‘She denied the whole thing,’ said Hardy. ‘Acted as if the very idea of a pawnshop was beyond her. And I couldn’t pursue it without “blowing your cover”.’ He looked tremendously proud of having delivered this choice morsel of vocabulary. ‘I’m delighted to hear that you think it’s worth me pressing her again.’
‘And Clara too,’ I said.
Mr Hardy rested his cigarette in the ashtray, laced his fingers together, then turned his hands palms outward and flexed them with a series of sharp cracking sounds. ‘I shall press with the greatest pleasure. I don’t like the feeling that someone has got one over on me; it’s not a feeling I’m used to. And’ – he unlaced his fingers and picked his cigarette up again – ‘while I’m not used to having to do everything myself these days – I’ve been a superintendent ten years now – I’m beginning to remember what a good way it is to get things done.’
‘Quite,’ I said, wondering if he knew how terrifying he was when he spoke that way, lips thin and brows lowered. ‘But if you will permit me, I have a plan to press Mattie myself and I’d like to pursue it. I think he might dissolve if one pressed him too abruptly, but I’m going to put him in a vice and turn the handle so slowly he won’t know what’s happening until all of a sudden the truth pops out.’ Mr Hardy looked terribly impressed, as well he might, for such a plan would have been pretty hot stuff, but in reality I was only trying to make sure that he stayed away from Mattie and left him to me. The dissolving was only too likely and, besides, I could not consign that stammer and those dimples to a man whose knuckles cracked in such a fearsome way.
13
‘Mistress says you’re off out again today, Miss Rossiter,’ said Phyllis at breakfast the next morning. It was eight o’clock and, tea trays delivered to Lollie and her aunt, bedroom fires lit, morning room and breakfast room swept and ready, we were gathered around the long table in the servants’ hall for bacon, eggs and ebony tea. Mrs Hepburn was grumbling and apologising in equal measures for the state of the food, which had come from ‘thon useless contraption’ now that the range was cold, but it all tasted the same as ever to me.
‘I am indeed, Phyllis,’ I replied. ‘Mistress has Mrs Lambert-Leslie to attend to her and she’s sending me on an errand.’
‘Aye, but in the wee car though,’ said Phyllis. ‘All right for some.’
‘You’d better not be blacklegging,’ said Harry.
‘And what would Miss Rossiter and mistress be blacklegging?’ said Mr Faulds. ‘You’re tilting at windmills, Harry boy, with this strike. You’re getting a . . . thingumijig . . . over it.’
‘Monomania,’ I supplied.
‘That’s the one,’ said Mr Faulds. ‘You’ve a proper head for knowing, Fanny.’
‘But here’s another thing,’ said John. ‘How come you’re getting to drive Goitre’s wee car instead of me taking the Phantom? First I’ve heard of a maid doing that, I can tell you.’
‘Great Aunt Goitre to you, John,’ said Mr Faulds, causing much laughter.
‘I’ll be next,’ said Phyllis. ‘Nothing I’d like more than to tootle away down to Portobello on my free day. Good on you, Miss R.’
‘I’m not driving it myself,’ I said. ‘Mrs Lambert-Leslie’s chauffeur is accompanying me.’
‘Ohhhh,’ said Clara. ‘Great Aunt Goitre’s “chauffeur”. I see.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘It’s always been a free and easy house and no one happier for it than me’ – here she flushed a little – ‘but these things can go too far.’ She gave me a stern look and although she said no more I took her meaning.
The evening before, after all, I had committed a below-stairs solecism far greater than tucking up with the butler when no one was looking. I had slipped out to a tryst with – as we used to call them in my mother’s day when they were absolutely forbidden in the servants’ hall at home – a follower.
We had been ensconced as usual, Mr Faulds, Mrs Hepburn and I in the armchairs, Mattie at the piano, the girls clustered about the lamp sewing, the boys spread around the table reading and laying out Patience, when the sound of the area gate opening drew our ears. John, who was nearest the window, leaned back in his chair and craned upwards.
‘Who’s this then?’ he said. ‘Some toff with two dogs. What’s he after?’
I rose and hurried out to the passageway.
‘I’ll see to him,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘I was needing to stretch my legs anyway.’
Mr Faulds, in his shirtsleeves, was happy to let me and, although Stanley huffed and puffed a little about whose job it was to greet visitors, he did not go so far as to stand up and race me for it.
