Death and the Princess

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘We can’t make much of a charge out of that . . . Well, well, I think I can leave that to the Birmingham Police. I’ll have to deliver you over to them too, Jimmy.’

  ‘I knew it. The word of a policeman — ’

  ‘Look, Jimmy, I’ve got no option. This is serious stuff. I’ll put in all the good words for you there are in the book, and I’ll come to your trial, if it comes to that.’

  ‘If I gave you my word of honour I’d stay put here — ?’

  ‘Words of honour went out in the nineteenth century, Jimmy, and I doubt if yours would have buttered many parsnips even then. Besides, would you really want to stay here?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it? Nice little nest it is, and it’s mine.’

  ‘No doubt. But news travels, as you’ve said. Think what happened to Bill Tredgold when he started showing interest. What do you think they’ll try and do when they hear that I’ve been round talking to you?’

  ‘I’ll get my bag. It’s all packed,’ said Jimmy Hopgood.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Figure in the Frieze

  As I said to Garry Joplin the next morning, everything began to make sense, except the main riddle.

  ‘The peculation side of it is not really our baby at all, and I’ve left that in the hands of the Midlands police. With some misgivings, I may say. Left to themselves, they’d probably have slapped a charge on Jimmy Hopgood and regarded the rest of it as pure moonshine.’

  ‘They gave you the “These are respected local citizens” line and all that, I suppose?’

  ‘Not to mention the “These families have been in this area for centuries” line. Why that should seem even to the dimmest intelligence to be a sure-fire certificate for probity I cannot imagine. I had to force them to get hold of the tapes before they’d even begin to take it seriously. Then I had to bring in the threat to the Princess, and emphasize that these toffs were part of it. If they were going to pull rank, I could pull a higher one. They’ll be interviewing some of the Frere family now. When the forelock-touching had to stop! I would like to be there. But meanwhile we’re left with our part of the problem.’

  ‘But we must be nearly there,’ said Garry Joplin, spreading himself out in the only easy chair in my office. ‘Surely we can take it that Tredgold was on to them, and that was why he was killed; that Brudenell was in with them but wanting out, and that was why he was killed. And the obvious deduction is, that one of the gang of five killed them, or very possibly Edwin Frere.’

  ‘I suppose so. But even accepting that, it leaves the big question of which? And I must say, I just can’t make myself happy with that explanation.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For no very pin-downable reason. Just a feeling of dissatisfaction. Did Brudenell strike you as a crook? Did he strike you as someone willing to take big risks? Did he strike you as someone likely to put his whole standing and reputation at risk?’

  ‘No . . .’ admitted Garry, slowly and unwillingly. ‘Definitely not, I suppose . . . He seemed quite honourable, in his rather ridiculous way . . . And something of a coward too. But then, if pressure was put on him . . . What exactly was the connection?’

  I shoved a hefty volume in his direction.

  ‘Oh, it’s all there, in the Landed Gentry. I should have looked him up at once. He was just the sort who would make sure he was in, in full detail. There was a distant connection with the Leamingtons — his father was a second cousin twice removed, or something, of the then Earl, father of the present one. I’ve phoned St Paul’s School: it was that Earl who paid for Brudenell’s schooling.’

  ‘Well, that’s it, isn’t it?’ said Garry, who like all young people is easily satisfied. ‘The present lot called for the payment of an old debt. Brudenell, torn between gratitude and conscience — ’

  ‘Spare me the Victorian scenarios. All right. I agree it could be something like that. But I would much prefer to believe that Brudenell was got into the job by the Old Boy network — he was already part of the royal stable, remember — but that once he was in he was used rather than pressured — used, while he himself remained quite unaware of what was going on. He was a foolish man, and foolish enough for that. All that was involved was the patronage of a perfectly respectable charity, and the odd minor favour to a noble relative. It’s when he became aware of what was behind it all that he began to make trouble.’

  ‘How did he become aware?’

