Murder At The Masque Read online

  ‘They’re all in it together?’ he suggested eagerly.

  Rose regarded him sourly, and Stitch’s overdue promotion went back a few months. ‘Ever known any case where the lads stick together? All of them? Remember the Great Jewel Robbery in ’ninety-four? Princess Soltykoff out at Slough. The whispers came through then all right.’

  Stitch fell into offended silence.

  ‘No,’ Rose meditated. ‘We’ve got an amateur on the job. Or a newcomer.’

  ‘Still got to get rid of the swag,’ Stitch pointed out, his interest revived.

  ‘Very true, Stitch. Very true. I think our friend Higgins might be the man . . .’

  James Higgins had on Rose’s first visit to Wapping presented the face of a man with no more on his mind than the pouring of the next glass of porter. It had taken all Rose’s powers of persuasion, followed by threats, to extract an offer of ‘keeping a lug open’ on the subject of missing rubies. A second, hasty, visit to Wapping was required, however after Rose’s conversation with the sixth and latest victim . . .

  Natalia Kallinkova, former supreme dancer of the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet, having now taken her ten-year benefit performance rewards and acquired a London residence, was taking the theft with more equanimity than her sisters in sorrow. A slight woman in her late twenties, she had sparkled round the room as she danced from one side to the other, pointing out the wreckage wrought by the intruder. Rose, dispatched by the Yard on a now familiar journey, leaned out of the third-floor window overlooking the garden far beneath, noting the drainpipe and small balconies up which the burglar had climbed to gain entry. His head began to swim and he thankfully drew it in. Must have a head for heights, this gentleman.

  ‘What is missing, Miss – um – Mrs—’

  ‘I am just addressed as Kallinkova, Inspector.’ She smiled, her accent charming, her eyes lively. ‘It is a greater tribute, you see.’

  Rose didn’t, but accepted it. He always moved cautiously with Russians. Never knew when they might burst into tears.

  ‘I should like to meet this man,’ said Kallinkova, a little wistfully.

  ‘So would I, Miss – Kallinkova.’

  She laughed, a rich chuckle. ‘Ah, mon cher Inspecteur, it is my egg he really wanted, this burglar.’

  ‘Egg, miss? Did you say egg?’ Visions of stolen breakfasts had at first floated before Rose’s startled eyes.

  Kallinkova laughed. ‘My Fabergé egg. A gift of His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Igor. You understand?’

  Inspector Rose did at once. That case at Stockbery Towers had given him insight into the ways of the aristocracy in England; he had little doubt that these Russians were much the same. Moreover, he had had dealings with the Grand Duke Igor on many occasions, summoned to the Mayfair home with relentless frequency.

  ‘He gave it to me when we – ah – parted a year ago. He knows I am discreet. Of course he did not want to part, you understand, but the Tsar insisted. So did the Grand Duchess Anna,’ she added more realistically.

  Rose tried to maintain a straight face before her twinkling eyes, inviting him to share the joke. He failed, and let out a guffaw.

  ‘Each egg, Inspector, opens to reveal a precious object inside. Outside it is the craftsmanship, you understand, which gives it its value. Inside, however, there is – in the case of the Imperial eggs – the precious stones or gold, fashioned in the likeness of some object, the Imperial coach for example. But my egg, Inspector, and’ – she paused – ‘each of those of the Grand Duke’s other – er – lady friends contains a ruby.’

  ‘The love of a good woman, eh?’ said Rose incautiously, wrapped up in the story.

  ‘Exactly, mon cher Inspecteur.’ She gurgled with laughter, then continued thoughtfully, ‘And I think you might find, dear Inspector, that those other ladies also have had eggs stolen. You told me there had been several burglaries of jewels, did you not? Rubies perhaps? If you ask them – tactfully of course. They have husbands . . .’ She gave a little shrug.

