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  There was a sudden pounding up the stairs to his room. Chief Inspector Robin Tait burst in. ‘We’ve found them!’ he panted. ‘I’ve run all the way from the hotel to tell you! They’re in the King George the Fourth, not far from the West Pier!’

  ‘Well done, Chief Inspector!’ Powerscourt shook the policeman firmly by the hand and pumped it up and down. ‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am. This is fantastic news. How did you find them? Is there any news of Lucy?’

  Tait slumped into a chair and wiped his brow with a perfectly ironed handkerchief. His wife likes to see him well turned out, Powerscourt thought.

  ‘It began as a perfectly routine inquiry, my lord, the normal sort of thing my officers have been doing for the last two days. At first they only got the assistant manager and he looked at them rather suspiciously, demanded to see their papers and that sort of thing. It’s amazing the difference not having a uniform makes to the way people see you. I’m sure we’ll find that very useful later on. Anyway, the assistant manager went off to speak to the kitchens. That took about ten minutes. Then he came back and said he just needed to check with the manager.’

  ‘Did your men know by now that they had found what they were looking for?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘I think they did,’ said Tait, proud of the efficiency of his officers, ‘there was something in the assistant manager’s face, as if he felt guilty. This is what happened. One man booked two adjacent suites on the sixth floor of what you might call the west wing of the King George the Fourth Hotel two nights ago. There’s an interconnecting door between the two suites. The other two, a man and a woman, came later. The woman looked pale and tired, as if she’d had a fainting fit or something like that. They all disappeared into Rooms 607 and 608. They haven’t been seen since. All their meals have been sent up. They haven’t even let the chambermaid in to clean up.’

  ‘Didn’t anybody think that was suspicious?’ asked Powerscourt, his mind far away now with Lucy in her prison cell on the sixth floor of the King George the Fourth. Did she have any clean clothes? He knew she hated not having fresh things to wear every day.

  ‘They might have done, my lord,’ said Tait, aware suddenly of just how fragile Powerscourt was at that moment, ‘but quite a lot of money kept changing hands.’

  There was a loud knock at the door. Joseph Hardy, fire expert and fire investigator had returned.

  ‘Mr Hardy, allow me to introduce Chief Inspector Tait of the local constabulary. Mr Hardy is an expert in fires of every sort. Let me tell you, Mr Hardy, that the Chief Inspector and his men have worked a miracle. Lady Lucy and the two villains are on the sixth floor of the King George the Fourth near the West Pier.’

  ‘Splendid, splendid!’ said Hardy cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. ‘I did a few sketches when I was down on the front, my Lord. Including the King George the Fourth.’ He produced a piece of paper from his satchel.

  The hotel had a massive frontage, almost all of it looking out to sea. But on the west side, nearer to Hove, a turretlike structure jutted out, with one window looking straight out to sea, the window on its left looking west towards the pier, and a final window looking on to the street below and the other street running back towards the town.

  ‘It’s a perfect lookout post,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You could see people, or policemen, coming at you from three directions.’

  Chief Inspector Tait was to tell his wife later that he knew even then how Powerscourt proposed to free the hostages. He didn’t know if it would work.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Powerscourt, ‘let me tell you how I think the rescue is to be effected. Any direct assault, either from the corridor outside or through the windows, might succeed. But the villains would have time to shoot Lady Lucy before they were overpowered. We could put something in their food, a powerful sedative of some kind, and then rush the rooms. But somebody might not eat the food. Lady Lucy might take two helpings and not wake up at all. If we had time, we could simply wait. But we don’t have time. In fact,’ he looked quickly at his watch, ‘we have fifty-seven hours and fifty minutes to effect a rescue.’

  Joseph Hardy was adding to his drawing of the King George the Fourth, the west wing in particular. Powerscourt could see sheets of red and great blobs of grey pencil moving up the side of the building. Hardy was smiling to himself.

