A Knife in Darkness Read online

  ‘But that’s the parlour table!’ Hippolyta exclaimed, peering into a large wooden box.

  ‘Oh, aye, Mrs. Napier, are you thinking about the missing kist?’ asked the older carter. ‘It was a bigger yin than that, about yon height,’ he waved a hand near his own shoulder, ‘and powerful heavy.’

  Hippolyta frowned.

  ‘I cannot think what that could be,’ she said.

  ‘Fitever it was, they left the crate behind,’ muttered the younger carter, for whom life appeared not to be happy. ‘All in bits, too, so we canna use it again. Fit for would he do a thing like that?’

  ‘All in bits? Have you the bits with you?’ Hippolyta asked. The younger carter looked at her as if she was showing signs of dangerous lunacy, but that that was only to be expected in his line of work.

  ‘Aye, they’re in the back of the cart. They’re no good for a’thing but the fire. I didna think you would want them.’

  ‘I just want to see them.’ She followed him out to the cart, which was nearly empty. Tucked up against the board was a heap of broken fir wood planks, yellow on one side where the weather had not seasoned it, and greyish on the other. She lifted the planks one by one, examining them.

  ‘That wasn’t our crate,’ she said at last.

  ‘It wasna?’ The carter looked at her in blank surprise.

  ‘No. My mother marked each crate with a number in blue paint, and there’s nothing on this.’

  ‘Maybe we lost a bit.’

  ‘I’ll make sure.’ She darted back into the house, and returned in a few minutes. ‘No, all the numbers are there, I’m positive. This was not our crate.’

  ‘Then fit wye did we lug it all the way fae Aberdeen?’ demanded the carter. ‘I near put my back out lifting yon thing!’

  ‘It wasna yours, ma’am?’ asked the older carter, joining them. ‘Well, that’s – that’s sort of good.’

  ‘It’s good for us, but have you inadvertently taken someone else’s crate from the harbour, and lost it?’ Hippolyta asked him gently.

  ‘Oh. Aye, well, that wouldna be so good. But I’d swear it was with all your boxes fae the start. We’re careful, see.’

  ‘Aye,’ added the younger carter, ‘and we dinna gang roond the harbour picking up the heaviest crates we can find just for the fun of it, like.’

  ‘If it was really heavy,’ she continued, ‘maybe that’s why it was broken up. So that whoever stole it could take the contents bit by bit: I assume it vanished last night?’

  ‘That’s the way of it. We was sound asleep over the stables.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t woken by anyone bringing in, say, another cart?’

  The older carter shook his head, but the younger one scowled.

  ‘Wait there a mintie,’ he said. ‘There was no cart, that’s a fact, but I did hear something in the middle of the night. Something rolling, I thought.’

  ‘That’ll be barrels going into the inn,’ said his companion.

  ‘Well, if it was, it was only the one. And fit wye would they be doing that in the middle of the night? And onywye,’ he added, screwing up his face even more horribly as he struggled to remember, ‘it was ganging aff.’

  ‘Ganging aff?’ Hippolyta repeated with precision.

  ‘Aye: I mean the racket was ganging oot the stableyard, no towards the inn.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hippolyta, ‘I think you have part of your solution. Either there was something heavy inside the crate and they brought something like a handcart to remove it, or whatever was in the crate could itself be rolled, and they rolled it away.’

  ‘Michty,’ remarked the older carter flatly. ‘Fit’ll we dae?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Hippolyta. ‘You could try telling Mr. Morrisson, the constable.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ said the younger carter, equally flat.

  ‘Or Mr. Durris, the sheriff’s man. He’s in the town, too.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ The older carter brightened. He exchanged looks with the younger man. ‘We’ll do that, then, I reckon. Though why someone should come and steal the very thing from your cart that you didna put on it …’

  ‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Hippolyta, suddenly struck by a thought. ‘Someone set it with our things at the harbour, and collected it here. They didn’t have to pay carriage or bring it themselves.’

  ‘Och, that’s no right!’ grumbled the younger man.

  ‘But it fits, doesn’t it? Now, gentlemen, I’m afraid my dinner is waiting. Go round to the back and the housekeeper will find you some ale and bread and cheese.’

