Death and the Jubilee

17

British agents used to meet their informants in Dublin in a strange variety of places, walking by the docks on Sunday afternoons, in empty train compartments, in the side chapels of the empty Protestant churches, even in cemeteries where the British would appear with bunches of improbable flowers to mourn the deaths of their adversaries. Fergus Finn was going to meet his contact in the wide open spaces of the Phoenix Park. It was quiet on weekday mornings and they could talk beneath the trees without being seen.

‘I have some news for you now,’ said Finn, drawing his thin coat around him against the rain that flew into their faces and dripped from the branches above. ‘And I think it’s worth a lot of money.’

‘What makes you say that?’ asked the agent wearily. He carried in his jacket pocket enough for Finn’s latest subvention. Long experience had taught him to carry at least twice as much money as seemed necessary.

‘Michael Byrne now, you’ve heard tell of Michael Byrne?’

The agent nodded, his eyes sweeping the park to make sure they were not being watched.

‘He’s got a sweetheart,’ Finn was talking very quietly,’ a pretty wee thing called Marie O’Dowd. He’s been sending her over to London.’

‘Do you know why?’ asked the agent.

‘It’ll be some sort of reconnaissance mission, don’t you see. She’s a teacher, that Marie. She goes for interviews for jobs at the schools in London. That’s what her auntie told my ma’s cousin when they met at Mass the other morning.’

‘She could just be intending to go and live in London, couldn’t she?’ said the agent, who had moved to Ireland from England’s capital. ‘Lots of people like London better than Dublin, you know.’

As he thought of the squalor and the poverty, the lies and the treacheries and the betrayals, the sheer elusiveness of Dublin’s inhabitants, the agent knew where home would be for him.

‘You don’t understand, man,’ said Finn, ‘she’s besotted with Michael Byrne, totally besotted with him. She’d do anything for him. It’s as if Michael Byrne himself has been walking the streets of London.’

A troop of horse, part of the detachment guarding the Viceroy’s residence, trotted past the clump of trees, the horses’ coats shining in the rain.

‘Do you know if she did anything particular for him when she was in London?’ said the agent.

‘That I do not. She was always drawing things, that one. She’s got one of the best eyes in Dublin, you know. She could do you a perfect picture of the front of Buckingham Palace in about five minutes.’

The agent looked thoughtful, even alarmed. All agents were trained to show no emotion at all, not even anger, when dealing with their informants.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We have been here long enough. Here is your money, and a little bit more besides. That’s all there is today.’ Nothing upset this agent more than arguing with the treacherous Irish, bartering information for scraps of gold as if they were in some oriental market.

Fergus Finn took his forty pieces of silver and went back to his office. The agent waited under the trees for a full fifteen minutes before he walked back across the city to his quarters in Dublin Castle.

News of the meeting reached Dominic Knox, senior officer in the British service responsible for intelligence gathering in Ireland, the following day. He swore as he looked out on the cobblestones of Dublin Castle at the little chapel built to commemorate British rule in Ireland. The names of the English rulers were written round its walls. It was one of the very few places in Dublin where the name of Cromwell could be found. The sentries stood to rigid attention in their dark blue boxes. The Viceroy’s carriage was waiting haughtily at the main entrance. Inside the castle walls was all the authority and certainty of the British Empire. Outside in the smoke and grime of the filthy city a handful of badly organized fanatics were trying to plot the end of English rule in Ireland.

Knox sent a message to his counterpart in London. They were to circulate all the elementary schools in London – he corrected himself as he struggled with his codes, all the Catholic elementary schools in London – asking for details of all applicants for positions. All applicants from Ireland. It was to be part of an administrative survey into the provision of teaching staff in the capital. The circular should be sent out immediately.

The Commissioner sent his apologies. He was delayed at a meeting. Powerscourt drank cup after cup of Metropolitan Police tea, strong and sweet. He chatted briefly with Arthur Stone, the assistant who had told him about the fire at Blackwater. There was a further message from the Commissioner. His meeting was taking much longer than expected. Powerscourt drank more tea, wondering why even these offices had to be so drab.

‘My dear Lord Powerscourt.’ The Commissioner was effusive in his apologies. ‘It’s the Jubilee, the wretched Jubilee. The nearer it gets the more anxious the organizers become. You’d think they were orchestrating the Second Coming.’

Powerscourt told the Commissioner about the fire, about his suspicions that it had not started accidentally, about the whisky butler in the basement, about the mystery of the missing key.

‘If the fire was started deliberately, do you think the purpose was to kill Frederick Harrison?’ The Commissioner was putting some papers in a folder labelled ‘Jubilee 1897’. Powerscourt felt sure that somewhere in the building was a folder labelled ‘Jubilee 1887’. He wondered if they had one ready yet for Victoria’s funeral.

‘That is the only conclusion I can draw,’ said Powerscourt wearily. ‘But I cannot find any clear motive unless it is to obtain for Mr Charles Harrison the complete control over the bank’s affairs.’

‘Does he have that now – that control, I mean?’ The Commissioner looked keenly at Powerscourt.

