at the effuse greeting. I had just been introduced to Siegfried’s father, the king, when the gong sounded and I was swept into luncheon without having an opportunity to speak to Prince Nicholas. I was seated between a countess and an elderly baron, both of whom spoke to me in stilted French, and then, when they realized I knew nobody that they did, they spoke across me: “So do tell me, what is Jean-Claude doing this winter? Monte Carlo again? Too overrun with riffraff these days for me. And what about Josephine? How are her rheumatics? I heard she was in Budapest for the baths. I find them so unhygienic, don’t you?”
I managed to eat and answer when spoken to, while at the same time watching what happened behind the table. Servants came and went with such rapidity that I could see there was a chance that an opportune assassin could have darted out from an archway, administered a dose of poison and vanished again without being noticed. Especially if someone were speaking at the time. I looked down the room. If someone at the far end of the table had been making a toast, all eyes would have been on him. The whole thing seemed impossible. I would have been happy to call it a heart attack and leave well enough alone, but for the fact that someone had tried to kill Prince Nicholas and that person was still among us.
I managed to eat my way through a rich and creamy soup, a sauerbraten with red cabbage and some delicious dumplings stuffed with prunes and dusted in sugar. Then, the moment luncheon was over, I tried to intercept Prince Nicholas as he left the room.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” I said in a low voice. “There’s something I need to tell you privately, about Field Marshal Pirin.”
“Oh, right.” He looked startled, then glanced around. “I’ll get Anton.”
“No!” The word came out louder than I meant it to, and several people around us looked up. “No,” I repeated. “This is only for your ears. It’s up to you whom you decide to share it with when I’ve told you.”
“All right.” He looked amused if anything. “Where shall we go for this secret meeting?”
“Anywhere that obnoxious man Patrascue isn’t likely to overhear.”
“Who knows where his men are lurking?” Nicholas said. “It’s so easy to spy on people in a place like this. Oh, damn, speak of the devil—” Patrascue had come into the room and appeared to be making a beeline for us.
“You, lady from England,” he said. “You will come with me, please. I have something that I want you to explain to me immediately.”
“Do you want me along too?” Nicholas asked.
“Just the young lady,” Patrascue said.
I had no choice but to go with Patrascue, especially as he appeared to have two of his men in tow and I didn’t want to cause a fuss.
“I’ll see you later then,” I called after Nicholas, then I turned to Patrascue, who was standing close beside me. “What’s this about?” I asked.
“You will soon see,” Patrascue said. He marched ahead of me with great purpose, up the stairs until we came out onto my hallway. Then he flung open my bedroom door. A frightened-looking Queenie was standing by the bed.
“You will please explain this,” Patrascue said. He opened the chest and pointed at a small glass bottle lying there.
“I have no idea what it is or how it got there,” I said.
“I, on the other hand, have a very good idea,” he said. “I would like to deduce it was the receptacle that contained the poison.” He stepped closer until he was leering down at me. “I have had my suspicions about you from the beginning,” he said. “You were sitting opposite this field marshal. And why should the English king send you to the wedding? Why not send his own daughter, a princess, as would be more fitting?”
“Because Princess Maria Theresa personally asked for me to be part of her bridal procession, since we were old school friends. So the queen thought that it would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“Do not worry, as soon as the telephone lines are restored I shall be calling the garden of Scotland to verify this.”
The garden of Scotland? I grinned. He meant Scotland Yard.
“Please do. Are you suggesting that I came all the way from England to kill a field marshal I had never even heard of until this week?” I