Chapters published
Instalment 1
Instalment 2
Instalment 3
Instalment 4
Instalment 5
Instalment 6
Instalment 7

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48

The cabin had every opulent trimming imaginable, hand-carved teak finished with the utmost skill, gold-plated brass fittings, sumptuous cushions and settees, and a vast open space spread with a custom-woven Agra carpet, especially grand for a sailing ship. The empty top deck had been turned into a great cabin, double high, bow to stern, port to larboard. Only the masts wide as a tree trunk interrupted the vaulted space.

The cabin’s resident, the Fifth Maharajah of Jaipur, opened his eyes and peered into the dim light. The ship rocked gently side to side. Somewhere above rigging creaked. Sculpted lanterns swayed comfortably, spreading their soft, meandering, lambent glow on the paneled walls.

‘Hello, Harry,’ the Maharajah said. ‘How did you get—oh, never mind. Thank you for coming on such short notice, very impolite of me, mustn’t do that again, I suppose you know why already.’

‘Enlighten me,’ Blackpool said, drawing up a chair and seating himself at the foot of the platform bed.

‘First of all, Balthazar has not been abducted,’ the Maharajah began with indignation, speaking rather quickly. ‘People must not be saying that about me, I cannot have it. I invited him aboard. It may have looked somewhat unorthodox to, to …’

‘Kidnap.’

‘Not the word I was searching for, Harry. Encourage. It may have looked unorthodox to encourage him in the way I did—I suppose ten men appeared too many—and what if he had resisted? Fortunately he got right into the spirit of things. It was almost like he wanted to get out of Venezia. I simply helped him along. He’s been occupying the guest apartment below decks ever since. One gets the impression he quite fancies life aboard ship. I mean, he has every comfort, wants for nothing. He has daily visitors from the hareem, and he seems to be doing a lot of drawing. At first it was both diverting and amusing.’

‘You encouraged him originally for what reason, Rahjee?’

The Fifth Maharajah of Jaipur had by then sat up in his bed, and began to pat down the bedcovers to his sides in a distant way. He looked left, then right, and stared at a vague spot somewhere near the ceiling, which had been draped in saffron silk. ‘I thought he might be induced to sell me the painting of the naked ballerina. But he doesn’t know where it is, he says it was stolen. I have asked him repeated times, got him drunk, and I am convinced he has not a clue.’

Capt Blackpool knew this to be true. ‘You have yet to name your problem,’ he said. ‘You summoned me urgently, now here I am.’

‘The problem is Balthazar, Harry. He won’t leave. You need to help me get rid of him. The man’s a freeloader, a leech. He’s taking an extended luxury vacation at my expense, but he no longer amuses me.’

‘That’s not all you want, it can’t be.’

‘I am weary of white men’s shenanigans,’ the Maharajah said irritably. ‘This man is a dilettante and I wish him out of my life, that is your first task. Next, I wish for you to find his painting and acquire it for me. I expect you know where it is, and I expect you to name your price. I will meet it as I always have in the past, and you will deliver to me the thing I ask.’

Capt Blackpool smiled faintly. It was true: he knew where the painting was, he had himself placed it there for safekeeping, unbeknownst to the owner.

‘And there is one more thing. I want my pearls back, the ones my father unjustly gave over to Goberslieves. They are rightly mine, the property of our throne, promised to that wild Princess Radiant. You shall find the Pearls of Jaipur, and recover them in my name. But first, you will evict that worthless artist.’

‘He’s not going to go so easily.’

‘You will think of something. Some ruse, some trick, or you will read his mind, persuade him, do whatever it is you do and then get me the painting. I must have it. I have taken an interest in art of this kind and intend to build the greatest collection in the world.’

At least it does not involve a foreign government, Blackpool thought. That is some blessing. He knew he could effectively appeal to Balthazar and evict him from the ship. They had a history. He knew where the painting was in Scotland, at the home of Sir Robert Marsh. It could be had. And he knew the pearls remained with Vittorio Rosetti in Barbados. Three easy tasks. Yet Blackpool also knew enough to expect surprises. There would arrive by nature, complications. The wise person anticipated those and made the most of them. ‘It will take some time, Rahjee,’ he said. ‘You will need patience. The universe is in charge here, not you, not me.’

49

Praha

‘Dear Gertrud, I suggest an immediate vacation, perhaps the Highlands,’ the Earl of Pinckney volunteered. ‘I am not blind to the fact that we are met with an undue excess of hostility this season, much of it on the heels of your separation from your husband, who has gone unmistakably absent. While I am sure you had no intentions to offend people, a long holiday from the community appears to be just what the doctor ordered, if you get my meaning, unless of course you prefer to be continually snubbed in public, as seems to be the case. I have written to a friend in Scotland and hope to leave for his residence at the absolute soonest.’

Gertrud van Thyssen, Countess Kozlowski, sat up suddenly in the bed, the satin sheet cascading from her inconsiderable breasts. The Earl of Pinckney had seen larger bosoms in his lifetime, but he found the Countess attractive enough, and he had to admit she was an excellent equestrian. Her insatiable sexual appetite he considered a major benefit of the liaison with her. Composing herself, she regarded him warily and waited. He stared at her dark little nipples and tried to recover where he had left off in the conversation. Raspberries, he thought. They look like little raspberries.

‘I intend to leave at my earliest convenience and I hope you will join me. I for one do not wish to live as a social pariah, and I believe I can promise you an unforgettable surprise should you agree to accompany me.’

‘What exactly are you talking about, Humphrey?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Will you or will you not accept my invitation?’

‘You threaten to leave me here alone because I destroyed my husband’s paintings? That is why people are being so beastly? I was in a rage with him, he was useless, a liability, an embarrassment. Besides, isn’t that what restorers are for? Give them over for repair then. I said I was sorry, what more does everyone want? I can’t help it if people thought those awful pictures of his were worth something. Many, in my opinion, were of extremely bad taste. I have no regrets about the whole incident. And then he ran off with that ballerina. How did he make me look? A fool!’

