Death and the Jubilee (37 page)

‘Right, Francis. I’m going in there.’ He checked the doors. He checked the windows at the front and the back. Powerscourt felt suddenly afraid. There was a muffled tinkling of
glass. Fitzgerald had placed his coat above the middle lock on one of the windows. A dark patch was spreading across his hand. Maybe he had hit the window harder than he intended. He reached inside
and lifted the window pane up as far as it would go. It creaked loudly as it went. A small colony of spiders hurried quickly away. Then he was inside. The first room was empty.

The second room was not. Tied to a chair, his mouth gagged, with dark marks on his face, was a young man Fitzgerald had not met. To hell with the introductions, he said to himself as he untied
the gag.

‘Name’s Fitzgerald. Friend of Powerscourt. Friend of William Burke. Rescue mission.’

The knots were naval ones, he noticed, the rope drawn tight along the young man’s arms and legs. Fitzgerald carried him back out through the window and dumped him on the grass. The young
man looked very frightened indeed. He whimpered on the turf rubbing at his arms and legs.

‘Who are you? What are you going to do with me now?’

‘We’re friends, Richard,’ Powerscourt whispered, ‘Powerscourt’s the name. We met at the cricket match. Sophie Williams told people you hadn’t been
home.’

He tried to lead his little band away from The Cottage to safety. But Richard could hardly walk. Fitzgerald picked him up as if he were a sack of coal and set off towards the Pantheon.

‘I’ve got to tell you something,’ croaked the young man, ‘something terribly important.’

Richard Martin’s voice was very faint. Fitzgerald sat him on the ground. It was dark again, the moon hidden behind the clouds. The fox was on patrol once more, lurking outside the temple.
A slight wind had risen, whispering through the tops of the trees.

‘I lost track of time in there,’ Martin said, ‘I must have been inside that place for over a day. But they said they were coming back for me at midnight. If I didn’t tell
them what they wanted to know then, they were going to seize my mother and bring her to join me.’

‘What time is it, Francis?’ said Fitzgerald, staring at the blood that was drying on his arm.

‘It’s ten to twelve.’ Powerscourt peered at his watch. ‘We’ve got ten minutes to get out of here. I don’t fancy going back to the station. It’s the
first place they’ll look for us. There’s a path behind the Pantheon that leads down to the river. There’s a couple of rowing boats down there.’

Powerscourt stopped suddenly. Far off, beyond the lake, coming down the track from Blackwater House maybe, they could hear voices. Three of them, thought Powerscourt, stifling the urge to
run.

‘Follow me,’ he whispered. ‘Try to be as quiet as you can.’

He took the path behind the temple. It was not much used, brambles lying on the ground, the route sometimes invisible through the dark wood. They passed the lower lake with the waterfall and
began going downhill. Once Johnny Fitzgerald, still carrying Richard Martin on his shoulder, stumbled and nearly fell. Powerscourt made them stop every now and then to listen for the voices. They
heard nothing, but the owners of the voices could not be far from The Cottage now and would realize that they had been cheated of their prey.

‘Where is the bloody river, Francis?’ Fitzgerald was panting heavily. He looked as if he couldn’t go on for much longer.

‘Just there, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. He realized that his left hand had been wrapped round the pistol ever since the discovery of Richard Martin.

They clambered into one of the rowing boats. Richard was bent almost double at the stern. Fitzgerald cut the rope.

’Do you want me to put a hole through the bottom of this other boat here, Francis? In case we have company a little later on?’

‘No,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I am sure they will check the station first. I think we should get out of here.’

The little boat had two seats in the centre for the rowers and further seats at the bow and stern. Powerscourt settled himself in the central seat and began to row as quietly as he could. Soon
they rounded a bend in the river and Blackwater passed out of sight. Fitzgerald was keeping a watchful eye behind.

Captain Powerscourt banned all speech for the first ten minutes of their journey. Then it was only in whispers. They were on a long straight stretch now, trees lining both banks. A barrel
overtook them rolling from side to side as it went. They could see a town approaching on their left.

