Death and the Princess

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Are you quite sure you’re that good?’ she said, with a giggle and a toss of the head. ‘Anyway, I mean, how, or rather, gosh! I don’t mean how, but I mean where?’

  ‘I em staying et Clerridge’s,’ said the Prince.

  ‘Oh good. Because it would be difficult to do it in Buckingham Palace, wouldn’t it, I mean — ’

  ‘In Buckingham Pellace I haf never bin able to do it et all,’ said Prince Rupert.

  • • •

  ‘Oh no,’ said Lady Dorothy Lowndes-Gore, squeezing her strangulated voice out through her nose like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube, ‘that wasn’t this Lady Glencoe. That was Marjorie, Lady Glencoe. Glencoe has married five times, you know. Marjorie was the fourth, and she was nobody. This is Edwina, Lady Glencoe, the second wife. Mother of Glenclannish, who’s the heir. Edwina’s father was Earl of Kilgarvan. Irish title, of course. Terribly bad blood. Kilgarvan himself, you know, was practically court-martialled in the First War. And the mother . . .’

  • • •

  ‘Jeremy,’ said the Princess, smiling her sweetest and most demure smile, and purring like a cat in sight of the creamer, ‘I want you to meet Harry Bayle. Harry is an awfully good friend of mine. Harry has a lovely flat down the river, it’s absolutely the last word. Terribly smart. We go there often.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Jeremy Styles, elegantly at ease, and smiling with utter lack of guile. ‘Are you an interior decorator?’

  ‘Oh Jeremy, you are naughty,’ giggled the Princess. ‘Harry’s a Member of Parliament.’

  ‘Oh, the Harry Bayle!’ said Jeremy, with a totally natural gesture of surprise and admiration that only an actor could have managed. ‘This is an honour. I did enjoy your speech in the House in the defence spending debate. Splendid stuff. You should have gone on the stage.’

  ‘I saw your new play the other night,’ said Harry Bayle, similarly at ease, man to man. ‘Very funny indeed, I thought. It should run for years.’

  The Princess Helena pouted unprettily.

  • • •

  Jimmy McAphee pushed past me on his way to get a refill, and then, a thought striking him, he swung his thick body around and measured me with his eyes.

  ‘Was it you, then, that rang me?’

  I followed suit and measured him with my eyes. Under the elegant clothes the tough, vigorous body had a rather horrible force. Not someone to tangle with on a dark night in the Creggan. But then, I knew that. On the other hand, I didn’t feel I had much need to fear the man. He hadn’t figured very prominently in the Princess’s life over the last few months. And I suspected he was just a rough little go-getter whose eyes couldn’t see further than next week, but who marked the course of those seven days very determinedly.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ I said. ‘Just part of my job. If you think about what I said, it makes sense.’

  ‘Oh aye? Well, as it happens, I’d already decided to lay off the rough stuff and concentrate on my game.’

  I was surprised he made any distinction. I murmured: ‘Very wise.’

  ‘Mind you, after sitting through that lot tonight I could well fancy a bit of a barny with someone or other. It’d get rid of a lot of steam. By — ’ he let out his breath in a great expression of disgust. ‘To think that people come here for pleasure!’

  ‘If you’ve paid the price of a dinner for two at the Savoy just to get a seat, you feel bound to enjoy it,’ I said. ‘Do you see much of the Princess these days?’

  ‘Not so much,’ said McAphee. ‘I’m not bothered. Needless to say, I wasn’t approved of. Not that I’d want to be. That lot! Bleedin’ parasites. Anyway, they started to throw her in the way of that witless wonder over there.’

  He nodded to the far side of the room, where the Honourable Edwin Frere was spreadeagled against the wall in conversation with Lady Dorothy Lowndes-Gore. His expression was one of petulant boredom, but she was talking with a fierce intensity, a look of almost craving hunger on her face. I supposed she was doing one of her bloodstock low-downs.

  ‘If Helena wants him, she’s welcome to him,’ said McAphee, apparently without rancour. ‘A lot of good he’ll do her. Or her him, come to that. She’s more tease than come. If I go after a bird I want more than a friendly peck to show for my evening.’

  • • •

  That viewpoint came up in another part of the Crush Bar too.

