The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries (69 page)

“Are the horses ready yet?” he paused and demanded of Henry Fitzjames, the Lord Grand Prior of England, who stood nervously near the great doors that opened onto the cobbled courtyard. It was not for the first time that he had asked his son the same question in petulant, fearful tone.

“Your Majesty’s Life Guards are not yet fully assembled.”

“God rot them! What ails them to be so negligent of the safety of their King at such an hour?”

“Sire, it is hard to obtain fresh horses in the city at this time. His Grace, the Duke of Powis, has scoured every stable unsuccessfully for fresh mounts.”

“It is already dawn.” The King pointed with shaking hand to the early morning light outside. “Have I not been given intelligence that my son-in-law’s army,” he referred to William, Prince of Orange’s relationship to him, with a sneer, “that his piquets have already marched within cannon shot of the outer defences of the city?”

“A report greatly exaggerated, sire. My brother, His Grace of Berwick, has his regiments encamped far to the north and there are no rumours of any alarums.”

The King was not listening.

“Men of the like that flock to the banners of the Prince of Orange captured, tried and executed my poor father when I was but sixteen years old. They cut off his head in front of his own palace of Whitehall. I do not intend to suffer the same fate. We must mount immediately and ride for the coast, fresh horses or not. See that it is so!”

The Lord Grand Prior left to obey his father’s orders.

Her Grace, Lady Frances, the Duchess of Tyrconnell, had roused herself in the early morning hours to witness the King’s departure from the city of Dublin. Now she stood watching him with a look of contempt. With her in the hall was the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Terence McDermott, while at her side stood Father Taafe, her husband’s chaplain who had just arrived in the city. Her husband, Richard, was James’ Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was even now in continued danger at the head of his cavalry regiment somewhere between Dublin and the River Boyne, facing the Prince of Orange’s army. Her Grace had tried her best to calm the panic of the King.

“Majesty, our Irish troops will hold the army of the Prince of Orange long before they reach the city. You are safe as yet.”

“Hold them?” The King sneered, turning an ugly countenance to her. “Did they hold them at Oldbridge, madam, when the Prince of Orange and his men swarmed across the Boyne River? Cowards, every one. They fled before William like greyhounds in a race. Your countrymen, madam, can run well.”

Her Grace of Tyrconnell’s lips twitched in anger. She was not Irish. She had been born near St Albans in Hertfordshire but she felt a desire to defend her husband, the Duke of Tyrconnell, and his countrymen against this insult.

“Not so well as your majesty,” she snapped back, “for I see that you have won the race.”

Her companions could not disguise the smiles that sprang to their lips, for King James had been in continued panic since he had galloped into the city at midnight, directly from an engagement at the Boyne, shouting that all was lost.

“The horses are ready, Your Majesty,” cried the Lord Grand Prior, coming swiftly back into the hall and saving the King from trying to think of a suitable retort.

James turned quickly, without even bidding farewell to the wife of his Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Tyrconnell. The King seemed to have forgotten her presence and those of her companions as he scuttled towards the doors. Then a thought seemed to strike him. He paused and crashed one pale fist into the palm of his hand.

“Pox take me! Have I no one to remind me?”

The Lord Grand Prior looked in bewilderment as his father turned and almost ran towards the room where he had spent the last few hours. It was a small study in which he had previously been engaged in writing his final orders to the Comte de Lauzun, commander of his army. The King hurried to the desk. Ah, thank God he had remembered. A small metal box stood on the desk where he had left it. He picked up the heavy object, unlocked and pushed back the lid. It was filled with jewellery. On top of the diamonds and emeralds and assorted jewels lay a glittering blue stone about one and a half inches in length by an inch wide. The Stuart Sapphire was the pride of his collection. His brother, Charles II, had saved it from falling into Cromwellian hands after his defeat at Worcester. It was worth a king’s fortune; it was the fortune of this King, anyway. These were all that were left of the Crown Jewels of the Stuart Dynasty. He snapped the lid shut and turned the key again.

“This casket is to stay with me at all times. It is the guarantee of the survival of the House of Stuart,” he grunted at his bewildered son, the Lord Grand Prior. “Now, let us ride for Waterford with all speed.”

Without another word, he swept by Lady Tyrconnell, who performed a courtly curtsey; her every movement was filled with irony. Her companions merely inclined their heads.

Lady Tyrconnell waited a few moments until she heard the clattering of horses leaving the castle yard and then her features twisted in disdain.

“I wonder if His Majesty knows what his good subjects of Ireland are already calling him?” She smiled grimly at the troubled faces of the Lord Mayor MacDermott and Father Taafe. “I learnt the Irish from my maid.
Seamus an Chaca –
James the Shit! Methinks my sister, Sarah, the Lady Marlborough, is right when she agreed with her husband that these realms will be better off without such a petty, devious and faint-hearted man as James Stuart on the throne.”

Conte Salvatore Volpe of the Ordo Equester Nobile de Nostro Signore, the Papal bodyguard, paused for a moment outside the tall ornate doors with their gilt covered carvings and brass fixtures. He adjusted his sword and raised a hand to ensure his cravat was in place. Then he nodded to the nervous looking
sacredotti
who stood ready. The young trainee priest smote the door twice and then opened it and announced in a whispering tone to the occupant:

“Count Volpe, prefect commander of the Order of the Noble Knights of Our Lord.”

Volpe strode into an antechamber and then halted in momentary surprise. He had been expecting to be greeted by the elderly Cardinal York of Frascati but a ruddy-faced man with dark hair and clothes that bespoke more of a man of fashion and elegance greeted him. He was fair of skin and his features seemed to identify him as a foreigner but he greeted Volpe in fluent courtly Italian as one born to the language.

“I have surprised you, count,” the man observed. “I am sorry but it is necessary to have a word with you before you are received by my master. I am . . .”

