The Balmoral Incident (10 page)

We set off across the grounds to a small building, possibly one of the ice houses for storing venison and game birds, taken over to serve as a temporary mortuary. Inside there lay Lily, her head bandaged, her face only marginally paler, hardly more colourless in death than she had been in life.

It was a sad and tragic business and I fought back tears for the poor girl, surprised to see at my side, how admirably well controlled were Mabel’s emotions at this bitter waste of a young life. I took her arm gently. Was she feeling guilty that she had not been kinder?

As we emerged, she took a deep breath of fresh air. I was wrong. She merely shrugged: ‘Foolish girl getting herself drowned. And what am I to do for the next few weeks without a maid, might I ask?’

I suspected that inconvenience troubled her most. Did
she really expect an answer to that heartless question? We returned in silence to the cottage and as I lay awake, I wondered if Mabel slept much that night.

Vince was waiting with Mr Green, introduced as a member of the household in charge of such matters as accidents on the royal estate. One look at Mr Green whispered policeman to me although he was in plain clothes, slightly more formal than a ghillie, denoting a notch higher in the Balmoral echelons.

He produced an official-looking notebook and invited us to sit at the table. Vince joined us as his presence was necessary. Meanwhile Olivia tactfully removed the girls to walk in the castle gardens and since dogs would not be allowed, except for the royal pets, Thane was left with us. He did not look happy, confined to the cottage without his companions and I noticed Mr Green eyeing him warily as I produced refreshments and he got down to the sad business of details about Lily from her employer. As my presence wasn’t needed, I decided to remove myself from the scene. I knew nothing about Lily, not even her surname and neither it seemed did Mabel.

Mabel looked distinctly thoughtful even hesitant.

‘Lily? Lily …?’ She frowned. ‘White, I think.’

An interesting and apt surname that fitted her description like a glove. Mr Green was saying to Mabel: ‘You will, of course, be informing the young woman’s family of their sad loss.’

I left them to it, went upstairs and a few moments later I heard Mr Green and Vince leave, then Mabel’s footsteps on the stairs as she went to her room.

The sound of voices outside. Olivia came in alone and
we sat down to discuss the appalling tragedy. How had it happened? Neither of us able yet to take it in, shocked that such an accident could have occurred.

Our speculations were interrupted by a knock at the door. Probably Mr Green wanting more information.

I opened the door to Vince. At his side the man I least wanted to see, Chief Inspector Gray. His rather cold bow indicated that the feeling was mutual.

Olivia was introduced and, about to depart into the garden, received a charming smile from the inspector who requested that she remain. He indicated seats around the table and I guessed what was to follow. Although Olivia might be ignorant of the procedure, Gray’s presence struck a new light on the tragedy. He was not satisfied with Green’s report on the accident. His questions would follow a regulated pattern. Where were each of us at the estimated time of Lily’s disappearance and subsequent death?

He looked at his notes. ‘Miss Penby Worth?’

The door opened. Mabel had seen him arrive with Vince and, being introduced, she somewhat reluctantly took a seat at the table. Gray began by offering sympathy to all of us for this very unfortunate occurrence on our holiday and, while I was wondering what on earth was a chief inspector of police doing at Balmoral asking questions about a guest’s drowned servant, he opened a notebook, turned to Mabel, repeating Mr Green’s opening line, that she would be informing Lily’s family of their sad loss.

Mabel’s face was expressionless. ‘We require some details for our official records, madam,’ he said quietly.

She stared at him as if this was some outrageous request
and said stiffly: ‘I have already told Mr Green all I know.’

Gray shook his head. ‘Which, alas, is not quite enough, madam.’

Mabel sighed. ‘And what further details do you require?’

‘The usual ones,’ Gray explained patiently. ‘When did you last see …’ and pausing to consult the notes ‘Miss White?’

Mabel came back promptly. ‘Some time after I returned from Ballater. Yesterday afternoon.’

‘At what time would that be precisely?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ she said coldly.

‘None at all?’ Gray obviously thought this odd and, placing his fingertips together, regarded her thoughtfully. It was not my place to jog Mabel’s memory but I thought I had heard her go upstairs while I was having tea with Alice von Mueller.

Mabel shrugged. ‘I gave her some sewing which I needed urgently. She went up to her room.’

Gray stood up. ‘Which I should like to see, if you please.’

‘There is nothing of interest, I assure you,’ Mabel protested.

‘That is for me to decide, madam.’ And I remembered hearing Mabel’s voice haranguing Lily. I made to follow them but a stern frown from Gray indicated that this was not wanted.

