The Pigeon Pie Mystery (10 page)

The Princess turned and watched the Countess disappear. “I thought it was against the rules to exchange apartments,” she said.

“It is,” he admitted. “But the Lord Chamberlain eventually agreed. There are only so many letters the poor man can answer, and my wife is a very determined woman. Lady Bessington was always complaining about the cost of heating her rooms, and we were in some poky Tudor apartments in Fish Court with no view to speak of. Everyone else is furious, of course, because we now overlook the river. Still, we do have to endure Lady Montfort Bebb’s wretched attempts at mastering the pianoforte. The visitors tramping through the State Apartments below us is nothing compared to that torture. Believe me.”

Suddenly a strangled tune sounded above the cheerful din of the tourists. The Princess and the General turned to see the organ grinder who was normally pitched outside Trophy Gate, much to the misery of the sentries who had to endure the same pitiful song played at a staggering variety of wrong tempos. Wearing a billycock hat with a broken brim, he slowly cranked his instrument of torment with a peaceful smile, the frayed ends of his coat sleeves reaching past his knuckles. General Bagshot strode over and demanded to know what he was doing. He had been hired to play outside the window of Lady Montfort Bebb, he explained, still turning, but had decided to give a brief recital on the way in the hope of earning a few extra pennies from the crowds.

Returning to the Princess, the General said he needed to go and see what on earth his neighbour was up to. He then leant towards her. “Do think about our little rendezvous in the Haunted
Gallery. Just the two of us,” he added, his eyes lingering on her chest. Before she had the chance to reply he suddenly turned and stared at a bespectacled man in a black frock coat and top hat walking briskly past, a collapsible rule tucked neatly underneath his arm.

“That’s Mr. Blood, the undertaker,” he gasped. “Who the hell has he come for?”

CHAPTER IV
The Ruinous Consequences of Shirt-sleeve Pudding

OTH
carrying umbrellas, Mink and Pooki headed out early to divine service, the rain driving up the earthy odours of the gardens. It wasn’t Mrs. Boots’s warning of having to sit next to one of the malodorous soldiers that hurried the Princess’s step. Neither was it the opportunity to thank the Lord for her numerous blessings, for, as things stood, they weren’t immediately obvious. What drove her from her sheets at such an unchristian hour was unfettered curiosity over the sudden appearance of Mr. Blood.

A dignified scrum was already standing outside the Chapel Royal as they approached, the hems of their skirts wet from the downpour. Many were dressed in perpetual mourning, while others stood hitching their fur tippets up around their ears as defence against the drafts gusting down the Tudor cloisters. In the middle stood Mrs. Boots, with the exasperated air of a woman who had not only missed her steamer but just discovered that the next one wasn’t due for another week. Suddenly the chapel doors opened, and the ladies surged forwards with the determination of dowagers at a draper’s sale. The housekeeper remained where she was, her eyes closed as she waited for the storm to pass.

The Princess approached. “I was wondering, Mrs. Boots, whether the Astronomical Clock has stopped?” she asked with a smile.

“Not yet it hasn’t,” she said. “It will do, though. I’m certain of it. There’s gout, and then there’s a hunch. I’m not the sort to confuse the two.”

“You strike me as a woman with the most dependable predictions, Mrs. Boots. I only ask because the undertaker was at the palace yesterday.”

The housekeeper shook her head. “Disgraceful business,” she muttered. “I can’t bring myself to talk about it.”

“Come, come Mrs. Boots.”

“Rest assured, all the residents are still very much alive. Though between you and me there are some I wouldn’t miss.” The arrival of Mr. Blood, as well as all the other tradespeople, was a practical joke, she continued. “Who was behind it, I’m not certain. But my first guess would be the General, given his dislike for Lady Montfort Bebb. Not that I’m one for gossip. I leave that for the residents.”

The housekeeper then headed into the chapel. In a whisper more penetrating than her speaking voice she leant towards the Princess and said: “The chaplain is in one of his states, if you get my drift, and has just had another row with the organist. I always lock the communion wine in a cupboard and give the key to the verger before a celebration. But the chaplain must have gone through his pockets.”

Lifting her skirts, she led the way up the wooden stairs to the Royal Pew, explaining that the Lord Chamberlain had given her permission to use it. “He said I shouldn’t have needed to ask, but how was I to know that foreign royalty counted? I’ve just had to dust it. It’s gone straight to my chest.”

Mrs. Boots then scurried away, and the Princess sat down in the private gallery, gazing at the chapel’s flamboyant ceiling made for Henry VIII and restored to a brilliant blue. But after a while,
she could bear the loneliness no longer and crept back down, her footsteps turning a number of heads.

