The Serpent and the Scorpion (11 page)

“I guess it’s not every day that a lowly shipping clerk blows his brains out in the customs office,” Hugh replied. “Whittaker tells me that passengers have been held up for hours.”

“What happened?” Ursula asked hoarsely.

“No one’s sure. But the poor man’s dead—that’s one thing for certain. Whittaker said the man was apparently in financial trouble.”

“Whittaker said?” Ursula asked sharply.

“Yes,” Hugh answered with a sideways glance. “You should know by now that Whittaker is always one step ahead of the rest of us.”

Ursula made no reply, but there was a bitter taste in her mouth. “Are you feeling all right?” Hugh asked.

Ursula steadied herself. “Yes . . . I think, I think I’ll just go inside for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

“Feeling unwell, Miss Marlow?” Ambrose Whittaker called out through the open French doors. Ursula couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.

“Miss Marlow is fine,” Hugh replied evenly, his eyes fixed on hers. “No need to concern yourself.”

As soon as Whittaker’s back was turned, Hugh’s demeanor changed. He looked at Ursula with apprehension and said, “Let me take you back to your hotel.”

“Thank you,” Ursula replied, still dazed. “I think that would be for the best.”

As she turned, a young servant, little more than a boy, approached. He was dressed in a white robe and holding a telegram in his slender dark hands.

“Miss Marlow?” he said, and Ursula nodded blankly. Seeing her expression, Hugh gave the messenger a couple of piasters and took the telegram. “Do you want me to open it?” he asked gently. Ursula shook her head, but her heart was sinking. Ever since the events of two years ago, she dreaded telegrams. With trembling hands, she opened the envelope and stared at the words, which seemed to jump and blur before her eyes.

“Bad news?” Hugh asked.

Ursula handed the telegram from Lord Wrotham to him mechanically. The telegram confirmed her worst fears. It was indeed bad news.

 
Ursula swayed. First the news of the shipping clerk’s death, and now this. To leave, with Katya’s death still hanging over her, seemed unthinkable, and yet Ursula knew she had to return to England as soon as possible. Given all her recent business trouble, a death at one of her factories could ruin her.

“I have to leave for England immediately,” she said numbly.

“Well, let’s get you back to your hotel first.”

Hugh took her arm as they walked back through the assembled guests.

Ursula tried to ignore Ambrose Whittaker as they passed, but the image of that afternoon at the customs house forced her to look. He lit a cigar and threw the end that he had clipped off aside. His disdain angered her, but she showed no emotion as she passed him. She could have sworn, however, that as she turned and bid her hosts good-bye, she saw him smile.

 
Ursula returned to her hotel to find Julia waiting anxiously in her bedroom suite, looking unusually pale and agitated

“As soon as they told me there was a telegram for you, I knew it was something terrible!” Julia wailed. “I told ’em they had to find you quick smart!”

“You did the right thing,” Ursula responded distractedly. “I just need to collect my thoughts and work out what’s the best way to get back to England as soon as possible.”

“I’ll go and speak with my agent at the docks,” Hugh called out from the doorway. “I think the
Marienbad
sails for Brindisi in the morning.”

He had already left by the time Ursula responded with a mute nod of her head.

“Oh, Miss,” Julia said helplessly. “Can I get you something? You look right poorly, you do!”

“No.” Ursula was slowly recovering her senses. “Let’s just concentrate on getting things organized. I must write to Mrs. Mahfouz and the chief inspector. . . .” Ursula’s voice drifted off as she mulled over what was to be done.

“That reminds me—Mrs. Mahfouz sent this around for you. It arrived just after you left for the party.”

Julia pulled out an envelope from the apron pocket and handed it to Ursula.

Ursula opened it quickly.

