Death at Glamis Castle (11 page)

A dreadful sight—of course, it must have been, for a young daughter to have found her mother dead. Kate swallowed hard. It was all well and good for novelists to write about violent death—she had certainly written enough about it when Beryl Bardwell was composing those sensational penny dreadfuls for her American audience. But the awful horror of real violence was often beyond belief, not a fit subject for fiction.

Flora straightened her shoulders, and her voice steadied. “I'm quite all right now, m'lady. I'm sorry tae've burdened you wi' my misfortune.” She stood, pulling herself erect. “I'll see tae yer unpackin', and if ye've any pressin' tae be done, I'll take care of it. But p'rhaps ye'd like a tea tray first?”

Kate stood, too, shaking her head. “A tea tray won't be necessary, Flora. And I can manage the unpacking myself, thank you.”

Flora gave her a surprised look. “Ye're sure, m'lady?” When Kate nodded, she indicated a bell-button on the wall. “Well, then, please ring if ye need me. Luncheon is us'lly served at twelve-thirty. Ye're free t' walk i' the garden, if ye like. It looks tae be rainin' now, but it'll likely clear afore long, and th' roses are verra pretty just now.”

When Flora had gone, Kate went to the window and stood, gazing out across the emerald-green park to the fringe of dark trees and the wilder wood beyond. The misting rain did nothing to diminish the beauty of the landscape, and murder here seemed grotesquely out of place. Who would have killed a servant on her innocent way home from a day's hard work? She frowned a little. Might the woman's death have something to do with Charles's summons to Scotland?

But surely not, she decided. Flora must feel her mother's loss very deeply, but it was hardly the sort of event that would prompt King Edward to call up a company of Household Guards.

And however sad or tragic, one more death could be of little consequence to Glamis Castle, where death had been so frequently in residence for nearly five centuries.

The Queen Mother's Family Story
James Wentworth Day

 

 

 

 

It took some time to pry Angus Duff away from his consultation with Colonel Paddington, and even then, he seemed oddly reluctant to lead Charles and Kirk-Smythe to the Prince's quarters. After listening to several lame excuses, Charles at last insisted that they must not delay any longer. The Panhard had by that time been unloaded from the train, and at Duff's direction, Charles drove the motorcar across muddy fields and through a damp wood to the back of the castle where the stables, smithy, and kitchen gardens were located.

If Charles had thought that they might be going to a secret dungeon prison, hidden away in the thick stone walls of the castle, he was quickly disabused of the notion. Passing through a small, low door, they climbed several twisting flights of stairs to a remote wing of the massive building, where Duff took two iron keys from a peg in the wall and unlocked a door onto an empty corridor, then another to a private apartment.

While Kirk-Smythe stood near the door and Duff looked on, chewing nervously on his mustache, Charles surveyed the suite of rooms where Prince Albert Victor had lived. It was large and elegantly appointed, more like a suite in an exclusive hotel than a place of imprisonment. True, there were no windows, but skylights admitted plenty of light, and the gray-stone walls were brightened by paintings, tapestry hangings, and bookshelves full of leather-bound volumes—a quite respectable library, he thought, glancing at the titles. All of Sir Walter Scott's work, Dickens, Tennyson, Shakespeare, along with Conan Doyle, Winston Churchill, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, even two of Beryl Bardwell's novels. The Prince evidently spent a great deal of time reading—a fact that was perhaps a little surprising, since the Royal Family, like most aristocrats of Charles's acquaintance, seemed to regard bookishness as an impediment to good sense. Perhaps, ironically, Eddy's imprisonment had freed him to choose art and literature over the pursuit of other, more unsavory pleasures.

Charles turned around, taking in other details of the place. A door in one wall led to a comfortably-appointed bedroom, the bed neatly made. The sitting room, where they were, was furnished with upholstered chairs, a sofa, and a small dining table. A fire had burned to ashes in the fireplace.

The other end of the room, under a skylight, had been used as a painter's studio. Oils and watercolors were stacked against the wall, and there was an easel with a tall stool in front of it. On the easel sat an unfinished portrait of Queen Alexandra, apparently painted from a photograph, which was propped on a nearby table. Charles stood in front of the portrait for a moment or two, studying it with a growing sense of sadness. If he had needed any more proof to convince him that Prince Eddy had indeed lived in these rooms, this portrait of the Queen would have done so.

Charles came back to the center of the room and turned to the factor. “I understand that you have been responsible for Prince Eddy's care, for . . .” He paused, wanting to draw the man into conversation, rather than hammer at him with questions. “For how long, now? Seven or eight years?”

Duff hesitated. Charles sensed that long, loyal service had made the safeguarding of the Strathmore family secrets a kind of second nature with the man. He would not be able to give them up easily to a stranger, even to one who possessed a royal commission.

“Glamis is certainly an ideal place to get away from the world of the Court,” Charles went on reminiscently. “I've been here myself on several occasions, the last time with Patrick and Prince George in ninety-four. I'm not much of a gun, but I remember a rare day when Patrick, George, Lord Strathmore, and I bagged over three hundred wild pheasants. We got all sorts—Chinese, black-necks, ring-necks, Mongolians. Walked them up in the wet bogs.” He shook his head. “Odd to think that Eddy might've been in residence here at the time, and I had no notion of it.”

