Service of the Heir: An Edinburgh Murder (Murray of Letho Book 3)

by Lexie Conyngham

  ‘What is the matter?’ asked Patrick, as though from an unbelievable distance.

  ‘Drink this, sir,’ Robbins urged, his voice seemingly inside Murray’s head, echoing, ‘Drink this, drink this ...’

  ‘Dundas has been arrested,’ said Murray aloud. And to himself he added, ‘Is it over?’

  When Robbins finally saw Patrick Armstrong out, he went slowly downstairs to the basement, carrying Mr. Armstrong’s brandy glass. He had left the rest of the bottle with the master: there were times that even a man as straitlaced as Robbins felt that a degree of oblivion was appropriate.

  He did not go immediately into the kitchen. Instead he lit a candle from the sconce in the passageway and took it with him to the wine cellar. The door was locked, but a key on his belt fitted the lock, and once inside he locked the door behind him. The cold stone racks were grey lines picked out of the darkness by the candlelight. He went to a little empty barrel at the other end of the small room and sat on it. He balanced the candle on the floor, rubbed his face with his hands, and propped his elbows on his knees, staring into the darkness beyond the candle flame. Had he done all he could? Was his own debt now paid?

  In the kitchen, Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Mack were becoming annoyed.

  ‘Mary, it is your duty to tell me what is going on,’ Mrs. Chambers insisted. It was not the first time she had said it in the past quarter of an hour.

  ‘In my day,’ put in Mrs. Mack, ‘young girls that had any idea of their station showed some respect to their elders. And young girls that didn’t – well, there was a place for them, too. Which I daresay you know,’ she finished sharply.

  ‘Mary,’ Mrs. Chambers began again – it was like one of the parlour games Mary had sometimes seen old Mr. Murray playing in the drawing room with his friends, each topping the previous player’s verse or song. She managed not to smile. ‘Mary, it seems to me that you are spending far too much time alone with the master. He is a young man, and young men are not always – do not always consider propriety before other – things. But you have your reputation to consider.’

  ‘But ma’am, look,’ said Mary. ‘I have rarely been alone with the master, as Mr. Robbins can vouch. There was the one night, as you know, that I took him to the Grassmarket, but even there we were never alone. Ma’am, I am a married woman, and no fresh innocent. I know what young men are like, and can assure you that nothing improper has happened, nor is like to happen. Mr. Murray is indeed a gentleman, ma’am.’ Mrs. Chambers looked as if she were prepared to be convinced, as she had a high opinion of Mr. Murray, if not of Mary. But the problem for Mary was not really accusations of improper behaviour: what lay behind their annoyance was that both Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Mack knew that something was happening in the household, and they did not know what it was. Worse still, they knew that both Mary and Robbins knew, which did not make their ignorant state any more appealing.

  When at last Robbins appeared, his eyes tired, the scene was much the same: Mrs. Mack was pressing with rather more force than necessary hot water pastry for a game pie for Mr. Murray’s supper. Mrs. Chambers had one hand on the table and one against her forehead, fingers entangled in white hair and black cap lace. Mary stood in the middle of the room, hands neatly behind her back, eyes lowered demurely, extraordinary eyebrows at rest. The other servants were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Well,’ said Robbins, breaking the silence, ‘I imagine that you will be interested in the news that my acquaintance brought earlier. It seems that Mr. Dundas of St. Andrew’s Square has been arrested and charged with the murders of Matthew and Andrew Muir, and of our old master.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ cried Mrs. Chambers. The bowl of game pie filling, which Mrs. Mack was holding, slipped and hit the table with a sharp thud. Her little eyes were shocked wide. ‘And is it true?’ She noted without surprise that the news was no news to Mary.

  ‘Mr. Murray believes so. He confronted Mr. Dundas earlier, but then circumstances ... the matter was taken out of his hands.

  ‘Confronted a Dundas himself – the brave man!’ murmured Mrs. Chambers proudly.

  Mrs. Mack picked up her wooden spoon and pointed it at Robbins.

  ‘There’s a good deal going on here we know nothing of,’ she said accusingly. ‘What about you sit yourself down and tell us the whole story?’

