Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses (7 page)

‘Five,’ I said. ‘That occurred to me too. But five mistresses have disappeared and Fleur definitely said her total – my God, how horrid – was four.’

‘So no reason to make the connection.’ Alec shivered too. ‘I suppose you believed her?’

I thought hard for a moment before answering and then nodded.

‘I believe she wasn’t lying,’ I said. ‘She might be mistaken – out of her wits – but it wasn’t mischief when she told me. It was more like a warning.’

‘Although,’ Alec said, ‘there is the point of her sister’s mysterious message. “Trouble in the past” that they thought Fleur had got over by now and a great dread that it would flare up again. I always wondered why they didn’t tell you straight what kind of trouble it was, but if it was four murders then it’s less of a puzzle.’

I gave a grunt that was as close as I could get to laughter. ‘Yes, I shall be having a sharp word with Pearl if I find out she sent me off to see if a murderer was about to murder again.’ Then I shook my head to rattle the idea out of it. ‘She can’t be, Alec. She simply can’t be. She used to decorate her dolls’ house for Christmas. How could she kill anyone? And how could she possibly get a job in a good school if she had been in prison for murder? And if she had done it four times why wasn’t she hanged? And why haven’t we heard about her? She’d be more famous than Dr Crippen.’

‘Only if she were caught,’ Alec said. ‘And
is
it a good school?’

I opened my mouth to answer and then stopped.

‘It has some awfully grand pupils for a bad one,’ I said. ‘And yet . . . five mistresses gone and the head is a funny little creature more like a . . . who she actually reminds me of is Batty Aunt Lilah. Almost one of the girls herself, and not at all suited to being
in loco parentis
.’

‘The way she bundled you in and let you loose on them in the dining room certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence in her judgement. No reflection on you, you understand, but you know what I mean.’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘Well, perhaps she was the matronly one and Fräulein Whatshername was the brains of the outfit.’

‘Who?’

‘The other headmistress,’ I said. ‘There used to be two until she died.’

‘Lifting our total to six?’ said Alec. ‘Six mistresses a-vanishing?’

‘No, she’s one of the five. She was the Latin mistress as well.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ Alec said. ‘What next? What first?’

Before I could answer there came a timid knock at the door and the same maid who had brought our supper entered.

‘Just – eh – wondered if you needed anything else, sir,’ she said. ‘And madam.’ Her eyes were rounder than ever.

‘No thank you,’ Alec said. ‘Here, take the tray, but I’ll keep the plate in case I’m peckish later.’

‘And can I turn down your bed while I’m about it?’ she said, blushing a little and somehow giving off the strong impression that she had been put up to this by a third party.

‘No thanks,’ said Alec again.

‘You could turn mine down,’ I said, losing patience with it all. ‘Two doors along. And I’d like some hot water too if it’s not too late in the evening.’ The maid bobbed and disappeared.

‘You asked me what
I
was going to do,’ I said once she had gone. ‘Am I to take it then that your desire to be part of the case has waned as the casualty list has swollen?’

‘Not at all,’ Alec said. ‘Not a bit of it. Only I can see now that you’re right. You’re much better able to infiltrate a girls’ boarding school than I.’

‘The pisky vicar has been roped in as Latin master,’ I said. ‘Could you turn your hand to . . . what was it . . . science or history, I think?’ Alec snorted. ‘French is taken. Music and PE. Well, I can see the problem with you teaching the girls PE. I don’t think the Rowe-Issings would stand for Stella learning rugger. Music?’

‘Triangle,’ said Alec. ‘And I sometimes got that wrong. And anyway, the fact is . . . while you were out I snagged a case of my own.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Do tell.’

Alec rubbed his nose and did not quite meet my eye.

‘It doesn’t have the thrill of yours, but then I didn’t know how thrilling yours would be when I agreed to take on mine. A schoolmistress in low spirits didn’t sound like too much fun, frankly. My case is much more tempestuous than that. Not than five missing persons and four murders, obviously. How untidy to have them not match up.’

‘Tempestuous?’ I said, cutting through the babble.

‘There is a seething tangle of dark passion here in Portpatrick,’ Alec said.

‘Hang on,’ I said, stretching out a toe and poking him. ‘A tangle of passion sounds exactly like the kind of case we said Gilver and Osborne would never stoop to.’

