A Knife in Darkness

by Lexie Conyngham

  ‘I don’t want to be left to take that animal back, Miss: it was only ever Mr. Forman that could handle it,’ Hippolyta overheard Tabitha muttering to her mistress. She sighed: no doubt she could walk the pony back herself. It seemed that living in the countryside required a good deal of walking unbiddable animals here and there, while looking like a travelling circus.

  The travelling circus image was clearly crossing Mrs. Riach’s mind, too, when she opened the door to them.

  ‘Is that party all coming in here?’ she demanded rather loudly, eyes wide.

  ‘Miss Verney and her maid have come to stay. There has been an attack at Dinnet House and both Colonel Verney and Forman are dead,’ said Hippolyta succinctly.

  ‘And I suppose they’ll want dinner?’

  ‘I imagine they will!’ said Hippolyta. ‘How good of you to think of it, Mrs. Riach. I know you’ll do your best to satisfy everyone.’

  Mrs. Riach snorted very slightly, then saw Tabitha hand Patrick the cat basket.

  ‘Fit’s in thon thing?’

  ‘Snowball’s mother and the rest of her kittens.’

  ‘Are they coming in and all?’

  ‘They are, yes.’ Hippolyta was firm.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Five kittens, I believe. Not counting Snowball.’

  Mrs. Riach breathed out heavily, staring ahead.

  ‘Ye dinna need to wyte me if the hale household gangs wud. Ah’m near skaikent wi’ yon erst cat already and his eesage, the things he brings intil the kitchen has to be seen.’ With further incomprehensible mutterings, she turned and stalked into the depths of the house, her limp pronouncedly worse than Hippolyta remembered it being in the morning. Struck by guilt at not at least having warned her housekeeper, Hippolyta took the cat basket herself from Patrick and let the cats out in the parlour, with the door shut. She returned carefully to the front garden to find Patrick handing Basilia out of the pony cart, and her favouring him with a sad smile.

  ‘Come, Miss Verney,’ she said at the gate, ‘welcome. I could wish the circumstances happier.’

  ‘Hallo! Moving in?’

  Dr. Durward’s cheerful voice came along the path in front of him. Hippolyta was about to leave Patrick to explain, but Basilia leaned heavily on his arm and with a glance at Hippolyta, Patrick led their unexpected guest indoors. Hippolyta, going to the pony, could hear him calling Mrs. Riach to bring tea. She hoped Mrs. Riach would oblige.

  ‘There has been a terrible incident, Dr. Durward,’ she explained as he stopped by the gate. ‘Colonel Verney and his manservant have been murdered.’

  ‘Murdered!’ Dr. Durward’s fine eyebrows shot skywards, and his jaw dropped. ‘How on earth?’

  ‘It is not yet known,’ said Hippolyta solemnly. ‘It happened late last night. We have yet to find out what the night watchman might have seen. I don’t suppose you yourself were out last night, Dr. Durward?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Dear me, Mrs. Napier! I hope you are not suggesting I might have a penchant for murder!’

  She laughed a little.

  ‘Not at all, of course! I wondered only if you might have seen anything.’

  ‘Well, I was out last night, as it happens, but quite the other end of the village – in fact, I was up at Pannanich Lodge, playing cards with that Mr. Brown I introduced to you. To be frank, Mrs. Napier, his problems are less physical and more a question of melancholia. Keeping him company and keeping him cheerful are the best medicine I can provide.’

  ‘And you saw nothing on your way home? I do feel so sorry for poor Miss Verney: to lose her uncle so tragically is one thing, but not to know who did it or why, or if they might strike again, is quite another.’

  ‘I see your reasoning, Mrs. Napier. But I still cannot help you: I went to the Lodge for dinner yesterday, then I regret to say we played cards all night. I came back over the bridge in the dawn. There! You have wrenched a confession of me of my dissolute life! But I should not be frivolous, I know. The matter is far too serious. A murder in Ballater!’

  ‘I’m afraid so. And now you must excuse me, Dr. Durward, for I should attend to my guest.’

