Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  ‘To Miss Ruthven’s dressing room?’ I inquired. ‘This way. We will go across the stage.’

  ‘There is no need to escort me. I remember the way.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘it is not in the least inconvenient’

  He shrugged. ‘It is very kind of you.’

  I led him down to the stage. ‘You missed a wonderful performance tonight,’ I remarked, wondering how to broach what I had to say.

  ‘So I hear,’ he replied. There was a slight pause. ‘I gather that Miss Ruthven has had a great triumph.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said shortly.

  Eliot smilled. ‘She seems to be quite the favourite of the hour.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said again, even more abruptly; then I paused, and stopped in my tracks and turned to face him. ‘Dr Eliot…’ I began.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I feel I should tell you…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I feel I should tell you …’ I said again. I swallowed. ‘Miss Ruthven – her heart … well, I must be blunt – it is already given.’

  He stared at me and his frown slowly lightened into an expression of amusement. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, starting to walk across the stage again, ‘you mistake the nature of my interest in Miss Ruthven.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes, I assure you.’ He chuckled. ‘My brain exists purely to think and calculate. It has never been concerned with the fairer sex. Why, it is a virtual machine. You may rest assured, Mr Stoker, that I am not a rival to anyone.’ He studied me, the look of amusement still lingering in his eyes. ‘But tell me, if you are able, who is the lucky man?’

  I frowned. ‘What is your business with Miss Ruthven?’ I asked. ‘Are you here to help her?’

  ‘If I may. But why do you assume that she requires my help?’

  ‘Because …’ I sighed, and shook my head. ‘She has seemed preoccupied recently, Dr Eliot – almost afraid.’

  ‘Has she now?’ Again the flush of interest returned to his cheeks. ‘And you feel it is related to her love affair?’

  ‘I did not say that’

  ‘No, but you implied it’ He waited, then shrugged. ‘If it is of any relevance, then no doubt Miss Ruthven will inform me of it herself. And here is my chance’ – he paused, and smiled – ‘to find out’

  For by now we had reached her dressing-room door. It was wide open. Eliot knocked as he walked in. ‘Lucy?’ he asked. ‘I hope I am not disturbing you?’

  She looked up. She was sitting by her mirror, almost hidden behind great bouquets of flowers, and had been fixing a hat on her braided golden hair. There was still so much of the child in her face that her blue eyes at first seemed as nervous as a fawn’s; but when she recognised us, her fresh cheeks glowed with happiness. ‘Jack Eliot!’ she whispered. ‘Is it really you? Jack!’ She held out her hands. Dr Eliot kissed her white-gloved finger-tips. ‘But it is so wonderful to see you again,’ she laughed, ‘after – oh! – so many years!’ She stepped back and curtsied elegantly. ‘I must seem very grown-up to you now, do I not, dear Jack?’

  ‘Terribly so,’ replied Dr Eliot. ‘Quite a crone.’

  Miss Ruthven laughed and turned to me. ‘You see, Mr Stoker, he has not laid eyes on me since I had pigtails and dolls, and ugly teeth.’

  Eliot shook his head. ‘No, no, Lucy, do not malign yourself.’ He turned to me. ‘She was as beautiful as a child as she is lovely now.’

  ‘Oh, pooh,’ answered Miss Ruthven, ‘don’t try flattering me, Jack Eliot! I remember you well enough. He was always a cold fish, Mr Stoker. Women were much too giddy for him.’

  Eliot smiled faintly. ‘I told you that?’

  ‘Yes, quite solemnly, and I can only have been twelve,’ She turned back to me. ‘Did you know that Arthur…,’ – she paused, and her laughter died away on her lips – ‘Arthur was my brother, Mr Stoker …’ She composed herself and a faint flush of colour returned to her cheeks. ‘Arthur called Jack the Calculating Machine.’

  Eliot bowed his head. ‘How flattering.’

  ‘And you still have your old calculating powers, do you, Jack?’

  Eliot stared at her. Her voice had sounded suddenly remote and strange. Gently she reached up to a necklace round her throat. There was a pendant hanging from it and she stroked it as though it was a lucky charm, and all the time she stared unblinkingly into Eliot’s eyes. Her own seemed deep, and very wide. ‘Jack,’ she whispered. ‘Jack. I hope you do still have your powers. Because we need them. I am afraid there is something rather dreadful going on.’

