The Adventuress (48 page)

“Alice,” Irene said in a grim voice, “you will not like what you hear, but I have no choice. The murderer of sailors, the survivor of the
Solace
who has always intended that he and he alone reap the treasure’s benefits, your blackmailer—” Only I noted Irene’s glance to Godfrey and saw his hand tense upon something in his pocket “—is none other than one most dear to you and trusted—”

Good Lord! The prince! He was old enough, powerful enough, perfectly placed to...

“—your advisor, your lover, your good friend—”

Alice’s eyes fluttered wildly behind closed lids as Dr. Hoffman grasped her wrist.

“—Emile Hoffman,” Irene finished, lowering her eyes to the kneeling man.

“Emile?” Alice’s voice quavered with disbelief, but the doctor had loosed her hand to turn and stare at Irene.

“You are mad, Madame!”

“Am I? Would you care to remove your coat and shirt?”

“Ridiculous. I need not expose myself. The facts show—”

“The facts show that you were on Madeira in the early eighties, Doctor, which is where you met Alice. But why were you there if not to observe modem sea-exploration techniques? Those limpid waters are world-renowned for their diving opportunities. The love affair was unexpected. How it must have maddened you, then, when Alice’s father compelled your love to leave a man too poor for her—when an emperor’s ransom awaited you! Had you killed Claude Montpensier years earlier? No matter, it was then that you determined to have all to yourself, to become as rich as a Heine
frère.

“You were helpless to raise the hoard then, although the years allowed you to eliminate any rivals who crossed your path. Then came the worst blow, Alice’s liaison with the Crown Prince of Monaco. Long before, you’d evolved the plan of using the palace sealing wax, having treated the Cremieux family’s inherited arthritis since you were first a physician, and thus having ready, if clandestine, access to this rare substance. Do not deny it; Godfrey has interrogated Monsieur Cremieux, who was unaware of your secret purposes. Yet fate provided a final irony: Alice’s new love, met on Madeira of all places, would become the means of wedding you to your long-lost treasure. You blackmailed your old love, using her one-time liaison with
yourself,
to win what has become your only love—the riches you glimpsed so long ago. Now do you care to reveal your chest?”

“No!” Alice rose defiantly, clinging to the sofa arm. “It cannot be Emile. He is a physician, not a murderer.” The viscount speedily stepped over, pulling Dr. Hoffman to his feet. “I had my shirt sliced off my back in a duel with a woman, Doctor. The least you can do is to oblige the lady with a look. I cannot guarantee what she will do if she has to resort to a rapier with you, but I can testify that she is capable of slicing you to ribbons.”

Godfrey had joined the viscount in pinioning the man, staring piercingly at Irene at further mention of the duel. (Irene’s explanations of the evening, I suspected, would not end until my friends returned to the privacy of their suite.)

Even Jerseyman, roused from his stupor, stumbled over to Dr. Hoffman.

It was a dreadful scene: the candlelit salon so civilized, the group force pressing on the lone man so brutal.

Dr. Hoffman shook off their arms. He stared at Alice’s distraught face, then lowered his gaze to his shirtfront and began undoing the buttons.

The only sound in the chamber was the pop of mother-of-pearl disks snapping free of starched linen. I could not bear to watch, not least because Dr. Hoffman had once been held up to me as a potential beau—surely long before Irene suspected his connection to the case.

I was tom between hoping she was wrong and berating myself for wishing my friend to fail.

When the shirt hung open, Dr. Hoffman lost his appetite for further revelation. The viscount did not hesitate, pushing the flimsy singlet aside to bare the man’s chest while Godfrey held him.

Alice had turned her head away, but Sarah had drawn closer. I could not look, and then I could not bear
not
to look.

Irene sighed, and it was not in relief.

I looked at the man in our midst, suddenly sure that he, too, had proven as innocent as a lamb. Then—like an oriental dragon ambushing my eyes from a vase I had assumed to be unadorned—a massive, serpentine tattoo came into view: the ornate compass rose we had pieced together so laboriously from the marked flesh of three dead men and an abducted girl. The hand-sized insignia covered the man’s skin above his heart
lik
e a grasping, painted fist of greed and guilt.

We all stared, unspeaking, at this unspeakable evidence.

“Not Singh’s work.” Jerseyman pushed closer, squinting. “ ’Cept for the ‘E.’ Singh never blurred his lines like that.”

Dr. Hoffman looked up at last, his face angry. “None of you fools were capable of recovering my treasure! Why should I share it, when the plan was mine, when the means finally became mine? Fate! All fate, from the moment Alice’s father wrested her from me. I swore not to die a poor man. No, this tattoo is not the work of some scurvy sea rat, save for the first letter. A discreet Marseilles tattoo artist added the letters as the number of the surviving Quarter members dwindled. This entire tattooed design is my invention, as this entire scheme is mine. As the treasure is mine.”

Alice covered her face with white, beringed hands. “Dear God, I’d noticed a tattoo years ago. Emile was strangely secretive about it, never allowing me to see it clearly. I thought him embarrassed by a youthful stupidity, but the youthful stupidity was all mine,
is
all mine.”

“Alice, no!” Irene eyed the captive. “You mustn’t dwell on the past. You have a dreadful choice to make in the present.”

“I? How is that?”

Irene nodded to Dr. Hoffman. He stood staring at Irene as if hoping to brand her face with his searing disdain. “If we charge him, these murders will be difficult to prove. And it will give him ample opportunity to reveal your former relationship.”

Alice regarded the doctor for a long moment. His glance dropped without meeting hers. “I suppose it will,” she said in a cool, rational tone. “And the alternative, dear Irene? I am sure that you have thought of an alternative.”

