Death at Thorburn Hall

by Julianna Deering

  She shrugged, her expression turning hard again. “I couldn’t say. He was always so chummy with Mother and Dad, I don’t know how he’d have time for anything else. And Dad, he was too busy most times, which left Mother and Mac chatting away as if they had been the ones in the war together. But a girl?” She smirked. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

  “Just trying to find out who’s who and what’s what.” Drew smiled. “I think you and I agree that Kuznetsov is a very unlikely murderer. But I’m rather stumped over who’s a better candidate.”

  “Can’t say I’ve paid much attention to the older set lately.” She wandered off, still smoking, thoughtful lines in her forehead.

  Drew took Madeline’s arm, and they walked out into the garden.

  “I hadn’t anticipated this particular turn of events,” he told her.

  “Me either.” Madeline plucked one of the abundant pink roses and brought it briefly to her nose. “I wish she’d been paying attention.”

  “It would have helped.” He looked out over the water, listening to the endless rush against the rocks and sand. Port Edgar and Rosyth Dockyard weren’t so far up the coast.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “Just wondering about Mac and who might make up that foursome he was arranging.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What was Lord Rainsby thinking when he asked me to investigate? I suppose a mapmaker sees a lot of places and knows many things . . . or might find them out anyway. Pass them along perhaps. At the right price.”

  “Why else would Mr. MacArthur lie about being in Rosyth?” She pressed a little closer to him. “It’s a scary thought.”

  He nodded, leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I suppose I’ll go round to see the count tomorrow. If Ranald will let me.”

  Eight

  The police station in Gullane was fairly much like any Drew had seen, small and drab with a wall of cubbyholes behind the front desk and two small holding cells. The officer on duty, a Scotsman with blazing red hair and absolutely no sense of humor, finally agreed to let Drew have five minutes with the prisoner only, as he said, to spare himself the bother of looking to see whether there was a local ordinance prohibiting infernal nuisances.

  Drew found Kuznetsov seated on the edge of the cot that was pushed against the back wall of his cell, head in hands and shoulders drooping. Drew had to speak to him twice before he deigned to look up. Even then that lasted only a moment before he looked back down again.

  “There is nothing that can be done,” he said, his voice low and mournful. “You may as well go now.”

  “I thought you might answer a few questions for me before I leave you to your own devices,” Drew replied, lounging against the wall to his left.

  “Questions? I was questioned for three days without rest by the Bolsheviki before I escaped and was smuggled out of Russia. I am no stranger to interrogation.”

  “I promise it won’t take that much of your time.” Drew gestured to the unoccupied end of the cot. “May I?”

  Kuznetsov inclined his head in almost-regal acceptance. Drew sat down and looked directly into the other man’s dark eyes.

  “Who are you, really?”

  “What do you mean, sir?” Kuznetsov drew himself up, chin defiant. “I am Count Mikhail Yevgeni Kazimir Sevastyan Kuznetsov, second son of Kazimir Artemiy Savely Kuznetsov, and one time of the court of His Imperial Majesty, Tsar Nicholas the Second of blessed memory.”

  “Mikhail Kuznetsov and his father and elder brother were killed in August of 1917,” Drew said, “when the tsar and his family were taken to Tobolsk ‘for protection.’”

  Kuznetsov slumped back against the brick wall. “Yes, Gregor and Papa were slaughtered by the Bolsheviki, but they took me prisoner.”

  “I’ve had my solicitors look into this for me,” Drew said, unimpressed with the look of deep grief on the man’s face. “All three were killed that same day and buried in a mass grave.”

  Kuznetsov covered his eyes with one languid hand. “It was horrible. I was thrown in with the dead, shot through the shoulder and arm and side, and grazed along the temple. I was driven nearly mad, returning to consciousness only to find myself wrapped in some sort of coarse cloth and smothered with earth. I could not even scream.”

  Drew nodded patiently. “And yet here you are.”