  Eliot’s face remained wholly impassive, then he slowly raised an eyebrow. ^We?’ he asked.

  Miss Ruthven nodded. ‘Yes, we,’ she whispered. She held out an arm. ‘Ned,’ she called and a young man stepped out from the doorway beyond the wall of flowers. He seemed very young, as young as Miss Ruthven, and as handsome as she was beautiful, with fine features and curling black hair. ‘Jack, Mr Stoker.’ Miss Ruthven smiled as she took the young man’s arm. ‘Allow me to introduce Edward Westcote. He is the dearest boy in all the world.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I must tell you; it can be a secret no longer. We are married, dear friends. We are living together as husband and wife.’

  I was stunned, I freely confess, and for a moment I hardly knew what to say. Eliot, however, did not seem surprised in the slightest – indeed, appeared almost to have been expecting some such announcement. ‘My congratulations,’ he said. ‘Mrs Westcote.’ He kissed – I can call her Miss Ruthven no more, so let her be Lucy henceforth – he kissed Lucy on her cheeks. Then he shook Westcote’s hand.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I echoed.

  ‘Mr Stoker,’ Lucy asked anxiously, ‘you are not angry, I hope?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I am delighted for you. It is just that …’ I paused. ‘I am surprised, I suppose, that you have kept it secret from me.’

  ‘But, dear Mr Stoker, nobody knew.’

  ‘Why, though? I would not have minded.’

  A faint shadow passed across Westcote’s face. ‘You would not,’ he said, holding his wife’s arm, ‘but there were others, Mr Stoker.’

  ‘Indeed?’ asked Eliot, angling his head. He stared at Westcote unblinkingly, then at Lucy. ‘I cannot believe that Arthur would have objected.’

  ‘He did not,’ Lucy answered.

  ‘Then why the need for secrecy?’

  Lucy glanced at her husband, then at me. ‘You will remember, Mr Stoker,’ she said, ‘that for several months, some time back, I was very ill.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. You had just begun here, as I recall. The delay it inflicted upon your career was a great pity.’

  ‘And yet I was here long enough to have met Ned.’ She looked up at her husband and blushed prettily. ‘When I fed ill, he proved to be my constant nurse. My resolve to become his wife was forged during those long months of seclusion. My brother – and yes, you are quite correct, of course, Jack – my brother Arthur did not object at all.’

  ‘Then I fad to see what the problem was.’

  ‘Arthur was killed, Jack. He was murdered before our engagement had even been announced.’

  Eliot stared at her. ‘I am sorry, Lucy,’ he said at last. ‘Very sorry.’

  ‘I know, Jack,’ Again, she reached to stroke the pendant which was hanging from her neck. With her other arm, she clung tighter to her husband. ‘After his death – you will know this, perhaps – George Mowberley became my guardian.’

  Eliot frowned. ‘But again … I do not understand. George was always the most tolerant of men, and he adored you. He could not have objected either, surely?’

  ‘No.’ Lucy paused. ‘But Lady Mowberley did.’

  ‘Ah.’ Eliot nodded slowly. ‘I should have guessed. But why does she…’

  ‘Why does she hate me?’ Lucy interrupted with sudden passion. ‘I don’t know, Jack, but she does. At first she seemed very kind, as she is to almost all the world, but then, when I fell ill, she wouldn’t even visit me – not once, no
t for all that time I was sick. And when I was recovered and she had learned about Ned, again she was cold, even angry with me. She refused him entry into her house.’

  Eliot glanced at Westcote. ‘What did she have against you?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Westcote replied. ‘I have never even met her.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘It was not Ned she was hostile to, but me.’

  ‘It seems most strange,’ said Eliot thoughtfully. ‘Lady Mowberley struck me as being a charming woman.’

  ‘And so she does almost everyone.’

  Eliot’s frown deepened, and he stared up at the couple as they clasped each other’s arms. ‘Very wed, then. I can understand that her opposition was distressing to you both. Did it truly matter, though? Surely it was George who was the guardian?’

  ‘It is Lady Mowberley who is rich. She controls the purse-strings. Jack, you remember how deeply in debt George always was?’ Lucy smile faintly. ‘He is not prepared to risk contradicting his wife.’

