It all hung together beautifully as a spider’s web, intricate and complex, but with a perfect order at the heart of it. I rose from the floor with trembling fingers and removed my apron and washed my hands. I had to tell Brisbane, and I had to do it instantly, and it was with a heavy heart that I suddenly remembered he was not there.
“Blast,” I muttered. I hesitated. I ought to wait for him, but I had no notion of how long we had before the trail ran cold. I thought then of the hundred-pound wager and Brisbane’s gnawing fears that I would not prove equal to detection and that decided me. I snatched up my hat and coat. Just as I put my hand to the doorknob, it turned and I shrieked.
The figure in the doorway shrieked back, clutching a basket to her bosom.
“Lady Julia! You frightened me half to death!” Felicity Mortlake’s blue eyes were enormous in her fair face.
“I do apologise. You caught me unawares. I was just on my way out.”
“Oh, I am sorry to have come at a bad time,” she said. She lifted the basket in her arms. “I thought Mr. March might be about and perhaps a little hungry. A picnic in the park,” she added with a becoming blush. “As he is not here, perhaps you and I might take luncheon together.”
“Plum is off on a case, God only knows where,” I informed her. “It was a sweet thought, and I would join you myself, only I am in a tearing hurry.”
“Oh, I will not keep you,” she said, her face a trifle downcast. I felt a thornprick of pity for the girl. She had become quite fond of Plum in the past days, and I wondered sometimes if he entirely returned her regard. He was a fool if he did not, I decided. She was quick and clever and it had taken great strength of character to leave her father’s house.
I smiled at her to take the sting from my refusal. “We will do it tomorrow,” I promised. “Only just now I am off to investigate a matter that cannot wait.”
Her eyes widened farther still and she clutched the basket more tightly. “You will be careful, won’t you? It’s just that Plum has told me how dangerous the work can be.” She blushed a little at the slip of using his familiar name, and I gave her a sisterly pat.
“Of course I will be careful.”
She fell to nibbling her lip. “I wonder if you would take me with you.”
I blinked at her. “Take you along? Are you quite serious?”
She put down the basket and squared her shoulders. “I am. Lady Julia, I must own what I feel and what I feel is that I am quite desperately in love with your brother. He means to be a detective and a good one, and if I have any hope of becoming his wife, I must learn to help him. I think he believes me too soft, too useless to do this sort of work, but I am not, really,” she added, leaning towards me, earnestness writ on her face.
“Lady Felicity, this is not the sort of work one undertakes upon a whim,” I began.
“I know that! And I have thought the matter over, quite thoroughly, I assure you,” she said, her voice firm. “You have learned to become a proper partner to Mr. Brisbane, and I wish to do the same for Plum. Will you help me?”
I hesitated, taking in the shining eyes, the pleading expression. “Oh, very well. But bring the basket in the carriage. I am starving.”
The Twenty-First Chapter
One truth leads right to the world’s end.
—“Mr. Sludge, ‘The Medium’” Robert Browning
Lady Felicity proved an excellent helper in detection. She kept quiet on our drive to the domestic agency, asking no questions and handing over little sandwiches whenever I requested them. I had second and then third thoughts about involving her, and then reminded myself that Brisbane had drawn Plum into our investigations without so much as a by-your-leave to me. I did, however, take the precaution of telling her to wait in the carriage whilst I went to speak with Mrs. Potter, the owner of the domestic agency. The interview was brief and unsatisfactory. I demanded the name of the current employer of my previous cook and she refused it. No amount of cajolery or persuasion would change her mind, and I returned to the carriage to find Felicity munching contentedly on a plum tart, scattering crumbs over her skirts.
“I am sorry,” she said through a full mouth. “It was the last of the plum tarts. Would you like apple?”
I waved her off. “No, I am at a loss and must think.”
She brushed the crumbs from her gloves and fixed me with a reproving stare. “If there is one thing I understand, it is domestic troubles. My stepmother has been far too busy with her pregnancies to run the household. I have done it since Mama died. Tell me what you want to know from this woman, and I will discover it.”
