girl, and retire to Scotland; if I knew him at all, any shame he felt would be nothing to his rage against the society that had branded him, and the prince who’d betrayed him, and I dare say he’s brooding in his Highland fastness this minute, armoured in righteous wrath, despising the world that cast him out. Small wonder, for I can tell you now, at the end of my little tale … Gordon-Cumming was railroaded. He didn’t cheat at baccarat.
I learned this within twenty-four hours of the verdict, but there was nothing to be done, even if I’d wanted to. No one would have credited the truth for a moment; I didn’t myself, at first, for it beggared belief. But there can be no doubt about it, for it fits exactly with the evidence of both sides, and the source is unimpeachable—I’ve lived with her seventy years, after all, and know that while she may suppress a little veri and suggest a touch of falsi on occasion, Elspeth ain’t a liar.
We were at breakfast, which for me in my indulgent age was Russian style (sausage, brandy, and coffee) and for her the fodder of her native heath: porridge, ham, eggs, black pudding, some piscine abomination called Arbroath smokies, oatcakes, rolls, and marmalade (God knows how she’s kept her figure), while we read the morning journals. Usually she reads and prattles together, but that morning she was silent, absorbing the Cumming debacle. When she’d laid her eye-glasses aside she sat for a while, stirring her tea in a thoughtful, contented manner.
'Rum business, that,' says I. 'D’ye know, old girl, it’s beyond me. Granted he’s a poisonous tick … I still can’t believe he cheated.'
'Neither he did,' says she.
'What’s that? Oh, I see … you don’t think it likely, either. Well, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for certain, but—'
'Oh, but I do know,' says she, laying down her spoon. 'He did not cheat at all. Well, I think not, on the first night, and I know he did not, on the second.' She sipped her tea, while I choked on my brandy.
'What d’you mean—you know? You don’t know a thing about it! Why, when I asked you, that night at Tranby … remember, whether he’d been jockeying his stakes, you didn’t know what I meant, even!'
'I knew perfectly well what you meant, but it would not have been prudent to say anything just then. It would not have suited,' says she calmly, 'at all.'
'You mean … you’re saying you knew then he hadn’t cheated?' In my agitation I overset my cup, coffee all over the shop. 'But … how could you possibly … what the blazes are you talking about?'
'There is no need to fly at me, or take that crabbit tone,' says she, rising swiftly. 'Quick, put a plate under the cloth before it stains the table! Drat, such a mess! Here, let me ’tend to it, and you ring for Jane … oh, the best walnut!'
'Damn Jane and the walnut! Will you tell me what you mean!' She had the cloth back, clucking and mopping the table with a napkin. 'Elspeth! What’s this rot about Cumming not cheating? How do you know, dammit?'
'It’s a mercy your cup had gone cold … oh, how vexing! It’ll have to be French polished.' She peered at the wood. 'Oh, dear, why did I not wait till you were settled—guid kens I should know by now what you’re like in the morning.' She discarded the napkin with dainty distaste and resumed her seat. 'Sir William Gordon-Cumming did not cheat. That is what I mean.' She sighed, in a Patient Griselda sort of way. 'The fact is, you see … I did.'
Lord knows what I looked like in that moment, a cod on a slab likely. She lifted a swift warning finger.
'Now, please, my love, do not raise your voice, or rage at me. It’s done, and there is no undoing it, and the servants would hear. If you are angry, I’m sorry, but if you’ll just bide quiet and hear me out, you may not be too angry, I hope.' She smiled at me as though I were an infant drooling in my crib, and took a sip of tea.
'Now, then. It was I who added counters to his stakes, just once or twice, and not nearly as often as they said—why, I was quite shocked when I read in the papers last week, the kind of evidence they were giving, even Mrs Wilson—dear me, if there had been that much hankey-pankey with the counters the whole world must have seen, the Prince and everyone! The way folk deceive themselves! But I suppose,' she shrugged, 'that the General Solicitor or whatever they call him was right, and they saw what they wanted to see … only they didn’t, if you know what I mean, for it wasn’t Billy Cumming cheating, it was me … or should it be I? Anyway, I only did it now and then … well, three or four times, perhaps, I’m not sure, but often enough to make them think he was cheating, I’m glad to say,' she added complacently. 'And you should not be angry, I think, because he deserved it, and I was right.'
