Death and the Princess (12 page)

I got the same feeling, later in the day, when I went back with Joplin to his Kensington flat. The photographers and dabs-men had done their work, and the body had been removed to the hygienic anonymity of the morgue. We felt ourselves now more free of the place, and could walk around without holding our breaths, as we had done in the morning. McPhail had kept me
posted during the day, and had considerately left us a photocopy of the letter in the typewriter, as well as a note with some of the technicalities of the scientific part of the investigation usefully detailed. The char, we gathered, had been interviewed, and had sworn that the gun used was Brudenell’s, and had been kept in the upper left-hand drawer that we had found open. She and all who knew him swore that he was indeed left-handed. The char had not been in since Monday, but the week before she had done a premature spring-clean: there were consequently very few prints in the flat except hers and Brudenell’s. The caretaker, who was only around during the day, had known nothing of any regular visitors to Brudenell’s flat, and, like the char, had rather suspected that there were none. The Princess and Lady Dorothy had once come to tea, and a great fuss and kerfuffle had been made about that by Brudenell. But that was months ago, and the visit had not been repeated. (‘Thank God. The silly little runt practically disappeared up his own backside with the excitement of it,’ said the caretaker.)

I strolled around the study looking at the books. Brudenell’s tastes in fiction had been staid and rather dated: there were Charles Morgan, Rosamond Lehmann, Pamela Hansford-Johnson, and the first three volumes in Anthony Powell’s Music of Time sequence. There were standard biographies, particularly of monarchs: Cecil Woodham-Smith on Victoria, Wedgwood on Charles I, Ziegler on William IV. A lot of Antonia Frasers. There was a whole shelf of royal memoirs — you know the sort of thing:
My Memories of Twenty-Five Reigns,
by the Princess Augusta-Alexandrina of Hohenlau-Stauffenberg. Style a cross between a
Daily Telegraph
leader and a novel by Denise Robins, the whole stuffed with pictures of Nicky and Alicky at Tsarskoe Selo, or Willy and Sophy cruising in the Norwegian fjords. Signing sessions at Harrods in the week of publication, remaindered in the
Charing Cross Road six months later. But Mr Brudenell, I felt sure, paid the full price, as he no doubt also did for the unrevealing memoirs of Conservative politicians of the old school or the immensely tedious memoirs of noble personages from the shires, though one of these
(Hounds and Horn in the Morning)
was personally inscribed to him in the not-very-literate hand of the author.

So far, so predictable.

I went to the desk, across which Brudenell’s body had lately slumped, and took up a copy of the dead man’s last letter.

‘It’s obvious what we are meant to think,’ I said to Joplin, who strolled in from a sniff around the kitchen. ‘Poor old Brudenell has been having it off with some boy or other, and the boy has been milking him for some time. Suddenly the whole business becomes intolerable, and he decides to end it all. Takes the pistol which he conveniently keeps for such emergencies in the left hand drawer, and bang! the soul of Brudenell J. is launched into eternity. Very neat little plot indeed. Why then do I get a whiff of week-old kippers?’

‘For a start, why give in to blackmail?’ said Joplin. ‘Blackmailing queers is dead as a dodo. It’s not against the law.’

‘But it’s not that,’ I said. ‘Because you could imagine Brudenell giving way, in his position: the threat would be not “I’ll go to the Police”, but “I’ll go to the Palace”. The mere hint of anything unsavoury and he’d be gently eased out. But look here, if he’d been shacking up with some desirable plumber’s mate who’d then been putting the finger on him over a longish period, would he begin a letter to him with “I must tell you with great regret — ”.’

‘Well, Brudenell might,’ said Joplin dubiously.

‘No, he wouldn’t. Not to a social inferior. He might to a scion of the nobility, but why would such a chap go with Brudenell? He had no obvious attractions, nor any subtle
ones, I would have said. It would have to be some sordid little affair, entered into on the other chap’s part either for money or some other material inducement.’

‘Fair point, I suppose,’ said Joplin. ‘I wonder what that footman’s name is.’

‘We’ll find out later tonight. I’ve lined him up for an interview. What I’m looking forward to is the lab boy’s report on this letter. And on the machine too. I wouldn’t mind betting — ’

‘What?’

