It was already dark, and the great outside gasoliers cast their bluish light on fur-trimmed capes, elaborate hats, twinkling jewels, men in Ulsters, monocles, and kid gloves. Society. This was a Society “do,” no mistake about it, and despite my lack of invitation (and I was wondering how on Earth I could have been missed out), I would find some mild enjoyment in it. After all, if this event is connected with The Union of Servants, then presumably there would be large numbers of them to wait on us.
So it was with a keen sense of anticipation that I stepped from my carriage, the door held open by a theatre commissionaire in a braided tailcoat with brass buttons. In a moment I was already deeply shocked: this flunky winked at me. Well, I thought, if that’s the way The Union of Servants encourages its members…and then he addressed me:
“My, you do look the part.”
I had a good mind to bat him about the ears with my fan, which was still in its weighty silver case. But then I had the sense to keep quiet. I was here to investigate, although I had never been insulted in this manner by such an individual before in my life. I surmised correctly that detective work would mean biting my tongue on more occasions than just this one.
Inside, the theatre foyer served as a big ante-room. Coats were being taken off and handed into a cloakroom. There was now a greater twinkling of tiaras and exposed areas of bosom, low-cut dresses being the fashion of the moment. But try as I might, I couldn’t actually see anyone I knew. I put this down to the fact that we were mainly all walking towards the theatre auditorium, and so most of the company was presenting its back to me.
As we passed into the auditorium itself I could see that it had been transformed. It was no longer a theatre. A huge stage set not only filled the stage itself but projected forward on wooden platforms so that it filled the stalls to form all four walls of a huge ballroom, lit by the glow of hundreds of candles in three or four huge chandeliers. The crystal chandeliers, however, were slung on ordinary ropes from somewhere above the stage.
There were white-haired old generals bedecked with medals, even — at least I thought I saw — a flash of a Grand Duke in full dress. Their stately wives or consorts fanned themselves from the heat of so many people and so many candles. I was puzzled. Surely such an event as this should have been announced properly in the Social Calendar?
An orchestra as one might find at such a ball was playing, which had not reached lively waltzes yet. The evening was only just starting. Supper was laid out on long tables on one side of this artificial ballroom — and strangely, it was set out in the new-fangled style where one had to virtually serve oneself. The waiters, such as there were, existed merely to lift the lids of the large silver-domed chafing-dishes so that guests could poke about and furnish their own plates. That was not to my liking, but then — at twenty-eight — I was already feeling a little conservative sometimes. Tonight was to be one of those times, obviously. I felt like my mother.
There were other things which slightly annoyed me. No — they plainly attacked my sensibilities. Maybe it was the way one or two of the guests held their forks, or the way one blew her nose, or perhaps the way a couple seemed to share a joke with too loud a laughter. I was beginning to bristle. My innate feelings of Class, that sense when the dignity of my proper station in life seems threatened, when…when I had the shock of my life.
Standing in front of me, not more than six metres away, was my husband. Karel was supposed to be in Vienna. How dare he be here? And with whom? Luckily for him he was talking to another gentleman, or else I would have made a scene. I had always imagined myself in a jealous rage — but Karel had never even provided the stimulus for that. Now I was to be disappointed again.
I strode purposely towards him. He was turned away from me. I spoke clearly so that he could not avoid the clarion call of his own wife:
“Karel. Karel?”
My commanding tone was instantly recognised, for he immediately turned round. And I was confronted by Müller, Müller my own butler dressed from head to toe in Karel’s clothes and wearing Karel’s decorations. And he flushed the colour of my husband after a good session with the schnapps.
“Milady. I can explain,” was all he could find to utter.
Even pulled in to only fifty-four centimetres, all I could find to do was to faint: a fine thing for even a novice detective.
Chapter Three
Into the Breach
I awoke alone in a stuffy, airless room with a window of obscured glass. It appeared to be a dressing room for an actress, although it was certainly tawdry enough to take the allure of the stage from me in an instant. On one wall was a large mirror surrounded by electric light globes which were not illuminated. Around its perimeter were various carte de visite-sized photographs of actors and actresses, perhaps those in the most recent production. There was that distinctive smell of greasepaint, despite there being none in evidence. In fact, the only evidence of human occupation was feathers which had dropped from an ostrich boa near to the door. The gas mantle lighting the room itself needed changing so it was hissing, while some very distant voices were coming from somewhere outside.
It was a depressing place. Collecting my thoughts together I wondered if I had only dreamt that I had seen Müller, dressed as my husband. But the fact that I was obviously still in the theatre gave that nightmare some credence. I was still in the pink organza dress which I had worn to this peculiar ball, although it had been loosened around my bosom…yes, yes, I had fainted. How stupid of me to put myself at their mercy…whoever “they” were. Perhaps I wasn’t cut out to be a detective, after all.
I quickly got up, straightened the folds of the dress, making sure it was sitting correctly behind, did up the braids at the front and went to open the door. It was locked. I tried it again — perhaps the lock was stiff…but no! I was being held prisoner. The room which up to that point had merely been depressing suddenly took on the aspect of a frightful tomb. If only it had been my husband, and how was Müller connected to all this?
