The Curse Of The Diogenes Club (6 page)

“Yes, sir.”

Major Nash glanced at his
watch. It was getting on for half past ten o’clock. The Russian
ambassador was still dancing with the Countess. The photographer
was roaming the mezzanine, snapping pictures of couples on the
dance floor. The mysterious lady in purple and gold was nowhere to
be seen. Supper was being served in the twin banqueting rooms and
quite a few of the dancers were drifting away. If he was quick he
could personally check the gentlemen’s smoking rooms for that
damned elusive pirate.

No sooner had he dashed up the
stairs than a man in a tartan kilt appeared at the entrance. He had
an invitation in the name of Dr John Watson. Captain Thompson
thought the tartan looked vaguely familiar but he was looking out
for a Musketeer not a Scotsman with a curly wig. He checked the
gold-emblazoned name on the gilt-edged card a second time and
nodded him through.

Too easy! Colonel Moriarty
smiled as he followed the crowd into the banqueting rooms. He was
hungry and did not stint on the royal fayre. He was helping himself
to seconds of smoked salmon in aspic when Horatio ‘bloody’
Hornblower appeared in the doorway looking vexed.

Moriarty slipped out the
nearest door and took the servants’ stairs to the next level. A
lady in a purple and gold dress was looking strangely at him so he
gave her a wide berth and mounted a set of narrow spiral stairs
that led up to the top of one of the Mughal domes.

He’d already carried out an
exploration of the pavilion and knew that the two end domes housed
a couple of oriental type divans and some hookahs, probably to keep
in with the oriental theme. He could hide in one of them until just
before midnight then locate the Countess and whisk her away while
everyone else was distracted by the fireworks. At least, that was
the plan.

He yanked off the curly wig and
scratched his bald head with both hands then stretched out
comfortably on the divan and closed his eyes for about ten minutes
when the door opened suddenly. There was nowhere to hide in a round
room so he braced for the unknown but what happened next took his
breath away.

“Colonel Moriarty!”

Every nerve ending was suddenly
on fire. “Close the door. Did anyone follow you?”

“What are you doing here? Why
are you dressed in Dr Watson’s kilt?”

His heart was banging against
his ribs. “How did you know I was up here?”

“My maid saw you sneaking up
the stairs.”

“The purple and gold dress was
your maid?”

Xenia was wearing Princess
Paraskovia’s Renaissance costume along with a splendid amethyst
parure that belonged to the Countess to make sure she looked the
part.

“What are you up to? What are
you doing in Dr Watson’s kilt?”

“It was the only way I could
get through the front door.”

“You stole his kilt!”

“And his invitation. He didn’t
need it. He’s sleeping soundly. I left him covered with a blanket.
He’s fine.”

“This is madness. You cannot
gate-crash the Prince Regent’s ball and impersonate another man.
You will end up court martialed and drummed out of the army.”

“I can always join Freddy’s
regiment,” he quipped. “If someone who isn’t even in the army can
get promoted to Lieutenant then it shouldn’t be too difficult to
get a posting as cannon fodder on the front line.”

She ignored the gung-ho
rejoinder. “So you’ve heard?”

“Yes, but what no one seems to
know is who organized it and why?”

She adjusted her ermine-edged
décolletage to accommodate her pert breasts. “It’s truly
baffling.”

The ploy distracted him but
momentarily. “Beautiful liar. You always know exactly what’s going
on. There’s something else. There’s been a whisper all night about
the wife of the new Russian ambassador. She’s not here tonight and
there are all sorts of wild rumours floating round.”

She looked unconcerned as she
patted the ermine cuff to make sure the fur was going in the same
direction. “I heard that she had separated from her husband and
chose not to come to the ball to save embarrassment.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.
Otherwise England will be fighting a war on two fronts. Do you know
the Russian ambassador, Prince Sergei?”

“We met once in Odessa. I was
about five years of age.”

“What about his wife?”

“We were never introduced.”

His brain was jumping from one
thing to another. “I saw you dancing with Nash.”

