A Step So Grave

by Catriona McPherson

  We passed David Spencer on our way to the boat, his dinghy headed in as we headed out.

  ‘Gilvers?’ he called over, understandably perplexed.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, as my menfolk stared ahead of themselves with set jaws. I waved back at Applecross House, trying to signal that answers were there for the finding. Then I gave him an awkward smile as we were borne away from each other by our two lots of oarsmen.

  I am drawing a veil over the rest of our journey. The still, blue day was already turning rugged when the little dinghy pulled alongside the boat and matters only worsened after that. By the time we were at Plockton, there was a lashing rain and a howling gale blowing it northward.

  ‘At least the snow will melt,’ said Donald, dolefully, when we were on our way to Inverness again, all steaming gently in the powerful blasts of heat thrown out by the radiator in Hugh’s Rolls. ‘And they’ll be able to get out and about by road again.’

  ‘That’s a thought,’ I said. ‘How did she get away?’

  ‘On the water,’ said Hugh. ‘Lady Love has been coming and going by boat her whole life.’

  ‘Unseen?’ I said. ‘Out on a dinghy to a waiting boat with three pieces of luggage, unseen by everyone in that row of cottages, who have nothing else to look at all day?’

  ‘Why “unseen”?’ said Donald. ‘The villagers and crofters might have thought it odd that she was leaving on her birthday, but none of them would have rushed out to stop her and none of them would have imagined the family didn’t know and gone beetling along to tell tales. Even if they had smelled trouble, they adore her. Their loyalty would not have wavered.’

  ‘Well, just her own household then,’ I said. ‘It was a very bold thing to do under so many noses.’

  ‘Easy enough to buy silence when you hold the purse strings,’ Hugh said. ‘And the household’s loyalties are to her too, not to Lachlan.’

  ‘Poor old man,’ I said. And we all lapsed into a bleak silence that lasted until Hugh turned in, after midnight, at the gates of Gilverton.

  Of course, we had expected the house to be in darkness, save perhaps for one lamp in one window. Hugh had sent a telegram from Plockton warning Pallister of our arrival but assuring him we would shift for ourselves until morning. But, as we turned the last corner of the drive, it was to see lights on all over the ground floor, the door standing open and Alec’s motorcar as well as a large ramshackle Renault I did not recognise sitting on the gravel. Pallister came out onto the step, still in his full livery, as we drew up.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, stepping out and feeling the grip of dread clutch at me.

  Alec appeared by Pallister’s side, with Bunty at his heels. She gave a short yip and came down to greet me, weaving round my legs like a cat and whacking me with her tail. ‘Bad news from Applecross,’ Alec said. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

  ‘Is Mallory all right?’ said Donald, much to my gratification.

  ‘She … yes, in the way you mean,’ Alec said. ‘But …’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ I said. ‘Did Lachlan harm himself?’ I could not get rid of the image of him there behind the banisters of the high landing, pinched and white from the misery of his wife deserting him. Would he have enough strength in his arms to heave himself over the rail and plunge down to the stone floor of the hall?

  ‘Do you want to tell them?’ said Alec, looking over his shoulder. A figure came forward and, as he moved into the porchlight, I recognised Inspector Hutcheson from the Perthshire Constabulary.

  ‘The snow melted in all that rain,’ he said. ‘And Lady Lavinia was discovered lying dead in her garden, a rose in her hand and a blade in her skull.’ There was a short moment of utter silence. ‘Aside from that, it’s good to see you again, Mrs Gilver. How have you been keeping?’

  ‘On her birthday!’ Grant said. She was brushing my hair and pinning it into flat curls, with extra squirts of setting lotion to tame it after the adventure of the rain and salt spray and then the close fug of the motorcar. ‘On the day of her fiftieth birthday! Every time I think I’ve heard the worst depravity in this world, I hear some more.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d find it less depraved that someone murdered her on any other day,’ I said. ‘And I’m far from sure it was her birthday, anyway. It might have been on the eve. Before midnight last night.’

  ‘The eve of her fiftieth birthday!’ said Grant, exactly as much appalled by this new idea. ‘Such wickedness.’

