On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service Read online

  “Damn,” Paolo said. “It’s that policeman, back again. Let’s hope he’s come to tell us all is completed, Rudi shot himself and we can get on with our lives.”

  Assistant Chief Stratiacelli came into the ballroom even before Paolo had finished speaking. The rain must have picked up because he was still wearing a cape over his uniform and left a trail of drips across the parquet floor. The butler hovered behind him, trying to divest him of the cape, but without success.

  “So here you all are,” Stratiacelli said, opening his arms expansively. “Having a good time. No doubt celebrating that you have managed to fool the poor local policeman. But you have underestimated Stratiacelli. You think you can fool me. But Stratiacelli is thorough. He misses nothing. You find nobody better in Milan or even in Rome.” Although this was in Italian his gestures made the gist quite clear.

  “What are you talking about?” Paolo asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Is something wrong?” the policeman mimicked. “One of you knows what is wrong. The gun this man held in his hand has not been fired recently. However he died, it was not with a bullet from this gun.”

  Chapter 23

  STILL TUESDAY, APRIL 23

  IN THE BALLROOM AT VILLA FIORI

  The plot has thickened. Oh dear.

  “The gun was not fired?” Max demanded when this was translated for him. “Then please tell me how half his face was blown away.”

  “No, you please to tell me,” the assistant chief said. “Since one of you, or maybe more than one of you, clearly knows. This is now a murder investigation. My men will go over the victim’s room for any telltale clues. They will search the whole house. You are please to go to the room at the front where I first met you and to stay there until I give you permission to move.” He looked at the rest of us and switched to English. “Go now. Stay room. Nobody must leave. I will find who has done this evil deed. Stratiacelli will find who tries to trick him.”

  “Give us permission?” Uncle Cosimo demanded. “Do you know who you are addressing? Need I remind you that in this room you have a close confidant of our beloved Mussolini, a senior adviser of Herr Hitler, and none other than the Prince of Wales himself.”

  Stratiacelli shrugged. “As I told you before, Count di Marola, a murder is a murder. Someone in this house is guilty and I aim to find out who. Now, please. My men will escort you to the front of the house and there you will stay until you are summoned. No use of telephone and nobody is to leave the villa.”

  “I suspect some of the bedrooms may be locked, Assistant Chief,” Camilla said. “Some of my guests choose to lock their doors.”

  “Then you will please provide me with the necessary keys. I presume your servants have passkeys?”

  “Yes, of course there is a passkey,” Camilla said. She looked across at the butler, who was still hovering behind Stratiacelli. “Umberto, please make sure the assistant chief has access to all the rooms.”

  “Of course, Contessa.” He gave a dignified nod. “This way, Assistant Chief.”

  We were ushered back into the lake room. The sky was brightening a little, clouds were breaking and a shaft of sunlight shone onto a tall black cliff across the dark waters. It was most dramatic. Almost like a Romantic painting.

  “At least the weather is clearing up,” Paolo said, still in an attempt to remain cheerful.

  “What is happening now?” his mother demanded as we trooped back into the lake view room. She had not moved from her customary place. Neither had the priest.

  “The policeman has returned. Apparently the gun in Count Rudolf’s hand had not been fired. He is now searching the house and we have been instructed to remain in this room.”

  “But it is almost time for luncheon,” the dowager countess said in a horrified voice. “You know how important it is to my digestion that I eat my meals at the correct time. You must tell this silly little man.” She looked across at Paolo’s uncle. “Cosimo, you must telephone to Rome. Tell them what fiasco is happening here.”

  “We have been forbidden to use the telephone at the moment, Angelina,” he said.

  “Then you must speak to him, Father Francisco,” she said imperiously. “Tell him he is not allowed to treat aristocrats as if they were a herd of sheep. He will surely listen to a man of the church.”

  “The church may not interfere with the affairs of the state, as you know very well, Contessa,” the priest said, looking up from his prayer book. “It is written in our constitution.”

