He brightened. “Did you, really? I don’t get anywhere the hits I thought I would.” He laughed. “Nobody gives a damn about grouchy old men who think they should be king these days.”
I took a sip of my tea. The sailboats and gulls made it taste that much better. “It’s a cruel world, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s a beautiful world.” He toasted me. Took a sip of his own. “If you read my website, then you know I’m quite content if the people of my homeland don’t want to restore the monarchy. But if they ever do vote to restore it, they ought to do it right.”
“Recognize the Clopotars.”
“The throne is rightfully ours.”
He was right, assuming that everything I read on the Internet about the Romanian royal bloodlines was true, of course. Prince Anton was the great-great-grandson of King Carol I. His greatgrandfather, Prince Anthony, to the king’s dismay, had married the daughter of a cavalry officer. When Anthony died unexpectedly, his bride-baby in her belly-was banished from the royal household. That baby was Prince Anton’s grandfather.
It was time to steer the conversation to my investigation. “As I recall, your great-grandmother, Princess Violeta, married a commoner after she was banished from the royal family.”
The prince became a bit defensive. “Gavril Clopotar. A very fine man.”
“He raised Prince Anthony’s son as his own,” I agreed.
“Yes, he did. A fine thing for him to do.”
I let him know I’d done my homework. “And Prince Anthony’s son-your grandfather, Constantin-should have followed Carol I as king. Instead, the throne went to a nephew of the king. And the living heir of that nephew is King Michael I. Who was kicked off the throne when the Communists took control in the forties. And if the monarchy were restored, Michael would get the throne back. Unless the parliament did the proper thing and recognized you.”
He toasted me again. “You are a diligent student.”
I was ready to let the cat out of the bag. “The truth is, I’m working on a murder investigation for my newspaper – the Hannawa, Ohio, Herald-Union. In a roundabout way it may have something to do with you.”
He reacted to this startling news by warming up my tea. “Such an American thing, murder.”
“We’re very good at it, no doubt about that.”
“And just who was murdered, Miss Sprowls?”
“Another Violeta.”
His eyeballs were floating, a sign that a lot was going on inside his head. “Violeta is a common Romanian name.”
“This one claimed to be the queen of Romania.”
“Claimed?”
I got his point. “She never offered any proof. And she proved to be a fraud in other ways. But she did make the claim publicly in our newspaper. And a few days later she was found dead.”
“How old was she, this Violeta?”
“She claimed to be seventy-two.”
“And her last name? What did she claim that was?”
“Bell.”
“Bell?”
“Doesn’t ring one?”
An expression that could be interpreted as relief calmed his wrinkles. “That’s not a Romanian name. Of course it could be a married name, I suppose.”
“She was never married,” I said. “As far as anybody knows.”
I kept my mouth shut now. Let his mind work. We sipped our tea and watched the sailboats and gulls. Let the sun and the quiet soak in. “Is the fact that she claimed to be the queen of Romania your only hypothesis for her demise?” he finally asked.
“The police think her murder is connected to the theft of antiques from her condominium,” I said.
His ears perked up, the way James’ do when my microwave beeps. “Antiques? None of them had anything to do with Romanian history, did they?”
Knowing what was found in Eddie French’s apartment I had to laugh. “A bejeweled crown, you mean?”
He did not appreciate my little joke. “All of the crowns are accounted for, Miss Sprowls. But there are plenty of important family heirlooms floating about.”
I told him that Violeta Bell had been an antique dealer. I showed him a list of the antiques found in Eddie’s apartment. I told him that I had a suspicion they were fakes. “More than likely her murder had nothing to do with her claim to be royalty,” I said. “It’s just one of the improbabilities I need to put to rest before tackling more fruitful possibilities.”
A sad smile turned up the ends of his mustache. “Forgive my irritation, Miss Sprowls. I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to find a set of lead soldiers that had been given to my greatgrandfather when he was a boy. By Prince Albert of England. One hundred tiny Romanian Hussars in all their glory. Cavalrymen. Romania, you see, won its independence for helping Russia drive the Turks out of the Balkans. And the British, who had sided with the Turks, wanted to repair relations with the new Romanian nation. So they were more than toy soldiers. They were diplomatic chess pieces.”
My next question was obvious. “You wouldn’t kill for them, would you?”
He laughed. “Not literally, I wouldn’t. But it is quite a coincidence that my great-grandfather would grow up to marry the daughter of a cavalry officer, isn’t it? Who knows, I may owe my very existence to the romantic roilings fostered by those lead soldiers.” His manner suddenly changed. He became passionless. Analytical. “Let’s get back to why you came to see me. You’re wondering if I had something to do with this woman’s murder. In the event her claims were true, I might want her out of the way in case the monarchy is restored. Yes, there is a small royalist party in Romania today. And a few of its members actually support my cause. But there is no room in the new constitution for a monarch. Not even a toothless figurehead.”
He was right. I’d Googled the new Romanian constitution. It didn’t say boo about a king or queen, except, somewhat cryptically, that no one could exercise sovereignty in one’s own name. “Couldn’t the constitution be amended?”
“Yes, but it would take quite a groundswell of public support,” he said. “And that’s not very likely. Certainly not in my lifetime. Or old King Michael’s.”
That, too, jived with what I’d read. “What about the next generation of heirs? You have three sons. King Michael has five daughters.”
He poured more tea for us. “Surely you don’t expect me to opine on the possibility of my own sons thinning the royal herd.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry.”
He winked at me. “If they were so inclined, I think they would start with me.”
I toasted him. He was a funny man. An attractive man. “You had an older brother. Petru. Did he leave any heirs?”
Prince Anton shook his head no. Pointed across the bay. “He drowned himself right out there. A half-mile off that point. Fifty-two years ago. When he was twenty-six.”
“Drowned himself? Suicide?”
“The authorities ruled it an accident. How do you accidentally get an anchor rope tied around your feet?” His eyes were cloudy with tears. “A passing boater found our boat. The motor was still running. The propeller turned sharply to the right. The boat going round and round like the hands of a clock. X marks the spot. Intentionally it seemed to me. ”
My eyes were clouding up, too. “I lost my brother when he was nineteen. In Korea. His death was an accident. If you can call anyone getting killed in a war an accident. He was accidentally shot in the leg by one of his buddies while crossing the Han River. He tumbled off the pontoon bridge and drowned before they could pull him out.”
The prince pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me. While I dabbed my eyes with it, he pulled the tears from his with his pinky fingers, studying each tear before he wiped it off. “Both drowned,” he said softly. “Horrible.”
