Murder at the Villa Byzantine: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘No.’

  ‘He apparently boasted that he could write a book in a week! Well, let me tell you one thing – it shows! He had three secretaries, I read somewhere, sitting in the same room – he would walk about and dictate a different book to each one.’ She watched Tancred Vane as he scribbled in his notebook. ‘I hope you are feeling better?’

  ‘I am much better. Thanks to you.’

  ‘Jolly good.’ She beamed at him. ‘Jolly good.’ Suddenly she rose from her seat and smoothed down her skirt.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ He blinked. ‘You aren’t – you aren’t going, are you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I am. Don’t look so disappointed! I’m sure you will find sleep more salutary than my silly old yarns.’

  ‘I won’t! Must you go?’

  ‘Ah, Lady Antonia Fraser’s memoir. I’ve been reading it. What a terrifying creature the late Pinter seems to have been. Unfortunately, my answer, unlike hers, will have to be, yes, I must go. I am sorry, Tancred, but I’ve got to go. So much to do! All kinds of unresolved problems. My niece – my great niece, actually – an absolute calamity—’ Miss Hope broke off and shook her head. ‘Young people nowadays!’

  ‘When – when will you come again?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘When exactly?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘When is soon?’

  ‘Soon enough.’ She adjusted her hat and pushed the pince-nez up her nose. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps. At half-past three? We’ll have tea together. We’ll have a proper powwow then. And now – now you must go to bed.’

  Tancred protested that he did not feel in the least sleepy.

  ‘You need to make an effort, my boy. All great artists need to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries. You wouldn’t want to develop into one of those insomniacs who get sent to a kurhaus in the mountains, would you? Have you ever been to a kurhaus? Such strange places! Staffed by werewolves and vampires, or so everybody said. Sinister sanatoria, my mother called them. They have them in the Balkans. Or used to.’

  ‘I’ll go to bed later,’ he prevaricated.

  ‘No. Now.’

  ‘How happy is he born and taught,’ Tancred quoted sullenly, ‘that serveth not another’s will.’

  ‘Whose armour is his honest thought – and simple truth his utmost skill. See? I know my Sir Henry Wotton!’ She patted his cheek. ‘Come on, let’s go. Chop-chop.’

  ‘Five more minutes?’

  ‘Chop-chop.’

  ‘Three minutes – please!’

  She remained adamant. ‘Chop-chop.’

  He sighed. She held the door open. She accompanied him to his room.

  Tancred wondered whether a casual onlooker might not find their relationship a trifle on the odd side. Miss Hope had already suggested – as a joke, no doubt – that perhaps she could move into the Villa Byzantine and keep house for him. It was not inconceivable that a casual onlooker might get the idea that Miss Hope had a crush on him. He smiled. Ridiculous – impossible – at her age!

  As he reached for his pyjamas, she turned round primly and faced the wardrobe. A minute later he lay in bed and she kissed his forehead lightly, then stepped back. Before she shut his bedroom door, she whispered through the crack, ‘Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing you to sleep.’

  10

  Vie de Château

  The story of how Miss Hope had become involved with the Bulgarian royal family in the early years of the war, how she and her parents had idled in the wilderness while the face of Europe was being changed, was quite remarkable, to say the least.

  Tancred Vane found himself thinking about it, going over details, as he lay in bed in his darkened room, unable to sleep. It had been such a vivid account. He now felt the irresistible urge to listen to it again. He wanted, nay, longed, to hear Miss Hope’s voice once more.

  He had actually recorded her story on tape and the cassette recorder stood on his bedside table, so all he needed to do was to reach out, locate the button and then press it – voilà.

  ‘It was back in 1941. My father was appointed Head of Chancery at the British legation in Sofia. Mother had the gravest doubts about living in Bulgaria and so did I, if I have to be perfectly honest. A girl at school had told me Bulgarians were cannibals. She said Bulgarians were grim, gnome-like and extremely ferocious and that they liked nothing better than drinking blood. I think she must have been thinking of Borneoans.

  ‘My poor mother dreaded becoming marooned in a strange country, among people with whom she’d find no common bond. She feared she might be made to feel like Keats’ Ruth. That’s my favourite poet, yes – fancy you remembering! The sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn.

