“I didn’t think you needed me,” I said, still rankled by his lack of sensibility.

“Good Lord, yes. Of course I need you.”

“It might be useful to have you there too, miss,” Sugg said. “Certain facts have come to light . . .”

He knows about the letter, I thought.

Binky stood aside to help me into the car. “Oh, and for the record, Sergeant, my sister is ‘her ladyship.’ ”

“Is she, now? And I’m ‘Inspector,’ not ‘Sergeant.’ ”

“Are you really?” Binky gave the smallest of smiles. “Fancy that.”

Sometimes I think he’s not as dense as he makes himself out to be.

We set off, mercifully without the bell ringing. But it was an odd feeling when we passed through the gate of New Scotland Yard. Visions of my ancestors going to the Tower flashed through my mind, even though I knew that Scotland Yard had no dungeons and no chopping block. We were escorted up a flight of stairs and into a drab little room that looked out onto a courtyard and smelled of stale smoke. The inspector pulled out a chair for me on the far side of a desk. I sat. Binky sat. The inspector surveyed us, looking rather pleased with himself, I thought.

“We’ve been searching for you, Your Grace,” he said, stressing the last two words. “Looking all over.”

“Nothing hard about finding me,” Binky said. “I was at home in Scotland. I went back yesterday and it’s damned inconvenient to have to turn around because some fellow drowned himself in my bathtub.”

“Not drowned himself, sir. I imagine that someone helped him. So was he a friend of yours?”

“I really can’t tell you that, Inspector, since I haven’t had a chance to look at the blighter.”

I glanced at Binky. That good old Rannoch and royal blood certainly comes through in moments of crisis. He sounded quite “we are not amused.”

“You mean to tell me you didn’t see the body in your bathtub?”

“Absolutely. Rather. That’s precisely what I mean.”

I glanced at him. He was sounding a little too emphatic.

The policeman obviously thought so too. “If you hadn’t seen him in the bathtub, sir, how did you know he was a blighter?”

“Anyone who has the nerve to die in my bath without my permission has to be a blighter, Inspector,” Binky said. “If you must know, the first I knew about it was when my sister telephoned me with the news.”

“If I tell you the gentleman’s name was Gaston de Mauxville, does that ring a bell?”

“De Mauxville? Yes. I know that name.” Again he was sounding too hearty.

“I believe he was an acquaintance of our late father, wasn’t he?” I cut in.

“De Mauxville. Yes. I met him once or twice.”

“Recently?”

“Not that recently.”