‘The inspection of Lily’s room must have been very cursory,’ Olivia whispered as we heard their footsteps descending the stair a few moments later, Mabel looking rather flushed and angry as Gray motioned her back to the table and took out his notebook.

‘I will try not to detain you much longer, madam, but I require some details of the deceased’s next of kin. Presumably this will be her parents, so we need their names and addresses.’

‘I have not this information at hand, I am afraid, nor have I the slightest idea about her parents. This is not usually regarded as important when employing a lady’s maid. However, I will look into it when I return home and inform you in due course,’ she added with an air of finality and sat back in her chair. Gray’s prying questions seemed to have offended her.

The inspector nodded, put down his pen. He was annoyed, that faint smile a dangerous expression that I knew of old. ‘How long was Miss White in your employ? And presumably she came to you with some references, madam?’

‘Not at all. She came to me – oh, two to three months ago through a friend whose recommendations I trust entirely. I did not deem it necessary to request more than that, indeed it would have seemed rather an insult.’ She sighed. ‘However, in the present circumstances, it seems regrettable since the girl was unreliable and indeed, rather foolish.’

Gray pursed his lips. ‘The girl was sadly drowned,’ he reminded her. ‘And now, madam, we need these details immediately. We cannot proceed without them.’

I had been watching him as he conducted this interview. His surprise arrival was bothering me. Too fast for him to be summoned from Aberdeen, he must have been at the castle already. A coincidence? An unlikely guest? I must ask Vince.

Mabel was staring out of the window as if she hadn’t heard his request. ‘I will, of course, pay for her funeral. I presume she can be buried in the local cemetery.’

Vince who had been silent throughout interposed: ‘Not without a proper identity, Mabel. A death certificate bearing date of birth and so forth. We have to know more than her name,’ he added gently.

Gray regarded him gratefully, before turning again to Mabel. ‘Perhaps your friend will provide us with the details we require.’ And picking up his pen: ‘Her name and address, if you please.’

Mabel smiled. ‘That, alas, I am unable to give you at present. Lady Frances is travelling abroad for her health for several months, precisely the reason for sending Lily to me.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea of her present whereabouts. I imagine she is travelling somewhere on the Continent at this moment, possibly in Switzerland or Germany.’

Gray nodded. ‘Your friend’s family will perhaps have details. May we have their name and address, if you please?’ he added patiently.

Mabel certainly was not pleased. She said coldly. ‘Her family have a place in Sussex, but Lady Frances severed all connection with them some years ago. They wished her to make an unsuitable marriage. She refused. She belongs to the race of womankind who live and travel alone,’ she added proudly. ‘Lady Frances is a very private person.’

I wondered if their link was the suffrage movement.

Vince and the inspector were exchanging grim looks as well they might. If this Lady Frances was the only one with any information about Lily, it might well take some
considerable time to track her down or wait for her return to England. And doubtless the two men were thinking: what to do with the body in the ice house meanwhile?

Gray turned his attention to Olivia and me. ‘As this is a somewhat unusual case, it would be helpful to know when you last saw the young woman.’

So we were required to provide answers to questions more usually supplied as alibis in the case of a homicide. Did Gray have reason for suspecting that Lily had not met an accidental death, that she had been murdered?

He turned to Olivia. ‘Mrs Laurie?’ his smile a gentle disguise.

She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen her for a couple of days, but that isn’t unusual for she spent most of her time attending to Miss Penby Worth.’ She nodded towards Mabel. ‘As a lady’s maid she had much to keep her busy attending to her mistress’s needs. She was not expected to be available to the rest of us.’

Mabel had made that very plain I decided, as Gray turned to me. ‘And you, Mrs Macmerry?’ He had made the transition very smoothly from Mrs McQuinn to my second marriage.

‘I can only endorse Mrs Laurie’s statement, Chief Inspector. I have not seen Lily either, although I heard Miss Penby Worth talking to her when I was going upstairs to my bedroom.’

‘And when would that be?’

‘The day before yesterday – in the afternoon.’

Gray thanked us, briskly closed his notebook, and said he might need to talk to us again. After he left Mabel, went quickly to her room without a word, leaving me
to wonder once again what her feelings were at this deplorable tragedy which she seemed intent on regarding as merely an annoyance; that she had lost her lady’s maid – a matter of inconvenience. Was she further dismayed, at this moment considering the consequences that Lily could not be laid to rest until the absent Lady Frances provided the required information? Or that the inspector’s interest suggested the poor girl might have been murdered?

