Felicity Carrol and the Perilous Pursuit

by Patricia Marcantonio

  “I thought you were exhausted,” he said.

  “I am, but I want to see the fruits of my labors, so to speak.”

  The women wore impeccable dresses and jewel earrings. The men had on their most elegant suits and top hats. Medals, golden braiding, and sashes bedecked the uniforms on other royalty. Boys messed with their kilts, while the curls of the young girls bounded with each of their steps up to the stage.

  The Queen was the last to arrive and be seated. She was clothed in her familiar black silk and crown atop a white veil down her back. While she didn’t smile in any of the photographs Felicity had seen of her, Victoria smiled as her family was arranged about her on the stage to commemorate her fifty years as head of England.

  The photographer stood at the end of the stage. Duke Philip Chaucer had selected Glastonbury Castle for a nefarious reason, but the grand and historic setting did befit the monarch and her kin. When ready, the photographer’s assistant asked for the royal family to pose. The flash ignited and the photograph was taken. Felicity grinned so hard the sides of her cheeks smarted.

  Afterward, the constables escorted Felicity to Carrol Manor in their carriage with her horse tied behind. She slept all the way there.

  CHAPTER 33

  At the Café Royal on Regent Street, Felicity sat at the exact table where she and Duke Philip Chaucer had talked. Two days before, she had written a message to Inspector Davies and asked him to lunch. She wondered if he would show up, but at precisely noon, he came up the stairs.

  He moved his eyes about the café. “I can’t believe you chose this place, Felicity.”

  “I thought it might be amusing.”

  “Amusing to visit a place where you almost got killed?”

  “Yes, but it makes one appreciate one’s survival. Please, sit.”

  He did.

  “I ordered lunch, if that’s all right.” She winked. “I made it nice and expensive, but I’m buying.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

  Once the waiter poured tea for them, he vanished, as was his custom. The same waiter who had served her and Chaucer.

  “How have you been? Injuries healing?” he asked.

  “Yes, except one. I still feel terrible for not catching on sooner to Duke Philip Chaucer and his murderous plan. Like others, I had been swayed by his charm and charisma. That, and my own desire to protect what I thought was another victim.”

  “He was a clever man. We were all duped.”

  “Well, it was my first time meeting an actual murderer.” She winked and sipped her tea.

  Davies did not pick up his cup. He stared at his hands, knotted in his lap.

  “What is it, Jackson?”

  He looked up at her. “I’m glad you invited me to lunch, Felicity. I was going to write you a letter when I got up the nerve.” He tugged at his collar. “You know, I can face cold-blooded thieves and scoundrels, but the thought of that letter gave me the sweats.”

  “What were you going to say?” She placed down her cup.

  “That I was sorry you lost faith in me, Felicity. I was going to write that I should have trusted you and your methods and deductions. And because I didn’t, you placed yourself in harm’s way to save the Queen and the royal family. You got hurt because of my lack of trust in your conclusions.”

  “A nice sentiment, Jackson.”

  “And much harder to say to your face than send in a letter, although it is a very nice face.”

  She normally would have taken offense at such compliments but didn’t on this occasion. “We can try at being friends again, at trusting each other.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Did you get into trouble with your superiors because of what happened at Glastonbury Castle?”

  “No, but they did say that if you had any more opinions about a case in the future, I should take heed of them,” he said.

  “So will you?” She threw him a devilish grin.

  “Maybe.” He returned one just as devilish.

  “How would you have ended your letter to me, Jackson?”

  He cleared his throat. “I would have written that I shall never doubt you again. And if you ever get back to town, please look me up. I would buy you luncheon and you could talk about all the crime you wanted.”

  “I couldn’t ask for a nicer apology.”

  “I do have a gift for you.”

  She made a significant act of looking about. “Where are the flowers and perfume, eh?”

  “Couldn’t afford them. I have something better, but after.”

  The waiter served them the salmon pâté she had ordered. But she didn’t eat right away.

  “Jackson, as long as we are being honest, I have to admit I didn’t want to believe Duke Philip Chaucer was the murderer.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Oh.” He placed his hands on his lap. “I guess he was dashing and intelligent. A prince charming in the flesh.”

  “Yes, he was. Not to mention homicidal.”

  He grinned. They dug into their lunch and chatted about the unsolved murders in London. Felicity hadn’t spent such a pleasant time in years.

  After they finished eating, Davies led her to a black carriage of the Metropolitan Police outside the café.

  “You’re not going to arrest me, are you?” she asked as a joke, though she was not completely sure she wasn’t going to be taken into custody for meddling in a murder investigation.

  “Part of the surprise. Get in, please.” He held out his hand, which was rough and comforting simultaneously. “And no questions until we get there. I know it will be torture for you.”

  “I didn’t realize you had a sense of humor, Jackson.”

  Within a mile or so, she realized they were heading to Chaucer Hall.

  “Why are we going there, Jackson?”

  “I believe I owe you a look, a real look, at Chaucer’s Arthur collection. No more sneaking about this time.”

