David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

Matthews came back, looking sombre. ‘We have searched everywhere in those rooms. So far we have found nothing. We shall go on searching. I am sending my men up in relays.’

Johnny Fitzgerald pulled his friend to his feet and led him to the other side of the street. There were policemen everywhere. The hotel residents seemed to have been brought back to the front of the George the Fourth to await return to their quarters. They were chattering noisily to one another, sharing in their reminiscences of escape from the fire. Powerscourt looked out to sea. The West Pier, the sea front, the beached hotels, the fishing boats lined up on the beach, were all the same as they had been an hour or so ago. But Powerscourt’s world had changed for ever.

He turned to look back at the hotel. Only the west wing bore the marks of the smoke. He heard a whistle blowing somewhere far away. There was a lot of shouting from some distant place. The Chief Constable was about a hundred yards away, staring up at the roof. He ran back towards the main entrance. The whistle was still blowing, a series of short sharp bursts.

Just in front of the great doors of the King George the Fourth the Chief Constable stopped. He drew himself up to his full height. ‘Silence!’ he bellowed. ‘Silence in the name of the law!’ The crowd stopped talking. The firemen went on gesticulating to each other in sign language. Behind him Powerscourt could just hear the sea, rolling softly up the shore. The whistles continued, louder now. The shouting went on. Powerscourt couldn’t hear what they were saying at first. He thought his hearing must have been damaged in the inferno. Then it came to him.

‘Powerscourt! Powerscourt!’ He couldn’t see where the shout came from. Then Johnny Fitzgerald pointed up at the roof. At the opposite end to the west wing was a group of five people. One of them had a whistle. The whistling stopped. There was a much smaller figure in the middle of the group. Powerscourt thought he recognized Chief Inspector Tait as the man doing the shouting. The smaller figure was partly hidden by the policemen.

‘Powerscourt! Powerscourt!’ The Tait-like figure was pointing now, pointing at the smaller figure who was lifted forward to the front of the group.

There was another shout, a feeble shout, a thin shout, a shout with a weakened voice that only just carried down to the sea front.

‘Francis! Francis!’ The little figure waved at him. It waved as long as it could. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ Tears of joy were pouring down Powerscourt’s cheeks. ‘Hang on, Lucy,’ he shouted up at the roof, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’

Lord Francis Powerscourt staggered across the road, waving as he went, on a last mission to the upper floors.

Johnny Fitzgerald went in search of the Chief Constable, still staring defiantly at the crowd by the front door.

‘Congratulations, sir,’ said Johnny, ushering the Chief Constable into the main entrance. ‘Would you still be in possession of your emergency powers, sir? The ones that came from the Prime Minister?’

‘Don’t need them now,’ said the Chief Constable.

‘But they operated for a period of forty-eight hours, if I remember what you said earlier,’ Fitzgerald went on.

‘What do you want me to do?’ asked the Chief Constable.

‘Well,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘it would seem to me that you have the power to override the licensing regulations. Terribly restrictive they are at the best of times, if you don’t mind my saying so. You could request our hotel manager friend Mr Hudson to open the bar. At once. Then Lord Powerscourt and Lady Lucy could have a drink when they come down from the roof, don’t you see?’

The Chief Constable laughed. He clapped Johnny Fitzgerald on the shoulder. ‘Splendid idea,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘By virtue of the emergency powers vested in me, I shall have the bar opened at once.’ He strode off towards the hotel offices.

‘Where is that man Hudson,’ he shouted, ‘when you need him most?’

Two grinning young policemen guided Powerscourt up the six floors to the roof. They brought him out just behind Chief Inspector Tait and his party. Lady Lucy was looking frail, her eyes dark, her face smeared with marks from the smoke. Powerscourt embraced her briefly.

‘Chief Inspector Tait,’ he said, ‘may I thank you and your colleagues here from the bottom of my heart for saving Lucy’s life. I shall always be in your debt. How did you manage it?’

There was an embarrassed shuffling about from the policemen.

‘Well, sir,’ said Tait, ‘I thought we should have a position on the roof above Room 607. If the villains knew there was a way up to the roof, they might try to escape through it. They could have checked it out when they arrived, just in case.’

Tait paused and waved briefly to one of his colleagues in the street below.

‘So we waited on the far side of the trapdoor. Once the smoke got thick in that corridor outside 607 we dropped a man down to hide behind the cupboards. He had a piece of string like that woman in the labyrinth in Crete or Rhodes or wherever it was. One tug meant they were coming up, two tugs meant they were going down. Once we felt the tugs that they were going down we went for those rooms. Lady Powerscourt was waiting for us. I think she thought I was you, my lord.’

Chief Inspector Robin Tait blushed. ‘I got a great big hug, my lord. But Lady Powerscourt was in rather a bad way. She needed fresh air, so we brought her along the roof. I think she’s better now.’

‘I am so grateful to you all,’ said Lady Lucy. Powerscourt was thrilled to hear the sound of her voice again.

‘I think Lady Powerscourt needs to stay up here in the fresh air for a bit longer,’ said Tait firmly. ‘It’s still very smoky down below. And you don’t look too good yourself, my lord.’

Chief Inspector Tait smiled. As he led his men down the stairs each one was embraced by Lady Lucy. They’re hers for life now, thought Powerscourt.

‘Lucy, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m so happy. I don’t know what to say.’

Lady Lucy smiled back at him. She looked around at her strange surroundings, up on the roof with chimney pots and great wires and cables running everywhere. Just beneath them a grey and silver sea stretched out towards the distant horizon. It looked like polished glass.

‘Just for the moment, Francis,’ she said, ‘up here on our own with the moon and the stars, you don’t have to say anything at all.’

‘Do you mind if I join you?’ Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were taking a late breakfast in the Prince Regent the morning after the rescue. Powerscourt had not been able to get all the smoke out of his hair. He felt as if one of Joseph Hardy’s barrels was still smouldering on the top of his skull. Lady Lucy looked tired. The long strain of her ordeal had not yet passed. The man asking to join them was the Prime Minister’s private secretary, Schomberg McDonnell.

‘McDonnell!’ said Powerscourt with an air of great surprise. ‘How very nice to see you. Some coffee? I thought you had gone back to London.’

Powerscourt didn’t recall seeing McDonnell at the impromptu party in the King George the Fourth in the small hours of the morning the night before. Albert Hudson, the manager, had opened his bar in person, serving free drinks to the strange collection of policemen and firemen, departing from his post only to go down to his cellars and fetch more cases of champagne. Powerscourt particularly enjoyed overhearing Hudson asking the Chief Constable to whom he should send the bill for repairs to his hotel. Hudson had blinked several times when told he should post it to Number 10 Downing Street.

Johnny Fitzgerald had commandeered two bottles of the hotel’s finest Burgundy. ‘It tastes fantastic after a long period of abstinence, Francis,’ he had assured Powerscourt and Lady Lucy. ‘Nearly thirty-six hours without a drop. I think I might try this abstaining business again. But not for a while yet.’