Jourdain’s lack of a response was in itself the answer: either no one had noticed, or Monaco had no such analysts. Probably both. I braced myself for a barrage of science and superiority that would leave both men with hackles raised, but to my surprise, Holmes drew a deep breath, held it, let it out—then merely mused aloud as he continued to scrutinise the dry, unsmeared drops and the trampled edges of the blood pool. “Those drops—hard surface, warm day, even in this humidity they would dry in less than an hour. The pool, of course, is another matter. There is some interesting work being done on the relative drying times of blood, taking into account temperature, humidity, surfaces, and so on. I could send that to you, if you like. However, that constable who was first on the scene might have noticed how dry it was when he arrived. Since, as you know, a standing pool of blood takes two or three hours to turn from very dark to brighter red, and another two or three hours for the edges of the pool to begin showing a dry rim. He may have had a chance to notice its state before the rest of your colleagues came in and…disturbed the scene.”
I waited for him to drive the point home—that a bright red pool that was only beginning to go dry at the edges suggested a shooting time of six o’clock at the earliest, while Mrs Hudson had been gone by four and did not return until after eleven. But again, discretion surfaced, and Holmes merely folded away his glass, dropping the subject of drying times entirely to turn his attention to the actual subject of the photograph. The dead man lay calm, lips together, his eyelids nearly shut over those extraordinary eyes. His hair looked even lighter than it had on the beach that day.
“More Pathan than Mediterranean Greek,” Holmes commented.
“Is that where those eyes came from? I did wonder.”
The hair on Niko’s forearms was similarly light—at the least, on his right arm, where the rolled-up sleeve lay well down from his elbow. At the shirt’s edge, the skin had a dark stain that did not appear to be a spatter of blood. A tattoo? The shape resembled a mermaid’s tail. His left arm lay stretched out across those boards that I had scrubbed: palm up, fingers curled, shirt pulled back to the fold of his elbow. Studying the musculature, one could see other signs—along with the tattoo—that despite his delicate build and good manners, this young man had been no bookish office worker. Holmes had described him as more personal servant than deck hand, but that arm had been accustomed to physical labour: the fingers were small but powerful, knuckles heavy, his palm crossed by minor scars. Even in its slack state, the veins and tendons of his wrist stood out, as my own had begun to do after three weeks of working sails.
I saw no tattoo stains on his left arm, though the image was clear enough to count each sun-bleached hair along the upper side of it. Though…I raised the photograph, squinting at the details. Halfway up the forearm, a patch of hair seemed to be missing. I sorted through the other photographs, but though they included one showing his nude chest—graced by another tattoo—none included the full length of Niko’s left arm.
Holmes passed the last photograph to me. This one came out of order, and showed Niko’s chest. He was lying on Mrs Hudson’s floor, but had been turned onto his back. On his left side, the shirt was saturated with blood, but the right side and shoulder were largely untouched. I could see none of the small black specks that resulted when a gun went off close to fabric.
“The shooter was not close,” Holmes said to the policeman.
“Probably ten feet or so away.”
“Just inside the doorway, then,” I noted.
“Most likely.”
“Why didn’t anyone hear the gunshot?” Holmes asked.
Jourdain reached out to sift through the photographs, stopping at the earliest in the sequence, showing Niko on the floor. His brown-stained finger tapped the back of the settee, where a sort of travelling rug had been tossed. A rug that hadn’t been there when I saw the room, and yet I had overlooked it in the photograph. “There were burn marks on that thing. Like might have happened if it was wrapped around a gun.”
“Would that muffle a gunshot?” I asked in surprise.
“Some. Perhaps enough to make it sound like a backfiring engine. We get a lot of those here, with all the hills.”
But with that unseemly burst of cooperation, Jourdain withdrew. The rest of his answers were terse and uninformative, and in a few minutes, he snatched back the photographs and shoved them into his pocket.
“I hope that satisfies you that we can manage this without outside help. Now, please, go away and allow me to do my work.”
