The Curse of the Singing Wolf (12 page)

“If we return to London,” he
whined.

“Stay focused. Where were we?
Oh, yes, opening gambit, stories, murder, getting away with murder
- my brain has reached a dead end.”

“I know you said not to think
the obvious but I still think it has something to do with armaments
and munitions and war. I think our hostess is the go-between. She
is bringing together different military powers and revolutionaries
such as the Fenians, radical groups that wouldn’t normally engage
in dialogue.”

“Mmm, Germany, Prussia, Ireland
and the Balkans. Where is Russia? You cannot have a war without
Russia.”

“She is dead.”

“What?”

“She got run over by a
carriage.”

The Countess was suddenly
intrigued. “Are you referring to the Princess Roskovsky?”

“Who else!”

“No, no, she was a frail old
lady.”

“The best spy is the one you
never suspect.”

The Countess continued shaking
her head. “I cannot even begin to conceive –”

“She has ties to the Tsar –
what is better?”

“Who killed her and why?”

He shrugged. “My job is to do
or die, your job is to figure out how and why.”

“Very droll! My thoughts have
reached an impasse. I’m going back to bed.”

His voice stopped her at the
door. “Tell me again who has a bedroom in our wing. I didn’t pay
attention when we were being ushered to our rooms.”

“Just the two of us, plus Xenia
and Fedir. The four men are in the west wing on the opposite side
of the great hall. Our hostess has her own apartments in the south
tower which can only be reached by the spiral stairs. Think of
Chanteloup as an eagle in full flight. The great hall is the body.
The south tower is the head, round in shape. There are two
elongated wings – east and west – for guests. In the belly are the
domestic rooms where Velazquez, Inez, Desi, Milo and the caretaker
couple are housed. The entry gate is the tail of the bird. It faces
north. Do you want Fedir to stand guard tonight?”

He shook his head. “No, let him
sleep. He needs to rest his eyes. Just make sure you lock your door
and keep your gun handy. Do Fedir and Xenia still have the weapons
you issued to them on the train?”

“Yes.”

“Let them hang onto them for
the duration of our visit here.”

Dr Watson’s fears were
compounded the next morning when he came down to breakfast to
discover that none of the servants from the village had shown up.
The Countess and the other four guests were discussing the matter
around the breakfast table. Faces ranged from seriously annoyed to
seriously concerned.

“We should dispatch Velazquez
to find out what has happened,” suggested von Gunn as he tucked
into a plateful of fried potatoes and a garlicky German
sausage.

Desi was helping with the
breakfast to cover for the missing servants and tripped over her
own clunky feet as she was advancing toward the table. A stack of
crispy bacon rashers kissed the cold stone floor.

“Clumsy oaf!” rebuked von Gunn.
“Pick that up before the cat gets to it! No! Don’t take it back to
the kitchen. Everything else will be cold by the time you fry more
bacon. Just put it here on the table and go!”

“Velazquez should not go alone
to the village,” suggested the Countess. “My man, Fedir can go with
him.”

“Make sure they are both
armed,” advised the Baron between mouthfuls of spicy sausage and
runny egg.

“I’ll go with them,”
volunteered Moriarty, picking up on the Countess’s unvoiced fear.
“It could be some sort of trap on the part of Sarazan. I’ll just
finish my coffee first.”

“I’ll go too,” said Dr Watson,
finding himself in agreement with the Irishman.

“I’ll station myself by the
gate,” added von Gunn. “Reichenbach can provide back-up. We may
need to shut the portcullis in a hurry.”

“Should we wake our hostess?”
asked Moriarty. “I think she should be informed.”

“No,” responded the Baron
forcefully, wiping egg yolk from his upper lip. “Let her sleep. We
don’t need women getting in the way.” He looked directly at the
Countess. “It might be best to remain in your bedchamber until we
ascertain what is going on.”

She tried not to laugh. “Should
I lock my door?”

Moriarty smiled wryly. “Sarazan
will be in for a surprise should he get past all of us. I suggest
you leave it wide open, Countess, as if you are expecting him. The
surprise will be all the sweeter.”

