The Missing Duchess (7 page)

'Your responsibility, Faro. Be it on your head.'

And Faro didn't care a great deal for the significance of that parting shot either. A chill wind sharp as an axe blade touched the back of his neck as he crossed the corridor into his office, where he earnestly considered the contents of a highly secret file marked 'Her Majesty the Queen'.

Under Luxoria, there was mention of a proposed visit, but no final date had been decided. It simply said that the Grand Duchess would arrive by ship at the port of Leith. Travelling incognito - as befitted a private visit - under the name of Lady Moy, she would be accompanied by her lady-in-waiting Miss Roma Fortescue. There was no mention of any coachmen or equerry travelling with them.

Faro's dismal thoughts were interrupted by Constable Reid.

'There's a lady come to see you. She's in the waiting-room.'

'Show her in.' Faro's immediate hope was that this was Miss Fortescue bearing a photograph of her mistress, and he was somewhat taken aback to find that the visitor was Lady Lethie.

As they shook hands he said: 'I'm glad to see you here, I was about to come out to Aberlethie. How is Miss Fortescue?'

'Much improved.' She smiled. 'We have persuaded her to accept our hospitality until - until things sort themselves out. She will be more comfortable with us, and now that her memory has returned she does not feel she can impose any further on Sir Hedley. Although, of course, his place is more adjacent to Holyrood.'

Her frown indicated that the decision had been difficult. Faro thought that it was all too obvious to anyone who had ever set foot - or nose - within the walls of Solomon's Tower.

As she spoke she opened her reticule, but instead of the photograph Faro now hoped was the reason for her visit, she took out a dainty lace handkerchief and patted her nose.

'Fortunately, I can provide her with items from my wardrobe, we are of the same size - until her luggage arrives -eventually,' she added, but Faro felt there was little hope in the word or in her expression as she said it.

'Miss Fortescue still has no idea of what might have happened to her mistress?'

'Not the slightest. We do try to keep her spirits up, Inspector, we try to get her to look on the bright side. But it is extremely hard, very hard indeed. She is prone to the most gloomy thoughts.' She paused before adding: 'She could, of course, have gone to Holyrood. I think that was on her mind at one point. But as you see, that would not do at all. She is most anxious that there is no fuss, as she calls it. The Grand Duchess would be most distressed when she, er, arrives.'

'But, surely - look, Lady Lethie, I have it on good authority that the Queen is on her way down from Balmoral. Once she arrives, then Miss Fortescue must go and tell her what has happened.'

'Oh, so Her Majesty is coming,' Sara Lethie smiled. She looked oddly relieved by this information. Terhaps you will let us know immediately she arrives. I do hope it will be very soon as we are due to go to France for a family wedding -'

And Sara Lethie stood up and drew on her gloves. Conscious of her air of relief, he decided to spare her the painful details of his interview with the Prime Minister.

'I do hope you will forgive me intruding upon you in this way, Inspector. I'm sure you are a very busy man, but as I was coming to Edinburgh today - one of my committees, you know - I decided I must try and see if there was any further news I could take to Miss Fortescue.' She paused for breath.

'She really is most anxious. In fact, we all are. Everyone is pretending that there will be a perfectly logical reason for the Grand Duchess not arriving, but after the accident -' She shuddered.

'How well did you know Miss Fortescue?'

Sara Lethie looked startled by the question, but only for a moment. She managed a nervous laugh. 'Not at all really. But the Fortescues have been friends of ours for - oh, generations. Roma's father is a court official in Luxoria. They have served the Grand Duchy since the eighteenth century when they followed Prince Charles Edward Stuart's father into exile.'

She looked at him earnestly. 'You will keep us informed, Inspector - when you have any further news.'

'Immediately, Lady Lethie.'

At the door she turned. 'Do you think this could be the work of, well, some foreign conspiracy?'