‘Gertrud, will I go to Scotland by myself, and leave you here at the mercy of jackals and vultures? It is not an idea I relish.’

Countess Kozlowski shifted her position uncomfortably. ‘You mentioned a surprise.’

‘Then you will come along!’ Pinckney said with delight. ‘My darling, I will surprise you, I have no doubt.’

‘Could you give me just a little hint?’

‘In exchange for a kiss,’ he said, and she obliged, but feigned irritation at it. Then she treated him to another garden of carnal delights.

‘That was very nice,’ he said afterward. ‘Now I shall tell you a story, a tantalizing one, which will end with a clue about your little surprise in Scotland.’

‘Really, Humphrey, the games you insist on playing with me.’

Dusk had by then fallen, and the couple sat together in the darkening room. They had earlier debated getting up and going out to dinner at a popular restaurant, which had prompted the Earl of Pinckney to raise the subject of their ostracism. He was reluctant to venture out yet again, only to feel the outcast. Neither moved to illuminate a candle. Instead, they allowed the walls to drift into gloomy shadows, and the sheets of their bed took on an icy luminosity.

‘Alright then,’ Gertrud said. ‘Go ahead with your story, if you must.’ She rose from the bed and he admired her generous backside, which reminded him of the haunches of a quarter-horse, though he never told her so, certain that she would not take it well. He watched her naked form move to an ornate, gilded settee, where she pulled a satin blue robe around her and planted herself rather ungracefully against the curvaceous side, her posture suggesting impatience, lips pursed, shoulders set slightly back, unconsciously tapping her foot, the incessant pat-pat-pat of the soft leather sole of the indigo hand-sewn slipper into which she had inserted her ungainly left foot.

‘Well? Are you going to say something?’ she inquired. ‘I’m waiting. Do not toy with me.’

‘By virtue of calamity not long ago I befriended a Scottish gentleman, the type of individual whom I would not normally cultivate, the allure being his estate in the Highlands, where exceptional hunting and fishing were said to be had. His name is Sir Robert Marsh, you have never heard of him I am sure, a lesser Scottish knight, come into some money lately, bit of a bore. During my visit he asked me to help him acquire a painting of a famous ballerina.’

‘The Crimson Garter?’ Gertrud gasped. ‘He asked you to find Laszlo’s missing painting?’

‘He did,’ the Earl of Pinckney went on. ‘But more interesting details are yet to come, I assure you, not the least of which was his relationship with the ballerina.’ Countess Kozlowski regarded him with increased interest. ‘He admitted to me that she was in actuality his wife, and that during a recent trip to London she had fled the marriage to resume her career on the stage.’

‘A trollop from the theatre. I knew it. They are by nature a lascivious, disloyal and libertine lot. I see,’ Gertrud said knowingly. ‘The notorious missing months in the ballerina’s life. So she had returned to her husband! I remember the papers. Where had she fled, what had she done now? I begin to understand. But what of the painting? It had disappeared. How could you of all people locate it?’

‘In order to achieve what he asked, extraordinary steps were necessary,’ the Earl answered. ‘By the way, at the outset Sir Robert advised me price was no object, odd, no? So my curiosity was aroused, I was free to seek the services of someone with exceptional skills, namely Capt Harry Blackpool.’

Gertrud eyed him suspiciously. ‘Who has some connection with Laszlo already,’ she seethed, narrowing her eyes. ‘The mysterious Capt Blackpool,’ then sneered under her breath. ‘He does get around.’

‘And difficult as it is to believe, it was through the intervention of Capt Blackpool that I succeeded in obtaining the painting on behalf of the same Sir Robert Marsh.’ Gertrude sat up straighter on the seat. ‘So I am certain I can arrange for a private viewing of that particular work if you come to Scotland with me. You will, my dear, find it provocative, not to mention an object few people in the world will ever see. It may go hidden and unknown for generations, never again in our lifetimes. This happens only once. If that is not inducement enough, he has a fine stable, and endless opportunities for riding.’

‘What possibility, that is, I wonder if—Humphrey—a chance of encountering Capt Blackpool?’

‘Absolutely none,’ the Earl of Pinckney answered. ‘Put the thought out of your mind. Blackpool wants nothing more to do with us, he has made his money. He has gone invisible. I would have no idea how to contact him …’

‘But where did you meet him in the first place?’

‘He found me,’ Pinckney said, perhaps with a note of bitterness. ‘After a masked ball in Paris. He approached me quite secretively, lured me to a rotten corner of the catacombs, where he remained in the darkness even as he spoke to me from only an arm’s length away. A place I hope to never find again, and doubt that I could if I tried. Skulls and bones heaped in cobweb-ridden alcoves, flickering torchlight, the squeaking and scurrying of rats under my feet. All too much, my dear. I had put the word out in the right circles that I would meet any offer for the painting. Capt Blackpool named his price and set up the delivery one midnight weeks later on a deserted stretch of forest road outside Strasbourg. The night in question was without a moon, presenting some risk, but I went anyway.’

‘You are heroic, Humphrey darling. Positively heroic.’

‘He appeared out of nowhere, at least I hope it was him, he said it was him, and he forced me to hide in the mud in some underbrush next to the road, warning me to keep silent. We watched two men trade a huge crate on a cart for a chest of coins which Sir Robert Marsh had brought along. It was Captain Blackpool who had told me the time and place for the rendezvous and the terms, and I relayed them to Marsh. If I am not mistaken, The Crimson Garter now resides with Marsh at his home in the Highlands. It is there I propose we go, Gertrud, to get out of this uncomfortable place. And I am certain we would enjoy an adventure if a private viewing can be arranged. What say you?’