  “When has that ever stopped the church from interfering before?” she said in scathing tones. “You are all weaklings. I shall approach him and tell him myself.”

  She attempted to stand up. Paolo put a hand on her shoulder. “No, Mamma. You may well make things worse. This man is enjoying his moment of power. And he has every right. There has been a murder in this house. The murderer must be found. So I beg you for patience. I expect it will all sort itself out soon enough.”

  “Well, I, for one, do not wish to remain here a single minute longer,” Mrs. Simpson said. She was pacing angrily, like a caged panther. “David, you must let your father know that we are being held here against our will. Or if not your father, the British ambassador in Rome.”

  “I can hardly do that if we can’t use the telephone, Wallis,” the Prince of Wales said. His voice was high and taut. I suppose he was just realizing the implications of being caught in this situation and what his father might make of it.

  But I found myself watching Mrs. Simpson. She hated being thwarted in anything, that was true, but was it possible that she had a bigger motive for making a hasty getaway? Rudolf was known to be a blackmailer. Was it possible he had found out something about her—something she wouldn’t want my cousin to know? Something that might finally damn her chances of being married to a king one day? I didn’t think she’d have any qualms about shooting a sleeping man and she would also be clever enough to make it look like a suicide.

  Camilla was also pacing. “Perhaps I should order some sandwiches in this room, if we are to be caged up here long,” she said.

  “I don’t know what this man thinks he will find,” the general said, also in a tense and clipped voice. “If someone has the wit to exchange guns, then the real weapon will be hidden or disposed of, you can be sure.”

  “What does not make sense to me,” Paolo said, his handsome forehead wrinkled in concentration, “is why not shoot him with his own gun, if it was available? Why go through this complicated charade?”

  “Perhaps he had a gun but no bullets to go with it,” Mummy suggested. “Or perhaps he had hidden the bullets where they couldn’t be found. People do hide things, you know.”

  She glanced at me and I knew what she was thinking. Were the police at this moment turning over Rudi’s room and had they yet discovered the photographs? I wished Darcy were here with us. I was still shocked and it would have made all the difference to know he was here beside me. At least he was within reach, I told myself. At least I’d see him tonight.

  We heard footsteps going up and down the stairs. We heard noises of furniture being moved.

  Nobody spoke. Even Mrs. Simpson had stopped pacing and now stood, staring out of the window at the lake. Perhaps she was working out how she could get to one of the motorboats and drive herself to Switzerland. There was no sound except for the rhythmic ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. It seemed we were all holding our breath and waiting for doom to fall. I looked around the room—which one of them? It was unlikely that an outsider could gain access to a bedroom in a house full of servants. It was unlikely that a servant would be involved in the murder of his or her master. So it was one of us. Someone in this room . . . Except that Klinker still had not returned. That was something to tell the assistant chief when he came back into the room.

  At last we heard a steady footfall coming toward us. All eyes focused on
the door. But it was not the policeman. It was Umberto, carrying a tray.

  “It is past your customary time for luncheon, Contessa,” he said. “I thought you might need a little sustenance.”

  On the tray was a carafe of white wine, glasses and a stack of sandwiches.

  “Well done, Umberto,” Camilla said. “Help yourself, everybody.”

  “I don’t know how anyone can feel like eating at a time like this,” Mrs. Simpson said.

  But Paolo’s mother was already making a beeline for the plate. “Ah, smoked salmon,” she said. “My favorite.” And took several. The priest was right behind her. I waited my turn then took a couple, although I also found it hard to swallow. I kept glancing across at Mummy then expecting the policeman to come downstairs waving the photographs triumphantly for all to see. We had finished the food and wine and the clock had chimed two before we heard more footsteps. Stratiacelli came into the room, a triumphant grin on his face. He was carrying a morocco leather train case.

  “To whom does this belong?” he asked. Actually he said, “Who this belongs?”

