David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

Powerscourt dined alone at home. He expected William McKenzie to be late. He knew he would track his Italian visitors to their final destination before his rendezvous in Chelsea. It was half-past eleven when a weary Scotsman presented himself in the drawing room on the first floor of 25 Markham Square.

‘William,’ said Powerscourt, ‘how very good to see you. And thank you very much for your mission.’

‘I wish I could say it had been more successful, my lord,’ said McKenzie, perching on the edge of a chair and pulling a small black notebook out of his pocket. ‘Let me give you the main points of my report.’

He checked through a couple of pages of notes, all written, Powerscourt observed, in McKenzie’s microscopic but always readable script.

‘Subject travelled to Rome. Journey uneventful. I made my rendezvous with the translator and guide. Very talkative gentleman, my lord. Following the subject difficult because the guide would not hang back and follow me at a distance. Always wished to be by my side. Two much more visible than one. Subject stayed in the building belonging to the Congregation of Propaganda, close to the Piazza di Spagna, a body composed of cardinals and others which manages the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain and Ireland. Subject only came out once, my lord. Dined in fashionable restaurant with a bishop and another prince of the Church, so my guide told me.’

‘William, you poor man,’ said Powerscourt, ‘are you telling me that you kept watch on this building for two days and the man only came out once?’

‘That is correct, my lord. I did learn a lot about the building, mind you. The College, attached to Propaganda,’ McKenzie peered closely at his notes at this point, ‘I wrote this bit down out of the guidebook, my lord, because I thought it would interest you, “was founded in 1627 by Urban VIII for the purpose of educating as missionaries, entirely free of charge, young foreigners from infidel or heretical countries, who might afterwards return and spread the Roman Catholic faith among their countrymen.”’

‘And the bloody place is nearly three hundred years old,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if Propaganda had tried to pull off a coup like the one in Compton in the past. Rarely could they have been so close to triumph as they were now.

‘Subject now returned to London, my lord, accompanied by bishop person and the other fellow, a rather fat gentleman, my lord, in the mould of Friar Tuck perhaps. All received great attention and tribute from the railway staff en route through Italy and France. Rather less on the passage between Dover and London. All three gone to Jesuits’ house in Farm Street. Believe they intend to go to Compton tomorrow, my lord. I overheard conversation about purchase of tickets.’

‘Are you telling me, William, that you spent all your time waiting around these Propaganda buildings? That you had no time to see any of the sights of Rome?’

‘That is correct, my lord. I had hoped to visit the Colosseum where they killed the Christians all those years ago. I would have liked to be able to tell my aged mother about that. But it was not to be. Should I follow the gentlemen back to Compton, my lord?’

Powerscourt was imagining the Compton murderer at large in the Colosseum, despatching Protestants reluctant to convert with sword, spear or trident, rejoicing as his victims met their deaths, their blood pouring out into the sand.

‘Sorry William,’ said Powerscourt. ‘My mind had wandered off. I think you should go back to Compton with the religious gentlemen, just to make sure we don’t lose sight of them.’ He suddenly thought of them as Father, Son and Holy Ghost, though which was which he didn’t know. He explained to McKenzie the plan to rededicate the cathedral to the Catholic faith on Easter Sunday, the secret attendances at Mass, the fact that the murder victims had almost certainly been part of the enterprise and then changed their minds. When Powerscourt finished McKenzie looked at him closely and said very softly, ‘Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.’

Powerscourt spent most of the journey back to Compton staring out of the window, his mind debating with itself. When was it legal to break the law? Under what circumstances would a man be justified in causing damage to property, and possibly to other human lives, in a higher cause? Was it his duty to infringe the laws of England so that other English laws might not be violated, or not violated in front of so many people? As the train curved round the tracks towards the south-west he found himself measuring angles, possible explosion points on the line where the damage could not be repaired for days. Heaven knew Johnny Fitzgerald and he had done enough of this in India. When Powerscourt reached the inevitable philosophical question of did the ends justify the means he gave up and thought of other things.

He thought of a place to take Lucy when all this was over. St Petersburg, he decided, a city built on the water, a city built facing Europe to change the culture of the Russian nobility, a city built as a titanic social experiment to see if architecture and geographical position could alter the mindset of a nation. The Winter Palace, he remembered, all those other vast palaces, some with so many rooms that their owners never visited them all during their entire lives, humble servants squatting in squalor in the attics while their masters dined on eight courses of French cuisine down below.

Johnny Fitzgerald was poring over a huge map of Compton and its railway lines laid out on the floor of the Fairfield Park drawing room when he reached home. Lady Lucy was sitting by the fire, still looking pale but happier than she had been when he left. Powerscourt hugged her cheerfully and looked down at Johnny’s map.

‘There’s two letters for you on the mantelpiece, Francis,’ Johnny said. ‘They’re both from London.’

‘I see you’ve been busy with the railway lines, Johnny.’

‘Well,’ said Johnny, ‘when you asked me to find out about the extra trains coming to Compton and so on and then you asked me to get some explosives, I could see the way your mind was working. If we could blow up the tracks and stop some of these extra people coming, maybe the damage wouldn’t be so bad. Not all of the wine would have got out of the bottle, if you see what I mean. I’ve got some explosives, I’ve got the maps of the railway lines and I know that there are a lot of extra trains booked to come here. Most of them are going to arrive on Saturday afternoon. Every hotel, every lodging house for miles around is full, Francis. It may not be the right season, but in Compton this Easter, there’s no room in the inn.’

‘I don’t think we can do it, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt rather sadly. ‘I don’t mean that we couldn’t blow up the railway, we’ve done plenty of that in our time. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the train on the way down.’

He went and stood by Lady Lucy’s chair, his hand absent-mindedly stroking her hair as he spoke. ‘Even if we did blow up the lines, we couldn’t stop the news getting out. I’m sure the Catholic faction in the cathedral have laid their plans already for broadcasting the news. Maybe they’re going to have special announcements of their triumph in every church and cathedral in the country. Maybe even in Rome itself the College of Propaganda will announce the downfall of a citadel of the heretic English. And, even if we gave warnings, some of them might not get through, or be misunderstood. I couldn’t bear it if we were responsible for the deaths of innocent people whose only crime was setting out to attend Mass on Easter Sunday. I don’t want to sound pompous, but I don’t think we can set ourselves up as the solvers of crimes and mysteries and then rush out in the middle of the night and commit some crimes of our own.’