Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone (32 page)

‘I could do with just sitting in the drawing room with a weekly paper and a pot of tea, madam, I can tell you,’ Grant went on, ‘but if you’re staying here you have to have treatments. It’s the rules.’

‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘And it’s always puzzled me. I mean, some of the treatments are free and so you’d think it would make sound business sense to restrict them, not shove them down everyone’s throats this way.’ Grant looked uninterested in the profits and losses of the Laidlaws’ Hydro and so I changed the subject to one where I expected she would shine. ‘How did you acquit yourself last night?’ I asked her. ‘Could you tell what they made of you?’

‘Oh, they’d like to bottle me and keep me,’ Grant said. ‘They’re not safe to be out alone. That Loveday one tried to trick me again, right enough. He asked me if there was a Mrs A “amongst their number”. That’s how he put it.’

‘Gosh,’ I said. ‘What did you say?’

‘I put their eyes out on organ stops, I can tell you,’ said Grant, brightening at the memory. ‘I asked if they meant the large lady who was here but didn’t belong with the others.’

‘Oh, bravo,’ I said. ‘Grant, I was thinking in terms of a tip but I am beginning to wonder if you shouldn’t be on the payroll this time. Pro-rata.’

‘Not that I’ve found out anything much,’ said Grant. She and Hugh were both far too scrupulous about claiming their honours, compared with Alec and me. I said nothing about it, though, because I could hear someone approaching from the hot rooms.

Then the velvet curtains were opening and Mrs Cronin was by my side.

‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you this morning?’ She said it in the tone which would usually go better with the words ‘What do you want from me now?’ I decided to try to put her on her back foot.

‘It’s not me you need to think of,’ I said. ‘It’s this poor girl here. Do you know she’s been waiting for Dr Laidlaw for an hour to see to her treatment? She had a very bad night and now she’s just hanging around. People are supposed to come here to be made better, Mrs Cronin, not to be worn out from endless waiting.’

Mrs Cronin’s face was like a hatchet.

‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? The lady has come to no harm.’

‘The lady,’ I said, and I did not miss Grant’s look of intense amusement to hear the word coming out of my mouth about her, ‘can surely expect more for her money than to come to no harm. Good grief, if the Hydro is setting the jumps as low as that now!’ I changed tack, hoping to shake something out of her. ‘What’s keeping Dr Laidlaw, anyway? Where is she?’ I turned my eyes slowly and very deliberately toward the spray bath room and the locked door beyond it. Mrs Cronin flushed.

‘She’s in her study,’ she said.

‘Well, I think I shall go there,’ I retorted. ‘And see what exactly it is that’s so much more important than her patients
today
.’ Mrs Cronin made a move as though to follow me, but I turned and barred her way. ‘Oh no, my dear matron,’ I said. ‘You are here instead, as you say. You must take care of this’ – I turned to indicate Grant and, since Mrs Cronin could not see my face, I dropped a wink at her – ‘lady.’

I found it hard to account for myself, thinking it over as I stalked the halls and passageways en route to Dr Laidlaw’s study once more. I did not usually forget myself so far as to antagonise those who were either suspects or useful witnesses. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar demands placed upon me by Hugh, or perhaps it was Grant of all people, being part of the case this time. Perhaps it was a cocktail of guilt over dragging Donald and Teddy into it and guilt over then banishing them to the paltry entertainments of Auchenlea until we were done, although that was Hugh’s doing, to be fair. Or perhaps it was just understandable frustration that every time one question was answered in this puzzle the answer only led to seven more questions and Mrs Addie was still there right in the middle as dead as ever and with no one nearer knowing why.

Then I turned the corner to the passageway leading to Dr Laidlaw’s study door and smiled, for all the clouds were gone and the sun was bright again. There was Alec, standing like a totem pole in the middle of the passageway, staring with ferocious nonchalance in the opposite direction from the door. When he saw it was me, he stood at ease and then crept softly back and put his ear against the wood again. Setting all thought of Hugh, the boys and Grant far from my mind – they would have been horrified, and Nanny Palmer would have wept – I tiptoed over and joined him.

‘I don’t know what that means,’ Dr Laidlaw was saying. She sounded as though she had been weeping. ‘I’m not interested in your money!’

‘
Your
money, Dottie,’ her brother replied.

I put my mouth very close to Alec’s ear and breathed my words rather than whispered them.

