Cécile, noticing that I had refused her champagne, took the much-appreciated liberty of ordering for me a pot of tea. I had never quite warmed up after my time in the rain. I took the cuff links from Margaret and removed them from their box so that I might better study them. “Jeremy does not wear these with evening kit,” I said. “He always insists on his ruby and diamond quatrefoil cluster set—he goes on about them at such length it is impossible not to notice. She must have taken these from his room.”
“Which would mean that she poisoned the whisky,” Margaret said.
“Not necessarily,” Colin said, “but it does mean she was almost certainly in his room. We have nothing firm beyond that.”
“And what does that mean, Monsieur Hargreaves?” Cécile asked. “Are we to believe she was there without his knowledge?”
“I think we must,” I said. “Jeremy would have confessed if he had brought her there.” Cécile raised her hands to object, but Colin silenced her.
“Emily is correct concerning this matter. I do not believe Bainbridge brought the girl to his room.”
“So how did she get in to take the cuff links?” Margaret asked.
“I have not the slightest idea,” Colin said. “I shall see what I can find out about Marshall Cabot, however. The Sûreté in Paris may be able to help us on that count. Was there anything else of note in Hélène’s room? Letters? Papers?”
“Nothing at all,” Cécile said. “Their very absence struck me as odd.”
“I quite agree,” I said. “Her mother, at least, would have written to her. The person who murdered her must have taken or destroyed all of her correspondence, which suggests that that individual may have used letters to communicate with Hélène.”
“Which, in turn, suggests that individual is the person who wanted Jeremy dead!” Margaret slammed her hand onto the table in front of her. It would have made for a more effective punctuation to her statement if the table had not been so much lower than the divan on which she was sitting, causing her to nearly topple over.
Colin and I looked at each other. “It is as viable a theory as any we have at present,” I said.
* * *
My husband’s colleagues at the Sûreté, with whom he had worked on our case in France the year before, agreed to make inquiries about Marshall Cabot, and before noon the next day, Colin rang them to hear the results. Cabot was still in Paris, traveling with two of his friends. They had not left the city since, even to go so far as Versailles, and none of them had received any mail at the hotel, nor had they sent any telegrams.
“He could have sent a telegram from somewhere else in the city,” I said as Meg was fighting with my hair to make it respectable looking before I went downstairs for lunch. We had taken breakfast—an extremely long breakfast—in our rooms.
“Of course,” Colin said, leaning against the wall in the dressing room, his long legs crossed at the ankles. “They are going to continue to watch him, but I think it will be difficult for us to uncover any connection to Hélène. The best thing now will be for us to give them a few days to trail him.”
“Is there anything more we can do here in the meantime?” I asked. “Inquire as to whether he is known at the casino here, perhaps?”
“I will do that this afternoon,” he said.
“Will you require my assistance?”
“No, it will be easier for me to do what I need to alone.”
“Then perhaps I will organize that trip to Cimiez I have been promising Amity. I still feel a bit guilty for having lied to her about Margaret and me going to the ruins.”
It was too late to go to Nice that day, but I spoke to Amity, and we agreed that two days hence would be perfect. The gentlemen were planning a sailing excursion for tomorrow, and we did not want to conflict with that. “I only wish I had thought to write to the director of the excavations there,” I said. “He might have been able to give us a tour himself. I suppose I could send him a telegram.”
“We don’t need that,” Amity said. “I’m sure he would be a fine man, but you must admit that the odds of him being anything other than, well, boring, are unlikely. I want to explore the ruins on my own, running through them and imagining what it would have been like for a Roman girl. Should we wear togas, do you think?”
“Ladies did not wear togas,” Margaret said, disgust straining the features of her face. “They wore tunics, a peplos or a chiton if they wanted sleeves. A married woman might wear a stola over another tunic, but I have always thought they look a bit frumpy. You might instead focus on a Roman hairstyle, Amity. They were quite elaborate and spectacular. The manner favored by the Flavian empresses would suit you.”
I covered my mouth with my hand and shot Margaret what I hoped she would interpret as an evil look. The Flavian ladies’ coiffure consisted of a tall mass of curls heaped up on the front of the head, almost like a crown, with the rest of the hair pinned into place smoothly in the back, so that the difference of height, if viewed in profile, was astonishing. It could be described in any number of ways, but attractive was not one of them, and it was very bad of Margaret to mention it to Amity. Her motive was perfectly clear to me, and although I did, secretly, applaud it, I knew Amity wearing Flavian coiffure could be nothing but a bad idea.
