The Curse Of The Diogenes Club (22 page)

“Before I start on the topic I
want to discuss,” said Major Nash, adopting the tone of a city
banker about to tell someone they are overdrawn, “I want to say I
heard what happened last night.”

Moriarty got his back up again.
“If you’re about to accuse me of staging that dog incident so that
I could -”

“I wasn’t about to accuse you
of anything. I know you’re not smart enough to think of anything
that complicated. You’re more visceral”

“Visceral?”

A reply was forestalled by
their arrival at the Carlton Club. Major Nash signed his visitor in
and they proceeded without incident to the dining room. It was
getting on to the tail end of lunch and the room was only a quarter
full. The major selected a table to the rear, against a wall, where
they were least likely to be interrupted or overheard. The menu was
a la carte and Colonel Moriarty made the most of it. They washed it
down with a Puligny-Montrachet.

“Last night’s incident
convinced me that Mycroft Holmes needs someone looking out for him
who is able to think…” Major Nash was about to say ‘like an
assassin’.

Colonel Moriarty filled the
gap, “Viscerally.”

“Yes, that’s it –
viscerally.”

“And you naturally thought of
me?”

“It needs to be someone the
assassin is not looking out for; someone who thinks like an
assassin.”

“Hang on a minute!”

“I’m not making any
accusations. I’m making you an offer.”

“An offer?”

“Mycroft Holmes will need
someone watching his back at Longchamps. It cannot be me because
I’m hosting the weekend and because the assassin will strike the
moment my back is turned.”

“You’re inviting me to
Longchamps?”

“Try to keep up. You pretend to
socialize with the guests but in reality you’re protecting Mycroft
Holmes. There’s no money in it. This isn’t a contract. But if it
works out it could actually be the only way you will ever gain
membership of a decent London club. I’m not promising entrée into
the Diogenes but maybe the Carlton Club.”

Moriarty began nodding; the
plan had several angles of appeal apart from the obvious, but the
drawback was obvious too. “You forget I haven’t been invited. As
soon as I turn up everyone will know something is afoot, especially
if I stick like dog turd to Mr Holmes.”

“I thought about that. You just
need to act your cocky self. You make it seem as if you and I are
still feuding over the Countess and you have no intention of
not
being invited because you are wracked with jealousy. I
play the part of the aggrieved host who is being forced to put up
with an uninvited guest. We won’t tell Mycroft Holmes you’re
protecting him. It will work better if he doesn’t know. This is
between you and me.”

“Why are you being so
protective? It’s not like he’s the next King of England.”

“Trust me on this one. He’s
more important than the next King of England.”

Moriarty was so stunned by that
rejoinder her drained his glass in one fell swoop and refilled it
without waiting for the butler to do it for him. “You will need to
allocate me a bedroom next door to his.”

“I already have. I think it
might be a good idea if you head down to Longchamps this
afternoon.” Major Nash reached into his pocket and extracted a
calling card and a small pencil. He scribbled a few words and put
his signature to it. “Take this with you and show it to my old
retainer, name of Yardley, he will grant you entry to look around
all you like. When you finish memorizing the layout of the place,
especially the 15 staircases so that you can shadow Mr Holmes
without making it look obvious, take a room at an inn and wait
until midday Saturday then just arrive unannounced.”

“After that we play it by
ear?”

Major Nash nodded. “Think you
can pull it off?”

“I think I can manage wracked
with jealousy. By the way, what did you mean when you said: Too
late?”

“Don’t get distracted. Remember
what you’re going to Longchamps for.”

They ordered cognac and cigars
as if celebrating success already.

Colonel Moriarty savoured the
golden nectar and the expensive tobacco aroma; he could get used to
a club like the Carlton. It wasn’t the Diogenes but it was a foot
in the door. “Did you ever wonder who your secret benefactor
was?”