But the voices I was hearing — they didn’t seem to come from outside at all. They were in the room, or at least that’s how they sounded. Looking up I could see just over the door a metal funnel-like object — that’s where the voices were coming from. Of course, it was a kind of speaking tube, presumably connected to the Stage in order to call performers. There was a conversation going on, its tone in raised voices, near to the far end of this appliance. There were two men, rough men of low rank, arguing — and what’s more, what set my ears tingling, was that they were speaking in English, that is if the accent of the east side of London could be described by the same adjective as Shakespeare’s tongue. I recognised the accent because my mother used to imitate it when she used to read Oliver Twist to us in the nursery. Cockney, she had called the brogue.
“So she’s a real Countess, is she, you say?” said the first man.
“But I can’t think what she was doing ’ere. Must’ve been some kind of mistake. One of her own servants recognised her,” replied the other.
“And didn’t no-one stop her? You had a man at the door, didn’t-cha?”
“’E just thought she was a good ’un — well done up for the party — not a real one.”
“Blundering fools. Now she knows. Knows too much. You realise what you’ll have to do?”
“When the others come back, eh?”
I too realised, only too well, I was in imminent danger of my life. It seemed impossible that such low deeds could be done to a fine woman in a beautiful evening gown. Would I be pulled from the Vltava, too? It was simply too disgusting to contemplate.
A moment’s pause was what I needed first, so as not to panic my thinking. After that I must concentrate on getting out. To deflect my mind my eyes wandered over the photographs of these thespians tucked into the frame of the mirror. One or two of them looked vaguely familiar; perhaps I had seen them on the stage myself, or
perhaps most of those engaged in the acting profession tilted their heads in that fashion, smiled so falsely and with darkly made-up eyes, male or female. But then one of them made a different impression. He looked familiar in another way — hadn’t I seen this man recently? But I didn’t want to excite my brain over this, especially when there was work to be done in seeing if I could escape.
Ninety seconds later two thoughts came. The first was, having surveyed the room, I could not think of any way I could let myself out of it. The second was about that actor…in this photograph — certainly I had seen him recently at The Invalides: the bleary-eyed man playing the role of old Alois! That was him; I felt sure of it. Obviously he looked here a little younger and very much more cheerful — but it was his thin features and soulful eyes, even when dry, that gave him away. I quickly plucked out all the photographs from around the mirror and hid them in my little evening bag, miraculously still with me. Perhaps they would turn out to be an entire rogues’ gallery, if ever I lived to identify them.
With that last action I knew that a deep gloom would soon settle upon me. How long would I have to await my fate from these rascals? And if only I did know more than I did. I still couldn’t work out these villains’ scheme and what it was all for. I also realised that I didn’t know how long I’d already been here — or even what time of night it was, or if it was day and the windows were shuttered. I hadn’t taken a watch nor, of course, any money — what need have Countesses for such things at a party?
At the very instant my heart had begun to sink in earnest, about to gravitate to the very depths of despair, there was a tap at the windowpane. I tried to open it, but to no avail. Whoever it was on the other side could see me struggling. A darker shape got near to the window casement, darker than the deep grey that was sufficing as either lamplight or moonlight. “Stand back,” a man’s voice was saying — and a booted leg came smashing through the glass with jagged fragments shattering to the floor. The alarm must soon be given by these sounds, I thought — and then there was a hand outstretched. I gave myself to it, and was pulled towards its owner.
He gave a startled cry: “But what have they done to you? Your hair, Milady,” and for the second time in one night I was staring incredulously at Müller, now balanced on top of a ladder. I felt a chill breeze. As he manhandled me down the precipitous slope of this swaying thing, I realised he had been shocked by the fact that my hair had been cut short. But that I had done yesterday. After Sabine had spent such a time brushing it and I had dismissed her, I had chopped a fair measure of it off myself. The untangled tresses I put in a box to remind me one day of former graceful Countess Beatrice. Then I had dressed in a suit of Karel’s and marched with a broad, mannish step to Uncle’s club. It all seemed like an age ago.
The wig my milliner had loaned me must have become abandoned somewhere in the Fenix Theatre. “Please don’t concern yourself on that score, Müller — I am unharmed by them.” As I said this I made the mistake of looking down, and this made me feel quite… No. I had fainted for the last time this evening — or rather Beatrice had. All I had to do now was to close my eyes and rely on the strong grip of my rescuer. But my nerves were further shaken by a shudder — the ladder had slipped a few centimetres on the icy surface of the pavement so far below. I could see some others running to the base of it to save it from toppling. I gritted my teeth as heroines do in cheap novelettes and soon I was gliding gently to Earth…
As my feet touched the pavement, Müller realised that his arms were still around my waist. I hadn’t had that reassuring grasp for a long while! He quickly moved his hands away as if my whale-boned form had given him an electric shock. “I am as pleased to see you now as I was surprised earlier,” I heard myself saying, somewhat imperiously. Then I uttered these words for the first time since he had entered my employment: “Thank you.”