‘Needs must,’ Alec said. ‘Since I’m here. One of the good burghers of this fair town wants very much to know which other good burgher has stolen his wife’s heart from him.’

‘But we agreed!’

‘We might have said it would be nice if every case was a juicy one,’ Alec said. ‘But we never agreed to turn away business. I didn’t anyway.’ His look of triumph was not to be borne and I took myself off to bed in disgust, not missing the sudden scuffle that told me someone was waiting in the passage to see me go.

He started again over breakfast the next morning.

‘It’s not at all what we always said we would never do, anyway.’

Our breakfast table was very small and very close to the breakfast tables of everyone else currently staying at the Crown, to wit: three commercial gentlemen who greeted one another and then retired behind their newspapers, three amateur fishermen who sat together and talked of lines and tides and notable catches of old, and a convalescent widow with a companion, who nibbled daintily at soft-boiled eggs and spoke in murmurs. Alec and I attracted no attention at all from the six men but set the two women quivering with interest. The convalescent widow was in danger of letting her egg grow cold, all forgotten, so much effort was she putting in to catching my eye. Alec, leaning in close across the minuscule table, ignored them all.

‘He’s not asking us to check boarding-house registers to help him with a divorce,’ Alec insisted. ‘He just wants her back again. And a name. For his own satisfaction.’

‘And if he then decides it would be even more satisfying to go after the fellow with a meat cleaver? That wouldn’t trouble you?’

‘Filleting knife, actually,’ Alec said, but absently. He was looking over my shoulder.

‘He’s a fisherman?’ I asked, craning to look over it too. There was a mild commotion taking place in the doorway of the dining room. The little maid who had brought our supper last night, decked out to serve breakfast in a sprigged frock and cotton apron, was remonstrating with another figure who seemed determined to enter the room. A round little figure in a voluminous tartan cloak and a green velvet hat shaped like a hot cross bun: it was Miss Shanks and, despite the maid’s best efforts to protect her guests from the intrusion, she was even now striding towards Alec and me, throwing one wing of her cloak back over her shoulder.

‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said, arriving at our little table and standing there – still rather swash-bucklingly – with her feet planted far apart and her hands on her hips. ‘And Mr Osborne, I believe.’

The commercial gentlemen carried on chewing their toast and reading their headlines; the anglers carried on with their reminiscence of some distant whopper; but the convalescent widow and her companion practically fell off their seats with curiosity and I could feel their two pairs of eyes fastened upon me like magnifying glasses in the desert sun, smouldering dry twigs into fire.

‘Miss Shanks,’ I said. ‘Alec, dear,’ – a crackle from the twigs as the magnifying glasses flashed in horror – ‘this is Miss Shanks from St Columba’s of whom I told you last evening.’

Alec half rose and half bowed then sank into his seat again.

‘And how can we help you today, Miss Shanks?’ he said.

She regarded him very thoughtfully for a moment before she answered.

‘Lambourne, Mrs Gilver, have let me down,’ she said, flicking a glance to me and then fastening her eyes back on Alec again. ‘And I knew you’d still be here, don’t ye know?’ Miss Shanks’s Scotch brogue was intermittent and utterly bogus, but I was beginning to get a handle on its comings and goings: it carried her over chasms where good taste and fine feeling might send her tumbling. ‘I thought, despite our wee misunderstanding yesterday, that I might persuade you to stay, since you’ve trundled all the way up to us here by the sparkling sea, eh?’

‘Down, actually,’ I said. ‘Not that it ma—’

‘And since you’re so settled.’ She twinkled at me. ‘Cooried in, ye might say.’

Alec and I were completely bamboozled.

‘But as you yourself pointed out, Miss Shanks,’ I said, ‘my married state is not at all suitable for employment at your establishment.’ I was beginning to sound like the woman, damn her.

‘Well, I thought about that, Mrs Gilver,’ said Miss Shanks, attempting a girlish air – mostly made up of swinging her skirts from side to side and looking at me out of the corner of her eye – ‘and talked it over with one of my colleagues, and I decided that if you would submit to being known as Miss Gilver while you’re with us, the girls don’t need to know.’

‘Your colleague Miss Lipscott?’ I could not imagine Fleur clamouring for my return but I could not imagine any of the Misses Lovage, Barclay or Christopher caring one way or the other.

