The two older men exchanged a glance and a smile. “Just like the old days, eh Hoozarmi?” Weatherbee offered. Ewan nodded.
“Big, you start on the top floor of the south wing with—”
“Me,” Siya said immediately, her hand shooting up in the air. Her cheeks turned pink, but her smile was wide and her eyes sparkled.
“With Constable Leytur, then, yes,” Dick said, bemused. He looked at Ms. Fits. “Looks like you’re with me.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, but without her usual dismissive tone. She seemed genuinely interested.
“To the mailroom, for starters,” Dick said. Weatherbee, Siya, and Ms. Fits looked at him blankly. “Oh, sorry, right. The post room. Let’s see how they keep this place safe from external typos before we search for more internal ones.”
The teams went their separate ways, and Dick and Ms. Fits made their way down a series of wide staircases that led toward the lower level of the east wing. Dick assumed Ms. Fits wouldn’t feel like talking, so he was surprised when she initiated a conversation.
“What’s it like?” she asked. “Working for Typo Squad, I mean.”
They passed under a marble archway and into a wood-paneled corridor.
“It’s not bad,” Dick replied. “What’s it like working for Her Majesty’s Royal Typo Brigade?”
Ms. Fits shrugged. “It’s all right.”
They came to a junction that continued on straight, but also left and right. They stopped as Dick looked down the three hallways, trying to remember the blueprints. A maid appeared from a nearby doorway and Dick flagged her down.
“Pardon me, miss,” he said. “I’m looking for the post room.”
The maid wordlessly pointed straight ahead, then walked away briskly.
“You know, it’s been a long time since I felt such a strong connection to someone,” Dick said after her, when the maid was well out of earshot. “You and I, we really have something between us. Did God send you to me? Are you one of his favorite angels?”
Ms. Fits burst out laughing. Dick turned to her, maintaining a serious expression.
“Don’t mock our love,” he said. “That maid and I were put here to complete one another.”
He turned and headed in the direction the maid had pointed, and Ms. Fits followed.
“I thought Big was the funny one,” she said.
“Big is the funny one,” Dick said. “I’m the handsome one and Ewan is the . . . experienced one.”
They reached a door with a pane of frosted glass. The word POST ROOM was painted on it in gold filigree. Dick entered.
It was a long, low-ceilinged room, with workstations set up along the outer walls. At the far end of the room, empty mail sacks hung on hooks screwed into the wall. A wheeled bin sat under the sacks, filled to the brim with pieces of mail. At the workstations, men and women busied themselves slitting open letters and reading the contents by banker’s lamps.
Dick noticed a stick-thin man in a vest at the closest workstation and approached him. The man wore pince-nez on the very tip of his nose as he filled out paperwork.
“Are you the boss?” Dick asked him. The man did not look up from whatever he was working on.
“I am the supervisor of the Buckingham Palace post room, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replied in a clipped, irritated tone.
Dick nodded and looked around. “Are these your CLITs?”
The activity in the room stopped at once and all eyes were on Dick. The supervisor’s expression was a mix of shock and outrage.
“I beg your pardon!” he sputtered.
Dick was unruffled. “Sorry. That’s what we call them back in the States. It’s an acronym for Civilian Language Inspection Team. CLITs.”
The supervisor eyed him beadily and then looked over at his charges, who immediately went back to work. “That’s as may be,” the man said, “but here they are known as the Civilian Unit Typo Staff, or CUNTs.”
Dick smiled a wry grin. In his peripheral vision, he could see Ms. Fits shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Right,” Dick said. “CUNTs. Got it. So, you’re in charge of checking all the post that comes into the palace for typos?”
“Yes,” the supervisor said, his head down over his paperwork.
“And what about the internal printed materials?” Ms. Fits piped up.
The supervisor looked up again, apparently resigned to the idea that a short explanation would not end the conversation quickly.
“Every printed word, whether created outside the palace walls or within, comes through here,” he said. “Each piece is thoroughly checked for typos, and only when it is deemed safe is it delivered to its intended recipient.”
“Huh,” Dick said. “If all that is true, then why are we here hunting down the Wordmonger?”
Once again all activity in the room stopped. Everyone stared at Dick. The supervisor stood and came around his workstation so his face was very close to Dick’s. They were the same height, so their eyes locked.
“The Wordmonger,” the supervisor said in a measured tone, “is an aberration. We can only control what we can control. If someone chooses to work outside the purview of the carefully designed system we maintain, there is nothing we can do about it.”
The two men sized each other up for a few moments. “Then I guess it’s up to us,” Dick said finally.
The supervisor smiled, which transformed his entire face. He looked friendly, almost unnaturally so.
“I should say it is,” he said. He paused, then: “Do you have any specific notion of what you’ll do with this Wordmonger character once you catch him?”
Dick thought it over. “To be honest, no. We’ve been so focused on finding him that I never thought about what happens then.”
“There are still several locations in London with working gallows,” the supervisor said. “You might look into that.”
Dick and Ms. Fits spent the rest of the afternoon in the north wing, interviewing as many members of staff as they could find. Most of them were accommodating, if somewhat short, given the amount of work they all seemed to have waiting for them. Evening approached, and they had no new information that would help them in finding the Wordmonger.
