‘I had been wondering about those boots,’ I said.
‘They’re the prize for the borough race,’ said Mr Turnbull. ‘The race around the town boundary. A new pair of good boots is not to be sniffed at.’ I had never known a man like him for pushing wholesomeness down one’s throat until it made one choke and by this time I was ready to bet that Mr Turnbull had cold shower baths every day, he and his wife taking it in turns to pour buckets of water over each other in the garden and beat themselves with eucalyptus branches. I pictured this briefly. Perhaps not.
When we arrived at the Bellstane, what looked like a couple of hundred young women stood before us, industriously primping the curls and buffing the cheeks of babies ranging from a few months old – the lolling, useless stage – to bruising great beasts of almost two who tore at their bonnets and struggled to escape the restraining grasp. These were fearsome creatures, and I quickly decided that although I should have to show some enthusiasm for each of the brats, I was determined to make the final selection from amongst the smaller, gentler specimens. The winner, I was determined, was to be one which would not bite me as I held it up for its moment of glory.
I inquired about names and ages and trotted out a little snippet of praise or appreciation for each: ‘What a darling,’ ‘A fine strong boy,’ or, when confronted by a particularly nasty one, ‘Here’s a character, then!’ and it was easy enough to whittle out the absolutely hopeless, whose presence could only be explained by the blindness of mother-love. After that I was at a loss. I should have to shut my eyes and, so to speak, stick a pin in one, for no other option presented itself. Still, I was almost at the end of the line, my early estimate of two hundred having been panic-induced, of course: there were thirty. And only four to go. The next was quite a little one, wrapped in a gauzy shawl and held by a rather tired-looking woman in her forties.
‘Who is this?’ I asked, smiling sweetly towards the bundle. I had hit upon this phrasing after coming a cropper with the more obvious, when ‘What’s his name?’ had brought the answer ‘Susan’ and a scowl.
‘Doreen,’ said the woman, and opened the shawl a little. I peered in. Two shrewd, round blue eyes looked back at me from under a wisp of dark hair with just a glint of red in it. The baby could not have been more than six weeks old, still with the elfish look of the newborn, the look which I am sure is responsible for all those fairy tales about changelings. As her mother loosened the shawl further, a tiny fist sprang out and spread like a starfish in front of me. I bent closer and put my finger to her palm, expecting her to grasp it – my fingers had been grasped and sucked and even nibbled all along the line – but Doreen, looking past my face, sank her fingers deep into my fox fur. She was too tiny to chuckle, but she gave a small purr like a nursing cat and smiled faintly.
‘A taste for the finer things in life,’ I said to her mother, who gave a weary echo of the same faint smile, but said nothing. I had a cursory look at the rest of the creatures in the line, but my mind was made up.
‘The prize for the bonniest baby of all these very bonny babies,’ I said, ‘goes to little Doreen. Congratulations.’ Doreen’s mother beamed and nodded but all around were rumblings.
‘Wee Doreen Urquhart?’
‘She’s a poor wee scrap of a thing.’
‘She wouldnae make half of my Andrew here.’
Too late I remembered what Daisy had said about picking the fattest one or at least the one with the rosiest cheeks.
‘Yes,’ I went on, rather defensively. ‘Doreen Urquhart. There’s an enormous personality inside that little frame and, mark my words, she will grow up to be a great beauty.’ And I clapped my hands decisively, ignoring the glares.
This minor blunder of mine aside, the day seemed to be going off quite well. Cadwallader and Buttercup were circulating assiduously like a pair of diplomats at the very top of their game and from what I could tell they were managing to strike the right note. For one thing, Buttercup is such a darling close up, so chummy and unaffected, that people can’t help but take to her one-to-one; it is only when she is given a large arena that she causes affront. As for Cadwallader, he shied balls at coconuts with the best of them, but when he missed he gave a rueful shrug as though respect for the Dudgeons might have put him off his stroke. Similarly, Buttercup clapped and hurrahed at the races but handed over the prizes with a pat on the arm and a smiling sigh. The townspeople themselves, too, had that natural impulse to respect the dead which meant that some of the bawdy raucousness of the previous evening was missing; this even though the precise manner of respecting the dead in a Scottish village meant that any man sufficiently affected to be wearing a black tie and armband was likely to be quite seriously drunk.
So, it was not exactly decorous but it was far from the Bacchanalia that Mr Turnbull feared and I stuck it out for some considerable time. By two o’clock, however, Daisy and I began to wonder when we could decently make our way back to the motor car and retire for the day. I had purchased more cheap hatpins and sewing cases than I had housemaids to give them to, and Daisy wanted only to find a suitable small child to honour with the garish teddy bear she had won by lobbing coloured balls into goldfish bowls, and she too would be ready to go.
I craned around for Cad or Buttercup, preparing my excuses, but when I finally spotted the golden head – Cad’s real gold, not Buttercup’s April Sunrise – my heart rolled over. Inspector Cruickshank and a dapper little man I took to be Dr Rennick had drawn Cad aside in the doorway of a hairdresser’s shop under the terrace – shut up for Fair day – and the three were talking with bowed heads and solemn faces. Daisy and I made our way over.
‘Mrs Gilver, Mrs Esslemont,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘Good news. Or rather as good news as possible under the circumstances. Death by natural causes and no need for an inquiry. We’ll be able to return Dudgeon’s body to Mrs Dudgeon this evening.’ Cadwallader’s expression was very hard to read.
‘What did he die of?’ I asked.
‘Heart failure,’ said the little doctor. There was something just slightly off about his manner. He held his head back and looked down his nose through his half-spectacles, rather ridiculously since even Daisy and I were taller than him by inches and Cad and the inspector positively loomed.
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘That’s agreed then.’
This was a very odd remark and to cover it, I supposed, Cruickshank began to direct Daisy and me in rather hectoring tones to go and find Buttercup and get ready to visit Mrs Dudgeon, and when this petered out he took to bidding the doctor an elaborate farewell. Dr Rennick, with one hard-ish look at us all, melted away into the crowd. Meanwhile, I continued to stare at Inspector Cruickshank who, to his credit, after watching Dr Rennick’s back for a moment or two, then looking around above my head and whistling, finally met my eye.
‘You are quite right, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, obviously too cryptically for Daisy who looked at him in surprise. Before speaking again, he ushered us all out of the cramped doorway and we began to walk along the crowded street looking for Buttercup.
‘A death certificate is a very serious matter,’ Cruickshank went on. ‘But do not be alarmed. Robert Dudgeon did die of heart failure. Only it was brought on by alcoholic poisoning.’
‘Poisoning?’ echoed Daisy, stopping in her tracks.