Murder on the Moor (6 page)

“Not every barrister wins practically every case. You’re just exceptional.”

Rex deposited a light kiss on her nose. “Thank you.”

“Shall I make Alistair some warm milk to wash down these tablets?”

“No, just stay where you are. I’ll be back to prove that I’m exceptional in places other than court.”

“Oh, right,” Helen said with a broad smile. “Hurry back, then.”

By the time Rex
drifted blissfully into sleep, the house was quiet beneath the downpour. He woke up once in the night, staying alert long enough to register the fact that Helen was not beside him before falling back into a deep slumber. Later, as dull light began to seep in around the curtains, he felt her warmth in the bed and thought how lovely it would be not to have to get up before some decadent hour of the morning. Nine o’clock would be heaven.

As he half rose from the pillows to peer at the luminous hands on the alarm clock, he became aware of an incipient headache, which he attributed to the whisky he had consumed the night before, and which he might have been able to sleep off given half a chance. As it was, the house was already alive with the sounds of people rising and preparing for the day.

At just after seven, as he was shuffling out of the bedroom in his slippers to see to his guests, Flora accosted him on the landing. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom? Someone’s in the cloakroom downstairs and I’ve not been able to get into the one upstairs since yesterday night.”

“Maybe the door’s jammed.” Rex tried the knob on the bathroom door. “It’s locked.” He knocked. “Hello? Is anybody in there?”

Flora, standing beside him with her thighs squeezed together, wore a pained look on her face.

“By all means, use ours,” he told her. “Helen went down to the kitchen.”

The young woman scooted into his bedroom. He knocked again at the bathroom door.

“What time does the paper arrive?” Cuthbert asked, emerging from his room.

“The boy usually delivers the papers before six.”

“No sign of them, old chap. I’ve already been down. Maybe he couldn’t get here because of the rain, though it’s eased off a bit now.”

“He comes on his bicycle, but he’s never missed a delivery, even in snow.”

Hamish Allerdice came out of his room, bleary-eyed and unshaven. “Morning,” he croaked. He rattled the bathroom doorknob and swore. “Someone’s in there. I haven’t been able to get in all night. Had to go downstairs.”

“Flora said the same thing,” Rex informed him. “I really don’t want to break down the door. Perhaps it locked itself. I’ll go and see if I can get in through the window.”

He mooched down the stairs and changed into his Wellingtons. Voices burbled from the kitchen. The faucet was running in the cloakroom. He imagined everyone must be up by now. Stepping outside the front door, he was struck by the penetrating chill. A dreary rain persisted through the wan early morning light. Mist decapitated the tops of the hills and floated in wreaths across the silvery loch. A shiver coursed through his body and soul.

Turning the corner of the lodge, he glanced up at the bathroom window. He suspected it was locked, since it was close to a drainpipe and therefore accessible to a determined burglar. Still, it was worth checking before he caused damage to the bathroom door.

He kept a ladder in the stable. Pulling the back of his sweater over his head, he made a run for it, splashing through the puddles in the gravel driveway and splattering mud on his jeans.

At the near end of the stable, Donnie lay cocooned in his blanket on the trundle bed, snoring peacefully. Coals glowed in the free-standing heater, generating a pleasant warmth within the confines of the white-washed walls. Careful not to wake the boy, Rex grabbed the ladder from where it stood beside the power lawn mower, scythe, and sundry other garden utensils at the opposite end and, hoisting it onto his shoulder, trudged back through the rain.

Extending it to its full length, he propped it against the wall of the house and climbed to the bathroom window above the library. To his great relief, he found the sash window unlocked and managed to push it open with ease. As he did so, he remembered that this window had been on the McCallums’ to-do list. It had been jammed shut from hardened paint when he purchased the house. They must have unstuck it and forgotten to lock it afterward. What a pair of incompetent fools! He should have hired someone else.

The window aperture proved a tight squeeze for his stocky build, and he was only able to execute the maneuver by bumping his head and scraping his ribs on the wood frame. No window treatments had yet been installed, but no one could see in except on a ladder. He landed beside the empty bath and surveyed the water pooled over the tiled floor.

Och, don’t say we have a big leak in the ceiling!
he despaired. He was beginning to think he probably should have shopped around a bit more before letting Alistair persuade him what a great investment Gleneagle Lodge would be. At the time he hadn’t known that Alistair and the solicitor were more than just friends …

He stepped across the sodden bath mat and made muddy prints to the door. As he unlocked it, he noticed a dressing gown in the form of an embroidered burgundy kaftan hanging from the brass hook. It looked like something Moira might have brought back from Baghdad. Why had she not worn it back to her room?

He examined the opened door. Helen was crossing the landing at that precise moment.

“I came to ask you what you wanted for brea—Rex! Just look at your muddy feet! What are you doing? Why is the window open? There’s a dreadful draught.”

“I had to climb in. The door was locked.”

“It looks like there was a flood in here!”

“I know. I canna understand it. The walls and ceiling are dry as far as I can see. I thought there must be a leak.”

“Perhaps the McCallums can take a look when they come to fix the radiator.” She stood in the doorway in a fluffy blue sweater and jeans, surveying the scene. “I’ll get a mop.”

“Nay, lass. You just see to breakfast. I’ll clean this mess up.”

“Would you like some eggs? I set up a buffet in the dining room.”

“Tea and a bacon sandwich would be grand. Any signs of departure yet?” he asked under his breath.

“The Allerdices and Cuthbert Farquharson are still at table. Rob Roy is making eyes at Flora, but she won’t have any of it. Her own eyes are on the bigger prize, I suppose. Her brother hasn’t come in yet. I haven’t seen Moira or Estelle either.”

“You mean to say, the Allerdices are showing no signs of leaving yet?” Rex’s face fell.

