The Blue Diamond (22 page)

“We can’t afford it! You know we cannot, Papa.”

“You have no faith in your father. It is afforded. Order it. That is a command.” He looked stern, in a playful way. “What, no smile? No little kiss for Papa? It is Moncrief you want, eh? Maybe your Papa can arrange that too.”

“Father, don’t you dare say a word to him!” she exclaimed in horror.

“What a mood you are in! You are beginning to act like your Mama, my dear. That is not a compliment, lest you mistake it for one.”

When they left the house, both were scowling. The required social smile was in place when they entered the Hofburg some moments later, but Maria at least was still angry. No abatement of her mood occurred when more than half an hour passed, and still Moncrief had not arrived. When at last he came, he slipped in unannounced to appear suddenly at her elbow, claiming a dance.

In a recalcitrant mood, she said haughtily, “So kind of you, but I have danced till my head whirls, and had just decided to sit out this one.”

“An excellent idea. I’ll bring you a glass of wine to some quiet corner and we shall chat.”

“I am surprised to see you here at all after your accident. So sorry to hear of it. Footpads it was, in case Cécile forgot to tell you. Tell me, was she required to take a poker to your skull herself in self-defense, or did some of your other enemies beat her to it?”

“What a scathing mood we are in this evening. Was Count Rechberg’s engagement announced, by any chance?”

“Not to my knowledge, Sir, but perhaps it will be. The gentlemen are all falling over themselves to take up with the lower orders. It is the newest vogue from the Congress.”

“I’ll bring you two glasses. One to ease your whirling head, and one to atone for the scene you were subjected to. I had no idea you were on such terms of intimacy with Cécile."

“I might say the same to you.”

He opened his mouth to object, to explain himself, then closed it again. He owed this haughty beauty no explanations, particularly when she was in this mood. He handed her to a chair in silence and turned away to get wine, while she sat looking after him, noticing the fine figure he presented, standing half a head above the crowd. A girl would be a fool to fall in love with such a man. Better to make a good marriage of convenience, like everyone else. But he was handsome, never more so than tonight, when she knew him to be as bad as all other men.

He was soon back, carrying two glasses, but one he kept for himself. “I have spoken to your father,” he began, in businesslike accents.

“Kind of you to rush over days later and tell me.”

“I had hoped I might be able to allay your fears completely. I have been waiting to see how events transpire.”

“The delightful manner in which they have been transpiring for you obviously knocked it out of your head, to come and see me.”

“Not at all. I am now able to tell you your father does not have any illegal plans, if that sets your mind at rest.”

“That’s what you think! He has this very night offered me an expensive fur-lined riding habit we cannot afford.”

“Defer the riding habit, is my suggestion. Why did you call on Cécile tonight?”

When her answer coincided more or less with Mademoiselle’s, he assumed it to be the truth. The only other explanation was that the two women were in collusion, and Maria’s anger seemed to contradict that. “Why it should throw Papa into transports of delight is not clear to me. Perhaps you know?” she asked. He hunched his shoulders.

“I daresay he would be happy enough for her to leave Vienna. Lucky for her she has your offer of going to England to fall back on.”

“I did try to lure her out of her apartment. Chabon had more luck. He could order; I could only invite.”

“You make it sound as though—as though the point of it were only to get her out of the apartment,” she said, looking at him in confusion. When he did not even bother to deny it, she asked, “Why? What are you all up to? It has to do with those diamonds, hasn’t it? You think she has them. But that is absurd! If anyone has them, it is Chabon. You don’t surely intend to plant them in her apartment!”

“Good lord, no!” he said in a loud voice. “No one is thinking of that.” But then, if by some impossible chance Mademoiselle had been telling him the truth, that might be exactly what Chabon had in mind. Indeed, he would hardly have warned her a night in advance if he meant to search. She would have removed them and hidden them elsewhere. He noted too that it was only by accident he had heard of Chabon’s plan. Kruger had not intended to tell him. How easy it would be for them to put a parcel in a closet or under a mattress and “find” it, claiming the reward. “I wonder if that could be it,” he said, really asking himself.

