The upper part of his body had been covered by a white cloth. I gently pulled it back and looked down at the man I had last seen trotting out of the George Hotel in Stamford, anticipating a good tea and the company of his daughter.
Death had not been kind to him. His jaw had been temporarily bound; but the rest of his poor round face showed all too clearly the violence that had been meted out to him. The left eye was closed and undamaged, but the right had gone completely, reduced to a horrifying mess of bone and pulp, along with much of that side of the face. I had seen such injuries before, on many dangerous midnights in London, and knew with cold certainty that whoever had visited this violence upon him had done so with truly murderous intent, having, I guessed, something of overwhelming moment to lose if their victim survived the attack. I was now sure that Mr Carteret had been doomed from the moment he took horse from Stamford: he had been carrying his own death warrant in the bag he had strapped round him, and which had now disappeared.
Though I went to church dutifully throughout my childhood, I had retained little of what is generally called religion, except for a visceral conviction that our lives are controlled by some universal mechanism that is greater than ourselves. Perhaps that was what others call God. Perhaps not. At any rate, it was not reducible to forms and rituals, and required only stoical assent and resignation, since I considered mediation or intervention to be useless. Yet, after pulling the cloth back over Mr Carteret’s face, I found myself bowing my head nonetheless – not in prayer, for I had no listening deity to whom to pray, but in common human sympathy.
It was as I stood in this apparent attitude of reverential supplication that I heard the door to the Chapel open.
A tall, white-bearded figure in clerical garb stood framed in the doorway. He had removed his hat, revealing two wings of white hair swept back on either side of a broad highway of pink flesh. It could be no other than the Reverend Achilles Brabazon Daunt, Rector of Evenwood.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I heard him say, in deep plangent tones. ‘I had not expected to find anyone here at this hour.’
He did not leave, however, but closed the door behind him, and walked down the aisle towards me.
‘I do not think I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance.’
There was no help for it now, so I told him my name and the simple truth: that I had come up to meet Mr Carteret on a matter of business; that he had invited me to stay on for a day or so; and that it had only been on my arrival at the Dower House, the previous day, that I had learned the terrible news.
We exchanged the usual pieties, dwelled a little on the iniquity of men, and discussed the likelihood of the attackers being apprehended.
‘This must not stand,’ he said, shaking his head slowly, ‘indeed, it must not. These wretches will certainly be discovered, I have no doubt on that score. Such a crime cannot stay hidden. God sees all – and so do men’s neighbours, I have found. Lord Tansor is placing an advertisement in the
‘It is in the power of every hand to destroy us,’ I said.
A smile broke across his broad face.
‘Sir Thomas Browne!’ he cried, with evident delight. ‘“And we are beholding unto everyone we meet he doth not kill us.” There is always something in good Sir Thomas – a kind of
We stood in silent contemplation of the coffin for a moment or two. Then he turned to me again.
‘Will you join me in a prayer, Mr Glapthorn?’ he asked.
We rose and went out once more into the courtyard.
‘Shall we walk back together?’ he asked, and so we set off.
‘You are not a complete stranger to me, Dr Daunt,’ I said, as we were descending the Chapel steps. ‘I have had occasion to consult your great catalogue,* and am delighted, on that score alone, to have made your acquaintance.’
‘You have an interest in such things, then?’ he asked with a sudden eagerness.
And so I began to reel him in, just as I had done with Mr Tredgold. It was the bibliophilic temperament, you see; its possessors constitute a kind of freemasonry, ever disposed to treat those blessed with a similar passion for books as if they were blood brothers. It did not take me long to demonstrate my familiarity both with the study of books in general, and with the character of the Duport Collection in particular. By the time we had begun to ascend the slope back towards the South Gates, we were in deep discussion on whether the 1472 Macrobius (Venice: N. Jenson), or the 1772 folio of Cripo’s
He spoke at length, too, of Mr Carteret, whom Dr Daunt had known since first coming to Evenwood as Rector. After Lord Tansor had volunteered his secretary’s services as the Rector’s assistant in the preparation of the great catalogue, their acquaintance had deepened into friendship. Mr Carteret had been especially helpful with regard to the manuscript holdings, which, though not extensive in comparison with the printed books, contained several important items.
‘He was not a trained scholar,’ said Dr Daunt, ‘but he was extremely well informed on the manuscripts acquired by his Lordship’s grandfather, and had already prepared some commendably accurate descriptions and summaries, which spared me a great deal of labour.’
By now we had reached the point at which the path to the Dower House led off the main carriage-road.
‘Perhaps, Mr Glapthorn, if you have no duties that you need to attend to, you might wish to take some tea at the Rectory this afternoon? My own collection is modest, but there are one or two items that I think will interest you. I would invite you for a spot of breakfast now, but I have to call on my neighbour, Dr Stark, at Blatherwycke,
