by Clare Jayne
“Yes, he did,” Ishbel said. She had only discovered after the event that Harriette had attended the hanging. After years of attending anatomy classes, Ishbel was not squeamish over death, but found the pleasure others took from watching a hanging macabre.
They left Mr McDougal and, with no evidence against him and no obvious motive, they were satisfied to take him at his word. Mr MacPherson drove her to Edinburgh University so she could attend several lectures, arranging to collect her later to go and speak to Lady Tinbough’s servants again. As she walked through the corridors and up the stairs of the College she nodded to familiar faces among the mass of young men who were students here and exchanged greetings with a professor who had been friends with her father. She took a seat towards the middle of the lecture theatre and opened her reticule to take out quill, parchment and ink.
As the other seats began to fill up, men chatting around her, she thought of what Mr McDougal had said. What did cause someone to steal? With a man like Mr Brodie there had clearly been something about the activity he had enjoyed. She had studied him during his trial and read the later accounts about him that had appeared in newspapers. She got the impression he had enjoyed the risks, that his respectable life had not been enough for him. In some ways she could understand that feeling and it struck her that she had two separate lives in much the same way as he had and perhaps for some of the same reasons. She found high society life dull – with its balls, dinner parties and endless discussions about clothes and marriage – and she did something no one else approved of by coming here to study. Her life would have been unbearable without this. She had always had a desire to learn new things and had risked her father’s wrath over and over again to disobey him and come to the College. She had endured dozens of punishments rather than give it up. She did not understand the appeal of engaging in criminal activities but she knew how unsatisfactory a conventional life could be. Was that the reason someone had stolen Lady Tinbough’s necklace: not a need for the money they could get from it but the excitement of doing something forbidden? But, as the carpenter had reminded her, Mr Brodie had been hanged; was everyone who failed to live by society’s conventions punished for it? In that case, what would be her fate?
Professor Gregory strode into the room and, instantly, the conversations faded away. Ishbel put the unsettling thoughts from her mind and reached for her quill and bottle of ink.
Chapter Nineteen
MR MACPHERSON was already waiting for Ishbel when her lectures finished. She found him standing in front of his curricle, talking to half a dozen students who were admiring the carriage and petting the horses. He was good with people, she thought, watching him smile at something one of the men had said, and did not set himself apart from those who were different from himself, whether students, tradesmen or servants. He was better with the students than she was and she had been in and out of the College her whole life.
He turned his head, caught sight of her and his eyes warmed while his smile broadened. She felt that smile in her entire body, like a touch. Trying to ignore the sensations, but unable to stop herself giving him an answering smile, she walked up to him.
He said goodbye to the students who headed off, some of them giving her polite bows, and Mr MacPherson fixed his full attention on her. “Did you enjoy your lectures?”
“I did,” she said. “They were extremely instructive.”
“Did I tell you that I had bought some medical texts to learn something of your interests?”
Warmth ran through her at the thought that he should have not just made this effort for her but also that it meant he accepted this part of who she was in a way no one else had ever been able to do. “You did not mention it but I cannot express how happy I am to hear that. How are you getting on with them?”
“They are not subjects I have ever given thought to before but I think I am beginning to see the appeal of them. Reading such information opens one’s mind to how complex the things we take for granted can actually be.”
“It makes you see the world as a more extraordinary place,” she suggested and he grinned, nodding.
“Exactly!”
She asked him the names of the books as they got into the curricle and suggested a couple of others that were an excellent introduction to the subjects. By the time they arrived at Lady Tinbough’s large home, she was so caught up in their conversation that she had almost forgotten why they were here.
“I was thinking that perhaps I could speak to the male servants and you could speak to the female ones. What do you think?”
“Yes, certainly,” she agreed. “And our main concern is to ascertain what caused Aileas Jones to leave in the night.”
“It is, although we can also check if they have remembered or thought of anything pertaining to the burglary.”
“That should cover everything.”
They walked up the steps to the front door and knocked upon it. When the butler opened it they asked him if they could speak individually to the servants.
“May I ask if one of my people is under suspicion, sir?” he said to Mr MacPherson.
“That is not the case at all. We just thought they might have remembered something relevant.”
“Very well, sir, but they do have a great deal of work to do.”
“They are welcome to continue their work as they speak to us and I promise you this will not take long at all,” Ishbel said.
He took them below stairs and Ishbel spoke first to Mrs Fraser, the housekeeper in the cramped space of her office. Ishbel had met her during their first talk with the staff but the housekeeper looked younger than Ishbel had remembered, younger than she would have expected for someone holding such a senior position, perhaps thirty, with dark hair, plain clothes and a friendly smile.
They sat on unadorned wooden chairs and Ishbel asked, “Has anything more occurred to you about the robbery?”
