The Stuart Sapphire (5 page)

Even as he said the words, he wondered where on earth he was supposed to be going.

The prince’s eyes rolled heavenward as he remembered the scene he had just left. He glanced wildly at the three men before him. Who could he trust to dispose of Sarah’s corpse? His son, Henry – Percy perhaps. Then he turned his gaze to Tam. But who better than Mr Eildor?

Mr Eildor was an Edinburgh lawyer, after all. He was also, more importantly, a stranger.

The prince’s mind worked rapidly. A stranger sent by some miracle to relieve him of a dreadful situation. And since he had been presumed lost on the
Royal Stuart
, his purpose served, he was also conveniently disposable.

He made up his mind.

‘Follow me, Mr Eildor.’ To Henry and Percy he said, ‘Remain here, within call. We are not to be disturbed.’ And with a stifled sob, he threw open the door of his bedroom.

Although the curtains were still drawn Prince George was heartily glad that he had thrown a sheet over Sarah’s corpse. Even then he had to admit that a naked female body wearing nothing but a string of pearls was a sordid sight.

Again he thought how extremely disagreeable it was of her to die in his bed, especially with the Masque Ball at Creeve House that evening. Frederick would be there. Suddenly he felt very cold indeed as he motioned Tam toward the bed.

Tam who wasn’t squeamish in the least regarded the body with distaste.

‘Dead, ain’t she. That’s for sure,’ said the prince in a hollow voice.

‘She is indeed, Your Royal Highness, no doubt about that. And not only dead, I’m afraid she has been murdered.’

‘Murdered! That cannot be! There must be some mistake. Who would dare?’

‘Someone dared.’ And Tam pointed to the rope of
pearls which had been wound very tightly around her neck.

‘Could it have been an accident?’ asked the prince clutching at straws. Tam moved the body so that he could see that the pearls had been twisted to form a garrotte.

The prince leaned against the bedpost. Dead was bad enough, getting rid of a corpse, but a murdered corpse!

He sat down heavily on one of the gilt chairs which gave a creak of protest. He had never experienced anything like this – this
lèse majesté
– a murdered woman in his bed, the wife of the Marquis of Creeve and, even worse, the mistress of his brother. Now all would be revealed.

He shook his head from side to side, groaning like a wounded beast.

‘Dear God, dear God. What are things coming to? Is no one safe? Murders like this don’t happen in royal residences in the nineteenth century. They call this the age of enlightenment. This sort of thing belongs to less civilised countries, to those vile Italians – the Borgias.’

Tam glanced at him. The future King would be well advised to pay close attention to books recording English history, where it would soon become abundantly clear that palaces and castles were extremely popular settings for getting rid of kings and their royal offspring.

The prince looked up at Tam. ‘But who could have done this to us? We have never harmed anyone.’

A somewhat sweeping and naïve statement since Tam guessed that a litany of the prince’s misdemeanours, of young women ruined and men’s lives destroyed, might have quite comfortably filled several volumes of rather boring reading.

‘Who has had the audacity to incriminate us in such a fearful act?’

Tam gave the prince a searching stare. It was noteworthy, he thought, that none of this chronicle of
self-pity
included any sorrow or regret for the untimely death of the woman who had shared his bed last night. She had become an embarrassment in her life and worse than that, death had turned her into a terrifying liability, a dreadful source of guilt.

The prince waved a dismissive hand towards the two grooms lingering by the doorway, their faces pale, their expressions shocked and anxious.

Tam would have given much to read their minds, certain they were familiar with the morals or, more correctly, lack of them in the Pavilion. But the naked corpse of a woman was not something they encountered with any regularity in their royal master’s bed. In this instance, not only dead but murdered, she must present a new experience.

He presumed that the prince could rely on their discretion as the door closed and, turning to Tam, he cleared his throat and said: ‘As an Edinburgh lawyer, Mr Eildor, I expect you have dealt with crimes of this nature.’

Hardly, thought Tam, and took refuge in a vague smile.

The prince leaned towards him earnestly. ‘Will you help me in this matter, sir? I would be most grateful for your assistance.’

And through this somewhat bewildering appeal a light began to emerge, as suddenly the whole reason why Tam had been invited to partake of this sordid sight became evident. Who better than a lawyer, a stranger passing through Brighton with no friends? There was something vaguely sinister in all this and Tam did not care for it at all. He scented danger.

