‘Tomorrow morning’, he continued, looking back at Michael Delaney, ‘I have interviews booked with the Mayor of Le Puy, with the Chief of Police in the town and with the Bishop. I telegraphed from Calais to a young man who works for the American Ambassador in London and asked him to arrange them. I think the Mayor may be the key, they’re very influential people in France, these Mayors. With your permission, Mr Delaney, I propose to mention money to them. Obviously it will be your money. Do you have any objections?’

  ‘None at all,’ said Delaney with a smile. The man had only just arrived and already he was talking about bribing a bishop and a Chief of Police. This was progress indeed. This Powerscourt could have a great career in American business. Alex Bentley didn’t think anything as crude as bribery was going to be employed. He felt Powerscourt was holding back as much as he was divulging about his plans.

  Powerscourt noticed two pilgrims hanging back rather sheepishly by the door. ‘Excuse me, Lucy, Mr Delaney,’ he said, and walked over to join them. As he talked to the first one, the second drifted off to a far corner of the dining room.

  ‘Delaney, Lord Powerscourt, sir, Shane Delaney from Swindon in England, sir. I’m very sorry sir, but I wrote a letter to my wife, Sinead. She’s dying, you see, sir, of some incurable disease and I’m here to take her place. She’s too ill to travel. She can only just get down the road to her mother’s, if you follow me.’

  ‘My sympathy goes out to you and your wife,’ said Powerscourt solemnly. ‘May I ask what the letter said? In general terms, of course.’

  ‘Well, sir, in the first version I talked about the food a lot. Your man the chef here is a wizard in the kitchen, as you will see. Then I thought she might get mad at me, filling my face with fancy cooking while she’s dying slowly back there in Swindon. So I tore that one up, sir. The one I did send I just talked about praying with Father Kennedy and the Black Madonna up there in the cathedral and how the Bishop might come and see us. That’s all, sir, cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘You didn’t mention the death of John Delaney at all?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘Good God no, sir. She’d have had me on the next train home if I had, so she would.’

  Powerscourt smiled and said no harm would come of it. Jack O’Driscoll was unrepentant about writing an article for his paper, which included a lot of detail about the death. But, he assured Powerscourt, he hadn’t sent it yet. Indeed, he hadn’t finished it. ‘The trouble with stories like this, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Jack in his most man of the world voice, ‘is that the readers expect a proper ending, so they do. They don’t like being left hanging in the air.’

  Powerscourt nodded his agreement. He said he could see the difficulty. But he made the young man promise that he would only send the article after he, Lord Powerscourt, had seen it and approved it. Jack O’Driscoll showed unusual maturity for a young reporter. ‘Of course, Lord Powerscourt, I can see that. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of a murder investigation, if this is a murder investigation. That’s much more important than a newspaper article.’

  As Powerscourt watched Jack O’Driscoll take the stairs two at a time he thought he had found another weapon in his quest, one that might prove much more potent than the young reporter knew. And then he remembered, one or other of the two people he had just spoken to might be a murderer.

  ‘Francis,’ said Lady Lucy later, in bed reading a book about pilgrimages, ‘you’re not really going to bribe these people in the morning, are you?’

  Her husband was staring at the ceiling, his mind far away. ‘What’s that, Lucy?’ he said, returning to earth. ‘Of course I’m not going to bribe them. Not in the orthodox way at any rate. We have to convince the authorities, Lucy, that it’s their idea, or in their best interests, to let the pilgrims go, not ours. We have to work things so that they think they have thought of it first.’

  ‘And just how are you going to do it, my love?’ said Lady Lucy, taking temporary possession of her husband’s left shoulder.

  ‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it might work out like this . . . ’

  Early the next morning Lord Francis Powerscourt wrapped his dark blue cape round his shoulders and set off for a quick look round Le Puy-en-Velay. He bought two large black notebooks in a Maison de la Presse, a French newsagent, the pages filled with those irritating squares. He checked out the Town Hall – the Hotel de Ville – the French tricolour flying from the flagpole, in the Place du Martouret, a handsome square with a plaque that told him that the guillotine had been installed here during the Revolution between March 1793 and January 1795. Forty-one citizens had been put to death in this little town. The memory of the French Revolution was everywhere, Powerscourt thought. It might have happened over a century before but the footprints were still there, all over the Republic it had created, wading through blood and terror.

