Death at Glamis Castle

by Robin Paige

  Charles chuckled as he stretched out his stockinged feet, wiggled his toes, and glanced appreciatively at his barefoot wife. She was wrapped in a green silk dressing-gown, her russet hair tumbled loose around her shoulders. The front of her gown had fallen open slightly, and he could see the inviting curve of her bare breast.

  “Well, it’s over at last,” he said, “and we can go to bed.”

  “In a moment.” Kate tucked her bare feet under her, pulling her dressing-gown over her knees. “I’ve dissected the dinner party, and now it’s your turn. You must tell me what happened this afternoon after you left me in front of the castle, and why you and Andrew were so preoccupied this evening.”

  Charles leaned his head far back, watching the light from the flames dancing across the ceiling. “Nothing much happened,” he said dejectedly. “Nothing worth telling, anyway.” Was it just that he was tired, or was it really true that for all their efforts, he and Andrew had learned nothing very helpful? They had not found the Prince, he had no clue as to Hilda MacDonald’s murderer, and while he was now sure that German agents somehow had a hand in the business, he wasn’t an inch closer to locating them. “Truth will come to light,” Shakespeare had said, but it all seemed very dark to him.

  “That’s not good enough!” Kate sat up, took aim, and tossed a pillow at him. “You’re to tell all, Charles Sheridan, no matter how trivial, or I shall march straight down to the camp and wring the information out of Andrew.” She looked down at her silk dressing-gown and smiled slightly. “Perhaps I shall vamp it out of him.”

  “Oh, dear,” he murmured ironically. “Well, to keep you from throwing your virtue away, I suppose I’d best fill you in.”

  “Yes, please, m’lord,” Kate said, settling back again. “You can start with Memsdorff. Is it true that he is a German agent?”

  “It seems so,” Charles said. “The list of numbers you found is a simple cipher, and the volume of Scott turned out to be the key. Andrew is clever with such things, and it took him only a few minutes to decode it. The message confirmed that the Germans planned to kidnap Prince Eddy. Wilhelmstrasse—the office of the German Foreign Ministry—was involved, which suggests that the affair was coordinated at a high level, not by Steinhauer, their Intelligence man, but by Friedrich von Holstein himself.”

  “Oh, dear!” Kate exclaimed. She clasped her hands around her knees, frowning. “But you’re speaking in the past tense. Are you suggesting that their plot has failed?”

  “We can’t be sure, although things definitely did not go as they planned. According to the cipher message, Firefly—Herman Memsdorff—was meant to abduct the Prince tomorrow night. Then he would meet his spy-master, and together they would take Eddy to a fishing village not far from here, where a German freighter would be standing by offshore to pick them up.”

  “But that’s not what happened, is it?” Kate said thoughtfully. “The Prince was kidnapped on Sunday night, at the same time that Hilda MacDonald was killed.” Her eyes grew large. “But all this suggests that it was Herman Memsdorff who murdered Hilda—his own aunt!”

  “Either he, or the other one,” Charles said. “There was someone with him.”

  Kate frowned. “How do you know?”

  “The cipher message indicates that Memsdorff was working with a local man,” Charles replied. “Unfortunately, he is not named in the message, and while he may have left fingerprints in the Prince’s rooms, they cannot yet be matched. But the worst of it is that we have no idea whether the two of them still have the Prince in their custody.”

  When he and Kate had parted that afternoon, Charles had first sought out Andrew, to have the message decoded, and then had gone to the Prince’s suite to look for any evidence that the kidnappers had left behind. He had found nothing immediately helpful, although he’d collected a number of clear fingerprints: a set that was presumably Eddy’s, from the Prince’s cigarette case and the silver hair-brush on the dresser; several that matched the prints he himself had taken from Hilda, and several as yet unidentified. In the morning, he would obtain prints from Duff and Simpson, and from Flora, too, as soon as she was located. Presumably, the remaining prints would belong to Memsdorff and his accomplice. Memsdorff’s could be verified by taking prints in the cottage loft where Firefly had slept. If a match could be made, the case against Memsdorff would be proven, since he had no business in the Prince’s rooms.

