The Serpent and the Scorpion

by Langley-Hawthorne, Clare

  “Alexei all but admitted to me that was why he was in Britain. My guess is that Dobbs was going to provide armaments for all these groups across Europe. It would have been quite a coup for Alexei to have made such a deal. Imagine the chaos that could have been spread through such an assassination campaign.”

  “It could have caused a war,” Harrison said bleakly.

  “Knowing Alexei, he still can,” came Ursula’s caustic reply.

  Ursula choked down the remaining bite of her croquette and washed it back with a swig of strong black tea. The memories of that conversation were still too raw for her to ignore. George had stood trial and received a two-year prison sentence, and Harsha was due to be sentenced next month, but here was Christopher Dobbs, the man who arranged everything, mingling with politicians and bankers as if he had not a care in the world.

  “Ursula!” Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith waved her hand in the air, signaling her to come over. Ursula was horrified by the prospect of having to speak to Christopher Dobbs, but she responded with a nod and a tight smile. She wasn’t about to show him how discomfited she really was.

  “Topper here was just telling us about Italy,” Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith said, and then turned back to Dobbs. “Such bad luck you taking that fall off a horse just before you left.”

  “Is that what happened?” Ursula asked with a deadpan expression. Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith failed to pick up the edge to her tone, but Dobbs eyed her warily.

  “Yes, that’s right. I was at Shrewsbury Grange trying my hand at a spot of hunting when it happened.”

  “Must be contagious,” Ursula responded dryly. “I hear Lord Wrotham took a similar fall.”

  “Indeed? I guess we’d both better be more careful in the future.”

  Ursula was barely able to contain her fury. “You certainly need to be,” she spat out before she managed to restrain herself. Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith looked suitably shocked but made no comment. Christopher Dobbs gave a calculated smile. “Never fear, Miss Marlow, I’m like a cat—I always land on my feet.”

  “Is that what creature you are, Mr. Dobbs?” Ursula asked coldly. “And here I was thinking you were the snake.”

  Ursula returned to Chester Square from Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith’s garden party and retreated into her father’s study. She curled up in his armchair and tried reading the latest installment of The Lost World in the Strand Magazine, but she couldn’t concentrate. Her anger at Christopher Dobbs’s ability to walk away from his invidious crimes gnawed away at her insides. She had thrown down the magazine and was pacing the room when Biggs knocked and entered the study.

  “The mail arrived, Miss. There is one letter for you.”

  “From Bromley Hall?” Ursula asked quickly, misinterpreting Biggs’s hesitation.

  “No, Miss, from Mr. Anderson, I believe,” Biggs replied.

  Ursula’s face fell. “Thank you,” she said, “just place it on the desk.”

  Biggs complied and then calmly asked, “Would you like me to post anything for you, Miss?”

  Ursula sat back down in the armchair. “No,” she responded quietly. And then, as if to herself, “What would be the point?”

  Ursula had sent at least four letters to Lord Wrotham, all of which had been returned unopened. She needed to accept, she told herself sternly, that things were truly over between them.

  As twilight descended, Ursula stared at the coal fire and continued to reflect on the injustice of all that had happened. Beneath her feet lay a wooden box, one of the many she had shipped out from Egypt, and given all that had happened, one of the many that remained unopened. Using her father’s ivory-handled letter opener, Ursula pried open the lid. Inside, packed in shavings, were some books she had bought, a brass serving tray, a box of perfume jars, and a stone tablet she had bought from a so-called dealer in antiquities. The tablet was inscribed with hieroglyphics, and as Ursula lifted it from the box, she reflected on the irony of having yet another indecipherable message in her house. She propped the stone tablet up on one of the bookshelves, opened the top drawer of the mahogany desk, and pulled out the paper that outlined the letter fragments found at Arina’s house.

