‘And I can tell you this, Dandy,’ he said, ‘if I’d thought half of it were true I’d have launched myself through one of those bloody plate-glass windows like a human cannon ball and come to get you. Good luck to the police trying to get a straight story out of those damned ghouls.’
‘You’re swearing a lot, Alec dear,’ I said, with a glance behind me where a hatch was open to the bar. I could just see the broad back of a barmaid, hovering nearby, discreetly listening. ‘I’m sure all those damns and bloodies would be fine in the taproom but I think we might get chucked out if you keep it up through here.’
‘You’re right,’ Alec said, ‘but I’ve had a very frustrating afternoon, Dan. Only cursing or strong drink will dissipate it and strong drink gets in the way of detecting.’
‘Speaking of which,’ I said. I scraped my chair closer to his and lowered my voice. The broad-backed barmaid gave up and moved away. ‘What did you find out from the Hepburns?’
‘But you’re not finished yet,’ Alec said. ‘Tell me how the family stood up to being questioned.’ I sighed. Alec is the dearest man I have ever met in a life well-filled with men, but he could turn two flies crawling up a wall into a competition and no matter how mundane his discoveries might be and how dramatic mine, he was determined that his report would be the finale.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Bella Aitken was quite simply stunned. Bewildered. Utterly unable to take in what had happened. Utterly without the first idea of why it could have happened. She kept saying it: but why, but why.’
‘Nothing unusual there, surely,’ Alec said.
‘But that’s the thing, darling,’ I answered. ‘No one except me and the police knows about Abigail. Jack asked where his wife was, of course, while we were all being held in the offices together, but only once and pretty late in the day – he wasn’t about to fling himself through windows – and all the sergeant told him was that she was being taken care of. I honestly think he, Mary and Bella believed that she’d collapsed and a doctor had her.’
‘Still?’ said Alec. ‘They’ll have to let on sometime that she’s been clapped in irons and taken away.’
‘Hardly clapped in irons,’ I said, remembering. ‘Gently taken under the wing of one of her old Sunday school pupils. I wouldn’t have thought an arrest could be a kindly thing until I saw that one.’
‘Well, he’d handed her over by the time they got downstairs then,’ Alec said. ‘She was marched out like Joan of Arc on her way to the stake.’
‘How would you know how she was marched?’ I asked, reasonably enough.
‘In dramatic retellings,’ said Alec with great dignity. ‘I was that maid once, you know. In a school play. Anyway, she was marched out and bundled into the Black Maria with absolutely no kindliness whatsoever.’
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘I thought a Black Maria was for plague victims. Or am I getting mixed up with Typhoid Mary?’
‘You’re wasting time on idle chat when we should be concentrating,’ said Alec, and even though what he called idle chat was bringing me back to life after the suffocating effects of my horrible afternoon, I gathered my wits again and resumed reporting.
‘So we must ask ourselves why Bella Aitken can’t make herself believe that Mirren committed suicide.’
‘You’re sure she would have assumed it was suicide?’
‘Completely. It’s what I thought when I saw Mirren – I even rootled around for the gun. It was the obvious thing to think. Mirren was unhappy, she went missing and she killed herself. That’s what everyone who wasn’t up there must be thinking.’
‘So Aunt Bella shouldn’t really be so puzzled,’ said Alec, with a nod. ‘Yes, I see. And how did the Queen Bee take the news?’ I felt some remorse that the way I had spoken of Mary Aitken had caused Alec to make his mind up about her so completely.
‘She was very shocked, very surprised – horrified – and she-’
‘Hang on,’ said Alec. ‘Horrified how? Wringing her hands and saying ‘Oh, how horrifying,’ or something that can’t be faked, like going pale?’
It was a fair question, even a good question, but so blunt to one who had been there with them that I am sure I frowned at him even while I was answering.
‘Oh, she was pale enough,’ I said. ‘And trembling and her hands were cold. No doubt it was real shock; I’d take an oath on it.’
‘Only, of course, I was thinking perhaps this was what you could scupper today.’ Frankly, I had been thinking the same. ‘This was why Mary Aitken wanted you to turn up tomorrow. So that she could point at you as evidence that she knew nothing and was trying to find the girl.’
‘Mary Aitken knew her granddaughter was going to be killed and yet still invited all those people to come along and be there when it happened? It’s not very likely.’
‘And finally, Jack,’ Alec said, ignoring my quibbles. ‘The father.’
I drew a deep sigh and tried not to sob as I let it go.
‘It’s as though a part of him has died too,’ I said. ‘When the inspector told him, he just… I was going to say crumpled, but that’s not right. He turned to stone. Or clay, almost set, just able to move, but only just. It was one of the saddest things…’
‘And quite a change from how he’d been before, from what you were saying on the telephone,’ Alec said, tapping a little tune against his teeth and frowning at me.
‘When he hears it was his wife I really do fear for him,’ I said. ‘When he hears she did it with his gun, I can’t imagine what he’ll do. Thank goodness the gun will be held as evidence, that’s all. With any luck he only had the one or I wouldn’t put a shilling on him making it through the night.’
‘Service revolver, was it?’ said Alec.
‘I think so,’ I said.
‘That’s most likely,’ Alec said. ‘If you smelled cordite yards and yards off after one shot it must have been pretty old and dirty. A service revolver from the back of a sock drawer sounds about the size of it.’
‘Poor Jack,’ I said.
‘So you’re pretty sure he didn’t know what was coming?’
‘Positive,’ I said.
‘Only I was thinking about your description of Abigail saying she “couldn’t” and everyone else trying to persuade her that she had to. You thought she meant going out in public, but maybe…’
‘What? They’re all in it together? Impossible. Although, on the subject of alliances, I did get the distinct impression there was something going on between Mary and Lady Lawson.’
‘What do you mean? What kind of something?’
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps they’re just very good friends and were succouring one another with affectionate glances.’
‘Have you been reading Richardson again?’ Alec said.
‘One thing is troubling me about the idea that Abigail acted off her own bat.’ I folded up my little napkin and tucked it under the edge of my plate. I had not touched the sandwiches and I knew I was not going to. ‘I don’t see how she would have had time to get there. She didn’t go in the lift, and if she had raced up the stairs in time to shoot Mirren after the last time I saw her on the ground floor, she’d still have been panting when Bella and I got there. I’m sure of it.’
‘Well, how long are we talking about?’ said Alec. He took his fourth sandwich, folded it in two and put it in his mouth.
‘I’m trying to think,’ I said. ‘Jack left first. To go and tell the staff to close the front door- Oh!’
‘My God, Dandy,’ said Alec, through a mouthful of sandwich. ‘Jack left? You might have said that before now. When did he come back again?’
‘Not until after the gunshot,’ I said, ‘because his first words were to ask what the noise had been. But hush, Alec, something just struck me.’