The next note was to say that Andrei Nogovski had called to remind her that they had agreed to have drinks this evening. Agreed? I don’t remember agreeing to anything. I said he could call the office and we could make an arrangement, but I didn’t agree… There was a telephone number for her to call. She was peeved at his presumption, yes, but intrigued to hear what he had to say. He had suggested he might have information for her. And of course, she had quite a few questions for him as well…
She took hold of the candlestick telephone and lifted the ear piece. Then she replaced it. No, she didn’t have time. She needed to see to Delilah first. If Mavis had still been there she would have asked her to return Comrade Nogovski’s call and tell him she would speak to him during office hours tomorrow. But Mavis wasn’t there. And neither was Vicky. And Ike was too busy… She lifted the receiver and dialled. A woman answered, announcing that she had got through to the Russian embassy. That was a relief. She didn’t have to speak to him directly. She left a message.
The next note was in a different handwriting – Daniel’s. It read: Adam came to see you. He’s worried about Delilah. We weren’t sure what time you’d be back so we’ve gone to look for her.
Poppy caught her breath. Daniel was with Adam, the man who may or may not be a killer. Although her gut had told her no – he was more than likely a thief – her gut could be wrong; Daniel could be in danger. What was she to do? So much lay out of her control. What else could she do but pray? Oh God, I’m in a bit of a fix. I need your help. Will you protect Daniel, please; and Delilah, wherever she is? Help Daniel and Adam to find her. And Adam… I don’t know what to pray about him… Give me wisdom to know what to do next and who to trust. Amen.
She sat for a few moments allowing the prayer to settle in her soul. Gradually, her breathing calmed and her thoughts slowed down. “Thank you, Father,” she whispered.
Right, it was time to go. No ideas other than the one she already had – to go to Delilah’s flat – had come to mind, so she packed her things into her satchel… Hang on, I’ve forgotten about the envelope from Marjorie. She pulled it out, laid it on the desk and reached for a letter-opener.
Inside was the gift card from the chocolate box in Selena’s dressing room that she had asked Marjorie to have fingerprinted. She read the message again – the message in the familiar handwriting: To Princess Selena Romanova Yusopova, the Old Vic Theatre. From a repentant fool.
Surely it was just a coincidence. Lots of people had similar-looking handwriting. But fingerprints were unique. Modern science had proven that. She unfolded the single sheet of paper in the envelope, stamped with the Home Office moniker. On it were glued four square pieces of card, each with a copy of an inked fingerprint. They were labelled A, B, C and D. Under them was a typed paragraph:
Three full prints (A, B & C) were retrieved from the exhibit, and one partial (D). A does not match any prints on record. B is a match for Count Sergei Andreiovich (P674) and C & D for the same person, Roland Bartholomew Rolandson (T437).
A rush of bile gushed into Poppy’s mouth. She swallowed it, then reached for a glass of water, her hands shaking. She took a gulp, then put the glass down with a clatter. Roland Bartholomew Rolandson. Rollo. The handwriting had belonged to Rollo; she wasn’t wrong. But why? Why had he sent poisoned chocolates to Selena? Assuming, for argument’s sake, that the poison was added later (and, please God, let him not have known about the poison) why had he sent the chocolates in the first place? A repentant fool… To say he was sorry? She had slapped him at the exhibition on Sunday night when he had asked her for a higher kill fee to quash any stories suggesting she was thinking of stealing the Fabergé egg for herself. That was before the actual theft. The chocolates must have been sent yesterday – Monday – as gift delivery services were not open on Sundays. Why was he saying sorry? For being so ungentlemanly? Possibly. But Rollo didn’t usually apologize for deliberately provocative behaviour unless he was hoping to get something in return. What did he want in return? Money? A cut of proceeds from the theft? Rollo was always looking for new ways to make money. He was a gambler. And he always seemed to be in need of more income to keep the paper going.
Poppy took another sip of water, her hands steadier now. She simply couldn’t imagine Rollo as a killer. But how well did she really know him? She’d only worked with him for five months…
Focus, Poppy, focus. There are two other fingerprints on this card. Either of them could be the killer… Yes, but Rollo is still involved somehow… Focus!
