10
There were sad signs of transience at the front of Lawrence House as Powerscourt arrived. A platoon of servants were carrying a selection of boxes, tea chests, portmanteaus, chairs, small tables and household bric-a-brac on to a couple of carts. Every now and then a plate or a glass or a bowl would escape from its container and smash to pieces on the ground, leading to fearful oaths and blood-curdling threats from the butler, who was conducting operations from the top of the steps wearing an enormous moustache and a magnificent red apron. A junior footman detached himself from his moving duties and brought Powerscourt to a drawing room at the back of the house, a splendid room with an elegant bay window looking out on a tennis court and a shrubbery. Even here the melancholy work of moving was proceeding. A rather nervous young housemaid was wrapping ornaments in newspaper and placing them carefully in a tea chest. Behind her two men were manoeuvring a long table out of the room. It seemed as though it could not fit through the opening but it was steered through with inches to spare on either side.
‘Lord Powerscourt, I presume.’ A tall white-haired man with a winning smile had come in and was shaking Powerscourt by the hand. ‘Lawrence, Harold Lawrence at your service. We’re moving, as you can see. We’ve got some men from Candlesby village in to help. It’s amazing how clever they are with their hands.’
‘How do you do, sir,’ said Powerscourt, noting the man’s very clear blue eyes and the lines across his forehead growing deeper with the passing years.
‘Grace,’ Lawrence turned to address the housemaid, ‘you may go now, and thank you for your good work.’
The maid curtsied and departed. ‘I have no idea if her work here was any good or not,’ Lawrence told Powerscourt, ‘but she looks so nervous all the time, poor girl; I’ve always thought it pays to be kind.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Powerscourt politely.
‘I see from your note that you are looking into the death of the late Lord Candlesby,’ said Harold Lawrence. ‘Would you permit me to ask a question or two before you question me, which I feel sure must be the purpose of your visit?’
‘Of course,’ Powerscourt replied, sensing that there might be steel here, lurking behind the good manners.
‘As I understand it, the official record of the Earl’s death said it was due to natural causes. Nobody has yet come forward to contradict that. And yet we have the local Detective Inspector, a man widely respected in these parts, still making inquiries among the hunt and the Candlesby villagers. And we have yourself, Lord Powerscourt. Inquiries have been made. You may have been discreet in your career, I’m sure you have been, but word gets out about your activities. Investigators like yourself do not stay in little places like this unless they are looking into cases of murder. I do feel we have a right to know. So which is it, Lord Powerscourt, murder or death by natural causes?’
‘Let me give you a truthful answer, Mr Lawrence, and I would ask you to keep it as close as you can. I believe the Earl was murdered. Until I have found the means to prove that, I have to pay lip service to the natural causes theory, even though I don’t think it’s true. There, does that satisfy you?’
‘Perfectly, Lord Powerscourt. Now I presume you want to ask me the usual questions about where we were on the day of the murder and so on. On the night in question the whole family, all of us, were in London. We went to see a play and we stayed a couple of nights in White’s Hotel. I’m sure the people there will vouch for us if it should come to that.’
‘Was the play good?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘Well, it was interesting, I suppose, if you like industrial disputes all over the West End stage. The wife is very taken by that fellow Galsworthy and his book The Man of Property about a bounder called Soames Forsyte that came out a couple of years ago. This play at the Savoy called Strife was also by Galsworthy but there weren’t any Forsytes in it. I think the wife was disappointed. She had high hopes of Irene and Bosinney disgracing themselves behind a pillar.’
‘I’ve heard a lot, Mr Lawrence, about the relations between your family and the late Lord Candlesby. Perhaps you could you tell me about it in your own words. Rumour and gossip, as you well know, have a habit of distorting or exaggerating the facts with these sort of events.’
‘I don’t think there’s any exaggeration at all,’ said Lawrence sadly. ‘I really don’t like talking about it very much. Our family were going to get the benefit of the railways running through our land all those years ago. Candlesby managed to make off with the contract instead. He grew rich, or he should have grown rich. We got poor. We’re in no position to survive this agricultural depression in our present state, so we’re cutting back. Smaller house, fewer acres, that sort of thing. It finished my father off, as you probably know, but I don’t think he was long for this world anyway. He’d not been well for some time. There, is that what you need to know?’
Another loud crash from the front of the house indicated a falling down rather than a cutting back of the Lawrence property. There was a tremendous bellow from the butler in his red apron. ‘What on earth are you doing? You stupid stupid man!’
‘Tell me, Mr Lawrence, and I apologize in advance if this is a difficult question to answer. Ignore it if you wish, I would fully understand. In some families, the dislike, maybe even the hatred for a man who has behaved like Candlesby abates over time, it grows less as the memory fades. But with others, the anger grows inside the family like a tumour. As the years pass it does not grow less, it grows greater so that the hatred for the perpetrator can be as strong, if not stronger, forty or fifty years on as it was at the start.’
Powerscourt looked closely at Harold Lawrence as he made his reply. ‘I don’t think anything of that sort has happened here,’ he said. ‘It was all a very long time ago. I don’t think any of us think about it from one month to the next.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear it. Tell me, this is one of those questions people in my profession are always asking. Can you think of anybody locally who might have wanted Lord Candlesby dead?’
‘It’s easier to answer that question the other way round, Lord Powerscourt. Far more people wanted the wretched man dead than wanted him to stay alive. You’ll have heard about the duel and the adultery with the poor woman who walked into the sea and drowned herself. There are a number of other cuckolded husbands around but I wouldn’t want to give you their names as I only heard about them in confidence. There’s a farmer with land just north of Candlesby Hall who swears Candlesby poisoned his cattle. There’s a retired general not far from here who claims that Candlesby raped his daughter and refused to make any provision when the girl became pregnant. You may find somebody with a good word to say about him. If you do, please let me know at once.’
Harold Lawrence pulled a watch rather ostentatiously from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get on with the business of supervising this move. My wife has taken to her bed with nerves; it’s all so upsetting. If there’s any way I can help, please let me know.’
With that he shepherded Powerscourt to the front door. One of the carts, drawn by a fine pair of horses, was gathering speed down the drive en route to the Lawrences’ new home. The last Powerscourt heard was another mighty bellow from the butler. ‘See here, you useless footmen, all the dining-room chairs were meant to be out here by now, ready to go on the next cart. So where the bloody hell are they?’
Lady Lucy Powerscourt had finished the second of her lunch parties with the ladies of Lincolnshire. Another deputation was expected today at tea. During her time with Powerscourt she had volunteered on a number of occasions to eat for victory, to entertain various people whose only feature in common was that they might have something useful to add to her husband’s investigation. Lady Lucy found these bizarre social occasions more testing with the passing of time but she did what she saw as her duty.