‘But couldn’t he have seemed to be perfectly sound in the City,’ Fitzgerald was being contrary again, ‘but actually out of his mind the rest of the time? I’ve known
people say that I’m not the same when I’ve taken a glass or six or seven as I am when I’m sober. Couldn’t it be like that?’
‘Surely only a doctor could answer that.’ Lady Lucy now had the cat asleep on her lap. ‘I’m sure Miss Harrison was sane when she talked about her brother’s worries.
It wasn’t that she was inventing things, just that her memory had slipped its moorings, if you see what I mean.’
Powerscourt ran his hand along the marble fireplace. The touch took him back to the strange statues at Blackwater, maybe hiding or pointing the way to the secrets of Old Mr Harrison and his
anxieties.
‘Let’s look at it this way,’ he said. ‘Let’s suppose everything we know is true. Let’s try to make some sense of it all.’
Here come those fingers again, Lady Lucy said to herself, watching once more as they marked out the points her husband wished to make.
‘Eighteen months ago, something starts going wrong at the bank. Old Mr Harrison is worried. Not long after that his eldest son is drowned in mysterious circumstances. That could be murder.
Old Mr Harrison takes fright. He doesn’t want to read his letters in the house in case he is being watched. He takes his correspondence down to the lake instead. Some news from Germany alarms
him. He goes back to the cities and financial centres he knew as a boy. When he comes back he is even more worried. Whatever he knows, it is too much. He is murdered too. I was sure he was looking
for something on his walks by the lake, I don’t know why, but I felt it very strongly. And there’s all this talk of conspiracy involving the bank. What kind of conspiracy could that be,
William?’
Burke was looking very alarmed. ‘Something has just struck me, Francis, something very grave indeed. Are the lives of Frederick and Charles Harrison safe, if what you say is true? Should
we warn them that they may be in danger?’
‘They may be in more danger from each other than they are from any outside parties,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald.
‘I have thought about that, William,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Heaven help me if I am wrong, but I do not feel we have enough to go on to issue such a warning. We could be laughed at
as scaremongers.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ Burke sounded doubttul. ‘I’m not sure about conspiracies involving the bank either. I know our critics say that the whole of the City is a
vast conspiracy devoted to the ruination of the widow and the orphan, but I don’t think they are right.’
‘What kind of conspiracies might banks get up to, William?’ asked Johnny Fitzgerald cheerfully.
‘Well, there have been all sorts of conspiracies this century.’ William Burke liked talking about the City’s history. It reminded him that he belonged to a glorious past.
‘You could conspire to defraud your investors by issuing foreign loans to countries where there is no hope of the money ever being repaid. God knows we’ve seen enough of those. Then
there are the phoney prospectuses for share issues with outlandish names like the Great African Gold and Diamond Mining Corporation. The speculators think they are going to get rich from mining but
the only people who get rich are the ones who took their money in the first place. Railways in exotic locations – they’re usually good for a quick fraud. For some reason perfectly
respectable citizens are almost always willing to invest in railways. Do you know there was even a company floated many years back to recover the valuables left behind by the Children of Israel at
the parting of the Red Sea? The promoters claimed they were going to use Malaysian divers to recover the gold and treasure left behind on the seabed.’
‘Great God!’ said Powerscourt, laughing at the absurdity. ‘Did the investors get rich, William?’
‘The investors got poor, Francis. Some of them lost all they had, I believe. But I cannot see Harrison’s Bank becoming involved in any of these activities. Their reputation would
have been destroyed overnight.’
‘You don’t think,’ said Lady Lucy, venturing boldly into this male world, ‘that the conspiracy was a conspiracy to kill members of Harrison’s Bank, do you? That way
Young Mr Harrison and Old Mr Harrison were both killed as part of this conspiracy. That’s what Old Mr Harrison was worried about.’
‘You could be right,’ said her husband. ‘But where do the secret societies come in? Were members of the secret society doing the killing?’
‘Surely you could say,’ Fitzgerald was gazing sadly at an empty bottle, ‘that the dismemberment of the corpse could have been part of some secret society ritual, some private
kind of initiation rite?’
