I talked to Thane a lot, but I felt the bond we had shared for ten years was slowly diminishing. He often seemed to belong to Meg, and he certainly favoured her presence. When she was in the cottage, he took up a place by her side. Elsewhere, out of doors, there he was at her side, behaving exactly like a domestic pet at heel.
Maybe I was just a little jealous – as I was, I must confess, about Jack too. Thane wasn’t the only one I feared I had lost since Meg came into our lives. I remembered that beastly cold and although I told myself that Jack should keep away from me, he seemed almost too ready to do so. I was lucky if he came up to see me for half an hour each day. And the sounds of their merriment, tales of great excursions they had together, did little for my soul.
All these sorry matters I confided to the only one I could ever talk to, and that was Thane. He looked at me with that almost human expression. But did he or could he ever understand? Was I expecting too much? As Jack would say, and Mabel too, he is only a dog.
The question remained, was he? He had certainly been more than that but had this holiday changed him as it seemed to be changing me, and Jack and Meg? And of all the changes, my relationship with Vince was hardest to bear. I realised that he had a busy life and since Olivia and Faith had gone home he spent little time at the cottage, looking in of an evening for a chat. Over the last ten years since my return to Scotland, I had been delighted and grateful for those brief visits when the royal train stopped in Edinburgh en route back and forth to Ballater.
On this holiday I had expected to spend a lot of time with him, but now our conversations were guarded, especially if any reference was made to the mystery I felt surrounded Lily’s death.
I soon discovered that Bobby’s was to be treated in the same manner. I said I did not believe that he could have been accidentally thrown from his horse, an opinion endorsed by the stableman Jock’s assertion that Bobby could ride anything. I regretted that immediately, as Vince’s lips tightened.
‘There you go again, Rose. You are the absolute end. The slightest accident has you immediately believing that murder was intended.’ His laugh was rather mirthless, he was annoyed. ‘A good job you don’t live here on the estate permanently, or you’d have a succession of crimes waiting to be solved. As a doctor, one gets used to accidents that are quite inexplicable, often domestic accidents where it is wise not to dig too deeply into their cause.’
He paused and said: ‘You simply ask for disasters, Rose, and the sooner we get you home in one piece, the happier I will be.’
Wounded that he would be glad to be rid of me, I said sharply: ‘It can’t be too soon for me either!’
His eyebrows rose at that. ‘Well, well. Scant thanks I am getting for negotiating this holiday for you. I have to say that if you haven’t enjoyed it, then it is your own fault for interfering in things that don’t concern you.’
His words were so like Gray’s that I said angrily: ‘Such as two quite inexplicable deaths.’
He stood up, shook his head, came over and hugged me. ‘You’ll be the death of me, my lovely Rose. Now don’t cry,’ he said softly and holding me at arm’s length. ‘What I most want for you in all the world is that you go back to your happy life at Solomon’s Tower, stay there and resolve to be a good mother to Meg and a good wife to Jack.’
‘I’d love to be both, but Jack seems to have deserted me too on this holiday.’
‘He’s a policeman, Rose, duty calls. You knew the score when you married him,’ was his stern response.
‘Is that so? Talking of which. I’d very much like to know what the duty is that keeps a senior detective inspector like Gray here in Balmoral.’
Vince gave me a weary glance. ‘There you go again. Things that don’t concern you, police matters that are none of our business.’ He sighed, looked at the clock. ‘I’m off. I have my early morning surgery in Crathie tomorrow.’
And he was gone. I went to bed, feeling sore and misunderstood.
After breakfast Mabel was waiting for her pony cart to be restored to her. She said it had developed a creaking wheel which she found both alarming and disturbing. Considering its daily use over fairly rough ground I was not at all surprised and the sturdy little pony must have been relieved to get a day off.
Rowena arrived; always hungry despite a substantial breakfast with her mother in the royal kitchens, she had a second one with Meg. They went off to play in the tree house they were making with Uncle Vince’s occasional help while I took Thane for that walk in the woods. Not many of these left, I told him. Soon be home again.
