The Curse Of The Diogenes Club

by Anna Lord

  “What has brought that on?” asked de Merville with a tinge of alarm. He could commiserate on the inexplicable behaviour of daughters, and likewise took out his fatherly frustration on his spent Macanudo.

  “That article in the newspaper the other day regarding Viscount Cazenove did it.”

  “What?” said Damery; somewhat surprised. “The one penned by Agrippa?”

  A full page article had been syndicated to all the London dailies outlining in glowing terms how Viscount Cazenove, who had had no military training whatsoever, had been personally invited by General Hawksmoor to lead a regiment against the Boers in South Africa in recognition of the outstanding military service rendered by his ailing father the Earl of Winchester who had suffered a debilitating stroke and was now lingering on his deathbed.

  “Yes,” confirmed Mr Blague with violent dismay. “My dear Mona was quite smitten with the handsome young Viscount though she understood his first interest was directed at your dear daughter, General de Merville, - though we were led to believe there was no formal engagement between the pair of them - but when Viscount Cazenove upped and went to the Transvaal sudden-like, in fact the day after he paid us an extended visit in South Audley Street, it played with her sensitive nature something shocking. I doubt she will get over it for days, maybe not even for weeks. Heaven forbid!”

  Damery turned to his trusty old friend. “Did you have something to do with Freddy Cazenove’s meteoric promotion to Lieutenant?”

  General de Merville shook his head adamantly and harrumphed. “Absolutely not! I was a shocked as anyone. Violet was shocked too. In fact, Freddy was shocked most of all. I saw him the day the article appeared in all the dailies. He blamed me. His behaviour did him no credit that day. He ranted and raved and accused me of getting Hawksmoor to rig-up that bogus Lieutenant position because I had once mooted the idea of his spending a few weeks at Sandhurst and then getting rapidly promoted in order to experience the thrill of battle first-hand, but I had backed down from that idea for family reasons. Whoever dreamed up Freddy’s meteoric promotion and transfer to the Transvaal did it without my knowledge.”

  Damery stamped on his cigar and cogitated. “There aren’t too many men in London with the clout to pull off such a stunt.”

  “I can think of only one,” said de Merville, frowning darkly.

  Damery met his friend’s gaze and the two old soldiers read each other’s thoughts. “But whose interests would be served? Not the Diogenes Club. Freddy isn’t even a member.”

  “I asked myself that very same question about whose interests would be served and reached no satisfactory conclusion. The whole episode still leaves me flabbergasted. The exact same article appeared in all of the newspapers on the exact same day, no advance notice was given to Freddy, so that even if Freddy wanted to turn down Hawksmoor’s offer to go the Transvaal he couldn’t do it without looking like a lily-livered coward. He left England on a troop ship that same day.”

  The three men began to feel the cold.

  “Ah, here is Prince Sergei, the new Russian ambassador,” noted Damery. “It appears he has arrived alone. The princess does not appear to be with him. It confirms the rumour they are estranged and she has moved into Clarges Hotel.”

  “Shall we return to the party, gentlemen?” suggested General de Merville; warding off an icy shiver.

  Unbeknownst to them, a fourth figure had been smoking a cigarette on the veranda, though this man had chosen to keep a low profile, pressing himself into an architectural recess, out of sight. He caught up to the three men who all happened to be dressed as Henry VIII.

  “Good evening, General de Merville,” he called, employing his most genial Irish accent, greeting the one with the widest girth and highest rank first.

  The General looked back over a padded shoulder. “Oh, it’s you, Colonel Moriarty. I didn’t recognize you in that ridiculous get-up and that ludicrous curly wig. One of the Three Musketeers, is it? I can never remember the names. Pathos, Amos…You are acquainted with Sir James Damery, but have you met Mr Bruce Blague, from across the Atlantic.”

  Colonel Moriarty fought the urge to scratch his bald head – prayed the wig wasn’t infested with lice - and acknowledged the newcomer. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir, I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter at a pre-Christmas dinner party at the General’s house in Berkeley Square. Will Miss Blague be here this evening?”

