hysterics. I dare say the wretched girl was with child and tried to abort herself. I expect they’ll get it cleared up, and we can all get back to what matters. There is a great deal to discuss yet to ensure that His Royal Highness is fully aware of all the facts.”
“I’m sure he knows the map of Africa as well as we do,” Olga told her. “It’s really quite simple. Cape Town is on the coast of South Africa, which is British anyway. After that the railway would go up through Bechuanaland, then the British South Africa Company territory. There is only the stretch between German East Africa and Congo Free State that is foreign, then we are into British East Africa.
Sudan might be tricky, but then there’s Egypt, which is British, and we are in Cairo. It isn’t largely the diplomatic issues that are the problem.” She dismissed them with a jerk of her hand. “It is the engineering. Let the police clear up whatever happened to this woman in the cupboard. It’s totally absurd for such a thing to hold up discussion of a railway that will change the face of the Empire. There must be prostitutes dying every day, somewhere or other.”
“This is not ‘somewhere or other,’ ” Elsa pointed out. “It is a linen cupboard in Buckingham Palace, not twenty yards from my bedroom door, or yours, for that matter.”
“My dear,” Liliane said with elaborate patience, “it is as irrelevant to you as if it were in China! For goodness’ sake forget about it, and concentrate on being charming to His Royal Highness. It’s probably not good manners even to mention such a thing, let alone be seen to be disconcerted by it.”
“Positively vulgar!” Minnie said from the doorway. “A guest should never appear to find anything odd, no matter what it is. Good morning, Elsa, Mrs. Marquand, Mrs. Quase.” She looked superb. Her morning gown was a rich golden yellow with a long, two-tiered skirt that swayed when she moved and had ribbons at her throat and wrist.
The bloom of youth was in her skin, her eyes were bright, and she had a kind of concentrated energy so delicately controlled that she seemed to be more alive than any of the others. It was an inner excitement, as if she knew something they did not. Elsa sometimes wondered if that were so.
“I suggest we don’t refer to it,” Minnie added, moving toward the door into the dining room. “Where is everyone else?”
“It is more than a misfortune in domestic arrangements,” Elsa said tartly. Minnie’s callousness annoyed her, as did everything else about her at one time or another. Minnie’s father’s intense admiration for her was almost a fascination, as if she were a reflection of himself. But most of all, of course, the spur to her dislike was that she was Julius’s wife.
“No, it isn’t,” Minnie contradicted her with a slight shrug. “People do die. It can’t be helped. It is rude to make much of it. I should be fearfully embarrassed if one of my maids died vulgarly when I had houseguests.”
“Of course you would,” Julius agreed, coming in from the hall.
“Dying vulgarly is a privilege exclusive to the upper classes. Servants should die decently in bed.”
“Don’t be witty, Julius,” Minnie snapped. “It doesn’t become you.
Anyway, she wasn’t a servant, she was a. .”
“Where should they die, my dear? In the street?” he inquired lan-guidly.
She opened her eyes very wide and stared at him. “I have no idea.
It is not a matter I have ever considered.” She swung round, elegantly turning her skirt with a little flick, and walked away into the dining room.
Julius glanced at Elsa, a faint, rueful smile on his face, and then sighed and followed after his wife.
Elsa felt her throat tighten and her heart lurch.
Then the moment was broken by Simnel coming in. Although he was Julius’s half-brother, they were not alike. Julius was taller and broader at the shoulders, and Elsa could see a greater imagination and more vulnerability in the line of his mouth than in Simnel’s. But then she was more certain of her emotion than of her judgment. Perhaps that was only what she wished to see.
“What on earth is going on?” Simnel asked, looking around.
“Who are the men asking questions and sending the servants into hysterics? I just saw one of the maids with tears streaming down her face, and she ran from me as if I had horns and a tail.”
Cahoon came in practically on his heels. “There’s been an ugly incident,” he answered, as if the question had been addressed to him.
“One of last night’s whores was murdered. Regrettably we have to have the police in, but if they do their job properly, they may clear it up within a day or so. We must just keep our heads and go on with our work. Shall we go in to luncheon.” That was an order more than a suggestion. “Where is Hamilton?”
Elsa disliked the use of the word
Cahoon went into the dining room ahead, leaving her to follow, with Olga beside her. The Prince of Wales was obviously not joining them, so there was little formality observed. They each took the places at which they had sat the previous day, the women assisted by servants.
This room also was magnificent, but too heavy in style for Elsa’s taste. She felt dwarfed by the huge paintings with their frames so broad as to seem almost a feature of the architecture. The ceiling stretched like the canopy of some elaborate tent, with the optical illusion of being arched. It was beautiful, and yet she was not comfortable in it. Certainly she did not wish to eat.
The soup was served in uncomfortable silence before Hamilton Quase joined them, taking the one empty chair without comment. He was tall and slender, and in his late forties. He had been handsome in his youth, but his fair hair had lost its thickness. His face was burned by the sun and marred by an absentminded sadness, as if he had forgotten its exact cause, or possibly chosen to forget it.
Liliane looked at him anxiously. The footman offered him soup but he declined, saying he would wait for the fish. He did accept the white wine, and drank from the glass immediately.
“You’d expect a place like Buckingham Palace to be safe, wouldn’t you!” he said challengingly. “How the devil can a lunatic break in here? Can anyone walk in and out as they please?”
“Nobody walked in,” Cahoon told him. “Or out.”
Hamilton set his glass down so violently the wine slopped over.
“God! You mean he’s still here?”
“Of course he’s still here!” Cahoon snapped. “He was always here!”
Hamilton stared at him, the color draining from his face.
“You’re frightening the women,” Julius said critically to Cahoon.
He glanced around the table. “Nobody broke in, and nobody will.
One of the servants completely lost control of himself and must have hit her, or strangled her, or whatever it was. It’s a tragedy, but it’s none of our business. And there is certainly nothing for us to be afraid of.
The police will deal with it.”
Hamilton raised his glass in a salute to Julius, and drank again.
Liliane relaxed a little and picked up her fork.
“Knifed her,” Cahoon filled in as the butler placed the fish in front of him. “Cut her throat and. . and her body. I’m afraid this is going to be unpleasant.”
“How do you know?” Simnel asked with more curiosity than alarm. He glanced at Minnie, and then back at Cahoon.
“I found her,” Cahoon said simply.
Elsa was startled. The wineglass slipped in her fingers and she only just caught it before it spilled. “I thought she was in a linen cupboard!”
“What on earth were you doing in a linen cupboard so early in the morning?” Julius asked with a very slight smile. “Or at any time, for that matter.”
“The door was open,” Cahoon told him tartly. “I smelled it.”
Liliane wrinkled her nose. “If we must have this discussion at all, could we at least put it off until after we have finished dining, Cahoon? I’m sure we are grateful that you seem to be taking charge of things, but your zeal has temporarily overtaken your good taste. I would prefer to have my fish without the details.”
“I’m afraid we are not going to escape all of the unpleasantness,”
