‘I hope we haven’t kept you waiting,’ said Basilia, with a sad smile. ‘I’m afraid I had a rather disrupted night. Not, of course, the fault of my hosts!’ she added, gesturing prettily to Hippolyta.
‘Oh, are you coming in, too?’ Durris asked, surprised when Hippolyta started up the driveway.
‘Miss Verney asked me to keep her company – to be at hand if she needed me,’ Hippolyta said. ‘I hope that is all right?’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Durris, ‘that’s quite proper. I didn’t mean …’ He tailed off, with a little frown on his broad face. Hippolyta chose to ignore it, and set off for the front door.
Basilia undid it with her keys, and crossed the hall to the study, unlocking that door, too. She pushed it open.
There was nothing much to show, but somehow it was clear that someone had been in the room since the previous evening. Durris darted forward, then stopped, turning on his heel.
‘Everything’s been moved, hasn’t it?’ he asked.
‘It looks like it,’ Hippolyta agreed.
‘I don’t think I could say for sure,’ said Basilia, frowning.
‘Look,’ said Hippolyta, ‘that row of papers. I saw it twice yesterday, and I’m sure it was right at the edge of the desk. Now it’s much nearer the middle.’
‘Would someone have come in to clean, miss?’ Durris asked.
‘No, no,’ said Basilia. ‘I told her not to. And anyway, she wouldn’t have a key.’
‘Would you know if anything was missing?’
Basilia sighed, and sank into a hard armchair.
‘I wouldn’t have the least idea.’
Durris breathed out sharply through his nose, considering.
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it, I suppose. But look, the window has been forced: there’s a fresh chip off the frame.’
Hippolyta came to look – Basilia stayed where she was – and saw a clean, sharp slice off the wood of the frame, lying on the sill outside.
‘Who would do such a thing? Surely if the murderer wanted to steal something, he would do it at the time, not come back later.’
‘Unless he was disturbed that night,’ suggested Durris.
‘But by whom? He was disturbed by Tabitha, yes, but he locked her in the cupboard. Perhaps he was even disturbed by the Colonel and Mr. Forman, but he killed them. Why should anything else stop him?’
Durris looked at her for a long moment.
‘Quite right, Mrs. Napier,’ he said at last, ‘quite right.’
‘But that means,’ said Hippolyta, thinking it through, ‘that someone else came here last night, not the murderer, and broke in to look at these papers.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Someone else?’ Basilia’s question was rather shrill. ‘Is this place never to be at peace again?’ Hippolyta turned back to her, and thought for a moment she saw Basilia slip something – a long piece of paper – into her reticule. But Basilia quickly drew out her handkerchief, and Hippolyta thought she must have been mistaken.
‘It may be someone who simply knew the place was empty after the funeral, miss, and came to chance their luck,’ said Durris, clearly intending to soothe.
‘Well,’ said Basilia, ‘there is a strongbox over there. As far as I can see from here, it has not been tampered with.’
Durris turned and saw the box, and stepped over to look.
‘You’re quite right, miss: the lock is still in place. Would you have the key?’
‘No, but it’ll be upstairs on my dressing table, with the spare key for the study. A moment, Mr. Durris!’
She rose with the least sigh, and left the room. They heard her footsteps light on the wooden stairs.
‘Mr. Durris,’ said Hippolyta, ‘may I say that you don’t seem over-concerned that the papers have been disturbed?’
‘Do I not, Mrs. Napier? Yet I am not at all happy that someone has broken into the house and rifled around in here.’
‘Hm. I –’
‘Mrs. Napier, may I ask you something? You agreed with Dr. Napier – and indeed Miss Verney – that your husband was at home on Sunday evening. Yet the night watchman claims to have seen him on the green, around half past ten. How do you account for that?’
‘The night watchman must be mistaken, I suppose,’ said Hippolyta slowly. And if the night watchman could not identify Patrick reliably, could he identify Mr. Brookes, who would be even less familiar?
‘He seemed very sure of himself,’ said Durris quietly. ‘And he seems a steady, sensible sort of man.’
