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I HAD SEEN a caricature of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, his beard running under but not over his chin, by Carlo Pellegrini, the Vanity Fair artist better known as Ape. The Right Honourable gentleman looked rather pleased with himself, his pendulous lower lip curled superciliously above the peculiar low beard.
‘Not as evil a man as you might think from his liberal convictions,’ Sidney Grice informed me as we inched along Whitehall. It had been an agonizingly slow journey and my guardian was draining his flask of tea by the time we glimpsed the vast neo-Gothic King’s Tower soaring over three hundred and twenty feet over the House of Parliament. The decisions made there decided not only the fates of the masses thronging the Westminster streets, but the lives of everyone from the incalculably wealthy Maharajas to the children of convicts in New South Wales on the other side of the globe.
‘But did he not oppose the Cross Act to demolish slums?’ I argued.
‘To his great credit.’ Mr G tapped his cork back into place regretfully. ‘Where are the poor to live if you demolish slums?’
‘In housing fit for human habitation,’ I answered.
There was a heavy mist rising from the Thames nearby. It soaked through my clothes, making them cold and heavy and cling to my legs.
‘It is attitudes like that which deprived young children of the right to work in factories.’ Sidney Grice looked at his hunter watch. ‘We shall be late.’ He banged on the roof. ‘Get a move on, man.’
‘Where to?’ the cabby asked, quite reasonably, for we were hemmed in on all sides by stationary carriages, omnibuses and goods wagons. ‘You’d do better gettin’ awt. It’s an easy stroll from ’ere.’
But, even as he spoke, the lorry in front of us moved, a gap appeared and we muscled into it. Twenty feet down the road, we pulled over.
My guardian screwed a small copper bowl on to the ferrule of his cane.
‘I would have thought you could have walked that, Miss Middleton.’ Sidney Grice passed up the fare in his bowl with great ceremony, but then spent two minutes trying to get the bowl off again. ‘The threads do not quite marry.’ He wrenched it off in exasperation.
‘Enjoy the wedding,’ the driver called cheerily after us.
Most of the crowd that we now pushed our way through wore top hats or bowlers, depending upon their status, but Sidney Grice stuck to his soft felt hat, an odd choice for one who laid so much store by formality, but I had long expected my guardian to make odd choices.
A policeman was trying to redirect traffic further up the road, but so many people were ignoring him and pushing into whatever gaps they could find that he served no purpose other than as another obstruction at a chaotic crossroads.
I could not see the front of the Home Office for we were too close to it, but like all the other government departments there was an unnecessary profusion of stone pillars, no doubt intended to emphasize that the occupants of these buildings ruled an empire that dwarfed that of the Romans and was destined to last at least as long.
The interior was similarly grandiose with enough marble in there alone to have emptied a good-sized quarry, I estimated, while a doorman escorted us to a desk constructed with enough mahogany to fit out a frigate.
A young man with flowing sandy locks took our details, and wrote them in the register as carefully and floridly as a monk working on an illuminated Bible.
‘You are thwee minutes late,’ he scolded.
‘And you have wathted thixth minutes whiting our namth,’ I retorted unkindly. I did not like to be treated as a naughty child.
‘Are you making fun of me?’ He looked up through his golden lashes.
‘Yeth,’ I said, and he picked up another pen and inscribed in plain block capitals TM.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked, and he simpered but did not reply.
‘It means Trouble Maker,’ Mr G informed me as we were conducted by a tall, lean, older man down the echoing, arched central hallway, ‘Your name will go on a list now and they will start a file on you. They will investigate your history and note whenever you go to another administrative office or engage in any political activity.’
‘Such as wanting votes for women?’ I suggested and the official glided to a halt.
‘No loquor hic talia,’ he counselled. ‘Do—’
‘Not speak such things in here,’ I translated.
‘There are men here who work tirelessly and selflessly to relieve women of the worries of state,’ our guide told me with a tremor in his voice.
‘And there are women all around you who dream of being treated as equals,’ I retorted.
A Sikh came towards us, resplendent in his blue chola, the flared robe and baggy pyjama trousers, his beautifully wound cherry-coloured turban, his ceremonial short curved sword tucked into his belt. He bowed in acknowledgement.
‘Sat shri akal,’ I greeted him and he smiled, but I was ashamed that I could not understand his response. Had I forgotten so much in the time since I left India?
‘The language of savages,’ the official told my godfather in what he probably fantasized was a discrete manner, and I was about to retaliate when the Sikh said politely, ‘Chitta bander.’ And moved on.
‘That was an old Hindoo greeting,’ our guide exposited, and I did not trouble to tell him I thought it meant white monkey. ‘He was probably looking for the colonial office.’
