Death and the Jubilee lfp-2 Page 30

  Powerscourt sat down again. As he made his series of points he crossed them off on the fingers of his left hand.

  ‘Now we come to the denouement, Rosebery, or almost the denouement. Point One, Charles Harrison went to the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. I am certain he belonged to a secret society there. Point Two, the society was founded by the followers of a historian called von Treitschke. The historian died last year but the society lives on. Point Three, von Treitschke was a fanatical German nationalist. He believes that the true enemy of Germany is not Russia or France, but England. Point Four, I sent Johnny Fitzgerald to Berlin to see what he could find out about secret societies. He warned me that a shipment of weapons was being sent to Ireland from Germany, presumably by this secret society. Then, just as he was getting close to his quarry in Berlin, a young man calls at my front door in London asking where Johnny is and whether he is a friend of mine. The butler tells the caller that Johnny is in Berlin and confirms our friendship. Immediately Johnny is frozen out in Berlin. Whether the high command is in Berlin or in London I do not know, I am not sure it matters. Point Five is that all the members of the society have to swear to further Germany’s interests by whatever means they can. Point Six . . .’ Powerscourt paused. There was a faint shuffling behind the wainscoting as if mice were trying to break through to read Rosebery’s books.

  ‘Point Six is why I am here today. Our young man in Harrison’s Bank reported that the money was being taken out of Harrison’s Bank very fast indeed. The people who questioned him in Blackwater referred to next Monday as being the important day, the day that counts. A week before the Jubilee.’

  Powerscourt looked at Rosebery, as if he was reluctant to complete his story.

  ‘Out with it, man, out with it,’ said Rosebery.

  ‘I know this sounds incredible, Rosebery. William Burke could scarcely believe it. But he does now. Charles Harrison is trying to do a Barings in reverse. Barings collapsed because of imprudent lending to Argentina. They didn’t want it to happen at all. But Harrison is trying to make sure his bank fails. Deliberately. He is trying to make sure his bank fails in the week before the Jubilee. He is trying to make sure that other financial institutions come down with him. In the days before the Jubilee London will be full of newspapermen from every country on earth, all of them having trading relations with the City of London. There will be financial collapse as the Queen prepares to ride out in glory to St Paul’s. One of the sentences that Old Mr Harrison highlighted in the articles about Barings in his strong box was this.’

  Powerscourt pulled a battered copy of the Economist from his pocket.

  ‘It is a quote from Lord Rothschild, a key participant in the Barings rescue, I seem to remember. “If Barings fails, it will bring to an end the custom of all the world of drawing their bills and doing their finance in London.”’

  Rosebery turned pale. He went to the long table in the centre of the room and poured himself a large drink.

  ‘Drink, Francis? Drink before the catastrophe? Monday, you said, next Monday. What happens then?’

  ‘Next Monday is the appointed day for the second payment of Harrison’s Venezuelan loan. They brought it out two years ago with a syndicate of other banks. It didn’t do very well and Harrison’s were believed to have placed it with a consortium of other European banks. They haven’t asked for any assistance for this second tranche.’

  ‘How much is it for,’ Rosebery spoke very quietly,’ this second tranche?’

  Powerscourt looked again at the racehorses on Rosebery’s walls. Maybe it would be safer to invest in them than in Venezuelan bonds sponsored by Harrison’s Bank.

  ‘Four million pounds,’ he said, ‘but this is what matters. If Richard Martin is to be believed, and I am sure he is, Harrison’s won’t have the money to pay it. The money has been shipped abroad. And God knows how many other bills they may have engineered to come due on the following week.’

  ‘Was the loan underwritten?’ asked Rosebery. ‘That’s what did for Revelstoke in the Barings crash, you know. The arrogant fellow thought he didn’t need to underwrite his Argentine adventures.’

  ‘It was underwritten, by a variety of other financial institutions,’ said Powerscourt. ‘William Burke is trying to find out who they are. Some of them may go under as well.’

