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  The Chief Constable looked at Powerscourt.

  ‘I’m afraid that would not fit in with our plans, Mr Hudson.’ Powerscourt spoke in his most emollient voice. He was wondering if Lucy had got the message, sent up to her through the windows of the hotel. ‘Most of this fire will take place on the upper floors of the west wing. The people we are concerned with are in Rooms 607 and 608 on the top floor, as you know. Mr Hardy here is a fire expert from London. He and Chief Fire Officer Matthews beside him from your local brigade will work out later this evening exactly how they intend to achieve the conflagration. But it is very important that the rest of the guests are evacuated at the time of the fire. It will make things look more convincing. With any luck – from our point of view, that is – there will be a certain amount of confusion. Maybe some of the women will scream. Maybe some of the children will cry. That is regrettable but it helps our purpose. These noises will carry up to the sixth floor. I hope they will help convince the two villains holding my wife that they have no alternative but to evacuate their rooms. Otherwise, they must feel, they will be burnt to a cinder.’

  Chief Inspector Tait made a note in his book. Powerscourt wondered if he was going to hire some actresses for the evening to scream to police orders. Brighton had always been well supplied with actresses.

  Albert Hudson knew when he was beaten. ‘I see,’ he said looking mournfully at his perfectly polished shoes. ‘I see.’

  ‘Now,’ said Powerscourt, ‘the more closely you are involved in the planning of the business, Mr Hudson, the greater our chances of victory. The police and the fire department here both need to return with you to your hotel for the detailed planning of this operation. I suggest this should happen at once.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Lord Powerscourt,’ Chief Inspector Tait sounded apologetic, ‘that I should ask you and Lord Fitzgerald to wait here. Until it is dark, at least. I know it is unlikely that either of the two villains will come down into the body of the hotel but that is a risk we dare not take.’

  Powerscourt smiled. ‘Of course. We shall wait for the dark, Chief Inspector. We have often done it before.’

  As Albert Hudson led his party of arsonists and police officers back to the King George the Fourth, Powerscourt saw Joseph Hardy showing his colleague a long list of calculations. Powerscourt thought they were talking about tar and pitch and other inflammatory substances. As they went down the stairs he heard Hardy talking about some other fiery potion whose name he did not catch. ‘That stuff,’ Hardy said with a laugh, ‘it goes up like the fires of hell themselves. It’s terrific!’

  Powerscourt and Fitzgerald sat waiting for another battle, as they had waited together so many times in the past. Powerscourt remembered the terrible strain, waiting hour after hour in the roasting Indian sun for the enemy to unleash their gaudy cavalry on the thin lines of redcoats and their guns. He remembered waiting in the Piazza San Marco in Venice for Lord Edward Gresham to come to a fateful rendezvous in an upstairs room of Florian’s restaurant. He remembered another Indian battle when he and Johnny had been surrounded in an ancient fortress near the Khyber Pass waiting for the Afghans to climb the slope and die in their thousands from the artillery.

  ‘Francis,’ said Johnny, I think I might take a little nap. Wake me in a couple of hours.’ He looked at his watch. ‘In six hours’ time, I can have a bloody great drink. I hope that hotel man can open his bar for the celebrations.’

  ‘One thing, Johnny, just one, before you go to sleep.’ Powerscourt sounded very solemn. ‘I realize that now may not be the best time to ask this question. It is after all a very personal matter. Forgive me for asking it. Feel free not to respond if you so wish.’

  ‘Get on with it, Francis!’ said Fitzgerald, draping himself neatly into the sofa.

  ‘It’s this, Johnny. What did you tell your customers when you were being Mystic Merlin on the West Pier?’

  Fitzgerald laughed. ‘It’s terribly easy, really. Most of the customers are young girls. “Are you married, my child?” I would say, stroking their hands. “No, sir,” they would reply. I would pause for a bit and start talking about lines of the hand meeting in particular places. Then I would say I saw a little house with a garden and three children playing and a husband just coming home from work. Some of them would give me extra money for that.’

  Powerscourt thought of legions of Lydia Bennets, asking for confirmation that the perfect officer was just around the corner, waiting at the ball in scarlet uniform.

