Malice at the Palace (12 page)

STILL NOVEMBER 5

SCOTLAND YARD . . . NOT WHERE I'D WANT TO SPEND THE DAY

After luncheon we visited the House of Molyneux, met Edward Molyneux, himself, who was utterly charming, and saw the princess's absolutely lovely gown. I found myself daydreaming wistfully about having such a gown made for me one day. About getting married someday to a certain tall, dark and handsome man. Fittings were arranged for the princess and we came home with her looking forward to her English tea. As I came through the door one of the maids took me aside. “Don't take off your coat and hat yet, Lady Georgiana. There is a motorcar waiting for you outside.”

“A car? Whose car?”

“I'm not sure, my lady, but the man just said that your presence was wanted urgently.”

“I see.” I looked around but Marina had already gone upstairs. “Please inform the princess that I have been called away unexpectedly and will join her as soon as I can.”

Then I went out again. Sure enough a dark sedan was parked under the trees. As I approached, a man jumped out of the front seat and opened the back door for me.

“Lady Georgiana?”

“Yes, what is this?”

“I believe that my superior would like a word with you, but somewhere private, away from this place. If you'd be good enough to get in, please.”

The thought crossed my mind that I'd look silly if I were actually being kidnapped by some kind of criminal organization or foreign power. Then I decided I wasn't important enough for anyone to want to kidnap me.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

This time he pulled out a warrant card. “I'm DC Coombs. You're wanted at Scotland Yard.”

We set off, then turned from Victoria Street into Whitehall and the familiar red and white brick of Scotland Yard appeared in front of us. I think I gave a little sigh of relief that it really was our destination. We passed under the archway and into the courtyard. My driver got out, opened the door for me. “Follow me, please,” he said.

I was taken up in a lift, whisked along corridors and finally halted outside a door. My guide tapped and was answered with a deep “Come in.”

I stepped into a bright office with a view toward the Thames. I had rather hoped I was going to meet Sir Jeremy, but it was DCI Pelham who sat at a large dark oak desk.

“Good of you to come, Lady Georgiana,” he said.

“Did I have a choice?” I smiled. He didn't. Instead he said, “Please take a seat.”

I did so. He was seated in a leather armchair; I was offered a wooden upright. He leaned forward toward me, resting his elbows on the desk so he was staring straight at me. “We've been waiting to give you the results of the autopsy, but before I do, I must impress upon you again that what I tell you must go no farther than these four walls. I have your word on that?”

“Oh absolutely,” I said.

“Right. The doctor has finished the preliminary tests on Miss Carrington, and I'm afraid you were right. It was murder.”

“So not a drug overdose?”

“No trace of cocaine or heroin in her body.”

“I see. So how was she killed?”

“Suffocated,” he said. “The doctor found both alcohol and Veronal, which you probably know is a strong sedative, a barbiturate, in her system. A significant amount of both, but he reckons not enough to kill her.”

“But enough to put her to sleep? To knock her out? And then someone finished her off?”

“It looks that way, yes.”

“Could she not have vomited and aspirated into her lungs, thus suffocating herself?” I asked.

He looked surprised. “Now how does a young lady like you know about such things?”

“I've had a couple of brushes with murder before,” I said. “I can assure you I'm not squeamish.”

“Obviously not. And in answer to your question, no. She was suffocated manually. There were signs of bruising around her nose and mouth where someone clearly clamped a hand to stop her from breathing.”

“How horrid,” I said. “And your men turned up no clues in the courtyard to indicate who that person might have been?”

He shook his head.

“I wonder what she was doing at Kensington Palace,” I said. “She must have known she wouldn't find Prince George there.”

“But expected to find Princess Marina?” He raised an eyebrow. “I suspect it's more likely that she was killed elsewhere, maybe in a motorcar, and her body was left at Kensington Palace to try to place the blame on the Duke of Kent.”

“Who would do such a disgusting thing?”

He smiled. “You've led a sheltered life, my lady. If a man can kill, then besmirching a good name means nothing to him. Especially if he is desperate. It might even be the work of communists or fascists using this as a means to bring down the British monarchy.”

“You said ‘he.' We are assuming the killer was a man, are we?” I said and noticed his eyebrows rise. He had big bushy brows and the effect was startling. “If Miss Carrington had been knocked out then it wouldn't have taken much strength to suffocate her.”

“Yes, I suppose we have to consider that a woman could have been capable of killing her, but it would take a strong woman to haul her out of a motorcar and deposit her under the arch.”

There was a silence punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the wall and the cooing of a pigeon outside the window. Then he cleared his throat. “There is something else that you should know. The doctor states that the young woman had recently been pregnant.”

I stared at him, trying to digest this. “She'd had a baby? When?”

“Within the last three months, the doctor thinks.”

I remembered Belinda saying that she hadn't seen Bobo at the nightclubs. That would explain it. I swallowed back the desire to say “Golly.”

“Do you know what happened to the child?” I asked. “Was it a live birth, or did she perhaps have an abortion?” It was hard to bring myself to say the word to a strange man.

“The doctor says it was a full-term baby. And no, we have no idea where the child is now.”

“Not at Miss Carrington's flat in any case?” I said. “I take it you have searched her flat?”

“We've made a preliminary search, but no sign of a child there.” He paused, then took a deep breath. “You can see our dilemma, can't you, Lady Georgiana?” CDI Pelham said.

