The changes in the city of Edinburgh since the sixteenth century were no less remarkable to my eyes than what had happened to the skyline in the past ten years and was doubtless fated to continue into the next century. Progress was with us in full fever as the clang of hammers and the mast rigging of scaffolding told of yet another building arching its outline against the sky.
Up St Mary's Street and skirting the railway station, across Princes Street to Jenners, an establishment dedicated to serving the needs of respectable middle-class Edinburgh ladies who might with propriety now shop there alone: a daring new innovation of which the older shop assistants disapproved, preferring their ladies to have a maid in attendance, a guarantee of special attention.
I felt quite courageous, and modern too, making my way to the ready-made sports department and as I'm not one to fuss over what I wear as long as it is comfortable and reasonably attractive, I soon had all the garments necessary for a lady bicyclist. Wishing to avoid the look of horror on the more mature and less enlightened assistants rigid with convention, I chose my assistant with care, one of the younger girls who might understand and sympathise with my needs.
I found that my figure was well out of date and my uncorseted shape worried even the young woman who served me, especially my firm refusal to be laced up. The fashionable 'hourglass' was not for me. My sojourn on the unfashionable American prairie had brought some very decided ideas regarding comfort and the female form, as well as an unshakeable determination to retain the shape that nature had intended.
At last, happily carrying my purchases, I made my way back through the departments, with stationery in mind. I must write immediately to Vince and Emily.
I was also wondering where and how I might get information about purchasing a bicycle.
'Rose!'
I turned round. 'Rose - it is you!'
'Alice?'
What a piece of good fortune to have met my oldest friend on my first visit to Edinburgh.
As we hugged each other I said yes, I was well. 'How are you?'
'I am quite well.'
She didn't look it. I remembered her plump and pretty, now she was thin and her face drawn. Tactfully I did not confess that if she had not spoken first I might have walked straight past her.
'Shall we have tea together, Rose? I was on my way to the tearoom.' She sighed. 'I have such a lot to tell you.'
As I followed her upstairs, memory flashed a signal. I knew where I had heard and seen the words 'Saville Grange' before.
The murder house was next door to Alice's old home, Peel House. Piers Elliott had been an old admirer, whom she rejected for Matthew Bolton who lived with his family in a less pretentious house nearby.
Piers had subsequently married his cousin Freda who was not one of my favourite people. But despite her irritating know-all bossy manner, Alice did not share my dislike and frequently included her in our picnics and parties.
As we took a seat in the restaurant, I little guessed what momentous events were to stem from that chance meeting. Or that there are no coincidences in this life and I was already poised on the threshold of what was to be my very first criminal investigation.
Chapter Five
Waiting to be served in the tearoom, Alice and I studied each other covertly, our smiles and pleasantries those of two old friends delighted to meet again but conscious that the passing years have brought changes each would be happier to conceal. I don't know how I looked, but sadly, gazelle-eyed Alice had become Alice the scared rabbit.
Questioned, I said that I had returned from America alone and that I was a widow. I did not labour the subject since I did not yet feel strong enough not to break down in public when confiding all the details to an old friend.
To my surprise, it was she who seized my hand across the table and burst into tears. 'I'm so sorry, dear, dear Rose,' she gulped, sobbing into a handkerchief.
I was slightly embarrassed and thought this a little excessive, since she had met Danny only once when we were walking in Princes Street Gardens. I had introduced him and they had not exchanged more than a dozen words, Danny hovering on the perimeter of our conversation, polite and smiling in the diffident, long-suffering manner of men forced to listen to idle female chatter which excluded them.
But Alice's present behaviour was extraordinary in the circumstances. We had not been all that close for years, yet her reaction was that of receiving dire news of a close relative and out of all proportion for a friend's bereavement that was not even very recent since I was not in mourning weeds. Studying her closely, I suspected that it was more, much more than my news that had caused her such distress. Changed in more than physical appearance, she was deeply troubled, in a highly emotional state and hardly recognisable as the easygoing placid girl I remembered.
