Prince of Secrets Read online

  ‘And…?’ he said, a kind of watchful amusement riding on his face.

  ‘That’s all,’ Dinah said gravely.

  He sat up, and pulled her to him, ‘Oh, no, it’s not, my clever wife. It doesn’t explain why you took it, without a word to me.’

  ‘I think…’ and what was she to say? I don’t trust you. I still don’t trust you, you haven’t denied the theft, and I wanted you to worry a little because you are always in such perfect control, and you deserve to suffer as we ordinary mortals do.

  Instead she said, ‘I thought that if I could open it by accident, then perhaps someone else—the police, for example—might be able to do so, and so I took them away—which was just as well, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, now tell me where you hid them.’

  Her smile was full of innocent joy. ‘Where else but in my embroidery bag, among my silks?’

  Cobie gave a crack of laughter. ‘Left on the lawn in full view of everyone—including myself—while Walker played his games with me. Oh, Dinah, you are full of surprises.’

  ‘Not so full of them as you are,’ she told him, ‘and you still haven’t answered my question. Why did you steal it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. His face was both grave and sad.

  She deserved better of him than that. She had saved him from a prison cell and certain ruin, but he couldn’t tell her the truth. To do so might put her at risk, and so long as she knew nothing she could face Walker down, as she had already done, with no danger of giving anything real away, or of harming herself.

  He thought of her apparently innocent indignation with Walker and the local constable while they had searched his room, and his admiration for her grew—and his desire to protect her. She must not appear to be his willing accomplice, nor could he burden her with the hateful circumstances of Lizzie’s terrible death.

  Cobie had never meant to involve his innocent young wife in his dubious ventures, but now that he had it was his duty to prevent her from involving herself further. Better that she knew nothing if Walker, or anyone else, came to question her.

  Her face fell at his refusal. ‘You don’t trust me,’ she said sadly, and began to strip off the necklace, the bracelet and the rings, to hand to him, together with the brooch. ‘Here, you have them.’ She felt as though they were scalding her. He had not protested his innocence. He hadn’t even attempted to tell her what he was doing, and why. She felt a vast grief.

  Cobie took her into his arms and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Dinah,’ he said, ‘trust me. I know that it must be hard for you to do so, but believe me, the less you know the better. No, not for me, but for yourself. For my own peace of mind you must not be my accomplice. I want none of this to touch you. I am sorry that it has done so, even though, without you, I might be sitting in a prison cell trying to explain myself to Walker and his cohorts.’

  She burrowed her head into his chest. ‘I am your wife, Cobie. Your wife.’

  ‘All the more reason that you should remain as innocent as possible.’ He paused. He owed her something for saving him, he was a graceless brute else.

  ‘The reason I took them…’ he hesitated again ‘…it was a good reason, Dinah, not a bad one, believe me.’

  She said into his chest, her voice muffled, ‘What are you going to do with them, Cobie?’

  ‘I am going to sell them, and the money will go to support a good cause, the best.’

  ‘But you…we…are so rich, we could give our own money, and never know it had gone. A Golconda of diamonds, you said. Why not sell some of those? Why take Sir Ratcliffe’s?’

  He inwardly cursed her acuteness at the same time that he admired it. He lifted her away from him, tipped his hand under her chin, looked into her eyes as steadily and as earnestly as he could, and said, ‘I can’t explain, but it is only right and proper that it should be Sir Ratcliffe who, indirectly, provides the money. I can’t tell you more than that.’

  ‘He has done something, then? Something bad? What has he done?’

  ‘Something terrible. I can’t say any more.’

  ‘You mean you won’t. Why don’t the police do something? Don’t they know?’

  ‘Dinah, I have no proof. No proof at all to give to the police. If I had, do you think that I would risk myself as I did?’

  She lay in his arms again, silent, then murmured sadly, ‘I’m still your wife, Cobie, and whatever you say, you are not trusting me.’

