The Curse Of The Diogenes Club (15 page)

“We call it a banya,” the
Russian was saying. “A masseur will whip you with birch twigs. It
will make your eyes water but it will get all the poison out of the
body.”

“I tried it once,” said a
refined Irish voice the doctor guessed might belong to Sir James
Damery. “I was in Moscow in the summer of ’85. Damned painful! I
could barely put my shirt back on when the sadist finished flaying
me!”

A third man laughed
phlegmatically. “Can’t see something like that taking off here in
London. You Russians are a hardy race. We English are growing soft.
What we need is another Rorke’s Drift to sort out the mollycoddled
sheep from the tough mountain goats. Eleven Victoria Crosses
awarded in a single battle! Send all those poncy boys to the
Transvaal! Freddy Cazenove will come back a new man. Violet will be
a damned lucky girl when she stops all this suffragette nonsense
and allows Freddy to put a ring on her finger. She’s turned him
down three times. If she’s not careful that little Mona Blague will
snatch the prize from under her nose and she will be left with that
namby-pamby drip, Pugsy Setterfield. He fainted with fright when
the first bomb went off. Captain Thompson thought he was dead and
directed him to be carted him off to the stable. Well, you should
have heard the ruckus when Pugsy woke up. He’s trying to have the
captain court martialled for dereliction of duty.”

“There’s something queer about
those bombs,” said Damery.

“How do you mean?” asked the
Russian.

“Well, three bombs and hardly
any damage. Only five dead. The third bomb was placed under the
stairs. What’s the point of a bomb under the stairs?”

“Are you sure?” asked the third
voice, which must have belonged to General de Merville. “Under the
stairs?”

“Quite sure. I got it from
Bebbington who got it from Hubbard at the Carlton Club.”

The Russian coughed to clear
his throat. “The bombs, they were meant for the Prince of
Wales?”

“So they say,” said Damery.
“Rum business trying to kill the heir to the throne.”

“Made a complete botch of it,”
added de Merville with disgust. “We English can’t even set bombs
properly. Not that I am suggesting I want to see the heir to the
throne blown to kingdom come.”

“It would never happen in
Russia. Everyone loves the Tsar.”

“Lucky thing we didn’t stay in
the room with the hookahs right up till the fireworks like we
intended,” mused Damery. “Lucky thing we went outside for that
duel. Lucky you insisted we do the duel before the fireworks,
Malamtov, or was it Blague who insisted we get it over and done
with?”

“It was both of us,” said the
prince.

“And me too,” added the
general. “I suggested the lamps. It was only you who wanted to wait
for first light, Damery. Lucky none of us listened to your damn
fool caution. Carpe diem! That’s my motto.”

Damery grimaced. “Whose idea
was it to go up there in the first place?”

“That was the American,” said
the prince. “He heard about the shisha from that Valkyrie - my God
but she is magnificent!”

De Merville laughed heartily.
“Mrs Klein was formidable rallying those poncy boys putting out
those spot fires. She had them lined up like proper soldiers.
Dipping buckets in the lake and handing them up in relay formation.
The Transvaal could use her talents. Wasn’t she meant to join us in
the dome room?”

“Yes,” confirmed Damery. “I
think I heard Blague mention something like that. Just as well she
got caught up somewhere else.”

“What do you think the Countess
was doing up there with the colonel?” asked the prince adopting a
curious inflection.

“I wondered about that too,”
said de Merville gravely. “If they were setting up that bomb God
help us all.”

“You have a problem with some
of the Irish in the army?” pursued the prince.

“Some, yes,” replied Damery,
sensitive to the question of Fenians. “But the colonel is genuine.
I think he and the Countess may have been having an assignation but
you won’t hear me say that outside these four walls. Did you ever
meet the Countess in Odessa, Malamtov?”

“Twenty years ago. I knew her
step-father. A good man. Not like his sister. Beautiful but mad.
She ruined the girl. Varvara Volodymyrovna will need a firm
husband.”

“Do you have anyone in mind,
Malamtov?” probed Damery, careful not to smile.

The prince looked cagily from
one man to the other. “You have no doubt heard the rumour,
gentlemen, the princess and I are estranged. She moved into Clarges
Hotel last week.”

