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Authors: Catriona McPherson

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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.’

‘Hm,’ I answered, thinking that if we did have cards made up or put ourselves in the Post Office Directory as Mrs Gilver and Mr Osborne, the world being what it was, Mr Osborne would have cases coming out of his pipe and Mrs Gilver would be reduced to making up invoices and filing. (Not that any of our cases had ever produced much to be filed. What is it that people who file file, I wonder?) ‘You’ll be ten steps ahead before today’s out if you’ll shut up and listen.’

‘I’m all ears,’ Alec said.

And so I told him about Mirren Aitken of Aitkens’ Emporium and how she had fallen in love with Dugald Hepburn of House of Hepburn and how the Aitkens had refused to countenance such miscegenation, such soiling of the good name of Aitken with such upstarts, and such poor stock, with such shameful secrets they could not be spoken of, and how the Aitken obduracy had driven Mirren away from her home into the cold, cruel world.

Alec was silent when I finished.

‘So she’s run off with him,’ he said. ‘What are we supposed to do about it? It’s her father’s job to stand over the boy with a shotgun.’

‘Yes, but listen,’ I said. ‘Of the four Aitkens I’ve met this morning only her paternal grandmother agrees with you. Her mother – Abigail – seems convinced that the girl is in some kind of peril – no,
not
that kind; stop snorting – and her father is, I am sure, just as rattled but he’s trying to hide it and bungling the attempt so that nothing about his demeanour makes any sense at all.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘The other grandmother,’ I went on, ignoring him, ‘the one who sent me the card, is furious. White with suppressed rage. And – here’s the thing, Alec – she wanted me to come tomorrow. Not today. She was livid that I’d come today. Even livider that I spoke to her daughter and the other granny, as if some wonderful plan has got away from her and she can’t get it back again.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘So I think it’s pretty clear what we need to do. I’ll go along to the jubilee and keep an eye on them all, and you come and do what I’d have done tomorrow, today. See if you can work out why Grandmama didn’t want me to.’

‘And what
would
you have done tomorrow?’ said Alec. ‘Or today if she hadn’t stopped you.’

I noted that all thoughts of the equal partnership had withered and he was asking for instructions like an errand boy.

‘Find these Hepburns, find out if Dugald has taken off too. See if anyone has an idea where they might have gone to. You might even find her, if they’ve taken her in. If they’re all for it on his side.’

‘Hepburn,’ said Alec slowly, writing down the name. ‘Did the girl’s family say the boy’s lot were keen then?’

‘Well, Granny Mary hinted that they might be climbers,’ I said. ‘But apart from Granny Bella no one said much about them at all. They can hardly pronounce the name of Hepburn without choking.’ I would have said more but I could hear footsteps approaching and so we rang off, with a plan in place to meet for tea and share our afternoon’s gleanings.

‘Ready, Mrs Gilver?’ said Mary, stalking into the room and looking just a little disappointed not to overhear the end of my conversation. She glared at the instrument as though she hoped to discern some fading echo of what had been spoken into it. ‘You can come along in the first motor with Mrs John and myself.’

But Bella – Mrs John – coming in at her heels would have none of it.

‘Nonsense, Mary,’ she said. ‘You and I are going together and Jack and Abby were to follow on with Mirren. So it makes sense for Mrs Gilver to go in Mirren’s place.’

‘Oh, yes, please do, Mrs Gilver,’ said Abigail’s voice from the doorway where she was hovering. ‘Everyone will be expecting three of us, you see.’

I smiled uncertainly, not sure if she really meant to suggest that onlookers would mistake me for a twenty-year-old girl and let the awkward absence go unremarked.

‘And if anyone else is going to be in the first car it should be Jack,’ said Bella Aitken,
sotto voce
to her sister-in-law. She was not quite above all scrabbling for precedence then; she had an eye on her son’s deserts as the Aitken heir.

‘I’ll be very happy to,’ I said to Abigail, judging that more might be learned in a journey with her than with her mother. ‘Good to see you’ve decided to go after all.’ For she had substituted a short linen coat for the shawl and had most of the misrule which reigned in place of her crowning glory hidden with a straw hat, but it had to be admitted that these efforts seemed to have sapped her and she was paler than ever and wavering a little as she stood there.

‘Good,’ said Bella Aitken. ‘Right then, Mary.’ She too had tidied herself a little; the pins were gone, although the curls they had been holding were still in place in a row across her head under the brim of a hat which looked to be an old friend. The carpet slippers were gone too and she stumped away across the hall in a stout pair of gunmetal-grey shoes which managed to make her feet look bigger than ever.

A pair of liveried chauffeurs had brought around to the front door two large motorcars of some American provenance. They had their tops thrown back in that way that made me think of perambulators on a sunny day in the park and there were quantities of mauve and gold ribbon festooned around them in the manner of royal carriages. Mary Aitken gave another of her lizard smiles as she saw them and then she frowned.

‘Those rosettes,’ she said. ‘They’re covering the coats of arms. Couldn’t we tuck them up somehow?’ She began to shove some trailing ends of ribbon up away from the plaques on the motorcar doors – peacock feathers and shoals of little fishes, I saw.

‘For the Lord’s sake,’ said her sister-in-law. ‘You’ll have the whole lot undone if you’re not wary.’

‘I don’t think anyone will be wondering who we are, Aunt M,’ said Jack, who was standing on the steps with his hat on the back of his head staring rather aghast at the motorcars. His eyebrows rose even further as one of the chauffeurs climbed down and began fixing little purple flags to the wing mirrors. I cleared my throat and pulled my mouth down hard at the corners, trying not to smile.

‘And you’ll go the right way,’ said Mary Aitken to one of the chauffeurs. ‘The way I told you.’

‘Round and up the wynd, madam,’ said the man.

BOOK: Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

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