Death at the Jesus Hospital

15

Inspector Grime was astonished when Powerscourt told him the details of his conversation with the headmaster of Allison’s School.

‘I thought I was doing well, my lord, with this new witness confirming that Sir Peregrine’s great black car has been seen in Melton Constable. But the headmaster, that’s virtually blackmail. You build me a new school, I’ll give you my votes. Pity the bursar didn’t stay around to hold his ground.’

‘I think we have to include him on the list of suspects, the headmaster I mean, but I don’t think he’d have carried out the murder. He had far too much to lose. Did you say you were coming to London tomorrow, Inspector, for further conversations with the Lewis sons? I could give you a lift, if you like. I hope to have a summit meeting with all three of you Inspectors at my house late tomorrow afternoon if that sounds convenient for you?’

‘Thank you, my lord. That would be most helpful. I have been wondering about whether to interview the Lewis boys in a police station or in their homes. Would you have any advice?’

‘Talk to them in their homes, that would be my suggestion. That way, they won’t suspect anything. Call them into the police station and they’ll think they’re on their way to the Old Bailey.’

‘I’ll give that further thought, if I may, my lord. Tomorrow morning we have the last of the colonial gentlemen coming in to the school to see if anybody remembers their accents.’

The amount of noise generated by some hundred and fifty boys trying to make their way up or down the principal corridor of Allison’s School was deafening. Inspector Grime, sheltering in a side corridor, thought a hundred and fifty policemen, even wearing their best boots, would not be able to equal it. Odd snatches of homework questions floated past him on the morning rush.

‘Who was prime minister after Peel, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Alea jacta est. What’s the alea? Do you know?’

‘Who was Elizabeth the First’s spymaster?’

Then he saw him. Today’s colonial was a burly man with black curly hair who looked as though he might be a prop forward in rugby. He elbowed his way past a number of boys, including David Lewis, saying sorry as he went. For the boys, bumps and collisions en route to the first lessons of the day were nothing new. It was just part of the daily routine. They had been warned beforehand that another stranger would be in their midst this morning. One or two of the naughtier ones made it their business to crash into their visitor, but his bulk ensured that they came off worst.

‘Well,’ said Inspector Grime to David Lewis when the visitor had passed through the corridor into the Inspector’s temporary quarters in the Officers’ Training Corps room, ‘what did you think?’

‘I’ll tell you that in a moment, sir. Could the gentleman read something for me so I could be sure?’

‘Of course,’ said Inspector Grime. The visitor began to read in a clear voice from the current school prospectus. When he reached the section about the high quality of the meals provided, David Lewis held up his hand.

‘That’s enough, sir,’ he said. ‘What a pack of lies about the school food, mind you.’

‘Do you recognize the accent, David?’

‘I do, sir. That is the accent of the man who bumped into me as I was walking along the corridor on the day of the murder, sir.’

‘Do you know where the accent comes from, David?’ asked Inspector Grime.

‘Well, sir, we know from the previous riders and runners that he wasn’t Canadian or Australian or New Zealander. So he must have been South African. Is that right?’ He addressed his question to the visitor.

‘Yes, I am South African,’ said the prop forward.

‘God help us all,’ said Inspector Grime, and he wished for a moment that he had paid more attention to the maps on the walls of the geography classroom where he had interviewed the boys. Even those bloody globes would have helped, he said to himself, if I’d taken any notice of them. Where exactly was South Africa? And how far away was it?

Lady Lucy thought you would not have known that the three men all belonged to the same profession. A two-day exercise for the OTC involving all the boys in Allison’s meant there was a break from Sherlock Holmes in French in Fakenham. She had wondered in her time up there if Holmes would have liked Fakenham. On the whole, she thought, probably not. Irregular supplies of cocaine would not be acceptable. She welcomed the Inspectors to the Powerscourt family home in Markham Square. The twins, Christopher and Juliet, peeped down at the visitors from the landing on the top floor. They had been mightily impressed to learn that there would be no fewer than three police Inspectors in their house. Their behaviour had taken a brief turn for the better but, as Powerscourt remarked to Lady Lucy, he did not expect it to last.

