A Knife in Darkness

by Lexie Conyngham

  Hippolyta was grateful enough to be relieved of the burden, and handed it over.

  ‘I’d better go home,’ she said, not quite sure now why she was hunting for Mrs. Strachan. If she had been hurrying off to challenge her husband, Hippolyta wanted to be there, but now where had she gone?

  ‘Wait there until I fetch my coat and hat,’ said Mr. Strachan, ‘and I’ll walk down the hill with you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He vanished briskly through a door, still frowning. Hippolyta spun on her heel, thinking. Mr. Strachan had good motives for murdering Colonel Verney and probably Mr. Tranter, too, and she did not like the man. But he did have that alibi for Mr. Tranter’s murder, and more importantly, now, she believed that Colonel Verney and Mr. Tranter had both been murdered just because they happened to be in the wrong place when, respectively, Mr. Forman and Rab Lattin had been murdered. She knew of no reason why Mr. Strachan should want to kill Forman unless it had been because Forman had discovered something under the kitchen floor which identified Strachan as Rab Lattin’s murderer, and she knew of no reason why Mr. Strachan should have killed Rab Lattin, even if he had been able to. It was all very well thinking of Mr. Strachan as a murderer in the abstract, but she realised she did not feel in the least nervous of him.

  But if Mrs. Strachan had not rushed out of Mrs. Kynoch’s cottage to confront her husband, what was it that Hippolyta had said that had made her run from the house? She had not even mentioned the possibility of something distinctive under the floorboards, she had only mentioned the idea that Rab Lattin had been the intended victim, not Mr. Tranter.

  What had Mrs. Strachan told her about Rab Lattin? He was a keen gardener, and he liked to read the articles on books in the newspapers, though he owned no books of his own. He was a quiet and kind man, she had said, and trusted by Mr. Tranter. Had he somehow betrayed that trust? Stolen a valuable book?

  That seemed ridiculous, and there was no evidence for it at all. What else could it be?

  She was still thinking when Mr. Strachan appeared, well wrapped up against the weather. He ushered Hippolyta out of the front door, and wincing at the rain they set off. It was nearly dark, and as they rounded the corner of the house Hippolyta was bowled almost off the path as the wind caught her skirts: Mr. Strachan seized her arm and dragged her back, steadying her before they walked on, heads down against the wind.

  A second later they both leapt and stumbled, as a great stab of lightning cracked the sky. Hippolyta had never seen a lightning flash so bright, and it was followed almost instantly by a crash of thunder that seemed almost enough to shake buildings. Then the buildings did shake, and they snatched at each other to keep their balance.

  ‘An earthquake! What is this?’ cried Mr. Strachan, clutching his hat to his head as slates crashed and sliced off the roofs around them. Beside them a cottage window cracked sharply. He grasped Hippolyta’s arm and dragged her along towards the middle of the town, against the general flow of traffic: there were still people with handcarts and bundles, slowly moving up the hill.

  ‘Is the river still rising?’ Hippolyta stopped and asked a man tugging a donkey behind him.

  ‘Aye, ma’am, but not so fast now, I think.’

  ‘Maybe we’re seeing the end of it,’ shouted Strachan. The wind surged as if in defiance of his words, and they staggered against a wall along with another man in a cloak.

  ‘Hippolyta!’ the man cried, clutching her other arm. ‘You’re safe!’

  ‘Patrick!’ She grabbed for his hand. ‘Mrs. Strachan is missing, without her cloak!’

  ‘Where was she going?’ Patrick shouted. They ducked as another great swipe of lightning lit the sky, and the thunder rumbled fast behind it. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this!’

  ‘She might be at Durward’s,’ Strachan called out as they straightened again. The wind dipped and his words echoed oddly. ‘She’s not well.’

  ‘I need to go back to Pannanich,’ Patrick shouted. ‘They’re taking the people out of the Lodge: it was a foot deep with water when the messenger left it. I’ll come down to Durward’s with you, but I must see Hippolyta home first.’

  ‘I’m staying with you!’ cried Hippolyta. The idea of being cooped up at home with Mrs. Riach and Basilia Verney, worrying about Patrick, was appalling.

  ‘You should go home, my dearest!’

  ‘I shan’t!’ He looked at her, faces streaming with rainwater, squinting in the wind.

