‘Mr Hardy, my lord, Inspector.’
The blond-haired fire expert bounded into the room.
‘Good morning, Lord Powerscourt, Good morning, Inspector, good morning everybody! What a beautiful morning!’
He sat down by the fireplace. Of course, thought Powerscourt, Joe Hardy would always sit by the fireplace.
‘My investigations are almost completed, gentlemen. And what fun they have been. Oh, yes, a most enjoyable little problem. Most enjoyable!’
His exuberance was infectious. Inspector Wilson smiled at him benignly, as if he were a newly trained puppy come for its master’s approval.
‘And what have you found out, Mr Hardy? What are the fruits of your investigations?’
‘That’s why I’m here. You see, I am not going to tell you now. But I am arranging a little demonstration for you both tomorrow morning. Just a little demonstration.’ Hardy rubbed his hands together at the prospect. ‘There’s a big empty barn just behind the stables. Mr Parker tells me I may borrow it. Mr Harrison will not be here.’
‘Are you going to make a special fire for us?’ asked the Inspector incredulously.
‘I am. I shall have the bits and pieces ready for you tomorrow. It’s going to be tremendous fun. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I was little. And Chief Fire Officer Perkins is coming too. He’s going to bring his best fire engine, just in case anything goes wrong.’
He smiled happily at them both.
‘But I don’t think it will.’
18
‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ the letter read. It was breakfast time in Markham Square. Master Thomas Powerscourt was inspecting a book full of photographs of railway engines, recently purchased by his father. Miss Olivia Powerscourt was smearing her face happily with jam and fragments of toast. Lady Lucy was reading a letter from her brother.
‘I am writing,’ Powerscourt’s correspondent wrote, ‘to invite you to be a member of my team in a forthcoming cricket match. Every year I organize a game near the beginning of the season at my country place in Buckinghamshire.’
‘Big green engine!’ shouted Thomas Powerscourt, pointing to a smoking monster in front of him.
‘Splendid,’ said his father.
‘There is a team from the City and a Visitors Eleven. As you no doubt know, being a keen follower of cricket, there is a touring party of Americans called the Philadelphians coming to our shores this summer. They are the Visitors this year.’
‘Big black engine! Big black one!’ Thomas Powerscourt began making train noises. ‘Chuff,’ he went, ‘chuff, chuff, chuff, chuff, chuff.’
‘I should like you to play for the City Eleven. Their ranks are drawn from banks of all sizes, the discount houses, the insurance people. The wicket-keeper, appropriately enough, comes from the Bank of England.’
‘My brother is going to France for the summer, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘somewhere near Biarritz. He wants to know if we would like to join him.’
‘Blue engine! Blue engine!’
‘Naturally enough, I am proposing that you should open the batting for the City. A special train will be departing from Marylebone station at ten o’clock. Play commences at twelve.’
‘Thomas, Olivia.’ Lady Lucy moved swiftly to restore order. ‘Time to get cleaned up. Nurse Mary Muriel is waiting for you. Francis, my love, haven’t you a train to catch?’
‘Red engine! Big red one. Chuff, chuff.’
Thomas moved slowly out of the dining room station on to the main line upstairs. His sister trotted happily behind him.
‘Please feel free to bring as many members of your family as you would like. Then they can join me in applauding your late cuts. Bertrand de Rothschild.’
There was a small fire going in the centre of the barn. Joseph Hardy had arranged a trestle table at some distance away, covered with two rows of photographs.
‘My little demonstration begins here, gentlemen,’ he announced. The top row were photographs and drawings of the house as it had been before the blaze. Below it were the photographs taken by Hardy’s man the day after the fire. They had been arranged in such a way that the room below corresponded with the one above.
‘Before on the top, gentlemen, after on the bottom. Are you with me so far? Now,’ Hardy went on, ‘I would like you to look closely at the furniture in the picture gallery prior to the blaze. Then would you please cast your eyes on the furniture and the curtains and so forth in Mr Frederick Harrison’s bedroom above.’
Hardy was walking along the side of the table, facing his little audience of Powerscourt, Inspector Wilson and Chief Fire Officer Perkins, pointing now at a painting, now at the wood panelling on either side of the fireplace.
‘Look, if you would, very carefully at the photographs taken after the fire.’
Powerscourt peered closely at the photographs. At first he could see nothing remarkable, only dust and rubble.
‘You will notice, I am sure,’ said Hardy, flattering his audience as he went on, ‘that the fire has taken much more serious hold in some places than it has in others.’ He pointed to a jagged line leading up the wall of the picture gallery. ‘Look here. In all this area the plaster has been burnt completely away. We are right down to the bare brick. But,’ he drew a small ruler from his pocket, ‘along all the rest of the wall, the fire has taken hold, certainly, but the plaster has not been burnt away. What do you deduce from that, gentlemen?’
Hardy put his ruler away and looked directly at Powerscourt.
‘I would deduce that the fire must have been much hotter in that part of the room where the plaster has all gone. Much hotter.’
‘You are absolutely right, of course,’ said Hardy with a smile. ‘Fires never burn evenly but you would not expect to find such a disparity as this.
‘Now look here!’ He sprang round the table and pointed dramatically to the bedroom. ‘This is not a photograph of the room as it was, but a drawing made up of the recollections of the servants and Jones the butler. Jones had a remarkable memory for every detail in the room, I’m glad to say.’
Did he indeed? said Powerscourt to himself. He found it upsetting that the whisky-loving butler should have such an accurate memory. Maybe he had stopped drinking years ago.
‘Look at the fireplace here. There was wood panelling on either side of it, going all the way up to the ceiling, right round the room. To the left of the fire, going away from the door,’ out came Hardy’s ruler again, ‘the wood panelling is severely burnt, but it has not completely disappeared. But to the right of the fireplace it has vanished altogether, totally burnt away. You can see the same with the floorboards. Away from the door, they are severely damaged. Towards the door, the damage is much more severe.
‘In fact, gentlemen, the most dramatic way of looking at this is as follows.’ Hardy brought out a piece of chalk and drew a ragged line from the fireplace to the door. Then he drew another ragged line towards the door, following the area of maximum impact of the fire. It looked like a straggly corridor.
‘If you would like to move over here just a moment.’ Hardy led them over to a piece of carpet lying all on its own on the stone floor. There was a label saying, ‘Door’ and another one saying ‘Fireplace’ attached. Powerscourt felt sure that the distance corresponded to the same gap in Frederick Harrison’s bedroom. Hardy took a bottle from his pocket. He walked backwards, quite slowly, from the fireplace, pouring the liquid as he went. When he reached the door he stopped.
‘The pattern is not identical, of course. But you can see the remarkable similarities in the shape between the carpet and the chalk lines on the photograph.’
Outside a couple of horses whinnied. Mr Samuel Parker could be heard talking to them in a low voice.
‘God bless my soul. God bless my soul,’ said Inspector Wilson as the meaning of the chalk lines became apparent to him. ‘Do you mean to say . . .’
Joseph Hardy held up his hand. ‘I haven’t finished yet, Inspector,’ he said, smiling again at his handiwork. ‘Nearly but not quite. Could I ask you to look at the fire for me now, gentlemen? At present it is a perfectly normal blaze. I am going to put on two different sets of wood.’