Текст книги "Strange Images of Death"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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Chapter Twelve

‘Opulent quarters provided for Monsieur Petrovsky! He may not impress us but he would seem to merit some consideration from the lord?’

They climbed the staircase of one of the round towers, possibly the most ancient part of the château. The house was perfectly silent, the full company at lunch in the great hall.

‘Yes. He gets a set. It’s said the lord has a considerable financial investment as well as aesthetic interest in Petrovsky’s undertakings. Perhaps the rooms and hospitality are a quid pro quo of some kind. In here on the lower level, there’s what it pleases him to call his estude. Do you want to sneak a look?’

And what a pleasant study it made, with southern light flooding in from the window on to the desk, bookshelves full of interesting volumes and comforting Turkey carpets on the floor. Joe took a moment to open each of the drawers of the desk with gloved hands. He inspected the neatly arranged documents on the desk top, turning over several envelopes to read the address of the sender on the reverse flap. He moved on to a drawing board, set up on an easel beyond the desk and tilted at an angle to catch the light. After a moment he began to make sense of the pencilled notes and watercoloured sketches.

‘The man designs ballets too? As well as funding them? These are rather good. Outlines for scenery … shorthand for some ballet steps … He would appear to be planning an extravaganza by the name of The Devil’s Bride. Do I have that right? Anything known?’

Orlando replied tersely, uneasy with his role. ‘Yes. He may be some sort of fake but he knows his stuff. Some do say he was a dancer himself in his youth. Understudied for Nijinsky. Partnered Pavlova. That generation. And he’s stayed pretty … er … lithe, wouldn’t you say? Inherited money from his father some years ago just as his career was fading. “War money,” people hiss out of the corner of their mouths, “dirty stuff!” Wherever it came from, it came in large quantities and launched our chap firmly into the higher realms of the ballet. Not sure “higher” is quite right … Anyway, he suddenly had the clout to start up his own company, to employ choreographers of a quality to rival Fokine, Massine and any of the other “ines” you like to mention. Funny that—in the ballet world you’ve got to have a French name to get on in choreography, Russian if you’re dancing. Little Alice Marks of London found her career taking off when, overnight, she became Alicia Markova.’

‘Ah, yes—those little girls he surrounds himself with like handmaidens are …?’

‘Are indeed Russian. They flee to Paris from the Bolshoi and suchlike. The country produces them by the score. And now there are ballet schools springing up all over the place. A plethora of eager little girls showing off their pirouettes in every capital of Europe. Their mothers are desperate to get them noticed by such as Petrovsky. Some as young as twelve, if you can believe!’

‘Oh, Lord! Baby ballerinas! Whatever next? I say, are they properly supervised?’

‘Not always. Well, you saw their duenna last night—totally silent! Is she Spanish? Is she French? How would we know? Unaware and incurious. She’s not there to interfere. She’s there to turn a blind eye. It’s usually the mothers who chaperone these girls. But they get distracted. Bored. Turn their attention to daughter number two or three, run off with gigolos. Have affairs with one of the dancers. Male or female. Having lived life through their offspring, they suddenly decide to enjoy the bright lights for themselves. Some, I suspect, are merely complacent and conniving. Everyone notes that the charmers who make the leap from corps de ballet to a cameo or even lead role tend to be those same girls who are allowed to keep close company with you know who. You see why I’m perfectly ready to think Petrovsky a villain of the worst kind.’

‘Is he a fixture here?’

‘Oh, no. Comes and goes. Seems to use the place as a country retreat. He’s working—if you can call it that—in Avignon. The company’s performing for the summer season on some of the more glamorous stages in Provence. Open-air stuff too. He’s putting on extravaganzas in the Roman amphitheatres in Orange and Arles. Sylphs flitting about the ruins by moonlight … you can imagine.’

‘And what reason does he give for bringing the girls with him?’

‘He doesn’t deign to. Drops hints in conversation that a day or two away from the theatre is a reward. For what, he leaves to our imagination. They don’t stay long—have to get back to the barre and the rehearsal room. Can’t allow their limbs to stiffen up, I suppose. The girls he brings are ever-changing. Practically indistinguishable one from the other, but then, the names are always different. The current pair are Natalia and Natasha.’

‘Weren’t you concerned about his proximity to Dorcas—knowing or suspecting all this?’

‘Dorcas? Lord no! She can’t dance a step and … well, you’ve seen her in action … tongue like a hedge-clipper and all the common sense in the world. She’d have Monsieur Petrovsky for breakfast!’

‘I’ve seen enough here. Shall we move on upstairs?’

‘If you must. This way.’

The door was standing open, which in a strange way eased the path for Joe’s trespass. Orlando would not follow but stood in the doorway and talked to Joe across the bedroom in a stage whisper. ‘The girl’s been in and done, you see.’

