Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom

by Catriona McPherson

  These were excellent questions. I mulled them over again as I went upstairs to bed a little later but had made no progress by the time I reached my room.

  Grant, my maid, was there before me and judging by the way she stood like a totem-pole in the centre of the carpet upon my entrance, she had been mourning again and had snapped out of it when she heard me coming.

  ‘I just can’t get used to it at all,’ she said. ‘It’s so quiet. And she wasn’t even a barker. I had no idea what a hole she’d leave, had you?’

  ‘Oh, I knew very well,’ I said, thinking back to Flasher, my childhood terrier, and the large ginger cat which used to live in the kitchen and whose death had left our cook sobbing and shaking in her Windsor chair for two days while the family dined off ham sandwiches and apples. Flasher’s death had been the end of childhood for me and even that was as nothing compared with the loss of Bunty. For Bunty, quite simply, was the dog of my life.

  ‘I keep looking for her,’ said Grant. ‘And listening.’ She bent her hand into a claw shape and tapped her fingertips on my dressing-table top. It sounded uncannily, horrifically, like the sound of an elderly dog’s toenails on a parquet floor and tears sprang into my eyes.

  ‘Grant, for heaven’s sake,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied. ‘Madam.’

  I sat at the dressing table and turned my back to let her undo my necklace clasp.

  ‘What’s in the offing?’ she asked. ‘I know the signs when you’re gone all day and then Mr Osborne stays for dinner.’

  ‘It’s a curious case,’ I said. She was taking the clips out of my hair ready to pin it close to my head for the night but her eyes were on mine in the mirror. ‘A Glasgow ballroom dancing professional being threatened with harm in a particularly underhand way. And odd murmurs about the death of a dancer last year.’

  ‘Ballroom dancing?’ said Grant, perking up.

  ‘Do you know anything about it?’ I asked her. ‘It seems to be quite a world of its own.’

  ‘I don’t know much more than the next person,’ said Grant. ‘I did hear that the proponents of the Argentine Tango were going to approach the IDMA to get some of their steps recognised for competitions.’

  ‘The ID what?’ I said.

  ‘The International Dancing Masters’ Association,’ said Grant. ‘They’re trying to amalgamate all the older bodies, but I heard Mr Silvester at the Imperial Society is having none of it.’

  ‘Not much more than the next person,’ I echoed. ‘Do you actually know the dances, Grant?’

  ‘The usuals, madam,’ she said as I stood and slipped my unbuttoned frock down to my waist. ‘Waltz, quickstep, foxtrot. Both tangos. The rumba.’ As I turned she was holding her arms towards me.

  ‘The rumba?’ I said, reaching out and taking her hands.

  She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Your dress,’ she said.

  ‘Quite, quite,’ I said, letting go again and wriggling out of the skirt part. ‘Well, then, Grant, I should think you’d be an asset, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll be where I’m needed most, madam,’ she said. ‘Either Glasgow to help with the case or here to start packing away for the change of season. Whatever you tell me to do.’

  She was working hard to be convincing but I could not miss the way she moved over to my wardrobe and back again with a little catch, almost a skip, in her step. Nor did I miss the tune she was humming under her breath as she bore my soiled linens away to the basket.

  ‘What time are we leaving?’ she said from the door.

  ‘Bright and early,’ I said. ‘I should pack tonight if I were you.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a bit of sewing to do first.’

  Ten other mistresses would have taken that to mean that the conscientious Miss Grant could not contemplate leaving behind any undone mending as she set off on her spree. I knew better. She was planning to turn some outfit of her own into one grand enough for a starring role in the forthcoming adventure. I smiled to myself as I switched off the lamp. Then, curling my own hand round, I tried to reproduce the sound of Bunty’s toenails on the wooden top of my bedside table. It was nothing like them. It was more like someone dropping a box of tapers on a marble hearth. Just as well, I told myself, for I would do it if I could and it promised only misery for me.