  There was a gasp in the dining room of the Hotel St Jacques when Powerscourt took off his cape and sat down to breakfast. He was wearing full military uniform, the black trousers and scarlet jacket of a colonel in the Irish Guards, medals marching across his chest, gold epaulettes on his shoulders. Lady Lucy smiled when she saw the effect. She thought her Francis looked very handsome. Charlie Flanagan dropped a croissant on the floor. Christy Delaney was in the middle of ordering more pain au chocolat and coffee from a pretty waitress, and his newfound French deserted him.

  ‘It’s for the Sergeant,’ Powerscourt assured Delaney. ‘Pound to a penny he was in the military before he joined the police. Uniforms always impress other people in uniform. Mine’s more important than his. Colonel in the Irish Guards beats French police sergeant any day of the week. So he’s supposed to think I am, so to speak, the superior officer.’

  Michael Delaney laughed and clapped Powerscourt on the back. ‘Well done, man. I’m sure that will help with our policeman friend.’

  ‘This is the original interview book,’ said Alex Bentley to Powerscourt and handed over a large notebook. ‘I have the earlier notes upstairs.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Powerscourt and hurried across the room to greet the Sergeant who had just appeared.

  ‘Enchante,’ he said in his best French accent. ‘I am delighted to meet you, Sergeant. I am so sorry we have caused you so many problems here with our inability to speak French.’

  The Sergeant muttered something inaudible, mesmerized by Powerscourt’s medals.

  ‘You are a soldier, monsieur?’ he managed finally. He had known of a milord detective coming but not that he was a full colonel milord with campaign ribbons.

  ‘Was, Sergeant, was, those days are behind me now, alas. Never mind, once a soldier, always a soldier, eh? Have you served your country in war as well as peace, Sergeant?’

  The Sergeant replied that he had indeed served, in the Army in North Africa, and had risen to the rank of lance corporal after seven years’ service. Promotion, Powerscourt felt, might be quicker in the police rather than the military. He pressed on, anxious to make the maximum benefit of his advantage.

  ‘May I have the honour of presenting my wife, Sergeant? Lady Lucy Powerscourt, Sergeant Fayolle.’

  Lady Lucy bowed slightly and then shook the man’s hand. The skin, she felt, was rather coarse.

  ‘I hope to have the honour of translating for you later today, Sergeant,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘but this morning I propose that Lady Lucy should do it. She is a most experienced translator, my friend.’ Powerscourt patted the Sergeant on the back at this point. ‘Why, only this year she translated at a joint meeting between members of your Assembly and our members of Parliament in London on the subject of African colonies, a most delicate subject, as you know.’

  Lady Lucy blushed slightly. Francis had told her that morning that he might invent a previous translating career for her if he felt it would help. The Sergeant looked at Lady Lucy and reflected sadly that she was much more attractive than his own Colette whom he had left scowling at her saucepans earlier that morning. Damn it, the Sergeant said to himself, not only did the man have the scarlet uniform of a full colonel, but he had a wife to match as well.

  Powerscourt was anxious now for the translation to start. New circumstances called for a new location. A small section of the dining room had been cordoned off, the rest closed in case of eavesdroppers. He led the Sergeant and Lady Lucy to their seats. Alex Bentley, who had appointed himself knight errant to Lady Lucy for today, if not for the rest of his life, brought the relevant paperwork and the list of people to be interviewed that day and sat down beside Lady Lucy. Powerscourt withdrew. Delaney winked at him. ‘Fine piece of business there, Lord Powerscourt. Reckon we’ve got the Sergeant on the back foot now. Let’s hope we can keep him there.’

  ‘Wish me luck,’ said Powerscourt, drawing on his cape once more. ‘I’m off to meet the Mayor, official representative of the Third Republic. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, that’s the motto for the day!’

  Powerscourt wondered if the Mayor would have a pair of tricolours leaning against each other in his office. There they were, by one of the great windows looking out over the square. M. Louis Jacquet, the Mayor of le Puy for the past fifteen years, was a tubby man with greying hair in his early fifties. He had a small moustache and searching blue eyes. By profession he was a butcher, and although he had handed over much of the running of his business to his eldest son, he still kept a keen interest. The shop, Jacquet et Fils, Bouchers et Vollailers on the Rue Raphael, prospered greatly for the citoyennes thought it might be more advantageous to purchase their gigots d’agneau and their filet de boeuf from the Mayor than from his competitors.

