A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (11 page)

“Don't you
dare
be jaded about the Parthenon.”

His lordship leaned back against the corner of his seat and regarded me in the beam of winter afternoon that came through the window, as we waited for the street to clear before us. (Athens, I observed, was not a model of organization as regards traffic.) The spectacles were gone now, replaced carefully in his
waistcoat pocket the instant we left the privacy of Mr. Haywood's flat. “Perish the thought. Do you know, Truelove, I can't quite seem to make you out. You're so frightfully brusque and practical, until one turns the corner of a Greek street, or plays a bit of Italian music, and without warning you're a romantic fool.”

The motor thrust forward again, while the driver stuck his entire torso out the window and hurled reckless invective at a man pushing a cart piled high with dung. I placed my handkerchief over my nose. The Parthenon sped past Silverton's golden head and disappeared behind us.

“There's nothing contradictory about it. I simply appreciate beauty, Lord Silverton.”

“You don't appreciate
my
beauty,” he said.

“Why should I? You worship it well enough without my help.”

“Oh! Well played, Truelove. The point is yours.”

Nicodemus released a burst of noise from the automobile's horn and swerved to the curb, nearly oversetting a carthorse and its indignant driver. We roared to a dizzying halt outside a smart new building, and the driver blew the horn again, scattering another dozen astonished souls from the adjacent sidewalk.

Satisfied, Nicodemus popped out of his seat, tassel swinging jauntily, and came around to open the passenger door.

The building reeked simultaneously of newness and decay, or perhaps that was only the mildew growing in tiny dark spots in the corners of the ceiling. Hastily built structures, I am told, are subject to this complaint, especially in such climes where the summer heat reaches oppressive heights.

“Grand but cheap,” I whispered to Silverton, as we followed a clerk down a red-carpeted corridor lined with doors.

“What's that?”

I pointed to the plasterwork, which was crumbling in patches.

His lordship nodded. “Rather like the newer London suburbs.”

The clerk made an abrupt right turn and disappeared through a doorway. I darted through after him and found myself inside a large square white-walled office, upholstered in patriotic blue and white, where a compact man was rising from a desk and preparing to greet us. The clerk whispered in his ear and stood back.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “I apologize for our late arrival, Mr. Livas, but—”

The man frowned and turned to the clerk, asking a question in rapid Greek.

“Dear me,” said his lordship. His hand touched the small of my back.

The official turned back to us, cleared his throat, and spoke in smooth accented English. “I am afraid, sir and madam, that there has been some terrible mistake. I regret very much to say that my colleague Mr. Livas departed this mortal realm unexpectedly a fortnight ago, God rest his soul.”

He crossed himself. I pressed my hand against my stomach.

“Well, I'll be damned,” said Lord
Silverton.

The Lady stared in amazement at the Hero's bowed head before her. ‘My lady, you have been sent by the gods,' he said, ‘for I am the son of the King of Athens, and I have taken the place of one of the tributes in order to defeat this yearly summons upon my country, which feeds the appetites of the King's beast-made son.'

‘Then rise, Hero,' she said, ‘and I will tell you what you must do to save yourself and your people. But before you agree, be warned that I ask a boon in return, which you may not wish to grant.'

He replied, ‘Lady, before the gods, I will do whatever you ask of me, for since I saw you tonight at the banquet I have thought of nothing else but you, and when you removed your veils before me I knew that my prayers had been answered.'

The Lady knew not whether to speak or to weep, for her tender heart had known nothing but sorrow since the night of her nuptial rites. She knelt to join the Hero on the fine rug before the brazier, and she placed her hands upon his cheeks and said, ‘I will tell you the secret of the Labyrinth and the Beast at its heart, if you will promise to carry me away with you when you leave . . .'

T
HE
B
OOK
OF
T
IME
, A. M. H
AYWOOD
(1921)

I
told you so,” said Her Majesty. “I told you, in clear and exact language, that this expedition would prove a grave mistake.”

I went on brushing my hair. “On the contrary, I am convinced my presence here is of the utmost importance. Imagine if Lord Silverton were left to deal with the affair himself.”

“I think that would be a very good idea indeed. I advise you to take the next steamship back to England, and leave this sort of grubby investigation to those best suited to soil themselves in it.”

A sharp double knock sounded on the door to my room. “Heigh-ho,” said a cheerful and muffled voice.

“Speak of the devil,” muttered the Queen.

I set down the hairbrush, gathered my hair in a rapid braid at the nape of my neck, and rose from the dressing table.

“You don't mean to answer the
door
!” Her Majesty exclaimed. “In your
nightgown
!”

