“If we took Olga to the Russians’ suite and took inventory of the bathrooms we could sort this,” Glass said.
“She wouldn’t go near that suite.”
“It would have to be when the Russians were gone, but I’ve heard from the floor butler, and they have guards posted again. You won’t be able to get into the suite. Should I call the police?”
“Won’t do much good,” Glass said. “No, I just have to pick one. Ovolensky it is.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Have a word. What else?”
“Emmeline’s been taken to hospital.” Eyre’s shoulders stiffened. “But I don’t know for how long.”
“Grand.”
Eyre picked up his jade elephant. “I want the Russians gone. This is on your head. If they’d left when I wanted them to, Emmeline wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“No, she’d have started an affair with a musician instead, and you’d probably end up with syphilis. Peter, your mistress is going to wreck you.”
One side of Eyre’s mouth lifted. “Olga said much the same.”
“Cut line,” Glass said. “You have some sense of self-preservation, don’t you?”
“Apparently not.”
Glass thought about what motivated the hotel manager. “What’s it going to do to the hotel’s reputation when a chambermaid finds her dead body some morning? This experience won’t stop her. She seemed to find it amusing.”
“She likes a fuss,” Eyre said.
Glass pushed back his chair. He knew the signs of a man too shocked to function. No point in belaboring the issue. “I’m going to confront Ovolensky. There will be marks on the man who did this. Can I make a call to Dent first?”
Eyre pushed his telephone across the desk.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Glass stepped onto the lift. Detective Stone was being dispatched to the hotel. They had the issue of diplomatic immunity to wrestle with, but at least they could have Georgy Ovolensky expelled from Great Britain.
He considered exiting on the sixth floor to check on the princess but couldn’t see the point. Peter had relayed her anger, and he was afraid their next conversation would be her telling him that she was terminating her employment and going elsewhere. He’d have to either propose and send her to his father’s house or let her go completely. This wasn’t the moment for that conversation.
The Russians had posted two guards in the hallway. He had no doubt one of the two top men had beaten Emmeline, for them to put this level of precaution in place. Oddly enough, though, the guards didn’t engage him as he rapped on the suite door. A third Russian thug opened the door.
“Ovolensky,” Glass demanded without any hint of courtesy.
The man shut the door, leaving Glass in the hall, but only a couple of minutes passed before he opened it again. “In meeting.”
“I am next door,” Glass said. “Tell him to come to me when his meeting ends.”
He walked down the hall to order a tea service. When he returned to his room he found his telephone had been installed. He quickly checked the equipment to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. When he was satisfied, he placed a call to the front desk and asked Hugh Moth to send security upstairs to watch the Russians’ suite. Such a relief to stop passing messages through the floor butler. This was the future, running operations from a convenient telephone.
Twenty minutes later, he heard a rap on his door. The tea had come ten minutes before and would be barely drinkable now.
He greeted the so-called Russian trade delegate. “Mr. Ovolensky.”
“Lord Walling.” The Russian rearranged one of his shirt cuffs. His knuckles were reddened. He’d been hitting something, or someone, and he also had a fat lip. That evidence was enough for Glass.
“Come in. Have tea with me.” Glass didn’t couch his words as a request.
Ovolensky stepped in and gestured his bodyguard to follow. Glass stepped neatly behind the door and closed it on the hulking figure’s nose.
“We won’t be needing him.” He gestured toward the pair of armchairs in front of the fireplace, a tea table between them.
“Civilized conversation?” Ovolensky said with an oily smile. “Hoping to receive a report on the delights of Villiers Street? Too timid to visit yourself?”
“I don’t think that is where you were last night, Georgy,” Glass said, pouring dark tea into the teacups on the silver tray as the Russian sat. He liked rich teas but not overbrewed ones. “Milk, sugar, lemon?”
“Lemon.”
He doctored the Russian’s tea and added cream and sugar to his to cut down the tannin.