“I don’t suppose, Margaret, you have a book that includes an illustration of the style,” Amity said. “I have quite an idea forming.”
“Indeed, I do,” Margaret said. “I shall run upstairs and fetch it for you, but only if you first tell me your idea.”
“I am going to throw a real Roman banquet for us in Nice, and you all shall have to dress accordingly. No more House of Worth for you, Emily.”
“I am confident the messieurs Worth could produce a worthy costume, but not in so little time,” I said. “What a marvelous idea, Amity.” Colin might not agree, but I thought he would look rather well in a toga.
By the end of the day, our plans were firm. Rather than attempt to get to the ruins and back in a single day, we would go to Nice tomorrow after lunch, taking a train that would get us there in plenty of time for Amity to set into motion plans for her Roman banquet. She would have the remainder of the afternoon to solidify the arrangements, and the following day, after a leisurely tour of the ruins at Cimiez, we would dine as nobilitas Romana. We would leave the bulk of our luggage in our rooms in Cannes, taking only what we would need for this short trip.
“She cannot be serious about this,” Cécile said. She, Margaret, and I had sequestered ourselves in a private train compartment for the trip. Colin, wisely, had gone with Jeremy, Jack, and Mr. Fairchild, leaving the Wells family and Christabel together. Mrs. Wells, in particular, approved of the arrangements.
“Margaret bears all the responsibility,” I said. “It was she who put the idea into Amity’s head.”
“I admit it is my fault entirely, and was due to a misguided attempt to convince her to adopt the Flavian coiffure,” Margaret said. “I pointed how out exotically beautiful she would look reclining on a dining couch, her hair jutting up far above the top of her head…”
“A dreamy image to be sure,” I said.
“I am not, reclining or otherwise, dining on a couch,” Cécile said.
“Jutting was a poor choice of word,” Margaret said. “Fortunately, it did not seem to put off Amity.”
“You are evil, Margaret,” I said. “She is going to wear it and will know the instant she sees how everyone responds that you have tricked her into looking like a fool.”
“Then you shall owe me thanks, Emily,” Margaret said. “It will distract her from going back to being angry with you.”
* * *
Because it was so late in the season, it had not been a simple matter to find a sufficient quantity of available hotel rooms in Nice. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on one’s point of view—Queen Victoria was there, having taken rooms at the Hôtel Excelsior Regina, which had opened only the year before after having been built with the royal party in mind. Colin, a longstanding favorite of the queen’s, had sent a telegram, requesting assistance, and with a wave of the royal hand (I speak figuratively, of course), rooms were made available for us. The hotel was only a short walk from the ruins, situated on a hill overlooking the city. Soon after we had all checked in and gone upstairs to freshen up, Meg stepped away from the thankless task of attempting to tame my hair to answer a knock a the door and returned to announce that a Monsieur Guérin had arrived in the hopes of seeing me.
“How exciting,” I said, urging her to hurry with my hair. “He is the director of the excavations at Cimiez. I did not expect to have the opportunity to see him.”
Monsieur Guérin, a broad affable man whose tanned face bore evidence of one who spent much time digging in the sun, was perhaps more coarse than I expected to find him, but he apologized profusely for having descended upon me without a formal introduction. “I hoped you would not object, despite the fact that I am unable to accommodate the request you made in your telegram. As I said, I am leaving town tomorrow, and cannot take you and your friends through the ruins. However, my wife and I are hosting a small dinner party this evening. Regrettably, one of our guests has just sent word that his wife is indisposed and unable to attend. You are aware, I am sure, of how this would have sent my own dear spouse into a flurry of concern. She is afraid her table will now be unbalanced. Our gathering is not a fashionable one. We are all scholars of ancient Rome, but I do hope I can entice you to join us. You would be doing my wife a kindness, and I could take you for a quick turn around the ruins before the other guests arrive.”
“What a delightful invitation,” I said. “I should love to accept. Thank you so much for thinking of me.”
“You have made her happier than you can imagine,” Colin said. “Now she will not only have had a superior tour of the site, she will be able to lecture all of us on what she learned when she takes us there in the morning.”
