by M C Beaton
Rose ran down the stairs and out to the front of the castle. Daisy was the first out of the car, running towards Rose, throwing herself into her arms and crying, “I have missed you.”
Rose looked across Daisy’s head to Harry. He smiled at her, that rare smile of his which lit up his face, and she felt a surge of gladness.
She extricated herself from Daisy and went up to him. “How are my parents?” she asked.
“At first furious and then resigned.”
“Are they coming to join us?”
“Your father says he may come here if you are still here in August. He says one only goes to Scotland to shoot.”
Rose’s happiness at seeing him was suddenly dimmed. Her parents were moving farther and farther away from her. She knew they now prayed for the day when she would marry someone – anyone – and be out of their care.
Footmen came out to collect the luggage and the housekeeper to take the new guests to their rooms. Rose had had to explain to Aunt Elizabeth that as Daisy had been her former companion, neither she nor her husband could quite be classed as servants and should be accommodated in the guest rooms.
Later, Madame Bailloux went to join Rose in her room but retreated when she heard Rose laughing and chatting with Daisy. She went instead in search of Harry. “I feel now would be a good time for me to return to France,” she said. “Lady Rose has plenty of company.”
“Must you? Things have changed now that Daisy is married to my servant. Lady Rose still needs a chaperone.”
“But she has her aunt and I would really like to return.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
♦
At dinner that evening, Harry told the company that Madame Bailloux would be leaving them.
“Oh, don’t go, Celine,” exclaimed Rose.
Daisy flashed a jealous look at Madame Bailloux.
“I must go,” said Madame Bailloux. “I am, how you say, homesick. But I will write to you. Now, Captain Harry, is there any further news?”
“There might be something,” said Harry. “The French police traced an early photograph of Dolores when she was still working at the farm. It was taken by a Saint Malo photographer who was struck by her beauty. Kerridge is getting copies sent to all the newspapers for publication.”
“Have you a copy with you?” asked Rose eagerly.
He fished a small photograph out of the inside pocket of his evening coat and handed it to her. Dolores in peasant dress was photographed sitting on a stone wall on the ramparts. She was hatless and her hair was blowing back in the wind.
“Kerridge hopes that there might be some English connection,” said Harry. “You see, that young man who followed you to the hotel and put the letters in your luggage was English, not French. The photograph will be published in the newspapers tomorrow and he will let me know if there are any results. Is there a telephone in the castle, Lady Carrick?”
“I am afraid not. The nearest telephone is at Inveraray.”
“I’ll motor there tomorrow. Who is that old man by the fireplace?”
“That is my old butler, Angus. He did not want to retire.”
“I think he’s dead,” said Harry uneasily.
“Nonsense. He always looks like that.”
Harry rose from his seat and went over to Angus. He felt for a pulse and then turned a grave face to Aunt Elizabeth. “I am afraid he really is dead.”
♦
Enormous preparations for Angus’s funeral were set in motion the next day. Madame Bailloux was urged to stay for it as a mark of respect. She longed to say that as she had not known the man, it was surely not necessary, but at the same time was certain her hostess would be shocked if she said such a thing.
Harry returned late from Inveraray to say no one so far had come forward to say they recognized Dolores.
Daisy and Rose were sucked into the preparations for Angus’s funeral. The little church on the estate had to be decorated with greenery, and that task fell to Rose and Daisy.
“Perhaps Becket and I would have fared better in Scotland,” said Daisy. “The servants seem to have respect.”
“I am sure if you should die, Captain Harry will give you a splendid funeral. Are we supposed to tie large black silk bows at the end of each pew?”
“I think so. I heard some of the servants complaining to Lady Carrick about this business of decorating the church, saying it should only be done for weddings, to which she replied that Angus was now married to God. Rose, could you please ask the captain if he really means to set me and Becket up in a little business?”
“I will ask him today, if the opportunity arises.”
♦
The wake following Angus’s funeral seemed destined to go on for at least a week, with everyone from far and wide who had attended drinking copious amounts of whisky.
Madame Bailloux fretted. Her luggage was packed and yet no one was free to take her to the nearest station. She took her problem to Harry.
Harry, feeling that Rose was surely safe, surrounded as she was by so many people, volunteered to run Madame Bailloux over to the Holy Loch, where she could catch a steamer to Gourock and the train to Glasgow. One of the footmen who did not drink was delegated to accompany her all the way to London.
Rose hugged Madame Bailloux and promised to visit her in Paris. She waved them goodbye. “Have you asked him yet?” urged Daisy.
“Not yet,” said Rose. “Despite the funeral, Aunt Elizabeth feels it her duty to chaperone me.”
As Harry with Becket drove Madame Bailloux off over the heathery hills, Madame Bailloux glanced at one point through her goggles and thought she saw someone crouched, half hidden in the heather, watching them through binoculars. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. Probably a gamekeeper. If she said anything, the captain might turn back and she felt she could not bear another delay.
∨ Our Lady of Pain ∧
Eight
If a gold ring sticks tight on the finger, and cannot easily be removed, touch it with mercury, and it will become so brittle that a single blow will break it.
