A Royal Pain (31 page)

“I take it a doctor was called?”

“Oh, indeed. Her ladyship’s own physician, Doctor Harrison. But he was too late to do anything, of course. He said it was a massive heart attack and there was nothing anybody could have done, even if they had been with her. Very sad for the princess, to have lost her companion.”

“Very sad indeed,” I agreed as we stepped into the entrance hall and heard the sound of voices coming from the dining room. Among them I detected Hanni’s light chatter. She sounded as if she’d recovered from her shock quite well. “Are we changing tonight for dinner, do you know?” I asked.

“Only if you have brought a more somber color with you, my lady.”

I didn’t think I had but I went up to my room to see what miracle Mildred could produce. Knowing her she had probably managed to dye one of my outfits black in time to wear. Then I froze, halfway up the stairs. Mildred! I had forgotten all about her. What on earth was I going to do with her if I went back to London? I couldn’t bring her to an empty London house from which the cook and butler had mysteriously disappeared. Suddenly she felt like yet another millstone around my neck. Why on earth had I hired her in the first place? Trying to do the right thing, as usual. I wished I had been born more like my mother, whose one thought in life was to please herself and the rest of the world be damned.

She wasn’t in my bedroom when I went in, but the butler must have alerted her because she came flying in breathlessly a minute after me.

“I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t know when you’d be returning or whether Their Majesties would ask you to dine with them.”

“It was just a brief visit to inform them of the baroness’s death,” I said. “I understand that you were the last person to see her alive.”

“I was, my lady. And I feel terrible now. Perhaps there was something I should have noticed, something I should have done.”

“The doctor said it was a massive heart attack and nobody could have done anything,” I said, “so please don’t distress yourself.”

“She was snoring, you see. I tapped her quietly and told her that her tea tray was on the bedside table. She muttered something in German, but I don’t speak the language so I have no idea what she said, and given her temperament, I thought it wise not to startle her, so I tiptoed out again.”

I nodded.

“But now I’m asking myself whether she was trying to tell me that she felt unwell or I should fetch a doctor, and of course I didn’t understand.”

“She was probably telling you to go away and let her sleep,” I said. “There was nothing you could have done, Mildred. Honestly.”

“You’re too kind, my lady.” She managed a watery smile. “I think maybe the blue dress for dinner, as it is the plainest.”

“Mildred,” I said carefully, as she took the dress from the wardrobe, “I’m going up to London in the morning. If my business takes too long I may have to stay overnight at Rannoch House, but there is no need for you to accompany me.

I’ll inform Lady Cromer-Strode that you’ll be staying on here, awaiting my return.”

“Very good, my lady,” she said and gave a secret smirk. Obviously she was having a good time and being well fed at Dippings.

Chapter 31

I had the chauffeur drive me to Little Dippings Halt, the nearest railway station, to catch the eight o’clock train to London. Then I had to change twice before I caught the express from Peterborough to King’s Cross. Frankly it was a blessed relief to be away from people and it gave me time to do some serious thinking. I went through the various events—Tubby tumbling from the balcony, Hanni standing in front of Sidney Roberts’s body with a bloody knife in her hand and now this news that the baroness had died of a heart attack. The three tragedies seemed completely unrelated—an accident, a brutal, daring murder and a death by natural causes. Maybe they were just that but three deaths within a week were a little over the norm, even for the most violent of societies. And they had all happened since Hanni came into my life.

Which made me wonder whether the incidents were somehow actually directed at her: was there some kind of plot against her? I knew her father was no longer a reigning monarch, but he was no longer in favor with that funny little man Hitler, who seemed to be the rising star in German politics. And there was a move to restore him to his throne. Could this be some plan to discredit her father? I had heard that the German Nazi Party was ruthless and would stop at nothing to further its cause. . . . But if someone wanted to do away with Hanni, why not just stab her instead of a harmless young man like Sidney? Or was he so harmless? Why had he been invited to that party? Why had he come? They weren’t his crowd at all. He was clearly ill at ease there.

I tossed these thoughts around but still had come to no great revelations as we puffed into King’s Cross Station. I had intended to go to Rannoch House first, but then I remembered that my grandfather and Mrs. Huggins would probably not be there. So instead I caught the train east, out to the Essex suburbs. Granddad came to the front door, wearing an old apron, and looked astonished to see me.

“Well, blow me down with a feather,” he said. “What are you doing here, my love? I thought you was living it up on a country estate.”

“I told you the queen wanted me to try and solve this murder before the inquest, so I’ve left Hanni and come to see what you and I can do.”

“And I thought I told you, in no uncertain terms, that you was to stay well away,” he said with a frown, as he ushered me into his spotless little house.

“I can’t. Queen’s orders.”

“Then let her come and ruddy well solve it herself,” he said angrily. “Putting a young girl like you in harm’s way.”

He led me through into the kitchen, where he was obviously in the process of preparing his lunch. Runner beans, fresh from the garden, were being sliced on the kitchen table. He lit the gas under the kettle without waiting to see whether I wanted tea at this hour of the day.

“I won’t do anything silly, I promise.” I took a chair at his kitchen table. “Have you managed to find out anything yet?”