Olivia said, ‘What she said about this reclusive friend who was Lily’s previous employer – don’t you think it is extremely doubtful that they’ll be able to trace her? And frankly, if she shares Mabel’s feeling and regards servants as an impersonal commodity, then it’s very unlikely she’ll have any knowledge of Lily’s parents or background either.’

I agreed, and looking out of the window, Vince and Gray were talking earnestly, their heads turned in the direction of the stables. Was that the next direction of their enquiries?

Olivia went out to join the two girls and Thane in the garden. ‘Time for a walk.’ And to me: ‘Coming with us?’

I shook my head. Suddenly the enormity of Lily’s drowning overwhelmed me. I needed help to sort out my confused thoughts. I must talk to Vince. I was unlucky, wrong in my assumption that the stables were Gray’s destination. As I opened the front door he was coming through the gate.

‘Ah, Mrs Macmerry, I have observed that you have an uncommon interest in this enquiry.’

‘No more uncommon than would seem natural for a girl who has been living in the cottage with us and has unfortunately drowned.’

His lips tightened. ‘Perhaps I should make it clear to you that the police are quite capable of clearing up this
unfortunate incident and any interference by a private investigator will be severely dealt with as unwarranted interference.’

That said, the warning made, he touched his hat and, turning left, hurried in the direction of the stables. He had certainly made his view clear but, had he known me better, would have realised that he had made it obvious there was, in this ‘unfortunate incident’ as he had called it, more than a mere death by drowning. And that would make me all the keener to carry out an investigation of my own.

Vince hadn’t waited for him at the stables. As he was leaving I caught up with him and said: ‘If you’re heading back to the castle I’ll walk back with you. We need to talk.’

His wry smile said that he knew what I had in mind. ‘Has it occurred to you that Lily might not be English?’ I asked.

He thought about that. ‘She always seemed reluctant to speak, is that what makes you think she was foreign? I’ve never had anything beyond a yes or no.’

‘Nor I. And considering her somewhat nomadic previous employer, as described by Mabel, could not this Lady Frances person have picked up Lily on her travels?’

Vince nodded. ‘True. It is often the way these days, when regrettably we British pay our servants a mere pittance, foreign incomers, often refugees, are glad to work hard for little more than food and a sound roof above their heads.’

‘I find it quite extraordinary that in Lily’s tragic death, heart-wrenching even to those of us of who hardly knew
her, Mabel could be so disinterested in the background of one who was her personal maid.’

Vince merely nodded and stared ahead, his mind elsewhere. I knew him of old. There was something that he wasn’t willing to discuss after Gray’s inconclusive interview with Mabel.

Seeing Vince, withdrawn, silent, I felt a sudden ominous chill. It was one with which I was painfully familiar. It told me a lot, the presence of a mystery, of unanswered questions and, most fearful of all, regarding the unknowable Lily White, who was she and had her death been accidental?

We had reached the castle and as we entered the gardens Vince prepared to take his leave. ‘Tell Olivia I may be late, I have things to do.’

I put my hand on his arm. ‘Is there something wrong, Vince?’

His laugh was mirthless. ‘You may well ask. Only a drowned girl, the maid of one of my guests. As if that wasn’t dire enough, a guest in HM’s cottage. Aren’t there enough complications, Rose? Don’t you see them looming ahead?’

I had to confess that I hadn’t until then realised that there were issues regarding Lily’s death involving Vince too as he said:

‘I’m not satisfied, nor I think is Gray, with this abysmal lack of information about Lily. There is something wrong here; I feel it in my bones. And we have to keep this low key, Rose. As far as HM is concerned, it must never appear to be more than an accident.’

I looked at him and he went on: ‘Surely you can
understand the gravity of the situation from the King’s point of view? This was not a tenant on the estate, it was a stranger, a stranger unfortunately who was living in his private cottage. The servant of a guest of his household physician in whom he has the utmost trust,’ he added heavily.

‘Are you suggesting, then, that it might not have been an accident?’

He sighed. ‘Think of the complications if that was so. He has foreign visitors, royalty from Europe and beyond, with half the aristocracy of Great Britain, all here for the shooting. Some of them have wives and families with them. Imagine the panic if it came out that there had been a murder, even if it was only a servant,’ he stressed the words bitterly. ‘And what if it got into the newspapers? “Murder at Balmoral Castle!” Think of that, the press would have a field day.’

He sighed. ‘What if she didn’t accidentally drown? Mabel has no satisfactory explanation for why the girl was wandering away on her own by the river. What if she was lured there, killed first and her body thrown into the water with a forlorn hope that it would drift away for ever, by someone who wasn’t aware of the unlikelihood of that.’

