Deadly Beloved (3 page)

"Then she must see a dental surgeon and have it extracted."

A delicate shudder passed round the table. Faro was not alone in his cowardice.

"Yes, have it ripped out," Kellar continued, "But not on my time," he roared, thumping the table. "I have had quite enough of her. Enough. I do not pay domestics to indulge themselves with petty indispositions. You are to give her a week's notice immediately. Do you hear, woman, one week's notice."

"But what are we to do?" wailed Mrs Kellar. "We cannot be left without help in the house."

"Then set about finding a replacement."

"Please be reasonable, my love. I cannot possibly find anyone in a week."

"One week," thundered Kellar. "You have one week. And that is my last word on the subject, madam."

"As you wish, my love."

In the heavy silence that followed, Mrs Kellar's sniffs indicated barely suppressed tears while the guests did their best to avoid each other's eyes. They concentrated in a half-hearted way on staring ahead at nothing in particular, resisting at all costs a curious or speculative glance in the direction of the ruined roast, still smouldering like a burnt offering on the centre of the table.

"And where is our maid this evening?" demanded Dr Kellar.

"You allowed Ina home for the weekend. Don't you remember, my dear — that is our usual procedure." Mrs Kellar looked round the table, her helpless gesture begging affirmation and approval.

"Hrmmph," growled Dr Kellar, his indignant shake of the head indicating that this generous impulse had been ungratefully reciprocated.

Emboldened, Mrs Kellar went on: "And might I remind you, my dear, that the necessity for acquiring a new housekeeper need never have arisen, had you not given Mrs Freeman notice." Again she appealed to the guests: "Mrs Freeman's services gave no cause for complaint, an admirable housekeeper in every way."

"A self-opinionated fool," sneered Kellar. "And rude. Damnably rude."

"You forget, my love, that she had looked after this house for nearly thirty years and regarded it as her own."

"Hrmmph. Small disagreement, that was all. Ungrateful wretch left in a huff without working her notice. No character need she expect from me, nor this new one either. You may tell her that, as a parting gift." Kellar's sneer as he continued to flourish the carving knife now assumed sinister and monstrous significance.

Faro shrugged aside such imaginings. A ruined meal, problems with the servants, were hardly just cause and impediment for murdering one's spouse. If that were the case, then the daily press would have no news of anything else but domestic crimes.

The dessert, an apple tart also somewhat charred about the edges, was served plus a Scotch trifle sadly lacking in sherry as its main flavouring.

There was a momentary revival of cheerful spirits around the table as the guests noted the appearance of the port decanter.

Faro declined the cheese and concentrated on trying to attract Vince's attention, wondering how soon they could decently and discreetly excuse themselves. His hopes sank when Mabel announced: "Our dear friend Mrs Shaw has been prevailed upon to play for us very shortly. She is an excellent performer," she added reassuringly.

As there was no possibility of bringing the evening to a close. Faro considered his host dispassionately. Dr Kellar was a snob and worse., a pompous parsimonious bore whose choice of conversation seemed limited to promoting his own importance to the Edinburgh City Police with the addition of graphic descriptions relating to his dissections of interesting cadavers of criminals past and present. The mere flicker of an eyelid from Vince indicated to Faro that they were in agreement about the suitability of this topic for light dinner-table conversation.

Despite Vince's high commendation of their hostess, none of her sterling qualities was evident and Mabel Kellar was soon to retreat into a blurred memory, a well-meaning bungling nonentity, her sole virtues being to suffer incompetent servants gladly and acquiring waifs and strays.

When she wasn't scuttling back and forth to the kitchen. Faro observed that her attentions were devoted almost exclusively to Vince and Eveline Shaw. Her colour grew more hectic as she beamed upon them, pressing the young woman's hand affectionately or patting her cheek with her fan. The specially-invited Uncle Hedley, sitting next to Vince, was being studiously ignored by that young man, intent upon discussing with his hostess his imminent trip to Vienna.

