A Royal Pain

by Rhys Bowen

  “I don’t know about that,” Granddad said. “It’s been a long while, ducks, and I’m pretty much tied down waiting on those Deutschy ladies of yours.”

  “Yes, I know you are. But all may be well by tomorrow. The queen may decide to send them home straight away, or she may bring them to the palace and we can all breathe again.”

  “Let’s hope so, love,” he said. “Let us hope so.”

  I went upstairs to change for dinner. I stood in my room listening to the sounds of the square outside my open windows. There were children playing in the central garden. I could hear their high little voices mingling with birdsong and the muted sounds of traffic. It all sounded so happy and normal and safe. And yet those newspaper reporters were still lingering by the railings, reminding me that nothing was normal and safe at all. Why did we have to time our visit to the bookstore so unluckily as to arrive at that critical moment? Moments earlier and perhaps we could have prevented Sidney from being killed. Moments later and someone else would have found the body.

  I paused and considered this. Had the murderer timed his killing to coincide with our arrival, thus putting suspicion on us? What if he were a friend or acquaintance of Sidney Roberts and Sidney had confided to him that a foreign princess was going to be visiting him that morning? It would be the sort of thing one might brag about. Maybe Sidney had even mentioned it at the café and someone had overheard.

  The beggar at the end of the alley hadn’t seen anyone, either entering or leaving that street before us. What if the killer was already there, working in one of the adjacent buildings, maybe? All he’d have to do is to come into the bookshop when no one was looking, which would have been easy enough, then wait until he spotted us turning into the street before doing the deed and slipping out again and into the building next door. Nobody would have noticed, especially if he worked on the street and was habitually seen coming and going. We wouldn’t have seen him because we were reading the signs on the various shops as we came. And if we had glimpsed him, we were looking for a bookshop, not a person. He would have still gone unnoticed.

  That’s what the police should be doing—questioning those who worked in the buildings around the bookshop. I should also suggest maybe that Granddad ask his own questions there. I could even go and ferret around myself if I could get rid of the princess and—wait a minute. What business was this of mine? It was up to the police to solve the crime. I had been an innocent bystander. I had absolutely nothing to worry about.

  Then why was my stomach twisting itself into knots? I had the police hounding me, the baroness bullying me, and an imminent interview with the queen during which she’d probably tell me how extremely displeased with me she was. If I were sensible, I’d catch the next train to Scotland and leave them all to sort it out without me. But then a Rannoch never runs. This was another of the words of wisdom instilled in me at an early age by my nanny and then my governess. It went along with tales of Rannochs past who stood their ground when hordes of English charged at them, or hordes of Turks, French or Germans, depending on the battlefield. All the stories ended with the particular Rannoch being hacked to pieces, so were not exactly uplifting in their moral.

  What would a Rannoch do now, I wondered. Allow herself to be bullied by a German baroness, a smirking policeman, or the Queen of England? If I had my trusty claymore, I’d dispatch the whole lot of them with a single stroke, I thought, and smiled to myself. It was about time I learned to stand up for myself and let these people know that a Rannoch cannot be bullied.

  I jumped as there was a tap on my bedroom door.

  “You’re wanted on the telephone,” my grandfather said in a low voice, because Mildred was hovering somewhere close by. “The palace.”

  Chapter 22

  Rannoch House,

  Saturday, June 18, 1932

  Diary,

  Weather: gloomy. Overcast with the promise of rain.

  Mood: equally gloomy. Due at palace immediately after breakfast.

  I searched through the Times when Mildred brought it up to me. There was only a small paragraph. Police investigate Thames-side killing. The body of a young bookstore clerk was found stabbed in Haslett’s Bookshop, off Wapping High Street, yesterday. Police are anxious to speak with anyone who was in the area about ten thirty.

  No mention of us, thank heavens. Of course this was the Times. Who knows what the Daily Mirror might have said?

  Breakfast was a somber affair. I found it hard to swallow anything. Even the baroness didn’t go back for a second helping of bacon and eggs. We were all feeling the cloud of doom hanging over us. I couldn’t wait to go to the palace and get it over with. I even let Mildred choose my outfit to wear to see the queen. She was very excited and proud to be doing so. “The palace—of course you’ll want to look smart, but understated. This would definitely be an occasion for the pearls, my lady.”

  The fact that I let her put the pearls around my neck shows the height of tension. I’ve never voluntarily worn pearls in the daytime in my life. At ten past nine off I went, after obtaining reassurances from the baroness that she would not allow Princess Hannelore out of the house under any pretext, and from my grandfather the butler that he would not admit anybody. I tied a scarf around my head, hoping that nobody would recognize me, and hurried in the direction of Buckingham Palace.

  I was tempted to make use of the secret entrance in the side wall and thus gain access through that lower corridor past the kitchens, but I decided that this was one occasion when I should do everything by the book, and give Her Majesty no reason to find fault. So I mustered my courage, crossed the Ambassadors’ Court and rang the bell at the normal visitors’ entrance. It was opened by the same distinguished old gentleman who had accosted me once before when I was sneaking along a hallway. I never did find out who he was or his official title, and I could hardly ask him now. For all I knew he was the official royal door opener, no more than a glorified page. But he certainly adopted the airs and graces of a higher position.

