The Pigeon Pie Mystery (40 page)

Standing in front of the Princess, he eventually found his courage. “Would you care to dance?” he asked her, while distracted by the cowering Countess. Assuming he had addressed Lady Bessington, the Princess immediately rose to her feet and offered her hand to save the Countess from having to partner him. Still suffering from a lack of sleep, it was then that all of Dr. Henderson’s terrors collided and he was suddenly struck by the irrational fear of his shrunken stocking dropping out. As the couple walked to the
dance floor, the revellers started whispering that Romeo had found his Juliet. They whispered even louder after the dancing started, for one false turn could spoil the Lancers, and there, much to their delight, was the ruinous spectacle being played out in front of them. It was never known when Dr. Henderson first went wrong. Some claimed it was as early as his initial attempt to turn round. Others insisted it was a little later, when the couples were changing places. The more mischievous ran with the rumour started by the homeopath from East Molesey that the doctor botched the very first move, which was simply turning to his partner and bowing. Whenever it was, one thing was certain: when it was time for the side couples to divide, and for a lady and gentleman from each to join the top and bottom couples, the general practitioner was nowhere to be found. For by then he had worked his way jauntily down the ballroom in a spectacular misguided bluff, hoping that the gods would deliver him to his rightful position and that nothing would poke its way out of his crotch during the procedure. Instead he found himself in front of Silas Sparrowgrass dressed as an astrologer in a wide-sleeved gown, a pointed cap entwined with a gold snake, and long shoes curling upwards. The befuddled doctor immediately offered him his hands. But the homeopath refused to partner him, and prodded him away with his wizard’s wand. It was then that the dance unravelled, and the disorder was such that the conductor, dressed as the Artful Dodger, was compelled to bring a halt to the music that served only to highlight the carnage on the dance floor.

When Mink returned to her seat in silent humiliation, she found the Countess collapsed with mirth. The more she tried to control herself, the worse it got, for each time she recovered her composure the vision of Dr. Henderson’s labyrinthine leaping round the ballroom would return, with its numerous false starts, wrong turns, and hopeless dead ends. Sitting up, she wiped her eyes on a black-bordered handkerchief, then hiccoughed loudly,
blaming dyspepsia. “Since receiving Dr. Henderson’s flowers, I haven’t been able to face seeing him for treatment,” she explained, fanning herself frantically. “I’ll have to get some Fowler’s solution, but Lady Montfort Bebb, who’s taking it for psoriasis, has misgivings. She’s a little worried that all that arsenic is darkening her complexion, and she’ll end up looking like an Arab, or that lobster over there. Who
is
that, by the way?” she asked, peering at the crustacean standing near the band.

As the dancers started heading towards the supper room, Mink was suddenly filled with dread that Dr. Henderson would attempt to escort her, having been his last partner. She suggested that they go outside, and the Countess immediately agreed, declaring herself too bilious to eat. As they walked past the open doorway, the hiccoughing aristocrat looked longingly at the tables laden with roasted fowls, oyster patties, savoury jellies, cold salmon, tongue, lobster salad, veal cakes, game pie, boiled turkey, snowy creams, trifles, and jellies. “Such a lot of food. What a pity I can’t take any of it home,” she muttered.

Sitting on a bench on the terrace, they gazed in silence at the avenue of chestnut trees stretching out in front of them, drenched in moonlight. Mink turned to the Countess and asked how long she had lived at the palace.

“Thirteen years,” she replied. “Ever since I lost my husband. Thankfully the Queen offered me some apartments not long afterwards. They had wonderful views of the river. I’m sure all the other residents were hoping I would die at any moment so they could get their hands on it.”

“It must have been a wrench to move to Fish Court, given all the memorials to your husband in your old home,” said Mink, watching her closely. “You must have been very much in love.”

The Countess glanced away. “There are certain advantages to having a smaller place,” she said. “It’s much less costly to heat, and one needs fewer servants. My ferns are doing a lot better since I
moved too. There was one room where they always failed to thrive. It must have been the damp.”

