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The Bee’s Kiss
Also by Barbara Cleverly
The Last Kashmiri Rose 2001
Ragtime in Simla 2002
The Damascened Blade 2003
The Palace Tiger 2004
THE BEE’S KISS
Barbara Cleverly
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2005
Copyright © Barbara Cleverly 2005
The right of Barbara Cleverly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-84529-238-6
ISBN-10: 1-84529-238-3
eISBN: 978-1-78033-759-3
Printed and bound in the EU
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Chapter One
London, April 1926
‘I do all my thinking in the car nowadays. And why? Because, whatever I do or say, I can’t get away from blasted Audrey!’
A flash of resentment expressed itself in a sharp stab on the accelerator and the red Chrysler two-seater swept smoothly onwards over the Hog’s Back and on to London.
‘Eight years ago she was i
‘It was a good idea, throwing my luggage in the back and just leaving. I certainly needed to get away, to get away to London . . . to get away from cosy domesticity in the country to the supple hospitality extended by the Ritz. “Your usual suite?” I like that! I like the purring familiar voice, confidential and knowing, so calming in all this storm and stress. But now – what to look forward to? A dreary evening. Cousin Alfred’s fiftieth birthday party. A roomful of people I hardly know. A roomful of dull nieces and nephews. But – you never know your luck! That little girl who’s just got herself engaged to the appalling Monty – she might be quite promising. Might be distinctly promising! I can remember everything about her except her name. Je
Detective Sergeant William Armitage’s handsome features contorted briefly in an attempt to stifle a sigh, or was it a yawn? Overtime was always tedious but really, he felt – and resented the feeling – that he was out of place here. He’d rather have been on duty at the dog track. Better still, he could have taken the day off and gone to Wembley for the Cup Final. A northern Derby but worth watching all the same. Still, you had to take what you could get these days. They were cutting down on overtime next week and the old man desperately needed that cataract operation. That didn’t come free. Austerity. They were living in times of austerity, they’d been told. The force, just like everyone else, had to tighten its belt. Cut down on u
‘Huh! Try explaining austerity to some of this lot.’
He ran his eye with disfavour amounting to hatred over the birthday guests assembled in the private dining room of the Ritz. The end of the seemingly interminable speeches had come at last. The old geezer in whose honour they were celebrating fifty years of parasitic idleness risked ru
His eye ranged over the men, about thirty of them in the group, eliminating the elderly, the unfit, the inebriated. That left two – no – three whose movements he should follow closely. Waste of time. None of them looked remotely like a cat burglar. Still, what did a cat burglar look like? Nobody knew. Bloody clever, those lads – never got caught. Briefing him, his inspector had explained that, in the series of break-ins and robberies that had occurred in London hotels in the last few months, the Ritz could well be the next target. Bedrooms had been entered sometimes by means of the fire escape and turned over, while the guests were busy at some sort of knees-up in the building. You could almost think somebody had checked they were occupied elsewhere and then ransacked their rooms but that was to imply that the burglar was one of their number, someone close who knew them and who could watch their movements unobserved. A member of their class. Obvious really. And Armitage had tried to put this idea into his boss’s head. But, of course, no one in any position of authority was willing to believe this. Even the victims wouldn’t admit the thought. Thieves were lower class, weren’t they? Destitutes and relics of the war. ‘. . . terribly sad, darling, and naturally one understands and sympathizes, but it just has to be stamped out and quickly before one becomes the next insurance claimant.’
There had been one sighting, but so far only one. A guest at Claridge’s last month returning unexpectedly to her room had found a man standing inside. He was wearing evening dress and was very well spoken. A gentleman, she had said. Charming and attractive. He had apologized for mistaking the room, explaining that his own was on the floor below, and had left offering to buy her a drink in the bar to make up for the intrusion. It was some time before she realized that a hundred pounds was missing from her bag.
‘And good luck to you, my lad!’ thought Armitage mutinously. He was perfectly aware of a fellow feeling for anyone who had the nerve and the skill to pluck a living from these fat birds and yet he knew that if the occasion offered and he found himself feeling the collar of one of the light-fingered sportsmen he had been assigned to track down he would stifle his sympathy, bounce him off down to the clink and take all the credit that was going. ‘Felix! Felix, the Cat Burglar! Are you here now? Mingling with the crowd, unremarkable behind a fashionably languid voice and the right evening suit? Stalking your victim and preparing to nip off upstairs and do out a room? Waste of time, mate! I could tell you that. The jewel cases are lying open and empty on the dressing tables. It’s all down here . . . must be ten thousand quid’s worth of sparklers hanging round the undeserving necks of these toffee-nosed tabbies.’