“So it is.” He stood up and stretched. “And none too soon. This is dreadfully dull duty.”
“Has she stirred at all?”
“Not even a whimper since I got her fever down. Did you have a good rest?” I told him about my conversation with Eldon, how the Earl was invested in the opium trade, and the young man’s thoughts about his parents and sister. “Well done.” He grinned. “Though this case grows more complicated by the day. The opium trade . . .” He let his voice trail off.
“We’ve time to talk about that later. Get some rest.”
“Yes . . . ,” he yawned as he shuffled toward the door. “Be vigilant, my love.”
“You needn’t worry,” I said. “I shall be fine.”
The door clicked gently as he left, making me suddenly feel very much alone in spite of poor Elsbeth. I settled into the overstuffed chair and reached across to feel her forehead, and was relieved to find it cool to the touch. A sigh escaped my lips as I folded my arms across my chest and leaned my head back, preparing for the hours that lay ahead. My eyes were drawn to the sweep hand of the bedside clock as it bounced off the demarcated hash marks by the light of the flickering oil lamp. In no time at all I could feel my eyelids beginning to droop. Before I could push myself back upright to mount the good fight, I had already lost. The night’s seductive caresses crept in upon my mind, releasing my alertness with the vague shadings of mirage, only this time the illusions were even more cunning, for I found myself sitting in Elsbeth’s room staring at a shadowy vision. There was a man on the opposite side of the bed leaning far over Elsbeth. All I could tell was that he was tall and slender and had dark hair, which was plainly evident since I was staring at the crown of his head.
I wanted to cry out, to find my voice and startle this apparition, but as so often happens in dreams, try as I might, nothing would come. I seemed destined to sit there in my delusory slumber while this faceless man finished the horrific job he had started. But as I sat there in my panicked catatonia, the most remarkable thing happened; for the first time that I can recall I was able to bear down to the bottom of my being and produce a stifled sort of yelp. It came out rather otherworldly, like the final strangled squeal of some fallen mythical beast. Which led to the second most remarkable thing; the man abruptly jerked his head up and in the wavering light of the single oil lamp I could see the spectral face of Nathaniel Heffernan.
He looked stricken; clearly as stunned as I was to hear my garbled cry, and quickly rose and rushed for the door. I leapt to my feet before my head could register what was happening and had to seize the back of the chair to keep from toppling over. In that moment I realized that I had not been dreaming. I had seen Nathaniel.
I lunged after him, my mind swimming nonsensically, but was forced to come to a quick halt when I reached the darkened hallway. He was nowhere. Because of my carelessness, he was already gone. I glared at Inspector Varcoe’s guard; the man was snoring as peacefully as a contented mutt. Infuriated with him and myself I kicked at the side of his wooden chair and sent him, and it, rattling to the floor.
“Nathaniel Heffernan was just here!” I bellowed, ignoring the fact that he might realize I’d also been dozing. “A ruddy fat lot of good you were.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry. . . .” He scrambled up and righted his chair, sliding back into it sheepishly. “Is she all right?”
She . . . Elsbeth . . . I hadn’t even looked at her.
I flushed with renewed fury as I hurried back to her bedside. I don’t know if I noticed the stillness of the covers pulled across her chest first, or the fact that the rhythm of her breathing was no longer evident. Whichever the case, the outcome was the same.
“Get Colin!” I howled. “Get Mr. Pendragon now!”
CHAPTER 16
Time, although admittedly rigid, sometimes feels as though it has a multiplicity of variances depending upon a given situation. For instance, when a moment is joyous and filled with laughter it seems to dash by like a dizzying streak of wind. Conversely, when an event is stout with boredom it appears to pass with the lumbering grace of a beached walrus. Worst of all, however, are the occasions of dread when time insists on dragging its unwilling participant irrevocably closer to the consequence against which nothing can be done. This last scenario is precisely where I found myself as I waited in the study for Colin to gather the household. I felt at turns adrift, condemned, and tortured, and always with that same insidious sense of regret and failure.
