Her Royal Spyness (21 page)

“We’re just on our way to Scotland Yard for a little chat,” the inspector said. “This way, if you please, sir.”

“It’s ‘Your Grace,’ ” Binky said.

“What?”

“One addresses a duke as ‘Your Grace.’ ”

“Does one?” Inspector Sugg was clearly not impressed. “I haven’t had the pleasure of arresting too many dukes in my career. Into the backseat, if you don’t mind.”

Binky shot me a frightened glance. “Aren’t you coming along too?”

“I didn’t think you needed me,” I said, still rankled by his lack of sensibility.

“Good Lord, yes. Of course I need you.”

“It might be useful to have you there too, miss,” Sugg said. “Certain facts have come to light . . .”

He knows about the letter
, I thought.

Binky stood aside to help me into the car. “Oh, and for the record, Sergeant, my sister is ‘her ladyship.’ ”

“Is she, now? And I’m ‘Inspector,’ not ‘Sergeant.’ ”

“Are you really?” Binky gave the smallest of smiles. “Fancy that.”

Sometimes I think he’s not as dense as he makes himself out to be.

We set off, mercifully without the bell ringing. But it was an odd feeling when we passed through the gate of New Scotland Yard. Visions of my ancestors going to the Tower flashed through my mind, even though I knew that Scotland Yard had no dungeons and no chopping block. We were escorted up a flight of stairs and into a drab little room that looked out onto a courtyard and smelled of stale smoke. The inspector pulled out a chair for me on the far side of a desk. I sat. Binky sat. The inspector surveyed us, looking rather pleased with himself, I thought.

“We’ve been searching for you, Your Grace,” he said, stressing the last two words. “Looking all over.”

“Nothing hard about finding me,” Binky said. “I was at home in Scotland. I went back yesterday and it’s damned inconvenient to have to turn around because some fellow drowned himself in my bathtub.”

“Not drowned himself, sir. I imagine that someone helped him. So was he a friend of yours?”

“I really can’t tell you that, Inspector, since I haven’t had a chance to look at the blighter.”

I glanced at Binky. That good old Rannoch and royal blood certainly comes through in moments of crisis. He sounded quite “we are not amused.”

“You mean to tell me you didn’t see the body in your bathtub?”

“Absolutely. Rather. That’s precisely what I mean.”

I glanced at him. He was sounding a little too emphatic.

The policeman obviously thought so too. “If you hadn’t seen him in the bathtub, sir, how did you know he was a blighter?”

“Anyone who has the nerve to die in my bath without my permission has to be a blighter, Inspector,” Binky said. “If you must know, the first I knew about it was when my sister telephoned me with the news.”

“If I tell you the gentleman’s name was Gaston de Mauxville, does that ring a bell?”

“De Mauxville? Yes. I know that name.” Again he was sounding too hearty.

“I believe he was an acquaintance of our late father, wasn’t he?” I cut in.

“De Mauxville. Yes. I met him once or twice.”

“Recently?”

“Not that recently.”

“I see. So would it surprise you to know that a note was found in that gentleman’s hotel room inviting him to speak with you on a matter of great urgency at eleven o’clock yesterday at your London address?”

“Not only would it surprise me but I can tell you that I wrote no such note,” Binky said in his best ducal tones. Again our great-grandmother would have been proud.

“I happen to have the note here.” The inspector opened a folder and pushed a sheet of paper in front of us. “This was delivered by hand to Claridge’s yesterday morning and taken up to Monsieur” (he pronounced it “Mon-sewer”) “de Mauxville’s room.”

Binky and I looked at it.

“Certainly a forgery,” Binky said.

“And how can you tell that, sir?”

“For one thing, I only write on paper embossed with my crest. This is cheap stuff that one would buy in Woolworths.”

