Stealing the Crown (A Guy Harford Mystery)

by TP Fielden

  ‘The moment you left Markham Street with the children to come here,’ said Guy, ‘he disappeared. That’s to say, he locked up the house and wasn’t seen there up until the time he died, three months later. There are letters – I won’t say how I know – letters and cards showing that he and Lady Easthampton were meeting. The easiest conclusion to draw is, with nowhere else to live, he moved in with her. He turned up at the office every day looking immaculate and as though everything was right in his world. But where did he spend his evenings and nights?’

  ‘Well, nothing you could say would surprise me more,’ said Adelaide. ‘We’d talk on the telephone most days but that would be at drinks time, when he’d still be in the office. He always used to call me. And he sent the children letters and cards but he’d put them in the palace postbox – so how would I ever know where he was? But how bizarre – did he set up home with this woman? That seems so unlike him!’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘I know the name. Her husband’s a pretty useless sort, I gather. But I think his father is Lord FitzMalcolm – we can ask Pa at dinner, he’s off doing his ARP at the moment, digging trenches nobody will shelter in. Well, he’s not digging at his age, but he likes to advise others on their spade technique. How long are you staying?’

  ‘Just the night. I’m on palace standby. If the balloon goes up, back I go.’

  ‘Are you enjoying it?’

  ‘Partly. The royals themselves are fine; it’s the others I find hard to get along with.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll stay there very long, you’re hardly my idea of a devoted courtier.’

  ‘Maybe not – nothing’s certain these days. I was being sounded out about the Gloucester job that Ed didn’t get, but it’s not really my cup of tea.’ He finished his sketch and put down the pad. ‘Did you ever think any more about how things went wrong for Ed?’

  ‘It was strange. All the time he was working for his real boss – Tommy Lascelles – everything was fine. But remember it was Topsy Dighton who got Ed the job, and he used to get called into his office all the time. It was a bore for Ed, but it was also a worry.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Dighton is a very strange man,’ said Adelaide. She thought for a moment. ‘Because he’s held a senior position longer than anyone else at the Palace, he’s more or less untouchable. He feels he can reach out and meddle in other people’s lives. He did that with Ed. Ed was constantly being called in to run what he called “extracurricular errands” for Topsy. It worried him, I could tell. I used to ask him what it was all about but he kept it to himself. Then one day I came home late – I’d been to the theatre – and he was sitting in the drawing room, dead drunk.

  ‘That wasn’t like him at all. I got a cold flannel and sloshed it round his face to wake him up, then I made him a big cup of coffee. While he was drinking it, I told him it was agony for me, his wife, to see him in such a state – him being so upright generally – and that he had to tell me what was wrong.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Oh yes, it all came tumbling out in the end. Though to start with I couldn’t work out what he was saying. He kept on talking about “the Misters” and I thought he must be having hallucinations. I was worried because the children were upstairs asleep and he was making a hell of a racket.

  ‘Anyway, after a bit he calmed down and I began to understand. The Misters, he told me, are members of a secret group called the English Mistery. I’d never heard of them, have you?’

  ‘No. Are they a bunch of schoolteachers? A folklore group?’

  ‘No, they’re all old-school aristocrats – diehards from the Edwardian days – who passionately believe the country’s gone to the dogs, and to save it, we must turn back the clock.’

  ‘Surely . . .’

  ‘They believe in a nation of racially pure Englishmen led by a monarch who’s supported by strong leaders like themselves. They hate the emergence of the Labour Party, they fear the rise of communism, and they’re scared this war will smash the class barriers and we’ll all emerge at the other end as equals.’

  ‘A good thing, surely?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, Guy? Pour me some lemonade and give this old hammock a push.’

  He obliged. ‘So how was Ed involved in all this?’

  ‘Well, of course he wasn’t. He was a pretty old-school sort of chap but believed in democracy – these people don’t.’

  ‘Who are they, these Misters?’

