How many people were coming down the stairs? One? Two? Three? Powerscourt couldn’t tell. Then phantom shapes could be discerned very dimly through the smoke. Powerscourt heard a whistle blowing very loudly on the upper floor. The fireman behind him suddenly advanced and turned on his hosepipe. The force of the water was a complete shock to the phantoms. They fell backwards, then rolled forward down the stairs. The Praetorian Guard moved in. Powerscourt saw that two figures had been apprehended and were now being bundled downstairs at great speed. There were only two of them. They were both men. The bastards, he said to himself, the bastards. Had they left Lady Lucy alone in that cauldron upstairs? Had they killed her before they made their stumble towards freedom down the stairs?
Panting, choking, spluttering, Powerscourt and Fitzgerald made their way up the stairs to Room 607. Behind them they heard one long continuous blast on the police whistle. It seemed to sound for nearly a minute. That’s the ceasefire, Powerscourt remembered, or the end of smoke signal. As they reached the sixth-floor landing he could hardly move. The smoke seemed to have gone right down into his lungs. Quite soon, very soon, he thought to himself, I’m going to pass out. Johnny was in front of him now. Together they staggered into Room 607. The smoke was very thick. ‘Lucy!’ Powerscourt shouted. ‘Lucy!’ There was no answer. They crawled into the next room through the connecting door. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ The only noise they could hear came from the street outside. Lady Lucy was not there.
A party of four firemen appeared in the doorway. ‘Search the rooms,’ Powerscourt said, and then he allowed one of the firemen, a giant of a man, to carry him downstairs. He met Matthews of the local fire brigade on the second floor. Johnny Fitzgerald was doubled up beside him. ‘Please, search that room. Please,’ said Powerscourt with the very last of his breath. ‘They might have put her in a cupboard or under the bed or something.’ Four more firemen raced upstairs. Powerscourt was retching now. It was very hard to breathe.
‘You must go outside at once,’ said the fireman. ‘Otherwise you may do yourself permanent damage. I shall bring news to the main entrance if you care to wait there.’
Supporting each other like a couple of drunks, Powerscourt and Fitzgerald staggered down the stairs. Perhaps this was their last battle, Powerscourt thought. Of all the battles they had ever fought this was the one he least liked to lose. As they left the west wing, the smoke abating now, great black marks on the walls, the carpets turned dark by the smoke, the hotel began to return to normal. The Palm Court where the orchestra had played Beethoven’s hymn to love six hours before was undamaged. The dining room waited in the moonlight for its breakfast customers. Outside the front door, Powerscourt sat down on the pavement. He wanted to cry. He had failed Lucy. How high her hopes must have risen when she heard the music. Now he had let her down.
Matthews came back, looking sombre. ‘We have searched everywhere in those rooms. So far we have found nothing. We shall go on searching. I am sending my men up in relays.’
Johnny Fitzgerald pulled his friend to his feet and led him to the other side of the street. There were policemen everywhere. The hotel residents seemed to have been brought back to the front of the George the Fourth to await return to their quarters. They were chattering noisily to one another, sharing in their reminiscences of escape from the fire. Powerscourt looked out to sea. The West Pier, the sea front, the beached hotels, the fishing boats lined up on the beach, were all the same as they had been an hour or so ago. But Powerscourt’s world had changed for ever.
He turned to look back at the hotel. Only the west wing bore the marks of the smoke. He heard a whistle blowing somewhere far away. There was a lot of shouting from some distant place. The Chief Constable was about a hundred yards away, staring up at the roof. He ran back towards the main entrance. The whistle was still blowing, a series of short sharp bursts.
Just in front of the great doors of the King George the Fourth the Chief Constable stopped. He drew himself up to his full height. ‘Silence!’ he bellowed. ‘Silence in the name of the law!’ The crowd stopped talking. The firemen went on gesticulating to each other in sign language. Behind him Powerscourt could just hear the sea, rolling softly up the shore. The whistles continued, louder now. The shouting went on. Powerscourt couldn’t hear what they were saying at first. He thought his hearing must have been damaged in the inferno. Then it came to him.
‘Powerscourt! Powerscourt!’ He couldn’t see where the shout came from. Then Johnny Fitzgerald pointed up at the roof. At the opposite end to the west wing was a group of five people. One of them had a whistle. The whistling stopped. There was a much smaller figure in the middle of the group. Powerscourt thought he recognized Chief Inspector Tait as the man doing the shouting. The smaller figure was partly hidden by the policemen.
‘Powerscourt! Powerscourt!’ The Tait-like figure was pointing now, pointing at the smaller figure who was lifted forward to the front of the group.
There was another shout, a feeble shout, a thin shout, a shout with a weakened voice that only just carried down to the sea front.
‘Francis! Francis!’ The little figure waved at him. It waved as long as it could. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ Tears of joy were pouring down Powerscourt’s cheeks. ‘Hang on, Lucy,’ he shouted up at the roof, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’
Lord Francis Powerscourt staggered across the road, waving as he went, on a last mission to the upper floors.
Johnny Fitzgerald went in search of the Chief Constable, still staring defiantly at the crowd by the front door.
‘Congratulations, sir,’ said Johnny, ushering the Chief Constable into the main entrance. ‘Would you still be in possession of your emergency powers, sir? The ones that came from the Prime Minister?’
‘Don’t need them now,’ said the Chief Constable.
‘But they operated for a period of forty-eight hours, if I remember what you said earlier,’ Fitzgerald went on.
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked the Chief Constable.
‘Well,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘it would seem to me that you have the power to override the licensing regulations. Terribly restrictive they are at the best of times, if you don’t mind my saying so. You could request our hotel manager friend Mr Hudson to open the bar. At once. Then Lord Powerscourt and Lady Lucy could have a drink when they come down from the roof, don’t you see?’
The Chief Constable laughed. He clapped Johnny Fitzgerald on the shoulder. ‘Splendid idea,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘By virtue of the emergency powers vested in me, I shall have the bar opened at once.’ He strode off towards the hotel offices.
‘Where is that man Hudson,’ he shouted, ‘when you need him most?’
Two grinning young policemen guided Powerscourt up the six floors to the roof. They brought him out just behind Chief Inspector Tait and his party. Lady Lucy was looking frail, her eyes dark, her face smeared with marks from the smoke. Powerscourt embraced her briefly.
‘Chief Inspector Tait,’ he said, ‘may I thank you and your colleagues here from the bottom of my heart for saving Lucy’s life. I shall always be in your debt. How did you manage it?’
There was an embarrassed shuffling about from the policemen.
‘Well, sir,’ said Tait, ‘I thought we should have a position on the roof above Room 607. If the villains knew there was a way up to the roof, they might try to escape through it. They could have checked it out when they arrived, just in case.’
Tait paused and waved briefly to one of his colleagues in the street below.