that I should go out again, to serve on his staff? Since he was my junior, I was able to scotch that flat, but when word came in September that he’d gone off Mahdi-hunting at last, blowed if one of the gutter rags didn’t come out with a leaderette regretting ‘that the task has fallen to an officer of comparative inexperience, while such distinguished soldiers as Lord Wolseley, Major-General Gordon, and Sir Harry Flashman, men thoroughly familiar with the country and the enemy, remain at home or unemployed.’
It was the mention of Gordon’s name, more than my own, that brought the sweat out on my brow, for while no one in his senses would suggest that I should replace Hicks, there was a strong shave in the clubs that Cracked Charley would be recalled and given the job, and I knew that if he was, Flashy would be the first he’d want to enlist.10 China had given him the misguided notion that I was the devil’s own fire-eater, and just the chap to have on hand when Fuzzy charged the square. Well, soldiering under Joe Wolseley had been bad enough, but at least he was sane. Gordon? I’d as soon go to war with the town drunk. The man wasn’t safe – sticking forks in people and scattering tracts from railway carriages and accosting perfect strangers to see if they’d met Jesus lately, I ask you! No, a holiday abroad was indicated, before the Mad Sapper came recruiting.
And I’d just reached that conclusion when Blowitz’s letter, bearing that fateful second photograph, landed on the breakfast table. It couldn’t have come more pat. This is what he wrote, with more underlinings and points of admiration than Elspeth at her worst – not Times style at all:
Dearest Friend!
I write to you by Royal Command – what do you think of that!! It is true – a PRINCESS, no less! And such a Princess, plus belle et elegant, whose most Ardent Desire is to meet the gallant and renowned Sir H.F. – for reasons which I shall explain when we meet.
Come to Paris no later than October the fourth, my dear Harry. I promise you will be enchanted and oblige your best of friends and loyal comrade in destiny
Stefan O-B.
P.S. Recalling your interest in photography! I enclose a portrait of Her Royal Highness. A bientôt!
Well, wasn’t this the ticket? Elspeth was in Scotland enduring her sisters, and here was the ideal billet where I could lurk incog. while Gordon beat the bushes – and enjoy some good carnal amusement, to judge from the photograph. Not that Her Highness was an outstanding beauty, but her picture grew on me as I studied it. It showed a tall, imposing female standing proud in a splendid gown of state, a coronet on her piled blonde hair, one gloved hand resting on the arm of a throne, the other holding a plumed fan, the sash of a jewelled order over her bare shoulders, and enough bijouterie disposed about her stately person to start a bazaar. She was in profile, surveying the distance with a chilling contempt which sat perfectly on a rather horsey face with a curved high-bridged nose. Minor Mittel European royalty to the life, with the same stench-in-the-nostrils look as my darling little Irma of Strackenz, but nowhere near as pretty. Striking, though, and there were promising signs: she’d be about forty and properly saddle-broken, with the full mouth and drooping lower lip which betoken a hearty appetite, and a remarkable wasp waist between a fine full rump and upper works which would have made Miss Marie Lloyd look positively elfin. I could imagine stripping her down and watching her arrogance diminish with each departing garment. And she had an Ardent Desire to meet the gallant Sir H.F. I reached for Bradshaw.
Reading the letter again later, it struck me that there was something familiar about it; an echo of the past which I couldn’t place – until a couple of days later, the afternoon of October the third to be precise, when I was ensconced in my smoker on the Continental Mail Express, and suddenly I knew what I’d been reminded of: that doom-laden summons that had taken me to Lola Montez in Munich, oh, so long ago. There was the same slightly eccentric wording (though Blowitz’s English was a cut above that of Lola’s Chancellor – what had his name been? Aye, Lauengram) and the purport was uncannily similar: an invitation from an exotic titled woman of mystery, for reasons unstated, with a strong hint of fleshly pleasures in prospect … and what besides? In Lola’s case there had been a nightmare of terror, intrigue, imposture, and deadly danger from which I’d barely escaped with my life – oh, but that had been a Bismarck plot in the bad old days; this was jolly little Blowitz, and a doubtless spoiled and jaded piece of aristocracy in search of novelty and excitement … but how had she heard of me (Blowitz cracking me up, to be sure) and why was I worth fetching across the Channel? Odd, that – and for no reason I remembered Rudi Starnberg’s voice across the years: ‘She brought me all the way from Hungary’, and found myself shivering. And why no later than October the fourth?
Aye, odd … but not fishy, surely? It’s the curse of a white liver that it has you starting at shadows, imagining perils where none exist. On t’other hand, it’s been a useful storm signal over the years, and it was still at work ever so little when we pulled into the Gare du Nord.
At the sight of Blowitz on the platform, my cares dissolved. He was a trifle plumper in the cheek, a shade greyer in the whisker, but still the same joyful little bonhomme, rolling forward waving his cane with glad cries, fairly leaping up to embrace me and dam’ near butting me under the chin, chattering nineteen to the dozen as he led me out to a fiacre, and not letting me get a word in until we were seated at the self-same table in Voisin’s, when he had to leave off to attend to the maître. I couldn’t help grinning at him across the table, he looked so confounded cheery.
‘Well, it’s famous to see you again, old Blow,’ says I, when he’d ordered and filled our glasses. ‘Here’s to you, and to this mysterious lady. Now – who is she … and what does she want?’
He drank and wiped his whiskers, business-like. ‘The Princess Kralta. But of blood the most ancient in Europe, descended from Stefan Bathory, Arnulf of Carinthia, Barbarossa … name whom you will, she is de la royauté la plus royale – and landless, as the best monarchs are. But rich, to judge from the state she keeps – oh, and received everywhere, on terms with the highest. She is befriended of the German Emperor, for example, and –’ he shot me a quizzy look ‘– of our old acquaintance Prince Bismarck. No-no-no,’ he added hastily, ‘her intimacy with him is of a … how shall I say? … of an unconventional kind.’
‘I’ve met some of his unconventional intimates, and I didn’t take to ’em a bit. If she’s one of his –’
‘She is not one of anyone’s! I mention Bismarck only because when I first met the Princess she brought me a friendly message from him. C’est vrai, absolument! Can you guess what it was? That he bears me no ill will for my activities at the Congress of Berlin!’ He shook his head, chuckling. ‘Can you believe it, eh?’
‘No – and neither will you if you’ve any sense. That bastard never forgave or forgot in his life. Very well, ne’er mind him – what more about this Princess? Is she married?’ It’s always best to know beforehand.
‘There is a husband.’ He shrugged. ‘But he does not figure.’
‘Uh-huh … so, what does she want with me?’
He gave a little snort of laughter. ‘What do women ever want with you? Ah, but there is something else also.’ He leaned forward to whisper, looking droll. ‘She wishes to know a secret … a secret that she believes only you can tell her.’
He sat back as the food arrived, with a cautioning gesture in case I made some indiscreet outcry, I suppose. Since I knew the little blighter’s delight in mysterious hints I just waded into the grub.
‘You do not ask what it is?’ he grumbled. ‘Ah, but of course – le flegme Britannique! Never mind, you will raise a brow when you hear, I promise!’
And I did, for I never heard an unlikelier tale in my life – all of it true, for I saw it confirmed in the little blighter’s memoirs a few years ago, and why should he lie to posterity? But even at the time I believed it because, being a crook myself, I can spot a straight tongue, and Blowitz had one.
He’d met the Princess Kralta at a diplomatic dinner, and plainly fallen head over heels