Johnny Fitzgerald’s stockinged feet were draped elegantly on the Powerscourt dining table. His right hand was holding a glass of crystal clear Sancerre, his left a bundle of papers filled with drawings that might have been birds. To his left, Lady Lucy was drinking tea, as was Powerscourt on the opposite side of the table. At the far end, sleeping peacefully in their Moses baskets, were the twins. Lady Lucy believed they should see a bit of family life from time to time and she knew how much her husband loved looking at them or talking way above their heads with poetry or whatever was passing through his mind.
‘It’ll make my fortune, I’m certain of it,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, waving his papers vigorously at his friends. ‘I’m astonished nobody’s thought of it before.’
‘What’s the plan, Johnny?’ said Powerscourt.
‘Please forgive me, Lady Lucy, if I repeat some of what I told you just now.’ Johnny took an appreciative gulp of his Sancerre. ‘It all started the other morning, Francis. I woke up very early and I couldn’t get back to sleep so I went for a walk. I don’t know if you’ve been to Kensington Gardens at five o’clock in the morning, but the noise is fantastic. It’s the birds.’
Johnny doesn’t need to catch trains to obscure railway stations in the countryside any more, Powerscourt thought to himself. He can just take a stroll in the middle of London.
‘Some of them are singing,’ Johnny went on, ‘some of them are squawking, some of them are belting out bits out of forgotten operas, some of them seem to know some special hymns of their own, some are just saying this is my pitch, why don’t you bugger off, you other birds, some are screaming and some are twittering, some are chirping away to themselves and some seem to be saying “Pink, pink.” All this within two hundred yards of the Round Pond.’
Johnny paused and looked down at his papers. The old Johnny, Lady Lucy found herself thinking, would have taken another quaff of his wine at this point, a suitable moment for refreshment, but no. This Johnny carried on without a drop passing his lips.
‘Only thing is, Francis,’ Johnny went on, ‘I didn’t have a clue who these bloody birds were. In the dark, I mean. Couldn’t bloody well see. They could have been the black-browed albatross or the short-toed eagle for all I damned well knew. So I went to this Natural History Museum place in South Kensington – fascinating place, full of stuffed birds and things, you should take the big children there, they’d love it – and they sent me to an old chap who lives out Acton way, who knows the sound of almost every bloody bird in England. Used to be a sailor and he’s nearly blind, but I took him out to Hyde Park yesterday at five fifteen in the morning and this is what we’ve produced.’ He waved his papers at them enthusiastically. Powerscourt saw that they were full of rough descriptions of birds followed by rather precise descriptions of their sounds.
‘I’ve got great plans, Francis.’ At last Johnny Fitzgerald yielded to temptation and took a considerable pull of his wine. He eyed the bottle carefully as if trying to gauge how many glasses there were left in it. Powerscourt wondered if he would, unusually, restrict himself to a single bottle.
‘Do you remember that little chap we had working with us in Indian Intelligence, Francis? Fellow by the name of Cooper, Charlie Cooper, who did all the maps and could draw you a snake or a vulture right down to the last nail in its talon? Well, he works for a publisher now, illustrating books and magazines, and he’s said he’ll do all the birds for me, so you see them in their proper habitat, not just stuffed in a glass cage with no branches to cling on to. It’s going to be a book describing all these different creatures and the sounds they make. Lady Lucy, what do you think of that?’
Lady Lucy smiled. She was pleased Johnny had found something other than the vintages of France to occupy his spare time, but she doubted if he would meet many eligible females on his dawn patrol up and down Rotten Row in the hours before daybreak. ‘I think that’s tremendous, Johnny,’ she said. ‘Maybe you could put it in the newspapers in sections first, like the novelists used to do.’
‘Serialize it?’ said Johnny. ‘That would be good, we could all get paid twice. Mind you there’s me, and there’s the sailor man and there’s Charlie Cooper, all of us to get paid. Still, we can try. I give you a toast, doesn’t matter if it’s drunk in Sancerre or Darjeeling, let us drink to The Birds of London.’
‘The Birds of London,’ Francis and Lucy chorused in unison. There was a faint moan from the far end of the table. A twin was stirring in its sleep. They all fell silent for a moment.
‘Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I think that’s a tremendous scheme. But I hope it isn’t going to drag you away from detection completely. I would be lost without you. And I have something I want you to do.’
‘Rest assured, my friend,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald with a grin, ‘that I shall not desert you in your investigations. The birds may have to wait, the birds on occasion may have flown, but the solving of the crime will take priority.’
With that he finished his glass, refilled it, and looked expectantly at Powerscourt, who was looking for something in his trouser pocket.
‘You know about the first murder in Queen’s Inn, Johnny, the man Dauntsey.’
‘The fellow who fell into his soup?’
‘Precisely so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘There’s been a second murder, another barrister in Queen’s called Stewart. The two of them were going to prosecute that fraudster Jeremiah Puncknowle. Just days before the case is due to start, they’re both in their graves. Convenient for Mr Puncknowle, very convenient. William Burke didn’t think our Jeremiah would go in for violence, not good for the Low Church image, but he sent me this note today.’
Powerscourt handed Burke’s message over to Johnny Fitzgerald.
Good to see you last week. As I said, Puncknowle had no reputation for violence. But he had a colleague who came with him to London from the north. Name of Bradstock, Linton Bradstock. Distinguishable by enormous black beard and very stout cane, carried at all times. If you didn’t keep up your mortgage payments or meet your interest bills on time, you might receive a visit from Bradstock or his friends. Broken legs commonplace, broken arms likewise, in one or two cases people said to have disappeared completely. Also on trial for fraud with Puncknowle. Take very great care, Francis. Love to the family, William.
Johnny handed the note back to his friend. ‘So you would like me to exchange a blackbird for a Bradstock, Francis? I presume you want to know if he or any of his colleagues, who may, of course, not be on trial for fraud, have been knocking off barristers down there in the Strand. You don’t have any idea where he lives, our blackbeard friend, do you?’
Powerscourt pulled another piece of paper from his breast pocket. ‘Very short note from William an hour or so ago. Big mansion in Belgrave Square, he says, Number 25. Place full of Bradstock’s thugs.’
Johnny Fitzgerald took an absent-minded sip of his Sancerre. ‘Think I’ll approach this in a roundabout sort of way, Francis. Don’t fancy knocking on the front door and asking if anybody here murdered a couple of barristers recently. Might not be good for the prospects of The Birds of London, if you follow me. I’ll try to see if there’s any gossip in the criminal circles, there usually is if a job that size has been pulled off.’
‘There’s more news, Francis.’ Lady Lucy had been sitting quietly through the male conversation, waiting for her moment. She was looking very serious. With the late afternoon sun shining on her hair Powerscourt thought she looked very beautiful. He was so proud of her.
‘You remember you asked me to make some discreet inquiries about the Dauntseys?’ she went on, totally unaware of her husband’s reflections about hair and late afternoon sun.
‘Of course, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, wondering what sort of reply she had received.