Murder with Majesty
Page 26
“There was the matter of the hats.”
“Hats?”
“Louisa’s on the day of the wedding. You, it seemed, were guiltless of the theft and yet you were the only one to benefit from the result. When I knew that this was not the case, and that Gregorin had benefited too, because it enabled your seduction of the king to begin, I began to think further. If I were a woman whose lover was prepared to sacrifice her honour, if I may use the word in this context, to further his own ends, how would I feel? Especially a lover who had recently rejected her. I know from my wife what a reputation for ruthlessness Gregorin had in his dealings with women.
“If you had not stolen the hats, then only Gregorin had a motive for doing so. Perhaps you asked him after the wedding whether he had taken them when he knew Louisa, not you, was to be the king’s escort for the day, and his sheer determination to make use of your body incensed you beyond endurance. When Bluebell reminded you in my presence of the lord of the manor’s impending visit to the maypole, the way to revenge was clear. Did Gregorin ever find out you had shot Arthur in mistake for him?”
For a moment it seemed to Auguste that Eleonore’s face looked as feral as Gregorin’s own, but then she laughed. “Oh yes. He found out. In the catacombs. As soon as he saw me in the trousers I had worn to go down to the maypole, he realised. He had boasted to me of his plan to trap you there. What easier than to make a fourth at the party? You should be grateful to me, Auguste. I saved your life. I had a candle, you see, and oh, the pleasure when he realised this gentleman who faced him was not you or Entwhistle but me. I should have made an excellent career on the musichalls with a Vesta Tilley turn, should I not? I had taken my own knife, but I felt you would like to be included in my vengeance. Was that not thoughtful of me? You are quite right. I’d seen his ruthlessness used on others. Not on me. It was not to be endured.”
“You would have let me hang, even though once you invited me to your bed?”
That made her laugh. “I knew you would not come. And incidentally you still will hang,” she pointed out. “It is your word, Inspector Rose, against mine. You said yourselves you had no proof, and I shall deny, on the word of the wife of an international diplomat, that this conversation took place.”
“Bessie Wickman will walk free, and so will Auguste, even if you do as well, comtesse.”
“No. there you are wrong, Mr Rose. I shall not walk free. I shall walk shackled in heart and mind to Gregorin for the rest of my life.” She rose to her feet, bowed slightly, and the folds of the peach muslin swayed as she walked out of the conservatory.
*
“I guess I won’t be marrying Louisa, honey.” Horace stood near his daughter by the terrace balustrade looking out over the domain that was shortly to be theirs. “Shall you like living here? I won’t be with you all that much. Not fair on Bluebell.”
“I think after a suitable time I’ll have good company.”
“Richard Waites? I’ll second that choice. What will he think about living here?”
“I think he’d like it, from my tentative enquiries.”
“Fairies and all?”
“He had one stipulation, at Mr Didier’s suggestion. He said I should wash the glamour from my eyes about Frimhurst.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That Frimhurst is not so deeply buried in tradition as it seems. That Frimhurst at our host’s persuasion has been putting on a show for us.”
“But honey, that’s what you said the first day you arrived. We’ve known it all this time.”
“Yes. Apart from poor Arthur, it was fun spurring them on, wasn’t it?” She caught her father’s eye, and to Bluebell’s great surprise as she came out to join them, the widow burst out laughing.
*
“She’s right. We’ve no proof. We have to let her go.” Egbert steamed in anger. “I’ll see Bessie released of course. I suppose I should feel sorry for the comtesse, but I don’t.”
“Why not?” Auguste asked. He was still torn, thinking of the vital, laughing woman he had known.
“Well, it’s a funny thing, Auguste, but I often ask myself a question if I’m in doubt about someone: would Edith like her?”
“And what was the answer this time?”
“No, Egbert. Not very much. Incidentally, what about His Majesty?”
What indeed? Auguste thought as Egbert went in search of Twitch before they left.
*
“Mr Didier.” Thomas Entwhistle stepped out before him, startling him as usual by his resemblance to Gregorin. “I trust we shall meet again on Tuesday, at the garden party.”
Amid the six thousand guests invited to Windsor? Auguste had every hope that they would not, but he bowed politely.
“Thereafter,” Entwhistle continued, “we may not meet for some time.”
