Jack of Diamonds

Dimitri Chernetsov stood on the upper floor of Marlborough Estate sipping a whiskey sour and looking down at the large foyer. Two elaborate sets of staircases wound their way down from the landing he was standing on. There was a massive chandelier hanging from a chain as thick as a man’s arm, suspended twenty feet above the floor. The chandelier was at least two hundred years old and was the first thing he’d wanted to get rid of when he first bought the house. But Bubbi, he remembered, had other ideas. He was glad she’d talked him out of replacing it. There was a large Turkish rug laying on the black and white tiled floor, with two potted urns under each of the winding staircases. It was a nuisance as far as he was concerned. Again, Bubbi had a different opinion, filling the urns with silken flowers crafted by local women.

Brilliant.

The foyer was where he and Bubbi would greet the first guests as they arrived tonight—or this afternoon if last year is any indication, he reminded himself. The front of the house was made up of five separate floor to ceiling windows the servants were cleaning at the moment. Long sheer curtains made ghostly images of the figures outside, and he nodded his silent approval as he made his way down the stairs. The lights he’d had installed outside would add atmosphere to the coming night.

With his hand sliding over the wide bannister he was reminded of the children sliding down at great peril to themselves. The challenge was to slide down the rails in your stockings; the challenge was not falling the wrong way, he thought, looking down at the floor twenty feet below. He smiled at the memory as he made his way down the wide carpeted stairs.

The grandchildren'll soon pick up the mantle, he told himself.

He wasn’t yet fully dressed and ready for the evening’s Ball, but there was still plenty of time. It was only three in the afternoon. There were so many things that had to be checked and rechecked, he told himself, and though he knew his wife managed the estate with a business acumen most men would envy, still, it was his signature on the bottom of the bill.

He could see Anatoly standing outside the circular driveway through the sheers of the large windows. He looked as if a shadow crossing the wide walkway having just spoken to someone. Chernetsov failed to recognize the man, but there was something eerily familiar about the scene that made him feel uncomfortable. In a moment Anatloy stepped through the door and into the real world.

“Oh, Father, there you are,” he said, the surprise evident.

“Where did you expect to find me, if not in my own house?” Chernetsov smiled.

It always feels good to see Anatoly.

“Ready for Plymouth tomorrow?”

Anatoly was quick to take Chernetsov by the arm, leading him to a smaller, more private area in a room off the hallway. It was a small book-lined study overlooking the garden, and Chernetsov watched one of the kitchen girls walking through endless rows of herbs and vegetables, selecting a variety for the night. Something about her looked familiar.

Will there be enough? Or will we run out, like last year at Mandalay?

“They found the Russian's body on one of the properties—I don’t know which one. The Chumley Grove Constabulary will be all over this, I suppose.”

“His body? How?” Chernetsov asked, his full attention on his son. “When I told you to get rid of the body, I didn’t mean in our own back yard.”

“The river flooded its banks and washed everything clear.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Do about it? Nothing. They can't possibly find anything. In fact, any of their so-called evidence will have been washed away by the rain. Let them investigate.”

“And if their investigation leads them here?”

“They’ll have to come here—that’s only obvious. But they have to go to all the other Houses, as well. It won’t take long for them to figure out he’s Russian. Someone's bound to have reported him missing. That means this will most likely be the first place they come to, or the second. But he’s an agitator, our Russian, and it’s well known he’s been staying in Okehampton. Turn the questions around on them. Why would you be expected to know a Russian agitator? I promise Poppa, we took the body forty miles up the road and buried it in the middle of goddamned nowhere. Maybe we could’ve dug the hole a little deeper? I’m sorry.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? The Solomon brothers assure me they have the gold. All I do is hand over the opium, and the gold is ours. I even have a bill of lading for the guns, so it looks legit. It's labelled Motorcycle Parts enroute to Finland. If the Finns win—and it’s always a big if with this kind of thing—but if the Finns win independence, we’ll have a safe port to transport the guns into, but more than that, we’ll have someplace where we can get people out. The new Finnish government will turn a blind eye.”

“Can you trust them?”