At my questioning look, he said: ‘All the signs suggest that if this was murder it was by someone who was not acquainted with Deeside and the river.’ Again that bitter laugh. ‘Think what headlines that would make. There’s another possibility too, Rose.’

‘You examined the body.’

He looked unhappy. I knew what was worrying him
when he said: ‘She had been battered by the currents and the rocks, but the injury to the back of her head was not consistent with tripping and falling face forward into the river.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Was she shot?’ I had another swift vision of my rescuer in the dark forest with his rifle and the gunshot I had heard shortly before he appeared, as Vince shook his head. ‘No. There was no bullet wound. That would have remained in her skull. Most likely a piece of wood.’

We were both silent, then I said: ‘So it could have been murder. And you would have kept it quiet.’

He sighed. ‘We might add rifle butt to the blunt instrument. Thinking of an attacker with the shooting parties. All of those gallant sportsmen, some of them keen as mustard to bring down a bird or two but a bit useless with the guns. What if it had been one of them, one of HM’s aristocratic guests, head of a foreign power?’ He shuddered. ‘The consequences are horrendous. Look, I must go.’

‘Why is Gray so interested in the stables?’

‘So you saw that – nothing escapes Miss Sharp Eyes.’ He laughed. ‘Mabel knew nothing of Lily’s personal life. Gray’s theory – remember he’s never the one to think the best of anyone – is that she was probably a whore under that quiet exterior. Jack would tell you, there’s plenty of them in high places as well as the kitchen. What if she had struck up an affair with a stable lad?’

I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine Lily having sex appeal, but that was a secret chemistry only a man could
detect. ‘Wait. I have one more quick question. Is Gray staying at the castle?’

He frowned. ‘What makes you think that, Rose?’

‘Well, he is obviously lurking somewhere in the neighbourhood …’ I paused to let that sink in, ‘or how did he appear so quickly after Lily was discovered?’

Vince shrugged. ‘He has business here.’ The same words Jack used when he wasn’t prepared to say more. I was not to be put off.

‘About Lily?’

‘No.’ Sharply but not sharp enough.

I persisted. ‘Something at the castle, then. Someone pilfering the silver. It’s a long way from Aberdeen, the last time I saw him with Jack.’

Vince turned, looked at me sternly and sighed. ‘If I don’t say something to keep you quiet I know you won’t let it rest. Jack didn’t say anything to me.’

‘What, about rumours?’

He sighed, perhaps a sigh of relief. ‘There are always rumours, Rose, and precautions must be taken, especially at this time of year, the shooting season. So many different nationalities all crowded together. And God knows they are all related by courtesy of the King’s mother who provided for most of the thrones in Europe.’ And when he added ‘There are always dangerous people’ I thought of the Kaiser and Alice von Mueller’s strange story.

‘Like assassins,’ I said gently.

‘Who knows, Rose. We certainly hope not. And there’s nothing definite, just rumours that we always have to be on our guard.’

‘And nothing to do with Lily?’ I persisted but I didn’t
get an answer from Vince. The nurse appeared from his surgery, he was urgently needed.

I was walking back very thoughtfully when Olivia and the girls appeared having left Thane at the cottage and decided to come and meet me. Meg and Faith were full of what they had seen, what I had missed on their woodland walk, normally so uneventful.

Today they had seen a deer herd, squirrels that were quite tame, and some of the royals fishing in the river, on and on. Enough to keep Olivia unaware of my silent preoccupation, for I had much to mull over concerning my conversation with Vince.

When we reached the cottage Mabel wasn’t in evidence. I made tea and took it upstairs to her. She was sitting by the window, staring across towards the woods. Was this just the aristocratic stiff upper lip and she was upset too, with delayed reaction? As she turned to face me, her expression was no longer defiant. She looked scared and I had another thought to add to my misgivings.

If she knew something more about Lily that she wasn’t telling us, was she thinking that her own life might now be in danger?

I considered Lily’s possible murder. According to Vince the body had been in the water for about two days but Mabel was certain that she had been missing not more than a day.

Then I remembered my rescuer near the river where her body had been washed up, rifle slung over his shoulder, and I returned again to the gunshot I had heard. The time fitted. Had I been in the presence of a killer and had a lucky escape?

But why Lily? Her presence, so insignificant that none of us noticed her in life, now loomed ominously large in death, regrettably, as far as Mabel was concerned; one she was determined to regard as an unfortunate incident, not as murder but as an inconvenience to herself.

I wasn’t satisfied and neither I suspected was Inspector Gray. We hadn’t seen the last of him by any means as later that evening he was back again asking more questions.