  ‘Ale, aye. Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘It’s all very peculiar. Why our cart?’ Patrick asked when she explained what had happened, and her deductions. Gratifyingly, neither he nor Basilia could find fault with them.

  ‘It may have been the only one going to Ballater,’ Hippolyta suggested.

  ‘And where, then, did the contents go?’ asked Basilia.

  ‘That’s no longer our concern, I suppose,’ said Patrick. ‘And you’ve seen that all your mother’s numbers are on the boxes and baskets we have?’

  ‘Yes, fortunately. My mother is a very organised woman,’ she explained to Basilia, with a crooked smile.

  ‘That is very fortunate indeed,’ said Basilia. ‘I must remember that trick when I come to move our – my – belongings from Dinnet House.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Patrick to his wife, ‘if Miss Verney doesn’t mind, I was thinking that we ought to invite some people to dinner soon.’

  ‘Of course! I had quite forgotten. Miss Verney, would you mind? So soon after your loss?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Basilia smiled weakly, which made Hippolyta feel instantly guilty for asking. ‘It would cheer things tremendously, and after all, it’s not as if it’s a ball, is it?’

  ‘Well, no: that would stretch the house considerably,’ said Hippolyta, briefly terrified at the thought of hosting a ball. ‘Well, if you’re quite sure … We need to ask the Strachans at the very least, and perhaps Dr. Durward and the Strongs?’

  ‘And Mrs. Kynoch,’ added Patrick.

  ‘Oh, yes. And should we ask the minister and his wife?’

  ‘Perhaps we should, yes. All the usual conventions have been turned over a little, haven’t they?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t Edinburgh,’ Hippolyta conceded kindly. ‘That would be, um, ten altogether. Do you think … er, well, I’d better talk to Mrs. Riach about it.’

  ‘We have ten chairs in the dining room. Well, we have a dozen.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not just a matter of chairs,’ Hippolyta murmured. At least now their good china had arrived: she would need to check that none of it was broken before any invitations were issued, though. ‘I’ll talk to Mrs. Riach when she’s had her rest.’

  ‘Her rest?’ Patrick looked surprised.

  ‘She always has a rest after dinner, didn’t you know?’ Hippolyta had been warned off disturbing the housekeeper during this sacred time.

  ‘I had no idea. Her hip must be very bad.’

  ‘Of course if you felt we should look for another housekeeper –’ said Hippolyta, filled with sudden hope.

  ‘Oh no, not at all. Not unless she feels the household is taxing her too far,’ said Patrick, his handsome face filled with kind anxiety.

  ‘She has not said so, but perhaps she is trying not to inconvenience us,’ said Hippolyta carefully.

  ‘You should ask her – but try not to make her feel she should leave! I don’t want her to feel offended,’ said Patrick. Hippolyta sighed.

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  The weather was so lovely that she managed to quell her eagerness to arrange all the cart’s exciting contents until later in the evening, and took Basilia outside at least to fit in an hour’s drawing and painting. It was delightful under an archaic apple tree in the leafy shade, and even in that one hour Basilia produced a series of sketches of kittens and flowers, and Hippolyta made good progress with her Craigendarroch study. At the end of
it, tea was required, and she popped her head into the kitchen to ask Mrs. Riach to bring some. The housekeeper was by the fire, her plump body settled into a wooden armchair with a cushion, her feet up on a creepie stool on another cushion, an expression of bliss across her features. She was snoring with a sound of waves crashing on a windy day. Reluctant to spoil this picture of domestic comfort, Hippolyta tiptoed over to her, and became aware of a miasma of brandy about the woman. She picked up the teacup she saw on the floor and sniffed it. If there had been any tea in it, it had been heavily diluted. She blinked. Best, she thought, to let Mrs. Riach sleep off her excesses. She padded out again as quietly as she could, and found Ishbel scrubbing vegetables in the scullery.

  ‘Could you bring some tea, please, for Miss Verney and me in the parlour? Mrs. Riach seems to be asleep.’

  ‘Aye, ma’am.’ Ishbel curtseyed, then remembered to put down the cabbage she was holding.

  ‘Um, Ishbel.’

