‘How very strange,’ he said
‘It can’t be true, surely,’ was the verdict of Inspector Fletcher.
‘How very odd,’ said Inspector Devereux. ‘Do you think it’s true, my lord, or do you think there has been some mistake?’
‘If by do I think it’s true you mean do I think their names are recorded in the death column over there in Brecon, then, yes, I do believe that it is true. Johnny Fitzgerald wouldn’t have got that wrong. But do I think those two, Meredith and Gill, were killed in the battle, then no, I don’t. I think there has been some mix-up. I shall have to go to Aldershot tomorrow to speak to General Smith Dorrien again. From what he’s told me already I think Meredith and Gill may have run away, possibly with Sir Rufus, and did not want to rejoin what was left, if anything, of their units in case they were tried for cowardice. Johnny has a list of the survivors. Not very many of those, I’m afraid.’ Powerscourt paused and looked round at his three policemen. He had always suspected that there could be problems with such a number. He had always operated with one single senior police officer in the past.
‘Look here, gentlemen,’ he began, ‘I think we should be honest with each other. I hold no official position with any of your forces. I was asked to look into the murders by Sir Peregrine Fishborne in his role as Prime Warden of the Silkworkers. I do not know how many of you would wish to concentrate on these recent leads about the knobkerries and the battle long ago. I suspect that most of you don’t. That is a matter for you to decide. You are, after all, responsible to your own superior officers and your own chief constables. You are not responsible to me in any way at all. So, I put it to you, if you wish to ignore these latest developments and concentrate on your own inquiries, then feel free to do so. I could not stand in your way. I shall always be grateful for the help you have given me so far.’
There was a pause in the drawing room in Markham Square. Inspector Grime was the first to speak.
‘That’s very generous of you, Lord Powerscourt, very generous indeed. I shall certainly ask the relevant people in Fakenham, the headmaster, Mrs Lewis and the teacher Peabody if they remembered the late bursar mentioning the battle of which you speak. And I shall let you know the results of those conversations as soon as possible. But on the question of the Zulu weapons and the battle I can’t pronounce or spell, I’m afraid I don’t agree with you at all. I still think those marks were a red herring, designed to confuse us. I suspect the killer picked the thing up at an auction or in a junk shop and thought the marks would put us off the scent, which, to a certain extent, they have. My main suspect remains the vanishing stonemason whose wife had an affair with Roderick Gill in the past. I’m sure he’s our man. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I should like to return to Fakenham before I miss the last train. I’ve got work to do.’
Rhys the butler appeared as if by magic to escort the policeman from Norfolk out of the house. Powerscourt wondered if he had been listening by the door.
Inspector Fletcher was next to speak.
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you, Lord Powerscourt, that I agree with my colleague from Norfolk. And now that we have the news about one of the men in the almshouse having a feud with the late Abel Meredith, I am confident that we will be able to clear up the murder in the Jesus Hospital very soon. I shall, of course, like my colleague, ask around for you about whether Meredith ever mentioned the battle to which you seem to attach so much importance to any of his fellow silkmen. I have to say I think it is highly unlikely, but we will do it nonetheless. I should tell you that Sir Peregrine’s chauffeur has a satisfactory alibi for the night of the murder at the Jesus Hospital. He is now in the clear. It has been a pleasure working with you, Lord Powerscourt. I am sure we shall keep in touch about these murders. For the moment, I too feel that I should return to my duties from which perhaps I have been detained too long.’
Rhys materialized once again to show Inspector Fletcher to the door.
‘Mysterious chap, that butler of yours,’ said Inspector Devereux. ‘How does he know when to come into the room like that? Do you think he listens at the door?’
‘I’ve never asked him,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Let me just say that Rhys, like God, moves in mysterious ways.’
