‘Don’t do anything now! Don’t try to row whatever you do!’ Alex Bentley was drawing close now. ‘I’m going to throw you a rope. Hang on to it, for heaven’s sake. I’ll pull you back to the middle.’
It took four unsuccessful throws before Father Kennedy managed to grasp the rope thrown from Alex Bentley’s boat. At last, the tow line secured, the rowing party were able to proceed. The gaping locals abandoned their mirth and their sightseeing and proceeded on their way. Overhead the birds still whirled, swooping down to perch on the sides of the river. The water, Powerscourt noticed, trailing his hand in the Lot, was very cold. Soon they could see the medieval bridge of Estaing and the mighty castle of the lords of the manor of the same name. On the slopes high above the river the Estaing vines were slowly growing back to full health and maturity after the ravages of phylloxera a generation before. Alex Bentley’s hotel, the Lion d’Or, sat beside the bridge, flanked by two wings that had once been part of a monastery. That night each pilgrim was able to sleep in his own cell.
‘It’s so peaceful here, Francis, don’t you think?’ Lady Lucy was leaning over the ancient bridge and staring into the water. A couple of fish passed slowly by beneath her. ‘You don’t think anything else is going to happen, do you? Any more murders, I mean?’
‘I wish I knew,’ said Powerscourt, staring intently at a heron on the opposite bank. ‘If there is a killer in this party, my love, he won’t care if he’s in the Doubting Castle of Giant Despair or the Delectable Mountains. All the other pilgrims are marching towards their final destination and resolution of their sins in that cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. The killer, if there is one, is marching towards the elimination of his enemies.’
Any pilgrim still awake in the small hours of the morning after an enormous supper of beef stew and almond tart, washed down with carafes of the local red wine, would have seen a strange sight by the side of the hotel. A hooded figure was pushing some package in a wheelbarrow towards the banks of the river. When the figure reached the pontoon where the rowing boats were tied up, he took his parcel out of the wheelbarrow and placed it carefully in the bottom of one of the boats. He borrowed a rough tarpaulin from another vessel and placed it over his package. Then the hooded figure took a knife from his pocket and cut the rope that secured the rowing boat to the bank. He waded out towards the centre of the river, pulling his stolen rowing boat behind him. When he thought he had found the point where the current was strongest, he steadied his craft in the centre of it. He reached into his pocket again and took out two objects. One he placed at the very front of the boat. The other he slipped under the tarpaulin. Then he gave the rowing boat a firm push to send it on its way towards Entraygues, Cajarc and Cahors. The hooded figure watched as the boat twisted its way along the currents of the Lot until it had passed out of sight. Then he waded slowly back to the bank and removed his trousers. He sent these too into the middle of the river with a great heave. Then he walked slowly back towards the hotel. The stars were bright above the water. An owl was hooting from further up the river in the direction of Golinhac on the other bank. There were still three hours before dawn.
10
A frantic hammering on his bedroom door woke Powerscourt shortly after half past six the next morning.
‘Monsieur milord,’ panted Jacques the hotel owner, ‘you must come at once! At once, I say. There has been a catastrophe here, in my hotel!’
Powerscourt noticed a slight glow in the man’s cheeks as if he had already been taking comfort from the local red. God in heaven, he said to himself, it’s not yet seven o’clock.
‘Whatever is the matter, monsieur?’ said Powerscourt, buttoning his shirt and wondering if half the pilgrims in their cells had been visited by the Exterminating Angel.
‘You must come, monsieur milord. I will show you. It is terrible!’
Powerscourt could hear Lady Lucy asking sleepy questions about where was he going so early in the morning as he sped down the stairs and out into the fresh air of Estaing. Jacques led him to the pontoon where the rowing boats were tied up.
‘See, monsieur milord!’ he said, pointing dramatically to the cut rope where a rowing boat had been tethered the evening before. ‘One of these boats has been stolen! I gave my word that they would be safe in my keeping to that villainous fellow Berthier who keeps the yard at Espalion. I signed a piece of paper promising to pay a great deal of money if any of them was lost. It is more than all my life savings, monsieur! But what was I to do? I was not to suppose that any of these pilgrims here would turn into rowing boat thieves in the night!’ Jacques stared angrily at the cut rope. Then another terrible thought struck him, possibly even more serious than the loss of the boat. ‘And what will Charlotte say? What indeed! I am ruined, monsieur milord, ruined! What a way to start the day!’
Powerscourt remembered the innkeeper’s wife, Charlotte, shouting at her husband the evening before to tear himself away from the bottle and supervise the serving of the supper. She was a formidable woman, he thought, round of figure, round of face, fierce of countenance, obviously the true mistress of the hotel. On one point at least Powerscourt could offer instant reassurance.
‘Calm yourself, monsieur, calm yourself. The missing boat may be found. It may turn up later today. But if it does not, Mr Delaney will recompense you for its loss. I’m certain he will contribute enough to pay off Mr Berthier from Espalion.’
‘Mr Delaney, the elderly American gentleman? Not one of the younger Mr Delaneys, but the old one? He has enough money to pay off Berthier?’ Jacques the hotelkeeper sounded suspicious, as if men of such improbable wealth were not to be found on the banks of the Lot. Powerscourt assured him that Delaney could probably buy most of southern France if the mood took him. Relieved that his money troubles appeared to be over and another onslaught from Charlotte postponed, Jacques took his leave of Powerscourt, saying he had hotel business to attend to. He did not tell his guest that his business lay in a back pantry off the kitchen where he had a secret supply of vin rouge hidden at the back of a broom cupboard.
Powerscourt bent down and took the rope in his hand. The cut was very clean. This was no hacking job with a blunt instrument. Whoever came down here in the middle of the night came fully prepared with a sharp knife to hand. What else had the thief brought with him? Had he simply climbed into the boat and floated off downstream like the Lady of Shallott? Powerscourt cursed himself for his folly and his delay and ran at full speed towards the pilgrims’ bedrooms. Were they all there? Or had a single pilgrim abandoned the party to make his own way on the next stage of the journey?
The six cells to the left of the main hotel building were all occupied, pilgrims complaining at being woken or greeting him cheerfully as they dressed. Powerscourt stopped in the fourth cell on the other side. This had been the temporary home of Patrick MacLoughlin from Boston, just twenty-two years old and training for the priesthood. Powerscourt felt sick as he remembered the young man saying the day before that he was completely useless at any known form of sporting activity. Maybe that had been a lie, a preparation for this flight down the river in the middle of the night, but Powerscourt didn’t think so. Patrick MacLoughlin was gone. There was only one set of circumstances, Powerscourt thought, which could unite the departure of MacLoughlin and the departure of the boat. Powerscourt raced into the Lion d’Or. He told Delaney to make sure nobody moved out of Estaing. He borrowed the innkeeper’s horse and sped down the road by the side of the Lot. He prayed to God that he was wrong.