‘
You
?’ he said. ‘Not write things down? What, pray tell, is in that bulging article you’ve lugged along with you today?’ He nodded towards Miss Rossiter’s bag, which had a few corners of writing paper peeping out around its straining clasp.
‘Well, yes, all right, but I wish I could be like a policeman and keep my notebook on my knee, rather than having to store it all up until I’m alone again. She was talking about Pip and she said he never went away on his own and he . . . what?’
‘Would never snip the pockets out of other chaps’ clothes?’ Alec was teasing but I smiled and clapped my hands together.
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Well, almost. Thank you, darling. What she said was that he was no trouble, not fussy, never complained about anything.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, I’m thinking about his food, really. If a man sent back his dinners often enough to enrage his cook, how could his wife say he was easy-going? And do you know what else? When I mentioned the mouse in the goose—’
‘As you do with surprising regularity,’ said Alec. ‘Once would have been enough for me.’
‘Lollie didn’t know what I was talking about.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Would you forget it?’ I said. ‘Could someone mention mice and geese together to you ever again without you remembering?’
‘So,’ said Alec, nodding slowly to acknowledge my point, ‘what we’re saying is that we don’t actually believe a word that any of the servants said about him?’
‘And we don’t have any proof that Lollie’s story has a scrap of truth behind it either, when you get right down to things. And for what it’s worth, the two times I actually met Pip Balfour I couldn’t believe it was the man I’d been hearing about.’
‘But Lollie
was
scared enough to come to you,’ Alec said. ‘No, I think Mrs Balfour’s tale of threat and treachery is solid enough, just not any of the others. Dandy, what do you suppose is going on?’
Once again, I was counting off the residents of the servants’ hall on my fingers and did not answer him. Was that really true? Could it be? Had we argued away every single instance of Pip Balfour’s villainy in inconsistencies and implausibilities? Even that most likely, most everyday, villainy of lust and its brutal fulfilling? I did not believe that anyone who would ravage Eldry would overlook Phyllis, and I did not believe that Mrs Hepburn would let her niece stay in a house where the master had harmed her, but that still left one of them.
‘Clara,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to contradict what Clara said and what he’s supposed to have done to her is the easiest to believe and – oh God, Alec – it might be the easiest to check. Clara thinks she might have swaddled the baby and hidden it, up there in the nurseries. Lord, I’m going to have to look.’ I shuddered at the thought of it. ‘If someone had told me five years ago the kind of thing I’d find myself doing, I’d have—’
‘Thinks she might have?’ said Alec, interrupting me. ‘What do you mean? Doesn’t she know? If she can’t keep her story straight why should we believe her?’
‘She was
in extremis
,’ I said. ‘She has a vague idea that she went to the furnace but she also seems to remember hiding a wrapped bundle. Neither memory is clear, under the dreadful circumstances.’
‘Well, I suppose I can sympathise with that,’ said Alec, and I thought of the foxhole again.
‘She might have done both, one after the other,’ I said, ‘or she might have hidden the little body and burned soiled sheets. And anyway, her confusion – her derangement – makes it all the more likely that she could have been turned murderous. Yes, I’m sure of it. I think what Clara told me was true.’
‘And . . . what? The others made up all the rest of it like a haystack to hide the needle in? In advance? Because they knew that she was going to kill him and they supported her? But if he was not the fiend to them all that they said he was why would they?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘And why in the name of heaven didn’t she just leave? Before the baby, after the baby, whenever. Why didn’t they all just leave? Why, if any of what they say is true, is there a single servant left in the place?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I thought we’d got somewhere, but it’s only made the whole thing more mysterious than ever. If the stories are true, why didn’t they leave? If the stories
aren’t
true, why didn’t they care that Pip was murdered? And could Clara have done it? The police surgeon reckoned it was a man and Clara has anything but masculine hands.’ We sat in silence for a while. ‘Although, it’s not true to say that no one ever left,’ I said at last. ‘Maggie the kitchenmaid left and Miss Abbott who was Miss Rossiter’s predecessor took off too.’
‘So what was different about them? What did he do to them that’s worse than the fates of the others?’
‘I don’t know what was done to them. But they are different, in point of fact. They witnessed Pip Balfour’s will. And let me tell you, Alec, the will is another barrel of eels altogether.’
‘A barrel of eels?’
