That evening had assembled only a handful of the 322 persons under the Lord Chamberlain's command. These included lords in waiting and gentlemen ushers. Comptrollers, almoners and clerks of the closet. Ladies-and women-of the bedchamber. Gold Stick and Black Rod. The mistress of the robes, the master of the horse. The poet laureate, the bargemaster and the keeper of the swans. Nineteen doctors, and in case of their failure, a royal coroner.
Upstairs, the King lay dying.
Eliot entered at half-past eight. It was Monday, January 20, 1936. His eye caught a typed place card-
SIR ELIOT BECKETT VC KBE MD FRCP.
Gallantry rightly takes precedence on brains, he thought.
'Isn't your wife having dinner?' asked Lord Dawson of Penn, as Eliot sat beside him.
'Nancy's with the Queen.'
'Excellent. I'm sure she'll steady the Queen's nerves better than any dose I could prescribe.'
Eliot reached for the menu in its silver clip with the royal arms. Potato soup, turbot and roast mutton. He supposed one man's death was no reason for another going without his dinner.
Eliot Beckett was 53, tall and lean, the strong bones of his face a memorial to youthful good looks. He brilliantined his thick dark hair, and trimmed his moustache like Ronald Colman's. Noticing the grandfather clock, he glanced automatically at his wristwatch. 'Why should the time at Sandringham be half an hour faster than the rest of the world?'
'For punctuality at King Edward VII's shooting parties,' Dawson told him.
'King Edward the Seventh! But he hasn't shot for twenty-five years, unless over the Elysian fields.'
'Ah! From royal whim to unshakable tradition is an easy step in this country.'
Eliot was new to Sandringham. The 11,000 acre estate on the marshy north Norfolk coast against the Wash had cost the former King Edward a quarter of a million pounds.