Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone (31 page)

‘Why …’ I began, but I had to take another run at it. ‘Why on earth would the ghosts of the victims of Burke and Hare be haunting the Moffat Hydro?’

‘Actually in the Hydro?’ said Hugh.

‘They think they’re up at the Gallow Hill, really, sir,’ Grant put in. ‘But they come to the Hydro to contact the living.’

‘Very well then,’ I said. ‘Why would the ghosts of the victims of Burke and Hare be up a hill in Moffat then?’

‘Well,’ said Hugh. ‘The story goes—’ He was interrupted by a gasp from Grant.

‘The name we picked, madam!’ she said. ‘William! No wonder they’re tied in knots trying to make me say William who?’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘It was William Burke and William Hare,’ said Hugh. ‘My word, Grant, that must have set the cat among the pigeons.’

‘I said I’d been “wrongly judged and wrongly hanged” and was come down the hill to wreak revenge.’

‘Must be William Burke then,’ I said. ‘He was hanged, wasn’t he? And Hare turned King’s evidence on him and got away?’

‘Yes, but the story goes,’ said Hugh again, ‘that William Hare was pursued wherever he went by the ghosts of his victims – all fifteen of his murder victims or seventeen if you count those who died of natural causes but who he kept out of their decent Christian graves. The legend is that the ghosts – if they caught him – would bring him to justice. That’s why he kept on the move. Down to London, home to Ireland, back again.’

‘I suppose Moffat would be on his way,’ I said. ‘Did he stop here? I looked into all the local ghosts at the library and
someone
dreadful stopped at the Black Bull. I remember that much. It might have been Deacon Brodie, mind you, or Sawney Bean. They do run in together after a while: Mary in every castle and Wallace in every cave.’

‘It was King Robert in the cave,’ Hugh said, mildly for him when he takes me to task about ancient Scotch history. ‘And Bloody Mary did move about quite a bit, you know.’

‘Whether she did or not,’ I said, ‘I shall go and check, but I’m becoming surer and surer that William Hare stopped at the inn.’

‘Fleeing the ghosts of his victims, but they caught up with him and took him up the Gallow Hill and hanged him there as he should have been hanged with his pal in Edinburgh,’ said Grant. Then she blushed. ‘Or so the mediums believe, madam. Sir.’

‘And a hundred years later, they’re all getting together again to talk about old times,’ I said. Both Grant and Hugh gave me looks of one sort or another. They do not have the long experience of talking about cases that Alec and I do.

‘And now I’ve brought one of the resurrection men to the party when no one asked him,’ said Grant, catching on. ‘And who’s this James, sir, that Mr Merrick was asking me to name?’

Hugh shook his head. ‘That was the saddest one of all,’ he said. ‘Daft Jamie.’

‘I think I’ve heard of him,’ I put in.

‘He was a simpleton,’ Hugh said, ‘but well known and well liked in the streets of the old town. One of the students in the dissecting room recognised him. He was Burke and Hare’s undoing.’

We all sat in silence for a moment or two, thinking of poor daft Jamie and the rest of them.

‘What sins did Mary Patterson have to repent of?’ I asked presently.

‘She was a woman of ill-repute,’ Hugh said. ‘Some of the medical students recognised her too, but they were ashamed to say so.’

‘Dearie me,’ said Grant, which was as good a way to sum it all up as any. ‘So will I say to the mediums that I can hear Jamie then?’ She put on a dull, idiotic-sounding voice. ‘“I’m Jamie, I am. Jamie Daff.” They often get the name a wee bit wrong, you know. It helps folk believe they’re trying to hear it over all the miles between this world and the next. “Help poor Jamie. Help me. Don’t let that bad man find me.”’ Hugh looked the way I had when she had first turned her talents on me.

‘I suppose you might as well,’ I said. ‘But all of these revelations don’t help at all with the question of why Mrs Addie died. Even now we suspect she died in a mud bath.’

‘Depends where they got the mud,’ said Grant. ‘Sir. Madam.’ She stood, bobbed and left us.

‘I don’t think I’m cut out for this game,’ said Hugh, staring after her.

‘It’s not always like this,’ I said. ‘And I can’t let you say that when you’ve just solved two of the things that were puzzling Alec and me for days on end. Without even trying.’

‘I can’t see how you can call it a solution,’ said Hugh. ‘If where we’ve ended up is that a woman sat in a vat of Gallow Hill mud, and out of the mud came fifteen ghosts and she died of fright.’

