On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service Read online

  “What are you doing?” I demanded angrily.

  He looked shocked and embarrassed. “This you do not like?”

  “Not with someone I hardly know.”

  “Please to forgive. I have not much practice with women. I read book. It is called How to Make Love to Woman?” He translated slowly. “It says number one: the lips. Number two: stroke the hair. Then the back. And number four: the chest. It says woman likes the chest to be grasped. Did I grasp too forcefully?”

  I was trying hard not to giggle. “What is your first name? I can’t keep calling you Lieutenant Klinker.”

  “It is Fritz.”

  “Well, Fritz, I don’t think you can learn to make love to a girl from a book.”

  “No? In the German army we have books to learn most things.”

  “It has to come naturally. And slowly. Most girls don’t like to be rushed.”

  “You mean I must take the bosom slowly?”

  “I mean that a girl must get to know you and like you before she lets you touch her body. She must trust you and love you.”

  “I see.” He looked crestfallen. “I am sorry I make mistake and offend you.”

  “I’m not offended,” I said. “We all have to start sometime.”

  “In Berlin it is hard to meet nice women. We have not much time for such things in the army life.” He gave me a wistful smile. “You are kind woman. May I ask—could we go to your room, perhaps? And I will try to do better this time. No grasping.”

  Until now I had been rather amused by the whole thing. I couldn’t wait to tell Belinda. How she would laugh. But the mention of my room raised a red flag. Was he really the innocent young man he claimed to be or was he looking for a chance to lure me away from the other guests? Did he think I knew something and was a danger to him? Were he and Gerda working together?

  “Oh no,” I said. “I’m afraid that would not be proper. My royal relatives would certainly not approve.”

  “They need not know.”

  “My cousin is here. He would notice if I disappeared with you. Besides”—I gave him a smile—“I have a young man at home and he would not approve either.”

  “I see.” He gave a sigh. “So you are already promised to somebody?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “That is bad,” he said. “All the nice girls are promised. Poor Klinker. He must remain unloved.”

  “I hope not,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll meet somebody soon.”

  He sighed again. “I think I go to bed, if you will excuse me.”

  “Don’t forget to ask for your hot milk before the servants go to bed,” I said.

  Did I detect a sudden sharpness of glance? It was for the briefest of seconds, and he said, “I do not think I will need milk tonight. My walk on the mountain and fall into the river have made me tired. I shall sleep well.” He faced me and clicked his heels together. “Gute Nacht, Georgie.”

  “Gute Nacht, Fritz,” I said.

  I watched him walk away, still not sure if I had nearly been sleeping with the enemy.

  Chapter 29

  THE NIGHT OF TUESDAY, APRIL 23

  IN THE GROUNDS OF VILLA FIORI

  I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight. Will that chair under the doorknob really keep out intruders? I wish Darcy would hurry up!

  I went back to the others and sat, thumbing through magazines, until Mummy declared she was tired and wanted to go to bed. I think this was because she was currently winning. Mummy always liked to go out on a high note. The party broke up and I followed my mother and Max up the stairs. At the first landing the general gave a polite bow. “I wish you all a pleasant night,” he said. He went up a flight of steps to the right while we went to the left. A long way from Rudolf’s room, I thought. And if Rudolf was killed before midnight, then the butler was still up and around. There was a danger of being seen, as Fritz Klinker had been. Had he been on his way to shoot Rudolf when he was spotted? Or had he done the deed and was returning the key to its rightful place, wherever that was? I found it hard to think of him as a cold-blooded killer, but one never knew.

  I had scarcely reached my bedroom and had no chance to lock my door when Gerda appeared, carrying a cup and saucer. “Ah, my lady. I bring you the good tea again to help you sleep.”

  I looked at the cup. “How kind,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Perfect. Just what I need.”

  She tried to hand it to me, but I said, “Put it on the table beside my bed. I’ll get undressed first. It looks too hot to drink yet.”

