The Serpent and the Scorpion (29 page)

Ursula clasped her hand. “It’s all right,” she said. “You’re safe here. We just want to try and work out what happened to Arina, that’s all.”

Natasha turned to Alexei and asked him something in a stream of Russian.

Alexei shook his head.

“She was asking me whether the coroner’s inquest had determined who killed Arina.”

“Natasha,” Ursula said leaning in close so she could hear her. “Why would Arina go to Garden Suburb? Was there someone she used to visit there?”

Natasha shook her head. “No, but there was a walk she told me about. Along Green Lane and through Green Wood. She liked to do it when things got . . . got . . . hard for her. She said it was peaceful, and it reminded her of the village she grew up in.”

“Oh, I see . . . but Arina was home, so she hadn’t gone to Garden Suburb. Do you know if she was planning to meet anyone that night? Had she ever spoken of a man called Christopher Dobbs, or Ambrose Whittaker?”

Natasha shook her head. Out of the corner of her eye, Ursula saw a tall, thin man watching them from beneath his bowler hat. Ursula was about to speak when she saw Alexei’s reaction to the man’s entry. He whispered urgently in Natasha’s ear, and she blanched. Alexei then leaned in and said to Ursula and Winifred, “Don’t look, but I am sure the man who just came in is an Okhrana agent. I think it’s time we were going.” Alexei tipped the contents of the vodka glass into his mouth and placed the glass back down with a bang.

“But I still have questions,” Ursula protested. Winifred hastily downed her glass and pulled Ursula to her feet.

“Then they will have to wait,” Alexei responded sharply.

 
Winifred, Ursula, and Alexei walked along Clerkenwell Road toward Bloomsbury. It was now close to two o’clock in the morning, and there were few taxicabs to be found in the area at this hour. The Empire Day concerts and plays were over, and they were far from the elaborate balls of Mayfair and Belgravia. A soft rain had started to fall, misting over the streetlamps and forming a fine, damp film across Ursula’s face. As they turned down Southampton Row a motorcar skidded past, sending mud flying. The driver and his passenger shouted “Hooroo!” as they drove away, waving gaily.

Ursula shook out her skirt, viewing with horror her muddy hem and boots.

Alexei laughed. “I must take you with me to Siberia some day . . . there you can really appreciate mud and filth.”

Winifred craned her neck, looking for taxicabs. “Still no luck,” she commented and looked at the sky. “Rain’s getting worse. . . .”

Alexei took off his jacket and moved in to hold it over Ursula’s head. She felt suddenly conscious of his closeness; it felt strangely uncomfortable.

Winifred pulled her hat down low, and together they hurried back to Woburn Place.

 
Winifred pulled her key out of her waistcoat pocket and opened the front door.

“I’ll get the fire going!” she called out as she dashed inside.

Alexei held the door open for Ursula with his elbow, still holding his jacket over her head.

Once inside the doorway, Ursula took off her scarf and tossed her head, sending a fine spray of raindrops across her shoulders. Alexei propped the door open with his foot as he shook out his jacket.

“Shut the door, for heaven’s sake,” Winifred shouted out from the drawing room. She was on all fours, lighting the fire in the grate.

Through the open doorway, the golden glow of the streetlamps bathed Alexei in a soft, misty halo. Ursula stood in the hallway, shivering. He reached out to wipe the rain from her cheeks. The cuff of his shirt was rough against her skin. It was such an intimate gesture, Ursula held her breath. Alexei leaned in and kissed her. At first she tasted only cool, wet rain on his lips. He cupped her face in his hands, and the first hesitant kiss turned deeper. It tasted of cigarette smoke and bitter brown ale. It was like revisiting a taste from childhood, something long remembered and yearned for—like crab apples stolen from the orchard next to Gray House, or the treacle tart Mrs. Norris used to make. The first taste brought her memories of Alexei back, but it was curiously unsatisfying. After the passage of time, the memory grew false. The return was too cloying or too bitter, too unsatisfying after the time without him.

Ursula pulled away. She was suddenly aware of how exposed she was, standing in an open doorway. If Lord Wrotham was correct and Alexei was under surveillance, then she had just provided an unplanned exhibition.

Alexei ran his tongue along his lips.

“You taste of honey.”

“You taste of the past.”

Alexei jerked away, and the front door swung shut.

Nineteen

It was early Saturday morning, and the weak, pale morning light drew across Ursula’s face as she lay in her four-poster bed, gazing at the canopy. She blinked and slowly propped herself up against the goose-feather pillow. Her mouth was dry, and she gingerly reached over to the bedside table and poured herself a glass of water from an earthenware jug. She tasted fine particles of dust and salt on her tongue before replacing the glass and leaning back once more.

She lay there for nearly an hour, simply waiting and reflecting on the past. She glanced over at the photograph that stood on her dressing table. It was of her mother and father on their wedding day.

There was a light rap on the bedroom door, and Julia peered inside.

“God bless you, I thought you were up early, Miss. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Ursula wiped her eyes. “Thank you, Julia. Give me just a few minutes.”

“Of course, Miss,” Julia replied and quickly disappeared.

Ursula rose from the bed and slipped on her silk dressing gown and slippers. She walked over to the window and carefully opened the curtains. Chester Square remained bathed in misty morning light. Ursula leaned against the cool windowpane. After what she’d said to Dobbs last night, she knew that she had to act quickly. Hugh Carmichael had warned her before that everyone associated with Katya Vilensky’s murder was dead. It was only a matter of time before her own life was threatened, and this time she was determined to be the one to confront the truth.