On Sir Hedley's other side, Superintendent McIntosh was enthusiastically following his host's dismemberment of cadavers while the Mad Bart looked bewildered and very glum indeed. Faro, after a few vain attempts to engage him in conversation across the wide table, gave up and regarded the scene thoughtfully.

Again he was struck by the ill-chosen assortment of dinner guests, puzzled by the reason for his inclusion. This first social invitation to the police surgeon's house was flattering but obscure, since they had little to say to one another, and before tonight he would have considered that their dislike was mutual.

He turned his attention to Vince and Eveline Shaw, clucked over in a nervous mother-hen fashion by Mabel Kellar. The thought sprang to his mind unbidden: had this dinner party been carefully planned as an occasion for matchmaking between the dearest friend and companion and his young stepson who was Mabel's confidant? Was that why the pleasure of his company had been required, to give approval and blessing? The thought was firmly rooted in reality, for matchmaking was the main creative hobby of Edinburgh matrons in Mabel Kellar's stratum of society. Faro imagined that just such a scene might be encountered at other Edinburgh dinner tables this evening, presided over by many an anxious mama, desperate to find a husband for a daughter no longer young, and whose face had never been her fortune.

As for Eveline Shaw herself, oblivious and indifferent to being the centre of her hostess's adulation, her attitude was one of sadness and patient bewilderment. She stared at her plate and spoke little apart from accepting or declining the food offered, her mourning dress serving only to enhance that young and lovely face.

Faro shook his head. No. Mrs Shaw wouldn't do at all for Vince. Small wonder he preferred his hostess. But what could have united these two women, so dissimilar, in friendship? The young widow, stricken and lost in the lachrymose stage of early bereavement, appeared to be scarcely older than Vince. Faro guessed that she had not been married long and was no doubt still deeply in love with her dead husband.

He knew all about losing one's beloved partner and sympathised silently with the countenance frozen in unhappiness across the table. Her expression suggested that she longed for the solitude of her own home, to be alone with her melancholy thoughts. Her silence and lack of spontaneity told a tale of bitter regret at having been persuaded to accept Mabel Kellar's thinly veiled invitation, and all its implications, to be jolly and meet 'the nice young doctor'.

Was her 'dearest friend and companion's' refusal to cooperate in the matchmaking activity, the plan that had gone awry, the reason for Mrs Kellar's distraught appearance? There was more in it than that. Faro had observed the fleeting glance of terror displayed earlier by Mrs Kellar. Mrs Shaw was also afraid.

Faro was to remember the significance of that moment when he endeavoured to deduce the sinister elements and motives lurking behind the masks worn by the guests at that very dull and chaotic dinner party.

His attention was drawn repeatedly to Sir Hedley. He was not frightened but certainly appeared ill-at-ease. His attempts to engage Vince or the Superintendent in conversation had been rather discourteously ignored. What was his reason for being included? Surely more than an obligation to his niece and a fascination with crime had been required to persuade him out of that hermit's shell in Solomon's Tower?

Had he been invited out of thoughtful concern or simply to make up the sitting? Whatever the reason, the old man must have been concluding that it was all a dismal failure, thought Faro, turning his attention to Superintendent McIntosh.

A toady of the worst possible kind, McIntosh hung on every word Kellar uttered.

"A little bird tells me that there is a knighthood in the offing, Doctor. Let me be the first to offer my congratulations."

Faro shuddered. Coyness sat ill upon the Superintendent's fleshy shoulders and Kellar's attempt at modest indifference also failed. He beamed.

"That is so. Word has newly reached me. But in the utmost confidence." He put a finger to his lips. "Not a word. I know I can rely on your discretion, Superintendent. Not one word."

"You may rely on me utterly. Doctor. Utterly."

Faro suppressed a smile. The forthcoming knighthood was common knowledge and he suspected that every policeman walking the High Street in Edinburgh was betting on its probability.