‘What are they talking about?’

Alec turned back to me and placed a finger on his lips.

‘What money?’ wailed Dorothea. ‘What have you done now?’

‘I?’ said Tot. ‘I, sister mine? Not I. You should really look at the pieces of paper shoved under your nose before you sign them.’

‘But I can’t carry on with this … charade,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened. That dreadful woman knows something about Mrs Addie, I’m sure.’ I stiffened and Alec waggled his eyebrows at me.

‘She’s been listening to fairy stories. It’s the smooth young man you need to watch out for,’ said Tot. ‘I’ve met his type before.’ I waggled mine back. ‘Anyway, it’s not long now.’

‘Until what?’ said Dr Laidlaw, her voice rising.

‘Don’t you trouble your pretty little head about it, Dottie,’ said Tot. ‘Just make sure you keep your books up to date, eh? And don’t say I’m not good to you.’

‘I don’t say that,’ said Dorothea. ‘I know very well how good you have been, but you don’t understand my work and what I need. This can’t go on.’

‘And it won’t, Dot,’ her brother said. ‘It’s nearly over.’

‘But it’s getting worse,’ she said. ‘All those people. The London people were bad enough, but these new people, more and more every day. Who
are
they?’

‘Don’t trouble yourself about them,’ Laidlaw said. ‘They’ll get what’s coming to them. They all will.’

‘What do you mean when you talk that way?’ said Dorothea. ‘You sound dreadful. You’re frightening me.’

This outburst was greeted with silence. I drew away a little to ease the crick that was developing in my neck, but Alec stayed glued to the panelling. Then, all of a sudden, his eyes flared. He mouthed, ‘Tot!’, grabbed my arm and dragged me around the nearest corner, less than a second, it seemed, before the door opened and closed.

We waited with breath held and hearts hammering. If he came this way we would be undone.

‘Phew,’ I said at last, as the sound of his jaunty footsteps faded away in the other direction.

‘If people would only say “lovely chatting to you, see you at luncheon, goodbye, goodbye” at the ends of their conversations,’ Alec said, ‘listening at doors would be much less nerve-racking.’

‘So what was all that about?’ I asked.

‘Search me,’ Alec said. ‘I thought
she
wanted to keep going and
he
wanted to sell up and cut loose. In fact I know she did because she told me and then one of the rubbers told me too. But from what they were saying just now it sounds as though she’s for packing it in and he won’t hear of it.’

‘Yet,’ I said. ‘If he’s ready to sell what’s he waiting for? What bits of paper do you think he’s had her signing?’

‘He
is
a gambler,’ said Alec. ‘Perhaps he’s got the place mortgaged and he’s waiting to cash in his chips.’

‘Waiting for what?’ I said.

‘Well, the market to peak, I suppose,’ Alec said. ‘It’s tremendously exciting what’s happening in New York, Dandy. Did you read the newspaper yesterday? The busiest day on the stock exchange since its beginning. Hugh is going to kill you, you know.’

‘But then why would it matter whether the books were up to date?’ I said, ignoring the sideswipe. ‘For a mortgage. And why do you suppose Tot insists that every guest has treatments?’

‘Isn’t that Dr Laidlaw?’ Alec said.

‘No, I’m sure it’s Tot. One of the bright young things that’s really here for the casino was moaning about it. They’ve even got Grant signed up for galvanic baths, whatever they are.’

‘That can’t be related,’ Alec said.

‘And what do you suppose he meant by that nasty vague threat about the mediums?’ I asked.

‘I’ve no idea, but I think we should get Grant safely away before it happens. Terrace or winter gardens?’ Alec said. ‘I need to speak to you.’

‘Depends if we need privacy,’ I said. ‘It’s such a lovely day the winter gardens will be deserted.’

‘Winter gardens it is,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve got the post-mortem report and I rather think privacy would be a good thing.’

I would have preferred fresh air, not to say a stiff breeze, if I was to be the audience for a report on livers and kidneys and suchlike, but the terrace was at capacity, muffled figures rolled in blankets on every deckchair, making the most of the brightness even though there was precious little warmth to the sunshine this late in the year. We settled ourselves under one of the open roof-vents, but since the gardeners had been misting the orchids very recently it was a stuffy spot nonetheless, not to mention the faint residue of alcohol and tobacco smoke which I could not miss, now that I had seen all the drinking and carousing which went on in here.

