Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Are you really saying – all of you – that you would remain under suspicion yourselves to protect . . . whoever it is?’ I said. ‘Everyone? No one will speak up?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘It’s not that bad. At least, for me it’s not. I don’t know who it was.’ There was a murmur of agreement to this point. ‘But I don’t care who it was either.’ At this the murmurs rose almost to a cheer.

  ‘And that’s enough,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘Phyllis, where are you going in that hat, eh? What’s his name and what does his dada do?’

  Phyllis giggled, John took up the tease with gusto and the rest went on wolfing their food or picking at it as their habits or current moods took them.

  Presently, Mr Faulds turned to me.

  ‘Miss Rossiter,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’d be so kind as to go through to the kitchen and get the pudding. Mrs Hepburn looks dog-tired and we like to help each other. Clara, you go too and fetch in a pot of tea.’

  I had only half cleared my plate of mutton but I had no appetite for the rest of it and so I rose and followed Clara out of the room. She walked stiffly, quite unlike the easy, willowy girl who had greeted me at the area door less than a day ago.

  ‘Are you feeling any better?’ I said to her as we entered the kitchen. Clara took a cigarette out of her apron pocket and held it against the hot bar of the range to light it.

  ‘Better than what?’ she said, putting the cigarette to her lips. ‘Want one?’ I shook my head.

  ‘Eldry said this morning you were indisposed.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘That. Aye, well, it wasn’t a good time for me to go into his room, that’s all.’

  ‘Forgive me, dear, but what do you mean?’

  Clara gave me a shrewd look out of her little eyes.

  ‘I’d have put you down for a woman of the world, Miss Rossiter,’ she said. ‘I’d have put money on Miss being just for politeness like Mrs Hepburn is.’ She drew deeply on her cigarette and blew out the smoke in three long plumes. ‘Phyllis and Eldry and me took turns of when we had to go into his room, that’s all. To make sure we wouldn’t come away with no wee souvenirs, see?’ I could feel myself blushing.

  ‘Good grief!’ I said, and then a fresh thought struck me. ‘Phyllis told me that she had escaped his attentions.’

  ‘She was lucky,’ said Clara. ‘She never got caught by him in one of his moods. Don’t ask me why, because . . . I’m not meaning to be nasty but if he went for Eldry he’d go for any— . . . Well, I don’t want to be nasty. It must have just been the luck of the draw. He’d have got her in the end.’

  ‘But why didn’t you stop going altogether? Harry could have stepped in, surely? Why didn’t you tell Mr Faulds and ask him— Well, no, probably you wouldn’t have cared to tell Mr Faulds, but why not Mrs Hepburn?’

  Clara laughed a bitter laugh. ‘Aye, why not just tell everybody everything, eh?’ she said, and the way she spoke reminded me of Harry; the same troubled confusion on her face and in her voice too. There was surely more here than she had hinted at so far.

  ‘I do think,’ I said carefully, ‘that perhaps the worst of what master did was managing to make everyone else ashamed instead of himself.’ Clara looked up sharply at me. ‘To make everyone keep his grubby little secrets for him.’ I paused and smiled at her, trying not to look as though I were holding my breath, waiting. Clara’s cigarette burned forgotten in her hand, the ribbon of smoke rippling a little in the waves of warmth from the stove.

  ‘You’re right, Miss Rossiter,’ she said, speaking in a soft and wondering sort of voice. ‘That’s just exactly right, the way you said it.’

  ‘When in fact you have nothing to fear from speaking of your troubles to your friends,’ I said. ‘They all knew him. They know the fault was his and you did nothing wrong.’

  With this, though, I had gone too far. Clara came out of her dream with a harsh intake of breath and blinked at me.

  ‘Did I not now?’ she said. ‘If only.’

  ‘You mean you did do something?’

  Clara laughed again but there was no humour in it.

  ‘I didn’t stick a knife in him if that’s what you mean. You don’t really think that, do you?’

  Before I could answer there was a knock on the half-open kitchen door and Mattie put his head around it.

  ‘Mrs Hepburn says she’s not chivvying you and to say sorry and something else I’ve forgotten, but John and Harry are ready for their puddings, so I’ve come to get them.’