“He will be free to leave here, to leave the Riviera,” Irene declared. “No one will charge
hi
m or pursue him. The captain, when he recovers, will ‘discover’ the trove during the expedition, and the prince will ensure that the discovery is discreetly announced to historians and scholars. The treasure will grace the museums of the countries involved, as the find will enhance the prince’s oceanographic reputation. His success will speed your marriage, for he will earn the people’s incontestable favor for such an exploit. All surviving members of the compact who come forward, such as Louise Montpensier and Jerseyman, shall be ‘rewarded’ from the coffers of the Duchess of Richelieu for their long travail.”

“I imagine,” Alice said slowly, “that number does not include Dr. Hoffman.”

“I imagine,” Irene answered, “that such a decision will be up to the Duchess of Richelieu.”

Dr. Hoffman shuddered and turned his face into his bared shoulder. “In reaching for all, I have lost all; I have even aided Alice’s marriage to another.” He looked for the first—and last—time directly at her. “I swear to you, I never would have revealed our former relationship to the prince. You had money, some ten millions, they say. Why begrudge me mine? The blackmail was a means to an end, a threat I never meant to use.”

“And now, Emile? If making good on that threat could gain you the treasure?”

“To defend my freedom, my fortune, my life—”

Alice turned away. “A pity that you did not consider the lives, freedom and fortune of those around you. A pity that you did not consider me.”

“All this—the shipwreck, the discovery, the compact— had happened before we met,” he said.

“The first murder had not. Irene is right; meeting me brought you only dishonor. Please do not compound it by trying to justify your actions. May he go, Irene? I really would like him to go.”

Irene nodded.

We watched Emile Hoffman compose himself; the neat hands I had observed closed his shirt, smoothed his disordered hair and beard, straightened his jacket. He was the competent doctor again, a far cry from the man who had slipped poison into a glass before our eyes but an hour ago.

As he began to leave the room, the viscount barred his way.

“Monsieur, your actions have threatened the well-being of a prince to whom I owe my allegiance. I doubt that these English and Americans have the stomach to enforce their wishes that you decamp quietly, but I assure you that I do. You will never again trouble the principality of Monaco or any of its royal house. Forget your treasure; it is a state secret now, and too dangerous to meddle in.”

After a moment’s silence, the doctor passed into the hall and out of the house. Through the broken window we heard the sound of his departing footsteps.

Jerseyman snored gently from the sofa that he had reclaimed.

Irene cocked her head at the viscount. “
Touché
, sir. I thought, given an opportunity, that you would snatch the prize for yourself.”

“I would have,” he replied with a worldly smile, “but you have given me no opportunity. Good evening, ladies, sir.”

He, too, withdrew, and I found myself actually liking him.

Godfrey’s hand left his pocket. He flexed the fingers to remove a cramp. “What a peaceful ending to such a long and bloody trail.”

“All is well that ends well, my dear Godfrey.” Sarah, with Oscar still snuggled on her shoulder, embraced Irene. She kissed Irene’s cheeks—hesitated as a wicked gleam sparked her aquamarine eyes—then kissed both of Godfrey’s cheeks also.

“My congratulations, dear friends, on the most entertaining evening I have spent offstage. I much dislike ruining another’s climax, but I have a vital announcement. I will debut my Hamlet in Monte Carlo, privately, before my friends at the casino theater, in celebration of the discovery of this formidable treasure. Irene may play Ophelia, although the part does not suit her. So, Alice, I shall launch your Monte Carlo into a shining center of all that is cultured!”

At that moment, Oscar, in a fit of joy at his mistress’s news, no doubt, wound himself firmly around her forehead.

The Divine Sarah frowned beneath her impressive tiara. “Or should I debut here in ‘Cleopatra’? Oscar takes direction so well. He would make a divine asp.”

Chapter Forty

A
B
AKER
S
TREET
C
ONVERSATION

FROM THE DIARIES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

“It was
an uneventful journey, Holmes?”

“Quite. I have hopes of discovering the missing and so-called murdered girl living happily with her new husband in America, but first I will have to send some cablegrams. In the meantime, I have spoken to le Villard—the best of his debased profession, a reasonable policeman—and Madame Montpensier is free of all suspicion, if not of a rather unfortunate husband.”

“And le Villard is satisfied?”

“He could not be otherwise. A promising detective, Watson, although possessing no very inspired methods. He has requested a new monograph of me, one on the varieties of sealing wax.”

Sealing wax? Ah, well, it will occupy you between cases.”

“Indeed it will.”

“Quite some fairy tale, isn’t it, Holmes, this treasure just discovered on Crete?” I rattled my newspaper. “On an oceanographic expedition, so it says. A prince of Monaco was involved. You heard nothing about it while you were in Monte Carlo? That seems odd.”

“No, Watson, it was found shortly after my departure.

I took a rather circuitous route back to England. I must beg you not to question me further. The matter may never be made public, although I can say the world is now safe from the depravity of a demonic botanist. As for this Mediterranean find, I’m not surprised to learn of rich treasure thereabouts. Those waters have always attracted pirates.”

“This goes back much further, Holmes. To the glory that was Greece, or Minos, anyway.”

“That’s as may be, but I am sure that such a hoard was the object of far more recent glory and greed. A pity that my schedule did not permit me to lounge about the neighborhood; undoubtedly I would have gotten wind of this most conveniently unearthed treasure. But that is sheer speculation, Watson, and I prefer facts for mental company. How did you occupy your idle hours while I was away?”

“Oh, messed about. Tidying my papers, that sort of thing.”

“Working on the narratives of my cases, were you?”

“I imagine you noticed that the ink bottle had sprung a leak.”

“Nothing so obvious.”

“I thought I’d work up the matter of the King of Bohemia and the American adventuress.”

“I doubt that
the
woman would care to be remembered in a story in the
Strand
magazine, Watson.”