Murder on the Flying Scotsman (16 page)

‘Oh, call me Kitty. “Miss Gillespie” sounds like when I’m in trouble at school. I say, Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher is an awful mouthful. Can I call you something
shorter?’

‘Mr. Fletcher will do nicely. This is Detective Sergeant Tring, my right-hand man.’

‘How do you do, Mr. Tring.’ Kitty shook hands with him, too. He beamed at her. ‘Golly,’ she said again, plumping down on the sofa with a satisfied sigh. ‘What do
you want to know?’

‘Let’s start with your whereabouts from York until the train stopped near Holy Island.’

‘That’s easy. I was stuck in the compartment with Aunt Amelia and Anne and Mattie. It was a rotten do. Mummy made me stay there because they were all afraid I would go and see
Gruncle Albert and upset him. As though they weren’t going to upset him any way!’

‘Those three were with you all the time?’

‘No, Mattie was but Anne and Aunt Amelia went out just after Belinda came along to see me. Uncle Desmond and Horrible Harold decided it was best for the ladies to try their charms on
Gruncle Albert first.’ In effect, if not in choice of words, that agreed with Mrs. Bretton’s and Mrs. Smythe-Pike’s statements. ‘They weren’t gone long,’ Kitty
continued, ‘because it didn’t work. Then Mummy came and kicked up a dust because they’d stolen a march on Daddy and Jeremy. That was when Belinda got fed up and left, and I wished
I could have.’

‘You wanted to see your great-uncle?’

‘I wanted to ask him to leave some money to Ray – my brother Raymond. You see,’ she said earnestly, ‘Daddy and Mummy and Jeremy don’t really need it, not
really
, but Ray does. It’s not his fault he can’t keep a job. I thought if he knew he’d get some money, he’d marry Judith and she could take care of him all the time,
and maybe he’d get better. Anyway, now Daddy’ll get it all, and he can give Ray a share.’

‘What about you, don’t you want your share?’ Alec asked with real curiosity.

‘Not me. I’m going to be a writer, like Miss Dalrymple. Isn’t she absolutely topping?’

This innocent query left Alec groping for an answer. Piper muffled a snicker. Tom was up to the occasion. ‘Absolutely,’ he said with apparent gravity. Alec didn’t dare glance
at him, sure he’d meet a wickedly teasing look.

‘Your father may not get it all,’ he pointed out hurriedly. ‘Your great-uncle Alistair may change his will.’

‘I hope he will. I don’t see why we Gillespies should get it all when there’s plenty for everyone.’

‘It’s a large fortune, is it?’

‘Well, he inherited simply pots of money from my great-grandfather, and being a miser he never spent any, so it must be even more now, with interest and things, mustn’t it? Aunt
Geraldine says she doesn’t need any, but it would be rotten if Uncle Desmond’s house had to be sold. They’ve got horses! Gosh, I’ve got a spiffing idea. I’ll ask Aunt
Amelia to invite Belinda next time I go to stay, and we can ride together. You’d let her, wouldn’t you, Mr. Fletcher?’

‘I’ll have to think about it,’ Alec said diplomatically. ‘Let’s get back to business. Do you know which of your relatives actually spoke to Albert McGowan, and
when?’

‘Pretty much all of them, I think, but I haven’t the faintest when. People kept coming and going and telling us things. I can’t remember who said what when, except they all
said Gruncle Albert said no. I think Anne went out again. Mattie didn’t, but Aunt Amelia might have without me seeing. I didn’t know there was going to be a murder, so I was reading and
didn’t take much notice,’ Kitty explained with deep regret.

‘A pity. If anything comes back to you overnight, you can tell me in the morning. Just one more thing. When you were out on the city wall and heard Belinda scream, could you see
anyone?’

‘No. Actually, I was behind a tower thing, sort of hiding from Ray. He kept telling me to be careful, as if I was a baby. But Belinda imagined that man, didn’t she? I don’t
blame her, it was pretty eerie out there when it started getting dark. It was easy to imagine the Scots or the Spanish Armada or someone creeping up on you. Belinda’s all right, isn’t
she? She wasn’t at dinner.’

‘Miss Dalrymple thought it best she should go straight to bed. She hasn’t told you about seeing anything, has she? Other than the man on the walls, I mean.’

Kitty shook her head. ‘No. Give her this with my love, will you?’ From a pocket she produced a lint-adorned liquorice bootlace. ‘It’s my last one, but Daddy said I can
buy some Berwick cockles in the morning. They’re peppermints.’

