God Save the Queen! (30 page)

It was Mr. Tipp, looking more skeletal than she remembered. But he most definitely was not dead. In fact, for all his stooped posture, wispy hair, and sunken cheeks, Mr. Tipp held the gun he was pointing at Flora in a gloved hand that looked to be rock steady.

“Why, whatever is
he
doing here?” Miss Doffit asked in a voice that was also amazingly level.

“I wasn’t counting on your being here, madam.” Mr. Tipp had the grace to flinch when looking at one of his betters. “I’m sorry as how it should have turned out this way.”

“Well, let’s not worry about
your
feelings,” the game old lady responded crisply. “Think about mine and poor Flora’s and put that silly thing away.”

“Ever so sorry, but I can’t do that, madam.”

“Then I’m just going to have to stick my head out the window and scream bloody murder.”

“If you do—pardon the impudence—I’ll have to shoot you in the back of the head. Now I’m not saying that would be as much fun as talking to Mrs. Much about the possibility Hutchins was murdered, and laughing up my sleeve. But it wouldn’t keep me awake
nights if I had to put a bullet through you, Miss Doffit. It’s not like you has the Gossinger name. And with me that’s all what counts.”

“I think he means business, Flora.” The old lady spoke without a quaver. “I have to tell you, dear, that Henry never liked him.”

“Neither did Grandpa.”

“I knew that,” said Mr. Tipp, “and that’s why it gave me no end of pleasure to bump him off. Not as I wouldn’t have done it whatever my personal feelings, because, you see—I suppose you could say I was like Hutchins in one way at least: I had to think about the good of the Family. My own people has been at Gossinger for hundreds of years, I’m part of the place in a way Hutchins and you, Flora, never could be. And then to hear Sir Henry was going to leave the dear old place to him—I couldn’t never let it happen.”

“Always listening at keyholes,” said Miss Doffit. “That’s what Sir Henry always said.”

“It didn’t matter to me none what Sir Henry thought about me. He was entitled. He’s master of Gossinger.” Mr. Tipp moved the gun an inch closer to Flora. “I have to say that I don’t know as I’d have gone about getting rid of Hutchins, if I hadn’t seen that schoolboy corning out of the tower sitting room.”

“Boris?” Flora wished she dared move to pick up Nolly, who was shivering at her feet.

“That’s him. He’d gone in to talk to her Ladyship on account of her being his grandma’s sister. She’d told him to get out, and he was livid as only little kiddies get. He said someone should stuff the old bat down the garderobe. And something about the way he spoke gave me the notion he’d been up to something. As well he had. Him and another boy—Edward somebody. When I dragged him off to the garderobe by his ear, I found the whelps had locked Hutchins in the garderobe.”

“He ... Boris ... he didn’t see what you did to Grandpa?”

“He cleared off. Then I went and did what had to be done to save Gossinger for the rightful heir, which is Mr. Vivian.”

“Did you make Grandpa write that note, the one saying God save the Queen?” Flora wasn’t just talking to play for time and pray for a miracle; she needed to know as much as this demented man would tell her about her grandfather’s last moment.

“No, I wrote that.” Mr. Tipp’s lips crept upward into a thin smile. “I was never fond of you at the best of times, Flora, always making free of the house when you was little. Playing dress-up with Doffit here, in the trunk room, like you was Sir Henry’s own family. So I thought as how it would be getting in a nice little jab to put down those words and make you think Hutchins’s last thoughts was of Her Majesty, not his precious granddaughter.”

“I should have realized.”

“But there was another note, one what Hutchins did write and put under the door, saying two boys had locked him in and he needed to be let out. That was typical of him, and I have to say I admired that part of him, the one that wouldn’t let him make a big commotion if there was any other choice. And with Mrs. Much and you, Flora, along with myself, going past the garderobe as often as we did, it was likely he’d have been let out quick. If it makes you feel any better,” Mr. Tipp’s face seemed to soften in a way that somehow made it even more unpleasant, “Hutchins wasn’t what you’d call fighting fit when I opened the garderobe door. The stuffiness had obviously got to him, and he wasn’t none too steady on his feet. As I reached out to him he passed out, made my job easy as a wink. And the rest wasn’t no harder.”

“What do you mean?” Flora and Miss Doffit asked the question one on top of the other.

