Death of an Elgin Marble (22 page)

Theophilus Ragg was looking slightly uncomfortable now. The top was off his pen once more and he was drawing lines on his blotter.

‘I put it to you, Mr Ragg. You have been to the Government. An acting director of the British Museum always has access to the Prime Minister in Number Ten Downing Street. Come to that, he also has access to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Number Eleven Downing Street. In this case maybe he has a meeting with both of those gentlemen. They say the Government will pay the blackmailer, however much that takes. The true figure may never be disclosed, of course, it will be smuggled away in the Treasury accounts for years to come, but the Government will foot the bill. How’s that, Mr Ragg?’

The Deputy Director looked carefully at the crooked lines on his blotter. He blinked a couple of times. Powerscourt thought the man was too honest to tell lies about such a delicate subject.

‘Very well. I shall not insult your intelligence by fobbing you off with a pack of lies. Whatever financial and fiduciary arrangements the British Museum enters into with His Majesty’s Treasury must remain confidential, and rightly so. But it would be fair to say that such an undertaking has been given, that the Government will underwrite any subventions necessary to secure the return of the Caryatid. I propose to write to the Ritz Hotel – I am not familiar with the building, but I am given to understand that it is situated on Piccadilly, not far from Fortnum and Mason – immediately after lunch today. Do you follow me, gentlemen?’

‘Yes,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Could I ask if you intend to proceed to any such meeting alone? If you do, I have to tell you that the Metropolitan Police cannot guarantee your safety. We have a duty to protect the citizens of the capital. Our duty lapses if the citizens disregard the advice they are given about their own security. Goodness, man, we have had people watching after the safety of your wife and children twenty-four hours a day since the start of this affair. Are you going to throw all that away? Surely it would make more sense to go to a meeting if you must, but one where we can take reasonable steps to keep you safe and, if possible, to apprehend the blackmailer?’

‘We shall have to see what demands the blackmailer may wish to place on any rendezvous. From our earlier correspondence I would presume that he will take every step to secure his own future. If you think about it, gentlemen, the blackmailer needs to keep me alive after our first meeting. Otherwise how is anybody to know when and where the exchange of specie for the Caryatid is to take place?’

‘I don’t like it one little bit,’ said Inspector Kingsley, ‘I cannot give such a plan my blessing. I shall have to seek an urgent meeting with the Commissioner. I expect he will be in touch with you this afternoon.’

‘I can’t say I like it either, Mr Ragg,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But I do respect your courage, although I agree with the Inspector about being unable to approve your plans. I think they are rash, and likely to lead to more problems.’

‘Thank you both for listening so carefully, and for your advice. Now, if you will forgive me, I have a lunch appointment with the Egyptians. They tell me Rameses the Second needs some care and attention.’

A scowling Inspector Kingsley set off for Scotland Yard. Lord Francis Powerscourt took himself to the foyer of the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. Seated inconspicuously behind an enormous vase, his face largely hidden by the pages of
The Times
and an enormous plant, he spent the early part of the afternoon in reconnaissance. That, after all, he reminded himself from his days with the military, was often half the battle.

The twins’ first evening in Wales began well enough. The undertaker brought them to the Green Dragon where the schoolteacher Carwyn Jones was waiting. The local beer was stronger than the stuff served in the twins’ local, the Highwayman, off Deptford High Street. Though the visitors from London seemed not to know very much about rugby, they seemed to be fitting in very well, even if most of the locals had reverted to speaking in Welsh once the strangers arrived. It was when the twins announced that they wanted a word with Carwyn in private that things began to go wrong.

The undertaker took them to a long outbuilding at the back of his premises where he stored his coffins and other odds and ends. There was one bare light bulb in the ceiling and a couple of wooden chairs left beside the door. The undertaker left them half a dozen bottles of beer and announced he needed to go back to the pub to buy some more supplies. The twins strapped Carwyn Jones into one of the chairs with some rope.

‘You’ve been writing very naughty letters,’ said Richard, shaking his head.

