The Missing Duchess (9 page)

She managed a smile. 'He's no' at home, but I'll tell him, mister. Where d'ye bide?'

'He knows that too,' said Faro, and lifted his hat politely as he walked away down the steps.

An adept at shallow breathing, he was glad to fully extend his lungs again, for even the reek of smoking chimneys in the High Street was ambrosia compared to the vile stench in the fetid house he had just left, with its dreadful odour of rotting meat. God only knew what cheap cuts the poor got from the flesher's disease-ridden stocks, and why many more did not succumb to food poisoning. And as always his final thought when faced with direct poverty was: But for the grace of God, there go I. For such he was fully aware might have been the squalid circumstances of his own life, but for an accident of fate that had made him a policeman's son with a widowed mother prepared to make material sacrifices for his education.

Even in broad daylight, with a thin sun turning the Castle into the setting for one of Sir Walter Scott's romances, Faro approached the wizard Major's abode with reluctance. Its chilling atmosphere and sinister emanations had remained untouched by passing years and changing seasons. Facing north-east, its windows were untroubled by sunshine, but it was not aspect alone which added to the feeling of foreboding and melancholy.

Clocks from all over the city were striking eleven o'clock, and it was a bright sunny autumn morning, yet Faro observed how passers by avoided the tall shadow thrown across the narrow cobbled street by the Wizard's House. Men hurried along, heads down, while women, wrapping shawls closer about their heads, drew small children more closely to their sides with a hushed word of warning.

Through the doorway with its ironic inscription, '
Soli deo honor et gloria, 1604'
, Faro proceeded along the low vaulted passage which led through the tall land to a narrow court behind. There, solitary and sinister, stood the entrance to Major Weir's house. Legend had it that the wizard had cast a spell on the neighbouring turnpike stair so that anyone climbing up it felt as if they were instead climbing down - to the infernal regions below being no doubt the implication.

Faro shuddered. Only the appalling coincidence of a woman's body and a missing duchess, the nightmare possibility that they might be connected, had driven him back to this hell house.

His last visit had been made in darkness; now every detail of the building, every stone, might conceal a vital clue to the mystery. The discovery of a corpse pronounced as dead from natural causes would involve no search for clues except for the purpose of identification.

The door was slightly ajar. Hanging by one creaking hinge, it was unlocked and Faro doubted whether it had seen a key for that purpose in living memory. With only the vaguest idea of what he was looking for, what might be of significance in this puzzling case, Faro was suddenly hopeful. Long undisturbed dust is of admirable assistance to a man searching for evidence of violence and the Major's house was most obliging in this respect. In the thick coating on the floor were the recent footprints of the policemen intermingled with tiny animal tracks identifiable as rats and mice.

Closer observation revealed a clean but wide trail in the centre of the dirt from the front door into the squalid scene of death, ending at the place where the body had been found. He sat back on his heels. Some of the dust had caked into mud. He crumbled it in his hands. Something, or more likely, someone had been dragged along the floor, someone whose garments were wet. Searching carefully again he discovered threads, a piece of cloth caught on a rusty nail. No ordinary cloth either but a shred of fine lace, which he pocketed carefully.

A little further into the room, near an inside drain, the light from the dim window above touched a thin line of gold. He bent down and dragged out a chain bearing an ornamental cross.

Not a Christian crucifix but an eight-pointed cross pattee. Weighing it in his hand, he wished he hadn't found it here, for he had seen the emblem of the Templars very recently. On a backcloth in the chapel in Solomon's Tower.

And a chill - cold and malevolent as the wizard's ghostly hand - stole over him as he remembered that Major Weir had been a Templar as well as a member of the Edinburgh City Guard.

Did this indicate a further sinister twist to the mystery and did the solution to this nineteenth-century disappearance have its roots back in history?

Taking it a step further, was the Mad Bart's Tower a Temple of Solomon and Sir Hedley Marsh the last of its guardians? Could his life as an eccentric and a recluse be a disguise for a secret and never-ending quest?

No. It was too preposterous a theory even for Faro. Besides, it led him far from the missing Grand Duchess, a mystery which must be solved urgently if he was not to find himself facing an irate Prime Minister.

He had a great deal to think about as he sat on the train to Aberlethie. He enjoyed train journeys. Staring out of the window at the passing countryside gave him leisure to get his facts in order and make a few notes.

A halt had been conveniently arranged with the railway company where the line passed over Lethie estate grounds. The walk to the castle through the little hamlet with its cluster of houses was delightful.

He stopped to watch the horses being led across the fields, gathering in the late harvest with the seagulls screaming at their tracks as the uplifted soil revealed fresh delicacies of worms.

Deciding he was in no hurry after all, Faro lit a pipe and leaned on a fence to watch this pastoral and peaceful scene. Around him lay evidence of all those earlier settlements which had held their sway in Scotland's history, then one by one had disappeared. And in the fullness of time, Faro realised, this must be the fate of his own era, too, giving place to a new world waiting in the wings and a destiny as yet unborn. But all would owe their origins to those centuries long gone which had formed the traditions of the Scotland in which he now stood.

When almost reluctantly he at last walked up the stone steps to the castle, he was told that Miss Fortescue was walking with the laird in the gardens.

‘
They went in the direction of the old priory.'

The neat lawns and geometric flowerbeds surrounding the castle gave way to a wild garden, the domain of ancient trees of huge girth. Through them could be glimpsed a distant sea, glittering on the horizon, and a ruined wall thrusting into the sky.

Here was the twelfth-century Priory of Our Lady which had once dominated the whole area. Its buildings and harbour, once vital links in a flourishing port, had vanished with a retreating coastline that had left an estuary of the River Forth no longer deep enough to allow sailing ships and steamers safe harbour.

