Royal Flush (22 page)

“I see.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips but not her eyes. “Well, I suppose I can give you some idea of what we have to offer. As it happens we do have a couple of vacancies at present. If you’d please follow me.”

As she walked ahead I grabbed Granddad. “See if you can find a Maisie McPhee,” I whispered. He shot me an inquiring look.

Matron looked back. “Come along. This way,” she said briskly. She led us down a long, well-lit hallway. The doors on either side had small windows in them and nameplates on them. I tried to glance in each.

“So do you have many men of my uncle’s age?” I asked. “He is a very sociable chap. He’d like to be able to play chess and talk to other old codgers.”

She gave me a warning look, glancing back at Granddad, who was deliberately trailing. “Most of our residents are no longer able to play chess and chat. Are you sure your relative wouldn’t be happier in a residential facility for the elderly?”

“But he wanders,” I whispered. “He tries to escape all the time. The staff found him standing by the road, trying to hitchhike, wearing only his combinations.”

“Ah. I see.” She turned into a light, open area with armchairs and low tables. There was a piano in the corner and a radio on a side table. “Our more—uh, sociable residents usually meet in the common room.”

A few of the chairs were occupied. One old man was wearing what looked like a nightcap and had a tumbler of what seemed to be whiskey on the table beside him. He looked up as we came in.

“Lunchtime yet?” he asked.

“You’ve just had lunch, Mr. Soames. It was grilled plaice, remember?”

A hollow-eyed woman looked up. “I want lunch too,” she said. “They try to starve us here, you know. No food for weeks.”

“Rubbish, Lady Wharton. You do tell awful stories.” Matron attempted a laugh.

“Could we have a tour of the kitchen and dining room?” I asked. “Uncle is very particular about his food.”

“Our food is of the highest quality, my lady,” Matron said, “and the kitchen staff will just be washing up after luncheon, but I can show you the dining room.” She led us through the common room and into a pleasant room set with small tables. It had windows on either side, opening onto a view of the hills, and the ceiling was half timbered.

“You see. Pleasant views. Just what your uncle ordered,” she said with a smile to him.

“So how many other elderly men do you have in residence at the moment?” I asked.

Did I detect a slight hesitation? “Let me see. Colonel Far quar, Mr. Soames . . . I believe there are ten of them. And we have fifteen ladies in residence. Ladies always seem to live longer than men for some reason, don’t they?” Another attempt at a smile.

“And if I could just peek at the kitchen,” I said. “Is it through here?” I went through the doorway without waiting for permission. Startled kitchen staff looked up as I came in. It was all perfectly all right—spotless, in fact—and the smells were not unpleasant. In fact if I really had a senile uncle, it would not have been a bad place for him.

“My lady, I really don’t think—” Matron actually grabbed my arm. “We shouldn’t disturb them now. Carry on, everyone.”

She almost dragged me out of the kitchen, then looked around. “Where has your uncle gone?”

Granddad had done a bolt. Good for him!

“Oh no,” I said. “You see what I mean? He’s always trying to run away. He can’t have gone far.”

Matron was already running, her heels tapping on the bare floor. “James, Frederick, there’s an old man loose in the building,” she called and two young men set off in pursuit.

“Don’t let him get out. We’ll never find him in all that shrubbery,” I called after them. One changed course and ran for the front door. I followed the other one up the stairs. We ran along one hallway, then out to the side of the E. I slowed and tried to read nameplates on the doors, and to glance inside each room. Then I heard shouts and sounds of a scuffle. I sprinted around the corner, to see two young men in white coats wrestling Granddad into submission. They appeared to be using what I deemed to be considerable force.

“Let go of him!” I shouted.

Matron appeared, breathing hard, behind us. “He’s not one of ours yet, Sims,” she called. The young men dropped Granddad’s arms. He stood there giving a good imitation of being terrified. I went up to him. “You are naughty, Uncle,” I said, taking his hand. “You promised not to run away, remember? Come along.”

Matron caught up with us, breathing heavily. “That was silly, Mr. Hume,” she said. “You don’t need to run away. You are among friends. You’ll be well taken care of here.” She drew me to one side. “I see that he is a handful,” she whispered. “If you’d like to leave him with us now, perhaps?”

“No, I think he’d like to go home and have a chance to say good-bye to his staff and set his affairs in order first,” I said hastily, drawing him closer to me. “And we haven’t yet had a chance to see a vacant room?”

