“He was caught trying to strangle me,” I said, “which was lucky, as they’d have had no way to link him to de Mauxville’s death. Or to those other attempts on my life.”

“Attempts on your life?”

“Yes, Tristram tried diligently to push me off a tube platform, poison me, trip me down the stairs, and be squashed by a statue. I’m glad to say I survived them all.” The one thing he hadn’t done, so it seemed, was to push me off the boat. That really had been a freak accident, but it gave him the idea that it might be simple to get rid of me. “I was known to be accident-prone so nobody would ever have suspected,” I said, with an involuntary shudder.

“So they’d no proof he was the murderer?”

“Actually now they have. An autopsy revealed there was cyanide in de Mauxville’s system, and in the poor woman he killed accidentally.”

“Killed accidentally?”

“He meant to poison me with a cyanide-laced sugar cube, but some woman took the sugar bowl from me and died instead.”

Binky looked astonished. “A poisoned sugar cube? How did he know you’d take the right cube? Had he poisoned the entire bowl?”

“No, he was lucky as well as opportunistic. He had the cyanide in his pocket, waiting for a chance to use it. When the woman at the next table started speaking to me, I turned around just long enough for him to taint one cube. Then he made a show of taking a lump himself first, leaving the poisoned cube sitting on top.”

“Well, I’m dashed,” Binky said. “Smart cove, then.”

“Very smart,” I said. “He played the likeable dolt so well that no one ever suspected him.”

“And all for money,” Binky said with disgust.

“Money is quite a useful thing to have,” I said. “You only notice how useful when you don’t have enough.”

“That’s certainly true,” Binky said. “Which reminds me. I had a brilliant idea when I was locked up with hours to think: we’ll open up Rannoch House to the public. We’ll bring rich Americans for a Highland hunting experience. Fig can do cream teas.”

I started to laugh. “Fig? Can you see Fig serving cream teas to charabancs full of plebs?”

“Well, not exactly serve them herself. Preside over them. Meet the duchess, you know. . . .”

But I was still laughing. Tears streamed down my face as I laughed myself silly.

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Buckingham Palace
Westminster
London
Later in May 1932

“Extraordinary,” Her Majesty said. “From what one reads in the papers, one understands that this young man is a relative of Sir Hubert Anstruther.”

“A distant relative, ma’am. Sir Hubert actually rescued him from France.”