Murray had ordered the drawing room and the tapestried dining room to be made as warm as possible, for Letho was a cold house and he could not bear the thought of sitting and watching Virginia Kirk shiver all through the day, and her aunt, being delicate, also required a comfortable warmth. The fireboards, already in place for the summer, had been lifted away and fires set again in the grates, to the disgust of the housemaids. Murray did not often host formal entertainments, as the difficulty of finding a suitable hostess usually meant that the entire burden of ensuring his guests’ comfort fell on him, and the female guests would suffer from an inevitable lack of attention. However, a dinner on a lesser scale for local friends was not so trying, and Mrs. Helliwell or Mrs. Feilden could be relied upon to lead the rest of the ladies back to the drawing room and give the gentlemen a break from formality for half an hour or so. Today neither was the most senior lady present: old Mrs. Kirk had made a rare visit, accompanied by her nieces, but was considered too frail to know when to leave the table or to rise unassisted, so Mrs. Feilden allowed herself to be persuaded to stand in. Miss George was of course not present, and nor was her brother, as it was the turn of the Helliwells to be invited instead. They had brought their son Gilbert, and Dr. Feilden made the last of the party.
When the ladies had departed to the drawing room, Mr. Helliwell drew breath to speak but was swiftly pre-empted by the doctor. Everyone knew what Mr. Helliwell’s favourite topic of conversation was, and as his wife had adroitly kept him off it during the meal, no one else was going to let him start now.
‘Has there been any news,’ began Mr. Feilden, ‘about the death of that poor young woman?’
‘None at all that I am aware of,’ Murray replied, looking down the table for any contradictions. His grandparents’ portraits stared back at him from the end wall, and he had a passing feeling that he was a boy pretending to be grown up.
‘The sheriff’s officer – and I, too, for that matter, though of course I may have asked the wrong people – could find no report of any strangers in the village,’ said Blair. ‘It looks, very sadly, as if someone known to us must have been driven to do her such an injury.’
‘We do not know how far she may have walked after she was injured to reach the spot where she was found,’ Kennedy suggested, but the doctor shook his head.
‘She could not have walked far. I for myself am inclined to think she did no more than stagger from the wood, probably from where Mrs. Helliwell found her pack, and fell on the path unable to drag herself further.’
There was a moment’s respectful silence while they all digested this vivid picture.
‘Then it must have happened late that night, or early the next day,’ said Mr. Helliwell. ‘There were people up and down that path with lanterns long after dark – I could hear them from the manse, easily. Do you not remember, Gilbert?’
‘Aye, mmm,’ Gilbert replied, in what appeared to pass for confirmation of his father’s statement.
‘I walked along it myself at eleven or so,’ Dr. Feilden volunteered. ‘I must have been one of the last to leave the site of the firework display, for one of the young Melvilles picked up a cinder and burned his hand, and I went back to attend to it. I saw them back towards Hill of Letho and went back myself towards the village. I had no lantern, though,’ he added apologetically.
‘So she could have been there then,’ said Blair, ‘and you simply did not chance to trip on her.’
‘No, that is unlikely,’ said Murray. ‘Kennedy and I went into the village after we had seen to clearing up the fireworks, and that was after the Melvilles went home. We went to see if the room at the inn was cleared up after the dance, and Kennedy – remember? You thought you had left a handkerchief there.’
‘That’s right,’ said Kennedy with wide eyes, ‘and I told you to carry on home and I would follow, and you left me the lantern. I came when I found the handkerchief, and that would have been close to midnight. There was no woman in the lane then, for I do not know the path well and I swung the lantern around a good deal to make sure I had the right way.’ He gave a mischievous smile. ‘Alas! Suspicion must fall on me! The last man to admit taking the path, and a stranger in town to boot!’
The others laughed, but Blair was solemn.
‘You should not joke of such things, Mr. Kennedy. Many a false accusation has been based on less.’
‘Shall we join the ladies?’ asked Murray, seeing that no one was taking great interest in the brandy. They stood without reluctance, and he ushered his guests back to the drawing room.
XII
The Misses Kirk were bored until the gentlemen appeared, at which point, not wishing to waste time, Parnell sprang to the piano as if let off a leash and asked if she might be allowed to play, and if so, would Mr. Gilbert Helliwell do her the honour of turning the pages for her. The company were happy to allow her, though Mrs. Helliwell watched her son with several qualms, one lest he should attract Miss Parnell who would undoubtedly be bad for him, and one lest he should make a botch of the task, and not attract anyone. She need not have worried on either count. Parnell had again chosen simple, quick songs in which little page-turning was required, and apart from the occasional request she directed hardly any of her charms at Gilbert. Instead, Murray was the focus of her attention, and he found himself rather shamefacedly basking in it.
‘The first I saw my lady it was in the month of May,’ she sang, causing Murray to reflect that the Misses Kirk had indeed arrived in May.
‘Walking by the daffodils upon a sunny day,
Golden were the flowers and sable was her hair,’ (as indeed it was, Murray noted)
Gold and sable was her gown and she did walk so fair:
I looked at her and loved her but she did tell me nay,
And I alas did part from her and went upon my way.’