“Oh yes. We were interrupted, weren’t we? I believe the one in Sunshine wing is the closest, and you said it was important for your uncle to receive morning sunlight. James, would you run ahead and make sure the room is ready to receive visitors?”

The young man ran ahead while we walked slowly back to the spine of the E and then along its length to the other wing. As we walked along this wing I spotted the nameplate
M. McPhee
. I tried to peer in through the window but all I could see was a lump in a bed.

“Ah, here we are,” Matron said, and opened the door to an empty room. It was spartan, to say the least. “We encourage our guests to bring their own furniture. It makes the transition from home easier for them.”

“Very nice,” I said. “Quite suitable, in fact. I think he’ll resist the idea at first, but he’d be quite happy here.” I turned to smile at him again. Matron was standing behind him this time, blocking any chance of escape. “I will talk this over with my brother, the duke, and we will contact you as soon as possible with our decision.”

“We look forward to your uncle joining us, my lady,” she said with a groveling smile now.

As we came back along the hall I appeared to notice the nameplate for the first time. “Good heavens. That wouldn’t be Maisie McPhee, would it?” I asked.

“Yes. Did you know her?”

“If it’s the same one, she used to work for us years ago, when I was a small child,” I said.

“I don’t believe it could be the same person,” the matron said.

“I’d recognize her right away,” I said, “and perhaps she’d still remember me. She was very kind. Very nice.”

I had my hand on the doorknob, attempting to open the door.

“I don’t think she’d know you, my lady,” the matron said, hastily removing my hand from the door. “She doesn’t know anybody any longer.”

The noise outside her door had roused Maisie McPhee. She sat up in bed and stared anxiously. I was surprised to see a young-looking, unlined face, light blue eyes and hair that had once been red, but was now faded and streaked with white.

“It’s all right, dear,” Matron called through the closed door. “You’re quite safe here. Go back to sleep.”

“But she’s so young to be here,” I said. “What a shame.”

Matron nodded. “Advanced syphilis, I’m afraid,” she said in a low whisper. “Nothing can be done.” She took my arm and led us away.

Chapter 31

The road home from Braemar
August 21

I heaved a big sigh of relief as we drove out of those gates and turned onto the road again. Granddad beside me gave a similar sigh. “Blimey, ducks, what I do for you. I thought I’d had me chips then. I thought they were going to drag me away and lock me up on the spot. Talk about giving you the willies. That place certainly did.”

“Yes, it did, didn’t it? Although it was all very nice and clean and bright. You were brilliant, by the way. Absolutely perfect. Now I can see where Mummy got her acting ability from.”

“Go on.” He almost blushed. “I just had to stand there and look stupid.”

“But you ran away and gave us a chance to see more of the building. We’d probably never have gone upstairs if you hadn’t done that. And I’d never have seen Maisie McPhee.”

“Who’s she when she’s at home, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But Veronica Padgett goes to visit her regularly, and she doesn’t strike me as the philanthropic type who would visit an old servant.”

“What makes you think she’s an old servant? I thought they were all posh types in there.”

“Maisie McPhee is the sort of name servants around here would have,” I said. “But why would they pay to put an old servant in a place like Castle Craig?”

Then suddenly it hit me. “Unless—she’s Ronny’s real mother. Mrs. Padgett said Ronny was adopted. What if one of their servants got into trouble and they did the kind thing and adopted the baby?” After all, she had remarkably similar coloring to Ronny’s. But why would they have continued to support her all these years, and end up by keeping her at a very expensive institution—unless Major Padgett was the father, of course.

Everything started to fit into place. Major Padgett who had had what was described as a scandal or a breakdown and been shipped off to a cottage on the estate. What if it had come out that he had contracted syphilis, then fathered a child of a maid? Queen Victoria could stand no kind of immorality. Had she done the kind thing and kept him in her service but effectively banished him? And syphilis often led to insanity, didn’t it? Was Major Padgett really insane?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Granddad said.

“Just thinking things through and they are beginning to make sense,” I said. “I hope Sir Jeremy turns up soon. I suppose I’d better put everything in a letter and leave it for him at the Braemar inn if he doesn’t come by tonight.”

As we had been talking the clouds had come in, blotting out the mountains and covering the road ahead in wet mist. I gripped the steering wheel tightly as the road snaked down a series of hairpin bends.

“I’m starving,” I said after a while. “I missed lunch.”

“Don’t talk about food now, please,” Granddad said.

I glanced at him. He did look rather green. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you got sick in motorcars,” I said.

