Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

by Catriona McPherson

  As I stood there, squinting up, our number was swelled by two more; not exalted customers these but a middle-aged man of military bearing with a purple and gold handkerchief sprouting out of his breast pocket and a middle-aged woman dressed in Aitkens’ black, most of her narrow bosom covered by a corsage which could have served as a table centrepiece for a large banquet. Mary Aitken welcomed these – they had to be the highest-ranking employees, surely – into the enclosure and introduced them around.

  ‘Mr Muir is the manager of the gentlemen’s side,’ she said, ‘and Miss Hutton for the ladies’.’

  ‘Where’s Mrs Lumsden?’ said Bella. Mary Aitken treated Lady Lawson to one of her smiles before turning to her sister-in-law.

  ‘The rest of our employees are watching from the upper gallery,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Lumsden is in charge of Household,’ Bella began to explain to me, but was interrupted.

  ‘And what with curtains and upholstery being on the second and linens and housewares in the basement, I’m kept on my toes, eh?’ She was a tiny woman, almost completely spherical, with her gold and mauve ribbon wrapped around her head and tied under her chin in a bow. ‘Mrs, Mrs, Abigail dear, Jack son. Hello there, Netta.’ This to the Provost’s wife who at Mrs Lumsden’s entrance had brightened back into smiles (the Lawsons had had a dampening effect upon her, as I imagine they had meant to).

  ‘Mrs Lumsden is an institution at Aitkens’,’ said Mary tightly and the little woman, far from being offended at an apology being offered for her presence, chuckled and added more.

  ‘In with the bricks, I am,’ she said. ‘And not a thing they can do about it.’

  ‘Although they try,’ Bella murmured, with a glance at Mary. ‘They certainly do try. Too close to home by half, Mrs Gilver, if you know what I mean.’

  I did. Mrs Lumsden was Mary’s road not taken, by the grace of God, and she shuddered to be reminded of what might have been.

  ‘And we are grateful for all your years of loyal service, Mrs Lumsden,’ Mary was saying now, looking as though she had bitten down on a bad tooth. ‘What would a department store be without its domestic wares? Nothing but a glorified draper’s, no matter what they say.’

  ‘Not today, Mary,’ said Bella. ‘Forget them for one day, can’t you?’

  ‘Mrs Ninian, dear,’ said Mrs Lumsden. ‘Don’t upset yourself.’ She dropped her voice and spoke to Bella. ‘It’s not true then? About the hatchet. Olive branch, I should say.’

  ‘What’s this? What?’ said Mary Aitken.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Mrs Lumsden, but Mary was not to be fobbed off.

  ‘What was that about an olive branch, Mrs Lumsden?’ she said. ‘I’m surprised at you, whispering that way.’ The Provost’s wife was shifting uneasily from foot to foot trying not to overhear and Lady Lawson was looking fixedly up at the galleries.

  ‘It’s nothing, Mrs Ninian,’ Mrs Lumsden said again, but the drilling stare was too much for her. ‘I thought – that is, I hoped – I mean, my girls upstairs were talking about an entente cordiale.’

  ‘What?’ said Bella Aitken.

  ‘You know, “them down by”. I thought they might even come along.’ Mrs Lumsden lowered her voice but jerked her head so theatrically that she attracted more attention than if she had spoken out loud. Lady Lawson and the Provost’s wife had heard something to overcome any polite scruples and were listening hard. ‘All very ecumenical, I was thinking.’

  ‘Mrs Lumsden,’ said Mary, ‘you should know better than to listen to those silly girls at your age.’

  ‘But they said they saw Mr Hepburn right here in the—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mary. And then under her breath: ‘They wouldn’t dare gatecrash. They wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘I don’t know, Mary,’ said Bella. ‘They might think it was a “wheeze”. You know what they’re like when they—’

  ‘Jack!’ Mary swung round and skewered her son-in-law with a gimlet glare, then she softened it and spoke with a lightness and ease which fooled no one. ‘Just you slip out and tell Ferguson to fasten the front doors. We’ve enough of a crowd to be going on with.’

