Riviera Gold

by Laurie R. King

  “Oh God, she’s going over!” I cried—but no. Mrs Hudson stood firm, chin high, looking out over the terrible speed of the water below.

  And a shot rang out.

  But before the wail had cleared my throat, I saw her whirl, upright and controlled.

  It was the corner of my eye that caught the motion of a fall.

  The last thing I saw as the sun blinked out behind the horizon was Mrs Hudson, alone on the deck, one arm reaching out to the choppy waves below.

  “So, Holmes. What made you come after us? And how did you convince Jourdain to summon his troops?”

  It was hours later—it felt like days—and we had made it back to our rooms at the Hermitage. The clock on the wall claimed it was just short of three in the morning. Seven hours, I calculated with difficulty, since the Count had gone over the side of the Bella Ragazza.

  The sparkling reflections had turned into head-lamps from no fewer than three fast boats. The first held Jourdain, Holmes, and one eager boatsman; the second was laden with five large men I would not have cared to meet down a dark alley; the third was packed with what had to be a major portion of Monaco’s police department, including our constabulary guide from the other day.

  The uniforms had swarmed up the yacht’s gangway and taken possession. The crew of the Bella Ragazza—only eight men, it turned out—put on affronted faces and proclaimed their innocence. The police inspector would have kept us on board under his eye all the way back to Monaco, but faced with Holmes at his most imperious, me at my most disapproving, the Honourable Terrence Shields-McClintock at his most affably aristocratic, and an elderly British housekeeper at the end of her rope, he threw up his hands and ordered us all to report to his office no later than ten the next morning.

  We’d helped Mrs Hudson descend to the speed-boat, wrapped her in the plaid travelling rug, and settled her on the bench, with water and the last chocolate bar, while one of our rescuers emptied a tin of petrol into our tank. Terry lit the running lights, started the engine, and turned our prow towards Monaco. Holmes, meanwhile, stood and glowered down at Mrs Hudson.

  “What were you thinking?” he demanded. “That boat is owned by smugglers, under lease to the dirtiest man in Europe, and lent to a Russian Count with some highly questionable finances. What were you doing on it?”

  I broke in. “Smugglers? Who are the owners?”

  “Your old friends the Crovetti family. The registered owner of the Bella Ragazza is one Alessandro Crovetti. Who,” he shot at the seated figure, “just happens to be your landlady’s husband, father of your absent neighbour, Matteo. Both of whom, I have just learned, are currently in a Bahamanian gaol awaiting trial on a charge of smuggling rum into South Carolina. Rum which, by fascinating coincidence, they concealed in the hull of a motor yacht remarkably like the Bella Ragazza.”

  “I’m sorry to hear of the lad’s troubles,” Mrs Hudson told him. “Although Madame Crovetti will be pleased to hear he is safe.”

  “What were you up to with Count Vasilev?” Holmes snapped out, in a cold, precise voice that made absolutely no impression on his former landlady-turned-housekeeper.

  “Dear me,” she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. “I feel so terribly faint. Would it be possible to leave the questioning until tomorrow, in that nice policeman’s office?”

  “I say, old man, p’raps we should let the lady rest,” the gallant Terry put in.

  Holmes snorted at the idea of Mrs Hudson with the vapours, but unbending spine or no, her reaction was not entirely feigned. When I sat beside her on the speed-boat’s hard bench, I could feel her faint trembling. True, it could have been simply the vibration of the motor, but if I was feeling a bit light-headed, how much more a woman almost three times my age who had stood—literally stood—under threat of death, for hours on end?

  Holmes turned away in disgust and hunkered down in the lee of the tiny wind screen, lighting a cigarette and taking care to let the smoke blow in our direction. I wrapped an arm around Mrs Hudson’s shoulders. Her shivers began to subside, her body growing heavier against me.

  Holmes was looking elsewhere, though I was certain he was aware of our every motion. I tucked my head down to speak into her ear. “What were you saying to Count Vasilev, at the end? I thought he was going to shoot you, but whatever you said made him change his mind.”

