Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Yes,’ I said, stouter still. ‘She could have got a fright from something she imagined. Easily.’ I drained my glass in a most unladylike way. ‘Or the whole story of the fright and the heart attack could be covering up murder, it’s true. But let’s not jump down that hole until we have to.’

  ‘I still think we could just tell Dr Laidlaw that we know her patient went out and collapsed somewhere.’

  ‘I’d rather find the bag and not get Regina into trouble,’ I said.

  ‘Because if she was unscrupulous,’ Alec persisted, ‘she’d have signed that certificate. Why can’t we at least just ask her about Mrs Addie and see what she says?’

  ‘We can,’ I said. I sat straight up in my chair from where I had been slumping in the aftermath of all our good ideas. Here was the best idea I had had all day. ‘Oh, it’s delicious, of course we can! Well, you can, anyway.’

  ‘Happy to oblige,’ Alec said. ‘But how can I?’

  ‘It’ll be a bit of a performance – laurels galore if you pull it off. What you do is let on to someone – the doctor herself, Tot, Mrs Cronin—’

  ‘The doctor,’ said Alec. ‘Mrs Cronin is far too strait-laced to perform to. Do you know she doesn’t approve of Sunday bathing? Everyone in the Hydro’s supposed to just sit and read the Bible from Saturday teatime through to Monday.’

  ‘Very well, the doctor then. And tell her that an apparition came to you in the night. A Mrs A—. That her spirit is troubled. That she is cold and she needs her clothes. That there is something she wants her dear son and daughter to know.’

  ‘Good God, Dandy.’

  ‘It’s perfect!’ I insisted. ‘One ghost among so many? What better place than a haystack to claim that you’ve seen a straw of hay?’

  ‘Mother?’ We both jumped. Donald and Teddy were standing just inside the doorway, dressed in the dinner jackets that still made me blink: where were the little boys whose shirts buttoned onto their britches?

  ‘Are there ghosts in the Hydro?’ said Donald.

  ‘Is that why you didn’t want us staying there?’

  ‘But you don’t care if Daddy gets haunted?’

  I could tell them there were no such things as ghosts. I could tell them that the Hydro was unsuitable on account of the illicit casino and that I did not want them growing up to be gamblers like their father in case they had not inherited his luck and ended by ruining us all. Or I could tell them there might be a murderer at large there and that Daddy could take his chances so long as the three of us were safely miles away. None of it cast me in favourable light.

  ‘There seem to be a fair few ghosts floating around, it’s true,’ I said.

  ‘Are you and Mr Osborne going to catch them?’

  ‘Can we help you?’

  ‘There are a fair few ghost stories floating around,’ Alec said, shaking his head at me. ‘Your mother and I are going to catch the rascal that’s spreading them. And you are forbidden to meddle in any way.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ I said.

  ‘Does Father know?’ said Donald.

  ‘Your father doesn’t believe in ghosts,’ I said, hoping that my sleight of hand would go unnoticed. It did not.

  ‘Does Father know about the rascal spreading stories?’ Donald said.

  ‘He doesn’t, as it happens,’ I replied. ‘He has been very ill and needs to rest, like the two of you. Now pour yourselves two small sherries – very small for you, Donald dear, for you’re to have more port after dinner.’ The prospect of strong drink distracted them as I knew it would, and it took the attention of both, for despite the dinner jackets they were still boys and if one was pouring the other would have to watch and see fair measures.

  ‘Well?’ I asked Alec softly. ‘What do you think of my idea? Will you ask Dr Laidlaw in the morning?’

  ‘It’s your turn, strictly speaking,’ he replied. ‘Since I went to the Addies.’ This was not at all my view of it. He had gone to the Addies as a forfeit and his paying a forfeit conferred no debt upon me.

  ‘I can’t say I saw a ghost in the night,’ I whispered. ‘I’m not sleeping there.’

  ‘Say you saw her in the steam room,’ Alec said. ‘Say she came floating through the locked door.’ The mediums in the Turkish bath had said phantasms did not care for steam but the thought of mentioning the door to Dr Laidlaw was enticing. For that reason and to keep from squabbling like the boys over the sherry glasses I threw up my hands in defeat.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I give in. But the next two nasty jobs shall fall to you.’