‘That up to the word “continue” or thereabouts, there is one hand typing, and that “giving way to the monstrous financial demands you” was typed by a different hand, with different pressure on the keys.’

‘It was an electric machine. Would it show?’

‘Probably, if whoever it was was being careful about fingerprints. It would be less confident, because he wouldn’t want to smudge over Brudenell’s prints. Yes, I’m looking forward to the report on the keys, even if he used gloves, which he surely must have. Hmm. Most of the letters appear in both halves of the sentence, but “d” only appears in the second half, and “j” in the first. I think I’ll tell McPhail to pay particular attention to those. Then there’s the switching-off mechanism . . .’

So I got on to the phone to the dour little man, now back at the Yard, and had a bit of a natter — that is, I nattered to him, and he uttered soft little grunts of agreement. But he did tell me one thing, and when I rang off I relayed it to Joplin.

‘Gun not registered in this country. Apparently bought in the States. Natty little job, as you saw, with enamelled porcelain handle. Perhaps he thought it amusing. It’s the sort of thing American ladies buy if they want to have a go at muggers, rapists or Presidents. Anyway, it did for Brudenell quite as effectively as a more manly instrument.’

‘Those Americans are gun-mad,’ said Joplin.

‘The bullet,’ I went on, ‘certainly came from that gun. The ballistics people said there was no question at all of that. But what gets me is the angle of the bullet.’ I went back to the desk. ‘See — he’s sitting
here:
the bullet goes
down,
so it grazes the edge of the desk,
down
still into the skirting-board under the bookcase. Now, if that scenario we just sketched out was valid, Brudenell would stop typing, reach for the gun, and
surely
when he did that he would have to straighten up. The bullet would go along to hit the books in the case, or it might go slightly
up,
but surely it wouldn’t go
down.’

‘That puzzled me,’ said Joplin. ‘As it is — ’

‘As it is, it looks for all the world as if he were shot while he was typing, by someone standing above him. How did whoever it was get hold of the gun? Was Brudenell entirely unsuspicious? Did he say nothing when the visitor reached over and got it? Did he keep on typing until he let him have it? Why was Brudenell typing at all in his visitor’s presence? Hardly the thing, by Brudenell’s lights, I would have thought. Still, I can imagine answers to those questions. What I can’t imagine is Brudenell typing, grabbing the gun, remaining hunched over his typewriter, and shooting himself
from above,
the hand poised
over
the head, so that the bullet went downwards into the floor over there in the corner.’

‘I presume McPhail isn’t happy either.’

‘Not at all. He’s got all his wits, even if they don’t seem to send messages to his tongue. I see his men have marked out that space on the table that you noticed.’

We walked over to it, and looked at it together.

‘Of course it could be nothing,’ I said. ‘What he happened to be reading yesterday evening — the death occurred around midnight, give or take a couple of hours either way. It’s the size of the space that puzzles me. It doesn’t seem to correspond with any sort of book I know.
Where’s his atlas — that seems most likely.’

We searched through the shelves, and finally came up with the
Edinburgh World Atlas.

‘Not big enough by a long way. What else is there?’

We came to a shelf of books too big to go in the normal cases. There were glossy books about stately homes, books of heraldic interest, a book of Hockney reproductions, and a two volume work on Royal Families of the World (‘Bokhassa, Emperor, crowned 1976’ and so on). All of them were weighty tomes, at least in the literal sense, but none of them was big enough to cover the space.

‘Odd,’ I said. ‘It really must have been a
hell
of a big book. And yet a newspaper would surely be
too
big. Here, there’s a
Times
in my briefcase. Try it.’

But it was too big by far. We went through every shelf, and even tried the odd file on his desk for size. It was when we had given up for the night and were walking vaguely disconsolately through the sitting-room that I spotted it.

‘I say, look there, Garry. Isn’t that about what we’re looking for?’

Down beside one of the armchairs near the hearth was a series of shelves, intended for periodicals and newspapers. But on the bottom shelf were three very large books, bound in dark red leather. I took hold of the top one gingerly. They were scrapbooks, specially made, and inside were pasted pictures of the Princess Helena on her various public appearances, as well as family portraits and other such mementoes of her. It seemed that Mr Brudenell was sentimental about the activities of his mistress, or perhaps took a certain pride in his part in her career. I took the enormous scrapbook back into the study and laid it down on the table. It fitted exactly.