  ‘Aye, ma’am?’

  ‘Do you know where Mrs. Riach’s brandy came from?’

  ‘Oh, ma’am, she didn’t take it from the pantry, if that’s what you mean!’ Ishbel’s eyes were wide.

  ‘All right. So it was her own?’

  ‘Robert Wilson bringed it her, ma’am. Before he left for Aberdeen.’

  ‘He brought her brandy? As a thank you, you mean?’

  ‘I suppose so, ma’am. But I think she paid him for it.’

  ‘I see.’ Hippolyta hesitated, then asked, ‘What did it come in?’

  ‘Come in? I dinna ken fit you mean …’

  ‘I mean did he bring it in a bottle? In a flask? What?’

  ‘Oh, no, ma’am. She gived him one of the jugs from the kitchen and he bringed it back full.’

  ‘Yes, and now she’s full,’ Hippolyta murmured. ‘Thank you, Ishbel. Very interesting.’

  Mrs. Riach seemed mostly recovered by supper time, and Hippolyta took the chance to consult her on the matter of the dinner. She had had the chance to check the china, and it seemed all to be sound: it was now in a pretty dresser in the dining room, and brightened the room very slightly.

  ‘Dinner, eh? Well, I suppose.’

  ‘Would you prefer to have ten at dinner, or several smaller parties?’ Hippolyta asked her, hoping to make the whole idea more appealing.

  ‘Och, bring on the ten. Who did you say? The Strachans, the Strongs, the minister and his wife …’

  ‘Dr. Durward. And Mrs. Kynoch.’

  ‘Oh, aye. That’ll be grand.’ A little smile that Hippolyta did not quite like played around the housekeeper’s thin mouth. ‘All in together. That’ll be some evening!’

  ‘Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Riach. I know you’ll rise to the occasion. I thought of Saturday?’

  ‘Aye, aye, I can make a start the morrow.’

  ‘Very good. I’ll look forward to it.’ It had all seemed to go well: Mrs. Riach retreated with an uncharacteristic chuckle and no hint of a limp, and yet Hippolyta had a niggling feeling that it had gone altogether too well, and that she had missed something very important.

  Supper passed peacefully and afterwards Patrick played the piano softly while Basilia and Hippolyta put finishing touches to their afternoon’s painting. After the disruption of the previous night, they were ready to retire earlier than usual, and it was only when she and Patrick were alone together that Hippolyta thought to broach the subject of Mrs. Riach’s brandy supplies with her husband.

  ‘She was drunk?’ Patrick asked, astonished.

  ‘Well, she was asleep, but she smelled very strongly of brandy. And apparently Robert Wilson had brought it for her, in one of our own jugs!’

  ‘Robert Wilson? The coachman?’

  ‘Yes … I wonder, do you think he has left already?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And he was quite well?’

  ‘He was, I should say. Quite recovered.’

  ‘Patrick, is there another inn in the village besides the main one by the bridge? A howff, perhaps, some less respectable place.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Mr. Douglas the minister would not encourage it.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Hippolyta considered. For her theory to be correct, Robert Wilson had had to have somewhere to dispose of the rest of his brandy, and the carters had heard something being rolled out of the stableyard, not towards the inn. And of the many things in the world that could be rolled, a barrel of brandy somehow came readily to mind.

  She came awake suddenly to darkness, and aware that she had again heard a noise, she sat straight up, concentrating hard. Yes, it was a footstep again. Was Miss Verney on another of her night time perambulations? Well, with the front door key up on the ledge, she was surely safe: she would not be able to wander outside again. She listened: the footsteps were sounding softly in Basilia’s room across the landing, just as before, but there seemed to be no indication that she was heading further afield. Absently, Hippolyta slipped out from under the covers and stepped over to the bedroom window, where the shutters had been left open. She gazed outside, seeing the massive church across the silent green, the shadowy hills beyond. Closer, below, the front garden was busy with the pale blurs of flowers amongst the bushes, the path a light strip bare from the door to the gate.

  Except that it was not bare.