Countess Kozlowski raised her chin and inhaled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A trip will do me good. I should very much like to visit the Highlands. I think I will find it … surprising.’

50

North of Venezia

Below decks, on a ship anchored in sight of the Fifth Maharajah of Jaipur’s, but at a highly cautious distance, a group formed around Abdul Ahmed, seated cross-legged in a circle on the wooden planking. This occurred in the midst of a dice game, which immediately interrupted when other men in the cabin began to draw closer. ‘It was during my first morning rounds,’ he had mentioned softly, and his mates all leaned inward to better hear his words. ‘Before the sun was up. I thought I heard voices from Raja-ji’s cabin. It sounded like his Highness was highly agitated, though I could not tell exactly why. And I could not tell who he was talking to. Whatever he was saying, he was very mad. The other man calmed him down. I stood by the hatch door and waited. Minutes later Blackpool-sahib stepped from the cabin.’

Some of the men inhaled through their teeth, a surprised hissing, followed by expectant silence.

‘The Captain’s appearance has not changed, though he is older. But he is looking well. He has let his hair grow longer, the same grey eyes stare out at you, he still speaks at almost a whisper. I had not heard him come aboard, of course nobody would, let alone how he got into the cabin. He still moves with the cunning and silence of the tiger. But I think he was quite happy to see me. He immediately asked after my family. His Gujarati is still perfect. He sat with us for some time, watched us play dice, and then joined in on one of our songs, quite a poignant one about a warrior who misses his lover before a battle. You know the one. I thought he sang it rather well. He’s always had a very good voice, and he always liked that song.’

The men nodded.

‘When the sun came up he went to the cabin of the artist-wallah. He simply walked up to the hatch and pounded on the door.’

‘He should have kicked it down,’ a cross-eyed Malay with a bad temper cut in, only to be shushed by his companions. The men snickered, for they considered the Magyar gentleman a strange Western caricature who seemed to live in a fantasy world. ‘He should have,’ the Malay insisted. ‘He treats us like his servants.’

‘But we are,’ Abdul Ahmed replied. ‘We are meant to serve. Isn’t our job to satisfy his every wish? That is what Rajah-ji has ordered, and we dare not disobey. But let me tell you the rest. The artist-wallah was shaving, and humming one of those bland, atonal melodies he loves. After Blackpool knocked, the door flew open—he must have thought it was one of us. There was no doubt he knew the Captain-sahib, he hugged him like a lost brother, invited him in, immediately ordered tea and cakes from me, and they spoke for a long time. Surprising, no? That such a useless man would be friends with Blackpool.’ The men laughed politely. ‘What a surprising conversation they had,’ he marvelled. ‘I heard every word. Can you believe the artist-wallah thinks he is a prisoner? Ha ha ha. He thinks we would stop him if he tried to go.’

‘I’d gladly throw the son of a bitch overboard,’ the Malay interjected. ‘Let him ask.’

‘He told Blackpool-sahib that he had tried everything to get sent away. That is why he made bigger and bigger demands on our hospitality. He was hoping the Maharajah would banish him! He obviously doesn’t understand that the more he demanded the more we are supposed to make him comfortable.’

‘That fool did not want more comfort?’ the Malay asked. ‘If you’d have asked me, I’d take it all and more. Did he return all the gifts? That would have been the ultimate insult. His Highness would have been disgraced. He didn’t? Ah, better that he kept them or we would have suffered.’

‘Capt Blackpool agreed to help him leave. Thanks be to God, he will be out of our lives very soon.’

‘Praise Allah,’ said a voice from the crowd. ‘The man never stops with his questions.’

‘They agreed he would be taken ashore one night next week. Blackpool-sahib will tell us exactly when.’

‘It’s so difficult to give us advance warning?’ the Malay said belligerently. ‘It’s not an easy thing to run a boat out on a second’s notice.’

‘Very clever of him to keep everyone guessing until the last,’ Abdul Ahmed said. ‘That’s how a wise man operates. Even His Highness is left in the dark. No, he will tell us when he is ready. Blackpool has never lied.’

‘After he spoke with the artist-wallah, then what?’

‘What do you think? He disappeared like he always does. Into thin air. One minute there, one minute gone. I never saw him again. When my shift was over they rowed me back here, but I have no idea how he got away or when. Nobody else saw him leave.’ Everyone nodded, behaviour they had experienced before. They all leaned back and the dice game resumed.

51

Wien

Two unlikely characters seated at a round table on the second floor of an elegant coffee house, opposite each other next to a broad sunny window, overlooking a teeming street below. The man on the left attired in well-made, though worn black breeches, black silk shirt with frayed cuffs, black jacket, black shoes. He looked like he had slept in the clothing, and indeed this was the case, since he had only minutes before stepped off a coach which had taken him the last leg of a non-stop succession of coaches on a journey which had originated in Paris days earlier. He shifted about uncomfortably despite the plush chair, his body aching from innumerable miles of jostling. It was clear to anyone who passed within a few feet that he had not bathed for some time.

Opposite him, another unlikely figure, an elfin character with shocking red hair and a button nose, dressed in tailor-made tweeds and a fine while silk shirt, quite unusual for the premises in which they met, which was populated by a much more formal crowd who occasionally looked in their direction with a combination of puzzlement and disdain.

‘Do take another of those cream pastries, the little ones with the chocolate squiggle on the top. You appear to favour them—have you eaten today? I thought not, go ahead then, please. Waiter!’ He pointed at his own place setting, rotating his index finger in a small circular motion towards it. A human penguin drifted across the room, insinuated himself next to their table, wrinkled his nose and refilled their coffee cups from a fine silver pot which caught the rays of afternoon sunlight. The man in black, a Frenchman, gazed hungrily at his eclair and gobbled it down in two quick bites, then drained his coffee cup, which was promptly refilled. ‘And one more order of these things,’ the man in tweed said, gesturing absently at the table top. A student of language might have identified his accent as that of an Irishman. ‘Lafitte, I suppose you want to know why I summoned you to Vienna so urgently …’

‘Yes, thank you for the funds you sent,’ the black-clad man responded. ‘I was a bit strapped. Very helpful, merci mille fois.’

