The Blue Diamond (26 page)

The keyhole was large. Through it, he could see nothing but two pairs of black trouser legs, the edge of a white skirt, and the corner of a desk. He put his ear to the door and listened with every atom of his attention.

It was Chabon who was speaking, authenticating the gem. Moncrief nearly fell over with shock at the words he heard. “Certainly this is not the Blue Tavernier,” he said, with utter conviction. “It is a worthless piece of glass.”

“It is a diamond, I tell you!” the woman countered, equally convinced. “He only says it is not to thwart my plan. You know Chabon hates me. I don’t see why you must use him in this business.”

“Best expert there is,” Harvey answered simply.

“You know something about diamonds yourself,” Mademoiselle Feydeau replied. “Take a look at this—see the sparkle, feel the weight of it. Chabon lies because he doesn’t want the diamond sold. He wants to get it himself to return to Louis for the reward.”

The jewel, apparently, was passed over to Palgrave. There was a moment’s silence, then Harvey’s voice spoke up. “Certainly looks like a diamond to me,” he offered.

“Of course it is,” Feydeau pressed on. “You know perfectly well it is, Chabon.”

“This diamond does not belong to you!” Chabon said, his voice rising. “I claim it in the name of King Louis XVIII of France.”

The scuffling sounds led Moncrief to believe Mademoiselle had reclaimed it in the name of herself. “You won’t get away with this,” Chabon warned.

"It
is
the Blue Tavernier then,” Harvey said. His voice was full of ecstasy, so great was his happiness.

“We shall see about that, Monsieur Chabon,” Miss Feydeau said. The ominous silence that followed led to the assumption Mademoiselle had drawn a pistol. “I shall get away, despite the many guards you have put up to stop me. Do you take me for a fool, not to recognize the English soldiers, even when dressed in grooms’ outfits?”

“What are you talking about?” Chabon demanded.

“Was it not your doing? It must have been the English melord then,
your
interfering cousin, Palgrave.”

Moncrief came to realize he was up against an expert. Chabon had not noticed the little excess of grooms loitering about the roads. Mademoiselle was craftier, sharper-eyed. And how the deuce did she mean to evade them?

“You will not get past them, in any case,” Chabon warned her.

“We shall see about that, Monsieur,” she answered smugly, with a little taunting laugh. “There is more than one place to stable a carriage—or a horse. And more than one way to leave a party.”

Moncrief listened, wishing she would say more, even while he wondered at her saying so much—advertising, in fact, that she would not be leaving by carriage. His attention was distracted by a sudden change in the noise emanating from the occupied portion of the chateau. The music stopped, but it was more than that. There was a longish silence, then a sudden burst of raised voices, of rushing feet, some of them even rushing towards this dark corridor, where Moncrief crouched at the keyhole. He hopped up, as a footman charged down the hall, carrying a lamp.

“He has escaped! Bonaparte has escaped! He is coming back. It’s war!” the servant shouted into the darkness, then rushed off in another direction with his light.

Inside the locked room, there was a sound of rapid movement, of raised voices. “Give me the money!” Mademoiselle Feydeau demanded.

“Don’t!” Chabon ordered, but he had, apparently, no gun, as the lady’s next speech showed whose command had been obeyed.

"
Merci
, melord. A pleasure doing business with you,” she declared. Then the door was unlocked, opened wide, and she backed out, with a little silver mounted pistol pointing inwards, where Harvey stood smiling fondly at his “diamond,” and Chabon glared after Mademoiselle.

Moncrief stepped up behind her and reached over her shoulder for the pistol. Feeling his approach, she turned, with a murderous light in her eye. The movement was so swift Moncrief missed it, but Harvey, glancing up, saw Chabon whip a pistol, rather similar to the woman’s, from his pocket and take aim. “Deuce take it, Chabon . . ." he complained, having a feeling Googie would not like a pistol being discharged at one of her parties. On the other hand, she might like it very well. Never could tell about Goog.

Even as he spoke, a flash of fire came from the muzzle. There was a deafening bang as Chabon took aim at Mademoiselle, and . . . missed. It was Moncrief who emitted a moan as a ball entered his shoulder, throwing him against the far wall.