  “As you wish, my lady,” she said. I sat at the vanity while she took off my necklace then helped me out of the dress. All the time my brain was racing. I had to believe that the drink was drugged again, but this time it might not be just to make me sleep, but enough so that I didn’t wake up again. I tried to think of a way of not drinking it without giving away what I suspected.

  “Thank you, Gerda,” I said when she had put my nightdress over my head. “That will be all, I think. I have to visit the WC before I go to bed.”

  “Your tea, my lady,” she insisted.

  “I’ll drink it when I come back, when I’m in bed,” I said. “No need for you to wait.”

  “I shall return for your cup then?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You can retrieve it in the morning. I’m sure you need a good night’s sleep. We all do after what we have gone through today.”

  She hesitated, then she said, “Very well. In the morning, then. But do not let it get cold.”

  “Of course not. Thank you, Gerda. I appreciate all you have done for me.”

  “You are kind, my lady,” she said, and for a moment I thought she looked regretful. I watched her go, then I poured some of the liquid into my toothbrush holder, to be tested if necessary, and tipped the rest of it down the sink. I went to the lavatory at the end of the hall and saw no sign of Gerda when I returned. I locked my door and tried to move a piece of furniture against it, but the chests and armoires were too solid to be moved. So I did what Darcy had suggested and positioned a chair balanced under the door handle. If anyone managed to push the door open the chair would fall with a clatter.

  I was still feeling quite jittery as I prepared for bed. Perhaps Darcy would come to my room tonight, I thought. I was going to leave the window unlocked, but then I remembered that an unwelcome visitor might also get in that way. This time I’d be awake if Darcy tapped. I went to remove the extra pillows from my bed. I like to sleep on my side with only one pillow and they had given me four. I paused, a pillow still in my hand. There had been four on the other nights. Now there were only three. Strange. Had the maid decided I didn’t need so many and put one in my wardrobe, perhaps?

  I went over to the wardrobe and opened it. It was rather an alarming piece of furniture—awfully good for playing hide-and-seek or sardines, but full of shadowy corners in the poor light of my bedside lamp. I hesitated to poke around inside, looking for that extra pillow. I told myself I was being silly. After all, I had grown up in a castle full of old pieces of furniture, not to mention suits of armor and even secret passages. These had never frightened me before.

  “You see,” I said to myself firmly, “it’s just a large wardrobe. Built in the days when dresses and cloaks were much bulkier than modern dress. Nothing frightening about it.”

  I reached past my dresses to give the back of the wardrobe a reassuring pat and my fingers touched a cobweb. I reacted as one does, lost my balance and put out my hand to steady myself. The back of the wardrobe gave way under my touch. I pitched forward into darkness.

  For a moment I lay there, too stunned to move. I had caught my shins on the lip of the wardrobe as I plunged forward and now they were throbbing horribly. Cautiously I got to my feet. I recoiled as something soft brushed my cheek. I reached out to touch it and identified a gentleman’s j
acket sleeve. And realized where I was. I was in the adjoining wardrobe in Rudolf’s room. This must be a convenient way between the two rooms for those who wanted to practice bed-hopping without the risk of being discovered! My first thought was, Thank God Rudolf didn’t know about this or he might have paid me a nightly visit.

  My second thought was more somber and momentous. So this was how it was done! I saw it all clearly now. Gerda, and I had to believe now it was she, had drugged me so that I didn’t hear her come into my room and reach Rudolf’s room through the door at the back of the wardrobe. And . . . another thing fell into place. The missing pillow. Of course. She had used the pillow to muffle the sound of the shot. Hence the white feather on the floor, and the unpleasant burned odor I couldn’t identify. It was burned feathers. She probably thought she had picked up all the stray feathers and then deposited the remains of the pillow in the chicken run, where a few extra feathers would never be noticed. Except she had seen the feathers stuck to my shoes and she now feared that I had figured everything out.