‘That I gathered,’ his host went on. ‘Though I don’t see how you went through all the money Capt Blackpool paid us to sell …’ here he lowered his voice almost to a whisper, ‘the painting, in such a short time. You should have been able to live for years on it. Would you care to tell me what you spent it on?’

The answer would have included cards, horses, women and land speculation, but the Frenchman ignored the question. ‘A lovely city, Vienna,’ he observed staring down at the avenue below, where a steady crowd paraded by on the wide sidewalk. ‘Though I would not call it progressive, perhaps a shade provincial.’

Henry ‘Three Fingers’ Gilhooley suffered no illusions about Lafitte, easily the best known cat burglar in Paris, and notoriously skilled for his ability to scale vertical surfaces without the help of visible hand-holds. Lafitte had a preference for the finer things of life and spared no expense to gain them, thus his name was always the first mentioned whenever a bold theft occurred. No matter how much he made he always seemed to be penniless. A member of Harry Blackpool’s network of rogues and underworld types, he was frequently forced to leave town for extended periods for his own safety.

Gilhooley was a gentleman thief in his own right, and a superior businessman, though his taste for plaids and bright colours often made him conspicuous. He sometimes collaborated with Lafitte, labouring under no illusions about the risk of being seen in public with him in Paris—tongues would quickly wag about schemes afoot, and there were even some cities whose police already considered the men scourges, so much that they had been escorted to the outskirts of town in the past and reminded in no uncertain terms not to return. Wien had not yet adopted this policy, so the men still enjoyed a degree of anonymity they could not savoir in Praha, Deauville, or Monte Carlo. Gilhooley knew perfectly well that hatching a new scheme in Paris carried a great deal of risk. Instead, let it commence at a far remove, he thought. He had been in Wien for some time, at work cultivating rich friends whom he could later fleece.

‘Provincial,’ Lafitte went on. ‘That is to say, not illiberal, and obviously prosperous.’ Below them he observed a brother pickpocket at work, and admired the skill. Later he himself would stray out into the throng and acquire a few wallets of his own. ‘There is something here for us, Henry, rich in possibility?’

‘Call it an opportunity,’ Gilhooley replied. ‘Capt Blackpool again.’

‘Blackpool!’ the Frenchman gasped, too loudly, heads turned, he was promptly shushed, the room went quieter, then the noise level resumed. ‘Blackpool?’ he mouthed, and Gilhooley nodded yes.

‘There’s a lot of money involved, more than you can imagine. All the more tantalizing, he wants us to steal the painting back.’ Silence fell over their table as another carousel of pastries was placed in front of them. Sniffing loudly the penguin beat a hasty retreat. Lafitte took three onto his plate, stuffed one whole into his mouth, wiped his fingers daintily on the linen, looked up expectantly.

‘Steal it back from Sir Robert Marsh.’

‘But we sold it to him,’ the Frenchman protested.

‘That matters not. Are you up for it?’

‘Strangest thing I ever heard, stealing it, selling it to him, stealing it back. I suppose it’s still somewhere in Scotland, yes?’

‘Sure it is, and will take the combination of our excellent skills and usual promise of silence. Are you interested?’

Lafitte swallowed a petit four, grabbed a second one. ‘Who’s the client?’

‘For this kind of money we don’t ask questions. I would think under your present circumstances you would accept immediately. It involves travelling to the Highlands …’

‘A ghastly place …’

‘… locating it, and as usual Blackpool will then give us further instructions.’

52

As soon as the entr’acte began, the Earl of Pinckney discreetly left the comfort of his red and gold plush-lined box, descended a narrow carpeted staircase, and soon found himself garlanded in a thick fog of cigar smoke, surrounded by a loudly conversing crowd packed into a vaulted, columned, light-filled antechamber of the Wiener Staatsoper. He adjusted his white cravat, then pulled his black velvet smoking jacket tightly around himself, and waded through the throng of identically clad gentlemen clustered in the lobby. He slipped through the tall, ornate entry doors with their mirrored-glass panes, and stepped out onto the sidewalk, feeling the cold pavement through the thin soles of his elegant patent leather shoes. As he had feared, frigid air immediately enveloped him. The Earl scowled and headed to the right as instructed, down a dark lane, empty because the city’s beggars and urchins knew enough to wait in their warm hovels until the opera finished hours later, a time when they could more easily work the crowd for whatever pickings were available. Unaware of this fact, the Earl proceeded down the passage not quite knowing who or what to expect.

The envelope had been handed over to him just before the overture curtain, presented by a bewigged usher, who bowed solicitously, his white-gloved hand extended just so, to receive the tip to which he knew he was certainly entitled. Absently the Earl paid the man his due, sending him off with a perfunctory wave of his own white-gloved hand. Before the lights could go down he read the message within, which begged him to listen to an urgent appeal which would be explained by a close friend in the short interval between the first and second acts. It promised a brief meeting just outside the opera house lobby, and concerned a transaction with which he was intimately implicated and involved, connected to a notorious work of art whose name he would surely recognize if uttered. Thank goodness, the Earl thought, that tonight’s soprano was in such ghastly form: at least he would have some odd diversion from the hideous performance in progress. He could attend to this mysterious rendezvous and re-enter his box unobserved after the curtain went up on the next act. Later he meant to rendezvous with Gertrud at a favourite restaurant for a midnight supper, and he would certainly have an exciting account to relate then.

