The Florian Signet

by John Burke

  Jan, as if to make sure that no nuance was lost on the Count, said to me in German: ‘Such a boastful woman, was she not? She preferred boasts to secrets. I am surprised that her husband . . . or husbands . . .’

  ‘In English!’ growled Dominic. ‘I have a right to hear all this.’

  Jan complied. I was glad. Jan, Dominic and I could fence quickly in English. Moderately fluent as he was, Florian would miss certain things, and for his own sake I thought it just as well: the truth could do nothing but tarnish his cherished image of his Carolina.

  ‘You think it will make any difference if I tell you such a story?’ said Jan. ‘I will make up something to entertain you, if that is what you wish. To pass the time, yes?’

  I felt a tremor of alarm. Passing the time could only mean that he hoped to give his men time to get together and overpower our young supporters.

  ‘It is an interesting theory,’ he went on. ‘Why should I have killed your wife?’ He leaned back in spite of Radek’s restraining hand, beaming at Dominic and then at Florian. ‘Or yours?’

  But the nearness of Florian brought an insidious change over him. Vindictiveness began slowly to suffuse his cheeks like a creeping poison. Dominic stood quite still. And Florian, who at one point had seemed about to set upon Jan, held himself in check while the man’s hatred built up.

  ‘Why should I have killed her?’ said Jan venomously. ‘Very well, I will tell you. I shall enjoy telling you. For that at least I have achieved – you will never have your petty, pretty Countess back.’ His voice quickened so that Florian strained to understand each word; and still Dominic and I did not move so much as a muscle. ‘For all the happiness it may bring you, I confess I killed Caroline Talbot – or the Countess Florian, or Mrs Dominic Warrington. I killed her: killed all of them. Because she was a stubborn fool, like the rest of you. A fool who would not listen and did not deserve to live. So frightened when we first met, and then so boastful. Such a frivolous, conceited woman – did you not find her so, Florian?’

  Dominic said: ‘Stick to the story.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but it is all the same story, it is all part of it. She did not wish to co-operate, she did not know the names of her dead husband’s confederates. But as I persevered, as I kept finding ways of coming back to see her, of meeting her at that house out on the fens, the lust to flaunt her knowledge grew too hot for her. She knew something I did not know. She hugged it to herself until it threatened to suffocate her. Oh, the need to boast became too much. She could not bear not to show her superiority to any man. She let me know – in the most provoking, roundabout way, of course – that we had all been wrong in supposing her husband dead. Leonora had brought her the news that he lived. Such a surprise, you must agree – for her, and then for me.’

  ‘She would not co-operate.’ Count Florian seized happily on that.

  ‘I wanted her to find a way of getting the signet which she had so foolishly rejected.’

  ‘Rejected?’ Florian glanced at me, puzzled. Mercifully Jan, now in full bombastic flood, did not realize what an opportunity he had missed of inflicting a truly mortal hurt on his enemy. ‘I suggested,’ he went on, ‘that as the first husband must now be an embarrassment to her, I would gladly remove him if she would use the signet and lead me to him. That way, everyone would be satisfied. When she would not help, I made it clear that I must seek other methods.’ He brought me into the conversation with that practised, boyish smile which I now knew to be cold and without substance. ‘If Caroline would not lead me, then Leonora must. A delicate proposition, but not impossible. Such matters have, after all, been my profession for a long time.’

  ‘For such a short time longer,’ said Florian.

  ‘There you are wrong, as in so many other things.’

  ‘You killed Caroline,’ said Dominic remorselessly.

  Jan hesitated a long time. Nobody spoke, nobody risked goading him.

  At last he said: ‘So. I killed Caroline, yes. On that last night we had an appointment. I came back secretly from London, knowing that I could waste no more time. She had two things for me. One was a sum of money which she had brought to the house on Tempest Fen, hoping to bribe me. Her first husband was an embarrassment and she did not want him talked about. Not enough of an embarrassment for her to wish him killed – but enough for her to hope she could buy silence. Stupid, feeble woman.’

  ‘Strong enough to stand up to you,’ said Florian.

  ‘But to what end? The other thing she had in store for me was the news that Leonora was due any moment. She proposed to tell the truth, in front of Leonora, to make sure I could not use her. I could not allow this. She saw it as a splendid dramatic confrontation, with herself as heroine. She believed she could treat any man as she chose, manipulate him.’ Again he slashed Dominic and Florian with his vicious gaze. ‘With some it may have been true. With me she found too late that she was wrong. I silenced her. With such a brief time to spare, there was no time for subtleties. She met the end she deserved.’

  Faintly, somewhere below, we heard a bumping and some spasmodic shouting. I moved a few paces back and warily opened the door.

  A girl too young and too attractive for this grim setting waved a reassurance. We were still in control of the castle.

  Dominic said: ‘You will put all this down on paper and sign it.’

  ‘The company of Bohemian rebels seems to have made you as big a fool as they.’

  ‘I want a written statement, witnessed by reputable witnesses, to take back to England. It will not solve everything: but it will go a long way towards confirming the suspicions which the police already hold.’

  ‘I owe you nothing. You cannot intimidate me.’

  Slowly Count Florian said: ‘There is a dungeon in which you might be left until you have changed your mind.’

  ‘A dungeon? In my home? There are no such relics.’

  ‘Deep down,’ said Florian. ‘My mother told me many a story of this castle, of its nooks and crannies. And of the dungeon below the deepest cellar, sealed off but simple to reach. The lowest depth, into which men were dropped to die in their own filth. No way out, unless a rope was lowered to them. Thick walls, through which nobody heard their cries.’

