Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone (12 page)

‘In general,’ I persisted.

He waited.

‘Mrs Addie,’ I said, relenting. ‘She died at the Hydro a month ago. On the ninth of September. A local doctor signed the death certificate, but it went across the Fiscal’s desk and her family are concerned. They are acquaintances of mine and since I was on my way here I promised them I’d have a quiet word.’

Again, he regarded me in silence. Then he closed his little book with a more minor snap and gave me a smile of deep avuncularity – I could not begin to imagine what was coming.

‘Are you a detective?’ he said.

‘Gosh, no,’ I replied before I even considered the fact that I was lying to the police, which is surely against the law. ‘What on earth makes you think that?’

‘My mistake,’ said Simpson. ‘It was just the very orderly manner in which you put your points across, Mrs Gilver. You struck me that way.’

If I had planned to keep lying my plan was undone by the beaming blush of pleasure which spread across my face. Sergeant Simpson laughed out loud to see it.

‘Sorry if I misled you just then,’ I said.

‘When you answered no to a straight question when the true answer was yes?’ he asked and waved a magnanimous hand. ‘We policemen are not accustomed to getting our final answer first time out, Mrs Gilver. I daresay it’s the same for you.’

I was reeling. I had encountered scorn, hostility and amusement from policemen who heard of my calling and sergeants were always the worst of all. My beloved Inspector Hutchinson, it was true, had grudgingly thawed towards Alec and me over the course of the case we had shared, but this instant chumminess was something else again.

‘I am very grateful to find such … collegiate spirit in a policeman, Sergeant Simpson,’ I said. ‘So. Yes. Mrs Addie of Edinburgh died at the Hydro. Heart failure. Dr Ramsay here in town signed the cert., the Fiscal stamped it or whatever the Fiscal does—’

‘Enters the record,’ supplied Simpson.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘The Fiscal entered the record, but the family are troubled. They say she had no history of heart trouble. Said she was as strong as an ox, in fact.’

‘Well-chosen phrase,’ said Sergeant Simpson. ‘I saw the lady in question, you know. She was … large-ish.’

‘You saw her? About the town?’

‘Post-mortem,’ he said. ‘I saw her after her death. We
were
called in. The lady was away from home and the Hydro – never mind all the white sheets and machines – it’s not a hospital. If someone dies away from home or a hospital, we try to look in, you know. Just to see that everything’s shipshape.’

He might have been a schoolmaster telling of how he likes to look in on prep to check that boys aren’t whispering.

‘Who rang you?’ I asked.

‘Straight to the heart of the thing,’ he said. ‘You are good at your job, Mrs Gilver.’ I might have blushed a little again. ‘Yes, it was Dr Laidlaw who rang us up. Shocked to her core, she was, but did the proper thing. She even insisted – well, this was her brother as it happens – they both insisted that Dr Ramsay be called. He came along – he left a party and came right along in his evening suit, there within minutes, late as it was, and he’d no need to – and he examined the body and he didn’t hesitate. Heart failure, as you say.’

‘And the Fiscal didn’t order a full post-mortem exam?’ I said.

‘He saw no need,’ said the sergeant. ‘It was a very clear case and properly handled. More than properly, really. Dr Laidlaw could have signed her own name to the thing and never got Dr Ramsay involved at all.’

The good sergeant clearly did not share my view of that particular item of fancy footwork. I paused a moment wondering how best to introduce the point to our little chat. It was sure to reduce the warmth at least a bit. When Sergeant Simpson cleared his throat and resumed speaking, however, I realised that I had paused long enough to make a silence, one which he was moved to fill.

‘I’m sorry to hear the family are troubled,’ he said and cleared his throat again. ‘We had hoped to spare them any pain. Along the lines of what you don’t know can’t hurt you.’ My amazement must have showed on my face. ‘Collegiate spirit, you said, wasn’t it, Mrs Gilver?’ He was teasing me, but very gently. ‘In that case between the doctor, the Fiscal and me.’

‘Indeed,’ I answered. ‘I am sure your words appear more mysterious than they really are, Sergeant Simpson, but I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.’

‘We’d all like to think that our loved ones just slip away in their sleep, don’t you agree, Mrs Gilver?’ he said. ‘Or never knew what hit them. That’s another good one. Every boy that didn’t come home from the war, eh?’ There was a lengthy pause. His gaze slipped away from my face and came to rest on the desktop. ‘Instantaneous death, they always said. Never knew what hit him.’