‘Not quite yet. Almost, but not quite. There is a senior clerk by the name of Williamson who has to approve all major decisions, according to the rules of the partnership. But he could just ignore that. As to why he wants control of the bank now, if that is his purpose, when it would pass to him naturally in a couple of years, I have no idea at all. But I feel Williamson’s life may be in danger.’

‘Would you like us to watch him,’ said the Commissioner, ‘to make sure he is safe?’

‘I would be most grateful,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I have all the necessary details with me here.’

‘Is there anybody else you would like us to watch, Lord Powerscourt? Anything that might help you in your inquiries?’

Powerscourt thought about this generous offer. This might just shorten the odds against him. ‘There is, sir, if you can afford the necessary manpower. I should like you to watch Mr Charles Harrison.’

Powerscourt spent some time reading the back copies of the financial papers in the London Library. He spent some time in trains, always enjoyable for him. He travelled to Blackwater where, officially, he was keeping an eye on things, maintaining contact with Inspector Wilson, wandering about the ruined house, having desultory conversations with Jones the butler. He walked round the lake alone, stopping to peer into the temples, pausing to read the epitaphs in the churchyard. He walked to the river, mentally timing how long it would take a man on a fast horse to get there from the house, admiring the boathouse with the well-kept rowing boats by the side of the Thames.

But, if he was honest with himself, he knew the real reason he was there. He had fallen in love. Perhaps it’s more of an infatuation, perhaps it will pass, he said to himself.

He had fallen in love with the library, its green surroundings, the promise of the books that lined its walls, the air of serenity that pervaded the long room. Here he would sit, sometimes making notes of things to do, sometimes wandering around and pausing to bring down a Thucydides or a Clarendon, a Plutarch or a de Tocqueville from the tall cases that reached up to the vaulted ceiling. He thought of his other recent train journey, a visit to the seaside to another Harrison, Lothar of Harrison’s Private Bank, in his grand house in Eastbourne a few days before.

A row of goat carts had been waiting patiently for their little passengers outside the front door of the Harrison house, right on the front near the pier. Behind them on the beach the bathing machines were unlikely to have much custom on this day for the rain was pouring down, the wind strong from the sea. Through the windows of Lothar Harrison’s drawing room on the first floor a couple of fishing boats could be seen, beating slowly back towards the shore.

‘I gather you have been to see my brother Leopold in Cornwall, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Lothar with a smile. ‘And that you are interested in our family history.’

‘I must confess,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that I found your brother crystal clear on the subject of money and banking, but somewhat, how should I put it, hesitant, on the subject of women.’

Lothar Harrison roared with laughter. ‘Hesitant,’ he said, ‘I like that, Lord Powerscourt. How can I assist you in your inquiries?’

‘I am also hesitant,’ Powerscourt went on with a smile, ‘because of the impact it had on your brother, to mention the words family feud, but I would be most interested to know the full story. If only,’ he went on quickly, ‘so that I could eliminate any suspicions of it having a bearing on the recent murder.’

Lothar Harrison walked to his windows and gazed out at the grey sea. ‘I will tell you all I know,’ he said at last, ‘because I do not think it could have any bearing on what has just happened in London. The people concerned are too far away.’

He turned and walked back to his armchair. Powerscourt noticed that Lothar had an enormous collection of paintings of railway engines from all over the world on his walls. Thomas would be happy here, he felt. Thomas would be happy here for hours, if not days.

‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to some more Harrison family history,’ said Lothar. ‘I’ll make it as simple as I can.’ He paused and looked in the large mirror over the fireplace. Powerscourt thought he must have been looking at the reflections of some mighty trains built to cross the Rocky Mountains.

‘My uncle, my late uncle, Carl Harrison was the youngest of three brothers. The sister, as you know, still lives in Blackwater. My father, the middle brother, died in Frankfurt before we moved to England. The eldest brother, Wolfgang, had nothing to do with the bank at all. He was a soldier. The trouble came with his son, also called Wolfgang, who made a most imprudent marriage to a woman called Leonora. Everything went fine in the early years. She produced a son called Charles who now works in the City Bank. Then she ran off with this impoverished Polish count. He was a perfectly charming fellow but he seemed to think that the world owed him a living. I don’t think he ever did a day’s work in his life. Two years after she left, Wolfgang drank himself to death with a broken heart. Before she departed, Leonora stole all the family jewels. When they had all been sold and the proceeds spent, she came back and asked for more money. That’s when the family fell out. My brother Leopold was adamant that we should give her more money. By this time other members of the family were bringing up Charles who seemed to hate everybody because his mother had run away. I think he blamed her for his father’s death as well.’

Now it was Powerscourt’s turn to look in the mirror. He found himself looking at an enormous empty landscape somewhere in the vast spaces of the American Mid-West. The train lines were like pencil marks drawn by a ruler across the earth. Just visible towards the horizon a train was marking its passage with a cloud of smoke. Wild birds were circling overhead. He was wondering about Charles Harrison. Had the events of his past made him so disturbed that he could set about cutting off his relatives’ heads? And their hands?