I gave her an abbreviated version of the truth, saying only that I needed to speak with the cook who had left my employ a few days previously and that I had no way of learning where she worked at present.
“The easiest thing in the world!” Felicity crowed. She handed over an apple tart and told me she had matters well in hand. She said nothing more, but waited a few minutes until we saw Mrs. Potter leave the agency, pinning her hat firmly in place as she walked. Mercifully, she did not look towards us, but I had taken the precaution of flinging myself to the floor of the carriage just in case. Felicity kept watch upon her and related her every movement.
“She finally has that wretched hat pinned down. She is walking towards Oxford Street, rummaging in her reticule. She has not looked back—oh! She has just hailed a hansom. No doubt she means to be gone for some little time if she has taken a horse cab. The time has come!”
With that pronouncement, Felicity alighted from the carriage and made her way up the steps of the agency. I struggled back to my seat just in time to see her enter. I waited, tapping my foot for the better part of a quarter of an hour until she emerged. She walked sedately back to the carriage, but just as she reached the door, she smiled broadly and brandished a slip of paper.
“Success!” She slammed the door behind her and shouted a direction to the driver. Her eyes were shining and her colour was high. Felicity Mortlake was having the time of her life, and I was glad of it.
“How?” I demanded.
Her expression was deservedly smug as she tucked the paper away in her reticule. “Well, I reasoned that Mrs. Potter would tell me nothing so soon after your enquiry, so I knew I would have to speak with an assistant. I hardly dared to hope that she would be so forthcoming! I had prepared an elaborate story about a Swiss aunt coming to visit and wanting to serve her some of her native delicacies and how I required a Swiss cook for a short engagement, but she was scarcely listening! I no sooner mentioned that I was there about a Swiss cook and she said, ‘That will be Frau Glöcken. You’ll be the second lady today asking after her. She is cooking at Lauderdale House.’ Lauderdale House, can you believe it?”
Lauderdale House, once home to the earls of that title, had passed into other hands and not many years past been opened to the public for teas and other social events. It was perched on the edge of Waterlow Park, a very pretty green space dotted with ponds and little hills and extraordinary views of London. Rather a step up from our rented lodgings, even in Brook Street, and I said as much to Felicity.
She laughed aloud. “But surely not as prestigious as cooking for the daughter of the Earl March. Really, if she means to advance in private service, she would have been far better off with you.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to explain to Felicity that I was not searching out the cook in order to settle any domestic troubles. But I could not imagine her shock if I were to explain that my cook was, in fact, an agent of the German government, so I said nothing.
A furrow knit her brow and she leaned forward. “I do not mean to pry into your business, Lady Julia, but you have been rather adamant that you must find this person. Is she dangerous? Ought we to wait for Mr. Brisbane or Mr. March to accompany us?”
I was not surprised at her current attack of nerves. I had had my own doubts a time or two when I had faced down danger, but I thought again of the hundred-pound wager I had made with Bris
bane and smiled.
“Do not fear, my dear. I am prepared,” I said, patting my reticule gently.
Her eyes fairly popped from her head. “You have a weapon?”
“A small revolver, but deadly enough should we have need of it,” I assured her.
She swallowed hard, but her next words were courageous ones. “I only wish I had known,” she said stoutly. “I should have brought Father’s duelling pistols.”
We collapsed into laughter then, but as we drove on, we sobered. No more titbits from the picnic basket, no more girlish confidences. I knew I was taking a grave risk in confronting the cook by myself, but I also knew I dared not wait for Brisbane. She had spooked as easily as an unbroken pony at the fire in our lodgings. Who was to say she would not spook again? And if she fled, it would be impossible to trace her. I would not have found her even now if it were not for Lady Felicity’s efforts, I reminded myself, and when the carriage drew up near to Lauderdale House, I realised it would be unfair to keep her sheltered from what would follow. She made no move to alight from the carriage, and I turned.
