‘They’d hardly have taken me there!’ the Queen protested. ‘And we did see Édith Piaf last time.’
‘Édith Piaf!’ Margaret made a face like a squeezed lemon. ‘Yves Montand, he’s the one these days. Did you see Mr Dior, by the way?’
‘We did,’ the Queen agreed. ‘Very briefly. He wasn’t looking terribly well, poor man. He was very complimentary about you, Mummy. He told me that whenever he wants to think of something really beautiful, he remembers the clothes Mr Hartnell made for you in ’thirty-eight.’
The Queen Mother glowed with pleasure. ‘My white wardrobe? For the Paris trip? What a darling man. One was in mourning for your grannie, of course, but French mourning is so very interesting. Le deuil blanc. Like Mary Queen of Scots.’
‘But with parasols,’ Margaret added. She turned back to her sister. ‘I do think you might have worn one Dior gown. You’re in danger of looking old-fashioned.’
Their mother’s smile became a little more fixed. It wasn’t always easy to have a younger daughter at home, still rather pointedly recovering from the most famous broken relationship of the decade. Especially when the older one was happily married. And the sovereign of countries whose land mass circled the globe.
‘Lunch is served, ma’am,’ the butler announced, to her great relief.
They went through to the dining room, where the table was set and the footmen were ready to serve. The older Elizabeth knew her elder daughter’s tastes were simple, so she had asked for just a consommé, a little salmon en croute, some green vegetables and potatoes from the gardens at Sandringham and a light lemon posset, served with a rather good Pouilly-Fuissé from her personal cellar. Conversation over pudding turned to Clement Moreton, the poor Dean of Bath, whose unimpeachable life as a cleric was currently being dissected by all the newspapers.
‘I feel so sorry for the man,’ she said. ‘He’s a delight. A very good card player, but not in that way, you know. Just a charming, sensible companion. And his sermons are always so short. Cissy’s beside herself. They all are.’
Cissy, the dean’s cousin and childhood friend, was one of the Queen Mother’s ladies-in-waiting. She was good with dogs and very popular. The Queen made brief noises of sympathy, and asked if he was friends with Philip, which her mother thought she should be more likely to know herself.
‘They might have made friends in the war,’ the Queen Mother acknowledged, ‘but Philip was at sea and Clement was with the Royal Artillery, so I doubt it. Clement served with great distinction, you know. It’s quite impossible that he was involved in this business, and not just because Cissy says so. I have literally seen the man upend a glass on a piece of paper to transport a spider safely outside. Admittedly, he did see some horrors in Germany, but war is war, isn’t it, and quite a separate thing? And then there’s the question of the tart in the tiara. What did they say she was called?’
‘Gina Fonteyn,’ Margaret said promptly. ‘Like Margot.’
‘Who?’
‘The ballerina, Mummy.’
‘Margot Fonteyn? My God, are they related?’
‘No! Margot’s called Peggy Hookham really, and goodness knows what the tart’s real name was. The papers said she was Italian.’
‘Anyway, what about her?’ the Queen asked her mother.
‘Actually, I was thinking of the tiara,’ the elder Elizabeth said. ‘Clement told Cissy that the police showed him a picture of the diamonds, in case he knew where they came from. Of course, he had no idea, but he said the tiara was made up of roses and daisies in pink and white diamonds, with pale green peridots for the leaves. It’s quite an unusual combination and it reminded me so much of the Zellendorf tiara, from ’twenty-four. Cartier, very delicate, made for Lavender Hawksmoor-Zellendorf. It was supposed to resemble an English country garden. So pretty. I wondered about trying to buy it for you, Margaret, when it came up for auction last year, but of course it was much too expensive.’ She sighed. ‘One has to manage one’s spending money so carefully.’
Margaret looked disappointed. ‘Margaret Rose,’ she said pointedly, stressing her middle name.
‘Well, exactly.’
‘Who got it, Mummy?’
‘I don’t know, that’s the thing. Not that I didn’t ask, but everyone was very tight-lipped. Some foreign johnny I imagine. They have all the money nowadays. An American, probably, or the Aga Khan, or the Shah. Anyway, it disappeared. Such a pity as it’s a lovely piece.’
She stopped, sensing that while her younger daughter still looked wistful and slightly cross about the diamonds, the older one was staring at her with a hint of criticism. She raised her hands defensively.
‘You see, one didn’t know the girl, but one does know tiaras. What I meant to say was, if it is the Zellendorf, how on earth did she get hold of it?’
After lunch, the Queen suggested a walk outside, but instead Margaret inserted a cigarette into a long-handled holder and had one of the footmen light it for her.
‘Hmm.’ She stared up ruminatively through the smoke. ‘Cresswell Place. Anything goes on in that street. I think it’s exactly the sort of place you’d find a body and stolen diamonds.’
The Queen turned to her. ‘Oh?’
‘Absolutely. I’ve been there a couple of times. There’s an artist who hosts these fabulous little parties. Tiny mews house, like a doll’s house, really. You can hardly squeeze everyone in. They play the saxophone and dance on the stairs, it’s terribly funny. You never know if you’re going to be talking to a stockbroker or a demi-mondaine, or a spy. Or me.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘I can see why the dean liked it there.’
Her mother was shocked.
‘I very much doubt that’s why he chose the street. Cissy says Clement is humiliated beyond belief. And so unsettled. To think that sort of thing was going on under his roof! And what if he’d been in when the killer came?’
‘I don’t think you could confuse the dean of a major English cathedral for a jewel thief and his paramour,’ Margaret said through another puff of smoke. She eyed her mother. ‘You know, I still don’t have a tiara of my own.’
The Queen said nothing at this, but was privately exasperated. The point was certainly not the tiara. Perhaps Margaret harked back to it because she really didn’t have one of her own, whereas the Queen couldn’t remember exactly how many she had access to. Such thoughts made her judge her sister less harshly than she might otherwise. On a good day, Margaret was the soul of generosity.
‘. . . yourself.’
‘Hmm?’ Margaret had been saying something she had missed.
‘I said, you’ll be going that way soon anyway, so you can see the place for yourself.’
‘Will I?’
‘Mummy said you’re visiting Deborah Fairdale in the Boltons. Creswell Place is right next door.’
‘Oh! Yes we are. For drinks on Friday.’
‘Well, look out. You’ll be practically on the murderer’s doorstep.’
Margaret said it with something approaching relish. The Queen was very much looking forward to seeing her friend, but that aspect of the visit came as a bit of a shock. And also, she realised, an opportunity.
Chapter 5
The thing Fred Darbishire really wanted to know – and it was a big thing – was why he’d got this gig at all. It should by rights have gone to Chief Inspector George Venables, who regularly nabbed the best cases in Chelsea and Kensington. Venables was on the cusp of being made detective superintendent at a record juvenile age and everyone circulated around him like little planets. A double murder on his doorstep? A society vicar in the frame? The mention of the Duke of Edinburgh, and the cover of every newspaper in the land, alongside the Queen and the Duke in Paris? Venables would normally go for it like a shot.