by Janice Law
“I gather Mrs. Larkin was not much help.”
“Mrs. Larkin could have fended off the Normans single-handedly. Excuse me,” he said to Nan.
“My feelings exactly,” Nan said. She and Carstairs seemed to be in complete agreement, and that was just as well, because by the time we reached the station, I was feeling woozy, and when Carstairs came to help me out of the back, he swore. I looked down; there was a large red patch on my trousers where the wound had started to bleed again.
Nan blamed it on my stumble at the dig. Carstairs, on the bad luck that dogged his professional life. He said I’d have to return to the hospital. Nan, however, opened her big black nanny’s purse, a receptacle of useful items, and took out her scissors. She sacrificed my trouser leg, reinforced the leaking bandage with one of the hospital towels, and told Carstairs to take us to London. “Straight to the Royal London Hospital,” she said. And he did.
Chapter 17
The next morning, Nan arrived at the hospital, where I had clean bandages and a new drain. My back was beginning to heal, and all I needed was the pair of trousers and the clean shirt that she had in a paper parcel. Plus, a fair sum of money to pay for my care.
“Dear boy,” said Nan, dismissing these worries, “I have given them your uncle’s name. He will submit a chit through the proper channels.”
She’d sounded official enough to sway the medical staff, but I wasn’t as easily convinced, especially since I had not yet confessed what I knew about Major Larkin. No time like the present, Francis! “We have to make a call to Inspector Carstairs,” I said, and I described my encounter with Jenkins.
“You took a big risk, Francis.” Nan’s voice was unusually serious.
“Getting shot would have been worse. I felt I have enough perforations at the moment.”
“Absolutely, you did the right thing! Except for wandering from the car in the first place. But I think it best to get you home before I call. And what about contacting your uncle and that Inspector Davis?”
I thought a minute. “Let’s give Carstairs an hour’s head start.”
“Perhaps via an anonymous tip? That way he can let the others know in his own good time and you can be kept out of it.”
Never having to deal with Inspectors Davis or Carstairs or anyone at Larkin Manor ever again sounded too good to be true—and it was.
Although there was no proof that “the mystery woman caller” referred to in the press was Nan, Uncle Lastings carried on as if I’d endangered the realm, and Inspector Davis paid a visit to badger me about Jenkins. I professed complete ignorance, easy enough since I had no idea where the agreeable footman might have gone. I was delighted that he had gotten away, though, and I may have said that, too. Not smart, Francis!
Carstairs was the only member of officialdom who was happy with me. He had found the missing major, developed a plausible scenario for the Bosworth murder case, and turned over certain suspicious documents to “the proper authorities.” Maybe we should have put his name on my hospital bill.
In between discussions with my unhappy uncle and various coppers, I returned to my design studio. I could work as long as my leg was elevated, and once I sorted through the scattered papers and drawings, I returned to fashionable chairs and avant-garde rugs. But though I finished up all the promised designs and saw that a number of commissioned rugs were delivered, my heart was no longer in quality furnishings. Nan said that I was recovering from shock and too impatient for my leg to heal.
I was certainly impatient, but I had no trouble working at my easel, even though the way I had to sit there made my leg ache. In fact, almost as soon as I got home, I’d begun a painting of the major as I’d seen him last, lying with all his bones visible and his flesh turning soft and melting into new forms. That’s what I wanted to be working on, although I had difficulties with both the background and with the drawing despite some useful news photos.
When I told Maurice that I was wearied of chairs, he said, “Of course, Francis, there is nothing like the divine human form!”
Maurice was camping it up, but he was right. Even the things I’d enjoyed—the shiny metal frames of the chairs, the butter soft leather seats, the lovely rugs in their bold colors, the white rubber curtains that made the front window of my studio so distinctive—seemed insignificant, frivolous. Maybe that was it. Creating furniture for the rich and stylistically ambitious no longer seemed a good use of my time. Not when my time could be limited at any moment by tumbling from a high place or taking a toxic pellet.
But though I talked about making a change with both Nan and Maurice and spent time thinking about my future when I should have been working, I did not decide until the day Muriel visited. She came dressed for an afternoon party in a fox fur and a smart violet frock, and she wore a marvelous pair of purple heels that, with her upswept hair, brought her height past six feet. She carried a big bunch of flowers for Nan and a bottle of Champagne for me. “The chairs will be along presently,” she said. “Ben’s been so busy. There’s been a bit of a change in the atmosphere lately, and business has been looking up.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said. “I’m just sorry I haven’t yet been able to do anything for you.” My uncle had made his displeasure clear and so had Davis. In their eyes, I was a loose cannon, incapable of following orders (not that mine had been particularly explicit!), and they’d been so angry that I’d been afraid to ask about the Mendelssohns. Thinking that time, as Nan says, is the great healer, I’d postponed the subject.
