Tait slumped into a chair and wiped his brow with a perfectly ironed handkerchief. His wife likes to see him well turned out, Powerscourt thought.
‘It began as a perfectly routine inquiry, my lord, the normal sort of thing my officers have been doing for the last two days. At first they only got the assistant manager and he looked at them rather suspiciously, demanded to see their papers and that sort of thing. It’s amazing the difference not having a uniform makes to the way people see you. I’m sure we’ll find that very useful later on. Anyway, the assistant manager went off to speak to the kitchens. That took about ten minutes. Then he came back and said he just needed to check with the manager.’
‘Did your men know by now that they had found what they were looking for?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘I think they did,’ said Tait, proud of the efficiency of his officers, ‘there was something in the assistant manager’s face, as if he felt guilty. This is what happened. One man booked two adjacent suites on the sixth floor of what you might call the west wing of the King George the Fourth Hotel two nights ago. There’s an interconnecting door between the two suites. The other two, a man and a woman, came later. The woman looked pale and tired, as if she’d had a fainting fit or something like that. They all disappeared into Rooms 607 and 608. They haven’t been seen since. All their meals have been sent up. They haven’t even let the chambermaid in to clean up.’
‘Didn’t anybody think that was suspicious?’ asked Powerscourt, his mind far away now with Lucy in her prison cell on the sixth floor of the King George the Fourth. Did she have any clean clothes? He knew she hated not having fresh things to wear every day.
‘They might have done, my lord,’ said Tait, aware suddenly of just how fragile Powerscourt was at that moment, ‘but quite a lot of money kept changing hands.’
There was a loud knock at the door. Joseph Hardy, fire expert and fire investigator had returned.
‘Mr Hardy, allow me to introduce Chief Inspector Tait of the local constabulary. Mr Hardy is an expert in fires of every sort. Let me tell you, Mr Hardy, that the Chief Inspector and his men have worked a miracle. Lady Lucy and the two villains are on the sixth floor of the King George the Fourth near the West Pier.’
‘Splendid, splendid!’ said Hardy cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. ‘I did a few sketches when I was down on the front, my Lord. Including the King George the Fourth.’ He produced a piece of paper from his satchel.
The hotel had a massive frontage, almost all of it looking out to sea. But on the west side, nearer to Hove, a turretlike structure jutted out, with one window looking straight out to sea, the window on its left looking west towards the pier, and a final window looking on to the street below and the other street running back towards the town.
‘It’s a perfect lookout post,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You could see people, or policemen, coming at you from three directions.’
Chief Inspector Tait was to tell his wife later that he knew even then how Powerscourt proposed to free the hostages. He didn’t know if it would work.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Powerscourt, ‘let me tell you how I think the rescue is to be effected. Any direct assault, either from the corridor outside or through the windows, might succeed. But the villains would have time to shoot Lady Lucy before they were overpowered. We could put something in their food, a powerful sedative of some kind, and then rush the rooms. But somebody might not eat the food. Lady Lucy might take two helpings and not wake up at all. If we had time, we could simply wait. But we don’t have time. In fact,’ he looked quickly at his watch, ‘we have fifty-seven hours and fifty minutes to effect a rescue.’
Joseph Hardy was adding to his drawing of the King George the Fourth, the west wing in particular. Powerscourt could see sheets of red and great blobs of grey pencil moving up the side of the building. Hardy was smiling to himself.
‘So, tonight or tomorrow night,’ said Powerscourt, ‘we have a fire. It won’t really be a fire, of course, mostly smoke. The fire will be concentrated up the stairs and in the areas adjacent to the sixth-floor rooms. We will be able to make the fire fiercer, if necessary, to smoke them out. We can do that, Mr Hardy?’
‘Yes, my lord, we can,’ said Hardy cheerfully. ‘That would be great sport.’
‘At some point,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘they will have to come out. We shall have to make sure that there are no possible exits to the roof. We may need men with blankets, or whatever you fire people use, waiting down below in case they jump. Once they’re out of their rooms and coming down the stairs, we seize them all. Especially Lady Lucy.’
Chief Inspector Tait looked sombre. Powerscourt suddenly suspected that he and his men might feel they were missing the fun. All the glory would go to the firemen.
‘The role of the police, of course,’ he went on, ‘is absolutely vital. Your men, Chief Inspector, and there may have to be quite a lot of them, will have to be ready to break into the rooms if necessary. The hotel may have to be cordoned off. In the meantime I presume that you have posted a discreet watch all around the hotel in case our friends decide to cut their losses?’
Chief Inspector Tait nodded. He was fascinated by Hardy’s drawings. The little blobs of grey pencil had now reached the sky. The top of the hotel was virtually obliterated.
‘There are two things I must do,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I must send a telegram to the Prime Minister’s office in London. I propose that we reassemble here at seven o’clock this evening. Mr Hardy, could you bring your colleague or colleagues from the local fire brigade? And could you in the meantime work out in more detail how our fire could work to the best effect? Chief Inspector, could you bring your Chief Constable with you to the meeting? And could you also ensure that the hotel manager attends?’
Both men nodded their agreement.
‘And the second thing you have to do?’ This time Tait had no idea what was coming.
‘I presume, Chief Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that you can smuggle me into that hotel by the back door or through the kitchens? And I would be most grateful if you could find me the conductor of the orchestra who plays there in the evening. They do have a bloody orchestra, I presume?’
‘They claim,’ said Tait loyally, ‘that it is the best one of its kind in Sussex.’ He wondered if Powerscourt had gone out of his mind. Was he going to have specially selected music wafting up the stairs to Room 607, Music for the Royal Fireworks or something similar? ‘Could I ask why you want to see the orchestral gentleman, Lord Powerscourt?’
Powerscourt smiled. Tait noticed that his eyes stayed cold.
‘Of course you may, Chief Inspector. And no, I’m not going mad. I’m going to send a message. A message to Lady Lucy.’
Hold on, Lucy, he said to himself as Tait led him off towards the rear entrance to the King George the Fourth Hotel. Hold on. I’m coming.
He stopped at the telegraph on his way and sent a one-word message to London. ‘Schomberg.’
32
The orchestral gentleman was a tall man in his late thirties, painfully thin. Like so many in his profession he felt that his abilities had not been properly rewarded. In his youth there had been so much talent. People had said that he would end up as a great conductor with a great orchestra in one of the great capitals of Europe. Even Paris or Vienna had not seemed beyond the realms of the possible. But his dreams had faded now. Here he was, on duty every evening with another collection of embittered violinists and mutinous sections of horn and brass, churning out waltzes and melodies to accompany the soup and the fish courses, the steaks and the creme brulees of the Brighton holidaymakers. Sometimes, very late at night in the little garret the hotel gave him at the back of the building, overlooking the kitchen rubbish dump, he would dream again that he might escape from the King George the Fourth and find his proper station.