  Jack Aitken disentangled his arm from his wife’s – she had been clinging on to him like a creeping vine – and set off for the front door at some speed. Abigail reached out her hand for some support to replace him but found nothing and took an unsteady step to the side.

  ‘Need to sit, Mother,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘Not now,’ Mary muttered through her teeth.

  ‘Glass of water . . .’

  ‘I’ll fetch it. And a chair,’ said Bella Aitken and strode off towards the back of the store. The Provost’s boys stood as stolidly unremarking as ever, but every other one of the guests was showing signs of strain. The Provost himself made a great business of checking and winding a turnip-like pocket watch. The Lawson offspring were beginning to roll their eyes and murmur to one another, making my hand itch. They all looked to be in their twenties and therefore far too old for such rudeness. Lady Lawson, one of the old school, responded to the rising awkwardness as an engine responds to a crank handle: she turned to the Provost’s lady and started talking about gardens. Mrs Provost, well-trained in the same game, took the baton and ran, describing some elaborate new scheme for a rockery at home. They had got as far as promising to swap some treasured specimens when Mary gave a sigh which could have blown the crust off a sandwich (as Nanny Palmer used to say).

  ‘This is getting ridiculous,’ she announced and looked upwards. The crowds hanging over the balconies with flags in hand were quieter now, waiting for something to happen, hoping that it would happen soon. Looking around, I saw that not only had neither Bella nor Jack reappeared but Abigail had gone too.

  Mary Aitken raised her hand and gave a signal to someone out of view and somewhere off to the side, but not far enough off for me, an uncertain bugler began a fanfare. A cheer went up from the balconies and Mary beamed and then nodded to the Provost.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ he said, sounding like a ringmaster. ‘Welcome to Aitkens’ Emporium. I know you are all aching to begin this afternoon of celebration and I hope you have made provision for plenty fun. We’ve all seen the advertisements in the Herald telling what’s in store for us so without further ado I will render the service I offered.’ Mary Aitken, still beaming despite the puns, pointed to the end of the cord wound round the little brass cleat. The Provost unwound it and stood holding the end of the rope in one hand.

  ‘Without further ado,’ he repeated, ‘it gives me great pleasure to say: happy fiftieth birthday, Aitkens’, and many happy returns.’

  A cheer rose, the Provost tugged on the rope and everyone looked up. There was a moment when all I could see was a kind of shimmering high above the web of banners and then came a sudden loud bang, almost an explosion.

  ‘What—?’ said Mary Aitken’s voice.

  The shimmering became clearer; a shower of little golden flakes drifting down through the ribbons.

  ‘What was that noise?’ said Mrs Lumsden.

  The crowds on the balconies were silenced for a moment, waiting to see what had made the sound, but then a murmur started up again and they reached out to snatch at the specks of gold, whirling down like a shower of snow. I caught one in my palm and saw that it was a little 50, stamped out of gilt foil. They were settling on our heads now and the Provost’s boys began to chase them, holding out their caps.

  ‘What made that noise?’ said Bella. She had returned and was standing holding a glass of water, staring upwards. ‘Where’s Abby?’

  ‘Perhaps when I released the . . .’ said the Provost. ‘Something up there . . .’

  ‘What went wrong?’ said Jack Aitken, reappearing. ‘Oh! They’ve scattered all right, then.’ He brushed one of the spangles from his shoulder and grinned at the Provost’s boys. ‘What was that banging noise? I thought for a moment the whole bag had come plummeting down in one! Where’s Abby gone to?’

>   I sniffed the air, wondering if I were imagining it. I squinted up through the ribbons. They were swaying and rippling now as people on the balconies tried to shake free pieces of gold foil caught there. The noise had come from the back corner, I thought, but surely the gold 50s in their bag must have been in the middle of the roof; they had settled evenly all around the floor. I sniffed again.

  ‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said, turning to Mary, ‘what was the trick to getting those spangles to fall?’

  Mary Aitken was staring up, just as I had been. It was the manager, Mr Muir, who answered.

  ‘Drawstrings,’ he said. ‘Just muslin bags, slung over the highest beams and drawstrings at the bottom.’

