‘Beg pardon, my lord,’ he said to Powerscourt after the introductions were made, ‘perhaps you would like to wait in here. I’ll tell Dr Stanhope you’ve come to see him, my lord.’
Powerscourt found himself in the chair opposite the Headmaster’s desk in the Headmaster’s study. He realized that Lucy must have sat in this very chair a couple of days before. Breakfast was in full swing at the Hellenic College with the noise of crockery and the young voices coming through the walls. Powerscourt suddenly thought of the contrast between the innocence of the young and the crimes of their elders that swirled round the school – theft, murder, fraud. Now he was going to try a form of blackmail. Suddenly he remembered the words of his brother-in-law during a previous case: ‘pressure, Francis, pressure, a much nicer word than blackmail’.
Dr Tristram Stanhope came in and sat down in the Headmaster’s chair. He was wearing a dark blue blazer with brass buttons and a hint at naval connections with a pale yellow cravat under a white silk shirt.
‘Good morning, Powerscourt. Welcome to the Hellenic College. I was not expecting you, I must say. To what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?’
‘I’ve come about the Caryatid,’ said Powerscourt pleasantly.
‘What of the Caryatid? There are no Caryatids here.’
‘I know there are no Caryatids here now, or not in the Erechtheion anyway. Inspector Kingsley told me about that earlier this morning. The police came to take her away, you see.’
Stanhope looked shocked and rather alarmed at the mention of the police but he stuck to his guns.
‘I don’t understand, Powerscourt. Why this talk of Caryatids?’
‘Because there was one here last night. It could have been the one stolen from the British Museum, or it could have been a copy, or it could even have been a copy of a copy.’ Powerscourt found his brain was reeling at the thought of multiple copies of the statue, forming up in columns in his mind and then dissolving. ‘But there was a Caryatid, of the same size and the same general features as the one stolen from the British Museum where you work, Dr Stanhope.’
‘What nonsense, man. You’re out of your wits. There are no Caryatids here.’
‘You know perfectly well you’re wrong about that. You see, I was here last night. Lady Lucy and I saw the unveiling of the statue and your recital of the hymns to Athena. I had some German binoculars. I had a very clear view.’
Tristram Stanhope stared very hard at Powerscourt. Then he looked out of the window as if the cavalry or the charioteer from the previous evening might ride past to save him. Powerscourt carried on.
‘That’s what I came to talk to you about the Caryatid. I want to make a suggestion.’
‘Look here, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. This is a Hellenic College. It’s devoted to ancient Greece and ancient Athens. We have a replica of the Parthenon not two hundred yards from where we are sitting now, for heaven’s sake. What could be more natural than we should build a life-size copy of the Erechtheion to sit with it, as they sit together on the Acropolis? The Headmaster and the Board of Governors agreed immediately when I suggested it. And what could be more natural than engaging a local sculptor to produce a copy of the Caryatid? I have no idea what your suggestion is, but I make no apologies for my behaviour or that of the College.’
Powerscourt had to admit that Stanhope’s brain worked extremely fast. He seemed to have cooked up this story in a matter of seconds.
‘My suggestion is quite simple, Dr Stanhope. That Caryatid yesterday did not look to me to have been created by some local sculptor here in Amersham. Either it was a copy, or it was the real thing. If it was a copy you must know where the original is. In either case I am suggesting that you return the original to the British Museum within forty-eight hours. By nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, to be precise.’
‘This is ridiculous. You’re mad, Powerscourt, quite mad.’
After years of experience as an investigator Powerscourt was well used to people calling him mad. He now believed that it was a sure sign that he was on the right course.
‘I am not mad, I assure you. There are certain matters where the police are very anxious to talk to you. There are your financial affairs for a start. There are a number of lines of inquiry under way in the case of the missing Caryatid where you will be a suspect, or, quite possibly, taken into custody. You would not expect me to give you details of these inquiries before the authorities are ready to make their move, but time is not on your side.’
