Prince of Secrets

by Paula Marshall

  No, somehow he must find hard evidence against Sir Ratcliffe—and then decide what to do with it. A task which would be difficult for him, knowing that the wretch was being protected in order to avoid a dreadful scandal which might shake the throne and strengthen the powerful Republican movement.

  In the meantime, he smiled and bowed Walker and Bates out, commiserating with them, until Walker turned at the door, leaned forward and seized Cobie by the lapels of his splendid coat. He thrust his face into his and hissed, between his teeth, ‘Mind what I say, Mr Dilley, one false step and this time I’ll see you swing, I swear I will.’

  ‘By God, he’s a cool one, guv,’ Bates said respectfully, when they got into a cab to take them back to Scotland Yard. ‘He never turned a hair when you warned him at the end, just laughed in your face, as usual.’

  ‘Well, as long as that’s all he does, Bates. But he’s a slippery devil—and we’ve not seen the last of him.’

  Once the officers had gone, Cobie rang for Rogers, his secretary.

  ‘I want to hire an enquiry agent,’ he said abruptly, ‘an honest one. I need to find out about one of our business rivals, so I want a discreet man I can trust—and soon. Not next week, not next month, but yesterday. You understand me? Use your connections.’

  Rogers used them to good effect.

  Twenty-four hours later, a dour ex-police officer, as sardonic in his way as Walker was in his, sat before him.

  ‘I want you,’ Cobie said, ‘to investigate a man named Sir Ratcliffe Heneage. These papers—’ and he indicated a report he had written ‘—will tell you who and what he is—and what I also believe him to be.’

  Jem Porter took the folder over, and asked, ‘What’s he done, then, that you want to have him investigated?’

  ‘He likes girl children,’ Cobie told him, eyes hooded. ‘Too much. I want evidence of where he goes for them, who finds them for him, what he does. Anything. And, besides that, anything else which you can find of his doings, good and bad.’

  ‘I can’t say I’ve come across him,’ mused Porter. ‘I’ve heard whispers, nothing more. He’s not the only one with strange tastes, you know.’

  ‘I want more evidence than whispers,’ said Cobie, curtly, ‘and the less you tell anyone else of this, the better. Be discreet, be careful, and I’ll pay you well. Report back here to me while I’m in town. When I go to Markendale next week, you may send me a written report there. Our man will be staying at Markendale, too. While he’s out of town, pursue discreet enquiries among the staff of his London home, and among the underworld in the East End.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Porter. The man before him was paying him enough to inspire loyalty as well as discretion. He said, drawing a bow at venture, ‘These child murders. Will Walker’s in charge of the investigation. I used to work with him. Ever come across him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cobie was his laconic business self, offering nothing. ‘By chance.’

  ‘Good man, Walker. You can trust him. Stood by me when things went wrong. I still see him occasionally.’

  ‘Ah,’ Cobie said, ‘I’m glad you told me. If you do come across him while you’re working for me, don’t let him know that you are. That’s an unbreakable order. Break it, and I’ll fire you on the spot.’

  ‘Right.’ Porter nodded. ‘I know which side my bread’s buttered on. Trust me. Mum’s the word, sir.’

  That was that. Everything was now in train, and he and Dinah could go to Markendale with that out of the way, and hope that Porter might find anything—or something—which he could use.

  Dinah’s understanding of her husband had become so subtle that she knew that something was troubling him, even though to all outward appearances he was still as charmingly in control of himself as usual. She wished that he would confide in her, but was bitterly aware that he would not—because of her youth, she supposed.

  It was while this was worrying her that a few days before they left for Markendale Violet arrived one afternoon, everything about her proclaiming that she was ripe for mischief. The way she eyed her sister, the dramatic fashion in which she sat down and ate her tea, almost as though she were playing a society lady on the stage, warned Dinah that something was afoot.

  Violet began innocently enough. ‘Do you see much of Susanna Winthrop these days?’ she enquired casually.