Someone whose prints were not on record… that could be anyone. The delivery person perhaps? Not very helpful. But Count Sergei Andreiovich was. She’d heard that name only this morning. He was the father of the Moscow family that had been murdered. What had Marjorie said about him? He had been spying for the British? No, that wasn’t it. They’d been hoping he’d spy for the British. He was a reformist sympathizer who held sway with the tsar. They hoped he would use it to influence the despot into making reforms. But they’d lost track of him. He was last seen during the war, somewhere on the Western Front… Well, it seemed that Sergei Andreiovich was alive and well and right here in London. Another connection. Another Russian. Another potential murderer…
Poppy felt a chill run down her spine. She looked around her. She was alone in the office apart from Ike, his bowed black head and the click-clack of typewriter keys comforting. Should she tell him? Tell him what? That their boss might be a murderer? No, she needed more evidence. She really needed to speak to Marjorie. She pulled out her contact book and found Marjorie’s number. She rang it. No one answered. Poppy let out a long, deep sigh. What was she to do? She closed her eyes and prayed again. Oh God, I’m completely stumped. What must I do? I ask for your guidance. I ask for your help. Please. She opened her eyes and closed them again. It’s Poppy, by the way. I’ve been meaning to go to church, I really have; it’s just that… I’m sorry, God. Can we talk about this later? I promise I will. Can you just help me with this for now? Please. Amen. Then she waited for an answer. Nothing came other than the word “Delilah” – which is what she’d been thinking before she opened the envelope anyway. Should she still go to her flat?
After a few more moments of waiting for divine revelation, nothing else came. She packed her satchel, said goodbye to Ike, and went out into the October night.
CHAPTER 30
On the way to the bus stop, Poppy passed Ye Olde Cock Tavern. Through the window she could see the little and large duo of Rollo and Ivan on their usual bar stools, Ivan laughing at something Rollo had said. It was good to see the sombre archivist so relaxed. He normally wore the tragedy of his past like an old mackintosh, but Rollo somehow had the knack of helping him shrug out of it – just for a while.
It was a strange and unlikely friendship, forged in a field hospital in Belgium during the war. Poppy wondered what Ivan would say if she told him Rollo might be implicated in some way in the death of Selena. She shook her head at the thought. It was ridiculous, surely. And yet… No. She wasn’t going to go down that path just yet. She needed to speak to Marjorie first to discuss the involvement – and possible whereabouts – of Count Sergei Andreiovich. And then of course there was the unidentified fingerprint on the card, which could belong to a delivery person or to someone else. Too many variables meant she was not yet prepared to condemn her editor and mentor. There was every possibility that the chocolates were intercepted by Andreiovich – or the mystery person – and the poison added after Rollo had sent them. That was the hypothesis Poppy was going to work with – the only one that made sense.
Poppy hadn’t been sure if she would go into the pub as Rollo had requested, uncertain whether she could face him with a cloud of suspicion hanging over him. But now that she had a feasible explanation worked out in her mind – one that felt increasingly comfortable – she decided to go ahead. Should she ask him why he had sent chocolates to Selena? To do so she would have to confess that she had kept a piece of evidence secret and go
ne behind his back to have it fingerprinted. He would not be pleased. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
The olde worlde pub was about half full. Over the summer months it would have been standing room only, as tourists from across the globe wanted to have a drink in the establishment formerly frequented by Samuel Pepys and Charles Dickens. But on this late October night it was comfortably bubbling with the after-work conversation of lawyers and clerks from Temple Bar and journalists and publishers from Fleet Street. Poppy approached her two colleagues. Ivan immediately got off his stool, removed his homburg from the seat next to him, and reached out his hand to help her onto it. Poppy smiled. Despite his fearsome facial hair and bear-like build, Ivan truly was a gentleman from a bygone age.
“Can I get you drink, Poppy?” asked Ivan.
“No thanks. I’m not staying. Just checking in with Rollo before I head off.”
