She started a letter to Winifred but couldn’t think of the right words to say. How could she warn her about Alexei without disclosing all that Lord Wrotham had told her? She wasn’t sure where to even begin, but she knew she had to try and send a discreet message to Winifred, telling her to keep a close watch on Alexei.
Instead, she dashed off a rather cryptic note that read,
Dearest Freddie,
Well, the coroner’s inquest was a nightmare. Turns out that Arina was Katya’s sister, but I have no idea whether (or how) their deaths are connected. Harrison is advising me to keep out of the investigation—yes, you heard right—Chief Inspector Harrison is now on the case. I’m not sure things could get any worse. But then I remember Dobbs and Alexei . . . and then there’s always the question of Lord W . . . To top it all off I’ve got reporters buzzing about me like flies (vultures, more like!).
Oh, Winifred, what an appalling mess I’m in. I can only hope to return to London next week and try to regain some semblance of control. On top of everything I have Mrs. P-S’s Empire Day ball to attend. I need to go to keep an eye on Dobbs. After everything that’s happened I have to get Arina’s letter fragments decoded. When I return, we need to find someone who can help us decode it.
In the meantime, please take extra special care. There’s more to Alexei’s story than meets the eye.
Yours, etc. . . .
Ursula placed the letter in an envelope and then paused, her hand hovering above the telephone. She took a deep breath, lifted the receiver, and asked the operator to connect her to Shepherd’s Hotel.
“This is Miss Ursula Marlow, calling from Gray House. I was wondering if Lord Wrotham was available. I believe he is a guest of yours.”
“I’m afraid His Lordship has already left for London, Miss Marlow. Would you like me to take a message for you? He said he would be back at the weekend, likely as not. . . .”
“No, that’s all right. I’ll try and contact him in London.”
“Right you are, then, Miss.”
Ursula replaced the receiver and sighed. A knock on the bedroom door from Bridget signaled that it was time for her to get dressed for the day. Ursula stared at herself in the mirror. She looked like the tragic figure in an opera, with her auburn hair coiled about her shoulders and her eyes dark in the dim morning light.
“I need to pull myself together,” she murmured to her reflection before calling out for Bridget to come in.
“Here’s some of the post that was addressed to London, Miss. Mrs. Stewart had it sent up here just in case there was anything important.”
“Thank you, Bridget. I can look at it while the bath is being run.”
“I’ve laid out your navy suit and your green blouse, Miss. I didn’t think you’d want any of the other summer suits. Seein’ as how you’ll be visitin’ all them dirty mills and factories. And,” Bridget noted as she peered out of the window, “with all this rain we’ve been havin’, you may not get to wear ’em at all this season.”
Ursula merely nodded in reply as she concentrating on opening the mail that had arrived.
One of the letters was from Eugenie Mahfouz, telling her that Chief Inspector Harrison had left Egypt. “It would have been helpful to know before he arrived,” Ursula muttered as she continued reading. Eugenie wrote that all information surrounding the death of Katya Vilenksy’s had been totally suppressed. She had found nothing more on the
Bregenz
or Hartuv. She couldn’t even get the commander of the Egyptian police to admit that Chief Inspector Harrison had concluded his investigation. No arrests had certainly been made, and almost all of the nationalists who had been brought in for questioning had been released. As a final note, Eugenie wrote that Ambrose Whittaker had resigned his post and was rumored to be returning to India, where he had spent many years as a local magistrate.
Ursula spent the following two days visiting her mills in Oldham, Blackburn, and Rishton to try and reassure workers about their safety and the future of Marlow Industries. It was difficult, and she had to convince the trade union leaders to hold off on any threatened strike action for the results of a full inquiry she was undertaking into the spate of recent accidents. Ursula returned to Gray House Tuesday night, but there were still no messages from either Chief Inspector Harrison or Lord Wrotham.
She was reading the
Lancashire Telegraph
over her breakfast on Wednesday when she saw a small notice stating that this evening the prominent financier Mr. P. Vilensky would be attending a public meeting to discuss the issue at the Jewish Working Men’s Club in Cheetham near Manchester. Ursula tore the notice out of the paper and placed it in the pocket of her knitted cardigan.