Inspector Fletcher looked out of place. He was wearing his best uniform, buttons polished, boots gleaming, but he still hopped uncertainly from place to place until Powerscourt suggested he sit down on the sofa next to the fire. Inspector Miles Devereux looked relaxed in an old tweed suit and had parked himself in an armchair by the bookcase. Inspector Grime was wearing an old and rather shiny suit but he looked at home in the first-floor drawing room with the paintings of Lady Lucy’s ancestors on the walls. Powerscourt himself was leaning on the mantelpiece, with a drawing of the strange mark on the dead men’s chests in his hand.

‘Thank you all so much for coming,’ he began. ‘I thought it would be helpful if we all heard how everybody else is coming along. Perhaps you’d like to start, Inspector Fletcher?’

Fletcher had made notes in the train on what he was going to say. ‘I think it fair to say, my lord, that the picture at the Jesus Hospital is far from clear. We know that somebody broke in during the night, or hid himself away the evening before, and murdered Abel Meredith. Or he was killed by one of the other inmates. One of the old men heard noises but did not see anything. So far we have not received any reports of strangers being seen in the immediate vicinity of the hospital. We know that Warden Monk was operating a racket of some sort with the old people’s wills, but that does not seem to be an adequate motive for murder.’ Inspector Fletcher paused and looked round at his little audience. Lady Lucy gave him a smile of encouragement.

‘We know from you, my lord, that the dead man, Abel Meredith, may have been used as a courier by the secret service to travel to Germany to bring back information, and our own inquiries in Marlow tell of at least one trip to Hamburg which may have involved him acting as a messenger. I have to say that we have no idea if he was taking messages or instructions from England to Germany or vice versa or both. It is possible that his intelligence activities led to his death, though I cannot see how at the moment. We know, largely thanks to the activities of Johnny Fitzgerald, that there has been a lot of anxiety about the changes proposed to the constitution of the Silkworkers by Sir Peregrine Fishborne. We know that Sir Peregrine was staying at the hotel on the island in the Thames, the Elysian Fields, on the night before the murder. We know that he was accompanied by a masseuse called Frankie who was a regular visitor to his suite at the hotel.’

There was a snort or two from the other Inspectors at this moment. Lady Lucy looked demurely ahead.

‘We do not know much for certain about what time he left in the morning, though the girl says he was usually away by seven o’clock. There is always the possibility that some internal feud between Meredith and another resident of the hospital led to his death, though I have to tell you that there are doubts about whether any of the old boys would have the strength to work the knife with sufficient force to cause death in the manner inflicted. And I would remind you that the knife used in the Jesus Hospital may also have foreign connections. One of the doctors thought the wound was caused by a weapon called a kris, commonly found in places like Ceylon and Thailand. Inquiries continue into the past life of Abel Meredith and the other residents. My colleague and I have had one interview with Sir Peregrine in his office. It was the only time in my professional career, my lord, where the suspect has ordered tea for himself but not for his visitors.’

Inspector Miles Devereux was next into the lists. He spoke as if he were describing an afternoon in the hunting field.

‘I would have to agree with my colleague that the picture concerning the murder in the Silkworkers Hall is not clear either. One of the interesting things about the victim is that there is a long spell missing from his career as described in Who’s Who. The subjects, you will recall, make out their own entries. Fifteen years of his early adult life are simply not accounted for, and so far all attempts to fill in the blanks have failed. I, too, have had dealings with Sir Peregrine’s people. Twice now I have been to interview the Silkworkers Secretary about the ballot in the livery company. On both occasions the Secretary was accompanied by a rather disagreeable lawyer who tried to make my life as difficult as possible. They have told me one important fact. Sir Peregrine is going to win the ballot. Not all the votes have arrived yet, but most of them have and they believe that he already has enough support to carry the day by the required majority. His principal opponent in the company was, of course, the dead man. Sir Rufus was bitterly opposed to the plans. So, in two of the locations we have opposition to Sir Peregrine which might have been enough to derail his scheme. I expect we will hear the same story from Norfolk.’