  8

  Wednesday, 23rd October 1929

  To add as much verisimilitude to my tale as any story which treats of a ghost can ever contain, I had at least to go through the motions. I had to be where I had to be to see what I was going to claim to see. In other words, yet again, I was off to the Russian and Turkish. I made a neat job of folding my clothes, getting practised now, and I handed over my things to Regina like an old hand. She eyed me very warily but I smiled and said nothing.

  ‘Will you be wanting a rub-down, madam?’ she said.

  ‘Not today, thank you,’ I answered. ‘I’m sorry I upset you yesterday, Regina. Here.’ For once, I had thought of tipping before I was stripped of my worldly possessions. The coins went some way towards Regina’s unbending and she managed a bob before she left me.

  I made my way into the cool room and subsided. Unfortunately it was not empty today and if I were going to play out this charade with any amount of thoroughness I would have to make sure of at least a moment alone. Besides, the locked door was not in view from here. After five minutes I stood and passed through to the warm room. From the far end, when the curtains were open, one had a view through the hot room to the sprays and if one leaned over and squinted, I thought one could surely catch a glimpse of the door too. Unfortunately, three of the beds were occupied: it was far too early for the bright young naked things with their nail files and picture magazines, but there were three swathed and solid matrons (on closer inspection, perhaps one solid matron and her two solid offspring, but such was the extreme degree of the swathing one could hardly tell) and so again I settled myself to wait out the shortest plausible time before moving on again. Even at that, one of the solid offspring opened an eye and spoke to me as I rose.

  ‘Rather you than me, dear,’ she said, and then licked the corners of her lips as a drop of moisture, dislodged by her speaking, ran down each cheek and settled there. I was struck again by the way we were all rendered equal, once I had discarded my tweeds and pearls and good silk stockings and she had sloughed off her serge and lisle (to judge by her vowels anyway). I saw the point all at once of nuns’ habits and monks’ cowls and thought how restful it must be. Then I smiled to myself, imagining Grant, across the valley, suddenly shivering and not understanding why. I drew the hot-room curtain to one side and slipped through.

  There was no one in there, I was pleased to see. Neither, however, was there a view of the locked room. Where exactly had I been when I had got a good clear sight of it? I puzzled and then remembered, with a bit of a groan. Of course, I had been sitting on the edge of the plunging pool, trailing my fingers and learning the lie of the land from the doctor. I sat down on the nearest bed, guessing that the ones by the warm-room doorway might be marginally less blistering than the ones at the top end. How far was I willing to take this rigmarole? Since there was no one here I could surely pass through the marble chamber, past the sprays, along the side of the plunge bath and out again. Who was to know? Regina would think it odd that I managed the whole shebang in twenty minutes but only if she saw me.

  I could feel my hair beginning to soften and lie down to die on my head again. If I got out right now and gave it a bit of a blotting with a towel, perhaps I could salvage things. I stood and hurried out and then, in the marble slab room, I stopped. There was Regina, rolling up wet towels from the slab benches, wiping the marble dry and unrolling fresh ones.

  ‘That was quick, Mrs Gilv
er,’ she said. I wondered if I were imagining the arch note in her voice, or if she had come here expressly to see if I were really giving myself over to the heat or if I were up to no good and only faking.

  ‘I far prefer the steam to the dry heat,’ I said grandly, and swept open the etched glass door.

  Of course, I did not prefer the steam heat at all. I loathed all of the rooms and was fast beginning to detest the feel of marble under my feet and the chafe of towelling on my skin, but there was nothing for it now. If Regina was skulking out there to catch me, I was going to have to jump into that dratted icy pool again, and if I was going to freeze myself half to death then I was jolly well going to boil myself up nicely first, hoping to strike a balance that way. Accordingly, I sat in the steam room – all alone: no gossiping ghouls to help the time pass today – until my blood was thumping and my hair hanging in rat’s tails to my chin.