“I didn’t know until now, did I? I ain’t ridden in too many cars in my life, you know, and never on roads like this, and never with someone driving the way you drive.”

“I drive jolly well,” I said.

“I’m not disputing it, ducks, but you drive ruddy fast, and all these bends too.”

“Sorry.” I smiled and slowed to a crawl around the next bend. “Not too much further now, I promise. See. There’s a glimpse of the loch down below.”

We came around another bend and there was the loch, stretching black and gloomy before us. The clouds were darker now and it looked as if it might rain any second. As we approached the jetty, Granddad said, “ ’Ere, what’s going on over there?”

A small crowd had gathered and I saw that the blue speedboat was in the water again, in the process of being tied up at the dock. I pulled off the road and we got out, pushing our way through the crowd.

“What’s happening?” I asked. “Is everyone watching the speedboat?”

“No, my lady. Someone’s just seen the monster,” a young boy said. I recognized him as the son of one of our estate workers.

“Seen the monster? What rubbish. Who saw it?”

“Ellie Cameron,” he said, pointing to a slightly older girl, now standing gripping the arm of a friend.

“What’s this about a monster, Ellie?” I asked.

She dropped a hasty curtsy. “I saw it, I really did, my lady. I was watching yon boat and then these strange waves started and I thought it was just, you know, the wake and the wind to begin with, but then I saw this monstrous head come out above the wave, and I screamed.”

“A monstrous head?” I smiled. “I think you’ve a good imagination, Ellie.”

“Och no, your ladyship. I know what I saw. A great big whitish thing it was, in the middle of the lake.”

“Well, there’s nothing there now,” I said. “See, it’s quite calm.”

The boat crew were climbing onto the dock, when suddenly someone shouted, “Look there! What’s that?”

Bubbles were rising from the black water. Then something broke the surface—something large and white. Someone screamed. Then someone else shouted, “It’s a body!”

The boat’s crew scrambled down into the boat again and were in the process of starting the engine when someone shouted, “Don’t worry. I’ll get it. Stay where you are.”

I knew that voice. It was Darcy, the last person I expected to see here. I spotted him just in time to watch him strip off his jacket and dive from the dock, swimming out to the body with masterful strokes. We watched as he grabbed hold of a leg and then towed it in to shore.

“Stand back, please,” he said, breathing heavily as he reached the shallows and stood up. “And somebody go and get the police.”

Several boys ran off while the rest of the crowd watched in fascinated silence to see what would happen next. It was a strange picture: Darcy standing in the shallows dripping wet, his shirt and trousers clinging to him like a second skin, looking so very much alive, while behind him, bobbing in the waves, was the bloated body of Godfrey Beverley, clad only in his undergarments.

At that moment Darcy spotted me. “Georgie.” I watched his eyes light up, much to my satisfaction. “Do you have a car here? Could you go home and telephone the police?”

“It’s all right, mister,” one of the boys said. “Freddie Mac-Lain is already off away on his bicycle to the public telephone box.”

“Do you want help with . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence properly, staring with fascination at the bloated, bobbing thing in the water.

“Only in keeping everyone away,” he said. “I’m going to drag him up on dry land and then we’ll try not to disturb him until the police are here.”

“You think it might be foul play?”

“What else could it be?” he muttered, grunting with exertion as he dragged Godfrey’s body ashore.

“He was always creeping around at the water’s edge, trying to listen to other people’s conversation,” I said. “He could have slipped, fallen and knocked his head on a rock.”

“Possibly. But why was he spying on other people?”

“He’s Godfrey Beverley, the gossip columnist. Trying to find the next scoop.”

“Then I say he found it and paid for it with his life,” Darcy said grimly. “If there had been no other death around here, then I’d be prepared to call it an accident, but after what we are learning . . .”

He broke off as the boating party made their way down the jetty toward us and we heard a clear voice exclaiming, “Oh no. I simply can’t go past that thing! I can’t even look. Somebody come and give me a hand.”

It was, of course, my mother, looking ridiculous stage-nautical in a navy and white sailor suit and matching hat. Several male hands obliged to help her down from the jetty. She started tottering over the stony beach in high-heeled platform-soled shoes until she saw me.

“Darling,” she called, rushing to my arms, “isn’t it too, too terrible? It is Godfrey, isn’t it? That poor little man. I still can’t believe it.”

“You loathed him,” I reminded her.

“Yes, but I certainly didn’t push him into the water and drown him,” she said. “Much as I’d like to have done. He really does look more disgusting in death than in life, doesn’t he? Like a malformed balloon. Do you think he’d pop if one stuck a pin in him?”

