Heirs and Graces (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

by Rhys Bowen

  “Now, miss.” He turned back to me. “Let’s get the timing right on this. At what time did you discover the body?”

  I chose to overlook that he’d called me “miss.” I thought that Edwina had probably annoyed him enough for both of us—and a policeman who is annoyed can make life dashed unpleasant.

  “I’m not sure of the exact time,” I said. “It must have been around nine forty-five or maybe even ten o’clock.”

  “And how long before this had the duke left to go and inspect his theater site?”

  “I didn’t see him go, but I understand from the butler that it must have been a good while. Possibly as early as eight o’clock.”

  “Did nobody think that was a long time to be gone looking at the landscape in this kind of weather?”

  Edwina cleared her throat. “In a household the size of this one, Inspector, one’s movements are not closely observed. My son only chose to make us conversant with his activities when it suited him. He sometimes failed to mention that he was going up to town, which Cook found most irritating.”

  “So he was seen going out at eight o’clock, was he?”

  “I believe the footman Frederick asked if he wanted an umbrella as it looked like rain,” I replied. “But you should ask Frederick yourself.”

  The policeman nodded. “So let’s get back to you. A man arrives, says he is the architect and asks to be taken down to meet the duke at the theater site. That’s correct, miss?”

  “Absolutely, Inspector,” I said.

  “It’s chief inspector,” he said.

  “Sorry. So it is.” I met his gaze, and saw that he got my point.

  “And I take it that it was already raining by that time?” he asked.

  “Coming down really hard. And the wind was blowing too. We were soaked.” He nodded, indicating that I should go on. “We followed the path until we came to the glen. The stream was rushing past, out of its banks, and was splashing over something beside it. Mr. Smedley, the architect, said, ‘What’s that?’ and I went forward and saw that it was a person, with his jacket covering the top half of his body. I lifted it off and saw that it was the duke and that he was dead.”

  “And how did you ascertain that he was dead, miss . . . my lady?”

  “I’ve seen dead people before,” I said. “And he had a large knife sticking out of his back.”

  He looked at me with new respect. “I’m surprised you can tell me all this so coolly. You say you lifted the coat off him. What was Mr. Smedley doing all this time?”

  “Looking rather green, actually,” I said with a grin. “He kept urging me not to faint, but I thought he might faint himself. It was quite awful.”

  “I’m sure it was.” He sucked on his lip thoughtfully. “So you came straight back to the house?”

  “I replaced the coat over his upper body, as I had found it,” I said. “Then we returned to the house, informed Her Grace and the police were summoned.”

  He glanced at his sergeant. “Got all that so far, Stubbins?”

  “Yes, sir,” Stubbins replied.

  “And you say you went to see your son’s body for yourself, Your Grace?” he asked, proving that he could get modes of address right if he wanted to. “Who accompanied you?”

  “Lady Georgiana was kind enough to brave the storm for a second time to show me the body,” Edwina said. “It was exactly as she described, and I was most distressed to see the rain and creek water splashing all over it. I ordered a tarpaulin to be placed over my son’s body.”

  The chief inspector rose to his feet. “Thank you. That will be all for now. I would like to have all members of the household assembled for questioning when I return from viewing the body.”

  “Servants too, I presume?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I’m afraid my daughter, the Countess Streletzki, will not be able to join us downstairs,” Edwina said. “I don’t think she will be well enough to answer your questions.”

  “Oh, no? Conveniently come down with a cold, has she?”

  Edwina eyed him coldly. “She is recovering from what might have been an attempt to kill her last night with an overdose of sleeping powders.”

  She clearly enjoyed Chief Inspector Fairbotham’s look of surprise.

  Chapter 19

  “So were you grilled?” Darcy asked when I returned to the Long Gallery. “Did he give you the third degree?”

