Blood Royal Read online

  “Well, you’re the celebrity detective,” Allardyce retorted.

  “Indeed,” the dandy said, his shark-like grin putting the police inspector in his place again, “I am.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Last Will and Testament of

  Victor Gallowglass

  WHEN ULYSSES QUICKSILVER finally made it home – filthy, wet and cold – it was to find Dr Methuselah’s analysis of the two blood samples waiting for him. But he decided that whatever it was that the cantankerous old coot had discovered could wait until after a hot bath and a change of attire. He did have house guests after all, and Inspector Allardyce’s comments had brought it home to him that standards had to be maintained.

  “Another one for the dustmen, don’t you think, old boy?” Ulysses said as he handed his sodden and sooty jacket to his manservant, having barely got further than the threshold of his Mayfair home.

  “Very good, sir,” the immaculately turned out Nimrod responded, his nose wrinkling as he took the proffered garment and held it at arm’s length.

  “And run me a bath, would you? Nice and hot and plenty of bubbles. I have a need to be clean.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where’s the child? And her governess?”

  “There are upstairs, sir, in the nursery.”

  “The nursery.” A smile came to Ulysses’ face as he remembered how he and Barty had played together there when they had been children, when their parents had still been alive. The smile faded. “I’m glad the old place is seeing some use again.”

  “Did you want to see them, sir?”

  “No. I don’t want to see anybody until after I’ve had that bath. Apart from you, of course, old chap.”

  “Of course, sir,” Nimrod said with a sigh.

  LATER, AS HE luxuriated in the hot water – eyes closed, letting his thoughts drift with the curling clouds of pine-scented steam – Ulysses considered what he knew of the circumstances of Victor Gallowglass’s death, the nature of his killer, even the events leading up to the kidnap of his daughter and how Miranda was mixed up in it all.

  An hour later, now with more questions than answers on his mind, Ulysses dressed in a clean white shirt, gun metal grey silk and moleskin trews, then retired to his study to partake of a plate of shrimp and avocado, and study Dr Methuselah’s analysis of the blood samples.

  After all the waiting and the expectation it wasn’t what he had been expecting. To be honest, he hadn’t been certain what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what the results were showing him.

  There was absolutely nothing special about the blood sample Ulysses had rescued from the shattered test tube that had been brought to the pier. It was a perfect match for the other sample Ulysses had collected from the blood-drenched crime scene, from Gallowglass’s body itself.

  He threw the smudged Babbage printout onto the desk with a harrumph of annoyance.

  But what had Victor Gallowglass been doing carrying a sample of his own blood all the way from Belgravia to the East End and a pier on the River Thames?

  This mystery had its claws in him now and wouldn’t let go.

  There came a knock at the study door.

  “Come!” Ulysses snapped, his irritation spilling over into his tone of voice.

  The door opened. “Sir, this also came while you were out,” Nimrod said, passing Ulysses an innocuous brown paper package, tied with string.

  “Well, what have we got here then?” he mused. There was something unnervingly familiar about the tidy hand that had inscribed the address, it looked to be that of Gallowglass.

  It was no bigger than a cigar box. Ulysses hurriedly pulled the string free and then paused. He picked the package up and put it to his ear, listening intently for a moment. He then shook it gently.

  Nimrod, watching him all the while with hawkish interest, swallowed hard.

  “Can’t be too careful,” Ulysses said, placing the package carefully on the desk. “Not after what happened last time. Well, here goes nothing.”

  He ripped the wrapping paper free, revealing, as he had suspected, a taped-up cigar box.

  “So far so good,” he said, reaching for a Sri Lankan ivory letter opener and running it along the seams of the box.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Ulysses prised open the box. Ripping off the lid, he then set about carefully removing the wads of cotton wool filling it until the treasure it contained was revealed.

  It was another sealed test tube full of what Ulysses presumed to be blood from its colour and viscosity. He took the phial in his fingers and carefully lifted it out of the box. It felt cold to the touch, the thick, near-black liquid moving sluggishly from one end of the tube to the other as it see-sawed between Ulysses’ finger and thumb.

  And there was something else, a piece of paper, frayed down one side as if it had been torn from a journal, bearing a note written in the same tidy hand.

  This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.

  Nimrod’s eyebrows arched as he peered across the desk in an attempt to read the note himself. Ulysses spun it round with a finger, for him to see.

  “’This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine,’” he read. “Most intriguing.”

  “Not really, Nimrod. Classic Shakespeare. Third year, Chalky Chambers’ English Literature class, last period before lunch on a Thursday, if I rightly recall. Gallowglass and I both endured the old beak’s lectures about the Bard, but that was actually one play of his I did enjoy.”

  “Oh, I see,” Nimrod said.

  “No, old boy, I don’t think you do. ‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’ is a line straight out of The Tempest, when the magician Prospero talks of Caliban, his deformed and monstrous slave.”

  “I see, sir.”

  Ulysses’ eyes narrowed as he leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the desk in front of him, his fingers steepling before his face.

  Was this Victor Gallowglass’s last will and testament, one phial of blood and a scrawled line from Shakespeare?

  “You know what? I think I would like you to intrude upon our guests in the nursery.”

