A Royal Affair

by Allison Montclair

  “Where do I dump the bodies?” he asked, looking directly at Sparks.

  “My place is in Marylebone,” she said. “Mrs. Bainbridge is—”

  “We know where you live,” he said, opening the rear door. “Get in.”

  “One moment,” said the other man, reaching in and grabbing the whisky and tumblers. “Right. In you go. Good night, ladies.”

  They were silent on the ride home. When they reached Sparks’s flat, she took off Millie’s shoes and gave them to Mrs. Bainbridge.

  “Tell her thanks, and make sure I get mine back,” said Sparks. “Oi, you!”

  “What?” asked the driver, who was opening the door for her.

  “She doesn’t call me the minute she gets home, I phone Scotland Yard. I know your face, and I know your plates. Understood?”

  “Go to bed, Lollipop,” he said. “She’s safer with me than with you.”

  “That may actually be true,” conceded Sparks as she got out. “Good night, Gwen. You danced with a king and a spy tonight.”

  “Just another Monday,” said Gwen. “See you at the shop in the morning. The world must be peopled!”

  “The word must be peopled,” echoed Iris.

  She went inside, climbing the stairs in her stocking feet, then stared at her telephone until it rang, fifteen minutes later. She grabbed it immediately.

  “Safely home,” said Gwen.

  “Thank goodness,” said Iris.

  “Were you worried something might happen?”

  “I didn’t think it likely, but I didn’t think it wholly impossible, either. One more thing before I let you go.”

  “Don’t you want to talk about tonight?”

  “I do, but we shouldn’t speak on this line. It wasn’t tapped as of last night, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was now. Yours may be as well.”

  “How exciting! If only I knew some obscenities, I could entertain our monitors.”

  “I’ll teach you some after your fight training.”

  “Goody. Maybe we could go terrorise some sailors after. Iris?”

  “Yes?”

  “It was strangely fun tonight.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? Best of luck with the hangover.”

  “You, too.”

  * * *

  Gwen walked up the stairs to the servants’ rooms and tapped lightly on Millie’s door. Millie opened it, saw her, and smiled.

  “How was your date?”

  “Interesting,” said Gwen. “Here are your uniform and shoes. Miss Sparks sends her thanks. How was your date?”

  “Oh, he was wonderful,” sighed Millie as she took them. “A real gentleman.”

  “I’m glad one of us went out with a gentleman tonight,” said Gwen.

  “Yours tried to get fresh?”

  “He did. There won’t be a second date.”

  “Oh dear. Did you get to dance with anyone special?”

  “Two older gentlemen. One was very nice, the other less so, but he tangoed well.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “Not as nice an evening as yours,” said Gwen. “Let me get Miss Sparks’s shoes before I forget. There’ll be hell to pay if I don’t.”

  “Here they are,” said Millie, fetching them. “Tell her they did the trick.”

  “I doubt you needed any help, Millie,” said Gwen. “Oh, I need you to do something for me.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Bainbridge.”

  “There will be a parcel on my dressing table that someone will be picking up tomorrow afternoon. I would like you to keep it in your room until he gets here. I’ll leave you written instructions. Could you do that for me, and not tell the others?”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Bainbridge. Is this part of these mysterious doings that you’ve been up to?”

  “It is. Thank you, Millie. Good night.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Bainbridge.”

  * * *

  Gwen had a headache in the morning. It was not improved when Lady Carolyne strode into the dining room during breakfast and tossed the morning paper, opened to the Society section, onto the table.

  “‘Mystery woman dances with King,’” she said. “‘London society abuzz.’”

  Gwen looked. There she was, smiling as the cameras caught them in mid-twirl. “I told them who I was,” she said. “They’re trying to make it more lurid.”

  “They’ve succeeded,” sniffed Lady Carolyne. “Is that why you begged me for that invitation? So that you could audition for the position of royal mistress?”

  “He already has a mistress,” said Gwen calmly. “This was only a dance. With a king.”

  “He’s not a king at the moment,” said Lady Carolyne. “Why, when I danced with a king, he was the actual king of Great Britain.”

  “Who is now a duke who married his mistress,” Gwen pointed out. “Lady Carolyne, you should thank me. I represented the Bainbridge interests to one of their customers last night. Think of all the shells I’ll sell.”

  By the seashore, she was tempted to add, but refrained.

  Lady Carolyne shook her head and left the room, fuming.

  The walk to work helped relieve both the headache and Gwen’s irritation with her mother-in-law. She carried the Hamleys bag in one hand. She had a stop to make on the way.

  Lorraine Calvert’s cousin lived in a brick townhouse on Pont Street in Chelsea. It was the long way to the office, but not worth the expense of a cab.

  Gwen passed St. Columba’s church and made the slight turn to the left, then pulled up short and backtracked rapidly. There was a black Bentley parked opposite her intended destination, and the driver was one she had seen all too recently. She quickly walked the other way and turned onto Walton Street.

  She had waited too long. They had got to Vivienne Ducognon first. There would be no information from that quarter.