‘Very naughty letters. Letters that should never have been sent,’ Robert agreed.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Carwyn replied.

‘Come, come. We know you’ve been sending these naughty letters. Why don’t you just admit it?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Carwyn defiantly. ‘I tell you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You don’t want to make things difficult for yourself now, do you,’ said Richard, punching Carwyn’s head so he sat slumped sideways in his chair. ‘Did you write these letters or not? We wouldn’t want to make life even more painful for you, would we, Robert?’

‘That would never do,’ his brother replied. There was no answer from the chair.

Richard delivered a force eight blow to Carwyn’s stomach.

‘Next time it’ll be your face and all those lovely white teeth you’ve got.’

There was another deeper groan. Robert pushed the teacher’s face back into the upright position.

‘All right,’ Carwyn said between howls of pain, ‘I did write a letter. Just one letter. No more.’

‘Is that so? You admit you wrote a naughty letter, do you? Who else did you tell about it?’

‘What do you mean?’

Richard punched him quite lightly in the mouth. ‘That’s just for starters, my little Welsh friend. Next time I’m going to knock your teeth out. I’m just beginning to enjoy myself now. Are you enjoying yourself, Robert?’

‘I am indeed. What do you say, schoolteacher?’

‘I didn’t tell anybody else. That’s the truth. Honest.’

‘Don’t believe you. You’ll have to do better than that.’

Carwyn Jones felt he was doomed. This was an East End version of Morton’s Fork where you paid your taxes or the King came to stay and ate you out of house and home. If he said yes, they’d beat him up even more. If he said no, they’d beat him up until he said yes.

‘I know what, Robert,’ said Richard. ‘Let’s have a cigarette and think things over.’

‘Good idea.’

The twins smoked the Pall Mall brand, named after the street with the showroom of the parent company, Rothmans.

‘I don’t think we’re going to offer you one, Mr Jones the schoolteacher,’ said Robert, waving his cigarette close to Carwyn’s face. ‘Naughty boys who write naughty letters don’t deserve them, do they?’

‘Look at it another way,’ said Richard, laughing loudly, ‘they could get a cigarette, but not how they expected it.’ He stabbed the lighted end into Carwyn’s arm. Twice. Carwyn screamed. He kicked out blindly, for although his arms were tied, his legs were not. Quite by accident his boot landed on Richard’s leg, on the bony section just below the knee.

The twins lost their tempers at exactly the same time. They threw their cigarettes to the ground and threw the chair over. Both began kicking Jones as hard in the head as they could. Then they took turns to stamp on his face and his private parts. All the while they made a crooning noise, a terrible mixture of anger and pleasure. Jones passed out. He was unconscious long before he died. As they looked at the corpse they had just created, the twins shook hands. They always did that after a murder. They had another cigarette.

‘What are we going to do with him now?’

‘I know. Let’s pop him into one of these coffins lying about the place. Then he won’t have far to go.’ They began to laugh.

The next morning the twins left very early on the milk train to Cardiff. The undertaker found that his first client of the day was already in place.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

Benjamin Disraeli

‘Nice of them to leave us a bottle of champagne, don’t you think?’ Inspector Christopher Kingsley was standing at the tall window of room 107 on the first floor of the Ritz Hotel overlooking Piccadilly. Lord Francis Powerscourt was pacing up and down the room. It was the evening after Deputy Director Ragg sent his dispatch to the blackmailer. Ragg was due to come to the hotel reception in an hour and ten minutes’ time to meet the man who might or might not have the Caryatid. The time and the place was all Ragg would tell them, and even that had caused a row, with Inspector Kingsley accusing the Deputy Director of placing his own vanity and reputation above the prospects for the safe return of the statue. Ragg had refused all offers of protection. He insisted that he be allowed to go to the meeting alone and that no policemen should be on duty at the time of his arrival. He had refused to show Powerscourt and the Inspector either his original letter or the blackmailer’s reply. The Head of Scotland Yard had been emphatic.

