The Lost Empress (20 page)

‘Heavens! Look at the time,’ he said to Saxby. ‘We’ve kept you too long. I’m afraid if you don’t hurry, you’ll miss your engagement. Four o’clock, didn’t you say? It’s five and twenty minutes to, now.’

‘It’s really nothing important, Charles.’

‘Nonsense. I won’t hear of it. Business is business after all.’

Saxby gave what Alice thought sounded like a deflated laugh. ‘Yes, you’re right of course,’ he said. ‘Business first. Thank you all, as always, for your hospitality.’

Alice watched her father place a hand on Saxby’s shoulder. He led him towards the door, and they continued to talk about things Alice could no longer hear. It didn’t matter to her what they were saying, just as long as Frank Saxby was leaving Hamberley.

An hour after Saxby left, Alice was in her room, packing a small travelling case. She had no idea where she was going, only that it was now too dangerous for her to remain at Hamberley. She had left the sitting room soon after Saxby had gone, and she’d spent most of the time since then poring over his notebook. She already knew that swapping the first two letters around yielded nothing legible, so she tried swapping the first and third letters, but that didn’t work either. She went through several such transpositions before she came around to thinking that the code produced by the cipher might also have been reversed, so she began again on a small sample of text.

It was when she read the code backwards, swapping the first and third letters that she began to see words she recognised. Once she had completed the first page, it became clear to her that it was an address book, containing an entire network of spies for all she knew. She was even more convinced now that Saxby had to be the leader of this spy ring. She supposed there must be others, too, each controlling an area of England, with Saxby in command of the Southeast.

Alice knew the significance of her discovery and she knew that Saxby would do just about anything to get his notebook back. She finished packing the last of her essentials and placed the Ur-Leica camera on top. Together, they put her in as strong a bargaining position as she could hope for, and she planned to use them to get her husband back and end all this. Henry would know what to do from there on. She imagined they would go to America and, once there, send for the children. They would be safe enough while she had Saxby’s notebook, and she would make a copy and use it to safeguard their future.

She took a deep breath, hands trembling as she closed her case and picked it up from the bed. She paused a moment, still wondering where she would go, concluding that anywhere was now safer than Hamberley. She had a little money—enough to check into a hotel for a few nights while she thought things through. She made for the door, to go to the children to hug them and kiss their sweet faces before she left, but the sound of a motorcar arriving on the drive stopped her. She ran to the window, hoping it was Archie in his little sports car, but the car she saw was not familiar to her. She watched two men get out, and at seeing them, she staggered back with her hand to her face. It was Inspector George Watts and his sergeant—the same two detectives from the special branch of the police service she had met in her father’s study the day he was asked to go to London in connection with Admiral Waverley.

Alice bolted from her room, convinced this time that they had come for her as she had feared they would. She had been resolved to go with them if it came to it, but Saxby’s notebook had given her new hope. She was out on the landing when they knocked, and she was at the top of the main stairs when the way was cut off by old Mrs Chetwood as she went to answer the door. Alice saw her father then, and she paused long enough to see the front door open. She saw the shorter man with the wiry grey sideburns produce the coat she had wrestled herself free from in Green Park—her coat, which her father would easily identify.

Alice could hear little of the conversation, but she heard her name clearly enough in connection with spying, along with the words ‘arrest’ and ‘murder,’ which seemed to ring out with great emphasis and clarity as the detectives came into the hallway. Alice knew she had only a moment to act. She could hear Charlotte’s sporadic laughter from below, and she wanted with all her heart to go to her and to Chester. How would he take this news? He was old enough to know what she had done, if not to understand her reasons. Her father would take the news very badly, of that there was no doubt. She was discovered, and she knew now that her only hope lay with the release of her husband. He was the only person who could confirm her fantastical story.

