Death at Blenheim Palace (16 page)

On the other hand, Winston reflected, he should not be too angry, for Botsy might have done them a great service, quite unintentionally, of course. Confronted with what had happened, Sunny would have to see the true Gladys Deacon: a duplicitous woman who was capable of engaging herself to one man while at the same time entangling the affections of another.

“Northcote must certainly be considered,” Sheridan conceded, “although I’m not sure we should jump to any conclusions just yet.” He drew on his pipe. “What can you tell me of the man?”

Winston took a turn in front of the fireplace and summarized what he knew. “His family have property in the Midlands—mines, I believe. First Battalion, Scots Guards, invalided out during the Boer War. Never married, reputation as a ladies’ man, known to be hot-tempered, especially when he’s had too much to drink.” He paused, dredging in his memory for anything else, and came up with it, something quite satisfying, too. “Said to have landed himself in a spot of trouble two or three years ago with Lady Luttersworth’s youngest daughter.” He grunted. “Exactly the sort to carry off Miss Deacon, with or without her consent.”

Sheridan looked up quickly. “What kind of trouble?”

“No idea, but I’m sure I can find out. Cornwallis-West knows the man quite well, I believe. They were in the same regiment. Would you like me to do a spot of checking?”

Winston topped the ash from his cigar into the fireplace. He had not yet come to terms with his mother’s marriage to George Cornwallis-West, who was only sixteen days older than himself. But when she announced her decision to marry, just five years after Lord Randolph’s death, the Churchills’ approval had ratified the business, so what was Winston to say? That he distrusted George? That he was jealous of his mother’s love for this ridiculously young husband? But Jennie Churchill (as she would always be to him) and George Cornwallis-West had been married for three years now, and Winston was learning to make the best of something he could do nothing about.

“I think it would be helpful to have more specific details about Northcote’s background,” Sheridan said. “If I might impose upon you, Winston, I’d be grateful if you would go to the railway station and inquire as to whether he may have left Woodstock by the early morning train. It goes at six, according to Stevens.” He puffed on his pipe. “You will, of course, want to find out whether he was alone or accompanied, and learn anything you can about his destination. And if you know his London club, perhaps you could check and see whether he has gone there.”

“Certainly,” Winston said. “Is there anything else?”

“Northcote is said to have left here at twelve-thirty, on foot. He was not likely to have gone far. Perhaps you might inquire at The Bear—it’s the nearest accomodation—or the Marlborough Arms. If he asked for a bed at that late hour, it’s bound to be remembered.”

“Alone and on foot,” Winston mused. “If Gladys didn’t go with the fellow, where the devil is she? What did he
do
with her?” He shook his head. Yes, on the one hand, Northcote might have done them all a favor. On the other, this was the sort of thing that led to newspaper stories and scandalous rumors and trouble for the family. “Damn and blast, this is a bad business.”

“Yes,” Sheridan replied gravely, “and it may even be worse than we think.” There was an expression on his face that Winston could not quite read, a mixture of apprehension, concern, and something else—interest, was it, or intrigue? At some level, the man looked as if he found all of this, well, stimulating. “There’s something else I must ask of you, in complete confidence,” he went on. “I think the Duke should not be bothered about it at the moment, so I am turning to you. I hope you can help.”

“Of course I’ll help,” Winston replied urgently. “Anything, Charles. Anything at all.”

Sheridan puffed on his pipe and rings of smoke rose over his head. After a moment, he said, “What can you tell me about the Marlborough Gems?”

“The Gems?” Winston was taken aback by the question, which seemed to him to take the conversation in an unnecessary direction. However, since he was asked, he did his best to comply.

“They were a famous collection of carved gemstones assembled by the fourth Duke. There were quite a few of them, some eight hundred or so, I’ve been told, some—from ancient Greece and Ptolemaic Egypt—truly priceless. The Duke was obsessed by them. He had Reynolds paint him with one of his favorites. And he kept the lot in this very room, in red Morocco cases lined with velvet.”

