A Curious Beginning

I nodded towards the de Clares. “Sir Hugo, clearly you know my uncle, Edmund de Clare. I am not certain of the identity of the other fellows. I assume they are cousins of some fashion.”


“They are,” Sir Hugo acknowledged. “Your uncle is at the center of a group that is agitating quite vehemently for Irish Home Rule. All of his sons and nephews are involved as well. They’ve been a nuisance to the English authorities there, and I am delighted to make his personal acquaintance at last.”

My uncle lifted that pugnacious chin with all the native drama of a Celt. “Do what you like to us. Ireland will be free of your kind and we will be martyrs to the cause.”

“But I don’t think you want to be a martyr, do you?” I asked. “Martyrdom is well and good, but you would far rather be the power behind the throne. I presume we can speak freely here? All of us know exactly who I am and what claims I might make?”

We exchanged glances like wolves circling a fresh kill. But it was too late for posturing.

“Let us have it plainly, then,” I went on. “My mother was the Irish actress Lily Ashbourne, sister of Edmund de Clare,” I said with a nod to the gentleman. “Somehow, during the course of her travels, she made the acquaintance of the Prince of Wales. I have had quite a bit of time to read the old newspapers here, and I discovered something interesting—in 1860 both His Royal Highness and Lily Ashbourne were on tours of North America. In fact, they happened to be at Niagara Falls at precisely the same time. The prince toured the falls and that night he attended the theater in town—the theater where Lily Ashbourne was performing her most dynamic role, Phaedra. I suspect that is when they met.”

“It was,” Mornaday confirmed. “I have read the statement he made to Sir Hugo’s predecessor.”

“He made a statement?”

Sir Hugo gave me a cool nod. “When Prince Albert discovered the liaison, he instructed a high-ranking detective at Scotland Yard to investigate Miss Ashbourne and determine whether she seemed likely to pose a threat to the royal family. He was quite concerned about a lawsuit demanding maintenance. The detective in question was in due course made head of Special Branch upon its creation. When he died and I succeeded him, those files were turned over to me.”

“But a maintenance suit was not the greatest of Prince Albert’s worries,” I guessed.

“No,” Sir Hugo acknowledged. “It was the worry that Miss Ashbourne would bring a paternity suit. I have the letters from the Prince Consort describing his fears of just such an eventuality. He believed his son’s actions would destroy the royal family and, in due course, possibly even the monarchy.”

“And well it might have,” I agreed. “Particularly if he had known the truth—that Lily Ashbourne and the Prince of Wales had been married before their child was born.”

Mornaday sucked in his breath, and Edmund de Clare gave a shout of pure triumph. In the flickering light, Sir Hugo seemed to turn pale. “There was never proof.”

I brandished the packet I had assembled of the papers Stoker and I had recovered. “There is now.”

Sir Hugo’s expression did not falter, but I knew he understood what it was. Edmund de Clare stared, gape mouthed, as though I had just fished the Holy Grail out of my pocket.

“Is that—”

“Yes,” I told him. “It is. This is the information for which the Baron von Stauffenbach was murdered.”

De Clare blanched in spite of the heat of the fire. “That was an accident!” he protested. Sir Hugo turned to him inquiringly and de Clare went on, the words burbling forth, as if, having begun to speak, he could not stop himself. “He wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know and the lad struck him too hard,” he said, jerking his chin towards Silent John. The fellow was sweating profusely, and I believed my uncle was telling the truth. No hardened criminal would look so likely to faint when faced with his crimes.

“Be that as it may, someone ought to answer for his death,” I said levelly.

“And he will,” my uncle swore. “If you come with us, I will turn him over to the police, I swear it.”

Silent John gave a hoarse cry of dismay at being turned on so easily, but one of the other Irish cuffed him sharply to silence. Sir Hugo turned to Edmund de Clare with a genial look.

“And how do you propose to leave this place with Miss Speedwell? I have already told you I have a dozen constables outside who will prevent it.”

Edmund’s eyes gleamed. “And I have fifty stout Irish lads out there who say you won’t.”