Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Foul creature,’ he said. ‘They’re all the same.’

  ‘Yes,’ I hissed at him. ‘They are. Her mother is a poor, sweet, broken-hearted woman who deserves all our pity. Her grandmother is nothing worse than a ruthless businesswoman and I daresay if she had joined forces with you you’d have been grateful for the very things you’re reviling in her now. Not a single one of them is any of the things you called them, and this child,’ – I shook the photograph – ‘whatever the history between her family and yours, deserves to be spoken of with respect.’

  At last, he had managed to tear his eyes away from the picture. He looked up at me.

  ‘A ruthless businesswoman,’ he repeated. ‘And much good it did her in the end, eh? Look what she’s come to now for all her scrabbling.’ His words dripped icily from his mouth and I put a hand out to stop him speaking. He would surely hate himself for it when he heard about poor Mary now. ‘Have you seen that so-called library of hers?’ he said, with a note of real glee. I wanted to ignore him, but in fact the gleaming honey-coloured library with no books in it had intrigued me. It had puzzled Alec too and it was he who answered.

  ‘What about it?’ he said.

  ‘All very fancy and no books,’ said Mr Hepburn, and he was laughing to himself at some private joke.

  ‘Beautiful books, actually,’ I said. ‘Incunabula worthy of a museum.’

  ‘Incu-what?’ said Robert Hepburn.

  ‘The illustrated manuscripts,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, that’s right.’ He was smiling again. ‘Books with pretty pictures. That would do Mary Lance down to the ground.’ He was teasing us and loving every minute of it too. ‘She can’t read,’ he said. ‘She can’t read or write. Acting like the Queen of Sheba.’

  I stared at him. ‘Of course, she can,’ I said. ‘She sent me a postcard.’

  ‘Aye, that’ll have taken her a night’s work with a pencil,’ he said. ‘Any mistakes on it?’ I couldn’t help glancing at Alec. This did explain the mistake in the date on that first postcard. And the second time she communicated with me it was a telegram. And also I thought of Miss Hutton, loyally dealing with the post that way.

  ‘Lady Lawson,’ said Mr Hepburn, ‘came to us once and she was full of how “wonderful Mary” never just left a note and fobbed her off onto an assistant. How she dealt with her personally and kept all her measurements in her head. Aye well, she would, wouldn’t she? Keeping her wee secret and passing it off as a favour!’ Again I tried to stop the man; he was pitiless and would rue it once he knew.

  ‘Don’t say such things,’ I said. ‘Yesterday, Mary—’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I heard at the kirk.’ Unbelievably he smiled. ‘Her sins have found her out.’

  ‘You haven’t accused her of any sins,’ Alec said. His voice was trembling with fury. ‘You’ve simply spoken of her in the foulest and most unwarranted terms, and gloated over her weaknesses, sounding – if you’ll forgive me – like a sore loser.’

  ‘Oh, she sinned,’ said Mr Hepburn. ‘She sinned all right. She left her husband once when times were hard. Did you know that? She came back to me.’ He stopped for a moment, enjoying the effect he had had on us, then his eyes clouded. ‘And like a fool I let her. I blamed Ninian for it all and thought he’d turned her head. I took her back, shop-soiled, you might say. Then I met a real lady. A proper, modest, respectable woman and I made her my wife and with her I’ve enjoyed the kind of decent, honourable life that hussy could only dream of.’ He sat back, folded his arms and nodded, smiling with satisfaction at the effect of his words.

  ‘Can I ask you one thing?’ I said. ‘And then we’ll leave you.’ He inclined his head. ‘Could you just forget all the old history now? Just say nothing about it to anyone and let it die?’

  ‘I’ve no interest in any of that family or their doings,’ he said – all very lofty and completely untrue; his cheeks were only now returning to their usual hue after his near apoplexy – but I believed that he would say nothing.

  ‘And can I ask something?’ said Alec. ‘Why, in the name of heaven, after all that had passed, did you ever come here to set up your store? Why choose this town of all places?’

  Mr Hepburn smiled again. ‘To pay her back,’ he said, and his voice sent goose bumps down my spine. ‘To ruin it all for them.’

  ‘My God,’ said Alec. We were downstairs, in the cool darkness of the alley at the side of the bank, leaning back against the wall. ‘What an absolute horror of an old man. Wouldn’t you hope to be past such passions at his age?’