I nodded. “It would depend on whether the Duke of Kent was the father of the child.”

“Precisely. We need to know whether he was involved with the young woman within the last year, and whether she had told him about the child.”

He leaned even closer to me. “Normally in a case like this I'd have a team of men already questioning everyone in Kensington Palace, in Miss Carrington's block of flats, everyone in her address book. But I've been given orders from the top brass to lay off. Frankly I think their feeling is that they don't care why this girl was murdered or who did it as long as nothing appears in the press. I didn't become a policeman to sweep dirty crimes under the rug, Lady Georgiana. Whoever this woman was, whatever her lifestyle, she deserves justice. But any move I make has to be sanctioned by Sir Jeremy. I am not allowed to question the prince, nor anyone at Kensington Palace. Sir Jeremy is adamant that Princess Marina hears nothing about this.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “She might call off the wedding and cause great embarrassment to the royal family.”

“Precisely. That's where I hope you might come in.” He sat up straight again and toyed with the fountain pen in his right hand. “You're one of them, Lady Georgiana, and Sir Jeremy thinks highly of your abilities. You could ask questions. Not directly interrogate, of course, but in a subtle way. You could find out if anyone at the palace saw or heard anything.”

“I already started to do that this morning,” I said. “And I could certainly question the servants.”

“And the elderly princesses?” he said. “They are your aunts, aren't they?”

“Great-aunts. Yes, I could ask them too, but it wouldn't be easy if I'm not to mention that somebody died outside their door. They'd certainly be curious why I wanted to know whether anyone had heard or seen anything strange outside their windows.”

“Maybe we could invent some sort of crime or incident that did not involve them in any way.” He frowned. “Something that didn't make anybody put two and two together and come up with four.”

“What sort of crime would not involve any of us and not raise suspicions?” I asked.

“A robbery, maybe? We found a thief trying to hide out in the courtyard?”

“Possible,” I said. “What if one of the servants actually spotted the body but has said nothing so far?”

“Or vagrants,” he said. “There are quite a few homeless men sleeping rough in the London parks these days, aren't there? A falling-out among vagrants? A vagrant taking shelter at the palace on a stormy night, who died of natural causes?”

“I don't think anyone would mistake the body of a silk-clad young woman for a vagrant,” I said.

“That's presupposing anyone saw her body. Ghosts,” he said, suddenly animated and wagging a finger at me. “You said the whole place is haunted. How about asking everyone if they saw the ghost of a white lady going through the courtyard?”

“That's a better sort of idea,” I said. “Servants are very susceptible to the palace ghosts, particularly those who don't normally work there. If one of them saw her, at least we'll know what sort of time she came there and whether she actually went into the courtyard, and for what reason.”

“Good,” he said. “So I'll leave that to you then.”

“Very well.” I nodded, my brain still racing as I tried to process everything he'd told me. “But surely one of the first things to do is to find out where she gave birth and if she named the father on the birth certificate,” I said.

“Yes, we'll certainly try to do that. It wouldn't have been a public hospital, obviously. She couldn't risk being recognized even if she checked in under a phony name. One of those fancy private clinics where ladies go for vague and undetermined female illnesses, nervous cures, and no questions asked.”

“It could have been abroad,” I said. “I hear some women go to France or Switzerland for such things.”

“It's not going to be easy, that's for sure,” he said.

“What about her maid?” I asked as the thought occurred to me. “What does she have to say? She must know where her mistress went. She may have been sworn to secrecy but she can be frightened into telling the police.”

He gave a long and heavy sigh, stroking at his fawn-colored mustache. “The young lady was apparently one of the modern set who has no maid. There is a woman who comes in to clean but I'm sure she'll know nothing.”

“And her family? Do we know anything about them? Did she go home to give birth, maybe?”

“There doesn't seem to be a family. Of course, Carrington might not be her real name.” He looked glum. “But she had friends. She was always photographed in the middle of a group of people. She attended parties and nightclubs with her chums. She would have told at least one of them the truth. Women always find someone to confide in, in my experience. She might well have told the father.” He paused, sucking air in through his teeth. “Again, it's going to be tricky questioning people who knew her and finding out what they knew without giving away that she's dead.”

I nodded agreement.

“We certainly have a good motive for murder,” he went on. “Whoever the father was might have a lot to lose if the news was made public.”

“Gosh, you're not suggesting that Prince George might have been involved in her murder?” I stammered out the words, because it was impossible to think of my likeable cousin as a murderer.

“He's a royal, isn't he? They get someone else to do their dirty work.”

My thoughts went instantly to Major Beauchamp-Chough. The prince's private secretary. A military man. A trained killer. Would he have been willing to do what it took to make sure the prince was not involved in scandal and the wedding took place? And yet he had been away all evening, at a regimental dinner, arriving home around the same time as us. And surely plenty of fellow officers could verify his attendance. And he had seemed genuinely shocked to discover the body, and recognize who it was.

“Someone will have to tell Prince George,” I said. “But please don't look at me. That's something I absolutely shouldn't undertake. And couldn't.”

“I agree. If Sir Jeremy wants to play puppet master and pull the strings, I'll suggest he is the one to face the prince.”

“Of course, he could have a word with Major Beauchamp-Chough first,” I said. “He's the prince's private secretary, after all. He'd probably know many of the prince's dark secrets. He'd certainly have known if Bobo Carrington had told the prince she was expecting his child.”