Hamish MacBeth 07 (1998) - Death of a Prankster

by M C Beaton

  She went straight to Jeffrey. “Well,” she said huskily, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece and smiling up at him, “how does it feel to be a millionaire?”

  Jeffrey’s thin grey face broke into a smile. “Great,” he said.

  “Jeffrey!” Jan’s scandalized voice sounded from the other side of the room.

  Neither of them paid Jan the slightest attention. “And what are you going to do with it, you old money-bags?” said Htchy, twisting a coy finger in Jeffrey’s buttonhole.

  “I tell you what I’m going to do with it.” Jeffrey’s voice was loud and precise. “I am going off to lie on the beach somewhere and never, ever do a stroke of work again.”

  “Taking anyone with you?”

  “No,” said Jeffrey cheerfully.

  Jan approached the pair, her thin hands clenched into fists. “Jeffrey, you appear to have forgotten that your brother has just been murdered. Do stop talking rubbish.”

  “But I am not talking rubbish, my precious,” said Jeffrey. “I am leaving you, Jan. I am going as far away from you as I can possibly get. It will do you good to try to support yourself for the first time in your greedy life, although I suppose you’ll batten on that wimp of a son of yours.”

  One minute Paul was sitting with his head down. The next he had leaped across the room and seized Jeffrey by the throat. “No,” screamed Jan. “Paul, don’t—”

  Paul released his stepfather and stood panting. Melissa felt shaken and sick. But Titchy appeared delighted. She linked her arm in Paul’s. “Well, well, tiger cat,” she cooed. “Why don’t we go out for a walk.” Paul shook his head in a bewildered way as if to clear it. His glasses were askew and he straightened them with a shaking hand and then went meekly off with Titchy.

  “Where’s Charles?” asked Betty Trent.

  Jeffrey and Jan were staring at each other. “I don’t know,” said Melissa nervously. “I think I’ll just go and—”

  “Don’t ever humiliate me like that again,” said Jan.

  “I won’t be round to do it,” said Jeffrey cheerfully. “I’m leaving you. I’m leaving Britain.”

  “You can’t. I’ll sue you.”

  Jeffrey suddenly looked years younger. “You’ll never find me…ever,” he said happily. “I may even take young Titchy with me.”

  “You forget, Miss Gold is engaged to Charles,” remarked Betty Trent.

  Jan rounded on her. “You don’t think that little tart is going to marry Charles now that he hasn’t any money. How incredibly stupid.”

  Betty folded up her knitting and stowed it away in a large cretonne work-bag. She looked at Jeffrey. “You’re quite right to leave her,” she said. “I have always considered your marriage a disaster.”

  Melissa ran out of the room and collected her jacket and headed down to the village. She did not want to join the others for lunch. There was no sign of Paul or Titchy outside.

  The weather had made one of its rapid Sutherland changes. It was mild and balmy, the sun was shining, and the air was full of the sound of running water as the snow melted from the hills and mountains. A stream ran beside the road, gurgling and chuckling, peat-brown and flashing with gold lights. Before the entrance to the village was a humpbacked bridge. Everything seemed to shimmer and dance in the clear light. Melissa walked on, ignoring the crowd of reporters who were pursuing her with badgering questions. The only way she knew how to cope with them was to pretend they weren’t there. Fortunately for her, just as she reached the bridge, one of them shouted that he had just seen Titchy Gold walking in the grounds and they all scampered off, leaving her alone.

  In the main street, she saw a cafe and headed for it, hoping it was not one of the ones which opened only in the tourist season.

  But as soon as she approached it, she saw through the glass of the front window the tall figure of Hamish Macbeth. She opened the door and went in.

  “I thought you were investigating something,” she said accusingly.

  “I wanted to get away on my own and think for a bit,” said Hamish amiably.

  A waitress approached and asked Melissa what she wanted. Melissa realized she was very hungry.

  “Have you anything local?” asked Melissa hopefully.

  The waitress recited in a sing-song voice, “Pie and chips; sausage, bacon and chips; ham, egg and chips; haggis and chips; hamburger and chips.”

