Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone (33 page)

‘I think you fit the pin in there to act as a handle,’ I said, pointing. Alec nodded and did so. Then he looked at me, pulled the scarf a little higher over his nose and yanked the door open.

I stepped back, but it was not the volcanic flow of reeking slime I was expecting. Instead, inside the trapdoor was a wall of dried grey clay which hardly moved except for a few flakes falling off and crumbling as they hit the floor. Alec raised his shovel to strike at the block of clay, but I stopped him.

‘Wait!’ He froze with his hands above his head. ‘Look!’ I said. I bent in close to the opening, pointing at a crack in the mud. I took my glove off for this was careful work. I picked away at the crack for a minute and then rubbed hard with the pads of my finger and thumb. Where I had rubbed one could see the faint pink colour of a scrap of fabric, less than a quarter-inch across. It was the needle in our particular haystack: the end of the ribbon. I took the scarf away from my face and grinned up at him.

‘I declare this key found,’ I said, and pinching the fraying end hard between my nails I pulled, it gave, I pulled some more, I had three inches of it out now and I took a better hold. A firm tug and it was six inches. I wrapped it around my hand.

‘Stop!’ Alec cried.

He was too late. I sat back with the whole length of unknotted ribbon in my hand and looked at the wall of mud somewhere inside of which the tiny key was still hiding.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Alec. ‘I always preferred knocking down sandcastles to building them.’ He raised the shovel high over his head again and brought it down cleanly into the middle of the clay.

Never in all his childhood years of laying waste to castles on the Dorset beaches can he have wielded a shovel to such spectacular ends. The clay shattered and sent a cascade of dust and small cobbles, as hard as rock, all over the apple house, Alec and me. I did not even have a chance to shut my mouth in time and the taste of that eggy, murky powder, coating my teeth and lips and then turning slick as I tried to spit it out again will be with me always. Alec fared rather better. He was still wearing the scarf around his face, for one thing, and he was above the worst of it so that only dust, puffing up, reached his hair and clothes. I, on the other hand, had little flakes and lumps of clay in all the creases of my clothing. I stood up and shook myself like a dog. Alec started laughing.

‘Funny now,’ I said. ‘Until we both go down with cholera.’ At least, though, there was no point in daintily picking through the mess, since we could not get any filthier if we tried, so I pulled my gloves back on, shuddering at the way they scraped over the silt on my skin, and plunged both hands into the middle of the cascade, roughly where I thought the key must be.

In retrospect, given that the key was about the size of a sixpence, knowing how long it can take to find a sixpence in a plum pudding, and allowing that the plum pudding in this case was larger than a whisky barrel, I should have been prepared for how long it took to find it. After another twenty minutes I was looking back ruefully at the moment I had believed we could not get filthier and was rehearsing a theory to put to Alec that the key was taken off the ribbon as the corpse broke the surface of the mud and that we were wasting our time, when suddenly I felt a hard little nub under my fingers. I grasped it and pressed it, expecting it to crumble like the many other little nubs which had fooled me as we crouched there. This time, my fingers felt something more unyielding than clay and I drew my hands out, noting the dust filling my turned-back cuffs, and held it up.

‘Oh thank God,’ Alec said. ‘Now where exactly are these lockers, Dan? Let’s go.’

‘In the ladies’ Turkish baths,’ I said. ‘We need to wait until night-time at least, if you actually come along at all. But that’s all right, because it will take us until then to get clean again.’

Before we left we covered our tracks. We scraped most of the clay back inside the barrel and tried to fashion it into the shape it might have assumed if the pin had spontaneously snapped, the door burst open and the contents spilled all on their own. It was not, one had to say, very convincing, especially as we forgot to drop the pin on the floor underneath the spill.

‘We could dig a hole and bury it,’ I said, but Alec picked it up and threw it across the room instead.

‘I’m not digging another inch in that stuff,’ he said. ‘It shot clear when the thing burst open.’

‘Which it wouldn’t do as the mud dried, would it?’ I said. This thought had been troubling me. ‘It would get smaller and shrink.’

‘It settled against the door, Dandy,’ Alec said very darkly. ‘And that’s the end of it. Now how are we getting home?’

The only possible thing, of course, was to go in my beloved little Cowley and we could not even ask for newspapers to cover the seats. Alec spread his handkerchief and I tried to hover as much as possible, hanging onto the steering wheel and not settling my whole weight onto the upholstery. I drove right around to the kitchen door at Auchenlea and Mrs Tilling and Pallister both came to see who it was.