“I will leave it to your own judgement to accompany me or not, Lady Felicity. You have been a great help to me thus far, but I will not ask you to place yourself in harm’s way.”
She gulped once, then alighted to take her place next to me. She lifted her chin and gave a short, sharp nod. “Let us do this.”
“Very good,” I said. I led the way towards the front door, but as we drew near, Felicity plucked at my sleeve.
“Surely the back door,” she suggested, nodding with her head to the side of the house. “If we mean to surprise her, we must approach without warning.”
“An excellent notion,” I conceded. We walked together around the side of the house, concealed by the shrubbery. Just as we reached the corner of the shrub walk, Lady Felicity grabbed my arm hard.
“What is it?” I demanded in a harsh whisper. “Do you see something?”
“Only a very stupid woman who has put herself entirely into my power,” she said in a thoroughly unrecognisable voice. I jerked my head to find her pointing a rather lethal-looking pistol straight at my heart.
“Guten Tag, meine Liebe,” she said sweetly. And the world began to spin.
“No, you don’t,” she said sharply. She reached out and gave me a sound slap on either cheek. “You will not swoon. You will walk quite naturally in that direction,” she said, tipping her head away from Lauderdale House.
“There are people not fifty feet away inside the house,” I reminded her. “I might scream.”
“And I will shoot you before anyone can get to you.”
It seemed a rather good plan, I was forced to admit, and I had no choice but to obey. I turned to walk, and she nudged my back with her pistol. “Not quite so quickly, my dear. I believe you mentioned a weapon in your reticule. I will have it, and mind you hand it over nicely.”
I did as she bade and she tucked my little pistol into her pocket before we started off.
“Where are we bound?” I asked by way of making conversation.
“Towards the far end of Waterlow Park,” she told me. We walked for some time across the pretty park, and if it was a fine autumn day, there were precious few others out to enjoy it. I saw in the distance a groundskeeper or two, but I dared not call out to them. I had no doubt Felicity would shoot me if I tried, and she would not hesitate to harm them, as well.
As we walked, I peppered her with questions.
“So you were Madame’s German contact, the veiled lady,” I began. “Why did you take up with the Germans?”
“Because of Mama,” she returned impatiently. “Do you know nothing?”
I cast my mind back to the first Lady Mortlake. A pale and pretty blonde with an impenetrable accent. The gears shifted then, and a bit of the machinery of the plot slotted into place. “Your mother was a German.”
“A Sigmaringen-Hohenzollern,” she said proudly. “Distant cousin to the kaiser. She came with the Crown Prince of Germany’s contingent when he married Princess Victoria. Mama stayed behind to marry my father, but she never forgot where she came from, and I bear her blood.”
“So with the proud Teutonic blood of the Fatherland flowing in your veins, you thought you’d do a bit of spying for old Bismarck, is that the idea?”
The point of the barrel wedged painfully in my ribs. “Do not speak so disrespectfully of the Chancellor. He is a great man, and under him, Germany will rise.”
I snorted aloud. “Oh, do leave off the flag-waving patriotism, Felicity. This has nothing to do with your mother’s people. You are simply out to have your revenge upon your father.”
Her pretty complexion flushed a dull red. “He made my mother’s life a misery. He took up with that slut of a governess when Mama was alive, did you know that? And when she finally died of a broken heart, he married his whore within a year.”
“It was badly done,” I agreed, “but if everyone who had family troubles took up espionage as a hobby, where would that leave the world?”
The pistol pushed farther still, and I gave a sharp gasp. “Your flippancy does you no credit. Just because you cannot grasp true patriotism does not mean it fails to exist.”
“I apologise,” I said breathlessly. “But you have managed to kill quite a few birds with just the one stone, haven’t you? I mean, you can have your revenge upon your father, further the interests of your mother’s people, and—I imagine—line your pockets rather neatly at the same time. Not a bad day’s work.”