‘I am very sorry, Sergeant Simpson,’ I said, for that is all there ever is to say.

‘It can’t possibly be true every time, can it?’ He looked up again. ‘But I was grateful for it and I try when I can to carry it on.’

‘And so what is the truth?’ I asked. ‘The whole story?’

‘She had a shock,’ Simpson said. ‘A very nasty one. And she didn’t die right away. She collapsed. They found her. Dr Laidlaw found her. Got her into her bed, tried to bring her round. Did everything she could but the poor woman’s heart gave out in the end. And so it was. Heart failure.’

‘What sort of a shock?’

‘A fright,’ said the sergeant. ‘Did you know you can die of fright?’

‘I know a loud noise is a danger to a man with heart troubles,’ I said. ‘I had heard so. But again there was no history of heart troubles at all.’

‘Not a loud noise,’ he said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ He took a moment to rearrange some of the small items on his already tidy desk, pushing the pens in the stand until they were all upright, picking up a couple of auditor’s tags and dropping them into a little tray. ‘Now, tell me, Mrs Gilver,’ he went on at last, ‘you’re not the sort to go upsetting the family for nothing, are you? You seem a lovely lady. I’m sure you wouldn’t. But tell me straight so’s I know.’

His words about the blunting of bad news had hit home in me and I meant it when I assured him that I would not go making trouble for nothing, not me. He smiled and spoke again, but what he said surprised me.

‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy,’ were his words. Startling ones to hear issuing from a policeman’s lips. ‘Would you agree with that, Mrs Gilver?’

‘Up to a point,’ I replied. ‘What bearing does it have on this matter, though?’

‘Well put, madam,’ said the sergeant. ‘What a lovely way of speech you have.’ He took a deep breath. ‘She had a shock. She got a fright.’ I nodded; he had already said this much. Finally he got to the point: ‘She saw a ghost.’

‘A ghost.’ It was not a question. I am not at all sure what it was, beyond an echo.

‘Earlier in the day. And she went back at night to see it again. It was too much for a woman of her years, not to mention her size. Her heart gave out. She was fighting for life when they found her.’

‘A ghost,’ I said again.

‘They don’t know which one,’ said Simpson. ‘She never told them.’

‘Are there lots?’

‘A fair few.’

I was at a loss for words, a deep and enduring loss which went on beyond all the bounds of normal conversational pauses, beyond silences and well into rudeness, and yet I had no expectation of it ending. Sergeant Simpson sat forward, both hands on his desk, and peered at me.

‘
I
don’t believe in ghosts, Mrs Gilver. I’m not saying any of it was
true
.’

‘Oh!’ The spell was broken and I could talk again.

‘Good heavens above!’ said Simpson. ‘I’m an elder of the kirk and my father was the session clerk. My wife runs the Sunday school, too. I’ve no time for nonsense, none at all. But Mrs Addie … She saw a shadow, or heard a sound, and she frightened herself out of her precious life. Now. You can see why we wouldn’t want to tell her family the poor lady was as daft as all that!’

‘When you put it that way, Sergeant,’ I said, ‘I do begin to.’

And so it was that when I rang up Alec that evening I was able to steal his thunder in the most resounding style. I was in Grant’s clutches for a while first, to be sure, as I had expected to be.

‘Never,’ she had said. ‘Never in all my years. I mean, I’ve seen you in some states after a day’s shooting and I’ve been that busy with the invalids this last while, you’ve been more tousled than I’d like. But this! What have you been doing? Where have you
been
?’ She was helping me out of my coat and my shirt as she scolded me; clearly I was to have my head stuck under one of the sprays for an actual washing, no matter how recently I had had one and how long she had hoped it would last me.

‘I was—’ I began, but she was not finished.

‘And don’t blame the weather,’ she said, driving me down onto my knees beside the bath. ‘Madam. For Mrs Tilling and Mr Pallister and me have been out in the woods for a nice walk and there’s not a hint of drizzle about it. What did you
do
?’

‘I had a Turkish bath, Grant,’ I said, just as she bent me over the side. ‘And it was wonderful. Quite delightful. My skin feels like silk and my—’

‘Your skin is under your clothes,’ she said. ‘Your hair feels like wool, same as it looks. Wild wool. On a fence. In the rain.’ She rubbed the hair soap hard between her hands and set to work on me. My teeth were still chattering when I was sitting, head wrapped in a towel, waiting for her to heat her irons.

