The Evil That Men Do.(Inspector Faro Mystery No.11)

by Knight, Alanna

  She took Grace from him. ‘There, my darling, hush now. Don’t distress yourself.’

  ‘Mama, you should be resting. Remember what Dr Wiseman said,’ she added with a reproachful look at Faro.

  ‘I’m quite rested, darling. I gather Mr Faro is here to see me. We will talk in the sitting room.’

  Grace regarded her mother’s face anxiously. ‘Are you sure, Mama?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. No, I don’t need you, dearest. Go to the kitchen and get Molly to give you a nice soothing drink. Now, off you go, there’s a good girl.’

  As he followed her upstairs, she said: ‘I am looking forward very much to meeting Rose. Grace tells me she is absolutely charming. I am sure they will be great friends. After all there is little difference in their ages - or so it seems to those of us who are middle-aged.’

  In the sitting room, the door firmly closed, Maud said, ‘Please be seated, Mr Faro. I am most anxious to give you all the help I can to clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding regarding my late husband. I do realise that this is no ordinary enquiry for you either, and it is as painful and as difficult for you as for any of the family. As you know Vince is already like a son to me, the son I never had.’

  She paused to smile at him sadly. ‘That I gather we have in common, for you also lost a son long ago. You must try not to think of us now as your enemies, your suspects, Mr Faro. We are indeed your friends and Vince’s. And if my late husband did not die from the disease we believed was killing him, then we are as eager to co-operate with the law and find whatever, or whoever, ended his life.’

  Up to now Maud had made no impression upon him. At their few meetings, she had seemed something of a nonentity among the bright and shining Langweils. Obedient to her husband’s commands in public, the dutiful hostess, the devoted mother but with little conversation that was not merely a yes or no, an echo of her spouse’s sentiments. A woman not encouraged to suffer original thoughts or express opinions of her own.

  Now he looked at her with new admiration. This was not the widow he had dreaded meeting, devastated, distraught, eternally weeping. Maud Langweil it seemed was one of those admirable women dismissed as frail, spoilt by a lifetime of riches, that men expect to collapse under adversity and are constantly surprised, as he was, that instead they find new fortitude in facing up to life’s tragedies.

  ‘Will you take tea with me?’

  Faro noticed that the tea tray had already been in service and presumably Dr Wiseman had accepted the invitation he now declined. If Mrs Langweil could have read his thoughts and his expression, she would have realised at that moment he would have greeted with enthusiasm something considerably stronger than the China tea on offer.

  ‘Very well.’ Maud sat in the high-backed chair, her face in shadow. ‘What can I tell you, Mr Faro, that would be of help to you? I understand you believe my late husband was poisoned.’

  Chapter Six

  Faro was taken aback by her directness. He suspected that she was mistress of the situation despite Grace’s claim that her mother was too distressed to talk to him. He was also embarrassed, at a loss for the appropriate response. The kind of questions he was used to asking widows, whose husbands had died under very suspicious circumstances and arsenic poisoning, were suddenly quite shocking before this gentle woman whose daughter was to marry his stepson.

  And yet - and yet. In the past had he not conducted just such interviews in just such elegant surroundings with an apparently inconsolable heart-broken widow? Invariably a young widow in the course of investigation revealed as a scheming murderess who had heartlessly watched an old husband die a slow and agonising death. To gain a fortune, or an insurance, or to free her for a waiting lover’s fond embrace.

  Barbara’s face loomed before him in all its unattainable loveliness. The sudden thought appalled him.

  Could there possibly have been a ghastly mistake? Had it been Theodore and not Cedric who was the intended victim?

  Observing Maud Langweil closely as she attended to the tea ritual, her hands were quite steady, and Faro would have found it difficult to doubt that he was regarding an innocent woman.

  He prided himself upon occasional flashes of intuition and decided he would be surprised indeed to discover that Cedric’s widow had secret reasons for wishing to rid herself of an unwanted husband. The whole idea seemed ludicrous, even indecent, to contemplate, especially as she was so eager to befriend his daughter.

