Your Royal Hostage

  For some at least of Pussy's ill temper and Chicken's irritation was caused by the unaccustomed style of dress in which both women were attired: Indian and bejewelled would be the best way of describing it. As a matter of fact. Chicken and Pussy, with the connivance and advice of Fox, looked surprisingly convincing. It was true that neither of them would be taken for the kind of lissom Maharani of popular imagination (or the Heat and Dust style of film). But Pussy's dour build and basically dark complexion had needed very little adaptation to give her the characteristic phlegmatic look of an Eastern female; Chicken presented at first sight more of a problem. But: 'Nothing we can't overcome,' Fox insisted; his enthusiasm making him suddenly seem stronger, more forceful — or perhaps he merely displayed something more of his real character. So Pussy in voluminous turquoise. Chicken in neater red, inhabited their eyrie and gazed — across, to the right and downwards - at Princess Amy in the Royal Box. An observer might also have noticed that there were only two people in a box meant for four; although of course the restricted balcony view made this a practical measure. But who looked into a balcony box on the night of a gala?

  These dissentient voices apart, it was generally agreed at the time — not only afterwards when such a retrospective judgement became perhaps inevitable - that 'little Amy' had never looked more beautiful. Expert analysis would indeed be needed to realize that what actually glittered at Amy's round white neck, at her little white ears, at the not inconsiderable cleft between her plump white breasts, and filleting her elaborately ringleted blonde hair, were the famous Russian sapphires belonging to Ferdel's great-grandmother (she who had or had not danced with Rasputin but had certainly known how to amass a wearable fortune in jewellery). Probably only Susanna Blanding, opera glasses trained, immediately recognized them for what they were. 'The so-called "Rasputin sapphires". Unlucky?' she murmured to Curt, without expecting an answer from this normally comatose source.

  At the time it was Amy herself, eyes shining in palpable triumph at the applause her appearance evoked, rather than the provenance of her parure, which aroused the happily startled gasps of admiration.

  She raised her plump little white hand - no ring but the engagement one — in a gracious royal wave and said something to Prince Ferdinand.

  Once again it would need expert analysis - from lip-readers -to reveal what Princess Amy actually said. Fortunately there were none present, despite the increasing employment of them at such events as royal weddings so that the avid public might share the last-minute thoughts - or even, daring hope, last-minute second thoughts of the latest bride.

  It was fortunate there was no lip-reader present because what Amy actually said to Ferdel as she smiled and waved was: 'You never told me that bitch was going to be here.'

  There had indeed been a moment of more than usual awkwardness - or a moment of highly enjoyable drama, depending on your point of view - when Mirabella Prey's large limousine, of hearse-like length in the American style, had swung in to the pavement in front of the Royal Opera House just as the royal car was expected. There was no doubt in the minds of the numerous cameramen present, both for the newspapers and television, that enjoyable drama was the way to look at it; these representatives of television including Rick Vancy and Jemima Shore for tus (looking for some footage for their Wedding Special).

  As their driver, jovial Harry, he of the tus London tour, would exclaim appreciatively later to his mates: 'Did you see her? Did you see her? Cor.' He shook his curly head under its blue cap, leaving no doubt that what he - along with millions watching the tv news - had seen was a ringside view of Mirabella's magnificent body.

  Surely even that body had never been seen to greater advantage-certainly not in Beagle's infinitely cruder nude photographs. Tonight Mirabella's spangled white crepe dress paid no more than a graceful tribute to the idea of concealing her small high breasts. In other places the dress was stretched so tight that the two slits on either side of the skirt revealed not only those celebrated long legs but also delicious brown thighs: the slits at least could be justified by the need to manoeuvre out of the car, which would otherwise have been quite impossible.