  ‘Ah.’ Eliot thought, then nodded slowly. ‘Yes, that sounds plausible.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ agreed Lucy, ‘utterly. And so you see, Jack, we really didn’t have a choice in the matter. If we were to be married, it had to be done in secret. It had to be. And we had already waited for almost two years. And we were so absolutely in love. We simply couldn’t have waited another day.’

  Eliot smile faintly. ‘Of course not’ He glanced at Westcote. ‘And what about you, sir? Do your parents know?’

  Westcote’s brow darkened faintly. ‘My father is in India,’ he said after a pause. ‘I have not yet had the chance to inform him. Naturally, in due course, I shad do so.’

  Eliot studied him attentively, angling his head in the distinctive way he had, so that he looked rather like a kestrel observing a vole. ‘And your mother?’ he asked slowly.

  Westcote swallowed. ‘My mother …’ he said, and then his voice trailed away and he swallowed again. He looked up. ‘My mother, I regret to say, is dead.’ Lucy moved closer to him and pressed his hand; Westcote continued to stare straight ahead. ‘She disappeared some two years ago with my sister. They were kidnapped by native tribesmen in the Himalayas. My sister’s corpse was never found, but my mother’s was. She had been left unburied on a mountain track; she had been drained of her blood, and her throat had been cut. It was the most terrible thing, Dr Eliot. Terrible!’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Eliot after a pause. ‘Forgive me for asking. I should not have done.’

  ‘You were not to know,’ Westcote replied.

  ‘No,’ said Eliot. ‘Of course I was not’

  ‘Indeed,’ Westcote went on, staring down into the eyes of his wife, ‘it was the pain of my loss which drew me closer to Lucy. You seem an old friend of hers, Dr Eliot. You will know then that she is an orphan, and that her own father too disappeared and was killed. Forgive me, my dearest Lucy, for touching on such a theme, but that is after all why we are here, is it not?’

  Lucy met his ardent gaze, but made no reply.

  ‘Lucy!’ Westcote sounded almost desperate now. ‘You are going to tell me, aren’t you?’ He turned to us. There is some danger threatening her, I know that there is. Her father was killed, drained white of his blood just as my own dear mother was. Then her brother, last year, suffers the very same fate. It is not too much, I think, to talk of a curse – a curse on the House of Ruthven. And now Lucy has some secret dread, and she will not talk to me of it, even though I am her husband and would die for her!’

  Lucy continued to stare deep into his eyes. ‘My darling,’ she whispered, ‘I was wrong to keep it from you.’ She reached up to stroke his tousled hair; then she kissed him gently and turned back to us.

  ‘Ned is quite right,’ she said, her voice very soft and low. ‘I have seen something terrible.’ She gestured towards Eliot. ‘He knows what’

  Eliot’s face remained impassive but his eyes, I saw, were glittering and alert.

  ‘It was very clever of you, Jack, to deduce that it was I who had written to Lady Mowberley that George might be dead.’

  Eliot shrugged. ‘It was simple,’ He reached for a letter left on Lucy’s dressing table and I recognised the same one he had written that morning. He turned the sheet of paper round. ‘You see, Lucy. Powder. Your own letter to Lady Mowberley had the very same marks.’

  Westcote was staring at Lucy in astonishment. ‘You wrote to her?’ he asked. ‘You wrote to that …’ His indignation prevented him from finding a word. ‘But Lucy – why?’

  Lucy stared round the room and then, smoothing out her skirts, she sat down. I turned to leave, for I sensed that she was preparing to make some private revelation, but she held up a hand and asked me to stay. ‘I want you to understand why I have been upset just recently, Mr Stoker. And especially over the past few days. I know I have not been easy company.’

  She looked up into her husband’s eyes. ‘But it is not myself I am afraid for, dearest boy,’ she said. ‘Do you truly think I would have hidden such a thing from you? No, Ned – never. But I am afraid – terribly afraid – for George Mowberley.’

  Eliot stretched out his long fingers. ‘Ah yes,’ he murmured, ‘George.’ He clasped his fingers together again, then rested his chin on them and stared at Lucy imperturbably. ‘So, then,’ he said. ‘His murder. Tell me what you saw.’

