The Serpent and the Scorpion

by Langley-Hawthorne, Clare

  Alexei laughed. “I must take you with me to Siberia some day . . . there you can really appreciate mud and filth.”

  Winifred craned her neck, looking for taxicabs. “Still no luck,” she commented and looked at the sky. “Rain’s getting worse. . . .”

  Alexei took off his jacket and moved in to hold it over Ursula’s head. She felt suddenly conscious of his closeness; it felt strangely uncomfortable.

  Winifred pulled her hat down low, and together they hurried back to Woburn Place.

  Winifred pulled her key out of her waistcoat pocket and opened the front door.

  “I’ll get the fire going!” she called out as she dashed inside.

  Alexei held the door open for Ursula with his elbow, still holding his jacket over her head.

  Once inside the doorway, Ursula took off her scarf and tossed her head, sending a fine spray of raindrops across her shoulders. Alexei propped the door open with his foot as he shook out his jacket.

  “Shut the door, for heaven’s sake,” Winifred shouted out from the drawing room. She was on all fours, lighting the fire in the grate.

  Through the open doorway, the golden glow of the streetlamps bathed Alexei in a soft, misty halo. Ursula stood in the hallway, shivering. He reached out to wipe the rain from her cheeks. The cuff of his shirt was rough against her skin. It was such an intimate gesture, Ursula held her breath. Alexei leaned in and kissed her. At first she tasted only cool, wet rain on his lips. He cupped her face in his hands, and the first hesitant kiss turned deeper. It tasted of cigarette smoke and bitter brown ale. It was like revisiting a taste from childhood, something long remembered and yearned for—like crab apples stolen from the orchard next to Gray House, or the treacle tart Mrs. Norris used to make. The first taste brought her memories of Alexei back, but it was curiously unsatisfying. After the passage of time, the memory grew false. The return was too cloying or too bitter, too unsatisfying after the time without him.

  Ursula pulled away. She was suddenly aware of how exposed she was, standing in an open doorway. If Lord Wrotham was correct and Alexei was under surveillance, then she had just provided an unplanned exhibition.

  Alexei ran his tongue along his lips.

  “You taste of honey.”

  “You taste of the past.”

  Alexei jerked away, and the front door swung shut.

  Nineteen

  It was early Saturday morning, and the weak, pale morning light drew across Ursula’s face as she lay in her four-poster bed, gazing at the canopy. She blinked and slowly propped herself up against the goose-feather pillow. Her mouth was dry, and she gingerly reached over to the bedside table and poured herself a glass of water from an earthenware jug. She tasted fine particles of dust and salt on her tongue before replacing the glass and leaning back once more.

  She lay there for nearly an hour, simply waiting and reflecting on the past. She glanced over at the photograph that stood on her dressing table. It was of her mother and father on their wedding day.

  There was a light rap on the bedroom door, and Julia peered inside.

  “God bless you, I thought you were up early, Miss. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  Ursula wiped her eyes. “Thank you, Julia. Give me just a few minutes.”

  “Of course, Miss,” Julia replied and quickly disappeared.

  Ursula rose from the bed and slipped on her silk dressing gown and slippers. She walked over to the window and carefully opened the curtains. Chester Square remained bathed in misty morning light. Ursula leaned against the cool windowpane. After what she’d said to Dobbs last night, she knew that she had to act quickly. Hugh Carmichael had warned her before that everyone associated with Katya Vilensky’s murder was dead. It was only a matter of time before her own life was threatened, and this time she was determined to be the one to confront the truth.

  “I need to find out what Dobbs is up to,” Ursula said.

  “I know, I know . . . but Sully, if you should get caught . . . then what? You don’t even know if there’s anything worth finding there.”

  Winifred drummed her fingers along the edge of the Mackmurdo sofa.

  “I don’t like this plan, Sully. It sounds too dangerous. Why not go to Harrison now?”

  “I need more evidence—I can’t fit the pieces together yet.”

