Death at the Jesus Hospital

by David Dickinson

  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 l
iked 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.’

  16

  Powerscourt dropped his drawings in to the National Gallery at nine thirty on the Monday morning. The director’s office suggested he return at midday by which time, they told him, they would have had a preliminary search through whatever materials they thought relevant. On his return he was shown up to the director’s office where a very slim young man was sitting beside the director.

  ‘Good morning, Powerscourt,’ said Sir Charles Holroyd. ‘May I introduce one of my assistants, Orlando Thomas?’

  As Powerscourt shook the young man’s hand, Sir Charles added, ‘Orlando is one of our foremost experts on paintings of battles, principally since eighteen hundred. You’d be surprised how many of those we have here. Military men often leave us their paintings in their wills. Young Orlando has been down in the basement where most of our holdings are stored.’

  ‘When I looked at those markings, Lord Powerscourt,’ Orlando Thomas began, ‘I wondered if they might have come from a weapon used in some forgotten war. I thought I’d seen something very like it before. I’ve brought you up a present.’

  He rose from his chair and placed a small rectangular painting, about four feet by two, on an easel behind him. Powerscourt saw what looked like a mountain in the background, the upper sections rising up to a grey cliff on the right. All the action was taking place on the ground in front of it. British redcoats seemed to be conducting a desperate defence. On the attack were large numbers of black warriors who seemed to have the British surrounded. A number of redcoats were lying on the ground, the warriors stabbing them furiously. A lone British colour was still aloft inside a circle of defenders.

  ‘Do you know the painting, Lord Powerscourt? Do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘I don
’t know the painting at all. I don’t think I’d like to have been there. It looks as if our men are going to be wiped out.’

  ‘I’m afraid they were,’ said Orlando Thomas. ‘It’s one of the worst defeats suffered by the British in the whole of the nineteenth century. Painting’s the work of a man called Fripp, C. E. Fripp. The battle and the picture took their name from the hill in the background, called Isandlwana, in Zululand in South Africa. The black warriors are Zulus who outnumbered our men by about ten to one.’

  ‘If you look closely, my friend,’ Sir Charles wasn’t going to let all the glory accrue to his colleague, ‘you will see that most of the Zulus have short stabbing spears called assegais. Their idea of battle was to close with their enemies and rip their guts out with these spears. But some of the others have a short stick with a kind of pimpled knot at the end. They are striking faster than their colleagues with the assegais because it is so much shorter. You can’t see any of the marks they leave in the painting but if you look at the end of the weapon through a glass you can see all the bits sticking out rather like a thistle.’

  Powerscourt took the glass and peered at the weapon. Was this the answer to the riddle of the strange marks on the victims’ bodies? Did it end here? In this painting of a dreadful massacre?

  ‘It’s called a knobkerrie, Lord Powerscourt.’ Orlando Thomas seemed to have picked up a lot of military information on his travels round the gallery basement. ‘It was one of the Zulus’ favourite weapons.’

  ‘Why haven’t we heard more about this battle? How many men were killed, do we know?’

  ‘Over a thousand lost their lives.’ Orlando was now checking his facts in a little notebook. Very few got away.