Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘It’s not a telegram alone I’m hanging them from,’ I told him. ‘And anyway, it’s not both families; it’s two grandmothers. There are another two grandmothers in the case, not to mention all the parents.’

  ‘So what are the other strands in the rope then?’ Alec said.

  ‘Inspector Smellie is one.’ Alec snorted. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Why could he not change the pronunciation to Smiley and then change the spelling and save people a lifetime of trying not to giggle? It’s almost rude not to. But Inspector S. knows something. Something that made him haul me off to the clink. It took me a while to stop panicking and realise it was so, but I’m convinced now.’

  ‘Clink!’ said Alec.

  ‘Yes, but think about it, Alec dear. What in heaven’s name about the incidents of the last week would make the fragrant inspector decide that I had been engaged by the families to kill their little ones?’

  ‘What?’ said Alec, so loud that even Bunty raised her head and looked at me. ‘Shush, down, good girl,’ he went on, revealing that at the other end he had woken Millie too. ‘Hang on a minute, Dan, while I let her out.’ I waited, watching glumly as Bunty settled again. Alec’s spaniel is so well trained as to be rather sickening and I knew that there was only one way to explain her being let out to romp off her high spirits while Bunty simply yawned and turned her head away. The fact was that my darling was almost twelve years old. I could not help a quick glance towards the bookshelf where Merriman’s Care and Training of the Dalmatian sat as it had done since the day in 1915 when I had put it there after a quick read-through and an even quicker realisation that Colonel Merriman’s regime was not for me. I knew that the last chapter concerned itself with the long list of diseases to be expected in old age, the stark facts of average life length, and the brutal advice – this was what had finally caused me to slam the book shut and shelve it – that the next puppy should be acquired before the end, to give the old dog an interest and teach the new one its place in the pack and save it from spoiling. In other words, I had thought, to force the old dog to spend its last days having its ears chewed and make one resent the usurping puppy so much that any chance of its relieving one’s grief was dashed even in advance of the grieving. I roused myself as Alec returned to me.

  ‘Did he actually say that, Dandy? Engaged to kill them?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ I admitted. ‘But he insinuated like anything. He said it was suspiciously “convenient” that I had been there.’

  ‘The man’s a fool,’ Alec said.

  ‘He would have to be,’ I agreed, ‘but since he’s probably not, he must know something we don’t in order for such a wicked thought even to occur. And I almost got it out of him, you know. He was just about ready to cough it up when the doctor nabbed him. Then he found out I was in the clear and he must have been so embarrassed about pinching me that he went to ground.’

  ‘How did the doctor put you in the clear then?’ said Alec.

  ‘Timing,’ I replied. ‘Dugald died about half past two.’

  ‘Ah, when you were in the Abbey with hundreds of witnesses.’

  ‘Exactly. And then came Hugh.’ I sighed a sigh that rattled and whistled and buzzed all the way down the many lines and exchanges. ‘I can’t exactly go back and resume the conversation now, can I?’

  ‘Come on, Dan,’ Alec said. ‘Be fair. I won’t listen to you moaning about what Hugh did yesterday.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said. ‘It was quite something.’

  ‘I’ll cherish the memory all my days.’

  ‘And he can’t have guessed in advance that he wouldn’t be had up for it.’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Alec. ‘He leapt to defend you without a thought of himself.’ We were quiet for a minute. ‘I felt a bit of an idiot, to be frank. Sitting there for hours, waiting, and then Hugh rolls up and . . .’

  ‘Huffs and puffs and blows their house down.’

  We were quiet again.

  ‘So given that,’ said Alec presently, ‘and given the fact that the families want it left alone . . . why exactly are you itching?’

  ‘Because something just doesn’t add up,’ I said. ‘The inspector knows it. Listen: most members of both families, Aitkens and Hepburns the same, think that Mirren and Dugald killed themselves for love.’

  ‘Right,’ Alec said. ‘I think I might too, actually. I know what we said about gloves and lurking strangers and everything, but after Dugald . . .’

  ‘But it makes even less sense now, after Dugald. Mirren knew about the elopement plan. Why would a girl engaged, in love, with a wedding planned and friends helping – Fiona and Bella, this is – shoot herself?’

