Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

wild.”
    I managed to obtain a cheese sandwich for Queenie and myself, but my stomach was growling by the time the dinner gong went and I went down in anticipation to find that dinner was cold ham and a couple of lettuce leaves with boiled potatoes. It was served by the gargoyle, with the occasional sigh and groan as she walked behind us.
    “Cold ham, old thing?” Foggy asked. “Didn’t we just have ham sandwiches for lunch?”
    “Last-minute substitution, I’m afraid,” Ducky said. “I told her to make beef casserole and I discovered it was swimming with garlic and onions. I couldn’t serve that to Maude. Really, these people have no idea.” She turned to me. “Couldn’t even make a steak and kidney pudding, can you believe? And breakfast—had never heard of kidneys for breakfast.”
    “And eggplant,” Foggy added. “Will keep trying to serve us something called eggplant. Doesn’t taste anything like an egg.”
    “And she can’t make proper puddings, can she, Mummy?” Maude chimed in. “I wanted rice pudding but all I got was silly fruit.”
    I finished my one slice of ham in silence. Then I remembered why I was here.
    “Tell me,” I said, “do you know Sir Toby Groper?”
    “Know of the bounder, but don’t know the man personally,” Foggy said. “Not really one of us, you know.”
    “N.O.C.D. Made his money in trade,” Ducky added. The former meaning “not our class, dear.”
    Everyone at the table shuddered.
    “And not just trade,” Foggy went on, warming to his subject. “Armaments. I mean, our ancestors were involved in the East India Company, but that was decent trade. Respectable. Bringing civilization to the natives at the same time. His family supplied guns to both sides in every damned war.”
    “Really? I thought he made his money from motorcars,” Ducky said.
    “Since the war, yes,” Foggy said.
    “I heard there was some scandal about that too,” Binky chimed in. “Didn’t he swindle his partner or something?”
    “Did he?” Fig asked.
    “Maybe not swindle, but there was some question about who actually invented that bally motor of his. Some kind of lawsuit. Didn’t the other chap kill himself?”
    “Horrible little man,” Ducky said. “I understand he swans it down here on the Riviera. Ostentatious great yacht and a villa full of artworks. No taste at all, of course.”
    “Where is his villa?” I asked.
    “No idea.”
    “So you don’t ever meet him at parties?”
    “We don’t go in for parties,” Ducky said. “All that loud music and people getting drunk. We don’t drink.”
    Of course I realized then that there was no wine on the table.
    “A quiet game of bridge or whist is more our style,” Foggy added. “And Ducky does jigsaw puzzles.”
    Oh, Lord, how was I ever going to meet Sir Toby if I was stuck at Villa Gloriosa drinking water, tutoring children and doing jigsaw puzzles?
    Dinner ended and we went through to the gloomy salon where the others played whist. It was played in silence apart from Ducky occasionally accusing her husband of cheating. They went to bed before ten, so I made my way to the library and changed into my nightclothes. I was just coming back from the bathroom, which was up another flight of stairs, when a figure loomed out in front of me. It was Foggy, in an awful red-and-white-striped dressing gown looking like a human barber’s pole.
    “Awfully glad you’re here, young lady,” he said. His face looked particularly red in the dim light, and his eyes a little bleary. “Liven things up a little, what?” He moved out to block the way in front of me. “I must say, I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.” He was looking down at me with what can only be described as a lecherous leer. I, with my limited experience of Life and Men, nevertheless knew lechery when I saw it. I also realized something else. He was blowing alcohol-laden breath at me. Ducky might not approve of drink, but Foggy had certainly been knocking it back in private.
    “It must be frightfully lonely down in that library,” he went on, while I stared at him in horror. “So completely cut off from the rest of us. I’d better check on you from time to time to see that you’re all right.”
    “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I shall be perfectly safe. I’ll lock my door.”
    “Foggy? Who are you talking to?” came Ducky’s strident voice from the end of the hall.
    “Just coming, old thing. Wanted to make sure our new