David Roberts - Quality of Mercy

D AVID R OBERTS worked in publishing for over thirty years before devoting his energies to writing full time. He is married and divides his time between London and Wiltshire.

Visit www.lordedwardcorinth.co.uk to find out more about David and the series.

Praise for David Roberts

A classic murder mystery with as complex a plot as one could hope for and a most engaging pair of amateur sleuths whom I look forward to encountering again in future novels.

Charles Osborne, author of

The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie

Roberts use of period detail gives the tale terrific texture. I recommend this one heartily to history-mystery devotees.

Booklist

Dangerous Sea is taken from more elegant times than ours, when women retained their mystery and even murder held a certain charm. The plot is both intricate and enthralling, like Poirot on the high seas, and lovingly recorded by an author with a meticulous eye and a huge sense of fun.

Michael Dobbs, author of

Winstons War and Never Surrender

The plots are exciting and the central characters are engaging, they offer a fresh, a more accurate and a more telling picture of those less placid times.

Sherlock

Titles in this series

(listed in order)

Sweet Poison

Bones of the Buried

Hollow Crown

Dangerous Sea

The More Deceived

A Grave Man

The Quality of Mercy

Something Wicked

Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of
Constable & Robinson Ltd 2006
This paperback edition published by Robinson, an imprint of
Constable & Robinson Ltd 2007

First US edition published by Carroll & Graf Publishers 2006,
this paperback edition, 2007

Carroll & Graf Publishers
An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.
387 Park Avenue South, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10016

Copyright David Roberts 2006, 2007

The right of David Roberts to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him 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

UK ISBN: 978-1-84529-316-1 (hbk)
UK ISBN: 978-1-84529-661-2 (pbk)
eISBN: 978-1-78033-426-4

US ISBN-13: 978-0-78671-998-3
US ISBN-10: 0-7867-1998-2

Printed and bound in the EU

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Krystyna

I am grateful to Dr Madeleine Campbell and to Brigadier Arthur Douglas-Nugent for advice on matters equine. I am also grateful to Wera Hobhouse who checked my German and Commander John Roskill for advice on naval matters.

Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.
......
The quality of mercy is not straind.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes...

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

What, ist murder?
......
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart.

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

March and April 1938

Lord Edward Corinth swung the Lagonda Rapier on to the Romsey road and pressed down the accelerator. The six-cylinder four-and-a-half-litre engine responded magnificently. A similar model had won Le Mans three years earlier in 1935 and, since then, refinements had vastly improved its ability to hold the road at speed, even in the rain. He glanced at the dog in the passenger seat beside him. Basil, Verity Brownes curly-coated retriever, seemed to be enjoying himself. The wind smoothed the hair on his head to felt. Teeth bared, he appeared to be grinning although, Edward had to admit, it might be fear. Reluctantly, he slowed down. He did not relish the idea of having to tell Verity that her beloved dog with which he had been entrusted while she was abroad had been catapulted out of the car by his rash pursuit of some notional speed record.

It was fortunate that he reduced his speed. As he negotiated a sharp bend, he came across a stationary yellow Rolls-Royce straddling the road, steam rising in wisps from its magnificent-looking radiator. He gritted his teeth and pounded the brakes. The Lagonda came to a halt inches from the Rolls. A uniformed chauffeur was standing at the side of the road, cap in hand, red in the face, soundlessly opening and closing his mouth like a gaffed fish. Edward raised his goggles, prepared to berate him for endangering his life and the dogs. Basil had slid off the seat into the footwell, a bundle of umber fur, too bewildered to bark a protest. Edward breathed again as Basil scrambled out of the car and shook himself vigorously, seemingly none the worse for his brush with death.

For goodness sake, man, Edward said testily, what the hells going on? Get this car off the road before someone gets killed.

Before the chauffeur could answer a tubby, dark-skinned little man with a baby face decorated with a neat moustache bounded out from behind the Rolls, perspiring though the wind was cold.

Dont blame Perkins. The damn thing suddenly stalled overheated or something. Youre not hurt, are you? Im most frightfully sorry.

The owner of the Rolls, dressed in tweeds heather mixture, Edward thought Burberry raincoat and soft felt hat, looked as overheated as his car. He spoke Eton-and-Harrow English with a charming Indian lilt. The expression on his face at the moment anxious was, Edward knew, normally good-natured to the point of imbecility.

Sunny! It is you, is it not?

Mdear fellow, I... Good Lord! Edward? Can it really be you? What an extraordinary thing!

Sirpendra Behar, Maharaja of Batiala, known to his friends as Sunny, had been in Edwards House at Eton. He was a year older than Edward and they had become great friends a friendship cemented by a mutual love of cricket. Even at Eton Sunny had been plump but that had not prevented him being a first-class bat. Edward and he had been in the Eleven and, in Sunnys last year, they had scored a century apiece in a memorable third-wicket stand that secured Eton the match in their annual tilt with Harrow. It was an innings still talked of his nephew Frank had informed him a generation later. Sunny had gone on to help establish the Ranji Trophy in 1935, playing for Baroda. His moment of triumph, however, was scoring a century on the Nawab of Pataudis tour of England in 1936 after which he had more or less retired from first-class cricket.

Edward had not seen much of him after they left school Edward going up to Cambridge and Sunny returning to rule Batiala, his father having died unexpectedly. They shook hands warmly and Edward had an idea that Sunny would have embraced him but restrained himself knowing it to be unEnglish.

I say, Sunny, theres going to be the most awful pile-up unless we can move your car pretty speedily. I was deuced close to killing myself and, more importantly, killing the dog. Ill reverse the Lagonda back round the corner to warn any car that comes along that somethings not right. Ill leave you beside it to wave people down. If I cant get the Rolls started, your chauffeur and I can at least push it out of the way.