“I was waiting for you to ring me last night, Binky. I stayed awake.”

“Didn’t get in until midnight. Didn’t think I should disturb you at that hour.”

He sounded so normal, not at all worried, that my anxiety exploded. “You are absolutely impossible! You run away and leave me here alone and now you are talking to me as if you haven’t a care in the world. I take it you did see the body in the bathtub before you made your rapid departure?”

“Careful, old thing. Pas devant la opérateur.” (His French always was abysmal. She was feminine.)

“What? Oh, I see, yes. You did see a certain object, in the salle de bain? And you recognized it?”

“Of course I did. Why do you think I decided to clear out in a hurry?”

“And left me to face the music alone?”

“Don’t be silly. Nobody would suspect you. There’s no way a slip of a girl like you could lug a grand homme into le bain.”

“And how do you think it will make you look if they find out? It’s just not on, Binky,” I snapped, feeling close to tears. “It’s not how a Rannoch behaves. Think of your ancestor who rode fearlessly into the guns at the charge of the Light Brigade. He didn’t even consider running away, with cannons to the right of him, cannons to the left of him. I will not allow you to let down the family name in this way. I expect you back in London immediately. If you hurry you can catch the ten o’clock from Edinburgh.”

“Oh, look here—couldn’t you just say that—”

“No, I certainly couldn’t,” I shouted down the hollow crackling line with my own voice echoing back at me. “And what’s more, if you don’t come back right away, I’ll tell them you did it.”

I put the phone down with a certain amount of satisfaction. At least I was learning to assert myself. Good practice for saying no to the queen and Prince Siegfried.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The sofa in Belinda Warburton-Stoke’s living room
Saturday, April 30, 1932

Now that Binky was presumably wending his way back to London, I felt a little better. Belinda’s maid arrived about seven and bustled about making so much noise that I had to get up in self-defense. Belinda herself did not appear until after ten, looking pale and wan in her silk kimono.

“No more Black Stallions ever,” she groaned, feeling her way to the table and reaching out for the cup of tea the maid placed in front of her. “I seem to remember hearing the telephone. Was that your brother?”

“Yes, and I’ve told him to come back to London immediately,” I said. “I was very firm.”

“Good for you. But in the meantime we should start our sleuthing.”

“Should we? Doing what?”