‘Oh,’ Mrs. Keith gave a high little laugh, ‘yes, he often does that. I was pleased that we were not disturbing him too much – I believe I thought he must be asleep.’
Shaw and Urquhart exchanged glances. Mrs. Keith was still catching up, and a curious expression crept over her face.
‘You mean that by then, he was already ...’
‘My dear madam,’ said Urquhart, ‘I fear we must believe it.’
There was silence while she digested this. Charles could not see Peter’s face, for his head was again bent over his mother’s lap. Professor Keith had still been in the clothes he had worn for the party – even his shoes had still been in place and his cravat knotted. It was probably true: he had died very soon after entering his study.
‘We thought she was past the worst, perhaps, just after breakfast time,’ Mrs. Keith went on absently, her eyes miles away, her mind back on her daughter. ‘It was only when you came – when you found him – that we thought it might be – that she might ...’
‘But we know now that it was two different things, Mamma,’ said Peter, raising his head again. ‘She’ll be grand again soon, you’ll see.’
‘And where were you when all this was happening?’ Urquhart asked suddenly. It was impossible not to take it as some kind of accusation, and Peter spun angrily on his knees to face Urquhart.
‘Outside my sister’s room, anxious for news of her! Where should a brother be? I was ready to run for the doctor on the instant, if I was asked.’ George nodded enthusiastic approval. He was ready even now. ‘I always look after her.’
‘You’re a good boy, Peter,’ said his mother, but there was a strange sadness in her voice.
‘I even helped Barbara fetching the milk and buckets and the clean sheets,’ he went on, sulky now that his hard work was going unappreciated. ‘What more could I have done? And now I know who did it – Picket Irving and Rab Fisher, I know – I’ll see to it that they don’t go unpunished! I can fight, you know! I’ve been in a fight before!’
‘My dear boy, there is no need for that!’ said Urquhart, one slim hand out to calm him. ‘The law will take its course, which is both more certain in this case, and more dignified. You are not some common fisherman to go scrapping on the pier.’
Peter closed his mouth abruptly on his next outburst, and sat staring at Urquhart. The effect of Urquhart’s words was impressive, and reminded Charles of the rumours he had heard once or twice – that Urquhart had corrupted Peter during the course of those classes on art and architecture. He clearly had some influence over him.
The doorbell rang, and they all jumped.
‘That may well be the town sergeant, madam.’ Urquhart rose like silk unfolding. ‘Will you allow us to deal with him?’
Mrs. Keith rose stiffly, patting the creases automatically out of her skirt.
‘Oh, yes, yes, if you please. I can’t – I must go back to my daughter. Please, just tell him whatever you need to.’
She hurried out of the room, and Peter, with a long look back at Urquhart, followed. Barbara met them at the door, her face sagging with tiredness, and announced the town sergeant as if she was not quite sure that the parlour was the place for him.
Charles pushed himself away from the wall, and shook George by the shoulder.
‘Come on, we’re off,’ he muttered.
‘What?’
‘I have an idea.’ Bowing a hasty farewell they let themselves out the front door, and started towards the gate, leaving the town sergeant, in his best uniform, to the mercy of the professors.
‘But I wanted to stay ...’ George protested.
‘You’re not staying out of my sight,’ Charles announced. ‘And I want to go to North Street. I’ve just realised where the arsenic might have come from.’
Chapter Sixteen
They eased the heavy wooden door open, slowly at first. Charles stopped and listened. There seemed to be nothing going on, and he pushed back the thick velvet curtain at the top of the steps and entered the dim antechapel with the assurance of old familiarity.
He had heard, as every proud student had, that Dr. Johnson on his disgruntled tour of Scotland had called this ‘the neatest place of worship he had seen’: this, despite the general air of dilapidation, the soft smell of mould from the leather cushions on the staff seats, the blurred outlines of the oak furnishings, black with age and abundant polish from generations of janitors. It was a wide, bright chapel, its long windows facing south on to North Street, and the simple chancel formed the round east end, open and light. To one side of it, in the depth of the sandstone wall, was the chipped and battered tomb of Prior Kennedy, the college’s founder, adorned in an un-Presbyterian gesture with a jug of daffodils. The whole place had a curiously happy mixture of the Papist and the Reformed, with both altar and pulpit prominent, as if the college had secretly taken the best of both and blended them to everyone’s quiet satisfaction. Certainly the feeling of peace and content in the place did nothing to reflect the religious struggles of the country for the past two centuries.
