by Rhys Bowen
“Oh, Your Majesty,” he gasped, his face red with exertion and embarrassment, “I had no idea. I wasn’t expecting . . .”
“It’s all right, Jack,” she said. “Why such a hurry?”
“They’ve sent me down to fetch a doctor and the police,” he said, the words still coming out between gasps. “There’s been a horrible accident. Someone’s been shot.”
Chapter 24
Balmoral estate
August 20
Lady Peebles took charge.
“We must take Her Majesty back to the castle immediately,” she said.
“I’m not likely to faint at the sight of a little blood, Blanche,” Her Majesty said, “but what happened? Who is it?”
“I couldn’t tell you that, Your Majesty. One of the young gentlemen.”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“Looks nasty from what I saw, Your Majesty.”
“Should we not transport him back to the house in the motorcar?” Her Majesty suggested. “It’s close by.”
“I don’t think he can be moved, ma’am,” the servant said. “They’d have taken him to the shooting brakes, wouldn’t they? But they told me to go for the doctor, and the police.”
“Then you must ride back in the motorcar with us,” the queen said. “I suppose we’d only be in the way if we stayed and we don’t want to find that our motor is blocking the way for an ambulance, do we?” She nodded to her ladies. Lady Peebles went to take her arm, then thought better of it.
I slipped away from them and continued up the track, into the mist. I felt an absurd sense of panic. A young gentleman had been shot. I didn’t know whether Darcy was part of that shoot or not, but I found myself praying “Please not Darcy, please not Darcy” as I broke into a run, stumbling over tussocks of heather, rocks and rabbit holes. Figures loomed ahead through the mist but there was an eerie silence. I could hear a lark singing somewhere above the gloom. Then the mist parted and I came upon them. They were standing still, almost posed as a tableau: the king, still holding his gun, at the middle of the scene; three of his sons, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York and Prince George; plus his daughter-in-law, the Duchess of York, standing around him in a protective knot; with the lesser players off to one side. Further off were the servants, holding the bags of game, the spare guns and the dogs, who strained at their leads as they saw me coming and began barking again. There was a look of bewildered shock on all the faces. And out beyond the tableau I could make out something lying on the ground with two people on their knees beside it.
“Who’s that coming now?” The king’s voice carried through the clear air.
“Looks like young Georgie,” someone said, probably the Prince of Wales by the voice.
“Georgie?”
“Binky’s sister, from Castle Rannoch.”
I reached them, a little out of breath from having run uphill.
“Hello, sir.” I nodded to the king. “Her Majesty was coming to see how you were doing, but now she’s gone back in the motorcar with your man to fetch a doctor.”
“I’m afraid it’s a little too late for a doctor,” the king said, in a clipped voice that was fighting to show no emotion. “Poor fellow’s had it.”
“Who is it?” My heart was thumping so loudly I could hardly breathe.
“Some young chap staying with you, I gather,” the Prince of Wales said. “Beastley something. I wouldn’t look if I were you. Not a pretty sight.”
My gaze moved past the group to the smaller tableau on the ground. As I moved toward it I spotted my mother. She had been clinging to Max’s arm, but now she broke away and ran up to me. “Isn’t it too, too horrible?” she said. “That poor boy. So handsome too. What a ghastly thing to have happened. I feel quite weak and nobody thought to bring a flask of brandy. I just hope they take us back to the house soon. I might faint any moment.”
“Mummy, you’re as strong as an ox,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll hold out splendidly.”
“Such an unfeeling daughter,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Max, you will catch me if I faint, won’t you?”
“What must I do, Liebchen?” he asked, the word “faint” being beyond his English vocabulary. Probably also the word “catch.”
I moved past her to see for myself. Hugo Beasley-Bottome was lying, staring up at the sky with a look of utter surprise on his face. There was a considerable amount of blood splashed around him. Kneeling beside him were Darcy and an older man with a neat little gray mustache. Darcy stood up quickly as he saw me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came over to visit the queen,” I said. “What happened?”
The older man stood up a little stiffly, as if he’d been kneeling too long. He was tall and of a military bearing. “I said we should not have gone out in this kind of weather,” he said. “Too risky with the mist coming and going. Young fool must have wandered ahead and got into the line of fire. That’s what happens when you introduce newcomers who don’t know the damned rules. Did you know the fellow?”
“He was staying at Castle Rannoch,” I said, staring down at him with pity and revulsion, “but I’d never met him before.”
“I’d never come across him until a few weeks ago either. He showed up at the house a couple of times,” the man said. “Believe he was rather keen on my daughter.” He came across to me. “I’m Major Padgett, by the way. We have met before. I’ve known your family for years. We’re neighbors.”
“Yes, of course. Georgiana Rannoch. How do you do?”
“And you know this young man?” He indicated Darcy.
“Yes, I do.” Darcy’s eyes met mine. “Hello, Darcy.”
“I was friendly with his father at one time,” Major Padgett said. “Owned a dashed fine stable of racehorses.”
“Not anymore,” Darcy said. “Joined the ranks of the paupers, I’m afraid.”
