by Joan Smith
He knocked at the door, to be admitted into an entrance hall where the lavish hand of Googie was already obvious. Rafts of freshly cut flowers, secured no doubt at an extravagant cost in December, littered the area. Roses perfumed the air, and to provide the occasional oasis of green, potted palms swayed beneath wedding cake ceilings.
A sable cape was thrown carelessly on a gilt chair, with a feathered concoction tossed on top of it. It was a rather prominent feature of the Palgrave household that though they hired an exorbitant number of servants, and nagged at them endlessly, things somehow never got done as they did in a better-run establishment. Animals of all sorts—cats, dogs, monkeys—ran tame through their various homes. The married couple themselves behaved like children, tossing their belongings about, leaving cups of cocoa or glasses of wine behind them on tables to be spilled, kicking off their shoes in the middle of a room, littering invitations and letters in a trail behind them, and sending any servant who came to tidy up off on some other errand.
From beyond an archway, the unmistakable sounds of domestic squabbling were overheard. Not about money—never about money in this lavish household—but the equally important matter of partying. ". . . may see these dull Englishmen any time, while a Russian tsar . . ." Harvey’s strident little voice was pointing out. Excellent! They were at it over the subject of which camp to throw themselves into.
“Lord Moncrief,” the butler announced, and the argument came to an abrupt halt.
“Tatt will know,” Lady Palgrave said. “He has been here forever. Darling Tatton, what a pleasure to see you again!” she said, gliding forward with her arms extended to embrace her ex-suitor on the cheek, while a cloud, invisible but highly apparent to the nose, washed along with her. Vaguely musklike, a heavy perfume. Some shimmery, diaphanous billows of a blue-gray gauze swathed her body and blew behind her, as though Botticelli had designed her an outfit to pose for one of his graces.
Moncrief blinked twice at her cropped halo, but accepted the peck on the cheek, and returned it. “Lady Palgrave, Harvey,” he said, with a nod to his cousin, then he glanced around the spacious chamber enviously. “Nice place. You were extremely fortunate to have found it, so late in the season."
“Beastly little hole really, but then people are putting up in cupboards and attics, and it is the best we could do at short notice,” Harvey replied. “The location is good. Well, Tatt, you must tell us what we have been missing, stuck off in England all these months.”
“You heard the news?” Googie asked him, with her lids drooping in a way to indicate either lust or grief. With her spouse so close at hand, Moncrief concluded she referred to her miscarriage.
“I did, and was extremely sorry to hear it,” he replied.
“When did you hear? Before we got here?” she asked eagerly, rallied to discover that though absent, she had been remembered, and spoken of.
“Rumors before that time, confirmed last night at the Hofburg,” he lied amiably.
“Everyone was so sweet about it,” Googie told him, swaying to a sofa to languish against a bank of velvet cushions. “Gentz—the Secretary to the Congress you must know—consoled with me for full ten minutes, and Prince Metternich recommended his own family physician to tend me while I am here. In case of a recurrence, you know,” she added, as she was not completely happy to have ceased being an invalid so early.
“I trust there will be no recurrence of the malady till you find yourself enceinte again,” Moncrief replied, taking up a chair between the two.
“Ah, how little you men know about the travails of childbearing,” she accused sadly.
“She’s got us there, Tatt,” her husband pointed out.
“Indisputably.”
“I shall just take it easy and recuperate,” she assured them. “One can relax as well in Vienna as at home in England. Lud, there is nothing going on there at this time. Tell me, Tatt, Harvey and I were just discussing it, and would like your opinion. Which hostess is held in higher repute, the Princess Bagration, or the Duchesse de Sagan? We met Wilhelmine last night at the Hofburg, but it seems to me everyone there spoke of Bagration, and certainly she has attached the Tsar.”
“Well, the Tsar spreads himself very thin,” Moncrief told her. “Anyone may have him, but on the other hand, Sagan has got Metternich eating out of her hand, and is also on terms with the Tsar.”
"That was not my impression!”