“It’s a testament to your wonderful hospitality, Rex,” Helen joked with a crooked smile that never failed to win him over. “They said the hotel cook and the waiter will have breakfast under control at Loch Lochy.”

“The guests will probably be relieved not to have that silly Shona fussing over them.”

“Well! Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning! See you downstairs.” Kissing him lightly on the cheek, Helen backed into the landing. Rex shut the bathroom window, still flummoxed about the locked door.

“Gracious! What happened in here?” Estelle asked, sliding on the wet floor in her slippers and grabbing onto the sink for support, almost wrenching it out of the floor. She wore a crimson velvet dressing gown with frilly lace trim down the buttoned front. Her hair was in curlers and a greenish-gray face mask covered all but her mouth and eye sockets. “Sorry, if I look a fright,” she said, taking note of the shock that must have registered on his face.

“Ehm … Not at all. I was just trying to fathom how so much water got on the floor.”

“Well, clearly someone had a bath and water must have sloshed over the sides. Perhaps they slipped. Those old-fashioned tubs are less stable than the modern ones.”

“I’ve never had any trouble with them,” Rex countered, though judging by how she had almost uprooted the sink, he could see how she might manage to dislodge one. “In any case, where is the person now?” he asked in vexation. “The door was locked. The bathroom was empty. They couldn’t just have vanished. Unless they went through the window, and why would they have done that? I managed to unbolt the door without any problem. It wasna stuck.”

“It might have locked itself after the last person went out,” Estelle suggested, studying it. “Though I don’t see how …”

Rex gathered up the towels on the rack and furiously mopped up the tiled floor. If people couldn’t be relied upon to take care of his property, he simply wouldn’t invite them again.

“Perhaps you have a ghost,” Estelle teased. “The Ghost of Glen-eagle Lodge! But I wouldn’t go telling Shona Allerdice about it. She’ll have that journalist researching the story and then you’ll get no peace.” She cast a cautious glance behind her. “That woman will do anything for a bit of publicity. All that nonsense last night about a sea monster in their loch! I couldn’t keep my face straight.”

“Aye, and another one in Loch Lown, if Beardsley is to be believed.” Rex straightened up from his floor-mopping and confronted anew the rather startling apparition of Estelle Farquharson. The clay mask was beginning to crack into tiny fissures. It was a wonder she managed to talk at all. “A first cousin to the Loch Ness Monster!” he scoffed.

“Well, it’s good for business, don’t you see? The Loch Lochy Hotel is a dreadful place. Cuthbert had indigestion on the two occasions we had dinner there. The venison tastes like shoe leather, and the grouse! And don’t get me started on the décor! It’s so pseudo. Not real deer heads at all. Fakes! The place is going under, and so Mr. and Mrs. Allerdice are banking on this whole Lizzie business to save them.”

“I think you may be right, and you know how gullible people are. Och, well, I’ll let you get on with your beauty preparations, Estelle. The floor is just aboot dry now, and you’ll find clean towels in the airing cupboard.”

Wellingtons in his hand, he picked his way across the landing to fetch a pair of socks from the master bedroom.

“Rex, old man!” an Etonian drawl called out as he started down the stairs. “Come and see this!”

By now, Rex just wanted his breakfast. He swore never again to invite anybody to the lodge. It seemed the only people you wanted to actually turn up, didn’t—like the McCallum brothers—and the rest just couldn’t be got rid of! To top it all, the voice calling him belonged to Cuthbert, and he had little patience for people of his sort. But what could he do? Half-heartedly he strolled into the main guest bedroom where Mr. Farquharson was beckoning him over to the window. The rain had slowed to a jaded drizzle, almost ready to give up, but not quite.

“What is it?” Rex asked his guest, whose jowls were positively quivering in excitement.

Cuthbert pointed to the far side of the loch. Three quarters of a mile away, Rex could perceive a dark blur in the ripples.

“Here, look through these binoculars. They’re Estelle’s. She uses them for bird-watching.”

Rex had difficulty adjusting the focus. Finally, he made out a longish shape undulating just beneath the surface of the water. It had a sleek head and a thin body or tail.

Rob Roy Beardsley burst into the room. “Is it Bessie? I was at the loch taking photographs when I saw you at the window with the binoculars. Can I borrow them a minute?”

“It’s hard to see through the mist and drizzle,” Rex said, handing them over to the journalist. “The subject looks wavy. It could be some flotsam and jetsam from the rainstorm that got washed up on the islet. Perhaps a tree trunk.”

“It appears to be moving,” Beardsley said, peering through the glasses. “Mind if I take your row boat out on the loch?”

“Be my guest. The oars are kept in the stable.”

“I saw some Wellingtons in the hallway that might fit. The banks of the loch will be like a mire after all this rain …”

“In my bedroom. I just took them off.” Rex glanced at Beardsley’s feet. He was a much smaller man than himself. “You’ll be walking around inside them.”

“I’ll manage with extra socks. Ta very much.”

“Just don’t get swallowed up by the monster.”

“I’ll go with you, Rob,” Cuthbert said. “I have my galoshes. I’ll take the rifle just in case, Rex, if I may.”

With great reluctance, Rex retrieved it from the bedroom with the defective radiator. Equipped with footwear and protection, the two guests took off, as gleeful as two schoolboys on an outing to the zoo. Shaking his head in wry amusement, Rex traipsed after them down the stairs. He knocked at the library door and entered when he heard no response. Alistair sat in an armchair watching the news in the same clothes he had worn the day before. The bottle of Glenlivet stood empty on a side table.

“Och, you look like death warmed up,” Rex remarked. The gray stubble on his friend’s chin and the dark circles beneath his eyes aged him ten years. “Have you been up all night?”