Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bruton Mews
Dora and Jacob sat in the office, taking a late breakfast in the sunshine that came through the open door.
Alex and Kir were outside, playing knucklebones on the step.
Alex seemed to get a vast deal of pleasure from revisiting childhood games and was teaching Kir how to maximise his points as they tossed up the little bones and tried to catch as many as possible.
Jacob could understand the attraction of something entirely unrelated to murderous plots.
It was good to be doing something normal after the upsetting events of the night before and they all found it cleansing to hear a child laugh.
Even so, Jacob couldn’t help but think of the little boy who would play no more games and the parents who had lost their child in such a senseless way.
Dora brushed his arm. ‘You couldn’t do anything for him.’
He gave her a humourless smile. ‘Reading my thoughts now?’
‘They are not hard to guess when you stare at Kir like that.’
He sighed. ‘All we can do is go forward – work out what is really going on. Let’s go over what we learned about last night.’
‘Let’s make a fresh pot of tea for me and coffee for you, and then decide our next step.’
Before they could get to that, Miss Austen rushed in, her bonnet ribbons flying behind her.
‘Have you read the news?’ she asked, waving a newspaper. ‘An attack on Madame Catalani! What is the world coming to?’
‘Good morning to you too,’ said Dora, getting up to greet her. ‘It was a little more than that, I’m afraid, Jane. We were at the concert and were just discussing it. I can say with absolute certainty that Madame Catalani was not the target, but we and our investigation might have been.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Miss Austen’s hazel eyes rounded in shock as she held on to Dora’s hands.
‘Miss Austen, please do take a seat.’ Jacob held one out for her.
‘You had better hear the full story.’ Dora told their visitor about the events of the night before while Jacob fetched a clean cup from the scullery. He poured the tea for the ladies.
‘Thank you, Dr Sandys. I need this to steady my nerves.’ The cup did rattle a little in Miss Austen’s hand so she put it down on the table.
‘They are my old friends when it comes to rude shocks, but today they are in such a flutter hearing how close you both came to death. And the authorities can’t trace the gunner? ’
‘No, unfortunately not. It was a scene of great confusion and many witnesses slipped away before anyone thought to follow up on this. I questioned the stage crew and the musicians who were still there,’ said Dora.
‘They don’t normally have a gun as part of their orchestra, so no one was surprised by a stranger turning up to fire it.
They assumed the management had arranged for it, or the singers.
The first time they met him was at the dress rehearsal and he only fired the gun once to check it was working.
They didn’t want to waste the ammunition as it was a crown a pop. ’
‘Did anyone get his name?’ asked Miss Austen.
‘No. He barely spoke and kept himself to himself.’ Dora looked at Jacob. ‘That’s one thing we must do this morning: find out who engaged him.’
Jacob made a note. ‘Indeed so – the fact that he went missing immediately afterwards is suspicious.’
‘Was he scared of getting the blame?’ wondered Dora.
He nodded. ‘Or conscious of guilt?’
‘I think we should call on Julien this morning,’ said Dora, coming to a decision. ‘He was there, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him as he had his hands full with the Russian countess.’
‘Oh, Lord, I can imagine she was no good in a crisis,’ said Miss Austen, shaking her head at the picture she was conjuring. ‘She strikes me as the sort who would consume attention more worthily spent on alleviating the crisis.’
‘You would be right about that,’ said Jacob. ‘Very well. Let us go and see how the young comte is this morning.’
The Russians weren’t in occupation when they called on Queen Anne Street. Julien told them that his friends had gone back to the embassy after Vauxhall, the countess had retired to her bed and Miss Petrovna was nursing the count.
‘Any news on his condition?’ asked Jacob, following the new Comte D’Antraigues up the stairs.
‘The surgeons were worried for a time last night, but they now think he is badly bruised and there are no bones broken. With all the swelling it is hard to tell so he must stay lying down until that goes.’
‘No loss of sensation in his extremities?’
‘None reported. A few burns but nothing too serious. I’m sure he’ll want to thank you when he is recovered. Without your quick action, it would have been very much worse. Please, come in.’
