Murder of a Lady

by Anthony Wynne

  He hesitated a moment and then did as she asked. She sat down opposite to him in a low chair that he guessed had been used for generations in the Duchlan nursery. Her face was dark and drawn and the muscles round her mouth were twitching.

  “Did you see the scar of a wound on Miss Gregor’s chest?” she asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “I will tell you about it.”

  She pressed her hand to her brow and remained for a moment as if praying. Then she faced him.

  “I came to Duchlan,” she said, “the year that the laird was married. When Mr. Eoghan was born, his mother asked me to be his nurse. Many’s the time I’ve sat on this chair and bathed him before the fire there. His mother used to sit where you are sitting now.”

  She covered her eyes again. An uneasy silence filled the room. Dr. Hailey found himself listening attentively to the soft breathing of the child.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “She was one of the angels; very beautiful too. The laird he was mad for her. I can hear his step on the stair now, coming up to sit beside her while I bathed Mr. Eoghan. Ah, he was a different man in those days from the man he is now, full of jokes and laughter. But Miss Gregor was the same always and he was afraid of her. Do you know she stayed in this house all the time that the laird was married?”

  Again she paused. When her eyes were shut she looked like some very old bird moulting its last feathers.

  “Miss Gregor had not a good word for her brother’s wife. And she was clever and cunning to wound the poor lady. Every day she was making hints and finding faults. The food was not fresh; there was waste going on in the kitchen; the laird’s clothes were not aired for him; Mr. Eoghan was not gaining weight. Everything. She did not complain to her sister-in-law; only to the laird. ‘You must speak to her’ was what she said always and he did not dare to disobey.

  “The laird’s wife was an Irishwoman and she had a quick temper. Because she loved her husband it was an affront to her the way Miss Gregor was carrying on. One day, after her husband had complained of her bad housekeeping, she ran to her sister-in-law and told her that she knew where these complaints were coming from. She was so angry that she did not care that I could hear her. ‘Surely I am entitled to speak when I see my brother and his child neglected?’ Miss Gregor said in her soft, gentle voice. ‘You are not entitled to make trouble between me and my husband, nor to try to take my child away from me,’ Mrs. Gregor said. I saw the blood come boiling up in her cheeks and her eyes. She cried out: ‘Ever since I married, you have tried to steal my happiness from me. You are stealing my husband. Then you will try to steal my child. Other people may think you a good woman but I know what you are.’ Miss Gregor smiled and said she forgave everything, as a Christian woman should. Then she went, her eyes red with crying, to her brother to tell him about his wife’s temper.”

  Christina’s toothless jaws snapped. Her eyes glowed.

  “Oh, she was cunning. Have you seen a cat waiting for a mouse? The laird began to think that his wife was unjust to his sister. There were dreadful quarrels between them and Miss Gregor was waiting always to take his side. He did not come here any more when his wife was here, but he used to come with his sister. Mr. Eoghan was afraid of Miss Gregor, who was never no hand with children, but his father made him kiss her. Doctor, doctor, I knew that there was sorrow coming, and I could not do anything to help the poor young lady. Do you know I could see madness growing and growing in her face.”

  She bowed her head. When she spoke again her voice had fallen almost to a whisper.

  “It was like that, too, with Hamish’s mother, only Mr. Eoghan was away from her most of the time.” She clasped her knees and began to sway backwards and forwards. “Hamish was afraid of Miss Gregor. The first time he took one of them turns was after she was here trying to give some medicine of her own. His mother she came to the room and took the poor laddie in her arms because he was screaming with fear.”

  She broke off suddenly and a look of anxiety came into her face.

  “I mind the day Duchlan’s lady did the same thing,” she exclaimed. She remained silent for a few minutes and then added:

  “The night Duchlan’s lady was drowned, his sister was taken ill.”

  Chapter XXIV

  By the Window

  Dr. Hailey’s face expressed the horror which this information caused him.

  “Drowned!”

  “Yes. In the burn there, at the high tide.”

  “What was the nature of Miss Gregor’s illness?”

  “I do not know. The doctor, Dr. McMillan, brought bandages with him every day when he came to see her. I saw the bandages myself in his bag.”

  Her voice faded away.

  “What explanation did the laird give?” Dr. Hailey asked.

  “He did not give any explanation. The Procurator Fiscal from Campbeltown, not Mr. McLeod, but the gentleman who was Procurator Fiscal before him, came here once or twice. When Miss Gregor was better she and the laird went away for a trip to England.”

  “I see.” He shook his head. “Did he, the laird I mean, seem…Did you think he was distressed at his wife’s death?”

  Christina sighed deeply. “Maybees he was; maybees not. I could not say.”

  “Did he come to the nursery much?”

  “No, he did not. But Miss Gregor she came every day. Mr. Eoghan was hers and she would have it that he would call her ‘Mother’. When he was older Miss Gregor told him that his mother had died from a cold.”

  Dr. Hailey rose.

  “Do you remember what kind of a dressing-gown your poor mistress used to wear?” he asked suddenly.