  Compliments were exchanged, on the military service, on the beauty of the town, on the Colonel’s colours and the ancient traditions of Le Puy.

  ‘Please allow me to present my credentials,’ said Powerscourt, extracting a typewritten letter, written on very expensive notepaper, from his pocket. The missive assured its readers that Lord Francis Powerscourt had a most distinguished record as an investigator in Great Britain. On a number of occasions, it continued, he had given exemplary service to his country. The letter asked the recipient to afford Lord Francis Powerscourt every possible assistance for he was a man of integrity and judgement. The signature at the bottom was Sir Edward Grey, His Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Powerscourt had obtained the introduction on the day he left London. Since I was almost killed on the Foreign Office’s business in St Petersburg last year, he had said to himself, then the least they can do is to write me a letter.

  ‘You bring heavy artillery with you,’ said the Mayor, handing it back to Powerscourt. ‘Pray tell me, how I can be of assistance?’

  ‘I need advice, Mr Mayor,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I need the benefit of your experience here in this town. On the one hand, we have the pilgrims, this strange collection assembled here from two continents by Mr Delaney. I think we should remember that the whole thing has been organized by Delaney as a thank-you to God for saving the life of his son. You know, no doubt, about the dead man, fallen or pushed from the rock of St Michel. You know the pilgrims are cooped up in that hotel, unable to leave until the police interviews are completed. You know the pilgrims want to bury the dead man and move on to their pilgrimage. So, that is one set of facts, as it were.’

  The Mayor nodded. ‘On the other hand,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘we have the position of the police. They have to investigate the death, or, as it may be, murder.’

  ‘Please forgive me for interrupting,’ said the Mayor. ‘Do you think it was murder, Lord Powerscourt?’

  Powerscourt felt suddenly that considerable weight would be attached to his answer. He had no alternative but to tell the truth as he saw it.

  ‘I do not, as yet, know the full facts, Mr Mayor. It seems to me perfectly possible that he fell. I hope to make the climb myself this afternoon or tomorrow. But I would not rule out murder, not at this stage.’

  ‘Pray continue,’ said the Mayor.

  ‘I was speaking of the position of the police. They are looking for a possible killer. Why should they let the pilgrims go? Why not keep them locked up in the Hotel St Jacques until they find out the truth? There is deadlock here.’

  ‘I have been concerned about this affair ever since I first heard of it,’ said the Mayor. ‘I am concerned, above all, for the good name and reputation of Le Puy. My father too was a butcher, here in this town. He was also Mayor. So was his father before him. I would not have you believe that the Jacquet butchers are a sort of ancien regime here but we do go back a long way. During the Revolution a company of butchers, including one of my ancestors, saved the Chapel of the White Penitents up there by the cathedral from destruction. We Jacquets have always been proud of that.’

  ‘Could I throw in a couple of other facts that might be relevant?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘The first concerns this man Michael Delaney. I scarcely know him but I am empowered to speak for him this morning. These American millionaires, as you know, Mr Mayor, are men of almost unimaginable wealth. As they grow older they start to give their money away. They found libraries. They set up charitable foundations in their names. They amass great collections of paintings which they may leave to the nation.’

  ‘Are they trying to cheat death, do you suppose? To gain immortality by other means?’

  ‘Yes, I think that is very well put. Our Mr Delaney wishes to leave money to Le Puy. I do not know if he intends to scatter his gold across the pilgrim path like the scallop shells of old. A donation for the upkeep of the cathedral is in his mind. And some gift to the town to be made through the good offices of your own office, Mr Mayor. Maybe some assistance to look after the widows and orphans of the police force.’

  ‘None of which can happen’, Louis Jacquet cut in quickly, ‘if Mr Delaney remains a prisoner in the Hotel St Jacques.’

