A Knife in Darkness

by Lexie Conyngham

  ‘Is there a Mrs. Strachan in the company?’ he asked.

  ‘Here,’ said Mrs. Kynoch, waving to her right. Mrs. Strachan paled, and straightened up, not quite meeting Durris’ even gaze.

  ‘I believe – is it your husband? – is a merchant in the village?’

  ‘That’s right.’ There was a modest quaver in Mrs. Strachan’s voice, and she was hard to hear. Durris nodded encouragingly.

  ‘So Colonel Verney would have been – or his household would have been – one of his customers?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said again. ‘Most of the larger households in the village are.’ She sounded more apologetic than boastful, as if she regretted complicating the case. Hippolyta wondered at her lack of assurance.

  ‘Did your husband have any other connexion with the Colonel? A business matter, perhaps?’

  Mrs. Strachan shook her head slowly.

  ‘I don’t think so. My husband does not generally discuss business matters with me, but there is constantly business in the house and I think I would know.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. Miss Strong, may I put the same question to you? What connexions did your family have with Colonel Verney?’

  ‘I know my brother had meetings with him, but my brother is a very discreet man,’ said Miss Strong, her prim face indicating that she would co-operate as far as was proper, and precisely no further. ‘He would never say what the matter of the meetings were.’

  ‘No matter how much I asked,’ sighed Miss Ada, and received another of those sharp nudges from her sister.

  ‘Does anybody here have any idea why Colonel Verney might have been killed?’

  ‘There’s one person, I suppose,’ said Basilia sadly.

  ‘Who’s that, then, miss?’

  ‘Well, Forman. Forman was his servant before Waterloo: no one knew him better, I should think. He attended him constantly for years.’

  ‘Aye, and may have died defending him, and all,’ suggested Miss Ada soulfully.

  ‘No one alive, then,’ Durris specified exactly.

  They exchanged glances around the room. The others who had not contributed more than nods and sighs, the visitors who had attended the service on Sunday, the villagers who had not been so closely acquainted, shrugged politely, but no ideas were forthcoming. Durris adjusted his glasses, and made another note in his pocketbook.

  There was a scuffling noise and voices in the hallway, and Durris turned and opened the parlour door. The men had returned from the interment. Hippolyta looked anxiously until she saw Patrick, who came to join her on the sofa. Mr. Strachan went to his own wife and the minister and Mr. Strong hovered in the middle of the room, apparently not noticing Durris behind the door. Mr. Strong cleared his throat to still the sudden surge of conversation.

  ‘Miss Verney and, ah, Dr. Napier: may I see you in Colonel Verney’s study?’

  ‘Me?’ asked Patrick in surprise.

  ‘Yes, Dr. Napier, if you’d be so good,’ said Mr. Strong.

  ‘May I come?’ asked Hippolyta. ‘I think Miss Verney is in need of female company at present.’

  Mr. Strong regarded her sternly over the tops of his narrow glasses.

  ‘You may,’ he said, ‘but you must remember to treat anything you hear as confidential.’

  ‘Of course!’ Hippolyta was affronted.

  Durris cleared his throat.

  ‘If this is to do with the death of Colonel Verney, then I must also insist …’ he said gently. Mr. Strong turned to see him.

  ‘Durris! I had no idea you were here, man. Of course: of course you may attend. But no one else!’ he added sharply, as if he expected the whole crowd might sweep in after him. He led the way, authoritative though short, out of the parlour and unerringly across the hall to the study Hippolyta and Durris had seen earlier: he had obviously visited it on many occasions, and went to take his seat in front of Colonel Verney’s desk: there was no chair behind it, of course, as Colonel Verney would have remained in his wheeled chair there. Mr. Strong reached over the desk, took a fold of paper, and waited until they had all settled, Miss Verney and Hippolyta on an old wooden-backed long chair, Patrick against a bookcase, and Durris with his back to the door. Mr. Strong eyed them each in turn, then opened the fold of paper.

  ‘As you might expect, I am able now to tell you the contents of the late Colonel Verney’s last will and testament – his testament testamentar,’ he added, ‘which he asked me to draw up for him about four weeks ago.’

  ‘He changed his will? So recently?’ asked Basilia, sitting up. Hippolyta glanced round at her: she had turned a little pale.

  ‘He did, miss.’

  ‘He did not mention such a thing.’

