Death and the Jubilee

13

‘I called on Parker in his cottage on the way here. He told me about the fire. And I gather my uncle has perished in the blaze.’

So Charles Harrison knew about the fire before he got here, thought Powerscourt, staring keenly at the last remaining male member of the House of Harrison. That would explain why he didn’t look around the outside of Blackwater before he went in. Or would it?

Melancholy introductions had been made on the portico outside the east front, Inspector Wilson and Chief Fire Officer Perkins apologizing for the grime on their hands, Fire Investigator Hardy staring fixedly at an innocent-looking bundle of ash lying on the floor inside.

‘This is a sad occasion, indeed,’ said Harrison, turning to look at the open windows of what had once been the picture gallery, ‘my poor uncle. My poor uncle.’ He took off his hat as if already at the graveside. Powerscourt thought he didn’t seem very upset about his relation’s death. He remembered Charles Harrison’s unhappy upbringing, brought up by a family that didn’t really want him.

‘Could I ask you, gentlemen,’ Harrison went on, ‘to grant me some repose before any proper interviews and exchanges of information take place? Could we meet in the library here tomorrow morning, at, say, eleven o’clock?’

‘That’ll give him eighteen hours to think about his story,’ Hardy said to Powerscourt later as they walked down the drive.

‘Do you suspect Mr Charles Harrison of being implicated in the fire?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I’m not saying I do and I’m not saying I don’t,’ replied Hardy enigmatically, ‘but there’s something about his manner that doesn’t ring quite right. I’ve watched enough people who have started fires in my time trying to pretend that they had nothing to do with them afterwards.’

Police and fire departed in one of Perkins’ fire engines. Powerscourt decided to pay a brief call on Samuel Parker to ask for a lift to the station.

‘Mr Parker,’ he began, ushering the head groom on to the little path in front of his house, ‘Mr Charles has just called, I understand.’

‘That he has, sir, that he has. He popped in to see old Miss Harrison, so he did, but she was asleep, thank God. Lady Powerscourt left after she dropped off. I took her to the station, my lord.’ He rubbed his forehead as if the old lady was becoming rather a trial to the Parker household.

‘Is she any better? Miss Harrison, I mean?’

‘It’s hard to say, sir,’ said Parker, shaking his head. ‘The doctor is coming again in the morning, I understand, so he is. She was talking about fire the last time I saw her.’

‘Oh dear. Could I ask you a favour, Mr Parker?’ Powerscourt felt a great urge to escape from Blackwater as quickly as possible. ‘Could you take me to the station as well? I have to be back in London tonight. I shall return in the morning, of course.’

As they rattled along the lanes Powerscourt asked a question he knew he should have asked before. It wasn’t important, just a piece of routine.

‘Jones, the butler, the man who rescued Miss Harrison,’ he began, ‘has he been with the family long?’

‘Jones isn’t his real name, sir, not proper like.’ Samuel Parker was driving quite slowly, his face fixed firmly on the road ahead. ‘I’m just trying to remember what his real name is now.’

‘Does he not come from these parts?’

‘No, he does not, my lord. He’s German too, like the Harrisons. Goldman, Goldstein, Goldfarb . . .’

Powerscourt wondered if the horses in front had been named after German families once known to the Harrisons in a previous life.

‘Goldschmidt, that’s what it is. Jones’s name, I mean. Goldschmidt. I remember Mabel saying it must be the same word as our own Goldsmiths. Goldschmidt.’

Parker sounded pleased with his feat of memory.

‘Why did he call himself Jones?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘He could have just changed his name to Goldsmith, perfectly good English name.’

‘I don’t rightly know, my lord,’ said Parker, ‘but I do know that he came here with the Harrisons when they moved up from London. So he must have worked for them before.’

‘Did Old Mr Harrison ever talk about him as he was going round the lake, that sort of thing?’ Strings of possibilities, all of them unpleasant, were running through Powerscourt’s brain.

‘No, he didn’t, my lord. But the rumour about the place was that his family had been bankers in Frankfurt who’d all been ruined in some smash, my lord.’ Parker didn’t sound too familiar with financial smashes.

‘So the two families must have known each other before,’ said Powerscourt, alighting from the carriage outside the station. ‘Thank you, Mr Parker, thank you very much indeed. Perhaps I shall see you tomorrow. I have to be back for eleven o’clock.’

Two hours later he was knocking on Lord Rosebery’s front door in Berkeley Square. Lyons, Rosebery’s imperturbable butler, a man blessed with an encyclopedic knowledge of train timetables, showed him into the library.