Inspector Grime had been making notes as his colleagues spoke. Now he shut his notebook and put it in his breast pocket. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began, ‘in some ways we have more information about the killer in Allison’s School than we do for the other places. But I should tell you first of all that Allison’s School, with its twelve votes, also voted in favour of Sir Peregrine’s plan. We know that the murderer came to Fakenham the evening before on the train. He could have come from more or less anywhere. We do not know where he spent the night. One suggestion is that he passed it in one of the outbuildings of the school, such as the cricket pavilion, which were not usually locked. We know that he entered the school disguised as a postman early the following morning. I think he must have brought the postman’s uniform with him. The murderer entered the main school corridor at a time when it was full of boys and bumped into some of them. One of those boys claims he spoke with a South African accent. After the murder, our suspect disappears. And there may have been a personal link with our friend Sir Peregrine as well. His car was seen at his house at Melton Constable on the day before the murder. He attended a meeting with the headmaster and the bursar at the school the evening before the killing. Once again, the subject was the Silkworkers’ vote. The bursar was opposed to any changes to the statutes. Once he was out of the way, the headmaster voted for the changes in exchange for some new buildings. I am grateful to you, Lord Powerscourt, for that last piece of information.’ Inspector Grime paused for a moment and wiped his glasses. His sergeant always maintained that the more suspects he had in his sights, the more cheerful he became.

‘Up in Norfolk, my lord, we have not one suspect, Sir Peregrine, but two, or possibly three. Let me explain. We have heard of the masseuse called Frankie plying her trade at the Elysian Fields. We have no masseuses but we have a victim with two mistresses. One, Mrs Hilda Mitchell, is married to a stonemason who went away before the murder and has not been seen since. He is definitely a suspect. His wife, like the other lady, was collected up by the deceased, Roderick Gill, at church functions. He was known in cynical circles as the Groper in the Vestry. It seems you weren’t safe at innocuous events like the Harvest Festival and the Christmas carol service. Mistress number two, Maud Lewis, is a widow with considerable property left by her late husband. She was going to marry Gill and leave her money to him. She has two sons, both in their twenties, both of whom regard Gill as a bounty hunter of the worst sort. When I interviewed the two of them separately at their homes recently their alibis stood up well until it came to a chess game they had supposedly played the evening before the murder. Both of them have different accounts of who won. To sum up, you could say we have a surfeit of suspects, the cuckolded stonemason, Sir Peregrine, one of the two sons of Mrs Lewis. I don’t know which one I’d back in the Fakenham murder stakes myself.’

‘Well done, Inspector, well done everyone,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘Can I ask you all the same question? Do you think Sir Peregrine is the murderer? Inspector Fletcher?’

‘My answer has to be that I just don’t know, my lord. There are perfectly innocent explanations for his appearances at the various murder sites. Well, not entirely innocent if you include Frankie the masseuse at the hotel. He had to be at the Silkworkers Hall for the dinner — he is Prime Warden of the Company, after all. And it sounds as though he had to go to Norfolk to try to persuade the bursar of Allison’s School to change his mind. He can’t have been sure about the votes, Sir Peregrine. It sounds as if his proposal could have gone either way. But there’s nothing to link him directly with the actual murders.’

‘Everything you say is true,’ said Miles Devereux, still with his languid air, ‘except there is one fact we should never forget about Sir Peregrine Fishborne. He stands to make an enormous amount of money if his scheme is approved. He will become one of the richest men in England. People say he has been stacking the livery company with his supporters for years. He may have spent a decade dreaming up this plan. If it succeeds, he need never work again. He could employ a whole netball team of masseuses if he wanted.