  Ursula took out the letter she had just received that morning from Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith. “Read this.”

  Winifred took the letter and starting reading it aloud.

  Topper has invited me to join him at a shooting party at his great friend Rufus Sandforth’s in Cambridgeshire this coming weekend. He’s closing up the house and sending his valet on ahead. Most of the servants are going to Shrewsbury Grange, a magnificent country home that Topper has just leased, so that it can be shipshape for a hunt he is planning to host the following weekend (and which to my delight I am also invited).

  “It may be my only chance,” Ursula urged. “Dobbs is going to be away all weekend.”

  Winifred exhaled noisily. She had already made it clear to Ursula that she was uncomfortable about using the WSPU’s legitimate tactics to achieve suffrage as a diversion for what amounted to little more than breaking and entry. Nevertheless, after a moment of silence, she reluctantly agreed.

  “I shall merely pretend to be undertaking a political act of vandalism,” Ursula said. “I mean, if Emily Davison can pour oil through pillar-boxes, I’m sure I can convince them I’m up to something similar. Dobbs is known for his antisuffrage views.”

  “Still, I’d rather you let me come with you, or better yet, let me do this for you. It doesn’t matter as much if I’m arrested.”

  “Freddie, after all that happened to you after Laura’s Radcliffe’s death, I won’t hear of you taking that risk. No, I need to rely on you to create the diversion. Can you get some of our WSPU sisters involved?”

  “Of course! It won’t take much to convince others. Sir Henry Plymouth lives just up the road, and we’ve been planning on targeting his house for months after that speech he gave in the Commons denouncing women as being incapable of the level of thinking necessary for political discourse.”

  “Then we should be all set for Sunday night?”

  “Yes, I’ll make sure we’re ready.”

  “It’s best if we don’t meet that night—that way you can honestly say you weren’t directly involved, should the worst happen and I’m arrested.”

  Winifred nodded, but she was grave.

  As arranged, Ursula took a taxicab to the Holland Street Underground station and then walked the remaining few blocks to Christopher Dobbs’s house on Bletchley Avenue. She waited in the park until she heard the Kensington Church clock strike midnight. Then she made her way across the street and down the front servants’ entrance stairs. The house was all dark, but Ursula wasn’t about to risk alerting any servants who might still be there, sleeping in the attic level of the house. Ursula heard the crash of windowpanes breaking a few houses along. A cheer erupted, and at that exact moment she used the rock she was carrying in her khaki backpack to smash the kitchen window. She reached in to unlock the servants’ door and squeezed through the doorway, closing the door as quietly as she could behind her. She stood for a moment listening, but there was no sound of movement above.

  Taking off her shoes and tying them around her neck by the laces, she pulled out a flashlight just in case, but made her way in the half-light cast by the streetlamp outside through the kitchen and up the stairs to the main floor of the house. She paused once more, straining to hear, but everything remained quiet. From there she passed the front parlor and entered the large living room that had served as a ballroom the night of Christopher Dobbs’s cocktail party. She then tiptoed up the wide staircase to the mezzanine level.

  She had never been into Christopher Dobbs’s study, but remembered catching sight of a room on this level, partially hidden by the bookcases. She turned on the flashlight as she made her way along the shelves. Coming to a door, she t
ook a deep breath and turned the door handle. The door opened with a creak, and she pointed the flashlight inside. Quickly moving over to the window, she checked that the curtains were fully drawn before setting the flashlight down on the desk and, using the ambient light, trying to orient herself to the room. Above the ornate baroque desk there was a painting of Nelson standing on the poop deck of the Victory at Trafalgar. In the half-light it looked decidedly sinister, while the tall leather armchairs created a circle in the middle of the room rather like the stone circle at Avebury she had visited as a child. Ursula shook off her fears—she needed to move quickly to see if she could find the papers Dobbs had been so concerned about.

