'It's me you want, Faro. I'm waiting for you. I've been waiting a long time.'
The face was half-hidden but he recognised the voice.
The two servants screamed again, but Faro had no time to attend to them.
'That's no ghost. And he intends to kill the Queen.'
With no further explanation, Faro plunged out into the mist after Lessing. Other footsteps passed nearby and he seized the man who was rushing towards him.
It was Lachlan Brown.
Chapter Fourteen
'I think I've just seen a ghost,' Lachlan panted. 'Lessing, the footman. Came at me like a bat out of hell. I thought he was dead—'
'He is very much alive, alas. Have you a gun?'
'Yes, but not here.'
'Take this, then.' As Faro handed him the gun, he looked at it doubtfully. 'Can you use one of these?'
'I think so.'
'For God's sake, lad, don't just think. The Queen is in deadly danger and I'm going after Lessing.'
'Where's Johnnie?'
'He's been drugged.'
'Drugged—Johnnie?'
'And the Captains and Mr Gladstone. In the hot toddies.' And cutting short Lachlan's bewildered questions, 'Where's Noble?'
'He took your horse. Said he had an errand. I thought you had sent him—'
Taking Lachlan by the arm Faro ran towards the sitting-room. Opening it cautiously, he was relieved to hear the Queen's voice and Lady Churchill's. Heavy breathing continued to emanate from the slumped figures of Brown and the Prime Minister.
As he had expected there was no key in the lock.
Lachlan watched him as if he had taken leave of his senses.
'Listen. You're to stand guard here. Outside the sitting-room. And do not leave your post. Whatever happens. Do you understand?'
'I wish I did—'
'The Queen is in deadly danger. If Lessing tries to get into that room: Shoot him.'
As he rushed outside, the fog enveloped Faro like a shroud. An unhappy simile, he thought shuddering. Perhaps that was the reason he had hated and feared the fog, that somewhere out there lay his death.
Angry with himself he switched from fear to practicality. How could he find anyone in this murk? He could not stray from the house but it was imperative that he should intercept Lessing, disarm him before he could get back inside. If he failed then only Lachlan stood between the Queen and murder.
He realised with growing horror that he was not ready for this, had never been ready for it. The momentum of events had taken him by surprise. Lessing's plan was brilliantly calculated to seize full advantage of the weather and the Queen's unexpected isolation.
He should have taken into account the cunning of his adversary. He should have stayed one step ahead but even visibility now ended at the garden wall and with it all hopes of taking the murderer by surprise.
From out of the mist every faint sound alerted him that the positions were reversed. Hunter into hunted, pursuer into pursued.
Lessing. The letters jumbled together in his head. Lord Nob's aliases were all anagrams of 'Noblesse oblige', the enigmatic clues to his real identity.
For once Faro had been blinded by his own deduction. By taking coincidence as fact, he had committed the worst transgression of a detective. He had under-estimated the power of his adversary.
He was still considering his next move when he heard Purdie's voice.
'Faro. Faro, I'm over here. Where the devil are you?'
Turning, Faro saw through the gloom the kitchen door open and close. As he raced towards it, expecting to find it bolted against him, it flew open and the muffled cries from inside the pantry indicated that the maids had been locked up again.
His back towards him, Lessing was bending over a huddled form on the floor. Lachlan Brown.
'Did you need to do that?'
Lessing turned round. Without the wig and livery jacket, Faro still had difficulty in recognising him as his old adversary from the Case of the Killing Cousins. A man with a hundred faces, the chameleon features of the born actor.
But when he spoke it was in Purdie's voice.
'So we meet again. Hand over your gun, if you please.'
And waving a gun towards the still figure of Lachlan Brown, he urged, 'Come along, Faro. If you tarry, I'll be forced to put a bullet through his head.'
'I am unarmed. I gave him my gun.'
'So that's where it came from. I'm much obliged to you. I need your help—'
'You'll get no help from me—'
Lessing ignored the outburst. 'But you are the key figure in my drama,' he said reproachfully.
Ignoring that, Faro asked, 'Who is buried in Lessing's grave?'
'Sit down. Do as I say. That's better. How should I know who they buried? Drowning fitted my plan excellently. Craig had already been recruited by our friends and sent here to await "Inspector Purdie's" arrival. A gossip in the local inn was all he needed to find out Purdie's childhood associations with the area, while he kept a sharp lookout for a likely candidate to double as Lessing's poor drowned corpse. The tinkers' arrival for the Ghillies' Ball would doubtless provide a conveniently drunken vagrant roughly my height and size. Unless we were very unfortunate.'
He shrugged. 'The rest was easy. Our last encounter on a clifftop in Orkney has, I am sure, convinced you that I am a swimmer of considerable ability, with a talent for survival. Indeed, I was once awarded a medal for life-saving.'
