In the garden of 9 Sheridan Place, the newspaper lay unread on the grass. It did not merit a second glance from Jeremy Faro, recently retired as Chief Inspector of Edinburgh City Police.
The 1880s had been notable for attempts on royal personages. Scandals and assassinations were fashionable, as were highly lucrative pursuits of international villains who found times of political unrest greatly to their advantage.
The Russian Emperor had been blown to pieces by nihilists, and across the Atlantic President Garfield had fallen victim to an assassin's bullet.
Earlier that year, in January 1889, the courts of Europe had been shocked by news that the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, only son and heir of Emperor Franz Joseph, had committed suicide after shooting his eighteen-year-old mistress in the hunting-lodge at Mayerling.
'I have your queen. I have killed her!'
A shrill voice at his side and Faro shuddered. The past decade had also been notable for several attempts, all carefully hushed-up, on Her Majesty's life, frustrated by the speedy intervention of Inspector Jeremy Faro.
Had he been tempted by the newspaper fluttering in the gentle breeze, it would have been to sigh with relief that such matters were no longer any of his business or responsibility. His greatest concern at the present moment was averting a more imminent domestic disaster.
Another shrill cry. 'Look, I have killed your queen, Grandpa.'
Faro sighed and glanced at the chessboard. To his cost he had been teaching five-year-old Jamie to play. An apt pupil, though with a regrettable tendency to cheat. This was currently demonstrated by driving his black knight straight across the board regardless of any rules, ruthlessly belting the white queen such a mortal blow that she toppled on to the grass and came to rest in very unseemly royal fashion beside the unread newspaper.
Again Faro sighed. ‘Pick her up, if you please, Jamie. And the correct term is "checkmate" not "kill".'
Jamie grinned, an endearing mass of yellow curls and guileless blue eyes. 'But I won, didn't I, Grandpa? I polished her off,' he said triumphantly. 'And that is what counts.'
Leaping from his seat, he put his arms around his step-grandfather's neck and hugged him. 'That is one crime you needn't bother to solve, is it not?'
'Indeed it is not. Thank you for that, Jamie,' said Faro drily.
In truth he had no more crimes to solve ever and that pleased him exceedingly. Death and disaster on such a day as this seemed mere flights of fancy, a far cry from his peaceful garden watched over by the long-extinct volcano famous as Arthur's Seat.
He sighed happily, from this oasis of joy with a beloved family, content in the knowledge that there would be many other days just as good. Peaceful days that would stretch into his sunset years...
Again he sighed. At the certainty of a blissful, uneventful life stretching into a future, infinitely preferable to putting up with, and putting his life at risk from, the criminal fraternity.
Replacing the chessmen on the board for the umpteenth time, he smiled. 'We'll try again, shall we, Jamie?'
The only threat to that warm late October day had been a white queen at risk from Jamie's passionate disregard for the rules of the game. The only cloud on his day was a talk to be given on Founder's Day at Glenatholl College. The future had approached with alarming rapidity, to become 'tomorrow'.
It hampered his spirit like an undigested meal, regarded with considerably more anxiety than facing any villain.
This tranquil scene in the garden was overlooked by Jamie's father, Dr Vince Laurie, writing at his open study window. With feelings relaxed and paternal, he observed his pretty young wife Olivia taking off the heads of the last summer roses.
Under shady trees the latest addition to the family, their brand-new daughter, lay in her perambulator and Vince hoped that she would remain inert for a while longer and that peace would continue to reign over the household.
He shook his head in wonderment. In all his years of handling new-born infants he had never heard such a monstrous loud voice issuing forth from a mere six pounds of humanity. It was, he firmly believed, quite capable of shattering crystal and he winced at Jamie's shrill cry, certain it would wake that small volcano of sound.
His son hated to lose, loved this new game, the feeling of infinite power of moving kings, queens, bishops and knights across a chessboard. Laying aside his medical books, Vince went down the stairs and into the garden.
With an arm around Jamie, he said to Faro, 'This one is going to be a politician, I fear, Stepfather. And that will break his dear mother's heart. She has already pinned her hopes on a doctor or an artist.'
