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Authors: Carola Dunn

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BOOK: Rattle His Bones
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“Excuse, please!” Recollecting his manners, the young man took a pace backwards, clicked his heels, and bowed. With a glance around at the people with pricked ears politely but unconvincingly studying the contents of nearby cases, he
lowered his voice. “I am Rudolf Maximilian, Grand Duke of Transcarpathia, at your service,
gnädige Frau.
”
“Fräulein,”
Daisy corrected, that being about the only word of German she knew. It was not at all proper to introduce herself to a strange gentleman met in a public place—her mother would have fainted at the thought—but Daisy was now dying of curiosity. In order to hold her own with a Grand Duke, she used the courtesy title she usually omitted. His stiff expression relaxed a little as she said, “I am the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple. How do you do? I'm afraid I'm not very sure where Transcarpathia is.”
“Mine contry is betveen Moldavia and Transylvania and Bukovina,” he informed her, leaving her little the wiser. “Now is mine contry not existing. De Russians have take it. Instead of Grand Duke is Red Commissar. Mine family is exile, penniless, and mine pee-ople suffer under de Russian boot. Wizzout dis ruby can I for them nodink.”
The splendid uniform was threadbare, Daisy noticed, the cuffs frayed, the gold braid unravelling. Given his youth, either the Grand Duke Rudolf possessed no other clothes, or he had inherited the outfit from his father.
“How exactly does the ruby come to be in the Natural History Museum?” she asked.
“Mine
Grossvater
has de ruby to Qveen Victoria presented. You understand, in dose days vas de family rich. Dey visit to England and make gift to cousin of magnificent precious gem. But now ve have need, cousin vould give back,
nicht wahr?
”
Daisy rather doubted that most cousins would be so generous. The museum's trustees were even less likely to oblige. However, she said soothingly, “I am sure King George will sympathize and do what he can for you.”
With a despairing gesture towards Pettigrew's back as the
Keeper stalked out of the gallery, the Grand Duke groaned, “
Dieser viehische, schreiende Kerl
vill everysink spoil.”
“Please, sir, what's … what you just said?” Derek queried. He and Belinda had long since stopped admiring the ruby—which, however large and precious, just sat there—in favour of listening to Rudolf Maximilian's story.
“And what will you do if you get it back?” asked Belinda.
To fend off a translation, which she suspected was better not delved into, Daisy seconded Bel's question. “Yes, what would you do?”
“I use to raise an army of loyalists, naturally. Mit mine pee-ople behind me, ve zrow out de Red Army and make peaceful again.”
Though not much of a newspaper reader, Daisy knew the Red Army had proved virtually impossible to throw out once having steamrollered in. The Transcarpathian loyalists were more likely to be slaughtered wholesale than to succeed. That an entire army of loyalists could be raised on the proceeds of even the most valuable jewel was another dubious proposition. Transcarpathia must be somewhere in eastern Europe. The common people of that part of the world were Slav peasants little better than serfs, with no reason to feel loyalty towards their German-speaking rulers. Unless the Grand Dukes' reign had been singularly benevolent, Rudolf Maximilian was probably headed for bitter disappointment even if he recovered the ruby.
Which was unlikely—but disillusioning the ardent young man was none of Daisy's business, and she still had business to be done.
“Enough chatter, children,” she said. “Come along, time is passing and I want to take a photograph of the Melbourne meteorite with you two on each side to show how enormous it is. I wish you the best of luck, sir.”
Instead of shaking the hand she held out to him, Grand Duke Rudolf bowed over it, heels clicking, and raised it to his lips. “I sank for your much sympazy,
gnädiges Fräulein,”
he said. “You lift to me de courage. I fight on!”
Bel and Derek were much more excited by the Grand Duke's story than by the three-and-a-half-ton meteorite. They wove a wonderful tale about a wicked sorcerer called the Red Commissar and a magic ruby with the power to raise an army overnight. Pettigrew's place in the narrative was a source of much argument. Derek had him as an ogre who had stolen the jewel, while Belinda insisted he was not an ogre, because he had been nice to them, letting them hold the opals and giving them fool's gold.
“Not real gold,” Derek pointed out. “It'll prob'ly turn into dead leaves overnight. I bet he's in league with the Red Commissar, and he's just trying to buy us off.”
 
They were still elaborating their make-believe when Daisy put them onto a bus back to St. John's Wood—inside. Though the rain had stopped, the skies had darkened ominously. As she walked home through South Kensington and Chelsea, the photographic equipment and her notebook seemed to grow heavier and heavier. It wasn't far to Mulberry Place, but she had been tramping around the museum for hours. Hard floors and city pavements were much more tiring than fields and woods.
When she reached the “bijou residence” she shared with Lucy Fotheringay, she went straight through the house and down to Lucy's mews studio. Lucy, tall, dark, smart, and fashionably flat fore and aft, was just seeing a client out of the alley door. Turning, she asked, “How did it go, darling?”
“Not too bad,” said Daisy, plopping down on the nearest
chair, “except for my poor feet. The children were good and everyone was frightfully helpful.”
“I mean the photos,” Lucy said impatiently.
“I can't tell, darling, till you develop them for me. Be an angel and do them right away.”
“Tomorrow,” Lucy promised. “Binkie's taking me to see
The Prisoner of Zenda
tonight.”
Daisy burst into gales of laughter. “I've just met him!” she gasped.
“Who? Ramon Novarro? Where? Not at your stuffy old museum!”
“Not Ramon, a Ruritanian prince.” She told Lucy about the Grand Duke Rudolf Maximilian.
“Darling, how too, too romantic!” Lucy, who prided herself on her hard-headed practicality, was at heart far more of a sentimentalist than Daisy, as witness her choice of films. Her amber eyes glowed. “And how sad. Is he good-looking?”
“Not as handsome as Ramon Novarro, and much too young for you, darling. A good five years younger than us, at a guess.”
“And no money,” said Lucy mournfully.
“Even less than Binkie, I should think, and no job.”
“Darling, grand dukes simply don't take
jobs
, like mere mortals. Especially reigning grand dukes.”
“He hasn't got anything to reign over,” Daisy pointed out.
Lucy sighed.
As good as her word, she developed the plates next morning. They were all absolutely hopeless.
“Never mind, darling,” she consoled Daisy. “I'm going down to Haverhill this weekend for Grandfather's birthday—can't miss it, it's his eightieth, the old sweetie—but next week I'll go to the museum with you and get some good shots.”
 
