‘I see.’ Hippolyta was sure she could hear the tiniest scratch of a pencil on paper. ‘So if something was wrong with the trust, would you be likely to know?’ Now she could hear instead Durris straining not to accuse the minister of downright stupid neglect.
‘Something wrong? But what could be wrong? It’s only the four of us, and Mr. Strachan’s awful handy with the money. You can tell that by looking at him: he’s gey prosperous, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Oh, yes, a clever businessman,’ Durris agreed wryly. He was probably wondering, Hippolyta thought, how clever Strachan was to be so prosperous. Had Strachan not wanted Colonel Verney amongst the trustees in case he spotted Strachan’s fiddling with the money? She hoped Durris remembered what she had told him about Strachan’s threatening behaviour to Verney. ‘I believe it was yourself asked Colonel Verney to join the trustees? Why was that?’
‘Och, aye, well, it was almost an act of politeness, really. The man was part of the community now, and he seemed a decent sort of gentleman with some experience of the world. Mr. Strong thought we ought to have a couple more trustees in case anything happened to any of us. The only name we could come up with, though, was Colonel Verney. Dr. Durward thought Dr. Napier was a wee bit young yet, and we all agreed. Though now, maybe, we should ask him.’
Hippolyta’s ears felt as if they were stretching to the length of hares’, but she could hear no reaction from Durris. Surely if he thought Patrick was guilty, he would say something to the minister about not allowing him to be a trustee, but there was no sound at all. Then she heard a creak, as he changed his position on the pew.
‘You know your parishes as well as anyone,’ Durris began, thoughtfully. ‘Who would you say might have killed the Colonel and his man?’
‘Aye, now, there’s a question,’ Mr. Douglas conceded. ‘Mrs. Douglas, now, she reckons it’s an agent of Bonaparte’s, come back to take revenge for Waterloo – for you ken, the Colonel talked a good deal of Waterloo, as old soldiers will do. I myself think that’s unlikely,’ he went on, ‘but I do wonder if he was robbed. It’s a grand big house up there, and he might have had more money than he was letting on.’
‘I don’t believe he was robbed,’ said Durris mildly. ‘There seems to be nothing missing from the house.’
‘Of course there’s talk in the village about the house being unchancy,’ said the minister with caution: it was not perhaps a fit subject for a man of the cloth. ‘What with there having been a murder there before – but that was before my time, too.’
‘And how long have you been here, Mr. Douglas?’
‘Five years,’ said Douglas, as if it were half a lifetime. ‘Five years.’
Hippolyta poked randomly with the brush, frowning. She had forgotten the mention of an earlier murder: could it have something to do with the present murders? Presumably it was some incident during the Jacobite times, perhaps related to the cache of silver coins in the boot. She grinned, remembering Colonel Verney and his tales of Dinnet House’s history. It had been a happy evening.
‘Aye, it’s easy seen you’ve no done that too many times afore, quine,’ came a voice from above her, and she dropped the brush with a clatter. On the step next to her was an old woman, dressed in dusty black and apparently constructed of wire and leather. ‘Oh, it’s the young doctor’s wife, excuse me!’ It was Martha, who had helped to clean Dinnet House.
‘Ah, yes, sorry, I’ve just remembered I have to …’ Hippolyta scrambled to her feet in a heap of petticoats, and set the brush and the cloth neatly back on the pew. ‘Good day to you,’ she added, and scurried back down the narrow staircase, nipping out of the church before Durris might appear after her. In her ears she could still hear Martha’s voice: ‘It’s the young doctor’s wife!’, and for the life of her she could not judge whether it had been loud enough for Durris to hear. If it had, she had no wish to meet him.
She let herself back into the house, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she looked about. Basilia and Patrick were in the parlour, the door half-closed, and she was playing her violin, her back to the hall door and apparently oblivious to Hippolyta. Further along the hall, the dining room door was open, and Ishbel was polishing the sideboard with some concentration – and a good deal more skill than Hippolyta had just been demonstrating in the church gallery, despite the kitten which was trying to catch the end of her cloth. Hippolyta slipped through the door to the servants’ quarters and into the kitchen, hot from the cooking fire. The back door was open to let in some heavily damp air, in the hope of cooling down the room: it was not working, and as another of those heavy showers began that moment it felt as though the door had been slammed shut again. Mrs. Riach was in the pantry, her back to Hippolyta, and turned just as she approached.