Ivan nodded. “Yes, get early night. It’s been busy days. Rollo told me goings on at Oscar’s. All fuss over jewelled eggs. Poor Mr Reynolds. I hope police catch real killer soon.”
Poppy looked at the archivist, remembering his warning about Andrei Nogovski and what a dangerous man he was. She decided to take advantage of his generous mood, and the back-up of Rollo, and probe him a bit further.
“Ivan, yesterday you told me to be careful about Andrei Nogovski. Do you think he might be the killer? Both Selena and Arthur Watts were killed with a rapier and I have –” she thought of what Delilah had told her about Adam’s rapier concealed in a cane, a similar cane to the one Nogovski carried “– possible evidence that he might be in possession of a rapier. Do you think he could have done it?”
Ivan’s jolly mood dissipated in a flash. A cloud came over his face, and his eyes seemed to sink even deeper into their sockets.
“Is possible,” he said, then sipped his beer, turning his shoulder away from the young reporter. Poppy sighed; she had known the archivist long enough to know that that was the end of the conversation. Oh well, she’d tried.
She turned to Rollo, who had almost finished his pint. Poppy hoped it was still his first. She needed to tell him that she was going to look for Delilah. But to do so, she knew both men would start to worry. And Poppy did not want to have to deal with their well-meaning paternalism on top of her nagging concern for her friend. If it turned out Delilah was sleeping over at a friend’s place, or dancing in a nightclub, or catching a reel in the cinema – all very possible scenarios for a girl who dealt with stress by having as much fun as possible – then she would have worried them unnecessarily. No, she’d keep that to herself.
Instead she said: “So I’ve been over my notes and I think the next port of call will be the hospital. Visiting hours are until nine o’clock. I still haven’t had a chance to speak to Monsieur Stanislavski.”
“He the one who get sick from poison chocolates, no?” asked Ivan.
“Yes. But we think they were meant for Selena. Actually, that reminds me: there’s something I need to tell you –”
“Rolandson, you old dog! How are you?” They were interrupted by a jovial chap in a pin-stripe blazer, wide-legged Eton trousers and a boater. “We haven’t seen you at the club for a while. Licking your wounds, are you?”
“Evening, Bertram,” said Rollo. “May I introduce Miz Poppy Denby and Mr Ivan Molanov, colleagues of mine from The Globe. Bertram is a poker pal. A real card sharp if you ever met one!”
Bertram grinned at what he considered to be a compliment and shook hands with Ivan and then Poppy. He held on to Poppy’s hand a bit too long and then started caressing it with his thumb. “Ah, the delectable Miss Denby. I have heard so much about you…”
Poppy pulled her hand away. “Well, pleasure to meet you, Mr Bertram, but I was just leaving.” She slipped off her stool. “Have a good evening, gentlemen.”
“Oh, but Miss Denby, I was hoping we could –”
Rollo jumped off his stool too. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
Ivan wished her a good evening and then distracted Bertram from following her by offering to buy him a drink. Bertram took off his boater and placed it on the stool Poppy had just vacated and asked for a double whisky.
At the door Poppy buttoned her turquoise mackintosh, tucked a stray blonde curl behind her ear and straightened her cloche hat. “Have you had a chance to question Ivan yet about the Yusopovs?”
“Not yet,” said Rollo. “But I will as soon as I’ve got rid of old Bertie. I have, however, asked him about the flowers.”
“The flowers?” Poppy was again surprised that Rollo was so concerned about a passing fancy.
“Yes. I never mentioned it before, but I’ve been waiting for the police to come calling about them.”
Poppy stepped back to allow a young couple past her. The man unclipped his umbrella. It was starting to rain.
“The police? Why on earth would they be interested in Ivan’s flowers?”