 
While Lucy was toasting the start of the Earl of Haverhill's ninth decade, Daisy joined the Fletchers for Sunday dinner, her nephew having by then gone home to Kent. Mrs. Fletcher actually unbent enough to commend Derek as a nice-mannered child.
“Spoilt, though,” she added hastily, as if horrified to find herself praising anything associated with Daisy, “but what can you expect, his father being a lord.”
Daisy, Alec, and Belinda escaped for the afternoon by taking Bel's new puppy, Nana, for a walk on Primrose Hill.
During Lucy's absence, Daisy also typed up her notes and started to get her article into its final shape. The quantity of excess information reminded her of her idea for a more scientific article. She popped into the nearest W H. Smith's and found several suitable magazines, surreptitiously scribbling down their addresses and editors' names without buying anything but the
Daily Chronicle
. Letters of enquiry went out by the second post on Monday.
Soon after Daisy's article and Lucy's splendid photographs set sail across the Atlantic, two magazines replied, expressing their total lack of interest. A third wanted the complete text before deciding, and a fourth requested resubmission at a later date, as the next fifteen issues were already filled. Slightly disappointed, Daisy went off to Shropshire to do the research for the next article in her series on minor stately homes for
Town and Country
.
Much as she might wish to, she could hardly visit that part of the world without staying a night or two with her mother, at the Fairacres Dower House. She found the Dowager Lady Dalrymple as disapproving as ever of Alec's middle-class background and distasteful profession, yet making plans
for an elaborate—and expensive—wedding in St. George's, Hanover Square.
“Who is to pay for this, Mother?” Daisy asked, exasperated.
“I dare say your cousin Edgar can be brought to understand his obligation, since he so cruelly exiled us from hearth and home.”
“Mother, you know Edgar had no choice but to succeed to the title,” Daisy could not help saying for the thousandth time, “and he offered us a home.”
“As though I should accept that man's charity! A schoolmaster, so underbred, and the way Geraldine puts on airs is quite shocking.” Lady Dalrymple counterattacked: “When are you and Mr. Fletcher going to set the date? I disapprove of long engagements, and the church must be booked months in advance.”
Daisy at once started to think about registry offices. She also wondered, rather dolefully, whether Alec could get a guaranteed leave of absence from the Metropolitan Police to be married, or if a sudden complex case might tear him from the altar—or the registry office equivalent. Frightful thought!
Her mother always had a depressing effect on her spirits but she revived as soon as she left Fairacres. Her recovery was completed when she reached Mulberry Place. On the table in the tiny hall, an extravagantly vast bouquet of chrysanthemums awaited her, and Alec's card with a note saying simply, “Missing you.”
Beside the vase was a heap of letters, accumulated during her absence. Daisy flipped through them, recognizing the handwriting of her sister, two friends, a cousin. Then a business-size, typewritten envelope. Another rejection, no doubt.
But it wasn't.
Dilettanti
magazine wanted her article, as long as she could let them have it by the end of September. If so, would she please telephone as soon as possible to confirm.
“Lucy?” she called up the stairs. No response.
Only three weeks! Still, it was not like starting from scratch. She already had a good start on the research, and she had made the acquaintance of all the people she would need to interview. Reaching for the telephone she and Lucy had had installed just a month ago, Daisy confirmed.
She was dying to share the news with someone who would appreciate it, but she always tried to avoid phoning Alec at the Yard, and he was often out of his office anyway. Mrs. Potter, the charwoman who “did” for Daisy and Lucy and took a deep, admiring interest in their work, had already gone home. Daisy rang through to Lucy on the studio extension, but there was no answer.
Three weeks—she had better get cracking. She telephoned the Natural History Museum and made appointments to see the Keepers of Zoology and Botany in the morning.
That done, she dropped her hat on the table, her coat on the chair, and leaving luggage strewn about the hall, hurried to the tiny back parlour which was her study. She already had a rough draft of the stately home article, typed on the portable machine on semi-permanent loan from her
Town and Country
editor (How her mother had moaned at the evidence of her daughter's occupation!). It wouldn't take long to finish it up on the massive, ancient Underwood typewriter which sat incongruously on the elegant Regency writing table from Fairacres.
The Underwood saw a great deal of her that week. Each day she returned from the museum with reams of notes and
typed long into the evening. The museum's business was far more complicated than she had realized.
In the private offices, studies, and work rooms where she was now introduced, the preparation of specimens for display was a minor aspect of the work in progress. From all over the world, unknown plants and creatures were sent to be classified. Daisy had never previously heard of Linnaeus, but she was soon as familiar with his system as with the map of the London underground. The museum staff produced not only minute descriptions but painstaking drawings and even paintings of each specimen.
That was in the Zoology and Botany Departments, where specimens normally arrived with all their parts intact. In the Geology Department, imagination played a greater part. As Mummery had explained to her, few fossils were found complete; the missing bits had to be guessed at. At least, it looked like guesswork to Daisy, though Mummery insisted it was educated deduction.
BOOK: Rattle His Bones
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