‘Yes, and then the fire will have made everyone think back carefully for any titbit that puts them close to the action. People do that, I’ve found.’
‘Quite,’ said Alec. ‘We won’t have to dig. It will be impossible to help finding out whatever there is to know.’
‘There’s still the problem of Hugh,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘What on earth shall I say to him about why I’m still here?’ I was not entirely sure why I did not just tell Hugh about Daisy employing me as her sleuth. Perhaps because although he might have roared with laughter, patted me on the head and given me his good wishes, he might just as easily have put his foot down.
‘You must lie,’ said Alec. ‘Either by commission or omission, depends how Jesuitical you feel about it. But lying is the only option, I’m afraid.’ He spoke with great jollity, but did not quite meet my eye. ‘Either make something up – tell him you’re interested in a little house, or a boat or an orphanage which need a patroness – or send a telegram. A nice ambiguous telegram.’
And so, blushing and feeling that my life, having jogged soberly along during all the years one is supposed to run wild, was certainly making up for lost time now, I sent another telegram to Hugh. ‘Inquiry found accident. Duffys shattered. Am staying to help. At least one week. Dandy.’ I tried to see the startled look of the girl at the telegraph counter as a good thing; I hoped it would put her and me on the cosiest terms when I came to question her about Cara. Of course, the story of how I stayed at Gatehouse with Alec Osborne would be all that our mutual friends could talk of for weeks once the first one found out, but knowing our mutual friends I could be sure that Hugh would never hear of it, and what is more, knowing Hugh, that he would never speak of it to me if he did.
I went early to my room that night, feeling rather like a pea in a drum downstairs now that everyone else had gone, and sat propped up in Mrs McCall’s brass bed in the lamplight as the sun faded outside, plotting away like mad. My first task should be to track down the individual (or individuals) who had gone in to do the rough work at the cottage, and I had my excuse for snooping after them all ready. I was rather proud of it and was trying to ignore a small misgiving I had that it would land me in a great deal of trouble if it didn’t come off. Then – I removed one of the three fat pillows and snuggled down – just when the girl at the telegraph desk should have had time to regale all of her friends with my wickedness and be agog for more, I would seek her out again. I should not need any further story to cover my designs, she being as keen to speak to me as I to her. I turned out the lamp, closed my eyes and fell asleep to the comforting drone of the men’s voices in the bar.
Chapter Eight
‘Well, Miss Madam,’ said Agnes Marshall, ‘you had better come in.’ I had tracked her down disappointingly easily, simply by asking Mrs McCall after breakfast, getting Alec to drop me in the village of Borgue, and setting out to walk to her cottage ‘right facing you at the Kirkandrews road end’ where I was assured I would find her at home, Saturday being baking day.
I followed her and was shown into a small parlour, aggressively clean and obviously seldom used. She shut the door firmly on the warmth and delicious smells emanating from her kitchen and sat down opposite me on the edge of a hard chair, carefully folding her apron around her floury hands to save a speck falling on to her well-brushed horsehair and gleaming linoleum.
‘Can I get you some tea, Miss Madam?’ she asked. Her mode of address, which I had taken at first to be a slip of the tongue arising from fluster, was evidently as habitual as it was original. ‘I cannot offer you coffee,’ she said, ‘for I wouldn’t have the stuff in the house.’ This fierceness put me off accepting anything.
‘I am a friend of Mr and Mrs Duffy,’ I began, ‘and I believe that you were Cook at the cottage up until -’ Mrs Marshall was shaking her head.
‘Not “Cook”!’ she said and I wondered what bitter insult I had dealt her (I never can keep up with the tortured questions of rank below stairs). ‘I just went in first thing, got the range het up again, not that it was ever cold, did the dishes from the night before and got one or two things sorted for the day. Peeled the tatties and dressed a bit of meat for them and that. And then I was off and away mid-morning again. A gey queer set-up if you ask me. But them that pays the piper calls the tune. It fidgeted me I can tell you, sitting here at home all night, knowing they dishes were in the sink growing ears. Still.’
‘And I believe that Mrs Duffy didn’t get a chance to speak to you before they left,’ I said, crossing my fingers in my lap.
‘No indeed,’ said Mrs Marshall. ‘I doubt I was the last thing on the poor woman’s mind.’
I relaxed.
‘Well, I daresay, but she did think of you, and asked me to be sure to give you this.’ I unclasped my bag and handed her the envelope. I hoped she would show the proper Scottish reserve around money and not open it until I was gone – I had no idea if the sum I had enclosed was outrageously small, outrageously large or just right. She laid it aside without so much as squeezing it for a clue.
‘Well then,’ she said. ‘There was no need for that, tell her when you see her, Miss Madam. No need at all. I’m affronted.’ I took this as it was meant, as a thank you, and went on.
‘I wonder if you could tell me where I might find the other maids?’ I said.
‘Others?’ she said. ‘That’s what I’m telling you. There weren’t any others. Just me in the morning to get redd up and they did the rest of it their own selves.’
‘How odd,’ I said. ‘Were they waiting for more staff to be sent from town? After the poor girl – After the maid -’
‘Very private ladies,’ said Mrs Marshall, and I wondered if I imagined the note of reproof. ‘Having a bit of fun to theirselves playing at houses, or so I thought at first.’ Either Dr Milne had done even better than I imagined at hushing up the maid’s trouble or Mrs Marshall was one of the least gossip-prone women I had ever met. And just my luck to have come up against what must be one of the few individuals for miles around who would not jump at the chance of being centre-stage.
‘So you thought at first,’ I echoed. ‘But then?’
‘Well, I daresay you’ll know anyway, Miss Madam, being a friend of theirs, if there’s anything to know. But I did begin to wonder if maybe they had their reasons. I wondered if maybe there was illness, for they kept the place gey hot for the spring. Or some other trouble. Not with the mother – the mistress, I should say. But those lassies.’
I waited, trying not to seem too eager, and avoided her eyes by looking with absolutely feigned admiration at the pot dogs on her fireplace.
‘I got to thinking they had had a fall out, for they weren’t close like you’d think sisters would be. It was near like their mother was trying her best to get them to make it up, but as far as I could see they’d have nothing to do with each other. Aye well, I suppose there’s no saying that two peas in the pod have to be pals as well as neighbours, eh?’ I recognized another of Mrs Marshall’s own expressions, and nodded my agreement. This was a new angle, I thought. Trouble between Clemence and Cara. What might it be? Mrs Marshall seemed to answer me.
‘But there, it can’t have been easy for the girl to see her wee sister getting wed before her. I wondered myself why the man would have gone for the one and not the other.’
‘Did Clemence – the elder girl, that is – seem unhappy to you then, Mrs Marshall?’ I asked. This was obviously much too frank, and she reacted as though stung.
‘I’m sure it’s no more my business than it is -’ ‘Yours’, she had been about to say, I am sure, before politeness stopped her. I decided, since I had probably ruined my chances anyway, that nothing more could be lost by pressing on.