by Anna Lord
“My, oh, my,” sighed the Countess, fanning her face with her hand as she sidled up to the bosomy American beauty. “Is it hot in here or is it me?”
“Are you feeling unwell?” asked Miss Blague hopefully.
The Countess lowered her voice conspiratorially, as if imparting a terrible secret. “He will be the most eligible man in England when his uncle in Norfolk succumbs to pthisis. He does not like to talk of it because he does not wish to be besieged by gold-diggers. He wants a wife who has a fortune to match his own. He wants most of all to make a love match. Is that not the most romantic thing you have ever heard? He is actually very shy with ladies.”
Miss Blague followed the Countess’s dewy-eyed gaze across the vast hall. “Are you talking about our host?”
“Who else? I don’t wish to shock you, Miss Blague, I know you are innocent and not yet nineteen, but I have never encountered a man who has mastered the mechanics of kissing so thoroughly as our host. The Irish colonel is a clumsy oaf in comparison.”
Miss Blague looked shocked but not for the reasons imagined; her eyes were flashing greener than her emeralds. “You have been kissed by both?”
“Please, you must not judge me harshly - I am a widow.”
“Yes, yes, but how did you manage it?”
“Oh, here comes that trumped-up colonel. Let’s play a duet on the piano to avoid his company. He is such a frightful bore. I believe acomia is contagious and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to end up bald.”
Isadora Klein made a grand entrance in a red and gold gown of taffeta that made her look like a sticky toffee apple; oozing syrupy sweetness on the outside, unpalatable inside, and something you immediately regret biting into.
She accepted a flute of champagne from their host, sashayed past all the men in the room and singled out Miss de Merville for conversation. “How is your dear papa? I heard he was not feeling well?”
Miss de Merville was not one to wallow in self-pity for long. Just as Diogenes had surpassed Antisthenes, and Zeno had surpassed Crato, she too had elevated herself above the Cynics and was a true daughter of the Stoics. If any woman deserved membership of the Diogenes Club it was Violet de Merville.
“He is sleeping soundly now, but he was quite agitated earlier on.”
“Agitated?”
“Oh, talking in his sleep and that sort of thing. But Dr Watson gave him something to calm him.”
“Does he talk often in his sleep?’
“No never, well, not until recently. I think the bombs unnerved him.”
“I think they unnerved us all. I have had some terrible dreams since the night of the ball.”
“Yes, yes, me too.”
“Be sure to mention that I asked after him.”
“Yes, certainly, he will be most heartened to hear you enquired about his health.”
Mycroft arrived last of all and the Countess knew the bedroom would now be free. She slipped quickly up the stairs and into her room then through the connecting door. Fedir and Xenia stood sentry at the two doors while she checked the middle drawer and found a Remington Derringer tucked underneath some handkerchiefs, a pistol similar to her own but with a double barrel which meant it fired two rounds whereas hers fired just the one.
She felt guilty for suspecting Major Nash of anything underhand. He was probably checking to make sure Mycroft had a weapon close to hand, or possibly placing it there in case things turned deadly during the night. She was about to return to the great hall when she decided to check the other two drawers.
The top drawer was empty and she expected the same of the bottom one but she found several pairs of socks including a pair of thick walking socks folded as men do. There seemed to be a large bulge as if something might be hidden inside. She hesitated a moment, wondering if she should invade his privacy; he was her uncle after all, but something - call it curiosity or the instinct of a detective - made her look. It was a Matryoshka doll.
In a state of shock, she dropped it as if it were a red-hot coal. It bounced on the bare oak boards and snapped apart. Normally the dolls fitted snugly together, top half to bottom half, but for some reason these were looser, slightly warped, as if bent out of shape. The smallest doll rolled under the four poster bed.
A frenzy of thoughts scattered, like the dolls, in several different directions. What was Mycroft doing with a Matryoshka doll in his possession? Did Major Nash plant it there? Was he about to implicate Mycroft in the death of the princess? Or was he searching for the doll? Did that mean Mycroft was one of the princess’s lovers?
She was on her knees, reaching under the bed, when Fedir signalled that someone was coming. With no time to flee back to her bedroom, she crawled under the bed and tucked her voluminous skirt around her as much as possible.
When Mycroft entered, Fedir pretended to be tending to the fire in the grate.
“Leave that,” said Mycroft. “Go and get yourself some supper.” He picked up the silver and crocodile skin travelling cigar case - since receiving it from the Countess for Christmas, he never went anywhere without it - and noticed the bottom drawer of his bedside table sitting slightly out. “Have you been sorting my socks?”
“No”, said Fedir, feigning ignorance, “Major Nash, he sort.”
She waited for the all clear then crawled out gingerly, giving thanks to the diligence of her servants who swept under the bed as thoroughly as they did elsewhere.
Her brain was still in shock when she attempted to put the doll back into the socks exactly as she found it. She couldn’t quite remember how the socks were folded. Was the doll in the top sock or the bottom sock? Was the sock angled at two o’clock from the right hand corner of the drawer or was it a forty-five degree angle? She cursed herself for not paying attention as she hurried back to the great hall via her own bedroom in time to be escorted into the dining room by Sir James Damery who was at the tail end of diners.
