Another Scandal in Bohemia (59 page)

During such a face-saving interlude, I happened to glance to the side of the house, where I spied a still, dark figure lurking behind the curtain to the lobby.

I caught my breath, ready to complain that Irene’s terms had been violated. The King should know better by now! Then I studied the man’s figure—for it was surely male. Tall... but as tall as the King of Bohemia? And this figure seemed... thinner.

I almost rose from my seat. Of all the impudence!
That
man had intruded where even Kings would fear to tread. Imagine! Sherlock Holmes... slinking into the National Theater to hear Irene sing! And he said that he was returning to London immediately!

What could one expect from a so-called consulting detective who stooped so easily to disguise, except more prevarication?

I did indeed half rise in indignation, but Godfrey clasped my wrist. “You must not get so carried away, Nell,” he whispered with a smile, “though it is stirring stuff.”

I subsided, unwilling to direct his attention to yet another admirer of his wife; the King was bad enough. When I looked again, the figure had vanished, leaving me with the unpleasant thought that my imagination was at fault.

The cantata finished without incident, though a chandelier swayed during the climactic scene, apparently a piece of elaborate stage business designed enhance the audience’s tension.

Irene sang on, oblivious to all but her role; oblivious to her audience even, as any good performer is, though she knew that she sang for us, and us only. Despite that, she always sang for herself, herself alone.

Afterwards, and after applauding until our gloved palms burned, we went down to mingle with the performers and the musicians on the stage. The King’s generosity had provided bottles of the finest French champagne, with which the company toasted and praised each other endlessly.

Mr. Dvořák roved from group to group, his broad brow sweat-dewed and tear tracks still visible upon his face.

“Splendid, splendid,” he murmured in English, shaking hands with us all and adding to the injury the clapping had done them.

He found Irene, kissed her on both cheeks as a Frenchman would, then swept her into a most unconventional but rather endearing bear-hug.

After receiving the maestro’s tribute, she turned to Godfrey, her face an unasked question. Godfrey went to her without a word, then lifted and swung her in a triumphant circle, refusing to return her to earth, despite her laughter and her pleas and orders, until someone came with overflowing flutes of champagne for both of them.

Allegra had slipped away from my vigilant side and was proving the belle of the chorus members, particularly the young gentlemen, who endeavored to find some common linguistic ground with her, with little success.

I watched and wandered, lost among a chatter of alien language, tired but happy and somehow satisfied. I eyed the edges of the various backdrops swaying above us, and the faint, starlike glimmer of a massive chandelier on high.

I was unaware of standing there, looking up, for very long, but a voice suddenly spoke in my ear.

“Pardon, Miss. English?”

I glanced at a man not dressed in costume, an ordinary-looking man in a jersey and trousers, then nodded.

“Beau-ti-ful setting,” he said carefully, pridefully. “I pull.” He pointed up, then to himself.

“Oh. You... pull the backdrops down and up. Up and down.” I loath language barriers, for I found myself demonstrating my meaning as if playing a parlor game or ringing a bell.

He grinned. “She sing... beau-ti-ful.”

I nodded and smiled, then glanced up again to the dimly glittering chandelier. I found myself frowning. When I looked at my companion, he was frowning, too.

“Big light—down,” he said, glancing nervously to Irene at the center of a cluster of performers. He shook his head.

“Down... too soon, too fast?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Down... bad.” He lifted a forefinger, smiled. "Man come... up.”

“Man? What man?”

He looked around as if searching for a familiar form, then shook his head. “All beau-ti-ful,” he said. With a last nod, he moved on.

I remained, remembering the shudder in the chandelier over Irene’s head, remembering the tall, lean man in the shadows, later gone. I reconsidered the stage man’s broken testimony.

Perhaps Sherlock Holmes—if it was indeed he—had another motive for braving tonight’s private performance than eavesdropping on Irene’s singing. Perhaps he had once again saved Irene from the implacable hand of an enemy.

I moved toward my friends, glancing up.

“Yes, Nell,” Irene said regretfully as soon as she saw me. “You need not waggle your ever-present lapel watch at me. I know that the ball is over and we must go. I have just been telling Godfrey that I wish to depart first thing in the morning. My goal is accomplished; I cannot wait to leave Prague and go home.”

At this news, Godfrey looked as happy as Peter Piper after his wife had retired to a pumpkin shell, but I was not deceived.

Irene suspected the deadly reach of her new foe, whether she realized another attempt had been made on her life or not, and she was eager to withdraw to a safer distance. I heartily, and silently, approved.

Chapter Forty

MY LIPS ARE SEALED

By dawn’s
early light we were all packing like fiends in our respective rooms when the door of mine shuddered to an urgent knock.

“Do you need help?” Irene asked without prelude when I admitted her.

“I can pack better than you,” I replied with utter honesty and an unblinking stare.

If there is anything that Irene loathes more than my supposed tendency to “blurt,” it is my unblinking stare.

“Do not look at me like that, Nell. We will soon be home.”

“You call a four-day railway trip across most of Europe ‘soon’?”

“Soon is relative, as you well know.” She dipped to adjust her black velvet bonnet in the mirror and smooth her three-quarter-length black plush-velvet mantle liberally decorated with soutache and jet beadwork. “It is vital to dress well for traveling,” she noted, turning to eye my toilette. “Which outer garment do you wear?”

“The black silk rep jacket with lamb trim. I decided against the fur-trimmed cloak, as it may be warm once I am on the train.”

“Most wise. You may even find it warmer than you anticipate. One never knows what these European trains will be like. As for your gown, the pink silk bodice is most... appealing and I quite approve your choice of gray brocade skirt and jacket. A pity that you must pierce such splendid fabric with your lapel watch—”

“Thank you,” I said firmly to end her incessant supervision of my wardrobe and appearance. “No one shall see much of me, at any rate, save you and Godfrey.”