“That is an outrageous thing to
say!” spluttered Dr Watson. “I find it highly offensive! Apologise
at once to the lady!”

“It was said in jest, Dr
Watson. I think the lady knows that. Besides, a bit of humour helps
to settle nerves before a dangerous sortie.”

“Did you learn that from the
Fenians?”

As soon as Dr Watson said it he
could have cut out his tongue.

Moriarty’s self-control was
masterful. “I shall overlook that remark. I shall put it down to
the tension of the moment. I suggest we return to our rooms to
gather our firearms, gentlemen, and meet back here in ten minutes.
Does anyone have a spare weapon for Velazquez?”

“I do,” said von Gunn, shifting
uneasily in his seat.

The Countess waited for the
great hall to clear before following Dr Watson to his room.

“What on earth possessed you to
accuse Moriarty of being a Fenian?”

He rubbed his face with both
hands to get the blood flowing back into his face. He was still
white around the gills. “It just came out,” he moaned. “I was
incensed at his crude remark. He had no right to say -”

She cut him off. “Thank you for
standing up for my honour, but I took his remark with a pinch of
salt. I was not at all offended. You should hear how Australians
speak about their womenfolk.”

He got his back up and squared
his shoulders. “This is not the Antipodes!”

“I think you should
apologise.”

“Me! He’s the one who -”

“Grovel if you have to.”

“Never!”

“Listen to me,” she said
bluntly. “You have made an enemy of a man we may need on our side
when the time comes.”

“What time? When?”

“If I knew that I would tell
you. Watch your back.”

“Oh, so now I need eyes in the
back of my head as well as the front!”

“Stay close to Fedir.”

“I can handle myself,” he
grumbled. “I don’t need protecting.”

“I am not saying you need
protecting.”

“What then? That I don’t
measure up to the four military heroes in our midst? Is that
it?”

“Of course not!”

“Perhaps you take me for a
coward?”

Good grief! He really was wound
up. Perhaps she should just whack him on the head with that wooden
candlestick and knock him out cold before he started accusing her
of siding with the enemy. Hang on! Enemy? Where did that spring
from? Why should she think that? Why should she imagine the other
men, Moriarty in particular, as the enemy? The men had given her no
reason to suspect them of being anything other than brave. What’s
in a name! Yes! Yes! But what? “I know you served bravely in
Afghanistan.”

“As a medic - not as an officer
and a gentleman or the
colonel
of a regiment!”

Oh, so that was it! He was
jealous! It was male rivalry talking! There was only one way to
handle this discussion. She pulled out her lacy handkerchief and
tucked it into the pocket of his tweed jacket.

“There you go.” She gave it a
gentle pat.

“What are you doing?”

“You are my champion,” she
said, tongue-in-cheek, giving him a kiss on the forehead. “I’m
giving you my colours before you go into battle.”

He yanked the lacy thing out of
his pocket, tossed it on the floor and stomped out.

While the men made a sortie
beyond the impregnable walls of Chanteloup, the Countess made her
way to the private apartments in the south tower. It was time to
wake the Singing Wolf. Unlike the Baron, the Countess felt their
hostess should be informed her servants had failed to turn up. In
the event of an attack by Sarazan it was better for her to be
prepared. Inez would normally have helped her mistress with her
morning toilette but she was busy in the kitchen, covering for the
missing servants, as was Xenia.

The door to the main bedchamber
at the top of the stairs was unbolted so the Countess simply
knocked and walked in. The bed was empty. It had been neatly turned
down by the
femme de chambre
, the top sheet tucked back in a
perfect V and the pillows perfectly plumped. It appeared it had not
been slept in. She tried the adjoining dressing rooms which ran
enfilade in a radiating circle that ended with the bathroom. There
was no one in any of them.

The travel trunks and hat boxes
had been unpacked. The clothes had been neatly laid out in storage
chests and tidily hung in the armoires. The dressing table had the
scent bottles and hair brushes laid out. The basin and ewer of
water stood ready with a linen cloth for wiping. The copper
hip-bath from the night before was still full of scented water. One
of the maids should have used the water to flush the latrine in the
garderobe but no maid had arrived.