  ‘No. I have the impression that he was not an expansive man, when it came to discussing his own affairs.’ Mr. Strong nodded a little, as if in approval. ‘The contents are for the most part quite simple, and not, one would think, particularly contentious or unusual. Of course there is a generous bequest to Thomas Forman. I have no record of a will made by Forman, and if there is one or if an inventory is raised to settle any debts he may have left, there may be some difficulties unless we can establish whether Colonel Verney or Forman died first: but we shall deal with that as matters arise. I don’t suppose you, Miss Verney, know anything about any relatives Forman might have had?’

  Basilia was taken aback.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember his mentioning any relatives at all.’

  ‘Mm-hm. Very well,’ said Mr. Strong. ‘We shall speak again. The bulk of the estate, which consists of some small properties in parts of London and Edinburgh, bought chiefly as investments, and some bonds, as well as the contents of this house not belonging to the landlord here, are now left to you, Miss Verney.’

  She nodded in acknowledgement, clearly unsurprised.

  ‘Your cousin, of course, is no longer mentioned: Colonel Verney removed all reference to him when he changed his will four weeks ago.’

  ‘You had a cousin?’ Hippolyta asked.

  ‘We heard that he had died. We were not close,’ Basilia said quickly.

  ‘Still: very sad,’ murmured Hippolyta.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Mr. Strong said pointedly, expecting their full attention, ‘there is one other major bequest which must be deducted from the estate before the remainder goes to you, Miss Verney. Colonel Verney was particularly grateful for the medical attention he had received since his arrival in Ballater, and for the companionship of the physician in question. He therefore, Dr. Napier, left you one thousand pounds.’

  ‘A thousand pounds!’ Hippolyta could not help exclaiming. Patrick was blushing.

  ‘He mentioned there was something, but that is more than generous,’ he muttered. Basilia was regarding him in a very curious manner. ‘Miss Verney, I trust you will find there is plenty in the rest of the estate: otherwise I shall of course make the sum over to you.’

  ‘There is plenty, as I understand it,’ Mr. Strong reassured him with a disapproving squint over his glasses. ‘Colonel Verney’s wishes were very clearly expressed, and generally one abides by the wishes of the deceased as expressed in their will.’

  ‘Of course,’ Basilia and Patrick chorused, then smiled uneasily at each other. Durris, half-forgotten by the door, was scribbling quickly in his pocketbook.

  ‘May I ask,’ he said, ‘how much was the bequest to Thomas Forman?’

  ‘Five hundred pounds,’ said Mr. Strong, consulting the document in front of him. Durris pursed his lips silently, and wrote it down.

  ‘And were there any other bequests?’

  ‘Another five hundred pounds to his church in Bath, and yet another five hundred to the Diocese of Aberdeen, with the wish that it should be used in future to help fund the building of an Episcopal chapel in Ballater.’

  ‘Very proper,’ Durris conceded, still writing. ‘And all these can easily be met out of the estate?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘And …
the cousin,’ Durris went on. ‘What were the previous arrangements?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr. Strong, ‘I have not the facts to hand, but as I remember them Dr. Napier was of course not mentioned – the will was about ten years old, and they would not have been acquainted – and apart from the legacies to Forman and the churches, the estate was divided equally between Miss Verney and her cousin.’

  ‘Do you have a copy?’

  ‘It is doubtless in here, unless he has destroyed it,’ said Mr. Strong, with a controlled gesture intended to take in the whole study.

  ‘Uncle always destroyed old papers,’ Basilia said quickly. ‘It would be pointless to search for it, I should think.’

  ‘May I have your permission to look, all the same, miss?’ Durris asked politely.

  ‘Of course: I shall happily help you.’ She turned a smile on the sheriff’s man, eyes wide. It was the first proper smile Hippolyta had seen her give since the bodies had been found, and she was delighted to see it.

  ‘But you will not need to start that today,’ Patrick put in. ‘You will be very much fatigued after the funeral and all the arrangements: this place can be locked up tonight and you will come home with us again to rest.’

  ‘If you say so, Dr. Napier,’ said Basilia immediately, dutiful as ever. ‘Would tomorrow be useful to you, Mr. Durris?’

  ‘That would be perfect, Miss Verney,’ Durris said blandly. ‘Is there a key to the study door?’

