7 Pay the Piper (7 page)

Samuel’s mouth twisted. “Thank you, mum. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Deciding to let the matter rest, she remembered her initial question. “While I think of it, Samuel, did you happen to notice the fight between Peter Stewart and Tom Abbittson when you were at the inn?”

Samuel gave a decisive shake of his head. “No, mum, I didn’t. I was in the other side, in the public bar, playing darts. I’m sorry that the man died, of course, especially like that. Must have been a horrible death. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t deserve it.”

Shocked, Cecily stared at the young man. “Whatever gives you that impression?”

“Well, he’s a bloody womanizer, isn’t he, pardon my French.” Samuel’s face reddened, but he added bluntly, “It’s Doris, you see. She’s a bit impressionable, like, being as how she’s so young and all. Peter Stewart was hanging around her a lot, turning her head with his fancy remarks, teasing her and everything.”

“I see,” Cecily said slowly.

“I told her as how he was just out for what he could get from her. Them Scotch blokes are all alike. They all think the ladies are falling over themselves to meet ’em. Just ’cause they wear those silly kilts and show off their hairy legs. Looks bloody ridiculous, if you ask me.”

“Apparently Doris didn’t think they look ridiculous,” Cecily couldn’t help pointing out.

“Ah, she’s just trying to get some attention to her singing, that’s all. At least, that’s what she keeps telling me. Dead set on being on the stage she is. She’s been talking to all them pipers, hoping someone can help her. That’s all she thinks about, getting on the stage and meeting toffs.”

He looked so miserable, Cecily’s heart ached for him. A gust of wind tugged at her hat, which luckily was anchored
under her chin with a silk scarf. Holding the flapping brim with one hand, she said soothingly, “Don’t worry, Samuel. All young girls have fanciful dreams. They eventually grow out of them. Just give her a little time. She’s very young, and it wouldn’t be wise to push things right now.”

Samuel nodded, looking unconvinced. “I know, mum. It’s just that I get angry when I see her chatting and laughing with them blokes. Especially Peter Stewart. He was worse than any of them, though I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. I told him off myself, I did, that last night at the pub. Told him to keep his filthy hands off Doris.”

“Oh, dear,” Cecily murmured. “I don’t imagine he took kindly to that.”

“No, he didn’t. He wanted to fight, but I wasn’t having any of it. Not my cup of tea, all that scrapping. That’s why I left the saloon and went and played darts. I could hear them all at it next door, but I don’t know what it was all about.”

“Well, try not to worry about Doris,” Cecily said as another gust threatened to snatch her hat from her head. “I’ll have a word with her myself, though perhaps Mrs. Chubb might do better than I.”

“I don’t want Doris to know I’ve been talking about her,” Samuel said with some alarm. “She’d have my head, she would, if she knew.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.” Cecily started as a motorcar, belching smoke and fumes, stopped in front of them with an explosive bang. The chestnut whinnied, stepping sideways in alarm, and Samuel’s attention switched immediately to the restless horse.

“I’d better get her into the stables,” he said, glaring at the driver of the gleaming black monster, who had climbed out and was frantically cranking the starter handle in an attempt to get the motor running again.

Cecily watched the stocky young man lead the nervous horse around to the stable gate. His words still echoed in her mind.
I told him to keep his filthy hands off Doris
.

Not liking the way her thoughts were progressing, she made her way up the steps to the hotel. It seemed urgent now that she pay Dr. Prestwick a visit and determine exactly what time Peter Stewart had died.

She couldn’t imagine for one moment that her stable manager was involved in murder. But Samuel had been extremely jealous of Peter Stewart. And Samuel had been the one to discover the body.

If Elsie was right about Tom, and her husband wasn’t the killer, then someone else must have had good reason to cut the piper’s throat. But then why choose the butcher’s shop to do the ghastly deed? And how did the killer manage to get not only himself inside the shop, but his victim, too?

Nothing made sense—on the surface, that was. But Cecily had dealt with murder enough times to know that everything made sense once the truth was uncovered. It was unearthing that truth that could be so frustrating … not to mention dangerous.