“Because,” said Rollo, keeping his voice low, “they’re my flowers, not Ivan’s. I sent them to Selena on Monday morning by way of apology for my behaviour on Saturday night. I was hoping to get her back on side. She is – was – a useful source on the exhibition heist story and it wasn’t doing us any good having her peeved with me. So I sent the flowers. Or at least I thought I did. And I’ve been waiting for the police to come and question me about it. But they didn’t mention it during my… interrogation today,” he grinned, still relishing the drama of it all, “and of course I didn’t mention it to them. I assumed they would have found the flowers and the card, and questioned the delivery company. The card didn’t have my name on it, but surely a few calls around some local florists would have given them the information they needed. I thought they simply weren’t doing their job properly. But then I saw the very flowers I’d picked out in the office and you told me they’d been found in Ivan’s trash can. So obviously they hadn’t got there. I’d asked Ivan to arrange for them to be sent over yesterday morning because I was going to be in a meeting. He’d said he would.”
Poppy looked over at Ivan, who was beginning to lose interest in “old Bertie” and was staring into his pint. Bertram didn’t seem to care and chattered away. He noticed Poppy looking at him and raised his whisky glass with a caddish smile.
Poppy shuddered. He reminded her of Alfie Dorchester, whom she had had the misfortune of meeting on her previous big story. She turned back to Rollo.
“So why didn’t he send the flowers then?”
Rollo shrugged. “He said he’d read in Selena’s Jazz File that she had a pollen allergy. He said he thought it would be counterproductive if I sent them and would only turn her further away from us if she had a hay fever or asthma attack and couldn’t go on stage.”
Poppy absorbed this. It didn’t quite fit, but she wasn’t sure why. There was something at the back of her mind – about Selena – but she couldn’t quite recall what it was. For now though she was faced with another door opening; it was not one she wanted to go through. Someone else whose fingerprints weren’t on file… She looked over again at Ivan, but then averted her eyes as soon as Bertie tried to catch hers. “So he replaced the flowers with chocolates…”
“Oh no, he didn’t bother doing that. He just didn’t send them. Typical Ivan. Making executive decisions without consulting me. He’s never taken very well to being a mere employee. Did I ever tell you about the time – hang on, did you say chocolates? He replaced them with chocolates? Oh Poppy, you’re not saying…”
Poppy looked down glumly at her editor. “Can you walk me to the bus stop, Rollo? There’s something I need to show you. And tell you. And I’d rather not do it here.”
He nodded. “Righto, I’ll just get my hat and coat –” he looked out of the window “– and brollie. Back in two ticks.”
Poppy held the large black umbrella over both of them as they walked down Fleet Street to the bus stop. Rollo had told Ivan and Bertie he would be back in a few minutes, after he’d seen the lady onto the bus
. Poppy wondered if that had made Ivan suspicious. Rollo was not much of a gentleman and wouldn’t usually bother seeing her off like that. And normally Poppy wouldn’t mind; in fact it was because her editor did not hold traditional views about women that he had thought her worthy to accompany him through the tunnel earlier that day.
At the bus stop, Rollo held the umbrella as she scratched around in her satchel and took out the gift card and letter from the Home Office. She took the umbrella back from him so he could read the report for himself. When he had finished, he glared up at her, his face like thunder.
“What the hell did you think you were doing, Miz Denby? You should have told me!”
Poppy swallowed, her throat tight. “I – I – I was trying to protect you. I recognized the handwriting – or thought I did – and my first thought was that the police didn’t get hold of it and get the wrong end of the stick.”
Rollo’s shoulders rose and fell as he struggled to keep his temper under control. “Well, at least you realized it was the wrong end of the stick!”
Poppy nodded meekly, thankful she didn’t have to confess that for a while she thought Rollo had actually done it.
“So then you thought you’d get it fingerprinted. Well, I must say, Miz Denby, I’d take my hat off to you if it wasn’t raining. That showed some gumption.”
Poppy’s heart lurched. Was that forgiveness?
Rollo’s shoulders had settled on his squat frame. “So, there are three potential suspects for the poisoning – correction, attempted poisoning – of Princess Selena. Count Sergei Andreiovich, an unknown person and… well, and me.” He chuckled.
Poppy breathed a sigh of relief.
“And the police haven’t seen this?” he asked.
“No,” answered Poppy. “And I don’t think Marjorie would have let on to the Home Office forensic department where she had got the card.”
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