‘What on earth has happened to his entry in Who’s Who?’
‘There’s this gap, sir. St Paul’s School, Christ Church, Oxford, then a gap until he’s thirty-five years old. At that point he turns up on the board of the Town and Capital Insurance Company and never looks back. My informants said he was a whizz with figures, sir, calculate the likely profit on any takeover in a second or two once he knew the share price and the sales figures and the state of the balance sheet.’
‘Have you been able to trace anything at all in the missing years?’
‘Not a thing, sir.’
‘God bless my soul,’ said Devereux, ‘I never heard the like.’
‘As I said, sir,’ Constable Conrad pressed on, ‘once word got out about his ability with figures, he was on boards all over the place. And, to be fair to him, most of his companies prospered.’
‘Are there any links between the two of them? Apart from service with the Silkworkers?’
‘There’s a Norfolk connection, sir.’ Constable Lawrence had returned to the fray. ‘We only realized it when we were comparing notes just before we came to see you. Sir Peregrine has a house in Norfolk, near Melton Constable. Big place, peacocks on the lawn, lots of gardeners.’
‘And my man, Sir Rufus, he’s got a great pile just outside Aylsham. I don’t know about peacocks but they say the garden is by Capability Brown. The places can’t be more than ten to fifteen miles apart.’
The telephone rang. Inspector Devereux’s face broke into a wicked grin. ‘No sign of her at all, you say? Disappeared? Not gone off in the boot of the big car? Never mind. Keep me posted, Johnny. Happy watching.’
Inspector Devereux told his men about the late-night visitor to Sir Peregrine’s suite at the Elysian Fields, and that she seemed to have disappeared. Johnny Fitzgerald could find no trace of her this morning.
‘Only one thing for it, sir.’ said Constable Lawrence cheerfully, ‘you need a permanent vigil at that hotel. Apprehend the young lady once she appears. Have a serious talk with her, then bring her in for questioning.’
‘Quite right, sir.’ Constable Conrad was keen to join the hunt. ‘With that kind of watching operation, you need twenty-four-hour cover, sir. A man on watch every hour of the day, sir. I’m sure the two of us could handle it.’
The Inspector laughed. ‘Get away, the pair of you. If there’s any handling of this young lady to be done, then it must be carried out by the senior officer on the case. That’s me. I shall, of course, let you know how I get on.’
Lord Francis Powerscourt was walking from the railway station to the Jesus Hospital in Marlow. A light rain was falling. He suspected that two if not three of his Inspectors felt sure that Sir Peregrine was the murderer, and were close to arresting him. Earlier that day he had sent a wire to Inspector Grime, asking him if there were any reports that Sir Peregrine had been at his house in Norfolk at the time of the bursar’s murder, or if the huge black car had been seen near the school at that time. Powerscourt was not convinced that Sir Peregrine was the killer. In his mind he always came back to the strange marks on the dead men’s chests, surely not only a link between the murders but a shout of defiance, a taunt to anybody investigating them.
As he approached the building, he stopped suddenly and drew back to the side of the road. Fifty yards from the front door Warden Monk was having a conversation with a man Powerscourt had not seen in this case before. Indeed it was a couple of years since they had last met. Monk seemed to be nervous, rubbing his hands together over and over again. The man had been Powerscourt’s contact point when he had worked for the government a few years before. His name was Colonel James Arbuthnot and he was a senior officer in the British Secret Service.
12
Powerscourt saw Monk turn on his heel and head back towards the front gate of the hospital. Colonel Arbuthnot was coming his way. He was small, about five feet eight inches tall, with a handlebar moustache and a Roman nose. He fiddled constantly with a white rose in his buttonhole, as if he was on his way to a wedding. Powerscourt stepped out of the shadows into the middle of the road.
‘Good morning, Colonel,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and what brings you to Marlow today?’
Arbuthnot looked at him carefully. ‘Ah, Powerscourt,’ he replied. ‘I’d heard you were involved in this matter.’
What on earth, Powerscourt said to himself, was a senior British intelligence officer doing at the Jesus Hospital? It didn’t make sense.
‘I am indeed,’ he replied, ‘and what, pray, has the death in the almshouse got to do with you or with your department?’
‘I don’t feel obliged to answer any of your questions, Powerscourt. This is a matter of state security. You, of all people, know the rules.’
Powerscourt remembered that these people made Trappist monks seem talkative.
‘For God’s sake,’ he went on, ‘was Abel Meredith one of yours? I find that scarcely possible.’
‘In the world of intelligence, Powerscourt, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to London.’
‘I will not excuse you, Colonel, until you have told me something of your business here.’
Arbuthnot gazed up and down the little road as if he suspected German agents might be lurking behind the trees. He twisted the rose in his buttonhole once more. ‘This is all very difficult,’ he said finally. ‘Under the terms of the paper you signed those years ago you are still committed to serving the interests of the department whenever you are called to do so. It will be much more convenient for me if I can learn whatever you have discovered from your lips rather than having to make repeated trips to this bloody backwater. Are you happy to do that for your country?’
‘I am, but only on condition that you tell me what the department’s interests are with the late Meredith.’
Arbuthnot paused again. A lone horseman galloped slowly down the road. When he had passed out of sight, the colonel spoke again. ‘We do not like having to conclude bargains with people who are, in effect, our own agents. But I will make you an exception in this case. If you tell me what you know about the death of this wretched man, I will tell you something of our interest in him.’
Was this a genuine offer? Would Arbuthnot take on board all he knew and give him nothing in return? How much did he know already? For all Powerscourt knew, he could have been in touch with one or more of the inspectors on the case already.
‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘The first thing to say is that I have, for the present, no idea at all who killed him. There is one thing you should know. Meredith’s body had a strange series of marks on his chest. The same marks were found on the bodies of two other men, murdered in the days after the death in Marlow, both connected with the Silkworkers Company. One was a former Prime Warden of the Silkworkers, whose body was found by the water at the Silkworkers Hall near Tower Bridge. The other was the bursar of Allison’s School at Fakenham in Norfolk which has always had very close links with the Silkworkers. The existence of the strange marks is known only to those at the very heart of the inquiry. It has not been made public.’
‘Do you believe that the marks hold the key to the mystery, or mysteries?’
‘I do not know, Colonel. There is a plan, organized by the current Prime Warden of the Silkworkers, to sell off the company’s assets and distribute them among the members. This plan has proved contentious. There are disagreements about the provenance of some ancient documents which would seem to give sanction to the sale of the assets. The members here, like the members at the school, were mainly opposed to the sell-off. The chief opponent, the figurehead of the opposition, was the body found by the Tower, Sir Rufus Walcott. Apart from that, we have little to go on. So far we know very little about the past lives of the men in the Jesus Hospital. Maybe you could enlighten me on that.’