As did Durris, Hippolyta thought. But could he be right? Had Patrick really been out on Sunday evening? He and Basilia had been so sure, that she had not examined her own memory.
‘Is there something wrong?’ Basilia asked, coming suddenly back into the room.
‘No, not at all, miss. Have you that key?’
Basilia handed him a small set of keys, about four in all. The strongbox key was the smallest, and Durris quickly applied it to the lock. The strongbox lid was heavy, but opened smoothly in Durris’ large hands.
Hippolyta did not want to seem nosey, but the contents seemed orderly.
‘Does this look right to you, miss?’ Durris asked. Basilia considered.
‘Yes, I think so: some jewellery of his mother’s that I think is intended for me, and that box contains a silver clock. He won it in some horse race in the Peninsula, and he was very proud of it but found it extremely ugly.’
Durris flicked over the catch on the box and opened it. A silver clock was revealed, of unpleasing proportions and decorated with heads of what were presumably supposed to be noble steeds but instead appeared as mules with evil expressions. The movement lurched into a tinny tick as the clock was moved. They considered it for a moment, then Durris slid it back into its case and latched it.
‘Some bonds here,’ he went on, ‘actually quite a few. And some gold sovereigns.’
‘For emergencies, he always said,’ said Basilia. ‘I think that’s all I should expect to see there. He had only the one watch, and he was wearing it on his waistcoat. And he had his Sunday pin in his neckcloth: his everyday ones would be on his dressing table, no doubt. They were not of particular value, though he was fond of them. He liked to look smart, the more so, he said, because he was crippled.’
‘Well,’ said Durris, closing the strongbox, ‘let us look at the papers.’
Hippolyta settled herself in a chair at the window, distancing herself from the examination of the late Colonel Verney’s business. Basilia seemed at a loss but Durris was methodical, showing her each pile of papers and going through the headings with her. Those on the desk belonged almost entirely to the Burns Mortification trustees, but there were more in a press which, Hippolyta understood though she tried not to listen too much, derived from the Colonel’s business and property interests around the country. Correspondence concerned those and various military friends and charitable concerns relating mostly to Waterloo veterans. The Colonel seemed to have been a generous donor to his fellow soldiers.
‘And he didn’t keep many personal letters, anyway,’ Basilia explained at one point. ‘Once he had replied, he generally burned them.’
‘That certainly simplifies things,’ said Durris solemnly. ‘And these are all very straightforward. I have not found any threats or hints of scandal.’
‘Are the trust’s papers all right?’ Hippolyta asked suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. But it’s struck me before that he might have found something there. My father is a lawyer, you see, and such things have happened before.’
‘Did Colonel Verney mention anything about the trust’s papers, Miss Verney?’
Basilia considered.
‘I don’t think so. He didn’t say very much about it at all: just that the minister had asked him if he would become a trustee. Then all the papers arrived in deedboxes, and he spent hours going through them.’
‘Hm,’ said Durris. Hippolyta was surprised
he did not make a note. The notebook had not even appeared for him to list the contents of the strongbox. He surveyed the room, and examined one or two deedboxes, making sure they were empty. Their interiors gleamed dully, reflecting nothing. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘perhaps we should tour the rest of the house, and see if anything is obviously missing or different.’
Basilia turned quickly to Hippolyta.
‘Oh, my dear!’ This was clearly what she had been dreading: probably her uncle’s study was less familiar to her and therefore less distressing to contemplate. Hippolyta jumped up to take her arm, and they led Durris out of the study. He locked the door behind them and solemnly again handed the keys to Miss Verney.
‘The window is not secure,’ he remarked, ‘but I should be surprised if someone should try it again – and besides, with this door locked they could go no further than the study. Shall we start with the parlour, miss?’
They crossed the hall, and Basilia subjected the parlour to an emotional scrutiny. Durris examined the press where Tabitha had been locked, shaking his head a little, and checking the lock and key. Basilia declared that she could find nothing missing, and they moved on.
