Gillespie and I

by Jane Harris

  At intervals, along West Princes Street, tenements were under construction and I peered into the building sites as I went along, but saw no sign of any children. Reaching the river, I headed northwards, keeping close to the water’s edge whenever I was able. For the next few hours, I searched the river valley and the strips of woodland along the way. Thankfully, the rain soon stopped. I went as far as the paper works, after which it was too dark to see any more. En route, I was menaced, once, by a dog, and accosted, twice, by solitary men, who may, in the half-light, have mistaken me for something that I was not, but they soon realised their error when I saw them off with sharp words and my raised umbrella. Of Ned’s and Annie’s missing child, I found not a trace.

  It was with blistered feet and aching legs that I returned to Stanley Street, at about half past nine o’clock. Glancing up at number 11, I saw a dim light burning in the Gillespies’ parlour, and thought that I perceived someone at the window—possibly Annie, although it was hard to tell. The shadowy figure shrank out of sight behind the curtains as I began to climb the front steps. Now that darkness had fallen, the little group of women and children at the close mouth had dispersed. However, the main door, which was usually locked, had been propped ajar with a large stone. (I later learned that this was at Ned’s insistence, in case Rose should return, in the night.) Reluctant to intrude at such a time, uninvited, I rang the bell, rather than going straight up to the apartment, which would have been presumptuous, under the circumstances. After an interval, I heard heavy male footsteps on the stairs, and then on the flagstones of the close. The thwack of leather sole was accompanied by a strange crunching, grinding sound that I could not identify. Presently, the door opened to reveal a tall, thin police constable, a Highlander. I recognised him, from his ginger moustache, as Constable Black, one of the older men who walked the beat around the Claremont and Woodside areas. He brought with him an overpowering scent of peppermint humbugs, which explained the sounds of crunching that I had heard.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, leaning down to peer at me, with a blast of cold, mint breath that almost made my eyes water. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m here to see the Gillespies. Has Rose been found?’

  ‘No yet, missus. But dinna fash yersel’, she’ll turn up.’

  ‘Oh, I do hope you’re right.’

  I hesitated, wondering whether he might lead me into the building, but then he said: ‘Who are ye, yourself? Likely they’ll want tae know who called.’

  ‘Harriet, Miss Baxter. I was here, earlier, with Annie. I’ve been looking for Rose, these past few hours. I’m a good friend of the family. Do they need any help? I’d be happy to make hot drinks, or anything else that might be required.’

  ‘Naw—nae need. Mr Gillespie’s mother’s in charge of the kettle.’

  ‘Elspeth? Elspeth Gillespie? Are you sure?’

  ‘Aye, it’s Mrs Gillespie, sure as sure. She’s making the doctor some tea.’

  ‘A doctor? What’s the matter? Is someone ill?’

  ‘Thon wee—Sibyl, is it?—flew up in the snuff and took a wee fit tae herself. She’s fine now, but this place has been going like a fair. They need peace and quiet. You’d do better tae come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh yes—yes, of course.’

  He stepped behind the door, and let it close, gently, against the prop-stone. Then I heard him retrace his footsteps, back up the passageway.

  Suddenly exhausted, I returned to Queen’s Crescent. The little park lay at the centre, still and quiet, under cover of darkness. I stood on the steps of my lodgings, for a moment. The gardens were desolate and empty. Where was little Rose? And was she safe from harm?

  Mrs Alexander had not yet retired to bed, and from her I learned a few more snippets of information. Apparently, she had remained in the Gillespies’ parlour until quite late, and had been there, just after six o’clock, when Ned had arrived home, distraught, having been told by the women downstairs that his youngest daughter had been missing for three hours. He asked my landlady if she would mind remaining where she was, in case anyone returned, while he went to the Western Police Office, at Cranston Street. Then he dashed off again, extremely vexed.

  Soon afterwards, Sibyl had come leaping upstairs, followed, at a more sedate pace, by Ned’s mother, who had just returned from a prison visit and heard the news about Rose from her maid. Elspeth was in a state of near-hysteria and, apparently, it was all that Mrs Alexander could do to calm the woman, fearing (probably rightly) that her raving demeanour might have an ill effect upon Sibyl.

