The Balmoral Incident (17 page)

If I wasn’t satisfied that Bobby’s death was an accident, neither was Inspector Gray. He was back again asking questions and suddenly I was a suspect.

‘At the stables they said that just after Biggs left with the borrowed horse you came looking for him. Can you tell me why, Mrs Macmerry?’

‘I thought he might have information about Lily.’

At her mention, Gray winced. ‘Is that so?’ And before waiting for my answer, he said. ‘The lads thought it was odd that you were so interested in Biggs who had a way with women.’

‘What you are hinting, Inspector, is outrageous and ridiculous!’

He shook his head and said: ‘It has been known, especially women who look younger than their age.’

That was either flattery, which I did not expect from
him, or more likely a veiled insult. I said: ‘Very well, I’ll tell you what it was all about.’ And I went into the whole story, Bobby threatened, given ten quid to leave.

Gray listened, his face impassive, giving nothing away.

‘So when you saw him, you presumed he was here for a bit of blackmail.’

‘That is correct. And I think he met up with his intended victim who killed him.’

Gray sighed deeply. ‘Mrs Macmerry, the horse threw him. That was how he died. An unfortunate accident that can happen to the most experienced of riders.’

‘But there are ways and means of making a horse throw his rider.’

Gray tapped his fingers on the table, a dismissive smile. ‘Don’t you think your ideas are a little fanciful, Mrs Macmerry? This is all circumstantial evidence that would never stand up in court.’ He paused. ‘There is another matter. Can you account for the bicycle tyre marks where the body was found?’

‘Of course I can. When Miss Penby Worth rushed back to the cottage, she was in a state of shock. She guessed that he might be badly injured but he was still alive and had mumbled something, she thought, about an attacker. I took my bicycle and went immediately.’

A thin smile. ‘That could be concluded by a jury as being before as well as after the accident.’

I gasped in amazement. ‘Are you accusing me of … of—’

‘Of murder? No, Mrs Macmerry, but you must admit that knowing your unfortunate propensity to investigate not only imaginary crimes but ones that are none of your business …’ Pausing, he gave me a hard look and
continued: ‘The interest you displayed in him might suggest reasons for a
crime passionnel
. A personable young lad, who had rejected your advances.’

‘Stop! Stop right there, Inspector,’ I interrupted. ‘Stop talking nonsense. Have you forgotten that I am a happily married woman, the wife of Inspector Macmerry?’

He shook his head solemnly. ‘Indeed no. But does that make a difference?’ At that he stood up, leaving me speechless with fury. ‘Now I’ll bid you good day.’

I was still thinking of a reply, reeling at his accusations and wanting to throw something at him as he made a dignified exit.

That might have been the end of it, except that on the very next day Mabel was attacked.

After breakfast I learnt later she had gone to the stables for the pony cart, to find that there was a problem with one of the wheels and that she would not get it that day. Disappointed, as it was a fine day, she decided to make do with a walk.

Meanwhile I was washing the breakfast dishes with Meg, a willing helper, drying them. Rowena would be arriving later so we prepared to give Thane his morning exercise together.

Suddenly the door opened and Mabel rushed in. Muddied, dishevelled, her face white, she was sobbing, terrified and quite inarticulate.

I made her sit down, tried to calm her.

‘What happened, Mabel? Did you fall, did you have an accident?’

She gulped. ‘No accident, Rose. I was attacked. A man tried to kill me. In the wood.’

I sat down opposite, she was still hysterical. Meg gave her a glass of water, she gulped it down.

‘Have you something stronger?’

Vince’s excellent brandy which Olivia had left with us was produced. She made good use of that and it seemed to work. With a sigh, clenching her hands together, her eyes still wide with terror – a frightened horse came to mind – she unreeled the terrifying story. Between sobs, and sips of brandy, I got the gist of it.

Unable to have her pony cart, for her daily excursions for her health, for fresh air and exercise, the latter which I might have questioned as there was little exercise in sitting in a cart for hours, she was making do with a brisk walk following the path she usually took through the wood.

She wasn’t concerned that it took her very near the place where Bobby had his fatal accident, but it was just yards from the scene set for a second fatal encounter. This time her own.

Meg was holding my hand. I told her to go to Uncle Vince. He would alert Inspector Gray if he was still somewhere in the confines of the castle.

Mabel was saying: ‘I took a path through the trees alongside the river. Thought I heard something. Voices and rustling. Like footsteps. Decided it was just an animal.’ She gulped, looking bewildered, remembering. ‘Then – then he leapt out at me, threw a sack, a disgusting smelly sack, Rose, put it over my head and tried to push me down the bank to the river.’ Wringing her hands she went on: ‘I was terrified but I knew I was fighting for my life and thank God I am strong. I struggled, kicked out and the next moment I was on the ground. He had gone.
Those voices I had heard were part of the shooting party with their dogs.