  After he had left, Rose mentally scanned his list, brows furrowed. Tactful inquiries had followed and elicited that a further five Fabergé eggs from a further five mistresses, all, like Kallinkova, now past, and all eggs containing rubies, had been stolen one by one from the great houses of Britain. In each case entrance had been gained by a drainpipe, balconies, or in one case a nearby tree provided access. Five re-interviews had followed. Rose shuddered at the memory of two of them. He wouldn’t like to sit through Rachel Gray’s (Mrs Cyril Tucker) tragic outburst again. He’d felt he was at a performance of one of Mr Pinero’s plays. As befitting her position as one of London’s leading tragedy queens, Mrs Tucker had tottered blindly across the room – though not too blindly to find the chaise longue and collapse gracefully upon it – moaning at intervals, ‘My husband must not know.’ Or Lady Westbourne, a very different kettle of cod. Cool as a cucumber, he had to prise the information out of her, like a whelk. In all five cases, husbands were to be barred from knowledge of the complete facts.

  There was, Rose grudgingly admitted, good reason for this. The gift of a Fabergé egg could only come from one source, if not the Tsar himself: a Grand Duke of Imperial Russia. And Grand Dukes were not noted for handing out such prized gifts unless the relationship with the recipient was close. Moreover since even these eggs, which coming merely from a Grand Duke to a past mistress were somewhat less elaborate than those from the Tsar to the Tsarina, were a year at least in the making, it followed that the friendship with the lady was or had been no mere passing whim. Therefore Mrs Rachel Tucker, Lady Westbourne and three other ladies of equally impeccable social standing, if not morals, conveniently overlooked the theft of the egg itself, when reporting, albeit reluctantly, the theft of the ruby. Husbands, unaware of Fabergé eggs secreted in their households, would not be unaware of the disappearance of a ruby which in each case the lady concerned had been unable to resist wearing. They were exceptionally fine rubies.

  Kallinkova being single and having no husband to wonder why his wife should be the recipient of a Fabergé egg, had entered into the spirit of the chase with relish, and gave Rose details of the London ladies’ calling-hour gossip concerning the other five victims.

  ‘I should like to meet this man,’ repeated Kallinkova when in late February Rose had duly interviewed her again and confirmed her suspicions regarding her fellow victims. ‘What an artist. As I am myself.’ She pirouetted despite the confines of the tight heavy silk skirt. ‘To steal from a collection and take only the supreme jewel. My ruby is beautiful, but it is nothing compared with the egg itself. He wants only the thing of beauty, the work of a master craftsman. Ah yes. He is an artist in himself, is he not, Inspector?’

  ‘He’s a thief, Miss Kallinkova,’ said Rose glumly. ‘And it’s my job to catch him.’ A job that was getting more difficult by the minute. A jewel thief was one thing, a stealer of Fabergé eggs smacked of something different. International art collectors for example. And that meant the Commissioner would be breathing down his neck, as well as the Chief Constable.

  He sighed, and Kallinkova laughed at his lugubrious face. He looked like a bloodhound, she decided, summing him up. A reliable friend – and a relentless hunter, with his watchful grey eyes.

  ‘You’d better give me a full description, miss,’ he said, resolutely refusing to share the joke.

  Kallinkova put her hands meekly in her lap.

  ‘The Imperial eggs that his Imperial Majesty the Tsar gives to the Tsaritsa and Dowager Tsaritsa are naturally larger, more elaborate and the gifts inside works of art in themselves. This Igor could not do. It would not be comme il faut. But they are beautiful all the same. On the outside’ – she smiled, inviting Rose to share her joke at male expense – ‘a portrait of Igor himself surrounded by tiny diamonds. The egg – my egg is pale green enamel and criss-crossed in gold. And inside all the eggs, so Igor says, are the rubies. But a woman’s value is high above rubies, is it not, Inspector?’ Her eyes twinkled.
‘Igor should know this before he takes another lover,’ she added obscurely.

  ‘Besides those we know about, did the Grand Duke have any other – um—?’

  ‘Lovers? Ah, Inspector,’ she smiled deliciously, ‘how could I know? Igor is a very’ – she paused, head on one side – ‘enthusiastic man.’

  Rose blenched at the thought of tracking down a cat burglar on the trail of an enthusiastic man. Why did these Grand Dukes have to live in London? Why didn’t they stay in Russia? Somewhere off his beat.

  ‘There is one thing, Inspector,’ she added helpfully. ‘I have a feeling there was one other egg – you understand I am a femme du monde and Igor talked to me as not to the others – that is bigger, more splendid than the rest, not because the lady was more prized, but because it is her profession, yes? Naturally she required more money. But she chose not money, but an egg that must be better than the others, she said. He was not happy, Igor, but he granted it to gain her favours. This lady does not live in England, so I think either it has not yet been stolen or you have not heard about it.’

