Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

Volpe frowned, not really understanding.

“So,” he said, trying to make sense of things, “you believe there is justification to fear assassination?”

O’Sullivan leaned forward with a wink and tapped Volpe’s arm in a conspiratorial manner.

“Justification, indeed. Didn’t I see that wee man, Father Vane, sneaking near these chambers these last two days?”

“Father Vane?” Volpe mentally tried to remember the delegates and their attendants.

“Aye, a weasel of a man. One of the delegates from England. A Catholic? What Englishman is truly a Catholic these days? I’d sooner believe that he has an assassin’s dagger in his cassock than a rosary.”

Volpe smiled thinly.

“You are prejudiced, my friend.”

“If an Irishman can’t be prejudiced about the English, then I have no understanding of this world.”

“Are you saying that this Father Kane has been seen lurking near these apartments?”

O’Sullivan didn’t understand the word nascondersi and Volpe had to use a simile to express the action of someone hiding themselves near the apartments.

“Not exactly hiding themselves,” confirmed O’Sullivan, “but keeping to the shadows. In fact, before I took over my watch from Iain last night I was sure I saw the little ferret below in the courtyard.”

Now it was Volpe’s turn to be lost.

“You saw a furetto in the courtyard?” he exclaimed.

“Vane, the wee fella,” explained the Irishman.

“Ah. How did you observe him?”

O’Sullivan rose and went to the tall windows, the porta-finestra , in his room and opened one of them. Outside was a small balcony. O’Sullivan beckoned Volpe to join him.

“Was I not having me a pipe out here when I saw him. The old man does not like the smell of tobacco and, seeing that tobacco is one of the few pleasures I can indulge in, I have my smoke outside.”

Volpe saw that the balcony overlooked the courtyard below.

“It must have been dark at the time,” he said. “How could you recognize anyone down there as Father Vane?”

“Bless ye, and ye are no fool,” chuckled O’Sullivan. “However, at dusk along comes one of your own men and helpfully lights those torches you see on the walls there.”

“And you can swear that you saw this Father Vane standing down there… show me exactly where.”

O’Sullivan pointed to an area further along. It was a spot immediately below the small window of Cardinal York’s bedchamber some ten metres above.

“You say that you suspect Father Vane of evil intentions towards His Eminence and yet you had no fear when you saw him there? You raised no alarm?”

“Love you for a cautious man, but what harm? Have you seen the piddling little window in the old man’s bedroom? Even had he been able to climb the wall, he wouldn’t have gained entrance by that means. No, if Vane is your thief, he came in through the door. If he came in through the door, he must have had a key. If he had a key, then he must have taken it from somewhere. If not from the hand of the old man, then there must be two keys. And even if there was another key, he must have had the other key to the safe and knew of the secret panel. And if he had all that, then he also had the miraculous ability to have made himself invisible to pass either Iain or myself last night.”

“Then there are two possibilities,” observed Volpe in a dry tone.

The big Irishman stared at him for a moment.

“Which are?”

“Either Iain or yourself allowed the thief to enter or one or other of you are the thief.”

There was a silence. Then O’Sullivan roared with laughter.

“There is no denying that you are a sharp one, Count Volpe. There’s yet another explanation. If the jewels were not removed through the door then the only possible method was through the small window, and who can get through it but the wee fairy folk. Have you thought that the sídhe might be at work here… the wee folk of the hills?”

Volpe left O’Sullivan enjoying his obscure joke and returned to the main chamber.

Cardinal York had retired to his bedchamber for his private devotionals and the Marchese Glenbuchat was pacing the room in front of the fireplace.

“Well?” he demanded roughly, when Volpe re-entered. “Have you come upon a solution?”

Volpe smiled thinly.

“Let us say that I have a few lines of inquiry that need to be pursued. If I may suggest, Marchese, let us be seated for a moment.”

Reluctantly, Glenbuchat sat down and Volpe took a chair and pulled it opposite him.

“As I understand it, you are more concerned with His Eminence’s political position rather than his ecclesiastical one? You serve him as rightful claimant to the English throne than as Bishop of Frascati, am I correct?”

Glenbuchat frowned.

“As rightful King of England and Scotland,” he corrected. “I am a faithful subject and servant of His Majesty, Henry Ninth, by divine right…”

“Just so,” intervened Volpe. “How long have you served the Stuart Household?”

“All my life. My grandfather was a young man on the staff of His Grace, the Duke of Berwick. He served both His Majesty James the Second and James the Third while they were in exile at St Germain-en-Laye. He went back to Scotland and fought at Glenshiels in Seventeen-Nineteen. My father was born in St Germain-en-Laye and continued that service. He was in Lord Drummond’s Regiment when we defeated that fat German who called himself the Duke of Cumberland at Fontenoy and, a few months later, sailed with Prince Charles Edward back home to Scotland. When Charles Edward came back to exile and then became Charles III, my father returned with him. I was born in Rome and continued in that service. When Charles died, I went to serve the next Stuart monarch, King Henry at Frascati.”

Glenbuchat recited all this with a great deal of passion and pride in his voice.

Volpe nodded thoughtfully.

“So you know much of the politics of the conflict between the Hanoverians and Stuarts?”

“Of course.”

“His Eminence is considered the last of the Stuarts?”

“The last of the direct line although there are relatives by consanguinity.”

“I am told that His Eminence is poor?”

“This last decade has seen his fortune vanish because of this revolutionary fever among the French. The French have taken all the Stuart possessions that remained to them.”

“Except the Crown Jewels.”

“Except the Stuart Crown Jewels,” confirmed Glenbuchat. “The Stuart cause is bereft of wealth. Why do you wish to know this? Your task is to find the thief who took them last night.”

Volpe smiled.

“I know my task, Marchese. And that is precisely my intention. I am pursuing it in my own way. Tell me, do you really think that the people of England or Scotland are interested in the return of the Stuarts to the throne?”

Glenbuchat’s mouth tightened.

“Whether they are interested or not, the Stuarts are the rightful kings.”

Volpe sighed wistfully.

“Kings are not the currency they once were. They can be easily deposed as the French have just shown. The creed of the republicans has swept Europe like a forest fire.”

“The French!” sneered Glenbuchat.

“Wasn’t it the English who showed the way? They executed one Stuart king and chased another out of the kingdom. For over a hundred years the Stuarts have been in exile. Now we have a frail old man, a Cardinal no less, as the last of the line. Do you think anyone really cares now whether this old man can suddenly be restored to the throne of his grandfather?”

Glenbuchat had turned almost apoplectic with rage.

“How dare you, sir! You insult my King. I have fought duels for less.”