"How absolutely thrilling., Doctor Kellar," put in Mrs McIntosh. "And such an honour for your dear wife too."

The dear wife alerted, looked momentarily more distraught as Mrs McIntosh endeavoured to gain her attention.

Faro had early decided that for Mrs McIntosh the evening would be memorable as a social triumph. True, she did not inhabit the same intellectual plane as her host but she shared his abominable snobbery, and was rosy with delight at finding herself dining with a Title and a Knight-To-Be. Her gushing attempts to converse with Sir Hedley had not met with much success, as the latter apparently failed to hear, or was deaf to the shrill remarks directed toward him.

Mrs McIntosh was two inches under five feet tall but she made up for her small stature by a massive temper, and her angry glances boded ill for her spouse who had twice interrupted her flow of eloquence on the one subject dear to her heart.

She understood, oh, how she understood and sympathised with dear Dr Kellar's outburst of passion on the subject of new housekeepers. She knew, oh, how she knew all about domestics and how hard they were to come by. And oh dear me, such low creatures they were these days, one would imagine they would be grateful for the chance to shelter under the same roof as their betters.

"You cannot get a good girl, a really good girl, cheap to live in anywhere these days. They actually demand wages in return for bed and board. Do you not find it so, Sir Hedley?"

The Mad Bart's eyes swivelled nervously in the direction of Vince and Mabel Kellar. With an exasperated sigh Mrs McIntosh turned to Faro. "Now you must agree with me, Inspector. Servants must be of crucial importance for the smooth running of an Inspector's household."

"I give the matter little attention, madam," said Faro coldly.

"Of course, I understand you are fortunate in having that nice little Mrs Brook. We tried to get her to come to us — did you know that? — when her dear doctor, her former employer at Sheridan Place, died so suddenly ..."

But Faro was no longer listening, thinking venomously of how he could remove that simpering glance with the information that his own dear Lizzie had been a domestic servant who had an illegitimate son — Vince — as a result of being raped by one of the so-called gentry when she was fifteen years old.

Vince. He looked at his stepson fondly wondering, as he often did, if the boy had been his own child, whether he could have loved him better or found a more faithful and devoted son. Watching him animated and attentive to Mabel Kellar after rather rudely fending off Sir Hedley's attempts to be included in the conversation, Faro's qualms about the boy's happiness came again to the fore.

There was something too vulnerable about that bright head of curls, the gentle smile, a sensitive quality at odds with the grim medical task of assistant to the police surgeon. Somehow he could never imagine Vince ever acquiring the hard shell of Dr Kellar.

The clock seemed to have stopped on the mantelpiece as the meal dragged on to its weary conclusion and Mrs Kellar announced that the entertainment would now begin.

Entertainment, thought Faro. What a word to describe Mabel Kellar's monologue, 'A Sunday Afternoon Picnic' in which a whole family, celebrating Grandmama's birthday, took to the river and encountered many a storm, of the teacup variety. Mabel Kellar's change of voice for her bewilderingly large cast of characters left him stunned, his eyelids heavy. Later, he learned from Vince that this was her party piece. It seemed endless.

At last, she curtseyed delightedly to applause polite but feeble.

"Our dear Mrs Shaw will now play for us."

Faro suppressed a bout of yawning and, with an irresistible desire to close his eyes, tried to focus his dwindling attention on the young woman as she sat down at the piano.

A few chords and he was wide awake, alert, his senses singing as he recognised Beethoven's Appassionata brilliantly executed. One of his favourite pieces, he knew that this was no bungling amateur but a pianist whose rightful place was on the concert platform.

"Bravo, bravo," he called as the final notes faded into silence. "Encore, encore."

The guests who did not share his knowledge of music or his enthusiasm looked mildly dazed by his reaction. Mrs Shaw regarded him gratefully, bowed modestly and then firmly closed the piano.

He went over to her side. "That was superb, Mrs Shaw. Beethoven at his very best."

"You are familiar with the piece, Inspector?"