‘What on earth are you thinking, Alec?’ I hissed when I had opened the door to him. ‘Shush, Bunty! There’s a good girl. You can’t just tool up here and knock. Miss Rossiter will be put out with no character.’
‘Needs must,’ said Alec. ‘I had to talk to you. I’ve been to North Berwick.’
‘And?’ I said. ‘Settle
down
, Bunty.’
‘Can’t you come out for a minute?’ said Alec. ‘She’ll never shut up unless we walk up and down. Really, Dandy, I have to agree with Hugh sometimes – you have spoiled her.’
I drew the door over behind me and, hatless and in my cardigan, followed him up the steps and out onto the street.
‘Well?’ I said when we were a few steps away from the house and the servants’ hall window, at which I was sure all were gathered by now. ‘You’ve been to North Berwick and . . . ?’
‘Maggie,’ said Alec, ‘never arrived.’
I halted and was pulled off my feet by Bunty. Alec caught my arm.
‘She was expected on Sunday,’ he said, ‘but didn’t show up. No sign of her on Monday either and when Sir George’s housekeeper – Sir George Finlayson; he was, as you suggested, easy enough to find – telephoned to the Balfours on Tuesday it was to be told of Pip Balfour’s murder. After which, understandably, the housekeeper didn’t think she could press the matter any more.’
‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ I said. ‘She needs to be found. And we must check on Miss Abbott too. Lollie told me she went to a Mrs Ruthven in Braid Hills.’
‘Where?’
‘South Edinburgh, beyond Morningside – geographically
and
socially. Terribly genteel.’
‘And has she been heard of? Did she write to anyone to say how she was settling in or anything?’
‘I don’t think she was particular chums with any of them,’ I said. ‘No one has said much about her since I arrived.’ We had got to the kiosk on the corner of Darnaway Street now. ‘Do you have any change? No time like the present and I’ve got the most horrid feeling about this.’
I asked the girl on the exchange for Ruthven of Braid Hills and was put through quite promptly. The bell rang out five or six times and then was answered by a servant of exquisite reserve and even more exquisite South Edinburgh vowels.
‘The Ruthven residence,’ she intoned. ‘To whom am I speaking to?’
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘My name is Gilver and I’m calling in connection with a Miss Jessie Abbott, who I believe began employment with you a few—’
‘Well, you believe more than you’ve leave to then,’ said the servant, abandoning the reserve and the vowels both. ‘And if you’re a friend of the besom you can give her a message from me and tell her she’d no business leaving my mistress in the lurch that way with no more than a scrap of a note to excuse her.’ Alec was watching me and I shook my head at him as I listened.
‘I don’t suppose you kept the note?’ I said into the mouthpiece.
‘What? Who is this?’ said the voice. ‘What’s it got to do with you what anyone in this house did with anything?’
‘If you can lay your hand on it,’ I said, ‘I think the police’ – I kept speaking through the inevitable squeak this produced – ‘might want to see it. Superintendent Hardy will no doubt be ringing you up or coming to see you. Perhaps you might warn Mr and Mrs Ruthven.’ I put down the receiver and Alec and I stared at one another until someone waiting for the telephone knocked on the kiosk window and made us both jump.
‘Right,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll go straight to the police station and tell Hardy – if he’s still there at this hour. Or try to get whoever is there to ring him up and tell him. You go back – and for goodness’ sake keep your head down.’
‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty I can ask about Abbott and Maggie leaving: if anyone remembers anyone hanging around or if either of them voiced any worries.’
‘I absolutely forbid it,’ Alec said. ‘Unless you promise me that you’ll say nothing, I shall go back into that kiosk, tell all to Hugh and get you hauled off the case and back to Gilverton before you can blink.’
I could not help smiling at this, but he was not to be swayed.
‘Two women have left that house and never been heard of again,’ he said. ‘Superintendent Hardy can ask all the questions in the morning.’
I gave Bunty her second passionate farewell of the day and stood with my hand on the area railings watching them carry on along the street. Before they disappeared from view, though, a thought struck me and I raced after them calling out Alec’s name.