  ‘You don’t need to knock at the door, daftie,’ said Clara. She jumped down from the table where she had been perching and gave her cigarette to Mattie to finish. Then she seized a cloth, opened the oven and drew out a steaming dish of rice pudding bubbling away merrily under a dark russet skin. ‘I’ll come back and do the tea,’ she called over her shoulder, leaving Mattie and me behind her.

  Mattie took a tentative puff of the cigarette, grimaced and threw it onto the fire. I thought I should show willing and I took down the largest of the teapots which were ranged on the chimneypiece and gingerly poured in a little hot water from the kettle to warm it through.

  ‘Careful, miss,’ said Mattie, then bit his lip. ‘Sorry, but you d’ae look fair handy with that, if you’ll pardon me.’

  ‘Perhaps you could help?’ I said, holding the pot out to him. He beamed with pleasure and took it from me.

  ‘I always make the tea at home, at my mammy’s,’ he said. ‘Been doing it since I was a wee tiny boy.’ I looked around myself helplessly; I did not even know where the sugar and milk might be and I wished I had a cigarette to keep my hands busy.

  ‘So what do you make of all this then, Mattie?’ I said. His face stilled again, the smile gone.

  ‘Master?’ he said. I nodded. ‘I d’ae ken, miss. I’m glad I never saw it. Was it as bad as Eldry said?’

  ‘It wasn’t very nice to look at,’ I told him. ‘But what I really meant was what do you make of . . . what Mr Faulds said? And Harry?’

  ‘I d’ae ken,’ said Mattie again. I waited, sure that more would come if I let it. Mattie spooned tea leaves into the pot and then reached up to replace the caddy on the chimneypiece. ‘I’m no’ sorry he’s deid,’ he said at last, ‘and I’d be right sorry to see any o’ them through there deid. Hanged, I mean, miss. Even Stanley.’

  ‘Stanley?’ I could not help echoing. ‘Why him, in particular?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mattie. ‘Sorry, I shouldnae have said that. Just that him and me don’t get on as easy as me and the rest, that’s all. He swanks it a bit to the rest o’ us. And he can be a wee bit two-faced an’ all, miss. He’s aye sucking up to Mr Faulds, but you should hear what he says about him when his back’s turned.’

  ‘I have,’ I said. ‘Snippets, anyway. But I have to agree with you, Mattie. I can’t think of any of our friends through there that I would see hanged, even after only a day of knowing them. Stanley included.’ We shared a smile. ‘But I am sorry that Mr Balfour died the way he did, for he did me no harm.’

  The silence this time was even longer, but eventually Mattie spoke up.

  ‘He didnae harm me either, miss,’ he said softly. ‘No’ really. It was my own stupid fault, being such a . . . nancy. That’s what he called it. All it was was he made me wait up for him, up in the wee lobby place, at the front door, when he was out, no matter how late he was out. In the dark there. I’m feart for the dark, miss, and he knew it but he wouldnae let me get Harry or anyone do it instead of me – it had to be me because I’m the only one that was feart.’

  ‘That’s beastly,’ I said. ‘And quite unnecessary too.’

  ‘Well, I had to open the front door for him, miss,’ said Mattie, ‘and then lock up again at his back, pull his boots off and take them to clean. Only he wouldnae let me keep a light on, so I just had to wait in the dark. Not every night, mind,’ he said. ‘Only when he was out somewhere. And anyway, I just needed to stop being daft.’

  ‘I can’t agree
with that, Mattie,’ I said. ‘No one can say why one person is frightened of the dark and another isn’t, but there’s no need to go calling yourself unkind names.’

  ‘Oh, I ken fine why it is,’ Mattie said. ‘It’s why I’m here instead of at the pit still, miss. I was in a fall – a collapse, like – and I was trapped until they came to get me out.’

  ‘Trapped down a mine?’ I said, grimacing. I could not imagine anything more terrifying, and I could not imagine this child, with his blond hair and his slight frame, ever doing anything so filthy and dreadful as mining.

  ‘I was putting for my big brother,’ Mattie said.

  ‘Putting?’

  ‘Dragging the cart,’ said Mattie. ‘My big brother was at the face and I filled the cart and dragged it back to the road for him.’

