Crowned and Dangerous

by Rhys Bowen

  “Again we’ve no way of proving it,” Darcy said. “Oh no. I can see that Zou Zou has been shopping!”

  Zou Zou emerged from the bakery while a boy followed her, his arms piled high with boxes. Darcy ran across the street to open the back door for her. I was about to follow when a voice behind me said, “Well, if it isn’t the young lady. What perfect timing. I’ve been dying to have a little chat with you.” And it was the female American reporter I had met at the Harp. She was wearing a raincoat and had a scarf tied over her blond curls. And she was giving me a big friendly smile. “I’d just love to have a little chat, honey. Do you have a minute? I believe the pub is shut, with your stupid licensing laws, but we could go into the tearoom. They do cream buns. Much better than we can get at home.”

  “I’m afraid I’m with friends and I can’t just desert them,” I said.

  “With a special friend, so I gather.” She gave me a knowing look. I was noticing that in spite of the blond hair her eyes were dark. Not a natural hair color, I suspected. But then neither was my mother’s. She moved closer and touched my arm. “So tell me, he’s the son of the lord, isn’t he? I don’t suppose you could use your charms to get me an interview with his lordship? The police have set up a barrier now that everyone has realized the lord has been released and is at home. We can’t get anywhere near the place. So frustrating.”

  “I can assure you that the last thing his lordship wants is to talk to any reporters,” I said. “Please respect his privacy. You can understand what a difficult time it must be for him.”

  “So tell me,” she went on, lowering her voice. “Do you think he did it? Is he going to plead guilty when it comes to trial?”

  “I’m sure he’s not, and I’m sure he didn’t do it,” I replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .” I broke away from her and was returning to the Rolls, where boxes were still being loaded onto the backseat, when I spotted a familiar figure parked outside the Harp pub. It was Barney the taxi driver. He waved when he saw me.

  “Still here, then? So you found yourself a place to stay?”

  “I did, thank you,” I said.

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? And I notice she’s still here,” he said, nodding across the street to where my American lady lingered, watching me.

  “Was she the one who gave you the pound tip?” I asked, remembering.

  He grinned. “That’s the one. Of course, after her there have been other daft Americans who don’t know our money and hand out big tips. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s been like early Christmas with all the comings and goings. I just brought in another Yank now. From Chicago, of all places.” He paused, frowning. “Now, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” he said. “The lady was from Chicago too.”

  “Well, that’s where Mr. Roach was from,” I said, “so I suppose it would be big news there.”

  He laughed. “In Chicago? That’s where the gangsters are, isn’t it? Killing each other left and right every day.”

  Then a thought crossed my mind. I went closer to the taxi. “Barney, are you the only taxi that comes out from Kildare?”

  “For the most part, yes,” he said.

  “Do you remember driving an American professor—a big man—called Professor Peabody?”

  He screwed up his face in concentration. “I remember a big chap once,” he said. “That’s right. Had me drive him out here and then back again. He wanted to look at the digging that was going on. But that was a while ago now.”

  “So you drove him back to Kildare and he hasn’t come back since?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” he said.

  “And you haven’t seen him around Kildare?”

  “Oh, I’d have heard if a strange American was hanging around in Kildare,” he said.

  So that put a damper on our theory that Professor Peabody was somehow involved in the murder, unless he hadn’t come through Kildare on a second occasion, which was quite possible. I thanked Barney and was hurrying back to the others in the Rolls when I saw a figure slink past me, heading for the pub. It was Mickey Riley.

  Chapter 31

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5

  A tragedy in Kilhenny. Or was it?

  “Of course, Professor Peabody could have hired himself a car in Dublin,” Darcy said when I related the conversation as we drove off again. “And who was that blond woman you were talking to?”

  “The American reporter I met when I first arrived,” I said. “She was trying to sweet-talk me into arranging an interview with your father. I gather the police have finally stopped reporters from bothering him.”

  “Thank heavens for that,” Darcy said. “At least the Garda have done something useful.”

  Zou Zou was now peering anxiously out of the car window. “Oh dear. My poor little aeroplane. Do you think we can find someone to move it before it gets too cold and wet?”

  “I think planes are made to fly through the elements, aren’t they?” Darcy said. “And we did cover the cockpit.”

  “But the wings . . . they are so delicate. They are not made to be buried in snowdrifts. We have to find some nice boys to move it into a barn or a stable.”

  “We can try the stables,” Darcy said. “Someone might still be working there. Or we can see who we can find in the village.”

  We rounded the corner before the castle and a constable stepped out from behind the hedge, holding up a hand for us to stop.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but nobody is allowed this way at the moment. Can you please go around?”

  “I happen to live here,” Darcy said. “I’m Lord Kilhenny’s son and these are my friends.”

  The constable frowned, considering this. “I was told nobody was to pass,” he said.

  “No newspaper reporters or gawkers or onlookers,” Darcy said. “But I am actually living at the lodge and we’re bringing back food for my father. You can’t stop me.”

  The constable was looking clearly uncomfortable now. “We’ll have to get an okay from one of my superiors, sir,” he said, rolling his r’s with the strongest Irish brogue. “I’m just obeying orders as they were put to me.”

