‘Are you sure?’ ‘I can only go by what the butler said, my lord,’ William McKenzie replied. ‘And I didn’t want to press him too hard about the Thursday services. It might have seemed suspicious when I was meant to be working on a book about the moated houses of England.’ ‘What exactly did he say about the Thursday services, William?’ McKenzie turned back a few pages in his notebook. ‘I wrote all this down in the train on the way back. He said a Jesuit came to celebrate Mass every Thursday.’ Jesuits, thought Powerscourt. The shock troops of the Counter Reformation, the Imperial Guard of the College for Propaganda in the battle for the hearts and souls of the unconverted. Christ Almighty. What on earth was going on in this sleepy cathedral town? ‘It makes sense of the bag, my lord. He must carry his Jesuit vestments to and from Melbury Clinton every week.’ ‘It certainly does,’ said Powerscourt. ‘William, you have done magnificently.
