Death and the Princess

by Robert Barnard

  My mind honed in on the Honourable Edwin Robert Montague Frere. The nightly frequenter of casinos. Mostly to be seen, if the dossier was to be believed, hanging over the roulette wheel in the Wellington Club, panting at the restrictions that indigence imposes.

  Now, anyone can go to a casino. Policemen went, in their private capacity, to casinos (though not, I may add, any policeman of whom I had any opinion at all). It seemed a good enough starting-point, while I worked out a plan of campaign for the rest of the desirable Helena’s male harem. The fact that the Wellington was a club would not, I suspected, present insuperable difficulties. I found the number in the book, and asked the discreet voice on the other end of the line about membership.

  ‘Your name, sir?’

  ‘Leopold Trethowan,’ I said, feeling that discretion was the better part of honesty. I slurred the surname, hoping it would be heard as Tregorran.

  ‘That will be perfectly all right, sir. When were you thinking of coming along?’

  ‘I thought perhaps tonight . . .’

  ‘Splendid, sir. I’ll have your membership card ready for you.’

  How easy. How wonderfully, illegally easy!

  Meanwhile there were still many hours before the wheels would be spinning at the Wellington Club. I decided to make a return visit to Kensington Palace and check up on the behind-the-scenes security. As I expected, it was tip-top, but I enjoyed nosing around the palace and its surroundings, I noted without joy the proximity of the public touring the open areas of the place, and finally I made one or two suggestions aimed at meeting the special situation we were in at the moment. While I was talking to the man in charge of general palace security the royal limousine drove by, with Sergeant Joplin in the front seat, and when the ladies had disappeared inside in a flurry of haute couture I went over and had a word with him.

  ‘Have a nice day?’

  ‘Boring as hell,’ Garry Joplin said. ‘I don’t know how she sits through it and keeps looking interested. Gave me the screaming ab-dabs. The lunch was all right, I suppose.’

  ‘Better than meals-on-wheels, I imagine. What about the people, though?’

  ‘Nothing of interest for us, I’d say. Nice enough lot, mostly middle-aged or elderly themselves. Hard-working, do a lot of good — you know the type. Hardly what we’re after.’

  ‘No — except we don’t really know what we are after. Nothing else out of the ordinary — no accidents on the way?’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘What about the lady-in-waiting?’

  ‘Stuffy bitch. What do you mean, what about her?’

  ‘Does she keep her eyes open, keep close, do her job?’

  ‘Oh yes, like a well-dressed leech. Close, but yet in the background, if you get me. Drops the odd genteel platitude here and there, but mostly stays mum and keeps her eyes open. She relaxed a bit when it came to the private bit.’

  ‘Private bit?’

  ‘Just the committee, for cocktails before lunch. Just ten or twelve of the top nobs. I hung around, of course, not getting offered a shot myself. They all stood up clutching their grog and making well-bred conversation about the weather. One of the do-gooders was a noble relative of Lady Muck the train-bearer, and she had a bit of a jaw with him. Otherwise she’s been at the lass’s side all the time, passing the sort of remarks you get in language primers. Fun for the little girl!’

  ‘Cramped your style, Garry, I can see that. Never mind. If I know the young lady she’ll get on friendly terms before many days are out. I thought I might go and have a word with the secretary johnnie — coming along?’

  ‘Might as well,’ said Sergeant Joplin, and we had a word with a flunkey and found ourselves shunted forward on the conveyor-belt of flunkeydom until finally we found ourselves ushered into a rather raggedly splendid office — large, ornate, sparsely furnished, and cold as charity. A dowdy secretary typed at a side table miles from anywhere, and intoned that Mr Brudenell would be in in a moment. She motioned us to two upright chairs, eighteenth-century jobs, seemingly designed for midgets with spinal problems. We stood and waited.

  Two minutes, and in bustled Mr James Brudenell, private secretary to the Princess Helena. I suspected he liked bustling in on people, and had probably only been in the next room anyway, watering the aspidistras. He was a pouter-pigeon little man, oh-so-smart in his morning coat and trimmings, but with a fat little tummy which he thrust self-importantly before him, as if he were pregnant with a new generation of private secretaries to royalty. He had weak little eyes behind strong glasses, and a thin veneer of geniality covering a solid wedge of self-importance and conceit. I didn’t greatly take to him, as you’ll have gathered.