He had spoken loud enough for Olivia to overhear. Laying aside the secateurs, she tiptoed over to the sleeping babe and, ignoring Vince's remarks, said sternly 'You mustn't cheat, Jamie - that's very naughty. Gentlemen don't cheat.'
'Are you including doctors and artists in that category, my dear?' teased Vince; and to Faro, 'He has picked up chess amazingly - better than I did when you tried to teach me as a wee lad.'
Faro smiled at the memory, albeit a little painfully since he had been singularly unsuccessful in that respect with the sullen resentful stepson who had been eight-year-old Vince.
Now joining the trio gazing fondly upon the new arrival, he was relieved that Olivia's pregnancy was safely over, remembering all too well the hazards that had taken Vince's mother, his own beloved Lizzie. Two girls, Rose and Emily, then a stillborn son had cost her her life and brought Vince and Faro with less than twenty years between them as close as brothers in their shared grief;
Such were the thoughts in Faro's mind surrounded by that scene of happy family life. Ruffling Jamie's curls, so like his father's in boyhood, he said: ‘Aye, I reckon you'll be like all little lads, won't you? First you'll be a lamplighter and go through all the stages to Lord Advocate. Then perhaps you'll please your mamma by settling for a respectable Edinburgh profession.'
'And Baby must be an opera singer with a voice like that,' said Vince.
Their laughter was accompanied by a blackbird's bitter-sweet requiem to a dying year, although on that radiant afternoon, cruel winter and such melancholy intimations were not even visible as a tiny dark cloud to mar an azure sky.
The kitchen door opened and there was Mrs Brook, bringing out a tea tray. Vince leapt up to assist her. Jamie followed suit, rushing forward to be restrained from seizing a piece of her excellent sponge cake.
As he wailed that he loved Mrs Brook's cakes, she smiled indulgently on these dear people she had served as housekeeper for many years and come to regard not as employers, but as her family.
Dr Laurie now occupied the whole house, his surgery shared with a medical partner. Two rooms were set aside for guests and his father's fleeting visits, on the first floor were the family apartments, and above were attics, the domain of a nanny and a maid. Mrs Brook had been reluctantly persuaded by increasing age and a certain stiffness in her joints, which she refused to admit, plus the doctor's increasing family, that she could no longer take care of the whole house single-handed.
Sipping his tea, Faro sat back in his chair. So this was retirement. He sighed blissfully, happy and at peace with the world.
Vince took the seat opposite and had stretched out his hand for the still-folded newspaper with its sensational headline, when a noise like a foghorn, or a ship in distress on the distant River Forth, signalled that Baby, as she was presently known, was awake.
The fond father leaped to his feet and rushed over to the perambulator. 'Baby - hello - a smile for your Pappa.'
Baby indeed, thought Faro, she had not yet a name and would continue her anonymous existence until her parents made the difficult choice. A decision which threatened to wreck that otherwise happy marriage. Vince wanted Mary or Elizabeth (Lizzie after his mother) while Olivia wanted Amelia after her own grandmother. Daily the argument continued back and forth and as the time of registration loomed, unheeded, it seemed that Miss Laurie would be doomed to be known as Baby for the rest of
her life.
Faro, asked to mediate, said tactfully he thought Mary more appropriate. Without the merest flicker of presentiment he had his own uncomfortable reasons for not wanting a granddaughter called Amelia.
Some thirteen years ago he had known an Amelie, the foreign version of Amelia. She rarely entered his thoughts any more and he had little desire to have a constant daily reminder of that thoroughly unsettling incident - a strange mystery and the brief emotional turmoil which had marked his encounter with the Grand Duchess of Luxoria.
Such matters were past history, voluntary retirement had settled dangerous royal rescues for ever. Here was peace at last, he told himself very frequently - the time he had waited for, scarred by thirty years of dealing with the threat of death.
Here was the Indian summer of a man's life. Content, he lolled in a garden chair, with a pile of unread books at his side and an unwritten lecture for Glenatholl College the only serpent in his Eden.