“Persuading that boy, Boris Smith, that him and his pal was the cause of Hutchins’s death. I kept the note, the one where Hutchins wrote he’d been locked in, and used it after I found out Sir Henry still hadn’t come to his senses and was thinking he’d will Gossinger to you, Flora. Now, even
you
can see as how I couldn’t let that happen, so I sought out Boris, nothing to that, what with him being related to Lady Gossinger. And I moved in with him and his gran so I could be ready at any given moment to turn the screws, so as to get him to help me with the rest of my plan.”

“And what was that?” Flora extended a hand in the hope that Nolly would jump up and let her pet him, but was deterred from any further attempt at movement when Mr. Tipp moved the gun a shade closer.

“At first I thought I could get away without having to go through all the work of getting you boxed up and put alongside Hutchins.” Mr. Tipp shook his head, possibly at his own naiveté. “My idea was for Boris Smith to ferret out something what would make you look bad in Sir Henry’s eyes and cause him to change his mind. It wasn’t like I was worried about making people suspicious about two deaths in a row, because it was clear to me they’d think it was Lady Gossinger who was at the back of them. And I wasn’t all that bothered about that, because she wasn’t Family, in the real sense. And like lots of folks I always thought Sir Henry should have looked higher for a mate.”

“This is all very interesting,” said Miss Doffit. “At my age one doesn’t expect this much excitement in a year, let alone one day.”

“I wasn’t really clear how I was going to proceed,” Mr. Tipp informed her, “not until Flora here and Mr. Vivian Gossinger came to tea with Mrs. Smith the other day. I got Boris to fill me in afterward about everything what was said—all about how you wrote to the Queen, Flora, asking about whatever that stamp of approval thing is for Hutchins’s silver polish and how you hadn’t got an answer. The bit about you being jealous of Hutchins’s fondness for Her Majesty when you was little. And then to top it all off, when I sent Boris down here yesterday to see what more he could find out about you, he came back and told me about Mrs. Much taking a bottle of the polish to the palace. Yes, I think that did put the cap on my arrangements, when I phoned up and said there was explosives in that bottle,” he concluded smugly.

“Mrs. Much didn’t go in to work yesterday.”

“No matter, it’s all the same in the end. Because when you go to shoot the Queen, there’s already all this built-up evidence—a good thing I watch thrillers on the telly. They’ll even think you got this gun from your jailbird father or one of his crooked friends.”

“Shoot the Queen?” gasped Flora, suddenly ice cold, but rigidly determined. “You can’t make me do that. You’ll have to shoot
me
first.”

“Me, too,” Miss Doffit said firmly.

“Oh, I think I can make you.” Mr. Tipp’s smile now gave off a terrible kind of radiance. “I’ve always been painfully thin, but I’m still a remarkably tough old bird.” And with this he grabbed Flora’s arm and began yanking her toward the window, all the while keeping Miss Doffit in the eye of his gun. “There’s no need to put up such a fuss, Flora. I’ll be behind the curtain holding your arm and helping you squeeze the trigger. But yours will be the only fingerprints on it. Then afterward I’ll be forced to shoot Miss Doffit. And when the police rush in ...”

“They’ll find your gloves in your pockets and figure it out.”

“No, they won’t, because I’ll put them in that chest of drawers and anyone as finds them will think they’re
yours. It’s lucky, isn’t it, not that it really matters, that I have very small hands, no bigger than yours now I look at them.”

“You can’t do this.” Flora strove to speak calmly. “How can you believe the Gossinger Family to be more important than the Queen—she’s this country’s anchor! Britain could fall apart without her!”

“What I’d like to know,” said Miss Doffit, as exclamations from the street below suggested the imminent arrival of the royal car and Mr. Tipp elbowed her aside, “in fact, I’m extremely curious to know how you got in here, when the shop door was locked.”

“I took the spare key that Mr. Vivian Gossinger left with Mrs. Smith.”

“That’s right, so you bloody well did!” cried out a voice from behind them. “As if it wasn’t enough that you frightened my poor Boris until he couldn’t think straight— Oh, I managed to get the lot out of him just now, and now it’s your turn to be shaking in your shoes. This is a grandmother you’re dealing with, Mr. bloody Phillips! And to think I agreed to lie and say you was a relative, because you said otherwise the neighbors might think there was hanky-panky going on! Fat chance, you little bugger!” Edna stood in the center of the room and appeared to Flora’s distorted gaze to swell until she was the height and breadth of a teeth-gnashing grizzly bear.

