“At our age!” she murmured afterwards. “Whatever would the children say? Oh, Harry lad, d’you mind the Madagascar forest … Harry? Harry? My dear, are you all right? Shall I fetch you a glass of water … a little brandy, perhaps?” I was thinking, glory, glory, what a hell of a way to die, being in no condition to move, let alone answer, but I remember noting that she hadn’t minded a bit, and saying to myself, aye, you’ll still bear watching.
Ah, but fond recollection has carried me ahead of events. It was on that night, after dinner, that the Prince had proposed baccarat, and Cumming had supposedly cheated for the first time. I’d no inkling of this, of course, nor yet on the Tuesday evening, when he’d been seen doctoring his stakes yet again, the bounder – they said. Now, on the Wednesday night, the murder was out (among a few people, anyway), and I was in the pool room trying to fathom it – and, I confess, wondering what I might do to jolly the mischief along. Well, you know my style, and between ourselves … wouldn’t you?
First, though, to the fathoming. So far as I could judge, there was a choice of three explanations – each one so far-fetched as to be nigh impossible.
Odds on with the punters in the know was that Cumming had cheated. It didn’t wash with me, much though I’d have liked to believe it. He was a prime tick and arrant snob, a very model of military and social excellence, cool, handsome, lordly, rich, and moustached, wore his handkerchief in his sleeve, looked down his nose at the world, probably was too fastidious to shave in his bath, might well be a former paramour of my beloved, and on all these counts was ripe for any dirty turn I could serve him. But that wasn’t the point; however detestable I might think him, the plain fact was that swindling simply wasn’t his style. I told myself that even the unlikeliest folk do the damnedest things … was it possible that Cumming was the kind of reckless ass who’d play foul in a trifling game, not for gain, but for the sheer mad fun of the thing, to see if he could get away with it? There are such fellows; I’ve seen ’em. Rudi Starnberg, for one – ah, but he was a villain, in love with knavery. Cumming wasn’t, and for all the bone-headed bravery he’d supposedly shown at Ulundi and in the Sudan, I couldn’t see him bucking this tiger. He had too much to lose … and while I hate to say it, he was a gentleman.
Then the witnesses were either mistaken or lying. But error must be discounted: two or even three people might improbably be mistaken – but five? On two different nights? So all that remained was a conspiracy to disgrace Gordon-Cumming, by five assorted perjurers. Ridiculous, you say … well, I don’t. I’ve sworn truth out of England myself all too often, and seen the saintliest specimens lie themselves black and blue for the unlikeliest reasons. I’ve also known from the age of three that “honour” and “solemn oath” and “word of a gentleman” are mere piss in the wind of greed, ambition, and fear.
Still, you had only to look at the five witnesses to see that conspiracy was too far-fetched altogether. None of ’em even knew Cumming all that well, or had reason to dislike him, let alone plot his ruin. And one of them could be ruled out, flat. Here they are:
Arthur Stanley (“Jack”) Wilson, son of the house, a bright young spark who lived off Papa and hoped to be taken for a man-about-town; fairly brainless and possibly capable of being wild, I’d have thought, but hardly vicious;
His sister, Mrs Lycett Green, middling pretty, inoffensive, ordinary enough and decidedly not Lucrezia Borgia in the making;
Her husband, Lycett Green, a stiffish, old young man, well pleased with himself and his position as master of foxhounds in some northern swamp. In my experience there are dolts, pompous dolts, and M.F.H.s, but they ain’t the plotting kind;
Berkeley Levett, a sound muttonhead in Cumming’s regiment, and presumably as well disposed to his chief as subalterns ever are, given that Guards officers are usually incapable of any feeling outside their bellies and loins.
Four unlikely conspirators, you’ll allow – unless you conceived it possible that Cumming, a noted rake, had ravished Mrs Lycett Green before tea on the Monday and provoked the other three into concocting a diabolic plot to avenge her honour – but the fifth witness killed the plot notion stone dead. She was Mrs Arthur Wilson, our host’s wife, as respectable a matron as ever rebuked a cook, nervously gratified beyond measure at the honour of having royalty to stay, and the last person, as Bertie himself had remarked, to wish to have scandal breaking over her roof. If she said she’d seen Cumming jockeying his chips, she meant it.
