Death at the Jesus Hospital (32 page)

‘They haven’t said a word about that, Sergeant. Maybe they don’t know.’

‘I was wondering, sir, about the men on duty at the entrances to the town. Should we stand them down?’

Inspector Devereux paused for a moment. ‘I think not,’ he said finally. ‘Think about it. We’re engaged on a triple murder inquiry here. We’ve got an awful lot of guesses but very few facts so far. Keep them there for the time being.’

Sergeant Vaughan cycled off into the night to tell his men to remain at their posts until further notice.

After ten minutes’ rowing, Powerscourt felt his palms and his shoulders beginning to ache.

‘How much further to go?’ he asked the back in front of him.

‘It’s not the distance that’s the problem, my lord. It’s this
bloody leak. It’s getting worse, not better. It must be about two miles or so from here to the coast.’

‘That’s about half the length of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race,’ his neighbour on the oars chimed in. ‘They do that in about twenty or twenty-five minutes.’

‘But their boats aren’t full of bloody water, are they? They’re not actually sinking, like we are.’

‘One of them did sink,’ chipped in Nat Gibson from the tiller. ‘Cambridge sank in eighteen fifty-nine, I think it was. Bloody boat was too light, she shipped water from the start, went down just after Barnes Bridge.’

The water inside the
William and Emma
was a third of the way up the sides now. Inspector Timpson, a God-fearing member of Trinity Church in Kingsbridge, was saying his prayers very softly. He’d done the Lord’s Prayer twice and was halfway through the Creed. Powerscourt thought he would be eligible with these memories for a place at the Jesus Hospital where the ability to recite those prayers was one of the few requirements needed for entry. A short man with a slight limp came to take Nat Gibson’s place at the tiller. Gibson went for a conference with the men inspecting the pieces of wood by the leak.

‘We can’t risk it,’ said Coxswain Barton at last. ‘I would like to nail one of these pieces of wood into the area around the leak. But putting in the nails might split the side right open. We’d be full of water and sinking inside a minute. We’re going to have to wrap the plug in oilskin and try to hold it in place by other means. And we’re going to have a major attempt at getting this water out of the boat or we’ve had it.’

One man sat with his back to the rowers’ bench and pressed with his feet against a piece of wood placed over the hole.

‘Hang on in there, Jimmy,’ said Robbie Barton, ‘you could be there some time. We’ve got to bail as we’ve never bailed before.’

More containers were handed out. Only two men were left at the oars to give the boat some leeway. All the rest were pressed into service. Barton began shouting at them as if they were galley slaves of old.

‘One, two three, bail! One, two three, bail!’

Bend down, fill up, throw. Bend down, fill up, throw, bend down, fill up, throw, Powerscourt said to himself. It didn’t seem to be making much difference.

‘One, two, three, bail! One, two three, bail!’

Johnny Fitzgerald had gone back to Estuary House on his own. He made his way to the top floor and peered out into the night through the telescope on the top floor. He could see a few lights at East Portlemouth on the far side of the harbour and some more in the centre of town. But out to sea he could see nothing at all. None of the birds he loved so much were to be seen or heard, only the whisper of the sea. He thought of his friend out there in the English Channel. He remembered some of the adventures they had shared together. Rather like Lady Lucy, Johnny didn’t think his friend was really safe on his own during these investigations. He needed someone at his side, somebody to look after him.

After five minutes’ bailing, Powerscourt was sure their time was up. The water level didn’t seem to be going down at all. The valiant mariner stayed locked in position, his feet anchoring the piece of wood against the hole. Powerscourt didn’t think it could stop the flow but it should make it less. Then, just after the point where he was sure his arms were going to break, there was a shout from Nat Gibson.

‘Well done, lads,’ he cried, it’s going down. Keep it up! Keep it up!’

Powerscourt felt he wasn’t making his proper
contribution
to the evening’s entertainment. He was growing
sluggish. He had lost the rhythm completely. Suddenly he heard voices in his head. It was the twins, Christopher and Juliet, and they were shouting at him. ‘Keep it up Papa,’ they cried happily, ‘keep it up.’ Powerscourt smiled and redoubled his efforts.