  ‘One of his pals in the real upper crust, more cynical than he was, tipped him off, perhaps? Or the fact that I was around, snooping, asking about the Princess’s engagements, made him more aware? Oh, and McPhail found a letter in his files from one of the other charities for the old, complaining of favouritism.’

  ‘Right. That’s convincing enough. Then he starts looking at his scrapbook and sees just how out of proportion things have been getting, and realizes it could come right back to him. Then he starts to make trouble, and one of them comes along to his flat and shoots him.’

  ‘I think that must be basically right. One of the lesser lights — I mean one of the younger ones — comes to Whitehaven Mansions, perhaps by appointment, and Brudenell charges him with what he thinks has happened. That fits in well with what Malcolm Woodley told us. When this is admitted, Brudenell says he will write immediately to Lord Leamington — I suppose he has had enough to do with him recently to allow even Brudenell to begin his letter “Dear John”, though he must in fact have been something of a revered elder figure for him earlier on. He starts to write that there will be no question of the Princess being used in this way in the future. While he is typing, the other man in the room shoots him.’

  ‘Yes. That fits all right, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. Not as it stands. The murderer — try to visualize it — reaches over, takes Brudenell’s gun from the drawer, stands close beside him and shoots him, while Brudenell has apparently gone on typing. We know he was bent over the machine from the angle of the bullet. Can you imagine it?’

  Obviously Garry couldn’t, but he made the attempt.

  ‘Perhaps he used some trick. Covered up with conversation.’

  ‘Like “What a pretty little gun you have here. Do you mind if I play with it?” No, Garry. If the murderer was apparently any innocent visitor that might wash, but it won’t work for someone Brudenell has just had an argument with over an important matter of principle.’

  ‘What’s your solution?’

  ‘I haven’t got one . . . Another gun? One similar or identical to Brudenell’s?’

  ‘Where the hell would you get one like that in this country?’

  ‘I know, I know. Nothing I come up with works out any better than the solution we’ve got already.’

  In my dissatisfaction at myself I was fiddling with the papers I had found on my desk that morning. I had been so eager to toss the thing about with Garry that I hadn’t looked at them, but now, frustrated by the feeling that something was staring me in the face that I was failing to recognize, I took up one of the reports idly and began to read it.

  ‘Good God!’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Shrewsbury police have actually come up with something. The matter of the two glasses and the bottle of wine. They finally went to the top. I suppose I should have told them to do that at the beginning, remembering the class we’re dealing with. The Carlton — the most exclusive hotel in Shrewsbury. A waiter in the dining-room there remembers a customer, alone, ordering wine and dinner for two. When he came with the meal, the two glasses, the bottle and the customer had disappeared. Three ten pound notes had been left on the table. Doesn’t remember the date, of course, but it would be some time before Christmas.’

  ‘Good Lord. I suppose he remembers nothing at all about the customer?’

  ‘Not in detail. I’d distrust him if he did. But he remembers one whoppingly important fact.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The customer was a lady.�
�

  • • •

  It took a moment or two to rearrange my ideas. That son. of thing always stuns you for a moment. Then, when the mist cleared, I felt that at long last I was no longer clutching at straws, that a coherent pattern was forming in my head.

  ‘Garry, Garry, it could just work out. I could be on the right lines at last. Those guns — ’

  ‘What guns?’

  ‘The identical guns — come on, lad, we were talking about them a minute ago. Those two identical guns, bought at the same time in America, by two people, strange to the country, nervous at being out on the streets, nervous in their hotel rooms — ’

  ‘Good God-’

  ‘Garry. Hand me the Burke’s.’ And I riffled through the pages until I found it. ‘There. The ninth Earl Reresby, who married Pamela Dorothy Frere, the sister of the present Earl of Leamington. Both killed in an air crash in Southern Spain in 1955.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The family name is Lowndes-Gore.’

  ‘Christ! I thought you were talking about the Princess.’

  ‘And Lady Dorothy is their only daughter.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Not Lady Plum-in-the-throat.’