Gilbert turned the page back smartly for the second verse and earned a dazzling smile.
‘The next I saw my lady it was in the month of June,
Walking in the young grass she sang a merry tune.
Green the pasture ‘neath her feet and green her laughing eyes,
Blue and white her gown of silk like summer’s cloudy skies:’
Parnell’s gown was indeed blue and white, but she did not blush. Her high notes were a little flat, but the effect was so lively that nobody seemed to notice.
‘I looked at her and loved her and she did tell me soon:
We danced the day and parted late beneath a silver moon.’
Gilbert was ready for another smile, but Parnell’s eyes were only on Murray. He met her gaze fully, refusing to be disconcerted.
‘The next I saw my lady it was early in July,
Walking in the garden there beneath the azure sky.
Snow white were the roses, white her face so fair,
White her gown and red her lips and sable was her hair:
I looked at her and loved her and she did tell me aye,
Now I maintain the earth contain no happier man than I!’
There was a burst of very appreciative applause, the more so as it was a familiar tune with words they had not heard before. No others showed any inclination to play or sing, though Miss Kirk fingered a key or two with an air of fatigued appreciation: it was a very fine box piano. The day was too fine to sit at cards, old Mrs. Kirk had fallen asleep happily in her chair, and Mrs. Helliwell expressed a wish, not unanticipated by Murray, to walk in the flower gardens. He led his guests towards the back of the hall, where double doors let them out into a courtyard which led to the terrace.
Once outside, escorted by an enthusiastic Blair, Mrs. Helliwell began an expert survey of the latest leaves and blossoms, allowing her husband to trap Murray into the inevitable discussion on the state of the manse. Dr. Feilden and his wife talked with Miss Kirk in a slow perambulation down the steps towards the laburnum walk, Gilbert Helliwell drifted off on his own to stare into the pond, and Kennedy, who had shown no previous susceptibility to Miss Parnell
Kirk’s charms, finally engaged her in conversation near the far gate into the park. Murray, remaining with Mr. Helliwell on the terrace, propped himself thoughtfully on the balustrade and watched the light dance on Parnell’s dark curls, her white gown with the blue trim bright against the dark laurel by the gate, and his concentration meandered away. It was only when he found himself humming the song she had been singing – complete with the flat high notes – that he roused himself again to good manners and the minister’s monologue.
XIII
The following morning was still fine, and Murray was in the village when the Fairlies’ wedding flag, a rather cluttered cloth depicting doves, roses, hearts and rings, was raised on a little pole from the top window as the church clock struck eleven. He hoped Hugh was managing all right, and thought he probably would be: he had always been a man who was confident in his own decisions. They had not seen much of each other since their schooldays, as Hugh had travelled to Aberdeen to attend university, while Murray had remained at the local university in St. Andrews, a lack of adventure which he had never, it should be said, once regretted. The university attracted people from all over Europe as well as Britain, and the Fife people amongst whom he also lived there were dear to him, straight-faced in warmth and humour.
He stood now for a moment watching them as they went about their business around the village green. He wondered quite how to proceed: he had come into the village determined to make some progress in the matter of the death of the mysterious girl, but he was not entirely sure where to start. But it had to be done: it was now three weeks since the woman had been attacked on his land, and it was almost a week since one of his own servants, his own household, had narrowly missed a similar assault, and his conscience was becoming belatedly active. At first he had had faith in the sheriff’s officer: the man had seemed competent, the villagers were on the lookout, he had his own distractions. The conversation at the dinner table yesterday had made him realise again how little anyone knew of the attacker, and how likely it might be that he was prepared to attack again.
He made his decision, and started across the green, towards the inn.
XIV
When Murray returned home for dinner, Kennedy, with a curious expression on his face, informed him that he had just missed Mrs. Helliwell and the Misses Kirk. Murray was disappointed.
‘Mrs. Helliwell came with the cutting she promised you yesterday,’ Kennedy said in a cheerful tone, ‘so we adjourned to the gardens. Strange to think,’ he went on, ‘that the Misses Kirk arrived in Letho as long ago as the nineteenth of May, and yesterday was the first time I saw them.’
‘The first I saw my lady it was in the month of May,’ Murray’s mind sang quickly to him, and he gave a little smile, and went to change for dinner, whistling.
XV
After dinner, when Robbins had left them with the brandy decanter in the drawing room, Murray explained what he had been doing in the village that morning.
‘Based on Effy’s rather loose description,’ he said, ‘I was trying to find out who might have been unaccounted for that evening. You see, as I see it,’ he noted that Blair was already beaming happily, and even Kennedy looked quite interested, ‘as I see it, the likelihood is that we need to know who the woman was before we can know why she was killed. We know very little about the killing itself: it could have been carefully planned, the woman’s route and time of arrival well known beforehand and a reason for killing her so clear in the murderer’s mind that he went prepared, after the fireworks were over and everyone else gone home, and lay in wait for her. Or it could have been a chance meeting and a moment of unforeseen madness. The sheriff’s officer said there was no sign of a struggle or a prolonged assault, so it does not look as if she expected an attack. Many of us carry knives with us a good deal of the time, and the murderer need not have planned it at all.’
