The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery) Page 7

  A search for my treasured belt must wait. I would bicycle to Newington past Alice's old home at Peel House, a nostalgic visit to see it once more before the property developers moved in and razed it to the ground.

  My main motive, however, was to inspect the tenant of Peel Lodge. If I were to be of any help to Alice then I had best get the lie of her rival's land so to speak. A visit on some pretext might reveal information regarding Matthew Bolton's secret life, although I hoped Alice's suspicions were wrong and that he was not having an affair with Mrs Harding. As well as natural compassion for my old friend's distress, I thought of the scandal revelation of such a liaison would cause among their friends, the disillusion and misery their two young sons at prep school would suffer at this break-up of their family life.

  Once out on the road again, I was fast mastering the art of the bicycle and could do straight lines pretty well with only a wobble or two when I needed to go round corners or manage the brakes at crossroads. By the time I arrived at Peel House, without having fallen off once, I was feeling rather pleased with myself.

  The houses were scarcely visible, apart from a glimpse of rooftop or chimney pots beyond discreet high walls and gardens close knit with trees and iron gates to ward off the curious.

  Even the birds seemed conscious of their place in this well-bred society and only twittered gently rather than burst into vulgar song or raucous cries.

  Today the scene was different. I had not visited the area for many years and wondered if I had taken the wrong turning as further along the tree-lined road a small group of spectators gathered outside my destination. Mostly women, they stared through the gates and along the drive.

  What on earth had happened? What new disaster? Then I saw to my relief that they were using this as a vantage point for a good look at that house next door: Saville Grange, destined for a very long time to be known locally as the 'Murder House'.

  As I dismounted one woman, imagining my motive was also morbid curiosity, whispered with a shudder: 'Isn't it awful?' She pointed along the drive. 'That's where the poor lass was done in. Strangled she was. I knew her well, a chum of my Peggy.'

  It was indeed awful, with Alice's old home just across the garden wall. But it gave me an idea.

  Without need for further explanation, but aware that my bicycle might not produce a favourable impression, I parked it by the gate and walked boldly up the drive of Peel House.

  The house was not at all as I remembered it, now awaiting its fate, sad and abandoned, with blind, boarded-up windows, its once neat gardens and drive lost under a tangle of weeds.

  At first glance the lodge didn't look much better, but a wisp of smoke from one of the chimneys signalled habitation.

  I rang the bell, expecting a maid to appear since Alice had inferred that the Hardings had struck a great bargain by selling the house to property developers.

  As I waited I listened to considerable activity inside the house. Bolts were being withdrawn on the door. I sympathised with the nervous occupant. I would have taken the same precautions since the spot where I stood was in isolated grounds close to the recent scene of a brutal murder, behind an ivy-covered garden wall sixty feet away.

  There was no maid. The woman who came to the door was in mourning, which enhanced dark-auburn hair, a fashionably - and enviably - alabaster complexion. She was perhaps thirty but looked younger and held a babe in arms.

  'I saw you from the window,' she said in tones of relief. 'You've come about the post of nanny. Do come in.'

  I was taken aback, having already prepared a plausible tale that I hoped would gain me access.

  I followed her into the tiny parlour, heavily overburdened with large furniture and antiques. These relics of the move from grander surroundings looked all out of place, ill at ease at finding themselves moved so far down in the world and in such close proximity to one another.

  Taking the seat she offered and flourishing my 'journal', which served so many purposes, I said: 'I'm afraid you are mistaken, Mrs Harding. I am writing a feature for a charitable society on bereaved Edinburgh gentlewomen who might require financial assistance-' I had decided this should be safe enough ground, seeing that she was a woman of means and added: 'Your name was given to me and I wondered if you had any opinions to put forward.'

  This bold request made her very nervous indeed. 'I have nothing to say about gentlewomen - nothing at all which would be of any help.' She shook her head and with a disappointed sigh said bleakly: 'I thought you were the new nanny.' She regarded me sadly for a moment as if I might have some advice to offer on the subject of nannies. 'I suppose I needn't hope for many answers to my advertisement. Young women cannot be blamed for being cautious in this ... area...'

