Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses (16 page)

‘No,’ I said to Alec. ‘Not the least bit attention-seeking. Quite the most self-possessed little girl you could imagine.’

‘And once she was a big girl?’

‘Well, she was very silly and shocking,’ I said. ‘And I suppose she did play to the gallery. But in a very sort of full-blown way. For one thing she was still as lavishly fond of her family as ever. Not at all like those hard-faced little flappers who always made such a great point of being cold. Catch them coming to kiss their married sisters at a party! No, Fleur Lipscott, even at her silliest, was never furtive or calculated. If she seemed to be speaking to herself then she was, and if she whispered “Five” to herself then she meant it.’

‘Which makes no sense at all,’ Alec said.

‘Not much,’ I agreed. ‘But I like things not to make sense, Alec dear, as you know. For then there is something to catch hold of and straighten out about them.’ We smoked in silence for a while, each hoping to catch hold of a loose end immediately, each failing to do so.

‘Right,’ I said, at length. ‘First things first, I have to ring Pearl or Aurora and tell them the unwelcome news that Fleur is gone.’

‘Perhaps she’ll have been in touch already,’ said Alec. ‘Perhaps she’s on her way home to them.’

‘We can hope. Now come with me and help me find a telephone. I only pray that there’s not just one on a table in the entrance hall. This conversation is going to be ticklish enough without eavesdroppers.’

We were in luck: finding an instrument I had not noticed in the staffroom, I sat down beside it and dialled for the exchange. While we were waiting, though, I changed my mind and held the earpiece out to Alec.

‘You talk to Pearl,’ I said. ‘She knows about you and I’d like to get your impression of her. Also, she won’t be so airy-fairy with you. We might actually learn something.’

But about that I was wrong, quite wrong. Alec started off the call in businesslike fashion, introducing himself and asking Pearl if she was alone, since he had some upsetting news and she should prepare herself to receive it. A wail came out of the ear trumpet and Alec flinched before trying again.

‘Not so bad as all that, Mrs Tennant,’ he said hurriedly, ‘but I’m afraid I have to tell you that Miss Lipscott has gone away. She has left St Columba’s, clearly not meaning to return. Now, I take it you have had no word from her?’ There was a pause. ‘And would you know if Mrs Forrester had heard from your sister?’ Another pause. ‘In that case, Mrs Tennant, I hope you’ll oblige me by answering a few quest—’ Here Pearl obviously cut him off again and during this pause, he blushed. ‘Osborne, yes,’ he said. ‘Dorset. No, in Perthshire these days.’ Then he blushed even harder, turning quite purple and making his freckles appear yellow. ‘She is indeed. Yes, we do. I most certainly am— Mrs Tennant, if I can just— A splendid chap. Most helpful to me in the matter of the farm. Mrs Tennant’ – his voice rose – ‘can I start by asking you this: as far as you know, has your sister ever committed any cri—’ I could hear Pearl squawking into the telephone from where I sat across the room (I had chosen a fireside chair as one does even when the grate is empty). ‘No I don’t mean the high-spirits of youth, my dear Mrs Te— Yes, indeed, I’ve snatched many a police helmet on treasure hunt nights myself, but that’s not what—’ Alec shook his head at me in dumb disbelief. It was his first exposure to a Lipscott outpouring and I took it that Dismay was just as profuse as Delight. ‘She hinted – no, she more than hinted – that she might have killed some—’ This time Alec tucked the earpiece into the crook of his neck and refilled his pipe while Pearl’s voice squeaked on and on. ‘Well, yes, we did wonder. Hm? Dandy and me. Yes, she is. Yes, I’m sure she would.’ I was signalling madly but he ignored me.

‘Hello, Pearl darling,’ I said, taking over and watching Alec go to flop in a chair.

‘Dandy, honestly!’ said Pearl down the line. She sounded tearful. ‘I asked you to take care of her and I told you to be gentle with her and it sounds absolutely as though you’ve trampled in in hobnailed boots like some beastly policeman.’

‘No need, dear,’ I said. ‘There is a real beastly policeman with perfectly good hobnailed boots of his own. And I should think he’ll be in touch very soon to ask you just what we’re asking you. There’s been a murder.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ said Pearl, rather surprisingly.

‘Or a death anyway,’ I said.

‘See? Don’t make such a melodrama, Dandy, you’re hardly helping.’

‘I had to go and look at the corpse, Pearl. It was melodramatic enough without anyone making it so. And Fleur as good as confessed that she—’ Pearl interrupted again.