  ‘It must be. It fits. Lady Glencoe talked about them being all around her. This was what she was talking about. I bet Lady Dorothy was brought up by her uncle. Jimmy Hopgood talked about some kind of step-sister to Edwin. I bet that’s her. Go back to what we were just talking about. Brudenell finds out that he’s been used. Asks her to visit him to talk it over. She puts it in the best light possible, but he’s still full of self-important rage. He proclaims his intention of writing to the Earl, and while he types the first words, she pulled out her own gun from her handbag, shoots him, puts his prints on it, and then takes his gun from his desk. She’d visited him before. Perhaps they’d talked about where they both kept their souvenirs of the States.’

  ‘You’ve no sort of case.’

  ‘None at all. But I’ve got more than enough excuse for talking to her. What’s the Princess doing today?’

  ‘Visit to a repertory theatre in East Grinstead. The new lady-in-waiting in attendance.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The new lady-in-waiting. They swap regularly, you know, two of them doing three months or so at a time. Ordinary mortals can only stand so much of the boredom. I heard from Kensington Pal that the new one took over today.’

  ‘Right. Then I’m going over there, case or no case.’

  And leaving Garry behind, because I thought the lady would talk more freely to me alone, I drove through the silvery February sunshine till I turned into Palace Avenue, drove past the check-point and up to the back entrance of the Palace. As luck would have it, a flunkey was loading a leather suitcase into the back of a limousine, and as I got out of my police car Lady Dorothy emerged from the Palace and walked purposefully towards the Rolls. I cleared my throat.

  ‘Oh, Lady Dorothy — ’

  ‘Ye-e-es?’ She looked down her long Roman nose as she forced the word through, and I could imagine icicles forming from it, making her into a weird surrealist portrait. But then I looked into her eyes, and the tasteful make-up could not disguise the pinkness of them.

  ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you?’

  ‘I’m afraid no-ot,’ she drawled, in her characteristic dying fall. ‘I have a train to catch in three-quarters of an hour.’

  The flunkey by the car was three or four yards away, and I murmured:

  ‘Lady Dorothy, I don’t know if you know that your cousin is at present being questioned by the Birmingham Police.’

  She cast me a frozen look.

  ‘Yes. My uncle rang. Some dreadful little man has been helping himself to charitable funds. Nuneaton is helping them look into it. Such a bore for him, but he is Honorary Secretary. I’m sure it will be cleared up in no time.’

  ‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘The dreadful little man taped all his conversations with your cousin, and one or two with your uncle. Not to mention the Cumberlands. I think you had better let me drive you to the station.’

  She hesitated for a moment. It was the first crack I had ever seen in her massive composure. Then she walked over to the flunkey.

  ‘Will you put my luggage in Superintendent Trethowan’s car? He’ll drive me to King’s Cross.’

  Without an ill-bred flicker the flunkey began to transfer her luggage, and we stood there in the sunshine talking as if this were the most casual of encounters. I said: ‘Are you going far?’

  ‘To Scotland. We have a little place there.’

  ‘Very nice,’ I said.

  Then she got in and we drove off.

  ‘We haven’t much time, Lady Dorothy, and I don’t intend to go about things in a polite way, because that takes hours. I want to tell you what I think has been happening. I believe that you have been using your position, through James Brudenell, to ensure that the Princess can be of financial benefit to your family. I take it for granted this has been without her knowledge. I think Brudenell, in spite of the fact that your family was probably instrumental in getting him the job, was also quite unaware of the use you were putting him to. I think you and your uncle and your cousins used him in a very subtle, indirect way, and he was quite happy to be of service. Your family were also, remotely, his, and the present Earl’s father was a sort of benefactor. I don’t know how this state of things came to an end. I do know that the way your family were crowding in on the Princess became general gossip among people of your class.’

  So far she had sat in the front seat gazing stonily ahead of her, but now she blinked at my impertinence.