Sensing hesitation, the prince said: ‘You will of course
be paid. Handsomely, sir, one hundred guineas to assist you on your journey.’

Tam did some rapid calculations. Half of the bet the prince had won from Brummell for producing him as the sole survivor of the shipwreck of the
Royal Stuart
.

‘Very well, Your Royal Highness.’

Grunting an acknowledgement, the prince turning quickly cannoned into the small table. Tam helped him steady it and looked down on the huddle of coloured stones from which all the magic of rare and exquisite gems had been also removed. Historic and ancient, Tam did not doubt, and worth a king’s ransom. Now they looked worthless and tawdry beside an extinguished human life.

The prince, his hand shaking, pointed to the pearls around the Marchioness’s throat. ‘They – they are her own.’

‘May I know the lady’s identity, Your Royal Highness?’ Tam asked delicately.

The prince gave him a suspicious glance as if this was an intrusion of the royal privacy. ‘Sarah, Marchioness of Creeve, of Creeve House, Lewes.’ An embarrassed throat clearing. ‘A recent acquaintance.’ With a sharp look to see how Tam was taking this audacious statement with all its implications, he went on hurriedly:

‘Do you wish to inspect the room, see how the murderer gained access?’

‘Indeed, yes, and I should like to make some notes.’

Handsome notepaper and pens were produced as Tam walked round looking for means of entrance rather than exit.

‘Would Your Royal Highness care to give me an exact account of the events of last night, so that we can properly reconstruct the scene?’

The prince closed his eyes, cleared his throat and leaned back as if such remembrance threatened to be painful. ‘We left the marchioness at eight o’clock. We know the time exactly since that was when your sinking ship was spotted on the horizon.’

‘The marchioness did not wish to accompany Your Royal Highness.’

‘Not in the least.’ An embarrassment she had spared him, he thought bitterly, and stayed here in the warm luxury of his bed instead to get herself killed.

‘And when Your Royal Highness returned again?’

‘We did not. Instead we stayed with our wife—’ a lowering of brows, rather threatening this time – ‘Mrs Fitzherbert at Steine House. We left her at five o’clock when our carriage called as usual to take us for our morning bathe.’

‘Your Royal Highness and Mrs Fitzherbert?’

‘No.’

And Tam realised there was to be some further confusion added to the case by the use of the royal “we” as the prince continued: ‘We then returned to the Pavilion where you, the sole survivor of the shipwreck, were brought to us. After breaking our fast together, we came upstairs immediately – and found this—’ he said with a disgusted shudder.

Tam thought. So the murder could have taken place any time during the last twelve hours.

‘These are our usual morning arrangements before beginning our toilette for the day. We were taken aback to find the marchioness here since, er, any invited guest usually takes her leave of us around seven o’clock. We were horrified – yes, horrified to find her still here – and—’

The prince paused, gulped, cast his eyes heavenward,
whispered: ‘And – dead! There is a bell pull,’ he pointed towards the bedhead. ‘It connects with the stables and should have summoned a carriage to return her ladyship to her home in Lewes.’ He did not feel it necessary to mention her convenient apartment nearby, or that she was only returning to Creeve for the Masque that evening.

‘What about her maid, surely she does not travel alone?’

‘In this instance, yes,’ was the stiff reply.

‘This is the usual procedure?’ asked Tam.

How could the prince explain that the delicacy of the situation concerning his brother, York, required the utmost secrecy and discretion. Mere paid servants, however devoted, were subject to bribes, and quite out of the question.

Closing his eyes, he groaned. And now it would all come out. How on earth could it be avoided?

‘Yes.’ He closed his mouth, firmly aware of Tam’s searching glance.

‘Does she not require assistance with her toilette?’ Tam asked delicately, aware that he travelled in an age when women of substance were helpless even to dress themselves.

Was it possible that the Prince Regent had hidden talents as a lady’s maid, he wondered, when suddenly he was hearing the solution to such a problem.

‘Her ladyship merely wears her sable cloak – over the chair there.’ Clearing his throat, he added: ‘Nothing under it.’ A naughty twinkle and an arch look at Tam. ‘You understand me, sir. We are both men of the world and such a prospect, you must agree, is daring in the extreme and most stimulating.’

Men of the world they were, thought Tam sourly, but of two entirely different worlds. Separated from the Regency
by four hundred years of decadence, and without being in the least ‘holier than thou’, he was beginning to dislike his royal host exceedingly.