  In due course, it seems, Ned reappeared, having been instructed, at the police office, to go home and there await the arrival of a detective who would want to question his wife, in particular. And so, the Alexander girls were sent to find Annie but, as they were on their way out, they met her coming in, accompanied by Detective Sub-Inspector Stirling and the ginger policeman, whom she had encountered in the street. A troupe of neighbours and nosy urchins straggled upstairs in their wake, and Constable Black was obliged to close the landing door, in order to keep them out and maintain some order. In the end, Calthrop and Mrs Alexander were the only neighbours who were permitted to remain.

  ‘Did Ned’s mother stay?’ I asked and when my landlady nodded, I remarked: ‘I dread to think what happened when Annie saw her.’

  Mrs Alexander shook her head, sadly.

  ‘I doubt Annie noticed anybody, she was in such a state, poor thing.’

  Evidently, the police conducted their interviews in the dining room, and Annie was the first to be questioned. After several minutes, she emerged, and then Sibyl was summoned into the room, alone. Without the inhibiting presence of her family, and under some clever interrogation from Detective Stirling, the child eventually admitted that she had, indeed, left her sister unsupervised in the gardens that afternoon, but only for a few minutes.

  She and Rose had been playing in separate areas of the little park: Sibyl had been inspecting a dead bird that she found lying on the grass, while her sister dug around with a stick beneath the trees. Apparently, at one point, Sibyl glanced up and noticed a woman standing outside the railings, on the West Princes Street side, looking into the gardens. The child was fairly sure that she had never seen this person before. According to her description, the woman wore a shiny blue dress, and a black hat, with a short veil that covered her face to the end of her nose. By the time that Sibyl next looked up, the woman had vanished from her original position, but then she reappeared, soon afterwards, on Queen’s Crescent, at the entrance to the gardens. When she caught Sibyl’s gaze, she smiled, and beckoned with her finger. Leaving Rose at play, the older girl approached the gate. The woman explained that she had just moved into a house nearby, and needed somebody to run to Dobie’s to buy sugar, because she was awaiting the carriers and was unable to go herself. Dobie the grocer’s was just around the corner, on Great Western Road, about a minute’s walk from the gardens. Sibyl was familiar with the shop, having been there many times with Annie and various others. The woman indicated Rose, who was still playing, a little distance away, beneath the trees.

  ‘Is that your wee sister?’ she asked. When Sibyl nodded, the woman took out two pennies. ‘Keep one of these,’ she said. ‘And go and buy me a pennyworth of sugar with the other. I’ll look after your sister until you get back.’

  Not imagining that there could be any harm in leaving Rose for a few minutes, under these circumstances, Sibyl ran down Melrose Street and around the corner. She bought the sugar at Dobie’s, as requested, and—no doubt—felt quite pleased with herself, having never before gone to a shop to make a purchase unaccompanied. However, upon her return to Queen’s Crescent, she was vaguely alarmed to find the little park empty, with no sign of Rose or the lady stranger, anywhere. There were few nooks and crannies in the gardens, but Sibyl looked in them all, and then she walked around the Crescent, calling her sister’s name. Eventually, when it seemed evident that neither Rose nor the veiled woman were going to reappear,
she left the bag of sugar on a wall (where Annie and I saw it, later) and returned to Stanley Street, assuming that Rose had got bored without her and gone home. In the event, realising that this was not the case, and faced with her mother’s concern, the child had been unable to admit the truth, fearing that, yet again, she would be scolded or punished for wrongdoing.

  As Mrs Alexander explained to me, when the detective conveyed this story to the Gillespie family, and showed them the penny that the woman had given to the child, Sibyl had looked shamefaced. Meanwhile, Elspeth became very agitated. She darted scandalised glances at her granddaughter, but said nothing, for the time being, until Ned and the policemen went out to look at Queen’s Crescent, leaving the women alone.

  ‘That was when Elspeth confronted Sibyl,’ explained my landlady. ‘Saying it was all her fault, as usual, accusing her of wickedness and greed.’ Evidently, the child became upset and began to whimper, but the widow persisted, complaining that Sibyl had abandoned Rose. Despite Annie’s pleas that she should desist, Elspeth kept ranting on and on until, of a sudden, Sibyl fell to the floor, screaming, and twisting her little body, this way and that, until she seemed to go into convulsions.