He turned and looked at me, the equivalent of a grin that said that prospect was joyful to him.
Returning to the cottage, there was another drama afoot. The girls had seen a rat.
‘A huge black rat, Mam,’ said Meg. ‘It was at the base of the tree.’
‘How horrible!’ said Mabel.
Meg turned to her. ‘No, it was quite pretty.’ And turning to Rowena for support. ‘Wasn’t it?’
Rowena nodded eagerly. They weren’t scared, just excited.
Mabel sighed deeply. ‘So we have rats now.’
‘No. Just one,’ Meg corrected her.
Ignoring that Mabel continued: ‘That Dog is to blame, he is attracting vermin. A good job we are leaving, the place will be quite overrun.’
Defending Thane, I said: ‘Quite the contrary, Mabel. Dogs get rid of rats,’ and glancing at him I decided that he would be on to it and we need not worry. We would never see that fine black rat again.
He was used to eating meals from the kennels here in Balmoral but he was used to making his own arrangements at home on Arthur’s Seat. We fed him while we were at home but I knew when we left him for days he never starved. A matter I did not look into too deeply but guessed the rat that the girls had seen would, like many others before it, be marked down to provide him with an excellent lunch.
Mabel had other ideas. With little faith in That Dog as rat-catcher extraordinaire, and unknown to me, when she was over at the stables she had explained the problem and Jock had said he would tell one of the gardeners to put down poison.
Which was to have dire results.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Rowena was now spending most of every day with us. That her new friend had apparently taken over Faith’s part in Meg’s life, I was thankful for indeed. My only fear now was that this would be another parting to dread when we left at the end of this week, with Meg insisting that Rowena come to Edinburgh with us.
To my relief that did not seem likely when I discovered that Rowena was devoted to her Romany mother, Yolande. Since Olivia and Faith’s departure, they brought us meals each day and carried off our washing, two domestic duties I was glad to relinquish, particularly the latter. Laundry facilities had been omitted from the cottage, for the obvious reason that the King’s important guests were not expected to soil their hands with such menial tasks, and with lesser mortals like ourselves, lines of our undergarments blowing in the wind would definitely lower the tone of the estate and be severely frowned upon.
Yolande had never identified herself as Rowena’s mother before her friendship with Meg and I remembered that I had seen her talking to Lily, who she of course recognised as a fellow servant in the higher echelons as lady’s maid. But although our children were friends she would never cross the invisible boundary between employer or mistress and servant, one that I hoped to eliminate completely once the success of the suffrage movement was achieved and all women were equal!
I wondered what she and Lily talked about. Then I realised that they observed the same boundaries, perhaps the castle influence made rigid by Queen Victoria (with the exception of presentable ghillies like John Brown), and although those daunting, self-effacing measures such as darting into cupboards at the approach of royalty were still observed, Lily, who was silent with us, evading eye contact, talked freely to the stable boys, and if Bobby was to be believed, did a lot more than talk.
Thoughts of Lil
y reminded me that she had, according to the stable lads, been good with horses and Rowena too had a way with animals, part of her second sight, this extra sense, according to Meg who, observing in awe, said: ‘Animals, even quite wild ones, come to her. I have to be very quiet and she lets me watch her feed the birds, blackbirds and blue tits, they come down and sit on her hand to take crumbs. Those adorable red squirrels, oh I’d love to stroke them, like she does. They aren’t afraid of her at all, but they are terrified of me, Mam. It isn’t fair,’ she said resentfully.
I remembered that maybe it wasn’t all animals; I said she had been wary of Thane at first. Meg agreed. ‘She was scared of big dogs, but they’re the best of friends now.’
And as Mabel put it, ‘What do those children see in That Dog? He’s not a little lap dog, he’s twice their size – as big as my pony,’ she added referring as she did these days to Hector.
