Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

couldn’t bring myself to say “my sister.” “She was the one who impersonated me, who went to the villa that afternoon. I thought she killed Sir Toby but she swears she didn’t.” I paused. I hadn’t had much time for thought recently. “Or I suppose she might have seen his killer. She might be the one witness. I never thought of that.”
    “So she didn’t tell you that she’d witnessed the murder of Sir Toby?”
    “No. But we’d only just started talking. She confessed she was at the house.”
    The tires screeched as we negotiated yet another hairpin bend, a little too fast for my comfort. I looked back.
    “You can slow down now,” I said. “I don’t believe we’re being followed.”
    “You can’t be too careful,” Johnson said, speeding up if anything. “Besides, how often do I get the chance to drive fast? Only when one of you lot lets me. Take chances while you can. That’s my motto.”
    Something was stirring at the back of my consciousness. Love of motorcars. One of the few things I inherited from my father. He’d have approved of the way this handles. Of course he would, because he designed the engine for it. I gripped the armrest harder as we swung around the next bend. The engine that Toby Groper stole and claimed as his own. Johann Schermann. A German Jew. Johann—the German word for John. And this was Johnson: John’s son. He had been waving his identity in Sir Toby’s face and Sir Toby had been too blind to see. We’d all been too blind until now. Because nobody pays attention to servants. They do their job. They are just there, in the background, and they don’t matter.
    “Where are we really going?” I asked, trying to sound calm and interested.
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “You’ve been kind to me and you’ve treated me like a person, which is more than the rest of your lot. But you’re my insurance, I’m afraid.”
    “So where are we going?” I repeated.
    “To Italy. I’m banking on there being plenty of ships that sail out of Genoa and don’t ask too many questions. And I hear there are opportunities to make a fortune in South America. The perfect place for a bright chap like me. Away from the snobbishness of the English class system.” He glanced across at me. The wind was in his hair and his eyes were alight with—what? Danger? Excitement? “You suspected me for some time, didn’t you? I saw it in the questions you asked me. Why didn’t you turn me over to the police?”
    I didn’t like to say that I had only just twigged to him. It would be better to let him think that I may have confided in other people. “Those two men you saw at our house this morning,” I said slowly, not sure if this was playing with fire or not. “They were not art experts. One of them was from the Sûreté in Paris and the other from Scotland Yard.”
    “The Sûreté and Scotland Yard? Just for me? I didn’t think I was worth that much.” He sounded pleased and then he laughed out loud. “Well, Georgie—that is your name, isn’t it?—we seem to have left the opposition behind.”
    “But if you killed Sir Toby, how did you do it? You were in town.”
    He was still smiling. “Pure luck. One rare bit of luck in my life. I’d gone into town as he commanded. I’d finished his errands and I was about to do my own when he saw me driving down the street. He flagged me down and got in. He was in an awful mood. Apparently his day had not been going well and he’d changed his mind and didn’t want to stay in Nice, so he told me to drive him home. As we drove, I realized that we’d have the house to ourselves and I wondered if I’d have the nerve to do it. And how I’d do it. I’d gone through the scenario in my mind many times—stabbing him, shooting him—but they all seemed so risky. There was only a point in it if I got away safely, wasn’t there?”
    I didn’t answer so he went on. “We got to the house. I didn’t put the car away. He was annoyed about it but I pointed out he’d given me the afternoon off. I still had things I wanted to do in Nice.
    “‘You’re not going anywhere. I’m here now, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘I’m not going to cook my own damned supper.’
    “Then he said he was going for a swim. He peeled off his clothes and dropped them all over the floor as he put on his bathing suit. He looked disgusting, like a great walrus.
    “‘Pick up those things,’ he commanded.
    “‘Have you not guessed who I am yet?’ I