India Black and the Widow of Windsor (20 page)

“Oh, good Lord,” I hissed. “Is that the Queen?”

At least Bertie was predictable. He recoiled from me like a snake charmer dodging a cobra strike, his eyes bulging from his head.

“Where?” he asked, but I had already sidestepped him and was rocketing along the hallway, with very little idea of where I was headed, other than out of reach of the next King of England. I heard a stifled shout of rage behind me as Bertie realized he’d been hoodwinked, and the sound of footsteps on my trail. Confound it, where was everyone? The castle seemed deserted, except for me and the unhappy prince, who had not taken kindly to being duped by a lowly maid. I careered past a series of closed doors, hoping to find an open one, where I planned to waltz inside regardless of the status of the room’s occupant and claim sanctuary. I could hear the prince’s heavy tread and labored breathing. He was a determined chap, I’ll grant you that, especially when his plans had been thwarted.

I had nearly reached the end of the corridor when I spied the handsome figure of French emerging from one of the rooms. I must admit to feeling the merest hint of relief when he stepped into view. He raised an eyebrow as I swooped in behind him and clutched his arm.

“Hide me,” I commanded.

“Too late,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, Your Highness. Pleasant day, what?”

The prince bumbled to a halt, wheezing. “Indeed it is, Mr. French. Though I suspect you had planned something even more pleasant for yourself,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

French chuckled self-consciously. “’Fraid you’ve caught me out, sir.” He reached around and snagged my arm, dragging me forward. “Miss Black has volunteered to help me adjust my mattress. Frightfully bad night last night, lumps everywhere.”

Bertie nodded, looking daggers at me. “Well, we can’t have one of our guests being uncomfortable. I shall certainly let Vicker know of your discomfort. He’s just the chap to remedy the problem.” The prince smiled humourlessly at French and gave me a last significant glance before he marched away, back rigid, smoothing his hair with his hand and straightening his tie.

French pushed me into his room and locked the door behind us.

“Curse it,” I said, expelling a breath of relief. “That man is a menace. I can’t seem to go anywhere without running into him. If I disappear, look in Bertie’s room. He’s likely to have me stuffed in his wardrobe.” I smoothed my apron modestly. “Of course, if I weren’t such a deuced good-looking woman, I wouldn’t have such trouble.”

French snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. The Prince of Wales is as about as discriminating as a stoat during mating season.” As stoats are promiscuous little devils, copulating with any number of females and then darting off in search of greener pastures (or more females) and leaving their discarded partners to raise the resulting little stoats, I found the comparison apt.

French flopped into a chair and draped one leg elegantly over the arm. “Have you learned anything?”

“Never walk alone in the halls while the prince is in the castle,” I said, helping myself to a seat without waiting for an invitation from French. “Have you any whisky? Or brandy? I could do with a tot after my narrow escape.”

I expected to be directed to the bottle, but to my surprise, French rose to his feet and poured us each a brandy and soda. I sipped mine gratefully and summarized what I had learned of the travels of the cocoa tray. When I finished, French lit a cheroot and watched the smoke eddy to the ceiling while he thought this over.

“How is the Queen?” I asked.

He stirred himself. “She is much better this morning. She seems to have ejected the contents of her stomach during the night and is now resting peacefully.”

I winced at the image that had formed in my mind.

French carried on: “Doctor Jenner is inclined to believe it was merely a case of too much rich food; at worst, a mild case of food poisoning. It’s difficult to disagree with that diagnosis, but I would not think food poisoning would be limited to one or two persons. Literally dozens of guests and staff ate the same thing last night. If it were food poisoning, one would expect many more people to have been sick.”

“The only other person who exhibited any symptoms of illness was Vicker, and as he’s one of our suspects, the validity of his infirmity is questionable.”

French tapped the ash from his cigar. “Quite.”

“Not food poisoning, then. Overindulgence by the Queen?”

“In view of the threats on her life, I do not think we can merely assume the Queen ate too many meringues for dessert. And the diversion of the footman Munro by Vicker is interesting.”

“Have you seen Dizzy? What is his opinion?”

