Chapter Thirty-two
NO “Z” FOR ZORRO
“A most uneventful day,” I repeated.
“Nothing happened?” Irene demanded with disappointed incredulity.
“We walked upon the promenade. We lunched at the Ritz. We visited the casino, where Dr. Hoffman bet a few francs on the roulette wheel and promptly lost them. Gambling is a most fleeting entertainment.”
“But the one-eyed limping man?”
“The one-armed limping man. Yes, I saw him.”
“And?”
I shrugged. “It is possible that he was following us, and it is possible that he was not. Have you ever noticed, Irene, how many sinister-looking men prowl the streets of an infamous resort such as this? If there had not been the limping man to worry about, I could have pointed out a half-score more whom I judged to be of questionable character.”
“You were ever able to see the villainous among us,” she commented. “How did the day go with Dr. Hoffman?”
“Most cordially,” said I. “He was ever so polite; I was ever so polite. We both nearly swooned from a surfeit of courtesy.”
“Do you think he is truly worried?”
“That, yes. If it is for the reasons he gave us.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, Irene, I spent the day with him; I could not help but draw some conclusions. Despite your attempts to have it otherwise, he harbors no personal interest in me whatsoever, although he politely feigned intense interest in my geographical investigations. From his carefully phrased questions, however, I gather that he is highly curious about the progress of your investigation.”
“Natural enough,” she said. “He is the odd-man-out in this affair, both romantically and vis-à-vis the puzzle.”
“So my day was wasted.”
“Not necessarily. You at least confirmed that the man he described is hanging about.”
“And your day, Irene?”
“Sadly frivolous, I fear. Sarah and Alice and I, giddy girls all, amused ourselves at the palace. Now Sarah and I are ordered back by royal command tomorrow. I am most vexed that my social life is distracting me from the case, but there it is. I cannot snub the future Serene Highness of Monaco, nor the queen of the international stage.”
“Of course not,” said I. “Where is Godfrey?”
“Still engaged in fruitless search. He went to Marseilles. Perhaps the records will be clearer there.”
“So.” I glanced to the tabletop, where my map work lay abandoned. “We have all made no progress at the same time. I will concentrate on the tracing tomorrow. Perhaps that avenue will point to the solution that eludes us.”
“Would you, Nell? I would feel so much less guilty to be on holiday at the palace if I knew you were glued to the parlor table here. But don’t come to the room until midmorning. Godfrey will be tired when he finally returns tonight and may sleep late, and I must be off... earlier.”
“As you wish,” said I, as agreeable as country cream.
Of course I did not for a moment believe a word of it. More was afoot than I was deemed worthy of knowing, but two can play at that game, which was why I felt no compunction to tell Irene that I had spied not one, but two unsavory fellows following Dr. Hoffman. Neither one seemed inclined to confront the physician, so I judged the threat negligible.
As for Godfrey’s extended absence, I suspected another cause: as once before, Irene was assigning him a side task that would prevent him from examining her own course too closely. That meant that she was up to something shocking. And if she had merely wasted the day at the palace giggling with her lady friends, then I was Eleanora Duse!
In the solitude of my small suite, I pondered the sort of escapade that Irene would desire to conceal from the two persons closest to her. I concluded that desperate questions require desperate measures.
Hence, long past midnight, when the late revelers had all reeled and stumbled to their rooms, I left mine. I wore mouse brown, which Irene would say is not becoming, but which is especially unnoticeable. After the debacle with Dr. Hoffman, I no longer felt I need stoop to female fripperies. I established myself in a linen closet, settling upon stored pillows and bolsters as comfortably as I could and leaving the door just ajar. Through the crack I could see the gleam of the gaslight sconces and view the entrance to the Norton suite.
The maids would be up and rustling at the crack of dawn, but when Irene said “early,” she was a woman of her word. I hoped to observe some developments before being discovered by a hysterical chambermaid.
