by Anna Lord
The Countess pushed the paralysed Earl in his wheelchair around the terraced garden and talked to him about things past – his visit to Australia, the time they gazed at the Southern Cross and saw a shower of shooting stars, the time they went horse-riding down to the creek and saw a platypus, the first time he saw a kangaroo with a joey in its pouch…
When the nurse came to take him inside for his bath, the Countess kissed him tenderly on the forehead and walked down to the birch wood to gaze once more upon the temporary grave of Princess Paraskovia. How much kinder to drink some laudanum than wither away like the flower that fadeth…
The winter light of late afternoon slanted through the leprous trees and the air felt crisp and sharp, rather than cold and harsh.
Did the princess drink the laudanum of her own free will? Did she fear the shame of having a child out of wedlock at her age? Did she dread her impending divorce?
Or did someone force her to drink poison? Did they hold a terrible threat over her head? Or a gun to her forehead?
The lonely grave sat in a dip in the wood, out of sight of the Palladian mansion. On the other side of the lake was a summerhouse half hidden by a weeping willow. In Ukraine they would have called it a dacha. It was elaborately edged with gingerbread fretwork depicting a world of fairy tale fantasy in a rural idyll. She walked around the lake and tried to peer through the doll-like windows but the lace curtains were drawn and the darkness trapped inside deflected the rays of light attempting to break through the tiny gaps.
“Can I help you, madame?” It was one of the gardeners.
“Who has the key to the summerhouse?”
“It is above the door, madame, where it always is.” He seemed surprised she didn’t know.
She found the key and went inside. It was immaculate, free of cobwebs and dust, simply furnished with a table and two chairs, a daybed and a small wood-burning stove. She couldn’t imagine the Earl of Winchester being wheeled down here; the ground was too boggy. Nor could she imagine Freddy Cazenove making use of the summerhouse; it was too twee for him.
“Who uses this summerhouse?”
The gardener shifted awkwardly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, madame.”
14
Longchamps
Historic, atmospheric and romantic, Longchamps had spent more than three hundred years mellowing into itself.
Since 1515 it had sat in the same fold in the weald with a dark cluster of trees at its back, like a verdant shawl around it shoulders, protecting it from the winter wind. It sat midway between London and the English Channel and had been designed for entertaining large numbers of guests in the days when the reigning monarch travelled to the coast to sail to France or Holland and half the royal court travelled with him.
There were 115 rooms and every single one of them had been refurbished, staying true to the taste of the Tudors.
The Countess had dispatched ten servants to prepare the house for visitors, hired another ten, put Ponsonby in charge, organized for one hundred men to tidy up the garden, and was now on her way to Kent one day before everyone was expected to arrive to ensure all was as it should be. Accompanying her on the train was Dr Watson.
Fedir and Xenia were motoring down in the new Semper Vivus.
Mr Dixie and Sherlock Holmes had arrived ahead of her. Helping them out in the stable were two ostlers and eight stable boys who knew their way around a bridle and bit blindfolded; they had no idea what was going on between the tough-talking Negro and the dithering stable-hand with the eye-patch, clockwork arm and gammy leg but they were being well paid to do their job and keep their traps shut.
“I’m more worried than ever about Mycroft Holmes,” said Dr Watson, after recounting the incident with the dog in the night. “A rambling pile like Longchamps will only make it easier for the killer. How many rooms did you say it had?”
“One hundred and fifteen.”
He grimaced. “The killer could be hiding in one of them right now. The hired servants won’t be able to recognize an interloper since most of them have never previously met; he could even be one of them!”
“What alternative do we have? We must flush out who is behind this scheme. Mycroft cannot stay under lock and key inside the Diogenes Club for the remainder of his life.”
“But how will we flush him out?”
“Chance will flush him out and Opportunity will unmask him.”
“I thought you never left anything to chance?”
“Au contraire, mon ami, every action is open to chance. The man who leaves nothing to chance is always unprepared.”
