Murders Most Foul

by Alanna Knight

  Answering his questions, Matilda Brown looked him straight in the eye, answered him firmly and had no information to add to his enquiries regarding Ida Watts, her manner indicating that this unwholesome business was a sheer waste of her own, as well as the master’s, precious time.

  Faro decided the housekeeper was so ordinary that without the routine identity particulars, it would have been difficult even to guess her age – she could have been anything from thirty to fifty.

  ‘You are not from this area?’

  She thought about that for a moment before replying: ‘I left my folks’ farm in Angus when I met my husband.’

  As he so often did, Faro found his thoughts wandering on a number of lines: how cautious even the innocent were when replying to police questioning, the impossibility of imagining Mrs Brown as a radiant bride and the equal inability to picture what had she been like as a child.

  ‘Lizzie Laurie?’ Gosse was asking her.

  ‘Mrs Lumbleigh’s maid. You will find her upstairs in the mistress’s room.’

  Faro did not relish the embarrassment of having to interview Lizzie, and hoping that task would fall to Gosse, was considerably relieved when the sergeant sent him out to seek the remaining servant, the coachman Brown, muttering, ‘I doubt you’ll get anything useful there. It’s just a matter of course.’

  As Faro approached the Browns’ cottage Vince was standing at the window. He sighed. This was their first meeting since Lizzie had moved into the big house. Greeting him, Faro made an effort to sound friendly, despite Vince’s stony expression. Asked how he liked his new lodging, the boy merely shrugged.

  ‘It must be a very pleasant change living away from the city, almost in the country, like this. Lots of interesting places to explore on the hill out there,’ Faro continued enthusiastically, determined to be agreeable and ignoring another indifferent shrug. In the face of such hostility, he had to give up and asked: ‘Mr Brown?’

  ‘He’s not here. Probably in the garden somewhere.’

  There was nothing more to say. An awkward moment’s silence, then Faro walked away wishing for Lizzie’s sake that he could get through to Vince. She little knew that Jeremy Faro saw her young son as the main impediment to the possibility of marrying her.

  Vince watched the detective constable walk away. Everyone asked him how he liked living here. It was no big deal. Asked the same question constantly by his mother, who was anxious to know if he was comfortable in the Browns’ little cottage and if they were kind to him, his attitude had been identical to his reply to Faro: a shrug of indifference.

  ‘It’s as if I didn’t exist, Ma, like I was invisible. They never notice me, or even speak to me, except to nod towards the table that food is ready, when they have to feed me.’

  ‘Do they give you enough to eat?’ Lizzie asked anxiously, her first concern for a young growing lad.

  He laughed. ‘Oh yes, there’s always plenty of food on the table. Don’t worry, Mrs Brown sees to that! But a dozen words is what I could count since they took me in.’ He shook his head. ‘I feel like an intruder. They had to take me because the mistress’s said so. They’re not used to children, expect it’s not having any of their own.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re grown up and away.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Ma.’ Vince shook his head solemnly. ‘There are no family photographs.’

  The fashion instigated by the Queen had been eagerly adopted, taking over from daguerreotypes or painted miniatures for the rich, the explanation Lizzie gave to Vince when he asked what his father had looked like: poor folk knew no such luxuries.

  But the coachman had been a soldier, a veteran of Indian wars. ‘Guess what this is, Ma,’ and Vince showed her a medal in a silver frame, proudly displayed on the kitchen sideboard. ‘It’s for bravery. But he never talks about it.’

  Lizzie found that version of the inarticulate coachman, always muffled up to the ears against the cold, unsmiling and mumbling his way through life, hard to imagine, but Faro could have told them both that many veterans of the Indian wars were like that. Brown should have confirmed that a soldier’s bitter experiences and cruel memories had perhaps brought about that unsociable state of mind. Had they enquired further they would have discovered that it was, in fact, his brave record as well as good references that had made Archie take him on. Never having been on active service fighting for his Queen and country himself, having better things to do at home, it gave Archie a feeling of patriotism, that he would be regarded in a good light by his business associates as well as his well-to-do friends for having helped an old soldier to a settled future.

