‘Do forgive me, Mrs Gilver,’ she said, beaming as she sat and ignoring her father’s mild remonstrances about the wet hair and shoulders. ‘I’ve been visiting, Father. Welcoming our new addition to the parish.’ Mr Tait looked understandably put out at that; it was his job to welcome incomers, not to mention his job to know they were coming. ‘Ford Cottage is let at last,’ she went on. ‘To an artist.’ She was almost breathless as she said this, and I very briefly caught her father’s eye.
‘He’s been walking in the area and he passed through the village only last week,’ said Lorna, accepting a plate absent-mindedly, ‘looking for inspiration, he said, for “a piece”. When he saw Ford Cottage he immediately sent a telegram to the Howies begging them to let him rent it, and moved in the very next day.’
‘What kind of artist?’ said Mr Tait. ‘A painter?’
‘Yes,’ said Lorna. ‘He’s got great big canvases stacked everywhere all over the living room.’
‘And what’s his name?’ said her father.
‘Captain Watson,’ said Lorna, rather reverently it seemed to me. ‘He’s just resigned his commission and he’s looking for somewhere to settle down.’ Her father looked slightly comforted at that. A Captain Watson with such a respectable excuse for finding himself rootless was much to be preferred to the impulsive wastrel he had at first understood this stranger to be.
‘We’ve never had an artist at Luckenlaw before,’ said Lorna, cheerfully, and she took a hearty bite out of her buttered pancake. ‘I must tell Miss Lindsay and Miss McCallum. He could do a painting demonstration at the Rural, or at least give a talk.’ She gave what I thought was a little shiver of anticipation. Her father, however, thought otherwise and took her cup and tea plate out of her hands, setting them down firmly on the table again.
‘I insist you go and wrap your hair in a towel,’ he said. ‘You’re chilled, Lorna dear. Wrap your hair and change your blouse like a good girl and I’ll pour you a fresh cup when you come down again.’ Lorna beamed at him and felt her damp hair as though noticing it for the first time, then obediently rose and left the room.
We were silent for a while once she had gone. I was thinking hard about this artist; he did not seem quite plausible to me. Mr Tait too was troubled at the thought of him.
‘Odd for this chap to want to settle here, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Just after the war, of course, there were plenty of officers who wanted to escape the world, but a career soldier, as this Watson must be . . .’
‘ . . . might be expected to look for something a bit more lively,’ I agreed.
‘Different story with the poet, of course,’ Mr Tait went on. ‘Have you heard about him?’
I nodded. ‘I was wondering about what Lorna said; that this artist had been walking in the area. Moonlight walks, do you suppose? Might his recent passage through the village have been on the night in question?’
‘Surely not.’
‘It’s certainly worth making sure that Elspeth McConechie, say, or Annie Pellow, gets a look at him to see if he seems familiar.’
‘On the quiet, mind,’ said Mr Tait softly as we heard Lorna returning, and we shared a smile.
After tea the rain began to fall more determinedly than ever and the two Taits and I settled in by the sitting-room fireside for a long evening of respectively mending, snoozing over a book of essays and making notes on the case under cover of planning my talk. My beginner’s luck that afternoon had been considerable, but I could not hope to meet such good fortune every time I ventured forth and I quailed when I looked in the Post Office Directory and saw just how many dwellings there were scattered about the lanes where my other missing victims might be waiting. There must, I thought desperately, be some way of doing this more efficiently, of avoiding the time I might waste knocking on doors where no one had ever been to the Rural or was not there on the night in question. July and September were the months which were missing a name to enter against them, so if I could find out who had stopped going by then – scared off by the stranger or forbidden by a protective husband, perhaps – I could save myself the kitchen visit, the household budget subterfuge of which I was already growing weary, and the chastening haughty put-downs which were bound to ensue if I accused some blameless woman of being implicated in the trouble that beset Luckenlaw. If Miss Lindsay kept a record, it could be just what I needed. But what excuse could I give her for wanting to see it?
‘Can I help you?’ said Lorna, and I realised that I was staring at her as I tried to think.
‘I do apologise,’ I said. ‘I was miles away.’
‘Only . . . you haven’t asked me yet,’ she went on. I stared at her. ‘About my household budget, I mean.’
