‘There’s no sign of anybody else coming this way, my lord.’ McKenzie, as ever, seemed able to read his thoughts. ‘I checked it all out before anyone else got here. There’s only one set of footprints in the snow. No traces of a horse. Unless somebody was swinging through the trees like some African ape, Lord Lancaster was the only person to come here.’
It wasn’t surprising that he was the only person to come here. They were one or two hundred yards off the main road between Wolferton and Sandringham, a road designed to show off the size of his estate and the splendour of his grounds to the Prince of Wales’ visitors. Some estate, some sights to be shown to the new arrivals now, thought Powerscourt. One corpse, restored to some sort of life, was waiting in an upstairs attic. Another was lying awkwardly on the ground, the brains staining the dark Sandringham earth.
There was another set of rustling, like animals moving through the trees. Two more faces peered up into the light of the torch.
‘Dr Spencer.’ Dawnay greeted his man. His guide, presumably McKenzie’s colleague on night patrol, was carrying a makeshift stretcher.
‘When bodies come, they come not single one, but in battalions.’ Dr Spencer prided himself on his knowledge of the classics. ‘Let me have this torch just now.’
The doctor peered intently at the dead man’s head. He looked particularly closely at the right temple. He glanced distastefully at the ground. He handed a standard Colt pistol to Major Dawnay. ‘I can’t give you a proper opinion about anything much at present. No doubt you gentlemen will be wanting something to occupy your thoughts at a time like this. I think – but I will not be held to it until later – that the man killed himself. The gun to the right temple is quite a popular form of suicide these days.’
Dr Spencer paused and looked around. Faint, very faint, from over the sea at Snettisham came the first intimations of dawn. ‘We must move the body. Now.’ The doctor spoke with all the authority of the medical profession, used to handling the living and the dead.
‘Great God, Powerscourt,’ Dawnay sounded more alarmed than Powerscourt had ever heard him, ‘where are we going to take the body? This morning, this morning of all mornings. In a few hours’ time, the Royal Family, the whole lot of them, are going to file into Eddy’s bedroom to say their last farewells. At nine o’clock Shepstone is going to post the notice on the Norwich Gates, saying that Prince Eddy is dead from the influenza. We can’t . . .’ His voice trailed away as he thought of the horror of it all. ‘We can’t have another body lying in the hallway or hidden in the drawing-room while Death by Influenza is played out upstairs.’
‘Take him to Shepstone’s house. It’s not that far from here. We can keep him away from the main house for the time being.’ Powerscourt felt that the arrival of another corpse would bring on hysteria, or worse, in Sandringham House. You were welcome there when you were alive, he said mentally to Lancaster, now being loaded on to his temporary bier, you’re not wanted when you are dead. You’re too embarrassing. We’d rather not think about you today.
There was a whispered dialogue between Powerscourt and Dawnay. McKenzie and his colleague had raised the temporary stretcher. As they marched slowly through the wood Powerscourt could hear the Dead March from Saul booming in his head. As the pall bearers passed over fallen branches their boots sounded like pistol shots in the dark.
‘Do you think he was murdered, Lord Francis?’ said Dawnay, walking through a dark glade.
‘There are a number of possibilities.’ Powerscourt was always amazed to find his analytical powers still operating, however bizarre the circumstances. ‘Possibility Number One,’ he groped for a frozen finger in the gloom, ‘is that the murderer of Prince Eddy decided to kill Lancaster too. For reasons unknown. Perhaps relating to the conversations the equerries must have had among each other after the death. Perhaps relating to the conversations they had with me. But I doubt it. William McKenzie was the best tracker of man or animal the British Army ever possessed. He tells me only one set of footsteps went to Lancaster’s last resting place. I believe him absolutely. So it may be suicide.
‘Possibility Number Two,’ he continued, noting with alarm that the stretcher ahead had nearly lost its load, ‘is that Lancaster was the murderer. He was, you will recall, the man on guard for most of the night Prince Eddy was killed. He had the time. He had ample opportunity. Overcome with remorse, he takes his own life. Our job is over. We know the murderer. We can all go home.’
‘Do you really believe that, Lord Francis?’ Dawnay sounded highly dubious about Possibility Number Two.
‘Possibility Number Three is that he killed himself because he knew too much. Maybe he knew who the murderer was. Maybe he couldn’t bear to tell us. Maybe he couldn’t bear to betray a friend.’
The light was getting brighter now. Shepstone’s house suddenly loomed out of the faint morning mist.
‘How do you think we should get in? Ring the front door? Good morning, we’ve brought a corpse for breakfast. Have you got any porridge?’ Powerscourt felt flippancy spreading over him, like a disease.
‘I fancy we may have to rely on the talents of your friend McKenzie,’ said Dawnay, smiling despite himself at the thought of porridge. ‘If he can bring you out of the main house with only the vaguest idea of how to get in or out, a Shepstone burglary should be easy enough.’
An hour and a half later, Sir Bartle Shepstone came downstairs in his best Paisley dressing-gown, a Christmas present from his sister some years before, to meet the most unusual collection of guests. One was obviously dead and was lying on the kitchen table, the blood on his face and jacket drying into strange patterns. Working round the body was Dr Spencer, talking to himself occasionally and writing frequent notes in a small black pocketbook. Powerscourt and Dawnay were drinking tea from his best china cups. There was a smell of burning toast in the air.
‘Sir Bartle,’ Powerscourt began after one moment of shock and silence, perhaps in tribute to the dead man, ‘may I apologise for our early arrival. Major Dawnay, you know. This is Dr Spencer whom I presume you also know. This was Lord Lancaster.’ He pointed to the kitchen table. ‘We found him in the forest a few hours ago. Dr Spencer is carrying out the normal medical inquiries at a time like this. We think he may have committed suicide.’
Sir Bartle Shepstone gathered his dressing-gown around him and surveyed the field of battle.
‘Quite so, Lord Powerscourt, quite so. Good morning, gentlemen. I presume you have brought Lord Lancaster here because you felt the main house was out of bounds.’
‘On this of all days, we did,’ Powerscourt replied, wondering precisely how Shepstone had won his Victoria Cross. ‘Major Dawnay and I felt the house with all its sorrow was not the place for another cadaver.’
‘Quite so. Quite so,’ said Sir Bartle. ‘I think I shall get dressed now. Any chance of a cup of tea?’
11
Suter called them to attention in Sandringham House two hours later, Sir Bartle Shepstone looking completely unperturbed by the strange invasion of his house earlier that day, Dawnay looking elegant in a discreet tweed suit. Rosebery had reappeared from London in a dark blue pinstripe. A footman brought an envelope for Powerscourt, who stuffed it absent-mindedly into his pocket.
Powerscourt was peering idly out of the great windows where rain, sometimes sleet, was washing away the snow of previous days. Occasional parcels of snow and ice from the roof were tumbling on to the Sandringham lawns. Some of the evidence might be washed away on the roof. The rest would melt on the grass.
‘I think we should begin with a short moment of silence for Lord Lancaster,’ said Suter at his most sanctimonious. ‘If he had not come to this house, from friendship and from duty, maybe death would not have called him away.’