Stealing the Crown (A Guy Harford Mystery)

by TP Fielden

  ‘The most heavenly creation in this whole palace,’ breathed the old man as they entered. ‘The wonderful legacy of George IV – such taste, such distinction!’

  Guy, who rarely found himself in the state apartments, looked around with curiosity. As with other rooms in the Palace, it was created in order to impress, to awe and to diminish any guest who entered its portals. Gilt and onyx and faded blue – with oil portraits twice life-size, and massive mirrors stretching to the richly worked ceiling – completed the picture.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to have a word,’ said the Master, ‘but business has kept me at Windsor.’

  This was palace-speak for ‘the King has been entertaining me and Lady Dighton at the Castle and I daresay you’d like to know what we had for dinner, and what we talked about, but it’s a secret’. Guy had come across this sort of talk before, the dropping of deliberate hints that the speaker was far closer to the monarch than other courtiers, that they were the preferred one, the one upon whom Their Majesties most relied. It was one of the more tiresome aspects of court snobbery, but since it had prevailed unchecked for centuries, it wasn’t likely to change any time soon.

  Dighton ran a practised eye around the room – more like a barn, certainly large enough to play cricket in – and gave out an approving wheeze. Clearly, from his perspective, all was well.

  ‘How did you get on with the Investiture?’ he asked, striding over to the window.

  ‘Very well, thank you, sir. I found it rather moving. The best—’

  ‘Good,’ broke in the old man, brushing aside the rest of Guy’s reply. With thumbs jammed into his waistcoat pockets and forefingers drumming his irritation at the need to converse with lesser mortals, he added, ‘I’ll put you on the rota. Gather you did a good job.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Now, I want to talk to you about the Duke of Gloucester. Word reaches me you’ve been offered the position.’

  Well, that’s news to me, thought Guy, unless it was handed to me in coded language – in which case could I have the code book? Everyone seems to think I’ve been offered the job, so obviously that’s the way it works around here, but nobody’s actually said.

  ‘Gloucester’s a bit of a handful,’ the Master went on, ‘and it will take time for you to bed in, get used to his ways. Being Regent Designate is a thankless task – on the one hand you’re on permanent standby in case something disastrous occurs to His Majesty, on the other your job is to keep in the background and allow the spotlight to fall on Their Majesties and the two princesses. It’s frustrating for HRH, and since his return from France last year he’s been kicking his heels. Your job will be to keep him sweet and at all costs to keep all avenues open so that he’s informed, not just through official channels, but unofficial ones too. Do you get me, Tanja Man?’

  ‘Yes, I think I . . .’

  ‘You know that Queen Mary refuses to speak to Tommy Lascelles because he wouldn’t tell her what’s going on? We can’t have that sort of situation with HRH, understand? Tommy will be feeding Harry Gloucester the same guff Queen Mary gets until something happens, then he’ll get the lot – Cabinet papers, military briefings, the whole bang-shoot.’

  Dighton turned to Guy but, instead of meeting his eye, he rested his gaze on the ornate plaster reliefs above his head. ‘It’s far better that other avenues of opinion are left open to him – now and in the future – and I want to be sure you understand what I mean by that.’

  ‘You’d like to brief him yourself,’ said Guy. ‘Separately, privately.’

  ‘Good man, just the ticket. Say no more, just bear it in mind. Now, back to work!’

  As Guy wandered away, his shoes cutting their way through the thick pile of the carpet, his mind worked furiously. What was meant by the orders he’d just been given? Was Dighton hoping to seize power in the event of Gloucester landing the top job? Was he ordering Guy to become part of a palace revolution? In the middle of a war?

  He retraced his steps back towards the Ministers’ Stairs, but as he reached them Toby Broadbent appeared out of nowhere. Guy nodded, his body language rejecting any prospect of conversation.

  ‘Don’t see you round these parts much,’ said Toby.

  ‘I prefer the Mews,’ replied Guy tersely. ‘Less ornate.’

  This went over Broadbent’s head. ‘You know, old chap, every time I see you there seems to be only one topic of conversation – what’s happening with your inquiry? The other chaps in the Coats Mission are just keen as I am to hear the news. A good soldier like that!’

