by Simon Brett
The Dowager Duchess ceased her scrutiny of her guest, having decided that she’d just have to make the best of it. Her education had not only reinforced the Dowager Duchess’s sense of her own rightness at all times, it had also taught her to find the positives in any situation. No way round it, she couldn’t go hunting. But she could still pass the day amiably enough in another of her favourite pursuits, patronizing a foreigner.
Blotto took the proffered silver stirrup cup from the outstretched tray and realized that he didn’t recognize the footman who was outstretching to proffer it. ‘New, are you?’
‘Yes, milord.’ He had the fastidious look of a man who had just opened the box of a three-week-old Camembert. Blotto liked that in a footman.
‘Do you have a name?’ Most of them seemed to, after all.
‘Pottinger, milord.’
The man’s vowels were very uncouth. Must be odd, thought Blotto in a rare moment of reflection, to grow up making noises like that. Bit like being foreign. Made sense, though, with the servant classes. Left them in no doubt of their inferiority. Every time they opened their mouths, they knew they’d missed out in the breeding stakes. So did everyone who heard them. Same with foreigners too, when you came to think of it. No, by and large, the world was pretty well organized.
‘Pottinger, eh? Well, I hope you’ll enjoy yourself here at Tawcester Towers.’
‘I have no doubt at all that I shall, milord.’
Feeling that he had demonstrated enough common touch for one day – or indeed for the rest of the year – Blotto turned away from the footman and raised the stirrup cup to his mother. She waved gracious acknowledgement and he took a long swallow. Superb. Grimshaw’s recipe ignored conventional wisdom and put in three times as much real brandy as the insipid cherry variety. The result was a drink whose impact ought to have left a neat exit wound at the back of the imbiber’s head.
Energized, Blotto contemplated the blissful day which lay before him. Endless hours of crashing over the local farmers’ fields and through their fences, with at the end the uncomplicated pleasure of seeing a fox torn apart by the hounds. Nothing else to think about. What more could a chap want?
Then he caught his sister’s eye and remembered that he had got something else to think about. Twinks looked magnificent in her black hunting costume, side-saddle on her fine white mount Persephone. She too appeared all set for some carefree hours of carnage. But the look that the perfect blue eyes flashed through the veil at her brother reminded him that their day had another purpose. They were assessing the house guests to find one who fitted the role of murderer.
Now Blotto knew that one way of identifying a murderer was by assessing the motive they might have had for committing the crime, or by recognizing the kind of personality that might behave in such an ungentlemanly manner. But he left that kind of deep intellectual stuff to Twinks. The only clue he’d got, from her, was that the chap they were looking for was tall. So he looked around the meet for someone tall.
Looking at people on horseback is not the best way of assessing their height, because it can be a bit tricky to know which bit is man and which bit is horse. But Blotto knew every animal in the Tawcester Towers stables and how many hands high each one of them was, to the last fraction of a fingernail. (When it came to hunting or cricket his knowledge was encyclopedic; at school it had been the more traditionally academic subjects that let him down.) So, in the moments before the horn sounded for the start of the hunt, he mentally measured every one of the Mitteleuropian entourage. It didn’t occur to him to assess the height of any of the more local house guests. To Blotto’s rather straightforward mind, it was impossible that anyone British could have done something so ghastly as commit murder.
He didn’t have to look far. On horses either side of ex-King Sigismund sat two very tall blond men in black riding habits. They appeared to be identical and, but for the cruel set of their thin lips, might have been good-looking. The way the men’s slate-grey eyes darted back and forth beneath colourless lashes suggested they fulfilled some kind of bodyguard function to the ex-King.
Well, that was pretty damned easy, thought Blotto. Must remember when the day’s hunting’s finished to get Chief Inspector Trumbull to arrest one of those chappies. Or both, just to be on the safe side.
But then the hunting horn sounded. Mephistopheles and Blotto stepped forward, horse and man fused into one quivering mass of muscle and excitement.
