Murder At The Masque (13 page)

‘After the match,’ shouted Westbourne angrily, ‘I’ll tell you who your blasted burglar is then.’ There was a sudden hush as Westbourne found himself the centre of attention. He turned hastily to the Gentlemen nearest to him and began to talk politics, always a sure way of diverting polite attention elsewhere.

‘What’s the latest news from the Sudan?’

‘Planning on making a stand at Atbara,’ said Tucker, helping himself to a cake from Auguste.

‘Good man, Kitchener,’ Washington pontificated patronisingly. ‘Could do with him on the Niger.’

‘You fellows will never understand there’s a difference between the Frenchies and those dervishes,’ said Westbourne, irritated. ‘It’s not like you all seem to think’ – he turned testily to Tucker— ‘in Whitehall. You have to compromise, or the French are leaping about shouting
“J’ accuse”
all over the place.’

There was a nervous laugh at this topical sally provided by the Zola trial.

‘Compromise?’ said Tucker slowly.

‘Too many vested interests to compromise,’ said Washington knowingly. ‘Isn’t that so, Lord Westbourne?’

‘You’re right, young man. Whitehall will see the end of the Empire if we’re not careful.’ He glared, and Auguste saw the Comte de Bonifacio, loitering studiedly behind Cyril Tucker, tremble. There were passions abroad today, Auguste felt once more uneasily. And yet more were about to be stirred with all the vigour of a
sauce de caramel
. Especially for his lordship.

A commotion outside, a turning of all eyes towards the door as a golden-clad figure erupted in, quivering with rage, under an enormous concoction of golden osprey feathers on her head.

La Belle Mimosa had arrived.

All eyes were riveted on her in horror, the ladies speedily taking in three salient facts. Firstly, she had stolen a march on them by wearing full decolletée evening dress at five o’clock, thus displaying her chief glories to full advantage; secondly, that in the cleft of the famous bosom resided what could only be a Fabergé egg; and, thirdly, that her breasts were large enough to support it.

The Grand Duke Igor paused mid-
pyraniki
. Natalia laughed. The Grand Duchess’s lips tightened, and Lord Westbourne sought a speedy exit through the other door which unfortunately for him was blocked by his wife.

‘Hah,’ shouted La Belle Mimosa stridently. ‘You pay me what you owe me, Charlee.’

Westbourne estimated the chances of escape through the kitchen. Dora’s mouth fell unbecomingly open as she gazed at her husband’s guilty-looking face, and several other men gave thanks that they had dutifully paid La Belle Mimosa’s bills of account. The Grand Duke tiptoed quietly away.

‘You,’ said the damsel, her gaze falling on Dora. ‘You his wife? I pity you.’

Dora, Lady Westbourne, might not be enamoured of her husband, but she was not going to be pitied. She drew herself up, and quickly decided a course of action. Ladies did not talk to women of that sort. To walk away was to cede the contest. To retaliate would acknowledge the woman existed. So she fainted.

Washington hurried dutifully to her side as befitted his lover’s status, then remembered his invidious position and sidled away again. Westbourne, however, had eagerly seized the opportunity to slip through the kitchen, colliding with a kitchenmaid en route, muttering about reports to finish in the writing room. Thus Lady Westbourne remained untended on the ground, forced to recover by herself, until solicitously helped to her feet by Auguste, offering camomile tea and smelling salts.

Rose, still with an uneasy feeling that he was taking part in a play, determined on one last assault on Lord Westbourne. Once again his efforts were doomed to failure. Inspector Fouchard, appointing himself to the more interesting task of guarding the bosom of La Bella Mimosa, and his constable guarding the Grand Duchess, thrust his charge into Rose’s hands for safe keeping. Rose had drawn the short straw, and was thus forced to seek Lord Westbourne clasping the Romanov dagger.

As he entered the study to which Lord Westbourne had retired, Westbourne simply waved an impatient hand, hardly bothering to turn round from the desk at the sound of Rose’s voice. Perhaps he was busy. Perhaps still simply in shock. ‘The Empire is more important than a burglar,’ he replied testily, rustling papers vigorously to prove his point.

‘Burglars?’ roared a voice behind Rose. It was the Grand Duke in hot pursuit of his dagger which he had perceived had disappeared in Rose’s hand. ‘Stuff and nonsense.
You’re a Nihilist, aren’t you? I’ve caught you red-handed.’