George followed him, tutting, his boots clipping on the tiled floor. Charles had left the antechapel and was heading up the aisle. There was someone in the staff seats, he noticed, kneeling in prayer, and he half-turned to give George a warning look. Ramsay Rickarton, however, was up in the chancel. Cloth and brass ball in hand, he was polishing anything that seemed to need it for tomorrow’s Sunday services. He had already finished some silver: the gilded silver mace he would carry in the academic procession was lying on Kennedy’s tomb, all its details, its lions, angels, arches and pinnacles glittering. He wore the same apron over his livery as he had on the day of little Sybie’s death, and in his eyes was the same dead look he had worn there ever since.
‘Ramsay,’ said Charles, going close enough so as not to disturb the man praying in the staff seats, ‘How are you doing?’
Rickarton looked at him, but his hands polished on, the cloth feeling its way round the familiar details of the brass candlesticks.
‘Aye,’ he said, with a slight nod.
Taking this as some kind of encouragement, Charles smiled and nodded back.
‘Ramsay, you know that poison you were putting down for the rats in here a while ago?’
‘Aye,’ agreed Ramsay, though Charles was not sure if he had understood the question.
‘Do you know,’ he went on, more slowly now, ‘is it arsenic? Only – well, do you know if it is?’
‘Aye,’ said Ramsay again, and then, after a moment’s thought, added, ‘It is.’
Charles nodded and grinned again, and then remembered the gravity of the question.
‘Have you seen anyone meddling with it? Or doing anything, well, suspicious near it?’
Ramsay Rickarton frowned.
‘What for would you be asking that?’
‘Just – just because ...’ Charles trailed away. He did not know how much was common knowledge yet, and he had suddenly realised how hard it was to ask questions without giving away nearly as much information as you could obtain. ‘Have you heard about what happened at Professor Keith’s last night?’ he asked.
‘Oh, aye.’ Something that might once have been a smile skirted past Ramsay’s face. ‘I heared that young Picket and Rab made a fine mess of his wee pairty and his flowerbeds, anyway.’
‘Ah,’ said Charles. ‘Well –‘
‘Look, Professor Keith’s dead and his daughter is gravely ill,’ George broke in, so unexpectedly that Charles turned and stared at him. George’s fair face was scarlet with impatience. ‘Well, just get on, you know?’ he said to Charles. Astonished, Charles turned back to Ramsay Rickarton.
‘Look,’ said the bedellus, a wariness creeping into his eyes. ‘Look, I dinna ken whit ye’re thinking to accuse me of ...’
Charles’ hands flew out in front of him, instantly placatory.
‘We’re not! We’re not accusing you of anything, Ramsay ...’
‘’Cause there are folks that say
, ye ken, after Sybie died, that I blamed Professor Keith, that he had sent Sybie away out to play on the road ...’
‘But you don’t think that, do you?’ Charles asked quickly. He had heard the same theories himself. Rickarton stared at him steadily for a long moment. When he drew breath to speak, he sounded infinitely weary.
‘Thinking won’t bring my wee lassie back, Mr. Murray, whether the thoughts are right or wrong.’
‘Well, now, the same could be said of Professor Keith,’ said Charles tentatively, ‘but someone killed him, and maybe they won’t stop there. You wouldn’t want to see Mrs. Keith hurt, or one of the other professors, would you?’
Ramsay shook his head slowly.
‘Ye said Miss Keith was poorly, though?’
‘That was by another hand, a coincidence.’
‘I see.’ There was a pause, while he thought. ‘I hope she’s better soon. She’s a kind young lady, and very good to me and mine.’
Charles felt ashamed. Despite George’s involvement, he had not thought much one way or the other about Alison Keith’s survival, nor much about her character beyond her vulpine grins and nervy laughter. Ramsay Rickarton knew her virtues better than he did.
