Chapter Twenty-Five
Elizabeth stepped off the kerb, her arm raised towards the taxi rank by the Métro steps.
“Should we telephone the chancery?” Cybil drew level with her. “Let Oliver know?”
“There’s no time. By the time we’ve found a telephone and someone’s tracked him down…” A taxi pulled off the rank and swung in to meet them. “We’ll have to go ourselves.”
Cybil reached for the door before it had fully stopped and climbed in first, Elizabeth following, pulling the door shut as the driver turned in his seat.
“Where to, mesdames?”
“The Bois de Boulogne, monsieur, and as fast as you’re able.”
She caught the door strap as the taxi braked hard behind a coal dray; the driver leaning out to deliver his opinion of it.
“Do we even know where in the Bois?” Cybil twisted in her seat. “It’s enormous.”
“Only that it’s a venue for Lady Davenport’s luncheon.” Elizabeth turned from the window as the taxi pulled out around the dray, the driver working through the gears.
“Then it’s the Chalet des ?les.” Cybil’s reply came without a moment’s hesitation. “Nobody holds a ladies’ luncheon at Armenonville or the Pré Catelan – that’s all champagne and orchestras. The Chalet is where a hostess takes a luncheon she wants talked about, because her guests arrive by boat.”
“By boat?”
“Yes, it sits on an island in the middle of the lake.”
An island. Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on her bag. “How much longer until we get there?”
They passed through the gates into the Bois, the plane trees closing over the avenue.
“Not far now, mesdames.” The driver swung onto a narrower road, the lake showing through the trunks. “The embarcadère is just ahead. You can walk it quicker than I can drive it.”
He drew up beside a painted signpost, Chalet des ?les lettered beneath a pointing hand.
Elizabeth was out before he’d set the handbrake, pressing coins into his palm through the open window. “Merci, monsieur.”
“Merci bien, mademoiselle!”
Elizabeth followed Cybil down the path at a half-run, past a shuttered ticket kiosk to the landing stage where a handful of hire boats knocked against the boards.
Her breath caught as her gaze skimmed the lake, taking in the willows trailing at its edges and the island at its centre.
A single rowing boat sat halfway across the lake, a woman in grey pulling at the oars with short, economical strokes, and Clemmi in the stern facing her, one hand clamped to the crown of her hat.
“There.” Elizabeth caught Cybil’s arm. “That’s them.”
Cybil stepped down into the nearest boat and untied the mooring rope. “Quick, get in. I’ll row – you keep your eyes on them.”
Elizabeth took the stern seat, wedging her handbag between her feet, and gripped the gunwale as the boat surged out under Cybil’s first pull. She kept her eyes on the grey figure across the water. Mid-stroke, the oars faltered, then quickened.
“She’s seen us.”
Elizabeth raised her hand and held it high, a leisurely wave from one friend to another.
“What on earth are you doing?” Cybil glanced over her shoulder.
“Buying time. As long as we act as if nothing’s wrong, she’s got no reason to panic.”
Across the water, Bembridge brought her boat in against the island’s landing stage and shipped the oars. She climbed out, reached back, and handed Clemmi up after her.
“Miss Bembridge!” She pitched her voice bright across the water. “Such a glorious afternoon. We thought we’d join you.”
Clemmi turned on the landing stage, a smile spreading across her face as her hand went up in a wave. “Elizabeth! What on earth are you–”
Bembridge yanked her back by the arm. Clemmi stumbled against her, her hat tipping, the wave dying half-made as Bembridge drew a pistol from her coat pocket and set it against Clemmi’s side.
“That will do, Lady Elizabeth. Not a stroke closer, or I shoot Mrs Sterling.”
Clemmi’s gaze dropped to the pistol, then rose to Elizabeth across the water, her free hand moving to her middle.
“Pull up the oars.” Elizabeth kept her eyes on the pistol as Cybil drew in the oars and laid them along the boards.
Bembridge had already shot two men . Elizabeth had no doubt she wouldn’t hesitate over a third.
“Ruth?” Clemmi’s voice reached her thin across the water. “Ruth, what are you doing? I don’t understand. Is this some sort of–” She twisted against the grip on her arm and went still.
Even now, with a pistol at her side, Clemmi was searching for the joke.
Movement caught her eye at the footbridge – the narrow span joining the chalet’s island to its neighbour, a workmen’s barricade lashed across the near end – and Oliver behind it, hatless, his chest heaving.
“Oliver!” Clemmi’s whole body turned towards him.
“Stay where you are, Mr Sterling.” Bembridge didn’t so much as glance at him, the pistol pressing deeper into Clemmi’s side.
Oliver came up hard against the barricade, his revolver rising, then holding, levelled across the water at a target standing half behind his wife.
Bembridge pulled Clemmi in front of her. “How good a shot are you, Mr Sterling? The distance must be forty yards or so and an inch either side could render you a widower. Are you quite certain you want to take that risk?”
Elizabeth watched Oliver hold his aim a moment longer, then lower the revolver.
“Put it down on the boards in front of you. Slowly now, and keep your hands where I can see them.”
Oliver crouched, his eyes never leaving Bembridge, and laid the revolver on the planking.
“Now kick it into the lake.”
He stayed exactly as he was for a moment. Then he drew back his foot and sent the revolver over the edge. One small splash, and the lake was flat again.
Bembridge settled her grip on Clemmi’s arm and brought the pistol back around to the boat.
“Clemmi!” Oliver’s shout cracked from the footbridge. “Are you hurt?”
The pistol swung towards him.
