Good Night, Mr. Holmes Part 22

"Yes, thank you so much. I trill like a nightingale for hours after. Have you used it yourself?"

Hortense reached into a basket on the table to extract an apple, into whose red cheek she bit with yellowed protuberant teeth. The cores of the apple's consumed brethren littered a Meissen plate, pips piled in a neat anthill near one edge.

"My voice is not my livelihood, Miss Adler. With my husband gone at the southern estates so much, I need not even raise it."

Irene laughed far more than this feeble jest deserved as the d.u.c.h.ess dipped a handkerchief in a bottle of clear fluid and daubed her temples.

"For the headache," the d.u.c.h.ess Hortense said. "Lily of the Valley distilled in white wine."

"I should think the white wine would give one a headache," I couldn't help remarking.

The d.u.c.h.ess pinioned me with a disapproving stare. "It is Austrian wine," she answered, as if such a vintage was invariably free of flaws. She finished her apple and deposited the core on the plate, but not before idly picking the pips free and pushing them with a fingernail into the rough pile.

When we had taken our farewells and were again in a deserted hallway Irene kept silent beyond her habit.

"What are you thinking?" I unwisely asked.

"Of how I could get into brother Bertie's room to see his hair preparations."

"Now that is clearly improper! Even dangerous. I forbid it!"

"Of course I shall not, then," Irene said with mock meekness.

"Of course you will... Oh, Irene, you cannot behave in Prague Castle as if you still lived in Saffron Hill. If you are caught doing anything out of character here, it will end your influence with the Prince. He is a stickler for appearances."

"You think so?"

"I know so. I also can guess what you're contemplating. If the Prince found you in male dress, even as an excuse to investigate Bertrand's room...!"

"Of course I shan't storm Bertie's room in pin-striped frockcoat," Irene said impatiently. "If I can't enter myself, I shall have to use another pair of legs. Perhaps his man."

There the discussion ended. Two days later I found Irene in the castle's huge and musty library. It was a fanciful chamber, a high-ceilinged tower with books and wrought-iron balconies strung around its perimeter like frills on the skirt of an evening gown.

Irene was seated under the curl of a wrought-iron spiral staircase, a small, much aged tome in her hands.

"Jaborandi," she greeted me triumphantly.

"I beg your pardon? Is that Czech?"

"Too many vowels. No, it is what brother Bertrand puts upon the billiard ball he calls his head, but perhaps a fiendishly clever head at that."

"Bertrand? Clever? Irene, tell me something I can credit."

"Jaborandi," she repeated. "An herb used to stimulate hair growth, so the loyal unsuspecting body servant, Kurt, tells me. This book in my hand-and, significantly, in the castle library-tells me that it is also deadly poisonous. The villain is a substance called pilocarpine. Isn't that a wonderful word? It sounds like something one could call a melodrama villain: 'Leave my house, you pilocarpine!'"

"Poisonous?" I ignored Irene's histrionics as I sat on a wrought-iron stair, my skirts cushioning me from its steely pattern. "How, if Bertrand is using it daily?"

"Externally." Irene patted the top of her luxuriant curls. "But Jaborandi is liquid and could easily be slipped into a sickroom broth. Especially since both Hortense and Bertrand have shown themselves aware of herbs."

"What of ...Willie?"

"Willie?"

"He is the heir. The others have nothing to gain."

"Willie would not stoop to poison; it is alien to his character-he who has always been bigger than life. When Willie wishes to speed a person on his way, he will tell that victim outright, expecting him to wither from sheer sorrow at the withdrawal of Willie's princely presence."

"Or her." I could not quarrel with Irene's knowledge of the Prince, but I could shiver a bit at this astute characterization. "You describe a ruthless person."

"He is royalty; they are all ruthless by birth. You harbor a bit of that attribute yourself, Nell."

"I?"

"You ... when you think that you are right."

"Apparently you are right. This Jaborandi can be fatal and is at hand to palace intimates. Still, how will you accuse a princeling like Bertrand?"