  Her heart leapt in alarm. There was a dark figure there, on the path, a man, though further than that was hard to say at this awkward angle, in the dark. The man’s face was turned up and shimmered slightly in her eyes as she tried to focus on it, but all too quickly the man looked away, and moved silently to the gate. She could hear, very faintly, its low squeak as he opened it, passed through and shut it again softly behind him. His shadowy form slipped away, down the hill to the left, towards the main street, the inn, the road to Aberdeen, the bridge over the river. Who could it have been?

  Taking a shawl she tiptoed out of the bedroom and paused on the landing. There was no sound now coming from Basilia’s room, and none from the rest of the house. She remembered the figure moving about in the servants’ quarters, seemingly hiding from her. Could it have been Robert Wilson, about some dark business to do with a keg of brandy? But no: surely that figure had been too short for Robert Wilson: and besides, if her theory was correct, Robert Wilson would have had no need to move from his room in the attic until their baggage cart had arrived from Aberdeen. There were too many things going on here, she thought with sudden anger, about which she was being told nothing. It was her house now, she was mistress of it, and whatever happened under this roof was her business. She caught herself just about to stamp her bare foot on the landing carpet, and stopped just in time, laughing briefly at herself. But it was very annoying.

  She paced slowly down the stairs, avoiding ones she had already noticed that creaked, listening as she went. Still nothing moving. She felt her toes connect with the rough warmth of the hall carpet, and paused again, before stepping slowly forward. It was quite dim in the hallway, but her senses were all alert, and it was her feet again that gave her the clue. She touched something cold and slightly damp with her toes, bent down and picked up something moist and crumbly. She sniffed it. A fresh, earthy smell filled her nostrils: it was, in fact, earth. She went to the front door: it was firmly locked, and the key, when she reached up, was just where Patrick had left it when he secured the door that evening, just where he had placed it the previous night. Had Miss Verney been watching that evening? Could such a memory be retained as she sleepwalked? Or had she been asleep at all? And if not, was the man outside on the path the reason for her wanderings, or was he in fact waiting to attack her in her vulnerable state?

  It was only as she returned to bed, easing under the covers so as not to wake Patrick, that another question assailed her.

  Could the night-wandering man outside have been the mysteriously mobile Mr. Brookes?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Friday morning, when Hippolyta woke full of energy to prepare for her dinner guests on the following e
vening, dawned damp and misty. It was the first time she had seen Ballater in anything but sunshine or a downpour, and the effect, though not displeasing to her artistic sensibilities, left her a little listless.

  ‘I had hoped we might paint again today,’ said Miss Verney in the parlour after breakfast, ‘but the light is very unsympathetic.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Hippolyta put aside the sketch she had been making of the church spire in the mist, and instead contemplated the pictures from the baggage cart which she had moved into the parlour, but had not yet arranged. ‘Did you sleep well last night?’ she asked. ‘Or better than the night before, at least?’

  ‘I slept very well, thank you,’ said Basilia smoothly.

  ‘Oh, that’s good. I woke and thought I heard footsteps, but it must have been from the servants’ quarters.’ She shrugged, outwardly dismissing it, then jumped as she heard again the low creak of the front garden gate. She glanced quickly out of the window, and sprang up.

  ‘Oh, it’s Mr. Durris again!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I wonder what he can want with me this time?’ Basilia asked, a little tremor in her voice. They paused and listened as Ishbel’s little feet padded along the hall and the front door opened. Durris’ voice was low but indistinct from here, and they both turned to look at the parlour door, expecting it to open at any moment. But instead, Hippolyta heard the study door open across the hallway, and Patrick’s voice raised in what she could not help noticing was a slightly uneasy greeting. Durris’ voice murmured back, and then the study door shut. Ishbel’s footsteps pattered back towards the kitchen.

  ‘No need to worry, then,’ said Hippolyta lightly. ‘It’s not you he wants to talk to.’ But what did he want to say to Patrick? she wondered. He had given her such suspicious looks yesterday – and then he had said that someone had seen Patrick out in the village on the Sunday night, the night that Colonel Verney was murdered. She had been so quick to say that the person had been wrong – Lang, the night watchman, that was who it had been – that she had almost not allowed herself to take in the possibility that he could have been right. And had she not herself been impressed by the night watchman’s apparent efficiency, his air of reliability?