Unlikely Traitors (22 page)

Ursula closed the carriage door with relief—though the train corridor was also crowded, at least most of the windows were open. She could feel the drafts of cool night air clearing her head. James was standing, peering out of one of open windows, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He turned and acknowledged her with the briefest of nods as she walked over to join him. Ursula sucked in a few deep breaths of fresh air as she steadied herself, hands gripping the window frame.

“Are you all right?” James asked.

Ursula nodded. “It’s just infernally hot in there. It felt like I was being smothered by a cheap dirty pillow…”

“I would not have inflicted this if I didn’t think it was necessary,” James reminded her.

“Oh, I can cope,” Ursula replied quickly. “And as an ex-rifleman man I’m sure you’ve endured worse.”

“I see Lady Winterton’s wasted no time in giving you the potted history of my life,” James observed.

“Just the highlights I assure you,” Ursula replied, feigning levity. “Actually I saw the photograph of your rifle regiment in your room.”

James looked inquiringly.

“Lord Wrotham seemed concerned about your whereabouts so, naturally, I took a look around his house.”

“Naturally,” James replied.

His gaze returned to the window and the pitch black sky beyond. “I can’t help but wish you’d kept Lady Winterton out of all of this.” His face was now brooding.

“Why?” Ursula asked. “Because she knows more about your past than you cared to tell me?”

James flushed. “I thought Lord Wrotham told you I was once a policeman…and that’s not what I meant. I just don’t want any more people being in harm’s way than absolutely necessary.”

“Oh.”

James continued to stare out the window with a bleak look of resignation.

“I guess you must have known the Winterton household pretty well,” Ursula prompted.

“As much as any servant of a close family friend would,” James replied.

“Lady Winterton certainly seems to know a great deal about you,” Ursula said. “Her lady’s maid was apparently always eager to tell.”

“Yes, Grace never was one to keep her mouth shut,” James said and there was a savagery in his response that took Ursula off guard. She paused, uncertain whether to continue with her questions. An overwhelming need to be know, to be reassured about his past, however, compelled her to probe further.

“Tell me about Grace,” Ursula said gently.

“There’s not much to tell,” James replied, taking a drag of his cigarette. “She’s Lady Winterton’s maid—has been since before Lady Winterton was married. I met her soon after I became Lord Wrotham’s chauffeur…only that wasn’t the first time we had met. I knew her from my days with the Kings Royal Rifles. I joined when I was fifteen—they were the Finsbury rifles then, before they became the London regiment in ’08—Grace’s brother was in my regiment. She was just a scullery maid at the time but we went out now and again. Her brother didn’t stick with the Rifles though. He ended up working with his dad on one of the stalls at Spitalfields market. That’s how they knew the Harrisons. When I got back from the Boer War I was pretty much done with the army, and it was them who arranged for me to meet Harrison. That’s why I joined the Metropolitan Police. By then Grace had risen in the ranks and was Lady Winterton’s maid.”

“Why did you leave the police and go work for Lord Wrotham?” Ursula asked. She was treading cautiously now as James’ face revealed the depth of his unwillingness to delve into this particular aspect of his past.

“No doubt Lady Winterton has passed on all of Grace’s tittle-tattle,” James replied bitterly.

“She said it was because you killed an innocent man,” Ursula said, watching his reaction closely.

James took Ursula by surprise when he let out a short bark of a laugh.

Ursula looked at James with confusion. “So you didn’t?”

“No, I bloody well did not,” James replied, he was still laughing but, again, there was an edge of savagery to it.

“But you did kill someone…” Ursula ventured.

“Yes,” James’ expression changed instantly. “But then that’s what the army trained me to do.”

“And is it the reason you left the police?”

“Yes.”

“Does it explain why you went to work for Lord Wrotham?”

“Yes—in part at least—both Chief Inspector Harrison and I owe Lord Wrotham our lives.”

Ursula looked at him questioningly but James shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s for Lord Wrotham, and him alone, to explain.”

“But—”

“But nothing, I swore an oath and I intend to keep it,” James replied.

“Spare me such loyalties,” Ursula muttered under her breath. “For I am heartily sick of them by now…”

James frowned.

“I only mean that Lord Wrotham said something similar about Admiral Smythe and why he could not rebut the charges against him,” Ursula explained with an exasperated sigh. “I’m sure he also feels some similar obligation to his erstwhile friends from Balliol for he refuses to divulge anything about his time in Guyana or what caused the rift between him and McTiernay.”