‘Mrs Brown,’ said Miss Shanks. She stuck her chin in the air and carried on very loftily. ‘She’s on the housekeeping staff.’

Alec now went so far as to cross his eyes and stick his tongue out to signal his bewilderment to me. Miss Shanks, facing the way she did, missed it but the widow’s companion caught it and turned back to her boiled egg with a look of distaste at such vulgarity.

‘I see,’ I lied. Miss Shanks giggled, although at least the skirt-swinging had stopped, I was glad to see.

‘I’m sure your husband won’t mind. Since, as you said yourself and as we all can see,’ she jerked her head towards Alec like a farmer at a cattle auction, ‘he is so very understanding.’ She beamed at me. ‘Now you finish up your brekkie and then toddle up to see me, eh? I’ll arrange for Anderson to collect your things.’ She folded herself back into her cloak and beamed again.

‘Cheerie-bye,’ she said. ‘
À bientôt
.
Auf Wiedersehen
. Toodle-oo.’

And with that she was gone, leaving the silence ringing behind her.

We stared at one another and then turned as the little maid arrived beside us and bobbed.

‘Beg pardon, madam and sir,’ she said. ‘I tried to stop her. I – em – well, my auntie, you see. With the eggs. Always on a Saturday. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. But I never— and she wasn’t there anyway,’ after which unhelpful communication she bobbed again and scurried away to her kitchens.

‘Well,’ I said. I leaned in close across the marmalade pot and milk jug as Alec had, but the dining room at the Crown was hardly twelve feet square and the six breakfast tables were huddled together in the middle of it, leaving room for monstrous sideboards all around, and Miss Shanks’s performance had gathered the crowd’s attention at last, the maid’s little coda doing nothing to disperse it either. Eight pairs of eyes were watching us now, while eight pairs of ears, I imagined, were twitching with fascination.

Alec shovelled in the last two forkfuls of scrambled egg and tomato, drained his coffee cup and sat back.

‘Care to join me for a stroll around the harbour wall?’ he said. ‘And a chat?’

I dabbed my lips and stood.

‘Excellent suggestion,’ I said and we made a poor show of a casual exit, gathering speed until we were fairly trotting through the narrow passageway, making for the front door.

‘What in the blazes?’ I said as we reeled out into a perfect late spring morning, the sea sparkling, a light breeze just ruffling the air and a few white clouds scudding across the sky. It was nine thirty and the harbour was quiet, the fleet gone for the day, only a handful of old men, their seagoing days long past now, standing around, sucking on their pipes and watching the horizon through narrowed eyes. It would be hours on end before any boats returned, but I supposed they might be watching for passing ships; at least, for the sake of their day’s entertainment, I hoped so.

‘She leapt away in horror last night when she heard you were married,’ Alec said. He had his pipe lit, having come downstairs with it filled in readiness, as usual. ‘But this morning, after finding out somehow – but how? – that you’re here with me, she decides you’ll do?’

‘She and Mrs Brown, the housekeeper,’ I reminded him. ‘And what was the parlour maid on about, for heaven’s sake?’ I took out my cigarette case and turned away from the breeze to light one. The convalescent widow was just descending the steps and she gave an ostentatious and surely ceremonial cough, waving her hand in front of her face as though my little puff of smoke were asphyxiating her.

‘Hardly a surprise,’ she said. ‘To find you smoking on the street like a flapper!’ Alec bristled but it did not trouble me. Grant, who despairs of my tweeds at times and wishes fervently that I would take up life in London where they are unknown, would be delighted to learn that such a word had been used of me.

‘I’ve been coming to the Crown every May for twelve years,’ the widow went on, ‘but I should hesitate to return now.’

‘Righty-ho,’ I said. The morning was beginning to take on a tinge of unreality for me.

‘I’ve never seen such a display,’ she went on.

‘Such a display as two people breakfasting together in a public dining room?’ said Alec. ‘Well, I’m glad we could add to your life’s excitements.’

‘A hotbed of gossip and intrigue,’ said the widow. Her companion had come out after her with a shawl, and was timidly holding it out towards her employer, almost jabbing her with it, as though she hoped the fleecy wool would simply adhere to the woman’s coat shoulders without the one of them taking the trouble of donning the thing or the other finding the nerve to apply it to her person in the usual way.

‘I require new-laid duck eggs,’ she went on.