Crowned and Dangerous (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

by Rhys Bowen

“Oh no, sir. Chief Inspector Callahan is up at the castle right now.”

  “Then may we drive up to the castle to find him?”

  Again the wrinkled brow. “I’m not sure about that, sir. It’s my belief that nobody is allowed onto the castle grounds. It’s a crime scene, isn’t it? A murder scene.” He sounded very excited to be saying this.

  “Constable, I’m not going to sit in this motorcar while we freeze to death and get buried under feet of snow,” Darcy said. “And I need to speak with Chief Inspector Callahan anyway. I’ll take my chances.” And he drove right past the worried-looking constable and up to the castle gate.

  I noticed that nobody was working at the dig. It was covered in tarpaulins on which puddles had collected. The gates, for once, were open and a black police vehicle was parked just inside. A driver stood beside this, looking miserable in the freezing conditions.

  “We need a word with the inspector,” Darcy said. “Is he up at the castle?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied. “But you’re not allowed to—”

  Darcy had already driven past him, up the driveway, and drew up at the front entrance. Another Garda constable was stationed there and came rushing down to intercept us.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I’m Darcy O’Mara. This is my family home and I want a word with the inspector,” Darcy said. “Please go and fetch him if you won’t let us in.”

  “Very good, sir.” The young man looked scared. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

  “I should have thought that was obvious,” Darcy snapped. “It is about my father’s wrongful arrest and recent developments. And also about the fact that I am not being allowed to drive to my own home.”

  The man swallowed hard. “I’ll go and see if he’s available.”

  Darcy got out of the car. We waited inside. The snow was now falling quite heavily and snowflakes lingered on Darcy’s dark curls. But in spite of the cold the princess and I had both wound down our windows to be able to hear better. After a few minutes Chief Inspector Callahan appeared. “You wanted to see me, O’Mara?” he asked.

  “I did, sir. First there’s the small matter that your constable won’t let me drive down the lane to my father’s house where I’m currently staying. I’ll be grateful if you’ll pass along a message that I’m allowed to my own home.”

  “Oh yes. Of course,” he said. “The men tend to take their jobs too literally at times. Not always the brightest buttons in the box, if you get my meaning.”

  “Thank you.” Darcy nodded. “I appreciate it. And as to the other matter: We’ve been to the American embassy again, so we’re fully up to date with developments in this case. Now that we know this man was clearly a fugitive, possibly a criminal, may we conclude that you are finally looking beyond my father as a possible suspect?”

  “We are making our inquiries,” the inspector said, with a guarded expression on his face. “In fact the reason my men are here at the moment is to try to find any evidence of the man’s real identity.”

  “Any luck?” Darcy asked.

  “Not a trace, so far,” the inspector said. “The one thing that is evident is the lack of personal papers. No correspondence, nothing.”

  “He was a man in hiding,” Darcy agreed. “Not wanting to be found. But somebody found him and killed him.”

  “Hold on a moment. You can’t escape the fact that only your father’s fingerprints are on that club,” Callahan said.

  “Rather strange that, wouldn’t you say?” Darcy said. “A club that’s thousands of years old and has only one set of fingerprints on it. And by the way, my father can tell you why his prints were on it. He went to see Roach that afternoon and the club was lying on the table. He found out that Roach was planning to sell it. He told him he couldn’t do that. It was a family heirloom of great value. While he was talking he picked up the club.”

  “And came back that evening to do the deed,” Callahan said.

  “Oh come now, Chief Inspector,” Darcy said. “My father is not a stupid man. If you were going to kill somebody, would you leave the weapon, with your fingerprints on it, lying beside the body? You’d take it and burn it or bury it.”

  “Unless he was surprised by someone or something and had to drop it and flee,” the inspector said smugly.

  “It’s my belief that my father was set up for this crime. It was planned to make him look like the murderer,” Darcy said. “And I’m also beginning to suspect that Mickey Riley either knew about it or was part of it. The American embassy is investigating him too, so it will be interesting to hear what they discover.”

