The Lost Empress

by Steve Robinson

  Alice went back to the door and checked to make sure the way was clear. She could hear her uncle’s voice all the way from the dining room, delivering a terrible rendition of a new song she’d recently heard called ‘You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It).’ She imagined only her Aunt Cordelia remained in the room with him and that her mother had, thankfully, taken the children off somewhere else.

  Alice slipped out onto the landing and quietly clicked the door shut behind her. When she reached the top of the stairs she relaxed again, and she began to think about Frank Saxby. She supposed there was little chance of finding out whether he was the other Hamberley spy, and she had the idea then to wait until afternoon tea, when they would all be gathered again for the cutting of her uncle’s birthday cake. She started down the stairs, thinking that she would ask a few well-chosen questions. It occurred to her that all she had to do was to fit the words ‘come the day’ into an otherwise innocent sentence and see who reacted. It wouldn’t prove anything, but she thought it would be a good place to start.

  She was almost at the last step when she heard a door open along the passageway to her right. She thought it must be her father and Frank Saxby coming back from the library, so she ran back up the stairs and hid behind the banister. It was only once she was there, peering down through the rails, that she realised she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She watched them pass by, heading towards the dulcet tones of Oscar Scanlon, and she noticed that Saxby wasn’t wearing his jacket. She was sure he’d had it on when he left the dining room earlier, in which case he must have left it in the library. As soon as they were out of sight, Alice went down the stairs again, taking them two at a time. Then she made for the library, thinking it was at least worth having a look through his pockets for incriminating evidence.

  The library door was not quite closed. Alice pushed it open and entered into a sunlit room that was several degrees warmer than the hallway. Her father often used the library in the afternoons because his regular office faced east, whereas the library windows looked to the west, catching the afternoon sun and making the room brighter and warmer in the cooler months. She saw Saxby’s jacket hanging on a chair by the desk and went to it. Two weeks ago she would have thought it appalling to go through another person’s pockets, but now she did so without apprehension or guilt.

  In one pocket she found a train timetable and a used steamship ticket to Bruges. In the other were some keys and a white paper bag containing a few pieces of toffee. She tried the inside pocket and found two tickets to a play by George Bernard Shaw called Pygmalion, which Alice knew had opened just last month at His Majesty’s Theatre in London. There was nothing incriminating at all given that Frank Saxby was a businessman who inherently travelled a great deal.

  Alice heaved a sigh as she put the items back. Then as she slid her hand into the inside pocket to return the play tickets, she felt something catch against her fingernail. She felt inside the pocket again, sure that she hadn’t missed anything, but there was definitely something else there. She felt over the jacket and confirmed that it contained something rectangular within the lining. Looking more closely at the inside seam, where the outer cloth met the silk, she found a slit, and her pulse began to rise. There was another pocket—a secret pocket.

  What Alice withdrew from that secret pocket made her jaw drop. It was a notebook. She opened it and saw page after page of jumbled letters and numbers arranged in blocks of three. She saw it at once for what it was: a cipher like the transition cipher Raskin had told her to use. But this was not the same. When she tried to switch the letters around in pairs the result still made no sense. This was clearly a variant of the cipher she had been using, and it was something far more complex. It would take time to work it out, but Alice was confident she could do it now that she knew how these things worked.

  The library door began to open then, and the sound made Alice jump. In that same instant she wheeled around, picked up a book at random, and slid the notebook inside.

  ‘Alice?’

  Frank Saxby was standing by the door.

  ‘Whatever are you doing in here?’

  Alice swallowed dryly. ‘I came in for a book,’ she said, stepping away from the desk. ‘I’ve been reading a lot lately.’

  She made for the door, and Saxby met her halfway.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  Alice had no idea which book she’d picked up. She held it out for Saxby to see for himself. He reached for it and held it firmly as if to take it from her, but Alice did not let go.

  ‘The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 by Alfred Thayer Mayhan.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘Seems an odd reading choice for a young lady?’

  Saxby was still holding the book, and Alice was now holding her breath. Their eyes met, and caught as she was in his inquisitive stare, she was lost for words.

  Eventually, she managed a smile. ‘Well, I am an admiral’s daughter,’ she said, and Saxby smiled back at her.

  ‘Indeed you are, Alice.’ He let go of the book at last. ‘I forgot my jacket.’ He indicated it with a nod of his head, and Alice glanced at it. When she looked at Saxby again, he was still staring at his jacket.

  ‘I must be going,’ Alice said. ‘I don’t want to miss the birthday cake.’

  Saxby stepped towards the desk. ‘Wait a second. I’ll come with you,’ he said, but Alice was already heading for the door, wishing it was several feet closer. She reached it at a painfully normal pace, and when she was on the other side, she ran.

  ‘Alice!’

  She ran faster, emerging from the corridor into the main hall.

  ‘Alice!’

  Saxby was out in the corridor now, and Alice kept going. She crossed the main hallway into another passage, heading for the voices ahead of her. They were coming from the front sitting room. A second later she burst in and was glad to see everyone already gathered for the cutting of Oscar Scanlon’s cake.

