by Angela Misri
“Are those for me or for the duchess?” she asked, pointing at the towels in my arms.
I closed the door behind me before I answered. “Truth be told, Ms. Wilans, the towels were the ruse to gain me entrance to you.”
Wilans looked understandably taken aback, stepping to a bell pull at the edge of her bed. “His Majesty …”
“Please don’t raise the alarm, I am not here for the royal family,” I said, putting down the towels and raising my hands placatingly. “Though I am relieved by your first instincts to protect them. My name is Portia Adams. I’m a consulting detective from Baker Street and I think you know why I am here.”
She had her hand on the fringed pull, but halted at my last words. She kept a hold of the alarm, but asked, “Why would you say that?”
“Your hands have healed,” I asked instead of answering her question. “May I ask how you injured them?”
She looked surprised at the question, but answered automatically. “I reached for a pan of biscuits for my nephew before the pan was cool.” She opened her palms to me so I could see the slight reddening of the skin in the straight lines that would support her explanation.
“Right, so then the bomb threats you were making against the palace were opportunistic, not terrorist,” I said.
Her hands flew to her mouth, but not with surprise, I suspected, with horror that I had arrived at her motives.
“You took advantage of the threat on behalf of the royal family,” I said. “Trying to turn some of the public’s rage into empathy. It was the call this morning that put the possibility in my head. Why call the papers at the same time as the police unless your prime goal is the coverage of the threat rather than the threat itself?”
Whatever she said was lost to me because it was whispered behind her hands.
“I’m sorry, but my hearing is not the best and if I can’t see your lips, I have no chance of understanding you at all,” I said. “I’m getting better at lip-reading, but I need to see your lips to do that.”
“You can’t hear? You’re a detective who can’t hear?” she asked, stepping towards me.
“I know, implausible and I’m thankful to say, improving every day. To answer the question I think you asked earlier, I was forced to extrapolate from the evidence. You were so vociferous in your defence of the royal family, according to several press reports. And just now, I confirmed your instincts when you reacted in defence of the family you serve, rather than yourself upon learning I was not who I seemed.”
“I meant no harm, I swear,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, reaching out and folding and refolding the towels. “I saw how the police leapt to put more security in place for Their Majesties, and I thought, maybe the public could be turned towards defending them rather than protesting against them.”
“But what about the distraction to those of us trying to solve this actual crime?” I said, sitting down next to her for a moment. “Or the police who are now wasting resources at Balmoral instead of focusing on the real criminal?”
She hung her head in answer, her chin nearly disappearing into her starched collar, “Will you allow me to tell Their Majesties myself? Before you call the police?”
“Sadly, I will not be turning you in,” I said. “As I am the more likely person to be arrested of the two of us. No, Ms. Wilans, if you can assure me here and now that your campaign of distraction is done, then we shall never speak of it again and I shall tell no one what I know.”
The older woman looked stunned for a moment and then threw her arms around me in what I’m sure was a rare moment of outward emotion.
“But I do need something from you in turn,” I said as soon as she released me.
CHAPTER 29
I FOLLOWED MS. WILANS back down to the laundry where I picked up my own clothes from the shelf as she went and retrieved Brian.
“If you still want to do this, we must do it now,” Wilans said to me as I tucked my clothes back into the satchel Brian was carrying.
“Do what?” Brian said.
“Yes, we do, but please, do not risk your position over this,” I said. “If you leave us at an appropriate spot, we can do the rest.”
She looked Brian up and down, her gaze lingering on his wounded hand, and then picked out a pair of folded clothes on a laundry shelf. “These were left behind by a thieving young butler. He will not be returning and you do not look presentable enough to go where I am taking you.”
Brian flushed and took the clothes with thanks. I stepped out into the hallway with Wilans while he dressed.
“You must tell me what you meant when you said you were more likely to be arrested than I was,” she said, glaring at an older maid who dared to try and cross our path. The woman backed up and went in a different direction.
“There are certain people who believe that I am in league with the bomber,” I explained to Wilans. “It is one of many reasonsI must unearth the actual criminal. I can’t go home until I’m cleared and Brian …”
We both looked at the closed door and to my surprise, Wilans reached out a hand. “He’s suffering, poor boy, that much is clear. My eldest brother came back from the Great War looking like that. Damaged and in so much pain he wasn’t thinking straight. You must watch him carefully. My Eli, he was shot in the back fighting in Passchendaele. Never really recovered and never had a sober day since he got back.”
“Is he …?”
“Gone, poor thing,” Wilans said, taking her hand off my shoulder and wrapping it around herself. “Never had a chance. If I knew then what I know now … just watch him. For his own sake, watch him. No matter how strong he says he is or how truthful you want to believe he is. The hurt is a fang-toothed monster to be sure, but the painkillers he uses to fight against it are a treacherous beast all their own.”
I nodded, a shiver running down my spine at her words. Brian opened the door and revealed the man I remembered. He had washed his face and combed down his hair, and the clothes fit him like a glove.
