But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
They made their way slowly up the reception line. There was a sprinkling of Knights of the Bath and one or two Victoria Crosses on display. The man immediately in front of them said that the King and Queen had been expected to attend. The King always liked going to balls where he could wear his field marshal’s uniform and his vast collection of decorations from all over Europe, but his doctors had recommended he go to Biarritz for his health.
‘Not much chance of the Prince of Wales showing up,’ the man said gloomily. ‘Probably spending a happy evening at home sticking more stamps into his albums.’
The Duke of Westminster told Lady Lucy that he had first met her at a dance in Scotland some years ago when she had been accompanied by her grandfather. The Duchess told Powerscourt that she had followed one of his recent cases, the death of a wine merchant, with great interest. Then they were through. Powerscourt thought that it had been rather like going through some obscure border crossing in a distant part of Empire where you were never safely on the far side until the leading official had given his blessing.
Lord Rosebery, one of Powerscourt’s oldest friends, former Foreign Secretary, former Prime Minister, was leaning against a pillar, glass of champagne in hand.
‘Francis, Lady Lucy, how good to see you. I wondered if you would be here. May I introduce Sir Charles Holroyd, Director of the National Gallery, and Lady Holroyd?’
Polite bows were exchanged. Sir Charles was a tall, slim gentleman of about fifty years with piercing blue eyes. ‘I believe you’re an investigator, Lord Powerscourt. May I ask if you are investigating anything at present?’
‘By all means,’ said Rosebery, ‘you may listen to my friend’s account of his latest case, but think how dull that would be for Lady Lucy here, who has heard all about it many times by now. Will you do me the honour of this dance, Lady Lucy?’
‘Of course,’ said Lady Lucy and was led away to the mazurka. Great swathes of coloured sashes were passing Powerscourt and the Holroyds. It was as if an entire regiment was on the march towards the dance floor. Powerscourt explained the nature of his latest case. The Holroyds had heard of Sir Peregrine Fishborne and obviously thought little of him. But it was on the mention of the strange marks on the bodies that the National Gallery director grew really interested.
‘Nobody can tell you what they are?’ he said. ‘Who have you been trying?’
‘Medical men, policemen, all kinds of inquiries have been made but nobody has got a clue.’
‘How very odd,’ said Sir Charles.
‘You don’t suppose it’s the emblem of some secret society?’ said his wife, who was known to be a tireless worker in the cause of improving native conditions in India.
‘Like the Freemason’s handshake, you mean?’ said Powerscourt doubtfully. ‘But even if it is secret, somebody must know about it. Somebody must have inside knowledge of the thing, almost certainly including the victims. Except nobody does.’
‘I tell you what, Powerscourt. I’ll place a bet with you. You say you have some drawings showing what these marks look like. You let me have them on Monday morning. When my experts have finished with them, if we don’t have any answer, I’ll drop them round to my friend and colleague Sir Frederic Kenyon at the British Museum. Between us we’ve got a lot of expertise at our disposal. If we can’t solve the mystery, we buy you and your wife lunch at the Savoy Grill. If we can, you pay for the lunch. What do you say?’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘I say thank you very much, Sir Charles. I’m delighted to accept your offer. I only wish I’d thought of it sooner. I’m obliged to you, sir, and I shall see you on Monday.’
Powerscourt escorted Lady Holroyd to the dance floor. It was filling up well now, with a beautiful couple the centre of attention, dancing as if they had danced this dance for the last fifteen years, eyes only for each other, the girl sinking into her partner’s arms in a sort of swoon from time to time. Against the walls the old ladies watched from their chairs and smiled and remembered being swept off their feet by some dashing young man when they were eighteen years of age. For one or two of them the memories were so vivid it might have been yesterday. Lord Rosebery was guiding Lady Lucy with great elegance combined with a sort of weary resignation, as if dancing, like so many other things in his life, had lost its appeal. Lady Lucy always said Rosebery had never been the same since his wife Hannah Rothschild died and left him so much money and so many houses.