  As part of her narrative about the events leading up to Glastonbury, she had confessed to Davies how she had examined the room during the Jubilee ball. He informed her it was breaking and entering, and she replied that, since she had been invited to Chaucer Hall, the law might not apply. Besides, the only items she had removed were evidence of Chaucer’s bomb-making.

  She followed Davies into Chaucer’s room of antiquities. Behind them were six constables. Everyone stood motionless because of the number of relics in the room, as well as their beauty and history.

  “They are very exquisite,” Felicity said at last. “Especially to see them in the day.”

  She showed the inspector the desk where she had found the ingredients the duke had used to mix the explosive gelatin.

  “We should also look under the floor by the fireplace,” she added.

  “Because?” Davies said.

  “When I visited before, I heard the floorboards squeak but didn’t have time to investigate more than that.”

  Under a rug, Davies located a door in the floor and opened it. Underneath was a small chamber and sacks of materials. Davies jumped down into the chamber and handed out the sacks to a constable, while Felicity checked out the ingredients.

  “Saltpeter, potassium nitrate, wood pulp, and nitroglycerin, everything needed for a bomb.”

  “It is safe, Felicity?” Davies said, pulling himself out of the chamber under the floor and slapping dust off his hands.

  “We won’t all blow up, if that’s what you mean.”

  The find also included bags of gray mortar. “Chaucer used this material to form those stones at the castle, didn’t he?” he asked Felicity.

  “Right on all counts.”

  A constable called to them from the back of the gigantic room.

  “Look what we found, Inspector.” The officer showed a chamber hidden behind a large tapestry. “We had to break a lock to get in.”

  With Felicity following, Davies lit a gaslight that shone upon the pr
operty stolen from the murder victims. Elaine Charles’s Guinevere painting hung on one wall, alongside the King Arthur tapestry owned by the late Viscount Richard Banbury. Set on a superb silk cloth surrounded by candles, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur manuscript was displayed with a kind of reverence. Felicity’s fingers brushed one of the pages. The book was open to the section about the Lady of the Lake.

  “Look at this,” Davies said.

  He had opened a wooden box sitting in the corner. She bent down for a closer view of a flail. “The spikes on this weapon match those on the wounds of Richard Banbury,” she said.

  The air in the smaller chamber seemed to have dissipated. She returned to the larger room, where constables were busy removing the evidence of the crimes.

  Davies came up to her. “Why in blazes did he keep all this?” He scratched his head.

  “You don’t understand, Jackson; he really did believe in the story of Arthur. He wanted it to be true. Philip Chaucer had no spirit in the water to guide him to his imagined kingdom. Only a mad ambition.”

  “And what a terrible thing that was.”

  Davies and the constables busied themselves with the evidence left by Chaucer. Felicity watched but thought of Tennyson’s epic poem Idylls of the King. The part where Arthur struck down his nephew Mordred with Excalibur, but not before Mordred had dealt the king a mortal blow.

  Then spake the King: “My house hath been my doom.

  But call not thou this traitor of my house

  Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Sucking in air, Felicity approached 10 Downing Street. Though she disliked shopping, she had bought a new outfit for the appointment. A purple skirt and jacket the color of a splendid sunset as well as black silk gloves and a hat from Paris. If she was going to be imprisoned for inserting herself inside such an important case, she was going to make sure to dress oh-so-stylishly when imprisoned in the Tower of London. Anne Boleyn had probably had the same idea as she was led away for an engagement with the man wearing a black hood.

  The country’s prime minister had summoned her there with a note on the best stationery. The note was polite and a good sign she probably wouldn’t end up in a cell of stone and metal, Felicity had told Helen.

  “You’re right, Miss; otherwise, the invitation might have been delivered by an armed guard,” the ever truthful Helen had replied.

  Glancing at her watch, Felicity arrived a little before her appointment at the building on Downing Street in Westminster, London. With its unpretentious brick demeanor, Number 10 did not even look like what it was—the seat of the British Government. In 1732, Number 10 had started out as three houses awarded by King George the Second to the first lord of the treasury, a job presently held by the prime minister. The three houses were later joined into the larger one. If that wasn’t enough to hold Number 10’s place in English power, nearby was Westminster Palace.

  Felicity had read up on the history of 10 Downing Street before her visit. She might be tested later, she thought with amusement. Her favorite fact about the property was that one of the early residents had been Thomas Knyvet, the keeper of Whitehall Palace. Knyvet had captured the notorious Guy Fawkes in 1605 and stopped Fawkes’s plot to kill King James the First. She and Knyvet could have commiserated about the foiling of plots.

  The black oak door with the number 10 on it was bounded by cream-colored casting with a fan-shaped window above. She took a breath and reached out to the knocker shaped like a lion’s head, but an ancient clerk in a neat black suit opened the door for her before she could knock.

  “Miss Felicity Carrol?” he said.

  “I am.”

  With the wave of a gloved hand, he showed her in. He moved with such decorum, she hoped he wouldn’t break into tiny pieces if he tripped. Then again, he would probably never trip. The black-and-white-checkered marble floor of the entrance hall reminded her of an ongoing chess game. A stunning white fireplace dominated the room.