  As for Gosse, he had had enough of Lumbleigh Green. He withdrew and absented himself on pretence of a sharp look outside, an excuse for smoking his pipe. What clues he expected to find were a mystery to Faro.

  Lizzie had not heard from Faro since she left the report on Ida’s disappearance at the Central Office. Sent to find her, Mrs Brown reported that she was not in the mistress’s room. She wasn’t in the kitchen either, and looking out of the window, Faro spotted her in the garden, hurrying across the lawn.

  He went outside. With a sigh of relief she ran to his side.

  ‘I must talk to you, Jeremy. This is awful, awful.’

  Murder was awful. Faro nodded absently and she put an imploring hand on his arm. ‘Jeremy, you must promise not to ask anything about me coming into the police station – about Ida being missing.’

  ‘What on earth for? It was the correct thing to do. Besides, it’s too late for that now—’

  ‘I know,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘But I’ve decided. I’m going to say I hardly know her.’

  Faro gave her a stern look. ‘I can’t do that, Lizzie. It’s my job.’

  ‘And it’s my job too. I had to tell the mistress that I came and told the police after Ida’s mother came here in such a state. The master had to be told and he was beside himself, in such a rage as never was. Bringing disgrace on this house. Mrs Lumbleigh saved me, spoke up and insisted that I was to stay, that I was her servant and she couldn’t allow him to punish me for what I thought was right, bringing a missing person to the attention of the police. Missing. How he laughed at that, just away having a good time, he said. Oh Jeremy, it’s so awful, no one cares that poor Ida has disappeared.’

  ‘It’s worse than that, Lizzie,’ he said grimly. There was no way of sparing her. ‘I’m afraid Ida is dead – and it wasn’t suicide as we thought at first. She was murdered.’

  Lizzie gave a wail of horror, put a hand to her mouth.

  ‘This is dreadful, Jeremy. Poor, poor Ida. Who would want to murder her? As for them’ – she nodded towards the front door – ‘all they will care about is the fact that there will be one almighty scandal when the newspapers get hold of the story and Lumbleigh Green’s dragged into it.’

  He put a gentle hand on her arm. ‘Try to be calm, Lizzie, and tell me what exactly did Ida say to you? It might be important.’

  Lizzie’s voice was a whisper. She looked over her shoulder as if afraid she would be overheard. ‘I had a message from her, she wanted to meet me – that afternoon.’

  ‘Would that be Friday?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘She had some good news: this fellow she was in love with, he was going to marry her, she said. She could hardly believe her luck. You see, she thought she was pregnant and that was why she was so sick in the mornings. Instead of being dismayed she was delighted. He would have to marry her now or, she said, take the consequences if he didn’t. Those were her exact words … Sounded odd, didn’t it?’

  Faro nodded. Blackmail was not odd, it could be highly profitable or fatal, as Ida had found out. He did not doubt the identity of her killer, the secret lover, the rich fellow she had bragged about to her mother and confided to Lizzie. Without a name, alas …

  They were still talking, walking towards the house, when Gosse approached. As Faro introduced Lizzie, Gosse’s expression indicated he recognised the lady’s maid as the detective
constable’s attractive young widow lady. He came to a sudden decision and, dismissing Faro, he said: ‘I will take care of this.’ And to Lizzie, with a bow and a beaming smile:

  ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to answer some routine questions for us, miss. Is there somewhere …?’

  Lizzie murmured about the kitchen. ‘Lead the way, then, if you please.’ And off they went, Lizzie giving Faro one scared glance.

  Later, Lizzie told him how she had become involved. How it had all begun with Mrs Watts’ panic-stricken visit. That she had been unable to conceal her anxiety from Clara, that her hands, usually so firm, were trembling and unsure. She dropped a hairpin or two when she was arranging her mistress’s curls.

  ‘Madam saw my face reflected in the mirror and wondered again if I was going to tell her I had found another situation. The very idea, Jeremy, when I’m so happy here. I told her about Mrs Watts. She had no idea who she was until I told her she was Ida’s mother.