‘Did you give Leonora the money?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘That’s when the row started. My brother and I wanted to make her an allowance. We said we couldn’t have her starving somewhere. My uncle Carl refused to give her another penny. He said he didn’t care what happened to her. Willi and Frederick supported their father.’

Lothar Harrison paused, memories of the family arguments of long ago filling his thoughts.

‘What happened to Leonora?’ said Powerscourt gently. ‘Did you give her the money?’

Harrison shook his head. ‘Uncle Carl prevailed. She didn’t receive another penny, however many begging letters she wrote. I think she was last heard of living in a garret in Vienna with her impoverished Pole. I believe she’s still alive.’

‘Do you think,’ Powerscourt asked, ‘that the family row could have anything to do with the murder?’ He realized to his horror that those who opposed giving Charles Harrison’s mother the money were all dead, drowned, burnt to death, head and hands cut off, floating by London Bridge.

‘I don’t believe it could for a moment,’ said Harrison firmly. ‘It’s all so long ago.’

‘And do you know of anything else in the family past which might have a bearing on the death?’ Powerscourt thought he knew the answer. He wondered how much of the truth he had been told. As little as possible? Enough to put him off this particular line of inquiry? Was any of it true? It would, after all, be very difficult to track down a couple of elderly persons of German and Polish extraction, living in penury in Vienna.

‘I don’t think there is, Lord Powerscourt.’ Lothar Harrison had been very definite. Had he been too quick with that last answer? Powerscourt wondered, as he left for the station. Were there more dark secrets hidden in there behind the railway engines?

As he made his way along the sea front, the voice of an old crone, seated on the top step of a gypsy caravan across the street, followed him towards the centre of the town.

‘Cross my palm with silver,’ the old gypsy woman with a rumpled bonnet on her head proclaimed. ‘Learn your future. Hear all your tomorrows. Cross my palm with silver.’

Powerscourt wondered if she was any good at solving murders.

Inspector Wilson found him in the library one sunny morning, with news about trains and travellers on the night of the fire.

‘Let me tell you about the trains first, my lord. There are trains here that go to London or connect to trains that go to London at 10.47, 11.17, and 11.47 every evening. Three miles down the road there’s another station at Marlow that links in with Maidenhead. That’s got trains at 11.25, 12.05 and 12.50, arriving in London a couple of hours later. If you want a later train, then you’ve got to get yourself further down the river again, to Henley. There’s some funny train that stops there at 1.30 in the morning.’

‘What happens if you go as far as Reading, Inspector?’ Powerscourt widened the net.

‘Reading, my lord, that’s a place where you could catch a train to almost anywhere. You could connect yourself to all sorts of lines there. But it’s a long way from here, even with a fast carriage, and there were no carriages seen on the roads round here that night.’

Inspector Wilson looked at Powerscourt for enlightenment.

‘Suppose you took a boat, Inspector, and rowed yourself down the river. For a strong man, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Nobody would see you, and if they did, they would think you were out fishing.’

‘I suppose you could do that,’ said the Inspector doubtfully.

‘I have no doubt at all,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘that from Reading you could go cross country, or go into London and change stations, and be in, let us say, Norwich, in time for a meeting the next day.’

Mr Charles Harrison had been going to Norwich.

‘What about the people who were seen about the place, Inspector?’ Powerscourt went on. ‘You said you were going to deal with the trains first.’

‘Not much luck with the people at all, my lord. There are no reports of anybody who might have been an intruder. There are no reports of anybody who might have been recognized as a resident of Blackwater House either, my lord.’

‘I didn’t think we’d have much luck there,’ said Powerscourt, staring once more at the busts of the blind Milton on either side of the door.

There was a knock at the door. Jones the butler appeared.

‘Mr Hardy, my lord, Inspector.’

The blond-haired fire expert bounded into the room.

‘Good morning, Lord Powerscourt, Good morning, Inspector, good morning everybody! What a beautiful morning!’

He sat down by the fireplace. Of course, thought Powerscourt, Joe Hardy would always sit by the fireplace.

‘My investigations are almost completed, gentlemen. And what fun they have been. Oh, yes, a most enjoyable little problem. Most enjoyable!’

His exuberance was infectious. Inspector Wilson smiled at him benignly, as if he were a newly trained puppy come for its master’s approval.

‘And what have you found out, Mr Hardy? What are the fruits of your investigations?’

‘That’s why I’m here. You see, I am not going to tell you now. But I am arranging a little demonstration for you both tomorrow morning. Just a little demonstration.’ Hardy rubbed his hands together at the prospect. ‘There’s a big empty barn just behind the stables. Mr Parker tells me I may borrow it. Mr Harrison will not be here.’

‘Are you going to make a special fire for us?’ asked the Inspector incredulously.

‘I am. I shall have the bits and pieces ready for you tomorrow. It’s going to be tremendous fun. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I was little. And Chief Fire Officer Perkins is coming too. He’s going to bring his best fire engine, just in case anything goes wrong.’

He smiled happily at them both.

‘But I don’t think it will.’