A Knife in Darkness Read online

  ‘I’m sure if there is, they will soon send again,’ Hippolyta assured him reasonably.

  ‘If it is not too late.’

  There was a crash from the bookcase. Kitten, dead bird and a rather ugly old pen pot had descended precipitately to the floor.

  ‘Oh, Snowball! I’m definitely going to talk to Mrs. Riach about your rations, silly kitten!’

  ‘But it’s a cat,’ said Mrs. Riach later, slowly, as if Hippolyta might have made some mistake in identifying the animal. ‘It’s supposed to work for a living.’

  ‘Not killing birds,’ Hippolyta objected. ‘It was a goldfinch. A very pretty little thing.’

  ‘Well, I dinna see how you could train a cat no to kill.’

  ‘You could make sure he has a decent breakfast and supper, as I said. If he isn’t hungry, he won’t want to kill birds.’

  ‘He’ll no want to kill mice either, and killing mice would be gey useful around here in the autumn.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the autumn yet,’ said Hippolyta, putting off in her mind the thought of dead mice at the breakfast table. ‘Oh, Mrs. Riach, have you ever kept hens?’

  The housekeeper pursed her lips and sighed, considering.

  ‘Aye, I had a couple hens when I was wee.’

  ‘I should like to keep some hens in the garden,’ said Hippolyta, trying to sound as if she had always done so.

  ‘Oh, aye?’

  ‘I shall be making some enquiries as to where I can buy some,’ she went on, undeterred by the housekeeper’s tone.

  ‘Aye, well,’ was Mrs. Riach’s response, by which she appeared to mean that as long as no one blamed her when it all went wrong, she had no specific objections. ‘Is yon loon away home the day?’ she asked, changing the subject to one dear to her heart.

  ‘Robert Wilson is quite well enough to leave now, yes. He will be taking his carriage and horses back today, as I understand it.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, onywye.’

  ‘And I shall be out for the rest of the morning,’ Hippolyta added, with a glance at the mantel clock. The housekeeper, deciding she was therefore dismissed, left before Hippolyta had had the chance to confirm what was to be for dinner. She sighed: how did one train a cat - or indeed a housekeeper?

  The front door was half-open as she reached Dinnet House at five to eight, and she paused, wondering if she should go in straight away, as she had heard sometimes happened in the countryside, or rattle the risp. In the end she rattled at it, and waited. After a few minutes she rattled it again. There was a scraping sound, and a window opened above her head. She backed on to the drive and looked up.

  ‘Oh! What time is it?’ cried Basilia, who was wrapped in a light dressing gown.

  ‘Just gone eight,’ said Hippolyta. ‘Listen – there’s the church bell.’

  ‘Goodness! I am sorry. Why did nobody waken me?’ Her head disappeared for a moment, and then suddenly popped out again. ‘Has no one come to the door?’

  ‘No, but it’s half-open,’ Hippolyta explained.

  ‘Then for goodness’ sake come in and I shall be down directly!’

  The window descended, and Hippolyta, with a grin, pushed open the door and entered the hall.

  The hallway was dim after the bright morning sunshine outside, and she had to pause for her eyes to adjust. As the colours came to life, she heard footsteps at the top of the stairs, then noticed that Colonel Verney was sitting with his back to her in his wheeled chair at the door to the servants’ quarters, waiting, presumably, for Forman to help him.

  ‘Colonel Verney!’ she called out in greeting.

  ‘Uncle!’ called Basilia at the same moment from the top of the stairs. ‘Tabitha did not wake me, and here is Mrs. Napier all ready to go and I not even dressed nor breakfasted!’

  ‘Colonel Verney?’ repeated Hippolyta, suddenly nervous. He had not moved. She found herself walking towards him, far too fast, yet as if her legs were wound about with heavy fleeces, twice their normal weight. She reached him just as Basilia finally stopped talking, and came down the stairs.

  ‘Uncle?’ she said again. Hippolyta put out a hand to the Colonel’s shoulder, then snatched it back as his head sank abruptly on to his chest. She darted around the chair. The Colonel was slumped in it, his dark coat collar standing proud of his own neck, and his shirt front almost as black – but with blood.

