Rose McQuinn 7 - Deadly Legacy (21 page)

'Perhaps he hid it in the house in Duddingston.'

Mr Hayward shook his head. 'I think that is unlikely. I suspect that he hid it in that missing section of the map. Here - somewhere on Arthur's Seat. Consider the hundreds of caves, secret places where a man might leave treasure, intending to come back for it. But our Reslaw never came. Something happened to him. He died or fled.'

Hayward sat back, smiled. 'And that is all I have to report to you, Mrs McQuinn, just a fraction of the story, but it perhaps explains the two pieces of the map. I am sure Mr Macmerry will be particularly interested in the portion you told me was found here in the Tower.' He paused. 'I trust that Mr Macmerry is well?'

I explained that he would be returning within the week and as Hayward took his leave Thane came loping down the hill towards us, leaping over the garden wall.

The departing visitor regarded this huge apparition with apprehension, as might any stranger to the district, and I said reassuringly, 'That's Thane - he belongs here.'

'Your dog?' Mr Hayward was taken by surprise, and glanced from my slight shape to the huge deerhound who came and stood at my side. 'More like a pony than a dog, if I may say so.' And I could feel Thane wince as he continued, 'A small dog like a pug would have seemed more appropriate.'

At that Thane shook himself and with a haughty look in Hayward's direction made what would have been in human fashion a dignified exit in the direction of the kitchen.

Mr Hayward watched him and sighed, 'Better than a houseful of cats, though. Yes, a definite improvement. Can't stand the creatures, smelly brutes. Place for animals is outside, not indoors.'

I wouldn't have gone that far,
I thought, closing the door on him and avoiding the creaky board which so irritated me as I entered the kitchen.

His visit had given me much to think about, particularly Hedley Marsh. Now I had a clearer picture of the old man, the recluse taking solace for his loneliness by surrounding himself with an army of cats, investing in qualities of loyalty and devotion above human frailty and betrayal.

Tomorrow I would visit Duddingston. Amy would be agog with news, and I thought of the Frenchman who had doubtless been taken only for questioning, dramatically interpreted as an arrest by Amy. But even returned as innocent, untold harm would have been done to his already damaged reputation. Poor fellow, shy and retiring, stripped of dignity, questioned, perhaps even threatened, for no other crime than preferring his own society to that of gossipy neighbours who wanted to know all his business.

Perhaps he was Mrs Lawers' killer, but I doubted that; my money was on the bullying man Amy had seen and his accomplice, the bogus Miss Hinton.

My thoughts turned to another Frenchman, Simon Reslaw. A Jacobite spy living in Lord Tweeddale's household in 1745. John Lawers had mentioned an ancestor who had served with the prince. Could Simon Reslaw and Justin Lawers be one and the same?

A feeling of triumph. Someone in that family had passed down the secret of the Lawers legacy and generations of them had been searching for its whereabouts in vain ever since.

And that led me to the intriguing question of the fugitive in the secret room of Solomon's Tower one and a half centuries ago - was his name Simon Reslaw, aka Justin Lawers, and where had he hidden thirty thousand pounds?

But as I climbed the stairs that night, I touched the panel that operated the door to the secret room, which I had not mentioned to Hayward. It wasn't my secret, somehow, and I was cautious, even nervous about imparting that information to anyone. Ominous, even scary by night, I had never been anxious to cross its threshold even in daylight, where so little penetrated the gloom from the long narrow window invisible from outside, unlike in my cheerful room next door.

Preparing for bed, I wondered if Hedley Marsh knew of its existence. Mr Hayward had given me plenty to think about regarding Vince's lifelong bitterness, the inescapable blight of the stamp of illegitimacy, which had clung like a shroud through his formative years. How different it might have been, not only for Vince but for Pappa, who had married his mother and given her boy an education.

And for the rest of us. Had Hedley found his Lizzie, she would never have met Pappa. Emily and I would never have been born.

It made me shiver.

