Mrs. Everett was a large, placid woman of about forty, who seemed too self-effacing ever to have reached the elevated degree of housekeeper except by accident. When Smith arrived, she was entertaining a guest and seemed unsure of how to proceed, but as Smith assured her that the conversation was unlikely to be personal, and as the guest showed no disposition to go, Mrs. Everett did not trouble herself to see Smith in private. She seemed only mildly surprised that Smith had come all the way from Fife to ask her about a girl she had not seen for close on ten years.
‘Yes, I did work for Mrs. Llewellyn – Mrs. Campbell she was then. It was a nice household, as I remember, but it was too far out in the country for my liking.’
‘And you employed Catherine Jack as a kitchenmaid?’
‘Our parlourmaid had asked leave to go and be married, so the kitchenmaid we had was made parlourmaid, and we found a local girl to work in the kitchen. It was just to be while we were at – what was it called? Dull House?’
‘Dures House,’ put in Smith, slightly defensive even of Mr. George.
‘But the cook liked her, so when Mrs. Campbell said she was to marry Mr. Llewellyn and move to Wales, Kate was asked to come with us. Her parents thought it would be a good opportunity for her, and no wonder, living in that place.’
Smith pressed his lips together slightly, then said,
‘So Kate went with you to Wales, and stayed – how long?’
Mrs. Everett thought about it.
‘About half a year, I think,’ she decided in the end. ‘We moved in the summer, and it was after Christmas she left. Well, she said she had another position, so the mistress and I wrote references for her, for there was nothing wrong with her, and off she went.’
‘And you have no idea where she went to?’ asked Smith.
‘Oh, London, I should think,’ said Mrs. Everett carelessly. ‘She was ambitious, that one, she was going places.’
‘Would the cook have known anything more about the girl?’
‘She might have.’ This was a new idea to Mrs. Everett, but not a very interesting one. ‘They were quite friendly, as much as a cook can be quite friendly with a kitchenmaid.’
‘So where is the cook now?’
‘Oh, she died long ago,’ said Mrs. Everett. ‘Then I left Mrs. Llewellyn, and took a place here. At least it isn’t twenty miles from here to a respectable market or shop.’ She nodded to her friend.
‘Well, then,’ said Smith, bending to unfasten the most waterproof part of his pack, ‘does this remind you of Kate Jack?’
He took out a small roll of paper and handed it to Mrs. Everett. She unfurled it. It was a copy, hastily sketched but accurate, of the Sheriff’s officer’s portrait of the dead woman at Letho. Mrs. Everett stared at it for a few seconds, then said,
‘No, nothing like. The same colouring, mind, but that’s all that could be said for it.’
‘Let me see,’ demanded her guest, speaking at last. The other woman had been sitting alert through the whole conversation, eagerly taking in the whole story. She was small and round, and seemed entirely made up of the most energetic movement. Even the blinking of her eyes, which were brown and bright, was done with brisk determination. She reached out for the paper, clearly used to her friend obeying all her commands, and unrolled it with one quick hand. With a glance at the sketch, she let out a little laugh.
‘Well, I’m not acquainted with this Kate Jack you speak of, but this is Barbara Kerr to the very life!’
VIII
‘But what I cannot see,’ said Murray for at least the third time that evening, ‘is why either Mr. George or Mr. Kenny would need to murder her.’
He was standing by the fireplace in the parlour, which was no longer entirely a room he recognised. Isobel’s silks for her father’s waistcoat were thrown on the floor where she had left them in a temper, and Mrs. Freeman’s shawl and crochet were tossed over a low stool. There were several novels on the table, two of them left open and upside down like dead birds, again signs of Isobel’s passing. Murray looked around for something to put in as bookmarks so that he could close them.
Blair squatted on another stool, jiggling his knees.
‘My theory,’ he said apologetically, ‘is that one of them was married to her, and they needed to hide it. That is partly why Smith is in Aberdeen, to look for the registration.’