The Countess barely listened to the conversation during dinner which mostly revolved around the Tudor tennis court. Her mind was unable to move beyond the Matryoshka doll. How had Major Nash put it?
“Apparently the princess gave one to each of her lovers…”
‘Apparently’ implied something unverified, an account from a second source.
Who told him? Who planted the idea in his head?
The only way to find out would be to ask him but that would be admitting she had found the doll in the drawer. He would then know she suspected him of planting it, or suspected Mycroft of killing the princess. Was Major Nash protecting Mycroft? Or was he setting him up?
She realized someone was addressing her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Can we count you in?” repeated Mrs Klein testily.
“Count me in?”
Colonel Moriarty came to her rescue. “A game of tennis tomorrow morning straight after breakfast,” he explained.
“Oh, yes, certainly. Sounds jolly fun!”
“Did you pack some sporting attire?” checked Miss Blague eagerly. “I will have to wear a promenade dress. It’s the only thing that doesn’t have a train.”
“Yes, I packed a golf ensemble and a riding habit. I shall wear the golf skirt and the cropped jacket. A riding habit is really just a skirt with a train on the side. Are we playing in teams?”
“Yes,” said Prince Sergei. “We will play in pairs; two to a side, the lowest scoring team is eliminated until we have a clear winner. We can draw names out of a hat after dinner.”
Straight after dinner a pencil and some paper were procured by Ponsonby.
“Count me out,” begged off Mycroft, “too strenuous for me.”
“Me too,” said Mr Blague, grimacing with pain. “I have an old battle scar that plays up when I over-stretch and lunge.”
“And me too,” said Damery, noting that they would have an odd man out if he played, “I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I feel a bit sluggish.”
“That leaves eight,” reasoned the colonel. “Why not ju
st write the names of the four men on pieces of paper and the four ladies can choose a name.”
Major Nash followed that suggestion and placed the four names in a large silver punch bowl.
Miss Blague, flushed with excitement and feeling lucky, drew first. When she read the name it was clear her luck was all bad. It was as if she had a quail bone stuck in her throat. “C…C…Colonel M…M…Moriarty.”
Miss de Merville drew next. “Dr Watson,” she said not unhappily.
Mrs Klein had a turn. “Prince Sergei,” she announced triumphantly, making it sound as if they had already won.
Major Nash looked pleased. “That leaves me and Countess Volodymyrovna.”
“In the interest of fair play I will draw the last name,” she insisted, plucking the last paper out of the punch bowl. “Oh, there seems to be some error! I have drawn Colonel Moriarty too!”
“What!” blurted Major Nash. “That can’t be right!”
“You must have written my name twice,” asserted the colonel.
“I’ve seen that done before,” added the prince. “I was in St Petersburg. It was an archery competition. An easy mistake to make.”
“I don’t make mistakes of that nature,” insisted Major Nash. “Let me see that paper.”
“This one?” said the Countess as she tossed it into the fire.
“You’ll have to write out the two names again,” suggested Dr Watson, mindful of the nature of fair play.
Major Nash gritted his teeth and wrote out the two names again, folded them several times and tossed them into the punch bowl. The Countess insisted on going first because she had gone last the other time. She fished around for an undue length of time and plucked out ‘Colonel Moriarty’.
Miss Blague, fingers crossed, checked her paper just to be sure, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when she read out ‘Major Nash’.
That was settled and the men returned to the dining room to pass around the port.
“I thought we were invited here for the weekend to discuss the bombs?” said Sir Damery, as he lighted up a Havana.
“Yes,” agreed Mycroft, “but de Merville needs to be in on the discussion. It will keep until tomorrow after lunch. There’s no hurry. No one is planning to leave until Monday.”
“Well, I can’t see what you hope to learn,” said Mr Blague flatly.
“A collective thrashing out of what everyone witnessed,” explained Mycroft calmly. “It may help us to piece together some vital clues.”
“But you already have the bomb man,” pointed out the American, puffing on one of his own cigars. “He was fished out of the lake.”
“Yes,” replied Mycroft blandly. “But we are interested in the person who put him in the lake.”
“You’ll never catch him,” predicted Sir James Damery. “It is a sad fact of life that some people just don’t like the monarchy. Such people have been with us from day one. Security needs to be stepped up around the Prince Regent, especially now that Queen Victoria is growing frail. Prevention is better than cure.”
“Well put,” praised Mr Blague. “Look forward, not back. That’s my motto.”
Major Nash slipped out of the dining room when he spotted the Countess going early to bed. He caught up to her on the upper landing in a dimly lit spot between the minstrel’s gallery and a rood screen.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” he hissed. “You threw that paper on the fire deliberately because you didn’t want to partner me.”
Denial was pointless. “In case it has slipped your notice, I’m helping you co-host this weekend. A good host ensures their guests are happy. It was obvious Miss Blague did not want to partner Colonel Moriarty. I was merely making sure she was not unhappy.”
Blond brows drew down in a skeptical frown. “She was all over him like a rash yesterday.”
