‘That was very generous of him,’ I said. ‘Of Mr Balfour, I mean. He can’t have been all bad.’
‘He was as bad as they come,’ said Harry. ‘Not just a mean so-and-so, but useless – they’re all useless. Don’t know the meaning of a day’s work, just play like bairns their whole lives. He played at building toy boats, Miss Rossiter. Did you know that? A grown man and he spent his days making toy boats that didn’t even float.’
‘And you spent your days dressing him,’ I said. This point still puzzled me.
‘Not me,’ said Harry, ‘I’m only twenty-five. I’ve got plenty days left. If I escape the noose, like.’
He threw me such a challenging look as he said this, almost as though he were daring me to make something of it, that I felt a surge of anger rise up in me.
‘John’s not the only joker in the pack then,’ I said and had the pleasure of seeing that I had surprised him. ‘The police know that the back doors were locked and bolted, Harry. You are not under any suspicion.’
‘Is that right?’ he said. ‘They don’t think one of the girls would have unbolted a door then?’ This brought me up short and for a while I said nothing, remembering how Eldry had told me they all ‘helped each other out’, remembering how the two housemaids had rushed to comfort Mattie the evening before.
‘But Mrs Hepburn would have heard it,’ I said. ‘Her room is just by the kitchen door.’
‘Aye, and yours is right by the one in the sub-basement,’ Harry agreed. ‘You’d have heard for sure. If everyone was in their beds like good girls and boys somebody would have heard something.’ His tone was mocking but he could not, surely, have guessed that I was with Lollie all night and so I ignored him.
‘Harry,’ I said, ‘can I speak seriously to you for a minute?’
‘I don’t care that he’s dead and I don’t care who killed him,’ he said. ‘So if that’s what you’re on about the answer is no.’
‘But presumably, like me, you don’t want to see an innocent party accused?’ I said. ‘Even if you don’t mind the idea of the guilty going free.’ Harry nodded. ‘Well, it’s about Eldry.’
‘What about her?’
‘This morning, when you lifted her up and carried her downstairs, you didn’t happened to notice if there was a stain on her dress, did you? Or on her apron? Anywhere really.’
‘A stain?’ said Harry, looking uncomfortable for the first time.
‘A bloodstain. Only she said that she had got blood on herself when she went in with the tray.’
‘Well, I didn’t see it,’ said Harry. ‘So I don’t think-’ He stopped short and stared at me. ‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘how is that “clearing the innocent”? You’re checking what she said against what I say – that’s not “clearing” anyone.’
‘I was hoping you had seen something,’ I told him. ‘Otherwise, I don’t know what to think and what to say to the superintendent.’
‘And she just come out and told you this, did she?’ Harry asked.
‘I found her in my little laundry room, washing her clothes,’ I said. ‘And-’
‘God almighty,’ said Harry. ‘She’s never at that again, is she?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said, but Harry shook his head.
‘Ask one of the girls if you can’t guess,’ he said. ‘That man deserved ten knives in him for what he did, miss, if you ask me.’
‘Did he ever do anything to you?’ I asked. ‘Besides offend you.’
‘He did,’ Harry said, licking his lips and struggling with what appeared to be an unpleasant memory. ‘He belittled me, rubbed my nose in the difference between the two of us as if I wasn’t twice the man he’ll ever be if you stripped away the accident of birth and the trappings of privilege.’
‘Yes, but what did he actually do?’ I asked.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Harry.
‘You’ll have to tell the police.’
‘It’s not like that,’ he said, looking uncomfortable. ‘But I’ve never told anyone, that’s all.’
‘We don’t get to choose what we tell the police, my boy. Not in the midst of a murder investigation. Even you must see that.’
‘But it’s just daft,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell that copper – it’s just stupid. And I wouldn’t even know what to tell him.’ I waited and after a pause he blurted out: ‘He took my clothes.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘See? It’s daft. He went into my trunk down in the carriage house there and took my clothes away. I think it was after we were talking one time – him and me – about ownership and wealth, him acting all interested and that, drawing me out, and then he took every stitch I had to my name.’
It was, I thought, a neat way to undercut someone’s droning on about the sins of ownership but rather a nasty one. I cast a look at what Harry was wearing now and he caught me.
‘I got it all back again,’ he said, looking down at his shirtsleeves and black trousers. ‘But he’d cut the pockets out. And when I went and challenged him he said I wouldn’t be needing pockets since I had no time for possessions to put in them. It was late at night and he was drunk and I was… I was feart.’ He turned out his pockets now and I could see that they were made of mismatched cloth, stitched on the stubs of the pockets which had gone before. ‘I fixed them up myself,’ he said. ‘The girls would have helped me but I never told them. I was feart and I didn’t understand why and that scared me even more.’
‘Madness is frightening, Harry,’ I said. ‘I understand perfectly.’
‘Aye, madness,’ he said, leaping on my suggestion as though it was a stroke of genius. ‘He made me feel as if I was going mad too.’ He shook his head as though to cast it off from him. ‘Like how any chance he got he would take the scissors to my coat or snip away at my breeks cuffs. Just wee digs, just to remind me.’
I nodded. This Pip Balfour – creeping about with scissors, snipping away – sounded exactly like Lollie’s midnight visitor with the nasty taste in poetry.
‘And yet you stayed,’ I said, as I had said to Lollie too.
‘I did,’ said Harry. He had shrugged off the troubling memories and was smiling again. ‘And the glorious day has dawned, miss, hasn’t it? Not the proper glorious day, but this’ll do to be going on with.’ With that he left, switching off the light and leaving me alone in the dark.
7
By luncheon, Mr Faulds too had made the journey up to the little parlour and back again and so, with all possible suspects interviewed – for Mrs Hepburn had indeed been vociferous on the topic of her sharp ears and the secure fastening of the house at night-time – PC Morrison was relieved of his watch and was given instead the even duller task of standing outside Pip Balfour’s bedroom door guarding the body until the coroner’s cart came to take it away to the mortuary. Superintendent Hardy had departed, hurrying off down the stairs to the street, trailing sheaves of notes behind him – and as for Sergeant Mackenzie, he had never returned after his first exit. Lollie was asleep, luncheon was served, all was calm.
‘So,’ said Mr Faulds, gripping the edge of the table with both hands and looking at his staff ranged up and down the sides, ‘I think a short grace is in order.’ Eleven heads bowed. Ten remained bowed, but I admit that mine popped up again to watch him. ‘Dear Father,’ he said, with his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his hands pressed together, ‘we thank Thee for Thy bounty and for our deliverance from dark days. We ask that Thou bless this house in its hour of uncertainty and bring peace to the troubled breast of our dear mistress. We pray that Thy mercy be showered on the soul of our departed master and we ask that Thou willst bring us all safely through the storm to a happier future according to Thy holy will. Amen.’