Wilans led the way back up the stairs and in the opposite direction of my first trip through the palace. Brian walked in step with me and I reached out to hold his good hand, squeezing it. He asked no questions, trusting me and my instincts, and this woman I had put my faith in not to turn us in to the Secret Service.
She led us into a small library with a simple wooden desk near the window that overlooked the gardens and bade us wait there.
Brian stepped straight to the desk where several newspapers were neatly folded, sifting through them. I was drawn to the bookshelves that lined this office from floor to ceiling, smiling at the shelves near the bottom where children’s books could be seen, along with a primer and a pencil case. The rest of the books told a clear story about the history of the room, tomes that were passed down and rarely opened. I touched one that was less dusty than the rest, a terribly boring book by the looks of it, tracking international trade agreements since the Great War.
“Annie has left us a message,” Brian said, opening The Lady’s advertising pages for me to see. “If I’m remembering our skip code correctly, it says that she’s decided to take the next train out to Sandwell in the Black Country … but that can’t be right, can it?”
I took the paper from him and deciphered the same message.
“She came to me, I think, a week ago?” Brian rubbed his head, wincing, as if the memory were buried under something heavy.
“Her father has gone missing from the mine where he works,” I said, taking pity on him. “She … came to you for help in finding him.”
Brian lost some of the colour in his face and at first I thought it was because of what I had said, but following his gaze, I realized the man we had been waiting for had entered the room.
“So sorry, I thought … that is, I was told …,” the man said, looking behind him and then back in the room, his hand still on the d
oorknob.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I said, dropping into a curtsey. “You are here for us.”
“But you are not my brother’s valet,” he said, still confused. “I was told to come in here and find out why he didn’t return from Fort Belvedere. He was to attend The Rose of Persia with us and did not arrive.”
I was finding it difficult to understand the man’s words as he had a pronounced stutter, something my partner understood right away.
“Your Highness, we are honoured to make your acquaintance,” he said coming forward and extending his good hand. “This is Miss Portia Adams and I am Constable Dawes of Scotland Yard.”
“Portia Adams,” the prince said, only now coming into the room fully and closing the door behind him. “The consulting detective from Baker Street? Granddaughter to Dr. Watson of the same address?”
We shook hands each of us and the prince invited us to take our ease in the leather chairs. “But what are a constable and a detective doing in Buckingham Palace? And disguised as members of my staff? Please tell me this is not about my brother.”
“No sir, I am not from Special Branch,” Brian said, referring to the officers assigned to follow the Prince of Wales and his newest love interest, Wallis Simpson, around London. A detail that was not favoured amongst the metropolitan police. “Miss Adams and I are working on the bombing case and we find ourselves in the precarious position of evading the Secret Intelligence Service even as this bomber evades us.”
I fought down an inappropriate smile of gratitude at this description of the situation, including himself as an equal in my troubles.
Prince Albert sat back in his chair, but seemed unsurprised by this statement, prompting me to ask, “Sir, I have but a few questions that will help us in our quest. The first is, how many Secret Intelligence Service agents are in the palace?”
“None, as far as I know,” Prince Albert replied, opening up his jacket pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes. He lit one before continuing, the smoke calming his stuttering, making his lips a little easier to read. “But my father, the king, may know otherwise, so I advise you go through the proper channels to hear from him. I would not advise sneaking into his office the way you have today.”
“No, of course not,” I agreed. “But you have met with agents recently, perhaps two days ago?”
Albert looked startled and glanced at Brian, who said, “You’d better tell us how you know that, Portia, before His Royal Highness forgets he invited us to sit.”
“In the papers, you were reported to be attending a play with the Duchess of York and, as you said, your brother, who missed the event,” I said.
“Yes, and so I did,” the prince replied.
“But if you had actually sat through the play you would have known that they had a last-minute change,” I said. “Instead of The Rose of Persia, they put on Tantivy Towers. The apology from the theatre director is printed in the newspaper on your desk.”
Albert gave in to a small smile. “I hadn’t read the papers yet.”
“Nor did you attend enough of the play to notice it was not the one you came to see,” I answered. “Meaning someone pulled you out of the play near the beginning and kept you occupied for most of the show. I would hazard a guess that very few could do that, save your father or perhaps someone you trusted in the Secret Service.”
“Someone at Box 850?” Brian asked, looking back and forth between us.
“Not Colonel Kell, or His Royal Highness would have already called him upon meeting us,” I said. “But possibly MI5?”
Albert lit another cigarette off the burning end of the one he’d just finished, offering Brian one as well. Brian readily took one, his hand shaking slightly as it was lit.
“Someone I know from his efforts on behalf of this family and trust implicitly,” the prince said finally. “Something I cannot say for the two of you, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t name names.”
“Trident?” I asked, playing a hunch and receiving nothing back from the prince at all. Not a nod nor a denial.
