The evening before, after all, I had committed a below-stairs solecism far greater than tucking up with the butler when no one was looking. I had slipped out to a tryst with – as we used to call them in my mother’s day when they were absolutely forbidden in the servants’ hall at home – a follower.
We had been ensconced as usual, Mr Faulds, Mrs Hepburn and I in the armchairs, Mattie at the piano, the girls clustered about the lamp sewing, the boys spread around the table reading and laying out Patience, when the sound of the area gate opening drew our ears. John, who was nearest the window, leaned back in his chair and craned upwards.
‘Who’s this then?’ he said. ‘Some toff with two dogs. What’s he after?’
I rose and hurried out to the passageway.
‘I’ll see to him,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘I was needing to stretch my legs anyway.’
Mr Faulds, in his shirtsleeves, was happy to let me and, although Stanley huffed and puffed a little about whose job it was to greet visitors, he did not go so far as to stand up and race me for it.
‘What on earth are you thinking, Alec?’ I hissed when I had opened the door to him. ‘Shush, Bunty! There’s a good girl. You can’t just tool up here and knock. Miss Rossiter will be put out with no character.’
‘Needs must,’ said Alec. ‘I had to talk to you. I’ve been to North Berwick.’
‘And?’ I said. ‘Settle down, Bunty.’
‘Can’t you come out for a minute?’ said Alec. ‘She’ll never shut up unless we walk up and down. Really, Dandy, I have to agree with Hugh sometimes – you have spoiled her.’
I drew the door over behind me and, hatless and in my cardigan, followed him up the steps and out onto the street.
‘Well?’ I said when we were a few steps away from the house and the servants’ hall window, at which I was sure all were gathered by now. ‘You’ve been to North Berwick and…?’
‘Maggie,’ said Alec, ‘never arrived.’
I halted and was pulled off my feet by Bunty. Alec caught my arm.
‘She was expected on Sunday,’ he said, ‘but didn’t show up. No sign of her on Monday either and when Sir George’s housekeeper – Sir George Finlayson; he was, as you suggested, easy enough to find – telephoned to the Balfours on Tuesday it was to be told of Pip Balfour’s murder. After which, understandably, the housekeeper didn’t think she could press the matter any more.’
‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ I said. ‘She needs to be found. And we must check on Miss Abbott too. Lollie told me she went to a Mrs Ruthven in Braid Hills.’
‘Where?’
‘South Edinburgh, beyond Morningside – geographically and socially. Terribly genteel.’
‘And has she been heard of? Did she write to anyone to say how she was settling in or anything?’
‘I don’t think she was particular chums with any of them,’ I said. ‘No one has said much about her since I arrived.’ We had got to the kiosk on the corner of Darnaway Street now. ‘Do you have any change? No time like the present and I’ve got the most horrid feeling about this.’
I asked the girl on the exchange for Ruthven of Braid Hills and was put through quite promptly. The bell rang out five or six times and then was answered by a servant of exquisite reserve and even more exquisite South Edinburgh vowels.
‘The Ruthven residence,’ she intoned. ‘To whom am I speaking to?’
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘My name is Gilver and I’m calling in connection with a Miss Jessie Abbott, who I believe began employment with you a few-’
‘Well, you believe more than you’ve leave to then,’ said the servant, abandoning the reserve and the vowels both. ‘And if you’re a friend of the besom you can give her a message from me and tell her she’d no business leaving my mistress in the lurch that way with no more than a scrap of a note to excuse her.’ Alec was watching me and I shook my head at him as I listened.
‘I don’t suppose you kept the note?’ I said into the mouthpiece.
‘What? Who is this?’ said the voice. ‘What’s it got to do with you what anyone in this house did with anything?’
‘If you can lay your hand on it,’ I said, ‘I think the police’ – I kept speaking through the inevitable squeak this produced – ‘might want to see it. Superintendent Hardy will no doubt be ringing you up or coming to see you. Perhaps you might warn Mr and Mrs Ruthven.’ I put down the receiver and Alec and I stared at one another until someone waiting for the telephone knocked on the kiosk window and made us both jump.
‘Right,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll go straight to the police station and tell Hardy – if he’s still there at this hour. Or try to get whoever is there to ring him up and tell him. You go back – and for goodness’ sake keep your head down.’
‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty I can ask about Abbott and Maggie leaving: if anyone remembers anyone hanging around or if either of them voiced any worries.’
‘I absolutely forbid it,’ Alec said. ‘Unless you promise me that you’ll say nothing, I shall go back into that kiosk, tell all to Hugh and get you hauled off the case and back to Gilverton before you can blink.’
I could not help smiling at this, but he was not to be swayed.
‘Two women have left that house and never been heard of again,’ he said. ‘Superintendent Hardy can ask all the questions in the morning.’
I gave Bunty her second passionate farewell of the day and stood with my hand on the area railings watching them carry on along the street. Before they disappeared from view, though, a thought struck me and I raced after them calling out Alec’s name.
‘Get Hardy to ask who the housekeeper at Berwick spoke to,’ I said. A third farewell and they were gone. I descended, let myself in and returned to the servants’ hall and the inevitable teasing. My pink cheeks and breathlessness were, of course, the result of the last-minute sprint but there was no use telling that to Phyllis and John, who joshed me mildly for the rest of the evening and were rewarded with smirks from the others. As to the equally inevitable questions about the identity of the toff with two dogs, my brainwave had been to pass him off as Great Aunt Gertrude’s chauffeur, mystifyingly not staying in the carriage house while his mistress was chez nous. This only set off more questions and caused more ribaldry in the end, as they wondered aloud what he wanted with me and hazarded opinions as to whether he were really a chauffeur at all.
‘He’s too posh,’ said Clara. ‘Did you see his shoes?’
‘And too good-looking,’ said Harry, causing John to kick him under the table.
‘Maybe he’s her “companion”,’ said Phyllis.
‘Or a relation down on his luck,’ said Eldry.
‘Oh, you mean like a “nephew”,’ said Phyllis, which puzzled Eldry and made John and Harry hoot with laughter. Mrs Hepburn, with a frown towards Millie, shushed her.
‘Great Aunt Goitre?’ said John. ‘Never!’
So, in the morning, when I revealed that my errand was a shared one with this mysterious stranger the giggles and wondering looks were no surprise and I showed great stoicism as I endured them.
Still, I was glad that there was no one about in the mews when I emerged from the carriage house to find Alec, Millie and Bunty waiting there in Great Aunt Gertrude’s Sunbeam: he did not look much like a chauffeur.
‘Back or front?’ said Alec as he got into the driver’s seat. ‘Where would Miss Rossiter sit?
‘She’d sit in the front with her bag clutched on her knees,’ I said. ‘But I’m going in the back, of course. The dogs can go in beside you. Now, Mattie turned left at the top of the steps, so I imagine that he’ll be heading straight up the Bridges and out of town on the Peebles Road towards Penicuik.’