  “MR QUICKSILVER? YOU wanted to see me again?” the governess asked, as she poked her head around the study door.

  “Ah, Miss Wishart. Please, come in. I am sorry to trouble you again,” he said, affecting his most ingratiating manner. “And do, call me Ulysses.”

  She blushed, but took a seat. “What did you want to see me about?”

  “I am afraid that my continued badgering is in pursuit of the truth, as to who had Dr Gallowglass murdered. And so I must ask you again if you can recall anything – anything at all – that your employer might have said or done that might give us a clue as to what he had become mixed up in and that could have resulted in someone wanting him dead.”

  “We have gone over this before.” The governess sounded on edge.

  “I know, but there must have been something, no matter how insignificant you might consider it. Any clue at all.”

  “I did not pry into my employer’s business,” Miss Wishart said simply.

  “Of course, I understand that, but that’s not what I was implying,” Ulysses coaxed. “I’m sorry if that’s how my questioning came across, but is there anything – anything at all?”

  “I was employed to look after and educate his daughter, Mr Quicksilver. I was not his housekeeper. In fact, I was not his keeper in any way, shape or form. I did not ask him what he was working on in his lab just as I did not ask him what transpired when he attended surgery at the Daedalus Clinic on Harley Street, or what business he had on the Isle of Wight.”

  “The Isle of Wight?” Ulysses repeated.

  “On royal business, naturally,” Miss Wishart said proudly, basking for a moment in the reflected glory of her employer’s highly-regarded position. “It was Dr Gallowglass by royal appointment, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Miss Wishart,” Ulysses exclaimed, leaping up from his chair on the other side of t
he desk, “I could kiss you!”

  “Mr Quicksilver! The impropriety!” the woman gasped, recoiling, but unable to hide her smile amidst her blushes.

  “Nimrod!” Ulysses shouted, making for the study door. Before he could reach it, the door opened, Nimrod already waiting there at the threshold.

  “You bellowed, sir?”

  “Nimrod, pack a bag. It’s time we got away from the Big Smoke for a couple of days, don’t you think? A bit of sea air,” he said, flashing the governess a devilish grin, “that’s what we need.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Isle of Wights

  GRAVEL CRUNCHING NOISILY beneath its tyres, the Rolls Royce Mark IV Silver Phantom pulled up outside the main visitor’s entrance to the grand, creamy stoned Italianate palazzo-style house.

  Ulysses Quicksilver opened the passenger door and got out, marvelling at the grand facade, with its promenade balcony and belvedere tower, one of two possessed by the property. He then moved to the rear of the vehicle where he opened the door to let Miss Wishart and her charge out of the car.

  The governess almost let her carefully composed guard down as she stepped out of the Rolls and saw the house for the first time. The child, however, had none of that foolish adult bravado to maintain.

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Miss Wishart?” she said as she gazed up at the entrance facade.

  “It is a fine example of a mock Italian Renaissance palazzo, certainly,” the governess replied, quickly recovering her composure.

  “Yes, Miranda,” Ulysses said, squatting down on his haunches in front of the child, “it is wonderful, isn’t it? Shall we take a look inside?”

  “Oh, yes please. Can we?”

  “Of course you can, if that’s what you’d like.”

  “Yes please, Uncle Ulysses.”

  “Come on then,” he said, taking her by the hand and the two of them made for the pillared entrance at a gentle run, valet and governess following behind.

  THE FERRY JOURNEY had been tolerable and, from the drop off point at Fishbourne, it had only been a short drive along hedgerow-bordered roads to the East Cowes promontory and the former royal residence.

  Osborne House had stood on this spot for roughly 150 years, having been completed in 1851, built by the renowned London architect Thomas Cubitt to a design of the Prince Consort’s.

  Her Royal Highness Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had bought the house that once stood at the location as a summer house and rural retreat, somewhere they could go to, to escape the stresses and strains of life in London. The Queen harboured fond memories of childhood holidays, whilst the views of the Solent from the grounds reminded her husband of the Bay of Naples.

  Of course the three storey Georgian house that stood on the site when they purchased the property soon proved too small for their burgeoning needs, unable, as it was, to cater for the needs of their growing family. Pulling down the old house and building anew was considered the only appropriate course of action. And it catered for the Queen’s heirs still.

  Only now it wasn’t a holiday home; now it was a hospital. Although, if truth be told, it was more prison than hospital; a containment facility for those members of Queen Victoria’s extended family too old and decrepit to look after themselves but too important to be allowed to end their days in peace.

  It was only thanks to Ulysses’ royal insignia-stamped ID that they had made it past the heavily fortified gates and the automaton sentries on duty there.

  “AH, MR QUICKSILVER.”

  A portly, middle-aged woman in her late fifties, wearing the starched grey and white uniform of a royal nurse, trotted down the main stairs towards them, moving with all the vim and vigour of someone half her apparent age.

  “I’m Matron Handy,” the woman said, grasping Ulysses’ hand in hers and giving it a vigorous shake. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Dr Quercus will be along shortly. He is just with one of their royal highnesses at the moment, you understand.”

  “Of course,” Ulysses said.