As they made their way back to their own wing, Dick heard puffing coming from a hallway they had just passed, drawing closer and closer. He turned to Ms. Fits. “What’s that?”
She shrugged.
They both turned toward the source of the sound, and suddenly a very large woman appeared, nearly purple in the face from exertion, sucking down great gulps of air.
“Are you all right?” Ms. Fits called to her.
The woman looked up at them and her eyes widened. She closed the distance between them in an ungainly run, managing to stop just before running Dick over.
“Just . . . who I was looking for . . .” the woman gasped. She was short and had a mane of curly gray hair framing her wide face. “Must . . . come quickly.”
“Okay, hold on,” Dick said, taking the woman’s hands in his own. “Take a minute to catch your breath first.”
The woman nodded as she kept wheezing through her wide-open mouth. She put her hand on the nearest wall to steady herself, and slowly her breathing evened out.
“Good. Now, first things first—what’s your name?”
“Polly,” the woman said, her other hand on her chest. “Polly Cule.”
“And what do you do here at Buckingham?”
“I’m the deputy housekeeper.”
“All right Polly Cule, deputy housekeeper. Why were you looking for us?”
“I was making my rounds just now and I passed through the west entry hall,” Polly said. “On the rug was a piece of paper. I don’t know where it came from. I feared it might be a typo.”
“Could you see any writing on it?” Dick asked, his pulse quickening.
“No. I think it was facedown,” Polly replied. “I found a palace attendant and asked him to stand guard over it whil
e I came to find you.”
“Good work, Polly,” Dick said. “Show us.”
The three of them traveled quickly through the labyrinthine palace until they came to a round room with wrought-iron doors that looked out over the royal gardens. A huge Persian rug covered most of the marble floor, and in the center of it sat a long strip of white, near the foot of a sweaty, wide-eyed attendant.
“Okay, step back, both of you,” Dick ordered Polly and the attendant, and they both moved up against the far wall.
Dick turned to Ms. Fits. “How’s your tic?”
“Loud,” she said.
“Then I’ll take this one,” he replied. “But be ready to catch me.”
Dick took the lead and Ms. Fits followed close behind. They approached the small piece of paper as though it were a highly sensitive bomb. Dick knelt down next to it and closed his eyes.
“Eyes closed?” he asked Ms. Fits.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Here goes.”
He flipped the paper over and opened his left eye a tiny bit.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
“What?” Polly called fearfully from the other side of the room. “What is it?”
Dick stood up with the piece of paper in his hand. “It’s a receipt. From Cheswick’s Chip Shop.”
The tension in the hallway evaporated as Polly, the attendant, and Ms. Fits exhaled. Polly approached and Dick handed her the paper. She lifted a pair of reading glasses from her bosom and perched them on the tip of her nose.
“You know, I think this might be mine, actually,” she said, grinning embarrassedly. “Must have fallen out of my pocket.”
Dick shook his head. “Try to be more careful in the future. For me? Please?”
“I will,” Polly said. “Well. Awfully nice to have met you, anyway.”
She scurried off, and Dick turned to Ms. Fits, who was smiling.
“What?” he asked.
“Just trying to imagine how many chip shop receipts they’ll call us down for while we’re here.”
A few minutes later, as they descended a large, winding staircase, Dick and Ms. Fits found Weatherbee on a landing below, studying a painting of an ancient battle. He was humming softly.
“Weatherbee?” Dick asked, and the man looked up.
“Ah, Dick,” Weatherbee said, somewhat guiltily. “Ms. Fits. How are you . . . I was just . . . hrm.”
“Anything wrong?” asked Dick as he and Ms. Fits gained the landing.
“Wrong?” Weatherbee said furtively. “No, certainly not. What’s . . . why should anything be wrong?”
Dick narrowed his eyes. “Weatherbee,” he said. “Where’s Ewan?”
Weatherbee froze, locking his eyes with Dick’s. The two men regarded each other for a moment, then Weatherbee’s eyes shifted over Dick’s shoulder.
Dick turned and found himself looking through the glass of a pair of French doors. In the room beyond, standing intimately close to one another, were Ewan and Princess Anne.
“Shit,” Dick muttered. He looked at Weatherbee and Ms. Fits. “You two wait here.”
He crossed the landing and swung the French doors open wide. Ewan and Anne were talking softly, both of them smiling, and they were so close that the tips of their noses were nearly touching.
Dick cleared his throat loudly. Ewan and Anne both turned, and while Anne’s expression remained bright and cheerful, all the happiness seemed to drain from Ewan’s.
“Agent Hoozarmi,” Dick said clearly. “Would you give me a moment with the princess?”
Ewan stepped back from Anne, cast his eyes downward, and hurried out of the room like a scolded dog. Dick closed the doors behind him.
“Lieutenant Shonnary,” Anne said amiably. “How are you finding life in the palace thus far?”
“Well, it certainly hasn’t been dull,” Dick said. “Listen, Your Majesty—”
“I shall surely lose my mind if people don’t start calling me Anne,” she interrupted.