“Give us a chance, ducks. It’s been the weekend, hasn’t it? Mrs. Huggins and me, we had to pack up our stuff and scarper out of your posh house and get ourselves settled in at home. But I did ask a couple of questions of a bloke I know who’s still on the force in the city. I see him sometimes down the Queen’s ’ead. He couldn’t help much, mind you, but he did say these communists—most of them are harmless enough. They want a world that can never exist— equality for everyone, money shared around equally, jobs for all. Sounds wonderful, but won’t ever happen, will it? People are greedy, see. They don’t want to share. And my pal did say that the communists over on the Continent aren’t quite as idealistic and harmless. Russia’s sending out agitators, trained to whip up crowds, stir up hatred for the ruling classes, and get the people mobilized in action. There’s going to be civil war in Spain, he says. And that’s Russia’s aim. Topple governments one by one.”

“That’s obviously why there was so much fuss when Princess Hanni appeared to be involved in an incident at a communist meeting place, even though I’m sure Sidney was one of the harmless sort.”

“There are some nasty pieces of work among them,” Granddad said. “Look what they did when they took over Russia. Killed their own grandmothers without a second thought. Murdered your poor relatives, didn’t they? Down to the smallest nipper. Lot of savages, if you ask me. Of course, you’d never get the British people to rise up like that. We’re too sensible. We know when we’re well off.”

“I hope so,” I said. “But I really don’t think that this murder had anything to do with communism. It just happened in the wrong location. I suspect it was something quite different—someone with a grudge against Sidney Roberts, or it may be to do with drugs. Perhaps Sidney owed money for drugs and hadn’t paid up.”

Granddad smiled. “They wouldn’t kill him for that, love. You don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg, do you? Threaten him, break his kneecaps, but keep him alive to find ways to get the money. That’s what the drug peddlers would do.”

I shuddered. “I was wondering whether Gussie Gormsley was peddling drugs. He lives awfully well and there were some hints that his money is ill gotten. But I can’t see Gussie breaking anybody’s kneecaps.”

“Can you see him stabbing anybody?”

“Frankly, no. I don’t think he’d have the skill, for one thing. And if the murderer could only have escaped through an attic window and across the rooftops—well, Gussie’s a little heavy for that sort of acrobatics.”

The kettle let out a shrill whistle and Granddad poured the boiling water into the teapot. “So what had you planned to do, now that you’re here?”

“I’ve no real idea. Go and interview Sidney’s parents, maybe have a chat with Chief Inspector Burnall and see what he has found out.”

“You think he’d welcome that, do you? Poking your nose into his investigations?”

“I’ll be subtle, I assure you. I’ll visit on the pretense of asking whether a date for the inquest is set and letting him know that Hanni needs to return to Germany soon—oh, and I think I should attend one of the communist meetings— incognito, of course. Sidney did invite Hanni and me to come to one, so I’m sure they’re quite safe. I could look around and see who is there and what is said.”

Granddad shook his head and made a tutting sound.

“It will be all right, Granddad.”

“Just as long as them blackshirts don’t bust in on it and turn it into a right old punch-up. They like doing that sort of thing, you know. Another bunch of hooligans, if you ask me. And that Oswald Mosley—calls himself a gentleman? Well, no English gentleman I know behaves like that. Wants people to go around saluting him, like that Hitler!”

“What would you do?” I asked him. “You’ve helped to solve real cases, haven’t you?”

“I was mostly just on the beat,” he said. “But I did work with some good men, and I did learn a thing or two. I remember old Inspector Parks. He had some fine old sayings. For instance, he used to say, ‘Start with what you know. Start with the obvious.’ ”

I frowned, thinking. “Well, the obvious is that three people have died in a remarkably short space of time, but only one of them was a murder, so that’s the one we should be looking at.”

“Another of his old sayings was ‘If anything seems to be a coincidence, there’s probably more to it.’ So was anyone present at all three of these suspicious deaths?”

“Only Hanni and I. Oh, but wait, we were away when the baroness died, on a trip to Cambridge with Edward Fotheringay. Gussie was present when Tubby fell off the balcony and was in the house when the baroness died.”

“And you say you suspect he might be making some money from supplying drugs to his friends?”

“It did cross my mind.”

He nodded. “That’s something I could look into for you. I know a couple of blokes who might know a thing or two about the drug trade. Go on, don’t let your tea get cold.”

I took a sip.

“So going back to the obvious—what exactly did you see with your own eyes?”

“Tubby falling. Not being pushed. Hanni standing with a knife in her hand . . .”

“So we have to consider the possibility that she was the one what stabbed him.”

I laughed. “Oh no. That’s impossible.”

“Why is it?”

“She’s a princess, Granddad. A young girl. Just out of the convent. Innocent and naïve.”

“Not too naïve to try to swipe something from Harrods,” he pointed out.

“But taking a handbag is one thing. Killing someone— I can’t believe that. For one thing, she looked absolutely stunned, and I really don’t see how she would have had time to do it, since I was only a few steps behind her, and for another, how did she come by the knife? It was quite long, you know. She couldn’t have hidden it inside her little handbag. And then comes the question of why. Why would a German princess want to kill a harmless lower-class young man she’d only just met and whom she rather fancied?”

Granddad took a slurp of his own tea. “Another of old Inspector Parks’s sayings was, ‘In a murder case the first question should always be, Who benefits?’ ”

I thought about this. “In Tubby’s case, we’d have to see who inherits the estate with him gone. In Sidney’s case, nobody. I don’t think he had anything to leave.”

“Not just monetarily. Who would benefit from his being out of the way?”

I thought again. “Well, I did hear that he worked with labor unions, to help them organize strikes. Maybe one of the big factory owners wanted him out of the way because he was a nuisance. That might make sense because the police think the efficiency of the stabbing indicated a trained killer.”