Death at Glamis Castle

by Robin Paige

  Kate studied the ground, her face sad. After a moment, she broke the silence with a question. “Do you think Prince Eddy could have cut the poor woman’s throat, Charles?”

  He answered slowly. “He certainly had the opportunity, and possibly a motive—if he had determined to escape, for instance, and she tried to hinder him.” He frowned. “Although, when I viewed the dead woman, I saw no evidence of a struggle—no bruises, no scratches. And her throat was slit from behind. Not the sort of thing one would expect if she had attempted to prevent his escape. There are other possibilities that seem equally likely to me. Someone may have killed her in order to abduct him, for instance.”

  “But why?” Kate asked, as they began to walk again. “For ransom?” She frowned. “But there’s been no ransom note, has there?”

  “No.” He hesitated, and then, because he trusted Kate so completely, he confided what Kirk-Smythe had told him that morning. “You must keep this secret, Kate, even from the Princess. In fact, especially from the Princess.” When she nodded, he said, “It’s possible that some sort of an international conspiracy is involved.”

  “An international conspiracy!” Kate exclaimed, a note of suppressed excitement in her voice. “Oh, tell me, Charles!”

  Charles tried not to smile. Above all else, Kate loved intrigue. In fact, her favorite photograph was one she had taken on the beach at Rottingdean, of a German spy who had been attempting to set up a base for the invasion of Southern England.

  “Andrew reports that a German agent who goes by the code name of Firefly has been seen in this area,” he replied. “We’re speculating, of course, but it’s possible that Firefly somehow got onto Eddy and told his German masters that the Prince was alive and living in Scotland. You can see what a prize he would be.”

  “No,” Kate said, “not exactly.” She looked at him with a puzzled frown. “I’m afraid you’ll have to explain to me why any foreign government would be interested in such a tragic figure with so little power.”

  They came to the main road, then, just as a trio of bicycle-riding soldiers pedaled by, dressed in field uniforms. They paused and then crossed, making for the village’s main street.

  “The German government,” Charles went on in a lower voice, “and especially the Kaiser, would love to do something, anything, to humiliate the British.” He spoke seriously, because this was a very serious business. “The times are changing, Kate. Britain must abandon its policy of ‘splendid isolation’ and look for friends and allies. Lord Lansdowne is talking seriously with Baron Hayashi about an alliance with the Japanese, and the King hopes to strike up some kind of Anglo-French entente. The German government would very much like to scuttle these efforts. They would discredit us in any way they could, especially with the French, so that if war comes, we would be forced to stand alone, without friends. It would mean a very great deal to them to get their hands on Prince Eddy.”

  “But what on earth would they do with him, once they had him?” Kate asked, as they walked past the tobacconist’s shop. “It all seems very—”

  “Tell yer fortune, m’lady?” A gnarled old Romany woman, a dirty red kerchief tied round her head and golden earrings dangling from her ears, had stepped around the corner and accosted them, holding out one thin brown hand. “I’ll tell it true, that I will, and no lie.” Her wheedling voice was low and gritty, like rusty nails rattling in a can.

  “Thank you, no,” Kate said. She smiled. “I think I’d rather go into the future without knowing what’s waiting for me.”

  Charles expected the old woman to renew her appeal—most fortune-tellers did not give up easily—but to his surprise, she stepped back, looking from Kate to him, and back again. Something like fright came into her eyes, and she immediately cast them down, muttering something he could not quite catch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, leaning forward. “What did you say?”

  She looked up, pulling her red fringed shawl around her shoulders. “I said beware,” she replied, in her cracked voice. “Beware, the both o’ ye. Something wicked this way comes.”

  “Something wicked?” Kate asked, in a startled tone. “What—”

  “Beware,” the old lady repeated. And with a rustle of skirts, she strode up the street.

