Barnabas Thorpe, butler of Candlesby Hall, was a worried man. The general uncertainty about the future, with two members of the family involved in unsolved murders, concerned him. The behaviour of the two eldest surviving brothers, Henry and Edward, concerned him even more. They had discovered another wine merchant who would extend them a line of credit. That very morning carters had been unloading case after case of claret and burgundy, port and Madeira into the cellars. Only Barnabas Thorpe had read the fine print of the agreement, left lying around on a broken table in the saloon. It stipulated an enormous rate of interest if the bill was not paid in full within thirty days. After that wealth beckoned for the wine merchants. Thorpe thought it unlikely that the bill would be paid on time.
Then there was the poor strange boy, as Thorpe had always referred to James, on the top floor. The boy’s illness was not Thorpe’s province, but reports of his deterioration filtered down through the floors of Candlesby Hall. A medical doctor, expert in the strange ways of the semi-insane, was in attendance now, as well as the nurse. The boy was delirious part of the time, rather like the old ladies of Candlesby, talking of King Arthur and the Lady of Shalott and apparently able to quote lines from Tennyson’s poem at will. Barnabas Thorpe had always regarded any interest in poetry as conclusive proof of the softening of the brain, if not actual insanity itself. Only Charles Candlesby knew the true position about his brother’s health. It was he who had sanctioned the extra expense of hiring the doctor. Only he knew how long the engagement might last.
Charles Candlesby, indeed, was the only positive person in Barnabas Thorpe’s book at this time. Helping the poor, looking after his brother, he was at once the most unlikely Candlesby, but at the same time the most likeable member of the family. This morning he was polishing off an enormous bowl of porridge at the Powerscourt breakfast table in Mr Drake’s hotel. He was becoming a regular visitor.
‘Would you like some more porridge, Charles?’ said Lady Lucy, who always treated him as a favourite son.
‘No, no thanks,’ said Charles, ‘I’ll just tuck into a couple of eggs and a few rashers and maybe a tomato. Nothing much.’
‘Charles,’ said Powerscourt, finishing off some toast, ‘do you mind if we talk business for a moment?’
His mouth full of bacon and tomato, Charles managed a vigorous nod of the head by way of reply.
‘It’s this,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. You know the habits of your family up at the Hall. Why was your father wearing his scarlet coat on the night he died? We have no idea why he put it on. The pathologist thought he died sometime between the hours of ten in the evening and four the following morning. Now, suppose you go out, intending to meet somebody at the earlier time of ten – he must have been going to meet somebody surely, unless he wanted to wander round in the storm which seems unlikely – wouldn’t you expect to come home again after you met them? And you’d have plenty of time to put on your scarlet coat the next morning in time for the hunt. You didn’t have to put it on for the early rendezvous the evening before. Your father was hardly going to meet a fox at that time of day, was he?’
‘I’m not sure’, said Charles sadly, pulling a piece of bacon out from between his teeth, ‘that I like where this is going to go. B-but p-p-please continue.’
‘Let us look at it from the later date given by the pathologist, four o’clock in the morning. Suppose he left home at three for his rendezvous. Again he is wearing the scarlet coat. Why? He must think he is not coming home before the hunt – that he needs to go out dressed in his hunting gear because he has to be wearing it in the morning. So what was he intending to do all that time? Between, say, ten or eleven the night before and eight o’clock in the morning when he would have to set out back to the Hall?’
Powerscourt left his question hanging in the air.
‘Boat?’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Would he have gone somewhere in a boat?’
‘Not in that weather,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Every boat in the county will have been tied up at her mooring that night.’
Charles looked at them sadly. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘there’s only one conclusion. My father was going to meet somebody. He intended to spend the night with them and go b-b-back for the hunt in the morning. That’s why he was wearing the coat. And’, he looked embarrassed now, ‘the somebody was p-p-probably a woman.’
‘We don’t need to dwell on this,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but where on earth, in all that empty space, would you meet a woman? Where would you find one? There isn’t a house for miles.’
‘Maybe’, said Lady Lucy, ‘he did ride for miles, but inland, to the next village. There’s nothing to say he went straight to where he was collected by Jack Hayward. He needn’t have gone near the sea at all. He could have gone in the opposite direction. His murderers could have brought him back and dumped him where he was found.’
