It was evidently time for me to tell Max the entire extraordinary story, beginning with the bludgeoned body of poor old Alois pulled out of the Vltava just two weeks before.
***
The Majestic Music Hall and Variety Theatre was closed. It was, in theatrical parlance, “dark.” The once-yellow bricks from which it was built were also dark, but with soot, and its ornate cast-iron canopy bearing a large hoarding advertising All The King’s Mistresses was unilluminated. In London’s East End, as Max had pointed out, the smallpox was a more serious concern. Like all diseases, it preferred to lurk amongst the poor and dispossessed, the homeless or those whose homes are hardly worthy of the description. The East End of London seemed to have witnessed every kind of human tragedy, as was written on the gaunt, hollow-cheeked faces of its inhabitants. For the moment it also seemed they had been steering clear of the Majestic, even with seats at only two pence. Mr. George Buckle must have found it cheaper simply to close the theatre, as the sign on the doors read, “until circumstances permit.”
Max rattled the doors at the main entrance. All The King’s Mistresses — A Short Drama Followed By a Variety Revue had closed two weeks ago. It looked as if, in the parlance of detective fiction novelettes, we had drawn a blank. Luckily, Max had some of the persistence of our Bohemian forebears and refused to give up so easily. “There must be a stage door,” he said.
I had visions of the Fenix in Prague. The stage door of the Majestic was even less salubrious — down a rubbish-strewn alleyway between the theatre and The Leg of Mutton public house. There was an electric doorbell with a plate “The Majestic Theatre Company & Henry Buckle and Sons Limited.” Max pressed, keeping his finger on the bell-push longer than was normally socially acceptable. At length the door opened just a crack, secured on a door-chain. Revealed was a thin slice of a man’s face with deep-sunk eyes and a sallow complexion. As Max spoke to him I scrutinised the man’s features by the light of the one gaslamp in the alleyway. His far from healthy skin showed none of the telltale red spots of the pox.
That we were the second enquirers about the two Edwards was obviously of some concern to the man, whom Max quickly found out was our Mr. Buckle, son of Henry Buckle, the theatre’s founder. In fact he really didn’t want to speak on the subject at all except that Max had managed to jam his cane in the door, so it had to stay open — even just this little bit — as long as Max desired it to be so.
“All right, all right I’ll tell you what you want to know. The actor whom I eventually engaged for the second run was Mr. Preston Cavendish. The one who didn’t get the role this time was the Reverend Gerald Swinnerton.”
“The Reverend?” asked Max.
“Yes, he’s a vicar. Acting is a pastime of his, but he’s very good. You see, the play was due to run over Easter — too many days off. Yet he was by far the better.”
“And where can we find them?”
“Cavendish, after I closed down, went off — I don’t know where. Maybe some of the local pubs might know. The Reverend, well, I’m sure you’ll be able to find him. That’s all I’m telling.”
Since it was clear our interview was at an end, Max withdrew his cane and we got back into the hansom which we’d had waiting. Max ordered the cabby to take us to Bow Library. In the reference section, a copy of Crockford’s Clerical Directory told us that the Reverend Swinnerton was the rector of a parish in Poplar, a neighbouring district in the East End.
Finding nowhere suitable to take luncheon, we decided to go on to Poplar immediately. I was imagining one of those cold, dark, pitch-pine panelled Protestant rectories that I must have read about in a novel. The kind where there are ghastly secrets hidden from the world, a place reeking not of incense but of incest. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The rectory turned out to have been built thirty or forty years ago in that cottage style so beloved of designers then — of warm red brick, full of nooks with fireplaces and hand-hewn oak beams in the ceilings. Throughout it was wallpapered with intricate floral designs, of the kind I dearly wanted to point out to Max for his apartment in Mayfair.
Gerald Swinnerton, of course, needs no describing. He was the perfect double of His Majesty King Edward VII, even down to the twinkle in his eyes and an obvious love of life and its manifold pleasures, although as a man of the cloth I presumed that did not include philandering. Like His Majesty he was in his early sixties, or at least appeared to be no older.
