The Windsor Knot (2 page)

“What is it, then? Inland Revenue?” asked Ian,
dumping sugar into his teacup. “Getting you for all that money you made in the States?”

“Shut up, Insect,” murmured Cameron. “You should have forwarded this to me, or else opened it and phoned me about it. It’s rather important looking. Addressed to
Dr
. Cameron Dawson.”

“Ye-ess,” said Ian gravely. “That
is
you, is it not? Or have you an evil twin that I am unacquainted with? I don’t think I could stand the thought of another sibling at this late date.”

Cameron opened the envelope and took out a card-sized invitation, printed in graceful script. He read it twice. “I was afraid of this.” He sighed, handing the letter to his brother.

Ian’s eyes widened at the sight of the royal coat of arms. “It’s from—” He scanned the card, muttering an occasional word aloud. “Well, imagine that! An invitation to the Royal Garden Party! Did someone from Fettes put you up for this? I sense an Old School Tie dangling over all this.”

“Adam McIver, I expect. He was always a proper little prat, quite intent on government service. The bugger!”

“Steady on, Cameron. It’s only a tea party. You act as if you’d been commissioned in the Light Brigade.”

“Yes, Ian, but you don’t comprehend the possibilities for trouble here. You see, they’ve just invited
me
. And you know what a maniac Elizabeth is about the Queen. She’s always reading royal biographies and asking me daft questions about the latest palace scandal, as if I’d know anything about it. She may even have been named for the sovereign, for all I know.” Cameron sighed. “I suppose that I could ring up the committee and ask them to invite Elizabeth as well.”

“Not a hope,” said Ian. “No guests except spouses
and unmarried daughters. You haven’t any of
those
, I trust?” he added mischievously.

“Elizabeth and I are engaged….”

“I don’t believe fiancées are permitted to attend.” Ian chuckled. “There’s many a slip twixt—”

“No, I realize that,” snapped Cameron. “But if I go to the Royal Garden Party without telling her, and somehow Elizabeth finds out that she missed a chance to meet the Queen—”

“Second American Revolution.” Ian nodded. “Absolutely. It’s curious, isn’t it, how starstruck the Yanks are about our royal family? Makes you wonder why they seceded from the empire in the first place.”

Cameron looked again at the invitation with Her Majesty’s seal for a letterhead. “They do seem to dote on the royals, don’t they? People were always asking me if I knew any of them. Elizabeth even has a complete set of royal-family coffee mugs. Only Prince Edward is cracked.”

“Yes, I’d heard that,” said Ian, grinning wickedly. “Well, brother dear, what’s it going to be? The Queen’s tea party or the Boston tea party?”

“I’ll just explain to Elizabeth that with the garden party only three weeks away and the wedding planned for
next
summer, we can’t possibly manage. They might not include her as an afterthought in any case….”

“Surely Old Adam could put in a word for you,” said Ian with a smirk.

“Or perhaps I won’t mention it to her at all. After all, how could she find out about this invitation?”

Ian strove to look unconcerned.

Cameron scowled at his younger brother. “You
would
, too, wouldn’t you?” he muttered. “Oh, all right! I suppose I’ll have to mention it to her before
I write my reply—with fulsome apologies for the delay! As for Elizabeth, I’ll just reason with her.” Cameron clambered out of his lawn chair and started for the house.

“You’re going to ring her up now—while the rates are high?”

“Yes,” said Cameron. “I want to get it over so I don’t brood about it. What time is it in America?” he asked.

Ian called after him, “1776!”

A
T A PICTURESQUE
university in the Blue Ridge of southwest Virginia, the mountain laurel blossomed on shady hillsides and the squirrels scampered under the oaks on the campus quad. All this was wasted on Elizabeth MacPherson, who hunched over a technical journal in the shabby, windowless cubicle reserved for graduate students in forensic anthropology. Her thoughts were far from queen and empire: she was reading about maggots.

The scholarly article detailing the usefulness of insect life in determining time and place of death almost sanitized the subject past the point of gruesomeness. Almost, but not quite. Elizabeth found herself scratching her just-washed hair and brushing imaginary specks of dirt off her khaki skirt. She thought it odd that a mere article would make her squeamish, considering that the examination of corpses was a routine occurrence for her. As a graduate student in forensic anthropology, Elizabeth had become accustomed to all manner of unsavory exhibits. She was inured to gruesome sights, but she had difficulty in controlling her imagination—and that was the trouble with the journal article. Besides, it awakened a childhood memory of her brother putting a fishing worm down her back. She shuddered, remembering the feel of writhing coldness, when she suddenly noticed the word
Scotland
on the page in front of her. With a smile of anticipation, she returned her attention to the text. Maggots were still disgusting, but Scottish maggots seemed more …
palatable
was definitely not the word she wanted.

The case description began:
September 29, 1935, about forty miles south of Edinburgh
… That would have been in Dumfrieshire, thought Elizabeth, picturing a golden autumn day in the hills of the southern uplands bordering England. A woman was crossing a stone bridge near the town of Moffat when she noticed a bit of color in the stream below. A closer look sent her screaming toward the village: the flotsam in the water was a severed human arm. The Scottish police searched the banks of the stream for days thereafter, eventually finding more than sixty butchered fragments, including two heads, a pelvis, some feet, and a pillowcase full of flesh, all teeming with insect larvae. (At this point in the narrative Elizabeth resolved to stop visualizing the scene.)

