A Proposal to Die For

by Vivian Conroy

  Her friendly face scrunched up in a pained expression. ‘It is just that when you get older you forget things. You need reminding. I have Oksana to remind me. But she is often just like me. She misplaces things and can’t help me find them.’

  ‘Had she misplaced this?’ Dubois asked.

  Alkmene shot him a scorching look. He was supposed to observe, give her the chance to handle this.

  The countess nodded. ‘I asked her just the other day where it was and she said she had seen it in some place and she would find it back, some time, and she looked but she never turned it up again. I forgot about it again, until you came here now and… Where was it?’

  ‘In the theatre.’ Alkmene watched the countess closely.

  Her eyes went wide. ‘The theatre? But…I am sure I had not worn it to the opera that night. No, most certainly not. I wore my dark blue dress with the diamonds. This doesn’t go with that. I am sure I had not worn it. How could I have lost it there?’

  ‘We did not say you lost it there,’ Dubois said. ‘There it was found.’

  The countess looked even more confused now. She fidgeted with her hands, turning one of her bejewelled rings around and around. ‘It must have fallen in the seat or on the floor.’

  ‘How if you did not wear it?’

  ‘Perhaps it was in my evening bag. My husband always says I carry too many things around in my bag and that I will pull out my handkerchief and lose something because it gets torn out and it falls and… Did you get your handkerchief back?’

  Dubois smiled. ‘Lady Alkmene was nice enough to offer to launder it for me. With her own two hands. I am really curious to see the result.’

  The countess perked up. ‘Me too. I wouldn’t know how to launder a thing, you know. I have never had to.’

  Alkmene smiled quickly. ‘I do not think your brooch was pulled out of your bag and fell to the floor. It was stuck in the curtain. On the far left of the box.’

  The countess frowned. ‘In the curtain? Stuck? How can that be? I do not sit on the left side. That is Oksana’s place.’

  Dubois said, ‘It was not just stuck actually. It was consciously fastened in the curtain. Like uh…the curtain had been turned inside out and fastened with the brooch. It was a change one could only spot if looking closely. Or knowing what to look for.’

  The countess pulled up her narrow shoulders. ‘I would not have noticed. I never pay much attention to the curtains and things. I am busy looking at the performance. And the people in the other boxes, I confess. There is a strong temptation to look at people while you do have your opera glasses with you. But I never sit on the left.’

  ‘Could Oksana Matejevna have put the brooch in the curtain?’ Dubois’s voice was tense. ‘On purpose. Like to give it to someone else?’

  The countess stared. ‘Oksana Matejevna doesn’t know a soul here. She speaks nothing but Russian. She is always afraid to be left alone. She…’ She fell silent.

  ‘Yes?’ Dubois prompted. ‘Do you remember something?’

  ‘Well, that night at the theatre she did leave me. She went back to the box alone. She claimed to have forgotten her shawl. She is always fussing with some shawl to keep draught off her shoulders. Her shoulders and her neck get stiff, she claims, and she can’t do a thing. She is very fussy in that respect. She had left the shawl, she said, and she went back to fetch it.’

  ‘So she could have put the brooch in the curtain then?’ Dubois pressed.

  ‘Yes, but why would she? It is my brooch. A family heirloom.’

  The countess’s face turned red with sudden anger. She rose and pulled the bell cord by the fireplace. She stood up straight, her eyes flashing. As soon as her maid entered, head down, shoulders slumped, she barked, ‘Oksana Matejevna, what have you done now?’

  A stream of Russian followed.

  Alkmene couldn’t understand a word, but the tone was crystal clear. The countess was not pleased with her servant’s behaviour and was explaining that to her, in no uncertain terms.

  Chapter Eight

  Dubois leaned over to Alkmene and said softly, ‘She doesn’t look guilty.’

  Alkmene studied the mousy woman and had to admit he was right. Oksana stood up straight and let the stream of words flow over her, without wincing or fidgeting.