  Melissa ordered ham, egg and chips. “Beans is extra,” said the waitress.

  “No beans.”

  “Is that yer own hair, lassie?”

  “Yes,” said Melissa stiffly.

  “How did yiz do it?”

  Melissa glared.

  “She really wants to know,” said Hamish sotto voce.

  “Oh, in that case, I bleached it first and then dyed it pink. It’s a dye called Flamingo.”

  “My, it’s right pretty. Flamingo, did ye say? Maybe my man’ll be able tae get it in Inverness.”

  “You’re changing fashion in the Highlands,” said Hamish. “It is nice now you’ve washed all the gel put of it. But won’t it be awfy difficult when your roots start showing?”

  “Yes, it will. But I’ll just dye it back to my normal colour. Oh, there was the most awful scene in the drawing room.” She told him what had happened.

  “You’d better get that boyfriend of yours away from her, for a start. She’s out to make trouble.”

  “I don’t want to have anything more to do with Paul,” said Melissa. “But the thing that puzzles me is that litchy was Charles’s fiancee when he didn’t have money or the prospect of it. She must have been fond of him.”

  “I think she was fond of his looks,” said Hamish. “He is a verra good-looking young man and she was often photographed with him. I think that was the attraction. Also, perhaps after sleeping her way into show business, she found having a good-looking lover a refreshing change. Where was he when all this was going on?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody appears to have seen him today.”

  “They might find out who it was who cut up Titchy’s frocks.”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” said Melissa. “Before I left, Blair sent for Angela. So she might have been the one.”

  “Ah. Here’s your food. I’d better leave you.”

  “Can’t you wait? I won’t be long.”

  “I cannae be seen too often in the company of a murder suspect,” said Hamish deliberately.

  Melissa gave him a wounded look.

  “Think about it,” said Hamish. “As far as Blair is concerned, you’re engaged to Paul. Paul might have known about the will, so you might have known about the will and you could have planned the whole thing between you.”

  Melissa’s large grey eyes filled with tears. “You’re horrid,” she said shakily.

  He relented. “Look, I’m trying to frighten you into being on your guard. Don’t trust any of them.”

  “If Angela cut up the dresses,” said Melissa, anxious to keep him longer, “does that mean she might have committed the murder?”

  “I think it might mean she thought Titchy was being too successful in engaging the auld man’s affections and wanted to put a spoke in the wheel.”

  “Poor Angela,” murmured Melissa. “Blair will be giving her a dreadful time.”

  Hamish rose to go. “I think Blair will find out that Miss Angela Trent is not easily bullied.”

  Detective Chief Inspector Blair was glaring at Angela. “I do not think you realize the seriousness of the matter,” he said in carefully enunciated English. “Oneof thae…those…frockshad bugle beads on the trim and those beads carried bits of your fingerprints.”

  “Have I protested?” boomed Angela. “Have I said otherwise? Yes, I admit I sliced the seams of those frocks. My motive was simple. Titchy Gold was flirting disgustingly with my father. I was afraid he would leave her something in his will. I knew she would suspect him of being the culprit, which she did. Quite clever, really. If Miss Gold feels like pressing charges, I shall settl
e out of court, and handsomely too. So pooh to you.”

  Blair crouched forward over the desk and snarled, “Your father was murdered. In my opinion, a woman who could play a trick like that could murder her ain father.”

  “Oh, really? Well, you do not strike me as being a very intelligent man. In fact, while you are wasting your breath and bullying me, there is a murderer in this house.”

  Angela suddenly raised a handkerchief to her lips, as if she realized for the first time that there was actually a murderer lurking about.

  Blair plodded on, taking Angela back over the evening leading up to the murder, checking everything against the statement she had previously made.

  At last he growled at her to keep herself in readiness for further questioning and Angela lumbered off.

  “Strong woman, that,” said Jimmy Anderson. “She could ha’ done it.”