  ‘However, he came to realize what had been happening — whether by this gossip, or my investigation, or however. When he did begin to suspect, he started thinking about things, he consulted his scrapbook and saw how lop-sided the Princess’s engagements had become. He made discreet enquiries. Eventually he asked you to call at his flat, and he told you it had to stop. To prove his determination, he began to write a letter to your uncle. You shot him with a gun you had bought in America, bought when you were in the Princess’s entourage together with him. Then you substituted it for his own identical or near-identical gun. It may not have been difficult for you. You had killed before. You had learnt from the Princess that Bill Tredgold had been asking inconvenient questions. You heard from your family that he had requested an interview with the so-called Henry Tucker. You made sure that he never got to that interview.’

  She still gazed stonily ahead at the early tourists in Shaftesbury Avenue, as if the story were a fiction, told to while away the journey.

  ‘I have no evidence of this,’ I said. ‘I shall do my damnedest in the weeks ahead to get evidence. I only hope I can do that without harming the reputation of the Princess. You know how some people are willing to seize on anything . . .’

  Her eyes went sideways to my face, and then fixed themselves again on the road ahead. Then suddenly she started to speak, in that low, nasal, squeezed-out voice, quite drained of all obvious emotion.

  ‘My father and mother were killed when I was six. I was a very lonely child, even before that. They were social people, very gay. When they were killed, I went to live with my Uncle John. My nanny was pensioned off, so I had nobody I knew left. My Uncle John had married again, a young wife. They were often in London, or on the Continent. The other children were nearly grown up. The servants looked after me. I was not an attractive child. Then Uncle John and Aunt Elizabeth had a child. A son. He was a lovely baby. I nursed him — more than his own nanny. I taught him, brought him up, loved him. I had never had anyone to love before, but now I could love him more than anything in the world. Edwin grew up such a handsome boy. When he went away to school, I just lived from day to day, waiting for the holidays. When he asked for something, I fetched it for him. When he called me, I ran to him. When he kissed me goodbye and went back to school I cried for days. People are always telling me now that Edwin is no good. I don’t believe
them. And even if I did, it would make no difference. For me he is everything good — the supreme good.’

  She paused, as we were arriving at King’s Cross. I looked at my watch, and then drove on, around the station.

  ‘When my cousin Nuneaton told me they had a plan, he said it was to make some kind of independence for Edwin. I never asked for details. I just did what they told me. I’m sure — quite sure — Edwin himself knew nothing about it. I don’t myself believe any great harm has been done. I expect most people they got money out of knew perfectly well what was going on . . . I don’t know how I should bear it, if members of my family went to prison . . .’

  ‘And the other matter? The murders?’

  Her mouth set itself in an obstinate line. ‘I won’t say anything about those . . . As you say, the Princess must not be harmed.’

  ‘I shall try to see that she isn’t. If it can be avoided.’

  ‘Mr Trethowan.’ Suddenly there was a real urgency in her voice for the first time. ‘May I ask you not to make your investigations too quickly? Too energetically? . . . The cottage to which I am going is very old . . . we cook by gas . . . It’s old and defective.’

  ‘As at Knightley?’

  ‘Yes. As at Knightley. But I shall need time . . . to summon up . . . courage. Will you promise me that?’

  I drove on, silent.

  ‘Mr Trethowan, we are coming to the station again. The train leaves in ten minutes. Mr Trethowan, I ask you to give me a few days. I ask you . . . as a gentleman.’

  Oh God! What a word to choose. She could hardly have hit on a worse appeal, hardly have flung at me a word less likely to ingratiate itself. What had gentlemanliness been, from beginning to end of this affair, but self-seeking and shoddy pretension? But I had no case. I did not know that I ever would have a case. And I wondered what she would have to live for if her family, one by one, was put up in dock, on trial for shabby thefts.

  ‘You have my word,’ I said, pulling up. ‘As a policeman.’

  I stopped by the station entrance, and got out to get her luggage. She summoned a porter by raising a finger, and stood there, rigid, angular, waiting.