  ‘The only engaged girls I’ve ever heard of harming themselves are jilted ones,’ said Alec. ‘He changed his mind?’

  ‘That’s all I can come up with.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Alec said. ‘So why would a boy kill himself because a girl he jilted died?’

  ‘Exactly. If he loved her he wouldn’t jilt her, if he didn’t love her he wouldn’t kill himself over her. Either Mirren or Dugald has to have been murdered. If jilted Mirren killed herself then heartless Dugald was pushed. If expectant Mirren was murdered, then lovelorn Dugald jumped. And we’d have to think that an Aitken killed jilting Dugald or a Hepburn killed hopeful Mirren.’

  ‘Unless he jilted her and then jumped out of guilt.’

  ‘If he had such capacity for guilt, how could he bring himself to spurn her and break her little heart in the first place? And I’ve been asking about both of them, Alec. They weren’t the type. Oh, I know Fiona Haddo was in a tizz about him – that was guilt, if you like, because she’d kept such secrets from the boy – but the way she described him to me . . . And no one who knew Mirren can credit it of her. Mrs Lumsden at the Emporium gave a very clear character reference and Mirren’s parents and grandmothers – in spite of everything that had happened, they were absolutely dumbfounded. Not a one of them could take it in.’

  ‘Of course they couldn’t. It’s horrible.’

  ‘But it shouldn’t have been a shock. Horrible, yes. But they shouldn’t have been so surprised by it, should they?’

  ‘I can’t say I’m convinced, Dandy,’ said Alec.

  I could not help tutting again. ‘All right. You convince me then. If you think there are no puzzles here, you explain it so it all makes sense and stops worrying me.’

  ‘I’m not saying there are no puzzles. Of course there are. Muddles and trouble and everyone’s feelings all upside down. I’m just saying that’s inevitable in a mess like this one and I think you should leave it alone.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to,’ I said. ‘Fiona Haddo maybe doesn’t want me any more and Mary Aitken was playing me like a trout from the off, if you ask me, but I’ll bet Bella would welcome me back. And I bet that nice Constable McCann would help me.’

  ‘No, Dandy, now I really must insist,’ said Alec. ‘I can’t stop you going to Dunfermline if you’re fixed on it, but stay away from the police. I mean it. You could get McCann into a great deal of trouble, not to mention that Hugh might end up breaking rocks in a striped suit.’

  ‘Hm,’ I said. ‘I daresay Hugh’s gallantry wouldn’t go as far as that. Not for a case with no pay anyway.’

  ‘Poor Hugh,’ Alec said and we made our goodbyes.

  Poor Hugh indeed, I huffed to myself as I went to fetch my coat and hat and leave word of my departure. Perhaps it was crude to speak so plainly of it, but it was true: Hugh had deplored and despised my ‘racketing about’ until he saw my pay-packet, at which he executed a smart one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and started spending it. The recently purchased new estate, doubling the size of his property and solving the problem of Teddy, our younger son, was thanks to me, having been got at a snip out of a bonus from a satisfied customer, and at a recent dinner, when I had overheard Hugh’s gloss on it all, I had been sorely tempted to kick him. ‘Yes, I’ve been rather lucky with this and that despite the times,’ he s
aid in an oleaginous drawl to his neighbour. ‘And the fellow was glad to be shot of it. He wasn’t a landowner – wasn’t the sort. Gave me a good price and off back to Glasgow with a sigh of relief. Dandy?’ I had leaned even further away from my own neighbour to make sure of hearing the next bit. ‘Oh, I’m more than happy for her to amuse herself when I’m so busy. My mother must be turning in her grave, of course, but Dandy has always been a free spirit, you know.’

  So when I passed him in the back hall when I was on my way to the stable yard where the motorcars stayed and he was on his way to his business room with a roll of plans under his arm, he was quite safe from any displays.

  ‘Back already?’ I said. ‘Well, it’s not much of a day.’ Nothing annoys Hugh more than an accusation that he is an indoors sort, prone to the sucking of pipes and wearing of slippers, rather than a boots-until-bedtime countryman such as he most admires.

