Death of an Elgin Marble (39 page)

‘We must get that floorboard fixed, Francis. That squeak goes right through my head.’

‘Could I make a suggestion,’ said the Inspector. ‘We’ve all had a long day. Could I suggest that we consider this proposal overnight and reconvene in the morning? I think that would be sensible.’

‘Good idea,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘Come to breakfast. We’ll get some kippers.’

Temperature one hundred and four. Fever so bad I can scarcely walk. Hope to return to town when better. Behave yourself. Beware of Greek maidens. Johnny.

Lady Lucy’s face fell as she read the telegram from Warwickshire over breakfast the following morning. Johnny Fitzgerald would not be here to accompany Francis on any hare-brained expeditions. There was another, slightly more cheerful, telegram, announcing his imminent arrival at Rokesley Hall, from William Mackenzie, the tracker who had worked with her husband in India and in the Boer War. Mackenzie could follow man or beast across the most unpromising country without being detected.

Inspector Kingsley was devouring a couple of kippers. He thought he should approach the main question as circumspectly as he could. ‘Lady Powerscourt, I wonder if you have had time to think about the matters we were discussing yesterday evening?’

Lady Lucy smiled. ‘You should have been a diplomat, Inspector. I’m sure you’d have gone far.’

‘Maybe it’s not too late,’ said the Inspector. ‘In my new role as Ambassador, maybe I could ask for the answer?’

Lady Lucy looked at her husband. She hated the idea of Francis as live bait, as if he were to be thrown into the water to attract the sharks. She knew how sick she would feel until the affair was resolved and he was returned to Markham Square safe and sound. She could be in for the worst twenty-four hours of her life. But she knew what she married into. Francis had never attempted to pretend his work was not dangerous some of the time. She loved him. She was aware that if she asked him not to do it he would grant her request without complaint. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t have lived with herself. She smiled at Inspector Kingsley.

‘My dear Inspector, you know perfectly well what my answer will be, I’m sure. If Francis wants to become a form of human bait, so be it. I will support him with all my powers.’

Inspector Kingsley bowed. ‘Thank you so much, Lady Powerscourt, that can’t have been an easy decision. We’ll look after him, don’t you fear.’

Powerscourt and Inspector Kingsley began discussing their plans. Thomas Powerscourt came in and helped himself to a couple of kippers. Lady Lucy decided on a mission to the shops. The house badly needed some new furniture, she decided. And, if she had time, she would lay her hands on the latest auction catalogues. These would not relieve the worry while Francis was away, but they might provide an element of distraction.

The great battle plans of history have the virtue of simplicity. The details of the Rokesley campaign were finalized in the Powerscourt dining room and further refined by Inspector Ferguson in Deptford. He was to tell Carver Wilkins’s people, by an unconventional but reliable route, that Powerscourt, Inspector Kingsley, Dr Stanhope and William Tyndale Easton were planning to hold a conference in Rokesley Hall this weekend.

‘That should flush the buggers out,’ had been Inspector Ferguson’s advice to Inspector Kingsley. ‘Carver would probably like to knock off all four of them. Pity two of the visitors won’t be able to make it, but never mind.’ The Deptford police, he told his colleague, proposed to attend the event in person with a cast comprised of the Inspector, his sergeant and four constables used to a bit of a roughhouse, as Ferguson put it. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for worlds,’ had been his parting shot, ‘see you later in Northamptonshire. Tally ho!’

Powerscourt had insisted on one thing, that a couple of capable officers should be on duty at all times by the front and back doors to the house. In the event of a full frontal assault, they would be able to make an immediate arrest. He did not want any violence inside Rokesley Hall. Lady Lucy and the children, he felt, would never come again if there was blood on the floorboards. Instead he declared that the field of battle should lie between the gardens of his house and Southwick Wood a couple of miles away. There were clumps of trees along the way and an entire police force could be concealed in the wood itself, or in the adjoining area of the Short Wood, famed for its bluebells in the spring. Advance guard and advance notice of any arrivals would be provided by Mackenzie patrolling the only road between Oundle and the Hall. At four o’clock on Saturday afternoon and at eleven o’clock the next day Powerscourt would set out to walk from the house to the wood.

