The Lost Empress

by Steve Robinson

  Tenby led them to the upper landing, where she indicated a small settee. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ll let Her Ladyship know you’ve arrived.’ Then she left along a poorly lit corridor, her black dress quickly fading into the shadows.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her,’ Tayte whispered as he sat back and took in the austere surroundings: the oak panelling and the twinkling chandeliers, the period furniture and the myriad family portraits of people whom Tayte supposed were past generations of the Metcalfe family. His eyes flitted from one painting to another as he wondered whether Alice’s image was among them—although, given what he’d heard about her, he very much doubted it.

  ‘Did you buy the answer Raife Metcalfe gave you about Lionel Scanlon?’ he asked Bishop.

  Bishop drew a long and thoughtful breath. ‘It’s possible that Mr Scanlon just didn’t like the man, of course, but I suspect there’s more to it. Either way, I’m afraid Mr Scanlon’s reasons for disliking Raife Metcalfe might have died along with him.’

  ‘Are you going to make any further enquiries into the car that hit me?’

  ‘Not here. You saw for yourself the kind of vehicles this family runs. When you came into the police station yesterday, you said you thought it was just a regular sedan—a saloon as we call them. I’m not ruling anyone here out, but it would have been foolish to go after you so soon after being turned off the estate. I’d certainly credit Raife Metcalfe with more sense than that.’

  ‘He didn’t have sense enough to check the plug wires on that old Aston.’

  Bishop just shook his head and smiled. Then something drew his attention, and he stood up. Instinctively, Tayte stood with him, turning as he rose to see a tall, dark-haired woman in a lime-green knee-length dress and a beige bolero cardigan. She was approaching along the corridor opposite that by which the housekeeper had previously left.

  ‘I’m Lady Vivienne Metcalfe,’ the woman said. ‘Welcome to Hamberley.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Bishop, your Ladyship.’

  Bishop offered his hand, but Lady Metcalfe declined to shake it.

  ‘Please don’t think it rude of me,’ she said, ‘but my husband is in ill health, and as I care for him full time now, I try to remain as germ free as possible. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bishop said. He turned to Tayte. ‘This is Mr Tayte.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am.’

  ‘Likewise, I’m sure.’

  ‘Mr Tayte’s a genealogist, your Ladyship. He’s assisting with my investigation in a specialist capacity.’

  Tayte had done his research on most of the immediate family, and he already knew that Lady Vivienne Metcalfe was the younger woman Lord Reginald Metcalfe had married after his first wife died. She was fifty-seven years old to her husband’s eighty, and it came as no surprise to Tayte to hear that Lord Metcalfe’s wife was now also his nurse.

  Lady Metcalfe led them back along the corridor she had arrived by. ‘I hear you’re conducting a murder investigation, Inspector. It all sounds very exciting, but I’m intrigued to know how my husband might be able to help.’

  ‘As am I at this stage,’ Bishop said as they walked.

  Lady Metcalfe stopped before a door on their left and opened it, instantly flooding the corridor with sunlight. ‘Please, go in,’ she said. ‘My husband isn’t exactly bedridden, but he prefers to stay in his room most days now.’

  Tayte followed DI Bishop into the room, and Lady Metcalfe closed the door behind them. Lord Metcalfe was sitting in a wing chair by one of several tall mullioned widows that looked out over the grounds to the back of the house. He was wrapped in a blue velvet dressing gown, reading a book, which he lowered into his lap as his visitors stepped further into what had evidently been made up into a small sitting room. Tayte supposed it was annexed to the master bedroom and bathroom via the doors he could see leading off to his right. It was a warm room, despite most of the windows being open.

  ‘The policeman I told you about is here to see you, dear,’ Lady Metcalfe said, speaking louder for her husband’s benefit.

  Lord Metcalfe sat up and changed his reading glasses for another pair that were on the table beside him. ‘Only too happy to help the police,’ he said with a throaty, almost gargling voice.

  Tayte doubted Lord Metcalfe would feel the same way when he learned that Tayte was there to ask him about his ancestor, Alice Stilwell.

