Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘What have you been feeding her?’ I asked of the cook who was smiling fondly down and now kicked off her clog and rubbed her stockinged toe up and down Bunty’s breastbone.

  ‘Oh, she’s just had a wee bite of chicken and rice,’ said the cook. ‘And some broken meringue.’

  ‘Lucky Bunty,’ said Alec, with feeling. He and I had made do with sandwiches cut from very tough, day-old bread (it was Sunday, I suppose) and filled with bright orange cheese and thick slices of Spanish onion, washed down with bottled coffee.

  ‘And how is Mrs Ninian today?’ I asked the cook. ‘Has there been news from the infirmary?’

  ‘Mrs John said she slept right through and when she woke up this morning she wasn’t so dribbly,’ the cook said. It was to the point, if rather indelicate as bulletins go. ‘Mrs John had stayed all night, madam. She only come home when Mrs Jack went in after breakfast to relieve her.’

  ‘A good sister-in-law indeed,’ I said.

  ‘This last day or two,’ said the cook, and a kitchenmaid engaged with pastry at the work-table murmured her agreement. ‘I never knew how fond Mrs John was of Mrs Ninian before now.’

  ‘Never knew how fond we all were,’ said the kitchenmaid. ‘Not that— I mean to say—’

  ‘Wheesht your cheeky tongue, Elizabeth Rose!’ said the cook.

  ‘Oh my,’ the maid said, quite unaffected. ‘I get Lizzie usually, you know. It’s only the full whack o’ Elizabeth Rose when somebody’s angry.’

  The cook tutted good-naturedly and smiled.

  ‘It’ll come in handy if you ever start a little teashop,’ I said. ‘Like Margaret-Ann for Hats. We’ve just been talking about her.’

  The kitchenmaid snorted and the cook tittered with one hand over her mouth.

  ‘Well, you know why that is, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Her right name’s Mrs Smellie and nobody would buy a fancy new hat from that.’

  ‘Smellie as in Inspector Smellie?’ said Alec. He was staring at me and I was staring back at him.

  ‘That’s her husband,’ said the kitchenmaid. ‘He’s a big man at the tolbooth but it’s Maggie that’s in charge when he gets home. Or so they say.’

  ‘And he tells her everything,’ said the cook. ‘Confidential police business or no. I know that for a fact because she – well, she let my friend Nannie off with a big bill when Nannie’s man was up to his neck in bad debts and in a load of bother with pawning stuff he shouldn’t have, and the only way she knew was the inspector telling her. But she’s a good woman. Knows it all and says nothing.’

  Alec and I had risen, he shrugging himself back into his overcoat and I pulling on my gloves.

  ‘If you really don’t mind the dog trespassing on your hospitality a little longer then,’ I said, making for the door with as much casual ease as I could muster. Alec was on my heels.

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said the cook. ‘I like a dog about the place, me.’

  She was still saying goodbye when the servants’ door banged shut behind us.

  ‘At last!’ Alec said. ‘Whatever Margaret-Ann knows is what the inspector knows. The thing that made the inspector believe in murder, in the teeth of all the evidence. I told you Dulcie was laughing at us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You threatened her with the police and she said, “Oh, come now, Mrs Gilver, you can’t go to the police, can you?” She knows about Hugh. Inspector Smellie told his wife and she told Dulcie. He tells her everything. He certainly told her something that made her go off like a rocket at the thought of Dugald and Mirren marrying, didn’t he?’

  ‘And it’s not something we’ve heard already, is it?’ I said, with a sickly feeling spreading through me.

  ‘As dreadful as the things we’ve heard already are,’ said Alec. ‘I’m very much afraid not, no.’

  12

  ‘I think we’re out of luck,’ said Alec. Our sprinted exit from the Abbey Park kitchen the previous day had of course led to the scuffing of feet and clearing of throats, because Sunday is not a day for shopping and we could hardly beard her at home, where the fierce inspector would be ensconced in his carpet slippers, so here we were at ten o’clock on the following morning, Alec cupping his hands around his eyes and peering in through the window of Margaret-Ann for Hats, his breath fogging a growing ring on the glass, and both of us losing heart since the blind was drawn down on the door and the shop was in darkness. I squinted at a card propped up on a miniature gilt easel which set out the opening hours in copperplate script so decorative as to be almost illegible.

