The Curse Of The Diogenes Club (14 page)

There were no nesting dolls to
be had in the dressing room so he moved into the bedroom and found
something even better. A solid gold cufflink was lying under the
dressing table. It was engraved with a capital ‘J’.

James, Josiah, Jim, Jonathan,
Jantzen, John…

Sir James Damery.

General Josiah de Merville.

Jim Moriarty.

Inigo Belvedere Fortescue Nash
son of Jonathan Nash and Gabriella Jantzen.

John Hamish Watson.

Sherlock dismissed that last
name and breathed a sigh of relief that he was not looking at a
cufflink engraved with a capital M or H.

Major Nash and Colonel Moriarty
were standing in the shadow of a towering oak tree in Cheyne Walk
on the embankment side looking through a translucent grey veil of
mist at a large sash window on the second level of number 44 where
the flame from a lantern flickered erratically as it moved hither
and thither behind a drawn blind.

“Someone beat us to it,” said
Nash bitterly, feeling the damp settle into his clothes. “Someone’s
searching the premises and it’s not Scotland Yard unless they’ve
decided to start working round the clock.”

“What do you think they’re
looking for?”

“Same as us – something that
links the studio photographer to the photographer roaming around
with the folding camera which must have housed the third bomb.”

“Since we’re here, let’s find
out who it is.”

Like most Georgian terraces,
those in Cheyne Walk were constructed with a basement kitchen which
had a window below ground level that could be accessed from the
street by leaping over a hand-rail into a light-well. This
particular basement window had been obligingly pried open. It was a
simple case of slipping inside and creeping up the stairs;
revolvers drawn and cocked, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

The two men hugged the wall and
kept to the shadows, thankful for the skylight that filtered
moonlight through opaque glass. They reached the landing where the
stairs turned when one of the oak boards creaked and whoever was
upstairs in the front parlour immediately extinguished the light,
alerted to the fact someone else had entered the house.

There was no going back so they
pressed on, breaths drawn. They reached the top landing and moved
to separate doors, both ajar; hearts pounding in expectation of
danger. There was no sound anywhere except for the ticking of the
longcase clock at the turn of the stairs. As they stepped
simultaneously through the twin doorways there came a ton of pain
and then the world went black.

An unknown shortness of time
later, with skulls throbbing and a dull pain between the eyes, they
returned to the land of the living to find a huge black giant
standing over them wielding a nasty looking cosh, and behind the
giant there appeared a dreamy vision bathed in golden lamplight
that resembled the Countess holding a large wooden candlestick.

“Good evening, gentlemen, I
apologise for the headache you may have tomorrow, but it was a
necessary precaution in case you turned out to be someone
undesirable.”

“Bloody hell!” muttered Major
Nash as he rubbed the back of his head and tried not to wince.

Colonel Moriarty didn’t bother
suppressing a loud groan. “Did your manservant just transform
himself into a black devil or am I still seeing things?”

“This is Mr Steve Dixie,” she
said, replacing the wooden candlestick on a chiffonier and
re-lighting the lantern. “He has lately joined my employ. Fedir is
with the landau parked in Cheyne Row. I presume we are all here for
the same reason. Mr Aubrey Ambrose has not returned to number 44
since the costume ball. I had several people watching his house
yesterday. I don’t suppose you happen to know his whereabouts?”

“Yes,” said Moriarty without
hesitation, deciding they were on the same side and there was no
point prevaricating. “He’s lying in the pavilion with a strip of
broderie anglais wrapped around his neck.”

“Dead?”

“I thought I made that clear;
he was strangled.”

She moved to the window and
peered through a gap in the blind to check the street below to make
sure no one else was about to show up uninvited. “What about the
second photographer – the one wandering about with the Kodak camera
who hasn’t been seen since the bombs went off?”

Major Nash pushed abruptly to
his feet and tried to steady his swimmy head. “We wondered if there
might be a clue here. Sherlock presumed Mr Ambrose moved the camera
with the bomb but what if the two photographers were working in
tandem.”

