Chapter 3 The poisoned man part III
I waited for the house to be quiet, and I got up and unlocked the door to the maid’s room, and eased her door to the corridor open.
I was glad I had done so; Basil sat sprawled in an easy chair outside my room. Presumably he had volunteered to watch me.
I went back into the bedroom, and opened the window, passing the rope around the bars. I took off my dress and pulled on my tight knit trousers, and over it a long, black knitted garment I had acquired from Mr. Cohen; he said it was called a ‘garnsey’ and was a fisherman’s garment. I belted it tight around me, and returned to the maid’s room. I went out of the window, and along the brickwork to the other end of the nursery, to tighten the knot of the rope, so that nobody could gain entrance to the room in which I was supposedly sleeping. At least, not without a lot of male puffing and grunting with tools.
I went directly down, and in at what turned out to be Basil’s window. And if he was upstairs guarding my doors, he was not in his room.
Like the nursery, his room was at the back of the house. And whilst he was elsewhere, I went through his papers.
I confess, I found his papers somewhere between disturbing and disgusting; I can only describe it as pornography.
Sickened, I restored pictures and writings of his perverse fantasies and moved out of his room. And it seemed to me that I needed to go first to Sophie’s room. The master bedroom had an adjoining mistress bedroom, and a boudoir or sitting room for her, and a study for Engelbert on the other side of his bedroom. She had a davenport in her boudoir, and it was to this that I turned my attention.
Reader, my years as a burglar had taught me that there is scarcely a simple, innocent piece of furniture to be found, if it is made for the writing, it will have secret drawers for the concealment of such correspondence as are not for public consumption. I had often found caches of money in such places, some in currency so old that the owner du jour had surely not known of the secret drawer; and in one, some rather mouldy macaroons, possibly a treat not permitted to the diet of some poor old person kept on strict rations. As a result, I poked, pulled, turned and tried sliding various carvings, placed probes into anything which might be a recessed hole for a key or just to be pressed, and with sensitive fingers exploring, it was not long before the secret yielded to me.
I found a bundle of love-letters, which was disappointing. They were moderately steamy, but I, who am French, am not shocked by such things nor embarrassed in reading them, being perfectly ordinary in their sexuality and not twisted like Basil’s proclivities. I suppose that a man denied a healthy love life will turn inward and find less than salubrious concepts, but it was a relief to read about Sophie’s lover’s frank but straightforward discussions of their time together.
His name was Dimitri Raskolnikov, and he urged her over and over to try to see her husband’s blueprints of the propellers for ships.
Well, now! That made things clearer.
Sophie had sold out to a foreign power.
Or rather, as some of the tender phrases became more and more formulaic and platitudinous, Sophie had been targeted by a foreign power, and was, judging by the tone, proving difficult at times in being dismissive over her husband’s silly drawings ‘which don’t even look like anything.’ The poison seemed to have been suggested by Dimitri, to confuse Engelbert’s mind, something which had come close to succeeding.
I abstracted the three letters which were of the most interest, and was about to exit the room when I heard Basil’s limping tread on the stair.
Reader, I fled into Sophie’s bedroom and up onto the top of the half-tester bed, where embroidered excrescences hid me from casual sight; and I doubted that Basil could climb in any case. He did not come into the front rooms, but went into his own, and presently went back up the stairs again. I heard his voice, and went up one or two stairs to hear what he was saying.
“I thought I might entertain you by reading,” he said, supposedly to me, the other side of the door.
The revolting fellow had gone to get some of his vile stories to read out! How shocked a little girl of sixteen that I was supposed to be would have been! I have long held that it is unfair to suppose that those with twisted bodies also have twisted minds, but Basil appeared to live down to that uncharitable view.
I had to get out of this place.
I went out of Basil’s window, and back up to the maid’s room, pausing to untie the rope on my bedroom door. I slipped in cautiously, and moved with care, so as not to alert him with any noise. I went and chose a simple gown, and some boots to wear, a coat and bonnet, and returned to the maid’s room. Here I ate the rest of the veal pie and ham, as I tied up the clothes in a sheet. I tossed them out of the window, and climbed down, donning them inside a bush in the kitchen garden, and covering my somewhat bloodied fingertips with good York tan gloves.
I walked to Geoffrey’s abode, and let myself in, to await the return of my husband and parents-in-law from church.
I confess, I dozed off on the chaise-longue, under the gay quilt Marianne keeps on it.
oOoOo
When the family arrived home, I flung myself into Tony’s arms, and reader! I have to confess it, I sobbed hysterically.
Tony sat down on the chaise-longue and pulled me onto his lap.
“What the devil happened?” he demanded.
“She locked me in the nursery with enough food to keep a gnat alive, and Basil used his key, as they all fit, and tried to debauch me,” I sobbed, succinctly.
“I’m going to kill him,” said Tony.
“I didn’t let him get near me, and I jammed the doors, and I have the information for Papa, but oh! He was reading filthy stories through the door while I was pretending to be locked in, and I… I just had to get away.”
“Dear God!” said Geoffrey. “I would never have asked you to go there if I had any idea you would be so badly treated.”
I managed a hysterical giggle.
“Perhaps you should tell them that as I fled the place, they won’t be made trustees of my million pound estate,” I said.
Geoffrey sniggered.
“How appropriate,” he agreed.
He did not ask about the information, but I could see he was agitated, and I pulled myself together.
“I have the honour to report to your lordship…” I began.
“That’s for the navy; just tell Papa,” said Geoffrey.
