by Alastair Sim
“I suppose I probably believed that when I was little, though as soon as I started noticing things I thought it was strange that, after he’d asked me how I was and given me a shilling, he’d go away to mother’s bedroom with her. And as I got a little older I thought it was strange that mother hadn’t displayed any mementoes of my father’s life – no photograph, no locket with his hair, nothing. Though frankly I was so seldom out in the world that I was poorly-equipped to know what was normal.”
“So when did you learn that Uncle Bill was your father?”
“Only shortly before mother died. She’d been quite animated for a while, talking about how we might be able to go to Europe with Uncle Bill, how we might even be able to live sometimes as a family together. I’d heard it before, so I wasn’t expecting anything. Then there was a visit when they shouted and swore and I heard things being thrown in mother’s bedroom. He stormed out ignoring me and slammed the front door behind him.
“I went into her bedroom and saw her sitting on the floor, holding a handkerchief to a cut in her forehead. She was crying. I asked her what had happened. That’s when she told me – she’d been secretly married to Uncle Bill, I was his child, and for over two decades she’d lived for his visits and for the hope that, at last, they might be able to share more of their lives together. Now, he’d told her that he wanted to cast her utterly aside, and that he would cut her off without a penny unless she surrendered her marriage certificate to him. Her poor, shrunken life had been ripped apart.”
God, thought Allerdyce, that’s a harsh story. He felt wretched for re-opening Antonia’s pain, but his duty – to the law and to McGillivray – meant that he had to press on with his questions.
“Were you sorry when you learnt that William Bothwell-Scott was dead?”
She laughed again.
“Sorry? Sorry, Archibald? If you knew even a fraction of how he’d blighted my mother’s life and my own you’d have held a party to celebrate his death.”
A voice in Allerdyce’s mind said, stop her now. Stop her from incriminating herself. You’ve already allowed one friend’s candour to place himself in mortal danger – don’t let Antonia follow him. But a stronger voice said that this was evidence and needed to be heard. He held his tongue and Antonia continued.
“Do you know how my mother died, Archibald? Do you? She didn’t want to live after the Duke had discarded her, but she didn’t know how to die. At first she just seemed to be wasting away through depression and not eating. Then she asked me to go to a pharmacist and obtain prussic acid. She said it was to poison the mice that infested the house, but I suspected her true purpose and said I wouldn’t go. So do you know what she did, Archibald? She drank a cup of neat bleach.
“I found her on the kitchen floor, still alive. Her lips were burnt as if someone had held a red-hot iron to them. Blood was frothing out of her mouth. She might have been screaming or she might have been trying to speak – I couldn’t tell because the bleach had burnt-out her voice box. Her eyes were rolling around like a lunatic and her legs were kicking out in mad spasms.
“I tried to make her drink water but she only choked. I knew it would take me at least half an hour to ride to the doctor’s house in Balerno, and another half hour to come back with him even if he was in, and that that would be too late. So I held her in my arms, trying again and again to get her to drink some water or some milk to put out her inner flames, with no success. She died in sheer terror, Archibald, and I hope that I never have to see such suffering again. So, frankly, it gave me nothing but joy to hear about his death. I only pray that it was painful.”
“And when did you last see the Duke?” Please, he thought, don’t let her answer incriminate her further. “Was it when he last saw your mother?”
“No. I was cursed with seeing him once more. As a client.”
Allerdyce swallowed, feeling nauseous. Could the Duke have been such a degenerate that he even lay with his own daughter?
“I’m sorry.”
“This business isn’t what I’d ideally have chosen, Archibald, but I’m good at it. In fact, I like to think that I’m at the top of my profession, and my fees reflect that. My mother was an intelligent woman and she gave me as good an education as she was able. I could have made my living as a governess or a schoolmistress, if anyone would have given a job to an orphan girl with no references. But frankly, that didn’t appeal. And no-one was going to marry a fatherless girl whose mother was a suicide.
“My mother, days before she died, said something that stuck with me. She said she’d thought for many years that she was a wife, but only now realised that she was a whore. She’d just been a sexual outlet for William, for which he’d paid by renting the house and giving her a small allowance.
“I was determined my life wasn’t going to be like hers. I was going to take control. I would use men on my terms, and for my profit. So if men routinely used woman as whores, I would make sure I profited handsomely from it.
“Have you ever thought about how I set myself up here? About the expense of buying this house? William gave my mother enough money in exchange for the marriage certificate for me to buy this house after her death, but not enough to maintain me in the comfort I thought I deserved for the rest of my life. So, I set out to earn an income that would give me complete independence from any individual man.”
“You were going to tell me how you last saw the late Duke,” prompted Allerdyce.
“I was coming to that, Archibald. I’m a quick learner, and I soon learnt the tricks, both conversational and sexual, that keep a man interested. I flatter myself that some of my clients quickly came to think of me as a friend as well as a whore – a quality of relationship which my father had denied to my mother. My reputation spread quickly and new clients arrived daily.
“I was horrified when, a few months after starting the business, my maid showed William Bothwell-Scott into my bedroom.
