“Don’t worry, Queenie, for once you’re not in the wrong,” I said. “I merely woke early and it seemed silly to stay in bed.”

“Right, then. Do you want your breakfast brought up on a tray? I’ll go and fetch it for you.”

“No, thank you. Remember I said that I didn’t want you wandering around the palace? I’ll have mine downstairs. You stay here and I’ll have someone bring up your breakfast to you.”

“It’s like being a bloody prisoner in a cell,” she said.

“I think it’s very nice to be waited on. You can pretend to be me for once.”

“Well, make sure they put more than one slice of toast on the plate,” she said. “That supper last night wasn’t enough to feed a ruddy sparrow.”

“You can hardly do up those buttons as it is,” I said, chuckling. “A few weeks of dieting won’t do you any harm.”

“How am I supposed to keep up me strength then?” she asked. “It takes a lot of energy lugging your ruddy trunks up and down stairs all the time.”

“You’ll survive,” I said. “Oh, and Queenie, about last night . . .”

“Yes, miss?”

I walked over to the window and looked down. Below me the cobblestones glistened in watery sunshine. I tried to picture where the body had lain. Could I have seen it from this window? If a motorcar had drawn up outside the building and dumped the body it wouldn’t have been seen from here. I looked at the wall opposite. There were not many windows looking onto this courtyard. The one at the far end must be the major’s bathroom. Apart from that only the ones at the back of Princess Louise’s suite.

“You said you saw something last night. What exactly did you see?”

“Do you mean them lights flashing around?”

“No, you said you saw something white earlier in the evening. Was it a lady in white?”

“I couldn’t tell, miss. It was right dark down there. I just saw this white thing, moving slowly across the courtyard. I couldn’t even tell if it was a person. It just sort of oozed across the cobblestones toward the arch.”

“Oozed?”

“Yeah. Or wafted. I couldn’t exactly tell. Not going in a straight line anyway. Not someone walking. All I can say is it moved slowly in a funny way—this blob of white. I can tell you I closed them curtains pretty quick.”

“What time was this, Queenie?”