M, King's Bodyguard

by Niall Leonard

  “Good God,” said Quinn, voicing what we were all thinking. If Gustav was right, to start decoding this message we’d have to track down all the others, and that would mean searching every classified advertisement in every newspaper published in the last week—and there were scores of daily newspapers, from The Army & Navy Gazette to The Sporting Life. With only two days to the funeral, there was simply not enough time for such a search. The only alternative was to interrogate the maid herself—which would immediately alert Lady Diamond and, inevitably, Akushku.

  “When does The Pall Mall Gazette go to press?” I asked Johnson. He peered at my wall-clock.

  “In just under forty-five minutes, sir.”

  “We can’t let this run, sir,” said Quinn. “Not without knowing what it means.”

  “ ‘A very happy birthday, with fondest love from all the family’?” said Steinhauer. “It means that all is well. It is too vague to mean anything else, and there is nothing else for her to pass on. The Chief Superintendent’s latest report contained nothing of value to him.”

  “But unless we crack the code, we can’t be certain of that, Herr Steinhauer,” insisted Quinn, with some irritation.

  “And if the advertisement doesn’t appear at all,” I intervened, “Akushku will certainly know we have smoked her.” The four of them fell silent and waited for me to make a decision. Whatever I did, I thought, it would probably be wrong. But I could not do nothing. I tucked the note back into the envelope and handed it over to Johnson.

  “Tell the Pall Mall Gazette to print it,” I said. “Is the team still watching the house?”

  “Yes, sir, six men, as per your instructions.”

  “We don’t have time to sit and wait,” I said. “Let’s grasp this nettle.”

  20

  When the handsome young footman opened Lord Diamond’s front door, I skipped the formalities and barged past him and saw that pompous fart of a butler gliding up the hall, his face rigid with contempt and disapproval.

  “I understand Lady Diamond is at home,” I said, before he could fob me off. The team watching the house had told me as much.

  “Her Ladyship is not receiving visitors,” said the butler, “and Lord Diamond is at his club. If you would care to leave your card—”

  “Lord Diamond,” I said, “is currently enjoying the delights of a bawdy house in Bloomsbury. Fetch Lady Diamond down here now, or I’ll go and find her myself.” The old flunkey’s jaw dropped open and his eyes bulged in his head. He looked close to a seizure.

  “Musgrave? What on earth is going on?” A regal female voice echoed from the landing above—without real anger or indignation, I noted, but with the same icy hauteur Steinhauer and I had encountered on our last visit. “What is all this babbling about?” The lady herself turned the corner of the grand staircase and paused there, looking down on Steinhauer and me with a stare intended to turn us to stone. Musgrave twitched impotently.

  “My Lady—” he called out apologetically.

  “We’d like a word, Lady Diamond,” I cut in. I saw emotions flicker across her square, plain face—amusement, triumph and hatred—before she composed her features once more into the genteel mask she had worn when we last met. How long had she been wearing that disguise?

  “Chief Superintendent Melville. And Herr Steinhauer, isn’t it?”

  Steinhauer smiled, and said nothing. He clicked his heels together, and his customary half bow had an odd air of insolence.

  “I presume you have a reason for barging into a private residence, Officer? Apart from your desire to be dismissed from the police.”

  “If Her Ladyship would join us in the morning-room, a full explanation will be forthcoming.” I smiled. By the look on her face, she already knew the explanations would be coming from her, not me.

  * * *

  —

  No other members of the household saw us enter the morning-room, which was the way I had wanted it. The fewer staff aware of our visit, the fewer could gossip about it, which risked tipping off Akushku. Musgrave the butler, red-faced and clumsy with indignation, shut the door behind us, leaving us surrounded by Lady Diamond’s displays of dried flowers, including one I’d noticed last time, composed entirely of ferns.

  “I am impressed, Mr. Melville,” she said, “that you are so determined to find out what became of the fan I lost.”

