Murder At The Masque Read Free

now past, and all eggs containing rubies, had been stolen one by one from the great houses of Britain. In each case entrance had been gained by a drainpipe, balconies, or in one case a nearby tree provided access. Five re-interviews had followed. Rose shuddered at the memory of two of them. He wouldn’t like to sit through Rachel Gray’s (Mrs Cyril Tucker) tragic outburst again. He’d felt he was at a performance of one of Mr Pinero’s plays. As befitting her position as one of London’s leading tragedy queens, Mrs Tucker had tottered blindly across theroom – though not too blindly to find the chaise longue and collapse gracefully upon it – moaning at intervals, ‘My husband must not know.’ Or Lady Westbourne, a very different kettle of cod. Cool as a cucumber, he had to prise the information out of her, like a whelk. In all five cases, husbands were to be barred from knowledge of the complete facts.
    There was, Rose grudgingly admitted, good reason for this. The gift of a Fabergé egg could only come from one source, if not the Tsar himself: a Grand Duke of Imperial Russia. And Grand Dukes were not noted for handing out such prized gifts unless the relationship with the recipient was close. Moreover since even these eggs, which coming merely from a Grand Duke to a past mistress were somewhat less elaborate than those from the Tsar to the Tsarina, were a year at least in the making, it followed that the friendship with the lady was or had been no mere passing whim. Therefore Mrs Rachel Tucker, Lady Westbourne and three other ladies of equally impeccable social standing, if not morals, conveniently overlooked the theft of the egg itself, when reporting, albeit reluctantly, the theft of the ruby. Husbands, unaware of Fabergé eggs secreted in their households, would not be unaware of the disappearance of a ruby which in each case the lady concerned had been unable to resist wearing. They were exceptionally fine rubies.
    Kallinkova being single and having no husband to wonder why his wife should be the recipient of a Fabergé egg, had entered into the spirit of the chase with relish, and gave Rose details of the London ladies’ calling-hour gossip concerning the other five victims.
    ‘I should like to meet this man,’ repeated Kallinkova when in late February Rose had duly interviewed her again and confirmed her suspicions regarding her fellow victims. ‘What an artist. As I am myself.’ She pirouetted despite the confines of the tight heavy silk skirt. ‘To steal from a collectionand take only the supreme jewel. My ruby is beautiful, but it is nothing compared with the egg itself. He wants only the thing of beauty, the work of a master craftsman. Ah yes. He is an artist in himself, is he not, Inspector?’
    ‘He’s a thief, Miss Kallinkova,’ said Rose glumly. ‘And it’s my job to catch him.’ A job that was getting more difficult by the minute. A jewel thief was one thing, a stealer of Fabergé eggs smacked of something different. International art collectors for example. And that meant the Commissioner would be breathing down his neck, as well as the Chief Constable.
    He sighed, and Kallinkova laughed at his lugubrious face. He looked like a bloodhound, she decided, summing him up. A reliable friend – and a relentless hunter, with his watchful grey eyes.
    ‘You’d better give me a full description, miss,’ he said, resolutely refusing to share the joke.
    Kallinkova put her hands meekly in her lap.
    ‘The Imperial eggs that his Imperial Majesty the Tsar gives to the Tsaritsa and Dowager Tsaritsa are naturally larger, more elaborate and the gifts inside works of art in themselves. This Igor could not do. It would not be
comme il faut
. But they are beautiful all the same. On the outside’ – she smiled, inviting Rose to share her joke at male expense – ‘a portrait of Igor himself surrounded by tiny diamonds. The egg – my egg is pale green enamel and criss-crossed in gold. And inside all the