  ‘Did you give anyone bad news, Johnny?’

  ‘No.’ Fitzgerald was yawning now. ‘Only one very pompous man. He looked very rich to me. God knows why he wanted to have his fortune told.’

  ‘Maybe he too wanted a little house with three children,’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘Well, I thought he had plenty of houses already. I told him I saw a mountain, a very long time ago, and a great crowd on the slopes gathered to hear a preacher man.’

  ‘What did the preacher man say, Johnny?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘The preacher man said,’ Fitzgerald was laughing now, ‘that the meek shall inherit the earth.’

  Lady Lucy ate very little that evening. She wanted to stay alert for whatever the night might bring. She told her captors she had a very bad headache and needed to be left in peace. As she pretended to doze in her armchair she could almost hear her heart beating.

  Francis has found me. Francis is coming.

  Her husband spent much of the evening staring out of his window towards the West Pier. Various emissaries came from the King George with details of the plans. Chief Inspector Tait came with news that everything was going splendidly. He explained to Powerscourt that the police had evolved a system of sending each other messages by whistles for use in the smoke. They sounded very complicated. Powerscourt only remembered one. One long continuous blast meant that the fire could be stopped, the smoke engines turned off.

  Joe Hardy came, looking very excited about the night ahead.

  ‘We’re going to have a proper fire in the rooms on the two floors underneath. Proper fire,’ he went on gleefully, ‘not just smoke like everywhere else. It should help them get hot in Rooms 607 and 608.’

  He saw Powerscourt looking alarmed.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. It won’t be too hot. And we’ll be able to put it out when we want to. It’s going to be tremendous!’

  With that, Joe Hardy departed into the night, whistling happily to himself as he went. As darkness fell over Brighton the Chief Constable himself appeared.

  ‘I’m feeling rather nervous,’ he announced. ‘But I hope everything is under control. The inferno, as that charming young man from London keeps referring to it, is to start a few minutes after one o’clock.’

  Shortly after midnight Lord Francis Powerscourt crept down to the front. There was a crescent moon and the stars were shining brightly over the sea. A slight wind came in from the English Channel. Powerscourt heard whispered greetings from the shadows and the doorways as he passed. ‘Good evening, sir.’ ‘Good luck, sir.’ Chief Inspector Tait must have his men posted everywhere tonight, he thought, as he saw a further posse of policemen lying on the beach behind the fishing boats. On the West Pier the moonlight was glinting off the girders, faint shadows reflected in the dark waters beneath. The great hotels lay sleeping on the sea front, like beached liners waiting for another voyage. A stray drunk was being escorted to a place of safety by yet more of Tait’s policemen. A stray dog, watched by twenty pairs of eyes, trotted slowly along the front in the direction of the Royal Pavilion to guard the ghosts of the Prince Regent and Mrs Fitzherbert.

  33

  By a quarter to one Powerscourt and Fitzgerald were waiting in a room on the second floor of the west wing of the King George the Fourth. There were no lights. Hardy crept in and gave them both a collection of dampened handkerchiefs. ‘Might be useful in the smoke,’ he whispered cheerfully before departing to tend his flames.

  Powerscourt knew the plan. He felt l
ike a theatre producer who has given the stage directions for his final act but does not know what the actors are going to say. The smoke was to be increased step by step. The fire in the rooms below 607 and 608 was to burn very fast, helped by some of Joe Hardy’s inflammatory liquids. The balconies were the key to the smoke. Each room in the west wing and in the section next to it had a small balcony overlooking the sea. All the guests in this part of the building had been transferred to another section of the hotel. They were told there was a temporary problem with the water supply. Tonight the balconies were occupied by barrels filled with a mixture of oil, tar and pitch, combined in a deadly recipe to produce the maximum amount of smoke. When the three residents of Rooms 607 and 608 finally came out a platoon of six was to take care of them. Two each for the kidnappers. Two for Lady Lucy, Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald. Tait had tried to deter him, fearing that his personal involvement might make him hesitate when rapid action was called for. ‘I’m the only one who will recognize her,’ Powerscourt had said defensively. ‘In all that smoke, sir,’ Tait had said, ‘you wouldn’t recognize Queen Victoria herself.’ Powerscourt had prevailed.

