Enter Second Murderer (18 page)

"To be sure you're not, Inspector. Just a wee bit out of condition. Let's face it, this happens, so I'm told, to every man with advancing age."

Such remarks succeeded in making him feel like a doddering ancient, and it was as well for McQuinn that the Superintendent entered the office at that moment, or the Constable might have received severe chastisement from Faro in the form of a punch on the nose.

On his way home, Faro called in at the Pleasance Theatre to leave the invitations for Vince's party. In the corridor he met a black-clad figure almost unrecognisable as Alison, hurrying into her dressing-room to change out of her Portia costume. Peering round the door at him, she snatched the envelope.

"Forgive me, Jeremy. I cannot talk to you just now. I have an important dinner engagement in the New Town and I'm late already. Do forgive me," she repeated, and closed the door firmly.

Hugo Rich, however, was disposed to conversation, displaying an almost school-boyish relish in criminal investigation, the disposal of corpses and other ghoulish matters. Faro finally made his escape, and neither his opinion of McQuinn nor his temper was improved when he discovered the Constable handing Alison into a brougham waiting outside. As the Constable leaned in her direction, with his jaunty confidential manner, that mobile handsome face staring down into hers, peals of laughter reached Faro. Light-hearted as she never is with me, he thought disgustedly. Too much in a hurry to exchange half a dozen words with me, but with all the time in the world for McQuinn.

The sight stirred him to unexpected fury, especially as, at his approach, they both turned, their faces wiped clean of expression, leaving him to wonder suspiciously whether he had been the object of their merriment. And the thought that he had been made to appear ridiculous in Alison's eyes smote him to the heart.

Danny McQuinn and Alison Aird so occupied his thoughts on the way to Sheridan Place that he realised his interest in the case of Lily Goldie was dwindling rapidly. There were too many paths that led nowhere and he realised that if he was to be absolutely honest with himself it was not Hymes, nor his sister, nor even Lily Goldie, that had made him take on this private investigation.

As he opened the front gate, he realised he was never going to solve this mystery, or the identity of the second murderer—if such existed—if he let himself be diverted by destructive emotions of jealousy. Indeed, when he examined his own motives, he saw that personal pride and vindication were both involved. That he might prove to Central Office that they had bungled and that he was indispensable. There was even a small unworthy hope that he might find something to discredit Constable McQuinn and dash that supercilious smile from his face for ever.

Even Vince's original enthusiasm was daunted, and he must give up soon. In a few weeks, he would have served his
locum tenens
with Dr. Kellar. Then he would be setting up his own surgery in the house. For his future as a fully fledged medical practitioner. Faro had installed on the front door an elegant brass plate.

Faro waited by the drawing-room window for Vince's return from Dr. Kellar's and dashed downstairs in time to witness his surprise and delight at this unexpected present.

"Doctor Vincent Beaumarcher Laurie," he exclaimed proudly, and, eyeing it critically, "Do you think the letters are large enough, Stepfather?" He breathed on an imaginary speck of dust, which he polished with his sleeve.

"Big enough, I hope, to bring a small army of Newington and Grange folk trooping up to your door as patients," said Faro, standing back for a last look before following him inside.

"But only for a while, Stepfather. You know I intend to become Queen's Surgeon, once I have enough money—nothing less will satisfy," said Vince solemnly.

"Not even being a good doctor and saving lives?"

"There's nothing very distinguished in attending to broken heads and bones, to coughs and sneezes and bringing babies into the world."

"A lot of doctors spend their whole lives doing it, lad, and consider that reward enough."

Vince banged his fist on the table. "Oh no, Stepfather, not for me. These doctors you speak of with their fine surgeries in the New Town, they have mostly come from respectable middle-class homes. They're not like me—I'm different—you're not forgetting that, are you? I'm only the bastard son of a servant girl," he added bitterly.

Faro winced at the words and Vince smiled. "Oh, that still hurts, doesn't it? That you weren't the first, that my mother had a child before she married you."

"I never gave it a thought. I loved you, little devil that you were, from almost the first moment we met..."

"And I hated you," said Vince slowly, "for stealing my mother, the only person in the world who belonged to me absolutely, the only person I would ever have who was flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. And now she's gone too."

This tirade was no new experience for Faro. He knew that Vince thought of Lizzie acutely each time his birthday came round, remembering the pain and shame in which she had brought him into the world. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"You still have me, lad, and you've been more to me than many a son to his father. I've been so proud of you."

As they waited for the first guests to arrive, Mrs. Brook having set a table that was a masterpiece of culinary art, Vince looked out of the window at the afternoon sun gleaming on the Pentland Hills and sighed.

"If only mother could be with us today," and, turning to Faro, he asked bitterly, "why did she have to die, anyway? So unnecessary."

"That's one of the things you might discover in your life as a family doctor—just why so many women bear children and then both die within days ..."

They were both silent, in attitudes of grief, as if Lizzie had died just days ago. She seemed to be there in the room with them, with her sweet voice and gentle laughter.

They both started as the door opened to admit the party guests, led by Alison Aird, holding a cake with candles already lit, and followed by Hugo, Rob, Walter and a trio of young gentlemen from medieval Venice.

"Happy birthday to you—happy birthday, dear Vince," they sang, and everyone applauded. Then, bowing, they swept off their caps, to be revealed as the young actresses still in their
Merchant
costumes.

"Vince, you awful creature, Hugo assured us that it was to be fancy dress."

Vince laughed, rolling his eyes wickedly. "Fellow couldn't miss the chance to glimpse such fine limbs."

"You would not have said that if you had seen us wandering along the Pleasance," said Beth.

"Nonsense," said Hugo. "Passers-by were quite unmoved by the sight, as if medieval players were a regular occurrence in Newington."