  ‘Jeremy has the star’s dressing-room, of course, and it’s absolutely super,’ the Princess was saying, showing a rather uninventive technique in her desire to arouse jealousy. ‘It’s an absolutely marvellous place. We’re often there for hours and hours after the performance.’

  ‘Really?’ said Henry Bayle, with that friendly, politician’s show of interest. ‘You must let me come along one night. I’ve never been backstage in a theatre.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we’re likely to invite you,’ giggled the Princess. ‘I don’t like doing things in threes.’

  ‘Darling, you all too frequently refuse to do things in twos,’ drawled Jeremy Styles.

  • • •

  ‘If you were to come to my castle,’ murmured the melancholy Prince Rupert, bending over his supper dish, ‘my castle at Krackenburg. High in the Bavarian Elps. Or fairly high in the Bavarian Elps. I vould giff you the time off your life. Tell me you vill come, my dear!’

  And he bent his head over her and kissed, succulently, the side of her neck. When he straightened I could scarcely forbear looking at his teeth for traces of blood.

  • • •

  ‘Jimmy!’ said the Princess, in that peremptory tone her voice could take on now and then. ‘Come here!’

  Jimmy McAphee shambled over, an expression of ferocious amiability on his face.

  ‘Jimmy. I want you to meet two very special friends. This is Harry Bayle, and he’s an MP, but he’s terribly sweet and — ’

  ‘Oh aye. Taken over, have you?’ said Jimmy McAphee, extending a large, bone-breaking hand.

  ‘And this is Jeremy Styles. I know you don’t go to the theatre, but he’s a wonderful actor, and altogether — ’

  ‘I’m not the complete ignoramus, you know. I see the box now and then. How d’you do.’

  ‘I saw you on the box last Saturday,’ said Henry Bayle, with all the slumming-it geniality he could muster from his years of canvassing. ‘That was a first-rate goal you scored in the second half.’

  ‘Really perfect timing,’ said Jeremy Styles.

  Jimmy McAphee smirked, but the Princess looked at all the male conviviality and good-nature around her, and she pouted again, again unprettily. I thought I saw tears in her eyes.

  • • •

  ‘That,’ said the Princess to me, as the people began to thin out, ‘was the worst party I’ve been to in years.’

  ‘That’s often the way, isn’t it, Ma’am?’ I said, easily. ‘I remember when I used to go fishing as a boy, I always found the more I was longing to have a fish to play with on the end of my line, the less likely the little blighters were to bite.’

  The Princess looked at me narrowly. ‘It’s you,’ she said bitterly. ‘You organized it.’

  ‘Oh no, Ma’am. You organized it.’

  ‘Then you undermined it. You went around threatening people, or I don’t know what. You tried to — what’s the word? — defuse things.’

  ‘I certainly did my best, Ma’am. We’re both under strict instructions from the Palace, especially since James Brudenell’s death. There are to be no headlines. I’m just doing what I can to carry out those instructions.’

  The Princess tried to put on one of her freezing, haughty expressions, but it came out as a nasty little scowl. She stamped her foot.

  ‘Oh, I hate you when you’re like this. You’re so pompous and condescending. You don’t have to act like a father!’

  I looked towards the far corner of the enormous bar, where her father was ensconced in a serpentine huddle with his foolish blonde.

  ‘Well,’ said the Princess, following my
gaze, ‘I’d get more fun with him around than I do with you. I’m going now. No, I don’t want you to escort me. I’ll go with Joplin. He’s more my age. You stay and talk with Lady Glencoe. Edwina, darling! Perfectly lovely party! I’m leaving behind my tame bodyguard. Aren’t I generous? You can both have a perfectly lovely time talking over the ’thirties together!’

  And she sailed down the staircase, leaving me chastened and annoyed, and in the clutches of the dreadful Edwina, who had bustled forward at the Princess’s summons, wobbling invitingly close, her colour now more strawberry than ever, with ugly veins in her cheeks and an atmosphere of sweat, powder and stale gin clinging about her.

  The end of a perfect day.

  • • •

  ‘The fact is,’ said Edwina (she insisted I call her Edwina), ‘that’s she’s a spoilt little bitch, and she will simply do anything to get her own way.’