  Rosebery stared into his glass as if financial rescue might be found in the crystal.

  ‘It is impossible, Francis, to underestimate the seriousness of the situation. It is like a dagger pointed at the success of the Jubilee itself. Barings, as you well know, were saved by the Bank of England going round with their begging bowl and by the fact that enough of the money people felt it was in their interest to bail them out. But they might not feel that with Harrison’s. When that discount house Overend and Gurney went down forty years ago nobody lifted a finger to save them. Nobody liked them. And, Francis, think of this. It is almost as bad for the Jubilee if they are rescued or if they fail. You mentioned the newspapermen. The ambassadors and other representatives of the world’s powers will be here as well. Think what they will make of the week before the Great Imperial Pageant if our own papers are full of crisis and collapse in the City of London. Think of the national humiliation if we have a second banking disaster in seven years. Think of the flight of business out of London to New York and Paris, all of them wringing their hands as they go, of course, but going all the same. The Jubilee will not be a celebration of the greatness of Victoria’s Empire, it will be a funeral, the beginning of the end of Rule Britannia.’

  Rosebery sprang from his chair and headed for the door.

  ‘I must see the Prime Minister at once. You’d better come too, Francis. Maybe the Government can save the day. But I doubt it. I very much doubt it.’

  27

  There were over two hundred passengers on the Dublin to Liverpool boat. It had been a rough passage. Many of them had not slept, walking round the decks all night until dawn greeted them over the dull grey coast of England. Pale-faced and tired, they carried themselves and their luggage down the gangplank and off to the waiting trains.

  At the bottom of the gangplank were two burly constables, and behind them two agents from Dominic Knox’s secret intelligence department in the Irish Office. The policemen changed. The secret agents did not. They had watched thousands and thousands of Irish travellers take their first steps on to English soil. Some of them they stopped. Always they were female, usually between twenty and thirty years old. ‘They’ll be young. They may well be pretty,’ their chief had told the two agents. ‘They will certainly look as innocent as newborn babes. For God’s sake, don’t miss them.’

  Siobhan McKenna had attached herself to a large family with children ranging from four to seventeen. She hoped she wouldn’t be noticed in that company. But something different about her clothes, slightly superior to the dress of her companions, made her stand out to the watching eyes below. As the family came down, dragging the youngest reluctantly by the hand, the first agent tapped the police sergeant on the shoulder.

  ‘That girl, there, with the black hair.’

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ said the policeman, ‘these gentlemen here would like to ask you a few questions.’

  The senior agent drew the girl away from the rest of the passengers. His companion stayed at his post, scanning every new arrival as they left the boat.

  ‘May I ask where you are going, miss?’ said the agent.

  ‘I’m going to London,’ replied the girl, smiling brightly at the agent. Smile at them, flirt with them, charm them, she remembered Michael Byrne’s instructions on handling questions from the police.

  ‘And what is the purpose of your visit, miss?’

  ‘I’m going for an interview for a job at a school,’ said Siobhan McKenna, tossing her curls in the way that usually worked with the young men of Dublin.

  ‘Do you have any papers to back that up, miss?’ The agent gave nothing away. But he could feel his heart racing as he clos
ed in on his prey.

  ‘I have a letter here from the Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kensington,’ she said, taking a letter from her bag and handing it over with a smile.

  Sister Ursula was delighted to hear from Miss McKenna. She looked forward to seeing her for an interview on Monday morning at eleven o’clock. She provided instructions on the easiest way to reach the school.

  ‘Thank you very much, Miss McKenna,’ said the agent. ‘Have a good journey now, and the best of luck with the interview.’

  The girl thought she was going to faint with the relief of it all. As she set off for the train to London she was too elated to look behind her. Twenty yards behind, the other agent was following her every step.

  ‘I don’t want the messengers,’ Knox had told his agents, ‘I want to know where they are going, who they are going to see. We don’t want the minnows in the pond, we want the bloody sharks because at present we don’t know who they are. But the minnows can lead us to them. Then we will strike.’

