Goodnight Sweet Prince (19 page)

‘Anyway, Lord Francis, you must come and see us one weekend and we can make an expedition to the Round Pond. I quite like Kensington Gardens anyway.’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘That would be delightful. But, Robert, before your ship makes its maiden voyage you will have to give it a name. What are you going to call it?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it. Can I take the ship up to my room now, Mama? I need to work out where to put it.’

‘Of course, Robert, off you go.’

‘What a charming son, you have, Lady Lucy.’ Powerscourt had finished his tea and was looking with awe at the depleted sandwiches.

Lady Lucy blushed a fetching shade of pink. ‘Thank you, Lord Francis, thank you so much. But come, some more tea?’

‘Lady Lucy, please forgive me. I arrive late. I must leave early. It has nothing, I assure you, to do with the company. I could happily sit here for the rest of the evening. But I have
another appointment I cannot break.’

‘Not more tea?’ Lady Lucy had a sudden vision of another, different, Lady Lucy pouring out cups of Earl Grey and affection for Lord Francis Powerscourt.

Powerscourt laughed. ‘No, not more tea. I have to see the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.’

‘Lord Francis, you’re not in trouble, are you?’

‘My dear Lady Lucy, of course I’m not in trouble. It’s just something I am working on at the moment.’

‘Will you tell me about your work, one day? If you can, that is.’

‘Of course I will. But, if I don’t go now, I shall be late and then they probably will arrest me.’

Powerscourt climbed into his coat and paused by the front door to say goodbye. Lady Lucy stood beside him.

‘Thank you so much for tea, Lady Lucy. I shall write to you about our next meeting.’

‘I hope it will be soon, Lord Francis.’ She leaned forward and brushed a speck of dust from his collar. Well, she thought there had been a speck of dust there.

‘Goodbye.’ Powerscourt stepped reluctantly into the night.

‘Goodbye.’ Lady Lucy watched him go. What was that he had said? ‘I could happily sit here for the rest of the evening.’ She smiled and closed the door.

As he climbed into his cab Powerscourt thought that Lady Lucy would be a good name for the boat. Lovely lines. Graceful. Elegant.

He leant forward to give the driver his destination. ‘Could you take me to Scotland Yard? Thank you so much.’

‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, how very nice to see you again!’

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was tall and thin, with the upright bearing of the former Guardsman. He must be nearing retirement age by now, thought Powerscourt, he’s been in
this impossible job for years and years.

‘Sir John, it is a pleasure to meet you again.’

‘How long since our last encounter?’ Sir John was counting the years off on his fingers. ‘Five, or is it six?’

‘I fear it is seven now. None of us is getting any younger.’

In 1885 Powerscourt had been working on a particularly unpleasant case and had to call on the assistance of the Metropolitan Police Force. Powerscourt had treated them with great courtesy, with
tact and, he hoped, with charm. They in their turn had done everything in their power to help him. And at the end of the case, over a very fine dinner in his club, the Commissioner had promised
Powerscourt that if ever he needed help in the future, all he had to do was to ask.

‘I need some assistance, Sir John. I have come to throw myself on the mercy of your force once again.’

‘What can we do to help?’ The Commissioner opened his hands wide on the table in front of him. Powerscourt saw that on the walls of his office there were four huge maps of London,
divided into North, South, East and West. On each map were small red circles, presumably denoting the scenes of recent crimes. East London is looking particularly red this evening, he thought,
parts of it almost obliterated by the circles.

‘Two questions, if I may. The first relates to blackmail. And you will not be surprised to learn,’ Powerscourt rose from his chair and stood by the great map of West London,
‘that we are talking about what is known as Society, living here,’ he pointed to London’s most fashionable and expensive quarter, ‘in this area of Mayfair and Belgravia. Not
many of your red blobs here, I see.’

‘Crime is not for the few who are rich, most of the time. They don’t need to bother. It is London’s more numerous poor who have to resort to it, either to find enough money to
live on, or they are fuelled by drink. So many of our cases in this red area over here,’ he pointed a sad finger at the reprobate East End, ‘are related to drink.’

Powerscourt remembered that Sir John was the treasurer of the local church in his little village in Surrey where most of the inhabitants did not know of his occupation and thought he worked in a
bank. He also remembered, though he could not recall where this information came from, that Sir John painted rather gruesome watercolours of the Thames in his spare time.