  More was to come. As onlookers - and cameras - found themselves transfixed by Mirabella's piece de resistance, something which looked like a jewelled tiger's head in her exposed navel, the royal chauffeur for the night, Taplow, could be seen approaching at the wheel. Amy, unaware of what had happened, did however catch a glimpse of Mirabella's sinuous back just ahead of her as she stepped up the red carpet. She thought the presence of another individual - so close vaguely odd: but by this time the Chairman of Covent Garden, having hissed: 'Get that woman out of here and into her seat and fast', was already bowing over the Princess's hand. What Ferdel's thoughts might be was not clear: he looked impassive. Did he perhaps recognize the famous back more swiftly? He had had after all ample opportunity to study it both in the distant and more recent past.

  The Chairman of Covent Garden, one who like the centurion in the Bible was accustomed to say, 'Go, and he goeth', in his most recent command had reckoned without Mirabella Prey.

  'I am C-c-crazy about this Gala,' she was saying to the eager pressmen in her thrilling husky voice. She paused naturally enough on the red carpet in order to do so: incidentally providing an opportunity for yet more revealing shots. 'You know I am doing so much work for this wonderful charity.'

  No one had the gall to ask Mirabella if she knew what the charity in question, for which the Gala had been hastily assembled, actually was. But the exchange had been enough to enable Princess Amy, herself also in white, several inches shorter, weight about the same (very differently distributed) to catch up with her. This time the Chairman waited for no man to do his bidding and literally shoved the vagrant film star off the royal route. It was an action much misunderstood by those avidly watching the whole episode on television at home: for'-'surely the Chairman was being no so much dreadfully unchivalrous towards Mirabella — the line generally taken - as wonderfully and vainly chivalrous towards Princess Amy, in a way of which Sir Walter Raleigh himself would have approved.

  As it was, the Chairman's precipitate action merely enabled Mirabella, graceful to the last, to sweep a deep curtsey to the Prince and Princess as they passed. Ferdel looked straight ahead; Amy looked directly down, down Mirabella's cleavage as a matter of fact, or so the photographers made it appear.

  if looks could kill was one headline already planned for a morning newspaper. For once the headline was probably a pretty fair estimate of the Princess's feelings.

  Now, safely installed in the Royal Box, Ferdel did not answer his fiancée's remark, hissed between her gritted teeth and smiling lips. Instead he lifted her white-gloved hand to his own lips and kissed it. It was a gesture which delighted one half of the audience (mainly female) and infuriated the other (predominantly male). 'So romantic' and 'Crafty foreign bugger' were the respective expressions most commonly used. No one in the audience was aware that as Ferdel lifted Amy's hand, he gave it a painful little nip, not in the least bit romantic, with his long brown fingers. If they had known, both halves of the audience would surely have been united in disapproval.

  'What's the piece?' enquired Rick lazily of Jemima, 'They didn't give me anything on that.' Rick and Jemima were sitting in a box, with Curt and Susanna (the latter agreeably taking the fourth back seat on a high stool) which was directly opposite the royal one.

  Because Princess Amy and Prince Ferdinand were the focus of everybody's attention - including Jemima's — it took some time for the latter to take in the existence of the box next door, although Jemima was actually sitting cheek-by-jowl with its inhabitants. She glanced to her left. She saw a thin young woman wearing whitish satin, cut rather too like a nightdress for Jemima's own taste; the diamond circlet on her head was however exquisite; it must be real. As Jemima recognized Susanna Blanding's cousin (and the lady-in-waiting's sister), Lydia Quentin, she realized that she had also seen her companion, a much older man,
presumably her father, before. If he was her father he was a wealthy father, because he had installed two people only in a box meant for four. The same man had been with Lydia Quentin praying in Westminster Cathedral. But Susanna Blanding had said that the Quentins were horribly poor and their father, the celebrated

  Colonel Q, was dead ... An escort then, an older escort, a much older escort. Why would a much older escort pray with a young girl in the middle of the afternoon? For rejuvenation? Filing the puzzle away at the back of her mind, Jemima returned her attention to Rick Vancy.