“We’ve come to ask you to help solve a mystery, but we cannot tell you what the mystery is — partly because we don’t know ourselves, and partly because if we did know what it was, I feel sure we would not be permitted to speak about it,” I said, after we had introduced ourselves.
The Reverend Swinnerton lay back in his generously padded armchair, his big hands gripping the floral printed covers of its arms, pondering what I had just said and looking at our cards.
“Countess, Mr. von Morštejn — some tea, perhaps? I hope you like a China blend. I get it straight from the importers. There are some advantages in a parish near the docks. Martha will get it for us,” and he rang a bell.
I didn’t know quite where to begin. Luckily he helped me, answering my not yet uttered question:
“About my acting, I suppose. Firstly, I assume you must want to know how I combine being a priest with being an actor. It’s quite simple really: theatres are closed on Sundays — and I have ample time during the weekdays, except when there are matinées, to attend to my parish work. It’s more than a mere pastime, however. Both occupations are callings, and I learn much about the human condition from both.”
“But All The King’s Mistresses?” interjected Max.
“I don’t take myself too seriously. I daresay my royal duplicate doesn’t either. A little gentle lampooning never did any harm. And as I am sure you know, in the end I couldn’t be in the second run of the play.”
The man was disarmingly frank.
“And has anyone else asked you to play the King recently?” I asked.
“And now you come to the point! Yes, there was a curious offer only three weeks or so ago. A man called without warning, just as you have. There was a very special play to be performed abroad — the engagement would be for two days only, but with two weeks’ rehearsal, and the salary would be more than the Majestic would pay for a whole year’s run. Apart from the fact that I couldn’t be spared from my parish for the three weeks or more that this would entail, there was something in the man’s manner I didn’t trust. And when someone offers something so ridiculous, then I simply smell a rat. The theatrical business is full of rogues — as well as rats. I believe in God’s providence, but not to that extent.”
“Can you tell us the date when this play was expected to be performed?” I asked.
“I believe he said early in May.”
“And where exactly?”
“That he didn’t say. Just that it was ‘on the Continent.’”
Max was now as fired-up as I was. “And do you know where we can find Mr. Preston Cavendish? I presume he must have been asked also.”
“Dear old Preston. After a few drinks he would always get very belligerent — that wild Irish temper of his. I knew him well. We were always standing-in for each other since we looked so similar. But then this means you don’t know.”
Max and I stared at him. I could feel some kind of bombshell being loaded and detonated.
“It was two days ago. I was with him till the end. The doctors said it was because of his drinking. The funeral is tomorrow.”
***
“Well, what do you think, Trixie?” asked Max in the hansom back to civilisation. A visit to the East End was like crossing to another continent. Soon there were familiar landmarks — the Bank of England, the Mansion House, St. Paul’s Cathedral.
“Well, you know what Mamma always says,” I replied. And we both joined in a chorus: “N
ever trust a man with brown shoes!”
“But why is Mamma such a snob, Max?”
“When you have real money and real rank, you don’t need snobbery as a prop. All this talk of class that’s constantly on her lips — and on yours too, I’ve noticed — is for those whose hold onto class, and all that goes with it, when it is tenuous or threatened. And God knows, Mamma must have felt threatened with all those de Clyfforde relations with their great houses and vast estates in Yorkshire, while she, the daughter of a youngest son of a youngest son of an Earl — and one who had died in action in the Indian Mutiny, to boot — before he could inherit what little he had to inherit, while she was being raised nearly as a pauper, on a charity for the ‘distressed families of gentlefolk.’ It was a real coup to have landed our father, don’t you think?”
“Well, I suppose so. We got a ‘von’ for a ‘de’. A one letter increase.”
“And you live in a palace in Prague —”
“Rent. And Prague isn’t London.”
“No, it’s far prettier. And Bohemians are far more inventive. Small countries have this capacity. Look at Britain, with her huge empire — in some ways she is far more old-fashioned. I read recently that she has the biggest navy in the world, but also the most inefficient. For modernity, it must be Paris or Prague. If I could earn the kind of money there that’s possible here, I would return home at once.”