“Haven’t we all?” Padgett said, and there was bitterness in his voice. “Haven’t we all? Forced to live on the proverbial crust these days. Bad times, what?”
“Look, I don’t think Georgie should be up here,” Darcy said. “Not a suitable place for a woman. Why don’t I take her back to the castle?”
I was about to protest that I could stand the sight of a dead body as well as anybody else, but I saw Darcy’s look. He was trying to tell me something.
“Good idea,” Major Padgett said. “Take all the women back in the first of the motorcars, but we chaps should probably stick around until the local constable gets here. I don’t know what he’ll be able to do—decent fellow, but not the brightest—but one must do the right thing and there has been a death that needs to be officially ruled accidental.”
It was just beginning to sink in that there had finally been a death. Several near misses over the course of a couple of days and now someone had actually died. It could, of course, have been an accident. With this kind of weather conditions someone could have been shot accidentally if he’d wandered off from the main group, lost his bearings in the mist and moved into the line of fire. But it was just one accident too many. And why Hugo, was completely beyond me. Not one of our set. Not someone I had even met before.
“All right,” I said. “I don’t suppose I can be of use up here anyway. I’ll do more good making sure that tea is ready by the time the rest of you get back.”
Darcy took my arm and led me away. “There’s something funny going on here,” he muttered to me. “Hugo Beasley-Bottome wasn’t out ahead of the group. I saw him standing over to one side, next to the Prince of Wales.”
I must have turned white and opened my mouth in surprise. “Well, that explains it, then, doesn’t it?” I whispered. “Someone was aiming at the prince and missed and got Hugo by mistake. Or they thought that Hugo was the prince. They both have blond hair and are similarly dressed.”
Darcy looked at me strangely. “You don’t seem unduly surprised.”
“I think one was expecting it to happen eventually.” I s
topped walking and turned to look at him. “I take it you are my contact here.”
“Contact? Sweetheart, you know I’m all too willing to make any kind of contact with you at any time, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then if you’re not, who is?” I blurted out. I’d probably have made a rotten spy. I tend to say the wrong thing under duress.
“Do you mind clarifying before I decide you have gone potty?”
“Do you mean to tell me that you weren’t sent here by Sir Jeremy?”
He looked at me warily. “I came up here because I thought you were going to be up here, if you want to know. And I had a chance for some free board and lodging with Paolo and friends. And you know I never turn down a free meal. Or the offer of a bed.” He gave me a wicked grin. “And the only Sir Jeremy I know is head of some boring department of the Home Office.” He was reading my face. “That’s the one? You think I might be a pencil pusher for a civil servant?” He reached out and touched me lightly on the arm. The effect on me was unnerving, even in these circumstances. “Look here, Georgie, what’s all this about? Did you know that someone was trying to kill the Prince of Wales?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you,” I said. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“You don’t trust me?” He withdrew his hand from my arm. “I took a bullet for the king and queen, and you still don’t trust me?”
“Of course I trust you,” I said. “Only, Sir Jeremy told me that nobody was to know and that I’d find a contact working undercover at Balmoral.”
“You thought that contact might be me?”
I nodded.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “And this Sir Jeremy asked you to protect the Prince of Wales from a mad assassin, did he? Exactly what training do you have in that department?”
“No, he asked me to keep my eyes and ears open. And it’s not just the Prince of Wales, Darcy. He suspects that someone is trying to kill the heirs to the throne. And now I’ve seen for myself, I have to agree with him.”
“But why ask you?”
“Because he thinks it has to be one of us, not an outsider. And I can observe from the inside, so to speak.”
“Interesting. So what have you observed so far?”
“Until now it’s all been apparent accidents, nothing you could say was deliberate. There was Binky’s foot caught in a trap. The lavatory cistern that crashed down on Babe . . .”
“I heard about that from her husband. Frightfully miffed, he was.”
“Well, wouldn’t you be if your wife was nearly killed by a flying lavatory tank?”
“Not the prettiest way to die. But I gather she survived to flush another day.”
“It’s not funny, Darcy,” I said, going to slap his hand and then thinking better of it. “It fits the pattern of these accidents.”
“So what other accidents have there been?”
“There was the rope that broke when I was climbing with Prince Siegfried—”
“What?” Darcy demanded.
I related the details of the incident. “And you think the rope was deliberately sabotaged?” Darcy demanded. He was no longer flippant. His face was grim.
“I haven’t had a chance to look at it since the accident and I don’t know if I could tell if a rope had been deliberately cut, but Siegfried said the rope had come over from Balmoral with Prince George and they’d laid it out to measure it and it was in fine condition.”
“So do you think someone was trying to get rid of you or Prince Siegfried? I know which I’d choose,” he added, making me smile.
“I was wondering whether it was Prince George that was the target. After all, he brought the rope, and that lavatory tank that fell on Babe—it was in the bathroom he used.”
“I see.” Darcy and I walked side by side in silence. “So I wonder who this contact of yours really is,” he said at last. “And obviously your Sir Jeremy is not quite the boring cove I took him for.”
“So tell me who exactly took part in this shoot.”
