Prince of Secrets (13 page)

Cobie looked up from his book. He had seemed preoccupied ever since they had returned to London, and was particularly so this evening.

He said, ‘Of course you may, Dinah. There's only one problem. Would you mind if you went on your own? I'm afraid that I can't leave London at the moment. Business, you understand.'

And that, he thought sadly, was yet another lie. Oh, it was business, no doubt of that, but it was the business of
cornering Sir Ratcliffe Heneage before he committed any more brutal crimes. He had a number of other irons in the fire as well. He would feel easier if she visited Oxford for a time.

‘I think,' Dinah said, ‘that I ought to go. Of course, I'm sorry that you aren't coming with me.'

Now
she
wasn't telling the truth. She felt that she wanted to be away from him, to be free of his enchantment for her so that she could think about him and their marriage carefully and coolly. If he had been involved with Susanna Winthrop, and she wasn't sure of that, he no longer was. She thought that he was being faithful to her, but for a moment she wondered if he wasn't coming with her so that he could amuse himself with someone other than his wife. It would not be remarkable if he did. It would indeed, be normal behaviour in their circle.

So she wrote to Faa, her father, Professor Louis Fabian, and had rather an odd letter back. Yes, he would be pleased to see her for a visit, sorry her husband would not be with her, would like to see him again—all of which was perfectly proper. Then why did the letter make her feel uneasy? A year ago she had taken everything at face value, but living in a meretricious society, married to a devious husband, with a devious friend, Dinah had grown a sixth sense.

Cobie came with them to Paddington—she was taking Hortense and Pearson, Faa had said that he could find room for them both. She wondered wryly what he thought of her having not one personal attendant, but two!

She was travelling in a reserved first-class compartment. Giles had come with them to carry the luggage. She couldn't help thinking of her previous visits when she had travelled, often alone, with one battered case, and a big, shabby, Gladstone bag.

Now she was surrounded by all the paraphernalia of wealth. Her cases were made of the most beautiful black leather with her initials on them in gold. Pearson carried her hat boxes, Hortense looked after her personal things: a bag, a parasol, magazines, chocolates, a basket of fruit and a bouquet of freesias which had been brought in from the conservatory at the back of the Park Lane house. Their scent filled the compartment.

‘I shall miss you,' Cobie said, before he handed her in. He had already installed Pearson and Hortense in their corner seats—no third class for them.

Dinah tried to believe that he meant it. He was looking even more handsome than usual. Their progress down the station platform had been almost regal, a small procession. Heads, mostly those of women, had turned to look after them—no, after him.

‘I shall miss you,' she told him, and then in a burst of agonised shyness, strange to her these days because she had become so much more in command of herself. ‘I shan't like being without you.'

‘If I could have come, I would,' he told her, and then, in defiance of all etiquette, he leaned forward to kiss her gently on the lips. ‘Enjoy yourself.'

She sat in the corner where she could see him before the train moved out. He had lifted a gloved hand to wave to her, and she felt tears pricking behind her eyes, but she must be brave, she mustn't blub before Pearson and Hortense.

North Oxford was strange, too. More ceremony followed. Faa's carriage was waiting at the station, and old Simmonds seemed pleased to see her while the porters loaded all her possessions on to it, and then handed her and her entourage into it. Mrs Ruddle, the housekeeper, came out to meet her, and when she swept into the hall, taking off her high-crowned straw hat, decorated with silk marguerites and
cornflowers, there was Faa looking as he always did, kind and safe.

Dinah wanted to throw herself at him as she would have done when she was a little girl, but she was a married woman now. Instead she kissed him lightly on the cheek, exclaimed at the warmth of the mid-September weather, and in short, behaved exactly as Violet would have done, and not Lady Dinah Freville, who was now Lady Dinah Grant.

There
was
something different about Faa, something sheepish. He was smiling at her, taking her hand, saying softly, ‘I'm so happy to see you, Dinah. You look so beautiful, so different from the sad girl who used to visit me. Marriage suits you.'

‘Cobie Grant suits me,' she told him truthfully, because she could imagine marriage with other men whom she had met and with whom she would not have been happy.

However much she worried about the strange nature of her relationship with him, she must never forget that even if he didn't, couldn't, love her, he had gone out of his way to make her happy.

‘Now, dear Dinah, I must not beat about the bush. There is someone here whom I think that you ought to meet as soon as possible.'

Faa took her hand and led her to the back of the house, through a small conservatory and on to a lawn where a woman sat on a white painted bench under a cedar tree, a table with a tall glass of lemonade on it standing before her.