“I was in love once,” Mink continued, sitting back. “At least I thought I was. Now I’m not so sure. You never thought of remarrying in all that time?”

There was silence. The Countess bowed her head and looked at her empty glass. The dark secret that had been tunnelling inside her for years finally found release, and before she knew it she had unburdened herself. “I’m still married,” she admitted, her voice uneven. The story came out punctuated by sobs, and by the end of it even the nightjars had stopped singing.

The Countess had met her husband at a country ball while a guest at a shooting party. From the moment the officer offered his warm hand, led her to the dance floor, and looked into her eyes she was lost. Her parents, however, disapproved of her suitor, who was almost twenty years older. The couple conducted a secret courtship, leaving each other books on a bench in Hyde Park whenever he returned from battle, their love letters composed of words underlined in pencil. She barely spoke to any of the gentlemen her parents invited to the house in the hope of turning her head. Fearing she would never marry, they gave in, and the couple stood at the altar two days after her twentieth birthday. After they sealed their love on their wedding night, she lay in his arms with tears in her eye at the dreadful thought of their ever being parted. It turned out to be the cruellest of premonitions. Five years later she was sitting in the drawing room, embroidering the christening gown for the child she still hoped to have, when she received the news that her husband was missing in Sudan, presumed dead.

“I was a widow at twenty-five,” she said, looking down at her hands.

She collapsed on hearing of her husband’s death, and it was several months before the doctor allowed her out of the sickroom. The first thing she did was to go to the bookshelf and read all
his love letters, and it was then that she vowed never to come out of mourning. As a result of her husband’s distinguished military record, the Queen offered her a home at the palace. Without a body, it took another year for her to finally accept that her only love was never coming back, and from then on she took to surrounding herself with his memory. “I spent far, far too much on it all, of course. I was blind with grief,” she said through her tears. For almost thirteen years she mourned him, ignoring all declarations from interested gentlemen, and turning her gaze away from perambulators, their tiny passengers too painful to bear.

About six months ago, the General, who had known her husband, approached her while walking in the Privy Garden, and suggested she sit down, as he had something important to tell her. She had no wish to stop, as it was a particularly cold day, but the man insisted. Clutching the neck of her black coat together, she sat on a bench in the piercing wind as he told her that her husband was very much alive and living with a woman and three children. He had seen him in a tobacconist while visiting relatives in the country, and was so surprised he followed him home. While it had been years since he had seen the man, he was in no doubt that it was him, adding that it was not uncommon for men to use the confusion of war to desert their wives.

“I didn’t think a heart could break twice,” the Countess said, staring ahead of her. She then bent her head and looked at her hands. “I turned grey almost overnight.”

She told no one her secret. General Bagshot vowed he would keep it to himself, though she was never certain he would. “Sometimes I think I see my husband. I once went into some tearooms after him. But of course it’s never him.”

There was silence as they both looked at the silver moon. “Now you’ll understand why it wasn’t in the slightest bit difficult to swap apartments,” the Countess added.

“You must feel very angry with him,” suggested Mink.

The Countess turned to her. “Who? My husband? It was the General I was furious with. I wish he’d never told me. I’d finally found some contentment.”

Suddenly the terrace door opened and a couple walked past hand in hand, laughing. Gripping her wet handkerchief, the Countess waited for them to be out of earshot before she continued.

“Of course my friends don’t know and suggest that I come out of mourning and open my heart to a new romance. They mean well, but how can I marry again when I already have a husband? I am thirty-eight and will never know love again. And what is life without love?”

WHEN THEY EVENTUALLY RETURNED
to the ballroom, Mink glanced around warily, hoping to avoid Dr. Henderson. But he was nowhere to be seen, having left immediately after his public disgrace.

“There goes the carrier pigeon and Charles I again,” said the Countess, as the couple span past. “That man has hogged poor Lady Beatrice all night. Maybe I should ask Cromwell over there to intervene.”