  We were draped across a sofa in the corner of the bar, miles from the three or four other couples still left, and ignoring the scowls of the Opera House flunkies ostentatiously clearing up. The night was old, and so was Edwina, but Edwina (unlike the night) was still acting young, and occasionally she would snatch a half-empty glass from the hand of a flunkey and down the contents with a flourish. Then she would nestle her head back down onto my chest with a satisfied gurgle.

  ‘Now in my young day,’ she went on, ‘the Royals still could have fun. Real fun. I know, because on occasion I had it with them. You’ve no idea what they managed to keep out of the papers then. One of them was what we used to call a dope-fiend, and nobody knew till years after he died — nobody who was anybody, I mean. Nowadays the poor things even have their telephones tapped, and they have to spend their nights in railway carriages, I gather.’

  ‘Er — that was denied.’

  ‘Well, I just hope they went first-class,’ she swept on, ignoring my interjection. ‘The trouble with this young lady is that she gets so little fun she has to manufacture lots of trivial excitements. But excitements came quite easily to us. Oh!’ she sighed theatrically down into her bouncing bosom. ‘Memories! Memories! I remember once when I was going with Fred Cates — he was a terribly famous racing driver in those days, and I was sharing myself with Willie Portsmouth — that’s the father of the present Earl, or was he the grandfather? I forget — anyway, there we were in the pits, having a tremendous giggle, and Fred Cates whirling round and getting so jealous that eventually he positively stopped and dragged me into the car and round and round we went, and darling, I thought I was going to be the first woman to be raped at ninety miles an hour. My dear, such fun we had!’

  ‘Perhaps the young men of today are not what they were,’ I suggested.

  ‘Darling, of course they’re not. Even after the war, when I was really unofficial hostess to the Tory party, you know, there were some splendidly wild young men. Of course they do say that one or two of the present junior ministers . . . but alas I’ve never tried them . . . You don’t think Margaret . . . ? No, I suppose not. Well, as I say, in my young days men were men, and they made things happen. Whereas now . . . well, look at tonight. The silly young thing insists — as a condition, I ask you! — that I invite all those quite unsuitable people! I’ve nothing against footballers in their place, which I needn’t specify, but I don’t as a rule invite them to my parties. And it’s all because she’s kept on such a tight rein, and so much in the public eye, that she has to make absurd little excitements for herself. You know, she promised me such fireworks! Such an explosion! Frankly, I’d have been grateful for a damp squib.’

  ‘You were disappointed?’

  ‘Well, darling, the occasion didn’t exactly sparkle, did it? When I write my Memoirs — did I tell you about my Memoirs? I’m just waiting for a reasonable offer. If one is going to bare one’s soul and so much more, one does demand more than two thousand five hundred for the spectacle — where was I? — yes, well, as I say when I do write them, this evening will not figure as one of the sparkling highlights. And when I think of who wanted to come!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I mean, there were heaps of people just dying for invitations. The Home Secretary, for one. Don’t edge away — I can’t stand a man who edges. But the Princess insisted I have these dreary young men of hers. And invitations are strictly limited, you know. They’re having to look at every penny at Covent Garden these days, especially with the new GLC on their backs. You noticed the quality of the whisky, I suppose. Boy! Bring that here, darling boy! Drinkies not quite finished! Yes, as I say, that’s what makes me so bitter. When I think who rang me up just angling for an invitation. Presentable people, who could be useful. I know for a start that Gainsborough was just dying to come. And Aberdare.’

  It came to me in a flash.

  ‘I’m less interested in Gainsborough and Aberdare than in Oldham and Leamington,’ I said.

  ‘Well naturally,’ said Lady Glencoe.

  ‘And in Stourbridge, and Nuneaton, and Cumberland.’

  ‘But of course,’ said Edwina. ‘They’re using her quite shamelessly. I wonder you haven’t been on to them long ago.’

  CHAPTER 15

  Two Pieces in the Puzzle

  I had to hand it to the old bag: she’d given me the first real illumination I’d had during the entire case.