  “And where would we find one of your superiors?” Darcy snapped, his patience wearing thin, I could tell. “Back in Dublin?”

  “Oh no, sir. Chief Inspector Callahan is up at the castle right now.”

  “Then may we drive up to the castle to find him?”

  Again the wrinkled brow. “I’m not sure about that, sir. It’s my belief that nobody is allowed onto the castle grounds. It’s a crime scene, isn’t it? A murder scene.” He sounded very excited to be saying this.

  “Constable, I’m not going to sit in this motorcar while we freeze to death and get buried under feet of snow,” Darcy said. “And I need to speak with Chief Inspector Callahan anyway. I’ll take my chances.” And he drove right past the worried-looking constable and up to the castle gate.

  I noticed that nobody was working at the dig. It was covered in tarpaulins on which puddles had collected. The gates, for once, were open and a black police vehicle was parked just inside. A driver stood beside this, looking miserable in the freezing conditions.

  “We need a word with the inspector,” Darcy said. “Is he up at the castle?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied. “But you’re not allowed to—”

  Darcy had already driven past him, up the driveway, and drew up at the front entrance. Another Garda constable was stationed there and came rushing down to intercept us.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I’m Darcy O’Mara. This is my family home and I want a word with the inspector,” Darcy said. “Please go and fetch him if you won’t let us in.”

  “Very good, sir.” The young man looked scared. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

  “I should have thought that was obvious,” Darcy sn
apped. “It is about my father’s wrongful arrest and recent developments. And also about the fact that I am not being allowed to drive to my own home.”

  The man swallowed hard. “I’ll go and see if he’s available.”

  Darcy got out of the car. We waited inside. The snow was now falling quite heavily and snowflakes lingered on Darcy’s dark curls. But in spite of the cold the princess and I had both wound down our windows to be able to hear better. After a few minutes Chief Inspector Callahan appeared. “You wanted to see me, O’Mara?” he asked.

  “I did, sir. First there’s the small matter that your constable won’t let me drive down the lane to my father’s house where I’m currently staying. I’ll be grateful if you’ll pass along a message that I’m allowed to my own home.”

  “Oh yes. Of course,” he said. “The men tend to take their jobs too literally at times. Not always the brightest buttons in the box, if you get my meaning.”

  “Thank you.” Darcy nodded. “I appreciate it. And as to the other matter: We’ve been to the American embassy again, so we’re fully up to date with developments in this case. Now that we know this man was clearly a fugitive, possibly a criminal, may we conclude that you are finally looking beyond my father as a possible suspect?”

  “We are making our inquiries,” the inspector said, with a guarded expression on his face. “In fact the reason my men are here at the moment is to try to find any evidence of the man’s real identity.”

  “Any luck?” Darcy asked.

  “Not a trace, so far,” the inspector said. “The one thing that is evident is the lack of personal papers. No correspondence, nothing.”

  “He was a man in hiding,” Darcy agreed. “Not wanting to be found. But somebody found him and killed him.”

  “Hold on a moment. You can’t escape the fact that only your father’s fingerprints are on that club,” Callahan said.

  “Rather strange that, wouldn’t you say?” Darcy said. “A club that’s thousands of years old and has only one set of fingerprints on it. And by the way, my father can tell you why his prints were on it. He went to see Roach that afternoon and the club was lying on the table. He found out that Roach was planning to sell it. He told him he couldn’t do that. It was a family heirloom of great value. While he was talking he picked up the club.”

  “And came back that evening to do the deed,” Callahan said.

  “Oh come now, Chief Inspector,” Darcy said. “My father is not a stupid man. If you were going to kill somebody, would you leave the weapon, with your fingerprints on it, lying beside the body? You’d take it and burn it or bury it.”

  “Unless he was surprised by someone or something and had to drop it and flee,” the inspector said smugly.

  “It’s my belief that my father was set up for this crime. It was planned to make him look like the murderer,” Darcy said. “And I’m also beginning to suspect that Mickey Riley either knew about it or was part of it. The American embassy is investigating him too, so it will be interesting to hear what they discover.”

  “Mr. Riley already told us he found this job through an employment agency,” Inspector Callahan said.

  “Have you confirmed that with the agency?” Darcy asked.

  A frown crossed the inspector’s face. “I would appreciate it if you left the investigation to those who are trained to do it. I can understand your desire to help your father, but frankly you’re not doing so by poking your nose where it’s not wanted. So go home and leave us to get on with our work.”

  “I’ll be happy to go home if I’m allowed to pass by your constable,” Darcy said sweetly.

  “Of course. Tell him you have my permission.”

  Darcy started to walk away, then turned back. “I don’t suppose you’d like me to take a look around the castle to see if I notice anything suspicious? Or anywhere Roach might have hidden documents? I used to have several secret hiding places here when I was a child.”

  I could see that Chief Inspector Callahan was in an agony of indecision. Then to my surprise he finally nodded. “That might not be a bad idea, given the circumstances. Do you want to come in right now?”

  Darcy looked back at us. “I have my two friends in the motorcar,” he said. “I can hardly leave them outside on a day like this.”