  And one whose wife you were keeping warm at night, thought Guy.

  ‘All over, no further action. I’m busy with other things now, as I expect you are. Will you give a loving home to a parrot? One caring owner.’

  ‘Ha ha! Seriously, though . . .’

  ‘I am being serious. It’s not generally the sort of thing I’m expected to do, looking into the odd unexplained death. I’m more of a parrot-minder.’

  Broadbent took the hint and dropped it. ‘Did I see you chatting to the Master upstairs?’

  ‘Did you?’ Are you tailing me?

  ‘He’s very keen on your taking the Gloucester job, I hear,’ went on Broadbent chummily. ‘Told me you’re a safe pair of hands.’

  So now I’ve heard it from your own lips, Captain. You’re part of a military mission, answerable to your colonel, given the job of guarding the King’s life, but instead you’re hanging round with Topsy Dighton and running his errands just as Ed was.

  As they reached a turn in the stairs and Broadbent peeled off, heading for the Stewards’ Room, it finally came to Guy. He stood still in his tracks.

  Toby Broadbent had killed Ed Brampton. Not because Adelaide asked him to – but because Sir Topham Dighton, the Master of the Household, had ordered him.

  ‘I borrowed a bottle from the Butler’s Pantry,’ Guy said, plonking the whisky down on the kitchen table. ‘We need it more than he does.’

  ‘Where’s the Captain?’ demanded Charlotte.

  ‘And, yes, some nuts for you, Charlotte. Got the glasses, Rupe? I need you to help me think this through. I’m fairly convinced I know what happened to Ed Brampton but there’s one thing missing, and it’s a big thing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I suppose I got confused, because for all this time I’ve been trying to think who could possibly have got within close-enough range of Ed Brampton to be able to kill him. But after I talked to Suzy Easthampton, it seemed to become clearer – stop thinking about who killed Ed, instead think about who wanted Ed killed. Then, when I talked to Adelaide, she told me Broadbent was secretly running errands for Topsy as well as Ed.’

  Guy splashed whisky into two glasses.

  ‘Here’s where I need help, Rupe. If it was the Master who ordered Ed’s killing, I don’t understand it – Ed was a loyal, dutiful, obliging royal servant. What’s more, he was related by marriage to Topsy. Why kill him?’

  Rupert picked up his whisky glass and looked into it.

  ‘Let me tell you what I know,’ he said. ‘Sir Topham Dighton is a remarkable man. He’s nearly eighty but he runs those palaces, even in wartime, like clockwork. From what my colleagues have discovered – and we’ve been looking at him for some time now, Guy – he truly is devoted to the King and Queen.

  ‘But, and this is a big but, the King is not a well man. You won’t know this because nobody’s allowed to talk about it at the Palace, but Queen Elizabeth is very concerned about him. He suffers badly from stress, and heaven knows there’s been enough of that about since 1939. He wasn’t expecting the throne and it’s the old king’s fault that he wasn’t made ready to take up the reins if something went wrong. He smokes too much, and quite apart from that speech impediment, there are other aspects to his health which make him – if you knew the details – pretty superhuman to keep going as well as he has. Her Majesty helps carry the burden and, as you know, people say she’s the one who wears the trousers – she’s de f
acto sovereign. That’s pretty amazing for someone who was born non-royal, and of course she’s not popular with everyone. Those saccharine smiles disguise a chilly heart and a cunning brain.

  ‘Take it from me, at the centre of all this is the English Mistery, the aristocratic revivalists who want to go back to the days of serfdom and tugging your forelock. Hardly what we’re all fighting for in this war!’

  ‘Them?’ said Guy scornfully. ‘Aren’t they rather a joke? And anyway, I thought they’d all scarpered back to the woods where they came from.’

  ‘Far from it,’ said Rupert. ‘When they were founded a few years ago they had some powerful members – MPs, landowners, a few lords and their favoured sons. They’re an arrogant bunch, and they’re just waiting for something – anything – to give them the chance to take control and turn the clock back.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘In war, Guy, anything’s possible – it’s foolish to think otherwise. And that’s what our lot at the GPO do – we look at all eventualities and plan against what might happen.’