  “I suppose,” Kate remarked quietly, “that Memsdorff would need another man to help him abduct the Prince, even if Eddy wasn’t very strong.”

  “Yes,” Charles agreed. “And he’d need someone who knew his way around the castle. Or her way,” he added.

  “Not Hilda,” Kate said firmly. Her conviction spoke in the lift of her chin, the flash of her gray eyes. “She would never have betrayed the Prince. She served him too long and faithfully to become part of a plot against him.”

  “Not knowingly, perhaps,” Charles replied, hating to disillusion his wife. “But she may have been the unwitting source of Firefly’s intelligence regarding Eddy—who he was, where he was. After all, Memsdorff was Hilda’s nephew, and she had no reason to suspect him of deceiving her or harming the Prince. Perhaps he simply asked a few casual questions, and she told him, bit by bit and over a period of several months, without any idea how her information would be put to use.”

  “Poor Hilda,” Kate murmured sadly. “And Flora, too—what a tragedy for both of them.” She leaned forward to put her glass on the low table in front of her, and her dressing-gown fell open to her waist. “And nothing has been heard of Flora?”

  “Not a thing,” Charles said. “Simpson is quite put out, since she was expected back here at the castle before teatime, to serve you.” He tossed off his port and stood up. “I’m ready for bed. As you said, it’s been a long day.” He was less tired now, though. The sight of his wife’s bare breast was a powerful restorative, and he found himself wanting to hold her against him.

  Kate gave him a frowning glance from under her lashes. “But I haven’t told you what I found out, Charles.”

  Sighing, Charles sat back down again and prepared himself, patiently, to listen, thinking that she might have found out one or two interesting bits. But it took several moments for Kate to relay the information she’d obtained from the servants, together with her own speculations. When she was finished, he stared at her, amazed as he always was by her ability to persuade people to tell her things they would never in a hundred years confide to him, or to anyone else, for that matter. If the Germans employed her as a spy, it would be all up with England.

  “So the servants believe that Flora and the Prince are romantically involved,” he said thoughtfully. “And that they’ve gone off together—to Skye. I must say, it’s an interesting way to explain the fact that they’ve both disappeared.”

  Kate nodded. “Of course, we know it’s not true. The Prince was kidnapped.” She frowned. “Although you seemed to suggest, a moment ago, that the kidnappers might have lost him.”

  Charles nodded. “But it’s Flora’s disappearance that bothers me most. She has every reason to go on about her business as usual: to testify at the inquest, bury her mother, remain in her accustomed post at the castle. And yet she’s gone, without trace, without explanation. She was aware that I was anxious to question her—perhaps she’s attempting to evade my questions, for fear of giving away what she knows.” He sat forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, pondering the flames. Kate’s information had opened other possibilities for him to consider. “What if Eddy has given Memsdorff and his cohort the slip,” he said, thinking aloud, “and he and Flora are in hiding somewhere, together? If they’re romantically involved—”

  “I don’t think that’s likely, Charles,” Kate said, shaking her head. “Flora may care for him in a sisterly way—after all, she was only a girl when her mother began taking care of the Prince, and the two have apparently spent a great deal of time together. But she struck me as a practic
al young woman, not the sort to lose her heart to a man who . . .”

  “Who is so much above her station?” Charles asked skeptically. He did not trust the distinctions between the classes, especially where love was concerned. On the other hand, the men he knew who’d had affairs with servant girls had not loved them, only used them for pleasure and discarded them.

  “Perhaps,” Kate said, frowning, “although I am thinking about his mental state rather than his station, and doubting, somehow, that Flora could find herself loving him, in a romantic way. And he is a great deal older than she—some fifteen years, at least.”