  The old woman withdrew from my support, just a little. I let my arm fall away, but kept my eyes on her. She, on the other hand, was looking at Holmes.

  “I told him that he had lost. I said that if he let me live, I would make certain that his daughter was well cared for, the rest of her life.”

  I stared at her. She gazed at Holmes, as if he had been able to hear her words.

  “He believed you?”

  “He could see it was a promise.”

  “That was generous of you.”

  She made a noise I knew well, a sound that suggested I might want to reconsider a particularly idiotic idea.

  “Why make the promise, then? What is she to do with you?”

  “She’s a poor thing who does not deserve any more suffering, but she was not why I said it. Kindness can be a weapon, Mary. If one’s timing is correct.”

  “Well, yours certainly was. And you couldn’t have known that he would choose that way out.”

  She looked at me then, her eyes old and tired. She said nothing.

  We spoke no more, as the lights of Monaco grew before us.

  * * *

  —

  When Terry cut our speed to manoeuvre us in through the breakwater, the silence was deafening. Holmes tied us to a set of cleats, and we walked on uncertain feet up the pavements towards town. Terry staggered away in the direction of his dancer friends’ flat. Mrs Hudson prodded a sleeping taxi driver to life and gave him the address of Lillie Langtry. Holmes and I made our way up the promenade to the Hermitage, which managed to summon two heaped plates of scrambled eggs and a pot of respectable tea.

  Thus, when I was fed, warmed, empty-bladdered, and scrubbed free of salt from hair to stockings, I settled into a chair across from my husband-partner. His heels were propped on the hotel’s divan, his fingers tamping tobacco into the bowl of a pipe. “So, Holmes. What made you come after Terry and me? And how did you convince Jourdain to summon his troops?”

  “As to the first, I learned this morning that Count Yevgeny Vasilev was closing down his holdings in the South of France and preparing to move to America. His house is for sale, and most of his possessions already on a ship bound for the coast of Texas.”

  “Really? Who told you that?”

  He examined his pipe.

  “Ah. You’ve been in touch with Mycroft.”

  “Learning that Vasilev was in the process of leaving Europe for good suggested that the killing of Niko Cassavetes had been a part of closing matters up. Which thus meant that anything else in his way needed to be swept up as well.”

  “But I thought we’d agreed that Niko’s death was more by way of a warning shot? That Mrs Hudson would be safe so long as she kept quiet.”

  “If the Count planned on staying in Monaco, perhaps.”

  “But not when he decided to leave? Loose ends, I suppose. So you discovered that and headed back to Monaco. Where you found Mrs Langtry’s note at the hotel?”

  “I found Mrs Langtry herself, who very nearly picked me up and carried me down to the harbour, so urgent was she to send me on my way.”

  “How did you figure out where to look for us?”

  “Perez reached the harbour before we left.”

  “But the yacht changed its heading after he’d turned back.”

  “And I decided that the Count would aim for open water, once the sea-plane had left. Two minutes with the local charts gave us the route that would intercept him.”

  “Though you then had to convince Jourd
ain.”

  “That took slightly longer than two minutes,” he admitted.

  “Holmes, that really doesn’t explain the all-out effort. Terry and I go off in search of Mrs Hudson, and when you find out, you not only pull together a crew of your own cut-throats, but drag in Jourdain and a boatload of his own men as well. In, what—a couple of hours? I’d understand the wish to follow me, but to—”

  He shot me a look of long-suffering impatience. “Russell, you do have the most disconcerting habit of stepping into the centre of things.”

  “I see.” And I did. Sherlock Holmes had panicked, although he’d never, ever, put it that way. His fear for my welfare had him seizing the collar of Inspector Jourdain with one hand—and I’d have paid to see that confrontation—and rounding up a boatload of muscular Irregulars with the other, to send them all racing across the waves.

  It must have been an impressive sight.

  But I didn’t see how the threat to Mrs Hudson was affected by Vasilev’s decision to leave.