“I could have killed him right there and then. If I’d had a pistol in my room I could cheerfully have shot him in the stomach and watched him die.
“Fortunately for him, I didn’t. He recognised me instantly. He stared at me for a second of disbelief and horror then turned round and left.
“So that’s it, Archibald. I haven’t seen him since and I’m glad he’s dead.”
Or was it, thought Allerdyce. Could you have blackmailed him? Could you have found a means to do what you thought was right and kill him?
He took out his notebook and flicked back a few pages.
“I’d like to be able to eliminate you completely from the investigation, Antonia. It would help me if you could confirm where you were, and with whom, on the nights when William Bothwell-Scott and the Brigadier met their deaths.”
Antonia stood up, clasping her dressing-gown tightly around her.
“You swine, Archibald. I confide in you as a friend, and you make me a suspect. I had genuinely thought you were my friend, and is this the loyalty I receive? To be identified as a murderer?”
Allerdyce felt the black despair welling up inside him. He pressed on.
“It’s purely a matter of routine, Antonia. A matter of elimination.”
“Elimination of who, Archibald? Whoever visited me as a client on those nights would deny it in court, if they had a wife to think of or if they wanted to keep their position as a judge or a minister of the church. Plenty of them give me false names anyway. I can’t give you a reliable alibi for any night when I’ve entertained clients.” She put a slim hand against her neck. “I could hang, Archibald, if you choose to make me a suspect. Is that what you want?”
He visualised the rough hempen rope around her pale neck. He thought about the other friend whose life was already in jeopardy as a result of his suspicions.
Had McGillivray killed the victims? Maybe – he’d had the means and the motivation. Had Antonia killed them? She’d had the motivation in abundance to murder William Bothwell-Scott. The means? Perhaps – if she’d been meeti
ng him to blackmail him. And the Brigadier? The motivation was less clear, unless she was working her way through the family until she was sole heir, but the circumstances of his death suggested a woman, and the droll messages which had accompanied both deaths suggested someone of Antonia’s intelligence.
It could be either, it could be neither. In his heart he would like to be able to tell them both that they were free from suspicion, but that would be in defiance of reason and evidence. In the absence of other clear suspects he appeared to have a stark, dreadful choice.
Who goes on trial and takes their risks in the bearpit of the High Court?
Is it the man who saved my life? Is it the woman I have come to regard as a lover and a friend?
Antonia stood waiting for his answer. The canary fluttered and twittered in its cage. Her dressing gown fell open, revealing the golden, rounded figure to which her silk undergarment clung, and the magnificent décolletage which rose from it. He thought of the horrors which Antonia had suffered because of the Duke, her mother dying in agony on the floor after being cast off by him.
Whatever choice he made would be an appalling breach of loyalty. He wished the decision could be taken away from him. There was no way that was going to happen, but he could at least defer it until he had reported to Burgess.
“I won’t be taking things any further for the moment, Antonia. But don’t leave town – you may be required as a witness. And thank you for your candour.”
Chapter 27
Parish business meant that Arthur couldn’t get away from Dalcorn until the afternoon following Josephine’s distressing visit. First he was called out to see a servant at Dalcorn House who complained that the Devil was tempting her to steal. A clear case of underemployment making space for evil, he thought, reflecting on his brother’s refusal to take up residence at Dalcorn House and give the idle army of servants something to do. Then he had to conduct the funeral for a shale miner who’d been killed in a small underground explosion. The man hadn’t been a member of the church, and hadn’t even gone to the Free Church chapel, but the law said that he had to be buried by the Church of Scotland, so that was that. Arthur rushed through both occasions, imagining all the while that his brother might be perpetrating fresh outrages against Josephine.
At last he was able to get away. He discreetly slipped the little pistol which he’d withdrawn from the gun room at Dalcorn House into his pocket. Since Frederick’s death, with its clear implication that the brothers were being murdered in turn, he’d carried the gun every time he had to leave the manse. He’d never fired a weapon in his life, but he assumed that if he just pointed it and pulled the trigger he might wound his assailant. And, if necessary, he could use it to reinforce his arguments to George.
Of course, he’d be reasonable, as befitted a Christian. His first aim must be to make George appreciate the gross error of his ways and repent, opening his heart to regenerating grace. The best outcome would be that George realised that he had committed a grave wrong against Josephine and resolved voluntarily to seek amendment of life. The arguments of reason, faith and decency might suffice.
But what would he do if George showed no sign of penitence? That was altogether more difficult. He could threaten George with the fires of a Hell that neither of them believed in any more. He could plead to George’s sense of the honour of the family, if George had retained some sense of that through his fog of spiritualism and lust. But, ultimately, the pistol represented the final possibility, the threatened or actual use of force.
Arthur was resolute as the servant admitted him to Rock House. His success in preventing his brother from committing any further evil against Josephine, and his determination to punish George tenfold for any sin against her, were his tests as a man. At last he’d been presented with a truly chivalric challenge, and he would not fail.