  It was his turn to be silent, to stare at nothing. How had he brought them to this pass? He said, and she could hear the anguish running through his voice, see it written plain on his face, ‘Oh, Dinah, I was wrong to marry you. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. I don’t want you to be hurt or dirtied by this.’

  Here was a man she didn’t know, a man no one knew. Here was the man he would have been if he had never discovered the secret of his birth, never gone to the Southwest and eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

  ‘I love you.’ Her voice was low, and it was the confession which she had told herself she would never make to him.

  He became very still. He said, his voice as low as hers, ‘I told you not to do that, Dinah.’

  ‘I know, but I can’t help myself. I am sure that you’re doing nothing wrong, so why can’t you tell me the whole truth?’

  Cobie was silent, his arms still around her. Something had happened to him which he had not foreseen and didn’t want. Holding her like this, thinking of her gallantry, her unhesitating protection of him, he shared her grief. ‘Oh, Dinah, I didn’t want this, I didn’t.’ All his usual cool command had disappeared.

  ‘Didn’t want what, Cobie?’

  He couldn’t tell her. He felt as though his fast-beating heart was about to burst out of his body. He knew that for the first time in nearly ten years, for the first time since Belita had died in his arms, he was feeling something for another. More, it was something which he had never felt before. He had taken Dinah for his wife almost as a careless gesture of goodwill, Jake putting the world to rights again, Hendrick Van Deusen would have said. But in the doing he had fallen in love with her, and the ice around his heart was melting.

  He didn’t want it to melt, he wanted to be as he had been for so long, remote, uninvolved. Only by being so could he face what he had become with equanimity, remain a free agent. He would not give a hostage to fortune by loving someone, he would not.

  But he had.

  Dinah lay quiet in his arms. She could not question him further. She could have sworn that there were tears in his eyes, and that it would be wrong for her to continue questioning him. Indeed, if she loved him she would accept him as he was.

  He was, he had so plainly told her, protecting her and she must respect that—and surely, to wish to protect her was a form of love in itself.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ she breathed, ‘I’ll not trouble you further. I trust you. Remember only that I am your wife, and will always support you—whatever you do.’

  ‘I don’t deserve you,’ he muttered into her ear before putting an arm around her. Together they drifted into sleep, Cobie praying that this time his love for a woman would not be fatal for her.

  On the afternoon of the day on which Walker left for London, Hendrick Van Deusen came up to Cobie before afternoon tea in the drawing room. While Walker had been prowling around, watching everyone—and Mr Jacobus Grant in particular—Hendrick had avoided his friend. He wanted to lull any suspicions aroused by his providing an alibi for Cobie on the night of Hoskyns’s death.

  ‘Who do you think took the diamonds, Jake? Some say the man who owned them, but I don’t think so, and I don’t think that you think so, either.’

  Were it not for Dinah’s involvement he would have enjoyed jousting with Hendrick.

  ‘You know I took the damned things,’ Cobie said beneath his breath, a little wearily.

  ‘I thought that the robbery had a touch I recognised, yes. And you managed to hide them from our friend from Scotland Ya
rd who already suspects you of being…’

  ‘A thief and worse.’ He looked around the room at the guests, at the Prince who had just arrived, his Princess by his side. ‘I’ll talk to you later—if I need to.’

  ‘Always ready to back you up, you know that, Jake. By the by, I understand that Kenilworth wants to talk to the pair of us after tea. We’re to go to the smoking room. God knows what for.’

  ‘Don’t you, Hendrick? You do surprise me!’ Cobie’s tone was sardonic.

  He was pretty sure that it was Sir Ratcliffe’s behaviour at the baccarat table which was disturbing Kenilworth: it had become so blatant. To any one who truly knew Heneage, he was being blatant about other things too.

  The other morning, out in the gardens, Cobie had come across him on his early walk. Sir Ratcliffe had been feeling restless. He had left Susanna’s bed early and abruptly. Such small beer as she could provide was beginning to bore him. He was missing his London life. Since Lizzie’s death it had become increasingly difficult for him to enjoy the give and take of a normal sexual encounter. As the result of some weeks of acute deprivation he had, just before leaving town, committed his second murder.