  ‘Well, we’d been warned that life in these parts of the Balkans lacked the choreography and grace of Western civilization, that wealth was rare, and either impossibly ostentatious or hidden – that no sponsoring of arts and letters or any form of cultivated living ever took place.

  ‘Glory and prosperity were said to have eluded Bulgaria. Bucharest had acquired a pseudo-Parisian sheen and Athens a Levantine cosmopolitanism, which is better than no cosmopolitanism, but Sofia – alongside Belgrade and Tirana – never amounted to more than a dull, quasi-oriental provincial capital, lacking aristocracies of the blood or the spirit.

  ‘The reports, however, turned out to be inaccurate and Sofia came as a most pleasant surprise. It was a thoroughly decent place, you might say. We were given a fine house made of yellow stone and hordes of servants. There was a marvellous well-tended garden with roses proliferating like a tapestry of Burne-Jones! We were befriended by the ruling elite, whose members, my mother discovered soon enough, had been educated in France, Germany and even in England. And immediately my parents started receiving invitations to the palace – to luncheons, soirées, garden parties and charity galas.

  ‘Well, in a couple of months, as you know, Bulgaria was to abandon its neutrality and join the war as Germany’s ally. Consequently, all the British subjects living on Bulgarian territory would leave and the British legation would close – but that time had not come yet.

  ‘Officially at least, we were not yet the enemy.

  ‘The third of August was the anniversary of King Boris’ ascension to the throne. That was when the annual garden party took place at the royal palace in Sofia. My parents were certainly invited and on that occasion they decided to take me with them. I was just fifteen – a very mature fifteen, I must emphasize.

  ‘Dr Goebbels had come from Germany especially for the occasion. I have the most vivid recollection of him limping nimbly through the glittering throng. Although temperatures that day couldn’t have been higher, an icy wind seemed to blow as he passed me. It was as if an evil, solitary, cruel god had clambered down among the bustle of pleasure-seeking, cowardly, pitiful mortals!

  ‘Prince Cyril had with him his maîtresse-en-titre, a cabaret singer of Magyar extraction called Victoria Kallassi, and their infant son Clement, known as Clemmie. To bring a bastard baby – what they used to call a badling – to the King’s anniversary garden party was not the done thing of course, but Cyril enjoyed being outrageous. Cyril had a talent for getting away with things.

  ‘That poor badling! He died five years later – fell in Lake Garda and drowned, or so I heard. I vividly remember the swan-shaped white pram and his corpulent and rather peevish-looking Austrian nanny. Her name was Fräulein Guldenhove.

  ‘The mistress, Victoria, was a tempestuous beauty. She had flashing eyes, raven-black hair and sculpted scarlet lips. Her complexion exuded a rose-and-amber glow. She wore a scarlet dress that day. Very tight in the waist. Elbow-length gloves but bare legs. She sported a diamond necklace that had once belonged to Princess Clementine, Prince Cyril’s Bourbon grandmother.

  ‘Someone – the wife of the Austrian chargé d’affaires, I think – drew a parallel between Victoria and Sylvia Varescu, the heroine of The Czardas Queen. The
Kalman operetta, you know. It’s on the joint subject of misalliance and true love. It was enjoying a tremendous success at the local musical theatre at the time. It was, as they say, all the rage.

  ‘Victoria was the proud owner of a bed that had once belonged to Napoleon’s mistress Josephine, complete with fragrant linen and pillows of unparalleled softness. I liked to sit on that bed when she was not around – but that was later, when I became their nanny. Sorry – mustn’t jump the gun!

  ‘Prince Cyril strutted about in a white mess jacket. He wore the Grand Cross Collar and Badge that went with the Order of the Bath. The decoration had been awarded to his late father, King Ferdinand, by Edward VII. My mother took rather a shine to his well-trimmed moustache, much to my father’s annoyance. My mother thought Cyril looked like a character out of The Chocolate Soldier. In my father’s opinion he looked like a bounder.

