The Pigeon Pie Mystery (3 page)

A STICKY DRIZZLE WAS FALLING
by the time the carriage crunched up the driveway of the vast villa in Holland Park. Its lavish oriental interiors and magnificent grounds had been regularly featured in society magazines. Since the Maharaja’s death, however, any hint of gaiety had been snuffed out. The blinds on the windows were drawn, the pots of cheerful daffodils removed from the steps and attached to the door, sheltered by a grand portico, was a wreath, its crape ribbons hanging limply in the damp. Clutching one of her new black-edged handkerchiefs, Mink ran up the steps to the front door. Standing on either side were two white-haired men in top hats, black sashes tied across their matching overcoats, who smelt fiercely of drink.

“Who are you?” Mink asked one of them. The man continued to stare ahead of him in silence. “And you?” she said, turning to the other one. He too refused to speak. “What are you both doing at my front door?” she demanded crossly. The pair remained as quiet as graves, their gazes fixed on the trees in the distance. Suddenly, one of them twitched and rattled, and from out of an eye sailed a solitary tear.

As the Princess stood in the hall furiously unbuttoning her gloves, Bantam, the butler, approached. “The mutes arrived while you were out, ma’am,” he explained. “They haven’t said a word. We’ve done our best, believe me. One of the gardeners tried to tempt them with a German sausage, but there was absolute silence. I got in touch with the undertakers, and they agreed that mutes aren’t normally required until the day of the funeral. Unfortunately they said it was impossible to call them off. The Maharaja was very specific in his instructions. He stipulated a matching pair, apparently, though I notice only one of them has a beard.”

“They already smell of drink, Bantam.”

“Indeed, ma’am. They must have come straight from a previous engagement. May I suggest that we tell the mourners not to give them any more, despite the inclement weather?”

“Please see to it.” There was a pause. “And my father?” she added.

“They’ve just brought his body back following the inquest, ma’am. I took the liberty of putting him in the drawing room.”

“And the servants. How are they?” she asked.

“Still rather shaken, ma’am. Mrs. Wilson made so many mistakes making breakfast I had to give her the morning off. There should have been potted char. I do apologise.”

“Give them all the time they need,” Mink replied, looking away for a moment. “And Mr. Cavendish?” she asked, turning back.

Bantam hesitated. “Not a word, ma’am,” he said.

The Princess climbed the stairs, feeling a blade turn inside her with every step.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, POOKI KNOCKED
on the Princess’s bedroom door. “The bodice has just arrived from Jay’s, ma’am,” she said upon entering. Mink stood in front of the mirror and silently took off her earrings, which would be replaced by those
of unpolished jet. As she was helped into the gruesome clothes, she had the impression of being slowly choked by tar. When the maid left, she took a book out of her chest of drawers, and read the inscription written by the man she had imagined would admire her eyes forever.

The Princess and Mr. Cavendish had met one afternoon when their carriages collided in Hyde Park. Mink, who thought the accident to be entirely his fault, proceeded to inform him of the fact. It was when he admitted that women were better drivers than men, who had a tendency to show off, that she noticed the shape of his thighs. When she recounted the incident to her father, he instantly recognised a flame of desire in his daughter’s indignation. Up until then, she had rejected all manner of handsome temptations he had invited to the house on the pretext of playing cards. He investigated the background of the erratic driver, and was pleased to find it entirely suitable. Keen to stoke the fire underneath her, he asked him to his forthcoming Highland shooting party, and ordered a new kilt for the occasion.

The first the Princess knew of the invitation was her father’s announcement that he had just sent a carriage to pick up Mr. Cavendish from the station. Protesting, she ran upstairs to change, but after several minutes in front of the mirror, she changed back again, much to Pooki’s frustration. Unable to speak to the unexpected guest, she contrived not to sit next to him in the drawing room after dinner while her father agreed to the numerous requests to sing. The best woman shot in the country, she refused the following day to hide her talent with a gun to save the man’s blushes. By the end of the afternoon she had filled the carts with enough grouse to scandalise vegetarians for miles, and poachers retreated to their armchairs in despair. It was only when Mr. Cavendish was leaving that she finally felt able to talk to him. She stood at the landing window watching the retreating carriage, chastising herself for having so rudely ignored him.

It was her father who lured him to their home in Holland Park with an invitation to see his animals. Inspired by the Tower of London’s historic menagerie, the Maharaja had acquired them in the belief that every monarch should own a collection of exotic beasts. But his neighbours weren’t the only ones unsettled by the noisy invasion. The still-room maid shook at the sight of the kangaroo that hopped with its baby in its front pocket. The coachman, a tear in his eye, tried to scrub the zebra clean in the belief that it was a white pony that gypsies had painted with black stripes. And the scullery maid fainted when a pair of porcupines walked into the kitchen and raised their deadly defences.