  “It was jolly uncomfortable, actually,” I said. “I think he was attempting to be chummy and good-humored but the duchess took every remark as an insult, and kept putting him in his place. He just asked me questions and I answered them. In fact, he was impressed that I could describe a dead body without having a fit of the vapors.”

  Darcy grinned. “I take it you didn’t mention other dead bodies you’d seen?”

  “Unfortunately I did mention it. So I’m now probably his number one suspect. Especially since I already admitted that I was the one who found the body. Although I’m not sure I’d have had the strength to plunge a knife into his back with such force.”

  Nick looked up, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. “So he was stabbed, was he? Kat and I were dying to know.”

  “Don’t you think you should probably return to your schoolroom before you hear other things not meant for your ears?” I said.

  “We can’t,” Kat said. “The inspector said we were all to be questioned.”

  “Poor Mr. Carter will be wondering where you have got to,” I said. “And you’ll spoil your lunch if you eat any more.”

  “I don’t expect Mr. Carter will be there,” Nick said. He glanced across at his sister. “We went up a few minutes ago and nobody was there, not even Nanny. That means the police are going to question everybody in the house, including servants. For all we know, Mr. Carter might have done it. He does have queer fits, you know, from the shell-shock in the war.”

  “Yes, he put his hands over his ears once when a car backfired,” Kat chimed in. “And he shouted, ‘Make it stop.’ Afterward, he was really embarrassed.”

  “I don’t think it’s right to talk about your tutor like that,” Princess Charlotte said. “If you were told to go to your schoolroom, you go to your schoolroom. In my day, children would not dare to answer back their elders.”

  “Sissy can’t go back to the schoolroom unless somebody carries her,” Kat said. “And we wouldn’t want to leave Sissy all alone down here with the grown-ups, in case she gets grilled by the police and confesses to the crime.”

  “Don’t be silly, Kat,” Sissy said. “I’m perfectly all right, and I’m really old enough to be downstairs anyway. You’re not.”

  Before this confrontation could continue, Edwina appeared at the entrance to the Long Gallery. “Ah, there you all are,” she said, brushing an invisible strand of gray hair from her face as if the distress of the moment might have spoiled her usually immaculate appearance. “The inspector has gone to look at Cedric’s body. He will then wait for the police surgeon to arrive before they move him. When he returns, he wants to speak with us in turn in the library. He will require a statement from each of us.”

  “A statement? What about?” Princess Charlotte asked.

  “The murder, of course,” Edwina said testily. “Really, Charlotte, you are annoyingly stupid sometimes.”

  “But none of us knows anything about the murder,” Charlotte said.

  “Quite right,” Virginia agreed. “If Cedric chooses to go wandering the grounds at some ungodly hour and gets himself murdered by a nasty tramp, then I really don’t see what point there would be in talking to us. I, for one, was enjoying a rather pleasant dream when Cedric went out. I was back in Vienna, and a certain Hungarian captain was . . .”

  “All the same,” Edwina interrupted curtly, “the inspector has summoned us and we will do our best to help him solve my son’s murder. Be
tween ourselves, I don’t think he is the brightest man in the world, and I will be calling my friend Sir John Bellingham, the lord lieutenant, to see if the Kentish constabulary might have someone more suitable for the job at their headquarters in Maidstone. Or whether he thinks we should call in Scotland Yard.”

  “I have contacts at Scotland Yard,” Darcy said. “Do you want me to put out some feelers there?”

  “Put out some feelers? What an extraordinary expression, Mr. O’Mara. Have you turned into an octopus? Or a butterfly, maybe?”

  Darcy grinned. “Let me rephrase, Your Grace. Would you like me to make some discreet inquiries about Scotland Yard’s possibility of their taking over this case?”

  “Let us see what my friend the lord lieutenant says first. One must be careful not to tread on toes.” She looked down at Darcy. “I take it you will be staying with us for a while, Mr. O’Mara?”

  “In the circumstances, I think I should,” Darcy said.