‘Dr. Pagan says she stands every chance of making a good recovery,’ he said firmly, as if his best apology to Alison would be by consoling someone who liked her. ‘The thing is,’ he went on, ‘we need to find out if anyone has been – well, have you seen anyone near the poison you put down for the rats? Or noticed some of it missing?’
He barely heard the footsteps behind him, though Ramsay Rickarton’s expression gave him some warning.
‘My dear Mr. Murray,’ said Mungo Dalzell smoothly, ‘could we have a word? You will excuse us, Ramsay, won’t you?’
Before Charles knew what was happening, he, George and Mungo Dalzell were outside in the Cage, and Ramsay Rickarton was left in peace to polish his brasses. Charles, bewildered, was left to gabble through the social rituals.
‘I believe you met my brother George on Friday night, Mr. Dalzell. George, you know Mr. Dalzell.’
‘Oh, yes!’ George looked surprised, but bowed and said roughly the right things while Mungo Dalzell smiled politely.
‘I am sorry to have whisked you away so precipitately,’ he said when George had finished. ‘I’m not sure you realise just how upset Ramsay Rickarton has been recently.’
‘Well, of course ...’ Charles tailed off. He had been about to mention Sybie, but had remembered, just in time, Mungo’s own tragic part in Sybie’s death.
‘Professor Keith was never the most tactful of men. You have probably heard that he had found money missing from his office across the yard? He was determined that Ramsay had stolen it.’
‘No!’
‘I’m afraid so. The rumours of his accusation had reached Ramsay, though Professor Keith had not had the opportunity to confront him with it. Ramsay was as upset as an honest man can be in such circumstances: he values his character very highly, as well he might.’
Mungo had in his own character that enviable trait of kindness that never makes anyone else feel awkward or reprimanded in receiving or seeing it. Charles nodded thoughtfully, feeling he had been let in on a charitable conspiracy.
‘How is Miss Keith?’ Dalzell added, shifting the focus of his concern. ‘What befell her?’
‘She is improving, we gather,’ said Charles, ‘though it has been a nasty fright.’
‘I think I heard you say that it was unconnected with Professor Keith’s fate.’
‘That seems to be true. A different poison was used.’
Mungo Dalzell blew out a long sigh.
‘A dreadful shock, the whole business.’
‘I regret that you should have heard about it in such a way,’ Charles added, not looking at George. ‘We should have kept our voices lower.’
‘No matter,’ said Dalzell, waving one hand softly. ‘I heard about it early this morning, before I came here. You know what rumour in this town is like! Ah, Ramsay – finished all that polishing?’
The bedellus emerged from the dark Chapel doorway with his brass ball and cloths in a basket.
‘Aye, all done for another Sabbath,’ he grunted. ‘I’m away home for my dinner.’
‘Oh, Lord, dinner!’ cried Charles. ‘Mrs. Walker will think all kinds of dreadful things. Come on, George. Excuse us, Mr. Dalzell, please, and thank you!’
Dinner was overcooked. Mrs. Walker insisted that she was not in the least displeased, though she and Patience were both edgy. Afterwards, Charles and George escaped gratefully to Charles’ parlour upstairs. George did not look quite so grateful when Charles insisted that they stay there for a while, rather than rushing back straight away to be at the service of Alison Keith.
‘There are a few things I want to have a think about first,’ said Charles.
‘But you don’t need me to think. You’ve often said it: you’re the thinker, and I’m the doer. I’d just be in the way.’
‘George.’ Charles propelled his brother gently into the Letho armchair, and sat himself down on the bench, long legs crooked in front of him to support his elbows. ‘You are not going anywhere until you have told me what is going on.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ George was good at appearing stupid, but for once Charles was not convinced.
‘George!’ Charles glared at his brother, but George looked at the coffered ceiling as if he had always had a compelling interest in such things. ‘George, you sent me to buy cantharides for you in Edinburgh, and I see you giving sweetmeats to Alison Keith, and then she nearly dies of cantharides poisoning. Her father does die, by a different poison, the same night. Surely you must have something to say for yourself?’
