End of the Century (57 page)

It was whispered that this would be the grandest fancy dress ball in nearly a quarter century, since the Prince of Wales's famous ball at Marlborough House in 1874, in which guests arrived in the costume of one of a number of distinct quadrilles, this group costumed in the manner of the Venetian court, that one in the style of the Vandyck, even one costumed as characters from a pack of cards. In the Duchess of Devonshire's ball, by contrast, there were a number of different “courts,” each headed by a well-known lady, attended by “princes” and “courtiers.” The Austrian Court of Maria Theresa, Empress Catherine's Court, the Queen of Sheba's retinue, the Italian Procession, the Doge, even two competing courts of Queen Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table.

What the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire wanted very much to keep from the partygoers, and in particular from the Prince of Wales and the rest of the royal party, who were due to arrive in another half hour, was the fact that one of the courts was without a sovereign and that a queen lay dead in the garden.

The back garden of Devonshire House had been transformed by electricity into a fairyland.

A large supper tent had been erected in the garden, to which access was obtained by a temporary staircase from the house. Hardly a scene of rustic outdoor dining, the supper tent had been hung with three Louis Quatorze tapestries depicting scenes from Roman antiquity. Strung from trestles
throughout the garden were festoons of flowers, from which at intervals electric lights shone.

A handful of the guests had, on first arriving, descended the temporary stair and inspected the garden for themselves, and it was apparently one of these curious early arrivals who had met an unfortunate end. Luckily, only a few had been on hand when the body was discovered, and these were carefully shepherded away by the police before they could inform the rest of the partygoers. Blank had asked, on hearing the details, why the party had not simply been cancelled, and Melville had informed him that the duke and duchess had made it perfectly clear that cancellation was not an option, especially not with the royal party due to arrive by eleven o'clock. The police had so far been able to prevent a panic from spreading, and it fell to Blank and Miss Bonaventure to learn what they could before the victim's body was cleared away when the partygoers were allowed out into the garden following the quadrilles and waltzes.

They found the body behind the supper tent. The electric lights overhead blinked on, then off, then on again, so that as they approached they were presented first with a brightly lit tableau, then near darkness, then the tableau again, and so on. A man with a great shock of blond hair and a full beard, dressed in the costume of a Roman equestrian, sat in a folding chair, his head in his hands. On the dark grass at his feet lay the lifeless body of an older woman in a flowing white dress, the fabric stained dark at her neck with her own life's blood. As they drew nearer, they saw that the woman's head lay a short distance away, her white hair spread round her like a nimbus. A police constable, dressed as Friar Tuck, stood a respectful distance away, truncheon in hand.

It took Blank a moment to recognize the face on the sightless head, sitting in the dark grass as if it had been planted there. It was the Lady Priscilla, she of the League of the Round Table.

“Lord Arthur?” Miss Bonaventure said, placing a tender hand on the shoulder of the ancient Roman.

The Baron Carmody looked up, his face streaked with tears, his eyes red-rimmed.

“Lady Ormonde had already been announced as Queen Guinevere,” the
baron said, his voice sounding as if it were coming from somewhere far away, his eyes not quite focusing on the two of them, “with Grosvenor as her King Arthur. Lady Priscilla wouldn't hear of it. She was to be Gwenhwyfar, the true Welsh queen of the Unworld, and I the War Duke Arthur.” Baron Carmody looked down at his costume, the Roman cavalry sword at his hip, surcoat of mail. He shook his head, his eyes moistening. “We came out here, to see the tapestries, and I turned my back for only a moment, before…”

“Take your time, Lord Arthur,” Blank said gently, kneeling down. “Take your time.”

“I didn't see who it was. Didn't even hear anything. Priscilla didn't scream, didn't shout out. I heard her talking to someone, sounding cross, but thought little of it.” He glanced behind him at the supper tent and the tapestries within. “I lingered over damned textiles, and by the time I came to see where she'd gotten to, some murderous scoundrel had…had…”

He tried to bring himself to look at the sightless head, lying a short distance away, but couldn't, bringing his gaze to rest instead on the white shoes upon the Lady Priscilla's feet.

Suddenly, the Baron Carmody opened his eyes wide and launched himself out of his chair, seizing Blank by the shoulders.

“You'll find who did this!” It was not a question, not an entreaty, but a statement. “This can't be allowed to go unavenged. Whomever…” He turned his head away, but darted his eyes for the briefest instant to the headless body upon the grass. “…did
this
, must be punished.”

Blank reached up his right hand and laid it upon the Baron Carmody's forearm.

“I seldom give assurances, Lord Arthur. And never when I don't mean it. But I
promise
you the killer will be brought to account for all that he has done.”