  ‘No, dear, don’t –’ she said quickly to Basilia, but Basilia fought past her, then slapped her hand across her own mouth. It did not stop the scream.

  ‘Uncle!’ she cried, then sagged to the floor, her pretty dressing gown spilling round her.

  Chapter Five

  Quite clearly Colonel Verney would benefit from no urgent attention: his hand, when Hippolyta flung off her gloves and tentatively felt it, was stone cold. She turned instead to Basilia, knelt beside her and rubbed her hands hard. Basilia began to show signs of revival. Hippolyta looked about her for a bell pull, saw none, and raised her voice.

  ‘Forman! Forman! You are needed quickly!’

  She listened for the manservant’s footsteps, but all she heard was a muffled thumping from somewhere nearby: the parlour? Basilia sat up with a weighty groan, and Hippolyta helped her to her feet.

  ‘Who else should be here?’ she asked.

  ‘Forman, of course,’ whispered Basilia, ‘and my maid.’

  ‘No cook?’

  ‘Forman cooks: Uncle has always had it that way. A woman from the village comes in each day to help him with things.’

  ‘Where is Forman, then? And where is your maid?’

  Basilia’s legs wobbled, and Hippolyta helped her to a hard hall chair.

  ‘Did – did someone attack Uncle?’ she asked, her voice quivering.

  ‘I think so. We need help here. Let me leave you for a moment and see if I can find Forman. And what is that noise?’

  ‘Oh, do be careful, Mrs. Napier!’ Basilia snatched at her hand. ‘If someone attacked him, they might still be in the house!’

  ‘But then I don’t think they would be thumping and banging like that to try to attract our attention, do you?’ Hippolyta hoped she was right. She opened the parlour door, her own hand shaking, and looked about the room. Nothing looked amiss, but the banging grew louder. Across the room was another door, with a key turned on the outside: it looked like a press built into the depth of the wall. Glancing behind her, Hippolyta hurried over to the door and was about to turn the key when better sense prevailed. She leaned close to it.

  ‘Who is in there?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ The voice was small and undoubtedly female.

  ‘It’s Mrs. Napier, the doctor’s wife,’ said Hippolyta, and for the first time she said it without that little heartskip. Her heart was too busy beating fast anyway. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Tabitha, ma’am, Miss Verney’s maid. Please will you let me out? I’ve been here all night!’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Hippolyta turned the key at once, and the door practically fell open with the force of the little maid’s eagerness to be free. ‘What on earth were you doing in there?’

  The cupboard was shallow: the maid had not had much room to manoeuvre. She was dishevelled, and in a great hurry.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am!’ she cried, and ran from the room.

  ‘What on earth?’ Hippolyta followed her back into the hall, but she had already crossed it and run past Colonel Verney in his chair, then through the door to the servants’ quarters. Hippolyta hurried after her. Just the other side of the door she caught sight of a side door slamming shut, and a great sigh of relief came from beyond it. Hippolyta’s mouth formed an O which was almost amused, in the circumstances: being locked in a cupboard all night had many disadvantages.

  She paused in the plain stone corridor, and a white kitten emerged from an open doorway, mewing at her plaintively.

  ‘Hello! Are you Snowball’s brother? Or sister, perhaps. Tell me, kitten, where is your Mr. Forman, then?’

  She heard the
door to the hallway open again behind her. Basilia had followed her, but stopped there, obviously reluctant to leave her uncle unattended.

  ‘Do you think Forman could have done this?’ she asked. ‘Could that be why he is not here?’

  Hippolyta swallowed, not sure what to say. The kitten mewed again, staring up at her as if willing her to do something – feed it, probably.

  The door of the privy opened and the maid reappeared, blushing bright red.

  ‘Sorry, miss, sorry, ma’am,’ she said hastily. ‘I’d been in there all night.’ Her accent was soft rural English, Hippolyta thought: perhaps from the West Country, though she was not sure. She had been to Bath once. The maid was rounded and comfortable looking, a woman who enjoyed her food.

