'I'm done for the day, ma'am, I'll look in later on with some nice cabbage and carrot plants for you. A few onions too, whatever I can gather together.'
About to close the door, I called: 'Wait a moment.' And, searching for my purse: 'I must pay you.'
'No need, ma'am. I receive my wages from Mr Blackadder's office.' He looked round the kitchen and said: 'Is there anything else you would like, while I'm here?' And, pointing to the cold kitchen range: 'I could start the peat going for you, ma'am.'
'That's very obliging of you.'
He nodded eagerly. 'Comes in handy for cooking and even in summer the nights get chilly up here. Great things are peat fires,' he added enthusiastically. 'Much less bother and mess than coal fires that are so popular in Edinburgh houses. You can keep peat on embers for as long as you like, if you remember to stoke it every night and not let it go out.'
I laughed. 'I was brought up with peat fires when I lived with my grandmother in Orkney.'
He smiled. 'Then you'll know not to let it die.'
Gratefully I watched him. What a treasure the man was. Considering how long my fumbling attempts to get a blaze going would have taken, so many burnt fingers, so much frustration, especially since Gran would never trust Emily and me to touch her preciously guarded fire.
Foley was an expert and the warmth and comfort of a peat fire was next best to having a friend in the house.
On his way out he tried the latch on the back door several times. 'If you don't mind me mentioning it, ma'am, a bolt or two is what you need.' He shook his head. 'A young lady living in such a quiet place with no neighbours should have more secure doors.'
'I'd never given it much thought,' I said.
'Possibly not. But things have changed in Edinburgh since the old gentleman lived here. And not for the better. I blame the trains and that railway bridge. Makes us an easy target for all sorts of awful folk who wouldn't have had a mind to crossing ferries and the like. Mark my words, ma'am, Edinburgh was a safer place before that bridge was built.'
He was watching me earnestly, hoping I would agree, twisting his bonnet in his hands. 'There's some rough folk hereabouts these days and a body can never be sure what might happen next. The world's not what it was when I was a lad, ma'am,' he added with a sad shake of the head.
I didn't like to disillusion him that, even lacking such amenities as a bridge and with fewer buildings than there were now, crime had still been, and always would be, rife in a big, sprawling city.
Another pause, another twist of the bonnet. 'Take that poor lass down the Grange,' he said, his voice suddenly hoarse and strained. 'It was me as found her, lying there dead on her kitchen floor.' As he closed his eyes, moving his head to and fro as if to shake off that terrible image, I remembered the account of the gardener's grim discovery. 'I'll never forget that scene, that I won't. It'll never leave me, it'll haunt me till my dying day. Her just lying there, cold and dead. Awful - awful.'
His eyes were tear-filled and I said: 'How dreadful - I'm so sorry. Did you know her well?'
He shook his head. 'Just in the passing. She'd give me bread and cheese, with such a nice smile. Bonny curly hair,' he added and looked at me for a moment as if he were going to add some significant comment.
Then he changed his mind, shrugged and said: 'An orphan from the workhouse, but a good, kind lass.'
He was so overcome that a long pause followed while he dabbed at his eyes with the back of his hand and, embarrassed by this show of emotion, I tried to think of something appropriate to say. 'I hope they get the man who killed her.'
He nodded eagerly. 'All these enquiries that are getting them nowhere. They'd better look sharp or they'll be too late.'
This was becoming interesting. 'Have you some ideas about the man's identity?'
He laughed harshly. 'I have that. And you haven't far to search either.' He looked at me, waiting for my question. When I shook my head, he jabbed a finger in the direction of the circus, 'Down there, ma'am, sure as the nose on your face. One of them savages I saw hanging about the drive when I was doing the garden.'
'Did you tell the police?' The remark was unnecessary since I knew this from Constable Macmerry.
'I did that. But they take their time. I said arrest him straight away or he'll be gone scot-free to murder some other poor lass, but no, they have to wait - until their investigation is complete - that's what they told me. Until it's too late,' he added bitterly.
