Gresham had turned pale, very pale. He stared at the mirrors as if General Brooke was hiding on the other side of the glass.
‘I do. I do,’ he said very quietly. ‘He was my first commanding officer. For four years.’ He fell silent. Powerscourt stared at the silver crucifix. ‘I can’t meet him. I just can’t. I’ve got to get away.’
He looked round as if he thought of jumping straight out of the window. Tintoretto’s crucified Christ bled slowly above the bedspread. The mirrors sent Gresham the cryptic messages inside his head. The Madonna and Child looked gravely down, the Virgin aware across the centuries that the child she held in her arms was destined to die on the cross.
‘Lord Powerscourt, please help me. I’ve got to get away. I’ve got to get away from here.’
Powerscourt waited.
‘Will you take a message to England for me? I don’t think I shall ever go back.’
‘I should be happy to take a message for you. Of course, my dear Gresham. Why don’t you write it down? There seems to be lots of paper and things on the desk. I shall just go and sort out this lunch. This General Brooke will have to find some other guests to entertain him.’
Down in the entrance hall, a fresh party of Americans had arrived from Vienna. Pannone was efficient in his reception, bags despatched here, porters summoned, welcomes and good wishes exchanged with the transatlantic visitors. The Danieli cat, Powerscourt noticed, had fallen asleep, wrapped around a potted plant by the reception desk. Outside it was still raining, little streams of moisture running down the hotel’s windowpanes in crooked lines.
I wonder if they have thought of it yet, Powerscourt said to himself, Father Gilbey and the Monsignors and the Cardinals. Confession by letter. You don’t need to speak inside those dark boxes, just leave your message, posted through the grille. You could come back later for the answer.
The Venetians, Powerscourt remembered, looking at a portrait of a sinister-looking Doge on Mr Pannone’s wall, had a slightly different system. They believed in betrayal, not confession, through the post, betrayal through those little post boxes, bocca di leone, mouth of the lion. They were emptied every night. There were several of them in the Doges’ Palace. You denounced your enemies, or your friends, or your husband, or your next-door neighbour. All you had to do was write the letter and put it in the lion’s mouth. Or the lion’s den. The secret police did the rest.
Fifteen minutes, thought Powerscourt. Surely he would have written his message by now. Pannone gave him a reassuring tap on the shoulder as he tiptoed back up the stairs to his room.
It was empty. Gresham had gone.
‘Pannone! Pannone!’
The little man had never heard him shout before.
‘He’s gone! The bird has flown! Gresham has cleared off!’
‘Don’t worry, Lord Powerscourt. The waiters are watching. Very soon, we shall know where he has gone. But see, he has left you the message.’
The envelope was addressed to Lord Francis Powerscourt, The Danieli Hotel. The ink was still wet. Powerscourt took a paper knife and slit it open.
Dear Lord Powerscourt,
I would like you to take a message to my mother when you return to England. Please tell her I am well and that I shall write to her soon. I should have done it before. I think she gets worried when I am not there.
I am going to Florence. I cannot stay in Venice any more. I feel I am going out of my mind. Those mirrors don’t leave you alone, not for a moment. Then I am going to Perugia. I may go to Arezzo on the way, then on to Rome. In Rome, or on the way to Rome, I shall make my confession.
Then I shall break some more commandments. I am going to shoot myself. You’re not meant to commit suicide in the Catholic Church. But they won’t know about it until it is too late. I am going to join Louisa, my Louisa, on the other side. I hope they’ll let me in.
‘He is back in the Pellegrini now, the Lord Gresham. He is packing his bags. Maybe he go to the railway station. We have many waiters there.’ Pannone rushed through his latest report.
One last thing, Lord Powerscourt. I am sure you know this already. I killed Prince Eddy. You know why. I climbed over the roof and into his room. I think Lancaster heard me battering that photograph of Princess May with the heel of my boot. He may have seen me climbing out of the window, I don’t know.
I don’t regret it. But I know I must make my penance after I have confessed my sins.
I wish you had met Louisa. So beautiful. And I wish I had met your Caroline, lying at the bottom of the sea. My Louisa. So beautiful, my Louisa . . .
I have no more time. Goodbye Lord Powerscourt. Goodbye.
Gresham.
Powerscourt read it again, his hand shaking slightly. He folded Gresham’s last will and testament and put it in his pocket. This was what had brought him to Venice. For this he had planned and plotted for four days, waiters posted across the streets of the city, pictures rearranged on the walls, false messages concocted on an early morning gondola ride across the lagoon. He should have felt elated, pleased with himself. But there were no Hallelujahs sounding in his head, only a great sadness and the thought of another death, an Englishman found lying dead somewhere in Italy, another one dead before his time.
‘Lord Powerscourt? You find what you want, I think. But it makes you sad. You have found what you came for?’
‘I have found what I came for, Mr Pannone. I did not think I would like it very much when I found it. But I have found it. And I like it even less.
‘But,’ he went on, ‘without your assistance I would never have found it at all. And thank you for all the assistance you have so kindly provided since I came here. I shall always be in your debt.’
Pannone smiled. ‘We have a new saying now, in the Danieli, Lord Powerscourt. Any friend of Lord Rosebery, he is the friend of the Danieli, we used to say. Now we say, any friend of Lord Rosebery or Lord Powerscourt, he is the friend of the Danieli!’
Powerscourt bowed in gratitude. I’m going to have to embrace him again, he thought. Maybe it’s the two kisses on the cheeks this time.
‘But tell me one thing, Lord Powerscourt, if I may ask the question. This lunch with the General, the General who never was. An Italian General I could have found for you, I am sure, maybe a French one. I am not sure about a German one. But I could not have provided the English General. What does it mean, that name that came from England? Why was it so important?’
‘The reason that name was so important, my dear Pannone, was that it was the name of the General who used to be in command of Lord Gresham. I was sure he would not want to meet him. That was why I sent the message to London. To find out his name.’
‘He was the Commandante of the Lord Gresham? So with that name, you were sure he would not stay here for the lunch. Even at the Danieli!’
‘I was sure.’
They embraced. Powerscourt delivered his kisses to the two ample cheeks of the little hotel manager. It’s over, he thought. It’s nearly over.
‘You must come back and see us again, Lord Powerscourt. Perhaps with the young lady you are going to marry? The honeymoons at the Danieli, they are the best in the world!’
Santa Lucia station. Lady Lucy’s trains. Lady Lucy’s trains were waiting to bring him back to London.
Back to Lady Lucy.
Back home.
Part Four
24
Powerscourt was back in Suter’s office in Marlborough House, the same room where the four men had met before in the autumn of the previous year when Suter handed over his memorandum about the misfortunes of his master the Prince of Wales. Sir William Suter was looking down at a great pile of documents on his desk, Sir Bartle Shepstone, Comptroller and Treasurer of the Household, his white beard clean and bright in the morning light, was inspecting the polish on his boots.