De Merville pretended to be
surprised. “That’s why your wife wasn’t at the ball?”

“Da, gentlemen,” replied the
prince in clipped Slavic tones, curtailing the conversation by
pushing to his royal feet. “If you will excuse me? I must take my
leave. I am lunching with a Valkyrie at The Criterion.”

Damery waited for the prince to
disappear into the changing room.

“Don’t repeat this to another
soul,” warned Damery sternly, “but O’Connell from the Carlton Club
told me a body turned up at the mortuary the night of the ball. His
brother is the coroner and he works in the same building. It was
someone who remained untagged, in other words, nameless. The body
was removed at first light this morning and put in an expensive
hearse. It was a lady in her early forties with honey coloured
hair. Suicide. Laudanum. No post mortem. She had a strawberry
birthmark on her right thigh.”

De Merville reacted as if he’d
just been punched in the gut. “Princess Paraskovia!” he gasped, and
in that moment Damery knew that his friend and he had both been
making love to the same woman. “So that’s why she wasn’t at the
ball. I was worried all night that…” He didn’t finish the sentence;
he’d said too much already.

“I was worried too.”

De Merville looked up quickly,
and in that moment he knew it too. “Et tu, my old friend?”

“Yes – she was
irresistible.”

For a long interval neither man
said anything and Dr Watson thought they might have removed
themselves to the changing room but then came more.

“Suicide?” grunted de Merville.
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell. Paraskovia was looking forward to
the ball. She had a new costume specially made. I saw her at
Clarges earlier that day. I took her some hyacinths.”

Damery nodded grimly. “Me too.
Clarges had to be the worst kept secret in London. I took her some
pink tulips. Paraskovia wasn’t the type to commit suicide. She was
looking forward to something. She said she had wonderful news. She
was going to tell me at the ball.”

“Me too. She said the same to
me. I took it to mean the cold fish had finally agreed to a
divorce. When she didn’t turn up I told myself she was trying to
avoid the gossip-mongers.”

“I tried to see her yesterday
morning but Fisk-Manders gave me the brush off.”

“Fisk-Manders wouldn’t allow me
past the reception desk. He had a burly porter standing guard at
the stairs. I got the impression the fellow was some sort of
professional wrestler or single-stick champion.”

“I don’t like any part of
this,” said Damery.

“There’s something not right
about it,” agreed de Merville. “That third bomb under the stairs
has put the wind up me too.”

“Yes, that’s when you rallied
and realized Violet was in the pavilion. I haven’t seen you run so
fast since that tiger leapt into your tent. Do you think Mycroft
knows what’s going on?”

“The man’s a Machiavellian
schemer. Political expediency above Morality is his credo. He knows
everything that goes on in London. I think he’s the one who got
Freddy that sudden promotion to the Transvaal.”

Damery’s fair brow creased. “He
might be Machiavellian but he always acts with reason and that
promotion makes absolutely no bloody sense.”

De Merville chewed on his
moustache. “Hang on! There was a rumour Freddy was bedding the
princess.”

“I heard that rumour too but I
thought Freddy had eyes only for Violet?”

“Yes, of course, but they’re
not engaged yet. The boy is still sowing his wild oats and who can
blame him. Once he marries Violet he’ll settle down all right.”

“But I still don’t see what
that has to do with Mycroft?”

“Mycroft might have viewed it
as a threat to Anglo-Russian relations. He was trying to patch
things up after we gave the Tsar a hiding in the Crimea. Removing
Freddy removes any awkwardness with Malamtov.”

Damery went white. “Good God!
Let’s hope Mycroft never finds out
we
were bedding her as
well. I’m not like you. I’m a diplomat not a soldier. I don’t fancy
a posting in Swaziland. Not at my age.”

The general blanched. “I’m past
it too, old boy. I wouldn’t last a week in that terrain.”

Dr Watson rushed straight
around to number 6 Mayfair Mews to impart all he had heard before
it escaped him. Sherlock was there helping the Countess transform
herself into a butler. While the transformation was taking place he
recounted everything, not in any particular order.