Mrs Tilling stepped back and put her apron over her nose, but Pallister, to his credit, closed the motorcar door behind me and took the whole disgusting spectacle in his stride.

‘I shall fetch a blanket for you to wrap around yourself, madam, while you proceed to your bathroom and then you can lay it down on the floor. If you would care to step into the scullery, Mr Osborne’ – Mrs Tilling rumbled – ‘that is to say, if you would care to step over to the stables, Mr Osborne, we can take a first pass at you there. I shall look out some of Master’s things for you.’

When the blanket arrived, Mrs Tilling held it out to me at arm’s length as Pallister ushered Alec across the yard, putting his arm behind him without touching, the way a shepherd herds flighty sheep with an outstretched crook.

‘My goodness, madam,’ Mrs Tilling said. ‘What is it?’

‘Just mud,’ I said. ‘Almost entirely mud.’

‘Miss Grant’s not here, you know.’ It might have been a warning that I would have to manage on my own, but I did not think so.

‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been put over someone’s knee and spanked with a brush for years.’

Mrs Tilling laughed and then buried her face in her apron again. ‘Don’t make me laugh, madam,’ she said. ‘It’s worse when you breathe it in deeply. Now, I’ll go and make a nice light luncheon for Mr Osborne and you, shall I?’

‘Anything but eggs,’ I said, then I kicked off my shoes, wound myself up in the blanket like a mummy and waddled off to my bathroom and the bliss of the hot water spray.

Apart from the oddness of Alec in Hugh’s clothes in Hugh’s seat at the table, luncheon was heaven. Simply to be clean and sweet-smelling was rather fine, but to feel for once that we were ahead of ourselves in this case, that we did not need to puzzle and wonder, but could wait for whatever the bag would tell us and talk in the meantime of other things, was a treat indeed. Donald and Teddy were better than I could have hoped for and since it had been their father who had plucked them away from the Hydro they were not, thankfully, complaining much to me. We were almost done before they mentioned it.

‘I must say,’ Donald announced, ‘that it’s always nice to know why. If it was the casino why not just say it was the casino and besides, we were always back here by the time it got going.’

‘Might have been the type it attracted,’ Teddy said. ‘Flappers and suchlike. What?’ he asked me, for I was staring at him.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Something about what you just … what was it?’

‘I don’t think it was that anyway,’ Donald said. ‘I think it was the mediums, actually.’ I had just swallowed a mouthful of cheese and was safe. Alec on the other hand inhaled an oatcake crumb and began coughing determinedly.

‘Ugh,’ he said. ‘I can still taste it when I cough, Dan. You know about the mediums then, you two?’

‘You can hardly miss them,’ Teddy said. ‘And there’s something about lying in rows of deckchairs all staring the same way that makes people very careless about whispering. We heard about the Big Seance even though it was supposed to be the most tremendous secret.’

‘Well, the Big Seance passed off last night without a murmur,’ I said. ‘Grant was there. She stayed at the Hydro to attend it.’

‘I don’t think so, Mother,’ Donald said. ‘I mean, I’m sure there was a seance last night – was Miss Grant really there? Why? – because they have one every time the sun goes down instead of cocktails. But the Big Seance is something else again. And it’s not going to be at the Hydro, is it, Ted?’

‘Up the hill,’ said Teddy. He was spreading butter on an oatcake and then crumbling cheese on top of the butter.

‘Teddy, for heaven’s sake,’ I said. He sighed and scraped the whole mess off again.

‘Are you going to be in for lunch every day?’ he asked me. ‘Because I think I’m well enough for picnics as long as the weather holds.’

So we had something to mull over after all during the afternoon, waiting for the time when we could slip into the ladies’ Turkish and search for the locker which matched the key.

‘I wonder if Grant will consent to attending the Big Seance Up the Hill,’ I said, lighting a cigarette. I could not help sniffing my fingers as I lifted the cigarette holder to my lips.

‘Do you?’ Alec said. ‘Not I. She’s a game girl, your Grant. She’ll be there.’

‘I wonder if they’ll check behind fallen logs for spies,’ I said. Bunty was standing in the doorway peering at me from under her brows with her head down. She had taken great offence to the smell I had brought home with me and had abandoned me for Mrs Tilling and the hope of pastry scraps in the kitchens but she looked almost ready to forgive me now.