  Like Prince Ferdinand, Rick looked remarkably handsome if slightly actorish in his white tie: his resemblance to Leslie Howard was more pronounced than ever. Rick's gift for verisimilitude was once more demonstrated by the fact that he had actually secured a tail-coat which fitted him, unlike his sidekick Curt who had only got as far as a dinner-jacket - which manifestly did not.

  'The "piece" is Otello,' said Jemima.

  'As in Shakespeare?'

  'Exactly. Arias instead of soliloquies.'

  ‘Isn't the particular story-line rather gross tonight?' Rick rolled one eye in the direction of the minor boxes opposite, where a couple of dignitaries in Arab dress could be seen (those in white ties might perhaps envy them their freedom of movement). Then he looked down at the elaborate Gala programme, magnificently inscribed, in the gracious presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Amy of Cumberland and His Highness Prince Ferdinand of....' A long string of foreign names followed, one of them actually sounding rather like Ruritania.

  'Since it's for Eastern Relief, you could argue that Otello was in fact peculiarly appropriate,' suggested Jemima. 'Eastern Relief was in fact a tactful umbrella name for Middle Eastern War Relief, its hasty organization due to the latest unpleasant twist in the situation in that area, where an increasing amount of homeless and sick of one country declined to receive the refugees of another. 'But I doubt whether anybody thought of the story of Otello at the time. More carried away by the unexpected presence of Ignazio Dorati in London due to a cancellation. He's behind Domingo and Pavarotti, but they, whoever "they" are, say he's going to be even better. At least in this part. And goodness, he's handsome. Look out for squeals at the curtain. He's a terrific favourite here.'

  'So what do you know? Arabs at the opera.' Rick leant back and closed his eyes as che house lights dimmed and the first stormy bars of the overture were heard. Jemima hoped that he was not going to emulate his compatriot Curt in publicly going to sleep.

  Whatever the Arabs thought of Otello - at charity prices, they must have paid a fortune for that box next door to the royal one, once again two people only occupying a box for four - the rest of the audience thrilled to it. Moreover, since Ignazio Dorati, not for nothing nicknamed El Dorado, made such a handsome bronzed fellow of the Moor, no insult to the Arab race could surely be intended. As for Mirabella Prey, sitting gorgeously in the front of the stalls circle, her lovely eyes glowed as the unfamiliar - to her - plot unfolded.

  'I love this story - yes,' she exclaimed at one point to her escort. A Greek-looking person of heavy build, he wore gold jewellery which could be matched with that of many of the women in the audience. Mirabella's voice was however rather too loud for the regular opera-goers closer to her and there was some indignant shushing. Unabashed, Mirabella was later overheard comparing El Dorado to a puma, notoriously her favourite animal as her many admirers would testify. (The large puma bracelet flashing on her arm was either the broken one restored, or a re-creation.) Nor did the end of the opera dissatisfy her. Mirabella breathed an orgiastic sigh as the athletic Dorati straddled his plaintive but well-built Desdemona in order to strangle her.

  'She's strong, that one.' Mirabella nodded approvingly. 'But he is stronger.'

  By the time the great finale of the opera was over, the evil figure of Iago breaking loose to escape his just deserts, the whole of the audience from Princess Amy, the 'Rasputin' sapphires glittering at her throat, to a couple of obscure Indian women high up in a balcony box, with much humbler incrustations, seemed ready to erupt into applause. As the great red curtains fell, their clapping began to explode in rounds of wild energy like the sound of fireworks being released. First the whole company, then the company with the conductor, then the principals in ascending order of importance, appeared before the curtains, held back for them by the flunkeys. So that when the call came for which a high proportion of the audience had been holding back their ultimate ferocity: El Dorado himself, alone on the apron of the stage, not so much fireworks as thunder was the impression given.

  There he stood, bowing, smiling, his face still mildly darkened, looking indeed much like the puma to which Mirabella had compared him, but a pleasant, cheerful panting puma, relaxing after the kill.

