The Trouble at Wakeley Court (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 8) (17 page)

‘Is that wise?’ said the doctor. ‘I have been keeping Your Highness’s unexpected recovery a secret from the country, you know.’

‘What on earth for?’ said the Grand Duke in surprise.

‘Why, I thought that if everybody believed you to be near death it might induce your assassins to become careless and give themselves away. Since there was evidently a political motive behind the attack, I thought it might be a good idea to watch people and see how they react to your supposed imminent demise.’

‘Good gracious, you are a cunning one,’ said the Grand Duke, not unimpressed at the doctor’s thinking. ‘That is clever of you. Still, though, I should like to speak to Paul. He will not give us away. Have him summoned at once.’

A little while later, Count Paul duly presented himself outside the door of the Grand Duke’s bed-chamber and was greeted by Dr. Petek.

‘Ah, Your Excellency,’ said the doctor smoothly.

‘How is His Highness?’ said Count Paul. His face was drawn and there were lines of worry on his forehead. ‘I dare not hope that there has been any improvement?’

‘On the contrary, I think you will be pleased to hear that His Highness is now fully conscious and is feeling much better today. Of course, he is still very sick, and there is no question of his being permitted to get up for another week or two at least, but I very much hope that with due care he will make a full recovery.’

Petek took some pleasure in Count Paul’s look of surprise.

‘Why, that is most excellent news,’ said the younger man, ‘especially given that the situation looked almost hopeless yesterday.’

‘Yes,’ said the doctor dryly, and stepped back to allow the Count to pass.

‘Paul, my dear boy,’ said the Grand Duke as the two men once more entered the bed-chamber.

‘But can it be true?’ said Count Paul, striding over to his older cousin’s bed. ‘We all thought that there was no hope,
Velkji Knaz
.’

‘Fortunately, it seems that my would-be assassin is not as good a shot as he thought,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘I am sorry you have been worried, but the good doctor judged it best to let my enemies think they had scored a direct hit. You may go now, Petek.’

‘Pardon me, Your Highness, but I cannot think of leaving my charge,’ said the doctor. ‘However, you may speak as freely as you like. I shall sit over there where I cannot hear you and write out my notes.’

He sat down in a far corner from where he could observe his patient.

‘It is useless to argue with him,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘He will probably stay here forever, and I shall have to give him a knighthood to make him go away.’

‘This is no joking matter,’ said Count Paul.

The Grand Duke’s face darkened.

‘No, of course it is not,’ he said. ‘I have just been informed of Irina’s disappearance, and I called you here because I want you to go and find her.’

‘Why did they tell you?’ said the other. ‘You are not well enough to hear such news.’

‘She is my daughter, Paul,’ said the Grand Duke, and for the first time a look of great anguish crossed his face. ‘Please, what do they know of what happened to her?’

Count Paul saw that there was no use in hiding anything from him, and quickly related everything he had heard from Miss Bell and Raul Everich in England.

‘And so Everich was there and yet he let her go? How could this happen?’ said the Grand Duke.

‘I do not know,’ said Count Paul. ‘He will be disciplined, naturally, but that is not important at present. The vital thing is to find Irina.’

‘Is it quite certain that it is Irina who has gone missing, and no-one else?’ said the Grand Duke, with a significant glance at the doctor.

‘Yes, quite certain, I am afraid,’ replied the Count. ‘There has been no mistake. Everich was quite clear on the matter.’

‘But how could it have happened?’ said the Grand Duke. ‘We put every precaution in place.’

‘I have no idea,’ said Count Paul. ‘I suspect treachery, but that question will be for another day.’

‘Yes,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘First of all we must find her. Paul, I want you to leave at once for England. Go to the school and leave no stone unturned in your search.’

‘I will,’ said Count Paul. ‘Of course I will. I am sorry it has come to this,
Velkji Knaz
. I thought she would be safe at school. It never occurred to me for an instant that the Krovodanians would go to such lengths to achieve their ends. If only I had known I might have done something to prevent this. I only hope she is safe and well. I cannot bear to think of her coming to harm.’

