Malice at the Palace (15 page)

Then I should interview the servants here. The lie I had made up on the spot for Irmtraut was a good one, I decided. Nothing to do with any sort of crime. A friend had heard I was staying at the palace and came to say hello. But she couldn't make anyone hear when she knocked on the front door. She wandered around a bit, looking for a way in, then gave up and went home. I'd ask indignantly if nobody heard or saw her.

My thoughts went back to Irmtraut and the damp jacket with the knife in the pocket. But the method of the murder was so different from a quick stab in the dark. If someone had fed Bobo a cocktail or two, and one of them laced with Veronal, then it had to be someone she knew. A complete stranger couldn't force alcohol down her throat. So that probably ruled out the drug lord. Such subtle killing was not their way of operation. The quick knife or bullet in the dark or kidnapping and dumping someone in the Thames would be what I'd expect from them. And if Bobo was a habitual drug user it would make no sense to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, would it?

“Do you want me to run your bath?” Queenie asked, interrupting my reverie.

I
REALIZED THAT
the next thing I should do would be to question the servants, but there wasn't time before the car arrived to take us to the theater. We set off and had not gone far before there was an enormous flash of light, followed by an explosion to our right.

We all jumped but Irmtraut screamed. “Assassins! We will all be killed by Bolsheviks!”

It had taken me a minute but when the second flash and bang went off I realized. “Don't worry. It's only Guy Fawkes Night.”

“Guy Fawkes?” Irmtraut asked. “What is this?”

“Who is this,” I corrected. “He was a person who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament many years ago. We still celebrate his beheading by burning his effigy on bonfires and setting off fireworks every November fifth.”

“You burn people? This is most barbaric,” she exclaimed.

“No, not real people. Just an effigy—Guys made of old clothes, stuffed with straw. And we set off pretty fireworks. Children love it.”

A rocket shot into the sky, sending down a trail of colored stars. Marina and Irmtraut gazed out of the window, entranced. It had occurred to me that tonight would have been a good time to kill somebody, with all the flashes and bangs going off. Which seemed to indicate that the earlier killing of Bobo Carrington was not premeditated. Or the killer knew he or she could carry out the planned killing without risk of being disturbed.

The play was a big success—a witty period piece with some good musical numbers, Noel as the duke, and a lovely French actress as the female lead. Even Irmtraut laughed, although I suspected she didn't understand the jokes. I went to the stage door during the interval and sent a note to Mr. Coward, telling him that we were in the audience, and was rewarded by being invited backstage at the end of the show. Noel, sitting in his brocade dressing gown, an ebony cigarette holder held nonchalantly between his fingers, was his utterly charming self and promised to set up a little soiree for Princess Marina to meet the stars of the London arts world. She was, like most people, quite dazzled by him. She didn't even blink when he said, “Your future spouse is a good pal of mine. Charming boy. Utterly charming. You'll have fun with him.”

I was terrified he was going to add, “I know I did.”

“Georgiana, your friends are wonderful,” Marina said in the car ride home. “What a kind man. And so clever too. Is he married? Will we meet his wife?”

“No. He's not married, at the moment,” I answered vaguely.

I was suddenly overcome with fatigue. I had been awoken before dawn and had had to undergo too many shocks to the system for one day. It was all I could do not to fall asleep in the car. We arrived back at the palace to find a late supper awaiting us. A thick brown Windsor soup, cold meats, veal and ham pie, baked potatoes and pickles. Simple but satisfying. Only I could hardly eat a thing. Now that I wasn't absorbed in watching a play my stomach had clenched itself in knots again. My thoughts jumped from the body under the arch to Countess Irmtraut's damp jacket with the knife in the pocket to the unpleasant session with DCI Pelham and Darcy's dressing gown behind that bedroom door. And they wanted me to help get to the bottom of this before the news leaked out and became a national scandal. And if the press did get wind of it, then it was quite possible that Darcy's name would be in the papers, or even that he'd be seen as a suspect. I found myself praying fervently that he was currently in some far-flung part of the world, even if I knew I should hope he got all that he deserved.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6

KENSINGTON PALACE

I don't want to think anymore. Everything is just too horrible. I just wish I could get away from here, go to Granddad, curl up in a nice warm bed and never get up again.