“I shall do my best to be as entertaining as possible,” Monsieur Guérin said, smiling to reveal a wide gap between his front teeth. We set a time to meet, bid him adieu, and headed downstairs to find our friends. Everyone had gathered except for Amity and Jeremy, who, Christabel explained, were seeing to the final details of tomorrow’s Roman banquet. They would meet us as soon as they could. After piling into carriages, we were driven down the hill to the sea, where we strolled along the Promenade des Anglais. Lest anyone believe the city of Nice owes its prominence to any other group of travelers, the name of this famous walk should disabuse said person of his erroneous notion.
The sea views from the wide promenade were nothing short of spectacular, but I was more taken with the views back over the city, where, past the hills, the snow-covered Alps thrust toward the sky. It was as beautiful a sight as could be found anywhere in the world. The promenade itself was lovely as well, with gleaming white benches placed all along it beneath a wide pergola, the harmonious simplicity of it complementing the whitecaps of the waves crashing against the pebble-filled beach. Tourists, decked out in their finest garb, processed along, some of them better pleased with themselves than their surroundings, but that is not to say that many of them did not stand, breathless, watching the sea before turning around and taking in the mountains and the elegant villas and hotels beneath them.
“Everything is set for tomorrow night,” Amity said, looking up adoringly at Jeremy as they walked toward us. “I cannot tell you what a help my darling boy has been.” She gave every appearance of brimming with excitement. Her face was flushed, her eyes shining, and her lips were so red I wondered if she had used something to color them. “Although I am confident that nothing we can do will even approach the splendor of what I have planned for tomorrow, I am consumed with the notion that we must find something spectacular to do this evening.”
“I am quite in agreement,” Margaret said. “What do you propose?”
“The theater, perhaps?” Christabel suggested. “I saw several notices in the hotel lobby that looked interesting.”
“Pedestrian,” Margaret said, her nostrils flaring.
“Not if it is the operetta at the casino,” Jeremy said. Margaret raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“What are they playing?” she asked.
“I am afraid that whatever you decide, you shall have to count me out,” I said. “I have had an invitation to dine with the director of the excavations at Cimiez.”
“That is not pedestrian in the least,” Margaret said. “You must take me with you!”
“I am afraid the invitation was extended only to me,” I said, and recounted for her Monsieur Guérin’s visit. “I am dreadfully sorry, Margaret.”
“I told her you would be fiercely angry,” Colin said. “I do hope having said that in front of Monsieur Guérin was not what dissuaded him from including you in the party.”
“Colin!” Margaret whacked him on the arm. “How could you?”
“He did nothing of the sort,” I said. “He is merely tormenting you.”
Margaret threw up her hands in despair. “You are a scholar of Greece, not Rome! This is wholly unfair.”
“That it is,” Amity said, coming close to Margaret and taking her by the arm. “Shall we insist on going without an invitation? It would be simply too very.”
“We could follow Emily in disguise if she refuses to let us accompany her,” Margaret said.
“We could wear our Roman gowns!”
Now Amity was getting carried away, and I scowled at Margaret. “What would Mr. Michaels say if word reached him of such a breech of etiquette?” I asked. “Indeed, what would the scholars of classical Rome think of him once his wife’s ill-breeding was so revealed?”
“You know as well as I that neither Mr. Michaels nor the scholars of classical Rome would even notice,” Margaret said. “I would never show up uninvited and am wounded you suggest I am capable of such a thing, but I am certain that, somehow, I shall find it in the depths of my soul—the very deep depths, the deepest of all depths—to forgive you. Eventually. At any rate, I have just discovered an idea for tonight that is far better even than dining with Monsieur Guérin. Look!” She pointed above us, where a hot air balloon floated, its large basket full of passengers. “That is what I want to do.”
“I should be terrified,” Christabel said. Jack started and stepped forward, as if he meant to offer her comfort, but retreated when he saw Mr. Fairchild already at her side.
“Nonsense,” Margaret said. “My parents rode in one in Paris at the 1878 exhibition. I have never forgiven them for insisting I was too small to accompany them.” She took Colin by the wrist. “Come and help me arrange it.” As no one other than Christabel objected—I am confident Mr. and Mrs. Wells would not approve, but as they had stayed behind at the Regina, they had no say in the matter—it was soon agreed.