  “Always a blue dressing-gown like the one Hamish’s mother wears. They was wonderful like each other, Mr. Eoghan’s mother and his wife.” She rose also. “Will you tell me,” she pleaded, “why they are blaming Hamish’s mother now?”

  He started slightly. Had she not been giving him the very information which was lacking to Barley’s case? He was about to refuse her request when an impulse to reward confidence with confidence made him change his mind.

  “Only Dr. McDonald can have committed these murders,” he said. “He and Mrs. Gregor are friends.”

  “Why do you say: ‘Only Dr. McDonald can have committed these murders?’”

  Again he hesitated. But her distress overcame his reluctance. He gave her an outline of the case.

  “I don’t think that Dr. McDonald went into the bedroom,” she declared.

  “If you could prove that! Unhappily I saw him myself going into Mr. Dundas’s room.”

  “They are going to arrest Hamish’s mother?”

  Dr. Hailey shook his head sadly.

  “I suppose so.”

  “No, no. They must not. Hamish’s mother did not do it. She did not. I am sure.”

  The child began to cry. Dr. Hailey watched him awaken and then descended to the ground floor. The heat wave continued and the afternoon was heavy with distant thunder. He left the castle and walked towards Darroch Mor. The woods, he thought, looked like a gipsy child he had seen once winding red leaves about her limbs. He came to an open space where was a view of the loch and the great mountains beyond Inverairy. The turf, set with thyme on which heavy bees lingered, invited to rest. He sat down and took out his snuff-box. The bees on the thyme made music for him till he fell asleep.

  A woman’s voice awakened him. He sat up and saw Oonagh. He jumped to his feet.

  “I’m afraid I was sleeping.”

  She nodded.

  “Yes. It was unkind of me to wake you.”

  She looked weary and anxious but he noticed how well dressed she was. Less observant eyes than his might have failed to recognize, in the simplicity of her frock, and in the way she wore her clothes, an attitude of mind and spirit denied to the vulgar. Most women in this crisis of fate would have rel
axed their self-discipline.

  “I want you to help me if you will,” she said. “That I need help very badly must be my excuse for waking you. I’ve seen Dr. McDonald and heard about your visit to him this morning.”

  She broke off as if she felt that she had explained herself with enough clearness. He stooped to pick up his snuff-box, which had fallen to the ground.

  “You’ve been so wonderfully successful in other cases, haven’t you?” She caught her breath. “If murder will out, so will innocence, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, I give you my word that Dr. McDonald did not murder my aunt. Now, how can we prove that he didn’t?”

  Her face had become animated and her beauty, in consequence, was enhanced. In spite of himself Dr. Hailey felt the influence of that potent magic.

  “I don’t know how we can prove that he didn’t,” he said.

  “At any rate it’s got to be tried, hasn’t it?” She came to him and put her hand on his arm: “You will help me?”

  “On one condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “That you will tell me the whole truth from the beginning, and answer any questions I may ask you.”

  Oonagh nodded. “Yes, I promise.” She seated herself on the grass, inviting him to do the same. Tall bracken, becoming yellow, framed her face.

  “Where shall I begin?”

  “I want, first of all, to know about your relations with your aunt.”

  She frowned.

  “We were rivals I suppose.”

  “Rivals?”

  “I am Eoghan’s wife and Hamish’s mother. But I am not a Gregor as they are.” She plucked a piece of thyme and gazed at it. “Perhaps I did not attach enough importance to that.” Suddenly she raised her head and looked him in the face. “Being a Gregor, after all, was my aunt’s chief interest in life. The Gregor family was her husband and children, all she had to live for.”

  “You would not say that, would you, if she was still alive?”

  “Perhaps not. But if not, I’m sorry. I think now that there was something very sad, very lonely, in that woman’s position. She was so bitterly hungry for the things I had, Eoghan’s love, my child’s love, perhaps even Duchlan’s love. She wanted…” Oonagh broke off, her lips remained parted as if waiting the word she needed to explain her thought. “She wanted to have a hand in the future of the family. To belong to the future as women do who have children of their own. Because she couldn’t bear children who would be members of her family, she wanted to steal the children other women had borne so that she could stamp her personality and ideas on their minds. Behind that too, I think, was the ordinary need of every woman for a child.”

  Again she broke off. Dr. Hailey nodded.

  “I see.”

  “I feel that I’m being horribly cruel. It’s like talking about a deformity.”

  “Deformed people, you know, have ways of their own of forgetting their afflictions.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Family pride, I imagine, was Miss Gregor’s way. I noticed that her bedroom was full of all sorts of rubbish that she had made at different times in her life.”

  ‘‘Yes, I often noticed that too. She was horrified once when I wanted to give an old coat of Hamish’s to a child in the village. The coat disappeared and Christina told me that my aunt had burned it. Whereas she didn’t mind in the least when I gave some of my own clothes to the child’s mother. Duchlan’s cast-off clothes were always put away in a wardrobe upstairs to be sent to a missionary in China.”

  ‘‘To be dedicated.”

  Oonagh raised her eyebrows sharply.

  ‘‘Yes, that’s exactly what she told me, and that was the Duchlan atmosphere.”

