Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

back to us. “Does this Sir Toby live alone at his villa?”
    “His wife was in town yesterday,” I said. “I saw her checking into the Negresco, so I don’t believe she was staying at the villa.”
    “Why was that, do you think?” the policeman asked.
    “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I don’t know Lady Groper,” I said. “And I also met his son at the casino, but I couldn’t tell you where he was staying—with friends, I gather.”
    “So none of them was staying with the poor papa?” he asked. “Does this not seem strange?”
    “As I said, we don’t know the family,” Vera said firmly.
    “So he would have been in the house alone, apart from the servants?”
    “We don’t know,” Coco said, sounding rather irritated now. “Madame Daniels, who owns this villa, has no social contact with her neighbor.”
    “Then we will trouble you no more.” The young gendarmes bowed and left us. The moment they had gone the three women turned on me. “You said you spent the afternoon with a friend. So you didn’t go to Sir Toby after all?” Coco asked.
    “I did go,” I said. “I went out on his yacht. But then Jean-Paul came by in his speedboat and I went off with him to his villa.”
    I saw Mummy’s eyebrows rise.
    “Where he treated me like a perfect gentleman,” I said. “Unlike Sir Toby, who tried to make a horrible pass at me. Groper was a good name for him. He was all hands.”
    “The nasty little swine,” Mummy said. “It’s too bad he’s dead. I’d have liked to deliver a knee where it could have done some damage.” (You can tell at times that she wasn’t born a lady, can’t you? But I have to say I didn’t disagree with her.)
    “I think it might be best, given the circumstances, if you don’t reveal the full details of what happened on Sir Toby’s yacht,” Coco said carefully. “Seeing that someone may have hit him over the head.”
    “You don’t think anyone could imagine that Georgiana was somehow involved in his death!” Mummy said indignantly. “That’s absurd.”
    “To us, yes. But to an annoying little inspecteur who can’t see past the end of his nose, he might jump at such an available suspect.”
    “I can’t lie to the police,” I said.
    “No, but you can truthfully say that you went for a sail with Sir Toby earlier in the day and later were with the marquis. Thank God he’s a respected alibi!”
    As she finished speaking there was a pounding on the front door. Mummy went to open it, arriving before her maid. A worried-looking Johnson was standing there.
    “Sorry to trouble you, ma’am,” he said, “but I’ve just come back from town and there seems to be a police vehicle blocking the entrance to Sir Toby’s driveway. I wondered if you knew anything about it.”
    “And you are?” Mummy asked, in her best ex-duchess voice.
    “Johnson, ma’am. Sir Toby’s manservant. I just wondered if something had happened.”
    “Yes, it has,” Mummy said. “Your employer is lying facedown in his swimming pool.”
    The color drained from Johnson’s face. “Dead, you mean? Sir Toby has drowned? But that’s not possible. He was an excellent swimmer. Besides”—he paused, thinking—“how can he be here at all? He went out on the yacht today and I saw the yacht in the old port when I was coming back from town.”
    “I’m afraid we didn’t really know your master,” Mummy said. “But the police are at the villa. You’d better go down there and see if you can help them with their inquiries.”
    “Oh, dear. I don’t know how I’m going to do that,” Johnson said. “My French is nonexistent. I had trouble in town today trying to carry out Sir Toby’s various commissions.”
    “Doesn’t he have any French-speaking servants?” Coco asked.
    “Only Marie, the cook, and it was her half day off.”
    “So the house was empty,” I said.
    He looked at me, as if he was seeing me for the first time. “Yes, the house was empty for the afternoon. I don’t know how or why Sir Toby came back. He knew Marie was off and that I would be kept all afternoon trying to muddle my way through the things he wanted done.” He looked at me again. “But you were on the yacht with him. You must know of his movements.”
    “I left his yacht quite early in the day,” I said. “A friend came to the yacht to collect me in his motorboat, so I never saw in which direction Sir Toby eventually sailed. It was heading for Monte Carlo at the time I chose to