Having identified his quarry – that is his human quarry rather than the fox – Blotto had intended during the hunt to keep the ex-King’s bodyguards under pretty close surveillance. But, as ever, the rush of excitement engendered by the mere thought of a fox swept all other thoughts from his head. And then, when the stream of hounds and horses had only smashed down half a dozen farmers’ fences, he was distracted by a more pressing priority.
Ex-King Sigismund’s daughter, the ex-Princess Ethelinde, had been very prettily mounted on a small horse – only just too big to be a pony – called Boxer. Twinks had ridden him for years, and under her he’d been as docile as a bribed local councillor. But sensing a less dominant personality in his saddle, Boxer had quickly recognized the opportunity to misbehave. Lulling the ex-Princess into a false sense of security by taking the first few hedges with exemplary poise at the back of the cavalcade, the horse found his break when they reached a larger field bordering a small wood. Gleefully diverting from the main body of the hunt, he set off at breakneck speed for the shelter of the trees.
Ex-Princess Ethelinde, whose previous riding experience had been on biddable Mitteleuropian trotting mares, had no skills to deal with this new development. The possibility of her having any control over Boxer was a fantasy. It was all she could do to cling on to the pommel of her side-saddle as she was tossed back and forth on the horse’s back like a rag doll.
Seeing her predicament, Blotto did not hesitate. With a tug on the reins and a squeeze of his thighs, he changed his giant hunter’s course and sent him speeding after the hapless ex-Princess. Mephistopheles thundered over the field towards his quarry.
They made it just in time. Boxer knew full well that the low branches of the trees would quickly sweep any irritant rider off his back, which was exactly why he had gone straight for them. And a bough as solid as a metal bar was only inches away from ex-Princess Ethelinde’s pretty face when Boxer’s reins were snatched and he was pulled off course by the galloping Blotto.
The truculent beast was turned to face away from the woods and subdued by a sharp word of reproof. Boxer looked balefully up at Blotto, but knew better than to argue with his authority. The colour came and went from ex-Princess Ethelinde’s cheeks as she struggled to regain her breath and composure.
It was the first time Blotto had really looked at her. As a rule, having been to English public school, he felt awkward in the presence of women outside his immediate family. But, spurred on in some measure by what Twinks had said about the ex-Princess’s interest in him, he did a quick survey of the goods on offer.
In spite of her distressed state, ex-Princess Ethelinde was clearly quite a looker. The hair that peeped from under her riding hat might have looked black, but contrasted with the jetty fabric of her dress, it showed lights of glowing chestnut. Eyes the colour of coffee beans were set in a pale face of exquisitely proportioned features. The lips through which her anxious breaths came and went were as red and luscious as loganberries. The whole package had been assembled with exemplary neatness and skill.
‘Um . . .’ said Blotto. He had found that was a pretty safe opening gambit with women.
‘I cannot thank you enough.’ The ex-Princess’s voice was huskily accented. Must be odd, thought Blotto, growing up somewhere like Mitteleuropia, wasting all that time mastering a foreign language. To get ahead in life, you’re going to have to learn English eventually. Be much simpler and more logical if everyone spoke it from birth.
‘Well . . . you know,’ he said modestly.
‘I knew
you were a fine gentleman, but I did not know you were also a hero.’
‘Oh, biscuits,’ said Blotto. He didn’t like this rather effete Continental habit of praising chaps. Surely the British way was better? Someone does something good, and nobody mentions it. Saves a lot of embarrassment all round.
‘I would not wish,’ the ex-Princess continued, ‘for it to have happened because of my having been in danger, but I am pleased that you and I have a chance to be alone together. During the rest of my stay here there have always been many people about us.’
‘Yes, true.’ But Blotto wasn’t convinced by her argument. At school he’d always been surrounded by other chaps. ‘Mind you, I always think it’s nice to have a crowd around. Don’t you?’
‘Not when you want to be alone with someone, no.’
Her voice was so soft and breathy that Blotto became rather concerned. ‘I say, have you got a touch of the old asthmatics? Or something gone down the wrong way? Would it help if I gave you a bit of a thump on the back?’