  Again he wished he had been able to postpone Rose’s arrival for enrolment at the Academy. The thought of his daughter besmirched by association with the as yet undiscovered murderer in the Langweil household was sickening, intolerable.

  As if interpreting his discomfiture, Maud asked: ‘I suppose the question that is framing itself in your mind and that you are too polite to ask is the obvious one: were the relations between my late husband and myself quite amicable?’

  Her casual tone took him aback, especially as she paused with the teacup halfway to her lips and said: ‘Isn’t that what you really are here to find out? If we were happy together?’

  Faro took a deep breath: And were you?’

  ‘Indeed we were. The best of friends and comrades as well as having a marriage as harmonious as most of our friends’ after twenty years.’

  When Faro frowned, she again interpreted his thoughts. ‘Perhaps that answers the next question you are too much of a gentleman, outside your professional capacity, to ask: Did Cedric have a mistress?’

  Looking towards the window, she smiled as if at a sudden vision. ‘He may in the way of many gentlemen who belong to private clubs and societies have had access to ladies of a certain profession.’ Her shrug was eloquent. I never enquired, nor had I any desire to know of such occasions, A man is a man, Mr Faro, and we women are brought up to realise that such small indiscretions are part of their nature but have naught to do with destroying the structure of an otherwise happy marriage.’

  She shrugged. ‘We are taught to tolerate such matters and ignore them. Lusts of the moment and nothing more, Mr Faro. With as little lasting effect as the gratification of appetite. Which in fact, as a man, you must recognise is all that it is—’

  Faro was saved the further embarrassment of a reply to this forthright condemnation of his sex’s morals by a tap at the door.

  ‘Mama?’ Grace looked in anxiously. Are you able to see Madame Rich? Or shall I ask her to come back later?’

  ‘No, my dear. Tell her I will see her. If Mr Faro will excuse us. Madame Rich is our dressmaker,’ she explained. ‘We have certain requirements for mourning attire - and orders that must now be postponed for Grace’s spring wedding,’ she added with a small sigh.

  Faro held open the door for her, and she turned to him anxiously. ‘I do apologise, Mr Faro, for I have not answered all of your questions.’

  As they descended the stairs, she added: ‘Do please come again if you think I can help you in any way.’

  At the front door, she extended her hand. ‘I can only assure you of one thing. That my husband loved me, and his daughter. A good father and husband, a splendid employer - everyone who met him and knew him will tell you that. I can think of no earthly reason why anyone should wish to murder him. Certainly not in this household.’

  Since the time of Cedric’s death pointed to the fatal dose of arsenic having been administered in Priorsfield, Faro was thankful that he did not have to interview the servants.

  Walking briskly down Princes Street in the direction of the High Street and the Central Office, he heard rapid footsteps behind him.

  It was Sergeant Danny McQuinn. ‘Been interviewing the sorrowing widow, sir?’

  McQuinn’s words made Faro wince. Words that were all too often used mockingly in the Edinburgh City Police.

  ‘I was in the servants’ hall. Heard you leaving.’

  ‘You didn’t waste much time. Anything to report?’

  McQuinn shook his head. ‘Think she’s guilty?’ he asked eagerly. ‘Tric
ky situation for you, sir, going to be a relative by marriage and so forth. No doubt you have a reluctance—’

  Faro ceased walking and regarded the young sergeant sternly. ‘I have no reluctance, McQuinn. If she damned well poisoned her husband then she’s as guilty as any common murderer. And she’ll suffer the same fate if I can prove it,’ he added angrily, and proceeded to walk faster than ever.

  ‘Your stepson’s future mother-in-law, Inspector?’ McQuinn’s long stride kept an easy pace with him. ‘Now that would create a sensation in the police, wouldn’t it now?’

  McQuinn laughed, then, perhaps taking pity on Faro’s agonised expression said: ‘But you don’t really think she’s guilty, do you? Nice lady like that. If it consoles you, no one below stairs would believe it either. They think the world of her. And of the master, as they call him.’

  ‘What else did you find out?’