– The Housekeeper’s Receipt Book, 1813
At last the long wake was over and the castle fell silent again, apart from the screeching of the wind, for the fine weather had broken and ragged clouds streamed in from the sea. The air was noisy, not only with the shriek of the wind but with the sound of the waves pounding against the cliffs.
To Daisy’s distress, Harry had sent a telegram to say that he had decided to go on to London with Madame Bailloux but would return shortly.
“Is it so bad working for him?” asked Rose.
“No, it is just that having been your companion, I feel I have now sunk in the ranks. I am a housekeeper, admittedly with light duties. The captain expects Becket to work long hours. He should not have taken him all the way to London. I see you are still wearing your engagement ring on a chain round your neck. Do you keep it there in the hope that the captain will put it back on your finger?”
Rose flushed. “It is an expensive ring and I do not want to risk losing it.” She lifted the chain from around her neck, took off the ring and put it on her finger, admiring the way the diamonds flashed in the light of the oil lamp on a table behind her.
Rose sighed and then tugged at the ring. “It won’t come off, Daisy. It was always rather tight.”
They worked on it with soap and then with oil, but the ring stubbornly refused to move. “You could put a bit of mercury on it and then break it,” suggested Daisy.
“I cannot do that! I’ll just need to wear it. Yes, Hunter, what is it?”
“The dressing gong has sounded,” said the lady’s maid.
“Oh dear,” sighed Rose. “I am so tired of having to change my clothes six times a day, but Aunt Elizabeth, despite her eccentricity, is a stickler for the conventions. Choose one of the velvets, Hunter, and a shawl. The castle has become so cold.”
Dinner was a sile
nt affair. Aunt Elizabeth had periods when she did not feel like talking at all and did not welcome conversation from anyone else.
At least the wind was blowing in the right direction and the great fire kept the room warm.
As the first course was served, Rose felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She looked around. Aunt Elizabeth had not hired another butler, and three footmen were on duty to serve the dinner. Rose saw one she had not seen before. He was a youngish man, tall and thin, with a white face, dusty fair hair and blue eyes.
She waited impatiently until they had retired to the drawing room and asked her hostess, “Who is the new footman?”
“Just some English lad who came looking for work. He has excellent references. He worked for the Countess of Sutherland before this, but his mother in Dunoon fell ill and died, and when he returned to work it was to find he had been replaced.”
“I do not know why,” said Rose, “but he makes me feel uneasy.”
“Now, listen to me,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Young gels are apt to exaggerate. I am sure you lost your footing and fell in the Seine.”
“What about the note?”
“Oh, that. Probably some prankster.”
“Aunt Elizabeth, two women have been murdered!”
“But what kind of women, hey? Tarts, that’s what. And that sort of creature is always getting into trouble.”
Rose opened her mouth to argue further, but then decided against it. She feared Aunt Elizabeth might become angry and send her away.
♦
That night, she tossed and turned, wishing the shrieking wind would abate. She wondered about that new footman. He wasn’t exactly young, perhaps in his early thirties. But Aunt Elizabeth had said he had good references. If only Harry would return.
She remembered there was a bookcase in the drawing room. The castle did not boast a library. Perhaps it might be a good idea to read herself to sleep. She got out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown, lit her bed candle and went out into the corridor and down the stairs. She began to experience that earlier feeling of unease. Her candle threw great shadows up on the stone walls as the flame streamed in the draught. The fire was still lit in the drawing room. The sound of the wind was less than it was upstairs. She lit an oil lamp, chose a copy of an old favourite, The Master of Ballantrae, and settled down in an armchair by the fire to read. After an hour, her eyelids began to droop. She closed the book, extinguished the oil lamp, lit her bed candle again and made her way back upstairs.
When she went into her room, she stiffened. There was a foreign smell in it, a smell of sweat. Rose hurried to Daisy’s room and woke her up.
“I want you to come with me, Daisy. I went downstairs to the drawing room to read and while I was away, I think someone entered my room.”
“Don’t worry. I’m coming.” Daisy got out of bed and picked up a brass poker from the fireplace.
They lit all the lamps in Rose’s room and looked around. “What made you think someone had been in here?” asked Daisy.
“There was the smell of sweat.”
“Can’t smell anything. Why would anyone come into your room?”
“I’m worried about that new footman. Remember how those letters were hidden in my luggage? Perhaps someone has tried to hide something incriminating.”
Daisy stifled a yawn. “All the trunks and hatboxes are down in the storage room.”
“Think, Daisy. If you wanted to hide something, where would you put it?”
“In the wardrobe there, among your clothes. What about your jewel box?”
“It’s locked and Hunter has the key.”
Daisy longed to go back to bed, but Rose looked so frightened that she said, “I’ll look in the wardrobe and you look under your pillows and places like that.”
“Nothing here,” said Daisy after awhile.
“Try the pockets. Oh, let me.”
Rose searched feverishly through the pockets of various costumes and coats. She came to an old tweed coat she often wore when she was walking along the cliffs and plunged her hand into the pocket. Her fingers encountered something hard and smooth. She pulled it out. “Look at this, Daisy!”
It was a necklace of black pearls, smooth and heavy.
“Isn’t it yours?”