  'El Dorado! El Dorado!' Monstrous bouquets in huge ugly cellophane wrappings were being carried on by the flunkeys and other single flowers began to rain down from the upper galleries. The whole audience, including Princess Amy and Prince Ferdinand, rose to its feet in tribute. Jemima, clapping away at Rick's side, was highly surprised to note that the inhabitants of the next box - Lydia Quentin and her elderly escort - had already left. Then she turned back to Ignazio Dorati. By now the sound was sufficiently all-consuming for it to take some moments for anybody, even the Covent Garden officials, to realize that the fireworks and the thunder had in fact been joined by another noise: that of an explosion. A minor explosion it was true, just enough to set off what appeared to be a smoke bomb in one of the balcony boxes. Smoke began to billow outwards.

  But it was only when an enormous white banner was draped down from the farthest box on the right-hand balcony side, that heads actually began to turn away from El Dorado, still bowing and smiling on the stage, in the direction of the smoke. The logo of an animal's face, enormous sad eyes, dominated it. But to most people the words were even more striking:

  innoright it read, protect the innocent. And then: the true good cause.

  As the audience, now staring and murmuring, began to take in something of what happened, and Covent Garden officials scurried in the direction of the banner - 'Get the police,' one of them was heard to say, 'there are enough of them outside' - two middle-aged women of inconspicuous appearance, one fat, one thin, emerged from the ladies' cloakroom on the upper level. Their dark dresses giving the impression of having done service in some office earlier in the day, the two women hastened down the side staircase. Someone else was talking about 'those damn Asians'.

  'We must hurry, dear,' said the fat one, clutching her large plastic shopping bags to her. 'Do come on. We must make the last train home.'

  'Wasn't he wonderful?' sighed the thinner of the two women. 'What a relief to have the full opera. The Zeffirelli film was definitely not for the purist.' She added: 'Don't worry, dear, we've got plenty of time.'

  And Chicken was right. The timing worked out by Monkey, and gone over many times by the rest of the cell, had so far worked to perfection. The exactness of the royal schedule -characteristically exact — was of course a considerable help. As Ione Quentin often observed to her sister on this particular subject: 'When we say "Cars at 11.02", we at cp do not mean 11.03'.

  So that Lamb entering the receiving room at the back of the Royal Box knew to the instant the moment at which the Prince and Princess were scheduled to desert the applauding audience and retire to the back room. Lamb smiled at Fitzgerald, the Princess's detective, whom she knew through Ione, and explained that she had arranged to make a presentation to Princess Amy; the detective nodded. The unscheduled confusion, caused by the Innoright banner, was as a matter of fact also working almost perfectly to the timetable they had planned. After that, several things happened at once, none of them expected within the royal receiving room, all of them planned by Monkey.

  As Lamb said to Princess Amy, 'Ma'am, Ione said I could come —' the Princess turned towards her with a faintly puzzled but still courteous air. After all, the evening had been full of the unexpected. It was Io
ne Quentin who cried: 'Leelee - no,' as two Arabs were revealed standing behind her.

  Both men held automatic pistols. Both men were now masked beneath their Arab headdresses. To those outside, the loud plop of another smoke bomb, followed by more smoke billowing out, coming from a box adjacent to the royal one, created further pandemonium. But to those inside the box, there was the noise of a shot, a shot followed by a scream.

  'Your Royal Highness,' said a muffled voice. 'You are to come with us.'

  Elsewhere in Covent Garden, the noise and confusion following the Innoright demo still held sway, as sturdy men attempted to haul back the banner, with its defiant red legend: protect the innocent.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  'PALACE MYSTERY'

  In spite of the late hour, Major Smylie-Porter's voice was extraordinarily urbane on the telephone: 'Pat here ... Dear boy, this is probably the ultimate favour we shall ever ask you' And, added Major Smylie-Porter to himself, the ultimate test of my ability to handle anything, but anything, however big, big being not quite a big enough word. To his surprise, he found that at the same time he was uttering a rough prayer (surely he hadn't prayed since he was a young man in Malaya and those bandits attacked). He also found, going still further back to childhood, that he was keeping his fingers crossed.