‘What about the Tranters?’ Hippolyta asked. ‘I take it Mr. Strachan visited there often?’
‘Aye, he and Dr. Durward and Mr. Burns, to a lesser extent, too. Mr. Burns was always itching to be away out of the village, whereas Dr. Durward was too idle and Mr. Strachan had his mind very much focussed on his father’s shop, and his dreams and his goals were all there. But yes, the three of them would visit Dinnet House together. Bella – that’s Mrs. Strachan – she had a couple of friends who would spend time with her up there, and no one knew who was courting which or if anyone was.’
‘I heard that Mr. Tranter was quite a strict man?’
‘Oh, he was. There was nothing improper going on at all: walks in the garden together, reading, some music.’
‘Are the other girls still in the village?’
Mrs. Kynoch thought for a moment.
‘No, no, they’ve both moved away. Charlotte married a man that took her to Calcutta! But I think Sarah went to Glasgow: that’s right. Her brother became a minister and she went down there to keep house for him, and married a man there. Oh, they’re away this long time.’
‘So if no one knew who was courting whom,’ Hippolyta asked, ‘why was Mr. Strachan chosen as a suspect?’
‘I suppose because he’d been there on his own that evening. Or not exactly on his own, but he had gone into the house while Dr. Durward had taken a walk in the gardens.’
‘That night? But I thought –’
‘Oh, not late on! They must have been there in the early evening – now, let me see if I can remember, for it’s a long time ago. It was a Sunday evening and they had gone to call on the Strachans, but for some reason Dr. Durward wanted to stay outside and Strachan went in on his own. But Bella and Mr. Tranter were both out, at a friend’s house for supper, so he came away again and he never said why he had gone – I suppose he didn’t need to, for they were always dropping in. And Bella, of course, was able to say that her father had been with her then, and their manservant would have been there when they came home, and that was after Mr. Strachan had been … Oh, dear, it’s all coming back! We were all so terribly upset at the time, and yet now looking back I can scarcely remember Mr. Tranter’s face. Sometimes I can’t decide if time is a good thing or a bad one: did the Lord send it as a blessing or as a curse?’
She rearranged herself, rolling gently from side to side on her ample hips, thinking back, her mind long into the past now.
‘And then, of course, poor dear Bella came to stay with us. I had cause to be grateful to Mr. Strachan, I have to say, for she was in a bad way. She and her father were very close, and whereas before she had been very lively and bright and happy, afterwards she became quite withdrawn. Well, you see how she is now: she’s terribly shy. She hates going out into company. Mr. Strachan came and visited her every day, trying to draw her out of herself, and I think if it hadn’t been for him she would never have married at all, for no other man would have had the patience to do all he did. It was heartwarming to watch him.’
So Mrs. Strachan was not aloof! All Hippolyta had been doing to try to impress her, and it was just that she was nervous of company.
There was a sound at the door, and Hippolyta looked up, ready to change the subject if the little girls were about to flood back. Instead it was Mrs. Strachan standing there, her mouth open in surprise to see Hippolyta sitting by the fire.
‘Mrs. Strachan!’ Hippolyta tried to rise, but the cat had other ideas.
‘No, please,’ said Mrs. Strachan quickly in her light voice. ‘Puss will never forgive you. Please don’t!’
Hippolyta sank back down.
‘Mrs. Strachan was upstairs having a little lie-down,’ said Mrs. Kynoch. ‘She has not been feeling very well lately, have you, my dear?’
‘Just a little tired,’ agreed Mrs. Strachan. ‘It’s always so noisy at home, with the children and Mr. Strachan about.’
‘Even the weather is noisy today,’ Hippolyta added. The wind was rising again, and whistling in the chimney. The fire crouched and ducked as if whipped.
‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Kynoch to Mrs. Strachan, ‘Mrs. Napier has been asking for more information about your father’s death.’
Mrs. Strachan paled, but did not seem shocked. Hippolyta wondered at Mrs. Kynoch telling her.
‘What else did you want to know?’ she asked huskily.
‘I suppose I want to know anything that will help us to find who killed Colonel Verney and Mr. Forman,’ said Hippolyta.