'That thought had not occurred to me.' So she wasn't aware of the unsound marriage and the possibility of a romantic assignation. 'Are you suggesting that the Grand Duchess might have been kidnapped?'

If only that were true, he thought. That she was still alive, and in one piece.

'Something like that, perhaps.'

'I'm sure you're mistaken, Lady Lethie. However, it would be a great help if you had a photograph of Her Highness -solely for our purposes. You can rely on our discretion.'

Sara Lethie frowned. 'I think there might be one, taken a long time ago. Possibly Miss Fortescue will have one of a more recent date.' She smiled. 'I'm sure she'll be best able to help you. They have been together since childhood. Very close, you know, grew up together. Why don't you talk to her?'

That was precisely what Faro intended. A personal talk with the lady-in-waiting would better suit the purpose of his enquiries than any picture of the missing woman. His growing misgivings weren't helped by Constable Reid handing him a reply to his telegraph to the North Berwick constabulary: 'No wreckage of coach on road or shore reported.'

As he was leaving, the Superintendent caught him at the door. 'Message from Balmoral, Faro. Her Majesty has had a slight chill and is to remain indoors for a day or two on the advice of her physicians. Let's hope her god-daughter deigns to appear before the Queen arrives. If not, heads will roll,' he added grimly.

Faro shuddered as he closed the door.

He had not seen Vince since his return from Lethie Castle when he had been called away on an urgent and difficult confinement.

'All is well,' he said as they met at supper that night. 'Mother and son doing famously.'

'How did you leave your patient at Aberlethie?'

'Miss Fortescue? Seemed to be making a fine recovery. Healthy young woman, despite a tendency to the vapours. Any further developments in the saga of her missing mistress?'

For Vince's benefit, Faro went over the details of his interview with Mr Gladstone and of Lady Lethie's visit.

Vince frowned. 'I think the romantic assignation is a bit thin, Stepfather. Surely Miss Fortescue would know if she and the Duchess are such close companions?' He paused and then added: 'What do you think of the kidnapping idea?'

'We must consider it as a possibility. But bearing in mind the complexity of Luxorian politics and that the Duchess was forced into a loveless marriage, the odious President might have good reason to want rid of her. But, I suspect, on a more permanent basis than mere kidnapping,' he added grimly.

'A closer acquaintance with Miss Fortescue might indeed bring forth some illuminating thoughts on that subject,' said Vince.

Faro smiled. 'Would you care to volunteer?'

'Alas, no. She isn't quite my type, Stepfather. Pretty and all that, but there's - well, something strange about her. Too reserved - and foreign for me, despite all that good solid British education. She wasn't much in evidence over the weekend and the Mad Bart took himself off, grateful, I think, that the Lethies were willing to look after her. We managed a few rounds of golf and a look at the Luck o' Lethie.'

'Stuart Millar told me it was worth seeing.'

Vince shrugged. 'It's just a battered old horn that hangs in a glass case in the old chapel, the only part of the castle they didn't pull down, in fact. Apparently it was brought back from King Solomon's Temple by the crusader David de Lethie - the one whose tomb is in the priory.'

'Why is it called the Luck o' Lethie?'

Vince smiled. 'Legend has it that as long as it survives, so will the Lethie line continue. Considering the swarm of offspring, and the deafening noise they were making, there seems little doubt about it.' He sighed. 'But none of this helps much with our missing Grand Duchess, does it?'

Faro looked at him. 'Vince, I've had a terrible thought.'

'You're too ready to look on the gloomy side, Stepfather. It's one of your failings. You know that. You must try to keep it under control,' he added severely, and at Faro's expression, he continued, 'Look, the fact that she's still missing doesn't necessarily mean that she's been drowned - or kidnapped, Stepfather. It could be something quite innocuous, as has been suggested, a visit to a secret lover. After all, this is no ordinary missing person -'

Vince stopped suddenly. The same thought was in both of their minds. A woman's body, unidentified, that didn't fit any description on the missing persons list at the Central Office.

