‘So,’ the countess said at last, pushing a footstool aside with her small slippered foot and seating herself in the chair with the big armrests, ‘why have you come to see me, together?’
She glanced from one to the other. ‘Is there something I should know?’ She winked at Alkmene. ‘I can imagine that you have no idea to share this with your father. Perhaps you want me to write to him? I can explain that Mr Dubois here is a very nice young man even though he has no title and no money.’
Alkmene saw the flush rise in Dubois’s face. His hands tightened on the little dog who sensed the change in his mood and began to lick his hands as if to soften him.
She said quickly, ‘We are not here to speak about… We have found something old, antique and valuable from your native country. We want to return it to the owner and maybe you can help us find that person.’
And with a flourish she produced the brooch.
The countess stared. ‘How did you get that?’
Alkmene beamed. ‘So you know whose it is?’
The countess nodded violently. ‘Yes. It is mine. I had missed it but I believed I had just mislaid it. On the other dressing table, by my bed, in a little box or… I often lose things for a while. They always turn up again. But this was missing for some time. Oh, it means so much to me. It is the engagement gift my father gave to my mother.’
She smiled at Alkmene. ‘Did I lose it in the tea room the other day? I have lost a pearl necklace there. The clasp came loose, and it slipped off without me noticing. Maurice returned it to me the next day I stopped by. He had found it. Or one of the waiters. I am not sure. But I had it back. That counted. Oh, my husband would say I am careless with my things. While they are so precious. Valuable. But I do try to pay attention. I really do.’
Her friendly face scrunched up in a pained expression. ‘It is just that when you get older you forget things. You need reminding. I have Oksana to remind me. But she is often just like me. She misplaces things and can’t help me find them.’
‘Had she misplaced this?’ Dubois asked.
Alkmene shot him a scorching look. He was supposed to observe, give her the chance to handle this.
The countess nodded. ‘I asked her just the other day where it was and she said she had seen it in some place and she would find it back, some time, and she looked but she never turned it up again. I forgot about it again, until you came here now and… Where was it?’
‘In the theatre.’ Alkmene watched the countess closely.
Her eyes went wide. ‘The theatre? But…I am sure I had not worn it to the opera that night. No, most certainly not. I wore my dark blue dress with the diamonds. This doesn’t go with that. I am sure I had not worn it. How could I have lost it there?’
‘We did not say you lost it there,’ Dubois said. ‘There it was found.’
The countess looked even more confused now. She fidgeted with her hands, turning one of her bejewelled rings around and around. ‘It must have fallen in the seat or on the floor.’
‘How if you did not wear it?’
‘Perhaps it was in my evening bag. My husband always says I carry too many things around in my bag and that I will pull out my handkerchief and lose something because it gets torn out and it falls and… Did you get your handkerchief back?’
Dubois smiled. ‘Lady Alkmene was nice enough to offer to launder it for me. With her own two hands. I am really curious to see the result.’
The countess perked up. ‘Me too. I wouldn’t know how to launder a thing, you know. I have never had to.’
Alkmene smiled quickly. ‘I do not think your brooch was pulled out of your bag and fell to the floor. It was stuck in the curtain. On the far left of the box.’
The countess frowned. ‘In the curtain? Stuck? How can that be? I do not sit on the left side. That is Oksana’s place.’
Dubois said, ‘It was not just stuck actually. It was consciously fastened in the curtain. Like uh…the curtain had been turned inside out and fastened with the brooch. It was a change one could only spot if looking closely. Or knowing what to look for.’
The countess pulled up her narrow shoulders. ‘I would not have noticed. I never pay much attention to the curtains and things. I am busy looking at the performance. And the people in the other boxes, I confess. There is a strong temptation to look at people while you do have your opera glasses with you. But I never sit on the left.’
‘Could Oksana Matejevna have put the brooch in the curtain?’ Dubois’s voice was tense. ‘On purpose. Like to give it to someone else?’
The countess stared. ‘Oksana Matejevna doesn’t know a soul here. She speaks nothing but Russian. She is always afraid to be left alone. She…’ She fell silent.
‘Yes?’ Dubois prompted. ‘Do you remember something?’
‘Well, that night at the theatre she did leave me. She went back to the box alone. She claimed to have forgotten her shawl. She is always fussing with some shawl to keep draught off her shoulders. Her shoulders and her neck get stiff, she claims, and she can’t do a thing. She is very fussy in that respect. She had left the shawl, she said, and she went back to fetch it.’
‘So she could have put the brooch in the curtain then?’ Dubois pressed.
‘Yes, but why would she? It is my brooch. A family heirloom.’
The countess’s face turned red with sudden anger. She rose and pulled the bell cord by the fireplace. She stood up straight, her eyes flashing. As soon as her maid entered, head down, shoulders slumped, she barked, ‘Oksana Matejevna, what have you done now?’
A stream of Russian followed.
Alkmene couldn’t understand a word, but the tone was crystal clear. The countess was not pleased with her servant’s behaviour and was explaining that to her, in no uncertain terms.
Dubois leaned over to Alkmene and said softly, ‘She doesn’t look guilty.’
Alkmene studied the mousy woman and had to admit he was right. Oksana stood up straight and let the stream of words flow over her, without wincing or fidgeting.
‘Perhaps she is used to such tirades and doesn’t even hear the words any more,’ she suggested, thinking back on her own childhood where the nanny had tried to explain dangers to her and she had just stood and pretended to listen while her mind had been on her next adventure. Free spirits rarely took advice well. Let alone reproaches.
‘She looks like she is in full battle mode,’ Dubois whispered again. ‘I wonder if she will actually talk back.’
Indeed, when the countess had ended, with a stamp on the floor to underline her point, Oksana began to speak, so fast it sounded like water rushing: wshwshwsh…
Alkmene wished she knew a little Russian just to get the gist of it. Was this a confession?
Was it a defence?
Was it…
The countess turned to them. ‘Oksana says you have come here to accuse her wrongly. That you do this because she is a foreigner and foreigners are always suspected. She claims to know nothing about the brooch and how it got in the box curtain.’
‘And she doesn’t know anything either about going into the Metropolitan hotel and asking for information about the American actress Evelyn Steinbeck?’ Dubois said in a cold tone.
Oksana blinked rapidly.
Alkmene was sure she had at least understood something of what he said, but it might just have been the names Metropolitan and Evelyn Steinbeck. They