‘Of course!’ I said. ‘Well, I’d be very grateful for anything you can tell me.’
‘I may not have much to tax me just now,’ she said. She glanced over at the drowsing head opposite and went on softly. ‘My father has a very generous stipend and a pension from Kingoldrum as well and my mother had money of her own, so I don’t really need to worry as long as it’s the manse we’re considering. But’ – another glance at her father – ‘I was all set to run my little household once before using my own small inheritance, and I would have been equal to it, would have delighted in it.’
‘Of course you would, my dear,’ I murmured, trying to ignore the echo of Professor Higgins in my head, sneering at anyone who essayed happiness on a pittance and called it fun.
‘And I haven’t changed my mind or grown too set in my ways,’ she went on. ‘A daughter of the manse I might be but I could be happy with a much less . . . a much more . . . I mean, a bohemian life can be managed on a shoestring, don’t you think?’
I refrained from hazarding a guess about how big a hole daily servings of opium and absinthe would make in her mother’s money, and anyway I am sure that the mild, smiling Lorna meant something quite different when she spoke of a bohemian life. I supposed too that it was inevitable for her to harbour some wistful thoughts upon hearing that another artistic soul had come to rest, and in such romantic circumstances, in her poet’s cottage, and perhaps he had seen in her his heart’s desire when she hove through the rain towards him and she was only responding in kind, but I doubted it and I hoped for her sake that she was a little less transparent in this Captain Watson’s hearing and in the Howie ladies’ too; they were bound to laugh at her, friends or no friends, for Lorna was just the kind of girl to tease little spikes of cruelty from the best of hearts and the Howies, although kind, were always on the look-out for diversion too.
Once again Lorna looked over at her father and when she spoke again it was almost in a whisper.
‘Do you believe in fate, Mrs Gilver?’ she said. ‘I do.’
‘Um,’ I said.
‘This afternoon,’ she went on, ‘when I went to Ford Cottage, I could almost have sworn . . . Well, what I mean is, I’m glad I knew already that Captain Watson was there. If I had just caught sight of him I would have sworn Walter had come back to me. It took quite ten minutes for the feeling to disperse, and I think it’s a sign.’
‘Really?’ I said. One would have imagined that a pacifist poet and a retired soldier with enormous canvases strewn about would be at either end of the spectrum of artists, nothing much in common at all. But perhaps it was just red hair or something. ‘Is there a very strong likeness, then?’
‘Oh no,’ said Lorna. ‘None at all, really. It was just seeing him there, I daresay, in Walter’s cottage. In Walter’s setting.’
Or, as Alec would say, in Walter’s context. Was he right after all? If Lorna could be persuaded that she recognised someone just because of where she saw him, was it possible that frightened women would not recognise a neighbour just because they saw him where they could hardly believe he would be? Was I wasting time with the women when I should have been sleuthing away after the men? I had a small, sneaking feeling down inside that I had blundered.
It was long after dinner, almost bedtim
e, just the moment when one is deciding whether to ring for more coal or bank the embers and begin to turn down the lamps, that all the commotion began. There was a banging at the manse door and Mr Tait heaved himself to his slippered feet with a weary sigh and padded out to see what was the matter. Lorna and I followed him, for surely this hammering was something beyond the usual supplicating call for the minister.
In the hallway, lit by a housemaid’s raised candle, stood a large man of early middle-age, who was twisting his cap and breathing heavily, although whether from some turmoil or just from the exertion it must take to move his bulk around – he really was quite enormous when one got close – was hard to guess at immediately.
‘Logan?’ said Mr Tait. ‘What is it? Is something the matter?’
The man flicked a glance at Lorna and me, but clearly was in no mood to observe niceties and demand that the womenfolk be protected from whatever he had to say.
‘They’ve arrested Jockie Christie,’ he announced. Lorna, standing beside me, breathed in with a harsh gasp.
‘Arrested him for what, Mr McAdam?’ she said.
‘Prowling,’ came the answer. ‘Constable Whatsisname spied him at it and went down to the police station to get Sergeant Doolan, then the two of them came up and nabbed him and took him away to the jail and if Ella Doolan hadn’t sent her lad up on his bicycle to tell Bessie we’d never have known a thing about it. It looks bad for him with this “dark stranger” starting up again.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ said Mr Tait.