“Father would never consent to it.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily know. In fact, that would explain Chabon’s ever having involved your father in the first place, to have an innocent witness to his discovery.”

“Why should father help him?”

“For money—reward money from the French government. A hundred thousand pounds would be his share.”

“So much as that! My goodness. But Papa cannot know what Chabon plans.”

“We don’t know it ourselves. This is mere supposition.”

“That’s true, and besides, Chabon doesn’t even plan to be there tomorrow morning. He is taking Mademoiselle to the palais himself, and Papa is to search. He would not put diamonds in her apartment to trap her. He is a gentleman. Lower your brows, if you please. It’s true.”

“What time is she going?”

“Ten in the morning.”

Moncrief finished up his wine rather quickly. When he left Maria, he went to have a few words with Talleyrand, mentioning casually Miss Feydeau’s visit to the palais on the morrow, for he was beginning to have strong doubts with regard to Chabon, and some subsequent fears for the girl’s safety. Talleyrand was aware of it, however, so that seemed on the up-and-up.

The Palgraves were present, as was Chabon, but they did not take note of each other. Googie tugged at his arm as he walked past her group. “You have not been out to see our chateau, Tatt. So sweet. With my binoculars I can see Napoleon’s wife and son. The woman is an utter dowd, and as platter-faced as may be. I can’t imagine what he ever saw in her. We are quite close to the Schonbrunn you must know.”

“I’ve been meaning to go over and visit you, Lady Palgrave.”

“Don’t make a surprise visit, for we are in town more than half the time. We’ll be in the city house tomorrow, if you care to drop by for luncheon.”

“I’m afraid I’m busy tomorrow, but I shall attend your masquerade party at your chateau.”

“Bring anyone you like. It is a small do; only a hundred or so invited because of its being Lent, you know. You would think they would cancel it this year, but then they are Papists here. They all dance in everyone’s else’s house, but won’t do it in their own. So odd. The Tsar and all the kings and princes officially declined, but have hinted they will be there incognito. I shan’t make anyone unmask at midnight, but let them leave their disguises on all night. How will you come?”

“In a domino.”

“You men are so unimaginative. About your costumes, I mean,” she added with a meaningful laugh. “Full of ideas on other subjects. I shan’t tell you what the Tsar suggested. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“No point in repeating it then, is there?”

She turned away with a pout, to tell her story to a friendlier ear.

Chapter Twenty-one

Moncrief was watching Mademoiselle’s apartment from across the street the next morning. He had Wragge with him, standing idly by to give him an excuse to linger. The two appeared to be talking, but both pairs of eyes kept a sharp watch on her door. He saw Chabon drive up and knock at the door. Cécile and her chaperone came out immediately. As the carriage rounded the corner, Moncrief hastened his steps across the street. He walked to the door and entered without knocking, to see Kruger on his hands and knees, looking under the sofa in her little parlor. The man got up slowly, clumsily, with a grunt at the unwonted exertion. He wiped his hands, forming an excuse to account for his ungainly posture.

“Mademoiselle is out. I did not hear you knock, Moncrief. She has been complaining of mice. I came to . . .” He stopped as his caller’s face split into a grin. “Oh, you know about it. Who told you?”

“No matter. I am here, and shall help you look for mice. How did you get in? Is there an entrance from your own house?”

“Yes, a door at the end of the hallway, a doorway that is kept locked usually. I have the only key. You know, of course, what I am looking for.”

“I do.”

“Let us go to it then. The lady’s room might be a good place to start. They’re not under the sofa.”

“I didn’t think they would be,” Moncrief replied.

They went together to the bedroom, to lift the mattress and look under it, to go through closets, trunks, dresser, and all the dozens of possible places of concealment. Kruger was not out of his sight for an instant. Moncrief did not think the man had hidden the diamonds before his entry either. There had been very little time, and in any case Kruger had the excited, eager air of a man who was truly looking for something. He rifled through Miss Feydeau’s lingerie, held up several lace-covered petticoats. “Elegant,” he said. “Not the trappings of an innocent young girl. You know, I expect, what sort of women do garnish themselves in this fashion?”