‘What would you do if the ghosts really came?’ Alec said. ‘What if a spectral gallows appeared and the ghost of William Hare materialised hanging from it?’

‘I’d be glad to have something to tell the Addies,’ I said. ‘Even if I had to forfeit our fee to excuse the nonsense.’ I clicked my fingers and Bunty took another couple of steps towards me. Rather a nerve to be so princess and pea-ish when one considered what she rolled in on walks if I did not manage to stop her. ‘That’s a thought though, Alec, isn’t it? How exactly were fifteen – or even seventeen – ghosts supposed to lay their hands on enough good timber and nails to make a gallows? How would they hold the hammer? That seems rather a weak point in the argument, if you ask me.’

‘Oh,
that
seems weak,’ Alec said, laughing. ‘If they persuaded a living carpenter to take the job you’d think all questions were answered then?’

‘I suppose they could have
scared
William Hare to death the way they’re supposed to have scared Mrs Addie. But how would they have buried the body? I’m doing it again.’

‘Speaking of bending workmen to your will,’ Alec said, ‘how goes Gilverton?’

I shook my head. The last time I had spoken to Gilchrist he had talked vaguely of one of the houses being finished and looking very good but when I asked if it was Gilverton or Benachally which was ready he had somehow managed not to answer.

‘And Hugh hasn’t been in touch with his American broker?’

‘I don’t think he’s given it a thought,’ I answered. ‘I’m not sure he’s even looking at the newspaper now. Why?’

‘Oh, rumblings,’ Alec said. ‘I’ve sold this and that actually.’

‘At last!’ I said as Bunty crossed the final few feet of carpet and put her head on my lap. ‘Good girl. I’m sorry about that nasty smell. Who’s a good old girl then?’

‘I miss Millie,’ Alec said. ‘I’d have brought her and left her here if I’d thought Hugh would be in on it. I really do hope we get this thing solved and off our hands soon, Dandy.’

‘A rough draft of a blackmail letter in Mrs Addie’s handbag would be good,’ I said. ‘And then the police would have the trouble of finding out how it was done.’

‘Or an empty poison phial marked “untraceable”,’ Alec said. ‘And then the police could try to find out why.’

‘Fingers crossed,’ I said. ‘We’ll know soon enough.’

He waited for me in his room, in the end, judging it too risky to be found in the ladies’ Turkish after hours, so it was I alone who slipped in and, with an ear cocked for anyone else who might be skulking where she had no business to be, flitted along the cubicle corridor to the little square room at the end where the lockers were. The clothes shelves were open – Mrs Addie’s things could never have languished a month there – but there were two rows of little cubby holes with doors and locks running along above them. My key, Mrs Addie’s key, was number twenty-three and I struck a match and peered at the brass numbers on the little doors. It was only a minute before I had the door open and was reaching for the familiar lead-and-velvet boxing glove. I grabbed it, locked the door, dropped the key in my pocket and fled to Alec’s room, praying that none of the Hydro staff would see me.

None did. I was only seen by one person the whole of the way. He was standing at a landing window on the second floor looking out into the night. It was Loveday Merrick, without his entourage for once, just standing there staring out at the Gallow Hill, all alone.

‘Mrs Gilver,’ he said, touching his temple with his finger. ‘We meet again. I in the calm before my storm, you in the thick of yours.’

‘Good evening, Mr Merrick,’ I said and scuttled past him. I repeated it word for word to Alec but he was just as stumped as me.

‘Never mind him, anyway,’ he said. ‘Did you get it?’ He locked the door behind me as I opened my coat and let the lead-lined bag fall onto his bed.

‘Of course I did,’ I said. ‘I don’t generally walk around clutching my middle like that. Now, since you missed out on fetching it, you are to open it up. I insist. You have had the short end of every stick so far. Time for a lollipop instead.’

Alec gladly took the key from me and opened the clasp. He wrenched the hinge open and peered inside.

‘One very small brown bag, good quality but mended in the handles,’ he said. ‘At last. And inside …’ He fumbled a little with the fastening, being unused to opening women’s handbags, I presume, but got there in the end. ‘Inside, for example but without prejudice to the generality: Father’s watch.’ He sprang the casing and tipped the watch itself forward. ‘Complete with lock of hair.’ He delved back into the bag again. ‘And a bundle of precious letters, tied up as you prophesied, Dandy, with ribbon.’