‘Will you help? The lad’s done no wrong, not really, and you don’t like to think of him in a jail cell, Mr Tait. Will you go down and speak to Mike Doolan in the morning?’
‘I’ll do better than that,’ Mr Tait answered stoutly. ‘I’ll go down there now. There’s no reason for the poor lad to spend a night in a cell. Prowling, indeed! Prowling where?’
‘I’ll be getting back then,’ said the messenger, lumbering round awkwardly on the mat and preparing to take his leave. ‘Thank you, Mr Tait. It’s much appreciated.’
‘The least I could do,’ said Mr Tait, sounding rather gruff, as though embarrassed, as we watched the door close on the visitor’s departing back. Logan McAdam, I thought. Husband of Auntie Bessie McAdam of Over Luckenlaw Farm and one of Miss Lindsay’s erstwhile name-callers. The very floor shook as he descended the porch steps and I thought that at least he could be crossed off my list of potential snaky strangers. No one in the world could fail to recognise him.
Lorna, with a little twittering about making up a parcel of biscuits and a hot flask, disappeared along with the kitchen maid. Mr Tait went into the little cloakroom by the front door and sat down on the bench there to pull on his boots. I followed him, casually.
‘Why would the sergeant’s wife tell Mrs McAdam that John Christie was arrested?’ I said.
‘Ella Doolan is Bessie McAdam’s cousin,’ said Mr Tait.
‘I see, but what’s the connection at the other end? Why are the McAdams bound up in Christie’s concerns?’
Mr Tait looked puzzled for a moment before he answered and then he shrugged.
‘They’re neighbours,’ he said simply. ‘They’re at the next farm round.’
‘Would that we all had such neighbours,’ I replied. ‘Would that we all had such ministers too, Mr Tait. I’m afraid the incumbent at Gilverton Manse would be as likely to let the boy cool his heels as to set out into the night to secure his instant release.’
‘I am very glad to hear that you approve, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, his voice straining as he bent over his bootlaces, ‘because I am going to have to enlist you.’ He sat up and puffed out the rest of his breath. ‘As a chaperone. The best way of getting Sergeant Doolan to see sense, as far as I can think, is to take a handful of the stranger’s victims to the police station and have them tell him that he’s got the wrong man.’
‘I suppose,’ I said, suddenly feeling very doubtful. Perhaps if the victims saw him huddled in a prison cell – in the setting, that is, where such fellows belonged – they would be convinced that he was the stranger after all. Could ‘context’ manage all of that? Mr Tait was looking at me expectantly. ‘I mean, of course,’ I said hastily, ‘I’ll certainly come along. I mean, everyone I’ve spoken to is quite sure it couldn’t be him, so the police are surely in error – although there’s still the prowling.’ Mr Tait waved a dismissive hand at me.
‘Taking a walk after supper is not a crime,’ he said. ‘Now, who should we ask to go with us?’
This was not a straightforward matter, I thought, as I went upstairs to dress for the unexpected outing. Clearly, Mrs Muirhead was out of the running in her condition and I was not keen to include Mrs Fraser in the party. Annie Pellow had seemed a level-headed girl, but she lodged on the green and it would be terribly public for her to be dragged out in her curl-papers at ten o’clock at night in front of her neighbours. Molly Tweed was a far better bet: she had had a good look at her assailant that night in the spring. She was favourably disposed to young Mr Christie, but I still believed that her preference for him would only guarantee her making no mischief if he was not the one, and could not possibly lead her as far as covering for him if indeed he were guilty. And then Elspeth McConechie could perhaps be persuaded to come along too, for she was a sensible soul.
It took some doing to winkle Elspeth out of her employers’ protective grasp in the end; I had forgotten just how solicitous Mrs Palmer had been when I had tracked Elspeth down to her dairy.
‘Come now, Mrs Palmer,’ Mr Tait had said with a stern look over the tops of his spectacles, as we stood on the kitchen doorstep at Over Luck, ‘Elspeth has no objection and Mrs Gilver is here to take care of her. You surely don’t want our young friend languishing in that nasty jail, do you?’