‘Sir Peregrine was certainly in the vicinity of the places where all three murders were committed,’ Inspector Devereux went on, ‘and I think we should remember one crucial piece of information about him. The old men at the Jesus Hospital were going to vote against the scheme. Now, with Meredith out of the way and the bribes in place, they voted in favour. Sir Rufus Walcott at the Silkworkers Hall was the leader of the opposition to his plans. Heaven knows how many of Sir Rufus’s supporters have been bribed or changed their minds, we simply don’t know, but he was not around to vote against. And at the school, more bribery. I suggest that without the murders Sir Peregrine might well have lost the vote. With the murders, he has won the day.’

‘Well put, Inspector,’ said Powerscourt. ‘That is a compelling argument. Well done indeed.’

‘I know there has been one unfortunate encounter,’ Miles Devereux went on, ‘the meeting with tea for one, but I think we should pick him up again, Sir Peregrine, I mean. Leave him to rot in the cells for a couple of hours this time. Hold up his solicitor when he arrives. I don’t think he’d ever confess, Sir Peregrine, but he might incriminate himself.’

‘I think we should investigate that chauffeur of his,’ said Inspector Fletcher. ‘The man goes everywhere with him. What happens if he has a dual role for Sir Peregrine? Driver by day, murderer by night? I’ll put one of my men on it when I get back to the station.’

‘Good idea,’ said Powerscourt. ‘There are a number of lines of inquiry still proceeding in all three cases. I do think the most important thing we have to decide this afternoon is what to do with Sir Peregrine. What about you, Inspector Grime? What are your views on the Prime Warden of the Silkworkers? Do you think we should bring him into the police station for questioning?’

‘I’m honestly not sure,’ said Inspector Grime. ‘There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence against him — as my colleague said, the bloody man was on the scene of all three murders. But he had a reason for being there on all three occasions. We don’t have anything that links him specifically to the dead. The motive, of course, is very strong, but I wonder if we shouldn’t wait for something more concrete. As things stand we might just have a fruitless conversation with the lawyers, causing confusion all round.’

It was Inspector Devereux who brought up the most difficult point. ‘I recall, my lord, that you used to believe that the strange marks on the bodies were the key to the whole affair. Could I ask if you still believe that?’

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I realize I may be in a minority of one here, but yes, I still do believe that. However unpopular that makes me in present company. I have always thought that the murderer, undoubtedly an arrogant murderer, was sending some kind of message with those marks that only the recipients would understand. So far, of course, nobody has been able to identify the stigmata at all. But I haven’t given up hope.’

‘I believe I have mentioned it to you before, my lord,’ Miles Devereux had raised himself from a recumbent to a sitting position, ‘but do you not think it possible that Sir Peregrine, or some other possible murderer, has merely used this device to throw us off the scent?’

‘I think it’s possible, but not likely.’

‘I think we should let Sir Peregrine stew in his own juice for a few days longer,’ said Inspector Fletcher. ‘Our investigations into the chauffeur may come up with something. I might speak to that masseuse Frankie again and see if she has anything more to tell us.’

‘Very well,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I think we agree that we should leave Sir Peregrine a little longer.’

‘I’m with you there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my lord,’ Inspector Grime was checking the ornate clock on the mantelpiece, ‘I have to go and interview one of the Lewis sons. I’m going to call unannounced at six o’clock. My sergeant will be knocking on the door of his brother at exactly the same time so they can’t concoct some more lies about chess matches.’

The meeting broke up with Inspector Devereux offering the use of a couple of cells to Inspector Grime for the incarceration of his suspects. ‘We’ve got one cell in particular where you can listen in to what they’re saying to each other from next door. The carpenters have made the wall in between completely hollow to let the sound pass through without the suspects knowing. It’s a low trick but we are dealing with murder here.’

The Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost swept silently across the streets of Mayfair. Rhys, the Powerscourt chauffeur, was wearing his best blue uniform with his cap sitting plumb centre in the middle of his head. Lady Lucy was sitting in the back seat in a new dress from Worth that swept down to the floor in a single graceful line. Powerscourt was in full evening dress, even down to his medals.