  “Ah, Lady Georgiana, is it not?” He bowed a little. “Her Majesty is expecting you. May I escort you to her?” Without waiting for an answer he led me up a flight of stairs to the piano nobile. On this floor everything was on a grander scale: the carpet was lush, the walls were hung with tapestries and dotted with marble columns and statues, and the corridor went on forever. So did the old man’s chatter.

  “Unseasonably cold for June, so I understand, although I have not been outside myself today. Her Majesty always takes her turn about the gardens in the morning and did vouchsafe to her maid that it was ‘a little nippy.’ ”

  “Yes, it is somewhat chilly,” I replied, wishing that the interminable walk down the corridor would soon come to an end.

  At last, mercifully, because we had run out of talk about the weather and the English prospects for Wimbledon, he paused in front of a door, turned to me to make sure I was ready and then knocked.

  “Lady Georgiana to see you, ma’am,” he said.

  We both stepped inside and bowed in unison.

  Her Majesty was standing at the window, looking out onto the gardens. With one elegant hand resting on the tasseled velvet drapes, she looked as if she were posing for the next royal portrait. She turned to us and nodded gravely.

  “Ah, Georgiana,” she said. “Thank you, Reginald, you may leave us.”

  The old man backed out and closed the doors silently behind him.

  “Come and sit down, Georgiana,” Her Majesty said as she came across the room, indicating a straight-backed chair facing a brocade sofa. She chose the chair, so I perched on the edge of the sofa, facing her. She studied me for a long moment while I waited for the ax of doom to fall and for her to say, “We’ve decided to send you as lady-in-waiting to a distant relative in the Falkland Islands.” Instead she sighed, then spoke.

  “A bad business, this, Georgiana.”

  “It is, ma’am, and I’m sorry to have caused you embarrassment because of it. But I assure you tha
t I had no idea that we were doing anything stupid or out of the ordinary when I took the princess to visit a bookshop. Had I known that it was in a less-than-desirable part of London or that it had any links to the Communist Party, I would not have agreed to it.”

  “This young man,” the queen went on, “the one who was murdered. How exactly did you meet him?”

  “We met him in Hyde Park, ma’am.”

  “In Hyde Park?” she said with exactly the same intonation with which Lady Bracknell delivered the famous line “A handbag?” in The Importance of Being Earnest. “Do you make it a habit of speaking to strange young men in parks?”

  “Of course not, ma’am. Her Highness wanted to see Speakers’ Corner and she fell into conversation with this young man who was handing out leaflets.”

  “Communist leaflets?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But it was all perfectly harmless. He was well-spoken and seemed pleasant enough. Then we were surprised to meet him again at a friend’s party.”

  “So he was one of your set, then?”

  “I don’t actually have a set. But as to whether he was of our class, he wasn’t. I understood that he was from lowly origins and had gone to Cambridge on a scholarship, where he became friendly with some of the chaps at the party.”

  “So he frequented Mayfair parties but yet we are given to understand that he was involved with the communists?”

  “Yes, I gather he was a keen socialist, very idealistic about improving the lot of the working people.”

  “A strange mixture, wouldn’t you say?” she asked. “One wouldn’t have thought that someone who felt so strongly about the lot of the working people would indulge in the extravagances of the rich.”

  “Very true, ma’am. In fact the host was surprised to see him at the party.”

  “The host being... ?”

  “Augustus Gormsley, ma’am. And I believe Edward Fotheringay was also giving the party.”

  “Gormsley. That’s the publishing family, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Nothing communist about them.” She chuckled. “The old man built himself the biggest monstrosity in Victorian England. Made Sandringham look like a peasant’s cottage in comparison.”

  I smiled. “The champagne and cocktails were certainly flowing at the party,” I said. I didn’t mention the cocaine. I had no idea whether that flowed or not, or whether Gussie knew what was going on in his kitchen and was simply turning a blind eye to it.

  “The question is, what are we going to do about it, Georgiana?” Her Majesty said. “We have sent word to the newspaper owners asking them to keep your names out of any reports for the moment and I am sure they will comply with this—except for the Daily Worker, of course. We have no influence over them whatsoever, but then nobody of consequence reads that paper, anyway. Unfortunately, as soon as there is an inquest, your names will be on the public record and there is not much we can do then. All highly embarrassing, of course. Especially when relations with Germany are always so fragile, and Germany itself is in such an unsettled state at the moment.”

  “Baroness Rottenmeister has already ordered Her Highness to write to her father, explaining that we had accepted what seemed like a polite invitation to see some rare books and we knew nothing of the place’s communist connections. Also that we hardly knew the young man in question and it was pure chance that we timed our arrival so poorly.”

  The queen nodded. “I wonder whether I should telephone the King of Bavaria? I rather think the best approach, given the location that this awful thing took place, would be to say that you were doing charitable works among the poor.”

  “That might indeed be a wise approach,” I said. “But I’ve already told the police that we went to the bookshop at the invitation of the young man.”

