She got out of bed and found the communicating door near to the window.
She turned the handle, but it was locked. Then she saw that the key was still in the lock.
She opened the door and found, as she expected, a very elegantly furnished room.
It was lit by two oil lamps and she guessed they were safer than candles, if they were to be left burning all night. There were vases filled with hothouse carnations on several small tables beside a comfortable sofa and armchairs. Also there were a number of small silver and gold objects.
At the end of the room Solita saw what she was seeking, a Chippendale bookcase.
She hurried across the thick carpet in her bare feet and looked with delight at the books.
They were in English and there were several she had already read. One or two others she had heard of and was sure that she would find them interesting.
She was pulling them out and deciding which she would take back to bed with her when she heard a voice speaking.
She realised with a start it was in Russian.
For a moment she thought she must be dreaming, until she saw that at the side of the bookcase there was another door.
It was slightly ajar and there was just a sliver of light coming through it from the other side.
“What did you find out?” she heard a man’s voice ask and knew it was Prince Ivan speaking.
“Very little, except that his father coded the message that went last night.”
Now the Princess was speaking.
Without really realising that she was doing so, Solita moved a little closer to the door that was ajar.
“What I have come to tell you,” Prince Ivan said, “is that when you are with our host tonight, you must find out from him why he was at the India Office.”
“The India Office?” Princess Zenka exclaimed.
“I heard him tell one of the men at dinner that Kimberley is giving away the prizes at the Horse Show which is taking place in a fortnight’s time.”
“Why should you think he had any other reason for going there?” the Princess enquired.
Prince Ivan was silent for a moment before he replied,
“I did not tell you, but I heard a rumour which I have not yet been able to substantiate, that the Duke was in Finland last year.”
“In Finland?” the Princess echoed. “Do you mean when the explosion took place?”
“I cannot be sure,” Prince Ivan replied, “and, naturally, it would be no use asking him openly, so you will have to find out by hypnotism.”
There was silence while Solita held her breath.
Then the Princess answered,
“It would be best to do it when he is asleep, but it is not so easy that way, as you well know.”
“Asleep or awake,” the Prince said sharply, “if you find out that the Duke was involved, it will be a distinct feather in our caps.”
“Yes, of course,” the Princess agreed, “but I don’t think for one moment that he is any different from the usual Englishman, who thinks only of horses – and of course, women!”
“He is certainly infatuated with you!” Prince Ivan said, “so keep him that way. He might come in useful!”
“I shall do my best,” the Princess exclaimed, “and he is certainly a change from that dreadful old German!”
“There I agree with you,” Prince Ivan remarked, “and if I have to eat sauerkraut ever again, I swear I shall resign!”
“You will not be allowed to do that,” the Princess answered, “you are in too deep, and you know that General Tcherevin is delighted with you.”
“So he damned well ought to be!” Prince Ivan laughed. “We have given them information that no one else could ever have obtained.”
He laughed again and it was a very unpleasant sound.
“Do you know how many British soldiers were ambushed last month?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care!” the Princess snapped, “but now you had better go back to your room. It would be a mistake for the Duke to find you here with me.”
“Yes, you are right,” Prince Ivan agreed. “Good night, my dear, and find out everything you can, after, of course, you have enjoyed yourself!”
“I shall certainly do that,” the Princess replied.
Prince Ivan was obviously leaving the bedroom and Solita became aware of her own position.
Swiftly, making no sound with her bare feet, she slipped across the boudoir and into her own room.
Carefully, so as not to make any noise, she closed the communicating door.
As she put down the book she held, she thought that she must be dreaming.
Now she knew the truth!
The Princess and her brother were spies – spies for the Russian Third Section.
They were responsible for the deaths of innumerable British soldiers.
Spies. And the way they did it was to hypnotise the information out of their victims!
It was then, as she stood there, that she realised she had gone into the wrong boudoir.
The one in which she had just been eavesdropping was connected to the Princess’s room.
Opposite her was a door into the boudoir which included the Queen Henrietta Maria suite.
It was immaterial, and it would have been a quite easy mistake to make.
But she understood now why the key, forgotten by a careless housemaid, was still in the lock.
It suddenly swept over her even more forcefully than when she had first heard it what the Princess intended to do.
When the Duke was with her, as he would be in a very short while, she intended to hypnotise him into finding out where he had been in Finland and why he had been at the India Office yesterday.
Solita could not believe for one moment that there was anything sinister to be discovered, but the idea of the Duke being at the mercy of a Russian made every nerve in her body revolt.
It was degrading and humiliating that the Duke, even though he had hurt her, should be at the mercy of the Russians who had killed her father.
‘I have to save him,’ she determined.