‘The girl?’

‘I mean the girl from the village. The lord doesn’t trust a gang of artists to take good care of their surroundings and he has women in every day to keep our rooms in order. So there’ll be nothing in the waste-basket for you to turn over.’

Joe slipped back on the one pair of gloves he’d thought to bring with him to France. Smart black leather but they’d have to do. His training would not allow him to search a room without protection, however superfluous it might appear. And the professional gesture seemed to appease Orlando.

The room was, indeed, perfectly ordered. A chintz cover in blue and white was spread over the made-up bed which seemed to Joe too large and sitting badly in this rounded room. A bunch of white roses graced the night stand. Toiletries were lined up with regimental rigidity ready for use. Penhaligon’s Hammam Bouquet was his scent of choice. Joe removed the stopper and sniffed. Old-fashioned but mildly exotic by reputation. Rather sulphurous and odd, Joe decided.

A red silk dressing gown was draped neatly over the back of a chair. With practised gestures, Joe checked the pockets and found them empty. He looked at the label. Parisian. The contents of the wardrobe he next passed in review were equally expensive and well chosen. Well chosen if your life was lived flamboyantly in the public eye—on the stage or the dance floor or travelling between capital cities. With a smile, Joe calculated he would never have been able to afford even one of the cravats, had he had the dubious taste to want one.

‘Turn away,’ Joe shouted to Orlando. ‘I’m about to be indiscreet!’

He began methodically to examine the contents of the chest of drawers by the bed, starting at the top.

‘Well, that’s one question answered,’ he called into the corridor and, when Orlando turned, flourished a small dark blue book with gold lettering. ‘British passport! Our bird is English and he’s really … let me see now … Ah, he’s really Spettisham Gregory Peters not Sergei Petrovsky.’

‘Spettisham? Great heavens! What sort of cad is called after a sneeze? Man must be a lounge lizard. Kinder to think of him as Sergei!’

After a few more moments of stealthy inspection, Joe could not resist attracting Orlando’s attention once more. He flourished a small box at him. ‘Sexually active lizard, you’d have to say. And discreet with it! The very best prophylactic you-know-whats from a Parisian establishment.’

‘Quelquechose pour le weekend, monsieur? Is that what you’re saying?’ Orlando was intrigued enough to take a step into the room to make a closer inspection.

‘Quite. But no discernible evidence of a female presence in this love nest. I wonder …’

‘No! Don’t do what you’re about to do!’ said Orlando firmly. ‘Leave the bed made up just as it is. He’d know if it had been disturbed. And the maids are well trained. All evidence of a delicate nature will have been removed anyway.’

Joe rather thought he spoke from experience and conceded the point. Orlando retreated and Joe started to follow him to the door. Doing everything by the book, he dutifully pulled it closed to check the inner side. Many a time he’d found interesting information in the pockets of a dressing gown hanging neglected on a hook. He was not disappointed. He stared for a moment, taking in the offering. Here on a hook was hanging a dressing gown so aged it reminded him of his father’s moth-eaten old school gown. It even had a hood. Every large house had one such hanging about the place. Visitors who’d forgotten to pack one of their own occasionally shrugged gingerly into them in the middle of the night, preferring to risk possible exposure to skin rash rather than the certainty of the cold of the corridor leading to the bathroom.

Joe glanced back at the glamorous red silk number draped over the chair back and wondered.

The garment was of dark grey wool and so ordinary it might have escaped the attention of someone who had not heard Estelle’s story the previous night. Joe patted it down like a suspect. Feeling a slight lump in the right-hand pocket, he took out his own handkerchief and used it in lieu of an evidence bag to receive the half-smoked cigar he extracted between finger and thumb. His eye, ranging over the fabric of the gown, was caught by a glint of gold low down near the hem and, cursing his lack of tweezers and magnifying glass, he managed with difficulty to pick out a tiny object which joined the cigar in the safety of his handkerchief.

All very fascinating and Joe would have liked to spend much longer studying the garment but Orlando was growing ever more restive.

And it was the incongruous item protruding from the left-hand pocket that seized Joe’s attention. With that before his eyes, demanding his notice, he’d needed all his detective’s discipline to first carry out his routine inspection of the dull gown itself.

It was artistically arranged, you’d have said. A pair of silken white ballet tights dangled seductively, crossed at the ankles, small feet pointing to the floor, clearly caught in the execution of what Joe believed to be called an entrechat.

Chapter Thirteen

Joe reached out and hauled Orlando into the room.

‘Look at this! What do you make of it?’

‘Great heavens! What do you think I make of it! It’s disgusting! The man’s every bit as bad as we gave him credit for. I shall have to speak out.’

‘No, no! Look. Just imagine a girl’s legs in those.’