A small Tudor porch greeted visitors and ushered them into a long gallery which featured suits of armour and Flemish tapestries. Adjoining this was the beating heart of the house and one of the most magnificent Tudor great halls in England. It served as the primary staircase hall and was a breathtaking double height room with three superb glass lanterns punctuating the roof rafters. A huge Elizabethan chimneypiece dominated the great hall and there were enough needlepoint wing chairs, velvet settees and damask sofas for twenty people. Family portraits in gilded frames, embroidered cushions and quirky collectibles abounded.
It was the sort of room one could quite happily never leave. If it rained all weekend they would be content. Ten bedrooms opened directly off the upper gallery that ran around the perimeter of the great hall and Yardley, the old retainer, had placed nametags on doors according to the instructions of his master who had personally allocated all the bedrooms.
The Countess had the principal bedchamber for the lady of the house. It connected to the master suite which she presumed would be occupied by Major Nash but when she opened the connecting door she found Dr Watson.
“I say, we’ve been allocated very nice bedrooms,” he gushed. “Have you seen the view of the topiary garden from your triple bay window yet? I think the entire hamlet of Longchamps could fit into my four poster bed. Do you think this portrait of Henry VIII is a genuine Holbein?”
“Yes, I have Jane Seymour in my room and the view is stunning.”
“If you want to lock the connecting door, go ahead, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Let’s leave it as is. I’m going to check out who is staying where.”
“I’m going down to the stable to speak to the, er, dithering old stable-hand. Do you mind if I take the Semper Vivus out for a spin after lunch?”
“Not at all, take the old stable-hand with you. I want to have a word to Ponsonby about the servant situation and I want to explore the house.”
Ten houseguests; ten bedrooms off the galleried landing. Perfect.
Bafflingly, none of them had been allocated to Mycroft Holmes. His bedroom was on the ground floor adjacent to the dining room. Yardley informed her it was the bedroom where the old master, the 9th baronet, slept because he couldn’t afford to heat more than two rooms. Next door was a bedroom for his valet. The whole arrangement was poorly protected with doors going everywhere, including out to the stable-yard.
Even more bafflingly, where was Major Nash sleeping?
Yardley told her the young master preferred the same room he had as a boy. It was a small bedroom, sparsely furnished, at the top of a narrow staircase hidden behind a tapestry in the long gallery. It may originally have been used as an oratory. It jutted out over the Tudor porch and had two other doors that led to matching antechambers with steep spiral staircases going up to the tennis-play on the floor above.
Longchamps was one of the few stately homes in England that had retained its Tudor tennis court in situ. Back in Tudor times, tennis was played indoors and was accompanied by heady gambling. Henry VII and Henry VIII had both been keen on the game, and though neither had played at Longchamps, many of their courtiers had.
There was no way on earth Major Nash was going to protect Mycroft Holmes from an assassin all the way from the oratory. The ADC had messed up badly and she wasted no time in telling him when he arrived first thing Saturday morning on the milk train
(to avoid any chance of assassination attempts on the normal train) with Mycroft Holmes in tow looking bleary-eyed and bewildered to be so far from Pall Mall.
“I know what I’m doing,” the major responded obstinately. “Don’t tell me how to protect Mr Holmes. Having said that, thank you for the use of your servants and all you’ve done to make this weekend pleasant for all concerned. Leave the rest to me.”
Leave the rest to me!
Shooting Mycroft would be like shooting a big fish in a small barrel. She went straight to Dr Watson, still sleeping in his four poster hamlet.
“One of us needs to swap bedrooms with Mycroft,” she said with peremptory bluntness, outlining the dangers. “I would go but Xenia and Fedir have settled themselves in the adjoining boudoir and dressing room.”