“How do you know about Guyana?” James demanded.

“I read about it in one of Admiral’s Smythe’s file,” Ursula said. “It provided an account of the death of a woman, Bernice Baldeo.”

“How the hell did you get your hands on that?!”

“Chief Inspector Harrison showed it me,” Ursula said after a pause. “He told me it was important that I know just the kind of man Lord Wrotham is…”

“Why because he covered up the mess McTiernay left behind?” James said, drumming his fingers along the sill of the open window. “I’ve seen the same file myself but at least I had the benefit of asking Admiral Smythe for a few more details. He and Lord Wrotham may not have been sure whether it was McTiernay or the Count who swindled the Imperial Gold and Diamond Mining Company, but they were convinced of one thing—McTiernay murdered Bernice Baldeo, by poisoning her with cyanide.”

“What else did the Admiral tell you?”

James sighed. “Not a lot. Just that one of the aims of the company was to buy up the small holdings on the gold fields to help entrench British colonial influence in the region. Of course, thanks to the Count and McTiernay, the company ended up losing money. There were allegations of false accounts as well as fictitious gold and diamond claims, though nothing was ever proved.”

“I read the legal case brought by the investors—If Lord Wrotham suspected McTiernay and the Count of fraud, why did he defend the company in the law suit?”

“Neither Lord Wrotham nor Admiral Smythe could risk exposing the government’s original involvement in it all,” James explained. “Apparently there was already a great deal of worker unrest and the government feared that airing the company’s ‘dirty laundry’ could inflame the situation. It was the same reason why they covered up Bernice Baldeo’s death. Smythe told me that at the time there were ongoing threats of worker unrest by Indians working on the large sugar plantations in Guyana. They had to ensure that Bernice Baldeo’s death didn’t ignite further violence. Apparently, she was significant enough that any rumor of her being murdered could have destabilized the whole country. As it was, her death was regarded as a tragic accident even though as far as Smythe and Wrotham were concerned, McTiernay was the main suspect.”

“Yes,” Ursula answered. “I read that in the file too.”

“McTiernay was supposedly with her the night before her body was found. He’s a passionate man, Miss Marlow, but he was also a married man. Who knows whether it was a lover’s quarrel over him returning to his wife in Ireland or whether, as Admiral Smythe suspected, she had found out what was really happening with The Imperial Gold and Diamond Mining Company…”

“Do you think someone involved in the Baldeo case may be trying to punish Lord Wrotham and the others for what happened in the past?” Ursula asked. “Could someone have used information about Guyana to blackmail Count von Bernstorff-Hollweg into testifying against Lord Wrotham?”

The information Christopher Dobbs had provided her loomed large in her mind, even as she tried to push aside the unpleasant memories of her visit to his office.

“This isn’t about Guyana,” James responded emphatically. “This is about Ireland and McTiernay’s passionate belief in an Irish Free State. The Count was nothing but an opportunist. This is not about the past, Miss Marlow, this is about the sins of the present.”

“How can you be so sure?” Ursula replied.

She pulled out the list that Christopher Dobbs had given her. “Here’s proof that the Count and McTiernay defrauded investors in the Imperial Gold and Diamond Mining Company. I believe someone used this information to compel the Count to testify against Lord Wrotham. You may insist all you like that this is nothing but present day politics, but I think this is much more personal. I think this has roots going all the way back to the past—to Balliol. To Guyana. I don’t know what it is or how deep those roots go but this is not just about armaments, Home Rule or the threat of a war of Germany. This is about betrayal.”

Later that night, as the journey ground on and the carriage fell silent as the passengers slept, Ursula stared out at the blackness of the night, unable to sleep. Her mind kept trying to make sense of all she knew, and all she thought she knew, about Lord Wrotham, about James—even about Harrison. She glanced across to Lady Winterton, who sat opposite her leaning against the window, her face twitching as she slept. Ursula watched as her eyelids flickered but remained closed and Ursula felt a twinge of jealousy, for Lady Winterton’s grief lay years behind her. How had she managed to move on? To cast that loss aside? The hot, heavy stillness of the carriage seemed to bear down on her as Ursula squeezed her eyes shut, praying that sleep would finally take her and numb her pain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CALAIS, FRANCE

By the time Ursula and Lady Winterton reached Calais, they were feeling the absence of their maids and their usual first class accommodations acutely. The small pension that James had arranged for them to stay in overnight had little in the way of luxury. It was a clean, whitewashed cottage with a view of the channel but was without private bathrooms or running hot water. Ursula, having finished a very unsatisfactory (and cold) bath in the shared facilities was trying desperately to brush the knots from her hair, when she overheard Lady Winterton speaking with James on the stairs. Lady Winterton was on her way down to the dining room for dinner when she must have encounter James coming up the stairs.