“What do you think you know about me?” the Russian asked as he peered into his tea.
Glass rolled his eyes and drank. He could have drugged the man but hadn’t.
Ovolensky followed his lead, took a sip, and set down his cup. “Nasty stuff.”
“I’m afraid so. You took too long to arrive.”
“I am not a trained dog.”
“No? I thought you were Stalin’s.”
When intense, it was easy to see the resemblance between this man and his cousin, Ivan Salter, head of the hotel’s security. They both narrowed their eyes the same way and set their jaws.
“Are we going to discuss politics?”
“No, women.” He tilted his head and flashed a cynical smile “As always, it seems.”
“I can assure you, Lord Walling, that you have not heard any shrieking harpies in my suite recently.”
“I’m more concerned with the condition of Emmeline Plash.”
Ovolensky’s thumb twitched where it rested on his leg. “She is not your property.”
“She belongs to Peter Eyre.”
Ovolensky tilted his head. “What does it matter to you?”
“The person who found her is of interest to me—as much as you are of interest to me.”
Ovolensky sneered. “Not your whore, not your concern.”
Glass pushed back his chair and was on his feet before he realized what he was doing. “Emmeline Plash is not a whore but a well-bred woman who isn’t, frankly, very well. I don’t think you understand the social order here. I am a viscount, the son of an earl. Peter Eyre is the son of a knight and the nephew of a marquess. Emmeline Plash is the daughter of a deceased, well-connected businessman. She is the sort of woman who will be protected by me and mine.”
Ovolensky rose slowly, not losing his sneer. “And Olga Novikova, where does she fit into your social order? Because as best as I can tell, she is just a maid and a whore.”
Glass saw red. He kicked the table out of the way, sending china and lukewarm tea flying. Shortbread squares ground under his feet as he rushed forward. He took a wild swing at Ovolensky. The Russian stumbled back, his head stretched back on the stem of his neck.
They moved into the center of the room as Glass slammed his foot against Ovolensky’s, ready to grab his hand in a judo hold. Ovolensky attempted to reverse and clipped his foot on Glass’s. He twisted, lost his balance, and went down.
Glass heard a terrible cracking sound. Ovolensky’s head caught the coffee table in front of the sofa and slid limply. His head landed on the white carpet next to the table. The corner of it was dark with blood. The Russian’s eyes were open.
Glass knelt beside him and checked his pulse. Still beating. He’d never even touched the man. Ovolensky had tripped. But thick blood spread on the carpet around the back of his head. Glass suspected he wouldn’t last long.
Why couldn’t killing Konstantin have been so easy? The brief fight, the one swing, swam through his mind, mixed with images of Bill Vall-Grandly’s last moments. Fighting for calm control while his heart pounded in battle mode, he reached for the telephone.
“Operator?” he said. “Send a doctor to my suite immediately with the head of security. A man has been injured.”
“My lord?” squeaked the switchboard operator.
“I’ve given my orders.” He pla
ced the earpiece back on the telephone.
On the floor, Ovolensky’s lips moved. Glass knelt next to him, but the words were in Russian. He had no idea what the man was saying and doubted it would be of use, but he attempted to write the syllables down phonetically on a notepad.
It took twenty minutes for the doctor to come, accompanied by Peter Eyre, Olga, and one of the day security guards. When Ovolensky stopped speaking a couple of minutes into Glass’s vigil, he called the hotel operator and had them connect him to Special Branch. After that, he put in a call to Quex.
Olga’s mouth dropped open when she saw the corpse on the floor, but other than that, her expression remained serene. None of the three men reacted in any discernable fashion. The doctor shook his head, checked Ovolensky’s pulse, and shook his head again.
“Do you need to be arrested?” Eyre asked with a dispassionate air.
“Never touched him,” Glass said. “I expect those bruises on his knuckles are from the attack on Emmeline. He didn’t explicitly confess, but he in no way denied it either.”
