Marie O’Dowd had sketched three of London’s bridges this morning. Each page had its shadow, the one with the details, the one with the spaces for the parcel.
This afternoon she was going to Piccadilly and Ludgate Hill to sketch what she thought was the route of the procession on Jubilee Day. Tonight she would go back to Dublin and give her sketchbook to her lover. To Michael Byrne, the man who waited by the dark waters of Glendalough, the man determined that Queen Victoria’s Jubilee would be a very special day.
16
Jones the Blackwater butler rose to his feet once more. The flagstone where he knelt had a small indentation in the centre. It was even more polished than its fellows. ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he said quietly. As he rose his arm brushed on the door of the spartan wardrobe where he kept his clothes. Powerscourt caught a glimpse of neatly ironed shirts, of black trousers hanging evenly in their presses. But something glowed at the bottom. Powerscourt could not see what it was.
‘Thank you for telling me your story,’ said Powerscourt, still not sure whether he believed it or not. It would be frightfully difficult to check, he thought. The Dominican, if he could ever find him, if indeed he was still alive, would not tell him anything. Did the authorities at Santiago keep records of the pilgrims who passed through the shrine? Probably not, and they were not likely to be accurate with so many different nationalities trudging across Europe to stand before the Portal de la Gloria.
‘Perhaps you could take me to the library, Jones. I need to speak to Mr Harrison.’ The cross of golden coins remained impassive on its wall, Jones’s belt still anchored inside. The hundreds of shells looked out at the life of Christ on the opposite wall. Jones led the way out of his little cell. As he entered the passageway Powerscourt darted back to open the door of the wardrobe. The bottom was lined with bottles, not of some sacred liquor, or Communion wine, but of whisky. There must have been over a hundred of them, lying in formation on the bottom. Was Jones going to make another cross, this time composed of the bottles he had consumed, alone with his shells in his basement cell? Or was he merely a hopeless drunk, his fantastic story concocted and embroidered while he lay on his little bed, staring at his cross, growing drunker and drunker on his whisky?
Powerscourt hurried back to the corridor. They passed through the basement room where he had first met Jones that morning, the polished candlesticks still standing to attention on their table. They went up the stairs. Powerscourt passed a settee with a scallop-shell crest in the inner hall. He shook his head in disbelief. More shells. Was the whole house and its mysterious lake an enormous puzzle, clues and distractions lying about in equal measure?
‘Mr Harrison. Lord Powerscourt, my lord.’
Jones spoke in funereal tones. Powerscourt shook Charles Harrison warmly by the hand and stood back to look at his library. It was one of the most beautiful libraries Powers-court had ever seen. It had a green carpet with a pattern of interlacing motifs like a Roman pavement. The books, thousands of them, were set into the walls. Two elegant Regency windows looked out over the garden. The barrelled ceiling, green like the carpet, arched across the library. At the far end, on a handsome Chippendale desk, stood a statue of Hercules, hand on hip, staring across the mahogany at the leather-bound volumes in the corner of the room.
‘I was just telling the Inspector about the arrangements here, the night-time routine, all that sort of thing,’ said Charles Harrison.
Inspector Wilson was looking out of place, standing awkwardly by the marble fireplace.
‘Could I ask you, Mr Harrison, if you saw anything unusual on the night of the fire, when you left the house and returned to London, I mean?’
‘Any sign of any intruders, Lord Powerscourt? No, I did not. I left, as I said, about half-past ten in the evening. The good Inspector tells me that the fire people think the blaze must have started in the early hours of the morning. Any intruders must have come later than that.’
Powerscourt watched Charles Harrison’s red eyebrows contracting and expanding as he spoke. ‘Quite so,’ he said thinking in his head about railway timetables and early morning milk trains.
‘Could I ask you one question before I go?’ Charles Harrison sounded almost apologetic. ‘I have to make arrangements with the vicar about the funeral. Then I have to go back to London. There is so much to see to at the bank. Maybe it is best that we are kept busy at a time like this, we have less time to grieve. But to my question.’
Charles Harrison looked from Inspector Wilson at the fireplace to Powerscourt glancing idly at the collected works of Voltaire, published in Paris in the year 1825.
‘Do you think there is an attack being mounted on my family? First Old Mr Harrison is found floating in the Thames, now my uncle perishes in this fire. Is it all a coincidence? Or is it a conspiracy? Do you think my own life is in danger? Should I take precautions, whatever you gentlemen might advise?’
Inspector Wilson looked at Powerscourt. Powerscourt looked carefully at the cover of Candide. He turned to face Charles Harrison, flanked by the naked back of Hercules.
‘Mr Harrison,’ he began. He did not know quite what to say. ‘I wish I could give you an answer to that, I really do. Until further inquiries are made here we do not know the precise cause of the fire. It was almost certainly started by natural means. Most fires are.’
He caught the Inspector giving him a very curious glance. He looked as if he might be about to speak. Powerscourt hurried on. ‘Once we know more, of course we shall let you know. In the meantime, all I can say is that we know nothing of any conspiracy against your family. But it might be prudent to be careful over the coming weeks.’
Charles Harrison looked sombre. He thanked them both and set off on his melancholy business. As he left the library he turned back. ‘Please feel free, gentlemen, to use this room as long as your inquiries continue. It is the most beautiful room in the house, or what remains of the house.’
Shortly afterwards they heard the sound of carriage wheels fading down the drive. Inspector Wilson lowered himself into an armchair.
‘Did you mean what you said just now, sir? About the fire starting by accident and there being no danger to Mr Harrison?’
‘I did not, Inspector. I most certainly did not. But it seemed the best thing to say for the moment. God help me if I am wrong again.’
From the other side of the house the shouts of the firemen and Mr Hardy’s instructions to his photographer drifted through the open window.
‘Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I know I have no official standing in this matter. I am here merely as an observer. But there are certain lines of inquiry I would wish to ask of you.’
‘You’re official enough for me, my lord. I have this note here from the Chief Constable himself instructing me to give you every possible assistance in your inquiries, whatever your requests may be.’
The Inspector pulled an envelope from his pocket and waved it in front of Powerscourt. ‘Signed, William F. Bampfylde, Oxfordshire Constabulary.’
‘That is most helpful,’ said Powerscourt, joining Inspector Wilson in an armchair in front of the fire, a relief on the overmantel depicting some biblical scene he did not recognize. He hoped it had nothing to do with shells or St James the Apostle.
‘Now then, Inspector, we need to find out about people who might have come in and out of the house last night. Could you check the railway station for the times of all the trains arriving and departing from the station in the night and in the early hours of the morning? Could you ask at the inn about any strangers they might have seen on the night of the fire?’