Unaware of her father’s scheming, Mink went out into the garden to see the flamingos. Deep pink when they first arrived due to their diet of shrimp, they had now started to glimmer as a result of a weakness for the Maharaja’s goldfish. But instead of the long-legged birds, the Princess found Mr. Cavendish, who had not the slightest appetite for the contents of the ornamental pond. Next to him stood her father, who was trying to shake off an orphaned bear cub convinced that the Indian was its mother. The Maharaja insisted that Mink join them on his tour of the grounds, and she followed at a distance, her stomach tight. When she entered the grotto, she found Mr. Cavendish turning in circles, looking for her father, who had disappeared with the mastery of a magician. The couple stood in silence, surrounded by the gloom, and it wasn’t until they were joined by the bear cub hunting for its moustached mother that they started to talk.

Mark Cavendish was a regular addition to the luncheon table after that. His hat and exquisite cane became such a fixture in the hall that the servants stirred themselves into a frenzy over an imminent wedding, seeing white satin in every look the couple exchanged. The Maharaja was unable to control himself, and took to reading out loud the florid descriptions of society nuptials in the newspaper. Mink remained silent, the waiting made worse by
the expectation that filled the house to its well-swept corners. But since the news of the Maharaja’s death, none of them had seen the ivory-handled cane again.

THE PRINCESS CLOSED THE BOOK
, returned it to the drawer, and braced herself for the task ahead of her. She descended the marble stairs, each bearing the Maharaja’s initials in a florid script, the crape on her skirt trembling with every step. The servants had already gone down for tea, and she found herself alone. As she reached for the drawing room door handle, she suddenly remembered the last time she saw her mother. She had just turned six and burst into her bedroom just as the doctor was raising the sheet over her exhausted face.

Stepping inside, Mink instantly felt like an intruder. Swaths of black velvet hung over the colourful Indian silk wall hangings, the French mirror above the fireplace, and the portraits of her ancestors with furious moustaches. The furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and in the middle stood a trestle bearing a short, open oak coffin, as deep as its occupant was stout.

Slowly she approached, fearing what she would see. The Maharaja’s moustache had been expertly waxed, his hair parted on the correct side, and the toes of his red slippers pointed to the heavens in two perfect curls. A man who had spent most of his life in a frock coat or Norfolk jacket, he was now dressed in his father’s gold robes and pantaloons. Tucked into the unyielding waistband was an ornamental dagger, and several strings of pearls reached his navel. Her hand trembled as she straightened them. Bending towards him, she kissed his forehead, her tears slipping down his waxy cheek, and she wondered how he could have left her.

The Maharaja’s final expression of utter contentment had rarely been seen in recent years, except in the company of his
daughter. The rage he felt for the Government, and his frustration with the Queen for not having returned his jewels, had grown steadily towards the end of his life as he sat brooding in his study over what had once been his.

When, all those years ago, British troops came at night to seize the state of Prindur, he had been too young to feel the intensity of what later smouldered like a branding iron inside him. His mother, then regent on account of his youth, was shot in the chest during the battle, though for years rumours persisted that she had escaped to the mountains with a sack of foreigners’ heads.

The first he knew of defeat was the sight of the awestruck soldiers in the palace treasury, their filthy fingers on the family’s jewels, taken by the invaders as financial compensation for having to defeat his army. Prindur and its lucrative mines annexed to British India, the deposed Maharaja was exiled to England. The Queen, seduced by the teenager’s charm that was later to be his downfall, painted his portrait, and welcomed him to Windsor Castle and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. He was invited to the best balls, where he danced with considerable talent with the prettiest guests. Young ladies would crowd round the piano to hear him sing after dinner, such a pure and melancholy sound that even the moon wept. Invitations to his shooting parties were displayed on the most elegant mantelpieces in London, and such was his skill with a gun that even the horses stared at the wagons piled high with the still-warm corpses of so much game.

The Maharaja called his daughter Alexandrina after the sovereign who had propelled him to the top of society, taking the Queen’s first name, which she never used. When the Princess began to walk, and would be found asleep amongst her mother’s furs, he nicknamed her Mink. After the deaths of his wife and second child, from which he never truly recovered, he made frequent visits to the nursery. Sitting his daughter dressed in black on his knee, he distracted her from her grief with tales of palace life and her grandmother’s celebrated talent for hunting tigers. He soon
taught her how to play chess and handle a gun, and hired the best fencing instructor he could find. Years later, he sobbed with regret when she left for Girton College, so far away in Cambridge, and he sobbed with pride at her achievements.

THREE DAYS LATER, THE NIGHT
before the funeral, Bantam came into the servants’ hall when the under staff had finished their supper. Standing at the head of the table, the butler warned that he would not tolerate any negligence during the Maharaja’s final hours in their care. The funeral procession would travel from the house to Waterloo Station, he explained, where the mourners would take a train to the cemetery for a private burial. With a glance at Mrs. Wilson, he added that anyone who fell short of his expectations would not receive their beer money that week. The perk, long abandoned by most employers, had been maintained by the Maharaja, who enjoyed indulging his servants almost as much as himself.