  “Then I suppose they can wait inside the castle. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Shouldn’t take long?” I muttered to Zou Zou. “Darcy told me the castle had forty-seven bedrooms.”

  Darcy came down the steps and opened the doors for us. “The inspector will let me take a look around,” he said. “He suggests you wait inside rather than in the Rolls.”

  “How kind of him.” Zou Zou flashed the chief inspector one of her dazzling smiles. I thought I saw him blush a little. We mounted the flight of worn steps and entered the castle. My first impression reminded me a lot of Castle Rannoch. We were in a towering entrance hall with a broad flight of stairs ascending to a gallery. The ceiling was vaulted oak and the chandelier that hung down hardly managed to make the room any lighter. The only windows were pencil-thin slots, dating from the Middle Ages. And it was freezing cold, hardly any warmer than the motorcar had been. What was more, I had left my traveling rug on the seat. We stood with a Garda constable watching us as the inspector and Darcy disappeared up the stairs. I tried desperately to think of an excuse to follow him because I’d have loved to see the scene of the murder for myself, and for once I knew that Mickey was out of the way, but I couldn’t come up with anything plausible. We heard their voices echoing faintly as they made their way from room to room. Then silence for quite a while.

  “My God, it’s dreary in here, isn’t it?” Zou Zou said. “No wonder Lord Kilhenny sank into bleak depression. I would have thrown myself from the battlements by now.”

  “Darcy said there is a later addition with more modern rooms at the back of the castle,” I said, “and it would be a lot more cheerful with a fire in the grate.”

  “Now who is looking on the bright side?” she asked with a wicked smile. “But then you have a vested interest in the place, don’t you? You could well wind up living here one day.”

  That made me stop and think. Golly. Did I really want to live here one day? In a cold castle in an Irish backwater? It was something I hadn’t really considered before. The thought of being married to Darcy had been so delicious that I hadn’t stopped to think what being Lady Kilhenny one day might mean. Then I decided there were too many things to worry about right now without thinking of the future. I had just come to this conclusion when I heard the voices again and Darcy came back down the stairs with the inspector.

  “No luck, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I did find a slingshot and two conkers in one of my hiding places.”

  “Thank you for looking, anyway,” the inspector said. He sounded quite pally after the frosty reception he’d given Darcy earlier. Perhaps he was preparing himself to admit that he was wrong and that Lord Kilhenny did not kill Mr. Roach.

  “There is something else, Chief Inspector,” I said, wondering as I uttered the words whether I should have kept quiet. “If we now think an outsider came here to kill Mr. Roach, we have been told of two strangers seen near the castle who might be of interest. One was a big man who claimed to be Professor Peabody of the University of Southern Nebraska. He visited the archeological site across the lane, but the students who were working there got the impression that he didn’t know much about Irish archeology. What’s more, there is no University of Southern Nebraska, apparently. And then there was a young priest who inquired about Mr. Roach. One of your constables, Constable Byrne, wasn’t it? Said that he didn’t know of any young priests in this area. So either of them could have come looking for Roach.”

  The inspector was watching me intently. “The young lady with royal connections, I remember. But this still doesn’t answer the question of how any of them could ha
ve gotten into the castle. Riley says nobody came and he would have had to let them in.”

  “It is possible to scale the wall in places if one puts one’s mind to it,” Darcy said.

  “But it’s not exactly easy to get into the building itself, is it?” Callahan said.

  “Riley said the servants’ entrance wasn’t always locked,” Darcy said.

  The inspector’s face remained passive. “I shall take what you’ve said under advisement. In the meantime I suggest we all wait and see what the Americans turn up. Perhaps the man wasn’t even American. Perhaps we’ll never know.”

  And with those encouraging words he turned to the constable who was hovering by the door. “Please show these people out, Harris.”

  “Well?” I asked as we drove back to the gates. “Did you see anything of interest? Did he let you look at the scene of the crime?”

  “To be frank it was so dark everywhere that I couldn’t see much,” he said. “I didn’t notice anything obvious missing from the walls. Of course, I hadn’t been home here for many years now. It’s funny, but things always seemed so much bigger as a child. The library was smaller than I remembered it, but then, we were not encouraged to go into the library. It was my father’s realm.”

  “Goodness, the snow is really coming down now, isn’t it?” Zou Zou said. “Reminds me of Poland. I can’t tell you how dreary our winters were there.”

  The constable guarding the lane leading to the lodge was looking decidedly miserable now and a coating of snow had formed on his helmet. We relayed permission from Callahan and were allowed to pass. Night was falling fast and no lights shone out from the lodge. Zou Zou had to go and see her aeroplane, which already had a coating of snow. At her bidding, we drove past and down to the stables but they were deserted. So the three of us maneuvered the plane under the trees, where it would at least be more protected.

  We were starting to look like three snowmen by the time we made for Darcy’s father’s front door. Lord Kilhenny had fallen asleep in front of the fire. A glass of whiskey, half empty, stood on the table beside him. He looked older than his years and I felt an intense wave of pity for him. Then I reminded myself that his loneliness was of his own doing. He had kept his remaining children away and condemned himself to this life.