The clouds lifted suddenly and they could see the
Morning Glory
way over to their right on the Prawle Point side.

‘Great God, Robbie,’ cried Nat Gibson, ‘do you see where he’s heading? I did tell him about it on the way out but it can’t have sunk in.’

‘These are the worst possible conditions for the Salcombe Bar,’ said Robbie Barton, hurling yet more water out of his lifeboat. ‘An ebb tide and a strong onshore wind. Great God! Would your man hear if we shouted?’

‘No, he wouldn’t,’ said Nat Gibson, ‘not a chance.’

Everybody on board the
William and Emma
was watching as they bailed, hypnotized, as the Morning Glory sailed towards her doom. She was nearing Limebury Point where the sand bar starts. Inspector Timpson crossed himself and quoted from the poem: ‘But such a tide as moving seems asleep,/Too full for sound and foam/When that which drew from out the boundless deep/Turns again home.’

‘Tell me if I’m wrong, Jimmy,’ Lady Lucy smiled at the young man, ‘but I think it worked something like this. Mr Allen organized everything, the details of how to find the places, the train times and so on. Mr Harper did the actual killings, all of them.’

‘That’s right. Mr Allen hired a car and a driver some of the time to take him around. A great big car it was too. He sent it to Marlow and up to Norfolk so Elias Harper could get away from that school where he killed the bursar.’

‘And why are you all still here? You could have left Salcombe a long time ago, couldn’t you?’

‘We could have, but the next Durban boat doesn’t leave until next week. One of the ships had to go in for repairs, I think, so they lost a sailing.’

‘And why did you come to Salcombe in the first place? Why not hide away in a big city like London or Bristol?’

‘I’m not sure you’re going to believe this,’ said Jimmy, ‘but Mr Allen came here once as a child and liked it so much he decided to come back.’

‘Why didn’t you go with him, with Mr Allen? Why were you left here trying to escape disguised as a policeman?’

‘He said that if I was with him and he was caught, the police would assume I was guilty too, even though I hadn’t committed any crimes. He thought I’d have a better chance on my own.’

‘Tell me, Jimmy, is there a link of some sort between you and Mr Allen?’

There was a pause. Finally Jimmy said, ‘He’s my
grandfather
, Lady Powerscourt. My father died when I was very young so he’s more or less taken his place. I think he brought me along because he liked being with me, one of his own flesh and blood.’

The water level in the
William and Emma
dropped gradually while the men watched the drama by Salcombe Bar. The lifeboat had almost stopped moving now. The cloud had lifted again and the moon shone over the mouth of the Salcombe Estuary. The
Morning Glory
had about fifty yards left before she hit the bar. Several members of the
William and Emma
were praying now, their eyes tightly closed, their lips moving. Usually they were called out here after disaster struck. Now they were looking at disaster unfolding in front of them. Nat Gibson was leaning out over the side to get a better view. He told the crew that the yacht was carrying far too much sail. A long way behind them the grey bulk of HMS
Sprightly
maintained her watch over the proceedings. Then it happened.
Morning Glory
capsized. She keeled over very slowly like a drunken man. There was a tearing, screeching sound as if a mast or some of the rigging had
broken free. There was one very long scream. There was no sign of the man aboard.

‘What should we do, in heaven’s name?’ asked Robbie Barton. ‘Should we head over there and see if we can find him?’

Nat Gibson was definite. ‘No, we shouldn’t. We’re in no fit state to rescue anybody. It’ll be all we can do to rescue ourselves.’

‘What would you say are the chances of his being alive?’ Inspector Timpson spoke very quietly.

‘Very small,’ said Nat Gibson. ‘Tiny. Many ships have been lost like that on the Salcombe Bar over the years. There have never been any survivors, never.’

Robbie Barton looked sad as he reorganized his men. No lifeboatman, trained to rescue people from the sea, gives up easily on what he regards as his primary duty. Half,
including
Powerscourt and the Inspector, were to row. The rest kept bailing. Robbie sent up two great flares to alert HMS
Sprightly
so she might be able to send out a rescue mission to the remains of the
Morning Glory.

‘Twilight and evening bell,’ Nat Gibson was
pronouncing
an epitaph over the missing man, ‘And after that the dark!/And may there be no sadness of farewell,/When I embark.’