  ‘I hadn’t heard of half of them, obscure names mostly, but there are a few Members of Parliament involved. Ed didn’t exactly say this, but I got the impression that Dighton was a founding member of the Mistery and was struggling to keep it going. Ed’s errands were all to do with that.’

  ‘Why was he so upset – it’s not illegal, is it?’

  ‘According to Ed, it could be. They’re always talking about bringing a vote of no confidence in Churchill – even though he’s doing a good job – and they see their way to exercising influence on a weakened government. The problem was that there are now other, more extreme groups which the Misters have defected to, and Dighton was struggling to keep the remainder of the membership together.’

  ‘What groups?’

  ‘Honestly, Guy, you’d think grown men had better things to do. There’s the Paladin League, the Henchmen of England, the Nordic League, the Right Club.’

  ‘The Henchman . . . ?’

  ‘All wooden-headed types from a certain background who think they can do better than the present government. But from what Ed said, these people present a huge danger in wartime – subversive at the least, actively pro-Nazi in some cases.’

  Guy shook his head. ‘I find this so hard to understand. The war isn’t going well, surely this is the moment when the whole nation pulls together?’

  Adelaide smiled. ‘You’ve been abroad too long, Guy. Over the last ten years there’s been a rise in what I suppose you might call extremism – Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts, for example – and they all think they know a better way of running the country than the old traditional method of one man, one vote.’

  ‘True what you say,’ agreed Guy, ‘about being away too long. Very easy, when you’re in Paris or Tangier, to ignore what’s going on back home and just think that dear old England is sailing along, full steam ahead.’

  Clutching her skirt, Adelaide struggled out of the hammock – ‘No ladylike way of escaping this!’ – and picked up the tea tray. ‘Let’s go in. There’s more to say about Topsy but there’s supper to think about, too.’

  They walked back across the lawns to the big rambling house, passing the folly with its battlements and flagpole atop the tower. Inside, the big rooms full of chintz-covered sofas and gilt-framed pictures seemed as though war had never touched them, but overhead they could hear the heavy thunder of RAF bombers returning from a raid.

  Guy sat at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. ‘I don’t understand why Ed put up with this errand-boy business.’

  ‘He felt compromised. Topsy had the hold over him – “I got you this job, if you don’t cooperate I can always kick you out, send you to the Tower.”’

  ‘He threatened me with that, too.’

  ‘I don’t think in your case, Guy, you’d mind in the slightest if you were fired. For Ed, the job was his life – and of course, a golden opportunity to spend time with Her Majesty.’

  ‘Was he really in love with her?’

  ‘Besotted.’

  ‘Makes it all the more strange that he should . . .’

  ‘Get off with this Lady Easthampton? Gosh, Guy, you don’t know much about affairs of the heart, do you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Others might, dear man,’ smiled Adelaide. ‘Ed loved the Queen but nothing was ever going to come of it. But, left alone in that house in Markham Street, with me and the children in the country . . . I suppose I mustn’t be surprised he found himself a popsy. It’s not as if we were that
close any more, if you understand my meaning.’

  ‘So these people Ed was ordered to deal with . . . they sound a pretty ruthless lot,’ he said.

  ‘Desperadoes, some of them. Feeling they’re protected by the stone walls of their estates, or their titles, or their family connections to people of power. Isolated and angry, Ed said.’

  ‘Do you think one of them could have killed him?’

  ‘Why? Why shoot the messenger? Dighton was desperately trying to save his crumbling organisation, this English Mistery – he’d be begging people, not threatening them or harming them. It was Ed’s job to seek them out in their clubs and be nice to them. He hated it, despised them. But he felt he had to do it. The Palace was his dream job.’

  ‘Look,’ said Guy, ‘I’ll be frank. You asked me to look into Ed’s death and I’ve looked. But there’s no answer to it – just a lot of questions, and now you’ve made things more complicated.’

  ‘Have I?’ Adelaide smiled indulgently. ‘Try that.’

  She handed him a morsel of food.

