The Missing Duchess (4 page)

"Fraid you'll need to wait till I fix this, sir.' And shaking his fist at the Wizard's House, towering above them, a vast black shadow: 'Aye, curse you too! Might have known it would happen here. Be a good thing when that damned place is pulled down.'

'I wouldn't have taken you for a superstitious man, Sergeant.'

'Not me. But my second cousin tried to live there once. You've probably read the story, it was in the newspapers. Ghosts and hobgoblins -' He looked up. 'An' he's not fanciful. Fought in the Crimea, he did -' The driver paused to kick the buckled wheel viciously. 'This is going to take some while, sir. You'll like enough pick up a hire at the stance down the High Street.'

Faro walked quickly away. Another accident in the making or just one more coincidence.

He looked back at the tall land and resolved that tomorrow, with daylight on his side, he'd have a careful look round, carry out his own investigation and prove to Edinburgh's nervous citizens, and to himself, that Weir's Land was only wood and stone. As such it had no earthly powers to harm anyone except those who were gullible by nature and predisposed to place every misfortune at the door of superstition.

Tomorrow morning, however, was still several hours away.

In Sheridan Place, Vince was impatiently awaiting his return with a story of his own unpleasant encounter.

Chapter 4

Faro had failed to locate another carriage after the accident. Hardly surprising since it was past eleven o'clock, a time at which all respectable Edinburgh citizens were presumed to be in bed and asleep, especially by coachmen in foul weather. And the storm that had been threatening all evening now turned the full force of its attention upon the sleeping town.

Wind and rain fairly hurled Faro down the High Street and through the Pleasance to Newington, where he unlocked his front door, very wet and in no very good mood, to find Vince far from sympathetic. Mrs Brook's excellent steak pie and treacle sponge pudding, Vince's particular favourites, had been ruined by his late arrival, to that good lady's distress and his own annoyance.

Following Faro to the kitchen, Vince watched as he peeled off his outer garments and spread them out to dry, Mrs Brook having retired some time earlier.

'You'll never credit this, Stepfather. I was called into Solomon's Tower to attend a visitor. Yes, you do well to look surprised, our Mad Bart had company.' And pausing dramatically, he pursed his lips. 'A lady.'

Sir Hedley Marsh, or the Mad Bart as he was better known in the locality, lived in a crumbling sixteenth-century tower at the base of Arthur's Seat. A recluse, a woman-hater, this novel occurrence was of sufficient interest to take Faro's mind off his discomfort.

'Youngish and quite comely. Walking along where Samson's Ribs joins the road to Duddingston. And there was a landslide.'

'Not again, surely.' The exposed rockface known as Samson's Ribs could be dangerous, especially in bad weather when rocks and loose earth were dislodged with nothing to stop them falling on the road far below.

'We had complaints of a landslide quite recently. I thought they'd done something about it,' he added.

'You know what these authorities are like, Stepfather. No doubt they're waiting for a fatality, and then the Improvement Commission will take action.'

'Tell me about this young lady. Was she badly hurt?'

'Nothing serious. Knocked off her feet, a few bruises. Not nearly as bad as it could have been, but she was very shocked, quite inarticulate. Kept weeping all the time.'

Vince shook his head. 'You know how the Mad Bart mumbles, but I got the gist of it. He had opened his front door and found her there sobbing and crying. Thought it was one of his cats in trouble. He didn't know what to do but wrap her in a blanket and go for help. And then, of course, just as he was leaving: "There you were, young fellow, golf clubs and all,"’ Vince mimicked with a grimace of distaste. 'Really, Stepfather, that dreadful old man -'

Faro, having dealt with wet clothes, now packed newspapers into his soaked boots to speed- up the drying process. He only half-listened, with amused tolerance, to Vince's tirade. His stepson hated few people, but Sir Hedley Marsh was one of them.

From their earliest days at Sheridan Place it seemed that Vince had found particular favour in the Mad Bart's eyes and Solomon's Tower was hard to avoid if they walked to Newington by the short cut through the Pleasance and Gibbet Lane.