  “The fan was never lost, ma’am. We will come to that in due course.”

  Taking a seat in a high-backed chair, Lady Diamond calmly arranged her dress. She didn’t invite us to sit, but merely waited for me to speak.

  “Your Ladyship is well acquainted with His Majesty the King,” I said.

  “Many women are,” she replied coolly. “The King is known for it.”

  “It has come to my attention that you and the King have been in an irregular relationship. A criminal correspondence.” Lady Diamond pulled a puzzled face. “Please don’t waste our time by denying it.”

  She sighed, and shrugged. “I take it the King himself told you this? What a weak, indiscreet man he is. You must know this, you are his bodyguard. Though not a very good one, if our relationship comes as such a surprise to you.”

  “We are here because certain information passed between you.”

  “We talked. What of it?”

  “You obtained sensitive information from His Majesty that you subsequently passed on to a third party.”

  She smiled, sweetly and coldly. “Third party? I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “My Lady, I shall warn you for the last time, do not insult us with lies and evasions. I will speak plainly to you, in the hope that you will show me the same courtesy. An anarchist agitator who calls himself Akushku is planning to attack the royal funeral. We have very nearly caught him several times, but he has always managed to escape, because somehow he was being made aware of our movements.”

  The smile hovered on her face, but it seemed warmer now, perhaps because she was genuinely amused.

  “You have been intimate with His Majesty on several occasions,” I went on. “You have encouraged him to divulge details of our operations. You have sent your housemaid out every day to place advertisements in certain London newspapers. These advertisements are coded messages to Akushku, passing on what you have learned.”

  Still Lady Diamond said nothing.

  “I take it from your silence you don’t deny any of these statements?”

  “You can take from it what you wish.” She reached out to a small wooden box sitting on a table beside her chair, but before she could open it, Steinhauer was there, placing his hand over hers. Ignoring her frosty glare, he flipped the lid open, looked inside and smiled. He picked up the box and offered it to her; it contained nothing more dangerous than cigarettes. Smoking was hardly a habit one expected of a noblewoman, but perhaps she’d picked it up from Edward. On the scale of things it seemed an insignificant vice. Steinhauer struck a match from the box and lit the cigarette for her.

  “You sent him a message this morning,” I continued.

  “Is that a question?” She inhaled deeply.

  “Yes or no?”

  “Why are you asking me questions when you have already decided on the answers? If time is so short?”

  “Very well—where is this man Akushku?”

  “I have not the faintest idea who or what you are talking about.”

  “You have been conspiring with a terrorist, madam. A man who wants to assassinate the Kaiser, and quite possibly the King himself, your lover.”

  “You think I love him?” Now Lady Diamond almost laughed.

  “No. But I think you acted out of love.”

  Improbable as it seemed, she was in love with Akushku, of that much I was certain. An irrational, impetuous sort of love, if she was sending him secret messages with flowers, like some in
fatuated adolescent. How long had she known Akushku, and how had they met?

  But those answers were less important than what Akushku meant to do next. I had to tread delicately; such nobles did not take kindly to being bullied or shouted at by the lower orders—the boot was usually on the other foot—but I sensed in this woman a core of cold steel. If it suited her she would retreat into glacial silence, and I could not afford that. If I was right, the passion that had motivated this treason was a secret she had carried for years, unable to confess to anyone; she must have been longing for a chance to set this burden down, to speak the truth for once. I had to lend a sympathetic ear, and draw her out until it was too late for retreat.

  “A woman has so few weapons in this world,” said Her Ladyship at last. “Men have all the power, all the freedom. Oh yes, I have a title, and wealth, and a position in society.” The last word was tinged with contempt. “Little people like you bow and scrape to me and touch their hats. But the man who sweeps my chimneys is freer than I am.”

  “You’re saying you were coerced?” said Steinhauer. “Was this man Akushku blackmailing you?” He glanced at me and encountered a hard look—Don’t interrupt her! His nod of apology was almost imperceptible. Fortunately Lady Diamond had not even troubled herself to look at him.