I thought I’d seen the last of Alice von Mueller after our brief interview when I had to confess that her domestic problem was out of my sphere of activity as a lady investigator. However, after walking back to the castle with Vince, an evening stroll I enjoyed, I saw Alice approaching.
Although her greeting was polite and casual, I had a distinct feeling that she had been lying in wait for me. It did not take long for her to come to the point.
‘I know you were unable to help me, but matters have changed since we spoke together.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You see, my husband is trying to kill me.’ Pausing dramatically, she waited for my response which I could not frame in more than two words:
‘Surely not.’
She nodded vigorously. ‘Oh yes, yes! I know he wants to get rid of me, and it seems that it would be easier here than taking me back to Munich.’
Kill her at Balmoral Castle, now that seemed a weird solution. Had she no idea of the complications that would ensue?
She indicated the garden seat we were walking past. ‘Can you spare me a few moments, please Rose?’ The sky was darkening with more than approaching night. A strong breeze indicated storm clouds brewing over the horizon. ‘I will be as quick as I can.’
We sat down together and I noticed that she looked pale and frightened.
‘I have known for a long while that Hermann hated me for being English. He could not abide the idea of spending his life with a woman from the country he despised, the country that should be ruled over not by your King Edward but by his beloved cousin the Kaiser.’
She paused and I said: ‘That could never be, Alice. Even if we didn’t have Edward, there is the next in line—’
She held up a hand. ‘Oh yes, I am aware of that. I have tried to tell him, but you see, he is quite deranged. Quite mad.’ She shrugged. ‘Whoever is your king does not greatly concern me, but my life does. And now that he has taken the children away from me, he wants to be free to marry this other woman, his mistress. And the only way is to kill me first.’
She looked towards the castle. ‘He will not do it himself, of course, but he has already made an attempt.’ A shuddering sigh. ‘Last night on this very spot, on my way back to our lodging, I was attacked.’
‘You were attacked – here?’ I repeated.
‘Yes. A man leapt out from among the shrubs over there and tried to strangle me. I struggled, I was terrified.’
This was very startling news especially when I thought of Mabel’s recent attack.
‘What was he like, this man?’
‘I never saw his face. I knew he was tall and strong and grabbed me from behind, his arm about my throat,’ she said with an illustrating gesture, ‘like this.’
‘But this is terrible, Alice! How did you get away?’
‘I was very fortunate. A young couple were approaching. They were laughing and he heard them too. He let me go, and darted away.’
‘So they never saw him either. I hope you reported it.’
She shook her head. ‘No. What use would it have been? No one had seen. I knew Hermann was behind it; he has plenty of willing servants to do his dirty work. So what was the use, Rose?’
I had to agree with her there.
‘What are you going to do now?’
She shrugged. ‘There are just a few days left and I will pretend nothing has happened with Hermann. But I have made my mind up. I cannot go on living with him. Now that he has taken my children, I have no reason to go back to Munich. I intend to stay here.’
‘Have you family in England?’
She laughed for the first time. ‘Yes, Rose, I have, but I am not going back to them. I have met a Scottish gentleman, who has a place in Argyll. He once visited us. We became friends and when he saw how vilely my husband treated me, he realised that I was living with a madman and has offered me sanctuary.’
‘What kind of sanctuary? Is he one of the shooting party?’
I could see more ominous clouds than a mere storm gathering at such a prospect.
She smiled, radiant for a moment, and laughed again. ‘No, he declined the invitation – for obvious reasons. He said that he would be tempted to shoot Hermann. But I have sent him word to expect me.’ She took my hand. ‘This is our farewell, Rose. Will you tell Olivia when you see her that I will be in touch? And wish me well in my new life.’
I hoped she was right about her Scottish gentleman and that in due time things would sort themselves out to her satisfaction. At the moment, though, the whole situation filled me with misgivings.
As we parted and I made my way back to the cottage I had a lot to think about. Was her attack, as she thought, instigated by her husband? The alternative was even more terrifying.
