A Death in Diamonds полностью

She wrote her list of instructions to Joan and knew she had taken one of the biggest risks of her reign so far. With a deep breath and a sense of purpose, she folded the note in half and slid it into its envelope, which she labelled ‘US and Canada accessories, etc.’, and put with the rest of her correspondence, to go to London that afternoon.

Joan took the note out of its envelope while sitting on the lavatory in the ladies’ bathroom in the North Wing corridor. It was the once place she could be assured of privacy.

The first page was a discussion of gloves and covered buttons. The second, written in pencil in the same confident hand, was very different.

Joan sat quietly for several minutes. On first reading, the note made no sense to her. It was written as if she knew exactly what the Queen would be talking about, but she certainly did not. Who was ‘D’? What about ‘Chelsea’? And which of the many, many princesses Joan had recently read about in the course of her new job was the Queen referring to? That was all odd enough, but the last lines were simply wrong. ‘Diana’ had never come up in their brief conversations. What was Joan supposed to be mistaken about?

However, it didn’t take long for her to switch into Bletchley mode. Don’t focus on what you don’t know, look at what leaps out at you. Joan let the words swim in front of her, and her mind relax. Her instinct soon told her that the first paragraph was in fact familiar. The ‘first speech’ must be the first one they had talked about together: the one that went missing in France. The Queen hoped Joan was making progress with the men in moustaches. Yes, she was.

The second was familiar too, though in a way that didn’t fit. She had never discussed Chelsea with the Queen, but it had been in the newspapers a lot recently. Could Her Majesty be referring to the murders? Surely, they weren’t connected to her? . . . But she had requested the police reports. Joan had overheard Sir Hugh expostulating to Miles Urquhart about them. She’s getting involved where she has no business to be. Sympathy for the lady victim, no doubt. Sometimes, I think we need to rescue her from her better nature.

The reports would be in the windowless office next to Sir Hugh’s, which contained several filing cabinets of sensitive documents and was always kept locked. Joan, as the ‘filing fairy’, as Urquhart had somewhat horrifically named her, was one of the few people with a key. Finding the documents would be the least of her problems. The latest updates would be missing, because the Queen would still have them in Balmoral, but Her Majesty knew that, and so must mean that Joan could get what she needed from the ones that were still in London.

After that, other details settled roughly into place. ‘D’ would make sense once she read the reports, presumably. Was that connected to ‘Diana’, below? Perhaps. The ‘princess’ might just be – and Joan realised it had been her very first thought, which she had automatically dismissed as too unlikely – the prostitute, or the ‘tart in the tiara’ as everyone called her. Newspaper speculation was that she might have been dressed as Grace Kelly, who was now Princess Grace of Monaco. Or perhaps just the fact of the diamonds made her look princess-like. The ‘woman’s touch’ might involve talking to her friends or fellow workers. And yes, Joan could imagine them talking more easily to a woman than a man.

All of this would be easy to prove or disprove once Joan unearthed the paperwork. But it didn’t help with those last lines.