Royal Flash. George Fraser MacDonald

made nothing of this. While I couldn’t have recited the names of all the women I had known, I was pretty clear that there weren’t any foreign countesses that had slipped my mind. It went on:

      Sir, while Her Grace doubts not that your duties are of the most important and exacting nature, she trusts that you will have opportunity to consider the matter which, on her command, I am now to lay before you. She is confident that the ties of your former friendship, no less than the chivalrous nature of which she has such pleasing memory, will prevail upon you to assist her in a matter of the most extreme delicate.

      Now he’s certainly mad, this fellow, thinks I, or else he’s got the wrong chap. I don’t suppose there are three women in the world who ever thought me chivalrous, even on short acquaintance.

      Her Grace therefore directs me to request that you will, with all speed after receiving this letter, make haste to present yourself to her in München, and there receive, from her own lips, particulars of the service which it is her dearest wish you will be obliged to render to her. She hastens to assure you that it will be of no least expense or hardship to you, but is of such particular nature that she feels that you, of all her many dear friends, are most suitable to its performing. She believes that such is the warmth of your heart that you will at once agree with her, and that the recollection of her friendship will bring you at once as an English gentleman is fitting.

      Honoured Sir, in confidence that you will wish to assist Her Grace, I advise you that you should call on William Greig & Sons, attorneys, at their office in Wine Office Court, Londres, to receive instruction for your journey. They will pay £500 in gold for your travelling, etc. Further payments will be received as necessary.

      Sir, Her Grace commands me to conclude with the assurance of her deepest friendship, and her anticipation of the satisfaction of seeing you once again.

      Accept, dear Sir, etc.,

      R. Lauengram,

      Chamberlain.

      My first thought was that it was a joke, perpetrated by someone not quite right in the head. It made no sense; I had no idea who the Gräfin de Landsfeld might be, or where ‘München’ was. But going over it again several times, it occurred to me that if it had been a fake, whoever had written it would have made his English a good deal worse than it was, and taken care not to write several of the sentences without howlers.

      But if it was genuine, what the devil did it mean? What was the service (without expense or hardship, mark you) for which some foreign titled female was willing to slap £500 into my palm – and that only a first instalment, by the looks of it?

      I sat staring at the thing for a good twenty minutes, and the more I studied it the less I liked it. If I’ve learned one thing in this wicked life, it is that no one, however rich, lays out cash for nothing, and the more they spend the rummer the business is likely to be. Someone, I decided, wanted old Flashy pretty badly, but I couldn’t for the life of me think why. I had no qualification that I knew of that suited me for a matter of the most ‘extreme delicate’: all I was good at was foreign languages and riding. And it couldn’t be some desperate risk in which my supposed heroism would be valuable – they’d as good as said so. No, it beat me altogether.

      I have always kept by me as many books and pamphlets on foreign tongues as I can collect, this being my occasional hobby, and since I guessed that the writer of the letter was pretty obviously German I turned up an index and discovered that ‘München’ was Munich, in Bavaria. I certainly knew no one there at all, let alone a Gräfin, or Countess; for that matter I hardly knew any Germans, had never been in Germany, and had no acquaintance with the language beyond a few idle hours with a grammar some years before.

      However, there was an obvious way of solving the mystery, so I took myself off to Wine Office Court and looked up William Greig & Sons. I half expected they would send me about my business, but no; there was as much bowing and scraping and ‘Pray to step this way, sir’ as if I had been a royal duke, which deepened my mystification. A young Mr Greig smoothed me into a chair in his office; he was an oily, rather sporty-looking bargee with a very smart blue cutaway and a large lick of black hair – not at all the City lawyer type. When I presented my letter and demanded to know what it was all about, he gave me a knowing grin.

      ‘Why, all in order, my dear sir,’ says he. ‘A draft for £500 to be issued to you, on receipt, with proof of identity – well, we need not fret on that score, hey? Captain Flashman is well enough known, I think, ha-ha. We all remember your famous exploits in China—’

      ‘Afghanistan,’ says I.

      ‘To be sure it was. The draft negotiable with the Bank of England. Yes, all in perfect order, sir.’

      ‘But who the devil is she?’

      ‘Who is who, my dear sir?’

      ‘This Gräfin what’s-her-name – Landsfeld.’

      His smile vanished in bewilderment.

      ‘I don’t follow,’ says he, scratching a black whisker. ‘You cannot mean that you don’t have the lady’s acquaintance? Why, her man writes to you here …’

      ‘I’ve never heard of her,’ says I, ‘to my knowledge.’

      ‘Well,’ says he, giving me an odd look. ‘This is dam—most odd, you know. My dear sir, are you sure? Quite apart from this letter, which seems to suggest a most, ah … cordial regard, well, I had not thought there was a man in England who had not heard of the beauteous Countess of Landsfeld.’

      ‘Well, you’re looking at one now,’ says I.

      ‘I can’t believe it,’ cries he. ‘What, never heard of the Queen of Hearts? La Belle Espagnole? The monarch, in all but name, of the Kingdom of Bavaria? My dear sir, all the world knows Donna Maria de – what is it again?’ and he rummaged among some papers – ‘aye, here it is “Donna Maria de Dolores de los Montez, Countess of Landsfeld”. Come, come, sir, surely now …’

      At first the name meant nothing, and then it broke on me.

      ‘De los Montez? You don’t mean Lola Montez?’

      ‘But who else, sir? The close friend – indeed, some say more than friend – of King Ludwig. Why, the press is never without some fresh sensation about her, some new scandal …’ and he went on, chattering and smirking, but I never heeded him. My head was in a spin. Lola Montez, my Rosanna – a Countess, a monarch in all but name, a royal mistress by the sound of it. And she was writing to me, offering me hard cash – plainly I needed more information.

      ‘Forgive me, sir,’ says I, breaking in on his raptures. ‘The title misled me, for I’d never heard it before. When I knew Lola Montez she was plain Mrs James.’

      ‘Oh, dear me, my dear sir,’ says he, very whimsical. ‘Those days are far behind us now! Our firm, in fact, represented a Mrs James some years ago, but we never talk of her! Oh, no, I daresay not! But the Countess of Landsfeld is another matter – a lady of quite a different colour, ha-ha!’

      ‘When did she come by the title?’

      ‘Why, some months ago. How you should not …’

      ‘I’ve been abroad,’ says I. ‘Until this week I hadn’t seen an English newspaper in almost a year. I’ve heard of Lola Montez’s doings, of course, any time over the past three years, but nothing of this.’

      ‘Oh, and such doings, hey?’ says he, beaming lewdly. ‘Well, my dear sir, your friend at court – ha-ha – is a very great lady indeed. She has the kingdom under her thumb, makes and breaks ministers, dictates policies – and sets all Europe by the ears, upon my word! Some of the stories – why, there is an article in one of the sheets calling her “The Modern Messalina”’ – he dropped his voice and pushed his greasy face towards me – ‘and describing her picked bodyguard of splendid young men – what, sir, hey? She goes abroad with a guard of cuirassiers riding behind her coach, sets her dogs on whoever dares to cross her path – why, there was some unfortunate who didn’t