  He knew very well she wouldn’t, because he had listened in on the entire conversation and had tried not to laugh out loud. Miss Moneybags was not on his dance list, not that such a thing existed on the cusp of the twentieth century, but if it did, no amount of money would induce him to put her name on it. He preferred his women smart and with spark. He already had a doormat. The uppity Countess was top of his dance list.

  “Alas, she will not be joining us. My daughter is currently not feeling herself.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it, sir. I hope she recovers full health soon.”

  The news that had rendered the poor girl bereft had had the opposite effect on the colonel. It had given him a new lease on life and spurred him to travel from Ireland to London in time for the Prince Regent’s New Year’s Eve Ball, imaginatively titled: Last Night Forever.

  The sudden removal of Viscount Cazenove from London was a godsend. He had borrowed the theatrical Musketeer costume from a fellow Irishman who did odd jobs in Covent Garden and had connections to several theatres.

  “But you don’t have a ticket to the ball,” his friend had warned, digging out the Musketeer outfit from the bottom of a chest full of moth-eaten costumes and bedraggled wigs. “You will never get away with it, Jim. You will land yourself in a military brig – not an auspicious start to the twentieth century.”

  “Let me worry about that,” he had shrugged off, and so here he was about to walk through the door with three worthies from the English-American establishment.

  “Oh, dammit!” cussed Mr Blague. “I left my invitation in my coat pocket after we went in the first time. It must be in the cloak room.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” dismissed General de Merville. “I know the chap on duty at the door. Captain Thompson will not cause a fuss.”

  “Oh, bother!” cursed Colonel Moriarty with uncharacteristic mildness for an Irishman, after turning out his moth-eaten pockets. “I seemed to have done the same thing. My invitation is in the pocket of my stormcoat.”

  “Well, lucky I have my mine!” laughed Damery. “What about you de Merville? Did you leave your invitation inside too?”

  General de Merville scowled. “Yes, I did - blast it! - but Captain Thompson will remember me. I made a point of congratulating him on his recent promotion. The chap will not make a fuss. I’ll handle it.”

  They reached the door just as several carriages arrived in quick succession.

  “Hello, Thompson. I just stepped out to the veranda to have a cigar with these gentlemen, and it seems that three of us have left our invitations in the cloak room. No need to make a fuss, there’s a good fellow. Have a happy and prosperous New Year, Captain. Give my regards to that good wife of yours.”

  Moriarty, still fighting the urge to scratch an itch, scanned for potential trouble as soon as he entered the Moorish foyer and quickly spotted it in the form of Major - Horatio Hornblower - Nash on patrol by the main door leading into the ballroom. Nash wasn’t head of security; he was a paper-shuffler in the War Office. The Prince of Wales would have a crack team of Varangian guards looking out for him, but it would be just like Nash to ask to see his invitation. He always did things by the book.

  The Irishman had recently checked with a few friends about who Nash’s superior officer was in the paper-shuffling department. Every single one gave a different answer. One said Nash was spying for the foreign office in Shanghai. Another said Nash had resigned his commission and was married and living in Sydney. A third said he thought Nash was dead. His instincts smelled a rat and tonight he planned to get to the bot
tom of the rat hole.

  But that’s not the main reason he had been keen to attend this royal shindig. He wanted to remind the Countess of his existence. They had parted as friends but friendship was not what he wanted and if Nash was the man standing between him and the woman he intended to marry - so be it. Nash would have to go.

  He sprinted for the stairs just as Horatio ‘bloody’ Hornblower turned to scan the deck.

  Thanks to that conversation he’d listened in on he knew the Countess would be dressed as the Snow Queen. Among the violent verisimilitude of garish costumes her white gown would stand out like a breath of fresh air. He didn’t intend to play his hand too early and risk drawing attention to himself. As long as she was by his side at midnight for the first kiss of the new century that’s all that mattered.