“Fair enough. Anne. There’s something you need to understand.”
“Oh? What?”
“There was a lot of political wrangling involved in getting the authorities to allow Ewan back in the country.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Yes,” Dick said, taking a step toward her. “Well, part of the deal—given your history together—was that while he was here, Ewan had to stay away from you.”
“I see,” Anne said, her expression growing stern. “And was it part of this ‘deal’ that I must stay away from him?”
Dick hesitated. “Well . . . no. Not technically.”
“Then I shan’t,” she said bluntly.
Dick was at a loss for words. How would he be able to split hairs enough to know when Ewan was spending time with Anne and when Anne was spending time with Ewan?
“Okay,” Dick said at last. “Can I just request that you limit your time together to Ewan’s off-duty hours?”
“Of course.”
Dick nodded and made his way back through the French doors. Weatherbee, Ms. Fits, and Ewan were standing together on the landing.
“Dick—” Ewan began, but Dick held up his hand.
“She found a loophole,” Dick said, and he couldn’t help but grin. “So you two are free to socialize as you see fit. Just not while you’re on duty. Understood?”
Ewan beamed. “Understood.”
Dick shook his head. “I guess there was never going to be a way to deny this thing between you, was there?”
“No,” Ewan replied.
“Fine,” Dick said, resigned. “I won’t say anything more about it. Anyway, I know how it feels when Thea looks at me the way Anne looks at you.”
CHAPTER NINE
The rest of that week saw Weatherbee and Ewan, Big and Siya, and Dick and Ms. Fits continuing their interviews of staff members throughout the palace. After a particularly exhausting day, Weatherbee and Dick encountered one another as they made their way wearily back to their shared quarters.
“So far today,” Weatherbee said, consulting his notes, “I have spoken with the deputy master, the master’s secretary, the lady clerk to the deputy master, the chief clerk, the clerk, the queen’s flag sergeant, the assistant to the master, the deputy assistant master, the catering office administrator, the royal chef, the head coffee room maid, the dining room supervisor, the canteen supervisor, the senior storeman, the pastry sous chef, the deputy head coffee room maid, the sous chef, the senior cooks, the cooks’ apprentices, the kitchen porters, and the wash-up assistants.”
“Ah, you’ve got me beat,” Dick said, reviewing his own notes. “I got the assistant to the master, the lady clerk to the assistant master, the royal florist, the palace foreman, the senior clerk, the fendersmith, the locksmith, the yeoman of the royal pantries, the yeoman of the royal cellars, and the king’s piper, whatever the hell that is.”
The consensus was the same: no one knew who the Wordmonger might be, no one suspected anyone else in the palace, but they all hoped he would be caught soon for the sake of the royal family, who seemed universally adored.
As they rounded a corner, they nearly collided with a rotund form headed in the opposite direction.
“Oh, hello Wrenchley,” Dick said. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”
“Not at all,” Wrenchley said, bowing his head. Dick noticed Weatherbee’s eyes narrow as he studied the underbutler’s jowly face.
“Wrenchley,” Weatherbee said, “I have the distinct sense that I know you from somewhere. Have we met before?”
“I don’t believe so, sir, no,” Wrenchley replied, and Dick noticed the man’s eyes flick away for the briefest of moments as he spoke.
“If you’ll forgive me?” the underbutler said, and went on his way. Dick and Weatherbee watched him go.
“I don’t mind telling you, Dick,” Weatherbee said, “this is driving me mad.”
At the end of the week, Dick reported to the office of the captain of th
e King’s Guard.
“Well?” the captain asked curtly, gesturing for Dick to sit down across the desk from him.
“Nothing yet,” Dick said, taking his seat.
The captain stared at him with steely eyes.
“Uh . . . nothing yet, sir,” Dick offered.
The captain placed the pen he’d been holding in its marble base, leaned back in his chair, and continued to stare at Dick. The silence quickly became uncomfortable.
“Back in America,” the captain said at last, “do you command a team?”
“I do, sir, yes.”
“And does that team report to you?”
“Yes, sir, they do.”
“And if a member of your team came to you with a report about a potential murderer that consisted of ‘nothing yet,’ would you consider that satisfactory?”
Dick felt as though he was in elementary school again and had just given the wrong answer to a foolishly simple question.
“My apologies, sir,” he said, straightening himself in his chair. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
Dick pulled his notebook from his breast pocket and flipped to his most recent series of notes.
“My team has interviewed staff members on all three floors of the west wing, the south wing, and the north wing of the palace,” Dick said. “So far, none of them has proven to be a credible lead with regard to the identity of the Wordmonger.”
“And have there been any further threats from the Wordmonger himself?”
“No, sir, not to my knowledge.”
The captain nodded sagely.
“What will your next steps be?”
Dick felt a sudden hot drop move from his chest to his stomach. He hadn’t considered where to go from here. What would their next steps be?
“Er . . . we’ll continue to monitor the situation, watch for anything suspicious.” This sounded lame even to his ears, and he braced himself for the captain’s acid retort.
“Very good,” was the captain’s simple reply. “Keep me informed.”
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