I had not taken a candle, for its light might betray me. Yet it was cozy there in the dark. As a child, I had often retreated to the parsonage linen closet to eat a forbidden fruit before teatime. Now that same childlike sense of hidden power thrilled my soul. No one would suspect my presence, a heady feeling indeed.
Hours passed, but still the gaslight burned with the same steady glow. I found myself fighting sleep and sneezes; feather pillows en masse were an unexpected hazard.
Long hours in wait were at last rewarded. The door to Irene and Godfrey’s suite opened. A man stepped out, his figure against the gaslight as sharp as a framed silhouette. And Godfrey was supposed to be sleeping late!
He looked up and down the passage, then went softly toward the stairs. I rose, finding my knees uncooperative after hours of crouching. I ignored their creaks—and those of the door as I opened it—to scurry down the hall after him.
This was real detective work! My heart pounded; my every step resonated to thunderclap proportions in my ears. I felt impelled to keep Godfrey in sight, yet feared that my eagerness might pull me too far too fast and he would see me.
The turnings of the stair were a torture. What if he had heard me and schemed to take me unawares? I celebrated rounding each turn with a pause to listen to my thumping heart. Then I feared that my caution might give him too much ground, so I hurried down the next flight. Finally, faintly, I heard footsteps on the grand staircase leading to the lobby. Even as I congratulated myself on keeping him within earshot, I realized that I would have to tread those unforgiving marble steps myself.
For this I was prepared; I had slipped a set of knee-warmers over the soles of my shoes.
The lobby lay dark and deserted. My prey was near the door when I rounded the last turning of the stair. Godfrey left the building as without incident I padded down the stairs in my makeshift muffled shoes.
I shuffled across the vast floor like a timid church mouse in an empty mausoleum. When my muffled feet slipped, I nearly fell, save for the lucky coincidence that I was near the great equestrian bronze statue of Louis XIV. While inveterate gamblers ritually rub the horse’s left fetlock for luck, I seized it to prevent a nasty spill, and I was able to reach the outside with a great sigh of relief.
The waning night was strangely beautiful. The sea shone like beaten silver in the soft light of a quarter- moon; a ribbon of daylight trimmed the horizon, and a few last stars salted the heavens.
No one seemed about, save for a figure diminishing down the promenade. I followed, grateful for the thick-trunked palms, for the florid bushes of oleander, for the muffling lawn under my muffled feet.
Godfrey did not pause at the promenade’s end, but plunged down the leafy embankment. I rushed to reach the spot before the leaves’ last tremble.
The slope grew steep amid unclipped growth. Favoring wayward, natural foliage, gardeners in the south of France are far less tidy than our English sort. Scanty soil gave way to shifting sand; then tiny pebbles pressed my tender soles. The stones clicked as I passed, tsking at my every step.
The bushes ended. I paused, then parted the last branches to peer out at a bizarre party assembled on the beach. Mist draped the shoreline water and wrapped the persons before me in mystery, but I could see two men— no, three—and a woman! Irene! And Godfrey was joining them.
They met as conspirators, their demeanor hushed and restrained.
A man wearing only shirt a
nd trousers in the predawn chill moved forward, moonlight painting his white shirt the pallid color of quicksilver.
“We will speak in English,” he said, “since all present know it.” The voice of the Viscount D’Enrique gave me a shock so intense I felt as if the Mediterranean had doused me with a wave of saltwater.
“Some know some English,” corrected a tall, thin man whose accent was sliced as thick as Italian sausage.
“Signor,” the viscount said, “for our purpose here this dawn, few words are required. Deeds will speak for us.”
The man behind him brought forward the kind of case that might house a long, thin musical instrument in its velvet-lined interior. Indeed, as the man opened it, moonshine glittered on the metal within.
Then the viscount stepped back and the tall Italian bent to inspect the contents.
“Very old,” the viscount commented. “In my family for generations.”
While the other man eyed the interior of the case, the viscount turned to the woman’s cloaked figure. “Madame,” said he, “if you choose not to take offense at such a trifling matter, this need not take place. He is foolishly young, your son, and unskilled. I am neither.”