  Major Inigo Nash had spent years observing foreigners dressed in any number of outlandish disguises. He had learned to pick out the traits that mattered. The way they smiled, the way they tilted their head and the way they ran when they forgot themselves. It was the little details that had saved his life more than once. So when he spotted the Musketeer rushing for the stairs he knew at once who it was. He’d observed Jim in motion plenty of times; they were at military college together and had shared the same dormitory; possibly even the same secret benefactor who had paid their fees and supplied them with a stipend. He knew everything about Colonel James Isambard Moriarty, including how his head wobbled when he was drunk, what triggered his Irish temper, and exactly how bankrupt he was.

  No way had Jim received a royal invitation. But Jim was good at getting into places he was never invited to. The night was young. Let him get his hopes up. There was plenty of time to throw him out later; about a quarter to midnight would be the perfect time to alert the royal body guards to the Irish interloper. He knew very well Jim would be making a play for the Countess’s affection but it would be over his dead body. Or better still, Jim’s dead body.

  She was the most desirable woman he’d ever met, probably the wealthiest, and most certainly the smartest. She was everything he wanted in a wife and he’d be damned if he’d let Jim get between him and the object of his desire.

  But right now he had other things on his mind and a job to do. Mycroft Holmes had filled him in on the suicide-death of Princess Paraskovia. His job was to keep an eye on the Russian ambassador – specifically to see who he talked to, and to keep his ear to the ground – to note if any dirty rumours started up regarding the death of the princess.

  He intended to keep track of the Countess too. There were a few questions he wanted answered. What connection did she have to Mycroft Holmes? Why did Mycroft call her in before calling Scotland Yard? Why did he discuss the suicide-death of the princess with the Countess before discussing it with his trusted ADC?

  And now here was Jim turning up like a bad smell. What connection did he have to the Countess? Were they lovers? Were they working together? Was she a Fenian sympathiser? Or was she a Russian spy working against the British effort in the Boer War?

  Dr Watson always wore his Scottish kilt on New Year’s Eve and he wasn’t about to mess with tradition just because he’d been invited to the Prince Regent’s gala ball. He hoped there was going to be a reel. Nothing fired up his Scottish blood more than a lively Scottish reel followed by a chorus or two of Auld Lang Syne.

  He’d spotted the white troika among the carriages in the park and knew that the Countess had arrived ahead of him. A glass of alcoholic punch to whet his whistle and then he would track her down among the five hundred illustrious guests.

  “Hello, Major Nash,” he greeted as he paused in the doorway leading to the magnificent ballroom, feeling chipper and in high spirits. “I say, that naval outfit looks the real thing. Did Countess Volodymyrovna come this way?”

  “Good evening, Dr Watson. Yes, the Countess came this way about fifteen minutes ago.”

  The doctor scanned the vast ballroom which had been delineated into three parts and topped with domes. “What a splendid crowd. Is Mr Mycroft Holmes here tonight?”

  “Yes, he is dressed as Sir Walter Raleigh.”

  “Marvellous, marvellous! Well, I shall be off to snaffle a beverage from that blackamoor with the drinks tray. Are you on door duty? Shall I bring you an alcoholic punch to lubricate your throat?”

  “Thank you for the offer, Dr Watson. I am not on door duty,” he lied. “I am waiting for a fellow officer.”

  “In that case, I’ll be off to locate the Countess. Enjoy the festivities, Major.”

  Major Inigo Nash decided it was high time to start circulating. If Dr Watson thought he was on door duty then the other guests were probably thinking the same thing. He needed to start acting as if he actually belonged at this costly knees-up.

  Prince Sergei first.

  And then the whereabouts of the Countess.

  No! Other way around! He didn’t want Jim to get the jump on him.

  Some celebrated beauties were merely celebrated and hardly beautiful. Very few could lay claim to being both. Mrs Greville was one and Lola O’Hara another. In her heyday, none could match Isadora Klein when it came to goddess status but that day had passed. She was still a cut above mortal beauties, but more like Hera than Aphrodite.

  Dressed as a Valkyrie with a winged helmet and a metallic cuirass that curved around a pair of voluptuous breasts, Mrs Isadora Klein, smouldering, seductive and sultry, was holding court among a circle of eager young acolytes at the top of the stairs where the paired symmetrical risers met in the centre and led to the mezzanine that overlooked the ballroom.