‘Blackmail in Belgravia, as the headline writers might put it,’ Powerscourt went on with a smile. ‘What I want to know is this, Sir John. Do you have any records in recent
years of a blackmailer, either an insider or an outsider, operating in what is called Society? And if there is such a man, is there any suggestion that he may be at work now?’

Sir John was worried about Powerscourt’s eyes. There was some strain, some worry there behind and beyond the particular requests he was making. He remembered those eyes from before, always
courageous, always curious, always delighting in the hunt for the truth.

‘My second query is more delicate yet. It concerns London’s homosexual fraternity, the rich ones again. I understand that they have recently purchased a house by the river between
Hammersmith and Chiswick where they may go about their business in peace. Is there any evidence of blackmail being carried out there, or any other criminal activities?’

‘We know about that house, we’ve known about it for some time.’ Sir John looked carefully at his map of West London as if the mark of Cain might have suddenly appeared over
Chiswick. ‘We find it easier to leave those people alone as my officers find any investigation so very distasteful.’

Sir John stared intently at London’s West End on his map. ‘How soon would you like this information, Lord Powerscourt? I do not have to tell you that we shall begin work as soon as
we can.’

‘I have to go on a long journey the day after tomorrow.’ Powerscourt looked for railway stations on the maps. ‘I may be away for some time. Could I call on you again in about ten days’ time?’

‘Of course you can. That will be a pleasure.’

After packing Powerscourt into yet another cab, the Commissioner watched him go, his coat pulled tightly round him in the fog. I’ll say he’s going on a journey, he said to himself,
as Powerscourt’s cab disappeared round the corner, a journey of discovery. God help him on his way, the Commissioner thought, returning to contemplation of his city, laid out in four maps
across his wall, criminal red spattered all across the East End.

There were primroses everywhere, plaster primroses, stucco primroses. Were those marble primroses? Powerscourt had never really noticed them before. A field of artificial
primroses surrounded the London home of Archibald Philip Primrose, fifth Earl of Rosebery. Now he thought about it he remembered seeing Rosebery once in evening dress, a pair of cuff links adorned
with golden primroses glittering among the candles.

‘Lord Powerscourt. Good morning to you. I regret to have to inform you that my master is not at home. He should return presently, if Your Lordship would care to wait.’

William Leith, Rosebery’s butler, was a short square man with a gloomy expression like an undertaker off duty. Powerscourt remembered Rosebery once getting rid of a butler who was taller
than himself. ‘Couldn’t stand the fellow looking down at me all the time,’ he had complained, ‘made me feel like a fag at Eton.’

‘It was not Lord Rosebery that I wished to speak to on this occasion,’ said Powerscourt, stepping into the hall.

‘Indeed, my lord.’ Leith deftly removed Powerscourt’s coat and hat.

‘I need some advice from you, Leith.’

‘Indeed, my lord.’ Leith deposited the coat in a vestibule off the hall.

‘I have to go on a long train journey, or journeys. I am not sure yet how many journeys.’

‘Indeed, my lord.’ A flicker of interest, indeed pleasure, crossed Leith’s face. Rosebery, in his more frivolous moments, referred to Leith as the Traveller’s Friend. He
had a prodigious memory for the train timetables of Britain, an encyclopedic knowledge of the routes across the Continent of Europe. Rosebery believed he had recently purchased volumes of railway
information about America and Africa. ‘If you want to get to Vienna without going through Germany, or if you need to reach Brindisi or Berlin in a hurry, Leith is your man. What he
doesn’t know, he looks up. What he can’t look up, he finds out by devious means. He may have his own secret agents in Thomas Cook and the Compagnie of Wagon-Lits. I believe his library
of railway timetables may one day be more valuable than my own humble collections.’

‘Perhaps Your Lordship would like to step this way. My lord.’ Leith ushered Powerscourt into his office half-way down the stairs into the basement.

I’m in the Holy of Holies, thought Powerscourt. Now I get to see the Ark of the Covenant itself. I wonder if Rosebery has ever been in here. Two walls were covered with books of
timetables. The other two had railway maps of Britain and Europe, many places marked with Leith’s microscopic writing.