Eldon was pacing in front of the fire he’d prodded to life in a blue-and-white-striped nightshirt, his hair askew, but for once without an attendant drink in his hand. Lady Arnifour was seated across from me, her full-length robe pulled tight at the collar and a mask of white cream glued to her face with a cap yanked fully down over her hair. Mrs. O’Keefe, as always, had come no farther than the door, having taken a seat just inside the room while clutching her old flannel robe tightly about herself. She wore no facial unguent like her mistress, so there was nothing to soften the sour expression that seemed to be her constant companion regardless of the time.
Victor Heffernan was the last to arrive and was slumped on a stool on the far side of the fireplace wearing a look that made me think he suspected that something unique to him was terribly wrong.
Colin had banished us all here but had yet to join us himself, although I couldn’t figure out why. He’d said little to me after I’d confessed the truth other than to vanquish me to the study to wait for the others. As I glanced around at the others I wondered what they thought of being awakened and pulled from their beds at such an hour. If any of them feared that Elsbeth had awoken to name her attacker, I couldn’t see it on their faces.
When it began to feel like Colin might never come back, time playing its nasty tricks again, he finally strode into the room with the ease and serenity of a man arriving at a midday luncheon. “I do apologize for this unfortunate timing,” he said, “but I’ve some bad news and I thought it best for you all to hear it at once.”
“Where’s Nathaniel?” Victor bolted up. “Why isn’t he here?”
“Nathaniel is missing,” he answered. “And I’m afraid Elsbeth has died.”
Lady Arnifour gasped and let out a sob.
“It wasn’t Nathaniel,” Victor stammered, casting his eyes about the room with desperation. “You can’t tell me you think Nathaniel had anything to do with it.”
“Of course he thinks it,” Eldon sneered. “Don’t be an ass.”
“My boy’s innocent!” Victor shouted even as he sagged against the fireplace mantel.
“I haven’t accused your son of anything.” Colin spoke calmly. “It’s too soon to make any presumptions. We will have to wait until the inspector’s man returns with the coroner.”
I caught a glimpse of Mrs. O’Keefe from the corner of my eye and saw that she’d gone quite ashen, her eyes red with tears.
“Surely, Mr. Pendragon,” Eldon forged on, “a man of your renown can connect two such obvious events in a straight line? I cannot imagine why my mother would be paying you were that not the case.”
“Stop it!” Lady Arnifour howled as she struggled to regain her composure.
“Come now, Mother.” Eldon’s face flushed red. “Surely even you can see the correlation. Elsbeth’s dead and Nathaniel’s gone missing. Now if that pompous ass you hired and his trained monkey aren’t willing to venture a presumption of the obvious then I should think they’re no better than those ridiculous twits from Scotland Yard.”
“Eldon,” she hissed, this time in a low, flat tone.
But Eldon was not to be silenced. “I’m beginning to wonder if we can even accept Mr. Pendragon’s word of Elsbeth’s demise? Perhaps he’s too recklessly—”
“Enough!” she bellowed, bolting to her feet as she snatched up a small marble ashtray and heaved it at her son’s head. Time played its trick one last time as the leaden object careened toward Eldon, missing him by a fraction before imploding into the mirror abov
e the mantel. The sound of its strike was deafening, not because of its volume, but because of the ferocity and intent with which it had been hurled. The tinkling of a thousand tiny shards of glass punctuated that fury as they rained down to the floor.
Eldon recoiled, as he was surely meant to. And when the last of the fragments settled to the ground I became aware that Mrs. O’Keefe was gone. The door to the kitchen was left swinging to and fro in a silent arc as though marking the retreat of some ghostly aberration that had gone unnoticed by this roomful of hysterics.
“I am sure, Mr. Pendragon . . . ,” Lady Arnifour’s voice was raw and taut, “. . . that you will be able to see to the authorities without my help.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “We shall take care of everything. You must try to get some rest.”