  The Prime Minister saw Rosebery and Powerscourt in the upstairs drawing room in 10 Downing Street. He had grown old in office. He had also expanded from fifteen stone at the start of his administration to over seventeen stone at the time of the Jubilee. He blamed the lack of time for exercise. The Prime Minister, unlike many of his opponents, did not believe that the function of politics was to make the world a better place, to be constantly bringing schemes for improvement in the nation’s life. He believed that change was almost always bad, that it should, wherever possible, be resisted, that when necessary some small concessions might have to be made for the purposes of winning elections, but that was all.

  ‘I presume your business must be urgent, Rosebery,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Lord Powerscourt, good day to you. I can give you gentlemen fifteen minutes before I have to meet a delegation of ministers from the Empire. New Zealand today, I think. There are so many of them who have to be seen.’

  Rosebery sketched out the nature of their business. It took him just over six minutes. The Prime Minister made one note of only a few words on a piece of paper in front of him. Reading it upside down Powerscourt could see that it said: ‘Monday, four million pounds + + +.’

  ‘That is the crux of the problem, Prime Minister,’ Rosebery concluded. ‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer is out of town. Mr William Burke, a leading City financier who knows the situation, is talking to the Governor of the Bank of England this afternoon. Time is very short.’

  The Prime Minister looked at them gravely, stroking the long black beard that flowed down on to his chest.

  ‘Thank you, Rosebery. Let me try to sum up the difficulties we face.’ Outside the windows they heard a series of carriages arriving. The New Zealanders had come early.

  ‘It is not and cannot be the business of Government to bail out financial concerns whose imprudence or wickedness has left them unable to meet their obligations. I do not need to tell you, Rosebery, the outcry that would erupt in the House of Commons if members felt that taxpayers’ money was being used for these purposes.’

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘The New Zealand delegation is waiting for you, Prime Minister,’ said the private secretary.

  ‘They’re early, for God’s sake,’ growled the Prime Minister. ‘I shall be with them in five or ten minutes. Give them some tea, show them round the bloody building, just give me a little time.’

  The private secretary backed quickly out of the room.

  ‘In one way this business is very like Barings,’ the Prime Minister went on. ‘I myself played a little part in the resolution of that crisis. But this time there is a difference. Barings was saved by a rescue package put together in the full glare of publicity. The newspapers were full of it for weeks. We cannot afford any publicity at all at the present time, not one word, not one paragraph. The effect would be devastating.’ The Prime Minister nodded towards the presence of the invisible New Zealand delegation who could be heard clattering around the building.

  ‘An earlier Chancellor, Powerscourt, told me once that he had conducted an experiment in the speed of rumour in this great city of ours. It took about five hours to get round the Foreign Office. It took three hours to get round the House of Commons. But it took less than half an hour to get round the City of London. Maybe it’s because they deal in little else over there. But if word ever got out, then the damage this German person wants to cause would have been done. We cannot let that happen. We cannot.’

  Powerscourt saw from the clock on the wall that their interview had lasted nearly twenty minutes.

  ‘You say this banker fellow is with the Governor this afternoon?’ said the Prime Minister.

  ‘So we believe, Prime Minister,’ said Rosebery.

  ‘Then we must all meet again early this evening. I might be able to avoid another of these damned receptions. Perhaps I shall be indisposed. Might I suggest that we reconvene, with Mr Burke and the Governor, here at seven o’clock. And pray give some thought to how we smuggle four million pounds into the coffers of Harrison’s Bank before Monday. I must go and make conversation with these New Zealanders. Bloody sheep, I expect.’

  It was nearly five o’clock when Sophie Williams finally reached Markham Square.

  ‘You must be Miss Williams,’ said Lady Lucy, as the girl was shown into the Powerscourt drawing room. ‘How very kind of you to call.’

