City of Secrets (8 page)

Grant had followed the trail of that mysterious stranger in the pub, but like an underground stream that surfaces only in hidden places, it was elusive and unrewarding. He had more success in tracking down the valet, who had been truthful in his references at least to his French origins, and along whose trail that mysterious underground stream would occasionally surface. Grant had followed it to Paris and found enough evidence there to report back to the prince the danger of a plot against him.

That had been his first error. The prince did not believe in plots; more specifically, he did not believe that vague threats should interrupt his pleasures. He told Grant to do whatever he could that did not interfere with his usual duties, but not to become obsessed by it. If the plot was that tentative, he said, it was unlikely that anything would come of it.

“No, no!” the prince protested now, when Alice Keppel wondered aloud how detectives “shadowed” their suspects without being seen. Did Mr. Grant adopt disguises? “I beg you will not tell us anything, dear boy! It is bad enough, my sweet, that he sees anarchists with pistols behind every bush, without his telling us that he spends his spare time memorizing their likenesses and vital statistics, so as to be sure to recognize them in the street.”

Sir Ernest, who had been surveying the track through his glasses, remarked just then that some anarchists did not trouble to hide themselves away from polite society. “There is Peter Kropotkin himself, playing the boulevardier with a stunning creature who I hope for your sake, sir, does not represent the next generation of anarchists.”

Curious, Devin raised his own glasses in the direction Sir Ernest was looking, stifled a curse, and disappeared out the back of the enclosure without so much as begging anyone’s pardon. Mrs. Keppel looked after him astonished, but the prince only smiled and said, “Duty, presumably, calls.”

#

“Where are we going?” Madeleine Malcolm asked, when Devin steered her in the direction of the striped tent that housed the prince’s supply of claret and the baskets of food for his “simple little picnic,” as Mrs. Keppel had blithely called it.

“It will be private in here,” he said. “We can talk undisturbed.”

He held the flap open for her and followed her into a spacious area that looked as much like an office as a storage facility. There was a desk and chair at one end, and all around the canvas walls hung paintings, in numerous styles and mediums, but all depicting horses. There were horses posed between carriage shafts, horses romping in fields, horses peering over stall doors, and horses garlanded in roses after a race victory. They walked around the collection, the display of which, Devin explained, had also been Mrs. Keppel’s idea, in case the weather should be inclement and the royal party be reduced to taking their luncheon under the tent where there were no natural views to make conversation about. At least Alice had stopped short of inviting the prince’s favorite horses to lunch, he thought.

“Who are the artists?” Maddie asked.

“No one of note. One or two are by gifted amateurs, local Suffolk and Cambridge people. Some are by Mrs. Keppel’s and Sir Ernest’s daughters, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Maddie paused without comment in front of an obviously childish watercolor of a favorite horse who seemed to lack hindquarters entirely, then passed on to another which she could not let go unremarked.

“Hangin’s too good for that one,” she observed in a perfect imitation of Florence Wingate’s honeyed way of registering aesthetic horror.

Devin laughed, then kicked himself for it; he would have preferred to keep his righteous anger burning. He had intended, as well, to berate her for associating herself so publicly with Kropotkin, but none of these intentions had survived his first contact with her—with the firm slenderness of her arm beneath the sleeve of her dress, the sweet soapy smell wafting gently from her hair, the narcotic effect of the faint sound of her breathing as they walked among the pictures in silence. She had, he realized now, the same kind of unfluttery, unselfconscious femininity that Alice Keppel did—and a similar reserved sensuality that promised a good deal while revealing little.

He was more disconcerted to discover that the attraction he had felt toward her on their first meeting was stronger than ever, as if it were the most important thing to come out of that meeting, far outstripping the common sense that told him it was too soon—if it would ever be soon enough—to do anything about it. Now it was more likely that she would rebuff any advance he made or, worse, take advantage of it in much the same way she had wielded her checkbook on that last occasion. He would have to curb his impatience. He ought to know how by this time.