  “Really, you two are distinguished policemen? No wonder the radicals outwit you so easily. It is almost amusing to watch you stumble about in the dark, tripping over each other. No, I was not coerced. Whatever I have done, or have not done, was of my own free will. It is gratifying to make even a small difference.”

  Now we were getting close to a confession. I decided she needed a nudge. “The fan your husband said you lost, you gave it to Akushku, didn’t you? So he could present it to the young lady he was lodging with, to turn her head? To assure her of his affections?”

  Lady Diamond hesitated a moment, as if considering whether to carry on denying everything or to enjoy teasing us with details. “My husband purchased it for one of his…paramours. I found it and used it to a more constructive purpose.”

  Constructive purpose? It was as I’d suspected; she’d convinced herself of the justice of the anarchist cause. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she wanted to lash out at the world, and Akushku had offered her the opportunity. “Where did you first meet Akushku?” I asked. She knew the terrorist’s true name, I was sure; I was hoping that given the right provocation she might blurt it out. But Lady Diamond was gazing into the distance, as if recalling a distant memory. I felt a flare of irritation; it struck me as a mannerism filched from a stage play, some melodrama in which she had cast herself as the tragic heroine.

  “Do you know what it is like to be bought and sold, like livestock?” she said. “I was traded, at the age of fifteen, to that reptile, that excuse for a man, Diamond. A dazzling name for a lump of dung. A man who despised and resented me from the moment he laid eyes on me. My family had no need of wealth; they had enough and plenty. They had land, and houses, and servants—but they wanted a title.” She made it sound like a useless frippery, a tin medal. “I was sold like a broodmare to Lord and Lady Diamond, for their son to mount. So they would not go bankrupt, and my family could call itself noble.”

  I waited, and nodded. This time Steinhauer followed my lead.

  “Noble! Has any term ever become so debased, so perverted?” she went on. “Noblemen like my husband squander thousands on horses and cards and whores and opium, and sneer at the working people who slave and starve to keep them in luxury. And noble ladies like me, their wives, they hold tea parties and balls and receptions. We play the piano and press flowers, and we simper and curtsy for these…sutenery.”

  That Slavic word I was not familiar with, but I could guess her meaning. “Lady Diamond,” I said, “your friend is planning an atrocity, one that will not just hurt the nobility, but countless working people too. We mean to stop him, and we will. Help us, and I will vouch for you in court.”

  “In court? Really, have you thought this through? You intend to put me on the stand in a public trial, so I can tell the world about how your King behaves in private? You know, he is a big man, and lazy—he does not care to exert himself. He prefers that things should be done for him—or to him. Of course your tame English newspapers might not print such details, but the French and the Americans? The Germans? How the nations of Europe will laugh. Your King, your whole Empire, would be utterly humiliated. But, whatever you like—by all means, let me face a judge.”

  “You will stand trial.” I dispensed with her title, as she clearly despised it. “What evidence the court will allow to be heard remains to be seen. Either way you can be of no further use to this anarchist. But you can still be of use to the British people, for whom you profess to care so much.”

  “The British people! Akushku is doing this for the British people, and the Germans, for working people everywhere. Why would I help you? So that I might not hang? So that I might spend the rest of my life in prison? I am already in prison.”

  “You might hate your husband,” I said. “You might hate the King as well. But if your friend Akushku succeeds, this country, and all of Europe, will likely be pitched headlong into war. And it’ll be Englishmen and German men, working men who will fight and die by the thousands. It’s the wives of those working men who will have to scrape and scrimp to feed and clothe their children. It’ll be their children begging in the streets.”

  “As if you give a curse!” spat Lady Diamond, her nostrils flaring. I’d struck a nerve at last. “There are already families begging on the streets not two minutes’ walk from my door, mothers selling themselves and their children to buy a loaf of bread. Let there be war. Let this vile, rotten society, rotten with parasites like you—let it burn, let it be purified on the pyre of war. That is the only way working people will ever be free, through blood and violence and revolution. Yes, it will be bloody. Childbirth is always painful and bloody.”