  “Mr. Riley already told us he found this job through an employment agency,” Inspector Callahan said.

  “Have you confirmed that with the agency?” Darcy asked.

  A frown crossed the inspector’s face. “I would appreciate it if you left the investigation to those who are trained to do it. I can understand your desire to help your father, but frankly you’re not doing so by poking your nose where it’s not wanted. So go home and leave us to get on with our work.”

  “I’ll be happy to go home if I’m allowed to pass by your constable,” Darcy said sweetly.

  “Of course. Tell him you have my permission.”

  Darcy started to walk away, then turned back. “I don’t suppose you’d like me to take a look around the castle to see if I notice anything suspicious? Or anywhere Roach might have hidden documents? I used to have several secret hiding places here when I was a child.”

  I could see that Chief Inspector Callahan was in an agony of indecision. Then to my surprise he finally nodded. “That might not be a bad idea, given the circumstances. Do you want to come in right now?”

  Darcy looked back at us. “I have my two friends in the motorcar,” he said. “I can hardly leave them outside on a day like this.”

  “Then I suppose they can wait inside the castle. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Shouldn’t take long?” I muttered to Zou Zou. “Darcy told me the castle had forty-seven bedrooms.”

  Darcy came down the steps and opened the doors for us. “The inspector will let me take a look around,” he said. “He suggests you wait inside rather than in the Rolls.”

  “How kind of him.” Zou Zou flashed the chief inspector one of her dazzling smiles. I thought I saw him blush a little. We mounted the flight of worn steps and entered the castle. My first impression reminded me a lot of Castle Rannoch. We were in a towering entrance hall with a broad flight of stairs ascending to a gallery. The ceiling was vaulted oak and the chandelier that hung down hardly managed to make the room any lighter. The only windows were pencil-thin slots, dating from the Middle Ages. And it was freezing cold, hardly any warmer than the motorcar had been. What was more, I had left my traveling rug on the seat. We stood with a Garda constable watching us as the inspector and Darcy disappeared up the stairs. I tried desperately to think of an excuse to follow him because I’d have loved to see the scene of the murder for myself, and for once I knew that Mickey was out of the way, but I couldn’t come up with anything plausible. We heard their voices echoing faintly as they made their way from room to room. Then silence for quite a while.

  “My God, it’s dreary in here, isn’t it?” Zou Zou said. “No wonder Lord Kilhenny sank into bleak depression. I would have thrown myself from the battlements by now.”

  “Darcy said there is a later addition with more modern rooms at the back of the castle,” I said, “and it would be a lot more cheerful with a fire in the grate.”

  “Now who is looking on the bright side?” she asked with a wicked smile. “But then you have a vested interest in the place, don’t you? You could well wind up living here one day.”

  That made me stop and think. Golly. Did I really want to live here one day? In a cold castle in an Irish backwater? It was something I hadn’t really considered before. The thought of being married to Darcy had been so delicious that I hadn’t stopped to think what be
ing Lady Kilhenny one day might mean. Then I decided there were too many things to worry about right now without thinking of the future. I had just come to this conclusion when I heard the voices again and Darcy came back down the stairs with the inspector.

  “No luck, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I did find a slingshot and two conkers in one of my hiding places.”

  “Thank you for looking, anyway,” the inspector said. He sounded quite pally after the frosty reception he’d given Darcy earlier. Perhaps he was preparing himself to admit that he was wrong and that Lord Kilhenny did not kill Mr. Roach.

  “There is something else, Chief Inspector,” I said, wondering as I uttered the words whether I should have kept quiet. “If we now think an outsider came here to kill Mr. Roach, we have been told of two strangers seen near the castle who might be of interest. One was a big man who claimed to be Professor Peabody of the University of Southern Nebraska. He visited the archeological site across the lane, but the students who were working there got the impression that he didn’t know much about Irish archeology. What’s more, there is no University of Southern Nebraska, apparently. And then there was a young priest who inquired about Mr. Roach. One of your constables, Constable Byrne, wasn’t it? Said that he didn’t know of any young priests in this area. So either of them could have come looking for Roach.”