"I will refrain from it, dear Nell. Not from fear, but because there is something in Hortense's behavior that disquiets me more-"

"There is a great deal in Hortense's behavior that is disquieting, but it need not be murderous."

"Still, did you notice her apples the other day? She had eaten half a basket-and it is her custom to consume a great many a day. I have inquired-discreetly-in the kitchen."

"Eating apples is not a suspicious act."

"It is if you save the seeds."

"Seeds? There are no seeds in apples-oh, you Americans call pips 'seeds' ..."

"Whatever you call them, in quant.i.ty they are rife with poison, as are peach pits, which perhaps you British call 'pips.'"

I ignored Irene's linguistic baiting. "But how could one dose an invalid with a quant.i.ty of apple pips?"

"Ground in a mush, crushed in a tea. This volume states the interesting case of a gentleman who so loved the seeds that he ate the harvest of several apples a day- suffering no ills because a steady, small intake acclimates the person to the poison. Then, one day, in an orgy of apple seed indulgence, he saved up and consumed a cup's worth. Dead as a dodo by the next day, despite his previous tolerance.

"I wonder if Hortense could have been dosing the King with just enough to weaken him before administering the coup de grace. For a man of his age and weakness, a half cup should suffice and could easily be concealed in an apple cake or brewed into a heady concentrate of herbal tea."

"So the poisoner is Hortense then? But why?"

Irene frowned as she shut the book and slipped it in the pocket of her voluminous skirt. "I am unsure on both counts. As you point out so lucidly, the motive seems strained. Simply because I do not relish Bertrand or Hortense as an in-law is no reason to convict them of crime."

"You, like Willie, observe the proprieties," said I.

"Exactly, my dear Nell. So I shall muse upon the matter and ask the staff what and how they feed the old gentleman, the King-"

"Without exciting suspicions about yourself! Irene, if the King should die of poison, you would be a far likelier suspect than any member of the family."

"I?" The eventuality had not occurred to her, so much had the Crown Prince turned her normally practical head. "Why?"

"You aspire to be a member of the family and are not of n.o.ble blood. Your Prince may not care, but his family will. If well, the King might have enforced your separation."

Irene stood. "Then I must solve this suspicion for my own sake. And yours."

"Mine?"

"Naturally, my astute Nell. Who has arrived only lately from afar but my friend and boon companion, Miss Penelope Huxleigh? Who is likely to be accused as accomplice?"

"Myself? Oh dear..."

"We never see the finger when it indicates ourselves." Irene shrugged her smile away. "At the rate my inquiries are progressing, I should see the bottom of the affair in a day or two. There is naught to worry about."

Chapter Twenty.

A POCKETFUL OF WHY.

We left the library possessed of its little book of secrets and a certain smugness at our own cleverness.

Within a day Irene was cursing her possession of it, but there was no way to disown it. The King had died. Rumors of poison ran rampant through the Castle, no doubt fueled by Irene's subtle but memorable inquiries among the servants.

Within hours of the death, distant relatives from the farthest geographical wrinkles of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been telegraphed and were wending their way across the picturesque frontiers of many lands en route to the state funeral. The Prince was virtually incommunicado, even to Irene.

We paced our respective chambers, as good as prisoners snared in a web of state ceremony. We could neither declare our suspicions nor defend our innocence. The castle was being methodically but secretly searched, for Hortense's had swiftly revealed a book on herbs to be absent from the library.

"I'll take the book and conceal it somewhere," I offered.

"No, to move it invites greater danger. They have not dared search our rooms yet." Irene stood inspecting the spires of gla.s.s atop her lace-draped dressing table and their throat-soothing contents. "I wonder if any of these elixirs have a more malign use than I am aware of?"

"Or if something could be put into one of them to point the finger at you?"

"Bohemia has sharpened your fancy, Nell; that is a positively baroque idea. Hand me that candle and take another for yourself."

