The Curse of the Singing Wolf (16 page)

“I’m aware of his attachment to
Mr Holmes. I don’t know if you are aware that my eldest brother,
Professor Moriarty, was instrumental in the death of Mr
Holmes.”

“I believe I read something
about it while I was travelling with my step-aunt. The name did not
mean anything to me at the time. I was wondering when you first
introduced yourself if the man was a relation of yours.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Should it bother me?”

“Surely that is up to you.”

“Let’s go into my bedchamber
while I think about it.”

He paused before following.

She sat on the end of the bed
and watched while he opened and closed the oak storage chests and
fruitwood armoires. He seemed to take pleasure in fingering her
silken corsetry, frilly petticoats and lacy under-garments, her
millinery less so.

“May I ask where you are
storing your large travelling trunks, not that I am suggesting you
are hiding a dead body in one of them? It’s just that I noticed you
did not travel light.”

“I never travel light. They are
stored in the next two bedchambers, occupied by my maid and
manservant.”

“They always travel with
you?”

“Always. I’m a little surprised
you and your three compatriots do not have your own valets.”

“As a general rule we do travel
with our valets.”

“But not when you come to
Biarritz?”

“That’s right.”

There were three words that did
not sound as pushy in French as they did in English – how, what,
why. “
Comment
?”

He gave a careless shrug.
“Velazquez is well-versed in taking care of our needs. We are all
simple men at heart who enjoy a break from pomp and fuss. And we
did not expect to end up here at Chanteloup.”

Her inflection rose. “You did
not expect it?”

His eyebrows registered her
scepticism. “Did you?”

“Me? No, certainly not. The
doctor and I arrived by chance at the last moment and so found
ourselves coming along for the ride, but I’m surprised you can say
the same.”

“You are starting to intrigue
me, please go on.”

“You do not think the fire in
the kitchen at the Hotel Louve was contrived?”

“Now I really am intrigued,” he
said. “You think it was deliberately lit?”

“The thought crossed my
mind.”

“To what end?”

“To bring you here to
Chanteloup.”

He appeared slightly stunned
and sat down on the bed beside her. “You think the Singing Wolf lit
the fire?”

“It could only be her since she
is the only one who could have arranged for us to come here to her
mountain refuge. If someone else had lit the fire, say a staff
member or one of your friends, we would all have been forced to
transfer to another hotel.”

He began nodding. “Yes, yes, I
see your reasoning. It could only be her. But why?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

“It must have something to do
with the four of us.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “There must
be a link, a common denominator, something our hostess wanted to
achieve by bringing the four of you here. Something she could not
do in Biarritz. Can you think what that might be?”

“Murder comes to mind but…” He
paused and didn’t continue the sentence. Whether he continued the
thought behind it is another matter.

She picked up where he left
off. “But then why not push you from the train or shoot you in the
back during the attack by Sarazan or poison your dinner?”

He regarded her in a fresh
light. “I can see now why Dr Watson keeps you to himself.”

Gently, he cupped her head and
trailed kisses down the side of her neck. When he heard the soft
purr that told him how much she was enjoying the sensuous assault
he pushed up from the bed, a dangerous gleam in his Irish eyes that
said: you’ll keep.

“Let’s check those trunks. I’m
starting to take this disappearance seriously.”

She had no choice but to
follow, though a few more minutes wouldn’t have hurt.

Xenia’s room and Fedir’s room
revealed nothing untoward. But they weren’t expecting them to. The
same with the garderobe. It was the private apartments of the
Singing Wolf that they were most anxious to examine. And it was
here they would leave no stone unturned.

They returned to the great hall
and took the spiral stairs inside the south tower that led directly
into the main bedchamber. Here, the search began in earnest. They
were searching not just for a hidden body now but for a clue. A
clue that told them who the Singing Wolf was, where she had come
from, where she had disappeared to, and why she had lured them to
her private sanctuary.

