“What in God’s name is this?” he cried.
“It’s an extremely personal letter from King George the Fifth to King Alfonso,” I said. And indeed it was.
The notepaper had a heavily embossed royal coat of arms in red at the top centre, and on the top right, also embossed in red, it said simply BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON. Below, in a reasonable imitation of the King’s flowing handwriting, I had written the following:
My Dear Alfonso,
This will introduce to you a dear friend of mine, Lady Victoria Nottingham. She is travelling alone to Madrid to clear up a small matter that has to do with an estate that has come to her through her Spanish maternal grandmother.
My request is that you see Lady Victoria briefly and in absolute privacy. She is having some trouble with the local authorities over title deeds and I am sure that if you yourself, after she has explained her problem, will drop a hint with the right people, then everything will go smoothly for her.
I am taking you, my dear Alfonso, very deeply into my confidence when 1 tell you that Lady Victoria is an especially close personal friend of mine. Let us leave it at that and say no more. But / know I can rely upon you to keep this intelligence entirely to yourself.
When you receive this note, the lady in question will be at the Ritz Hotel, Madrid. Do please send her a message as soon as possible granting her a private audience.
Burn this letter when read, and make no reply to me.
I am at your service at all times.
With warmest personal regards,
George RI
Both A. R. Woresley and Yasmin looked up at me with eyes popping.
“Where did you get this notepaper?” Woresley said.
“I had it printed.”
“Did you write this yourself?”
“I did and I’m rather proud of it. It’s a very fair imitation of the King’s handwriting. And the signature is almost perfect. I practiced it for days.”
“You’ll be had up for forgery! You’ll be sent to prison!”
“No, I won’t,” I said. “Alfonso won’t dare tell a soul. Don’t you see the beauty of it? Our great and noble King is hinting that he is having a backstairs affair with Yasmin. That, my dear sir, is very confidential and dangerous material. And don’t forget, European royalty is the most tightly knit and exclusive club in the world. They work together. Every ruddy one of them is related to the other in some crazy way. They’re tangled up like spaghetti. No--there is not the slightest chance of Alfonso letting the King of England down. He’ll see Yasmin at once. He’ll be dying to see her. He’ll want to take a good look at this woman who is the secret mistress of old George Five. Remember also that right now our King is the most respected of all the royals. He’s just won the war.”
“Cornelius,” A. R. Woresley said, “you frighten me to death. You’ll have us all behind bars.”
“I think it’s terrific,” Yasmin said. “It’s brilliant. It’s bound to work.”
“What if a secretary opens the envelope?” Woresley said.
“That won’t happen,” I said. I took a bunch of envelopes from the drawer and found the right one and gave it to Woresley. It was a long high-quality white envelope with the red royal coat of arms top left, and BUCKINGHAM PALACE top right. In the King’s handwriting, I had written on it:
His Royal Highness, King Alfonso XlIl.
Personal and Confidential.
To be opened only by HRH himself.
“That should do it,” I said. “The envelope will be delivered to the Oriente Palace in Madrid by my own hand.”
A. R. Woresley opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
“I have a roughly similar letter for each of the other nine kings,” I said. “Obviously there are small changes. Each message is tailored to the individual. Haakon of Norway, for instance, is married to King George’s sister Maud--I’ll bet you didn’t know that--and so there we finish up with ‘Give my love to Maud, but I trust you absolutely to make no mention to her of this private little piece of business.’ And so on and so on. It’s foolproof, my dear Arthur.” I was calling him by his first name now.
“You appear to have done your homework, Cornelius.” He himself, in the manner of all dons and schoolmasters, refused to use my given name. “But how do you propose to get in to see all the others, the non-kings?”
“There will be no problem,” I said. “Not many men will refuse to see a girl like Yasmin when she knocks on the door. You certainly didn’t. I’ll bet you began dribbling with excitement as soon as she came into the lab.”