"Perhaps."
Vince sighed. "You aren't a great deal of help, Stepfather. Where are all those remarkable powers of observation."
"Blown to the four winds, I'm afraid."
"And taken your wits with them, if I might say so. Why, you're positively besotted. Exit bereaved husband, enter lovesick swain," he added cynically.
"That is hardly fair, Vince. I don't suppose I shall ever see her again—"
"I certainly hope not, if that was her effect upon you. How long did you say you stared at her?"
"Seconds only—a mere tantalising glimpse. But to use one of your modern terms, she was an absolute stunner."
"Well, there's another little mystery for us. What a pity we have no excuse for including this lovely lady in our investigations. I don't suppose you'll ever find out who she was, unless you're prepared to spend a considerable time in Greyfriars Kirkyard."
"It stands to reason that she must return to her unhappy vigil," said Faro firmly. "I shall go back next week at the same time, try and strike up an acquaintance." Vince's heavenward glance clearly indicated what he thought of his stepfather's infatuation.
The mysterious woman haunted Faro's dreams. He pursued her through the kirk-yard, but when he seized her veil it was poor dying Maureen Hymes who clung to him, weeping, murmuring over and over, "Promise . . . promise ..." Even as he supported her, the flesh melted from her skull and he found himself holding his dead wife. "You wept, begging me not to die. Begging me to return to you. Now you have your wish." The nightmare continued with Faro's bizarre reasoning as to how he was to reintroduce the decaying corpse of his dead wife to Mrs. Brook and, worst of all, wondering if her son would notice how his mother had changed.
Mercifully he awoke at that moment of horror. He was sweating, he felt sick and ill as he had done so long ago in Orkney when he knew that he had seen beyond the veil of death. His grandmother had been recovered from the sea at Orkney, by repute a "seal" woman, and his own family were endowed—or perhaps the better word was tainted—with that unhappy gift of second sight she had brought them. The dreadful nightmare from Greyfriars could neither be dismissed nor forgotten. It belonged to that unearthly no-time between sleeping and waking. And it could only be interpreted as a warning.
But of what?
Chapter 5
The Convent of the Sisters of St. Anthony belonged to an earlier age than the newly sprouting villas on Edinburgh's undeveloped south side. As the sixteenth-century Babington House it had enjoyed notoriety. Belonging to a scion of the Catholic family whose ill-fated plot for the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots had cost Anthony Babington a cruel death and had signed the death warrant of his queen, the Scottish Babingtons had managed to keep clear of the scandal. They had remained staunchly but secretly Catholic and had served the Stuart cause as best they could as secret agents, while managing to avoid any public declaration which would have meant sequestration after the Forty-five.
When the last member of the family, an elderly spinster, died in the early years of the century, the house and its park was willed to the Roman Catholic Church for use as a religious house. The Sisters of St. Anthony were a teaching Order, their school financed by selling the parkland as highly coveted building lots.
The ancient house had been, as Faro put it, "somewhat freely restored", with Queen Anne and Georgian wings added to the original tower. They entered by the modern extension, bristling with turrets and gargoyles on the outside and dark panelling and marble on the inside.
A lapsed Presbyterian and non-churchgoer, Faro found embarrassing such evidence of papacy as was exhibited by religious statues and a marble fresco of the Stations of the Cross. The faint smell of incense assailed their nostrils not unpleasantly, as they waited in the hall outside the newly built chapel.
The Reverend Mother's quick steps were almost inaudible on the marble floor as she came towards them, and over her normally immobile countenance flickered a look of distaste as she recognised the Inspector. She chose to ignore Vince's smile and proffered hand as Faro introduced them.
"Follow me." In the tiny, sparsely furnished ante-room, she did not invite them to sit down. Faro's immediate reaction was that their impromptu visit was an intrusion and that his presence, and what it implied, had upset her.
"We were hoping that you might be able to help us."
"In what way?" she asked coldly.
"In regard to Lily Goldie."