‘You are a good boy, Paul,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘And you and Irina have always been such good friends—almost like brother and sister. Perhaps this is not the time to confess it, but I always had some idle thought that I should be pleased to see the two of you marry when Irina is old enough. After all, you are not yet thirty, and so are not so much older than she as to make it an unworkable or an unpleasant idea.’

‘Really?’ said Count Paul in some surprise. ‘I had never thought of it myself. I am very fond of her, of course, but I do not suppose she has ever thought of me in that way. Besides, you know it would not be allowed by law. Irina must marry someone of wholly royal blood. My blood is royal only on one side.’

‘Yes, it is against the law at present,’ agreed the Grand Duke. ‘But there is nothing to say the law cannot be changed. If I can give the vote to every man in the country, then surely I can pass a law to allow two people to marry.’

‘Can you be serious, sire?’ said Count Paul in wonder.

‘Very much so,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘At present I wish for nothing more than to find her, bring her back safely to Morania and protect her for the rest of her life. I shall not be here forever, Paul—as I have been duly reminded these past few days—and it would set my mind at rest to know that Irina has someone to look after her when I am gone.’

‘But supposing she does not wish it?’

‘Irina is a good girl,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘If she knows it would make me happy, then she will do it. I should far rather give her to you than to any of these spoilt, effete crown princes one sees so much these days, and I know you will treat her well.’

‘I should be honoured, sire,’ said Count Paul, drawing himself up.

‘Then go and find her,’ said the Grand Duke. He clasped the Count’s hand and the younger man saw that there was great pain in his eyes. ‘Please, Paul, go and find my little Irina and bring her back safely.’

‘I will,’ said Count Paul.

On Sunday evening at Wakeley Court, Mr. Hesketh was conducting a rather unsatisfactory interview with the local sergeant of police, who had come to make his report.

‘Then you have found no trace of them at all?’ said Hesketh.

Sergeant Merrow shook his head. He was an alert-looking man with thinning sandy hair and a sharp nose, who had taken with admirable phlegm the revelation of the missing girl’s real identity.

‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ he said. ‘Of course, we will keep looking, but we’ve seen no sign of them at all so far. We have searched all the way along the coast as far as Cromer and beyond—by which I mean to say we have stopped to ask people whether they saw or heard a large motor-car passing some time after three o’clock this morning.’

‘And nobody did?’

‘Not that they were willing to admit to,’ said Merrow. ‘We also searched some way inland, but as you probably know, the countryside hereabouts is such a maze of lanes that it would be easy for someone to disappear if they wanted to. Still, we won’t give up. We’ll keep on searching inland, and tomorrow we’ll begin looking beyond Cromer.’

‘Have you looked into my suggestion that they might have gone off in a boat?’

‘We have, sir, and that is certainly a possibility. As a matter of fact, we did speak to a couple of Swiss holiday-makers just along the road here, at Percham. They are staying in a cottage close to the harbour, and although they can’t swear to having heard a car, they did say that they were woken in the night—they can’t say exactly at what time—by the sound of a motor-boat putting out to sea.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Hesketh. ‘But can they be sure it was putting out to sea and not coming into shore?’

‘I didn’t ask them that, to be perfectly truthful,’ admitted the sergeant. ‘But does it matter? After all, if they escaped by sea then the boat would have to come inland first so they could get into it.’

‘True enough,’ said Hesketh. ‘I wonder if it was our quarry, then. I must get hold of some charts and see where they might have gone. We had thought they might have crossed to Germany.’

‘If that’s the case then we can’t get them back,’ said Merrow. ‘They might have put in at some other harbour in England, though, and we can certainly inquire as to whether anybody knows anything about that.’

‘Do,’ said Hesketh. ‘And please let me know as soon as you find anything.’

‘I shall, sir,’ said Merrow.

The sergeant departed and Mr. Hesketh went to Miss Bell’s study to make a telephone-call to Henry Jameson. Normally very efficient at his job, Hesketh felt he had rather disgraced himself in this case, and he winced slightly at the memory of Jameson’s reaction when he had found out that his subordinate had been flattened by the Games mistress, of all people. Even now, Hesketh’s jaw ached and a splendid bruise was forming, and after a night awake he wanted nothing more than to go to bed with a cold compress and sleep for about twelve hours, but of course that was out of the question with the Princess yet to be found. Besides, Dick Fazackerley was still locked in the guest-room, and Hesketh could not go back to his lodgings in the village either, for he knew his landlady would bombard him with questions about Irina’s disappearance.