  “What was so intriguing about a bookshop, pray?”

  “It wasn’t the bookshop, ma’am. It was the young man in question. The princess was rather smitten with him, I believe.”

  “Oh, dear. Straight from the convent. Desperate to meet boys. So what do you think we should do now, Georgiana?”

  I was taken aback by this. I had expected to be told what would happen, not to have my opinion sought.

  “I was wondering whether we should not send the princess home right away, so that she doesn’t have to endure the newspaper reporters and the inquest. Her father would surely not want to put her through those.”

  The queen gave a little sigh. “But then we would have no chance of achieving our objective, would we? We still haven’t come up with a suitable occasion for David to have a chance to see her and chat with her informally. That boy is hopeless. I had planned to place him beside her at our little dinner the other evening, but then he ran out on us.”

  “We may have to give this up as a lost cause, ma’am. The Prince of Wales showed no flicker of interest in her during our brief conversation.”

  “The boy is a fool,” she said. “How can any young man be more interested in a desiccated and vicious middle-aged American woman than in a sweet and lovely young girl?”

  “I don’t know how men’s minds work, ma’am.”

  “I don’t think this has anything to do with David’s mind. I don’t even think it has anything to do with lust. She has some uncanny hold over him. Maybe he’ll grow tired of her before long, but I’d really like to nip it in the bud, while she still has a husband to return to. You’d think her husband would do something about it, wouldn’t you? Give her a damned good hiding and take her home—that’s what any red-blooded young Englishman would do.”

  I listened, nodding politely.

  “No, I’d really like to give this one more chance, Georgiana,” Her Majesty continued. “I have discussed the matter with the king and it occurs to me that I may have the solution as to how we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I know that the Cromer-Strodes are currently entertaining people—do you know the Cromer-Strodes?”

  “I have met their daughter, Fiona, but I’ve never been to their house.”

  “Dippings. A lovely house with some fine antiques, and a mere stone’s throw from Sandringham in Norfolk.”

  I wondered how the Cromer-Strodes had managed to hang on to those fine antiques if they were but a stone’s throw from a royal palace.

  “The king and I are motoring up to Sandringham today. He has been working too hard recently and he’s not at all well, Georgiana. So I have persuaded him to take a few days off and he does so love Sandringham. It’s the only place where he’s truly comfortable, I believe. We’ll have to come back to London for the garden party next week, of course, but the journey is not too long and arduous.”

  “Garden party?”

  “One of those ghastly invite-the-masses events. Well, not exactly the masses, but dreary people like the head of the dock board and the railways and various members of parliament. People who feel entitled to shake hands with us once a year. You must bring Princess Hannelore. It will be good for her to see a traditional aspect of English life. You could motor up from Sandringham with us.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I’m sure she’d enjoy it.”

  “Let’s hope the weather is favorable this time. Last year it was most unpleasant, standing with that hot sun on one’s back.”

  She paused. I waited for her to continue. Her eyes were focused on the far wall. “Those Worcester pieces,” she said, indicating some royal blue china that was displayed in a Chinese cabinet, “so lovely, aren’t they? We have the rest of that collection at Sandringham. I believe there is a bowl in the same pattern but I haven’t managed to unearth one yet. If you ever see one during your travels, do let me know....”

  So that you can swoop down and relieve them of it, I thought. Her Majesty was notorious for pursuing antiques with such a passion that she had absolutely no scruples about acquiring them through fair means or foul.

  “You were talking about Sandringham, ma’am. Do I understand that you’d want us to accompany you?”


  “No, no, I don’t think that would be the best idea. You see, David has given us to understand that he’ll be coming to Sandringham with us and we don’t want him to think that he’s being thrown together with the princess. That would have quite the wrong effect. But my spies tell me that the dreadful American woman has managed to have herself included in the house party at Dippings—Lord Cromer-Strode married an American, you know, which is obviously why David is suddenly so interested in Sandringham.”

  I nodded with understanding.

  “So my thought was this: if Princess Hannelore and you join the house party at Dippings, then David will be able to make the comparison—the young beauty and the old hag.”

  I laughed. “She may be old, but she’s certainly not a hag, ma’am. She has exquisite taste in clothes and she’s quite vivacious.”

  “So you like her, do you?”

  “I absolutely loathe her, but I am just trying to be fair.”

  The queen smiled. “So what do you say, Georgiana? Does this seem like the best solution? We remove the princess from the public eye in London, whisk her to the safety of Dippings, and let things take their course from there.”

  “It does seem like a good plan, ma’am,” I said, relieved that once we reached Dippings, the Cromer-Strodes would be responsible for her, not I. “But the police did indicate that we were not to leave London before the inquest.”

  “Not leave London? Blessed cheek. Do they expect you to flee the coop like the criminal classes? I’ll have my secretary let them know that the king and I have invited you both to be with us in the country, after your unfortunate experience. We will personally guarantee that you will be motored back to London for the inquest.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I just hope they manage to get to the bottom of this sordid business as quickly as possible. If the whole thing is brought to a satisfactory conclusion before the date of the inquest, then you might not even have to appear in public. And the newspapers would certainly have nothing to write about.”