  ‘Murder!’ I exclaimed.

  Eliot nodded slowly. ‘It was murder, was it not, Lucy, that you claimed to have witnessed?’

  Lucy stared past us. She began to stroke the pendant at her throat, then she nodded slowly. ‘I think so,’ she said.

  Only think?’ Eliot frowned.

  ‘There was no body, Jack.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Intriguing. Then what did you see?’

  ‘He was at a window.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It looks out over Bond Street. I was walking there two days ago. I had dreamed the night before … about my brother’s death – and that George was threatened by the same ghasdy fate. That will sound stupid, Jack, I know, but I had been very affected by the nightmare, for it had seemed exceedingly real. I had even written George a letter, describing it to him, and then I decided very late that a letter would not suffice. I had to see him.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Eliot, ‘but why in Bond Street?’

  ‘There is a jeweller’s shop. It is run by an old valet of George’s. When my relations with Lady Mowberley were particularly bad, I often used to meet George there.’

  ‘What number?’

  ‘Ninety-six.’

  Elliot nodded, and gestured at Lucy to continue with her tale. She was still stroking the pendant, but her voice now was unhesitant and perfectly clear. ‘It was quite late,’ she said. ‘We had been rehearsing hard. When I arrived at Headley’s – that is the name of the jeweller’s shop – I found that it was closed. I stepped back to look up at the top storey of the budding above the shop, for that is where Mr Headley and his wife have their rooms, and I wanted to see if I could make out a light. But their windows were dark, and I was just about to turn and walk back up the street when my eye was caught by movement from the storey below. I glimpsed the figure of a man silhouetted against the window frame. He saw me; he staggered forward and pressed his face against the pane. He seemed very pale and his eyes were staring terribly, but it was George, I know it was, I have no doubt in my mind. He seemed to be calling out to me, but then I saw hands pull him back and some cloth was pressed over his mouth. He struggled free and I saw that his chin was covered with blood, but then the cloth was clasped to his mouth again and I saw him slump. Then the light went out. I saw nothing more. I hammered and hammered on the door that led up to the floors above the shop, but there was no response, and so I turned and called out to a policeman.’

  ‘A moment, please.’ Eliot held up a hand. ‘You remained standing by the door all this time?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy.

  ‘No one could have left through the
doorway without your knowing it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And there is no alternative exit from the budding?’

  ‘No, none at all.’

  Eliot nodded. ‘Very good. That is a matter of obvious importance, then.’ He folded his hands. ‘Now – you were telling us how you called out to a policeman, I believe.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy, her eyes burning bright. ‘I told him what I had seen. He listened to my story politely enough, but he must have thought that I was being hysterical, for there was no urgency in his actions, and as he questioned me, I could detect the hint of doubt in his voice. He came back with me to Headley’s, however, and using a piece of wire he unlocked the door to the flats above. Pushing past him, I hurried up the stairs and came to a second door. I rattled it, but it was locked. I called out to the policeman to hurry, but as I did so I heard the sliding of a bolt and the door was opened to me. A servant – I say a servant but his voice, when he spoke, seemed a gentleman’s – asked me if he could be of any help. For a moment I was struck dumb; the servant’s eyes seemed unspeakably cruel, like a rattlesnake’s, and his breath was revolting, so vile that it seemed almost to stink of chemicals. He asked me again if he could be of any help; but by now I had recovered my sense of urgency, and I slipped past him to see if I might surprise the murderer. But the room into which I had come was deserted, without any sign of violence or bloodshed at all, and indeed seemed the very image of undisturbed luxury. Only an opera cloak flung untidily over the back of a fauteuil seemed out of place; and that was scarcely proof of a brutal killing. I began to worry that I had behaved rather foolishly.

  ‘The policeman, who had joined us by now, was clearly of a similar mind. He informed the servant of what I had seen, but as he described it, he made no attempt to make it sound even faintly plausible. A broad smirk spread across the servant’s face. “I am afraid,” he said with a low, hissing chuckle, “that the Master is absent at present, but the Mistress is here. I could inquire of her, if you wish, whether she has committed a murder recently?” He tittered again, and his whole body seemed to twist and writhe with his amusement; then he turned and, beckoning the policeman, led him through a door. I was left in the front room alone.