Needless to say, I did not sleep well. There were still odd shouts and explosions from Guy Fawkes Night revelers. I awoke several times from vague nightmares with my heart pounding. When I got up and pulled back the curtains to look down onto the courtyard and the archway I was peering into blackness. Only in the major's bathroom window at the far end did a light still glow. Maybe he too was worried about what had happened and could not sleep. He probably realized more than any of us what was at stake if the press got hold of the story and dragged Prince George's name through the mud. Did he secretly suspect the prince? I wondered. Did he actually know whether the prince had fathered Bobo's child and where it was now? Was I really being kept in the dark while I was expected to help the police to solve the case?

In the morning I was up early again. The early November rain had turned to the more classic November fog and I looked out onto a sea of swirling whiteness. This would have been better weather in which to dump a body, I thought. It could have lain there for ages before it was discovered. Which made me wonder about the time of death. I hadn't asked that question, had I? The only doors leading from that courtyard were the back doors to Princess Louise's suite and to that of the major. I was sure that both exits were hardly ever used and it was possible that a body could have lain unnoticed for a good while under that archway. I'd have to ask the servants if any of them had had to pass the entrance to the courtyard at any time during that day.

Naturally there was no sign of Queenie. I had bathed the evening before so I dressed and went downstairs. The house was in the normal bustle one finds before its upper-class occupants have arisen. Fires were being laid, floors were being swept, maids were staggering under scuttles full of coal. They looked up in horror when they saw me, murmuring, “I'm sorry, my lady,” as if it were their fault that I had interrupted them at work.

“Please don't mind me,” I said when a skinny young girl looked as if she might pass out on encountering me while she carried in the coal. “I couldn't sleep and my maid isn't awake yet.”

“Should I ask one of the parlor maids to bring you tea?” the girl asked. “In your bedroom or the morning room, perhaps? The fire is already going in there.”

“There's really no hurry,” I said, “and I don't want to disturb your work. But you can tell me one thing: whose job is it to answer the front door?”

She frowned. “We don't have a proper butler, so it would be Jimmy, the first footman. But Elsie, the parlor maid, she'd also do it if she heard a knock.”

“And if you heard a knock, while you were cleaning, maybe?”

“I'd go and find one of them, my lady. It's not my place to answer doors, especially not if I'm wearing a coarse apron like now.”

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Ivy, your ladyship.” She studied her toes as she muttered the words, probably scared she'd now be in trouble.

“Well, Ivy, I wonder if you can think back to Princess Marina's first evening here. We went to dine at Buckingham Palace, and the countess had dinner alone here.”

She looked up, a relieved smile on her lips. “Oh yes, my lady. Of course I remember.”

“Do you know if anyone came to the door that evening? Or was anyone seen outside at all?”

“I wouldn't know, my lady. I was put to polishing silver and didn't leave the kitchen. And I go to bed early on account of having to be up at five.”

“Thank you, Ivy. You can get on with your work. But tell me, what time do the servants have their breakfast?”

“At seven thirty, my lady.”

“Would you please pass along the message that I'd like a word with them at that time?”

She looked terrified and I decided I should go back to my room for a while, rather than alarming more of the maids. I sat there, waiting impatiently, staring down at the fog swirling through the courtyard. This morning I would try to pay a visit to Prince George's garage at St. James's and see if his chauffeur would let me take a look at the motorcar. I wondered if he had driven himself that night or if the chauffeur could verify the crash. And if I could get away from my duties to the princess, I'd really like to take a look at Bobo Carrington's flat for myself. I was sure DCI Pelham would have gone over it, and probably removed anything incriminating or interesting, but you never know what might still be lying around. Wouldn't there be correspondence with the father of the child? A photograph of the baby? A rattle or a bootie lying somewhere? The problem was, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. All I knew was that somebody must have planned to kill Bobo Carrington. One does not carry Veronal in a pocket unless one means to use it. I made a mental note to ask Countess Irmtraut whether she had trouble sleeping and if she had a sleeping aid she could perhaps let me use.

At seven thirty, with still no sign of Queenie, I went downstairs again and found my way through the back door of the dining room then down a dark passage until I heard the sound of voices and the clatter of pots and pans. I pushed open a door and found myself in the sort of old-fashioned kitchen we have at Castle Rannoch (although not quite as cavernous). Seven people were seated at a long scrubbed pine table while a scullery maid went around serving them porridge and a cook hovered watching critically in the background. They all rose to their feet as I came in.

“Please sit down and get on with your meal,” I said. “I must apologize for interrupting but I just wanted to ask you a question.”