“Ne-vair!” came the ringing reply. The voice was as golden as the seam of sunlight now annealing horizon to sea.
I gasped, but who would hear me in the bushes when she, whose voice was known world over, was speaking?
“Monsieur,” she went on, “my honor requires vengeance. Your attentions last night were highly unwelcome. Alas, I am only a woman and cannot defend myself, but I stand not alone in the world so long as my dearest and only son is willing to—nay, insists upon— defending my honor.”
The viscount bowed stiffly. “I am too much of a gentleman to point out that you approached me, Madame.”
The sea wind whipped a white silk scarf around the woman’s features. Anyone not blind or deaf would have recognized Sarah Bernhardt in that signature drapery, even if the Voice had not first betrayed her.
Godfrey remained strangely silent. Perhaps he was acting as second to Madame Sarah’s son, a courtesy he could hardly refuse, however foolish the cause.
The Italian had lifted a rapier to salute the warming light as reverently as a Roman priest might elevate a chalice. “Toledo,” he breathed. “It will do.”
While watching him admire the rapier, I missed another arrival upon the scene—or seemed to—for a second white-shirted figure suddenly stood among them.
“I warn you, Monsieur,” Sarah’s voice rang out again. “My son fought a duel for my honor when he was only sixteen, and won. He has since fought three.”
“Madame.” The Viscount’s voice came through clenched teeth. The growing light showed that his features were taut. “The matter over which he—and you—took offense is of your own illusion. You imagine me a fool if you think that I will retreat from any impudent youth, even your son. I will fight him as I would my worst enemy.”
“At this moment, Monsieur,” came a light, husky voice, “I am your worst enemy.”
As the white-shirted youth bowed, pale sunlight glanced from the hair caught in a queue at the back of his neck. I knew that unmistakable shade of chestnut warmed by glints like Russian cherry-amber or the finest French brandy.... “Godfrey” had always been Irene, and now she had removed “his” hat and coat.
I rushed through the bushes toward the knot of people on the beach even as the noncombatants drew back. Two white-shirted arms lifted, gripping gleaming wires of unblunted steel.
The scene seemed miles away. I recall thudding over the pebbled beach like a runaway cannon, impelled forward but mindless. The sound of blade sharpening blade sliced the torpid morning air. Something reached out and snared me, a manacle of flesh around my wrist.
“Miss Uxleigh,” that Voice purred near my ear, “I am delighted that you share my taste for early morning adventure, but, please, stay here, lest you inadvertently serve as a pincushion.”
“Your son! It is Irene!”
“Shhh. Yes, of course, but we do not wish the viscount to know. He might turn gentlemanly at this late date and refuse the contest.”
“But he will hurt her!”
“We will hope not.”
“We will do more than hope. I will stop them!” Slight as the actress was, her grip was like steel. “No, Miss Uxleigh. We have gone to great trouble to arrange this adventure. The viscount deserves a... a come-up-with-it, as you say.”
“A comeuppance, and what makes you think that Irene can outduel a practiced swordsman?”
“Because she wishes to, very much, and when she and I wish for something that much, we make it so.”
“You are not... supernatural!”
“No, but we know what we are about.” The blue eyes, so much deeper and darker than Alice’s, bored into mine. “I have no idea of why Irene wishes to humiliate this rather unpleasant little viscount, but there must be reason. I have suffered my own humiliations and I will help her, even if it means preventing you from helping her. Besides, the Italian is her second. No one dies in duels anymore. He will see to it that no unseemly injuries occur.”
“Unseemly? And what injuries are seemly in a duel, pray?”
Sarah Bernhardt raised a narrow finger to her lips. “Shhh. You are missing all the fun.”
I turned to the field of combat. The duelists danced back and forth across the shifting pebbles. I could not imagine a more treacherous footing, but I guessed that dueling was forbidden in Monaco, as everywhere, and so the combatants had required a discreet site.