‘Thank you, Kitty.’ Touched, Alec wrapped the sweet in his handkerchief and pocketed it. ‘That’s all for now, then. I’ll see you in the morning, I
expect.’

‘I hope so. Good-night, Mr. Fletcher.’ With a punctilious ‘Good-night’ to Tom and Piper, Kitty departed.

‘A nice young lady,’ said Piper, poring over his shorthand notes, ‘but she didn’t half rattle on.’

‘You can start transcribing into longhand, Ernie,’ said Alec. ‘Leave out the bit about the Berwick cockles! Tom, I want you to put a call through to the Yard; have them get on
to the Sûreté and find out if Madame Pasquier’s really as affluent as she’s made out to her long lost family. What did Mrs. Smythe-Pike say her husband’s name
is?’

‘Jewel,’ said Piper promptly. ‘Funny name for a man.’

‘Jules – J-u-l-e-s, Tom. I’m going to see if Belinda’s told Miss Dalrymple anything useful. Shan’t be long.’

He went upstairs and, after one false start down the wrong passage, knocked on Daisy’s door. Opening it, she gasped, ‘Thank heaven you’ve come.’

Thoroughly alarmed, he started to ask what was the matter, but she pushed past him, took a pair of steps in a single bound, and disappeared around a corner.

No hell-fiend followed on her heels. Alec looked into the room. No one there but Belinda, in bed, sound asleep. He crossed to the bed and stooped to kiss her cheek very softly, then returned to
the door, puzzled.

The muffled rattle of a chain and whoosh of water enlightened him. When Daisy returned, he was leaning against the door-post, shaking with silent laughter.

Rather pink, she said indignantly, ‘I promised not to leave her alone for a single minute.’

‘Bless you, my dear’ What would she do if he kissed her? No, this was neither the time nor the place, in the middle of a case and on the threshold of her bedroom. ‘I wondered
whether Belinda’s said anything of significance.’

Daisy frowned. Glancing both ways along the passage, she said, ‘Come in, just for a minute.’

He stepped in and closed the door, fighting a well-nigh irresistible urge to take her in his arms. Her back to the light, her hair was a halo of honey brown curls. Her blue eyes, always so
beguiling in their open cheerfulness, were pools of mystery. Between her brows were two little lines of worry – worry for his daughter. He put out a finger to smooth them away.

She smiled, but he thought the pink in her cheeks deepened.

‘Belinda’s frightened,’ she said quickly, ‘which is only natural after today. I’m quite sure she believes the murderer has some reason to come after her, but she
absolutely denies it, denies she knows anything.’

‘It is the murderer she’s afraid of, not – heaven forbid – of the police? Dr. Jagai said she feared being accused.’

‘She did ask if they – you – would think she’d done it. I suspect that was because she had been in a lot of mischief, what with running away and stowing away. I made the
mistake of saying she had been “wicked” to run away from her grandmother rather than just naughty. And then the ticket-inspector threatened, in quite a joking way, to arrest her for
being on the train without a proper ticket. I should have made sure she understood it was a joke.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, Daisy. You couldn’t have guessed it would matter, and if it stops her running off again it’s all to the good.’

‘I hope so. But, you see, she had a general sense of being in serious trouble already which explains her initial worry about being accused of murder. I don’t think that’s
what’s disturbing her now. I have the strangest feeling, Alec, that Belinda holds an essential piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Perhaps she doesn’t recognize its place, but if we got hold of
it, it would give us the whole picture.’

‘That,’ said Alec sombrely, ‘is exactly how I feel.’

CHAPTER 13

Failing Belinda’s piece of the puzzle, Alec could only do his best to collect as many other pieces as possible. ‘Madame Pasquier,’ he said to Piper.

Piper returned to report that Madame had retired to bed. ‘Plumb wore out, she was, having come all the way from gay Paree.’

‘Mrs. Gillespie, then. Mrs. Peter Gillespie.’

Enid Gillespie brought her husband with her. Not, as Alec momentarily assumed, because she felt in need of his protection. Her grip on his arm was the grip of a dog-owner on a collar, and he
hung back like a reluctant dog hauled towards an unwanted bath. ‘Hangdog’ was the word. His heavy lower jaw and bristling red mustache failed utterly to give him an aggressive air.

It was otherwise with his wife. Short, spare, and erect, she looked the martinet from rigidly waved grey hair via thin-lipped mouth and stiff back to the sharp rap of her heels on the tile in
the hallway.

‘Don’t be silly Peter,’ she chided as they followed Piper into the parlour, ‘you’ll only make a fool of your self if you see them on your own. Remember, the police
cannot force us to give statements. We are doing our duty.’

