The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, Alex Bell Page A

I can't remember his saying anywhere, brutally, that Henry hadn't a vestige of a shadow of a claim to the throne.'
    'Who put him there, then? Henry, I mean.'
    'The Lancastrian remnant and the upstart Woodvilles, backed, I suppose, by a country revolted by the boys' murder. Apparently anyone with a spice of Lancastrian blood in their veins would do. Henry himself was canny enough to put "conquest" first in his claim to the throne, and his Lancaster blood second. " De jure belli et de jure Lancastriae. " His mother was the heir of an illegitimate son of the third son of Edward III.'
    'All I know about Henry VII is that he was fantastically rich and fantastically mean. Do you know the lovely Kipling story about his knighting the craftsman not for having done beautiful work but for having saved him the cost of some scroll-work?'
    'With a rusty sword from behind the arras. You must be one of the few women who know their Kipling.'
    'Oh, I'm a very remarkable woman in many ways. So you are no nearer finding out about Richard's personality than you were?'
    'No. I'm as completely bewildered as Sir Cuthbert Oliphant, bless his heart. The only difference between us is that I know I'm bewildered and he doesn't seem to be aware of it.
    'Have you seen much of my woolly lamb?'
    'I've seen nothing of him since his first visit, and that's three days ago. I'm beginning to wonder whether he has repented of his promise.'
    'Oh, no. I'm sure not. Faithfulness is his banner and creed.'
    'Like Richard.'
    'Richard?'
    'His motto was: " Loyaulté me lie ". Loyalty binds me.'
    There was a tentative tap at the door, and in answer to Grant's invitation, Brent Carradine appeared, hung around with topcoat as usual.
    'Oh! I seem to be butting in. I didn't know you were here, Miss Hallard. I met the Statue of Liberty in the corridor there, and she seemed to think you were alone, Mr Grant.'
    Grant identified the Statue of Liberty without difficulty. Marta said that she was in the act of going, and that in any case Brent was a much more welcome visitor than she was nowadays. She would leave them in peace to pursue their search for the soul of a murderer.
    When he had bowed her politely to the door Brent came back and sat himself down in the visitor's chair with exactly the same air that an Englishman wears when he sits down to his port after the women have left the table. Grant wondered if even the female-ridden American felt a subconscious relief at settling down to a stag party. In answer to Brent's inquiry as to how he was getting on with Oliphant, he said he found Sir Cuthbert admirably lucid.
    'I've discovered who the Cat and the Rat were, incidentally. They were entirely respectable knights of the realm: William Catesby and Richard Ratcliffe. Catesby was Speaker of the House of Commons, and Ratcliffe was one of the Commissioners of Peace with Scotland. Its odd how the very sound of words makes a political jingle vicious. The Hog of course was Richard's badge. The White Boar. Do you frequent our English pubs?'
    'Sure. They're one of the things I think you do better than us.'
    'You forgive us our plumbing for the sake of the beer at the Boar.'
    'I wouldn't go as far as to say I forgive it. I discount it, shall we say.'
    'Magnanimous of you. Well, there's something else you've got to discount. That theory of yours that Richard hated his brother because of the contrast between his beauty and Richard's hunchbacked state. According to Sir Cuthbert, the hunchback is a myth. So is the withered arm. It appears that he had no visible deformity. At least none that mattered. His left shoulder was lower than his right, that was all. Did you find out who the contemporary historian is?'
    'There isn't one.'
    'None at all? '
    Not in the sense that you mean it. There were writers who were contemporaries of Richard, but they wrote after his death. For the Tudors. Which puts them out of court. There is a monkish chronicle in Latin somewhere that is contemporary, but I haven't