‘It might help,’ the ex-Princess said coyly, ‘if you were to hold my hand . . .’
‘Oh, I don’t think holding hands is much good for choking fits, you know,’ said Blotto.
Ethelinde tried again. ‘I have never been so happy as being here at Tawcester.’ She gave full weight to each of the place name’s syllables.
‘No, sorry,’ said Blotto, ‘it’s pronounced “Taster”.’
‘Why?’
He’d never in his life been asked such a peculiar question. ‘Well, because it is,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, glad you’re having a bit of a lark here at the Towers. Lovely part of the world, isn’t it? Best part of the entire world, actually. I mean, I haven’t actually been everywhere else in the world, but some things you just know instinctively, don’t you? I’m sure there’s nowhere in any foreign country that’s as beezer to look at as Tawcestershire.’
‘The world is full of many beautiful things, Devereux.’ Again she accentuated each syllable and made the last one sound like ‘ooks’.
‘Actually, it’s not said like that.’
‘So how is it said?’
Pronunciation clearly wasn’t her strong suit, and he didn’t want to draw attention to the deficiency. So he just said, ‘Everyone calls me Blotto.’
‘Why?’
No question about it, poor girl wasn’t really very bright. ‘Because they do,’ he replied. ‘Tell me one thing,’ he continued, because he had been taught that a good conversationalist asks about the people he’s conversing with, ‘what does it feel like being foreign?’
‘I do not understand your question. In Mitteleuropia I am not regarded as “foreign”.’
‘Maybe not, but you know you are really. I just wondered how it felt . . .?’
‘If you came to Mitteleuropia . . . Blotto . . .’ she pronounced the nickname with care, ‘you are the one who would be “foreign”.’
He roared with laughter. Girl might not be very bright, but she certainly had a sense of humour.
‘I hope one day,’ she said softly, ‘you will come and see me in Mitteleuropia.’
Blotto couldn’t think of any reason why he’d ever want to do that. He’d heard the hunting wasn’t bad out there, but it would have to be exceptionally good to get him to go to a foreign country. Still, his manners told him that probably wasn’t the thing to say to her. So he replied, safely, ‘Sounds hoopee-doopee.’
The dark brown eyes sparkled. ‘You mean you would like to see more of me?’
It had worked the last time, so he fell back on another ‘Sounds hoopee-doopee.’
He didn’t quite know why she then seized his arm with such intensity. Probably still in a state of shock after her narrow escape from the horizontal branch.
‘Oh, Blotto . . .’ the ex-Princess cooed, ‘you are such a man.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed. ‘Have been from birth.’
Then he realized that he was frittering away a good day’s hunting. Having ascertained that ex-Princess Ethelinde was too shaken to continue the sport herself, he summoned a huntsman to escort her back to Tawcester Towers. Thus providing the Dowager Duchess with the bonus of another foreigner to patronize.
4
The ex-King’s Troubles
The Dowager Duchess, taking a break from her patronizing duties, was on the way up to her dressing room before lunch, when she saw Harvey stretching with her feather duster to reach one of the mounted stags’ heads in the Main Hall. The shortness of the housemaid’s skirt and the extent of her stretch meant that she was showing far more leg and underwear than is usually thought appropriate in polite society. The view was being relished by the Tawcester Towers butler who was, not to put too fine a point on it, gawping.
‘Grimshaw,’ the Dowager Duchess’s voice bellowed across the cavernous space, ‘don’t drool!’
‘I am so sorry, Your Grace. I did not see you there.’
‘Evidently And, Harvey,’ the Dowager Duchess bellowed, ‘you will go immediately and change into some undergarments less redolent of an Egyptian cabaret!’
The housemaid dutifully yes-Your-Graced and scurried off towards the back staircase, as if about to make the requested sartorial modification. But she had no intention of changing a thing. When it came to a conflict between the demands of Tawcester Towers’ Dowager Duchess and its butler, Harvey knew where her loyalties lay. She wasn’t about to deprive Mr Grimshaw of anything he liked.
