The Bull Slayers: Inspector Faro No 9

'It will be our secret...'

As Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro walked briskly away
from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's words echoed
through his footsteps.

'It will be our secret, Inspector Faro.' And stretching out a
small white hand, still girlish despite her increasing bulk, she
had beamed on him.

There was no encouraging or polite smile from Faro as he
returned the letter. He was reeling from the words he had just read. Momentarily speechless, watching her fold and replace in a drawer what might be damning evidence, enough to hang an ordinary man in a court of law, he gasped out: 'Your Majesty -
would it not be, er, advisable perhaps to destroy that?'

The Queen was very small, and neither Faro nor anyone else
was permitted to sit in the Royal Presence. It would never have
occurred to her to be this thoughtful, that a chair might be
welcome to one of her loyal subjects who walked considerable
distances each day.

Although Faro towered over her by more than a foot, she
was not in the least intimidated since she froze statesmen twice
as big as herself on any day of the week.

'We take it that you are not indicating that His Royal
Highness is in any way involved in this unfortunate affair,' she
said sternly.

Faro was doing exactly that, but thought better of it. He
shook his head, in a valiant attempt to banish the ghastly
realisation taking shape as the Queen's glance changed to one
of icy displeasure calculated to demolish even a senior detective
of the Edinburgh City Police. If looks could have killed...

The imperial hand moved in a gesture of airy dismissal.

'You have our permission to withdraw, sir.'

As Faro bowed himself out of her presence, followed by that
ferocious glare, she added: 'His Royal Highness is quite
innocent. Oh yes, entirely innocent, we expect you understand
that.'

Faro didn't understand in the slightest, after the condemnation
he had just read. Bewildered and with that sharp reprimand
ringing in his ears as the footman closed the door on the Royal
Presence, he marched smartly past equerries, attendants and
various hangers-on hopeful of achieving an audience.

Moments later he emerged thankfully into the frivolous breeze
of Holyrood Gardens.

'Sir... Follow me, if you please.'

A breathless footman waving frantically indicated that the
Royal Command was still in operation. As Faro was wondering
what further nonsense Her Majesty had in mind, he was led
into the equally intimidating presence of her Prime Minister,
with whom it must be confessed Inspector Faro had never been
on the best of terms.

Ushered into Mr Gladstone's sanctuary, he noted that
gentleman consulting his watch in the urgent manner of one
who suspects that every waiting second is diminishing his not
inconsiderable bank balance. And that those who wasted his
time would find themselves in deep trouble.

At Faro's approach the gold watch was closed with a snap
and returned to the Prime Minister's breast pocket.

'Further to your interview with Her Majesty, I must impress
upon you the importance of your assignation. That on no
account must you involve or invoke the Edinburgh Police. And
that includes your Superintendent. Absolute confidentiality is
vital. Do I make myself clear?'

'So Her Majesty has given me to understand. That is precisely
why I am to go incognito.'

'A new role for you.' Gladstone's thin-lipped smile was
mirthless. 'Her Majesty may have neglected, er, omitted to
inform you of two paintings at Elrigg she is keen to possess?'

Without waiting for Faro's response, he continued: 'One is
of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales with a wild bull from
the Elrigg cattle herd, shot on a previous visit. Her Majesty is
very keen to have it for Balmoral. Painted by Landseer, of
course. The other painting is of the state visit of King George
the Fourth to Edinburgh. The Family is very sentimental about
such connections and His Royal Highness has informed his
mother how it reminds him of his late father. Hence her
interest,' he added with a knife-like smirk.

While Faro was considering a tactful response and how
anyone with reasonable eyesight could see any likeness between
such dissimilar men, Mr Gladstone came rapidly to the point.

'Unfortunately His Royal Highness discovered on his recent
visit that the two paintings had disappeared from the Castle.
Stolen, he was told. No one knew quite how or when.'

He sighed heavily. 'We expect that you will do your best to
recover these two items and acquire them for Her Majesty. This
part of your, er, duty is, I need not tell you,' he added, heading
Faro to the door, 'of a most secret nature.'

Secret, indeed. Her Majesty's childlike greed regarding
possessions, especially paintings for her ever-growing collection,
was as well known as her childlike delight in secrets. Regarding
possessions, however, few were ever bought, most were acquired
- demanded from their owners who, according to Her Majesty,
had been 'pleased and honoured' to hand them over to her.

The Elriggs, however, had forestalled her. Even as the Prime
Minister spoke, Faro had already put together one or two ideas of where they might be found. Knowing human nature, he did
not envisage any problem in solving this particular mystery, the
easiest part of his assignment.