‘She is convinced the same person killed all four men,’ put in Mrs. Kynoch.
‘Well, either that, or someone heard of the old murders, and thought it would work again,’ said Hippolyta. ‘I am in a tangle over this!’
‘Why not leave it to Mr. Durris?’ asked Mrs. Strachan, puzzled.
‘Well, the sheriff’s man did not manage to find the first murderer, did he?’ Hippolyta asked gently.
‘But Mr. Durris seems a practical, sensible man,’ Mrs. Strachan objected.
‘A man of information, too,’ agreed Mrs. Kynoch.
‘I am sure you are right,’ Hippolyta conceded. ‘But … But he has a notion that Patrick might have killed Colonel Verney, and I know he did not!’
The silence that followed was not a comforting one. Mrs. Kynoch and Mrs. Strachan stared at her, and she could tell that each of them was considering the possibility in their minds. She had made things worse: now rumours of Patrick’s guilt would spread, and even if he was never arrested for the murders people would always remember that he had been suspected. And who would call in a physician who had been suspected of murder?
‘Well, my dear Mrs. Napier,’ said Mrs. Kynoch at last, ‘that seems to me to be a perfectly good reason for you to try to find out who really killed them.’
‘You mean you don’t believe he did?’ Hippolyta’s voice was as squeaky as anything she had ever heard Mrs. Kynoch say.
‘I shouldn’t think so for a moment,’ said Mrs. Kynoch firmly. ‘Dr. Napier is a very good man, anyone can see that.’
‘But he wasn’t even in that evening! He was called to see a patient at the inn, and then they couldn’t find her, and he was there for ages only nobody remembers how long or quite when …’ All the stress of the past week fell upon her head in one deluge like the rain outside, and Hippolyta found herself sunk over the furry back of the huge cat on her lap, sobbing her eyes out.
‘There, there, dear! Have another cup of tea,’ said Mrs. Kynoch, and her squeaky voice seemed infinitely kind.
‘Mother,’ said Hippolyta breathlessly, trying to sit up, ‘would be so ashamed of me.’
‘Well, she isn’t here,’ said Mrs. Kynoch simply. ‘Cry all you like, my dear: Mrs. Strachan and I will never say.’
‘How nice you are!’ Hippolyta gasped, and once again fell to heavy sobbing. It seemed an age to her, but after a short time she managed to straighten up, sipped her tea, and accepted a clean handkerchief from Mrs. Strachan.
‘Mrs. Kynoch is splendid when anyone is feeling – well, second rate.’ Mrs. Strachan put out a tentative hand and took Hippolyta’s. ‘There is no one like her.’
‘Nonsense, Bella, dear,’ said Mrs. Kynoch, but there was a little blush on her gentle face. She filled a cup for Mrs. Strachan and refilled her own, cocking an ear to make sure that her pupils were still peacefully destroying buns and milk in the kitchen. ‘But I think we might need to help you, if only by listening to what you’re thinking about.’
‘After all,’ said Mrs. Strachan, ‘just because you are trying to prove your husband didn’t murder Colonel Verney, it doesn’t necessarily mean that his murder is connected with my father’s.’
‘But there are so many coincidences!’ cried Hippolyta, making the cat jump. ‘Please, Mrs. Strachan, tell me something. Tell me about Rab Lattin.’
‘Rab Lattin?’ Mrs. Strachan was puzzled.
‘Your father’s manservant, wasn’t he? The one who was murdered that night, just as Forman was last we
ek.’
‘Well ... yes, I suppose so.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’ Mrs. Strachan was hesitant, confused by the question. ‘He was … um … he had been in the household since he was a boy, I believe: I couldn’t remember a time before that night when he had not been there. My father trusted him absolutely, I know that: Lattin had all the keys, locked everything up at night, witnessed legal documents for my father, all kinds of things.’
‘What was he like?’