  It was clear she knew very well what Akushku was planning, and she was not apologising for it—she was already celebrating it.

  “Where will you meet him?” said Gustav suddenly. Lady Diamond blinked at this new tack. I nearly blinked myself; he had clearly thought of something I had overlooked.

  “What?”

  “Your friend, Akushku. You meant to elope with him, did you not? In the chaos after the attack. He has planned an escape route, for both of you.”

  “No. I have made my choice,” said Lady Diamond. “I am dispensable. It is a small sacrifice.” But she wasn’t so defiant now—she was looking at the floor.

  “With respect, madam,” said Steinhauer, “you are lying. After all you have done for this man, for his great cause, he would leave you in this prison? Married to that pig of a husband, that sutener? Or, should your role in this ever be uncovered—as it has been uncovered—you would hang, and your body would rot in a common grave. What sort of man would abandon you to such a fate? No, that was never the plan. Akushku is your forbidden love, and you are his. Herr Melville found the token of love you sent him, because he kept it. You planned to meet him after the assassination, and to flee with him abroad, and start a new life together. Do not try to deny it. Tell us where you planned to meet.”

  This theory Gustav had not shared with me beforehand—I suspected he had just thought of it—but now he had voiced it aloud it seemed obvious. His inspired guesswork seemed to find its mark; Lady Diamond hesitated. When she spoke she tried to remain haughty, but her voice trembled.

  “It does not matter. As you say, I have been caught. Whatever I do or say now, I will hang.”

  “We will make it matter, Lady Diamond. If you hang as a traitor, your husband will be humiliated. He will look a fool. He may even be tried as an accomplice.”

  “I had not thought of that. All the better.” She actually smiled.

  But Steinhauer hadn’t finished. “And his household? The serv
ants who wait on you? Have you considered what will become of them?” Now Lady Diamond’s smile faltered, and she seemed paler than before. “These men and women,” Steinhauer went on, “who—how did you put it?—starve and slave to keep you in luxury?” He bent down so his face was close to hers, and his threats seemed all the more menacing for his roguish, handsome grin. “I am a mere visitor to these shores, I cannot make them pay for your crimes. My friend Melville, on the other hand…” He grinned at me. “He is the most feared policeman in Europe. And for good reason. He will do whatever is necessary to protect the realm.”

  He straightened up, and started eyeing the room around him with its luxurious trappings and its framed pressed bouquets, for all the world like an auctioneer surveying a houseful of goods he’d been appointed to sell off.

  “Every member of your staff will be arrested. From that old red-faced fool of a butler to that plain little maid who delivered your messages. For that alone she will face a life of hard labour in prison. The rest of them—they will serve maybe one or two years, that is all. But it will be enough. They will never be employed in service again. Your cook, your dresser, your scullery maids—they will be the ones sleeping in the streets. They will be the ones selling their children—and themselves—for a crust of bread.”

  He turned back to her with a smile so cold even I shivered.

  “Have you ever tried to sleep on the street, Lady Diamond? Among the dung and the vomit, with rats that run over your face? Believe me, your former servants—they will dream of going back to prison.”

  “You are lying,” said Lady Diamond, but with a shade less assurance. “This is not Russia, or Germany. This is England. Such injustice cannot happen here.”

  She actually looked at me, as if appealing to my honour and decency. The nerve of her, I thought. I kept my face impassive, and let Steinhauer carry on. His familiarity, his insolence, added an edge to his threats; all I had to do was stand there and stare at her. And at that moment I felt fully prepared to do all the things he had threatened, and more. Lady Diamond seemed to see that in my face, because her reserve abruptly evaporated. Suddenly she was appalled and vulnerable, and very close to breaking. Steinhauer sensed that too, and closed in.