‘Isn’t that the phrase? A sack of monkeys? A box of worms?’
‘Dandy, you’re gibbering,’ Alec said. ‘Tell me about the will.’
Five days I had been in the servants’ hall at 31 Heriot Row but it had changed me. I could not, I told Alec, contemplate even beginning on the will without a pot of strong tea and a plate of buns, thickly buttered and spread with jam. I only regretted that I had no hip flask with me from which to slop in a good dose of something more strengthening still.
12
Crawford’s tearooms were doing brisk trade, as might be expected on a Friday afternoon when all the public houses had been closed, and we had to wait, shuffling forward in the queue every few minutes and trying to ignore the plaintive moans of Bunty and Millie who had been left tied to a lamp post but who could still see us and, more importantly, could smell cakes. We could not even carry on a conversation of any usefulness while so many silent fellow queuers pressed in on us before and behind. At least the pause gave me time to compose my report, though, and when we were finally shown to our place I was ready.
‘Sorry about the table, sir,’ said the waitress, peeping up at Alec and smiling. She had swept one practised glance over me and had clearly concluded that Alec was free to be simpered at. ‘But it’s all we’ve got.’ The table was indeed small, in a far from commanding position at the side of the empty band stage and, I noticed as I sat, none too steady on its feet.
‘Not at all,’ said Alec. ‘This is perfect. Exactly what we’re after.’
The waitress, thinking she had misjudged the matter – for why would anyone want to be so secluded except for wooing – gave me a look of insulted envy, Alec one of pity and flounced away.
‘You should have flirted back,’ I said. ‘She’ll pretend to have forgotten us now.’
‘Good,’ said Alec. ‘Now then, Dandy.’
I told him everything; all about George Pollard and Josephine Carson, the two years’ delay, the break-up of the household and the casting of Lollie into the harsh, cruel world.
‘Golly,’ he said, when I was done. ‘Is someone checking it? The earlier marriage, I mean. And has this Pollard been found?’
‘I’d be very surprised if he let himself be found,’ I replied. ‘I rather think he must have done it. With the help – of course – of what the spy stories call “someone on the inside”.’
‘If he knew,’ said Alec.
‘Ah, but I think he did,’ I said. I was still feeling rather proud of this piece of deduction. ‘I think that at the very least he was in touch with Pip Balfour, that they had met and spoken. They were cousins, but not long-lost ones – or if they had been they’d found one another again.’
‘Because of the high esteem and all that,’ said Alec.
‘Well, that’s part of it,’ I said, trying not to look crestfallen, ‘but also – and this has only just occurred to me – because he left the fortune to George Pollard outright. Just to him. Not to his heirs and successors and there was no mention of what would happen if Pollard was no more.’ Alec was frowning at me. ‘I mean to say, darling, if you were to leave your last penny to someone you’d have to know that he was still alive to get it.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense at all,’ Alec said. ‘You’ve been misled by hindsight, Dan. You’re thinking about it in entirely the wrong way.’
Of course, it was at that moment that the waitress reappeared with her little notebook to take our order. I was vaguely aware of Alec listing our requirements but even though I left it to him and thought furiously I could still see no problem in my reasoning by the time she had gone.
‘Oh come on, Dandy, this isn’t worthy of you,’ he said when he turned back and saw my knitted brows. ‘Why didn’t Pip Balfour bother with survivorship and all that?’
‘Because he knew Pollard was alive and well,’ I said. ‘I told you.’ We stared at one another in silence for a minute until Alec gave in.
‘And knew that Pollard would still be alive and well when he himself died because he knew he’d be dying soon?’ I could feel the flush beginning and did not even bother trying to hide it. Besides, I was soon distracted from my embarrassment by the new puzzle Alec had unearthed out of the old one.
‘So . . . why would he have written it that way?’ I said. Alec shrugged his shoulders.
‘Makes no sense to me,’ he said. ‘Seems completely insane.’
‘And therefore completely in character,’ I said. ‘Another of Pip Balfour’s silly little teases?
Did
he mean for Lollie to find out about the will and spend her life worrying over it? If so, we’re back to the theory that George Pollard – not to mention Josephine Carson – doesn’t exist at all.’
‘But we just decided we didn’t believe in Pip’s teases, didn’t we?’
‘And I was sure that this George Pollard character must have got into the house and done the murder.’
