Carefully avoiding the spilled toiletries, I knelt on the floor to have one last look under the bed, this time from the side nearest the door, where Schneider’s body had been lying. As I brushed my face against the embroidered bedspread, I noticed a new smell. It was faint, but unmistakeable.

  I knew who had the strongbox.

  There was no time to lose – I had to abandon the idea of completing the search. I stood and brushed the dust from my skirt, took one last quick look around just in case, and hurried from the room. I locked the door and made my way to the staircase as quickly as I could.

  I took the stairs two at a time – the new possessor of the box could be back at any moment. I proceeded as quickly as I dared along the corridor. Nothing draws attention more rapidly than the sight of someone running, but there was no one there and my haste went unnoticed. Nevertheless, I needed to get out of sight as quickly as I could.

  I reached the door and panicked briefly when I couldn’t find my master key. With an actual, unprofessional, giving-the-game-away sigh of relief I found that I’d put it in the other pocket of my jacket. I took it out and presented it to the lock, which submitted without further drama. I slipped inside.

  There was that perfume smell again. Adelia Wilson must bathe in it. But I wasn’t about to complain – at least she’d let me know where to find the strongbox.

  The search didn’t take long.

  Under Adelia’s bed was a large box. It was about a foot deep, a foot high, and eighteen inches wide. It appeared to be made of steel, with heavy reinforcement riveted along each edge and more at the corners. There were sturdy handles at either end. The lock looked elaborately sophisticated. Clearly, no one but the owner was supposed to get in either by stealth or brute force.

  I dragged the strongbox out by one of the handles and finally learned why everyone had chosen to hide it under their beds – it weighed a ton. It would take altogether far too much effort to get it up on to the top of a wardrobe and I’d be wary of putting it inside – I’d not be confident that a shelf could support its weight.

  Time was still against me, so I couldn’t examine it further. Checking that I hadn’t disarranged the room and that the bedspread was exactly as I’d found it, I grabbed the box by both handles and heaved it out to the corridor. I had to put it down to relock the door, then hefted it on to my shoulder to carry it back to our room.

  It was a gamble. If I met anyone on the stairs, I was in trouble. Martin or Takahashi would definitely put up a fight – we were already sure that Martin had killed Schneider and it was quite possible that Takahashi had garrotted Kusnetsov. Adelia Wilson was less of a physical threat, but a confrontation would still be inconvenient. I was confident that I could handle any of them, but the jig would most definitely be up. And once news of any run-in on the stairs became public, the remaining players would quickly work out where the strongbox was and we’d have to fight everyone off.

  Luck, though, was with me. I made it to my own room without seeing a soul. Ever one to follow fashion, I pushed the strongbox under my bed. I took a couple of hatboxes from Lady Hardcastle’s wardrobe and pushed them under, too. The strongbox wasn’t exactly hidden, but it should be sufficiently out of view to escape the notice of the chambermaid.

  I brushed myself down again, straightened myself out, and set off back to the salon.

  ‘Here she is,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Is all well? Did the Fish Brothers behave themselves?’

  ‘They are the Antelope Boys this evening,’ I said. ‘But they took care of things.’

  ‘Fish Brothers?’ said Adelia. ‘Antelope Boys?’

  ‘Two Special Branch men sent by my brother,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘They seem to enjoy making themselves appear more glamorous and exciting by working under pseudonymous codenames. Yesterday they were European freshwater fish, this evening they appear to be even-toed ungulates from Africa. It’s all larks and japes down at Special Branch.’

  ‘Your brother?’ said Adelia. She had a very concise interrogation technique.

  ‘My brother is Harry Featherstonhaugh of the Foreign Office. He seems to have taken an interest in the goings-on here. I’ve no idea why, but we seldom talk about work.’