‘Lord Powerscourt, it seems to be my turn now. I think our two colleagues were premature in their early departures like players sent off at a football match. But let me put two questions to you, if I may. The first is this, and relates to why I think the others were wrong to reject the South African link altogether. There has to be a common link between the three murders, the marks on the dead men’s chests. It is surely impossible for three different killers to be carrying around with them one of these knobkerries and use them on their victims. It can’t be possible, surely. Do you agree?’
‘I do, of course I do. In some way I’ve always felt that the most significant thing about the murders was these strange marks. They’re the killer’s calling card, left on the body as you might leave your card in somebody’s house. It’s the murderer’s signature tune, if I may mix my metaphors. And your second question, Inspector?’
‘My second question,’ the Inspector had risen from his chair and was leaning on the mantelpiece, ‘has to do with the time gap. Our friend, if it is the murderer, says in his letter to Gill that he has thought about revenge every day, every day for the last thirty-one years. Why has he left it so long?’
‘I’ve thought a lot about that,’ said Powerscourt, ‘and I can only give you some guesses. I intend to raise it with Sir Horace in the morning. Maybe the boy at Allison’s School in Fakenham was right and he comes from South Africa – let us leave to one side for the moment the age difference between a fake postman in his thirties I think it was, and the man who wrote the letter. For whatever reason our mystery man seems to have stayed in South Africa after the battle, he didn’t return to Britain. Now why the gap? I can only speculate. Perhaps he thought he would never find any of them again. Then, maybe, he heard quite by chance of one of these men, probably Sir Rufus. Maybe he was married with a family and didn’t want to put his life in danger with a mission of multiple murder. All kinds of things, personal as well as professional, might have held him up before he could embark on his long-delayed mission of revenge and retribution.’ Powerscourt paused and stared into the fire. ‘It’s all so flimsy you could blow it away.’
‘Maybe we’ll never know,’ said Miles Devereux. ‘First thing in the morning, my lord, I’m going to talk to these private detectives. I’m with you on this case until the end.’
The only sound to be heard in the outer office of Sir Horace Smith Dorrien, General Officer Commanding at Aldershot, was a fly failing to escape through a closed window. Powerscourt raised an eyebrow at the young lieutenant who acted as the guardian of the office.
‘Very quiet today,’ the young man said with a smile, ‘much better than yesterday, thank God.’
‘Was yesterday bad? Very bad?’
‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it, we had a Krakatoa of a dressing-down yesterday afternoon. Did you know, Lord Powerscourt, people claimed to have heard the real Krakatoa erupting three thousand miles away, the sound travelling almost to Western Australia? It’s a bit like that here. The general got so worked up that the doctor man had to come round and speak to him. As far as I know the doctor told the general that if he went in for many more of these shouting matches he’d drop down dead in the middle of one of them.’
‘How come the doctor came round? You didn’t by any chance call him in, did you?’
‘I didn’t hear that question, Lord Powerscourt, I’ve gone deaf all of a sudden.’
The general was writing busily at his desk when Powerscourt was ushered in. ‘Paperwork, my friend, always paperwork. Not surprising Napoleon had a mobile desk he carried round with him in his coach. Paperwork will be the death of us all. What news from the Zulu wars?’
Powerscourt told him about the records of two of the murder victims registered among the
dead at Isandlwana, Meredith and Gill. The general laughed. ‘I’m not surprised at that. Those records aren’t like the ones you’d find in hospitals or places like that. I shouldn’t pay any attention, if I were you. Just ignore it.’
‘But how do you think they ended up in the records as dead?’
‘Some army clerk may have made a mistake, that’s the most likely explanation. Have you met many army clerks in your time? You have? Then you’ll know as well as I do that they’re not likely to end up as scholars or exhibitioners at Balliol.’
‘Is there any other explanation, General?’
‘Well, there is the one I think I mentioned the other day, that they ran away and then deserted. They could have thought that if they went back to their units they would be accused of cowardice. So they never presented themselves. Mind you, the units they might have presented themselves to had all disappeared anyway, slain by the Zulus in the battle. At that point the army would have assumed that they were among the dead. Some of them, I gather, were unrecognizable.’