  ‘There I can agree with you,’ I said. I had needed a stiff brandy and some strong sweet tea before I recovered from the shock of what Hutcheson had told me at the front door. And Donald had been beyond the reach of either. He had been taken away by Becky, the head housemaid, and put to bed with hot bottles. It had been left to Teddy to telephone to Applecross and try to convey a little of our dismay and our wholly inadequate good wishes.

  Inspector Hutcheson had been waiting for us to arrive, hoping he could conduct interviews and wire the results through to Applecross in the morning, whence a party had been dispatched from the Inverness police station, by train, coal boat, dinghy, crofters’s arms and dog cart to the scene of the crime. It had only taken him one look at us, demented from exhaustion, before he set out for home, promising to return bright and early.

  ‘What a scunner that you left,’ Grant said, fitting my sleeping cap over the pin curls.

  Alec had touched on this point too. ‘A murder, Dandy, and you right there in the house where it happened! And in such a remote spot that the police would probably be happy for your assistance, rather than coming over all snooty the way they sometimes do. And you just pack your traps and take yourself off! Are you kicking yourself? I’d be booting myself hard, if it were me. I could have been up there tomorrow to join you and help. Rotten luck.’

  ‘As you say, Grant,’ I replied. ‘A pure scunner.’

  Grant gave a soft laugh. It always amuses her to hear me talk Scots.

  ‘And whose idea was it for you to leave?’ she said. I caught her eye in the mirror and saw the gleam.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I don’t think that occurred to Mr Osborne. He lamented it as though it was mere chance. He didn’t wonder if it was something else.’

  ‘He’ll get there,’ said Grant, with withering condescension.

  ‘It was Biddy Tibball who suggested it to me,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ said Grant.

  ‘Lady Love’s childhood friend and companion,’ I said. ‘Her husband is Lord Ross’s nurse and her son is married to the younger Dunnoch daughter, Cherry. Oh dear.’ I had just remembered. ‘Cherry is in the early days of her first pregnancy.’

  ‘Or she was when you left at lunchtime,’ said Grant, sepulchrally. ‘Who knows by now. Biddy Tibball, then?’

  ‘Mallory also suggested to Master Donald that we should leave,’ I said. ‘At least I think so. Of course, someone else might have fed the notion to Mallory and Biddy and encouraged them to pass it on.’

  ‘Who else is there?’

  ‘The devoted husband,’ I said. ‘Those three devoted Tibballs, or four if you count Cherry. Devoted servants, inside and out. Devoted crofters for miles around. Devoted neighbours. And Mallory.’

  Grant put my hairbrush down and folded her hands in a tremendous display of meek virtue. ‘What happened to her devotion?’ she said. I had not been aware of failing to apportion her any, but I have had reason often enough to trust my instincts. I tucked this little point away in a corner of my mind to examine later.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, remembering. ‘And there was someone else. A David Spencer. Captain Spencer. Old friend of the family, they said, but absolutely as devoted to Lady Love as the rest put together. But he was out all day.’ I put my head in my hands and groaned. ‘I’m too tired to hold it all in my brain and I’m much too tired to turn it into notes,’ I said. ‘I shall just have to trust that Inspector Hutcheson has lost none of his bite and can winkle it all out of my memory in the morning.’

  Inspector
Hutcheson had not only retained his bite, but had honed his fangs and strengthened the powerful muscles of his jaw. After half an hour with him the next day, I felt like an elderly dishrag, well wrung out and good for nothing.

  He started in on me gently enough, asking me for a general impression of Lavinia’s state of mind and for my view of her household. We were in the inner sanctum of my own household; to wit, my sitting room, my erstwhile retreat from masculinity and now, with the advent of a telephone, a door to the garden and a desk for Alec, the base camp of Gilver and Osborne. It was just after breakfast and a bright fire burned in the grate. Bunty sprawled before it on the hearthrug, almost dozing but occasionally thumping her tail at the sound of my voice.

  I thought carefully before answering but could not improve on what I had told Grant the night before.