‘St Andrews in Scotland. Amble in Northumberland. Aberystwyth in Wales. Greystones, County Dublin, in Ireland. Those are the places I need to get to. I may only need to go to one of them
if I find what I am looking for on the first journey. Or I may have to go to them all.’

‘Indeed, my lord. Your Lordship has been given a list of difficult destinations.’ Leith pulled a couple of volumes from his shelves. ‘Greystones, my lord. I fear it may be in
County Wick-low rather than in County Dublin. No matter.’

Scarcely pausing to consult his library, Leith fixed his eyes on the ceiling, his face a smile of pleasure. The lights in front of him in his driver’s cab were green, the green flag waved
in his mind and he was off.

‘Evening train to Liverpool, my lord. Euston. I would suggest Your Lordship takes the 3.30 as it is less crowded than its successors. Night boat to Dublin or Kingstown, preferably
Kingstown. Arrives 7.30 in the morning. Local service every half an hour, stops at Greystones. I feel Your Lordship should be able to catch the 7.45.

‘Amble is easier, my lord. Express to Edinburgh, stopping at Morpeth. My Lordship and I travel that line regularly. The ten o’clock from King’s Cross is the fastest. Cab to
Amble, not very far. Or irregular local service to Warkworth. Very infrequent, my lord.

‘Aberystwyth, 9.15 from Euston, change at Birmingham and change again at Ludlow. Very slow journey from there, my lord. Very slow. Stopping train.’ Leith looked down sadly as though
stopping trains were a cross he had to bear. ‘Or you could take the 9.20 express to Cardiff. Paddington, I fear. Change at Cardiff on to the 4.15 North Wales connection. Very slow again.
Mountains, my lord.

‘St Andrews, same train from Euston as for Amble, my lord. Continue to Edinburgh Waverley and change there. The eight o’clock from King’s Cross would enable you to catch the
seven o’clock non-stop service to St Andrews.

‘Or, my lord,’ Leith, like his trains, was drawing to a halt, ‘you could circumvent all those problems of changes and connection by taking a special.’

‘A special, Leith?’

‘Indeed, my lord. A special train. My Lordship takes them frequently. You simply hire one train and it takes you everywhere you want to go.’ Leith’s face took on a rapturous
expression as if he wished his last journey to be taken in a special, non-stop express to St Peter’s railway station.

‘I don’t feel a special would be appropriate on this occasion.’ Powerscourt could sense Leith’s disappointment, the funeral director’s look swiftly obliterating the
glory of the special. ‘But I shall certainly bear it in mind for future occasions.’

‘Indeed, my lord. I have written down all the relevant details, times and so on, for Your Lordship. Is there anything else I can tell Your Lordship about these trains?’ Leith
contrived to look impassive and hopeful at the same time.

‘Only this, Leith. Let us assume that one journey may suffice. Which of those places is the easiest to get to?’

‘The easiest to get to, my lord? There can be little doubt of that. Their engines are newer than most, my lord. Their carriages are better upholstered than most.’ Leith shuddered at
the memory of some badly upholstered seats, his master’s fury echoing down the train. ‘They are usually punctual. Amble, my lord, is by far the easiest place to reach, if that fits in
with Your Lordship’s plans.’

‘Indeed it does. I am most grateful to you, most grateful.’

Powerscourt wondered if the Russian Ambassador would serve him tea in a samovar. He did not. He served the finest Indian tea in the finest Meissen china.

Count Vasily Timofeyevich Volsky, Ambassador from the Court of the Romanovs, Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, to the Court of St James was charm personified.
‘He’s extremely rich,’ had been Rosebery’s verdict. ‘Extremely rich. Thousands and thousands of acres. Far more than I’ve got. Palaces full of paintings all over
the place. Far more than I’ve got. Terrible wife. Probably can’t wait to get back to St Petersburg. God knows why they all want to go back to Mother Russia, but they do.’

‘Lord Powerscourt, I can be very brief in answer to the questions you raised in your letter. Is there any record of Russian anarchists or revolutionaries operating outside our country? The
answer, I fear, is no. They confine their criminal activities to our own poor homeland. I do not believe they have ever operated abroad. Exile, of course, many of them are in exile in Paris or
Geneva or even here in London, but they are always well behaved when abroad. They save their wickedness for home.’