  “It was my great good fortune that three passing peasants heard me and managed to free me before I perished of pure fright.”

  “They heard you not screaming?”

  Kuznetsov pursed his lips. “I did the best I could to make it known I was yet alive. Fortunately, the Bolsheviki were as incompetent at burial details as they were at most everything else, and there was no more than a foot of earth covering me. The peasants quickly dug me out and put me in their cart, covered over the grave again, and smuggled me away to freedom.”

  Drew nodded. “You weren’t pursued?”

  “No. I spent months in the most hideous of peasant dwellings, recovering somehow despite the dearth of proper food or sanitation. When I was well again, I was smuggled into Poland and eventually made my way into Germany and then France. It was nearly a year between the time I left Russia and found my way to your England.”

  “And the Bolsheviks never caught you again?”

  Kuznetsov looked piously to the heavens. “I thank God.”

  “That’s quite a tale,” Drew said, a slight smile touching his lips. “But I must know something. If it isn’t too painful for you to discuss, of course.”

  Kuznetsov made an airy gesture with one hand.

  “I’d like to know,” Drew said, leaning confidentially closer, “how they managed to interrogate you for three days if you and your father and brother were shot the day they took the royal family to Tobolsk and you were buried with them.”

  “That was another time I was taken prisoner,” Kuznetsov said, clearly unfazed. “I was in Minsk in service of His Imperial Majesty, and the Bolsheviki—”

  “No.” Drew held up one hand. “While I am certain the story of your interrogation and subsequent escape is a fascinating one, perhaps it’s best saved for another time.”

  “If one of the sisters from St. Elisabeth’s hadn’t been willing to sacrifice her second-best habit—”

  In spite of his best efforts, Drew couldn’t keep from chuckling, and Kuznetsov drew himself up again.

  “No offense meant,” Drew said. “I was just picturing you disguised as a nun, wimple and all.”

  “If you knew what I’d risked even then for the tsar and his family—”

  “Have you ever even been to Russia?”

  Kuznetsov sighed. “Ah, well, believe what you will. I am indeed a man without a country.”

  “You are a man without shame, I will grant you that much,” Drew said. “No, don’t bother looking tragic. Mrs. Pike isn’t here at the moment.”

  “It grieves me to think you hold such an opinion of me, sir.”

  “You’ll feel a trifle more grieved if you’re hanged, I promise you.” Drew glanced toward the front desk, where the officer who had admitted him was watching with keen, suspicious eyes, and lowered his voice. “Let’s drop this Russian count nonsense, shall we? If I’m going to help you get out of this tangle, I need to know the truth.”

  Kuznetsov stared at him, eyes narrowed. “Why should you help me?”

  “You’re a despicable thief, an outrageous liar, and the most abominable sponge I believe I’ve ever met,” Drew told him, “but I don’t think you’re a murderer. At least I haven’t seen any evidence of it.”

  “That’s something,” Kuznetsov said, brightening.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me who you really are?”

  Kuznetsov shrugged lazily. “Thief, liar, and sponge fairly much covers it, I think. But I rather like to think of myself as a Robin Hood, stealing from the rich what they can well afford to lose, and giving to the poor.”

  “The poor being yourself, I take it.”


  “Call it an entertainment expense if you like,” Kuznetsov said. “As you can tell, Monsieur Pike is not deceived about me in the least. But it pleases madam, his wife, to think she is a great patroness to receive such little flatteries as I am in a position to give, sparing him the need to give them himself. For that he is willing to pay, despite his grumbling. And when we go to visit, I also pay court to our hostesses, such innocent attentions as their husbands have long neglected and cannot be troubled to remember.”

  “That would explain your attentions to Lady Louisa.”

  “But of course. And if in such a place I help myself to a little remembrance here or there, is that not the smallest of remunerations for my excellent services?”

  “I can’t say I recommend your methods, but at least you seem to have reasoned it out to your own satisfaction. Now tell me about you and Lord Rainsby.”

  “I suppose he didn’t care for my . . . borrowing his cuff links.”

