Dangerous Pursuits (A Rose McQuinn Mystery)

by Alanna Knight

  It touched the chord of another smell which I had encountered recently, but as I rang the bell and waited, I couldn't think where. At last I spotted a cleaner with bucket and mop marching purposefully across the floor.

  Asking direction to the wards, I was told, 'Upstairs. Down the corridor to the right. Far end.'

  Climbing the stairs, I found the notice saying 'Wards' and in front of me a man emerged from one of the doors, walking fast.

  'Excuse me. Can you help...' I called.

  Turning, he gave a startled look. A young man, well dressed. 'Are you the doctor?' I asked.

  His face registered terror and confusion and he scuttled off through a door marked 'Staff Only'. In his haste he collided with a nurse pushing a trolley laden with bottles and boxes of pills.

  She was flustered and angry and as I helped her set the bottles to rights I asked for the old man just admitted with burns whom I knew only as Rory.

  She pointed to the ward the young man had just left.

  I thanked her and said, 'Was that one of your doctors in a frightful hurry?'

  She grunted. 'Never seen him before, and if I see him again I'll give him a piece of my mind, that I will.'

  We had reached Rory's room.

  'In there,' she said.

  Opening the door I said, 'This is the room that fellow was tearing out of. I presumed he was a doctor. I wanted to ask him-'

  But the nurse nodded absently. Head down, she pushed her trolley rapidly down the corridor. As she was in such an obvious hurry, I didn't detain her. After all, it might well be life or death.

  I went into the little room she had indicated and there was Rory, lying with his eyes closed. At first glance I thought I'd got it wrong since the man in the bed didn't look like the Rory I knew. His face was grey where there weren't red marks of burns, and they had shaved off his beard and tied back his hair. They'd also shorn off about fifteen years. But he looked very ill, as if he was dying - or already dead, so still.

  'Rory,' I whispered.

  There was no response.

  A sound behind me and another nurse bustled in. This one had authority. 'This is not a visiting hour,' she said. And with sudden compassion pointing to the inert figure: 'Your father?'

  'No, just a friend. Is - is he going to be all right?' I said, watching her face as she took his pulse, frowning.

  But she seemed satisfied, nodded and tucked his bandaged hand back under the covers. 'We'll know better in a day or two, if his fever doesn't go into pneumonia. When you come again,' she added not ungently, 'you should leave your name at the desk. We admit relatives only to very sick patients.'

  'He did have a visitor - before me. A young man, he was just leaving as I arrived.'

  She shrugged. 'That would be one of the doctors, I expect. 'Then she giggled. 'Young, did you say? Well, they will be flattered. Neither of them will see fifty-five again.' She laughed again and peered at me as if she thought I should have my eyesight tested.

  I wasn't going to argue but as I was leaving I saw there was now a nurse at the reception desk. This time I might get some information as, presumably, the young man who had visited Rory had asked for directions too before he walked upstairs.

  To my question the young nurse looked a bit upset and guilty. 'I was called away - I was only absent for a minute or two - and people are supposed to ring the bell...'

  I didn't mention that I had done so, twice, without effect.

  I walked down the steps very thoughtfully. The young man who wasn't a doctor had known where to find Rory. There were two possibilities. First he had read the account in this morning's paper: 'Old Vagrant's Narrow Escape from Death. Another Bonfire Night Mishap.'

  Or second, realizing Rory was still alive, he had come to the hospital to finish the job he had mismanaged last night and had been disturbed. In all probability by my footsteps coming along the corridor.

  I considered that. He didn't look like a killer, but then killers seldom do.

  I had mistaken him for a doctor. I hadn't seen him before and Auld Rory had never mentioned to me any acquaintance in Edinburgh who might have been his visitor.

  The only person he had ever spoken of, and that briefly and bitterly, was the son he had come to find. Could the early visitor have been the alienated son who, with a pang of conscience, had read the newspaper and come to see his father?

  If that was so, then it still didn't explain why he had fled in such terror when he saw me.