  ‘So, tonight or tomorrow night,’ said Powerscourt, ‘we have a fire. It won’t really be a fire, of course, mostly smoke. The fire will be concentrated up the stairs and in the areas adjacent to the sixth-floor rooms. We will be able to make the fire fiercer, if necessary, to smoke them out. We can do that, Mr Hardy?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, we can,’ said Hardy cheerfully. ‘That would be great sport.’

  ‘At some point,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘they will have to come out. We shall have to make sure that there are no possible exits to the roof. We may need men with blankets, or whatever you fire people use, waiting down below in case they jump. Once they’re out of their rooms and coming down the stairs, we seize them all. Especially Lady Lucy.’

  Chief Inspector Tait looked sombre. Powerscourt suddenly suspected that he and his men might feel they were missing the fun. All the glory would go to the firemen.

  ‘The role of the police, of course,’ he went on, ‘is absolutely vital. Your men, Chief Inspector, and there may have to be quite a lot of them, will have to be ready to break into the rooms if necessary. The hotel may have to be cordoned off. In the meantime I presume that you have posted a discreet watch all around the hotel in case our friends decide to cut their losses?’

  Chief Inspector Tait nodded. He was fascinated by Hardy’s drawings. The little blobs of grey pencil had now reached the sky. The top of the hotel was virtually obliterated.

  ‘There are two things I must do,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I must send a telegram to the Prime Minister’s office in London. I propose that we reassemble here at seven o’clock this evening. Mr Hardy, could you bring your colleague or colleagues from the local fire brigade? And could you in the meantime work out in more detail how our fire could work to the best effect? Chief Inspector, could you bring your Chief Constable with you to the meeting? And could you also ensure that the hotel manager attends?’

  Both men nodded their agreement.

  ‘And the second thing you have to do?’ This time Tait had no idea what was coming.

  ‘I presume, Chief Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that you can smuggle me into that hotel by the back door or through the kitchens? And I would be most grateful if you could find me the conductor of the orchestra who plays there in the evening. They do have a bloody orchestra, I presume?’

  ‘They claim,’ said Tait loyally, ‘that it is the best one of its kind in Sussex.’ He wondered if Powerscourt had gone out of his mind. Was he going to have specially selected music wafting up the stairs to Room 607, Music for the Royal Fireworks or something similar? ‘Could I ask why you want to see the orchestral gentleman, Lord Powerscourt?’

  Powerscourt smiled. Tait noticed that his eyes stayed cold.

  ‘Of course you may, Chief Inspector. And no, I’m not going mad. I’m going to send a message. A message to Lady Lucy.’

  Hold on, Lucy, he said to himself as Tait led him off towards the rear entrance to the King George the Fourth Hotel. Hold on. I’m coming.

  He stopped at the telegraph on his way and sent a one-word message to London. ‘Schomberg.’

  32

  The orchestral gentleman was a tall man in his late thirties, painfully thin. Like so many in his profession he felt that his abilities had not been properly rewarded. In his youth there had been so much talent. People had said that he would end up as a great conductor with a great orchestra in one of the great capitals of Europe. Even Paris or Vienna had not seemed beyond the realms of the possible. But his dreams had faded now. Here he was, on duty every evening with another collection of embittered violinists and mutinous sections of horn and brass, churning out waltzes and melodies to acc
ompany the soup and the fish courses, the steaks and the creme brulees of the Brighton holidaymakers. Sometimes, very late at night in the little garret the hotel gave him at the back of the building, overlooking the kitchen rubbish dump, he would dream again that he might escape from the King George the Fourth and find his proper station.

  ‘How can I help you, sir?’ he said to the man in the fisherman’s jersey who had asked to see him. Powerscourt had avoided giving any name.

  ‘I am staying in the hotel with my wife this evening and it is our wedding anniversary.’ Powerscourt gave him a friendly smile. ‘I would be most grateful if you could play this piece of music at precisely seven o’clock.’

  He handed the conductor a piece of paper.

  ‘Why yes, I think we could,’ said the conductor. ‘We played the whole thing at Eastbourne last year. I hope the orchestra haven’t left their scores at home. They normally bring everything with them. Sometimes people ask us to play the oddest things, you know.’