  ‘Annie turned quite pale with fright,’ said Mrs Alexander. ‘She lay down beside Sibyl, and held her, to pacify her.’ One of the local lads was sent hurrying to fetch a physician from Woodside Place (a nearby residential street populated, almost entirely, by gentlemanly M.D.s.) By the time that young Dr Williams had arrived, Sibyl had calmed down somewhat, but the appearance on the scene of a medical man seemed to upset her, once again, and the doctor was obliged to give the child a little sedation.

  He and Annie put Sibyl to bed and, presently, Ned and the policemen returned, having inspected Queen’s Crescent gardens, and found no trace of Rose (by that stage, even the bag of sugar had disappeared). In order to discount the possibility that the child was hiding somewhere, the policemen took lamps downstairs and, with Ned as their guide, they inspected all the back courts, along the lane, and then peered into the basement coal stores of number 11. Thereafter, they announced their intention to search the apartment. Any person who was not a family member was asked to leave and so, along with Calthrop, Mrs Alexander excused herself and came home.

  ‘They won’t have found her in that flat,’ she told me. ‘I was there for hours, and don’t think I didn’t take the opportunity to look around, just in case.’ This admission surprised me, since my landlady was one of the most incurious people I had ever met. I must have looked startled, because she added: ‘Och, you know what children are like. I half thought Rose might be playing hide-and-seek to herself. I looked in all the rooms, except one upstairs that was locked, and there was no child there in that place, not in the presses, or anywhere.’

  My mind had already leapt ahead, to other matters: ‘What about the woman who sent Sibyl to the shop—did the police find her?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Mrs Alexander. ‘It’s a mystery. If there’s still no sign of Rose by tomorrow, then they’re going to form search parties.’

  ‘Search parties!’ In my bewildered state, the very words sounded ominous. ‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that. How did Ned and Annie seem when you left?’

  My landlady shook her head, grimly. ‘Poor dears, their nerves are shattered.’

  ‘Well, at least they can rely upon each other.’

  ‘Aye, although—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, between you and me, I got the impression they weren’t speaking to each other. A few times, she said something to him, he just ignored her.’

  Soon thereafter, I bade Mrs Alexander goodnight, and went upstairs to my bedroom. All through the hours of darkness, I tossed and turned, without sleeping, in great distress for my poor friends. There was no question in my mind that Annie would be unable to ignore her own sense of guilt, like a queasy pain, rising in her stomach. Though Ned would never be so cruel as to speak his mind, she must have known that he would blame her for losing Rose, since he had always made it plain that he disapproved of sending the girls outside to play, unsupervised: I had heard him say so, myself, on several occasions. Normally, I tend to take a bright view of most matters, but in this instance, try as I might, I could not be confident of a fortunate outcome. My head was filled with horrible presentiments, and my heart was sick with foreboding.

  That night, the police and the doctor left Stanley Street towards half past ten o’clock, with the promise to return in the morning. Ned’s mother deemed it wise to make her exit at the same time, having, in the aftermath of her outburst at Sibyl, sensed a degree of animosity from Annie. Thus, she led the men downstairs, leaving Rose’s parents alone with their anguish. Detective Stirling had advised the Gillespies to remain at home in case Rose should return, and insisted that there was no point in them going out to search that night. Indeed, it could be hazardous for them to be roaming around lonely places in the dark.

  With the apartment empty, Annie was only too aware of the tension between herself and her husband, and (as she told me, later) the atmosphere was desiccate and strange. Earlier that night, while she was explaining, once again, to the detective, how she had sent her daughters out to play, unaccompanied, she had sensed her husband studying her, a sour expression on his face, but when she tried to catch his eye, for sympathy, he had turned away. Now, if she asked him a question, or spoke to him, he would answer, but his replies were cold and abrupt and so, it was almost a relief when, after pacing the floor for five minutes, in furious silence, he threw on his coat, saying that he would rather pull out his own eye than remain there, doing nothing: he was going to try and find Rose. He commanded her to light a lamp at the parlour window should there be any news, and then he went running downstairs, without bidding her farewell, and without any display of tenderness or affection, or any reassurance that they would face this ordeal, together. Moments later, when Annie pulled up the sash and peered out, along the road, she saw her husband turn the corner onto Carnarvon Street, where he was swallowed by the darkness.

