The Burning Glass (34 page)

“Roddy Elliot was telling us,” said Alasdair,
“that the spacing of Isabel’s inscription, separating out the
letters that spell catin, proves that she was a whore.”

“That tale arose to explain the mistake on
the inscription,” said Minty, with only the briefest wince, “not
the other way round. Add in Gerald’s romantic story of the monk,
and there you are.”

Not that there was anything wrong with
romance. Jean said, “Maybe Isabel’s connection to Mary suggested
that interpretation, since some people questioned her morals,
too.”

Minty stared, what color remaining in her
face draining away. Then she blinked rapidly. “Ah, yes, Mary, Queen
of Scots, was quite the object of scandal.”

Jean raked back through what she’d said, but
couldn’t explain that reaction.

Alasdair’s tilt of the head hinted that Minty
might be committing censorship herself. “Where are Gerald’s papers
now? Including that epic poem.”

“Most of the originals are here at the
museum, available to scholars, although I expect a few items are
amongst Wallace’s personal possessions yet, such as those drawings
you gave P.C. Logan.”

“I didn’t . . .” Alasdair cleared his throat.
“Ciara’s been reading the originals, then?”

“I said available to scholars. She’s based
her work on copies made by Wallace.” Minty’s dark eyes glittered
like obsidian in her—no, not entirely pallid face. Her cheekbones
had gone crimson. A hot flash? Jean wondered. Anger? Minty’s layers
of ice went deeper than Alasdair’s, but the woman wasn’t a
completely dead planet. Minty and Ciara might be sharing a bed,
economically speaking, but neither was comfortable with the
sleeping arrangements.

“You collected Wallace’s things from the
flat, did you?” Alasdair persisted. “Have you got an
inventory?”

“No. Polly cleared most everything into the
boxes. I pulled out a memento or two, the odd photograph and the
like. There’s nothing valuable left, save to a tradesman recycling
old paper.” Minty strode back to the window and picked up her
handbag. “I asked you to stop by, Mr. Cameron, so I could give you
this. Legally, it’s part of the Ferniebank estate.”

Everyone clustered around as she produced a
small box and handed it to Alasdair. He opened it. “The
burning-glass.”

Inside the box, nestled on a square of cotton
batting, lay a palm-sized disc. What glass wasn’t covered by a
flaky black crust was the color of milky tea, glowing sullenly in
the light. The crust itself had peeled into what, if you looked at
it slantwise and squinted, could be the map of Mexico. As relics
went, this one was pretty sad . . .
Wait a minute
, Jean
thought.

“May I?” Michael took the box from Alasdair’s
hand and held it up. “This is no lens. It’s not plano-convex, it’s
flat. The encrustation is never soot. It’s the oxidized silver
backing of a mirror.”

“A looking glass,” said Jean. “A keiking
glass.”

Michael passed the box to Rebecca. “This has
been buried,” she said. “Where did you get it?”

“It turned up in the dig,” Minty answered,
“in a rubbish heap dating to Gerald’s occupation of the building.
It’s his, I expect, no more than a shaving mirror.”

“What else happened at the dig?” asked
Jean.

“The usual. There was great exclamation over
bits of pottery and grains of pollen. The archaeologists even
excavated beneath the floor of the chapel.”

“Where they opened Isabel’s grave.”

“A bit of grave-robbing never goes amiss, if
it’s in the name of science.”

Alasdair reclaimed the box and replaced its
lid. “This, ah, glass was in the case with Isabel’s miniature, was
it?”

“I’m afraid so. Angus insisted we place it
here, with the genuine miniature and the genuine harp, because it
illustrated Wallace’s story, and the tourists make a meal of it
all.”

“And you removed it from the museum after the
burglary,” Alasdair persisted.

“I did do, yes. Stanelaw Museum has become a
laughingstock after the theft of the harp. How much greater a one
would it be if it were known that this, this artifact, the crux of
the Ferniebank legend, is a lie. As so much to do with Ferniebank
is a lie. Please give it to Ciara, Mr. Cameron, in your capacity as
P and S administrator.” Minty waved imperiously.

She could have given it to Ciara herself,
Jean thought, but then, when she saw Ciara last night, Angus was
still alive, and would have—what would Angus have done, anyway? If
this was the truth about the dig that Hugh had almost overheard,
surely it would have been Angus shushing Minty, not the other way
around.