  ‘Getting a bit of fresh air at last?’ he countered, for my habit of answering letters and telephoning in the morning is taken by him to be tantamount to invalidism. He does not count my early walk with Bunty because we rarely go beyond the park these days and fresh air, for Hugh, starts at the railings.

  ‘I’m going back to Dunfermline,’ I said. His eyes flashed and I found that I had not quite recovered from my gratitude after all. ‘Thank you, Hugh,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he replied.

  We almost smiled at one another as we went our separate ways.

  ‘Mrs John, Trusslove,’ I said, when the Aitkens’ butler opened the door to me. He stared. I am sure he was no more acquainted than was I with the protocols of condolence after the funeral of a suicide when there has been another at the funeral tea, but he was as sure as I was that unannounced visits by near strangers to the family home were beyond the pale. Add to that the fact that I had left my Cowley on the street, had come up the side drive and had presented myself at the servants’ entrance and he was stumped beyond recovery. ‘And I’d be grateful,’ I went on, since he was standing there immobile and I had the chance to say it, ‘if you could keep it under your hat.’ He drew himself up a little; always a danger with butlers. Pallister is well short of six feet ordinarily, but can draw himself up, if affronted, to a veritable colossus. ‘That is, not trouble Mrs Ninian or the Mr Jacks with news of my visit.’ I had hoped that my easy use of the family names would help my cause, but they seemed to offend him. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and as he did so I noticed the red rims to them and the crumpled bags under them. He had been mourning his young mistress, it seemed, and I took a gamble that her loss would trump his other loyalties today. ‘You do know who I am, Trusslove, don’t you?’ I said. His eyes narrowed further. ‘I’m a sleuth.’ Recognition broke over him like a dropped egg.

  ‘That Gilver!’ he said.

  ‘That Gilver,’ I agreed, nodding. ‘And here’s the thing: I don’t believe Miss Mirren killed herself. Do you?’

  He looked behind him before he answered, as cautious as could be, but when he spoke conviction rang out of him.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I’m going to find out who killed her,’ I told him. ‘And whoever killed her is responsible, in my book anyway, for the boy too.’

  He looked behind himself again then and a frown puckered at him.

  ‘Mrs John . . . ?’ he said.

  ‘Not a suspect,’ I assured him. ‘Only a witness.’

  At last he drew the door open wide and beckoned me in. At the first bend in the corridor, however, he stopped.

  ‘I don’t know just where to rightly put you, Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘Mrs Jack is walking the house like an unquiet spirit and she’d likely burst in on you wherever you go.’

  ‘I could go to Mrs John’s own room if there’s a back way,’ I said. He looked startled. ‘Or where is she now? Take me to her and we can both of us hide in a broom cupboard.’ He shook his head. ‘Well, does she ever come down here?’ I went on. ‘Perhaps, if you would be so kind, we could borrow your pantry?’ At this he positively took a step backwards. ‘It’s not a social call, Trusslove,’ I said. ‘I’m working. And I’m no stranger to a servants’ hall, I assure you.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Well, I must say, my dear, you’ve got that toff’s way of speaking off to a tee. My little parlour – I prefer to call it a parlour, don’t you know – is this way.’

  Bella Aitken was a faint ghost of herself. I had seen it once or twice and heard of it many more times than that: a person keeping going up to and through a funeral and unravelling like a picked seam thereafter. She was without even her carpet slippers today, but instead shuffled into Trusslove’s pantry in her stockinged soles, not a pair of stockings either: one pale silk one, rather gone at the heel, and one sturdy brown lisle article, which would never go at heel or toe but would live on and on, stretching and sagging and never giving one fair cause to chuck it. I counted it one of the blessings of adulthood that I could choose never to wear lisle stockings ever again, and Bella’s pitiful mismatched ankles brought a lump to my throat and turned me yet more gentle.

  ‘Mrs Gilver?’ she said, peering through the low light at me.

  ‘Mrs Aitken, please forgive me for this rather . . .’ I waved my hands around the little room. ‘And please sit down. You look . . .’ I left this sentence hanging too, since both ‘ten years older than yesterday’ and ‘about to fall over’ were best left unsaid.