‘I’m glad to hear you had time for a walk, Grant,’ I said. ‘This is by way of helping Pallister and Mrs Tilling convalesce and you recover from your extra exertions, you know. Coming here, I mean. And if you decide to use the Hydro’s facilities, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.’

‘That’s very generous of you, madam,’ Grant said. ‘I’ll tell the others. And thank you.’

‘I meant as to times, actually,’ I said. ‘One wouldn’t want—’ to meet one’s cook and maid stark naked in the plunge pool, was what I was thinking.

‘Oh, I’m sure,’ said Grant. ‘But this house runs itself, more or less, the size that it is and all electric with it.’ She had misunderstood me, which was probably best, and I let it be.

Alec was most entertained by the notion when I mentioned the delicate matter later over the telephone.

‘You don’t mind total strangers, but close acquaintance is beyond the pale?’

‘Something like that,’ I agreed.

‘Mind you, Dorothea said she only goes at night when it’s empty.’

‘Dorothea?’ I asked. ‘Does her title stick in your throat a little, Alec? I never took you to be so old-fashioned as to baulk at a lady doctor.’

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I don’t. I just … Anyway, Miss Grant and Mrs Tilling would no more take off all their clothes and sit in a cloud of steam than they would—’

‘You’re probably right,’ I said. ‘I wonder about Pallister, though. If you meet him in the men’s Turkish, be a love and don’t tell me.’

‘I shan’t be in there either,’ Alec said. ‘I spent one rainy season in Nagpur as a child and the tummy bug I caught there is the stuff of legend amongst the Osborne clan. It put me off heat and humidity for life.’

‘Aren’t the germs in the drinking water?’ I said. ‘I don’t think they fly through the air.’

‘The power of association,’ said Alec. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Mr Pavlov and his salivating dogs.’

‘Don’t you?’ I retorted.

‘I was talking about that only this afternoon, in fact,’ said Alec. ‘And you’ll never guess to whom.’

‘Very likely not,’ I said. ‘Anyway, let me tell you about my chat with Sergeant Simpson.’

‘There’s more going on in this here Hydro than meets the eye,’ said Alec, talking over me. ‘I thought it was all mumbo-jumbo, I have to say, but the psychological angle is—’

‘I wonder if that’s what Hugh’s laughing up his sleeve over,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t seem all that likely.’

‘No, no, no,’ Alec said. ‘That’s quite another neck of the woods. Brother Laidlaw – can you believe they call him Tot? – has hit on a bit of a wheeze to keep the place afloat and lessen his boredom. No, I’m talking about
Dr
Laidlaw. She’s not that interested in hydropathy per se.’

‘I should say not.’ I laughed to remember it. ‘She seems to be in a world of her own.’

‘An ivory tower,’ Alec said. ‘She called me back for a second examination and we had a very interesting discussion instead. I don’t think she got as far as writing my name on the little card. So I’d be surprised if she’s even noticed what’s going on
now
.’

‘Tot’s latest wheeze?’ I said. ‘What is it?’

‘No, something else again,’ Alec said. ‘There are Dr Laidlaw Sr’s loyal patients who’ve been coming for years. Then there’s Tot’s crowd – rather a fast set, they are. But you will never guess who’s started arriving to make a third faction.’

I thought of my eavesdropping in the steam room, and the strange bunch who had turned up in the foyer as I was leaving. I thought of Simpson’s revelation too.

‘What’s the bet?’ I asked.

‘First pick of the next juicy bit the case offers,’ said Alec.

‘Does that include shirking the next dull bit?’ I said.

‘Of course.’

‘It’s a deal,’ I said. ‘I am spitting in my palm and holding it to the mouthpiece. I think the wave of new guests coming to the Hydro are … mediums.’ He was silent. ‘Spiritualists.’ Still nothing. ‘Ghost hunters, darling.’

‘Brava,’ said Alec, sounding about as pleased as someone who has just dropped his watch down a grating. ‘How did you know?’

‘And the next irksome task in this case,’ I said, ‘which I must say is beginning to get interesting, is to go back to Edinburgh to the Addies and delicately try to find out if their mother was the fanciful sort who would see a shadow, call it a ghost and drop dead from the shock of it. A ticklish business to carry it off without offending or alerting them, I must say. I’m glad that it falls to you.’

Of course, I had to tell him how I knew, which rather diminished my glory.

‘Well, if you will send me off to interview policemen,’ I said, ‘you can’t complain if I turn up treasure.’