‘Ignoramus.’ Sidney Grice rolled his eye towards our guide.
‘Quite so,’ the official agreed, then stopped at two enor- mous oak doors, parting them – like Moses at the Red Sea – to reveal an office whose area could probably be best measured in acres. No doubt the view would have been spectacular had the Thames mist not enveloped the windows by which the great man stood.
‘Have a seat.’ He ushered us into two chairs and sat in a third. ‘Will you take refreshments? A gin.’
I perked up at that, hoping to find myself in a similar situation to the one at Euston Station, but Sidney Grice declined, telling the Home Secretary, ‘I am far too busy for that nonsense.’
Sir William Vernon Harcourt’s puffy eyes widened. ‘If only I had so much to occupy me.’
‘The minister was being ironic.’ A young man appeared behind Sidney Grice with a notebook.
‘I think not,’ Mr G disagreed. ‘You must supply me with an exhumation order, Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt.’
‘What a loss you are to the diplomatic service.’ Vernon Harcourt raised his brow languorously. His hair was long, parted near the middle and sweeping out at the back of his head like a fan. Ape had not exaggerated in his depiction of the beard. It hung under but not over his chin like a disguise that had slipped. ‘I take it this is in furtherance of an investigation?’
‘Yes,’ Sidney Grice replied and the Home Secretary frowned.
‘The Garstang massacre,’ I contributed and he leaned towards me.
‘The massacre? The one in Gaslight Lane?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘As opposed to all the other Garstang massacres,’ my guardian mumbled.
‘You wish to disinter the Garstangs?’ Sir William’s eyes widened.
‘I did not say so.’ Mr G rubbed his wounded shoulder.
‘He did not, Minister,’ the young man concurred from his notes.
‘It is the body of a man that we think picked the pocket of Mr Nathan Mortlock, the man who was murdered recently,’ I answered.
‘Do we?’ my guardian exclaimed, reaching for his pencil. ‘This is a fresh development.’
I modified my statement. ‘Mr Mortlock’s watch was found on his body.’
‘And what is the name of this man?’ Sir William’s eyes protruded.
‘We do not know,’ I admitted.
‘Yet,’ Sidney Grice qualified.
The Home Secretary’s eyes drifted back as he assessed the situation.
‘Four minutes to your next meeting, Sir William,’ the young man reminded him.
‘But you are convinced this is necessary?’
‘Yes,’ Sidney Grice said impatiently, ‘or we should not be here wasting my time.’
The minister looked at his subordinate quizzically.
‘This is most irregular,’ the young man said. ‘There are channels of procedure to be gone through.’
‘And no doubt channels within those channels.’ Vernon Harcourt patted some papers together and I wondered how many lives would be affected if he were to thrust them into the fire.
‘I hear that you are destined for the Exchequer,’ Sidney Grice stated. ‘Which means I shall have to waste time training your successor.’ My godfather turned to the secretary who was just about to announce that our time was up, and said, ‘You may not record those remarks.’
‘But how could you know about the chancellorship? I only found out myself an hour ago.’ The Home Secretary dabbed at his beard, as if trying to stop it slipping any further, before answering his own question. ‘Your charming mother.’
‘I do not have a charming mother.’ Mr G rested his right ankle on his left knee.
‘Would you not like to quit office as the man who brought such a notorious murderer to justice?’ I proposed.
Vernon Harcourt did not need to ponder that question very long.
‘And you are convinced that this will provide the evidence you need to do that?’
‘No.’ Mr G returned to monosyllables. ‘But you owe me four favours.’
Sir William’s lips worked against each other. It seemed he did not like to be reminded of that. ‘Very well,’ he decided.
‘We are one minute late,’ the young man announced in despair.
‘Make a note, Henry.’ The Home Secretary rose majestically. ‘Exhumation order on my desk as soon as Mr Grice supplies the details. And now I must deal with some trade unionists.’
‘To have them imprisoned?’ Sidney Grice enquired hopefully.
‘Dear Mr Grice,’ Vernon Harcourt said mournfully. ‘How you must miss the like of Viscount Castlereagh.’
‘At least he knew how to deal with insurrectionists.’ Mr G referred wistfully to the Peterloo Massacre.
‘Best not record that either, Henry.’ The Home Secretary ushered us so skilfully that I was hardly aware we were being shown out.
‘I am not sure I liked him,’ I commented as we rejoined the crowds.
‘He will not harm you.’ Sidney Grice turned a cigar butt over with his toe before sending it into the gutter. ‘It is the nice people who are the most dangerous.’
He waved his cane.
‘Then you must be a perfect lamb.’ I put my fingers in my mouth, but a cab pulled over before I had the chance to blow.