‘Good God,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Could I ask you about one other matter, which I don’t think has to do with the military, but where I’d welcome your thoughts as a man of wide experience. I’d like you to read this letter, which was sent to one of the victims shortly before his death.’
Powerscourt handed over the letter found in Roderick Gill’s memorandum to the headmaster of Allison’s School. General Smith Dorrien put on a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles and read it quickly. ‘Not sure I’d like to get one of these myself. So what’s your question?’
‘It’s this, General. If you’ve thought of revenge every day of your life for thirty-one years, why wait this long? Why not try to take your vengeance earlier?’
The general looked out at his parade ground for a moment. A small detachment of horse in bright red jackets was cantering across the square. ‘I don’t think that’s very difficult, actually. We don’t know where the chap who wrote the letter is, do we? I mean, he could have stayed in South Africa or he could have gone to Australia or Canada, virtually anywhere. Expensive business travelling back from there to here and maybe he had to support a family before he could go away on revenge business. And then there’s the question of priorities, Powerscourt. Your man may have had his work cut out earning a living, supporting a wife and children perhaps. People are always saying that one day they’ll climb Mont Blanc or write a novel or see the pyramids, that sort of thing. I’ve talked for years about going to Rome. I don’t know if I’ll ever get round to it now.’
Powerscourt had a sudden vision of the general ranting at Michelangelo’s paintings on the roof of the Sistine Chapel.
‘Maybe the man’s circumstances changed so he could fulfil his dream,’ the general went on. ‘Whatever prevented him taking his revenge before has suddenly gone away. It could have been like that, don’t you think?
‘I think that’s very possible, General. I’m grateful to you.’
‘There’s just one other thing, Powerscourt. Didn’t you say there is a livery company mixed up in all this? Mercers? Grocers? Some outfit like that?’
‘There certainly is, General,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It is the Silkworkers actually. Victim number one was resident in one of their almshouses. Victim number two was the bursar in a school run by the Silkworkers. Victim number three was killed after a very grand dinner in the Silkworkers Hall. Why do you ask?’
‘Do you suppose the Silkworkers might be another clue in some way? Some of those livery companies do have links with the military, with particular regiments, you know. I’m not quite sure what they do, but it wouldn’t be difficult to ask them. They might even have some records. And I suspect they’re more accurate than the ones you found at Brecon.’
‘I didn’t know that, about their links with the army, General. I’m much obliged to you.’
‘Much more interesting detecting things,’ said the general cheerfully, ‘than ploughing through the army’s paperwork. The bureaucrats seem to think they can win battles on a sheet of paper, or rather sheets of paper. You must come and see me again with your latest news, Powerscourt. It cheers me up.’
Powerscourt thanked him and moved off. As he left the room he could see a very nervous young captain being ushered in. It looked as though he was expecting a telling-off. A couple of minutes later Powerscourt realized that the medical man had given his advice in vain. The rant had reached the far edge of the parade ground. You could probably hear it, he said to himself sadly, on the far side of the town, but he doubted it would reach Krakatoa.
Number Four, Smithy, the man who had a row with Number Twenty the day before he was murdered, was sitting on a hard chair in a room inside the Maidenhead police station. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon. The police came for him just after breakfast. He had now been under questioning for five hours. He had managed to bring with him, as friend and representative on earth, Edward Cooper, Number Seven. Number Seven, a small wiry man with a crafty look about him, had spent eighteen months some years before as a guest of Her Majesty in Wormwood Scrubs, and was widely believed in the hospital to be an expert in the workings of the law. It wasn’t his fault, Cooper said, if some fool of a footman had left the door of the big house open. Nor, he would continue, was it his fault that the valuable silver was on display in the first room he had come to. He was, his apologia went on, just picking up some of the pieces and admiring them when the butler reappeared with two sturdy footmen. The fact that two of the pieces had found their way into his pockets was pure coincidence. His friend Smithy, Number Four, acting on Number Seven’s counsel, had proved totally and absolutely obdurate in his dealings with Inspector Fletcher and Sergeant Donaldson, saying nothing at all wherever possible. ‘You’ve got a right to silence, my friend. Once you tell the police anything at all you’ll find they twist it round to what they want you to say. That’s why it’s good to have me here as another witness.’