Powerscourt put his head in his hands and groaned slightly. ‘Here’s another thing. The horse. Jack Hayward went to collect him with a horse, Marlborough, your father’s horse. But your father must have set off on a different horse. What happened to that one? The one Lord Candlesby left his house on?’
‘B-b-bolted? Stolen by his killers? Sold by his killers?’ Charles was looking more cheerful all of a sudden.
‘The one person who would have known for sure if a horse had disappeared from those stables was Jack Hayward,’ said Powerscourt, spinning a marmalade jar round faster and faster on the tablecloth. ‘And he was shuffled off the scene before he had a chance to check anything at all.’
‘You said, Francis,’ Lady Lucy chipped in, ‘that Jack Hayward took the Earl’s horse Marlborough to go to collect the body. Why didn’t the Earl take his own horse out when he went to meet whoever it was?’
‘God only knows,’ said Charles. ‘I’m lost, I really am. But b-b-before I forget, Lord P-p-powerscourt, I must tell you what Walter Savage told me when he came out of p-p-prison.’
‘Please do,’ said Powerscourt, relieved to have moved off Charles’s father’s amorous activities on the night of his death.
‘Walter Savage came to see me yesterday,’ said Charles, ‘and he told me something he hasn’t said before. You have to remember that Walter is old. His b-b-bladder isn’t what it was. He has to get up several times a night. On the night of the murder, he opened the window to see how the storm was doing. He heard a noise coming from Candlesby village. This was about one or two in the morning, but it might have been earlier. He said it sounded like cheering. He went back to bed and thought no more of it.’
‘Cheering?’ said Powerscourt. ‘Cheering?’
‘That’s what he said. He wasn’t certain, b-b-but it sounded like cheering.’
Inspector Blunden felt that the people of Lincolnshire were plotting against him, conspiring to leave the county and deprive him of suspects. First Oliver Bell had fled, misleading the constabulary about his alibi on the night of the murder before he left. Now the Lawrences had disappeared. First they had gone to London in great numbers, pursued afterwards by Johnny Fitzgerald and Constable Merrick. Now they had vanished, leaving no information at all at their various houses about where they had gone. And worse was to come. A messenger arrived with a summons. He and Powerscourt were to meet the Chief Constable. Constable Merrick was sent for and ordered to the Candlesby Arms on his bicycle at full speed. He was to bring Powerscourt to the police station with all possible despatch. Inspector Blunden hoped Powerscourt would come in his Silver Ghost.
He did. Fifteen minutes later, before the constable had reappeared, Powerscourt was conferring with the Inspector in his office. Inspector Blunden was in happier mood this morning. His wife had managed to introduce another nursery rhyme into his daughter’s repertoire. Last night after supper Emily Blunden had sat on her father’s lap and recited ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’, with the emphasis on ‘hill’ for some reason, to her father’s great delight.
‘What’s up with the Chief Constable?’ said Powerscourt. ‘Homework not delivered on time? Changing rooms left in a sorry state?’
‘God knows,’ said the Inspector. ‘This is all we need at this point to have him sticking his nose in where it isn’t wanted. He once changed the entire direction of a case because his wife thought she knew who the murderer was.’
‘Did she?’
‘Certainly not. She’d just overheard some people talking in the butcher’s shop.’
‘Maybe she’s been to the greengrocer’s this time,’ said Powerscourt happily. ‘I’ve always been suspicious of greengrocers myself. All those enormous vegetables looking as though they might rise up out of their baskets and commit a crime.’
‘We’d better go, my lord,’ said Blunden. ‘One thing he can’t stand is people being late.’
‘Late on parade,’ said Powerscourt as they made their way up the corridor, ‘one of the most serious offences in the military rule book. Probably more serious than murder, now I come to think about it.’
The Chief Constable was waiting behind an enormous desk, looking, Powerscourt thought, rather like a wild animal about to spring upon its prey. Two huge watercolours of Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, hung behind his head, one, to Powerscourt’s great delight, showing an enormous number of troops manoeuvring on a vast parade ground.