  “Why, it’s mine,” Mummy said, sounding surprised.

  “Yours, signora?” He was still smiling as he placed the train case on a side table and clicked it open. He removed the top layer then held up a pearl-handled revolver. “And who does this gun belong to?”

  “That’s also mine,” Mummy said. She sounded flustered now.

  “You have a gun?” I blurted out before I realized that it was wiser to stay silent. “You carry a gun around with you?”

  “I’ve never actually fired it, darling.” Mummy gave a nervous little laugh. “Max insisted I have one for protection when he is away on business. There are still communist agitators in Berlin, you know.”

  “You say you have never fired it?” Stratiacelli said. “Then it must surprise you to know that it has been fired recently? And I think we find that the bullet that went through that poor man’s head is the size that fits this gun?” He didn’t actually say it as elegantly as that, but we all understood what he was getting at.

  “But that’s not possible,” Mummy said. “The gun has never left my train case and my case has never left my room. Tell them, Max.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Max stood up. “What possible motive could this lady have for wanting to kill Count Rudolf? She hardly knows him. We have met maybe one or two times at a party in Berlin. This is all. One does not plan the death of a total stranger.”

  “As to her motive we do not know it yet,” Stratiacelli said. “Maybe it will become clear when I interrogate each of you. You claim you are innocent. Who else knew of the existence of this gun?”

  “Why, only Max, I suppose. I never mentioned it to anyone else. To tell you the truth I had even forgotten that I had it with me. I had stuck it into my traveling case when we left Berlin because one never knows about brigands on mountain passes.”

  “So nobody else knew of it except this gentleman. That seems to point to your guilt, signora.”

  “Oh, come on,” Mummy said in an exasperated voice. “I am not stupid. If I had fired the gun and killed somebody, do you think I would have put it back in my train case? Of course not. I would have tied a rock to it and thrown it into the lake, or at the very least stuck it into the middle of one of the bushes, where it wouldn’t be found for ages.”

  There was a silence while Stratiacelli digested this. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe not. Perhaps you are sure everyone will think this man killed himself and there will be no police inquiry.”

  “Do we know the approximate time of death, Assistant Chief?” Paolo asked.

  “It was before midnight, so the good doctor tells me,” Stratiacelli said.

  “There you are, then.” Max brushed his hands together. “Until midnight this lady and I were both sitting in our room, awake and talking.”

  “Awake and . . . talking?” Stratiacelli put an insinuation into this.

  “That is correct,” Max said.

  “You are this lady’s husband, mein Herr?” Stratiacelli asked.

  “They are not married,” Paolo’s mother remarked from her chair beside the fireplace. “There is much sin in this house, even before the murder. Is that not so, Father Francisco?”

  The priest looked up and nodded solemnly.

  “So you share a room, mein Herr, but you are not married?” Stratiacelli asked sweetly.

  “We are engaged to be married,” Max said in an annoyed voice.

  “Actually that was what we were talking about,” Mummy said. “We were discussing plans for our wedding this summer and whether it would be better to hold the ceremony in Berlin or at our villa on Lake Lugano.”

  “And Claire thought that Lugano in summer would be more pleasant than Berlin, where it gets rather hot,” Max added.

  “That’s right,” Mummy said. “And then we heard the downstairs clock chime midnight and we said we had better break off the discussion and go to sleep. So we did.”

  It took a moment for Stratiacelli to process this as it was translated for him. Then he said, with a sneer in his voice, “You people—I don’t understand. Your morals are not my morals. You think the changing of bed companions is a game, yes? So who knows which of you was in this man’s bed last night, eh?”

  “How dare you.” Paolo’s uncle stood up. “That is enough. You insult my guests. You question their morals. You have overstepped your rank and I shall now make a telephone call to Rome.”

