Why do I always postpone the difficult interviews? Why can’t I go and do them at the beginning? Powerscourt was berating himself. It’s cowardice, pure and simple. Who knows, if I had conducted this interview earlier, the whole case might be over by now. A sensible investigator like Mr Sherlock Holmes would not have been smoking opium and playing the violin in 221B Baker Street. He would have summoned a brougham and driven straight to Wisteria Lodge and taken the interview in hand. Come to think of it, Powerscourt’s internal monologue went on, 221B Baker Street is only a couple of hundred yards away. He was walking across St John’s Wood to the house of Mrs Cosmo Colville, wife of the man incarcerated in Pentonville prison who had scarcely, as far as anybody knew, spoken a single word since he was found opposite the dead body of his brother, with what seemed to be his brother’s gun in his hand. Her reply to his note had been encouraging: ‘Of course you must come and see me. I would be delighted to welcome you to my house. Might I suggest three o’clock on Wednesday?’
So far it had not been a good day for Lord Francis Powerscourt. A note had come for him first thing that morning from Charles Augustus Pugh.
‘Trumper, Barrington White,’ it said. ‘Horse won’t run. No legs. Barrington White goes into witness box. Denies everything. We have no proof of anything at all. Waste of time. Only causes drop in our share price, already at dangerously low levels. Regards. Pugh.’
A military butler showed him into a well-proportioned drawing room with great sofas and prints and pictures covering the walls. Isabella Colville was sitting in an armchair to the left of the fire. She motioned Powerscourt to its twin on the other side. She was a tall, slim woman, with pale hair that was almost blonde and faint lines that might have been caused by worry and strain on her forehead, wearing a long dark grey skirt with a blue blouse that showed off the colour of her hair.
‘Lord Powerscourt, let me say first of all how grateful we are for what you are doing. It is much appreciated, you know.’
Powerscourt waved his hands slightly and shook his head, ‘I thank you for your kind words, Mrs Colville. I wish I could say that I had done enough so far to deserve them. I fear I have not. Not yet at any rate.’
‘But there’s always time, isn’t there. Somebody who knew about one of your earlier cases, Lord Powerscourt, told me the other day that sometimes the answer comes to you in a flash. There’s a sheet of lightning or something like that in your brain and all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.’
‘You’re too kind,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Let’s all pray for lightning.’ They laughed.
‘Now then,’ said Isabella Colville, ‘I’ve been thinking about this conversation, Lord Powerscourt. You must feel free to ask me absolutely anything you want. I don’t mind if it seems rude or in bad taste. You see, that’s my husband and the father of my children in that horrible prison. I’ll do anything I can to help get him out. I gather you’ve seen my sister-in-law over at Pangbourne? Could I ask you what time of day it was?’
‘I arrived about half past ten,’ said Powerscourt, reluctant to criticize her sister-in-law.
‘I wish you had talked to me beforehand. The hour between nine and ten is the only safe one in the day. I’ve told the lawyers that. Otherwise the Chablis flows on and on like the Mississippi river. I’m not judging her, mind you. My husband may not be in ideal circumstances but at least he’s still alive.’
‘When did you last see him, your husband I mean?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Not a word, not one.’
‘So what do you talk about? Do you tell him the latest news?’
‘I do.’ Isabella Colville smiled for a moment. ‘I decided early on that it’s like talking to some old person who’s near death’s door and has lost the power of speech. But they can still make sense of most of what you tell them. I do find I prattle on a bit but it’s the best I can do.’
‘So what kind of things do you talk to him about?’
‘Well, I tell him what news I have of the children – they’ve left home now but they’re always keen for the latest about their father. I tell him about what news I have of the other Colvilles. I tell him about the house – yesterday I had to inform him that the footman had dropped a valuable vase on the kitchen floor where it smashed to pieces. Talking of other Colvilles, you should go and see a cousin of ours who worked for the firm for a long time. He grew up with Randolph and Cosmo. He and his wife live in Ealing now.’
Powerscourt could see her now in that Spartan cell in Pentonville, her face bright as if she were talking to a small child, reeling off the latest family and domestic gossip, hoping for a word or a reaction that never came. And hovering behind the silence, the secret on the far side of the prison visiting room, the prison chaplain, the prison governor, the prison hangman, the noose and the drop.
‘Tell me, Mrs Colville, do you get any reaction at all? A smile? A kiss when you arrive? An embrace when you leave?’
Isabella Colville shook her head rather sadly. ‘No, there’s none of that. Hold on a minute though, that’s not quite true. His eyes are eloquent sometimes, as if he’s trying to tell me something. That he cares, perhaps. I don’t know.’
Powerscourt had always known how he wanted to end their interview, and in some ways he wished he could ask those questions now. But he stuck to his original plan.
‘Tell me about your husband, Mrs Colville,’ he was speaking very quietly, ‘what sort of a man is he?’
She paused for a moment. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it,’ she said, ‘how difficult it is to answer that question about somebody you know so well. Let me begin with his work, that’s probably the easiest thing.’
She paused again and looked into the fire. ‘Conscientious, that’s how I would describe his attitude to his work. Conservative, maybe even a little old-fashioned. He inherited that whole Bordeaux network from his father and his uncle, you see, the growers, the negociants, the shippers, the owners. He took great care to maintain good relations with all of them. Indeed, as far as I know, and I never followed the wine business very carefully, most of the people he deals with are the same people or the sons of the same people his father dealt with. As far as I know, some of these other wine merchants are forever looking out for new suppliers, changing their shippers, taking a chance on some new grower with revolutionary new ways of doing things, always in a ferment of excitement. That wasn’t Cosmo’s way. He didn’t like ferment very much. He didn’t like change. He didn’t like excitement.’