Poor Foley, I thought, what a terrible experience. I guessed that he had never seen anyone dead by an act of violence. I had - many and often - during my latter years in America. I tried to push it out of my mind but I could sympathise with Foley. The first time is the worst, sudden death swift and unbelievable.
Watching him stride off down the road, I returned to the bookcase and, replacing The Talisman on the shelf, I noticed a yellowed paper folded into the back cover, obviously placed there by some enthusiastic earlier reader. The print was faint and difficult to decipher. It was entitled 'Notes on the Deerhound'.
Can do a steady fast trot for nine miles at a time, overhauling a deer going uphill or on the flat, but if coursing large mountain hares it can also twist and turn as nimbly as any ferret.
From earliest times accompanying the hunting party, in the Dark Ages deer-hounds and wolfhounds were once one breed, used by the Celts on all types of large game. Considering themselves and their hounds as one race, not until the human groups separated into Highland Scots and Irish did the wolfhound become a symbol of quality and breeding for its impressive size by the Irish, while the deer-hound continued working for its living, combining strength, speed and agility.
Before the introduction of rifles the work of the deerhound was to kill for the table. In the old Gaelic ceremonial the 'tainchal', hounds and handlers would go up to the deer forest, stalk a suitable group and drive them down into a narrow glen where hunters waited with bows and knives. On more practical domestic occasions the hunter would stalk a solitary deer and slip his hound or hounds to course and kill it. The best hounds felled the deer by overhauling, hitting hard in the shoulder, then killing it with a neck bite as it dropped to the ground. Since less good animals merely haunched the beast, pulling it down by the hindquarters and worrying it, which spoiled the eating, hounds that made clean kills were highly prized.
On the inside back cover, in spidery writing brown with age, someone had written: 'Deerhounds symbolise everything Scottish, huge, granite-grey beasts with coats as rough and battered as Arthur's Seat itself, fierce and impressive, they are gentle and affectionate in character.'
Mention of deerhound and Arthur's Seat together sent a thrill of excitement through me. It suggested that whoever wrote those words was no stranger to a deerhound in this area.
Could it be that Sir Hedley Marsh himself, never known to have visitors, had entertained an acquaintance with the one I had seen? Common sense told me this was impossible, considering the tribe of cats who would be a dog's natural enemies. Besides, as the writing looked very old indeed and the lifespan of large dogs rarely exceeds twelve years, this passage could not possibly have related to the same creature I had so briefly encountered.
My discovery that I might be tangling with magic and legendary beasts, as well as brutal murder, made me feel very uneasy indeed.
Chapter Eleven
Foley's words had scared me. I wished people would stop reminding me, as if I needed reminding, that I was all alone in the Tower. I went into the garden and, shading my eyes against the sun, looked at the summit of the hill.
The sheep moved in small groups, cropping grass, indistinguishable as small boulders amid the bright blaze of gorse. Far up in the sky the large black shape of a bird hovered, hardly moving, watching its prey far below.
But in my little garden no bird sang, not a living creature moved, apart from a solitary blackbird digging for worms in the soil Foley had disturbed. All was silent, too, as if a pall had fallen across my new home. I felt very smal
l against the extinct volcano that was Arthur's Seat. Small and vulnerable, as if it might roar into active life at any moment and shake me off its side like some irritating insect.
The hours, days, weeks and months stretching ahead suddenly seemed intolerable. Many I knew would follow this exact pattern and I would spend them alone here, longing not for society as such, but just for someone or some creature to talk to, a few garden birds or a pet like a deerhound who had seemed intelligent enough to understand every word I said.
But he had deserted me. He would never come back, he had found his old home again and I should stop hoping and thinking nonsense. So I went inside, closed the door and found to my delight that Foley's peat fire had encouraged the kettle on the hob to boil. I decided to shake off my gloomy thoughts by making a pot of tea, and being useful and domestic.
