Buckingham Palace Gardens (3 page)

Narraway smiled very slightly. “Your Royal Highness, which is of the greater importance, speed or discretion?”

The Prince looked startled. The fear flooded back into his face, making his skin pasty and his jaw slack. “I…I cannot say,” he stammered. “Both are imperative. If we take too long, discretion will be lost anyway.” Yet again he looked to Dunkeld.

“For God's sake, Narraway, are you not capable of both?” Dunkeld said angrily. “Get on with it! Ask the servants. Ask the guests, if you have to. Just don't stand here making idiotic and pointless remarks.”

Narraway's cheeks flushed a dull red with anger, but before he could retaliate, Pitt took the opportunity to ask his question. He looked at the Prince of Wales. “Sir,” he said firmly. “How many women—professional—guests were there?”

“Three,” the Prince said instantly, coloring.

“Were any of them already known to you from any previous…party?”

“Er…not so far as I am aware.” He was discomfited rather than embarrassed, as if the questions puzzled him.

“Who arranged for them to come, and how long ago?” Pitt continued.

The Prince's eyes opened wide. “I…er…”

“I did,” Dunkeld answered for him. He glared at Pitt. “What has this to do with anything? Some madman lost control of himself and took a knife to the poor woman. Who she is or where she came from is irrelevant. Find out where everyone was, that's the obvious thing to do, then you'll know who's responsible. It hardly matters why!” He swiveled round to Narraway. “Don't waste any more time.”

Narraway did not argue. He and Pitt left, Dunkeld remained.

“Mr. Dunkeld is certainly making himself indispensable,” Narraway said drily when they were twenty feet along the corridor and out of earshot. “We'd better begin with the servants, for which we shall need Mr. Tyndale's assistance. What did you learn from the linen cupboard?” They reached the stair head and started down.

“Where were her clothes?” Pitt asked. “She can't have gone in there naked. Why did he take them away? Wouldn't it have been far easier to leave them? What was it about them that he wanted, or that he dare not let anyone else see?”

Narraway stopped. “Such as what?”

“I have no idea. That's what I would like to find out. How was she dressed? Who did she oblige? The Prince, presumably. Who else?”

Narraway smiled, and then the amusement vanished like a light going out. “Pitt, I think you had better leave that part of your investigation until such time as it should become unavoidable.”

“Suddenly it's my investigation?” Pitt raised his eyebrows. He started down again.

“I'll make the political decisions, you gather the evidence and interpret it.” Narraway followed hard on his heels. “First we must find Tyndale, acquire a list of all the staff who were here last night and whichever guards were on duty for any entrance to this part of the building. And search for the dead woman's clothes,” he added. “Or some signs as to how they were disposed of.”

Tyndale was very obliging, although his manner made it apparent that he deplored the suggestion that a member of his staff could be responsible for such a barbaric act. He could not fight against the conclusion because he could not afford to, but neither did he accede to it.

“Yes, sir. Of course I will make available every member of staff so you may interview them. But I insist upon being present myself.” He met Pitt's eyes with acute misery.

Pitt admired him. He was a man caught in an impossible situation and trying to be loyal to all his obligations. Sooner or later he would have to choose, and Pitt knew it, even if he did not.

“I'm sorry…” Narraway began.

“Of course,” Pitt agreed at the same moment.

Narraway turned his head sharply.

Tyndale waited, embarrassed.

“I shall welcome your assistance,” Pitt said, looking at neither of them. “But it is imperative that you do not interrupt. Do you agree?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we will begin with whoever admitted the women when they arrived,” Pitt directed. “And go on through who waited on them through the evening until someone saw the other two leave. Did they ask after the third? What explanation was given?”

“It would be Cuttredge who let them in, sir, and Edwards who saw them out,” Tyndale answered. “I already asked Edwards, and he said he thought at the time that the last one must have been staying until morning. He's…not very experienced.”

“That never happens?” Pitt asked.

The muscles in Tyndale's face tightened. “No, sir, not with a woman of that class.”

