Death at Blenheim Palace (13 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 
Our Partnership
Beatrice Webb

 
 
 
 
Winston had begun working on his father’s
Life
the summer before, and was already nearing the end of what he planned as the first of a two-volume work. He knew, though, that he was going to have to spend quite a bit more time polishing the text than he would like. His task was to redeem Lord Randolph from the portrayals of his more malicious peers, as a conniving, capricious politician who had thrown up a promising career on a crazy whim. While others might suggest that Lord Randolph had been an angry, spendthrift, syphilitic husband and a cold and uncaring father, Winston saw him as a great statesman who was too busy about the affairs of the Empire to squander his energies on his family, and especially his undeserving eldest son. Lord Randolph was a Churchill, cast in the same mold as that noble duke, the first Marlborough, and it was Winston’s job to guard that memory and the Churchill name, and to do all he could to enhance it.

This morning, Winston was scribbling away at a paragraph about his father’s abrupt breach with his party. But he put down his pen when Consuelo came into the room, not stopping to knock. She was followed by Kate Sheridan. Both were breathless, and the Duchess wore an almost distracted look.

“Why, my dear Connie!” he exclaimed, rising and holding out his hands. “Whatever is wrong?”

“It’s Gladys,” Consuelo said wretchedly, “and the Duke. They’re gone!”

“Gone?” Winston echoed stupidly. Her hands in his were very cold, and her fingers were trembling. “
Gone?
Both of them?” His thoughts immediately went to the gesture he had seen the night before, the public touch, the open declaration. What a wretched business! And where the devil was Marlborough? He hadn’t gone off with that foolish girl, had he? By Jove, if he had—

But that was unthinkable. Marlborough might fancy himself in love, but he could never bring himself to drag the family name through the dirt, or risk a break with the Vanderbilts—and the Vanderbilt money.

Kate Sheridan put a steadying hand on Consuelo’s shoulder. “What Consuelo means,” she said in a calm, quiet voice, “is that Gladys did not sleep in her bed last night, nor change clothes.”

“Did not sleep in her bed!” Winston exclaimed in agitation.

Kate nodded. “And since her absence struck us as a rather serious matter, we thought that the Duke ought to be informed—except that we’ve not been able to locate him.” She paused. “We spoke to Mr. Meloy, who has not seen him. Mallory, his valet, did not see him this morning, either. It doesn’t seem helpful to alarm the servants, so we thought that perhaps you might have a look for the Duke and—”

“Yes, of course,” Winston interrupted. “I should be glad to, very glad.” He kissed Consuelo’s hands and let them go. “You can count on me,” he said comfortingly, suppressing his own rising alarm. “I’ll find Sunny, and then we can sit down together and discuss what should be done about Gladys.” By heaven, he would
force
Sunny to come to terms on this business, and make a final break with Gladys. Marlborough had to be made to see the danger the woman posed. “She can’t have wandered far,” he added, putting on a reassuring smile, “not dressed as she was. In fact, she may have already returned to her room.”

From the beginning of his acquaintance with Sunny’s wife, Winston had gone out of his way to cultivate a strong friendship with her. That had not been difficult, for Consuelo was shy and lacking in confidence and had accepted him happily as an ally who helped her face her husband’s family. He wanted her to see him in all matters as her advocate and champion, as well as her representative among the Churchills, who were quite a formidable lot, all in all, extremely judgmental and critical.

Of course, Winston realized that this advocacy position was not an entirely unselfish one. It was sometimes hard to know what was going on in the Duke’s mind, but Consuelo was much more artless and transparent, and she confided in him things—private family matters—that her husband would have concealed. If Consuelo saw him as her confidant, Winston would always know what was going on at Blenheim, which, after all, was his home, too.

“Oh, thank you, Winston,” Consuelo said, her voice lightened with relief, some of the strain in her face easing. “What do you . . . what are you going to do? And what do you think Kate and I should do?”

“Well, for a start,” Winston said, with more careless confidence than he felt, “you and Lady Sheridan could take your little electric car and go for a drive around the Park. You might run into Sunny, he’s probably just gone out for a morning ride. And you might even catch a glimpse of Gladys.” Although as to why Miss Deacon would be wandering around the Park in her evening dress and slippers, Winston couldn’t hazard a guess. But he had to say something, and apparently Consuelo was satisfied.

“Yes, of course,” she said, sounding relieved. “The car. What a very good idea, Winston. Kate and I will go immediately.” She paused, frowning. “But what will you do?”

“I? Why, I’m off to the stables,” Winston replied easily. “Sunny may have mentioned to the groom which way he intended to ride.” He bent over to kiss Consuelo’s pale cheek. “Don’t fret, my dear. I’m sure we’ll find each of them, safe and sound.”

And pray God,
he thought fervently,
we don’t find them together.
He had put the best face on things for Consuelo, but he was deeply troubled, and by the time he had reached the stables, Winston had worked himself into a fine frenzy. If it were just Gladys who had gone missing, it was probably just one of her madcap escapades. The girl was prone to pranks and high jinks and had little regard for proper conduct or for the feelings of others, although he had to admit that it was rather odd that she had disappeared in her dinner dress. The Duke’s absence raised another urgent question, though, one that he hoped very much would be answered at the stables.

But Winston was to be disappointed, for no one at the stables had a clue as to Marlborough’s whereabouts. Sunny had not taken one of the horses, and while there were any number of bicycles around the estate, Winston could not imagine his aristocratic cousin actually riding one. As to going off on foot, well, that seemed equally improbable. Unless he was hunting, the Duke did not enjoy tramping through the fields and woods.

Winston prided himself on his reputation as a man of action and a quick thinker who was never at a loss for ideas. But at this moment, Winston couldn’t think of a single thing—except to turn out all the servants and question every one of them, which of course he could not do.