‘Do I have to?’ he had asked, as they were preparing for the ball.

‘I think you do, Francis. You always look so handsome in evening dress and you’ll look even better with your medals. Besides, lots of men will be wearing their decorations on a night like this. It’s what people do.’

Reluctantly Powerscourt had complied.

‘I don’t think we’ve been to the Queen Charlotte’s Ball for years, Francis. I’m really looking forward to it.’

Powerscourt grunted and fiddled with his tie. He had to go through with it. He knew how much Lady Lucy loved dancing.

There was a great throng waiting outside the main entrance of Grosvenor House. Rhys had to wait five minutes before he was able to draw up at the right spot. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy stepped over the threshold into the vast reception hall which was festooned with flowers. Lady Lucy was to learn later that a special train had brought them over from Paris, roses and lilies and tulips and every sort of ornamental flower that money could buy. There was a reception line snaking out across the hall and into the drawing room on the left. One room beyond that on the left-hand side of the house was the ballroom. Strains of a polka drifted out into the great hall. Supper was laid out in the salon to their right. The room was awash with colour, the blues and reds and the white sashes of the military, the dashing colours of the ladies’ dresses, the tiaras and necklaces that sparkled with diamonds and rubies. Powerscourt was surprised to see so many military men there. He wondered fancifully if they had returned to the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of Waterloo.

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then

Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

They made their way slowly up the reception line. There was a sprinkling of Knights of the Bath and one or two Victoria Crosses on display. The man immediately in front of them said that the King and Queen had been expected to attend. The King always liked going to balls where he could wear his field marshal’s uniform and his vast collection of decorations from all over Europe, but his doctors had recommended he go to Biarritz for his health.

‘Not much chance of the Prince of Wales showing up,’ the man said gloomily. ‘Probably spending a happy evening at home sticking more stamps into his albums.’

The Duke of Westminster told Lady Lucy that he had first met her at a dance in Scotland some years ago when she had been accompanied by her grandfather. The Duchess told Powerscourt that she had followed one of his recent cases, the death of a wine merchant, with great interest. Then they were through. Powerscourt thought that it had been rather like going through some obscure border crossing in a distant part of Empire where you were never safely on the far side until the leading official had given his blessing.

Lord Rosebery, one of Powerscourt’s oldest friends, former Foreign Secretary, former Prime Minister, was leaning against a pillar, glass of champagne in hand.

‘Francis, Lady Lucy, how good to see you. I wondered if you would be here. May I introduce Sir Charles Holroyd, Director of the National Gallery, and Lady Holroyd?’

Polite bows were exchanged. Sir Charles was a tall, slim gentleman of about fifty years with piercing blue eyes. ‘I believe you’re an investigator, Lord Powerscourt. May I ask if you are investigating anything at present?’

‘By all means,’ said Rosebery, ‘you may listen to my friend’s account of his latest case, but think how dull that would be for Lady Lucy here, who has heard all about it many times by now. Will you do me the honour of this dance, Lady Lucy?’

‘Of course,’ said Lady Lucy and was led away to the mazurka. Great swathes of coloured sashes were passing Powerscourt and the Holroyds. It was as if an entire regiment was on the march towards the dance floor. Powerscourt explained the nature of his latest case. The Holroyds had heard of Sir Peregrine Fishborne and obviously thought little of him. But it was on the mention of the strange marks on the bodies that the National Gallery director grew really interested.

‘Nobody can tell you what they are?’ he said. ‘Who have you been trying?’

‘Medical men, policemen, all kinds of inquiries have been made but nobody has got a clue.’

‘How very odd,’ said Sir Charles.

‘You don’t suppose it’s the emblem of some secret society?’ said his wife, who was known to be a tireless worker in the cause of improving native conditions in India.

‘Like the Freemason’s handshake, you mean?’ said Powerscourt doubtfully. ‘But even if it is secret, somebody must know about it. Somebody must have inside knowledge of the thing, almost certainly including the victims. Except nobody does.’