  However, he was speaking again, addressing the second of my questions. “As for Jourdain, once the evidence of the drying bloodstains made Mrs Hudson a less attractive suspect, I had to offer him an alternative villain—someone other than Basil Zaharoff. And certainly a smuggling operation run by the Crovetti family is well within his authority. Even Count Vasilev would be a candidate for arrest, if his crimes could be kept separate from Zaharoff.”

  “You think it’s possible that Zaharoff had nothing to do with it?”

  “I fear there will be no evidence that Basil Zaharoff did anything but lend his boat to a friend for the day.”

  “So was it happenstance, that the boat was owned by smugglers? Or was Vasilev involved with the Crovettis in some fashion?”

  “As you know, Russell, I mistrust apparent coincidence.”

  “All right, assume Vasilev was a part of it. Is that stuff we found in Niko’s cave his? Or, Matteo Crovetti’s cave, I should say. And I suppose the fact that Mrs Hudson may have been using that same cave ties her in somehow with whatever Vasilev was up to?”

  “You cannot deny that she is in the midst of it: the cave, the Crovettis, Niko Cassavetes, Rafe Ainsley. Although I believe that what the Crovettis did for Vasilev was a separate matter from the crates of jewellery we saw in the cave.”

  “You do? So what was Vasilev having them smuggle?”

  “Gold.”

  “From…?”

  “The Czar’s gold.”

  “The Czar? You mean that fairy tale that pops up in the papers from time to time, about a train full of bullion that vanished into Siberia?”

  “It was no fairy tale, Russell. But no, I don’t believe this involves the actual Romanov bullion. If our suspect were Basil Zaharoff, who could summon a flotilla of steamers rather than one luxury yacht, perhaps, but everything about this indicates a much smaller scale. This would be but a small portion of the Czar’s wealth, skimmed off the bulk. Such as would happen if, say, a trusted advisor of the Czar managed to divert a few crates of jewellery as it was being moved out of St Petersburg. Those crates might be directed into Odessa, perhaps, then across the Black Sea to Istanbul or Athens. Compact, valuable things that might be transported in the hull of a yacht owned by a family of smugglers.”

  “Athens,” I said. “You think Niko was the middleman?”

  “Niko Cassavetes had a record of working with smugglers before he came here. Let us posit that Count Vasilev either met Niko Cassavetes in Greece, and brought him to Monaco three years ago, or Niko turned up here on his own and then they met—it hardly matters. Once here, one of the men introduced the other to the Crovetti family, and set about the task of moving the gold from Athens to Monaco and from Monaco on to America.”

  “But you don’t think this involves actual bullion.”

  “I imagine the records for the Imperial reserve would be considerably more detailed than the records kept for other valuables. The sorts of personal valuables snatched up as the Bolsheviks drew near. Plate, candelabras, tiaras, you name it.”

  “Personal valuables.” I stared at my reflection in the dark window, a tiny idea gleaming through the fatigue in my brain. Gleaming like a spot of gold amongst the sweepings on a floor. “Such as Russian jewels.”

  “Quite likely, yes.”

  “Golden earrings, of exquisite craftsmanship, with superb gemstones.”

  “Most probably. Why?”

  I slapped down my cup and went to the bedroom, rummaging through the wardrobe into which I had thrust the various garments brought from Antibes. Evening dress, clean blouse, knit mask, jumper with holes—and the dusty trousers I had worn to help Rafe Ainsley. I slid a hand deep into the pocket, felt nothing…then deeper, where my fingers encountered a small lump.

  I held it out to Holmes.

  This earring’s soft gold had been flattened by a careless shoe, but one could see the quality of the work. One could imagine the shape against a long, pale neck in a crowded ballroom, while an orchestra played and snow drifted against the windows.

  “I found this on the floor of Rafe Ainsley’s workshop, on the Cap d’Antibes. Clasp shut, squashed and kicked into a corner.”

  “Russian work. Intended for melting down? Does the man work with gold—or gold leaf?”