‘Get Hardy to ask who the housekeeper at Berwick spoke to,’ I said. A third farewell and they were gone. I descended, let myself in and returned to the servants’ hall and the inevitable teasing. My pink cheeks and breathlessness were, of course, the result of the last-minute sprint but there was no use telling that to Phyllis and John, who joshed me mildly for the rest of the evening and were rewarded with smirks from the others. As to the equally inevitable questions about the identity of the toff with two dogs, my brainwave had been to pass him off as Great Aunt Gertrude’s chauffeur, mystifyingly not staying in the carriage house while his mistress was
chez nous
. This only set off more questions and caused more ribaldry in the end, as they wondered aloud what he wanted with me and hazarded opinions as to whether he were really a chauffeur at all.
‘He’s too posh,’ said Clara. ‘Did you see his shoes?’
‘And too good-looking,’ said Harry, causing John to kick him under the table.
‘Maybe he’s her “companion”,’ said Phyllis.
‘Or a relation down on his luck,’ said Eldry.
‘Oh, you mean like a “nephew”,’ said Phyllis, which puzzled Eldry and made John and Harry hoot with laughter. Mrs Hepburn, with a frown towards Millie, shushed her.
‘Great Aunt Goitre?’ said John. ‘Never!’
So, in the morning, when I revealed that my errand was a shared one with this mysterious stranger the giggles and wondering looks were no surprise and I showed great stoicism as I endured them.
Still, I was glad that there was no one about in the mews when I emerged from the carriage house to find Alec, Millie and Bunty waiting there in Great Aunt Gertrude’s Sunbeam: he did not look much like a chauffeur.
‘Back or front?’ said Alec as he got into the driver’s seat. ‘Where
would
Miss Rossiter sit?
‘She’d sit in the front with her bag clutched on her knees,’ I said. ‘But I’m going in the back, of course. The dogs can go in beside you. Now, Mattie turned left at the top of the steps, so I imagine that he’ll be heading straight up the Bridges and out of town on the Peebles Road towards Penicuik.’
‘Yikes,’ said Alec. ‘The east end and the Tron? Fifty-six arrests there last night, Dandy.’ I gulped and he took pity on me. ‘It’ll be quiet enough this morning again, though. And the police won’t bother the likes of you and me.’
The police did not, it was true, but the combination of a man in front in no kind of chauffeur’s uniform and a woman in the back in no kind of hat for a grand lady rang false in the eyes of the strike stewards who were waiting halfway over the North Bridge. This did not occur to me until afterwards; at the time what happened was as inexplicable as it was terrifying. Two men, grim-jawed and cold-eyed, flagged Alec down and a string of them stepped out and joined arms across the road in front of us. Feeling my pulse begin to thump, I looked around for a policeman or even a special constable but saw none.
Alec wound down his window.
‘Taxi service is it, sir?’ said one of the men who had pulled us over. He wore an armband with initials on it and had some kind of badge on his coat lapel but I did not recognise either of them.
‘Private journey,’ said Alec, effortlessly slipping into the same laconic style.
‘Oh aye?’ said the man. ‘Of what nature?’ He was looking me up and down with a disdain I had not encountered since the death of Nanny Palmer and even she saved it for when I had been very bad in ways which left damage not soon mended. I could feel my initial panic begin to recede and be replaced by anger.
‘Visiting friends,’ said Alec. ‘This lady’ – he jerked his head back at me – ‘doesn’t care for dogs.’
‘Aye, I thought the dogs were a nice touch,’ the man said.
‘Now look here,’ I began, but Alec talked over me.
‘I’m not a working man,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t break your strike. You’ll just have to take my word for it, I’m afraid.’
‘You’ll not mind us jotting down your number and taking your name then?’ said the man.
‘We most certainly wou—’ I said, unable to believe my ears, but again Alec spoke over me.
‘Alexander Osborne of Perthshire,’ he said. ‘But Dorset originally. I was once in a clay pit when I was a boy – just for an hour, you understand, just to see it.’ The man had jerked his chin up at this and he gave Alec an even more searching look. ‘But an hour was enough. I wouldn’t break your strike.’
After another long pause, the chap jerked his head at the rest of the men and they broke apart and returned to the pavement.
‘Not a minute on the day!’ they chanted, as we started up again. ‘Not a penny off the pay!’ Alec, pulling away, touched his hat and gave a toot on the horn.
‘Well!’ I said. ‘I would not have believed that possible.’ Alec said nothing. ‘Where are all these celebrated specials when one needs them? I thought you were going to have to hand over hard cash for a moment there.’