The Curse Of The Diogenes Club (27 page)

“Don’t punish yourself. I think
this weekend has helped him to relax. He enjoyed the charades.
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him belly laugh. He’s among
friends. A good night’s sleep and he’ll wake refreshed.”

“But that’s just it. He won’t
have a good night’s sleep. He keeps raving about the Oracle at
Delphi and a man with a lamp. Something awful is preying on his
mind. Or else he’s going mad. I’m worried sick about him.”

“Lots of people talk in their
sleep. It’s not a form of madness. It’s dreaming out loud. That’s
all.”

“I wish I could believe that.
I’m not coming to dinner. That’s what I came to tell you. Please
make my apologies to Major Nash. I’m going to sit with papa.”

“Nonsense, you need company.
You’re all wound up and being on your own will only make it worse.
I’m half-dressed already. I’ll slip into my robe de diner and sit
with him while you get ready and then my manservant can take over.
Your papa would be upset if he knew you were worrying for nothing.
Trust me, he’ll be fine.”

The Countess dressed quickly in
an evening gown of ivory silk with an overlay of black Chantilly
lace cinched with a high-waisted, black silk sash. It featured lace
sleeves and a modest train. The gown had been especially designed
for showing off a stunning choker of diamonds in the shape of
ribbons and bows from which cascaded garlands of pearls.

While she sat with the general
she could see why Violet was worried sick. He kept repeating things
over and over like a demented madman: Looking for an honest dog;
the doll is under the stairs; the oracle is over a barrel; third
bomb, third bomb; the earl-king is dead; long live the prince;
Machiavelli is mad; get out of my shadow; step away from the sun;
the princess is in Delphi now...

When Fedir – who’d slept on and
off all day on the understanding he would need to stay alert during
the night - came to take her place she was greatly relieved.

Colonel Moriarty caught her at
the top of the stairs and pulled her swiftly into his room while no
one was looking. “I haven’t seen you since lunch. What were you
doing in de Merville’s room?”

“He’s had too much to drink and
it’s upset Violet. I promised to sit with him while she dressed for
dinner. Have you thought about what I said?”

“Which part?”

“The part about making sure
Mycroft doesn’t meet with a fatal accident this weekend. If
something is going to happen it will happen tonight.”

He managed to stay looking
serious. “I thought I might keep an eye on him from your bedroom
since you have connecting rooms.”

“You need to come up with an
alternative plan,” she said coldly. “What have you been doing? Your
shirt is untucked and your waistcoat has three buttons undone. Or
should I not ask to save you having to lie to me?”

“No lies, then,” he said
brusquely as he shrugged off his waistcoat and shed his shirt while
she listened. “I’ve been fighting off Miss Mona Blague. She’s not
as naïve as she looks. For some reason she has got it into her head
that I’m a better catch than a baronet. That’s another reason I
need to hide in your bedroom. I’m scared she’s going to pay me a
visit in the night.”

The top half of a naked man was
designed for ogling, the bottom half merely for thrusting. He knew
full well the effect his broad chest and powerful back ripped with
muscle would have on her, but she had never been naïve and was not
about to start now just because the sight of him stirred dormant
feminine juices.

“Poor you – you could end up
rich and happy, but then again you’ll probably just sabotage
yourself as usual. Miss Moneybags is your problem. Bear in mind, if
anything bad happens to Mycroft and I think you’re responsible I’ll
pay you a visit in the night and put a bullet in your thick
skull.”

He liked the first half of that
threat but he wasn’t sure about the second. He wanted to tell her
he had actually been charged with protecting Mycroft but he had
promised Nash they would keep his mission to themselves. Not
knowing who the assassin was or where the next attack might come
from meant it was best if no one but Nash knew why he had really
come to Longchamps. Experience had taught him that it was easy to
betray the best laid plan by a single gesture or a wayward flick of
eyes. A clever opponent was always attuned to the unconscious
language of the body.

And then there was the added
complication of Major Inigo Nash. Was Nash as loyal as he appeared
or was he more ambitious than he made out? He had been ingratiating
himself with de Merville, Damery, Blague and even the Russian
ambassador all day. Showing off his new hammerless Purdeys in the
gun room. Inviting the men to sample the new batch of whiskey in
the cellar. Letting Blague win at snooker. Nash hadn’t lost a game
of snooker in twenty years.