Before embarking upon anything as ambitious as a clothes washing, I'd tackle my skirt hem, muddied in the bicycling. Afternoon slipped into evening and, going upstairs, I put on my old shoes. Olivia's, although more elegant, were beginning to pinch my broader feet.
As I did so, I thought again about that lost buckskin belt. Whatever my fears of Indians, their crafts were exquisite. Again I felt angry at abandoning all hope of recovering such a treasure. Sand-coloured, I pictured it blending with the bracken, unobserved.
Daylight was fading and as I climbed the steep hill it was to an appropriate accompaniment of Indian drumbeats, wisps of smoke rising from the tepees far below in the circus enclosure.
Surveying the distant prospect, my thoughts drifted back to Three Moons, the old Sioux woman who had been my friend. With no language between us, she had every reason to hate a woman of the white eyes who had massacred most of her family and clan, every reason to rejoice and let the fever take me. But Three Moons was what we call a white witch, the Indian equivalent was medicine man or shaman, and she had taken me into her tepee, kept me alive when rightly I should have died. But all her magic couldn't save my baby.
Without understanding a word I said she comforted me, held me in her arms when I recovered enough to cry for him and for Danny - when I pleaded with her to let me follow them into the darkness of death.
Weeping when at last we parted, she wrapped her long grey plaits around my wrists and, placing her hands on my head, I needed no words to know she prayed to the Great Spirit to protect me. And I had felt that blessing echoing right down to the soles of my feet.
As if I might, to this day, turn and see her watching me and while I looked for the track I had taken back from the circus after the deerhound had escaped and I had walked away from Cyril Howe, I knew that language was not always necessary for perfect companionship.
Sometimes Pappa and I could walk together for hours without saying a word and no two people were ever closer - he called it 'companionable silence'. What I would have given for some of that magic time now, for having him at my side - for some consoling words that would give me faith in a future.
Pappa would have found the path instantly with his built-in sense of direction and although I had set off with such high hopes, I was in danger of getting lost. This was the track I had followed before and, since it was too rough to be popular, I might still be fortunate enough to find the belt whose colour would blend with winter bracken, rendering it invisible to a casual observer.
It might even be lying somewhere close at hand. I could picture it beside a boulder, my joy at finding it again.
I soon realised I must give up, for I had covered a great deal of ground in my wearisome search. Slowly, carefully, I walked with my eyes down, examining each side of the track.
All in vain. There was no sign of the belt.
Far below, lights flickered round the circus where they were preparing for the night's performance. The faint roaring of the wild animals sounded eerie, sinister, a little frightening and, although they were safely in cages, they might suddenly appear before me.
Darkness was coming quickly tonight and I must make the most of what little light was left, to make my way cautiously downhill, a more hazardous procedure than climbing upwards.
Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me. Turning, I noticed for the first time two rough-looking men, staggering along the track a short distance away. Broad-brimmed hats, untidy, ragged clothes distinguished them as tinkers. I remembered Foley's words about circuses attracting undesirables. Into that bracket respectable Edinburgh citizens would add thieves, pickpockets and the dregs of humanity.
When I heard them snigger I knew they were drunk and, with the panic of growing certainty, that they were following me. I was their quarry. Heart sinking, I guessed they had probably spotted me from the higher ridge and had been watching, waiting while I searched, in case it was some valuable I had lost.
With a feeling of sickness and terror at the pit of my stomach, I knew my suspicions were correct. For when I stopped, they too stopped, laughing and pushing each other in a very unpleasant manner.
I had to keep a cool head but I quickened my pace, moving downwards as fast as I could.
'Here, you, miss. Wait for us-'
That was the last thing I intended to do. What they had in mind I had no doubt, and I took to my heels and ran through the bracken.
I could see Solomon's Tower in the distance. If only I could reach it, get inside and lock the door behind me and seize that pistol - if they dared follow.
But safety still lay a very long way off and, although I could outrun two drunken tinkers on the flat ground, once I ran into heavy bracken I would be in serious trouble.
