Murder by Appointment: Inspector Faro No.10 (22 page)

'I was so shaken by this information, I took a carriage to Stirling and visited the family burial plot. Alongside Aunt's headstone was May Moray's: "Devoted Servant and Friend".

'Oh, how I wished you had been with me, dearest,' she said
to Vince. 'I knew that we were in the hands of an imposter although I had no notion why, but I had to let Rose know what had happened. So I took a train to Glasgow—'

Again she paused and Vince gave his stepfather a look that said how proud he was of his enterprising young wife.

'I went at once to Rose's lodging. Her landlady seemed surprised to see me when I said who I was. A couple of days
earlier, a young woman, a maid, answering to the description
of May, had come for her with a note. Rose left with her immediately, saying she was gong to Dunblane.

'She had never arrived at Dunblane. That was three days ago and neither of them has been seen since. I panicked and rushed home, hoping to find them both here. And that someone would explain it all to me.'

Tearfully she looked up at Faro, as if he might have the magical solution. 'If she isn't May Moray, then who is she? And why has she been living in this house pretending to be her?' she whispered.

As the terrible pattern began to emerge, Faro could have supplied answers to several of their questions, answers that did little to comfort him and would have seriously increased
Olivia's terrors. His greatest anxiety, however, concerned the
safety of his daughter.

'If anything has happened to dearest Rose, then it's all my fault,' Olivia sobbed. 'All my fault for not telling you after
Duddingston when everyone presumed I was out of sorts,' she
paused and touched her stomach, 'because of the baby—'

And, flinging herself into her husband's arms, she looked at Faro and said hopefully, 'Have you any idea where they are?'

Vince stared at him over her head. 'We must find them, Stepfather. And quickly.'

If there had been room in his heart for any emotion but horror, Faro would have regarded the scene before him and the information he had been given with something akin to triumph.

He had been given a thread leading through the labyrinth. The first clue lay in the Stirling connections, a nest of Fenian activities according to McQuinn. And through some passing association with the real May—and he was not dismissing entirely that they had not been responsible for her death in
some way. There were drugs that could simulate deadly fevers.
Had she communicated Aunt Gilchrist's connections with
Inspector Faro and someone had seen a golden opportunity of
planting one of their members in his household, especially a
detective responsible for saving the Queen from numerous Fenian attempts on her life?

The feet that the real May was dumb was an advantage. It saved the false May from concealing an Irish accent.

Watching Olivia being consoled by Vince, Faro's mind raced ahead. He guessed that Constable Thomas's sharp wits had enabled him to divine the truth of May's real identity.
And that was the urgent message. He had indeed 'cracked the
chiefs case for him' but at the cost of his own life. At the 'maid's' instigation. Faro thought grimly.

And suddenly he sat upright.

The birthday present.

The package that Thomas had left to be delivered to May's bedside when she awoke. 'Poems he'd written, that sort of thing,' according to Mrs Brook.

He ran downstairs to the kitchen but the housekeeper was absent. He stood by the table recalling in meticulous detail what she had told him. How, when May had appeared, Thomas had tipped Mrs Brook a wink and said sternly that this was for Inspector Faro. Urgent.

Faro imagined the scene. May at the door, overhearing, had
taken flight, believing that Thomas had somehow got hold of the Queen's journal. Perhaps besotted by her, he had been indiscreet about his investigations in the McNair murders.

'Put it on his desk,' Thomas had said.

Which was why May had seized the excuse of 'tidying' to
ransack his study. Searching in vain, she had been convinced
that Faro still had it in his possession.

And there was only one way to bargain with him.

Rose.

Rose as hostage.

Sick with apprehension, he steadied himself against the kitchen table, seeing the package in Mrs Brook's hand as she thrust it back into her sideboard drawer

It was still there. Carrying it up to his study, he opened the envelope so expertly that it could be resealed again without anyone knowing the contents had been examined.

As he expected, it contained some papers and a small leather notebook.

He began to read.

Faro's reading was interrupted by the shrill ringing of the front doorbell. Within minutes he heard Vince telling the caller to wait, that he would get his bag and his instruments.

Two minutes later, the bell again jangled through the house.

Faro sprang to his feet. Could it be Rose, returned unharmed at last?

He opened the door to hear a man, rough voiced, speaking to Mrs Brook in urgent tones.

Another of Vince's emergencies, Faro thought, picking up the book again while downstairs Mrs Brook desperately confronted the gypsy beggarman who first wanted to tell her fortune and then wanted her to buy clothes pegs from him.

'Be off,' she said bristling with rage as he put a foot in the door and, leaning forward confidentially, whispered, 'A cup of tea in your cosy kitchen then, ma'am, if you please.'