  ‘No doubt you’ll go out again if I take you home,’ he muttered. ‘But if you come you must be careful! The river is rising fast.’

  ‘Is Durward’s still safe? Could he have moved up the hill?’ Strachan interrupted them.

  ‘I have no idea. Come on, then,’ Patrick shouted. ‘Let’s go and see. There are still some people in the inn: the landlady is refusing to move while there are guests upstairs.’

  The sky crashed with lightning and thunder again, the whole town lit up like a summer’s day for three or four seconds, images burned into their eyes. A man was shouting up at a first floor window, where a lady in a nightcap clutched her shawl about her.

  ‘I’m not moving, my good man!’ she called down to him.

  ‘You’ll have to, madam! The waters are rising!’

  ‘But I’m safe upstairs, and we’re all the way up here!’ the lady called back. ‘Look: I can see four or five houses between here and any sign of the river!’

  ‘Why won’t you just come down, you daft quine?’ the man demanded, frustrated. ‘I’ll carry your damned jewellery case for you, if that’s what you want!’

  ‘I am not dressed,’ the lady retorted stiffly, and shut the window on him. Patrick led Hippolyta past the scene, Strachan following, and they made their way down towards the bridge.

  Hippolyta gasped. The river was at the level of the bottom of the street, licking at the edges of the Aberdeen road, filling the lower rooms of the inn and making Dr. Durward’s little house just beyond it seem to be sitting on an island in the black flow of river waters.

  ‘He can’t still be there,’ Strachan shouted, gaping at it. There was a man at an upper window in the inn.

  ‘Are you looking for the doctor?’ he yelled down at them. ‘He’s away across the river this hour or more.’

  ‘At Pannanich?’ Patrick called back. The man nodded.

  ‘Are the animals all right? The horses in the stables?’ Hippolyta shouted to him. The man frowned, clutching at his ear, then nodded again. ‘They’re all up the town, except for that pony that bites everyone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, Hippolyta!’

  ‘We can’t leave it there to drown!’

  She broke free of Patrick and ran, splashing through six inches of water, into the inn yard. All the stable doors were open but one, and she made her way quickly to it. The pony stood crossly inside, and whinnied reproachfully. She grabbed a bridle and fastened it as quickly as she could: her hands were cold with the damp, and clumsy. Then she led the pony out into the street.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ groaned Patrick. The pony made a lunge to nip him, and he skipped after Strachan who was already heading up over the brow of the bridge. Hippolyta and the pony followed at a half-trot. The pony seemed impervious to the weather and danced a little, happy to be out of its stable.

  Tugged along by the pony, they walked quickly to Pannanich Lodge. The pasture beside the road had vanished completely, and the river lapped the side of the road. The great block of the Lodge loomed, stuck out into the water like some coastal fortification. A huddle of people waited at the road’s edge, raising lanterns to see them as they heard footsteps approaching. Some were wrapped in blankets and waiting on chairs, and Patrick hurried forward to attend to the frailest. Hippolyta drew in behind him, gazing with awe at the Lodge. The gardens were completely covered, as if they had never been. She remembered them in the sunshine the day Dr. Durward had introduced poor Julian Brown to them. What would they look like when the waters went down �
� if the waters went down, she wondered. Gardens … Something connected in the back of her mind, but what was it?

  ‘Will that pony take someone on his back?’

  ‘What?’ Patrick was leading forward a sickly-looking child wrapped in a quilt. Patrick looked worried, but the child seemed numb.

  ‘She can’t walk all the way up to the hotel. She’s left her boots behind, and she’s ill anyway.’

  ‘I’ll see.’ Hippolyta soothed the pony for a moment, guiding the child round the animal with one arm. Then she held the pony’s rein tightly near the bridle, and lifted the child – so light! – on to the pony’s back. She waited for a second, her arm securely around the child’s waist, in case of protest from the pony, but there was nothing. Patrick nodded.

  ‘We’ll go on ahead,’ Hippolyta cried. It was almost noisier here than in the village, for the birch woods on either side tossed and cracked in the wind, and the surging rumble of the river was ever-present. Strachan beside her had taken an old man up on to his back and begun a slow, steady ascent of the road to the hotel. Hippolyta followed, still holding the child steady.