Part Three

England

Eight

Yorkshire, England
APRIL 1912 

The monoplane landed in a field of grass on the Earl of Hattersley’s estate in Yorkshire. A friend of Hugh Car michael and fellow airplane enthusiast, the earl was quite prepared to set aside a section of his vast estate to provide an airstrip for local pilots and aviation aficionados. It was supposedly spring, but Ursula could see little sign of winter ending. There were no new buds on the hedgerows or blossoms in the trees. Even the daffodils, usually the first signal of spring approaching, were absent. Ursula climbed out of the plane, clad in a pair of overalls and a long, hooded cloak. She threw back the hood and took off the goggles, grateful finally to be able to remove the wretched things.

In her quest to return to England as soon as possible, she had been forced to leave Julia in Alexandria. The day after Lord Wrotham’s telegram arrived, the morning they were due to sail, Julia had awoken feverish and ill. Ursula, concerned about Julia’s condition worsening on the sea voyage home, with mixed feelings accepted Mrs. Millicent Lawrence’s offer for Julia to accompany her and Misses Norton and Stanley home the following week. Hugh Carmichael reorganized his business plans so he could join Ursula aboard the Austrian Lloyd steamer ship the
Marienbad,
leaving for Brindisi that morning. From there they traveled by train to Calais. Originally headed to France to undertake a series of test flights with his friend Louis Blériot, he offered instead to pick the plane up in Calais and fly Ursula across the English Channel. She was back in England in less than a week.

Cold, grimy, and exhausted, Ursula was beginning to question the wisdom of that decision. Twilight was approaching, and the dull gray light of England oppressed her already. Unwittingly she found herself searching for Lord Wrotham’s familiar face, but there was only Samuels, Ursula’s chauffeur, standing dutifully by “Bertie,” the silver Rolls-Royce, waiting for her return. In the half-light, with Samuels’s solemn garb and the motorcar standing silent, Ursula was suddenly reminded of her father’s funeral.

Hugh tapped her on the arm and bid her a hasty good-bye. He wanted to make it to Newcastle before the light faded entirely. With the assistance of three of the earl’s footmen, Hugh climbed into the airplane; the propellers rotated, and the engine engaged. After bumping along the makeshift airstrip, the plane was soon airborne once more.

“Miss Marlow,” Samuels said, “it is good to have you back with us.”

“It is good to be back, despite the circumstances,” Ursula replied, mustering a smile. She slipped into Bertie’s backseat. The leather was cold and uninviting.

Ursula had heard the news of the tragedy of the
Titanic
while aboard the
Marienbad
and having known a number of those who had perished, she was glad to be safely home. She shivered when she thought of the men who had considered it unnecessary to provide enough lifeboats for all their passengers, irrespective of their class. Had she, too, become complacent in her wealth, arrogant enough to think nothing could sink her?

“Any messages for me?” Ursula asked, unable to conceal the wistfulness in her voice.

Samuels turned round and handed her a sheaf of papers.

“We didn’t have time to inform anyone, Miss, since we received your telegram only this morning, but his lordship dropped this off for you a couple of days ago. It’s his notes on the incident in Oldham.”

Samuels read her face and answered before she could even ask the question. “Lord Wrotham hasn’t been by Chester Square or Gray House, and Mrs. Stewart said we should wait and ask you first before we sent word of your arrival. . . .” Samuels’s voice dropped off uncertainly.

Ursula mustered a weak smile. “No matter.”

“Mrs. Norris is taking care of the arrangements at Gray House, and Bridget came up by train this morning,” Samuels continued. Mrs. Norris, Ursula’s old nanny, had remained on as caretaker of her old home in Lancashire, Gray House, after the Marlow family moved to London.

“No need for you to worry. I’m sure everything will be fine. Drive on. It’ll be a few hours before we’ll be at Gray House. I’ll read Lord Wrotham’s notes in the car.” It didn’t take her long to become acquainted with what had happened at the Oldham factory. As always, Lord Wrotham was brief and to the point but even his stoic, matter-of-fact report could not dispel her anguish.

Ursula slumped back into her seat, the notes crumbling in her lap as she gazed out, preoccupied, at the gray-green landscape.