‘Well?’ I said. ‘Poison?’

‘Not a one,’ Alec replied. ‘Not a trace, not a wisp of anything in any of her organs. Nothing.’

‘And her heart was healthy.’

‘Her heart was fine.’

‘So what did she die of?’

‘Dieting?’ said Alec. ‘I’m only half joking. The doctor said again in the report what he said at the graveside. She had nothing in her stomach at all. Or anywhere. She was empty.’

‘Well, those bladders and adjacent systems you spoke about often … empty out at the last,’ I said. ‘It never happens in the beautiful death scenes in plays but I learned as much in the convalescent home.’

‘As did I in the trenches,’ Alec said. He sat forward and stared at the floor. ‘I feel wretched for the Addies, you know. I persuaded them to dig the poor old girl up and there’s nothing to show for it except a hint that her last few days were a misery for a woman who so much enjoyed her food. I can’t even lay hands on her jewellery and send it back to them.’

‘Jewellery?’

‘Well, the watch.’

‘Jewellery,’ I said again.

He looked up at me. ‘What is it, Dan?’

‘I’ve got it,’ I breathed.

‘Oh, at last,’ said Alec. ‘Go on then.’

‘It was something Regina said,’ I told him. ‘And I couldn’t remember what it was. I’ve been kicking myself that every time I talk to Regina I’m in a robe and turban without any of my things – my notebook and pencil – and I couldn’t write it down. But it’s not just that, you see. And then watching the librarian locking up yesterday made it even worse. I dreamed about it last night. And then I saw Grant sitting there this morning and she looked so out of place in her outdoor clothes.’

‘Well, what is it? Tell me,’ Alec said.

‘I know where Mrs Addie’s bag is,’ I said. ‘I never have my things when I speak to Regina because she takes away one’s clothes and folds them and she takes away one’s bag and jewellery and puts them in a sort of … it’s hard to describe but the clasp is very like the one I saw the librarian closing … then into a locked cupboard in return for a ribbon, with a key, which you wear round your wrist.’

‘And if Mrs Addie died – of untraceable poison? – in the mud room by the Turkish baths …’ Alec said.

‘Her clothes were folded in a neat bundle and could be produced a month later when someone thought of them,’ I said. ‘But her bag must have been locked away in a little pouch in a cupboard. Regina said guests sometimes leave things in there for weeks together, because it’s so secure. I’ll bet you anything you like it’s still there.’

‘But why didn’t they think of it?’ Alec said. ‘Whoever it was who killed her. Mrs Cronin, or Regina, or one of the Laidlaws.’

‘Definitely not Regina,’ I said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘I think Regina probably noticed the clothes. She gave them to … Mrs Cronin, who gave them to Dr Laidlaw or Tot. But they couldn’t explain to the Addies why they weren’t with the rest of their mother’s things so they just hung on to them. Until we came along and they cut their losses. But if Regina had killed her she’d have remembered about the bag too.’

‘And why didn’t the real killer remember?’

‘Because no one else apart from Regina is as bound up with the question of keys and lockers and so it didn’t occur to them.’

‘But why didn’t anyone see the key? On the ribbon? On the corpse?’ Alec asked me, but even as he spoke the answer occurred to him and he groaned.

‘The ribbon came off the corpse when they heaved it out of the mud bath,’ I said. ‘If we really want Mrs Addie’s father’s watch back again we need to go to the apple house and start digging.’

Clearly, it was my turn for a task such as this one, after Alec’s graveside duty the day before, and so it is testament to his character as nothing else could be that he insisted we both go. We took stout waxed gloves and scarves to tie over our faces and we made a silent agreement to forget the emptiness of poor Mrs Addie’s various bodily systems, or not to discuss it anyway.

Besides, now that I knew that the smell was only more of the Moffat brimstone, along with a few traces of nothing worse than I had encountered during the war, it did not seem to smell quite as bad as it had before.

‘Shall we just shovel it out then?’ Alec said. As well as the opening in the top of the bath where one stepped in, there was a trapdoor in the back closed with a pin and sealed with some kind of putty and it looked as though most of the contents might run out quite readily if we got it open.

‘You shovel and I’ll go through the shovellings,’ I said, claiming the worst of the job for myself. Alec wrenched up the pin and removed it and immediately there was a cracking noise as the putty seal around the little door began to bulge.