A Death in Diamonds полностью

Alone – apart from the servants – he wandered aimlessly through the gracious reception rooms. It struck him for the ten thousandth time that he should be somewhere important, with people, making things happen, as he was born to do.

God, he was bored. Unutterably bored. When would Wallis be home?

The sound of padding paws on a tiled floor announced the arrival of her three pugs. They were missing her too. The fourth – named Peter Townsend after the man Margaret had tried unsuccessfully to marry – they had given away. Edward loved Wallis’s wicked sense of humour. It was one of the things they had in common.

God, he was bored.

He strode on to his study and sat down to read The Times, but got distracted. Surely they should have contacted him by now? Elizabeth would be in Canada any minute. He’d originally assumed he’d be there himself, but now they were talking about next year, or possibly the year after. That couldn’t be right, surely? His talents were being wasted. Bunny Maidstone had practically promised . . .

He reached across to the letter rack on his desk and fished out a sheet of paper with his cipher. A quick note to Bunny, to find out what the hell was going on. Jeremy Radnor-Milne had said something about keeping a low profile recently, but the man was a proletarian prig and this was only a little note to an old friend. He dashed it off, addressed the envelope himself and took it to the hall, to leave on the table for someone to take to the post.

At that moment, the swish of tyres on the gravel outside announced the return of his darling wife.

‘Look what I picked up in town!’ she said. ‘They just finished framing it for me.’

She reached into her capacious shopping bag and pulled out a package, which she unwrapped in front of him. It was a little sign that read ‘I may not be a miller, but I’ve been through the mill’.

‘From “Le Moulin” – “the mill”, remember?’

‘Oh, yes, very funny,’ he said. And felt dreadful about this deadly dull life he was giving her at the moment, and hoped a reply from Bunny would bring him better news soon.

His letter was picked up by one of the white-gloved servants, a man who hadn’t been with them long, and spoke much better English than some of the rest.

‘Take care of that, would you?’ the duke asked.

The man promised he would.

On a friend’s grouse moor in Scotland, the Duke of Maidstone was having a miserable time. Tony Radnor-Milne had come up for the weekend and, for reasons Bunny couldn’t fully comprehend, he was furious about something and held Bunny responsible. Bunny wasn’t used to being glowered at by the lower classes, and he didn’t appreciate it. Tony could get above himself, sometimes. He thought he was better than everyone, and that was a dangerous trait, in Bunny’s view.

‘Out with it, man,’ he said, when they were alone, having hung back from the other guns between drives. ‘What’s got you so hot under the collar?’

Tony stared at the horizon for a minute as they walked along. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. ‘I heard about what happened to the trollop at the palace.’

‘Oh, her. I thought you were rather keen on her?’

‘A van, heading for her at speed?’ Tony spat. ‘Are you insane?’

‘What makes you think I had anything to do with it?’

‘She sees us together; I tell you who she is; three days later she’s hospitalised. I’m not stupid.’

‘Nor am I!’ Bunny protested.

‘Oh, really? And nor are MI5. D’you know she shared digs – and God knows what else – with the head of D Branch?’

‘No, I didn’t know that,’ Bunny admitted. He didn’t know much about the girl at all. She was a friend of Tony’s, for God’s sake. That was the whole problem.

‘And they’ve got her living at the palace now, instead of with him, so they obviously suspect something.’ Tony stopped and turned to Bunny with spittle coming out of his mouth. It was quite disgusting. The man needed to get a grip. ‘You stupid, stupid man.’

‘I resent that! And I don’t like your attitude. I’m warning you, Tony . . .’

‘You’re warning me? They had nothing. The girl saw the two of us together at the Artemis, so what? I admit, I was alarmed at the time. What the bloody hell was she doing there? I think I can guess.’ His lips curled into a brief, lurid smile. ‘But that needn’t involve you and me.’

‘Except that it does, though, doesn’t it?’ Bunny said.

Tony scowled. ‘Nobody knows about that.’

‘And that’s how I intend it to stay.’

‘But they’ll work it out. That bloody van was a big, black sign saying, “Look at me!” What were you thinking?’

Bunny had had enough of this. If Tony hadn’t befriended the palace tart in the first place, none of this would have happened. He, Bunny, was merely taking care of things. Or, rather, getting a couple of his ‘associates’ from the casino business to do it at arm’s length. They were better at that sort of thing, and they wouldn’t talk. True, they hadn’t actually managed to kill the girl, but in a way that was a good thing, wasn’t it? With luck, they’d scared her off.