  Lady Metcalfe leaned in and straightened the blanket that was covering her husband’s legs. Then she combed a hand through his wispy white hair to straighten that, too.

  ‘That’s my Vivienne,’ Lord Metcalfe said. ‘Always fussing over me, aren’t you, dear?’ He smiled, and then he began to cough. He waved a bony, arthritic finger towards the settee opposite him as he tried to recover himself. ‘Well, don’t make the rest of the place look untidy,’ he said. ‘Sit down, sit down.’

  ‘Would either of you gentlemen like something to drink?’ Lady Metcalfe asked. ‘Tea or coffee? Or perhaps something cold?’

  ‘Tea would be great, thank you,’ Bishop said.

  ‘Black coffee for me, please,’ Tayte said as he sat beside Bishop on the settee.

  Lady Metcalfe went to the table beside her husband’s chair and picked up an electronic tablet device, into which she began entering what Tayte supposed was the drinks order.

  ‘This was our son’s idea of bringing Hamberley into the twenty-first century,’ Lady Metcalfe said. ‘Alastair calls it the modern equivalent of the bell pull. I just type or dictate a message into any of these devices around the house, or even into my mobile phone, and the housekeeper picks it up straightaway.’ She finished tapping the screen and set the tablet down again. ‘Oh, to be twenty-two again,’ she added. ‘Young people pick it all up so much faster.’

  ‘Is Alastair at home?’ Bishop asked.

  ‘No, he set off for Wales yesterday afternoon. He’s training for the three-peaks challenge.’

  ‘I still can’t work the bloody thing,’ Lord Metcalfe added, as he seemed to catch up with the previous line of conversation.

  Lady Metcalfe smiled at him and sat down. ‘The drinks won’t be long,’ she said. ‘Now, tell us all about your murder investigation, Inspector, and how my husband might be able to help.’

  Bishop sat forward as he addressed Lord Metcalfe, and in a loud, clear voice he explained who Tayte was and why they were there, connecting the murder of Lionel Scanlon three weeks ago to the possible attempt on Tayte’s life after he left Hamberley less than twenty-four hours ago.

  ‘Mr Tayte was on his way to see Mr Scanlon when the incident occurred,’ Bishop said. ‘At least, he was hoping to see him. The common factor between the hit-and-run and Mr Scanlon’s murder could well be linked to Mr Tayte’s assignment.’

  Lady Metcalfe eyed Tayte questioningly. ‘What exactly is your assignment, Mr Tayte?’

  Tayte popped his briefcase open and pulled some papers out, which he set on his lap. He didn’t want to talk about Alice right away. He’d learned that lesson with Raife the day before. This time he proceeded with more caution, although he knew it was always going to come down to Alice, her being the subject of his assignment.

  He began at the beginning and told them all about his client back home in DC, and about the mysterious life of her grandmother, keeping Alice’s name out of it for now. He went on to talk about his visit to Quebec before coming to England, turning to his interest in the ship that sailed from Quebec on 28 May 1914 and sank several hours later with a loss of 1,015 lives.

  ‘So many,’ Lady Metcalfe exclaimed. She sounded genuinely shocked. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Relatively few people do,’ Tayte said. ‘The tragedy of the Empress of Ireland was overshadowed by the outbreak of the Great War and the loss of the Titanic and the Lusitania around that time.’

  He glanced
at Lord Metcalfe, whose pinkish eyes were already on him. He seemed either not to register the great loss of life or was unmoved by it. Or perhaps, as Tayte suspected, the statistics came as less of a surprise to him because he already knew them.

  ‘I’m particularly interested in this period of your ancestry,’ Tayte said. ‘Specifically 1914, just prior to the outbreak of the Great War.’

  He handed Lord Metcalfe a postcard he’d picked up at the Empress of Ireland Museum in Rimouski. It was a reproduction of the postcards that would have been in circulation in 1907, showing the ship as it had looked then, with the words ‘Hands across the sea’ written above the image of two hands joined in greeting. Lord Metcalfe took it and looked at it all too briefly before handing it back. Then he turned away and looked out of the window.