Samuels drove Ursula to Cheetham later that day and waited with her outside as the meeting at the Working Men’s Club concluded and the men began to exit the red-brick building in droves at around nine that evening.
Ursula remained in the car, on the lookout for Peter Vilensky. He was one of the last to leave, walking out with a man who looked to be his personal secretary and who held an umbrella to ward off the rain that had just begun to fall.
“Mr. Vilensky,” Ursula called out, climbing out of the car.
Peter Vilensky halted once he saw her.
“I need to talk to you,” Ursula said. “Since you refuse to answer my letters or telephone calls in London, I had no choice but to come here.”
“What do you want to talk to me about?” Peter replied, crossing his arms. “As you can see, I’m a busy man; I haven’t got time for trifles.” The hostility that he had shown to her in Egypt was muted beneath a thin veneer of civility.
“I want to talk about Arina Petrenko,” Ursula responded.
This gave him pause. “Not here,” he said with a small jerk of his head. “Inside.”
Peter Vilensky turned and murmured something in the secretary’s ear. The man nodded and headed back up the stairs.
“Does Lord Wrotham know you’re here?” Vilensky asked as Ursula and he climbed the stairs.
“No, why? Should he?” Ursula answered.
Peter Vilensky looked confused for a moment but made no further comment.
The secretary led them into a small, windowless office adjacent to the public meeting hall.
Ursula steeled herself before starting to speak. “You’ve heard about Arina’s death, of course.”
“How could I not? I was her brother-in-law.” Vilensky stood in the center of the room with his arms folded.
“Then you know it was in one of my factories.”
“Yes, what of it? Accidents happen all the time.”
“Is that why you didn’t bother to attend the inquest?”
“I cannot be expected to attend everything.”
“Did you know that Arina was killed before the fire?” Ursula chose her words deliberately, watching to see how Peter would react.
“I heard . . .” Peter Vilensky fiddled with his hands. “But surely you must realize I could have had nothing to do with it—I was sailing home from Egypt at the time. Unless I grew wings and flew, I hardly think I could have been involved.”
“I wasn’t here to suggest that you were,” Ursula replied coolly.
“So why are you here?”
“Are you not concerned? Your wife dies in Egypt, and then in England her sister is killed—suspicious, don’t you think? I would have thought a man in your position would have moved heaven and earth to find out what really happened.”
“Miss Marlow, Chief Inspector Harrison is now handling both cases. I am sure he will advise me of anything significant in either case. I fail to see why I should need to speak with you!”
“I was with Katya when she died, and Arina was killed in my factory. I didn’t choose to be involved, but now that I am, I think I have every right to find out the truth!” Ursula was shocked by her own vehemence. The anger that had remained suppressed since she arrived in England had suddenly announced its presence. Taking a moment to compose herself, Ursula knew she had to continue in more moderate tones if she was to get any information out of Peter Vilensky.
“If you weren’t concerned about the inquiry into Katya’s death, why then did you go to Lord Wrotham and inquire about the
Bregenz
?”
Peter Vilensky eyed her warily. “Lord Wrotham told you this?”
“Yes,” Ursula lied, hoping that if he believed she had Lord Wrotham’s confidence, he would trust her.
“Then you must know that there is no further information on the
Bregenz
. I received a note just this morning. All the Foreign Office could tell us was that the
Bregenz
reportedly sank in the Mediterranean two months ago.”
“And the crew?” Ursula prompted in low tones.
“Presumed lost,” Peter Vilensky replied.
Ursula was determined to take advantage of the trust Vilensky believed she shared with Lord Wrotham. “Is there any link between what happened to the
Bregenz
and your wife?”
Vilensky frowned. “None that I’m aware of. I have no idea what prompted her to investigate.”
“Did she say anything to you about the settlement at Hartuv?”
“Hartuv is not a settlement funded by me or Baron Rothschild. I don’t recall my wife ever mentioning it.”