“Well done, Watson,” praised
the consulting detective, re-ordering the haphazard details such as
whose idea it was to go up to the dome room (Blague), who suggested
it to him (Isadora), who was keen to leave quickly (Blague, de
Merville and Malamtov), who was keen for them to stay (Damery). He
turned to his daughter. “Now, if it is none of my business, just
say so, but I must ask: What were you doing in the dome room with
Colonel Moriarty?”

She used an index finger to pat
down her moustache and survey herself in the dressing table mirror.
“Xenia alerted me to the fact the colonel was wearing Dr Watson’s
kilt and that he had raced up the spiral stairs as if his sporran
was on fire. I naturally went to investigate.”

Sherlock nodded with approval
and realized there came a time in every father’s life when he knew
his off-spring would one day take over from him. Cogitation had
always been restricted to him alone with Watson filling any
action-inspired gaps where required but perhaps the time had come
to share the cogitation part too. “I spoke with Major Nash this
morning at the Diogenes Club to ascertain details regarding the
duel. Malamtov brought the pistols to the ball, possibly to
challenge the Prince of Wales to a duel. It was de Merville’s idea
to go down to the lake. After the first two bombs went off, Nash
and Moriarty raced back to the pavilion. De Merville and Damery
didn’t move until after the third bomb went off. Blague and
Malamtov remained by the lake. Nash spotted Blague leaving a short
time later in his carriage. Malamtov’s carriage was still there but
the prince was nowhere to be seen. De Merville, once he had
satisfied himself that his daughter was uninjured, took charge in
the guardroom where the injured were being taken. Damery took it
upon himself to oversee the orderly departure of carriages from the
carriage park. The question that springs to mind is what was
Malamtov doing after the bombs went off? This becomes crucial when
we take into account the strangling of the studio photographer
after the event.”

The Countess adjusted her glued
on eyebrows and tried wiggling them to make sure they weren’t about
to fall off. “I understand strangling is a male modus operandi but
I don’t think we can dismiss a female. It is more likely for a
woman to have picked up a length of torn petticoat unnoticed than a
man, or even to have torn it from her own undergarment without
anyone seeing, and if that woman caught the photographer from
behind by surprise, she could quite easily have choked the life out
of him. If that woman was strong and the man was puny, as our
studio photographer was, then we cannot ignore it.”

Sherlock nodded. “I presume
you’re talking about Mrs Klein?”

“Yes. What’s more, soon after
she organized all those young men to relay buckets of water from
the lake, Xenia told me Mrs Klein disappeared but her carriage was
still in the carriage park.”

“What else did your maid
see?”

“She was frantically searching
for me and couldn’t find me anywhere so she went down to the
carriage park to check if the troika was still there and she said
she saw a man seated in Mrs Klein’s carriage and that it was
rocking violently.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows shot up. “I
don’t suppose she recognized the man?”

“It was too dark. She tried to
get a closer look but several carriages rolled past and one of them
almost knocked her over. She came back to the pavilion and began
helping Miss de Merville patch up the injured.” The Countess stood
in front of the cheval glass and spun round several times. “Well,
what do you think? Shall I pass muster as a butler?”

“Marvellous!” said Dr Watson,
amazed at the transformation. “Try out your butlering skills on
us,” he suggested enthusiastically. “Serve us some perfume on that
decoupage tray.”

“The only problem will be Major
Nash,” warned Sherlock, watching as she moved about with agility
but not the litheness of the female of the species. “He used to
work for the Foreign Office abroad. He has a canny eye for fakery.
Try to avoid being in the same room, especially the Stranger’s
Room. Don’t make eye-contact with him at all. What time did Mycroft
tell you to arrive?”

“Prior to midday - in time to
serve luncheon in the dining room.”

“Good luck,” said Dr
Watson.

“I would wish you luck,” said
Sherlock dryly, “but I don’t believe in it. While you’re gone I
will fill Watson in about what you imparted earlier – specifically
regarding the dead photographer and the weekend in Kent. We are
making steady progress. I envisage a role for Mr Dixie in the
Longchamps stable as a groom and I can be his dithering
stable-hand; mucking-out has always been my forte. How are you
finding Mr Dixie?”

“He earned his money last
night. I foresee a positive future.”