‘Let me try him with clubland, sir,’ said McDonnell. ‘I talked to a man last night who said Messel had been very disappointed when he was blackballed by the Coldstream.’
‘Carry on, McDonnell.’
‘Very good, Prime Minister.’
‘I hope we can deliver these bloody clubs for him, Rosebery,’ said the Prime Minister, turning to his predecessor. ‘Never cared for them much myself. But you belong to one or two, don’t you?’
‘Rest assured, Prime Minister, the clubs should be fine.’ Rosebery smiled. ‘The last time I counted I belonged to thirty-seven.’
‘God bless my soul!’ said the Prime Minister. ‘How ever do you find the time to go to them all?’
One of the stairs at the bottom of the hall was creaking, Powerscourt noticed. There was a small but noticeable squeak that heralded the return of the private secretary.
‘Three and a half per cent, Prime Minister, over twenty years. It seems Mr Messel is very fond of clubs even though he doesn’t belong to many. That’s the MCC, the Royal Yacht Squadron, the Coldstream, the Warwick, the Beefsteak, the Athenaeum and the Jockey Club.’
‘All gone?’ asked the Prime Minister.
‘All gone,’ McDonnell nodded.
‘Christ, that’s a lot of clubs. Can we cope with that lot, Rosebery?’
‘We can, Prime Minister. But somebody should have warned him about the Warwick. The food is disgusting.’
‘We’re running out of bait,’ said the Prime Minister, rubbing his eyes.
‘A position on government committees, Prime Minister?’ McDonnell seemed to have taken the measure of Franz Augustine Messel. ‘I think he’d go for that, Mr Messel.’
‘Any damned committee?’ asked the Prime Minister. ‘Forestry? Technical Education? Maritime Shipping?’
‘Something like that, Prime Minister.’
‘Use your judgement, McDonnell. Off you go.’
The Governor of the Bank of England joined Powerscourt by the window. The Americans had left. The policemen still guarded Number 25. Rosebery returned to the racing pages, marking out some more winners for the afternoon. Burke was now writing his own name over and over again in the last page of the account book. The Prime Minister closed his eyes once more. Powerscourt was thinking again about professional success and personal failure. He thought again about the Farrell family, thrown out on to the unforgiving streets of London. He thought that he might never see Lucy again. I’ve just got to find her, he said to himself, clenching his fists very tightly. I’m bloody well going to find her. Hold on, Lucy. I’m coming. Hold on.
That squeak again. McDonnell’s face never changes every time he comes back, Powerscourt noticed. Nobody looking at him could have guessed what sort of tidings he was bringing with him.
‘Three per cent over twenty years. No interest payable for the first two years,’ he reported.
‘What’s that, Mr Burke?’ asked the Prime Minister from his sofa.
‘One hundred and fifty thousand a year, sir,’ said Burke.
‘Done,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I’ll settle for that. What did you have to offer the fellow for the extra half per cent, McDonnell?’
‘I’m afraid I said it was likely that there would be a joint committee of both Houses looking into the whole question of foreign loans.’
‘Did you, by God,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘I thought,’ said McDonnell, looking his most innocent, ‘that Mr Messel might have useful things to say on the subject. And I only said it was likely, Prime Minister. Nothing definite. Nothing we couldn’t wriggle out of later on, if we had to.’
‘Powerscourt,’ the Prime Minister rose from his sofa at last, ‘we’re obliged to you for the loan of your house. I’d be even more grateful if you could manage some champagne. Governor, Mr Burke, could you attend to the financial paperwork and so on with Mr Messel? Soon to be Lord Messel, God help us all. Bring the fellow up here, McDonnell. We must drink a toast! To the salvation of the City!’
Welcome, Mr Messel, thought Powerscourt bitterly, welcome to the higher hypocrisies. Welcome to the insider’s world. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the Jubilee. Welcome to Britain as it is in the year of Our Lord 1897.
‘Could I just have a private word, Prime Minister?’ Powerscourt closed the door on the departing financiers. He told the Prime Minister what had happened. He showed him the letter from the kidnappers, already slightly crumpled from being taken out and read so many times. He wondered what the Prime Minister would do. He knew that men said he was one of the most ruthless political operators of the century, that the corridors and the committee rooms of the Palace of Westminster were littered with the corpses of his political opponents. His first response was not what Powerscourt expected at all.
‘My God, Powerscourt,’ the Prime Minister said, ‘the last hour and a half must have been torture for you, listening to these negotiations and McDonnell running up and down the stairs. It must have been hell. Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I didn’t think it was fair,’ said Powerscourt sadly. ‘You can see that if these negotiations had failed, then Harrison’s Bank would have fallen and Lady Lucy could have been back in this house this evening.’
He looked quickly round the room as if his wife might just float in through the window.
‘By God, you must find her, Powerscourt!’ The Prime Minister paused, stroking his beard. The Powerscourt cat had made an unexpected entrance. It curled up happily on the Prime Minister’s lap, purring loudly that it had found a new friend.
‘Let me tell you what I can do,’ he went on, scratching the cat’s chin as he spoke. ‘I can put the resources of the State at your disposal. If you want a regiment or two, you can have them. If you want a couple of destroyers moored off the coast of Brighton you can have them. If you want Brighton sealed off by the authorities, we can do it.’
He paused. A look of distaste passed across his features. This was going to be the bit Powerscourt dreaded. He knew what was coming.
‘Let me also tell you what I cannot do, my friend.’ The cat seemed to sense that its new friend was false. It leapt off the Prime Minister’s lap and settled at Powerscourt’s feet. ‘I have had the honour to serve Her Majesty as her Prime Minister for seven years now. In that time I have done whatever I thought necessary to preserve liberty and the constitution at home and the power and reputation of this country abroad. But one thing I cannot do, however much personal circumstances might work on my heart.’
He looked rather sadly at Powerscourt.
‘I cannot give in to blackmail, wherever it comes from. Government would become impossible. Thanks to your skill, this wicked plot has been uncovered and repulsed. I cannot have that victory thrown away. They say, Lord Powerscourt, that you are the most accomplished investigator in the land. I have no doubt that you will succeed in rescuing Lady Powerscourt from this contemptible gang of sordid blackmailers. Let us know if there is anything you need.’
‘All I need,’ said Powerscourt bitterly, ‘is the one thing I haven’t got. Time. I’ve got less than four days to find her now.’
‘With all my heart I wish you Godspeed,’ said the Prime Minister, rising to extricate himself from a difficult situation. ‘We shall all pray for your success.’
30
The train was full of families going down to Brighton for the day. Powerscourt noticed that his uniform acted as a magnet for the small children. They stared at him shyly, peering out from behind their hands, hiding round the backs of the adults. He was sharing his compartment with a family of six, accompanied by their parents.
‘Can I have a ride on the donkeys, Papa?’ asked a small girl of about seven.
‘Can we go on the pier, Papa?’ – this from a boy of about ten.
‘Can we go out in a boat?’ said a future sailor, then about eight years old.
‘Yes, yes and yes!’ laughed their father, gathering three of his brood onto his lap. ‘We’re going to have such a good day!’