The bedchamber of Queen
Isabella of Spain or Eleanor of Aquitaine could not have been
lovelier than this chamber. The wall hangings told the romantic
tale of
Le Roman de la Rose
. The furniture was of a higher
quality than elsewhere, inlaid with mother of pearl and ivory.
Ikons abounded between a scatter of votive candles and on the
dressing table amongst the silver hair brushes and expensive scent
bottles was a framed photo of a baby wearing a christening
robe.

“Did she have a child?” asked
the Countess, taking a closer look at the photo.

Moriarty came to dressing table
to glance at the image in question. “Not that I know of.”

Their eyes met briefly in the
looking glass – and that determined dangerous gleam was still
evident.

Inside a jewellery casket there
was a painted miniature of a young girl about three years of age,
delicately executed, angelic and sweet, the only thing missing was
the customary halo.

“Here’s another image of a
child.”

“The girl is blonde,” he
dismissed. “The Singing Wolf was as dark as midnight. It cannot be
hers.”

“How did you meet the Singing
Wolf?”

“We met at the Paris Opera. She
was at her peak, singing Aida.”

“What about Reichenbach – do
you know how he met her?”

“He met her in Oberammergau.
She was in the Passion Play.”

“What about von Gunn?”

“He met her at La Scala in
Milan.”

“Orczy?”

“He met her in St Petersburg.
Again at the opera. Admirers flocked to her like flies around a
honey pot. There was no shortage of male acolytes worshipping at
her feet. We men are weak when it comes to the promise of paradise.
Let’s check the connecting rooms. We should go together so that
there can be no question of anything being overlooked.”

There was a circular enfilade
of dressing rooms dedicated to daywear, evening dresses, cloaks,
furs, hats and shoes. There was even a room dedicated to her
operatic costumes, including numerous elaborate headdresses
decorated with ostrich plumes and semi-precious jewels. Last in the
circle was the luxurious bathroom. The scented bath water had not
yet been emptied, flecks of rose petals were still floating on top
of the cold soap scum. A large cheval glass with angled wings was
attached to one wall so that it provided a triple aspect of the
bather. A small wooden door opened into the smallest closet of all
which housed the third garderobe. The drop from the latrine
followed the angle of the exterior buttress. The hole in the floor
had a heavy iron grate draped with moss, same as the others, but
thicker. Neither ingress nor egress was possible. A tiny mullioned
lancet window sans glass allowed fresh air to circulate freely. It
currently served to frame a majestic black eagle and a grey sky
melting into infinity.

They returned to the queenly
bedchamber and stood in the centre of the room feeling bewildered.
It was as if their hostess had metamorphosed into that rara avis
and had flown out that window, which was the only one to face
outwards. Perhaps the others had had more luck.

The Countess was taking one
last look around when she noticed something that had escaped her
attention when they first entered.

“That’s odd,” she said.

Moriarty, who had reached the
door, turned back. “What’s odd?”

“Someone has been in that bed
since this morning.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive. This morning
while you all went to investigate why the servants had not arrived,
I came upstairs to inform our hostess. I noticed the bed was
perfectly turned back, but had not been slept in. The top sheet had
been turned back in a perfect V. The pillows had been perfectly
fluffed. Now there is a dent in one of the pillows as if someone
has laid their head on it and the sheets and blankets have been
slightly ruffled. The perfect V is no longer there.”

Moriarty swivelled on his heel,
he did a complete revolution of 360 degrees. He even scanned the
vaulted brick ceiling to check that nothing could be suspended
above their heads. He pulled back the Turkey rugs one at a time and
checked the wooden floor, crawling on his hands and knees, looking
for gaps, unusual joins, or signs of scuff marks on the oak
boards.

“She can’t have vanished into
thin air! I’m going to shift the furniture away from the walls. Von
Gunn could be right. There might be a secret tunnel after all. You
check the bed. Pull back the bedding and check the mattress, the
headboard, and underneath for hidden panels.”

