The Curse Of The Diogenes Club (13 page)

Moriarty began nodding; the
plan was not as dunder-headed as he first thought. “Who do you plan
to invite?”

“Mycroft, the Countess, Dr
Watson, General de Merville, Miss de Merville, Sir James Damery,
the Russian prince, and the woman we love to hate.”

“Isadora Klein – why her?”

“She’ll even out the ratio of
men to women and she could act as a catalyst, cat among the
pigeons, so to speak.”

“That makes ten,” said
Moriarty.

“Nine,” corrected Nash. “You’re
not invited. If you turn up everyone will smell a rat.”

“I’ll have a bath before I
come.”

Nash squared his lantern jaw.
“The men know we’re rivals for the affections of the Countess. If
you get invited it will look dodgy.”

Moriarty hated that Nash was
right and decided not to twist the self-inflicted knife any
further. “What about Blague?”

“The American tycoon?”

“It just occurred to me he was
with the others all night. Someone led those men to the dome for
some shisha prior to the bomb going off. If you hadn’t turned up
all trigger-happy and we hadn’t gone out to the wood for a spot of
night-shooting I wonder what would have happened. Would all four of
them have gone down to view the fireworks? Would one sneak off and
leave the others up there to get blown to smithereens?”

“Now you mention it, the
amendment to the constitution of the club involves Americans. The
vote is on extending membership to Americans and Irishmen.”

“Irishmen?” Moriarty’s tone
betrayed intense surprise.

Nash picked up on the
underlying note of quiet excitement. “Exactly – so how far would
Blague go to ensure membership of the Diogenes Club? How far would
Damery go? It is my impression he’s had his Irish nose out of joint
for years.”

Indignation flared and Moriarty
gave thanks for the lack of moonlight – easy to talk about noses
out of joint when you were born a titled Englishman in England. “If
you invite Blague you will have to invite his daughter.”

“I wasn’t aware he had
one?”

“Miss Mona Blague is a true
Southern belle. You’re in for a treat. She was so cut up about
Freddy Cazenove skipping off to the Transvaal she couldn’t muster
the wherewithal to get out of bed for the costume ball. Daddy tried
to coax her with a new tiara from Old Bond Street but the mere
thought of Freddy suffering a flesh wound was too much for her
sensitive nature.”

Nash pictured Freddy taking an
Enfield bullet and smiled in the dark; the beautiful and
accomplished Violet de Merville was too good for that reckless
prig; no earldom would compensate being married to a profligate
gambler, womanizer and bully. “Just one daughter?”

“One and only – and on the
market for a poor sap with a title. If anyone could make her forget
Lieutenant Cazenove it could be a young baronet with a Tudor barn.
Watch your back.”

“I gather she looks like a
dog?”

Moriarty shook his head. “Wrong
– try blonde, petite, pretty, with a ripe set of tits and enough
money to buy up half of Kent should you wish to add acreage to your
long-fields. And don’t ever compare a woman to a dog. I like
dogs.”

“So what’s the drawback?”

“I’ll leave you to figure it
out for yourself.”

That meant there was one. “I’ll
add the Blagues to the list of guests. That will make eleven all
up.”

“How many bedrooms in the
barn?”

“A connecting master-mistress
suite, four principal bedrooms, six secondary bedrooms, four minor
bedrooms, and a nursery wing – all recently refurbished in the
style suited to the period – and a separate servants’ wing.”

The Irishman was impressed.
“Whew! All you need to do is convince Mycroft Holmes to go along
with your daft scheme.”

“I’ve convinced you, haven’t
I?”

Moriarty laughed throatily and
began to stride away. “Let’s check out the photographer’s studio
while we’re here.”

“The pavilion has been boarded
up.”

“So?”

Nash smiled wryly as he caught
up to the colonel and they began striding in step; it was like old
times when they were young and brash and whole world was theirs to
conquer. “I’m gagging for a cigarette.”

“I’ve been gagging for the last
ten minutes.”

“So you thought there was
someone in the wood as well?” Nash was referring to the fact
neither of them dared light up a cigarette for fear of alerting the
watcher in the dark to their presence.