“The agents are pursuing more than just me as a line of investigation; have they made progress on the next potential target?” I asked when he continued to smoke.
“They believe the palace is a target and have suggested we move to another location. You’ll understand if I don’t tell you where or when we will be going,” he replied, taking another long drag off this cigarette.
“Of course,” I replied, my mind skipping through the conceivable locations and arriving at two potentials, neither of which needed to be revealed at this meeting. “But other than the palace?”
“Downing Street has been ruled out, so the focus is on the travel hubs — the airport and the many train stations around London.”
“The key goal of the terrorist being assumed to be a disruption of traffic,” I nodded. “What about trade? What about the ports?”
“The ports too, as well as border crossings,” the prince agreed, glancing at the book I had looked at on his bookshelf. “Our forces are spread out and reinforced by the fine men and women of the military as well.”
“What are you thinking?” Brian asked me.
“If you wanted to draw attention away from your goal, spreading all the investigative minds of London like this would be effective,” I said, getting up to pace, as I so often did when thinking hard.
I was walking and thinking, so I missed the exchange between the prince and Brian, but on my third pass, my partner stopped me by reaching for my hand. “Portia, His Royal Highness asks what makes you think that this is not a terrorist act by an outside government looking to disrupt the usual business of the empire?”
“Other than the fact that this is an amateur venture that has succeeded once and only by mistake?” I answered. “I don’t know. Not for sure. But if it is government-funded terrorism, I think the combination of minds at MI5, SIS, and Scotland Yard are more than up to the task of hunting that down. My mind always pulls to the outsider agenda. Is there any chance these bombings are affecting our negotiations with the Germans? Or our reported efforts to stockpile weapons?”
The prince tamped out his cigarette. “Well, this has been most interesting. I must say, young lady, I read much about your grandfather’s exploits with Holmes when I was a child and I’m glad to have met you and seen your mind in action. I sincerely hope you are right about this bomber and their motivations because I’d rather deal with one man than a country. I’d really rather stay here and discuss this further, but I must make some introductions on behalf of our coalition government.” He stood and Brian did as well, bowing as I curtsied. “You will find your own way out I’m sure,” said the prince. “And please don’t take this the wrong way, but next time, I expect to meet you through official channels.”
CHAPTER 30
TO OUR SURPRISE, WILANS met us outside the door holding two large mail sacks.
“Food and some more clothes that I put together from the hand-me-downs from the family,” she explained, placing a bag over each of our shoulders carefully. “Don’t try and turn me down, I can well see that you need the help. Also, a bottle of aspirin for you, sir.”
“I wonder, Ms. Wilans, if we might keep these uniforms for a bit longer?” I asked.
She looked surprised, but agreed without question and motioned for us to follow her down the hall and out another door. Then we were back outside in the pouring rain, running for the nearest café awning in sight and looking in the windows at the empty tables where a single man in a woolly cap nursed a cup of tea. I was about to go in when Brian stopped me to say something I had been anticipating for some time.
“Well, that was a non-answer if I’ve ever heard one from the prince, which means for me to be at all useful to our investigation, I must go back to the Yard,” he said as he looked down at his damaged hand with less anger than before. “I don’t know how to … How w
ill I explain?”
“Tell them the truth,” I advised, wishing I could go with him, stand by his side for whatever punishment he had earned. “Michaels respects you enough to listen and he’s probably been as worried about you as your own parents.”
“What was that about Trident?” Brian asked. “I thought that was Major Collins’ code name? Lancaster said Collins was dead.”
“According to Amélie, Trident was crucial to the efforts in Northern Ireland,” I said. “But who knows which spy she was referring to. Maybe that’s something else you can pursue at the Yard.”
“But that leaves you with …”
“Lancaster and Amélie, I know,” I replied. “But I won’t be alone.”
His head came up at that.
“No one will look for me in the Black Country,” I said. “And we aren’t regrouping with the spies for another two days. Plenty of time to find Annie’s father and bring her back with me to London.”
“What about the bomber?” Brian asked, perhaps rightfully pointing out my more selfish motives in solving my friend’s case first. “He may strike again while you are away.”
“He or she may threaten it again, but I don’t think we will see an actual bomb be set off,” I replied. “Call it a hunch, for now. And God forbid a bomb does go off, the Yard will be there first to gather evidence and you shall have to be my eyes and ears, because if I were to show my face …”
“And … I promise, Portia, I am done medicating away my pain,” he said, his jaw set and his brown eyes locked on mine unwaveringly, as if he could hypnotize me into believing his words. “I have learned my lesson. I won’t let you down again.”
“No, I don’t believe you will,” said the older man who had appeared at our side, silent to me, but even, it seemed, a surprise to my partner. Sherlock Holmes stood at the door to the café he had just exited and I walked into his open arms with a fair amount of relief.
“I know it’s pointless to ask how you knew I would be here,” I whispered into his ear. “But I am so glad you are.”