Crowned and Dangerous (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

by Rhys Bowen

  “Ah, but I’m awfully good at getting people to talk,” Zou Zou said. “I should have been a spy in the Great War. I’d have winkled all kinds of secrets out of the Germans.”

  Darcy exchanged a quick look with me. We arrived in Kildare.

  “Solicitors?” Zou Zou said.

  “I don’t think that’s the wisest idea at the moment. Not with three of us.”

  “But we have new information for them. The mysterious identity of Mr. Roach.”

  “Let’s wait until we find out who he really was, and until we have the name of your barrister, Zou Zou,” Darcy said.

  I could understand his reluctance. Introducing Princess Zou Zou in a country solicitor’s office would be rather like bringing a peacock into a henhouse.

  “Very well, then what shall we do next?”

  “You wanted to take care of your aeroplane, didn’t you?” I suggested.

  “Of course. And I want to see your castle, Darcy. I grew up in a medieval castle too. Such fun, but drafty.”

  So we continued on toward Kilhenny.

  “Where are you staying, Georgiana darling?” she asked from the backseat. “Also in Dublin? Or are you being naughty and sharing a place with Darcy?” Before either of us could answer she went on, “I’m concerned about Darcy having to drive me back and forth all that way into Dublin. Such a time waster. If I can’t use my little plane, then I’ll have to beg, borrow or steal a motorcar. Your father doesn’t have one to spare, does he?”

  “He had the use of an estate car, but they are all locked away in the castle garage at the moment. It’s still being treated as a crime scene.”

  “So where did you get your hands on this ancient Rolls?”

  “Ah, that came from the great-aunt Georgie is staying with.”

  “A great-aunt? Nearby?”

  “Yes, we’ll be passing the house shortly.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so before I checked into the Shelbourne? I could stay there too, couldn’t I?” Zou Zou said.

  Oh crikey, I thought, trying to picture the glamorous princess among the dust and chaos of Oona’s house. Darcy must have had the same thoughts.

  “It’s not up to your standards, Zou Zou,” Darcy said. “The place has gone to wrack and ruin and they are living with almost no servants. She’s an eccentric old biddy. He’s as queer as a coot.”

  “But I could rough it. I’m a lot tougher than I seem. I’ve climbed the Matterhorn, you know. And I’ve been marooned in a snowdrift in Bulgaria—surrounded by wolves. I’m sure I could cope with a batty great-aunt. Is it only a tiny cottage, then?”

  I was about to say that yes, it was a tiny cottage. Unfortunately, at that moment we were passing the entrance to Oona’s driveway. The rambling old house could be seen and I had found that Darcy wasn’t good at telling lies. Subterfuge, yes. Withholding information, definitely, but there was something in his upbringing that made lying impossible. I’m the same. It’s that duty and integrity that are rammed down the throat of every upper-class child by nannies and governesses.

  “Actually that’s the house, through the trees back there,” he said, “but really, it isn’t fit for guests, and I think it would embarrass Great-Aunt Oona to have a guest of your quality pressed upon her.”

  “Georgiana is of my quality,” she said. “And the house looks charming. Certainly enough bedrooms to find a spot for little moi .”

  She really did see things through rose-tinted spectacles, I thought. The house looked old, rambling and almost derelict, but could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as charming.

  “And this is all their land?” she went on. “Perfect. I can park my plane in one of their barns. Why don’t we go and pay a call on them now and get everything settled? I’m sure a local peasant boy can tow my plane over on his tractor, or I could even fly it over. That might be more fun.”

  “Zou Zou, I really think you’d be happier at the Shelbourne,” Darcy said. “I really don’t mind driving over to pick you up. And we’ll want to go back to Dublin anyway to meet your barrister.”

  “Anyone would think you didn’t want me to meet your relatives, Darcy,” she said in a peeved voice. “If we were in Poland I’d be happy to take you to see my batty relatives. Including Great-Uncle Zygmund, who thinks he is Napoleon but is quite harmless.”