  ‘Mm,’ said Guy non-committally. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nut rissole. It’s that or roast squirrel this evening. Choices!’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Guy, his face puckering. ‘As I was saying, I want to help but I don’t think I can. On the one hand there’s Ed’s association with Suzy Easthampton. Her backer is a Polish arms dealer, currently in France and therefore, if he’s got his head screwed on right, working for the Nazis. His prize asset is this woman who’s slept her way to the top. Her target, quite clearly, is – or was – the Duke of Gloucester, in the belief that one day he may take the throne. Dangerous company, Adelaide, perhaps lethal.

  ‘Then, on the other hand, we now find Ed deep in the mire with a bunch of extremists who, for all we know, are on the point of being arrested. I’ve learned enough since I’ve been back here’ – mostly from my flatmate, he thought – ‘to know that people are being interned if they hold right-wing views or sympathies. Would one of them shoot Ed rather than go to jail? By the sound of it, they would.’

  ‘Two things against that,’ said Adelaide. ‘One, he wasn’t blackmailing them, he was cajoling them. Second, which of them would be able to get into the Palace and shoot him there?’

  Guy immediately thought of Rodie.

  ‘It may be the most famous palace in the world, guarded by the world’s finest soldiers,’ he said, ‘but to some it’s an open door.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Stalin,’ said Ted Rochester conspiratorially, ‘takes a great interest in the Windsor-Simpson story.’

  ‘Really?’ said Guy.

  They were sitting in the window of Rochester’s club, a diamond-paned Elizabethan house near Temple Bar, where Fleet Street meets the Strand.

  ‘Yes indeed. He can’t understand why Mrs Simpson wasn’t liquidated.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘Don’t laugh – our man in Moscow says it, therefore it must be true. Anyway, Uncle Joe’s not the only one fascinated by it all. Me too – I was hoping your friend Foxy had a few gems to share on how things are going with the lovebirds over in Nassau.’

  ‘If I knew, Ted, I wouldn’t tell you. And neither would she.’

  ‘Just doing my job,’ said the journalist comfortably. ‘How’s the business going with old Ed Brampton?’

  ‘There is no business, Ted,’ said Guy irritably. ‘I thought you’d invited me here so I could help you with a nice article on the war work of the dukes of Gloucester and Kent – the royal supporters. Brothers in arms. All that guff.’

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ replied Rochester, signalling to the waiter. ‘I’m just intrigued by the whole Brampton thing – a gallant officer lost, as my headline-writer might put it. Shooting accidents don’t happen – shooting accidents are what we in the scribbling business call an oxymoron.’

  ‘Nonsense, they happen all the time.’

  ‘Not like that. I wonder whether he discovered too much about Harry Gloucester and his habits, realised he couldn’t cope with it all, didn’t know how to get out of it and, well . . .’ Rochester put two fingers to his temple and made a puffing sound.

  ‘The general consensus,’ replied Guy, shaking his head, ‘is the Duke’s not the sharpest man in the world, but he’s loyal and dedicated. He’s been in the thick of it – bombed and all that – and emerged with honour. What more do you want, Ted?’

  The reporter sniffed. ‘He’s not what he seems. There’s a young child toddling around whose bills are being paid by him. When he was in Africa with the Prince of Wales, he fell for this adventuress called Beryl Markham. They were in Kenya big-game hunting, and both princes, believe it or not, were bedding her. Not,’ he added quickly, ‘at the same time, you understand. But she became pregnant and turned up here in London.’

  ‘This is just gossip, Ted. I don’t think we should . . .’

  ‘Gossip, dear boy, is what I deal in, and gossip has a habit of turning out to be true.’ Rochester smiled. ‘Anyway, Harry Gloucester set her up in a suite in an hotel at the back door of the Palace and they lived there happily till she had the baby. Queen Mary was appalled when Mrs Markham’s brother came a-knocking asking for support for the child, but the royal family was forced to cough up and Harry was in disgrace. That’s when they sent him off to Japan – to get him away from her. A most undesirable woman, Guy – except, of course, in that one sense.’

  ‘I’d like to see you write that into your article,’ came the crisp reply. ‘Anyway, what’s this got to do with Ed Brampton?’