  ‘The presence of the badling – poor little Clemmie – was causing particular tension. The Queen, puritanical, Catholic, Italian-born Giovanna, had been driven to distraction by her brother-in-law’s indiscretions. She cared an awful lot what Sofia high society might be saying. Rather suburban of her to mind, I remember my mother saying. Well, Sofia high society, like most enclosed high societies, had more than its fair share of busybodies, gossips and intriguers. I imagine little else was being discussed that day but the mistress and the badling.

  ‘Giovanna sported a sort of redingote of pale moth-coloured chiffon with a pelisse covered in solid sequins, a big pearl and diamond necklace and tiara. She only needed a wand to fly to the top of a Christmas tree! But her expression was sour – oh so sour – not fairy-like at all! She was said to be controlling and manipulative and to demand absolute conformity to her narrow views.

  ‘Hundred of photos were taken that day and they later appeared in various illustrated Continental magazines. I cut them all out and pasted them in my scrapbook. All gone now, alas, vanished without a trace!

  ‘What was King Boris’ reaction to the badling’s presence? Well, in characteristic style he pretended he hadn’t noticed anything amiss. He went on walking about rather stiffly, smiling, shaking hands, making small talk.

  ‘The King was a thin, mild-mannered man with a high balding forehead, and, like his younger brother, he sported a well-trimmed dark moustache. He was a decent chap, but scarcely an entertaining one. His two much-publicized passions were for steam trains and Bavarian cream, but he was best known for never telling people what he really thought.

  ‘The King was dressed in a white general’s uniform and had white gloves on. He was covered in glittering decorations and had a sheathed sabre at his right thigh. Good thing too – otherwise he might have been mistaken for a bank manager taking it easy at some Continental spa!

  ‘The palace was adorned with flags of all sizes. Brightly coloured tapestries hung from the windows and the balconies. There were flowers everywhere – white freesias, lilies of the valley, parrot tulips, pansies, morning glory and roses. A hussar band played a pot-pourri of Viennese waltzes and polkas. Trays of chilled champagne were carried round by footmen in splendidly frogged silk coats and silver-buckled shoes.

  ‘The food was scrumptious. I remember something called norde pole – extra-special vanilla ice-cream on a pedestal of clear ice – and an “architectural” cake with ramparts fashioned after the bastions of the palace of Darius! I remember the great glazed slabs jewelled with scarlet cherries glistening on fine porcelain plates …

  ‘The next day the Sofia papers were to describe the event in the most gushing of terms. “A scene of profuse hospitality and festivity … a most elegant repast … a brilliant display of loveliness, beauty and style”.

  ‘I believe it was the kind of saccharine prose that was churned out on every grand occasion of the time.’

  11

  Smiles of a Summer Day

  ‘It was a sweltering hot kind of day. The thermometer had climbed to eighty-six degrees! I don’t think anyone was really surprised when Fräulein Guldenhove groaned, clutched at her bosom and pitched forward in a dead faint, like some felled oak. There was a commotion. People rushed towards her. I think someone pushed the pram, causing Clemmie to start crying.

  ‘It was no ordinary crying, Tancred. You’ve never heard anything like it. The badling was bawling – screaming his tiny head off. The badling was notoriously sensitive – might have been a baby oyster, was how the Austrian military attaché put it – I believe he suffered from colic – I mean the badling, not the Austrian military attaché. Various flunkeys and ladies-in-waiting tried ineffectually to calm him down, but they only managed to make matters worse.

  ‘I was standing nearby, sucking iced lemonade through a straw. I saw Clemmie’s face turn the colour of a Seychelles sunset as he was passed round like a parcel from one pair of arms to another. No one seemed to know what to do with him. They put him back into the pram, but then he started making a noise as though he were breathing his last – gasping, gurgling, coughing, spluttering. Really, it was most alarming.

  ‘The band had been playing the Merry Widow waltz. They hadn’t stopped when Fräulein Guldenhove prostrated herself on the beautifully mown lawn, but now all the musicians leapt to their feet.

  ‘Victoria had disappeared a couple of minutes previously. She was seen storming out of the garden and stomping towards the lodge where she and Clemmie lived, following some acerbic remark made to her by Giovanna. I can’t say what remark exactly. The Queen always spoke in a low, flat voice, thinned by resentment.