  I nodded, but distasteful as the recent scene had been, something else was troubling me.

  ‘That mix-up is very odd,’ I said. ‘Did I say old Mr Hepburn on the telephone earlier, Alec? Why would the maid at Roseville think “Mr Hepburn” meant the grandfather rather than her own master?’

  Alec shrugged. ‘It was lucky she did,’ he said. ‘We’ve added another big chunk to the story of the great feud, haven’t we?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘And I can quite believe there was enough bitterness to explain why Robert and Mary didn’t want an alliance between their grandchildren. I think the cousin marriage and the unfortunate sisters are just a nasty red herring, don’t you? An excuse for each lot to sneer at the others.’

  ‘God, if he knew that Jack Aitken had cuckolded his son!’ said Alec. ‘If he knew that Dugald had Aitken blood in him, he would . . .’

  ‘Explode,’ I said. ‘Burst with fury and ruin all those good Turkey carpets. He went absolutely purple at one point up there.’

  Alec gave a short laugh. ‘I haven’t seen that since my brother was small. He had a talent for tantrums that had to be seen to be believed.’ He laughed again. ‘And my colouring. He used to go so black in the face that his freckles looked yellow. Very unnerving.’

  ‘Which brother was that?’

  ‘Ed,’ said Alec, and the abruptness of that one syllable told me not to say any more. I tried not to mind how much more he had said to Abigail in the hospital yesterday than he ever had to me in the five years I had known him, but instead turned my mind back to the case again.

  ‘I wish I knew why the mix-up was bothering me,’ I said. ‘This feeling is usually a sign that I’ve forgotten something. Is it bothering you too?’

  Alec only shrugged again. ‘Roseville now?’ he said. ‘Get to work on Robin? I’d like to be able to go back to Mary and tell her that the Hepburns, to a man, either don’t know or have their lips buttoned.’

  ‘On whatever it is,’ I said. ‘The thing Abby told her mother yesterday can’t have anything to do with Mary and Robert’s ancient history.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very frustrating, isn’t it, to keep uncovering secrets and yet be sure that none of them is the secret we’re after. The one at the bottom of it all. Oh, let’s at least get out of here, Dandy. Let’s go.’

  When the door of Roseville opened on us twenty minutes later it was not a servant who stood silhouetted against the light there, but an old woman dressed in black who peered up at us and cleared her throat with a fussy little sound. Without understanding why, I found myself clutching Alec’s arm, my heart suddenly hammering. Then in a moment the odd panic passed as she moved forward into the light of day.

  She was a very small woman, neat and precise in her movements, and she fixed us with a bright, shrewd gaze that made me think of a robin, her head slightly on one side and the effect completed by a pronounced cupid’s bow in her mouth, so pronounced that when it was pursed, as it was now, it really did look like a beak, like the beak of a budgerigar or perhaps a canary.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said. Alec glanced at me, puzzled by my tone.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said, rather clipped but not angry. ‘Can I ask the same of you? I’m afraid this isn’t a good day for visiting.’

  ‘Mrs Hepburn?’ I said, guessing. ‘We’re not visiting, exactly. We’ve just been to see your husband.’ Her head inclined even more to one side as she heard this and her b
right eye glinted. ‘I’m Mrs Gilver and this is Mr Osborne. I wonder if we might have a word with you.’

  ‘Ah, the detectives,’ she said. ‘I heard about you. Come away in, then.’ She swept the door wide and we entered the hallway.

  ‘Please accept our condolences,’ I said.

  Little Dulcie Hepburn nodded her head thoughtfully and her eyes brightened further as tears sprang into them.

  ‘It’s a sad finish,’ she said, ‘the two of them so young. They’d have got over it as well – that’s the worst thing. Nothing hurts more than first love, but live as long as me and you’ll surprise yourself what you can get over.’

  ‘You’re quite sure that it was suicide then?’ said Alec. ‘In both cases?’ His voice was low but Mrs Hepburn still shushed him.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course it was.’ Then she looked at Alec with a new, wary expression. ‘But why is it you need to see me?’

  ‘Mary Aitken sent us,’ Alec said and I did not miss the quick puckering frown that hearing the name caused.