Rosebery and Powerscourt had known each other at school. Rosebery had been intimately involved with one of Powerscourt’s cases five years before. Since then he had fulfilled one ambition. He had become Prime Minister, only to leave office after a year and a quarter. Some said his premiership was destroyed by bickering and intrigue among his Cabinet colleagues. Others said it was brought down by Rosebery’s inability to make decisions. ‘Just not worth the effort, my dear Francis,’ had been his verdict to Powerscourt on his great office two days after leaving it. ‘Dealing with horses is so much more satisfactory. They don’t conspire behind your back all the time.’

Powerscourt told Rosebery of his latest case, of the succeeding tragedies that had fallen on the House of Harrison. Rosebery had married into the richest and most powerful banking family in Europe. His relations were strung out across Paris and Vienna, Berlin and London and New York in the worldwide empire of the Rothschild Banks.

‘The butler at Blackwater, Rosebery, is supposed to be a man called Jones,’ said Powerscourt, sitting on an ancient chair in the Berkeley Square library.

‘What of it?’ replied Rosebery. ‘Perfectly respectable name, Jones. Man called Jones trained some of my horses once. Damned rogue. Bloody animals never won anything at all.’

‘But you see,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘he’s not really called Jones. He’s German, like the original Harrisons. They say he came from Frankfurt some years ago, that his family were bankers and that they were once involved in some terrible smash. Goldsmith is his real name.’

‘Goldsmith?’ said Rosebery. ‘Plenty of those in Frankfurt, I shouldn’t wonder. Now I see why you are here, Francis. Do you want some information about these Frankfurt Goldsmiths? From the horse’s mouth, as it were? Or at least a Rothschild’s mouth?’

Powerscourt smiled at his friend. Age was catching up on Rosebery rather suddenly. For years he had sported the face of a cherub. Now the lines of time were beginning to creep slowly down his face. It was a wrinkled cherub he was looking at this evening.

‘Just suppose, Rosebery, that the smash of the Goldsmiths had some link with the Harrisons, then also bankers in Frankfurt. There might be some unfinished business . . .’

‘My God, Francis, you’ve got a devious mind,’ said Rosebery. ‘I suppose you have to in your business. Do you think it is possible that there is some vendetta running between these two families? That the butler has followed the Harrisons to England to take his revenge twenty years after the event? Why would he wait so long?’

One of Rosebery’s clocks struck the hour of eight. Outside in the hall other timepieces followed, not quite in unison, a straggled peal.

Powerscourt shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Rosebery. I have seldom felt so baffled by a case. I just need more information.’

Rosebery reached for some writing paper on his desk. ‘The man you want,’ he said, ‘lives just round the corner from here in Charles Street. He’s an old gentleman by the name of Bertrand de Rothschild, he must be nearly eighty by now. I don’t think he ever cared very much for banking. Come to that, I don’t think the family members in the business would have wanted him around anyway. He’s a scholar, a collector of rare books and manuscripts like myself. He’s got one or two rather fine Poussins.

‘But, Francis, the old boy has been writing a history of the Rothschild family for the past twenty years. They have connections in Frankfurt, as you know. I very much doubt if he will ever finish it. Every time you ask him how it’s going he says he has just discovered some more documents he has to read. But if any man in Britain knows about these Frankfurt Goldsmiths, he does. Would you like to see him, Francis?’

‘I would, very much,’ said Powerscourt

‘And I presume,’ Rosebery went on, ‘from the agitation in your manner that you would like to see him tonight or tomorrow morning or even earlier? I am writing to him now. The man can wait for the reply.’

Six miles to the north the bells of St Michael and St Jude had just finished the last stroke of eight o’clock. The noise echoed round the little houses of the parish, just a short pause before the bell ringers began their weekly practice.

‘Steady, Rufus, steady. For heaven’s sake, steady there.’

Richard Martin was taking his neighbour’s dog for a walk. The old lady had fallen down and injured her leg so every morning and every evening Richard took the red Irish setter around the local streets.

His mother had noticed how cheerful Richard became before these evening walks. She suspected that they were used for secret rendezvous with Sophie Williams.

‘Don’t you be taking that dog round to meet that young woman of yours, Richard. You know what I think about her. You know what your father would have thought. Don’t bring your old mother in sorrow to an early grave.’

She was sewing furiously by the fire, turning the collars on Richard’s shirts.

‘It does me good, Mother,’ Richard told her every evening now. ‘It’s good exercise, taking the dog for a walk. You know how I like dogs.’

His mother reflected that never once in all of his twenty-two years had Richard shown any interest in four-legged creatures, cat or dog, never once as a child had he asked for a pet of any kind.

‘Richard, how are you?’ Sophie had appeared out of the shadows, skipping happily along the pavement.

‘I am well, Sophie. Hold on, Rufus!’

The dog was trying to escape into a little alleyway off the street.