  Because, of course, there it was: the five names on Bill Tredgold’s list were not names of places, but people — people with titles. Granted the exalted nature of the circles I had been moving in, I really should have thought of that earlier. And as I came to ponder over this new thought (ignoring the gropings and the pointed invitations from the bundle of old gin bottles snuggling around my midriff), I felt I should have latched on to the connection right from the beginning. I’d been told that Edwin Frere was a younger son of the Earl of Leamington.

  Edwin Frere . . . This brought him very close indeed to the centre of the stage. I began to wish that I had Lady Dorothy’s stiff-necked expertise in the ramifications of the noble families. Who exactly were all these people, and what was their connection with each other?

  I said it aloud: ‘What’s the connection?’

  ‘Oh, darling, I can’t tell you exactly,’ said the thick, slurred voice from below. ‘They’re related somehow, and terribly in with each other, you know?’ She straightened up, which was a mercy. ‘Let’s see — they must be cousins. That’s it. Leamington’s mother and Cumberland’s mother were sisters. Famous Edwardian society beauties, and you know what that means: given the bedroom next to the King’s for a weekend party in Norfolk, then they were made for life.’

  ‘What was their name?’

  ‘Oh darling, don’t stretch the poor old memory at this time of night. Brackenbury. The Brackenbury sisters. One caught an Earl and the other caught a Marquess. I knew them vaguely in my young days, though by then the beauty was definitely a case of the memory lingering on.’

  ‘But what about Stourbridge and Nuneaton?’

  ‘Darling, don’t you know anything? Where have you been all your life? Sons, of course . . . My dear, look at that man! That’s whisky!’

  As luck would have it, an Opera House attendant was passing with my own glass of whisky, still full.

  ‘Here, darling,’ Edwina shrieked to him. ‘Me me me. Pretty please! Oh thank you, you gorgeous boy. Who can have been so ungrateful as to leave all this?’

  ‘I rather think it was me.’

  ‘Ah, saving yourself for me. How sweet!’

  She clearly had no thoughts of the need to save herself for me, for she downed half the glass in a single, experienced swig. From this point on, the interview deteriorated very rapidly.

  ‘Ooops,’ she giggled tipsily. ‘Him plenty potent firewater.’

  ‘But what,’ I said quickly, getting in while she still had a quarter of her wits about her, ‘have they been doing?’

  ‘Darling,’ she said, breathing fumes into my face as she gazed up in drunken infatuation. ‘Everybody knows . . . they’ve been using h
er quite shamelessly . . . We all know that.’

  Everybody knows. Everybody who was part of that ‘all’. Everybody in that tight little circle. Only the police didn’t know, and the press, and the general public. And presumably, it must be said, Buckingham Palace.

  ‘But what,’ I repeated, ‘were they actually using her for?’

  She downed the second half of her drink, and her speech became slurred to the point of inaudibility.

  ‘Darling, I don’t know exactly what it was . . . We all just knew there must be something . . . knowing them . . . the way they had got themselves in . . . always there . . . around her . . . They’d taken her over . . . one doesn’t enquire what . . . Darling, don’t inquisit . . . Let the little bitssh sshtew in her own . . . Put your arms around me, baby . . . Comfort your little ’Wina . . . Sleepybye’s time, eh? . . .’

  And her glass fell on to the sofa, and she slumped down over my lap, not merely asleep, but snoring.

  It’s a hell of an embarrassing position to be in, sitting there stone cold sober with a mountain of pulsating aristocratic flesh sprawled over you and emitting noises like bathwater going down some Brobdingnagian plughole. We were now, thank God, the last guests in the Crush Bar, but I could hardly look the attendants in the face. They all knew the problem, however, and one of them took pity on me.

  ‘Give her two minutes,’ he said, ‘and then nothing will wake her.’

  I did as I was told, then gently disentangled myself. When I was finally on my feet poor Edwina was face down against the arm of the sofa, so as gently as I could I laid the survivor of Glencoe on her back, and left her looking at the ceiling, rather as if she were inspecting the chandelier. I ran a finger round my shirt collar and thanked the attendant.

  ‘I’d rather sit through the bombing of Dresden than go through that again,’ I said.

  ‘You should complain. You were one of the lucky ones,’ the attendant said with gloomy relish. ‘I could tell you some stories . . .’