‘And what happens if I tell you to go to hell?’
‘Under present circumstances, Dr Stanhope, I think you are much more likely to end up in hell than I am. However, I am empowered by the Inspector in charge to say that cooperation would be helpful to your case in the future. There are a number of factors I think you should consider. The first is that I do not think you would welcome a posse of policemen marching into the British Museum and taking you into custody in the most visible way possible. Nor would you welcome detailed reports of your arrest appearing in the quality newspapers the following day. I do not think you would welcome the Inspector and I going to see Theophilus Ragg in private and telling him the full nature of our suspicions. I do not think he would fire you on the spot, but you might be asked to take leave of absence until the matter was cleared up. We would do the same with the Caryatid Committee. Your position there would have a question mark over it, to say the least.’
‘This is monstrous, Powerscourt. This is blackmail.’
‘It is not blackmail. You could call it pressure, if you like, but you will not find a sympathetic hearing from the Metropolitan Police if you go to them babbling about blackmail. You do not have to decide about this offer right now, Dr Stanhope. You have until Tuesday morning. I shall be at the King’s Arms hotel in the town, if you wish to speak further. Or you can ask any of the policemen who will soon be swarming all over the place to take you to Inspector Kingsley. Talking to him is as good as talking to me.’
Powerscourt rose to go. Stanhope waved him back to his chair.
‘I tell you now, Powerscourt. You are out of your mind. I have no intention of doing as you suggest. You can take that back to your policemen friends. You can all go to hell!’
‘I shall await your decision, Dr Stanhope. You have until Tuesday morning. There is one other matter you should take into consideration. Rumour can often move in a more deadly fashion than the truth. Especially as rumour doesn’t have to be true. I do not move a lot in what is called fashionable society, but I have a number of friends and a great many relations who do. Grand and aspiring hostesses might think twice about inviting a man said to have assisted in theft from one of our great national institutions and, furthermore, to have connections with people who commit murder as others might swat a fly. I wish you a very good morning. I can see myself out, thank you.’
Every priest in every pulpit of the Greek Orthodox Church in Athens and the surrounding areas mentioned the procession in their Sunday sermons. At four o’clock that afternoon, the worshippers were told, the Archbishop would lead a mighty multitude of the faithful to the heart of the city. They would be bringing with them an object worthy of veneration from all Athenians and all Greeks in the greater Greek diaspora. The congregations thought that a new relic must have been discovered, a fragment of a long dead saint perhaps, or some remnant of one of the heroes of the War of Independence against the Turks.
In the vanguard were four monks, solemn in their black outfits. Then came a small platoon of military veterans, still wearing their uniforms, still marching in step, their medals pinned to their breasts. Behind them rode half a dozen troopers from the cavalry division of the regiment assigned to ceremonial duties in the capital. Behind the horses was another monk, carrying a huge silver cross in front of the Archbishop himself. To his left was the Metropolitan of Salamis and Megara, to his right the Metropolitan of Piraeus. After the episcopal heavy artillery marched one of the two choirs taking part in the p
rocession.
We knew thee of old,
Oh divinely restored
By the lights of thine eyes
And the light of thy sword
The Greek national anthem was written by a poet from Zakynthos during the fight for freedom. It was to punctuate today’s procession from the first choir at the front to the second choir at the rear. But it was the contents of the float behind the singers that captivated the crowd. Four monks were pulling it. Standing erect in the centre was a Caryatid, flanked by two huge priests in case she fell over. The Church of today, founded some nineteen hundred years ago, was bringing home a statue created four hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a Christian city welcoming a marble maiden from the pagan times. Behind the float was a throng of about fifty priests and monks, waving to the crowds as they went by. Then a body that grew larger with every moment of the procession. People left their houses and whatever they were doing to fall in behind the clergy. Some of those travelling on the buses leapt off and joined the march. The tail of the gathering swelled from fifty to a hundred to two hundred to five hundred. It went on growing all the way to their final destination.
