Death and the Jubilee lfp-2 Page 14

  ‘Mr Frederick,’ Parker went on, ‘we think Mr Frederick was in the house. We haven’t seen him at all. Mr Charles was here yesterday evening but he left to go to London. Nobody’s seen Mr Frederick this morning at all.’

  Powerscourt felt sick. If Frederick Harrison had perished in the inferno he would feel personally responsible for his death. It was as if the house was cursed, and he, Powerscourt, had failed to prevent the latest attack of the furies.

  ‘And what exactly do you think you’re doing?’ a voice bellowed at him from inside the charred remains of the entrance hall. ‘We’ve got enough problems round here without strangers tramping around the place and getting in the way. Be off with you.’

  A weary policeman advanced slowly into the sunlight, his face blackened, dark bloodstains on his jacket.

  Procul, o procul este, profani, Powerscourt thought to himself. Keep away, keep away, unpurified ones. The inscription on the Temple of Flora come to life in an Oxfordshire police inspector.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Powerscourt warily, ‘my name is Powerscourt. I am a private investigator. I have some business with the family here. I came to find out what I could.’

  ‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba or Dido on her pyre in Carthage,’ said the Inspector, who liked to borrow the classics from his local library. ‘Be off with you, I say. We’ve got work to do here.’

  A loud crash from the upper floors announced the collapse of more of the timberwork of Blackwater House.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Inspector, I really am,’ said Powerscourt, ‘perhaps I could show you the message I received from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s office this morning.’

  Powerscourt thanked God that he had stuffed the letter into his breast pocket rather than leave it on his hall table at home. He thanked God that the assistant had put both the time and the date on his message.

  The Inspector eyed it suspiciously. He began to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake. Visions of some stern reprimand for hindering the friends of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police flashed through his mind. One of his colleagues had been demoted from inspector to constable for being rude to a duchess he hadn’t recognized. The Commissioner’s writ didn’t extend to Oxfordshire, of course, but he was still the most powertul policeman in the land.

  The Inspector looked at Powerscourt dubiously. Powerscourt gazed calmly back, remembering the firm stare required for unruly privates in the army.

  ‘I have met most of the members of the family here,’ he said quietly. ‘They asked me to look into the death of Old Mr Harrison, the body found floating in the Thames by London Bridge.’

  Every policeman in Britain had wondered about that case. He’s not at all impressed by my uniform, the Inspector thought to himself. Pretty self-contained customer, this one. Maybe he is who he says he is. The strain of the last few hours was beginning to tell. He wiped his brow, managing to leave thin lines of blood across his forehead as he did so.

  ‘Wilson is my name,’ he said finally, ‘Inspector Arthur Wilson of the Oxfordshire constabulary.’

  Powerscourt shook him warmly by the hand. ‘Look here, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I don’t wish to get in the way of your work. You must talk to me when you have the time, not before. I have only one question for you. Were there any fatalities in this fire?’

  Only a policeman or a private investigator, Inspector Wilson felt sure, would ask that question at a time like this.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Lord Powerscourt,’ he replied, remembering that the letter was addressed to a Lord rather than a mere Mister Powerscourt. ‘Me and my sergeant have only been here for a couple of hours. The fire brigade won’t let anybody into the upper floors at all. They say it’s too dangerous. They’re crawling about up there on ladders and planks laid out across the floorboards. So many of them have been destroyed. I did hear the Chief Fire Officer say that there was probably one fatality, but he didn’t say who it was.’

  ‘I see, Inspector. Thank you so much. Perhaps you would be kind enough to let the Chief Fire Officer know I am here and that I would like to speak to him. But only when he has the time. I do not wish to interrupt his vital work for one second. Or yours, for that matter.’

