Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories (29 page)

“Who was it?” I asked, turning my head at just the wrong time, and getting a hair-pull. “Ouch!”

“Beg your pardon, Your Royal Highness. Nigel says that it’s been rumored for years that the fellow in prison didn’t look like Rudolf Hess, and didn’t seem to remember people and details from his life before the war. Apparently there are all sorts of bits of proof that the fellow in the German prison wasn’t the chap who landed in Scotland in 1941. Nigel says he could find you an article on the Hess mystery if you liked.”

“No, thank you,” I said quickly. “It was only something I heard at a party. I’m not really interested.” I didn’t want any rumors to surface about my inquiry. I had a feeling that Mr. Hess was a very dangerous topic.

I told Sarah so when I visited her at Sunninghill Park later that week. Andrew was off at sea in those days, and Eugenie was still an adorable little baby, so I looked in on her when I could spare the time. She was terribly lonely. That day I made her come out for a walk in the garden so that we wouldn’t be overheard. Sarah received my news of the substitute Rudolf Hess with satisfaction, but no surprise.

“That explains why Hess didn’t tell the government that the ex-King was a traitor,” she said. “After the real Hess told the Duke of Hamilton about the offer, his papers were confiscated, and someone else was brought in to impersonate Hess. The government never saw the real Hess at all.”

“Why not just kill him and present the authorities with a corpse?” I asked.

“Because a Scottish farmer had captured Hess when he parachuted. He was taken alive, you see. If he subsequently died, it might have been suspicious. Instead, he was hustled to London and put in the Tower for four years. Or
somebody
was!”

“Who would agree to go to prison as a Nazi?” I asked, but Sarah gave me one of those meaningful looks, and said very firmly, “Her Majesty’s Bobo. Queen Victoria’s Mr. Brown. Princess Anne’s bodyguard.”

I knew what she meant. The Royal Family has always had a few adoring, utterly faithful servants who would do anything for their favorite Royal. They spend their entire lives in royal service, and become the closest of confidants. I supposed that in Queen Mary’s day there may have been even more servants who would have felt it their duty to sacrifice their very lives for the good of the Firm.

“I don’t suppose the servant realized that it would be forever,” Sarah said thoughtfully. “Probably he assumed that it would be just until the war was over. He’d have been assured of a royal pardon, but of course the government wasn’t told about any of it, and they handed him over to the other Allies, and then there was no saving him. He had to play out his role to the death.”

“A royal servant impersonating a German?” I said.

“Use your loaf, Diana! Half the family
was
German. I’m sure they had servants from the old country. There was always a German governess in tow. There were probably other retainers from Germany as well.”

“Wouldn’t someone miss a royal servant?”

“Not if he had a relatively minor position. Footman or—”

“Gardener!” I suddenly realized that we were talking about Scotland. “A servant at Balmoral. It’s so remote,
no one would know what went on there. Is it far from Dungavel House?”

Sarah considered it. “A hundred miles perhaps. They could have done it in a few hours, I think. One telephone call to Balmoral from the Duke of Hamilton, and it could all have been arranged by morning.”

I began to pull leaves off a branch of rowan. The wind felt suddenly cold. “But what did they do with the real Rudolf Hess, Sarah? Surely you can’t think that he agreed to become a gardener at Balmoral?”

“No. But I don’t think they’d kill him. It’s not the family style. We tend to shut people up when they’re inconvenient, at least at first. Richard III and the two little princes. Brenda the First imprisoning Mary Queen of Scots.”

I giggled at “Brenda the First.” Sarah is awfully jolly, but I’m always afraid she’ll slip and say something like that in public or to the press. Then heads would roll!

“I wonder if there’s any way of finding out what they did with the real Rudolf Hess,” said Sarah.

I shivered. “Are you sure you want to know?”

I don’t know exactly where Sarah got the information about the family secret, but I do know
when
she got it. It was in January of 1991, just before she left for a trip to the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida. I know that she had been looking into old records books on Balmoral, and researching family history, and she did publish that nonfiction book about the royal ancestors, but I think that book was just an excuse to cover up her real inquiries. I wasn’t seeing much of her by then, because she had become rather too impulsive for safety, and besides I had more than enough troubles of my own, but just before she left for the United States, she sent me a coded package to my secret postal address
in Knightsbridge. (There is no privacy at the palace, with all those prying eyes!)

Even then, Sarah was unusually careful. There was no message from her, and no explanation. All the package contained was a souvenir guidebook of Glamis Castle. That was the Queen Mum’s girlhood home in Scotland, so at first I thought it was another of Sarah’s jokes, so I paged through it to see if she had put any funny little drawings in the illustrations, or perhaps written crude remarks in the margins, but she hadn’t. The book was perfectly ordinary, I couldn’t see what she meant by sending me such a thing, so I put it away in my desk at Kensington.

Later, of course, I must have read it twenty times. After I realized that the woman who came back from Florida, the one who got drunk on the plane and threw sugar packets, was not Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. The family knew about the substitution, of course, but the resemblance was nearly perfect, and by then Sarah’s public appearances had been curtailed, so that she didn’t go out much. No one ever gets very chummy with a Royal, anyhow. “How do you do, ma’am?” is about the sum total of anyone’s acquaintance with us. Except for the servants and courtiers, but I’ve warned you already that one cannot trust
them
. Believe it.

