The Sign of the Black Dagger (3 page)

“You can’t still be put in prison for debt, can you?” asked Lucy anxiously, looking up from the journal.

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure,” said Will. “Depends on the debt, perhaps. If it involves fraud. But they don’t have special debtors’ prisons any more, I do know that.” He thought he might like to be a lawyer when he grew up.

“It must have been horrible for them when their father had to run.”

“And awful for him too,” Will added. “I expect he felt guilty.”

“He must have owed a lot of money.”

They were silent, thinking about their own father. Where
on earth was he?
The abbey sanctuary no longer existed. It belonged to a time long past.

“Mum’ll be coming in soon,” said Lucy. “We’d better try to get some food ready.” She had left no instructions today.

“Shall we put the book back for now?” suggested Will.

“Yes, let’s.”

They wanted it to be their secret though neither said so. They often didn’t need to tell each other what they were thinking. After they’d cleaned the oilcloth as best they could, they rewrapped the book and tucked it into the hole in the wall and replaced the stone. Then they had to scrub their hands, which were filthy.

They rummaged in the cupboard and brought out whatever they could find. Will was a better cook than Lucy so he took
charge. He chopped up onions, peppers and mushrooms and put some rice on to boil. He was going to make a risotto; something he had never done before but had watched his father do. Lucy set the table.

When their mother arrived home, she said, “He’s not back?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve phoned one or two people but they’ve not seen him. It’s beginning to look like he is trying to avoid Mr Smith.” She stopped. “What’s the smell?” she asked.

Will had burnt the rice but most of it turned out to be edible, more or less, and none of them was in the least bothered about what they ate. Their mother decided to have a glass of red wine with hers and allowed them to have a glass of half wine and half water.

“I need something to perk me up a bit,” she said as she poured the wine. “And after we’ve eaten I suppose I should phone the police.”

Will and Lucy still felt uneasy about that. What if their father had done something illegal? They could hardly bear to think that he would have done but what if he
had
? Ringing the police would be like tipping them off. Imagine ratting on your own father!

“Maybe we should wait another day?” suggested Will.

Maybe they should, agreed their mother. Anyway, they kept thinking that he would turn up any moment now and wonder what all the fuss was about. Hadn’t he told them he was going to Aberdeen for the night on business? He’d say.

“You’re sure he didn’t mention having business outside Edinburgh?” asked Will.

“He hasn’t been out of town for ages. Not as far as I know.”

As they were finishing their meal, the doorbell rang. Will went to answer it.

It was Mr Smith, back yet again, this time with another man for company. Will thought the second one looked like a bouncer he’d seen standing outside the door of a club in the Cowgate.

“I’m sorry,” he said straight away, “our father is not at home.”

“Are we supposed to believe that?” Mr Smith’s voice was not as smooth as it had been the day before. “Sure he’s not holed up inside trying to avoid us? It’s cold out here. Can’t imagine him not wanting to get into the warm.”

Their mother came out into the lobby. “I’ve told you, Mr Smith—”

He cut across her. “I know what you’ve told me, dear. But there’s something funny going on, if you ask me. Either you know where your husband is or you don’t. And if you don’t, we might have to see if there are other ways to find him. He owes us a lot of dosh. So now it seems he’s run off and left you all high and dry.”

He had his foot planted firmly over the threshold again and the other man had moved up closer.

“If you don’t leave us alone, I’ll have to call the police.”

“Do that then. Call them! Save us the bother of doing it ourselves.”

Suddenly, Will gave Mr Smith a push in the chest and quickly closed and bolted the door.

“I don’t know if that was wise,” said his mother as the men hammered on the door, cursing them. Fortunately, the door was stout.

“I don’t care. We had to get rid of them.”

“They’ll be back, though, I’m afraid.”

Again, they all passed a restless night.

In the morning, which was Saturday, they sat round the
table not eating their breakfast and discussing what they should do.

“Why don’t we go round to the office,” said Will, “and see if there’s anything there that would give us a clue?”

Their mother had a key and the office was only a few minutes’ walk away. There was some mail in the entrance lobby at the back of the door; not much, mostly trash mail and catalogues. Their mother opened the two white envelopes amongst them. One was from MacAtee, MacPherson and Trimble, demanding immediate payment for fifty thousand pounds.

“What?” gasped Will. “Fifty
thousand
!”

Their mother had turned pale. This was much worse than they’d imagined, not that they’d thought of any actual amount their father might owe. The second letter had red headings and was from the telephone company announcing that if the current bill was not settled immediately the telephone would be cut off.