Shortly after eleven o’clock Powerscourt was tapped lightly on the shoulder. Inspector Miles Devereux had come to the ball in fashionable clothes and with a very beautiful young woman on his arm.
‘May I introduce Hermione Granville, Lord Powerscourt.’ After a moment or two of pleasantries, they glided off. Powerscourt remembered that the young Inspector might not have any family money but he had family connections that branched out all the way down Park Lane. He looked as much at home here as any of the dowagers chatting merrily in the drawing room. And the girl on his arm was one of the prettiest at the ball. Powerscourt wondered how she felt about being escorted round London society by a man who spent his days in pursuit of criminals and murderers. Perhaps she rather liked it. She was chatting with one of the dowagers now. Her consort was sweeping Lady Lucy round the floor.
The supper room was packed with hungry dancers. It was, Powerscourt remarked to Lady Lucy, a tribute to the world’s growing ability to overcome the limits of time and space. Two vast tureens exuded a delicate perfume from the soup they held. There was caviar from the Black Sea, piled up carelessly in great bowls as if it were rice or mashed potato. There was a flotilla of lobsters boiled alive, pink and red under the great chandeliers, delicate Dover sole lined up round the edges of a giant serving dish, great sides of beef, dripping with blood and marbled fat, each with its attendant server, knife and carving fork at the ready. There were hams from Italy and Spain, waxy dishes of veal, plump chickens from Bresse in France, ducks from Aylesbury, woodcock that might have come from the Grosvenor estates, felled by Grosvenor staff with Grosvenor guns.
M. Escoffier’s assistant had excelled himself with the puddings, cakes sprinkled with almonds or chocolate or ground coffee, ice creams and sorbets of every flavour known to man, and one or two new ones, invented for the occasion, zabagliones invented in Sicily, rum babas and Mont Blancs dripping with whipped cream, delicate pastries with a hidden promise of cream or sorbet inside, a pair of trifles half the length of a cricket pitch, small delicate cakes with pineapple and pistachio and pine nuts. The room was full of people praising the food or returning for seconds or even thirds. Dancing made people hungry. The champagne still circulated round the diners, accompanied now by the offer of iced homemade lemonade fresh from the kitchens which, it was thought, might deal better with the thirst than champagne.
‘Do you think the guests will eat all this lot, Lucy?’ asked Powerscourt, staring at the mountains of food.
‘I should think they’ll have a good try,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘The supper room’s going to be open for hours yet. Come too late and the lobsters will have all gone.’
‘But what will they do with the remains?’
‘I heard Sybil Grosvenor say they’re going to give it to the local hospital.’
‘God help them, Lucy, the patients I mean. There you are, lying on your hospital bed, wondering if your end is nigh, feeling like death warmed up, and a nice nurse comes along waving a great lobster claw at you. I think they’d probably throw up, or die on the spot.’
‘Never mind,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Come along now, Francis, you’ve only danced with me once all evening. And you look so handsome too.’
The orchestra was playing the ‘Kaiser’ waltz, yet another composition from Johann Strauss, the man they called the King of the Waltz. Powerscourt was dazzled by the light pouring from the candles in the chandeliers and from the batteries of electric lights hanging on the walls. Shadows, like the people, seemed to float over the boards. He glided happily, Lucy in his arms, across the sprung floor. The musicians were growing tired, wiping the sweat from their brows on the sleeves of their evening jackets. They danced on. Powerscourt suddenly remembered the first time he had danced with his Lucy, on their honeymoon at a great ball at one of the most beautiful old houses in Savannah. He remembered thinking they were trying to put the clock back, the good ladies and gentlemen of Savannah, to the golden years before the Civil War changed America for ever. Mint juleps flowed like water, he recalled, and the steaks were the size of tennis rackets. Even then, long after it ended, the horrors of war were still present, large numbers of men still on crutches from the great battles like Gettysburg and Antietam.