  “Much appreciated.” She nodded at him with satisfaction. “I think your old room is still ready for you, if you’d like to refresh yourself after your journey. I’ll ring for Frederick to fetch your bags.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” Darcy said.

  Edwina now turned her gaze on Belinda. “And Miss Warburton-Stoke, I gather you only came to bring Lady Georgiana some of her belongings. Most kind of you.”

  I tried not to smile, interested to see how Belinda was going to take not being invited to stay. She was usually good at inveigling invitations.

  “I confess I was curious to see Kingsdowne for myself,” Belinda said, “after Cedric had told me so much about it. But given the circumstances, I couldn’t possibly intrude on the privacy of a family in mourning. I’ll ask Mr. O’Mara if he’d be kind enough to drive me to the station.”

  I was surprised at this, and wondered if it was because she didn’t want to get mixed up in a murder investigation.

  “Unfortunately, the inspector made it clear that nobody is allowed to leave until he has a statement from each of us,” Edwina said. “And I’m afraid that includes you, as you were in the house when the inspector arrived. Perhaps you should at least stay for the night, since you have taken so much trouble for your friend. I’ll have Elsie make up the room next to Lady Georgiana’s, and perhaps your maid”—she gave me a knowing look—“could look after Miss Warburton-Stoke as well, since she has not brought one of her own.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace. Most kind,” Belinda said. “I do have a small traveling bag in the car, if your footman would be kind enough to bring it up to me. I’d like to spruce myself up after that journey in a leaky sports car.”

  “I’ll take you up to my room until yours is ready,” I said. “Come on. Follow me.”

  We started up the stairs.

  “Ye gods, look at those murals,” she said with a grin. “Those nymphs and satyrs are certainly having a good time, aren’t they? Look where that satyr’s hand is! It’s a wonder that virginal visitors to the house don’t swoon.”

  “I don’t think they study the mural as carefully as you’re doing,” I said, having not noticed the hand myself until now.

  “You’d have thought they might have given poor old Cedric a few more ideas, wouldn’t you?” she muttered as we swung into the long hallway.

  I moved into step beside her. “Belinda, did you really know Cedric Altringham?”

  She shot me one of her wicked, quizzical smiles. “I could have met him, possibly. I understand he frequented Crockfords. And I am a designer of sorts, and one meets a lot of chaps in the arts world.”

  “In other words, you never met him.” I opened the door and let her into my bedroom. “Belinda, you are incorrigible,” I said, laughing. “What are you really doing here?”

  “If you must know, I met Darcy at Crockfords last night and he was telling some other chaps about being assigned to educate the heir to the Duke of Eynsford. And I remembered that was where you had gone and something to do with educating a young Australian. Then one of the chaps at Crockfords said, ‘That family is rolling in dough isn’t it? Isn’t the current duke one of the wealthiest men in the country?’ And then someone else said, ‘And unmarried too. Lucky Australian heir, that’s what I say. Maybe I could claim to be another long-lost cousin or something.’ You know, I’d been about to ask Darcy to deliver your slipper to you, but then I thought, the current duke and the heir, both stinking rich and unmarried. How can a girl go wrong? So I hitched a ride with dear Darcy, and here I am.”

  “I suppose it’s preferable to your car conveniently breaking down outside someone’s gate,” I said, mentioning a trick she had tried with great success more than once.

  “Yes, here I am. Too bad that one of my options chose today to be murdered.”

  “Cedric wouldn’t have looked at you twice. He likes young men,” I said. “I mean, liked. You know, he was rather an unpleasant man but I still feel sorry for him. Nobody deserves to end up that way.”

  She nodded. “And now the poor, dear, Australian lad will need guidance and companionship more than ever. I do hope they’ll let me stay for a while. I may have to hint to the police that I know more than I actually do, just so that they forbid me to leave.”

  I looked up. Belinda had never struck me as the altruistic sort. “Belinda—you weren’t thinking. . . .”