“I’ve never known a fox to
crash through the undergrowth like he’s wearing hobnail boots.
Someone trailed one of us all right. Let’s light up as we head up
to the pavilion. We’ll soon find out if he’s still out there.”

Grand architectural pediments
above the double doors of the new coronial offices on the High
Street hinted at a Town Hall, Royal Academy, Museum or Public
Library so as not to alarm nearby residents by drawing attention to
the morgue at the rear which could be entered separately through a
side lane.

The flash of an official
government card had the night-watchman politely waving him through
the wrought-iron gate that led to a darkened courtyard where
several black ambulances were parked. The foul stench from a broken
pipe in the yards-man’s WC assailed his sensitive nostrils as he
crossed the bluestone cobbles and entered an unlocked door at the
rear.

Inside, all was cold and
sterile. It matched his mood. The stench of raw effluent was
replaced by the sharp smell of disinfectant. He didn’t know which
was worse as he by-passed the washroom and the post mortem rooms
and ignored the sleepy mortuary attendant dozing at his desk where
a gas lamp burned dimly, lighting the way. He knew where the bodies
were stored and wasted no time.

The order had gone out. There
would be no post mortem. Tomorrow the body would be temporarily
interred in a secluded birchwood in a corner of the arboretum
belonging to the Earl of Winchester until such time as Prince
Sergei returned to his homeland and the body would be sufficiently
decomposed to travel with him for burial in the family crypt in
Minsk. It was the only solution; Slavs did not believe in
cremation.

He found a box of candles on a
shelf and lighted one. It flickered faintly, enough for him to see
the outlines of things. He located the trolley and lifted back the
cold grey sheet. Gently, he stroked the lifeless cheek, as cold as
ice, as hard as stone, as white as death. Pain squeezed the organ
beating in his chest and tears pricked his limpid owlish eyes; his
throat constricted and he found it hard to swallow or breathe.

Wavering bluish candlelight
washed around him and he felt like he was drowning. Emotions
threatened to engulf him and drag him down to some watery abyss.
The sensation was strange, unfathomable, and the experience unlike
anything he could comprehend or explain. He wondered if he was
dying.

Some men feared death, others
feared life.

He had no fear of either.

He did not believe in heaven or
hell.

He was not ruled by existential
terrors.

He tried blinking back the
tears but they flowed like a warm stream down his hot cheeks and he
felt ashamed. He felt ashamed for giving into emotion. He felt
ashamed for being weak. He felt ashamed for betraying his
philosophy. He felt ashamed for being like everyone else.

He fell across the lifeless
body of the princess and wept quietly.

He wept for something he had
lost. He wept for something he would never have. He wept because he
couldn’t help it. He wept because he was human.

When a door slammed somewhere
at the far end of a corridor and a cold draught blew the candle
out, he drew comfort from the darkness. Light was a greatly
overrated thing. Harsh. Severe. Unforgiving. Darkness was softer. A
man could embrace the darkness. Without darkness there would be no
dreams, no desires, no moon, no stars, no secrets...

“Who the hell are you?” It was
the sleepy attendant now wide awake, holding a lantern that sprayed
blinding light enough to wake the dead.

Mycroft pulled himself
together. “Never you mind!”

With his lachrymose emotions
once more in stoic check, he walked briskly back out into the world
that would always now be one shade colder, blacker and emptier.

Major Nash and Colonel Moriarty
pried away a loose board that had been nailed slipshod across a
shattered French window and climbed inside the pavilion. The acrid
smell of charred timbers and burnt fabrics mingled with ghostly
puffs of smoke and ash and wraiths of plaster dust that drifted
like phantoms stirred to life by cross-currents of cold air and
human visitation. Fine, white, chalky powder coated their clothes
and skin, pervading their nostrils, forcing them to draw shallow
breaths. Gaps in the boards invited motes of moonlight, enough to
guide the way to the second level where the studio sat above the
octagonal foyer, or what was left of it.

“What exactly are we looking
for?” whispered Nash; boots crunching bits of broken glass that
started life as a crystal chandelier, and chunks of ornamental
plaster cornicing that lay scattered in the aftermath of shredded
curtains, a torn backdrop of the Brighton Pavilion, and a camera
still attached to its tripod stand lying flat on the ground.