Duff visibly relaxed. “Ninety-four? Aye, Prince Eddy was here right enough, m'lord. He's been here just on ten years and a few months.” He looked around. “It isna Buckingham Palace, o'course, and it's a bit nippy i' the winter, when the wind whips across the Grampians and doon Strathmore Vale.” He paused and added thoughtfully, “But he's been happy here, I b'lieve. He seems tae like the quiet, p'rhaps on account of his deafness. Loud noises distress him, y'see. He doesna like tae hunt for that reason, although I'm told he was a good 'un with a gun, in his youth.”

His deafness. Charles looked again at the portrait of Queen Alexandra, painted by a loving hand, with great tenderness and regard. Their shared deafness—a family trait that the Queen had inherited from her mother and passed on to her son—had always been one of the powerful bonds of affinity between Eddy and his mother. As a young boy, his tutor and subsequent instructors had thought him slow, even mentally deficient, and no one except Alexandra had ever seemed to connect the Prince's learning difficulty with his hearing difficulty. The Queen's own deafness was quite obviously progressive, worsening in the past few years to the point where she no longer tried to listen and only half-pretended to hear and understand. Like his mother, Eddy must by now be nearly stone deaf, which meant that no amount of hailing by searchers was likely to gain a response.

He doesn't like to hunt,
Duff had said. Charles turned back to the factor. “The Prince is allowed out of the castle, then?”

Duff nodded. “Lord Strathmore instructed that he's tae hae the freedom o' the policies frae ten tae three every day, when there are nae guests in the house. He might gae further, if he's escorted.”

“Escorted by whom?”

“By mysel',” Duff replied, “or by Simpson, or Hilda or Flora MacDonald. He fancies a bit of a walk in the woods on fine days with Flora.”

“How many of the staff know he's here, or who he is?”

Duff spoke cautiously. “Simpson and I knew who he is o' course, and Dr. Ogilvy, who is a friend of Lord Strathmore. The rest of the staff, includin' the MacDonald mother and daughter—they were all told that his name is Lord Osborne, a Strathmore fam'ly friend confined for reasons o' health tae this private wing. Naebody but the MacDonalds are tae hae any contact with him. If they should come upon him in the grounds, they are tae gi'e him a wide berth and in no circumstance are tae speak with him.” He grunted. “Willna do them much good tae try, if I may say, so deaf the poor fellow has become.”

“I see,” Charles said quietly. “Besides walking, what does he do with his time?”

“He likes tae read, o'course.” Duff gestured toward the crowded bookshelves. “And paint. Often takes his gear and an easel intae the garden or up in the hills. And he writes poetry. He's always scribblin' verse. Seems tae keep himself busy and fit. And his family visits from time tae time—brother and sisters, I should say.” He pulled a long face. “Never his mother or father.”

Charles nodded. He himself had witnessed the strained relationship between the then-Prince of Wales and his eldest son. He could easily understand why the father would not find it personally comfortable to visit—not to mention the possibility that a visit might lead to discovery. Alexandra would have wanted to see her eldest son, of course, but had probably been forbidden to do so.

He turned, his eye caught by a book that had fallen on the floor beside the chair nearest the fireplace. He went to it and picked it up, noticing that it was a first edition of Sir Walter Scott's
From Montrose to Culloden,
signed by the author and inscribed, “To my darling Eddy, from his loving Grandmama, Victoria R.” And yet this valuable book was lying open and facedown on the floor, and some of the pages were bent over. He glanced at the table beside the chair, taking in the various items: a bottle of cognac and an empty glass, an ashtray overfull of stubbed-out cigarettes, a gold cigarette case, a Delft plate with two oranges, the peel from a third lying haphazardly on the table. Charles guessed that the Prince had been interrupted, perhaps violently, while he was reading, and that his book had fallen unnoticed to the floor.

“He was discovered missing early on Monday morning?” Charles asked, placing the book on the table and picking up the gold cigarette case. He wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief and pocketed it. At Duff's nod, he said, “Tell me what you know of his activities on Sunday.”

Duff shifted from one foot to the other, uneasily, Charles thought. “O' course, I wasn't here, it bein' the Sabbath and me and mine at the kirk for services. But he prob'ly slept late, as was his custom. Hilda would've brought his breakfast. I know for a fact that he went for a walk, because I saw him in the park, late in the afternoon. May've worked on his painting. Hilda would've brought him his supper, then checked tae see what he needed 'fore she went home tae the village that night.”

“But Hilda did not reach her home, as I understand it,” Charles said. He looked up, catching the tightening around the factor's mouth, the flush that crept up his jaw.

Duff nodded. “Flora—her daughter—found her, on her way tae the castle early on Monday morning. On the path near the castle gate, where the poor woman had her throat slit.” He looked down at the rug. “When Simpson and I checked these rooms, they were empty. I sent the men out tae look, o' course, but they found not a trace. Prince Eddy'd just vanished.”

Charles followed Duff's glance at the floor, then raised his eyes to the man's face. “His health? How did the Prince seem in the days before his disappearance?”

“No diff'rent than usual, m'lord. He'd got an odd notion intae his head, though.” He looked embarrassed. “Thought he was Bonnie Prince Charlie, y'see. Not all the time, o'course. Came and went with him, the idea did. Dr. Ogilvy said it'd be best tae humor him. Said it couldna harm him tae think he was the Bonnie Prince, coom back tae th' Highland.”

Bonnie Prince Charlie, who hid in the Highlands whilst Cumberland searched. Who eventually escaped over the sea to Skye, and France.
“So you and the others fell in with his idea, then?”

Duff nodded. “ 'Twas a game, I s'pose ye'd say. 'Specially for Flora. Flora MacDonald,” he added gravely, making sure that Charles caught the significance.