  As I headed back to the Tower and reached the road leading to Duddingston from St Anthony's Chapel, I realized I was being followed.

  The prickling sensation at the back of my neck, with me since I left Leith, was unmistakable.

  I had registered a closed hackney cab standing outside the hospital and casually dismissed it. But each time I stopped at road ends and turned to see what traffic was to be negotiated, there it was again, the driver with a scarf up to his nose, his face half hidden and a bonnet down over his eyes.

  The road to Duddingston was fairly isolated. It did not get a lot of traffic as it was inconveniently narrow, with little room to turn a vehicle without going well past the Tower where the road widened.

  I looked over my shoulder. The cab was behind me, the road ahead deserted. Suddenly, within sight of the Tower, the driver whipped up his horse and as the vehicle thundered towards me I had to leap smartly aside.

  I almost landed in the ditch with my bicycle and scrambling up watched the cab disappear.

  I was scared but, most of all, furious.

  Was I marked down as the next victim? Another accident just yards from where Rory had been set on fire?

  Instead of rushing into the Tower in a panic and bolting the door as any sensible young woman, alone and vulnerable, would have done, I remounted my bicycle and rode as fast as I could down the road after the fast-moving cab.

  I lost sight of it going round the corner into Duddingston village. When I reached the church it had gone. The road through the village stretched ahead of me quite empty. There was no way the vehicle could have disappeared from sight so completely.

  I saw a postman emerging from one of the houses and asked, 'Excuse me, I'm looking for a hackney cab.'

  'A cab, miss? You'll never get one here.'

  I shook my head. 'I thought I saw one on the road.'

  He stared at me as if I'd gone mad. 'I never heard it, miss, and I've been in and out of gates along the street. Are you sure? Well, I never.' Pausing, he scratched his head. 'Must be heading for Musselburgh by now, miss.'

  And that was true. The driver hadn't turned on the road, or he would have passed me. And this was the fastest route back to Edinburgh, past the Tower. The more frequented but longer road was past Craigmillar village.

  I returned the way I'd come, certain that I wouldn't be followed. The second attempt at murder near Solomon's Tower had failed.

  I'd live to find the killer another day.

  And although it put me on my mettle, it was not great as a matter of consolation to my nerves.

  I had a lot to think about as I changed from my bicycling outfit into a skirt and jacket, a more decorous outfit to visit Carthew House for an interview with the General.

  Shaken by my recent encounter, I could have well done without such an expedition but I was more than a little flattered and curious to find out what assignment Sir Angus Carthew had in mind for a lady investigator.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As I walked across the hill to keep my appointment with the General I thought how inappropriately mild the weather was. Childhood memories of Edinburgh dictated snow and high winds, frost-burned cheeks by November. Arizona with summer all the year round had added to that illusion.

  Today the sun sparkled on the River Forth, fishing boats like children's paper toys drifted leisurely back to harbour. The landscape down to East Lothian was a series of green indentations, the shoreline dotted with a froth of white lace.

  And on the horizon, glowering over all, th
e Lammermuir Hills, a dark and menacing reminder that continued to suggest even after three hundred years the possibility of Border raiders streaming forth from its steep slopes and deep valleys.

  Nearer at hand a blackbird seriously misled by the mild weather followed my progress from bush to branch with a song of such rapturous joy and abandon that must have tempted every female blackbird within twenty miles to mark him down on her card as a likely mate.

  As the lane came into view I said, 'Well done, Mr B. Keep it up and you'll be in fine voice for the carol season.'

  I heard the children as I opened the gate. They were with Nancy in the stable yard, patting one of a pair of fine black horses being groomed by the stable boy. The other stalled horse regarded this activity with moody disdain from over the half-door. At his slight neigh of displeasure Torquil rushed over to pet him too.

  When she saw me, Tessa ran to my side, seized my hand, clinging to my arm in her usual affectionate manner.

  'Can Mrs McQuinn come with us, Nanny? Oh please!'

  I shook my head. 'Alas no, Tessa. Some other time but today I am here to see your uncle.'