Picking his way gingerly across
creaking timbers that had withstood the blast but now threatened to
give way under the weight of him, Moriarty shrugged. “I don’t know.
Rolls of film. Photographic plates. A link between this
photographer and the one who was roaming around. Were they working
in tandem? Did they know each other?”

Carefully they sifted through
bomb debris looking for clues until Nash threw back the painted
backdrop and felt his breath catch.

“This is interesting,” he said
with remarkable understatement.

Moriarty turned to look and
felt his breath catch too.

The photographer who had been
working in the studio was lying dead. He had been strangled with a
goodly length of the hem of a petticoat. It was still wrapped
tightly around the neck. The body was stiff and stone cold. The
remnant of broderie anglais (donated by some grand dame for the
staunching of wounds) indicated the victim had been murdered well
after the bombs had been detonated, possibly when he returned to
the studio to salvage what he could of his expensive equipment. The
murderer had probably casually picked up the frill and later used
it to strangle him. Strangling required brute strength - the killer
was a man.

Those same thoughts ran through
the minds of both Nash and Moriarty and required no clarification.
Other points needed thrashing out.

“Why kill him after the event?”
posed Moriarty in a neutral tone.

“If he was going to be
interviewed by Scotland Yard he might give too much away,”
suggested Nash. “If we suspected the roaming photographer, it
wouldn’t take long for the Yard to do the same.”

“Or he might have been able to
identify the roaming photographer,” offered the colonel.

“He might even have guessed the
other wasn’t a proper photographer at all but a stooge with an
empty folding box – especially if he picked it up and put it under
the stairs.”

“He might have seen something
suspicious which didn’t mean anything at the time but later seemed
out of place. Not necessarily something the other photographer did,
but perhaps one of the guests.”

“He might have overheard
someone talking about the bombs while he was preoccupied behind the
backdrop and only later did the speaker realize the photographer
heard every word.”

“We could probably find a dozen
more reasons. Check his pockets. Does he have a business card with
an address on it?”

Nash poked around in the
pockets of the frock coat. “Here’s a card.” He struck a lucifer and
his eyes skimmed the fine print before the match barbecued his
fingers. “Mr Aubrey Ambrose, 44 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.”

“That’s just across the river.
The Battersea Bridge will have us there in no time.”

“Posh address,” noted the
Major. “He must have been one of those society photographers
popular with the ladies. Let’s go. We’ll rendezvous on the
bridge.”

“Rendezvous?”

“Shut up!”

Sherlock didn’t return to Baker
Street with Dr Watson. He explained he had a few things to take
care of and his old friend knew what that meant. There was no point
pressing the matter. Sherlock would explain in his own good
time.

The consulting detective felt a
frisson of the old excitement as he returned to Clarges Hotel where
he had earlier in the day checked in. The lobby was dead quiet as
he collected his key from the night porter and went to his room on
the second floor, staying just long enough to snatch up a kerosene
switch-marker lantern with a Bangor blue lens that diffused the
light and was not too glary. Without ado, he stole up the servants’
stairs to the third level. The Russian maid was sleeping in a room
at the end of the hall. He could hear her snores as he tip-toed
along the corridor and slipped into the main bedroom.

He was intrigued as to what a
Matryoshka doll looked like and he hoped there might be more
nesting dolls stored in boxes in the dressing room. If the princess
had one doll she was likely to have others to hand out to loyal
friends of Mother Russia.

He also wanted to familiarize
himself with the layout of the rooms so that he could return during
the day and make a detailed search for any clues as to who the
lover was. His brother was behaving peculiarly and it worried him.
He didn’t seriously believe Mycroft killed the princess but if he
knew who did kill her and was thinking of taking his revenge that
was different.

The maid had started to pack up
the princess’s personal possessions, probably at the instigation of
the prince. That actually made the search easier. It also meant
that if things were disturbed it would not be as noticeable. He
worked quickly and methodically using the blue tinted lamp to
direct the light to where it was needed.