“Two shots through the heart, sir.” He proudly held out his hand. A revolver lay across it.
“You weren’t in the room?”
“No, sir, I was on the stairs below her. I took off my boots and followed you up, staying just out of sight around the curve of the stairs. As you stepped into the room, I crept into a firing position and pulled the trigger twice.”
“I suppose I had better congratulate you.”
“Bodyguarding is my job, sir.”
“You have made the point several times this week, Sweeney. There’s no need to harp on it.”
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
I got to my feet and brushed myself down. “Was it unavoidable to shoot the lady?”
“She was pointing a shotgun at you, sir, and after what she did to the Father . . .”
“Whose father was that?”
“The priest.”
“Oh, the Chaplain. Ghastly. Did you actually see him shot?”
“Yes, sir. I was too far off to do anything about it. I was guarding you, as my duty requires.”
“I didn’t notice you.”
“I try not to be too obvious about it, sir.”
I frowned. “If you were guarding me, Sweeney, how was it that you allowed me to be taken prisoner?”
He ran his tongue guiltily along his upper lip. “I lost sight of you after the Father was shot, sir.”
“I was facedown in the bracken.” I paused as a possibility occurred to me. “A short while afterwards I spotted a figure by the lych-gate. Was that you?”
“Yes, sir—making a search for you.”
“You put the fear of death into me. So it was you I ran away from, blast it, straight into the vestry where Queenie Chimes was lying in wait. A fine bodyguard you are!”
Presently we made our way downstairs, and not without difficulty, for we had to step over Miss Chimes’s body. She still had the shotgun cradled in her arms. She had squeezed the trigger at the moment she was hit, and the pellets of shot were everywhere, making Sweeney wince as he stepped on them with his stockinged feet. He collected his boots and we returned on foot to the house.
I left Desborough Hall within the hour and I have not returned since. There was time only to inform young Pelham what had happened and to make my farewells to Isabella Dundas and Sir George Holdfast. Sir George decently agreed to remain behind and impress upon the police the need for discretion. As I informed you more than once in these pages, he was a stalwart. He was also a personal friend of the Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire.
CHAPTER 24
When the inquests into the deaths of the Reverend Humphrey Paget and Victoria Bell, also known as Queenie Chimes, were held, a letter that Miss Chimes had penned to Mr. Henry Irving was read out. It had been found in a pocket of her riding jacket, and it made clear her intention to resign from the Lyceum company. It went on to state that she intended to justify her actions to the press before surrendering herself to the law, and that she was sorry for any unwanted publicity that might come the way of Irving and her friends at the Lyceum. From that, I gather that if she had not been shot she would have made her way to some newspaper office to give them what would have been a sensational story, unthinkably damaging in its consequences. As it transpired, the inquest found that Queenie murdered the Chaplain and was herself shot by some person unknown. On instructions from the Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire, no more inquiries were made into the matter.
Upon my return to Sandringham, I found Alix in a strange mood. I had rather relished giving her an account of my investigation, but she disappointed me by professing some sympathy for the murderess. Admittedly, Queenie Chimes had a genuine grievance against her victims, but her revenge was out of all proportion to the original offense. I said as much to Alix and cautioned her not to permit her heart to rule her head.
She said, “Well, I can only hope that the whole sorry episode has been instructive for you, Bertie.”
“Instructive—certainly,” said I.
“Will you now admit that you ought not to have interfered?”
“Interfered. Alix, my dear, if you remember, I was sent an invitation.”
“Which you accepted with alacrity.”
“It was a perfectly proper invitation to a shoot. I wasn’t to know that it would result in wholesale carnage—not of the human sort, anyway. What am I to do—cut myself off from society in case of a repetition? If you have your way, I shall end up like Mama, a fusty old recluse.”
“I think the Queen is not so cut off from the world as you suppose.”
“She’s blinkered.”
“Not necessarily, Bertie.”
I heard a warning note. “What has happened?”
“A message arrived from Windsor this morning. The Queen commands you to visit her urgently.” She sat back in her chair and paused before mildly asking, with maddening irony, “What do you deduce from that, my dear?”
A Note to the Reader
In the first volume of the so-called Detective Memoirs of King Edward VII, entitled Bertie and the Tinman, the reader was cautioned that it was extremely doubtful whether “Bertie,” either as Prince of Wales or King, ever found the time or inclination to write a book. It is even less likely that he wrote a second volume.
Unless one believes in automatic writing, everything in these pages should be taken as fiction.
Bertie and the Seven Bodies Page 22