  ‘Perhaps she is used to such tirades and doesn’t even hear the words any more,’ she suggested, thinking back on her own childhood where the nanny had tried to explain dangers to her and she had just stood and pretended to listen while her mind had been on her next adventure. Free spirits rarely took advice well. Let alone reproaches.

  ‘She looks like she is in full battle mode,’ Dubois whispered again. ‘I wonder if she will actually talk back.’

  Indeed, when the countess had ended, with a stamp on the floor to underline her point, Oksana began to speak, so fast it sounded like water rushing: wshwshwsh…

  Alkmene wished she knew a little Russian just to get the gist of it. Was this a confession?

  Was it a defence?

  Was it…

  The countess turned to them. ‘Oksana says you have come here to accuse her wrongly. That you do this because she is a foreigner and foreigners are always suspected. She claims to know nothing about the brooch and how it got in the box curtain.’

  ‘And she doesn’t know anything either about going into the Metropolitan hotel and asking for information about the American actress Evelyn Steinbeck?’ Dubois said in a cold tone.

  Oksana blinked rapidly.

  Alkmene was sure she had at least understood something of what he said, but it might just have been the names Metropolitan and Evelyn Steinbeck. They were of course familiar to her, so the response might merely be to them.

  The countess looked puzzled. ‘What do the hotel and that American heiress have to do with my brooch?’

  ‘When we were in the tea room together,’ Alkmene picked up the thread of interrogation, ‘and you sent Oksana Matejevna off to go to the dressmaker’s ahead of you, what did you tell her exactly? Did you ask her to go to the hotel across the street and inquire about Ms Steinbeck?’

  The countess looked puzzled. ‘Of course not. What for? I hardly know Ms Steinbeck.’

  ‘Still,’ Dubois said, ‘she went there and paid a bellboy for information. I suppose with your money.’

  Oksana Matejevna took a step forwards as if she wanted to say something to her defence. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes flashed. But she kept her thin lips pressed together.

  The countess looked at her and asked a question in Russian.

  The maid shook her head.

  Dubois laughed. ‘Come on, I saw her there. Lady Alkmene here can confirm I am telling the truth. We both saw her there.’

  Alkmene quickly explained, ‘I went after Mr Dubois to give back his handkerchief like you had asked me to. We happened to see Oksana Matejevna talking to a bellboy and offering him money. I saw it clearly; there can be no mistake.’

  Dubois said soothingly, ‘I do not dislike foreigners. Most people consider me a foreigner so I should know what prejudice can do. I don’t want to accuse anybody. I am just pointing out that if she denies that, while it is true, she might be denying other things that are true as well. We should get to the bottom of this.’

  The countess turned to her maid again and seemed to translate the gist of what Dubois had said for her. The maid looked at her, then around past the canary cages and icons. She seemed to be searching for a clever reply.

  Then suddenly she clapped her hands to her face and began to sob.

  The countess exhaled. ‘No, Oksana, no tears to solve it.’

  She turned to Dubois and Alkmene and said in an apologetic tone, ‘She often uses tears to get her way, like a little child. But this is too serious to let pass.’

  Oksana muttered something.

  Dubois pressed, ‘She has taken the brooch on purpose. That is not clumsiness or forgetfulness. That is theft.’

  The maid’s head came up, and she sta
red at Dubois. If looks could have killed, he would have fallen on the spot. Russian words lashed at him, probably curses.

  Dubois stood it quietly. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you tell me what you think of me in a language I can understand? You know a lot more English than you pretend to do. Why not drop the pretence now and talk to me? Unless you’d like to tell your story to the police.’

  ‘No police,’ Oksana Matejevna said in a rushed tone. ‘It will hit the papers, and my mistress will be hurt.’

  ‘Oksana,’ the countess exclaimed. ‘You speak English!’

  Oksana Matejevna walked to Dubois and clutched his sleeve. ‘Please no police, no papers. No hurt to my mistress. I did it all for her. To protect her.’

  The countess put her hands on her hips. ‘You stole from me to protect me? That will take some explaining, Oksana Matejevna!’