  Powerscourt handed over ten pounds.

  ‘It’s not the usual sort of thing we play here,’ said the conductor defensively. ‘I hope there won’t be any trouble with the management or the guests.’

  Powerscourt handed over a further ten pounds. The conductor looked more cheerful.

  ‘There won’t be any trouble with the management,’ Powerscourt assured him. ‘Don’t worry about the guests. It’ll be good for their souls.’

  Powerscourt felt his arm being tugged as he walked back to the Prince Regent. He looked across. The tramp was speaking to him.

  ‘Francis, for the love of God, I tell you, I’m sure they’re in that hotel you’ve just walked out of.’

  It was Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, ‘how very nice to see you. How in God’s name did you find that out?’

  ‘Well,’ Fitzgerald went on, ‘I’ve spent part of the last two days being a fortune teller on the West Pier. I gave the Great Mystic Merlin five pounds to clear off for a bit. I’ve been watching all these hotels from my pitch, just inside the entrance. There’s a set of windows on the top floor of this King George place where somebody looks out every now and then. As if they don’t want to be seen.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right, Johnny. The police have found them in Rooms 607 and 608. There’s a conference in my suite at the hotel at seven this evening. We’re going to plan the Great Fire of Brighton. We’re going to smoke them out.’

  The conductor looked around the great dining room. The room was nearly full. The conductor noticed that all the windows looking out to sea seemed to have been opened. He tried to spot the man who had asked for this piece of music but he couldn’t find him. The conductor was running a little late. He nodded to his orchestra. He raised his baton. Very softly at first the third movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony floated out into the evening air of Brighton.

  Four hundred yards away the manager of the King George the Fourth thought he was in the middle of a nightmare. Albert Hudson had served in the King George for nearly fifty years. Quite soon he would be able to retire with his wife to the little cottage he had bought near Ringmer, well away from the sea and well away from the ghastly tourists and what he saw as the crass vulgarity of modern Brighton. All afternoon people saying they were policemen had been skulking round his hotel. His hotel. Later on there was another collection of interlopers who said they were firemen. The worst week of his professional life up till now had been when two Indian Maharajahs had come to stay for a week; both with large retinues, mostly female, mostly from Paris. The two Indians had fallen out over one of the young women. The young women began fighting among themselves. It had been terrible. Now here he was in a meeting with a whole roomful of doubtful-looking people. There was a smart man who claimed to be the Chief Constable of Sussex. Albert Hudson thought he might have seen him somewhere before. There was a cricketer who said he was a Chief Inspector. There was a tramp who looked as if he should have been locked up. There was a man in a fisherman’s jersey who pretended to be in charge. There was a very young-looking man who kept on drawing things. Hudson thought they were fire engines. There was another man who said he was a fireman and a mild-looking man at the end of the table who said he came from the Prime Minister’s office.

  Albert Hudson decided that he would defend the honour and possibly the fittings and the fabric of his hotel to his last breath.

  ‘Forgive me if I have misunderstood you, gentlemen. Please forgive me. Am I right in thinking that you are proposing to burn down my hotel?’

  Powerscourt sighed. His mind was four hundred yards away, on the Brighton sea front, listening to the noises.

  The Chief Constable intervened in what his family privately referred to as his Reading the Riot Act voice.

  ‘My dear Hudson,’ he began, rubbing his hands together, ‘this must all have come as rather a shock. We are not proposing to burn down your hotel. We are proposing to create an incendiary incident, mostly based on smoke rather than fire, in order to force a pair of villains who are holding Lord Powerscourt’s wife hostage on the sixth floor to come out. This has to be done as quickly as possible, or they will kill her. Perhaps Lord Powerscourt would care to show you the note they left in his house in London a couple of days ago.’

  Powerscourt felt in his pocket. ‘You do not need to know anything about Harrison’s Bank,’ he said. ‘That must be regarded as confidential. But you can see what they will do to my wife.’ He handed over the note. Albert Hudson turned pale as he read the last two sentences.

