The King favored me with a piercing look, then spoke to Irene as if I were not there.

"You may have to. Are you aware that the death of my father, the King, has stirred suspicions?"

"I am," Irene said coolly.

He stared at her composure. "Are you aware that certain speculations have placed you in the position of suspect?"

A rueful smile tilted Irene's lips upward. "Not until just recently, another reason why the reliable Penelope is also so valuable."

"Did you know"-and now the King began to thunder-"that a book on herbal potions is missing from this very library?"

"Yes... no," said Irene, bending to lift her skirt hem. The black velvet rose slowly as a stage curtain on ruffled black taffeta petticoats. The King remained transfixed by this theatrical display of flounce and black-stockinged ankle, but Irene merely pulled a small object from a pocket in her petticoat hem and handed it to the King.

"The book is not missing, as it is here."

"Then you did take it, as Hortense suspected!"

"Yes, and Hortense was consulting it frequently, as I suspected, or she would have never missed one musty little volume from among so many!"

They stared at each other, each one's words confounding the other. I sensed that Irene was as insulted by the King's accusations as he was by her ready answers.

"You say, Irene, that... Hortense... consulted the book. Surely you do not imply that a member of the Royal Family-"

"No more than you imply that I myself or a member of my loyal family-" Irene had mimicked his huffy tone to a nuance, but the King did not perceive it. "And," she continued, "the suspicions regarding your father's illness are nothing new to me. Why do you suppose I sent for Penelope? I needed an aide in my investigation."

"Your investigation!" The King sputtered silent, then spied the tray of French brandy the servant had left. "Sit," he commanded suddenly, as if remembering courtesy.

He handed two small gla.s.ses to us, then stalked to the spiral staircase to lean against its sinuous silhouette with his own oversize brandy snifter winking jewel-like in his huge hand. "Perhaps you had better state your case, Irene."

She sipped, and smiled. "I have had some small experience in investigating matters for certain individuals in London. Among my clients was Mr. Charles Tiffany-"

"The American who is crown jeweler to half the royal families of Europe!"

"Just so. He wished me to look into some missing crown jewels, as a matter of fact."

The King lifted a bushy blond eyebrow and waited.

"I suspected, your Majesty, that your father's illness was not natural long before the rumors began. I have not been privy to the doctors' reports, but I have concluded that the late King was being dosed with an herbal poison."

"Astounding! So the doctors concluded just yesterday."

Irene smiled tightly. "Which is why my reputation is under onslaught today."

The King shifted against the railing. "There has been some talk in the family ranks," he conceded. "But it cannot be Hortense-"

"No, it could be Prince Bertrand."

"What! My brother, now? You go too far. You forget yourself-"

"I do not, although you appear to have forgotten me!" Irene charged in return. "Oh, yes, how easy to point to the stranger in the family midst, but what motive would I have?"

"To see me King."

"Well, that is a very handsome sight, your Majesty," Irene said, suddenly lapsing into a teasing smile, "but you were equally commanding as Crown Prince, Willie."

'True." He returned her smile.

"I did abstract the book. Penelope was with me and she knows I was investigating poisonous solutions that were already in the castle."

"And?" The King was frowning.

"Did you know that apple seeds are lethal in quant.i.ty? Or notice that Hortense has been eating an enormous number of apples-and saving the seeds?"

"Yes, but... it is a habit. Hortense has always been of a nervous nature. She ... is compulsive, saves the seeds from oranges as well."

"Hmm. And did you know that Bertrand employs a hair tonic?"

The King laughed. "He is vain, my younger brother, so short and now so prematurely short of hair. What of it?"

"Jaborandi, which he uses, is immediately fatal if taken internally."

The King went to the table and poured himself more cognac. "So you are saying that two of my three siblings are suspects in the death of their own father. This is not possible. It will not be possible." He spoke very definitely, a warning in his tone. "It will not be possible, not even to clear myself, should it be necessary. Not even to clear my dearest friend."

Irene sighed and sipped the cognac. The gla.s.s glowed like a huge topaz against her black velvet bodice. "Then, your Majesty, I shall have to produce another suspect."

I sat forward, my taffeta petticoats rustling like mice in a corner. My movements were as little regarded by the two of them.

The King's voice was husky. "Can you do it, my dear? And clear yourself?"

"I will try," Irene said, rising. She regarded the King as if addressing him on the same level, despite the disparity in their heights, their social positions. I would dare venture to say that she had attained an even loftier elevation in a moral sense. "But I will not accuse an innocent party, no matter how many royal skins it saves. Or hearts it breaks."

"Let us hope," the King said grimly, "that neither skins nor hearts shall suffer from this inquiry."

He left us there, listening to his heavy footsteps fade, as the shadows softened around us like an airy cloak descending.

"Irene, can you do it? Find another culprit? Prove it?"

"I can, as I told Willie, try. You see, of course, that his family wants to use this pretext to end our relationship. They did not expect me to have the wit to point out their own vulnerability."

"But the King will never allow a family member to be charged! You heard him."

Now Irene spoke in commanding tones as she trailed to the table and refilled her own gla.s.s.

"If a family member murdered the late King, Willie cannot stop me from saying so. But I pray that is not the case, no matter how much Hortense or Bertrand might wish to be rid of me. Accusing one's future in-laws of murder is no fitting end to a fairy tale romance in Bohemia, eh, Penelope? Not good light opera at all."

Chapter Twenty-one.

THE MIDAS TOUCH.

"I go to town," Irene announced late the next morning. "Will you accompany me?"