Auguste could not find it in him to be polite this time, for he felt uneasy in Thomas’s company. For all his serious face, he could not help thinking he found this all highly amusing.
“Tomorrow I sell Farthing Court — and its title as lord of the manor, to Mr Pennyfather. A new age, Mr Didier, in which English manors are handed to our American cousins.”
“And what of you? To Paris?”
“No. I intend to travel. To the east. Perhaps even to marry.”
Visions of some exotic Eastern beauty flitted before Auguste’s eyes. “I trust you will be happy.”
“Oh, yes. I shall marry Belinda Montfoy, if she will have me.” He laughed as he saw Auguste’s face. “After all, I am the soul of English respectability.”
As Auguste walked on, he called after him. “I have a message for you from Eleonore.”
Auguste stopped still. “She has left?”
“She asked me to tell you the carriage is taking her to Cranbrook station.”
What could he do? Tell Egbert? What was the point? They had agreed there was no proof. And even if they had sufficient, think of the international furore if a very public — if short-lived — mistress of His Majesty were on trial for murder. Cousin Bertie would blame one person, Auguste Didier, for being innocent. It was an unjust world.
“You know?” he asked Thomas quietly.
“Of course. It is — was — my job to know, as you put it, if not to act. My dear Mr Didier, if I might advise you, do pray remain in the kitchen in future. That is where your forte lies.”
Auguste ignored this. “So what will Eleonore do now?”
“She will catch the 8.19 train from Cranbrook to Paddock Wood.”
“And after?”
“After?” Thomas’s face was sombre. “Her lover is dead, her husband now estranged. Like Anna Karenina, what way out other than to catch the railway train? Who knows, Mr Didier, save le Bon Dieu, what lies after?”
Epilogue
The royal garden party at Windsor on the eve of the wedding of Princess Margaret of Connaught and the heir to the Crown Prince of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, was a glorious affair. With Tatiana on his arm, for once not in baggy bloomered overalls and smeared in oil, but in lemon voile and lace from parasol to the hem of the elegantly draped skirt, Frimhurst and the fairies seemed to Auguste far away. The royal sandwiches were excellent, and the dazzling array of European royalty and American diplomats to whom Tatiana introduced him flitted before his eyes like pictures in a magic lantern. The excellent claret cup made the world a wonderful place, even if it did have Cousin Bertie ruling over a major part of it.
Somewhere deep inside Auguste, however, was a niggle, He put it down to the fact that he had not yet seen Cousin Bertie, who was slowly making his way round his guests. This was quickly remedied, as the royal party approached, Tatiana sank towards the grass in a flurry of lemon voile, and he bowed deeply. As the queen engaged Tatiana in conversation Auguste found himself eye to eye with Cousin Bertie. For once royal etiquette worked in his favour. His Majesty must speak first. He did, and nobly — for Bertie.
“Glad to hear all’s well.”
“
Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“I hear — ” Bertie said offhandedly — “the Comtesse Eleonore died in a tragic accident.”
“Yes. Tragic indeed.”
His Majesty drew closer, a great honour. “Looking back, it might have been just a little unwise of me to go to Paris that weekend.”
Auguste bowed, since he could think of nothing to say that would not be incorrect or damn him further. By the time he rose again, the usual jaundiced eye was back.
“But don’t go committing any more murders, eh, Didier?”
“No, Your Majesty.” Was he expected to agree he was lucky to be reprieved? Apparently not, for this confidentiality had exhausted Bertie and he moved on. He and Tatiana were free to enjoy the delights of the garden party.
“My dear Mr Didier.”
Tatiana stopped aghast, and Auguste, seeing her shock, hastily intervened. “Tatiana, may I introduce Mr Thomas Entwhistle?”
Very pale, Tatiana managed to regain her composure. “Auguste has told me much about you, the likeness — ” She faltered and stopped.
“Is but a likeness.” Thomas smiled. “I leave tomorrow, Mr Didier.”
Auguste could not speak. His eye had fallen on the rose in Entwhistle’s buttonhole. The fairies had not done with him. They had reminded him that one of the two men to come to the café had bought a rose in the crowded Place Denfert-Rocherau. Which man?
He remembered the dead body at his feet in the chill and dark of the catacombs. He remembered the blood, as red as the rose in its buttonhole.
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