Major Nash leaned back in his
chair, blew some rings of cigar smoke into the air and watched them
hover above the little crimson shade of the table-lamp. He had
thought often about the unknown person who paid their fees at the
Royal Military Academy and provided them with a generous allowance
as well. The purchase of commissions had been abolished but it was
still only the sons of the wealthy who could afford to graduate
from places like Sandhurst or Woolwich. “I thought it might be
General de Merville. What about you?”

“I thought it might be Sir
James Damery.”

“Hmm, I thought that’s what
you’d say, because he’s Irish, but our benefactor had to be the
same man because our stipends were identical and our fees paid at
the exact same time. And lately, just lately, I have started
thinking our secret benefactor was Mycroft Holmes.”

Lunch finished early when Miss
Blague decided she needed new shoes to go with her new gowns and
Violet de Merville decided she would not be left out in the cold
when it came to a lacy peignoir. The Countess - who had enough
peignoirs for everyone in Kent - decided to finally call on the
Earl of Winchester. She had been back in London for almost a month
and had not yet paid a visit. The fact he’d had a stroke and could
no longer speak was no excuse for her lack of good manners.

Death comes to us all but when
it also strips us of dignity it is a terrible thing. How much
luckier to be strangled and thrown in the lake, blown to
smithereens by a bomb, or shot outright by a duelling pistol, than
to be reduced to skin and bone, unable to feed oneself, toilet
oneself, or move about, unable to take pleasure in a simple walk in
the garden. It is a sorry sight when a man who was once athletic
and vigorous is reduced to a caricature of Dying.

The Countess pushed the
paralysed Earl in his wheelchair around the terraced garden and
talked to him about things past – his visit to Australia, the time
they gazed at the Southern Cross and saw a shower of shooting
stars, the time they went horse-riding down to the creek and saw a
platypus, the first time he saw a kangaroo with a joey in its
pouch…

When the nurse came to take him
inside for his bath, the Countess kissed him tenderly on the
forehead and walked down to the birch wood to gaze once more upon
the temporary grave of Princess Paraskovia. How much kinder to
drink some laudanum than wither away
like the flower that
fadeth
…

The winter light of late
afternoon slanted through the leprous trees and the air felt crisp
and sharp, rather than cold and harsh.

Did the princess drink the
laudanum of her own free will? Did she fear the shame of having a
child out of wedlock at her age? Did she dread her impending
divorce?

Or did someone force her to
drink poison? Did they hold a terrible threat over her head? Or a
gun to her forehead?

The lonely grave sat in a dip
in the wood, out of sight of the Palladian mansion. On the other
side of the lake was a summerhouse half hidden by a weeping willow.
In Ukraine they would have called it a dacha. It was elaborately
edged with gingerbread fretwork depicting a world of fairy tale
fantasy in a rural idyll. She walked around the lake and tried to
peer through the doll-like windows but the lace curtains were drawn
and the darkness trapped inside deflected the rays of light
attempting to break through the tiny gaps.

“Can I help you, madame?” It
was one of the gardeners.

“Who has the key to the
summerhouse?”

“It is above the door, madame,
where it always is.” He seemed surprised she didn’t know.

She found the key and went
inside. It was immaculate, free of cobwebs and dust, simply
furnished with a table and two chairs, a daybed and a small
wood-burning stove. She couldn’t imagine the Earl of Winchester
being wheeled down here; the ground was too boggy. Nor could she
imagine Freddy Cazenove making use of the summerhouse; it was too
twee for him.

“Who uses this
summerhouse?”

The gardener shifted awkwardly.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, madame.”

Historic, atmospheric and
romantic, Longchamps had spent more than three hundred years
mellowing into itself.

Since 1515 it had sat in the
same fold in the weald with a dark cluster of trees at its back,
like a verdant shawl around it shoulders, protecting it from the
winter wind. It sat midway between London and the English Channel
and had been designed for entertaining large numbers of guests in
the days when the reigning monarch travelled to the coast to sail
to France or Holland and half the royal court travelled with
him.

There were 115 rooms and every
single one of them had been refurbished, staying true to the taste
of the Tudors.

