Powerscourt stopped suddenly, staring into space. A blind Milton looked down from above the entrance. Blind, like me, he thought, blind about motive, blind about the sequence of events, blind about where all this is going to end.
‘How far is the river from here, Inspector?’
‘The Thames, my lord? I should say it’s less than a mile from the bottom of that lower lake, the one with the waterfall.’
‘Could somebody have come here or left here by boat,’ said Powerscourt, ‘coming or going from one of those little places with railway stations up and down the river? Could you ask? Who else wanders about the place in the middle of the night? Poachers? Thieves coming to burgle houses in the small hours of the morning?’
‘Plenty of both of those, my lord, especially poachers. Lots of the poorer people round here eat quite well.’ Inspector Wilson nodded meaningfully at Powerscourt.
‘And tell me this, if you would, Inspector. You have talked to Mr Harrison about his movements the day after the fire. Where did he say he was? Why did he not come here until the evening?’
Inspector Wilson turned back five or six pages in his notebook. ‘He left here that night because he had an important meeting the next day in Norwich, my lord. Something to do with his bank. He returned from Norwich in the afternoon.’
The Inspector looked up, alarmed. He’s not going to ask me to check the trains to and from Norwich, is he? he said to himself. We don’t have those kind of timetables in the station.
‘I shall take it upon myself to check the trains to East Anglia, Inspector,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully. ‘I know a man who could tell me inside five minutes about every known means of reaching Norwich by train.’
‘My lord.’ Inspector Wilson was becoming confused, his mind struggling to keep up with all the inquiries. ‘Do you have a theory as to what went on? With the fire, I mean?’
Powerscourt smiled a feeble smile. ‘I have many theories, Inspector. They could all be wrong. They probably are all wrong. The fire could have been caused by accident. That must remain the most likely possibility, but I should not be surprised if it was not. The fire could have been caused by somebody inside this house.’
He thought of mentioning the mysterious butler, praying in his basement cell, hiding his bottles of whisky. Did whisky burn easily? Pour a bottle down yourself in the basement. Pop upstairs to start a fire and then retire to the golden cross and the shells down below. You probably wouldn’t remember a thing in the morning. He thought a further raft of suspicious information might leave the Inspector completely confused.
‘The fire could have been caused by an intruder,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘come to steal valuables, paintings, books maybe, like these. This library must be worth a fortune with some of those shady London booksellers. Anything with an old binding is gratefully received, then sold on to America where no questions are asked about where they come from.
‘Or the fire could have been caused by somebody who left the house early in the evening and then came back and let himself in again. And after he completed his business he let himself out again.’
Inspector Wilson whistled quietly to himself.
‘When we know the results of your inquiries, Inspector, and when the fire gentlemen let us know their findings, we shall be in a better position to form a judgement.’ Or, he thought bitterly to himself, I may be more confused than ever.
Lady Lucy was sitting on a sofa in the upstairs drawing room staring sadly at a portrait of her grandfather when her husband dashed into Markham Square. ‘Oh, Francis,’ she said, ‘it’s so sad, so terribly sad.’
‘What’s so sad, Lucy?’ said Powerscourt, dreading yet more bad news. ‘I can’t stop. I have to see William straight away. I’ve got to go to the City. I should be in Blackwater, but William can’t wait.’ He sounded distracted.
‘It’s that poor family, the Farrells, Francis, the ones I told you about. Do you have to rush off straight away?’
‘I can wait a while, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt. He was concerned about the terrible sadness in his wife’s face. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, Francis . . .’ Powerscourt sensed his wife was close to tears. ‘You remember the baby was ill, with the terrible fever?’
Powerscourt nodded.
‘Well, little Peter died. The doctors couldn’t save him. The funeral was this morning.’ Lucy was fighting back the tears. ‘Now the oldest child, a very skinny girl called Bertha, is ill with the same thing. So is the father. He is so ill he can’t go to work. If they haven’t any money coming in they won’t be able to pay the rent and they’ll get thrown out.’
‘We can help with the rent, surely,’ said Powerscourt gently, taking hold of Lucy’s hands. ‘Of course we can.’
‘There’s a very curious thing, too, Francis.’ Lady Lucy looked across at her husband. ‘I only discovered it today when I was talking to the vicar. The flats where they live are run by a charity, but they are held in the name of Harrison’s Bank, the private one. Isn’t that a coincidence?’
Powerscourt remembered William Burke telling him that the private Harrisons did a lot of business with charities. Then Lady Lucy remembered she had more news to tell her husband.
‘There’s something else, Francis,’ she said. ‘Somebody came here earlier today when I was out asking about Johnny Fitzgerald, wanting to know where he was.’
‘What sort of person, Lucy? Was he official, a postman or somebody like that?’
‘No, he wasn’t. Rhys said he was just a young man who said he was a friend of Johnny’s.’
Garel Rhys, the Powerscourt butler, had been a sergeant with him in India.
‘But why did he come here?’ Powerscourt was looking concerned now. ‘Did he know Johnny was a friend of ours?’
‘The first thing he said, I think, was, “Is your husband at home?” Then he said, “Is he a friend of Lord Fitzgerald?” When Rhys said he was, then he started asking where Johnny was. He said he was an old friend from before.’
‘So what did Rhys tell him, Lucy? Did he say where Johnny is?’
‘Well, yes, I think he did,’ said Lady Lucy, looking anxiously at her husband. ‘Rhys said Johnny was in Berlin, that he should be back soon. He didn’t say anything about investigations or anything like that, Francis.’
‘Where was this fellow from, Lucy?’ Powerscourt was worried now, worried for his friend far away in Berlin. ‘Was he English? Irish perhaps if he’s an old friend from before?’
Powerscourt hoped he was Irish.
‘Rhys didn’t think he was Irish or English, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, alarmed at the look on her husband’s face, ‘He said the young man was very well-spoken but he did have an accent. Rhys thought he was German.’
‘German? Oh, my God!’ said Powerscourt, and fled into the afternoon towards the City of London.
There’s one mystery down by the lake at Blackwater, Powerscourt said to himself as his cab laboured up Ludgate Hill. There’s another mystery about the unknown woman behind the feud in Harrison’s Bank. There’s a third mystery surrounding Jones the butler. Even now he couldn’t make up his mind whether Jones was telling him the truth. Twenty years would be time enough to concoct a story like that, the shells purchased block by block in the fish markets of London, the pictures on the walls picked up in clandestine visits to junk shops. A visit to one of the larger lending libraries would provide enough information about the legend of St James without going any further than Oxford or Maidenhead, or maybe even the nearest Catholic seminary where Jones would have been welcomed with enthusiasm, fresh pilgrims always welcome into the fold.
A group of policemen and soldiers, they might have been Royal Engineers, had closed off the front of St Paul’s, taking measurements, carrying things up and down the steps. They must be preparing for the Jubilee Day, Powerscourt thought, now just six weeks away, its high point the arrival of the aged Queen at these very steps for a Service of Thanksgiving.