“Well, my dear Max, maybe it’s also possible not to lose as much there!”
Max ignored my jibe. “Money is becoming the new class,” he said. “And all you have to do to get money is to be smart, to use your brains.”
I was thinking of everything I didn’t know: how, I supposed, my brain was singularly underused. I was far from smart. I could see in my memory those terrible private tutors of mine, and that school in Switzerland with all the distractions of growing up to compete with learning anything more than becoming an attractive clothes-horse with a pea-brain and a penchant for putting down anyone who was cleverer as having no class. And in that bracket had gone all the rich girls whose fathers were in the jute trade or making fabulous fortunes building railways in some jungle.
It was late in the afternoon by the time Max and I arrived back at Mount Street. Sabine had done a wonderful job. The apartment felt airy and entirely habitable. Windows had been thrown open and sunlight seemed to have appeared for the first time in the sitting room, where also a bright fire was burning in the grate. There was even an aroma of cooking lurking in the kitchen. Max and I sat down to talk.
“Your instincts have been entirely right so far, Trixie. But I still can’t put the puzzle together, however many pieces of the jigsaw you seem to find.”
“Let’s put it on little slips, shall we?” and I carefully put down all the characters on separate pieces of paper which I cut out with scissors. I cut a lot more slips than the few I had started out with in Jindřišská Street.
“We begin with an actor impersonating old Alois — or, rather, before that, there’s the death of old Alois. Then there’s the Tontine — that gets a slip of its own. So far Mr. Pinkerstein, the other one left in the Tontine — or indeed the board of directors of the Tontine Financial Association — haven’t actually figured in this mystery.”
“So what will happen to the theatre when the Tontine is all wrapped up?”
“Max, I don’t know. I presume it simply goes to the winner. And once you take in the Fenix Theatre, then the cast of characters increases: there’s a whole ballroom of what would appear to be Austrian nobility. There’s an Edward VII double, two doubles for Sir Emile Brodsky, and who else?”
“You said that the actor in Prague could do an impersonation of the Kaiser.”
“Yes, of course — so there’s a Kaiser double as well. And lastly, we have the masterminds — or are they working for someone else? So here’s a slip for Jenks, and one for the late Duvalier. Oh, and a slip for the Tobacco Factory in Marienbad.”
“The fact you’ve missed is the date in early May,” Max reminded me. That was no doubt of key importance.
It was tempting to think one had the puzzle complete — but still the purpose of it all eluded us. “We’ve forgotten the explosives,” I said. “Brodsky’s the expert.”
“Do you think this is a big kidnap plot? That all these people — the real ones, that is — are going to be kidnapped? No, it’s too far-fetched.” Max had immediately doubted his own perfectly reasonable theory.
“Nothing’s too far-fetched, Max. I believe this is something extremely serious and could threaten the lives of important individuals, don’t you?”
“Absolutely right. This is far bigger than you or I can possibly cope with. I have a friend of mine, Rupert Talbot-Fane. He works directly under the Home Secretary. I shall contact him straight away.”
***
Obviously the brief description of our puzzle which Max had given to his friend Rupert was enough to open doors right at the top. The next morning we were to attend on the Home Secretary himself, at his office in Whitehall, across from the Houses of Parliament. That electricity, that energy I had felt in Piccadilly was increased by a million volts to be at the very seat of power of the British Empire.
I had decided it was to be Sabine’s last day before her holiday in Paris. She had worked hard to create a very respectable, but also very seductive (I hoped) Bohemian Countess. Such creatures were rare in London. Since there was a weak sun — bright although still cold — I carried a parasol. It gave me something with which to twiddle, for there were bound to be awkward moments. I begged Max that under no circumstances was he to mention the Tontine.
Brother and sister looked each other over for minor flaws in our accoutrement as we waited outside the tall double doors of the Home Secretary’s outer office. I flicked imaginary dandruff from the velvet of his collar, as one does. It strengthens the woman’s position. Precisely at nine-thirty the doors were opened by a smart young man who came up and shook Max’s hand. I was introduced to Rupert Talbot-Fane.