He glanced around the room. ‘How does the lady make her exit? Does she not proceed through the withdrawing room under the close observation of the grooms?’

The prince laughed at his naïvety and shaking a finger said: ‘That would never do – utmost discretion and all that.’ As he spoke, he walked over to one of the elaborate painted panels on the walls and touched a piece of the ornate dado, which responded as a secret door invisible from the walls of the room. It slid open to reveal a steep narrow stair.

‘Down there,’ whispered the prince, glancing nervously over his shoulder as if in danger of being overheard. ‘Down there – a door built into the exterior walls – ivy-covered, can’t be seen. Leads out across the garden to a gate in the Steine where a carriage awaits in readiness.’

He seemed very pleased and nodded excitedly as if expecting approval for this piece of architectural ingenuity. Obviously, thought Tam, the sinister implications had not occurred to him, that anyone who knew this secret, one that the marchioness and doubtless many before her were privy to, realised that the door could also be opened from inside this room giving access to the interior of the Pavilion.

Indeed the staircase would be a perfect hiding place for an assassin, Tam thought grimly, whose target, the Prince Regent, might subsequently be found dead one morning, not a mark upon him, having been smothered while he slept. Before the birth of forensic medicine, death dismissed as heart failure would not be received by the populace as any great surprise, considering that he was
grossly overweight and given to perpetual over-indulgence.

Deciding to keep this dangerous observation to himself for the time being, Tam said: ‘Might I suggest that Your Royal Highness confirms that no message was received by the stables from this room at any time during the last night or the early hours of this morning.’

The prince considered the matter, frowned, nodded and hastily made his exit, leaving Tam to his own devices.

The marchioness had been murdered. The evidence was there. All that was needed was the identity of her killer. How had her assignation with death been achieved? Was it the result of an insatiable woman’s lust for some exotic lovemaking to fill in an hour of boredom? If so, what had gone wrong?

The prospect of a transient exciting experience with a new young lover – yes, he would certainly need be young and naïve too, Tam decided, to put any faith in the affections of this royal whore.

From the little that Tam had been told about the marchioness, and what he had seen – he shuddered, all too much – he did not feel that her morals were in very good repair, and greedy and acquisitive by nature, blackmail might not be beyond contemplation should the need arise. Only a frightened young man, his whole future at stake should she betray him to Prince George or Prince Frederick, had seized upon that rope of pearls so conveniently around her neck as the only way out of a particularly nasty dilemma, of ruin posed by exposure to the royal displeasure.

Glad to turn his back on the now decently covered corpse in the prince’s bed, Tam walked around the room reconstructing the scene from the dead woman’s angle. There were no signs of a struggle. Quite the opposite, and,
bearing in mind the implications of the secret door, he was fairly certain that the marchioness had not been taken by surprise. The scene suggested that she might already be on terms of intimacy with her killer, since she had not considered it necessary to cover her nakedness, the natural reaction before an interloper.

Tam rubbed his chin thoughtfully. What had she to gain apart from an hour’s titillation? And a measure of paying the prince back for abandoning her to look elsewhere for his pleasures – the novelty of a shipwreck as rival to her voluptuous charms.

Whatever this crime, it had not been planned, that was for sure. It was a crime of passion and anger, of terror, and doubtless somewhere in the Pavilion at this very moment, the killer sat trembling at the consequences of exposure, and the dreadful payment for his dalliance with the insatiable marchioness.

While Tam was still walking round the room, picking up and laying down objects, deep in thought, the prince returned. ‘You were quite right, Mr Eildor. No message was received at the stables, no carriage summoned. The bell pull was silent all night.’

Tam nodded. He would have been surprised at any other information. ‘May I ask Your Royal Highness, who else has access to this room – in your absence?’

‘During the day, servants and so forth. But from the hour when we take our evening repast at eight o’clock until five in the morning, when we depart for our sea bathe, no one – absolutely no one – is allowed access beyond the Grooms of the Bedchamber who are on constant alert. Beyond their quarters in the withdrawing room, guards of the Tenth Dragoons, our own regiment, sir, are on duty patrolling the corridors approaching our apartments.’

A pause for Tam’s reactions, and he continued: ‘All these measures, you will realise, are of vital importance for the safety of our realm since several attempts have been made on the life of our royal father, especially during the last year when he has so unfortunately declined in health and spirits.’