  ‘Your father, Chester,’ Tayte continued, addressing Lord Metcalfe directly, ‘was just a young boy when the Empress of Ireland sank. His mother, your paternal grandmother, died that year, having been aboard the Empress on its fateful last voyage—or so it seemed at the time.’

  Tayte could see that Lady Metcalfe was becoming more and more interested, whereas Lord Metcalfe was growing more uncomfortable.

  ‘What I’m trying to confirm initially is whether my client’s grandmother and your grandmother were one and the same person. With your help, Lord Metcalfe, I believe I’ll be able to do that. If they are, it means you have family in America you’ve previously known nothing about.’

  Tayte was smiling as he finished speaking, but he could see that the pleasure he always felt whenever he delivered a line like that was not shared by Lord Metcalfe. As Tayte came to the question of Alice Stilwell more specifically, he knew the signs were bad, but he didn’t have anywhere else to take the conversation, so he took the locket out of his pocket, opened it and showed Lord Metcalfe the small image inside, hoping that seeing a picture of his father as a young boy would at least bring a hint of warmth to his face.

  ‘This locket was in the possession of my client’s grandmother when she died. The young boy in the picture is your father, Chester.’

  Lord Metcalfe took the locket, and Tayte noticed his hand was shaking. He changed his glasses and studied the image more closely, but his expression remained unchanged, giving nothing away.

  ‘Is the locket at all familiar to you?’ Tayte asked. ‘Maybe you’ve seen it in a family photograph or a portrait painting of your grandmother, Alice.’ He kept his eyes on Lord Metcalfe, trying to read the situation as best he could as he picked up the photograph he had of his client’s grandmother from the papers on his lap. He offered it to Lord Metcalfe, breaking the spell the locket seemed to have over him. ‘Is this woman your paternal grandmother, Alice Maria Stilwell née Metcalfe?’

  Lord Metcalfe’s eyes drifted very slowly towards Alice’s image. He dropped the locket when he saw it, and in that moment Tayte knew he was right—Alice Stilwell and his client’s grandmother had to be one and the same person.

  Lord Metcalfe began coughing again, until he was bent double in his chair. When he sat up, he was red-faced, and as he spoke, his words were seething. ‘Do not mention that name here!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tayte offered. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that—’

  Lord Metcalfe’s head began to shake from the anger that was clearly building inside him. ‘She’s a traitor best forgotten!’ he yelled, and then he started coughing again.

  Lady Metcalfe was already on her feet, and judging by the anxious and confused expression on her face, she was clearly more surprised by her husband’s outburst than Tayte was.

  ‘Reginald?’ she said as she picked up the locket and handed it back to Tayte. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  Lord Metcalfe didn’t seem to hear her; at least if he did, he gave no indication as he fought to control his coughing. Once he’d sufficiently composed himself, he fixed his eyes on Tayte. ‘Alice Stilwell drowned in 1914,’ he said, as if he would accept no other possibility. ‘To my mind, as to my father’s, it was the best thing that could have happened to her!’

  ‘Reginald!’ Lady Metcalfe said.

  Bishop stood up. ‘I think it’s time we were on our way, Mr Tayte.’ He turned to Lord and Lady Metcalfe. ‘My sincere apologies to you both.’

  As Tayte and Bishop left the room, passing the housekeeper who was on her way in with a tray of hot drinks, Tayte’s thoughts were fixed on what Lord Metcalfe had just said: To my mind, as to my father’s . . . It was unsettling to Tayte to think that Alice’s son, Chester, had come to think of his mother in that way, and he could only conclude that the young Chester had been turned against his mother so completely because of what had happened that the blackening of Alice’s name had lasted to the present day.

  Heading in silence down the staircase, trying to keep up with Bishop, Tayte thought it was easy to see where Raife Metcalfe got his attitude from when it came to talking about Alice Stilwell. Whatever course her life had taken in 1914, in the eyes of her loyal and patriotic family she had become a black sheep and had been branded a traitor because of what she had done.

