That, thought Powerscourt, realising that he might have underestimated Suter, was rather good. Cheating history. Deceiving the future.
‘Lord Rosebery, could the Royal Family impose on your kindness and your generosity one more time? Your suggestion about Trevelyan is excellent. Could we ask you to make all speed to London and communicate with him in person? I dare not trust these tidings to a letter, nor yet to the telegraph machine. It is vital that he knows what we know as soon as possible. The Prince of Wales’ train is at Wolferton station now, waiting for whatever passengers it may have to bear. If you were to set out at once we could have Trevelyan on board by early afternoon.’
‘Hold on a moment.’ Rosebery spoke very softly. His head was in his hands and he sounded as though he was speaking from somewhere very far away. ‘Hold on a moment, gentlemen, I beg you.’
Suter, Shepstone, and Powerscourt stared intently at Rosebery, his delicate features contorted by some inner strain. He looked up.
‘Of course I should go and talk to Trevelyan in London or Osborne or wherever he is to be found at present. But consider, pray. We are about to embark on one of the great deceptions in the history of the monarchy in this nation. I do not doubt the sincerity of those who wished it thus, or the power of the reasons for that choice. But we must have a plan. If we are to cheat history, as you, Sir William, implied earlier, we must make sure that the cards, as it were, are properly sharpened, the form book doctored, the dice weighted in our favour.
‘We have one enormous advantage. Nobody would ever suspect that such a deception was being practised. History is always written by the conquerors. They get their version in first. The vanquished may rot in some prison cell or die upon the battlefield. They never tell their story, and if they do, it is usually too late.
‘But, gentlemen, we must prepare our ground. First we must fix the date of death. Then I suggest we work backwards from that date to this Sunday morning, deciding in advance what information we give out. It is as if we were writing a play backwards. We know the last act, the death of the Prince, just as Shakespeare must have known that Hamlet had to end with the death of his Prince. Hamlet was Danish too – appropriate for this household. But we have to write Acts One to Five of this drama, if the thing is to work.’
‘Are you suggesting, Rosebery,’ Suter sounded like a man going into uncharted waters, ‘that we should write everything down as if it were a play?’
‘I am not sure yet. I think we need to think about it calmly. Can anyone think of the single most important fact that we do not possess? But a fact vital to our success?’
‘Oddly enough, I can. I thought about it this morning, Rose-bery.’ Powerscourt was staring at the snow-covered lake outside.
‘And what do you think it is, Francis?’
‘Quite simply, it is this.’ Powerscourt glanced around the room, Suter looking disturbed by the fire, Sir Bartle looking vacant as if hoping the murder and the cover-up would melt away, Rosebery pacing up and down the room like a cat. ‘We know it is possible that Prince Eddy could die from influenza. People are dying from it all the time. But we can’t just tell the world he’s died from it, just like that. There has to be a history, announcements of the illness in the papers and so on. But we don’t know how long it might take. It could take two days. It could take ten, or twenty. Until we know how long that is, we cannot fix the date for the end of Rosebery’s Act Five. And, don’t you see, until we know the date of the end of Act Five, we don’t know what to put in the four acts in between. Until we know that, we are, quite simply, in the dark.’
‘Are there any doctors in this house?’ Rosebery was obviously anxious to push things forward. ‘Doctors who know, I mean?’
‘Dr Broadbent is still here. Dr Manby cannot be very far away. I could summon him now.’ Suter looked reassured at the prospect of action in the world of Private Secretaries rather than playwrights.
‘I suggest you summon them both at once. Perhaps we could reassemble here in one hour’s time.’
Rosebery left the room, beckoning Powerscourt to accompany him. They went out of the front of the house in the unforgiving cold, snow dribbling occasionally on to their thick coats. Soldiers were everywhere, patrolling discreetly out of sight, making circuits of the lakes and shrubberies. Where did Shepstone’s Major Dawnay get them all from, Powerscourt wondered? He started with fourteen. Now he must have at least fifty. If it went on like this, Dawnay would have a whole regiment by the end of the week.
The two doctors were a study in contrasts. Manby, tall, slim, looked to be in his early thirties. He had the air of the countryman about him, in his healthy cheeks and his casual tweeds. Broadbent was a creature of the town or the city, portly, his hair receding, his suit the most respectable black, his bag large and formidable.
A circular table and six dining-room chairs had been appropriated from another room and sat by the corner, waiting for meetings.
‘Dr Manby, Dr Broadbent.’ Suter was at his most unctuous. ‘Thank you for interrupting your business to give us of your wisdom. You both know the circumstances in which we are placed, and the solution that has been advocated to our difficulties. We just need a little practical advice. Rosebery?’
Courtier to the last, thought Powerscourt. Pass the parcel, pass the body, pass the corpse. Let Rosebery ask what might be called the fatal question, and no blame could attach to Suter in the future.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Rosebery in his best House of Lords voice. ‘Our question is a simple one. How long does it take for somebody to die of influenza? We are talking of a young male, some twenty-eight years old, to all intents and purposes in good health.’
‘That is not as easy a question as it sounds.’ Broadbent looked down at his bag, as if medical secrets or influenza victims were contained inside. ‘It depends on so many other factors.’
We could be here all day at this rate, thought Powerscourt, as the man in the black suit tried to wriggle out of committing himself.
‘One sees so many different varieties of symptoms, you understand. Age is only one factor, maybe not even the most important one. There have been cases where the illness has dragged on for three or four weeks and the patient has recovered, others where the disease has worked itself through much more rapidly.’
Powerscourt glanced at Rosebery to see his reaction to the delays. Would the former Foreign Secretary lose his temper?
A flicker of irritation shot across Rosebery’s face. ‘I think we are talking at cross purposes here. Both you gentlemen know what we are talking about. There are reasons I cannot divulge why the manner of Eddy’s death has to be concealed. All I can say is that those reasons are to do with state security.’
Rosebery had just thought of state security. He paused to let its full impact sink in. It was, Powerscourt reflected, the perfect justification for the cover-up. It covered everything, like the snow outside.
‘We intend to tell the world,’ Rosebery continued, ‘that Prince Eddy died from influenza, not from murder. We need to announce his illness. We need to invent medical bulletins for every day before his second death, if you follow me. We would like that process to be short, so that the normal routines of mourning can be properly observed. At present the situation is intolerable for members of the family. But we do not want it be so short that it looks implausible or improbable. Dr Manby, you are the local man here. What do you feel would be a reasonable period of time? For the thing to be plausible, I mean.’
‘Of course, I share my colleague’s reservations,’ Manby began.