  The Town Hall clock struck one. Powerscourt peered out at the sea front and the West Pier. Nothing moved. There was only the low murmur of the English Channel, small waves rolling in along the pebbles of the beach. Then it started. It started very slowly. Two floors beneath him the first of Joe Hardy’s barrels began to pour a thick stream of smoke up the side of the building. That’s nothing at all, Powerscourt thought, it’s a drop in the ocean. Then other barrels began to join the chorus. Soon there were five, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty, then thirty, then Powerscourt couldn’t see very much at all.

  The front of the hotel was wreathed in smoke, the west wing almost invisible. The breeze from the sea was keeping the smoke close to the side of the building. Then the flames started. Two great sheets of flame leapt upward into the night sky from the floors above. Powerscourt learned later that the flames came from blankets soaked in Joe Hardy’s most inflammable liquids. At thirteen minutes past one the hotel fire alarm went off. Hotel staff, supplemented by Tait’s policemen, were running round the building, knocking on doors, shouting to the people inside.

  ‘Fire! Fire! You must leave now!’ Outside the first fire engine had arrived and hosepipes were being dragged into position. ‘Ladders,’ one of the firemen shouted, ‘we need some bloody ladders. Now!’

  At the front of the hotel a melancholy procession of sleepy residents was straggling out of the main entrance. The men were in dressing gowns. Women had thrown their coats over their nightgowns to face the night air. ‘Move along, now, move along.’ Powerscourt knew that the police were going to move the residents along the side of the west wing, directly underneath Rooms 607 and 608.

  ‘Fire! Fire!’ The shouts were everywhere in the hotel. There must have been about twenty or thirty men shouting now. ‘Come along, come along please.’ The voices of the policemen were more insistent and more irritated as the residents tottered out of the great doors. The hotel fire alarm was still sounding, a high and insistent note that wore away at the eardrums. A woman screamed very loudly just under Powerscourt’s room on the second floor. Then another. Then a chorus of screams rose up along with the smoke and the flames to the sixth floor. The rooms above me must be an inferno by now, Powerscourt thought. Police whistles began to sound through the confusion.

  Outside the hotel the firemen were raising great ladders, shouting encouragement to each other as they crept up against the side of the hotel.

  Powerscourt opened the door. Great waves of smoke poured in. The smoke was getting thicker and thicker up the stairway towards the higher floors. After a minute Powerscourt could scarcely see the Praetorian Guard of policemen and firemen deputed to capture the kidnappers. Behind him another fireman had appeared with a hosepipe. ‘Fire! Fire!’ The shouts were still echoing round the rest of the King George the Fourth. They must come now, Powerscourt thought to himself. Surely to God they can’t stand much more of this. They must come now. Maybe they would have to storm Rooms 607 and 608 after all. Maybe the people weren’t going to come out. Maybe they were dead.

  Hardy materialized out of the inferno. He pointed upwards. Powerscourt and his little band went up the stairs very slowly. He was straining for any noise coming from the upper floors but all he could hear were the shouts of the policemen and the instructions being bellowed to the firemen outside.

  They were on the fourth floor now. Still nobody came down the stairs. Had they jumped out of the window? Powerscourt knew there would be a party of firemen below, waiting to catch anybody leaping from the windows. If they could. If they didn’t miss them. If the fall wasn’t too great. The thick smoke, dark grey, almost black, was still pouring up the stairway. The banisters on the far side had completely disappeared from view. Desperately Powerscourt reached for one of Joe Hardy’s handkerchiefs and tied it round his face. He didn’t think he could bear much more of this. Beside him, invisible in the murk, Johnny Fitzgerald was coughing in great spasms. Powerscourt felt dizzy. They must come now, he thought. Nobody could take this amount of smoke. More whistles sounded through the fumes. Powerscourt wished he had paid more attention to Chief Inspector Tait telling him what they meant.