Then I got on the phone to McPhail and told him to put his boys on to it.

CHAPTER 10

Young Woodley

When finally we got back to Kensington Palace, towards ten in the evening, I did a very traditional thing: I sent Joplin below stairs to talk to the Palace staff, while I had a private interview with young South Pole, up in the eaves. It was a bedroom without any character, one that was used by any member of the staff who happened to be on duty. There was a Utility bed, and several sticks of furniture that looked as if they had been discarded by William or Mary. No doubt I would have got a more definite impression of the fair footman if I had interviewed him at home. As it was, he sat on the bed in footman’s trousers and open-necked shirt, his manner apparently courteous and concerned, masking an undertow of hostility and suspicion.

‘Your name is — ?’

‘Malcolm Woodley.’

‘And you’ve been in service here in the Palace — ?’

‘A little over a year.’

‘I see. And did Mr Brudenell engage you?’

‘Oh no, sir. Mr Brudenell had nothing to do with the domestic arrangements.’

As well as a desire to distance himself from Brudenell there was also a slight superciliousness in his reply, as if any fool knew about the organization of a royal household. It riled me.

‘And were you already sleeping with him when you were engaged?’

I often find a direct approach pays dividends, and it certainly saved a lot of time now. There was a short
pause, tense and defensive, and then the young man suddenly relaxed. He looked at me unsmilingly, but with something of an urchin’s cheek.

‘Somebody talking downstairs, I suppose. Mrs Broadbent, perhaps? She’s got a foul mind, but she hits the nail on the head, as often as not.’

‘Actually, my sergeant spotted it, and I imagine he’s at this moment confirming it. He’s right, then?’

‘Oh yes, he’s right. So what, anyway?’

His voice had taken on a slight cockney twang that was much more attractive and individual than the laundered neutrality of his usual speaking tones.

‘Well, naturally,’ I said, ‘we think you probably know more about him than most. So far as we can see, he didn’t have a wide circle of friends.’

‘Don’t I know it. The burden of being sole buddy and confidant was almost more than I could bear.’

‘When did the relationship start?’

‘Oh, six months ago, I suppose.’

‘He seduced you?’

‘Of course not. I seduced him.’ The boy laughed for the first time, not attractively, but with an air of uncertainty showing through that proved he was still only a boy. ‘It took time, I can tell you. I thought I was condemned to a lifetime of fatherly pattings, hand-squeezings and sentimental sighs. But finally I made it.’

‘I presume you didn’t go to all this trouble because you found Mr Brudenell attractive?’

‘Too right. Who could? No doubt his old mother, of whom I have heard my fill over these last months. A whining old biddy she must have been, and no mistake. But for anybody else, he was a bit of a dead loss, though in a sort of way I did get fond of him, as one does.’

‘What was it, then, you wanted from him? Did you get the job at the Palace with the aim of seducing him?’

‘Good Lord, no. I knew nothing about him. And I’m
not particularly that way inclined. If I could have got the same out of the Princess, I’d have gone for her instead, and enjoyed myself a lot more. I could have had her, too, let me tell you. But she could never have been bothered to give me the help I needed, and in any case, she wouldn’t have had the insight.’

‘To do what?’

Malcolm Woodley paused. Then he lay back on his bed, his head pressed against the wall.

‘I suppose it won’t do any harm to say. I’ve never told anybody, except I suppose James, and him only by fits and starts, with hesitations and shy blushes. But him getting killed changes everything, doesn’t it? Well — laugh away — I wanted to be a gentleman.’

‘Oh,’ was all I could think of to say.

‘Yes, it’s terribly Victorian, isn’t it? The pushy young man trying to live up to his betters. We read
Great Expectations
at school. Most of the kids thought it a drag, but I didn’t. I understood Pip. I didn’t blame him a bit. I loved the middle bits where they taught him to behave, how to fit in. It said something to me, that book.’

‘I don’t think it said quite what the author intended.’

‘ ’Course it didn’t. But books hardly ever do, do they? And anyway, he loaded the dice, by making Joe so good and forgiving and generous, so you were meant to feel Pip was a louse for wanting to get away from him. But what about if he hadn’t had a Joe in the background? I certainly didn’t. I just had my Mum.’