‘He was a quiet enough man, I suppose. He was tall, and very thin, and his nose was very long. I remember laughing at it with my friends when I was small, but later I was sorry for it because he was a kindly man. He liked to read the paper – Father’s paper, when he had finished with it - on a winter’s evening, particularly the articles about books, though I don’t remember him ever owning a book of his own. Oh, in the summer he liked to garden: we had a man who came to work the kitchen garden, a few days a week, but Father allowed Lattin a say in some of the borders, and he worked them very well. They were always very splendid, and if we took visitors out to see them you’d always find Lattin just quietly in attendance, though whether he wanted to overhear their praises or simply protect his plants we were never very sure! He loved his garden.’
She smiled, reminiscing. Hippolyta bit her lip. Rab Lattin sounded as inoffensive as Forman.
‘Had he ever quarrelled with anyone? Would anyone have had reason to kill him?’
‘To kill Lattin? What on earth are you talking about? Rab Lattin was killed because he disturbed someone murdering my father!’
‘Ah, well,’ said Hippolyta. ‘I thought that, too, but now I’m not absolutely sure. It really doesn’t work, you see, for Colonel Verney and Forman, and that raises the question: was Mr. Tranter murdered, in fact, because he disturbed someone murdering Rab Lattin?’
Mrs. Strachan’s jaw dropped. Then she stood up, set down her teacup carefully on the central table, and ran from the house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘She has left without her cloak!’ exclaimed Mrs. Kynoch, the moment that either of them could speak.
‘She must have gone to warn him,’ was Hippolyta’s first response.
‘To warn who, my dear?’
‘Her husband, of course!’ Hippolyta slipped her arms around the huge cat on her lap, and stood up, transferring it as dead weight to the warmed armchair. ‘I must go after her. Where is her cloak?’
Mrs. Kynoch bustled off to fetch a long cloak and bonnet from the parlour, while Hippolyta found her own outdoor things and hurried into them. Where would Mr. Strachan be? The shop or at home? The shop was on the way to the house, so that would be the first place to look. Mrs. Kynoch returned and handed her Mrs. Strachan’s things with an anxious look.
‘It seems to have grown even wilder out there,’ she said. ‘Do take care, my dear! Come back if you need help: I need to see my girls safely to their homes, I think.’
Hippolyta impulsively hugged the little woman, and darted outside. The wind instantly threw her back in through the front door.
‘Good gracious!’ she exclaimed, and fought her way back out, hauling the door shut behind her. She waved through the window at Mrs. Kynoch, and turned to look about her.
Despite the rain and the wind, the town was much busier than it had been earlier. People seemed to be dashing from place to place, carrying bundles. After a moment she realised that a small steady stream of townspeople were walking, burdened with packs and kists on their backs and occasionally on hand carts, up the hill from the direction of the bridge. Mrs. Strachan was nowhere to be seen.
Amongst the people she spotted Mr. Morrisson, the elderly constable, with a younger man carrying a pack for him. She hurried over.
‘Mr. Morrisson? Whatever is the matter?’ She had to shout to make herself heard over the wind.
‘Matter, Mrs. Napier?’ He stopped, apparently glad to take a rest, though the man with him moved ahead as if encouraging him to keep going. Rain slapped them all. ‘River’s rising, ma’am. The cottages below the bridge are filling up wi’ watter.’
‘Good gracious! Where are you all going?’
‘This is my lass’s man, Mrs. Napier. I’m off to stay with them up the town,’ Morrisson explained. ‘The river could be up here soon enough, ken? You’d best be away home, ma’am, and see to your own household.’
He wiped rainwater from his eyes and reluctantly placed one foot in front of another again, following his son-in-law up the hill. Hippolyta looked about. Should she go home? Mrs. Riach was more than capable of dealing with anything there, and Miss Verney … Well, she would not mind if Miss Verney suffered wet feet for a little. She shook her head, slightly ashamed of this thought, and joined the people hurrying up the hill.
At Strachan’s shop she was shocked to find the shutters down. What time was it? Even if she had wanted to pull her watch out into the rain there was scarcely enough light to read it by. She huddled in the shelter of the shopfront. Could Mrs. Strachan be inside? Should she try to check? The shutters on the front had all been fastened from the outside: with a feeling of inevitability she picked up her skirts and darted into the narrow lane that she and Patrick had ventured down early that morning – really only that morning?