The Countess had dispatched ten
servants to prepare the house for visitors, hired another ten, put
Ponsonby in charge, organized for one hundred men to tidy up the
garden, and was now on her way to Kent one day before everyone was
expected to arrive to ensure all was as it should be. Accompanying
her on the train was Dr Watson.

Fedir and Xenia were motoring
down in the new Semper Vivus.

Mr Dixie and Sherlock Holmes
had arrived ahead of her. Helping them out in the stable were two
ostlers and eight stable boys who knew their way around a bridle
and bit blindfolded; they had no idea what was going on between the
tough-talking Negro and the dithering stable-hand with the
eye-patch, clockwork arm and gammy leg but they were being well
paid to do their job and keep their traps shut.

“I’m more worried than ever
about Mycroft Holmes,” said Dr Watson, after recounting the
incident with the dog in the night. “A rambling pile like
Longchamps will only make it easier for the killer. How many rooms
did you say it had?”

“One hundred and fifteen.”

He grimaced. “The killer could
be hiding in one of them right now. The hired servants won’t be
able to recognize an interloper since most of them have never
previously met; he could even be one of them!”

“What alternative do we have?
We must flush out who is behind this scheme. Mycroft cannot stay
under lock and key inside the Diogenes Club for the remainder of
his life.”

“But how will we flush him
out?”

“Chance will flush him out and
Opportunity will unmask him.”

“I thought you never left
anything to chance?”

“
Au contraire, mon ami
,
every action is open to chance. The man who leaves nothing to
chance is always unprepared.”

A small Tudor porch greeted
visitors and ushered them into a long gallery which featured suits
of armour and Flemish tapestries. Adjoining this was the beating
heart of the house and one of the most magnificent Tudor great
halls in England. It served as the primary staircase hall and was a
breathtaking double height room with three superb glass lanterns
punctuating the roof rafters. A huge Elizabethan chimneypiece
dominated the great hall and there were enough needlepoint wing
chairs, velvet settees and damask sofas for twenty people. Family
portraits in gilded frames, embroidered cushions and quirky
collectibles abounded.

It was the sort of room one
could quite happily never leave. If it rained all weekend they
would be content. Ten bedrooms opened directly off the upper
gallery that ran around the perimeter of the great hall and
Yardley, the old retainer, had placed nametags on doors according
to the instructions of his master who had personally allocated all
the bedrooms.

The Countess had the principal
bedchamber for the lady of the house. It connected to the master
suite which she presumed would be occupied by Major Nash but when
she opened the connecting door she found Dr Watson.

“I say, we’ve been allocated
very nice bedrooms,” he gushed. “Have you seen the view of the
topiary garden from your triple bay window yet? I think the entire
hamlet of Longchamps could fit into my four poster bed. Do you
think this portrait of Henry VIII is a genuine Holbein?”

“Yes, I have Jane Seymour in my
room and the view is stunning.”

“If you want to lock the
connecting door, go ahead, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Let’s leave it as is. I’m
going to check out who is staying where.”

“I’m going down to the stable
to speak to the, er, dithering old stable-hand. Do you mind if I
take the Semper Vivus out for a spin after lunch?”

“Not at all, take the old
stable-hand with you. I want to have a word to Ponsonby about the
servant situation and I want to explore the house.”

Ten houseguests; ten bedrooms
off the galleried landing. Perfect.

Bafflingly, none of them had
been allocated to Mycroft Holmes. His bedroom was on the ground
floor adjacent to the dining room. Yardley informed her it was the
bedroom where the old master, the 9
^th
baronet, slept
because he couldn’t afford to heat more than two rooms. Next door
was a bedroom for his valet. The whole arrangement was poorly
protected with doors going everywhere, including out to the
stable-yard.

Even more bafflingly, where was
Major Nash sleeping?

Yardley told her the young
master preferred the same room he had as a boy. It was a small
bedroom, sparsely furnished, at the top of a narrow staircase
hidden behind a tapestry in the long gallery. It may originally
have been used as an oratory. It jutted out over the Tudor porch
and had two other doors that led to matching antechambers with
steep spiral staircases going up to the tennis-play on the floor
above.