Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens

Olga was staring at her, waiting for a reply. She was angry, perhaps because Elsa was not hurt as she was, or maybe because it was Cahoon who had arranged the evening.

“In the linen cupboard, I believe,” Elsa said aloud.

“You must be mistaken.” Olga was derisive. “How can you kill yourself in a linen cupboard? Did she suffocate in a pile of sheets?”

“I gather it was worse than that, but I don’t know how.”

Olga tried to hide her shock. “You mean somebody did it deliberately? That’s absurd. Why would anyone bother?” There was an infin-ity of contempt in the final word.

You are wearing your unhappiness too openly, Elsa thought. It does not make you more attractive. Aloud she said, “I don’t know. But men do a lot of things for reasons I don’t understand.”

“Including having women like that to a party!” Olga added bitterly.

Liliane Quase entered in a swirl of pale golden-green skirts, light, airy, and feminine. She was beautiful in an abundant way. She had creamy skin, dark auburn hair, and eyes of golden brown. She was just a little too short to have real grace, but most of the time she disguised it with cleverly cut gowns that suggested more height than she had.

Today the line of the gathered second tier was lower than usual, sweeping outward and making her legs seem far longer. Another woman would notice the artifice, but a man would not.

Elsa found herself smiling very slightly. She also knew that Liliane wore a higher heel to her shoes and had learned to walk in them very gracefully. She must have practiced a long time.

“For goodness’ sake, it’s necessary to humor the Prince of Wales, Olga!” Liliane said impatiently. “It’s probably largely harmless, a bit of showing off. It’s all very silly, but it’s even sillier of you to allow yourself to be offended by it. You give it more importance than it deserves.” She looked around for some form of aperitif, and saw nothing.

“Women who keep taking offense are very tiresome, my dear. Nothing bores a man faster. Take my advice and pretend you don’t care a fig. In fact, better than that, don’t allow yourself to care.”

Olga drew in her breath to make a stinging retort, then apparently could not think of one. “Elsa is hinting that she was murdered,”

she observed instead.

Liliane swung around to regard Elsa with surprise. “Who is saying such an idiotic thing?” Her voice was perfectly steady, but her eyes were bright and her gaze unnaturally firm. “Murdered how?”

“I don’t know,” Elsa admitted. “But she was found in the linen cupboard.”

“The linen cupboard!” Liliane exclaimed. “By whom, for heaven’s sake? Probably some stupid maid in hysterics. I dare say the wretched girl was with child and tried to abort herself. I expect they’ll get it cleared up, and we can all get back to what matters. There is a great deal to discuss yet to ensure that His Royal Highness is fully aware of all the facts.”

“I’m sure he knows the map of Africa as well as we do,” Olga told her. “It’s really quite simple. Cape Town is on the coast of South Africa, which is British anyway. After that the railway would go up through Bechuanaland, then the British South Africa Company territory. There is only the stretch between German East Africa and Congo Free State that is foreign, then we are into British East Africa.

Sudan might be tricky, but then there’s Egypt, which is British, and we are in Cairo. It isn’t largely the diplomatic issues that are the problem.” She dismissed them with a jerk of her hand. “It is the engineering. Let the police clear up whatever happened to this woman in the cupboard. It’s totally absurd for such a thing to hold up discussion of a railway that will change the face of the Empire. There must be prostitutes dying every day, somewhere or other.”

“This is not ‘somewhere or other,’ ” Elsa pointed out. “It is a linen cupboard in Buckingham Palace, not twenty yards from my bedroom door, or yours, for that matter.”

“My dear,” Liliane said with elaborate patience, “it is as irrelevant to you as if it were in China! For goodness’ sake forget about it, and concentrate on being charming to His Royal Highness. It’s probably not good manners even to mention such a thing, let alone be seen to be disconcerted by it.”

“Positively vulgar!” Minnie said from the doorway. “A guest should never appear to find anything odd, no matter what it is. Good morning, Elsa, Mrs. Marquand, Mrs. Quase.” She looked superb. Her morning gown was a rich golden yellow with a long, two-tiered skirt that swayed when she moved and had ribbons at her throat and wrist.

The bloom of youth was in her skin, her eyes were bright, and she had a kind of concentrated energy so delicately controlled that she seemed to be more alive than any of the others. It was an inner excitement, as if she knew something they did not. Elsa sometimes wondered if that were so.

“I suggest we don’t refer to it,” Minnie added, moving toward the door into the dining room. “Where is everyone else?”

“It is more than a misfortune in domestic arrangements,” Elsa said tartly. Minnie’s callousness annoyed her, as did everything else about her at one time or another. Minnie’s father’s intense admiration for her was almost a fascination, as if she were a reflection of himself. But most of all, of course, the spur to her dislike was that she was Julius’s wife.

“No, it isn’t,” Minnie contradicted her with a slight shrug. “People do die. It can’t be helped. It is rude to make much of it. I should be fearfully embarrassed if one of my maids died vulgarly when I had houseguests.”

“Of course you would,” Julius agreed, coming in from the hall.

“Dying vulgarly is a privilege exclusive to the upper classes. Servants should die decently in bed.”

“Don’t be witty, Julius,” Minnie snapped. “It doesn’t become you.

Anyway, she wasn’t a servant, she was a. .”

“Where should they die, my dear? In the street?” he inquired lan-guidly.

She opened her eyes very wide and stared at him. “I have no idea.

It is not a matter I have ever considered.” She swung round, elegantly turning her skirt with a little flick, and walked away into the dining room.

Julius glanced at Elsa, a faint, rueful smile on his face, and then sighed and followed after his wife.

Elsa felt her throat tighten and her heart lurch.

Then the moment was broken by Simnel coming in. Although he was Julius’s half-brother, they were not alike. Julius was taller and broader at the shoulders, and Elsa could see a greater imagination and more vulnerability in the line of his mouth than in Simnel’s. But then she was more certain of her emotion than of her judgment. Perhaps that was only what she wished to see.

“What on earth is going on?” Simnel asked, looking around.

“Who are the men asking questions and sending the servants into hysterics? I just saw one of the maids with tears streaming down her face, and she ran from me as if I had horns and a tail.”

Cahoon came in practically on his heels. “There’s been an ugly incident,” he answered, as if the question had been addressed to him.

“One of last night’s whores was murdered. Regrettably we have to have the police in, but if they do their job properly, they may clear it up within a day or so. We must just keep our heads and go on with our work. Shall we go in to luncheon.” That was an order more than a suggestion. “Where is Hamilton?”

Elsa disliked the use of the word whore. It sounded so pitiless, particularly when her husband was being brutally frank. She had despised the women when they were alive, but now that one of them had been murdered she felt differently. It was uncomfortable, even disconcerting, but for the sake of her own humanity, she told herself that she needed to observe their common bond more than their differences.