‘I don’t recall seeing reports that the Elbe and the Rhine are occasionally blocked to traffic owing to the prevalence of headless corpses,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Even the
Lorelei weren’t up to that.’
The Powerscourt cat had woken up and padded hopefully towards William Burke and his cigar smoke.
‘Good Lord, Francis. Does this animal like cigars? She must be very advanced.’ Burke looked at his new friend with astonishment.
‘I’m afraid she does, William.’ Lady Lucy smiled at her brother-in-law. ‘But her favourite place in the house is the cupboard where all the children’s clothes are
kept. We’re going to have to make it catproof.’
Powerscourt had abandoned his fireplace and was walking restlessly up and down the room, his mind far away.
‘This is what I think we should do. I have to say I am not very sure of any of it. Johnny, I think you should go to Berlin. Didn’t the young Harrison go to university there,
William?’
‘He did indeed,’ said Burke, ‘the Friedrich Wilhelm University, the city’s finest, they say.’
‘You want me to find out about secret societies, I presume, Francis?’ Johnny Fitzgerald was looking very serious now.
‘How is your German, Johnny?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘Well, I was once more or less fluent in German. I expect it’ll come back. But I’m not going to tell them that,’ his friend replied with a grin.
‘They drink an awful lot of beer and schnapps and things over there,’ said Lady Lucy with a smile. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to cope?’
‘I expect I’ll manage,’ said Fitzgerald ‘Maybe I need to get into practice, though, Lady Lucy. Would you be having any more of this Sancerre? All in the line of duty now,
you understand.’
Powerscourt turned to the smoke-wreathed figure of William Burke.
‘William, can I ask you to make more detailed inquiries about Harrison’s Bank? The nature of their business, the shape of their finances, anything that could give us a clue as to
what the conspiracy might be. Is there any chance that you could smuggle a man inside, a clerk or somebody like that? Somebody who could provide real inside information?’
‘It would be risky, I think.’ Burke inspected his cigar. ‘They are very tight, these German houses. They employ their own fellow countrymen whenever they can. And if it were
found out, my own reputation would be floating in the river too.’
‘For myself,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I am going to continue my investigations into the old man’s activities at Blackwater. I cannot get that lake and those statues out of my
head. Somewhere, somehow, I am certain the old man hid some of his papers down there. But there are so many clues, Hercules, Aeneas, river gods, Diana, Isis, the whole place is like a gigantic
puzzle. I am going to begin in the National Gallery.’
‘Why the National Gallery?’ asked Lady Lucy, remembering a previous visit there with her husband and hoping she might accompany him this time.
‘It’s the layout of those temples. I’m sure the man who built the mythical garden had been looking at paintings by Poussin, or Claude, maybe even both. Something in the
paintings may give us a clue.’
‘Francis.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was looking very sombre. ‘I shall set out for Berlin straight away. I may have to be there for some time. And I make you a prediction.’ He
looked at all three of them in turn as though he had second sight rather than a second bottle. ‘I bet you that by the time I come back, there will be one fewer Harrison in this world. Another
one will have gone to meet his maker in mysterious circumstances. But I’m not sure I could tell which one.’
Richard Martin was waiting for Sophie Williams in the coffee shop opposite Liverpool Street station. It was half-past five in the afternoon and the place would be closing soon.
Outside the fog was getting thicker. It was ebb tide in the City of London. The army of occupation that had marched in that morning, as it did every morning, was in retreat now, slightly more
cheerful as the foot-soldiers hurried towards the trains and the buses that would take them home.
Richard loved the coffee shops. He loved their history, the fact that so many of the great institutions of finance had their origins in places like this, the Jonathan’s and
Garroway’s of a hundred and fifty years before that had given birth to Lloyd’s and the Royal Exchange and the Stock Exchange itself. Coffee from the East Indies had lubricated, oiled,
stimulated the growth of the City of London.
A gust of wind and slivers of fog rushed through the door, quickly followed by Sophie.
‘Richard, oh Richard, I am so sorry I’m late.’
Richard Martin would have waited for the rest of his life for Sophie. In his darker moments he feared he might have to.
‘Don’t worry, Sophie, let me get you some coffee. You look cold.’
‘I’m angry rather than cold,’ she said, peeling off her gloves and laying them on the table. ‘I’ve had that meeting with the headmistress.’