As the Tower was adjacent to the more cheerful surroundings of the modern golf course, it had now become increasingly difficult for Vince to evade encounters with the aristocratic recluse.

'I would swear he sits by that window all day, though how he manages to see anything through the grime is a mystery. I now have to sidle past like a criminal, for if he sees me he rushes out, invites me in for a dram. A dram, in that squalor, surrounded by his infernal cats everywhere -'

Faro tried not to smile, for Vince, who could sit for hours reading quite contentedly with Mrs Brook's ginger cat Rusty purring like a kettle on his knee, entertained no such sentimental feelings about Sir Hedley's 'feline army', the innumerable stray cats he had given home to over the years.

'It's disgusting -'

'Come now, Vince, I consider that rather an admirable and endearing trait,' said Faro. 'Can't you see it as a pathetic gesture, an appeal for companionship from a lonely old man?'

'I can't see it, but I assure you, I can smell it. When he opens the door - really, Stepfather, the place should be condemned as a hazard to health. I could hardly breathe. That poor woman, too. I just hoped she wouldn't succumb to asphyxia before I did.'

Faro, who had been unfortunate enough to cross the threshold on several occasions, could only agree. Still, he did find Vince's animosity trying. He went on and on about it. Why on earth should he hate this tiresome but well-meaning old man? Such venom was quite out of character with Vince's normal serenity, his generous spirit.

'What happened to your patient?'

Vince shrugged. 'I left her there. Offered to see her safely home, of course. But she said no, she would prefer to rest a while. She did seem in rather a state,' he added, frowning. 'In the normal way, I would have insisted, but I just had to get out of that house. I had to breathe fresh air. He said he'd go out and get a carriage and I wasn't to worry. So I didn't,' he ended, closing his mouth defiantly.

Faro had been too preoccupied with getting dried and heating water to make himself a hot toddy to feel sympathetic towards Vince's encounter with the Mad Bart.

Now when he mentioned his own unpleasant near-accident with a runaway carriage that hurtled out of the darkness, he was somewhat hurt by Vince's merriment as any possibly sinister implications were mockingly dismissed.

'Really, Stepfather, it happens all the time. After all, the West Bow's a threat to everyone, the sooner it's pulled down the better.'

Glancing at Faro's solemn face, he smiled. 'Come now, you know as well as I do that carriages are positively uncontrollable there if the cobblestones are wet or icy. You are lucky there was no more damage than a buckled wheel -'

'And a long walk home on a very wet night,' Faro put in acidly, seized by an uncontrollable fit of sneezing.

Vince was unrepentant. He stretched out his hand firmly. 'And I'll take some of that hot toddy too, if you please. I could do with it, I can tell you. After my experiences.'

Faro said no more. Bidding his stepson goodnight, he went grumpily up to bed where he fell asleep to be haunted by bad dreams. Closed carriages drawn by wild black horses swept towards him and ghostly lights appeared at the windows of Major Weir's house, to a grisly accompaniment of maniacal laughter.

As always, Vince's good temper was restored by a night's sleep. The prospect of a weekend house party at Lethie Castle with some decent golf pleased him to no end.

The impending visit to Aberlethie had also caused a flurry of extra activity in Mrs Brook's kitchen, where the warm smell of baking battled with the aroma of hot irons and boot polish.

As the two men cautiously entered her domain, she beamed on then proudly. She did like her gentlemen being well cared for. A task she sometimes found extremely difficult since Inspector Faro cared not the slightest what he wore as long as it was clean, moderately tidy and comfortable, appropriately warm or cool according to the prevailing state of the weather.

Now to his disgust Faro was called upon to pay particular attention to sartorial matters, the choice of shirts and trousers, collars and cravats. At last the hour of departure dawned, the Lethie carriage arrived and they set off in some style with a proud Mrs Brook waving goodbye.