  Robbins looked at Mary.

  ‘Aye, why not?’ he said wearily. ‘Mary, what about some tea?’

  It was still too early for supper when the doorbell rang, and Robbins opened it to Mr. Blair. This was a problem: Mr. Blair had been invited for supper, and was, Robbins knew well, a close friend of the master’s. However, what state the master might be in to receive him was not entirely clear. He played for time, carefully draping Mr. Blair’s coat and answering his kind questions while he thought about what to do, but in the end could only make sure he was well ahead of Blair when he entered the study to announce him. The master was making an effort to sit up straight in his low chair, but he had had a while with the brandy decanter. Robbins was impressed when Mr. Murray managed to rise to his feet at Blair’s entrance. He bowed, left, and decided to bring back some hot water and some biscuits, in the hopes of welcoming one gentleman and ameliorating the condition of the other. When he returned, Blair was already comfortably in the opposite chair, Squirrel’s head on his lap, and chatting mildly, quite as though the master were not slumped in front of him, eyelids sagging. Robbins crossed the room to close the curtains before he left again, half-noticing a lonely figure dark on the edge of the lamplight outside. He hoped it would not be another caller.

  ‘I assume, then, that you have heard the news?’ Blair asked at last.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Murray. His own voice seemed to come from a great distance, but if he concentrated hard and did not try anything too complicated, his enunciation was quite clear. ‘I can’t decide if it’s good or bad.’

  ‘You said in your note you were to visit him. What happened? Of course, this is why I am come before due time for supper, for which I must apologise.’ Blair smiled happily, his watery eyes wide and trusting.

  ‘I confronted him,’ said Murray. If he stayed still he could persuade himself that his head was clearing. He was ashamed of his own lack of manners, greeting a guest like this. He tried to wave a hand towards biscuits, which had appeared, and Blair understood and helped himself. Blair was wearing a grey coat and a red and gold waistcoat: in the dim light he blurred at the edges and the waistcoat stood out like a fire.

  ‘I confronted him,’ Murray began again, ‘and he laughed at me. He thinks it was John Douglas who visited Dandy Muir, and so he gave Balneavis the information to blackmail Douglas. I feel responsible for so much.’ He was not sure he had managed the word ‘responsible’ and thought for a moment. ‘Harry and Lady Sarah would not leave the room, and I felt awkward and useless and by the end of the conversation he was reassuring me that I would still be invited to dinner.’ At that, Blair scowled, his face in a contorted squeeze like a face in clay crushed while still wet.

  ‘He admitted the murders?’

  ‘He admitted, freely, to bringing the scaffolding down on Matthew Muir, but says that my father’s death was an accident which he did not notice until later. He admits to sending his thug of an Irishman to kill Dandy. But he will not admit to killing Jamie or to having him killed. And he has not been arrested on that charge. What am I to tell Jamie’s parents?’

  ‘When you left, do you say that Dundas was quite comfortable with these terrible admissions?’ Blair asked, curiously.

  ‘Well, yes.’ Murray managed to pull himself up in his chair a little. ‘But then something startling happened.’ And he told Blair about the arrival of Miss Gordon and Ebenezer Hammond. With his head in its present state, he was beginning to wonder if it was a dream. Blair’s face wriggled with passing emotions as he listened to the whole account.

  ‘And you say Lady Sarah left with Miss Gordon? And Harry, too?’

  ‘Before, really.
But it was to Miss Gordon’s they were going.’

  ‘Interesting – and very good, very good. You see, you have probably heard ... but I suppose you may not have. It is not a secret, but few talk of it now – that after Willie Jack was born, Lady Sarah lost a fourth child. She was advised to have no more children, for the birth had been difficult, but the child lived a few months. It was a daughter, Catherine. It was around then she began to be what she is now, a withered, shrunken thing, with little of her former beauty. And she was lovely. I think we who know them have always thought, although perhaps we were wrong, who is to say? that Dundas never properly allowed her to mourn for this lost child. She had always wanted a daughter, but Dundas’ wife was never allowed to be anything less than charming and elegant and amusing. I don’t believe he ever realised the harm he had done her. They have spent much, I understand, on doctors, but I think if she had just been allowed to talk about it, it would have helped. The boys were too young to understand, of course, although I notice now that Harry in particular is paying her the attention she has always deserved.’