  She paused. 'I expect you are aware of what happened over there - next door.' When I nodded she continued: 'The newspapers talk of nothing else. I'm sorry for the girl but heartily sick of it all. I don't know how anyone will ever sell a house here again.'

  'People soon forget,' I said consolingly and prepared to leave, aware that I had been wrong and there was little to be gained from this interview. With a final look around that stuffy room, more like an antique auctioneer's paradise than a comfortable home, I hadn't the least idea what I was supposed to observe and deduce except the obvious: that the present owner had fallen on hard times.

  'I hope you're right about people forgetting,' said Lily Harding as she steered me through the furniture in the crowded passage and opened the front door.

  In her arms, the baby stirred and cooed. 'Such a pretty baby. How old is she?'

  'He,' she corrected, 'is just a year old. A bit of a handful at present.'

  'Then I hope you find a nanny soon.'

  Over my shoulder she peered anxiously down the drive as if expecting someone. Then, with another sigh and a murmured good-day, the door closed rather sharply, the heavy armoury shot home once more.

  I walked down the drive and there was Constable Macmerry who seemed destined to materialise wherever I ventured these days.

  At this moment he was chewing his lower lip, notebook in hand, and solemnly regarding my parked bicycle. His stern and thoughtful expression suggested that he would like to put a lot of questions to it regarding trespass on private property. Hearing footsteps on the gravel, he turned and saw me. I gave him an encouraging smile. 'Is this vehicle yours, Mrs McQuinn?' he asked in tones of surprise.

  I said it was and he nodded slowly and pocketed the notebook. 'Visiting friends, are you?' he asked casually, the accompanying glance summing me up as, well, maybe, a possible suspect in a somewhat volatile area of the city. I might look innocent but a policeman on duty can never be too sure.

  'I used to visit Peel House. One of my school friends lived there long ago. A sentimental journey.'

  He nodded. 'Just in time, Mrs McQuinn. It's due to be pulled down any day now-'

  'Is this your area. Constable?' I decided it was my turn to ask some questions.

  He shook his head. 'No. I'm just helping out. Constable who does this beat is down with influenza. We're very short-staffed with everyone on the search for clues to the poor lass's killer, so I'm keeping an eye on the murder house-'

  'You mean Saville Grange?'

  'The same.' Pausing, he glanced disapprovingly towards the dwindling group of female spectators. 'Just keeping order,' he added sternly. 'We're very nervous about suffragettes these days.'

  'The lady in the lodge I've been visiting will be glad of your protection. Constable. She seemed very scared.'

  He laughed. 'You can't blame her when there's a killer on the loose and so close by, too.'

  'Oh, do you think he might come back and murder someone else?'

  He knew I was laughing at him and said sternly: 'You never know.'

  'You have reason, then, to believe that there is some sort of a maniac at large who might strike again.'

  He wasn't prepared to theorise on that possibility but, perhaps impressed by my illustrious detective fath
er, he decided to be confidential. 'The signs indicate someone familiar with the district. Despite the fact that the gardener reported suspicious and savage-looking characters lurking about the premises.' He sighed. 'We've drawn a blank with our investigations at the circus so far. Problem is that the Indians - who might well be described as savage-looking characters -have no English. Apart from their Chief, that is. He seems like an educated man.'

  Walking down the road with me, as I pushed my bicycle, he added: 'How are you settling in at the Tower?'

  'Very well, thank you.'

  'Everything all right?' I said it was and he went on: 'No strangers around?'

  'Only a deerhound on Arthur's Seat. No one who could be reported as a suspect, I'm afraid.'

  'A deerhound?' he repeated.

  'Yes. You don't happen to know if anyone has lost one in the area?'

