“Did you suggest to anyone that you would like to be a member?”
The young man laughed.
“There is not much chance of that! If you mention it to any Englishman, he just looks blank and says he does now know what you are talking about.”
He bent forward towards Solita as he added in a conspiratorial tone,
“That is why I am going back to India. I am going to find out everything I can about it and put it in my book.”
“And I shall read every word of it!” Solita promised loyally.
It intrigued her and it also seemed somehow connected with her father.
She had therefore tried during the next few years to discover from every man she met who had been in India something about The Great Game.
The elderly Generals who visited Aunt Mildred behaved as she had been told they would, by feigning complete ignorance and there were only two who were a little more communicative.
“Now tell me why a pretty young girl like you should want to bother her head over what is happening in India!” one had said lightly.
Then, perhaps in answer to the pleading in her eyes, he went on,
“Any man who is in The Great Game takes his life in his hands. The participators are the unsung heroes. I know that a friend of mine, who died in a very peculiar manner, was one of them.”
There were just little snippets of information.
Yet put together they formed a picture in Solita’s mind and made her more determined than she was already to avenge her father’s death.
Now it was obvious that the Duke had played his part in The Great Game.
It was impossible for her not to reverse completely everything she had thought about him as being ‘indifferent, selfish and unkind’.
He had been fighting, as her father had fought, for his country.
Also, as her father had done, he had trusted a woman who was treacherous and dangerous.
‘I saved him last night,’ she thought, ‘but what will happen tonight?’
The thought occupied her mind during the afternoon.
When they drove back to The Castle for tea, she longed to talk to the Duke and beg him once again to be careful.
He had, however, made his plans very clear to everybody.
The horses were brought round to the front door before the ladies had sipped their tea or the men had finished their champagne.
Solita had not expected him to go off so soon and she realised therefore that she would not have time to change again into her riding habit.
She was also aware that none of the ladies were riding and she thought it would look as if she was pushing herself forward and perhaps annoy the Princess if she went off alone with the men.
So she watched them wistfully as they rode away.
They were laughing amongst themselves, the Duke riding an even more magnificent stallion than he had ridden this morning.
‘Perhaps we can ride again tomorrow,’ Solita thought consolingly.
Then instead of going back to the drawing room she went upstairs to her bedroom.
She was wondering despairingly as she did so what would happen during the night.
Emily helped her out of the gown she had worn at luncheon time into her pretty negligée.
“Now you get into bed, miss,” she said, “and have a little nap. You was up earlier than any of the other ladies this mornin’ and you’re sure to be late tonight.”
“I will do exactly as you say,” Solita smiled.
She got into bed and saw beside it the book she had borrowed from the Princess’s boudoir.
Then she had been so bemused by what she had overheard that she had carried it away without thinking.
She turned over the pages and then a sudden idea struck her.
Last night, when she had returned to her own bedroom, she had locked the door of the room she had entered inadvertently.
In case anybody should be aware of what she had done, she had taken away the key and put it into one of the drawers of her dressing table.
Now she was aware that she could, if she wished, unlock the door into the Princess’s boudoir.
She thought it over for a long time, knowing that to enter the room again was taking a great risk.
If she was discovered, and it was quite likely at this time of the day, it might strike the Princess that she had overheard what had been said the night before.
Then she remembered that it was very unlikely the Princess or Prince Ivan for that matter, would expect her to be able to speak Russian.
There had been a Russian girl at her school in Italy, who was the daughter of the Russian Ambassador to Rome. She was a clever girl, the same age as Solita.
At first Solita had avoided her because she hated everybody of the same nationality as those who had killed her father.
Then, and she thought now it was fate, she had sworn to herself that she would avenge his death, it might be imperative for her to be able to understand the language of the enemy.
Accordingly she had deliberately made friends with Olga and helped her with her Italian lessons.
In return as she was very grateful, the girl was persuaded to teach her Russian.
After two years Olga declared that Solita spoke it as well as she did herself.
Solita looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly half-past five.
As she did so, she was aware that when the gentlemen had all gone riding after tea, two of the Duke’s guests were not among them.
One was a quite elderly man, a distinguished Statesman, who walked with a limp.
The other was Prince Ivan.
He had been in riding clothes, but at the last moment he appeared to change his mind and the others went without him.
Now it seemed to Solita there was a very good reason for him not joining them.
It was that she thought he was trying to discover something useful from the elderly Statesman.
She sat up in an agitated way.
It seemed as if the Russians were like a great octopus with their tentacles going out in every direction.
They were dragging first this person, then the other towards them and slowly imprisoning them so that there was no escape.
She sat thinking for what seemed a long time, then she decided that it was worth the risk.
