Rodby comes clean

…

I was beginning to believe that it wasn’t half the story I knew, but about a quarter.  How did that little tidbit of information get left out of the official briefing, and accompanying documents.

I knew there was something he was not telling me.  And, worse, I realized now that this was a totally off-the-books operation, and the reason why it was both Cecelia and I, we were expendable if anything went wrong.

Surely Rodby hadn’t thought I wouldn’t find out.  It certainly explained why he was trying to keep it at arm’s length. And left it to Martha to ask me if I would talk to the countess about her problem.

Perhaps I should have told her back in London that the countess did not want me to intervene.  No, she probably wouldn’t listen.  She had to be the older sister, and that made sense the way the countess deferred to her in London.

And why hadn’t the countess told me of this connection?

Stepsisters.

Did Rodby know, or was he, like me, working under the assumption they were simply old friends.  Would she lie to her husband, knowing who he is?  It was another can of worms.

I heard a thump on the table and switched my attention back to Benito.  He was looking at me, with one hand on a rather large handgun. What looked like a relic from the last world war.

It looked like it could do some serious damage and he knew how to use it.

“Now, whoever you are, tell me where you’re from and who you work for.”

“Or you’ll shoot me?”

“It won’t be the first time this gun has gone off accidentally.”

I believed him.  I took a moment to assess my chances of making the distance from my chair to the gun and wrest it away from him.  They were not good.  There was a reason why I was sitting so far from his table.  This man had had to deal with unsavoury characters before.

“I am not your enemy.  As far as I am aware, I was asked to look for the countess, but a man named Rodby, a man I used to work for, and I last met him and his wife yesterday.  The day before that I met a woman who told me she was the countess, and who travelled here yesterday with my partner and two other women. Vittoria and her daughter Juliet.  Again, as far as I am aware, Juliet is the illegitimate daughter of the count and another possible heir to the Burkehardt estate.”

“You said, ‘a woman who told you she was the countess’.  What did you mean by that?”

“You, that gun, and a boss who doesn’t make sense.  I think you’re about to tell me the woman I met, and currently protecting, is not the countess?”

He had to make a decision whether to trust me or not.  And even if he did one wrong word and I would regret it.

“When we first met a month ago, the countess and I created a code that was to preface every communication.  It worked well for two weeks then the code disappeared.  I suspected she had been taken, and when a woman purporting to be the countess turned up in my office, I knew.  She has been kidnapped.  She had no idea of our previous conversations and took the documents I needed her to sign away with her.”

As good a sign that she knew where the real countess was.  Ui didn’t really know who the countess was, so anyone could have been presented to me and I’d believe them.

“If you are working for the kidnappers, I have nothing to tell you.  If you are not, I cannot tell you who has taken her or where she is, and quite frankly I don’t want to.  There is no ransom note, no communication at all.  If that girl out there is looking for the countess, then she must be working for the Burkehardt’s because it is in their best interests to meet with her before the due date to get her final decision.  Once again, are you a friend or foe?”

“Friend.  The first time I met the countess was in London a few days ago when I went to the opera with her.  After that, I was asked if I would help her with a problem, but before I could find out what it was, she disappeared.  Perhaps her pretence had been discovered.  Nothing is ever straightforward, not when it comes to Rodby.”

And if the Mrs Rodby I saw at the opera yesterday was not her, why did they get me to meet her?  I’d be the last person Rodby would want to put on her case because he’d know I wouldn’t accept what I’d been told.  The murky water just got more muddied.  Who would want to kidnap the countess and what did they want from her?  All I could think of was that someone knew she was inheriting, kidnapped her, and had inserted a fake countess to turn up to the ratifying of the will.  Would she become expendable, would they both become expendable after the transaction was complete?

Where did Vittoria and Juliet come in?  Did whoever had taken the countess even know about their interest in the estate?

“I suspect that Mrs Rodby isn’t Mrs Rodby either,” I said, “Which just adds another layer of mud.”  I shook my head.  “When I see Rodby again I’m going to strangle him with my bare hands.  Are you still going to Burkehardt’s solicitors to oversee the signing?  I think we =can assume the fake countess will be there.  I’m supposed to make sure she gets there.  That was one of my mission parameters.”

“I will be, with police officers, and will be exposing that woman as a fake.  Unless you find the real one, or the Burkehardt’s do, though I think it preferable if you or someone else did.  I have consistently advised her that it was not a good idea to marry into the family.  Either of the sisters.  When the Tolliver’s adopted Heidi, she was a troubled girl who had been flirting with the aristocracy and had settled on marrying one of them.  Of course, her parents had a title but not wealth and encouraged her to find such a man so they could all live off his family.  The count was a man who never wanted to be tied to one woman and had an infamous reputation with women, especially the servants, and when you mentioned Vittoria, there was a case in point.  But, the girl she says is her daughter, is not.  I know she has a birth certificate, but it is a very good forgery.  The count was going to marry Martha, there had been an arrangement between the Tolliver’s and the Burkehardt’s, which would have resolved the issues were having now, but Heidi professed that the count had made her pregnant, and the Tolliver’s were not people you just shrugged off, so Martha’s wedding was stopped, and Heidi took her place.  If you want another scenario, just as plausible as all the others, then look no further than Martha.  Everything would have been hers had her sister not interfered with a phantom pregnancy.  Knowing her as I do, and have done for many years, she is very capable of doing something like this.”

Why couldn’t this be just a simple kidnapping by some avaricious monster who wanted everything for him or herself, like a crazy business rival, or make just the mafia looking for a one hundred per cent share?  That would make sense.

“I should just go home and let them all kill each other and that would be an end to it.”

‘If only life was that simple.  I wish you all the luck in the world.  You’re going to need it.”

© Charles Heath 2023