  “As it’s such a pleasant day, perhaps you would prefer to wait in the gardens?”

  The air contained within the hallway was sterile and pristine, just like the tiled floor and the clinical white interiors of the house. Travelling from the permanently Smog-shrouded Londinium Maximum to this place had been, quite literally, a breath of fresh air.

  Ulysses suddenly longed to smell the pollen-scented air, the sea-salt tang of the coastal breezes and the scent of new life – green shoots, spring blossom and freshly mown grass.

  “Yes,” he said. “Why not?”

  THE GROUNDS OF Osborne House were as impressive as the house itself. They started with a series of terraced knot gardens that descended to a fountain, which had as its centrepiece a cherub apparently throttling a swan, and from there continued out towards the coast via the great lawns and a riding path.

  Ulysses descended the steps behind the grand Pavilion with Matron Handy at his side and his manservant following a few respectful paces behind. Some way ahead, Miranda skipped over the lawns between the dwarf conifers, being pursued by her governess who seemed anxious not to lose sight of her charge, fussing after her like a mother hen.

  Amongst the shrubberies and carefully-clipped box hedges, nurses and their automaton Nightingale unit counterparts pushed frail, near-skeletons in bath chairs around the grounds so that they might partake of the fresh sea air; or sat with them in the sun, parasols protecting them from the hazards of having too much of a good thing.

  “So how many patients do you have here?” Ulysses asked the matron.

  “Oh, not patients, Mr Quicksilver. Residents,” the matron corrected him with the tone of a disappointed headmistress. He imagined that she used the same tone with her royal charges and ran a tight ship. He could guess who the real ruler was here.

  “So,how many do you cater for here?”

  “As many as is necessary.”

  “And were any under the care of Dr Gallowglass?”

  “Oh, none,” Matron Handy said.

  “I’m sorry? But I understood he worked here?”

  “Dr Gallowglass was an infrequent visitor.”

  “Now, now, Matron, I hope you’re not boring our guests with trivial details,” came a voice from behind them, as a gentleman as portly as Matron Handy – looking almost as immaculate as Ulysses’ manservant, in his black frock coat and pin-striped trousers – scampered down the steps after them.

  “Mr Quicksilver, I presume,” the man said, extending a hand.

  “You presume correctly.” Ulysses took the man’s hand and shook it, expertly hiding the revulsion he felt in response to the doctor’s wet-fish grip. “And you are?”

  “Dr Quercus, Chief Physician. So sorry to have kept you waiting. You should have rung ahead in advance and warned us that you were coming.”

  “Oh, you know how it is. We just happened to be in the area... Matron Handy was just telling me about Dr Gallowglass’s involvement here at Osborne House.”

  “Ah yes, we were so sorry to hear of the good doctor’s sad demise,” Quercus said.

  Matron Handy looked at the Chief Physician askance; obviously Dr Quercus had not seen fit to share that particular piece of news with her yet.

  Ulysses was actually rather surprised to learn that the news had already reached the Isle of Wight, considering the current climate, especially if Gallowglass had only been an occasional visitor to heaven’s waiting room.

  “I’m surprised you heard so soon.”

  “We are not as cut-off out here as you might think.” The Chief Physician smiled his simpering smile again, half-closing his eyes as he did so. The more Ulysses thought about it, the more he thought the Chief Physician resembled a self-satisfied toad; the expression on his amphibian features suggesting that he had recently enjoyed a satisfying meal of fat maggots and juicy flies. It was not an appealing look.

  “But just the same... The Times only broke the story this morning and I rather suspect that we were on the s
ame boat as shipped those papers to your island retreat.”

  “But of course, why wouldn’t we know when his replacement, Dr Pavlov, arrived on the ferry last night,” Quercus said.

  “Dr Pavlov?” Ulysses repeated, struggling to mask his surprise. “Is he...?”

  “A Russian gentleman, but very well-spoken. And, of course, he comes with the highest credentials.”

  “Of course he does,” Ulysses said. “And the paperwork all checked out, I’m sure.”

  “But of course. Why wouldn’t it?”

  “And where is this Dr Pavlov now?”

  As if on cue, the watch pinned to the front of Matron Handy’s apron began to buzz with the urgency of an alarm clock, its face flashing with a pulsing red light.

  “What is it matron?” Dr Quercus demanded.

  “That’s the call for the crash team,” Matron Handy said, a look of growing horror in her eyes.

  “You mean one of our residents is suffering a cardiac arrest, matron?”

  Miss Wishart looked round anxiously as the siren sounded and even Miranda looked up, her childish curiosity distracting her from the game she was playing.

  “Do now worry,” the Chief Physician said. “Heart attacks, and strokes, and the like, are not uncommon with such an elderly populace. But thanks to our devoted ministrations most come through.”

  The matron’s watch buzzed again. “Dr Quercus, there’s been another one.”

  “Another one?” the Chief Physician exclaimed. “I find that highly unlikely. Two heart attacks? Within a minute of each other?”

  The fateful watch chimed again, its face lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “Better make that three,” Ulysses said. “It sounds as though you have a crisis on your hands, Dr Quercus, and in a crisis, I’m your man!”