  Nancy hid a smile, looking secretive and avoiding my eyes. 'And we are just off for our afternoon walk. Come along, Torquil.'

  Surprised that she did not display her usual curiosity about my having a meeting with the General, I followed to where Torquil, deaf to all commands, continued petting the horse.

  While Nancy tried to wrest him away, beyond the stall I had a glimpse of the dark interior of the coach house. I could see the General's family carriage and alongside a smaller more practical vehicle of the hackney cab variety, built for speed rather than elegance.

  Jim the stable boy who was polishing its interior saw us, looked up and said proudly, 'The General is a keen sportsman, goes in for racing too...' And he started a detailed and elaborate explanation of how carriages were adapted of which I understood only some vague facts relating to wheel balance, betting and courses.

  'There are special courses?' I said.

  'Aye, miss, there are. Way out on the outskirts of the town.'

  'They're very popular with the young blades of Edinburgh,' said Nancy. 'And it's a very dangerous hobby, isn't it, Jim?'

  Jim grinned. 'Necks get broken regular, miss. And it don't do the horses no good either.'

  As we walked away Nancy sighed. 'The things men will do for thrills, Rose. According to Lady Carthew the General fancies himself in the role of an ancient Roman in a chariot race.'

  There was something I meant to ask her then, that seemed important at the time, but as we had reached the front door where our ways divided, she said, 'I mustn't delay you, or you'll be late. That would never do,' she added mysteriously and, seizing the children's hands, she hurried off down the drive followed by my promise that of course she might bring them to the Tower soon.

  Waiting for the door to be opened, I realized that what I imagined as gardens could be more aptly described as grounds of an estate. None of this had been evident on the short cut across the hill from the Tower on my first visit in the gathering dusk of Bonfire Night.

  Mrs Laing came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron, somehow inappropriate to the fine mansion which deserved a bewigged footman or at least a uniformed maid to attend such lowly chores.

  There was no need to introduce myself.

  ‘You are expected, Mrs McQuinn. Sir Angus is attending to Lady Carthew at the moment,' she explained. 'Would you care to take a seat in the library and Sir Angus will be with you presently.'

  I followed her indoors, a large homely lady with the kind of face which looks as if it is poised perpetually over the heat of a blazing stove. No doubt thanks to secondhand reports from Nancy, she was as curious about me as I was about her and less subtle at hiding the fact.

  When she made no move to leave I decided it might not be curiosity after all that detained her but perhaps fears for the safety of the silver.

  A rather lengthy silence was followed by: 'The children are out with Nanny Brook.'

  It seemed odd to hear Nancy so described until I remembered that nannies and the upper rank of domestic servants were called by their surnames. This I had learned when I returned to Edinburgh and visited our housekeeper from Sheridan Place days, Mrs Brook, Nancy's relative. She was not the sad widow I had thought of from childhood days but in fact had never been married. It was, she had told me, a courtesy title used to gain respect from junior domestics and also to keep the attentions of lascivious male servants at bay.

  ‘Nanny Brook will be sorry to have missed you, Mrs McQuinn. She thinks very highly of you,' said Mrs Laing, valiantly making conversation.

  I smiled at this recommendation. 'We met briefly as I came through the stable yard.'

  'Oh!' she said in such tones of astonishment as would have been appropriate to news of a meeting on a distant planet. 'Did you really?'

  Another silence and I walked over to the window and looked at the garden.

  'This is a lovely gracious room, isn't it?' said Mrs Laing. 'This is the only part of the old house that wasn't pulled down by Sir Angus's grandfather. They only kept it because of the grand view of Arthur's Seat.'

  My attention was distracted by a small domed building almost hidden by trees which had also been invisible on my first visit.

  'What a pretty gazebo.'

  She stared at me: perhaps the word was unfamiliar and I substituted, 'A summer-house?'

  She made a face. 'No, Mrs McQuinn. That is the Carthew family vault. Sir Hector decided he loved the house he'd built so much that if he couldn't take it to heaven with him, then he'd do the next best thing and be buried in his own gardens. So he had the ground...'