  Kate turned and watched her go, a bemused look on her face. “ ‘By the pricking of my thumbs,’ ” she murmured, “ ‘Something wicked this way comes.’ ”

  Charles shook his head. “I hope you don’t put any credence in that sort of thing,” he said lightly. “No doubt, if you’d offered her a coin, the old woman would have told you a much more favorable fortune.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Kate tucked her arm in his again. “Actually, I was wondering whether she was the same gypsy who predicted that baby Elizabeth—Lady Glamis’s little girl—would someday be Queen. Now, there’s a favorable future for you—although I’d put no more credence in little Elizabeth’s fortune than in mine.” As they began to walk on, she paused and added, “You were about to tell me, Charles, what the Germans would do if Eddy fell into their hands.”

  “What would they do?” Charles grimaced. “Why, the Kaiser would hand him back to the King, straight away, with a great public show of puzzlement.” He raised his fist in a mock salute. “ ‘We thought the heir to the British throne was dead, but now it appears, quite magically, that he is alive. We are returning him to the bosom of his family, with our very best wishes for a long and healthy life. Long live Prince Eddy!’ ”

  “Oh, dear,” Kate said, distressed. “The King and Queen would be mortally embarrassed.”

  “And the monarchy would be fatally wounded,” Charles replied grimly. “The country would lose faith in the King and the Government. And the revolution—which is coming, whether we like it or not—would be immediately upon us.”

  “Well, then,” Kate said in a practical tone, “there is nothing for it but to find him as quickly as possible. Do you think Flora MacDonald will have an idea where he is?”

  “I certainly hope so,” Charles replied, reaching into his pocket for the map of the village that Simpson had sketched for him, giving directions to the MacDonald cottage. “What kind of young woman is she, Kate?”

  Kate hesitated. “She’s in her early twenties, and pleasant, with an air of self-sufficiency that makes her seem older than her years. She was quite disturbed about her mother’s death, of course. She said nothing about the Prince.”

  “According to Dr. Ogilvy, who has treated Eddy from time to time, she isn’t aware of his real identity. She knows him as Lord Osborne. Her mother, however, may have known who he was, so perhaps—” He broke off and looked down at the map. “Here we are, I believe. There is the joiner’s shop, and the butcher’s shop.” He pointed. “The cottage is at the end of that alley.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  What makes you leave your house and land?

  What makes you leave your money, O?

  What makes you leave your loving friends,

  To follow the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O?

  What care I for my house and land?

  What care I for my money, O?

  What care I for my loving friends?

  I’m off with the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O!

  Variation on a Scottish Ballad

  It was a well-kept little cottage, Kate thought, as they went down the walk between blooming rose bushes. The dooryard was brushed clean, a wreath of dried herbs and flowers hung on the blue-painted door, and red geraniums bloomed spiritedly in a window box. An old wooden bench sat under a neglected apple tree. The air was filled with the rich sweetness of rotting windfall apples, and tipsy wasps and butterflies lolled among the fallen fruit.

  Charles stepped up to the door and knocked loudly. After a moment he knocked again, and when there was no answer, put his hand to the door and pushed. “People in these small villages don’t lock their doors,” he said to Kate. He put his head in and called, “Miss MacDonald? Is anyone at home?”


  When no answer came, he opened the door wider and stepped inside.

  “Charles,” Kate said, with a little anxiety, “don’t you think we should wait until Flora comes back?”

  “I think we should take this opportunity to look around,” Charles replied firmly. “We might not have another chance.” And Kate, who did not like to stand on the step by herself, followed him in and pushed the door shut behind her.

  The small cottage was made up of two adjoining brick-floored rooms, with a wooden ladder to the loft. In the larger room there was a fireplace, a wooden dresser filled with china plates and cups, a wooden sink under a window, a scarred table with three wooden stools, and a rocking chair beside the fireplace. The braided rug on the floor, the plants blooming in the window, and the framed family photographs on the mantel all gave the place a homey look—making up, although only a little, for the damp-stained walls from which patches of plaster had fallen, the empty coal bucket beside the hearth, the broken bricks in the floor, and the window frames and sashes stuffed with rags to keep out the cold wind. The cottage might look like a romantic retreat, with its tumbling roses and red geraniums, but there was near-poverty here, and cold, and damp, and it made Kate shiver to think of Hilda and Flora living out their lives in this place.

