The Curse Of The Diogenes Club by Anna Lord Read Free Book Online Page B

someone high up if you’re not willing to divulge
the name. What does he mean to you?”
    That was it! She spun round on
her heel, ready to leave him to work it out for himself. “Really!
This conversation is growing exasperating. Happy New…”
    The sentence was cut short by
the door being thrown open.
    It heralded the arrival of
Prince Sergei, General de Merville, Sir James Damery and Mr Bruce
Blague. The foursome of smokers had decided to escape the dancing
and partake of the hookahs that vaporized flavoured tobacco known
as shisha.
    There was no telling which of
them was most stunned, but suffice to say another couple of minutes
and it could have been a disaster from which there was no recovery.
Moriarty was about to sweep the Countess into his arms and put her in no doubt as to what she meant to him.
    Sir James Damery, the Irish
diplomatist, was the first to find his silver-tongue. “Countess
Volodymyrovna and Colonel Moriarty, I see you have had the same
clever idea as we have had. These Safavid water-pipes are a
brilliant invention. Have you tried one before? Oh, I am forgetting
myself. Are we all acquainted?”
    The only two who had not met
were the Russian and the Irishman. As soon as introductions were
out of the way the Countess took charge with customary hauteur.
    “I see there are only five
huqqahs and six of us. As I have already tried a huqqah whilst
travelling with my late step-aunt in Persia I will leave you
gentlemen to your pleasure. I believe dessert was being served at
eleven o’clock. Does anyone have the time?”
    All five men checked their
pocket watches. General de Merville was the quickest.
    “It is fifteen minutes past the
hour of eleven.”
    “Splendid,” she said. “I will
have time for a lime sherbet and a chocolate mousse before the
fireworks. Good evening, gentlemen.”
    As she was going out the door,
Major Nash was coming in. There was no verbal exchange. She felt
sorry for Colonel Moriarty but he deserved everything that was
coming to him.

4
Code Duello
     
    Colonel Moriarty felt like a
rat trapped in a rat hole. There was nowhere to run and he couldn’t
very well shoot five men in cold blood. He wondered if the Countess
had set him up by alerting Nash to his hiding place.
    Major Nash had his revolver
drawn and cocked, ready to fire, and the other four men were
looking slightly confused, not only because of the weapon, but
because three of them had seen the colonel dressed as a Musketeer
with a curly wig, and he was now bald and wearing a tartan kilt.
Nevertheless, they were all war-hardened soldiers, used to thinking
fast. They summed up the seriousness of the situation, if not the
detail, in the blink of an eye.
    “Hello, Nash,” Moriarty said
with cavalier disdain.
    “I hope you are not thinking of
doing something reckless, Jim,” returned Major Nash. “You’re in
enough trouble as it is. Stealing the clothes off a man’s back
while he is sedated. Making off with his invitation. Impersonating
a guest. Breeching the security of the Prince Regent’s ball. Shall
I go on?”
    “No, that covers it fairly well
but we both know why you want to arrest me and it has nothing to do
with what you just reeled off.”
    “Shut up, Jim,” warned Nash,
“or you’ll make things worse for yourself. Hand over your weapon
and you might not get charged with treason.”
    “Treason now is it?”
    General de Merville, who had
just parked his derriere on a divan and was tinkering with the
pipes on the hookahs, visibly stiffened. “That’s a serious
accusation, Major Nash. Do you have anything to support it?”
    Sir James Damery, a fellow
Irishman, could see where this was leading. It was too easy to
accuse an Irishman in the British army of being a Fenian
sympathiser. Once the charge was levelled there was no escaping it.
A hangman’s rope or a long stint in prison followed. “What did you
mean, Colonel Moriarty, when you said this had nothing to do with
what Major Nash reeled off?