Deadly Beloved (6 page)

"Callers?" Mrs Flynn frowned. "You mean tradesmen and the like?"

"I was thinking of more personal callers."

Mrs Flynn gave a throaty chuckle. "Oh, you mean gentleman callers and such, do you, Inspector?"

Faro tried to look nonchalant. "Something like that."

"Only the young doctor, him that works for the master. He was with you at the dinner party. He calls on Mrs Kellar quite regularly. He looked in as she was packing. Went upstairs and stayed for ... " Mrs Flynn paused and thought, "for twenty minutes or so. I expect his address will be in her book up on the writing desk, if you want it."

She obviously had no idea that Vince was his stepson. A tap on the door announced Ina and, turning to leave, Faro said, "One thing more, Mrs Flynn. Is there anything missing from the house that Mrs Kellar might have taken with her besides her personal possessions?"

Mrs Flynn gave him a puzzled look. "I couldn't say, sir. I'm new to this house. It takes years to get to know one well."

"Well, if you hear of anything missing, you will let me know."

Glad to be out of the housekeeper's gloomy uncomfortable sitting-room, Faro thanked her for her help and followed Ina along the chilly corridor and into the hall, to gratefully breathe in the purer air of the house's upper regions.

As they climbed the stairs, he asked, "Did you assist the mistress to pack?"

"No, sir. She didn't ask."

Ina opened the door into a bedroom expensively furnished, but apart from the silver brushes, jewel box and toilette set on the dressing table, there were fewer mementoes than Faro would have expected to see. This characterless room gave no hints about Mrs Kellar's personality, but he realised that he could hardly, with decorum and in the presence of the maid, conduct a careful search of wardrobe and chest of drawers.

"Do you come into this room every day?"

"Yes, sir. I make up the bed and clear the ashes from the fire, re-lay it. I empty the slops and dust ..."

"Good. Then you can tell me if anything has been moved since Mrs Kellar left."

"Nothing, sir. Mrs Kellar is a very neat tidy lady, very thoughtful for everyone."

"She didn't have a personal maid?"

"Oh no, sir. The master didn't think such expense was justified and Mrs Flynn told me that when the mistress's maid who had been with her for years took sick and left he said a housekeeper and a maid should be enough."

"Do you happen to know where Mrs Kellar's maid lives?"

"She died last year and Mrs Kellar went to her funeral. Such a kind lady, if it wasn't for her, he'd never get anyone to stay. Look at Mrs Flynn. She's only staying on as a favour — he had to fair beg her, I'll bet. And now she's working her notice, so to speak, she's very hoity-toity."

Suspecting compassion from this nice policeman, Ina was no longer bashful or afraid. "She does as little as possible, I can tell you. Says she's poorly with her toothache and her sore throat, gives me my orders, prepares the doctor's dinner and then retires to her room ..."

Only half-listening to this tirade against Mrs Flynn, Faro was surveying the room very carefully, making mental pictures of the contents. When he left he would be able to write out an exact list of everything it contained. That was part of his job.

The writing desk by the window was a handsome davenport. He opened the lid and a cursory glance revealed the usual stationery and pens. There was no address book in evidence. It might have been pushed into a drawer but, in all probability, Mrs Kellar had taken it with her.

Looking around, he concluded there was not the slightest indication in this peaceful, strangely impersonal room that Mabel Kellar had intended anything other than to spend a few days visiting her sister.

Where was she then? What had he overlooked?

His attention kept returning to that dressing table. He touched the silver brushes with a strange feeling that there was a lot more in Mabel Kellar's disappearance than he had first thought. Now he wondered whether the answer lay deeper and wider than a long-suffering wife teaching her ungrateful husband a lesson by leaving him to the tender mercies of incompetent servants.

"Will that be all, sir?"

Faro nodded and followed the maid on to the landing. He pointed to the drawing-room: "May I?"

Crossing the floor, he opened the double doors leading into the dining-room. Sterile without the softening effects of candlelight, an atmosphere of melancholy pervaded the long table with chairs devoid of diners. He was not surprised to hear that Dr Kellar did not have his meals there.

"When the mistress isn't at home, he eats in his study across the way."

Faro strode towards the study door. At present, Kellar's wife was merely missing from home and he had merely requested exhaustive enquiries to be made. He could imagine the doctor's righteous indignation, which would surely rebound on Detective Inspector Faro's head personally, should he return home unexpectedly. But the opportunity was too good to miss.

"Oh sir, you can't go in there. No one's allowed. He always keeps it locked."

A pity. Kellar's study could well be the only room in the house where confidential information as to why his wife had left him might be found. But without authority, Faro was treading on very delicate ground. And without positive evidence that a crime had been committed he could hardly proceed to search the police surgeon's house.

"No matter. You have been most helpful, Ina."

At the top of the stairs, the maid paused. "There is something, sir." Again she hesitated. "I overheard you asking Mrs Flynn if there was anything missing."

"Well, is there?"

Ina played nervously with the starched edge of her apron. "I didn't want to mention it in front of Mrs Flynn, or I'll be blamed. You see, she hasn't noticed so far, but when the doctor finds out ..."

"She looked up at him with huge scared eyes. "One of his precious carving knives has gone."

"When did you discover this?"

"When I was washing up after the dinner party, that morning the mistress left. I was putting everything back and I suddenly noticed when I went upstairs to put the special silver back in the canteen that there was only one carving knife. I've searched for the other, but it's never turned up. I just can't find it anywhere."

As she spoke she led the way back into the dining-room and walked over to the mahogany sideboard.

"There, sir." She watched eagerly as Faro opened the elegant velvet-lined case, as if his action might miraculously restore the missing knife to its embossed silver-handled partner.