“No. Oh, Daisy, what if it belonged to Dolores? I remember they said certain items of her jewellery had been stolen. Don’t you see? Someone is trying to implicate me in the murder again. I’m sure it’s that footman. I’d better rouse Aunt Elizabeth.”
Aunt Elizabeth was annoyed at being awakened. At first she tried to persuade Rose that it was merely a piece of jewellery she had forgotten about but Rose had pointed out that no woman could forget the possession of a genuine black pearl necklace.
“I am sure it’s something to do with that new footman,” she said. “Please, please rouse the servants and have him brought here. The police will need to be called.”
“Very well. Anything so that we may get back to sleep.” Aunt Elizabeth pulled on the bell rope beside her bed. The first to arrive was her lady’s maid, Queen.
“Rouse all the servants from their beds and bring them down to the drawing room,” ordered Aunt Elizabeth.
They waited until all the servants in various stages of undress had gathered. “Now,” began Aunt Elizabeth, “did one of you put a pearl necklace in the pocket of a coat in Lady Rose’s wardrobe?”
The head footman, Jamie, stepped forward and said crossly, “We’ve all been in our beds, my lady.”
“Where’s that new footman, what’s-his-name?”
“Charlie. He’s here. Step forward, Charlie.”
But Charlie, who had been standing at the back of the group, had disappeared.
Now thoroughly alarmed, Aunt Elizabeth cried, “Search the castle, search the grounds. Get the stable staff up and the keepers and water bailiffs. Get them out on the moors. I want him brought back here. Tell John keeper to ride over to Inveraray and tell the police to come here immediately.”
Rose, later looking out of the castle window, saw figures bearing torches streaming out across the moors. Please catch him, she prayed, and let this all be over. Then she worried that Aunt Elizabeth might prove to be like the duchess in Paris and decide she did not like being near someone who caused such upheaval.
♦
Harry, arriving with Becket the following morning, having driven through the night, saw, to his dismay, a policeman standing on guard outside the castle door.
“Now what?” he muttered under his breath.
Becket was too tired to care. He felt he had been unable to spend any proper time with Daisy since their honeymoon.
Harry strode into the castle demanding to know the reason for the police presence. Jamie, the footman, told him they were all in the drawing room and Harry went up the stairs as fast as his bad leg would allow.
A police inspector rose as he entered the room. “I am so glad you are back,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “May I present Inspector Macleod. Inspector Macleod, Captain Cathcart.” She indicated a portly gentleman seated by the fire. “And this is our Lord Lieutenant, Sir Edwin Godfrey. Sir Edwin, Captain Cathcart.”
Harry shook hands with both of them. He smiled at Rose. A shaft of sunlight shone on the ring on her finger. Despite his fatigue, he felt a surge of gladness that she was unharmed and that she was wearing his ring.
Then he turned to the inspector. “What has been happening?”
He listened carefully to the story of the pearls. “But we can’t find hair nor hide o’ the fellow,” ended the inspector. “The policeman in Golspie went up to Dunrobin Castle early this morning and the Countess of Sutherland’s butler there said he had never heard of this so-called footman. I believe you have been working on this case.”
“Yes, and I have some more news. Dolores Duval was actually Betty Biles, brought up in the East End of London. Her father was English and her mother, French. Father, it seems, was a bit of a brute. When Dolores – I will always
think of her as Dolores – was fifteen, her father was going to sell her to a local businessman. No question of marriage. The mother had died. Dolores ran away. The father owned a small grocery store. Dolores had taken the money out of the till. She must have gone straight to France. Now, there is a brother. Jeffrey. What did this footman look like?”
Rose gave him a description. “That sounds like the description we had of the brother. No one has seen him for a long time. As he seems to be hell-bent on putting the blame for the murders on Lady Rose, he must have committed them himself.”
“But to kill his own sister!” exclaimed Aunt Elizabeth. “Why?”
“As her next of kin, he would inherit unless she had left her money and property to someone else. That is why Madame de Peurey was killed, I think. How he can hope to inherit anything now that we are on to him, I don’t know.”
“If Lady Rose had not felt there was something wrong with him, he could have stayed and played innocent. I am sure he meant to inform the police anonymously that she had the pearls,” said Harry. “And the police might have begun to think it was one coincidence too many.”
“I think you had better begin at the beginning,” said Inspector Macleod, “and tell me the whole story.”
So Harry did, ending up by saying, “That is why Lady Rose is staying here, for her safety.”
“I do not think he will dare come near the castle again,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“I will telephone Superintendent Kerridge,” said Inspector Macleod. “All the railway stations and ports will need to be watched. I will send the pearls to him by special courier. He will want to send them to the new Fingerprint Bureau.”
“I wonder if he had been in service anywhere,” said Harry. “May we ask that head footman of yours, Lady Carrick, and see what he thinks?”
Aunt Elizabeth pulled the bell rope. Jamie, the head footman, entered immediately. “I’ve told you not to listen at doors,” snapped Aunt Elizabeth.
The footman looked hurt. “I wouldnae dream o’ it, my lady.”
“Anyway, Jamie, we want your impressions of this footman, Charlie. Did he know his job?”
