Stealing the Crown (A Guy Harford Mystery)

by TP Fielden

  ‘I don’t think anybody expected you to . . .’

  Guy smiled mirthlessly. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you. It seems I have some skills even I didn’t know I possessed.’

  Aggie had regained her composure. ‘You weren’t supposed to find the answer,’ she repeated, shaking her head. ‘You were just supposed to look.’

  Guy turned to regard her sitting uncomfortably at Ed’s desk. ‘Sorry, that’s not the way I go about things. Now, what exactly is in this diary? You’ll have read it from cover to cover, no doubt – you know everything else that’s going on in the Palace. It’d be a big surprise if you left this little corner unexplored.’

  ‘What d’you want to know?’ she replied sulkily.

  ‘Does it actually name the members of the English Mistery, the ones who Ed was told to chase after for their support?’

  Aggie squirmed in her seat. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Does it mention meetings with Captain Broadbent? Meetings with Sir Topham?’

  ‘I . . . I . . . I can’t really say anything. The Master of the Household warned . . .’

  ‘The Master may not be master for much longer. He’s had a distinguished career, he’s reached a certain age – I have the feeling he’ll be tendering his resignation very soon. Now, I can sit here all night working my way through the diary, but I think, with your exceptional brain, you’ll not only have read every word but remembered them too.’

  Aggie opened her mouth but said nothing.

  ‘All right, another question. Captain Broadbent and Mrs Brampton. Did Ed know about the affair?’

  ‘Only at the end.’

  ‘You mean just before he was killed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what made you think that somehow Mrs Brampton had a hand in his death?’

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ said Aggie defensively.

  ‘You implied it. Who do you think killed Ed?’

  ‘I have no idea. Look, Mr Harford, I really have to get on! There’s something urgent that I . . .’

  ‘Not just yet,’ said Guy firmly. He went over to his desk and picked up the envelope, tearing open the top and tipping out a green morocco-covered diary. He opened it and flipped through the pages.

  ‘Is there anything in here which might lead you to suppose Captain Broadbent killed Ed?’

  ‘It depends what you’re looking for, Mr Harford, you’ll have to read it yourself. But I don’t think you should jump to conclusions – you’ve only been here a short while, you don’t understand how the Palace works, and you don’t understand the ways that certain people have about them. I think the—’

  ‘I want to know why Ed was killed,’ hissed Guy. ‘That’s all! Do you know? Is it in these pages? Am I going to have to spend all night trying to find why Dighton wanted Ed Brampton dead?’

  ‘What? Is that what you think? No . . . it’s not that. It’s not like that at all!’

  Guy ran his hand through his hair. Aggie was frightened, and there was only so far he was prepared to push this interrogation. Clearly the whole day, and the following night too, would be spent trying to decipher the often-elliptical entries in Ed’s spidery handwriting. One glance was sufficient to tell Guy it wouldn’t be easy.

  ‘This office comes under the command of Tommy Lascelles, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But actually its real boss is Topsy Dighton.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that.’

  ‘Aggie, if Sir Topham doesn’t resign, he’ll be arrested. He’s been consorting with a group which is planning the overturn of the throne. That’s an act of sedition – the blocking of Princess Elizabeth’s right to sit on the throne! I imagine in wartime it could be described as treason – and we all know the penalty for that, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What I’m saying to you is that, in a few days’ time, the Master of the Household will no longer be with us. If you run to him now and tell him what I’ve just told you, he won’t escape – but you will be implicated. Do you understand?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ burst out Aggie angrily. ‘Thank you? Congratulations for being so brilliant?’

  She’s a tough one, thought Guy – you can never threaten a Glaswegian.

  ‘I want you to say nothing to Dighton. His time’s up.’

  ‘If you think you’ve been so brilliant,’ Aggie snapped, ‘you’d better be sure of your facts. You seem to be saying Captain Broadbent killed Ed on the Master’s orders.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  Guy picked up the diary. ‘Then who . . .’

