'Solomon's Tower?' Her eyes widened. 'You're living there - not alone, I hope?'
When I explained briefly that I had inherited the property from my stepbrother she looked mildly surprised. 'I remember when we were children you once took me there. It was full of smelly cats and a mad old man shouted at us.'
"The mad old man was Sir Hedley Marsh and Vince's benefactor. It is no longer full of cats, as you will see when you come to visit me.'
She didn't smile. 'We always thought it was haunted,' she said anxiously.
'I think I can promise you there are no ghosts either. Perhaps, like the cats, they fled long ago.'
'But it is so isolated. You are so far away from the city.'
'Less than two miles, Alice. I realise that can be inconvenient, so I am about to take up bicycling.'
Alice's eyes widened at that. I hoped I wasn't in for another lecture on the impropriety of ladies bicycling, but she merely asked: 'Have you a machine, then?'
'No. I was about to make enquiries as to where I might purchase one when we met-'
'No need for that, Rose.' And for the first time she laughed. 'I told you it was providence that we met. You see, I have a bicycle, a very good one, an 1888 Westminster Ladies Special Light Roadster,' she added proudly. Then sad again, a sigh. 'Matthew bought it for me just before we left Peel House. He has always been a great enthusiast for exercise out of doors. As you'll remember, he was quite an accomplished mountaineer.'
I vaguely recalled an expedition he had organised to the Swiss Alps. He had tried to interest Vince until Olivia put her foot down very firmly.
'I was putting on rather a lot of weight,' Alice continued, 'after the boys, you know. And Matthew who has always been so lean - I do envy him - decided I should get more exercise and that a little discreet bicycling would be good for me. Not in Princes Street, of course,' she added hastily, 'but on our more secluded roads where it would not cause comment. But alas, I never had confidence to persevere, to learn to ride. I'm such a mouse, not like you, Rose.' She took my arm and said earnestly: 'It's yours if you want it. I'd love you to have it. Look, why not come home with me now and collect it?'
I could see no good reason to decline such a handsome offer and we took the tramcar along Princes Street across Waverley Bridge and on into Newington.
Matthew had been right about that. It was a pleasant way to travel and, although I little guessed it at that moment, this innocent meeting with his wife was my first step into a dangerous and terrifying future.
Chapter 6
Outside Alice's Newington home in Portland Crescent a group of ladies were stepping down from two carriages outside her front door.
'Oh, dear,' she said. 'Meeting you again put everything else out of my mind, Rose. I had completely forgotten this is the afternoon for our literary group,' she added in a hasty whisper as we approached them.
Polite smiles and introductions were exchanged with the waiting ladies and, ushering them into the hall where the maid waited to take their cloaks, Alice excused herself and whispered: 'The bicycle's in the washhouse - I'll get the maid to bring it round for you. I had a skirt specially made and never worn.' Studying me intently, she frowned. 'I'm afraid it will be too large for you, but perhaps you can have it altered to fit-'
When Alice reappeared with the skirt over her arm, the ladies peered out of the drawing-room. Certain that I was a servant 'in need', they smiled benignly and watched wide-eyed as the maid propped the bicycle up against the garden railings.
Alice waved to them brightly, as if she donated bicycles to charity every day of the week. 'Are you sure you'll be all right, Rose?' she asked anxiously. 'You won't fall off and hurt yourself, will you?'
'Of course not. I'll soon get the hang of it,' I stated confidently. 'Thanks again, Alice. I'm so grateful - you've been very kind.'
'We must talk soon - come on Thursday for tea. I have no engagements that day,' she said.
I gave her a farewell wave and, aware of the literary ladies at the window unable to restrain their curiosity, I set off cheerfully and, with only a couple of false starts, made a wobbling progress down the street.
I'd never manage hills and I'd have to push the machine most of the way to Solomon's Tower. Once into Queen's Park and almost home, I remounted and only fell off twice, unobserved by any onlookers and without damaging anything but my pride.