The yard at the back was sheltered, and she took a moment to catch her breath. Then she went and hammered on the back door of the shop. There must be someone in: surely last night had not been the only one where the shopboys had slept in the shop. She hammered again. After a moment there was a cautious withdrawal of bolts, and one of the young lads she had glimpsed last night was peering through the crack of the door. He looked surprised to see her there.
‘Shop’s closed, ma’am,’ he said, wiping what was probably some of his supper from his mouth.
‘I know – it’s Al, isn’t it? I’m not here to buy something. I’m looking for Mrs. Strachan. Is she here?’
Al looked even more surprised.
‘No, she’s no. I’ve not seen her the day. What for would she be coming to the shop?’
‘She was looking for Mr. Strachan.’
‘Well, he’s no here either. He left about noon to gang hame. He wasnae looking happy,’ he added, in a moment of perception.
‘You’re sure that’s where he went?’
‘Aye. Sure enough,’ he added, a hint of doubt in his eyes. It would not be up to him to interrogate his employer’s movements.
‘Thank you, Al.’
It would have to be the Strachans’ house, then. Again she joined the people marching up the hill with their belongings. There seemed to be more, now, including one or two she was sure were visitors to the town. The waters must be threatening the houses on the main street already: or perhaps the visitors were simply nervous. She hurried through them, not so heavily burdened, using the wings of her bonnet to shield her face from the rain as much as she could. Her cloak was heavy with water again, Mrs. Strachan’s cloak was long and weighty, too, and it seemed more of a struggle than usual to climb the hill to the Strachans’ fine new house. She rattled ferociously at the risp. Once again, it took two rattles before anyone appeared to answer the door. The maid inside hurried her into the shelter of the hallway, and a second later Mr. Strachan bounded out from a room off the hall.
‘Bella! Oh! Mrs. Napier. I beg your pardon.’
‘Forgive my intrusion, Mr. Strachan,’ Hippolyta began, wondering if this was unctuous shop Strachan or angry home Strachan. ‘I was looking for Mrs. Strachan.’
‘She’s not home yet,’ said Mr. Strachan, and his look was neither unctuous nor angry. ‘She was visiting Mrs. Kynoch down the hill. We’re expecting her back shortly, though whether or not she will come back in this weather …’
‘She left there a little while ago,’ said Hippolyta. A little bead of worry began to fret inside her head. ‘Here is her cloak. And her bonnet.’
‘She went out without her cloak?’ Mr. Strachan’
s brow folded instantly into a frown, but it was of anxiety, not anger.
‘We thought she must have come here. Or gone to your shop,’ Hippolyta added, ‘but I checked there and she has not been there all day.’
‘Then where on earth has she gone?’ he demanded. Hippolyta shrugged, helpless.
‘Is there someone else she would have taken shelter with? Once she had realised she had left her cloak behind?’
‘Surely she would have realised that the moment she left the house?’ Strachan pointed out, and Hippolyta could not but agree. ‘Did you try the Strongs?’
‘Well, no – ’
‘Or the manse?’
‘I came here first, straight from the shop, Mr. Strachan, because I thought she was most likely to go home! I was in a hurry to find her and make sure she was safe: I did not intend a tour of every house she might visit in the village!’
Mr. Strachan looked at her. She had pulled herself up to her full height, and the tone she had used had come straight from her mother. He nodded.
‘I apologise, Mrs. Napier,’ he said. ‘My wife has not been well lately, and I am anxious about her.’
‘Well, so am I,’ said Hippolyta tartly, not quite ready to let him off his rudeness yet. ‘Perhaps she should consult a physician.’
‘But she does,’ he said, looking puzzled. ‘She consults Dr. Durward.’
‘Really?’ Hippolyta thought back to her conversation with Dr. Durward, his challenge to her to acquire Mrs. Strachan as a patient for Patrick, his anxiety over her state of health. What had he been up to? Was he just teasing her?
‘Perhaps that is where she has gone – if she was feeling unwell?’ For once Mr. Strachan seemed a little uncertain. ‘I’ll go down there and see. Give me that cloak, will you?’
A Knife in Darkness Page 29