  “The prime minister would like to see you out on the terrace,” the clerk said. “Please come this way.”

  She followed him to another part of the building. They walked past a stone and wrought-iron staircase with mahogany handrails and a decorative scroll design. The staircase had been installed when the interior was reworked in the 1730s. On the walls were photographs or paintings of the past prime ministers. All those eyes staring down at her. She smoothed her skirt, though it didn’t need it. She did relish the atmosphere, which was thick with history.

  The terrace ran across the back of the building with a view of Number 10’s enclosed lovely garden of flowers, lawn, and trees in a large courtyard below.

  The man himself stood contemplating the garden, as if it was a reprieve from the business of running the British Empire. In his photographs, the prime minister was a foreboding, serious, and imposing figure. Then again, all government officials wore that same expression in official photographs. Must have been a requirement of the job.

  The clerk coughed to call the prime minister’s attention to Felicity’s presence. When he had it, the clerk introduced her.

  “Your Excellency.” She hoped this was the correct greeting.

  “My dear Miss Carrol. Good to meet you at last. I have heard so much about you.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

  The prime minister nodded to the clerk. “Thank you, Merriweather.”

  The clerk left with all his decorum intact.

  “I thought this might be more pleasant than one of the meeting rooms in Number 10. I am inside so often with the government’s work, I find it refreshing to take a break outside. I do appreciate nature,” he told her. His voice was deep and genuine.

  “I understand, Mr. Prime Minister. I love the outdoors, also.” She breathed in the morning air, which was clean and fresh. The day had already warmed up, but she contended with icy toes and fingers that had plagued her ever since the events at Glastonbury Castle. Fortunately, the chill dissipated a little each day.

  The prime minister placed large hands behind his back. “You might wonder why I have called you here.”

  “Not at all. You want to talk about what transpired at Glastonbury Castle.”

  “I have read all the reports from the constables, the Queen’s Guard commander, and a Scotland Yard inspector. Quite an exploit. My word, it read like a novel.”

  “You really had to be there to appreciate it, sir.”

  “And your wounds?”

  “I am quite well, thank you for asking.”

  He put a hand to his mouth. His posture aligned, and she swore he even grew an inch. He was about to say something important.

  The prime minister took one of her hands and kissed it. “May I say the Queen extends her utmost thanks for your intervention in this astonishing and troubling affair. She wanted me to thank you for saving her family and her life, and at great risk to your own.”

  “I am grateful I could help, and I am overwhelmed at the Queen’s gratitude.”

  “Miss Carrol, you have done a tremendous service not only to Her Majesty but to this country, this nation.” His voice took on an oratory ring. “There is one matter …”

  Here comes the rest, Felicity thought.

  “Queen Victoria and I agree, along with top advisers of this government, that the appalling plot of Duke Philip Chaucer to seize the crown must never be revealed to the public. Such information might cause instability in the monarchy. The scheme of one royal killing another to obtain the crown would shake the entire empire.”

  Felicity probably didn’t have to remind the prime minister that one monarch murdering another to gain or keep a throne was not unusual. Uncommon certainly, but it did occur, including in England. Queen Elizabeth herself had ordered the execution of her half sister, Mary Queen of Scots. Richard the Third had been responsible for the death of Henry the Fifth and his brother the Duke of York after he disappeared into the bowels of the Tower of Lo
ndon, though historians continued to debate who was to blame. At any rate, though, this was probably not the right time to talk history with the prime minister.

  “Are you astonished by our request for secrecy?” he asked.

  “Not at all. I had seen no stories in The Times about the true events that took place at Glastonbury Castle. There was only the short notice about the death of Duke Philip Chaucer. I assumed something was going on behind the newsprint.”

  “We will release a statement later this week but wanted to speak with you first.”

  “How will you account for Duke Chaucer’s demise, Mr. Prime Minister?” she asked.

  “We shall say Duke Chaucer was under extreme stress and accidentally fell from the parapet to his death at Glastonbury Castle.”

  “It was accidental. I didn’t mean for him to fall.”

  “If he had not died that day, you would have, along with the Queen and the royal family.” He took out a handkerchief and patted perspiration from his head. “We all believe keeping this secret is the best for all concerned.”

  “And what about the constables, the guards, and Scotland Yard? They were there and know the truth.”

  “They have been sworn to secrecy as well. Do you mind if I sit? My lumbago aches me leg.”

  “Please.”

  He took a seat at a wrought-iron chair and asked her to sit as well. “Miss Carrol, may we count on your silence in this dreadful episode?”

  “Although I believe the truth is always best, in this case I understand and agree, sir. You have my word,” she said.

  His big head bowed in appreciation. “The crown does owe you a service, even though it may be a secretive one.” He again mopped his large brow with a handkerchief. “Is there any reward you seek?”

  She didn’t need any money or lands. “How about a knighthood?”

  “What?” The prime minister coughed with confusion.

  “A jest, Your Excellency.”

  “I heard you had a sense of humor. But really, what can the crown do for you?”

  Felicity thought of what she had gone through. The doubts, the pain, the humiliation. The possibility of death twice over.