  ‘Poor Clemmie’s face started turning a German-plum kind of blue. King Boris stood by, glumly contemplating the scene, tugging at his moustache, looking indecisive. (He frequently looked indecisive.) I surprised an expression of pure schadenfreude on Giovanna’s face. Giovanna would have rejoiced if the badling had swallowed his tongue and choked to death!

  ‘Prince Cyril’s eyes were terribly bloodshot. He flew into a rage and started swearing in German. His moustache bristled. He cut a fearsome figure.

  ‘It was at that point that I stepped forward. I stood beside the pram and picked Clemmie up. It was something I felt I had to do. What happened next was quite extraordinary. You have heard about horse whisperers, of course? Somebody told me afterwards I must have the same kind of “touch” where babies were concerned!

  ‘Clemmie stopped crying at once.

  ‘In a few seconds he was his normal colour once more. A smiling semicircle formed round me. Then the clapping started. Really, it was most embarrassing. I hate fuss. Fräulein Guldenhove was still lying on the ground, moaning, wretched woman, but I fear she remained unheeded. In later years she was to write a colourful account of life at the palace. I believe it became quite a bestseller in Liechtenstein.

  ‘What did I do next? Well, I took out my handkerchief and wiped Clemmie’s face with it. Clemmie smiled back at me. He then began to coo. He waved his hands in the air and laughed! His fingers brushed my chin.

  ‘That poor badling.

  ‘Sorry, Tancred – this always makes me a little emotional – no, I’ll be all right. Let me blow my nose—

  ‘Prince Cyril marched up to me. (He must have been wearing stays because he creaked.) He shook my hand and patted my cheek with a gloved forefinger. He told me I was a gift from a kindly Providence. I had saved his son’s life and words could not express his gratitude. He then said that I should consider myself employed as his son’s nanny. I was to take over from Fräulein Guldenhove without a second’s delay. All boring formalities would be taken care of by his aide-de-camp, so I needn’t worry about anything.

  ‘He had always known English nannies were the best in the world, English nannies were legendary, it had been madness employing an Austrian one. That, he explained, had been his sister-in-law’s tomfool idea. He should never have listened to Giovanna. “You are fired. No nanny should be so fat anyhow,” he then barked at Fräulein Guldenhove, whom four people had just, with considerable difficulty, managed to pull up to her fee
t – causing her to collapse on the ground once more!

  ‘No, Tancred, it never occurred to me to say no … Funny, isn’t it?

  ‘What did I do? Well, I felt thrilled, but I managed to keep my presence of mind. Don’t forget that I’d been impeccably brought up. I curtsied and I addressed Prince Cyril very correctly as “Your Royal Highness”. I then said I was greatly honoured – but would His Royal Highness mind if I consulted my parents first?’

  Tancred Vane had fallen asleep, but at some point during the afternoon he stirred and woke up with a start.

  The room was dark and very quiet. The fluorescent hands of the bedside clock said six o’clock. He’d slept for quite a while. What was it that had awakened him? He lay still and listened. He heard furtive noises, the squeak of a pressed floorboard, dragging footsteps, a scraping sound, as though a stealthy hand had removed the metal owl doorstop from Pupil Room – but he knew it was all his imagination.

  Something was nagging away at the back of his mind. He had a vague sense of … danger.

  He had had a dream. He had seen Stella again. Stella was anxious to impart some information to him urgently – to warn him – time, for some reason, seemed to be very short. She kept pointing to her mouth and he saw that her lips had been sewn up crudely with black wire. She only managed to emit a series of inarticulate mumbling sounds. Realization then dawned on him. Stella had been silenced. Stella had been killed because she knew someone’s guilty secret.

  I am imagining things, Tancred Vane thought. It’s just a silly dream. My nerves are in a bad state. I need to start taking exercise.

  Stella Markoff had been extremely curious about Miss Hope. She had asked him questions. How old was Miss Hope? Had he known Miss Hope long? Where did Miss Hope live? What exactly was Miss Hope’s connection with the Bulgarian royal family? He had had the distinct impression that Stella had met Miss Hope on some previous occasion – or imagined she’d met her – that she had recognized her.