At which, Mrs Palmer had – very reluctantly – nodded to Elspeth that she was free to go and had left us to it, with a ‘Do what you will then, you’re harming no one’ thrown over her departing shoulder.
Our reception at Luckenlaw House could hardly have been more different. Vashti and Nicolette were summoned by the noise of Mr Tait’s motor-car engine – he had unearthed the fabled Napier for the expedition and it made a racket like twenty aeroplanes running out of fuel together in a hailstorm – and were only just persuaded not to come along, as though the trip were laid on for their fun, but settled in the end for giving Molly an archly solemn pep talk each.
‘Remember,’ said Vashti, ‘take a very good look and make sure you are quite certain before you say yea or nay.’
‘And only go in if you are you sure it won’t be too upsetting,’ said Nicolette. ‘I should hate to think you’re going to relive that shocking ordeal.’
‘Well, we had better be off,’ said Mr Tait, ‘and let you ladies get back to your refreshment.’ He glared at the cocktail glass in Nicolette’s hand.
It was only a few miles down to Colinsburgh, where the blue light above the police station shone out alone into the darkness. There were no streetlamps on the long stretch of terraced cottages which made up the bulk of the little town and with the public bar shut up and shuttered and lamps already out behind almost every pair of drawn curtains, it was a picture of slumbering respectability. Mr Tait’s ancient motor car shuddered to a halt and he climbed down.
‘Wait here, won’t you please, ladies,’ he said. ‘I have high hopes of Sergeant Doolan. You might not have to go through with it at all if he can be brought to his senses.’ With that he left us.
‘I dinna ken why everybody’s so set on Jock Christie,’ said Molly once we were alone. Mr Tait had subdued her on the journey, but she was clearly quite unbowed by my presence alone. ‘It’s no’ him, eh it’s no’, Elspeth?’ Elspeth shook her head. She was in less ebullient spirits than the irrepressible Molly, shivering slightly beside me and looking ghastly pale in the faint blue light. Before she had plucked up the nerve to speak, Mr Tait was back again. He opened the door and climbed in, shutting it behind him with w
hat amounted to a resounding slam at this hour of the night in a quiet village.
‘Confound the man,’ he said, treating the three of us to a scowl which was surely Sergeant Doolan’s by rights. ‘He’s adamant. Said Christie was behaving suspiciously, creeping around in the edge of a field at Balniel with no excuse for being there, and now he’s in his office there stamping pieces of paper and tying up files with pink tape left, right and centre. I’m afraid, my dears, that you are going to have to steel yourselves for a rather unpleasant ten minutes or so. Now who wants to go first? Or shall you both go together?’
‘I canna,’ blurted out Elspeth. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Tait. I canna thole goin’ in there.’
‘But it’s John Christie, my dear,’ Mr Tait said gently. ‘You are not about to face your attacker again. It’s Jockie Christie and you know it wasn’t him.’
‘I canna,’ said Elspeth again, her voice rising. ‘My mother would drop deid if she kent I had walked into a police station and looked at a man in a jail cell. She wis afrontit enough that I didna keep ma mooth shut aboot the stranger. She would dee and she would kill me first, and I canna.’ She stopped talking but continued to shake her head over and over again. Mr Tait looked for a moment as though he were planning to attack this stout resolve, but in the end he turned to Molly, with a sigh.
‘So, it falls to you, my dear,’ he said. ‘You must come in and tell Sergeant Doolan – once again, as though you didn’t tell him until you were blue in the face in the springtime – that you had no idea who attacked you and John Christie is not the man. Come along.’
‘No!’ wailed Elspeth. ‘Don’t leave me, Mr Tait.’ Her nerve, which I had thought so firm, had quite deserted her and so, since she could not be left howling alone at the roadside and Molly could not be sent alone into the jail, I took a deep breath and stepped down into the street.
If truth be told, I was rather wobbly about the knees at the prospect of entering the place. I had been inside a police station once before, but it had been in the daytime and I had been taken in a side door to be interviewed as a witness in a room with an ordinary window; I had never before heard clanking keys and looked through bars at a prisoner. I told myself not to be a ninny and strode through the door sweeping Molly before me.
Bury Her Deep Page 16
