The Curse of Christmas (28 page)

“I dunno but Molly says the
Viscount wants to build houses on top of Crossbones. If the church
takes over the cemetery and they close it down, well, he could
build what he likes.”

The Countess processed the
information for a moment. Viscount Cazenove was paying off Reverend
Paterson who was paying off Madame Kronski. Were Joff and Crick in
on it too? Did Miss Quilligan stumble upon their connivance?

“Did the Viscount ever visit the
brothel?”

Sukie shook her head. “Never. I
never seen him there.”

Disappointed, the Countess
returned to her plan. “What time is the blessing for
Crossbones?”

“Midnight – that’s when dead
spirits can best hear the blessing to rest their souls.”

Good. That gave her quite a few
hours to prepare. “If you and Molly go to the viaduct at eleven
o’clock a carriage will deliver your costumes for tonight. My maid
will help you dress. You can get changed in the carriage. Fedir
will have the coffin in place for midnight. Molly will carry a
lantern so that we can see her clearly from the cemetery. Not a
word to anyone,” she warned severely. “If Molly will not agree to
the plan we will leave her out. Make sure you impress upon her how
her decision could change her life for the better.”

The Countess waited for Sukie to
slip out of the church then turned to her manservant. “Can you buy
a coffin for tonight?”

‘No need to buy. I saw some at
back of the church when I break in one night. I steal one from
church after dark. I think they not miss it.”

The Countess sat upright. “When
did you break in? You never mentioned it to me.”

“Three nights back. I see lights
in church again. Doors all locked but one window open. Big boss
down in cellar (she knew he meant crypt) and other one making ready
for bed.”

“How many coffins were
there?”

“Six or seven.”

That seemed like a high number,
especially as the girls weren’t buried in them. They just kept
re-using the same pine box so why keep more than one or two?

“Very well, steal one. Pay
someone to help you if you need help. I’m sure there is no shortage
of ‘help’ to be found in Southwark.” She smiled at her own
hypocrisy and tried not to blush. “I don’t suppose you saw a can of
paint or a black velvet cloak while you were there?”

He shook his head.

She sighed. “Why do I keep
thinking the answer to everything lies inside the crypt? One last
thing before I go - when you moved the grid was it heavy?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Could I have moved it?”

“No.”

“Could a small man move it?”

“Yes, if he is strong.”

Invitations and calling cards
had piled up on the hall table during the Countess’s absence. One
was from Princess Alexandra, the long-suffering wife of Prince
Albert Edward, the heir to the throne. The Danish princess had
married Queen Victoria’s eldest son at age eighteen. She was
currently fifty-four years of age and still waiting for her husband
to be crowned. She had stoically put up with his trysts, liaisons,
indiscretions and shenanigans. He had purportedly had fifty-five
mistresses, fortunately not at the same time, though the number was
possibly much higher and no one would have been surprised if he’d
juggled several simultaneously.

It was hard to imagine how such
a perennial philanderer could ever be popular but it was to his
credit that he had managed the impossible. He was well liked. Even
by his wife.

An invitation to take tea at
Marlborough House was not something that came along every day so an
RSVP was dispatched at once. Naturally, the Princess of Wales was
curious as to the unknown foreign countess who had rescued her
husband from endless ridicule. A brief meeting over a cup of tea
would confirm whether the woman was a liar or a fool, another of
Bertie’s aristocratic whores, along with Daisy Greville and Lady
Vane-Tempest, a prostitute like La Barrucci, a consummate actress
like Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt, or a hapless pawn in the
political hands of the Earl of Rosebery, Sir Francis Knollys or the
Marquess of Salisbury.

By half past three o’clock the
Countess had on her favourite tea gown in periwinkle blue, Liberty
satin trimmed with blue velvet ribbon and her best pearls. A
cornflower blue crepe de chine mantle edged in mink completed the
ensemble.