  Dinah shook her head. ‘No, she doesn’t visit us often, and we have only visited her on a few occasions. Recently, on her birthday, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Violet bit into a cucumber sandwich, and said carelessly, ‘I never really supposed that Apollo would be faithful to you after the first flush of marriage was over, but I didn’t think that he would go a-roving so soon, and quite so near home.’

  Dinah’s hands, hovering over the silver teapot—she had been about to pour them both a second cup—stilled. She dropped them into her lap and said tonelessly, ‘I really don’t know what you are trying to tell me, Violet. It might be better if you spoke plainly, then I would not be able to misunderstand you.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand me,’ drawled Violet poisonously, ‘I thought to spare you a little, but since you wish to bite the bullet, do so by all means. The gossip—and I am astonished that you have not heard it—is that Susanna Winthrop is pregnant, that the father of the child cannot be her husband, and to put it plainly—as you wished—the father happens to be your husband.’

  All that Dinah could hear was the relentless ticking of the clock, and something inside her which said, Is that what has been exercising him all this time? An affair with Susanna?

  Aloud she said, pleased that the Marquise’s training appeared to be able to allow her to withstand this appalling news—supposing that it was the truth—‘Now that I do not believe, Violet. It is my understanding that she has been having an affaire with Sir Ratcliffe Heneage, and that Cobie has been troubled over it. He hinted as much to me.’

  ‘Oh, you poor dear innocent!’ Violet put down her cup and leaned forward commiseratingly. ‘It’s all a blind, can’t you see? I have every reason to know that Sir Ratcliffe’s interest in Susanna Winthrop has been quite innocent, and that she and Apollo have been using it to disguise their own activities. Besides, I am reliably informed that they have been lovers for years, despite the difference in their ages.’

  Could this possibly be true? thought Dinah numbly. Or was it merely Violet being spiteful? Surely Cobie wouldn’t betray her with his foster-sister—and so soon? She thought of their happy days and nights together, but she also thought of what he had said to her more than once, ‘You are not to love me, Dinah.’

  Was he saying that in order to allow himself to be unfaithful? She felt her throat close. She wanted to scream at Violet, to shriek at her, to…

  Instead she said calmly, ‘What nonsense, Violet. I am not foolish enough to expect my husband to be permanently faithful to me. That, I have come to understand, is the way of the world. It puts a different complexion on Mother’s behaviour, doesn’t it? Besides, I don’t believe he would do this to me so soon after our marriage.’

  ‘But what did he marry you for?’ asked Violet triumphantly. ‘Not for love, of that I am sure. And having got you, and turned you from a timid little mouse into someone half-way presentable, what on earth is there to keep him faithful, tell me that?’

  ‘Could we drop this as a subject for discussion, Violet?’ Dinah was proud of the steadiness of her voice. ‘Since it is mere speculation on both our parts, it is all rather pointless.’

  ‘Well, if you wish, but you did say that you wanted me to speak plainly—which I have done.’

  ‘And I have listened to you. Now, would you like some more tea, and perhaps you could advise me on what to take to Yorkshire. I am afraid my Parisian teacher didn’t include that in her training.’

  ‘The Marquise de Cheverney, wasn’t it?’ Violet seemed determined to be as poisonous as she could. ‘Another of his mistresses, one supposes. Really darling, you
were hardly the person to be plunged headfirst into such a galère!’

  ‘Perhaps you might like to describe the kind of person who would be fit for it,’ retorted Dinah glacially, ‘I doubt whether Cobie would have wished to marry her!’

  Violet inclined her head graciously. ‘There is that. I suppose that naïveté would be more his style. No competition for him, no need to worry that you are erring off the straight and narrow. Not yet, any way.’

  Dinah would have liked to throw her tea straight into Violet’s smiling face. Her new self-control precluded any such thing. ‘Are you suggesting that I follow your way of life, Violet? Would you care for me to compete with you for the Prince’s favours? You once hinted that he might like charming innocence. Shall I try to find out?’

  This was all delivered in a tone of cool self-control, nothing shrill about it.