‘But if they had married in the established church, the minister would have written to Mr. Helliwell to find out if either had been married before.’
‘But neither has, I think,’ said Blair.
‘Well, no. But then it would not exactly have been a secret, would it? So why hide it by killing her?’
‘Maybe in Aberdeen they married under an assumed name,’ said Blair at last. ‘They could have chosen some obscure parish to have come from where the registers were no use, badly kept or with pages missing or lost in a fire or flood, and given a false name.’
‘If they gave a false name,’ said Murray, exasperated, ‘then what exactly is Smith looking for in Aberdeen?’
There was a moment of silence while they both digested this. Blair’s face stretched long and dejected.
‘But anyway,’ said Murray, ‘supposing they had married, in secret or otherwise: why should it be a secret now? Neither man has married since, that we know of, and neither has plans to marry. What dreadful secret about their past could she have been bringing to Letho, that she had to be killed before she could speak to a single soul?’
‘Maybe they both married her,’ suggested Blair. Murray gave a short laugh.
‘That would certainly present a problem,’ he agreed.
‘Gilbert Helliwell may be planning to marry,’ said Blair tentatively.
‘But we know now that Gilbert was taigling with Mary Fairlie when Effy was attacked, which is why he was not at the manse to hear the scream. And Gilbert has never been further from Letho than St. Andrews, and that was with his parents. When would he have found time to travel to Aberdeen, court, wed, and leave a woman and return home?’
‘It all does seem to centre on Aberdeen, does it not?’ said Blair. ‘I wonder how Smith is progressing.’
IX
Mrs. Everett’s friend, whose name was Mrs. Butler, was good, if tiring, company. When she was asked if she would be prepared to pay a visit to Fife to identify a man – any man – she whisked Smith out the door with a cursory farewell to Mrs. Everett, and bustled him back down Marischal Street to her own mistress’s house – one of the three with apricot curtains – to make arrangements. Mrs. Butler’s mistress was a lady of retiring habits with an efficient daughter and was quite prepared to let Mrs. Butler spend a few days in Fife, perhaps because she was impressed by the respectable solidity of Smith. She agreed that Smith could be put up overnight in her own servants’ quarters, until Mrs. Butler could put her affairs in order before they both caught the post south.
Waiting at the inn for the coach to arrive, and avoiding any further dubious pies, Smith asked Mrs. Butler to go over again what she had told him at Mrs. Everett’s. It seemed the only way to hold her still amidst the myriad distractions of Union Street.
‘I always thought, you know, that Barbara would end up happy.’ Mrs. Butler resisted the temptation to improve her hindsight: she already knew why she was going to Letho. ‘She was of such a pleasant character, and so pretty – but it was not the kind of prettiness that attracts the wrong kind of man, you ken?’ Smith nodded sagely: he only knew the dead woman from her picture, and had not been much impressed. ‘Though if she was poorly or tired, she could look as if there was no colour in her at all,’ Mrs. Butler went on. ‘I kent her first when she was a chambermaid at my mistress’. She was there before I started as a parlourmaid there, and we were friendly, though she was that bit younger than me. I was widowed, you ken.’ Smith wondered briefly if she had worn her husband out. ‘Well, I knew she was courting, and she said he was a gentleman. In a way it didn’t surprise me, for she was always quite – oh, I don’
t want to make it sound bad. She was a bit staunch. Not stinking, you ken, but she was that bit refined and reserved. And anyway, I didn’t take it at face value that he was a gentleman, I thought maybe he was a respectable tradesman with a bit of education, or maybe even a minister or a schoolmaster. Anyway, she left her place and they were married, all quite quietly, and I wondered if maybe she had said nothing to him about being in service, for as I say she could be reserved.’
‘And was that the last you saw of her?’ asked Smith, for they had reached the end of what she had told him at Mrs. Everett’s, and he was no longer so confident about what use she might be.