  “I’ll just keep on until one o’ them breaks,” said Blair. “Fetch Charles Trent in again. He’s the one who would have expected to inherit.”

  It took some time before Charles could be found. Harry MacNab at last ran him to earth in the games room, where he was trying to play a game of table tennis with himself by hitting the ball and darting around to the other side of the table to try to return his own serve.

  Blair looked up as Charles Trent was ushered into the room. The young man looked a trifle pale but carried himself easily.

  “Well now,” began Blair, “that will must have come as a shock to you.”

  “Yes,” said Charles Trent. “Of course it did. I mean, if he had left it to a home for retired parrots or something, it would have been less of a shock. But to leave something to everyone except me, well, that was a bit of a blow.”

  “So what will you do?”

  Charles smiled ruefully. “Work, work, work, I suppose. Pity, I was looking forward to a life of ease.”

  “Is there any way you or anyone else could have known what was in that will?” asked Blair.

  “Don’t think so,” said Charles. “We were all strung up before the reading of the will. If you think I killed him because I thought I was getting something, you’re way off beam. You have to hate to commit a murder like that. He hated me. I didn’t like him. But that’s another thing entirely.”

  Blair doggedly continued to question him for another hour.

  Charles left feeling depressed but he brightened at the sight of Titchy. She was standing in the hall with her back to him, talking to Enrico.

  “I want you to move my stuff out of Mr Charles’s room,” he heard Titchy say. Enrico inclined his head and moved quietly off.

  “What’s this?” demanded Charles. “Ditching me, Titchy?”

  She flushed when she saw him. “Well, it’s not quite the thing, Charles dear, us sharing a room when we’re not married. Angela and Betty are so stuffy.”

  Charles looked down at her. “I repeat: Are you ditching me, Titchy?”

  She looked at him defiantly. “Why not? You’re a waste of time.”

  His eyes went quite blank and he stood very still. “I could make you very, very sorry,” he said quietly.

  The drawing room door opened. Betty Trent stood there. Behind her were the others: Paul, his mother, Jeffrey, Angela and Melissa, who had just joined them. They were sitting in various frozen attitudes looking out at the couple, revealed through the door held open by Betty.

  “Are you threatening me?” screeched Titchy.

  “Think about it,” said Charles coolly. “Just think what I could do to you.”

  He walked out through the front door into the melting snow.

  Titchy shrugged and laughed. Numbly Betty stood aside to let her into the drawing room. Everyone stared at her silently.

  “Don’t let me spoil your fun,” said Titchy. “What were you all talking about?”

  “They were talking about you,” said Melissa suddenly. “Angela was asking Jeffrey if he really meant to go off with you and Paul said if you did, he would murder you.”

  “Melissa!” exclaimed Paul in a hurt voice.

  Melissa rounded on him. “You asked for that,” she said fiercely. “You brought me up here and landed me in the middle of a murder and yet all you’ve done since we were brought back from Inverness is run to your mother or flirt with that tart.”

  “My, my,” said Titchy, who seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. “Jealousy will get you nowhere, pet, nor will pink hair, for that matter. So old-fashioned. Dead seventies, that.”

  “Jealous…of you?” raged Melissa. “I don’t care who Paul runs after. He’s nothing to me. You’re all sick!”

  Hamish Macbeth wondered what was going on as Melissa erupted from the drawing room, but he had decided he had better tell Blair about Jim Gaskell, the gamekeeper, and so he went on into the library.

  Blair swore when he heard about the trick played on the gamekeeper. “There’s damn suspects comin’ oot o’ the woodwork,” he groaned. “Anderson, fetch that gamekeeper in here. And Macbeth, arnae you neglecting the duties o’ your parish? There’s no need for you here fur the rest o’ the day.”

  “If it hadn’t been for me,” said Hamish stiffly, “you’d never haff heard about the gamekeeper.”

  “Aye, aye, laddie. Jist piss off and take that mongrel wi’ ye. You should know better than to take your pet on a murder case.”

  “I told you before,” said Hamish. “This is a trained police dog.”