“Oh yes, he shares his time between them. One is more likely to encounter Prince Talleyrand and the Prince de Ligne chez Sagan, for Sagan’s sister Dorothée is niece to the French prince, and stays with him at this time, to act his hostess. But the Duchesse’s parties are very recherché—you will not easily gain the entrée there.”
The married couple exchanged a speaking glance. That easily Moncrief had attained his goal.
“Very likely,” Lady Palgrave said, in a voice of heavy irony. “Tell me, what are all the on dits here? You will have to fill us in. We are completely out if it.”
“When you honor us with your presence, Ma’am, there is only un dit, if I may encumber you with a very poor pun. All the world and his dog speaks of some bauble your husband bought you. A red diamond, or a ruby was it?”
“The Star of Burma!” she answered, waving her hands in glee. “Harvey, love, get it to show Tatt. It is on my dresser—or perhaps Abrams has put it away. Abrams will know where it is.”
Moncrief stared, to hear this legendary gem was so carelessly lying about the house. “You should take better care of it than that!”
“Locked in the vault,” Harvey told him. “Put it in last night myself after we—that is, after Goog fell asleep.”
“Oh, that is why you were gone this morning! I wondered where you were,” his wife said, with a lascivious smile.
“Could have come to my room, you know,” was his answer. Moncrief cleared his throat rather loudly, and looked to the window, where a monkey was swinging from the drapery. “Don’t see why I’m always the one has to go to you. You used to . . ."
“About that vault, Harvey,” Moncrief interrupted impatiently, “I would bear in mind the vault in this house is as well known as a public monument. This was Würtemberg's headquarters a few weeks ago. That tin can behind the painting of Schonbrunn Palace in the study could be opened with a screwdriver. You would do better to keep it at the bank.”
“In my own vault. Brought it with me,” Palgrave said. “Weighs six hundred pounds. Takes three stout men to carry it. I’ll fetch it. The ruby I mean. Anxious to hear what you think of it, Tatt.”
He sauntered from the room, while his wife turned to Moncrief. “Do you notice anything different about me?” she asked, rising from her pillows and patting her wisps of curls, while her blue eyes regarded him from beneath lowered eyelids.
“Certainly I do. A new coiffure. Very nice, Lady Palgrave,” he said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
It was what one particularly hated about Moncrief, that he was neither adoring nor rude, which would have done nearly as well. Rudeness was due to either jealousy or unrequited love. Moncrief was always polite to a fault.
“It has set quite a new style in London I promise you.”
“I believe the Prince was wearing something similar before I left,” he mentioned.
“I am the only lady wearing it! It is said I am the patron saint of hairdressers, for having set a new style. Of course I brought Angelo with me. I could not do without him.”
“And you can save money by lending him to Harvey when you do not require his services,” he pointed out. He was subjected to a calculating appraisal, to determine whether he was being satirical. His bland smile told her nothing. “Tell me, Lady Palgrave,” he went on, “where did you chance to hear of this great ruby? It is odd there were no rumors of such a gem for sale.”
“It was the greatest luck in the world! The very day we arrived—the day before yesterday—we were at a small rout party at Lord Clancarty’s place. The first d
ay you know, we had to resort to our English connections, though we mean to move totally in the international set once we are established. But Clancarty asked us to a small rout to meet some people, and that was where we saw it.”
“Clancarty had it?”
“That old stick? Certainly not! How should he have the Star of Burma? It was a Miss Kruger who had it—an Austrian girl, who came to the party especially to meet us. Her Papa used to be in England, Harvey says, but I don’t remember him.”
“That would be Peter Kruger’s daughter,” he said at once.
“I believe that was the name someone mentioned. We shall be sure to call on them, for they are very good socially, Clancarty says. The girl’s aunt is a Countess von something or other. You must know Maria—surely she is one of the belles of the city.”
“Oh yes, I know her slightly.”
“A thin, doe-eyed girl, with a regal neck. Not in my own style. Harvey, of course, fell in love with her on the spot. Actually it was Harvey who saw the ruby there.”