It wasn't bad for a beginner, I thought, and, putting the machine proudly into the stable, I went indoors deciding that possession of a bicycle might be an invaluable asset in my new role as a discreet investigator of ladies' matrimonial upsets.
Intrigued by Alice's problem, I looked at the brief details I had written down and inserted some queries of my own regarding Matthew's odd behaviour. Such as, who was the sinister working man living in the coachhouse and why was Matthew Bolton in his debt?
And what of Alice herself?
A curious thought struck me, something rather odd that might be significant. Whereas everyone I had encountered so far since my arrival in Edinburgh had been eager to tell me about the servant girl's murder, especially when they knew where I lived, Alice Bolton had never mentioned it.
The fact that her late home. Peel House, was next door would make one naturally assume that such a dreadful deed would have been, in spite of her own problems, worthy of a mention.
I noted that omission but hadn't the least idea where to begin investigating Alice's husband.
This was the sort of problem Pappa would have relished and I could imagine his quick, incisive mind picking up clues that Alice and I had overlooked. Suddenly I realised how dreadfully I missed him, how I had been longing for some sort of message from his self-imposed exile with the Irish patriot, deemed 'terrorist' with a price on her head, Imogen Crowe.
I wondered if he had persuaded that ardent feminist writer to marry him, or even if that was their mutual wish. I was assuming all was well with Pappa and such was the telepathic bond between us that I would know if anything worse had befallen him than communications and even family letters from southern Ireland being censored. Perhaps they were regarded as containing subversive or treasonable material written by an ex-detective from Edinburgh City Police formerly in Her Majesty's personal service.
I looked out on Arthur's Seat. This was the twilight hour, Scotland's 'gloaming' when the cloudless sky glowed and the first faint star appeared in it. It had been Pappa's favourite hour, the setting sun with crimson clouds a breathtaking reminder of the many occasions we had walked here together.
Not all memories were happy: I remembered dear, wise Pappa - although I hadn't thought so at the time - urging me strongly against marrying Danny McQuinn. Originally I had thought it was because he didn't think a policeman good enough for his daughter, but perhaps I had misjudged him and he was more aware of the perils and hardships that faced a pioneering wife.
After many arguments, finally I had left with a father's blessing. But had some instinct - the second sight inherited from his web-toed seal-woman grandmother in Orkney - warned him that it would end in tragedy? Home again, awaiting those scars to fade a little - alas, I could not believe they would ever disappear and some undreamed-of joy replace them for ever - I wondered what my life would have been like had I listened to Pappa and remained as a Glasgow schoolteacher, patiently enduring until some worthy man came along and made me forget - no, I could never forget Danny - and persuaded me to accept a compromise marriage.
Surely I was better off with the memories of a man I had truly loved since I was ten years old than a dull existence as a suburban wife and mother, I thought, examining the glass-fronted bookcase which had once graced Pappa's study in Sheridan Place. Transported by Vince and Olivia to marshal and tame Sir Hedley's hoard of books which had lain scattered around the house, obviously Vince hadn't wanted any of them, although some were very old and might be greeted with delight by a collector.
Scanning the shelves, I picked up a leather-bound Legends of Arthur's Seat, recalli
ng curious illustrations and how, as a small child, Pappa often read to me from its pock-marked yellow pages when we visited the Tower.
I held it close, as if it were still warm from his hands. The picture that had so fascinated me was of a shepherd lad, staring into a bright crystal cavern. There before him sat King Arthur, wearing his crown and armour, a hunting horn at his side and with him his knights, their swords on the round table, heads bent all waited. Even deer-hounds, with muzzles resting on their paws, waited, ready for the summons to awake and gallop out with knights, their visors down, swords flashing, to save Britain at its time of greatest peril.
'It's not just a fairy story, is it, Pappa?' I had asked, hoping he would tell me once again that there was always someone who said it was true, whose grandfather had heard it from the very lips of the shepherd boy.