‘Oh, Mrs. Napier, the ham’s gone! It’s those cursed cats, ma’am!’
‘All that lovely ham? Oh, no!’
‘Aye, all of it. I had it on an ashet here in the meat safe.’ She showed the wire-fronted cupboard to Hippolyta: the door had a sturdy wooden latch. It was closed tight. Inside was a plate of cold beef: the rest of the cupboard was empty.
‘The safe was latched?’ Hippolyta asked, trying not to sound too suspicious.
‘Aye, it was. It must have been … maybe it wasn’t?’
‘But it’s latched now,’ Hippolyta pointed out.
‘Aye …’ Mrs. Riach was biting her lips ferociously.
‘While I could see a clever cat working out how to push that open,’ Hippolyta said with clarity, ‘I’m not entirely sure, Mrs. Riach, why the cat would latch the door closed again afterwards. To stop the beef from escaping?’
‘Maybe it fell shut,’ said Mrs. Riach, a little helplessly.
‘And,’ said Hippolyta, almost reluctant to push on, ‘two further questions, Mrs. Riach. If the cats took the ham, why did they not take the beef? And if they took the ham, what have they done with the ashet? Or have they taken cutlery and napkins, too?’
She gave Mrs. Riach a moment to digest the image, while she tried quite hard to stop herself acting the part of her mother. Then she felt the need to give the matter a final poke.
‘Perhaps you would go to Mr. Strachan’s shop and buy some more ham for the dinner just now? Thank you so much, Mrs. Riach.’
She turned and left the kitchen, and as she did so she heard a heavy flump behind her, as if Mrs. Riach’s legs had given way and she had sunk heavily on to her chair. She was on her way back to the hall when something pale caught her eye, something in the corridor she had found. She stopped, and looked more closely. On the floor, outside the door to the first little bedchamber, was a blue and white china ashet, just big enough to hold the ham she had bought. Needless to say, it was empty. In a flash, she was along the corridor and trying the bedchamber door. It was firmly locked.
Chapter Fifteen
But there were more urgent things to think about before the guests arrived for dinner: she had to change, for one, for which she would require Ishbel’s help, and before that she had to make sure that the Craigendarroch painting, which was just about dry, was arranged in its temporary frame and hung on the wall in the parlour, where it would appear to its best advantage. She had already removed one of her old Edinburgh scenes to leave room: in fact, she thought, she would take the ones to each side down as well, so as to leave an expanse of bare wall to frame her new work. She fetched it from the upstairs landing, where she had managed to find room to leave it safe, and pattered back downstairs and into the parlour. Basilia and Patrick were still playing – or had been, though now they seemed rather to be talking. They jumped as Hippolyta bustled in. Hippolyta noticed that his flute was out on the table, too.
‘My dear, could you possibly put the flute away just now?’ she asked, ‘for the guests will not be long in arriving, and I’m trying to have this room ready to receive them.’
‘They will not mind a flute on the table, surely?’ Patrick asked.
‘Maybe not in itself,’ said Hippolyta, �
��but it seems to signal that we are not quite prepared for them.’
‘Surely not!’ Miss Verney put in. ‘A musical instrument is an adornment for any room, is it not? And seems to me to indicate a readiness to entertain one’s guests.’
‘Oh!’ Hippolyta turned from her pictures to look at them. ‘Oh, very well, then. Now, how does this look?’
‘Oh, there’s one of the kittens,’ said Patrick, jumping up from the piano stool. The kitten was pawing plaintively at the outside of the parlour window. He left the room, and they could hear him going to open the front door to let it in. There was a shout, and a scramble from the hall.
‘What on earth?’ Miss Verney set her violin down comfortably close to Patrick’s flute, and ran out into the hall after Hippolyta. Patrick was standing at the open door, a kitten in his arms.
‘I opened the door to this one, and one of the others ran in past it. I think it has a blackbird,’ he explained.
‘Where has it gone? Alive or dead?’ Hippolyta demanded.