It took a long time for the
William and Emma
to limp into the harbour. They dropped Powerscourt and the Inspector at the Yacht Club landing stage and staggered off to their own quarters in the centre of the town. Inspector Timpson was assured that the local doctor, who treated everybody rescued by the
William and Emma
, would attend to the wounded shoulder. Powerscourt promised Robbie Barton fifty pounds for the repair of the boat.

Inspector Devereux’s prophecy on the train came true, but with only a few minutes to spare. The Chief Constable of
Devon, Colonel St John Weston-Westmacott, arrived at the Marine Hotel shortly before ten o’clock, wearing a dinner jacket and a scarlet cummerbund. Inspector Devereux, as the senior officer present, briefed him on the proceedings so far. The colonel said ‘jolly good show’ to all and
sundry
, including the head porter who scarcely deserved it. They were all assembled in the reserve dining room. Jimmy Strauss had gone down to the seafront to await the return of his grandfather.

Very wet and rather pensive, Inspector Timpson and Powerscourt came back, water squelching from their boots. Jimmy Strauss stayed behind at the waterfront, praying for a miracle that never came. The Inspector delivered the news.

‘There is a chance that Allen might survive, but I very much doubt it.’

Normally it was Powerscourt who filled in the gaps and answered any remaining questions at the end of his cases. This time it was Lady Lucy who filled the company in on what she had learnt from Jimmy Strauss. Inspector Devereux reported on the further details that had been
forwarded
by the South African police. Elias Harper had been suspected of murder on no fewer than three occasions but there was never enough evidence for a conviction. Jimmy Strauss would be a very rich young man once the
formalities
had been carried out. Wilfred Allen had endowed one hospital in Johannesburg already and a school for the poor. The Inspector had also wired to the two other Inspectors, one in Maidenhead and the other in Norfolk, that their crimes had now been solved and they could regard the matter as closed.

‘I think you’ve all done jolly well,’ the Chief Constable said again. ‘Four murders solved, including the villain who was taken out in a boat and never returned. And to think the centre of the whole affair was here in Salcombe, and that the final action took place on the Salcombe Bar:“For though from out our bourn of Time and Place/The flood may bear
me far./I hope to see my Pilot face to face/When I have crossed the bar.”’

Three days later the Powerscourts were eating breakfast in Markham Square. The case of the death in the Jesus Hospital, Powerscourt had told Lady Lucy in the train on the way back, had been one of the most unusual he had ever investigated. Not until the very very end, he said, had we known that we were on the right track. The whole case, so full of conjecture, might have disappeared in a puff of smoke at any moment. This morning Lady Lucy was opening her mail. He checked that her husband wasn’t looking as she pulled out a couple of sheets of paper and positioned them carefully behind the teapot. The correspondence came from Salcombe. Before they left she had asked Jimmy Johnston, Sergeant Vaughan’s estate agent friend, to send her details of substantial properties in and around the town. Well, here they were, a Georgian rectory in a neighbouring village, and a Victorian fantasy castle high up on the cliffs west of the town, with breathtaking views of the harbour and the estuary. She peered discreetly at the prices. My word, she thought, this place is nearly as expensive as London. But look at the view. Look at the ridiculous battlements and little towers in the Victorian extravaganza. Should she say anything to Francis? Probably not, she said to herself. No point in worrying him before things have been decided.

Francis was muttering into his
Times
. Lady Lucy thought she caught the words ‘bloody fools’ three times. At first she thought he was talking about the House of Lords. Then she realized he was talking about a cricket match. Slowly and carefully she placed the Salcombe properties back in their envelope.

The next and final piece of correspondence felt stiff inside its expensive envelope. Lady Lucy approved. She had always had a weakness for high-quality writing paper and stationery. Inside this one was an invitation. ‘Lady
Hermione Devereux’, it said on the top line. Then in a slightly larger typeface ‘At Home’. Then ‘Devereux Hall, Southwick, Northamptonshire’.

Then ‘June 27th, 1910, 10 o’clock’. And then, the moment of glory, ‘Dancing’. Lady Lucy looked across at her husband. ‘What do you know of Devereux Hall, Francis?’