M.C. BEATON
Death of a Chimney Sweep
To Georgie Askew and Dave Tapping and to the staff of the beautiful Cavendish Hotel on the Chatsworth estate who sheltered us one whole winter’s afternoon although we were not guests. Many thanks.
Chapter One
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
—William Shakespeare
The village of Drim in the county of Sutherland at the northwest of Scotland was rarely visited by outsiders. Not even the most romantic member of the tartan lunatic fringe of the lowland cities could claim it to be a place of either interest or beauty.
It was a small village situated at the end of the long arm of a sea loch where towering mountains dropped down sheer into the water so that the loch looked black and sinister even on a fine day. It consisted of a huddle of whitewashed cottages and one general store. There had been a murder committed there some time ago, temporarily bringing in the outside world, but since then Drim had settled back into its usual torpor.
There was no longer a resident minister, although the church was served every three Sundays by a visiting preacher. The old manse stood empty, and no one showed any signs of buying it. Furthermore, it was said to be haunted because the last minister had hanged himself after his wife had run off and left him.
The nearest policeman, Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, was some miles away across mountain and moorland in the village of Lochdubh, and although Drim was on his beat, he rarely had any reason to visit the place.
There was, however, a brief burst of excitement when newcomers bought an old Georgian mansion up on the brae above the village. It had lain empty for some time, the previous owner having been an eccentric old lady. The house had been on the market for five years before it was bought by a Captain Henry Davenport and his wife, Milly.
It was a square three-storeyed building in red sandstone, as unprepossessing and as grim as the village. It would have commanded a good view of the surrounding landscape had not the house been surrounded by laurels, Douglas firs, stands of birch, and one giant monkey puzzle.
A few of the villagers had called on the English couple when they first moved in four months before with presents of cake but were repelled by the pompous manner of the captain and the faded timidity of his wife. They drove down to the nearest town, Strathbane, to do all their shopping, and so Milly Davenport did not even visit the local store.
Captain Henry Davenport had retired from the army, slightly bitter at not having risen higher in the ranks, but determined to be still addressed by his military title. Nowhere else in the country could he have afforded to buy such a large house, and it suited his grandiose ideas.
Milly, his wife, also English, still showed signs of having once been pretty. She would have liked to employ one of the women in the village to help her with the cleaning, but her husband said acidly that she had nothing else to do with her time and it would be a waste of money.
The captain had discovered that a peat bank belonged to the house, and so he employed a local man, Hugh Mackenzie, to keep him supplied with peat. But the fire smoked dreadfully. One evening, the captain received a rare phone call. He came back from the phone, which was still located in the draughty hall where it had stood since the days when it was first installed, his face flushed and worried.
“Who was on the phone, dear?” asked Milly.
“Just an old army friend. Look, do something useful. I’m going out for a walk tomorrow. Get some exercise. Get the sweep in and get the damn chimney cleaned! If anyone calls, tell them I’ve gone abroad.”
In less remote parts of Scotland, people had their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in Drim, villagers relied on the services of the itinerant sweep, Peter Ray, with his old-fashioned brushes.
Chimney sweeps are still regarded as lucky at weddings, especially if they kiss the bride. Pete made extra money from being hired to kiss brides even though people swore he had only two baths a year: one at Christmas and the other at Easter. Mostly he was as black as the soot he took from the chimneys. He lived in a hut high up on the moors between Lochdubh and Drim. He drove an old-fashioned motorcycle with a sidecar to carry his brushes.
Milly obtained his phone number by calling the local store. Just before he arrived, the captain said mysteriously that he planned to be out for some time and repeated that if anyone asked for him, she should say he had gone abroad.
The sweep arrived just after he had left. Milly took one look at his soot-covered appearance, gave him a mug of tea, and then rushed to spread newspapers and old sheets over the drawing room carpet. She then said she was going to walk down to the village to get some groceries. She asked Pete how much it would cost and then gave him the money, saying if she was not back by the time he had finished to leave by the kitchen door, lock the door behind him, and put the key through the letter box. She had a spare key. Milly was determined to be out of the house for as long as possible in case whoever it was her husband wanted to avoid should come calling. Milly knew herself to be incapable of lying without giving herself away.
Also, she had had little chance of meeting any of the women from the village and was longing to talk to someone, anyone, who was not her husband. She spent very little in the local shop, knowing that her husband took a malicious delight in not giving the locals any custom, but she chatted to several of the women and a Mrs. Mackay invited her back for tea.
Happy for the first time in ages, Milly returned home after several hours. She was annoyed to find the kitchen door standing open, and then assumed that either the sweep had forgotten to lock it or her husband had come back. Milly picked up the sheets from the floor and put them in the laundry room. There were still crumpled newspapers in the hearth where she had left them to catch any fall of soot. She decided to have a glass of whisky before she did any more cleaning. She took one of her husband’s precious bottles of malt whisky from the sideboard and poured herself a generous measure. Her husband would not approve, but he was often so drunk in the evenings that she was sure he would assume he had drunk the whisky himself.
She sat down in the drawing room, sipping her drink and staring at the large stone fireplace. She had enjoyed her little bit of freedom. If only her husband would go away more often! If only, whispered a nasty little voice in her head, he were dead.
Feeling guilty, Milly took another sip of her drink, listening all the while for her husband’s return. The wind had got up and was blowing around the house.
Plop! Plop! Plop! Milly stiffened. What was that noise? A leaky tap in the kitchen? No, the noise seemed to be coming from the fireplace. Darkness was falling. She got up and switched on all the lights.
Plop!
The noise was coming from the fireplace. She walked over to it and stared. Something dark was falling in drips onto the paper. The chimney was old. If you bent down and looked up it, you could see the sky. Perhaps it was rain.
She caught a drop on the back of her hand and then held her hand under a lamp on a table by the fireside.
Milly let out a whimper of fear. Blood!
By the time Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth arrived from Lochdubh, Milly had shut herself in the kitchen. “It’s blood dripping down the chimney,” she cried when she opened the door to the tall policeman.
“Now, then,” said Hamish soothingly. “It may be a bird or animal stuck up there.”