‘I have no idea. I think it went into the dining room.’
‘I cannot abide birds in the house!’ squeaked Miss Verney.
‘Then why don’t you go and get changed, Miss Verney, and we’ll deal with this?’ said Hippolyta breathlessly. She took one step towards the dining room, but at that moment there came a cry from Ishbel, still polishing, and the cat shot back out again and sprinted across the hall, dropping the occasional black feather in its path. Miss Verney instantly made a dash for the stairs. The cat, a look of determination on its little white face, made for the parlour. Hippolyta raced in after it.
‘I’ll stay here to chase it out the front door,’ said Patrick, ‘if it’s still chaseable.’
‘Right,’ said Hippolyta, her eyes on the cat. Franklin, she reckoned, the second best hunter in the litter. They would have no birds left in the three parishes at this rate. Franklin had retreated under the parlour table and stopped to examine his prize, which was flapping its wings frantically. ‘It’s still alive, anyway. I’ll see if I can get it away from him.’
She knelt beside the table, and gradually eased away the nearest chair. The cat glared at her, grabbed the bird more securely with his teeth, and backed towards the corner. Hippolyta, impeded by her skirts, slithered forward, hoping that she could at least alarm the cat into running for the parlour door where Patrick could shoo him back outside. The cat, however, elected to run the other way, weaving between the other chair legs and making a dive for another corner of the room, behind a sofa.
‘Let it go, Franklin!’ she called, and grabbing her skirts in a bundle she jumped up and perched to peer over the back of the sofa. Franklin glowered up at her but she was able to reach down with one hand and grab the scruff of his neck. The cat let out a growl of complaint which must have loosened his hold on the bird. The blackbird, shedding feathers, gave a squawk and darted upwards, battered briefly against Hippolyta’s hair, and wobbled up to perch on the curtain rail. There it settled, head deep down into its shoulders, feathers unnaturally spiky, and glared down at cat and human. ‘Oh, bother!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Patrick poked his head in through the door. Hippolyta was brushing fluffy feathers out of her hair.
‘It’s up there.’ She pointed. At least she had not already done her hair for dinner, she thought.
‘Hm. What would you like to do about that?’ Patrick asked. She expected him to start helping her with brushing herself off in the appreciative manner of a fond husband, but for some reason he found watching the bird more interesting.
‘I have to go and change – so do you. Could we …’ She pondered for a moment, watching Franklin settle down on the sofa to wash himself after his partial triumph. ‘Could we just leave it there? It’s not doing any harm: it probably needs time to sort itself out, comb its feathers, that kind of thing.’
‘Recover from the shock,’ Patrick agreed. ‘Do you think it will stay peacefully up there? Should we open the window?’
‘It is mild, certainly. I had intended to close the shutters and light the lamps, but perhaps we could take advantage of the evening air, if the fire is lit.’
‘And perhaps, too,’ added Patrick thoughtfully, ‘we should gently deter anyone from standing or sitting directly beneath it?’
‘Good idea!’ said Hippolyta, and giggled. ‘But close the front door, my dear, in case little Franklin decides he needs to replace it with a new prize!’
She opened the window to a blackbird-sized gap, checked to see that her painting was straight and set off to the best of advantages, picked up the Edinburgh pictures, glanced around to see that all else was in order – despite the musical instruments on the table – summoned Ishbel from the dining room, and went upstairs with her husband to change.
