A Quiet Death (9 page)

'Come along, lad.'

'But—but—' Bewildered, Vince was close to tears.

'There, there, lad.' The door opened rapidly, closed just as swiftly behind them. 'There, there. We'll think of something. Don't you worry.'

The Glamis Hotel was nearer than Paton's Lane, its surroundings soothing and impersonal, preferable to the bleak depressing bedroom and the risk of an encounter with the McGonagalls.

Faro thrust Vince up the steps. 'We wish to be private. Have you a room?' he asked at the desk.

'Across there, sir. We use it for private functions.'

'Excellent.' Following the bellboy, Faro propelled Vince into the room with its plush sofas and long table. The young man sat down meekly, still too dazed and numb for protest.

Faro ordered a bottle of whisky, much to the waiter's surprise. He clearly wasn't used to such generous orders.

'And two glasses.'

The waiter brought the order, his manner cautious and apprehensive as he stared at Vince, clearly wondering what these two gentlemen were up to. Were they in disagreement? Faro could see him nervously moving glasses and considering what was breakable in the room, as if anticipating an imminent bout of fisticuffs.

In any other circumstances he would have found it entertaining. And so would Vince. But neither had much heart left for amusement.

Faro poured out a generous measure. 'Drink it, lad. Go on. You'll feel better.'

Vince barely raised his head. 'Better? I never felt so vile in my whole life. I wish I was dead. She loves me. She is my wife-my wife, you understand. We have been lovers. And now-to deny it completely. To deny even knowing me. Oh dear God, what has come over her? She cannot be so cruel.'

He thumped his fist upon the table. 'What am I to do, Stepfather? How can I win her back? Tell me what to do, for God's sake—before I go mad.'

So saying he crashed down the whisky glass and began pacing back and forth to the window as if expecting some miracle in the shape of Rachel Deane to appear, his actions carefully watched by the nervous waiter who hovered by the private bar.

'Sit down, Vince. Sit down,' said Faro. 'I can do nothing to help you until we calmly consider all that has happened.'

'Calmly—how can I consider my broken heart, her cruel treatment calmly?'

'Because that is the way you have been taught to think, lad. It is the way you were reared, the way you have lived all your life with me,' said Faro sternly. If you are speaking truth—and I don't doubt that for a moment, then Miss Deane is lying. And if she is lying, then there has to be some reason. And we must find it.'

'She wouldn't lie. She is good and true—'

'Vince, listen to me. There is a mystery here and it has to be solved like any other mystery. And the sooner you calm yourself, the sooner we will find our answer.' Replenishing the glasses, he said: 'First of all, I want the evidence.'

'Evidence?'

'Indeed. I want you to tell me the whole story of your meeting with Miss Deane and what led to your further association. Rest assured I shall neither condemn nor condone but I beg you, leave nothing out.'

'It all began one day', said Vince, 'when Sir Arnold was visiting the factory. Before his illness he came at regular intervals to inspect the working conditions and showed a lively interest in the workers. If a man or a woman had problems, he was never too grand to sit down and discuss their difficulties with them. He was, and is, greatly loved, a fine man.

'One morning during his perambulations he collapsed. Fortunately I happened to be on hand, since my surgery and my patients' records were something he might wish to inspect. He made a note of all details of accidents and in the case of deaths would write a personal note, with a few guineas, to the dependants.

'I could see at once that he had suffered a mild stroke. I took the necessary steps to revive him and he was grateful, insisted I had saved his life and asked that I should continue to attend him, as his personal physician was an old man who, Sir Arnold said, should have retired years ago.

' "I like having young men with young ideas around me."

'We got along famously and it was on one of my weekly visits to Deane Hall that I first met Rachel. As I was leaving she rushed downstairs to the hall and thanked me for all I had done for her grandfather. On my next visit I found I had to attend her as a patient. She had slipped on the stair and sprained her ankle. It wasn't serious but I think it was at that moment we looked into each other's eyes and we both knew what was happening.

'I know what follows sounds like madness, Stepfather, but you must be patient with me. She began visiting the factory, allegedly bringing clothes for some of the poorer workers, but she always did so when I was at my surgery. One day as she was leaving I took her in my arms and the next moment we were confessing our undying love for each other. I think I even asked her to marry me, although I hardly expected that a humble factory doctor would be seriously considered as a prospective suitor.

'On her next visit, she told me that she would be honoured and indeed proud to be my wife, but we must wait until she came of age, then she could do as she pleased. She told me that she longed for me, that such waiting time was intolerable and she had arranged with a friend, an old nurse, that we should visit her cottage for a few days. Did I think that a good idea?

'Of course I did. I was deliriously happy at the prospect. We arranged to meet on Magdalen Green.'

He looked at Faro appealingly. 'Even then, I thought I was dreaming. I could hardly believe that she would be there, that it was true. But she arrived promptly in a carriage which she said was engaged to carry us to Dundee Railway Station. Errol she said was our destination—'

'Errol, did you say?' Faro interrupted. And when Vince gave him a questioning glance, he said: 'No—pray continue.'

'After purchasing our tickets, we sat in the train like two happy children playing truant. It was a short walk from the station before we turned through lodge gates into a vast estate where Rachel said her nurse's cottage was situated.

'I was a little taken aback, but enormously gratified, to find that there was no sign of any servants, or of the old nurse, who I had imagined would look after us and probably prove to be a stern chaperone. I had not the least idea then that Rachel intended to anticipate our marriage, that we were to become lovers.