  Left alone, and utterly miserable, she spent the hours until dawn walking from room to room, every now and then peering out into the murky night, watching and waiting for any sign of Rose, or any news—but none came.

  Only at daybreak, did Ned return. The main door was propped ajar, just as he had left it. Pushing it open, he stepped inside the close, and then stopped, of a sudden, in his tracks. There, on the flagstones, lay an envelope. The name Gillespie had been scrawled, in pencil, across the front. Inside, he found a single sheet of paper, which had been written upon, in the same brutish hand. The writing was such a filthy scrawl that it took him a while to work out what it said.

  dear sir

  be note afrayed your girl is al write as we got her. make redy fife hundert pounds and we will den tell you were to deliver the mony. do note notify the polise—or else! tell your wife the child is in gut hands.

  I myself first learned about this note when Annie described it to me, word for word, just a few hours later. I would not have called upon her so early, except that my landlady had baked some rolls for the Gillespies, and I had offered to deliver them, while they were still warm. Fully expecting to be turned away at the door, I was surprised when Annie almost begged me to keep her company, in the kitchen. Sibyl was still upstairs, sleeping off the effects of Dr Williams’s sedation, and Ned had yet to return from the police office, where he had gone, hoping to show Detective Stirling the note. Annie was pale and haggard, and had not changed her clothes since the previous day. When she spoke, her voice sounded strangely flat, without intonation.

  ‘It’s a horrible letter,’ she told me. ‘Big jagged writing, and most of the words are spelt wrong.’

  The skin across the back of my neck prickled. There was something sinister about this note with its crude handwriting and bad spelling. However, I was determined not to add to Annie’s woes.

  ‘It sounds like a nasty-minded prank to me.’


  Her tired eyes lit up, momentarily. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Don’t you? Was it delivered by the postman?’

  ‘No—it must have been brought in the night.’

  ‘But nobody saw anyone approach the building?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What about Ned—has he taken it seriously?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Annie, her voice almost a whisper. ‘I did beg him not to take it to the police, but—’

  With a frown, she grabbed up Rose’s wooden horse from where it lay on the hearthrug. Recently, someone had scraped away the scorched patch on its side, which had left a strange cavity in the belly of the beast, as though it had been mauled. Annie hugged the ruined toy to her chest. She must have spent the entire night chewing her fingers, for the nails were bitten to the quick. She stared into the hearth, hard-eyed and alert. It dawned on me that, for once, she looked older than her years. I glanced out of the kitchen, towards the main door of the apartment, which lay wide open onto the close.

  ‘Where’s Elspeth?’ I asked.

  ‘Church.’ Annie sighed. ‘She said somebody ought to pray for Rose.’

  So forlorn did she look that I was desperate to reassure her.

  ‘Annie dear—if someone goes to the bother of taking a child, for money, then I’m fairly sure they establish, first of all, that the parents are wealthy. This note is probably just a too silly horrid hoax. Rose will be back, before you know it.’

  She nodded, miserably. ‘That’s what Ned says. She’ll come back and…’ Her voice tailed away.

  Perhaps I should point out that, under normal circumstances, I am not much given to lamentation. We adult females do not weep quite as often as some novelists would have one believe; we tend to be made of sterner stuff. None the less, this was one of those rare occasions upon which I found myself becoming emotional. Perhaps it was simply the accumulated anxiety of the past day or so, but I had no desire to break down in front of Annie. There she was, presumably sick with fear, and yet, dry eyed, whilst I, like a prize fool, was ready to blubber. Excusing myself, I tried to gain some composure in the WC, by splashing my face with water. However, as soon as I returned to the kitchen, I was overcome by an urge to weep, once more, and so decided to make myself scarce until I had recovered my equilibrium. I knew that Annie would not be alone, for even as I made my excuses, Calthrop came bustling in to return an egg that she had once borrowed: a slender pretext, since it was quite obvious that she was simply desperate to hear if there had been any developments.