With that he stepped back into the anteroom with me at his heels. Field Marshal Pirin’s body lay on the couch exactly as Darcy had described him, his face bright red and his eyes open and bulging horribly. He was a big man and the couch was delicate gilt and brocade so that his feet hung over the end and one arm was dangling to the floor. I shuddered and forced myself not to turn away. The other occupants of the room appeared to be frozen in a tableau around the body: Nicholas staring down at Pirin, Anton standing behind Nicholas while Lady Middlesex and Miss Deer-Harte hovered near Pirin’s highly polished boots. Miss Deer-Harte looked as if she wanted to do nothing more than escape.

“You must telephone for the police at once,” Lady Middlesex said. “There is a murderer in our midst.”

“Impossible, madam,” Dragomir said, reappearing behind us. “The telephone line has come down with all this snow. We are cut off from the outside world.”

“And there is not a police station within reach to which you could send a man?”

“A man could probably go on skis over the pass,” Dragomir said, “but I advise that we should not summon the police, even if we could, before Their Majesties have been told.”

“But there has been a murder,” Lady Middlesex said. “We need someone who can find the culprit before he gets away.”

“As to that, madam,” Dragomir said, “anyone who tried to leave the castle would not get far in snow like this. Besides, there is only one way out of the castle and a guard is at the gate at all times.”

“Then for heaven’s sake make sure the guard knows that nobody is to leave,” Lady Middlesex said angrily. “Really, you foreigners. Too slipshod in everything.”

“Lady Middlesex, I’m sure Prince Nicholas would appreciate it if you didn’t broadcast the facts all over the castle at the moment,” Darcy said. “I assure you that we will do everything in our power to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. And nobody is going to be slipshod.”

“And you are . . . ?” she asked, turning to focus on him. If she’d had a lorgnette she would have stared at him through it. One almost expected her to utter the words “a handbag?”

“He is my groomsman and good friend Darcy O’Mara, Lord Kilhenny’s son,” Nicholas said shortly. “A good man to have around if you’re in trouble. He was at school with me—the backbone of our rugby team.”

“Oh, well, in that case.” Lady Middlesex was quite happy now. Anyone who was the backbone of an English public school rugby team had to be all right. “So what do you want us to do?”