  He frowned. 'No. Can't say I've ever seen a dog like that around here. They're big fellows. Most of the ones I encounter are spaniels or Highland terriers, bad-tempered little brutes. Have a snap at your ankles, sharp as a flash.'

  We had reached a crossroads.

  'I'll keep a lookout, now that you've mentioned it,' he said. 'Probably escaped from the circus.'

  'That was my first idea, so I took him along. He wasn't theirs - I noticed you and one of your colleagues around the big tent, just before the performance.'

  But he wasn't going to be drawn any further on that and we went our separate ways.

  As I rode towards the Tower my mind was less preoccupied with the deerhound than with that baby I had just met. His mother said he was a year old. Alice had told me she had been a widow for two years. Then the deceased husband could not have fathered it.

  I pictured the little sweet face again and failed to see any suspicious resemblance to Matthew. I wondered how much to tell Alice when I visited her on Thursday. Or if I should mention the baby at all. If what I suspected was true, such knowledge would be disastrous for her present tortured state of mind.

  Better for her to remain in ignorance of this even more powerful reason for Matthew's visit to Lily of the Lodge, especially since Alice had a wife's instinct that there was something wrong. Those small incidents of tenderness in a marriage suddenly discontinued can swiftly invite despair - and suspicion that love has died.

  Having allowed myself to think ill of Matthew and condemn him without trial, already I was bitterly regretting having agreed to investigate his odd behaviour.

  I realised for the first time that I was perhaps out of my depth, that there was a more monstrous explanation creeping into my mind as I remembered the constable's words that the suspected killer was: 'Someone familiar with the district.' A man who knew the area well and who better than Matthew Bolton? I considered Alice's tale of his weird choice of friends. He would not be the first middle-aged man who after years of contentment had a sudden rebellion against convention.

  Supposing Molly the servant girl next door was a bit unscrupulous and a nosy girl, had observed too much of the goings-on in the lodge? What if she were blackmailing him, threatening to tell his wife all? And what if Matthew had taken the matter into his own hands, rushed over to reason with her and, failing to persuade her, had resorted to violence and in a brainstorm killed her?

  It was a horrifying thought, this wild, unbounded leap of imagination. We all like to pretend that murders happen to other people and it is unbelievable even to consider that we might number a murderer among our friends or acquaintances.

  But I knew better from Pappa's cases: that murder, alas, was not just something that we read about in the newspapers after all. Murder could and did happen in one's own parlours, bedrooms - or kitchens - committed by loved members of one's own family circle. And everyone who had known them since birth would swear they had not enough malice in them to kill a mouse.

  Lily's behaviour regarding bolts and keys suggested that she was scared and had no knowledge of the murderer's identity. If she and Matthew Bolton were lovers, as Alice suspected, she might be ready to protect him, but why then lock doors? Whom else did she fear?

  As for the role in this investigation Alice had forced upon me, I realised that Matthew was no fool: an intelligent, observant man and, as Alice told me how little I had changed, he would recognise me instantly as his wife's old friend.

  A not insoluble problem, however, I decided cheerfully. I could follow him at a discreet distance and, what was more, I had a ready disguise at hand, one none would question or even approach. I was a widow and widow's weeds, the black veil, would be the perfect screen for my activities.

  There was one snag. This effective disguise meant that I would have to revert to going on foot or in hired carriages. My invaluable means of swift transport must remain at home. A widow on a bicycle, weeds flying behind her, would be an object of marked interest and, indeed, shocked amusement. I began to make my plans...

  Chapter Ten

  I had become so unused to regular meals, not to say any meals at all for long periods while travelling across America back to Scotland, that it took the sniff of a pie shop as I rode through Newington to remind me I was hungry.

  Scotch mutton pies straight from the baker's oven are mouthwatering. I could hardly contain myself and had I been adept with bicycling and able to eat as I rode, I would have demolished both pies on the spot, instead of waiting impatiently with the tempting smell drifting to my nostrils until I reached the Tower.