'And enough luggage behind us,' said Faro, 'to accommodate an entire family of grown-ups and children on a seaside holiday for a month.'

Aberlethie lay some twelve miles east of Edinburgh on the shore of the River Forth. It was a journey that, given the right weather, no traveller could fail to enjoy.

Faro, unused to such luxury, relaxed happily against the well-upholstered seats which smelt pleasantly of expensive cigars. The horses trotted briskly down twisting tree-lined roads and lanes, all with a splendid view across the estuary to the hills of Fife, following a coastline which had seen a fair share of Scotland's turbulent history.

Through Prestonpans, where Prince Charles Edward Stuart, victorious after battle, glimpsed through the mirage of destiny himself crowned king in Edinburgh. A mirage as false, alas, as the gold shimmer of the sandhills twisting through the bent grass by the shore. To their left the long white rollers moved in majestically to break in a gentle thunder upon the sandy beach. Above their heads the plaintive calls of seabirds, of curlew and sandpiper; while on the rocks seals raised their heads to stare lazily at the passers-by.

Behind them a fast-retreating prospect of Arthur's Seat, a crouching lion rampant over Edinburgh Castle on its rock. Ahead of them, the skyline was now occupied by the glacial leftovers of the Bass Rock and North Berwick Law. Their more immediate horizons were obliterated by groves of sea buckthorns, those eldritch trees forever leaning against the wind in attitudes of intense desolation which even the sunniest day refused to dispel.

This scene of melancholy was at last interrupted by the high gates and drive to a pleasing Georgian mansion which had replaced the original Lethie Castle.

Faro nodded approvingly. He found its clear and stately lines pleasing, preferring both his architecture and his lifestyle to be kept as simple and uncluttered as possible.

At his side, Vince smiled. He had long ago decided that his stepfather's everyday existence, dealing with the tortured minds of criminals, had influenced his aversion to the modern taste for Gothic architecture.

Climbing to the front steps, they were met at the door by the butler and ushered up a grand oak staircase to their rooms.

While servants brought in his luggage, Faro stared into the rose garden below his window. One of the best views in the house, he decided, with its tranquil outlook over the once magnificent Cistercian priory, now reduced to a solitary ivy-clad wall.

Vince appeared at his shoulder and whistled appreciatively.

'You did better than me, Stepfather. I only overlook the front drive.'

Warm water and soft fleecy towels had been provided for their ablutions, and when Vince returned a little later, his stepfather was adjusting his cravat in the long mirror. Vince watched approvingly. For one who cared not a jot for how he looked or what he wore, Jeremy Faro would, as usual, be the most distinguished presence at the gathering downstairs.

Vince sighed, tugging at his own cravat and wishing he had chosen a different colour. It didn't seem quite fair that his handsome stepfather should have this inbuilt flair for what was right, without seemingly paying such matters the least attention.

'Shall we?' he said.

As they descended the stairs, the murmur of voices indicated the drawing-room where the Lethies already mingled with their guests.

Sir Terence and his wife Sara were an attractive, lively couple in their late thirties. Sara was known to be bookish and a supporter of good works. A necessity, Faro suspected, since her husband spent a considerable time in London and when he was at Aberlethie was to be found mainly on the golf course.

They greeted Vince warmly and, Faro duly introduced, they were whisked in the direction of a group of men chatting near the window. There were no familiar faces for Faro. Most were his stepson's golfing acquaintances, and after the briefest and most perfunctory of greetings, Vince was speedily involved in the mysteries of handicaps and birdies, the tragedy of the rough and the language of the golf course.

Faro had no part in this, and neither apparently had the golfers' female partners, who had long since withdrawn to the opposite side of the room and taken over two sofas where they chatted amiably on more domestic and social topics.

As Faro devoted himself to a study of the book-lined walls, he was addressed by a cheerful: 'Detective Inspector Faro, is it not?'

'It is.'

The tall white-haired man smiled, and the rather anxious self-conscious look he darted towards the book Faro held served as introduction.