The Countess threw the pillows
on the floor and felt her breath catch. At first she thought she
was looking at a dead baby, but it was a doll – a beautiful rag
doll with a floppy body, a delicately painted face of porcelain and
long golden ringlets made from human hair.

Countess Volodymyrovna dressed
quickly for dinner, choosing something for warmth rather than show,
and was waiting for Dr Watson in his room. The discovery of the
doll had rattled her and she didn’t know what to make of it. She
was certain it had not been under the pillows the first time she
went into the bedchamber, though she could not swear to it. But the
ruffled bedding she could swear to. It had definitely been mussed
up since she had first seen it. The obvious answer was one of the
servants. But Fedir and Xenia had assured her none of the servants
had left the kitchen except to go briefly into one of the
storerooms for provisions.

Moriarty had been on his hands
and knees checking the floorboards and the Countess stripping the
bed when Desi appeared. The Negress had looked totally dismayed, as
well she might. She could have been excused for thinking two guests
had lost their minds. They were behaving like inmates in a lunatic
asylum. The Negress appeared genuinely frightened and was preparing
to backtrack when Moriarty spotted her ungainly feet.

“Yes,” he barked, annoyed with
himself and his inability to supply any answers as to the
whereabouts of their mysterious hostess. “What is it?”

“
Excusez-moi,
m…monsieur
,” Desi stammered, “I…I have come to empty the bath
water. Inez sent me up here. I…I did not expect to find…”

“Yes, yes,” dismissed Moriarty,
noting for the first time the bucket in each hand. “Go right ahead
and if you find your mistress under all those rose petals let us
know at once.”

Desi wasn’t sure if he was
joking or not. She decided it was safer to err on the side of
caution. She poured bucket after bucket down the latrine, wiped
down the copper bath, the angled mirror, and returned to the
bedchamber to find it free of lunatics. The bedding was still on
the floor, the furniture was in disarray, and the rugs were pushed
up against the walls. More work! As if there wasn’t enough to do!
But she knew if she didn’t do it then she would simply have to
trudge up the stairs again later and do it when she was even more
tired. She was a strong girl, heavily built, solid and sturdy, with
muscles many men would envy. She pushed back the furniture,
straightened the rugs, and re-made the bed.

“Something queer is going on,”
said the Countess as soon as Dr Watson returned to his bedchamber.
She was seated in a tapestried wing chair, smoking one of her
foreign gold-tipped cigarettes. A thin scroll of pungent smoke was
spirally vertically up to the ceiling. The doll was resting in her
lap.

“Your capacity for
understatement is exceeded only by your inability to see the
obvious until it is staring you in the face. Put out that foreign
gasper. The smell will linger all night long and play havoc with my
breathing.”

His short tone betrayed his
grumpy mood.

Obligingly, she tossed her
cigarette onto the glowing embers. “Did you discover anything?”

He shed his gloves, hat, scarf,
and woollen coat. “I take it by that question you are intending to
stay and watch me dress for dinner?”

She tried to appease his
grumpiness. “Fedir put some warm water, a sponge and a towel behind
the screen. He also laid out your dinner suit. We can talk while
you dress. I promise not to peek.”

He disappeared behind the
painted screen. “Baron Reichenbach and I discovered zilch. During
our search he brought up the topic of Reichenbach Falls and invited
me to stay at his summer house on Lake Lucerne should I ever decide
to make a pilgrimage to the spot where Sherlock met his end. I’m
still not sure whether he was mocking me or being serious. We
bumped into Orczy and von Gunn in the great hall as we came in.
Their search was as fruitless as ours. We were all hoping you and
MMMMoriarty – he had trouble pronouncing the name out loud – might
have discovered something useful, a clue, a dead body, a way out of
this nightmare.”

“I’m afraid we didn’t discover
anything of the sort. We did however find something, but it just
begs more questions.”

He poked his head around the
screen. “Okay – I’m all ears.”

“We found this doll.”

She held it up and watched him
roll his eyes.

“I hope it’s a ventriloquist’s
doll and comes with a ventriloquist who can provide some
answers.”