‘The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks,’ Powerscourt muttered to himself,

There was a scuffling at the back. Richard Martin was sitting upright at last, rubbing sadly at the bruises on his face.

‘Push off,’ he said, smiling through the pain,

Fitzgerald was peering back down the river, straining to see what other craft might lie behind. They shot under the centre arch of a great railway bridge.

‘It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,’ Powerscourt went on,

‘To hell with Achilles for now.’ Johnny Fitzgerald sounded very worried. ‘The gulfs or the Happy Isles would do me fine at this moment. The only thing is, there’s another
bloody rowing boat behind and they’re gaining on us. We might meet Achilles sooner than we think. We’re going to need him.’

He leapt into the central thwart, grabbed a pair of oars and pulled for all he was worth.

‘Richard, there,’ said Powerscourt, ‘can you see the others? The other boat I mean.’

‘Yes, I can, sir. They’re about two hundred yards away.’

Nobody spoke as Powerscourt and Fitzgerald tried to widen the gap. They had left the little town behind and were in wide open country, fields and pasture spreading out beside the Thames. The
only noise was the splashing of the oars and the ripple of the water beside the boat. Powerscourt was feeling stiff again from his cricket. Twenty-five years have gone since I last rowed a boat in
anger, he said to himself. Maybe we’ll reach Henley. We could have our very own regatta in the middle of the night.

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ said Richard Martin squinting back up the river, ‘I think they’re gaining on us.’

Far off to the left a puff of smoke announced the arrival or departure of a late night train. They had entered a long sharp bend so the pursuing boat was lost from sight. Another town
materialized out of the gloom, nestling along the river’s edge.

‘Steer over to the bank, Johnny, quick as you can. We could get out on the towpath over there and vanish into the streets.’

‘That won’t do you much good,’ said Fitzgerald, ‘once they realize this boat is empty they’ll come back and look for us in there.’

‘We don’t have much time, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt anxiously.

‘Tell you what,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘You and Richard get out right now. I’ll keep going. They won’t know you’re not on board any longer. Quickly now. I’m
sure this boat will go better with only one person. And I’m sure I can row faster than those other buggers.’

Powerscourt and Richard Martin leapt on to the towpath. Powerscourt gave the boat a huge shove and ran into the side streets. Johnny was making good speed, shooting through the central arch of
the town bridge. He sounded as if he had begun to sing. Powerscourt thought he recognized the drinking song from
La Traviata
as Fitzgerald serenaded himself on his night flight down the
Thames.

It was three o’clock in the morning when Powerscourt reached Markham Square. He brought with him not only Richard Martin, but his mother, wrapped up in her best coat and
very apprehensive about going to stay at a grand house in Chelsea.

‘I’m not happy about leaving your mother here,’ Powerscourt had said to Richard when they reached his little house in North London. ‘I’m going to ask the cab to
wait. You go inside and tell your mother to get ready.’

Mrs Martin thought she was dreaming. First of all here was Richard, back home in the middle of the night with bruises on his face. Now he was telling her to pack a bag and come to Lord
Powerscourt’s house at once.

‘I can’t do that, Richard. What will the neighbours say to me disappearing like that in the small hours of the morning? I’ll never be able to raise my head in the street again.
People will think I’m a criminal being taken away by the police.’

‘Just pack your bag, Mother,’ said Richard, ‘and please hurry. There’s a cab waiting outside the door.’

Richard wrote a note to Sophie while he waited. Powerscourt had told him they could drop it off on the way so she would know he was safe and well in the morning. ‘Dear Sophie,’ he
wrote, ‘I am back in London after some very exciting times. I can tell you all about it tomorrow. Lord Powerscourt says you are to call at his house after you finish teaching. That’s 25
Markham Square in Chelsea.’ Richard paused briefly. Then the elation of his escape took over, the dramatic row down the Thames with the enemy in pursuit. ‘Love, Richard.’