  She looked over the Cyrillic script and sighed. The contents of the letter probably didn’t even matter anymore, but still, their failure to decipher it gnawed at her. In the last couple of months she had finally had a chance to read the reference books Lady Winterton had supplied. Ursula tapped her chin with her fingers. She was remembering how Peter Vilensky had said that Arina and Katya always corresponded in English, and how Nellie Ackroyd and Len had mentioned that Arina rarely even spoke Russian—she had been in England so long. Strange, Ursula ruminated, that the letter should then be in Russian.

  With a glance at the stone tablet, a thought suddenly hit her. What if the Cyrillic letters used in the letter were really nothing more than hieroglyphics—a representation rather like a picture used as a substitution not for a Cyrillic letter but rather a letter from the English alphabet? Neither Winifred nor Ursula had even considered the possibility that the decoded message was in English, not Russian.

  Ursula jumped to her feet and scanned the bookshelf for the dictionary Lady Winterton had left. She opened the front page and copied the Cyrillic alphabet across the top of one of the pages of her notebook. She knew from her early research on frequency analysis that “e” was the most commonly used letter in English, so Ursula assumed the most frequently used Cyrillic letter represented this. Soon she was drawing up tables of various alternative transpositions. After two hours and much trial and error, she stumbled upon the key. As she deciphered the words, her face contorted. There were only seven words—but that was all she needed to know the truth.

  Meet me at the factory at eight . . . Alone.

  Alexei

  Ursula felt sick.

  Winifred arrived later that evening and read the translation somberly.

  “I guess this confirms that it was Alexei who lured Arina to the factory that night,”

  As Winifred spoke, Ursula started to wonder. If she had been Arina and had received Katya’s letter, what would she have done? Would she not have turned to a man like Alexei—an old lover who had once been so trusted—and told him the terrible secret Katya had entrusted her with, and sought his advice? Was that what had happened? And in return had he betrayed that trust in the worst possible way, blinded by his own needs—had he not only betrayed her to Christopher Dobbs but in doing so condemned Arina to death?

  “Sully!!” Winifred cried out in exasperation.

  Ursula looked at her startled.

  “Don’t waste any more time thinking about him!” Winifred admonished. “Alexei must have known what was going to happen to Arina that night. And there was only one possible reason Dobbs wanted you, and that was to kill you.”

  Ursula placed her head in her hands. “I know,” she whispered. The full extent of Alexei’s betrayal was evident. She just hadn’t admitted it to herself until now.

  Twenty-five

  Oldham

  AUGUST 1912

  Two weeks later, Ursula returned to Gray House. London was all but deserted, with most of “society” heading off to their country homes or to their yachts off the Isle of Wight. Ursula now had energy to refocus on business once more. She busied herself overseeing the rebuilding of the Oldham factory and renegotiating key contracts with unions at all her mills and factories across the North, thereby securing earnings as well as ensuring that wages kept pace with inflation. The cotton industry was booming, but there was still considerable unemployment outside the textile towns. Ursula still found the state of much of the housing deplorable and was working with some of the local councils to build workers’ cottages away from the grime and dust of the factories.

  Inspired by this, she decided to visit Oldham’s Garden Suburb one afternoon. It represented in many ways an idyllic housing estate, which Ursula was keen to support. As she pulled on her gloves and tied her scarf around her hat tightly, Ursula reflected that it might provide some
measure of closure to walk the same streets Arina once had, and perhaps find some degree of comfort in this.

  Ursula instructed Samuels to drop her at the tramway depot, and from there she decided to walk. It was the end of August, and though the summer had been wet and miserable up until now, the sun was now shining and it looked like being a glorious late-summer afternoon.

  The houses of Garden Suburb were all mock Tudor in design, with fences and gardens, sidewalks, and even a common green in the center of the subdivision—a throwback to a quaint English village green from a bygone era. Women in clean tailored day dresses, straw hats, and parasols were coming out of O’Malley’s butchers, or partaking in afternoon tea at Ye Olde Tea Shop on the corner opposite the green. Ursula made her way down Green Lane past the hedgerows and rosebushes, white gates and black-painted doors with brass knockers, each semidetached house identical to the next.