When that was over, he could indulge again his newly found love of travel. The excitement of new places in Europe had been denied him during his long service, which included serving Her Majesty incognito as personal detective within limits set by the borders of England and Scotland. Now the popularity of railway trains, frequent at home and on the Continent, opened up new opportunities for fast and comfortable travel.
At his side, Vince, setting down his teacup, picked up the newspaper and about to open it, folded it once again in an irritable gesture as the sudden breeze threatened to wrest it from his grasp. Seeing Olivia carrying Baby into the house for her afternoon feed, he said, 'can't read outside - think I'll go in. Come along, Jamie. Grandpa has work to do.'
Faro smiled. ‘Let him stay.'
‘If he promises to be good. How's the talk for Glenatholl coming along?’
'Where's Glen-ath-oll? Can I come?' demanded Jamie.
'Not this time, but some day when you are older, you will be going there as a pupil. You'll like that,' said Vince.
'Is it far? And will Baby be going too?'
'It isn't very far, and no, Baby won't be going. It's a boys' public school.'
Famous too. And costly since most of the crowned heads of Europe and Asia, and the world's wealthiest and mightiest, sent their sons there to be educated. Without barrier of colour or creed, Glenatholl prided itself on liberalism, or more candidly, the production of a reliable bank account by parent or guardian.
Faro remembered how he had paid for Vince's education after Lizzie died, saving and scrimping on a policeman's salary to send him to university. To be a doctor. Now, unless Vince achieved his ambition of becoming Queen's Physician, his long-dreamed-of ambition, he was unlikely to be able to afford his son's fees at Glenatholl.
Though Vince was delighted when his stepfather had been chosen to give the Founder's Day lecture, Faro, alas, did not share his enthusiasm. Regarding the event with growing dread, he would have welcomed a suitable excuse to refuse, but was unable to do so without sounding churlish, as well as wounding Vince's hopes for Jamie.
In truth his talk was at present only a few notes on the back of an envelope. He felt totally unable to put his thoughts down on paper and read them aloud and, more importantly, was unsure whether his choice of lecture subject would be compelling to the boys. 'Crime', yes, but 'In Our Society'? How could he hope to stimulate the interest or arouse the sympathy of such pupils for the appalling conditions of Edinburgh's poor and the crimes it nurtured? It would be a foreign field indeed for these sons of the rich and noble in their cushioned existence. However, he would tell them interesting anecdotes and hope that no one fell asleep, or had to be excused feeling sick.
'You'll have Arles Castle to look forward to after your talk, Stepfather. Perth should be looking marvellous if this weather holds and it must be - how many years since you last saw Sir Julian? Before he remarried, wasn't it? And there's now a son and heir. What a relief that must be for him after all those childless years.'
Sir Julian's first wife, to whom he had been devoted, had long been an invalid. Faro had been at her funeral four years ago.
'The break will do you a power of good,' Vince continued in his best doctor-patient voice, following Olivia and Baby into the house and clutching under his arm that instrument of his stepfather's nemesis, the daily newspaper.
Chapter 2
Idly watching his stepfather from the kitchen window while Olivia, having given Nanny the day off, prepared Miss Laurie for her afternoon feed, Vince considered the man and the small boy, their heads bent over the chessboard in a garden tinged with the reds, golds and purple of a perfect autumn day.
The still-handsome man, the Viking from Orkney, the tarnished fair hair becomingly streaked with silver. The strange long eyes, deep blue and piercing, slightly hooded like a bird of prey. The delicately hooked straight nose and full mouth.
Olivia came to his side and interpreted his thoughts as she often did. 'He doesn't look past fifty, does he?'
'Indeed he does not,' and Vince ruefully touched his own thinning hair, once a mass of thick curls like Jamie's.
'Put a helmet with horns on him and he'd still look as if he'd stepped off a Viking ship,' said Olivia.
'And strike terror into the hearts of all the womenfolk,' said her husband.
'Oh, I don't know about that, dearest,' was the smooth response, 'there should be worse fates than being carried off by such an attractive man.'