The Countess quickly came to
the conclusion the Singing Wolf had spent the night in someone
else’s bed and would soon return to her own bedchamber to perform
her ablutions and dress. She made herself comfortable on the
daybed, passing the time by studying the medieval tapestries
depicting
Le Roman de la Rose
.

When the chilliness of the
chamber started to bite she decided to visit the west wing instead.
The bedrooms of the male guests were all similarly decorated with
four poster beds and sumptuous hangings. There was no sign of their
hostess and there did not appear to be any feminine garments or
accoutrements trailing the floor.

Perhaps the Singing Wolf had
slept in the great hall where the coals from the huge fire would
have warmed the room well into the morning, although that didn’t
explain where she was at present. Something wasn’t right.

It was time to meet the
caretaker couple. What were their names? Oh, yes, Almaric and
Hortense. Perhaps they could shed light on the whereabouts of their
mysterious mistress.

A piglet was roasting on a
spit, game birds were being plucked, vegetables were being chopped
and loaves of warm bread were cooling on a rack on the table. Inez
spotted the Countess and assumed breakfast had finished. She went
to clear the table. Xenia followed her out. Desi was in the
secondary scullery scrubbing the pots and pans. Milo was fetching
wood from the yard. The old woman was doing the chopping of the
vegetables and the old man was doing the plucking. They were both
seated at a large kitchen table. The Countess pulled up a stool.
She addressed them in their native tongue, starting with a friendly
greeting and a few general observations about the history of
Chanteloup before discovering they also spoke English and launching
into the mystery at hand.

“I am looking for your mistress
Have you seen her this morning?”

They both shook their
heads.

“Your mistress did not appear
to sleep in her bed last night. Do you know where she slept?”

They both shook their
heads.

“Is she in the habit of going
out early – perhaps for a walk on the ramparts?”

They both shook their
heads.

This line of questioning was
leading nowhere. The Countess decided to seek out Inez.

The sultry female servant had
not seen her mistress since last night. She had unpacked the
clothes and turned down the bed and was then told not to bother
returning until she was summoned in the morning. That summons had
not come. She presumed her mistress was still sleeping and was
surprised the bed had not been slept in.

“Is your mistress the lover of
one of the male guests?”

Inez did not look shocked. She
said she could not possibly answer such a question, except to say
that her mistress always slept alone in her own bed. Always.

The Countess understood that to
mean the Singing Wolf may well have had a lover but she did not
spend the night in his bed. In fact, it was not inconceivable that
each of the men had been a lover at some stage, or even that one,
two, three or all four men were still her lovers now.

She questioned Milo, Desi,
Fedir and Xenia but none had seen the Singing Wolf since the
previous evening. Perhaps the men could solve the mystery of their
missing hostess when they returned. She settled herself comfortably
in the great hall and did not have long to wait.

The men returned looking grave.
A rockslide now blocked the zigzag path. There was no way of
gaining entry into the chateau unless one grew wings and learned to
fly. The top half of the mountain was vertiginous and only the most
skilled rock-climbers would even contemplate the near-impossible
feat of scaling the sides. The men reported hearing loud voices
echoing from below and assumed the servants had started clearing
the rocks from their side. It was impossible to say how long it
might take for the path to be cleared. They tried shifting a few
rocks themselves but fear of setting off an avalanche and burying
the servants put paid to that idea. They had no choice but to
return to the chateau. They made sure to lower the portcullis, shut
the gate and put the bar in place just to be on the safe side.
Fortunately, they had brought plenty of provisions with them and
would be able to sit it out for a few days, possibly a week.

“Let’s have a drink,” suggested
the Baron, marching to the sideboard that served as a bar. “We
might as well get used to serving ourselves. Who’s for a bracing
brandy, gentlemen?”

“Make mine a double,” said the
Prince.

“Make mine a cognac,” said von
Gunn.