  “Stealing them, you mean.”

  Kuznetsov shrugged indifferently. “He left them on the sideboard. I thought he didn’t want them anymore.”

  “Naturally. And what else?”

  “A pearl bracelet that was carelessly left locked in a bureau upstairs.”

  Drew pursed his lips. “And?”

  “The silver letter tray. Four seafood forks. Half a dozen of those gold-plated—”

  “In other words, whatever you could smuggle out without its being missed. Too bad you didn’t get away with those demitasse spoons.”

  Again Kuznetsov shrugged.

  “And is this your usual practice when you go visiting?”

  “Certainly not!” The count’s dark eyes turned stormy. “Only when I am in particular need of cash, and only where I think there is a good chance of not being caught.”

  Drew couldn’t help a low laugh from escaping, not at the man’s petty crimes but at his brazenness. “And when you are caught?”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “It is the merest of accidents. A foolish mistake when packing the bags. A teaspoon fallen unnoticed into the cuff of a trouser or a jacket pocket. A watch so similar to my own, combined with a bit too much port after dinner the night before. Every item, I assure you, I was just about to return with apologies. Surely these things could happen to anyone.”

  “And no one has ever accused you of theft?”

  “Sometimes a small payment is required to smooth down the less agreeable of our hosts, especially when we stay in hotels. From time to time, monsieur scolds and then is scolded by madam for disturbing my rather delicate sensibilities. And then he is made to become more generous with my spending money so I will have no need to create such a scandal when next we go to visit. Such things one must bear, she will tell you readily, when in the presence of great genius.”

  “Lord Rainsby had had enough of this, is that right?”

  “He said nothing to me,” Kuznetsov said, “but I understand he and Lady Rainsby quarreled over whether or not I should be put out of the house. It seems that before they could reach an agreement on the matter, his lordship had his accident. Tragic. Quite tragic.”

  “Is that all the police have against you?” Drew asked. “This quarrel of the Rainsbys?”

  “To my knowledge, yes. And that anyone in or out of the house could have tampered with his saddle.” There was a wounded look in the Russian’s expression. “Also because I am not British.”

  “And you didn’t kill him? Just so you didn’t lose your nice cozy berth with the Pikes?”

  “I did not.”

  Drew studied his face for a long moment. For once, he felt as if the man was telling the truth. “Very well,” he said, standing. “I’ll do what I can to find out what really happened to Lord Rainsby. I owe the family that much.”

  “Ah, yes.” There was something sly, something like amusement in the Russian’s eyes now. “A fine family, no matter how one might be attached to it.”

  To Drew’s surprise, it was Sergeant Shaw who unlocked the cell and walked with Drew out of the station.

  “I thought escorting visitors would be left to the lowly constables,” Drew said, looking about to see if Ranald was within hearing distance.

  “I heard you’d come to see Kuznetsov.” Shaw also peered down the hallway. “Just between two private citizens, I can’t say I agreed with the inspector on his arrest. Not much of a motive, if you ask me. But once it got about that the accident was no accident, most likely, I suppose he felt he had to show that those in his department weren’t sitting about doing nothing.”

  “Seems a poor reason for depriving a man of his liberty,” Drew said. “Not that this particular man might not deserve to be deprived of his liberty for a certain period, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “No.” They were at the street door now, and once more Shaw looked about. “Look here, Mr. Farthering, unless and until there is further evidence that proves otherwise, the inspector is satisfied he has his man and has assigned me to work other cases. Me, I’m not so satisfied.”

  “So, what do you have in mind?” Drew asked. “Perhaps an informal exchange of ideas?”

  “Two private citizens, say, simply discussing the day’s news?” Shaw looked indifferent. “Might be done. In strictest confidence, mind you.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Are you familiar with Gullane, sir?” the sergeant asked.

  “Not really. I’ve walked about a bit with my wife and our friends, been out to Muirfield.”