  ‘Of course. Be good enough to give her my condolences, if you would: and if I can be of any assistance at all she is only to let me know.’

  He raised his hat and bowed, and carried on up the path. Hippolyta turned, and found that two kittens had already escaped from the parlour and meandered into the front garden, sniffing their new environment. She scooped them up and carried them back into the house, kicking the door quickly shut behind her. The parlour door was shut, she was pleased to see, and she managed to open it with one-handed caution and deter any further escapes with her skirts. Basilia was reclining on the chaise longue while Patrick sat beside her attentively.

  ‘Dr. Napier has been so kind, dear Mrs. Napier!’ said Basilia.

  ‘Is Mrs. Riach bringing tea?’ Hippolyta asked.

  ‘I believe so,’ said Patrick. ‘I did ask her.’

  The door was thrust aside as if it had caused some offence, and one of the kittens did its best to trip Mrs. Riach as she entered with the tea tray. Hippolyta dragged it out of the way, and closed the door gently behind the housekeeper. Mrs. Riach distributed the tea things forcefully on to the parlour table, curtseyed like a blow, and marched out again, this time almost staggering. Again, Hippolyta eased the door closed behind her.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Patrick thoughtfully, ‘she has a terrible limp. I must talk to her about it.’

  ‘Unfortunately the pain makes her a little, ah, distracted,’ said Hippolyta, who wondered if that was in fact so. She had never suffered much in the way of pain herself, but she knew that when her oldest sister had a headache, everyone suffered.

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Napier! You have left your painting things at Dinnet House!’ Basilia exclaimed suddenly.

  ‘No,’ said Patrick proudly. ‘I noticed them in the hall and brought them out to the cart. They should be here.’

  ‘Thank you, my dearest!’ cried Hippolyta. ‘I must fetch them in.’

  She hurried back to the hall, where her box and stool had been abandoned by Mrs. Riach by the hall table. She brought them back into the parlour.

  ‘Mrs. Strachan,’ she said with some pride, ‘has asked me to make a painting of – is it Craigendarroch? The peak beside the Pass of Tullich.’

  ‘Oh, yes, a popular view,’ Basilia agreed. ‘Though there are many around.’

  ‘I so look forward to starting again here.’ It seemed to be a subject that could distract Miss Verney a little from her tragedy. Hippolyta, who could talk effortlessly about art, found herself wondering what Basilia would do now: presumably it depended on how Colonel Verney had left her. She was of marriageable age. Did she have any other relatives to go to?

  Patrick finished his tea, removed a cat from his lap, and rose.

  ‘I fear I should return to my patients, if you ladies will excuse me,’ he said.

  ‘And I should take the pony cart back,’ said Hippolyta, ‘for I don’t know that anyone else wants to!’

  ‘Then I shall walk with you, my dear,’ said Patrick. ‘I don’t want you going up there alone.’

  ‘I think I shall take a little nap here, if that is all right,’ said Miss Verney. ‘I cannot say when I have felt so exhausted. Thank you both so much for taking such care of me!’

  The pony was waiting outside, availing itself of the happy opportunity to take occasional nips at passing lads. Hippolyta gathered up the reins and began to lead the cart in a circuit of the green, to avoid having to turn in the narrow path. Then a thought struck her.

  ‘There will be no one at Dinnet House to see to the pony. Should we take it down to the inn, instead?’

  The pony, listening, was evidently unimpressed, and did its best to buck in the shafts. The cart tipped backwards, and the pony twisted hard, trying to shake it off. Hippolyta took a closer grip on the reins and hushed the pony, stroking its nose firmly. The pony calmed, the cart s
topped rocking, and they set off side by side with the pony now on its best behaviour.

  ‘I had no idea how useful you would be about the place, my dear!’ said Patrick. ‘All the local inhabitants will be coming to you about their difficult animals!’

  Hippolyta smiled in pleasure, but she had other concerns.

  ‘Do you know where the night watchman lives?’