  Inspector Wilson disappeared inside the house. Powerscourt stood back from the house and surveyed the damage. Blackwater was composed of a central block, built in the style of a Palladian villa, with a library wing added on the south side and a picture gallery to the north. There was a basement and two rows of windows on each floor. The fire seemed to have spent most of its force on the north wing. All the windows had gone. There were holes in the roof. As Powerscourt walked round the house to the west front at the rear he peered cautiously into the picture gallery. The walls were stripped down to the plasterwork or even the original brick. The paintings themselves seemed to have been burnt to nothing. Great piles of ash and rubble lay on the floor. Above he could hear the shouts and the swearing of the firemen as they threaded their way across the floorboards. From time to time there would be a great crash as more timbers fell to the ground.

  The sightseers drifted off as the morning wore on. Powerscourt sat on a seat in the west front garden and contemplated the Curse on the House of Harrison. Murders he was used to in his profession, men and women killed in the heat of passion or with the cold calculation he found so frightening. Always, in his experience, there was a motive. Somebody had a reason for killing somebody else. But the Harrison case seemed so different. He had yet to find any sign of a motive at all.

  Just before midday he returned to the main entrance. There was a lot of shouting from the inside. As he peered into the remains of the entrance hall he could see two firemen, standing on ladders laid across the upper floor, lowering something wrapped in a blanket and tied firmly to a plank of wood.

  ‘Steady, there, steady,’ said the voice above.

  ‘We’re ready down here,’ said Inspector Wilson and his colleague, waiting to receive the package.

  For one moment the fireman at the top of the stairs let go of his rope too quickly. The package swung down at an angle of forty-five degrees and looked as though it might fall into the rubble below.

  ‘Christ almighty, Bert,’ said a voice above, ‘can’t you hold the bloody thing steady, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Bert, ‘it’s very heavy.’

  ‘I know it’s very heavy,’ said the other voice. ‘I’m just going to let my rope down until it’s level with yours and we’re back on an even keel. Don’t do anything.’

  Slowly the package recovered its equilibrium, the two policemen staring at the swaying plank.

  ‘All together now, Bert. Slowly does it. Slowly. On the count of three, start lowering your rope. Don’t for God’s sake let go.’

  Bert muttered something inaudible.

  ‘One, two, three. Slowly now, slowly.’

  Inch by inch the package was lowered into the arms of the two policemen down below. They carried it on to a makeshift trestle table underneath the portico. The blanket was wrapped tightly around the package. There was a musty smell as if the blanket or its contents had been kept in a cupboard too long.

  The Chief Fire Officer had lowered himself down to ground level on the same piece of rope.

  ‘Where’s that bloody doctor gone?’ he said angrily. ‘Never here when you want them, doctors. They always say they’ll be back in a moment, then they disappear.’

  He stared at Powerscourt. Then he remembered what the Inspector had told him some hours before. ‘You must be Lord Powerscourt, sir,’ he said, holding out a blackened hand. ‘Chief Fire Officer Perkins, Oxfordshire Fire Service.’

  Perkins was a giant of a man, well over six feet tall, in his early forties. Unlike the policemen he was clean-shaven. Powerscourt wondered if they worried about their beards catching fire in emergencies.

  ‘Good day to you, Chief Officer Perkins,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Do I understand that you are anxious for the presence
of the doctor? I believe I know where he has gone. I could fetch him if that would help?’

  ‘That would be right handsome of you, sir, right handsome. Is he far away?’

  ‘I believe he is just around the corner with Old Miss Harrison,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I shall be back directly.’

  The church clock struck one as Powerscourt collected the doctor from Samuel Parker’s cottage. The sun was shining on the lake now, the Pantheon of his dreams staring inscrutably at him across the water.

  ‘How is Miss Harrison, doctor?’ asked Powerscourt, as they walked back to the burnt-out remains of Blackwater House.

  ‘It has been a terrible shock,’ said Dr Compton carefully. ‘I feel sure that she will recover in time. But for the moment her mind is wandering, and wandering in German, I’m afraid. I think I should like to send her away for some time to recover her strength.’

  Powerscourt restrained himself from saying that all members of the Harrison family, in his view, should be sent away from Blackwater and indeed from London without delay.

  Chief Officer Perkins was waiting impatiently by his trestle table. The two policemen stood on guard at either end.