To my surprise, she laughed. “Day? I have been putting this scheme together for the better part of three years. It took quite some time to cultivate the proper contacts, then I had to gain Madame’s confidence, persuade her that I could secure her future completely. She was not as easy to lure into conspiracy as I had imagined she would be.”
Of course she wasn’t, I thought to myself. Séraphine was far too accustomed to making her own way and fashioning her own schemes. She would have been wary, and it was a pity she had not clung to that wariness. It might have saved her life.
“Hmm, yes,” I murmured. “Too bad about her. And about Agathe. I presume Agathe promised the letters and failed to deliver?”
“Time and again,” Felicity said, her mouth twisting bitterly. “It reached the point where she became too much of a liability. I discovered she had told someone else about the letters, and I had to remove her.”
My heart felt heavy then. I had not particularly liked Agathe. I had considered her a schemer and a charlatan, but no one deserved to die as she had, twisted beneath the wheels of a train, crushed by tonnes of steaming iron. Poor Mr. Sullivan had been lucky, I decided. If Felicity had known his identity, she might well have killed him, as well.
“And still you have no letters,” I observed. “However will you proceed now?”
Again the shove between my ribs, and this time I felt a stay in my corset break, piercing the flesh. “I will proceed how I see fit. We have arrived, Lady Julia. Enter.”
I looked up to see the looming gates of Highgate Cemetery. I had forgot the park bordered the cemetery. How fitting, I thought. And as I passed beneath them, I wondered if I would ever emerge.
* * *
We walked for some time through the cemetery, and I continued to annoy her with questions. “So my poor Swiss cook was entirely innocent of my suspicions?”
She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Entirely.”
“Little wonder you could not let me confront her,” I mused. “You dared not let me accuse her for fear she would persuade me of her innocence.”
“I could not let you accuse her because I do not know where she is,” she corrected with exaggerated impatience. “I made up the story about Lauderdale House to get you to Highgate. It would have seemed terribly suspicious if I had just instructed the driver to take us to the cemetery, would it not?”
I marvelled in spite of myself. “You are quick on your feet, I will give you that much.”
“I always have been. Why do you think the Mortlake emeralds ended up in Father’s study? I had to have a place to hide them until I could find a jeweller to buy them. If I hid them amongst my things, it would have been damning should they be found. Amongst Father’s things, they pointed only to him.”
“You implicated your own father in a scheme to defraud his insurers! He might have gone to prison,” I chided her.
“I believe I have made it quite clear that my father and I are not close,” she returned blandly.
“Unnatural child,” I muttered.
She guided me along the Egyptian Walk. The gates were still open, but there were no mourners, and I began to feel a little desperate. Had no one died recently? Was there no one to weep at the graves?
I half expected her to guide me to the Circle of Lebanon, to the same crypt where Mr. Sullivan had so thoughtfully laid his trap, but she did not. Instead she directed me to a small mausoleum that bore a familiar name. Mortlake.
She took a key from her reticule and brandished it with a thin smile. “One never knows when a quiet bolthole in the city will prove useful.”
She handed me the key and gestured for the door. I unlocked it and entered. At her instruction, I struck a match and lit a candle that stood upon a little shelf. The light was dim in that cool expanse of dark marble, but it shone enough to permit a quick inspection of the place. I was not surprised to find myself surrounded by the dead, but it did strike me as odd that there should be clothing and a small supply of tinned food.
“Have you been living here?” I was curious in spite of myself.
“As I said, it is a useful place to collect my thoughts. I come here from time to time to rest or for a change of clothing.”
She nodded towards the neat pile of garments lying in a basket and I recognised the garb of the veiled lady.
“My mother’s things,” she told me. I lifted one sleeve to find the buttons of the Sigmaringen-Hohenzollerns. The device matched that on the plaque of the nearest coffin. Beneath it were inscribed the words, “Kristina, Countess of Mortlake, Baroness von Hoefgen, beloved wife and mother.”
The Dark Enquiry Page 31