Marlborough House was a small
palace on the The Mall. Waiting to greet her in the forecourt was
the man with the Irish lilt she had spoken to in Battersea Park,
Colonel Damery. He waved away the footman and personally handed her
down. “A pleasure to see you again, Countess Volodymyrovna,” he
said genially, indicating with a flourish of his hand the wide
sweep of steps to the front door. “Thank you for accepting the
invitation at short notice.”

In the entrance hall was General
de Merville at his cordial best in conversation with a handsome
younger man she guessed might be a royal equerry who took her
mantle and handed it to a footman.

Colonel Damery stayed back to
exchange some military news with the General, while the third man
now took over and ushered her up to the first floor via a grand
flight of marble stairs.

“The Princess is in the yellow
drawing room,” he said in a throaty timbre. “We can go this way
through the south corridor. It is the long way round but I thought
you might appreciate the royal portraits. There are some excellent
likenesses executed by Kneller, Lely and Van Dyke. My name is Major
Inigo Nash. I am ADC to Mr Holmes.”

If he expected her to bat an
eye, he did not show it.

So, he was on her side should
things turn ugly – dear Uncle Mycroft was prepared for all
eventualities and his ADC was clearly a man for all seasons.

When they were halfway along the
portrait gallery she realized why he had brought her the long way
round. A door opened at the far end and in sauntered the Prince of
Wales followed by a stream of flunkies. They passed like ships in
the night while he measured her features as if for future
reference, smiled politely, gave a discrete nod of his head and
walked on without speaking. She did the same except she added the
obligatory curtsey.

It was nicely staged. The Prince
Regent would naturally want to meet the woman supposedly seated
beside him in his own carriage in Southwark. To not know what she
looked like might give the game away. Mycroft’s ADC could report
back to his master how it all went.

The buttercup-yellow drawing
room faced south; it filtered every little bit of winter light
through large sash windows that warmed the room. Waiting for them
was Colonel Damery and General de Merville who must have taken the
short cut. A table was set for two in a central bay, indicating the
men would not be joining the ladies for tea. No one mentioned the
‘chance’ encounter with the Prince Regent, nor the reason for her
invitation. It was all played out like a scene from a play written
by Oscar Wilde –
The Importance of Being Earnest; Lady
Windermere’s Fan –
and directed by Gilbert and Sullivan of
opera comique
fame.

“I believe you are acquainted
with the Earl of Winchester?”

“Have you settled all right into
Mayfair Mews?”

“Will you be in London for the
Christmas season?”

“Do you have any travel plans
for the New Year?”

The Princess of Wales entered
through a double door. Following in her wake were two
ladies-in-waiting. The three men bowed deferentially and retreated
without going through the formality of an introduction. Yes,
silkily scripted and staged.

“Thank you for coming at such
notice, Countess Volodymyrovna. Please take a seat. I appreciate
how busy you must be two days before Christmas and having only
arrived in London less than a fortnight ago. Darjeeling or
Souchong?”

“Darjeeling,
s’il vous
plait
.”

“You see I know all about you. I
am quite well informed. You have travelled far more widely than I
and I am quite envious of you. Milk?”

“
Pas de lait
.”

“Your French is excellent. I
tried to persuade my nieces to go to finishing school in
Switzerland but they made quite a fuss. They are only interested in
horses. You are interested in the female suffrage, I understand.
Sugar?”

“One, thank you, and yes I am a
supporter of women’s rights.”

The Princess passed over the cup
and saucer and held the Countess’s gaze. “And that is why you were
in the carriage with my husband?”

The Countess had been expecting
an interrogation and was not taken by surprise. “Yes, the secretary
of the Southwark Branch of Suffragettes asked me to arrange a
meeting. She saw who threw the fire crackers at the rally in
Trafalgar Square.”

“And now the poor woman is dead.
And there is only you who can vouch for my dear Bertie.”

The tone was tinged with comic
irony. The Countess wasn’t even sure if it was a question; she
decided to sip her tea.

The Princess motioned for her
ladies-in-waiting to leave the room; she offered her guest a plate
of crustless salmon sandwiches.