CHAPTER
7

Gertie heaved the monstrous iron pot onto the stove, letting it crash down with a clatter that would have made Michel proud. Water slopped over the side of the pot, sizzling as it landed on the hot surface. Gertie barely noticed. She was too busy glaring at the two housemaids who stood in the corner of the vast kitchen.

The noise had at least interrupted their squabbling, which had been going on half the morning. Gertie, in charge of the kitchen during Mrs. Chubb’s absence, had spoken sharply to the girls more than once. Now her nerves were as frizzled as fried bacon. Gertie had had enough.

“Now you listen here, you bleeding rattle mouths. I’m sick and blooming tired of listening to you two screeching at each other. It’s a bleeding wonder my babies aren’t
screaming their bloody heads off, it is. What’s the bloody matter with you?”

“Daisy called me a crybaby,” Doris said, looking ready to prove her sister’s words at any minute.

“Strewth, is that all? I thought she’d at least socked you one.”

“It’s all right for her, she hasn’t lost someone she cared about.” Doris stared mutinously at her twin. “She’s cruel, that’s what she is.”

“You only knew him two days,” Daisy muttered.

“He was my friend. He was going to help me get on the stage, he was.”

Daisy snorted. “Anyone that believes that is stupid.”

“ ’Ere, ’ere,” Gertie said, sounding more like Mrs. Chubb than she cared to admit. “Put a sock in it, you two. I’ve got enough to bleeding worry about without having to bother with the likes of you. If you don’t behave, I’ll tell Mrs. Chubb. She’ll lock you in your bleeding room without any grub, she will.”

“Then you’ll have to look after your babies yourself, won’t you?”

Gertie scowled at Daisy. “None of your blinking sauce, now. I’m in bleeding charge here, I am, until Mrs. Chubb gets back. So you just watch your mouth, both of you. Now get on with your blooming work, before Michel comes in here chucking his weight around.”

To her immense satisfaction, both girls sullenly headed toward the door, bumped into each other, snarled something at each other under their breath, and disappeared.

Gertie shook her head and gathered up the peeled potatoes from the sink. Dropping them a few at a time into the pot of water on the stove, she thought about her own twins. She could only hope they got along better than Doris and Daisy did.

It was Daisy who was the bloody troublemaker. Doris would be all right if her sister didn’t keep on at her. It was
as if Daisy was trying to be a mother instead of a sister, and Doris wasn’t having any of it.

Gertie watched a large potato plop into the water and sink to the bottom of the pot. Maybe if Daisy smiled, she’d feel better, she thought. In the three months the sisters had been working at the hotel, she had never seen Daisy crack a bleeding smile. Of course, considering where they came from, and the cruel beatings they’d suffered at the hands of a tyrannical aunt, it was hardly surprising.

But then, Gertie mused as she let the smooth white potatoes slide from her hand, Doris had suffered just as much as her sister, and she was always bloody smiling.

Perhaps, Gertie thought, as she gathered up more potatoes, if she could make Daisy smile, the girl would stop being so blinking moody. Perhaps she would even start enjoying herself, instead of going around looking as if she had the troubles of the world on her bleeding shoulders.

The last of the potatoes plopped into the water and sank. Bending at the waist, Gertie grasped the poker and jammed it through the red-hot grating of the stove. Sparks flew as she prodded the lumps of coal, breaking them into small pieces.

The orange-red glow of the fire warmed her face and stomach, and she paused for a moment, staring into the intense heat of the coals. She was remembering the softly murmured words of Ross McBride. He had called her madam, and a bonny lass. And he’d had a twinkle in his bold eyes that had made her knees feel like blooming butter.

She was still holding the poker, smiling at the memory, when Mrs. Chubb’s sharp voice behind her made her jump out of her skin. “Is this all you’ve got to do all day? Stand staring at the fire? What kind of example are you setting for those young girls, I ask you?”

Gertie hurriedly dropped the poker and slapped the lid on the potatoes, which were beginning to stir in the bubbling water. “They didn’t see me standing here, did they? Besides,
I just told them off for squabbling. They’ve been at it half the bloody morning, they have.”

“No wonder at it, the things that have been going on here. What with the murder of that poor chap and all. I still can’t believe Tom Abbittson would do such a thing. Seemed such a nice man, he did.”

