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,