  ‘So, nothing . . . automotive, then?’ I said. ‘Nothing like fireworks or anything?’ I sniffed again and, because they saw me, the others began to sniff too. I took one last look at where I was sure the noise had come from and then made for the staircase in the corner. Halfway there, though, I caught sight of the lift again, winking from behind its golden grille. That might be quicker and I was sure the bang had come from that corner of the building.

  ‘Who knows how to work this thing?’ I called back to the little gathering in the middle of the floor. ‘Mr Aitken?’ Jack simply stared at me.

  ‘There’s a boy who works it,’ Mary said, frowning at me.

  ‘Good Lord, Mary, needs must,’ said Bella. ‘Jack, help Mrs Gilver, won’t you?’

  But Mary put her hand on his arm and gripped it tightly.

  ‘Find Abigail,’ she said. ‘Keep her out of the way while we see what’s happened.’

  ‘Can you make it go?’ I asked Bella, thinking that I could have been halfway up the stairs by now. She nodded, strode over the floor towards me, rattled open the door of the lift shaft and the door of the carriage itself and slammed both shut again behind us.

  ‘It came from the top, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘Above the galleries?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Bella. ‘I’m no expert with this contraption but the attics are as far as it can go.’ She tugged hard on the rope and the lift groaned, slowly starting to rise. I would most definitely have been better on the stairs, I thought, listening to the creaks of the pulley winding.

  ‘It was a gun, wasn’t it?’ said Bella. Her voice was under commendable control.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ I said again. ‘The noise and the smell of cordite together. I’m almost sure it must have been.’

  The lift wheezed and slowed, then shuddered to a halt. Bella tugged the rope again, securing us up there, then she hauled back the carriage door and reached across the gap to the door of the lift shaft. It was solid up here, not the glittering concertina of the public floors, and when she had got it open I saw that nothing up here was the same. We were on a sort of landing or lobby of some kind open to the atrium at one side, but there were no polished railings; instead I saw a safety wall made of crude board painted brown and a ledge jutting in at the top so that no one could approach the edge and be seen by the customers below. It was curiously dark too, but then the ceiling was very low, the walls distempered a dull drab, the floor dark red linoleum of great age, worn to the weave from scrubbing. There was even a trace in the air of the strong floor soap used to scrub it; just a trace, and under it even fainter still there was gunpowder, catching the back of my throat and making me swallow, so that I tasted it too.

  Bella Aitken was running her hands over the walls, searching for a light switch.

  ‘I don’t even know if there is electric light,’ she said. ‘It’s been years since I was up here. Ah!’ There was a snap as she threw the switch and revealed the landing in the cold plain light of an unshaded bulb near the ceiling.

  Someone – a woman – was lying crumpled on the floor at the base of the opposite wall, with her head propped up at an awkward angle on the skirting board. She was looking at the open lift door, or so it seemed until I stepped closer and saw that her eyes were dull and blank, and then I noticed that her head, one side of her head, was wrong in a way I did not want to look at after the glance that made me flick my eyes away. They took in a dark stain blooming on the brown distempered wall above her and running in trickles down towards the floor.

  Stupidly I thought to myself, if she fell against the wall and cut her head, what was that noise? For some reason I was creeping up to her on tiptoe and I was right beside her before I took in what was on the other side of her face: a round dark hole in her temple, and some strands of hair had fallen against it and were clinging there.

  ‘Mirren,’ said Bella’s voice behind me, almost as quiet as breathing.

  Both of the girl’s hands were empty, lying there flung out with the fingers curled up. I knelt and felt under her skirt at the right side but there was nothing there.

  ‘Is she . . . was she left-handed?’ I asked. Bella Aitken said nothing. So, holding my breath, I reached under her body at the left side trying not to look at where drops of blood had fallen. I could feel her warmth through her clothes as I scrabbled around under her. She shifted a little, slumping further towards the floor, and I drew my hand away, knowing that the police would not want to hear that I had moved her.

  ‘Mirren,’ said Bella, just as quiet but with a high, strained note as if she were very softly singing. I looked round at her and saw that she was swaying back and forward.

  ‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said, ‘please don’t faint. Please go back down and tell . . .’ I ran over them all in my mind. ‘. . . Tell Mr Muir to telephone to the police, and see if you can stop anyone else coming up here. Do you understand?’

  The firm voice, or perhaps just being given a job to do, rallied her and she tottered back to the lift, hauled the door closed and took the groaning old carriage on its way.

  In the silence I made myself look at Mirren Aitken’s face again. She was – or had been – very pretty, the sort of girl suited to the fashions of the day, with a heart-shaped face, softly waving hair and a slight, supple figure. Only now that figure was bent at ugly and impossible angles, the soft hair was matted with blood and worse than blood, and the face was a mask carved from bleached wood, unmoving.

  ‘You poor child,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said a voice, very quietly. I leapt backwards, only just managing not to fall, and peered at where it had come from: a dark corner beyond the reach of the feeble light bulb.

  ‘Mrs Jack?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said the voice again. I reached up to the bulb and swung it on its cord, trying to see her. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and her legs splayed out like those of a rag doll.

  ‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  Abigail Aitken lifted her hand and showed me a revolver, so heavy for her that it wagged from side to side in her grip. She looked at it as though seeing it for the first time.

  ‘It’s Jack’s,’ she said. ‘I shot Mirren and now she is dead and they’ll hang me and I shall be dead too.’

  ‘Put it down, Mrs Aitken,’ I said, concentrating on keeping my voice very gentle and steady. ‘Put the gun down on the floor.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ she said, looking at the revolver again. ‘I can’t turn it on myself. I tried and I don’t have the courage.’

  ‘So can you put it down and just slide it away? I’ll take care of it for you.’

  ‘No, I want to hold on to it for now,’ she said, but at least she put her hand back down into her lap and I thought I could see that her grip loosened. ‘That would be the best thing.’

  I kept my eyes on her, but I cocked my head up to the side and felt a warm rush of relief pass through me, leaving me tingling. Very faintly, in the distance, the piercing squeals of police whistles had begun.

  3

  Then followed an endless carnival of horrors, staged in three new galleried circles of hell and peopled by grotesques and ghouls too many to count. Or so it seemed as I lived through it and remembered it later. The Dunf
ermline City Police had turned out in their entirety and would not let anyone leave until all had been questioned, so the crowds continued to mill, weeping and shrieking, craning and muttering, some of them still trying to swap those tokens for jubilee prizes from the roulette wheels. Then as the afternoon wore on they grew restive, beginning to complain, beginning to make up their own stories since no one would tell them what had happened. Grimly, the constables wrote out names and addresses, double-checked who had been where and what they had heard and seen, until slowly, eventually, Aitkens’ revolving door began to turn again, spitting out chagrined witnesses in weary ones and twos, to take the news and all the stories they had made out into the town and spread them there.

  The family, exalted guests and staff were treated rather better but for all of that fared rather worse, corralled first in the haberdashery and then in the back office regions, with glasses of water and talk of tea, but with two constables watching them and deaf ears listening to their fading pleas and their growing anger.

  The Provost, his lady and the boys were not kept long, to be sure; innocent youth, high office, and the fact that ‘Netta’ was the sister of a sergeant being sturdy claims to gentle treatment, it seemed.

  ‘I told them what they asked me, Mrs Aitken dear,’ said Mrs Provost – I never did learn her name, ‘but not a word more. They’ll not get gossip from me.’ Mary shrank under the assurances and I felt for her. That ‘dear’ spoke volumes; leather-bound, hand-tooled, gilt-edged volumes. The kind reference to ‘gossip’ did the same: Netta had a hold over Mary Aitken now upon which she would coast along for ever.

  ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ said the Provost. ‘I’ll bid you good day, Mrs Aitken, and thank you for all the civility you’ve shown me and mine.’ This had a decided air of final summary about it and one inferred that whatever tradition of friendly warmth had culminated in the Provost’s speech today the acquaintance was now over, finished off as rapidly and effectively as a new horseshoe plunged into the cold water of the smithy’s pail.