I stood at last – it was my day for huddling in little booths until I was cramped – and as I stretched I heard footsteps and, although there is nothing illicit in making a telephone call from a telephone kiosk, I shrank from emerging but sidled forward and peeped out instead, remaining hidden.
It was two guests, small cases in hand, clearly departing. A couple of Tot’s bright young things in their short skirts, high-heels and fox furs.
‘Thanks ever so for giving me a lift, ducks,’ said one in that infuriating mock-cockney that was all the rage.
‘You shouldn’t use that accent at the meeting,’ said the other. ‘They’ll think you’re teasing. And I’d happily give you a lift all the way to town if you like, not just the station.’
‘Oh no, I’m as sick as a kitten in motorcars,’ said the first. ‘Much better on trains. And of course, I shan’t play-act at the meeting. It’s serious stuff.’
‘What are you going to say? I’d be terrified even to go in the door! They must be monsters.’
‘Perfectly respectable men and women, I think,’ said her friend. ‘I’m going to tell them that Mary Patterson visited me. That she stood by my bed and spoke.’
‘What did she say?’ The woman’s voice was soft, like a child, all the idiot chirping stopped for a moment.
‘That she forgave her killers and repented of all her sins.’
‘Too absolutely shivery-making for words. How can you?’
‘Why not,’ said the other. ‘After all, that’s what happened.’
‘Stop it!’
‘I opened my eyes and there she was and she looked at me out of her black, black eyes and said, “I am Mary Patterson. I forgive my killers and repent of my sins.”’
‘Stop, you beast!’
And then both of them shrieked as outside on the drive a motorcar parped its horn. Then they giggled and tripped off down the steps in their silly heels and their silly hats towards the door.
‘Ladies,’ said a voice. I stuck my head out of the kiosk. Alec Osborne was holding the door open for them, bowing them on their way. ‘Hello, Dandy,’ he said as he trotted up the steps towards me. ‘Have you been there all day since I left? Pining? Well, I’m back now and I have interesting news.’
‘Hello, Alec darling,’ I said. ‘So do I but it’s not the sort that can be delivered on the doorstep. It needs a fireside and a glass of something sustaining.’
‘Ah, your signature rambling,’ said Alec. ‘I’m very fond of it, but I warn you it might act as a lullaby after a day like today.’
‘Well, deliver your headline then,’ I said.
‘Mrs Addie didn’t believe in ghosts,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I answered. ‘In fact, she showed a great deal more courage in the face of one than I could be sure to.’
‘You are absolutely infuriating, Dandy,’ he said. ‘Four bloody hours on a train with no dining carriage it took me to glean that from the Addies. Tinned soup for lunch and no tea.’
‘You haven’t missed tea,’ I said. ‘Stop moaning and let’s find Hugh and the boys.’
His spirits recovered over Whitstable sandwiches, ginger buns and orange syrup cake and the boys at their most amusing and least annoying. Afterwards, he, I and they set off for Auchenlea leaving Hugh alone, looking like the cat that ate canary in cream sauce. He rippled his eyebrows at me as we were leaving for all the world as though he did not mind Alec and me working, but rather was glad to see me go.
Back at the house, the boys were packed off to their rooms to rest and change for dinner (and were glad to go after a day of the strenuous treatments Dr Laidlaw had decreed for them), Bunty was prised from the kitchen to my side where she belonged, and Alec and I settled in by the drawing-room fire with sherry. It really was the most pleasant room, deep chairs with high backs and some of the least draughty windows I had ever come across in Scotland. For a moment I wondered if I would have been better to summon a glazier to Gilverton instead of a plumber, then I thought of turning a tap and having a torrent of hot water come gushing out and decided I would put up with a lot of draughts along with that delight. Besides, it is dark twelve hours a day, six months a year and one can close shutters and draw curtains over the rattling windows. I put Gilverton out of my mind and smiled at Alec.
‘There is an enormous and unspeakable thing we must discuss,’ I said, ‘but let’s leave it aside as long we can. So instead: how did you manage to broach the question and keep in Mrs Bowie’s good books? I’m most impressed.’ This was true, but he saw through my ruse in reporting it. He sat up straight and held his hands under his chin, letting his tongue loll out and panting like a puppy.
‘Don’t patronise me, Dandy,’ he said. ‘I thought of something else I wanted to ask and managed to slip it in.’ Then he sat back again. I cocked my head and waited. ‘I told them there was some sort of spiritualists’ jamboree going on – a bit of poetic licence as to time and place, you know – and would their mother be likely to duck out of any of her treatments to go and see the fun.’
‘I don’t follow,’ I said.
‘Because I’d hate to accuse the Laidlaws of harming the old lady with some electric bath or whatever if she had been out on the town and never gone near the thing.’
‘Oh, very twisty,’ I said. ‘Well done you. And Mrs Bowie said her mother didn’t hold with ghosts?’
‘She did.’
‘Well, it’s funny you should have happened to talk of Mrs Addie bunking off,’ I said, ‘because – here is my news – she was outside when she collapsed. Possibly even when she died.’
‘Outside?’ Alec said. ‘In the grounds, you mean? I’m not sure I see why you stopped the presses for that, Dan.’
‘Not in the grounds and you will,’ I replied and went on to relate Regina’s evidence in the matter of her dirty nails and grimy knees. ‘And not only can I explain why she went back out at night, I think we might be able to prove it.’ Now Alec cocked his head. I sailed on.
‘I can’t say I’m keen,’ he concluded when I was done. ‘We could spend a fair old time thrashing about looking for a little handbag with two long paths and a high hill to choose from.’
‘But if we found it,’ I persisted. ‘If we proved that she wasn’t here when she died.’
‘What if we did?’ said Alec. ‘The tiniest of white lies to spare her children pain. Why don’t we just tell Dr Laidlaw that the Addies are suspicious. Tell her that her discretion has backfired and ask her to write to them and set out the whole story? Why not do that? Aren’t we making a lot of bother for ourselves over nothing?’
I shook my head. ‘I would love to get her talking, but only if I could do it without showing my hand. I’m sure I could trip her up if I could just get started on it somehow.’
‘You’re convinced that there’s something for her to trip over then?’ Alec said.
‘Completely convinced,’ I said. ‘How did Dr Laidlaw manage to find Mrs Addie for one thing? What was she doing out in the night where the ghosties are? There’s something very wrong with that story somewhere. Not to mention the fact that she wouldn’t sign the death certificate and pushed it off onto Ramsay instead.’
‘And then also,’ said Alec, ‘according to you anyway, there’s the mystery of the locked room. Didn’t you say she gave it fearful looks and went pale?’
I clicked my fingers and tutted. ‘Yes. And so did Regina and I meant to ask her about it. After how I scared her today she’ll never let me ask her anything ever again.’
‘I just find it very hard to believe that Dr Laidlaw is a killer somehow,’ Alec said. ‘Her brother now…’
‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I found myself thinking that too. It’s hardly fair but if something nefarious is going on here I would bet Tot Laidlaw’s at the bottom of it. He dropped a couple of very mysterious hints to me, you know. Said I’d have to summon courage to make my trip worthwhile and spoke rather archly of how many hydros we had to drive past to get to this one. Almost as though he knows we’re not here as patients.’ ‘The boys’ chests will back it up,’ said Alec. ‘Hugh’s too.’