  ‘Ah, Superintendent Trethowan,’ he enthused, shaking my hand with a white, plump collection of fingers and palm. He ignored Joplin and motioned us to sit, a balancing act we gingerly performed.

  ‘Good to meet you, have a little chat,’ he went on. ‘I of course know you by reputation . . . Read about the death of your father . . .’

  Oh Mr Brudenell, you did start out on the wrong foot!

  ‘Oh yes?’ I said, chilly.

  ‘Most unfortunate . . . Still, even in the best families.’

  No one knew better than I that mine was not one of the best families. ‘I wonder if we might have a few words about this security angle?’ I said.

  ‘Of course, of course. We’re in your hands. The general lines, as you will know, are laid down from the Palace for all members of the Royal Family in the public eye. You don’t perceive any obvious lacuna, I hope?’

  ‘No lacunae have become evident to me as yet,’ I said, and saw a laugh waft through Garry Joplin’s eyes. ‘On the other hand, the Princess, being young, and no doubt wanting a good time, does present problems . . .’

  ‘You think so?’ said James Brudenell. ‘Not unusual ones, surely? All members of the Royal Family have to enjoy some sort of private life. And they do. Quite notably so, in some cases . . .’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘But no doubt with the older members that private life has acquired — how shall I put it? — a certain pattern. They have formed a circle, or perhaps several distinct circles. That’s quite manageable. But what we are worried about with the Princess Helena is that — naturally at her age — she is making new friends all the time. The circle, if I may put it like that, is very, very fluid.’

  ‘Hmm, yes, I see,’ said Mr Brudenell, screwing his rather piggy little face into thought. ‘You said “worried”, Superintendent. Was that just a chance word, or is there any special reason to be worried, eh?’

  I took an instantaneous decision. ‘Oh, no special reason at all,’ I said. I had no doubt that Mr James Brudenell was one hundred per cent trustworthy, a twenty-four-carat soul, like all royal servants, but the fact was I didn’t like him, and I’m afraid that meant I didn’t feel like trusting him. ‘Put me down as a new broom, wanting to sweep cleaner than all the old brooms. But as you must realize, we are bound to look at the way the Princess spends her spare time. Nothing censorious, you understand — mere common prudence. And I must say that her escorts have been — what shall I say? — a fairly assorted bunch.’

  Mr Brudenell snuffled. This seemed to be a subject after his own heart. ‘A point you are very well qualified to appreciate, Superintendent,’ he purred, gentleman to gentleman. ‘But what have you? We live in a democratic age, more’s the — well! And of course one has to say that the Princess’s . . . openness — in social matters I mean — does her no harm with the Press.’

  ‘No-o-o,’ I said. ‘Tell me, is there any of her escorts that you personally have felt uneasy about?’

  ‘For a time there was a footballer!’ Mr Brudenell wailed. ‘And she’s still seeing this actor fellow, I know that. There was a journalist — can you imagine anything more unwise? — but he died, thank God. And then there’s this Bayle, the Labour MP. When you think what some members of his party say about the Civil List!’

  I had the feeling th
at Mr Brudenell’s feelings of unease were on social rather than personal grounds.

  ‘Any more?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh dear, no one special, but she goes to parties, you know, and meets up with all sorts. You see my problem: now the Princess is “one of the team”, so to speak, with a regular round of engagements, the one thing we are anxious to avoid is the wrong sort of publicity!’

  ‘Certainly I see your problem,’ I said coolly. That wasn’t my problem. ‘What about the Hon. Edwin Frere? Hasn’t she been seeing a good deal of him?’

  He looked at me wide-eyed. ‘But I don’t see any problem there. I can personally vouch that it’s an excellent family. His grandfather was Bearer of the Footstool at the last coronation but one!’

  ‘I’m sure the family is absolutely tip-top,’ I said. ‘But as you said a moment ago, even in the best of them . . . I heard something about gambling debts.’