“Just goes to show, you can’t go by bleeding looks.” Gertie glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece. “You never know nowadays who you might be keeping company with. Could be blinking Jack the Ripper, and you’d never know it until it’s too late.”

“Go on with you, Gertie Brown. Talk like that isn’t going to help those girls settle their nerves.”

Gertie shrugged. “If you ask me, nothing will settle their blooming nerves. That Daisy’s face is enough to upset anybody. Never smiles, she don’t. I don’t think she can. Her face must have been frozen that way when she was born.”

“The poor child hasn’t had much to smile about.” Mrs. Chubb tutted as steam burst from beneath the lid of the potatoes, sending water hissing onto the stove. She reached for the bouncing lid of the pot and settled it with a gap for the steam to escape.

“Well, I’m going to make her smile,” Gertie announced. “Somehow I’ll find a way to cheer her up. And now I’d better go feed me babies, or I’ll have a wet bodice.”

She left Mrs. Chubb fussing over the stove and trudged down the hallway to her room, still trying to think up ways to produce a smile on Daisy’s face.

“Dashed heathens, they are, that’s all you can say for the blighters,” Colonel Fortescue announced, standing with his back to the fire in the drawing room.

Cecily faced him across the otherwise empty room and tried to look sympathetic. “I’m afraid the pipers can be a little rowdy at times, but on the whole I think they mean well. Most of them have been extremely polite and well-mannered.”

“Well-mannered? In my opinion, madam, they don’t know the meaning of the word.” The colonel flung a hand in the air, his face turning quite red with indignation. “Why, one of the bastards stole my drink the other night. Turned my back for an instant, and poof! It was gone. Just like that. Dashed ungentlemanly, to say the least.”

“What night was that, Colonel?” Cecily murmured.

He coughed and cleared his throat. “What night? Dashed if I remember, old bean. One, two nights ago? They all seem pretty much alike, you know.”

He clutched the lapels of his Norfolk jacket and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Not like in the old days, no, sir. Evenings in India were a great deal more exciting. Gin at sundown and all that rot, you know.”

“Yes, I remember,” Cecily said quietly.

“Oh, that’s right, old bean. Keep forgetting you were one of the jolly old military crowd, what? Things are little tame around here nowadays, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Colonel. There seems to have been a great deal of excitement at the George and Dragon lately. Not to mention the unfortunate murder of one of our guests.”

Fortescue’s bloodshot eyes seemed to bulge in his head. “Goodness gracious me, I’d quite forgotten about that. Dashed awful business that, what? Poor bugger left dangling with the meat like that?”

“It was indeed, Colonel. I wonder if you—”

“I say!” The colonel stopped rocking and stared at Cecily as best he could through his wildly blinking eyelids. “You don’t suppose someone mistook him for a cow, do you? You know, found him stumbling around in the dark in a field, sozzled, so to speak. These chappies manage to down an unspeakable amount of beer, you know.”

“No, I don’t think—”

“Perhaps a farmer thought he was a cow and slit his damn throat. Good God, madam! The same thing could happen to me!”

Aware that the colonel was nearing a state of hysteria, Cecily reached for his arm and gave it a firm shake. “Calm yourself, Colonel, please. I can assure you that whoever killed Peter Stewart knew exactly what he was doing.”

To her relief, Fortescue took a shuddering breath and let it out on a long sigh. She waited while he fumbled for the large white handkerchief in his breast pocket and mopped his brow, muttering something unintelligible.

“Now, Colonel, if you are feeling better, perhaps you can tell me if you remember seeing a fight at the inn the night you were there.”

Breathing heavily, the colonel moved away from the fireplace as if he suddenly found it too hot on his back. “Fight? There were a good many scraps that night, if I remember. Everywhere I turned. Over the silliest things, too. Why, I remember one of those Scots bastards pummeling another because the poor bugger recognized him from somewhere. Seems a dashed stupid reason to fight, if you ask me.”

“It does indeed, Colonel,” Cecily said patiently. “But did you recognize any of the men who were fighting?”

“All of them, Madam. I’ve seen all of them about this hotel at one time or another.” He suddenly leaned forward, his hand in front of his mouth. Out of the side of his luxuriant white mustache he muttered, “They’re all bastards, you know. Any one of them would run you through with a saber as soon as look at you.”