‘Thank you for coming. Good to see you both,’ he said in a tone that hinted he was less than pleased to meet them again. ‘Now then. This murder. These murders.’ He looked down at his papers as if to check that there had indeed been two murders. ‘Bumped into the Home Secretary at my club yesterday. Fellow wanted to know what was going on. One or two backbenchers been making noises, apparently. Questions likely in the House.’ The Chief Constable looked pleased at his apparent mastery of parliamentary procedure. Powerscourt wondered which London club might contain the improbable pairing of the Home Secretary and the Chief Constable.
‘He wasn’t complaining, the Home Secretary. Understood these things could take time. He did mention a very recent case in Hampshire where the murderer was arrested and charged within forty-eight hours of the crime.’
Inspector Blunden was looking resigned, like a hospital patient who knows he is about to receive mouthfuls of a particularly disagreeable medicine. Powerscourt was feeling rather angry.
‘So bring me up to date, would you, Blunden. Are you any nearer to finding the murderer?’
Blunden decided to say as little as possible. ‘I believe we are making progress, Chief Constable. There are a number of leads we are following up. Our most important witness has just been brought back from Ireland. We are still digesting his evidence.’
‘Digesting?’ snorted the Chief Constable, ‘This isn’t a gourmet restaurant in Paris, man, it’s a murder case. From what you’ve said so far, Blunden, you have no more idea who committed these murders than the Home Secretary, have you, Blunden?’
‘I don’t think that is true, and I don’t think it is fair either,’ said Powerscourt, perfectly willing to meet the Chief Constable at a place of his choosing, weapons to be decided later. ‘This is one of the more difficult cases I have ever been involved in. I believe it will be solved soon because of a line of investigation so secret that I would not tell you about it under any circumstances.’ Lady Lucy had told him late the previous evening about the cryptic clues muttered by the old ladies in their delirium. ‘Indeed, I have not yet told my colleague here about it.’ Powerscourt nodded genially to Inspector Blunden. ‘So you see, Chief Constable, I don’t think the position is as bad as you paint it. Maybe you will have news for the Home Secretary in the near future.’
‘What is it?’ barked the Chief Constable, waving his monocle at Powerscourt as if it were a weapon. ‘This secret source? I demand to be told. I am the Chief Constable round here! I have the right to know!’
Powerscourt thought for a moment. He had no intention of telling the Chief Constable anything. Nor did he necessarily want a fight. Nor did he want to embarrass Inspector Blunden.
‘Chief Constable,’ he began, ‘I would like to make use of a military analogy, if I may. I served for a number of years as chief intelligence officer to the forces under the control of General Richardson on the North-West Frontier.’
The Chief Constable seemed to cheer up slightly at the mention of the military.
‘Chukka Richardson?’ he said. ‘Damn fine polo player, Chukka, damn fine.’
‘The same,’ replied Powerscourt. ‘On a number of occasions we would be summoned to his quarters, my colleague and I. Either we would propose a scheme to the general, or he would propose a venture to us. Always he would make it very clear what he wanted done. But he never issued a direct order. Nothing was ever put down on paper.’
Powerscourt looked closely at the Chief Constable to see if any light of understanding, even a glimmer, was visible. He saw nothing that pleased him. Bertram Willoughby-Lewis’ face was as blank as a sheet of fresh notepaper. ‘The general used to say that some damned fool in Whitehall might start asking questions if things were written down. He had a very low opinion of the damn fools in Whitehall, General Richardson. So we would carry out his orders. We never told him any of the details of the operations. He made it clear he never wanted to know. We went about our business. He stayed in his tent. The natives were confounded. Everybody was happy. The gentlemen of Whitehall would not have been happy but they were not there.’
‘That’s all very interesting, Powerscourt,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘always fond of a good story myself, but I don’t see what the North-West Frontier has to do with dead Candlesbys here in Lincolnshire. I say again, tell me about your secret source. There’s no time to waste, man. We need to press on.’
God in heaven, thought Powerscourt. The Chief Constable was remarkably stupid, even for a military man.
‘The reason, my dear Chief Constable, why our military operations in India were so successful is that nobody knew about them. Nobody could get in the way.’ Meaning, people like you, he muttered to himself. ‘This secret source is so delicate that anybody interfering with it could destroy it completely. It must be left to work at its own pace and in its own way. I believe it will help us solve the mystery, but not if it is interfered with. It is like a watch that will function perfectly as long as nobody tinkers with the mechanism.’
‘Damn it, man, you are insubordinate. I demand to know.’
‘And I’, said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘refuse to tell you.’
