Lady Lucy sat very quietly in her chair. Far off in the gardens outside she could hear the sounds of grass being cut, the cheerful cries of the gardeners, the tolling of a distant bell.
She wondered if Miss Harrison, like her brother, talked in her sleep. Some of the years seemed to have fallen from her face, smoother now than when she was awake. Sometimes the old lady turned, as if she was dreaming. Her mouth fell open. Then she spoke.
‘Secret societies,’ she said in a firm voice. She stopped. ‘In Germany. Maybe here. Conspiracy at the bank.’
Lady Lucy wondered if she was repeating what her brother used to say as he sat in his chair by the fireside in the evenings when he was still alive.
Suddenly old Miss Harrison sat upright in her chair. She was still fast asleep.
‘That poor boy,’ she said. ‘Poor Karl. What a terrible scar.’
She dropped back in her chair. Lady Lucy hardly dared to move. She looked around the room, its tables cluttered with paintings and photographs of past Harrisons. She wondered if there was a likeness of Karl, hiding his shame somewhere in a dark corner. She couldn’t find one.
Then Miss Harrison woke up.
‘Always troubles in a bank, that’s what Father used to say, always troubles.’ She looked defiantly at Lady Lucy.
‘Of course, Miss Harrison, how right you are. There are always troubles in a bank.’
‘There’s just one last temple, my lord,’ said Samuel Parker, ‘but Old Mr Harrison didn’t go there. The path was very steep and he was worried he might fall.’
‘Then I think we’ll give it a miss today.’ Powerscourt’s mind was racing round the ancient myths and pagan gods that populated the lake, Aeneas travelling to the underworld to meet his dead father, Hercules cleaning the Augean stables, Isis presiding over her shadowy kingdom in the realms below.
To their right now was another lake, slightly lower than the one they had crossed, with a waterfall running into it.
‘No ancient temples down there,’ said Powerscourt, pointing down to the lower stretch of water.
‘No, there aren’t, my lord. I think we’ve got quite enough up here.’
‘Tell me, Mr Parker,’ said Powerscourt as they approached the Parker cottage once again, ‘where do you keep your keys? The ones you use to open all the temples.’
‘Why, my lord, they live on a big hook on the back of the front door. That’s where all the keys are, with a special ring for each one. You’d be surprised how many different bunches of keys you need to get around this place.’
‘And how easy would it be . . .’ Powerscourt turned for a last look at the circuit of the lake, two Pantheons, reflection and reality, sitting peacefully on their semicircle of grass. ‘How easy would it be for somebody to come and borrow them without your knowing?’
Samuel Parker stopped in his tracks. The pony made restive movements, anxious to return to her stall.
‘I’ve never thought about that.’ He paused to give the pony a reassuring stroke. ‘I suppose it would be easy, if the person knew I would be out most of the day. And Mabel’s going deaf, so she is, though she’d never admit it. Been going deaf for most of the past two years she has. Doctor says there’s nothing he can do.’
Powerscourt thanked Parker for their morning expedition. ‘It has been most useful, Mr Parker. I have to return again in a couple of days or so. Maybe I could borrow your keys and go for another inspection of the lake.’
He’s looking for something, Samuel Parker said to himself as Powerscourt strode off up the hill past the church. He thinks there may be some of Old Mr Harrison’s writings hidden away round the lake. I hope he finds them, he went on, hanging up his keys on the front door. But then again, maybe it would be better if he didn’t.
10
General Hugo Arbuthnot looked angrily at his watch. Five minutes past eleven, and the meeting due to start at eleven o’clock sharp. If there was one thing guaranteed to put the General in a bad mood it was unpunctuality, particularly when the planning of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, now only two months away, was at stake.
William Taylor, the representative of the Metropolitan Police, was already in his place at the table in Arbuthnot’s headquarters in the War Office. At least the police could be trusted to maintain order and discipline.
There was a sudden rushing up the corridor. Dominic Knox, the representative of the Irish Office, burst through the door and made his apologies, a couple of files held aloft in his left hand.
‘My apologies, General,’ he panted. ‘My most sincere apologies. We have had fresh information from Dublin.’
As Knox took his seat and shuffled with his papers, Arbuthnot wondered if the man from the Irish Office was beginning to adopt the customs and habits of the people he was meant to superintend. Going native in Ireland, he felt, would involve precisely this kind of behaviour, a lack of punctuality, a general inattention to business.
‘Mr Knox.’ Arbuthnot’s voice was cold. ‘Is your information from Dublin important?’
‘Important enough to warrant my being late for the meeting?’ said Knox with a laugh. Privately he despised Arbuthnot for being stupid. ‘Yes, I believe it is. I believe it gives us all, especially my friend Mr Taylor of the Metropolitan Police, a great deal to think about.’
‘Perhaps you would like to enlighten us then?’ Arbuthnot was tapping his pen up and down on the table to mask his irritation.
‘Quite simply, it is this. Four days ago a group of the most determined and dangerous nationalists held a secret meeting outside Dublin. Their purpose was to resolve on the nature of the disturbances they wished to cause at the time of the Jubilee.’
‘Criminal acts, criminal acts,’ muttered the General.
‘Criminal acts, indeed, General.’ Knox nodded at his superior. ‘These three men were choosing whether to perpetrate an outrage in Dublin or in London in honour of the occasion. There were arguments on both sides. A bomb is the favoured method of causing the disturbance. I understand that there was some measure of disagreement about the site. In the end, London was deemed too dangerous for the particular terrorist to make his escape. So they have decided to make their protest in Dublin.’
‘Does that mean we can regard London as being safe from Irish subversives at the time of the parade?’ William Taylor, the policeman, was quick to see the implications for the manpower and deployment of his forces.
General Arbuthnot looked hopeful, as if one cross was about to be removed from his shoulders. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘we would be safe in making that assumption. That is, if your information is to be believed.’ He looked at Knox suspiciously.
Dominic Knox looked at them both carefully. ‘I wish I could share your optimism,’ he said finally. ‘You see, these may be the three most important terrorist leaders in the country. But there could be more we know nothing of. And there is something else.’ He paused and looked at the General. ‘Forgive me for being cautious. But it is such a game of bluff and counterbluff where this intelligence is concerned. One of those at the meeting is on our payroll, and I can tell you he does not come cheap. Somehow the more you pay them, the more you want to believe what they say. But my point is this. The senior member of the trio, a schoolteacher called Byrne, is the leader of this group and easily the most intelligent. He may suspect the truth about our informer, that the man is in the pay of Dublin Castle.’
‘You mean the information may be false?’ said William Taylor, quick to see the implications of Knox’s difficulties. They had come across similar problems with informants in the East End.
‘Exactly,’ said Knox.
‘But what does this mean for our planning, gentlemen?’ General Arbuthnot felt himself growing irritated once more. He remembered briefly that his doctor had warned him about it. ‘What precautions are we to take?’