The Prince of Wales strode from the room. In the corner, beside the bookcase, the grandfather clock struck five. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since the discovery of the body.
Sir William Suter stared vacantly at the grandfather clock.
Sir Bartle Shepstone stared at the fire. Then he wrote some more in his little blue book. He filled three pages with his recollections of the words of his master. He thought he preferred the New Testament God of love and forgiveness to the Old Testament trumpet call of Vengeance is Mine. But he knew where his duty lay.
‘Rosebery! Powerscourt! Thank God you have come.’ Sir William Suter and Sir Bartle Shepstone were unanimous in their welcomes. Powerscourt noted with interest that neither was wearing mourning clothes.
‘Tell us the facts, man. Tell us the facts.’ Rosebery was leaning on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room at the back of Sandringham House looking out over a plain of white snow and an icy lake.
‘Well, I will try,’ said Suter, grimacing with distaste at the prospect of reliving the past twenty-four hours. ‘The body of the Duke of Clarence was discovered at shortly before seven o’clock this morning. Lord Henry Lancaster, one of the equerries or gentlemen in waiting to the Duke, went in to inquire after his health – he had been suffering from a heavy cold – and to see if he wanted breakfast brought up to him. Thank God it was Lancaster, and not one of the parlourmaids gone in to clean the room.’
‘How was the body lying?’ Powerscourt asked the question quietly.
Suter looked at him carefully. Perhaps this was the world Powerscourt moved in, a world where murderers stalk the corridors by night and corpses are found in the morning. A world where the smell of blood lingers on in the nostrils long after you have left the room. ‘He was lying on his back. His throat had been cut. So had his wrists and the great blood vessels in his legs. The blood was lying all over the floor.’
‘My God!’ exclaimed Rosebery. ‘And this is England, not the Rome of Nero or the Borgias. How terrible.’
‘Quite so. Quite so.’ Suter acknowledged the outburst as one might tolerate a tantrum from a small child. But his face was as impassive as ever, a mask that concealed the workings of his mind. ‘Lancaster thought quickly. He summoned one of the other equerries, Harry Radclyffe, and put him on permanent guard outside the door, with instructions to say that the Duke was asleep and was on no account to be disturbed. I informed the Prince of Wales who told his wife and the rest of the family.
‘Dr Broadbent examined the cadaver and gave it as his opinion that the murder had taken place between eleven o’clock the previous evening when Lancaster bade him goodnight and saw him off to sleep and five o’clock in the morning. Broadbent has, naturally enough, been sworn to secrecy. The Prince wanted to have you gentlemen here before we decide how to proceed.
‘Less than a dozen people know what has transpired here. The Prince is firmly of the opinion that the murder must be covered up, that we invent some story to conceal the truth. That, rather than the particular circumstances of a person’s death,’ he said, staring balefully at Powerscourt, ‘is our immediate concern.’
‘Good God, man, this is England! This is Victoria’s grandson! This was Victoria’s grandson.’ Rosebery corrected himself. ‘How can you think of covering it up? Think of Parliament! Think of the laws of England! Think of the ancient constitution!’
‘I am not aware,’ said Suter coldly, ‘that any of your colleagues or predecessors have actually bothered to write it down. The ancient constitution, I mean. That gives us some flexibility.’
‘Come, Rosebery.’ Sir Bartle Shepstone had spent most of the discussion gazing sadly out of the window, as if time might suddenly decide to run backwards. ‘You have always been an adviser to the Royal Family on the constitution. Is there anything that says we couldn’t conceal it, cover it up, if such be the parents’ wishes?’
Rosebery looked long at a portrait of the Princess of Wales by the bookshelves. There seemed to be three or four Alexandras in the room, radiant as a bride, happy as a mother surrounded by three of her children, regal as the Princess of Wales in formal attire and a dazzling tiara.
‘There is nothing in the constitution,’ he said finally in the manner of one who has been taken to a lunatic asylum and has to address the inmates, ‘that says you could not cover it up. There are the laws of the country, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice to name but one. I would find it easier to answer the question if I knew the reason for it, if I could sense what prompts this perversion of justice.’
‘Nobody is trying to pervert the course of justice, Rosebery. That is why Powerscourt is here. We want him to find the murderer.’
Powerscourt said nothing. Inside, he felt sick. If the murder was covered up, he could ask no questions, he could make no inquiries, he could not conduct his business. It would be like playing cricket not just blind but with only one hand.
‘The reasons, I think, are simple.’ Suter was counting them off on his fingertips as the last light ebbed away from the white world outside. ‘It is a choice between two evils. Of course, if it is covered up, that is a terrible thing. But think of the alternative. We have the police tramping all over Sandringham and Marlborough House. Think of it, Rosebery. Inspector Smith who has spent his life investigating the criminal gangs of the East End of London comes to interrogate the Prince of Wales. Superintendent Peters polishes his best black boots and proceeds to talk to the Queen Empress at Windsor Castle. They do not know the world in which we live.’ As Suter thought of these outrages the colour drained slowly from his face.
‘Then there are the opposition politicians, radicals and suchlike. Every jumped-up backbencher will be on his feet in the House of Commons trying to ask the question nobody has asked before. The one designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the Royal Family. The newspapers will go mad. Initially of course we’ll have the black mastheads and the loyal and pious editorials. Grave loss to the nation and the Empire. You could write those now, Rosebery, I expect. But give them a week and they will be all over the Royal Family like vultures. Vultures over a corpse. They will start to rake up every single of scrap of gossip that has circulated in the drawing-rooms of London for the past three years. That could prove embarrassing and difficult for all concerned. Think of the foreign newspapers and what they will make of it. Think of the rejoicing in Paris and Berlin as a murder and a series of scandals in Britain’s Royal House are all over their front pages. Mourning dress won’t be worn for very long.’
And then Rosebery could see it all.
The need for secrecy, the need for silence.
Fear was the key. Fear of some unspoken scandal that had not yet been brought out into the light of day. Fear that if the stones were lifted, something so terrible would crawl out that it could endanger the whole position of the Royal Family. Fear so strong that it left the risky and hazardous course of covering up the murder as the better of two options.
Powerscourt tried to find the thread that linked his earlier investigation, the investigation that never was, with these terrible events at Sandringham. Somebody blackmailing the Prince of Wales, fears for the life of Prince Eddy. They must have thought it had all gone away, he reflected, looking at Suter and Shepstone and remembering the final letter from Marlborough House, written on the last day of the old year, that seemed to close the account. What had it said? ‘I am happy to be able to report,’ Suter had written in his best Private Secretary prose, ‘that the circumstances that led us to consider the possibility of availing ourselves of your expertise have changed for the better.’ This cold January evening, thought Powerscourt, they have certainly changed for the worse.