‘No, Your Imperial Highness,’ answered Rose, politely cursing his presence. He could hardly insist on Westbourne’s cooperation with the Grand Duke present. He would still have to wait.

‘That’s my dagger,’ the Grand Duke pointed out. ‘What do you want it for?’

‘I’m guarding it, sir.’

‘Damned odd way to guard it. Give it to me.’

It was an order from a Grand Duke in a country where Rose had no authority. With mixed feelings the inspector handed it over.

Play began again. Only 11 runs to win. But the Gentlemen had not reckoned with a Bastide newly heartened by glorying in Westbourne’s ignominy. He was a Napoleon returned from Elba. Wickets fell, watched in mounting horror from the terrace by the Prince of Wales. Slowly talk stopped and tension grew, even the staff abandoning their duties to watch. Even Auguste was fascinated at the reversal of fate, as one by one Gentlemen took the long walk back without a single run being added. For Albert Edward the inevitable happened. Slowly and stately and cursing the day he was born a prince, he marched up to the wicket. The match depended on him. He knew it. Mama would have some complaint to make. If England’s future king failed to save the day, he would have let down England. If the Gentlemen won
now
, he would have humiliated the Russians and the French. Just when he had every hope of actually achieving a little concorde between the nations.

Bastide faced this arch-enemy of his people. Letting out a whoop of joy, he raced up to the bowling crease. The Prince saw the ball coming, hesitated and hit it. Should he run? No, too much tea. He only just made it back to the crease. Audible sighs of relief. Too audible. That settled it. He’d stay put next time. And stay put he did, praying that Tucker
might face the rest of the bowling and save him from indignity. All eyes were now fixed on the gripping scene at the wicket.

By five minutes to the close of play at seven o’clock the scores were level. Tucker had scored a further 10, the Prince of Wales none, and the Gentlemen were still one run from victory. The Prince mopped his brow, his hands sweaty inside his gloves, as he faced the bowling for the new over. Why ever had he agreed to this torture? Croquet was a much better game. For one thing, the ladies played it. If he failed now . . .

At one minute to seven, with no runs yet scored and by now almost crying at the thought of Mama’s face, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, faced the battling Bastide for the last ball of the over. The ball was coming. In stark terror at the approaching Armageddon he forgot caution, advanced to meet the ball, and gave it a mighty drive in the manner of the great W. G. himself. It soared high into the air, over the heads of the fielders towards the boundary, with all able-bodied members of the Players’ team following it. Fascinated, the Prince of Wales watched its progress as it sailed on towards the boundary and began to fall. A boundary? A catch? The future of the world might depend on this one ball.

Fortunately for the world, and in particular for the Prince of Wales, fate took a hand. The ostrich, anxious to join in the fun again, craned his long neck well forward over the boundary fence. The ball, falling to earth, crashed squarely on its skull, pole-axing the unfortunate bird, which collapsed, stunned, draped over the fence. There, like Lady Westbourne before it, it remained untended, for the ball, bouncing off the bird, was caught by Trepolov before it could reach the ground. The Players, the match in their opinion saved, were already celebrating the avoidance of disaster with enthusiastic roars of self-congratulation, when Washington, more aware of the
niceties of the situation, hurtled on to the field, closely followed by the rest of the Gentlemen watching from the verandah. Summoning the umpires he demanded justice. The ball had reached the boundary fence – the ostrich’s head merely being an extension of it. The match had been won by the Gentlemen.

The Grand Duke’s expression slowly changed to one of melancholy. But Bastide was made of sterner stuff. Moreover, he had been reading the rules. A Napoleon disclaiming any need for a parliament, he scoffed that it was clear that the catch was a good one, since the ostrich had thrust his head into the field of play so that the ball had never reached the boundary.

The umpires’ faces went white. They conferred. Clearly one of them was destined for an outstanding career in international diplomacy for regardless of the rules, which were beyond them and which in any case said nothing about ostriches, the senior of the two raised a finger – albeit nervously – to signify dismissal. The Prince was out. The match had ended in a tie.

Hubbub broke out as some of the English team, forgetting all about the need for sportsmanship, loudly protested against this Judgement of Solomon. Alfred Hathaway and Bastide came to fisticuffs. The Prince, overwhelmed with relief that his honour had been upheld, that Anglo-Russian relations were unimpaired and that he wouldn’t be barred from the Folies Bergère, hastily accepted the decision and shook hands with the Grand Duke. It was confirmed that the result was a tie. The dagger would remain at the Villa Russe till the next contest.