"Not even ones with such unmanly curves?" said Vince. "And why aren't you in fancy dress, Mrs. Aird? Having seen your Portia, I'd say you make an admirable Venetian gentleman."

"We tried to persuade her. She has the perfect figure," said Marie with an envious sigh. "Beautiful long slender legs."

"Ladies, ladies, please," said Alison, "spare my blushes." She looked round, appealing. "They do exaggerate, you know. Only the very young actresses like themselves can play convincing boys."

"And the other way round," said Hugo. "Boys will be girls, since Shakespeare did not have the original commodity to choose from."

"No doubt that is why his more mature ladies, like Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra, must have been extremely trying for a youth to play with conviction," said Vince.

"'Antony shall be brought drunken forth,'" quoted Hugo in profound tones. Everyone cheered as he added in sepulchral aside to an imaginary audience, "As he is regularly at the end of each performance." He pointed dramatically at Alison to complete the quotation. When she declined, he continued, "'And I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness, I' the posture of a whore.'"

The actresses groaned. "Do give over, Hugo dear, we're not working now," said Beth. "There's a good fellow," she added with an affectionate peck at his cheek, which received an appreciative embrace and some applause. The two, in Vince's parlance, were "very smitten".

There were cheers as Mrs. Brook brought in the tea tray, and everyone sat down at the table to enjoy her hot buttered scones.

"We were very impressed with your brass plate," said Marie shyly. "Beaumarcher—that's an unusual name. Are you related to the famous earls?"

Vince had arrived home a little drunk from a celebratory drink with his medical friends, otherwise he would not have abandoned his normal discretion and waxed eloquent upon his bastardy and upon the identity of the rich man who had fathered him.

"The gratification of a few minutes of lust. A few minutes . . . that's all it takes, to father a child. Did you know that, Mrs. Aird?" he asked Alison who sat on his other side.

Across the table. Faro was aware that her happy smile had been replaced by a haunted look.

"Vince, lad—really," he said. "Ladies present."

Alison recovered and gave him a bright smile. Faro realised that if Vince had hoped to shock her, he was in for a disappointment.

She laughed. "My dear Vince, I have always considered the father's role in procreation somewhat minor, and that it didn't seem quite fair, despite what the Bible says on the subject, that women should bear all the shame but are not supposed to have any of the pleasure." She added, with surprising frankness, "And I doubt whether even the cleverest of doctors will be able to change the laws of biology."

But Vince didn't hear. He had extracted a rosebud from Mrs. Brook's arrangement and was endeavouring to attach it to Marie's tunic, an effort requiring considerable assistance from that young lady, who was enjoying every moment.

Alison watched with amusement and swept aside Faro's whispered apologies. "The young like to feel outrageous on occasions, and what better time than on a birthday, the beginning of a new year?"

"I assure you, he doesn't usually behave so abominably."

"Perhaps something else upset him," she said anxiously. "Whatever it was, I freely forgive him."

The lad has everything, thought Faro, looks, brains and yet he cannot forget, will never forget, that his birth puts him beyond the pale of polite society. And sometimes Faro took a good hard look at that same Edinburgh society and the seething hypocrisy of its professional and middle classes, that Vince wished to emulate. The respectability that was paper thin and, once scratched, revealed horrors of child abuse, incest, sodomy-a whole world of crawling nastiness that erupted into occasional scandals, quickly suppressed by a handshake containing a large sum of money. Scandals which not even the most forthright editor would allow to be exposed in his newspaper.

"Yes, do let's go there ..."

"Everyone—listen ..."

"A picnic tomorrow—over on the Fife coast."

"We take the ferry, it's only half a mile from the landing stage."

"What a splendid idea."

"You must come too, Stepfather."

Faro looked at Alison, who clapped her hands delightedly. "Yes, Jeremy, of course you must come with us."

Faro allowed himself to be persuaded but he was bitterly disappointed. He had been looking forward to taking Alison to Musselburgh on the horse-drawn railway, to having a day alone with her. She had clearly forgotten all about their arrangement and now, apparently, if he was to enjoy her company at all, it must be within the group of Vince's young friends.

The picnic spot had been suggested by Vince. He was to be the leader. Mrs. Brook was prevailed upon to pack up the remnants of the birthday feast and wine, which pleased her since the tea table groaned with enough food to feed a regiment.

It was a merry party who dispersed for the theatre in gleeful anticipation that the perfect weather Edinburgh was at present enjoying would hold for a few days longer.

When at last Faro and Vince took their seats in the Pleasance Theatre, the curtain rose on
Antony and Cleopatra
. Faro had only seen Alison thus far in
Othello
, and here was a vastly different portrayal. Unbelievable, he thought, watching the exquisite, irresistible Queen of the Nile, whose beauty turned men to clay in her small hands and "kiss'd away kingdoms and provinces". That "a lass unparallel'd" could on a different night be the simple, innocent, hero-worshipping Desdemona.

Even Topaz Trelawney's Antony was a mercifully subdued performance, although his "I am dying, Egypt, dying" raised a misguided cheer from a rowdy element in the audience. When Cleopatra died with the asp at her breast, the scene was so heart-stopping, and Faro was so absorbed into believing what he saw, that he felt the curtain should rise on her lifeless form. That was how she should be remembered, not smiling hand-in-hand with a posturing Antony to a tumultuous, ear-splitting ovation.

He felt dazed as they left the theatre, it having been decided that everyone needed to retire early in order to catch the early morning ferry across to Fife, carriages having been arranged to transport them to Queensferry.

Vince declined the invitation to accompany Rob and Walter to Rutherford's and walked rather sharply in the direction of Sheridan Place.