Reserved for the Cat (39 page)

For a few moments more, she found herself so immersed in the details of her next life that she forgot there were the details of this one to sort out before she could move onwards. It was only when the maid-creature brought in the morning mail, which included a large, flattish box postmarked from her flat that she gave herself a mental shake and attended to the present.

The contents of this package were going to provide her with the makings of the last distraction. And it would be one that they would never, ever anticipate.

She smiled as she cut the string and opened it up, to make sure that her servant-creatures had not left anything out.

Michael Peterson was not the sort of solicitor that was accustomed to seeing handsomely and expensively dressed women in his outer office, and he could not account for the one that was there now. His clients were more apt to be balding middle-class gentlemen with querulous dispositions and uncertain stomachs, apt to take offense and equally apt to fire off a slander or libel suit, or a breach-of-contract case when sufficiently roused by real or imagined slights.

Michael encouraged them in this; after all, he got paid whether or not the case had any merits. Such things could stretch on for some time, particularly when he and his opposition were in collusion to make them stretch on.

It was not, however, the most rewarding of law-practices. There were times, as now, when he would look across the road through the window of his chambers to the chop-house with longing, knowing that he would have to satisfy his hunger with the cheese sandwiches he had brought with him. And furthermore was the penance that tonight he would either have to boil an egg and make toast in his room, or manage to get through whatever glutinous stew-like creation his landlady had concocted: greasy, vegetables boiled to bits, and with only a nodding acquaintance with meat. His clients at the best of times would not bring in the sorts of fees that supported beefsteak dinners and tidy flats with a cook and a housekeeper. Now they were in a litigious lull, and that was not good for him.

So when the lovely woman dressed in garnet-colored silk responded to his invitation to enter his office sans appointment, he truly did not expect that she was going to offer him work—truth to tell he thought she was from some charity and looking to get a subscription from him. He would not be rude to her no matter how insane her charity, because some day she might be the cause of him getting more work. No, he would be polite, let his barren office speak mutely for him, and beg her forgiveness for not having brass to spare for her cause . . . and at least he would have had the pleasure of the company of a stunning woman for half an hour.

So it was with growing astonishment that he listened to her outlining, not the plight of abandoned orphans or sheepdogs, or African savages, but the whole of a fascinating and wildly unlikely tale.

She was so stunningly beautiful so he would have listened to her no matter what she said. She was small, dainty, with a mass of dark hair done up in some complicated braided style that looked like a crown and penetrating eyes that seemed to change in color as her mood changed. Her nose was just a trifle too long, but that made her face interesting rather than merely pretty.

If she was to be believed, and was not wildly insane, it was the most sensational case that
he
was likely to get his hands on!

For this woman claimed—and the papers she brought with her seemed to bear her story out—to be the
real
Nina Tchereslavsky, and the one currently performing at the
Palais Royale
was—an imposter! A fraud who had stolen this prima ballerina’s name and reputation, and was battening on both.

Who was the fraud really? This woman did not know. Michael vaguely recalled the stir when the girl was washed up after a shipwreck, speaking nothing but Russian and a bit of French, so it did seem that these two dancers were, in fact, both Russian. And that seemed too much for mere coincidence. This woman only asserted that her imposter was someone
she
did not know.

It seemed completely impossible, for first of all, how would an unknown Russian dancer come to Blackpool in the first place; why not go somewhere that there were proper ballet troupes, like London? Secondly, why should she claim she was someone of whom Blackpool knew nothing? The cachet of being a Russian ballerina was not that impressive, particularly not in a music hall. And in the third place, why enter music hall at all? Why not attempt to get a part with a ballet or opera company? There was an opera company, at least, in Blackpool; why hadn’t she gone there? And that brought them full circle again: why here, and why not London?

And yet, because it seemed so outrageous, so unlikely, it conversely became, to him, the more believable.

But by itself, it would hardly impress anyone, much less a judge. Michael turned over the documents that had been presented, one by one. It was a fairly thick portfolio. Together they formed a curious collection.

The first lot were press-clippings; interesting, but not particularly useful in and of themselves, since the photographs could have been of almost anyone, and the sketches were of someone who had no real distinguishing features to say the least. And how difficult would it be to assemble such a collection? One could subscribe to bureaus that collected these things for you.

The documents in the second set were more useful; personal letters from various men of wealth and rank. The problem was, though all of them began with “Nina” and ended with the gentleman’s name, they were all in foreign tongues. And where he was going to find someone in Blackpool who could reliably translate Russian, he did not know. There were plenty of Russian exiles, but whom could he trust to give him accurate translations, and not merely write down what they were told to say?

And again, how difficult a thing would these be to counterfeit? If they were love letters it would be one thing; it was unlikely that she would dare present such a thing and very likely they would be repudiated, but a simple letter of admiration for her skill in dancing? No man would really care. And no gentleman was likely to make the long trip to Blackpool England merely to verify that the letter was genuine.

