Realms of Stone

by Sharon K Gilbert

  “Did you examine her?”

  “Not really. Treves had me consult, but I never did more than watch. The girl was admitted with superficial scratches and bruises to the face and hands from walking through foliage. So she says. Her reason for hospitalisation was due to catching a chill from exposure to cold. Lord Haimsbury, why do you ask?”

  “Could you examine her? It may be too late to find anything evidentiary, but I fear she may have been sexually assaulted.”

  Gehlen stared at the detective. “Did she tell you that?”

  “Not directly, no, but she hinted at it. And her story of why she walked to the Exchange before sunrise, makes no sense, unless she so feared for her safety that she fled. I doubt she’s told her parents everything. Girls in these situations seldom do. I prefer not to place her under further duress, but do you think you could conduct a modest examination? Enough to determine if there’s legal cause for further action?”

  “Yes, I could do that. It isn’t the first time I’ve been asked to conduct this sort of thing, but I pray you’re wrong, Lord Haimsbury.”

  “As do I, Doctor. Now, I shan’t keep you. I need to speak to Treves, and then I plan to share tea with my wife.”

  “The duchess is a lovely woman, sir. If you’ve time in the near future, I’d like to speak to you regarding her pregnancy.”

  “She’s all right?” he asked, concerned.

  “Yes, quite healthy, though suffering with morning sickness and balance problems. Did they manifest before her trauma?”

  “They did. Beth’s had a difficult few weeks. Is that unusual?”

  “Sometimes. Early difficulties aren’t always a sign of anything wrong, but it is early for such severe symptoms. With your permission, I’d like to examine her before she leaves the London.”

  “Yes, of course, so long as Elizabeth agrees to it. Will you get back to me regarding both women? Lady Cordelia and my wife?”

  “As soon as I have any information,” Gehlen answered shaking Sinclair’s hand.

  Charles left the room, his mind now mulling over the obstetrician’s comments. His head ached, causing his balance to shift without warning, and he had to stop and lean against the corridor wall. It’s just the injury still healing, he told himself. As he neared the main office, he noticed the older man had left, and Treves now spoke with two students. Deciding to defer his questions for the surgeon until later, Sinclair left the medical college to visit the duchess.

  He’d arrive late for tea. A very strange encounter would reschedule all his afternoon plans.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Do join me, won’t you, Lord Haimsbury?” a portly man in a banker’s suit called from a black coach. “We shan’t keep you long.”

  Charles had a peculiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck, like tiny needles dancing across the skin. “Do I know you, sir?”

  “No, but I know you. This will take an hour at most, and I assure you that it’s worth the time. Please, sir.”

  Sinclair walked closer. The coach’s driver wore a simple overcoat and soft hat, and no other servant or passenger—save the plump-faced speaker—stood anywhere within sight. Looks can be deceiving, the voice of experience whispered inside his aching head. Take care.

  “I’d appreciate a name before I join you.”

  The rotund fellow laughed, his fleshy cheeks dancing upon the bones. “It’s Parsons. Sir Reginald J. Parsons. I’m chief clerk at the Lords, you know. If you ever attended a session, Lord Haimsbury, you’d recognise me at once. Do come out of the rain, sir. You could catch your death. ”

  Reluctantly, Charles entered the unmarked coach and sat opposite the jolly stranger. “Why is the chief clerk from the House of Lords sitting outside London Medical College? Are you ill?”

  “Oh, hardly!” he laughed. “No, sir, I’m fit as a fiddle.” He tapped on the roof of the carriage with his walking stick, and the wheels engaged. “As I said, I shan’t keep you too awfully long, but I have a duty to perform, which requires your cooperation, and I’m never a man to shirk duty.”

  “What duty is that, Sir Reginald?”

  “A solemn promise to a woman of quality. I spoke with that good lady two hours ago, and she commissioned me to deliver you to a meeting. You needn’t worry about the duchess, Lord Haimsbury. I’ve two reliable men keeping watch on her, from a discreet distance of course, and someone she knows and trusts will inform her that you’ll be late for tea.”

