19
Inspector Blunden was back behind his desk. Powerscourt and Constable Merrick were seated on either side of the round table in the centre of the room.
‘I’ve put out a general alert for Bell,’ said the policeman, ‘ports, railway stations, and such hotels as we can reach. I often wonder how anybody was apprehended before the invention of the telegraph.’
Constable Andrew Merrick, emboldened perhaps by his previous success with Oliver Bell and his non-existent alibi, was holding his hand up as if he was back at school.
‘Well, Constable Merrick, what do you have to say for yourself now?’ Blunden felt he couldn’t be too harsh with the lad after his good work.
‘Sir, my lord, you asked me to think about how we might find out more about the movements of the middle Mr Lawrence, sir, Carlton Lawrence, the one reportedly seen at the railway station, sir.’
‘What of it?’ said Blunden. ‘I’m not sure how much credence we can attach to that evidence now. Maybe Bell was trying to throw mud in our eyes.’
‘Well, sir, my lord, we could ask at the station. Ask if anybody else saw Mr Lawrence, I mean.’
‘Very good, young man. We’ll make a detective of you yet. But that wasn’t what you were going to say before, was it?’
‘No, sir, my lord. That was about Mr Lawrence. I was going to suggest the photographer’s shop, sir, my lord.’
‘The photographer’s shop?’
‘Yes, sir, my lord. You see, there was a big wedding last year.’
‘Wedding? Photographer’s shop? What is going on here?’
Constable Merrick had turned a deep shade of red. Even the two deep breaths taken very slowly failed him on this occasion.
Powerscourt coughed what he hoped was a diplomatic cough. He had no idea how much his comment was about to infuriate the Inspector.
‘If I could make a suggestion, Inspector. What I think our friend is trying to say is this. There was a big wedding in the Lawrence family last year. Maybe it was a member of our Mr Lawrence’s family, his son or daughter perhaps, more likely a grandchild. There will probably be photographs of the occasion taken by the local man. With luck we will be able to find a photo of Mr Lawrence from the photographers or the newspapers to aid in his identification in London and elsewhere. Would that be right, Constable?’
‘Yes, sir, my lord.’ Merrick was nodding like a puppet. ‘It was a daughter, sir. Mr Lawrence’s granddaughter.’
How typical of Powerscourt, the Inspector said to himself. Put two and two together and make five. How very irritating. He consoled himself with the thought that Powerscourt wouldn’t be any use in the second row of a rugby scrum.
‘Well then,’ the Inspector said, ‘you’d better get off to the photographer’s and the railway station. Let’s hope you have good luck.’
‘Sir, my lord.’ Constable Merrick had his hand up again. Powerscourt felt, looking at him with affection, that the young man had spent far more time at school than he had in the police service. Putting his hand up must still seem the natural thing to do.
‘It’s about going to London, sir. I’ve never been to London, sir.’
‘If you think, Constable Merrick, that I am sending you to London you are out of your mind.’ Blunden’s brain filled with possible disasters: Constable Merrick lost in the capital, unable to find his way home, Constable Merrick taken and sold into slavery, Constable Merrick seized and put to work in some terrible factory, Constable Merrick incarcerated for ever in the Marshalsea.
‘I wasn’t thinking of that, sir, my lord, I was only wondering if I could go with whoever does make the journey, my lord, sir. To be of assistance, sir.’
‘You get off to the photographer’s and the railway station now, there’s a good boy.’
Merrick trotted off. Powerscourt, unaware how annoyed his last intervention had made the Inspector, tried again.
‘I have a suggestion to make about London, Inspector. My companion in arms Johnny Fitzgerald is here now. He went to Ireland to bring Jack Hayward back, you will recall. He’s not doing anything in particular at the moment. He would be the perfect person to go to London and make inquiries. Maybe he could take Constable Merrick with him. I’m sure they’d make a formidable pair.’
The Inspector laughed. ‘Excellent plan, Lord Powerscourt. Let’s do it.’ He couldn’t get the rugby question out of his mind. ‘Tell me, Lord Powerscourt, did you ever play rugby in your younger days?’
Powerscourt remembered that the Inspector had been a mighty power in the world of the scrum and the line-out and the rolling maul.
‘I did, as a matter of fact.’
‘And where did you play?’
‘Why,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I played in the centre.’
Bloody typical, the Inspector said to himself. I should have guessed. Centre, a bloody centre, one of those irritating people who could see a gap in the opponents’ defence and be through it before anyone knew they had gone. Centres could pass through the eye of the proverbial needle. Clever players, centres. Tries under the posts. Glory boys. The darlings of the women.
Lady Lucy was walking back to the hotel that evening after another day of nursing. Will, the little boy she had entertained with the cat story, was on the mend. He would try to sit up in bed now and give her a hug when she came in to see him. One of the rambling old ladies had gone to meet her maker. The other two remained, still talking nonsense in their delirium, but letting slip every now and then just one word which Lady Lucy thought might be significant for her husband’s inquiry. She had added another that very evening, another small brick, perhaps, for her husband to build a wall of evidence that might solve the mystery. ‘Sail’. What ‘sail’ meant Lady Lucy had no idea but she added it to her list. She would have to tell Francis about it soon.
‘Good evening to you, Lady P-p-powerscourt. I trust I see you well?’
Charles Dymoke was wearing a long cloak that reached down to his feet and a dark grey Russian hat. He looked like a Cossack on patrol out in the steppes.
‘Charles!’ said Lady Lucy. ‘How very nice to see you. What takes you to the village late at night?’
‘I have heard about your nursing activities, Lady P-p-powerscourt. They are going to make you a saint soon. I was delivering a b-b-basket of vegetables, and arranging for some wood to be brought over tomorrow.’
‘Noblesse still obliges then, Charles? That’s very good of you.’
‘The vicar, who does not go to Candlesby village in case he gets ill and leaves the village without a p-p-priest, says I am the first one of my family in five hundred years to care for the p-p-poor. He tells me my p-p-predecessor was called Charles the Fair. He was hanged at B-b-boston Assizes eventually, though not for helping the p-p-poor. But tell me, how is it with your husband?’
Charles did not like to mention Lady Lucy’s husband’s sojourn in the Caravaggio room. He suspected she had not been told about it.
‘Francis?’ said Lady Lucy with a smile. ‘He is well. He is anxious to find the answers in the case, of course.’