“I’m trying to decide,” said the
Princess pleasantly when they were alone, “whether you are an
adventuress or Bertie’s latest amusement.”

“I hope you have a third
category I can lay claim to.”

The Princess smiled indulgently.
“Please don’t take me for a fool, Countess. I don’t for one second
believe that my husband was in the carriage with you unless…” She
stopped suddenly. “Oh, I see, he wasn’t in the carriage with you
because you weren’t there. You are the scapegoat Rosebery and the
rest of them have been desperately searching for. That is the third
category, isn’t it?”

“Outside of this room the answer
is no.”

“And inside?”

“Yes.”

“A scapegoat – but how can you
hope to pull it off?”

“I already have.”

“But how could you succeed where
others could not?”

“I have no master. I am my own
woman. I have no need of money. I am enormously wealthy. I care not
for English politics except in an abstract and philosophical way. I
don’t have any interest in Bertie. I don’t need a title, a lover,
another castle, or another husband.”

The Princess laughed with
genuine amusement as relief washed over her. “Oh, how fortunate you
are, Countess. But why, why, why did you make yourself a
scapegoat?”

“Most of what you have been told
is true. I am interested in women’s suffrage. I knew Miss Quilligan
personally and I do want to find her killer. I know your husband
did not murder her because he was busy elsewhere when she was
murdered under a viaduct quite brutally, and it was a monstrous
thing to suggest he did it. Any other scapegoat would have been
torn to pieces by the wolves at the door, flayed by the newspaper
barons and stripped to the bone by a disbelieving public. Yet here
I am, chatting to you. I have pulled it off. I have offered myself
up as a scapegoat and I have survived.”

“But why? You still haven’t
answered my question. Why?”

“I did it for the same reason
any woman does something daring and not a little dangerous – I did
it for a man. But not the sort of man you are thinking. Not a lover
or potential lover. Someone I respect, someone I have a connection
to, someone with whom I share a special bond. There is no use
asking his name. I will not tell you.”

The Princess reached across the
tea table and gently placed her hands on those of her guest. “Thank
you for your candour and honesty. Anything less would have left me
unconvinced. I believe you. I believe you. Thank you. If there is
anything you ever need, any favour I can do, do not hesitate to
ask. Would you care to take a stroll through the long gallery? If I
sit for too long these days I get pins and needles in my left
foot.”

The long gallery turned out to
be the south corridor. They walked abreast because the hall was
wide enough for six and the Princess wanted to talk. She began by
blandly pointing out the various monarchs in the portraits but the
Countess got the impression the conversation was about to take a
turn. She braced for the worst case scenario but the turn was an
extremely pleasant one.

“Bertie and I will be hosting a
costume ball to usher in the new century. A replica of the Brighton
pavilion has been erected in Battersea Park especially for the
occasion. You will be receiving an invitation tomorrow. I do hope
you can come.”

“Thank you, I look forward to
it.”

“No need to thank me. Everyone
in London is dying to meet you. If I don’t invite you to our
costume ball and you receive an invitation from someone else in the
meantime – which you will! - our New Year’s Eve party will be
frightfully dull. The invitation will be for two. You can bring
your special friend.”

“I would prefer to bring my
travelling companion, Dr John Watson, if that meets with royal
approval.”

“Oh, certainly! Bertie will be
delighted. He is very fond of the chronicles of Mr Sherlock
Holmes.”

Dr Watson had spent the day
moping listlessly around his little sitting room in Baker Street.
The poky parlour was littered with newspapers rife with speculation
as to the identity of the fire cracker man, trying to second guess
which government figure it could be. Names were being bandied about
and all the right honourable members of parliament were living in
dread of seeing theirs in print. Photographs of the Countess were
on the front cover of every edition and editors were paying
handsomely for any new image no matter how grainy, blurred or
faded.

By Jove! She had pulled it off!
He had played his part and he was proud of his efforts but the
glory was hers. Her status in London society was assured. By golly!
She would be the belle of every ball!