‘Can I take the lead? Please, Richard?’

Richard wondered if they would compete for the affections of their children as they competed for the affections of Rufus. If they ever had any children, that is. Sophie took the lead into the hands of a teacher.

‘Come, Rufus. This way. There’s a good boy.’

Richard saw how fifty six-year-olds might be summoned into silence and good behaviour. To his astonishment the dog obeyed her command without a whimper.

‘It’s all cleared up now, Richard,’ said Sophie, ‘that business with the headmistress. Mrs White called me in again today. She said that what I did in my own time was my own business. And as long as she is sure I am not trying to convert the children, the matter will be forgotten. And she knows perfectly well that I would never try to convert the children.’

Rufus was suddenly tired of his good behaviour. He made a very determined attempt to climb into a dustbin. Behind them the bells of St Michael and St Jude were chasing each other up and down the mathematical intricacies of a Kent Treble Bob.

‘Rufus! Rufus!’

Sophie looked very firmly at the dog. The dog looked back as if it knew it had broken the rules. It trotted obediently but sulking at her heels.

‘Good boy. Good boy,’ said Sophie, patting the animal firmly on the head. ‘But what news of the City, Richard?’

Sophie knew Richard was worried about something at the bank.

‘Well, I’ve got a new friend, Sophie.’

‘Male or female?’ asked Sophie sharply. Richard felt there might be hope for him yet.

‘Male. In spite of all your efforts there still aren’t many young women working in the City. He’s a very clever young man called James Clarke who works for one of the joint stock banks. I met him waiting outside the Bank of England. He seems to know all there is to know about arbitrage.’

Sophie felt that she didn’t want to join the male club of arbitrage experts just now.

‘But what of the bank, Richard? That’s what was worrying you before.’

‘I’m still worried, very worried.’ Richard paused to jump out of the way of Rufus who had suddenly decided to cross to the other side of the road.

‘Rufus! Rufus! Really!’ Sophie’s voice had the normal effect. Rufus crept back into position, tail down, a sad look about his eyes.

‘The thing is, Sophie . . .’ Richard realized to his regret that Sophie’s nearer arm was fully occupied with the dog and therefore not available to him, even if he dared. ‘The thing is, you would expect everything to be very quiet at the moment. Well, it is and it isn’t. There isn’t any new business coming in.’

‘What’s the problem then?’ asked Sophie.

‘It’s the money, Sophie, the bank’s money. In normal times, money comes in, money goes out. Now it’s only going out, and it’s going out very quickly in ways I don’t quite understand. They’ve changed the accounting systems and a new man from Germany is coming to take charge of all that. But if it goes on like this, in three months’ time Harrison’s Bank won’t have any money left. They’ll have sent it all abroad. They won’t have anything left to meet their obligations in the City. They’ll be a bank with no money. It’s unimaginable.’

Even Sophie could grasp the significance of that. ‘A bank with no money, Richard? That’s impossible, surely. What happens then?’

‘I don’t know Sophie. I have no idea.’

There was an enormous painting of W.G. Grace above the mantelpiece. The bearded batsman had been captured at the wicket, staring defiantly at the incoming bowler. Apprehensive fielders seemed to have retreated towards the boundary. A huge spire dominated the outfield, nearly as imposing as the great man at the crease. Next to this portrait was a late Poussin, a mythological scene with storms and a violent flash of lightning. Powerscourt was waiting for Bertrand de Rothschild in his great house in Charles Street at eight o’clock the following morning. Bertrand was late.

‘Cricket, Lord Powerscourt, good morning to you. Finest game in the world, I always think. How do you do?’

An old man in his late seventies with a trim white beard was advancing towards him. The suit looked as if it had been made in Paris, the silk shirt might have come from Rome.

Powerscourt smiled at the old man. ‘Good morning, sir. And thank you for seeing me so promptly. Yes, I am very fond of cricket. I have a little ground at my place in Northamptonshire.’

‘Have you indeed,’ said the old man, seating himself at a great desk by the window. ‘Do you play yourself Lord Powerscourt? Or is this merely the interest of a connoisseur?’

‘I bat, sir,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘I open the batting, not very successfully, I fear.’

‘Tricky job, that, opening,’ said Bertrand de Rothschild. ‘The bowlers are fresh and raring to go. Now then,’ he went on, ‘Rosebery tells me you are a man in a hurry today. Perhaps you are like the batsman who wants to score a hundred before lunch.’ He laughed slightly at his cricketing reference.

‘I fear I am in a hurry, sir.’ Powerscourt smiled gravely at the old man. ‘I have a train to catch this very morning not long from now.’