“If I do it formally, it hurts less to consider the universal rejection and unkindness,” I said. “I cannot think your friend to be much of a man, for he has no control at all in his own household. Even though I stole food there was no outcry, which suggests that servant peculation is common enough, and hushed up by the upper servants. I was referred to as a ‘foundling,’ though at least Robert Ogrington pointed out I was clearly of their class. To the rest, I was something dragged off the street. Sophie was clear enough that the servant who brought such food as I was given told me that missus hoped I’d either submit or ask to be allowed to leave. I had an evening meal of pea soup and two pieces of thinly-buttered bread, and a morning meal of a bowl of gruel and a pot of tea. That was it. I had no candles, no firewood or matches to light a fire, a single thin blanket, and if I had not put on my Garnsey and lit the fire, I might have been seriously ill, especially as I had no drink until the tea in the morning.”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Geoffrey. “Your dedication to the country is noted, and I will pass it on.”
“I stole a carafe of water as well as food,” I said, “But I was deeply scared for a while, with bars on the windows.”
I described how I had managed to get into the maid’s room, which had no bars, and also taken possession of the key to that room.
“I must apologise for Engelbert not seeing to your comfort and safety better,” said Geoffrey.
“I accept that he is weakened from the poison, but I do not accept that he is so despised in his own home that his hospitality is abused,” I said. “However, it was Basil who gave me the key, in mentioning Sophie’s fancy-man, and that he believed her to be poisoning Engelbert in his morning tea. He did not, however, see fit to warn the brother who had generously opened his home to him.”
“Nor did he respect his brother to attempt to lay lewd hands on someone who was presented as his ward,” said Geoffrey, grimly. “I will be speaking with Engelbert about this, and I will see that Basil is sent rightabout.”
“I doubt he could hold a trade,” I said.
“He can sit on a stool as a clerk,” said Geoffrey. “He hangs on Engelbert’s sleeve, and if he had a wholesome avocation like painting or poetry or novelising, why, that can be accepted, but not when a man goes beyond what is proper with a young girl. I am shocked.”
“Parbleu! So was I,” I said. “But it is plain that your culprit is Sophie, and I don’t even know if she realises she is killing her husband or whether she assumes merely that he will be confused; her, she is a most stupid woman, and selfish, and mean, and all she cares about is her own comfort. I despise her.”
“You may be assured, I will make many things plain to the whole family,” said Geoffrey, grimly. “I cannot arrest a lady of her age for treason, but I will be asking for her lover to be sent back to Russia as persona non grata and I will make her own role as a traitor plain to her.”
“She won’t understand,” I said. “Papa, it would be far better if a naval architect drew a propellor which was wrong… I don’t know if I am right, but would not the wrong angle create nothing but turbulence?”
“Cavitation,” said Geoffrey, a smile spreading across his face. “My dear daughter! You are a wonder. I will have Engelbert draw up such a thing, and leave it where Sophie may pass it to her lover.”
I smirked.
“And then, you need not wonder who is the spy in the Russian embassy, for you will know, and can set a watch on Dimity Rashspotsoff,” I said.
“Dimitri Raskolnikov,” Geoffrey corrected me absently. “Indeed, I like it very much. I am certain that my superior will agree; Kilvert Holmes will appreciate the irony. He’s in need of cheering up; his son, Mycroft, is just three years old, and is into everything, which would be less trying if he did not already read fluently and is capable of working out compound interest on his pocket money if it is given to him late.”
“A prodigy!” I said. “He will be director of her majesty’s secret service when we retire.”
“No doubt,” said Geoffrey. “I can use your exploits to show Holmes that it is not a waste to educate women; though I fear Sophie is evidence to the contrary for him.”
“No, Papa!” I said. “It is precisely because Sophie has not been well-educated that she has been so foolish; she has no idea of the importance of a drawing of the proposed propulsion system of a warship, and that is why she has been used by an unscrupulous spy, taking advantage of her lack of knowledge as much as her silly nature.”
“Why, there is much in what you say,” said Geoffrey.
Reader, that was the end of it for me, officially; but I was pleased to learn that Geoffrey dropping the comment that Tizia was so displeased with her treatment that she sought others to be the trustees for her considerable fortune caused much distress. Sophie feathered her metaphorical oars in an attempt to turn against the current she had set herself in and Geoffrey sneered at her.
What, did you think I did not row when at university as Edward Fairfax? I was never a rowing blue, but I performed ably enough.
And Dimitri dropped her like a hot chestnut as soon as he had her drawing, which I assume was one of the factors in the total naval supremacy of the Royal Navy over the Russian fleet, as was to be ably demonstrated in a few more years’ time when we entered the Russian war in the Baltic and on the Crimean peninsula.
As to Basil, he had not managed to do anything for which to be taken in charge; but it came out that he had told Sarah some of his filthy stories from the time when she was fourteen, and she had been at first terrified when Denis Allbright showed an interest in her. The young man was, however, thoroughly wholesome, and had allayed her fears.
When Sarah confessed this, Denis laid Basil out.
“Now I know which filthy person it was who so scared my poor darling!” he said.
“My own brother!” cried Engelbert. “Well, I cannot have such a man in my household any longer. I have some lands, however, in Jamaica, and he shall go there as a bean counter, where the fever and the ague may eat him up.”
I confess, the idea of Basil having to cope with tropical heat, hurricanes, and with a bit of luck, sharks, filled me with vindictive pleasure.
Once Sophie had fulfilled her function in foisting disinformation onto the Russians, Engelbert separated from her, and paid for her to live in seclusion in a small house in Slough. Where one might hope she was despondent.
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