  ‘Was it Mary you wanted?’ she said, nevertheless sitting down with a great exhalation of breath. She leaned back in the chair, even her head dropping back as though she could not support its weight. ‘Trusslove might be confused; he’s not himself either.’

  ‘No, no, it was you I asked him to fetch for me.’ I paused, wondering how to go on. ‘I went to see Fiona Haddo yesterday. She told me about your plan – yours and hers – for the young people.’ Bella nodded dully. ‘And it explained to me why you were so cheerful when I first came here and why you were so very shocked by Mirren dying.’ She closed her eyes and was so still that I wondered if she had slipped into sleep, sitting there. ‘Mrs Aitken, you know she had no reason to kill herself.’

  ‘And yet,’ she said, very quietly, ‘that’s just what she did.’ I could see her eyes moving under their closed lids but they did not open.

  ‘Your sister-in-law wants me to drop the case now,’ I said. At that she gripped the arms of her chair and hauled herself upright, but what she said was not what I had been expecting.

  ‘Yes. That’s what to do. Nothing will bring her back.’ Then she let go of the chair arms and dropped back again. ‘Mary is right. Leave it now.’

  I sat looking at her, exceedingly puzzled.

  ‘But don’t you still wonder why Mirren would have done such a thing?’ I asked her.

  She shook her head, or rather rolled it to one side and then the other along the back of the chair.

  ‘No point,’ she said. ‘I did everything I could for her. Nothing will bring her back again. Please just leave us now.’

  I rose and tiptoed out of the room, to find Trusslove hovering in the passage. A nearby door was open and there was something about the quivering stillness that made me suspect that a good few more servants were listening in.

  ‘She’s very tired, Trusslove,’ I said. ‘Perhaps more than tired. Has she been seen by a doctor?’

  Trusslove gave a short laugh.

  ‘Who’s going to get one?’ he said. ‘There’s nobody fit to look after anyone else in this house now. Walking wounded they are. The four of them.’

  ‘As bad as Mrs John?’ He hesitated then.

  ‘She’s maybe the worst, right enough,’ he said. ‘Surprised me, I’m telling you. She’s always been so . . .’ I nodded, remembering the loud laughter and the slightly coarse vitality of the woman I had met just over a week ago. ‘And she kept them all going up to yesterday,’ he went on, ‘then pfft! Out like a wee candle when they came home from the funeral tea.’

  I left by the servants’ entrance again a
nd trudged back down the side drive to the street but did not get all the way, stopped by the sound of hurrying footsteps behind me while I was still in sight of the house windows. I guessed who it would be even before I turned; for had not Trusslove told me about the unquiet spirit wandering?

  ‘Mrs Gilver,’ said Abigail Aitken. ‘My mother isn’t here.’

  She had caught up with me on a particularly gloomy patch, with a spreading beech tree on one side and an even more spreading chestnut on the other, so that she was cast into green shade and as a result looked utterly ghastly.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘it was your mother-in-law I came to see but if I’m to be really thorough perhaps it’s best that I happened to chance upon you too, Mrs Aitken.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Your mother told me she wanted no further investigation, but I’d like to be sure she spoke for all of you.’

  ‘More investigation?’ Abigail Aitken’s voice came out as a rough whisper, almost a croak. ‘Of what?’ She looked about herself in a distracted way and then seeing what she had sought she laid a hand on my arm and drew me off the drive towards a wire bench set up around the base of a large tree. ‘I knew nothing of any “investigation”,’ she said, when we were sitting. ‘I thought my mother had asked you simply to find Mirren.’

  ‘Yes, yes she did,’ I said.

  ‘And she was hiding at the store all the while.’

  ‘Yes,’ I repeated. ‘At least, we can assume so.’

  ‘So what investigation could there be?’

  ‘About what happened,’ I said. ‘The deaths. Whether we’ve got a clear picture.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Abigail and she sat back against the trunk of the tree. ‘Yes, I see. I see what you mean. In case it wasn’t suicide. Well, it was. My Mirren. It was.’

  ‘You’re very sure.’

  ‘Who could be surer?’ she said.