Minty turned back to the windowsill, pulled a
set of keys from her handbag, and peeled back the lid of the
plastic container. Picking up the piece of stone with its
inscription, she led the way across the room—if she’d been wearing
a train, she’d have expected Jean and Rebecca to carry it—and
stopped beside a flat display case, which she unlocked and
opened.

The bottom of the case was covered by a
professionally drawn illustration of the entire inscription, the
extant pieces laid forlornly in the appropriate places and drained
of their reddish hue by the glare of the spotlight. Minty worked
the
icj
up close to the
ac
that Wallace had been
carrying in his pocket when he died, adjusted each of the other
pieces a thirty-second of an inch or so, and then stepped back to
contemplate her handiwork.

The display reminded Jean of the drawing that
Logan had confiscated—not that she had the sketch there for
comparison. Still, the five missing pieces from the top and left
side of the inscription were all accounted for, while the harp was
missing and presumably long gone. Not that that would stop Ciara
from having a replica made, if she wanted—the upper edge of the
ic
jac
pieces showed the line of the lower edge of
the harp piece.

“Interesting,” said Michael, “how the
er
of Sinncler is turned up at a right angle. And why’s
there a wee ‘m’ beside it?”

Alasdair said, “I inspected the inscription
on the Friday, and was thinking that was a crack in the stone is
all.”

“Following on Gerald’s fearfully imaginative
opinion, Angus and Wallace felt that it was an ‘m’ and therefore
had the artist draw it that way.” Minty closed and locked the
display case. “Wallace quite properly collected each of these
pieces as they weathered off the inscription. And I expect Roddy
Elliot had a hand in as well, Mr. Cameron. That’s why Zoe had this
bit.”

Oh yes, Jean thought, Minty did see all, know
all. Although Alasdair was way out ahead of her.

He asked, “What of Derek Trotter, then?”

“An example of the dreadful child-rearing
practices endemic in our modern society.” Minty retreated toward
the window. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s paperwork to be
done. Birth, death, property—there’s always paperwork.”

“Thank you for letting us look around,” Jean
said.

The others chimed in with appropriate
courtesies. Alasdair handed the box with the glass disc off to
Jean, who tucked it into her bag. “Just one more thing,” he
said.

Picking up her purse, Minty looked sideways
at him, making it clear the interview was at an end and he was
overstaying his welcome. “Yes?”

“Did both Wallace and Angus participate in
the dig at Ferniebank?”

“They stopped by from time to time to
supervise.” Minty walked briskly to the entrance hall, her
footsteps sounding like the rat-tat of a snare drum, only to stop
dead beside the pram. In her black clothing, she resembled the bad
fairy leaning over Sleeping Beauty’s cradle. And yet her posture
wasn’t malicious, but drooped like a wilted plant . . . With a snap
of her spine she straightened, lunged for the staircase, ripped
aside and then replaced the barrier rope. Her steps beat time up
the stairs, dwindled across the ceiling, and were gone.

Jean discovered that Minty had not
monopolized all the air in the room after all, and inhaled. “It’s
almost two. I’ve got to go interview Ciara.”
For my sins
,
she added only to herself.

“Stopped by the dig from time to time.”
Alasdair repeated Minty’s parting words and frowned.

“You’ve seen the ghost of Isabel, have you?”
asked Michael. “The one in the drawing?”

“Oh yeah,” Jean said. “Ironic that all three
of the Rutherford men are dead but the ghost of Isabel is still
walking. Running, rather.”

“You’re dead a wee bit longer than you’re
alive,” said Alasdair.

Rebecca was looking at Queen Mary’s letter.
“Cool!”

“You’re the expert,” Jean said. “Does that
say what that label says it says?”

“Or is it the sort of secret message smuggled
about in musical instruments?” asked Alasdair.

“Can’t tell you a thing, can I?” Jean
whispered, and smiled at his bow of acknowledgment.

Rebecca leaned closer to the glass encasing
the letter. The lamp came on, illuminating her blooming complexion,
a contrast to Minty’s sucked-dry-of-blood coloring. “This looks
like Mary’s writing. She was known for her Italian hand, as it was
called.” Under her breath she murmured, “ ‘. . . it is esie to be
judgeit quhat was my countenance . . . I declarit unto him my
seiknes . . .’ Yes, she’s thanking the Sinclairs for their
hospitality while visiting the sacred well, a queen not staying
with the
hoi polloi
in the hospice. Here’s something about a
relic, but that’s where the paper is torn. Maybe she handed over a
relic as a bread-and-butter gift.”