'There he was, minding his sheep as he did every night, up near Hunter's Bog. It was springtime, a moonlit night and he heard one of his tiny lambs bleating. He searched for it everywhere and had almost given up hope when he noticed a deep crevasse in a rock nearby. Being small and thin, he slipped inside and walked a few steps down a steep, dark path towards a light shining at the other end.
'Drawing closer, he heard merry voices, laughter and although he was very scared he crept nearer and saw the King, wearing his crown, with his knights around a great table, their hounds at their feet. Knowing that his story wouldn't be believed without proof, he decided to creep forward on his hands and knees, and steal something from the round table. At the King's side was a great cup of gold, shining with jewels.
'That would do! The men were too busy drinking to notice him and, being so small, no one marked his approach. But as he stretched out his hand to seize the cup, one of the deerhounds saw him and barked a warning. Someone cried out, pointed, and the boy panicked, took to his heels. Running blindly back along the dark tunnel towards the moonlight, he thought his end had come when he saw one of the massive hounds guarding the entrance and feared it would tear him to pieces.
'But it didn't touch him, so he ran and ran, and never stopped until he was back in Chessel Close off the High Street.
'There he told the whole story so vividly that a band of men armed with cudgels, sticks and the like set out to find the dog standing by a secret entrance that would hopefully lead them into this magic crystal cavern with its jewelled cup on the table. One and all they licked their lips, thinking of vast fortunes, theirs for the taking.
'But although the lad was eager to go with them and show them the way, he seemed after a while to be leading them round in circles and they never did find the magic cavern. There was no crevasse, no dog, no knights. They shook their heads, shouting about wasted time as they trudged back down the hill, threatening the shepherd lad as they greedily remembered the golden cup with its jewels.
'But the less bold among them gave inward sighs of relief, remembering that inside the hill were caverns known as Goblin Halls, where fairy folk danced and from where, on cold winters' nights, the sounds of music and revelry could be heard. Shivering, they swallowed their disappointment, saying they were God-fearing pillars of the Church who would not have known quite how to face the enraged imperial majesty of King Arthur, to say nothing of his armed knights.'
Arthur's Seat had an intriguing name, conducive to legendary associations in the minds of the imaginative, whereas in actual fact, Pappa told me, it was probably a corruption of the Gaelic 'Ard-na-Saighead' - Height of the Arrows - and the valley known as Hunter's Bog would once have been an ideal place for archery practice.
Evidence of defensive ramparts on the summit dated from Iron and Bronze Ages, and weapons found in Duddingston Loch in the last century suggested settlements on the slopes of the hill. A primeval forest cleared in 1564, it had been greatly favoured by Mary Queen of Scots, with an open-air banquet for a young couple from the court at Holyrood.
'But you prefer a puzzle, don't you, Rose?'
'Yes, Pappa, and had you been alive then, you would have solved the shepherd boy's story,' I said confidently and he had smiled at me, shaking his head.
'Don't be too downhearted, Rose. Rest assured, magic exists in this weary old world of ours if we are prepared to accept it. But there are puzzles beyond us, ones that we aren't meant to solve.'
I put down the book.
Like Danny McQuinn. How would you have tackled that one, Pappa, where would you have started looking for the clues that so obligingly waited to be discovered in your murder cases?
The hill was ablaze with pure golden light from the dying sunset, so bright outside that the Tower seemed gloomier, more menacing than during daylight. Closed in on itself, it became a house of ancient mysteries and puzzles that no one had ever found explanations for, not even my clever father.
The glowing light was so tempting that I decided to take a walk, before I lit the lamp and settled down to read. The fresh air would ensure that I slept soundly in that vast, curtained four-poster.
Truth was that I wanted to escape, not from the remote past of history but from my own more recent past with all its agonies that had blistered my soul, and was ever present, each and every day, like a persistently dull toothache.