"Mrs Flynn will skin me alive when she finds out."

"Oh come now, lass. I shouldn't worry too much. It'll turn up, you'll see. Probably put into the wrong drawer."

But Ina was shaking her head. "No, sir. It's not that. I know, I just know, that something — something wicked has happened to it."

"Wicked?" Faro laughed uneasily.

"Yes, sir. Wicked." The huge eyes turned on him again, almost tearfully this time. "I see things, sir. People laugh at me, but I can't help it. There's something black, black and wicked going on in this house. I know it. Come the weekend, the master'll go mad. He'll never carve the roast ..."

Faro was no longer listening. "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." Shakespeare, who belonged in a very different world to this simple maid, had been aware of the same devils. And so was Faro, his senses warning him of the enormity of the girl's words. Worse, he had a sudden inescapable vision of Vince saying, "I could have snatched up one of those knives and plunged it into his black heart."

Only this time, perhaps the missing knife had been plunged into everyone's favourite, Mabel Kellar.

Chapter 4

A great believer in the thought-clarifying powers of fresh air, on leaving the Kellar house Faro decided to walk around the extensive gardens. A grating burst of sunshine had temporarily demolished the leaden skies, turning untrodden snow and delicately frosted hedgerows into a semblance of winter fairyland. There was warmth on the sheltered paths and above his head birds twittered in a hopeful prelude to spring.

He breathed deeply, enjoying this blissful moment between the acts of winter's cruel drama, for he had little doubt that the heavy skies above the Pentland Hills foretold yet another snowfall was imminent.

How was Vince faring, he wondered, delighted that the lad would soon be home again. It had seemed a curious time to choose for a brief holiday at an asylum for consumptives in the Austrian Alps. One of the resident doctors had been Vince's close friend during University days and, Faro remembered, Walter had a very pretty sister.

He leaned against a tree in the sun and lit a pipe. Surrounded by so much beauty, the subtle varied shades of umber and heliotrope and rose, he could never understand why people thought of winter as being the drab dead time of year.

Looking across at the house, for the first time he envied the lot of those who could live in such comfort and enjoy splendid gardens of their own, akin to a small park. If he ever retired from the Police, or escaped the hazards of grievous bodily harm that threatened him almost daily, then he would crave a tiny house with a garden.

Suddenly the years ahead seemed very bleak. His ancestors had been Orkney crofters, perhaps their blood unsettled him from time to time. Why had he chosen this violent, unpredictable life of fighting criminals? Had it begun originally in order to avenge his policeman father who had been murdered for getting too close to the truth?

Whatever his reason., it was too late to go back now and he was once more committed to solving yet another of those baffling mysteries that were his daily bread, of trying to get inside the criminal's head and walk around in his skin for a while, in an effort to piece together motives and opportunities. In this case, however, he suspected that there was no evidence of any kind beyond a domestic tiff.

The vital question remained. Was Kellar making too much of his missing wife? Had she merely absconded to teach her husband a lesson? Did he suspect that too?

Faro smiled grimly. Anyone less important than the police surgeon would have received a rude reception, told by Superintendent McIntosh not to be so daft and waste his precious time sending his senior Detective Inspector off on a wild goose chase.Walking towards the gates, he would have been inclined to agree except that his visit to the Kellar home had left some disquieting observations to mull over on his return to the Central Office.

First, the missing carving knife. Since cutlery had a habit of being mislaid or misappropriated in the best of houses, there was perhaps a perfectly innocent explanation. Mrs Flynn, uncertain of where everything was kept, had slipped it into the wrong drawer. But Ina, who was responsible for the washing up and stowing away of dishes had seemed so sure.

Faro would have liked to discuss the matter with Mrs Flynn but a tactful approach was needed, one that wouldn't involve getting Ina into trouble with her employer. Dr Kellar's displeasure, rebounding on the housekeeper would, in the pecking order of such establishments, descend upon the hapless maid as everyone's scapegoat.

Why did that carving knife bother him? Was it because he kept on hearing Vince's words about plunging it into Kellar's black heart for his treatment of Mabel?

Faro was glad his stepson had been out of the country when she disappeared. He didn't care for the idea of Vince being associated, however remotely, with the police surgeon's absconding wife. In what must inevitably become known in Edinburgh circles as 'the Kellar scandal', even the innocent friendship of a very young man and a misunderstood middle-aged wife would be seized upon eagerly as a tantalising morsel of delicious gossip.

Yet even more disquieting than the missing carving knife was the picture that persisted of Mrs Kellar's bedroom and the feeling that there was something important he had overlooked. Deep in thought, Faro had almost reached the gates when a brougham approached. The familiar face of Dr Kellar leaned down from the driving seat, and Faro cursed under his breath, wishing he had made his escape two minutes earlier.

"Looking for me by any chance, Inspector?"

Pocketing his pipe, Faro nodded vaguely.

"I thought you might be paying me a visit, despite McIntosh being in possession of all the facts." And tapping the Inspector's shoulder with his whip, Kellar said, "No need to apologise. I haven't worked with the City Police for years without knowing all about the keen noses of detectives. In search of clues they could, and frequently do, put bloodhounds to shame. Have to visit the scene of the crime and all that sort of thing."

"We don't know that a crime has been committed, sir," said Faro sharply.

Kellar was unperturbed. "A mere slip of the tongue — a figure of speech. I should have called it 'the last known sighting'." His laugh was light hearted, causing Faro to study him intently. If this was a guilty man, then he was behaving with considerably more aplomb than one might have presumed normal in the circumstances.

"Well, what are you waiting for, man?" Kellar indicated the seat alongside. "Climb up. Come along to the house. Search the place to your heart's content."