With a blatant disregard for tempo, and the correct placement of the feet, came the lobster and a gentleman dressed as Cupid in a gold tunic, a small bow slung across his back.

“I’ve never seen such appalling footwork,” tutted the Countess, fanning herself. “They’re almost as bad as Dr. Henderson.”

The Princess stared. “They look as though they’re trying to escape from quicksand.” She then spotted Lady Montfort Bebb dancing with Sir Walter Raleigh, bunches of tobacco leaves hanging from his belt. “That looks like the Keeper of the Maze behind that fake beard,” she said, peering at them. “I wonder what Lady Montfort Bebb would say if she knew she were dancing with a gardener.”

The Countess leant towards Mink for a better view. “I’ll make a point of telling her in detail tomorrow. Do let me know if you spot the dustman in disguise. I shall inform him Britannia is desperate for a dance.”

Charles Twelvetrees strode past in his toga, looking for Silas Sparrowgrass again. He had just tracked him down to the refreshment room, where he had performed another magic trick. It wasn’t until the homeopath had fled that the perplexed coroner realised that not only was he still missing his gold watch, but now also his best silk handkerchief.

The Princess and the Countess watched as Robinson Crusoe approached in a pair of knickerbockers, silk tights, and a monkey-fur coat tied with a belt from which hung a pair of pistols, a hatchet, and an umbrella. On one shoulder was slung a fowling piece, and on the other stood a stuffed parrot. Offering his hand to the Countess, Cornelius B. Pilgrim asked, “May I have this dance, Lady Bessington?”

Lightened by her revelation, and cheered by another glass of claret, she immediately accepted. As the pair made their way around the dance floor, the American propelled the aristocrat at a greater speed than was required to prevent her from swaying. Just as they passed the band, the Countess raised her head and looked at the one-eyed bird on his shoulder. Instantly she recognised the African grey parrot that she and Lady Beatrice had spent months training to call Mrs. Boots the most vulgar of insults. They had taken particular diligence in deciding the exact words. At first they swore at each other to see what they could come up with, but their language was too genteel, so they ransacked the dictionary. When that too failed to produce the filth they were after, they went to buy some pig’s trotters from the drunk woman outside the King’s Arms, and came away with a string of expletives that would make a cabman blush. When they repeated them to the bird, which had once belonged to a sailor, it raised its solitary eyebrow in shock.
Once it had recovered its composure, it set about learning the lewd insult, seduced by the lure of Brazil nuts. After months of coaching, the two women decided that the parrot was finally ready. They stood at Lady Beatrice’s drawing room window overlooking Clock Court, eagerly waiting for their target. As soon as they spotted her scuttling across the courtyard with the gait of a startled pheasant, they moved the cage to the window and offered its inhabitant a nut. Recognising its cue, the parrot cocked its head to one side, opened its colossal beak, and squawked at the top of its tiny lungs the profanities that would be its last.

As the Countess gazed at the preserved bird, she suddenly remembered the look on Mrs. Boots’s face, and let out an undignified snort. Next she tittered, then she sniggered, and the more she tried to forget the housekeeper’s expression of horrified indignance, the more vivid it became, and she was no longer able to dance. She threw back her head, and Cornelius B. Pilgrim was obliged to hold her as she rocked with derision. Each time he asked her what she found so amusing, she was only able to squeak “the parrot” before she became convulsed again. Her laughter soon infected him, and he found his shoulders starting to shake. The bird began to dance, which only increased her hysteria. The howling pair soon created a logjam, resulting in a collision between the chaplain, dressed as Richard III, and the organist, who had come as one of the Princes in the Tower. The two gentlemen immediately blamed the other for the crash, and when no consensus could be reached they started to brawl. They were promptly ejected by the steward, who was forced to stand between them outside when an argument immediately ensued about whether Richard III really did kill the two little princes. Meanwhile, Mink accepted every dance she was offered in order to show her proficiency, lest someone thought her responsible for the calamitous Lancers. But eventually even she tired, and when four o’clock finally struck, the only thing left on the dance floor was a stewed gentleman’s stocking.