  ‘I believe he’s in one of the cottages just down from the church. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘It seems to me we need to ask him if he saw anything last night, any strangers about the town around dinner time. Do you think,’ she added, swallowing a little, ‘that a person who cut two throats would be very bloody?’

  ‘It depends,’ said Patrick automatically. ‘But my dear, you are not going to ask questions of the night watchman! That is the constable’s job, and no business of yours!’

  ‘But Patrick, you saw the constable! He can barely walk, let alone chase a murderer! And he would have poor Forman the murderer, when Miss Verney says he would never have done such a thing. And you said you could see no blade with Forman, so how could he have killed himself and then hidden the blade? Surely he would have died very quickly?’

  ‘Oh, very quickly, yes. But I’m sure, if we find no blade under Forman’s body, there will be no question even in Morrisson’s mind that there is a murderer still to find. And he will talk to the night watchman. It is no business of yours.’

  Hippolyta was silent. She had not noticed before that Patrick was really quite like her dear father. Papa put his foot down on things, too, sometimes. She tucked that thought into a drawer at the back of her mind, and changed the subject.

  ‘Do you think that Mrs. Riach’s leg is causing her a great deal of pain?’

  ‘It looks like it,’ said Patrick. ‘I must indeed ask her if she has had an accident to it, or if it is perhaps rheumatic.’

  ‘Patrick,’ Hippolyta went on, following a related theme, ‘do you like ham?’

  ‘Ham? Yes, of course: I am very fond of it, if it is not too fatty.’

  That must be it, Hippolyta thought: perhaps Mrs. Riach had presented Patrick with a fatty piece of ham, and he had expressed dissatisfaction that she had misinterpreted. Well, that would help: ham, beef, mutton, and their variants would no doubt see them through the weeks, with perhaps an occasional chicken if she could keep the hens she wanted. Peas were fresh at the moment, and the fruit was well in: Mrs. Riach had made strawberry jam before they had arrived, and was planning gooseberry jam this week, and the raspberry canes looked, even to her untutored eye, very promising. It did seem that Mrs. Riach was a reasonable housekeeper: Hippolyta had to do her best to make her life a happier one so that she would stay. Perhaps another maid to help her, along with Ishbel? Hippolyta had hopes that Ishbel might be a little more of an upstairs maid, so a kitchen maid might be useful. Oh, if only her mother had had a little more time to teach her housekeeping! Her sisters had been well taught and their houses appeared to run like clockwork: Hippolyta, coming along last and late, had missed the lessons while her mother busied herself with prison visiting and soup kitchens. She sighed: she did not want to let Patrick down.

  ‘The stables are up this end,’ Patrick was saying, guiding her so that she would guide the pony. The stable yard was fresh and swept, and a familiar equine nose jerked out over a stall door to watch them as they arrived.

  ‘Isn’t that one of the horses from Robert Wilson’s carriage?’ Hippolyta asked. The stable lad had hurried forward to greet them.

  ‘That’s right, ma’am,’ he said. ‘They’ve been here a few days the now.’

  ‘I know – but I thought he was going today?’ Hippolyta turned to Patrick.

  ‘Ah, yes. But he was a little worse this morning, my dear. He had another dizzy spell. I thought it best to let him rest for another day, anyway.’

  ‘Oh! I did not know.’ That could be another reason for poor Mrs. Riach’s mood: the two attics contained her and Wilson, the two main bedrooms contained herself and Patrick in one and now Miss Verney and Tabitha in the other, while Ishbel bedded down, she believed, in a press in the kitchen. It was a full house, particularly if you added the cats. It was perhaps best that their own luggage cart had not yet arrived: where would they fit everything?

  They saw the pony and little cart settled in the stables, and Patrick tipped the stable lad quite generously while warning him about the pony’s habits. With a squeeze of the hand, he left her outside the inn and headed for the bridge and Pannanich, while she walked thoughtfully back to the centre of the village. There was the church, stern admonishment on the green, reminding her to obey her husband – but it was not her church, she reminded herself obliquely. The cottages below the church were small and neat, and only one of them had its shutters closed, as if, perhaps, someone were still asleep within. She took a breath, straightened her shoulders, and knocked on the door.