  The Tuesday-morning Mayfair commuters bustled about her, but petered out considerably when she turned onto the street on which The Right Sort was located. A boy of perhaps fourteen was bouncing a rubber ball against a wall. He tipped his cap as she passed, then suddenly took off past her, snatching the Hamleys bag from her grasp.

  “Hey!” she shouted, but he had already turned the corner and vanished from sight.

  * * *

  Torgos sat in the passenger seat of a dark green Triumph Dolomite, waiting.

  “There,” said Tadeo, glancing in the rearview mirror as the boy came running up with the Hamleys bag.

  “Any problems?” asked Torgos as he handed the boy a pound note.

  “Nah,” said the boy, handing him the bag. “Could’ve grabbed her purse if I felt like it. Might’ve been worth it. She looked posh.”

  “You do exactly what I tell you to do,” said Torgos. “No more, no less. Now go home.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” said the boy.

  Tadeo put the car in gear while Torgos looked inside the bag.

  It was filled with crumpled tissue paper, in which nestled a pair of women’s shoes. There was a small envelope tucked into one of them. He grimaced, then opened it. Inside was a note in a woman’s handwriting.

  “‘Nice try. Now bring the shoes back and go wait by your telephone,’” he read aloud.

  “These ladies seem to know what they’re doing,” said Tadeo, absentmindedly rubbing the bruise Sparks had left on his jaw. “What now?”

  “We will return the shoes and go wait by our telephone,” said Torgos. “As instructed. No more, no less.”

  * * *

  Iris was typing a letter on her Bar-Let when Gwen came in.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t speak to Vivienne Ducognon. They were already there.”

  “Not surprising. Were you followed there?”

  “I may have been. I didn’t notice anyone in particular, but I wasn’t trying to look behind me.”

  “I expect you were, which is fine. You didn’t do anything other than what you would be likely to do, so they’ll think we’re still on the hu
nt. I was trailed from the moment I left my flat. We’ll have to ditch them when we leave tonight. I’ll let Archie know.”

  “Good. Also, my Hamleys bag was snatched outside a minute ago.”

  “It was?” exclaimed Iris. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” said Gwen.

  “But the letters—”

  “They’re safe,” said Gwen. “The bag was a decoy. Iris—I’m afraid your shoes were in it.”

  “Now it’s war,” said Iris grimly.

  “Any word from Archie?”

  “Everything will be ready tonight,” said Iris. “I am going to hand-deliver this invitation, then come back. We’ll make the rest of the calls after lunch. See you in a while.”

  * * *

  The Brigadier was going over reports when his secretary knocked.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Miss Sparks,” she replied, handing him a number on a piece of paper. “You have four minutes.”

  He looked at his watch, then went back to his reports for precisely three and a half minutes. Then he dialed the number.

  “Good morning, sir,” said Iris.

  “Why are you calling me, Sparks?” he asked.

  “It’s me conscience, guvnor,” she said. “Couldn’t sleep a wink thinking about what I done.”

  “Cease the charade, if you don’t mind,” he said wearily.

  “Fine, I’ll get to the point. I may not, strictly speaking, have told you the entire truth last night.”

  “You astonish me.”

  “Ah, I’ve driven you to sarcasm. It concerns that man in the picture. I was telling the truth about not knowing where he was. But I might know someone who knows someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t tell you, sir. However, give me until this afternoon, and I will make some enquiries.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we shall see. There is something you must do in exchange.”

  “What?”

  “Remove the wiretaps on our homes and office.”

  “What makes you think there are any?”

  “Because I know how you work. Just as I know that you have a man following me even as we speak. I am about to lose him, by the way. Goodbye, sir.”

  “Sparks, I will not—”

  There was a click as the connection was severed.

  He sighed, then dialed another number.

  “Remove the taps on Sparks and Bainbridge,” he said. “For now.”

  His telephone rang again a few minutes later. He answered it.

  “Sir, it’s Williams,” came a voice. “I’m afraid she’s given me the slip. I have no idea how.”

  “Never mind, Williams,” he said. “Go back and watch the building.”

  * * *

  Iris was back at the office by noon, carrying a large, flat object.

  “What’s that?” asked Gwen.

  “New blotter,” said Iris, removing it. “Oh!”

  Her sling-backs sat on top of her desk, next to a vase holding an arrangement of summer blooms. Gwen held up a small envelope.

  “The note says, ‘I await your call.’”

  “Very good,” said Iris. “Classy of him to send flowers.”

  “Everything go well?”

  “The invitation has been delivered. Shall we treat our watchers to the riveting sight of us eating lunch?”

  “Why not?”

  * * *

  Millie had just finished straightening Gwen’s room when Prudence knocked on the doorway.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Prudence said. “There’s a … man at the back door.”

  “What kind of man?” asked Millie. “What’s he want with me?”

  “He said he was a delivery boy. He doesn’t look like a delivery boy.”

  “Oh yes. I’ve been expecting him. I’ll be right down.”

  She went up to her room and collected the parcel with which Mrs. Bainbridge had entrusted her. It had turned out to be three shoeboxes, tied securely with string. She brought them down from the servants’ quarters to the kitchen, opened the door, then started.

  “You’re a tall one, then,” she observed, looking up at Sally.

