“I think you, above all people, would understand the possibility of a relationship going badly awry in a short period of time,” I said gently.
“Touché. I did myself change from husbandly devotion to incandescent rage within a few months,” he acknowledged. “But between those times were months of abject sorrow. I had first to recognize that the woman I thought I had married did not exist. I could not hate her until I had learnt to mourn her. You are suggesting something quite different—that Maximilian murdered Alice in cold blood to secure his marriage.”
“To a princess,” I corrected. “There is a throne in the equation. You cannot discount the lengths to which a man will go for a crown.”
“A consort’s crown of a tiny, insignificant country,” he said. “Would any man kill for that? Least of all the woman he loved?”
I considered this. “It took a betrayal for you to move from love to hatred,” I reminded him. “Perhaps Maximilian experienced the same.”
“You mean Alice had a lover besides Maximilian?”
“Why not? She was a woman of keen independence. She embraced many modern ideas—votes for women, rights for workers. Why not free love as well? Or perhaps she simply fell out of love with him and found someone else. If Maximilian had already gone to the trouble of arranging for her establishment in the Alpenwald, he would be enraged to find himself a laughingstock.”
“So he killed the woman he loved either to sacrifice her to his own ambitions or to punish her for failing to return his fidelity?”
“Both of those are understandable actions if a man is proud—and Duke Maximilian is excessively proud,” I pointed out.
“As I said, in theory, either explanation makes perfect sense.”
“However?”
“However, I think there is something more we have not yet discovered. And perhaps the answers lie between the covers of Alice’s notebook.”
I harkened back to something he had said at Bishop’s Folly. “Do you really believe there is a connection between Alice’s death and Gisela’s disappearance?”
“I cannot imagine what, but it is entirely possible the two events are unrelated.”
“They had Maximilian in common,” I mused. “What if he did not remove Alice from the picture, but Gisela herself did?”
“She had only to order Alice from the Alpenwald,” he reminded me. “She is the hereditary princess. If she wanted Alice banished, then Alice would go.”
“But Maximilian, if he was still in love with Alice, might make a good deal of trouble. Would you want to start a marriage on such a footing?”
“Better than killing my mistress, if that is what you mean.”
I lapsed into irritated silence. “Their motives are so oblique. I find these people vastly annoying.”
“Annoying, but interesting,” he said with a smile. “It is a tangled skein to be sure. Now let us set to raveling.”
•••
Naturally there ensued a rather spirited discussion on which of us ought to break into the Curiosity Club. We stood on the pavement, tucked into the leafy shadows of the square across the street. The club had once been a private residence, deeded to the organization by one of the founding members. It stood in a quiet street not so very far from a royal palace. The houses that stood like sentinels around the square were tastefully embellished and uncompromisingly white—austere wedding cakes, I always thought of them. During the day, the square would hum with discreet activity, nannies pushing their charges in perambulators buffed to a perfect gloss, maidservants moving on silent feet, starched aprons and cap ribbons snapping behind them. There were a hundred such streets in London, each of them pristine and tidy and secure in their own respectable prosperity. It seemed nothing scandalous or criminal could ever happen in such a place. Except that we were currently bent upon thievery.
We argued in hushed tones as we surveyed the building that housed the Curiosity Club. Stoker pointed out his greater skills in the art of lockpicking—to say nothing of shinning up a drainpipe like a monkey, a product of years spent in circus tents and on naval ships. But I replied that his skills were entirely immaterial in this case.
“I have a key,” I told him, brandishing the article in question.
“Veronica, you cannot just bloody well walk inside and steal Alice’s notebook,” he protested.
“Of course I can. I am a member of the club and you are not even the proper gender to be allowed inside its hallowed walls. I shall enter and slip upstairs to the exhibition room. If I am detected, I will simply say that I have come at Lady C.’s behest to attend to a detail regarding the exhibition and that the hour may be unconventional but was the only time I could spare.”
“And what if Lady C. is the one who apprehends you?” he demanded.
“That is a river I will ford when I come to it,” I told him. I lifted up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Stay in the shadows and try not to look quite so menacing or someone will report you to the police as a lurker.”
He grumbled something entirely unprintable in a polite memoir and I hurried off, drawing in great lungfuls of cold, crisp London air. The door of the Curiosity Club sat in a tiny pool of warm light from the gas lantern hung next to it. Around me were silent shadows. In this quiet and largely residential part of the city, there were only houses and private clubs barred to outsiders. Even the garden in the center of the square was locked and barred against those who did not belong. Stoker had moved backwards to conceal himself still further against the high iron gate of the garden in the square, and I could not see him as I moved on careful feet to the top of the stone steps and fitted my key to the lock.
I gave a soft call—the cry of the hoopoe and our arranged signal. One call for success and two for danger. I waited for Stoker’s answering call and slipped into the club, closing the door silently behind me and thanking providence for Hestia. As portress, she was a ferocious guardian at the gate and took exquisite care of the property as well as the organization itself. Her exacting standards meant that there were no creaking hinges, no groaning floorboards to betray my presence.Inside the hall, a night-light burned, a single gas jet illuminating the interior. I groped my way up the stairs, keeping one hand lightly on the stair rail as I moved, fingertips skimming the freshly polished wood. It smelt strongly of beeswax and lavender. I forced myself to move slowly, advancing a step with each new breath, willing my heartbeat to calmness. The walls were thickly hung with paintings and photographs, framed maps and expedition gear. The last thing I needed was to upset one of them and send something crashing down to rouse the household. Hestia slept on the premises, I recalled, and there were a few rooms always reserved for members who did not live in London but wished to use the club as a sort of base camp whilst in the city. Heaven only knew how many women might be sleeping under that roof while I crept about, but my plan was to leave them to their slumbers.