“Nell, I have some difficult news.” Irene frowned so deeply that I trembled for her face.

“What?”

“You know that Allegra must meet her aunt in Vienna.”

“Of course.”

“You don’t know that Godfrey and I, after all we’ve been through, desperately require a holiday. I have always longed to see Vienna, and Godfrey insists on taking me there forthwith. He is most... adamant,” she said in a pleased tone. “And it is the one thing that the King once promised me that Godfrey can fulfill with ease.

“I see. So we are going to Vienna before we return to Paris. I suppose that I can put up with a detour, though I am most disappointed. Sophie has been unsupervised for far too long, and who knows what those beasts have been up to in our absence.”

“You don’t worry about the condition of those beasts of ours, do you, Nell?” Irene asked slyly.

“Of course not! I merely fear that they will eat each other up, and all we will find on our return will be a few bright feathers, an array of fallen whiskers, and a sad tuft of fur.” Irene smiled. “Then you must go home straightaway and see to the little monsters! No—I will have no argument, Nell. Godfrey and I will see Allegra safely to her aunt in Vienna, then linger for a short... second honeymoon.”

“I see,” I said, seeing all too well.

What I also saw is that I would have to travel alone across a string of foreign countries filled with foreign money and foreign... foreigners.

I did not even have Godfrey’s cane-sword, or Irene's pistol. Or a dagger in my boot. I would mingle with... strangers and strange men. I would be alone, unescorted. I dare not tell Irene, however, how much the prospect terrified me.

“Godfrey will make all the arrangements when we reach the station, and—don’t worry, Nell—we will see you safely aboard.”

She hugged my shoulders, a gesture I most dislike. I do not care for clumsy attempts at physical affection, and I did not at all feel like being hugged at the moment, by anyone.

Of course I said nothing, but resumed my packing.

All too soon we bid the Hotel Europa goodbye. A carriage riding low on its springs due to our baggage—mostly Irene’s infernal number of trunks—I shuddered to think how many more might return from a jaunt to Vienna—waited to take us to the train terminal.

Allegra, idiotically excited, bounced in her seat like a child of ten.

“Oh, dear Nell, I am so sorry that you will not see Vienna with us.” Her merry manner did not lend her words a particle of sincerity.

“I am not sorry to miss Vienna,” I said. “Another dissolute city, I understand.”

“Really?” Allegra seemed delighted, but her face fell instantly. “I fear that I am to be returned to the shepherding of my aunt there, and will have not half so much fun as I have had in Prague.”

“I should hope not.”

Allegra eyed me critically. She had, I am sorry to say, developed some of Irene's exacting standards in dress. “That is a lovely bonnet, but why do you wear so much veiling? Are you in disguise?”

“Hardly, but a woman traveling alone,” I said pointedly, “must do her best to avoid undue attention.” I looked at Godfrey and Irene across from us, but they were absorbed in a peculiarly low and intense conversation and utterly oblivious to my observation.

“Your best friend would not recognize you,” Allegra complained with a charming pout. “Let me waft back at least one veil. There! Now you look mysterious, like a spy, instead of like a nun.”

“You are too enamored of spies, young lady,” I cautioned, but I did not restore my lifted veil. Her mention of resembling a nun had chilled my Anglican bones, and I confess that it was easier to see when less heavily draped.

Allegra smiled winningly. “Oh, dear Nell, you shall never know how much I wish I could be going back to Paris with you! Irene—Mrs. Norton—and I had such a grand time on the way here; I am sure that you and I would have had an equally wonderful trip back. Mrs. Norton and I had an opportunity to commune on all the subjects of such great interest to a woman.”

“Indeed. I fear I am not used to such communion and would have proved a dull companion, though I admit, Miss Minx, that I would dearly like your company on this return journey.”

“Poor Nell!” Allegra announced in a touching tone of sympathy that was unfortunately not heard by our self-absorbed companions.

The dear child took my gloved hand, turned it over and began tracing the unseen lines.

“I see a long journey, English lady, but not a dull one. I see exotic men, romance, danger... daggers. An unexpected reunion. You must be on your guard—”

“Allegra,” I protested, laughing despite myself. “That... tickles! What astonishing nonsense! You are a worse mimic than Irene. You ’see’ nothing but your own vivid imagination, bless it. You must visit Neuilly again.”

“I will, as soon as I can manage it,” she promised with a wicked twinkle. “I adore animals, and you have so many. Kiss them for me.”

Before I could respond to this odious request, our vehicle lurched to a stop, then shuddered as the coachman began heaving the baggage to porters below.

Even Irene and Godfrey were forced to pay attention to something other than each other as we all hurtled through the crowds and confusion of the vast and busy Franz Joseph station. In all too short a time, the tickets were purchased and I was delivered to my westward-bound train.

Steam hissed around us on the hard pavement, and made up for the absence of my second veil, which Allegra had brushed back over the top of my bonnet. I was suddenly as overwrought as I had been in the royal box at the opera, and was eager for my friends to leave so they should not see my distress.

“You will be late!” I warned them. “I will be fine.”

“Indeed you will,” Godfrey said, “as soon I as I settle you in your compartment.” He hefted the carpet bag that would accompany me and waited by the small stair to the train.

A steam-swathed cloud of rustling silk and violet perfume engulfed me. “Safe journey, Nell, and
do not worry!
” Irene urged.

“I never worry needlessly,” I replied, just before another stream-borne force clasped me in a frivolous embrace.

“Dear Nell, I will miss you dreadfully,” Allegra confessed, alarmingly close to tears. “Pray ignore my silly fortune-telling and have a dull, uninterrupted, ordinary journey.”