'She had thought of everything. Before we met that day she had been into the Overgait and had purchased a picnic hamper, filled it with provisions, bread, wine, chicken, ham, a Dundee cake, enough for several days. We would certainly not go hungry and so we feasted, avoiding any of the estate workers as we walked in the vast woods. The house itself when we were near enough to inspect it, was shuttered. The family, she said, went to Italy each spring.

'At last it was over, we had run out of time. Time I had begged off from my surgery with the excuse of an urgent visit to Edinburgh. Time she had stolen to visit a sick friend in Perth.

'On the last day, almost tearfully we walked back to the station and took the train back to Dundee. I saw her into a carriage bound for Deane Hall and returned lonely and desolate, but full of hope for the future, to Paton's Lane. That night I wrote to tell you of my good fortune. But that is the last time I saw Rachel until our meeting with her this afternoon.'

Faro was deeply concerned with his stepson's story. The lad was too well balanced to have imagined the events of the last two weeks. He was not even romantic by temperament and had enjoyed great successes with the ladies until now without being under any obligation. Experienced where women were concerned, he was not of that nature who might in desperation mistake flirtation for serious intent.

Strongest of the evidence in Vince's favour was his natural antipathy towards the matrimonial state. It was Rachel's behaviour that was completely baffling. Why should a well brought up young girl in a strata of society which made the strictest demands of morality suddenly throw convention aside and elope with a young man she hardly knew?

'Did you have any reason to suspect her behaviour was at all—well, odd?'

'I am not sure what you mean.'

'Did she tell you anything in those few days about her background, her life as a child?'

Vince smiled into the middle distance. 'Only that she was often naughty. She hated being told what to do and—and—' He paused frowning.

'Well?'

'I remember recalling that her grandfather once told me that although he loved her dearly, she was his only grandchild, she was often wilful and naughty. A wild child, subject—subject to erratic fits. She would be over the moon as he put it, one minute, and the next sunk into deepest melancholy.'

Vince was silent now, looking at him as if there should be some ready answer. 'I wonder now could such fits be drug-induced, brought about by taking laudanum? As you probably know, Stepfather, lots of young girls take it for menstrual disorders and her grandfather once asked me to prescribe it for her, for exactly that condition.'

'Without you seeing the patient, Vince? Surely that is irregular?'

'I suppose it was. And had it been anyone else but Sir Arnold I would have refused. She did talk to me about this problem when we were in Errol, of course, so it was quite genuine.'

It was Faro's turn to be silent. 'Was there anyone who might have seen you together?'

'Only the guard at the station. I doubt whether he would remember us though. He hardly looked up when we handed in our tickets.'

'Estate workers then?'

'Well, we tried to avoid them wherever possible. After all, we were trying to be discreet. We weren't exactly eager to brazenly announce to the world that we were anticipating our marriage vows.'

And that fact didn't make sense either, thought Faro. What was all the hurry? Why didn't Rachel wait a few weeks until she came of age and could please herself in the choice of a husband?

In the few minutes he had been in her company he would have said that her reactions were exactly what he would have expected of the heiress of Deane. She certainly did not strike him as a lass who would throw her bonnet over the windmill and indulge in a passionate premarital love affair.

'Tell me something about this estate. Was there anything special that you could recognise again?'

'Of course I could find it. I have a map that Rachel brought with her. I carry it still,' he said softly, 'as a memento.' Producing it from his pocket book he spread it before Faro. 'See, there, the area ringed. That's where we stayed. It's just off the main road to Perth, at the signpost for Errol.'

Faro had a sudden feeling of triumph. 'Did it have twin lodges with tiny turrets and two spread eagles on the gateposts?'

Vince gasped. 'Exactly that. But how did you know?'

'Because, my dear lad, there is only one estate at Errol large enough to answer that description. And what is more, my friend Tom Elgin is gamekeeper on the adjoining estate.' He rubbed his hands gleefully. 'This is marvellous. Why, I stayed with him the night after Will Gray's funeral.'

'And you still remember the twin lodges?' said Vince in amazement. 'In your befuddled condition?'

'Old habits die hard, lad. Observation is second nature, and often an absolute necessity for my survival. And this time it is going to be invaluable, to prove that you were telling the truth.'

'You mean—' Hope flooded Vince's pale face.

'I mean that I shall visit Tom and see that cottage and the nurse.'

'The nurse, of course. She'll tell you that Rachel contacted her.'

Vince's mood swiftly changed from gloom to optimism. For the moment, the account of his love affair had been in the nature of an expurgation. To his stepfather's suggestion that he might now wish to return to his lodgings, he said firmly: 'What on earth for? I'll only sit and brood and I've done enough of that for one day. Rachel may have spurned me for her own good reasons, but meantime there are other people who need me.' And consulting the wall clock, 'I have a surgery at the factory at five. Yes, I will be perfectly all right and I'll see you later this evening, I hope. Perhaps by that time you will have some evidence that will make Rachel admit that she loves me. It will make a change for you, this solving an affair of the heart, instead of a crime,' he added cynically.

Faro merely smiled. But he left wondering what was to be gained from the proposed visit, beyond the satisfaction of proving that Vince and Rachel had indeed visited Errol. And would it do the lad any good to learn that his beloved was a heartless liar?

As for solving enigmas of behaviour, whether criminal or in the human heart, there seemed little difference really. The puzzle lay deep in the labyrinth of personality, full of twists and turns and unsolved clues which German psychologists were only beginning to unravel.

Chapter 8

At Paton's Lane Jean McGonagall was industriously scrubbing the front step.

'Oh, it's yourself, Inspector. I was just telling Willie, when I first saw you I thought you must be Dr Laurie's elder brother,' she added with a shy giggle. 'You look far too young to be his father.'

'His stepfather, actually,' he reminded her.