Death and the Jubilee lfp-2 Page 10

  The pony trotted happily down to the water’s edge to munch the grass. Samuel Parker was fiddling with his bunch of keys.

  ‘Did Mr Harrison rest under these columns in the summer? It must be nice and cool then.’ Powerscourt could see the little temple, with its columns, dome and assorted statuary, in some Roman landscape of the Campagna, providing welcome relief from the sweltering sun. In England, he reflected prosaically, you could always shelter from the showers.

  ‘He used to, my lord,’ said Samuel Parker. ‘Then I think he got worried about being overlooked, so he used to go inside. This was one of his favourite places to do his writing.’

  Parker had opened the great doors and was wrestling with the key to an iron grille that protected the sculpture inside. Facing the lake was a marble statue of Hercules, flanked by Diana, goddess of hunting, Ceres, goddess of nature and harvest, and – more ominously – Isis, mistress of the dark mysteries of the underworld. Powerscourt inspected them carefully, trying and failing to remember all seven labours of Hercules.

  ‘He’d leave the doors open, my lord,’ Samuel Parker was placing himself exactly where he remembered the table being, ‘and then he could look out at the lake when he wanted. Sometimes I’d wait for an hour or more just outside while he was writing away in here.’

  ‘Did Hercules mean anything special to him?’ asked Powerscourt, rubbing his hand over the surface of the statue to see if it might be hollow, if there might be some pressure from the hand which might open up a hidden chamber inside the marble.

  ‘Hercules was very stupid, my lord,’ said Samuel Parker, gazing out at the lake like his master.

  ‘Was he? Why do you say that?’ replied a puzzled Powerscourt.

  ‘He could never do anything right. None of them beginning with H, Hannibal, Helen, Hercules, ever had any brains at all.’

  Powerscourt could see that Helen might have been all beauty and no brains, but Hannibal? Surely the wily Carthaginian had destroyed a couple of Roman armies?

  ‘Are you sure?’ Powerscourt was inspecting Diana’s flanks now, running his hand around the marble curves of her hips.

  ‘Sorry, my lord. They were horses, Hercules and the others. I wasn’t talking about the statues.’

  Powerscourt laughed. ‘Tell me, Mr Parker, if your master wanted to hide some of his documents, do you think he could have left them in here?’

  Samuel Parker scratched his head. He took some time to answer.

  ‘I suppose he could, my lord. But I have no idea at all where he might have hidden them. This would be a queer place to go hiding bits of paper.’

  ‘That’s just what might have appealed to him, the fact that nobody would expect it. But I have no more idea than you have of where it might be.’ Powerscourt was feeling his way round Ceres’ feet, in case some hidden spring might answer to his touch. The marble was cold to his fingers. It was smooth. But it had no message for him.

  Lady Lucy sat very quietly in her chair. Far off in the gardens outside she could hear the sounds of grass being cut, the cheerful cries of the gardeners, the tolling of a distant bell.

  She wondered if Miss Harrison, like her brother, talked in her sleep. Some of the years seemed to have fallen from her face, smoother now than when she was awake. Sometimes the old lady turned, as if she was dreaming. Her mouth fell open. Then she spoke.

  ‘Secret societies,’ she said in a firm voice. She stopped. ‘In Germany. Maybe here. Conspiracy at the bank.’

  Lady Lucy wondered if she was repeating what her brother used to say as he sat in his chair by the fireside in the evenings when he was still alive.

  Suddenly old Miss Harrison sat upright in her chair. She was still fast asleep.

  ‘That poor boy,’ she said. ‘Poor Karl. What a terrible scar.’

  She dropped back in her chair. Lady Lucy hardly dared to move. She looked around the room, its tables cluttered with paintings and photographs of past Harrisons. She wondered if there was a likeness of Karl, hiding his shame somewhere in a dark corner. She couldn’t find one.

  Then Miss Harrison woke up.

  ‘Always troubles in a bank, that’s what Father used to say, always troubles.’ She looked defiantly at Lady Lucy.

  ‘Of course, Miss Harrison, how right you are. There are always troubles in a bank.’