  ‘We are,’ I said. ‘She’s not open on a Monday. Not open until tomorrow afternoon.’ I put my hands on my hips and puffed out a sigh of annoyance. Just then the bell of the newsagent’s shop next door pealed as a man in a brown apron stuck his head out.

  ‘If ye’re after Maggie Smellie,’ he said, effortlessly sweeping away all the sophistication of the copperplate script, the smart bottle-green and tawny paintwork and the artful swathes of chiffon hiding the interior from view, ‘she does her stint at Hepburn’s on a Monday. Ye’ll catch her there.’

  I was glad in a way, although a quiet word would have been easier managed in a quiet shop than in the bustle of a department store, but it was Monday morning after all and Monday-morning bustle tends more towards the butcher and greengrocer surely than towards purveyors of elegant hats. The truth was that I had been longing for an excuse to enter the House of Hepburn and see for myself the results of Old Bob’s great spiteful retort to Mary Aitken, see for myself what Fiona and Hilda Haddo, who had filled their home with spindly gilded furniture and had tassel combs for their cushions, might have made of three floors of glass cases and mannequins, see for myself what other wonders there might be in a place where one could perhaps find mauve mousquetaires.

  I was not disappointed: where Aitkens’ was all dark oak and flannel sheets, Hepburns’ was like an enormous boudoir, like the inside of a jewellery box, and it made me half-want to twirl with delight like the clockwork ballerina. The floors were pale – they must take a lot of washing, I thought, before I caught myself and banished such dreary practicality – and as for the counters, there were not many to be had. The perfumery, where we found ourselves upon entering, was set up instead with numerous little tables dotted around, white or dove-grey wrought-iron affairs such as one would find on a hotel balcony on the Mediterranean, and there were bottles of scent and tins of powder arranged on these tables and the assistants, dressed in pale lilac and more of the dove grey, simply drifted around amongst the customers, like hostesses at a cocktail party.

  I scanned the far edges of the room and saw fountains of silk scarves and the glitter of costume jewels but not a single hat stand anywhere, so I beckoned to a nearby drifting sales assistant and asked her for directions.

  ‘I’m not sure whether it’s ready-to-wear or bespoke millinery we’re after,’ I began.

  ‘We don’t make a difference, madam,’ said the girl. ‘Millinery is on the first floor because we here at House of Hepburn value every lady just the same and we give our every lady the same devoted attention whether she is shopping for a bridal gown or a handkerchief-case. It’s the House of Hepburn way, madam.’

  And designed, I thought, to lure every woman of taste and fashion away from Aitkens’ for ever.

  ‘Right, well then,’ said Alec. ‘I’m certainly not going to penetrate the upper regions with you, Dandy. I’ll go and skulk about in the Gents’ Department and meet you afterwards.’

  ‘Oh no, sir, sorry, sir,’ said the assistant, who seemed well schooled, not to say indoctrinated. ‘We don’t have a Gents’ Department, I’m afraid. We have Toys and Gifts in the basement if you have any, um . . .’ – she gave him a swift once-over – ‘nephews or godchildren with birthdays coming.’

  ‘I’m allowed to wait in the cellars?’ said Alec. ‘Very well.’ His mouth was rather tight as he smiled. I have often noticed how gentlemen who sense no danger of their own sex being overindulged by
the existence of the many exclusive spike bars, pavilions and clubhouses in the sporting world, supper and pudding clubs at our universities and billiards rooms, libraries, gun rooms, estate offices and smoking rooms in our very houses, for goodness’ sake, can suddenly get that lemon-sucking look if they ever encounter a ladies’ carriage on a train or, as here, a few square yards of scarves and bracelets undiluted by cufflinks for a change.

  ‘Or there’s the café, on second,’ the girl said. ‘Gentlemen are perfectly welcome to wait there.’ She gave a smile, blithely ignorant of the offence she had caused him, and turned, with a swish of her bias-cut lilac panels, and drifted away again.

  ‘Coffee it is then,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll see you up there when you’re done.’

  I tore myself away from the perfumery and scarves and padded up the broad staircase (it was carpeted – carpeted!) to the first floor. Here, although there was no scent for sale, the enveloping fragrance went on and I saw one of the assistants puffing clouds of it out of a scent spray into the air. She was dressed in a very pale eau-de-nil as all the girls were, no more dove grey and lilac, and I was enchanted to see that the tape measures some of them wore around their necks were that colour too. How was that possible? Had they dyed them? Even the pins, the very pins, had bobbles on the ends like little pale green pearls. Altogether, I thought that if the gowns were anything like as soigné as the fittings I should really send Grant down here for a treat one day.