The faint murmur of the crowd dissipated as the Earl went farther from the opera house doors. He looked to his left and right, down the shadowy lane, and made certain his small la Rochefoucauld pistol rested at easy reach in his right trouser pocket. He touched its mother of pearl handle and felt the cold surface of its lethal mechanism. A lovely weapon, he thought, engraved with a hunting scene on the hexagonal barrel. In case of foul play its two shots were guaranteed deadly, especially at close quarters. Yet the lane remained empty.

From behind a door in the shadows to the Earl’s left a pair of impish eyes observed his progress. ‘Himself is here,’ the owner hissed to his cohort. ‘Softly now,’ and opened the creaking door, to the Earl’s immediate surprise. ‘Top of the evening to you, Humphrey,’ he said in a natural voice. ‘Won’t you step inside for a bit of a chat?’

The Earl of Pinckney immediately recognized the voice, and he knew the exact moment he had last heard it, though he did not let on to the fact. Instead, he casually drew his gun from his pocket unobserved in the darkness as he stepped through the doorway where two solitary silhouettes awaited him. Aha, he thought, these two once again. What manner of mischief have they up their sleeves this time? But he said nothing, scanning the ground in the black passage for the stray rats which he could hear scrambling around his feet.

‘You may recall,’ the voice said, ‘a chance encounter on a country road outside Strasbourg a year ago, near a ramshackle inn …’

‘Hostelerie la Vache,’ the second silhouette added unsolicited. The same nervous second voice, the same French accent, the Earl thought. They were more petrified than I was, he remembered.

‘Just so,’ the first voice said in its lilting Irish accent. ‘And a disreputable institution, sure it was. A moonlit night on a muddy road in the thick of a darkling wood we met, you may recall.’

‘Pardonnez-moi, there was no moon,’ the Frenchman tried to interject.

‘Is there any particular reason you characters always pick muddy highways, drafty alleyways and rat-infested passages?’ the Earl demanded. ‘It’s bloody cold out here and the next act of the opera’s about to begin. Get to the point.’

‘A moonlit night on a muddy road,’ the Irishman said, ‘and a Scottish lord exchanged a chest of gold for a huge wood crate which we provided on a wagon.’

‘And a donkey, an unusually kind creature with a mild disposition,’ the Frenchman attempted. ‘The wagon was pulled by a donkey.’

‘I am positively aghast you have located me!’ the Earl said. ‘I thought the matter closed. Now, what can I do for you? And if there is a next time that we meet, please be sure it is not in another of these fœtid environments. Surely a field of wildflowers, an abandoned warehouse or on a deserted beach …’

‘Said crate,’ the Irishman continued. ‘Which was to be trans-shipped to some godawful place in Scotland. That is the purpose of our interrogatory tonight. We know the crate was later transferred over to you. To the best of your good knowledge, did said crate arrive at its final destination?’

‘What business is it of yours?’ the Earl of Pinckney asked. ‘You entrusted it to the Scot in exchange for his gold.’

‘That we did, that we did,’ the Irishman agreed. ‘But ’twas you who later sent it away, methinks.’

‘Suppose I did? What interest in it have you now? Are you looking to get it back? An absolute impossibility, I might add.’

‘But the Scottish gent, it was to himself that the crate went, yes? To the humble heaths of the Highlands, Humphrey? And did it arrive there?’

The Earl of Pinckney stomped his feet, which elicited a squeaking and churning of the invisible creatures about their ankles. ‘Is Capt Blackpool aware of this meeting?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I summon his name, since everything that transpired outside Strasbourg that night was owing to his machinations. Do you hold some kind of proxy from him for making inquiries on this matter tonight?’

‘I told you he would not cooperate,’ the Frenchman warily ventured to his companion.

‘My original question goes unanswered, then,’ the Irishman said with a sigh of resignation. ‘I ask you again: To your good knowledge, did the crate arrive at its destination in Scotland?’

‘Ask Capt Blackpool yourselves,’ the Earl said. ‘I won’t be party to these shenanigans of yours. You tell me nothing of your intentions, and you shall get no information from me. And now I must beg your leave. Out of my way, you rogues. With luck, the soprano will have only just finished her first aria, and I can find out if the tenor is equally as horrible.’ He pocketed the pistol and stormed back to the theatre, and the two men did not follow. He wondered if they knew he was on his way to Marshmoor the very next day. And he asked himself if they had somehow discovered that after visiting Scotland his destination was to be the Carnavale in Venezia. Only Capt Blackpool possessed the cunning to find out such details.

One year earlier Capt Blackpool had indeed orchestrated the disposition of the scandalous painting entitled The Crimson Garter, which this discussion now concerned. He had engineered the intricate process through a serious of manipulations, deploying the players from all strata of his network of operatives and pawns, with his usual deftness and dexterity. First it was the thieves, who originally stole the work from a warehouse in Paris and removed it to Strasbourg. Once that was achieved he had placed it hidden in plain sight, on the wall of an inn on the outskirts of town. Capt Blackpool had secreted the painting behind another in a crudely carved double-thick gilt frame, covering the likeness of the naked ballerina with a banal image of a ship foundering on the rocks during a storm. Nobody noticed it, except the artist Balthazar, who found the false painting a distasteful rendering.

It had been less trouble for Capt Blackpool to secure the silence of the innkeeper, a toothless, avaricious witch with a dullard son. In the past he had made use of her premises for other nefarious enterprises. A few choice veiled threats this time and she was persuaded to leave the work on the tavern wall until Blackpool told her otherwise. Thus Blackpool had no doubt the ugly canvas would remain at the inn as long as necessary. He made certain the innkeeper understood the consequences she would suffer if she revealed any part of the scheme to anyone else.

An imbroglio which occurred at the tavern was an unintended complication. Blackpool had collected all the players together there, but angry words were exchanged and shots were fired. The ballerina and her lover fled. Yet returning to his plan, the thieves again took possession of the canvas, which they then transferred to Sir Robert Marsh on the deserted road.

