Death of an Elgin Marble (16 page)

He was instructed to climb three sets of stairs and knock on a black door opposite the top. This was the entry point into the warren of attic rooms where the records were kept.

‘Keep going straight through this room and the one after, then turn left onto a little corridor. The room you want is at the end.’ The receptionist was an elderly man, bent almost double with back pain or lumbago. Smithson wondered if he had sustained his injuries in a life of lifting as a porter at the station. When he reached his destination there was nobody there at first. There were great ledgers, all with dates stamped on the front running right round the room from floor to ceiling. Even up there an ingenious system of boxes fixed to the joists provided yet more storage space. Looking out of the small grimy window Smithson saw a vast flotilla of forgotten or disused railway carriages. Some of them, he thought, must have been over fifty years old. You could almost trace the evolution of the differing styles and fashions in train comfort across the decades.

‘You the policeman?’

An elderly receptionist was leaning heavily on a stout stick by the doorway.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Why didn’t you say so? Freight records, that’s what you want to look at, isn’t it? The last five years start at the bottom shelf right by this door. Then they carry on towards the roof. Most recent entries in the ceiling, I’m afraid. We’re running out of space. Begin wherever you want.’

‘Thank you very much. I’m obliged to you, sir.’

‘Don’t come asking me for any help now. This isn’t my patch. Man who looks after it is off sick. He’s been off sick for months now. Don’t know if he’s ever coming back. Count yourself lucky in one area, mind you.’

The young policeman took a quick look at his surroundings and found it hard to see where he might have struck it lucky.

‘Why is that?’

‘You’ve just got the records of all the shipments in here. The actual receipts, invoices and all the rest of them are stored further up the corridor.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. The last time anyone counted them, there were thirty-eight cardboard boxes full of the stuff. And they’re not sorted by date. And that’s just the last three years. A very good morning to you.’

Knightsbridge Barracks lies about three-quarters of a mile from Buckingham Palace. In the event of an armed insurrection or a serious disturbance at the palace, the First Life Guards or other branches of the Household Cavalry could be on the scene in a matter of minutes. But it was not their proximity to the throne that brought Lord Francis Powerscourt there this wet and windy afternoon. Nor was it their long and distinguished history, going back to the Restoration of Charles II. Inspector Kingsley’s researchers reported that, like Mrs Wilson of Norfolk House on the Thames, the Life Guards had been the victims of a robbery that was never solved and the treasure never recovered.

‘Colonel Erskine is waiting for you, sir! This way please, sir!’

Boots echoed down the corridor. Powerscourt was shown into a small library with a view out over the park. Leather-bound books marched in regimental order across the shelves. Powerscourt wondered how long it was since anyone had actually read any of them.

‘My name is Erskine! Delighted to meet you, Lord Powerscourt!’

Everything about the Colonel spoke of military perfection. His boots were so well polished that he could have shaved in them and trimmed his elegant moustache. His red jacket looked as though it had been cut by one of London’s more fashionable tailors. Under his arm he carried a swagger stick of polished black with a silver tip. He was standing at ease by the window, arms folded behind his back in the correct military stance.

‘Fellow said you had come about the robbery a year or so back,’ he boomed.

‘That is correct, Colonel.’

‘I should say at once that the bloody silver has nothing to do with me. Most of the chaps here wouldn’t know the difference between a cruet and a candlestick. My family have a certain amount of the stuff so the top brass put me in charge.’

‘Could you tell me a little about the silver collection, Colonel? I’m afraid I didn’t know the regiment had such a thing.’

‘Not many people do. Stuff’s so valuable it wouldn’t do to advertise it to any thieves or art dealers passing through Knightsbridge, don’t you know.’

The Colonel stopped suddenly and placed a monocle carefully in his right eye. He leant over to inspect Powerscourt as if he were a badly turned out lieutenant on parade.

‘I’ve heard of you, dammit, man, I’m sure I’ve heard of you! Wait a minute. Aren’t you the fellow who reorganized Army Intelligence in the Boer War? Didn’t you have a sidekick called Johnny who could drink a depot dry?’