By the time the Prince of Wales arrived, in the guise of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier of Malta, the remains of the Lady Priscilla had been wrapped in a sheet and borne away, and the ground cleared of any sign of the
dirty business. By the time the royal party had taken their seats upon the dais in the house, each court advancing in turn, bowing, and passing on, Blank and Miss Bonaventure had conferred with Superintendent Melville, who dispatched his most trusted officers to escort Baron Carmody to his home in Mayfair. By the time the quadrilles began, stately and sumptuous, Blank and Miss Bonaventure were on their way out, this time through the front entrance, and when the waltzes were in full swing, the pair were already home in York Place, back in their own clothes, their feet propped up on the ottoman. Throughout the hours of the night, as the partygoers were let out into the garden to lounge in the electric fairyland and feast in the supper tent, Blank and Miss Bonaventure reviewed the details of the case as they knew them. And when the party finally dispersed, the morning hours already well advanced, the pair were still talking.

Whoever the Jubilee Killer was, it could not be the dead-faced man with the smoked-glass spectacles who ran about in the evening hours with a pack of spectral hounds with incarnadine ears, teeth, and claws. At the exact moment when Lady Priscilla had been killed, per Lord Arthur's testimony, the chalky-skinned figure had been face to face with Blank and Miss Bonaventure in Kensington Garden. But if it wasn't their hairless friend with the hounds who was behind this bloody business, who was it?

Superintendent Melville had refused to detain and question each of the partygoers, despite Blank's urgent request of the night before, insisting that to do so would only cause panic and embarrass a powerful member of the aristocracy with close ties to Buckingham Palace. Blank felt surely that the Duke of Devonshire would be more embarrassed if the Prince of Wales ended up beheaded at a fancy dress ball, but Melville was confident in the abilities of his men, who had been scattered throughout the ballroom in the Lincoln green of Robin Hood's merry men, to safeguard the life of the royal party.

In the end, Blank had been able to persuade Melville to hand over a full list of the invitees to the ball but had been instructed that he was not to bother anyone on the list without first consulting with the superintendent.

Blank hoped that paying a visit to the Baron Carmody would not be considered “bothering,” but even if it were, he preferred to think that any invitees with whom he was already acquainted should be exempt from Melville's prohibition.

So it was that the morning after the Devonshire House Ball, Blank and Miss Bonaventure called on Lord Arthur at his home in Mayfair. W. B. Taylor, the Knight of the Texas Plains himself, was already there, consoling the ersatz War Duke on the loss of their queen the night before.

Evidently, the Baron Carmody had not slept any more than Blank and Miss Bonaventure had done. He wore only a dressing gown over silk pyjamas, his Romanesque costume of the previous evening piled unceremoniously in the corner of the library. When Blank and Miss Bonaventure arrived, Lord Arthur was cradling a half-full tumbler of whiskey, starring into space.

Taylor, who again had his LeMat revolver holstered at his waist, paced the floor like a caged panther, hands at his sides in white-knuckled fists, his brow knit.

“We hate to intrude on your mourning, gentlemen,” Blank said, his bowler hat in hand, his cane tucked under his arm, “but we hoped to see if Lord Arthur might have recalled anything about the events of last night that might help shed light on matters.”

The Baron Carmody shook his head, his expression dark. “Nothing. No, nothing.”

“Who is it?!” Taylor spat, whirling on his heel and pointing a finger at Blank and Miss Bonaventure. “Who is it keeps picking us off? And what the goddamned hell did we ever do to them?!”

The cowboy poet was clearly agitated, and for a moment Blank thought he might draw his revolver and demand answers at the end of its barrel, but then Taylor slumped onto the sofa and buried his head in his hands.

“This ain't right, I tell you,” Taylor insisted. “Waiting around for some bastard to come out of the shadows and cut us to ribbons. It ain't right!”

Blank was forced to agree.

“Please, Lord Arthur,” Miss Bonaventure said. “You must have heard or seen something that might help us.” She paused, waiting for an answer that wouldn't come. “Blank and I heard mention of someone at the party early on who was expelled for arriving in modern dress. It occurs to us that this might
have been the killer, assuming that it wasn't one of the invited guests. Did you see anyone who was out of costume, Lord Arthur?”

A long silence stretched out, as all eyes turned to the Baron Carmody. At long last, he shook his head, blinking slowly.

“This…” Lord Arthur began, his voice barely above a whisper. “This league of ours, this pipe dream of an Arthurian renaissance.” He shook his head, angrily. “It's all a fantasy. I see that now. Stuff and nonsense to keep us from seeing ourselves, hiding from me my loneliness, from Lady Priscilla her own lack of purpose, from Brade his lack of originality and from Taylor…” He paused and rolled his eyes over in Taylor's direction.

“My lack of talent,” the cowboy poet put in.

Lord Arthur nodded, slowly. “Perhaps.” He took a deep breath and let out a ragged sigh. “She was old enough to be my mother, the Lady Priscilla. Or an elder aunt, at least. Not that things between us were ever romantic. But I think we filled for each other the role of the spouses we had lost, at least in some small measure. With her daily visits and endless lectures, I could forget, if for a moment, all that I had lost in Africa and how empty this damned house still is.”