Murder Most Royal — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

I’m sure I’d have had time to dash up to London by train and do something terrible.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Emerald said, with a curled lip. ‘That train takes forever. You couldn’t even have driven it.’

‘You can’t get out of second gear.’

‘I could if I had an automatic,’ Elinor grumbled. She appealed to the Queen. ‘They only let me drive the 2CV, which is literally fifty years old and squeaks if you go over twenty miles an hour. And it’s broken right now. But I bet if I had a sports car I could have—’

‘Elinor did not kill our cousin,’ Flora assured the Queen briskly.

‘She hardly knew the man.’

‘And what about the rest of you?’ the Queen asked, with a hint of a smile to suggest she was joking, which she wasn’t.

‘I still wasn’t back from my ride,’ Elinor said sullenly. Nobody seemed interested.

‘I don’t remember where I was,’ Lord Mundy said.

‘Yes, you do, Dad,’ Flora reminded him. ‘You went for tea with Mrs Capelton.’

‘No, that was the day before. Ned dropped me off after lunch. She’s in charge of making the new kneelers for St Agnes in memory of Lee.

She’s a wonderful woman but it took me two and a half hours to get away. I had to walk home in the dark.’

‘Who visited you that night, Grandpa?’ Elinor asked. ‘I saw the taxi in the courtyard.’

‘That I do remember. It was poor Mr Wallace. He was in a very fragile state. I tried to reassure him, but I’m not sure how effective I was.’

‘He did look grim,’ Flora agreed. ‘And then you and I had a marathon session on the church refurbishment accounts with the vicar the next day.

’

‘Oh, yes. And an antiquarian bookseller came in the afternoon. He’s interested in some of my first editions. It’s a wrench to say goodbye to them, but Flora needs her cake shop.’

‘I went for a ride,’ Flora said. ‘I’d have tried to meet up with Elinor if I’d known I was going to be quizzed about it for hours by a policeman, but sadly, I didn’t. I do have a fitness tracker, though. He seemed to think that might help.’

By now the girls were getting restless and dispersed to various parts of the house.

Flora invited the Queen to see the gardens, but the baron said he had something to discuss with Her Majesty, which suited her admirably. Rozie, who had agreed on the division of labour beforehand, offered to go with Flora instead.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know one end of a trowel from the other,’ Rozie admitted, as they put on coats and wellies in the boot room of the hall. ‘But I like those bushes you cut into shapes.