We sat for a minute drilling looks at the scrap of paper as though it could possibly have more to tell us, then Alec spoke at last.
‘So he was going to leave her, then.’
‘And she murdered him?’ I said. ‘Impossible. And anyway, she was in on the whole thing. Driving the cart, hiding the burrs. She wouldn’t collaborate in her own abandonment.’
‘Well, perhaps the plan was that they were both going and he double-crossed her. She found out and she murdered him for that.’
‘I don’t like the way this murder keeps blinking on and off like a faulty lamp whenever it suits us,’ I said. ‘We’ve been very remiss about tracking down these loose ends, you know. If Robert didn’t drink enough whisky to explain his death, but he did drink some at least, and he took some poison such as the mushroom, which wouldn’t show up on a post-mortem examination… those are a great many things to assume.’
‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ said Alec. ‘We need to find out whether he downed a whole bottle in the changing room at the Rosebery Hall. If he didn’t then we know at least that there’s a case to answer.’
‘Unless it was a heart attack,’ I said, dispirited even though I knew it was wicked to be dispirited at the idea of a natural death instead of murder.
‘Which would be a monstrous coincidence,’ said Alec. ‘Now, who do we ask about the whisky?’
‘Pat Rearden, I suppose,’ I said. ‘He was there in the disrobing room at the end of the day. But I’d like to start by asking Mrs Dudgeon. I don’t expect she’ll tell us straight but I want to see her reaction to the question. Let’s go.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘Oh Lord,’ I said, as I swung the motor car into the mouth of the lane and saw the swarm of red bobbing around against the tree trunks. ‘We could have done without them.’
I honked my horn and the red disappeared as five of the little Dudgeons turned to see where the noise had come from. They misinterpreted the signal though and came whooping and galloping towards us, thinking they had been summoned. The first to arrive clambered up on to the running board and hung their arms over the open windows with not a thought to my paintwork and the others jostling from the back and shoving against their siblings hardly helped.
‘Now, now, be careful,’ I said, but my voice was drowned in the hubbub.
‘… another hurl in yer car, missus.’
‘… huvnae been in the front seat yet and Lila’s been twice.’
‘… on a picnic and take us wi’ ye, missus.’
This last request was so bold and so untempting that I could not help but laugh.
‘It’s good to see you all out playing in the sunshine again,’ I said. ‘No more demons and ghosties?’
‘Naw,’ said the boy I thought was Randall. ‘They’re away somewhere else.’
‘Aye, and Auntie Chrissie did her exercises,’ said Lila. ‘And they cannae come back.’
‘Well, isn’t that splendid,’ said Alec, after rolling his eyes at me. ‘You’re free to roam in perfect safety then. Excellent.’
‘Aye, as long as we stay oot o’ they shell holes,’ said a small boy.
‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘It’s never a good idea to go falling down holes, nor to shove your little sister down there, boys. Remember that.’
‘Well, we wouldnae fa’ cos there’s ladders,’ said Randall. ‘But we’re no goin’ doon the ladders cos there’s ghosties there for sure.’
My shoulders sank but Alec only threw back his head and laughed, telling them to get off the boards and let us proceed or there would be the ghosts of five squashed children in the woods. They were obviously rather taken with this idea and they fell away writhing on the ground as though shot and beginning already to emit their ghostly moans.
‘Unspeakable, aren’t they?’ Alec said as we rolled forward. ‘Do you think Chrissie Dudgeon really performed an exorcism?’
‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she went out with a broom and shouted “Shoo!” to humour them, but the “exercises” must have got into their heads from elsewhere. Rather nasty when it gets as serious as that.’
Mrs Dudgeon was alone when we reached the cottage, and the relief on her face when she opened the door and saw it was us told me that she had not yet had her visit from Inspector Cruickshank.
‘It’s only me,’ I assured her and she smiled before glancing at Alec.
‘I’ll wait out here,’ he said tactfully, patting his pockets in search of his pipe. This had not been agreed but I saw immediately that it was best and I followed Mrs Dudgeon inside.
‘How are you?’ I asked her as we sat, although I winced as I said it. How could she be anything but utterly wretched after all? When I looked closely, however, I was surprised to see that she looked rather better than I had ever seen her before, calmer and more rested, although admittedly with the unmistakable tug of bottomless sadness behind her eyes.
‘I’m no’ so bad,’ she said, perfectly summing up in these few words what showed in her face. ‘Thank ye kindly, madam, for comin’ and askin’.’
I squirmed a little at that. Not to say that I should not have visited again with simple condolences – it was obvious that Buttercup did not count these attentions among her duties – but my purpose was far from kind, however one viewed it. Even justice, if I dared cast my current pursuit in that light, was far from compassionate and tended to dole out its rewards and punishments more ruthlessly than I could, if it were ever left to me.
‘I need to ask you a question,’ I said. ‘Two questions actually.’ For I had thought of another; even less likely to get a straight answer but worthy of the airing nonetheless.
‘I wish to goodness ye’d -’ she said, but she bit it off.
‘On Friday evening,’ I went on as though she had not spoken, ‘when your husband returned to the Rosebery Hall, did he drink anything? Any whisky?’
She studied me for a moment before answering. I could practically hear the thoughts whirring, engaging and disengaging, as she decided how best to answer. Eventually she lifted her hands and let them fall into her lap with a soft clap.
‘A tate fae his flask,’ she said, and the defeat in her voice told me that she had given up trying to work out what I was up to and had simply answered me.
‘A slug of whisky from his hip flask?’ I said.
She nodded. ‘More than a slug, really. A good swallow, like. It wis full and he more or less drained it. Does that tell ye what ye want tae ken?’ She spoke as though I had beaten this out of her.
‘And is the flask of the usual sort of size?’ I asked.
She stood and went to the sideboard drawer, where she found it instantly. Of course she did, since it must have been in her husband’s pocket until the last few days and she must only just have decided where to keep it now, or where to store it while she decided whether to keep it at all. She passed it to me and I felt the weight of it in my hand, an everyday little flask, made of pewter, the size of my palm. There was no way the contents of this could kill a drinking man. I unscrewed the cap and sniffed it, jerking my head back sharply at the hated, half-familiar, fruity stink. Then I locked eyes again with Mrs Dudgeon. I was sure she was telling me the truth about this, and that sealed her innocence as far as I was concerned
‘I think your husband was murdered,’ I said, not even trying to dress it up or soften it in any way.
She shook her head, vehemently, blood instantly draining. ‘The doctor said himself it wis his heart. You were the one that told me.’
‘But that’s when he thought that Robert had been drinking whisky all the day long,’ I told her. ‘He knew – or thought he did – about the Burry Man’s day, he found some whisky still to be absorbed and he put the two together and concluded that there was enough whisky there to put a strain on Robert’s heart. But there wasn’t, was there, Mrs Dudgeon? And he didn’t have a weak heart, did he?’ She was shaking her head, looking defeated again, and numb with sorrow.