The killer had removed all identifying characteristics—eyes, ears, fingertips—from the bodies of the women, but through diligent inquiry the police learned that two women, Isabella Ruxton and her maid Mary Rogerson, were missing from over the border in Lancaster, and that they had been on their way to Edinburgh. Isabella’s husband, Dr. Buck Ruxton, insisted that the women were not missing, but they could not be found in Edinburgh, and no one recalled seeing them along the way. Dr. Ruxton, who was known to be notoriously jealous, was charged with murder. But when did the killings occur? The police theorized that the women died on September 19, days after they left Lancaster, which would have provided a good alibi for the doctor.

To test this theory, investigators took maggots from the body parts and sent them to Alexander Mearns at the University of Glasgow.
Not a pretty job, but a useful one
, thought Elizabeth, turning the page. Mearns recognized the larvae of the bluebottle fly and drew up a timetable of their life cycle. Allowing for cold autumn weather to slow the process, Mearns declared that the bodies had been dumped in the ravine near Moffat on September 16, the day after their disappearance, and at the subsequent trial Dr. Ruxton was found guilty of murder.

The Ruxton case marked the first time that maggots had been used to determine time of death. It was one of the historic moments in the annals of her often-unglamorous profession. Elizabeth thought of mentioning this Scottish achievement to her fiancé, but decided that he might not regard it as romantic or complimentary to his homeland. Still, it was interesting. She made a note of the Ruxtons.

The round clock tacked on the cinderblock wall said eight minutes after eleven. If the article became any more graphic, lunch could be postponed indefinitely, which was just as well, she thought, straining to insert her finger into the waistband of her skirt. Perhaps she ought to go in search of more maggot articles for future lunchtime reading. Or she could try
Bride’s
magazine. That ought to do it. Where did they find those models? Bangladesh? Elizabeth had resolved not even to daydream about her year-off wedding until she had discernible cheekbones.

It was now June (lion cubs on her World Wild Life calendar), and she contemplated the next twelve months, feeling like someone crouched with her toes on a white line. It was going to be a year
of computer screens and boiled rice. (On second thought, that menu reminded her too much of her present reading material. Make that lettuce salads.) In September she would take her orals and then begin writing the dissertation for her doctorate in forensic anthropology. If all went as planned, a svelte (with cheekbones!) Elizabeth would defend before her doctoral committee near the end of the term in May, and then
Dr
. Elizabeth could concentrate on Cameron Dawson, the marine biologist whose picture adorned her desk.

He was spending the summer at home in glorious Scotland, while she was stuck at the university, teaching undergraduate anthropology to disgruntled summer-school hostages in an un-air-conditioned building.
Some people have all the luck
, she thought, frowning at Cameron’s picture. And her parents had taken a long-awaited trip to Hawaii, without even a perfunctory expression of regret that she couldn’t go along. “Don’t call us,” they told her. “Not even if one of the relatives dies. We need this vacation.”

Elizabeth sighed again. There was some justice: Bill wasn’t having a restful summer, either. Her brother was clerking for a law firm in Richmond; she hoped the lawyers were getting their money’s worth. At least she would have a break in another week when the spring semester ended, perhaps a week at the beach—Virginia Beach, that is; a poor substitute for Waikiki. And that would be
after
she graded a zillion exams. Then came summer school. A bleak summer of work and dieting. Maybe there was something to be said for being a maggot. They ate all the time, grew enormously fat on purpose, slept it off in a cocoon, and then sprouted wings and burned off all the calories by flying. Not a bad deal.
She was considering the possibilities of an insect afterlife when the telephone rang.

“Forensic anthro,” she said in her most businesslike tone.

“Good afternoon, Miss Anthro,” said an unmistakably Scottish voice.

“Cameron! I was just thinking about you!”

“And why was that?”

Wisely deciding
not
to mention the maggot article, Elizabeth simpered charmingly for a few minutes before it occurred to her to ask, “Why are you calling me in the middle of the day? The rates haven’t changed yet, have they?” Such considerations are necessary in a long-distance romance.

“No, no,” said Cameron. “I just felt like talking to you. How are things at the university?”

“Dull,” said Elizabeth. “I feel like a prisoner in this Gothic mausoleum. I’d rather be at the beach. How are things with you?”

“Oh, peaceful,” said Cameron, who thought it would be unchivalrous to claim to be having a good time when one’s fiancée has declared herself miserable. “Miss you, of course.”

“I should hope so.”

“I do have a bit of good news, actually,” said Cameron, endeavoring to sound both casual and innocent. “Thought you might like to hear it. Do you remember that work I did on the project to save the North Sea seals? The country has recognized my work by giving me a bit of an honor. I’ve been invited to the Royal Garden Party here in Edinburgh.”

After a gratifying gasp of awe, Elizabeth said, “What does that mean, exactly? Why do they want to see you?”

“To look after the royal seal!” Cameron laughed—alone—at his little marine-biologist joke, and then proceeded to explain. “Each summer the palace gives two garden parties (one at Buckingham Palace for English notables, and one for Scots at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh) to honor various members of the British public: distinguished civil servants, influential business people, civic officials, and outstanding achievers in the arts and sciences.”

“Just the odd thousand or so of the Queen’s closest chums,” said Elizabeth. “I see.”