‘I beg your pardon! What sort of perverted imagination am I to suspect you of, Joe? I had thought—’

‘Clown! Look at them! They’re dancing! The legs are dancing. Didn’t your sister ever do ballet?’

‘Lord, no! You knew Beatrice! Well, you didn’t exactly … Missed her by a few minutes, I think. But you saw her even though she was dead at the time. Six foot tall with big feet! And not a musical bone in her body.’

‘My sister did ballet.’ Joe pulled a face. ‘Made me lift her about the place and count time for her exercises. I know an entrechat when I see one. And here we have one. On its way up or down, who can tell? At any rate it starts and finishes in the same place—the fifth position.’

‘Is that so?’ Orlando peered more closely. ‘Small size. You’d hardly get Dorcas into those.’

‘They’ve been set out like that to attract attention … to make a comment … to cock a snook? But at whom?’

‘We have to say—at us,’ said Orlando heavily. ‘You’re saying we were expected?’

Both men jumped perceptibly to hear a rumbling voice calling in French from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Sergei! Are you up there? Sergei?’

‘And now we’re caught!’ whispered Orlando.

‘Who is this? De Pacy?’ muttered Joe.

‘No. Much worse. Much, much worse! It’s the lord himself.’

Surprising Joe, he straightened his shoulders, grinned and said lightly, ‘Look—leave this to me. I’ll do the talking. You just smile politely. Okay? Stay where you are. Put the door back against the wall and hide the fifth position. Oh, and take those gloves off!’

‘Silmont! Is that you?’ he bellowed back in confident French. ‘We’re up here. Looking for Sergei. The whole world’s looking for Sergei this morning! Will you come up or shall we come down to you? Ah, here you are! Didn’t see you at breakfast, sir—I was hoping to introduce my friend Joe Sandilands, who’s doing the tour. I’ll do it now. Come in, come in.’

With aplomb, Orlando made the introductions. He could have been standing in his own drawing room, Joe thought, confident and welcoming.

The lord was all charm. He was delighted to see Joe whom he had been hoping to catch at lunch and regretted that he would have so short a time with him. ‘Just off to visit an old friend and neighbour for the day,’ he apologized, indicating his riding breeches. ‘Only ten miles distant—I usually ride over. Though I’m so enfeebled these days I never know when one of these rides is going to be my last. You get set in your ways once you reach fifty, you’ll find. It becomes increasingly difficult to give up on anything. I look forward to spending one evening each week playing bridge with three old friends of my youth. This week it happens to be a Tuesday when we’re all free. One of us being a doctor, we tend to follow his lead. Sounds depressing, no doubt, to a young man like you but our weeks turn agreeably around the event. I shall make a point of returning by lunch time tomorrow to do my duty! I feel I ought to exchange nods at least with this inspector of police we’ve been promised. I think cousin Guy allowed himself to be pressed into an overreaction by some of the shrill ladies we have on board at the present. What do you say, Sandilands?’

‘In the same situation, sir, I would myself have called on the police—had I not been the police,’ he finished with a smile. ‘There is always the fear that it may be the prologue to a tragedy.’

‘But as to the elusive Sergei, sir,’ Orlando bustled on with his explanation, ‘I’m afraid we can’t help you. Someone said he’d eaten early and come back to his room. The fresco painter is looking for him also—trying to tempt him out to the Val des Fées. The on dit is that our Russian friend is, in fact, a watercolourist of some distinction in addition to his other talents, were you aware? … But of course … We’ll continue our search and pass him a message should we find him before you do … What would you like us to say?’

While Orlando had flannelled himself through this onesided conversation, Joe and the lord had been taking stock of each other. Joe decided he liked what he saw. Of medium height and slender with thinning brown hair and pale, angular features, their host did not at first sight live up to Joe’s imagined aristocratic presence. Or to his fear-some reputation as art connoisseur. Here was one who had been a handsome man and an athletic man, but Joe had an uncomfortable illusion that he was seeing him, his essence diluted, his image reflected in a dust-filmed mirror.

He was wearing breeches and a tweed jacket and seemed to have called in on them—or Sergei, Joe corrected himself—on his way to the stables. He could have been any English country squire preparing to hack around his estate at the weekend. But he had a quality of blended awareness and ease that magnetized the space around him and drew the attention. Dark eyes seemed to gleam with increasing amusement at Orlando’s performance and he risked an exchange of glances with Joe, politely suppressing a smile.

‘The Val des Fées! Of course, you’re quite right, Joliffe,’ he returned smoothly, taking up the cue he was offered.