Even if she was caught, she had the book to prove she was only returning it to the shelf.
She jumped out of bed and, picking up the book, walked just as she was in her nightgown across the room.
Taking the key from the drawer, she unlocked the door of the boudoir.
As she turned the handle, there was no sound of anyone speaking.
It was unlikely that the Princess would rest anywhere except in her bed.
Saying a little prayer that she was not mistaken, Solita opened the door.
She was right.
The room was empty except for the fragrance of flowers and the evening sunshine streaming in through the uncurtained windows.
She went first to the bookcase at the end of the room from where she had taken the volume in her hand.
Then on tip toe she moved towards the door.
It was closed and, as she stood with her ear against it, she heard a door slam.
A second later she heard the Prince’s voice.
“It was a damned waste of time!” he was saying, “and I wish to God I had gone riding!”
“I told you he was not of any great importance,” the Princess replied. “We seem to be out of luck at the moment.”
“Not at all,” the Prince replied. “I have an idea and I think it is the best I have had for some time.”
“What is it?” the Princess asked.
Then, as the Prince did not speak, she added,
“Lock the door and come and lie down beside me. It is a long time, darling, since we have been alone together.”
“I know,” the Prince said, “and I have missed you. Curse Calverleigh. I am jealous of him!”
&n
bsp; “There is no need for you to be jealous of anyone, as you well know!” the Princess answered in a caressing tone.
There was a sharp click as the Prince turned the key in the lock.
As he did so, Solita very very softly turned the handle of the communicating door.
It opened without a sound and she left it slightly ajar, as it had been the night before.
Then she heard the Prince making a movement which she was sure meant he was taking off his coat.
He flung himself down on the bed and a second later she knew he was kissing the Princess.
It seemed to her extraordinary, as they were brother and sister.
But for the moment it was important to listen and not to think.
“Zenka, my darling!” the Prince said passionately.
“Tell me your idea first,” the Princess begged, “then we can talk of love.”
“It suddenly came to me when we were driving back after luncheon,” the Prince began, “what you must do is to marry the Duke!”
“Marry the Duke?” the Princess repeated with a note of surprise in her voice, “but suppose, just suppose – ”
“Wait a minute,” the Prince said. “I have thought it all out. You marry Calverleigh and, after you have done so, you tell him you have discovered that your husband Kozlovski is still alive.”
“Do you think he will believe that?” the Princess asked.
“He will have difficulty proving otherwise when there are hundreds, no thousands of Kozlovskis in Russia! To save his face at being married to a bigamist, which of course would cause a scandal, he pays you to disappear.”
“How much do you think he will pay?” the Princess asked.
“I should certainly start at one hundred thousand pounds and what is more, when you leave for your own country, never to return to England, you take most of the Calverleigh family jewels with you!”
The Princess laughed.
“Oh, Ivan, it’s a Fairy story! Do you really think anyone will believe it?”
“What can he do?” the Prince asked, “admit his Duchess is a bigamist? Sue you for stealing the family jewels which would only make the scandal worse than it was already?”
The Princess laughed again.
“You are brilliant, my sweet, absolutely brilliant! No one but you could think of anything so clever!”
“All you have to do,” the Prince went on in a serious tone, “is to get him up the aisle. I suggest you make him even more bemused than he is at the moment, then say you want to be married very quietly here in the Chapel.”
“I would really like a grand wedding, which would be rather different from the one I had with Alexander, simply because I was carrying his child.”
“You will have a quiet wedding!” the Prince said firmly. “The less publicity there is before the ring is on your finger, the better. After that, His Grace the Duke is hooked.”
“I see exactly what you mean.”
“All you have to do,” the Prince went on, “is to get him to propose to you and after that to leave everything in my hands.”
“Do I ever want to do anything else?” the Princess asked, “Oh, darling, wonderful Ivan, why do I need to take any other lover, when I have you?”
“The answer is quite simple,” the Prince said savagely, “we cannot afford to be together as we want to be. We want money, Zenka, and one hundred thousand pounds – no, dammit, two hundred thousand pounds – will enable us to spend at least a year or two together in comfort!”
“That is all I want, to be with you,” the Princess said caressingly, “and to know that for a short while at any rate no other man need touch me!”
There was silence and Solita realised that they were kissing each other.
Very very softly, as she had done last night, she tiptoed back to her own room.
She locked the communicating door, replaced the key in the drawer, then sat down at the dressing table to stare at her reflection with unseeing eyes.
How could she have guessed that there was so much wickedness in the world or that anyone would think out such a dastardly plot against the Duke?
She realised now that Prince Ivan was not Princess Zenka’s brother, but her lover.
He had no money and what they received from General Tcherevin for spying was not enough.