Dinah's mouth rounded into an O. ‘Mama!' she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?' for now her mother was walking towards her, a smile on her face.

She was a little girl again. She gave her mother the hug which she had refrained from giving her father. ‘Oh, Mama, I never thought that I was going to meet you today.'

‘Did you not, my love? We thought that we would sur
prise you. Your father wanted to tell you in his letter, but I said, “No, think what a delightful surprise it will be.”'

‘Why?' Dinah began, looking from one to the other. She was remembering their sad past. Her mother, the abused wife of the late Lord Rainsborough, had run off with her son's tutor, Louis Fabian, who became Dinah's father. Lord Rainsborough had refused to divorce her and had threatened to ruin her lover unless she returned to him. When she did, he acknowledged Dinah, but sent them both into exile.

‘Why?' repeated her father. ‘We met again, accidentally, at a friend's home, and we discovered—what did we discover, my dear?'

‘We discovered why we had a beautiful daughter, and we remembered the happy past,' said her mother, kissing her. ‘Yes, you are beautiful, my dear. I knew, when I met him in London, that your husband would look after you.'

‘Yes,' said her father, smiling, picking up her mother's hand and kissing it, ‘and we thought that everything which had kept us apart had gone, vanished, and that there was no reason at all why we should not be happy together in the evening of our lives. I have asked your mother to marry me, Dinah, and she has consented. We are to be married by special licence in two days' time, and you must be a witness.'

‘Oh, Faa,' Dinah exclaimed, and burst into tears. Whether they were tears of happiness that her father and mother were at last together, or of regret for all the years that they had been apart, she didn't know. Even when she was sipping champagne with them, among the flowers, she still wasn't sure of her own feelings—even though she was sure of theirs.

Shall we be together, Cobie and I, when we are their age? Shall we be drinking champagne to celebrate the present and the past?

C
obie missed her. He was lonely. At first he had difficulty in identifying what was wrong with him. Before he had gone to the Territory he had been a gregarious boy who would rather be with people than on his own; afterwards he had become solitary, a man who walked by himself, a man with many acquaintances, but few close friends. Indeed, the only friend he had made since his early twenties was Hendrick Van Deusen, aka Schultz, the Professor.

He fought against what was happening to him, tried to deny it even. But he couldn't. He found himself remembering her at the oddest moments, in his office in the city, at home in the evening. He had become used to dining alone with her several nights a week. After dinner they sat and talked, or read. While she embroidered he played the piano for her, or the guitar. Occasionally he fetched his banjo and sang Negro spirituals and the songs of Stephen Foster.

He also missed her in bed. At first she had been overwhelmed by him, her modesty and shyness holding her back a little, but after a time she had become as frank and joyous a partner as he could have wished for. The sly humour she often displayed in conversation also graced their encounters in bed.

One evening he did to her what she had done to him. Bored and lonely, he wandered into her bedroom as she must have wandered into his at Markendale when she had found his magic box and the diamonds.

Even more than the rest of the house the evidence of her departed presence was almost painful to him. Her large tapestry stood on its frame by the bed—she had taken a smaller piece with her to Oxford. Her books were neatly stacked on her bedside table: ‘my cairn', she had called the small pile once. A few photographs of her immediate family stood in their silver frames on her writing desk.

He opened a wardrobe door—to find the scent of her waiting for him. The delicate smell of freesias filled the air.

I am growing maudlin, he thought. He shut the door and walked out of her room, determined to be severe with himself. After all, she was only another woman, and God knew he had been involved with enough of them to know better than to worship them…

He found himself waiting for her letters. The first surprised and amused, and then saddened him. It arrived two days after she had gone, and told the story of her mother and father's wedding. ‘I offered to come home,' she wrote, ‘because I thought that they might prefer to be alone together after all these years apart, but they said that they wanted me to be with them, wanted to feel that, at last, we were a real family, so I am staying—perhaps a little longer than I said I would. I think that for a short time I would like to be part of a real family, instead of always feeling an outsider.'

It was the last paragraph which upset him. For the first time he asked himself what he truly meant to her. Now this was unusual. He never normally gave a damn for what anyone, man or woman, thought of him. Such considerations had disappeared from his life on a hot afternoon long ago.
She had spoken of being part of a family, and for the first time in years he found himself thinking of his own father and mother. He wondered, what, if anything, they still felt for him after the cold way in which he had thrown them off.

It was as though he was waking up after a long sleep. He was beginning to feel again as he had felt when he was a boy. He had a sudden desperate desire to be with his parents. He could never go back to being what he was, he knew that, but perhaps it was possible for…

He blinked—what could he be dreaming of?

