While we waited in the library, I took the chance to hammer home to Cad one point I felt our earlier discussion had left rather vague.
‘I do hope you realize, darling, that even though you’ve retained my services’ – I pronounced it as I thought a real private detective might: ‘a-retayned may a-suhvices’, which was lost on Cad, of course, hardly Henry Higgins after all – ‘I can’t guarantee to find anything out. And if I do, I’m an absolutely independent agent.’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Cad, then spoiled it by adding, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I probably won’t discover anything at all, but I’m setting out to discover “what” and “whether”, not to confirm “that”.’
‘Daisy told me this would happen,’ said Cad. ‘She warned me that I wouldn’t understand what on God’s green earth you were doing, much less talking about, but that I should leave you to it and it would all come right in the end.’
‘That’s the thing, you see,’ I told him earnestly. ‘It depends what you mean by “come right”.’
‘And there you go again.’
‘Look,’ I persisted. It was quite, quite crucial to establish this, I thought, and I was most impressed with myself for my scrupulousness. After all, I wanted nothing more than to racket about in Queensferry, on expenses, with Alec, and if I ever got Cad to listen to what I was saying and take it in, I might find myself back in Perthshire instead, stuck with the children all day and nothing to look forward to but spending the evening with Hugh. ‘Put it this way: if you were the peddler of a patent home Marceller – no electricity, singeing or stickiness – I would not be one of your own medical doctors saying that hair would be strengthened and rejuvenated with every application, Cad, I would be the woman who wrote to the papers saying mine had all fallen out and not grown back again. Which is not to say that you are, of course.’
Cad’s face told me before I was finished that my analogy had not been helpful, so I told him straight.
‘I think something strange is going on,’ I said. ‘Clearly Robert Dudgeon was troubled on Thursday evening, and Mrs Dudgeon is worried and perplexed as well as grief-stricken now. And Robert died. If he was murdered -’
‘He was.’
‘If he was murdered, then his fears, his widow’s anxieties and his death might all be explained at one fell swoop. But it may just as easily be that he was worried about one thing, his wife is worried about another and in the middle of it all his heart gave out from alcoholic poisoning. I just want to make it very clear that although I know you feel dreadfully guilty, Cad dear, I am not a salver of your conscience in this. I’m a…’
‘Seeker of truth.’
‘Yes! Exactly.’ I had, at last, got through his glowing, creamy skin. ‘I’m a seeker of truth, and I’m afraid that unearthing grubby but unrelated secrets is -’
‘Your speciality?’ said Alec’s voice. I had been so caught up, I had managed to miss their advancing tread and he and Buttercup stood framed in the doorway.
‘But darling, there’s your card right there!’ said Buttercup. ‘Dandy Gilver: Servant of Truth. And underneath in italics: Grubby Secrets a Speciality.’
‘I’ll order five hundred to be going on with,’ I said, drily. ‘I was going to say “an unavoidable hazard”. Well, Alec?’
‘Quite,’ said Alec, sitting.
‘What did you think of the oubliette?’ I went on. ‘Larder? Or not?’
‘Larder would be such a waste,’ said Alec, turning innocent eyes on Cad and Buttercup. ‘An ice house, perhaps. Or a hot bubble bath, although the plumbing would be a bit of a challenge, and off the kitchen is hardly handy. Venison smokery? Or, if one could put in a large pane of glass, it would make a tremendous fish tank. You could grow your own lobsters, de Cassilis. Or, substitute wire mesh for the glass and it could be an aviary. If I were Mrs Murdoch, I’d like nothing more than a pair of peach-cheeked lovebirds wittering away while I pounded my bread dough.’
This was going far too far and, although the pair of peach-cheeked lovebirds opposite me in armchairs seemed impervious, I frowned at him.
‘Alec is teasing, Buttercup,’ I said.
‘Alec’s doing what?’ said Cad. Buttercup squealed.
‘Dandelion,’ she said threateningly.
‘Frederica Ambrosine Rosamund Jane?’ I said.
‘What a memory!’ she exclaimed. ‘Small wonder you’ve turned Sherlock, darling.’
Cadwallader looked at his pocket watch with an extravagant gesture and sighed.
‘I followed every word for almost three minutes then,’ he said. ‘But I’m lost again.’
‘Give up now,’ said Alec. ‘Watch their teeth and smile when they smile, old man, it’s the only way.’
‘Oh, so it’s not a transatlantic problem,’ said Cad, sweet in his ingenuousness.
‘God no,’ said Alec. ‘Now, since my cover story for being here is that I’m helping you with your stocking, what say we go up on to those splendid ramparts and you show me the lie of the land.’
‘Ooh, speaking of the lie of the land, Cad,’ I said, ‘are there really shell holes on the Cassilis estate?’
‘Shell holes?’ echoed Cad. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I hardly know,’ I said. ‘Holes from shelling, I suppose. Or trenches just possibly.’
‘Neither,’ said Cad. ‘Why would anyone shell here?’
‘They wouldn’t,’ said Alec. He stood and turned. ‘Let’s go. Unless there’s anything you need me for this minute, Dan?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to fill you in of course, but after lunch will do.’ Buttercup smirked at me, adding to the ruffled and slightly foolish feelings which were whisking around me like the tails of hungry cats around one’s ankles.
‘Alec,’ said Buttercup, ‘I meant to ask you: how did Dandy persuade you off the moor in the end?’
‘Oh, easily,’ Alec said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘I far prefer hunting to shooting, and hunting clues beats hunting foxes any day.’
‘Lunch at two?’ said Cad, halfway to the door.
‘Mrs Murdoch looked to be boning a duck when we passed through,’ said Buttercup. ‘So don’t be late.’
Mrs Murdoch had indeed boned a duck, and had made choux pastry and whipped rather a lot of cream, all since it was Sunday I presume, so Buttercup and Cad were happy to laze about in the library afterwards and made no protest when I commandeered Alec to walk in the park and receive his briefing. I had told him very little over the telephone the day before, only that it seemed there might be another ‘case’ in the offing and since I knew he had no party with him – he had only very recently come into his estate at Dunelgar and his little bit of grouse moor and fledgling staff of servants were not yet ready for a public – what did he think?
‘I stopped in at Gilverton on the way,’ he said now, as we set off down the slope, my summer shoes skidding slightly on the close velvet nap of the sheep-cropped grass.
‘Hugh’s at Wester Ross with the Wallaces until Tuesday,’ I said. ‘Yeek!’ I slipped down another yard. ‘Should have worn boots. And the children are off to the seaside with the Esslemonts. That’s why Daisy had to go.’
Alec stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Daisy has taken your children off to the seaside?’ he said in owlish wonderment.
‘Hardly, darling! I mean my boys are off to the seaside – Arbroath: brrr! – with the Esslemont boys and both nannies, and Daisy went home to wave them off. She and Silas are in Monte until September now.’ I sighed, as one must when one’s friend is in Monaco and oneself is in Scotland, but actually I hate gambling – having, as my boys tell me, a poker face that’s not even good for snap – and with my sallow skin I cannot lie in a beach chair without turning as brown as a tinker; my pink legs from Thursday were already golder than Buttercup’s hair.