by M C Beaton
“Don’t be daft, Jimmy. Someone dropped that great pot in the hall, someone who knew I was upstairs and knew that I would come racing down. What we need are blueprints to this place. I could see no signs that anyone had come up to the front door or had left by that way. There must be another entrance. So far, I’ve searched everywhere and can’t find it. Might be something in the study.”
“The case was all nicely tied up,” said Jimmy.
“Confessed, did he?”
“No, he’s still protesting his innocence.”
“So let’s look for blueprints.”
They went into the study. “They might be rolled up somewhere,” said Hamish.
“There’s nothing in the bookshelves that I can see,” said Jimmy.
“Might be in a big bound book,” suggested Hamish. “Like those on the bottom shelf.”
Jimmy pulled out one and opened it. “Victorian photo album,” he said. “Must have been quite a place in its heyday. Look at the maids and butler lined up behind the family.”
“What about that thin one underneath?”
Jimmy tugged it out, laid it on the desk, and opened it.
“Blueprints!” he cried. “You have a look, Hamish. I’m fair lousy at making these things out.”
“Leave me with it and go up and have a look at that wire. You’ll see what I mean,” said Hamish, settling himself behind the desk.
He began to study the blueprints carefully. His eyes widened as his long finger traced a staircase. Of course! When the castle had been built, there would have been a back staircase for the servants. It led down to the kitchen. There was a small stillroom, butler’s room, larder, and laundry room. The staircase led from the back of the kitchen. He called to Jimmy and when he entered the study said, “Look at this!”
“What is it?” asked Jimmy.
“It’s a staircase. The back stairs for the servants. Let’s go and look.”
They made their way into the kitchen, Hamish carrying the book of blueprints, which he put on the kitchen table. He looked around. “It should be over there where the new units have been put in.”
He knelt down and searched the floor. “There are scratch marks here. This cupboard is on castors. Help me wheel it out.”
The cupboard slid out easily. Behind was a door. Hamish put on a pair of latex gloves and opened it. “There are your back stairs,” he said. “He could have come in this way. Look, there are footprints in the dust on the stairs.”
They walked up to the first landing. A door which had led off it was bricked up. On they went to the second landing. Here they found a door. Hamish pushed it open and found himself looking at the back of a large wardrobe. He edged round it and found himself in one of the bedrooms.
“That’s how he did it,” said Hamish. “He must also have a key to the kitchen door. When he heard me coming down the stairs, all he had to do was nip out the kitchen door and wait until the coast was clear. He could walk along the cliff edge and nip over the boundary wall. May have had his car parked out on the road.”
“We’d better go back downstairs and get everyone up here,” said Jimmy gloomily. “These stairs and the kitchen have got to be dusted all over again. And I thought I was in for a few peaceful days!”
No one was pleased with Hamish Macbeth. There were grumbles at headquarters, even Daviot saying, “Why couldn’t he have left things alone, instead of setting himself up like some sort of stalking horse?”
It meant all the family had to be contacted again about the wire on the stairs, and all their alibis checked. Hours and days of police time and police money. “I’ve a good mind to sell that damn police station of his to recoup our losses,” raged Daviot.
The fact that they might have arrested the wrong man hung over headquarters like a black cloud.
The next morning, Hamish was in his police station when Elspeth arrived. “I’ve been summoned back to Glasgow,” she said. “Nothing to report until the court case.”
“You’d best come in,” said Hamish. “Something’s come up.”
Elspeth listened eagerly. “This is grand, Hamish. What a story! Secret staircase and all.”
“The trouble is,” said Hamish, “that you’ll need to get the facts officially. I suggest you go up to the castle, where they’re still searching for clues. I’d better give a hint to Matthew Campbell. Is he at the Highland Times’?”
“No, he’s off to cover a dried-flower show at Bonar Bridge. Don’t worry. I’ll fill him in when I get back. Are you going to be all right? What if the murderer tries again?”
“Don’t say anything in the paper about me suggesting I really knew something, or I’ll be plagued by time-wasting nutters,” said Hamish.
“I won’t.”
“Now get out of here fast. I bet that Russian inspector will soon be here.”
And so it turned out. No sooner had Elspeth’s car disappeared along the waterfront than Anna was at the door.
“We have to talk,” she said.
“You’re in plainclothes,” said Hamish.
“I was about to leave when your news broke.” Anna was wearing a tailored grey suit over a white blouse. Her hair was tied at the back of her head with a thin black ribbon.
When she was seated at the kitchen table, she said, “If Mark Gentle did not murder Mrs. Gentle or Irena, then it might have been you.”
“How do you work that out?” demanded Hamish.
“You did not want to marry Irena, so you killed her. Mrs. Gentle found out something that would incriminate you, and so you lured her out and pushed her over the cliff. You put the wire on the stair yourself so as to mislead the police.”
Hamish thought, illogically, I wish she didn’t look so much like Putin in drag.
“I couldn’t have killed Irena because Jimmy Anderson was with me from the early morning until we left for Inverness. Now that you all have a suspect and thought the case closed, why should I try to open it? What gave you such a crazy idea?”