‘I could have you arrested, damn it,’ spluttered the Chief Constable.
‘I don’t think you would find that very helpful,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You’d lose all access to the secret source that may solve the mystery.’
A temporary pause in the confrontation came when a messenger hurried in to remind the Chief Constable that he had to return to Lincoln at once for a grand dinner with the dean and chapter of the cathedral. He picked up his papers and his cane and shuffled to the door.
‘Mark my words, Powerscourt, you haven’t heard the end of this.’
Powerscourt was so incensed with the ridiculous man’s behaviour that he fired straight back. ‘Neither have you!’
Blunden and Powerscourt did not speak until they were back in the Inspector’s office. ‘My God, my lord, I shouldn’t think anybody’s spoken to him like that in years. And thank you for taking the heat off me, my lord. I am most grateful.’
‘Think nothing of it, my friend. I am perfectly serious about this secret source. I wouldn’t have mentioned it except for the fact that anybody with half a brain would have left us to get on with it rather than strutting about demanding to know what it is. Stupid man!’
‘I’ve been thinking about this source, my lord,’ said Blunden. ‘I was thinking about it in there. I don’t want to know anything about it. I don’t want any names; I don’t want any information at all. That way I can tell the Chief Constable that I don’t know anything about it with a clear conscience.’
‘I think that’s sensible for the time being, actually, very sensible, if you don’t mind my saying so. No offence. I don’t think I’d tell the Chief Constable the time of day, if he asked me, after that display. Very well, Inspector, but there are a number of things I think you could have ready to go when I give you the word.’
Powerscourt spoke for a couple of minutes. After he had finished, Blunden whistled softly and began making elaborate notes in his book in his finest copperplate.
Lady Lucy hoped to speak to her husband before she set off for another session with the sick of Candlesby. She knew that he had been thinking of something he wanted her to do, but he had said he wanted more time to think about it. She was a couple of paces outside the hotel with an enormous basket on her arm, looking, she felt, rather like Little Red Riding Hood, when the Silver Ghost whispered into view.
‘Hop in,’ said a familiar voice, ‘and I’ll take you down. I’ve just had a set-to with that stupid Chief Constable. Bloody fool threatened to have me arrested.’
‘That would have been a first,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘first time you’d have been arrested, I mean, rather than you arresting the murderer. It might have been rather interesting, Francis, the inside of a cell, that sort of thing, prison food, those fashionable prison clothes.’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘I’ll tell you about it later, my love. If the men in uniform should come to take me away, Lucy, send word to Charles Augustus Pugh to get here as fast as he can and have me sprung from the jail. And send word to Rosebery as well. Former Prime Ministers are always good to have on board in a crisis. I think the Chief Constable might not be happy in a very short time. Anyway, I’ve always wondered what prison food is like. Seriously, Lucy, this is what I want to suggest with your old ladies. We have just a small collection of words or phrases from their ramblings so far that might be relevant. I cannot emphasize enough that you must exercise your own judgement about what I’m suggesting. If you hear one of those words again or a different word that you think might be relevant, try asking a question. Where did the money come from? Why is the sail important, that sort of thing. I simply don’t know enough to imagine what their response might be. You must feel your way, Lucy. If you think it’s not working, just back off.’
A crowd of Candlesby children had gathered round the Silver Ghost as it purred into the village. They gave a ragged cheer when Lady Lucy got out. She was already a heroine to them. Powerscourt opened up the bonnet and showed the children the engine. One small boy wanted to know how it worked. Powerscourt had to confess that he didn’t know. He said he didn’t know how a horse worked either. But he promised to send Rhys, the butler cum chauffeur, the next time. Rhys knew how the Silver Ghost worked. He knew how horses worked too. Rhys had piles of motoring magazines by his bed at home. He rather missed them up here in Lincolnshire.