  ‘If it’s not in England, it’s not my concern,’ Rose said swiftly. Other countries could take care of their own burglars.

  ‘Perhaps your burglar has not heard of the egg, if he is a London person, just listening to gossip. As I do,’ she laughed.

  ‘Who is this lady?’ Rose was curious despite himself.

  She spread her hands regretfully. ‘I do not know, Inspector.’ She laughed as she saw his face fall, and relented. ‘Yes, Inspector, I do. Her name is La Belle Mimosa.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The beautiful Mimosa.’

  ‘Mimosa what?’

  ‘Not what. La Belle Mimosa. She is always known thus, and addressed so. As I am Kallinkova. It tells our professions. Mine, the greatest ballerina in the world; hers the most famous courtesan. During the summer she dwells in Paris and Biarritz; in the autumn in Mentone, and the winter in Cannes.’

  ‘Cannes?’ Rose pricked up his ears.

  ‘But yes. Everyone must be in Cannes for February and March. I too. I leave tomorrow. Last year I dance for the Tsar in St Petersburg, and at the summer palace at Tsarkoie Selo. This year I dance in London, in Paris and now in Monte Carlo. You come to see me, yes? I will dance my Odette just for you, dear Inspector.’

  Cannes? That’s where Auguste was going. Rose dispelled the undutiful thoughts that entered his head, as he left Kallinkova’s house and went out into the biting cold of London’s Mayfair.

  That had been two weeks ago. Since when there had been no further burglaries of Fabergé eggs or their contents – and precious little progress on solving the six that had already taken place. Higgins had been his best bet; a frown crossed Rose’s face as he clambered into the hansom outside The Seamen’s Rest to return to the Yard. There was something odd there somewhere, that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Higgins knew something all right. And why did the South of France keep cropping up in the conversation?

  This promised to be an excellent holiday. Auguste stared out at the blue sky through the window. The smell of the Mediterranean wafted in, or rather the smell of the fish in the busy port below them. And above all the smell of his mother’s cooking coming from the tiny old-fashioned kitchen, the smell of the luncheon they were about to begin. Here he was merely a son, not a maître chef, and his mother had been hurt when he suggested helping her cook the luncheon. It had been a faux pas of the first order.

  ‘No, my son,’ she had said, firmly, ‘you recall, you cannot even make a brandade. Goodness only knows how you look after yourself in London.’ Useless to point out that the unfortunate episode of the brandade had taken place twenty-three years ago when he was fifteen. And so he had accepted his role as incompetent son gratefully. It would also have been useless to point out that brandade had hardly been a speciality of her own, before she married Papa and came to Provence. Brandade had hardly been a common dish in Lewisham where she had been born, nor even of Climpton Castle where she had been in service when she met Papa.

  He had been dismayed, even if pleased for himself, to find his parents returned to this small house after he had bought them an attractive and rather more spacious villa on the fashionable route de Fréjus.

  They had been apologetic. ‘Mon fils, we did not know anyone there.’ His father, still as tall and upright as Auguste himself, had shrugged apologetically. ‘They were English lords and ladies.’

  ‘And not one of them could make a sauce d’ail,’ chimed in his mother scornfully. ‘Let alone an Albert pudding. Fancy that! And when I asked our neighbour how she made a sauce for the gigot she did not know.’ Passionately convinced of the superiority of English food when she married Papa, she wavered between the two according to her mood. It was during her sporadic outbursts of patriotism that she had inspired Auguste with his love of the true English art of cooking.

  ‘Maman, does the Grand Duchess Anna know how to make a sauce d’ail?’ asked Auguste, lovingly exasperated. This was his other cause of concern. They refused to stop working. They did not go every day, explained his father, but when called upon they would make their way to the kitchens (Maman) and gardens (Papa) of the Villa Russe during the months when the Grand Duke Igor was in residence.

  ‘She is a Grand Duchess, my son,’ reproached his father unanswerably. ‘And moreover Russian. Our neighbours are English.’

  ‘But why don’t they realise the thrill of stirring the hollandaise, the excitement of achieving a true brandade?’ demanded his mother, returning to the heart of the matter – food. The ways of the gentry had always been a mystery to her, even after working for them for most of her life.