Did Dinah feel that she was an outsider when she was with him? Probably, because had he not fobbed her off over the diamonds, and over the real nature of what he was about in the matter of Sir Ratcliffe Heneage?

He was right, wasn't he, to do so? He couldn't endanger her, but the consequence was that after an initial coming together, they were beginning to grow apart again. He thought with sad amusement that until recently he might have gone out, found solace in some woman's arms, have taken a mistress, even, but he couldn't do that to Dinah…

To console himself, he sat down at the piano, and began to play Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata
. He could usually lose himself in music, but not tonight. He dropped his hands on the keys, and the jarring, jangling discord filled the empty room. Not even Beethoven could work his magic for a man who was as truly torn as he was. He wished that the Professor had not been engaged elsewhere that night, for he suddenly wanted congenial company, anything to ward off the dark which was surrounding him.

He found himself picking up the dossier on Sir Ratcliffe which Porter had brought him on his return to London, and leafing through it again. It made depressing reading, but he had found nothing substantive yet, nothing which he could
offer Walker—but perhaps chance would bring something along, some horse for him to ride.

Chance did. For some days, talk of what had happened at Markendale had begun to circulate among the clubs and drawing rooms of fashionable London. Cobie was bearded by a friend in Oxford Street. It was Bellenger Hodson, who liked to feel himself in the know about society's scandals.

‘Tell me, Grant, is it true that you were part of a group which made Sir Heneage sign a document admitting that he had cheated at cards, and promising never to play again?'

Cobie was evasive. ‘Where did you hear that?' he enquired.

‘Oh, it's the talk of London,' for although the Season was over, many families still remained in town, occasionally going into the country to stay with friends, to return later.

‘You do surprise me.' Cobie was dry. He had thought that the news would have taken longer to break.

‘You don't deny it then?'

‘Neither confirm nor deny. You don't expect me to, do you, Hodson?
Noblesse oblige
over here, you know.'

‘No, I don't, Grant. Don't know this foreign lingo. Can't say I'm surprised about Sir Ratcliffe. Always seemed a shifty customer to me.'

‘I suppose we'll know the truth soon enough,' was all Cobie had to say. He had given his word not to talk and would keep it—but someone else hadn't. He guessed that it was Rainey who had talked. He had wondered at him being invited into the select group detailed to watch Sir Ratcliffe. Was it possible that he might have been chosen deliberately—to make sure that there was one person who
would
talk? Beauchamp and his masters probably needed someone to talk so that Sir Ratcliffe's goose was cooked once and for all.

He had thought that it might be a dangerous ploy, and thought so even more when he came face to face with Sir Ratcliffe at the Reform Club. Since the talk about the baccarat game at Markendale had risen to a roar, there were rumours that he was going to be asked to resign from his clubs, and from Parliament.

They were on a large landing between two flights of stairs when they met. Cobie nodded, a cool nod. Sir Ratcliffe caught him by the arm, and tried to swing him round, but found that Cobie's physique didn't lie: his strength was phenomenal.

He stood immovable, a rock. Sir Ratcliffe glared at him, his colour high.

‘I suppose I've you to thank for what is running around London. Couldn't keep your word, could you, Grant?'

‘I assure you, you are mistaken, Heneage. I have said nothing.'

‘Now that I don't believe. If duelling were permitted, I'd call you out. I only signed for the Prince's sake, not because I was guilty, and now you've betrayed me. Don't think you'll get away with it, any of you. Particularly you. I've a damned good mind to smash your pretty face in now.'

‘Try,' said Cobie, deadpan, looking at the man before him and registering his patent lack of fitness.

‘Oh, and not just for Markendale and the diamonds, damn you.'

Sir Ratcliffe was beginning to rave. ‘I know about you and your games now, Grant, both here and in the States, I've good friends there. You're nothing but a common criminal, not fit to consort with gentlemen.'

‘In that case, I should be a good companion for you, Heneage.'

Sir Ratcliffe took a swing at him, Cobie dodged it neatly. They had now attracted a crowd. A large, important fellow
clucked disdainfully, ‘Oh, I say, Heneage, steady on, old fellow. Man's told you it's not his fault. Take his word, will you.'

‘I'm damned if I will,' and he swung again. Cobie dodged the other way this time. This was getting amusing—if you liked farce, that was.

The large man, seeing that Cobie was refusing to rise to Sir Ratcliffe's provocation, said frostily, ‘Look here, Heneage. Committee wants to see you in any case. Think we ought to have a word with you now. Can't have this, you know. Not done.'

