The Coffin Lane Murders

by Alanna Knight

  Conan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'That's how I see it, too. And the more I consider the circumstances the more certain I am that we are on to something. And if we could find our burglar then we would have a link with Celia.'

  'You believe he is hiding her?' said Faro.

  'I am certain of it,' was the firm response.

  Although Faro could see no logical reason to link the theft of a valuable book with the murder of three passers-by in Coffin Lane, he was tormented by the haunting thought that perhaps Conan was right.

  Dr Benjamin's death, the mysterious burglar and Lady Celia were related, especially as she had been known to visit the antiquarian bookshop and was on friendly terms with the old man.

  Despite the lack of any evidence he could not shake off an intuitive feeling that there was a link between the four deaths and that the missing book about Edinburgh's secret past, whether fact or fiction, might hold a vital clue.

  When he discussed his latest theory with Vince and Conan, his stepson smiled and nodded in his partners direction. 'Don't you think it's time you told him, Stepfather, what you know about that locked room in Solomon's Tower?'

  And so Faro revealed that during the investigation of an earlier case, alone in Solomon's Tower one day he had found what Sir Hedley referred to as his 'old charter room' with its door unlocked.

  'It is actually an ancient vaulted chapel, dating from the days of the Templars, probably all that remains of the original structure hewn out of the volcanic rock of Arthur's Seat. Perhaps the Tower was built around it, to conceal its presence.'

  Conan stared at him, entranced. 'And we thought its history was lost in the mists of time,' he said triumphantly. 'Well, well, this is something of a revelation, sir. Naturally I'll keep it to myself- and Kate, if I may tell her. She'll be glad to know that it is nothing more sinister; sometimes her mind drifts to haunted rooms in ancient towers, despite all her efforts to bring the furnishings up to date. He smiled. 'She reads too many sensational novels, I'm afraid.'

  With a shiver, he added, 'I have to admit it often feel like a house of secrets, I can tell you. I am not given to flights of imagination, but there is something odd about the place. Is it always freezing cold - even in summer?' he asked Faro.

  'I can't say I've warmed to the atmosphere at any time,' Faro replied.

  'That's interesting you should say so. Uncle Hedley assures us that it will be warmer once the snow melts and when spring comes. He seems impervious to the chill draughts.'

  'Used to it, having lived there so long.'

  'Come to terms, I suppose you mean, sir.' Conan sighed. 'If we survive to spring without taking pneumonia, we can consider ourselves fortunate. As you know, I'm on the constant lookout for a permanent home, but Kate has developed a strong affection for her old uncle, feels obliged to look after him in his declining years. She hopes that if we find a suitable house, we can persuade him to come with us.'

  Faro and Vince exchanged glances. Conan was being too optimistic. Nothing, they knew, but death itself would remove Sir Hedley from Solomon's Tower.

  After Conan and Vince had left for the surgery, Faro looked out of the window. There were stars bright above the heights of Arthur's Seat. Soon it would be moonrise.

  The countryside and the fields beyond Newington were in the grip of a heavy frost. And he remembered Conan's words, that a full moon was the time that warders in asylums most dreaded, when wolves howled, and the world for the insane turned topsy-turvy.

  'Do you think the snow will last much longer?' Rose asked anxiously. 'Will it still be here when I get back from Glasgow? I'm hoping Vince will take me skating on the loch.'

  'We can't guarantee the weather, dear, although there seems little indication of any immediate thaw,' said Olivia who had arrived downstairs with an armful of outfits from which Rose might find something suitable for her friend's wedding.

  'I'll only be away for a couple of days,' Rose protested, torn between the excitement of being a bridesmaid and missing the opportunities of skating with her half-brother again.

  After great consultation, one of Olivia's most elegant velvet dresses was agreed upon, plus a delectable veiled bonnet.

  Rose was surprised when her father looked in to say that he would travel back to Glasgow with her on the train.

  'There's no need,' she protested. 'I'm quite capable-'

  'This isn't for your convenience, lass, it's a routine police matter. Some people I need to talk to.'