Mademoiselle laughed exultantly, turned with her gun still pointed towards Palgrave and Chabon, then darted down the hallway, to disappear into an unused chamber. Chabon and Palgrave came to Moncrief's aid, the former uttering exclamations of horror and regret.

“Never mind that, go after her! Stop her!” Moncrief ordered.

“But are you sure you’re all right? A doctor . . ." Chabon said. “I am so sorry. A most regrettable accident. I have, unfortunately, very little experience with guns of any kind.”

"I'll live. Stop her, before she gets clean away.”

“With all those men you have posted, there is no chance,” Chabon countered.

“Go!” Moncrief bellowed, employing the last of his strength. He tried to heave himself from the wall against which he was leaning, then the scene before him faded gently from view, to become a sheet of black, as he eased into unconsciousness.

Glancing to him, Palgrave saw with a wince of distaste that there was blood oozing between his cousin’s fingers, which clutched rather limply at his wounded shoulder. “Better do as he says, Chabon. There’s a good fellow. I’ll get a sawbones.”

Moncrief began to topple forward, into Chabon’s arms. With no one to urge them after Mademoiselle, they turned their attention to Moncrief, taking him to a private parlor, calling the housekeeper, but all with great urgency, so that Chabon was soon able to go after the French woman.

Harvey put the diamond in his pocket, and went to look for Googie, to tell her of his success. “My pet, have you heard?” she asked. “Napoleon has escaped from Ella, or Elba—wherever it was they had him. Is it not gorgeous? Such fun! And the timing could not be better—he did it at my party. I will be the talk of the whole city.”

“I have better news than that, love. Got the blue diamond for you. Said I would. Come into my study and put it on. Then you can wear it into the ballroom and accept congratulations.”

“Oh Harvey! Googie wuvs you!” she chirped ecstatically, and nipped along after him, while his little chest swelled with pride.

He pulled it from his pocket and dangled it before his eyes. She regarded it, dismayed to see how antique and unlovely a setting it had. He pinned it to her bodice, where it nearly pulled the gown, none too strenuously tethered, from her bosom. This did not disturb her in the least, but she bit her lip, considering her position. After careful thought, she spoke. “I shan’t wear it tonight. Bonaparte’s escape will distract attention from me—it. We’ll have to have another party to introduce it, love.”

“Good idea,” he agreed, admiring the diamond, but still not admiring it so much that he was not envisioning a different setting. The golden fleece was too large even for Googie’s ample chest. A brooch was not the proper setting for it at all. A necklace it should be on, in the Lavalliere style. All the crack.

It was a quarter of an hour before Moncrief regained consciousness. The doctor, to his infinite relief, had already pried the bullet from his flesh, and was in the process of bandaging the wound. “More than a scratch,” the doctor cautioned. “It was imbedded deeply, but you will live. Lost a fair bit of blood. This will play havoc with your circulation.”

“Where’s Palgrave?” Moncrief demanded at once.

Harvey was eventually induced to leave his ballroom, to assure Moncrief that Chabon had gone after the woman. “Between Chabon and your men, no chance she’ll get away,” Harvey said, though he secretly wished for her safe delivery. Might there not be some chance he would have to return the diamond if she were caught, and his money returned? At least Mademoiselle had told him so, and he was very happy he had been able to point out to her the best manner of leaving to escape capture. He had the footman’s outfit waiting for her, just as she asked, and the mount tethered at the end of the garden.

The announcement of Bonaparte’s escape from Elba, coming so conveniently, had certainly aided her escape. “I wonder if the she-devil didn’t plant the rumor herself,” he mused. It had certainly clogged the roads with princes and ministers scampering back to headquarters to verify the news, and to discover what was to be done about it.

When he returned to his saloon, he found his party in a shambles. Hardly fifty people left, and none of them dancing, but only standing around in groups, giving their opinion. “Who started the story anyway?” he asked Kruger, who remained behind.

“They are saying a French messenger came to the doorway to tell Dalberg. It is said Talleyrand sent him. Well, I think I shall return to Vienna, and see if there’s anything in it. Where is Moncrief, by the by?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? He’s been shot,” Harvey answered, with a little smile of surprise at having the pleasure of a delectable piece of gossip to circulate to those few remaining guests. “Yessir, winged in Feydeau’s escape. A great secret, Kruger. Not to tell a soul, but between me and you and the fence post, I have bought the Blue Tavernier for my wife. Care to see it?” he asked eagerly. “Like to have your opinion. Well—I’ll show it to Moncrief as well. He hasn’t had a look yet, in all the excitement, but it is certainly genuine, for Chabon authenticated it for me, and he, you know, is as shrewd as can stare.”