  ‘She thinks you know something,’ I went on, ‘and she wants you to keep it—’

  Again she shushed, peering at the doors around the hallway and up the stairs, her head making little pecking movements as she checked the corners and shadows.

  ‘Not here,’ she said, ‘but I will talk to you.’ She stepped very lightly across the floor and poked her head around a door, then, finding the room empty, she beckoned us and closed the door very softly behind us with one careful hand on the plate, shutting us all in.

  It was another room very like the first I had seen at Roseville, with satiny little settees and gilt and white chairs and writing tables. Dulcie Hepburn rubbed the arm of her chair as she sat down and she smiled.

  ‘Fiona has a right way with a room,’ she said. ‘But it would never do Bob and me.’ She looked up at us again. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘No one will disturb us here. Bob would like burst in to see what was to do if I closed a door on him in his own house. He’s not a trusting man. Not easy in his own mind and it makes him restless. He always has to know what’s to do.’

  ‘We don’t want to pry, Mrs Hepburn,’ I said. ‘I just want to be able to assure Mary—’

  ‘Poor Mary,’ said Dulcie. ‘She was more sinned against than sinning, if you ask me. And if I can say it I don’t see who in the world should disagree.’

  ‘We know about her affair with your husband,’ I told her gently.

  ‘I don’t begrudge my husband any comforts,’ she said, and a swift look of pain flitted across her face and disappeared again. ‘We’ve not had our troubles to seek and he’s been very good to me. Stood by me and we have our son and our grandchildren. Still got our granddaughters even with Dougie gone. You can tell Mary Aitken her secret’s safe with me.’

  ‘I don’t think she meant that secret,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’m sure she didn’t,’ said Mrs Hepburn and she gave a small, knowing smile. I could not help myself. In fact, I did not even try.

  ‘I wish you would talk a little less obliquely, Mrs Hepburn,’ I said. ‘More straightforwardly. Tell us what the secret is.’ She only smiled again.

  ‘Aye, you say you’re not prying,’ she said, ‘but I’ll bet you’d like to know.’

  ‘We might have to insist,’ I went on. ‘There’s something not right here. Something I just can’t put my finger on. And when that happens, I can’t rest until I’ve straightened the whole thing out. Or until I hand it over to the police and they do. So if you won’t tell us what it is we might have to turn to the police to carry on the interview.’

  ‘The police?’ said Dulcie. ‘Away! You can’t go to the police. You know you can’t, Mrs Gilver. Especially not when Mary’s begging you to make sure things stay “under wraps”. Now can you? Besides,’ she said, and once again she rubbed her sleeve on the gilt arm of her chair making it shine, ‘it’s not a police matter.’ She sniffed. ‘See my good oak and mahogany isn’t as fancy as this here, but it takes a better polishing. Or maybe just gets it. Fiona and Hilda are more caring about flowers changed every day than the likes of dusting. Do you know Fiona’s maid has a wee comb to comb out the cushion tassels? Did you ever hear of such a thing?’

  ‘What’s not a police matter?’ I said, hardening my heart. Perhaps Alec was right about this case toughening me.

  ‘Very well,’ said Dulcie. ‘On the understanding of your complete discretion?’ Alec and I nodded. ‘You’ll have heard about my daughters?’ she said. She twinkled at Alec and me as we nodded again. ‘My girls. They were bonny happy babies, but as soft as rag dolls and we’d to feed them milk off a spoon they were so weak. Notice I call them my girls. Robin is our son, but the girls are mine.’ She gave a pretty, chirping little laugh at the looks on our faces. ‘I don’t mean what you think,’ she said. ‘Dear me, no. I call them mine because I know whatever it is that ails them came through me. And how do I know that?’ She gave us that bright, robin-like look again and waited. Something was shifting deep inside my mind and perhaps I would have got there in the end, but she told us before all the pieces were joined together.

  ‘I know that because Mary had Abigail and Abigail was a fine girl and is a fine woman still.’

  I could not help a little gasp escaping me.

  ‘Abigail is your husband’s child?’

  ‘She tricked him,’ Dulcie said. ‘Desperate for a baby, she was. She said she loved him, said she had made a mistake going off with Ninian Aitken that way.’

  ‘Your husband implied that his affair with Mary was before he met you,’ said Alec.