George, lips pursed into ostentatious secrecy, transferred his gaze from the ceiling to the open window, through which came the post-dinner noise from South Street. The greasy smell of chilling pastry wafted in from the pie stall on the other side of the road. Charles reached out a long arm and pulled the casement closed, without looking away from his brother.
‘George ... I know the Sporting Set poisoned the treacle sweetmeats, and I know why, but were you up to the same thing? Did you think Alison might look on you more favourably if she’d been drugged?’
George, shocked, met Charles’ eye at last.
‘No! It was just – I thought it might help. I didn’t know what it really did, honestly.’ He shut his mouth again as if he had pulled the drawstrings tight on a purse. Charles waited a moment, then sighed.
‘All right,’ he said, as he stood up. ‘I’m going to go and see the Sporting Set again and let them know they’re probably off the murder charge, though Heaven knows it did me good to see Picket off his balance for a bit. I think Boxie knows a good deal more than he is saying, and if I could get him on his own, he might be tempted to tell me a few things. More than you, anyway!’
George sat in obstinate silence while Charles fetched his gown and trencher. From downstairs came the clattering and scrubbing that went with redding out the house for the Sabbath, but it was not clear that George heard them. When Charles emerged in his less than perfect gown, George did not move.
‘Two things to think about, George.’ He turned to go, one hand on the latch. ‘I know there was cantharides missing from the packet I bought for you – I saw it earlier today in this room. The sweetmeats you gave Alison Keith were found in Professor Keith’s study, along with his corpse. One of them was also missing.’
On this, Charles opened the door and left the room. Only when he glanced back did he see George’s white and shaken face.
Charles escorted the Walkers and Daniel to Holy Trinity next morning before going on across Market Street to St. Salvator’s Chapel, but his mind was not devoutly on either church. He had not been able to separate Boxie from Rab and Picket until quite late in the evening, by which time all three of the Sporting Set were drunk on a mixture of relief and a barrel of ale rolled along from the Black Bull – e
ven now they had no particular wish to be seen drinking in public. Boxie had fallen asleep before Charles could question him. Charles had a few pints with them but was not drunk, and nor was George when he returned from his vigil at the Keiths’, much later than politeness dictated. When Charles had stepped softly past him this morning as he lay across the armchair and the desk chair, Charles was sure that his snores were fake, but did not bother to test his thesis.
St. Salvator’s Chapel was already nearly full, packed with the hundred or so undergraduates, the junior staff without families, and the town congregation of St. Leonard’s who were currently churchless and seemed, on present evidence, likely to attend the Chapel until the Last Trump. The students were well used to the sight of women and children in the treacle-black pews, and the Sunday School learned half its lessons from the deep-carved misericords and high wall panels. Charles tucked himself in to the end of a pew on the left, and tried to concentrate as Ramsay Rickarton, his buttons polished to Sunday sheen, led in the academic procession holding the grand mace before him in steadfast, white-gloved hands.
The service wrapped around Charles like a familiar blanket, comforting but mostly unnoticed. The metrical psalms were set to tunes he had known from infancy, and the sermon was the same one that the Professor of New Testament had preached two weeks ago, but this time preached by the Professor of Biblical Exegesis, who must have read the same sermon book. The Professor of New Testament glowered from the staff seats. Bejants fidgeted in the front pews, and the young regents, who drilled them in their lectures, noted their names, then fidgeted themselves. Charles stared up at the dim painted patterns on the Gothic ceiling, and noticed a couple of pigeons perched on a crossbeam – Ramsay Rickarton would not be pleased.
The keen wind slicing its way round the college yard woke everyone when they finally went outside, pushing yesterday’s broken clouds endlessly past the sun. Gulls glittered white as they soared by. Beneath the wind’s hiss, you could hear the hushed conversations of both citizens and students – conversations in which the words ‘Keith’, ‘Alison’ and ‘poisoned’ seemed to echo from mouth to mouth. Moving through the groups, Charles recognised Thomas from his tatty gown, and realised that he had not seen him for what seemed liked days – but was only, on reflection, since Friday evening. He went over, stepping with accustomed care on the uneven flags. Thomas, as usual, was on his own.
Death in a Scarlet Gown (Murray of Letho Book 1) Page 20