  'In Briary Road, Pa. Is that it?'

  Faro looked at Rose and she laughed. 'I guessed by your preoccupied expression, something to do with one of your cases.'

  Faro had no desire to discuss the gruesome details about the murdered women any further and Rose knew her father too well to ask questions.

  But he was indeed preoccupied. His original plan to visit Glasgow to make his own inquiries had been forestalled by the third killing and now Mrs Simms' daughter would have been informed by Glasgow City Police of her mother's demise. Whatever her elevated station in life doubtless she would make the necessary arrangements for the funeral.

  Faro was optimistic, however, that there might be valuable information forthcoming from a visit to Briary Road. Rose having a friend in the vicinity was providential, an opportunity not to be missed.

  When he told Vince and Conan his plans, Conan smiled. 'Will you do something for me, sir? It's my mother's birthday on Boxing Day. Would you be so kind as to look in with her present and tell her I won't manage my weekly visit until after Christmas - we'll hope to bring in the New Year with them.' He frowned. 'I'm not happy about leaving Kate or Vince to cope with this influenza outbreak. I don't trust Angus, he is too inexperienced.'

  On the train journey Rose found her father less talkative than usual. At least their silences were companionable, she thought, and abandoning any hopes of their usual lively conversation took out the novel lent by Olivia, occasionally glancing across at Faro who stared gloomily out of the window.

  At the station, they took a carriage, and after kissing her goodbye outside her lodgings he directed the coachman to Briary Road. The day was cold and wet but Glasgow had escaped the heavy snowfalls that had devastated Edinburgh.

  It was a considerable relief to be able to walk freely along pavements for a change. Although he was hopeful when Mrs Simms' next-door neighbour, Mrs Kerr, turned out to be a cheerful woman eager for gossip, his hunch that he'd learn something had been wrong.

  In this instance it had been yet another wasted journey, a lost day, since their conversation yielded not a single clue to why Mrs Simms should have been murdered on her visit to Edinburgh.

  Mrs Kerr was shocked by her neighbour's death, which Faro put down hastily to an accident. When he mentioned the daughter her scorn was equal to that of the Musselburgh friend.

  'Can't see her having much interest in her mother dead; she had little enough interest in her when she was alive. Although I dare say out of decency she'll pay to see her buried.

  'Ida knew a thing or two about that second husband. He deliberately kept her at the door. Shame it was too when that baby, her only grandchild, should have brought them all closer.'

  Faro realised he was hearing the not unusual story of a mother and daughter who had nothing in common but the accident of birth.

  Mrs Kerr told him that Dora, the daughter, lived in one of the big houses facing the Botanic Gardens. 'Mr Milthorpe works for a chemical firm, travels a lot. Not a very inspiring choice for a second marriage,' she added with obvious satisfaction. 'Not that she needs money; she inherited the big house from her first husband. He was well off and a lot older than her. Left her everything.'

  With Dora's married name, Faro found the house after a couple of tries. His ring at the bell was answered by the housekeeper whose careful scrutiny seemed to declare 'tradesman's entrance'. She said stiffly that madam was not at home.

  He announced that he was a policeman and that the matter concerned Mrs Milthorpe's mother's recent
death.

  The housekeeper showed no emotion but merely nodded. 'Madam will wish to inform all her late mother's friends. She would appreciate the name of the person Mrs Simms was visiting - in Edinburgh,' she said, contriving to make it appear that no one could really be surprised that more people were not struck down in that lawless city.

  While she sought pen and ink he took the opportunity to look around the parlour, a dull impersonal room with a complete absence of pictures on the walls or the fashion for groups of family photographs and children.

  'Has Mrs Milthorpe any family?'

  'There is a baby two months old.' Seeing his glance around the somewhat bare room, she added apologetically, 'The house is up for sale. They are moving abroad very soon.'

  On the doorstep, Faro was delighted to see a hiring carriage approaching, just what he needed to take him to the other side of town where the Pursleys lived.

  Hoping it was unoccupied he held up his hand.