He wanted to trust that things would go according to plan. He wanted to trust there’d be no betrayal. He wanted to trust the Solomon brothers--but the truth of the matter was he was a Russian.

I could never let myself trust a Jew—or a Finn.

“As much as you can trust anyone in that business,” Anatoly was saying. “They’re criminals; so they have no honour. If they try to double-cross us, we'll kill them. That’s why I hired the Italians. Sabini’s Hammerboys hate the Solomons. Anyway, Charlie Sabini helped broker the deal for me with the Sicilians. He was recommended because they told me he speaks the language—well, that's what they said he did,” he smiled.

“We can’t afford to make any mistakes. Don’t get carried away tonight. I know you like to drink, but you need a clear head tomorrow—hell, tonight. It’s a Costume Ball, remember? With all the excitement of late, we may be attracting the fringe element.”

“Are you referring to the Jazz band?” Anatoly said with a grin. “The juggler? Or is it the magician? I could just imagine Momma’s face when she saw that on the list. A juggler. You and Momma have to embrace the fringe, Poppa.”

“If the Chumley Grove Constabulary are going to investigate, what better time for them to show up, than tonight? Have you thought of that?”

“Do you really think they might?”

“How many people do you anticipate will be wearing masks?”

“Point taken.”

“And be mindful of the thief.”

“What thief?”

“Have you forgotten about Roger Ashcroft?”

“Haven’t given him a second thought, to be quite honest. What about him?”

“Have you forgotten how someone broke into Bedloe Manor last night? Roger came across him and was beaten as a result? We talked about it at lunch? Just put someone in the Art Gallery, and we should be fine.”

“Do you really expect someone to steal one of your precious paintings?”

“A painting, no; but a Fabregé egg? Why not?”

“And what about Cromwell’s Skull?”

“I’m not too concerned about that,” he smiled, looking up at the chandelier.”It’s hidden in plain sight. It’s only the second time I’ve had to hide it. We won’t see it here for another six years. So I hid it in the same place I did last time.”

“And it’s reachable?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,” Chernetsov smiled. The skull hadn’t been found in years; he wasn’t about to have it found while it was in his care

“Visible?”

“From the right angle? Perhaps. From here? No.”

“Attainable?”

Chernetsov smiled as he carried on with his inspection. He passed through the foyer and into the grand salon where the banquet table was being polished and the place settings laid out. Fifty chairs, twenty-four on each side, and one at both ends of the table. He’d made sure to have a clear view of the chandelier.

*

Anatoly watched his father walking away, thinking if he could retrieve the Cromwell Skull, he might be able to pay off some of the bills he’d picked up over the last few months. One thing he’d discovered at great cost was the amount of money needed to run a counter-revolution. He doubted very much if his father would help him out of the hole he found himself wallowing in. Knowing him as he did, Anatoly had naturally assumed his father would simply tell him it was his problem to sort out.

And I will, he told himself. Given time--and Pushkirovich.

Now, on the eve of the biggest opium deal the Plymouth docks have ever seen, they find the body. The body turning up like that couldn’t have come at a better time--and a touch of the facetious, even now, he thought. And to make things worse, the local Socialists have taken it into their heads that the family bank holds most of the treasures of Russia—when it couldn’t be farther from the truth—but that doesn’t change the collective mind of the local Socialists, does it? What do you think would happen if they got hold of the guns?

He made his way up the stairs, a slow methodical walk, watching as his father made his way into the Grand Salon. Anatoly smiled to himself, thinking how his father was in for a big surprise when he entered the kitchen and met the members of the Jazz quartet.

For one thing, there’s five of them, he smiled. Everyone always forgets the singer.

He stopped at the small bar at the top of the stairs, pouring himself a drink. He told himself he needed it. While a part of him believed it, the other part told himself it wasn’t true. Well, he hoped it wasn’t true. His father was right though, he did like to drink. Most of the time, he drank too much. He’d have to make certain he didn’t let himself get carried away tonight. Tomorrow’s meeting was too important. Once he had the guns in transit and the gold for the opium, everything would work itself out. Harry Solomon and his brother would unknowingly pay to transport guns stolen from the Irish. The Finns would pay for the guns on arrival. He’d pay the Sicilians the following day with money from the Finns, and walk away with the left over gold the Solomon Brothers used for buying the opium. It was ridiculously easy how he had played them all.