  ‘Oh, we have grown up, haven’t we?’ Violet murmured. ‘His doing, no doubt. Now I wonder how Apollo would react to an unfaithful wife? It might be rather dangerous to find out. On the other hand…’

  ‘On the other hand, let us discuss my wardrobe for Markendale,’ returned Dinah implacably, ‘and soon. Cobie has promised to drive me to the Park this afternoon, and it is almost time for me to go and change.’

  She rose. ‘Perhaps you could write me a letter of advice about what to wear—that is, if you can find time to do so in the intervals of discussing the state of my marriage.’

  Violet picked up her parasol, and said, ‘I’ll do that, my dear. I wonder if Apollo knows what a stalwart defender he has in you. He really doesn’t deserve you, you know.’

  ‘Not what you thought when he married me,’ Dinah muttered mutinously to herself: but she saw Violet to the door as pleasantly as though Violet had not exploded a bomb in her quiet drawing room.

  She would say nothing to Cobie of this and would try to forget it. She had always found Susanna to be quiet and reserved, but pleasant: the notion that she and Cobie could be lovers made her feel a little sick. Nevertheless when they were out that night at a reception and Cobie and Susanna met and spoke to one another, rather distantly, she couldn’t help wondering if it were not all a game—like the one which Rainey played with Lord Brandon’s wife to try to persuade the world that they were not having an affaire.

  There were times over the years when Susanna Winthrop bitterly regretted having rejected her foster-brother’s offer of marriage, made to her years earlier in a storm of passion. She had refused him because of the great difference in their ages, and had told herself that she would be able to live with that decision, be able to meet him and not feel the pangs of frustrated desire—after all, she was a rational person, wasn’t she?

  Yet after his marriage to Dinah, when Cobie had refused to become her lover once she had discovered her husband’s true nature, and the evidence of his perversion, she had felt for Cobie something very like hate. She had taken up with Sir Ratcliffe because her foster-brother so plainly disliked him, just as she had married Arthur for the same reason. She could hardly bear to see Cobie and Dinah together.

  Dinah’s patent happiness mocked her own misery, and although Sir Ratcliffe went warily with her, appearing to be both kind and gentle—bearing in mind who her foster-brother was—her heart remained where it had always been, with him, even if it were her hate she offered him, not her love.

  On one of the last big events of the season, she met Dinah in the long corridor at the top of the stairs in Kenilworth House. It was soon after Violet had poured her poison into Dinah’s ear.

  They bowed at one another. Some devil inside her, a devil which she did not know she possessed—or did it possess her?—made Susanna detain the girl she thought of as her rival.

  ‘We have not met lately,’ she said gently. It was true. Each, for their own different reasons, had been avoiding the other.

  Madame’s training took over. Dinah said coolly, ‘We shall be meeting shortly, I understand, at Markendale.’

  She was ready to move on, but Susanna prevented her.

  ‘It does not trouble you? That you will spend so much time with possible…rivals?’

  What to say to that? She must mean Violet, or herself.

  ‘On the contrary…” and Dinah was still cool, though inwardly trembling, for she had never before realised how beautiful Susanna was, and that her as yet unacknowledged pregnancy had made her even more so ‘…I think that they have to worry about me, don’t you?’

  She knew that Susanna disliked her, and saw at once that, by refusing to be ruffled, she had made an enemy. Susanna said, her voice a trifle shrill, ‘True, but he’s so attractive, isn’t he? Irresistible—as I still know, to my cost.’

  Moved by the devil, Susanna had told Violet that Sir Ratcliffe’s child was Cobie’s. Sir Ratcliffe had laughed about the notion. He had, indeed, put the idea in her head. His own wife, that plain neglected woman, was present at this very reception.

  She was wearing the last piece of jewellery left unsold to pay her husband’s debts, a diamond parure which had been a Heneage family heirloom for two hundred years. He was sure that she would never have the spirit to be jealous even if she learned that he was fathering a child on Susanna, but best to take no chances.

  Susanna saw that her wicked dart had pierced Dinah’s heart. For a moment the true Susanna almost emerged, to say, ‘No, child, I’m lying, forgive me. Far from becoming my lover, he expressly refused—because of loyalty to you,’ but at that very moment she saw Cobie emerge from a door down the corridor. She also saw his face light up, not at the sight of her, but of his young wife—and virtue and pity fled from her together.