  Now he was feeling restless. He had gone walking through the kitchen gardens the day before on a whim, and had seen the gardeners at their early morning work. One of them had placed a barrow on the path, and two of his children, a boy and a girl, were playing around it. The girl was smaller and younger even than Lizzie Steele had been, pretty, shy and rounded. She had stared at him, dropped him a curtsy on her father’s insistence, and Sir Ratcliffe had patted her on the head, and slipped a sixpence into her hand.

  She had bobbed to him again and given him a smile of such dazzling sweetness that his guts had wrenched. He had told himself sternly that it was madness to be tempted here—he couldn’t risk losing control and putting suspicion on the house-party if a death similar to the two which had occurred in London should take place at Markendale.

  But he couldn’t keep away. The memory of the child stayed with him all day, and had ruined his night with Susanna.

  She was there again. Her father and his assistant were forking mulch on to one of the beds, and she was sitting on the path, playing with a rag doll. She rose to her feet, bobbed another curtsy, and gave him another smile, remembering the sixpence he had pressed into her small palm the day before.

  Sir Ratcliffe swallowed, prepared to bend down towards her, to do—what?

  Nothing. The hairs on the back of his head rose. Every sense he possessed told him that he was being watched. He straightened up without touching the child, and turned slowly, to see that vile Yankee brute, Cobie Grant, walking towards him.

  Something in Grant’s stance alerted him, explained the rising hairs. He knew! Grant knew! How the devil could he know? In his own way Sir Ratcliffe was no fool. He thought of a dozen odd things in Grant’s conduct towards him, and to believe that he had somehow discovered his dreadful secret explained them—and much more. No matter. He would put one of his men on Grant to watch him, and better still he would write to a good friend in the States to ask her what she knew of him, or could find out.

  Cobie had seen the half-movement towards the child, and the rage, dormant these many months since he had married Dinah, was on him again. Not here! Not again! If only he had some hard evidence of Sir Ratcliffe’s guilt which he could offer the police. Not for the first time he regretted antagonising Walker, although when he did so he couldn’t have guessed that Sir Ratcliffe’s sexual mania would lead him on to murder.

  ‘Enjoying the morning air?’ he asked Heneage, his voice offensive.

  ‘Not since you arrived.’ Sir Ratcliffe was offensive in return.

  ‘No?’ Cobie’s eyebrows rose, he looked Heneage up and down before saying gently to the little girl, who was now curtsying to him, hoping that this fine gentleman might reward her, seeing that this time the other one hadn’t, ‘Run to your father, my dear.’

  The gardeners had finished their task and were wheeling their empty barrows through the archway in the brick wall which gave entry to the gardens. She nodded and, picking up her doll, did as she was bid. The two men watched her go, Sir Ratcliffe’s eyes hungry.

  Remembering this now, Cobie felt the rage stir, like an animal crouched at the back of a cage, ready to spring on anyone unwise enough to enter it. Hendrick, ever alert to his moods, saw his face change, and asked, ‘What is it, Jake?’

  ‘Nothing. A memory.’

  He knew that he had for a moment betrayed himself to Sir Ratcliffe, betrayed the rage he felt at his helplessness to do anything. The last thing he wanted to do in the strange circumstances in which he found himself was to lose his self-control. Especially now, when he suspected that he might have the chance to help to corner Sir Ratcliffe over his cheating for, if it were proven, he would be destroyed, his social life at an end. A man caught cheating at cards was a pariah, and the final consequence would be his financial, as well as his social, ruin.

  His suspicions were correct. Kenilworth and Dagenham, together with Beauchamp, welcomed the pair of them—if welcome were the right word, he thought sardonically. Kenilworth had a face on him like a hanging judge. Beauchamp was as impassive as Cobie.

  Kenilworth was brief. He told them how young Ffolliot had gone to Dagenham with his suspicion that Heneage was cheating, and that others were also troubled about his dubious style of play.