  9

  Glasgow’s Grand Central Hotel was certainly grand and it could hardly have been more central, crouched there as it was on top of the railway station at the heart of the city, with bustling streets around it in every direction. They teemed with people – costermongers, delivery boys, newspaper sellers, crowds of neatly uniformed schoolgirls and scruffily uniformed schoolboys – and the roads were jammed with carts and buses, trams and taxicabs, carriages and motorcars, as though every street in the whole of Glasgow met here and shook hands as do all Parisian streets at the Arc de Triomphe; so unhelpful when one is hurrying but such a blessing when one is lost.

  I instructed one of the hotel garage-men to keep the motorcar handy and watched the doorman pile bags into a heap to take them upstairs. There were more than I could account for and I suspected Grant of packing either for a longer stay than I expected or for a more varied itinerary than we had agreed was likely.

  She had come on ahead on the train and when I arrived at my rather sumptuous room was deep in muttered discussion with the bellboy. I was interested to see that rather fewer bags came into the room than had left the motorcar.

  ‘Have you brought mending with you?’ I said.

  ‘I’m just keeping our options open,’ said Grant. ‘Barrow too.’

  ‘Barrow too what?’ I said. Alec had decided to bring his valet for once. Not from laziness or vanity but to head off trouble between valet and cook if they were left at Dunelgar together and the master away. For Mrs Lowie, tired of Barrow’s superior ways, had recently staged something of a coup. She had persuaded Alec that since he kept no housekeeper, her title should more properly include that rank. Alec saw no reason to disagree and cook-housekeeper she duly became. As soon as the first pay packet was in her hands, though – for of course there was a raise commensurate with the improved standing – Mrs Lowie laid out her manifesto. A butler, she argued, was on equal footing with a housekeeper but a cook outranked a valet by some way. Therefore, she concluded in a way that would have made Aristotle proud, a cook-housekeeper outranked a valet-cum-butler. Mr Barrow’s days of rule at Dunelgar were, she explained, over.

  Then began a rumpus the like of which the house had never seen in all its days, or at least not since the Jacobites were passing. Mrs Lowie reorganised the servants’ accommodations, stirring the few maids and even fewer men around in the cavernous attics for no reason at all. She moved the linens, she moved the flower room to an old dairy and then, for sheer spite, she emptied, relined and restocked the silver cupboard, undoing Barrow’s pet system and almost breaking his spirit.

  Alec had watched it all in helpless wonder, since his attachment to Barrow was as deep as it was unaccountable but his attachment to Mrs Lowie’s cooking gave it a good run for its money and was easier to explain. Her steamed pudding with caramel, her cream ices and her raspberry cake were beginning to show in Alec’s silhouette, such was his enthusiasm for them. He would never let her go even if it meant Barrow accompanying him everywhere.

  As I thought that there was a rap at my door and Alec strolled in.

  ‘Grant,’ he said, nodding. He has charming manners. Then he threw himself down into a chair and laid his head back.

  ‘He’s brought white tie,’ he groaned. ‘God help me.’

  Grant smirked and left us.

  ‘Ring for some coffee, won’t you, Dan?’ Alec went on. ‘And then we can stop in at the Mitchell on our way west.’ We had arranged to collect Tweetie immediately after luncheon and Alec was determined to fit the Mitchell Library into our day even if we starved.

  The Mitchell was even grander than the Grand. It rose in honeyed splendour out of the hubbub of the city str
eet and, walking up its many steps to pass between the pillars and in under the dome, one might almost have been in some great European gallery, come to see the Old Masters. It was an effect which lasted until the porter hailed us just inside the door.

  ‘Whit are youse wanting?’ he said, hitching his britches and ambling over on bow legs.

  ‘Press clippings about Glasgow life,’ said Alec.

  ‘Ah, Glasgow,’ said the porter and munched silently for a while, working his false teeth into a more comfortable position. ‘Well you might ask about Glasgow life. For it’s a city as full of life as any of the great capitals of the world. The cradle of the Empire, the engine-house of all our prosperity and the heart of Scotland.’ What he meant was: not Edinburgh.

  ‘Oh, quite, quite,’ said Alec. ‘And where are the clippings held?’

  We were sent on our way and it was not long until we were each settled in a little wood and leatherette chair at a table made for two, opening bound volumes of press cuttings which were stamped ‘Dancing and dance-halls 1929–1930’ in gold upon their spines.