Asking Sabini to send some of his boys was a stroke of genius, he thought. Neither of them trusted each other.

How do I let myself get into these spots? he wondered, leaning back against the small table that served as the bar. It wasn’t something someone like him should even know about—that side of life—but things happen don’t they, and then they spiral out of control no matter what you do. Before you know it, there’s nowhere to turn; no one you can count on, and you have to look to the mercy of strangers. The problem with strangers is that you can never really let yourself trust them, can you? You have to remind yourself that they’re in it for their own needs first.

Like Pushkirovich.

It’s the company you keep, he told himself, knowing he’d been a fool for approaching Harry Solomon in the first place. But the Solomon brothers were looking to expand into the drug trade. Sabini had the bookie market, but he knew Sabini also had a connection with the Sicilians. It was a stroke of genius asking Sabini to broker a deal. If all went accordingly, Anatoly stood to make a tidy profit. Money would be changing hands, and like any other gangster he’d come across, Anatoly knew greed was always a factor. And given the chance to stab the Solomons in the back one last time, he asked Sabini how he could say no?

He turned around, walking to the bannister and looking out at the giant chandelier across the way. The crystals caught the sunlight coming in through the large windows downstairs, spraying colours across the ceiling and along three of the walls. He looked down at the floor twenty feet below, where tiny shards of colour danced across the floor. When he was a boy, he used to think the chandelier was close enough to touch. He’d always thought that if he could get the nerve up, he’d climb up onto the railing and make the jump. Now, he didn’t think it would hold his weight. He was about to turn away when something dark caught his eye. He paused, looking closer, straining up on his toes to see.

He turned, knowing there was a chair against the wall. He put his drink down on the table and picked up the chair, placing it next to the bannister. He stepped up. He had no intention of making the jump, but there was something that caught his eye and he told himself he knew exactly what it was. It was probably a child’s toy, he told himself even as he looked at it. He stepped up on the chair and looked at the chandelier. He wasn’t high enough, so he stepped up onto the rail with one foot. It was wider than his foot, so he stepped up with the other foot and looked directly across at the chandelier.

Don’t look down, he told himself, but that is definitely the skull.

He didn’t see who it was. He didn’t hear anyone, or even suspect there was someone close by. He felt a hand hitting his leg though, just behind the knee. Whoever it was pushed hard enough for his knee to buckle and send him tumbling off balance. He could feel himself falling, and tried jumping out to the chandelier, but missed. His hand hit with a metallic clang, and a large cloud of dust rained over him as he fell to the floor.

The scream he uttered as he fell, was brief. The sound of the impact he’d made hitting the floor, was sickening. The scream of pain, excruciating. The ankle of his left foot went directly through the joint, splitting the tibia and fibula which shattered on impact. His knee buckled, and his femur was driven into his pelvis, the ball and socket broken, as the pelvis fractured into five pieces and the femur pushed six inches into his abdomen.

He saw a face he didn’t recognize looking down at him over the bannister.

And then he passed out.

*

Magda was the first one to see him. She’d heard the sickening thud as he landed on the carpeted floor, and turned to see him trying to sit up before he fainted. Her scream echoed through the open foyer. She was at his side before she knew what she was doing—panic stricken—not knowing what to do, or how she should hold him. His face was ashen, his lips turning blue, and then she looked down the length of his body seeing the damage to his leg.

The left leg appeared shorter than the right.

Chernetsov came out of the kitchen almost as soon as she was at Anatloy’s side. He was followed by Greggson, the cook, the kitchen staff, even the Jazz band. A part of her wondered where the magician and the juggler were; the children would be so disappointed. Greggson was quick to push his way through the growing crowd, and looking down at Anatoly, appeared visibly shaken at the sight of him.

“Someone get the phone—we need help!” Chernetsov railed, looking at Greggson. The cook nodded, pushing his way back through the crowd, looking grateful for any excuse to leave.