“The king and three of his sons. The Duchess of York. Your mother and her fat German friend. Prince Siegfried. Major Padgett and a couple of older men who I believe are His Majesty’s equerries. Then there were the outsiders: Gussie, myself, Hugo, your two hairy cousins—oh, and the American, Earl, turned up with a young Austrian count.”
“That would be Fritzi,” I said. “I’m surprised Earl is here. You’d have thought he’d be sitting at Babe’s bedside.”
“He said he couldn’t turn down the chance to shoot with the king. He’ll be able to dine on that story forever back in America.”
“Yes, I suppose he will.” My mind was already working overtime. Earl so keen to be part of the shoot, with Babe lying in hospital. That didn’t sound like the devoted husband. Was it possible something quite different was going on here? What if Earl had rigged up that cistern to fall on his wife’s head, and Hugo had seen him? I didn’t think that Hugo would be beyond a bit of blackmail. Hugo’s death might have nothing whatever to do with the royal line of succession.
The first of a line of shooting brakes appeared below us at the edge of the moor. Darcy put his hand on my arm and turned me to face him. “Look, Georgie. I don’t like the sound of this at all. I don’t want you involved in it in any way. I hope you weren’t the intended target when that rope broke, but we can’t rule out the possibility that you were. You are also part of the line of succession.”
“Thirty-fourth, Darcy. If someone wanted to be king, he’d have to kill off an awful lot of people ahead of me. Somebody would catch him before he got to number one.”
Darcy was still frowning. “I wonder what motive anyone would have. Surely nobody could believe that he’d wind up as king if he killed off everyone between him and the throne! Maybe it’s a particular grudge against the Windsor family or royalty in general? Somebody the king could have pardoned and didn’t?”
“That’s a thought,” I said, “but it rules out one element: it had to be somebody who was part of our set. An outsider would have been spotted creeping through Castle Rannoch, and how could an outsider have got to today’s shoot? There’s a wall around the estate to start with, isn’t there, and he would certainly have been spotted.”
“Not necessarily,” Darcy said. “As for finding a way onto the estate, that’s not hard. And there’s plenty of woodland cover below the grouse moor and with today’s mist I believe that someone could have crept close enough to shoot somebody.”
“Did you see where he was shot?” I asked.
“In the back and neck. I got there a little late but that’s what Padgett said.”
“I wonder if you can kill somebody with a grouse gun,” I said. “Surely those little pellets couldn’t kill a person, could they?”
“If one of them hit the right spot, it could. If it struck an artery in the neck, for example. There was a lot of blood around.”
“So could you tell if it was pellets or a single bullet hole?”
Darcy shook his head. “When we saw that he was already dead we left him where he was. Didn’t want to tamper with evidence until the police got here.”
“So we should know pretty soon whether it was one of the party with his grouse gun, or an outsider with a different type of weapon.”
“Are you thinking of joining the police force?” he asked, looking amused for a moment. “A nice, well-bred girl like you is not supposed to discuss weapons without feeling faint.”
“That’s rubbish and you know it,” I said. “Think of all the nice, well-bred girls who volunteered as nurses in the Great War and saw the most unimaginable horrors without fainting.”
“That’s true enough, I suppose,” he said, “but I’d be much happier if you didn’t stick your nose into this any further and you stayed safely at home. At least now there will be a police investigation, we hope. Something might come out that we hadn’t suspected: perhaps one of the beaters with a good motive?”
“If i
t was a beater then Hugo would have been shot in the chest, not the back,” I pointed out.
“You know what I’m getting at—someone who works his way into royal service with the goal of harming the family.”
“Sir Jeremy said they had done extensive background checks and come up empty. He said it had to be one of us.”
Darcy shook his head. “We were standing in little groups, but pretty much in a line. And we had a line of beaters out in front of us. And gillies behind us with the dogs. And when you think about it, who the deuce among us would want to kill? The only people I know nothing about are the American and the Austrian count.”
“Would you have noticed if anyone had dropped back?” Darcy shook his head. “Can’t say I would. When you’re intent on waiting for the next grouse to be flushed you don’t look around.”
We had reached the cars. Darcy took my hands in his. “You go on back to the house. I should stay with the shooting party until the police arrive. And Georgie, don’t go off on your own. Stay with the queen and the ladies, understand? The police will be coming now. This is in their hands.”
We stood there for a moment, holding hands, just looking at each other.
“I owe you an apology,” I said. “I felt sure you were the one who tipped off Sir William to my stupid blunder.”
He actually blushed. “Ah well, I’m afraid that was me.”
“See. I knew it.” I tried to snatch my hands away. He held on tightly.
“Listen, Georgie, the only reason I called him was to tell him there had been a horrible mistake and if the press got wind of anything, he was to tell them not to print. I was protecting you, nothing more.”
“I see. Then you weren’t part of their nefarious scheme to trick me into coming to Scotland and do their dirty work for them?”
“I promise you I wasn’t.”
We looked at each other again. “And did you really come to Scotland just to be near me?”
He grinned. “I knew you were due at Balmoral soon, so I thought I’d take my chances.”