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘Dandy, if I had thought for a moment you’d take this line . . . You
know
Fleur. She’s a darling, an angel, a cherub on a white clou—’

‘She
was
,’ I said, interrupting back. ‘She’s changed. I would like to know what changed her.’

‘I can’t listen to this,’ said Pearl. ‘From you of all people.’ I heard an ominous fumbling sound.

‘Don’t you dare hang up!’ I said and before I knew it Alec had taken the instrument back out of my hand.

‘Mrs Tennant,’ he said. ‘I’m well aware that Mrs Gilver is an old friend of your family but she is also a professional detective of the utmost integrity and moral scrupulousness. She cannot – we neither of us can – condone any—’ His voice was getting louder and lower and Pearl’s voice was getting higher and faster and they went on in this fashion for another good minute and then very abruptly Alec hung up the telephone.

‘What happened?’ I said.

‘The pips went,’ he said. ‘But she got a good one in just before. We’ve been sacked, Dandy darling.’

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Not again.’

After which it seemed immediately necessary to take a walk down the cliff steps to the lounge bar of the Crown and a restorative glass of brandy. It was rather shudder-making, as even the best brandy in a small village inn is wont to be, but all the more invigorating for that.

‘Ugh, a little more soda, please,’ I said, after the first sip.

‘You should really develop your palate for whisky,’ Alec said, which suggestion made me shudder even more. ‘It’s a safer bet in these parts. This’ – he swirled his glass – ‘is delightful.’

‘So she didn’t take too kindly to the suggestion that Fleur is a killer, it’s safe to say.’ I was resuming the conversation which had begun as we picked our way down by the path.

‘Ah yes, but it wasn’t the outrage you’d feel were I to accuse Donald, Teddy or Hugh. It was a much more well-honed rejection.’

‘She’d heard it oft before?’

‘And she wasn’t having any of it.’ Alec nodded. ‘She didn’t actually put up any counter-arguments, you understand. Just poor little Fleurikins and how dare I. Poor sweet pixie and poppet and dear little elf, their poor darling mamma and sorry old pa and it was all extremely sickening, I must say.’

‘It seemed adorable when we were girls,’ I said, not liking to hear the familiar pet names repeated in quite that sneering way, no matter how nauseating I might find them myself on occasion.

‘But she was genuinely rattled,’ Alec went on, with a relish which was worse than the sneering. ‘Doing her best to pooh-pooh any notion of a murder but stammering with the strain. Poor little elf-f-f-f-f.’

I set my brandy glass down hard and stared at him.

‘That wasn’t stammering,’ I said. ‘Elf-f-f-f? Apart from anything else, no one stammers at the
ends
of words, do they?’

Alec, like most men, does not welcome criticism. Unlike most men, however, he sets that aside without a care when more important matters are in hand. At that moment, he barely noticed the criticism at all, but only sat forward in his chair as eager as a puppy and stared back at me.

‘You’ve got that look, Dan,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

‘Elf-f-f-f,’ I said, ‘and I can’t believe you don’t know this but I suppose you’re rather young and from darkest Dorset, but Elf-f-f-f is the rather silly nickname of Edward Lionel Frederick Forrester-Franklin. Some sort of cousin of Aurora’s husband’s family.’

‘And?’ said Alec.

‘He died,’ I said. ‘In ’19 or possibly ’20.’

‘Eight years ago,’ Alec said. ‘And didn’t Pearl tell you . . .’

‘She did. That Fleur had got over the old bad time and been fine for eight years.’

‘Dear God, Dandy. What did he die of? Not old age, I take it.’

‘He was twenty-five,’ I said. ‘Suicide was the whisper, accident was what they put in
The Times
, but here’s the thing, darling. He died at Pereford. He died at Fleur’s family home.’

I slept more soundly that night than I had any right to expect I would after the horrors of the day and I dreamed, blamelessly, of Hugh and the boys and some task unknown and undone, very glad upon waking that the poor ravaged corpse and the ghost of Edward Franklin had not visited me. I stretched out in my narrow bed feeling the sheets, which were adrift under my body, twist and wrinkle with my movements. (I had never perfected the art of bed-making even after some very fierce lessons from Matron at the convalescent home and had never imagined that I might feel the want of it, but those same maids who carted dirty supper plates around for the girls of St Columba’s really did leave tender new mistresses to struggle with their own linens.) My pillow was bursting out of the end of its case too, giving it an uncomfortable sort of waist and ruining any chance of a snooze.