“Indeed,” Sheridan murmured, looking around as if the gems might still be there.

“He even commissioned engravings of the hundred finest stones and had them privately printed in two large leather-bound folios,” Winston went on, warming to his subject. He sighed regretfully. “But the engravings are all that’s left, I’m afraid. The gems themselves were sold by my grandfather.”

At the words, Winston felt his heart twist. It wounded him deeply to think that any true Churchill could be such a philistine as to plunder Blenheim’s precious treasures, but that was what had happened. A high-living spendthrift who was perennially short of money, the seventh Duke had first sold the priceless gemstones for a paltry thirty-five thousand guineas, then persuaded Parliament to put through the Blenheim Settled Estates Act, stripping the family heirlooms of their entailment so that they could be sold as well. Paintings, art objects, silver, jewelry—everything of value had gone on the auction block in a matter of just a few days. And worst of all, he’d sold the Sunderland Library, that splendid collection of twenty-four thousand beautifully bound volumes, classics, bibles from early presses, rare county histories, illuminated medieval chronicles. Winston had been only eight when the precious books were sold, too young to have actually read any of them. But he had loved to creep into the Long Library and imagine all of the wonders stored between the embossed leather covers on its shelves and dream of the day when he would turn the pages himself and learn all the wisdom that could be gained from them. He had been struck as if by a physical blow when he saw the shelves standing empty. The Duke had died not long after, and Winston could not help feeling that his grandfather had been struck down by a vengeful deity in retribution for the pillaging of the library’s treasures.

Sheridan’s question broke in upon his consciousness. “Were
all
the gemstones sold? Might a few have escaped?”

“As a matter of fact, some did,” Winston replied. “The story goes that the seventh Duke’s secretary deliberately left a half-dozen or so out of the inventory that was conveyed to Christie’s before the auction. The stones—seal stones, all of them—were found, loose, some years later, in a cabinet in the Saloon. I used to play with them myself, when I was here on holiday as a child.” He smiled a little. “I imagined them as having a special magic.”

And who knows, he thought fondly, perhaps they did. His magic lantern, his steam engine, his lead soldiers, and the last few Marlborough gemstones—together, they constituted the enchantments of his too-brief childhood. And Blenheim, of course. He had always loved to come here. And if things had been different, if Sunny had died before he fathered a son, he himself—Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, grandson of the seventh Duke—would have become Duke of Marlborough. He often thought of that and wondered despairingly whether anything he might accomplish in his life would equal that never-to-be-achieved glory. How would history remember him, if not for that? What could he do to merit—

Sheridan coughed as if to get his attention. “Do you know where the gems are now?”

Winston frowned. Why was Sheridan so interested in the Marlborough Gems? “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do. They are kept in a box in the Red Drawing-Room. Why?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you,” Sheridan replied quietly. “All I can say is that I was instrumental in resolving an art theft in the district, and that I have coincidentally learned something about a theft at an estate in a northern county. I have reason to suspect—no facts, mind you, just suspicions, some of which may be entirely unfounded—that there may be a similar plot afoot here at Blenheim. If it goes true to pattern, it may occur during the weekend of the Royal visit.”

Winston felt his jaw drop. “The Royal visit!” he sputtered. “But that . . . can’t be permitted, Charles! It’s totally and completely out of the question that thieves should strike Blenheim! Think of the newspaper headlines! Imagine the scandal!” He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Something
must
be done to prevent it.”

“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you,” Sheridan said. “But first let me ask you whether among the servants there are any who are especially devoted to you, any whom you feel you can trust implicitly.”

The servants? Winston puffed out his cheeks. “Well, the butler and the housekeeper have been here since my father’s time, although neither of them have any special relationship to me. Both are getting on in years, and they don’t keep a very tight rein on the lower servants. And sad to say, there have been a great many changes among the staff in the last few years. Poor Consuelo frequently laments the difficulty of finding good people who will not take advantage.” He paused, not liking the idea suddenly borne in upon him that the house might be full of untrustworthy servants. Who could tell what conspiracies they were hatching? Winston might be feel himself a Liberal at heart, but he was not enough of a Liberal to fancy that people of the lower classes were inherently good.