  Darcy had to laugh at this. “And my great-uncle Dooley is currently playing at the battle of Waterloo. They’d get on well together.”

  “Only Dooley would want to capture Napoleon,” I pointed out. “He was about to do so when I left today.”

  “They sound absolutely delightful. Much more fun than the staff at the stuffy Shelbourne and ‘Yes, Your Highness, no, Your Highness.’ And Georgie can lend me her maid. I had to leave mine behind in London because she gets horribly airsick.”

  “I didn’t bring my maid, I’m afraid,” I said. “I left her in London too.”

  “Then we’ll both rough it together. Jolly good fun.” She tapped Darcy on the shoulder. “Don’t you dare try to drive past.”

  Poor Darcy. He glanced at me, then at Oona’s driveway. “But you’ve left all your things at the Shelbourne,” he said, “and I don’t feel like driving all the way back there to retrieve them. Why don’t you go back to the Shelbourne tonight and I’ll broach the subject carefully with my aunt,” Darcy said. “And if she is up to another guest we can fetch your suitcase tomorrow.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said, miffed at not getting her own way, I suspected.

  I heaved a sigh of relief. By tomorrow all sorts of things might have happened. She might be called back to London. The clouds had now thickened and hung low and heavy over the distant mountains.

  “It’s going to rain again,” I said.

  “Then we must hurry back to my poor little plane and find a tarpaulin or somewhere to put it,” she said. “We can’t have the cockpit filling with water.”

  At least this had stopped her from wanting to meet Great-Aunt Oona. We drove through the village. Several men who were clearly from the press were standing together outside the pub. They looked up at us with interest as we drove past.

  “Oh Lord, that’s torn it,” Darcy said. “What’s the betting they follow us?”

  “Then I shall tell them that I am the Princess Zamanska and I am thinking of buying this racing stable now that its owner is deceased,” she said. “You two are my faithful retainers.”

  “I rather fear they’d recognize both of your faithful retainers,” Darcy said.

  “No matter. Lady Georgiana has simply come with me as my companion.”

  This did seem like a good solution and one that didn’t make suspicious people tie me in any way to Darcy.

  As we turned in to the lane raindrops started to spatter on the windscreen. The clouds looked as if they might open at any moment.

  “Does your father have a tarpaulin or anything that might cover the aeroplane?” she asked. “Or could we push it into an outbuilding?”

  “The outbuildings are all on the estate, currently watched by a Garda,” Darcy said. “My father merely has a garden shed, not big enough for an aeroplane. But they should have something to cover a cockpit at the stables. Let’s go and ask.”

  We did, this time not seeing Ted Benson but a stable boy who knew Darcy and who found us a piece of oilcloth that would do the trick. It was now raining hard and the princess sat in the backseat of the motor as we returned to the field with the aeroplane in it. Darcy and I, dressed more sensibly for inclement weather, got out and managed to cover the cockpit. The rest of the plane would just have to get wet for now. We had just finished our task and were returning to the motorcar when we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.

  “Those bloody reporters,” Darcy muttered, and sure enough the motorcar stopped and out climbed three men wearing trilby hats and raincoats.

  “Excuse me, could we have a word?” One of them came toward us with a notebook at the ready. “Are you connected to Lord Kil
henny? Coming to visit him?”

  Zou Zou wound down her window. “These kind people were just helping me with my dear little aeroplane,” she said in a strong foreign accent, quite unlike her normal voice. “I had to make an emergency landing in this field and now I must find a way to have it towed. So annoying.”

  “And your name, madam?”

  “I am not a madam,” she said, her hand at her throat in a dramatic gesture. “I am a princess. Princess Alexandra Maria Zamanska.”

  I think we might have fooled them and they might have left us alone except at that moment a voice bellowed out, “What the hell is that aeroplane doing in the field? Are you reporters coming in from the sky now? Go on, be off with you. I’ve told you you’re wasting your time. I’ve nothing to say to you. Now beat it before I get my shotgun.”

  Chapter 24

  TUESDAY , DECEMBER 4

  BACK IN KILHENNY AT THE GAMEKEEPER ’S LODGE .

