This afternoon James’s eyes were unusually bright and he was unable to settle anywhere, moving from chair to sofa to standing by the window for a few seconds and looking at the view. Something, in the nurse’s view, was about to happen, and it did, in a way the nurse had never seen before. Lying on the floor and refusing to get up had once been the favourite. Then there had been days when James curled himself up into a ball and stayed under a table in the corner of the room. Sometimes there had been shouting – not any particular word, just a general shout that came across in the same inchoate fashion as the roar of a great crowd at a football match.
James went to a cupboard in the corridor outside his sitting room and pulled out a very large brush. He held it out in front of him as though it were a cross and he was the person carrying it in some religious procession.
‘Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,’ he sang, making his way slowly down the corridor,
‘With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ the Royal Master leads against the foe,
Forward into battle see his banners go!’
He seemed to have forgotten the chorus. He was walking very deliberately, as if he was in a procession. He passed a glass case full of stuffed birds and started down the stairs.
‘At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee,
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise,
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.’
He was on the second-floor landing now, where most of the bedrooms were situated. The nurse hurried down the stairs after him. James continued down towards the ground floor and the basement, passing a racehorse whose front features were still visible but whose hindquarters and rump had been overcome by the advance of the Candlesby grime.
‘Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.’
As he reached the first floor, his elder brother Edward stuck his head out of the drawing room. ‘For God’s sake, you stupid lunatic,’ he said, ‘what on earth do you think you are doing? You’re madder than usual today, even for you.’
James made no reply. His eyes appeared to be fixed on some distant goal. Perhaps he thought he was a crusader from centuries past come to fight with the armies of Saladin in front of the walls of Jerusalem. Perhaps he was a recruit to Cromwell’s New Model Army in the Civil War, dragged from field and barn to learn the arts of war before the battlefield at Naseby.
‘Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the Church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that Church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise and that cannot fail.’
The mention of Christ’s promise seemed to give James extra strength. He held the broomstick ever firmer as if he were escorting an archbishop to his stall in Canterbury Cathedral. He was down the stairs into the lower floor and out of the door into the outside world. There was no hesitation. He turned sharply to the left and began marching purposefully towards the lake. Henry and Edward both stuck their heads out of the saloon windows one floor up.
‘Why don’t you go and drown yourself, you mad person?’
‘Put us all out of our misery, you stupid lunatic. Go straight into the water! Don’t turn round! Don’t bother coming back!’
With that the two brothers collapsed in hysterical laughter. James did not stop. He was quite close to the water’s edge now. Charles had heard a noise where he was in the stables and began running as fast as he could towards the lake. James was on the edge of the water, marching straight on. The brothers were yelling out the chorus as an act of encouragement.
‘Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.’
They sang it over and over, falling into helpless laughter from time to time as they watched their brother advancing further into the water.
‘Why can’t you go in after him?’ yelled Charles to the nurse.
‘I can’t swim,’ replied the man.
Almost up to his neck now, James was still singing. Charles pulled off his jacket and charged into the lake. There seemed to be a struggle. Indeed it looked as if Charles might have knocked his brother out to make it easier to drag him away from the water. With the nurse arriving to help in shallower waters they managed to pull him ashore. The brush was still held firmly in his hands. They began to drag him across the grass towards the house in case he made another dash into the lake. When James came round a few minutes later he looked at them both very carefully. Then he burst into tears. From the first-floor window still came the chorus:
‘Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.’
‘God help sailors on a night like this.’ Detective Inspector Blunden was speaking to Powerscourt as the two men stood on the steps of the Candlesby mausoleum at ten to three in the morning. It had been raining hard since early evening and a wind had now got up, blowing in from the sea. Three of the Inspector’s junior police constables were shielding their lamps against the storm. The clouds cleared over the moon every now and then to reveal the lake and the solid bulk of the house behind it like a great liner untroubled by the weather.
‘Ten minutes to go,’ said Powerscourt. The exhumation of the Earl of Candlesby was due to begin in precisely ten minutes. A small procession could be seen making its way up the hill towards the mausoleum.
‘What about the key?’ said Powerscourt suddenly, all too aware that if the new Earl had his way they would never get into the mausoleum at all.
‘The coroner has that in hand,’ said Blunden, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders. ‘I think he gave out some pretty fierce warnings about disobeying an instrument of the law. The butler is to bring it at the appointed time.’
A tall man, wrapped in an enormous cloak, materialized out of the darkness.
‘Carey,’ he said, ‘Nathaniel Carey, pathologist, at your service.’
As Powerscourt made the introductions another bedraggled figure joined them. The vicar who conducted the service of interment had come back to see the body removed. Later on he would have to inter the body once again. He nodded gravely to the other members of the melancholy party.
‘Where are you going to conduct your examination, Dr Carey?’ Powerscourt was whispering out of respect for the dead.
‘They’ve made a room at the morgue in the hospital available for me. I hope to start first thing in the morning. Shouldn’t take long. I mean, was the bloody man murdered or not? That shouldn’t be too difficult to establish. Feel free to drop in around eleven. I should have something for you by then.’
Another group was advancing towards the mausoleum, led by the Candlesby butler carrying a powerful light. Behind him came the coroner, shrouded in a vast cloak, and the man from the undertakers who had supervised the burial, leading a cart drawn by two horses.
‘Well,’ said the coroner, ‘all present and correct. I’m sure Thorpe can open up for us.’
Thorpe, the Candlesby butler, had on his belt one of the biggest bunches of keys Powerscourt had ever seen. Surely there were more keys on it than there were rooms in Candlesby Hall. The butler didn’t hesitate for a moment. One quick glance down and a very large key, totally black, was inserted into the main door of the mausoleum. Within a minute the party were inside, the three policemen forming up around them with the lamps. The light shot across the great columns that reached up to the dome, flickering and fading as it went, dancing briefly across human faces. Their boots echoed off the marble floor. High up at the top of the building the bats were squeaking an ineffectual protest at this invasion under cover of darkness.