  Powerscourt nodded. He thought he would play his ace of trumps. He hadn’t been sure until now. ‘Pilgrims made Le Puy rich, as you know far better than I, Mr Mayor. Pilgrims paid for the cathedral and all those fine buildings in the upper town. You must have wondered if this Delaney pilgrimage, bizarre in its origins, unfortunate, maybe even cursed in its beginning, might mark the start of a revival. Maybe pilgrims will choke the streets in future as they did in the Middle Ages. Le Puy would become even more prosperous. But I am not convinced they would come if they thought they might be locked up in their hotel for days at a time. Pilgrims might go elsewhere, they might start in Vezelay, or further south in Arles. And one last thought for your consideration.’ Here it came, the Ace of Spades, as black as the Black Madonna in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. ‘There is a young man in the Delaney party who is a newspaperman, a reporter. He is writing an article for his paper in Dublin. I have not seen it but I fear its publication would not do much for the reputation of this town abroad. They are all incensed, the pilgrims, about what they see as the incompetence of the police. I have asked him not to send it without my permission but I may not be able to hold him back for ever.’

  ‘Thank you for being so frank,’ said the Mayor. ‘It is a most tricky problem.’ He stared out of his window into the Place du Martouret outside. ‘Let me ask you a most improper question, Lord Powerscourt. I give you my word that your answer will not go beyond these four walls where we sit now. You are known as a man of integrity. Let me ask you for your opinion, your advice, if you were not a man of integrity. Please pretend to be Machiavelli for a moment, if you would.’

  Powerscourt thought very fast. Should he decline the gambit? Should he take it? He looked briefly at a portrait of the current President of France, Armand Fallieres, on the wall. History would come to help him. He took the gambit.

  ‘When I was young, Mr Mayor,’ he began, ‘I was fascinated by two of the great cardinals who gave such wise, if devious, advice to their kings, Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin. Even looking at their portraits you could tell that they too were Machiavellian in their approach. I speak now as Cardinal Mazarin. This is what I think he would say. Get rid of the pilgrims as fast as you can. Suppose the police do find the murderer, if there is one. There will have to be a trial. Do you want these witnesses to take up permanent residence in the Hotel St Jacques? Do you want the English and American newspapers writing articles about St Michel, Crag of Death? Horror Strikes in Holy City? Let the murderer be found in some other place, some other town. Let them have the problems of solving the crime and the problems of the prosecution. Put the wretched pilgrims on the first train, carriage or horse you can find and bid them God speed.

  ‘Once they know they’re going,’ Mazarin Powerscourt was getting into his stride now, ‘you can start on Michael Delaney. He would feel grateful, would he not, for the liberation of his friends. Take him for every charity you can think of. Separate him from as many dollars as you can. Sleep easier in your beds. The problem is not with you any more, the problem is en route to the little town of Saugues, next stop, I think, on the pilgrims’ way.’

  Powerscourt laughed. ‘How was that, Mr Mayor?’

  Louis Jacquet laughed. ‘Very good, Lord Powerscourt. I think you’re in the wrong profession. You should have been a politician. There’s still time, mind you, there’s still time.’

  Back in the Hotel St Jacques things were moving fast. With Lady Lucy as translator and Alex Bentley as transcriber the witnesses were being polished off at remarkable speed. Lady Lucy was using all her wiles on the Sergeant, a little smile here, an occasional request for assistance with a particular word there, interested queries about his grandchildren in the intervals between witnesses. The Sergeant was captivated. Had she but known it, Lady Lucy was surrounded on both sides by admirers, though the Sergeant did not fit the description of knight errant as well as Alex Bentley. Father Kennedy was surprisingly nervous as he gave his account of the day of John Delaney’s death. Brother White was monosyllabic, thinking perhaps of all the possible beatings he was going to miss during his time away on pilgrimage. The clearest witness was Stephen Lewis, the solicitor from Frome in Somerset. He had only had occasional dealings with the criminal classes of Frome. One of his colleagues looked after those, but he knew what was required, clear and unambiguous reporting of his activities that day, refusal to be drawn into any speculation about any of the other suspects, a pleasant and open countenance. As she listened to them all Lady Lucy thought that any one of them could have been a murderer. All their statements, even a few days after the event, were woolly about exact times. The Sergeant even allowed the last interview to run on beyond the sacred hour of twelve o’clock, lunchtime for all God-fearing Frenchmen, and ended the morning session at four minutes past. There was only one interview left now, Michael Delaney himself, due at two o’clock sharp.