  Tayte began to wonder at the circumstances that had steered Alice’s life onto such a damning course, and he considered again why a young woman such as Alice would spy against her own country, especially being an admiral’s daughter. He thought then that the reason might have been because of who her father was. Thinking back to his earlier research on spying in Britain before the First World War, he recalled how Carl Lody had said in one of his letters that he had been an unwilling agent. As he and Bishop left the house and made for the car, Tayte wondered whether it had been the same for Alice. Had she also been an unwilling agent of the kaiser? If so, he thought that someone must have had a strong hold over her back in 1914.

  Chapter Nine

  Monday, 20 April 1914.

  It was a bright day, if still rather cool for the time of year. Alice Stilwell had spent most of the morning and a good part of the early afternoon out on the estate at Hamberley, trying to distract herself with the box of watercolour paints she’d found in her room. She had long forgotten about the mahogany box she was once so fond of, but which was now just another relic from her childhood that her father had so painstakingly preserved for her inevitable return, as he saw it. She hadn’t picked up a paintbrush since Henry and the children came into her life, and she thought her lack of practice showed, but at least it had helped to take her mind off her plight for a few hours.

  As she walked the gravel path back to the house, beside the long and narrow ornamental pond in which she and Archie had raced a great many paper boats over the years, she recalled that she had been quite good with a paintbrush once. Or maybe she’d just imagined she was, because although there were many paintings in the forty-eight rooms at Hamberley, she could not recall ever seeing any of her own beyond the walls of her bedroom.

  Completed in 1889, Hamberley had been commissioned by Alice’s father so that, rather than growing up in London, she would grow up in the clean air of the countryside, along with all the other children he had hoped for, but who were never to be. Alice had always thought the house a grand gesture on his part, but she also knew now that it was because he had wanted to have a residence closer to his beloved Chatham.

  Three days had passed since Alice’s ordeal at the dockyard, and the Dutchman known to her as Raskin had come to her for his report the very next day, allowing her little time to prepare. But Alice had been ready. After spending time with her children, she had retired to Hamberley’s great library under the pretence of having found a new interest in geography, as Henry’s business forced him to travel abroad so often. The family atlas in the library was too vast a tome to take to her room, so her father had had it laid out on the reading desk for her. It had made access to her father’s naval books all the more easy, and she had spent hours looking through them, eventually coming to a wealth of information on the early C-class s
ubmarines, dating from 1905 to 1908.

  She had read that C-class submarines were the first class to have been built at Chatham, and she supposed that was why her father had taken particular interest in collecting the information for his library. All Alice thought she had to do was to take the general characteristics of those older class submarines and add a few embellishments, such as increased size, more powerful propulsion, and armament. As long as this new ‘experimental’ F-class submarine appeared to be an improvement, she couldn’t see how Raskin would be any the wiser.

  So when the Dutchman found her alone with her thoughts at the bottom of the garden late that afternoon, Alice, having first established that Henry was alive and well, had felt very pleased with herself as she fetched her report from her room. She had written it in lemon juice between the lines of several pages of sheet music, as Raskin had instructed her to do, and she had handed it to him knowing that she had done her country no disservice. She had hoped that would be the last of it—that her husband would now be released—but even though Raskin had not said as much, she knew the Dutchman would visit her again.

  Alice reached the house and made for the side entrance as usual. She rarely used the front door because it had always seemed too grand an entrance to her, with its wide pillared portico and heavy double doors. She had promised to take the children for a ride on the horse omnibus into Rochester for ice cream, and while she was there, she hoped to go shopping for some much-needed casual attire: a tweed suit and a simple straw boater would do.

  ‘Chester! Charlotte!’

  She called for them as she entered the house, stepping into a small hallway that had a single staircase leading up to the staff accommodation, and a passageway at the far end that led into the heart of the house via the kitchen and the butler’s pantry. She called for them again and looked into the kitchen as she passed, in case Mrs Morris the cook was keeping them amused in her absence. She had left them with her mother, but she supposed they had long since tired her out.