He did pause, though, when he saw a Paisley-patterned shawl hanging on a coathook in the lobby. It looked remarkably like a shawl he’d seen Josephine wear when she went out driving in the Ducal open carriage, before she had adopted mourning dress. Could it mean that Josephine was here? Or, more likely, had his blackguard brother stolen it from Josephine’s house as some perverted lover’s token? Or was he allowing his imagination to run too far ahead of himself about what was, after all, a relatively common pattern of shawl or scarf which had probably belonged to George’s late wife? That must surely be it – George’s sick conviction that his late wife was still spiritually resident in the house must have made him reluctant to discard or put away this remnant of her physical presence.
There was no sign of another visitor when Arthur was shown into George’s studio, bright with the early spring sunlight which streamed through the skylight and the French windows. His brother was in a chaotic state of semi-undress – shirt-sleeves rolled up and waistcoat undone – and the wooden boxes, lenses, and glass plates of various cameras were strewn over the table along with a claret bottle and a teapot, but he knew this to be nothing unusual. If only, thought Arthur, George had a lens to look into his own soul.
George looked up.
“Hello there, Arthur. Nice of you to drop by.”
Arthur stood just inside the door, his hat in his hands, grateful that his clerical collar gave his neck an imposing stiffness, keeping his chin erect even if he felt an inner fear at confronting his brother.
“George,” he said, “I have come on the gravest business.”
“Dearie me, Arthur, you do look a bit serious. Come and sit down. Tea? A glass of claret?”
“George, I prefer to stand.”
“A bit odd, Arthur, if you don’t mind me saying so. What’s on your mind?”
“I need to speak to you very seriously about Josephine.”
George looked dreamily towards the skylight.
“Ah, dear sweet Josephine. You know, when Matilda passed over I thought I might never love a woman again, except in the purely spiritual realm. Now I find that Josephine is giving me reason to hope that I might love again in this earthly, physical existence.”
Arthur felt he could strangle his brother there and then. Earthly, physical love with Josephine? How could this monster who had caused her so much grief even dare to mention his brutal desire for physical love with her? He struggled to maintain his composure, but as he spoke he was aware that his voice sounded shrill.
“George, you have done a great wrong to Josephine. I have come here to ask you to repent, and to promise before me and Our Lord that you will offer no further offence to her.”
George simply looked perplexed. The meeting wasn’t following the script which Arthur had crafted so carefully in his head.
“Offence? Steady on, Arthur. I can’t say that I follow you.”
“Do you need me to spell it out? To speak of the unspeakable?”
“Well, I suppose you’d better, old chap, or else I won’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“George, please, at least have the decency to yourself and to me to speak the truth. Did you visit Josephine at the dower-cottage yesterday afternoon?”
“Well, yes, actually, I did, though I can’t see that that’s any concern of yours.”
“And what happened when you were there?”
“We conversed, Arthur. Oh, and we took tea. I really can’t see that you could be offended by that.”
Arthur tried to steel his voice, and pitch it half-an-octave lower, but it only sounded as if it was breaking.
“George, as we stand in the awful presence of the Almighty I urge you, for the sake of your eternal soul, to tell the truth. What happened between you and Josephine?”
George stood up.
“Look, Arthur, it’s been a terrible strain on everyone. First William and then Frederick. I can’t say it’s been good for my nerves either. But do try and pull yourself together. Sit down. Have a drink.”
“No, George, I insist you tell me the truth. Did you, with gross indecency, assault Josephine in the dower-cottage yest
erday afternoon?”
George’s perplexity was hardened with an edge of anger.
“No, of course not.”
What do I do, thought Arthur. What possible influence can I have on a man who flatly denies the truth?
“You’re saying that you laid no hand on her?”
“That’s right, Arthur. I honestly don’t know what’s got into you today.”
“And you said nothing to her about marriage, or about her coming to live with you at Rock House?”
George stood closer and touched Arthur on the arm.
“I really do think you’d better sit down. There’s something I want to tell you.”
“No, George. I choose to stand.”
“All right then. But please just listen for a moment. I’m sorry that I’m going to have to say something which may upset you.”
The truth, or at least part of it, at last, thought Arthur. George continued.
“I have an understanding with Josephine, Arthur. She’s been rather adrift since William died, and I’m afraid Frederick was a tad beastly to her. I’ve also been feeling rather lost – I know Matilda is still with me in spirit but I’ve been feeling that it’s time for me to move on too. The fear that death is stalking the family has spurred things on somewhat for me. I don’t need to tell you that Josephine is a damned attractive woman, and still of childbearing age, given the right sire.
“We’ve grown close over the past couple of months. There’s a sort of comfort that perhaps only two widowed people can give to each other. The long and the short of it is, Arthur, that we’ve decided to get married once Josephine’s out of mourning. If we’re spared.”
“No!” Arthur felt tears welling up, and a constriction at the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry, Arthur. I’d hoped to be able to tell you at a more opportune time. I know you’re rather sweet on Josephine – it’s been plain for everyone to see. But we think this is the right thing for us, and for the family.”
“No! You’re lying!”
“I know it’s a disappointment to you, Arthur, but you’ve always been a generous soul and I’m sure you’ll be the first to wish us well, once you’re used to the idea.” He grasped Arthur in a loose embrace. “Friends?”