Alice turned away and walked at a clip back the way she had come. She turned off the passageway and along another corridor, then through another room and out again by the back staircase. She would use the side door as she often did, and once outside she would run to the bottom of the garden where there was a
gate she
knew she could climb. In a matter of minutes the detectives and her father would be in her room, and once there they would find everything they needed to secure a conviction against her: the lemon juice and the music sheets, and the report that Raskin had not yet collected.

But in a matter of minutes, Alice would be gone.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Present day.

Jefferson Tayte was sitting on a bench in a colourful garden that backed on to Foxburrow Wood, where the dappled shade from a cherry tree standing in the middle of the lawn cast ever shifting swatches of light and shade in the gentle summer breeze. He heard a door close towards the house, and a few seconds later Davina Scanlon reappeared through the rose arbour that was part way down the garden path. She was wearing a white summer dress and sandals, and was carrying a wine cooler and two glasses. Tucked beneath her arm was a large, clear plastic envelope, which Tayte thought had to contain the telegram she wanted him to see.

‘It’s too nice an afternoon not to have a little glass of something cool,’ she said as she approached. She set everything down on the small foldaway table in front of them. ‘You will join me, won’t you?’

‘Sure,’ Tayte said, and as Davina sat beside him, he thought the bench suddenly felt too small. He shifted along as best he could, but it made no perceptible difference.

Davina poured their drinks, and they settled back. ‘So what have you been up to since I last saw you?’

Tayte would rather have talked about the contents of the clear envelope that was now tantalisingly within reach on the table, but it seemed only reasonable to bring Davina up to date on his progress first, so he told her about his visit with the Ashcrofts that morning, and then about Dean Saxby and the reason he’d said he went to see her husband on the day she bumped into him. He concluded with the records he’d seen in DI Bishop’s office, confirming that Alice had indeed been wanted by the British government for spying.

‘I knew it,’ Davina said. ‘A rumour like that has to be founded in truth, don’t you think?’

‘No smoke without fire,’ Tayte said. It was a well-coined phrase, but following the smoke in his case had often led to results.

‘It sounds as if you’re making good progress,’ Davina said. ‘Do you want to see what I’ve found?’

Tayte snorted. ‘Are you kidding?’

Davina leaned forward and picked up the folder, crossing her legs as she sat back again, revealing more of her slender thigh through her half-buttoned dress than Tayte felt comfortable being so close to. She slid the contents from the folder and passed the telegram to him.

‘I’m sure you’ll find the date very interesting.’

Tayte’s eyes found it immediately. In the top right-hand corner he read, ‘Sent date: 29 May 1914.’ Below the date, in bold typeface, was the heading ‘The Marconi International Marine Communication Company Ltd.’ Further down he read, ‘Origin:
Empress of Ireland
.’

Tayte said what he was thinking. ‘That’s the date the
Empress
sank.’ He thought back to his conversations with Emile Girard in Quebec. ‘So, it had to have been sent between midnight and around one thirty.’

‘I knew you’d like it,’ Davina said, clearly sensing Tayte’s excitement.

Tayte’s eyes dropped to the message section, and he read it aloud with great interest, taking his time over the words. ‘To: Frank Saxby. Notebook in care of Ms Phoebe Dodson.’ It gave an address in Charlesbourg, Quebec City, and a sender’s name that sent a tingle running through him. ‘Albrecht,’ he said, narrowing his eyes.

‘Does the name mean anything to you?’

Tayte reached down beside the bench and pulled his briefcase up onto his lap. ‘Yes, it does. At least, I’ve seen it before.’ He pulled several documents out and began rifling through them. ‘Here it is.’ He showed Davina. It was the extract from the first-class cabin allocations Emile Girard had given him, showing which cabin Alice’s husband Henry was in and whom he was sharing it with.

‘Mr W. Albrecht,’ Davina said with a raised brow. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Right now, I don’t know, but it has to mean something. The man sharing a cabin with Alice’s husband sent this telegram to Frank Saxby soon after the
Empress of Ireland
departed Quebec.’

‘So, Alice wasn’t sharing a cabin with her husband?’