  ‘I have one,’ said Basilia, and handed Durris a bunch of keys from her reticule. ‘My uncle had another: I believe it’s on his bedside table now.’

  They rose and began to leave the room, as Basilia arranged another meeting with the lawyer to deal with her uncle’s lease on Dinnet House. Durris waited for them all to pass through the study door, then locked it, and handed the bunch of keys ceremonially back to Basilia. She replaced them in her reticule.

  Back in the parlour, the mourners were ready to leave and awaited only Miss Verney so that they could bid her goodbye. In a few minutes, the only people left were the Napiers, Miss Verney and Durris. A moment later, Tabitha joined them from the servants’ quarters, bringing coats with her.

  ‘We’re going back to the Napiers, Tabitha.’

  ‘Oh, thank goodness, miss!’ Tabitha exclaimed, then blushed at her outburst. ‘I never want to spend a night in this house again, miss!’

  ‘Nor do I.’ Basilia sighed. ‘We shall have to consider our future, Tabitha.’

  ‘Well, you are most welcome to stay with us for as long as you need us,’ said Hippolyta at once. She linked arms with Basilia and walked with her through the front door of Dinnet House.

  ‘There is one thing, though, Mrs. Napier, that I would ask, if it is not too much trouble,’ Basilia said in a low voice.

  ‘Of course: what is it?’

  ‘Is there any other room for Tabitha? It was good to have her on the couch with me for the last two nights, but now that we are settled – in truth, Mrs. Napier, she snores!’

  ‘Oh! Well, no doubt we can find another space for her. There is a corridor I only found the day before yesterday and if I find a habitable room along that, she is more than welcome to it.’

  ‘It is an odd little rambling house, is it not?’ said Basilia. ‘Charming, of course!’ she added. ‘I love it dearly. But it is not perhaps what you expected, coming from the rational buildings of Edinburgh, for all I have seen of them?’

  Hippolyta laughed.

  ‘It is not like my parents’ house, but I loved it from the first moment I saw it!’

  ‘Then I shall say no more! And if you can find space for Tabitha, I shall love it even better.’

  When they returned to the odd little rambling house on the green, Hippolyta excused herself and went to the servants’ quarters to see what could be done about a separate room for the snoring Tabitha. Mrs. Riach was for once busy preparing dinner, with Ishbel dutifully attending to the peeling and chopping and taking away of the scraps, which she did with considerable nimbleness. She stopped and curtseyed when she saw Hippolyta in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Mrs. Riach, what accommodation do we have here?’

  ‘Accommodation?’ queried Mrs. Riach. ‘It’s a house, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Hipplyta, drawing on what she hoped were her reserves of patience. ‘But how many rooms are there? In the servants’ quarters, that is.’

  ‘There’s enough to go round,’ replied Mrs. Riach, turning back to pounding spices in a mortar. There was some emphasis in the pounding that unnerved Hippolyta a little.

  ‘Would there be enough to go round to Tabitha, Miss Verney’s maid? Miss Verney has asked if she can be accommodated elsewhere in the house.’

  Mrs. Riach stopped pounding again and sniffed, considering.

  ‘There might be space enough,’ she conceded. ‘Send the woman through here and we’ll see what we can do.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Mrs. Riach. Thank you,’ said Hippolyta. Delighted that the negotiations had gone unexpectedly well, she made her way back towards the main hall but again, the doorway to the unknown side passage was open. She was sure it had not been when she had gone to the kitchen. She paused, listening. The passage seemed completely empty. Should she explore? she wondered, then took a grip on herself. She was mistress of this house, after all: Patrick had never said to her that there was anywhere she could not or should not go, so she could explore if she wanted to.

  But she discovered, when she ventured along the passage, that there was not much to explore. On the right hand wall, which must, she realised, back on to the dining room behind Patrick’s study, there was a line of built-in presses, all their doors firmly shut. It was one of these that she had seen close that day, and had then been unable to open. This time they all opened readily at her touch, or readily enough, for some creaked and one stuck a little. They contained, as was only reasonable, sheets, towels and blankets, all the linen a small household desired, along with, in one case, a jar of something scented. She sniffed: it was dried orange peel, rosemary, lavender, cloves and peppercorns, intended, she presumed, to deter moths. The presses were quite deep: it would have been easy enough for someone to stand in any of them between the shelves and the closed door, just like the one where Tabitha had been locked in Dinnet House. However, today there was no one in evidence. Could Tabitha have hidden herself that day in alarm at her approach? It seemed a strange thing to do.