  Murray’s gaze wandered, taking in the information, thinking of Lady Sarah’s rush to the door when she knew she at last had somewhere to go. Good for Miss Gordon: she seemed to have seen in an instant what he had never realised.

  ‘And of course Ella Armstrong will be an excellent daughter to her,’ Blair went on.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes, hadn’t you noticed?’

  Trust Blair, Murray thought: he never misses anything. As if to prove his point, Blair added,

  ‘I see young Henry Scoggie has written to you.’

  Murray managed to focus on Henry’s letter, still lying on the table.

  ‘Oh, yes. I hope it’s nothing urgent.’ He pulled himself to his feet, reached for the letter with long arms, and sat down hard again.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ Blair encouraged him. Charles slid his finger under the wax, and unfolded the letter.

  ‘Dear Mr. Murray,’ it began. The ink was hard and black, and made Murray blink. ‘We have arrived safely. I feel better now but I know I have to write to you, because I need to tell you something I should have told you but was too scared to when I was still in Edinburgh. You see, I was feeding my ferrets in the stable ...’ The letters were harsh and mobile on the page, and Murray closed his eyes, feeling queasy. He heard a noise in the hall, and tried to open them again. ‘... saw her killing Jamie. I couldn’t have stopped her ...’ This made no sense. He heard the parlour door open, and hoped that it was not yet Robbins to announce supper.

  Afterwards he did not remember opening his eyes again, but thought he had seen a flash of metal in the firelight and heard a sweep of more cloth than Robbins usually wore. At the same instant there was a tremendous thump as Blair, mysteriously airborne with a look of horror on his face, thudded into the side of Murray’s heavy chair in an apparent effort to tip it over. It was sturdily built, and Blair fell back, knocking into something large and soft which became involved with him on the floor. There seemed to be a great deal of grey cloth in a heap. Murray stood up uncertainly, stupefied. The heap undulated and shook, but Murray had not clearly seen what had happened and could not tell what was Blair and what was not. Squirrel, however, had better sense – and a clearer head. Nipping into the confusion, she inserted her long nose amongst the cloth and pulled out, by the wrist, a plump hand clutching a pair of scissors. She gripped hard – there was a squeal from the heap. Almost without thinking, Murray leaned down and prised the scissors away, and at last Blair’s face appeared, quite red, with his wig indecently askew. He kicked aside some legs and pushed at a plump grey rump, and took Murray’s hand to pull himself up.

  ‘Thank you, dear boy, that was useful. Now, Squirrel, drop, my girl!’ Squirrel obediently let go of the wrist she was still holding, but stayed where she was, between Blair and Murray. ‘Now, if we hold between us ...’ They took an elbow each of the still-struggling figure, manoeuvring it on to the nearest low leather chair to find, on investigation behind the tipped bonnet, that it was Mrs. Balneavis.

  ‘Madam!’ said Murray in surprise. ‘Should we call for a maid?’

  ‘I do not think that she would wish us to,’ said Blair, holding Mrs. Balneavis’ hands down on the arms of the chair. ‘Please, Charles, if you could in some way secure her feet – I fear she has my legs quite pummelled.’ Murray fell to his knees to seize Mrs. Balneavis’ large, booted feet, but at that point she chose to relax and sit back, breathing heavily. Blair poured her some brandy, and she took a sip.

  ‘I’m not supposed,’ she said, clearly making an effort to control her breathing, ‘not supposed to get excited, you know.’ She smiled up at them both, as if making a social call. Blair straightened and organised his wig. Murray, feeling slightly sobered, began to think that this was a scene too improbable to exist in real life. He sat, with a hand on Squirrel’s collar, stroking her head. She seemed amenable, but kept a close eye on Mrs. Balneavis. He looked down at the scissors in his other hand. They seemed to be the same ones that the Balneavis girls had been using in their dress-making the last time he had been in their flat, when the furniture was covered in velvet fluff the colour of blood.