‘No, and I’ve thought that odd since I first checked the passenger lists and saw that Alice wasn’t even in first class. She was travelling on the deck below in second.’

‘That is odd. I wonder who Phoebe Dodson is.’

Tayte had been wondering that, too, and he thought the address in Quebec City was telling. Alice had fled England at the beginning of the month, so it stood to reason that she had been staying somewhere local until her planned return at the end of that month.

‘Perhaps Phoebe Dodson gave Alice lodgings while she was in Quebec,’ Tayte said. ‘Maybe she was a friend or family member, or just the owner of a boarding house where Alice sought refuge before her journey back to England. That’s if she has anything to do with Alice at all.’

Tayte thought about the message that had been sent in the telegram, and he wondered whether it was in some way connected with his earlier supposition that something had to have happened to change Alice’s intended plans after the ship set out for Liverpool—besides the ship’s unpredictable sinking. He read Frank Saxby’s name again and took Davina’s photograph out from his briefcase to take another look at him, wondering how this friend of the family and one-time business partner of Oscar Scanlon could be involved. Right now the potential reasons seemed boundless. He went back to the telegram and read the message again, focusing now on the notebook it mentioned as he tried to figure out why it was so important to Frank Saxby that he should get a telegram about it from the
Empress
at such a late hour.

‘Have you seen this telegram before?’ Tayte asked. ‘Do you have any idea how your husband came by it?’

Davina shook her head. ‘No, I’ve never seen it, and I can only imagine it must have been handed down through Lionel’s family for some reason—it’s hardly the kind of thing you just come across, is it? Perhaps Oscar Scanlon got it from Frank Saxby at one time
or another.’

Tayte agreed that it seemed a likely explanation, but why? He voiced his thoughts. ‘Why did Oscar Scanlon want it at all? And why bother to hand something like that down through the family? It’s not your typical heirloom.’ Just the same, he would have thought the telegram harmless enough were it not for the fact that it had belonged to a man who had recently been murdered, and it clearly held some importance to Lionel Scanlon, or why else keep it?

‘I don’t know,’ Davina said, ‘but do you think it’s possible that whoever killed Lionel was after the notebook it mentions? Maybe his killer thought my husband had it.’

‘I wouldn’t rule it out,’ Tayte said, thinking about the police investigation and wondering whether the notebook could be the connection he was looking for. ‘We know that whoever did kill your husband is looking for something. Why else go over your properties like that?’

They both sat back with their thoughts and their wine, Tayte contemplating this new discovery and its possible implications, thinking that further research into Frank Saxby was now a high priority. Davina, it was soon apparent, was thinking about something else entirely.

She reached for the wine bottle. ‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’ she asked as she topped up their glasses.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Tayte began, but Davina cut him short before he had the chance to raise an objection.

‘Surely the idea of a bit of company and a home-cooked meal is more appealing than eating alone at the Holiday Inn?’

Tayte couldn’t argue with that, and he didn’t try to. He began to wonder whether there was something wrong with him—why couldn’t he just relax around people and fit in? He knew he had to take control of that if his relationship with Jean was to have any future. He laughed at himself. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you ask me that again.’

‘Okay.’ Davina repositioned herself on the bench as if she’d just sat down. Then turning to Tayte, she said, ‘Would you like to stay for dinner this evening?’

Tayte laughed again. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Dinner would be great.’

‘Perfect. Actually, I do have an ulterior motive for asking you. I thought we could crack on with the research together.’ She took Tayte’s wine glass from him and set it down with hers on the table. ‘Shall we go inside and get your laptop out? You said you had several lines to follow. Where do you want to start?’

‘With Archibald Ashcroft. He’s been on my mind since I visited with the Ashcroft family this morning.’

That the young naval officer was somehow involved with Alice in her hour of need seemed only logical to Tayte, given what he’d learned. He also thought that Alice might have needed help to evade the authorities, and who better to turn to than her childhood friend, whom for all Tayte knew, given his connection to the Admiralty, was already deeply involved in her plight.