‘Oh, damn what's done, and what's not done,' Sir Ratcliffe raved on. ‘Stand still, damn you, Grant, and face me like a man.'

Cobie leaned forward, and said between his teeth, voice low, so that no one could overhear him, ‘Sure you wouldn't prefer that I was a little girl, Heneage?'

He was met by a bellow, and another attempt at a blow, which was stopped by two of the men behind him grabbing at Sir Ratcliffe. The important man, Fitzgerald Lennox, said loudly, ‘Lead him away. The committee will have to be informed of this. Sorry about that, Grant. The man's impossible these days.'

By some freak Sir Ratcliffe detached himself from his guards. He turned round at the top of the stairs to shriek down at Cobie, ‘I'm going to sue the lot of you, Grant, the Prince included, and when I have my day in court, you'd better all look out, particularly you, Grant. What you are doesn't bear inspection.'

‘The man's mad,' said Lennox, fascinated. ‘Hasn't a hope in hell of winning his case, I hear. Held yourself well there, Grant. Don't want brawling here. Never mind. You won't come across him again, the committee's about to do for him.'

It wasn't the only committee which did for him. Sir Ratcliffe was ruined. The one thing for which he wasn't going to be punished was the two mutilated bodies for which no one had yet been indicted.

Cobie stared at the letter which arrived the following morning. It was from Sir Ratcliffe's solicitors, demanding that he withdraw the accusation which he had made that Sir Ratcliffe had cheated at baccarat at Markendale on the evening of the tenth of September, 1892. Sir Ratcliffe reserved the right for further action if he refused to do so.

He picked up his pen and began to write, ‘Mr. Jacobus Grant presents his compliments to Sir Ratcliffe Heneage's solicitors and informs them that he has no intention of withdrawing his accusation of cheating against Sir Ratcliffe Heneage. Rather he would wish to repeat it.'

He wondered what Beaumont, and Sir Francis Knollys, the Prince of Wales private secretary, were doing behind the scenes to prevent the whole scandal from becoming public knowledge. He was certain that no one would withdraw the accusation and, that being so, he expected to receive a writ any day—and see the Prince in the witness box. Of all the parties involved, he was sure that he and the Prince were the ones Sir Ratcliffe wished to pursue the most.

That letter ready for delivery, Cobie wrote to Dinah to tell her that he would accept her parents' invitation to visit Oxford in order to collect her and to stay overnight with them. Re-reading it, he thought dismally that it was nearly as cool as the one which he had sent to Heneage's solicitors, but for the life of him he could not summon up in his dealings with Dinah the charming glibness with which he had treated the other women with whom he had been involved—and what did that tell him about his relationship with her?

Cobie was still pondering over this during his visit to Oxford. Dinah greeted him in her usual quiet manner—the
extra reserve which she had adopted before her visit was still with her. It was plain that she felt keenly what she saw as his lack of trust in her.

That evening, sitting over port with Professor Fabian, his wife and her mother having left them, Cobie said suddenly, and for him a little unsurely, ‘Tell me, sir, if you had a secret which would endanger your wife or your child if they were to know of it, how far would you go in keeping it a secret from them? Or would you keep it a secret at all?'

Louis Fabian gave him a scholar's answer. ‘I think that would depend on the nature of the secret.'

‘As a matter for discussion, sir, let us suppose that it is, or was, of the utmost danger.'

‘Then it would also depend on the character of the wife or the child.'

Cobie laughed. ‘I think that you are trying to avoid giving me an answer, sir.'

‘And I think that you are a skilled debater. I understand that you went to Yale. Let me say at once that I think that a man of honour would try to protect his wife and child, but a pragmatic man might think that it would be useful to have his wife know of his predicament. I assume you are speaking of a predicament.'

‘Particularly,' agreed Cobie with a smile, ‘if she were aware of half the story and was intelligent enough to guess the rest.'

‘Quite so. I understand from my daughter that the improvement in her confidence and her appearance is directly due to you. If I had harboured any doubts about her future as your wife, I have lost them. She is a changed woman— I would once have said girl, but she is no longer that. Now, if it were she whom you were speaking of, I would be half-
inclined to trust her—but you see that I am hedging my bets by not being certain in my answer!'

Cobie laughed and changed the subject. His question had been hypothetical in the extreme. His agent had found no further evidence to implicate Sir Ratcliffe. For the moment the child murders had stopped—or so he thought, but the thought was premature.

The newspapers which arrived the following morning all carried stories of another shocking East End murder. The mutilated body of a third girl-child had been found in an alley. Scotland Yard, it was said, was frantic to discover the criminal to try to prevent any further crimes.