What
game
was he really
playing? What were the stakes? What was the prize?

More importantly, had Nash set
him
up to take the blame?

The Countess left Moriarty’s
bedroom but she did not go immediately down to the great hall. She
went back to her room for her muff pistol. While she was checking
to make sure it was loaded with flint, she heard a barely-there
noise in the adjoining room that surprised her because she knew
Mycroft was still playing chess with Damery. She opened the door a
fraction and was intrigued to find Major Nash checking the drawer
of the bedside table.

It was perfectly appropriate
for an ADC to be looking inside the bedside cabinet of the man he
was employed to aid but there was something furtive about his
stance. He had his back to her, so it was impossible to see what he
might be doing but when she opened the door still further and he
heard the sound, he swung round sharply and the look on his face
told her that what he was doing was suspect.

“What are you doing with that?”
He indicated the muff pistol in her hand.

“I’m making sure it’s loaded.”
She lifted her skirt and tucked the small neat gun into a frilled
garter that sat just above her knee. Since her evening gown lacked
pockets it was the only convenient place to store a pistol but it
had the added advantage of distracting him.

He watched her smooth down her
Chantilly lace gown while discretely closing the drawer. “Just make
sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

The bedside table had three
drawers and she noted that his interest had been directed to the
middle one. “Major Nash, you know as well as I do that even if I
were to tumble down the stairs the sliding bracket which surrounds
the hammer ends in a pin which prevents the frizzen from opening
and discharging accidentally. Mr Derringer was very careful about
making sure his design would not go off even when half-cocked. The
drop-down trigger is foolproof. What use is a pocket pistol that
discharges inside a pocket?”

“Indeed,” he said with a poker
face. “Were you looking for Mycroft?”

“Yes, it’s time for him to
dress for dinner and he always needs help with his neck tie.” She
said that deliberately to goad him – he would start thinking: how
would you know that if you weren’t married to him? Time to goad him
some more. “Your neck tie needs a little tweak too.”

She stepped up and pretended to
straighten it. “There, that’s better.”

He waited for her to finish
brushing up against him, and his restraint was masterful.
“Finished?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling
sweetly, before feigning ignorance. “Do you know where Mycroft is
at present?”

“He’s with Damery. Do you want
me to send him upstairs to get dressed?”

“Yes.”

He turned to go then turned
back. “By the way, it’s a Webley.”

“What?”

“My neck tie was fine. I saw it
in the mirror before you
straightened
it, so next time you
want to check if I’m packing a pistol you should try asking me,
though rubbing up against me and toying with my neck tie will not
go unappreciated.”

She would have blushed but the
guilty never blushed. Blushing was reserved for the innocent who
felt guilty on behalf of others.

This time he got all the way to
the door. “What were you doing in the colonel’s room just now and
don’t tell me you were straightening his neck tie?”

Countess Volodymyrovna’s brain
whirred. Was the assassin really Colonel Moriarty or was that too
obvious? Was the danger to Mycroft closer to home? Why did Major
Nash really want to invite everyone down to Longchamps?

Handsomer than any man had a
right to be, he had no doubt grown immune to feminine advances.
Women had probably been googly-eyed about him since he first opened
his baby blue eyes and burped. No wonder he had seen through her
infantile play-acting more than once. It was time to lift her
game…and put the spotlight on the man whose name was Moriarty.

“He wasn’t wearing a neck tie.
In fact, he wasn’t wearing much at all. I was reminding him that if
anything bad happened to Mycroft I would visit his room in the
night and shoot him.”

Major Nash waited until he was
on the other side of the door then gave one of those roaring laughs
that echo up to the rafters.

Plan number one: Let Major Nash
think she suspected Moriarty.

Though the more she thought
about it the less likely it seemed that Moriarty was here to
assassinate Mycroft. It was too clumsy. If Moriarty wanted Mycroft
dead he would already be stone cold; he wouldn’t have stepped off
that milk train.