  “You certainly formed a clear idea of her character on the strength of a few moments’ conversation,” Charles remarked. And then, fearing he had sounded harsh, added, “But you are so often right, Kate, that I don’t doubt you’re right in this situation, as well.” He paused. “Let’s say, though, just for the sake of argument, that the two are together. Do you believe they may be planning to go to Skye? Eddy because he believes himself to be the Bonnie Prince, Flora to get him out of the way of the men who murdered her mother and captured him? After all, you did say that Flora’s MacDonald grandparents are there, and that her mother had recently had a letter from them.”

  Kate gave him a doubtful look, her hair brushing her cheek. “Well, then, perhaps they’re hoping to go to Skye. But seriously, Charles, how could Flora manage to get him away, under the noses of your soldiers?” She wrinkled her nose. “They couldn’t go by railway, and you’ve blocked all the roads.”

  Charles looked at her, loving her seriousness and her passion, loving the way she held her head, the way her hair fell over her shoulder. He stood. “Well, wherever they are, we won’t find them tonight. Shall we—”

  She shook her head, still caught in her thoughts. “If the Prince managed to break free from his captors, Charles, I think they’re both in hiding, somewhere in this neighborhood. Somewhere very near, most likely. Flora has lived here all her life, and she probably knows every nook and cranny. They couldn’t have got away, so they must be nearby. And Gladys said that she saw Flora—”

  Charles cupped his hand under her chin and raised her face. “Kate,” he said softly. He bent to kiss her mouth. “Stop talking and come to bed with me, Kate.”

  It was a long while before either of them felt like talking again.

  Charles held his wife against him, feeling the warmth and softness of her body. In the moonlight that came through the window, her hand was like alabaster. It rested on his bare chest, her fingers gently tracing the stripings of scars. He captured her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing her fingers.

  She pulled her hand away and touched his scars again, speaking quietly. “I know you don’t want me to ask, Charles, but it’s time that you told me what happened in the Sudan. Colonel Paddington mentioned it when we were on the train—the business about your refusing the Victoria Cross, I mean. And resigning your commission.”

  He was panicked. How could he tell the woman he loved the truth after he had kept it from her for so long? Come to that, what was the truth? Therein lay the problem, of course: he had not explained it to her because he had never resolved the matter in his own mind. He knew he wasn’t a coward, but he was certainly a fraud. That was what the Army, for its own purposes, had made him. He took a deep breath and spoke.

  “Yes, I suppose it’s time I told you. You’re probably the only person in the kingdom who hasn’t heard the tale of my trumped-up triumph, and I’d rather you had it from me— the truth, that is. The King knows, or thinks he does, and Andrew, and Paddington. It’s probably part of the reason I was chosen to command here.” He tightened his jaw. “But they’re wrong, all of them. They only know what the Army reported, you see. They—”

  “Excuse me, love.” Kate propped herself on her elbow, her face half-shadowed in the moonlight. “What tale haven’t I heard? I know that you were a hero in the Sudan; I’ve caught snatches of that, here and there, and it’s made me very proud of you. But what’s this about people being wrong? Who’s wrong?”

  He spoke quietly. “The people who think I’m a hero.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “That’s the Army’s version.” The words were bitter in his mouth. Would she still be proud of him when she heard what really happened? “The truth is that I got a lot of good men killed for little reason, and was made a hero for it.”

  “I see,” she said gravely. “So that’s the end of the story. Where does it begin?”

  He pulled himself up, sitting against the pillow. “After I finished my studies at the military academy and the Royal Engineering School, I got myself posted to Cairo. I wanted to study the glories of ancient Egypt, you see: the pyramids, the Sphinx, bones and fossils, all that. It fit into the Army’s plan for me very well. I was put in charge of a survey unit, laying out roads and the like. All quite peaceful, and lots of opportunity to pursue my own interests. But about that time, Gladstone sent Gordon to evacuate Khartoum.”

  “Oh, dear,” Kate said. She lay down against him, her warm cheek against his bare chest. He could no longer see her face, and was glad.

  “Yes. It was a singularly unwise move. Once there, the bloody fool decided to make a stand, apparently thinking that the British would decide to hold on to the Sudan. But they’d already given it up as a bad show, so he was out there on his own. Eventually, though, the Government realized that he’d have to be rescued, or there’d be a political disaster. So off we went—a motley collection of infantry, artillery, and an improvised camel corps.”