We were sitting in blank stupefaction when our tea tray arrived and the little waitress looked delighted; she must have thought our tryst had descended into a quarrel.
‘Oh, heaven!’ I said, as Alec poured a thin stream of straw-coloured China tea into my cup. ‘Mrs Hepburn’s brews could be eaten with a knife and fork. And no milk, thanks. No, no sugar, nothing.’ I blew into my cup, took a long fragrant sip and smiled at him.
‘What about these two maids who witnessed it?’ Alec said at last. ‘Perhaps they’d be able to throw some light on matters?’
‘How?’ I said, remembering what Mr Faulds had thought about the unlikelihood of them seeing anything except the signature itself.
‘I don’t know,’ Alec said. ‘I’m casting around for anything, really. Odd that they should both have left, though. If they knew what was in the will and they knew George Pollard – from his coming to the house, perhaps – and one of them told Pollard for a cut of the money . . .’
‘But he didn’t come to the house,’ I said. ‘None of the servants remember ever hearing of him. And anyway, if Miss Abbott or Maggie had done that, they’d never have left. They’d have stayed. To let Pollard in. Because someone must have. No, I think the fact that the witnesses both left their jobs is far more suggestive of the will being a joke on Lollie. Pip wasn’t ready for her to find out and he made a concerted effort to get rid of the two people who could tell her that he’d written a new will in case she somehow persuaded the solicitor to let her see it.’
‘And he wrote it in March,’ Alec said. ‘Is that significant? Did anything happen in March?’ I shrugged. ‘And what was he waiting for, do you suppose? When
was
he going to tell Lollie about it? Was there some significant time to do that for any reason?’ I shrugged again.
‘Was there any significant timing in any of it?’ I said, and then I stopped chewing my mouthful of bread-and-butter.
‘Dandy?’
‘Yes,’ I said, through crumbs, ‘there was. Miss Abbott and Maggie witnessed the will. Miss Abbott left Lollie shortly afterwards. Maggie left on Saturday. Pip was killed sometime during Monday night, as soon as both witnesses were out of the house. I’ve no idea what it means but it can’t be a coincidence, surely.’
‘Well, they must be found,’ Alec said. ‘All three of them. Abbott, Maggie and Pollard.’
‘If there is such a person,’ I reminded him. ‘He’s popping in and out of existence like a jack-in-the-box.’ I put my elbows on the table and my head into my hands and groaned. ‘I thought you’d clear everything up for me! I thought if I got up into the air and talked it all through, things would be revealed in simple outline. And you’ve only made it madder and more confusing than ever and – worst of all – I know there’s something not right that I was closer to realising before today than I am now. I almost got it lying in bed last night, or was it this morning? It’s something to do with lying in bed anyway. Now it’s completely gone.’
‘What do you mean, “up into the air”?’ said Alec, which was very kind of him, for he might easily have taken offence at my sharing out of the blame in the way I had.
‘Hm?’ I said. ‘Oh, just life below stairs, you know. I hadn’t expected it to feel so literal, but to eat and work and sleep in a sub-basement with a whole house pressing down upon one is not conducive to leaps of reason. I just think if I could climb a high hill and look down I’d be able to see more.’
‘Well,’ said Alec, ‘I don’t think we can manage a hill, but we can certainly get you up into the air. Look, you wrap two cakes in your hanky and I’ll wrap two in mine.’
‘Four cakes?’ I said. ‘Didn’t you have any luncheon?’
‘One each,’ said Alec. ‘You – as befits the boss of this little outfit – have been marvellously focused but I’m far more easily distracted and I can’t stand it any more. Listen.’
When I did, I could hear the duet from the pavement: low, sustained howling and a series of percussive little yips.
‘She’s a very bad influence on Millie,’ said Alec, grinning. ‘Come on, let’s take them up the Scott Monument and tire them out for the evening.’
The Scott Monument – erected in honour of Sir Walter specifically and not, as I had long believed, to the general and misspelled glory of the Scots race – was a kind of airy turret in High Victorian Gothic style, not attached to anything but just rising up out of the grass as though some ecclesiastical architect had lavished all of his attention on the decorative touches but forgotten to build the cathedral itself. ‘Better than the Albert Memorial’ was the best one could say about it, and it was smaller, too – and sooty black, like everything in Edinburgh which cannot brush itself down or send itself to the laundry – so at least it did not draw the eye.