  ‘There’s just one last temple, my lord,’ said Samuel Parker, ‘but Old Mr Harrison didn’t go there. The path was very steep and he was worried he might fall.’

  ‘Then I think we’ll give it a miss today.’ Powerscourt’s mind was racing round the ancient myths and pagan gods that populated the lake, Aeneas travelling to the underworld to meet his dead father, Hercules cleaning the Augean stables, Isis presiding over her shadowy kingdom in the realms below.

  To their right now was another lake, slightly lower than the one they had crossed, with a waterfall running into it.

  ‘No ancient temples down there,’ said Powerscourt, pointing down to the lower stretch of water.

  ‘No, there aren’t, my lord. I think we’ve got quite enough up here.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Parker,’ said Powerscourt as they approached the Parker cottage once again, ‘where do you keep your keys? The ones you use to open all the temples.’

  ‘Why, my lord, they live on a big hook on the back of the front door. That’s where all the keys are, with a special ring for each one. You’d be surprised how many different bunches of keys you need to get around this place.’

  ‘And how easy would it be . . .’ Powerscourt turned for a last look at the circuit of the lake, two Pantheons, reflection and reality, sitting peacefully on their semicircle of grass. ‘How easy would it be for somebody to come and borrow them without your knowing?’

  Samuel Parker stopped in his tracks. The pony made restive movements, anxious to return to her stall.

  ‘I’ve never thought about that.’ He paused to give the pony a reassuring stroke. ‘I suppose it would be easy, if the person knew I would be out most of the day. And Mabel’s going deaf, so she is, though she’d never admit it. Been going deaf for most of the past two years she has. Doctor says there’s nothing he can do.’

  Powerscourt thanked Parker for their morning expedition. ‘It has been most useful, Mr Parker. I have to return again in a couple of days or so. Maybe I could borrow your keys and go for another inspection of the lake.’

  He’s looking for something, Samuel Parker said to himself as Powerscourt strode off up the hill past the church. He thinks there may be some of Old Mr Harrison’s writings hidden away round the lake. I hope he finds them, he went on, hanging up his keys on the front door. But then again, maybe it would be better if he didn’t.

  10

  General Hugo Arbuthnot looked angrily at his watch. Five minutes past eleven, and the meeting due to start at eleven o’clock sharp. If there was one thing guaranteed to put the General in a bad mood it was unpunctuality, particularly when the planning of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, now only two months away, was at stake.

  William Taylor, the representative of the Metropolitan Police, was already in his place at the table in Arbuthnot’s headquarters in the War Office. At least the police could be trusted to maintain order and discipline.

  There was a sudden rushing up the corridor. Dominic Knox, the representative of the Irish Office, burst through the door and made his apologies, a couple of files held aloft in his left hand.

  ‘My apologies, General,’ he panted. ‘My most sincere apologies. We have had fresh information from Dublin.’

  As Knox took his seat and shuffled with his papers, Arbuthnot wondered if the man from the Irish Office was beginning to adopt the customs and habits of the people he was meant to superintend. Going native in Ireland, he felt, would involve precisely this kind of behaviour, a lack of punctuality, a general inattention to business.

  ‘Mr Knox.’ Arbuthnot’s voice was cold. ‘Is your information from Dublin important?’

  ‘Important enough to warrant my bein
g late for the meeting?’ said Knox with a laugh. Privately he despised Arbuthnot for being stupid. ‘Yes, I believe it is. I believe it gives us all, especially my friend Mr Taylor of the Metropolitan Police, a great deal to think about.’

  ‘Perhaps you would like to enlighten us then?’ Arbuthnot was tapping his pen up and down on the table to mask his irritation.

  ‘Quite simply, it is this. Four days ago a group of the most determined and dangerous nationalists held a secret meeting outside Dublin. Their purpose was to resolve on the nature of the disturbances they wished to cause at the time of the Jubilee.’

  ‘Criminal acts, criminal acts,’ muttered the General.