  When I emerged, it was to the clearest possible sign that Regina had indeed been watching me. She was gone, but in her place Mrs Cronin, the matron, had come and was busily fiddling with the roses on the spray baths in the most unconvincing way.

  ‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘You look rather warm.’ Anyone else I should have expected of making fun of me, but Mrs Cronin’s face was set like the marble behind her, her mouth a grim line, her eyes cold stones, her voice a monotone.

  ‘Nothing a dip won’t see to,’ I said. I strode through to the pool, wrenched off my robe and then my courage deserted me. I could not, simply could not, jump in again, not now I knew how bad it would be in there. I walked along to the steps and started down them gingerly. I was out of view of Mrs Cronin but the locked door lay dead ahead of me. Blessing my cowardice, I realised that if a ghost really did come floating through the keyhole, I should see it as plain as day and so I could ‘see’ one as soon as I cared to, before I was in beyond my knees.

  My plan went awry in a way I really should have foreseen. Cringing on the steps, staring at the door, I essayed a little start of surprise, in case Mrs Cronin was peeping at me through one of the Turkish archways. My feet were numb, the steps were slippery, in short, I overbalanced and not only ended up completely submerged in the icy sulphurous depths again but this time I cracked my back on the edge of a stone step too. When I rose spluttering, Mrs Cronin was standing looking down at me, her eyes colder and harder than ever.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I said.

  ‘You slipped, madam?’

  ‘I nearly broke my neck!’ I said. I was dog-paddling back to the steps.

  ‘There is a handrail,’ Mrs Cronin said, just as I reached out for it to haul myself up.

  ‘You didn’t see?’ I asked again. I was out now and sprinting along the side of the pool to the door.

  ‘Here,’ she called after me. ‘Where are you going?’

  I tried the handle and found it locked as I had expected to. Then I whipped round and scanned the room. ‘Does … steam escape from in there?’ I said. ‘I suppose it might have been steam.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Mrs Cronin.

  ‘I could have sworn I saw someone coming out of there,’ I said. ‘But the door didn’t open.’

  ‘Steam, as you say,’ Mrs Cronin said. ‘And you were overheated. Your eyes might have misted over.’

  ‘And what about my ears?’ I demanded. It was only then when I put my hands on my hips to make my point with more force that I realised I was having this conversation quite without clothes. Mrs Cronin was no doubt used to such things, but not I. I faltered, turned away and snatched up my robe.

  ‘How do you mean, madam?’ the matron asked me. ‘Did you hear something?’

  ‘She spoke to me,’ I said. ‘She said she had a message for her daughter and her son. And she said she was cold.’ Mrs Cronin’s eyes were not hard little pebbles now. They looked enormous in her white face.

  ‘Her daughter and her son?’

  ‘Who was it?’ I said. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Mrs Cronin.

  ‘Who?’ I said, opening my eyes very wide.

  ‘No one,’ she said. ‘Regina told me you’d been asking about her. That’s what’s put it in my mind. Nothing else.’

  ‘Mrs Addie?’ I asked.

  Mrs Cronin’s eyes flashed with panic and her face drained of yet more colour until it was grey and wretched. She turned, slipping a little on the wet floor, and blundered away.

  I belted my robe and made my exit calmly. Regina was waiting for me by the cubicles. She held out her hand to give me something and when I caught it I was astonished and, frankly, offended to see that it was my two shillings back again.

  ‘I’ll not be bought, madam,’ she said. ‘I work for Dr Laidlaw and I’m proud to say so.’

  ‘I have no idea what you mean, Regina,’ I said. ‘I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything beyond a tip. But I shall tell Dr Laidlaw what a loyal servant she has in you when I see her. And I shall be seeing her very soon. I have just had an extraordinary experience in the plunging-pool room, one I need to discuss with Dr Laidlaw right away.’

  ‘She’s very busy,’ Regina said.

  ‘Unless you would like to tell me what’s behind that locked door.’

  ‘How did you—’ she said. ‘What locked door?’

  ‘And why Mrs Cronin guessed right first time who might be in there.’