  ‘There is no such place.’ But Jan had paled.

  ‘I will show it to you.’

  ‘If there were such a place, I would not be there for long. My men would come in search of me.’

  ‘They would hardly expect to find such a place, even if they had heard tales of its existence. And once the stone flags were set back in position, they would hear nothing.’

  ‘You are bluffing.’

  ‘No. It is true that you might be found in time. Or you might not. Are you willing to take that risk?’

  I thought of the gloomy passage which led down and down to the cellar, and of the damp darkness of that place; and what might lie even deeper; and I shivered.

  Jan saw me, and made an effort, a pretence of not noticing.

  He licked his lips and said: ‘You were brought up in a family which once claimed to be noble. You could not bring yourself to condemn a man to such degradation.’

  ‘I spent so long in one of your prisons that I know all its horrors,’ said Florian. ‘And you are right: it would be terrible for me, simply for my own revenge, to condemn any fellow human being to such bestiality. But what of the others?’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Those who shared my slavery. Those who are still in prison, and those who died there. Do not I owe them something? I feel many of them would willingly commit you to such darkness.’

  Jan slumped, so that Radek’s hand lost its grip. But there was no attempt to get up from the chair.

  Wearily Florian said: ‘But you are right. I should be sick to my soul to do such a thing. Since you consider yourself an officer and a gentleman – since you set such store on it – I will allow you to choose a cleaner end.’ While Jan was digesting this, he turned towards the door. ‘We will send for
paper, and for wax. And one of the girls will fetch the Countess Lomnica.’

  It seemed to take an age for Jan to write a full and detailed confession. I thought I could not bear for one more moment another squeak or scratch of the nib when, at last, he laid down the pen and sat back from the table.

  Florian stepped forward, heating a blob of wax, and when it was congealing on the paper pressed the Florian signet firmly into it.

  Below, Countess Lomnica also affixed her seal.

  ‘And now,’ said Jan, ‘you will release me.’

  ‘We spoke of you being an officer and a gentleman. As such you have a penalty to pay for your crimes. For murder.’

  ‘My men will come –’

  ‘If they had had the power to come, they would already have been here.’

  ‘There will be reinforcements,’ Jan blustered. ‘Someone will ask questions. Someone will come to see what has happened.’

  ‘It will not be soon. And when they arrive they will find that you have paid a debt of honour in the only way possible for a man of your training.’

  Florian bent over Jan and reached down within his jacket. He drew out a revolver and laid it on the table out of Jan’s reach, keeping a retentive finger on it.

  ‘Mad,’ said Jan. ‘You are mad.’

  ‘Even our Emperor,’ said Florian, ‘might be affronted by your methods if ever they were brought to his attention. And even should he reluctantly sanction them, many a fellow officer would turn from you in disgust. Stay here, and do what must be done, and it will be assumed you have paid a debt of honour. That is no disgrace to a man.’

  Jan did not even look at him. He was staring at the gun on the table.

  Countess Lomnica turned away to the door.

  Jan said dully: ‘There will be someone to replace me. Your villagers will pay. You will all pay.’

  Florian rolled up the confession and handed it to Dominic.

  ‘I shall remain in this district, with every one of my men,’ he said, ‘until we see what the dangers are. I believe the authorities will keep the matter quiet. But if there should be reprisals, we shall defend our friends for as long as they need us.’

  We went out, and the door closed behind us. Florian stood with his hand on the woodwork for a full minute, then led the way towards the staircase.

  I began: ‘You really think . . .’ But I could not finish.

  We reached the hall. A couple of confident young men stood by the main door, looking out on the deserted courtyard.

  ‘He may take time to make up his mind,’ said Florian. ‘But I believe he will not leave that room.’

  We were in the courtyard when the sound of a report sounded from within the castle, chasing one fleeting echo from a corner of the wall, dying into silence.

  Dominic put his arm round me to control my trembling.

  One of the boys from the village harnessed the coach horses, and drove the coach out through the arch. He made a magnificent splash of colour on the driver’s seat, proudly looking out through the gates and down the slope to the bright, far, outside world.

  Florian waved us towards the step, and Radek opened the door for us.

  Dominic said: ‘You believe it will be possible to shake off this domination – to win the freedom you seek?’

  ‘It must be possible. We have had centuries of submission and still we do not give up. Now when the whole world is stirring, we must succeed.’

  ‘And when you have shaken off one tyranny, mightn’t you be exposed to another?’

  Count Florian inclined his head with a new respect. ‘We are not unaware of the possibility,’ he said dryly. ‘Look on the map and you will see that on all sides there are those greedy for our riches. We can fight only from one crisis to the next. And if we falter, there is always something . . . somebody, in the darkest hour . . .’ He smiled at me, and I knew that through me he grasped at the lost, fading image of his Carolina. ‘There will always be someone to give new courage.’

  If Caroline had done nothing else, she had loved him, or been loved by him, long enough to give him that joy, that surge of courage he spoke of. If she had done nothing else I could forgive her for that.

  And for me . . . I had to make up to Dominic for all that Caroline had failed to give him. The pain and ecstasy of our night together flooded through me again. I had a joyous feeling that it would not be too arduous a task.

  Count Anton Florian took my hand in his. I felt the bite of his signet ring against my fingers. He kissed my hand.

  ‘We have an old saying in my country,’ he smiled: ‘patience brings roses.’

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