Hippolyta gazed down her first dinner table with moderate satisfaction. The numbers were not even, of course, thanks to the two Misses Strong, Miss Verney and Mrs. Kynoch, squawking away at Patrick in her usual disastrous garments. By contrast, Mrs. Strachan on his other side looked tense, but beautiful. Dr. Durward and Miss Ada kept conversation lively in the middle of the long table, even making little Mrs. Douglas smile nervously, pale in an old-fashioned gown of cloudy muslin, high-waisted as if she had had it as her dinner gown all the days of her marriage. Mr. Douglas sat on one side of Hippolyta herself, and Mr. Strong on the other, a solemn enough pair but both out determined enough to enjoy themselves. Basilia sat between Mr. Strong and Dr. Durward, who were both kindly to her in their own ways, and Miss Ada was the one Hippolyta had elected to sit between the minister and Mr. Strachan as she was more than capable of keeping them separate. Low, shallow plates of white soup had just been cleared away, with the tureens, and Mrs. Riach had proudly arranged the dishes for the main course around the table, helped by Ishbel with an expression of deep concentration. Amongst them, Hippolyta noted with satisfaction, were four ashets of Mr. Strachan’s finest York ham, and Patrick lighted upon his nearest one as soon as his guests would let him. She gave herself a little nod. Mrs. Strachan, she saw, put very little food on her own plate, and Mr. Strachan who was seated in the middle of the table glanced in that direction more than once, though Hippolyta could not quite see his face. She turned to offer some boiled onions to Dr. Durward, and found that he, too, was gazing down the table at Mrs. Strachan: Hippolyta waited a long moment before he realised that she had spoken to him. Was he worried again about those patent medicines, she wondered? Mrs. Strachan certainly looked rather pale, and perhaps, now she herself came to study her elegant guest, the dark circles under her eyes were rather more pronounced than they had been on the day of the funeral.
The minister leaned past Hippolyta with a polite nod and said to Dr. Durward:
‘I had that sheriff’s officer, Dod Durris, in the kirk today asking about the Burns Mortification. Has he been to see you, Doctor?’
‘My maid said he called, but I wasn’t in,’ said Dr. Durward.
‘What about yourself, Mr. Strong?’
‘Aye,’ said the lawyer after a pause. ‘He’s been.’
‘And was he asking you about the Burns Mortification? I tellt him I kenned very little about the whole business, to be honest with you,’ said the minister, looking anxious.
‘Well, that’s the truth.’ Mr. Strachan had perhaps intended to mutter these words only to himself, but everyone stopped and looked at him. ‘Well, it is,’ he insisted. ‘Mr. Douglas has no head for business, he’d be the first to admit it.’
‘I would,’ agreed the minister sadly.
‘So why he took it upon himself to invite another trustee on to the trust I have no idea,’ Strachan went on.
‘We needed another man,’ said Mr. Strong, his lips pursed.
‘And the Colonel was a very sensible choice,’ said Dr. Durward reasonably. ‘You saw the business-like way he took all the papers off for examination. I’d have thought you would have approved of that, Strachan.’
‘Aye, but –’
&n
bsp; ‘May I ask, Mr. Strachan,’ Hippolyta began bravely, and the men fell silent. ‘May I ask why you thought Colonel Verney would not be a good trustee? I know nothing of these things, of course, but I did wonder what made a good trustee, in your view, and what a bad one?’
Strachan stared at her for a long moment, his dark eyes cold. He clearly had a manner for the shop, she thought, trying to hold his gaze steadily, and a manner – or lack of manners – for his social life.
‘He had no notion of the business. Not of the trust, nor of the scholars, nor of the school, nor even of Scots law,’ he said at last. ‘I told him so myself,’ he added, still holding her gaze, and she wondered if he guessed that she had heard him threaten Colonel Verney.
‘Dod Durris mentioned irregularities,’ said the minister helplessly, as if he knew he had lit a fuse.
‘Irregularities?’ said Dr. Durward and Strachan at once, though in rather different tones. Durward looked baffled. Strachan looked as if he were about to explode.
‘He has no right,’ Strachan added, almost spitting.
‘He has every right,’ said Strong precisely.
‘If he thinks maybe somebody made a mistake, and maybe Colonel Verney found it out …’ said the minister, trying to placate his fellow trustees.
‘A mistake?’ Strachan demanded. ‘And if the Colonel found it out, then what? Whoever made the mistake murdered him?’
‘My dear fellow,’ began Dr. Durward, and Miss Strong grabbed Mr. Strachan’s arm in firm fingers.
‘Remember where you are, Mr. Strachan,’ she said firmly, with the least nod at Basilia. Strachan flung up his hands to flick her off, and upended his beef, rich in gravy, over the table cloth. Hippolyta stifled a little gasp of dismay, and looked about for Mrs. Riach. The housekeeper was standing by the sideboard with a little grin of delight on her face. Hippolyta had to nudge her to call her to her senses.
A Knife in Darkness Page 19