‘I don’t care how you do it, Kingsley, I couldn’t care less really. But we’ve got to have a presence there. We’ve got to arrest this blackmailer if we can. And we can’t let anything happen to Ragg. Bloody fool must think he’s performing heroics at the Siege of Troy or some damned thing. It’s bad enough losing a bloody Caryatid for God’s sake. To lose a Deputy Director as well would be a catastrophe!’

Less than an hour to go now. Powerscourt was not happy. ‘Tell me again, Inspector, if you would, the full disposition of our forces.’

‘What you have to remember, my friend, is that there are no policemen here this evening. I felt we had to let Ragg think that he was coming alone. I don’t think he’d be a very good liar. Let me see now. There are a number of guests at the hotel, dressed in plain clothes, their Sunday best most of them. There’s a sergeant and a constable one floor up, two constables on the third floor and another five spread out all over the upper floors. There’s another inspector and a sergeant in a room right at the back in case they try to go out the back way through Green Park. Some clever chap here at the hotel offered to fix up a system of bells like they have in all the rooms here. He said he could even make me a little control panel showing which bell was ringing at any given time. I said no in the end because we couldn’t work out a system for what one, two or three rings might mean. The chap thought we might get confused. They’ve put a trainee footman, young and quick, on every floor to carry messages.’

Kingsley peered out through the gap in his curtains once more. ‘No sign of Ragg yet. I bet he’ll be early but not this early. That’s just the guests, my lord. In the lobby there are three police footmen, there’s a pair of police waiters in the dining room and an assistant sommelier from Marylebone Police Station who knows as much about wine as I do about the Mohammedans. There are more officers deployed up and down the street and two police cars with drivers who know London well lurking in the side streets. And, I nearly forgot, there are a couple of cyclists hidden away in the streets opposite the hotel.’

One of the young footmen knocked on the door. He came from the third floor. What, the young man panted, were they to do if Ragg and the blackmailer went into one of the rooms on their level? ‘Watch and wait,’ Inspector Kingsley replied. ‘Send immediately for reinforcements. If you do anything rash Ragg might end up dead.’

The ornate French clock by the side of the fireplace said it was a quarter past seven. Fifteen minutes left.

Powerscourt tiptoed to the other great window looking out over the street and stared out through the curtains. It had started to rain. The pavements were glistening in the street lights. The citizens of London pulled their coats tight around themselves and continued their journeys home. Powerscourt thought that action seemed to have revived the Inspector. The urge to resign seemed to have been conquered by a passion for logistics and organization. He hoped it would last.

‘I’m very impressed,’ said Powerscourt, pulling back from his window. ‘It’s like being back in the Army hatching plans for a secret night attack. Mind you, I’m still worried that this may all be a waste of time.’

The Inspector checked his watch. ‘Ten minutes to go now,’ he said, taking up his position by the window. ‘I know it could all be a waste of time. But we can’t take that chance, can we?’

Powerscourt returned to his sentry station by the other window. Anybody looking at the Ritz very carefully from the other side of the street would have noticed tiny gaps in the curtains all the way up the front of the great hotel. Every floor had its own tiny sliver of light. Down below the rain was falling faster now. It rattled off the street and onto the pavement of the arcade that ran between the front of the hotel and the reception. The porters had greatcoats on now, buttoned up to the throat.

Five minutes to go. ‘Damn, damn and damn again!’ cried the Inspector. A forest of black umbrellas, adorned with the crest of the Ritz, a lion with an orb in its paw, had shot up, raised aloft by the porters anxious to preserve the health of their guests. All Powerscourt and the policemen on the higher floors could see were the umbrellas outside the front of the building.

‘You could commit murder down there and we’d be none the wiser!’ The Inspector was kicking the leg of a Louis XIV table very hard. A tinkle from the clock said it was now half past seven. The rain showed no signs of abating.

‘Christ, Powerscourt! You must have been in these kinds of situation before! What do you think we should do? Should we all rush downstairs?’

There was another knock at the door. The footman was panting this time.

‘Message from the fourth floor, sir. “Can’t see for the bloody umbrellas. Please advise.”’