“This
is
a ball,” she
reminded frostily in keeping with the resplendent Snow Queen
froideur. “I didn’t realize you knew Major Nash?”

“We were at military college
together. Do you know who he works for?”

“I presume he goes by the title
of Major because he works for the army.”

“There you go again. Beautiful
liar. It must be someone high up if you’re not willing to divulge
the name. What does he mean to you?”

That was it! She spun round on
her heel, ready to leave him to work it out for himself. “Really!
This conversation is growing exasperating. Happy New…”

The sentence was cut short by
the door being thrown open.

It heralded the arrival of
Prince Sergei, General de Merville, Sir James Damery and Mr Bruce
Blague. The foursome of smokers had decided to escape the dancing
and partake of the hookahs that vaporized flavoured tobacco known
as shisha.

There was no telling which of
them was most stunned, but suffice to say another couple of minutes
and it could have been a disaster from which there was no recovery.
Moriarty was about to sweep the Countess into his arms and put
her
in no doubt as to what
she
meant to him.

Sir James Damery, the Irish
diplomatist, was the first to find his silver-tongue. “Countess
Volodymyrovna and Colonel Moriarty, I see you have had the same
clever idea as we have had. These Safavid water-pipes are a
brilliant invention. Have you tried one before? Oh, I am forgetting
myself. Are we all acquainted?”

The only two who had not met
were the Russian and the Irishman. As soon as introductions were
out of the way the Countess took charge with customary hauteur.

“I see there are only five
huqqahs and six of us. As I have already tried a huqqah whilst
travelling with my late step-aunt in Persia I will leave you
gentlemen to your pleasure. I believe dessert was being served at
eleven o’clock. Does anyone have the time?”

All five men checked their
pocket watches. General de Merville was the quickest.

“It is fifteen minutes past the
hour of eleven.”

“Splendid,” she said. “I will
have time for a lime sherbet and a chocolate mousse before the
fireworks. Good evening, gentlemen.”

As she was going out the door,
Major Nash was coming in. There was no verbal exchange. She felt
sorry for Colonel Moriarty but he deserved everything that was
coming to him.

Colonel Moriarty felt like a
rat trapped in a rat hole. There was nowhere to run and he couldn’t
very well shoot five men in cold blood. He wondered if the Countess
had set him up by alerting Nash to his hiding place.

Major Nash had his revolver
drawn and cocked, ready to fire, and the other four men were
looking slightly confused, not only because of the weapon, but
because three of them had seen the colonel dressed as a Musketeer
with a curly wig, and he was now bald and wearing a tartan kilt.
Nevertheless, they were all war-hardened soldiers, used to thinking
fast. They summed up the seriousness of the situation, if not the
detail, in the blink of an eye.

“Hello, Nash,” Moriarty said
with cavalier disdain.

“I hope you are not thinking of
doing something reckless, Jim,” returned Major Nash. “You’re in
enough trouble as it is. Stealing the clothes off a man’s back
while he is sedated. Making off with his invitation. Impersonating
a guest. Breeching the security of the Prince Regent’s ball. Shall
I go on?”

“No, that covers it fairly well
but we both know why you want to arrest me and it has nothing to do
with what you just reeled off.”

“Shut up, Jim,” warned Nash,
“or you’ll make things worse for yourself. Hand over your weapon
and you might not get charged with treason.”

“Treason now is it?”

General de Merville, who had
just parked his derriere on a divan and was tinkering with the
pipes on the hookahs, visibly stiffened. “That’s a serious
accusation, Major Nash. Do you have anything to support it?”

Sir James Damery, a fellow
Irishman, could see where this was leading. It was too easy to
accuse an Irishman in the British army of being a Fenian
sympathiser. Once the charge was levelled there was no escaping it.
A hangman’s rope or a long stint in prison followed. “What did you
mean, Colonel Moriarty, when you said this had nothing to do with
what Major Nash reeled off? Which I might add were all serious
offences.”

“Not as serious as treason,”
iterated General de Merville, who did not appreciate being
side-lined.

Moriarty handed across his
weapon before Nash had an excuse to shoot him. “It has to do with a
certain lady.”

