CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
He studied in Brussels for a time and then attended university in Bonn.”
“Excellent.
And when did he come to this country?”
“Early in the ’40s.
He was a childhood friend of Prince Albert.
After the Prince Consort married Queen Victoria he had some trouble settling in, and he asked Max if he would come and make his home in England.
Max had no ties of his own left in Germany.
His parents were dead and he had no siblings, so he came.”
“Did he see the prince often?”
“Not very.
The queen was a demanding wife,” Stoker added with a ghost of a smile.
“But when she could spare him, the two men had the occasional dinner or ride together.
Most often they corresponded by letter.
I suspect the prince simply felt more at ease for having one of his own countrymen close at hand.”
“No doubt,” I mused.
“But as interesting as his connection with the prince might be, Prince Albert has been dead for decades and, as far as we know, the baron lived unmolested.
If there was any sort of motive to harm him from his friendship with the prince, surely it would have caused some villain to act long ago.”
“Agreed.
So if the motive is not to be found in his friendship with the Prince Consort, we must look to his more recent past.”
“How did you meet him?”
I inquired.
“He was a guest lecturer when I was at university.
We had common interests, and he was kind enough to act as mentor to me when I had few friends.
Later, much later, he saved me,” he finished simply.
“Was that the debt you both spoke of when he left me with you?
The reason you felt you owed it to him to protect me?”
He nodded, and I thought that would be an end of it, but he spoke, each word as slow and heavy as if he were hewing them from a burial place—a burial place deep within himself.
“When I was injured in Brazil, what followed was for me a very dark time.
I do not speak of it.
I do not even let myself think of it.
But there are depths to which a man can sink, and I have plumbed them all.
I could not bring myself out of it.
I was content to stay there and to die there.
My wounds had healed, but my body was in a far better state than the rest,” he recalled with a bitter twist of his mouth.
“Max sailed halfway around the world to bring me home.
If he had not made it his business to search me out, I would have stayed, rotting in a prison I had made for myself, too sunk in despair to find my way out again.
It was Max who found me, who cleaned me up and brought me back to England.”
I said nothing, and he went on, speaking in a strangely detached voice, as if in a dream.
“I did not appreciate it, not at the time.
He wanted me to stay with him in London, but I was still too angry, too lost in my own misery.
So I left him and went to the traveling show, running away from the truest friend I ever had.
He let me go, at least for a while.
Eventually, he found me again and asked me to come back to London.
By then I was ready to accept the hand he extended.
I took the warehouse for my workshop; I resumed my work.
But still I resisted his efforts to rehabilitate me completely.
It was as if, having once fallen out of the habit of civilized life, I could no longer find it again.
Yet Max never gave up on me.
He never stopped believing I could pull myself out of this abyss into which I had stumbled.”
He paused and gave a sharp laugh.
“It’s funny, really.
Do you know what his specialty was?
Restoration.
He loved nothing more than to take old paintings—pieces damaged by neglect or time or war—and make them whole again.
Pity he never finished with me.”
He looked suddenly away, and I realized he must be feeling the baron’s loss far more keenly than I had suspected.
“You said he owns—owned,” I corrected sadly, “the building where you reside.”
“Yes, I took it from him at a peppercorn rent when I left the traveling show.
I .
.
.
wanted a place where I could work in solitude.”
His eyes were shadowed, and I suspected the memories he tried so valiantly to keep at bay were wrestling their way in.
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years.”
“And you have lived there since?”
“Yes.
Max was generous to a fault.
He came round once a month to collect the rent himself and we went to dinner—I suspect more for him to ensure I was having a proper meal than to get his money.”
“He was a good friend,” I said softly.
Stoker said nothing, just nodded.
Impulsively, I touched his hand and he gripped it hard before turning loose of it.
“Get on with the questions.”
“Did he form any other close attachments that you know of?”
“None.
He knew many people, but distantly.
Max was more comfortable in his solitude than any person I have ever known.
He was entirely happy alone.
He had his books and his music and his specimens, and that was all he required.
He also carried on a wide correspondence.
His friends were far-flung across the globe, but none of them intimate.
I probably knew him as well as anyone.”
“What of his servants?
Did anyone live in?”
I asked.
“His housekeeper of twenty years, Mrs. Latham.
She looked after him with the help of a succession of rather stupid maids, none of whom lived in.
Mrs. Latham broke her leg last year, and Max held her post for her.
He even paid the doctor’s bills.
She has never forgot that.
Poor old hen would probably have died for him if she had caught the intruder who killed him.”
“Just as well she never got the chance,” I said soberly.
“If the blackguard showed no compunction at killing the baron, he would have easily murdered her as well.
Would she have profited by the baron’s death?”
He shrugged.
“A small legacy, but Max and I talked once and he told me he intended to leave his fortune—modest as it was—to various museums.
Nothing for the servants to tempt them to murder.”
“No, and even if they had, that would not explain the ransacking of his study,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Unless they were attempting to cover up the crime.”
“What a morbid imagination you have,” I told him admiringly.
“Veronica, I spend my days up to my elbows in the gore of dead animals.
And that is the
least gruesome occupation I have had.”
His mouth had twisted into something like a smile, and I found myself smiling back.
The moment caught and held, and in that fleeting connection, something between us shifted.
He reached out suddenly and took my hand in his, and when he spoke, there was nothing of the harshness he wore as armor.
His voice was low, his eyes pleading.
“Let me go to the police.
Whatever happens, you will be safe then.”
I felt a hot flicker of anger.
“That is not possible.
They might—
might—put me in some sort of protective custody if they believe our story.
But it is far likelier they will not.
And what happens to you if that is the case?
If we take the risk and we’re wrong, it is the hangman’s noose for you.”
“Veronica—” he began.
“I will not gamble with your life!”
His gaze held mine, and I wanted so desperately to look away.
But I did not, and in the end, he released my hand.
“Very well.
I was afraid you would be obstinate, so I made arrangements with my Cornish friend.
There is a property in London at our disposal, but only if we are very discreet.
There is a skeleton staff in the house at present, and we must keep out of the way.”
“What house?”
“Bishop’s Folly.
It belongs to Lord Rosemorran, the client who owns that bloody elephant.
In Marylebone—not the fashionable part, which is all to the good for our purposes.
The house itself is massive, but there is another structure on the property, the Belvedere.
It was built as a sort of ballroom, but Rosemorran has stuffed it to the rafters with specimens from his travels.
With a great deal of luck, we just might manage.”
“Very well.
We will throw in with Lord Rosemorran and hope for the best,” I replied.
Stoker looked as if he wanted to say something else, but instead he merely turned and looked out the window at the passing view and said no more.