He stalked off, the latest in a long line of policemen who disapproved of Sherlock Holmes and his techniques.
Holmes, inevitably, lit a cigarette. But I had got to my feet, perhaps in protest, and found myself walking in the general direction that Inspector Jourdain had gone. I stared down at the pavement, deep in thought, and somehow avoided being run down by motors or trams. Some time later, I became aware that Holmes had spoken. “I’m sorry, Holmes—what was that?”
“I asked if you were intending to lunch?”
I found I had blindly migrated into a patch of shade—namely, a small café with so many umbrellas, its terrace might have been roofed. “It’s early, but why not?”
We ordered something, and eventually I said to Holmes, “Do you think Niko might have had a tattoo done?”
His eyebrow quirked at me, questioning my statement of the obvious. “The mark beneath the sleeve on his right arm? What would that have been, if not a tattoo?”
“I mean the left arm. That swathe of hair missing from his upper forearm. Though the photo only showed the edges of it. Don’t they usually shave off any hair before doing a tattoo?”
He slowly transferred his napkin from table to lap, eyes focused far away.
“You didn’t see it?” He shook his head. “Ah. Never mind. It was probably just a mark on the photograph.”
“Not necessarily. Although I’m not sure what a newly installed tattoo might tell us.”
“I suppose nothing.” But I didn’t think it was just a mark on the print or a fluke of shadow. And if that was the case, then I had noticed something the eyes of Sherlock Holmes hadn’t caught. Triumphs are sweet—even those that mean nothing.
But Holmes was not willing to dismiss it, even as a sign of his failure. “Did the skin look discoloured? Tattoos leave the skin around them irritated and red for a time.”
My turn to look into the distance and think, then shake my head. “I can’t be sure. But any redness would have been minor—or further around the arm.”
“Excellent work, Russell. It could help us narrow down the man’s movements during his final days.”
“Really? I mean, how?”
“There can’t be that many tattoo parlours in Monaco.”
“Are we going to hunt down tattoo parlours?” Meaning, was I going to.
“I rather doubt Jourdain will do so.”
“Well,” I said, “at least the search area is limited.”
“True. Which is why I shall remain in Monaco and follow that scent, while you return to Antibes and see what the Murphy set has to tell you.”
“Really? You don’t want me to hunt down tattoos?”
“Hmm. I suppose in this modern and emancipated era, a young lady might be given entry into such places, but—”
“No, that’s quite all right. You take the tattoos, I’ll take the artists. Shall we meet up at the Hôtel du Cap?”
“As soon as I am free.”
We ate a perfectly decent lunch, then went our separate ways.
I went back to the Hermitage, in part to sort out clothing for the laundry so I did not have to keep buying things, and in part to telephone to Mrs Hudson.
The former I managed without mishap, although I was sorely tempted to exchange the peculiar flowered dress I was wearing for yesterday’s wrinkled garments. The phone
call was less successful.
I did reach her, at the home of Lillie Langtry, and I did manage to express my happiness that she had been granted release. But I did not succeed in convincing her to see me.
“Oh, Mary, dear, I’d love to see you, but today will be so filled with lawyers and such like, I shall be terribly distracted. Perhaps tomorrow, or even the next day? Everything should have settled nicely by then.”
Either that, I thought, or Jourdain will have you back in gaol. “Shall I ring at this same number, tomorrow morning?”
“They did tell me to remain with Lillie, although I hate to make demands on a friend’s hospitality. Yes, try here first. If you don’t reach me, I may be back in my own house. Do you have Madame Crovetti’s telephone number? She will bring me a message, if you catch her before half-nine.”
“I have that number, yes. And, Mrs Hudson? I—we—she and I, that is—cleaned your place. You don’t need to worry about going home.”
“Oh, I know dear, I’ve spoken with her. Very kind of you, though I’d have managed.”
“I have no doubt of it. But you, well, you’ve cleaned up so many of our messes over the years, Holmes’ and mine, that I was…well. I am grateful.”