  “Am I?” he replied. “I had no idea. I thought everyone else was short.”

  “I am that, no matter what the occasion,” said Millie. “You’re the gentleman I’m supposed to give the parcel to?”

  “I am,” he said. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Bainbridge.”

  “She said I was supposed to say something to you, and you were supposed to say something back,” said Millie.

  “Go ahead,” said Sally.

  Millie screwed up her face in concentration.

  “He’ll find us,” she said dramatically. “There are no more hiding places.”

  “They’ve lit up Dreamland with carbon arc searchlights and surrounded it with barbed wire, and no dreams can escape it anymore,” he replied, even more dramatically.

  “She said you wrote that.”

  “I did.”

  “I like it,” she said, turning over the parcel. “This is very exciting, exchanging secret passwords and handing over parcels holding I don’t know what. Do you know what’s in them?”

  “Stacks of twenty-pound notes,” he whispered, putting a finger to the side of his nose. “And things to blackmail people with.”

  “Well, I never!” she said in dismay. “Is she up to no good?”

  “Mrs. Bainbridge is up to the greatest good,” he reassured her. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  “Good luck, sir,” she said.

  He loaded the boxes onto the front of a delivery bike, which looked like a child’s when he got on it. He looked back at Millie, touched his fingers to his cap, and pedaled off.

  “What was that all about?” asked Prudence when Millie passed her.

  “I can’t tell you,” said Millie.

  * * *

  Iris glanced out the restaurant window. Across the street, a man stood in a doorway, reading a newspaper.

  “He’s a very slow reader,” she commented. “He hasn’t turned the page the whole time we’ve been in here.”

  “Should we send him a cup of coffee or something?” asked Gwen. “I’m starting to feel sorry for him.”

  “Coffee would be cruel,” said Iris. “He’s been watching the entire day. His bladder wouldn’t survive the extra pressure.”

  They paid their bill and left.

  “Let’s use those telephone boxes on the corner,” suggested Iris.

  They each stepped into a box, dropped their coins in their respective slots, and began to dial.

  * * *

  The Brigadier’s secretary answered the call.

  “Is Mr. Petheridge, blah, blah, blah,” said Sparks. “I’m bored with protocol, Sylvia, and I don’t feel like walking. Would you mind putting him on?”

  “But—”

  “Oh, never mind. Write this location down. Seven o’clock on the dot, just him and the driver, no one following.”

  “But—”

  “Corner of Norbiton Road and Salmon Lane. That’s in Limehouse. Have you got it?”

  “I’ve got it, but—”

  The line went dead.

  Sylvia finished scribbling down the location, then tore the leaf from her pad. She walked to the Brigadier’s door and knocked.

  “Sir,” she said hesitantly. “Miss Sparks called.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Fisher answered when Gwen called.

  “Catherine Prescott calling,” said Gwen. “Is she there?”

  “One moment,” replied Mrs. Fisher.

  After a brief interval, Lady Matheson’s voice came on the line.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “We’ve got hold of the letters,” said Gwen.

  “What? That’s marvelous!” exclaimed Lady Matheson. “How on earth did you manage it?”

  “No questions,” said Gwen. “Now, we need to turn them over tonight, and we don�
�t want to do it at the office. It isn’t safe. Here’s what you have to do…”

  * * *

  Torgos answered the call himself.

  “Yes? One moment.”

  He took out his pen.

  “Proceed. Seven o’clock. I understand.”

  He jotted down an address, then hung up.

  “Yes?” asked Tadeo from across the office.

  “You and me, no one else,” said Torgos. “Unarmed.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Tadeo.

  “Neither do I,” said Torgos. “Which is why we’ll be armed.”

  * * *

  Iris and Gwen emerged from their building at five. A car pulled up immediately, and they clambered into the rear. By the time Williams had flagged down his partner, they had already made the turn at the end of the block.

  “Step on it,” urged Williams as he closed the door.

  His partner hit the gas, but as they reached the intersection, a lorry crossed in front of them, then stopped with a squealing of brakes, blocking their path.

  Williams’s partner hit the horn several times. The lorry driver ignored them, sitting calmly in his seat, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

  “Shall I back up and try the other way?” asked Williams’s partner.

  “Don’t bother,” said Williams. “They’re gone.”

  * * *

  The prisoner in the basement of the cemetery maintenance building was awake when the three men came in. They were larger than the men he had been dealing with, though similarly dressed and wearing ski masks. He sat up on the cot, the chain sliding through the loop on the wall.

  “Now, ’ere’s the situation,” said the man in the middle. “We are taking you somewhere. The reason there are three of us, and us three in particular, is that we ’ave been told that you ’ave a tendency towards violence.”

  They fanned out across the room.

  “We ’appen to share this tendency,” he continued. “We suspect that you’ve ’ad some training in this regard. So ’ave we. There are three of us, and you only ’ave one good ’and at the moment, so attempts at any foolishness will be met with a stomping such as you’ve never dreamed about. Now, you ’ave our word that if you are cooperative, no ’arm will come to you. And when I say ‘cooperative,’ I mean if you so much as twitch the wrong way, the stomping will commence. Do we ’ave your word that no such twitching will occur?”