He made the call and was put through to his superior at home, for Henry Jameson was not one to sit in a draughty office on a Sunday when he might just as well deal with an international crisis in comfort.

‘What news?’ said Henry.

‘Not much, sir,’ said Hesketh. ‘We’ve drawn a blank so far. The only possible lead we have is two tourists in Percham who may or may not have heard a boat putting out to sea in the middle of the night. The police are instituting inquiries that way, but if they have escaped to sea then there will be no getting them back. It doesn’t look good, I’m afraid.’

Henry sighed.

‘Then I suppose I shall have to inform the Foreign Secretary,’ he said. ‘I know the Moranians have been rather distracted by the shooting of their Grand Duke—which, I imagine, is the only reason they haven’t already declared war on us—but sooner or later they will undoubtedly want to know what has happened to their Crown Princess and why we’ve lost her. It looks as though this is about to blow up into the devil of a diplomatic incident.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Hesketh miserably. ‘I have failed, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes, you have,’ said Henry. ‘But so have I. I ought to have taken the thing more seriously and sent more people to watch the place. Of course one man and a woman amateur detective couldn’t have been expected to keep a princess safe by themselves.’

Hesketh winced at the implied rebuke.

‘As a matter of fact, there were three of us,’ he said. ‘We had Everich too, don’t forget.’

‘Well, at any rate that will teach me in future never to underestimate a schoolgirl who is determined to do what she wants,’ said Henry. ‘I have daughters myself and so I ought to have known. Still, it may or may not comfort you to learn that I have had a telegram from Vorgorod to say that they are sending over the Princess’s cousin, Count Paul, to assist in the search. I only hope he does not arrive to bad news.’

‘So do I, sir,’ said Hesketh fervently.

He hung up and went out into the passage, where he saw Angela Marchmont approaching.

‘There you are, Mr. Hesketh,’ she said. ‘I was looking for you and thought you might be here. Where is Miss Bell?’

‘Still at dinner, I believe,’ he replied.

‘Oh, of course,’ said Angela. ‘I’d forgotten. I’m afraid to say that three days of school meals have been too much for my system, and so when the dinner-bell rang my stomach instructed me in the strongest possible terms to run away and hide in my room.’ She saw he was not in the mood to laugh, and went on, ‘I take it there has been no further progress in the search. Have you spoken to Henry Jameson? What does he say?’

‘I spoke to him just now,’ said Hesketh. ‘He’s not especially pleased.’

‘I imagine not,’ said Angela. ‘I ought to have telephoned him myself, since it was my fault Irina got away. Have the police found any sign of her at all?’

Hesketh told her about the possible clue of the motor-boat.

‘It does rather look as though they’ve got clean away, doesn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘The search has been a failure so far. And we don’t even know whether we are searching for a live girl or a dead body.’

They both looked sober.

‘If she is dead, then I imagine she will be found soon,’ said Angela. ‘After all, if the purpose of the kidnapping was assassination, then there is no sense in hiding the evidence. Why, the whole point of it would be to create as great a disturbance as possible.’

‘That is true enough,’ said Hesketh.

‘So, then, as long as she remains undiscovered, there is still hope,’ said Angela, ‘and we ought to take comfort from that.’

‘I only wish I knew exactly what happened last night,’ said Hesketh.

‘As a matter of fact, that is what I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Angela. ‘What do you know about Mr. Everich?’

‘Everich? Why, he is the head of Moranian Intelligence, sent here to look after the Princess following the attempt on the life of her father.’

‘But are you quite sure he is who he says he is?’ said Angela.

‘Oh, yes,’ Hesketh assured her. ‘There’s no doubt of that. His credentials are quite impeccable. Besides, I have met him once before, a couple of years ago.’

‘Yes, and Irina certainly seemed to know him,’ said Angela thoughtfully.

‘Why do you ask?’ said Hesketh.

Angela explained about the train journey and Everich’s apparent lie on the subject, and about the bloodstain in the summer-house.