“I’ll go,” he volunteered at once. “It will put me closer to the stable-yard and I’ll be able to keep an eye on Sherlock. He seems a bit jittery. I don’t know if he’s taking too much cocaine or not enough. Yesterday, during the spin in the Semper Vivus, he kept muttering jay, jay, jay, jay, jay…”
Major Nash was furious when he discovered Mycroft Holmes had moved into the connecting master suite at the behest of the Countess, and that Dr Watson had transferred his belongings to the downstairs bedroom.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed when he cornered her on the stairs straight after breakfast.
“Protecting a man I care about deeply,” she returned with hauteur, staring coldly at the hand manacling her upper arm. “Don’t make this personal.”
“What?”
“Don’t make this personal,” she repeated calmly. “You need to remain objective and unemotional or this weekend will turn into a disaster. Now, let go my arm.”
He was about to tell her the weekend had already turned into a disaster when the first of their guests arrived. It was Sir James Damery, General de Merville and Violet de Merville. They had caught the first train out of London so that Violet could catch a glimpse of ‘dawn’s dappled light’ on the weald. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick it was impossible to see beyond the train track.
Unbeknownst to them, on the same train had been Mr Blague and Miss Mona Blague, but their carriage driver got lost in the fog once they left Hollingbourne Station and they did not arrive at Longchamps for three-quarters of an hour, having detoured through the hamlets of Knyvely, Chaffley and Netherwoodly.
As soon as the young ladies had changed out of their travelling costumes and appeared downstairs in the great hall in suitable morning dresses, morning tea was served. Everyone was impressed with the house, especially the general who had described it as a hovel.
“Splendid house, Nash,” he praised magnanimously, picturing Violet as the next chatelaine of Longchamps.
Mr Blague was picturing Mona in the same role; Lady Mona Nash had a nice ring to it and he needed an intelligent son-in-law who could take over the family business one day. The major was an enterprising fellow and completely wasted in the role of glorified nurse-maid to that simpering Mr Holmes.
Major Nash cemented his high-standing in the eyes of his guests when he gave them a tour of the Elizabethan knot garden and the topiary garden which had been shaped in the likeness of figures on a chess board.
Mycroft and the Countess stood side by side at the triple bay window in the master suite and gazed pensively at the visitors strolling along the gravel path.
“This is a waste of time. I’ve got a million things to do back in London.”
“Nice try Uncle Mycroft but burying your head in the sand isn’t going to help. We both know that someone inside your club is after your job. If it is not one of our guests it must be someone who is using them to further their own ends. That incident with the dog in the night was another near miss. How many people knew you were going to Baker Street?”
“No one knew. I only just decided it when I decided to escort you home.”
“Well, someone clearly knew. They had the rabid dog at the scene in record time.”
Mycroft shuddered at the memory.
She gazed down at the young baronet leading the party. He played the role of host and statesman rather well. And he was in the dome room when Mycroft announced his plans. And he had rushed away to organize a shooter to sit alongside the coachman. Had he also organized the man with the dog? “Do you consider Major Nash ambitious?”
“All young men of reasonable intelligence are ambitious. I’d be concerned if they weren’t. What are you implying, young lady?”
“You recent promotion to primus baro has raised his profile too?”
“If you think he is trying to bump me off to further his career you are way off the mark.”
“But if he were elected to the committee he could then put himself up for election as primus baro?”
“Nonsense!”
“Are you saying it is impossible?”
“I’m saying it is nonsensical!”
She gazed back down at the party strolling in the garden. Had Major Nash proposed this weekend to further his own ambitions? Was it a chance for him to ingratiate himself with Damery, Blague and de Merville, three men whose future support could be invaluable? Or was one of them backing him already? Unquestionably, Major Nash had been a loyal ADC but he wouldn’t be the first ambitious young man who saw a chance to better himself and by changing sides, seized the day. Is that why he was so angry she had re-allocated Mycroft’s bedroom?
Before Major Nash returned to the house with his guests, she slipped out to the stable to speak to Sherlock and Dr Watson and air her suspicions regarding their charming host. Mr Dixie kept an eye out to make sure they weren’t about to be interrupted.