  Ursula entered Ye Olde Tea Shop just before four o’clock, sat down at a table near the window, and ordered a small Montserrat lime juice and soda from the young girl in a frilly white cap. There was only one other customer, a lady in her middle years, in the tea shop. She was bent over the table studiously reading a Baedeker’s guide to Palestine and Syria. It made Ursula wistful.

  Sipping from her glass, Ursula gazed out of the window. Across the street was a small travel office, one of the new ones springing up all over the country, catering to the boom in demand for vacations and tours. In the window was a poster of Egypt depicting boats on the Nile at sunset. “Spend This Winter in Egypt Where a Perfect Climate Is to Be Obtained,” the poster read. Next to it was another poster that urged, “Visit Palestine!”

  Ursula sighed, for these served only to remind her of Katya. She wished she had asked Katya more about her sister, and more about their shared dreams. Her picture of Arina was incomplete—according to Peter Vilensky, she was nothing more that a leech, always demanding money. According to Nellie she was a quiet, gentle soul. Then there was the Arina of Alexei’s world—full of idealism for a Bolshevik revolution. None of these images seemed to fit together.

  Ursula dropped her coins upon the table and walked out of the tea shop and across the road. Aside from the posters, the shop window had a wonderfully kitsch display complete with leather suitcases, a globe, and a wooden motorcar and airplane. A banner above this read, “The Future of Travel . . .”

  Ursula couldn’t resist. She went in, the bell on the top of the door tinkling as she entered.

  A young woman was sitting at the front desk in front of a typewriter, typing madly.

  “Can I help you, Miss?” the receptionist asked with a smile.

  “Oh—” Ursula hesitated. “I must confess I just came in on a whim. I spent the winter in Egypt, and I guess I just felt drawn in by your posters.”

  “Why, is it really you, Miss Marlow?!” A corpulent man approached from the back of the store.

  Ursula frowned but answered politely, “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

  “No, no . . . I merely recognized your face from the society pages. Though I did meet your father a couple of times at the Blackburn Mechanics’ Institute lecture series.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mr. . . . ?” Ursula looked at him inquiringly.

  “Edel . . . Mr. Maurice Edel. And please feel free to ask us any questions at all. We are an authorized Thomas Cook & Sons representative—though a woman of your standing could afford to have her own private Egyptian tour, of course.”

  “I was thinking of Palestine, actually,” Ursula responded. “A close friend of mine spoke very highly of her visit to the Holy Land.”

  “Why, of course—it is the dream of so many of us.”

  “Yes,” Ursula said sadly. “I guess it is.”

  Ursula was thinking about the memorial to the settlers that she and Peter Vilensky planned to build on the road to Jerusalem. She fiddled absently with her white gloves.

  “I read in the newspapers about the recent unpleasantness in Oldham,” Mr. Edel leaned in and confided, as if it were a secret. “We don’t go in for gossip, of course, not in these parts. Still, it’s a terrible thing to hear about.”

  “Yes, yes, it was. We’re rebuilding the factory, though.”

  “Mavis here went along to the arson trial. Shocking to think that one’s own manager—entrusted with so much—could have done such a thing!”

  “Yes.” Ursula wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Mavis looked up at her expectantly. “I didn’t see you at the trial, Miss.”

  “I was sitting at the back,” Ursula replied simply. It was hard for her not to feel angry that George Aldwych was now serving a prison term while Christopher Dobbs and Alexei were free. The trial had not taken long, for George’s confession led to a plea of guilty, and the jury only had to consider evidence as it related to sentencing. The lawyer for George’s defense had asked Ursula if she would testify on his behalf to demonstrate his previous good character, but she had refused. Her compassion could not extend to forgiveness for his betrayal. Nevertheless, she could not help but shed a tear in court that day as she heard the details of the fire that fateful night. How George had left the Dog and Duck, gone home, and consumed a third of a bottle of Scotch to steady his nerves, before meeting Harsha at the factory at nine o’clock. Silently and systematically they had doused the cotton rags in petrol and lit the blaze. George maintained that he had no idea that the body of Arina Petrenko lay within the factory, and seeing his body physically shudder at the recollection of what happened that night, Ursula was inclined to believe him

  “It’s his family I feel sorry for.” Mavis’s voice brought Ursula back to the present.

