Maggie (15 page)

“Is this true?” asked the Chief Superintendent, swinging around and confronting Maggie. “Were you on that train?”

She was looking straight at the earl, her eyes like stars.

“Oh, yes,” she said in her soft voice. “It is indeed the very truth.”

By the time she awoke the following morning all Maggie’s feelings of happiness had gone.

The earl might think her innocent, but he did not love her. And Maggie loved him. Completely. This shattering thought was the first thing that entered her brain when her eyes opened to the dismal light of a leaden day.

For the first time she was hit by the full impact of how the earl’s partisanship must affect him. He would be socially ostracized. Mrs. Murray would not favour him with her smiles again. No society woman worth her salt would marry him solely for his money if it meant she would never be able to show off the clothes and jewels his fortune could buy her.

“But
I
would marry him,” thought Maggie, “but he is not of my class, and although he may be kind to me, he would never think of wedding anyone of my station. I am nothing but a shopkeeper’s daughter. Only think how they sneered at people in London who were in trade and said they ‘smelled of the shop’. I am a woman whose name has not been cleared of the charge of murder.”

Her eyes roamed around the solid luxury of her bedroom. The steel bars of the grate shone like silver and the brass scuttle and fire irons like gold. Firelight winked on the deep red depths of polished mahogany surfaces; on the enormous carved bed and on the gigantic wardrobe which reached almost to the ceiling. Heavy brocade curtains had been drawn back to let in the morning light which filtered whitely through fringed and bobbled blinds and under curtains of net.

The mantelpiece was draped with heavy brocade and crowded with china figurines.

What would the servants think of her now that they knew her identity? She sat up nervously as the maid, Betty, entered the room and started laying out her mistress’s clothes for the day, placing the underwear on the guard rail of the fire to warm.

But Betty seemed very much her usual self, chattering nineteen to the dozen, brisk and efficient.

Maggie settled back against the pillows with a little sigh of relief.

It was as well for her peace of mind that she did not know of all the excitement raging in the servants’ hall.

The butler, Mr. Adams, had started writing his memoirs, “My Days in Service with A Famous Poisoner”; the cook, Mrs. Murdoch, had told the gardener to make sure all cans of arsenic in the potting shed had been thrown away in case “Mrs. Macleod might be tempted”; and the rest of the staff were wondering if selling their story to the newspapers would compensate for a subsequent life of unemployment.

The reporters and photographers were being held at bay outside the gates by two of the keepers armed with game rifles.

The earl had awakened in a worried mood as well. The feeling of elation he had experienced on proving that Maggie was with him at the time of Murdo Knight’s murder had faded. Surely this did not automatically prove Maggie innocent. But Knight had been a crime reporter. Perhaps some criminal had put an end to him.

It did not follow that his death was related in any way to that of Macleod. He found Maggie’s very manner alien. If she had openly wept and perpetually and vehemently protested her innocence, it would be more in line with what he would have expected any woman to do in the circumstances. Her frequent silences, the way she often dropped her eyes when he looked at her, all suggested something unfathomable and secretive.

Then there were his own feelings towards Maggie Macleod to consider. He may as well admit that she roused violent and very earthy passions in him and the earl felt obscurely that no lady should do that.

He shook his head as if to clear it and came to the
conclusion that somewhere in Glasgow the real murderer of Inspector Macleod must exist, and therefore must be found. He might often wonder what Maggie really thought of him, but that no longer made him think her a murderess. Somehow, he must succeed where the whole of the Glasgow police had so far failed.

Still gnawing at the problem, he wandered abstractedly down the stairs and entered the breakfast room. Miss Rochester was already there, toying moodily with toast and tea, great purple patches under her eyes making her look more like a bulldog than ever.

The earl felt a stab of compunction. This whole business, this scandal, was too much for a maiden lady like his aunt. He was just opening his mouth to suggest that she might like to go home to Beaton Malden after she had rested from her journey, when, to his extreme irritation, the butler announced, “Colonel Delaney, my lord,” and ushered a small, dapper gentleman into the room before the earl had time to protest.

Colonel Delaney was a well-preserved man in his sixties with a neat round face and neat round figure. He had sparse grey hair brushed over a pink scalp, a thin moustache over a pursed babyish mouth, and shrewd little black eyes. He wore a short fawn coat over tweed trousers and carried a brown bowler and a pair of lemon kid gloves in one hand.

