“Clever boy,” Madame Li said, chuckling. In truth, he admired the ruse.
“Sometime in the next few hours, the badly charred body of the prime minister’s son will be identified by the police medical examiners,” von Draxis said, smiling broadly. “The press will go insane.” He was busily putting his weapon to bed in the aluminum case.
“Very impressive,” Madame Li said, and he meant it. The scheme was inspired. And the German clearly a man of great courage and cunning. “Will I see you again, my dear Baron?”
“My work here for the moment is ended, Frau Li,” von Draxis said. “My plane is even now warming its engines at Le Bourget. I must get back to my beloved Valkyrie, my yacht, you see, so, I will be leaving you. I am only sorry that I won’t be joining you for the fete at Château Belmaison this evening.”
“A fete?”
“Mais oui, madame. I have invited the sultan of Oman to Paris. Tomorrow morning at the Palais he is to receive the Légion d’Honneur. Tonight, I am hosting a soiree to celebrate this great honor to be bestowed upon His Excellency, the Sultan,” Luca said. “Une bal masqué at my country estate. You are invited to this masked ball, Madame Li.”
“I accept with pleasure. We will miss you, Baron von Draxis,” he said and offered the German his hand. The baron took it and smiled, his blue eyes crinkling in a most warm expression of goodwill.
Von Draxis added, “Zo, Frau Li, we have now this day begun the inevitable spiral toward a new world. This is what shall later be called history, madame. Enjoy it.”
“Indeed. Who knows what reprisals against the current government we might expect? Or what the lunatic extremists who support me might extract in retaliation for this craven attempt on my life?” Bonaparte said, and expelled a cloud of smoke with great satisfaction. “We might even see another most unfortunate assassination.”
“Or two.” The baron chuckled. The car slid to a stop in front of a hangar at Le Bourget and the German climbed out. The driver shut the door, climbed behind the wheel, and the Maybach accelerated away. Luca reclined his seat and expelled a great cloud of Cuban cigar smoke.
“Bienvenue à Paris, Madame Li,” Bonaparte said.
Chapter Nineteen
Hampstead Heath
CONGREVE, HIS VIVID IMAGINATION HOUNDED BY BASKERVILLES, was racing across the haunted Grimpen Moor in the north of England, when the telephone jangled. He was so deeply lost in his beloved and well-thumbed Sherlock Holmes volume, he’d first thought the ring was part of the cracking good story. He looked up at the brass ship’s chronometer mounted on the wall above his reading chair. There was a click and whir. Eight bells tolled midnight in the cozy sanctuary of his library.
He reached for the phone.
“Hullo,” he said into the mouthpiece, and waited for whatever bad news was even now inexorably zipping along the wires in his direction.
“Is that Ambrose Congreve?”
“Yes, I suppose it is. Who’s calling, please?”
“Oh, Ambrose, it’s Diana Mars. I’m so sorry to ring at such a wretched hour. But I felt that I had to call immediately.”
“Are you in some kind of danger, Lady Mars?”
“Call me Diana, please. No, I’m not. But I fear you may be.”
“Ah, well, in that case, you needn’t be alarmed. I’m quite accustomed to danger, you see. Goes with the territory, as they say in the, uh—territories.”
“Ambrose, please, hear me out. I think your life may be in grave danger. If you don’t mind, I’d—I’d rather not speak of this over the telephone.”
“Well, I could drive over to Brixden House. At this time of night, it would take me only about—”
“No, no. Not in this house. I’ll explain when I see you. I’d drive myself over to you but there’s something wrong with the Bentley. It’s the only car I have keys for…and, well, I don’t want to rouse my chauffeur.”
“A pub somewhere in between us? No, that won’t work. Too late.”
“All closed. I know what we’ll do. We’ll meet down at Spring Cottage. It’s all shut up but I have a key, naturally. Do you know it? My summer house?”
“The Tudor structure on the river below the main house.”
“Exactly. Can you meet me there in half an hour?”
“Half past. Jolly good. See you then.”
He hung up the phone. For some reason, when he stood up, he tried to touch his toes. Hadn’t done it in years, but he felt just spry enough at the moment to attempt it. Blast. No luck. Couldn’t do it now, because his damn belly got in the way. Still, it felt pretty damn good to limber up a bit. Get the old blood flowing before one sprang into action. He stopped on his way out the door and shook his head, laughing at this picture of himself, the still-vigorous knight-errant taking up his battle-weary lance and entering the lists once more.
In his dressing room, shedding his navy silk pajamas, he paused by the small bow window seat and sat on the cushion. What does one wear to a secret midnight rendezvous in a deserted house? Considering a selection of tweed jackets, he chanced to notice through the window that lights were still on in Mrs. Purvis’s bedroom. Upon returning from hospital, she had been installed in the rooms over the gardener’s cottage some few hundred yards distant. It was decided that she would be far more comfortable there than in her prior digs, the small bed-sitting room under an eave on the third floor of Heart’s Ease Cottage.
Mrs. Purvis not sleeping well? The doctor had said she’d be uncomfortable for at least another month. The bullet had torn a muscle in the chest wall that would be slow to heal. Poor dear. Ambrose had had no idea just how much her cheery presence meant until she was gone.
He chose a much-loved tattersall shirt, and a cavalry twill jacket over an old pair of flannels. Then, with a shudder of pleasure, he slipped on the brand-new pair of driving shoes he’d bought at Mr. J.P. Todd’s establishment. They were red, a rather vivid shade, which Ambrose thought gave them quite a racy flair. Dorothy’s slippers, Sutherland had called them upon their debut, and Congreve, unlike Ross himself, had not been even slightly amused.
He switched off the lights in his dressing room and the single lamp beside his bed and headed for the back staircase. At the end of a short corridor was a door to a room he’d seldom entered until very recently. An enchanted room, full of magic and wonder he’d only just discovered. He took three long strides and was there, hand on knob.
He could hardly believe his zooming pulse rate as he entered his garage and reached for the light switch.
Click.
Oh.
Just the light reflected in the mirror finish of the long sculpted bonnet took his breath away. The car, his car, was a Morgan. The 1962 Plus Four Drophead. Forty-three years old, but she’d undergone a frame-off, rubber up restoration, whatever that meant. Wooden chassis, ash, stainless-steel wire wheels with spinners. A newish color one seldom saw on a Morgan, bright canary yellow for the body with a sort of Harrod’s green for the fenders. Forced to choose a word to describe the paint scheme to someone, he might use the word “snappy.” Yes, he thought, opening the driver’s side door and climbing behind the wooden steering wheel, definitely snappy.
And he’d bought the two-seater machine off the Internet (actually, his pal Chappy Morris at the Crown and Anchor had done it all on the pub’s office computer) for a good deal less than twenty thousand quid! Why, he’d simply stolen the jewels when you thought about it.
He sat there for a moment, just breathing in the smells of the thing. The leather seats, the grease on the wheels, the carnauba wax on the fenders, the fresh sawdust he’d sprinkled on the floor. Why, the entire garage was full of wondrous sensory inputs. The smell of old machine parts and oil and dirt in the dark space was intoxicating. How had he missed all this? This was the stuff of dreams.