Death of an Elgin Marble (36 page)

And we saw thee sad eyed

Thy tears on thy cheeks,

While thy raiment was dyed

In the blood of the Greeks.

When they reached the Parthenon the procession fell into ranks in front of the building. The Archbishop climbed to the top of the steps and looked down on his people. He raised a hand aloft for silence.

‘My fellow Athenians,’ he began, ‘my fellow Greeks, what a joy it is to welcome you here this afternoon. I thank you all for coming and I thank all those, alive or dead, who are with us here in spirit on this great day. For all eternity, my friends, today will be known as the Day of Return, the Day our Caryatid came home. She lived here in ancient times, she has stood next to this great building, our Parthenon, when it was a Roman Catholic church, she has stood here when it was a mosque, she has stood here when it was used as an armoury and a Venetian shell ripped the heart out of the Parthenon in the bad times of the Ottomans. She was seized, in an act of international piracy, by the wicked pirate Elgin and carried off to the cold climate and the colder religion of England. Today she has come home. Today, very soon now, we shall lift her back in the place where she belongs. One of our great scholars, a professor of theology at the university here no less, suggested to me that we should welcome the statue home with a Hail Mary. I thought long and hard, but I said no. We in the Church do not claim the Caryatid as one of our own. That would be to deny her origins and the culture she came from. The men who put her on her porch knew of the gods who lived on Olympus, often driven by whim and pique and ridiculous conflicts with their fellows, they knew of the gods who dwelt in the woods and the streams, they were always aware of those hard taskmasters, Fate and Necessity, who could call, unexpected and unannounced, at any door at any time. But she is still ours, the Caryatid. We embrace her as an example of the spirit of Greece, the essence of the Hellenes and one who will dwell happily with us in our new freedom.’

The Archbishop made the sign of the Cross and returned to his station. The choirs picked up the National Anthem again.

Yet behold now thy sons

With impetuous breath

Go forth to the fight

Seeking Freedom or Death.

The great crowd, now a couple of thousand strong, moved across to the Erechtheion. A screen was erected outside it to hide the work necessary to place the Caryatid securely on her porch. As the restoration went on, the two choirs spread out, holding hands right round the audience. Everyone was encouraged to sing the last verse. They sang it twice.

From the graves of our slain

Shall thy valour prevail

As we greet thee again

Hail, Liberty! Hail!

A great blue cloak, large enough to adorn a giant, was now fluttering above the porch. A set of steps was placed next to it for the Archbishop. He mounted very slowly. As he tugged it aside he shouted to the assembled multitude: ‘Caryatid of the Erechtheion porch, Caryatid of the Acropolis—’ he waved his right hand very slowly round the ruined buildings still standing on the High City ‘—Caryatid of Athena, Caryatid of Athens—’ the Archbishop raised his arms to his Christian God in the heavens above ‘—Caryatid of Greece, Welcome home!’

There were twenty-four hours left before the Caryatid might be returned to the British Museum. The Powerscourt telephone rang shortly after eight o’clock that morning.

‘Powerscourt? Good morning to you. Kingsley here. I’ve just had some great news. We’ve found Easton, the man you described as the missing link between Stanhope and Deptford. I’ve just had a note from the Governor of Pentonville, complete with the last address they have for him. The local police confirm that a man answering to that name is still there.’

‘Well done, Inspector. Good news indeed. Where is the fellow?’

‘He’s in Maidstone, my lord. A villa in the better part of town, houses set back from the road, you know the sort of thing, Holland House, Riverside Drive. And that’s not all. The Governor tells me that he befriended Carver Wilkins during his days in prison. Carver was locked up in Pentonville at the same time. Carver Wilkins is the criminal boss of Deptford and controller of the Twins, as you know. They became, if you’ll pardon the expression, as thick as thieves in Pentonville, forever plotting the crimes they would commit once they left the jail. The Governor is sure they kept in touch after they were released. Carver Wilkins was let out a fortnight after Easton.’

‘So what are your plans, Inspector? Are you going to interrupt the man’s peace down there by the river in Maidstone?’

