Our Lady of Pain by Marion Chesney Page B

“I am no longer amused. We will leave tomorrow, Benton.”
    “But Your Grace, the police said—”
    “Do you think I care what a lot of frog policemen say? My orders are to pack. Fetch Kemp.”
    When her butler arrived, the duchess said, “Take a telegram. Right. Got paper and pen? Good. ‘Dear Polly. Daughter involved in murder and mayhem and whole business is too vulgar for words and can no longer chaperone her so suggest you catch train to Paris and get to the Crillon toute suite and take her away because I have had enough of it. Effie.’ Send that right off, Kemp.”
    But when the telegram arrived at the Palace Hotel in Monte Carlo, Lord and Lady Hadfield were on their way to Cairo and had left no forwarding address.
    Daisy rapped on Harry’s door during the night and when he answered, she whispered urgently, “Oh, Captain, Rose has a bad fever. She needs a doctor.”
    “I’ll see to it right away.”
    Harry ordered a doctor to be sent immediately and told the hotel manager also to hire a trained nurse. Then he quietly entered Rose’s room. She was tossing and turning and her face was flushed.
    Daisy began to cry softly. “I should never have left her.”
    Harry sat down beside the bed and took Rose’s hot hand in his own and held it tightly until the doctor arrived.
    Dr. Maurey was an elderly gentleman with silver hair and a gold pince-nez. He sent Harry out of the room while he examined Rose. Harry paced up and down the corridor wondering whether he should wake the duchess. When the doctor called him in, he said he thought Lady Rose was suffering from a severe chill and shock. He had prescribed powders which Miss Levine was to dissolve in water and get the patient to drink every four hours. He would call again in the morning. Harry told him a nurse had been ordered and if the doctor waited a few more minutes, he was sure the nurse would arrive. Rose needed expert care.
    Daisy felt useless after the nurse arrived and took over. She wished they were all back in England. The nurse was middle-aged and appeared efficient but could not speak a word of English. Daisy felt so far from home, lost in an alien land. She began to wonder whether God was punishing her for having slept with Becket. What if Becket should decide not to marry her? Daisy had remained a virgin until her affair with Becket, having heard too many stories of girls being seduced and then abandoned.
    At nine in the morning, Harry walked along to the duchess’s suite to tell her about Rose’s illness. The doors were all standing open and he could see hotel servants inside, clearing and cleaning.
    “Where is Madame la Duchesse?” he asked.
    When he was told she had left early that morning, he muttered, “Selfish old toad.”
    He went down to see the manager and explained that he would need a lady of reputable standing to act as a chaperone. The manager appeared to find his request as simple as if he had ordered flowers.
    Later that afternoon, he introduced Harry to a lady called Madame Bailloux. Madame Bailloux was a small, dainty Frenchwoman in her fifties with small sparkling black eyes. She said she had previously been employed as a companion to the Marquise de Graimont, who had recently died. She had excellent references. Harry told her all about Rose’s situation and said that madame would be expected to travel with them to London.
    “I know London well,” she said in prettily accented English.
    “Lady Rose does have a companion, a Miss Levine, but Miss Levine is young and I need someone older to act as chaperone,” said Harry.
    “I will do my best. I remember seeing Dolores Duval driving her carriage in the Bois,” said Madame Bailloux. “Could she not have been the victim of some enraged lover?”
    “Then why murder Madame de Peurey?”
    “Because Madame de Peurey may have known the identity of this murderer. A time ago, I remember, Dolores Duval was under the protection of a certain Monsieur Thierry Clement. He manufactures