“Hardly likely. The suite next to mine is unoccupied. I believe the rooms at the back of Princess Louise’s suite are not in normal use, and the only room with a window facing the courtyard that is currently occupied is Lady Georgiana’s own.”

“Did you ask your maid if she saw anything?” the major asked me.

“She did,” I replied. There was an intake of breath. “She said she saw something going on under the archway, but I think it must have been Major Beauchamp-Chough with his torch when I brought him to see the body.” I looked up at them. “I can ask her again exactly what she saw, if you like, but she is rather an impressionable girl and has heard the stories about ghosts in the palace.”

“Ghosts?” Chief Inspector Pelham looked amused.

“Yes, apparently the palace has more than its fair share of ghosts,” I replied. I didn’t add that I had seen one of them.

“That may be useful.” The men exchanged a glance.

Sir Jeremy leaned toward me. “Lady Georgiana, I do hope that Major Beauchamp-Chough has impressed upon you the sticky situation in which we find ourselves. We are weeks away from a royal wedding. The eyes of the world are already on London. Photographers are crawling out of the woodwork. And now this young woman—rumored to have been a . . . well, rumored to be a close friend of the groom—is found dead a few yards from his future wife.”

Detective Chief Inspector Pelham cleared his throat. “You can thank your lucky stars that you and the princess were out all evening at the palace,” he said, “otherwise suspicion could have fallen upon the bride. Jealously is a powerful motive.”

“That is absurd,” I said angrily. “Have you met Princess Marina? She is not the type at all.”

“Oh, I think most women have a streak of jealousy running through them.” The DCI gave the hint of a smirk. “More deadly than the male, isn’t that what they say?”

“Then, as you say, it was lucky we both have a perfect alibi all evening,” I said calmly. “Has the time of death been established?”

“An autopsy is being performed at this moment,” Sir Jeremy said. “Presumably we’ll be able to know whether it was murder or suicide.”

“Suicide?” I said. “Why would anyone come to Kensington Palace to commit suicide?”

“Suicide or even accidental death,” Sir Jeremy went on, looking across me at the other men. “I understand you were not acquainted with the young woman. So let me tell you she was known in fashionable circles as ‘the girl with the silver syringe.’ She was a drug addict: cocaine and morphine. So it’s possible she took her own life.”

“And she came here to do it to punish Prince George for getting married,” Chief Inspector Pelham said, nodding agreement. “Killed herself while of unsound mind in a moment of despair.”