‘Am I right in thinking, General, that you could have survived Isandlwana but that everybody would think you were dead?’
‘You are. There is a further complication about those regimental rolls, mind you. They were completely up to date at the time they were taken, but that could have been months before the battle. In the interim people went home sick or were discharged and new recruits whose names were not on the rolls joined up in their place. There were a number of cracks where people could fall through the system.’
‘And where would I find those regimental rolls now, General?’
‘Hold on a moment, Powerscourt.’ The general returned to his almanac which he seemed to regard as the fount of all knowledge for things military. ‘Bloody politicians,’ he said with feeling. Powerscourt suspected that bloody politicians could be worth a whole afternoon of ranting invective. Two telephones might end up in pieces on the floor. ‘They will keep changing things for no apparent reason. Many of the men at the battle came from the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Foot, known as the Warwickshires. They’re now known as the South Wales Borderers, God knows why, headquarters at Brecon, God help you. Unless you can find a copy in the War Office, though I rather doubt that. Are you going to see if any of your victims are on the last regimental rolls before the battle? Bloody thankless task, if you ask me.’
‘If I think it necessary, General, then I will head off to Brecon. Do you think it possible that one or all of the victims could have been present at the battle?’
Smith Dorrien paused and stared out at his parade ground, his mind back on the battlefield in South Africa. ‘Judging from what you told me about their ages, yes, it is possible.’
‘I want to ask your advice on another related matter, general. Where could I lay my hands on a knobkerrie? I need to show it to one of the medical men to see if it caused the marks. That is the most important thing for me now.’
‘Well, I don’t have one myself,’ said the general, ‘but I know a man who does, or who almost certainly does. Fellow by the name of White, Colonel Somerset White. He’s retired now, lives in a big house near Marlow. I’ll let him know you’re coming. He’s got an enormous barn full of weapons he’s picked up in his career, much of it in Africa. I know he’s got Zulu spears and assegais so he’ll almost certainly have a knobkerrie. The colonel’s been saying for years that the government should have an army museum where the public could come and see all his stuff but nothing ever happens. Bloody politicians.’ The general looked up an address in a small black book on his desk.
‘Here we are. The Oaks, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. I’m sure he will be able to help. Now then, I’ve got another useless officer coming to see me on a charge. I would ask one thing of you, Powerscourt.’
‘Of course.’
‘If you need further advice or assistance, then you must come back to me. I’d be delighted to help in any way I can.’
‘Thank you so much, General. And thank you for all your help today.’
As Powerscourt gathered up his drawings, he felt the fires of wrath were being stoked again. Smith Dorrien was reading some report in front of him and making furious marks with a black pen. The general was turning red in the face. He began squeezing a different pen in his left hand very hard. His left foot was tapping angrily at the leg of his desk. Powerscourt managed to escape to the comparative sanctuary of the outer office.
‘For what we are about to receive,’ a tubby captain was saying to the lieutenant, ‘may the Lord make us truly thankful.’
There was a bellow from the far side of the door. ‘Murphy! Murphy, you bloody fool, come in here at once!’
‘I think,’ said the young lieutenant, ‘that what the gladiators are supposed to have said on their way into the Coliseum is more appropriate, actually: “Ave Imperator, morituri te salutamus. Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you.”’
Inspector Grime and Inspector Devereux made their way back from the listening cell to Devereux’s office.
‘It nearly worked, dammit,’ said Inspector Grime. ‘I wonder if they suspected we were listening in.’
‘What do you think they were up to?’ asked Inspector Devereux. ‘Do you think they popped up to Fakenham and slew the bursar?’
‘I don’t think they went to Fakenham, but I could be wrong. It would have been incredibly risky to walk up that corridor first thing in the morning, even if you were disguised as a postman. They must have been known by sight to some of the pupils from the time they spent around the town with their mother. But I’m not ruling anything out just yet. I just need to find out what they were up to that evening.’
‘Something to do with women, perhaps,’ said Inspector Devereux darkly. ‘Maybe they were having a joint massage with the fair Frankie. I can’t see her being too particular about the clientele if the money was right.’
Inspector Grime bent down to tie up a shoelace. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’m going back to that cell right now. I’ve tried this before and it usually works. I should have thought of it before.’
‘What are you going to tell them? That you suspect them of consorting with prostitutes? Seducing young women beneath the age of consent?’
‘Worse than that, Devereux, much worse. I’ll give them an hour to make up their minds. If they don’t tell, their mother will be notified that they’ve been arrested.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘I shall tell them that as they are so reluctant to admit what they were doing, I shall inform their mother that they are being held under suspicion after being arrested in a brothel. A homosexual brothel. That might do the trick.’
A letter from Paris had arrived for Powerscourt. Lady Lucy watched him open it at the breakfast table.
‘It’s from my friend, Monsieur Olivier Brouzet,’ he told her, munching absent-mindedly on a piece of toast.
My dear Powerscourt,
Please forgive me for not replying sooner to your inquiries about the unfortunate man at the Jesus Hospital. Urgent business brought me back to Paris in rather a hurry. I have spoken to the superior officer of the man you mentioned, Colonel Arbuthnot. I have also involved one of our agents in Berlin. The dead man, Meredith, made four trips to Hamburg in the last few years, always staying in the same hotel. He was a courier, taking messages from his masters in London to their people in the field. He was not a spy. The idea that the Germans might have turned him into a double agent is nonsense. The colonel was trying to lead you up the garden path there. In short, I doubt very much if his activities in the murky waters of intelligence had anything to do with his death.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Olivier Brouzet
Powerscourt handed the letter over. ‘Another door closes, my love.’
‘What do you think this bit means, Francis?’ said Lady Lucy after she finished reading the letter. “I have also involved one of our agents in Berlin.” What sort of agent would know in this level of detail about somebody else’s secret service?’
‘There’s only one thing it can mean, Lucy. The French must have an agent inside the German intelligence outfit. That’s the only place they could have confirmed their information.’
‘Great God,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Do you think we have an agent in there in Berlin too? Do the Germans have a spy inside our outfit?’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’
PART FOUR
17
‘Lord Powerscourt, delighted to meet you.’ Colonel Somerset White had a head shaped like an egg with a few wisps of hair above the ears. He had a solid moustache and a red complexion as if he spent a lot of time out of doors. The Oaks was a modern house, looking, Powerscourt thought, as if its owner might have designed it himself after a long spell in the Deep South of the United States. A great veranda ran round the building as if the inhabitants of Buckinghamshire needed deep shade for half the year.