David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

Late that night there was a melancholy conference in Powerscourt’s rooms. All the police reports were in. All were negative. Johnny Fitzgerald had walked about the streets, looking remarkably like a recently released jailbird, trying to see if he could spot anything. He had found nothing at all. They resolved to meet again the next morning.

As Powerscourt leaned out of his window once more, staring at the deserted sea front and the empty elegance of the West Pier, the Town Hall clock struck midnight.

They had seventy-two hours left to find Lady Lucy.

At two o’clock in the morning four of Dominic Knox’s agents called on a thirty-five-year-old chemistry teacher of Irish extraction who was famous for his ability to make fireworks at his school of St Michael and St James. Declan Macbride was dreaming when the officers called. He dreamt he was sitting at his desk marking an enormous pile of exam papers. However many he corrected, the pile never grew any less. It was, he had decided wearily, the educational equivalent of Sisyphus pushing his rock uphill for all eternity.

The agents were very polite, but insistent. They wanted to search his rooms. They knew, as did he, that Declan Macbride had been visited in the last few days by three messengers from Michael Byrne in Dublin. They searched his small desk. They went through his clothes and his books, they went through his cupboards. Shortly before three o’clock they started on the floorboards.

Two other officers called on a Catholic hostel off the Fulham Palace Road, well known for its links with travellers from Dublin. Three young women had to submit to the same treatment.

At four o’clock in the morning Lord Francis Powerscourt tiptoed out of his hotel. He made his way slowly down to the sea front. A wind had risen off the sea. Small breakers beat feebly against the pebbles of the beach. There was no moon. He walked past the ruins of the old Chain Pier, gazing sadly at the great hotels, their front doors now locked, curtains drawn against the night air. A lone fisherman was setting out on Brighton’s oldest occupation. The pursuit of fish had been happening here centuries before the pursuit of fashion. Somewhere behind these windows, he told himself is Lucy. A frightened Lucy, perhaps a drugged Lucy. The bastards. The bastards. He could hear the fisherman’s boat scraping along the beach as he pulled it down into the water. He wondered if he should offer to help him. The first very faint hint of pale grey was appearing on the horizon. Dawn was coming to Brighton, another day for him to find his beloved. He felt hungry suddenly. He wondered if Lucy felt hungry too. Then it struck him. There might just be another way to find her. He hurried back to his hotel and waited for Inspector Tait and his policemen to arrive.

They came at seven o’clock, a disconsolate bunch, their spirits down after the fruitless visits of yesterday. But Powerscourt was in cheerful form.

‘I think we may have been asking the wrong question yesterday. In the hotels, I mean. I’m not sure we could have asked the right question until today.’

‘Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘you’re speaking in riddles. Explain yourself, man.’

‘My apologies, gentlemen.’ Powerscourt looked round his little audience. ‘My assumption was that the three people we are looking for would have gone to a hotel. I still think they have gone to a hotel. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that they checked into the hotel as a threesome. One German could have checked in with Lady Lucy posing as his wife. Or he could have left Lucy sitting on a chair in the hotel reception while he checked in for them both. The other fellow could have checked in later or gone for a walk, anything like that. It’s quite possible that nobody in the hotel has ever seen them together. So, when we asked about a threesome, the hotel people said they didn’t know, because they actually hadn’t seen a threesome.’

Chief Inspector Tait was still dressed in cricket flannels, topped off today by a straw hat. ‘So what is the right question, my lord?’

‘I think the right question is this,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But before I come to it, let me say one other thing. I think our German friends will be very anxious about being followed, or discovered, or rushed by a party of policemen or soldiers. They kidnapped somebody earlier in this case, Chief Inspector, and they did not succeed. Johnny and I rescued him. So they will want somewhere where they have a good view of all routes in and out of where they are. One of them will have to watch Lady Lucy all the time. That means, it seems to me, that they cannot leave their rooms. If they have meals in the hotel dining room somebody may spot Lady Lucy. If they leave the building they themselves may be recognized. So while they have Lucy as their prisoner, they are, to a large extent, prisoners themselves in Room 689 of the Duke of York’s Hotel, or whatever it is called.’

‘For God’s sake, Francis.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was growing exasperated. ‘What is the bloody question?’

‘Simple,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Do you have any guests who have all their meals sent up to their rooms? All of their meals.’

Chief Inspector Tait grinned. He looks ten years younger all of a sudden, Powerscourt thought.

‘Excellent, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Tait. ‘When did you think of that?’

‘Just before five o’clock this morning,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk along the sea front. I suddenly felt hungry and wanted some breakfast. Then I wondered if Lucy felt hungry too. Then I asked myself how she would get her breakfast.’

‘Right,’ said Tait. ‘They go on serving breakfast until about ten in most of these places. Shortly after ten we can begin our inquiries. Do you suppose, Lord Powerscourt, that we have to begin all over again and revisit all those hotels we called at yesterday?’

‘I’m afraid you do, Chief Inspector,’ said Powerscourt.

‘I shall go and organize things immediately. No harm in getting our men back in position nice and early. But may I ask you one question, Lord Powerscourt? How do you propose to effect the rescue? I have been thinking about that and there are terrible risks whichever way we do it.’

‘I think there may be a way of lessening the odds.’ Powerscourt felt almost cheerful now. ‘But I don’t yet know if it will work. Let’s find them first.’

‘Christ Almighty! God in heaven!’ Dominic Knox seldom swore, but the news from his agents at eight o’clock that morning left him in despair. His agents had searched all night and found nothing apart from a few trivial gifts in the schoolteacher’s little kitchen. Nothing. Whatever Michael Byrne was plotting, whatever his schemes for the disruption of the Jubilee, Knox had been sure that these three young women were crucial. They would be carrying explosives or bits of rifles to be assembled in London. That was why he had been so careful not to intercept them until he knew where they had been, who they had visited in the capital. Now his strategy was in ruins. He had been tricked by his Irish opponents. Were the three messengers merely decoys to throw him off the scent? And if they were, what was Michael Byrne really planning? Knox realized he had been looking in the wrong direction, that all his plans had failed. Suddenly he remembered the rifles, buried in their coffins in Wicklow. He sent a telegraph to Dublin to open those graves at once and check the contents of the coffins. Pray to God, said Knox to himself, pray to God those bloody rifles are still there.

Powerscourt was pacing up and down his living room in the Prince Regent, pausing every now and then to gaze out to sea. Fitzgerald, looking even more decrepit than the day before, had gone to patrol the streets of Brighton. Powerscourt was turning his plan over and over in his mind, looking for flaws. They would only have one chance, just one chance to rescue Lady Lucy and restore happiness to both of them. Shortly after ten, just as the first of Tait’s policemen were interviewing their hotel managers, he spotted a flaw in his plan. Damn, he said to himself. There must be a way round it. He stared at the West Pier, fortune tellers and Pierrots already getting into position for the day’s work. The chambermaid knocked on the door and asked if she could clean the room.