“This weekend was his idea,” reminded Dr Watson, “and I didn’t like the sound of it from the start. Mycroft is a sitting duck in this rambling pile.”
Agitated and restless, aware of all the things that could go wrong now that they were at Longchamps, unhappy about the number of things out of his control, Sherlock paced the horse stalls. “Jay, jay, jay, jay,” he mumbled over and over before plucking the cufflink from his pocket. “I found this under the dressing table in the princess’s bedroom at Clarges Hotel,” he said, handing it to his daughter.
“J,” she said, relieved he wasn’t losing the plot after all. “You think it might belong to the mysterious lover you believed was in bed with the princess the morning the prince arrived unannounced?”
Sherlock nodded. “We can deduce from Prince Sergei’s behaviour in the hotel room that he had already seen the body of his wife in the bath. We extrapolated from that deduction that he killed her or induced her to commit suicide, but what if he arrived after her lover had just done the deed and was preparing to leave when the prince arrived unannounced? The prince saw the body in the bath but he did not kill the princess because she was already dead. Whoever was in bed with the princess could have fled unseen.”
“J is the lover,” agreed the Countess, “But who is J? James Damery?”
“Or Josiah de Merville,” supplied Sherlock as an alternative to the obvious.
“Colonel James Moriarty!” cried Dr Watson.
The Countess shook her head. “This cufflink is solid gold. I don’t believe he could afford it. Besides, his cufflinks are all engraved with the initials JIM.”
“Nicely observed, my dear,” praised Sherlock with a wry grin. “Did you happen to observe the cufflinks of our handsome host?”
She rolled her eyes. “No need, his name is Inigo.”
“Yes, but his father was Jonathan Nash and his mother’s maiden name was Jantzen. He may have inherited some family keepsakes which he occasionally wears.”
She made a mental note to check for a cufflink box in the oratory at the first opportunity.
“What is Mr Blague’s first name?” quizzed Sherlock.
“Bruce,” supplied the Countess. “I better get back to the house. I’ve left Mycroft alone for too long.”
“Before you go,” said Sherlock. �
�One of the men in the dome room on the night of the ball must have set the timer on the first bomb. It might be worth finding out more about what was going on in there just prior to everyone leaving to go to the lake.”
“I can answer some of it,” she replied. “Mrs Klein made the suggestion to Mr Blague about smoking a hookah. She was supposed to join the men up there but she did not arrive. When the notion of a duel presented itself, which was proposed by Prince Sergei who happened to have duelling pistols in his carriage, three men were keen to follow through immediately. They were Mr Blague, General de Merville and Prince Sergei. They wanted to vacate the dome room as soon as possible, only Sir Damery demurred. He even suggested they wait till the next morning, which I believe is in accord with the Code Duello. Major Nash and Colonel Moriarty were both keen to go ahead as soon as possible. So, apart from Damery, the other five were keen to leave.”
“Hmm,” murmured Sherlock circumspectly. “I wonder who was last to leave the room?”
“I was on the dance floor and saw General de Merville, Prince Sergei and Mr Blague cross the foyer together well ahead of the others. Sir Damery came later with Major Nash and Colonel Moriarty in tow.”
“Speak to your maid again,” suggested Sherlock, spotting Mr Dixie gesticulating wildly. “Ask her if she remembers anyone else milling about who could have gone up to that room afterwards. Someone must be coming. Let’s move out of sight behind these hay bales.”
The arrival of Colonel Moriarty on his horse knocked them for six. Was he here in the capacity of assassin? And who had hired him? Fear held them rigid as they waited for him to dismount, unsaddle his carpet bag and head toward the front porch whistling an Irish folk tune.
Mr Dixie began to unsaddle the horse. “This horse ain’t come from London. It ain’t sheened with sweat and lather. It’s come from somewhere nearby.”