So, while interesting, these were of no particular value.

The third set, however. . . .

It was the habit of people in these days to buy photographic portraits of particularly beautiful women to ornament their walls with. Now, many of these were of young women who had no particular thing to recommend them
except
their beauty; they were, in fact, known as “PBs” or “Professional Beauties,” and all they were required to be was lovely, amiable, with impeccable manners, and of at least moderate breeding, enough so that they could reasonably be invited to elite social gatherings to add sparkle, like a bouquet of exquisite flowers. That the Crown Prince generally at least made the effort to add them to his ever-growing collection of mistresses went without saying, though not all of them succumbed to him.

But others among the much-photographed were professionals of the stage; actresses mostly, but dancers were included, and even a few opera singers.

And the last set of these photographs were of the dancer Nina Tchereslavsky, in costume as, so far Michael could tell, various fairies, harem girls, spirits, and princesses. At least he guessed by the tiny crowns that they were princesses. For all he knew, they could have been aquatic waterfowl, or flowers. These photographs were plainly labeled, some in the queer letters the Russians used, but most in good lettering readable by civilized people.
Mlle. Nina Tchereslavsky, Odette. Mlle. Nina Tchereslavsky, La Sylphide. Mlle. Nina Tchereslavsky, Raymonda.

Now these could be counterfeited, too, but it was less likely. Those costumes had to be fitted to each dancer, and it wasn’t likely that someone would have all these things sitting about in a wardrobe somewhere. So although the photographs were designed to show off the legs rather than the face, still, the face was clear.

So taken all-in-all, the entire portfolio argued powerfully that the owner was in fact the real dancer.

“I wouldn’t advise you to take this into a court of law, Mademoiselle,” he said, finally, closing the portfolio.

She looked startled, and a little angry. “But is that not what you do?” she snapped. “This—this
creature
has taken my name, my place! My reputation! I have been forced to cancel a contract because of this! I had to pay an enormous sum! Is this not a thing for the courts?

“I should have said,
not yet,
Mademoiselle,” he soothed. “We will eventually, of course. But our first strategy should be to take this to another court entirely, that of public opinion. We should make a sensation of this, so that when it does get into court, it will be noticed.”

“And this would be good?” she asked doubtfully.

“Oh very good, very good indeed,” he told her earnestly. “And I know just the newspaper too.”

And in truth, he did. He had used them before on other cases. But of course, there was no competition between a case featuring a balding old man and one featuring not just one beautiful dancer, but two.

“And this will help me?” she persisted.

“Better than a trial.” Her folded his hands atop the papers and peered earnestly at her. She stared at him for a moment, and for some reason, suddenly, her eyes seemed very cold, very alien. Despite the fact that her eyes should have seemed lovely.

But they weren’t lovely. They were cold.

Ah, but that did not matter, What mattered was in this portfolio. “We will take your story to a newspaper,” he continued. “They will place the truth before the public, and the public will see. This imposter will be routed. There may never need to be a trial, but if there is, many of the jurors will have seen these photographs and they will know the truth.”

“Very well,” she said finally. “You may call your newspapers.”

Nina was not nearly as reluctant as she had seemed. She was, in fact, not at all interested in going to court. A law-suit seemed to her to be an inordinate waste of time and effort, although the threat of one would take little effort on her part, yet would agitate her enemies no end.

But this, the idea of using sensation-craving newspapers to hound her foes—this was sheer brilliance. It was all she could do to keep from insisting the solicitor run straight out and bring in people from these newspapers on the spot.

Instead, she curbed her impulses and pretended reluctance. This was not unlike allowing a protector to “acquire” her. She would make them court her, coax her; she had ample practice in being the one sought after.

She allowed the solicitor to “persuade” her, and to arrange a meeting with a newspaper reporter for the next day. She “reluctantly” allowed him to keep her portfolio. There was only one thing that she was annoyed about; she had been certain she would be able to persuade one or more of her devoted adherents to make the journey to Blackpool to verify her identity, but they all sent regrets. It seemed that her hold over them was not strong enough at a distance to cause them to abandon good sense and speed to her rescue. It might not, in fact, hold them at all. She had never really had occasion to test it. It had always seemed to her that human mortals, the men in particular, were easily manipulated and entranced.

Well it was an annoyance, and something that could be worked around.

What she could do, easily enough, and in fact had, was to order her servants at home to bribe and browbeat one of the stagehands into coming to stand surety for her identity. It was difficult for a poor man, especially one who was no longer young, to look at more money than he could earn in twenty years and not turn it down. So this man, a common fellow named Jannos Durzek, was already on his way here by train and boat. She would have to find a translator, of course. She would have to find one anyway, for the Hungarian and Russian and Czech letters.