  ‘Wild oats,’ said Mr Brudenell indulgently. ‘Sort of thing no one would even have thought it worth mentioning fifty years ago. Of course the family’s not well off. You may remember they had to sell a really exquisite Dürer when his father inherited. Bought by a German industrialist. Appalling to think of the country’s artistic heritage being dissipated in that way! No doubt the young man feels the pinch, like so many.’

  ‘So as far as you are concerned there is no problem in that direction? . . . Well, no doubt you’re right. What would you say was the pattern of the Princess’s social life — I mean her private social life, away from her official duties?’

  Mr Brudenell sighed again, and tut-tutted. ‘Well, there, of course, I’m not really involved, officially involved, that is. But as you say it is all rather uncontrolled. She goes to parties, meets people, they ask her out — to clubs, houseparties or whatever — she meets more people, and so it goes on. And I needn’t tell you how horribly mixed up everything has become in the world of today. I mean socially mixed up. Men of quite good family, hobnobbing with all sorts. And they do all kinds of jobs!’ He suddenly put his hand over his mouth. ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon!’

  ‘Granted,’ I said. ‘What it all boils down to is that there must be an awful lot that the Princess gets up to — sorry, I can’t think of a more appropriate phrase — that you know little or nothing about.’

  ‘Quite. Quite. A very great deal.’

  ‘Or her lady-in-waiting either.’

  ‘Certainly. Lady Dorothy can hardly be expected to be on duty twenty-four hours a day. Nor, I may say, would she wish to go to many of the places the Princess might frequent. A lady-in-waiting is the attendant for official occasions, nothing more.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I said. I got a very strange sense that Mr Brudenell considered Lady Dorothy Whateverhername was a lady, but that he wasn’t too sure about the Princess. ‘Presumably what you are concerned with mainly is the Princess’s public role — ’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Who she meets, what she does on official occasions?’

  ‘Exactly. We choose the sort of function she may grace, the sort of body she may become patron of, even on occasion the people she may be asked to meet at these functions.’

  ‘I see. It sounds like a delicate business. Could you give me some idea of how you would go about it?’

  He gestured expansively. ‘It’s an enormous question, Superintendent. Awfully delicate, as you say. Much of it is done at the Palace itself. Let’s — greatly oversimplifying — take functions. Say a garden party. Now, say it was a political garden party — in aid of Conservative Party funds. Quite out of the question. Say it was in aid of a fund to buy Disraeli’s birthplace. Possible, but needs to be looked at closely, to check on local political involvement, and so on. Say it’s a charitable function: look at the charity, see if there are any controversial implications. Say it’s a police garden party: generally acceptable, but the Police can acquire political overtones in certain circumstances. Is it an area where there have been — hmmm, you’ll pardon me, I do hope — accusations of corruption, recently? Or brutality? Is there a controversial Chief Constable? They can sail very close to the political. In that case, we regretfully refuse, if you take my point.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Clearly the whole thing rests on a knife edge. Now, about people — ’

  But at that point we were interrupted by a flunkey. A tall, fair-haired young man in the local uniform entered the room, and in a hushed voice, like an atheist in Canterbury Cathedral, informed Mr Brudenell that the Princess would like to see him in connection with her engagement of tomorrow morning. It was a splendid opportunity to bustle out, and Brudenell bustled, his fat little arse waggling behind him. Joplin and I escaped into the open air, escorted every inch of the way by the flunkey. I tried to make conversation with him, but he put me frostily in my place, as if he were editor of The Times and I was a delivery boy. Outside the air was cold, but it felt warmer than inside.

  ‘Well,’ I said to Joplin, ‘how do you like mingling with the Great? Notice anything about Brudenell?’

  ‘Homosexual, nervous, full of himself, probably having it off with the footman,’ said Joplin.

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘How did you get that last bit?’

  ‘Just a look he gave him as he went out. Otherwise, of course, a creep and a snob, as I suppose you’d agree, sir.’

  ‘Of the worst. I agree about the “nervous” bit too, and that worries me. I must say, when I came this morning I felt I was witnessing the performance of the perfect machine — the human equivalent of a Rolls-Royce. Now, after talking to Brudenell, I’m not so sure.’