  Belinda grinned.

  “He’s a boy, Belinda. A mere boy.”

  “He’s twenty. That’s only four years younger than me. Hardly any age difference at all. And he’ll need an older and more experienced wife to guide him and introduce him to the ways of . . . society.”

  “And to help him spend his money, if I know you.”

  “Darling, one does need to be financially secure. I’m sick of never knowing where the next penny is coming from.”

  “Well, so am I. But I wouldn’t dream of seducing poor Jack Altringham, especially while he’s in a state of shock over losing his uncle and becoming the duke within a week of coming halfway around the world.”

  “All the more reason to let him know he has a friend in a strange country who will guide him through his shock and confusion. And I’d forgotten that he’s now the duke.” She went over to my mirror, and took out her lipstick case from her purse, carefully shaping her lips in bright red. “A rich duke, young and virile too. What more could a girl want?”

  A picture of Cedric lying there with that knife in his back floated before my eyes. I wanted to warn Belinda that she might be wasting her time on someone who would inherit neither the title nor the money and might end up on the end of a rope—a silken cord, of course, now that he was a duke, but a cord nonetheless. I hoped the police would discover the clue that led to another likely candidate because I liked Jack. I didn’t want to find that he was the one who plunged his knife into Cedric’s back.

  Belinda put the finishing touches to an already perfect face and smoothed down her dress over her perfect figure. I found myself watching her as if I was noticing a stranger for the first time and not someone I’d known for many years.

  “Belinda, I’m amazed you’re not married yet. You really are quite stunning,” I blurted out.

  She smiled at me, still looking past her own image in the mirror. “Thanks, old bean. But I can now tell you why I’m not married—to the right sort of chap, I mean: damaged goods. Nobody is going to let their son marry a girl who isn’t a virgin, and I’m afraid the word is out that I do enjoy a good roll in the hay.” She snapped her purse shut. “I fear I am doomed to be the perpetual mistress rather than the wife, like your mother.”

  “Mummy married several of hers,” I pointed out. “She still is married to a Texas oil millionaire, so I believe.”

  “Not that I mind being the mistress rather than the wife, as long as the chap has the means to keep me in the style to which I’d like to be accustomed.”

 
“But don’t you want the security of your own home and family?” I thought of myself and Darcy, and a brood of adorable, little, dark-haired babies.

  “Heavens, no. Can’t abide children. Don’t know how to talk to them the way you do. You’re a natural, which is lucky if you marry Darcy.”

  “Why if I marry Darcy?”

  “Catholic, my dear. No birth control allowed. You’ll be popping them out like rabbits.” She laughed at my blank face. “Goodness, you are an innocent, aren’t you? How do you think the rest of us manage not to get pregnant all the time? Come on, let’s go down to Auntie Duchess and see how the investigation is progressing.”

  “It was lucky that you were related to them, wasn’t it?” I said as we walked to my door. “Otherwise Edwina would have bid you a polite good-bye, given the circumstances.”

  Belinda looked back and smiled. “It’s quite possible that we are related, I suppose, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t actually have a great-aunt Primrose.”

  With that, she swept out of the room ahead of me.

  Chapter 20

  I came down the grand staircase thoughtfully. Belinda had been my best pal at school. She’d already been worldly wise and had helped me navigate the shark-infested waters of finishing school and being away from the nursery for the first time. In many ways she was a good friend—but in other ways, she was just like my mother. To her, other people were put on this planet for her personal use. I thought of the way she’d dismissed Cedric’s death as an inconvenience to her rather than as the terrible tragedy that it was. It doesn’t matter who is the victim—murder is still the most terrible of crimes.

  We came down to the central hall just as the inspector was entering the front door. The rain had obviously picked up again, and his thinning hair was plastered to his head. His face was bright red from the exertion of walking up the hill. It was not a pretty sight. He paused in the doorway to catch his breath, dripping water onto the marble floor.