Duke of Poughkeepsie! Malone thought. Hah!
He leaned back and adjusted his fur-trimmed coat. The plume that fell from his cap kept tickling his neck, and he brushed at it without success.
All four of the inhabitants of the car were dressed in late Sixteenth Century costumes, complete with ruffs and velvet and lace filigree. Her Majesty and Lady Barbara were wearing the full skirts and small skullcaps of the era (and on Barbara, Malone thought privately, the low-cut gowns didn't look at all disappointing), and Sir Thomas and Malone (Sir Kenneth, he thought sourly) were clad in doublet, hose and long coats with fur trim and slashed sleeves. And all of them were loaded down, weighted down, staggeringly, with gems.
Naturally, the gems were fake. But then, Malone thought, the Queen was mad. It all balanced out in the end.
As they approached the sanitarium, Malone breathed a thankful prayer that he'd called up to tell the head physician how they'd all be dressed. If he hadn't….
He didn't want to think about that.
He didn't even want to pass it by hurriedly on a dark night.
The head physician, Dr. Frederic Dowson, was waiting for them on the steps of the building. He was a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking man with almost no hair and very deep-sunken eyes. He had the kind of face that a gushing female would probably describe, Malone thought, as "craggy," but it didn't look in the least attractive to Malone. Instead, it looked tough and forbidding.
He didn't turn a hair as the magnificently robed Boyd slid from the front seat, opened the rear door, doffed his plumed hat, and in one low sweep made a great bow. "We are here, Your Majesty," Boyd said.
Her Majesty got out, clutching at her voluminous skirts in a worried manner, to keep from catching them on the door-jamb. "You know, Sir Thomas," she said when she was standing free of the car, "I think we must be related."