  I squinted around again looking for hat stands. There was one curtained archway clearly leading into a bridal gown salon, for boughs of orange blossom were hung around the entrance, with a great cluster of gilded horseshoes and slippers as a centrepiece. Another arch promised a lingerie salon, and in the most provocative way: by means of a mannequin halfway through the entrance dressed in a satin nightgown and trailing a matching satin and lace wrap – I supposed one might call it a negligee if one could bring oneself to – along the floor behind her. I turned around to look in the other direction, towards the front of the store, and gave a happy sigh.

  The gowns – there were no frocks here – were simply blissful. I supposed Hepburns’ had to sell some coat and skirt suits, some jerseys and warm coats, might even be able to provide one with fair isle and corduroy for bicycling, but on the shop floor, draped over the impossible mannequins – all six feet tall and with figures like pythons – the gowns were silk, lace, a little silk velvet here and there but only with lots of satin ribbon and only in sugared-almond colours, a great deal of chiffon, and some very daring cloth of gold, almost backless and, when one imagined it on a woman not six feet tall, pretty nearly frontless too.

  ‘We have it in tinsel as well as the pongee, madam,’ said a voice beside me as I stood staring.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Tinsel, madam. Cloth-of-silver. With madam’s olive complexion, a tinsel would be much more dashing.’

  No one had ever called my complexion olive before, It had been dubbed sallow by my mother and been sallow ever since except that an artist friend had once referred – not kindly, in my opinion – to its green tones, and Grant has a quelling habit of holding up prospective frocks under my chin and then whisking them away again saying: ‘Beige’.

  ‘Dashing,’ I echoed, wondering if I had ever attempted to look dashing in my life.

  ‘Does madam have any emeralds?’ said the girl. I nodded ‘And emerald eye-paint?’ I shook my head, trying not to look too startled. ‘We carry it downstairs in the perfumery,’ she went on. ‘So long as madam isn’t against the notion of a good dark lipstick, tinsel, emeralds and matching eye-paint with a peacock-feather headdress would be most becoming.’

  I could feel myself physically swaying towards the mannequin, entranced by the mental vision of this silver and peacock-green creature, this dashing stranger I could apparently so easily become, and then I shook myself and asked the girl to direct me to Millinery.

  ‘Just past tea-gowns on the left, madam,’ she said. ‘Then round the corner opposite our new cocktail range. You can’t miss it.’ Tea, cocktails and evening gowns: did none of Hepburns’ customers ever get up in the morning? Did they have breakfast and luncheon in bed in one of those satin negligees and only descend at half past three in florals?

  ‘And I’ll look out a model in silver for madam meantime,’ the girl said. ‘If we have one in a small enough size.’ I wish I could report that I rolled my eyes and tutted at the ‘small enough size’ for it was a ploy of no great subtlety and I was old enough not to be reeled in that way, but I must admit I felt a burst of pleasure and bestowed a flattered smile.

  ‘So . . . these are ready-to-wear?’ I said. Taking one home in a box tonight might prove irresistible.

  ‘No, madam,’ said the girl. ‘Not this particular style, but House of Hepburn likes to keep some trying-on models if we can. It’s more fun trying-on than just looking.’

  I nodded as I walked away; this whole place was like a glorified playroom, I thought, dressing-up box and Wendy house combined; no wonder poor Aitkens’ had to do what it could with sensible tweeds. For a moment I pitied Mirren as a child, playing at shops in the Emporium instead of here, and then, remembering why I had come, I hurried my pace, ignoring the floral tea-gowns and the fringed and sequined cocktail range, and rounding the corner with earnest purpose back at the helm.

  The Millinery Department took the whole escapade one stage further into the realms of fantasy: it was pink. The floor was carpeted in pink, the little chairs in front of the looking-glasses were cushioned in pink and unless I was greatly mistaken the bulbs around these looking-glasses cast a decidedly pinkish light too. I was reminded of a Fragonard – or do I mean a Boucher? – well, of tumbling cherubs on blush-coloured clouds, and I slightly began to lose patience with the Hepburn way. What woman wouldn’t look better by the light of pink electric bulbs? And what woman would not regret the hat she had bought by the light of these bulbs when she got it home and saw it in her own bedroom? Except that probably they sell the pink light bulbs somewhere too, I thought, beside the green eye-paint probably.