His laugh was without humour. 'Life-saving, Faro. Is that not capital, considering your present circumstance? But I digress. Craig had dry clothes ready and a corpse awaiting my swim downstream. When Morag saw her ring on his finger, she was certain to reel from closer examination of features battered beyond recognition. Meanwhile Craig kept me conveniently hidden in an empty cottage until it was time for Morag to leave us.'
'Did you have to kill the girl too?'
'I am afraid so. She was becoming burdensome. I did not much like being followed or the prospect of being father to her child. The idea of luring her to the mill and transporting her body on to Brown's doorstep, as it were, appealed to me.
'Surely you get the picture, Faro. That it was absolutely essential for someone at Balmoral to be murdered so there would be a police investigation requiring the skills of the bogus Inspector. We had to have a murder suspect and we both know how eagerly the local police would seize upon Lachlan Brown. Especially when that ridiculous custom of Scots marriage and the anonymous and highly suspicious annuity, which we had so generously arranged, became known. The Prince's Party leave nothing to chance and their forged papers are a credit to them. We even killed the Queen's spaniels in case they raised the alarm about the bogus footman.'
'Who are these people?' Faro interrupted.
'That, I am not at liberty to disclose. Not even to you. Faro, as your dying wish—'
'Is the Prince involved?'
'Bless your innocence. Faro. Can you see the future King of England condoning regicide—not to mention matricide. After all, this is the nineteenth century, we are supposed to be civilised.'
Again the laugh that accompanied his statement chilled Faro's blood.
'As far as His Royal Highness knows, we are a bunch of harmless fanatics, worshipping at the shrine of his popularity.'
'And the real Inspector Purdie?' asked Faro, eager to keep him talking, aware that his one forlorn hope lay in playing for time. And that Lord Nob's vanity and pride in his own cunning were his only weaknesses. He could never resist telling his victims how he had outwitted them.
Before he killed them.
'Our information from a source at Scotland Yard was that the Inspector was to be on a fishing holiday in the north of Scotland. Beard and spectacles were always a problem. I realised that this was a role I could not sustain indefinitely or indeed for more than a few days. And that if you saw me as Lessing, as I appeared to Nessie Brodie as her last visitor, then the game would be up. But see how beautifully it has all fallen into shape. Ev
en Her Majesty has obliged us by her change of plans. I can tell you, it was going to be deuced difficult at Balmoral. But this, my dear Faro, is a walkover. Almost too easy.'
'What about Craig?'
'He had to be disposed of, alas.'
'I know. I found him.'
'You did? When?' A faint shadow crossed Lessing's face.
'This afternoon. The dogs nosed him out in a crevasse on the hill. Where you had shot him. I'd like to know why?'
'He failed to fulfil his early promise and there is no room for mistakes in our organisation. He was supposed to kill you on the hill, make it look like an accident. Instead he fell victim to the second shot. Craig had no finesse. Very useful for stealing things like drugs from the hospital while I kept the good doctors occupied. But behaving like the small-time criminal, stealing money from the main suspect-such behaviour threw our whole operation into hazard.'
He paused, smiling. 'As did your survival of the shooting accident. I decided on a brilliant new role for you, one I had in mind for John Brown originally. For when the Queen is found dead, you will have shot her. And then, alas, taken your own life. Is that not a neat twist? And such a scandal. A pity you won't be able to read about it in all the newspapers.'
'What have you done with Noble?'
Lessing smiled. 'When I rushed out to destroy all evidence of Purdie, I told him the Queen was in danger. He was to go to Ballater for help. He obligingly threw off his wig and livery jacket which were essential for me to play the footman. Poor Noble hates horses. I shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't come to an unhappy end in this weather—'
A clock struck the hour. Lessing looked round uneasily.
'How did—' Faro began.
'No more questions, Faro. I have no more time to give you. Much as I always enjoy pitting my wits against yours, this will be our last meeting. I must confess I'm disappointed in you, Faro. You haven't been very clever this time and now you pay the price of bunglers.'
Even as Lessing pointed the gun, Faro had one final chance. Seizing the skean dhu from his sock, he hurled it.
Lessing staggered, fell. But Faro saw, too late, that the knife had struck his shoulder. He was only superficially wounded. As Faro leaped towards him, Lessing raised the gun, fired once.
The whole world exploded in pain. And as Faro slid slowly to the floor, he saw his own blood oozing from his chest.
So it was all over. All that remained now of the long career of Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro, was the trivial business of dying.
Far away he seemed to hear the drum of hoofbeats, voices, and a door opening. The Queen's voice raised in a shrill scream.