“I found a postcard in one of the books I lent her—she had written Hartuv on the back.”
Peter Vilensky rubbed his eyes. “I cannot think what interest Katya had in it. . . . Miss Marlow, don’t you think you should leave these questions to Scotland Yard? You are an amateur and Hartuv may be an irrelevancy.”
Ursula hated to think he might be right but she knew that there must be some connection between the sisters’ deaths. “Was Arina in contact with Katya before her death?” she asked.
“They were sisters. Of course they were in contact.”
“But were there any letters exchanged in Egypt?”
Vilensky shrugged. “I cannot remember, but I expect there was the obligatory postcard.”
“Can I assume that Arina was not someone
you
were close to?” Ursula asked, trying to hide her impatience with his lack of cooperation.
Vilensky shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “No doubt you have already heard that I did not approve of Arina or her friends. I tried to limit Katya’s contact with her sister as much as I could.”
“Because she was associated with Bolsheviks?”
“No, because she only ever approached Katya when she needed money. I grew tired of subsidizing her and her so called ‘comrades.’ ”
Ursula eyes narrowed.
“Don’t you dare presume to judge me! You didn’t know Arina,” Peter Vilensky snapped angrily. “She never could extricate herself from those parasites. She even shunned her own community for them, and what good were their socialist ideals? All they did was keep her down. What did she end up as? A seamstress in a factory, abandoned by her so-called lover, and an outcast to her own people!”
Ursula bit her lip. The last thing she wanted was for Peter Vilensky to refuse to answer her questions.
“My apologies,” she ventured. “I intended no disrespect.”
Vilensky’s anger died as quickly as it had risen. He continued speaking, but this time his tone had moderated. He sounded less bitter, more regretful.
“Arina wouldn’t speak to her sister in months, and then we’d find her on the doorstep, asking once more for money. Katya was too indulgent—she felt responsible for looking after her sister since they were left orphaned in France, but her kindness was misplaced. Arina grew dependent, and so I insisted that Katya supply no more funds—after that, the sisters saw each other only infrequently.”
“But Katya maintained a correspondence with her sister?” Ursula pressed.
“Yes, though I tried to limit that too—Katya still felt the pull of her sister’s affection.”
“Did Arina write to Katya in Egypt?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Please try, it could be important.”
Ursula drew out the piece of paper Winifred had given her, outlining the words found in the letter fragment at Arina’s.
“Among the belongings found in Arina’s room, there were some pieces of a letter found in the stove.” Ursula handed the piece of paper to Vilensky. “I tried to have them translated, but it appears to be in some kind of code.”
Peter Vilensky looked at the paper. “This letter would not have come from Katya—nor was it from Arina.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they always corresponded in English. Katya insisted on it.”
Vilensky handed the piece of paper back to Ursula.
“I’m sorry,” he said with what appeared to be genuine regret. “I cannot help you with this.”
Ursula tucked the paper back in her skirt pocket. “I’m sorry, too.”
They both remained silent for a moment before Vilensky, running his fingers through his dark hair, suddenly said, “I do recall a letter from Arina that arrived a couple of days after Katya’s death.” Ursula looked at him expectantly, but Vilensky averted his gaze. “I returned it unopened, with a note explaining the circumstances of Katya’s death,” he said.
“You didn’t read Arina’s letter?”
“As I said, it remained unopened. I was sure it contained a plea for money. Her letters always did.”
“Wasn’t that a bit harsh?” Ursula queried. “You hadn’t thought to notify Arina before then? Katya was her sister!”
“What do
you
know?” Peter Vilensky blurted out bitterly.
“I know full well what it is like to lose one of your family—a loved one. It is almost unendurable.”
Vilensky flushed. “I’m sorry, Miss Marlow,” he resumed in quieter tones. “I should not have said that—it was tactless of me. I realize, of course, that with your father’s death you would know what it is like to have someone you love murdered.”
“And Katya was with me—,” Ursula began, but she choked on the words.
Peter sat down heavily on the folding wooden chair. “I know.” He seemed confused for a moment, as his bitterness dissipated and his grief rose to the surface.