‘Now I remember it being spoken of. Sergei is immensely interested in the colours and character of the neighbourhood—background for his new ballet, you know.’ He turned to Joe. ‘A local story of devilish horror which you must ask someone to recount to you. In the broad light of day for choice—not before retiring! Everyone’s worst nightmare! He’s seeking not only inspiration for the plot of the ballet but also an artist of some distinction who’s capable of designing and painting the sets. Which must be stunning and fresh. He is unable to secure the attentions of Pablo Picasso or Henri Matisse who would have been his first choices because they are engaged elsewhere by rival companies. But I have introduced him to our young friend Frederick whom I have enlisted to paint a fresco in the north gallery. I have been greatly impressed by the boy’s talent and I’m sure Sergei will be equally impressed. And if they have gone off together to the ochre landscape this is nothing but good news. My schemes would appear to be working!’

He smiled at Joe and confided: ‘One of the pleasures of advancing years is that you have collected a wide acquaintance. You know many people and can move them around like chess pieces on a board. You can put them together—drive them apart should it be necessary—even wipe them from the board if they fail to please. It’s a pity that you will be with us only for a day or two, Commander. I looked forward to watching you perform!’

‘Not as a pawn, I hope?’ said Joe with a smile calculated to veil rather than hide his irritation. ‘I rather see myself as a knight, bounding gallantly about the board.’

‘You are no bounder, Sandilands, unless I miss my mark. No. I picture you as the queen who bides her time, watches the play and swoops with deadly accuracy when the moment comes.’

He turned to Orlando. ‘But carry on with the tour, Joliffe. I understand Guy has given carte blanche to the Commander to begin his swooping when and where he thinks fit.’ An elegant hand flicked out, indicating the turret room. ‘This would seem a strange place to start perhaps but,’ he shrugged, ‘the Commander knows best.’ He edged to the doorway. ‘Are you coming down? Then I shall accompany you and bore you with information about the building …

‘This suite of rooms,’ he began, affecting the tone of a guide, ‘belonged in the thirteenth century to the mistress of the Lord Silmont of the day. Well, one of the mistresses. It’s said that he had four in all, one in each corner turret. His bastard sons—of whom there were many—served him in the traditonal role of page boy or maître d’hôtel. Imagine the domestic disputes … the jostling for promotion … the back-stabbing … the shin-kicking! The sudden unexplained deaths in the struggle for the succession! Thank the Lord I have to face none of that.’

‘You have sons, sir?’ Joe asked as the lord seemed to have left a space for a response.

‘Not so fortunate, I’m afraid. I have never been married. You’re looking at the last survivor in a long chain of inheritance, Commander. The broken link, if you will. And we have Napoleon to blame for the destruction. The decay started with the introduction of the Code Napoléon. A disaster for the landed gentry! The law of primogeniture was swept aside and instead of passing down as one piece to the oldest son of the family, estates, small and great alike, were divided equally between the surviving children—however many of them there were. The inheritances grew ever smaller with each generation. But the families adapted. We always do. There was no longer a compulsion to produce large broods. One son became the preferred production. To be replaced as and when war and disease made it necessary.’

Uncertain as to how he was expected to respond, Joe murmured something that sounded like condolences.

‘Oh, one ought not to set much store by a great name in these modern times. When I tell you that the aristocracy in France have flourished to such an extent since the Revolution that they number over two hundred thousand, you will hardly believe me! I know that you English assume we were all but extinguished … losing our heads to Madame Guillotine. It may surprise you to hear that a tiny percentage of the whole class—just over one thousand aristos—lost their heads. The huge majority kept theirs and either emigrated or lay low on their remote estates until better times arrived. All praise to Louis XVIII! Yes, Sandilands, we have a thousand times the number of gentlemen you have in England! Which might lead a sceptic—and I class myself as such—to say that the Silmont title is of little consequence. I shall leave it and my lands to my cousin Guy. Alas—he also is childless. And therefore, unless he pulls his socks up and remembers his familial obligations while he is yet young enough, the estate is destined, I’m afraid, to be bought up by aspiring neighbours. It will be absorbed by some marquisate or duchy. Or some rich nobody eager to avail himself of the noble particule. Monsieur de Silmont! Two letters, Sandilands! What extraordinary lengths people are prepared to go to in order to acquire them. Now, if you’d care to come this way …’

The cry went up at the most inconvenient moment. Somewhere deep in the castle a gong had announced it was time to think about assembling for drinks before dinner. Joe checked his watch and waited by the door of his room. Dorcas was late. Or Estelle was late. He found he could no longer remember who exactly was on herding duty this evening.

He heard the cry a second time and recognized Dorcas’s voice. A moment later she shot up the stairs and into the children’s dormitory. More shouts and yells and she came dashing out again. Joe saw her take a deep breath and try to control her voice as she caught sight of him but she could not deceive him. The terror behind the calm words was very evident.

‘I’m afraid there’s one of us missing, Joe.’