When they were ready, a sheet was held up by the equerries as a screen, facing the audience. The racing manager and the viscount arrived arm in arm, the latter being dressed in a tablecloth (the airing cupboard must be practically bare by now, Daphne thought) with a headband with cutlery stuffed into it, and clutching one of the flower arrangements from the dining table. They went behind the sheet, then Daphne and the lady-in-waiting sat down to play cards at the front. Each got up to disappear briefly behind the sheet. Then they moved to one side and the screen was lowered, to reveal the viscount lying supine on a velvet chaise longue, in a vest and white tennis shorts, the flowers clutched tightly to his chest, while the racing manager lay sprawled on the floor beside him with a hideous expression on his face and a red scarf wrapped around his neck. His acting was terrible – he would keep blinking and his grimace tended towards a smirk – but the effect was still startling.
There was a collective gasp from the audience.
Looking out, Daphne happened to catch the Queen jerk her head sharply towards her husband, so she glanced over to see why. It wasn’t obvious. Philip was frowning, but then, so were several other people.
‘Bad show!’ Philip called out.
‘Is it
Someone shouted, ‘Chelsea murders!’ There was a smattering of applause, more for form’s sake than anything, and the viscount got up to take a bow.
‘Oh, forks in his hair!’ the cousin said. ‘The tart in the tiara! I get it now.’
The next five minutes were rather awkward as the murder scene seemed to have sobered a lot of people up and nobody felt like Nebuchadnezzar any more. Daphne saw that, under her powder, the young Queen was still pale. She went to sit beside her.
‘Is everything all right, ma’am?’
‘Absolutely, thank you, Daphne. Are you having fun?’
‘Absolutely,’ Daphne said, with the same level of truthfulness.
The Queen put on a sociable smile. ‘I thought William, who played Althea Gibson, was shockingly bad, didn’t you?’
Daphne relayed what she’d been thinking earlier about women being consigned to footnotes in history. ‘Our stories are usually told by men. I wonder how often they do us justice.’
‘Yes. I suppose mine will be, too,’ the Queen said ruefully.
Daphne had forgotten that she was talking to a historical figure. She realised that the Queen never really forgot that she was one.
‘They make an exception for queens,’ she suggested.
‘Perhaps they do. I’m often told I’m an honorary man. It comes in useful sometimes. I’d ask you to do it – write about me, I mean – but your stories are so dark. I’d end up dead in the second chapter.’
‘I’m not a historian,’ Daphne said. ‘I could never write
The Queen smiled, but it was clear she wasn’t really listening again. She was looking at the chaise longue, where the viscount had been lying. Daphne was curious about that.
‘I’m sorry our scene upset you,’ she said.
The Queen looked at her sharply. ‘Oh, it didn’t at all.’
Daphne realised she had made a faux pas, to talk to the sovereign about her feelings. She tried quickly to make up for it.
‘It was just so theatrical, wasn’t it? Much too theatrical, if you ask me.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘A classic case of misdirection. My father used to do it all the time when he wanted to divert attention. There’s the girl, the beautiful innocent, clutching her flowers, and the man at her feet, the victim of a hideous crime. They set it up like something out of Victorian music hall. I do it in my novels sometimes, when I’m trying to slip something past the reader. The question is, what didn’t they want us to see?’
‘I’m sure the police are working on that.’
A footman approached them, offering to replenish their drinks.
The Queen lifted her glass reflexively, but she was still looking at the chaise longue, and frowning now.
Daphne glanced over towards Philip, standing in a group of men all raucously laughing. Whatever the Queen was worried about, he either didn’t know or hid it well.
‘But William was really shockingly bad,’ the Queen muttered to herself.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’
The Queen turned to Daphne and gave her the full force of her open smile. ‘I’m repeating myself. Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Mis— what did you call it?’
‘Misdirection.’
‘What do
Daphne, whose own ideas had covered orgies, psychopaths, satanists and devotees of the Marquis de Sade, decided to share none of these with Her Majesty. She was trying to come up with something suitably anodyne when she realised the Queen wasn’t listening anyway. She was looking back at the chaise longue again, in a world of her own.