  I scrambled back into my own wardrobe and attempted to close the door again, fumbling for a catch while all the time expecting to see Gerda opening Rudolf’s side of the wardrobe with a gun in her hand. I told myself that the assistant chief now had both the guns in his possession, but there could be more guns in the house. And she could still have a knife or chloroform or even a scarf to strangle me and force drugs down my throat. And she was a powerful-looking woman. I was not sure I could fend her off. I looked around the room, wondering what to do. Should I try to escape right now, run down the hall and hammer on my mother’s door? Or go down to the policemen stationed at the front door? But what if she was lying in wait? What if she leaped out of Rudi’s door, dragged me in there and finished me off? What if it was a well-planned plot and there were indeed two or more of them? And my ultimate worry: what if Max was involved? I saw it was all too possible that someone in Germany had learned that Rudolf was a double agent, feeding information to England. They had been sent down from Berlin to get rid of him and make it look like a suicide.

  Suddenly I wasn’t sure whom I could trust. Camilla and Paolo, surely? But Gerda was Camilla’s maid. And I had no idea about their private part of the house behind those double doors. Maybe just a bedroom and dressing room, or maybe a whole corridor with a room for Gerda nearby. She might well be lurking near the entrance.

  Even as I was considering these things I heard the slightest of noises. A faint click, and I noticed my door handle move just a fraction.

  “Yes?” I said imperiously. “Who is it? What do you want?”

  There was no reply. No Gerda saying, “I’m sorry, my lady. I came to see if you were asleep,” or something harmless like that.

  Darcy, I thought. I must get to Darcy. I pulled off my nightgown and wriggled into a dark skirt and jersey. Then I put on those beautifully clean brogues and opened my balcony door as silently as I dared. I closed it behind me, not wanting to give away instantly the route I had taken. I half hoped to see him waiting below, to hear his voice whispering, “Georgie, I’m down here.”

  The garden was dappled with moonlight, but a wind had sprung up and branches swayed, making shadows dance. I stood waiting for a second or two longer, then made the decision. I’d have to go to his cottage. To get safely away from here. I looked down at the vine. I had certainly done some climbing during my formative years; in fact, Belinda and I had climbed over the roof and down the drainpipe to escape from school once. At least, she had done it more often, to meet ski instructors. I, being a good child, had dared to do it only once. That vine looked solid enough. It had been solid enough to hold Darcy. I took a deep breath and swung my leg over the railing, then the other, and fished around until a foot connected with part of a solid limb. Then I lowered myself inch by inch. Leaves brushed my face. Twigs scratched me. It seemed to take forever and at the back of my mind was the thought that she’d be waiting for me, or one of them would be waiting for me, at the bottom.

  At last my foot touched the gravel. I stood there, in the shadow of the villa, trying to breathe quietly, looking around. The vast shape of the villa lay in darkness. No lights shone out of any of the upstairs windows on this side of the house. The wind sighed and rustled through the leaves and rattled branches. I hesitated, deciding. I could go around to the front and to the policemen who were supposedly stationed there. Or I could make my way through the grounds to Darcy. Surely he wouldn’t have stayed the night in Stresa, waiting for more telegrams from London. He had to be close by or he couldn’t have sent that note. I decided I couldn’t risk going around to the front of the villa, just in case Gerda or one of her coconspirators was waiting for me, lurking in the bushes, before I got there.

  None of them knew about Darcy, I told myself. Nobody would expect me to run to the gardeners’ cottages. I sprinted across the stretch of open lawn until I reached the first of the topiary hedges. I darted behind it, then made my way toward the swimming pool. That little marble temple glowed in moonlight. I gave it a wide berth, just in case. . . . I was now in the wilder part of the estate, a section of open woodland, great trees, flowering rhododendrons. The wind was stronger here, coming straight off the lake without being blocked by the house. Branches danced crazily above me. Clouds scudded across the sky. One of them covered the moon and I was plunged into darkness. I pressed on, hoping I was still heading in the right direction, moving unsteadily over the uneven ground. Trees loomed up at the last second and I went forward like a blind person, my hands out in front of me.