"I see," she said, in the tones of one who clearly did not. "Perhaps I should point out that it is in the best interests of our girls that their normal routine is not interrupted. I need hardly tell you, Inspector, that they were all very upset——as were the sisters." A note of annoyance shattered that calm face, pale as the wimple she wore. "Our pupils' work and our own meditations have been seriously affected by these disruptions. May one ask what you can hope to gain from these enquiries, since the unfortunate man has paid his debt to society?"
"If you would allow me to explain. We have no intention of publicly reopening the case. This is merely a routine enquiry following your letter and the discovery of the photograph in Miss Goldie's room. I wish to check certain facts—that is all. You may rely on my discretion to disturb your establishment as little as possible."
"Am I then to understand that you are acting in a private capacity?"
"Entirely."
"I see." The bloodless hands took on a supplicant's role, fingertips pressed together. "Very well. I will do what I can to help you."
"Were both girls of your faith?"
She looked at Vince coldly as if aware of his presence for the first time. "Naturally. We do not knowingly take heretics into our establishment. We employ only good Catholic girls."
"Am I correct in understanding that, though both were engaged at the same time, they were strangers to each other?" asked Faro.
The Reverend Mother shrugged. "There was no evidence of previous acquaintance. Besides, it is extremely unlikely since they were from completely different backgrounds; one a servant, one a teacher."
"I only asked because it did occur to me there might be some kinship."
"Kinship?"
"Yes, they looked alike."
"A coincidence." She thought for a moment. "Interesting that you should mention it though. I had on occasion mistaken each for the other—in outdoor dress that is—and out of uniform."
Vince's triumphant glance at his stepfather said: There you are.
"May I ask you something personal?" said Faro.
The Reverend Mother hesitated for a moment. "If it's something I can answer, then I will."
"What were your own feelings about these murders? I'm not sure what I'm looking for," he added frankly.
"I think I know." She smiled thinly. "Even nuns, Inspector, are not free from occasional flashes of what you might be tempted to call a woman's intuition. I'm afraid most of such feelings in my case relate to spiritual matters. Sarah Hymes was reluctant to go to Mass—now I understand the reason, since she had tainted her immortal soul with adultery and a tissue of lies. Lily, on the other hand, I felt was not what she pretended to be, by no means a good docile Catholic girl. I felt instinctively that she had not been reared true to the faith. I can almost," she added, with a delicate shudder, and a veiled glance at the Inspector and Vince, "detect in the air the presence of non-Catholics. And Lily seemed to be totally ignorant of many basic matters of our religion, which made me suspect she had lied in order to obtain the situation."
Somewhere outside a bell tolled and the Reverend Mother rose to her feet. "I cannot help you any further and I am relying on your discretion when you make your enquiries, Inspector. Our school has suffered considerably in prospective pupils since this unfortunate scandal. I have learned one thing, and that is in future never to recruit any staff, either servants or teachers, from outside. Bear this in mind, Inspector, if you feel obliged to speak again to Sister Theresa, who found the photograph."
There was a tap on the door, and w
ith obvious impatience the Reverend Mother opened it. A whispered conversation. "A moment, if you please."
As the door closed, Vince said, "Bless me if I can see any reason why the two women were Catholic or non-Catholic, or lied about it, should have any bearing on the case."
"It might seem a good reason for the Reverend Mother, perhaps easier for her to understand than the crime passionnel."
"I say. Stepfather, do you think we should be looking for a mad priest or a fanatical nun?" he whispered as the Reverend Mother re-entered.
Faro said, "I should like to speak to the other teachers who were not of your Order."
The Reverend Mother eyed him balefully as he consulted his notes. "There were only two, besides Miss Goldie. Miss McDermot—and Miss Burnleigh, whom you interviewed during the Hymes investigations."
"Correct."
"As I remember, Miss Burnleigh was as baffled and shocked as the rest of us."
"True, she couldn't help much then, but perhaps she might remember something about Miss Goldie. And I'd like to speak to Miss McDermot."