“I’m certain the theft was not committed by anyone here, any of the staff, I mean. I suppose I’m bound to say that but surely they wouldn’t stay here if they’d done such a thing? Wouldn’t they have left the city?”
“You are probably right, although there is someone who left: Aileas Jones.”
“But that was before the robbery happened. She couldn’t have done it.”
“It seemed strange that she had left in such an abrupt manner so we have spoken to her mother, who has not seen her and is extremely worried. Her leaving is unlikely to be connected to the necklace but I would very much like to find her and make sure she is not in some kind of trouble.”
Mrs Fraser nodded, expression serious. “I wish I knew what made her vanish like that. It’s been bothering me. She was always utterly reliable.”
“She had had the job for some time, I believe?”
“Aye, for about a year. She was a nice girl but I never felt I knew her very well as she kept a lot to herself. She was particularly quiet right before she left and I remember thinking that she looked as if she wasn’t sleeping. Mrs Thomson, the cook, asked her about it but she said she was fine.”
“You have no idea what she might have been upset about?”
“None. I should’ve brought her in here and got her to talk to me – I wish I had.”
“And just returning to the burglary for a last question: who do you think stole the necklace?”
“A visitor, I suppose. Perhaps a tradesman.”
Ishbel thanked her and Mrs Fraser took her through to the kitchen to speak to the cook who, along with a kitchen maid, was chopping up vegetables for the evening dinner. A couple of cooking pots were already suspended on chains over the fire and the heat in the room was almost unbearable.
“Have either of you had any more ideas about how the robbery was committed or who might have done it?” Ishbel asked.
The maid just shook her head and muttered, “No, Miss,” not looking up from her work.
“It must’ve been a stranger,” Mrs Thomson said.
“On a different subje
ct, since her family haven’t seen her and are concerned, we are also looking into the disappearance of Aileas Jones. Mrs Fraser said that you asked if something was bothering her right before she left, that she looked as she wasn’t sleeping.”
“Aye, that’s right. I did. She was always a polite, respectful lassie – not all lady’s maids are like that, Miss; some think they’re better than the rest of us. Before she ran off she got quieter and quieter and her face had this strained look about it.”
“Do you have any idea what was wrong?”
“No, she never said, but something was on her mind for a couple of months at least.”
“Someone gave her a locket,” the maid said so quietly that Ishbel could barely hear her.
“When was that?”
“A few months before she went, but she didn’t wear it, that’s why it was odd. It fell out of her pocket once and she said it was a gift, but she didn’t look happy about it.”
“You never mentioned any of this,” the cook said and the maid shrugged, looking more flushed and uncomfortable than ever, although whether due to shyness or something else, Ishbel couldn’t tell.
“So you didn’t see the locket?” Ishbel asked the cook.
“No, Miss. You don’t think it was stolen, do you? She was out of here before the emeralds went missing so she couldn’t have done it.”
“I didn’t mean that,” the maid said. “I just thought it was queer.”
“Do you think she might have had some unwanted attention?” Ishbel asked.
The maid just shrugged again and would say nothing more. Ishbel spoke to a couple more people then left, waiting at the curricle for Mr MacPherson who joined her after another ten minutes or so. They headed back to her home, the cool breeze outside a welcome change after the stifling warmth of the kitchen, and shut themselves in the library to discuss the case.
“What did you learn?” she asked him as she lit a couple of candles to brighten the room then took her usual chair, opposite his.
“Very little, I fear. The men had no fresh ideas about the robbery, at least none they would share with me. They described Aileas Jones as very pretty and good-natured but did not seem to know anything about her life.”
“Who said she was pretty?”
“Both the footmen and the under-butler said something of the kind. Why?”
Ishbel said what she had learnt, adding, “What if one of the male servants stole the locket and gave it to her but she had no interest in him or perhaps suspected he had not got it honestly? If she spurned him they could have had a fight which caused her to leave so abruptly and that would make him a very likely suspect for stealing the emerald necklace.”
“That is true,” he said. “I think you must be right. Then we have only to determine which man it is.”
“That will solve the burglary but not let us help Aileas.”
“No, but it would be excellent progress,” he said in a tone that made her suspect he had never thought they could solve the crime. “There are four men employed at the house and two more gardeners. Any of them might have taken an interest in an attractive woman but giving her a locket suggests a serious interest. Aileas’s young age suggests she would be a better match for the younger men but, then, if we are assuming she had no interest in her pursuer, it could have been any of them. An older man is equally likely to become infatuated.”
“If he has now stolen the emerald necklace then he would have a lot of money,” Ishbel said.
“You are right. If we look into whether any of the servants have been spending a lot recently that should lead us to him.”
She smiled, a heady sense of excitement running through her at the thought of catching the thief.