She did not acknowledge his words but kept her eyes fixed on the doorway as though getting out of the room were the only thing that mattered. I glanced at Victor and thought he looked on the verge of going after her, but before he could seem to make up his mind she had already whisked herself out of the room as suddenly as her housekeeper had. He stared after her a moment, the slump of his shoulders signifying his distress, and then he too made for the door without so much as a word to the rest of us. There was nothing he could say, yet I feared his silence hinted at his own doubts about Nathaniel.
“She tried to kill me!” Eldon growled as soon as Victor was gone. “She bloody well tried to kill me!”
“You can be trying . . . ,” Colin tossed off as he fished a perennial crown out of his pocket and blithely rolled it around his fingers.
“She’s the devil’s slag,” Eldon carried on shrilly. “All she ever did was piss on Father. You’d have thought she’d earned her inheritance herself the way she carried on.”
“Did your parents often argue about money?”
“Look around, Mr. Pendragon. She makes us live like we’re on our last pound. But don’t be deceived. She’s got plenty. She simply prefers to dole it out. Gives her control and keeps us under her wretched, hateful thumb.” He stalked back to the bar.
“But what about your father’s business dealings?” I spoke up. “I thought you said your father squandered a great deal of your mother’s money?”
“A man has to do something,” he shot back, pouring himself another glass. “I’m done in. I’ve nothing more to say. And the only thing I want to hear from you is that you’re going to throw that old shrew behind bars. She’s the one who’s really capable of murder,” he seethed as he turned and stormed out of the room.
Colin heaved a burdened sigh and sat down next to me, the coin still sliding effortlessly betwixt his fingers. Long shadows, too numerous for the oil lamps to allay, were cast against the walls in a flickering tableau. “What do you make of all of this?”
I shook my head. “It’s all very sad. There’s enough vitriol here to suspect all of them and I don’t even think we’ve heard the worst of it.”
“I’m afraid I agree.”
My voice hitched as I turned to him. “I’m so sorry I let you down tonight.”
“Let me down?” He stilled the coin as he looked at me. “You never let me down, my love.”
“It’s my fault Nathaniel was able to sneak into Elsbeth’s room. I fell asleep. I gave him the opportunity to . . .” I couldn’t even finish the thought.
“To what? Watch her die? Because I’m quite certain that’s all he did. Elsbeth died without anyone’s assistance tonight. You only had to look at her to see that she was neither smothered nor strangled. You’ll see when the coroner arrives.”
“But . . .” And then I realized he was right. I hadn’t even looked at her. I hadn’t checked for the bluish hue of smothering or the telltale marks of strangulation on her neck. It had never even occurred to me since I’d been so intent on my own culpability. “Really?!”
He squeezed my hand as he offered a sad smile.
“Then why did Nathaniel run off?”
He shook his head. “Why indeed?”
CHAPTER 17
“As you can see, we’re in the embassy district,” I said as though Colin hadn’t already figured that out for himself. We were headed down the side street where I’d followed Mademoiselle Rendell days earlier. It was all familiar, if markedly drearier, in the early afternoon sun.
“To be more precise,” he pointed out, “these would be the embassies of the Austro-Hungarian nations. The Austrians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians, and Galicians are all here. And if I’m not mistaken”—and we both knew he wouldn’t be—“the Russians are here as well.”
“All right then.” I yanked open the plain wooden door behind which sprawled the dark, elegant pub I’d followed Mademoiselle Rendell into. “Let’s see which of those countries you see represented here.”
“Amazing . . . ,” he muttered as he took in the lavish interior. We seated ourselves at the long bar and Colin ran an appreciative finger along the magnificent wood. “I’ve never seen a singular piece of burl this large before,” he marveled. “And given the little flags with the double-headed eagles hanging from the ceiling and the photograph of Nicholas Romanov, I would say the place is Russian, very Russian.”
“Very good.” I grinned. “Keen eye for the obvious. But you were the only one who realized what happened with Elsbeth last night. Even Victor looked mortified for Nathaniel, but you knew he hadn’t done anything.”