  “If you attempt to make a telephone call, I shall have you arrested and thrown into jail,” Stratiacelli said. “I see now that this is a conspiracy. Perhaps you all know who killed this man and you think you can stay silent and keep the truth from Stratiacelli. But let us see how silent you remain after a few days in a prison cell.”

  “You would not dare!” Mrs. Simpson said. She strode across the room and stared into Stratiacelli’s face. “This is the Prince of Wales. The heir to the English throne. If you dare to suggest that he has been involved in a crime, if you dare to take him to jail, you will find that England declares war on Italy. I would not want to be in your shoes when the British fleet sails into Genoa harbor to rescue the prince.”

  Stratiacelli clearly hadn’t understood most of this rapid outburst, but he got enough of it to make him turn pale.

  “Naturally the Prince of Wales is beyond reproach,” he said rapidly. “I must go by the facts. By the evidence before my eyes. The evidence will tell me all I need to know. And what I have so far is a dead man, a gun that has not been fired and another gun that has. What am I to conclude from that? That the second gun put an end to this man’s life. And the owner of this gun must be my first suspect. So, now we check for fingerprints on the guns. My men will take the fingerprints of everybody in this house and we will see which fingerprints appear on both the guns.”

  “Actually yours do now, Assistant Chief,” Camilla said, pointing at the gun in his hand. “And presumably so do those of your man who found it.”

  The policeman looked down at his hand. “Ah so. Yes. You may be right,” he said, hastily putting the gun down on the table.

  “You may well have smudged or destroyed any prints that would have been there before,” Camilla said. There was a note of triumph in her voice. “We may never be able to prove who fired that gun.”

  Stratiacelli looked a little worried and embarrassed. Then he drew himself up to his full five foot four. “Do not worry, Contessa. Stratiacelli will not rest until this case is solved and the murderer is brought to justice,” he said. “My men will now take your fingerprints.”

  “And what about our luncheon?” Paolo’s mother demanded. “All we have had to sustain us is a few little sandwiches. When you are my age you need proper meals at regular times to sustain health.”

  “You may eat when the fingerprints have been taken,” Stratiacelli said. He lo
oked out of the window. “Mamma mia,” he said. “There is a strange man creeping around the outside of your house.” He rushed into the foyer and called up the stairs, “Bernardo! Giancosimo! Down here immediately. Apprehend the man creeping through the bushes!”

  Chapter 24

  TUESDAY, APRIL 23, STILL BEING INTERROGATED

  Things are looking bad for my mother. Surely she wasn’t stupid enough to have killed Rudi?

  Footsteps clattered down the stairs and I heard the crunch of feet on gravel outside. My heart was racing. It had occurred to me that the man could well be Darcy, trying to see what was happening in the house. If they caught him and brought him in here, how would he ever explain what he was doing and how would I ever explain that I knew he was here? I waited, hardly daring to breathe. We heard men’s voices and then footsteps coming back into the foyer. I had an overwhelming desire to come out and see for myself. We heard one of the policemen speaking, then Stratiacelli’s voice. Then the assistant chief came back into our room, followed by two young policemen, holding between them a struggling Klinker. Klinker was covered in mud and soaking wet and looked very miserable.

  “Do any of you know this man?” Stratiacelli demanded. “He was caught sneaking outside your house and has refused to answer my men’s questions.”

  “That is because he speaks no Italian.” The general had risen to his feet. He glared at Klinker, who stood there, his eyes darting around nervously. “Mein Gott, Klinker. What has happened to you?”

  Klinker turned to face the general and let out a rapid string of German. The general said, “Ach so.” He smiled, then addressed Stratiacelli. “This is my adjutant, Lieutenant Klinker. He went for a walk up the mountain early this morning. When he came down, he found that the small stream he had crossed had become a raging torrent because of the rain. He tried to find a way around, but there was none. He found a place where a crossing may have been possible by using a tree branch that extended across the water. The branch gave way. He fell into the raging waters and was swept downstream. He nearly drowned.”