“We are in agreement,” the baroness said in obvious relief.
“Excellent,” the chancellor said, rubbing his hands together. “There is much preparation to be done. I suggest you return here no later than teatime—”
“I think,” Stoker broke in, “that Miss Speedwell and I may be permitted a few moments to discuss the matter. In private.”
The chancellor looked as though he would like to protest, but the baroness gave him a long look and he nodded. “We will withdraw and you may have until the mantel clock chimes,” he told us. He pointed to the clock, a hideous affair of folksy wooden carving that could only have been crafted from some Bavarian nightmare. It was a sort of cottage or chalet, lavishly embellished with fruits and animals and great flowers picked out in garish paints. The door of the cottage was a particularly lurid shade of scarlet.
“How very unusual,” I said, attempting a polite smile.
“It is an example of our native Alpenwalder work,” the chancellor said with unmistakable pride. “I shall make you a present of one. But only if you are successful in this endeavor,” he added firmly.
He nodded brusquely to the baroness as he withdrew, and she darted us an apologetic glance. “Take whatever time you need,” she urged. “We will not trouble you until you call.”
She closed the door softly behind them and I turned to face Stoker.
“I will not point out the peril of this undertaking,” he said slowly. “I know you too well to believe that is any sort of deterrent to you.”
“You raised the subject with the chancellor,” I reminded him.
“Because I rather hoped he had more sense.” The words might have stung but for the gentle mournfulness of the tone. My insistence upon this rash scheme had obviously struck a stretched nerve.
“It is the best opportunity to discover more about Alice Baker-Greene’s death,” I told him. “We believe someone in the Alpenwald wanted her dead, and someone in the royal entourage might know something.”
“‘Someone,’ ‘something,’” he mimicked. “I think the connection is tenuous at best.”
“Did you not mark the name of the guard captain? Durand. It is he who witnessed Alice’s fall. And he has a rather impressive set of moustaches—as does the chancellor, who, I would like to point out, also sports a summit badge of the Teufelstreppe. We have been here a quarter of an hour and already discovered two potential suspects.”
“Suspects! You really believe one of them pushed an Englishwoman off a mountain?”
“Not necessarily,” I countered smoothly. “But at the very least, Captain Durand has knowledge of Alice’s final climb—knowledge we will have the opportunity to extract if we spend time amongst these Alpenwalders. We might even be able to persuade them to reconsider opening a proper investigation, for I believe in my bones one of them is guilty of her murder.”
“I highly doubt that,” he said.
“Would you care to wager upon the fact?” I challenged. “We used to do so. I believe the stakes were a pound.”
He drew his watch chain from his pocket. From it dangled a single sovereign coin, pierced to make a sort of charm of it. That coin had passed between us and back again as we had exchanged winnings on the wagers of our investigations. As a joke, Stoker had had the thing adapted to hang from his watch chain, a gesture of arrogance, I decided, as it meant he never intended I should win again. It was only in a moment of tender intimacy that he had admitted to wearing it because it was the one possession he had that I had also owned, and in the darkest days, when he dared not hope I would return his love, it was his consolation.
Now he gently removed it from the chain and pressed it into my palm. “Take it. You believe you are correct and I have lost the will to argue the point.”
The metal was warm still from where it had nestled in his pocket, near his body. My fingers reached nearly closed around it, but I pushed it back into his hand. I would win it fairly or not at all. After a moment, he returned it to the chain.
“It is not like you to be so acquiescent,” I said mildly. “Are you ill?”
“Not ill, but neither am I naïve. I understand why you are driven to do this thing and I will not fight you.”
“I am driven by the need to see justice done for Alice Baker-Greene,” I began, my blood warming with indignation.
He put out his hand to touch mine, but seemed to think better of it. “If that is what you believe, then who am I to argue?”
“Stoker, if you have something to say, then be plain about it,” I told him in a sharp tone. “I have no wish to play games with you.”
“I am not the one you are attempting to deceive,” he said.
“Deceive!” I squared my shoulders, preparing to defend myself with vigor, but just then the clock on the mantel began to chime. The little scarlet door opened and instead of the expected cuckoo, a small mountain goat toddled out. Whilst we watched, both horrified and entranced, it opened its mouth and noisily bleated the hour, sticking out its ruddy tongue for good measure.
“That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen,” Stoker said at last.
“And possibly the loudest,” I agreed. We exchanged a look of understanding, a sort of conspiratorial comprehension that had marked our relationship almost from the start, even when we were at our most adversarial.
“Stoker,” I began, reaching for his hand.
But as quickly as the moment had come, it fled again. Stoker slipped just out of reach and moved towards the door where the baroness and chancellor had disappeared. He knocked on it and the chancellor opened it at once. Clearly the Alpenwalder had been waiting, possibly with his ear to the door.
“Yes?” he asked eagerly.
“You have your princess,” Stoker told him. “For tonight.”
The chancellor did not bother to conceal his delight. “I am pleased to hear it. Naturally, there shall be a generous remuneration—”
Stoker bridled so hard I thought he might do a modest violence upon the chancellor.
“We do not require payment of any sort,” he said through gritted teeth. The very notion of money changing hands was anathema to the British nobility, and Stoker still retained enough of his upbringing to have an uneasy relationship with wages of any variety. His accounts, I need not mention, swung wildly between lavish overdraft and equally impressive prosperity. As an aristocrat himself, the chancellor would have realized that offering payment was tantamount to insulting Stoker.
“That is very generous of you, Chancellor,” I put in smoothly. “You should put any funds in the hands of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on his behalf. Now, if you will excuse us, we have a few matters to attend to before returning this afternoon. I believe you said teatime?”