Standing by were four familiar figures, two taller and two shorter. My urchins! And there was one other — the recognisable figure of a lamplighter of Prague, doubtless glad to have his ladder returned.
But my bag — what of my bag, with the photographs? Müller had correctly read the anxiety on my face, and drew from behind his back the very article. “I retrieved this from the sill, Milady.”
Müller summoned my coach which was waiting round the corner, and soon I was on my way back to Jindřišská Street. I recognised the side entrance to the theatre, that purporting to be The Union of Servants’ office, as we passed by. Two men were running out, running in different directions — not realising that one of their birds was flying from under their very noses. I couldn’t get a proper glimpse of them, but one of them at least seemed a large, rough shape — a person I would not like to have handled me, or to have sent me to the bottom of the river, if that had been their purpose. The other seemed thinner, his legs slightly bowed, perhaps — but I had hardly a chance to see.
In my newly familiar kitchen with its big stoves that are alight and warm all day and all night and with so many bright copper pans on big shelves, Müller and the hall-boy who let us in, made hot grog for all. I felt as if I were merely recovering from some ill-conceived practical joke and not from an experience which had quite possibly threatened my life. I was heartened only by the fact that I seemed able to brush off such fright on the basis that I had recovered intact from it all — and that, as if it had affected some other person’s life, was simply connected with the business upon which I was engaged. Or perhaps it was a little more sinister — that the world of my Mr. Hyde couldn’t really threaten that of my Dr. Jekyll?
The urchins looked with wonder at the hall-boy’s blue velvet coat with gold frogging and at his white stockings, buckled shoes, and gleaming heraldic buttons, blue and gold being the livery colours of the Falklenburgs.
“Can you have a flag?” I was asked directly by young Jirka Minor, with his hands cupped round his steaming grog and between noisy slurps. But how was I going to stand on manners now, with my life-savers?
“Do you have cannons and a real castle?” asked Honza Major, the tall fair-haired youth who was the leader of this little band.
I decided not to tell them that, whilst my husband is indeed entitled to a flag, he really has no flagstaff from which to fly it. And as for the castle, a mere game of cards had rendered it sold to a manufacturer of pianofortes. Nothing very feudal in that, and all the cannons in our armoury had been powerless to stop it!
It came time to turn the youngsters out. It seemed such a natural thing to do — people have bedrooms, don’t they? They must go to sleep? But I caught the reproving glance of Müller. Only just stop and think for a moment, Trixie — I found myself saying to that haughty, insensitive Beatrice still inhabiting a good proportion my brain. That corner of St Jindřich’s churchyard is probably all the home they have; there are no beds with patchwork quilts, nor tender mothers to tuck them up.
“Müller, a moment, if you please.”
“Yes, Milady.”
“When we had stable lads, where did they sleep?”
“Over the horses, of course. Nice and warm up there — even though we’ve only the pair of bays at present.”
“Then you know what to do.”
Müller, smiling, led the little troop out, each tugging at his woollen cap as he passed. Never mind that it was bad-mannered to wear hats indoors. My little army was now resident. I had a garrison.
***
I was still in the palace’s kitchen when Müller came back a few minutes later. It would have seemed wrong to address him in the formality of the upstairs rooms, and the stove in the Business Room had not been lit today. I had children staying, I was thinking. There was no accounting why Karel and I hadn’t had any. Perhaps it was the insecurity of knowing he was, at heart, a gambler or perhaps I, in my vanity, wanted to preserve my youthful figure. But the thought that four souls were in my charge for the moment warmed my heart more than I could have imagined.
&
nbsp; The hall-boy would normally sit in a chair by the kitchen stove, drowsing all night in his livery and in attendance in case a caller rang the bell. Since no-one was expected, and I wanted a quiet word with Müller, I dismissed him. He was just leaving the room when I called him back:
“And what’s your name?”
“Tomáš, Milady.”
“Thank you, Tomáš. Good night.”
On closer inspection I noticed that his stockings were darned and wrinkled and his knee-breeches were too baggy. His coat had seen better days. His shoes were a bit scuffed too. I would ask Karel to deal with this. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that these costumes were fifty years old — maybe more.
Müller raised an eyebrow but said nothing as the boy left. Perhaps he was annoyed I had dissolved the value of his personal “Thank you” by giving out another. Two in one evening. The first two ever to servants.
“Now Müller, I want some explanations — but it is for information, not recriminations. So tell me — who were all those people?”
“At the ball, you mean, Milady?”
“Yes. Of course, I have a fair idea by now — but it is only a theory, a rather fantastic theory.”
“Well, they were all servants. Every week we are invited to come dressed as our masters or mistresses. I think we do a great job.” He was on the point of saying “Don’t you?” — but quickly realised that it might not be something I’d be very pleased with.
“They fooled me, didn’t they? That must be fine enough praise? But tell me, for what purpose is all this?”
The Countess of Prague Page 5