‘It would help,’ said Kennedy, frowning – though Murray could not shake the impression that he was simply playing the part of a thinking man – ‘if we even knew why she was going to Letho. If no one in the village knew her, what was her business there?’
‘She may just have been wandering,’ said Murray, ‘or Letho may not have been her final destination. She could have been cutting across country to Cupar, rather than going round by the main road.’
‘Or someone in the village did know her, and is saying nothing,’ added Blair, wide-eyed.
‘The point of the matter is,’ said Murray, ‘either she knew her attacker or she did not. If she did not, then she and Effy and, for all we know, Nan Watson, were all attacked simply because this man likes to attack women – and if this is so, then there is no reason why he should stop at three. No woman in the parish would be safe.’
‘But I wonder,’ said Blair, ‘for if there were no strangers in the village, as has been discovered by the sheriff’s officer – and truth to tell I can find no contradiction of this – then it must be someone of the parish, and why would they start just then? Would there not have been previous signs of such inclinations?’
There was a silence while Murray, who knew the parish and its inhabitants better than Kennedy, tried to remember anything he had ever seen or heard which would point to that possibility. Blair jiggled, and Kennedy took a cautious sip of brandy followed by a larger mouthful of coffee, to dilute the effect.
‘But if he did know his victim,’ said Murray at last, conceding temporary defeat for the other theory, ‘then what was his purpose in attacking Effy?’
‘Ah!’ said Blair, jumping up and beginning to pace, ‘I have it! The murderer kills the strange woman, but later he realises that Nan Watson saw something that could convict him. After all, she is often out and about at night, and the cook at the Fairlies’ said she was back late the night of the fireworks. So he finds out that she saw him, and lures her by some means –’
‘It wouldn’t take much, by all accounts!’ said Kennedy gleefully. ‘She was always mixing her moggins with someone, or so I hear!’
Murray, faintly disgusted, tried not to laugh in the hope that Kennedy would not feel encouraged to continue. He nodded at Blair to go on.
‘When he has lured her back to the woodland – which worked well as cover for his deeds the first time – he does away with her, and emerging on to the path still dishevelled from the struggle he walks into Effy. He is alarmed that she will know him and bear witness against him, and he has by now dispatched two women, so he attempts to attack her, too, but she breaks free and runs back home.’
Murray nodded, thinking. Then an objection struck him.
‘But why, if he was so desperate, did he not follow her more assiduously?’
‘Because he was afraid of being seen by more people. He may have – but we do not know, of course – had reason enough to be near the village, but to be running near Cullessie, Hill of Letho, or Letho House, might have required more excuses. He may have thought it safer to take his chance on Effy being too hysterical to describe him accurately.’
‘Which, of course, she was. Poor Effy,’ sighed Murray. ‘Well, this morning I made of list of the men in the village and parish whom Effy might consider to be tall. It came to about thirty names, but this morning in the village I managed to cut it down to eight that were not accounted for home with their families after the fireworks, or accounted for when Effy was attacked last Sunday. There are some surprising names on it – for instance, you and I, Kennedy, cannot produce witnesses to say that each of us walked along the path without incident the night the woman was stabbed, though fortunately all three of us were together in here when Effy was attacked.’
‘Who else is on the list?’ asked Blair eagerly.
‘Kenny, the schoolmaster, lives alone as you know. A man called McClure, a farmhand at Hill of Letho, did not come home the night of the fireworks – he sleeps in the barn loft with the rest of the men and his absence caused much speculation and hilarity, I gather. On Sunday evening he had gone out for a walk, apparently. Melville himself
at Hill of Letho was out both times, as after the fireworks one of his cows was ill.’
‘Could have been any of them,’ said Kennedy frivolously.
Murray met Blair’s limpid gaze.
‘Then there are two at the manse,’ said Murray, more sober. ‘I know it seems unlikely, but the possibility has to be faced. Mr. Helliwell was called out to a dying parishioner at Pitmen after the fireworks, and Gilbert went with him, but they had an argument on the way and Gilbert returned alone first, followed by his father after he had seen the parishioner. On Sunday, Mr. Helliwell was again returning from Pitmen when Effy was attacked, having preached at the chapel of ease there. Gilbert was sulking in his room, from what he says. And the last person on the list is Mr. George, who cheerfully refuses to account for his whereabouts on either occasion, while implying that he was with someone else on both occasions.’
‘Old George, eh?’ asked Kennedy.
‘He is not so very old,’ Murray replied. ‘He is not above forty, and perhaps five years younger than that.’
‘Well, my money’s on him,’ said Kennedy firmly. ‘Not to be able to say where you were is one thing, but to be able to say and to refuse is a clear sign of guilt.’
‘I still wonder,’ mused Blair, ‘how, if Effy screamed, no one in the manse heard her.’
XVI
‘Where is your niece, Watson? I want to get home to my dinner.’ Kenny was grumbling as usual after the service. The Session had dealt with everything else needful, and was only awaiting the arrival of Nan Watson to ask her a few important questions about, as Kenny put it, the forthcoming trout in her well.
An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4) Page 13