  From a back room a tall and willowy woman in her middle years emerged, carrying a lavender and grey straw hat, ribbons trailing.

  ‘I do apologise, madam,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you arriving. How can I help?’ She set the lavender and grey hat down upon the nearest pink velvet hat stand and smiled at me. She was the right sort of age and despite the searing refinement of her vowels I thought she was probably the right level of social standing to be a policeman’s wife but I could not imagine this wand-like creature with her silver shingle and her long tapering fingers going home and mashing turnips for the inspector’s tea. She gestured me to sit down on one of the little pink chairs set before a glass, with hand mirrors and hairbrushes laid out. It made me think of mermaids.

  ‘Mrs . . .’ I stopped myself. Hepburns’ pink powder-puff of a Millinery Department should not be tarnished by the uttering of such a name. The shock might blow a bulb. ‘Are you the milliner?’ I substituted. ‘Margaret-Ann for Hats?’

  ‘I am, madam,’ she said, bridling a little with pleasure to think that her fame had gone before her. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Mrs Hepburn recommended that I come to you,’ I said. ‘Mrs Hepburn Senior. Dulcie.’ The woman’s eyes clouded and she caught her lip in her teeth, nodding. ‘And so I’m glad I’ve caught you today,’ I said. ‘Here, I mean. At House of Hepburn. You are the milliner at Aitkens’ too, I believe?’

  ‘There’s a place in this world for spinach as well as ice-cream,’ she said, with an unexpectedly wicked grin. ‘There comes a time when we all have to get our hats from Aitkens’, madam, when our Hepburn days are gone. But you’re a long way from there yet. What can I show you this morning?’

  ‘Well, mourning,’ I said, spreading my hands. ‘Do you carry mourning hats?’

  ‘I do,’ said the milliner. ‘Lord knows, Aitkens’ does and I’m trying to see what I can put together for House
of Hepburn this very morning.’ She gestured to the lavender and grey. ‘This had red ribbons and silk poppies on it half an hour ago. But if it’s black you’re looking for, madam, you’d better go up the road. Is it a close bereavement?’

  ‘Dugald,’ I said. ‘Something for his funeral.’

  Mrs Smellie’s eyes dimmed and she shook her head.

  ‘You’ll be fine in the lilac then,’ she said. ‘Mrs Haddo and young Mrs Hepburn themselves won’t be in black. Pearl grey for the one and burgundy with ivory touches for the other.’

  ‘And Dulcie?’

  ‘Black, I’m sure, madam, but she’s used to their ways. This place is all Mrs Haddo and her daughter, you know.’ She looked around and sniffed. ‘It’ll give young Mrs Hepburn an interest. Help her get back on her feet, come the time, I daresay.’

  ‘Very sad,’ I said, agreeing. I could not quite see how I was going to propel this interview forward in a useful way. I took another nibble at the edge of it. ‘Very sad for you to be busy with pearl grey and burgundy when you were expecting a wedding.’

  ‘I wasn—’ She bit her lip again. ‘Indeed, madam.’

  ‘You weren’t?’ I said, correctly interpreting what she had just managed not to utter. To my surprise, the woman sank down onto another of the pink chairs and put her hand, which was shaking, to her temple, rubbing the skin there in circles. I could not possibly just dive in, I told myself. This woman was the horrid inspector’s wife. If she told him I had been here pestering her he would be after Hugh with leg irons before sundown. On the other hand, she knew something, was bursting with it while it gnawed away at her like a migraine.

  ‘My dear,’ I said to her, ‘tell me what’s wrong. Dulcie has, you know. Dulcie has told me everything.’ She looked up, ragged and weary.

  ‘She can’t have,’ she said. ‘Dulcie doesn’t know. Oh, she knows about Bob and Mary all right. She knew they were sweethearts years ago and she knows about when they took up again for that wee while. She told me that much and I’m guessing that’s what she told you too.’ Then she started rubbing her temples again, not looking at me as she went on. ‘Yes, Dulcie knew that Mary and Robert’s wee fling resulted in Abigail. That’s why she thinks Mirren and Dugald were cousins.’