  ‘Dr Compton,’ Perkins began, ‘I would be most gratetul for your assistance. We have recovered this body from one of the bedrooms on the upper floors. It is, I am relieved to say, the only fatality of this terrible fire. But I do not like to continue our work inside until this body is identified. Are you willing to try to identify it?’

  Dr Compton nodded gravely. The two policemen pulled back the blanket. Both turned white. The doctor shook his head.

  ‘Seldom have I seen such terrible burns. Most of the face seems to have been taken off by the flames. Mr Frederick Harrison was not my patient, you understand. He had his own man up in London. He only consulted me for minor aches and pains down here.’

  Not again, thought Powerscourt savagely. Not another corpse that is so severely disfigured it is almost impossible to identify. He wondered if the murderer, if there was a murderer, had intended such a degree of incineration to make it impossible to identify the body.

  Dr Compton was peering at a silver ring on what must have been Frederick Harrison’s finger. He prodded at the teeth with a small silver instrument extracted from his bag. He sighed. He took off his glasses and folded them neatly into their case.

  ‘I am afraid, gentlemen, that this is Mr Frederick Harrison. Or rather was Mr Frederick Harrison. You can cover him up again now.’

  ‘How can you be sure, Dr Compton?’ Chief Fire Officer Perkins was polite but firm.

  ‘His teeth for a start. He had some very expensive dental work done a few years ago by one of London’s leading dentists. He was so proud of it, he showed me the details. It was at a dinner party here in this house. Lobsters, we had, I seem to recall. I’m afraid the sight of Mr Harrison’s improved molars did very little for the appetite.’

  He smiled wanly at the memory of happier times.

  ‘Then there is the ring. I would recognize that anywhere. He was given it by his great-grandfather in Germany before he died. The great-grandfather, I mean. It had a German eagle marked upon it. I would know it anywhere.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Compton.’ Inspector Wilson was making notes in his book. His young assistant had run away from the scene. From round the corner they could hear him retching uncontrollably into the trees.

  The doctor set off to care for his other patients. Powerscourt realized that the fire officer and the policeman were both unsure of who was the senior man present. In professions used to rank and hierarchy this presented something of a problem. Temporary relief was provided by the return of Wilson’s colleague, the pallor of his face made more remarkable by the blackened buildings around him.

  ‘Get yourself down to the stables and find a drink of water, Radcliffe,’ said Inspector Wilson with a good officer’s care for his subordinates. The young man staggered off down the path, pausing only to vomit once more into a rhododendron bush.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Powerscourt, temporarily seizing the initiative, ‘may I take you into my confidence?’

  He told them of the earlier death of Mr Frederick’s uncle, the body found in the Thames. He told of the suspicions regarding the death of Mr Frederick’s brother, drowned in a boating accident off the Isle of Wight. He told of his suspicion that this death too might not have been caused by natural causes.

  ‘You mean that the fire might have been started deliberately?’ Chief Officer Perkins was the first to react.

  ‘It might have been, yes, it very well might have been.’

  Chief Officer Perkins whistled quietly. Inspector Wilson stared again at the remains of the building.

  ‘It won’t be easy to prove anything, my lord,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘What the fire didn’t destroy, the water from Mr Perkins’ hosepipes may have washed away, or soaked it to the point where it’s unrecognizable. Whatever it might be, that is. My God, sir, I don’t think you could establish any sort of a case, any sort of a case at all, with this heap of smoking dust and rubble.’

  As if to prove his point there was another loud crash from the upper floors. Dust and ashes rose from the great holes in the roof.

  ‘That’ll be the big beam in Mr Frederick’s bedroom,’ said Perkins. ‘It’s been on the point of going for some time. Made it very dangerous up there, wondering if this beam was going to knock you on the head at any moment.’

  ‘Could I just ask you to bear what I have said in mind?’ said Powerscourt apologetically. ‘I know you have much to do and I do not wish to get in the way of your work in any way. I asked the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to send us the foremost fire investigator in London and the Home Counties. He should be here tomorrow. I’m sure you will afford him every assistance.’