Blackpool had used the Earl of Pinckney as his confederate, to keep the hapless Sir Robert a part of the action. A chest of gold was turned over to the Parisian thieves, and in exchange the cart and its contents transferred to the Scottish lord. Pinckney, the least inept of the lot, was deputized to discreetly ship the crate to the Highlands. Blackpool dispatched Sir Robert Marsh back to Scotland, where as far as he knew the painting now resided.

But betrayal again followed. The thieves delivered only half the gold to which Blackpool was entitled, and thought they had successfully eluded him. In fact, Capt Blackpool knew their every move, though he held off claiming the rest of his loot, intending to use the debt as eventual leverage against the thieves when needed. Following them to Wien, he confronted Henry ‘Three Fingers’ Gilhooley, and had made a convincing case for them to recover the painting and return most of the remaining gold owed to him. He did not share with them his intention to resell the painting to yet another party.

Harry Blackpool retained a permanent obligation to his childhood friend, the Fifth Maharajah of Jaipur, a notorious effete and the richest art collector in the world. Over the years Capt Blackpool had been compelled to rescue his royal friend from a succession of scandals and misadventures; they were bound together by many ineradicable experiences. The Maharajah had last enjoined Harry Blackpool to gain ownership of The Crimson Garter, and Capt Blackpool sought to ultimately honour the request.

So now he had hired back the same thieves, and compelled them to meet with Pinckney to discover just how much the Earl knew. They would thence go off to Scotland to steal the painting a second time, in this instance from the ancestral home of Sir Robert Marsh. For his effort Capt Blackpool knew he would receive a magnificent reward, since this was always a part of the bargain with the Maharajah, and over the years requests like this one had made Harry Blackpool an extremely wealthy man.

53

Scotland

The room, large and warm with its lofted ceiling and ornate fireplace, definitely showed its age, thought Gertrud von Thyssen, the Countess Kozlowski, attempting to keep a scowl from appearing on her face. It was her first opportunity to survey the parlour in greater detail, since arriving the previous day. The chair coverings were of indisputable quality, as were the brocaded curtains. But the place had no gaiety, no colour, no verve, nothing new about it, and she asked herself why she had even come to the Highlands in the first place. Of course she knew the answer, and it did not include following Humphrey to the ends of the earth so he could ride and shoot to his heart’s content. Give him the time and he would be out with the hounds at the crack of dawn, and not back until nightfall, covered in mud and feathers and blood, smelling like a hound, grinning like a lunatic, howling for food and ale. She admitted to herself some attraction to the stable at Marshmoor. She had toured it this morning, and observed it was well-maintained, rich in beautiful steed and certainly possessed of a fine complement of sturdy young studs from the local village. But she had come to Scotland not for horses, not for Humphrey, instead to satisfy a bitter curiosity about Sir Robert Marsh and his former wife, la Fragolina, an Italian ballerina of scandalous reputation.

Gertrud, once the beneficiary of a political marriage to a Czech count named Laszlo Kozlowski, had seen this very same count seduced by la Fragolina. He had fled Gertrud abruptly, and today lived openly with the ballerina in Venice. Had it not been for the Earl of Pinckney’s arrival on the social scene in Praha, Gertrud would have been forced to leave town in shame, humiliated by the embarrassment her husband had meted out. The Earl of Pinckney cared not about the circumstances of her estranged husband, and they quickly understood their mutual love of horses and the sporting set. Now she wanted to exact revenge. The very thing she shared with Sir Robert Marsh of Scotland was that not only were they both betrayed by the same woman, the second instrument of their misery was Count Kozlowski, also known as the bohemian portraitist Balthazar.

Gertrud’s attention returned to the room. She lounged comfortably enough on her own settee, with a full tea service spread out on a table before her. Across from her the silent figure of Fanny, Lady Belvedere was busy at work on a needlepoint sampler of embroidered insects of the field. At her elbow Fanny had a glass box of specimens stuck on pins, balanced precariously on a side table, and from time to time she referred to the dragonfly she copied, squinting at it intently.

Gertrud wondered exactly what it was that the ballerina possessed that she did not, which caused a man like Laszlo to be so seduced that he would throw away her money and social position in favour of a dancer from the stage. And what could she learn from Sir Robert Marsh about the whole affair? What could she discover of use? Her hope was to gain the cooperation of Lady Belvedere, who had lately formed a particular friendship with Sir Robert Marsh, and who clearly burned with anger over his treatment by their common enemies. Humphrey had hinted that Sir Robert was in possession of the same scandalous portrait Laszlo had exhibited to such acclaim in Paris. All of Europe knew the painting had disappeared under mysterious circumstances soon after. Robert Marsh had inherited the Bell millions. With his astounding wealth he could certainly afford whatever it took to acquire The Crimson Garter, legally or illicitly. Humphrey had alluded to the involvement of the mysterious Capt Blackpool in the scandal, which added to the tawdriness of the episode.

Her own fortune well intact, Gertrud knew something about privilege and what it could buy. It was clear to her that Sir Robert Marsh did not know how to enjoy his money. Humphrey had reported he spent hours every day in meetings with his solicitors and bankers, administrating his vast portfolio. The rest of his time was either occupied in fawning over Lady Belvedere, or locked away in his musty, book-filled study, knee deep in obscure philosophical tomes. Gertrud supposed that Fanny had made some changes for the better in his life already, among them roaring fires and a bountiful table. She also had a sense that their nocturnal life was a rich one.

‘The dragon fly is an impetuous creature,’ Fanny volunteered out of the blue. ‘His wing presents a difficult iridescence to mimic with thread. You have never enjoyed the use of the needle, Countess Kozlowski?’