  I could see that she was watching Adelia Wilson very closely as she revealed this unnecessarily indiscreet information. Her efforts were rewarded – Miss Wilson’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the mention of the Foreign Office. Now Lady Hardcastle had also confirmed what I already knew: Adelia Wilson was more than just a holidaying spinster from Maryland.

  ‘Your family seems to be heavily involved in British politics,’ said Adelia. ‘Husband a diplomat, brother a civil servant, you a . . . spy.’

  ‘Our father was something terribly grand at the Treasury, too,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Mother was just Mother, mind you. Although who knows what great affairs of state were settled during her Wednesday-night bridge games?’

  ‘I’m sure more than one international treaty has been brokered over a game of cards.’

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Flo, dear, you seem to be rather short of brandy. Shall we see if we can summon . . . Ah, Ribble, there you are. Another round of cognac, please. Is that all right for you, ladies?’

  ‘Actually, it’s rather late,’ said Adelia. ‘May we have some cocoa, please?’

  ‘A splendid notion. Cocoa and cognac all round. And some more of those little biscuits you brought out earlier. Thank you, Ribble, you’re a marvel.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure, my lady,’ said Ribble and vanished as smoothly and silently as he had arrived.

  ‘I’ve been terribly inconsiderate,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’re keeping you up. I’m so sorry. Do please retire if you need to.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about us,’ said Adelia. ‘We’re having a fine time, aren’t we, Eleanora?’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ mumbled the sleepy younger Wilson.

  ‘Emily was telling us all about the man with the boat and the journey down the Irrawaddy,’ continued Adelia enthusiastically.

  ‘He was a nice old chap,’ I said. ‘Very friendly. Not a tooth in his head, but quite charming. He seemed pleased to get rid of the boat, although we weren’t able to ask him about it.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Imagine you two being able to speak so many languages and then finding yourselves somewhere where no one understands any of them.’

  ‘It was a bit of a stumper,’ I said.

  ‘I tried to remember what we offered him for the boat,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘But that turned out to be a bit of a stumper, too.’

  ‘A gold sovereign, an opal ring that had been a gift from your aunt—’

  ‘I never liked that.’

  ‘—and a silk blouse I’d bought in a market in Shanghai for next to nothing.’

  ‘That was it,’ she said. ‘I think both sides did well out of that deal.’

  ‘How far did she get?’ I asked.

  ‘You had arrived at Rangoon,’ said Eleanora.

  ‘There’s not much more to tell from there,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We made contact with the British officials, there was a flurry of cables, most of them expressing astonishment that we were still alive, and we secured berths on a ship bound for Calcutta.’

  ‘The folks at home thought you were dead?’ asked Eleanora.

  ‘Understandably,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’d been gone for nearly two years. I think we only trekked a couple of thousand miles, all in all, but there were mountains, jungles, more chaps with sticks – you know the sort of thing. And we had to hunker down during the winter, of course, so it took a little longer than one might expect.’

  ‘They must have been glad to see you.’

  ‘One would have thought so, but it was all a bit of an anticlimax, to be honest. Much less fuss was made than we’d expected so we ended up staying in Calcutta for a couple more years before finally coming home.’

  The cocoa arrived and was eagerly consumed – all the more eagerly when Lady Hardcastle encouraged them to fortify the chocolate drink with the brandy.

  It wasn’t long before we were all yawning and offering half-hearted variations on, ‘Well, I suppose we’d better go up’, but without actually moving. Eventually it was Adelia Wilson who took the lead, summoning her niece and wishing us goodnight.

  We weren’t far behind them.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Lady Hardcastle once we were safely behind the locked door of our ‘suite’.

  ‘Not as interesting as I’d hoped at first,’ I said. ‘I essayed a little light persiflage with Harry’s thugs, but they were having none of it.’

  ‘That’s no fun. Too disciplined?’

  ‘Or too dull-witted – it’s hard to tell with hired muscle.’

  ‘Did things brighten up at all?’

  ‘I’ll say. Once they’d gone, taking the late Ernst Schneider with them, I had another quick nosy round the room and I noticed a familiar smell.’