Sitting at the back next to Pooki, she noticed that all the ladies had pressed themselves into the right-hand side of the chapel, a number of brightly coloured hats standing out in the black mire. Several glanced over their shoulders as the whisper passed along the pews that the Maharaja’s daughter was behind them. Slowly the seats in the middle began to fill with gentlemen holding their top hats and officers barracked at the palace. Amongst them she spotted Dr. Henderson, and she peered at the back of his head, trying to work out what he had done to his hair, hanging in strangled curls. Suddenly he looked round and for a moment they held each other’s startled gaze. She looked away, but minutes later her eyes drifted back to his neck.

As the soldiers and palace staff took the remaining places, a woman in a large straw hat bearing a pair of stuffed hummingbirds entered the chapel out of breath. She hesitated, surveying the seats already occupied by the ladies, who looked at her with an air of victory. Slowly she sat down on the end of a pew next to a man in a cheap ready-made suit whose hands had never known a manicure.

Taking their cue from the hymn number on the board, the congregation turned to “O Gladsome Light” in their books. But when Amos Shoesmith, the organist, struck up, there was not the slightest hint of any light, gladsome or otherwise, coming from his temperance fingers. Uncowed, the Reverend Benjamin Grayling launched into the song at a volume that could part not only the Red Sea but the Dead, the Black, and the Baltic. Meanwhile, the invisible Amos Shoesmith continued thundering out “My Hope Is in the Everlasting” with the impudence of the devil, while the terrified blower, the small boy charged with pumping the organ’s bellows with a handle, prayed for deliverance. The congregation wavered, unsure of whom to follow. The choir was equally confused, and for a while the Reverend Grayling sang alone, as if
hailing a distant ship through Newfoundland fog. Suddenly allegiances were formed. A number of the grace-and-favour residents and officers joined in with the chaplain in solidarity with his superior rank. However, the choir, made up of boys from the village, followed the organist, who was one of their own. They were swiftly joined by the palace staff and the soldiers of questionable odour, who naturally sided with the commoner. Others hedged their bets, snapping open their mouths like emus to deliver a random note.

But the demolition of the hymn was not the only event that the congregation gleefully recounted upon their exit. For when they all sat down, a young lady remained unequivocally on her feet. She stood for several seconds, swayed left, then right, and finally collapsed with a pitiful sigh onto the black-and-white marble tiles. Dr. Henderson immediately rose to his feet, went to her side, and gently lifted her in his arms. He swiftly carried her out, her eyes miraculously settling on him the instant they were alone.

AS POOKI WASHED SOME OF
her mistress’s lace at the kitchen sink, shaking her feet to rid them of scuttling beetles, the back doorbell rang. Standing on the step holding a plate covered with a white linen napkin was a short maid with delicate features, her blond hair tied back into a bun. She introduced herself as Alice Cockle, the maid-of-all-work for Lady Bessington. “I saw you at divine service and made this for you,” said the teenager. “It’s a tipsy cake. Her Ladyship’s favourite. I used more sherry wine than usual. I thought you might need it living in this place, what with the noise from the maze and the damp. Mrs. Campbell’s maid never got used to it.”

Grateful for a friendly face, for none of the other palace servants had spoken to her, Pooki let her into the kitchen. Offering her a seat at the table, she set about making some tea.

“You do not seem like a maid-of-all-work,” said Pooki, getting out her mistress’s best china. “They have a disregard for the letter H, and indulge in vulgar street chaff. Pretty ones like you usually rise to at least a parlour maid.”

“You don’t seem like a maid-of-all-work either,” replied Alice, looking her up and down. “But everyone says you’re the Princess’s only servant.”

Sitting down opposite her, Pooki cut two large slices of cake and handed one to Alice on a plate.

“I used to be Her Highness’s lady’s-maid,” she said, raising her chin.

Alice stared at her incredulously. “You went from being a lady’s-maid to a slavey? What on earth did you do? Pawn the family plate?”

Pooki frowned at the suggestion. “Her Highness’s circumstances changed and she had to let go of the servants,” she said. “I was the only one she kept.”

“Blimey, you were lucky. Why do you think she kept you?”

Pooki looked at the ceiling as she considered the question. “Not only am I very obedient, but I am a fearless defender of Her Highness’s wardrobe against moths,” she said, her eyes closed with satisfaction.

Alice nodded towards the range. “And now you have to do all the cooking and cleaning for less wages …”