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
The British Ambassador, the man who had rowed for Cambridge and for his old college, was standing in the shadow of the Parthenon. He could hear the noise but he could not yet see the procession. Down there, mingling with the crowd, was The Times correspondent, Marcus Fielding, whose wife was Greek and whose family antennae had reported the call to arms from the city churches that morning. Fielding had arranged to meet the Ambassador. Whatever was going on, whatever the point of the festivities, his wife had assured him, it would be sure to pass or to finish at the Acropolis.
Long time didst thou dwell
With the people that mourn
Awaiting some voice
That would bid thee return
The procession was to take the Caryatid on a journey round some of the most sacred sites of fifth-century BC Athens as if they were the Stations of the Cross. They paused at the Ceramicus by the Dipylon Gate just outside the Acropolis where many famous Athenians were buried – the lawgiver Solon, and Pericles the statesman who was responsible for the Parthenon. They moved on to the site of a shrine to Demeter and Kore on the route of the Panathenaica just below the Acropolis. The Archbishop bowed his head in silent prayer. The choirs stopped singing until they moved off. The taxi drivers were now hooting their horns continuously as the Caryatid continued on her journey. People were leaning out of their windows and cheering as she went past. Flowers now littered the feet of the marchers.
Ah, slow broke that day
And no man dared call
For the shadow of tyranny
Lay over all:
The Ambassador was on tiptoe now, peering down at the procession. The Caryatid was not yet visible. They took over ten minutes to pass through the Propylaea, literally the gate building to the Acropolis, and, as the man from The Times reminded the Ambassador, the model for the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In ancient times only Athenian citizens were allowed through this gate; strangers and the unclean were not permitted in Athens’s holy of holies. There was a cheer from the sightseers visiting the Acropolis when the monks and the huge silver cross led the crowd onto the sacred soil. The few Americans present thought about the wine they had drunk at lunchtime and wondered if they had been transported back in time.
And we saw thee sad eyed
Thy tears on thy cheeks,
While thy raiment was dyed
In the blood of the Greeks.
When they reached the Parthenon the procession fell into ranks in front of the building. The Archbishop climbed to the top of the steps and looked down on his people. He raised a hand aloft for silence.
‘My fellow Athenians,’ he began, ‘my fellow Greeks, what a joy it is to welcome you here this afternoon. I thank you all for coming and I thank all those, alive or dead, who are with us here in spirit on this great day. For all eternity, my friends, today will be known as the Day of Return, the Day our Caryatid came home. She lived here in ancient times, she has stood next to this great building, our Parthenon, when it was a Roman Catholic church, she has stood here when it was a mosque, she has stood here when it was used as an armoury and a Venetian shell ripped the heart out of the Parthenon in the bad times of the Ottomans. She was seized, in an act of international piracy, by the wicked pirate Elgin and carried off to the cold climate and the colder religion of England. Today she has come home. Today, very soon now, we shall lift her back in the place where she belongs. One of our great scholars, a professor of theology at the university here no less, suggested to me that we should welcome the statue home with a Hail Mary. I thought long and hard, but I said no. We in the Church do not claim the Caryatid as one of our own. That would be to deny her origins and the culture she came from. The men who put her on her porch knew of the gods who lived on Olympus, often driven by whim and pique and ridiculous conflicts with their fellows, they knew of the gods who dwelt in the woods and the streams, they were always aware of those hard taskmasters, Fate and Necessity, who could call, unexpected and unannounced, at any door at any time. But she is still ours, the Caryatid. We embrace her as an example of the spirit of Greece, the essence of the Hellenes and one who will dwell happily with us in our new freedom.’
The Archbishop made the sign of the Cross and returned to his station. The choirs picked up the National Anthem again.
Yet behold now thy sons
With impetuous breath
Go forth to the fight
Seeking Freedom or Death.