  “Yes,” Ursula agreed. “It’s probably hardest on the children.”

  “Well, especially when all that came out about ’im and that trollop Nellie Ackroyd.”

  “Language, Mavis!” Mr. Edel interjected. Mavis reddened.

  “We should be thinkin’ about the poor girl that died,” Mr. Edel admonished. “Not that we knew her, of course, but Mavis reckoned she seen her a few times, wandering up and down the street.”

  “She liked lookin’ in,” Mavis said. “At the posters and such. I would see her when I was closing up some nights, just standing, like she were in a dream.”

  “Well, those posters are certainly enticing,” Ursula replied sadly, reflecting upon the dreams that were lost for both Katya and Arina. “I suppose she never came in to ask?” she ventured.

  Mr. Edel shook his head.

  “Now, that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Edel,” Mavis announced proudly. “She did come in, just the once—oh, it must have been in February. All excited she were. Said she was expecting to get some money soon—and that she’d be back in to arrange her tickets. Poor thing. I expect she died before she ever saw hide or hair of that money.”

  It was then that Ursula realized that Arina had been hoping to join Kolya in Palestine—that was why Katya had initially investigated the Bregenz—only Kolya had died in Poland and had never even made it to the ship.

  When Ursula returned to Gray House, Chief Inspector Harrison was waiting for her in the front parlor, standing by the window with his hat still in his hands.

  “Chief Inspector,” Ursula called from the door as she approached him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “No, don’t expect you were,” Harrison replied. “But I just thought I should drop by, since I was on my way to visit the Mortimers, and tell you”—he took a deep breath—“Harsha was hanged today. I wanted you to know before you saw tomorrow’s newspapers.”

  Ursula drew back, and her hand rose to her throat.

  “I . . . ,” Ursula began, stumbling to take a seat. “Gosh, I didn’t think I would feel this way when I heard the news.”

  “What way is that, Miss Marlow?”

  “I’m not sure. I expected to feel relief, but instead, I just feel slightly sick, really.”

  Harrison shifted his weight from one foot to the
other, looking uncomfortable.

  “I’m fine,” Ursula reassured him. “I think it’s just the shock of everything that’s happened—it’s really just hit me now.”

  Ursula motioned him to take a seat and rang for Biggs to bring them some tea.

  “Well, at least one good thing has come of it all,” Harrison said after a pause. He pointed to the newspaper lying on the side table, folded to reveal the headline “Carmichael Shipyards and Marlow Industries in Historic Deal to Build Oil Tankers.”

  “Yes, Peter Vilensky was certainly eager to withdraw all his financial support from Dobbs and provide us with the money necessary to ward off any future takeover attempts. Now at least his late wife’s legacy remains secure, and I—”

  “I believe the Times said that Miss Marlow has finally demonstrated some of the business acumen her father was famous for,” Eustacia Mortimer interrupted as she walked into the parlor.

  “Miss Mortimer.” Harrison jumped to his feet.

  “I told Biggs not to worry about seeing me in, just can’t get used to all that palaver, but I had to come and congratulate you when I saw the article in the Times.”

  Eustacia clasped Ursula’s hand warmly.

  Neither Dr. Ainsley Mortimer nor Eustacia knew the part Christopher Dobbs had played in Arina’s death. They received the same story that was told to the public at George Aldwych’s trial—that Arina was lured to the factory by an Indian national who murdered her on account of her sister’s political activities in Egypt. Just as Ursula had feared, the newspapers blamed a band of nationalist infiltrators, hell-bent on destroying the British Empire (and not above blackmailing a poor factory manager who had had an “indiscretion” with a local girl). But Ursula was under a strict obligation of confidence now that Christopher Dobbs was assisting Scotland Yard’s Special Branch—and, she suspected, the newly formed Secret Intelligence Service.