Should I tell Vince that he had wasted a lifetime's anger based on hatred for the unknown man who had fathered him and wronged his mother, when the truth was that his conception was worthy of any novelette? Not a sordid interlude but a tragic reality. He was not the result of rape but a love child whose father had, over the years, sought his mother in vain.

Hedley Marsh must have often seen Vince, first as a small boy playing near the Tower, then as a young man, a student heading towards the golf course with his friends, when a closer look had made him suspect the truth. Shyly, slyly even, he had tried to strike up a further acquaintance. But Vince hated and detested the old man who seemed to fawn upon him.

Would revealing too late the reason why he had been bequeathed Solomon's Tower merely add another surge of guilt for his treatment of Hedley Marsh? Glad now I had not heard this story before Vince's visit, I resolved to keep it to myself while wondering if Pappa, who had visited Hedley Marsh in his last days, knew the truth and had also kept silent.

Solomon's Tower, my home, was becoming a house of mystery - like the skin of an onion, revealing its secrets layer by layer, one by one. What others lay in store, patiently awaiting discovery?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

We were in for one of our dramatic changes of weather. I awoke to look out of the window and discover that Arthur's Seat was enveloped in thick mist. I was trapped in a cotton-wool world. Nothing beyond the windows but a great white shroud. A silence that penetrated everywhere.

Opening the back door it was as if in that soundless world all life had been extinguished. Not even a seabird, a skein of wild geese or swans flying over to feed on St Margaret's Loch. The garden birds were mute. None of the usual daily noises, the echo of a train's whistle approaching Waverley, or horses' hooves on the way to Duddingston.

I always found this claustrophobic world quite terrifying, with not the slightest notion of when Arthur's Seat would become visible again and I would breathe in the clear air, a captive released from prison.

This phenomenon fortunately only happened twice or thrice a year and I had it explained, my limited knowledge of science taking in only that it had something to do with cold and warm air meeting, in clouds sailing in from the Firth of Forth.

That sounded innocent enough until encountered first-hand. I knew people had been lost on Arthur's Seat, had stumbled on rabbit holes, lain for hours with limbs seriously injured, or had fallen to their deaths from Salisbury Crags, caught out in the sudden descent of such weather.

Normally Thane didn't like it either and showed no desire to leave my side, or the comfort of the peat fire, but today was different. Unperturbed for once, he let himself out by lifting the latch with his nose, to be immediately swallowed up by the swirling white mist.

I didn't like being left alone in the Tower and realised that this sinister weather added to my feeling of vulnerability, a condition that had worsened considerably since the break-in - the burglary that never was.

In a curious way I would have felt less uneasy if he had stolen something, but the fact remained that he had come for a definite purpose and, having failed, he would come again.

With that in mind, I kept my derringer in the deep pocket of my bicycling garments, well adapted to conceal a small weapon. During the night I slept with it under my pillow.

Hoping that Thane would not stay out long, after tidying the kitchen I made up my bed. But he was still missing when I returned downstairs.

I opened the door a fraction, to stare into that eerie white blanket which threatened to engulf me. I was indeed a prisoner until the mist lifted or at least thinned enough to see my hand before my face. There was no way I could go anywhere. Bicycling would simply deposit me in the nearest ditch in this invisible world.

All I could do was find household tasks to employ my enforced idleness, avoiding that creaking floorboard which was getting worse.

I darted a moment's resentment towards the absent Jack enjoying the comfort and well-being of his parents' house while simple domestic matters in his own home went untended.

Taking out the two portions of the map Mr Hayward had left, I spread them side by side on the table. The missing piece intrigued me, especially as I knew from the map he had produced that it contained Solomon's Tower. And remembering Simon, aka Justin, I decided on another search of the secret room.

Perhaps I would find that missing thirty thousand pounds, but I wasn't exactly hopeful as I carried an oil lamp and some candles upstairs and opened the panel into the secret room.

A grim and unprepossessing sight, hardly lighter by daytime than when I had abandoned the idea last night. The illumination provided by my battery of lights was minute indeed.