The count took them to the library on the first floor and invited them to sit.
A maid brought refreshments. Jacob wondered if Julien had dismissed the footman who had served him so ill on their last visit.
If so, that showed he had sense. Poor servants were like internal bleeding: fatal before you knew what was happening.
You only had to look at what had happened with Lorenzo Stelli to prove that case.
‘Sir, we were wondering if you had any idea who the man firing the gun was?’ asked Dora. ‘No one in the orchestra or among the stage crew knew him.’
Julien tapped his long pianist fingers, making a steeple against his chest. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t pay him much attention.
What did I notice? He was ten or so years older than me, dark hair, pale eyes – grey perhaps, like the doctor here.
I don’t remember him saying anything except the occasional grunt of assent when given orders. I don’t even know if he was English.’
That was an interesting detail. They’d never identified their two assailants, known in the case notes only as brown jacket and black coat. Could one of them have taken up the gunner’s post?
‘Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’ asked Jacob.
‘I believe I would.’ Julien beat out a little rhythm with his fingertips.
‘Now you mention it, I do remember one thing. There were grumbles from the percussion players that he was on a separate contract and rumour had it that he was getting paid more than them for his participation, the same rate of pay as me, in fact.’
‘Do you know who holds the contracts? That would surely name him,’ said Dora.
‘If he used his real name,’ added Miss Austen.
‘That would be Madame Catalani’s stage manager,’ said Julien. ‘He was responsible for hiring the extra talent for the evening. A Mr Pierce.’ He gave an address convenient for the theatre in Covent Garden.
Jacob met Dora’s gaze, and from what he saw there he assumed silent agreement that they now had a lead to follow up.
‘Sir, when we were here last time, we told you we were looking for something your father might have left behind, a report that another party is desperate to get their hands on,’ said Jacob.
‘You mentioned that the Vorontsovs and the government have both searched the house. However, nothing has turned up and from the fact that the attacks are still occurring, it suggests that the hidden item is still believed to be missing.’
Julien looked up sharply. ‘Am I to understand that you think the incident last night is connected to this?’ The thought had not occurred to him, which was telling. The comte had no idea of the deep waters in which he was wading. ‘I thought it was just very bad luck.’
‘The missing gunner, the fact that the box where we and the Vorontsovs were sitting was the worst hit, the recklessness of the attacks – that all suggests it is a possibility.’
‘There may have been other targets, of course,’ added Dora.
‘We were seated with a French diplomat who assumed it was aimed at him. It could have been done to ruin Madame Catalani’s concert, or diminish Wellington’s victories, or it could have been an accident.
We are considering all these theories too. ’
The comte looked distressed, as if hoping that this would all go away. ‘It seemed pure accident to me.’
‘There was nothing pure about it, unfortunately.’
Julien grimaced in acknowledgment. ‘That poor child. Not a sight I will forget in a hurry.’
‘Indeed. Running with the theory that connects to your father, do you mind telling us about him?’ asked Jacob.
He noticed that Miss Austen was scribbling all of this down, her face alert with interest. It was unnerving to have one’s actions monitored by so astute a writer, but so far Julien had not objected.
‘My father? No, I do not mind talking about him. In fact, it is good to talk about him. So many people avoid the subject with me as if him being murdered meant I should somehow feel ashamed of him.’ He crossed his legs and brushed off the thigh of his immaculate breeches.
‘He was a brilliant man, quite the cleverest person I’ve ever met.
My mother was the more talented, if you understand the difference, but when it came to judging the outcome of events, or anticipating moves in stocks and shares, my father was always a step ahead of the game.
’ Julien gestured to the room. ‘That is how we could afford to live in style in two houses. He invested wisely.’
That was an interesting development on the question of their finances, and one Henry Austen was not party to.
Jacob should’ve realised the D’Antraigues had more money than rumoured, because an account at Coutts was not available to everyone.
The late comte clearly had played his cards close to his chest, allowing others to doubt his credit worthiness as it all added to the mystery of his position. He had liked to keep people guessing.
‘Before he died, did he mention anything that was particularly on his mind? We are looking for the last thing that he wrote for the Foreign Office.’