As his eyes closed he had one last wish: that he had been able to discover if Lachlan Brown was truly his own son.
It was one mystery he would never solve, an answer thrown to the winds of time.
For a long while the darkness enveloped him, but when he once more opened his eyes, it was to a small white world bounded by sheets, pillowcases, white walls.
He was in hospital in Beagmill, with Vince bending over him.
'That was a near thing, Stepfather. We thought we were too late—'
'The Queen?' Faro whispered.
'She's in London. Safe and sound.'
'Lessing?'
'Awaiting trial.'
The leaves outside the window were golden.
'How long have I been here?'
'A week.' Vince held up a cigar case, with a neat bullet hole plugged into it. 'If it hadn't been for this, nothing, no one could have saved you.'
And little by little, Vince pieced the story together for him. His messages had reached Aberdeen City Police who had quickly telegraphed Scotland Yard to find the real Inspector Purdie returned from holiday due to a family bereavement. The police had immediately summoned the Gordon Highlanders regiment from the Bridge of Don barracks and it was a small army, hampered by the swirling mist, that Noble met riding towards Glen Muick with Dr Elgin and Vince in their midst.
'We had just returned to the hospital. There'd been a bad accident at a sawmill. We had to do some amputations on the spot. And then that damned mist. Then we got your message.
'I shall never forget the scene at Glasalt, Stepfather. Never. Like the last act of Hamlet with a touch of the Sleeping Beauty's Palace. Lessing was taken prisoner. He's awaiting trial. It will be a sensation—'
'Lachlan Brown?'
'Nothing but a dunt on his head. Seems he put up a good fight though. He's gone to London with John Brown. Using Saul Hoy's legacy to study music.'
Faro nodded. He was unlikely to meet the lad again. It was just as well. But the boy's mother hadn't quite finished with him.
Vince was telling him, 'Inga has been in regularly each day to see you and so have Great-aunt and Tibbie. All the flowers are theirs.'
'I expect Aunt Bella was very upset about Uncle Ben's cigar case?'
'On the contrary, she's delighted. You can imagine the story she's making of that. And his skean dhu. His Uncle Ben reached out from the grave to save his favourite nephew.'
'Why is Inga still here?'
'She wanted to see you well again. And she's still hoping for a housekeeper's situation. She'll be back later this evening.'
Vince paused reflectively. 'I was just thinking. The problem with our Mrs Brook and her ailing sister. We could solve it by having Inga as our housekeeper—'
'We could, lad. But I think we won't.'
Vince looked at him intently. 'Then I will refrain from asking why not. Stepfather. Because if I tried very hard I might rightly guess your private reasons for such a decision.'
Faro was grateful for the sudden change of subject when Vince said, 'Tell me, how did you get on to Lessing being Purdie?'
'I almost didn't. Until too late. I should have seen it earlier. Purdie who had grandparents in the area and had stayed here as a child but was ignorant about the skean dhu and Scots marriage customs. But I was blinded by working with a distinguished Scotland Yard detective and by the
damnable coincidence that the name 'Noble' fitted 'Noblesse oblige' to perfection.
'It was Aunt Bella's story of the real Purdie's missing fingers that gave me the clue. A boy who loses fingers in childhood from his right hand will almost certainly begin to use his left. But Lessing was instinctively right-handed.
'But it wasn't until after he rescued me from the water that night that I realised that, without his gloves, he had two whole, strong hands. It must have irked him not to let me go, but in front of so many witnesses...'
'I imagine he saw that making you feel beholden to him was a marvellous move,' said Vince. 'How could you then ever suspect the truth?'
In the post came a letter from Buckingham Palace. It was from the Queen herself commending Inspector Faro's bravery.
'It appears I am to be presented with a medal,' he told Vince and putting aside the letter, he began to laugh, choking, helpless.
'What is it, Stepfather?' Vince demanded in alarm.
Faro was remembering the last thing he had heard before he lost consciousness in Glasalt.
Brown, with a stronger head than most, had been groggily awakened by the sound of a shot. The Queen, her card-playing disturbed by the ensuing uproar, had stamped out into the corridor, observed her favourite ghillie swaying into the kitchen and was shrilly demanding:
'Brown, are you bashful again?'
###
There are fifteen titles in the Inspector Faro series available from bookstores and on www.amazon.co.uk. Available on Kindle:
Enter Second Murderer
Bloodline
Deadly Beloved
Killing Cousins
A Quiet Death
To Kill A Queen
Also available on Kindle in the Rose McQuinn series:
The Inspector’s Daughter
Dangerous Pursuits
An Orkney Murder
Connect with Alanna online:
Author's homepage: http://www.alannaknight.com<
br />
To Kill a Queen (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.6) Page 17