“The drill’s quite simple,” Talbot-Fane said reassuringly. “I will lead the way and introduce you to the Right Honourable Mr. Akers-Douglas, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Home Affairs. He will show you where to sit.”
Akers-Douglas was a dapper man, in his prime. He was courteous to a fault. His office was huge, with clusters of columns and a gilded ceiling. An enormous desk was placed at an angle across the corner by one of the windows. Several other officials were in the room too, but whether they were deputy ministers or simply high-ranking clerks, I didn’t know.
“Some coffee is being brought. I know you both have a story to tell — a fantastic one, if I am informed correctly. However, be that as it may, I am afraid I have an unpleasant duty to perform first.”
So saying, the Home Secretary opened another door, a smaller, single door nearer to his desk. As it opened, it revealed — sitting rather uncomfortably, hunched forward, holding his hat in his hand which he had evidently been turning like a Rosary — none other than Inspector Schneider.
Chapter Seven
St. John’s Wood
As Schneider stood up and entered, the Home Secretary continued, “He comes from Prague with a warrant from the Austrian police. It is for your arrest, Your Ladyship, on being involved in the murder of a gentleman on a train at Karlsbad last week. I am sure these details come as no surprise to you.”
Schneider advanced, brandishing a document. I really didn’t need to read it and I waved it aside. “I think, gentlemen, that you owe it to my brother and me to give us a fair hearing, do you not? We came here to give you information concerning some sort of conspiracy which is afoot, the aim of which is undoubtedly to do harm to one or more extremely important persons.”
Brave as I sounded, I felt the blood draining from my cheeks.
“We have sent a message to Count Mensdorf, your ambassador. Count D
ubski, the First Secretary, has sent back only an acknowledgement as His Excellency is in the country. However, I am prepared to listen to whatever you have to tell us,” the Home Secretary replied. He motioned for Max and me to be seated.
Schneider also sat down and I began the tale. I brought out my slips of paper, and when I placed the fake Austrian nobles on the Tobacco Factory in Marienbad with the early May date — just to test their reaction — I could see that this Right Honourable was more than a little shaken. But I concluded with a suggestion that could be followed up almost immediately: “It would seem that possibly the life or the work of Sir Emile Brodsky is threatened. Surely — since he lives in London — it would be easy enough to warn him, and in so doing to find out if he knows anything?”
Akers-Douglas nodded. “That makes sense. But there are other aspects of this affair which I think need to be reported at once to the Foreign Secretary. In the meantime we have to deal with this warrant. What is your view now, Inspector, having heard the bigger picture?”
One of the other men in the room turned out to be an interpreter and after a delay during which the rest of the story was translated I could see that Schneider was slightly taken aback by the layers of complexity which I had uncovered, or — rather — which he had missed. He was silent for a second.
“Her Ladyship is, of course, half British,” the Home Secretary continued, without waiting for Schneider’s answer. “That adds considerable complication to the warrant, don’t you think?”
Schneider agreed that the very first step would be to contact Sir Emile Brodsky. The Home Secretary fired off a message for Talbot-Fane to send round to the Foreign Secretary and asked to see if there was anything in the files on Jenks. “Get me Sir Charles on the telephone,” he asked another assistant. In a moment he was engaged in a conversation with him.
“Sir Charles is the Metropolitan Police Commissioner,” Max whispered to me.
The Home Secretary put down the instrument and came over to us. “I think we can sort this out in a gentlemanly fashion. It seems that we all are interested in only one thing — the solution to this complex riddle. What if I were to suggest that for the time being Inspector Schneider and the Countess of Falklenburg were to work together? He could keep an eye on the subject of his warrant and perhaps they might come up with a much more interesting answer so that Her Ladyship doesn’t have to be dragged back to Prague in handcuffs. The Metropolitan Police will be sending over a good man to assist.”
The Countess of Prague Page 11