“Good to see you,” he said breezily. “I’m Delaney, your neighbour. Thought you might need some help with those scribe-chappies who’re baying at your door.”

“Sit down and have some tea or coffee,” said the earl, privately wishing the colonel in hell. “If you mean the Press, I’ve got two fellows keeping them off with shotguns.”

“Ah, but that’s just the point,” exclaimed the colonel. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, Madam. We have not been introduced.”

His little black eyes twinkled at Miss Rochester. The earl
testily introduced him and then sat fuming as the colonel helped himself to grilled kidneys from the sideboard and sat down at the table, obviously determined to eat a hearty breakfast.

“It’s like this,” said the colonel, waving a kidney speared on the end of his fork, “If you keep ’em out, then all they’ll do is pester your servants and tenants and write a lot of distorted muck about you and Mrs. Macleod.”

“
But
if you treat ’em nice, why, they’ll maybe help find out who really did it, since I don’t suppose Mrs. Macleod did for a minute. Now, did she?” He beamed at Miss Rochester with ingenuous charm.

Before anyone could reply, Maggie herself entered the room and there was a small disturbance while the colonel was introduced.

“As I was saying,” he went on as soon as Maggie was seated, “the best thing you can do is to have the lads up to the castle, shut them in a cosy room with a lot of whisky and sandwiches, and then give them a rousing speech about how you are fighting to clear Mrs. Macleod’s fair name with the help of the free and fearless Press of Scotland. Great stuff! I can see the headlines now: ‘The Earl of Strathairn Battles to Clear Maggie Macleod’s Name’.

“So with your permission, I’ll run out and get these chappies in out the cold. Beastly summer, isn’t it? You can give them something nice to write.

“Now you,” he went on, picking up Miss Rochester’s hand and giving it a playful little shake, “look like a sensible woman to me. I think it’s important people should know you are here as well, by way of chaperone.”

“I don’t think…” began the earl, half bewildered, half amused.

“Well, it’s time you did,” said the colonel cheerfully. “See you in a jiffy. Finish my breakfast after I’ve got the Press rounded up.”

And with that he strode from the room.

“Isn’t he marvellous!” sighed Miss Rochester.

“He’s rather overbearing,” said the earl. “Perhaps he’s mad.”

“He is talking sense,” said Maggie. “Only think how angry the reporters must be. It’s beginning to rain.”

“I suppose so,” said the earl with a reluctant smile. “But he makes me feel as if I’ve been hit with a whirlwind. Who is this Colonel Delaney, Adams?”

“A retired army gentleman,” said the butler, turning from the sideboard. “He has the old manor house about ten miles to the west, just outside the village of Troon. He’s well-respected in these parts.”

The earl walked to the window and stared out. Through the driving rain he could see a small army of bedraggled men marching up the long drive, shepherded by the colonel.

“What on earth am I going to say to them?” he asked, swinging around.

“Just tell them the truth,” said Miss Rochester, tucking into her breakfast with a sudden renewal of appetite.

Soon there was a shuffling in the hall. Adams had sent two footmen to light a fire in the study and a message to the kitchen to send up plates of sandwiches.

The colonel came striding into the room, rubbing his hands. “Well, that’s that,” he said. “Leave ’em until they’ve had a few glasses and you’ll find them in a mellow mood. They get resentful, you know, when folks don’t speak to them. By Jove, isn’t this exciting! We have a mystery to solve, so after these gentlemen of the Press have asked all their questions, I’ll ask a few. See here,” he went on, “the way I see it is this. Murdo Knight is, or rather was, a crime reporter. Mr. Macleod was a police inspector. Together they may have unearthed something that somebody wanted kept quiet. Now, someone poisoned the inspector, but what of Mr. Knight? Suppose he was being paid to keep his mouth
shut and got greedy. Hey! How’s that for an idea?”

“I think we should leave the detecting to the police,” said the earl acidly. He was a little annoyed at the way the colonel appeared to have taken over his home and his life.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, laddie,” said the colonel with unimpaired cheerfulness. “Wouldn’t do that. I mean, look at the mess they’ve made of things already. Do you know that they didn’t even use that fingerprint business on the cup on Mr. Macleod’s desk? I was interested you see, so I asked a lot of questions. They’ve been using that fingerprint stuff since eighteen ninety-six, so it’s not as if it’s brand new. They thought about it, mind you, three days after the inspector died, but by that time the cup had been washed clean and put away with the others. Now what kind of detecting is that, I ask you?”