“How
did
you meet Kropotkin?” he asked finally, dragging himself back to duty but barely arriving there intact.

“We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance.” She gave him a sidelong glance from those deep brown eyes, and he consciously had to straighten the smile from his own mouth. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought you might have been pumping him for news of your husband.”

“And if I was? I see no reason that I should not pursue my own inquiries.”

“Then I don’t know why you hired me.”

She laughed, showing a flash of white teeth in, he thought, a maddeningly triumphant smile, as if she knew he disliked her meddling and delighted in provoking him. He took a step closer to her, but she moved on, almost as if the slight pressure of space narrowing between them propelled her away from him.

“So tell me what you have been doing in my behalf,” she said, pausing again in front of a watercolor of a horse and its jockey. “When you have had time off from whatever you do for the Prince of Wales, that is.”

“That is another matter. It has nothing to do with your case.”

“Obviously,” she said, acerbically. He winced, but he could not reply to that one.

She turned to look up at him, then seemed to decide against pursuing that. “Have you read the Pinkerton report?” she asked instead.

“I have. Furthermore, I have written to the Paris police officer in charge of the case of the body in the Seine, to make an appointment to discuss the matter. I assumed you would not object to my incurring the expense of going to Paris in pursuit of information?”

“Not at all. I agree that is the most logical place to start ... which is precisely why I plan to go there myself within the week.”

“And what,
precisely,
do you plan to do when you get there, Mrs. Malcolm?” he said, feeling his temper rising again. Why was it that she could rouse his anger so easily and for so little reason? “I ask, you understand, only so that we do not inadvertently waste time duplicating each other’s activities, or worse yet, that my inquiries are not jeopardized by your causing my sources to be wary of all this interest in a long-closed case.”

“I assure you, Mr. Grant, that if I should find out anything of interest, you will be the first to know.”

“Permit me to doubt that, Mrs. Malcolm, on your record thus far.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You have not kept me informed, either, of all your activities here in London.”

She raised her eyebrows and gave him an ingenuous look. “I have done nothing worthy of reporting ... apart from the quite accidental meeting with Mr. Kropotkin just now.”

“I believe I am the best judge of that. I doubt, for example, that your visit to the records department of the
Times
yesterday was to look up the court calendar for the third and fourth of August last year ... something my clerk could surely have done for you, had you chosen to confide in him. I should also be very surprised if the reason that you were in Bow Street was to report to the police anything so mundane as a burglary or missing portmanteau.”

He took a certain satisfaction in her look of genuine astonishment, tinged with what he liked to think was grudging admiration, at his knowledge of her activities. He took his advantage further, detailing all of her movements outside her hotel for the past four days, until suddenly it was borne in on him that her look had turned to one of amusement. He stopped in mid-recital, wondering what he had said. Had he got something wrong after all?

“I am impressed by your diligence, Mr. Grant,” she said. “But you needn’t rub it in, or as I believe the saying goes here, flog a dead horse. I wish rather that you would tell me what it is you suspect me of, that you must shadow my every move.”

“Not quite every move.”

She said nothing, using silence in that disconcerting way she had to elicit the response she wanted. Absurdly, he felt himself blush, as if she had known what he really meant before he did.

“It was obvious from the first,” he said, unjustly, “that you did not trust me to do the job you hired me for. I must therefore, in addition to my own investigation, make certain that your activities do not interfere with what I had assumed to be our mutual interests.”

She lowered her head for a moment, pretending to read a stud book left open on the desk. He realized that he liked looking at the back of her head, where she could not see his expression—or mock it. A few feathery strands of hair floated on her neck below her hat, and for a second that was all that seemed to move in the room. She looked—or the back of her head looked—as if she were considering her next words, and when she raised her eyes to him again, they were no longer laughing at him. He immediately suspected that she was acting again.