I watched her narrowly, her hands trembling so much I gallantly took over the teapot, saying: 'Allow me, it is rather heavy.'
She wiped her eyes, drew a deep breath and took a sip of tea. It seemed to calm her a little as she whispered: 'It is so good to see you, Rose. I am so glad that we met.'
I said I was too. Poor, distressed Alice, obviously in great need of an understanding shoulder to cry on. 'How is Matthew?' I enquired.
'Well - why do you ask?' she demanded rather shrilly, a strange response to the natural question that politeness and convention demanded of an old friend regarding her husband. A piece of cambric, a stifled sob and the floodgates opened.
Allowing her a moment to recover, I paid some attention to the scone on my plate, took a couple of bites.
She gained control and said: 'You must excuse me, dearest Rose. I have rather a lot to bear just at present.' Another sob. 'I am most severely put upon - most severely. You see, I have discovered that he no longer cares for me.'
My eyebrows rose at this extraordinary statement regarding Matthew Bolton, with whom I had been perhaps better acquainted than she with Danny. Matthew had seemed the most devoted of suitors, a solicitor in his family's long-established firm with an excellent future, but what Vince called 'rather a dull dog'. I had been in their company during their courtship and later as guest at their wedding.
Now I prepared myself to listen to some tale of marital infidelity. Recalling those first impressions of Matthew, I said: 'You believe he has found someone else?'
'I do indeed. I am sure of it,' she added vehemently.
'Have you talked to him about this?'
'No.' She laughed bitterly. 'But I am well aware of what is going on.' A fierce nod. 'Oh, indeed I am.'
'Alice, if you haven't heard it from his own lips, you might well be misjudging him. There are many things that might be mistaken for such behaviour...' I hoped she wouldn't ask me to quote her chapter and verse upon this speculation, since I couldn't think of a single instance at that moment.
She stared at me; hope flickered briefly in her eyes and died again.
I resolved to be practical. 'Alice, come now. What evidence have you?'
She regarded me blankly for a moment. I patted her hand, feeling that I had scored a point at last. 'Why not begin at the beginning?' I said gently.
'It started when we moved from Peel House - that was a year ago when our old house was sold.'
Peel House was Alice's family home, one of the few remaining old mansions set in imposing gardens once isolated in country fields alongside Saville Grange. Such grandeur of isolation was before the property developers moved in.
'Matthew found a new buyer,' Alice continued. 'It took some time since I refused the offer of a builder who wished to tear it down and cover the entire area with more modern villas.
'His suggestion that we might occupy one of them appalled me. We could do a lot worse, he said, that with both boys now at prep school and eventually public school and university, it was pointless paying for an army of servants to look after the pair of us.
'Such presumption. But Matthew agreed. As you know, the house is two hundred years old and in constant need of repairs,
which cost a fortune.'
I felt that this argument and domestic upset was little reason for a devoted husband to go philandering. I wondered when she would get back to the point of her story. I didn't have long to wait.
'At last we made a private sale to a man who was in trade in the city. An elderly draper with a pretty young wife - his second marriage. Unfortunately he never lived to enjoy the comfort of Peel House,' Alice added with a certain amount of righteous satisfaction.
'Mr Harding died soon after they took possession. His widow, Lily, moved into the lodge and since she had no head for business, a bit of a flibbertigibbet, Matthew said, and he being so wise and thoughtful, he offered to help her set things in order.'
'What happened to the house?'
Alice sighed. 'She sold it to the property developers to tear down.' She paused. 'It is since then that Matthew's behaviour has been very strange.'
'In what way strange?'
She shrugged. 'He has been most secretive, I suspect that he visits her almost every day - instead of going to his office.'
'What about his business? Surely he cannot be spared every day?'