  ‘But aren’t there lifts?’ I said, puzzled. ‘Pulleys?’

  Mattie nodded, looking just as puzzled, and then he gave a smile.

  ‘The coal road, I mean, miss,’ he said. ‘Underground. Joins the shaft to where the coal face starts. Anyway, there was this wee collapse. Naeb’dy died and it never got in the papers and it was only a few hours but . . . John lost a leg, miss. So I’m lucky really. Only I couldnae go down again, not even for a fortune. It’s no’ like I didnae try.’

  ‘And master knew this?’ I said. Mattie nodded. ‘But still made you sit in the dark all alone and wait for him?’ Another nod. ‘Unspeakable!’ But even as I spoke up so stoutly – and truly I was incensed on young Mattie’s behalf – there was a question about his story, at least one, which did not make sense. Something about it troubled me. ‘Mattie,’ I began, but someone appeared in the doorway before I could continue. It was Mr Faulds himself, and both the hall boy and I stood almost to attention.

  ‘What’s happened to that tea?’ he said. Mattie rapidly filled the pot with water, swiped up a large milk jug from where it had been sitting on a stone shelf under the window and left us.

  ‘Well, Miss Rossiter,’ said Mr Faulds. ‘Fanny, if I may. You’ve been talking to Clara and Mattie, have you? And what say you now? Are you getting to think he’s no loss?’

  ‘I’m certainly beginning to think you must all love mistress a great deal to stay in a house that had him in it too,’ I said. ‘And here’s another thing, Mr Faulds. You didn’t see what was done to him, but you’ve all heard about it. Aren’t you scared to be in the same house with someone who could do such a thing? Aren’t you worried at all that now he’s started he won’t stop?’

  ‘He, Fanny?’ said the butler. ‘Who’s this “he”? I’m the only “he” that’s had the finger pointed and if it was me who did it, I’ve nothing to fear, now have I?’

  ‘Did the superintendent point his finger?’ I said. ‘You don’t seem unduly troubled by it.’

  ‘The innocent have nothing to fear from the truth,’ he said.

  With Mr Faulds’s permission, and since Lollie seemed set to sleep the day away, I went out after luncheon. I had told the cook and butler as we sat together in the armchairs that I hoped they understood but I just needed to get out into the fresh air and lift my eyes to the hills (this was one of Grant’s coded expressions for whenever she feels like sloping off and can think of no actual reason). The cost of my freedom was to regale them with the details of what I had seen, once the youngsters were all safely out of the way and the servants’ hall door was firmly closed behind them. Mrs Hepburn merely sucked her teeth, shook her head and continued unwrapping and devouring an endless succession of mint toffees, but Mr Faulds was badly affected by the tale and wiped his neck and forehead several times with his handkerchief before I was done.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I hope them police will have the cleaning of it all, Mrs Hepburn. I hope them sheets and blankets won’t get left for our girls to tackle.’

  ‘I’ll take care of them if it falls to us,’ I said. ‘I was a nurse in the war and I’ve seen worse.’

  Mr Faulds shuddered.

  ‘I’ve never been any good with the likes of that,’ he said. ‘Not as bad as poor Stanley, but bad enough. I saw a man hang himself – by accident, this was – in the backstage at the Bristol Hippodrome in my performing days, caught himself up in the ropes and couldn’t get free and it was the only time in my life I couldn’t go on. I was in my dressing room as grey as a ghost and put to shame with all the chorus and the dancing girls getting on with the show.’ Mrs Hepburn tutted again and offered him a toffee.

  As I made my way up the steps and along the pavement minutes later, I considered the point; one which had not struck me before. One thinks often of the evil required to do murder and – for want of a better word – the courage, but one cannot ignore the fact that a would-be murderer must also have the stomach for it, at least where a stabbing is concerned. Firing off a pistol at a distant figure or tipping a packet of powder into a glass before melting away are one thing, but driving a kitchen knife into the neck of a man while he looks one in the eye . . . surely I could take at least the screaming Eldry, the gulping Stanley and the quavering Mattie off the list of possible suspects, unless one of them was a very accomplished actor indeed? And Mr Faulds, so he claimed, could not have done it without fainting dead away. Then again Millie, the superintendent’s rather peculiar ideas about her placidity notwithstanding, was hardly my idea of a murdering fiend. As to the other three: to have met Clara, Phyllis and Mrs Hepburn in the street and supposed any of them capable of such an act would be hard enough; to entertain the notion after twenty-four hours at close quarters with them was beyond ridiculous. And yet it had happened; still whenever I closed my eyes I could see that white face rising up out of a sea of red, beseeching me.