  Oksana whirled round to her. ‘I did it to protect you, your highness. You are a Russian princess. You should live a sheltered life. You should not be…exposed to police officers and rude questions about your life, and vile reports in the papers.’

  She turned to Dubois again. ‘You are a reporter too. You write up those lies.’

  Dubois shook his head. ‘I never write anything unless I have ascertained that it is true. I do not want to hurt people. I don’t want to hurt your mistress either.’

  Alkmene pointed at a chair. ‘Please sit down and tell us everything that happened. Tell us why you did what you did so we may understand it.’

  Oksana blinked a few times. Then she seated herself and pulled her skirt straight. ‘Last week, two days before we went to the theatre, a letter came for her highness. It was not in the mail. It was…how do you say? Delivered to the door. The footman took it in. I saw it and I took it from him to bring to her highness.’

  ‘And then you opened it and read it,’ the countess said with a grimace.

  Oksana hung her head. ‘I do not deny it. I thought it was strange there was no name on the envelope, no…emblem, no thing to see who sent it. I opened it and read it. It was terrible.’

  Dubois glanced at Alkmene. His lips formed the word blackmail.

  Alkmene ignored him and focused on Oksana, who pushed on, ‘The letter said that you had deceived your husband. That there was proof. To get the proof back you had to give up on something valuable. The brooch was…how do you say? Outlined?’

  ‘Described?’ Dubois scooted to the edge of his seat. ‘You mean, they asked for this particular brooch in the letter you read?’

  Oksana nodded. ‘Yes. It had to be delivered in a certain way. In the theatre.’

  ‘So the sender also knew you were going to see an opera that night?’

  ‘Yes.’ Oksana nodded again. ‘I was so scared. I thought he had been…watching us.’

  ‘He had to have been to know so much.’ Dubois looked pensive. He cast a look at Alkmene, who nodded quickly. After all, her letter had said explicitly the perpetrators had been watching her.

  Dubois asked, ‘What then?’

  ‘I didn’t want to show to my mistress. So I took the brooch to the theatre and left it there in the curtain as the letter had said. I was supposed to go back later and take the proof from the hiding place. But it was not there. I doubted what to do: take back the brooch or leave it. I had no time to think well.’

  ‘So you left it?’

  ‘Yes. I should not have. I am sorry.’

  ‘You should not have read a letter addressed to me. Or acted without consulting me first.’ The countess tried to look angry, but she was half smiling. ‘Poor Oksana, you only did what you thought was best.’

  Then her face set again. ‘Why have you never told me you understand so much English?’

  Oksana hung her head.

  ‘I bet,’ Dubois said, ‘it is much easier to catch all the gossip when people believe you cannot understand a word they are saying.’

  Oksana looked up. ‘It is not always easy, monsieur. They also say things about me thinking I do not understand them. Hurtful things.’

  Dubois’s jaw set. Alkmene wondered if he was thinking about the hurtful things flung at him because he was a foreigner. He was after all half French.

  And a convict at that.

  She was not sure what it meant exactly. She could not imagine him having committed crimes for which he had deserved to go to prison. Did that mean he had been imprisoned innocently? For a good cause maybe?

  On an undercover assignment, arrested by mistake?

  Yes, perhaps he had only been in prison a short while, then released. Maybe they called him a convict to exaggerate and get her money all the easier.

  The countess sighed. ‘The brooch is back now. I am very glad, for it is a dear memory of my parents’ love.’

  ‘And the blackmailers have not been in touch again?’ Dubois asked Oksana Matejevna.

  The maid shook her head. ‘I believed they had the brooch and were happy now. But as you found it right where I left it…’

  Her face scrunched up. ‘I do not understand. Why did they not take it away from there?’

  ‘Something must have prevented them from doing so,’ Dubois said with a frown.

  Alkmene sat up. ‘What were you doing in the Hotel Metropolitan, talking to the bellboy?’

  Oksana Matejevna folded her hands together. ‘I believe the American lady, the one whose uncle was murdered, she is the blackmailer.’