It was much the same around the rest of the house. Colonel Verney’s tie pins were all present and correct in his bedchamber, and some odd coins were in a shallow dish on his dressing table, as if he had taken them from his pockets when he changed for dinner: they amounted to a pound or so, an easy prey to a casual burglar. The kitchen quarters were unremarkable: Forman’s bedchamber was military in its bare precision, his weekday clothes folded and laid exactly on the shelves in the press, his washstand spotless, only white cat hairs on his grey blankets indicating anything about the man who had slept there. Durris fingered the hairs, and glanced at Hippolyta.
‘He had given me a kitten a few days ago,’ Hippolyta said. ‘It seemed sensible, when the house was to be empty, to adopt the mother and the other kittens.’
‘Ah, the cat in your parlour?’
‘That’s one of the kittens, yes,’ said Hippolyta with a smile. Durris’ mouth twitched, but he did not smile back. He seemed, Hippolyta thought, more distant now than he had been when they had first met, the previous day. Could he really believe that Patrick was hiding something? That she was hiding something about Patrick? Had he really been out on Sunday evening? She had to think.
Chapter Twelve
The house was too distracting, though: she needed to concentrate on that, first. Upstairs there were four generous bedchambers, though three were frigidly bare, with only dustsheets ghostly over a few pieces of old furniture. Basilia’s room was the fourth, set over the front door, and had been painted in fresh, clean white with floral patterns on the bed hangings, and warm rugs. The fireplace showed recent signs of a decent blaze, and there was a shelf of well-handled books and a sewing table. It was a friendly room, one Hippolyta would have liked for herself, certainly. On the night table, beside a Bible and a candlestick, were a few objects, which Basilia claimed quickly.
‘Best not to leave these here, I suppose. I left my uncle’s keys here,’ she held them up, ‘and this is his watch.’ She picked it up, a fat gold circle, and slipped it into her reticule. ‘And his Sunday tie pin.’ She showed it to Durris, a flash of bright enamel, and then it disappeared with the watch and chain. She glanced around, though she must have looked before. ‘There is nothing missing here: my jewellery, such as it is, is in its case at Dr. Napier’s house. Shall we go up to the attic? I have to say that there are parts of the attics I have not explored, and I should not know if there was anything taken or left there at all. We only use the best bedroom there for Tabitha: the rest is locked. No doubt she would have mentioned it if she had found any of her own things gone.’
‘Then if you have no idea about the rest there is little point in looking,’ said Durris easily. They left Basilia’s bedchamber and headed again for the stairs to the ground floor. ‘There is one thing that has struck me: do you know anything about the kitchen floor? I noticed that it looked at one place as if someone had been pulling up the floorboards: and it is an odd thing, surely, to have floorboards in a kitchen?’
‘Yes, they were there when we moved in, of course. But pulled up … why would that be?’
‘Forman was looking for the kitten,’ Hippolyta reminded her.
‘Oh, yes! Of course: I had forgotten. One of Forman’s kittens got into the windowseat and found a way down under the floorboards, and Forman was concerned that it would not be able to find its way back. He pulled the boards up to rescue it, then put them back down again, I suppose. He was prodigiously fond of those kittens.’
‘He said it was a terrific guddle underneath, didn’t he?’
‘A guddle?’ She looked briefly confused at Hippolyta’s unaccustomed Scots. ‘Oh, yes! So he did. So the floorboards must have been down for years.’
‘My husband said it may have been a means for raising the floor above some damp,’ said Hippolyta, as they reached the hall. Durris descended the last stair and blinked slowly at her.
‘Did he, then?’ he asked. Hippolyta felt suddenly uncomfortable. Basilia, roused from her own thoughts, studied her intently, then looked at Durris, puzzled. The sheriff’s man was untroubled. ‘Well, I think we’ve done all we can here today, miss, thank you very much. I hope I have not taken up too much of your time.’
‘Not at all,’ said Miss Verney graciously. ‘And if I can do anything more to help, please let me know: we have to find who did this. My poor uncle …’
‘Of course. And you, Mrs. Napier: thank you for your assistance.’ He met her eye with his calm grey spectacled gaze, and that uncomfortable feeling surfaced again. It was difficult to guess what might be going through his mind. Of what did he suspect her?