  Inspector Wilson had never heard of such a creature as a fire investigator. He longed to ask for more details of what they did and how they did it. He decided not to reveal his ignorance.

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Inspector Wilson disappeared once more into the ground floor. Chief Fire Officer Perkins began the slow ascent of a long ladder into the upper storey.

  ‘Bert,’ he shouted to his assistant, ‘where are you? What have you been doing up here? Come on, we’ve got work to do.’

  Lady Lucy Powerscourt was sitting on a small chair in the main bedroom of the Parkers’ little cottage. Old Miss Harrison was still asleep, tucked firmly inside the Parkers’ best blankets. Mabel Parker stood by the door, as she had done for the last three hours.

  ‘She’s not dead, is she, my lady?’ she whispered for the tenth or eleventh time.

  ‘No, she’s not, Mrs Parker,’ said Lady Lucy quietly, ‘she’s just asleep. It must have been a terrible shock to her.’

  Lady Lucy had reached Blackwater just after midday, ferried to the house by Mr Parker, still waiting in vain at the railway station for Charles Harrison to appear. There was a sudden rustling among the bedclothes. Miss Harrison looked at her new surroundings with surprise and a look of astonishment on her wrinkled face.

  ‘Hello, my dear,’ she said to Lady Lucy, ‘are you here too? And you so young.’

  ‘You’re looking well, Miss Harrison,’ Lady Lucy smiled, ‘after your ordeal.’

  ‘I never thought it would be like this,’ the old lady went on, peering around at the bedroom, the walls lined with pictures of the great mountains beloved by Mr Parker. ‘It seems so peaceful. And so quiet. I thought it might be noisier than this up here. And they don’t tell you about the last journey down there, do they? I’m sure somebody carried me up here. It must have been a very long way for him, a very long way.’

  ‘I’ll bring you some tea,’ said Mabel Parker, departing to her kitchen for the most useful restorative known to the Parker household.

  ‘They have tea here too,’ the old lady smiled. ‘I’m so glad they have tea. Tell me, my dear,’ she turned to inspect Lady Lucy closely, ‘how did you get here? Did somebody carry
you too?’

  ‘We’re in Mr Parker’s cottage, Miss Harrison.’ Lady Lucy spoke quite loudly now, wondering if the old lady’s hearing had been disturbed in the fire. ‘There’s been a terrible fire in the big house. The butler carried you to safety. You’re quite safe now.’

  ‘Fire?’ said the old lady, sounding confused. ‘I thought they had fire down in the other place, not up here. Oh no, surely not here. You must be mistaken, my dear. Look, there are the mountains all about. We must be quite high up.’

  ‘You’re still alive, Miss Harrison.’ Lady Lucy realized that the old lady thought she had died and gone to heaven, here with Mrs Parker’s best blankets and cups of tea.

  ‘Alive?’ The old lady sounded quite cross. ‘I didn’t like being alive much at the end, you know. No, not at all. All my relations dying and all those people coming to ask me questions about my brother. I’m quite glad to be out of it really. Especially if they have tea.’

  As if on cue, Mrs Parker returned with a small tray containing a cup of tea in her best willow pattern cup and a plate of biscuits.

  ‘They taste just like they did down below,’ Miss Harrison said, happily crunching into her digestive.

  ‘And so does the tea!’

  Lady Lucy looked helplessly at Mrs Parker. Mrs Parker shook her head sadly. Lady Lucy resolved to make one last attempt.

  ‘Miss Harrison,’ she shouted, ‘we are all so glad to see you looking so well. There was a fire last night in the big house. You’ve been brought down here to Mrs Parker’s cottage. You’re going to be all right. You just need to rest.’

  ‘Fire? Fire?’ said the old lady crossly. ‘Why does everybody keep talking about fire all the time? Oh dear,’ she looked about her surroundings again, ‘they haven’t made a mistake, have they? I’m not down there in the bad place, with the flames, am I?’

  ‘You’re not in hell, Miss Harrison,’ Lady Lucy spoke very firmly, ‘you’re not in heaven either. You’re in Mrs Parker’s cottage!’