They went through to the office. The two rooms had an abandoned air but perhaps that was because the computers and photocopier were covered in plastic and everything, including the two telephones, sat on the desk tops looking as if they had not been disturbed for a long time. The desk drawers and the filing cabinets were locked and there was no sign of keys. The wastepaper baskets had not been emptied but apart from that the room was amazingly tidy, which surprised them, considering that their father was basically untidy. They had no sense of his ever having been here.

“Odd,” said their mother, running her hand along the secretary’s desk top. “I thought the cleaner would have been in.” She regarded the skim of dust lying on her hand.

In the top drawer of the secretary’s desk, they found a telephone book.

“Why don’t we phone Pauline?” said Lucy, flipping through
it. “Her home number’s here.”

She dialled the number and handed over the receiver when Pauline answered. It was an awkward call for their mother to make.

“I was just wondering, Pauline, if Ranald said anything about having to make a trip somewhere this week?”

Lucy crossed two fingers and held them in the air. Will gazed out of the window, seeing nothing.

Their mum was frowning while she listened to what Pauline was saying at the other end of the line. “Oh, I see. I didn’t know. Well, no, he didn’t actually say anything.”

“What is it, Mum?” asked Lucy, unable to bear the suspense.

“Shush, love.” Their mother listened again and then said, “I’m very sorry about that, Pauline. Fifteen hundred pounds, did you say? I’ll send you a cheque straight away. I’m really terribly sorry.” She put the receiver down and stared straight ahead.

“What did she say?” cried Lucy.

“He paid Pauline off three months ago. Well, he didn’t actually pay her off. He owed her fifteen hundred pounds in wages. He said he’d send it as soon as he could. He hasn’t sent it.”

“Fifteen hundred pounds,” echoed Will. “Where will you get it?”

“I’ve still got some of Aunt Mary’s money left.” Their great-aunt had died the year before and left their mother a small inheritance. “But not enough to pay those loan sharks fifty thousand.”

Will was tugging at the desk drawers but they were all locked. “There must be keys around somewhere. You’d think he’d leave a set in the office.” He wandered off to have a look.

He searched underneath both desks and filing cabinets, checked the first-aid cabinet in the toilet and the cupboard in
the tiny kitchen, which held two mugs, a tin of instant coffee and half a packet of digestive biscuits. They looked soggy. They might have been left behind by Pauline.

He went back to the entrance lobby and, looking up, his eye caught sight of the electricity meter box. He reached up, opened it and found a set of keys.

They fitted the filing cabinets and the desk drawers. In the top drawer of their father’s desk they found his diary. They leafed back over the last few weeks. The pages were absolutely blank.

“Why didn’t he talk to me?” said their mother.

In the bottom drawer they found bills. Dozens of them, in brown envelopes. Some had not even been opened. Amongst them were long white envelopes which held statements from both bank and credit card companies.

Their father had been running his credit and overdraft allowances to the limit and paying off small sums every month, enough to keep the companies happy but, meanwhile, interest had been steadily increasing on the amounts left unpaid. He now owed all of them huge sums of money. He’d spent a lot over Christmas especially, they saw. For presents, for them.

“Why did he do all that?” cried Lucy.

“The business was obviously not working out.” Their mother banged her fist down on the desk. “If only he’d
told
me. I suppose he started borrowing in a small way, hoping things would get better and he’d be able to pay off his debts.”

“But they snowballed,” said Will.

“Yes, you could say that.” Their mother let the bills trickle through her fingers. “He always looks on the bright side; thinks his ship is about to come in!”

“It would need to be a pretty big ship,” said Lucy, and for a moment they smiled.

William

We brought our mother into the house and Bessie fetched the smelling salts. Our father is fleet of foot and lean of build. The two men who had come to arrest him were not. The one with the ebony wand had puffed heavily as he had tried to run up the steps to the top of the close and the other had wasted his breath by uttering cries, such as, “I’ll get you, Cunningham. You won’t escape me.”

I had not stopped to think before I shouted, “Run, Papa, run!” Nor do I think that our father had stopped to consider, either, before he ran. But I believe it was the right thing to do. At least, if he took refuge in Sanctuary for a while he would have time to think. About what? Debts, I supposed.

That was what had jumped into my mind straight away. I had been wondering for some time how our father could keep plying our mother with gifts when there was little sign of any money coming in. A small amount was paid to him monthly from an inheritance trust but we knew it was not very much. Our mother kept telling us so.

She was having hysterics now that she had come out of her swoon. “Help me loosen her stays, Louisa,” cried Bessie. “She can hardly breathe. She will have me draw her waist in until I fear for her organs.” It is obvious that Bessie herself does not wear corsets; we can see that. It is something that I am
not supposed to notice, but I do. She allows herself to spread comfortably. “And ye, William, be a guid lad and fetch yer puir mither some brandy.”