  ‘How do you do, Lady Powerscourt, how very kind of you to invite me here after all the trouble Richard has caused everybody.’ Sophie was smiling at her new friend.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Lady Lucy, smiling back at the young teacher. ‘But it’s Richard you’ll be wanting to see, Miss Williams, I’m sure.’

  ‘Is he all right, Lady Powerscourt? He’s not hurt, is he?’

  ‘He’s fine, just fine, a few bruises here and there.’ Lady Lucy spoke as if a few bruises were a regular part of a banker’s daily life. ‘At this moment he’s closeted with Mr Burke, who you know, upstairs. I’ll just go and bring him down. Would you like some tea?’

  ‘That would be very kind, Lady Powerscourt,’ said Sophie, ‘it’s a long way from North London.’

  Lady Lucy departed upstairs to see her brother-in-law. As Richard Martin made his way downstairs she had a brief conversation with William Burke.

  ‘William,’ she said firmly, ‘whatever happens, however much the nation is in peril, you are to stay here for the next half-hour. If, by any chance, you have to leave, please do not go into the drawing room.’

  ‘Here I am,’ said Burke plaintively, ‘trying to resolve great affairs of finance that endanger the future prosperity of this country, and you tell me I cannot go in to your drawing room for half an hour?’

  Lady Lucy smiled again. ‘Affairs of the heart, William, are at least as important as affairs of state, particularly when the people involved are young.’

  Sophie had just time to notice a copy of Jude the Obscure lying on a side table when Richard appeared.

  ‘Hello, Sophie,’ he said shyly. He thought she looked perfectly at home in this luxurious house.

  ‘Richard,’ replied Sophie, ‘I am so pleased to see you all in one piece again.’

  He told her of his adventures, of his incarceration in the summerhouse at Blackwater, the last-minute rescue, the desperate flight down the Thames and the early morning journey to Markham Square.

  ‘And there’s another thing, Sophie,’ he went on. ‘Mr Burke has offered me a job in his bank. It pays a little more than I was getting at Harrison’s.’

  Sophie felt that insufficient attention had been paid to her own role in the rescue of Richard Martin. ‘It’s just as well I went to call on Mr Burke the other afternoon, Richard,’ she said firmly. ‘If I hadn’t, you might still be locked up down there by that funny lake.’

  She didn’t say that she had broken down in tears, but Mr Burke had already told Richard that. Sophie felt that her relations with Richard must be on a new footing now. She stood up and went to
the window. Maybe we always have to take the initiative, she thought. Maybe these feeble men would never do anything if women didn’t give them a lead.

  ‘Richard . . .’ She turned back to face him, her eyes dancing. ‘Richard, give me a kiss.’

  The Governor of the Bank of England was a very worried man. He rubbed his ample stomach as if for reassurance. He fidgeted with his small beard. His eyes flickered restlessly round the room.

  Burke had told Powerscourt before the evening meeting that the Governor was not facing up to the crisis well.

  ‘He’s never seen anything like this in his whole life, Francis. His only idea of a commercial crisis is two bad tea harvests in a row. Even then he probably had enough of the stuff stockpiled somewhere to raise his prices and make a killing. But of bankers and bankers’ follies he has no idea, no idea at all. I fear he will not serve the City well tonight.’

  The Prime Minister, fresh from his conference with the New Zealanders, looked tired. By seven o’clock in the evening he had normally fled by train back to his beloved Hatfield. Rosebery looked anxious. Powerscourt wondered how much money Rosebery and the Prime Minister would lose personally if there was a great crash in the City. Burke had put on a clean shirt for the occasion, remarking to his wife that one might as well go to Armageddon in a fit state to meet God or the Devil.

  The Prime Minister called the meeting to order. They were seated at a small square table in the study of Number 10 Downing Street. The Governor was on the Prime Minister’s left, with Burke on his far side. Rosebery and Powerscourt, representing forces other than Mammon, were on the other flank, Powerscourt feeling slightly out of place.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I hope we can find a way out of this sorry imbroglio this evening. Governor, what do you have to report?’