“Very well,” I put in pleasantly. “We have asked you nicely. Now we will be rather less than nice. It is entirely apparent from this article that you must have written itbeforethe explosive was thrown last night. Didn’t you?”
She shifted in her chair and set her mouth in a mulish line before bursting out, “Oh, very well. Yes! I knew. I interviewed Maximilian early yesterday. Before he went up to the suite.”
“How did you know he was here in London?” Stoker asked. “The other Alpenwalders were surprised by his appearance.”
“I saw him the night before. He used the service stairs to slip up tothe royal suite. I was curious as to what was afoot and he had eluded the hotel’s security. I thought if an intruder was up to no good and I could foil some sort of attack, the princess might be grateful enough to grant me an interview—a nice exclusive I could sell to one of the larger newspapers. I crept up the stairs behind him, ready to catch him red-handed, as it were. Only he did not have to break into the suite.”
“Someone let him in?” I guessed.
“Durand,” she said. “He opened the door and called him by name, that is how I deduced his identity. I hid in one of the alcoves on the stairs and after a very few minutes he returned, only this time he was not alone. He was with someone in a cloak.”
She paused for effect, but Stoker merely shook his head. “I do not see the significance.”
“A cloak,” she repeated. “Amaid’scloak. It was a plain, rather ugly thing that belonged to Yelena.”
“Why shouldn’t Yelena go out? Presumably she has the occasional night off.”
“Because it was not Yelena in the cloak,” she said, her voice dropping to a thrilled whisper. “It was the princess.”
“How do you know?” I put in.
“Because it was miles too short,” she replied. “The princess has half a foot on her maid, and I could clearly see the hem of her frock hanging below the hem of the cloak. It was a dark blue velvet gown I had taken away to be sponged only that morning. It was edged with Mechlin lace. I was not likely to forget it.”
Stoker did not bother to glance at me, but he heaved a sigh. “Veronica, I can feel the emanations from your person just now. ‘Smug’ does not begin to describe them.”
J. J. looked from one of us to the other and back again. “What is all that about?”
“Never mind,” Stoker and I chorused. He picked up the thread of the interrogation.
“What next?”
“They walked around the corner and hailed a cab. I heard the address, so I followed in one of my own. I had the cabman drop me a street away and I kept to the shadows so they would not see me. They told the cabman to wait, and a short time later they got back in and went directly to St. Pancras station. The duke walked her in and when he came out, he was alone and I was waiting for him. I invited him to share my cab, and he got in.”
“No doubt thinking you were offering him something rather different than a mere ride in a cab,” I mused.
She smoothed her apron. “Well, he might have misunderstood me at first, but I corrected his thinking quite quickly. I simply told him what I had witnessed and that I thought we could help one another.”
“And on the strength of that, Maximilian gave you an interview?” I asked.
She shrugged again. Stoker looked at me. “Well, at least we know that Gisela did leave of her own accord. Whatever happened that night, it does not appear that Maximilian harmed her.”
“Max would never harm her,” J. J. said succinctly. “He adores her.”
“He has flirted outrageously with me and was prepared to avail himself of your services when he thought you were a prostitute,” I told her.
“That is because he has very old-fashioned ideas about women, bless him,” she said with some fondness. “He thinks all women are either saints or whores. He does not know what to make of the rest of us.”
“That is positively archaic,” I muttered.
“He is an Alpenwalder aristocrat,” she pointed out. “They are notprecisely known for their progressive thinking. The whole bloody country is mired in the Dark Ages.”
“And you still wrote this,” I said, brandishing the newspaper, “to help him secure the post of consort?”
“He is no worse than the rest of them,” she said in a weary voice. “I am most heartily tired of men.”
Stoker looked a little wounded. “Not you,” I soothed.
“Especially him,” she corrected darkly. “He ruined my story.”