I persevered with my search, pushed aside an ancient chair and a table. There was no bed; whoever slept here had to make his own provision. The deserting Jacobite or Hanoverian had most likely slept on the floor - Jack and I had found the remains of a palliasse on first entering the room - wrapped in the uniform cape which he had left behind in his hurried departure.

I tried to reconstruct that scene from a hundred and fifty years ago as I walked gently across the wooden floor searching for a loose board, but, even down on my hands and knees, detected none that might be concealing thirty thousand pounds - that vast and unimaginable fortune.

I tried a quick calculation - and failed - of its present staggering value. Turning my attention to a set of shelves in a recess originally intended to house a fireplace, but abandoned for lack of a chimney--

I was interrupted. Suddenly I heard a muffled sound, a creaking board. I listened. The echo came from downstairs. There was someone in the Tower.

I panicked. I was alone. Where was Thane?

Extinguishing lamp and candles, I closed the panel and with my hand on the derringer went soft-footed down the spiral stair through the Great Hall and into the kitchen.

There was a man, a stranger, tall with his back towards me, leaning against the table, his deep breathing erratic.

An injured man.

But he wasn't to be taken by surprise. He heard my approach - damn those boards - and turned. 'Good day, madame.'

'What do you want?' I demanded.

He staggered forward, tried a bow, but without the support of the table, almost fell and I found myself face-to-face with the Frenchie, Mrs Lawers' obnoxious neighbour and the most hated man in Duddingston.

Alarms were sounding - was I now trapped by a murderer, a man arrested by the police but who had escaped? My hand tightened on the concealed gun, but wait a moment - Thane was there standing beside him.

Where were the threatening barks, showing his teeth, leaping up at this stranger he had let into the Tower? I gave him a reproachful glare. He was certainly slipping of late. First the burglar, now an escaped convict. At this rate I'd soon be protecting him.

On second glance, the fugitive didn't look as if he would be capable of attacking anyone. He looked quite awful, his jacket torn, clutching an injured wrist. His right hand bleeding.

Thane came over, whimpered gently. He was trying to tell me something.

The fugitive tried another bow. 'I do beg pardon, madame, for intruding on your property. I am afraid it was necessary.' He pointed to the window. 'I have been out on the hill all night.'

I thought of him lost and bewildered in that mist-shroud as he paused and indicated Thane. 'Your fine dog here found me this morning and led me here.' He shook his head. 'He seemed to know my distress; my wrist - I fear it is broken. I fell several times. The mist, you know. I had no idea.'

He stopped again, his eyes on Thane, and I thought of the police station at Central Office. Imagined the alarm, saw him followed by armed police, hunted down as he slipped from their grip, escaped, trying to reach safety. Where was that? Home to Duddingston with those angry neighbours thirsting for his blood.

'You must have walked some distance,' I said. I'd take a chance on him. He certainly did not look threatening, nursing that wrist, hardly able to stand with weariness and certainly no match for a deerhound and a woman with a gun.

As I put on the kettle, started the porridge, cut bread, I went back and forth to the table, but he never moved, statue-like, staring in front of him. A man in late middle age who was younger than the straggling beard implied, hair too long, unshaven, one cheek grazed and sore-looking, from a fall no doubt. A pathetic sight, too weary to put words together.

'Please sit down and I will give you some refreshment.'

He almost fell into the chair. As for Thane, he had retreated to his rug but was taking it all in, contemplating the scene. I was safe enough; one word from me, one hint and he would have had that poor shivering creature by the throat down on the floor.

'I will take a look at that wrist while we wait,' I said.

He stirred. 'Please, madame, do not exert yourself on my account. It is nothing.'

I ignored him and filled a basin with warm water, took out ointment and a bandage. He made no resistance as I took his arm gently, rolled back a shirtsleeve grey and much frayed. He winced as I took his wrist very gently.

'It isn't broken, sir. The cut isn't deep. It will soon respond to this salve and should no longer be troubling you in a few days.' The ointment was in constant use for my frequent bicycling bruises.

He nodded, a relieved smile. As I set the porridge before him, poured out cups of tea, he looked at me and sighed. 'You are so very kind, madame, the first kindness I have been shown for a very long time.'