  ‘Why don’t you try looking at Major Brampton’s girlfriend,’ she said venomously. ‘That foreign piece of work. The social climber. The Lady La-Di-Dah who swept in here and treated me like dirt when I told her to stay out of the Throne Room. The one he swanned off with.’

  Jealous, thought Guy. She knew Ed’s marriage was in trouble and thought, maybe, he would turn to her. Little did she realise Ed’s relationship with Suzy Easthampton was sexless and that he still loved his wife.

  ‘I now know what happened to him in those last months after Mrs Brampton went to live in the country, and I can assure you it had nothing to do with Lady Easthampton.’

  ‘How do you know? She came from nowhere, a real nobody! Her friends, who were they?’ She was angry.

  ‘It had nothing to do with her,’ said Guy firmly, his voice carrying a conviction he couldn’t justify. ‘But if, as you say, it wasn’t Topham and Broadbent, who was it?’

  It was Aggie’s turn to stare out of the window. The stallion had been pacified and led away; the Royal Mews now empty and silent.

  ‘I could never believe it was Captain Broadbent,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s such a gentleman. An officer and a gentleman.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The interview with Aggie left Guy in a foul mood. She knew more than she was saying, preferring to protect her allies within the Palace rather than see justice done. Or was it just that she was frightened? Certainly if the Master of the Household could order one killing, he’d have no hesitation in having another arranged.

  It was late in the evening. For the past several hours he’d been reading his way through Ed’s diary, but though the ex-soldier wrote copiously he said little. There were the names and addresses of the English Mistery members he’d met, together with a tick or a cross – apparently to signal whether they were prepared to support Dighton in the event of the King’s death or capture. On the face of it, the Master was having a hard time keeping his troops in line – Rupe had mentioned that many of the Misters had moved on to join the English Array, and Dighton was having difficulty keeping the remainder under his thumb.

  ‘Like herding cats,’ mused Guy as he turned the page once more.

  He’d looked first at the dates nearest to Ed’s death, but the entries offered no special clue. Dotted between the various official duties the courtier performed were the initials of the men he saw most frequently at the Palace – Lascelles, Dighton, Toby Broadbent. Lascelles was his boss, but it was Dighton’s initials which appeared most often – Brampton had meetings with the Master almost twice as many times as the King’s DPS. Broadbent appeared irregularly, and not at all in the week before Ed’s death.

  Turning back to the beginning of the year, Guy found the first few mentions of Suzy Easthampton, but shortly before the entry marked ‘A leaves Mkhm St’, thickly underlined in black ink, her initials disappeared.

  From the many entries marked ‘HrM’ it was easy to see how often he was in the Queen’s company – in the mornings, at lunch, at tea and sometimes dinner. Guy reminded himself Ed had been in the same regiment as the Queen’s brother, and it could be that she saw in him a replacement for the favourite she lost at the Battle of Loos in 1915. There was no indication in the diary’s many pages as to his feelings for her, nor for Adelaide or the children – though he noted meticulously all their
birthdays and the presents he’d bought.

  For the rest, even in its abbreviated form, the diary painted a picture of a man who was regular in his habits, meticulous in his record-keeping, and infuriatingly discreet in what he said.

  All that fuss and bother to find this ruddy book, thought Guy, as he got up from his desk and walked round the room, and there’s nothing in it.

  He looked up at the clock – 11.30 p.m. – and with a sigh picked up the diary and ladled it back into the heavy buff wrapper which Aggie had handed over with such reluctance. As he did so, he noticed a slip of paper crushed down at the bottom of the envelope. He was tired and in need of a glass of whisky and irritatedly tried to jam the book back in, but the paper prevented it. He pulled out both diary and paper and glanced briefly at what was causing the logjam.

  It was a coarse piece of government-issue paper, the kind used for a second or third carbon copy and usually stapled into a master folder.

  GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND

  TOP SECRET

  aDDa/12.cp

  While we seek to maintain harmony with our American cousins at all times and levels, it must be borne in mind that not all are our allies.