  Charles was standing in the doorway of the adjacent bedroom. “Why don’t you take a quick look in the loft?” He turned to give Kate an encouraging smile. “Well, go on, dear. Beryl Bardwell never hesitates to snoop, does she?”

  She couldn’t argue with that, for Beryl Bardwell, in the name of research, often did things that Kate wouldn’t ordinarily do herself, such as scanning the addresses on envelopes, or eavesdropping on a conversation. Now, smothering her guilt, she gathered her skirts and climbed the steep ladder to the dusty loft. It was empty except for a broken chair and a narrow rope bed which was covered by two thin mattresses, a coarsely-woven sheet, and a scratchy woolen blanket. With some surprise, she noticed a man’s brown woolen coat hanging on a peg beside the window, and a scuffed leather satchel open beside the bed. Hadn’t Simpson said that Flora and her mother lived alone, and that her father was dead? Then whose was the coat and the satchel? Some relative’s, perhaps, who had come to stay with Flora after the death of her mother?

  Suppressing her dislike for the task, Kate went to the coat and quickly searched the outside pockets, finding nothing but a tin of tobacco and a small leather purse with a shilling, a wooden match, and a button in it. Inside the torn lining of an inner breast pocket, however, she found a piece of lined notepaper, folded, with several columns of minuscule numbers written in blue ink. The coat itself, which smelled of tobacco and whiskey and was worn nearly through at the elbows, bore the label of an Edinburgh tailor.

  The unlined satchel proved to contain a pair of gray wool trousers, a neatly-folded blue shirt, darned black woolen stockings, and several handkerchiefs. Kate took the clothing out and laid it on the bed, then from the bottom of the bag pulled two books: a small New Testament printed in German, and a thin-leaved leather-bound copy of Sir Walter Scott’s volume of Scottish history, From Montrose to Culloden. Quickly, she riffled through the pages, but there were no loose papers tucked into either book. On the fly-leaf of the New Testament, however, she found a name—Herman Memsdorff—neatly written in the same blue ink as that of the list of numbers.

  A quick glance under the mattress, under the bed, and around the loft revealed that there was nothing more to be seen, so Kate replaced the clothing in the satchel and, tucking her finds under her arm, went back down the ladder to the main room.

  Charles was standing in front of the fireplace, holding a framed photo in his hand. “The young woman in the middle would be Flora, I take it,” he said, handing her the photo. “I recognize the woman on the right as her mother,” he added reflectively. “Hilda Memsdorff MacDonald. I’ve no idea who the man might be.”

  Kate studied the photo, which appeared to have been taken in front of the cottage. “Yes, that’s Flora,” she said. The two women looked enough alike to be sisters, both with the same pleasant smiles, the same firm jaw, the same dark hair curling about their faces. The man, in his mid-thirties and also dark, with very dark eyes, had something of a similar look, she thought, although the set of his jaw was partially disguised by a jagged scar. She looked up. “Memsdorff, did you say? Is that Hilda’s maiden name?”

  He nodded. “I found it on a framed marriage certificate, on the wall in the bedroom. She was born in Bavaria, it would seem. She and Malcolm MacDonald were married in Glasgow.”

  “Then these things,” Kate said, putting the books on the table and handing the folded piece of paper to Charles, “must belong to her brother or to a cousin. Some male relative, at any rate. The name Herman Memsdorff is written inside the New Testament.” She replaced the photograph on the mantel, and as she did, it fell out of the frame. “A man’s coat with an Edinburgh tailor’s label is hanging beside the window,” she added, as she bent to pick it up. “I found the paper in a breast pocket, inside the lining. The man would seem to be visiting, for there’s a satchel with a few clean garments in it, as well. I found the books in the satchel.”

  “Well done, Kate,” Charles said, looking down at the paper she had handed him.

  Kate straightened, turning the photograph over. There was a date on the back, June 1900, and three names, written in a flowing script: Herman, Flora, Hilda. “Charles,” she said, placing the picture on the table, “this man in the photo—he’s Herman Memsdorff, the same man who’s sleeping upstairs. His name is on the back.”