  Lord Kilhenny stood there, his hair wild and windswept, and wearing a black smoking jacket. He reminded me of an aging Heathcliff or even a Lord Byron. In fact he looked so formidable that the reporters actually headed back to their motorcar and drove off.

  As the motorcar backed away he turned on us. “And that means you too. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you are not welcome here.”

  “Father, this is my good friend Princess Alexandra Zamanska.” Darcy stepped in to intercept his father as he advanced on the Rolls. “And she was good enough to fly her aeroplane over to Ireland because she wanted to help you. At this very moment a barrister friend of hers is searching out the best defense counsel in Ireland on your behalf.”

  Lord Kilhenny took in the glamorous woman in the backseat of the Rolls. “Why on earth would you go to that amount of trouble for me, Your Highness?” he demanded. “You don’t know me from Adam.”

  “Because I adore your son and I can see that this silly business could ruin his life.”

  “I don’t want charity. I don’t need charity. So thank you very much but please leave.” He stood there with his arms folded across his chest, glaring at her defiantly.

  “Silly stubborn man,” Princess Zamanska said. “You should at least listen to what we have to say. We want to help you. Don’t you understand that?”

  “But don’t you understand, it’s no good.” He turned his head away. “Even if I could afford the best barrister in Ireland, there’s nothing he or you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do, as I keep telling this son of mine. That brainless inspector has decided I’m guilty and that’s that.”

  Princess Zamanska opened the door of the Rolls and stepped down. The wind swept at her dark mink coat and she drew it around her. She looked like a figure from a tragic Russian novel. “The whole question comes down to this,” she said, walking toward him. “Do you think you are guilty?”

  “I don’t know!” he shouted at her over the wind. “I don’t goddamn well know. I can’t remember a damned thing. And what does it matter anyway?”

  “Because if you don’t let people help you, if you aren’t prepared to help yourself, you will hang,” she said.

  “I really don’t care,” he said. “I’ve lost everything that matters to me.”

  While this exchange had been going on, I had also gotten out of the motorcar, and was standing there unnoticed in the background as the scene played out. I knew it would be wiser to stay silent, but when I heard him say those words something inside me snapped. I stalked up to him. “That is a cruel and wicked thing to say. You have a son who loves you, who has done nothing to warrant the way you have treated him. He came rushing to your side the moment he heard of your predicament, and what’s more he had to leave something that was really important to him. But he didn’t hesitate for a second, even though he said you wouldn’t welcome him.”

  Lord Kilhenny’s gaze moved from me to Darcy and back again. “A friend from London, eh?” There was almost the hint of a smile. “Didn’t fool me for a second. You were the thing that was important to him, weren’t you?”

  Darcy stepped to my side. “That’s right, Father. Before this we were actually on our way to be married. Afterward I realized we could no longer marry; I didn’t want her to suffer through being associated with me. I tried to end all contact with her. But she wouldn’t listen. She came here anyway. That’s what people do when they care about each other.”

  There was a long silence, then Lord Kilhenny said gruffly, “You’d better come inside. We’re all getting soaked standing here.”

  He led the way back to the lodge. It was a gloomy little place, dark with low ceilings and heavy dark furniture. I could easily see how a person could become depressed living alone there.

  “I’ll make us some tea,” Darcy said. “Unless Mrs. McNalley is around?”

  “I sent her home and told her to stay away from here for the time being,” Lord Kilhenny said. “I don’t want her bothered by those bloody pressmen every time she sets foot outside the door.”

  “I can make the tea,” I said. “I’m good at it.”

  “A young lady of many talents,” Lord Kilhenny said. “I suppose you’d better introduce us properly, Darcy.”

  “Father, this is Georgiana Rannoch,” Darcy said. “Georgie, may I present my father, Lord Kilhenny.”

  If the situation hadn’t been so deadly serious I think we would have laughed. Being presented with great formality to a man I hoped would be my future father-in-law in a poky little living room with a smoky fire was just too absurd.