“He is concerned, of course. He expressed his disquiet to the Queen. She refuses to countenance his fears. She was not, in her opinion, intemperate in her choice of food last night. She is inclined to think that, if anything is amiss, it was with the chocolate. She remembers feeling quite ill immediately upon drinking it and then beginning to vomit. But she is disinclined to believe that anyone tampered with the cocoa. She believes the milk used to make it was spoiled.”

“I think that’s doubtful. The kitchen is spotless, and Cook is too experienced not to have noticed if the milk was off. There was ample opportunity for someone to doctor the cocoa. Not only did Munro leave the cocoa in the hall while he went off to fetch the doctor for Vicker, but Cook left the tray on the counter in the kitchen for Munro to collect. God only knows how many people knew the nightly routine and knew where they could find the cocoa. Vicker’s diversion of Munro looks suspicious, but it’s just as likely that someone took the opportunity to add the poison while the tray was in the kitchen. If the cocoa was poisoned at all,” I added.

“Robshaw has taken away the remains of the cocoa to have it analyzed,” said French. “But it will take weeks to get any results.”

“By which time the Queen could be safely back in Windsor, or Dizzy might be attending a state funeral.”

French frowned. “I find black humour inappropriate, India.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” I polished off the remains of my drink. “It seems that we need to confirm whether Vicker was indeed ill last night.”

“I’ll have a quiet word with Doctor Jenner. The more difficult problem is narrowing down the list of people who passed the tray in the hallway, or were in the kitchen after Cook made the cocoa and before Munro picked up the tray.”

I groaned. “Surely you’re joking. I’d have to question every servant, and how am I to do that without giving away the game? And you’ll have the same issue with the guests. They may think you’re an amiable fop, but how many of them will sit still while you grill them about their whereabouts at midnight last night?”

French nodded glumly. “A dead end, I’m afraid.”

“When is Robshaw going to get us some information about our list of suspects? We might eliminate Vicker as our potential assassin if the superintendent would put on some speed.”

“It does seem to be taking an inordinately long time to investigate a few chaps,” French mused. He extracted his watch from his pocket. “Good Gad, I’m late for luncheon.”

“Try to avoid sitting near the marchioness, if you can,” I advised. “And if you must, carry a large handkerchief.”

T
he rest of the day and evening passed uneventfully, save for the usual struggle to manhandle the marchioness into an evening gown and out of that into her nightclothes, all the while picking flakes of snuff from her person and listening to her chunter on about the quality of the vittles she’d ingested, but eventually, I had the old dearie swaddled in blankets with the fire banked for the night. I yawned my way back to Flora’s room. I was spent from reading the Holy Scriptures to the marchioness during the wee hours, interrogating Cook and Robbie Munro, and narrowly escaping becoming the Prince of Wales’s latest conquest. I needed a tranquil night, which, of course, I was not to have, for just as the long-case clock in the hall struck midnight, a footman I hadn’t seen before knocked loudly on the door and woke me from my slumbers. I opened the door to him in my shift, which struck the poor man dumb.

“The marchioness?” I queried, and the bloke nodded silently, tearing his eyes away from my décolletage with difficulty and stumbling away down the hall, having delivered his message. I dressed, not without difficulty as my fingers were clumsy and stiff from the cold and lack of sleep, and blundered groggily through the corridors with a candle in my hand.

The marchioness was sitting up in bed, nursing a whisky and looking damnably pert for this hour of the night. Dispiritedly, I contemplated another session with that lively band of fun seekers, the Old Testament prophets.

“How are you, my lady? Can I bring you anything? A cup of tea? Some coffee?” A dose of morphine? I added silently.

The marchioness snuggled into her covers. “I’m well set up, as ye can see,” she said, waving her whisky glass at me. “Help yerself to a dram.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. I found a glass and poured a generous tot. The whisky burned like fire, and for the first time in a long while, I felt warm.

“There are five reasons to drink, lass. Do you know ’em?”

I shook my head.