 
That night, after arriving late at Gray House, Ursula slept in the green bedroom that had been hers as a child. Bridget, one of the parlor-maids, had already lit the coal fire in the room and placed an earthenware hot water bottle between the sheets. With the warmth of the room and the familiarity of her childhood furniture surrounding her, Ursula fell into a deep and languid state that hovered on the verge of sleep but never quite crossed over. She kept thinking about Lord Wrotham’s notes and his concern (written as a terse postscript) that the fire was further evidence of possible industrial espionage. Her body was heavy and her senses dulled, but she could not rest. The clock on the mantel struck one, then two in the morning, and still she was held suspended. Her mind refused to quiet, and all the while, as her worries intensified and her languorousness became an oppressive torpor, she kept seeing a pair of cool blue-gray eyes, in a face masked by shadows, watching and waiting as if expecting her to speak.

 
Ursula stepped gingerly over the fallen beam. The air grew thick with the acrid smell of smoke as her leather boots trod heavily on the piles of ashes beneath her feet. So this was all that remained, she thought bitterly, of her much cherished project. Ursula’s ambition had been to provide employment to those women whom society had discarded. Now her dreams had been reduced to nothing more than soot and ash.

George Aldwych, previously the foreman of the nearby Oldham mill, had been in charge of overseeing the Oldham Garment Factory. Ursula saw him now, bent over a charred piece of machinery, trying to see if anything was salvageable. He looked pensive and tired. His beard, normally ginger, was streaked with black. George’s habit of stroking his beard when he was thinking had clearly taken its toll.

“I’m sorry you had to return under these circumstances,” George called out.

“So am I, though it is good to see you again, George. So much has happened, it seems like I’ve been away years, rather than six weeks.”

“Aye, it certainly seems longer than that,” George agreed as he sifted through the ashes.

“Where did they find the girl?” Ursula asked.

George rose from his knees. “They found the body over there in the back,” he replied.

“Can you show me?”

“If you insist, Miss, but there ain’t much to see now. They took the body away over a week ago.”

“Still, I’d like to see where she was found. She was my responsibility. I need to know what happened to her.”

“Aye. Poor lass . . . well, follow me, then. She was found through ’ere.”

Ursula followed George through the open doorway and into a room that had once served as the cafeteria.

He pointed to a clearing in the ashes and debris. “That’s where she was, all curled up like she was just sleepin’.”

Ursula walked over and crouched down near the spot.

“Who was she?”

“Arina Petrenko. She was one of the girls hired to help train the others.”

“I vaguely remember her. She was Russian, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, though you’d not know it. Said she moved here when she were a lass and she were almost as English as you and I. Not sure she even spoke Russian anymore.”

“Do we know why she was here that late at night?”

“No. We’re still waitin’ to hear what the police think. At first I just thought it was a ragamuffin or summat like that, but now we know it was Arina. Poor girl chose the wrong time to be in here, that’s for sure.” George’s mouth twisted.

“What time did the fire start?” Ursula asked.

“Oh, they reckon it musta started around half past ten. The fire brigade were called then, anyways, but by the time they arrived they couldn’t save the place.”

“Who called the fire brigade?” Ursula asked as she stood up.

George poked around in the pocket of his jacket. “Mrs. Entwistle . . . lives round the corner on Henry Street.” George pulled out a scrap of paper. “Yes, here we are. She said she phoned at quarter to eleven.”

Ursula gazed up into the sky through what was left of the factory roof. “Run through the day again for me. You were the one who closed up as usual, right?”

“That’s right. The whistle blew at five thirty. Same as usual. All the girls clocked off—I was there, so I would ’ave seen if anyone was skiving off in the back. Anyway, I did my usual rounds—checking on the machinery and such. Then I locked up around six. Same as I always do.”

“And there was no one in the factory then?”

“No, as I said, all the girls had clocked off their shift.”

“After you locked up, what did you do?”

“Same as always. Went to the Dog and Duck for a pint or two, then went home—it’d be around half past seven by then or eight—and had my tea.”