  McQuinn sighed. ‘Not a lot, sir. On this visit, I thought it tactful to take refuge in a little subterfuge.’

  ‘What kind of subterfuge?’

  ‘Lies, Inspector,’ McQuinn said cheerfully. ‘But like all the best distortions of fact, based on a core of truth. As you know there are always burglaries in this area. Not too difficult to invent a cache of objects found near their basement. Worked a treat. All the maids were suitably impressed. No, there was nothing missing of that description from their establishment’

  Again McQuinn laughed. ‘And I would have been the most surprised man on earth if there had been. However, there wasn’t much point in prolonging the visit seeing it was Priorsfield where their master died.’

  And taking out the handsome silver timepiece which McQuinn proudly boasted was ‘a parting gift from my Glasgow colleagues’, he added: ‘Looks as if I have just enough time to present the robbery story to the servants there. With a bit of luck, I’ll have more vital information from them. In fact, if I look sharpish, the Musselburgh train passes the gates.’

  ‘Papa! Over here.’

  Faro turned and there was Rose clutching her bonnet against the shrill wind blowing up the Waverley Steps, and thereby affording, in her descent from the horse-drawn omnibus, a glimpse of slender ankles.

  One look at McQuinn’s amused face told Faro that he was suitably impressed by this revelation as breathlessly Rose rushed to her father’s side.

  ‘I am meeting Grace.’ And smiling at McQuinn, she held out her hand. ‘Hello.’

  Aren’t you going to introduce me, sir?’ said McQuinn, smiling delightedly.

  ‘Introduce yourself,’ laughed Rose. ‘We are old friends.’

  ‘We are?’ McQuinn, plainly embarrassed, looked quickly at Faro and then to Rose and back again.

  ‘Don’t you remember? You once rescued me from probable death or dishonour when a silly French maid had mislaid me on the way from the Castle. Emily and I never did discover whether we were about to be abducted,’ she added with a shiver. ‘And Grandmama had wicked thoughts about white slavers.’

  Gradual enlightenment dawned on McQuinn. ‘But you were - I mean, it was two little girls I found wandering—’

  ‘It was also years ago, when Papa was investigating the case of the baby in the wall of Edinburgh Castle.’

  ‘By all that’s holy, Miss Faro,’ said McQuinn. ‘Sure and who would have thought you’d grow into such a blithe and bonny young lady.’

  As Rose blushed under McQuinn’s appraising gaze Faro decided this had gone far enough. Hailing a passing hiring carriage, he bundled Rose into it with directions to Charlotte Square.

  ‘But, Papa,’ Rose protested. ‘I can walk there. This is nonsense.’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense. And I won’t have you walking about Princes Street, a stranger unescorted.’

  ‘But - Papa—’

  ‘Do as you’re told,’ said Faro, nodding to the driver and slipping him a coin. ‘Now, off you go.’

  Watching them depart, he said coldly to McQuinn: ‘Haven’t you a train to catch?’ And without waiting for a reply, he hurried across the road and over North Bridge, murmuring angrily to himself that the last thing he wanted in his life at the present time was a daughter who was going to need watching.

  Rose was already abed asleep when he returned to Sheridan Place late that evening and found a very gloomy Vince awaiting him.

  ‘We’ve drawn a complete blank. Adrian and I have spoken to all the leading consultants in Edinburgh whom Cedric might have visited. Wiseman put in an appearance at the surgery, by the way, most anxious to help us. He’d met you at Charlotte Square and was baffled and rather hurt too, I might add. Feels that as a long-standing friend of the family, Adrian and Cedric should have confided in him and not gone above his head to consult another doctor.’

  Vince looked at him. ‘I was going to suggest that you cross Adrian off your list of suspects, then something happened to change my mind.’

  ‘And what was that?’ Faro demanded eagerly.

