important.’
The thought flashed through my mind: does she really think I’m just worried about the inconvenience to her of her secretary missing his appointment? Is she really so dim? But the thought went from me as I raced through the corridors, flinging off the fair iceberg of a flunkey, and out into the courtyard.
‘Joplin!’ I shouted. ‘The car.’
And we slid in and sped out into Kensington Palace Gardens and negotiated the stream of traffic in Kensington High Street, going in the direction of Lichfield Street.
In the car I had to explain to Joplin what was up, and when I began to do so, it began to sound lame. Someone being late for work, it wasn’t more than that.
‘Call it a hunch,’ I said finally. ‘But there is some basis for it. He’s a precise, pernickety little piece of nothing very much — well, you saw what he’s like: formal, meticulous, devoted to doing the right thing. If he was just sick he’d ring up with apologies, special messages of regret to the Princess, the lot. Helena says it’s neverhappened before, and I can believe it. Of course, there could have been a traffic accident — ’
We drew up outside the Mansions: luxury pads for private incomes, built in the ’thirties, I would guess, anonymously smooth in style, but with a sort of decaying smugness. Once, I suppose, they would have had a uniformed attendant looking impressive in the main entrance. Now there was just a caretaker, grey and not too clean, who stood at the door waiting for us.
‘Mr Brudenell, is it? It’s the third floor, number two. Here’s the key.’
‘Have you seen him today?’
‘Not today, no. But I’ve been busy out the back, and I didn’t think twice. Usually he’s very regular. Sails by at ten, with never a pleasant word for a body. But you can set your watch by him, as a rule.’
We took the lift up, and ran through the thickly carpeted corridor to number two. The air was heavy with frigid gentility and money from dividends. The bell produced no result, and we opened up. The door led into a hallway, papered in Regency stripe, with little round embroidered pictures and prints of a tasteful sort. I called out, into the plushy silence. No reply. I pushed open what seemed to be the main door, and found myself in a sitting-room — large, velvety, lacking in personality, but with capacious armchairs and sofa. Pictures by Paul Nash. I glanced around, then walked across the room and pushed open a door to the right. The study. All the walls lined with books — red-bound autobiographies, middlebrow novels in hardback, an encyclopaedia, Burke’s Peerage. They dominated the room. So much so that you could almost overlook the natty little desk towards the far corner, with the typewriter neatly in place in the centre. Except that now it had a body, sprawling grotesquely sideways across it.
It was Brudenell, of course. Still looking a bit like apouter pigeon, shot by some maniac for fouling Nelson’s Column perhaps, his fat little belly still poked under the desk, his bottom pushed through the back of the chair. He had been shot, that much was clear. Though he was still sitting at his desk he had fallen to the right, his right arm under him, his face resting on the green leather desktop. A small enamelled pistol, almost a toy, had fallen to the floor, apparently from his left hand. There was a neat little hole in the left side of his head.
‘Almost like a stage-set, isn’t it?’ said Joplin. ‘What’s the betting it isn’t suicide?’
I wasn’t taking him on. I sent him down to the caretaker, so that he could call to the Yard from there. Fingerprints are a forlorn hope these days, but you have to make ritual bows in the direction of that possibility. He scooted off, and meanwhile I tiptoed round the study, getting my bearings.
The first thing that I saw was the top drawer of the desk on the left-hand side — it was left open, while all the others were neatly closed, as one would expect of
The thought flashed through my mind: does she really think I’m just worried about the inconvenience to her of her secretary missing his appointment? Is she really so dim? But the thought went from me as I raced through the corridors, flinging off the fair iceberg of a flunkey, and out into the courtyard.
‘Joplin!’ I shouted. ‘The car.’
And we slid in and sped out into Kensington Palace Gardens and negotiated the stream of traffic in Kensington High Street, going in the direction of Lichfield Street.
In the car I had to explain to Joplin what was up, and when I began to do so, it began to sound lame. Someone being late for work, it wasn’t more than that.
‘Call it a hunch,’ I said finally. ‘But there is some basis for it. He’s a precise, pernickety little piece of nothing very much — well, you saw what he’s like: formal, meticulous, devoted to doing the right thing. If he was just sick he’d ring up with apologies, special messages of regret to the Princess, the lot. Helena says it’s neverhappened before, and I can believe it. Of course, there could have been a traffic accident — ’
We drew up outside the Mansions: luxury pads for private incomes, built in the ’thirties, I would guess, anonymously smooth in style, but with a sort of decaying smugness. Once, I suppose, they would have had a uniformed attendant looking impressive in the main entrance. Now there was just a caretaker, grey and not too clean, who stood at the door waiting for us.
‘Mr Brudenell, is it? It’s the third floor, number two. Here’s the key.’
‘Have you seen him today?’
‘Not today, no. But I’ve been busy out the back, and I didn’t think twice. Usually he’s very regular. Sails by at ten, with never a pleasant word for a body. But you can set your watch by him, as a rule.’
We took the lift up, and ran through the thickly carpeted corridor to number two. The air was heavy with frigid gentility and money from dividends. The bell produced no result, and we opened up. The door led into a hallway, papered in Regency stripe, with little round embroidered pictures and prints of a tasteful sort. I called out, into the plushy silence. No reply. I pushed open what seemed to be the main door, and found myself in a sitting-room — large, velvety, lacking in personality, but with capacious armchairs and sofa. Pictures by Paul Nash. I glanced around, then walked across the room and pushed open a door to the right. The study. All the walls lined with books — red-bound autobiographies, middlebrow novels in hardback, an encyclopaedia, Burke’s Peerage. They dominated the room. So much so that you could almost overlook the natty little desk towards the far corner, with the typewriter neatly in place in the centre. Except that now it had a body, sprawling grotesquely sideways across it.
It was Brudenell, of course. Still looking a bit like apouter pigeon, shot by some maniac for fouling Nelson’s Column perhaps, his fat little belly still poked under the desk, his bottom pushed through the back of the chair. He had been shot, that much was clear. Though he was still sitting at his desk he had fallen to the right, his right arm under him, his face resting on the green leather desktop. A small enamelled pistol, almost a toy, had fallen to the floor, apparently from his left hand. There was a neat little hole in the left side of his head.
‘Almost like a stage-set, isn’t it?’ said Joplin. ‘What’s the betting it isn’t suicide?’
I wasn’t taking him on. I sent him down to the caretaker, so that he could call to the Yard from there. Fingerprints are a forlorn hope these days, but you have to make ritual bows in the direction of that possibility. He scooted off, and meanwhile I tiptoed round the study, getting my bearings.
The first thing that I saw was the top drawer of the desk on the left-hand side — it was left open, while all the others were neatly closed, as one would expect of
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