  ‘Good grief,’ said Alec. ‘Hugh isn’t far off the mark, is he? It says here: “Police called to Lorne Hall, seven arrests and thirteen in hospital”.’

  I swallowed hard, for the story I was reading was even worse. There had been a razor stabbing at the Tower Palais during a dance in October. ‘No witnesses came forward out of the one hundred and fifty patrons who were present,’ the article said in primly outraged tones.

  ‘But not a breath of scandal about the Locarno,’ I said. I flipped to the contents page, written out in a librarian’s crabbed handwriting in very pale brownish ink. ‘“Locarno, Ballroom, the”. “Scottish Professional Dancing Championship 1929, 1930”. “Visit from Victor Silvester, see Silvester, Mr, Victor”. And “Christmas party”. That’s it.’

  ‘Odd that the death of Leo Mayne doesn’t get its own entry,’ said Alec. ‘Since the visit of Victor Silvester gets two. Who is Victor Silvester anyway?’

  I shook my head for I was puzzling over something much more troubling.

  ‘It’s not in here,’ I said, looking up at last. Alec raised his eyebrows. ‘The write-up on last year’s competition doesn’t mention Leo Mayne. Not by name and not even by noting that one of the dancers died. Nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps …’ said Alec, but then stopped, unable to come up with a reasonable explanation.

  ‘And it’s not as though they’re protecting the good name of the dance-hall, is it?’ I said. ‘They went absolutely to town on the other places when the fights broke out. His name’s in the starters published the day before,’ I went on, leafing back a few pages. ‘Trotter and Mayne, couple number eleven. Bonnar and Montaigne, couple number four. Hodge and Christie, couple number nine. Christie must be Alicia, don’t you think?’

  ‘Why are you reading out lists of names?’ said Alec, turning forward several pages again. ‘You’re right though. Not a peep about them in the results. First place, couple number four, Bonnar and Montaigne. Second place, couple— Sorry,’ he said, catching my look.

  ‘It’s very odd,’ I said. ‘Everyone knows what happened. The Stotts and Miss Thwaite, certainly, those girls we spoke to, too. But not a word.’

  ‘Well, it’s not strictly dancing news, is it?’ said Alec. ‘And if it was a simple accident, it’s not strictly news at all.’

  The librarian sitting behind the enquiry desk was watching us and looked poised to come over and shush us if we made much more noise. I bent my head even closer to Alec’s and murmured in his ear.

  ‘But if it was a simple accident, why would Jeanne mention him and why would Miss Thwaite be reminded of him when you told her about the dead bird?’

  Alec nodded and rose to meet the librarian who was stalking over to remonstrate with us, her block heels making ten times as much noise on the polished floor as my whispers could have done.

  ‘Might I have the Glasgow Herald for June last year?’ he asked her as they met.

  She shot a look at the bound volumes of clippings and then glared at him.

  ‘If it is for private consultation,’ she said. ‘Even shared private consultation. But not’ – she paused dramatically and her words rang around the room – ‘if it’s for further discussion. Silence is essential.’ The sibilants in this last bit were hissed so loudly that the only other patron, an elderly gentleman poring over some maps, looked up and blinked.

  ‘What on earth?’ said Alec after she had stalked off.

  ‘I rather think asking for the whole newspaper when you’ve tried the clippings might be rude,’ I said. ‘Casting doubt on the legitimacy of their archive.’

  When the newspaper was brought to us, however, we found nothing with which to reproach the skills of the Mitchell staff. We read from miscellaneous items for sale on page one to the lowliest of the third division association football scores on page eighteen and there was not so much as a word about the sudden death of a young man that day, nor even the report of a tumble which might have become death later in a hospital bed; this despite an inch-long story about a private motorcar which had broken down in the middle of the street and been dragged off by a milkman’s horses, then another about a child who had climbed a tree in Kelvin Park to retrieve a kite and had suffered a broken arm and cut head when the tree limb broke under him.