‘Yes, Enid.’

He appeared to be altogether under her thumb. However, she had signally failed to stifle her daughter’s spirit, Alec thought, biting back a smile at the memory of Kitty’s exuberance.
He introduced himself and deliberately invited them to sit down before Mrs. Gillespie decided for herself to do so. His only hope with her was to gain and keep the upper hand.

He’d start by ignoring her. ‘It must be a great relief to you, Mr. Gillespie, that Albert McGowan is dead?’

‘Yes . . . No . . . I mean . . .’ stammered the unhappy man.

‘You asked to see
me
, Chief Inspector,’ his wife interrupted.

‘True, madam,’ Alec said coldly, ‘but since you chose to bring Mr. Gillespie with you, you can scarcely protest when I choose to ask him a few questions first. You are free to
leave and return later, if you prefer.’

‘I shall stay. My husband is naturally distraught at his uncle’s untimely demise.’

‘You are distraught, sir? Or relieved? It must be a relief to know that you will soon inherit a large fortune, since your circumstances are somewhat straitened. Are they not?’

‘Not to say straitened!’ Gillespie’s protest was feeble.

‘But you can no longer afford to keep up the style to which you were accustomed.’

‘Everything is so expensive these days.’

‘My husband understands little of money matters,’ Enid Gillespie snapped. ‘That’s how he came to . . . to lose money,’ she ended lamely. A determined woman, but not
clever.

‘To be prosecuted for fraud, you were going to say?’

‘He wasn’t convicted!’

‘Found innocent? Or, there’s a verdict in Scotland: Not Proven.’ Alec knew at once he had hit the mark. Peter Gillespie stared miserably at his shoes and his wife’s tight
mouth became still tighter. ‘Not the same as innocent,’ Alec said.

So Harold Bretton’s disclosure to Daisy was the truth, not mere spite. Peter Gillespie had run afoul of the law, and was in financial difficulties. Whether the fraud was deliberate or the
result of genuine incompetence was immaterial. He needed Alistair’s fortune, and he believed it to be large.

With Enid Gillespie off balance, Alec changed his tack. ‘Mr. Gillespie, what time did you go to Albert McGowan’s compartment to try to persuade him to change his will?’

‘I . . . What time did we talk to Uncle Albert, dear?’

She gave him a furious look and Alec guessed she had intended to deny seeing the old man. ‘I didn’t look at the time.’

‘But it was after Mrs. Smythe-Pike and Mrs. Bretton,’ Alec stated.

‘
And
after Desmond Smythe-Pike and Harold Bretton.’ Her resentment burst forth. ‘They’ve always thought themselves superior because he’s a landowner, and
since our troubles they’ve been quite unbearable. It’ll serve them right if the place has to be sold.’

‘You don’t think Alistair McGowan is likely to change his will in their favour, then? In favour of his great-grandson?’

‘He’s more likely to change it in Geraldine’s favour,’ Peter Gillespie said gloomily, ‘even though she doesn’t need the money. She has two sons who are his
grandsons.’

‘They are French,’ his wife spat out.

‘The Scots have always preferred the French to the English.’

No matter who the Scots preferred, Alec reflected, the identity of the heir to Alistair McGowan’s largely mythical fortune was still problematical. Albert’s death had not guaranteed
the inheritance to either side of the family. Even before his death, they all had hoped his elder twin intended to disinherit him.

Which left none of them with a strong motive for murder. Whoever killed Albert McGowan had gambled on a change in his favour – or had lost his temper.

Harold Bretton was a gambler, according to Daisy. Desmond Smythe-Pike had a nasty temper, and Raymond Gillespie was emotionally unstable. Peter Gillespie was no longer the prime suspect.

‘So the Smythe-Pikes and Brettons had already seen Albert McGowan when you found him alive and well.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Gillespie regretfully, ‘but I’m certain one of them went back later. Harold Bretton wanted to try a calm, reasonable discussion, which wasn’t
possible with his father-in-law present. Desmond’s notion of persuasion is to shout louder.’

‘You
know
Mr. Bretton returned?’

‘Ye . . .’ She wavered under Alec’s hard gaze. ‘No, not to say
know
, but he was talking about it, wasn’t he, Peter?’

‘Yes, oh yes, seemed dashed determined to try again.’

‘What about your sons? When did they try their powers of persuasion?’

‘They didn’t,’ said Enid Gillespie at once, but her husband said at the same moment, ‘Oh, Ray went before us, too. Judith dragged him along. Judith Smythe-Pike, that is.
Nice girl, and good for him.’