Particularly for that last mess, the blood I had spilled, drying on the floor.
“I know, child. But thank you. I shall see you in a day or two. Give my greetings to Mr Holmes.”
And the connection went dead.
I’m not sure how long I sat, gazing at the expensive boats in the harbour—the white sea-plane was missing, I noticed, and the enormous Bella Ragazza was having its decks scrubbed—before my meditation was broken by a gentle rap on the door, which came open just as I reached for the handle. The cleaning lady retreated immediately, amidst a storm of apologies in French with a Monégasque accent.
“No, come in,” I told her. “I was just leaving.” And to illustrate the fact, I fetched my hat and took a last, despairing, glance at the mirror.
She apologised again for disturbing me, explaining that the desk had seen my husband leave but had failed to notice I was not with him and…
“Absolutely no problem,” I reassured her, and to prove it, went out of the door, amused at this minor breakdown of the great hotel’s communications system. Like a village, where information and mis-information alike spread with ease.
My feet slowed, and stopped. A village. Where everyone knew Lillie Langtry. Might that apply to all of Monaco’s prominent residents? Because sooner or later, either Holmes or I would need to speak with the shark in these waters. The one that Inspector Jourdain was so fervently trying to keep us from.
The one who had known Mrs Hudson since she was a coy young grifter.
I was curious, though I had no wish to come into personal contact with the man. Perhaps a chance meeting, in public, with many witnesses to hand…
It might help to know where the man lived. Not that a hotel that valued the privacy of its clients would permit its desk clerk to hand over an address, but perhaps if I asked a less obvious source of information…
I walked back to the room and stuck my head inside, catching the cleaning woman as she gathered up the ash-trays and waste-baskets. “Sorry, may I ask—do you know Sir Basil Zaharoff? Who he is, I mean?”
“But of course, Madame.”
“Is it possible you know where I can find his offices, or perhaps his home?”
“Oh, Madame, I am sorry, I do not.”
“That’s fine, I’ll ask—”
“But I know where his rooms in the hotel are.”
“He has rooms here?”
“As an office, yes? For when he is doing business, you know?”
“I see.”
“Shall I take you?”
“Heavens no, I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your work. But, perhaps the room number…?”
To my astonishment, she was so flustered—either by her own gaffe at intruding upon me or by the unheard-of respect shown her work by a guest (or perhaps by the disarming floral print I wore) that she recited it. Taking care to show nothing on my face but vague appreciation, I nodded and closed the door on her dawning expression of horror—her realisation that she might have put a foot wrong.
At the end of the hallway, I heard the door come open, so I took the downward stairs, to set the poor woman’s mind at rest. I paused on the landing for a count of ten before turning around, going all the way to the top floor.
Zaharoff’s office suite was at the end of the hallway. It seemed to be cleaning time here as well, since the door was standing open and I could hear voices from within. I rapped at the door, then stepped inside to ask the cleaners if they knew when his secretary might be—
No cleaners. And not an office, really, but a luxurious suite of rooms, so high over the harbour that it was on a level with the Palace itself. This room was dominated by an enormous walnut desk and decorative touches that had to be personal—a sumptuous carpet on the floor, an Ottoman scimitar on the wall, a Fabergé egg on the desk.
And behind the desk, not a secretary, but the rotund, elderly man I’d glimpsed in the Casino on Saturday night: pale eyes, white moustache, pointed goatee. The Merchant of Death himself, Europe’s Man of Mystery, the richest monster in Europe, ran a piercing gaze over my person from hat to shoes. Unfortunately, my frock had no effect, because he reached down into the desk and came up with a gun.
Why had I not considered the possibility that an arms dealer might wield an actual weapon?
Sherlock Holmes hoped his wife was having a productive cup of tea with their former housekeeper. The day had just begun, and he was already regretting his choice of rooting out all the wielders of ink and needles.