Colin and Margaret returned half an hour later. The ride could not take place for nearly two more hours—the balloon was a popular attraction—so it was determined that we would sit and listen to one of the small orchestras playing a program of Mozart and Strauss in a nearby park to pass the time. Because I would need to dress for dinner, I left the others there, leaving before the concert was over. Back at the hotel, a message awaited me, informing me that Her Majesty requested my presence at breakfast the following morning. This came as no surprise. My mother’s relationship with the queen, whom she had served for years as a lady-in-waiting, made the summons a foregone conclusion. They were still close friends. As much as Victoria Regina adored my husband, she shared my mother’s low opinion of myself, and I had no doubt that I would be treated to a stern lecture over porridge. Still, it was not to be avoided.
I would worry about the queen later; now I had to decide what to wear this evening. A dinner dress would not be practical for exploring ruins, so I instead donned a smartly tailored suit and a pair of sturdy boots, assuming that the wives of archaeologists and scholars would not balk at the lack of formality. Meg, however, did not approve. “No matter what you are doing first, you ought to be dressed properly for dinner, madam,” she said.
“Just wait until you see what Miss Wells is requiring for tomorrow night’s banquet,” I said.
“That is entirely different, madam,” Meg said. “When the hostess has given specific directions—”
“Thank you, Meg.” I said. “That will be all.”
I set off from the hotel a little after eight o’clock. Twilight had drenched the sky in indigo, but there were still traces of pink in the scattered clouds. A bright moon had risen, and I was anticipating with a thrill of delight the effect it would have on the ancient stones I was about to see. There was an iron gate at the entrance to the site, and a chain and open padlock hung on it.
“Bienvenue, Lady Emily!” I could not quite make out Monsieur Guérin’s face in the dim light, but I recognized his voice, cheerful and strong, and followed the sound through the gate. Before I had taken no more than six steps, pain exploded in the back of my neck and everything around me went black.
The balloon ride proved a spectacular success. Amity could not have been more delighted. She had disappointed herself, though, by not being able to muster the courage to step into the basket. Instead, she was forced to watch from below, waving as her friends floated above her. If Jeremy considered this a weakness, he showed no sign of it. He offered, gallantly, to remain behind with her.
“I only said I would go because I thought you wanted to,” he confessed, standing next to her watching the balloon. “It is much more pleasant to have a few moments alone, is it not?”
“I could not agree more,” Amity said. “Do you think they are high enough now that I could kiss you without anyone we know seeing? Had I realized the potential of this situation, I would have engineered the entire scheme just for this purpose.”
“I am willing to take the risk.” He lowered his face to hers. “Our wedding cannot come soon enough.” They stepped back from the railing and sat on one of the benches that stood on the Promenade des Anglais, facing the sea. There was almost no breeze now, a happy circumstance for the ballooners, and fortunate for the gentlemen who often had to cling to their hats as they walked along the shore. The sun was setting, filling the western edge of the sky with bright streaks of vermillion, while the east fought to remain blue, even as the shade grew more and more pale before retreating in the face of dusky twilight.
“Where shall we go on our honeymoon?” Amity asked. “The sky is so lovely here it makes me feel quite romantic.”
“Anywhere and everywhere that strikes your fancy, my love,” Jeremy said. “India, perhaps? You say you came to adore it, and I have never been there.”
“There is nowhere I would rather go.” She let her head drop onto his shoulder. “I should very much like to hold my husband’s hand and gaze with him at the beauty of the Taj Mahal. I suppose that makes me sound very boring and predictable, doesn’t it?”
“Amity, my dear, I do not think most ladies would brave a trip to India, even for the Taj Mahal,” Jeremy said. “You stand so far above your peers it seems wrong to even classify them with you. I do apologize, I am not good with words, but I do hope you catch my meaning.” Amity smiled and opened her mouth to reply, but stopped when a man appeared in front of them.
“Monsieur le duc?” he asked, whipping the hat from his head and holding it in front of his chest. “Are you the Duke of Bainbridge?”
“I am,” Jeremy said, rising.
“A message for you, sir.” He smiled, revealing a gap between his front teeth, gave Jeremy an envelope, bowed awkwardly, and gestured for him to follow.