‘I tell you what, Powerscourt. I’ll place a bet with you. You say you have some drawings showing what these marks look like. You let me have them on Monday morning. When my experts have finished with them, if we don’t have any answer, I’ll drop them round to my friend and colleague Sir Frederic Kenyon at the British Museum. Between us we’ve got a lot of expertise at our disposal. If we can’t solve the mystery, we buy you and your wife lunch at the Savoy Grill. If we can, you pay for the lunch. What do you say?’

Powerscourt laughed. ‘I say thank you very much, Sir Charles. I’m delighted to accept your offer. I only wish I’d thought of it sooner. I’m obliged to you, sir, and I shall see you on Monday.’

Powerscourt escorted Lady Holroyd to the dance floor. It was filling up well now, with a beautiful couple the centre of attention, dancing as if they had danced this dance for the last fifteen years, eyes only for each other, the girl sinking into her partner’s arms in a sort of swoon from time to time. Against the walls the old ladies watched from their chairs and smiled and remembered being swept off their feet by some dashing young man when they were eighteen years of age. For one or two of them the memories were so vivid it might have been yesterday. Lord Rosebery was guiding Lady Lucy with great elegance combined with a sort of weary resignation, as if dancing, like so many other things in his life, had lost its appeal. Lady Lucy always said Rosebery had never been the same since his wife Hannah Rothschild died and left him so much money and so many houses.

Shortly after eleven o’clock Powerscourt was tapped lightly on the shoulder. Inspector Miles Devereux had come to the ball in fashionable clothes and with a very beautiful young woman on his arm.

‘May I introduce Hermione Granville, Lord Powerscourt.’ After a moment or two of pleasantries, they glided off. Powerscourt remembered that the young Inspector might not have any family money but he had family connections that branched out all the way down Park Lane. He looked as much at home here as any of the dowagers chatting merrily in the drawing room. And the girl on his arm was one of the prettiest at the ball. Powerscourt wondered how she felt about being escorted round London society by a man who spent his days in pursuit of criminals and murderers. Perhaps she rather liked it. She was chatting with one of the dowagers now. Her consort was sweeping Lady Lucy round the floor.

The supper room was packed with hungry dancers. It was, Powerscourt remarked to Lady Lucy, a tribute to the world’s growing ability to overcome the limits of time and space. Two vast tureens exuded a delicate perfume from the soup they held. There was caviar from the Black Sea, piled up carelessly in great bowls as if it were rice or mashed potato. There was a flotilla of lobsters boiled alive, pink and red under the great chandeliers, delicate Dover sole lined up round the edges of a giant serving dish, great sides of beef, dripping with blood and marbled fat, each with its attendant server, knife and carving fork at the ready. There were hams from Italy and Spain, waxy dishes of veal, plump chickens from Bresse in France, ducks from Aylesbury, woodcock that might have come from the Grosvenor estates, felled by Grosvenor staff with Grosvenor guns.

M. Escoffier’s assistant had excelled himself with the puddings, cakes sprinkled with almonds or chocolate or ground coffee, ice creams and sorbets of every flavour known to man, and one or two new ones, invented for the occasion, zabagliones invented in Sicily, rum babas and Mont Blancs dripping with whipped cream, delicate pastries with a hidden promise of cream or sorbet inside, a pair of trifles half the length of a cricket pitch, small delicate cakes with pineapple and pistachio and pine nuts. The room was full of people praising the food or returning for seconds or even thirds. Dancing made people hungry. The champagne still circulated round the diners, accompanied now by the offer of iced homemade lemonade fresh from the kitchens which, it was thought, might deal better with the thirst than champagne.

‘Do you think the guests will eat all this lot, Lucy?’ asked Powerscourt, staring at the mountains of food.

‘I should think they’ll have a good try,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘The supper room’s going to be open for hours yet. Come too late and the lobsters will have all gone.’