“You are a man of great intelligence and yet you choose to remain in this isolated village and stay in the rank of an ordinary policeman. Only someone who is psychologically flawed would opt for that.”
“What on earth is wrong with being contented and unambitious?” said Hamish. “I enjoy my life here, I love this village—that is, when I am not beset by murderers and foreign police officers.”
“You forget the respect that is due to my rank!”
“It’s not every day I am accused of being a murderer,” said Hamish mildly. “Coffee?”
“Yes.”
When Hamish had served them both with coffee and shortbread, he said, “The facts are simply these. I put it about night before last that Irena had told me something important. I knew the gossip would spread like wildfire over the Highlands. What puzzles me about the wire across the stairs is that it is not something I would expect a cold-blooded murderer to do.”
“Why? Can’t you make decent coffee? This is dreadful.”
“It’s special instant,” said Hamish huffily. “Mr. Patel said it was pure Kenyan. I think the wire across the stairs is something you see in television movies. I wonder if the members of the Gentle family have all left the area. No, I think the real murderer of Irena will find something more sophisticated to do to me.”
“Aren’t you frightened?” Anna took a silver flask out of her handbag and poured a shot of vodka into her coffee.
“Yes.”
“So why do it?”
“Because somehow I do not believe that Mark Gentle is a murderer,” said Hamish impatiently. “I would be more frightened in a way if I thought a murderer had got away with this.”
“Why?”
“Do you have any children, Inspector? You know how they go on? Why, why, why, and never listen to the answer. I love this place, and it stands to reason I don’t want a killer on my patch.”
“I think you’re wrong,” said Anna, “and I’ve got to get back to London. Let us have sex.”
Hamish coloured up to the roots of his fiery hair.
“Why?”
“Now it’s you with your whys. Because it’s fun and I would like sex.”
“Can’t.” Hamish shuffled his boots miserably.
“Why?”
“The sheets arenae clean.” The real response, the truthful response, thought Hamish, was that he did not feel like romping with someone who looked like the Russian president.
“Are you a virgin?”
“No. Look, I am verra flattered that such an attractive lady as yourself should want to go to bed with me—”
“Who said anything about bed? You have a kitchen table.”
“Oh, michty me!” howled Hamish. “It’s too early in the day.”
There was a knock at the kitchen door, and Hamish leapt to answer it. Archie Maclean stood there. “Grand news, Hamish. I’m a soldier.”
“Have you given up the fishing?”
“Och, no. In the play.”
“Come ben, Archie. This is Inspector Krokovsky. She was chust leaving.”
Anna smiled wryly and gathered up her belongings. “If you are ever in Russia—”
“Yes, yes,” gabbled Hamish. “I’ll look you up.”
“You look as red as your hair,” said Archie. “That wumman been givin’ ye a bollocking?”
“Something like that,” said Hamish. “Sit down. Coffee?”
“I’d like a glass of wine.”
“What on earth is this? Drinking in the morning, and wine, too.”
“I’ve been up all the night as you ken very well. This is the evening fur me. Besides, I’m an actor now, and them actors drink wine.”
Hamish might have sent the fisherman packing if he had not been afraid of Anna coming back. “I’ve a bottle out in the shed,” he said. “Someone gave it to me last Christmas.”
He went out and came back with a bottle of Merlot, which he opened. He poured Archie a glass.
Archie sipped it cautiously and made a face. “It’s gone off. Right sour taste.” He saw the sugar bowl on the table, spooned sugar into his glass, and stirred it briskly before taking another sip. “Now, that’s better,” he said.
“Did you hear folk talking lately,” asked Hamish, “about me thinking they had arrested the wrong man?”
“Aye,” said Archie. “Bella Firth, her what lives up the back, big blowsy wumman, she says it’s because you did it yoursel’ but your conscience is troubling you and you want to clear it afore you die of AIDS.”
“To think I have just been defending this place to thon Russian,” marvelled Hamish. “Was everyone else so stupid?”
“Na. Priscilla, she said very loudly that you were never wrong and what you probably meant was that the police had made a wrong arrest and you had a good idea who the real murderer was.”
“So we’ll wait and see,” said Hamish.
“Whit?”
“Nothing,” said Hamish. “Nothing at all.”
After Archie had left, he called Jimmy on his mobile. “Anything useful?” he asked. “Any fingerprints?”
“No, but footprints. It was a woman.”
“And it was a woman in the phone box. You know, Jimmy, there’s something awfy amateurish about that wire across the stairs. Rather as if someone had been watching Miss Marple on the telly and got the idea.”
“We’re checking through the family’s alibis. They all seem to have been on the road by the time you were in the castle. Of course, one of them could have doubled back. They all swear they didn’t know about that staircase.”
“What about Mark?”
“They’re hanging on to him for the moment.”
“Where’s Blair?”
“Back in the rehab in Inverness. Maybe he’ll get it this time.”
“I doubt it. While they’re talking about the Twelve Steps of recovery, Blair will be plotting how to escape to the nearest pub.”
“Keep your ringers crossed that the auld scunner dies. I’m in line to get his job.”
“Joined the Freemasons?”
“No, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll roll up my trouser leg with the best of them. Do you want to come up here?”