“Something must have happened to put her off.”
“Was that your doing?”
She managed to sound indignant. “Certainly not! The colonel must have behaved inappropriately.”
He rolled his eyes and grunted. “I wouldn’t put it past Jim. On another note, I’ve got the only key to the master suite. I’m going to lock Mycroft in after he goes to bed tonight. If anyone wants to get to his room the only way they can go is through your room. That puts you in danger but your manservant doesn’t need to sit with de Merville. He can guard you instead.”
“What about you? Where will you be?”
He was about to answer then changed his mind. “I’ll be around.”
“And Colonel Moriarty?”
“I’ve got him covered, don’t worry.”
Worried she was. If Major Nash had the only key to the master suite he could easily enter in the night, kill Mycroft, and concoct an alibi. That’s when she decided it was much safer for Mycroft to sleep in her bed. She could sleep in the boudoir on the day bed. She wasn’t planning to get much sleep anyway.
Wearing a filmy peignoir, she was sitting by the fire in her room, waiting for Mycroft to come upstairs, when a soft rap on the door brought a visitor. It was Colonel Moriarty and he was grinning as if he’d just been crowned king of Ireland.
“I like the way you arranged that swap. You watched Nash fold the papers before he put them in the bowl and you knew which one to choose.”
“I did it to save Miss Blague,” she retorted.
He gave a careless shrug. “I don’t know what happened between lunch and dinner but it was as if I had suddenly caught the plague. All evening she looked terrified every time I came near her.”
“It must be that Irish charm,” she quipped.
“I’d rather partner you anyway. Will Fedir be on duty in here tonight?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, “where will you be?”
“Now that I don’t have to hide from Miss Blague, I might just get some shut-eye in that big four poster bed. No one’s going to assassinate Mycroft during the night.”
Now, if anyone else had said that she would have dismissed it as bravado or bluff, but he had excellent instincts about what assassins did and didn’t do. She sat up and paid attention. “What makes you say that?”
“An assassin would have put a bullet into Mycroft Holmes long before now. Mycroft would have to be one of the easiest targets in London – a man of unchanging habit. But that’s not what the killer wants. This killer is after a certain effect. It’s about the type of death, rather than the death itself.”
“I’ve underestimated you,” she said, head reeling at the elegance of a simple truth compared to the messiness of everything else.
“I wondered when you’d finally see the light,” he returned glibly.
“Goodnight,” she said, pushing him to the door. “I need to think.”
His arms caught her in a tender embrace while his lips delivered a playful demonstration of the other way she had underestimated him. “Happy birthday,” he whispered. “I love you.”
But she wasn’t listening. Her head and heart were miles apart.
Of course! The killer was after a certain effect!
She stared at the fire as if seeing the flames for the first time. The first attempt was a near miss with a runaway barrel. The second attempt was the three bombs. The third attempt was the rabid dog. What was the link?
Think! Think! Think!
There was now no need to make Mycroft transfer to her bed since it was highly unlikely anything would happen during the night, so she crawled between the sheets and fell asleep.
At first light inspiration struck like a bolt from the blue.
Diogenes!
Diogenes was a philosopher of ancient Greece, a doggish student of the ascetic Antisthenes. He became a Cynic, a dogged inspiration to Crato and Zeno, the first Stoics. Exiled from his homeland for debasing the currency (prompted by the Oracle at Delphi; his father was a banker; he claimed to have confused real currency with political currency!) he became a citizen of the world, the first person to coin the term cosmopolitan. He considered dogs be
tter than people because they had no shame, no self-delusion, were not interested in abstract philosophy, and could tell their enemies from their friends. He lived in a barrel and spent his life exposing the hypocrisy of men.
Hypocrites call those who tell the truth Cynics.
Who coined that phrase?
Never mind, there were too many parallels: Bankers, currency, politics, dogs, friends, barrel…death.
How did Diogenes die?
There was no definitive account. Several theories: he held his breath (unlikely unless smothered), he was bitten by an infected dog (attempt number three), he ate raw octopus (not likely to be on the menu at Longchamps).
He asked to be thrown to wild animals after his death.
She was overthinking things.
The elegance of a simple truth; the elegance of a simple truth.
First thing she did was check that Mycroft had not been smothered with a pillow but the snores coming from under the covers indicated he was still breathing. Bathing and dressing quickly, she made her way to the stable to speak to Sherlock. He and Mr Dixie had taken turns keeping watch during the night and reported that all had been strangely quiet.
She told him what Colonel Moriarty said about the effect rather than merely the death of Mycroft and the parallels to Diogenes the Cynic, expecting him to tut-tut dismissively, but he murmured, “I wondered when someone would notice.”
She told him about the furtive behaviour of Major Nash and the Matryoshka doll in Mycroft’s drawer. “Do you think the ADC is trying to implicate Mycroft in the death of the princess?”
“I would reply in the affirmative but Mycroft is hiding something. He is keeping something from us. He may already suspect his ADC of treason and be playing a game of double bluff. Hmm, I would dearly love to see that Russian doll. Is my brother up yet? Is anything happening this morning?”