  ‘Criminal acts, indeed, General.’ Knox nodded at his superior. ‘These three men were choosing whether to perpetrate an outrage in Dublin or in London in honour of the occasion. There were arguments on both sides. A bomb is the favoured method of causing the disturbance. I understand that there was some measure of disagreement about the site. In the end, London was deemed too dangerous for the particular terrorist to make his escape. So they have decided to make their protest in Dublin.’

  ‘Does that mean we can regard London as being safe from Irish subversives at the time of the parade?’ William Taylor, the policeman, was quick to see the implications for the manpower and deployment of his forces.

  General Arbuthnot looked hopeful, as if one cross was about to be removed from his shoulders. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘we would be safe in making that assumption. That is, if your information is to be believed.’ He looked at Knox suspiciously.

  Dominic Knox looked at them both carefully. ‘I wish I could share your optimism,’ he said finally. ‘You see, these may be the three most important terrorist leaders in the country. But there could be more we know nothing of. And there is something else.’ He paused and looked at the General. ‘Forgive me for being cautious. But it is such a game of bluff and counterbluff where this intelligence is concerned. One of those at the meeting is on our payroll, and I can tell you he does not come cheap. Somehow the more you pay them, the more you want to believe what they say. But my point is this. The senior member of the trio, a schoolteacher called Byrne, is the leader of this group and easily the most intelligent. He may suspect the truth about our informer, that the man is in the pay of Dublin Castle.’

  ‘You mean the information may be false?’ said William Taylor, quick to see the implications of Knox’s difficulties. They had come across similar problems with informants in the East End.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Knox.

  ‘But what does this mean for our planning, gentlemen?’ General Arbuthnot felt himself growing irritated once more. He remembered briefly that his doctor had warned him about it. ‘What precautions are we to take?’

  ‘It means,’ said Knox ruefully, ‘as so often in Ireland, that black is white and white is black, or orange is green and green is orange. It could be that Byrne may have apparently decided to do one thing. But in fact, he intends to do the opposite.’

  ‘What do you mean? What is the plain truth behind your riddles, Mr Knox?’ The General was growing more petulant by the minute.

  ‘What it means, although I cannot be sure, is that this man Byrne wants us to believe that a bomb is going to be planted in Dublin. But in fact, he may intend to put a bomb in London. Or a gunman. That could be what he intended to do all along.’

  ‘Let me try to sum up what we know so far.’ Lord Francis Powerscourt had summoned a council of war to the house in Markham Square. Lady Lucy was sitting by the fire, glancing from time to time at the notes she had taken of her morning conversation with old Miss Harrison. Johnny Fitzgerald was inspecting a bottle of Sancerre with great care. William Burke, fresh from his day’s labour in the City of London, was beginning the complicated process of lighting a large cigar. A grey Powerscourt cat, recently acquired at the request of the Powerscourt children, was asleep at her master’s feet as he leant on the mantelpiece.

  ‘About eighteen months ago Old Mr Harrison begins to act strangely. We know it was eighteen months ago because Samuel Parker said it was about the time the publicity began for this Jubilee. He starts to take his correspondence out of the house to read by the lake. He begins to send his letters abroad through the good offices of Parker rather than through the usual channels in the big house. And he begins to talk about conspiracies and secret societies to his sister. Lucy.’

  Lady Lucy had been watching her husband’s long slim fingers as they checked out the points he wished to make. She was remembering the first time she had noticed them, at a dinner party some five years before.

  ‘Yes, Francis.’ She came back to the present with a little private smile for him. ‘Old Mr Harrison talked about secret societies, secret societies in Germany that might have links here. He talked about conspiracies, probably involving the bank. He was worried about the future of the bank. If you distil what Miss Harrison said while she had possession of her wits, that’s about it.’

  ‘Let me play devil’s advocate with that lot,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, putting down his glass. ‘She’s potty. Her mind is wandering all over the place. You can’t believe a word of any of it. He’s potty too, the late Mr Harrison, gone paranoid in his old age, imagining conspiracies and secret societies all over the place. If they didn’t have money the two old people would have been locked up in an asylum by now. All we have is the deranged fantasies of a couple of eighty-year-olds. None of it is worth bothering with.’ He filled his glass with Sancerre and took a restorative gulp. ‘I’m not saying I believe all that, but I’m sure that’s what a lawyer or a judge would say about the old pair.’