‘I repeat my question, gentlemen,’ said Inspector Fletcher. ‘Will you please tell us about the row you had with Abel Meredith, commonly known as Number Twenty, the day before he died.’
‘Like I said, mate,’ said Number Seven, ‘you don’t have to say nothing.’
The Inspector was furious. His sergeant had asked all the old men if any of them had heard the row between Number Four and Number Twenty. It had happened, after all, right in the middle of the quad. Anybody who opened a window would have heard every word. But nobody had heard a thing. Even Freddy Butcher, Number Two, who had told Johnny about the feud over lunch at the Elysian Fields, had now recanted and claimed he had so much drink poured down him that he could not remember anything. The Jesus Hospital had closed ranks on one of its own.
The Inspector and the sergeant were taking a break, leaving the silkmen under the watchful eye of a young constable.
‘What are we going to do, Inspector?’ asked the sergeant. ‘We can’t go on like this.’
‘We can’t charge Number Four with anything,’ said Inspector Fletcher after a long pause. ‘He hasn’t said anything at all, apart from his bloody name and number.’
‘What about locking them up indefinitely? Refusing to assist the police with their inquiries. A couple of days in the cells might make them more amenable.’
‘Maidenhead Inspector locks up old men from almshouse?’ said Fletcher. ‘Days in solitary for not talking to the police? You know how angry the Chief Constable gets if there’s bad publicity in the newspapers. Bad for his chances of a knighthood probably.’
‘Well,’ said the sergeant, ‘maybe we can’t lock them up overnight. But we could give them three or four hours in solitary. Each man to his own cell. Then we could question them again about seven. They might be more prepared to talk then. Particularly if we don’t tell them we’re going to let them go later on.’
‘Do it,’ said Inspector Fletcher. ‘I don’t like it, mind you. I wonder what Powerscourt would recommend in these situations, if he wasn’t preoccupied with his lu
dicrous theories.’
Powerscourt had written to the Secretary of the Silkworkers and had received a speedy and courteous reply indicating that if he cared to call the following morning at eleven o’clock they would hope to have the relevant information for him. So, as Inspector Devereux was talking to the superior private detectives on the fringes of the West End, Powerscourt was in the Court Room of the Silkworkers, drinking coffee with the Secretary under the watchful eye of a couple of Lawrences and a Zoffany.
‘You are, I think, temporarily one of us,’ said the Secretary, ‘by which I mean that we employed you to look into these distasteful murders and your task is not yet accomplished.’
Powerscourt was sure the Secretary, Colonel Horrocks, with his enormous moustache and efficient manner, was an effective administrator. Maybe he had been an adjutant in the army. So many former officers found employment in gentlemen’s clubs or livery companies or major charities. A former colleague of his, once the fiercest and most bloodthirsty man he had ever seen on a battlefield, was now in quieter quarters working in a charity for orphans. The Secretary had clear brown eyes and wore his regulation City suit as if he was still in uniform.
‘How right you are,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘I’m sorry it has taken so long. I have a new ally in my military researches, at least, General Smith Dorrien, General Officer Commanding at Aldershot.’
‘Horace. How is dear Horace? I served under him for three years some time ago.’
Powerscourt wasn’t sure ‘dear’ was the first word he would have chosen to describe the irascible officer in Aldershot.
‘He is well, or he was well yesterday when I saw him. Little trouble with his temper, I’m afraid.’
‘It was ever thus,’ said the Secretary. ‘He was always very calm in battle, oddly enough, no yelling there.’
Death at the Jesus Hospital Page 29