  Underneath the door of the fourth-floor rooms he could see flames dancing towards the ceiling. Outside there was a succession of screams and distant shouts that Powerscourt couldn’t distinguish. Still the hotel fire alarm rang out into this smoke- filled night. They heard a noise above them. A crash, as if somebody had just fallen against the side of the wall. Someone was swearing loudly in German. They heard more noises. Powerscourt wondered if they should advance up the stairs. Wait for them to come down, Hardy and the firemen had said, wait for them. That way you hold the initiative. More noises were coming down the stairs. Hardy had explained to Powerscourt earlier how people come down stairs in the smoke. ‘You try to hold the banisters with one hand. You try to touch the person next to you with the other hand.’

  How many people were coming down the stairs? One? Two? Three? Powerscourt couldn’t tell. Then phantom shapes could be discerned very dimly through the smoke. Powerscourt heard a whistle blowing very loudly on the upper floor. The fireman behind him suddenly advanced and turned on his hosepipe. The force of the water was a complete shock to the phantoms. They fell backwards, then rolled forward down the stairs. The Praetorian Guard moved in. Powerscourt saw that two figures had been apprehended and were now being bundled downstairs at great speed. There were only two of them. They were both men. The bastards, he said to himself, the bastards. Had they left Lady Lucy alone in that cauldron upstairs? Had they killed her before they made their stumble towards freedom down the stairs?

  Panting, choking, spluttering, Powerscourt and Fitzgerald made their way up the stairs to Room 607. Behind them they heard one long continuous blast on the police whistle. It seemed to sound for nearly a minute. That’s the ceasefire, Powerscourt remembered, or the end of smoke signal. As they reached the sixth-floor landing he could hardly move. The smoke seemed to have gone right down into his lungs. Quite soon, very soon, he thought to himself, I’m going to pass out. Johnny was in front of him now. Together they staggered into Room 607. The smoke was very thick. ‘Lucy!’ Powerscourt shouted. ‘Lucy!’ There was no answer. They crawled into the next room through the connecting door. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ The only noise they could hear came from the street outside. Lady Lucy was not there.

  A party of four firemen appeared in the doorway. ‘Search the rooms,’ Powerscourt said, and then he allowed one of the firemen, a giant of a man, to carry him downstairs. He met Matthews of the local fire brigade on the second floor. Johnny Fitzgerald was doubled up beside him. ‘Please, search that room. Please,’ said Powerscourt with the very last of his breath. ‘They might have put her in a cupboard or under the bed or something.’ Four more firemen raced upstairs. Powerscourt was retching now. It was very hard to breathe.

>   ‘You must go outside at once,’ said the fireman. ‘Otherwise you may do yourself permanent damage. I shall bring news to the main entrance if you care to wait there.’

  Supporting each other like a couple of drunks, Powerscourt and Fitzgerald staggered down the stairs. Perhaps this was their last battle, Powerscourt thought. Of all the battles they had ever fought this was the one he least liked to lose. As they left the west wing, the smoke abating now, great black marks on the walls, the carpets turned dark by the smoke, the hotel began to return to normal. The Palm Court where the orchestra had played Beethoven’s hymn to love six hours before was undamaged. The dining room waited in the moonlight for its breakfast customers. Outside the front door, Powerscourt sat down on the pavement. He wanted to cry. He had failed Lucy. How high her hopes must have risen when she heard the music. Now he had let her down.

  Matthews came back, looking sombre. ‘We have searched everywhere in those rooms. So far we have found nothing. We shall go on searching. I am sending my men up in relays.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald pulled his friend to his feet and led him to the other side of the street. There were policemen everywhere. The hotel residents seemed to have been brought back to the front of the George the Fourth to await return to their quarters. They were chattering noisily to one another, sharing in their reminiscences of escape from the fire. Powerscourt looked out to sea. The West Pier, the sea front, the beached hotels, the fishing boats lined up on the beach, were all the same as they had been an hour or so ago. But Powerscourt’s world had changed for ever.

  He turned to look back at the hotel. Only the west wing bore the marks of the smoke. He heard a whistle blowing somewhere far away. There was a lot of shouting from some distant place. The Chief Constable was about a hundred yards away, staring up at the roof. He ran back towards the main entrance. The whistle was still blowing, a series of short sharp bursts.