Now I saw that Irene’s form was slighter than the other men’s. Her features were unobscured by false whiskers. Yet she could pass for a young, rather theatrical boy, the son of the famous actress. It struck me that it would be politic for the viscount to treat such a challenger lightly, but he fought as intensely as when he had pummeled the unfortunate equerry. No quarter given anyone; he was that kind of man.
Irene darted back and forth with a sort of agile glee; I perceived that she had danced the viscount around to face the rising sun.
A lock of hair had fallen across her forehead. In the ruddy light it looked like a wound. I flinched each time the viscount’s rapier point lifted to her face, but each time her own foil engaged it.
“Have you had enough, boy?” the viscount finally bellowed, winded.
“Not nearly,” said he... she.
It dawned on me (perhaps my enlightenment paralleled the action of the rising sun) that this must be more than a game for Irene. Even she was not so depraved that she would do this for a mere lark, although, of course, the Divine Sarah would, and had.
The viscount was tiring. Perspiration pebbled his face. His sword arm did not lift as high or respond as fast as at first. His eyes squinted against the fattening sun. Too late he tried to force Irene into its glare. She had chosen her ground and held it, and now . . . now she lunged as if for the kill. The viscount leaped back, stung, his shirt rent open over his heart.
I saw no blood, but a strike such as that on a practice floor would have finished the contest.
The Italian barked one word; “Basta?” Even I knew that meant “enough?”
The viscount frowned. Irene’s sleek head shook violently. She did not waste energy on words but lunged again, forcing her opponent to raise his blade and retreat. Again her stinger bloodlessly sliced through his shirt fabric. The garment gaped open, revealing the viscount’s chest—revealing what had been concealed: the site of the tattoo!
Now I saw the point of Irene’s madness. I leaned forward to spy what her rapier had disclosed.
They both moved too quickly. Had I glimpsed coils of dark hair... or a sinuous letter of the late Singh’s design?
I found myself tightly gripping the Divine Sarah’s hand, as she was squeezing mine, not in custody, but in suspense. My concern was no longer for Irene’s safety; I awaited the successful unveiling of the viscount’s chest. If anyone had told me that I would someday stand on a be
ach at dawn hoping that a man’s shirt would be sliced to shreds upon his body, I would have called that person insane.
Irene lunged again. This time a long, diagonal slash nearly halved the fabric. But still it hung from the viscount’s shoulders. He hunched over, as if to keep the tatters upon his back. I began to detect a suspicious pattern beneath the flying shreds, began to discern an “S”, or was it an “N”?
Irene lunged again, slipped on the stones and went down.
Another’s fingernails bit into my palm. My own grip pressed a thin hand. Beside me, Sarah, her face aflame with dread and excitement, whispered encouragement in French.
The viscount grinned horribly and thrust his rapier at the prone figure on the ground.
Irene rolled away like a kitten and catapulted to her feet. The viscount’s thin blade buckled as it struck stones. He turned, or attempted to, but Irene’s rapier— behind him—plucked the shirt from his back in one fluid gesture and sent it flying into the sky like a torn white flag of surrender.
He pivoted, his face red with fury and defeat, his bare chest heaving, his slack stomach revealed in all its hirsute glory.
We stared at him, we three supposed ladies. I don’t know why Sarah Bernhardt would ogle the viscount’s bare chest, but I knew why Irene and I found it so riveting.
For it was bare indeed... of any trace of a tattoo.
Chapter Thirty-three
NELL LOSES AN OSCAR
The viscount’s second rushed forward to swathe him in a cloak. Without a word, the viscount turned and stalked down the strand, his second accepting the rapier from Irene and boxing it with its mate. Then he, too, left, following along the shore.
No one had noticed me.
Irene was accepting the hearty congratulations of the Italian second, whom the daylight revealed to be a lean, rather homely man with thinning steel-gray hair and rakish eyes.
Sarah released my hand to rush forward and shake Irene’s. “My adorable Maurice could have done no better. You must tell me your secret.”
The Adventuress (v5) Page 29