Pitt did not pursue it. “Then if we could see Cuttredge first, and after him, whoever took them to…wherever they went. And any staff that waited on them later on. And I need to have her clothes, if they can be found.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Tyndale had gone Pitt considered apologizing to Narraway for countermanding his orders, then decided against it. It was a bad precedent to set. There was no room for protecting position or deferring to rank. The price of failure would descend on them all.

Tyndale returned with Cuttredge, who was a man of very average appearance but entered with a certain dignity; he answered all their questions without hesitation. He described letting the women in with only the very faintest distaste, and a military precision as to where he had taken them and at what time. He had not noticed their faces. One street woman was much like another to him. It was obviously part of his duty that he disliked, but did not dare express that.

“And you did not see them leave?” Pitt asked.

“No, sir. That would be Edwards. I was off duty by that time.”

“Where were you?” Narraway asked, leaning forward a little in his chair.

Cuttredge's eyes widened. He glanced at Tyndale, then back again. “In bed, sir! I have to get up before six in the morning.”

“Where do you sleep?” Narraway asked.

Cuttredge drew in his breath to answer, then quite suddenly realized the import of the question and the blood drained from his skin.

“Upstairs, where the rest of the staff do. I…I never left my room.” He drew in his breath to say something further, then gulped and remained silent.

“Thank you, Mr. Cuttredge,” Pitt excused him.

Cuttredge remained seated, his hands grasping each other. “What happened? They're saying she's dead…one of the women. Is that true?”

Tyndale opened his mouth and then closed it again, remembering Pitt's warning.

“Yes, it is,” Pitt answered Cuttredge. “Think carefully. Did you hear anything said, an altercation, a quarrel, perhaps an arrangement for her to see someone else after the party? Even a suggestion that she already knew someone here, or they knew her?”

“Certainly not,” Cuttredge said instantly.

Narraway hid a tight smile.

“Not necessarily professionally, Mr. Cuttredge,” Pitt pointed out.

“Had she been here before?”

Cuttredge glanced at Tyndale, who nodded permission to answer.

“No,” Cuttredge replied. “That I do know. The arrangement wasn't made by any of us. It was…it was Mr. Dunkeld.”

“Indeed. Thank you.” Pitt excused him again, and he left.

The next man to be seen was Edwards, who had let out the two other women. He was younger, slimmer, and, in spite of the circumstances, rather confident, as if his sudden importance excited him. He said he had noticed nothing unexpected, and he did not look to Tyndale for support. He reported that both women seemed cheerful, definitely a little drunk, but not in any way afraid or alarmed. Certainly neither of them had suffered any injury. He himself had gone to bed when most of the clearing-up had been done and the main reception room at least was ready for the morning.

“Close to two o'clock, sir, or as near as I can recall,” he finished.

“And you went to bed yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you pass anywhere near the linen cupboard on your way up to your quarters?” Narraway put in.

Edwards was deeply unhappy and now consciously avoiding Tyndale's eyes. “Yes, sir, I did. I walked along that very passage. I shouldn't 'ave. We're supposed to go the long way round, but it was late and I was tired. It's hard work making certain everything's right. Bottles, glasses, cigar ash on the good rugs an' all. Stuff spoiled. It's no five-minute job, I can tell you.”

“Don't you have maids to help?” Narraway asked him.

Edwards looked aggrieved. “'Course we do, but not at that time o' night. An' it's still my job to see it's right. All the furniture back in its places, marks washed out, everything smelling like new again. So the ladies who are guests come down in the morning an' can't even smell there was a party, never mind see the dregs of it around.”

Pitt wondered if any of the women were fooled, or if it simply allowed them the dignity of pretending they were. There were occasions when blindness was wise.

“You passed the linen cupboard,” he prompted.

“I didn't see or 'ear nothing,” Edwards told him quickly.

“Or smell anything?” Pitt asked.

Again Tyndale moved uncomfortably, and with an obvious effort forbore from interrupting.

Edwards drew in his breath and bit his lip. “Smell?” he said shakily. “What would I smell? You mean…” He could not bring himself to say the word.