‘They got me to my feet, asked what had happened. There was no sign of my attacker and I didn’t want to make a fuss. So I said I had slipped and rolled down the bank, and they said I was lucky, another few feet and I would have been in the river.’

She clutched my hand, ‘Oh Rose, if those people hadn’t been near, they saved my life.’

I asked the obvious question. Could she describe her attacker?

‘He felt like a tall man, but I never saw his face. He grabbed me from behind.’

I realised this was something else for Inspector Gray. But it didn’t make sense. Why should anyone attack Mabel? Again that missing motive. She had nothing to do with Bobby, although there was a link with Lily.

It was beginning to sound as if we had a madman at large, an unseen maniac now attacking a defenceless woman. Who next? I wondered.

The sound of a motor outside. Meg must have run all the way. Inspector Gray emerged with Vince, who had advised Meg to stay with Rowena.

Satisfied that Mabel had suffered no injuries, Vince departed and Gray took a seat at the table opposite a forlorn-looking Mabel who had not yet attended to her muddied skirt and boots. She would have to do without a personal maid this time.

‘Am I to understand that you have been attacked, Miss Penby Worth?’

‘Indeed, yes. Just an hour ago.’

And out again, the same story, word for word as she had told me.

Gray listened patiently, an occasional nod, or that habit of tapping his fingers on the table. At the end, he asked for the description of her attacker. Again she had no notion, guessed only that he was a tall man, taller than her and very strong.

A short silence as Gray made some notes and I said from my place by the window: ‘As this happened the very next day after Bobby Biggs’ accident, do you not think the two incidents might be related?’

Gray swung round to face me. ‘In what way, Mrs Macmerry?’

‘I’ve just realised … perhaps it was the same man Miss Penby Worth noticed at the time just before she found the body.’

Gray turned swiftly to her. ‘So there was someone else on the scene when the accident happened. Can you describe him?’

As she spoke I closed my eyes. I had my own picture of that tall youngish man with dark hair.

‘If he had attacked the stable lad, Inspector, then perhaps he believed I had seen him, and as it was well known that I went out in the pony cart every morning, it is possible that he was lying in wait for me.’

I looked at her. We had both reached the same conclusion.

Gray thanked her and made another note. There was a certain finality in his action and Mabel asked: ‘May I ask what you intend doing about this, Inspector?’

‘This is a serious case of assault but we have no reason
to believe there is any connection with the stable boy’s fatal accident yesterday. The fact that you were attacked very near the same spot could well be a coincidence. We will certainly look into it.’

I never had any faith in coincidences. I distrusted them implicitly. Later that day Mabel was eager to unroll the full story to Vince once again. Vince was relieved that, although uninjured, she had suffered no after-effects so far, but appalled by what might have been the result. A third death.

The story of Mabel’s attack was verified. One man had been with the shooting party who had found her in hysterics by the river, the sack that had covered her head lying alongside.

‘It will certainly help Gray in his investigation,’ Vince said.

‘Who was the man?’ I asked.

Vince frowned, thought for a moment. ‘Oh, Brown, I think.’

Again that chill went over me. Brown, or whatever his name was, also fitted the description of the man Mabel had seen on the scene of Bobby’s accident – or murder. He also fitted the vague description of the man who had attacked her. And it was no problem for him to apparently be the first on the scene to have found her.

An independent investigation whatever its consequences was now seriously overdue. I was running out of time. Soon it would be too late, the end of the holiday looming in sight, only days away. Walking with Thane that morning I was certain that he would be glad to be home again and welcome the freedom of roaming about Arthur’s Seat. If he could have talked, I was sure he would be sharing my sympathy for an outdoor animal confined for a month to the area around the cottage and woods with scant chance of the exercise he was used to. Or often having to sit for hours on end alone or with Mabel when the girls and I went to the castle gardens and areas forbidden to him.

Mabel still referred to him as That Dog and endlessly complained about him, although once she had mellowed enough to suggest he might like to run alongside the pony
cart. Declining her offer with suitable excuses I wondered if this was because she feared another attack.

At that she laughed. ‘You need not worry about my safety, Rose.’ She smiled. ‘I will be armed if there is a next time.’ And I remembered that according to her, she was a crack hand with a rifle.

At least she seemed to have overcome her initial hostility to That Dog and conceded that some animals could have quite exceptional, almost human, intelligence. Perhaps this was after Meg had reported our encounter with the King. In Mabel’s eyes, if royalty cast an approving glance on him that marked him down as somehow rather special.

I talked to Thane a lot, but I felt the bond we had shared for ten years was slowly diminishing. He often seemed to belong to Meg, and he certainly favoured her presence. When she was in the cottage, he took up a place by her side. Elsewhere, out of doors, there he was at her side, behaving exactly like a domestic pet at heel.

Maybe I was just a little jealous – as I was, I must confess, about Jack too. Thane wasn’t the only one I feared I had lost since Meg came into our lives. I remembered that beastly cold and although I told myself that Jack should keep away from me, he seemed almost too ready to do so. I was lucky if he came up to see me for half an hour each day. And the sounds of their merriment, tales of great excursions they had together, did little for my soul.