“Good wine, a friend, or bein’ dry; or lest you should be bye and bye; or any other reason why.” The marchioness hooted and lifted her glass. She was well into her cups. One of life’s small ironies, I supposed, that she hadn’t passed out and left me to a night of restful repose, but instead looked ready for a night of carousing.

“I canna sleep,” she announced.

I conceded the point; it would be difficult to doze off at night, having spent a good part of the day slumbering.

“Would you like me to read to you?” I looked around wearily for the marchioness’s Bible.

“I would. But not from the Good Book.” My sigh of relief must have reached her ears, for she gave me a sharpish look. “I’m in the mood for somethin’ else tonight. Trot downstairs to the library and find the Queen’s copy of Miss Greenhow’s book.”

“Miss Greenhow’s book?”

“Surely ye’ve heard of her?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

The marchioness honked in derision. “Come now. Everyone has heard of Rose O’Neal Greenhow. The society matron in Washington who spied for the Confederacy during the War Between the States?”

“Oh,
that
Greenhow. I had confused her with someone else.”

The marchioness’s rheumy eyes swam with suspicion. “No matter. Just fetch the book, and together we’ll renew our acquaintance with the lady.”

I rose from my chair. “Yes, ma’am. And the name of her book? It’s on the tip of my tongue, but for some reason”—probably because I’d never heard of it—“I can’t recollect it.”

“My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington,”
the marchioness snapped.

“Of course,” I murmured and slipped away. Catchy title. I hoped the contents were an improvement.

I took up my candle and wandered out into the hallway. I knew the library was the first room past the entrance hall, in the corner of the castle, which meant that even someone as congenitally indisposed to navigation as I was should be able to find my way there. I bypassed the servants’ stairs and descended the grand staircase to the first floor. As luck would have it, the entrance to the library was directly across from the stairs, and the door was open. I slipped inside and let out a curse: the walls were lined with books, hundreds of them, it seemed. At this rate, the marchioness would have forgotten she’d sent me to the library and fallen asleep while I spent a hellish night examining titles by candlelight. The thought was appealing, and I was debating whether I could just stretch out on the tufted leather sofa and catch a few winks when I heard distant laughter, a muffled chorus of “Drink, puppy, drink,” and the muted crack of billiard balls. Some of the toffs must still be up, having a nightcap and a game.

I peeked out into the hallway. Now I confess that I am not without faults (I’ll thank you to keep your snide comments about my profession to yourself), and among them is an innate curiosity that occasionally leads me to venture into areas best left unvisited (like the Russian Embassy, or a smuggler’s boat bound for Calais, as I have previously recounted). So it was no surprise to me that I was seized with the temptation to suss out the billiard room and see what the boys were getting up to. I left my candle on a table in the library and followed the gleam of light down the corridor until I could see a corner of the billiard room, ablaze with light and awash with the blue smoke of cigars. Smoking being strictly verboten at Balmoral, I half expected to see Vicky charging into the room in her nightie with a whip in one hand.

I spotted French leaning languidly on his cue stick, a snifter of cognac in one hand and a cheroot in his mouth. His hair was rumpled, and he’d assumed an expression of affable dissolution. A bloke with a shock of ginger hair had buttonholed French and was talking animatedly, emphasizing every other word by stabbing his cigar perilously close to French’s waistcoat. Stewed to the gills, the young fellow was, and swaying dangerously on his feet. This could only be Red Hector MacCodrum, seventh Baronet of Dochfour, the favorite nephew of the Earl of Nairn and rabid Scottish nationalist. From the looks of him, Red Hector had made a heroic effort to polish off the Courvoisier singlehandedly. French must have wound him up on the political situation, because the baronet’s face was contorted with the fanatical passion that only taxes or blood sports can arouse in the aristocracy.

In the dark hallway behind me, someone cleared his throat. I spun round, no doubt looking guilty as hell, even though I hadn’t done a thing (this time). Vicker emerged from the gloom, looking overwrought and wrung out.

“Mr. Vicker,” I said. “I see you’ve recovered from your illness. That’s wonderful.” I had thought to disarm him with a show of interest in his welfare, but he wasn’t having any of it.