“Unlikely,” she said. “I made
enquiries. Mr Ambrose worked alone apart from two junior assistants
who are totally stunned that their employer has not been seen since
the costume ball. They reported for work here early this morning
ready to develop as many photographs as possible as stipulated by
their employer. This was their most lucrative assignment to date
and Mr Ambrose was hoping it would be an entrée into royal
patronage. He is hardly likely to jeopardise that by teaming up
with a bomb man.”

“If you already knew he wasn’t
the bomb man,” reasoned Major Nash, “why did you bother to come
here tonight?”

“I wanted to ascertain if Mr
Ambrose had gone into hiding. It would have suggested he saw
something or knew something and was frightened for his life. It
looks as if that was the case and the killer didn’t hesitate to
silence him. If
you
knew he was already dead, why did
you
come here tonight?”

Moriarty straightened up and
gave another unabashed groan. “If the two photographers were both
in the same line of work it’s possible they knew each other and
perhaps even exchanged business cards. Have you searched his
study?”

She shook her head. “According
to Mr Dixie, who made a quick survey of the premises when we
arrived, there’s an office in the attic. The next level up is a
bedroom, bathroom and dressing room. At the rear of this level is a
studio. Colonel Moriarty, you take the office. Major Nash you can
check the bedroom and dressing room. Mr Dixie can check the kitchen
and pantry just in case there are dust coats or jackets with cards
in the pockets. I’ll check the studio, which is where I was heading
when I was interrupted.”

As Moriarty was trudging up the
stairs nursing a sore head he contemplated the advantages of a
doormat for a wife. Nah! Making love to a doormat was never going
to make his blood run hot. He wondered if the Countess would try
bossing him around in the bedroom. That he’d like to see! “No
wonder her husband shot himself,” he quipped to Nash.

The major chuckled, picturing
fireworks on the wedding night – and he wasn’t picturing them
outside the bedroom. “If she’s too much for you to handle…”

Bang!

The sound of a gunshot had them
hurtling back down the stairs, past the Countess on the landing,
and into the kitchen where the back door had been thrown open. The
Negro was giving chase across the rear courtyard. Someone was
scaling the wall. The unknown person dropped down the other side
and disappeared. The four of them met up a few moments later in the
kitchen where the Countess addressed Mr Dixie.

“What happened?”

“I comes down here, Missus, to
find a man comin’ through yonder door. He takes his best shot but
he would have no luck hitting the side of a charabanc.”

“Did you get a good look at
him?”

Mr Dixie shook his head. “Too
dark to see, Missus.”

“I wonder if it was the other
photographer,” she said.

“Or the killer,” mused Colonel
Moriarty.

“Or the bomb man,” added Major
Nash.

“I wonder if they are one and
the same,” she finished. “Let’s get the search underway. That
intruder tells us there must be something here worth finding.”

Half an hour later they
reconvened in the kitchen. Between them they found one card for a
rival photographer, three cards for traders of new and used cameras
and two cards for suppliers of photographic equipment. The Countess
collected all six cards.

“I can put people onto this
first thing tomorrow.”

“Before we part ways,” said
Major Nash. “I’ll run an idea past you that may help to flush out
the man behind the scheme to kill Mycroft Holmes.”

They sat around the scrubbed
pine table while Major Nash outlined his plan to invite the most
likely suspects to Longchamps for the weekend. The Countess nodded
encouragingly as she listened, agreeing that having everyone under
the same roof was worth a try.

“You can have as many servants
at your disposal as you need. I will dispatch a team of servants to
prepare the house this week. The hiring of extra kitchen staff,
plus a few more
femmes de chambres
and possibly two more
valets and a boot boy will not go astray. The weekend of the
epiphany on the sixth of January will be perfect. It is also
Orthodox Christmas that weekend. Mycroft can stress the seriousness
of the gathering. I will convince Miss Violet de Merville and Miss
Mona Blague how much fun it will be. They will put pressure on
their respective fathers. Mrs Klein may decline the invitation but
if I put it about that I don’t want her to attend she will be sure
to come. Prince Sergei will need coaxing. I may have to flirt
outrageously with the old silver fox. It may just work. Excellent
plan, Major Nash.”