‘I most certainly am, my lord. I just need to talk to our money man here at the Yard so he can begin inquiries immediately into the Easton bank accounts. Then my Sergeant and I are going to Kent. I’ve asked the local police to pick him up and hold him in a cell. I’ve suggested they give him a pretty hard time. The Governor told me that Easton was a frightful coward, always worried about being beaten up in the jail. He only calmed down when Carver Wilkins was able to give him some protection. With any luck he’ll be ready to talk by the time we get there.’

Robert Burke, Inspector Kingsley’s sergeant, was reading through all his notes on the case so far as their train pulled out of Charing Cross. Inspector Kingsley was staring out of the window as the suburbs of London sped away. This case is going to end very soon, he said to himself. It might even end this week. It could not end early enough for the Inspector. He had made up his mind now. The Affair of the Missing Caryatid would be his last case. His resignation note was already written, waiting in a drawer at home. He wondered how he could conduct the interview with William Tyndale Easton to close the case even quicker.

‘You still haven’t given me a proper answer to my question, Francis.’ Lady Lucy Powerscourt was hardly ever really cross with her husband. But when he failed to give you a proper answer to an important question for almost a whole day, it was inevitable that there should be a certain fraying of the edges in a wife’s temper.

‘What question is that, my love?’

‘You know perfectly what the question is, Francis. It’s perfectly simple. Do you think the Caryatid will be returned to the British Museum tomorrow morning?’

‘Ah, the Caryatid. Perhaps a Caryatid, who knows, Lucy. I have to confess that I have not given you an answer because I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not at all sure. Last night I felt certain that she would be back where she belongs in Great Russell Street tomorrow morning. This morning I am in two minds all over again. I am beginning to feel superstitious about the matter, that if don’t express an opinion, she will reappear, and that if I do, she won’t. You see my difficulty?’

‘I do, of course I do. Why didn’t you say so? But really, Francis, I know you fairly well by now. We have been married for a while. I’m sure you must have a view, one way or the other.’

Powerscourt sighed and picked up his hat. ‘Very well. I am going to Amersham to root about in the outhouses and the neighbouring buildings of the Hellenic College.’

He was halfway out of the front door now. ‘But let me tell you, Lucy, if you twisted my arm right up my back and asked me for my thoughts on the possible return of the statue, I would say yes, I think it will be returned. But I would not offer an opinion on whether it will be the real thing or a copy. I wouldn’t bet a single farthing on that, one way or the other.’

William Tyndale Easton was sitting on a plain prison chair in front of a plain prison table. He was wearing a tweed jacket and a pair of brown trousers. His hair looked as if it had not been combed properly that morning and there was a small cut on his left cheek. The Maidstone police had arrived before he had completed his toilette. On the other side of the table were Sergeant Burke, looking serious, and Inspector Kingsley, who had conducted a long inspection of the prisoner, including a slow walk right round Easton’s chair. He knew that his first question could determine the shape of the whole interview.

‘Looking forward to going back, are you?’

There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Easton sounded hesitant.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. You’ve been there before after all, haven’t you?’

‘Been where, please, Inspector? You’re confusing me.’

A more sensible prisoner would have told me to go to hell, or words to that effect, Christopher Kingsley said to himself. Easton was looking frightened now.

‘It was Pentonville last time, wasn’t it? God knows where it’ll be this time. His Majesty has a large number of places where he can park his criminals. You remember what prison’s like? The food? The lack of privacy? The beatings-up? The queues where you can be kicked and punched for a quarter of an hour at a time? The dark places at the end of a passageway where a knife or a fist or a boot might be waiting for you? I’m sure you remember them well.’

Easton looked at the Inspector with pleading eyes. He said nothing. Kingsley wondered how many times he had been assaulted in Pentonville before Carver Wilkins gave him protection. The Inspector took a deep breath. He felt suddenly like a man about to jump off the edge of a cliff into the river below and is not sure he will survive.

‘Come, come,’ he began, ‘we don’t need to go into details at this stage. We just need to know how they worked, the links between you and Carver Wilkins and Dr Tristram Stanhope. That’s all.’

A part of the Inspector’s brain was expecting an instant denial. But that was not the response he got.