‘But what will they do with the remains?’

‘I heard Sybil Grosvenor say they’re going to give it to the local hospital.’

‘God help them, Lucy, the patients I mean. There you are, lying on your hospital bed, wondering if your end is nigh, feeling like death warmed up, and a nice nurse comes along waving a great lobster claw at you. I think they’d probably throw up, or die on the spot.’

‘Never mind,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Come along now, Francis, you’ve only danced with me once all evening. And you look so handsome too.’

The orchestra was playing the ‘Kaiser’ waltz, yet another composition from Johann Strauss, the man they called the King of the Waltz. Powerscourt was dazzled by the light pouring from the candles in the chandeliers and from the batteries of electric lights hanging on the walls. Shadows, like the people, seemed to float over the boards. He glided happily, Lucy in his arms, across the sprung floor. The musicians were growing tired, wiping the sweat from their brows on the sleeves of their evening jackets. They danced on. Powerscourt suddenly remembered the first time he had danced with his Lucy, on their honeymoon at a great ball at one of the most beautiful old houses in Savannah. He remembered thinking they were trying to put the clock back, the good ladies and gentlemen of Savannah, to the golden years before the Civil War changed America for ever. Mint juleps flowed like water, he recalled, and the steaks were the size of tennis rackets. Even then, long after it ended, the horrors of war were still present, large numbers of men still on crutches from the great battles like Gettysburg and Antietam.

They had danced at a coronation ball given for Edward VII when he announced to the world that the days of mourning that marked Victoria’s last years were over, to be replaced with a reign of gaiety and, some said, dissipation. But the musicians on that occasion were not as deft with their waltzes as the Grosvenor ones, now embarking on the ‘Emperor’ waltz. Lady Lucy’s eyes were half closed. ‘I wish I could dance until the morning, Francis,’ she whispered. ‘Do we have to go home at all?’

‘This waltz goes on for ever, my love,’ said Powerscourt, whirling her round into the very centre of the dance floor. For Lady Lucy, the music, the brilliant lights, the flowers on the walls, the beautiful people streaming round her had thrown her into a sort of trance. The faint perfume from the banks of roses seemed to her to come from the gods themselves. In front and beside her, the sashes of the men looked like pennants being carried into battle, and the sparkles from the diamonds and the rubies made the ballroom look like a treasure trove waiting to be discovered. The sprung floor made her think of standing on a perfect English lawn in the spring before it was hardened by the sun. Some rough fellow had backed into one of the baskets of roses against the wall. Petals of white and pink lay abandoned on the floor like confetti after a wedding. As she looked at the other couples, Lady Lucy thought that love was everywhere. It was all around her, in the smiles of the young women clinging tightly to their partner’s hand, in the arms of the young men pulling their girls ever closer, in the stolen embraces that took place from time to time at the edges of the ballroom. Lady Lucy looked across at the beautiful ladies from the Grosvenor past on the walls, who seemed to her to have left their places in their picture frames and joined the crowd on the dance floor, a countess painted underneath one of Gainsborough’s trees with the leaves shimmering in some invisible breeze, a duchess in pale green with feathers in her hat and long white gloves fastened at the wrist with glittering diamonds, the current Duchess painted by Whistler years before, a glittering pageant of blues and greens by the edge of a lake. Lady Lucy had risen above the ballroom glories of Grosvenor House and was floating over Mayfair, greeting three or four other Peter Pans as they drifted across the night skies of London. She never wanted to go home. She wanted this dance, this ‘Emperor’ waltz, to last for ever. Her very own one, Emperor Francis, bent down every now and to give her a gentle kiss on her neck. She wanted to stay in Francis’s arms until time itself ended, being whirled across the dance floor to the music of Johann Strauss.

The first hints of dawn were appearing across the gardens when the music finally stopped.

‘Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, coming back to earth with a smile and squeezing her husband’s hand, ‘that was a wonderful evening. Just wonderful. I think we’d better go home now.’