‘Right,’ Alec said. ‘I think I might too, actually. I know what we said about gloves and lurking strangers and everything, but after Dugald…’
‘But it makes even less sense now, after Dugald. Mirren knew about the elopement plan. Why would a girl engaged, in love, with a wedding planned and friends helping – Fiona and Bella, this is – shoot herself?’
‘The only engaged girls I’ve ever heard of harming themselves are jilted ones,’ said Alec. ‘He changed his mind?’
‘That’s all I can come up with.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Alec said. ‘So why would a boy kill himself because a girl he jilted died?’
‘Exactly. If he loved her he wouldn’t jilt her, if he didn’t love her he wouldn’t kill himself over her. Either Mirren or Dugald has to have been murdered. If jilted Mirren killed herself then heartless Dugald was pushed. If expectant Mirren was murdered, then lovelorn Dugald jumped. And we’d have to think that an Aitken killed jilting Dugald or a Hepburn killed hopeful Mirren.’
‘Unless he jilted her and then jumped out of guilt.’
‘If he had such capacity for guilt, how could he bring himself to spurn her and break her little heart in the first place? And I’ve been asking about both of them, Alec. They weren’t the type. Oh, I know Fiona Haddo was in a tizz about him – that was guilt, if you like, because she’d kept such secrets from the boy – but the way she described him to me… And no one who knew Mirren can credit it of her. Mrs Lumsden at the Emporium gave a very clear character reference and Mirren’s parents and grandmothers – in spite of everything that had happened, they were absolutely dumbfounded. Not a one of them could take it in.’
‘Of course they couldn’t. It’s horrible.’
‘But it shouldn’t have been a shock. Horrible, yes. But they shouldn’t have been so surprised by it, should they?’
‘I can’t say I’m convinced, Dandy,’ said Alec.
I could not help tutting again. ‘All right. You convince me then. If you think there are no puzzles here, you explain it so it all makes sense and stops worrying me.’
‘I’m not saying there are no puzzles. Of course there are. Muddles and trouble and everyone’s feelings all upside down. I’m just saying that’s inevitable in a mess like this one and I think you should leave it alone.’
‘Well, I’m not going to,’ I said. ‘Fiona Haddo maybe doesn’t want me any more and Mary Aitken was playing me like a trout from the off, if you ask me, but I’ll bet Bella would welcome me back. And I bet that nice Constable McCann would help me.’
‘No, Dandy, now I really must insist,’ said Alec. ‘I can’t stop you going to Dunfermline if you’re fixed on it, but stay away from the police. I mean it. You could get McCann into a great deal of trouble, not to mention that Hugh might end up breaking rocks in a striped suit.’
‘Hm,’ I said. ‘I daresay Hugh’s gallantry wouldn’t go as far as that. Not for a case with no pay anyway.’
‘Poor Hugh,’ Alec said and we made our goodbyes.
Poor Hugh indeed, I huffed to myself as I went to fetch my coat and hat and leave word of my departure. Perhaps it was crude to speak so plainly of it, but it was true: Hugh had deplored and despised my ‘racketing about’ until he saw my pay-packet, at which he executed a smart one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and started spending it. The recently purchased new estate, doubling the size of his property and solving the problem of Teddy, our younger son, was thanks to me, having been got at a snip out of a bonus from a satisfied customer, and at a recent dinner, when I had overheard Hugh’s gloss on it all, I had been sorely tempted to kick him. ‘Yes, I’ve been rather lucky with this and that despite the times,’ he said in an oleaginous drawl to his neighbour. ‘And the fellow was glad to be shot of it. He wasn’t a landowner – wasn’t the sort. Gave me a good price and off back to Glasgow with a sigh of relief. Dandy?’ I had leaned even further away from my own neighbour to make sure of hearing the next bit. ‘Oh, I’m more than happy for her to amuse herself when I’m so busy. My mother must be turning in her grave, of course, but Dandy has always been a free spirit, you know.’
So when I passed him in the back hall when I was on my way to the stable yard where the motorcars stayed and he was on his way to his business room with a roll of plans under his arm, he was quite safe from any displays.
‘Back already?’ I said. ‘Well, it’s not much of a day.’ Nothing annoys Hugh more than an accusation that he is an indoors sort, prone to the sucking of pipes and wearing of slippers, rather than a boots-until-bedtime countryman such as he most admires.
‘Getting a bit of fresh air at last?’ he countered, for my habit of answering letters and telephoning in the morning is taken by him to be tantamount to invalidism. He does not count my early walk with Bunty because we rarely go beyond the park these days and fresh air, for Hugh, starts at the railings.
‘I’m going back to Dunfermline,’ I said. His eyes flashed and I found that I had not quite recovered from my gratitude after all. ‘Thank you, Hugh,’ I said.
‘Nonsense,’ he replied.
We almost smiled at one another as we went our separate ways.
‘Mrs John, Trusslove,’ I said, when the Aitkens’ butler opened the door to me. He stared. I am sure he was no more acquainted than was I with the protocols of condolence after the funeral of a suicide when there has been another at the funeral tea, but he was as sure as I was that unannounced visits by near strangers to the family home were beyond the pale. Add to that the fact that I had left my Cowley on the street, had come up the side drive and had presented myself at the servants’ entrance and he was stumped beyond recovery. ‘And I’d be grateful,’ I went on, since he was standing there immobile and I had the chance to say it, ‘if you could keep it under your hat.’ He drew himself up a little; always a danger with butlers. Pallister is well short of six feet ordinarily, but can draw himself up, if affronted, to a veritable colossus. ‘That is, not trouble Mrs Ninian or the Mr Jacks with news of my visit.’ I had hoped that my easy use of the family names would help my cause, but they seemed to offend him. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and as he did so I noticed the red rims to them and the crumpled bags under them. He had been mourning his young mistress, it seemed, and I took a gamble that her loss would trump his other loyalties today. ‘You do know who I am, Trusslove, don’t you?’ I said. His eyes narrowed further. ‘I’m a sleuth.’ Recognition broke over him like a dropped egg.
‘That Gilver!’ he said.
‘That Gilver,’ I agreed, nodding. ‘And here’s the thing: I don’t believe Miss Mirren killed herself. Do you?’
He looked behind him before he answered, as cautious as could be, but when he spoke conviction rang out of him.
‘Never.’
‘I’m going to find out who killed her,’ I told him. ‘And whoever killed her is responsible, in my book anyway, for the boy too.’
He looked behind himself again then and a frown puckered at him.
‘Mrs John…?’ he said.
‘Not a suspect,’ I assured him. ‘Only a witness.’
At last he drew the door open wide and beckoned me in. At the first bend in the corridor, however, he stopped.
‘I don’t know just where to rightly put you, Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘Mrs Jack is walking the house like an unquiet spirit and she’d likely burst in on you wherever you go.’
‘I could go to Mrs John’s own room if there’s a back way,’ I said. He looked startled. ‘Or where is she now? Take me to her and we can both of us hide in a broom cupboard.’ He shook his head. ‘Well, does she ever come down here?’ I went on. ‘Perhaps, if you would be so kind, we could borrow your pantry?’ At this he positively took a step backwards. ‘It’s not a social call, Trusslove,’ I said. ‘I’m working. And I’m no stranger to a servants’ hall, I assure you.’