  The German-American Bund is a crypto-Nazi organisation whose members wear the Swastika and parade openly in military fashion on the streets of many American towns, even today. Its insignia combines a Swastika with an Iron Cross.

  The GAB’s origins go back to 1933, and its present headquarters are at 178 East 85th Street, New York City. Membership is confined to Americans of German origin but of these, it cannot be stressed too highly, there are millions.

  In 1939 the GAB held a rally attended by a crowd of 20,000, echoing some of the larger pre-war Hitler rallies in Germany. Outbreaks of violence were crushed by uniformed storm troopers.

  This is essentially a quasi-military group which takes pride in wearing Nazi regalia and echoing their German cousins’ denunciation of all things Jewish. Its broad base across America suggests that if the USA does come into the war, there could be civil unrest which may hamper the ambition of those on Capitol Hill who want to join forces with Britain, France, etc.

  As its name suggests, the problem of the GAB remains within America; and is unlikely to reach these shores. However, government departments should be on the watch for Americans domiciled in Britain during the present hostilities who may have, and will conceal, German origins. These people present a possible threat to national security; the fact all Americans must be treated as honoured guests in Britain complicates the issue.

  Please note there will be a full briefing for all departmental heads at 0900 on Tuesday in Admiralty A1/room 44B. Please signal attendance to 2/O Dimont, H., at that address.

  TOP SECRET PLMD/MT

  RESTRICTED CIRCULATION A/DZ//1941

  INITIAL, RETURN, RESPOND pp DHRTA

  Guy stood staring woodenly at the memo, trying to take in its extraordinary message. How could such explosive information end up crumpled in the bottom of an envelope? It wasn’t addressed to Ed Brampton, and there seemed to be no reason for it to be in his possession. Guy needed time to think.

  Stuffing the paper back in the envelope, he locked it in his drawer and was going out of the door when the telephone rang.

  ‘Guy? It’s Rodie.’

  ‘I told you never to call me at the Palace!’

  ‘Are you busy?’

  ‘I’m going home, it’s nearly midnight.’

  ‘I’ve got something for you. You’ll love it!’

  ‘Well, why don’t we meet at The Grenadier tomorrow? Say six-thirty?’

  ‘It has to be now. I’ll come round to your place. I know where it is.’

  ‘Of course you do. No doubt you’ve been through the contents with a fine-tooth comb.’

  ‘Lovely parrot you’ve got – what’s its name?’

  Guy groaned. ‘See you in half an hour.’

  He marched briskly home, but though the walk took no more than fifteen minutes she was already in the flat. ‘Kettle’s on!’ she sang brightly.

  ‘Where’s Rupe?’

  ‘Out working I expect. Now look what I’ve got for you!’

  She was wearing a one-piece siren suit with a scarf wrapped round her head – looking, Guy thought ironically, the very caricature of a burglar in a film or stage play.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ he asked grumpily. He was tired.

  ‘It took time but I got there in the end!’ she said, happily pouring hot water into the pot. ‘The problem being there’s been no air raids for weeks, and I didn’t know whether it would work. But, Guy, I AM a genius, and it did work!’

  ‘What did?’

  ‘Your friend Mrs Cody. I went to pay her a visit.’

  ‘You . . . what? You broke into her apartment?’

  ‘Manner of speakin’, you might say. She wasn’t in.’

  ‘What a shame,’ said Guy scathingly. ‘If she had been, no doubt she’d have offered you a glass of champagne. Just before she called the police and had you arrested. I take it you did go round there to burgle her?’

  ‘I don’t use that word, Guy. I’m not your everyday, common or garden robber, you know.’

  ‘How on earth did you get away with it? She has an army of staff in that place!’

  ‘There she was, havin’ a nice dinner with all sorts of smart people. The apartment’s on the second and third floor – no difficulty getting to the front door, but I could hear the party going on inside. So I went away and thought about it. Like all these posh apartment blocks, there’s an internal air-raid alarm as well as the public ones in the square – just to be on the safe side, like. So I went down into the basement and there it was, just like you’d expect. I reckoned that, even though there’s been no enemy action recently, people are still on the kee-veeve, waiting for those German buggers to come back.’