  ‘You must be hungry, too,’ said Hippolyta. ‘But how did you come to be locked in the cupboard?’

  The maid’s face turned from red to white at speed.

  ‘Have we been burgled, miss?’

  Basilia frowned.

  ‘Could that be it? A burglar?’

  ‘I had just come down from seeing to you, miss,’ Tabitha explained, ‘and I peeped into the hall and saw that all the candles were out. Well, I thought Mr. Forman couldn’t have deliberately put them out yet, so I went to light one. Then someone grabbed me from behind – right round my waist, miss! And a hand over my mouth, and he pushed me quick as lightning in to the parlour and into the cupboard, and shut the door fast!’

  ‘Did he say anything?’ asked Basilia. ‘Did he ask you where the valuables were?’

  ‘No, miss. He didn’t say a word.’

  Hippolyta picked up the kitten, stroking it thoughtfully.

  ‘Did you notice anything about him?’ she asked. In her mind’s eye she was trying to picture the scene. ‘Did you see his hands? Are you sure it was indeed a he?’

  The maid looked at her, and through her as she considered.

  ‘It all happened so fast, and it was dark,’ she explained. ‘All I can say is he must have been a big man, to lift me away like that!’

  ‘And so fast,’ agreed Hippolyta. Forman was a big man, but why would he need to lock the maid in the cupboard? So that she did not see him murder his master? Whoever the killer, that must have been the reason.

  ‘Should we go and see if there is anything missing?’ asked Basilia. She was starting to shake, and Hippolyta pulled herself together.

  ‘Miss Verney, do go and sit down again. Tabitha, help your mistress over to that chair, then fetch her a rug. I’ll go to the kitchen – this way, I take it? – and bring some tea and food for both of you, and then Tabitha, I think you should run to the village and fetch … what do you have here? A constable?’

  ‘There’s Mr. Morrisson,’ said Basilia doubtfully, but she allowed herself to be eased back to the seat. Hippolyta turned with the kitten and made for the open door.

  The kitchen was cold: the fire was out. Two more kittens and the mother cat wriggled off an old blanket on a window seat and came to wind themselves into her skirts, purring heavily.

  ‘More hungry mouths, eh?’ asked Hippolyta. ‘Where is Forman, then, mother cat?’

  To her left she could see a pantry, with a meat safe. She found some cold beef, and laid the plate on the floor, where the cats immediately huddled round it. Then she considered the fire: Basilia needed a hot drink of some kind, but how long would it take to get the fire started? She wondered if the kettle were even warm, and stepped round the central firwood table to find out.

  Forman was lying face down on the floor just in front of the stone fireplace.

  An upturned pan lay before him, and a pool of blood had spread around him, soaking dark into the floorboards – presumably, Hippolyta found the random thought in her mind, the floorboards he had had to pull up to find his stray kitten. She could see where the boards had been lifted, to the left of the fireplace: some of the edges were a little splintered, showing white against the dusty colour of the old boards. The blood was as black as Colonel Verney’s: that must mean that they had both been dead for some time. She swallowed hard, and made herself bend down and feel Forman’s rough hand: as she had expected, it too was cold.

  Her head swam a little as she straightened, but she told herself firmly – though it was her mother’s voice she heard - that it would be of no practical value whatsoever to faint. She saw the outside door through a little hallway at the back of the kitchen, and tried it: it was locked, with the key on the inside. She returned to the stone corridor and tried one of the presses with which it was lined: as she had hoped, it contained bedlinen. She took two sheets, returned with one to the kitchen to lay it over Forman, picked up the small kettle by the fireplace, returned to the pantry, the cats once more at her heels, to collect a tea loaf she had seen there, added a clean knife from the table to her burden, and edged back towards the hallway. The cats followed.

  ‘The fire’s out,’ she explained briefly. ‘The parlour one will be quicker to light, no doubt. Tabitha, can you go and set this kettle over it? There’s water in it. Right, Miss Verney, here is some tea bread – oh, Tabitha? Here’s a slice for you, too. Now, let me just …’ She spread the sheet out over Colonel Verney. Tabitha was hovering in the parlour doorway.

