‘My God, Francis,’ said Rosebery, ‘this is frightful. It’s like one of those Greek plays where there’s nobody left alive at the end.’
‘It may yet come to that,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It was a very strange house, Blackwater. The original owner had constructed the lake with classical temples all around the side. Hercules and Diana and Apollo peered out at you as you walked round the water. There was a very strange butler who had dealings with the Harrisons before they left Germany and came to London. He could have had motives for revenge.’
‘Don’t talk to me about butlers,’ said Rosebery with feeling. ‘Do you remember that fellow I used to have before I found Leith? Villain by the name of Hall?’
‘The fellow who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth?’
‘The same,’ said Rosebery, nodding his head. ‘The fellow had been cheating me for years and years. All kinds of bills were grossly inflated. Hall took a cut from every single one. A bad business.’
‘I did wonder about the Blackwater butler,’ Powerscourt smiled at the eccentricities of butlers, Jones’ walls lined with shells, his cupboard lined with empty whisky bottles, ‘but in the end I didn’t think he could have done any of these murders. My attention was drawn, always, to the youngest member of the family, Charles Harrison, great-nephew of Old Mr Harrison, who is now in charge of the family bank. Four people have died to put him there. But I did not think that control of the bank was sufficient motive for all these murders. All he had to do was wait and control would have come to him naturally as the others died off or retired.’
‘So what was going on? Is going on?’ Rosebery was leaning forward in his chair like a jockey rising in his stirrups.
‘There are two other relevant facts, I think.’ Powerscourt was feeling very tired. ‘The first is that I asked my brother-in-law William Burke to find out what was going on inside Harrison’s Bank. One of his young men made friends with a clerk in Harrison’s by the name of Richard Martin. Last Saturday Martin and Burke and I were all at a cricket match at Rothschild’s place in Buckinghamshire. Charles Harrison overheard Burke asking Richard to come and see him in his office in the City on Monday morning. Harrison must have thought Martin was going to tell William Burke about the strange goings on in the bank. But before he could do so Richard Martin was abducted. He was taken to Blackwater and locked up in a little house by the lake. Johnny Fitzgerald and I rescued him from there last night, or this morning. We had to row down the river pursued by another boat before we made good our escape.’
‘God bless my soul. This is frightful, Francis. What is the other thing you spoke of?’
‘The other thing is this.’ Powerscourt rose from the chair and began pacing up and down Rosebery’s library. ‘All through this case I have had the feeling that somebody had been looking at the same questions as me. Old Mr Harrison, endlessly going round his temples, muttering to his sister about conspiracies, sending his letters secretly, had been on the same voyage of discovery. On Monday I found a box of his papers hidden on a little island in the middle of the lake. There were letters from Germany in which he was asking if somebody belonged to a secret society in Berlin, a society attached to the Friedrich Wilhelm University. And there were two separate articles about the fall of Barings Bank seven years ago. I didn’t take them as seriously as I should have done.’
Powerscourt sat down again. As he made his series of points he crossed them off on the fingers of his left hand.
‘Now we come to the denouement, Rosebery, or almost the denouement. Point One, Charles Harrison went to the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. I am certain he belonged to a secret society there. Point Two, the society was founded by the followers of a historian called von Treitschke. The historian died last year but the society lives on. Point Three, von Treitschke was a fanatical German nationalist. He believes that the true enemy of Germany is not Russia or France, but England. Point Four, I sent Johnny Fitzgerald to Berlin to see what he could find out about secret societies. He warned me that a shipment of weapons was being sent to Ireland from Germany, presumably by this secret society. Then, just as he was getting close to his quarry in Berlin, a young man calls at my front door in London asking where Johnny is and whether he is a friend of mine. The butler tells the caller that Johnny is in Berlin and confirms our friendship. Immediately Johnny is frozen out in Berlin. Whether the high command is in Berlin or in London I do not know, I am not sure it matters. Point Five is that all the members of the society have to swear to further Germany’s interests by whatever means they can. Point Six . . .’ Powerscourt paused. There was a faint shuffling behind the wainscoting as if mice were trying to break through to read Rosebery’s books.
‘Point Six is why I am here today. Our young man in Harrison’s Bank reported that the money was being taken out of Harrison’s Bank very fast indeed. The people who questioned him in Blackwater referred to next Monday as being the important day, the day that counts. A week before the Jubilee.’
Powerscourt looked at Rosebery, as if he was reluctant to complete his story.
‘Out with it, man, out with it,’ said Rosebery.
‘I know this sounds incredible, Rosebery. William Burke could scarcely believe it. But he does now. Charles Harrison is trying to do a Barings in reverse. Barings collapsed because of imprudent lending to Argentina. They didn’t want it to happen at all. But Harrison is trying to make sure his bank fails. Deliberately. He is trying to make sure his bank fails in the week before the Jubilee. He is trying to make sure that other financial institutions come down with him. In the days before the Jubilee London will be full of newspapermen from every country on earth, all of them having trading relations with the City of London. There will be financial collapse as the Queen prepares to ride out in glory to St Paul’s. One of the sentences that Old Mr Harrison highlighted in the articles about Barings in his strong box was this.’
Powerscourt pulled a battered copy of the Economist from his pocket.
‘It is a quote from Lord Rothschild, a key participant in the Barings rescue, I seem to remember. “If Barings fails, it will bring to an end the custom of all the world of drawing their bills and doing their finance in London.”’
Rosebery turned pale. He went to the long table in the centre of the room and poured himself a large drink.
‘Drink, Francis? Drink before the catastrophe? Monday, you said, next Monday. What happens then?’
‘Next Monday is the appointed day for the second payment of Harrison’s Venezuelan loan. They brought it out two years ago with a syndicate of other banks. It didn’t do very well and Harrison’s were believed to have placed it with a consortium of other European banks. They haven’t asked for any assistance for this second tranche.’
‘How much is it for,’ Rosebery spoke very quietly,’ this second tranche?’
Powerscourt looked again at the racehorses on Rosebery’s walls. Maybe it would be safer to invest in them than in Venezuelan bonds sponsored by Harrison’s Bank.
‘Four million pounds,’ he said, ‘but this is what matters. If Richard Martin is to be believed, and I am sure he is, Harrison’s won’t have the money to pay it. The money has been shipped abroad. And God knows how many other bills they may have engineered to come due on the following week.’
‘Was the loan underwritten?’ asked Rosebery. ‘That’s what did for Revelstoke in the Barings crash, you know. The arrogant fellow thought he didn’t need to underwrite his Argentine adventures.’