  At the far end of the passage was a little window set quite high in the wall, and though it was open a little way it was clear it could open no further. If the mysterious person had been an intruder, they had not entered the house this way.

  The other side of the passage had two closed doors, which opened inwards, and were therefore not likely to be more presses. Hippolyta tried the first one, the one further from the main passage. It opened smoothly, to show her a very small bed chamber, scarcely large enough to contain the two narrow beds it held. A window with a thin curtain to it showed the garden beyond, at the back of the house. Neither bed was made up, but both had blankets folded in a square on the ticking mattress. A chamber pot was set neatly under each one, and an open press in the passage wall held four hooks for clothes. The final adornment was a jug and basin under the window, with a very small mirror behind it. It all looked perfectly suitable for Tabitha’s accommodation away from her mistress.

  Hippolyta closed the door again and moved on to the other door. It too opened easily, and the room within was very similar to the first one. There were the same two beds, the same jug and basin under the window, the same chamber pots, the same open press with its hooks. Here, however, both beds were made up, two cloaks were hanging in the press, and a servants’ box was at the end of each bed. Hippolyta stopped and thought. Two servants? Was Mrs. Riach sleeping down here? It had been Hippolyta’s belief that the housekeeper slept in the attic, and that Ishbel the maid slept in the kitchen, but that was before she knew of this accommodation. Perhaps Mrs. R
iach had moved downstairs because she did not wish to share the attic with Robert Wilson – surely he would be moving out soon! – but on the other hand, given the difficulties they had had in carrying Robert Wilson up the narrow stairs, surely it would have been more sensible to bring him through to this passage and put him in the empty room, and then, if there were any question of unsuitability, both Ishbel and Mrs. Riach could have slept in the attic. It would have been much more practical.

  She glanced at the cloaks. One was relatively new, the other very ragged and old, with many patches. She could not imagine Mrs. Riach wearing it, but at the same time she hoped it was not Ishbel’s. Surely she would have left home in a better garment than that? She would try, perhaps, to make discreet enquiries, and see if something better could be done for her.

  She closed the door gently, and glanced about the passage. There was nothing more on this side: back in the main passage was the door to the pantry, next to the kitchen, and between it and the main hallway was the foot of the tiny stair that led up to the other floors: the front stair in the main hallway only went to the first floor, and it had been, as she remembered, very awkward to push and pull Robert Wilson the rest of the way. She must ask Patrick when the coachman was going. And where was the rest of their luggage? It was as if, she thought fancifully, Robert Wilson was part of a clockwork weather vane, and the luggage cart could not arrive until he had left Ballater. In that case, she wished he would go with all speed.

  She sighed, and returned to her proper territory at the front of the house, to wait with their guest for dinner.

  Chapter Ten

  The dining room was possibly Hippolyta’s least favourite part of her new home. It was inserted behind the front room on the side of the house opposite the parlour – in front, she now knew, of that row of presses in the side passage - and had only convenience of situation in its favour, being halfway between the parlour and the kitchen. It was dark by nature, with a window only to the side of the house which looked out on the wall of the neighbouring house and little else. It would not matter in the winter, Hippolyta considered, when one dined after dark, but in the summer it was rather depressing, and required almost as many candles as a winter evening would. The inside walls were a hard white, which even the yellowing of age had not rendered warm. The table was long and narrow which should have been practical, but seemed instead to indicate a general meanness in the room, and its proportions made lighting the little fire difficult, if not dangerous. The carpet on the floor was mostly grey, and the only decoration on the walls was a couple of insipid landscapes of unknown origin, which Hippolyta’s painting fingers itched to replace, and three miserable religious prints that seemed unlikely ever to have inspired good behaviour – or good digestion - in anyone. Hippolyta wondered who had chosen them: they did not suit what she knew of Dr. Durward at all, nor indeed Patrick. She looked forward to finding some bright curtains when their furniture arrived to frame the gloomy view. Only some decent silverware, which Patrick had inherited from his mother, cheered the mood: that, and eventually Mrs. Riach’s asparagus soup. At the first mouthful, the Napiers cheered somewhat, and even Miss Verney took on a healthier colour.