Chapter Twenty
ISHBEL WAS not thinking about the burglary or Aileas Jones as she walked through the corridors of the College. She was thinking about Mr MacPherson, who had been on her mind more than those other subjects all yesterday evening too. She had been disappointed by the idea that he had not thought they could actually find the thief until now although, to be fair, she had had serious doubts about it herself. She was also concerned about her feelings for him and his for her – she would never marry so she could not afford to let herself grow attached to him and it was not fair to give him any false expectations. She had told him once that she did not intend to marry but she thought that his buying the medical books suggested feelings for her that went beyond friendship. She should explain her reasons more clearly. She was not suited to marriage – they would end up miserable, tied to each other for a lifetime with no way out. He could not possibly really love her. She was not the kind of person anyone could love. When this matter was resolved perhaps it would be better to avoid seeing him for a while, much as she hated that thought. He was the first person in her life who she felt had really understood her. Perhaps that was what she should say: that their relationship was incredibly valuable to her but that she did not want to mislead him into thinking it could ever lead to marriage.
She entered the high octagonal lecture theatre and took a seat, still distracted by her thoughts. She reached into her reticule for her writing implements then noticed that Professor Monro was standing talking to a young man in a blue apron. It looked as if they were arguing.
“Miss Campbell?”
She turned her head towards the voice and saw a smartly dressed student. “Yes,” she said.
“Professor Monro needs to speak to you, Miss.”
“Thank you.” She closed her reticule and followed him down the stairs to the front of the theatre, aware of all the eyes upon her. For a moment she was transported back in time and her father had just seen her in his lecture room and called her forward to berate her in front of a class full of people and send her home. The humiliation of that experience was with her as she approached the Professor.
“Miss Campbell, this young man says he works for you and that we cannot go ahead with the dissection. Can you explain this?”
She looked blankly at the youth – from his apron he must be a caddie. This realisation gave her an idea of who he was just as he confirmed it: “Miss Campbell, you and Mr MacPherson asked me to help find Miss Aileas Jones.”
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s her.” He pointed to the cadaver.
“No, that is impossible.” The denial was immediate. Aileas could not be dead. They were supposed to save her.
The boy held something out to her and she took it, not even needing to look at it to know he was right. As she stared in horror at the corpse of Aileas Jones, lying naked on the dissecting table, Ishbel’s fingers gripped the small gold locket.
* * *
Ewan hurried into the room at the university and looked round for Miss Campbell. A loud sob caught his ear and he followed the noise and saw a woman he recognised. It was Mrs Jones. A man, presumably her husband, stood next to her and they were looking at something on a table that he only slowly realised was the body of a woman, its pallor and rotting state inhuman.
He dragged his eyes from the tableau and finally caught sight of Miss Campbell standing behind them, her face white beneath her copper curls. He crossed over to her as a man in a military uniform left her side. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
She looked up at him with a haunted expression. “Yes, of course. That is Aileas Jones, Mr MacPherson.” She gestured to the body. “Someone murdered her.”
“Yes,” he said, “but I do not understand what the poor girl is doing here. How did she get to the university?”
She led him further away from Aileas’s family to say, “Bodies are brought here for studying in anatomy classes. Most are criminals who have been executed but others, particularly those who cannot be identified, also come here.”
“How gruesome,” he said and saw her wince.
“Such studies are the only way to make medical discoveries and the only way to teach students how to become physicians and surgeons.”
“I understand,” he said
quickly, not wanting to see her distressed any further. “You should leave. This is no place for you.”
She stared at him, pale but with a flash of emotion in her eyes he could not identify. “Those poor people have just lost their daughter. No one cares about this case but us. We have to find her killer.”
Chapter Twenty-One
EWAN HANDED Miss Campbell a glass of whisky, watching her as they sat in the drawing room of her home. She looked worn out which was hardly surprising after the morning she had suffered. He had wanted to take her away from the terrible scene at the university right away but the man dressed in a red uniform had been a member of the town guards and had insisted on hearing how they were involved in the matter, interviewing them both at length, to pass the information on to the local government. When asked if the crown would investigate the murder, the officer had said that there was no evidence that this was anything more than an accidental death and that, the family being too poor to offer a reward, it was unlikely anyone would look into it.
Miss Campbell had been correct that no one else would try to solve the murder but how could they do so? If he had felt ill-equipped in their work so far, this sad development left him at even more of a loss.
“How do you feel?” he asked Miss Campbell.
“I am fine,” she said and held something out to him that, when he took it from her cold fingers, turned out to be Aileas’s gold locket. “We were wrong about the locket being stolen. It was engraved with her initials.”
He looked at the pretty piece of jewellery without taking in what she said. “Miss Campbell, you must let me handle this matter alone from now on. It has become far too dangerous for you to be involved.”
Her gaze hardened. “I have been involved in this as long as you and nothing could induce me to give it up now.”
“There is a killer involved.” He had to make her understand the risk. “Your life could be in danger.”