  'Yes, sir.' The coachman touched his hat, nodding assent, as Faro assisted his present fare, a black-clad young woman with a crying babe in arms, to descend to the pavement. He was rewarded by thanks and a harassed smile.

  As he took her place inside and the carriage moved off, he looked back and saw her entering the house he had just left.

  Mrs Dora Milthorpe, no doubt. He sat back. She looked a pleasant, pretty woman, not at all like the cruel, hardhearted vixen he had been led to expect.

  The Pursleys lived some two miles away in a quiet residential district. The house overlooked the park and was only slightly less imposing than the one he had just left, but a warmer welcome awaited him for although this was his first visit to Conan's home, he had met his parents several times when they had visited their son and daughter-in-law.

  Mrs Pursley, staring over her husband's shoulder as the maid showed him into the drawing room, wore an expression of anxiety which swiftly changed to one of delighted welcome at Faro's cheery greeting.

  Explaining that he was in Glasgow on police business and Conan had asked him to call, he handed over the small package with their son's message and apology, assuring them that the young couple were very well and sent their love.

  'How is our lad coping with this influenza epidemic?' asked William Pursley anxiously. 'Has your family escaped?'

  At Faro's reassurances Mrs Pursley sighed and rang the bell for tea. 'I do so worry about our dear Kate. She's so frail - she's had so many disappointments. I wish things could have been otherwise.'

  The look she exchanged with her husband said they would love to have a grandson to carry on the family name. Annie had married long ago and there were two grown-up grandchildren.

  'But Canada's a long way off,' William said sadly. 'Perhaps Inspector Faro would like to see their photos, Maggie,' he added enthusiastically.

  Mrs Pursley needed no second invitation to produce the family album. There were the new generation of grandchildren, and turning back the pages, Conan and Kate's wedding and a photograph of Conan and his sister as children.

  They were not in the least alike, Conan as fair as his sister was dark. Annie was as plain as her brother was strikingly handsome, dark and thin, the image of her father, while her brother resembled neither of his homely parents and was obviously a throwback to some remote relative. Faro found himself remembering how often siblings could look like strangers and strangers by blood show remarkable resemblances to one another. It was a situation he had encountered more than once. No doubt scientific theory would someday produce an answer.

  Meanwhile he was no nearer to finding any answers to three murders in his own area.

  Chapter 15

  Every available constable was out searching the area for the missing 'Lady Killer'. There were no new incidents, no further attacks, only some very frustrated policemen praying that she would be apprehended before their family Christmas plans were ruined.

  'It's all right for the superintendent and for Inspector Faro,' they complained, 'they aren't trudging about poking over snowdrifts day and night, getting their feet frozen.'

  Meanwhile, Rose returned from her friend Sally's wedding. Laying aside her bonnet her first question was, 'Is the loch still frozen over?'

  Reassured that there was no sign of a thaw yet, she clapped her hands. 'Where's Vince?' she demanded.

  Olivia smiled. 'He'll be home shortly. It's his half day. Conan and Angus take the afternoon surgery.'

  Impatiently they awaited his arrival. At the sound of his footsteps in the hall, both rushed downstairs.

  'Let's go immediately, while there's still some light left,' said Rose anxiously, afraid that Vince might be unwilling.

  'What a splendid idea,' said her half-brother. 'Coming with us, Livy?'

  'Wouldn't miss it,' said Olivia. 'Jamie loves the ice. Skates, Rose? You can hire them at the loch.'

  Rose pointed to her father. 'You too! I insist.'

  'Yes,' said Vince enthusiastically. 'We can all do with some healthy exercise.'

  Exercise and the possibility of breaking an ankle were the last things Faro needed.

  'I'll come and watch you enjoying yourselves.'

  Refusing to be cajoled into joining them on the ice, he was content to sit in the carriage at the roadside with Brent.

  The coachman was not a talkative man and Faro's silence might have been mistaken for idleness and relaxation had such words existed in his vocabulary. Immediately his young ones reached the loch he took out his notebook and once again studied all the baffling facts, the inconsistencies regarding Conan's patient that were available so far.