  The third movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony begins with a melancholy sound like a hymn. Then it moves off into a different world.

  Lord Francis Powerscourt had proposed to Lady Lucy Hamilton during a performance of this very symphony at the Albert Hall in London five years before. Powerscourt remembered scribbling his proposal on a scrap of newspaper, not daring to speak in case God or Beethoven sent a thunderbolt.

  The conductor was pleased with his orchestra. Maybe this would mark a turning point in his career after all. The diners in the King George the Fourth paused over the Sole Meuniere or Lobster Thermidor as the music went on. Perhaps the man in the fisherman’s jersey had been right, the conductor thought. It was good for their souls.

  Up on the sixth floor Lady Lucy was straining to listen. She knew this was not something the orchestra normally played. This wasn’t a waltz or a jolly piece of Handel. She strained in her seat towards the window. Her guardian of the moment was reading a foreign newspaper.

  Powerscourt too was straining his ears towards the sea front. He knew the music should be well under way by now. He hoped Lucy could hear it.

  Then Lucy knew. She knew the music. She knew when she had first heard it with Francis. She knew it was a message. She knew who it was from. She remembered that she had been crying softly in the Albert Hall when she had first heard this movement. She had cried till the end. I mustn’t cry now, or they’ll know something has happened, she said to herself. She wanted to sing, to shout, to perform once more her own Ode to Joy as she had wanted to in that darkened box opposite Kensington Gardens those five years ago when Francis asked her to marry him.

  Francis has found me, she whispered to herself, blinking back the tears once more. Francis has found me. Francis is coming.

  With a supreme effort of will, Lady Lucy Powerscourt turned slightly in her chair and pretended to fall asleep.

  Francis is coming. Francis is coming.

  ‘What about my directors? What about my shareholders?’ said Albert Hudson, manager of the King George the Fourth, defiantly. ‘You are going to cause enormous damage to my hotel if you proceed with this madcap scheme. Who is going to pay for the repairs?’

  As he looked round the room Albert Hudson thought this should have been his trump card. But he sensed that he was going to be proved wrong.

  The man in the fisherman’s jersey spoke to him very gently. ‘All that has been taken care of, Mr Hudson. Mr McDonnell here has come speci
ally from London. He is the private secretary to the Prime Minister.’

  McDonnell too was gentle, trying to ease the pain of the old man whose hotel was to be sacrificed to the flames and the national interest.

  ‘I have a letter here from the Prime Minister, Mr Hudson. He says that Her Majesty’s Government will pay for any necessary repairs to any hotels in Brighton that follow any operations mounted by Lord Francis Powerscourt and the Chief Constable of Sussex. Here, you may read it.’

  This was the result of Powerscourt’s one word telegraph to Whitehall. He had explained the likely position in an earlier message. ‘Schomberg’ simply asked for McDonnell to come in person.

  Hudson stared hard at the notepaper, as if he suspected that it might be a forgery.

  ‘I too have had a message from the Prime Minister.’ The Chief Constable was moving in for the kill. ‘It gives me powers to take over any hotels I think fit in the Brighton area for the next forty-eight hours. Of course, I have no wish to use these powers. Co-operation will be much more satisfactory than coercion. If we can all work together then the final outcome is much more likely to succeed.’

  Powerscourt wondered briefly what a hotel run by the police force would be like. Lots of minor rules and regulations, he suspected. Proper dress to be worn at all times. Drunkenness punished by a quick visit to the cells. Meals served exactly on time.

  Albert Hudson looked round the room once more. Joe Hardy thought he might burst into tears, so sad had his face become as he thought of the flames and the smoke ruining the building he had tended for nearly fifty years.

  ‘Very good, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘With great reluctance, great reluctance, I place the King George the Fourth at your disposal. If anything should go wrong with this operation I shall tell my directors that the blame cannot be laid at my door. I presume that I may evacuate all my guests in the course of this evening.’