Chernetsov fell to his knees beside Magda looking at the broken man that was her husband. She felt him putting an arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him and trying his best to comfort her while she could feel his own desolation shuddering through him. He was sobbing against her shoulder. Anatoly was unconscious, probably from the pain, she told herself, and for some reason she was thankful for that.

“Can anyone help us?” Chernetsov called out weakly, looking up at no one, everyone, anyone; he was looking at the faces of the staff around them.

“I’m thinking that maybe I can help?” one of the musicians said, and Magda looked up at the man. He was tall and sparse, his bones sticking out at all angles inside a jacket that was too big for him, and pants with a too large belt cinched tight. He had a thin, angular face, with large eyes that were both red and swollen. There were dark circles under his eyes that almost looked as if they might be bruises. His hair was cut short, in the style of the day, and he had a thin moustache over thick, cracked lips.

“How?” she asked in a near whisper.

“I drove in an ambulance at the Front. I see’d a lot. I might maybe be able to do something. We had to do that sometimes,” he said, holding his hat and bowing his head politely.

“What are you suggesting?”

“We gotta get him on his back. We gotta assess his injuries,” the man said.

“You’ll hurt him,” Magda said, her protest faltering, but then, she didn’t know what else to say.

“You can’t just leave him like that, ma’am,” the man said, taking off his jacket and handing it to one of the other musicians. He put his hat on his head.

“I’ll help you roll him over,” Chernetsov said to the man.

The man was quick to call his bandmates, two of whom stepped forward and looked down at Anatoly, hesitating a moment. They were lucky he wasn’t spitting up blood, the man explained. That meant he wasn’t bleeding inside. Chernetsov looked at the man, nodding, as if he agreed with the man’s assessment. He looked at Madga to make certain she understood. She nodded.

Anatoly’s leg looked twisted over on itself, and she realized the bones would have to be set—as much as circumstance allowed, the man said.

“What does that mean, as much as circumstances allow?” Chernetsov asked.

“One leg’s shorter than the other,” Magda said softly. “That can’t be good.”

The man looked up at the railing above and saw the swaying chandelier.

“He jump?”

“Jump?” Magda asked, distracted. “Why would you ask?” she said, looking up at the swaying chandelier.

“The way the light’s shaking? That means he hit it—no other way it’d be movin’ like that. Did he jump out an’ try an’ catch hol’ of it, you think?”

“Did anyone see what happened?” Chernetsov asked, but no one spoke up.

“We needa make a splint for his leg,” the man said.

“How?” she asked, thinking maybe there was something she could finally do.

“You got wood stakes, like from a fence, but smaller? Can’t be no bigger than from his ankle to his knee. An’ a rope, or strip of cloth, or some such thing to tie it around the wood. We gotta pull his ankle down and into place.”

“Are you mad!” Magda said, turning to look at the man. “It’s one thing to turn him over. But pull on his leg?”

“His leg done got pushed up into his gut, ma’am. It’ll kill him if we don’t do anythin’. He could lose his leg if we don’t splint it. You can’t sit an’ wait for no doctor to show up. He’ll be gone by then. We gotta do it.”

“You can’t pull on his leg! You’ll kill him. You’re not a doctor!”

“No ma’am, I ain’t. But you leave him to suffer like that, he’s gonna die from the sepsis as much as he will the pain. It’d be a welcome relieve for the pain he’ll be in.”

“Why would he jump?” Chernetsov said softly.

“Can’t rightly say, sir,” the man replied, his soft hands slowly removing Anatoly’s shoe.

“What about his other leg?” Magda asked.

“It’s pro’ly all busted up too, but it ain’t so bad as this one.”

Bubbi came running into the foyer, crying out when she saw Anatoly on his back, where a strange black man was pulling on his ankle and telling her husband to hold Anatoly down in case he moved. She pushed her way through the staff who were quick to move aside once they heard her cry out.

“What are you doing!”

“Quiet, woman!” Chernetsov snapped without looking up.