“I’m perfectly fine – just do as Miss Bembridge says.”
Elizabeth kept her hands in plain view on the gunwale. Bembridge stood at the head of the landing stage, where one small turn of her head took in the boat and the footbridge.
“Miss Bembridge, Clemmi has no part in whatever this is. Let her sit down at least. You know she hasn’t been well.”
“I can’t do that, Lady Elizabeth. You saw to that. Sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong.”
Oliver shifted along the barricade – a single sideways step – and the gun jerked towards Clemmi before his foot was down.
“I’ve warned you once, Mr Sterling.”
“Just let my wife go, and I’ll get you whatever you want – a motorcar, papers, money. You can be across any border you choose by morning.”
“Do you think I don’t know that the minute I let her go, you’d be on the first telephone to the S?reté, and I’d find them waiting at every crossing? No, Mr Sterling. Your wife stays with me.”
“For the love of God, Miss Bembridge, think of the child, if nothing else,” Elizabeth pleaded. “Have some compassion.”
“Don’t talk to me about compassion. Do you know what Sir Conrad said to me? That he couldn’t promise the new man would keep me on, and perhaps I should make other arrangements. Ten years I worked for that man, covered for him. He’d have been nothing without me.”
“You’ll forgive me, Miss Bembridge, but I still don’t see it. Whatever his faults, Sir Conrad earned his place, surely. He was a war hero, from what I heard.”
“War hero?” Bembridge’s eyes snapped to the boat.
“Eleven weeks it took me to crack that cypher only for him to carry it upstairs under his own name. And when the war was over, he got a knighthood off the back of it, and I got a new typewriter.” She drew Clemmi a step back along the landing stage, towards the moored boat.
“So you began passing information.”
“I took what was owed to me.”
“And the money?”
“A fraction of what my work earned Sir Conrad: his knighthood, his ambassadorship. Nobody was ever going to provide for me, Lady Elizabeth. So I had to provide for myself.” Bembridge took another step along the stage, Clemmi stumbling with her.
“And Mr Ashby?”
“Ashby set up shop on my ground, selling to my buyers, so he had to go.”
“So what happens now, Miss Bembridge? You can’t stand on that island until dark.”
“Now Mrs Sterling and I will take the boat, and you will all stay precisely where you are.” She drew Clemmi another step along the landing stage, closing on the moored boat.
“No.” Clemmi dug her heels into the boards, twisting against her grip. “I’m not getting in that boat–”
“You’ll do as you’re told.”
“I think I’m going to be sick–” Clemmi doubled forward, her hand clamped to her mouth, her weight sagging against Bembridge’s arm.
Movement caught Elizabeth’s eye at the far end of the landing stage – a figure, keeping low at the water’s edge.
Jonathan.
“If anything happens,” Elizabeth kept her voice low, her eyes never leaving Bembridge, “row for the landing stage. And in the meantime, make sure you’ve got a firm hold on the gunwale.”
She cast a quick glance in Oliver’s direction, catching his eye as he eased himself over the workmen’s barricade.
Elizabeth rose to her feet, swaying with the boat, one hand flailing for the side as the hull rocked beneath her.
“Take me instead, Miss Bembridge. Leave Clemmi here with Miss Hughes, and I’ll come across and row you wherever you wish to go.
What use is a hostage who faints before you’re across the water? ”
“No offence, Lady Elizabeth, but Mrs Sterling is far more valuable to me than you are.”
Over Bembridge’s shoulder, she spotted Jonathan inching along the landing stage.
“Ah, but I wouldn’t hinder your progress the way Mrs Sterling would.”
He was almost there … just a few more steps.
“And I can assure you, my brother would pay a pretty penny for my safe return when you’re done with me.”
CREEEAK!
Bembridge spun on her heel, her grip loosening on Clemmi’s arm as she staggered back. “You! But it can’t be. You’re … dead.”
“Row!” Elizabeth lowered herself down next to Cybil, each of them swinging an oar into its rowlock, and hauled for all they were worth.
Bembridge backed along the landing stage, the pistol levelled at Jonathan’s chest, putting the length of the boards between herself and the man she thought she’d murdered.
“I don’t understand it. I saw you stumble over the parapet into the river.”
“You did indeed, but what you didn’t see was me coming up on the far side of the bridge.”
“Then I missed.” Her head tilted a fraction, the pistol never moving. “All this time, I’d assumed–”
“Oh, you caught me all right.” Jonathan’s hand went briefly to his side. “Just not well enough to do any proper damage.”
“Don’t come any closer. Or I’ll finish what I started on the Pont Neuf.”
Jonathan took a half-step forward. “Give me the gun, Miss Bembridge. It’s finished.”
“Stay back. I mean it.” She kept the pistol levelled at his chest, her head twisting from side to side as the wail of klaxons grew louder.
“If you’re looking for another way out, there isn’t one. We’ve got you cornered on all sides.”
“There is one.” She pressed the pistol against her temple.
“Miss Bembridge, I beg you to reconsider–”
The crack carried across the water.
Bembridge dropped where she stood, the pistol slipping from her hand and skidding across the boards as she hit the landing with a dull thud.
The bow struck the landing stage. Elizabeth shipped her oar and scrambled up onto the boards, Cybil on her heels, as Oliver came off the footbridge at a dead run.
“I didn’t hit her that hard. She’s probably just knocked out.” Clemmi stood over Miss Bembridge, the oar from the moored boat still clasped between her hands. “Perhaps all those hours spent as batsman while Reginald practised his bowling weren’t a complete waste of time after all.”