“And get his hands on Elluria's mineral reserves,” Randolph said angrily. “How long would it take him to strip the country of everything? He's got to be stopped. Dammit, this family must have some offshoots left somewhere in the world.”

He was interrupted by an elderly man scurrying into the room, his arms full of papers, his face full of excitement. He was Sigmund, the royal archivist.

“I've found something,” he said.

They all crowded around the table while he spread the papers out. undervoice

“It goes back to Duke Egbert, who married an English lady in 1890,” he explained. “She was an heiress, and he had heavy gambling debts. They went to live in England.”

“Are you saying there are descendants there?” Durmand asked.

“One, as far as I can gather. And I'm afraid the family has come down in the world-gambling again. The duke had one daughter who married a man called Augustus Hebden. It's his great-great-great-granddaughter who concerns us. It's been carefully checked. The line is unbroken.”

“Did Egbert really leave no other descendants?” Randolph asked.

“The family was almost wiped out in two wars,” Sigmund explained. “In the end there was only Jack Hebden left, plus his sister, who never married. Jack had one child, Frank, who fathered the lady with whom we are concerned. Ms. Dorothea Hebden is next in line to the throne of Elluria.”

“Do we know anything else?” Durmand inquired nervously. “Has she encumbered herself with a husband and a brood of children?”

“Fortunately no,” Sigmund said, too deep in papers to notice that Randolph had stiffened. “Exhaustive inquiries have failed to turn up a marriage certificate. She is only twenty-three, but has already risen to the position of manageress of an establishment called The Grand Hotel.”

“This looks encouraging,” Durmand said. “This young woman must be talented, hardworking and educated with an orderly mind.”