The dagger? Where was it? The Grand Duke glanced round at the salver in which, with blind optimism, he had replaced it ready for presentation to the English. It had disappeared.

Followed by the Grand Duke’s roar, ‘There is a burglar here,’ Fouchard hurled himself into action, overcome with
horror, and instituted a search. This was what came of guarding bosoms.

The dagger did not take long to find. Opening the door of the waiting room, Egbert Rose saw it immediately. It was stuck up to the hilt in the back of Lord Westbourne, sprawled over the desk.

Slowly Rose straightened up from his brief investigation and looked at Auguste, who had followed him into the study.

‘Get Fouchard here,’ was all he said.

Auguste swallowed, unable to take in that this was real. Cannes was a paradise of home to be dreamed of, so this could not be murder. Not the result of raw, brutal emotions that he had encountered in London. Blindly he went in search of Inspector Fouchard, who was still diligently searching lockers for the dagger while his gendarmes did their best to keep the cream of Cannes society contained in the salon. In his agitation Auguste was almost unable to speak, but his face did it for him, and with a sense of dire calamity hanging over him Fouchard followed him to the study. The scene he saw there confirmed his worst nightmares. Rose’s grunt of ‘Lord Westbourne’ escaped him in the horror of the moment, and seeing the broad blazered back slumped over the desk he assumed the corpse to be that of the Prince of Wales, or at the very least the Grand Duke Igor. Terror overcame him and he took refuge in oblivion.

‘Strewth, look at that,’ said Rose disgustedly, as with a thud Fouchard slumped to the floor. Auguste rushed to the kitchen across the corridor, returning with a bottle of water, hotly pursued by Boris, and threw it all over Fouchard. Auguste was not to know that the flask of colourless liquid contained in fact Boris’s emergency supplies of vodka.

‘Get him out of here, Auguste,’ Rose commanded irritably, waving a hand towards the cook, who was staring fascinated at the corpse, ‘and get the Grand Duke in here. And get someone to go for a doctor.’

Boris, transfixed with shock, swaying slightly, allowed himself to be escorted out. ‘The Grand Duke? You get the Grand Duke, Diddiums? I come too. Russia, oh Russia.’

‘Get in there, Boris, and stay there. And keep the other staff there too,’ shouted Auguste, goaded beyond endurance by the clinging Ukrainian, and detailing James Higgins to seek out a doctor.

Meanwhile Fouchard, licking the remains of the unexpected windfall of alcohol from his face, as befitted any decent Frenchman, scrambled shamefacedly to his feet. ‘Who is it?’ he inquired nervously. ‘The Grand Duke?’

‘Lord Westbourne,’ grunted Rose, to Fouchard’s visible relief, until the possible ramifications of this news dawned upon him.

‘So, an English matter,’ said Fouchard quickly, breathing a sigh of relief that the Sûreté could not blame him.

‘Crime on French soil,’ Rose pointed out firmly, meeting his gaze. He could see trouble coming.

So could Fouchard. ‘Whoever has done this deed – and you cannot believe he did it himself,
cher Inspecteur
– was
English
, for his lordship has only just arrived in Cannes. So
Monsieur le Préfet
will undoubtedly take the view that the crime has its roots in England, and so will the Sûreté in Nice, and you must stay to help,
hein
?’ If the Nice Sûreté were to handle the affair he, Fouchard, could hardly fail to be a scapegoat. ‘This crime is linked with your burglaries without doubt,’ Fouchard announced happily.

This was precisely what Rose had feared. He could hardly deny that he had an appointment with Westbourne for seven o’clock, as Fouchard knew only too well. Now Westbourne was dead before he could give Rose his information.
Fouchard was well content with the effect of his pronouncement.

‘Not without doubt at all,’ Rose countered. ‘His lordship was none too popular with a French lady here, as you must have heard yourself—’

‘
Non
,’ said Fouchard sharply. ‘I heard nothing. The murderer is an Englishman.’

‘He was sitting on a committee in Paris to settle the West African problem.’ Rose had thought swiftly.

‘Paris?’ Hope sprang into Fouchard’s eyes.

‘Paris,’ Rose confirmed.

With one breath, honourable compromise was met. ‘The Sûreté in Paris can handle it,’ said Fouchard. ‘They are good at finding murderers,’ he added with satisfaction.