  “He works with great slabs of bronze, no gilt that I saw. Although there was an unused crucible…Oh.”

  I took the crumpled shape from Holmes’ palm, my fingers clumsy with exhaustion. “Holmes, do you think Jourdain had time to contact his French colleagues and tell them to stop Rafe Ainsley’s sculptures from disappearing today?”

  His expression told me that it was unlikely.

  “We have to go to Antibes,” I told him. “Now.”

  Eight minutes later, we were hurtling along the Corniche Road in the hotel’s car, racing the dawn.

  On the outskirts of Antibes, we had the driver leave us on the road a distance from the silent foundry. I led Holmes into the yard and around the ancient stone walls, and was working to position the crate oh-so-silently beneath the still-unlatched window when I heard a door open. Alarmed, I looked over my shoulder and saw Holmes, one hand out in a gesture of invitation.

  A key was in the latch. I looked at it, baffled.

  “It was under that rather blatantly placed flower-pot,” he said kindly.

  I didn’t meet his eyes, merely put down my crate and followed him inside.

  “See?” We were ankle-deep in excelsior, in the room with the shiny padlock, and I was showing Holmes one of the stowed-away pieces. “These statues are identical—at least, the ones in this crate are, I didn’t go through the other three. They’re heavy, even for bronze, and there seems to be something odd about the way they’re put together. I’m not really sure what it is, just that they’re different. I think we need to heat up the furnace.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “Rafe’s shippers are due to pick up these crates today.”

  “We can stop that. Playing about in a foundry is no task for amateurs.”

  “I agree. But I don’t feel that we should wait until everyone hears about the Count’s death. Why don’t you go knock up Monsieur Ferrant? I can’t do it—if he looks down from his bedroom and sees a young woman, he’ll just go back to bed.”

  He put the statue back into the crate and turned to the door.

  “Offer him money,” I called. “Lots of it.”

  In the end, it took a combination of threat—that we intended to turn on the gas anyway, because how hard could it be?—and money—enough to buy a new roof or three—to get the smith up and dressed. Even then, his stormy face made it clear that he was not going to help us, not for money or threat.

  “This man, he is an artist,” the man protested. “What will happen if I destroy his work? He will take me to court, my reputation wi
ll fail, none of his type will ever use my foundry again. Non. Je n’le ferai pas.”

  “But look,” I protested, “these are all identical. And we only need to melt down one of them.”

  “Artists—every piece is a treasure.”

  “Monsieur,” I said desperately, “you are being used. By a smuggler. When the police discover this, it endangers more than your reputation.”

  He scoffed, he cursed—but when I held a statue under his nose and asked him point-blank what it was that seemed odd about its manufacture, he grabbed the thing, and went silent. He turned it over in his hands, clearly puzzled, then started excavating the remaining crates for himself.

  Five bronze statues and a lot of excelsior lay on the floor by the time he stopped.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  “The core,” he said. “He left no way to remove it.”

  The amorphous lump filling the middle of the original wax figure. The plaster Rafe had so enthusiastically bashed away at, on the day of the pour. Of course.

  “They do seem a lot of work to remove,” I said. “Don’t people sometimes leave them in? Or, I don’t know. Let the middle fill with bronze?”

  “Leaving the core causes the metal to decay. And why would anyone want a solid piece? He’s not creating a boat’s anchor.”

  “I’m guessing there’s no way of punching through the side? Drilling, maybe?”

  He glared down at the piece in his hand, then carried it through the door to the foundry.

  We watched him set the figure on a work-bench, clamp it in the jaws of a vice, then reach for a chisel and mallet. A dozen powerful blows later, he dropped the tools, running a meaty thumb over the gouges he’d put in the surface.

  Then his thumb noticed something else. He loosed the vice and held the thing, judging its weight. His thumb circled around on the metal.

  “What do you feel?” I asked.

  He pointed at a small flaw on the surface.

  “Does that mean something?” I asked.

  He found another one, then a third. “Core pins. That should mean the piece is hollow. But it does not feel hollow.”