“Mummy, don’t be awful,” I said.

“I’m just trying to make light of the situation because it’s so horrible,” she said. “God, I feel quite faint. I need a brandy. I do wish Max would leave that stupid boat alone and hurry up.”

“Come on, old girl. Come and sit in the car,” Granddad said, appearing suddenly from the motorcar.

“Good lord, Father—what on earth are you doing here?”

“What’s this with the ‘Father’ nonsense? I always used to be plain old Dad and that’s good enough for me. Always did give yourself airs and graces, didn’t you?”

“Don’t forget I used to be a duchess, Father,” Mummy said, glancing around in case this conversation was being overheard. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Keeping an eye on your daughter, which is more than you’ve ever done.”

“Now don’t start that again,” she said. “Some of us were just not cut out for motherhood. I did my best and she’s turned out all right, hasn’t she?”

“She’s turned out a treat, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, let’s not argue now. Come and sit in the car. You look like you’ve had a nasty turn.”

“Yes, I think perhaps I should sit down until Max gets here.” She allowed herself to be led to my estate car and collapsed with great drama into the front seat. I turned my attention back to the dock to see if Max was anywhere in view and was amazed to see Paolo was coming toward me, with Belinda clutching his arm.

“Oh, Georgie,” Belinda cried, letting go of Paolo’s arm and rushing up to me. “What a horrid thing to have happened. I was looking out of the back of the boat and it just sort of bobbed to the surface and I couldn’t think what it was to start with.”

I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It is rather beastly, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “So lucky Paolo didn’t strike the body when he was going really fast. He’d have killed himself for sure.”

“But what is Paolo doing back here?” I asked. “The last I saw of him he was being bundled into a police car.”

“They had to let him go,” she said, with a triumphant toss of the head. “He proved to them that he was actually dining with people on the other side of London when the poor girl was run down. Of course I knew he couldn’t possibly have done anything like that.”

Paolo took her arm. “Come,
cara
. I do not wish to be here when the police arrive. I have had enough of English police.”

“These are Scottish police,” I said.

He shrugged. “English, Scottish, all the same. All very stupid and cannot see past the end of their noses. I kept telling them they make a mistake and somebody steals my motorbike, but they do not listen.”

“I’ll see you later, Georgie,” Belinda said, as Paolo dragged her away.

Max arrived with Digby Flute, and my mother extricated herself from the car to fly to his side. “Max, darling. It’s been such a horrible shock. Take me away from here,” she said, giving a fabulous rendition of a tragic heroine about to expire.

“Do not worry,
Liebchen
. We go,” he said.

The crowd had dwindled. A few of the boys still lingered, watching wide-eyed. Darcy was bending over the body, covering it with his jacket.

“Someone’s done a good job of giving him a nasty bash on the back of his head,” he said, straightening up. “I suppose it was okay to let all the witnesses go. We know where they are staying if the police need statements.”

I nodded. I was starving and I really wanted to go home, but I didn’t want to leave Darcy alone to this unpleasant task. I just didn’t want to leave Darcy.

“I thought you said you had to go away,” I said.

“I changed my mind.”

“I’m glad.”

“Anything else happen that I should know about?”

“Nothing, apart from someone shooting at me when we were out riding this morning.”

“Georgie—I thought I told you to stay put and be careful.”

“I was with Princess Elizabeth on the Balmoral estate. And there were policemen on the property.”

“Whoever is doing this is getting desperate,” he said.

“Yes, well, I have some idea now about who that person might be,” I said. “I tried to find Sir Jeremy but I couldn’t locate him.”

“You say you have an idea who is doing all this?”

“Only an idea,” I said, “but I believe it might be Major Padgett.”

“Padgett, who works on the royal estate? Ronny’s father?”

I nodded. “It does seem strange, doesn’t it, but he fits the picture and he had the opportunity.”

“But he’s been with the royal family for years,” Darcy said. “Why would he want to harm anybody?”

“I thought that he might be, you know, insane? There was some scandal about him and someone said he’d had a nervous breakdown, which was why he was sent up to Scotland. And he was there on the shoot, wasn’t he? And he did try to persuade the police not to investigate further.”

“Yes, but—” He broke off, then nodded. “All right. I’ll pass along the information if I get a chance.”

“Oh, and Darcy,” I said, “can you find out about someone called Maisie McPhee?”

“What about her? Accomplice?”