Death on a Pale Horse - By Donald Thomas Page 0,109

words, concerning the moon, may be more important than the esteemed Comtesse de Flandre. They specify a time. In doing so they eliminate at least twenty-seven of twenty-eight possible dates in the month ahead.”

“It would be dark at the new moon.”

“Indeed it would. Perhaps we are to meet our foe during the hours of darkness, that is to say approximately between seven o’clock at night and seven o’clock in the morning.”

He turned again to the bookshelves and took out a familiar cheaply bound volume. It was the current issue of Old Moore’s Almanac, sold by the street vendors of Piccadilly. Flipping through it, he came to the tides and phases of the moon.

“For what it matters, Watson, the new moon is on 29 March, just a couple of weeks away. We may suppose that it is the next new moon which is indicated. If not, then this message would have very little value as information or as an ultimatum.”

“And the Comtesse de Flandre? Why should the phases of the moon matter to her? At this time of year, she is probably on her way to the Swiss lakes or the Venice Lido.”

He struck a match and furrowed his brow. Something was going on in his mind, but for the life of me I could not tell what. He shook out the match, drew on his pipe, and his brow was clear again.

“Riva,” he said presently. “It is a picturesque little town at the Austrian end of Lake Garda. There was a brief notice not long ago in the Court Circular of The Times. If memory serves, the Comtesse and her children were to be guests of her Sigmaringen cousins at their lakeside villa there during the early spring.”

“What can the new moon mean to her out there? Or anywhere, come to that?”

He walked across to the window and stood staring out across the reflected sunset of the foggy London sky. I knew better than to disturb him in such a mood.

“Fool!” he said softly, a moment later, and I knew he did not mean me.

He turned to the bookshelves again and drew out another flimsily bound handbook. It had the familiar livery of Bradshaw’s railway timetable, but he did not turn to the usual pages. I could tell from their colour that he had found an appendix detailing international rail services to Paris, Brussels, or Berlin and the steamer times for the Continental ferries. He stood motionless and performed a little mental arithmetic.

“I believe, Watson, I owe you a very great apology for wasting your time over the identity of the Comtesse de Flandre.”

“But not for revealing the activities of such political scoundrels as Rawdon Moran.”

His face brightened a little and he looked up from the columns of figures.

“You are correct. I believe, however, that our Comtesse de Flandre is not the sister of the King of Rumania, nor the wife of Philippe, Comte de Flandre, nor the mother of his five children. To be sure, she is a creature of the greatest elegance; but she has a heart of steel. She is also the property of a good many admirers.”

He chuckled and I knew what was coming next.

“She also has two paddle-wheels, two funnels, and a two-compound diagonal engine capable of driving her at sixteen knots.”

For the first time in the course of this case, he put back his head and laughed with all the power of his lungs. As for the ship, I had little difficulty in imagining her. In my Scottish childhood, the Clyde and the other rivers, as well as the islands and coastal waters, depended for their transport and supplies on these trim well-balanced paddle steamers. Named after nobility and heroes of legend, they plied from pier to pier among the little harbours of the western coast. They were about two hundred feet long and some thirty feet in the beam. At a speed between twelve and twenty knots, they could carry as many as four or five hundred passengers. Their build made them exceptionally manoeuvrable and, being flat-bottomed, they could work in as little as six or eight feet of water. Under the top deck, there were saloons and a bar, providing cover in wet weather.

He glanced at the timetable again.

“It appears that the ship is owned by the Belgian government and works the Ostend-to-Dover crossing with another paddler, the Princesse Henriette. Strange, is it not, that the ships are named after the chaste and worthy Comtesse de Flandre and her daughter? It is