  “Ah,” Charles said absently. He sat down at the table, still studying the list of numbers. After a moment, he pulled the two books toward him and began to turn the pages as if he were looking for something. As Kate watched, he began to work from the list, first to one book, then the other, a frown growing between his eyes. Finally, he laid the list aside and reached for the photograph.

  “Herman Memsdorff, eh?” he said, examining it closely. “Kate, we may have found Firefly.”

  “Firefly!” Kate exclaimed, staring at him disbelievingly. “Andrew’s German spy? Here, in the MacDonald house?” Her skin began to prickle. If the spy was indeed related to Hilda MacDonald—her brother, say—the murdered woman might have been an accomplice in Prince Eddy’s disappearance. She might even have been a spy as well. But what about Flora? How much did she know about what had happened? Was she—

  “There’s no point in speculating about any of this,” Charles said, “until Andrew has a chance to look at what you’ve found. But I’m virtually certain that the list of numbers you found is some sort of cipher code.” He took a small notebook from his pocket, tore out a page, and scribbled a note on it, asking Flora MacDonald to come to the castle immediately for an interview. He folded the paper, wrote the words EXTREMELY URGENT on the outside in block letters, and propped it against a salt shaker.

  “In the circumstance,” he went on, rising from the table, “I think the coat and the satchel had better come with us. If they turn out to be innocent, we can easily return them.” He climbed the ladder and came down a moment later with the satchel in his hand. He gathered the photograph, the list, and the books, and put them in it.

  “Come on, Kate,” he said, taking the satchel and starting for the door. “We have another call to make.”

  “Oh?” Kate asked, hurrying after him. “Where are we going?”

  “To find Constable Graham,” he replied.

  Kate and Charles were partway down the walk when they were stopped in their tracks by a woman’s high, shrill voice, sounding half-exultant and perhaps a little mad.

  “Lookin’ fer our Flora, are ye? Well, ye willna find her here. She’s gone.”

  Startled, Kate turned. The voice belonged to a thin woman sitting on a stool in the dooryard of a cottage that fronted on the alley, her dirty white apron full of beans, which she was shelling into a basket at her feet. Her iron-gray hair was twisted into a black chenille net
at the back of her head. Her face was twisted, too, with a look of righteous wrath.

  “You’re right,” Kate said with a pleasant smile, speaking up before Charles could say anything. “Flora doesn’t seem to be at home, unfortunately. We’d be very grateful if you could tell us where we might find her.” At Charles’s nudge, she added, “And Mr. Memsdorff as well.”

  The woman stuck her long nose up into the air. “As tae Memsdorff, I canna say, sin’ I haen’t seen him for a day or twa. But Flora, now . . .” She shook her head scornfully. “Flora’s gone, an’ by my reckonin’, she willna be back. Runnin’ after the gypsies, she is.”

  “Running after the gypsies?” Kate asked, puzzled.

  “Aye.” The woman snorted and threw a handful of bean pods onto the ground. A chicken darted out of the weeds, picked up a pod in its beak, and scuttled off. “Nae better’n she needs tae be, is our Flora, for all her flouncy airs. A bonnie kettle o’fish, it is! Her poor mother murdered an’ not yet in her grave, and Flora’s awae wi’ th’ first man who cooms knockin’.”

  Charles stepped forward. “What man? It’s important that we find Miss MacDonald. If you know where she’s gone—”

  “Where?” The woman tossed her head. “Who can tell? Packed her clothes in a valise, an’ off she’s gone. Once these young women run off wi’ the gypsies, ye mun give ’em up for lost, for lost they be.”

  “How do you know,” Kate asked, “that Flora’s run off with the gypsies?”

  “Because I saw her with these awn twa eyes!” the woman replied triumphantly. “That handsome tinker wi’ his pig on his back coom an’ knocked bold as brass on her door an’ she let him in an’ closed it b’hind him. And her a lone woman!” She rolled her eyes, obviously relishing the thought of what had gone on behind the closed door.