  She said nothing to Dinah, but came out from the shadow which had been hiding her from her foster brother, and murmured sweetly, ‘So, there you are, Cobie. May I remind you that you are engaged to visit me tomorrow afternoon?’

  The engagement was innocent enough. She had asked him round to pass on to him a letter from his mother in which she had enquired after him and his bride. A previous letter had gone astray.

  Cobie’s answer, designed to be kind to Susanna, whom he profoundly pitied, and truly loved as a sister, was ‘No need ever to remind me, Susanna, I am always at your service,’ was so couched that it only served to add to Dinah’s misery.

  She tried to forget, to persuade herself that Susanna’s words had borne an innocent meaning, but all that she could think of was how little she truly knew of her husband and his doings.

  Unknown to her, or to anyone else, Cobie had gone to the Salvation Army home in Sea Coal Street which he was funding in his disguise as Mr Dilley, and there he had performed at a summer garden fête designed to raise money to help poor children.

  He had paid for Mr Punch to visit the fête, and had staged his own small show of magic tricks to entertain the children but, however much they had enjoyed it, the shadow of Lizzie had been constantly before him, reminding him that her murderer still walked the earth, secure among the mighty…

  But not, he hoped, for long. He had not seen Mr Beauchamp again, and he told himself savagely that whatever he did to Sir Ratcliffe would be done for Lizzie, and not for such dim creatures who avoided the daylight—whether he was truly his distant cousin, or no.

  He was as relieved as Dinah when the time to visit Markendale arrived—if for quite different reasons. He thought that she looked tired, not knowing that the air of slight constraint which she wore had been put there by Violet’s wicked tongue and Susanna’s insinuations. However much she tried not to be affected by what they had said, the echoes of their conversation with her lingered on.

  She had gone into his bedroom one day, when he was absent, engaged on she knew not what, drawn there by something which she couldn’t explain. The room was as tidy and beautiful as her husband always was. She had opened the wardrobe door, to see his suits hung there, row on row. She knew that two tallboys held his shirts and socks and she opened the drawers to inspect them. Never mind that Giles was responsible for this order, she kn
ew what Rainey’s rooms looked like, and the confusion he lived in.

  There was a desk in the corner at which she had often looked when she shared his great bed with him. That, too, was neat and orderly, as was the stand of books beside it. There was a large free-standing cupboard taking up one wall. Idly she tried to open it, knowing that she shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be prying, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  The door wouldn’t open. It was locked—and there was no key in the lock. The cupboard was like him, Dinah thought in sudden anguish. She didn’t possess the key to his lock—perhaps no one did. She gave the handle an impetuous, petulant jerk, and the door opened—the lock was old and had slipped.

  Feeling like a villainess in a detective story, perhaps one by Mr Arthur Conan Doyle, Dinah looked inside. She couldn’t stop herself. The left-hand side of the cupboard was still locked; the right-hand side, with its deep shelves, stood open. She had no idea of what she had expected to find, certainly not what she did discover.

  On the bottom shelf were packs of cards stacked neatly one above the other—some had been used, others had not. There were several light balls, all of different colours, and large silk handkerchiefs, the colours of which were garish: they were not at all the kind of thing Cobie would ever have used. When she timidly touched one of them, she found to her dismay that as she pulled at it gently, it was attached by one corner to another, and that was attached to yet another…and another… She tried to put them back exactly as she had found them, but it was difficult.

  There were also some very light Indian clubs, painted blue and silver, which she had seen jugglers use, and a silk top hat—but again, not of the kind which her husband would ever wear; indeed, as she looked inside it, it seemed designed not to be worn. There were sticks with brightly coloured feathers on them… There were a number of wooden and metal hoops, and a small pile of paper hats.

  The middle shelf held an assortment of strange boxes of different sizes and shapes—Dinah couldn’t imagine what their purpose was, even after she had examined them. One, in particular, was very beautiful.