Magda knew Bubbi would launch into hysterics the moment she saw the condition her son was in; she hadn’t been looking forward to it herself. Now that Bubbi was here, she knew it was no time to second guess what they were doing. She had to be strong, not just for her sake, but for Anatoly. She had to trust in the dark stranger. She knew the man had seen more dead and dying men than either her or Chernetsov could say they’d seen, so she was willing to listen to anything the man said that made sense. Even if it doesn't. She knew her Anatoly would die if they did nothing--that was becoming evidently clearer the more she listened to the man explain things to Chernetsov. That he might possibly live if they did as he said. She watched a servant come running in with slender slats of wood, as well as what appeared to be a torn bed sheet.

“Okay, we gonna do it now,” the man said. He had Anatoly’s ankle in his hand, feeling the bones, then pulled it with a clean, hard jerk. Anatoly’s body spasmed quickly and Chernetsov tried holding him down. Magda leaned over and helped hold Anatoly down. She watched as the man placed two of the wooden slats on each side of Anatoly’s calf. He struggled trying to hold them in place and asked Magda to hold them in place while he tied a length of cloth around the leg.

“We wanna keep the leg as straight as we can. They’s two bones in there, and they’s pro’ly all busted up. If we can keep ‘em straight, we might save the leg.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Chernetsov asked.

The man looked at him and sat back on his haunches. He almost smiled as he shook his head, taking his hat off and rubbing a weary hand through his close-cropped hair. He put the hat back on and shook his head slowly.

“No sir, ain’t got a clue, but I seen lotsa men die with less than this, sir, an’ other’s live with worse,” he said slowly. “I ain’t no doctor, an' never claimed to be, but out there picking up the wounded and dying, I did what had to be done. I saved men. Right now, sir, I’m the best chance you got for saving your son. All’s I can say is we gotta pull the leg down. It ain’t s’posed to be in his gut like that, you can see that,” and with that he looked up at Bubbi, who suddenly bit back a cry and tried to turn away. "If we don't do nothin', he's gonna be dead in a bit."

Magda looked at Chernetsov, and he nodded. She stood up, putting her arms around her mother-in-law, and together they wept.

“Maybe it’s better if we don’t watch?” Bubbi suggested.

“I can’t not watch,” Magda replied. “I have to stay,” she added.

“I know.”

“His knee’s pretty busted up, Mister,” the man said, looking at Chernetsov. “I gotta pull it down from above the knee. It’s gonna cause him a lotta distress—”

“Distress?” Chernetsov almost laughed at the man’s choice of words.

“I don’t know lots about it, but the leg fits into the hip. It’s a joint. A ball and socket-like thing,” he explained, cupping his one hand around his fist. “The leg’s done broke the hip socket, an’ pushed through it. No telling how bad the break is, or if it’s fitted itself around the leg. They’s all sorts of wrong with this, but I see’d it done more ’n once, and I seen what happened when it weren’t done.”

“Do it!” Magda said firmly, looking at the man and Chernetsov with mounting fear. There were tears in her eyes.

Chernetsov nodded, and the man grabbed Anatoly’s thigh, gripping it tight and pulling hard, fast, and with determination.

Anatoly spasmed again, his body going rigid before he collapsed. The man reached his hand up Anatoly’s thigh, feeling the joint where the leg met the hip and sat back, visibly relieved.

“We should put him on something we can carry to one of those fancy automobiles you got out back there. Better to get him to a hospital than wait for a doctor to show. He could take a other hour.”

“Did it work?” Madame Chernetsov asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“It moved,” Chernetsov replied, looking at the man sitting across from him, smiling in spite of himself. “I think so.”

“If you get him to a hospital, an’ x-ray the leg, we’ll know for sure,” the man said.

“Thank you,” Chernetsov smiled, holding his hand out to the man.

The man accepted his hand, trying hard to hide his smile.

*

“I want to know who she is,” Chernetsov said, his voice low, controlled, but threatening. He looked at the three men sitting in front of his desk. It was obvious, even to him, that he was fighting to keep himself under control—he could see that looking at his reflection in the mirror behind them—where it was obvious he was fighting to control the anger threatening to get away from him.

It won’t do you any good to lose control of yourself.