So there was no explanation, and if I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery – which I confess was beginning to intrigue me for its own sake – I needed more eye-witness information. It would also be as well to discover if the scandal had leaked at all. On both counts my best source would be the wife of my bosom, who may be tripe-brained but has the eyes, ears and instincts of an Afridi scout, especially for things that don’t concern her.
I made a leisurely patrol, quartering ground and sniffing the wind: the Lycett Greens were nowhere to be seen, but Mrs Wilson was fretting at her fan and listening absent-minded to Lady Coventry in the drawing-room, and when I looked in at the smoke hole young Wilson and Levett were in deep confabulation, instantly dropped when I appeared, but not before I heard Levett exclaim: “I can’t touch it, Jack, I tell you! He’s my chief, dash it!” Signs and portents, thinks I, and passed on to the music-room, where one of the females was butchering Yum-Yum to the feigned admiration of the company, and my quarry was ensconced in a corner, fleecing some unfortunate foreigner at backgammon, shaking the dice and her upper works, the abandoned old tart, in a way which plainly put him off his game altogether.
“Another double six, count!” trills she, all rosy triumph. “I declare I never threw so many! Oh, and now a double four! What luck! Why, I am off entirely – oh, dear, and you have a man on the bar still! Oh, what a shame! Harry, come and see – I have a backgammon! Aren’t I lucky? No, no, count, I won’t have it – put your purse in your pocket! We play for love, not money,” says she, looking roguish. “No, no, I shan’t take it, really, I assure you! Will you not play another game?”
“After two gammons and a backgammon in five games?” cries the ancient squarehead. “Ah, dear Lady Flashman, against chance and skill I can struggle, but when they are allied with beauty and charm I am overpowered altogether. Am I not right, Sir Harry? But I insist on paying my just debts,” says he, planting his sovs in her palm, which gave the old goat the chance to kiss her hand and take a last fond leer at her top hamper, while she purred and protested.
“Och, isn’t he the wee duck?” sighs she, jingling her loot as he hobbled away. “Aye, weel, mony a mickle mak’s a muckle, as Papa used to say.” She slipped it into her bag and broke into civilised speech. “But, you know, Harry, it was quite embarrassing, for I threw six and one, and double one, and double six ever so often! I’m sure he believes I use loaded dice!” Loaded tits, more like. “I was so glad to see you, for he breathes ever so hard, I can’t think why, and I could see he hated losing, and it was such a bore.” She lowered her voice as she took my arm. “Indeed, it’s all rather a bore, don’t you think? Will we be able to go home tomorrow? Would the Prince be offended? I feel I have had as much of Tranby company as I can bear – and I’m sure it can be no fun for you, dearest.” The piano gang had begun to perform the last rites on “Three Little Maids”, with immense jollity, and as we went out she pulled a face and whispered: “I mean, the Wilsons do their best and are ever so kind and … and eager to please – but they are not really quite the thing, are they?”
She’s God’s own original snob, my little Paisley princess – as though her mill-owning father had been a whit better than the Wilsons. But the little skinflint had collared a peerage in his declining years, you see, and she seemed to think that his coronet and cash, with my V.C. and military rank, to say nothing of her own occasional intimacy with the Queen, raised us above the common herd. Which I guess they did, in an odd way – or if not above, apart at least. We ain’t top-drawer
, but there’s no denying we’re different.
I told her if she’d had enough of it we could be away on the morning train. “Now that the Leger’s run, I doubt if H.R.H. will linger. But I thought you’d been enjoying yourself, old girl, what with cheering on the winners, and sporting your glad rags – and most becoming you look, I may tell you – and being the life and soul, and charming Dirty Bertie …”
Mention of her appearance had inevitably brought her to a halt at a mirror in the corridor, and now she gave me a reproachful blue eye in the reflection.