  “There’s a pub not far from the course, The Brassie and Cleek. Many of our visitors pass it by. Now that’s a great shame, sir, because it’s as fine a place to have a nice chat with a friend as ever I’ve seen.”

  Drew suppressed a smile. “I was there quite recently, in point of fact. Is there any particular time you’d recommend?”

  “Hard to say. It’s quiet most evenings. Now and again there’s a Friday or Saturday worth a chance visit. At least that’s when I go, if I go at all. But I think tonight or tomorrow night might be the ideal time. I’ve always found that about seven o’clock things start to get interesting.”

  “Well then, I’ll have to give it a try this evening. I don’t think I’d be able to wait till tomorrow.”

  The sergeant nodded. “I wager you won’t be disappointed, sir. Don’t forget, The Brassie and Cleek, just off the main road.”

  Madeline peeped into the dress-shop window, admiring a shell-pink dress with puffed sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. She tugged Carrie’s arm.

  “Isn’t that darling? It’s just a little day dress, probably cotton, but it’s so sweet. Nick would love you in that.”

  Carrie put a hand to her red-gold curls. “You know I can’t wear pink. Too bad it’s not white.”

  “What about those?” Madeline pointed out a pair of cream-colored pumps sprinkled with a rainbow of polka dots. “You should get those.”

  Carrie’s somber expression didn’t change. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not. No one could possibly be unhappy wearing shoes like that.”

  One corner of Carrie’s mouth twitched. “I’m not so sure that’s true. Besides, what would I wear them with?”

  “Anything you want. Whatever you choose, there’s got to be a dot on them that matches it.”

  “Now you are being silly.”

  “All right,” Madeline admitted, “you couldn’t wear them to a formal occasion, but they’d be lovely for afternoon tea or shopping or nearly anything. They’d be perfect for a summery cream-colored linen dress.”

  “I can tell you already they would be too big for me. I can never find shoes that fit.”

  “Maybe they have another pair inside.” Madeline gave her friend her most appealing look. “Please. Just try them on.”

  “They won’t fit, I promise you.”

  “All right. If they don’t fit, I won’t say anything else about it. If they do, you have to get them.”

  She led Carrie into the shop. T
he freckle-faced girl who waited on them was no more than fifteen, and she had such a thick Scottish accent it was hard to understand her most of the time. But once she had sat them down and made much of Carrie’s “wee darlin’ foot” and lamented she herself had feet “like a great dray horse,” she disappeared into the shop’s back room to see what was in inventory.

  “She’s not going to have any that fit,” Carrie said, getting up so she could look around.

  Madeline joined her. “Then we’ll have some made for you. My treat.”

  Carrie scoffed. “That would take forever.”

  “Good. Then you’ll have to stay with us a while longer.”

  Carrie made a great show of looking at a pair of long black gloves.

  “You don’t really want to leave, do you?” Madeline asked. “Not really.”

  Carrie only shrugged, not meeting her eyes.

  “I know you love Nick. Don’t say you don’t.”

  Carrie didn’t answer.

  “He’s crazy about you. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Carrie still said nothing, unfastening and refastening a tiny jet button on one of the gloves as she stared out the shop window. Then her fine brows knit. “Isn’t that Mr. MacArthur?”

  Madeline looked out the window and saw the man walking on the other side of the street. “Turn this way a little,” she urged. “Pretend we’re looking at this dress.”

  As she spoke, a woman turned from where she had been looking through magazines at the newsstand across the way. Young and fair-haired, dressed in a tailored dark skirt and jacket that did not quite conceal her curvaceous figure. It was the girl they had seen twice at Muirfield, once with MacArthur and once with the man they had assumed was a caddie.

  There was something purposeful, even grim, about her expression when she walked to MacArthur’s side and spoke to him. Something in his reply must have pleased her, because the sunniest of smiles bloomed on her face as she leaned up and kissed him. Then she took his arm, looking up at him in almost-worshipful bliss. A moment later they had reached the corner and were gone from sight.