The great crowd, now a couple of thousand strong, moved across to the Erechtheion. A screen was erected outside it to hide the work necessary to place the Caryatid securely on her porch. As the restoration went on, the two choirs spread out, holding hands right round the audience. Everyone was encouraged to sing the last verse. They sang it twice.
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
A great blue cloak, large enough to adorn a giant, was now fluttering above the porch. A set of steps was placed next to it for the Archbishop. He mounted very slowly. As he tugged it aside he shouted to the assembled multitude: ‘Caryatid of the Erechtheion porch, Caryatid of the Acropolis—’ he waved his right hand very slowly round the ruined buildings still standing on the High City ‘—Caryatid of Athena, Caryatid of Athens—’ the Archbishop raised his arms to his Christian God in the heavens above ‘—Caryatid of Greece, Welcome home!’
25
There were twenty-four hours left before the Caryatid might be returned to the British Museum. The Powerscourt telephone rang shortly after eight o’clock that morning.
‘Powerscourt? Good morning to you. Kingsley here. I’ve just had some great news. We’ve found Easton, the man you described as the missing link between Stanhope and Deptford. I’ve just had a note from the Governor of Pentonville, complete with the last address they have for him. The local police confirm that a man answering to that name is still there.’
‘Well done, Inspector. Good news indeed. Where is the fellow?’
‘He’s in Maidstone, my lord. A villa in the better part of town, houses set back from the road, you know the sort of thing, Holland House, Riverside Drive. And that’s not all. The Governor tells me that he befriended Carver Wilkins during his days in prison. Carver was locked up in Pentonville at the same time. Carver Wilkins is the criminal boss of Deptford and controller of the Twins, as you know. They became, if you’ll pardon the expression, as thick as thieves in Pentonville, forever plotting the crimes they would commit once they left the jail. The Governor is sure they kept in touch after they were released. Carver Wilkins was let out a fortnight after Easton.’
‘So what are your plans, Ins
pector? Are you going to interrupt the man’s peace down there by the river in Maidstone?’
‘I most certainly am, my lord. I just need to talk to our money man here at the Yard so he can begin inquiries immediately into the Easton bank accounts. Then my Sergeant and I are going to Kent. I’ve asked the local police to pick him up and hold him in a cell. I’ve suggested they give him a pretty hard time. The Governor told me that Easton was a frightful coward, always worried about being beaten up in the jail. He only calmed down when Carver Wilkins was able to give him some protection. With any luck he’ll be ready to talk by the time we get there.’
Robert Burke, Inspector Kingsley’s sergeant, was reading through all his notes on the case so far as their train pulled out of Charing Cross. Inspector Kingsley was staring out of the window as the suburbs of London sped away. This case is going to end very soon, he said to himself. It might even end this week. It could not end early enough for the Inspector. He had made up his mind now. The Affair of the Missing Caryatid would be his last case. His resignation note was already written, waiting in a drawer at home. He wondered how he could conduct the interview with William Tyndale Easton to close the case even quicker.
‘You still haven’t given me a proper answer to my question, Francis.’ Lady Lucy Powerscourt was hardly ever really cross with her husband. But when he failed to give you a proper answer to an important question for almost a whole day, it was inevitable that there should be a certain fraying of the edges in a wife’s temper.
‘What question is that, my love?’
‘You know perfectly what the question is, Francis. It’s perfectly simple. Do you think the Caryatid will be returned to the British Museum tomorrow morning?’
‘Ah, the Caryatid. Perhaps a Caryatid, who knows, Lucy. I have to confess that I have not given you an answer because I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not at all sure. Last night I felt certain that she would be back where she belongs in Great Russell Street tomorrow morning. This morning I am in two minds all over again. I am beginning to feel superstitious about the matter, that if don’t express an opinion, she will reappear, and that if I do, she won’t. You see my difficulty?’
Death of an Elgin Marble Page 28