‘What do you mean, the links between us?’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. I should remind you of some of the crimes connected with the affair of which I speak: robbery, blackmail, extortion, murder. You can work out the length of prison sentence those crimes carry.’ The Inspector paused and placed his hands round his neck. ‘Or, indeed, the length of the drop.’

‘I didn’t know anything about any murders. I didn’t know there had been any. You’ve got to believe me, Inspector, please.’

‘We’ll see about that. We know perfectly well how the links worked but it would be good to hear it in your own words.’

Easton looked desperately at his interrogators as if a very long stare might make them disappear. ‘This is how it worked,’ he whispered. ‘God help me and my family if Carver Wilkins ever finds out that I told you.’

Scylla and Charybdis, Sergeant Burke, who had liked the ancient myths at school, said to himself. Scylla is here with my Inspector threatening him with the rope, Charybdis lurks in Deptford with broken bones and cigarette burns from the Twins.

‘Stanhope had the ideas. I worked them out. Carver Wilkins organized the criminals.’

‘Could you give us an example of how it worked in practice?’

There was another pause, then a great sigh, as if from a man who realizes that he has no choice but to put more cards on the table.

Inspector Kingsley took another deep breath and prepared for another jump.

‘How about the Caryatid?’ he asked. ‘The Caryatid from the British Museum?’

‘I didn’t have much to do with that, Inspector. Dr Stanhope told Carver how to bribe the Greek porters and when they should steal it during the fire alarm. I don’t even know where they took it.’

‘Really? Really?’ was the Inspector’s reply. ‘So what precisely was your role in the affair?’

‘I went to America for them. I’d been to New York once before to sort out the Turner before that all got stuck. I fixed up the sale of one of those Caryatids to that rich American fellow. His people bought me a very lavish dinner in New York. It must have been the most expensive meal I’ve ever had. Caviar, langoustines, champagne.’

‘We don’t want to know the bloody menu, thank you very much.’ Inspector Kingsley felt an overpowering urge to ask William Easton if he had travelled first class across the Atlantic. There was a knock at the door. A sergeant with a giant moustache handed a note to the Inspector. ‘Thank you,’ said Kingsley, taking out his spectacles to read it. ‘No reply for the moment, thank you.’

Looking at his watch, Sergeant Burke noted that it was exactly half past eleven. He wondered if the time of the note’s arrival was not a coincidence.

‘This note provides more interesting information about your position, Mr Easton. It tells me that you have a great deal of money in your main bank account. How much of that came from the American sale?’

Easton was trying to shrink, to turn himself into a smaller, almost invisible, Easton. ‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped the Inspector. ‘Let me remind you of the more sinister aspect of these crimes, the blackmail, the murders. Do you want to be named in those indictments?’

‘It was a great deal of money. But then the man Mitchell is a very wealthy fellow. He’s a millionaire many times over.’

‘How much?’

‘He had a town house in New York, you know. And a place out at the Hamptons where the millionaires have those parties. And one up near West Point.’

‘I don’t care if he owns all of Fifth Avenue and the Statue of Liberty.’ Kingsley was getting cross now. ‘How much?’

‘Well, there was rather a row about the price.’

‘For God’s sake, man. I don’t care if he gave you an updated version of the Sermon on the Mount. How much?’

‘Over a hundred thousand dollars.’

‘How much more than a hundred thousand dollars? And don’t give me any more nonsense or you’ll be back in Pentonville before lunch and you may never come out again.’

‘A hundred and twenty-five thousand.’

‘Well, well,’ said the Inspector, ‘it’s easy to see where your bank balance came from.’

Inspector Kingsley had a sudden picture of the Twins, prowling round Maidstone looking for their prey. He thought Carver Wilkins would not hesitate to issue a termination order on William Tyndale Easton if he knew what he had told the police. He remembered Lucas Ringer, still holed up in his Aberystwyth hotel, the only man who could give firm evidence against the Twins, and even then, as the Inspector knew well, a clever barrister could plant doubt in the mind of the jury because the witness had seen the Twins in the pub, but that did not mean that they had committed the crime.