‘You must call me Gertrud, my dear, and I shall call you Fanny. And from now on we shall be capital friends. No, I have never been talented with my hands. But let us speak sincerely. Let me change the subject, for I believe we share a common cause, and now is the time to speak of it while the men are off at play. Perhaps by colluding we both can achieve some mutually beneficial ends. I speak of course about my estranged husband Laszlo, Count Kozlowski, also known as the painter Balthazar, and Sir Robert’s former wife Grazia Rossetti, known here as Grace Marsh, but on the stage as la Fragolina.’

‘I am so offended by their attachment to nicknames,’ Fanny said. ‘A lower-class phenomenon which smacks of the graceless, ha ha, my own private joke. It is my aim that Robert enjoy the sweet taste of revenge on that trollop, and I would be open to any ideas you might propose. I certainly do not mind including Balthazar in a dose of public humiliation, either. He is as complicit as the ballerina.’ She put her sampler away in a sewing basket at her feet and snapped it shut.

Gertrud reached across the tea tray and took Fanny’s hand. ‘I am sincerely glad you told me that,’ she said. ‘I am sure this is the start of a beautiful friendship.’

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room as soon as the Earl of Pinckney burst through the double doors, fresh from the moor. His face was flushed with colour, and he was exuberant and invigorated. He could not tell precisely what was afoot, but Gertrud and Fanny immediately halted discussion on whatever they had been engaged in as soon as he arrived on the scene. It ushered in one of those strained silences which occur in conversations. Though he could not name it, he sensed they were already deep in the throes of hatching a scheme. Good, thought the Earl of Pinckney. He had feared Gertrud’s chronic boredom might prove a problem in Scotland, but here was evidence of the thing to keep her occupied.

‘Fanny and I are becoming fast friends,’ Gertrud volunteered, once he had inquired about their afternoon together. ‘With many topics of common interest.’

‘Indeed,’ Fanny agreed. ‘Gertrud tells me that in Paris you frequented the famous painting of Robert’s disgraceful Italian wife. It is an object of peculiar fascination to me, as I arrived in Robert’s life after everything awful had transpired. Pray tell us what more you know about it.’

‘Just how much has Gertrud revealed to you?’

‘I do believe Lady Belvedere is in complete sympathy with our position,’ Gertrud interjected.

‘And just what exactly is our position?’ The Earl asked, turning a shade of pale. ‘I wish the whole affair would go away.’

‘I have shared with Fanny …’

‘… At my urging …’ Fanny cut in.

‘… the gist of your remarkable part in the purloining of the painting. Your friendship with Capt Blackpool, and the crucial part you played in trafficking the offensive object.’

‘I am also aware of the point in time where your knowledge ends,’ Fanny said. ‘You may wish to learn that such a crate, which Gertrud confides in me you discreetly shipped from Strasbourg, now resides in a tower room in the east wing of this very house.’

‘So it did reach its intended destination!’ The Earl exclaimed, smiling broadly, colour returning to his face, secretly glad that Gertrud had extracted that information from Fanny, and which he had not yet had the opportunity to broach with Sir Robert. ‘Splendid news! I had no idea. We must arrange a viewing immediately. Will be my joy to reexamine it, see how it delivers after such a long absence. Provocative and titillating, as I recall. Sir Robert would be amenable?’

‘I can reason with him,’ Fanny said, and Gertrud nodded at her conspiratorially. ‘After he hears what we have in store for Count Kozlowski and the ballerina he will be more than amenable.’

‘There is one minor complication,’ Gertrud said. ‘A small matter with which you can certainly assist.’

‘And that is,’ the Earl of Pinckney said warily.

‘The reinvolvement of Capt Harry Blackpool. He figures in our plan. The task of communicating with him falls to you.’

‘To me? I told you that it is he who first contacted me. Nobody reaches Capt Blackpool, Gertrud, do you not understand? He reaches you, and only when he chooses. I would not know where to begin, sincerely.’ Pinckney produced a linen handkerchief from his cuff and mopped his brow and upper lip, which suddenly both felt warm and sweaty.

‘Surely one of your highly placed friends, Humphrey, at some government office or foreign desk knows a-person-who-knows-a-person. It cannot be that daunting to send out a message in a bottle, one which the mysterious captain can deftly intercept.’

‘And imagine, just imagine, the enigmatic Blackpool is reached, my dear. Then what is he charged to do? I hope you have not cooked up some preposterous task for him to refuse.’

Fanny and Gertrud exchanged glances again. ‘We shall offer him the opportunity to protect The Crimson Garter for us,’ Gertrud announced. ‘For we plan to exhibit it, to the great public embarrassment of the Count and his ballerina. In Venezia.’

‘It will be a marvellous scandal,’ Gertrud said. ‘Exactly what they deserve, and they can do nothing to prevent it. Let them go up against Capt Harry Blackpool to quash it!’

‘Do you have any idea of the kind of money Capt Blackpool would ask for such a task, if he accepted it at all?’

‘Do not worry about money,’ Gertrud said. ‘Fanny and I shall bear the expense, with the greatest of pleasure. To demolish their reputations …’

‘… would be worth any extravagance,’ Fanny said. ‘I for one shall be very pleased to watch them twist and squirm in the spotlight. And I will welcome dealing with the dangerous Capt Harry Blackpool, if he can really be found. I do not regard the idea of him so threatening, his history be damned. He will soon discover in me no inconsiderable adversary.’

‘How ever did you get him to agree to this?’ Gertrud whispered, as they hung back from the men on the walk to the east wing the next morning. The halls were dank, vast and deserted, and the women halted at the bottom of the stairs as the men climbed to the second level. Sir Robert had insisted that he not be present in the same room when the viewings occurred, that the Earl of Pinckney go first, then Fanny and Gertrud take their own private visit after. He would allow them only five minutes each, and it was understood he would wait outside the room.