I went upstairs to the drawing room and poured a measure of brandy into a glass. As I turned to go back down, Louisa came in.

“I do not intend to wear corsets,” she announced, which she might be expected to do in a year or two. “I
hate
the thought of having my body squashed in like that. It’s no wonder Maman could hardly breathe. As soon as we loosened the laces you could see she was relieved.”

“I expect you will change your mind when the time comes.”

Louisa tossed her dark curls, which our mother has persuaded her to wear in ringlets. “I certainly will not!”

She plumped up the cushion on the chaise longue and took a tartan blanket from the cupboard. “Maman is coming up to lie down.”

She came in on Bessie’s arm, the hysterics having given way to sighing. Bessie and Louisa made her comfortable on the sofa and I handed her the brandy. She sipped and seemed to feel a little better.

“What have we done to suffer this misfortune?” she cried. “
Mon Dieu!
May He remove us from this! How did that nasty little man come to have a – what do you call it?”

“A warrant, Mam,” supplied Bessie.

“For my poor Ranald’s arrest? He has not done wrong.”

The rest of us were silent.

“What is it all about?” she demanded.

“Debts,” said Bessie, folding her hands in front of her stomach.

“
Debts?
”

“Yes, Mam. I fear so.”

“Why do you think that, Bessie?”

“They are all stuffed inside the bureau.”

“Have you been prying into your master’s papers?”

“No, Mam. One day, when I was dustin’ – I ken ye like the place kept nice and clean – the lid fell doon and oot they tumbled. Look, I’ll show ye.”

She went to the bureau and pulled down the lid and out came a shower of papers. Louisa and I did not make any move yet to pick them up.

“How did you know they were bills, Bessie?” asked our mother. “You cannot read.”

“I ken tell when there’s numbers wrote all over a paper. Look like bills tae me.”

They looked like bills to us too.

“Go finish the cooking, Bessie.
Allez! Vite!
And close the door behind you.”

“Yes, Mam.”

When the door was closed, our mother said, “I shall have to give her a sack. She had no rights to look inside the bureau.”

“You can’t do that,” objected Louisa. “She’s been with the family forever.”

“Besides,” I said, “I think Papa owes her wages.”

“Wages! She doesn’t need wages. We have given her bed and board all these years. She has wanted for nothing.”

“Papa would be angry if you sacked her.” I thought it very unlikely that she would do it. She needs Bessie too much.

“He is not in position to be angry now, is he? What is he going to do?” She threw up her hands. “Where will he sleep? On the grass in the park? Tell me that!”

We could not tell her.

She continued. “They won’t take him in the palace. He is not a noble. He is only a poor scholar. Your
grandmère
was against
my marriage from the start. She said I would do better to marry an honest tradesman with a thriving business than a scholar. Especially a Scotch scholar! A leather merchant in our town wished for me to marry him.”

“It’s too late now,” I said.

“When you come to choose a husband, Louisa, take my advice and do not allow the heart to be the rule of the head. You, too, William, with a wife.” On another day she is liable to tell us that love matters more than anything else in life.

“Should we pick up the bills?” I asked.

“We can’t let them lie for all the world to see.”

“All the world doesn’t come in here,” said Louisa.

“Oh, you children can be tiresome at times!” Our mother threw up her hands again. It is one of her favourite gestures.

Louisa and I went down on our knees and began to scoop up the pieces of paper. There were bills for hats and gowns, boots and shoes, jewels and trinkets, and one for a fur muff.

“That must be my muff,” cried Louisa. “I shall take it back to the shop.”

“You can’t do that!” Our mother was horrified. “It would be too embarrassing.”

I thought it would be more embarrassing not to pay for it but I did not say so. Our mother was in no state to be challenged.

“What will we do with them?” I asked, my hands full of the unpaid bills.

“Put them back in the bureau and lock it! I don’t know why your father leave it unlocked.”

“He doesn’t think to lock things up.”

“It would be better for us if he did.”

We did as our mother requested and I gave her the key.

She sighed. “My poor Ranald. If only he didn’t spend so much time reading! He’ll freeze to death if he stay all night in
the park.”

“He can’t come home till Sunday,” Louisa pointed out.

“I’ll take a blanket,” I said, “and go and see if I can find him.”

“I’ll go with you.” Louisa jumped up.

“Ask Bessie to give you some soup and a couple of bannocks. And be careful on the street! It will be getting dark soon. It gets dark so early in this northern country.”

“But the nights are long and light in summer,” countered Louisa.