When Sherlock drew Colonel
Moriarty into their group on the night of the ball she had assumed
it might be to expose him, to bring him out into the open, or
perhaps to lull him into a false sense of security, never did she
think it might be because he trusted the Irishman, the brother of
his arch enemy, above the loyal ADC.

She wanted to check the drawer
but that’s what Major Nash would expect her to do. He might even
double-back on some pretence and catch her at it. She went to de
Merville’s bedroom instead. Miss de Merville and Fedir were both
there. She instructed her manservant in Ukrainian to go and help
Mycroft dress for dinner, then she explained about the middle
drawer of the bedside table, telling him to let her know when the
room was vacant, and to note if Mycroft went to the bedside cabinet
to withdraw anything.

Major Nash came back up the
stairs and escorted the two ladies downstairs to the great hall
where he fixed them with a flute of French champagne. Miss Blague,
looking youthful and flirtatious, was there ahead of them, sipping
stars already. It was time to put plan number two into action. It
was time to free up Colonel Moriarty and put Major Nash squarely in
the frame; it was time to restrict his movement; it was time to
force him to watch his back all night long.

“My, oh, my,” sighed the
Countess, fanning her face with her hand as she sidled up to the
bosomy American beauty. “Is it hot in here or is it me?”

“Are you feeling unwell?” asked
Miss Blague hopefully.

The Countess lowered her voice
conspiratorially, as if imparting a terrible secret. “He will be
the most eligible man in England when his uncle in Norfolk succumbs
to pthisis. He does not like to talk of it because he does not wish
to be besieged by gold-diggers. He wants a wife who has a fortune
to match his own. He wants most of all to make a love match. Is
that not the most romantic thing you have ever heard? He is
actually very shy with ladies.”

Miss Blague followed the
Countess’s dewy-eyed gaze across the vast hall. “Are you talking
about our host?”

“Who else? I don’t wish to
shock you, Miss Blague, I know you are innocent and not yet
nineteen, but I have never encountered a man who has mastered the
mechanics of kissing so thoroughly as our host. The Irish colonel
is a clumsy oaf in comparison.”

Miss Blague looked shocked but
not for the reasons imagined; her eyes were flashing greener than
her emeralds. “You have been kissed by both?”

“Please, you must not judge me
harshly - I am a widow.”

“Yes, yes, but how did you
manage it?”

“Oh, here comes that trumped-up
colonel. Let’s play a duet on the piano to avoid his company. He is
such a frightful bore. I believe acomia is contagious and I don’t
know about you but I don’t want to end up bald.”

Isadora Klein made a grand
entrance in a red and gold gown of taffeta that made her look like
a sticky toffee apple; oozing syrupy sweetness on the outside,
unpalatable inside, and something you immediately regret biting
into.

She accepted a flute of
champagne from their host, sashayed past all the men in the room
and singled out Miss de Merville for conversation. “How is your
dear papa? I heard he was not feeling well?”

Miss de Merville was not one to
wallow in self-pity for long. Just as Diogenes had surpassed
Antisthenes, and Zeno had surpassed Crato, she too had elevated
herself above the Cynics and was a true daughter of the Stoics. If
any woman deserved membership of the Diogenes Club it was Violet de
Merville.

“He is sleeping soundly now,
but he was quite agitated earlier on.”

“Agitated?”

“Oh, talking in his sleep and
that sort of thing. But Dr Watson gave him something to calm
him.”

“Does he talk often in his
sleep?’

“No never, well, not until
recently. I think the bombs unnerved him.”

“I think they unnerved us all.
I have had some terrible dreams since the night of the ball.”

“Yes, yes, me too.”

“Be sure to mention that I
asked after him.”

“Yes, certainly, he will be
most heartened to hear you enquired about his health.”

Mycroft arrived last of all and
the Countess knew the bedroom would now be free. She slipped
quickly up the stairs and into her room then through the connecting
door. Fedir and Xenia stood sentry at the two doors while she
checked the middle drawer and found a Remington Derringer tucked
underneath some handkerchiefs, a pistol similar to her own but with
a double barrel which meant it fired two rounds whereas hers fired
just the one.