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not seek to correct the violence which humanity shows towards innocent animals by violent means towards humanity itself, in so far as humanity itself is innocent." '
    'Whatever that means, which to me, frankly, is somewhat obscure, give me the number. I'm ringing the police. We are here to serve, Lizzie.'
    'We have paid the price for that,' murmured his wife.
    But before Taplow could touch the receiver, the telephone began to ring. In spite of the perturbation of moments before, Taplow's voice was automatically grave and gentle as he answered it. 'Yes, Ma'am, I'll put you through to His Highness straight away.' Taplow turned to his wife with a raised eyebrow.
    'Trouble?*
    'HRH sounded quite hysterical. Unlike her. Maybe she got a letter.'
    What Princess Amy was in the process of repeating frenziedly to Prince Ferdinand on the telephone was not however on the subject of letters.
    'It's disgusting,' she was saying over and over again. 'Disgusting, Ferdel, I can't tell you how disgusting it is.'
    'My poor little darling,' began Fcrdel once or twice. 'Poor little Amy.'
    'No, but it's disgusting. Blood everywhere. Animals' blood! Ugh! It stinks. It's like living in a slaughterhouse.'
    'But your guards, my darling, the police, all those detectives -'
    'They did it at night from the park side. It wasn't found till Mama set off in her helicopter this morning. They managed to stop her seeing it, thank heaven. They're whitewashing it now.'
    'Amy, what does it say?"
    'What does it matter what it says?' Amy almost shrieked down the telephone. 'It's just so disgusting. Oh, it's that thing for animals. No, not the usual one, this is another one, I NNO -some- thing or other.'
    'Ah,' Ferdel breathed a long sigh, which might almost sound like relief.
    'Anyway what's it to do with me? I love animals,' Amy went on. She added quite sharply: 'She's not the only one who loves animals you know.' It was the only reference made by either of them to the entry in the morning's gossip column.
    It was left to a Chief Superintendent from the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department (generally known as the rdpd ) to inform Prince Ferdinand later in the day that Innoright's bloody message on the Palace wall had actually read, in a grim parody of the amy means i love you button: amy means trouble - and so do we.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Underground Plan
    The heavy-set man - perhaps something in the City? - who got on the Tube at Hampst ead, waited for several stops before he took the evening paper from beneath his arm and glanced casually at the headline. The letters were black and enormous: palace outrage , and then princess in danger?
    'Dreadful!' exclaimed the pleasant-looking woman sitting next to him. She nudged her companion and pointed to the paper's headline, now virtually in her face since the heavy-set man had opened the paper somewhere at the start and was reading it. The respectable-looking woman sounded pleasurably indignant.
    'Tch,' went her companion, also a woman, also middle aged.
    The train stopped at Old Street. Some people got out - one woman from the opposite end of the carriage - but the train as a whole was not full. It was that short lull in mid-afternoon before the office workers started scurrying home in their hordes, and after the comparative intensity of the lunchtime movements.
    Once the train started again, Monkey turned to the City pages at the back of the evening paper. The meeting had begun, which meant that Chicken and Pussy no longer enjoyed their privilege of talking to each other as though they were friends (in reality Chicken and Pussy had never met until Innoright brought them together and never now met outside 'working hours' for reasons of security).
    Tom, who was lounging by the doors, sat down in the empty seat next to Monkey. Beagle, already seated by the small door at  the end of the carriage, moved up until he was next to Lamb, who was on the other side of Monkey. Fox came next. Before he moved, Fox had gazed anxiously