Eyre’s mouth thinned as he glanced at the dead Russian’s swollen mouth. “Thank you.”
“How did he die?” the doctor asked.
“He stumbled over my foot.” Glass shrugged. “Hit his head on the table.”
The doctor’s eyebrows lifted.
“Bloody silly way to die,” Glass said. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow, though. Liked to hurt women.”
The doctor knelt to take a closer look at Ovolensky’s hands.
“He has diplomatic status,” Eyre said. “We’ll need to send word to the Soviet Union’s embassy. Chesham Place, I think.”
“No, we won’t,” Glass said as a knock came on the door. “That will be Special Branch. Let them deal with it.”
“Olga?” Peter said behind him as Glass went to the door.
“I wish it were the other one, but Ivan Salter’s sister has her revenge,” Olga said.
Glass recalled that the plot to bomb the hotel had originally been a simple plan to murder Ovolensky for his crimes just after the revolution. The Salters finally had their parents and sister avenged.
By the time Glass returned with Detective Inspector Dent and two of his colleagues, Olga had a sheet and was about to drape it over the body.
“We’ll need to take photographs,” Dent said, holding her off. “Call for a gurney, Stone.”
“Yes, sir.” One of the men went to the telephone.
“First Emmeline and now this,” Eyre said to Olga as she stood, motionless, the sheet in her hand. “I think you can do with a day off.”
Her eyes were dark pools as she turned to the manager. “I like to keep busy, and I like to earn my wage.”
“I’ll keep you busy,” Glass said. He didn’t like the look in her eyes. “Where is Miss Plash?”
“Still at the hospital,” Peter said. “We won’t be seeing her here at the Grand Russe any time soon.”
Olga caught Dent’s attention. “This man assaulted a female hotel guest last night.”
“So I heard.” Dent stared at the body, as his colleague readied a camera. “A good death from everyone’s perspective but the Russian government. We’ll take a statement from Lord Walling and be done with it, ship the body back to Russia.”
* * *
Late that night, the new telephone rang. When Glass picked it up, he heard his princess on the telephone for the first time. “You have been gone all evening,” she said. The line seemed to make her voice even huskier, her accent more pronounced.
He leaned against the wall in his suite, the telephone receiver against his ear. “I had to make a statement down at Scotland Yard. I also made plans for us for tomorrow.”
“I see.”
“Where are you?”
“Peter’s office. We ate at the Restaurant together. He is starting to feel the loss of his Coffee Room compatriots, so I need to take down my art exhibit soon.”
“I’m sorry. I know you like to visit it.”
“I persuaded him to reinstall some of it in the conference rooms on the first floor.”
He could hear the smile in her voice. “Clever girl. Where are you sleeping tonight?”
“I had thought with Alecia, but she is going to a musical comedy with some of the switchboard girls.”
“I’ll come and get you,” Glass said.
“But you are on the seventh.” Her voice caught.
“I don’t think the Russians will be prowling tonight after what happened.”
He heard her sigh. “They might try to kill you.”
“Dent let two of the thugs examine Ovolensky’s body and the table. There are no marks on him other than where he fell. They showed enough rudimentary intelligence to understand.”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “The Hand of Death is still there.”
“Also, I have my own guard in the hallway. The Russians have pulled theirs back into the suite.”
“I see.”
“I will collect you in a few minutes,” Glass said and hung up the receiver. He double-checked the recording to make sure he had plenty of time on the disk. The Russians had been silent after a flurry of activity. He thought they had drunk enough vodka while eulogizing Ovolensky to quiet even them.
When he reached Peter’s office, he found Olga in her old Vionnet, sitting in one of the guest chairs. She needed something new to wear given how often she went out now.
“Is the hotel shop open at this time of night?” he asked.
“Peter would open it up for you.” She stood and went to Peter’s desk.
“No need to bother him.”
“I have the keys in my handbag,” she told him. “All I need is his permission.” She quickly made the call to Maystone’s, tracked him down, and secured his permission.