‘I have looked up my notes on the people you are interested in, Lord Powerscourt. Let me give you the main points now. If you need further information I shall be happy to conduct further inquiries.’

Powerscourt expressed his gratitude. The old man adjusted his spectacles and consulted a pile of papers on his desk. He had a gold pen in his hand which he turned over from time to time at regular intervals.

‘There were a great many banks in Frankfurt in the early 1870s, Lord Powerscourt. The competition for business between them was very fierce. The Goldsmiths, or Goldschmidts, of whom you speak must have been in the firm of Goldschmidt and Hartmann. They were great rivals of the Harrisons, the ones who are now in the City of London.’

The old man peered at Powerscourt over the top of his spectacles. ‘In fact, at one time there was a lot of competition between them. Both were trying to secure the accounts of the Duke of Coburg, not a great prize, you might think, but it opened many doors to other profitable opportunities. Very profitable opportunities, in fact.’

The old man paused. The gold pen was spinning ever faster in his hand.

‘The competition grew very bitter. At one point it seemed as if Goldschmidt and Hartmann had triumphed. Things looked so bad for the Harrisons that the senior partner threw himself off the top of the tallest church spire in Frankfurt. He was dead before he reached the hospital. I believe . . .’ The old man paused again, peering steadily at Powerscourt over the top of his spectacles, the pen flying like a tumbler in a circus. ‘I believe he was related to the Old Mr Harrison whose body was found in the Thames with no head and no hands.’

His pale blue eyes stared on. Powerscourt said nothing.

‘Then the tables were turned,’ Bertrand de Rothschild went on, ‘and the Harrisons triumphed. The firm of Goldschmidt and Hartmann was broken. The Frankfurt bankers blamed them for Harrison’s death. I believe he was called Charles, like the one in the bank here.’

My God, thought Powerscourt, how many dead Harrisons were there, dying not in their beds but in fires and boating accidents, committing suicide or found floating in the Thames? There must be a ledger full of them by now, lying in the vaults of their banks.

‘The Goldschmidts went bankrupt, Lord Powerscourt. They lost everything. They had to leave the city. Some went to Berlin, I believe. Some went to America.’

The pen suddenly fell on to the table. Bertrand de Rothschild had lost control. It rolled unevenly across the surface and dropped to the floor.

‘Have you found any Goldschmidts, Lord Powerscourt?’

The old man’s face was bright, the eyes keen. He’s like a bloodhound on the scent, Powerscourt said to himself, fascinated by the terrible intensity in de Rothschild’s face.

‘Have you found any Goldschmidts up there in Blackwater, hiding in the temples perhaps, lurking in the lake with the river gods?’ He laughed an old man’s laugh. ‘Have the ghosts of Frankfurt come to Oxfordshire, the past replayed once more?’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘You should have been an investigator, sir. You would have been a very good one.’

‘I suppose I am an investigator,’ the old man replied, bending in obvious pain to pick up his golden pen once more, ‘except I investigate the past and you investigate the present. I imagine the present is more dangerous than the past.’

‘Mr de Rothschild, I cannot thank you enough for your information,’ said Powerscourt, looking at his watch and thinking of his train. ‘I am most grateful.’

‘You have not answered my question, young man. Have you found any Goldschmidts up there in Blackwater?’

He was leaning forward intently, the pen spinning in his fingers again, light dancing off the gold.

‘I do not know, sir, I do not know.’ Powerscourt looked around for his gloves.

‘I think that means that you have found some link,’ said de Rothschild, his eyes bright with the joy of the hunt. ‘Why else would you be here? But I can see that you do not want to tell me. I do not blame you for that. Sometimes the past may be more dangerous than the present, is that not so? Have no fear, I shall tell no one of our conversation here this morning. But it is interesting, very interesting. For a historian, you understand.’

The old man rose from his desk to escort Powerscourt to his front door. Another series of cricket paintings lined the passage to the entrance hall.

‘Tell me, Lord Powerscourt, do you have a favourite stroke? At cricket, I mean.’

‘I do,’ said Powerscourt, relieved that the conversation had returned to cricket. ‘I have always had a great weakness for the late cut.’

‘The late cut, Lord Powerscourt!’ De Rothschild was waving an imaginary cricket bat in his hands. ‘Such a very risky shot, I believe. If your eye is not absolutely right, if your judgement is ever so slightly at fault, then it’s the end of your innings, am I not right?’

‘You are absolutely right, Mr de Rothschild.’

‘And are you often out playing this shot, this late cut of yours?’

‘No, I am not,’ said Powerscourt happily, walking out into the cold morning, ‘I have not been out cutting for years.’

‘Oh, very good, Lord Powerscourt, very good. I like that. I do like that.’

The old man’s cackling laughter followed him down the street.