‘I put to him a proposition which he could not disparage.’ said Fanny, unconsciously touching her hand to the back of her thighs, which had taken such punishment the night before. ‘Let us say simply that Robert responds well to unusual means of persuasion.’

‘I have waited a long time for this moment. I am positively giddy with anticipation,’ Gertrud admitted. ‘Thank you, dear Fanny, for whatever you endured to secure his permission.’

‘You must reassure Robert of how much you value his magnanimity,’ Fanny advised. ‘How much you appreciate this, and that you will certainly keep it to yourself.’

‘Count on me,’ Gertrud whispered.

Upstairs, they could hear the footsteps slow, as Marsh showed the Earl the way to the room. The scrape of the key in the lock, the squeak of the door opening, a few muttered words from the Earl, and the sound of the door shutting behind him.

They found Sir Robert standing in the hallway, unconsciously clasping and unclasping his left fist, and waited with him outside the room, in uneasy silence.

‘Did you see the expression on that man’s face after his abominable five minutes with the painting?’ Marsh asked. ‘Smug, gloating over the lascivious thing yet again. What did he mean by calling it a compelling experience? Fanny, I am offended by the ground on which that man walks. If he were not of use in your conspiracy …’ Sir Robert and Fanny were seated alone in his study, where they had adjourned hours after the visits to the painting had occurred. It had since been agreed that Gertrud and Pinckney would depart in a week. Fanny would accompany them to Venezia.

‘Exactly, Robert. He can be easily manipulated to our ends. He is a vain and malleable creature, I assure you, over-attached to society. But remember your own cleverness in the episode. It was you who deputized him to find the painting in the first place, you who employed him as your confederate with Harry Blackpool, and you who ultimately possess the obscene painting. You are the winner in all of this. You are my champion.’

Marsh waved his hand dismissively and returned his gaze to the letter he was reading. ‘It appears that Ericcson has unearthed another manuscript by Torvald Herdeg, one that I have sought for many years,’ he said instead. ‘At least that is what he writes. He insists that I journey to Göteborg to examine it and validate its authenticity. If it is the actual document, I should very much like to add it to my library. You can be sure the old bandit will ask an absurd sum for it should I demonstrate any interest at all. I shall write and refuse him and then see how he responds.’

‘But you covet it,’ she said. ‘Why deprive yourself when it is such an infinitesimal acquisition? Certainly do not stand on ceremony. As long as it is real it deserves to be among your collection. Go to Sweden, Robert. See it with your own eyes.’

She thought of him streaking across the snowbound countryside in a horse-drawn sled, wrapped in a thick robe. She fantasized herself by his side, swaddled in a blanket next to him, perhaps with her garments undone underneath. He would be gone for weeks, which would enable her to be alone in Venezia at the same time as Fanny, free to deal with Capt Blackpool as she chose. It was the perfect scheme and one which allowed her to operate on her own. Sir Robert lit his pipe and puffed at it, garlanding his head in wisps of smoke.

‘Sweden, you say, Show up on his doorstep, see for myself,’ he mused. ‘Actually a capital idea. But you and I shall be longer separated if I make such a journey. I could not ask you to endure such an odyssey by my side, Will you wait for me, Fanny, until my business is over? Keep my little finch safe in her nest?’

‘Your finch will wait for you,’ Fanny told him. ‘Come to Venezia if you are able, after your business is complete. You can be sure I will attend you. But Robert, there is one small object in the world that I covet, and it is something I believe that only you can give to me.’

Sir Robert leaned forward in his chair. ‘What more may I give you, you who have changed my life so profoundly?’

‘If it is not too much trouble,’ she said. ‘A small item, a singular bauble, would bring me immense joy. Acquisition of this would need to be added to the task given over to Capt Blackpool, though. With your immense perspicacity, connections and power you were able to obtain The Crimson Garter.’

‘I was, it is true,’ Sir Robert said uncomfortably. ‘I removed a blight from the world. I did it to protect the honour of my family name and my wife, and the world soon forgot it. The only residue is that perpetual parasite named the Earl of Pinckney.’

‘And now I seek an object of joy for myself,’ Fanny said, continuing her own train of thought. ‘A small object of beauty unique in the world. Robert, I wish to own the Pearls of Jaipur. I believe that with your great courage and skill you can obtain them for me. That is the gift from you which I seek.’

Robert Marsh gasped. ‘And if I am unable to do so?’

Fanny looked down at her hands, folded on her lap. ‘I have the utmost confidence you will discover the way. A simple strand bought at auction by a mysterious party in London. Detective work is needed to locate it, yes, but we know the world’s greatest detective. You have met him …’

‘And he wrestled a pistol from my hands,’ Marsh said bitterly. ‘After I discharged it. Blackpool does not forget such events, I am sure.’

‘It is an errand your little finch would like you to consider. I shall continue to surrender to your desires, Robert. Love me as you wish, I am yours completely. So I ask you again: as my reward, obtain the Pearls of Jaipur for me.’

The week passed quickly as the women further schemed. Sir Robert spent his days as before in the company of solicitors and bankers, and the Earl of Pinckney busied himself with hounds and horses. Polite dinners and card games in the salon filled out their evenings. And finally, trunks were packed, and the carriages made ready, farewells recited. They waved goodbye to Robert Marsh, as he left for Sweden. Hours later Pinckney, Gertrud and Fanny set off in their own carriage on the first leg of their journey for Venezia.

A day after the house had grown empty of its owner and guests, the butler Cedric admitted a ragged vagabond to the kitchen at Marshmoor. He was an elfin red-haired Irishman with an obsequious manner and clearly a way with the ladies of the scullery. He claimed to be in need of work, and after some intervention by a sympathetic housekeeper, they took him on as a temporary, as much for his cheerful manner as his willingness to work at any task without complaint. In exchange for his labour they gave him a room in the stables and some newer clothes to wear. He said they should simply call him Henry.