“I trust I know what is due to royal rank,” says she primly. “And I may tell you that mere polite affability is not charming in the odious way you mean it.” She patted her gilded tresses complacently and touched a gloved finger to her plump pink cheek, sighing. “Anyway, I doubt my charming days are gone lang syne –”
“You don’t think anything of the sort … and neither does Billy Cumming, by all accounts. Oh, I’ve heard all about that – flirting over the baccarat cards, the two of you!”
Now was there, or was there not, an instant flicker in those glorious eyes before she widened them at me in mock indignation?
“Flirrr-ting! I? Upon my word!” She tossed her head. “The very idea – at my time of life! Flirting, quo’ he! Goodness me –”
“I had a touch of your time of life t’other night – remember?” We were alone in the corridor, and I stepped close behind her and gave ’em a loving squeeze. She exclaimed “Oh!” and hit me with her fan.
“That was not flirting,” says she. “I was a helpless victim – a poor defenceless old buddy, and you should think shame of yourself.” She gave her hair a last touch, and turned to peck me on the cheek. “And who says I tried to fetch Billy Cumming, I should like to know? No – stop it, you bad old man, and tell me!”
“Owen Williams – an officer an’ a gent, so there! Very jolly over the cards together you were, he tells me.”
“He’s an auld haver,” says she elegantly. “Just because a gentleman helps a lady to make her bets – well, you know I cannae count –”
“Except at backgammon, apparently.”
“Backgammon or no, I’m a duffer at cards, as well you know, and I dare say I said something exceptionally foolish, and made him laugh. As for flirting, Harry Flashman, who are you to talk? Do I not remember Mrs Leo Lade – and Kitty Stevens?” Names from fifty years ago, God help me, still green in her eccentric memory – and I didn’t even know who Kitty Stevens was! “Uh-huh, that’s your eye on a plate, my lad,” says she, slipping her arm through mine as we passed on. “What else did that blether Williams tell you?”
Now that was odd; lightly asked – too lightly. “Oh, just that,” says I. “I guess he was trying to take a rise out of me, knowing I can’t stand Cumming – but not knowing that you can’t stand him either.” I gave her hand a squeeze, reassuring like. “Why, you crossed him off our list years ago.”
“Did I? I don’t recollect.” And that was odder still, for if there’s an elephantine memory in London W.l. it resides in the otherwise wayward mind of Elspeth, Lady Flashman (as she had just proved by reference to Mrs Leo Lade and that other bint, whoever she may have been). Suddenly, I knew that something was up. For all her banter, she’d been on the q.v. from the moment Cumming’s name was mentioned: the quick wary glint in the mirror, her artless inquiry about what Williams had said, and the indifferent “Did I? I don’t recollect” told me she was keeping something from me. Was it possible that Cumming had been trying his lecherous hand again? At her age? Damned unlikely … yet then again, Queen Ranavalona had been a grandmother, and that hadn’t stopped me. By God, if he had, I’d see to it that he came out of his present pickle with his name and fame in the gutter. But that could wait; I’d another fish to fry at the moment, and as we neared the drawing-room door I paused, assuming a frown.
“Hold on, though – yes, Williams did say another thing … Yes … At baccarat, last night, did you notice anything … well, out o’ the way about Cumming’s play?”
She looked bewildered – but then, on any subject that hasn’t to do with money or erotic activity, she usually is.
“Why, Harry, whatever do you mean?”
“Was there anything remarkable about … his placing of the stakes?”
“My stakes, d’you mean? I told you he was helping me –”
“No, his stakes! How did he put ’em on the table?”