“Well, I’m sure you have nothing to worry about, Colonel.” Cecily looked deliberately at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Oh, my, is that the time? I really have to run.”

“Had them in Africa, you know. A whole blasted regiment of them. Caused more trouble than the damn natives, they did, by Jove. Why, I remember once—”

“If you’ll excuse me, Colonel,” Cecily murmured, edging toward the door.

“—when I was out in the jungle. Nighttime it was, black as the ace of spades. Couldn’t see a damn thing in front of
me. I was leading a group of natives on patrol, creeping along one behind the other, we were. Complete hush except for the occasional growl or scuffle in the bushes.”

Cecily reached the door and nodded politely.

Fortescue appeared not to notice her. He stood staring into space, one hand clutching his lapel, the other hovering in the air ready to emphasize whatever crisis he was about to describe.

“Anyway, there we were, sneaking along like weasels, when all of a sudden the most ghastly noise you ever heard rattled the damn trees. It sounded like a herd of wounded elephants, all screaming at once. I shot up in the air, of course, but managed to keep my feet. Not like those blasted cowards behind me. Turned tail, madam. Every last one of them back down the trail.”

“How upsetting for you, Colonel,” Cecily murmured. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“I hollered at them, of course, but what with all that dashed crashing through the bushes and that blistering racket going on, they couldn’t hear me. Had to get my rifle and send a couple of shots over their damn heads. Of course, that scared them even more. Ended up in the river, by Jove. Wonder they weren’t all drowned.”

“I do believe the bar is open,” Cecily said desperately.

“What?” The colonel blinked at her several times. “Oh, jolly good show. I’ll toddle off, then.”

Smiling, Cecily nodded and stepped back to let him pass.

“Damn Scots pipers, of course,” the colonel announced as he reached the doorway. “Must have heard us coming and thought we were guerrillas. Decided to scare the wits out of us with their blasted bagpipes. Never thought to check first, of course. Not exactly cricket, what?”

“Absolutely, Colonel.” She held her breath until the portly gentleman stepped out into the hallway and headed for the bar. There were times, she thought as she sped off in the opposite direction, when she could use a drink herself. Or maybe a good cigar.

* * *

Gertie stood in the empty dining room and looked around at the messy tables. Them bleeding Scotch were an untidy lot, she thought gloomily. Left her a bloody mess to clean up, that was for sure. Crumpled serviettes lay in a sea of dirty plates, wine and brandy glasses, silverware, half-eaten bread rolls, and overflowing ashtrays.

Gertie sighed and balanced the immense tray more firmly on her hip. It would take her the best part of the afternoon to clear that lot up. Then it would be time to lay the bloody tables for afternoon tea. Get that lot cleaned up, and they’d be scrambling to get the tables laid for dinner. No bleeding ending.

She moved to the first table and rested the edge of the tray on the white linen tablecloth. The clattering of china as she stacked the plates together drowned the sound of footsteps on the polished parquet floor.

Therefore she nearly dropped the blinking lot when a voice spoke right in her ear. “Well, now, if it isn’t the bonny lass wi’ the feisty tongue.”

Turning her head, she almost bumped noses with the wickedly grinning piper, Ross McBride. “You scared me half to death,” she said crossly, jerking her head back away from him.

“I’m sorry, lass, I didna mean to frighten you. I just came back for my pipe. Left it right on the table over there.”

“I’ll get it for you,” Gertie muttered, trying not to notice the trembling of her hands. She shoved several plates out of the way and edged the tray further onto the table.

“Whist, lass, I’m perfectly able to get it for myself.” The piper strode over to the table, his pleated kilt swinging briskly just above his knees.

Gertie did her best not to stare at his calves, which were encased in black socks trimmed with a tartan ribbon. She concentrated instead on the soiled silverware, laying the pieces carefully between the plates so they wouldn’t roll off on the
trip back to the kitchen. She had the tray loaded by the time Ross McBride came back.

“Here,” he said, seizing the tray, “let me carry that for you.”

“Not on your bleeding life,” Gertie said resolutely. “I’ll catch it in the ear from Mrs. Chubb, I will.”

“And I’m sure you’ll give as good as ye get.” The piper dragged the tray from her hands and set off across the dining room.