 
“I need to find out what Dobbs is up to,” Ursula said.

“I know, I know . . . but Sully, if you should get caught . . . then what? You don’t even know if there’s anything worth finding there.”

Winifred drummed her fingers along the edge of the Mackmurdo sofa.

“I don’t like this plan, Sully. It sounds too dangerous. Why not go to Harrison now?”

“I need more evidence—I can’t fit the pieces together yet.”

Ursula took out the letter she had just received that morning from Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith. “Read this.”

Winifred took the letter and starting reading it aloud.

 
“It may be my only chance,” Ursula urged. “Dobbs is going to be away all weekend.”

Winifred exhaled noisily. She had already made it clear to Ursula that she was uncomfortable about using the WSPU’s legitimate tactics to achieve suffrage as a diversion for what amounted to little more than breaking and entry. Nevertheless, after a moment of silence, she reluctantly agreed.

“I shall merely pretend to be undertaking a political act of vandalism,” Ursula said. “I mean, if Emily Davison can pour oil through pillar-boxes, I’m sure I can convince them I’m up to something similar. Dobbs is known for his antisuffrage views.”

“Still, I’d rather you let me come with you, or better yet, let me do this for you. It doesn’t matter as much if I’m arrested.”

“Freddie, after all that happened to you after Laura’s Radcliffe’s death, I won’t hear of you taking that risk. No, I need to rely on you to create the diversion. Can you get some of our WSPU sisters involved?”

“Of course! It won’t take much to convince others. Sir Henry Plymouth lives just up the road, and we’ve been planning on targeting his house for months after that speech he gave in the Commons denouncing women as being incapable of the level of thinking necessary for political discourse.”

“Then we should be all set for Sunday night?”

“Yes, I’ll make sure we’re ready.”

“It’s best if we don’t meet that night—that way you can honestly say you weren’t directly involved, should the worst happen and I’m arrested.”

Winifred nodded, but she was grave.

 
As arranged, Ursula took a taxicab to the Holland Street Underground station and then walked the remaining few blocks to Christopher Dobbs’s house on Bletchley Avenue. She waited in the park until she heard the Kensington Church clock strike midnight. Then she made her way across the street and down the front servants’ entrance stairs. The house was all dark, but Ursula wasn’t about to risk alerting any servants who might still be there, sleeping in the attic level of the house. Ursula heard the crash of windowpanes breaking a few houses along. A cheer erupted, and at that exact moment she used the rock she was carrying in her khaki backpack to smash the kitchen window. She reached in to unlock the servants’ door and squeezed through the doorway, closing the door as quietly as she could behind her. She stood for a moment listening, but there was no sound of movement above.

Taking off her shoes and tying them around her neck by the laces, she pulled out a flashlight just in case, but made her way in the half-light cast by the streetlamp outside through the kitchen and up the stairs to the main floor of the house. She paused once more, straining to hear, but everything remained quiet. From there she passed the front parlor and entered the large living room that had served as a ballroom the night of Christopher Dobbs’s cocktail party. She then tiptoed up the wide staircase to the mezzanine level.

She had never been into Christopher Dobbs’s study, but remembered catching sight of a room on this level, partially hidden by the bookcases. She turned on the flashlight as she made her way along the shelves. Coming to a door, she took a deep breath and turned the door handle. The door opened with a creak, and she pointed the flashlight inside. Quickly moving over to the window, she checked that the curtains were fully drawn before setting the flashlight down on the desk and, using the ambient light, trying to orient herself to the room. Above the ornate baroque desk there was a painting of Nelson standing on the poop deck of the
Victory
at Trafalgar. In the half-light it looked decidedly sinister, while the tall leather armchairs created a circle in the middle of the room rather like the stone circle at Avebury she had visited as a child. Ursula shook off her fears—she needed to move quickly to see if she could find the papers Dobbs had been so concerned about.

First she examined the desk, using the flashlight to peer into each of the desk drawers one at a time. None contained anything more than blotting paper, pens, and, in one drawer, an ivory-handled letter opener and elephant-tusk inkwell. On top of the desk was a single stack of papers, but an examination of these revealed them to be nothing more than shipping orders.

Ursula then peered at the back of the painting hanging behind the desk.

“Damn and blast!” she muttered, seeing the unmistakable outline of a safe. She replaced the painting carefully, and sighed. Was this it, then—had she risked everything for nothing? There was no way she could break into a safe.

She sat down at Dobbs’s desk in his chair and tried to think what else she could do. She didn’t even know what she was looking for—she was only hoping to find something that would link Dobbs to Whittaker and Katya’s death.

Absentmindedly she fidgeted with the brass replica of the HMS
Victory
, trying to work out where else Dobbs might keep important papers. The rest of the study’s furnishings consisted of more bookshelves (which seemed to have more sextants and other nautical paraphernalia than actual books) and a telescope on a brass stand. There really weren’t many places for Dobbs to hide anything. Ursula turned the oversize paperweight around in her hand, feeling its weight, and remembering how Dobbs had been doing the same the day they had met. The paperweight must have then been in the front parlor, and it struck Ursula as decidedly odd that he should have removed it now to his study. She replaced the paperweight, and suddenly all her senses were on edge. She picked it up once more and examined it under the flashlight. At first she could see nothing out of the ordinary, until she turned it upside down. It seemed solid enough, but when she took a closer look, she noticed a small cylindrical hole. There seemed to be paper folded tightly and wedged inside.

Ursula pulled the paper out and flattened the sheets on top of the desk. The first was a letter.

Twenty

Ursula continued reading the letter in horror.