“Shall we go?”
* * *
Olga had no idea what Douglas wanted to see at the shop. Douglas was a decisive man, to say the least, but shops didn’t figure into her experience with him. Still, she followed him out in the Grand Hall and unlocked the iron gates and the glass doors of the shop.
Douglas closed them behind him as she turned on the lights. “What lines do they carry for women?”
“Lucien Lelong. Some Patou, Chanel. There isn’t much, but what we do sell is exquisite, whether for evening or sportswear.”
“What do you like best?”
She showed him a navy dress-and-coat combination with silvered designs that looked like keyholes along the hem. Sometimes the seventh-floor guests asked what was in stock, so she kept an eye on the shop’s contents. “I think this is darling.”
“It’s a day look.”
“For evening, I like this Lelong.” She went to a mannequin and pointed at a delicate, embroidered sea-blue dress. It had a square neckline and thicker shoulder straps.
“It’s boxy, but I like the scarf trailing down the back. And the color would be perfect on you.”
His words sounded forced. She suspected he was trying very hard to forget the events of the day. “You’ve turned into a critic,” she teased, tracing the embroidery on the bodice.
“I am a connoisseur of you.”
His eyes had gone hot. She swallowed. “Do you want me to try it on? I can be careful.”
“Is there a place?”
“Yes, a little dressing room.”
He nodded. His voice came out hoarse when he said, “Yes. But try on the navy design first, the day look.”
She took them both and went into the little dressing room. It only had a curtain for a door. She felt oddly exposed, though only her feet could be seen, and Douglas would have had to kneel on the floor to see them. She slid the brighter blue shift on first, then set the exquisite navy coat on her shoulders, and belted the look.
When she stared into the three-way mirror, she fell in love. This was how a modern princess should look. She tilted her head and pursed her lips, an impervious gaze even the dowager empress might hav
e worn. She pulled the curtain away and walked toward Douglas.
He whistled low. “It might be a day look, but it is beautiful. You must wear it tomorrow.”
She smiled. “Peter didn’t mind us coming in here, but he probably thought you needed a new hat or something. I can’t borrow Paris fashion.”
“We’ll put it on my account.” He lifted his brows. “Now go try on the evening dress.”
“You’re going to buy this for me?”
“You need a treat.” He lips curved boyishly. “And it is a treat for me, looking at you.”
Her nipples hardened at his words. She was grateful for the coat, which hid the evidence of her body’s reaction. His smile did things to her. She trotted behind the curtain, having quite lost her grace, though she was careful as she replaced one exquisite garment with another.
She stood on her toes as Douglas circled her in the sea-blue embroidered dress, his eyes heavily lidded and his gaze intent.
“Yes,” he murmured finally. “You definitely need some new clothing.”
“I can’t believe these fit. I used to be quite plump. But today’s fashions are forgiving.”
“It’s been many years since you were plump I’d guess, with the life you’ve led.” He smoothed his hand down her bare arm. “I cannot express properly how beautiful you are.”
“Douglas!” she protested.
“This is all I can do, frame your exquisite face and body with clothing.”
She licked her bottom lip. Her insides had gone liquid. “You needn’t do anything.”
“I want to. I want to see you properly, as you should be.”
Heedless of the expensive dress, she crushed her torso against him and sifted her fingers through his hair. She found his mouth and pressed against him. His lips opened underneath, instantly taking control, though his hands didn’t touch her.
I have to take this dress off. He wasn’t touching her because he worried about the exquisite embroidery. The dress was loose. She removed her fingers from his hair, tugged at the hem of her dress, and easily pulled it up over her slip. When the fabric reached her breasts, he slipped his hands along her torso, moving his thumbs up the sides of her breasts, and pulled the dress over her head. She heard the soft rustle of fabric as it fell to the side. Then his leg was behind her knee, bending her leg so that she collapsed into the fainting couch behind them.
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