“I think I’ll just hang around the village and get local matters up to shape. It doesn’t matter if there’s a double murder, sheep dip papers must be attended to.”
“I’ll leave you to it.”
For the next few days, Hamish patrolled his extensive beat, calling on the elderly in the outlying croft houses, but there was no attempt on his life.
Jimmy phoned to say that they had had to release Mark Gentle. He had hired a good lawyer who pointed out that they had nothing except a fragment of his voice on a tape. The lawyer also said that Mark had sworn he had gone on to say that unfortunately he didn’t have the guts to kill anyone, which was probably why Irena had saved only the one incriminating little bit.
“Did he say anything about Irena trying to blackmail him with it?” asked Hamish.
“No, he seemed hurt and puzzled. Seemed to think Irena fancied him.”
But why, wondered Hamish as he drove through the early gloaming, had Irena kept that fragment? Did she know that someone planned to kill Mrs. Gentle? Had she been in league with the murderer and kept that little bit on her recorder to help him? And had she changed her mind and decided to blackmail the murderer?
And what woman could be the murderer? Kylie Gentle, her daughter, or someone else?
What about the caterers? Was there some link there to the Gentle family? Or had there been some woman who answered the description of the woman seen in the phone box staying at the hotel where they worked?
The police would have checked up on all strangers in the area, but what if there had been some seemingly respectable lady staying at a bed-and-breakfast or somewhere else?
He drove towards Braikie, determined to interview Fiona King and Alison Queen, the chefs.
Both women seemed to be very busy in the kitchen but said they would be glad to take a break and talk to him.
“There can’t be many guests at this time of year,” said Hamish.
“A lot of people travel quite a distance to come here for dinner in the evenings,” said Fiona. “But this is really what’s keeping us busy.” She handed Hamish a brochure entitled, King and Queen, Royalties of Cooking.
“You see, we cater for people in their homes,” said Alison. “Because of the smoking ban in Scotland, and up here they smoke like the third world, a lot of them don’t want to go out to a smoke-free restaurant. So we serve them dinner in their own homes where they can smoke themselves to death in comfort.”
“I forgot to ask you last time,” said Hamish, “but I’m trying to find a stranger who might have been staying here or in the area. She’s tall with a mole on her chin. Maybe wearing a red-and-gold headscarf and dark glasses. Dressed in a tweed jacket, shooting breeches, and brogues.”
The chefs looked at each other and then shook their heads. “Haven’t seen anyone like that, not even amongst the dinner crowd,” said Fiona.
“You hadn’t met any of the Gentle family before?”
Alison giggled. “No, and we’re too busy to murder anyone.”
Hamish thanked them and left, spending what remained of the day calling at every bed-and-breakfast he could think of without success.
As he wearily crawled into bed that night, he found himself almost hoping that the murderer would make an attempt on his life. Anything to give him just one clue.
Nine
The tragedy of love is indifference.
—Somerset Maugham
Hamish, in the following days, was anxious to talk over the murder cases with Priscilla. But every time he called at the hotel, it was to be told she was either out walking with Patrick Fitzpatrick, having dinner with Patrick, or rehearsing her part with Harold.
Why Patrick? he wondered. There had been nothing very interesting about the man that he could remember. He was tall and slim, ginger hair, pursed little
mouth, and reddish skin. Hardly an Adonis.
He would not admit to jealousy, but thought bitterly that for auld lang syne Priscilla should at least have made herself available to act as his Watson.
He called on Angela Brodie instead. To his amazement, the usually messy and unhygienic kitchen was clean, the many cats confined to the garden.
“What happened?” he asked, looking around. “Expecting a visit from the health inspector?”
“Don’t be nasty, Hamish. I’ve been reading a self-help book. It says, in effect, that if you are not getting on with your work, it could be because of the mess at home, or because you are working in a dirty office. Would you like a coffee?”
“Fine.” Hamish quite often shied away from Angela’s offers of coffee, expecting to find some awful cat hairs sticking to his mug, because the cats too often roamed the kitchen table, licking the butter and drinking out of the milk jug. “It’ll save you a lot of vet’s fees,” he added, removing his peaked cap and sitting down. Only two weeks before, one of the cats had ended up with its head stuck firmly in the milk jug.
“It hasn’t helped a bit with the writing,” said Angela. “Instead of being compulsive about finishing this latest book, I’ve become compulsive about cleaning.”
A dismal yowling started up outside.
“That’s it!” Angela turned to open the kitchen door. “Poor beasties. I can’t bear it any longer. I’m going to let them in.”
“Could you wait till we’ve had coffee?” pleaded Hamish. “I’ll need to talk to someone.”
“What about? The fact that Irena told you something mysterious?”
“I made that up, hoping our murderer might have a go at me.”
“But you got your man. I haven’t been reading the newspapers. Has something else happened?”
Hamish told her about the wire across the stairs and the female footprints.
“A woman? Who on earth could that be?”
“Probably someone who’s long gone. No, wait a bit. She might just still be around the area. Jimmy told me he’d put extra men on the job, going all over the place, interviewing any visitors. Where could she be staying?”