With a sigh, I swung my legs down and felt for my slippers on the cold linoleum floor. If moved to thank heaven for small mercies, I could always be glad that the Crown’s brandy was too unpleasant to tempt me to a second and my head was clear this morning. I wondered how Alec, so delighted by the quality of the whisky, was faring; and I hoped that, at least, he remembered the rather detailed plan of attack we had formed the evening before.

I set the first part of the plan in motion over breakfast with the girls, choosing again the gaggle of sixth formers I had met at supper on Friday.

‘With a one and a two and one two three and!’ Miss Shanks shouted from the end of the room, the girls rose to their feet and the slow chorus began.

‘Dear Lord, thank you for this new day and this good food and all our friends. Amen.’

I mumbled along, unfamiliar with the wording, and then sat and spread my napkin as the girls flopped down all around me.

‘Dear Lord,’ said Katie as she did so, ‘thank you for the fact that Hammy doesn’t make us do that music-hall routine at breakfast at least.’

‘I thought the dinner grace was rather sweet!’ I said.

‘So did we for the first year or so,’ said Stella, breaking into a roll and craning her neck for the maid. ‘Ah, good,’ she said, when the child arrived at her elbow. I was astonished to see and smell a stream of dark steaming coffee pouring into Stella’s breakfast cup.

‘Miss?’ said the maid.

‘Th-thank you,’ I managed, holding my cup up across the table to her.

‘Ugh!’ said Eileen. ‘I dread being grown-up and married and having to drink nasty coffee in the morning instead of delicious chocolate.’

‘Oh, that won’t be the worst of it,’ Stella said, drooping one lazy eyelid and making Spring and Katie giggle.

‘Now, now, girls,’ I said mildly, although privately just as startled by the talk as I was by the coffee. ‘Now, let me see . . . what did I mean to ask you . . .? Oh yes, what are you reading in English just now? I have a great deal of prep to do today.’

‘You mean French, Miss Gilver,’ said Sally, smiling rather shyly at her own temerity in correcting me.

‘Ah no, English,’ I said. ‘I thought perhaps you would have heard, but I suppose Miss Shanks will announce it at chapel. Miss Lipscott has been . . . called away and, since Miss Glennie came to help out with the French lessons, I’m taking over English.’

‘Juliet’s gone?’ said Spring. ‘Miss Lipscott, I mean? Not another one!’

‘She has been forced to take a leave of absence owing to a family emerg—’ I began before remembering that ‘family emergency’ was precisely the tale Miss Shanks had been spouting about them all.

‘Thank God,’ said Stella. ‘Escape! Relief! We can read anything you like, Miss Gilver, and we’ll be your devoted slaves if it’s not what we’ve been reading, I can tell you.’

‘Stella!’ This was in chorus from Eileen and Sally. ‘We can’t change books now. We’ve been studying all year for our Higher Cert.’

‘Speak for yourselves,’ said Spring. ‘I’ve been
not
studying all year and just hoping to be overtaken by a natural disaster before the exam!’

‘And the papers might be written already,’ said Katie.

‘Surely not,’ I said. ‘Examination papers can’t be written and lying around.’

‘Not lying around,’ said Spring. ‘Locked up in the safe until they go to the printers and then locked up again when they return. Miss Shanks is nuts on cheating.’

‘Well, I’m not about to change books this late in the term anyway,’ I said stoutly.

‘You know best, Miss Gilver,’ said Stella. She had a special way of being horribly insolent without saying anything on which one could lay one’s finger.

‘So what
are
you reading?’ I asked them.

‘
Paradise Lost
,’ said Eileen. ‘Miss Lipscott loves it.’

‘Juliet hates it as much as the rest of us!’ said Katie. ‘She just thinks that reading hateful boring tripe is good for the soul.’

There was so much about this remark I should have pounced upon, from the casual use of the nickname, past the intemperate language, to the disparaging of the great John Milton, but so panicked was I by the thought of having to teach a single sensible thing about such a poem that I said nothing, instead shooting off to the sideboard, ostensibly to fetch some eggs and bacon, but really because Miss Shanks was standing there and I felt an urgent need to reassure myself. A bit of Scott and Shakespeare, she had said.
Paradise Lost
was far beyond both my brief and the pale.

‘Exams, Miss Shanks,’ I said. ‘The papers. The girls said they were written and that the upper sixth is studying Milton. I’m sure they’re just teasing the new girl?’ My voice went up at the end and sounded as unsure as could be.