‘No, no. She called on me before the wedding, and then later I called on her in a lovely flat in Union Street, all very fashionable and elegant, and herself in beautiful clothes. She had a locket, I remember, which the gentleman had bought her. Not new, you ken, but a fine one and it had a K on it, for Kerr, of course.’
Smith stared at her, and found that he had forgotten to swallow. Up to this moment, he had been prepared to believe that he was being carried away in the enthusiasm of the kind of woman who sees runaway criminals and stolen property everywhere, but this – this would please Mr. Blair, no doubt about it.
‘Anyway, it was after that that we lost touch. That would be four years ago, I suppose, and that was the winter that the master died after a terrible illness and I hardly left the house for months. I saw her once, though, in the distance, and the man with her was not ungentlelike.’
‘And would you know him again?’ asked Smith, as the coach drew up and the dash for seats began.
‘Oh, aye, that I would. A handsome man, he was, and not as old as I had thought he might be, either,’ she remarked wisely.
X
There was a reception on Friday in Letho, for a very important occasion in the Fairlie household. Mr. Hugh Fairlie was at last bringing his bride home, and by a minor miracle their new home was ready in time. The great and good of Letho, including those pretending they had not had a covert preview of the house courtesy of Mrs. Fairlie, were eagerly crowding in to see the spectacle and voice their public approval, whatsoever they might have said in private.
Mrs. Hugh Fairlie was fair and pretty in a gown of deep dark red that put colour in her cheeks, though that may also have been a blush of shy pleasure at the fuss her new husband made of her. Hugh had arranged her in a pale cream chair in the sky blue drawing room of his new house, and there he stood by her while the gentry of Letho came to pay their respects.
Murray felt sure he had seen Miss Lyall before in Edinburgh, which was not unlikely: Isobel said quite definitely that she had met her previously. Isobel was wearing what was currently her best gown in the hope that the next one would be finished before the ball on Monday. Mrs. Freeman, who had not yet made up her mind that the gown was at all suitable, hoped that it would not be finished. She made the appropriate remarks to Hugh and his bride, then whisked Isobel off to talk with Mrs. Fairlie and her daughters, who were suffering very badly from the centrifugal force of being too far from the focus of attention. Mary Fairlie, in particular, kept glancing at the door. Murray, noticing this, looked around and saw that the Helliwells were not yet in attendance, and smiled to himself. Then his face changed, and he looked around again to locate Blair. Mr. George had just arrived.
Blair had taken Louisa Fairlie aside and appeared to be trying to distract her from the sudden reality of having a pretty sister-in-law. It seemed to be up to Murray to decide on a course of action, and to take it alone. Mr. George had already negotiated the niceties of greeting the bride and was on his way to where Murray stood, undecided.
‘A pretty girl, in this setting,’ remarked Mr. George, after they had greeted each other. ‘I must say I should prefer evidence of a little more life, but each to their own.’
‘They look contented enough with each other,’ agreed Murray, ‘which is, I suppose, the best way to begin.’
‘Do I detect the voice of a cynic?’ asked Mr. George humorously. ‘Surely you have seen little enough of that side of life as yet?’
Murray laughed shortly. He had just been making conversation, after all. He looked about him, and drew Mr. George a little further towards the window, out of hearing range of the other guests who were now, between them, creating quite a racket. Murray noticed the Helliwells arriving, Mr. Helliwell with a surly look in Mr. George’s direction which turned to one of puzzled annoyance at the sight of Murray. Murray blinked, confused, and turned away, back to Mr. George.
‘You’ll know,’ he began carefully, ‘that I have been trying to establish who was unaccounted for on the nights of the strange woman’s murder and the attack on my servant, Effy Duff. I daresay you’ll know that you are on the list.’
‘Oh, aye, so I hear,’ said Mr. George cheerfully.