Chapter Seven
I set off up the hill, wondering if I could still find the secret path Pappa and I had taken towards the summit past the small cave where he, as a child in 1836, was one of a group of schoolboys who had discovered two rows of tiny wooden coffins elaborately decorated with pieces of tin and each containing a little wooden figure, carefully carved and dressed in funeral clothes.
With no idea of the value or mystery of their find, a lot of horseplay followed and, according to Pappa who was a little frightened by it all, some of the coffins disintegrated. The remaining eight were taken to the schoolteacher, reported in the newspaper and finally donated to a local museum.
Speculation was rife, the most popular belief among superstitious citizens being that they were part of black-magic rituals. But subsequent history remained silent regarding the origins of the coffins.
Not even my clever father's logical mind could produce a satisfactory explanation but, telling the story, he often shook his head and wondered if this first case of mysterious miniature coffins had not set his feet firmly upon the path of crime detection.
There would be still an hour of fading light and as I walked I remembered less romantic stories about this area. How in the mid-seventeenth century plague-stricken citizens were forcibly ejected from the city to an encampment on Arthur's Seat. Many died and were hastily buried in pits on the hill.
Trying not to think of those unhappy old ghosts in the sudden cool wind from the summit, I was delighted to see that the boulders marking my secret path with Pappa were still in existence. As I climbed, I stopped occasionally to admire this bird's-eye view over the new Edinburgh skyline with its terraces and villas that had sprouted in my absence. The Palace of Holyrood-house lay grand but dark in gardens, which had once been a debtors' sanctuary and had sheltered an exiled French king.
Suddenly I was aware of being watched. Shading my eyes against the sky, I saw by the crag a tall grey shadow that moved.
Heart thumping, I blinked, blinked again. It was a dog, a grey deerhound; the largest dog I'd ever seen, the size of a pony and it looked exactly like the one that legendary shepherd boy might have met, as if it had stepped out of Legends of Arthur's Seat.
Enough to make any sane person take to their heels, but I am not easily unnerved: a dog is a dog and, after a band of bloodthirsty Sioux Indians, small fry. Especially this dog, who didn't look fierce at all. In fact, he looked very benign, yawning deeply. As befitted a creature who might be having his first breath of fresh air after several centuries inside a crystal cavern, I thought, still not certain that he was a real dog and prepared on this hill of legends for anything to happen - like his sudden disappearance.
But no, he was watching me, wagging that enormous tail as if we were old friends and looking not at all u
nkindly, but gravely from under heavy grey eyebrows, for all the world like an old magistrate on the bench confronted by a tricky case.
As he bounded towards me, however, I must confess I lost my nerve but determined to stand firm, according to dimly remembered advice I had read somewhere - that one should always outstare savage beasts. Not that this one looked savage.
I held out tentatively a slightly trembling hand and said, 'Hello, and where did you come from?'
I didn't really expect an answer but he sniffed my hand, decided its smell was friendly and didn't offend him. I was to be trusted. He lifted his head, glanced back over his shoulder towards the summit of the hill, paused for a moment, apparently listening for something. Then he shook himself as if to shake off whatever or whomever he had left behind.
I stroked his head. I'm not very tall and it reached my shoulder. I guessed he weighed more than I did and his coat was in excellent condition, silky and clean.
A very well-cared for real dog, no part of any legend and doubtless the proud possession of some frantic owner who might be out at this very moment searching for him.
'Are you lost?' I enquired. He stared at me and if a dog could look puzzled that was his expression. The word 'lost' wasn't in his particular vocabulary.
I tried again. 'Aren't you a handsome fellow?' And the astonishing creature grinned, yes, I'd swear he grinned at me. Showing his teeth, I was to tell disbelieving friends later, when I was to have as much trouble with this real-life dog as the shepherd boy had with his ghostly knights of the round table.
I wasn't sure what to do next. 'Are you hungry, then?' I asked, trying to think what I had in the house besides some as yet uncooked bacon which might appeal to a hungry dog.
The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery) Page 5