  She poured the tea, flushed with success.

  ‘This is what I thought . . . They’ll all be so anxious when they hear the alarm go off, they’ll bundle out of the apartment and race down to the air-raid shelter – your friend, her chums, all the staff. It’ll take time because they’re always told not to use the lift, take the stairs instead. So getting that lot down there will take a few minutes. Then they’ll hang around waiting for people from the other apartments to come and join them. Then there’ll be a bit of a palaver about whether it’s a false alarm or not, then one of the staff will be sent up to the street to see what’s going on, then he’ll check with an air-raid warden – when he can find one, like “Is the raid going to be soon?” – and when he discovers it truly is a false alarm he goes back and tells everybody, and they come out and have to troop back up the stairs again. I fixed the lift so they couldn’t use it.’

  Guy looked at her in amazement. The sheer nerve of it!

  ‘I reckoned I’d got fifteen minutes, tops – I was in and out of there in fourteen, darlin’!’

  ‘I’m astonished, Rodie. Appalled, but astonished.’

  ‘So what do you think I’ve got for you?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to know. Would you prefer some whisky? This tea is dreadful.’

  ‘Take a look at this!’

  She handed over a framed photograph. Taken in summer, it featured a well-dressed couple in their forties standing in front of a road sign, smiling happily. She was looking at him; he was looking sternly ahead. Each had their right arm raised. Behind them, in the background, a handful of others eagerly copied their unmistakable gesture.

  ‘Your friend,’ said Rodie, ‘your society-hostess friend. She’s a bleedin’ Nazi!’

  ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘Where’s the first place you go? Where did I go when we popped into Ed Brampton’s house?’

  ‘The safe.’

  ‘In the bedroom, behind a picture, like they usually are. I’ve got an instinct like a homing pigeon, my darling, it takes me straight there – every time!’

  ‘What’s in there?’

  �
�The usual. Top shelf, loads of jewellery. Loads! Middle, documents – I didn’t bother with those. Bottom, personal stuff – letters, diaries, cash, that sort of thing. I found this in a locked box at the back – lots of other pictures in there too, but I didn’t want them to know I’d paid a visit, so I left it at that. I thought it might help you make up your mind about warning her off the Duke of Gloucester.’

  ‘I’m trying to drink this in,’ said Guy, astonished. ‘Let me take it over to the lamp.’ Rodie came over and put her arm around him, delighted by his response.

  The photo was unquestionably a picture of Betsey Cody with an unknown man. They looked like a prosperous – though not rich – couple in relaxed and happy form. But both were, without question, making the Nazi salute.

  The road sign read ‘YAPHANK’ but there were no further clues as to where the picture was taken. Guy carefully turned the frame over, and with some difficulty levered off the back. In pencil on the rear of the picture was a woman’s handwriting:

  Happy anniversary!

  Max & me

  Yaphank

  June 24th

  This isn’t her husband, Guy said to himself. Her husband’s called Granville and I’ve seen his picture in the paper and he doesn’t look anything like this man.

  Aloud, he said to Rodie, ‘Why did you do this? Why break into Mrs Cody’s apartment, why go looking her safe, why choose this particular item to bring back?’

  ‘I’m brassed off about you not painting my picture,’ said Rodie vehemently. ‘You were goin’ to, and then this woman wasn’t going to give you your exhibition, and then you wasn’t going to. I want you to paint my picture!

  ‘So I thought I’d go and take a look. Wasn’t thinking I would find this. I thought I’d find something to bring back which would make you laugh, and then if you laughed you might think again about the picture. Every woman wants their portrait done!’

  ‘You’ve got your wish,’ said Guy, turning the photograph over in his hands, looking for further clues.

  ‘I pinched this one as well, but only ’cos I liked her hat. I thought I’d have one made like that.’