“Your father claims he is innocent, does he? I rather thought it was a foregone conclusion that he did it, from what I’ve read in the papers. I could quite understand it myself. There have been several Americans I’ve wanted to kill, especially the rich ones who think that their money can buy anything. I even met a chap once who wanted to marry me and it turned out that he thought he would become a prince by marrying a princess. I ask you!” She paused, then added, “Well, I suppose there is a certain lady we know who rather thinks she will become queen one day.”

“To get back to my father,” Darcy said. “Whether he’s guilty or not, we have to do our best for him. We have to come up with the best defense possible, because he’s doing nothing to help himself.”

Darcy had opened the gate and they came toward the motor. I decided the right thing would be to get out to say hello to Zou Zou. I stepped down and managed a bright smile.

“That was quite an entrance, Your Highness,” I said.

She beamed. “My new toy. I adore it. Is it all right to leave it here for the moment, do you think? This field doesn’t belong to you, by any chance?”

“Used to,” Darcy said. “Now it belongs to a dead man. And I don’t see any harm in leaving it here for now. You can’t stay, of course. There’s nowhere to put you up nearby. Even the pubs are full. I’m camping out with my father at the lodge and there are no hotel beds for miles. The place is buzzing with reporters. In fact the wisest thing would be for you to take off again before anyone in the village comes to have a look at the plane.”

“But I want to be useful,” the princess said. “Tell me what you need doing and I’ll do it. And as soon as Roddy has found the best barrister in Ireland we’ll snap him up.”

I could see that Darcy was in an agony of indecision. He didn’t want the princess here, that was clear. He didn’t want her dramatic arrival alerting the press to our presence. But he did want the best barrister in Ireland. “Then I suppose you had better find a hotel in Dublin, at least for tonight,” Darcy said. “We were on our way there now. You can come with us.”

“Why don’t we all go in my aeroplane?” Princess Zamanska said, waving her hands excitedly. “I’m sure we can just fit in three, if we hold our breath.”

“You can’t fly an aeroplane to Dublin.” Darcy shook his head. “The airfield is miles outside the city and then we’d have no transportation.”

“Are there no taxies to be had in Dublin? I always found it a most civilized city.”