Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

my character, having been brought up with strong Scottish virtues and the Ten Commandments rammed down my throat by my nanny. But was it stealing to retrieve what had been stolen by someone else? Probably not. The point was that it would be seen as stealing if I were caught, and I wasn’t sure that the queen would want me to reveal her little scheme to the French police.
    “It will be simple to verify your movements in town today,” the gendarme said, “if you will write for us the names of the establishments you visited.”
    “Certainly.” Johnson went across to a bureau and opened it, taking out a sheet of paper. He wrote swiftly, then handed the paper to the policeman.
    I edged closer to the table. They were watching Johnson. I eased the lid up a little. My hand slid inside—
    “What is going on here?” a voice demanded in French, and to my horror Inspector Lafite stood behind me. “What are all these people doing at the scene of a possible crime?” His gaze swept the room, taking us all in. It fastened on me as I tried to withdraw my hand from the table. To my horror the lid had sagged shut and my hand was stuck. I stood there, giving the inspector an inane smile, hoping he wouldn’t notice that one of my hands was stuck in a table full of valuable objects.
    “We are staying in the next villa,” Coco said, successfully diverting the inspector’s attention from me to her. “Sir Toby’s young manservant arrived on our doorstep in great distress, so naturally we came with him as interpreters, as he speaks no French.”
    “And we did not want to see him bullied or intimidated by the French police,” Vera added. It was clear she had taken a strong dislike to the little inspector.
    “These boys are gendarmes—country policemen,” the inspector said. “We town police are of the civility the most great. We do not bully,” Lafite said.
    Vera grunted but said nothing. While this exchange had been going on, I lifted the lid and pulled my hand free, unfortunately without the snuffbox in it. The lid closed with a rather loud clack. The inspector spun around. “Sorry, I bumped into the table,” I said.
    His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “You are the young lady from whom the jewels were taken last night.”
    “That is correct,” I said. “I am staying at the villa next door with these ladies.”
    “Hmmm,” he said, his mind clearly trying to work out an involvement in a robbery and then a suspicious death. “Please do not leave until I have questioned you. Now, where is this body?”
    “Still in the swimming pool, sir,” the young gendarme said, obviously in awe of Lafite. “I left my colleague to guard it. Nothing has been moved nor the body deranged.”
    The inspector gave a curt nod and strode out to the terrace. We followed at a safe distance, although I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see the body at close range. As we neared the pool, I could see it still lying on the top step, half submerged.
    “Good God, he looks like a pink hippopotamus,” Mummy’s clear voice rang out, echoing back from the cliffs around us. “How utterly revolting. I think I’ve seen enough. I’ll be back at the villa, making cocktails.” And she departed.
    Inspector Lafite squatted down beside it, then looked up at us.
    “He has been hit on the head,” he said. It came out like “’Ee ’as been ’eet on the ’ead.” It was rather an unnecessary statement, since at close range it was obvious Sir Toby’s skull had been smashed at the back with considerable force, leaving a horrid matted mess of blood and hair. Lafite turned to his men. “Telephone to my department in Nice. Tell them we need a team of men and a vehicle to transport the body. In the meantime, begin to search the premises for the murder weapon. The criminal may have thrown it down the cliff or hidden it in the shrubbery.”
    The two men began picking their way around the perimeter of the pool. Lafite turned his attention back to us.
    “Who discovered the body?” he asked us in French.
    “Lady Georgiana did,” Vera said, stepping between me and the inspector in an effort to protect me, I suppose. “She arrived home to find nobody here, looked over the edge of the terrace and saw the body in the pool. She was just coming up to get help when we arrived home and she showed us the body. We called the police.”
    “Why did none of the servants discover their master was dead?” the inspector asked in slow, heavy-accented English as