  ‘My husband is good at that sort of thing,’ said Dulcie. ‘No, we were years wed when Mary snapped her fingers and got him sitting up begging again. We had our girls already. Not that she knew that, I daresay.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ I said, remembering this. ‘She said she found out about them when she was lying in for her confinement. I wondered why it had incensed her so.’

  ‘And so you see the problem with the two bairns,’ said Dulcie. ‘Mirren was Dougie’s cousin and with such weak blood in the family, that marriage could never be, no matter how much they loved each other. And if it had ever come out why we banned it, we’d have been the scandal of the decade, wouldn’t we? Poor Mary, me and my girls.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said slowly. Dulcie Hepburn did not know the worst of it. Dugald and Mirren were not cousins at all. Through Jack Aitken, they were brother and sister. The trouble with their marriage was nothing to do with Dulcie and her poor girls. What I could not decide was whether to tell her. No more could I decide whether anything about Mary and Robert’s old affair could possibly be what Abby had suddenly revealed to her mother yesterday.

  ‘You don’t think so?’ said Dulcie. ‘You think we should have let them marry?’ I could not help a shudder at the thought and Dulcie nodded, almost triumphantly. ‘You do agree,’ she said. ‘I know it was the right thing to do. I knew in my heart and someone I trust completely told me so too.’

  ‘Oh? Who was that?’ said Alec.

  ‘My milliner,’ said Dulcie. ‘Margaret-Ann for Hats. You’ll have seen her shop in Bridge Street. Well, she does the special work at House of Hepburn too. And at Aitkens’.’

  ‘Aitkens’ and Hepburns’ share a milliner?’ I said. ‘That’s surprising.’

  ‘Oh, she’s an artist with hats,’ said Dulcie. ‘We wouldn’t give her up and neither would they. She’s a treasure and a friend. She knows about Robert and Mary, about Abigail being Robert’s child, and when I told her about Dougie asking to marry Mirren she grabbed my hands in hers and shook them. I’ll never forget it, for it wasn’t like her to be so fierce. She grabbed me and shook me and said: It can’t happen, Dulcie-bella – that’s what she calls me – promise me you won’t let them.’

  ‘She sounds like a gypsy fortune-teller,’ I said, thinking that somehow Margaret-Ann for Hats must know about Jack Aitken being the father of both children. That grabbing and shaking was not ove
r the prospect of cousin marrying cousin, I was sure. And I still failed to see how Abigail could announce her own parentage to her own mother and shock her mother into collapsing by doing so.

  We left Dulcie then, thanking her for her candour and promising to convey her good wishes to Mary.

  ‘Which of course we shall not,’ said Alec, once we were out of the house. ‘She’d choke on them.’

  ‘You sound rather fierce, darling,’ I said. ‘I rather took to little Dulcie. Brave in her own way and, as she said herself, she hasn’t had her troubles to seek.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Alec. ‘I can’t get rid of the idea that she was laughing at us, just a little. For instance, when she said she knew we couldn’t go to the police. She was twinkling away like anything. What was that about, Dandy?’

  ‘She saw through my bluster,’ I said. ‘She knew I didn’t mean it. Because of Mary.’

  ‘But she said especially given Mary. Especially, do you see?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘And speaking of Mary, shall we go and see how she is? We can tell her Fiona, Hilda, Robert and Dulcie are ticked off the list. That should give her some peace of mind.’

  ‘If we wait until after Robin that’s the whole boiling,’ Alec said.

  ‘But Robin can’t possibly know anything,’ I said. ‘He’s hardly going to know about his father’s infidelity, and he certainly doesn’t know about his wife’s.’

  ‘But are either of those two matters the thing Mary is desperate to keep secret? And he knows something. I told you about the way he galloped off to the telephone to make sure Dugald hadn’t run off with Mirren. He was all of a twitter when he got back again.’

  ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘But after lunch. And let’s find somewhere other than St Margaver’s Hotel to have it. And then pick up Bunty. She can’t stay with the Aitkens for ever.’

  Bunty, however, was lying on a folded blanket in front of the range in the Abbey Park kitchen and showed no signs of wanting to shift from it. When she rolled onto her back and waggled herself in greeting I saw that her stomach was as round as a beach ball.