  ‘So what’s the Mistery’s plan?’

  ‘They were founded by a man who cooked up this idea of the “Masculine Renaissance”. He and his chums hate the suffragettes and, I think, women in general. These people are real royalists – would die for their king, but don’t like the idea of a queen ruling them. Princess Elizabeth won’t be eighteen until the spring of 1944. If the King should die then, she will become queen and many of them believe she’d have her strings pulled by her mother. She’s a dutiful girl and would be likely to do what she’s told.

  ‘That goes against everything the Mistery stands for – in effect, two women at the head of the country. The men all having to bow, then bow lower still! However, should the King die before then, or become severely incapacitated, the Duke of Gloucester would sit on the throne as Regent. That would be their moment. And this is where Dighton comes in – the Mistery lost a lot of its supporters to another group, the English Array, but Dighton was winning them back with the promise of putting Harry Gloucester on the throne and keeping him there.’

  ‘But does he have the power to do that? All by himself?’

  ‘He knows just how to twist royal protocols and precedents – after all, he’s been at the Palace longer than anyone, including the present monarch. He is, to all intents, the king-maker!’

  ‘But everyone says Harry Gloucester would be useless as a king.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Topsy Dighton would be pulling the strings, keeping him in check, and at the same time ushering in the slow and subtle changes that would allow the Misters a big say in the running of the country.’

  ‘Are you sure? I’ve never heard anything so mad!’

  Rupert shook his head. ‘Frankly I think the whole idea is too shaky, and its success would rely on there being a breakdown of law and order – but again I say you can never predict what’ll happen in war. So it looks like we’ve reached a crucial point where we have to bring Dighton in for questioning. What have you got?’

  ‘It’s obvious Ed’s murder – and it has to be murder since the poor chap didn’t actually own a pistol – was an inside job,’ said Guy. ‘If an outsider wanted to kill him, he’d have to wait till Ed left the building and shoot him then.’

  ‘Unless you were Rodie. Have you seen her, by the way?’

  ‘She’s coming here in a minute. I’m taking her out for supper.’

  Rupert nodded approvingly at his flatmate. ‘Consider it a job of work.’ He smiled. ‘We need to keep her sweet. You can submit the bill afterwards.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ retorted Guy primly. ‘It’s my thank you to her for taking me dancing!’

  ‘Enjoy yourselves. Now, this man Broadbent.’

  ‘I made inquiries and they’re going to disband the Coats Mission. The chances of our being invaded seem to be receding, and I think the Queen is fed up with having all these chaps hanging round the family the whole time. They’re gradually reducing the numbers now, and by next year they’ll all be dispersed. I reckon Captain Broadbent is making himself handy to the Master in the hope of a palace appointment after the war’s over.’

  ‘Won’t he be sent off on active service now?’

  ‘Maybe, but if he survives he’ll need a job to come home to. It was only when I was talking to him on the stairs today – remembering what Adelaide told me – that I realised why he and Topsy were both pestering me about my progress on the investigation into Ed’s death. They were simply trying to discover if I’d found out their connection to it – Broadbent as the killer, Topsy the man who ordered it.’

  ‘I think your Tangier flop was probably the reason you were given the job in the first place,’ said Rupert laconically. ‘Since the police had been kept out of it, there had to be some sort of an investigation – and it’s obvious that the powers that be thought you were the one to bungle it. With almost one hundred per cent certainty you wouldn’t find anything out, they could then close the case. An open verdict, they’d call it – the coroner’s way of saying “we haven’t the faintest idea how this man died”.’

  ‘What a compliment!’ said Guy, disgruntled. ‘A bungler – and I was always the clever one in my family. Anyway, it all joins up, doesn’t it? Broadbent killed Ed on Dighton’s instructions.’

  ‘Can you prove it?’

  Guy looked angrily at him. ‘Of course I can’t!’

  ‘And can you explain why Dighton wanted Ed killed? What was the purpose, the motive?’