The Dowager Duchess summoned the butler to her with an imperious flick of her finger. ‘Remind me,’ she said. ‘What is the situation between you and Harvey?’
He smiled suavely. ‘We are teetering on the brink of matrimony, Your Grace.’
‘It seems to me, Grimshaw, you’ve been teetering rather a long time. Seventeen years is, by anyone’s reckoning, a pretty long teeter.’
‘One wants to be sure, Your Grace.’
‘If you’re not sure by now, you’re a less solid character than I’d always had you down for. Do something about your marital status, Grimshaw.’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’
‘Make an honest woman of Miss Harvey.’
‘It is too late, I fear, for that to be achieved, Your Grace.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. Well, marry her, anyway.’
‘I will put the matter in train, Your Grace.’
The butler smiled, bowed and retreated towards his pantry, with no intention of making any change in his domestic circumstances. He and Harvey had an understanding. No amount of badgering from the Dowager Duchess would be allowed to change the status quo. And he felt pretty sure that his employer was well aware of that situation.
The Dowager Duchess, who was well aware of that situation, snorted and continued up the stairs.
Then the butler remembered that he did have something of importance to pass on to his employer. ‘Your Grace . . .’
She stopped in mid-stride. ‘Yes?’
‘There was a telephone communication this morning from Chief Inspector Trumbull.’
‘Oh, to let us know that everything was sorted out with that unpleasant business in the library?’
‘No, Your Grace. Chief Inspector Trumbull was very apologetic, but he said that he did need to speak to some of your house guests about the incident.’
‘What nonsense,’ said the Dowager Duchess pettishly. ‘I can’t have my house guests disturbed over something trivial like that. I’ll have to have a word with the Chief Constable about that disruptive little man.’
‘It was at the Chief Constable’s insistence that Chief Inspector Trumbull made his request, Your Grace.’
‘Was it? Then I will certainly have to have a word with him.’
The Dowager Duchess changed direction and stomped back down to the hall and Tawcester Towers’ one telephone. She got through to the Chief Constable and gave him a good ear-bending. She reminded Bertie that she had known him when he was in short petticoats in the nursery. She reminded him that he had been at the same school
as the late Duke and the current Duke. And she reminded him that, even though – because of certain indiscretions by his mother – Bertie Anstruther was not quite the genuine article, he had still been invited to Tawcester Towers on more than one occasion. She emphasized the code of behaviour which exists between people of a certain class and ordered him to rescind the order he had given to Chief Inspector Trumbull.
The Chief Constable refused. The Dowager Duchess was reduced to a state of fury. And when she was reduced to a state of fury, someone had to suffer for it. Ex-Queen Klara and ex-Princess Ethelinde were in for a pretty humiliating lunch.
Lunch on the hunting field was not something of which Blotto approved. On days when he was out on Mephistopheles, he relished a good wallop at the chafing dishes round breakfast time and then, after some seven or eight hours in the saddle, a real belt-buster of a dinner.
But of course on that particular day they’d got Continentals with them, and when it came to their stomachs Continentals were always rather effete. So a halt in the proceedings was called at a hunting lodge on the outskirts of the Tawcester Towers estate. Grooms appeared to arrange temporary accommodation for the horses. It all seemed a ridiculous upheaval to Blotto, who reckoned the only possible beneficiary of the interruption was the fox. Still, a large alfresco picnic had been organized, and Blotto was too well brought up not to take advantage of the proffered break.
He would have expected Twinks to have been equally irritated by the disruption of the day’s hunting, but she seemed almost to welcome the delay. ‘Be a chance to talk to the ex-King’s people in a relaxed way,’ she hissed at her brother as he passed. ‘Maybe pick up some clues.’
‘Oh yes, right, tickey-tockey,’ said Blotto, who had completely forgotten about the investigative intentions of the day. When he was hunting he had great difficulty in bringing his mind to bear on anything else. In fact, when he wasn’t hunting, he had great difficulty in bringing his mind to bear on anything else. Except cricket, of course.