  And that feeling stayed with me as I went back to the flat, ate a hurriedly grilled steak, played a moderately straight bat to all Jan’s questions, and tried to satisfy Daniel as to what a real-life Princess looked like. Daniel gave up after a time, because really he’s more interested in elephants and badgers, but not so Jan. She remained with me while I bathed and donned my best bib and tucker, and she questioned and prodded, alternately lapping it up and boggling. She didn’t believe me when I said I thought the lady was stupid, did believe me when I said I thought she was gorgeous, believed me when I described the army of flunkies, didn’t believe me when I said the palace was tatty. Finally I was ready for my evening’s excursion. She brushed me down, straightened my tie and suggested that I take a taxi.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I drive there?’

  ‘What, and arrive at the Wellington Club in a 1971 Morris 1100?’ she said.

  I saw her point, and rang the nearest taxi-rank. As we stood waiting at the door Jan said, ‘I’ll be up when you get back’ — but that I could have guessed anyway.

  CHAPTER 4

  Young Blades

  The Wellington Club was situated five minutes or so from Apsley House, but I doubted whether it had more than a nominal and opportunistic connection with the Iron Duke. It was in a quiet street just off Park Lane, and its existence was signalled by the discreetest of plaques by its front door. It had a very grand doorman, dressed in plushy brown with gold buttons, but when you peered beneath the top hat you saw that he was youngish, and tough.

  It took no more than a couple of minutes to get through the formalities — if that is the word for the laughable process which gave me a membership card and admittance to these Regency splendours for life, supposing they were never so indiscreet as to get closed down. I was led upstairs by the Secretary, a slippery middle-aged man with exquisite manners and a gutless voice adept at uttering nothings. We came to what were clearly the first floors of two or three adjacent houses, knocked together to make a series of rooms dedicated to the businesses of gambling, drinking and eating. The biggest of the rooms held the roulette tables, and the most glittering crowd; through an arch at the far end were smaller rooms, not so well lit, and there people were sitting around small tables with cards in their hands. At the far end, cut off from the main rooms, was something that seemed to be the dining-room, and to the right of the roulette tables was the bar. The dining-room did not look too
popular, but the bar was. People gravitated with glasses from it to the tables: old men with red eyes and bulging moustaches; middle-aged women in pink frills, with lots of back and bosom; young men in dinner-suits that fitted, with reddening faces and eyes either cold or hungry. Casinos, I suspect, are not places you should go to if you feel an urgent desire to love your fellow creatures.

  ‘Do you see anyone you know?’ enquired the Secretary.

  ‘I’ve no doubt I shall,’ I lied. ‘Please don’t let me keep you. I’ll have a drink and watch for a bit.’

  I really didn’t have much choice. The price of my brandy set me back so much that I lost any vestigal desire I might have had to chuck away my well-earned dibs at the tables. I had, it is true, a wallet stuffed full of notes, but this was for purposes of verisimilitude; the money came from Scotland Yard, and emphatically had to go back there next morning. I held my glass in my hand at chest level, as I’d seen them do in Tatler advertisements, and strolled over to watch the fun.

  Or rather to watch the people. Because if you’re not absolutely fascinated by gambling you soon lose interest in the processes of winning and losing, and start watching the gamblers instead — the varieties of pleasure registered by the ones who win, the gradations of greed, frustration, bitterness and rage in the faces of the ones who lose. Casinos might have been invented, I thought, to illustrate the step-by-step pathway to Hell. Certainly there were lost souls there, and ones so gay and insouciant that you could almost miss seeing the gaping pit at their feet. The croupiers were quick, dexterous and funny. Nobody much laughed. I looked around me casually, ignoring the red, thirsty, middle-aged faces, and the high-spirited young women. I scanned the young men: the guards officers, the tyros from the City, the rising lawyers, the congenitally idle. Finally I felt sure I had my man, the one whose photograph I had seen in Joe’s dossier. There he was hovering restlessly round the outer fringes of the various groups: he was tall, fretful, handsome, with a lock of hair falling over cold blue eyes; he had a ski-slope nose and a petulant mouth, and he looked at the tables with a yearning, hungry expression, as if he had arrived at the gates of Paradise five minutes after closing time. Disraeli lamented that selling one’s soul to the Devil had gone out of fashion, because it was such a useful custom for the younger sons of peers. Certainly Edwin Frere looked willing to consider a good offer.