Prince Sergei chuckled richly.
“Ha! Now we are getting to the bottom of things - a crime
passionnelle!”

“Which lady?” pressed Damery;
unamused.

Major Nash guessed where Jim
was going with this and decided to get there first. “He is
referring to the Countess.”

“Varvara Volodymyrovna!” gasped
the Russian.

Mr Blague snorted. “Uppity
women! That’s what happens when you don’t put them in their place.
Nothing but trouble, mark my words, gentlemen!”

Damery was the first to
comprehend that this confrontation was about male rivalry for the
affections of a lady, probably because he was the only man in the
room who did not have designs on the rich young widow. Even Mr
Blague, for all his misogynist bluster, had kept one eye on the
Countess for most of the night. The Russian ambassador had
engineered several encounters with the Countess all evening, adding
fuel to the rumour he and the princess were estranged and she had
moved into Clarges. And his old friend, de Merville, had freely
admitted he was considering matrimony. Now these two fine officers
were in the running too. The personal fortune she was said to
possess was a desirable draw card of course, but there was no
denying her provocative allure.

If this situation wasn’t nipped
in the bud in this room it could take on a life of its own. There
was also the small problem of the Countess being discovered alone
with Moriarty. Her reputation would suffer enormously once it
became known publicly. The four of them could have kept it to
themselves but once Major Nash arrived and this flare up had turned
into a conflagration there was no putting out any spot fires.

Sir James Damery understood
everything but he had no solution. “Colonel Moriarty, are you
suggesting Major Nash may hold a grudge against you because of a
certain lady you are both hoping to pursue?”

General de Merville was
incensed at the audacity of the two hot-blooded young bucks who
believed they could steal the rich young widow from under his nose.
“Dammit, Damery! Stop couching everything in diplomatic terms. Both
these men should be locked up in the brig until we can sort out
what the deuce is going on.”

“The sun will soon be sinking
on the British Empire,” predicted the American. “It will come about
from allowing uppity women to run amok.”

“In my country this matter
would be dealt with swiftly,” mused the Russian, lighting up a
black cigarette in lieu of sampling some shisha.

“How so?” asked Damery, who
still couldn’t see a face-saving solution to this mess.

“A duel,” replied the
Russian.

Such a proposition would
normally have been dismissed, laughed off even. Duelling might be
fine in Russia where personal honour took precedence over the law
of the land, but in England a man could be charged with murder,
which is exactly what happened to the Earl of Cardigan when he shot
one of his former officers in a duel.

“It just so happens I have two
duelling pistols in my carriage,” added the Russian, flicking ash
on the floor as he sauntered around the outskirts of the round
room, looking bored.

“Duelling is against the law,”
pointed out Damery.

“Duelling was forbidden by Tsar
Peter in our country too but the ban runs counter to the noble
spirit of men and the romantic Russian soul. Pushkin fought nearly
thirty duels. Every Russian worth his salt has fought a duel.”

The fact the Russian had
brought duelling pistols with him to the New Year’s Eve ball sent
cold shockwaves through the men assembled under the roof of the
Mughal dome.

As well as the rumour of the
estrangement of Prince Sergei and Princess Paraskovia, it was also
rumoured that she had taken a lover. It was not yet whispered
publicly who the lover was but suffice to say two possible
paramours were in that room – General de Merville and Sir James
Damery. There was also the royal host of the gala ball – the Prince
of Wales.

Viscount Cazenove was the
fourth possible paramour but he was now out of the picture.

Several scenarios played out
rapidly in everyone’s head.

General de Merville and Prince
Sergei realized that if the two young men shot each other they
would no longer count as rivals for the Countess’s affections.

Mr Blague, who had been bored
for most of the evening, was suddenly excited by the prospect of
witnessing a duel. Duels used to be common is the South until the
Yankee government outlawed them. He had even participated in one
himself when he was young and foolhardy and in love. Challenging
someone to a duel was a democratic right. America was great because
of its gunslingers, frontiersmen and quick draw fighters.