“You get over here,” screeched Mr. Tipp, waving the gun wildly because it was clear even to his crazed mind that the moment could easily be lost. It would take only a second for the Queen’s car to pass safely under the sitting room window.

“You bet I will!” Edna Smith was already lunging toward him, cracking what looked like a whip against her side. Mr. Tipp, with a flashing glance below, knew that if he were to shoot now, it would make everything meaningless. The royal car would stop short of the danger point. The gun wavered in his hand and then went off. The bullet hit the ceiling as Edna Smith, hairdresser to the core, wrapped the cord of the curling iron she had removed from her overall pocket around his throat.

“That’s the ticket,” she rasped triumphantly when in the space of seconds she had him on the floor. Flora moved in to complete the process by smashing him over the head with one of the candlesticks from the mantel. “Never know what will come in handy, do you?” Edna sprang like a schoolgirl to her feet.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Miss Doffit leaned out the window to shout for help. Seconds later, a pair of regal legs emerged from the royal car, and the voice of Her Majesty rang out, brooking no argument from bodyguards or anyone else. “Don’t anyone attempt to stop me. I’m going in! They’ve got Mummy in there! They’ve taken the Queen Mother hostage!”

“Her Majesty was wonderful,” Flora said to Vivian that evening, as he hovered over her as she lay at his insistence on the settee. “She kept everyone calm, including her security people.”

“The hand that rocks the Empire.”

“That’s the feeling she creates. That she’s not only the Queen, but Mother to all her subjects. She asked just the right questions, and would you believe it, Vivian, that she listened with great interest when I explained the part Grandpa’s silver polish played in all this! She asked me for one of the bottles on the window ledge and said that Gossinger’s Polish sounded absolutely right for one of her seals of approval, so long as it really did live up to my enthusiasm.”

“That seems highly encouraging,” agreed Vivian. “It sounds to me as though you may find yourself mixing
in such high circles in the future that you won’t have time for me anymore. And I really can’t say I blame you, because I wasn’t much help in all this.”

“That’s not true,” Flora exclaimed. “You got in touch with Edna Smith to warn her about Mr. Tipp, and you asked her to pass the message along to me immediately. It was my fault you couldn’t reach me directly because I hadn’t replaced the receiver properly.”

Vivian rubbed a hand across his brow. “When I was talking to you on the phone you were so worried that the body that had been discovered was Tipp’s. I found out just before I left Gossinger that the remains were those of an elderly homeless man. Then I remembered your telling me that Mr. Tipp’s Christian name was Philip. Which brought to mind two things: that Mrs. Smith’s lodger was supposedly named Phillips, and that Uncle Henry had never liked the man and only kept him on out of a sense of obligation. Neither did your grandfather think much of Tipp. And as you said yesterday, one man’s judgment of another must sometimes be taken into serious account. But,” Vivian smiled at her, “let’s not talk any more about this. Unless you want to?”

“No, I think I need to let it all settle for a bit. And you must still be reeling from the news that Lady Gossinger is indeed going to have a baby.”

“Imagine how Uncle Henry is feeling! He was barely coherent when he rang just now to say the doctor had been out this afternoon to see Aunt Mabel and said she is nearly three months pregnant. You know what this means, Flora, there’s a fifty chance that I won’t get stuck with either Gossinger or the title.”

“You really don’t mind?”

“If what Evangeline told us is accurate, we Gossingers have been living under false pretenses for two hundred years. Anyway, I’d much rather be a self-made
man.” Vivian’s grin assured her he meant every word. “Now tell me what you have planned for tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Flora sat up and cupped her chin in her hands. “It is rather glorious to know there
is
going to be another day. Evangeline rang up just before you got here. She wants to repay me that money Grandpa lent her, with interest. I was surprised at how much it was. Enough for me to buy some silver, including that teapot your friend George has for sale, and start the shop the way I’d really like it. Instead of having to sell secondhand odds and ends. And Evangeline has offered to help further the education my grandfather started.”