“I'm wearing a dressing gown above all. It is hardly improper.”

“Your hair is wantonly loose.”

“Nonsense. I have braided it. If you'll excuse me.”

I marched to the door and flung it open.

“I say,” said his lordship. “Abed already? What about dinner?”

“I plan to take a tray in my room. Have you something important to communicate? Could you not have used the telephone?”

“I meant to whisk you downstairs to the hotel restaurant, but I'm perfectly happy to dine here instead.”

“Certainly not.”

His lordship edged past me into the room. “A fine chamber you've got here, Truelove. Overlooking the square and whatnot. My window looks into the alleyway, which is endlessly entertaining but not precisely healthy for one's morals.”

“I should think your morals would hardly know the difference.”

“Ah, Truelove. You have the most confounded notions about me. I'm as tame as a pussycat, really. Stories all false. Or at least exaggerated to a great degree.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers—he was wearing immaculate dinner dress—and turned to offer me a broad and toothsome grin, of the sort a female hyena might find alluring. “Your virtue is perfectly safe with me.”

I heard a faint harrumph, though the slipper chair was now empty.

I folded my arms across my chest. “Be quick, your lordship. I wish to order my dinner now.”

“I shall take that as a rejection of my very kind offer, and be accordingly offended,” said Silverton, looking not offended in the least, but rather amused.

I said nothing.

Silverton walked to the fireplace and removed one hand from his pocket to lay his elbow on the mantel. “Oh, very well. You're a hard woman, Truelove, very hard. The thing is, I've been thinking rather thoroughly about this matter, gears grinding squeakily and all that, and I wonder if—now, don't raise your nose at me—I wonder if you're better off taking the
Isolde
back home to England, while I delve into this Cretan matter on my own humble power.”

Indeed!
said a haughty voice, from the direction of the slipper chair.
Just what I think. The first sensible thing he's said in days.

“I see. You think it's too dangerous for me.”

“I wasn't going to say
dangerous
, exactly. The contrary. I expect it's all just a jolly queer coincidence, Mr. Livas shucking off his mortal coil just now. Wintertime is notorious for . . . well . . .” He waved a hand.

“Men having their throats cut at half past five in the afternoon, on the way home from an honest day's labor?”

“I was going to say incidents of a violent nature, since the hours of darkness are much increased. And Greece, I regret to report, is notable for its lawlessness, even in this modern age. Might a fellow have a drink, do you think?”

“I haven't got anything.”

“Ring something up, I mean. Perhaps a spot of dinner, while you're on the telephone.”

“I'm not dressed for dinner.”

“I think you look charming.” The smile flashed out once more, white enough to match his shirt. He had brushed back his hair with a touch of pomade, so that it positively burnished in the electric light. No one could deny that Lord Silverton was a glossy, well-polished animal, in the absolute prime of its health and strength, and that, as impressive as he looked in his travel
tweeds, he appeared even more remarkably resplendent in dinner dress.

“Your lordship,” I said, closing my ears to any possible comment from the slipper chair by the window, “you have come here to ask me a question, and my answer is no. Frankly, I am now convinced that Mr. Haywood may stand in real danger, and my participation in this search has become even more urgent than before.”

“
More
urgent? I say, that's humbling. You think I'll foul things up on my own, do you? Where's the
trust
, Truelove?”

“It's not a matter of trust. I simply believe—as does the dowager duchess, I should like to point out—that my intimate knowledge of the duchy's affairs may prove essential to discovering the whereabouts of Mr. Haywood.”

“The dowager duchess was not aware that flats had been ransacked and chaps murdered in Athenian alleyways.”

“Why should that make any difference?”

Silverton's elbow fell from the mantel. “Because you're a gently bred female, Truelove, not a trained agent! I'm going to ring for a drink. If you want one, speak now.”

He strode to the telephone on the desk, muttering under his breath, and I thought, as I watched him, that there was nothing lazy about Lord Silverton in this particular moment. That his movements had, without warning, turned quick and competent, and that his voice—well, not commanding. Not entirely divested of its languid aristocratic drawl. But perhaps . . . authoritative.

Yes. That was it. Authoritative. The way he had sounded, from time to time, while we were searching Mr. Haywood's flat. The way he had spoken Greek to the goatherd—not a broken schoolboy word or two, but fluently.

The way he had taken the shocking news of Mr. Livas's death:
nonplussed, even methodical, asking questions as if he already knew exactly which questions to ask.

Because you're a gently bred female, Truelove, not a trained agent.