  So his parents had returned to the house overlooking the port in the shadow of the fortress of Mont Chevalier, beneath the church of Notre Dame d’Espérance. Selfishly Auguste was glad, for he loved this house, full of memories, decorated with brightly painted plates and pots and redolent of Provence itself; he had been born in this house and as long as he could remember the old chocolatière had stood on the dresser, the petits santons lain in the drawer ready for Christmas, and the chipped jug with A Present from Margate emblazoned on it, Papa’s first gift to Maman, had been on the mantelpiece.

  The villa had been let, his father explained, full of pride at his financial management. To make money, so they did not have to work.

  ‘But you did not need to work,’ exclaimed Auguste.

  Seeing they had upset him, they tumbled over themselves to explain. They did not wish to miss the excitement of the Villa Russe. And the little villa in the route de Fréjus was let to une grande dame Russe. Madame Kallinkova.’

  ‘Kal—’ Auguste was spellbound. Suddenly this promised not only to be a good holiday, but the holiday of his dreams.

  ‘She dances at the Monte Carlo ballet,’ his mother explained in vicarious pride. ‘In the casino theatre. But it is fifteen francs to enter, so we do not go.’

  ‘Maman.’ Auguste threw his arms around his mother, as she stood so tall and stiffly, as if afraid she might betray how much she loved him. He kissed her enthusiastically. ‘You shall go every night. She is here now?’

  ‘She arrived two weeks ago, mon fils.’

  ‘Ah. Today,’ Auguste said casually, as he began the fish soup, ‘I shall return late.’ A tiny frown. Something was different – surely there used not to be so much fennel? ‘Maman—’ He changed his mind. No word of criticism should mar this perfect day.

  He had met Natalia Kallinkova at Gwynne’s, the hotel in Jermyn Street famous for its food and informal atmosphere, run by the redoubtable Emma Pryde. He admired Kallinkova, liked the way she moved her hands, liked the gusto with which she attacked her salmon, liked the twinkle in her eye, the way she walked – and most of all he liked her. She had been dining with a famous politician, but he seemed to play no important part in her life, either politically or romantically. She invited Auguste to call and he found a warm welcome. He smiled in happy remembrance. Many happy days
(and nights) followed; he saw her dance Odette, wept at her Giselle, laughed at her Coppelia – and loved her at night. But she was elusive. When would he see her again? Ah, that she did not know. There were always engagements to dance in this country or that country, and when she was not dancing, then dining here, there, everywhere. And now she was in Cannes.

  With a sense of anticipation he announced himself at the small elegant villa on the route de Fréjus. Built somewhat later than the first flurry of expressions of early Victorian grandeur by the British, the Villa Lavendre had opted for classical Greek pillars and porticos, and white stone, and large windows. It was through one of them that Kallinkova saw him coming.

  ‘Bonjour, Auguste.’ She greeted him as enthusiastically as if it had been yesterday, not three months since they had met.

  ‘You are not surprised to see me?’

  She sat down gracefully, then rose again as if she could not bear to be still. ‘I am delighted to see you, chéri. You want I should be like the tragic Madame Gray—’ She executed a neat impression of Rachel Gray as Mrs Tanqueray.

  Auguste laughed, and that pleased her. She liked Auguste. Very much indeed. She liked his sense of humour, she liked his seriousness, his wholeheartedness, his tall slim figure (considering his profession) and his dark soulful eyes.

  ‘Eh bien, and what are you doing here, Auguste? Now tell me. Your Inspector Rose that you tell me about so often – he sent you here?’

  ‘Egbert?’ As always Kallinkova had the power to startle him. ‘Why should Egbert send me here?’ He watched her moving round the room, her cherry-coloured silk dress gently rustling.

  ‘You like it?’ She noticed his glance. ‘The new colour. My maid is horrified. It is Lent she tells me. In France they dress so dully at such times, but me, I worship le Bon Seigneur in my own way, not with a dull, dull, dress.’ She pirouetted, and the cherry-coloured skirts flared around her, revealing frothy lace beneath.

  Auguste nodded, mesmerised.

  ‘Good. Eh bien, Inspector Rose is working on a case. I thought he might be sending you to Cannes in his place, perhaps to visit La Belle Mimosa.’