‘I’m afraid I am,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘My companion in arms Johnny Fitzgerald is a reformed character now. He only starts drinking before lunch rather than before breakfast. There are rumours of a rich widow in Warwickshire.’

‘Are there, by God. Heaven help the widow!’ The Colonel began pumping Powerscourt’s hand in a bonecrushing embrace, beaming from ear to ear.

‘You’re one of us! You’re one of us!’ he said, throwing his swagger stick and his monocle onto a chair and loosening the buttons at the top of his jacket. ‘Let’s sit down and put our feet up for God’s sake! I only do this swagger stick, formal Life Guards officer routine because I’ve had to represent the regiment in talks with the War Office. Bastards tried to amalgamate us with some damned peasants in the West Country. Nothing against peasants, myself, plenty of them good workers at our little place in Shropshire, but we don’t want to join the buggers.’

The Colonel leant back and pressed a bell. ‘Claret please, Corporal! Two glasses if you would! One of our better bottles if you will, not that rotgut you served up the other evening. I think we should drink your health, Powerscourt, and to your temporary return to the military fold!’

The Colonel had now kicked his boots off and was sprawling in an armchair with his feet up on a small stool. ‘We’d better go back to the bloody silver, I suppose,’ he said.

‘It would be helpful, Colonel, if you could tell me something of its background, how the regiment came to acquire it, that sort of thing.’

‘That’s part of the trouble,’ said Colonel Erskine, indicating to the Corporal that he should put the claret on the round table by the window, ‘nobody thinks it would be very sensible to have people asking where we got it.’ He poured two very full glasses of claret and peered at the label. ‘This looks more like it. Your health, welcome back to the Army, Lord Powerscourt!’

Powerscourt nodded his appreciation of the wine. ‘Forgive me, Colonel, why would it not be very sensible to have people asking how you got the silver?’

‘Damn it, man, you worked out how to find the bloody Boer in South Africa, I’m sure you can work out the answer to that one!’

‘I wonder,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘I really do. Spoils of war? Booty from the battlefield? Houses of the rich ransacked after a siege? How about that, Colonel?’

‘You’ve got it in one, Lord Powerscourt. The regimental silver collection dates back to the late seventeenth century so I suppose they must have started making off with the stuff right from the start. They got an enormous haul after the battle of Vitoria near the end of the Peninsular War when Napoleon’s brother, acting King of Spain, was foolish enough to bring a great deal of material with him in his baggage train, paintings, silver, valuables of every sort. There’s quite a lot of that baggage train in Wellington’s Apsley House by the way. They bring out heaps of Vitoria silver every year for the Waterloo Dinner.’

‘So what exactly have you got? In general terms, obviously.’

‘Don’t ask me for a full inventory, for God’s sake. I should say that if it exists in silver we’ve got it. We’ve got cruets and salt cellars and any number of combinations of those. We’ve got enough candlesticks to light the Albert Hall and have lots left over. We’ve got plate and cups and goblets of every shape and size, decorated wine coolers and ornamental chamber pots, we’ve got an elaborate rococo epergne, sort of multi-purpose holder for condiments, matching sugar casters and salt cellars that would have stood on its branches. God knows where we stole that from. Better not ask.’

‘Could you tell me about the theft, Colonel?’ Powerscourt had been warned that this might be a tricky subject.

‘Ah yes, well, that’s all rather embarrassing really.’ The Colonel drained his wine glass and poured himself a refill.

‘Never mind,’ he continued, ‘orders must be obeyed by all ranks, time to advance, Steady the Buffs! It was the Regimental Feast, you see. That’s what did the damage.’

The Colonel paused again. He stared at an ornate pair of silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece. Powerscourt waited.

‘Once a year, at the beginning of September, we have a Regimental Feast or Dinner, if you prefer. We dine by candlelight off silver plate. The wine is served in ornate silver goblets, the ones for white slightly smaller than the ones for red. There are silver cruets and silver salt cellars, enormous silver wine coolers, everything silver to do with food is on display and used as its original owners intended. The fancy epergne thing stands in the centre of the top table where the generals are. In the centre of the tables, and ranged round the edges, are the pick of the remaining pieces, Communion vessels, more goblets, ewers, the pick of the collection.’