  ‘As you know he’s a good friend of mine and I thought I was in his confidence. However, Wiseman let slip an important piece of information during his visit. Freda came into the hall as he was leaving and he said: “I believe we are to congratulate you, Mrs Langweil.” Freda blushed and smiled shyly. “I hope so.” Then Wiseman said: “I trust your husband is taking good care of you. After all this long time, we don’t want any problems, do we?” ’

  ‘Well, there wasn’t any doubt in my mind what he was talking about. Freda was pregnant. I’d noticed that she had put on rather a lot of weight recently, but fool that I was and because Adrian never said a word, its possible significance escaped me.’

  ‘When Adrian and I were alone, I added my own congratulations. He apologised for not telling me earlier and added somewhat hastily that as he hadn’t told any of the family yet he would be grateful if I’d keep it to myself. Early days still, and as they’d had a few false alarms. They intended telling the family at Barbara’s birthday party next week.’

  Both men were silent, aware that if Adrian and Freda produced a son, he would inherit the Langweil fortune after Theodore’s death. Only Cedric had stood in the way. And now Cedric was dead.

  ‘So only Adrian and Wiseman knew. You say Wiseman is a long-standing friend of the family?’

  ‘Oh yes. I rather guess from Adrian that the main attraction was Grace. Adrian suspected that he had hopes of her, even teased him a little about it.’

  ‘Surely she was a little young for him.’

  ‘Not really, although she must have been a mere schoolgirl when he first went to the house.’

  I must be getting old, thought Faro. But doubtless that was why Wiseman seemed so embarrassed and discomforted by his presence. Knowing that Faro’s stepson was to marry Grace, he was afraid that the Inspector might be aware of his infatuation for his young patient and that his behaviour towards her was under constant scrutiny, the subject of mocking comment.

  Faro could sympathise, since he was self-conscious as a guilty schoolboy in Barbara Langweil’s presence, certain everyone guessed his feelings for her.

  ‘I presume Grace never gave him any encouragement.’

  Vince laughed. ‘She regards him as a benevolent uncle. That he had any amorous inclinations had never occurred to her, I can assure you.’

  Realising they were slipping away from the vital subject once again, Faro said: ‘As you’ve drawn a blank in Edinburgh with consultant physicians, I wonder if Cedric went elsewhere.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a possibility, Stepfather, but rather like searching for a needle in a haystack. You’re thinking of London - somewhere like that?’

  Vince frowned. ‘I seem to remember he went to Aberdeen rather a lot. Something to do with the whisky business.’

  ‘Then that is perhaps where we will find our missing consultant.’

  ‘I’ll put it to Adrian. See if he comes up with any names.’

  ‘We have to clear this up, lad, make absolutely certain that he was not a dying man, before we can proceed with the possible enq
uiry into a murder.’

  ‘My poor Grace,’ whispered Vince with some feeling.

  To which his stepfather added silently, my poor Vince. For whatever happened, if Inspector Faro succeeded in tracking down whoever poisoned Cedric Langweil, his triumph would shake the entire family to its very foundations and shatter the delicate fabric of Vince’s forthcoming marriage to Grace Langweil.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Vince has been called away to attend a sick child,’ Rose told her father when they met at breakfast.

  Faro was never at his best in the morning, especially when a murder case kept him awake half the night wrestling with theories, sifting through evidence, and discarding improbabilities. Since he was emotionally concerned with Cedric’s death and the outcome, he had fallen into a deep and exhausted sleep at dawn.

  Normally he always claimed he needed his first breaths of fresh air to sharpen his wits. Vince appreciated his stepfather’s approach to each new morning and the two men were normally silent as each read his own mail and their comments were few and only where strictly necessary.

  Rose, who saw her father rarely, was unaware that at breakfast time he was apt to be grumpy. She prattled at a great rate about her plans for the day. Grace was taking her to the shop where she could look at the school uniform and then they were to go on to the Botanic Gardens.

  Faro listened, polite but vague and trying to smile a little, just to please her.

  ‘You will enjoy that. I presume Grace will be calling for you in their carriage.’

  Rose frowned. ‘It is rather out of her way, Papa. I thought I would take the omnibus to Charlotte Square.’ And clasping her hands delightedly, ‘I do so enjoy public transport. We have nothing like that at home. It is quite thrilling—’