  After a moment a head in a night cap appeared round the door, bleary-eyed.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Hippolyta began, ‘but is this the home of the night watchman?’

  ‘Oh! Aye,’ said the woman, rubbing her eyes. ‘That’s my Rab. He’s sleeping. Fa’s wanting him?’

  ‘There’s been a murder in the night, and I want to know if he saw anything odd.’

  ‘He’s no being blamed for a’thing?’ asked the woman suspiciously, too sleepy to be shocked at the news.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Hippolyta in surprise: she had not considered the possibility. Now, of course, she wondered if the night watchman were not perhaps the best placed person to commit night time crimes. However, the woman had disappeared, and in a moment the door swung open. Stooping, Hippolyta entered the cottage, and immediately stopped, unable to see anything in the darkness until her eyes had adjusted from the sunshine outside. The woman shoved open a shutter, which also let in a little fresh air: the one room was heavy with the stale odour of night time bodies. A box bed stood open, and a thin man sat on the edge of it with a bewildered look on his face, while his wife hastened to wrap a blanket around his bare legs. Hippolyta looked away until he was presentable, hoping the darkness would hide her blush.

  ‘Mr. – oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,’ she began.

  ‘Ah, Lang, ma’am.’

  ‘Mr. Lang, very good. I’m Mrs. Napier, the doctor’s wife.’

  ‘Aye, I ken fine, ma’am,’ said Lang, slowly coming to himself.

  ‘I’m sorry to waken you, Mr. Lang, but there’s been a murder – two murders, in fact. Colonel Verney at Dinnet House and his manservant Forman were murdered before they went to bed last night, and Miss Verney’s maid was locked in a cupboard.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ To do him justice, even just wakened Lang looked much more alert than the constable Morrisson. Hippolyta drew courage.

  ‘Were you on your rounds by then?’ she asked.

  ‘What time would that have been?’

  ‘Around eleven last night, apparently, or a little earlier.’ Basilia had confirmed that that was roughly when her maid had gone downstairs.

  ‘Aye, I would have been, true enough.’

  ‘And do your rounds take you out as far as Dinnet House?’

  ‘Times they do,’ Lang nodded slowly, thinking. ‘I would have been past the gate last night the back of one, mebbe? I saw nothing strange or startling: shone my lantern in the gateway but there was nothing there.’

  Well, by one presumably Colonel Verney and Forman were already dead, Hippolyta thought.

  ‘What about earlier in the evening – where would you have been nearer eleven?’

  ‘Eleven … I’m finishing going about the village streets and heading a wee bitty up the hill. I’d have been nearing Mr. Strachan’s new house, I suppose. Eleven … Aye, that’d be about right.’

  ‘Was the town quiet by then?’ Hippolyta asked. ‘With all the visitors it feels almost like the city during the day.’

  ‘No, it’s quiet enough at night,’ said Lang. �
�Whiles there’ll be some gentleman drunk from the inn, or a young couple forgetting the time. Whiles the visitors here for their health will be taking the odd walk about to help them sleep. There was a fellow last night nearby the Strachans’ house – all their windows were dark, so he must have been out on his ain for a walk. I’ve seen him up at Pannanich Hotel afore now, but there he was, out to stretch his legs round the village.’

  ‘Who was that, then? Do you know his name?’ Hippolyta asked.

  ‘I canna call to mind – oh, aye, I can! It’s a Mr. Brookes, that’s who it was. I dinna think he saw me, for the light wasna good, and he’s likely no so used to it as I am.’

  Mr. Brookes – surely that was Patrick’s patient, that she had met only a few days ago, thin and frail. Could he really have walked all the way down to the village? And if so, why?

  Chapter Seven

  Pondering this mystery, Hippolyta left the cottage and went back to pass the church and cross the green. She had not walked more than a few steps when two busy voices hailed her.