“Any Catholic monarch worth their sacramental
oil would have a cartload of splinters from the true cross,” said
Jean, “enough bones to build a dinosaur, shreds of clothing . .
.”

“And apparently Jesus had multiple
foreskins,” said Michael.

Rebecca made a face at him. “I’m sure there
were relics aplenty at Ferniebank, for healing purposes and
all.”

“Now the faithful stop by the shop and buy
refrigerator magnets.” With one last quizzical look at the
inscription, the drawing of Isabel, and the empty case of the harp,
Alasdair led the way toward the entrance hall while Jean turned off
the lights. The artifacts winked out, swallowed by shadow. The TV
screen glowed silver, then faded. Leaving the shutters open, she
skimmed toward the door, wondering if Isabel’s painted eyes shifted
to watch her go by.

Alasdair, Michael, and Rebecca were standing
next to the reception desk, eyeing an array of photographs. Some
were antique and others fairly recent, although the fashions of
just twenty years ago looked almost as odd as bustles and
dinghy-sized hats.

Jean gazed up at ranks of soldiers, a
suffragists’ parade, groups of barefooted children. A picture
featuring a row of school-uniform-clad teenagers had their names
printed at the bottom, including some familiar ones. A svelte Noel
Brimberry stood between a positively willowy Polly Elliot and a
rather punkish Valerie Trotter, all three posing with the
adolescent self-absorption they were now decrying in their own
children, such being the cycle of life.

The woman standing with them was Minty
Rutherford, as unchanged as though she’d whisked through a time
tunnel to the present. She’d said that teaching the local
schoolchildren domestic skills became a career. As for the man
beside her . . . Ah. Jean recognized him from the photo on Minty’s
mantelpiece. Here was Wallace in his role as headmaster.

Above the group photos, Angus’s long face
gazed down from a formal portrait, not smiling but looking almost
startled, as though caught in some sort of act. Next to him hung a
portrait of his uncle Wallace, a jowlier, gravity-ridden variation
of the same face with a smile that was both knowing and
mischievous. A third man was similarly equine-featured, but wore
the slicked-down hair and high stiff collar of a century earlier. A
thin brass plaque on the ornate frame of his photo read, “Gerald
Rutherford. 1862–1919.”

“Look at him,” Jean said. “He’s all very
sober and respectable, but there’s something about his eyes—you
know, a sort of bulge, like the top of a can that’s spoiled.”

“He could see ghosts,” said Alasdair. “So can
we. Are we a bit off, then?”

“I’ll not be answering that,” Michael
said.

Rebecca collected the pram. “Gerald lived in
an era of mediums and spiritualists. Actually having that
supernatural tickle must have given him entry to many a party.”

“He was a recluse, though. Alone with his
ghosts and his fancies.” Alasdair opened the door.

“In a way, he’s haunting Ferniebank as surely
as Isabel is.” Jean turned away from the photos. “First Gerald and
then Wallace holed up at Ferniebank—the crazy uncles keeping
themselves in the attic. Gerald had at least one son to be
Wallace’s father, but did Wallace have kids?”

Michael shook his head. “Noel was saying that
the Stanelaw branch of the Rutherfords died out with Angus.”

Footsteps clipped across the floor upstairs.
A sudden screech made everyone jump. . . . Oh. They were hearing a
paper shredder, its banshee shrieks starting and stopping abruptly.
“What’s she destroying up there?” Alasdair demanded with a
frown.

“Hopefully nothing more than Angus’s love
letters,” said Jean.

Logan came up the outside steps. “All
finished here? I’ll be locking up, then.”

“Constable, you might consider mentioning to
Mrs. Rutherford . . .” Alasdair’s words bounced like popcorn off
Logan’s bulldog face. “Ah, never mind.”

With Alasdair’s help, Michael lifted Linda’s
magic coach down the steps to the sidewalk, Rebecca gesturing like
a traffic cop alongside. Jean looked back through the open door
just as darkness fell over the museum—Logan had closed the shutters
in the main room.