  ‘Let’s look at the next day,’ I murmured, one eye on the librarian, who had both eyes on us. ‘The death notice might be in by then.’ Another day, however, yielded nothing. We closed the volume, rose, thanked the librarian, who shushed us vigorously, and left, descending the grand steps between the pillars and back into the sunshine.

  ‘Don’t tell me there’s nothing fishy about this,’ said Alec. ‘Someone died at the Locarno, during the competition last year, and it’s been swept right under the carpet.’

  ‘But our task is to make sure Tweetie doesn’t join him,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out there and see what she’s got to say for herself today.’

  The shining yellow door, pots of begonias and neat maid were all as before at Balmoral but the Stotts had reverted to their real selves, Sir Percy in loud tweed knickerbockers and a moss-green jersey and Lady Stott in a house dress of very limp and shiny bombazine with a cap over her hair. It aged her by twenty years but she was so much more comfortable-looking that the overall effect was a pleasant one.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ she said. ‘Mary, run and get a round of sandwiches each for the detectives and a pot of tea. Can you eat tongue? There’s a lovely tongue.’

  Alec and I assured her that tongue would be fine. I quietly determined to nibble at the crust of mine and lay it aside.

  ‘And what did you unearth at the Locarno?’ said Sir Percy.

  ‘Rather little,’ I said. ‘We’ve come today in hopes of interviewing Miss McNab at greater length.’

  The Stotts, very ostentatiously, did not look at one another.

  ‘You’re not to upset her dragging up old worries,’ said Lady Stott.

  Sir Percy nodded along. He even mouthed the last word in time with his wife. They could not have made it more clear that this was a rehearsed formulation if they had sung it in close harmony.

  ‘We wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Alec, just as ostentatiously not looking at me.

  It was an extraordinary feat, one my mother herself would have been proud of, to take a day-old memory of Jeanne’s sly hint and our being hustled out of Balmoral before we could ask her to say more, and to turn that into a story of poor Jeanne being distressed by the brutal detectives making her speak of painful matters.

  It backfired rather spectacularly too, only rendering Alec and me more determined to get to the bottom of the mysterious Leo Mayne, and to glean all our information from the dancers at the Locarno so that Sir Percy and his lady would never know what we were up to. To Jeanne we did not so much as mention his name.

  ‘Miss McNab,’ Alec began, when we were settled with her. She was upstairs in what Lady Stott had called
‘the sewing room’, surrounded by half-made costumes hanging from the picture rail in muslin bags, some of them with sketches pinned to them. In the middle of the floor there was a hamper, thrown open, its stuffing of feathers, beads and tassels bursting out of it. Jeanne herself sat at the window carefully stitching each of these in turn to a floor-length gown.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘Can you find a perch? I’m happy to talk to you but I can’t stop working.’

  ‘Is that for Friday?’ I said, thinking it rather late in the day.

  ‘She’s always the same,’ said Jeanne. ‘Changes her mind up until the eleventh hour and everyone’s to jump. This is for the Latin. Heaven knows what she’s got in mind for the waltz.’

  ‘We spoke to Miss Bonnar and Mr Bunyan yesterday,’ Alec said. ‘And Mr Hodge and Miss … Christie?’

  ‘Mrs Hodge to be,’ said Jeanne. ‘Although she might keep her own name for the sound of it. It’s very common for married couples to compete as dancing partners, or dancing partners to end up married. Well, you can understand that, can’t you? The romance of it all, being swept round the room in a chap’s arms as the music swells.’

  Her wryness, added to the memory of my two minutes in the arms of Mr Hodge the day before, made for uncomfortable listening.

  ‘And we took in Mr Lorrison and Miss Thwaite too,’ Alec went on.

  ‘What a treat that must have been for you,’ said Jeanne. She finished stitching on a tassel and rummaged in the open hamper for another.

  ‘To meet Miss Thwaite?’ I said, wondering how the little woman could have earned such disdain.

  ‘To commune with Lorrison,’ said Jeanne. ‘He’s a dreadful man, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s unappealing at first glance,’ I said and my understatement was rewarded with a smirk from the girl. ‘But do you know anything solidly wrong about him? Do you think he might be behind the nastiness?’