  ‘Blood? Hair oil? Disinfectant?’

  ‘All that and more,’ I said. ‘How did you know about the disinfectant?’

  ‘How else would one clean up blood from a hotel room floor?’

  ‘What do you know about cleaning anything from anywhere?’

  ‘I read. I observe.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘Well, you’re right. Their specialist crime scene expertise extended only as far as wandering in to the nearest hardware shop and buying some Jeyes Fluid. But none of those smells, however distinctive, was as significant as the faint whiff I got off the bedspread.’

  ‘Adelia Wilson’s perfume,’ she said.

  ‘You can be most infuriating sometimes.’

  ‘I’m right, though, aren’t I?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘So do we think the Wilsons have the strongbox?’

  ‘They do not.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ she said. ‘I wonder who does.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Oh, well done, you. Where?’

  ‘Where everyone else keeps it – under the bed.’

  I led her through to my bedroom and hauled the box from its hiding place.

  ‘Goodness me,’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s not something one could overlook in a search, is it?’

  ‘It’s not something one can carry about particularly easily, either – it’s exactly as heavy as it looks. It’s a wonder none of us were seen lumbering about the place with it.’

  She gave an exploratory tug at one of the handles. ‘Adelia Wilson is stronger than she appears. I’m not certain I could carry it very far and she . . . what? Carried it to her room?’

  ‘And put it under her bed, yes.’

  ‘She must have sneaked up there while I was waiting for the night porter to contact Hillier. The slippery little weasel.’

  ‘Do they have weasels in America?’ I said.

  ‘I believe they do, actually, yes. You were careful?’

  ‘No trace of my presence was left. Not even the lingering ghost of my perfume.’

  ‘You don’t wear perfume.’

  ‘And a good thing, too. It turns out that wearing perfume is a dead giveaway in our game.’

  ‘So even if she should chance to check under the bed, she’ll not be certain that we have the box.’

  ‘I’d say we’d be odds-on favourites, though,’ I said. ‘I was gone for quite a while and our skulduggerous past is no longer a secret.’

  ‘That was a wasted gambit as it turns out,’ she said. ‘I was trying to flush them out.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘As it was, she didn’t bat an eyelid until I mentioned Harry’s name and by then you’d already twigged her game. Ah, well. No harm done, I suppose.’

  ‘And it entertained Eleanora,’ I said. ‘She needed a distraction – she’s quite frightened.’

  ‘I believe she is, yes. It’s really rather reckless of Adelia to bring her along on a mission. She’s only, what, sixteen? Seventeen?’

  ‘I was only eighteen when you recruited me,’ I said.

  ‘I suppose you were,’ she said. ‘But you were so much more worldly. And you were already a dab hand with a knife – I’d seen you doing the tricks your father taught you. I don’t imagine little Miss Wilson would be much use in a skirmish but I knew you could hold your own, even before Chen taught you his arcane fighting arts.’

  ‘There’s more to her than meets the eye, I think, but I take your point.’

  She resumed her examination of the strongbox. ‘Have you tried the lock?’

  ‘Not yet, no,’ I said. ‘It looks rather sophisticated, but I’m sure it will yield to my trusty picklocks.’

  ‘I’m sure it will.’

  It didn’t.

  After half an hour of fruitless fiddling, I finally chucked up the sponge.

  ‘This, I’m afraid, is hopeless,’ I said. ‘I’m getting nowhere. We might manage more in daylight when I can actually see what I’m doing, but for now I’m going to have to admit temporary defeat.’

  ‘Not to worry, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Let’s sleep on it. Do you think it would be worth searching through Dr Goddard’s things for a key? It’s the sort of thing that might have been overlooked in previous searches.’

  ‘We could give it a go,’ I said. ‘First thing in the morning. I don’t suppose you brought one of your pistols?’