  ‘Madam was quite cross. She wanted to know why I hadn’t informed her – or the master, before going to the police. I reminded her that the master had one of his morning meetings in Edinburgh and she had taken the opportunity of the carriage to visit her milliner. I knew I should have waited, but it seemed so urgent. Poor Mrs Watts was absolutely frantic.’

  Lizzie shook her head and said tearfully, ‘Of course the master had to be told. He called for me and was so angry, he stamped his foot and shouted at me about allowing the misfortunes of a table maid to cause all this disruption to his household and for interfering in matters that did not concern me. Going to the police, he said, mentioning Lumbleigh Green – he made it sound like something sacred – in connection with a maid who had a nervous mother who regarded her absence as something to worry about.

  ‘Madam was with me all the time and he said that these people were always up to something and that he had understood she was an orphan.’

  Faro realised that Lumbleigh, like many of his kind, preferred to employ orphans from the workhouse. Less wages per annum and no family to expect a day off per month for a visit, or be meddlesome regarding the well-being of young daughters.

  Mrs Watts was a prime example, he thought, as Lizzie went on:

  ‘The master laughed at the idea of her having gone missing. As for me …’ She shuddered. ‘He said to Madam: “You had better start looking for another lady’s maid. This one will have to go.”’

  Lizzie paused and looked at Faro wide-eyed. ‘At that very suggestion, Madam implored him not to dismiss me. She burst into tears. And that saved me, but only just, Jeremy.’ Lizzie had yet to learn that Clara had produced her one unfailing defence, her battle weapon: tears, which Archie had never learnt to resist.

  ‘And now murder, Jeremy. Even Madam will not be able to save me. The master will say it’s all my fault bringing Lumbleigh into disrepute. I know what he’s like. He’ll look for someone to blame.’

  Faro restrained himself from stating the obvious.

  During that first interview with Gosse, Lizzie remained silent about Ida’s secret revelations, aware from Mrs Watts’ visit that Ida was no pathetic orphan as she had claimed, but that she had not only had both parents alive and well in Bonnyrigg, but a host of relatives as well.

  Later she told Faro: ‘Of course, I didn’t tell Sergeant Gosse about what Ida had said to me, Jeremy, it wasn’t my secret. I had promised her, given my word.’ And that was that. Keeping her word to Ida was sacred to Lizzie Laurie, even if she was dead.

  In vain, Faro tried to make her understand that by telling Gosse it might help the police to find Ida’s killer. But Lizzie was adamant. She shook her head obstinately.

  ‘You must promise, Jeremy,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t you see, I could lose my job, my whole future is at stake. It was bad enough me telling the police poor Ida was missing, but now that it’s murder, if the master finds I have been concealing anything else, it’ll be the end for me. The mistress won’t be able to intervene this time, he’ll just send me packing and that’s the end of it.’

  Faro regarded her anxiously. Secrets were sacred to her, even though, he thought in exasperation, this particular one might lead to the capture of a killer of two women and the attempted murderer of an elderly man.

  As for her future, he thought grimly, it was no consolation for him to realise that this was his chance – his only one to protect Lizzie’s future – to ask her to marry him now and give her the security of a husband, where Lumbleigh and his kind could no longer destroy her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Gosse was enjoying the prospect of another interview with the attractive lady’s maid and Lizzie, with a final helpless glance in Faro’s direction, knew that she must admit that Ida had been in touch with her.

  ‘And what was this about?’ Gosse demanded eagerly.

  Now with a certain amount of delicacy she hesitated about telling Gosse about Ida’s suspected pregnancy. But he was a married man, after all, and when he demanded was there any special reason for this good news, Lizzie sighed, and when she told him about the secret lover, his eyes gleamed. An unwanted pregnancy, here was the perfect motive for murder.

  Faro was waiting in the hall. Lizzie’s helpless, injured look in his direction indicated that she had broken her promise to Ida.

  Gosse had a smirk of satisfaction, as if the interview had pleased him, and said that they would need to see the room Ida occupied in the house. At his request there was a murmur of disapproval from Mrs Brown, quelled by Gosse who said sternly that all places of residence linked with the victim were examined for evidence in murder cases.