It flashed through her mind that Prince Ivan had implied that the Duke would be going to the Princess’s room to make love to her.
The idea shocked Solita.
She told herself that if he suffered through associating with a Russian, it would be his own fault.
Then she knew in some obscure way she did not understand that British lives were in danger.
‘I have to warn him’ she thought.
She looked round the room as if she was asking for help.
Then she was aware, as she saw herself reflected in the mirror, that she was wearing only her nightgown. Impatiently she slipped on the negligée that went over it which had been laid by Emily on a chair.
Then she opened the door which led out into the corridor.
She opened it very very softly, afraid that there might be somebody outside, somebody who would think it strange that she was coming out of her bedroom so late at night.
She knew the Duke slept at the end of the corridor.
The housekeeper had mentioned it when Solita had exclaimed at how beautiful her bedroom was.
“It’s one of the State rooms, miss, which are used by all His Grace’s personal friends,” she said. “We always calls it The Royal Passage amongst ourselves.”
“I am sure that is the right word for it,” Solita had replied with a smile.
“His Grace’s suite is at the end,” the housekeeper informed her, “and that’s got portraits of several of the Kings who have stayed at The Castle.”
She spoke proudly and went on,
“Next to that is ‘Queen Elizabeth’s suite’ and you, miss, are in the suite called after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I!”
“It makes me feel very grand!” Solita smiled.
“I think it’s one of the prettiest,” the housekeeper said, “and you’re just the right person to be in it, miss.”
Sol
ita had been pleased at the compliment, but what was important, she knew now where the Duke was sleeping.
She also knew why the Princess was in the Queen Elizabeth suite next door.
Her heart was pounding because she was afraid that Prince Ivan would be in the corridor.
Some of the lights in the silver sconces had been extinguished, but it was easy to see her way to the double doors at the end.
She thought that she would make less sound if she went barefooted and she ran on tiptoe past the Princess’s suite and reached the Duke’s.
She had the feeling that there was little time to spare before he visited the Princess and she might be too late.
She turned the handle of the door and when it opened she slipped through it as if she was a ghost.
She was not, however, in a bedroom, but in a small entre-salle.
It had three candles to light it and she could see quite clearly a door opposite which she was sure was the Duke’s bedroom.
For a moment she hesitated, afraid she might hear voices and that his valet was with him.
Then, as there was only silence, she took a deep breath and turned the handle of the bedroom door.
Chapter Four
As Solita entered the room, she saw that it was very large and there was a huge four-poster bed facing her.
The light came from candelabra on each side of it.
With a sudden jerk of her heart she realised that the bed was empty.
That meant, she thought, that the Duke had already gone to the Princess.
Then, as she stood irresolute, looking at the bed as if she felt she must be mistaken, a door opened and the Duke came in.
For a moment he was silhouetted against the light behind him and she saw that he was wearing a long dark robe.
He did not see her, but walked across the room and she knew that he was on his way to the Princess.
Suddenly he was aware of her, standing just inside the door and looked at her in sheer astonishment.
“Solita!” he exclaimed, “why are you here?”
She closed the door behind her and then said in a low voice,
“The Princess – is going to hypnotise you!”
The Duke stared at her and she added,
“She wants to find out – why you were at the India Office, and – ”
“What the devil are you talking about?” the Duke interrupted. “Really, Solita, your imagination or rather your hatred of the Russians, is no longer a joke!”
He spoke angrily.
Solita turned back towards the door. She was actually turning the handle when the Duke called out,
“Wait!”
She wanted to disobey him, she wanted to leave him to his plight.
If he was really so foolish as to be infatuated with a Russian, then he deserved to suffer for it.
Then Solita remembered her father’s death at their hands.
She did not turn around, she only waited and the Duke said in a different tone of voice,
“Tell me again what you have just said. I did not mean to be rude, but you surprised me.”
“I was warning you,” Solita said in a very low voice, “that the Princess says she intends – to hypnotise you.”
“She said? To whom? To you?”
Again there was an incredulous note in his voice and he was so obviously irritated that Solita wanted to leave him. Once again she turned the handle and, as if he realised that she really intended to go, the Duke said,
“For God’s sake, Solita, be reasonable! You can hardly expect me to believe what you are saying if you do not explain further.”
“What is – the point – if you think I am – lying?”
“I think nothing of the sort! Turn round and tell me exactly what you came to say.”
Reluctantly, her eyes very large in her pale face, Solita turned round.
For a moment she almost doubted what she had heard. It seemed impossible in this imposing English castle that Russian spies should have ingratiated themselves into the Duke’s affections.
He called them his friends.
Yet she had known from the first moment she met the Princess and Prince Ivan that they were dangerous.
Because she was nervous, she clasped her hands together and stood looking up at the Duke questioningly.