  “To relieve Gordon?”

  He heard the surprise in her tone, and the dismay. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and tangled his hand in her hair. “We almost succeeded. On our way south, we didn’t have much contact with the Mahdi, so one morning I left the camp at Abu Fahr with a small detachment, to go out and survey a wadi.” He paused and added ruefully, “Of course, it was the fossils I was after. The evening before, we’d passed an interesting outcrop, and I wanted to have a closer look. On the way back, we were joined by a foraging party led by Captain Blake. As we got near the bivouac, we heard fighting, and when we topped the ridge, we saw Dervish troops swarming all over the camp.”

  Kate took his hand from her hair and kissed it. “How awful, Charles.”

  “It was, rather,” he said bleakly. “To hold them off, the men below had formed into a square. Blake ordered us to open fire from the ridge, but our fire had no effect, for the Dervish force had broken into the square. In desperation, Blake ordered his men to fix bayonets. But he’d no sooner given the order than he took a bullet in the head. He fell, and everyone looked at me. Without much thinking about it, I waved my Webley, shouted something—God only knows what, ‘For Queen and country,’ or something equally silly—and ran down the slope, straight into the melee. My men followed me, pell-mell, and Blake’s men followed them. I fired until my revolver was empty, then picked up a Henry-Martini rifle and got a cartridge into it.” The words seemed to burn in his throat, like something corrosive. “There was a Dervish right in front of me with his spear drawn back, ready to fling. I pulled the trigger a split-second too late. The spear point sailed past my left shoulder. The shaft stopped abruptly, almost touching it, and when I turned to see what had happened, I found it was embedded in the chest of my young sergeant. I will never forget the look of surprise on his face.” He swallowed hard. “That was the last thing I recall until I woke up in hospital, with everyone making a great fuss over me. They made out that I had personally saved the regiment, managing somehow to drive the attackers off—long enough, anyway, for what was left of the regiment to regroup. But of all the men who followed me down that hill, thirty or forty or so, I was the only one left alive.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Kate raised her head, and he saw tears in her eyes. “Still, if their sacrifice saved the others—”

  “The point is,” he interrupted roughly, “that I’ve never been sure of that. All I know is that my men tr
usted me and died because of it. And in the long run, nothing we did that day made a ha’pworth of difference. An advance party got within sight of Khartoum whilst I was unconscious and discovered that Gordon and the entire garrison had been slaughtered.”

  “But you earned the Victoria Cross,” she said, frowning. “Why did you refuse it?”

  “Because I couldn’t stand the thought of becoming a military institution,” he burst out, desperate to make her understand. “The hero of Abu Fahr. That’s what they were up to, of course. The Army needed heroes, to distract from the loss of Gordon and his men. But the whole thing made me feel like a fraud, don’t you see?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, “I do see.”

  “I hoped that refusing the V.C. would put paid to it. But it didn’t. I had to resign, as well, and get away. And even that wasn’t enough. Bits and pieces of the story got out, and my refusal and the resignation only made the whole thing seem more heroic. In the end, I had to accept a knighthood.”

  “But that was for the photograph you took of the Queen at her Jubilee,” Kate objected. “The one she liked so much.”

  “Another bit of Royal subterfuge,” he said. “You don’t know what they’re like, those Royals. When Victoria wanted something, she got her way, regardless. And Edward is no different.”

  “I do know, a little,” Kate said in a musing tone, “from listening to Toria. And I think that Prince Eddy might not have been so different from you.”

  “Eddy?” Charles frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “You didn’t want to be a hero, he didn’t want to be a king. He must have felt that he somehow wasn’t worthy, or deserving, or even up to the task. I think his earlier peccadilloes—all that erratic behavior that worried the Royal Family so much—might simply have been a protest against an accident of birth. Given a choice between being a king and going into exile, he chose exile. You say that you felt like a fraud; perhaps he felt like a fraud, too.”