Lady Lucy was taken in hand by the two ladies who organized the nursing in Candlesby village. They were known to her as Maggie and Mary and didn’t appear to have any surnames. The young ones were nearly all recovered, they told her; only one little girl was left on the danger list. But three new old ladies had been taken sick, and one of them was already very ill indeed. Lady Lucy was taken first to see Will, the little boy she had entertained with the cat story. He gave her a big hug when she came in and asked after Christopher and Juliet. Lady Lucy had told him about her twins, who were more or less the same age. Will told her the doctor had said he could get up for an hour the next day. Will was looking forward to that. Then she was taken to Bertha, the old lady who was very ill. Her bedroom was so small there was scarcely room for another grown-up. Lady Lucy perched on the edge of the bed and mopped the old lady’s face. She was sweating profusely and muttering into her pillow. ‘No shoes,’ Lady Lucy heard two or three times. She had resolved to write everything down now in case Francis could find a meaning where she couldn’t. Bertha dozed off for a minute or two, holding desperately on to Lady Lucy’s hand. When she woke up she looked briefly at her visitor and sank back on the pillow. Lady Lucy had noticed that none of the old ladies ever had more than one pillow. Strange sounds came from Bertha now that might have been muffled screams. She tossed about as if her life depended upon it. ‘Wind,’ she said suddenly, ‘great wind.’ A pause and then she said, ‘Poor Lucy, poor Lucy.’ Lady Lucy thought it generous of the old lady to sympathize with her in her hours of nursing. ‘Men,’ Bertha said now, ‘men.’
Lady Lucy thought that she might try a question.
‘Which men, Bertha?’ She spoke very softly and stroked the old lady’s forehead once more. It was burning hot. ‘Which men?’ she tried again. The old lady began to speak. ‘Men,’ she said, ‘men.’ Lady Lucy kept quiet now. It didn’t seem as if the questions were going to work. She would try again later. Bertha was now deeply asleep, snoring vigorously. Lady looked at the sheets that had seen better days, at the dirt ingrained on the floorboards and the accumulated grime on the walls and on the small window that looked out over the main street. Cleanliness is next to godliness, she remembered some grown-up telling her when she was small. Well, God should come down here and clean the whole village. He could probably do it in a minute or less if he set his mind to it, Lady Lucy thought. As the night fell the old lady began muttering again. ‘Shoes,’ she said, and ‘Wind.’ Only by leaning very close could Lady Lucy hear the other words, ‘Pay the doctor, pay the doctor,’ over and over again.
This time she met no Charles Candlesby on her way home. Powerscourt wrote all the words down in his own notebook.
George Drake, manager of the Candlesby Arms, was a very worried man. He had checked the barometer in his reception area five times that morning. The message was bad. There was going to be another storm. One of his porters, a man who had lived with Candlesby weather for over sixty years, man and boy, prophesied that it would be worse than the last one. So George Drake toured the breakfast tables in the dining room, warning his guests what was to come and asking them to make sure that all their windows were securely fastened. At one of his tables, the one by the window, he had different news to impart first.
‘Lord Powerscourt, Lady Powerscourt, Johnny Fitzgerald, you will remember the strange message with the even stranger spelling delivered to you here some days ago? And the GNR jackets dumped in the corridor outside your room? That is all sorted out now. The practical joker has been told that if he ever tries anything like that in my hotel again he will be fired. Immediately. You can regard the matter as closed.’
‘Very good, Mr Drake. Thank you for clearing that up. Now what of this weather? Is it going to be bad?’
George Drake nodded. ‘Oh, yes, very bad.’
The news was greeted with great interest.
‘Another storm then? A bad one?’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, pausing briefly in the demolition of a kipper.
‘Probably worse than the last one,’ said George Drake, moving off to spread more bad news.
‘How interesting, how very interesting,’ said Powerscourt, in the middle of a poached egg.
‘Do you think we should, Francis?’ said Johnny.
‘I’m sure of it, certain.’
‘Should we go now, or wait till it’s really got going?’
‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I think we should finish our breakfast first. We can take the Ghost the first part of the way.’
‘I’ll bring my stuff,’ said Johnny, referring to the strange collection of implements that enabled him to gain entrance to most of the locked doors in the kingdom. ‘Just in case.’
Lady Lucy had often seen her husband and Johnny Fitzgerald finish each other’s sentences but this display of telepathy was new. They seemed to be reading each other’s minds. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said, ‘but do you mind telling me what you are thinking of doing? I’m rather in the dark here.’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘Sorry, Lucy. I should have thought it was obvious. The first murder was committed in the middle of a great storm. We are going to retrace the last journey of the victim in the middle of this one. We should certainly be able to see more than he could.’
‘Well,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘just make sure you don’t get yourselves killed.’