I thought of her description. A tall strong man, unidentifiable. But curiously enough the method of his attack also fitted Mabel’s assailant, and all pointed steadily in one steady direction.
We had a madman at large. And what if his ultimate target was to kill the King?
Jack’s unexpected appearance just two days before the games put things in quite a new perspective.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I had a disturbed night troubled by anxious dreams about Alice and her England-hating husband. Meg was still abed as usual when I came downstairs and Mabel’s breakfast dishes were in the sink. Thane was usually waiting to greet me but not this morning. He lay asleep by the peat fire.
‘Are you being lazy too?’ There was no response. I went closer. He was lying very still on his side. As I bent over him I noticed he had been sick. I had never known him ever to be sick in Edinburgh. If he was, never in the house.
There was something terribly wrong. My heart raced as I bent over him. I stroked him gently.
‘Thane, Thane!’ I said. He moved his head as if it took considerable effort and opened one eye, an eye that seemed glazed over.
And I knew what was happening. Thane was dying.
I screamed. The door opened and Mabel appeared.
‘What on earth is wrong?’
‘Thane’s been poisoned,’ I cried.
‘What nonsense, Rose. All animals get sick. Only to be expected. I’ve told you before, That Dog should be in the kennels with the others. It put me off my breakfast, I can tell you. How can one eat in a kitchen full of dog sick? I wasn’t going to clear it – quite revolting.’
At that moment, I knew I hated her. I wanted to strike her and I knew what it felt like to have murder in one’s heart, as all the little resentments, all her silly remarks and her snobbery boiled up inside me. I felt my hand rise to strike her as she stood, her back to me by the window which she had thrown open for fresh air.
Thane moaned and that brought me to my senses and saved her from being struck down. Then suddenly Mabel was no longer of any importance. Only my Thane dying on the floor beside me mattered.
I had to find someone and at that moment I heard the motor coming down the road. Vince was on his way past. A miracle, I thought, as I rushed out into the road.
‘Something’s happened to Thane!’ He took one look at my face, switched off and f
ollowed me inside, knelt down beside Thane, sniffed and looking up at me said: ‘Poison. I’ll take him into the vet.’
Meg appeared, alerted by all the noise. She took one look at Thane and cried: ‘That rat poison!’ She began to sob. ‘I tried to keep an eye on him … Oh, he’s not going to die, Uncle Vince. You can’t let him die.’
‘I can’t do much for him, Meg. I’m only a doctor for humans not animals. I’m taking him to the vet, he’ll do what we can for him.’
It seemed as he spoke that Vince hadn’t any great hopes, trying to lift him up, a very large deerhound almost as big as me. Between us we managed to get him out and into the back of the car, lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Me too!’ sobbed Meg.
‘No. There isn’t room.’ Vince said sternly and I realised that two hysterical females was the last thing he needed. ‘Try to stay calm, the pair of you.’
‘Where are you taking him?’ cried Meg.
‘To Ballater.’ And I remembered that this was Vince’s day for collecting drugs, like laudanum known as ‘ladies’ medicine’, for use at the castle as he went on: ‘We have a great vet there, takes care of all the King’s dogs.’ And he drove off.
I led Meg back into the house, still sobbing, aware that if he died then I would blame myself for bringing him here, away from Edinburgh, from his home. Obviously the secret of his survival – for I had once seen him shot, get up and walk away – that secret lay in the depths of his origins in Arthur’s Seat. His magic, if you like, could not be sustained, it didn’t work in an alien place.
Trying to calm Meg, I thought of all our years together, how he had saved my life so often and now I was helpless. I could do nothing. And I thought of his loyalty and protection for Meg and me, and how miserable he must have been here in his restricted life.
Meg sat at the table shivering. ‘That rat poison, Mam. That’s what did it. Why didn’t we just keep the rat? He wasn’t doing us any harm. And Thane would still be alive.’
The Balmoral Incident Page 18