Indeed no. But there it is. I feel his thoughts and his concern are mainly with this woman and he is neglecting anything else in her favour, delegating work to juniors. He has taken a craze for fitness too - men can be so vain at a certain age. Now that we live nearer the city and there is a perfectly adequate tramway system - which he urges me to use-'
Alice's expressive shudder indicated that she considered this demeaning and didn't care for any ideas of public transport. 'There is a coachhouse at our present house in the Grange but Matthew sold our carriage when we moved in, insisting that we have no need for it and that such things are quite outmoded these days.'
She paused for a moment, biting her lip before adding: 'He said the exercise would be good for me.'
I was expected to make some protest but, for the life of me, I couldn't quarrel with Matthew's reasoning so far.
'However,' Alice continued, 'the coachhouse isn't empty. It's at the far end of the garden and there's a perfectly disgusting man living in it.'
'Surely not!'
'Yes, there is. I saw him one morning after Matthew had gone to work. He looked like a common workman. I got quite a shock. So did he. When I asked what he was doing there he turned his back and, refusing to answer me, darted inside and bolted the door. I banged on it, said I'd call the police if he didn't come out immediately. He just shouted at me: "Leave me alone, missus. Mr Bolton says I'm to stay here as long as I like."
'Naturally I was furious and could hardly wait to tackle Matthew about it. But when I said I objected to having a coarse, low fellow like that on the premises, Matthew got into such a rage and told me I was to keep out of it, that the man was a particular friend of his. A particular friend,' she repeated. 'Can you by any stretch of imagination think of such a creature - a down-and-out tramp -even being a casual acquaintance of Matthew's?'
I shook my head. Frankly, I was baffled too. I could not picture the pompous Matthew, whom even my conventional stepbrother Vince dismissed as 'a frightful snob', admitting to rubbing shoulders with, let alone having friends among, the Edinburgh poor.
'He said this was a man to whom he owed a debt of gratitude,'Alice continued. 'A man who had done him a great service in the past but had now fallen on hard times.'
Again she paused, tearfully this time. 'Can you imagine what the neighbours will think of us harbouring such a creature?'
I shook my head and, disappointed that she was not getting any help from me, Alice sighed. 'That's all there is to tell, really. I just have this awful feeling that Matthew has changed, that he is no longer the man I married, the man I still love with all my heart.' And out came the cambric handkerchief.
I allowed her a small interlude of tears, before saying firmly: 'Alice, none of this makes any sense. Think about it. What on earth has this character Matthew has befriended got to do with him taking up with some other woman?'
Now Alice shook her head and looked bewildered, as if the thought had never occurred to her. 'I don't know, Rose, it's just part of the feeling that I'm being deceived, right, left and centre - and that he doesn't want me any longer. Oh, Rose, all this is destroying me. Don't you see, I must find out the truth.'
She studied me intently, helplessly. I was at a complete loss to know what consolation, let alone advice, I could offer, when she went on: 'I must find out what is going on. Rose. I cannot go on like this. I will go mad,' she said and looked wild enough at that moment for me to believe her. 'But Matthew would never forgive me if he found me prying into his affairs.' Leaning across the table, she grasped my hand again. 'What shall I do, Rose? Whom can I turn to?'
I had no answer to that one.
'Don't you see what I'm leading up to?'
I shook my head.
'You can help me, Rose. I beg of you - please say you will.'
I stared at her. 'I don't see how-'
'Oh yes, you do. You were always so clever at, well, sorting things out, finding answers, reasons for everything for other girls-'
I didn't know what she was on about, only vaguely remembering that because Pappa had brought me up to think along his own lines of observation and deduction I was occasionally able to apply them and provide logical solutions to the rather innocent and often fatuous problems of my classmates and friends. When I told Pappa, he would laugh and say they could have worked it out for themselves, as it was more a matter of common sense than detection.
'That was a long time ago, Alice.' I didn't add that I had not been spectacularly successful at sorting out the problems of my own life. In particular, at solving the mystery of a husband who rode out of my life one day, never to return.
