Jack Aitken looked at me with some interest, clearly wondering who I was, pitched into the middle of the family drama this way, then turned his wife back towards the room and, with one arm around her shoulder and the other hand patting one of hers, brought her towards us again.
‘Silly!’ he said. ‘No one knows yet. Of course you can “face them”. We’ll say Mirren has a cold.’
‘I don’t know why you say no one knows “yet”, Jack,’ said Mrs Ninian. ‘There’s no reason for anyone to find out at all. Ever.’
‘We won’t be able to hide a marriage,’ said Bella. ‘It’ll get out in the end. And even if they never came back, people would put two and two together. Stands to reason.’
Mrs Ninian twitched her head at that, shaking off the notion as a horse would a fly, but it was Jack Aitken’s reaction which interested me. He spoke to his mother in a light voice and with another of the fond smiles he had been bestowing on his trembling wife.
‘You might have been that kind of girl in your day, Mother.’ Bella Aitken gave a bark of laughter. ‘But not my little Mirren. She would never do such a thing to her mother and me.’
And yet I found him not the least bit convincing. He sounded enough like the juvenile lead in a drawing-room comedy and, with his sleek hair and fine features, he even looked quite like one – a middle-aged sort of juvenile lead, as one finds in repertory companies of the second and third tier – but there was a slick of sweat on his upper lip and the hand gripping Abigail’s shoulder was as tense as a claw. Also, like a third-rate actor, he had made a mistake with his delivery.
‘But if you don’t think Mirren has eloped, Mr Aitken,’ I said, pouncing on the error, ‘what do you think she has done?’ He frowned. ‘Or do you agree with your wife? That something has been done to her?’
I had the gratification of seeing Jack Aitken freeze.
‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ I said. ‘My name is Dandy Gilver and I’m a private detective. Mrs Aitken engaged me but of course I shall be working on behalf of all of you who are hoping for Mirren’s safe return.’ Wicked of me – that ‘Mrs Aitken’. The poor man’s eyes rolled around the three women like billiard balls after a clumsy break.
At that moment, the butler, Trusslove, entered the room already drawing breath to speak. He hesitated upon seeing the tableau – the Jack Aitkens embracing, Mrs John still on the floor, Mrs Ninian glaring poison darts at me – but only for a second or two.
‘Light refreshments in the garden room, madam,’ he said. ‘As ordered. I’ve set a place for Mrs Gilver, naturally.’
They could hardly get rid of me – they dared not even try – but their longing to and their hiding it hung over the garden room like a black rain cloud so that, of the four of them, only Bella, Mrs John, made a good meal, forking thick slices of ham onto her plate and demolishing ripe tomatoes in the most sensible way, by popping them whole into her mouth and munching. The other three picked and nibbled, sipped barley water and fiddled with their napkins. At least Mr and Mrs Jack did. Mary, Mrs Ninian, picked and nibbled and stared at me. For my part, I ate just enough to excite no attention (as Nanny Palmer had trained me to do) sitting in polite silence for just the proper length of time before I began speaking.
‘The obvious first question,’ I said, ‘is who it is you’re so sure she hasn’t eloped with.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Bella said. ‘I think she has.’ Abigail picked up her barley water glass and her hand shook so badly as she did so that a little of it spilled onto the tablecloth. She stared at the blot, watching it spreading. Her mother tutted and I saw her push a hand up under the cloth, checking that the table protector was there.
‘And who is the man?’ I persisted.
‘A mere boy,’ said Jack. ‘And Mirren such a child herself.’
‘A most unsuitable family,’ said Mary. ‘Really quite unthinkable.’
‘Oh?’ I said and turned. ‘You don’t agree, Mrs Aitken?’
‘I’ve nothing against any of them,’ Bella said. ‘And Dugald himself-’
‘They have a shameful secret,’ said Mary, drowning her out. ‘Bad blood, Mrs Gilver. Weak blood. Not suitable talk for the dinner table. Luncheon, either.’ She flushed and cleared her throat, hoping to hide the slip.
‘Oh Mary,’ said Bella again. ‘There’s nothing shameful about it. All families have their black sheep. Look at the Tsars of Russia! Look at Prince John! And you could say as much about the Aitkens if you had that turn of mind as you can about the Hepburns any day.’
‘Hepburns?’ I said. ‘Hepburn as in-?’
‘Drapers,’ said Mary, as though she were saying ‘vermin’. ‘They’ve opened up a little shop at the bottom of the High Street. Opposite the police station.’
I said nothing to that. House of Hepburn was perhaps more modest than Aitkens’ Emporium, but it was still a sizeable enterprise, and to my eyes it had looked as solidly established as the Emporium any day.
‘It was getting on for twenty years ago, Mary,’ Bella said, rolling her eyes at me and not troubling to hide the fact from her sister-in-law. ‘And as for “drapers”, let he who is without…’
‘Ninian was a tailor,’ said Mary. ‘John was a businessman as much as any banker. And Aitkens’ in case you have forgotten celebrates fifty years today.’ She snapped round to face me and gave me the old on-and-off-again smile. ‘I hope we can persuade you to join us for the celebrations, Mrs Gilver.’
‘Mother,’ said Abigail, speaking for the first time. ‘Mrs Gilver isn’t here to toast Aitkens’. The sooner she starts looking for Mirren…’ Then, saying her daughter’s name, she ran down like an unwound clock and returned to silence.
‘I’d be delighted to come,’ I said, for I had been plotting.
When we had finished our coffee I turned to Bella.
‘Can you direct me to a telephone, Mrs Aitken?’ I heard the creak of bombazine as Mrs Ninian stiffened beside me.
‘Certainly,’ Bella said. ‘Nearest one’s in the morning room.’ She clicked her tongue and then went on: ‘Easiest way is out into the garden, up to the drive, back in the front door and it’s first left.’
I rose and made my purposeful way to the open french windows. (We were down on the basement floor in a room I guessed to be directly below the library, and I was grateful for the directions; I should never have found my way back through the passages of the house and might have had trouble getting rid of whoever volunteered to guide me.)
Before I was quite out of the room, Mary cleared her throat.
‘Who are you-?’ she began. ‘That is, are you-? Are you going to ring the police?’
‘I wasn’t,’ I said, ‘but would you like me to?’
Various sounds emerged from all of them then and I made my escape.
You deserve to be spanked with your hairbrush, Dandelion, I told myself as I scrambled up the grassy slope to the gravel. The front door was open and I marched straight in.
Thankfully Alec was at home but I had a measure of listening to do before I got the chance to start talking.
‘Hah!’ he said. ‘Well, then. See? What did I tell you? And so here you are, a matter of hours later, cap in hand, humbly begging.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I agreed. ‘Beg beg. But I couldn’t have brought you. She wrote to me, just to me, and it would have looked dreadful to have pitched up with a burly sidekick.’
The ‘burly’ mollified him a little.
‘Still, Dandy,’ he said, ‘we might like to put this thing on a proper footing someday. Or I’m always going to be ten steps behind you.’