"Then I'm afraid you are too late, Inspector."
"Too late?"
"They are no longer with us. Miss McDermot left several weeks before the . . . er ... first incident. She was intending to emigrate to Canada with her parents and she may have already left the country."
"And Miss Burnleigh?"
The Reverend Mother's sigh indicated that she was becoming exasperated. "She left us the day of the murder, I'm afraid. She had word that her mother was taken seriously ill and her presence was urgently required at home."
"Perhaps you have her home address?"
The Reverend Mother gave him a look of ill-concealed disapproval as she unlocked a drawer in the desk. "I have the addresses of both Miss McDermot and Miss Burnleigh."
Faro held out his hand. "If you please. You have been most helpful. And now, might I see Sister Theresa, if you have no objections?"
"I have made myself clear on the subject of objections, Inspector, and you must please yourself and attend the dictates of your conscience." Accompanying them to the door, she said, "Tell me, Inspector, how is Constable McQuinn?"
Faro remembered his first visit, how the young and very presentable constable had been greeted like an old friend by the sisters. McQuinn was well known to them and to St. Anthony's, their orphan lad who had made good, and who had "by some manner of chance" (his own vague description) come to join the Edinburgh Police Force two years earlier.
"A splendid young man," said the Reverend Mother, and actually beamed at the Inspector, who thought sourly that McQuinn was just the kind of young man to ingratiate himself with nuns, or any other female between eighteen and eighty. Efficient and smooth. Faro should have considered him admirable. Was his unaccountable dislike based quite irrationally on a smile that was a shade too eager and a grin just a wee bit wolfish?
In the corridor, the Reverend Mother waved a hand towards the little formal garden with its arches and flowerbeds and rambling roses. "We have Danny McQuinn to thank for that. This dates from long before his police days, when he was a mere boy. He had a natural way with plants and herbs. If you would care to look around the garden, you will find that he had a hand in most of it. A very gifted boy, Inspector," she added sternly as if reading his thoughts on the subject of McQuinn.
As they turned to leave, she said, "A moment, Inspector. There is one question you have not asked, but one that I am quite prepared to answer."
"And what would that be?"
"One that might or might not help. We talked earlier about woman's intuition, did we not?"
"We did."
"Then I would be quite prepared to swear on the Holy Book that Hymes was not guilty of Lily Goldie's murder."
"For what reason?" demanded Faro sharply.
She shook her head. "Nothing I can lay my finger on, nothing that would be accepted in a court of law, except ..."
"Except?"
She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "Except that it is all wrong somehow. Hymes was a devout Catholic, he knew all too well the consequences of endangering his immortal soul. That is precisely why he gave himself up for the murder of Sarah. Had he also murdered Lily Goldie, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, far from denying it, he would have been most eager to make his confession and receive absolution on both accounts. After all, he had nothing to lose, his life was forfeit anyway."
Faro and Vince exchanged glances, since this theory coincided remarkably with their own, even leaving out Hymes's religious convictions.
"There is," continued the Reverend Mother, "only one way it could have happened. And that is, if Lily's had been the first murder, instead of the second."
"Murdered by mistake, you mean?"
"Yes, if in the dusk Hymes had mistaken Lily for Sarah, as I sometimes did," she added, putting out a hand to the bell on her desk.
Sister Theresa remembered the Inspector and greeted Vince with a smile. She was stout and jolly, a religieuse of the Friar Tuck school, thought Faro. In complete contrast to the Reverend Mother, she was eager for a gossip about the "unfortunate happenings" as she led the way to the room once occupied by Lily Goldie.
"This is where we found the photograph, Inspector. It had fallen from the mantelpiece here, and slipped down this loose skirting-board.''
As they were leaving, a marmalade cat sidled round the door and, finding the sister's ankles made inaccessible by her long gown, transferred his ingratiating activities to the tall Inspector.
Faro stroked the sleek coat. "Hello, young fellow. What's your name?"