I caught my breath when Irene tilted the taper and let the wax drip down from the wick's liquid well. "You'll mar the lace!"

She ignored my worry, seizing a bottle and turning the seam where stopper met neck under the dripping wax. A waxen ring hardened around the container. She set it down before it was firm and lifted the next bottle to her improvised seal "They may want to break the seals to examine the contents," I warned, lifting a bottle to my own candle.

"At least we shall know if anyone has tampered with them from this point on."

"What of your throat?" came my afterthought.

Irene pressed a hand to her heart as she swore: "From this day forward, I shall tend it only with tea and honey; no foreign herbs. Now, I must discover the facts of the King's demise. Since even I cannot gain audience with the Prince while he is consumed with the formalities of a state funeral, I must use the occasion of dinner to find them out."

"Irene! Even you cannot question a bereaved family for signs of foul play over dinner."

"I must, Penelope, or the killer will go free and some innocent parry will be tinged with suspicion. Like yourself."

Knowing Irene's propensity to strike while the iron was incandescent, I dressed for dinner that evening wishing that I wore chain mail, properly black, of course, instead of a sober bombazine gown suitable for mourning.

Irene's black velvet gown glittered with jet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, cut low over her shoulders; a mourning necklace of large faceted onyx beads was caught close around her throat. As usual, even the state of grief seemed designed to display Irene to best advantage. The new-made King addressed her with melting looks from the head of the table while Hortense's disapproving fan switched like an angry black cat's tail.

"Have the arrangements been made, your Majesty?" Irene inquired of the King.

"It is nearly done," he said with a sigh.

Irene trailed her spoon through the clear oxtail broth. "It must be an intolerable strain for all of you-and especially the d.u.c.h.ess."

"Yes," he began, "but why especially Hortense? She was not particularly attached to our father."

"Willie!" Hortense said.

He shrugged at her outrage. To a man of his rank and size, others' objections were minute as gnats. "I do not mean that you failed to offer him filial affection, Tensy, only that Father did not encourage a show of emotion. The funeral will respect that inclination."

"I was, was..." Irene faltered prettily, then cast the confused Hortense a sidelong glance. "...referring to the d.u.c.h.ess's condition."

"Condition?" Hortense repeated the word in an indignant squeak. The Queen Mother trilled it. And Willie bellowed it.

"I merely thought," Irene stumbled on, "well, the quant.i.ty of apples her Grace has been consuming of late. Surely she is, that is-"

I had never known Irene to suffer from such delicate sensibilities. Her calculated silence forced Hortense to voice the thought Irene had planted in every head.

"I am not," the d.u.c.h.ess replied, her face scarlet, "in the condition which you so boldly imply, Miss Adler. I merely have an inordinate fondness for apples."

"Hmm, inordinate," Irene murmured. "Pardon my misapprehension."

"You seem to labor under a great many misapprehensions, Miss Adler," Hortense said coldly.

Everyone at table stared into the oxtail soup. The King's face slowly suffused with crimson. I reflected that Irene's presence at the family board-like my own- was due only to Willie's flouting of his family customs. We were commoners, interlopers and, of course, easy scapegoats.

For the first time I experienced a thrill of fear. How easy to charge Irene with the late King's murder as her way of making Willie the monarch beforetime! How well it would suit everyone's purpose, perhaps even Willie's, now that he was King.

He broke the silence with what rang out as a royal command.

"Miss Adler, you and Miss Huxleigh will take cognac with me in the library after dinner."

Irene bowed her head in acquiescence. Only I and the oxtail soup saw her minuscule smile. "That's one way to earn an audience; raise a row at dinner," she murmured without glancing my way.

I was never so happy to vacate a dining table as I was to leave that unhappy board. Soon after we stood like schoolgirls called to account as the King paced in the library's murky light, his elongated shadow casting ribbed reflections on the rows of book spines.

"My dear Irene," he began, flinging me a cautious glance.

"Penelope is utterly discreet, Willie; I would stake my life upon it."