“I don’t know what you mean by anything,” Muriel said. “Unless you expected the palace to send an equerry in a coach and four for the delivery.”
When she saw my surprise, she pulled out a British passport with the golden lion and unicorn seal made out to Mrs. M. Mendelssohn. “How’s that?”
“Marvelous!” I said and gave her a congratulatory kiss. “But what about Ben? Did Ben get one, too?”
“He certainly did, and His Majesty will not have a more faithful and enthusiastic subject anywhere.”
I called through to Nan, who was fixing her flowers in the kitchen. “Let’s open that Champagne! We need to celebrate.”
Nan brought a tray with glasses and slices of her tea cake with raisins and candied cherries, and we poured the Champagne and had what she calls a “good gossip.” First, about the Mendelssohns’ passports, the anxiety before and the joy afterward, and the interesting hints along the way of “official interest.”
“Damn right!” I said and thought gratefully of Miss Fallowfield and Mac.
Then we moved on to my carefully edited adventures in darkest Sussex before reaching Poppy, who I guess we must say was the initial cause of everything.
“She hasn’t been to see Francis,” Nan said. This was a huge black mark against my cousin.
“Oh, she’s not in London,” Muriel said. “I saw her just before she left. She’s gotten the theatrical bug and gone off with a small troupe. They have a very handsome leading man.” She raised her eyebrows. “The sins of one’s youth.”
“He’ll almost certainly be safer than Freddie Bosworth.”
“Maybe. But I gather that it is the travel that really attracts her.”
“Where might they be going?” Nan asked. “The Midlands and the north?”
“A bit more glamorous, supposedly.” Muriel frowned with distaste. “Germany, Austria, northern Italy. The fascist circuit. Not where I’d set foot. But she was excited about the prospect. Actors can go anywhere and their dressers go with them. That’s what she said. I tried to tell her that the life of the stage gypsy gets old after a while.”
“But it kept you young,” I said.
Muriel laughed and patted my knee. “Flattery, flattery. But we are truly grateful, Francis. I never made a better thing out of loaning a dress! And you will get your chairs soon.”
In that moment, I made
up my mind. “Keep the chairs for your new apartment. No charge. I’ve decided to break up the design studio. It’s run its course, and I’m going to take a stab at painting.”
“Serious artistic ambition!” exclaimed Muriel. “No more chorus, straight to the spotlight. Best of luck.”
“We must have another glass for luck,” said Nan, who is fond of good Champagne.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” I asked. “I’m afraid we’ll be poor.”
“I’ve been poor,” she said in a reflective tone. “Money’s better, but life’s too short to pass on happiness.”
“Amen to that,” said Muriel. “To the arts, a blessing and a curse! And I’ll have another slice of that cake, since I don’t have to weigh in anymore.”
We raised our glasses, and I felt the best I’d been since my fall from the tower. It was a jolly party, but after Muriel left, I got serious with Nan. I poured out the last drops of Champagne and asked, “Are you sure you don’t have doubts about this? I’ll have to find work of some sort as a backup. Whatever I get will probably be steadier but not as profitable as the design studio.”
“We’ll manage,” she said stoutly. “There must be cranky old ladies in London who need companions.”
“No,” I said. “No more of that for you. See to the housekeeping and I’ll see to the cash.”
“Dear boy.” She raised her glass and touched it to mine. “You know, Francis,” she said after a moment, “the only thing I have doubts about is your cousin.”
“Poppy?”
She nodded. “Dressers work hard. They need to be able to sew well, too. Something Miss Penelope never learned. And they don’t keep horses. That’s her real love.”
“Yes, but the theatrical life may be an easier way to annoy her mother than getting engaged to the Freddie Bosworths of this world.”
“I was wondering,” Nan said carefully, “if that engagement was less about annoying her mother and more about keeping an eye on Bosworth.”
Talk about a different perspective! One that opened avenues that I wasn’t sure I liked at all.
“Her father was in military intelligence,” Nan continued. “Your cousin adored him. Not that she knew him terribly well or saw too much of him, you understand, but that is often grounds for adoration.”
I certainly could have liked my father more with greater distance and less frequency.
“Then there’s her uncle—your uncle Lastings. And their old family friend, Major Larkin.” Nan pronounced his name with real distaste. “They are all more or less in the spy business or have been. Do you see what I am saying?”
“I do.”
“And now she’s off on— What did you friend Muriel call it?”
“The fascist circuit.”
“She’s an intelligent young woman,” Nan said, “yet she’s gone off with a third-rate troupe into dodgy territory.”
“The leading man is handsome. And Poppy thought well of Mussolini. Or said she did.”
“She’d have to, wouldn’t she?” Nan observed. “But it was just an idle thought, dear boy. I don’t think you have to worry. I’m sure you’ll make a go of painting, and I think Miss Penelope knows how to take care of herself.”