“Why are you so sure I didn’t do it?” asked Maggie.

“Oh, I’m a good judge of character,” said the colonel. “I was in the court, you know, and you had innocence written all over you. Now, there’s a gel, I thought to myself, who just hasn’t the sort of brains to commit a really good murder. Well, now, my lord. I think the jackals will be ready for you.”

The earl had an impulse to put him down, to say that he would do as he pleased in his own house and that it did not please him to expose his private life to the vulgar gaze of a lot of newspapermen. But, on the other hand, everything the colonel had said seemed to make sense.

“Very well,” he said, and added sweetly, “
Do
make yourself at home, Colonel Delaney.”

“Oh, I shall, dear boy,” said the colonel. “What a splendid morning! Excellent breakfast and the company of two pretty ladies.”

The earl said something that sounded like “tcha” and strode from the room.

Adams was waiting for him in the hall. “The Press
persons are in the study, my lord,” he murmured gloomily.

“Very good, Adams,” said the earl, feeling as if he were a schoolboy again, standing outside the headmaster’s study door.

When he entered the room, he was faced by the oddest set of fellows he thought he had ever seen. They came in all shapes and sizes from huge tweedy eccentrics to depressed little men like insurance clerks, to tall willowy men in velvet jackets and Bohemian ties. They rose at his entrance, hanging firmly onto their whisky glasses.

The earl took a deep breath. “Well, gentlemen,” he said lightly, “it’s a miserable day, and I suggest we all have another glass of something and I’ll answer all your questions.”

Beaming smiles greeted this. Stories were being rapidly changed around in various minds from, “sinister earl” to “brave earl”.

“I wonder how he’s getting on,” said Colonel Delaney. “I say, is that kedgeree, Miss Rochester? It is! Splendid! I’ll have some of that.”

Miss Rochester watched the colonel eat with the fond smile of a mother watching her favourite child make a hearty meal.

“I think you should tell Colonel Delaney the whole thing, Maggie,” said Miss Rochester, putting down her knife and fork. “It’s such a relief to meet someone forthright who wants to help us.”

“Lord Strathairn has already been most helpful,” said Maggie blushing. “He has suffered so much over his championship of me.”

“But he is too close,” said Miss Rochester earnestly. “We need a new mind, a fresh look at the problem. Colonel Delaney does not have all the facts. He doesn’t even know about the marriage…” She broke off and bit her lip in confusion.

“Marriage?” said the colonel, pricking up his ears. “What marriage?”

“I don’t know if I should talk about it,” said Maggie slowly. “Not without Lord Strathairn’s permission. We did not know you until this morning, Colonel.”

“But you already feel you’ve known me for years,” said the colonel. “People feel like that about me,” he added, stating it as a matter of fact rather than a boast. “You’d better tell me all about it. Mark my words, I think you silly young things have been getting yourselves into a rare old mess.” He appeared to include Miss Rochester in his “silly young things” remark and she blushed with pleasure.

“Oh, go
on
, Maggie,” she urged. “I’ll tell Peter you told the colonel and he won’t mind.”

Maggie took a deep breath. The colonel was watching her, his twinkling eyes looking infinitely kind. “I’ll tell you,” she said, her voice ending in a little sigh.

There was a long silence while she marshalled her thoughts. A gust of wind threw raindrops against the window panes and the grandfather clock in the corner sonorously ticked away the minutes.

At last Maggie began to speak, her soft lilting voice telling everything but her love for the earl.

She described her marriage to the inspector, the visits from Murdo Knight, her marriage to the earl, and how the earl had told Miss Rochester, and how Miss Rochester had in turn told her about the Marquess of Handley’s bet.

“Well, well, well,” said Colonel Delaney, dabbing at his pursed little mouth with his napkin. “It’s obvious there’s a tie-up somewhere. Why would Handley go out of his way to make such a bet and then see that it was carried through? Unless, of course, he’s one of those decadent creatures who humiliate their fellow man for the sheer pleasure of it. And you say that Lord Robey and Mr. Ashton were present at this game? Good. I know them both. Weak but harmless.