  ‘For the Prince’s sake we must expose him,’ he finished, ‘and for the Prince’s sake it must be done with as little open scandal as possible. That means that a number of us must be prepared to bear witness to his actions, that he must be privately confronted with this evidence, and then action must be taken against him, but discreetly. I think that Beauchamp here might like to speak on this.’

  Beauchamp nodded. ‘The Prince has given me carte blanche to go ahead. He has suggested, and I agree, that when Sir Ratcliffe has been confronted with the evidence, he will be asked to sign a paper admitting everything, and promising not to play cards again. He will also tell me, publicly, that he has received a telegram requiring him to return to London without delay.

  ‘It will be made plain to him that he will be persona non grata so far as the Prince is concerned, and he will withdraw from society—giving ill-health as the reason. This will save him from public exposure, and protect the Prince from the gossips and the Press. That the Prince has not been concerned in Sir Ratcliffe’s misbehaviour in any way will not protect him from his critics. The fact that he has been gambling in a private house will be represented as disgraceful, and the Queen will be acutely displeased with him. We cannot have that.’

  Can we really be speaking of a middle-aged man, whose judgement on most matters is sound, thought Cobie, being in fear of a reprimand from his elderly mother, who has herself withdrawn from society, and whose own judgement these days is not always certain? But he said nothing. He was already aware that he was one of those chosen to watch Sir Ratcliffe when next he played, and so Beauchamp confirmed.

  ‘I have asked experienced men to bear witness for us. Young Ffolliot is far too young to have this burden on his shoulders in case there is any attempt by Sir Ratcliffe to intimidate those who speak against him. He must play no part in this. I have asked Mr Van Deusen and Mr Grant along because they are both experienced card players. Mr Grant will be especially useful, because I am informed that he has an excellent memory, and it will be consequently difficult for Sir Ratcliffe to impugn his testimony. I hope that you will agree to this request, Mr Grant.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Cobie replied, ‘distasteful though it might be. I had noticed on the first night that Sir Ratcliffe’s conduct while playing baccarat was suspicious in the extreme. He has a habit of placing his counters on the card on which he was betting, and holding his hand with a pencil in it, over them. If the card won, he pushed extra counters forward, increasing his bet, and thus increasing his winnings, and if his card lost, he stealthily withdrew his counters, thus losing less.
The amounts he gains are not great. I have said nothing so far, seeing that I am a guest in your country, as well as in this house.’

  Kenilworth said, ‘That is exactly what young Ffolliot has alleged. You have not spoken with him on this matter, Grant?’

  Cobie shook his head. ‘No, I spoke of it to no one, because I thought that I might be mistaken. I must confess that I was greatly surprised by his manner of playing. Seeing that he was a gentleman who has been for some years one of His Royal Highness’s intimates, I thought that I must be mistaken. But if others…’ and he shrugged.

  ‘Others agree with you,’ said Lord Kenilworth heavily. ‘Others have seen something similar to yourself. And you, Van Deusen? Do you agree with the rest of us?’

  Hendrick said, ‘I do, indeed. I have no doubt that Heneage has consistently been cheating. I have watched him with some astonishment. But with due respect, Lord Kenilworth, I think that it might be inadvisable for two Americans to act as witnesses in such a delicate matter. Sir Ratcliffe might, indeed, make a point of it. That being so, I suggest that I withdraw, especially since my friend Grant ought not to, because, as I know to my own benefit, his memory is a remarkable one, perhaps even more remarkable than some of you realise.’

  Lord Kenilworth said, a frown on his pleasant face, ‘I accept that what you advise is true, Van Deusen. In that case, I suggest that we ask Lords Rainsborough and Dagenham, along with myself and Grant, to act as witnesses. I also think that it is incumbent upon us to act immediately. The matter appears to be clear-cut.

  ‘Tonight the Prince will ask to play baccarat and all of us in this room will watch Heneage carefully. We shall meet here afterwards, however late the hour, to compare notes. That is all, gentlemen. This matter must be resolved. To have one of our number behaving dishonestly is to attack the fabric of society itself.’