I stayed away from the imposter Fergie after that. I didn’t want anyone to think that I suspected. I knew too much, you see, and it would be dangerous to let them find out that I knew. I think poor Andrew minded very much about losing his wife and having to put up with that imposter, but the family’s word is law, so he had to go along, and pretend that the stranger was Sarah. He didn’t have to pretend for long. A few months later the “Duchess of York” took a holiday on the Riviera with a silly-looking Texan, and a photographer conveniently snapped some scandalous photographs
that finished the Yorks’ marriage. After that, “Sarah” left Sunninghill Park, left the family, and left public life. I think the family hopes people will forget about her. I wonder where the imposter will go when the furor dies down. Back where she came from?

Not that it matters. What really concerns me is the whereabouts of poor Sarah, who knew too much. She must have tried to use her knowledge of the family secret as leverage in some battle with the family. Sarah was just impulsive enough to have done such a foolhardy thing. But I know where she is, just as she knew where the real Rudolf Hess ended
his
days.

I don’t know what she did with the Hess papers, though. I suspect that the family never found them. When the fire broke out at Windsor Castle, and Andrew was the only family member present, I did rather wonder, but I’m not sure I even want to know where those papers are. They’ve done enough damage as it is. And at least I know what has become of poor Sarah.

Glamis Castle is in Scotland, a few hours north of the Duke of Hamilton’s estate. In the guidebook I finally found the message Sarah was trying to send me. It is on page six:

I’ve done quite a bit of reading on Glamis Castle, birthplace of the Queen Mother—and home of Macbeth. There is a secret room behind walls that are three
feet thick. From the left side of the castle one can see the narrow windows high up the wall of rosy stone. They say there is no way into that room, but there must be. Someone took food in to Rudolf Hess for however long he lived there, before he took his secret to the grave. I’m sure the family sees that its prisoners are well-treated. They are not cruel people, only single-minded.

If you are reading this, Mills, you are now the King, and you must make them do as you say. Take people that you trust and go to Glamis Castle. Your cousin Simon will be the nineteenth Earl of Strathmore and Kinghome by now. I wonder if he will know the family secret. Anyhow, you must find that secret room, and if your Auntie Sarah is still alive, you must get her out.

Mummy is counting on you.

With lots of love to my own dear King,
HRH Diana, The Princess of Wales     

“Y
OU
DON’T LOOK
like the head of a dating service,” said Carl, nervously licking his lips.

The large woman behind the desk smiled and fingered a lock of greasy brown hair that dangled over her glasses. “You were expecting someone more like a game-show hostess, Mr., er …” She consulted the manila folder in front of her. “Mr. Wallin.”

Just as she said this, the woman looked up from Carl’s file, and Carl had to pretend that he hadn’t been wiping his sweaty palms on his slacks. “Did I expect glamour?” He shrugged. “I guess so. I’ve never been to one of these dating places before.”

“Naturally not, Mr. Wallin,” said the director blandly. Her expression suggested that all the clients said that, and that nothing could interest her less. “Please sit down. I am Ms. Erinyes.”

Carl blinked. “Is that Spanish?” His dating preferences tended more toward northern European ancestry.

“It is Greek. Ancient Greek, as a matter of fact.” Her jowls creased into a smile. “Now let’s talk about you.”

“I thought you people matched couples up by computer,” said Carl, frowning.

Another smile. “And so we do, Mr. Wallin, which is why I don’t look like a centerfold. I started this company
with personality-matching software of my own design. So, you see, my specialty is not romance or even the social niceties. I am a psychologist and an expert in computer technology.”

Carl nodded his understanding. That made sense. Now that he thought about it, this Ms. Erinyes reminded him of a couple of people in his night class: the intellectual nerds. The ones whose whole lives revolved around computers. Even their friends were electronic pen pals. Of course Carl didn’t have any friends, either, but he still felt himself superior to the hackers. The one difference between Ms. Erinyes and his ungainly classmates was that she was female. There were no women in the class. Too bad; then he might not have needed a dating service. But, after all, the community college course was in electronics. Carl thought it was fitting that there were no women taking it.

With a condescending smile at the lard-assed misfit behind the desk, Carl flopped down in the chair and leaned back. “So how come you wanted to see me? I filled out the opscan form, just like the girl out there told me to, but I thought some of the questions were pretty off-the-wall. Like asking me to draw a woman. What was the point of that? Does it matter that I can’t draw?”

Ms. Erinyes had her nose back in the manila folder again. She was looking at Carl’s drawing: a stick figure with scrawled curls and a triangle for a skirt. The penciled woman had fingerless hands like catchers’ mitts, and no mouth. Her eyes were closed.

“The questions? Consider it quality control, Mr. Wallin,” she said without looking up. “Computers aren’t perfect, you know. Sometimes we like to check our results against good old human know-how. After all, love isn’t entirely logical, is it?”

Carl wanted to say, “No, but sex is,” but he thought this remark might count against him somehow, so he simply shrugged.

“Now, let’s see.… Your medical form came back satisfactory, including the blood test. Good. Good. Can’t be too careful these days. I know you appreciate that.”

Carl nodded. The medical certification was one of the reasons he’d decided to come to Matchmakers.

“I see you had a head injury a few years ago. All well now, I hope?”

Carl nodded. “Fell off my motorcycle. Lucky I had a helmet on, or I’d have got worse than a bad concussion.”

“I expect you would have,” murmured Ms. Erinyes, dismissing motorcycles from the conversation. “Now, let’s see.… You are five feet nine,” Ms. Erinyes was saying. “You weigh one hundred and fifty-eight pounds. You are twenty-eight years old, nominally Protestant, never married. You have brown hair and green eyes. Regular features. I’d say average-looking, would you?”