  ‘Beloved by all,’ I said. ‘A loyal wife to her crippled husband and just about to make even greater sacrifices in the name of his comfort. A loyal patron of old friends who’re down on their luck. A benefactress of astounding generosity both to individuals and to the world at large. Everything from a scholarship at Oxford for the gardener’s boy – whom a less saintly woman would have reason to resent rather than reward – to roads and piers and rent rebates. She was her daughters’ great chum too and quite elderly women came along from the village on skis to say happy birthday. Beloved by absolutely all.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Hutcheson. ‘Mr Gilver didn’t have a bad word to say about her either.’

  ‘Well, they’re old pals from the London season when she was presented,’ I said. ‘She was quite a hit, I believe.’

  ‘Well now, I haven’t got as far as your good man yet,’ said Hutcheson. ‘I’m doing it in order. It was Mr Donald Gilver I was meaning. He had nothing but bouquets for the lady.’

  I inclined my head in acknowledgement of the point he had not quite made. It was useless to try to hide anything – no matter how private or embarrassing – from the inspector. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Donald had a little crush on his future mother-in-law. A little pash. Mallory knew about it and found it charming. One gathers it wasn’t the first time and it would have been thought odd if he’d been indifferent.’

  Hutcheson nodded and made a few marks in his notebook. I wondered what he would think if I took out my notebook and did the same.

  ‘Although,’ I said, ‘there was something. Her husband and her old friend both made veiled reference to a plan Lavinia was hatching. Not the pier, not Donald’s wedding. Something else entirely.’

  ‘That’s the ticket,’ Hutcheson said. ‘Now I smell motive. But we must eat our greens before our pudding. Let’s carry on: to the younger Mr Gilver. Or is he still Master Gilver?’

  ‘He’s in his twenties,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t thank you for it. I don’t know that I actually saw Teddy with Lady Love at any point during our short visit. You’d have to ask him.’ Then a thought struck me. ‘What do you mean “in order,” Inspector? How is Donald first and then me “in order”?’

  ‘He knew them best,’ Hutcheson said. ‘And you’re the one with the trained mind.’ I sat back in some surprise. Hutcheson had had no high opinion of my mind when we crossed paths before. ‘Ah but, you’ve had ten long years at the sharp end since then,’ he added, reading my thoughts. ‘I follow your career with interest, Mrs Gilver. And you’ve racked up a fair few wins.’ I held my preening down to a tiny smirk and waited for more. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘who did it?’ His eyes were twinkling, but it was not entirely a joke. ‘No such luck, eh? Well then, let’s go round the long road.’ He turned over a page in his notebook and licked his pencil. ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘At teatime on Wednesday,’ I said. ‘We women were all gathered in the hall while the men, except for Lord Ross, were out in the garden hunting … Now, Inspector, this is going to sound quite mad when I tell you. But a stray dog had got into the house and—’

  ‘Left by a closed window, yes,’ he said. ‘I heard.’

  ‘The men gave chase and the women waited by the fireside. Then Lady Love went up to her room to rest before … Well, it was supposed to be before church, but we didn’t go in the end. And I never saw her again. She ate her dinner in her bedroom, owing to a headache. Then she breakfasted in bed too, staying out of the way of party preparations so as not to spoil the surprise. But wait a minute. No she didn’t.’

  He raised his eyebrows, waiting as instructed. They had been impressive eyebrows ten years ago and a further decade’s progress towards old age had rendered them magnificent.

  ‘The people downstairs – Cherry and Mallory – thought she was breakfasting in bed, but Mrs McReadie, the cook, brought the tray away untouched. I think she was already dead.’

  ‘“Brought” the tray away?’ said Hutcheson.

  ‘Mr Gilver and I were standing on the stairs looking out at the garden and the cook came down towards us, grumbling. Yes, she was definitely dead by then. We saw the virgin snow and the handle of the weapon.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Nine-ish,’ I said. ‘But it had cleared up late the night before. The moonlight was beautiful on the bay and the snowy land made it seem like a stage set. I stood at my window and drank it in. Yes, it had definitely stopped snowing the night before, so she must have been dead by then. So how did Mrs McReadie get the message to go up with a breakfast tray?’

  ‘“Message” might be the word,’ said the inspector. ‘A note on the door maybe? Two notes even: one at night and one in the morning.’

  ‘But she can’t have been all alone from tea one day to luncheon the next,’ I said. ‘She would have been missed.’