'How dare you suggest—' Mrs Brook was not long lost for words. 'The owner of this house is a detective inspector—'

But before she could protest further he murmured, 'Thank you kindly,' and, pushing her aside bolted up the stairs.

She puffed after him in hot pursuit, but before she could do
more than scream a warning he had thrown open the door of Inspector Faro's study.

Warned by the commotion, Faro had time only to thrust the little book into the desk drawer where he could most
conveniently lay hands on his revolver, ready to confront one
of the Fenian terrorists.

The man who stood before him had one of the most villainous countenances Faro had ever beheld.

A black patch over one eye, hair an entangled mass that had seen neither comb nor water for many a long day, while all resemblance to recognizable garments had long since vanished into the shredded rags that covered him. The gold earring declared him a gypsy.

The man had seen Faro's movement towards the half-open drawer. Raising a finger he pointed. 'I shouldn't do that, sir, not if I was you.'

And, leering at him across the table, he nodded in Mrs Brook's direction. 'Send her packing,' he said roughly, putting a finger to his lips.

'Inspector, sir!' she protested.

Again the man shook his head, grinned, and that grin was familiar.

'It is all right, Mrs Brook. This er—fellow is known to me.' And as Mrs Brook hesitated, he led her gently to the door. 'Don't you worry. It's police business.'

Mrs Brook departed in a deep huff, muttering for all the house to hear, 'Police business indeed.' And that she didn't know what this house was coming to, really she didn't.

She would have been taken aback by the scene she had just
left to see Inspector Faro dancing delightedly around the appalling beggarman.

'McQuinn!'

Like the answer to his prayers, McQuinn had arrived.

'I got your messages—both of them. Came as quickly as I could, sir.'

Handing him a dram, Faro related the events leading to
Olivia's disclosures and the spy who had been infiltrated into
his house.

But it was Rose's abduction that most concerned them both.

'We haven't much time,' said McQuinn, 'I know there's something big on. A ship leaves on the midnight tide for Rosslare and their ringleader will be on it—and if their plan goes well, the Queen's journal will be in her pocket.'

'I don't give a damn for any journal. All I want is my Rose safe home, do you hear?'

McQuinn looked grave. 'They're holding her as hostage. I'm glad I got here first.' He looked at the clock. 'Someone'll
be arriving shortly. They don't have time to waste. Once they
have what they came for, they'll be off for Ireland.'

'How can we stop them?'

'The answer is that we can't—it's the journal or Rose. We don't really have a choice, do we?' So saying, he held out his hand.

Faro watched him as he turned the pages, smiling as if the contents amused him.

Then he pushed it back across the table. 'Let them have this, Inspector. It's our only hope. Do what they want, I'll be keeping watch.'

McQuinn nodded towards the window. 'I seem to remember
there's a way out across the washhouse roof into the back lane.'

'Yes, but be careful.'

'Sure now, Inspector, have you ever known me not to be?'

McQuinn's soft laughter, his mockery, infuriated Faro. How could he take it all lightly with so much at stake?

'McQuinn!' he said sharply.

‘Yes, sir?'

'If—if it all goes wrong. Save Rose. That's an order, do you
hear?'

'Inspector, sir, you hardly need to tell me that. She's the girl
I intend making my wife.' He pointed to the book. 'Give it to them,' he repeated sternly. 'And God save Ireland.'

McQuinn had not been gone more than a minute when the front doorbell rang yet again. Faro thrust the book and the loose papers into his pocket as Mrs Brook came upstairs.

She opened the door and seemed surprised to see him alone.

'There's a lady to see you, sir. I put her in the dining room, sir, thinking you already had a—a—visitor,' she added reproachfully with a quick look round as if to see whether such a creature's presence might have sullied her much polished furniture.

Faro followed her downstairs.

He opened the door. The shadowy figure by the window moved.

It was Imogen Crowe.

For a moment his heart beat wildly, the images in his mind those of a fantasy come true. Imogen had changed her mind. His blood leaped at the thought. She wanted him, this meeting had nothing to do with Fenians or with his daughter Rose, their hostage.

But even as she turned to face him, he knew that relief from
the agony of a doomed love was not yet to be his.

Her face was expressionless, a mirror from which all emotion
had been wiped clean.

'What have you done with my daughter?' he gasped.

'If you want to see Rose again, you had better come with me
and bring the Queen's journal with you.'

'Where is my daughter?'

At Leith. I'm to take you there.'

And at his stricken face, she showed her first compassion. 'Rose is perfectly all right Not a hair of her head has been harmed, so far. She is a very brave girl, your daughter. But that's to be expected.'