“Was she wearing it?”
“No, had it chucked in her reticule, and thought it was paste—imagine! Some friend had lent it to her to wear, but she didn’t like it—only took it to avoid hurting the woman’s feelings actually.”
“Just pulled it out of her reticule and showed it to Harvey, did she?” he asked, with his brows raised.
“Not quite like that. She sneezed, you see, and reached quickly into her bag for a handkerchief, and it fell out. Harvey says that even before he lifted it off the floor, he saw the glorious star glowing deep inside it, for the light struck it at just the right angle. And when he picked it up, his fingers were trembling so. He could hardly credit what he held. And then for her to laugh, as though it were a joke for a gem of such a size to be rolling about the carpet. Only of course it did not actually roll. It is mounted in a rather hideous cluster of diamonds—a brooch. I shall have it redone somehow. Too large for a ring. A pendant on a diamond necklace Harvey thinks.” She lapsed into a considering silence, while Moncrief hastily considered that this tale, if true, had all the earmarks of a setup. Kruger was not a name one would expect to hear in connection with such an affair. It was a good, old family.
“Who was it that loaned the brooch to Miss Kruger?” he asked.
“Feydeau is her name. She is perfectly horrid, Harvey says. That is what he usually says when he does not want me to meet his new flirts. She is French—Mademoiselle Feydeau, come to the city for the Congress. Nothing is known of her. She does not move in the best circles. In fact, she does not seem to move at all, from what I can discover. No one knows her.”
Palgrave returned, dangling from his fingers the ruby, which hung on a link from the diamond-clustered brooch. “Here she is,” he said, handing it to his cousin. “A beauty, ain’t she? Hard to credit finding a dark ruby of such a size without a flaw. I’ve had it to a jewel merchant, and he agrees with me I have got a real bargain.”
Moncrief accepted the jewel and walked to the window to examine it. Even without the aid of a glass, he could see the telltale star twinkling in the depths of the stone. “Pigeon-blood red. The best sort,” Palgrave pointed out, with a satisfied sigh.
“How much?” his cousin asked.
“Five thousand pounds.”
Moncrief raised his brows, this time in congratulations. “Cheap at the price. The only detail to concern us now is whether Mademoiselle Feydeau had the right to sell the stone. Is it stolen, in other words.”
“Shouldn’t think so. Mean to say, the gel thought it was only paste. Could have got it from her for an old song if I’d been dishonest.”
“How did she come by it?” Moncrief asked.
“Somebody gave it to her. Wouldn’t say who, but I figure it was a man. She thought from the size of it, it must be a fake. She don’t know a thing about jewelry, to tell the truth. She was wearing a cheap strass glass ring that she thought was a diamond. It wouldn’t cut butter, let alone glass.”
“You know, of course, where this ruby comes from?” he asked.
“I know what old Binder told me—the jeweler I took it to for appraisal. Says it’s from Burma, but has been cut by a European craftsman. He thinks maybe it was cut some few years ago, for it ain’t just as well done as they do it nowadays.”
“You have not heard any other rumors?”
“You mean what Chabon is saying, about it being part of the French crown jewels? Daresay he may be right.”
“A star ruby of this size—there aren’t many of them. There was one in that collection that was stolen in France. It is a great pity you were taken in, but I believe I can get your money back for you . . .” Moncrief began in a matter-of-fact voice, hoping to settle the matter in this facile fashion.
“I don’t want my money back!” Palgrave said at once. “What I mean to do is try to find the Blue Tavernier diamond, to go with the ruby. If the ruby’s here, who is to say the blue diamond ain’t? I promised Googie a blue diamond. Seems to me, Mademoiselle Feydeau’s friend was connected with that robbery in some manner, and she may have a line on other items of interest to me."
“Did you ask her?”
“Didn’t know where this little sweetheart came from at the time,” he replied, lifting the brooch from his cousin's fingers, to caress.