“Papa, for shame!” a voice said from the doorway, where Maria stood, watching them.

“Maria, what are you doing here?” her father demanded angrily.

“I came to help you look for the diamonds. Did Moncrief not tell you? It was I who told him you would be here.”

“How do you come to know so much about it, eh?”

“I listen at keyholes, Papa. You should both be ashamed, inspecting a lady’s underwear. Let me look here, and you do the parlor and dining room. Oh, and don’t forget the kitchen.”

If Kruger noticed that Moncrief dogged his steps, he did not mention it. They made a thorough search together, even turning the upholstered furniture up on its front to examine the underside for possible incision, with the jewels sewed into the inside. They lifted the carpet to look for loose floorboards, jiggled the wainscoting, were down on hands and knees and later up on chairs to examine tops of high cabinets. Then it was a trip to the kitchen to root around in pots and pans, to dump flour out and pour it back into bins, to scrabble through bins of potatoes and even to look into the oven of a stove that was still hot, with no luck.

“Nothing,” Kruger was forced to concede at last.

“I knew she would not have them,” Maria said.

“Chabon was sure we would find them,” Kruger mentioned, shaking his head sadly.

“I think, Herr Kruger, that if Chabon were sure, he would have made a point to be here himself” Moncrief said.

“Let us go home, before she gets back,” Maria suggested.

“He’s keeping her two hours,” her father answered. “We have only been here for one.”

“Let us just take a look around and make sure we’ve covered our traces,” Moncrief said. He was a little unhappy that he had not personally had a better look around the bedroom. He went inside while Maria went to the kitchen, to ensure that no flour had spilled, or similar traces been left behind to betray them. Moncrief went alone to Cécile's room, to look about quickly. His eyes glanced from cut glass cosmetic pots on the dresser to a chased silver brush and comb set. In the clothes press hung fancier gowns than Mademoiselle was ever seen to wear. The top of the clothes press was well above his head. Maria, being much shorter, might have missed it. Reaching up, he ran a hand over the top and pulled down a leather, rectangular box.

“It’s only her stationery box,” Maria said from the doorway. “No diamonds. I looked.”

He opened the lid all the same, and flipped through her writing paper. “No letters either,” Maria pointed out. “No list of addresses, no receipt from Eynard, nothing useful.”

“What’s this?” he asked, feeling some thicker piece of parchment at the bottom of the paper. He pulled out a certificate and read it with interest. “It’s a marriage certificate,” he said. Maria rushed to his side to read of the marriage between Cécile Yvonne Feydeau and Georges Henri Castonguy.

“She’s married! Five years ago too. But she said she was engaged to a lieutenant in Napoleon’s army. He was killed at Leipzig,” Maria exclaimed.

“Interesting,” Moncrief said, staring at the parchment.

“She could be a widow. Lots of Frenchmen have died during the past five years.”

“Yes, she could be.”

“You don’t think so. You think her husband maybe has the jewelry?”

“It’s possible.”

"I don’t think she has any diamonds at all.”

“You believe Chabon is the villain in the piece.” It was a statement, not a question. She did not contradict it.

“As you said yourself, if he had thought we would find the diamonds, he would have been here. And if he didn’t think so—why arrange this opportunity for us to search at all?”

“It is known, I believe, as a red herring,” Moncrief said, in a somewhat angry voice.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—I don’t know exactly. It hasn’t jelled in my head, but I expect he had some reason for making sure we all wasted our morning here. I’d like to know what he has been up to meanwhile. I soon shall know. My man followed him.”

When Wragge met with Moncrief at Minoritenplatz later, he reported that Chabon had himself taken the French lady to the palais, and remained there during the entire visit, afterwards returning her and the chaperone to their apartment.

“So what was the point of it?” Moncrief asked himself. “All he has done is to convince us the diamonds are not at her apartment.”

“I fancy he was trying to discover from her where she has got ‘em. He was talking to her twelve to the dozen the whole way there and back. I could see their heads together through the window.”

“I’ll talk to the Krugers and see if he discovered anything,” Moncrief answered. “Or if he told them in any case. I don’t trust the man as far as I could throw him.”