‘It really
isn’t
always like this,’ I said again. ‘I assure you.’

‘I’m going to fetch the boys,’ said Hugh, standing. He looked in through the french windows. ‘Grant is holding court in there like Charlotte of Mecklenburg. I’m off.’ I watched him all the way to the end of the terrace, striding along, furious with the silliness and frightfulness of it all, and annoyed with himself that he could not resist taking his sons out of harm’s way, even though the harm was nonsense, as it must be.

‘That’s a very soupy look you’ve got on your face, Dan.’ I turned and saw Alec standing at my other side, smiling down at me. He sat on the chair where Hugh had so recently been, swung his legs up and grinned at me.

‘So. Have I missed anything?’ he said.

When I had finished my report all he could do was give a long, low whistle.

‘The first thing I need to do is go and check that what I remember from the library is right enough,’ I said.

‘Do you?’ Alec said.

I laughed. ‘No, not really, but it’s something I
can
do and I can’t think of anything else. What about you?’

‘I’m going to wait for the PM report,’ Alec said. ‘Mr Addie said he’ll telephone to me. Probably tomorrow. Mrs Bowie’s still on about her grandfather’s watch, by the way. Good grief, to think of us all over the well path and the Beef Tub and the Gallow Hill like a pair of bloodhounds that day!’

‘I don’t suppose it could be something as silly as theft that got Mrs Addie killed, could it?’ I said. ‘This watch isn’t diamond-encrusted or anything? Only I wonder why they didn’t send her bag back to the family with her clothes. I wonder why they didn’t send
those
back until I prompted them, come to that.’

‘A plain gold watch, I think,’ said Alec. ‘And one doesn’t poison someone and set her to die in a vat of mud to achieve a burglary. A knock on the head with a cosh is more what you’d look for if it was theft at the bottom of it.’

‘And no marks of violence at all,’ I said. ‘It’s hard to believe they can still tell after a month. I mean, what does …? Did she still …?’

‘Believe me, Dandy,’ said Alec. ‘You don’t want to know.’

We went our separate ways after that, I to the library and Alec to the men’s baths for a salt rub which he richly deserved after all his horrors. I had only got halfway across the drawing room though when Grant waylaid me.

‘They want me to stay, madam,’ she said. Her eyes were as round as beads. ‘They’re going to pay for my room so I can stay and go to their seance. It was Mr Merrick’s idea.’

‘You don’t have to do it,’ I said. I had misunderstood the round eyes.

‘But may I?’ she said.

‘Certainly, you may,’ I replied. ‘But you must promise me that you will not put yourself in any danger, Grant. Remember that Mr Osborne and the master are both here. I shall give you the numbers of their rooms and you are not to hesitate to go there.’

I fished in my bag for a slip of paper. Grant was fishing too.

‘I think it’ll be just one day, madam,’ she said. ‘So here’s what to lay out for yourself for tomorrow and if you decide to change for dinner, wear the peacock blue, and your Turkish slippers are in the airing cupboard. I steamed them after your game of rugby football the other night.’

‘I was working on the case, Grant,’ I said. ‘I did mention that they weren’t a suitable choice, if you remember.’

We swapped slips of paper and I went on my way. The voice from the depths of an armchair in a dark corner by the door surprised me.

‘She said she was a maid, right enough.’ A great leonine head of silver hair bent forward around the wing of the armchair. It was Loveday Merrick. ‘To a woman staying in town. I never put her together with you, Mrs Gilver.’

‘It’s Mr … Merrick, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘That’s not my maid. My maid’s name is Palmer and she’s at home sewing. That girl promised to give me the recipe for a hair lotion she uses. I overheard her talking about it in the steam baths one day.’

‘Ah, the steam baths are indeed a wonderful place for overhearing,’ he said. ‘Good day, Mrs Gilver.’

‘Good day, Mr Merrick,’ I said. It was not until I was halfway to town that I thought to wonder how he knew me.

The librarian was closing up for the day when I pulled in at the kerb and hopped down.

‘Tch,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry to have missed you, but if you don’t mind answering questions while you lock the door, you could help me out a little.’

‘Happy to oblige, madam,’ she said. There was no sign that she remembered me.