‘So what happened exactly?’ said Powerscourt.

‘This is the embarrassing bit, my friend. As you can imagine, the wine on these occasions flows like nectar in paradise. We used to have a very fine wine cellar, by the way, also liberated from the nation’s enemies, but that’s all been drunk by now. Well before the coffee and liqueurs there were officers passed out on the floor. By the time the last Life Guards finally left, every man jack present was drunk, very very drunk. There are records of an earlier Regimental Dinner in the 1800s, Lord Powerscourt, where the average consumption per man was two and a half bottles each, not counting liqueurs. This time it was worse, much worse.’

‘What about the theft?’

‘I’m coming to that. It was early afternoon the next day when the steward and his people realized some of the silver was missing. They have to check everything in and out from an enormous list, you see. A number of pieces weren’t there. But – and this is the really embarrassing bit – when the adjutant, who wasn’t at the dinner, being, if not actually teetotal, a puritan kind of a man who doesn’t like being surrounded by the totally inebriate, began asking questions, nobody could remember anything. Most of those present had difficulty recalling their own names. Nobody had seen anything untoward. Nobody had seen a thief come or go. Nobody had watched the stuff walk out of the door of its own accord. Nobody could remember a thing.’

‘What about the servants? Couldn’t they help?’

‘Help? They were even more helpless than the officers. Five of them were still stretched out on the scullery floor at nine o’clock the next morning. They have a tradition on these occasions – all the wines have to be tasted by the staff before they are served. At least a glass at a time. No wonder they were all laid out.’

‘So what exactly was taken?’

‘Four ornate silver plates, early 1700s, French. A pair of exquisite candlesticks believed to have come from the high altar of the cathedral in Badajoz, Spanish, late 1700s. Very beautiful silver wine cooler, English, early nineteenth century. Oh, I nearly forgot, a tiny silver salt cellar, believed to have belonged to Mr Samuel Pepys. God knows how we got hold of that.’

‘What did the police say? I presume the thing was reported.’

‘Funny you should mention that, my friend. Two policemen came, summoned in to see Officer Commanding, asked me what was gone and then they vanished. Rather like the bloody Boer in that damned war, disappearing into the veldt all the time.’

‘And you never heard of the stolen silver again? No blackmail notes arrived, suggesting a rendezvous and a handover and a pay-off?’

‘I’d like to see the villain who tried to blackmail the Life Guards. No, nothing like that. It’s been as silent as the grave ever since. The police never came back with any news. They just write to us every three months and say inquiries are progressing but there’s nothing new to report. Do you know what’s happened to our silver, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt did not reply.

‘Never mind,’ said the Colonel, ‘don’t expect you could say even if you did know.’ He raised himself once more in the direction of the claret. ‘Better finish this off while you’re here. Stuff never tastes the same after you’ve put a bloody cork in halfway down. Don’t suppose you can tell me what this is all about? Fellows like yourself don’t come poking about unless there’s something fishy going on.’

Powerscourt assured the Colonel that he was right in his assumptions but that, just for the moment, he could not speak about it. He was sure the Colonel would understand.

‘Of course, of course, my friend. Drink up, drink up! Any time you need a little help with your inquiries, show of muscle here, discreet disposal of your enemies there, let me know. Erskine and the Life Guards will be there for you, have no fear!’

Another one engaged! That was the third or the fourth this year! There couldn’t be many of them left, surely. One of Lady Lucy’s innumerable cousins was holding a drinks party in honour of her daughter Hermione’s engagement to a young solicitor called James Wentworth. Powerscourt reckoned that there must be over a hundred people in the room, most of whom must be related to him in some way or other but whom he did not recognize. He had belonged to this enormous extended family for years now. He still did not feel part of it. The record turnout for one of these huge family assemblies had been the christening of the Powerscourt twins in Chelsea Old Church some years before when he had counted a grand total of 127 in-laws.

He took refuge in a small sitting room with his brother-in-law William Burke. Burke was a noted financier in the City of London who now collected directorships as he once collected old volumes of Wisden.

‘Bloody noisy in there, Francis,’ said Burke, clipping the end of a large Havana.