“Still,” he shrugged, “it was nice to have the coroner confirm it.”
I shook my head. “You knew.”
He shrugged again and ordered us a couple of ales before spinning around on his barstool. “So which was the booth our mademoiselle set herself to work in?”
“To your left. The one near the back.”
“Vaguely discreet.” He snickered. “Is the barkeep the same?”
I glanced at the hairy, round-faced man pouring our drinks. “I don’t think so, but he looked like that.”
“And the man she met here—the foreign gentleman you insist was not Russian—is he here?”
“No.”
“And tell me again why you’re so certain he wasn’t Russian?”
“You know this. . . .”
“Remind me.”
“Back at Easling and Temple . . . ,” I prodded, “I knew a lad who was from St. Petersburg. His father was an advisor to Czar Alexander.”
“Ah yes . . . ,” he said with more enthusiasm than was necessary, and I knew he was ribbing me. “There were a lot of Russian boys attending the academy back then. What was the boy’s name?”
“I don’t remember,” I lied, refusing to play along with his game.
“Wasn’t it something like Grigorii Yuspenovich?”
I scowled at him. “Lucky guess.”
He laughed. “Well, you were only fourteen and hadn’t met me yet. You had nothing to compare him to.”
“I knew who you were. Everyone at Easling and Temple knew who you were. Ever the golden boy, smart . . . star wrestler . . . aloof . . .”
“Please. You’ll make me blush.”
“As if that were possible.”
He chuckled before abruptly turning and calling out to the barkeep, “Excuse me. . . .”
As the burly man sauntered over to us I wondered what Colin was up to. “It appears my glass has something in it beyond the ale I ordered. While that may be sufficient for your regular clientele, it is most assuredly not sufficient for me. Might I get a glass that’s been washed since Her Majesty’s coronation?”
The man’s face curled sourly as he seized the glass, his bushy eyebrows furrowing into one long, seething caterpillar. “I dun’t see anyt’ing!” he snapped.
“Then perhaps I might suggest you consider a consultation with one of our fine British ophthalmologists?”
The man’s eyes narrowed to black beads as he glowered at Colin. “You t’ink you’re funny?”
“All I want is a decent ale in a clean glass. You wouldn�
��t serve this to one of your diplomats if you could get one of them in here,” he scoffed.
“De ambassador’s staff comes here all de time.” The man leaned into Colin’s face. “And ve serve many staff from France and Austria and Hungary and all over the empire, so . . . ,” and without another word he picked up Colin’s glass and tossed it into the sink behind the bar, “. . . ve don’t need you. You may leaf.”
“Well . . .” Colin stood up. “It would seem that someone is always getting tossed out of this place. Must be ruddy hell on the bottom line.”
“Ve have plenty business.”
“So you say.” He stood up. “What do we owe you? Maybe you can hire someone to wash the dishes with our payment.”
“Out!”
The door swung shut behind us and Colin snickered as he absently rubbed his chin. “Extraordinary.”
“What’s extraordinary is that you just riled that man up for fun,” I said as I followed him back to the main thoroughfare. “Was that really necessary?”
“It wasn’t for fun—I needed some information and figured that was the easiest way to get it from him. Surely you see that.”
“What I see is that the only thing we learned is that they serve a lot of diplomats.”
“Yes. But at least we have narrowed down our list to the Austro-Hungarian nations. Surely you would’ve recognized a French accent. . . .”
I frowned. “Of course. And I could have picked up an Austrian one as well.”
“Well then, perhaps the man you overheard talking to our mademoiselle was Hungarian or Moravian.” He peered at me. “Are you familiar with either of those?”
“No. And what makes you think the man she met has any correlation to a diplomat anyway?”
“Because even though Nicholas married Victoria’s granddaughter, you know as well as I do that relations between our countries are acutely strained, and yet, here sits a most opulent czarist pub right in the midst of our city. I guarantee it’s subsidized by their government and that it serves much more than just spirits. No doubt Russia’s allies partake in those favors, which would include the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
The Arnifour Affair Page 10