‘I suppose I could ask in the Black Bull but a library is much more to my taste,’ I went on, buttering her up for no reason except that I had planned to. When I rehearse a conversation ahead of execution I very often cannot amend as I go. ‘It’s about the Black Bull as a matter of fact,’ I said. ‘My husband and I are having one of these little disagreements. I say that William Hare stayed there and he thinks it was Deacon Brodie.’

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ said the librarian. She had finished with her locks and bolts now and she stowed her bunch of keys away safely in a large bag with a stout clasp, snapping it tightly and checking it twice before she put the handle over her arm. I could not drag my eyes away from it although I had no idea why. ‘Deacon Brodie was never in Moffat, madam, I’m glad to say. But William Hare was and no two ways about it. And you’re the third one to ask about him this last weather, you know.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘A lady was in the other day asking about ghosts and ne’er-do-wells and I told her. Drew her a map and everything. And then a gentleman was here too about a month ago. Almost the same thing. All the ghosts of Moffat. He didn’t need a map though.’

‘I see,’ I said. It did not seem worth telling her that the lady from last time was me.

‘Now, ordinarily,’ I said to Alec on the telephone that evening, ‘I’d think it couldn’t have been Tot Laidlaw because she said she didn’t know him, but if she’d forgotten me after three days then it certainly could be.’

‘Ordinarily I’d think it wasn’t Tot because she said “gentleman”,’ Alec replied.

‘Ah yes, but to the librarian “a gentleman” is anyone who isn’t wearing boots,’ I said. ‘And what it made me think about was the letter to
Spooks’ Monthly
that Grant heard about. That was a “gentleman” too – a respectable sort, a professional man I think she said. And someone else at some time during this case has spoken of a respectable man … I wish I could think who it was and what we were speaking about.’

‘And you’re sure it must have been Tot?’ Alec said. ‘Because I was wondering about Loveday Merrick. If he’s a fraud – and he must be, mustn’t he? – then wouldn’t he have to mug up in advance?’

‘But this gentleman didn’t need a map,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it was Tot. His latest wheeze, you know. Give the place the reputation for being haunted and get some extra business that way. I mean to say, any man who’s running a casino … he can’t hope to get away with
that
indefinitely.’

‘Far from it,’ Alec said. ‘Two young oafs were talking in the hot room—’

‘Aha!’ I said.

‘And one of them happened to say to the other that he would miss it when it was gone. That it was such a fag having to drag himself all the way through France for the same terms.’

‘Well, there you are then,’ I said. ‘Tot’s been whispering stories into just the right ears to get the Hydro started on its career as a haunted house. Or writing letters to the right magazines anyway.’

‘You don’t mean to say that he killed Mrs Addie to get the ball rolling?’ said Alec.

‘I don’t know. I hope the PM turns up something. Or Grant does. Oh, by the way, don’t jump out of your skin if there’s a knock at your door tonight, will you? Grant’s staying to do a seance and I’ve told her to come to you if she gets in any difficulties. I don’t trust that Merrick at all. And I’d hate anything to befall her.’

‘I saw her in the dining room,’ Alec said. ‘She had them all eating out of her hand. I think she’ll be fine.’

But when I next saw her she was not fine at all.

I had decided to have one last crack at Regina or Mrs Cronin, whichever one I ran into first. They both knew more than they were telling, and for some reason I could not get Regina, especially, out of my mind. She had been in my thoughts since my conversation with the librarian the afternoon before and she had walked through my dreams too. I had been in one of the little cubicles, sitting on the velvet bench, quite naked, waiting for her to come to me. My pose must have been, I imagine, similar to the way Grant held herself when I caught sight of her in the resting room the next morning. She was perched on the edge of one of the couches, still dressed in her grey pinafore and outdoor coat and still with her hat on and her bag clutched on her knees.

‘I’m waiting for Dr Laidlaw,’ she said. ‘She was supposed to be assessing me for the galvanic baths. I’m sure she said it was here I was to wait.’

‘The Turkish and Russian resting room?’ I said. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘An hour, madam, and it’s very hot.’ I did not alarm her with news of how hot it got once one started through the velvet curtains.

‘Is that all that’s troubling you, Grant?’ I said. ‘You seem rather forlorn.’

‘I’d have liked to press that shirt before you wore it, madam,’ she said. ‘That’s not the one that was on the list I gave you. And I’m tired too. It was gone three before they let up last night, with their moaning and swaying.’

I bit my cheeks so as not to smile. The mediums would be mortified if they could hear this depth of scorn.