  The lightning flashed every minute or so, showing them the road ahead. Patrick followed, supporting two men one on each side of him, walking as slowly as Strachan. Hippolyta eased ahead, letting the pony set the pace. By the time she reached the hotel, Patrick and Strachan were just out of sight, but the hotel door opened the moment they approached. The hotel keeper had been waiting, expecting more arrivals from the Lodge, and lifted the child straight off the pony’s back. Beyond him, the candlelit parlour was warm and crowded and smelled of wet wool.

  ‘Can you take the beast round the back, ma’am?’ the hotel keeper asked, and Hippolyta stumbled off to the back of the building. There a boy fitted the pony into a stall with another horse and Hippolyta prayed it would cause no trouble, before hurrying in through the back door of the hotel. In the parlour Patrick had just arrived with his two patients, explaining that Strachan was not far behind. Hippolyta pushed through to him where he stood with the hotel keeper.

  ‘Have you seen Dr. Durward, or Mrs. Strachan?’ she asked.

  ‘Mrs. Strachan – she was by the fire a whilie since,’ said the hotel keeper, with an effort. ‘I feel as if the hail world has come through yon door this night. Dr. Durward? He’s about the place, I ken. Now who was he attending to?’ He frowned, trying to remember.

  ‘It wouldn’t be Mr. Brookes, would it?’ asked Patrick, out of interest.

  ‘It could have been,’ the hotel keeper conceded, not sure.

  ‘You said Mrs. Strachan was by the fire?’ Hippolyta asked, trying to see through the crowd.

  ‘Aye, over yonder.’ The hotel keeper waved. Hippolyta left Patrick with his various patients, and plunged into the crowd towards the fire. There was a woman sitting by the fire, but she was nursing a baby, and was no one Hippolyta had seen before. On the other side of the fireplace were four children bundled into the same chair. Hippolyta turned and stood on tiptoe, trying to see into the furthest reaches of the packed parlour. She could see no one remotely like Mrs. Strachan.

  She wandered out of the parlour and back through the hall, where more refugees were trying to organise what belongings they had brought with them, and find room to dry them. There was still no sign of Mrs. Strachan, or Dr. Durward. She came to the stairs, and began to climb them, heading for Mr. Brookes’ room. It was almost as busy up here as it had been downstairs: many of the doors to the rooms were open, and it seemed that the hotel staff were trying to double up the accommodation to take in their extra guests. She walked unchallenged along the passage, towards Mr. Brookes’ door, then noticed that it, too, was open. She paused, listening. Was that Mrs. Strachan’s voice?

  ‘Who would have guessed that that was poor John Burns?’ she was asking. Dr. Durward’s smooth tones answered.

  ‘It was quite a shock to me. His boy came running down the stairs to say his master was in distress, so I came up. He’s Napier’s patient, I believe.’

  ‘But what is he doing here under another name?’

  ‘He wanted to laugh when he told me,’ Dr. Durward said, a chuckle in his own voice, ‘but he had hardly the strength. I’ve given him some laudanum in brandy: he’ll sleep for a little.’

  There was a pause, as if they were both contemplating their old acquaintance.

  ‘But what are you doing here, Mrs. Strachan?’ the doctor asked at last.

  ‘I came to find you,’ said Mrs. Strachan.

  ‘Oh, my dear Mrs. Strachan, are you unwell?’ Dr. Durward suddenly sounded alarmed. ‘You should have said! I wish you would see a doctor – if not me, then surely Dr. Napier would help you.’

  ‘No, no, I am not unwell, not at all. And I pray you do not mention such a thing to my husband.’

  ‘But you’re shivering! Come closer to the fire.’

  ‘No, it’s only because – because I walked up here in all that rain.’ Without a cloak, thought Hippolyta, but why? ‘I’ve warmed up now.’ She was still shivering, though: it was clear in her voice.

  ‘Then what is it?’ Dr. Durward asked. His voice was gentle, as it always seemed to be when he was talking to her. Had he been a suitor, too, all those years ago? Was that why he had not married? But that evening when he and Strachan had gone to visit Dinnet House, only Strachan had gone inside: he had walked in the garden. Had he ceded the race to Strachan even then?

  The garden … Rab Lattin loved his garden, and it was summertime. He would have been working in the garden, no doubt.