"Of course? But why go to town when the crime was committed here?"

"I wish to see the doctors on neutral ground where they will be more frank. They, too, must fear royal retribution. After all, they failed to diagnose the ailment while the King was yet living. And then I will see Mr. Dvoak-"

"Irene, I enjoy visiting the National Theatre, but dare we take time from this problem?"

"We will not be taking time from this problem."

"To see Mr. Dvoak and talk music?"

'To see Mr. Dvoak and talk politics," Irene corrected me, drawing on pale lavender gloves that matched the rows of gathered ruching on her walking suit.

"And then I want to consult a gypsy woman. Mr. Dvoak should guide me there; it is from such elderly ears that he has traced his native folk songs."

"A gypsy woman? Irene... whatever for?"

"Why, I wish my fortune told," she retorted with a sidelong glance through her heliotrope veil. "All brides-to-be are superst.i.tious."

So off we went in a castle carriage down the steep hill and into the thick forest of gabled and tiled rooftops that was Prague.

The doctors resided in an impressively quaint house with windowboxes of pansies blooming on the first floor. Their long unp.r.o.nounceable German names began with "S" and "D", so Irene instructed me to refer to them as "Sturm" and "Drang" in my notes, for what reason I cannot fathom. Their ground floor waiting rooms were crowded, but Irene merely scribbled a word or two on her visiting card and sent it in. Moments later, the housekeeper ushered us into a consulting room where both physicians awaited us.

"Jaborandi, Miss Adler?" Dr. Sturm asked. He was short and plump, with a Vand.y.k.e goatee and mustache waxed to mouse-tail fineness at the ends.

"And apple seed?" put in Dr. Drang, who was tall, thin and beardless.

"Well, gentlemen, does either poison show in your tests?"

The doctors rubbed their hands together in tandem and exchanged glances. Dr. Sturm spoke first. "Detecting this type of poison is not an easy task when working backwards."

Dr. Drang nodded vigorously, then said, "Yes, we suspect poison. We even have ruled out the more common ones-a.r.s.enic, cyanide, belladonna."

Dr. Sturm spoke again. "Yet our tests of the stomach contents-excuse, ladies, my bluntness-show no trace of unacceptable elements."

"Not even of apple tea?" Irene coaxed.

"No apples at all," said Dr. Sturm.

"Not even Jaborandi?" she demanded.

"You are most familiar with the herbal apothecary," Dr. Drang added with a bow.

"No," Irene demurred, "only with what herbs are at hand in the castle. Then the late King was poisoned in some other manner than I have suspected and the substance may have been imported. What killed him?"

The doctors exchanged anxious glances. "Asphyxiation," they chorused.

Irene and I looked at each other. I was beginning to feel like an audience at a Punch and Judy show, thanks to the way the good doctors paired their wooden movements.

"Can poison asphyxiate one?" I inquired.

The doctors frowned in perfect harmony.

"The skin," said Dr. Drang, "appears to have been the medium. Then the lungs stopped functioning. Death would have appeared quite natural, even if witnessed."

Irene rose. "Believe me, a king's death is always witnessed; far too many people have a stake in it for him to slip away unnoticed. Thank you for your aid. Good day."

We soon stood in the square's sparkling sunshine, listening to swifts chirping under the gables.

"A different kind of poison, Nell," Irene said. "Perhaps Willie is right; the odious Hortense and hairless Bertrand are innocent-at least of patricide."

She eyed the young coachman, who sprang down to a.s.sist us into the heavily upholstered interior. "So attached to their comforts, these Germans," Irene murmured as we sank into the tufted-velvet seats. "So comfortable with themselves as well, so unsuspecting of the subtle."

I realized that she was digesting the new facts and remained silent while we rumbled over cobblestones to the National Theatre by the river, where Mr. Dvoak could usually be found when he was working on a production.

A theatre by day is a forsaken thing-like a puppet slumped with slack strings. Nothing drives the mechanism. It resembles a great stranded snip whose engines have silenced.

Into this grand lifeless expanse Irene and I moved down the carpeted aisle to the group of men cl.u.s.tered near the orchestra pit. A violinist tortured his instrument into tune. The conductor berated the ba.s.s player. Mr. Dvoak slumped in one of the gilded seats, scribbling on his score.

Irene's presence caught his attention slowly, like the latent scent of lilacs on a May day. He looked up, then around and finally saw her standing at a polite distance.

"Miss Adler, and Miss Huxleigh! Two maidens of spring. What a pleasant surprise. My head is to ache for all the rearrangement I do."

"Could we speak, Mr. Dvoak?"

"Of course, Miss Adler, speak. I like to exercise this English. Not bad, eh?"

Irene perched on the arm of an unoccupied seat, bracing herself with the shaft of her ivory-handled parasol. I could never master such precariously casual poses and remained standing stiffly behind her, but Mr. Dvoak's frequent glances kept me from being disregarded. Irene lowered her voice to a confidential level.

"I am on an errand for the King of Bohemia." (The a.s.sertion was, I suppose, technically true.) "Ah?"

"He is concerned about politics and the Czech national resurgence movement."

"So he should be," the composer said sternly.

"These Germanic families have long ruled other peoples in this part of the world-Poles, Lithuanians, Rumanians. I know, Mr. Dvoak, that even Bohemian... patriots... would not weep to see that royalty wink out."

"My operas resurrect heroes of the old legends," Mr. Dvoak said. "If these things inflame new heroes ..." He shrugged, his dark eyes expressively blank.

"The Prince-" Irene began, then corrected herself. "The King-"