  First she examined the desk, using the flashlight to peer into each of the desk drawers one at a time. None contained anything more than blotting paper, pens, and, in one drawer, an ivory-handled letter opener and elephant-tusk inkwell. On top of the desk was a single stack of papers, but an examination of these revealed them to be nothing more than shipping orders.

  Ursula then peered at the back of the painting hanging behind the desk.

  “Damn and blast!” she muttered, seeing the unmistakable outline of a safe. She replaced the painting carefully, and sighed. Was this it, then—had she risked everything for nothing? There was no way she could break into a safe.

  She sat down at Dobbs’s desk in his chair and tried to think what else she could do. She didn’t even know what she was looking for—she was only hoping to find something that would link Dobbs to Whittaker and Katya’s death.

  Absentmindedly she fidgeted with the brass replica of the HMS Victory, trying to work out where else Dobbs might keep important papers. The rest of the study’s furnishings consisted of more bookshelves (which seemed to have more sextants and other nautical paraphernalia than actual books) and a telescope on a brass stand. There really weren’t many places for Dobbs to hide anything. Ursula turned the oversize paperweight around in her hand, feeling its weight, and remembering how Dobbs had been doing the same the day they had met. The paperweight must have then been in the front parlor, and it struck Ursula as decidedly odd that he should have removed it now to his study. She replaced the paperweight, and suddenly all her senses were on edge. She picked it up once more and examined it under the flashlight. At first she could see nothing out of the ordinary, until she turned it upside down. It seemed solid enough, but when she took a closer look, she noticed a small cylindrical hole. There seemed to be paper folded tightly and wedged inside.

  Ursula pulled the paper out and flattened the sheets on top of the desk. The first was a letter.

  My dearest Arina,

  I write to you from Eretz Yisrael with great urgency and despair. I dare not tell anyone what I have learned, not even Peter. But you, my dearest sister, you are the only one I can trust. It is you I must confide in.

  What I have just discovered could get me killed. . . .

  Twenty

  Ursula continued reading the letter in horror.

  There can be no denying that the settlers never reached Hartuv. I visited the small moshav, and this was confirmed. As you can imagine, my anxiety deepened when I realized that no one could account for the settlers’ movements since the Bregenz had landed in Jaffa five weeks ago. I know you are desperate to hear news of Kolya but no one can even confirm he left Poland, let alone boarded the Bregenz. You know how Peter can be; so I daren’t ask him for help. Yet I owed it to you to discover the truth.

  I have seen the grave. Eleven souls, all laid to rest in an unmarked mound of sand and dirt off the road to Jerusalem. I discovered that there was one survivor, Baruh, whom I found in hiding and in fear of his life. Having heard his story, I knew he could not remain here, and so I secretly arranged passage for him to go to England. The horrors he spoke of must be told. The men who did this must be held to account. No matter that they are some of my husband’s closest business allies.

  Peter seems so distant from me now; his jealousy has become an obsession, and I can no longer confide in him. He views all that I do with suspicion and anger. I do not think he would even believe me if I told him the true fate of the Bregenz.

  I trust you, my only sister, with this burden. Perhaps Baruh will lead us to learn the truth about poor Kolya’s fate also. But first, you must tell the authorities that Dobbs is illegally selling armaments to the Ottoman Turks, and that he has the blood of eleven Jewish settlers on his hands.

  If I fail to return, you will know that I am dead.

  Numbly Ursula unfolded the other sheet. It was Anna’s reply, which Peter had never bothered to open.

  A police whistle suddenly sounded, and Ursula nearly jumped out of her skin. She quickly turned off the flashlight, plunging the study into darkness. The police whistles retreated down the street, followed by shouts and disgruntled voices. Winifred had completed her part of the scheme. Ursula waited a few minutes, her heart pounding so loudly that she was sure it must be echoing throughout the house. But there was only the sound of the wind in the branches of the oak tree outside, and the leaves brushing the windowpane.