  So, here I was, doing what I was ever wont to do: that is, turning to Alec Osborne to beg him to help me. I only hoped, as I let myself into the kiosk at the corner of Darnaway Street and piled up my collection of pennies, that the extra bustle of the morning had died down so that the telephone lines were there for the asking again.

  There was a little delay, as it happened, a few extra ticks and thumps and one or two sighs from the girl at the exchange. She asked me if I would not rather try later; I assured her that I had chosen to telephone just when I wanted to. She sighed again, said something I affected not to hear and then at last I heard ringing.

  ‘It’s Mrs Gilver, Mr Barrow, for master,’ I said, before I could help myself. ‘For Mr Osborne, I mean, Barrow, if you’d fetch him.’ There was a long, windy silence down the line. Barrow, Alec’s valet and, in the absence of a housekeeper, the self-appointed boss of Dunelgar, takes himself inordinately seriously for a man of his age. As well as that, I am never very certain what he thinks of me. Perhaps he is an empire-builder, who looks forward to the day when Alec’s household will swell and he will be borne along on the rising tide and finish as butler with valets and footmen to jump when he clicks his fingers. If so, then no doubt he blames me for Alec’s continued bachelorhood – a ridiculous notion, for I have been most encouraging on the topic of Alec’s settling down, except when I have been downright bossy. There was a whisper of an alliance only the previous winter and I had cosseted it as though it were a kindling fire which I had lit with my last match, but it came to nothing.

  Alec picked up the earpiece at the other end and broke in on my meandering thoughts.

  ‘Dandy,’ he said, and I heard the click of him resettling his pipe, which meant he was prepared for a long and luxurious chat, if the girl on the exchange would let us have one. ‘How goes it across the great divide?’ he said. ‘Have they seen through you yet? Bunty has settled in like a daughter of the house, by the way. Not fretting at all.’

  ‘There’s been a murder,’ I announced and managed to get quite a chunk of the pertinent history across in the ensuing silence before Alec came to himself again and started badgering me.

  ‘But the men were all locked out apart from this Faulds character?’ he said, cutting me off from explaining that very fact with great clarity. I sighed.


  ‘Yes, and the maids are all two to a room and, as I say, I’m pretty sure Lollie couldn’t have done it without me hearing although I’m getting the brandy glass checked to be sure. So I’m stumped and begging you to come and help me.’

  ‘Well, ordinarily, of course,’ Alec said. ‘Ordinarily try and stop me, but I’m stranded, Dan. I’ve got enough petrol in the Vauxhall to get down there but not back again, and some of the garages are closed already.’

  ‘But surely garage mechanics are their own bosses?’ I said. ‘Why should they shut the pumps, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘They’ve run dry from everyone stocking up,’ Alec said.

  ‘Panic buying?’ I said. ‘How disgusting. How selfish people are. They’ve forgotten all our lessons from the war already.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Alec. ‘Also, I never thought of it in time. No, we are not finished,’ he said in his most commanding voice as the pips sounded and the girl broke in. ‘At least another three minutes. At least.’ The line changed back from breathy to muffled as she left us again. ‘Is there any sign of a motive, Dan? From anyone except the wife, that is?’

  ‘Hah!’ I said. ‘The place is bristling with motives like a porcupine. You were wrong when you thought him a ninny, you know. Lollie’s summing-up was much nearer the mark: a cruel, vindictive, philandering pig. A seducer of the maids and a brute to the menservants. Some of the things he did, Alec, one wonders how he ever dreamed them up they’re so lavishly nasty. And Clara the parlourmaid can’t bring herself to speak of whatever he did to her even now, so it must be extra specially horrid. No one is sorry he’s gone.’

  ‘Still,’ said Alec.

  ‘Oh yes, I know,’ I said. ‘And Lollie at least is keen for me to stay and try to get to the bottom of it for her.’