  ‘She was not murdered in this house.’

  Ignoring that, Gosse said firmly, ‘That is our rule and it is quite inflexible.’ And to Lizzie: ‘Did you share a room?’

  Lizzie explained that Ida had shared a room with Betty, the other maid. ‘We need to talk to her again then,’ said Gosse and Lizzie was sent to summon the terrified girl, trembling in the darkest depths of the kitchen.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Betty, you have nothing to fear. It’s just that poor Ida, well they think someone killed her.’

  Betty gave a shrill scream of terror and looked ready to faint, despite Lizzie’s warm hand in hers and her reassurances. She looked at the two policemen as if they were executioners waiting to lead her to the block. Scared and almost inarticulate, she answered Gosse’s questions. Ida had kept herself to herself was all she could volunteer. None of us knew anything about her.

  Yes, she would show them the room she had shared with Ida, and they followed her through a green baize door, along a gloomy corridor and up two flights of narrow wooden stairs into the attics, draughty, cold and inhospitable.

  Betty opened the door into a tiny room with one bed which looked hardly large enough for two grown-ups to share. A small table, two wooden chairs, a broken-down set of drawers. When Betty opened the one which belonged to Ida and was intended to contain all her possessions, it was empty apart from a white apron and cap.

  Betty said quite logically: ‘As she was leaving she took everything else with her.’

  There was a crucifix on the wall above one side of the bed.

  ‘Yours, miss?’ asked Gosse.

  ‘No, sir, I’m not a Catholic. That’s Ida’s. She went to Mass at the church at St Leonard’s. She wanted me to go with her.’ A moment’s hesitating, then she said: ‘I don’t think she would have committed suicide, sir. I mean, you see, Catholics don’t allow it.’

  ‘Did you ever play card games, miss?’ Faro put in, ignoring Gosse’s snort of disapproval.

  Betty gave him a scared look. ‘No, master would have dismissed us on the spot. Ida said she thought—’

  But whatever Ida had thought they were not to know, for suddenly struck again by the awfulness of Ida’s fate, Betty began to weep.

  Gosse patted her arm, and said: ‘We’ll find our own way downstairs.’

  Following him out of that desolate room, Faro hoped Lizzie fared better than the
other maids. At least she had a room of her own.

  There was still one member of the family remaining to be interviewed. Lumbleigh explained to Gosse that Paul was unavoidably detained at Surgeons’ Hall, one of an army of medical students crowded round the operating table for an important anatomical dissection by the professor.

  Gosse nodded. ‘We will need to see him later.’

  Lumbleigh scowled. ‘My son will merely confirm his parents’ comments. You are wasting your time and ours.’

  Mrs Brown had returned and been told of Ida’s death by Archie. She now stood with her hands clasped meekly before her, the picture of a dignified family retainer, and said in a clear, firm voice that although Ida was a bit lazy and slow and couldn’t be relied upon and they had their differences, she was, of course, sorry that the girl had suffered such a dreadful fate.

  The housekeeper’s face looked as if it had been carved out of stone. Did she ever smile, or laugh, or show any emotion? Faro had never before seen anyone whose countenance was so wiped clean of expression.

  Of outside staff, Archie informed them there was only Eli Brown, coachman, gardener and general handyman. Having failed to find him at the cottage, Mrs Brown told Gosse that at this moment he was away down East Lothian buying spring bulbs for autumn planting. But, she volunteered, as he never crossed the threshold of the house, to her certain knowledge he rarely encountered the maids, so it was doubtful if he could be of any help with their enquiries.

  Gosse added his name to be interviewed later. Asked if anyone shared their cottage, Mrs Brown said they had no children but boarded Laurie’s schoolboy son Vince.

  Faro’s thoughts were on the conversation with Archie regarding Paul’s alibi, which had been interrupted by Mrs Brown’s entrance. He remembered Lizzie had said Paul was a bit of a flirt with the servant girls. He decided to keep that information to himself since he guessed, quite correctly, that the sergeant was hoping that Lizzie, who was keeping company with his detective constable, might be willing to gossip about other members of the household.