“Archibald James,” Ursula heard Lady Winterton’s arch tone and edged her way to the bathroom door. She opened it till it was slightly ajar and peered through.

James was obscured from view by the banister but the back of Lady Winterton, in her pale blue dinner dress, was clearly visible.

“Lady Winterton,’ James replied. His tone was cool. Since Prague, Ursula had noticed how the thin veil masking the animosity between them had started to tear.

“What brings you upstairs?” There was no mistaking the undercurrent beneath Lady Winterton’s words—his place was downstairs with the servants.

“I have a letter for Miss Marlow,” James replied.

Ursula felt a surge of excitement—perhaps Lord Wrotham had finally seen fit to reply to the innumerable letters she had sent him. Until now, despite all her missives, she had received nothing from him, only two telegrams from Pemberton—the first advising of a trial date and the second indicating that, as Lord Wrotham continued to suffer harassment, Pemberton had petitioned his removal from Brixton to another prison while on remand.

“Who is the letter from?” Lady Winterton demanded.

James gave no reply and Ursula’s hopes faded. She felt sure even James would have told Lady Winterton if the letter had been from Lord Wrotham.

“I see your manners have not improved over time,” Lady Winterton replied. “But your chivalry towards Miss Marlow is certainly admirable. Grace always said you had a weakness for damsels in distress.”

Another silence.

“Though you certainly treat women like Grace, women of your own class, as though they were little more than dirt beneath your shoes…”

“Have a care, Lady Winterton,” James replied, his voice sinking to a low-throated warning. “For I might have to explain to Miss Marlow just how hard you really tried to come between her and Lord Wrotham. She has no idea how many times you visited or how many calling cards were left.”

Ursula gripped the edge of the door.

This time it was Lady Winterton who remained silent.

The letter for Ursula was from Gerard Anderson. It had been sent two days ago in anticipation of her arrival—at least James had allowed Ursula to tell him that, if nothing else regarding her travels. The letter provided a brief summary of the findings of his latest investigation into Christopher Dobbs’ links to the Wrotham family and its creditors. It also outlined the names of the investors that Anderson had managed to locate which had been involved in the legal case of
El Dorado Investments v. The Imperial Gold and Diamond Mining Company
. Ursula’s relief was tinged with disappointment. Dobbs, it appeared, had no connections to any of Lord Wrotham’s creditors. There was a small part of her (certainly not one of her finer parts) that had wished there had something tangible, evil even, that she could accuse Dobbs of publically. Now all she had were lingering private concerns that were insufficient to air.

The list of investors in El Dorado Investments was a tangled web of trusts and companies, individuals and partnerships, none of which sounded in the least bit familiar. Not surprisingly, a large number of investors came from both Germany and Ireland. After reading the list of companies with fanciful names such as
Tir Tairngire
and
Gründewelt
, Ursula felt even more frustrated—she began to despair of finding any leads at all in the case.

The following morning they were to due to take the ferry across the English Channel to Dover. James met Ursula outside the pension dressed once more in his chauffeur’s uniform. As she and Lady Winterton boarded the first class deck, Ursula sensed the lingering mistrust between James and Lady Winterton. Ursula for her part had always known, if she admitted it to herself that Lady Winterton had hoped at one time to win Lord Wrotham from her. It was not something she now resented and only occasionally did her own jealousy surface. Since Lord Wrotham’s arrest it seemed petty to fall back on such old uncertainties. Lady Winterton always appeared, in that cool unruffled way of hers, to have accepted the situation with good grace. Clearly she also felt a good deal of loyalty to her maid Grace (who had been, Ursula could only infer, jilted by James at one time). Ursula could well understand such fidelity—she would feel the same way towards her own maid, Julia. She was only thankful that Lady Wrotham’s loyalties now extended to her for there were few among London society willing to help her after the humiliation of Lord Wrotham’s arrest.