‘I know this did not concern you much before,’ Murray went on, ‘but some more facts have come to light which might encourage you to do more to defend yourself in this matter.’ Murray, who had his back to the thick cream curtains, had the impression that someone had come up behind him to stand on the other side of them. He hoped it was Blair. Mr. George did not seem to notice any change, but surveyed the room over the rim of his glass of punch, and seemed pleased with it.
‘The woman was wearing a locket with the letter K on it, with a lock of hair in it that matches the colour of your own.’
‘Not an uncommon colour,’ said Mr. George equably. ‘Your own, or either of the Fairlie boys, or Gilbert Helliwell, might equally match.’
‘Very true,’ said Murray. ‘The K is the more important point. The locket was bought in Edinburgh but sold in Peterculter, just outside Aberdeen.’
‘I know it well,’ said Mr. George.
‘It was sold about four years ago, which is a time when you yourself were in Aberdeen.’
‘Indeed I was,’ agreed Mr. George, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Many were.’
‘We could reduce the numbers a little,’ said Murray, ‘if we looked only at those receiving affectionate notes at that time from someone in Aberdeen, signing herself ‘K’.’
‘Could we?’ asked Mr. George. ‘And am I in that happy position?’
‘I believe so,’ said Murray. ‘She gave you a book of Pope’s essays and verses.’
‘I am partial to Pope,’ said Mr. George, ‘though more the verse than the prose, I must confess.’
‘Mr. Blair has sent his manservant to Aberdeen to find out more. He is an intelligent man, and likely to cover all possibilities. Anyone likely to be implicated by whatever he discovers would be seen in a better light if he confessed what he knew before Blair’s servant forces the confession.’
‘I quite agree, Murray,’ said Mr. George. ‘I shall pass the word around and see what transpires. We all have a duty to work together on this matter, for the good of the parish. In fact,’ he finished, smiling, ‘I must go and speak with Dr. Feilden about it now. Perhaps we shall talk again later?’ He bowed and left Murray standing helpless at the window. A slight sound behind him reminded him to look round, but instead of Blair, to his surprise, he saw the minister, Mr. Helliwell, who abruptly turned and walked away with the same look of angry confusion as before.
XI
There was a curious feel to Saturday morning: it was not a Sunday, but it felt very like one, as if the whole village and parish were going to a wedding. From the earliest hours, people in their best clothes, covered in aprons, were tidying about their house fronts, sweeping out quickly, calming their kitchen fires and giving a final shake to cloths and clothes. At the inn, only the most junior staff were left to meet the midday post coaches, and at the doctor’s house Mrs. Feilden dithered over whether or not to leave a maid behind in case someone came to call the doctor urgently – but surely everyone would be at the church? Mr. Baird eyed the closed shutters of his shop, and Ninian Jack locked his door firmly for the day. Men, unaccustomed to relief from their estate duties, stood together in doorways and remarked on the da
y to come, the preaching, the preachers and the weather, an important factor when half the congregation was to be outside in the kirkyard. It was already hot, and the women brought the lightest shawls they could find.
In the kitchens at Letho House, Mrs. Mutch and the kitchenmaids were frantic with movement. The household would return here for a cold meal at midday, so all was to be ready for that, and as ready as possible for supper that evening, as Dr. Inglis of Greyfriars was staying the whole weekend. Next door in the stillroom all the cold dishes were laid out for the ball on Monday night, hams and cold beef and jellies of all kinds, and under the tables were huge blocks of rough ice hacked from the icehouse by the lake, wrapped in sacking and making the room smell of autumn. Back in the kitchen Mary, Jennet and Mrs. Chambers packed yet more food into baskets to take with them to the church, for people in the kirkyard would eat their dinner there. The inn had a long canvas awning to put up over the food, and the innkeeper had already rolled several barrels of ale up the steep street to help wash the food down. A man from the inn, well paid, had stayed in the kirkyard overnight to guard it.
An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4) Page 25