  He looked back at Blair and Mrs. Balneavis. They seemed to be waiting for him.

  ‘How did you get in?’ he asked at last, feeling he could face the answer to that one.

  ‘By your front door,’ said Mrs. Balneavis. ‘I was waiting outside. The lock is broken. It has been for some time.’

  Blair looked at Murray.

  ‘It is true,’ Murray confirmed, thinking back. ‘Why on earth did you attack us?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said comfortably, ‘that is easy. You see, you are the only two that know about poor Mr. Balneavis and the money he makes from people with secrets. You told him you would not tell anyone unless he did it again, and he has not, yet’ She stretched her feet out to the fire, enjoying its luxury. ‘So I followed you, and waited until I could catch one or both of you. When I saw it was both of you, I thought I should kill you first, Charles, because then I should have the element of surprise, and Mr. Blair is older. I am sorry, you know,’ she said, ‘for I like you both very much, and I do not like killing people, but it had to be done, and I was the one to do it. I thought the scissors would be quick, and you would not feel much. I really wanted you to marry Margaret, but I don’t suppose you will want to, now.’ She sighed, and a tear began to trickle down her plump face. Murray, however, was looking at her feet. Her boots were newly mended and sharp. He looked about: Henry’s letter, which had seemed so unlikely only a moment ago, was on the floor. He snatched it up and glanced quickly down the stark black lines.

  ‘Why did you murder Jamie?’ he asked, almost without realising.

  ‘Jamie? Was that his name?’ She took out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes, which were filling rapidly. ‘Your stable lad, yes? Well, he was the first one. I had never, ever, killed anyone before.’

  ‘But why Jamie?’

  ‘Mr. Balneavis had seen a lad notice him in the Cowgate one evening, while he was following John Douglas. Someone had told him Mr. Douglas would be worth following, so he did. Well, it worried him, for the boy looked knowing and bright, but he did not know him and for some time he did not see him again. But on the day of your father’s funeral, he and Mr. Thomson and Mr. Dundas were there early and they went round to the mews to see your stables, and while they were there, Mr. Balneavis saw your stable lad. Well, he recognised him and reckoned – was quite sure, in fact - that the stable lad had recognised him, too. When the children and I arrived for the funeral, he told me, and of course we realised that he would have to die, before he said anything to you. We need you or someone like you to marry our daughters, you must know, and I do so wish to see Margaret settled before ... But you see we could not afford to bribe your lad. Mr. Balneavis said he would do it, but I said no, for a great deal of the matter was my fault, and anyway it wouldn’t affect me in the same way. So
when the gentlemen had gone to the burial, I went out and did it.’ She swallowed very hard at this point, and sobbed freely. ‘I did not realise that he was so young!’ There were more tears. Murray tried hard not to think of Mr. and Mrs. Paterson.

  ‘But how did you leave the drawing room for so long, and how return?’ Blair had clearly been worrying about this point.

  ‘The privy,’ Mrs. Balneavis explained, through her handkerchief. ‘I went to the privy, locked the door on the drawing room side and went through the other door into the bedchamber, then down the main stairs and out the front door. I had my scissors with me and I broke your front door lock, so that I could get back in again without having to attract the servants. I hope you would not yet have fixed it so that I could return this evening. Then I went back in through the privy again.’

  She blew her nose hard, waiting for their reaction. Murray stared at her.

  ‘You are wondering what to do with me,’ she said at last. ‘I know that. It does not matter in the end, for my heart is weak and the doctor says I will not last to see the summer. I should just like to have seen maybe one daughter married before that. But to make a good match you need good money and a good character. So you see how we were fixed.’

  Murray looked over her head at Blair, and then pressed his hands hard across his face. He could not bear this. He felt as if he would have to face murderers again and again until he found the right response to make. He thought of Jamie, and of Jamie’s parents. He thought of Margaret, and of her rosy brothers and sisters, brought up to marry above their income, to expect more than they could afford. He thought of John Douglas, lesser victim of this couple who seemed so happy and healthy and open. Were they really rotten to the core?

  Blair touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him away from Mrs. Balneavis, leaving Squirrel to watch her.