It’s hard, when your life has contained as many hellish surprises as mine, to put ’em in order of disturbance —Gul Shah appearing in that Afghan dungeon, Cleonie whipping off her eye-patch, meeting Bismarck in his nightmare castle, waking to find myself trussed over a gun muzzle at Gwalior, and any number of equally beastly shocks, but I’ve never been more thoroughly winded than by those incredible words across the breakfast dishes on Wednesday, June 10th, 1891 … from Elspeth of all people! For a moment I wondered if she was making a ghastly joke, or if that pea-brain had given way at last … but no, I knew her artless prattle too well, and that she meant every damned word and there was no point in bellowing disbelief. I forced myself to be calm and sit mum while I downed my brandy and poured another stiff ’un before demanding, no doubt in an incredulous croak:
'You’re telling me that he didn’t cheat … but you did—and that you were laying a plant on him?' Seeing her bewildered, I translated: 'Making him look guilty, dammit! For the love of God, woman—why?'
Her eyes widened. 'Why, to punish him! To pay him out for his bad conduct! His … his black wickedness!' All of a sudden she was breathing fiery indignation, Boadicea in a lace dressing-gown. 'And so I did, and now he is disgraced, and a pariah and a hissing, and serve him right! He should be torn by wild horses, so he should! He is a base, horrid man, and I hope he suffers as he deserves!' She began to butter toast ferociously, while I sat stricken, wondering what the devil he’d done, horrid suspicions leaping to mind, but before I could voice them she gave one of her wordless Caledonian exclamations of impatience, left off buttering, tossed her head, and regained her composure.
'Oh, feegh! Harry, I beg your pardon, getting het-up in that unseemly way … oh, but when I think of him …' She took a deep breath, and spooned marmalade on to her plate. 'But it’s by with now, thank goodness, and he’s paid for a villain, de’il mend him, and I’m the happy woman that’s done it, for I never thought to have the chance, and long I bided, waiting the day.' As always when deeply moved she was getting Scotcher by the minute, but now she paused for a mouthful of toast. 'And then, at Tranby, when I heard that Wilson loon whispering to his friend, and under-stood what was what, I soon saw in a blink how I might settle his hash for him, once for all. And I did that!' says she, taking a grim nibble. 'Oh, if only I could make marmalade like Granny Morrison’s .. there’s no right flavour to this bought stuff. Would you oblige me with the honey, dearest?'
I shoved it across in a daze. The enormity, the impossibility of what she said she’d done, her fury against Cumming for heaven knew what unimaginable reason—I still couldn’t take it in, but I knew that if you’re to get sense out of Elspeth you must let her babble to a finish in her own weird way, giving what assistance you may. I clutched at the nearest straw.
'What did Wilson whisper? To whom? When?'
'Why, on the first night, when the Prince said `Who’s for baccarat, everyone?' and they went to play in the smoking-room, and Count Lutzow and I and Miss Naylor and Lady Brougham went to watch.' She frowned at the honey. 'Is it very fattening, do you suppose? Oh, well … So the Prince said `Shall you and I make a jolly bank together, Lady Flashman?' but I said I did not know the rules and must watch till I got the hang of it, and then I should be honoured to help him, and he said, quite jocose, `Ah, well, one of these days, then', and Count Lutzow found me a chair next to that young fellow with the poker up his back, like all the Guardees, what’s his name -? '
'Berkeley Levett, you mean? Elspeth, for mercy’s sake—'
'Like enough … he might have been Berkeley Square for all the sense I could get from him … so then they played, and after a wee while, the Wilson boy—the one they call Jack, though his name is Arthur, I think, or is it Stanley?—anyway, I heard him whisper to Levett, `I say, this is a bit hot!' which I thought odd, when it wasn’t at all, I was quite chilly away from the fire, and without my shawl … but a moment later I saw he meant something quite otherwise, for he whispered again, that the man next to him was cheating—and I saw he meant Billy Cumming … Harry, dear, would you ring for hot water? The pot has gone quite cold—I’m sure they don’t make delft as they used to, or perhaps the cosy is getting thin—they stuff them with anything at all these days, we always had a good thick woollen one at home that Grizel knitted, but they do tend to smell rather, after a while …'
Husbands tend to lose their reason rather, after a while, too, so lest you should suffer likewise I’ll relieve her account with a precis: she had heard Levett say Wilson must be mistaken, and Wilson had told him to look for himself. Lady Flashman, scenting mischief breast-high, had also fixed her bonny blue gimlets on the suspect, seen