“In that case,” Sheridan said, “I have a proposal to make to you. We need someone below-stairs whom we can trust, someone who will be our ears and eyes among the staff. What do you think of this, Winston?” And he began to outline a plan.

Winston listened intently, commenting here and there. The scheme was full of merit, it seemed to him. A bit of a conspiracy, but how else were they to get to the bottom of things? He was sure that Marlborough wouldn’t agree to it, of course, and if he knew anything about the plan would deny his permission. But Winston would do his best to ensure that the business would not reach his cousin’s ears until it was all over, and they were successful in averting the danger. Then he could be told, and Winston had no doubt that the Duke would be appropriately grateful.

When Sheridan was finished, Winston said without hesitation, “I shall go and speak to Stevens at once, Charles, without giving him any clue to the significance of this business. I believe I can guarantee that he won’t give us any trouble.”

“Very good,” Sheridan said, rising from his chair and going to the fireplace to knock the tobacco out of his pipe. “And when you go into Woodstock to inquire at The Bear and the railway station, there is one other thing that you might do. It seems that one of the housemaids cannot be located, although her personal effects are still in her room. Her name is Kitty. Her roommate mentioned that she spoke with a red-bearded man at the Black Prince. Could you ask there and see what you can find out about the fellow?”

“A housemaid, too?” Winston asked, shaking his head. “Miss Deacon, Botsy Northcote, a plot among the servants—good God, Charles, what’s
next?
”

“I don’t think we should try to look too far ahead,” Sheridan said dryly. “We might not like what we see.”

“There’s wisdom in that.” Winston put out his cigar in an onyx ashtray. “Well, I’m off below-stairs, and then to Woodstock. What are you going to do?”

“I have one or two things to look into,” Sheridan said vaguely. “Please let the Duchess know that I shall miss lunch, but that I expect to be back by teatime. And tell Stevens that our young man will be arriving this afternoon. At least,” he added cryptically, “so I sincerely hope.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 
Mary Berenson, Diary, 28 March 1905

 
 
 
Kate left Consuelo, went to the morning room, and rang for Mrs. Raleigh. When the housekeeper arrived, she told her that the Duchess had cancelled the picnic lunch and that they would be eating, instead, in the family dining room. Then she went back upstairs and down the hall toward Gladys Deacon’s room.

Kate had left Consuelo lying on her bed with a cool compress over her eyes. She could not help feeling a deep pity for the Duchess, whose wealth and title had brought her nothing but unhappiness. If Consuelo had been a woman of ordinary means instead of a Vanderbilt, she wouldn’t have been compelled to marry a man she didn’t love—a man who ridiculed her in front of their guests—and live in a house that felt to her like a prison. And even worse, live with the fear that her husband was courting public scandal and disgrace in an affair with a very foolish young woman. A woman who had unaccountably disappeared, dressed in her evening finery and—perhaps this was also important—wearing a valuable piece of jewelry. Where
was
she? What had happened to her?

Kate stopped in front of Gladys’s door and rapped twice, just in case she had turned up while they were looking for the Duke. Hearing nothing within, she inserted the key in the lock, turned it, and went in, locking the door behind her so that she would not have to worry about being disturbed.

Or being accused of snooping,
Beryl Bardwell whispered cattily in her ear.
Of looking for material for your novel about Fair Rosamund.

Kate lifted her chin. She was not snooping. Gladys had disappeared and she was assisting her husband in his inquiries into what was obviously a very serious matter. And whatever resemblance Gladys Deacon might bear to the young mistress of Henry II lay mostly in Gladys’s imagination, although Kate had to admit there were certain intriguing parallels among the relationships. Henry, Rosamund, Eleanor, Roger of Salisbury. Marlborough, Gladys, Consuelo, Northcote. Enough parallels, no doubt, to satisfy Gladys that she was acting her part in the unfolding drama that was her life.