"That's Brutus—poor Brutus, we might call him now," said Sister Theresa with a sigh. "He belonged to Miss Goldie. Pets aren't strictly allowed by Reverend Mother, but we had a plague of mice—it's all this new building around us brings them in, I'm afraid. And Miss Goldie got him for us from Solomon's Tower."
"Solomon's Tower? You mean the old gentleman gave the cat to her?"
"Oh, yes. She was on very friendly terms with him."
As they followed her directions to the kitchen, Vince said, "That was an interesting piece of information about the Mad Bart, don't you think? 'Very friendly terms.' Now that might be significant."
Bet and Tina were to be found, red of face and forearms, washing sheets in the laundry. They were eager, even gleeful, at this excuse to leave their labours to talk to the Inspector, especially when he was accompanied by a handsome young gentleman. Their remarks about Lily Goldie were punctuated by coy giggles in Vince's direction. Yes, they recognised the photograph of Ferris as a sweetheart of Miss Goldie's.
"Treated him something cruel, she did."
"That's why he fell under the train, poor soul."
"Did Miss Goldie have any other—sweethearts—that you knew about?"
Heads were shaken. "No."
"There was yon wee laddie from the school at St. Leonard's," said Tina with a giggle. "Used to skulk about waiting for her, out there by the gate."
"You can't count him," said Bet indignantly. "He was no more than fourteen or fifteen."
"What made you think he was a schoolboy then?" asked Faro.
"He was too well dressed to be an errand lad."
"Aye, too well fed."
"What exactly did he look like?"
"Never saw him close to. Always wore one of those big caps the school laddies wear."
"Remember how he kept on coming to the gate, waiting for her, for days after. . . ?" said Tina with a shudder.
Bet sighed. "Aye, the poor laddie."
"As if he couldn't believe that she wasn't coming back."
Faro thanked them for their help and they looked yearningly at Vince, who gave them a gracious bow, which brought about more giggles.
"If you're going back to the station," said Tina, the bolder of the two, "remember us to Danny."
"Danny? Oh, Constable McQuinn."
"He used to do the gardens here before he joined the police."
"Danny was very upset about Miss Goldie. She was always his favourite."
"Quite sweet on her, he was," said Tina spitefully.
"He liked all of us," cried Bet, suddenly remembering Christian charity. "A nice lad is Danny."
"For a policeman," added Tina doubtfully.
Vince's wry look in Faro's direction indicated that McQuinn had obviously ingratiated himself with an entire convent. No mean feat for a mere male, who was also a policeman.
Their road home took them past Salisbury Crags, the scene of both crimes. Aflame with the yellow gorse of summer, it was devoid long since of anything that might provide a clue.
"What about the well-dressed school laddie?" asked Vince.
"Some poor wretch that took a fancy to an older woman."
"Think it's worth a visit to St. Leonard's School."
"I do not," Faro laughed. "First a convent and then a boys' school. Bring in the whole wide world," he sighed. "Can you imagine how the pupils would react to a policeman's visit, or my Superintendent when he found out? Think of the fear and trembling in every heart, remembering stolen apples and other minor misdemeanours. You wouldn't get any one of them admitting to hanging about near the convent, although I dare say it happens regularly."
"The fascination of the forbidden?"
"Exactly. Lily Goldie must have been a remarkable woman."
"She was. Stepfather. Even on my small acquaintance with the lady, I'd say she appealed to all ages and conditions of men," said Vince, poking at the gorse with a stick as if the answer might lie hidden there. Then he pointed dramatically towards Solomon's Tower, grey and ancient far below them. "And what about the Mad Bart? Do you think he might be included in our list of suspects?"
Faro laughed. "As a possible murderer, you mean? You're not serious, surely."
Sir Hedley Marsh, known to locals as the Mad Bart, was the scion of a noble family who, according to legend, had abandoned society after some family scandal, and now lived a hermit-like existence.
"You'll have to do better than that, lad. A harmless old eccentric with a life devoted to cats."
Enter Second Murderer (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.1) Page 5