‘It is of lawyers that I wish to speak to you, Mr Puncknowle, to ask your advice, really.’ Powerscourt was at his most emollient.
The white billiard ball bowed slowly to Powerscourt. ‘Please continue, Lord Powerscourt. Of course I shall be happy to help.’
‘You know only too well, Mr Puncknowle,’ Powerscourt purred, ‘that you are not alone in your forthcoming trials in the Royal Courts of Justice. There are a number of other characters appearing who do not appear to have any known connection with your companies or indeed with yourself.’ God forgive me, thought Powerscourt. If I were a Catholic I would have to go straight to confession after leaving this house. It was an offence for which his Irish grandmother, now long in her grave, would have told him to go and wash his mouth out with soap at once. But he was relieved to see that there was no eruption from the billiard balls. They seemed to be nodding in agreement. He plunged further in.
‘And people say, Mr Puncknowle, though I have no means of knowing whether this is true or not, that one or two of these gentlemen – and I could be completely wrong here – are none too scrupulous in dealing with their opponents.’ Privately Powerscourt was certain that these men were intimately linked with the Puncknowle activities. He referred to them in his mind as the enablers, the enforcers and the extractors.
‘At present,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘I have been engaged by the benchers of Queen’s Inn to investigate two murders. The first, fairly recently, was a man called Dauntsey, poisoned at a feast. The other, only a few days ago, a man called Woodford Stewart, shot twice in the chest.’
Jeremiah Puncknowle made suitably sympathetic mutterings. Powerscourt could not decide whether his host was a consummate actor or not. For he seemed to be hearing this news for the first time. Powerscourt felt it hard to believe that a man who took such pride in Sir Isaac Redhead and Charles Augustus Pugh would not know of the destruction of their opponents in court.
‘The point is this, sir. These two lawyers were the ones chosen by the Treasury solicitor to prosecute you and your companions. Now they are both dead. The reason for my visit is to ask you to make inquiries, discreet inquiries as only you would know how, as to whether any of your associates, in what we might call an excess of zeal for their own defence, arranged or organized for these two barristers to be put out of the way.’
Powerscourt held his breath. But there was no explosion of fury. Instead, to his astonishment, Jeremiah Puncknowle leant forward and seized his hand.
‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, of course I will make those inquiries for you. I shall start this very day. You can rest assured of my full support, my full support.’ With that he released his hand and sank back in his chair. ‘What wicked times we live in, Lord Powerscourt. I have often said that morality simply disappeared from public life with the death of our late Queen. How can you have proper standards from a sovereign with mistresses, an arbiter of behaviour in public life who consorts with grocers and money brokers?’
Powerscourt desisted from pointing that kings without mistresses were virtually unheard of. He thought he should retreat while the ground under his feet was still firm.
‘Mr Puncknowle, I am so grateful for your assistance. And I look forward to hearing from you in this sad and unhappy affair. Let me say how much I have enjoyed meeting you, and what a wonderful mansion you have built here. It is a masterpiece, sir, a masterpiece.’
Powerscourt was to tell Lady Lucy afterwards that he thought his host literally swelled with pride at this point. The sepulchral butler glided silently across the carpet to escort Powerscourt to the front door. As his cab rolled back down the hill towards the railway station he reflected that there was always a problem in Paradise. There was a serpent. In this case a rather chubby serpent in the person of Jeremiah Puncknowle. Powerscourt shivered slightly as they clattered their way down the hill. For he felt sure that if Puncknowle wanted people out of the way, be they barrister or investigator, he would not hesitate. The serpent would strike.
‘Two day returns to Oxford on the special offer, please.’ ‘Oxford, special offer, day return for two, please.’ ‘Special offer to Oxford, two for today, please.’ ‘Two day returns, special offer, Oxford, today please.’ Edward had been repeating these formulas and variants on them to himself for nearly two days now. He knew he would have to make his request in a busy ticket office. He imagined a large and tyrannical ticket man, far worse than Barton Somerville and wearing an intimidating uniform, mocking his efforts and laughing at his silence. If he couldn’t get the words out, then the people in the queue behind him would grow angry and start to shout at him. Edward had already written the words out in large letters on a piece of paper which he could send over the counter if speech failed him. It was all too irritating.
The day before, Friday, he had achieved, if not a breakthrough, then something very close to it, in his inspection of the accounts relating to Jeremiah Puncknowle’s companies. He saw that the figure missing from the amount raised in the flotation of the second company was virtually identical, except for a few pence, to the total amount of the dividend paid out to shareholders of the first company. By declaring just the dividend per share, they avoided giving the total amount of dividend paid out to all the shareholders. That way, they disguised the first of the Puncknowle frauds. But once you knew the dividend per share, all you had to do was to multiply that by the total number of shares issued in the first place. Edward expected to find the pattern repeated all the way down the various flotations. But in the gaps in his calculations, when his brain was reeling with the figures and he needed a break, he would walk round and round New Court repeating his mantra about the train tickets to Oxford.
Now it was Saturday morning and Edward was standing close to the epicentre of his fears, the ticket office at Paddington station. He had conducted a brief reconnaissance and discovered that there were four ticket clerks on duty that day. One kindly old man who looked as though he should have retired years ago. One sharp-faced young man who reminded Edward of a bookie’s runner. One middle-aged man with very thick glasses. And finally another middle-aged man who smiled kindly at his clients. Edward was torn between the old gentleman and the smiling one. He looked around for Sarah and checked his watch. The first train on the special offer left at twenty past nine. It was now ten past and they had no tickets. Edward wondered if he should try to buy them without Sarah but knew that if all else failed and she was there she could take over. Then she was beside him, wearing a dark blue skirt and a lemon blouse. She had a raffish little hat on which she had borrowed from a friend down the street. ‘Makes you look a bit special, this hat,’ her friend had said, ‘that should cheer Edward up.’ She had a basket on her arm with lunch hidden beneath a pale green cloth. One look at Edward’s face told Sarah that there was anxiety about something related to speech, probably the tickets. There was no queue in front of the old gentleman. Edward advanced slowly. He opened his mouth. The words wouldn’t come out.
‘Take your time, sonny,’ the old man said, ‘there’s no rush.’
Edward tried again. Still no words came out. He began to wonder about the piece of paper in his pocket. The old man smiled. Then Edward felt a soft touch on his hand. It was, he thought, one of the nicest touches his hand had ever had. He opened his mouth once more.
‘Two day returns to Oxford on the special offer,’ he said, all in one go.
‘Enjoy your trip,’ said the old gentleman, handing Edward his tickets and his change. He had a grandson the same age. He hoped his grandson would find a girl as pretty as Sarah. ‘Platform Four,’ he called after them, ‘first on the left!’