She looked at me as though I were simple-minded. “Why, with his hand, of course. He just put them … down …”
“Yes, dearest,” says I, keeping a firm grip on myself, “but that’s not quite what I mean –”
“– those wee coloured counters with the feathers on them, he just put them in front of him – and mine too, because, you see, he was advising me how to bet, since I did not understand the rules, or how much it would be safe to wager. And I must say,” says she, opening the floodgates, “it is quite the silliest game, for there’s no cleverness in it, and indeed I told him so. ‘For how can we tell what to wager,’ I said, ‘when we have no notion of what the Prince’s cards may amount to? Why, he may have a count of nine, and then where shall we be?’ He laughed and said we must take the risk, for it was a gamble. ‘I know that,’ I said, ‘but it would be more fun if we knew one of the Prince’s cards, and he knew one of ours, for then we could judge how much to put on.’ He said we must be like Montrose, and repeated that verse we used to recite at school, you know the one, about fearing our fate too much who will not put it to the touch to win or lose it all, and I said ‘That is all very well, Sir William, but remember what happened to him,’ and he laughed more than ever …”
I love her dearly, far beyond any creature I’ve ever known, and I can prove it, for never once in almost seventy years of married life have I taken her by the throat. Mind you, it’s been a near thing, once or twice.
“– and the court cards, would you believe it, count for nothing! ‘Why, then,’ I asked him, ‘do they have them in the pack at all?’ and he said he supposed it was to make weight, whatever that may mean, and I said it was a great annoyance to have to pay out to the bank when we had been dealt two kings, and got another when we asked for a third card, and the Prince’s cards were the sorriest rags, but they made eight, and that was the better hand, but it seems hard that three kings should be worth nothing at all …”
I took her gently by the arm and steered her away from the drawing-room door to an alcove at the end of the corridor, for I could see there was only one way, and that was to come out with the thing plump and plain. “Did you see Cumming at any time add counters to his stake after the Prince had declared the result of the hand?”
She took her lower lip gently in her teeth – a tiny gesture of puzzlement which has been turning my heart over since 1839. “You mean after the Prince had said who had won?”
“Precisely.”
She frowned. “But, then … it would be too late to add to his stake, surely?”
“That’s the whole point. Did he, at any time, after the result had been called, place any counters beyond the line?”
“Which line?”
“The line,” I replied through gritted teeth, “round the edge of the cloth on the table.” It was like talking to a backward Bushman. “The line beyond which the stakes are placed.”
“Oh, is that what the line was for? I thought it was just for the look of the thing.” She reflected for a moment, and shook her head. “No … I cannot think that I saw him putting out more counters, after …” As realisation dawned, the forget-me-not eyes opened wide, and her lips parted. “Why, Harry, that would have been cheating!”
“Begad, you’re right! So it would … but you never saw him do any such thing – with his hands, or a pencil –”
“Gracious, no! Why, I should have checked him at once, and told him it would not do – that he had made a mistake, and must …” And at that she stopped short, staring at me, and slowly her alarm changed into th
e oddest old-fashioned look, and then she smiled – that old teasing cherry-lipped Elspeth pout that used to have me thrusting the door to and wrenching at my breeches. To my astonishment I saw that her eyes were suddenly moist as she shook her head and came close to me, putting a gloved hand up to my whiskers.
“Oh, Harry, my jo, ye sweet old thing!” murmurs she. “Is that why you’re tasking me with all these daft questions – because that clavering auld clype Owen Williams has told you that Billy Cumming put his hand on mine once or twice at the baccarat?” She laughed softly, loving-sad, and stroked my withered cheek. “To be sure he did – but only to guide me in placing my wagers, silly! And you’re still jealous for your old wife, wild lad that you are – well, I’m glad, so there! Come here!” And she kissed me in a way which any decent matron should have forgotten long ago. “As though I’ve ever wanted to fetch any man but you,” says she fondly, straightening my collar. “Supposing I still could. Now, if you’ll give me your arm to the drawing-room, I dare say Mrs Wilson will be serving tea.”
The deuce of it is, when Elspeth turns a conversation topsy-turvy, all wide-eyed innocence, you can never be sure whether it’s witlessness or guile. She’s always been ivory from her delightful neck upwards, but that don’t mean she can’t wheedle a duck from a pond when so minded. Knowing her vanity (“Supposing I still could”, my eye!) I didn’t doubt that she believed my inquiries had been prompted by pure jealousy, to her immense gratification, lovingly expressed … still, there was something to do with Cumming that she wasn’t telling. Well, perhaps it was something I’d be better for not knowing; one thing seemed clear, for what it was worth: whoever had seen him cheating, she had not.
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