  ‘I didn’t realise, ma’am, not until just now. I thought he was just sitting in his chair. I’d never have run past him like that if I’d known. I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t, Tabitha,’ said Basilia. The maid paused for a second, still troubled, then went to heat the kettle.

  ‘I’ll leave Tabitha here with you,’ Hippolyta decided, ‘and I’ll go for the constable. Morrisson, yes? And I’ll just go and fetch cups and saucers and sugar – I’m not sure there’s any milk. But Miss Verney,’ she knelt at Basilia’s feet and quickly took her hands, ‘I pray you not to go into the kitchen. There has been another incident.’

  Basilia’s dark eyes widened dramatically.

  ‘Forman?’

  Hippolyta nodded.

  ‘It seems clear that he was not guilty of your uncle’s attack, at any rate. But he may have disturbed the attacker, and lost his life in the same way.’ She watched Basilia for a moment, checking that she was not about to faint again, then picked up her gloves and bade her farewell for now. It was clear they needed someone in authority, and quickly.

  Outside the sun was still shining, the morning as beautiful as it had been when she arrived. It seemed wrong. She strode quickly along the drive towards the village, a tumble of emotions in her head: horror, fear, concern for her new friend, sorrow at the deaths of two men she had liked, and at the same time a little machine ticked away, a machine she had only seen working before in her mother. Had she done everything she should have? Had she tended to those who needed it, asked the questions she ought to ask? She was fairly sure her mother had never met with a murder but she was a woman of remarkable competence, the one to whom everybody turned when a charity bazaar needed to be organised, or a soup kitchen established, or a female school inspected. For years Hippolyta had watched all this activity from a distance: more of her mother’s methods seemed to have sunk in than she had thought.

  She asked the first person she met where Mr. Morrisson lived, and was directed to a very small cottage at the lower end of the village, near the river. She would be passing her own front door to reach it, and decided that if there was the least chance that Patrick was in, she wanted to fetch him – to hand the matter over to him? She considered that as she hastened up her own front path. A lady should no doubt defer such a matter to her husband. But a quick reflection told her again that her mother had never done so: she would not hurry to relinquish her responsibilities, either.

  ‘Mrs. Riach! Mrs. Riach, is Dr. Napier at home?’

  The little maid, Ishbel, appeared, curtseying almost as she hurried up.

  ‘Mrs. Riach’s taking her nap, ma’am,’ she whispered.

  ‘Her nap?’ Hippolyta’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is the doctor at home?’

  ‘No, ma
’am, he’s gone to Pannanich Wells to see a patient.’

  Hippolyta thought quickly. Regardless of her husband’s company, which she would have dearly loved, she knew that a doctor would need to look at the two bodies – or that was what would happen in Edinburgh, for she had seen such accounts of court cases in the papers. But should she send for Patrick, or for Dr. Durward, who might be closer? Well, Colonel Verney had been Patrick’s patient: she hoped that was a good enough reason, and quickly told Ishbel to fetch her master from the Wells as soon as possible and ask him to go to Dinnet House.

  ‘Has there been an accident, ma’am?’ Ishbel’s eyes held a flash of excitement.

  ‘No, not at all: Colonel Verney has need of him urgently, that is all.’ After all, it had not been an accident. ‘Hurry, now, please.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Ishbel scurried through the front door and Hippolyta, overcoming an unworthy temptation to rush noisily into the kitchen and rouse Mrs. Riach from her slumbers just for the sake of it, left to find Mr. Morrisson.

  Mr. Morrisson’s cottage was so small Hippolyta had to stoop to rap on the door. The rapping was met with silence from within, but a man passing by with a handcart leaned towards her.

  ‘Ma’am, if you’re looking for Davie Morrisson, he’s out on his rounds.’

  ‘Of course – he’s the constable, is he?’

  ‘Aye, ma’am, I suppose,’ was the uninspiring reply. ‘This time of the morn you’ll likely find him down at the bridge – observing the traffic,’ he added, in a voice layered with sarcasm.