  ‘I can’t do that either! This whole thing has the makings of a farce, and as of this moment, I wash my hands of it. Nobody’s in the slightest bit interested in poor Ed – he may have been a bit of a failure but he deserves better than this!’

  ‘Don’t give up so easily,’ said Rupert. ‘There are some people interested, including many of my colleagues.’

  ‘When you say “colleagues”, do you mean you?’

  ‘Possibly. But what you’ve established so far, Guy, is a great help. We can’t accuse Sir Topham Dighton of sedition, yet his involvement with the Mistery is just that. What he’s doing is of deep national concern, but we can’t get him.

  ‘The Dightons are an ancient family – been around for a thousand years – and are a powerful force. I feel certain that the palace walls would circle to protect him if he were accused of political plotting – the royals do not want their dirty linen being aired in public – but if he could be arrested on a rather more obvious criminal charge, such as conspiracy to murder, then we have our man.

  ‘But,’ continued Rupert, ‘so far I can’t prove it, and neither can you. So have some more whisky – and for heaven’s sake, take that scowl off your face!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A week passed; two. One morning, with the King and Queen at Balmoral, Guy was summoned by Tommy Lascelles, the sovereign’s senior representative on earth while he was away on the moors shooting grouse.

  ‘You made up your mind about the Duke of Gloucester role?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s for me, sir.’

  ‘No, I didn’t think so either. Another pair of hands required – firmer, steadier than yours. Perhaps less sensitive. No criticism of you, Harford, you’re doing well.’

  ‘Kind of you to say so, sir.’

  ‘Especially with handling the press, a job nobody in their right mind would want to take on. Dreadful people, Harford – vultures, Judases!’

  ‘They’re not all bad, sir.’

  ‘You believe that if you like. But you’d better take a look at this,’ he said, handing over a clipping evidently from an American newspaper.

  GLOUCESTER THE IMPOSTER

  ran the headline in the New York Boulevardier.

  Meanwhile over in London town, doughty Britishers are asking what’s happened to their No 2 royal, the Duke of Gloucester

  the article began.

  Remember him? He’s the one with the nifty moustache and the rich wife (Duchess Alice’s fath
er the Duke of Buccleuch is the biggest landowner in Europe – though these days artful Adolf might seek to disagree).

  Harry Gloucester, 41, may be the third of King George V’s four living sons, but he moved sharply up the pecking order when King Teddy fell for the Baltimore belle and tossed away his empire.

  Harry’s critics label him petulant, inattentive, self-important and lacking in brainpower. Yet he’s on standby to rule the British Empire – all 500 million souls of it – should anything happen to His Imperial Majesty King George VI.

  Wait, you say – won’t Princess Elizabeth, 15, inherit the throne?

  Not till she’s 18. Until that time the Dook will front the royal show, sign the documents, wave from the balcony. And sit on that throne.

  Whispers reach me, however, that Harry doth tarry when it comes to hard work. In fact he’s become virtually invisible, with . . .

  (turn to page 7)

  ‘This is outrageous, scandalous!’ barked Lascelles, waving his finger at the clipping. ‘It says he’s lazing about doing nothing! This is your job, Harford – you must do something to stop this kind of filth appearing! Do you have any idea who this “Caliban” fellow is? Have you come across this column before? I take it he’s resident in London, but is he English or American? What can you do to shut him up?’

  ‘I’ll have to ask around, sir,’ said Guy, though he knew perfectly well who’d written it. ‘See what can be done.’

  ‘Not what we need to see in print, Harford, just when we’re trying with all our might to convince the great American nation they should throw in their lot with us. And really – the Duke . . . he’s doing his best, dammit!’

  ‘You don’t think perhaps there’s something in what he says? That His Royal Highness should be seen to be doing more?’

  ‘Certainly not! We need to focus on people seeing the King, the Queen, the princesses!’

  ‘But the writer surely has a point?’

  ‘Of course he has a point’ thundered Lascelles. ‘I just don’t want to see it in print, anywhere, ever again! See what you can do, Harford – let’s get this thing stopped before other people decide to jump on the bandwagon.’