They were in the study directly off from the foyer, the books a more personal selection of English Classics, Latin poets, and translations than those found in the library. There were three bookcases standing directly behind the oversized mahogany desk where Chernetsov was standing, pacing, trying to sort things out in his mind. A large floor to ceiling window to his left let the afternoon light in, where it caught the astrolabe beside the bookcases and reflected the light to the far corners of the room. The floor was carpeted, the walls painted in light colours, with potted plants placed on pedestaled plinths and paintings decorating the walls.

“Someone said they spotted a woman leaving on a bicycle shortly after the incident,”Andrew said. He served as a Footman when he was needed—and Chernetsov wondered when it had become an incident rather than the attack it obviously was.

“A woman? What woman?”

“With the extra help we brought in for tonight’s party, no one recognized her.”

“She wasn’t from the village, then?”

“Not that I can say.”

“Not that you can say?” he repeated, the sneer in his voice obvious. “It’s a small village, Andrew. Everyone knows everyone else’s business, even if they don’t want to. If a woman arrives and suddenly starts working here as a maid, someone obviously knows her. The question is, who?”

It was frustrating to say the least.

His first thought was that the Solomon brothers had decided they weren’t happy with negotiations and decided they wanted to renegotiate. It was a business tactic and nothing more; after all, no one mentioned Sabini’s Hammerboys would be at tomorrow’s meeting for protection. They may have taken offence, he told himself, and decided to send a message. But that didn’t seem possible given the time table involved.

“It’s something so simple, we can’t see it,” he said slowly, trying to think of the obvious. Maybe there was something in what Anatoly said about the body?

And what did he say?

‘He was a Russian. And everyone knew it,’ he reminded himself. ‘That means this will most likely be the first place they come to.’ But he meant the Constabulary when he said that. And if they come here because we’re the obvious place to go, why wouldn’t the Communists?

It can’t be the Solomon brothers. They couldn’t have found out and acted against us that quickly. It’s closer.

“It might be personal,” Micheal said. He was the second Footman.

“Personal? What does that mean?” Chernetsov was once again paying attention.

Micheal shifted uncomfortably in the chair and looked at the other two. He looked down at his hands for a moment before looking up at Chernetsov.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of what your son’s been doing of late.”

“What’s he been doing? Speak up, man. You needn’t be afraid of reprisals as far as I’m concerned. I know my son’s not the sainted man he wants us to believe he is. I know he goes to London regularly and associates with the wrong sort of people. He drinks, and probably engages in the use of cocaine.”

“And has a mistress,” Michael blurted quickly.

Chernetsov was stunned. “Are you certain?”

Micheal nodded.

“And you think it was her?”

He shook his head.

“Then what?”

“She’s political.”

“And what does that mean? She’s political—wait. Do you mean she’s a Communist?”

The man nodded.

“A Communist?” he said again, an unforgiving note of disbelief in his voice. He turned and looked out of the window where he saw the make-shift ambulance trundling along the drive until it turned out onto the lane. He could see Bubbi leaning against Katja, while Misha and Dasha tried comforting her. Jaleena hung back, staring at the ambulance until it disappeared from view. Magda had gone with Anatoly, obviously stressed.

Well, we're all stressed, aren’t we?

“A Communist?” he said again, and Micheal nodded again.

“Andrew?”

“Yes,” he said, not daring to meet those eyes.

“Why would he do that to me? Why would he put me in such a position? Does my daughter-in-law suspect anything?” he asked, turning to face the men.

“I do not believe so,” Andrew replied.

“Thank the Sainted Apostles for that.”

“She lives in London,” Micheal said.

“And you believe she was the one who pushed him?”

“No. He would have recognized her if she’d come herself.”

“Why push him in the first place?”

“I heard she was with child,” Anthony offered, speaking up for the first time. He was the under butler, often serving different gentlemen as the valet.

“You say nothing this entire time, and then you say that?”

He looked at Andrew.

“Is it true? Is she with child?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew said softly. “I may have heard something like that.”

“And you never thought to tell me? No, of course not. Why would you? He’s not the first man to have had a mistress, or to have gotten her pregnant. If that is the reason, it goes no further than this room.”

“No, of course not,” Andrew said quickly, looking at the other two.