His lordship stood beneath the electric chandelier, and it is no more than the truth to say that the light touched his golden head like a nimbus, an effect so splendid that it caused a smaller spark to flicker into being inside the chambers of my own mind.

Or perhaps I have not properly expressed the instant of revelation. Perhaps it was more like the lifting of a curtain, the opening of an eyelid that had, until now, remained willfully shut.

“A trained agent,” I said slowly. “A trained agent, did you say, sir?”

He picked up the telephone and brought the receiver to his ear. “Hello? Hello? Front desk?” Pause. “I say, would you speak a little louder?”

He toggled the switch hook, muttered again, and frowned. “Hello? Yes, yes. Room three hundred and—” He raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“Twelve,” I said.

“Room three hundred and twelve. Yes. Yes. Yes, I quite understand that's Miss Truelove's room. No, no. I am not Miss Truelove.”

I was not a fool, nor did I lack the rudimentary powers of observation. From the earliest days of my employment with the Duke of Olympia, or at least as soon as I had emerged from the fog of grief that surrounded my father's death, I had had some inkling of His Grace's involvement in certain confidential affairs of the kingdom of Great Britain. Couriers had sometimes arrived in the middle of the night, requiring immediate attention; His Grace might disappear for a few days, entirely without warning or explanation; the odd gentleman, dressed in dark and
nondescript clothing, would hustle inside through the service entrance and confer with the duke behind a locked door. Once, I had entered His Grace's study at my usual hour of seven o'clock in the morning, and found a few tiny spots of blood on the rug, which had disappeared by the time I returned from lunch.

Lord Silverton was still gazing at me from that sideways aspect of his, eyebrow arched, sly smile curving the lips. One hand held the transmitter to his chin, the other secured the receiver to his ear. The skin of his neck was tawny against the sharp white collar of his shirt. “No, not her brother. Let's just say she's a friend of mine, shall we? A very dear friend who so happens to require my company at the present moment.”

I had never inquired into those occasions, nor allowed myself to speculate on their meaning. His Grace employed me to carry out the duties of a personal secretary, not to involve myself in affairs he clearly wished to keep private. I merely presumed, using the logic with which God had granted me, that a man so wise and so influential should naturally become privy to any number of the nation's secrets, and that I might best serve him—and my beloved Great Britain—by allowing myself to discover no more about them than the duke saw fit to relate to me.

“Why, what an insinuating question, my good man. I don't see that it's any of your business, to be perfectly frank. No, you may not speak to Miss Truelove yourself. She's not receiving visitors, either by sight or sound. Well, except me, of course.” A dashing wink.

But now it seemed to me that those secrets were being thrust upon me, one by one, in the manner of what I believe the professionals at Scotland Yard call
clues.
There was, for instance, this institute: a collaboration between the Duke of Olympia and his heir. There
was the quarterly shipment of mysterious objects and the official report from Mr. Haywood to the duke. There was a dead body, and a missing man, and a ransacked flat, and a sense of urgency I had understood from the beginning.

There was the Marquess of Silverton, who was—as the Queen herself had rightly observed—a little more clever than he let on.

“I say, what the devil sort of establishment are you running, where a fellow has to endure the Spanish Inquisition in order to have a bottle of brandy sent to his room? Yes, yes. You're quite right. In point of fact, it's not
my
room, at least as a matter of legal tenancy. But—”

I marched across the rug, reached between Lord Silverton's glossy black arms, and pressed down firmly on the switch hook.

His lordship set down the device and turned to me with an expression of great affront. “Now, why the devil did you do that? I'll have to start all over from the beginning.”

I know not from what hidden reserve of daring I found the courage to reach inside Lord Silverton's jacket, grasp the expected pipe, and draw it forth from the warmth of its pocket. Perhaps I was simply angry at myself: angry that I had not assembled these clues together at the outset and produced the truth; angry that I had, in short, allowed this fool to fool me. My pride was wounded, and wanted to assert itself before the man who had wounded it.

Or, if I am scrupulous, and with the benefit of hindsight, I will allow the possibility of another explanation: that Her Majesty was perhaps more wise—or at least more perceptive—than I was willing to admit at the time.

Whatever the reason for my actions, however, I could see that while I had surprised Lord Silverton by this uninvited and
deeply personal gesture, he minded my brass not a bit. He placed his thumbs into the slim pockets of his waistcoat and gave me the sort of look men give to women who are flirting with them.

I held out the pipe to his starched white chest. “I think that's an excellent idea, sir. I should like you to make yourself comfortable and start all over, from the very beginning, and
this
time tell me
exactly
what the devil is going on.”