I certainly agreed with the latter, and between nursing my leg and winding up Avant Design, I didn’t think too much about my cousin or her mysterious journey until several weeks later.
I was drain free and unbandaged with only a few lingering scabs to show that I had been in a horticultural embrace. The design business was closed, and we’d obtained new digs with a good-size painting studio for me. I was crossing Soho Square on some last-minute errands when a familiar voice said, “I do believe that’s Francis.”
My initial impulse was to close my ears and keep on walking. But if Uncle Lastings is often inconvenient, he’s always interesting. I turned around and momentarily thought that my ears had deceived me: There was an apparition in a pin-striped dark navy suit with a handsome tie and expensive shoes. His hair, which had been growing out from red after his foray as a Frenchman, was now a fine shade of platinum. My uncle looked like money and influence, and my immediate thought was that he’d pulled off another outrageous scam.
“Quite recovered?” he asked.
I should mention that after our unpleasant conversation about the major, I hadn’t had a word from him. So much for family feeling!
“Quite. You look to be thriving yourself.”
He automatically touched his regimental tie. “My services have been recognized, my boy, with a consular post. A minor position,” he added modestly, “but one in a splendid climate.”
Will wonders never cease? “Congratulations,” I said, “The Foreign Office is certainly growing broad-minded.”
“Do I detect a note of bitterness? Allow me to buy you lunch. What about Quo Vadis?”
The proprietor was a big Mussolini man, but his clientele ranged the political spectrum. “If you’re picking up the check.”
“Indeed I am. Just as I picked up the bills for your recent hospital stay.”
“His Majesty’s government certainly owed me that!”
My uncle sniffed and rolled his eyes. “Agreed. I was perhaps a little harsh at our last meeting, Francis. It was a delicate matter all around. However, Larkin’s autopsy showed that you were quite correct: The poor major would have been in no shape for questioning even had you raised the alarm. Pity, but there it was.”
I nodded.
“It was felt best to remember his sterling war service to king and country and to pass over any connection with the murder of a man who was definitely a blackmailer and probably a traitor.”
He already sounded like a bureaucrat. “Generously high-minded, if ignoring the fact that he nearly murdered me, too.”
“He was a bit unhinged at the end,” said my uncle. “But you know, Francis, the military mind is rarely at ease with improvisation and eccentricity in the line of duty.”
“I hope you are not claiming that I provoked the major’s attack.”
“No,” said Uncle Lastings without sounding convinced. “It was not up to me. I would naturally have taken a different tack, but the higher powers refused to proceed. Given that your usefulness was at an end.”
I felt myself becoming irked. “And what about Poppy? Is she still useful?”
I got a close sharp look.
“I think you might have left her out of this,” I added.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Your cousin Penelope has the family’s fighting spirit. Males in our line being in short supply—”
“Or endowed with common sense.”
“—there was interest when she offered her talents.”
“She was involved from the first, then?”
“No, not at all. I gather that she only gradually became suspicious of Freddie and his friends. Quite naturally, she consulted Major Larkin.”
“Hence that awkward country house party.”
He nodded.
“Which offered the major an unexpected chance to eliminate the man who’d been blackmailing him?”
“That’s the assumption, though proof is in short supply. We’d rather Bosworth had been spared, to tell you the truth. But Tollman and Grove and Armitage were a decent bag, along with enough evidence to force Signor Rinaldi’s recall.”
“For which you’ve taken most of the credit,” I said.
“Certainly, my boy. What would you do with a consular post in the tropics but die of boredom? You have splendid talents, Francis, but they do not run to anything bureaucratic.”
“You got me into hot water just the same.”
“With good results, though. Now that Muriel Mendelssohn—what a physique! A noble woman! You’d given me no idea of her charm.” I got a resentful look as though a heads-up from me could have secured his happiness.
“I owed her,” I said.
“Well, now, you’ve been able to pay your debt. So, Francis, for old times’ sake? Lunch with Champagne?”
I only hesitated for a minute. “If you promise never to call on me again.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” said my uncle. “I intend to move in very different circles from now on.”
Good luck to the Foreign Office, I thought, and as he started to elaborate on future plans, I thought it wise to take his arm lest rhetoric carry him away.
About the Author
Janice Law is an acclaimed author of mystery fiction. The Watergate scandal inspired her to write her first novel, The Big Payoff, which introduced Anna Peters, a street-smart young woman who blackmails her boss, a corrupt oil executive. The novel was a success, winning an Edgar nomination, and Law went on to write eight more in the series. Law has written historical mysteries, standalone suspense, and, most recently, the Francis Bacon Mysteries, which include The Prisoner of the Riviera, winner of the 2013 Lambda Literary Gay Mystery Award. She lives and writes in Connecticut.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Janice Law
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
978-1-5040-4500-1
Published in 2017 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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