  Ursula turned the flashlight on and carefully tucked the letter into the pocket of her skirt. She had to make sure it reached the authorities. She was just about to resume her search for evidence when she heard the creak of a floorboard overhead. It sounded as if one of the servants had been woken by the police whistles and was coming down to investigate. Ursula quickly switched off the flashlight and crept out of the study onto the landing and down the stairs.

  She reached the kitchen and was just picking up her khaki knapsack when she heard a low moan. Ursula froze. She thought quickly—the servants, one of whom appeared to now be awake, usually slept upstairs on the top floor or the attic. With Christopher Dobbs away and the house shut up, it was unlikely that any of the servants would be down in the kitchen, but she couldn’t be sure. There was another moan, and the rustle of something moving. It seemed to be coming from behind the door that led down to the wine cellar.

  A terrible thought suddenly dawned on her. Was it possible that the person she had seen being dragged in here all those weeks ago was still here, being held captive in the cellar?

  Ursula crept along to the foot of the kitchen stairs and listened intently. There was no further sound from above. Perhaps the servant who was disturbed from his sleep had retired once more to bed.

  She made her way to the thick wooden door to the cellar and placed her ear against it. She could still hear the soft, low moans of a man in pain. Ursula reached out and turned the door handle. It was locked.

  She turned on the flashlight and scanned the kitchen. Mrs. Stewart always kept all the keys to the Chester Square house on a hook by the scullery. Ursula followed the beam of light and scanned the kitchen, scullery, and pantry walls in search of a similar place. She found a set of keys hanging just below the wall-mounted bell rack used to summon the servants. As quietly as she could, she lifted the iron ring of keys off the hook and hastened back to the door. The rest of the house was still silent.

  The third key Ursula tried turned the lock, and with a tiny push, she opened the cellar door.

  “Hello?” she whispered loudly. “Is anyone down here?”

  The moans ceased, and there was an expectant silence.

  Ursula shone the flashlight down the stairs and caught sight of a shadow, nothing more than a heap of rags, shrinking away from the light into the corner of the room.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” she whispered again, taking two hesitant steps down the stairs. The shadow remained curled up in a fetal position and did not move.

  Ursula’s breathing quickened as she descended the remaining steps into the cellar. She reached out to the shadow.

  “I’m here to help you.” She spoke in her normal voice this time, and the man, as she could now tell the shadow was, turned his face toward her. His eyes widened as a hand reached out from the rags and grabbed her arm. He spoke to her in a torrent of words. The language sounded strange and alien,
like no language she had heard before.

  “I can’t understand you!” Ursula cried out. The man spoke again, and this time the language sounded vaguely familiar. It was that which she had heard many times, walking in London’s East End to her father’s factories. It was Yiddish.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t speak that either. Do you speak any English?”

  The man looked at her with dark eyes.

  “A little,” he croaked. “On the ship. I learned on the ship,”

  “Which ship?” Ursula asked. “The one coming that brought you to England? The one Katya Vilensky arranged for you?”

  The man’s eyes widened once more, and she saw a flash of suspicion cross his face.

  “I was a friend of Katya’s,” Ursula urged. “A friend. I’m going to get you out of here. Do you understand?”

  The man fell back against the wall, tears pooling in his eyes.

  “It’s all right.” Ursula reached out and clasped his arm, which felt bony beneath the thin layer of cloth that surrounded it. “I know you’re ill. I know you are scared. But I have to help you, and I will.”

  The man convulsed into sobs.

  “Katya?” was all she could hear him say, and she knew, with a terrible sense of finality, that whatever had happened here had broken him. Ursula thought quickly. It was going to be almost impossible for her to carry him out of here on her own. She would need to find out what had happened to him, and then hope to enlist the help of Chief Inspector Harrison in the morning.

  She took Katya’s letter out of her pocket and held it up in the light.

  The man recoiled as if she had slapped him. Ursula hastily reassured him that she had taken the letter from Dobbs’s study and was not one of his associates. It was difficult, and the man still looked unconvinced when she spoke again.

  “You were on the Bregenz? Are you Baruh?” Ursula pressed.