  The inspector was watching me intently. “The young lady with royal connections, I remember. But this still doesn’t answer the question of how any of them could have gotten into the castle. Riley says nobody came and he would have had to let them in.”

  “It is possible to scale the wall in places if one puts one’s mind to it,” Darcy said.

  “But it’s not exactly easy to get into the building itself, is it?” Callahan said.

  “Riley said the servants’ entrance wasn’t always locked,” Darcy said.

  The inspector’s face remained passive. “I shall take what you’ve said under advisement. In the meantime I suggest we all wait and see what the Americans turn up. Perhaps the man wasn’t even American. Perhaps we’ll never know.”

  And with those encouraging words he turned to the constable who was hovering by the door. “Please show these people out, Harris.”

  “Well?” I asked as we drove back to the gates. “Did you see anything of interest? Did he let you look at the scene of the crime?”

  “To be frank it was so dark everywhere that I couldn’t see much,” he said. “I didn’t notice anything obvious missing from the walls. Of course, I hadn’t been home here for many years now. It’s funny, but things always seemed so much bigger as a child. The library was smaller than I remembered it, but then, we were not encouraged to go into the library. It was my father’s realm.”

  “Goodness, the snow is really coming down now, isn’t it?” Zou Zou said. “Reminds me of Poland. I can’t tell you how dreary our winters were there.”

  The constable guarding the lane leading to the lodge was looking decidedly miserable now and a coating of snow had formed on his helmet. We relayed permission from Callahan and were allowed to pass. Night was falling fast and no lights shone out from the lodge. Zou Zou had to go and see her aeroplane, which already had a coating of snow. At her bidding, we drove past and down to the stables but they were deserted. So the three of us maneuvered the plane under the trees, where it would at least be more protected.

  We were starting to look like three snowmen by the time we made for Darcy’s father’s front door. Lord Kilhenny had fallen asleep in front of the fire. A glass of whiskey, half empty, stood on the table beside him. He looked older than his years and I felt an intense wave of pity for him. Then I reminded myself that his loneliness was of his own doing. He had kept his remaining children away and condemned himself to this life.

  Darcy turned on the electric light and his father sat up, blinking. “What the devil?” he demanded.

  “We’ve come back with news, Father,” Darcy said. “And Alexandra has been kind enough to bring you a treat for your tea.”

  “Oh, thank you, but I don’t feel much like eating these days,” Lord Kilhenny said. “Take them over to Oona.”

  “You have to eat,” Zou Zou said firmly. “And speaking of Aunt Oona, we have some lovely things being delivered to her house. Steaks and lamb and pheasant. You must come over to dinner and eat properly for once. I know she has invited you and you turned her down.”

  “And I’ll turn her down again,” he said. “I don’t want to be the recipient of charity or pity.”

  “You’re a stubborn man,” Zou Zou said. “Well, you don’t have to eat, but we want to. And these look delicious enough to tempt anybody. Besides, I think we could all do with a cup of tea. We’re frozen to the marrow . . . what funny expressions there are in the English language.”

  “I’ll go and put the kettle on,” I said. I went through to the kitchen and heard snatches of their conversation as Darcy told his father about the events of the day—the discoveries about the dead man’s fingerprints and face, and our suspicion that he had been drugged that night.

  “It’s odd you should say that,” Lord Kilhenny said. “I felt terrible when I woke up in the morning. Oh, I realize I’d had a drink or two, but my brain was in a complete fog. I couldn’t even think clearly when those Garda chaps showed up on my doorstep. So it had to have been the Mickey creature who put something in the stew, didn’t it? I’d wondered about him all along. Never liked the fellow.”

  The kettle boiled and I poured the water onto the tea leaves, then carried through the tray.