  “It appears you’ve thought of everything.”

  “That, my lord, is my job. The title of chief clerk is a misdirection, you might say. A deliberate obfuscation. You’ll understand everything shortly.”

  They rode together through the city of London, past St. Paul’s cathedral, past St. James’s Park, finally stopping at a three-storey Georgian on the north side of Hanover Square. The white limestone façade and pillared portico gave the place an aged, historic look, as though built by ancient Greeks. However, it had only stood at this spot since 1824, when the Duke of Wellington and General Sir John Malcolm, in cooperation with the East India Company, established a society for servicemen returning from India.

  “The Oriental Club?” Sinclair asked as he exited the coach and started up the broad steps. “I’ve no desire to apply for membership, nor would I qualify, Sir Reginald.”

  “Neither would I, sir, but we’ve a very important meeting arranged in the third floor parlour. It is the least smoky portion of the club and will not irritate our good lady’s lungs.”

  “And what lady might that be? The very nature of a men’s club is that women are generally absent. Or am I mistaken?”

  Parsons managed the steep steps with surprising grace, and he chuckled at his unwilling guest’s discomfiture. “I’m sure you’re rife with questions, but I promise your patience will soon be rewarded, Lord Haimsbury.”

  A uniformed usher met them and asked for their membership cards. Parsons handed the youth a note. The boy’s face whitened in shock. “Right this way, sirs.”

  They walked past the club’s sergeant-at-arms, a liveried butler carrying an ornate silver tray, and a footman standing on a wooden ladder to dust a chandelier. The walls were of panelled oak, decorated in elaborately carved mouldings, each brightly polished to keep down the smoke stains, and the thick carpet looked recently cleaned. Charles’s mind raced to interpret the clues—or the lack thereof—as he tried to decipher why and by whom this mysterious meeting had been planned.

  They reached the top of the final set of stairs, and the usher stopped at a rather nondescript door bearing a simple brass plaque which read: The Mauritius Room. He opened the door, his hand out.

  “In here, sirs. Ring if you have need of anything.”

  “After you, Lord Haimsbury,” the penguinesque Parsons said with a grin as he offered the lad two gold sovereigns. “For your silence,” he told the usher. “Do follow me, Lord Haimsbury. All will become clear once you’re inside.”

  Charles tried to remember if he’d chambered a round into the revolver he kept holstered next to his chest, but with the business of the day, he had no idea if the answer were yes or no.

  “Good afternoon, Charles,” a woman’s voice spoke from a shadowy corner of the parlour. The closed and heavy drapery made it difficult to see the lady’s face, but the voice was unmistakable.

  “Your Majesty,” the marquess said, bowing deeply.

  “Don’t bother with all that, my dear. Please, sit. Parsons, pour us some tea, will you? Or would you prefer something stronger?” she asked the stunned detective. “I had the club’s butler set out a decanter of Drummond whisky. They had none of the Reserve in stock, I fear. More’s the pity. I always favoured the ’36.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m content with tea.”

  Parsons handed the queen a cup of Earl Grey. “We’ve other blends as well. Have you a preferenc
e, sir?” he asked.

  “Whatever the queen is having will be just fine, thank you.”

  As her guest added sugar and milk to his cup, Queen Victoria explained. “Charles, I asked Parsons to fetch you, because I wanted to keep this meeting very quiet. Salisbury’s aware of it, and I invited him to join us, but he has other business today. Matthews knows nothing of it, however. Our Home Secretary’s fallen out my good graces this week. I shan’t elaborate, but take it as fact. Now, Parsons knows all about this—well, Parsons knows everything there is to know in government—and I’ve asked him to remain as witness to our discussion. Charles, this story in the papers. The one claiming an informant inside the palace revealed your lineage. Have you seen it?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I have. It’s hard to avoid seeing them, as nearly every paper has printed it, but I place no stock in these reports. They’re spurious at best.”