They wanted a large sum of money and who was more capable of paying it than the Duke?
It was the lowest form of blackmail and she could understand how he would shrink from the scandal that would ensue if he was proved to have knowingly or unknowingly married a bigamist.
Even worse, an inquiry might reveal that the woman he had married was a spy.
‘I have to save him!’ Solita cried to herself, ‘but – how? How can – I do – so?’
She had the feeling that the Princess would use every form of Black Magic, as well as hypnotism to get the Duke into her clutches.
She seemed to remember hearing of certain drugs that were used in Russia to force victims to do what was required of them, because their willpower was lost.
It was her young friend Clive who had told her of the tortures that he had learnt about in different parts of Europe.
Those that he had discovered in Russia made Solita put her hands over her ears and refuse to listen to him.
“You are making me feel sick!” she protested vigorously.
“It will all be in my book,” he said triumphantly, “every word of it and I shall sell millions of copies and, like Lord Byron become famous overnight!”
“Lord Byron wrote beautiful poetry,” Solita flashed.
“They shocked people when they were published,” Clive replied, “and people will be shocked by my book, but they will read it – you wait and see! They will read it!”
Solita rose from the stool in front of the dressing table to walk about the room.
She knew now that she had to see the Duke alone.
Yet she was desperately afraid that it might be difficult. She had the idea that the Princess was unaware that their rooms were next to each other.
Because the Duke had spoken so seriously of the danger she was in as well as himself, she thought it would be foolish to reveal it even inadvertently.
Finally she went to the French secrétaire that stood in a corner of the room and sat down.
She took a sheet of heavily crested writing paper from its leather stand and put it down in front of her.
As she looked at it, she knew how frightened she was; frightened of everything.
The octopus was approaching her, its tentacles reaching out to catch her.
Perhaps already the servants were imprisoned by them and anything she wrote as well as anything she said would be dangerous.
At last she wrote in her pretty flowing handwriting just a few words,
“I must talk to you and although I am sorry to be a bore when you are so busy, it is important! I did enjoy the picnic today,
Love – Solita.”
She read carefully what she had written and thought it was the kind of girlish note that was unlikely to make anybody suspicious.
She put it into an envelope and rang the bell.
As she did so, she remembered to unlock the outer door, then quickly got into bed.
Emily appeared within a few minutes.
“Did you ring, miss?” she asked.
“Yes, Emily,” Solita replied, “I have here a note for His Grace. Could you ask his valet to put it in his bedroom so that he will see it when he comes upstairs to dress for dinner?”
“Yes, of course, miss.”
Solita lowered her voice.
“Do not,” she said, “let the Princess’s lady’s maid know about it! I think, although it seems absurd, that she is jealous if His Grace pays attention to anybody else.”
“That’s true enough,” Emily said with a sniff. “We don’t want ’er scratching your eyes out, that’s for sure!”
“I don’t want to upset anyone,” Solita said, “but I rarely ge
t a chance to speak to His Grace when we are downstairs.”
“The Princess’ll take care of that.” Emily said. “Leave it t’me, miss, I’ll give it to Mr. Higgins.”
“Thank you, Emily, I knew I could rely on you.”
Emily left and Solita lay back against her pillows.
There was nothing she could do now but pray she would make the Duke understand.
He was in a different sort of danger from the one he had been in last night and this was even more frightening.
‘Save him – God! Please – save him!’ she prayed.
She felt somehow that God was listening to her.
Chapter Six
Solita dressed early, then walked about her room waiting impatiently for a reply to her note.
Finally when she thought despairingly that the Duke had either not received it, or else he had not understood, there was a knock on the door.
Emily came back to her.
“His Grace says,” she said slowly, “will you take the Solicitor’s letter to ’im in the study, miss, at seven-thirty. He’ll ’ave time to discuss it with you before dinner.”
Emily was obviously repeating laboriously what she had been told to say, but to Solita, it was like the voice of angels.
The Duke understood!
She thought his reply was very clever and would not be of any interest if the servants heard of it.
She finished dressing, then realising that she too must play her part impeccably, searched for a letter in her trunk.
By a strange coincidence it was a letter that had actually come from her aunt Mildred’s Solicitors in Naples.
She ran down the stairs at seven-thirty and opened the door of the study to find the Duke waiting for her.
She closed the door behind her and then cried,
“You understood! I was so frightened – you would think I was just being tiresome.”
“Of course I understood,” he said in his deep voice, “but tell me quickly what is troubling you.”
Breathlessly, because it was so important and she was afraid there was not time to say it all, Solita began,
“I went into the Princess’s boudoir again, just in case there was something more I might find out.”
The Duke frowned.
“You should not have taken such a risk,” he reacted sharply.
Solita and the Spies Page 9