  “So we might learn more about him when they’ve had a chance to examine his fingerprints,” Darcy was saying. “At least we have the American government working on our behalf now. So that’s good, isn’t it?”

  His father grunted. I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or not.

  “And we’ve all been busy on your behalf today,” Darcy continued. “Alexandra has been in touch with a QC friend of hers in London and he recommended a barrister to us. We went to see him today. A splendid chap. The best in Dublin, they say. Sir Grenville Hobbes. Of course, Leach is dead against him, but it’s up to you. You’re the client. So can we suggest he come to see you tomorrow and you two can talk? You’ll get along well. He’s one of us. His son went to school with me. And he used to play cricket with you.”

  Darcy’s father had been staring at him. Then he said, “You seem to forget one thing, my boy. I am living in this hovel because I have no money. And I’m sure barristers of the quality of Grenville Hobbes don’t work for charity. I can’t pay him. You’ve wasted your time.”

  “Lord Kilhenny—Thaddy—” Zou Zou said. “Please don’t worry about the money side of it. The important thing is that you meet this man and you trust him to represent you. I think you’ll be happy to put your life in his hands.”

  Lord Kilhenny was frowning now. “Don’t worry about the money side of things? I don’t think you grasp the situation. I cannot pay a barrister.”

  “Then you must rely on kind friends who will take care of matters for you,” Zou Zou said.

  “What kind friends? I have no friends any longer.”

  “You have us,” Zou Zou said.

  “No, no, a thousand times no,” Lord Kilhenny roared. “I most certainly will not allow you or anybody to pay for me. Do you hear that? I absolutely forbid it. I do not want your charity.”

  Zou Zou’s face had gone very pink. “You really are a most stubborn man,” she said. “And a stupid one too. You should realize that there are people who care about you and want to help you. But fine. If that’s the way you want it, reject our help, just like you have rejected your son all these years. Come on, Darcy, let’s go. We’ll have tea at your great-aunt’s house where we are welcome.”

  She made a magnificent exit. Darcy and I hesitated for a moment, both feeling upset and embarrassed.

  “We do want to help you, Father,” Darcy said. “But you have to want to help yourself.” He took my arm. “Come, Georgie.�
�� And he led me outside.

  We drove through the village, which now looked deserted, everyone having gone inside at the onset of the snow. Night was falling fast and snow now stuck to the windscreen, mounting up as it was pushed aside by the wipers. Darcy muttered a swearword under his breath. “I won’t be staying at Oona’s after I deposit you,” he said. “I’m not looking forward to going back to my father’s, but I think I’ll soon be trapped if I don’t get home quickly. And I don’t want to leave him alone on a night like this.”

  “You’re a good son,” Zou Zou said. “He doesn’t deserve you, the way he behaves.”

  We left the last lights of the village and were now in darkness with white flakes driving toward us in the headlights’ beams. As we were driving down the hill to the little stone bridge, Darcy saw headlights facing us and suddenly put on the brake. We felt the motorcar sliding on the soft snow. He pumped the brakes but we kept on sliding. Then he turned the wheel into the hedge, we heard the scraping of twigs against the side and luckily we came to a halt.

  “What is some fool doing? Is he stuck on the bridge?” he asked. He sounded a little shaken. He got out of the Rolls and walked forward. There appeared to be more than one vehicle ahead of us, although they were just indistinct outlines through the snow.

  “What’s going on?” Darcy shouted.

  “There’s a car gone off the road into the stream,” someone called back. “We’ve sent for the police and the breakdown lorry from the garage.”

  I got out in a hurry and slithered after Darcy, my heart beating very fast. It was an eerie scene with headlights sending narrow shafts of light and snow swirling. Below us we could hear the water rushing. Where it had tripped merrily over rocks before, it was now a raging torrent, and in the blackness we could make out the shape of a vehicle. What was more, I recognized that distinct shape. It was a taxi. And inside the cab I could make out a white hand up against the window.

  Chapter 32

  LATE EVENING , DECEMBER 5

  AT MOUNTJOY .