The policemen began arriving at two o’clock. Only the most observant noticed a small slim figure with a deerstalker hat saluting them as they drove past. Mackenzie was famous for the discretion of his observation posts. At half past two a cab with a couple of burly men in suits drove past and pulled up at the Shuckburgh Arms, the local pub near the Hall that backed onto the cricket pavilion and the cricket pitch. Mackenzie was about to depart to the Arms for a closer look at the visitors when another traveller arrived. This one carried a golf bag with the top section closed. He conferred briefly with Mackenzie and departed for Rokesley Church where, he told the Scotsman, there was a superb view of the surrounding countryside from the bell tower high above the nave and the bodies in the churchyard below. Mackenzie collected a Deptford constable from the back of the church and conducted a brief reconnaissance from the public bar.

‘You’re sure?’ said Mackenzie, sipping a half of mild and bitter.

‘Those two by the window? I’m positive,’ said the policeman. ‘We’d better get back to our posts. The curtain will be going up fairly soon.’

Five minutes later Mackenzie was with Powerscourt, staring out over the gardens and the tennis court. ‘So,’ Powerscourt said very quietly, ‘the Twins are in the saloon. I don’t suppose they’ll start anything in there. Maybe I should walk past the windows and see what happens. You didn’t see anybody else on your travels, William? No other unexpected visitors?’

‘None at all,’ replied Mackenzie, ‘I’ve seen everything that goes up and down on that stretch of road.’

At ten to four Powerscourt checked he had his pistol in his pocket. He had grabbed it from its hiding place in his desk before he left Markham Square. Is this the end of the trail, he wondered, a trail that led from Great Russell Street to the harbour front in Brindisi and the millionaire’s retreat in the Hudson Valley and the procession to the Acropolis itself? Is this where it ends? He wished Johnny Fitzgerald was with him.

Lady Lucy was pacing up and down her drawing room just like her husband did when detective thoughts were racing through his brain. All her children were out. She had indeed collected a number of auction catalogues on her trips round the shops of Sloane Avenue and the King’s Road that morning. Eighteenth-century armoires and Georgian dining tables were not enough to anchor her thoughts in Markham Square. What was happening up there in Northamptonshire? Was Francis all right? Not for the first or the second or the third time she wished that Johnny Fitzgerald was by his side.

The clock in the hall was striking four as Powerscourt set off for his afternoon walk. In the woods and in the clumps of trees, in the dark recesses of the farm buildings and, in one case, high up in one of the great oaks of Southwick Wood, the policemen checked their watches and waited for their prey. The Inspectors fingered their whistles. One or two of the constables had armed themselves with fearful wooden clubs lying about on the ground. Powerscourt went past the pub very slowly. He set out on the footpath to the woods that led past the cricket pitch where he had scored a century in a village match three years before. He was in open ground now. He could hear nothing behind. He could see nothing suspicious in front. Way over to his left was Fotheringhay where Mary Queen of Scots had breathed her last. He hoped he wasn’t going to join her this afternoon.

He was on the path between the hamlet of Southwick and the wood that bore its name when there was a shout behind him.

‘You,’ said the voice, ‘you’re Powerscourt, aren’t you?’

He could see no point in denying it. He turned to face them. His hand was fumbling in his pocket. ‘I am.’

‘My brother and I here, we want a word.’ The Twins drew closer. One brought out a pair of knuckledusters and put them on ostentatiously. The other lit a cigarette. They were only a couple of paces from his face now. Surely this was enough, thought Powerscourt. Where are the police? They should be coming now, running at full speed to arrest his opponents. They weren’t here. Where was Mackenzie? For God’s sake, where was Inspector Kingsley?

High up in the bell tower the traveller peered down his telescopic sight. He fiddled with it until he had the three people in the line of fire. He would have to wait till they were separated before he could pull the trigger. As things looked he could as easily hit Powerscourt as his assailants. Powerscourt pulled out his pistol. Before he could bring it level, the right boot of the twin with the knuckledusters sent it sailing into the grass by the side of the path.

‘Time to get started,’ said Robert, rubbing his hands together. Richard began waving his cigarette closer and closer to Powerscourt’s face. Powerscourt was about to start running towards the woods when Robert kicked him in the leg so hard he fell over. The Twins moved in for the kill, boots at the ready.