  “Rannoch?” he said. “Daughter of the duke?”

  I nodded.

  “You and Darcy make a good pair. Your father was as useless as I have been.”

  I could see what Darcy had told me about his father not being an easy man. I didn’t reply to this but went through to the kitchen. There was evidence here of a woman’s touch. Mrs. McNalley had left everything spotless and neat. I put the kettle on and found the pot and tea caddy. Then I put cups and saucers on a tray and added a milk jug and a sugar bowl. When I brought the tray back out, they were sitting in armchairs around the fire, not saying much by the look of it. I handed each of them a cup.

  “Now, this is a novelty,” Lord Kilhenny said. “It’s not every day I sit next to a princess and I’m waited on by the daughter of a royal duke.”

  “Then you should take that as a sign that you have help in high places,” Zou Zou said. “We are here. We came to Ireland for one reason. To save you from the hangman’s noose. So let’s get started. Darcy?”

  She turned to Darcy, who was staring into the flickering flames of the fire. Wind puffed smoke down the chimney, making it swirl out across the room. Darcy cleared his throat then spoke. “You say you remember nothing about that evening. Have no details come back to you? You don’t remember going over to the castle?”

  “In the afternoon, I did,” Lord Kilhenny said. “But as to the evening, it’s all a blank. I remember sitting down and pouring myself a glass of Jameson and turning on the wireless to listen to the news. The next thing I knew it was daylight and the police were pounding on the door.”

  “When you went up to the castle in the afternoon, apparently you had an argument with Mr. Roach. The valet overheard you shouting.”

  Lord Kilhenny nodded. “That is correct. I was furious. I got a copy of an auction catalog and I learned that he planned to sell several of our family treasures, including the Burda club. I went up to the castle to tell him he couldn’t do that. They belonged in the castle—they were part of the O’Mara family heritage.”

  “Why did you let him have those things in the first place?” Darcy demanded. “Surely they could have been kept out of the sale.”

  “Should have,” Lord Kilhenny said angrily. “Naturally I assumed that I would be able to keep items that were important to me. But his damned lawyer had things written in such a way that I couldn’t touch anything on the estate the moment the document was signed. I was lucky to come away with my clothes. I also thought, naïve
ly as it turned out, that if Roach and I worked together, if the stables flourished, we’d develop an understanding between us and I could ask for the return of items that meant a lot to me but not to him. That never happened. The man kept his distance and only spoke to me when absolutely necessary. He treated me like a hired hand, and what’s more he enjoyed it. I think it gave him great pleasure to lord it over a real lord. He was a sadistic bastard. He deserved to be wiped from the face of the earth.”

  “None of this looks good for you, Father,” Darcy said. “It gives you a strong motive to want him dead.”

  “I agree,” Lord Kilhenny said, “and if the prosecution asks me if I wanted him dead, I’d have to answer honestly that I would have rejoiced at that news.”

  Darcy sighed. “So you saw he was about to put certain items up for auction and went to confront him.”

  “That’s right. He had the club lying on the table. I picked it up and tried to tell him how important it had been to the history of our family. I told him I would buy it from him if he’d give me time to raise the money. And do you know what? He laughed at me. He said he knew a couple of museums that would be willing to pay more money for the club than I’d ever raise in my lifetime. Then he taunted me and said I should have hired myself a sharper lawyer when the deeds were drawn up.”

  “What did you do then?” Darcy asked in a quiet voice.

  “I put down the club. I told him that one day he’d push me too far and then I stalked out. I walked around the grounds for a while to calm down. Then I went home.”

  We sat there, all of us staring into the fire, wrapped in our own thoughts. Then Darcy said, “It seems to me, Father, that the evidence against you is centered on your fingerprints on that club. Yours and only yours.”

  “That struck me as strange too,” I said. “You say the club was on the table. Someone must have lifted it from the wall and left their own fingerprints on it. Come to that, it must have been handled millions of times. So why just your fingerprints? It makes me think that someone deliberately set you up to look like the murderer.”