  Alkmene’s jaw dropped. ‘What? Evelyn Steinbeck, a blackmailer?’

  Oksana Matejevna nodded violently. ‘She came to London and then it all began.’

  ‘All?’ Dubois queried. ‘You only had one letter, right? Why would it have come from her?’

  Oksana Matejevna swallowed. ‘The day after I left the brooch in the curtain we go to the tea room, yes, and while I wait at the ladies’ room, I hear two servants talking. They think I do not understand them so they look around that no one else is there and they talk. One says that morning a letter came for her mistress, but the master opened it and then he screamed at her and she cried. It was terrible, the maid said, and the master left the house saying that when he came back, she had better be gone. He had crinkled the letter and thrown it into the fire, but it had not burned completely and the maid had gotten out a part of it and it said something about proof that she had been unfaithful. It was the same letter my mistress had received. The maid said that there was one odd thing about the writing. That a word used was not English. But American. I do not know what that means. English and American is the same, no?’

  Dubois smiled at her. ‘There are differences in spelling. Maybe they meant that?’

  Oksana Matejevna nodded. ‘I believed that if the letters were written by someone American, it had to be that Steinbeck woman. I thought so even more when her uncle died. She must have killed him because he had found out what she was doing.’

  Oksana Matejevna nervously folded her hands. ‘I was scared after the old man was dead. I thought they might kill other people. I had given them the brooch, yes, but what would they do next? So when I saw her go into the hotel, I thought I should ask the bellboy about her. If he could look out who came to see her. She would not be doing this alone.’

  Alkmene nodded. ‘Very smart of you. And did you learn anything?’

  Oksana Matejevna looked at her blankly.

  Alkmene clarified, ‘Did you go back, and could the bellboy tell you anything about visitors to her room?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. She had several visitors. Two ladies, all in black, and a man in a great coat.’

  Dubois sat up straighter. ‘A man in a coat? Old, young, hunched, straight, what?’

  Oksana Matejevna shrugged. ‘The boy said he was…how do you say? Bundled up? I do not know what it means exactly, but he was not to be seen clearly. The boy had no idea who he was.’

  Alkmene looked at Dubois. ‘Can it be the same man as the mysterious visitor to her uncle the night he died?’

  Dubois grimaced. ‘Could be, but if he manages to conceal
his appearance so well, how will we ever find him?’

  Oksana Matejevna sighed. ‘I gave the boy more money to look for me.’

  ‘You mean watch out for new visitors?’

  Oksana Matejevna shook her head. She looked down into her lap. ‘To look through Ms Steinbeck’s things.’

  ‘What?’ Dubois sat up straight. ‘And he agreed to do that?’

  Oksana Matejevna shifted her weight in her chair. ‘I paid him a great deal.’

  The countess tut-tut-ed. ‘You should not be so free with my money, Oksana.’ But there was a half smile around her lips.

  Dubois said, ‘And what did he find?’

  ‘I was going to ask him later today.’

  ‘You do that. Then report back to me. I live on Meade Street – 33 upstairs.’ Dubois rose and bowed to the countess. ‘I am sorry if we caused any inconvenience to your household. But we have to discover who is behind this blackmail. It might also help explain the murder of Mr Silas Norwhich.’

  The countess nodded. ‘Of course. I can tell you that there can never be any proof of me betraying my husband. I have never done that, nor will I ever do it. I love him.’

  ‘They probably feed off people’s fears of being exposed, the idea that where there is smoke, there will probably be a real fire.’ Dubois rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It is strange though that they asked for this particular brooch.’

  He walked up to Alkmene, who still held the brooch in her hand. He took it from her and turned the brooch over and over. ‘Is there anything particular about it? Different from other heirlooms you have? Is it worth more?’

  The countess gestured at him to come over to her. She accepted the brooch from his hand and studied it with a loving smile. ‘It is precious to me because of the memories attached. My father giving it to my mother when they got engaged. It is worth money, but so is most of what I own. I really have no idea why they did not ask for something else.’