  She laughed, her small mouth forming into a delicate oval. “Oh, my dear, you are so like your father! However, Robby Sinclair would never have allowed such a story to continue. He’d have found the reporter and given him a black eye and a swift kick to the rear for his trouble!”

  Sinclair didn’t know whether to laugh or nod politely, but it soon became clear that the queen hadn’t invited him here to scold him, but rather to offer fellowship. “I’d liked to have seen my father do that,” he said at last.

  “Yes, well, I had the pleasure of seeing your father behave that way many times. Robert Sinclair had a rather short fuse when it came to his personal life, but all the more when it came to me. Albert and Robby were very good friends, and I confess to having a deep fondness for your father. But these rumours, Charles, as a policeman, I imagine you’ve wondered just who started it all.”

  “I have, and if you’ve asked me here to begin an investigation, ma’am, I shall be happy to do so.”

  She grinned mischievously. “No, Charles, that isn’t why I summoned you. Indeed, I already know. It began with a report in The Star and sort of gathered steam from there, but The Star’s reporter did not fabricate the facts, as some in Parliament claim. He received his information from someone inside government, and I can tell you that informant’s name.”

  “Who?”

  “My grandson,” she replied simply.

  “The Duke of Clarence?”

  “Yes, and before you ask, he did so with my blessing.”

  Charles sat quietly for a moment, trying to process the implications of her statement. It occurred to him that the entire conversation might simply be playing inside his head. He had suffered a head injury recently, and his head still throbbed now and then—and there was that odd tingle dancing across his neck.

  I might even be in hospital, for all I know.

  “You’re trying to figure it all out, aren’t you, my dear?” the queen asked. “Do stop being a detective for a moment, and let me share my mind with you, Charles. For weeks now, there’ve been whispers in the palace and throughout government that someone had obtained a copy of the Drummond-Branham Agreement.”

  Sinclair didn’t wish to speak in front of Parsons, so he feigned ignorance. “What agreement is that, Your Majesty?”

  “You needn’t worry about Reggie. He knows all about it. I’ve no idea how he sniffs out all our secrets, but I’ve come to trust him, as much as one can trust government people.”

  “That’s kind of you to say, ma’am,” the plump clerk said with a curious wink. “I do my best to serve.”

  The queen shrugged and stirred another cube of sugar into her cup. “Reggie is a sort of bloodhound when it comes to finding truth, and I’ve made use of that nose of his many times during my reign. Haven’t I, Sir Reginald?”

  “Indeed, you have, ma’am.”

  “Do stop calling me ‘ma’am’, Parsons! It makes me feel like an old woman.”

  “You are hardly that, Your Majesty,” the penguin assured her, smiling.

  She sighed. “Charles, I’m sure the duke’s told you all about the agreement that your forebears signed.”

  “Yes, he has. Why do you mention it, ma’am...I mean...”

  “Call me Drina, Charles. It’s what your father always called me.” He smiled at this, and the queen’s eyes began to tear. “My dear, you remind me so much of your father when you smile. Ah, but time never stops, does it? Nay, it speeds up as one ages. Do forgive the nostalgia. I did not interrupt your day to reminisce. Perhaps, another time.”

  “I’d enjoy that, Drina.”

  She laughed. “How very nicely you say it! Yes, well, this agreement with the Duke of York, that is King Edward IV—though some even today refuse to call him that, as you can imagine. That agreement is one of those documents that’s set in stone, you might say, and has never been questioned by anyone I know. To those few who are aware of its existence, it’s considered England’s pis aller. Our last resort.”

  “Last resort for what?”

  “Last resort to maintain the monarchy.”

  Charles shook his head in confusion. “Maintain the monarchy? I don’t understand. Is there a threat to it?”

  The queen sipped the tea, gathering her thoughts. “That will be all, Parsons. Charles and I shall speak alone from this point forward. We’ll ring when we’ve finished.”