“The Marchese Glenbuchat.” Volpe had difficulty pronouncing the Scottish name.

“You are well informed, Conte.”

“It is my duty to be so, Marchese, for I am placed in charge of the safety of all the Cardinal princes of Holy Mother Church who are gathering here.”

“Then you may also know, who my master is? I want to tell you, before you speak with him, that I have met with great reluctance from him in allowing you privy to a matter, which is of the greatest gravity to him and his cause. He does not want this matter to be voiced abroad. So I must hear from you that you are willing to treat it in utmost secrecy.”

“Without knowing the nature of the matter, I cannot take such an oath,” replied Volpe. “But if it does not offend the holy office that I hold sacred, I will treat the matter with discretion. Perhaps I can be told the nature of this problem that your master wishes to consult me about?”

Lord Glenbuchat hesitated.

“I will leave that to him.”

He crossed to a door and knocked on it discreetly, opened it and announced Volpe’s presence.

Count Volpe crossed the marble tiled floor to the chair by an ornate fire carved in the same stone. The slight figure of the elderly man in the robes of a Cardinal was seated to receive him. Volpe came to a halt and bent to kiss the ring of the frail hand that the Cardinal had reached out towards him.

He wondered how he should address someone whom many recognized as the rightful King of England, Scotland and Ireland, but who was Bishop of Frascati and known to his fellow prelates as Cardinal York.

“Eminence,” he managed to mutter as he bent over the bishop’s ring. He paused a moment and then straightened looking into the pale face and dark haunted eyes of Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, grandson and only surviving legitimate heir of James II who had fled his kingdoms to a life of exile over a century before. Since the death of his elder brother, Prince Charles Edward in 1788, the Cardinal had been hailed as Henry IX of England and I of Scotland. The last of the Stuart claimants to the throne.

“How may I serve your Eminence?” Volpe said, taking the regulatory step backwards from the Cardinal’s chair. He was aware that Lord Glenbuchat was standing anxiously behind him.

The old man sighed deeply, raising his tired eyes to gaze on the commander of the Pontifical Guard.

“You are acquainted with my family’s sad history?” he asked.

“Eminence.” Volpe made the word an affirmation, feeling sorry for this apparently exhausted old man. However, these were times of hardship for everyone. The armies of revolutionary France were scouring the Italian countryside, looting and plundering, and with Pius VI recently dead in Valence, after a mere six months in office, and the godless French agents suspected of complicity in his death, the Cardinals had been unable to find a sanctuary to meet to elect a new Holy Father. They had even been driven from Rome by the French invasion. Volpe was uncomfortably reminded that the old man before him had also had to flee from his villa at Frascati, when it had been attacked and sacked by the French army. Now the Cardinals were gathering on this little island in Venice, in the old Benedictine Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, to enter into the conclave in the hope of electing a new Holy Father.

Count Volpe had only recently been appointed to command the old aristocratic bodyguard of the Papal successors. He was a young man and conscious of his office.

Cardinal York spoke in a tired tone.

“A thief has broken into these apartments and made off with jewellery worth a great fortune.”

Volpe’s eyes widened but he said nothing. After a moment, the Cardinal continued.

“The jewellery was my personal property, family property, bequeathed to me by my brother, Charles.”

Volpe knew well of the dissolute and drunken Prince Charles Edward, pretender to the English throne who had died of apoplexy in Rome some ten years before.

“Eminence, what manner of jewellery has gone missing?”

“The wealth of over three centuries of my family’s history as Kings of Scotland and then of England and Ireland,” replied the old Cardinal. “Among them, the great Stuart Sapphire. I brought them safely from Frascati, as my grandfather had also brought them safely when he was forced to flee into exile. Before that my great-uncle had hidden them safely when his father was executed by his subjects.”

Volpe tried to restrain a grim smile.

“Eminence, your family have borne many misfortunes,” he remarked with what he hoped was sympathy.

“The Stuart Crown Jewels are beyond mere commercial wealth,” intervened Lord Glenbuchat. “They are the symbols of His Majesty’s rightful claims to the throne that has been usurped by the family of the Duke of Brunswick-Lúneberg-Celle, the so-called House of Hanover. The jewels must be found and the culprit punished.”

“Eminence, I shall do my utmost to bring this matter to a satisfactory and immediate conclusion,” Volpe assured the old Cardinal, addressing him rather than turning to Lord Glenbuchat.

The old man sighed and waved his hand to the Marquess.

“I have had my chamberlain, Lord Glenbuchat, make out a list of the items that are missing.”

“You say that these apartments were broken into?” Volpe queried. “May I see where the entrance was forced?”

Cardinal York coughed nervously.

“I did not mean to be taken literally,” he said as if in bad temper. “There was no sign of anyone actually breaking into these chambers, was there, Glenbuchat?”

The Marchese shook his head.

“No doors nor windows bore signs of forced entry nor even the secret cabinet in which the jewels were kept for safety.”

Volpe frowned.

“I presume that the doors to these apartments are locked when there is no one present?”

“Of course, though there is usually myself or my chamberlain here. If we are not, there is my bodyguard, Colonel O’Sullivan, and my manservant, Iain.”

“These have access to the chamber where the jewels were kept?”

The Cardinal nodded.

“No one else?”

“None that have free access to these rooms.”

“If someone will be so good as to show me where these jewels were kept . . . ?” asked Volpe after a moment’s reflection.

Cardinal York glanced to his chamberlain.

Lord Glenbuchat took Volpe by the arm and led him to another door.

“This is His Majesty’s bedchamber,” he confided. Volpe could not get used to the form of address. He supposed that, to his followers, the Cardinal was totally accepted as the rightful king. Glenbuchat had opened the door and pointed to the key in the lock.