“Blood,” Pitt said for him. “It has a sweet, ironlike smell, when there is so much of it. But I imagine if the door was closed that would be sufficient to conceal it. The door was closed, wasn't it? Or was it ajar? Think back, and be very careful to answer exactly.”

“It was closed,” Edwards said without thinking at all. “If it'd been open I'd 'ave seen it. It opens that way, the way I was going.” He took a deep breath. “Was she…was she in there then?” He gave an involuntary shudder, betraying more vulnerability than he had meant to.

“Probably not,” Pitt replied, although the moment after he had said it, he thought perhaps he was wrong. She had almost certainly been killed before that, and from the amount of blood, she had obviously been killed in the cupboard. But if Edwards were right and the door had been closed, then someone else had opened it between two o'clock when Edwards passed, and six or so when Dunkeld found the body.

Edwards also could prove neither that he had gone to bed nor that he had stayed there.

“He must be lying about the door being closed,” Narraway said as soon as Edwards was gone.

“Or the latch is faulty,” Pitt answered. “We'll look at it, Mr. Tyndale.”

“No, sir, it's perfectly good,” Tyndale replied. “I closed it myself…after…after they took the body away.”

They spoke to the rest of the male staff as well and learned nothing of use. No one had found the dead woman's clothes. Tyndale ordered tea for them, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Newsome, herself brought it up on a tray with oatmeal biscuits.

They stopped long enough to drink the tea and eat all the biscuits. Then they interviewed the menservants of the four visitors, this time without Tyndale present, because they were not his responsibility. They gave the same unhelpful result.

Mrs. Newsome brought more tea, and this time sandwiches as well.

“One of them must be guilty,” Narraway said unhappily, taking the last of the roast beef sandwiches and eating it absentmindedly.

“She didn't do that to herself. And no woman would do that to another, even if she could.”

“We'd better speak to all the female staff,” Pitt said resignedly.

“Somebody is lying. Even the smallest slip might help.” He would have liked another sandwich, but there was only ham left now, and he didn't fancy it. “I'll get Tyndale to fetch them.”

It took a great deal of patience to draw from them very little indeed. No one knew anything, had heard anything, or seen anything. There were tears, protests of innocence, and a very real danger of fainting or hysterics.

“Nothing!” Narraway said in exasperation after they were all gone. “We haven't learned a damn thing! It could still have been anyone.”

“We'll start again,” Pitt replied wearily. “Somebody did it. There'll be an inconsistency, a character flaw somebody knows about.” He was repeating it to comfort himself as much as Narraway. Impatience was a fault in investigation, sometimes a fatal one.

He turned to Tyndale. “Where do the guests' servants sleep?”

“Upstairs in the servants' quarters,” Tyndale replied. He looked exhausted, his skin blotched on his cheeks, the freckles standing out on the backs of his hands resting on the tabletop. “We've plenty of room for them. All guests bring their own personal servants.”

“Maybe they'll remember seeing or hearing something. Do they eat with the Palace servants?”

“Not usually,” Tyndale responded. “They're not really part of Palace discipline. We have no control over them.” He said it wearily, as if with long memory of unfortunate incidents.

“Please get them back here, one at a time.”

They began with Quase's man, who said only what he had said before. The second to come was Cahoon Dunkeld's man, florid-faced and sunburned like his master. He stood to attention.

“Came down the servants' stairs, sir?” he said to Pitt's question. “No, sir. Not possible, sir, unless it were after two in the morning. I was up an' about myself, sir. Pantry at the end o' that corridor, right opposite the bottom o' the stairs. Was up there getting Mr. Dunkeld an 'ot drink, sir. Bit of an upset stomach, 'e had. In an' out, an' along that corridor, I was, right from the time 'e came up to bed.”

“An upset stomach?” Narraway's eyes opened very wide.

The man looked uncomfortable. “Yes, sir. If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, His Royal Highness can 'old 'is drink rather better than most. Mr. Dunkeld doesn't like to let 'im down, so 'e keeps pace, like, but times are 'e pays for it. Best prevent that, if you can. Spot o' the hair o' the dog as bit you, if you get my meaning?”