  ‘William, can you cast any light on this matter?’ Powerscourt turned to his brother-in-law, who was enjoying the first fruits of his Havana.

  ‘All I can say,’ said William Burke, ‘is that there was no evidence at all that Old Mr Harrison was losing his wits. None at all. I talked to a man in foreign loans only the other day who had had dealings with him two months or so before he died. He said he was sound as a bell, that his brain was as sharp as ever.’

  ‘But couldn’t he have seemed to be perfectly sound in the City,’ Fitzgerald was being contrary again, ‘but actually out of his mind the rest of the time? I’ve known people say that I’m not the same when I’ve taken a glass or six or seven as I am when I’m sober. Couldn’t it be like that?’

  ‘Surely only a doctor could answer that.’ Lady Lucy now had the cat asleep on her lap. ‘I’m sure Miss Harrison was sane when she talked about her brother’s worries. It wasn’t that she was inventing things, just that her memory had slipped its moorings, if you see what I mean.’

  Powerscourt ran his hand along the marble fireplace. The touch took him back to the strange statues at Blackwater, maybe hiding or pointing the way to the secrets of Old Mr Harrison and his anxieties.

  ‘Let’s look at it this way,’ he said. ‘Let’s suppose everything we know is true. Let’s try to make some sense of it all.’

  Here come those fingers again, Lady Lucy said to herself, watching once more as they marked out the points her husband wished to make.

  ‘Eighteen months ago, something starts going wrong at the bank. Old Mr Harrison is worried. Not long after that his eldest son is drowned in mysterious circumstances. That could be murder. Old Mr Harrison takes fright. He doesn’t want to read his letters in the house in case he is being watched. He takes his correspondence down to the lake instead. Some news from Germany alarms him. He goes back to the cities and financial centres he knew as a boy. When he comes back he is even more worried. Whatever he knows, it is too much. He is murdered too. I was sure he was looking for something on his walks by the lake, I don’t know why, but I felt it very strongly. And there’s all this talk of conspiracy involving the bank. What kind of conspiracy could that be, William?’

  Burke was looking very alarmed. ‘Something has just struck me, Francis, something very grave indeed. Are the lives of Frederick and Charles Harrison safe, if what
you say is true? Should we warn them that they may be in danger?’

  ‘They may be in more danger from each other than they are from any outside parties,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald.

  ‘I have thought about that, William,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Heaven help me if I am wrong, but I do not feel we have enough to go on to issue such a warning. We could be laughed at as scaremongers.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Burke sounded doubttul. ‘I’m not sure about conspiracies involving the bank either. I know our critics say that the whole of the City is a vast conspiracy devoted to the ruination of the widow and the orphan, but I don’t think they are right.’

  ‘What kind of conspiracies might banks get up to, William?’ asked Johnny Fitzgerald cheerfully.

  ‘Well, there have been all sorts of conspiracies this century.’ William Burke liked talking about the City’s history. It reminded him that he belonged to a glorious past. ‘You could conspire to defraud your investors by issuing foreign loans to countries where there is no hope of the money ever being repaid. God knows we’ve seen enough of those. Then there are the phoney prospectuses for share issues with outlandish names like the Great African Gold and Diamond Mining Corporation. The speculators think they are going to get rich from mining but the only people who get rich are the ones who took their money in the first place. Railways in exotic locations – they’re usually good for a quick fraud. For some reason perfectly respectable citizens are almost always willing to invest in railways. Do you know there was even a company floated many years back to recover the valuables left behind by the Children of Israel at the parting of the Red Sea? The promoters claimed they were going to use Malaysian divers to recover the gold and treasure left behind on the seabed.’

  ‘Great God!’ said Powerscourt, laughing at the absurdity. ‘Did the investors get rich, William?’

  ‘The investors got poor, Francis. Some of them lost all they had, I believe. But I cannot see Harrison’s Bank becoming involved in any of these activities. Their reputation would have been destroyed overnight.’