queen and Empress.

He was, he decided, looking forward to this meeting in the solicitor’s office. He suspected that there would be trouble with the will. He suspected there might be more than one.

Oliver Drake’s offices were right on the edge of the Cathedral Green, in a handsome eighteenth-century building with great windows looking out towards the west front of the minster.
Powerscourt was shown into what must have been the drawing room on the first floor. Paintings of the cathedral adorned the walls. There was a long table in the centre, able to seat at least twelve.
A fire was burning in the grate.

Oliver Drake himself was very tall, with a slight stoop. He was also painfully thin. His children sometimes said that he looked more like a pencil than a person. But he was the principal lawyer
in Compton, with the complex and complicated business of the cathedral and its multiplicity of ancient statutes at the heart of his practice. To his right, appropriately enough, sat the Dean,
dressed today in a suit of sober black with a small crucifix round his neck. The Dean already had a notebook and a couple of pens at the ready. Perhaps the man of God is better equipped for the
tasks of this world, Powerscourt thought, than the laity he served. On the other side of Oliver Drake sat James Eustace, twin brother of the deceased. Powerscourt hadn’t been able to glean
very much information about him from Augusta Cockburn. She seemed to think it inappropriate for strangers to know the extent to which some of her family had fallen. Gone to America, lost most of
his money, drinking himself to death were the salient facts lodged in Powerscourt’s mind. Beside James Eustace sat Mrs Augusta Cockburn herself, looking, Powerscourt felt, like a very hungry
hen. He himself was on the far side of Mrs Cockburn, furthest away from the seat of custom.

‘Let me say first of all,’ Oliver Drake had a surprisingly deep voice for one so skeletally thin, ‘how sorry we all at Drake’s were to hear of the death of John Eustace.
The firm offers our condolences to his family and,’ he nodded gravely to the Dean, ‘to the cathedral. John Eustace had been a client of mine for a number of years, as are so many of his
colleagues.’ A thin smile to the Dean this time.

‘I regret, however, to inform you this afternoon that there are complications, great complications in the testamentary dispositions of the late Mr Eustace. It is unlikely that there can be
any satisfactory resolution to the problems today. I may have to take further advice. I may have to go to London.’

Powerscourt thought he made London sound like Samarkand or Timbuktu. But Augusta Cockburn was out of her stall faster than a Derby winner.

‘Complications?’ she snapped. ‘What complications?’

Oliver Drake did not look like a man who was used to interruptions on such occasions. Powerscourt wondered how he would manage if Augusta Cockburn gave him the full treatment, rudeness,
insolence and insults all combined.

‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Cockburn,’ he said icily, ‘if you will permit me to continue my explanation without interruption, the position will become clear.’

Powerscourt felt it would take more than that to silence Mrs Cockburn. He was right.

‘Perhaps you will be kind enough to inform us of the nature of these complications.’

Oliver Drake sighed. Outside the morning sun had been replaced by heavy rain, now beating furiously against the Georgian windows.

‘To put it very simply, ladies and gentlemen, there is more than one will.’ There were gasps of astonishment from around the table. The Dean stared open-mouthed at Drake. Augusta
Cockburn muttered, ‘Impossible!’ to herself several times. The twin brother, his face heavily blotched from regular consumption of American whiskey, looked as though he needed a drink.
Now. Powerscourt was fascinated.

‘I think it may be helpful,’ Oliver Drake continued, rummaging in a file of papers in front of him, ‘if we take these various wills in time order.’ He glared at his
little audience as if daring them to speak. Powerscourt was temporarily lost in a very fine watercolour above the fireplace which showed a brilliant sun setting behind the minster, bathing its
buildings in a pale orange glow.

‘Will Number One dates from September 1898. I remember it because we wrote it together in my office downstairs. Apart from a number of bequests to his servants,’ Augusta Cockburn
shuddered, ‘the main beneficiaries are twenty thousand pounds each to his brother and his sister, fifty thousand pounds to Dr Blackstaff’ – Augusta Cockburn glowered significantly
at Powerscourt when the doctor’s name was mentioned – ‘and the remainder to the Cathedral of Compton, for its use and maintenance in perpetuity.’

Powerscourt thought he detected a faint hint of a smile crossing the features of the Dean.

‘Forgive me, Mr Drake,’ Augusta Cockburn interrupted again. ‘Please excuse a simple housewife and mother for asking a simple question. How much money are we talking about? How
much was my brother worth?’

Powerscourt thought you could actually hear the greed.

Oliver Drake was ready for this one. ‘Mrs Cockburn, that is, of course, a very sensible question. But it is not susceptible to an easy answer. Until the will is proved it will be difficult
to establish the entire pecuniary value of your brother’s estate.’

‘But you could make a guess, could you not, Mr Drake?’ She sounded like a small child who had been given a bag of sweets only to have them snatched away.

‘It is not the business of country solicitors to make guesses, Mrs Cockburn, but I feel I should give you an approximation.’ He paused. The logs were crackling in the grate. A hooded
crow had come to perch in the tall tree opposite the window. Perhaps the crow felt it deserved something too. ‘I expect the value of the estate, including Fairfield Park, to be well over one
million pounds.’

Still Augusta Cockburn would not give up. ‘How much more?’

‘It could be a million and a quarter, it could be a million and a half. But I feel we should return to the main business in hand.’

‘Forgive me, Mr Drake, could you just set my mind at rest?’ Augusta Cockburn had been doing some arithmetic on a small pad in front of her. ‘In the case of the first will
– and I don’t believe it to be the real one for a moment – when you take the various other legacies into account, does that mean that my brother and I would receive twenty
thousand pounds each and the cathedral,’ she paused as if she could scarcely believe her calculations, ‘the cathedral,’ the scorn and incredulity formed a toxic mixture,
‘would have received almost one million pounds?’

Oliver Drake looked at her solemnly. ‘That is correct. The second testament dates from March of the year 1900.’ Something about his tone made Powerscourt suspect that Drake
didn’t believe this will was genuine. ‘Your brother made this will when staying in your house, Mrs Cockburn. He entrusted it, you say, to your husband for safekeeping. Your husband, in
his turn, put it under lock and key at your family solicitors, Matlock Robinson of Chancery Lane. They in their turn forwarded the document to me.’

Oliver Drake held up a typewritten document, less than a page long. The Dean was peering at it with great interest. Now Powerscourt was able to pinpoint one of the areas where Augusta Cockburn
hadn’t told him the whole truth at their first meeting. Little had been said about this will, drawn up in her house less than a year ago.

‘In this document,’ Powerscourt wondered why he used the word document rather than will, ‘there are no bequests to the servants at all. Fifty thousand pounds for the twin
brother, fifty thousand pounds to the Cathedral, the residue, including the house, to his sister, Mrs Winifred Augusta Cockburn, of Hammersmith, London.’

‘Nothing for the servants?’ asked the Dean. ‘Nothing at all? I think that is very uncharacteristic’

It was the first time Powerscourt had seen Augusta Cockburn smile. For a few moments at least, she was rich.

‘The final will, in terms of time, is very recent. It was written in January this year. It too has some unusual features.’ Powerscourt wondered what he meant by too. One of the other
wills? Both the other wills? ‘For a start,’ Drake went on, ‘it was not supervised by me or by any member of this firm. It was done in Homerton, about fifteen miles from here, at
the local solicitor’s. The terms are identical to the first one, bequests to the servants, fifty thousand pounds for the doctor, twenty thousand pounds each for the brother and sister. But
there is no mention of the cathedral at all. The residue, the sum of almost a million pounds, goes to the Salvation Army.’