"
Mon Dieu!
” Kruger breathed. “By all means let us go to Moncrief. He must hear of this catastrophe!”

Chapter Twenty-six

The Countess von Rossner was quite simply disgusted with Moncrief. Love and a cough, she had always heard, could not be long hidden. Her sharp, rheumy eyes had discovered that he was in love with Maria. Why then did he not rush off to determine her safety? That should come above all else in his preoccupations. Did he not love her? Of course he did, she assured herself as her carriage dashed through the Vienna woods towards the city. He perhaps did not like that he loved her. She was a foreigner, and the
anglais
were insufferably narrow-minded in that regard. There was the little embarrassment of Peter’s having sold that forged painting in London—had he not been aware it was a fake?—and his present lack of funds. All these less than happy facts, however, Moncrief must be well aware of, and still his gray eyes glowed when he looked at her. So what had changed?

Bah, men! Peter as incomprehensible, blowing hot and cold. Quite ignoring her for weeks, then of a sudden, he was sending her violets. He was coming to sit his spreading bulk in her cozy saloon for a tête-à-tête, just like old times. He was chiding her for having Count Ribicoff for her escort at a do last week, and pretending he was jealous. Jealous! Much he cared if she hopped into bed with Ribicoff. He was afraid she would deposit her fat dowry with the Count, and that was that.

The lights were burning at Kruger’s house as her carriage drew up to the door. “Run in and see if Fräulein is in,” she commanded her footman, when he came to open the door. “If she is not, find out where the deuce she is gone to.”

Within two minutes, her man returned to inform her Fräulein Kruger was not at home. The carriage had not been called. She had not returned from the Duchesse de Sagan’s dinner party. They thought she was to go directly to the next do, at Palgrave’s chateau.

“But that is impossible!” the old Countess exclaimed, putting her gloved hand out to her footman, to be assisted to dismount from the carriage and go into the house. “The Duchesse left Maria at the front door hours ago. Where could she possibly be?” she asked the frowning butler.

“She has not been in the house since she left with her father for her first evening appointment,” he insisted.

It was a total mystery. She had disappeared from her own doorstep while it was still evening, without leaving a trace. “Search the garden, the grounds, the house,” she ordered. She went herself to the enclosed garden at the rear, where urns bearing withered brown skeletons of flowers whistled softly in the night breeze. Obviously she was not there. Her eyes scanned the back of the house. "Of course! Why did I not think of it sooner!” she exclaimed, and hastened her steps off to Mademoiselle Feydeau’s doorway. Repeated bangings gave no reply. Undaunted, she tried the door, and found it to be on the latch. There was a dark, chill silence all about her. She called thrice, and received no answer. She was about to leave, when she heard a dull, regular thumping coming from below. Fear clutched at her heart. She turned and darted out the front door, to seek the company of Kruger’s butler, armed with a lamp and a poker.

“There—you hear it. There is something bumping away down in the kitchen,” she pointed out, clutching at his arm, which clutched the poker. “You must go down and have a look, Shutz.”

The story of Bonaparte’s escape had run like wildfire through the city. Shutz had heard it, and took the notion that the Corsican General crouched in the kitchen below, ready to pounce and exterminate him. He hung back, while the Countess’s fears mounted ever higher.

“Coward! Come behind me then. Hide behind my skirts, if you are afraid,” she chided, snatching the lamp from his fingers, and peering over her shoulder to see that he did at least follow where he was afraid to lead.

In the dark kitchen, Maria heard the voices overhead, heard the footsteps, and knew someone was coming, but was struck with a strong doubt as to whether the persons came to rescue her, or do further harm. She fell suddenly silent, wondering what to do. The light in the stove had gone out an hour before. The room was dark as pitch, and becoming uncomfortably cold. She strained her ears to catch the sound of human voices, to see if she could distinguish their owners.

“It seemed to me the sound came from over there,” she heard a voice say.