She looked small, frail and very young.
It flashed through his mind that she was just an imaginative child playing a game to try and scare him.
With a faint smile he demanded,
“Tell me the truth and I will listen to what you have to say without interrupting.”
In a small voice, but he could hear her clearly, Solita said,
“I – went by mistake into – the boudoir adjoining – the Princess’s bedroom – thinking it was – mine.”
“The door should have been locked!”
“It was, but the key was there.”
The Duke frowned and Solita went on,
“I-I was just selecting a book when I heard – two people speaking in Russian.”
“You understand Russian?”
“Yes, yes! I am quite fluent in that language.”
“So you knew what they were saying.”
“Prince Ivan spoke first. He said, ‘What have you found out’. The Princess replied, ‘very little, except that his father coded the message himself that went – ’”
“Did she say, ‘his father’?” the Duke interrupted.
“Yes.”
“You are quite certain?”
“I can remember the actual words,” and she repeated, “‘very little, except that his father coded the message himself that went last night’.”
The Duke drew in his breath and put his hand up to his forehead.
Then in a rather strange tone he said,
“What happened after that?”
Solita looked at him apprehensively as she continued,
“I moved a little – closer to the door which was – slightly ajar and I heard Prince Ivan saying, ‘what I came to tell you is that when you are with our host tonight, you must find out from him why he was at the India Office’.”
“You are quite sure he said that?” the Duke asked quizzically.
“Absolutely, and the Princess seemed surprised.”
“Go on.”
Solita told him what Prince Ivan had said about Lord Kimberley giving away the prizes at the Horse Show.
Then looking at the Duke questioningly, she told him what the Prince had added.
“‘I heard a rumour which I have not yet been able to substantiate that the Duke was in Finland last year’.”
“He said ‘Finland’?” the Duke questioned.
“Yes, and the Princess answered, ‘it would be best to do it when he is asleep, but as you know, it is not as easy that way’.”
The Duke gave an exclamation that Solita thought was one of incredulity.
Speaking quickly, because she wanted to get it over with, she related that she had heard the Princess say, ‘he was a change from ‘the old German’.”
She thought it sounded rude and therefore looked away from the Duke as she continued.
She told him how Prince Ivan had said that if he had to eat sauerkraut again he would resign.
“The Princess replied to that,” she went on, “that he was in too deep and that General Tcherevin was delighted with him.”
Then she looked at the Duke to say in an accusing tone,
“General Tcherevin is the head of the Russian Secret Service.”
“I know that,” the Duke replied sharply. “Go on!”
Solita hesitated, as if she could hardly find words to say what was in her mind. Then in a voice that was one of undoubted horror she said,
“Prince Ivan laughed and asked, ‘Do you know how many British soldiers were ambushed last month?’”
“You are making it up!” the Duke exclaimed. “I don’t believe for a moment that Prince Ivan or any other man would say such a thing!”
His anger took Solita by surprise and her eyes seemed to grow larger than they were already.
Then they seemed to blaze at the Duke.
“I swear before God and – on my father’s grave,” she asserted, “that every word I have told you is the truth as I heard it!”
She glared at the Duke as she went on,
“If the Princess – means – more to you than the – lives of your own countrymen, then there is – nothing I can do – about it!”
She turned as she spoke and ran across the room. Before the Duke could stop her she had opened the door and disappeared.
She heard him call out “Solita!” But as he did so she shut the outer door and ran down the empty corridor to her own bedroom.
Once inside, she locked the door, although she was certain that the Duke would not follow her.
She sat shaking with anger before she flung off her negligée and got into bed.
“I hate him! I hate him!” she said over and over again. “Tomorrow I will leave and never speak to him again!”
Then, because of all that she had overheard and her encounter with the Duke had been so disturbing, she felt the tears trickle down her cheeks.
She hid her face in her pillow.
When Solita had left, the Duke, standing in the centre of his bedroom, felt his anger ebbing away .
He began to realise that what she had told him was indeed the truth.
It was difficult to credit that the woman he had found so alluring was in reality an accomplished agent of the Russian Secret Service.
She had continually professed herself to be wildly in love with him.
Now he could think calmly, his acute brain told him it would have been impossible for Solita to have invented that he had been in Finland.
She also could not have known that Lord Kimberley himself decoded the messages he sent to India.
It was then he realised that she had uncovered a plot that had never entered his mind or Lord Kimberley’s. How could they imagine that the Princess used hypnotism to obtain the information she required.
He remembered now that he had heard that his friend John Wodehouse was an extremely proficient duellist. He also knew that there was an expert on the Russian Ambassador’s staff.
It was something which was common knowledge but he had not thought of it until this moment.
Solita and the Spies Page 6