  ‘Keeping a low profile so as not to spoil her party, you said.’

  ‘But not as low as all that! It beggars belief that no one spoke to her at all.’ I was disturbing Bunty with the vehemence of my words and I could not help remembering another dog by another fire and the beastly end to what had been a peaceful scene.

  ‘A hot oat pillow was in the offing for a while, then, in the end, cancelled,’ I added, remembering. ‘There must have been an exchange or two over that.’

  ‘So there must.’

  ‘But can’t we narrow it down from looking at the body itself – I mean, of course, can’t the Inverness police do so? I shouldn’t get carried away. But when you ring up – from here if you like – ask them if she was wearing a piece of wool round her neck.’

  ‘A scarf, you mean?’ Hutcheson said.

  ‘No, a strand of wool, with knots and twists. A kind of charm. Mrs McReadie was making them for everyone. She handed mine to me before we all came down for dinner and the church service that never was. If she gave one to Lady Love, it would be on the body.’

  ‘The church service that never was,’ said Hutcheson. ‘Who cancelled it? Because I’m thinking, Mrs Gilver, that Lady Lavinia’s absence from a church service would be harder to explain away.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said.

  ‘And when you say a charm—’ Hutcheson began, then bit off his words at my gasp.

  ‘I know what was in the other drawer!’ I said. ‘It was her mother. When you ring up, ask Cherry Tibball if the dolly in the left-hand dresser drawer was her mother. I’ll eat my blotting pad if it wasn’t. Ring up from here, Inspector, and ask just that, of Cherry – what was in the drawer? Of Mrs McReadie – did she hand over the wool? Of Lairdie – who said Lady Love would eschew the oat pillow for the sake of peace? Of them all – why didn’t we go to church as planned?’

  Inspector Hutcheson rose and went to the telephone on my desk. He was waiting for the call to go through when a light tap came at the garden door and Alec Osborne let himself in.

  ‘Who’s on the other end?’ he whispered with a nod at Hutcheson’s back. ‘Hello, sweet girl. Hello, darling. Hello, hello.’ Bunty rolled on her back and wriggled, giving little whines of delight at his greeting.

  ‘Quite the sulkiest exchange girl I’ve ever come across just at this moment,’ I s
aid. ‘And that’s a strong field, as we both know. But once he’s charmed his way past her board, it’ll be Applecross. We’ve thought up some very searching questions to put to them.’ I filled him in in a whisper, while Hutcheon cajoled and entreated and eventually commanded the telephonist to put him through.

  ‘Ah, Inspector Snell,’ he said at long last. He was speaking very loudly, practically shouting, and I surmised that whatever the weather was doing across all the peaks and in all the glens between Perthshire and Wester Ross, the line was atrocious. ‘I haven’t finished the interviews down here but some early points have arisen. Some questions. I thought it best to have a chinwag with you at the earliest poss— What?’

  Hutcheson jiggled the receiver up and down a few times and shook the earpiece before trying again. ‘This line is playing tricks on me, Snell,’ he said. ‘For a minute there, I thought you said you’d— What?’

  Alec and I were silent now. Quivering with interest, we trained our eyes on Hutcheson. He was standing up straighter. He was pacing. He could only take three steps in one direction before the phone cable was at its full stretch and then three more the other way before it jerked at his hand again. ‘But that’s …’ he said. And: ‘Look here!’ And even: ‘Is this your first murder, Snell?’ Alec and I shared a look and a shrug, then turned back to Hutcheson, who was now saying, ‘The Chief Constable of the County is going to hea— Oh, he is, is he? Oh he did? Well that’s that then.’ Without saying goodbye – without any leave-taking whatsoever – he crashed the earpiece into the cradle and glared at Alec and me.

  ‘Have they solved it?’ I said, even though I could not imagine why a speedy resolution would have upset him so.

  ‘They have solved it to their satisfaction,’ Hutcheson said. ‘To the satisfaction of her immediate family, their connections, the village, the estate and that shower of boobies at Inverness that call themselves a police force.’

  ‘Whodunit?’ said Alec. His interest was academic, which excused the frivolous word and the jocular tone. My mind, in contrast, was ricocheting around them all trying to decide which name it would be most shocking to hear.