The first shot caught Robert in the centre of his back. He crumpled forward and lay still. Almost immediately there was a second shot which took him in the head. Richard turned to see where the firing came from. The third shot caught him in the centre of the chest. He fell to the ground, pulling Powerscourt down with him until he lay on the ground with Richard’s sixteen stone lying prone on top of him. As he fell, Powerscourt could see a line of policemen running at full speed towards him. Whistles were blowing in the wood. Another posse was advancing at full speed from the direction of the village and the pub. He was trapped beneath the weight and the blood of the dying twin who was making gurgling noises as the life ebbed from his body.

‘My lord.’ Inspector Kingsley and his Sergeant were pulling Powerscourt clear. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Just about,’ said Powerscourt, dusting his jacket and realizing that he had blood all over his trousers. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Sorry we’re late. I think we waited too long before we moved in. I’m so sorry.’

Inspector Ferguson pronounced both the twins dead. ‘Was the sharpshooter one of your officers, Inspector?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘Bloody good shot, whoever he was.’

‘Neither Inspector Kingsley nor I have any idea who fired the shots, my lord. It’s hard to tell where they came from. I suppose they must have come from somewhere in the village.’

The traveller with the golf bag had packed his kit away. He made his way very carefully down the winding stone stairway that led to the bell tower. By the front of the church he checked that the coast was clear. Then he made his way to the railway station by a back route.

‘Well,’ said Inspector Kingsley in the Rokesley drawing room, ‘that was a close shave indeed. My apologies once again, my lord, for leaving it so late. But nobody in Deptford will be in fear of their lives any more. They’ll be drinking your health down there once they hear the news.’

Powerscourt had recovered from his ordeal, back in his house, helped by a clean pair of trousers and two glasses of champagne. ‘I still want to know who fired the shots,’ he said to the Inspectors and their Sergeants.

‘I think he may have been in the bell tower, whoever he was,’ said Sergeant Burke, who rejoiced in a Quaker mother and a Presbyterian father, and was enjoying the first glass of champagne he had ever tasted. He had carried out a survey of the village. ‘I’ve been up there,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t see any traces of a gunman, but the line of sight from up there goes straight to the twins’ position when they were shot. It’s the height. You can see for miles from up there.’

‘Where is Mackenzie?’ Powerscourt asked suddenly. ‘He may have the key to the mystery.’

But William Mackenzie had not been found. He seemed to have disappeared and the waters had closed over him as surely as if he had been spirited up to heaven. On his way back to London Powerscourt decided that Mackenzie must have fired the shots and vanished in case one of the many policemen decided to charge him with murder.

The traveller with the golf bag reached home in the early evening. He saw that a couple of policemen were still on duty by his front door so he headed for the back entrance.

‘And who might you be with that bag?’ asked the third policeman on guard at Markham Square.

‘I’m terribly sorry, Officer. I live here.’

‘You do?’

‘My name is Thomas Powerscourt,’ the traveller announced, ‘I have lived here for years.’

‘Beg pardon, I’m sure, sir. You go straight in now. Don’t venture out this evening unless you have to.’

The constable resumed his guard duty. He did not mention the meeting in his evening report. Thomas passed his mother on the stairs. He replaced the contents of the golf bag and changed his clothes before supper. Thomas Powerscourt had heard about the terrible risks his father was proposing to take. His had been the footsteps disappearing up the stairs with the creaking floorboard. He knew how his mother would worry. If Johnny Fitzgerald had been in attendance, Thomas would have stayed in London. As it was, the time had come for the eldest son to replace his father’s oldest companion in arms. Time for youth to take up the baton.

Four days after the events at Rokesley, Stephen Lambert Lodge, the American academic from Yale, returned to the British Museum. He made a detailed inspection of the restored Caryatid and said that he could not be sure if she was the real thing or not. There were certain imperfections in the marble, he said, that he had not noticed on his previous inspection. He was so sorry he could not be definite. The day after that, Dr Andrew Cronan, Director of the British Museum, returned from his travels and took command of his kingdom once again. And the morning after that, Powerscourt was invited to Number Ten Downing Street for a meeting with the Prime Minister. The only other guest was to be Dr Cronan.