“And for another,” I said, “it’s signed ‘Hamish, Duke of Rannoch.’ My brother signs letters just plain ‘Rannoch’ to social equals, and if he were to include his full title, it would be ‘Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch.’ ”

“And what’s more, it’s not my handwriting,” Binky said. “Close, I’ll agree. Someone has tried to imitate my style, but I cross my
t
s differently.”

“So you are maintaining that this note was not sent by you.”

“Precisely.”

“So what happened when the gentleman showed up on your front doorstep?”

“I have no idea. I wasn’t home. Let me see. Where was I?”

“You were planning to go home to Scotland, Binky,” I reminded him.

“That’s right. I had packed my bags ready to leave when I received a telephone call asking me to come to my club on a matter of urgency. Naturally I went straight away and found that no such message had been sent. I chewed the fat with a couple of friends and then came back to Rannoch House in time to pick up my bag from the front hall and take a taxi to the station.” It did rather sound as if he were rattling off his lines, the way one does in a school play.

“How very convenient, sir.”

“It’s ‘Your Grace.’ ”

“As you say, sir.” He looked from my brother to me. “You know what I think? I think the two of you are in this together. Why would a duke and his sister come to London alone, leaving all their servants behind, if it was not for something underhanded?”

“I’ve already told you that I left my maid behind and hadn’t had enough time to hire a new one,” I said, “and my brother was only down on business for a couple of days. He took his meals at his club.”

“But who dressed him?” The inspector was smirking now. “Don’t you upper-class folks all need valets to help you dress?”

“When one has been to a school like Gairlachan one has learned to stand on one’s own feet,” Binky said frostily.

“Besides,” I said, “what possible motive could the duke and I have in wanting to kill a strange Frenchman?”

“Plenty of motives come to mind, your ladyship.” These last words dripped with sarcasm. “This man was known to be a gambler. He was seen in one of the city’s most notorious gambling haunts this week. Maybe your brother had run up gambling debts that he couldn’t afford to repay. . . .”

“My dear man,” Binky spluttered, rising to his feet. “I can barely afford to keep my place in Scotland running. It takes every penny of my meager income to feed my cattle and my staff. We don’t heat the place. We live with incredible frugality. I assure you I have never gambled in my life!”

“All right, sir. As yet nobody has accused you of anything. We’re merely putting together pieces of the puzzle. I think that’s all for now. But I expect we’ll want to speak to you again. Will you be staying at your house—without servants?”

“I’ll be at my club,” Binky said, “and Lady Georgiana, I believe, is staying with friends.”

“We’ll be in touch, sir.” The inspector got to his feet. “Thank you both for coming in.”

The interview was at an end.

“I thought that went rather well, don’t you?” Binky said as we came out of Scotland Yard.

Rather well? This was rather like our ancestor, Bonnie Prince Charlie, saying that he thought the battle of Culloden went rather well. I wondered whether the men of our family line were unbridled optimists or just plain thick.

The next morning I awoke, with a definite crick in my neck, to see Belinda tiptoeing across the room.

“You’re up early,” I said drowsily.

“Darling, I haven’t been to bed yet—or should one correct that to I haven’t been to my own bed yet.”

“So I take it the selection of males was preferable to last night’s?”

“Absolutely, darling.”

“Are you going to elaborate?”

“That would not be discreet. Suffice it to say that it was heavenly.”

“And will you be seeing him again?”

“One never knows.” Again a dreamy smile as she made for the stairs. “I am now going to sleep. Please do not wake me, even if a body turns up in my own bathtub.”

She reached the bottom step then turned back to me. “There’s going to be a fabulous party on a boat this evening. A real boat with a motor this time. We’re going to take a picnic down the Thames to Greenwich, and you’re invited, of course.”

“Oh, I don’t think—” I began but she cut me off.

“Georgie, after what you’ve been through, you need some fun. Let your hair down. Besides, there are certain people who will be most disappointed if you don’t show up.”

“What people?”

A beatific smile. She put a red-nailed finger to her lips. “Ah, that would be telling. We’ll be taking a cab at five. See you then. Night night.”