  Absorbed in his task, oblivious to the chill shadow of Arthur's Seat, the brightness of the early afternoon vanished behind heavy clouds.

  Torches were lit to give illumination to the skaters, tiny figures, wraithlike in the gentle light, curving their way across the ice, like a tableau from a ballet. They laughed excitedly, their faint voices echoing back to him.

  And then it happened.

  The noise like gunfire. He started up, opened the door and ran towards the loch.

  Another violent crack.

  A scream. This time there was no mistaking the sound, or the wavering torches across the loch which dipped and fell.

  The ice on the southern shore of the loch, more exposed to the sun's rays, had become treacherously thin. It had begun to melt.

  Figures whirled, shouting warnings, stumbling back to the safety of the Duddingston side.

  Faro ran down to the edge of the loch.

  Vince. Olivia. Rose and Jamie.

  There was no sign of them emerging from the panic-stricken group of skaters.

  Dear God, where were they?

  He called their names, stumbling on to the ice, shouting as the cracks continued ominously, growing closer.

  Horrified, he watched a split, like an open wound, appear across the ice and water gush forth.

  'Stepfather!'

  And there they were.

  Vince with Jamie close in one arm, Olivia and Rose clinging to his other arm.

  'Thank God, thank God you're safe.'

  A moment later he was helping them off the ice, Brent at his side. Sobbing, breathless, they were safely on the bank, Vince helping Rose and Olivia remove their skates.

  But all was not over. They were safe, but the sounds echoing across the loch towards them were screams of terror.

  Vince thrust Jamie into his mother's arms. 'I think someone's gone under the ice.'

  As he turned to go back, Olivia seized his arm, cried, 'No - Vince, please, it's too dangerous.'

  He shook his head. 'They may be injured. They'll need all the help they can get.' So saying he thrust jacket and scarf into Rose's hands.

  'I'll come with you, sir,' said Brent.

  'Thank you, Brent, but no. You can't skate - and you're too heavy. Stay with the family. Please.'

  Olivia, still protesting, watched him in horror, breathing, 'No, Vince, please, I implore you.'

  And Faro knew
what his stepson intended. He was an excellent swimmer. He would go under the ice if he thought it necessary to save a man's life.

  'I'm coming with you, lad,' he said. 'No argument. I'm as light as you are. Give me your skates,' he demanded of Olivia.

  'No, Stepfather. You can't skate.'

  'Of course I damn well can skate. I don't do it for fun, that's all. Come on, Livy, hurry.'

  He wasn't very good at it: seriously out of practice, he hadn't been on the ice for years. Much as he would have once enjoyed such sport and activity, he had realised that there were enough daily hazards in pursuing criminals without uncalled-for broken limbs.

  Twice he almost fell. Vince told him to go back and when he refused, Vince seized his arm. 'If you're determined to risk your neck then hang on to me.'

  As they skated across to the scene of the accident, the ice beneath them continued to shudder and crack ominously.

  At last Vince pushed his way through the sombre group huddled together a safe distance from where the ice had broken.

  'I'm a doctor. What's happened?'

  'A young lad fell in. They're trying to reach him.'

  'He's gone under the ice-'

  'He'll be drowned,' cried a girl. 'What can we do?'

  'He's a goner, I'm afraid,' said her companion.

  'Let me through,' said Vince firmly, watching a small figure a few yards ahead of them, lying on his belly, sliding across to where the raw edge of the ice spurted brown water.

  'That's his brother,' said the man next to Vince.

  They could hear him shouting: 'Timmy - Timmy, it's me. Hold on.'

  Vince moved quickly. Lying down he began sliding across the ice, using his elbows gently to propel himself to the boy's side.

  Faro couldn't stand and watch. In his mind's eye, he saw the ice like some distorted sheet of glass flipping over, carrying Vince and the boy's brother into the murky waters below.

  On the terrified faces around him, he saw recrimination.

  'You dared him to go,' said one girl, sobbing, hitting out at the boy who stood silently at her side. 'It's all your fault.'