For a while, Aberlethie had acquired notoriety and the close attention of the exciseman as a landing place for smugglers and those on dubious errands and journeys, with their own reasons for entering Scotland at secret and safe locations.

As he made his way through the dense shrubbery, Faro heard voices which halted him in his tracks. Although the words were indistinct, what he was overhearing was undoubtedly a fierce argument.

Reluctant to make his presence known, he decided on immediate retreat, but his cautious withdrawal from the scene had not taken into account the laird's dogs, who pricked their ears and, barking fiercely, darted towards this intruder.

With Sir Terence calling them sharply to heel, Faro emerged somewhat sheepishly, endeavouring to look as cheerful as was possible in the circumstances.

Sir Terence and Miss Fortescue were standing by the Crusader's Tomb in its niche in the one remaining wall of the priory. They were not alone. Another figure emerged. Sir Hedley Marsh.

At the sight of him, Faro's relief that he was very much alive was intermingled with a curiosity about what he was doing here, a participant in a conspiratorial conversation.

Miss Fortescue, he noticed, had fully recovered and looked none the worse for her recent ordeal. In fact, she looked decidedly pretty. As she came towards him, hand outstretched in smiling greeting, she appeared to be in perfect command of the situation.

Obviously Lady Lethie had been generous with her extensive wardrobe, he thought approvingly. The two ladies were of similar height and dimensions. Miss Fortescue, carrying a lace parasol and wearing a muslin afternoon gown covered in tiny sprigs of flowers, provided an attractive picture for any man.

'How nice to see you, Inspector,' she said, and he had an odd feeling that she meant it.

As he exchanged greetings with Sir Hedley, Faro decided to avoid any mention of his morning visit to Solomon's Tower.

'Sir Hedley has been giving us a history lesson on our Crusader,' said Sir Terence.

Tm sure Mr Faro would like to hear it,' Miss Fortescue added with an anxious glance that begged his interest.

But the looks exchanged between the three suggested that this was by no means all that had been under discussion. And Sir Hedley, with much clearing of throat, stared anxiously in the direction of the Crusader's Tomb, his manner suggesting one hard-pressed for immediate inspiration.

He rose to the task gallantly. 'David de Lethie was one of a band of Scottish knights who survived the Crusades in Jerusalem and returned to fight at the side of his king, Robert the Bruce, at Bannockburn. There are some discrepancies about this effigy. His sword arm, for instance.'

Faro looked down at the worn stone of the coffin, which had been broken open centuries ago when whatever remained of the Crusader had been removed. As for the once-proud helmeted face lying eyes open to the sky, the harsh elements of East Lothian wind and weather had all but obliterated his noble features.

The sword arm,' Sir Hedley repeated. 'Crusaders always had their right arm crossing over on to their sword hilt on the left side - so -' He demonstrated. 'De Lethie, however, did not.'

Faro looked down on the effigy. 'Rather looks as if he was holding something in his sword arm.'

'But what?' Sir Terence nodded. That's a mystery we've been trying to solve for centuries past.'

Sir Hedley turned to Faro. 'What was he holding that was more important than a sword, d'you think?'

'Perhaps you can tell us, Faro,' Sir Terence cut in. 'You're the detective, after all.'

Faro smiled. 'My province is recent deaths, not those six hundred years ago.'

'There must be some clues.' There was a note of desperation in Miss Fortescue's voice which made the three men all look at her quickly, and all for different reasons. Curiosity - and perhaps even warning.

Faro turned his attention to the effigy. 'I'd say what he was carrying was a chalice.' He looked again. 'Or a staff of some kind.'

'A staff?' they repeated.

The sun dipped low and the silence that followed this observation seemed to last for several moments.

'Undoubtedly Inspector Faro is right,' Sir Terence sounded as if the words were being forced out of him. 'I wonder why?' he added lightly.

'More important, what happened to it? Interesting to know that,' said Sir Hedley.

'Interesting, indeed,' said Faro. 'The evidence would suggest that you aren't the first to give this matter serious consideration, sir.'

He pointed to the broken coffin on which the effigy rested. 'It must have taken considerable force to open that and remove the body. And whatever treasures it held.'

The word 'treasures' stunned them again into momentary silence.

'We suspect that it happened in the sixteenth century when the priory was sacked during the Reformation, long before the castle was built,' said Sir Terence at last.

'You think - that whatever - they were looking for - might have been buried with him,' said Miss Fortescue.

'That is the general opinion.'

'Grave robbers rarely leave sworn testimonies of how and why. Is there nothing in the family records, sir?'

Lethie shook his head. 'Nothing earlier than the sixteenth century and very sparse afterwards. Only the main events were considered worthy of posterity, like the brief visit Queen Mary and Bothwell made shortly after their marriage. But the family's enthusiasm didn't extend to her descendant Prince Charles Edward Stuart. Or if it did, then they were too discreet to put it on record.' He looked at Faro. 'So all we have on the Crusader is legend.'

'Was he a Templar by any chance?' Faro asked.

'Perhaps.' The reply was vague. 'It is possible.'

It was more than possible, seeing that the Crusader's shield bore upon it the still decipherable cross pattee. Odd that Sir Hedley failed to recognise the significance of something he encountered daily in his own house.

More worrying still was the possible significance of that same cross found on a broken chain in the Wizard's House in the West Bow, a fact Faro felt was linked with the body whose identity he was increasingly and most unhappily aware might prove to be the Grand Duchess of Luxoria.

'It's all very strange, isn't it?' said Miss Fortescue. Shivering, she drew her shawl closer around her shoulders and Sir Terence seized upon the gesture with relief.

'You are cold, m'dear. Let us return to the house. You will come with us, Inspector, take some refreshment.'

As he accompanied them he realised no one had asked him his business there, or why he had suddenly appeared as they were talking by the tomb.