“I do beg your pardon, Mr. Grant. I had no such intention, believe me.” She smiled again, apologetically this time. “No, perhaps that is too much to expect. But let me tell you that I had no intention of interfering—only of assisting you in your inquiries. Perhaps if we talked more often in this way, to compare notes, our activities need not, as you say, duplicate themselves. You must understand by now that I am not the sort of person who is content to sit back and let someone take complete charge of her life—for that is what this search is about, after all—
my
life. Also, I can’t promise to refrain entirely from interfering, as you call it. Furthermore, it seems to me that part of your job is to keep
me
informed, rather than I you. Do you suppose we might begin again, on a more mutually trusting basis?”

He had to admire the way she lectured him without seeming at all to censure him; the maxim about honey catching more flies than vinegar had been well drilled into her. He had to keep in mind, however, that her honeyed words did not signify approval, even less esteem toward him. Why he should seek her esteem, he did not quite understand, and he suspected that putting their relationship on any but a strictly businesslike basis was not going to make it any smoother or more trusting. Nevertheless, he did not hesitate to take her up on her suggestion.

“Very well, Mrs. Malcolm. In that case, we should meet at least daily, more often if I have—if either of us has—anything new to report. Perhaps you would be good enough to receive me tomorrow evening for that purpose?”

“I’d be delighted to dine with you tomorrow for that purpose,” she said unexpectedly. When he gave her a questioning look, she added, “I’m paying for your time in any case, Mr. Grant; I might as well pay for your supper as well.”

Feeling thoroughly put in his place once again, he accepted, and they agreed to meet in the lobby of the Savoy the following evening at eight o’clock.

Maddie woke up earlier than usual the next morning, impatient to begin the day. Her second encounter with Devin Grant had been less draining than the first. In fact, it had been stimulating in a way she did not quite understand but did like. Not that she disliked Grant himself any less, but he presented a challenge that she was now eager and ready to take up.

Oh, she would cooperate with him, certainly. She would even be nice to him. She had proved to herself yesterday that she could be ladylike and still best him in an argument, and she had liked the feeling of satisfaction that gave her. Not that he was what her father would have called a pushover; she always had the feeling that he was holding something back from her, the way some of her beaux used to let her win when they played tennis or croquet. But she would goad him until he did not have any reserves left.

“Oliver,” she said to her secretary after she had bullied Louise through dressing her in less time than Louise thought quite proper, “Mr. Grant has some position on the Prince of Wales’s staff. Do you know what it is?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Malcolm, I don’t. I had not thought to look into anything of the sort.”

“Do so, would you please? My guess is that it is connected with his detective work, possibly even with the unsolved mystery of how he got out of his office that day you observed the building. I confronted him with it yesterday—that is, with his not having time to work on my case if he is also employed by the prince. Naturally, he evaded answering me.”

“Naturally.”

Maddie looked at Oliver and laughed. “You needn’t talk like that, Ollie. I know I’m too inquisitive—the equally inquisitive Mr. Grant told me I was. But as the headmistress of my school once said, ‘one does not learn if one does not ask.’”

Oliver allowed himself a slight smile and said, “One will ask, Mrs. Malcolm.”

“Thank you, Ollie. Oh, by the way—”

“Is there something else, ma’am?”

Maddie hesitated, reluctant to make the request but knowing it had to be done. “I’m afraid you will have to meet with Mr. Grant.  No doubt he knows you were a Pinkerton man, and it might be best if you discussed their report with him.”

“Of course.”

She raised her eyebrows at that. “Do you trust him, then?”

“I won’t know that until I know him better,” Oliver replied reasonably. “May I ask, Mrs. Malcolm, why you do
not
trust him?”

Maddie sighed. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s only a ... a difference of personality, perhaps. And he is so secretive about what he is doing, as if I weren’t paying him to do it for me. Perhaps you will be able to get more out of him than I can.”