Richard had given Powerscourt the details of his incarceration on the train from the Thames Valley to Paddington. He told how he had been summoned to Mr Charles Harrison’s office, how two
men had seized him and bundled him into a waiting cab and on to the station for Blackwater.

‘They blindfolded me before we got to that big house, my lord, so I wouldn’t remember where I had been, I suppose. Then they tied me up in that little house where you found me. They
used to come and ask questions every couple of hours or so. If I didn’t answer them they would hit me sometimes. Every now and then they would bring me food and a glass of water.’

‘What did they want to know, Richard?’ said Powerscourt, his eyes never leaving the far end of the carriage where any new passengers would appear, his hand deep in his coat
pocket.

‘They wanted to know what I had told Mr Burke,’ said Richard, grimacing at his memories. ‘I said I hadn’t told Mr Burke anything. They didn’t believe me. They said
I had been seen talking to him at the cricket match. Then they wanted to know if I had talked to anybody else. I said, No, I hadn’t. I wasn’t going to tell them I had talked to Sophie,
was I?’

‘Sophie did very well, you know, very well.’ Powerscourt smiled at Richard. ‘If she hadn’t come to tell Mr Burke you had gone missing you could have been locked up in
that little cottage for days, if not weeks. She was very brave.’

Richard grinned back at Powerscourt. ‘So you think she might care for me, my lord?’

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m not sure that a slow train, currently passing Slough if I am not mistaken, at two o’clock in the morning, is the best place for a
discussion of your prospects. But I should say that she cared for you very much, possibly more than she realized before. Now tell me, Richard, was there anything else they asked you? Did they
mention any dates in the near future? Any events they might have wondered if you knew about?’

Richard was lost in thought, more concerned with his next meeting with Sophie than with the questions he had been asked at Blackwater.

‘What was that, my lord? Sorry, yes, they did ask me if I knew anything about next Monday, the day, they called it. They muttered something in a foreign language I didn’t understand.
I think it was German, my lord. It sounded like Der Tag, Der Tack, something like that. I’m going to start on the German next term, my lord, at my evening classes. I’ve nearly finished
French.’

Powerscourt stared out of the window. The river was just visible in the moonlight. He wondered where Johnny Fitzgerald was, if he had shaken off his pursuers.

‘Next Monday, Richard. That’s the big day. It’s now Wednesday morning. We’ve got five days to stop them, whatever they’re trying to do, one of them a Sunday. Just
five days.’

‘What do you make of it all, Francis?’

Powerscourt and William Burke were sitting by the fire in the upstairs drawing room in Markham Square the following morning. Downstairs Lady Lucy was looking after Mrs Martin, offering her round
after round of toast and a flood of tea. Richard was still asleep.

‘On one level, William,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it’s kidnap pure and simple. I’m sure the police would be able to arrest Charles Harrison and his associates at
Blackwater without any trouble at all. But I’m not sure we should set any of that in motion just yet.’

‘Why ever not, Francis?’ said Burke, growing indignant at crimes committed in broad daylight in the heart of the City.

‘I am certain,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I am absolutely certain that the most important thing just now is to frustrate their plans. How we do it I do not know. But I feel very sure
that any arrest would bring publicity and publicity is what they want for their main purpose. Have you found the figures I mentioned to you yesterday afternoon, William? The ones that would confirm
my theory of what has been going on all these months?’

‘I have some of them, but not all.’ Burke reached for a paper in his breast pocket. ‘I need to talk to young Richard when he wakes up. I have no doubt that your theory is
correct, Francis. I cannot tell you what I think about it. It is the most monstrous thing I have ever encountered in the City of London. And I do not know how we can stop it. I fear it is already
too late. Next Monday, did you say, is the vital day? Just three full working days away. God help us all.’

Powerscourt rose from his chair. The grey cat slid from behind the place he had just left. Faintly, from upstairs, there came the sound of Olivia crying.

‘William, you must wake up young Richard and see what details he can fill in. You must send a message to the Governor of the Bank of England asking for a meeting this afternoon. Maybe he
should come here.’