“It is a long time till summer,” sighed our mother. “Give your papa my love.”

We left her to sip her brandy and went down to the kitchen to ask Bessie for a blanket and nourishment for our father.

“He’ll need a’ he can get, puir soul,” she said as she ladled soup into a milk can. “He doesne live in this world, that’s his trouble. His heid’s aye in the clouds. Wrap up warm now, the twa’ of ye.”

We always do what Bessie tells us. She gave us instructions about watching out for footpads, beggars and drunk men. “Dinne hing aroun’ too long. I want to see ye hame afore the light fails.”

It was failing now, and almost dark in the close. The street itself was lighter once we reached it and we were glad to see signs of a half-moon coming up. We hastened down the hill, Louisa taking care not to slop the soup. I carried the heavy blanket, two bannocks and a lump of cold mutton. It was still drizzling slightly.

We crossed the sanctuary line and were in the Abbey Strand. The taverns still seemed to be busy judging by the din coming from them but our father would not have money to spend on ale. We could see no sign of him in the Strand and since he could not be in any of the houses we thought that he
might be in the park. But the park is large. It stretches as far as the village of Duddingston and is said to measure four miles round the perimeter.

We stood, undecided. I thought he must have gone to try to find some cover.

“What about St Anthony’s Chapel?” suggested Louisa.

The ancient chapel is a ruin but it would offer a little shelter from the wind and rain. We had gone there with our father on several occasions to admire the view over the town to the Firth of Forth and the Kingdom of Fife. It sits in the park on a high place above St Margaret’s Loch. We decided to go and see.

The walk took us several minutes and then we had to climb a steep grassy escarpment to reach the chapel. We scrambled, slipping a little, as the grass was soaking wet. It would have been easy to lose one’s footing and go tumbling down.

The jagged wall of the chapel stood out against the dark sky. Only the facade still stands, with a small part of one side. It was tucked into that corner that we found our father. The sight of him huddled there in the dim light brought a lump into my throat and I could see that Louisa felt similarly. To think that our father should have to live like a tramp out in the open!

He stood up to embrace us. He called us his good children. Louisa was crying now and he was stroking her back, telling her that it would be all right, everything would be sorted out soon and he would be able to come home. We did not ask how that was to come about for we suspected that he did not know himself. He seemed to think that Providence would look after him. He asked about our mother and we said that she was well and sent her love and he asked us to take good care of her. “She is not strong, you know. And she is far from her ain folk.”

We stayed with him for only a few minutes as darkness was steadily encroaching on the park. Even the moon had been
swallowed up by the bank of cloud. We hated having to leave him there, wrapped in a blanket, drinking soup from a can. We promised to come back the next day with more provisions and he requested that we bring him a book.

“The one lying open on my desk by the author David Hume. A philosopher, born in Edinburgh, like you children. A great man. Time moves slowly when one has nothing to read. And come in the daylight. I don’t like you being abroad at night.”

We kissed our father goodnight and made our way carefully back down the hill. The night seemed darker now. We passed one or two men loitering around and were relieved when we left the park behind. It is not a safe place to wander in at night. I took Louisa’s arm and hurried her along. The street lamps were glowing in the town, which was a comfort. Leerie the lamplighter had been working his way around with his long pole.

As we were passing the palace gates they opened unexpectedly and a carriage and pair came swaying out. We had to jump out of the way. As it was, we got our feet spattered with mud. I just had time to glimpse two elegant-looking gentlemen sitting in the back. One might have been the Duke of Hamilton – the light was not good enough to be sure – but the other was not the Comte d’Artois. He would be as confined as my father was within the precincts, but with more comfort. When the carriage had passed we saw Monsieur Goriot coming out of the palace with another man. Their heads were bent; they were deep in conversation. We seemed to be coming across him everywhere we went, but then, I suppose it could be said that we live in a fairly small area.

We went on our way up the Canongate. Louisa kept close to me. I know she finds the closes and alleys spooky at night and I have to confess that I like to hurry past their openings myself.
One never knows who will come out of the shadows.

Halfway up the Canongate, we were accosted by a drunken man who tried to seize hold of Louisa. He had just come out of Jenny Ha’s Change House where sometimes our father goes, or used to go, to meet a friend and drink a glass of claret. The man wanted money. For gin, no doubt. His face was covered with sores. I dragged Louisa away and he spat on the ground behind us. His curses followed us up the street.

We were glad when we reached the warm safety of our house and Bessie awaiting us with a hot meal. Our appetites have not been good this evening, however. We cannot rid our minds of the image of our father huddling inside a ruin on one of the coldest nights of the year, at the mercy of passing footpads and other scoundrels.