It was at that moment that a new possibility suggested itself to Winston in the person of Charles Sheridan, who was walking jauntily across the stable yard, dressed in a somewhat disreputable Norfolk jacket, with a camera bag over one shoulder and a tripod over the other. He was whistling.

Winston suddenly discovered that he had been holding his breath and let it out. He strode toward Charles, speaking eagerly.

“I say, Sheridan, might we have a private word?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 
“The Reigate Puzzle” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 
 
 
Charles, a photographer of some note, had spent the morning with his camera on the eastern side of the Park, where he had photographed the picturesque Swiss Cottage, a timbered house with roundel windows and a curious spired turret, set within a grove of trees that made for some rather pretty pictures.

But on the whole, the photographic expedition had been a pretext to get away from the palace and reflect upon a number of puzzling facts, some of which might be entirely unimportant, or vital to some sequence of events that he did not yet understand. While Charles pointed his camera here and there, he was reviewing what he knew about the theft of the Warrington Hoard—an inside job, so to speak, accomplished with the aid of a recently hired char woman and a certain mysterious lady who offered the stolen items for sale to Mr. Dreighson. He was also thinking of what he knew of the theft at Welbeck Abbey, where the Duchess of Portland’s famous emeralds had disappeared, along with a great deal of valuable jewelry belonging to her guests.

News of the theft had been hushed up to protect the Duchess from embarrassment, but Charles had learned of it from Leander Norwood, the chief of the Yard’s burglary division. Norwood had been called in to conduct the investigation, which had been so far fruitless. He’d told Charles that the theft looked to him to be the work of employees, even though servants did not usually steal significant and unique items of property because of the difficulty involved in selling them. The Portland emeralds, for instance, which had once belonged to Marie Antoinette, would be almost impossible to fence. It was Norwood’s opinion that the job had been managed by a ring of sophisticated thieves with connections on the Continent, where the jewels might be more easily got rid of, sold to collectors who would not question their pedigree. And that one or more servants had been involved, as well as, quite possibly, one of the female guests, who might have had access to the bedrooms. Norwood wouldn’t offer details, since the investigation was continuing, but he had also hinted that there may have been a similar theft or two in the past year, during large weekend houseparties at other country estates.

With these things in the back of his mind, Charles was thinking of what John Buttersworth had told him about the mysterious woman who had showed him the seal stones—stones that reminded Buttersworth of the Marlborough Gems. Buttersworth’s first thought seemed to be that the Duchess of Marlborough was offering them for a clandestine sale, something that was not too unusual in these days of declining personal fortunes. A great many titled ladies, duchesses among them, were forced to sell what they could to keep ahead of their dressmakers’ and jewelers’ bills—and their gambling debts. While Consuelo did not strike Charles as the kind of woman who would squander a fortune, it wasn’t entirely out of the question. Even as wealthy a lady as the Duchess of Marlborough, née Vanderbilt, would not necessarily be immune from financial exigencies, especially a temporary one that had thrown her into a sudden panic.

Charles, however, was beginning to suspect that there might be a very different game afoot, and that the woman who appeared at Dreighson’s, offering to sell the Hoard, might also be associated with the robbery at Welbeck Abbey. And there was more. Thieves had struck at Welbeck during one of the Portlands’ houseparty weekends, when the ladies had brought their favorite jewels. Blenheim was an even more tantalizing target, and the natural time to strike was the weekend set for the visit of King Edward and Queen Alexandra, three weeks hence, Winston had told him last night. The King loved seeing gentlemen dressed in splendid uniforms and ladies wearing silk and their finest ornaments, so there would be several fortunes in jewels lying about the bedrooms, when they weren’t fastened at their owners’ throats, ears, and wrists.

And at Blenheim as at most other country houses, there would be no attention paid to security, except for the one or two special agents who were assigned to safeguard the Royal persons. Such events, with the influx of the guests’ personal servants and additional help hired from the local village, always involved a state of general household confusion and chaos, below-stairs and above. A Royal houseparty at Blenheim would be perfect pickings, to use an American phrase, for a ring of thieves.

Given these facts and speculations, Charles was becoming increasingly concerned, to the point where he was almost ready to lay his suspicions before the Duke, who would certainly not want to be disgraced by a theft at Blenheim Palace. However, where the Duke was concerned, there was one additional bit of information that troubled Charles, although he had no way of knowing whether it was incidental or vital. Buttersworth had said that the woman who showed him the gemstones had a nose like that of Sappho, a female poet of classical Greece, a description which, Charles thought, fit Miss Deacon remarkably well.

Was it possible that it had been Miss Deacon who presented the stones at the Ashmolean?

Was she somehow involved with the thieves?

A ridiculous idea, on the face of it, or so the Duke would certainly think. But the preceding year, the
Times
had carried the story of a certain Lady Tallarde, who had been found guilty of a similar association in France and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. And Chief Norwood had mentioned that a woman guest had fallen under suspicion at Welbeck. Charles could not discount the possibility.

But this was only speculation, and Charles had no way of determining the truth. Because of this, he felt that it would not be quite prudent to discuss the matter with the Duke, at least, not yet. He needed more inside information, and he had thought of a way to get it. But he would first have to consult with Winston. If the Duke’s cousin could be convinced that the matter was urgent, he was in a position to help implement the scheme . . .

These were the thoughts that were passing through Charles Sheridan’s mind as he went across the stableyard on his way back to the palace, his camera bag over one shoulder and his tripod over the other, whistling tunelessly as he walked. In fact, he was so preoccupied that he scarcely knew where he was, and didn’t hear Winston calling until he nearly bumped into him.

“Ah, Winston,” he said, blinking in surprise. “I was just thinking about you. I’d like to discuss an important matter with you. I think you might be able to—”