  ‘Alice, you made it!’ Scanlon said, full of exuberance and slurring his words.

  Alice forced a smile and tried to control her breathing as she went to her parents and stood next to them by the fireplace.

  ‘Are you feeling better, dear?’ her mother asked.

  Alice nodded, and then her attention was drawn sharply to the door as Frank Saxby came in. He was wearing his jacket now, and he looked red-faced and angry. Their eyes locked, and there was no question in Alice’s mind that he knew she had discovered him—the other Hamberley spy. She wondered what type of spy he was, and she doubted a man of his standing would be assigned the kind of tasks she had been engaged in. Neither could she imagine Saxby taking his orders from Raskin, as she did. She doubted that Saxby was an agent, either, so close to the area the Dutchman operated in. It dawned on her then that Frank Saxby was in all likelihood no mere spy at all, but a spy-ring leader. His notebook could prove it, she thought, but that was of little concern to her now. Whatever his role, Alice had found him out, and the only question on her mind now was what he was going to do about it.

  Several uncomfortable minutes passed in general conversation that both Alice and Frank Saxby avoided. The cake was cut with great pomp and ceremony because Oscar Scanlon insisted on cutting his own birthday cake, handing each piece out himself and exhibiting great flair as he did so on account of the amount of wine he’d drunk. Alice was sitting beside her father on one of the settees, with Chester and Charlotte to the other side of her, wondering how she was going to escape this new predicament she now found herself in. She had decided that staying close to her father was best for now. Her mother was on the other settee with Cordelia and Oscar Scanlon, and Frank Saxby was sitting opposite Alice with nothing more than a low table laid out with the tea between them.

  She was still clutching her book, cake balanced on her knees. Everyone was eating the cake except Saxby, who kept looking at Alice, and he would often catch her stealing gla
nces at him. She grew nervous when Saxby sat up and edged forward on his seat.

  ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ he asked her.

  The question was unexpected given that he had already asked Alice that in the library, but she couldn’t very well let on.

  ‘It’s a book about naval warfare,’ she said, and her father eyed her curiously.

  ‘I thought it was about time I took an interest.’ She turned to Chester, who was busy devouring his cake. ‘If I don’t, I shall have little to discuss with my son in a few years.’

  Her father laughed. ‘It’s a fine book, although you might find it a little heavy going.’

  ‘May I see it?’ Saxby said. He stood up and leaned over the table, his arm outstretched.

  Alice hesitated, but how could she deny him? She offered the book, and Saxby took it from her. He sat back with a satisfied grin on his face, opened it and guardedly flicked through the pages. Then Alice watched his grin dissolve. The notebook was no longer there.

  Saxby shot a knowing look at Alice. Then he scoffed as he rose again and handed the book back. ‘I’m afraid it would be too heavy going for me,’ he said, and then everyone laughed except Alice.

  Several more minutes passed, and gradually everyone began to stand up and move about the room, chatting in small groups and laughing at the children every now and then as they chased one another and ran rings around them. Alice remained close to her father, and Saxby remained close to Alice. She couldn’t think how this was going to end, but it took a natural course when someone suggested a game of charades, which prompted Lord Metcalfe to pull out his fob watch.

  ‘Heavens! Look at the time,’ he said to Saxby. ‘We’ve kept you too long. I’m afraid if you don’t hurry, you’ll miss your engagement. Four o’clock, didn’t you say? It’s five and twenty minutes to, now.’

  ‘It’s really nothing important, Charles.’

  ‘Nonsense. I won’t hear of it. Business is business after all.’

  Saxby gave what Alice thought sounded like a deflated laugh. ‘Yes, you’re right of course,’ he said. ‘Business first. Thank you all, as always, for your hospitality.’

  Alice watched her father place a hand on Saxby’s shoulder. He led him towards the door, and they continued to talk about things Alice could no longer hear. It didn’t matter to her what they were saying, just as long as Frank Saxby was leaving Hamberley.

  An hour after Saxby left, Alice was in her room, packing a small travelling case. She had no idea where she was going, only that it was now too dangerous for her to remain at Hamberley. She had left the sitting room soon after Saxby had gone, and she’d spent most of the time since then poring over his notebook. She already knew that swapping the first two letters around yielded nothing legible, so she tried swapping the first and third letters, but that didn’t work either. She went through several such transpositions before she came around to thinking that the code produced by the cipher might also have been reversed, so she began again on a small sample of text.

  It was when she read the code backwards, swapping the first and third letters that she began to see words she recognised. Once she had completed the first page, it became clear to her that it was an address book, containing an entire network of spies for all she knew. She was even more convinced now that Saxby had to be the leader of this spy ring. She supposed there must be others, too, each controlling an area of England, with Saxby in command of the Southeast.