  “If thon thing’s a trained police dog, then I’m Lassie,” hooted Blair. “Off wi’ ye.”

  Hamish muttered under his breath as he and Towser scrambled into the police Land Rover. It was already dark, the north of Scotland seeing very little daylight during the winter. As he approached Lochdubh, he thought of calling on Priscilla and then changed his mind. She had called him a moocher. She would think he had only called at the hotel to cadge a free drink. He drove on towards the police station. At the end of the waterfront, the Lochdubh Hotel stood dark and empty. It was usually closed for the winter, but rumour had it that it was being put up for sale because the competition from Tommel Castle was killing off trade.

  He parked the car and let himself into his kitchen, noticing as he switched on the light that frost was forming on the inside of the window and that last night’s dirty dishes were still in the sink.

  He lit the kitchen stove and cooked some kidneys for Towser and then walked up and down rubbing his hands, waiting for the room to heat up.

  There was a tentative knock at the kitchen door. He thought it was probably the minister’s wife, Mrs Wellington, who expected payment in fresh eggs from Hamish’s hens for walking Towser.

  But it was Priscilla who stood there, and she was holding a foil-covered dish.

  “Truce,” she said. “I brought you dinner. Venison casserole. It only needs to be heated up.”

  “Come in,” said Hamish eagerly. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Priscilla, but Blair drives me mad and I wass hungry and…and it’s grand to see you.”

  “That’s more like it.” Priscilla put the casserole into the oven and sat down at the kitchen table. She slipped off her wool coat, which crackled with electricity from the frosty air. “Turned cold again,” she said. “Damn winter. I’m sick of it. I would like to go and lie in the sun on a beach somewhere.”

  “Like Jeffrey Trent,” said Hamish. He sat down as well and told her what had happened that day, ending up with, “I don’t like the way Titchy Gold is going on. But then I don’t like Titchy.”

  “Why?” asked Priscilla.

  “I don’t know. She’s such a mixture. One minute she’s as hard as nails, the next she’s playing the vamp…and neither of those characters ties in with the one which was sick with fright over the appearance of that headless knight.”

  “I think I know why. A lot of theatrical people are very superstitious, Hamish. Do you think she did the murder and then calmly went to bed with her lover?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “But whe
n I see her, I see death.”

  “But to get the body in the wardrobe in the first place, you would need someone very strong…or two people,” pointed out Priscilla.

  “Aye, They could all have done it, to my mind. Of course, the whole setting is unnatural, Priscilla. There’s’ that overheated house, the ghastly noisy carpets and furnishings, all in the shadow of the mountain…so I’m looking at all these people through a distorting glass.”

  “What about Jan Trent? Instead of getting the servants to clean up to protect her son, she could have been protecting herself. She loves money, you said.”

  “Aye,” agreed Hamish. “Then there’s the daughters, Angela and Betty. Odd couple. One of them couldn’t have done it, but two…although Angela Trent’s a hefty woman. Mind you, both had a generous allowance from the old man while he was living. If they did not know what was in the will, why kill him and kill the goose that was laying the golden eggs?”

  “When there are millions to be inherited,” said Priscilla, “even a generous allowance can begin to seem like a pittance.” She went to the oven and took out the casserole and served the contents deftly on to a plate. We’re like an old married couple after all the passion has long died away, thought Hamish, at first privately amused, and then, for some reason he could not fathom, angry.

  He had a sudden childish desire to push the food away and say it was not very good. He then wondered uneasily if he was coming down with some sort of virus. He always got tetchy just before a bout of the flu.

  “Anyway, I’m out of the case,” said Hamish. “Blair has ordered me back. I don’t see much hope of solving it long-range.”

  “I know Angela Trent very slightly,” said Pris-cilla. “Daddy took me to Arrat House on a visit when I was a child. I could always go over there to offer my sympathies and tell you what’s going on.”

  Hamish brightened. “I wouldn’t mind a fresh eye on the case,” he said eagerly. “Also, you could keep an eye on Melissa. She’s a nice little thing and I worry about her.”