Lily shook her head to clear her thoughts and, having got a hold on them, addressed them to Bacchus. ‘No. Listen a minute! It’s not the people who were there that we’re interested in. We need to see the princess’s original pencilled-in list of guests. The names she first thought of. And check that against the final attendance list. If this girl is Russian and has the confidence to attempt a coup with such swagger, then it’s likely that she would be known to this society, isn’t it? An insider? One of them. She’d have been invited all right. What it would be intriguing to find is the name of someone who failed to turn up or who refused the invitation. Someone who was not there to be blamed. An unaccountable absence. We’re looking for someone who didn’t make an appearance at the ball.’ She realized she was repeating herself, sounding over anxious. She ground to a halt.
‘Ah!’ said Hopkirk with a rumbling laugh. ‘Now I’ve got it. I was thrashing about in the wrong fairy tale. It’s the Bad Fairy we’re looking for.’
‘Or a Bolshevik aristocrat?’ grumbled Chappel. ‘No such animal!’
‘Like “darkness visible”,’ agreed Bacchus. ‘An oxymoronic and quite ridiculous invention. Looks a teeny bit desperate, I’d say.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, if the constable cares to waste her morning scanning party lists … hobnobbing with the princess … comparing hemlines and dancing partners …’ Fanshawe had found his voice again. He oozed on, decorating his theme: ‘… chirruping over a samovar of tea and a dish of Viennese pastries … well, that’s up to her. Who shall say her nay?’
‘You make the occasion sound quite delightful, Fanshawe. Hadn’t realized that was your idea of a Sunday morning’s entertainment. Are you volunteering?’ Joe asked cheerfully. ‘No? Then I say Wentworth shall go.’
‘Beats pounding the streets, I will allow,’ nodded Bacchus. The Branch man turned to Lily and favoured her with one of his rare smiles. Or at least she took the movement in the region of his mouth to be a smile, though the vigorous twitch of the upper lip could as easily have been an attempt to dislodge the sleeping rodent. There was no mistaking the accompanying flash of even white teeth: it held all the challenge of a metal gauntlet thrown at her feet.
Lily thought she had very likely made two implacable enemies before breakfast.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The smell of egg, bacon and black pudding frying and the clatter of a teapot lid brought Lily yawning and sniffing back into the world.