  The so-called ‘chief clerk’ rose without another word and left the room. She waited a moment, and then continued. “Reggie’s probably listening at the keyhole, for that’s his way, but I enjoy the impression of privacy now and then. I seldom get any. My dear, there are a growing number of MPs and lords who regret and even resent the way my children have overtaken European throne rooms. In the past, a monarch was encouraged to marry with other rulers. Such unions generally engendered military alliances, and sometimes even periods of peace. However, because of the current anti-German sentiment in our kingdom, there is a growing concern that my family’s interconnectivity might lend strength to a rising German state. It’s no secret that the Ottoman Empire is dying, and the next few years will determine which countries inherit the empire’s wealth and influence. Germany very much wants that power, as does Russia. France is no stranger to this hunger, and even Spain would like a bite! It may be Britain that serves as the only sensible mediator to a world gone mad with greed and lust. That role would prove very difficult with a German monarch as ruler.”

  “But, ma’am—I mean, Drina, I don’t believe the people of England think of you as a German.”

  “Oh, but I am! To those who long for the return of the Stuarts or Plantagenets, my heritage is anathema! Good heavens, even the French are preferred by some! My dear, I do not complain, nor do I intentionally slight the wonderful people of our kingdom. I am, at heart, a pragmatist, and I believe this course is best for England.”

  “What course is that?”

  She reached for his hand. “One that you must agree to navigate, Charles. The head of your family is required to sign that agreement each time a new king or queen takes the throne, and as such, it is as binding upon you as it is upon us. Though you have never signed it yourself, Duke James did, and when you were born, he wrote to me and pledged your life to our service should we ever require it.”

  Sinclair grew quiet, trying to sort through the implications of this startling conversation. “Are you asking our family to take the throne?”

  “Yes, I am, but before you answer, Charles, let me tell you three things. First of all, I’ve discussed this with my son, the Prince of Wales. Edward has never really sought the throne. He sees it as too much work, actually. My grandson, Prince Albert Victor, is more like myself. He wants only the best for England, and his pragmatism foresees a change in royal houses as the best way to prevent Germany’s ascension. Secondly, I know that your inner circle fears Redwing’s plans.” She paused, noticing his look of utter shock. “You show surprise, my dear.”

  “Frankly, I am surprised,” he admitted.
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br />   “Redwing tries to camouflage themselves in hues of good deeds, but their true colours always emerge. Snakes cannot help being snakes, can they? Do you really think me so out of touch that I’d not notice them? Charles, I’ve ejected more of their riff-raff from the palace than I’ve had dogs! Smooth-talkers always think a woman’s ear is tender and eagerly attends to soft words, but not this ear. No, my dear, not this one!” She winked as she refilled her cup. “More?”

  “No, thank you.” Charles felt a bit numb, and the idea of holding liquid in a cup with any amount of grace seemed completely unachievable.

  “Ah, well, then, I’ll finish the pot. Now, Charles, you must listen carefully to me. It is known to those within my own ‘inner circle’ that Redwing hopes to use your royal blood for political and probably spiritual gain, but I do not believe you’re the type to fall for their schemes. If my ears are sturdy, then yours are made of iron! Thirdly, I’ve always felt that controlling a situation is far better than allowing the situation to control me, therefore, it seems prudent to preempt Redwing’s plans by mounting our own. That is why I spoke with my grandson and asked him to whisper a few secrets to T. P. O’Connor. Eddy made it clear that these were never to be revealed, which of course O’Connor immediately did. He thinks himself wise to the world’s ways, but he is a very useful dupe.”

  Charles began to laugh. “I do so wish O’Connor could hear you say that, ma’am!”

  She put a finger to her lips. “It will remain our private joke,” she said, her blue eyes twinkling mischievously. “Now, if you wish to speak to your Uncle James before giving your answer, I understand. But in the meantime, I should like to raise your title to that of duke.”

  Sinclair put up his hand in shock. “Wait, please! Did you just say you intend to elevate my title?”

  “Yes. I do hope that doesn’t displease you, Charles. Most peers would leap at the chance!”