Vince chuckled. 'My darling, you read too many romances.'
Olivia sighed. 'I wish he'd read more romances.'
Her husband looked at her quickly. 'Marry again, is that what you have in mind? Perhaps this visit to Sir Julian will put him in the right frame of mind. After all, he's older than Stepfather.'
'Not marry again in general, I don't mean that. Just marry Imogen. She's so right for him, Vince.'
'It isn't for lack of trying on his part; reading between the lines I think it is what he most wants. Not that Imogen would make the perfect wife. She isn't a county type, like Lady Arles. And I can't see Imogen settling down to an Edinburgh social life of luncheons and dinners and calling cards. Now, can you? Admit it!'
Olivia sighed again and shook her head. ‘Not even remotely, dear. Still one of the wild lrish, l suppose.’
'And no bad thing,' said Vince loyally. 'Anyway, Stepfather and Imogen are happy as they are. What's wrong with that?'
'It's so - unconventional. I don't know how to introduce her-'
'Luckily there aren't too many occasions,' said Vince drily, refraining from adding what Olivia clearly knew only too well from her 'wild Irish' remark - that Imogen was still in danger under British law, classed as a wanted Fenian terrorist. Although it had never been proved, she was wise to travel incognito.
She showed wisdom in not wishing to become Faro's wife in the eyes of the law and, knowing Imogen, Vince decided that she remained his companion only - whatever happened when the bedroom door was closed - in Faro's own interests and for his good reputation's sake. Imogen Crowe might have reformed but Vince did not doubt that there were many who would have seized any opportunity to throw her into prison.
'You're quite right, dear, of course,' said Olivia. 'There are many problems they have to face. But relationships like theirs are a little, well - untidy, you must admit.'
Considering that the highest in the land, namely the Prince of Wales himself, had set a fashion in mistresses, Vince did not feel that his stepfather's reputation would sustain any lasting damage.
And as Olivia carried Baby up to the nursery to feed her, followed by Mrs Brook with the week's meals to discuss, his eyes drifted once more to that scene in the garden below. A moment he wished he could capture for eternity, one to take out and regard in wonder over the coming years.
He shivered, his normally practical soul disturbed by a strange feeling that it was vital to halt time's relentless progress. To preserve in amber this scene of a man and a boy, heads bent over a chessboard.
Olivia was a t
alented amateur painter and hearing her talking to Mrs Brook, he thought this was what she should be doing instead of concerning herself with dreary matters of no importance whatever, such as whether it should be roast beef or lamb on the menu.
He shook his head, unfolded the newspaper and turned to (he back page in search of the most important item - the results of the golfing championship at St Andrews' famous 'Royal and Ancient’ course.
Meanwhile, unaware that his relationship with Imogen Crowe had been the subject of such speculation, Faro stretched out his hand to the pile of books beside him and selected one more challenge he had set himself - a foreign language to be speedily learned, or so ‘German in Six Easy Lessons’ implied. It would be a useful and necessary addition for his travels in Europe at the side of the Irish writer, his devoted friend and companion, as he described her.
He would very much have liked to change all that and make her his wife, but Imogen would have none of it. She had been free too long and, in her early forties, she considered herself too old to have children even if she had wanted them.
Imogen had a suffragette's attitude to marriage, to any threats to women's freedom for which she had fought so long. And Faro loved her independence, her wit and humour, her passionate dedication to the world's lost causes, although he failed entirely to convince her that he might be eligible for inclusion as a failed suitor. And most of all there was Ireland, her dedication to Home Rule, for which she had sacrificed much in the past, including members of her family murdered for their patriotism.
So Faro followed her to France, to Italy, Austria and Germany, where he found himself for the first time at a considerable disadvantage. Unable to understand a word being said around him, he lurked in the background, a polite observer with a fixed smile, until Imogen, a natural linguist, became aware of his discomfort and embarrassment and patiently translated for him. This was a situation to be deplored, it annoyed him intensely and he made a stern resolve to put his retirement to good use.
[Inspector Faro 14] - Faro and the Royals Page 35