Princess Paraskovia was laid to
rest in a forest of birch trees in a corner of the estate belonging
to the Earl of Winchester. News of her death had not yet been made
public so the funeral was a private Orthodox service led by a
priest in gold vestments, with only five mourners who had been
sworn to secrecy. The priest was persuaded to omit the traditional
pre-funeral masses which he was assured would be duly observed once
the body was transferred to its proper resting place in Minsk.

Countess Volodymyrovna attended
the funeral, telling the prince that Mycroft Holmes, realizing she
was Orthodox, explained to her about the untimely death of the
princess and asked her to attend as a mark of respect on his
behalf. What the prince made of that explanation was anybody’s
guess, but the fact her step-father had been an old comrade added
weight to the story.

In reality, it was an
opportunity to put into place the plan to ensure Prince Sergei
accepted the invitation to Longchamps when it was offered in the
next day or two. A widower was emotionally vulnerable upon the
death of a wife and a clever woman could inveigle herself into the
sudden void in his life. This did not call for outrageous flirting
but the thing women had mastered over thousands of years while
being denied an education, vocation and any meaningful activity
other than child-bearing. It called for emotional nurturing of the
male of the species and it worked like a charm.

As Prince Sergei walked with
her back to her carriage past the leprous white ghosts that were
sacred to Slavs she made sure to mention she would be spending
Orthodox Christmas (as measured by the Julian calendar) at
Longchamps. To those people who were Christian it would be
epiphany. And to those who were pagan it would be the twelfth day
after the winter solstice and the time of wassailing the apple
tree. As one religion trumped another, tradition remained timeless.
And though many might claim God was Nature; it was always the other
way around.

The Turkish Baths on
Northumberland Avenue had recently changed hands and were now
called the Aga Hammam Baths. The baths had previously been modelled
on ancient Roman principles with lots of intricate mosaics, heavy
stonework and sculptural columns delineating the various areas –
tepidarium, caldarium, frigidarium - but the Pompeiian influence
now gave way to Moorish design with Arabic-style decorative tiles
in soft blues and soothing greens and hidden skylights that picked
out the watery colours in the ceramics. There was even a tea room
for men to have a refreshing herbal tonic prior to getting
dressed.

Dr Watson stripped off,
collected a towel form the attendant, and made his way to the warm
room, or tepidarium, to build up a sweat. There were a couple of
men perspiring away on the benches but he didn’t recognize any
faces. Most of them had their eyes closed and were leaning back
against the wall, their minds aimlessly drifting.

Before too long, he moved into
the hot room, or caldarium, where sweat really started pouring and
most of the men began to resemble cooked lobsters. He never stayed
long in the caldarium. There didn’t seem to be anyone he knew there
either.

A dip in the cold pool, or
frigidarium, came next and then he would have a massage in one of
the alcoves. That’s what he really enjoyed – a good vigorous rub
down.

A masseur was now referred to
as a tellak and the massage table was called a globek tasi, which
apparently meant ‘tummy stone’. Despite the changes the massage was
as good as ever.

Another new feature of the
hammam was a series of alcoves for napping. The doctor had been
sleeping badly and decided to avail himself of one of the pallets.
It didn’t take him long to fall into a deep-dreaming sleep.

Now, it is a curious feature of
dreams that something in the real world just beyond the
consciousness of the dreamer will sometimes impress itself into the
dream. A barking dog or a thunderstorm will feature in a dream that
has nothing to do with dogs or thunderstorms. And that seemed to be
the case here. Dr Watson was dreaming about birch trees and when he
awoke he realized that someone was talking about birches. It was a
man in the next alcove with a clipped Russian accent. It wasn’t
difficult to overhear every word because the walls only went
three-quarters of the way up and were then designed to have a
trellis of gaps to encourage the circulation of steam and good
ventilation.