  I looked back, just in time to catch a glimpse of a flicker of light between the bushes. It went out almost instantly, but I hadn’t imagined it. It had definitely been there, on the other side of the swimming pool. Someone with a torch was following me. I waited, hidden behind a big oak, and sure enough it flashed on again, then was quickly extinguished. Was it a signal to a second person? I stood listening, but any sound of footsteps was drowned out by the creaking of branches and rustle of leaves. I turned and kept going, moving from tree to tree, every now and then looking back to see if my pursuer was gaining on me. The moon came out briefly and I broke into a run, not caring if I was heard. Surely the edge of the estate and the cottages must be getting close now. I felt alone and so vulnerable. If my pursuer had a gun, I would be an easy target in the moonlight. Why, oh why, hadn’t I opted for the policemen stationed on guard at the front of the house? It had seemed quite simple to find my way to the edge of the estate and the gardeners’ cottages in the daylight. The ground ahead of me was rising gently. Was that right? I knew the whole estate sloped up the hill, with the terraces above the house rising steeply. But surely the land in front of the cottages was relatively flat, wasn’t it?

  The moon disappeared again and I waited behind a big bush to see if the flashlight was still following me. Nothing. Perhaps the person had given up and gone back to the house. Perhaps it was one of the policemen, I thought. Trying to apprehend an intruder. But perhaps it wasn’t. It was a chance I couldn’t take. Then I saw it again. This time it cut a big arc of light through the trees. The person was searching for me, no longer worried about being seen. At least I had my pursuer pinpointed. She, or he, was slightly behind me, but definitely closer than before, and below me. If he, or she, moved quickly, and the cottages were lower down the estate, closer to the road, I could well be cut off before I reached them.

  I also remembered that there was a gravel forecourt outside the cottage area. My pursuer could wait until I came out into the open—if she (assuming it was Gerda) had figured out that I was making for the gardeners’ cottages. Perhaps she just thought I was trying to find a way out of the estate. But a new doubt crept into my mind. What if I sprinted to Darcy’s front door, hammered on it, and he wasn’t there? There was that worrying possibility that he could have stayed the night in town, waiting for that telegram in the morning. A picture flashed into my mind: me standing at the front door while my
unknown assailant crept up behind me or poised a pistol to take aim. I stood, hidden behind my bush, in an agony of indecision. If Gerda, or whoever was following me, thought I was now trying to reach the edge of the estate, then wouldn’t the most logical route be to double back to the villa as quickly as possible? Even if the front door was locked, there were supposed to be police guards somewhere around. And hammering on the door would wake somebody. Yes, that seemed less of a risk than trying to find Darcy’s cottage right now. And if the person was carrying a gun, then it would be possible to shoot two of us. I couldn’t risk that, could I?

  I came to a decision. I would go up the hill first so that I could make my way around in a semicircle and approach the house without having to cross the open area beside the swimming pool and then the lawn and driveway. If I could reach the orchard on the other side, I’d have the cover of the kitchen garden, and then a short dash to the house. Surely nobody would expect me to take that route. As I started to move, the wind suddenly dropped, almost as if someone had turned off a switch. And the moon reappeared from a cloud. I felt horribly vulnerable and exposed. I stood still, listening. There was no sound, apart from the distant lap and hiss of waves on the lakeshore. All the time I stood still I imagined my pursuer creeping up silently on me, and the first time I would know of her presence would be the flash and explosion of a gun.

  Then I heard a small noise of something moving, still slightly behind where I was standing, and lower down the hill, and, almost at the same moment, I saw a dark figure slink behind a bush, also lower down the hill but ahead of me, between me and Darcy’s cottage. A second person was after me. I took the only course open to me. I started to go uphill, trying hard to move silently. The moon stayed out, highlighting every time I darted from bush to bush. The ground started to rise more steeply. I knew at the edges of the estate there was wilderness. Across the central portion were the terraces with their high hedges dividing them as they rose up the mountainside. If I could just reach them, I could sprint across to reach the villa with ease. Unless there was a third person, waiting to cut off my retreat, a little voice whispered in my head. I chose to ignore it. Every now and then I paused. Once I heard a twig snap behind me. In the silence of the night it sounded unnaturally loud, like a gunshot. It was bright enough now that the torch was not necessary so I had no way of pinpointing how close they were.