And she was gone, leaving me wondering which people hoped to see me. Probably thrill-seekers wanting to get the gory details on a murder story, I thought angrily. I wouldn’t go. But then a ride down the Thames and a picnic in a park did sound heavenly. How long had it been since I’d truly had fun?

Until then I had already decided what I was going to do: I was going to ask help of the only person who could be of use to me—my grandfather. It was a glorious May Day with the sun shining down, the trees in blossom, the birds chirping madly, and pigeons whirling in flocks. The sort of day when one is glad to be alive, in fact. I caught the train to Upminster Bridge and walked back up the hill to Granddad’s house. He looked half pleased, half startled when he opened the door and saw me standing there.

“Well, blow me down,” he said. “ ’Ello, my love. I’ve been worried sick about you. I read it in the papers this morning. I was thinking of going to the telephone kiosk and ringing you up.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good. I’m not at Rannoch House at the moment. It’s swarming with police and reporters.”

“Of course, it would be. It would be,” he said. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come in. Come in. What a terrible thing to have happened. What was it? He’d drunk too much?”

“No, I’m afraid he was murdered,” I said. “But neither Binky nor I has a clue as to who could have done it. That’s why I came down to see you. You used to be in the police force.”

“Ah, yes, but just on the beat, ducks. ’Umble copper plodding his beat, that’s what I was.”

“But you must have been part of criminal investigations. You know how these things work.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see what I can do. Nice cup of Rosie Lee?” he asked, using the Cockney tradition of rhyming slang.

“Yes, please.” I sat at his tiny kitchen table. “Granddad, I’m worried about Binky. He’s the obvious suspect and the fact that he fled to Scotland on discovering the body won’t help him.”

“Does your brother have close ties with the murdered man?”

“Unfortunately one close tie.” And I told him about the letter.

“Oh, dear me. Dearie me. That’s not good, is it?” he said. “And you’re sure your brother is telling you the truth?”

“Positive. I know Binky. When he lies his ears turn red.”

Granddad picked up the shrieking kettle and poured the water into the teapot. “It seems to me you need to find out who else knew this chap was coming over to London. Who else he planned to meet while he was here.”

“How would we do that?”

“Where was he staying?”

“Claridge’s.”

“Well, that makes it easier than a private house. Good hotels know everything about their guests—who visits them, where they ask a taxi to take them. We can go to Claridge’s and ask a few questions. We can also take a look at his room.”

“What would be the point of that? Wouldn’t the police have searched it thoroughly?”

“You’d be surprised at what the police don’t consider important.”

“But it’s two days now since he was murdered. Won’t they have removed his things and cleaned out his room?”

“Possibly, but in my experience they don’t rush these things, especially over the weekend. They’ll want to make sure they haven’t missed anything. And after the police have released his effects, they’d have to be stored somewhere until they have orders to ship them to a next of kin.”

I shook my head, feeling as if I were about to face a horrible exam. “Even if his things are still in his room, who would let us in? They’d think it highly suspicious if I asked to go in there.”

He looked at me, head tilted to one side in the cheeky Cockney way. “Who said anything about asking?”

“You mean break into his room?”

“Or find a way to get in. . . .”

“I can get my hands on a maid’s uniform,” I said, cautiously. “Nobody ever notices maids, do they?”

“That’s the ticket.”

“But, Granddad, it’s still breaking and entering.”

“Better than swinging on the end of a rope, my dear. As an ex-member of the force I shouldn’t be encouraging this sort of thing, but it seems to me that you and your brother are in big trouble and desperate means are called for. I’ll come along and have a little chat with the doorman and the bellboys. Some of them may still remember me from the time when I was on the beat.”

“That would be brilliant,” I said. “And another thing. I need to find out if real window cleaners were working in the square on Friday, and if so, who they were. I’d ask myself, but with all those reporters . . .”