  She pulled the thyme to pieces and scattered the pieces. ‘‘After I realized what was happening I began to grow resentful. My nerves got jagged. One day I lost my temper and told my aunt that she was not to interfere with the way I was bringing up Hamish. She wept and became hysterical. Poor woman, I can hear her protesting that she had no wish to interfere in any way. But I was afraid of her. There was a look in her eyes. She told my father-in-law too that I had been cruel to her. After that the very air I breathed seemed to grudge itself. Every day things got worse. Dr. McDonald told you, didn’t he, that I ran away?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “Did he tell you why I ran away?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose I ought not to have lost my temper as I did. I don’t think it was for myself I was so angry; it seemed so horrible that they should suspect Dr. McDonald. I was upset too for Eoghan’s sake and Hamish’s sake.”

  She caught her breath sharply.

  “Once I got out of the house I felt different. But I felt, too, that I couldn’t go back again. It was like waking up out of a dreadful nightmare. In that house neither my husband nor my child belonged to me; it was only when I got away that I felt myself wife and mother again. I meant to go back to Ireland, to my people. I meant to write to Eoghan from there telling him that if he wanted me he must give me a home of my own…”

  She broke off. Her voice, when she spoke again, was rather faint.

  “It’s not easy to be independent when you’ve got no money. The truth is that I was completely dependent on Miss Gregor. Eoghan hasn’t enough to keep a wife and child in any kind of comfort.”

  “Did she make you an allowance?” Dr. Hailey asked. He watched her closely. It was just possible that Duchlan’s account of the financial arrangements at the castle had been inaccurate.

  “No. She had a system by which I could buy clothes at certain shops. She paid the bills. They were the kind of shops I wouldn’t have gone to of my own accord. You know, good, old-fashioned places with no liking for modern ideas. It really meant that everything I got was regulated and controlled.” She broke off and added:

  “Very rarely Duchlan gave me a few pounds. But when he did, he always kept asking what I meant to buy with his money.”

  “Your husband gave you nothing?”

  She raised her head sharply. Her eyes flashed.

  “How could he? Eoghan really had no right to marry when he did. He wasn’t in a position to keep a wife. He wasn’t in a position to have a home of his own. He knew from the beginning that the girl he married would have to live with his people. To be just, though, I’m sure he had no idea what that meant. Men never understand what one woman can inflict on another woman.”

  “Did you talk in this way to Dr. McDonald?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he think?”

  “He told me he felt sure that Eoghan loved me and that, in time, it would all come right.”

  “Did he say that on the night when you ran away from Duchlan?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated a moment and then added:

  “Dr. McDonald begged me to return to Duchlan,” she said. “He had persuaded me before Christina came.”

  Dr. Hailey nodded.

  “How did the old people receive you when you returned to the castle?”

  “Not very well. They were furious, but they tried to pretend that they were more hurt than angry. That didn’t prevent them from spying on me next day.”

  Her cheeks flushed as she told how she had asked Dr. McDonald to meet her where they were not likely to be disturbed.

  “I felt that if I was left entirely alone I might do something desperate. My nerves were in that condition. A friend with whom you can talk things over is the greatest blessing in such circumstances; besides, Dr. McDonald knows what life is like at Duchlan.” She frowned and bit her lip.

  “My aunt followed me from the house. When I returned, just before dinner, she came to my room and told me that she had seen us. Nothing happened then, but the next afternoon Duchlan spoke to me in her presence. My self-control
broke. I told them that my mind was made up to leave Eoghan if he refused to take me away.”

  Her eyes more than her words revealed the extreme tension at which she had been living. She plucked at the thyme, scattering its small flowers about her.

  “I didn’t appear at dinner. But the evening post brought me a letter from Eoghan which changed everything. He told me plainly that he had lost a huge sum of money and was coming to Duchlan to try to borrow it from Aunt Mary. He said that, if he failed to borrow it, he would have to leave the Army in disgrace. The letter ended with an appeal to me to put my feelings on one side and help him, for the sake of Hamish.” She looked up and faced the doctor: “That was why I went to Aunt Mary’s room after Dr. McDonald had seen Hamish.”

  Dr. Hailey had been polishing his eyeglass. He put it to his eye.

  “McDonald was still in the nursery when you went to Miss Gregor’s room?” he asked.

  “Yes. I left him there.”

  “When did you meet him again?”

  “In the smoke-room. He had come downstairs. I told him that I had decided to make the best of things for Eoghan’s sake. The window was open because of the heat. My aunt’s room as you know is directly above. We heard her walk across her room to the windows and shut them.”

  “McDonald told me nothing of that.”

  Dr. Hailey’s voice challenged. He saw the girl blush.

  “He wouldn’t, for my sake.”

  “Because you had been alone together in the smoke-

  room?”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact just after we heard Aunt Mary close her windows we heard the engine of Eoghan’s motor-boat. My father-in-law must have heard it too because, a minute later, we heard him coming downstairs. Dr. McDonald didn’t wish to meet him. He climbed through the open window and went away round the house to his car. I put the light out and waited till my father-in-law had opened the front door…”

  “What? McDonald climbed out through the window?” Dr. Hailey’s eyeglass dropped.