  As I approached the garden I rather hoped the deerhound would be waiting for me. Instead, a strange man was on his knees studying the forlorn rose bushes Olivia had hurriedly planted before they left.

  My unexpected arrival startled him. He leaped to his feet, staring at me open-mouthed, so put out that for a moment I thought he was about to enquire my business here. Then he recovered and, raising his bonnet from a thin mesh of dark curls, greeted me cheerfully. 'Foley, ma'am. Dr Laurie's gardener. I take it that you're Mrs McQuinn.'

  He could have been any age between thirty and fifty, a big, strong-looking fellow, with that rather bland 'honest sonsy face' conjured up by Robert Burns's address to the haggis. The kind of face that, when one got used to it, became nice-looking more by habit and repute than actual fact.

  Tactfully, I admired his present efforts and added that I had fond memories of the garden at Sheridan Place when my father lived there.

  He was pleased. 'That would be in my father's time. Green fingers he had right enough and the keeping of quite a few gardens in that area. I'm glad to say that he passed them on to me.'

  'With all the new houses they're building, I dare say you will be getting quite a few more,' I said.

  He grinned delightedly at that. 'Hope you're right, ma'am.' And, touching the rose bushes with his foot: 'I expect these were Mrs Dr Laurie's idea, ma'am. She was very fond of her ornamental flowers. But I reckon you'd have problems with such as these. Better invest in some good, nourishing vegetables for the table. There's too much exposure to the weather here. You'll catch every wind and storm that blows across the Forth.'

  'I realise that, Mr Foley. A kitchen garden, vegetables and a few herbs, are what I had in mind.'

  'Very well, ma'am. I'll see to it right away.' And with another salute he picked up his spade.

  'You haven't by any chance seen a deerhound around, have you?' I asked.

  He looked up at me. 'No, ma'am. Have you lost one?'

  'Not really. But there was one here yesterday. I thought it might be a stray.'

  He frowned. 'I shouldn't encourage big dogs, if I were you, ma'am. They can make a right mess of gardens - untidy beasts they are and destructive, too. Take my advice and chase him off next time you see him.'

  He paused. 'A deerhound you said. Unusual for city folks. More for country estates, they are. Probably just snooping about. On the scrounge from that circus down the road.'

  I didn't want to go into all that again so without further comment I went inside. Despite his warning, I felt somewhat let down that the
deerhound wasn't waiting to greet me. And all on the flimsiest acquaintance.

  It was such nonsense. He had no doubt by now found his way back to his own fireside and, intelligent beast that he was, decided he would give that woman who tried to sell him to a ringmaster at the circus a very wide berth in future.

  I could only manage one of the pies after all and when I went over to the window to see how Foley was getting along, I noticed a film of dust on the bookcase. In the absence of a maid to do the housework, I had better get to work with a duster and broom.

  I didn't find the idea appealing in all truth and, in no hurry to set about the task, I began idly to study the contents of the shelves instead. The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott. I picked it up triumphantly, remembering Pappa reading to me about Roswal. The devoted hound belonging to the Scottish crusader, Sir Kenneth, was the cause of friction between him and his commander, King Richard I. Spinning through the pages, there was a description of Roswal: 'Eager to acknowledge his gratitude and joy for his master's return, he flew off at full speed, galloping in full career and with outstretched tail, here and there, about and around crossways and endlong.' I turned a few pages: 'A most perfect creature of heaven, of the noblest northern breed, deep in the chest, strong in the stern, black colour and brindled on the breast and legs just shaded into grey, strength to pull down a bull, swiftness to cote an antelope.'

  The story went on that the King was not best pleased with the deerhound's exuberant activities, since all deer belonged to the crown, and Sir Kenneth and Roswal were guilty of poaching, a treasonable offence with dire penalties. Later, however, King and Knight were reconciled and reached a gentleman's agreement based largely on their mutual respect for the hound Roswal.

  A tap on the kitchen door jolted me back to the present.

  I had forgotten the gardener.