The Flat at Doughty Court

Chapter three: The Kentish Queen

3: The Kentish Queen 

 

Mirabelle woke in the morning to the sound of birdsong. She opened her eyes and saw sunlight shining on the ceiling of the room. The ceiling was painted pale blue - the curtains were an unfamiliar patterned blue cotton. For a few moments she wondered where she could be, and then she heard water splashing and sat up in bed. Leon put his head around the door, holding a towel around his shoulders. 

'Do you want a shower bath before breakfast?' he asked. 

'That would be lovely! But what am I going to wear? I haven't brought any clothes.' She looked ruefully at the chair where lay the clothes she had worn the previous day - they were now in need of a good wash and some repair. 

'I'll send the boy over to Doughty Court to fetch you something,' said Leon. 

So the boy, drinking tea and listening to the cook and the maids reading over the morning newspapers, was again summoned from the servants' breakfast table to bicycle over to Doughty Court, this time to bring back a case of woman's clothes. He set off into the morning sunshine, wondering why the master put up with a chauffeur who couldn't be trusted to come back at nights and brought strange women home. 

The strange woman, however, once bathed and dressed in her hastily-fetched clothes, was welcomed to the breakfast table at Curzon Street. She sat demurely facing her husband across the breakfast table, replied in the affirmative to polite questions from Manfred and Poiccart as to whether she had slept well and the bed had been comfortable, and tucked into a boiled egg and toast. 

Manfred had the newspapers, and was commenting on that morning's news. There was no report on the kidnapping of Mark, but there was one column inch in one of the papers on the attack on the shop keeper near Chester Square. There was also a letter in the Times commenting on the events of the previous few days and demanding why the police depended on 'supra-legal organisations such as the Four Just Men.' 

'Who was the Fourth Just Man?' asked Mirabelle. 'I mean the original fourth, not the man who died when you killed the minister in London.' 

'Clarice Merrell,' said Manfred. 'He was shot dead by the police in Bordeaux.' 

Mirabelle noticed that all three of the Just Men became solemn at the mention of the name; an air of sadness swept over the room. 

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I shouldn't have asked.' 

'No, it's good that he should be remembered,' said Leon. 'We treat his name as sacred - he died for our cause. But only we three remember him now.' 

'It was more than twenty years ago,' explained Manfred. 'Each year we visit his grave and do him honour, but he has no other memorial.' 

'He had no living family,' said Poiccart, in answer to Mirabelle's unspoken question. 'None of us have living family. We give up all family ties, so that we can work completely independently, without any hindrance from other obligations.' 

'But you have obligations to each other,' suggested Mirabelle. 'You would die for each other, wouldn't you? I've read Alma's press-cuttings - when you were arrested,' - she looked at Manfred, who nodded assent - 'you worked day and night to rescue him' - she looked at Poiccart and Gonsalez. Poiccart nodded, but Gonsalez was as cynical as always. 

'George set us a puzzle,' he said, 'which we couldn't honourably decline.' 

'A puzzle?' 

'How to rescue a man who can't possibly be rescued.' 

Mirabelle almost laughed, but her husband was regarding her with such seriousness that she stifled the urge. 'And you rescued him,' she concluded, 'so you got full marks! And then you went away across the sea - how long after that did you return to England?'