'Surely you can advise me, then, just as you used to?' she said desperately. 'I can hardly go to anyone else with such a request.'
I thought for a moment. 'There are probably detective agencies in Edinburgh for just this purpose. You could advertise-'
'No!' Alice shuddered. 'Have Matthew spied upon, his indiscretions made public - a laughing stock to all his friends! The scandal would kill him, ruin him. I am not wanting that kind of vengeance - only my own peace of mind. I shall always love him - always - and forgive him, whatever he has done. Yes, unfaithful or not, it makes no difference to me. I just want him back. But I cannot live with this uncertainty. I must know!'
She banged the table, emphasising the words, shaking the teacups and causing a fluster among the nearby genteel ladies, their feathered hats shivering like alarmed pigeons.
'Rose, are you listening to me? Do you understand what I'm trying to say?'
'Of course I do, Alice.' But none of it was very logical. I could see all the obvious flaws in her argument. In an effort to calm her, I said: 'You are naturally overwrought - I do sympathise, believe me - but the best advice I can give you is not to precipitate a crisis and the best thing - indeed, the only thing in the circumstances as I see it - would be to, well, sit back for a while, wait and see.
Given time, the situation might change, he might tire of her-' But I knew I had said the wrong thing.
'No, I will not wait! That I will not do at all! I cannot eat or sleep, I feel as if I am slowly dying, my life draining away.' She stopped and looked across the table, her eyes full of unshed tears. 'Let me tell you something. Rose, something which may make you change your mind. Until today I have prayed and prayed, and still nothing happened. Then the moment I met you again I knew you had been sent to help me.'
She paused for a moment to see the effect of her words and then said slowly: 'It was no coincidence that we met as you were leaving the shop, I knew my prayers had been answered - at last. As if an angel had been sent to deliver me!' she ended triumphantly.
An angel was not quite the role in which I saw myself at that moment as she added humbly: 'I am in your hands, dear Rose. You are the only one who can help me. Don't you see, you can go to Peel Lodge, where th
is woman - this Lily - lives and discover what is going on there. And you can find out about this sinister friend of Matthew's who is living in our coachhouse. Please, please, dearest Rose, do this for me, for the sake of our long friendship.'
It sounded like a mad proposition, maybe Alice had already gone beyond the borders of sanity, but my heart went out to her.
She was a simple soul who had scarcely ever been out of Scotland, her whole existence bound by the conventions of the day. By love and a fortunate marriage to a man she loved, she had fulfilled all that her role in society demanded of a middle-class woman. The thought of losing her husband to another woman terrified her, not only for the personal pain but the disgrace and humiliation, the loss of face that would follow in the eyes of her friends.
And I knew then that I would do as she asked. I would try and help her. Perhaps this was exactly what I needed to keep my mind off my own particular nightmare, fears for my own future. 'Very well, Alice, you've talked me into it. I'm not promising anything, but I'll do my best.'
'Oh, thank you, thank you-'
'All right, Alice. Don't upset yourself,' I begged. 'Please don't start crying again. If I'm to help, I need some practical information from you.' And so saying I took out my 'journal'. 'Just give me some details, dates and so forth, the address of Matthew's business-'
Ten minutes later, the bill paid by Alice at her insistence, we made our way to the front door. About to depart, she eyed my parcels and the worn basket I carried, and propriety got the better of her. 'Just one tactful word, Rose, dear,' she whispered. 'Ladies in Jenners never carry shopping baskets over their arms. It is considered, well, rather vulgar, a duty they leave to their maids.' Observing my expression, she put a hand on my arm. 'I do hope I haven't offended you by mentioning it.'
I wasn't offended, merely trying to keep a straight face as I stifled the desire to laugh out loud. 'Not at all, Alice,' I said soberly. 'But since I don't possess a maid, are my parcels quite correct?' When she nodded I went on: 'A good thing I elected to wear my new coat, rather than carry it back home to Solomon's Tower.'
The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery) Page 4