Much more serious was the Prince's possible involvement in
the mysterious death of his equerry, Sir Archie Elrigg. Faro,
who had total recall where documents were concerned, found himself seeing again the letter Bertie had written to his mother,
a damning but oddly boyish epistle, stressing the very
unfortunate coincidence that on an earlier visit to Elrigg, a
fellow guest, an actor, had also met with a fatal accident while
they were out riding together.

'It was not
my
fault, Mama.' There was a whining note of schoolboy complaint as if such communications were regular
and betrayed a desperate anxiety to get in his excuses before the
headmaster's report had a chance to raise the parental wrath.

Presumably Her Majesty's anxiety was capable of innocent
interpretation, as a fond mother's desire to protect her firstborn
and to prove to herself that the future King of England had
nothing at all to do with the extraordinary coincidence of two
fatal accidents during his visits to Elrigg. Her particular concern
was his equerry's unfortunate end, an almost desperate anxiety to prove to all who knew him the impossibility that Bertie could
be guilty of the eighth deadly sin for the English gentleman: cowardice. Bertie had left an injured comrade to face the enemy, in this case a wild bull.

Such monstrous accusations had destroyed many a noble family. Less exalted men than princes had been forced by an unforgiving society to take the 'decent way out' while loading a conveniently inefficient shotgun.

Redemption was the name of that particular game. But in a royal house, there existed an even more sinister motive: the anxiety of a ruling monarch whose reprobate son's conduct failed to live up to the high moral standards implanted on the unwholesome Georgian society at her coronation. Such standards, admirable for the nation, were totally ignored by the heir to the throne as he lusted after yet another actress or society beauty.

Nor could his mother forgive or forget that his affair with actress Nellie Clifton while at Cambridge University had contributed to the premature death of her beloved Albert and her long and bitter widowhood.

In a poignant letter announcing his visit (and carelessly abandoned in Bertie's rooms at Madingley Hall), Prince Albert had written: 'You are the cause of the greatest pain I have ever felt in my life. You must not, you dare not be lost. The consequences for the country, for the world, would be too dreadful.'

But Bertie remained unrepentant, an unwilling student who stated publicly that he 'preferred men to books and women to either'.

After her husband's death, the Queen wrote that she never could or would look at their son without a shudder. Her hopes for his marriage in 1863 to Princess Alexandra of Denmark -'one of those sweet creatures' (she wrote) 'who seem to come from the skies to help and bless poor mortals' - were doomed to disappointment as the bridegroom soon demonstrated an easy ability to accommodate a wife as well as a succession of mistresses.

Faro felt sympathetic; knowing a great deal more than would ever be made public about His Royal Highness's 'scrapes', he could understand Her Majesty's concern about the future of Britain.

'If he succeeds, he will spend his life in one whirl of amusements. There is a very strong feeling against the frivolity of society, everyone comments upon my simplicity.'

Simplicity was admirable, Faro thought, remembering her words, but cowardice never. For if coward Bertie was leaving one man - his equerry - to be gored to death by a wild bull, how in heaven's name would he deal with the future of whole regiments of soldiers and the glory that was the ever-expanding British Empire?

Faro sighed. As for understanding, he was certain of only one thing, that he was being asked, or rather commanded, to divert the course of justice if necessary on what might well turn out to be yet another royal scandal involving the future King.

It was a hopeless investigation with a trail long cold, Sir Archie dead and buried, while the Queen had taken some time to decide whether or not she should take the Prime Minister's advice regarding her son's letter.

The situation was by no means unique. In the past, Royal persons had been revealed as suspiciously close to fatal accidents. The pages of history books were littered with prime examples. But such knowledge offered little consolation to the man whose unpleasant job was to throw a bucket of whitewash over the sordid business at Elrigg. Especially a man whose instinct for justice was equally as unyielding as his sovereign's moral code.

'There'll be a knighthood in it for you,' smirked Superintendent Mcintosh, who had been eagerly awaiting the outcome of Faro's summons to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. In the unhappy position of following instructions in the form of a Royal Command that his chief detective was to be granted leave of absence to undertake a personal and confidential mission for Her Majesty, he tried with difficulty to conceal his curiosity.

Regarding Faro narrowly, he signed the paper releasing him from duty. The Inspector had done it all before many times, of course, protecting Her Majesty and the Realm, but never with such secrecy. What were things coming to when a superintendent of highest character and spotless record could not be trusted with such confidential information?