'Dear God,' Vince whispered. 'You're surely not thinking -there could be some connection between the - West Bow corpse -'

Faro looked at him slowly and Vince jumped to his feet.

'Oh, no - she couldn't be - could she?' he added weakly.

When Faro didn't reply, Vince sat down again sharply. As sickening realisation dawned they regarded each other with mounting horror across the table, neither fully able to complete the dreadful thought.

That, even as they spoke, Dr Cranley's medical students might be deeply absorbed in dissecting what remained of Amelie, Duchess of Luxoria, the well-beloved god-daughter of Her Majesty the Queen.

Chapter 7

Faro slept little that night.

His thoughts like rats trapped in a cage, he searched in vain for the vital clues that he was certain he had overlooked or whose significance he had failed to recognise when it had been presented to him. Such shortcomings, damnable in his profession, were by no means a novel experience, but left always the dry sensation of defeat in his mouth, the dreaded whisper: was he losing his skill?

He took a deep breath. There was only one solution: before visiting Aberlethie again, and talking to Miss Fortescue, he must return to the discovery of the woman's body in the West Bow and prove to himself - somehow - that his suspicions regarding her identity were false.

After a hasty breakfast without Vince, who had been summoned to attend a sick patient, Faro set off for the Central Office by the short cut through Gibbet Lane, bordering Solomon's Tower.

On an impulse he decided to call upon Sir Hedley. Eight o'clock was striking on the city clocks as he approached the door, but he had no doubt that the old man would be up and about. It was Sir Hedley's proud boast that he rose with the larks and retired with the setting sun.

The tower was gloomy and forbidding in darkness, and much the same even in the daylight of a grey Edinburgh morning, which did little to raise Faro's spirits as he applied his hand to the rusted and ancient bell-pull. The clanging sound reverberated through the surrounding area but failed to bring any response.

Deciding that Sir Hedley must be deaf indeed not to have been roused by the din, he observed with some unease that the front door was very slightly ajar. It yielded instantly to his touch. Was this no more than a nocturnal convenience for the cats, he wondered, as they assailed him from all directions with yowls of protest that he had not arrived carrying saucers of milk? Only the boldest, however, were confident enough to sidle out and insinuate themselves around his ankles.

'Sir Hedley! Sir Hedley!'

There was no reply and Faro decided that he was getting unduly nervous. There was absolutely no reason why Sir Hedley should not be away from home; he might have visited friends and stayed the night. An unduly optimistic thought, Faro decided, .knowing the nature of the reclusive occupant's character.

With a growing sense of foreboding, he carefully pushed his way inside, as cats of every colour, shape and age noisily scampered after his ankles, anxious not to let the possible source of sustenance out of their sight.

'Sir Hedley? Sir Hedley?'

Silence greeted him. Opening the door, he stepped carefully into the stone-walled parlour, and averting his eyes to the squalor and his nose to its odours, he tried not to breathe too deeply as he climbed the twisting staircase to the upper floor. Dreading what he might find inside, he opened an ancient studded door. A bedroom, at first glance no better than the apartment he had just left.

His inclination was to close the door again hastily. Instead he approached the bed. Half a dozen privileged cats gave him haughty stares from the comfort of a plumed four-poster. Faro suspected that it dated back to the seventeenth century when necessity dictated that grand beds were built into upper rooms approached by a turnpike stair. Since there was no method of transporting them either up or down afterwards, many thus survived both the attentions of thieving enemies and the changing fashions of time.

Faro approached the bed cautiously. Sir Hedley wasn't lying there with his throat cut as imagination had so readily prompted, but his cats were very much at home, resting on the remains of a once well-made and handsome garment, certainly not the property of Sir Hedley. The delicate lace and embroidered bodice, stained by cats and ripped by their claws, suggested that this was yet another of the Dowager Lady Marsh's elegant cast-offs.