  The scene reminded Major Nash of something unpleasant he’d once seen in Mexico. It was a hungry shark in a tank full of slow swimming sardines. Undeniably dangerous, and yet there was no denying the mesmerizing allure of the languorous beauty of the predator as it bided its time. There was something primal, sexual, hypnotic, masturbatory, in the danger; like a wet dream. He’d gone back the next day but there was only the shark circling round and round. Someone told him sharks never rested. Even when they slept they propelled themselves forward, unable to find stasis. It sounded like a teleological nightmare that had no reason for existence except that it existed.

  Like a naïve fool, he’d fallen for the predatory charm, behaving like one of her adoring lapdogs, before realising her interest in him was a matter of his own self-delusion. As soon as she discovered he was a penniless baronet she made an example of him. He still felt the sting.

  Prince Sergei wasn’t after a new wife. The old one had only been dead a few hours. But he recalled the pretty little girl in the cherry orchard that time he paid a visit to his comrade Volodya Volodymyr on his estate just outside Odessa.

  How old was the step-child? Four or five years? No matter. Cute as a doll and stupendously precocious, singing and dancing and showing off. Volodya doted on her; spoiled her rotten and indulged her every whim; a terrible tragedy that he died so young. The girlchild had inherited his entire fortune.

  Later, she had inherited the fortune of Volodya’s mad sister too. Zoya Volodymyrovna was always a fearless firebrand. No man had the balls to take her on. She died in Australia from snake bite. The snake probably died later.

  He wouldn’t mind a large estate in west Ukraine to add to his farms in Minsk and Kharkiv. And the young countess apparently had vast land holdings in Australia too. They counted land there by the square mile. Farms there were bigger than European principalities. The girl must be twenty-four or twenty-five years of age by now. Not too young for him. He was not yet sixty and in remarkably good shape; still young enough to father a brood of little princes and princesses as long as the wife was healthy. She was a childless widow. That suited him. He could not abide other men’s brats and he could never be bothered with simpering virgins. He preferred his women well-versed in bed; broken in like his horses.

  It was time to rekindle old family ties.

  3

  Last Night Forever

  Dr Watson spotted the Sn
ow Queen on the far side of the ballroom. She was chatting to a distinguished foreign-looking chap with silver hair who was wearing a long-line military jacket in black adorned with a royal blue sash and decorated with lots of gold braid and several large gold stars that glittered like a Mayfair Christmas tree. It was probably the new Russian ambassador he’d heard so much about. In a sea of smart red military jackets the black stood out with conspicuous sharpness.

  Ploughing through perfume was like wading through treacle. He by-passed three Cleopatras, six Marie Antoinettes, two Guineveres, five Helens of Troy, and a lady wearing a bird cage on her head. The men reeking of Macassar hair oil were just as bad. There were seven Sun Kings, three Francis Drakes, and every Knight who ever graced the round table in L’Mort d’Arthur. He was almost within reach of the Snow Queen when he bumped into the reincarnation of Blackbeard and took a quick step back.

  This chap was taking dressing-up to a whole new level - grizzled beard, blackened teeth, eye-patch, hook for a hand, gold hoop earrings, filthy pantaloons, scruffy boots, twin cutlasses, two antique firearms, and a smell like rotten fish.

  There was no way known this unwashed pirate had received a royal invitation to the ball. It wasn’t just the bad breath and foul body odour that told the good doctor this fishy buccaneer needed to be reported at once; there was something menacing about his demeanour.

  Ah, there was the vigilant Horatio Hornblower standing in one of the box balconies that punctuated the mezzanine. Major Nash would know what to do.

  Dr Watson executed an about face sharpish and was racing up the stairs, taking them by twos when a man in a Musketeer outfit came rushing down, almost bowling him over. He could have sworn it was Colonel Moriarty but there was no way the Irishman would have been issued with an invitation to the royal ball either. He watched the Musketeer disappear swiftly around a corner as if he was up to something fishy as well.