  ‘Is she?’ Regina turned as if she could see into the room. ‘She sometimes goes in there to cry.’ Perhaps it was the after-effects of the cold plunge but to hear this said so matter-of-factly made me shiver.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ I asked. This was quite at odds with Regina’s robust denials of all ghostliness the day before.

  ‘I told you,’ Regina said. ‘I work for her, not you.’

  It took me a moment to understand what she was saying.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You thought I meant Dr Laidlaw was in there?’ She frowned, as confused as I was. ‘I meant Mrs Addie,’ I explained. ‘Her ghost, trapped in that room, behind the locked door.’

  Regina was made of stern stuff and she did not pale or tremble, but only grew very still while she composed her reply.

  ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ she said at last.

  ‘You might be in the minority at the Hydro these days,’ I said, ‘holding hard to that view.’

  9

  It was not difficult to account for the loyalty of Mrs Cronin and young Regina when I entered the doctor’s study moments later in response to her low ‘Come in’. She looked like a child who had been sent to sit in a grown-ups’ toyless room and wait for its punishment there. Her head shrank down between her shoulders when she saw that it was me.

  ‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said, managing a faint smile which did not quite banish the troubled look behind it. ‘I’ve just had a very pleasant talk with one of your neighbours. Did you know he was here? A Mr Osborne of Perthshire.’

  A dozen quick thoughts chased one another around my head like little fish. I did not know whether to admit to knowing Alec or to deny it. Had he claimed acquaintance of me? In spite of our agreement, had he gone ahead for some reason and told the tale of the visiting ghost instead of leaving it to me? If he had, then his handling of Mrs Bowie yesterday paled into oblivion beside this, for Dr Laidlaw had a soft look in her eye when she spoke his name. Thankfully, she wanted the pleasure of saying it again and she went on, not noticing that I had not answered.

  ‘Mr Osborne is very interested in my work here. Rather unusual.’ She lifted a hand to her throat and moved the locket on a chain which sat there. ‘I’m hardly ever lucky enough to have a willing audience these days,’ she said. ‘Since my dear father died. And even he … well, we disagreed. Profoundly. Which made for interesting exchanges but I rarely got the chance simply to air my ideas and see what I thought of them.’

  Bravo, Alec, I thought to myself, understanding now what he had been up to. Quite simply, he had softened the doctor up for me.

  ‘Yes
, he is a pleasant young chap, isn’t he?’ I said. ‘I’ve often thought so when we’ve run into one another at parties.’ That was a nicely judged compromise between an implausible lack of acquaintance – Perthshire is not so populous as all that – and the sort of intimate friendship which would have to be explained. ‘Well, I hope you don’t mind a second interruption of your morning’s work, Dr Laidlaw, but I have a matter of great urgency to discuss with you.’

  She looked at me for the first time then, I think, and looked as a doctor would, taking in my flushed face and dishevelled hair.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Mrs Gilver?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘That is, I would have said so and yet I hope not. It would be much better to put it down to illness really.’

  She had risen and approached me at this less-than-certain assurance and now she laid a hand against my forehead, felt gently under my jaw with the tips of her fingers, and finished by cupping my face in her hands and turning it up to hers, looking very intently into my eyes. It was a curiously intimate gesture, and not one that any doctor had subjected me to before. I looked back at her quizzically.

  ‘Perhaps you’re tired after your disturbed night,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ I said. My sleep had been restless; Bunty, taking her time to get used to the new surroundings, had shifted and snuffled and pawed the counterpane every two hours. I, also still getting used to them, had woken each time and taken much longer than her to settle again.

  ‘The fire drill,’ Dr Laidlaw said. ‘I have no earthly idea why my brother thinks it’s a good idea to have them in the middle of the night. Such confusion, everyone rushing around in their dressing gowns.’

  ‘Have you forgotten, Dr Laidlaw,’ I said, ‘that I’m not staying in the hotel?’ The stricken look she gave me was so far beyond what my mild rebuke deserved that I almost reached out and touched her arm, to try to comfort her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I did. I forgot. I’m so very sorry.’