“Am I interrupting something?” said a voice behind us, and Princess Zamanska came toward us, having changed out of the leather jacket and trousers of her flying gear into a mink coat and a scarlet pillbox hat and matching scarf. I wondered how she had managed to get so many things into such a small suitcase.

“It looked like such a touching and intimate little scene,” she said. I realized I had been standing with my hand on Darcy’s arm and withdrew it.

“We were strategizing,” I said. “Trying to think what we should do next.”

“And I have been doing the same,” she said. “I had them put through a telephone call to London for me. Roddy promised me faithfully that he is working hard on our behalf and should have news any moment now. I told him he can leave messages for me at the hotel. So it’s lucky I’m staying here, isn’t it? More chance of getting messages than at the pub in your village.”

“Do you want to remain here now, or come back to Kilhenny with us?” Darcy asked.

“With you, naturally,” she said. “Unless you can think of anything useful I could do in Dublin. But I have to visit my dear little aeroplane and make sure it’s taken care of. I can’t just leave it in a field full of horses, exposed to the elements. Is there an airfield nearby, a proper one with hangars, do you know? I don’t think they’d let me land it on St. Stephen’s Green. Too many people and trees.” She glanced out of the windows as if to confirm this. “I should have bought a seaplane. Then I could have landed it on the Liffey.”

“Zou Zou, you are something else,” Darcy said.

“What do you mean? I’m a perfectly ordinary woman. So what are we going to do next? I’m game for anything.”

“You say you just put through a telephone call to England,” Darcy said. “Do you think I could use the telephone in your room and also make a call to London? I think there’s a chap there who might be useful and has connections in the States.”

“Of course, darling. It’s 217.” She held out the key. “Tell them to put the call on my bill.”

Darcy went off, leaving the princess and me standing together.

“So what do you think?” she asked. “Darcy believes his father is guilty, doesn’t he? He’s not trying very hard.”