  ‘I was just this very moment regretting my decision not to. What about you? Any knives in your luggage?’

  ‘Sadly not,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll just have to defend ourselves the medieval way.’

  ‘Solemn prayers and a lucky amulet?’

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of building a castle,’ she said. ‘Or of barricading ourselves in, at any rate. Between the two of us we should be able to bar the doors with these tallboys. That should hinder any would-be attacker long enough for you to adopt a fighting stance and prepare to give him—’

  ‘Or her.’

  ‘—or her a biff on the conk.’

  ‘It’s as good a plan as any,’ I said.

  We moved the two hefty chests of drawers across the rooms to block both bedroom doors and settled down for the night in our new fortress.

  Chapter Eleven

  Despite the urgency I perceived in the need to find Dr Goddard’s key and open the strongbox, Lady Hardcastle was her usual infuriating self.

  ‘The contents of the box will be exactly the same after breakfast,’ she said.

  ‘But if anyone should chance to work out that we have the box, they’ll have the perfect opportunity to relieve us of it while we’re stuffing our faces,’ I said. ‘The contents will remain the same, but the box itself will be once more on its travels.’

  ‘No one knows we’ve got it. Takahashi will think that either Martin or Adelia Wilson has it. Similarly, Martin will suspect Takahashi or Wilson.’

  ‘But Miss Wilson knows that we’re also part of the game now. And after her own little act of larceny last night, she’ll pretty soon wonder why it took me so long to see to Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee when they took Schneider away.’

  ‘She has no idea how long it took them – they left by the back door. As far as she knows, you came straight down once they’d gone. You worry too much. And if she nicks it from under your bed, we’ll just send you up to her room to nick it back.’

  I harrumphed.

  ‘You see? You’re hungry – you always get grumpy when you’re hungry. A good breakfast will set you up for a day of key finding and box opening. Then we can have a session of Harry calling, opinion giving, and information demanding before embarking on some scientist finding.’

  ‘On the whole, I’d rather be riding the donkeys.’

  ‘Donkey riding can come later. For now, though, we need to do some breakfast eating as a matter of urgency.’

  We arrived in the dining room at eight, a full hour earlier than our previous efforts.

  ‘Clearly this is the time one has to arrive to have any hope of seeing the kedgeree,’ said Lady Hardcastle as we surveyed the groaning sideboard. ‘A full dish, look.’

  ‘Completely full,’ I said. ‘No sign of its having been touched at all.’ I looked around. ‘In fact, there’s no sign of any of these dishes having been touched. Nor of anyone having sat at any of the tables.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ she said. ‘We’ve been here at just after nine for the past two mornings and the groaning board has long since stopped groaning and has heaved a sigh of relief that its burden has been mercifully lessened. Surely they don’t swarm in here at half past, strip the place bare and disappear before we turn up.’

  ‘It does seem particularly odd.’

  The dining room waiter appeared with fresh coffee.

  ‘Here’s someone who’ll know,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Kibble, my dear chap, are we the first down to breakfast?’

  ‘You are, my lady, yes,’ he said. ‘Which is odd, now you come to ask about it. Things change in a hotel week by week as guests come and go, but there’s usually a steady . . . well, you can’t call it a “steady stream” with this being such a small hotel, but there are comings and goings from before seven most mornings.’

  ‘And this week’s guests are early risers?’

  ‘They are, my lady, yes. Or, at least, they have been so far.’

  ‘Most peculiar,’ she said. ‘Still, more choice for us. Is that fresh coffee I smell?’

  ‘Yes, my lady. Shall I pour you a cup? Which table would you prefer this morning?’

  ‘That one there where we can see the door,’ she said. ‘Armstrong? A cup for you?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said. ‘How long has this toast been here?’

  ‘Quite a while, I’m afraid, miss,’ said Kibble. ‘I’ll get you some fresh.’

  I thanked him and followed Lady Hardcastle to her chosen table with my first helping.