  She frowned, searching for the word.

  'Consecrated?' I offered.

  'That's right. The family have all been laid to rest there, but Sir Angus and Lady Carthew will be the last,' she said sadly. 'As they have no children to follow. Sir Angus has left orders for it to be sealed up for ever after they are laid to rest-'

  A sound of footsteps. As the General entered the room, Mrs Laing bobbed a curtsey and withdrew.

  'Do sit down, Mrs McQuinn. I am sorry to be late. My wife needs my attention to deal with her toilette. I have become very adept at lady's maiding,' he added with a rueful smile.

  He looked down at me, not a difficult feat for a man of six feet three at a woman who could only reach five foot by standing on tiptoe. Smiling, he regarded me with such warm friendliness, I realized how devastating he must have been as a young man.

  He had charm and power. That produced a fleeting thought of Desmond Marks whose good looks were superficial, whose charm was a mite insincere in his certainty that every woman he met was willing to be his slave.

  Not so the General. There was no hint of flirtation in his manner. I doubted if the soldier in him would have known where to begin as he took a seat opposite.

  'And now to business, the reason for this visit, Mrs McQuinn. I suppose you are wondering why I brought you here,' he added gently.

  I wasn't prepared to guess, so smiling politely, I waited.

  'Nanny Brook was showing the children a remarkable painting of sunrise on Arthur's Seat when I happened to be passing by the nursery.' He paused and looked at me. 'She informed me that you were the artist. Is that correct?'

  I agreed modestly. 'Miss Brook asked if she could have the painting.' I shook my head. 'I didn't want to give it to her.'

  His eyebrows shot up at that, his expression suddenly shrewd. 'I am sure your reluctance was advisable. The painting would sell in an Edinburgh art gallery for a not inconsiderable sum of money. Such landscapes I know do very well-'

  'Sir,' I interrupted, 'you are mistaken. I had no intention of selling or of exhibiting any of my paintings. My reason for not wishing to part with it - as a present - was that I considered it a poor effort. Painting is a hobby only, one that gives me great pleasure - but I do not set myself up alongside professional artists.'


  The General shook his head. ‘You are wrong, Mrs McQuinn, you have my word for that. However, your modesty does you credit.'

  He sat back and regarded me narrowly. 'An admirable trait in a young woman.' And with a vigorous nod: 'As a matter of fact, your expertise is the reason I asked you to come here today.'

  Ignoring my gesture of protest, he went on: 'My little niece Tessa is showing signs of having inherited some of her late mother's talent. Dear Ellen was an artist of considerable ability.'

  He sighed. 'Tessa was very taken with your painting. Indeed she has persuaded Nanny Brook to allow her to hang it on the nursery wall during their visit with us.'

  Again that shrewd glance. 'I am certain that her father would be prepared to buy it for her.' He looked at my expression as I shook my head firmly. 'For a not inconsiderable sum?'

  'It is no longer mine to sell, sir. A gift to Miss Brook. It now belongs to her.'

  'Perhaps she could be persuaded to part with it?'

  'That is her business.' And I made a gesture of dismissal which I hoped was not too impolite. The interview had convinced me that here was a man used to getting his own way, and buying it if necessary.

  I picked up my gloves. I should have felt flattered but instead I was disappointed that this was his reason for inviting me to call at Carthew House.

  No secret assignment. My 'discretion guaranteed' was not being called into action.

  'One more moment of your time, Mrs McQuinn. Tessa has expressed a keen desire to learn to paint. She is so enthusiastic, she feels this would bring her closer to her mother who recognized her talent and had just begun to give her lessons. I will be candid with you, Mrs McQuinn, the child misses her dreadfully. She is quite heartbroken.'

  He paused to let that unhappy fact sink in as I remembered the loving manner in which she greeted me, her craving for affection, before he continued:

  'I wonder if I could call upon your time and your good nature to take her on as a pupil, say for two afternoons a week for the duration of her stay?'