Miss Darcy surveyed the body with a coldness that was unusual even for her. He would have found it odd if she had not allowed herself the single tear that was currently rolling down her cheek. They were in the King’s room, the site where they both had unwittingly had their final private audience with the man. This seemed to be a fact that Miss Darcy was dealing with now.
Miss Darcy took a shaky breath. ‘Who else in the family knows?’
He had given her a short version of exactly what had happened, and she still asked this? Darcy Tharigold was the type of character who believed a scene didn’t begin until she had arrived in it. ‘We were all right there in the drawing room when it happened. Everyone knows.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, small and slight. She wiped that one tear from her face and straightened up as if that had let out all the emotion she was allowed. ‘I’m sorry. I just . . . I’ve never been close to a dead body before, let alone the dead body of the . . . the King.’
‘Miss Darcy, I have reason to believe that someone murdered the King. How he died, what happened to him, falls in line with some kind of immediate reaction to something ingested. It was maybe an hour since Christmas dinner, and the King had been drinking along with everyone else. Drinking the same drinks and eating the same food. But the King died when he drank a glass of whiskey just before his speech. Nobody else drank that whiskey, and he was dead in less than a minute.’
Miss Darcy was still staring at the King’s face, which now had the look of some department store mannequin, frozen in an expression it couldn’t comprehend. Indeed, the King’s body was almost just that – an inanimate object, all used up. ‘How sure can you be that this didn’t just . . . happen?’
He wished he wasn’t sure at all – it would be so much simpler. ‘I was there, Miss Darcy. This was not from natural causes. From my experience, although it is largely culinary, there is no way that this was not as I described. The King was poisoned. And what is more, I believe the murderer to be one of the remaining family members.’
‘Be careful what you say, Jonathan. This sounds dangerously close to treason.’
‘I understand that, but I have uncovered things, Miss Darcy. The King called Emeline, Maud, David, Matthew, Marjorie, and Crockley for private audiences this morning, and he saw Martin afterwards. Things were discussed. The King seemed to be tying up loose ends – he had a folder, apparently, that may have had some incriminating evidence inside.’
‘A folder?’ Miss Darcy said. ‘Have you found this folder that proves your musings?’
‘No. I haven’t.’
‘You have no evidence of anything, Jon. You said you were appointed to this new role?’ She was suspicious of this, but then who would not be? He was still unsure how he had obtained the job himself.
‘Yes, ma’am. I was the last employee, and the remaining Windsors came to understand that they were compromised in some way and could not lead themselves. I became investigator by a process of elimination.’
‘Do you have any “detective” credentials?’ She was being deliberately flippant, not even trying to hide it from view. Before this moment, he had not known Miss Darcy’s view of him, but now that her shock of the day thus far had worn off, she seemed very keen to show him.
‘I am a chef, Miss Darcy. I have never been a detective. In practice, there are very few skills that transfer between the two professions. Investigating a murder isn’t like puzzling over why a soufflé didn’t rise.’
‘So you are not a detective, and it would appear you are not a security guard either,’ she snapped, gesturing to the King.
Anger surged, momentarily, inside Jon’s heart. ‘No, I am not, ma’am.’ He enunciated a little too much, a stronger tone for every hour he’d endured alone. ‘However, Tony Speck is a security guard. Unfortunately, he was outside, chasing phantoms in the snow, and not protecting his King.’ He regretted every word as soon as he was done. Thirty years of holding his tongue gone in an instant.
Strangely, Miss Darcy did not fire him on the spot. Rather, she seemed a little less perturbed by him. ‘You’re right, of course. Tony has shown an extreme lapse in judgement today. He will be dealt with when this whole sorry business is concluded. Now, you said you were following someone outside? When the power went out?’
Yes, that was also almost forgotten. There were too many things – too many puzzles in this box. When Jon focused too much on one of these mysteries, he lost sight of the others, as though they moved while out of sight.
‘Yes. I was in the drawing room with David, Marjorie, Emeline, Maud, Matthew, and Martin. We saw Thomas Crockley out the window, standing in the snow.’
‘And Crockley wasn’t there, because he had retired? Due to feeling unwell?’
‘Yes,’ said Jon. ‘I went to turn the power on and came across Crockley, who gave chase outside.’
Miss Darcy put her head in her hands for a few seconds, almost like when one played a peekaboo game with a child. When she reappeared from her cocoon, she was a different person. She still eyed Jon suspiciously though, as if she questioned the reality he was talking of. ‘Let’s go and see the family – see what they have to say about all of this.’
Miss Darcy turned away and started towards the door, leaving Jon with the sense that she did not believe he had done his best, because if he had, the King would still be alive. It did not affect him as it should have, because he had been living with that feeling ever since the King dropped from his role. He looked down at the Monarch and apologised silently once again – I should have done more. I should have known that you were in danger. Unspoken and in between Miss Darcy’s words was a slightly perturbed tone that betrayed that she thought that in some way she was having to unravel his mess. She was right, of course: even if Tony Speck should have been there, the responsibility always fell on those present.
Out in the corridor, the atmosphere was even worse. As they started towards the drawing room, Jon stopped. ‘Wait.’
‘What is it, Jon,’ Miss Darcy said, disgruntled.
‘Crockley’s room will be empty.’ Jon went over to Crockley’s room and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again, giving Miss Darcy time to catch up. ‘You’ll see.’
She sighed as he tried the door. It was unlocked.
Thomas Crockley was there, wrapped in his sheets, stirring from sleep at the sound of the door. It appeared as though he’d been there all afternoon. He didn’t look as though he’d been outside at all – no oddly rosy cheeks or stiff frozen hair. An eye winked open. ‘Alleyne?’ A red coat was nowhere to be seen.
Miss Darcy shut the door without any regard for Crockley’s question. ‘Are you feeling alright, Jon?’
Jon had always found it cliché when someone’s mouth dropped open at a surprise. Now he knew it to be true. ‘I . . . I . . . don’t understand. If it wasn’t Crockley, then . . . ’
‘Let’s just go and see the family. Maybe now I’m here, you can get some sleep, yes? Didn’t the doctor tell you that you had to stop running around like this?’
Jon was confused. ‘I never told you about the doctor.’
‘No,’ Miss Darcy said. ‘But I make it a point to know the business of all the castle employees. Especially if that business could affect their work.’
Something was being said here, something beyond the words.
Miss Darcy smiled, but her mouth didn’t match her eyes. ‘Come.’ She turned but after a few steps came back. ‘Oh.’ She pulled something out of her pocket. ‘Tony Speck asked me to give you this. He said you were so transfixed with it earlier and it’s not doing him much good down at the Watchtower.’ She thrust the thing into Jon’s hand and stalked away down the corridor.
Jon inspected what she had given him. A small tablet. He touched it, and a familiar image filled the screen. It was the security tablet with the readout of the castle. The same wireframe map was on the screen. Balmoral and the grounds. Red dots denoted the heat signatures of the people present. One was almost off the map – Speck down at the Watchtower. There were six dots towards the front of the castle – Emeline, Maud, David, Marjorie, Matthew, and Martin in the drawing room. There were three dots towards the back – Jon, Crockley, and Miss Darcy. Miss Darcy’s red dot was even moving as she walked down the corridor.
No one else was in the castle. Crockley seemed to have been in his room all this time. Everyone else had been with him when the lights went out and the figure appeared at the window.
Had Jon really just chased a ghost?