  ‘Just saying . . .’ said Rochester with a grin. ‘Just saying that there’s a lot more to Gloucester than meets the eye, and maybe Ed couldn’t face the immense burden. There are quite a few tales about him. Now, I gather, he’s rattling round the Palace with nothing much to do and getting very frustrated. Altogether a bit of a nuisance.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Guy firmly. ‘Is this the sort of article you want to write?’

  ‘No, no,’ said the reporter smoothly, ‘this is just a chat between friends. Off the record.’

  ‘Are we off the record?’

  ‘At the moment.’

  ‘Well,’ said Guy, ‘off the record, Ted, poor Ed didn’t get the job. Everyone thought he would but he didn’t. He was a bit depressed about it all. Draw your own conclusions.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Rochester, deflated. ‘Then no story there, after all! I just was convinced – the urgent arrangements, that overblown service at the Guards Chapel, getting me to write something about him in the paper – I’ll be frank and say I smelt a rat.’

  ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘Foxy told me you’re doing an exhibition of your paintings.’

  ‘I might, if I can get a gallery and enough pictures together. Most of my work’s still in Tangier – I don’t think it’ll be finding its way here any time soon.’

  ‘Don’t forget I offered my help,’ said Rochester. ‘If you need a gallery, if you need to find some people to paint, the resources of a great national newspaper are at your disposal.’

  ‘That’s kind of you.’

  ‘But one good turn deserves another – I need something on the Windsors, Guy. The Windsors! There are all sorts of stories circulating about them – I need to know what’s going on down their end of things.’

  ‘Nothing doing, old chap. There are plenty of other people to write about.’

  ‘Nothing catches the public imagination like a paragraph or two on our runaway king and his moll. Have you seen my column today?’

  Does he really think I have time to read the News Chronicle? thought Guy. Always the same with journalists – they’re convinced theirs are the first words you read on waking each morning. ‘Was there something special?’

  ‘I’ve never really cared for The Dorchester, have you? They let in all sorts these days. Thought I’d better give them a warning they’re letting standards drop.’ He handed over a copy of the News Chronicle, conveni
ently open at the page bearing his name. Guy read:

  In The Dorchester the sweepings of the Riviera have been washed up – pot-bellied, sallow, sleek-haired nervous gentlemen with loose mouths and wobbly chins, wearing suede shoes and check suits, and thin painted women with fox capes and long silk legs and small artificial curls clustering round their bony, sheep-like heads.

  ‘Sounds like it’s goodbye to all those free drinks you’ve taken off the management all these years,’ said Guy.

  ‘Oh,’ said Ted lazily. ‘They switched off the tap last week, old boy. Told me the party’s over, I was a bit too thirsty for the jolly old Pol Roger apparently. QED.’

  They got up to leave. ‘By the way,’ drawled the journalist, ‘the brat I was telling you about – Harry Gloucester’s . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It isn’t his.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Did the arithmetic, old boy. When they first met, when the child was delivered. Not possible. The trouble with Harry is he can’t count.’

  Guy wandered out into Fleet Street, down the ancient alleyways through the Temple and on towards the river. Even here in this, the citadel of law, there was no escape from the conflict. There was glass all over the pavements, gaps between buildings, piles of rubble. Police signs warning ‘Danger – UXB’ were planted here and there, and everywhere there were the strained expressions and signs of fatigue that were a daily spectacle, even on the faces of the well-fed barristers and judges.

  From Hyde Park, Guy could hear the orchestra of guns start up, though he’d heard no air-raid siren and people weren’t making their usual rush to the nearest shelter. Must be a false alarm, he thought, wandering down the Embankment towards the House of Commons. A false alarm.

  Or maybe, like that night in The Berkeley with Foxy, we just don’t care any more – let it all come down . . .

  Leaning over the rail by Westminster Bridge, waiting for him, Rupert Hardacre presented a passable imitation of a Post Office worker whose labours were done for the day, gazing south across the River Thames, maybe dreaming of his holidays.