‘And what did she say?’
Sophie paused while a black-coated waiter deposited a cup of coffee beside her. Richard had made his one cup last for forty-five minutes and didn’t intend to order any more if he could
help it.
‘She said . . .’ Sophie looked close to tears. ‘She said there had been complaints about me.’ She paused and looked for her handkerchief.
‘Hold on, Sophie, don’t get upset.’ Richard wondered if he should hold her hand or put an arm round her shoulder. Maybe the place was too public for that. ‘What sort of
complaints? Who was complaining? Surely they weren’t complaining about your teaching? Everybody knows you’re a fantastic teacher. The whole area knows that.’
Sophie managed a weak smile. ‘The complaints weren’t about my teaching. She said – Mrs White, that is – she said there had been complaints about my work for the
women’s movement.’
Sophie was looking defiant now.
‘And what did you say?’ asked Richard, indignant on Sophie’s behalf. ‘Surely it’s none of her business what you do outside school hours?’
‘She said there had been complaints from two sets of parents. She wouldn’t tell me who they were. They want me removed from my job, these parents. They said they didn’t want
their children being taught these ludicrous notions.’
‘What did you say to that, Sophie?’ Richard was looking very carefully at her hands. He thought they looked very soft.
‘I said I thought it was absurd,’ said Sophie. ‘I said I had never, never, referred to my beliefs in my teaching. Never. That wouldn’t be right. If all teachers were
allowed to indoctrinate their pupils with their own beliefs, it would be terrible. I’m going to find out who these parents are, mind you. I think I shall ask the children.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Why not? You can’t tell me what to do in my own school.’ Sophie was indignant, her eyes flashing. ‘What do you know about it?’
‘I don’t know about your school at all, Sophie. Only what you tell me.’ In his heart Richard felt he knew a great deal about the school. ‘But if you ask the children,
however you do it, they’ll all go back home and tell their parents. More of them may get involved. The whole business could get more difficult than it already is.’
Sophie looked at him. She thought that Richard was maybe wiser than he looked.
‘More important, Sophie,’ the young man went on, ‘what did she say she was going to do about it?’
‘She said that she was going to listen to what I had to say and then she was going to consider it. Mrs White doesn’t like taking decisions in a hurry.’
‘But your job is safe in the meantime? There’s no question about that?’ asked Richard.
‘Yes, it is. I suppose that’s good news.’
‘I tell you what I think she’ll do, Sophie. She’ll talk again to these parents and try to calm them down. She’ll make it clear to them that the choice of staff in the
school must rest with her and not with the parents. Otherwise it would be chaos. She’ll probably say that she has made you promise that you won’t preach the suffragist cause in the
classroom. She’ll probably make you promise that all over again. Then it’ll all be over.’
Sophie looked at him carefully. Then she laughed.
‘Richard,’ she said, ‘I thought you spent your whole time in the bank adding things up and putting them in ledgers. But they seem to be teaching you a bit of wisdom as
well!’
‘All kinds of human affairs pass through the banks, Sophie.’ Richard felt older than his twenty-two years. ‘Births, marriages, deaths, and most of the complicated bits in
between.’
‘And what has been happening in your bank, Richard?’ Sophie seemed happier now. ‘Is everybody still alive? No more bodies floating in the Thames?’
‘We’re still alive, but only just.’ Richard Martin looked worried. ‘Nobody’s looking for any new business. The place is just ticking over. But there are some very
strange things happening. I think I have been as worried about them as I have about your interview with the headmistress.’
‘Were you worried about me?’ said Sophie with a smile.
‘Of course I was. I don’t think I can say anything about what’s going on in Harrison’s Bank just yet. We’re meant to be very discreet, we bankers.’
For the past ten minutes the waiter had been dusting the neighbouring tables, pulling down the blinds, sweeping the floor.
‘I think they want us to go, Sophie. I’ll see you home.’
‘Are you very worried about what’s going on in the bank?’ asked Sophie, drawn irresistibly towards a secret.
‘I am, yes,’ said Richard, helping her into her coat, his hands lingering fractionally longer around her shoulders than they needed to. ‘But I’ll just have to wait and
see what happens.’