He had expected that the modern little moustache he wore at present would be a problem, when it came to slouching into tattoo parlours and asking about the wares. Still, if that had been a tattoo on the police photograph, and he’d missed it, he had ground to make up. Slouching into any shop-front that resembled a tattoo parlour was the only way to make amends.
The first surprise was how many there were, in a place like Monaco.
But that was nothing to his astonishment at seeing the customers. A tattoo was no longer a thing for the decoration of navvies and stevedores, applied in a dim hole-in-the-wall that stank of whiskey and sweat. The last parlour he had walked into had been brightly lit, with ferns in the window and a gramophone record chortling away, with the person in the chair a woman, younger than Russell, having dark lines added to her eyebrows. Or more precisely, having lines added to where her eyebrows would’ve been had she not plucked them out.
None of the tattooists, however, betrayed any recognition when he asked about a handsome young man with brilliant green eyes.
Interest, yes. Recognition, no.
He could only trust that Russell was having more luck than he.
I’d walked into the hotel room expecting an office, with secretary and appointment books. Beyond that, I suppose I had blithely assumed that any businessman who dealt in deadly munitions was only dangerous when it came to his wares on a battlefield. But of course a person like this would have a gun to hand—and not one of his flawed, liable-to-fail designs, but the sleekest, most modern of automatic pistols.
Pointed at me. Directly at me. So close, a child could not miss—and why should a man with so much blood on his hands even hesitate? He couldn’t know who I was—could have no idea that pulling the trigger would summon the wrath of not only Sherlock Holmes but British Intelligence as well, and though yes, it would be nice to have a bullet to match with the one taken from Niko Cassavetes, I’d rather it not be me who had to bleed onto that beautiful carpet beneath my—
Oh, for God’s sake, Russell, do something.
I cleared my throat and forced myself to look away from the gun, meeting his intense blue eyes and trying to piece
together a smile. “I wonder if we might have a little talk? Preferably before you shoot me.”
A man’s voice came from the adjoining room, speaking Russian. Zaharoff said something in reply, and the man entered, moving fast. He was big and scarred and heavily muscled, a man I knew was a bodyguard even before I saw the gun inside his coat, but Zaharoff waved him off before he could tackle me to the ground. The old man made an irritated gesture at the open door behind me and snapped out a command. Flushing, the bodyguard stalked past me into the hallway. I did not hear the door close.
“Sir Basil Zaharoff?” I asked, although the honorific rather stuck in my throat.
“Who are you?” His English was only lightly accented.
“My name is Mary Russell. I’m a friend of Clara Hudson.”
“Who?”
“Clara—Clarissa Hudson? You had dinner with her, the other night? At the house of Lillie Langtry?” Why did all my statements insist on coming out as questions?
“Yes. Pleasant woman.” He made it sound like a category: old man; young girl; pleasant woman; loathsome, double-dealing, bigamistic seller of second-rate guns—again, I wrenched my thoughts back into line.
“Indeed, she said it was a good evening. However, I’m not sure if you know that there was an…accident at her home, that same evening. A young man died?”
The terrifying eyes gleamed at me like something out of the woods at dusk—and then, as abruptly as a switch being flipped, they changed. The skin beside the eyes crinkled, the moustache twitched, the old man’s posture slumped, sweeping away all traces of menace. I was looking across the desk at a genial grandfather. Who now glanced down at the gun in his hand and put it cautiously away, sliding the drawer shut as if to keep the weapon from leaping out.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why you alarmed me,” he said. “Most ill-mannered of me. My dear, what can I do for you?”
The transformation was breath-taking—and I speak as a person whose husband can adopt new personas at the drop of a hat. “I, er, yes, I apologise for intruding. I just, the cl—” I caught myself before I could reveal the source of betrayal, and changed it to: “a clerk I talked to recently mentioned that you had a suite of rooms in this hotel, and I figured they’d be on the top floor, so I thought I’d come and see if I could make an appointment. Or something.”
Riviera Gold Page 18