‘We’d better be going,’ she said, and hoped he would not notice the slight wobble in her voice. ‘It will be dinner time soon.’
He said nothing more, but stood in the hall, a little aside from the place where Colonel Verney had died, and bowed as they left. Outside the house, Basilia paused and looked back, as though bidding the ugly old place farewell.
‘I confess,’ she said softly, ‘I don’t know what to do. It disconcerts me that I am easy about leaving the house with only a complete stranger in it, but I feel a deep aversion to the place – I suppose that is natural, though I was never very fond of it.’ She turned away, and set off down the drive, her black skirts clearing the dusty pathway by a few fashionable inches. Hippolyta, admiring the cut of the gown, caught up hurriedly. ‘I don’t want to stay here, in this house, so I suppose I should give up the lease. But where shall I go? I know you have been very kind about me staying with you, but I mean in the long term. How strange it feels, to have no family left in the world!’
‘It must be, indeed,’ Hippolyta agreed, trying to imagine a sudden extermination of her parents and all her sisters. Even then she would be left with quite a regiment of cousins. She could not conjure up the image of a world entirely empty of them: it would require something in the nature of a battle to remove all of them at once, and even then she was quite sure her mother and sisters would probably win. She pulled her mind back from this thought to Basilia’s problems. ‘Well, you have time to consider. And at least for this afternoon, let us retire to the garden at home and paint. I don’t think I can survive much longer without taking out my paints!’
‘Of course, dear Mrs. Napier,’ Basilia touched her lightly on the arm. ‘You have been so kind attending to my concerns that I have dragged you away from your own. Please, indeed, let us be artists!’
‘No baggage cart yet!’ sang out Patrick as he arrived home for dinner. ‘We have another little problem. Apparently something has been stolen from it.’
‘Stolen!’ Hippolyta, hurrying out to greet him as usual, stopped short. The kitten on her shoulder swayed dangerously and ran down her back. ‘Ouch. What? When?’
‘Apparently when it was in the inn last night,’ Patrick answered the latt
er question first, allowing her to help him with his coat before he took her hand in his long cool one. ‘A largish crate, I’m told, right in the centre of the near side? Does that sound familiar?’
‘It could be the parlour table,’ said Hippolyta hesitantly, ‘but why steal that? There were things packed around it, of course, in the crate, but it was a hotch potch: and nothing of particular value, I think.’ She frowned, trying to remember. ‘A fish slice? And perhaps a pair of salt dishes? I’m not sure.’ No doubt her mother had lists of what was in every box and basket, but she did not. Or if she did, they were packed in the boxes and baskets themselves.
Basilia had emerged from the parlour at the sound of their confusion, and joined in the conversation at once.
‘It’s not very nice to think that it might have been stolen here, where people know you, is it?’ she put in. ‘If it had been along the road, you could almost understand, but right in Ballater …’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Hippolyta, who had not thought of that. ‘Someone who knows us …’
‘Oh, here they come now.’ Patrick had heard the heavy wheels outside, and reopened the front door to look. ‘They’ll have to bring it through here.’
‘But dinner’s nearly ready,’ said Hippolyta, thinking of Mrs. Riach.
‘But the carters are already delayed,’ said Patrick, ‘and I don’t think the cart will fit down the lane to the back gate. I think we’re going to have to get the things indoors, anyway. We can sort it out later.’
‘And what about the missing box?’
‘The constable knows.’
‘Morrisson?’
‘I know,’ said Patrick with a smile, ‘but surely even he could manage to trace a simple stolen crate. Particularly one that size.’
‘Where do you want these, then, sir?’ The carters were already bringing the first baskets along the garden path, and in a moment the main hallway, small though it was, was packed with familiar luggage, all marked with the odd powdery blue paint her mother had chosen to distinguish it. The cart had evidently met a few of those thundery showers on its journey: some of the paint had slithered down on to the cart itself.
A Knife in Darkness Page 15