All these sorry matters I confided to the only one I could ever talk to, and that was Thane. He looked at me with that almost human expression. But did he or could he ever understand? Was I expecting too much? As Jack would say, and Mabel too, he is only a dog.

The question remained, was he? He had certainly been more than that but had this holiday changed him as it seemed to be changing me, and Jack and Meg? And of all the changes, my relationship with Vince was hardest to bear. I realised that he had a busy life and since Olivia and Faith had gone home he spent little time at the cottage, looking in of an evening for a chat. Over the last ten years since my return to Scotland, I had been delighted and grateful for those brief visits when the royal train stopped in Edinburgh en route back and forth to Ballater.

On this holiday I had expected to spend a lot of time with him, but now our conversations were guarded, especially if any reference was made to the mystery I felt surrounded Lily’s death.

I soon discovered that Bobby’s was to be treated in the same manner. I said I did not believe that he could have been accidentally thrown from his horse, an opinion endorsed by the stableman Jock’s assertion that Bobby could ride anything. I regretted that immediately, as Vince’s lips tightened.

‘There you go again, Rose. You are the absolute end. The slightest accident has you immediately believing that murder was intended.’ His laugh was rather mirthless, he was annoyed. ‘A good job you don’t live here on the estate permanently, or you’d have a succession of crimes waiting to be solved. As a doctor, one gets used to accidents that are quite inexplicable, often domestic accidents where it is wise not to dig too deeply into their cause.’

He paused and said: ‘You simply ask for disasters, Rose, and the sooner we get you home in one piece, the happier I will be.’

Wounded that he would be glad to be rid of me, I said sharply: ‘It can’t be too soon for me either!’

His eyebrows rose at that. ‘Well, well. Scant thanks I am getting for negotiating this holiday for you. I have to say that if you haven’t enjoyed it, then it is your own fault for interfering in things that don’t concern you.’

His words were so like Gray’s that I said angrily: ‘Such as two quite inexplicable deaths.’

He stood up, shook his head, came over and hugged me. ‘You’ll be the death of me, my lovely Rose. Now don’t cry,’ he said softly and holding me at arm’s length. ‘What I most want for you in all the world is that you go back to your happy life at Solomon’s Tower, stay there and resolve to be a good mother to Meg and a good wife to Jack.’

‘I’d love to be both, but Jack seems to have deserted me too on this holiday.’

‘He’s a policeman, Rose, duty calls. You knew the score when you married him,’ was his stern response.

‘Is that so? Talking of which. I’d very much like to know what the duty is that keeps a senior detective inspector like Gray here in Balmoral.’

Vince gave me a weary glance. ‘There you go again. Things that don’t concern you, police matters that are none of our business.’ He sighed, looked at the clock. ‘I’m off. I have my early morning surgery in Crathie tomorrow.’

And he was gone. I went to bed, feeling sore and misunderstood.

After breakfast Mabel was waiting for her pony cart to be restored to her. She said it had developed a creaking wheel which she found both alarming and disturbing.
Considering its daily use over fairly rough ground I was not at all surprised and the sturdy little pony must have been relieved to get a day off.

Rowena arrived; always hungry despite a substantial breakfast with her mother in the royal kitchens, she had a second one with Meg. They went off to play in the tree house they were making with Uncle Vince’s occasional help while I took Thane for that walk in the woods. Not many of these left, I told him. Soon be home again.

He turned and looked at me, the equivalent of a grin that said that prospect was joyful to him.

Returning to the cottage, there was another drama afoot. The girls had seen a rat.

‘A huge black rat, Mam,’ said Meg. ‘It was at the base of the tree.’

‘How horrible!’ said Mabel.

Meg turned to her. ‘No, it was quite pretty.’ And turning to Rowena for support. ‘Wasn’t it?’

Rowena nodded eagerly. They weren’t scared, just excited.

Mabel sighed deeply. ‘So we have rats now.’

‘No. Just one,’ Meg corrected her.

Ignoring that Mabel continued: ‘That Dog is to blame, he is attracting vermin. A good job we are leaving, the place will be quite overrun.’

Defending Thane, I said: ‘Quite the contrary, Mabel. Dogs get rid of rats,’ and glancing at him I decided that he would be on to it and we need not worry. We would never see that fine black rat again.

He was used to eating meals from the kennels here in Balmoral but he was used to making his own
arrangements at home on Arthur’s Seat. We fed him while we were at home but I knew when we left him for days he never starved. A matter I did not look into too deeply but guessed the rat that the girls had seen would, like many others before it, be marked down to provide him with an excellent lunch.

Mabel had other ideas. With little faith in That Dog as rat-catcher extraordinaire, and unknown to me, when she was over at the stables she had explained the problem and Jock had said he would tell one of the gardeners to put down poison.

Which was to have dire results.