“Yes, my lady?” The cook still glared, perhaps thinking that her cooking was about to be criticized.

“On the evening after Princess Marina arrived, she and I went to dine at Buckingham Palace,” I said. “Countess Irmtraut was left here alone. Now, a friend of mine heard I was staying here and decided to pay me a surprise visit. She tells me that she knocked on the door but nobody answered so she assumed I must not be in residence.”

Guarded faces stared at me, still waiting to find out whether they were in trouble.

I smiled at them. “I can see now that, the way this apartment is built, it would be hard to hear a knock at the front door from this room if you were all having your supper.”

“There is supposed to be a bell, my lady,” the footman said. “But it doesn't seem to be working. We've got an electrician coming to take a look at it.”

“So none of you heard a knock that evening?”

Heads were shaken. “No, my lady,” was murmured.

“And nobody saw anybody walking around outside, or heard the sound of a motorcar?”

“Your maid said she saw someone in the courtyard,” one of the girls said. “But that was right after we told her about the ghosts. Ever so upset, she was.”

I smiled again. “Yes, my maid tends to be rather impressionable. So nobody else saw the white figure in the courtyard?”

“We don't have any windows that look out on the courtyard, my lady,” the same girl replied. “And I don't think we'd have heard a motorcar outside either. I'm sorry we didn't answer the door to your friend. Please tell her about the bell not working.”

“Of course. It's certainly not your fault and my friend only paid a surprise visit on the off chance she'd see me. No harm done. But one more thing, before I let you get back to your porridge. Did any of you go out that evening?”

“No, my lady,” the footman said. “It was raining, if you remember, and we wouldn't have been allowed an evening off when royalty was in the house.”

“What about Countess Irmtraut? What did she do all evening?”

“We served her dinner and then she had coffee in the salon,” one of them said. “She wasn't very happy. Didn't like the food.”

“I take it she didn't go out in the rain either?” I asked.

Heads were shaken but one girl said, “She must have popped out for a minute. I don't know why. But when I came to clear away the coffee she was standing by the door. I could see raindrops on her hairnet and she was wearing a jacket.”

“What time was this?”

“Must have been about nine, my lady.”

I smiled at them all then. “Thank you. I'm sorry to have interrupted your breakfast.” And I left them glancing at each other uneasily.

W
HAT REASON COULD
Countess Irmtraut have had for going out into the rain? And why had she denied it? I realized I should pass this information along to DCI Pelham, but I was loath to cast suspicion until I was absolutely sure. I think it must have had something to do with sticking up for my own kind and an instinctive dislike of the DCI. Should I confront Irmtraut and tell her I knew she had been out? I'd have to wait for the right moment, but it was looking more and more as if I might just have a plausible suspect. But as to the opportunity to slip Bobo a drink with Veronal in it—when could that have happened? The servants did indicate that they could hear nothing from the kitchen if they were eating their meal. And if Irmtraut answered the front door, could she have invited Bobo in, fed her a drink, killed her and dumped her body outside all without being seen or overheard? I supposed it might be possible. The servants clearly weren't enamored with Irmtraut and probably stayed as far away as possible without being obviously rude. However, Irmtraut wasn't to know that. If she'd invited Bobo in and then killed her, she was taking an enormous risk.

I
HAD A
cup of tea brought to me in the morning room, read the newspapers, which included pictures of myself with Princess Marina at the play the previous night, and waited for the others to show up. Eventually they both did. Irmtraut looked rather bleary-eyed.

“I did not sleep well last night,” she said. “This place does not feel agreeable to me. I hear it is haunted. I myself spotted a ghost, I think.”

“You did? Was it a white lady?” I asked.

“No. A fat man,” she said shortly. “He walked through a wall.”

“I think that would have been King George the First,” I said.

“I don't care which king he was, I do not want him walking through my walls.”

“I also found it hard to sleep last night,” I said. “So how did you get to sleep in the end? Do you have any sleeping drafts with you?”

“The draft in my room does not help me sleep,” she said angrily. “It blows in under the door and hits me in the face. It is most disagreeable.”

Marina smiled. “She means medicine to help you sleep, Traudi. I have some Veronal if you need some. I always carry it when I travel because it's hard to sleep in strange houses, isn't it?”

“Thank you, but like Irmtraut I try not to take those things,” I replied. “It makes me rather groggy in the mornings.” I was watching Irmtraut's face. Was she looking away on purpose?