The Curse Of The Diogenes Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

he paused in the doorway leading to the magnificent ballroom,
feeling chipper and in high spirits. “I say, that naval outfit
looks the real thing. Did Countess Volodymyrovna come this
way?”
    “Good evening, Dr Watson. Yes,
the Countess came this way about fifteen minutes ago.”
    The doctor scanned the vast
ballroom which had been delineated into three parts and topped with
domes. “What a splendid crowd. Is Mr Mycroft Holmes here
tonight?”
    “Yes, he is dressed as Sir
Walter Raleigh.”
    “Marvellous, marvellous! Well,
I shall be off to snaffle a beverage from that blackamoor with the
drinks tray. Are you on door duty? Shall I bring you an alcoholic
punch to lubricate your throat?”
    “Thank you for the offer, Dr
Watson. I am not on door duty,” he lied. “I am waiting for a fellow
officer.”
    “In that case, I’ll be off to
locate the Countess. Enjoy the festivities, Major.”
     
    Major Inigo Nash decided it was
high time to start circulating. If Dr Watson thought he was on door
duty then the other guests were probably thinking the same thing.
He needed to start acting as if he actually belonged at this costly
knees-up.
    Prince Sergei first.
    And then the whereabouts of the
Countess.
    No! Other way around! He didn’t
want Jim to get the jump on him.
     
    Some celebrated beauties were
merely celebrated and hardly beautiful. Very few could lay claim to
being both. Mrs Greville was one and Lola O’Hara another. In her
heyday, none could match Isadora Klein when it came to goddess
status but that day had passed. She was still a cut above mortal
beauties, but more like Hera than Aphrodite.
    Dressed as a Valkyrie with a
winged helmet and a metallic cuirass that curved around a pair of
voluptuous breasts, Mrs Isadora Klein, smouldering, seductive and
sultry, was holding court among a circle of eager young acolytes at
the top of the stairs where the paired symmetrical risers met in
the centre and led to the mezzanine that overlooked the
ballroom.
    The scene reminded Major Nash
of something unpleasant he’d once seen in Mexico. It was a hungry
shark in a tank full of slow swimming sardines. Undeniably
dangerous, and yet there was no denying the mesmerizing allure of
the languorous beauty of the predator as it bided its time. There
was something primal, sexual, hypnotic, masturbatory, in the
danger; like a wet dream. He’d gone back the next day but there was
only the shark circling round and round. Someone told him sharks
never rested. Even when they slept they propelled themselves
forward, unable to find stasis. It sounded like a teleological
nightmare that had no reason for existence except that it
existed.
    Like a naïve fool, he’d fallen
for the predatory charm, behaving like one of her adoring lapdogs,
before realising her interest in him was a matter of his own
self-delusion. As soon as she discovered he was a penniless baronet
she made an example of him. He still felt the sting.
     
    Prince Sergei wasn’t after a
new wife. The old one had only been dead a few hours. But he
recalled the pretty little girl in the cherry orchard that time he
paid a visit to his comrade Volodya Volodymyr on his estate just
outside Odessa.
    How old was the step-child?
Four or five years? No matter. Cute as a doll and stupendously
precocious, singing and dancing and showing off. Volodya doted on
her; spoiled her rotten and indulged her every whim; a terrible
tragedy that he died so young. The girlchild had inherited his
entire fortune.
    Later, she had inherited the
fortune of Volodya’s mad sister too. Zoya Volodymyrovna was always
a fearless firebrand. No man had the balls to take her on. She died
in Australia from snake bite. The snake probably died later.
    He wouldn’t mind a large estate
in west Ukraine to add to his farms in Minsk and Kharkiv. And the
young countess apparently had vast land holdings in Australia too.
They counted land there by the square mile. Farms there were bigger
than European principalities. The