  ‘I never asked you then: never had the nerve, I suppose,’ Mrs. Strachan was saying. ‘I’ve always been much too frightened of hearing the wrong answer. But now I have to know. All those years ago, the night Papa was – was killed. You swore that my husband – that Allan spent that night with you drinking in his father’s cellar. Is that the truth?’ Her voice faded with her nerves. There was an awful silence. Hippolyta found she was holding her breath. Then there was a heavy sigh.

  ‘No, my dear, no. It is not the truth.’

  A dreadful cry came from Mrs. Strachan, quickly stifled, as if she had put her hands to her face. Hippolyta could hear her sobbing. Dr. Durward drew breath audibly.

  ‘We were together for part of the night, but I woke at one point – rather drunk, I admit – and he was not there.’

  ‘Then you knew he had killed my father! You protected him!’

  ‘He was my friend.’

  ‘You let me marry him …’

  ‘Ah, yes, I did. I knew you preferred him, you see,’ said Dr. Durward softly. The tenderness of it made Hippolyta catch her breath – but then everything suddenly cleared in her head.

  She knew what had happened at Dinnet House twenty years ago, and if she was right, then she was sure she knew too what had happened at Dinnet House last week.

  But how was she going to prove it?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Napier?’

  The voice behind her made her jump, but she was not sure it could have been heard inside the room. She spun round. In the middle of the passage, looking as useless as ever, was Julian Brown, Basilia Verney’s cousin. She stepped quickly towards him to take their conversation away from the doorway, and he staggered back a couple of steps as if she had slapped him.

  ‘Mr. Brown! Good evening. What are you doing here?’ She had forgotten about the evacuation of Pannanich Lodge.

  ‘Oh, I just followed everybody else up the hill,’ he shrugged, with a weak grin. ‘Then I thought I saw you in the parlour downstairs, and I wanted to know if Basilia was here with you. Are they evacuating the whole town?’

  ‘No, no, we came looking for someone,’ she murmured. ‘As far as I know Miss Verney is still back in our house.’

  ‘Oh! Good, good.’ But he looked disappointed.

  ‘Mr. Brown,’ she began tentatively, seizing the opportunity, ‘last Sunday night …’

  ‘You mean yesterday?’ He was eager, but confused.
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  ‘No, the previous Sunday. The one when your uncle Colonel Verney was murdered.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, that one.’ He toed the carpet anxiously. ‘I did like my uncle, you know, Mrs. Napier. We just never seemed to … well, I never seemed quite to …’

  To finish your sentences? thought Hippolyta impatiently. ‘To live up to his expectations?’ she suggested more kindly. He looked up, grateful.

  ‘That’s about it, yes!’

  ‘And you certainly would never have murdered him, would you?’ she asked kindly. He shook his head at once.

  ‘He would have been so shocked if I had,’ he added. ‘I mean – Well, you know.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hippolyta, who thought she probably did. For some reason, an image of her own mother appeared briefly in her mind. ‘But you were up there that evening, weren’t you?’ This was a stab in the dark, in the hope that she could come to her real question from an innocent angle.

  ‘Well … yes, I was. But not to go into the house. Basilia was right: we had agreed to meet – it was her idea, though - but I got completely lost in the dark and I couldn’t find the house. I’d only been there once before, and that was in the daylight. Shocking how dark it gets in the countryside, don’t you think? Not sure I like it that much.’

  ‘And when would that have been?’

  ‘Well … I forgot to wind my watch, of course. When I got back here – well, to the Lodge, it was after midnight.’

  ‘And when did Dr. Durward turn up?’

  ‘Oh, it was after that, of course. I went up to my room and had a drink, you know, and then I heard a knock on the window, and he was outside tossing pebbles up to attract my attention.’

  ‘So he came in – with a bottle of brandy – and you stayed playing cards for the rest of the night?’

  ‘That’s right. Or was he there much earlier?’ He thought for a second, his face screwed up in concentration. ‘No, that’s right: he told me to say he was there much earlier, in return for letting me off my losses at cards, but it would have been after midnight.’ His face cleared, pleased, then clouded again. ‘I hope you weren’t one of the people I was supposed to tell he was there much earlier. People really shouldn’t rely on me to keep secrets and tell odd stories, you know. I’m afraid I’m not really very bright, you see.’