“That would be very foolish, Harvey. The gems are stolen. They must certainly be returned to France. Whether you ever get a penny of your money back is a moot point. You know how slowly the mills of the government grind. There will be a bill required to arrange the matter. The Whigs will raise a hundred points of order to slow its passage . . ."
“Finders keepers,” was the simpleminded refutation.
“Possession is nine points of the law,” his wife added, in a self-righteous manner. Then she arose to glide towards her husband and take the brooch from him, to dangle in a beam of light from the window, with a possessive smile on her face.
“I would not involve myself in such a messy and illegal business for a wilderness of monkeys,” Moncrief persisted. “Why should you pay out huge sums to sully your name, buying stolen jewelry, when there is such a quantity of beautiful and legal stuff floating around? Every hostess in town is at the bottom of her purse, to finance the lavish parties that occur every day and night. Sagan herself has her emeralds up on the block. These jewels in particular I would avoid. Stolen from a monarch, you know, increases the seriousness of the affair.”
“Rubbish!” Lady Palgrave said, with strong feelings. “Harvey had the whole story from a book in the library. He went and got it as soon as those stories began circulating, and half the stuff in the French king’s collection was stolen from someone in the first place. The blue diamond, for instance, was robbed right out of a statue in India. How can the Frenchies have the nerve to demand back a diamond that they stole in the first place?”
“Louis did not steal it, but bought it from Tavernier.”
“Well Harvey did not steal my ruby either, but bought it from Mademoiselle Feydeau,” was the reply to this effort.
Moncrief drew a deep breath and settled down for a long argument. “The thing is,” he began, knowing before he spoke that patriotism was a poor weapon to use against this pair of enfants gâtés, “the timing could hardly be worse.”
“Well you’re dead wrong, Tatt,” Harvey countered. “The timing is perfect. If that blue diamond is ever going to surface, this is the time and place it will happen. I tremble to think how close we came to missing it. It was only the merest chance that we came here, for I had thought to take Googie to Greece to recover . . . but then the whole world and his dog is here, in Vienna.”
“Castlereagh foresees some chance of mischief if word gets around that an Englishman has got hold of the stolen jewels, you see. There are extremely delicate negotiations in progress, involving so many countries that some misconstruction is bound to be put on the purchase.”
“Pshaw,” Palgrave said, with a dismissing batting of his h
and. His boyish face looked quite sulky, as a blond curl tumbled over his forehead. “Never heard such a bag of moonshine in my life. How should it make any difference if I want to buy Googie a blue diamond? None of Castlereagh’s business. He’d pick it up fast enough himself if he had the blunt, to stick on that fat wife of his.”
“It is the fact of its being the King of France’s diamond . . ."
“No such a thing! Well, there is no King of France at the moment. It ain’t quite decided we’re to put Louis back on the throne, as far as I can figure out. There’s a rumor Napoleon’s kid is to go on the throne to rule as a regent. Sounds silly to me, but then he’s already been King of Rome, hasn’t he?”
“We must meet his Mama, Marie Louise, while we are here,” Googie interrupted. “They stay at Schonbrunn Palace I understand. How should we go about meeting them, Tatt? Could Castlereagh arrange it, or should we approach Metternich? You are on terms with his wife, Laure,” she added, turning to her husband.
“Marie Louise sees no one. She takes no part in the celebrations,” Moncrief told them.
“Poor thing. I daresay they won’t let her,” Googie replied, then settled back to stare at the ruby, envisioning alternative settings for it, and alternative avenues of access to Marie Louise and the King of Rome.
“If the jewels appear at all at this time,” Moncrief began again, “it will be seen as some chicanery—some political ploy. It has been suggested even that it is an agent of Napoleon Bonaparte who is trying to sell them, to finance his return. Now you must see, Harvey, we cannot have an Englishman involved in it, when we are supporting the Bourbons. It will cast the Austrians in a pucker, and give the Tsar a stick to beat us with, and . . ."
“How in the deuce should tsars and emperors have a thing to do with my buying Googie a trinket?”
“But they have, Cousin. Prince Talleyrand, for instance, is trying to get our help to restore France to its former size and glory . . ."