I thought I was well ahead, but they were gaining on me. I turned to look round and that was my undoing. My foot tangled in roots and I shot forward on to my face in the bracken.
There was a cheer behind me and the next moment the two men were at me. One of them was holding me down. I could smell the stink of sweat and whisky on him. He was tearing at my skirts, splaying my legs apart, dragging at my underclothes.
I tried to claw at him, to scream. His cohort held my arms and put a filthy hand over my mouth. Laughing, he yelled at his companion to get busy, it was his turn next.
Suddenly the air exploded into a roar, the roar of an enraged animal. A huge grey shap launched itself against the man on top of me, snarling, dragging him off.
I heard a scream of pain as he rolled away, staggered to his feet. His comrade did not wait, both took to their heels, pursued through the dusk, yelling with terror, hunters turned hunted.
I sat up, shaking, adjusted my skirts and wept tears of fright and anger. After all I had lived through in the American West, here I was, about to be raped two hundred yards from my home in respectable Edinburgh!
And as I stumbled to my feet I saw movement in the dim light, a shape. Panic seized my throat - were they coming back?
Dear God, no!
The moving shape grew nearer, became unmistakably a deerhound. Swift and loping he came, sat on guard at my side. Even sitting, his head reached my shoulder and he turned, sniffed at my face with all the concern of a human in that majesterial gaze.
I sobbed. 'Bless you - you wonderful darling creature,' I said, putting my arms around his neck.
As he licked my face, I noticed blood on his muzzle. I shuddered, remembering that I had been reading how deerhounds killed with one neck bite. At that moment I felt no pity and that in the case of the would-be rapists it was richly deserved.
The deerhound raised a paw, stared at me, barked gently. 'Woof!' Was he asking if I was unhurt, telling me that I needn't be scared any longer because he was here to protect me?
My sigh of relief brought forth a triumphant 'Woof' this time.
I got to my feet and, together, with my hand on his shoulder, he led the way safely back through the bracken and down to Solomon's Tower.
Chapter Twelve
My rescuer followed me into the Tower. I realised he had never been in this, or possibly any, house before from his careful inspection of the kitchen and parlour. He devoted some t
ime head down, sniffing each corner and unseen cranny, staring at the ceiling, registering everything from under those thick, grey, stern eyebrows. At last satisfied, he flopped down at my side.
In the kitchen the kettle was on the hob, but what does one offer a deerhound who might be a magical beast? I remembered that mutton pie. 'Would you like this?'
He sniffed at it delicately, wagged his tail, opened his mouth and it vanished in one gulp. I patted his head. He tried licking my face by way of thanks.
I started to shiver again, realising this was delayed reaction. Even after suffering so greatly before my return to Scotland I was still capable of being scared witless. I sat down and began to cry.
'Woof,' said my deerhound and put a paw on my knee. I was amazed at the gesture, my scalp tingled, it was so like the reassuring hand of a human.
'Woof,' he said again, gently. I am here to look after you.
I patted his head and, seeing that I was composed again, he stretched out once more in front of the peat fire and yawned.
He looked very much at home and I asked: 'Would you like to stay here? 'The tail wagged and I patted his shoulder. 'If we are to be friends, you must have a name.' I thought for a moment.
Then I had it. The tide of a minor noble who acted as official of the king under the old feudal system. I thought of Macbeth's title. Thane of Cawdor, Thane of Glamis. And how appropriate for this magical deerhound visiting me from the court of King Arthur ... 'Thane - that's what I'll call you. How do you like that?'
He looked at me and I could have sworn he grinned in acknowledgement.
'Welcome, Thane.'
I was suddenly very tired, exhausted by my terrifying ordeal but safe home at last. I longed to sleep. And I knew I could go off to bed and leave my new friend to guard the Tower and me.
Out of courtesy, as he might be nervous about being locked indoors, I left the latch off the back door. I reckoned he was quite capable of using his nose to open it.
The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery) Page 8
