David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

‘Later, please, later,’ Powerscourt said abstractedly, looking at the prints of Regency Brighton on the walls. What had the Prime Minister said to him two days before? ‘I can put the resources of the State at your disposal. If you want a regiment or two, you can have them. If you want a couple of destroyers moored off the coast of Brighton you can have them. If you want Brighton sealed off by the authorities, we can do it.’

Powerscourt sat down at the writing desk in the corner and composed a telegram to Schomberg McDonnell, private secretary to the Prime Minister.

The hotel managers of Brighton have always been a world-weary and rather cynical body of men. They felt cheerful that morning. Bright and sunny weather was always good for business. But on this day, as on the day before, they were visited again by the local police, asking a different question this time. No, we have no guests taking meals in their rooms, said the man from the Bristol. His brothers in Christ at the Worcester, the Old Steine, the Sea View and the Royal Exeter agreed. We do have one guest who takes meals in her rooms, the manager of the George told the policeman, who looked up with great expectations in his eyes as he heard the news, but she is eighty-seven years old and is not expected to live long. The Suffolk, the Royal Brighton, the York and the Oxford all shook their heads sadly and wondered what on earth was going on. In a quiet conclave later that afternoon they suspected that some terrible London murderer had fled to the worldly delights of Brighton. A man from the Burlington wondered if Jack the Ripper had come for a holiday by the sea.

At eleven o’clock Lord Francis Powerscourt had a visitor.

‘What a splendid day to come to the seaside!’ said a young man of about thirty years with laughing blue eyes and tousled fair hair.

‘Mr Hardy, you were very prompt in answering my telegram from yesterday,’ said Powerscourt, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘How very good to see you.’

‘You didn’t give me very much detail,’ said Hardy, the fire investigator who had helped Powerscourt at Blackwater, ‘but life always seems to be interesting when you’re around, Lord Powerscourt. I’ve brought a few things with me but I forgot to pack my bucket and spade.’

Powerscourt told him of Lucy’s kidnap. He showed him the kidnap letter. He explained that the police were talking to every hotel owner in Brighton. He explained to Hardy what he wanted.

‘I see, I see. What fun! What a lark, Lord Powerscourt!’ Hardy was rubbing his hands together in delight at the challenge ahead. ‘I did take the liberty of sending a wire to the local brigade. Am I right in thinking that you don’t yet know precisely which hotel we may be talking about?’

Powerscourt assured him that he did not yet have that intelligence.

‘I think I’ll take a walk down to the sea front,’ the young man said, ‘and have a look at the type of building we may be dealing with. But I tell you this, Lord Powerscourt. It’s all a lot more fun than those insurance claims back in London!’

At twelve o’clock the cannon on the West Pier boomed out for midday, a secular and seaside Angelus for the holidaymakers promenading up and down the front. The seagulls protested loudly and flew out to sea in angry battalions. Even after years of the gun tolling twelve they still hadn’t learnt to expect it.

The hotel managers of the Rottingdean and the Kemptown told the policemen that they had no guests taking their meals in their rooms. The Piccadilly did have such a guest but he was a young man who had broken his leg the day before. The Piccadilly’s hotel manager assured his visitors that the young man expected to be mobile in a couple of days. The policemen were half-way up the front by now and were almost opposite the Royal Pavilion.

Powerscourt stood staring out of the window at the sea front. One o’clock passed, then two. Joseph Hardy had not returned from his inspection of the hotels. Johnny Fitzgerald had departed once more in his tramp’s uniform to see what he could find. Maybe I’ve been wrong all along, Powerscourt thought bitterly. He looked at his watch. He could now calculate from any given hour of the day exactly how long he had to save Lady Lucy. At this point there were fifty-eight hours and eighteen minutes left. There might be a bit longer while the messages came down from London that Harrison’s Bank had been rescued. But then?

There was a sudden pounding up the stairs to his room. Chief Inspector Robin Tait burst in. ‘We’ve found them!’ he panted. ‘I’ve run all the way from the hotel to tell you! They’re in the King George the Fourth, not far from the West Pier!’

‘Well done, Chief Inspector!’ Powerscourt shook the policeman firmly by the hand and pumped it up and down. ‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am. This is fantastic news. How did you find them? Is there any news of Lucy?’

Tait slumped into a chair and wiped his brow with a perfectly ironed handkerchief. His wife likes to see him well turned out, Powerscourt thought.

‘It began as a perfectly routine inquiry, my lord, the normal sort of thing my officers have been doing for the last two days. At first they only got the assistant manager and he looked at them rather suspiciously, demanded to see their papers and that sort of thing. It’s amazing the difference not having a uniform makes to the way people see you. I’m sure we’ll find that very useful later on. Anyway, the assistant manager went off to speak to the kitchens. That took about ten minutes. Then he came back and said he just needed to check with the manager.’

‘Did your men know by now that they had found what they were looking for?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I think they did,’ said Tait, proud of the efficiency of his officers, ‘there was something in the assistant manager’s face, as if he felt guilty. This is what happened. One man booked two adjacent suites on the sixth floor of what you might call the west wing of the King George the Fourth Hotel two nights ago. There’s an interconnecting door between the two suites. The other two, a man and a woman, came later. The woman looked pale and tired, as if she’d had a fainting fit or something like that. They all disappeared into Rooms 607 and 608. They haven’t been seen since. All their meals have been sent up. They haven’t even let the chambermaid in to clean up.’

‘Didn’t anybody think that was suspicious?’ asked Powerscourt, his mind far away now with Lucy in her prison cell on the sixth floor of the King George the Fourth. Did she have any clean clothes? He knew she hated not having fresh things to wear every day.

‘They might have done, my lord,’ said Tait, aware suddenly of just how fragile Powerscourt was at that moment, ‘but quite a lot of money kept changing hands.’

There was a loud knock at the door. Joseph Hardy, fire expert and fire investigator had returned.

‘Mr Hardy, allow me to introduce Chief Inspector Tait of the local constabulary. Mr Hardy is an expert in fires of every sort. Let me tell you, Mr Hardy, that the Chief Inspector and his men have worked a miracle. Lady Lucy and the two villains are on the sixth floor of the King George the Fourth near the West Pier.’

‘Splendid, splendid!’ said Hardy cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. ‘I did a few sketches when I was down on the front, my Lord. Including the King George the Fourth.’ He produced a piece of paper from his satchel.

The hotel had a massive frontage, almost all of it looking out to sea. But on the west side, nearer to Hove, a turretlike structure jutted out, with one window looking straight out to sea, the window on its left looking west towards the pier, and a final window looking on to the street below and the other street running back towards the town.