‘It means,’ said Knox ruefully, ‘as so often in Ireland, that black is white and white is black, or orange is green and green is orange. It could be that Byrne may have apparently decided to do one thing. But in fact, he intends to do the opposite.’
‘What do you mean? What is the plain truth behind your riddles, Mr Knox?’ The General was growing more petulant by the minute.
‘What it means, although I cannot be sure, is that this man Byrne wants us to believe that a bomb is going to be planted in Dublin. But in fact, he may intend to put a bomb in London. Or a gunman. That could be what he intended to do all along.’
‘Let me try to sum up what we know so far.’ Lord Francis Powerscourt had summoned a council of war to the house in Markham Square. Lady Lucy was sitting by the fire, glancing from time to time at the notes she had taken of her morning conversation with old Miss Harrison. Johnny Fitzgerald was inspecting a bottle of Sancerre with great care. William Burke, fresh from his day’s labour in the City of London, was beginning the complicated process of lighting a large cigar. A grey Powerscourt cat, recently acquired at the request of the Powerscourt children, was asleep at her master’s feet as he leant on the mantelpiece.
‘About eighteen months ago Old Mr Harrison begins to act strangely. We know it was eighteen months ago because Samuel Parker said it was about the time the publicity began for this Jubilee. He starts to take his correspondence out of the house to read by the lake. He begins to send his letters abroad through the good offices of Parker rather than through the usual channels in the big house. And he begins to talk about conspiracies and secret societies to his sister. Lucy.’
Lady Lucy had been watching her husband’s long slim fingers as they checked out the points he wished to make. She was remembering the first time she had noticed them, at a dinner party some five years before.
‘Yes, Francis.’ She came back to the present with a little private smile for him. ‘Old Mr Harrison talked about secret societies, secret societies in Germany that might have links here. He talked about conspiracies, probably involving the bank. He was worried about the future of the bank. If you distil what Miss Harrison said while she had possession of her wits, that’s about it.’
‘Let me play devil’s advocate with that lot,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, putting down his glass. ‘She’s potty. Her mind is wandering all over the place. You can’t believe a word of any of it. He’s potty too, the late Mr Harrison, gone paranoid in his old age, imagining conspiracies and secret societies all over the place. If they didn’t have money the two old people would have been locked up in an asylum by now. All we have is the deranged fantasies of a couple of eighty-year-olds. None of it is worth bothering with.’ He filled his glass with Sancerre and took a restorative gulp. ‘I’m not saying I believe all that, but I’m sure that’s what a lawyer or a judge would say about the old pair.’
‘William, can you cast any light on this matter?’ Powerscourt turned to his brother-in-law, who was enjoying the first fruits of his Havana.
‘All I can say,’ said William Burke, ‘is that there was no evidence at all that Old Mr Harrison was losing his wits. None at all. I talked to a man in foreign loans only the other day who had had dealings with him two months or so before he died. He said he was sound as a bell, that his brain was as sharp as ever.’
‘But couldn’t he have seemed to be perfectly sound in the City,’ Fitzgerald was being contrary again, ‘but actually out of his mind the rest of the time? I’ve known people say that I’m not the same when I’ve taken a glass or six or seven as I am when I’m sober. Couldn’t it be like that?’
‘Surely only a doctor could answer that.’ Lady Lucy now had the cat asleep on her lap. ‘I’m sure Miss Harrison was sane when she talked about her brother’s worries. It wasn’t that she was inventing things, just that her memory had slipped its moorings, if you see what I mean.’
Powerscourt ran his hand along the marble fireplace. The touch took him back to the strange statues at Blackwater, maybe hiding or pointing the way to the secrets of Old Mr Harrison and his anxieties.
‘Let’s look at it this way,’ he said. ‘Let’s suppose everything we know is true. Let’s try to make some sense of it all.’
Here come those fingers again, Lady Lucy said to herself, watching once more as they marked out the points her husband wished to make.
‘Eighteen months ago, something starts going wrong at the bank. Old Mr Harrison is worried. Not long after that his eldest son is drowned in mysterious circumstances. That could be murder. Old Mr Harrison takes fright. He doesn’t want to read his letters in the house in case he is being watched. He takes his correspondence down to the lake instead. Some news from Germany alarms him. He goes back to the cities and financial centres he knew as a boy. When he comes back he is even more worried. Whatever he knows, it is too much. He is murdered too. I was sure he was looking for something on his walks by the lake, I don’t know why, but I felt it very strongly. And there’s all this talk of conspiracy involving the bank. What kind of conspiracy could that be, William?’
Burke was looking very alarmed. ‘Something has just struck me, Francis, something very grave indeed. Are the lives of Frederick and Charles Harrison safe, if what you say is true? Should we warn them that they may be in danger?’
‘They may be in more danger from each other than they are from any outside parties,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald.
‘I have thought about that, William,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Heaven help me if I am wrong, but I do not feel we have enough to go on to issue such a warning. We could be laughed at as scaremongers.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ Burke sounded doubttul. ‘I’m not sure about conspiracies involving the bank either. I know our critics say that the whole of the City is a vast conspiracy devoted to the ruination of the widow and the orphan, but I don’t think they are right.’
‘What kind of conspiracies might banks get up to, William?’ asked Johnny Fitzgerald cheerfully.
‘Well, there have been all sorts of conspiracies this century.’ William Burke liked talking about the City’s history. It reminded him that he belonged to a glorious past. ‘You could conspire to defraud your investors by issuing foreign loans to countries where there is no hope of the money ever being repaid. God knows we’ve seen enough of those. Then there are the phoney prospectuses for share issues with outlandish names like the Great African Gold and Diamond Mining Corporation. The speculators think they are going to get rich from mining but the only people who get rich are the ones who took their money in the first place. Railways in exotic locations – they’re usually good for a quick fraud. For some reason perfectly respectable citizens are almost always willing to invest in railways. Do you know there was even a company floated many years back to recover the valuables left behind by the Children of Israel at the parting of the Red Sea? The promoters claimed they were going to use Malaysian divers to recover the gold and treasure left behind on the seabed.’
‘Great God!’ said Powerscourt, laughing at the absurdity. ‘Did the investors get rich, William?’
‘The investors got poor, Francis. Some of them lost all they had, I believe. But I cannot see Harrison’s Bank becoming involved in any of these activities. Their reputation would have been destroyed overnight.’
‘You don’t think,’ said Lady Lucy, venturing boldly into this male world, ‘that the conspiracy was a conspiracy to kill members of Harrison’s Bank, do you? That way Young Mr Harrison and Old Mr Harrison were both killed as part of this conspiracy. That’s what Old Mr Harrison was worried about.’
‘You could be right,’ said her husband. ‘But where do the secret societies come in? Were members of the secret society doing the killing?’