Free Murder at the Watergate by Margaret Truman Page A

Mews, was a three-story white stucco home of terrace design. It was love at first sight. Its Belgravia address certainly was appealing. Developed in 1825 on 150 acres taken from the Grosvenor estate, and encompassing Belgrave Square, Belgravia was, from its beginnings, a desirable area of the city in which to live. From the moment they took possession of the house on Eaton Mews, and the interior designers had worked their magic, Elfie considered it home, her only home. Her trips to Munich became increasingly infrequent; she and Dieter spent much of their marriage apart, he devoted to addressing the myriad demands of his business, and Elfie remaining in London to nurture her flourishing social status.
    Although she regularly assured Dieter that she missed him during their long separations, she was aware that his absences were in certain ways beneficial. Krueger was handsome and socially adept. With exceptions. He was also a German; how many guests at their dinner parties laughed at his witty, worldly remarks while remembering the V2s raining down on their city, thousands killed, babies rushed from hospital delivery rooms to basement shelters, rationing and deprivation and fear and loathing of the crazed nation on the other side of the channel?
    Elfie had awoken that morning in the five-foot-wide Victorian brass bed she’d shared with Dieter and two subsequent husbands—and others. She’d arrived inLondon the night before, her circadian rhythms out of sync and destined to remain so for at least a few days.
    Her housekeeper, Julie, served her toast and tea in the sun-flooded sitting room at the rear of the house, overlooking a lovely garden surrounded by a beech hedge dressed in its autumnal reds and golds. She handled correspondence for the remainder of the morning, showered and dressed, met her friends, Constance and Phyllis, for lunch, then returned to the house to await the arrival of Laughton Starkgrave, a member of the House of Lords and briefly a British ambassador to the United States during the Nixon administration. He arrived precisely at three-thirty and was ushered to the library by Julie.
    “You look in fine fettle,” he said after taking one of two Queen Anne armchairs. They were separated by a fine, small table set with early Staffordshire china. A fire spat in the marble fireplace behind them. Observing their meeting from the walls was a collection of sepia prints of members of William I’s court.
    “Feeling fine, Laughton. Being in London lifts the spirits. Anything new and exciting?”
    “Personally or politically?”
    “Start with the personal.”
    “Not much to comment on there. I’ve sold the Cotswolds house—getting too old to make that trip often enough to justify holding on to it—the prime minister continues to lead the Laborites but acts like a Tory—better that, I suppose, than acting out his liberal inclinations—no Iron Man, he—but that isn’t personal, is it?—feeling quite well aside from the hearing loss and …”
    Elfie had become sufficiently Anglophilic to understand most of Lord Starkgrave’s mumbled comments, words being swallowed or lost in a rumble of amused chuckles at what he was saying.
    “What’s the hot debate these days in the House of Lords?”
    “Rather dull, actually.”
    Always dull, Elfie thought.
    “… and we’ve imported the debate about doctor-assisted suicide from you people in the States. They’d bloody well better make up their minds soon if I’m to take advantage of it.… ”A loud laugh this time, setting the pouchy cheeks of his bland, bloodless face into motion.
    Starkgrave had not aged gracefully. When ambassador to the States, he’d cut a dashing figure in diplomatic circles, promising to become overweight but successfully containing it, bright-eyed, and very much on top of things. In his dotage, he’d allowed nature to override his resolutions and had become flabby and even somewhat slovenly, seemingly no longer concerned with his