  Alice knew the significance of her discovery and she knew that Saxby would do just about anything to get his notebook back. She finished packing the last of her essentials and placed the Ur-Leica camera on top. Together, they put her in as strong a bargaining position as she could hope for, and she planned to use them to get her husband back and end all this. Henry would know what to do from there on. She imagined they would go to America and, once there, send for the children. They would be safe enough while she had Saxby’s notebook, and she would make a copy and use it to safeguard their future.

  She took a deep breath, hands trembling as she closed her case and picked it up from the bed. She paused a moment, still wondering where she would go, concluding that anywhere was now safer than Hamberley. She had a little money—enough to check into a hotel for a few nights while she thought things through. She made for the door, to go to the children to hug them and kiss their sweet faces before she left, but the sound of a motorcar arriving on the drive stopped her. She ran to the window, hoping it was Archie in his little sports car, but the car she saw was not familiar to her. She watched two men get out, and at seeing them, she staggered back with her hand to her face. It was Inspector George Watts and his sergeant—the same two detectives from the special branch of the police service she had met in her father’s study the day he was asked to go to London in connection with Admiral Waverley.

  Alice bolted from her room, convinced this time that they had come for her as she had feared they would. She had been resolved to go with them if it came to it, but Saxby’s notebook had given her new hope. She was out on the landing when they knocked, and she was at the top of the main stairs when the way was cut off by old Mrs Chetwood as she went to answer the door. Alice saw her father then, and she paused long enough to see the front door open. She saw the shorter man with the wiry grey sideburns produce the coat she had wrestled herself free from in Green Park—her coat, which her father would easily identify.

  Alice could hear little of the conversation, but she heard her name clearly enough in connection with spying, along with the words ‘arrest’ and ‘murder,’ which seemed to ring out with great emphasis and clarity as the detectives came into the hallway. Alice knew she had only a moment to act. She could hear Charlotte’s sporadic laughter from below, and she wanted with all her heart to go to her and to Chester. How would he take this news? He was old enough to know what she had done, if not to understand her reasons. Her father would take the news very badly, of that there was no doubt. She was discovered, and she knew now that her only hope lay with the release of her husband. He was the only person who could confirm her fantastical story.

  Alice turned away and walked at a clip back the way she had come. She turned off the passageway and along another corridor, then through another room and out again by the back staircase. She would use the side door as she often did, and once outside she would run to the bottom of the garden where there was a gate she knew she could climb. In a matter of minutes the detectives and her father would be in her room, and once there they would find everything they needed to secure a conviction against her: the lemon juice and the music sheets, and the report that Raskin had not yet collected.

  But in a matter of minutes, Alice would be gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Present day.

  Jefferson Tayte was sitting on a bench in a colourful garden that backed on to Foxburrow Wood, where the dappled shade from a cherry tree standing in the middle of the lawn cast ever shifting swatches of light and shade in the gentle summer breeze. He heard a door close towards the house, and a few seconds later Davina Scanlon reappeared through the rose arbour that was part way down the garden path. She was wearing a white summer dress and sandals, and was carrying a wine cooler and two glasses. Tucked beneath her arm was a large, clear plastic envelope, which Tayte thought had to contain the telegram she wanted him to see.

  ‘It’s too nice an afternoon not to have a little glass of something cool,’ she said as she approached. She set everything down on the small foldaway table in front of them. ‘You will join me, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tayte said, and as Davina sat beside him, he thought the bench suddenly felt too small. He shifted along as best he could, but it made no perceptible difference.

  Davina poured their drinks, and they settled back. ‘So what have you been up to since I last saw you?’

  Tayte would rather have talked about the contents of the clear envelope that was now
tantalisingly within reach on the table, but it seemed only reasonable to bring Davina up to date on his progress first, so he told her about his visit with the Ashcrofts that morning, and then about Dean Saxby and the reason he’d said he went to see her husband on the day she bumped into him. He concluded with the records he’d seen in DI Bishop’s office, confirming that Alice had indeed been wanted by the British government for spying.

  ‘I knew it,’ Davina said. ‘A rumour like that has to be founded in truth, don’t you think?’

  ‘No smoke without fire,’ Tayte said. It was a well-coined phrase, but following the smoke in his case had often led to results.

  ‘It sounds as if you’re making good progress,’ Davina said. ‘Do you want to see what I’ve found?’

  Tayte snorted. ‘Are you kidding?’

  Davina leaned forward and picked up the folder, crossing her legs as she sat back again, revealing more of her slender thigh through her half-buttoned dress than Tayte felt comfortable being so close to. She slid the contents from the folder and passed the telegram to him.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find the date very interesting.’

  Tayte’s eyes found it immediately. In the top right-hand corner he read, ‘Sent date: 29 May 1914.’ Below the date, in bold typeface, was the heading ‘The Marconi International Marine Communication Company Ltd.’ Further down he read, ‘Origin: Empress of Ireland.’

  Tayte said what he was thinking. ‘That’s the date the Empress sank.’ He thought back to his conversations with Emile Girard in Quebec. ‘So, it had to have been sent between midnight and around one thirty.’