Chapter 10
The police had moved the press and angry mob on from the front of Mr. Kinloch’s house, but a few had found their way to the rear mews entrance.
We’d planned on approaching Redmayne that way to avoid interacting with Mr. Kinloch, but decided it was better to knock on the front door now. As hoped, Redmayne answered.
He looked annoyed to see us, but did not attempt to shut the door in our faces. “Mr. Kinloch is not available.”
“We don’t want to speak to him,” Oscar said. “We want to ask you about your previous employment.”
Redmayne tried to close the door, but Oscar muscled into the gap, forcing the butler back. We followed and I shut the door behind us.
Redmayne drew himself up to his full, impressive height. He towered over me, and I would have been intimidated if I were alone with him. “This is outrageous! I’ll send for the police.”
“We have D.I. Smith’s approval to investigate,” Oscar said. “Now, about your previous place of employment. Why did you leave?”
“I was ready to be promoted from footman to butler, but that position was already taken there.” Redmayne jutted his square chin forward. “There is nothing suspicious about changing employment.”
“It is a little bit when it’s at the same time a girl living there was kidnapped and later found dead.”
“That had nothing to do with me and any suggestion that I was involved is slanderous. Now get out!” He grabbed hold of Oscar’s arm, but Oscar wrenched free.
Miss Wheeler jabbed the end of her umbrella against the butler’s stomach, forcing him to take a step back. “Let’s keep this civilized.” She lowered her umbrella. “You realize we can simply go to that house and learn more about you. This way, you have the opportunity to give your version of events.”
He stared wide-eyed at her and his lips parted, but he failed to utter a word. I quite understood his shock. Miss Wheeler was a revelation.
Footsteps on the staircase signaled the arrival of Mr. Kinloch. “What the devil? Barratt, Professor? And Miss Wheeler, too. What is this all about?”
“We’re investigating the disappearance of the two women from Moray Place,” Oscar said.
“Why?”
“We felt compelled to assist the police.” Oscar indicated Redmayne. “We learned that your butler worked as a footman at another house before coming here, and that a young woman went missing from there. She was later found dead.”
Mr. Kinloch tensed but showed no surprise. “That was years ago. It also had nothing to do with Redmayne. His departure from that household to come here was merely a—” He cut himself off and his gaze slid to the butler.
“Merely a what?” Oscar prompted.
“A coincidence.” Mr. Kinloch stepped around us and opened the front door. “I’m asking you politely to leave us alone.”
“You’ve thought of something.” Oscar spoke to Mr. Kinloch, but kept his gaze on the rigid figure of the butler.
Mr. Kinloch grunted. “I wondered if I would regret selling the book to a former journalist, but I’d thought you were a level above the gutter press, Barratt.”
His vehemence took me by surprise. Perhaps he stole the book back, after all. But, if so, why leave an effigy behind? “How much do you regret selling us the book?” I blurted out.
“What?”
Oscar ushered me outside. “Not now, Gavin.”
I stopped on the porch and peered past him to the doorway where Mr. Kinloch stood, arms crossed over his chest. “But—”
“Not now,” Miss Wheeler repeated. She led the way down the steps.
Oscar indicated I should follow.
My nerves jumped as the door slammed shut behind us. “Do you think he’s guilty? Redmayne?”
Oscar peered over his shoulder at the house. “I don’t know, but Kinloch remembered something about Redmayne’s previous employment. Something that I suspect is relevant.”
“Surely he’d mention it to us if it were. Lives are at stake!”
“You have more faith in people than I do, Gavin.” He fell into step alongside Miss Wheeler.
He sported a curious look on his face, one that I couldn’t quite decipher.
I’d seen him flirt with women before—women he wanted to get to know more intimately—but this was something else.
“I’m glad to see I’m not the only one you like to stab with your umbrella. ”
“Only the deserving, Mr. Barratt. Only the deserving.”
“That was well done with Agnes. You got her talking.”
“You could have, if you’d played your cards right.”
“How so?”
“If the way she looked at you was any indication, she would have answered any questions you had. Didn’t you notice the blush and fluttering eyelashes in your direction?”
“No,” I said before Oscar replied.
Both turned to me, causing me to blush. I muttered an apology for interrupting. “Please continue your conversation as if I’m not here.”
Miss Wheeler dropped back and hooked her arm through mine. “It’s I who should apologize to you, Professor, for not including you. It was rude of me.”
“Oh, no, not at all. I don’t want to get in the way.”
“You’re not in the way. Indeed, there is nothing to get in the way of.
I was merely pointing out that Agnes couldn’t take her gaze off your friend.
You may not have noticed, but I think he did.
Next time, he ought to take advantage of a suspect’s infatuation with him. It could help him get what he wants.”
I pushed my glasses up my nose, only to realize I was doing it and quickly lowered my hand. “Oscar is too much of a gentleman to do that.”
Oscar trotted up the front steps of the house two doors down from Mr. Kinloch, where Juliette had been staying at the time of her abduction from the garden square.
He explained to the butler who answered his knock that we were assisting the police with the investigation.
Moments later, we were shown into the drawing room where the same man and woman who’d watched us from the window earlier now invited us to sit on their sofa.
They introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, Juliette’s aunt and uncle.
Aged in their forties, there was nothing particularly striking about them.
There was also nothing striking about the room in which we found ourselves.
The house was situated in one of the best streets in Edinburgh, but a visitor wouldn’t have known it from the plain and functional furnishings.
There were no photographs and only two paintings hanging on the walls—one of a blue-robed Jesus praying to a golden sun, and another of a country manor house situated on the shores of a picturesque lake.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the room was that none of the furniture seemed to match.
The woods were different types, and the sofa was a pale green whereas the armchairs were upholstered in yellow and blue.
“We believe Juliette’s mother is also staying here,” Miss Wheeler said, her voice gentle with sympathy. “May we speak to her, too?”
Mrs. Gordon glanced at her husband before saying, “She’s terribly upset. We don’t want to disturb her.”
There was a rustle of silk skirts at the door as a tall, fashionably dressed woman entered.
“If this is regarding my daughter, I want to be disturbed.” She was attractive, in spite of the eyes swollen from crying.
Her blonde hair was turning white at the temples and some fine creases appeared across her forehead, but neither detracted from her beauty.
As she sat next to Mrs. Gordon, the difference was striking.
Aged about the same, Mrs. Gordon looked tired even though her eyes were not affected by tears.
The creases around her downturned mouth and between her eyebrows suggested she frowned a lot.
Unlike the newcomer, Mrs. Gordon wore a white cap covering much of her hair, and her brown outfit didn’t have a single stitch of embroidery embellishing it.
Her only extravagance was a silver brooch in the shape of a cross attached to the gown’s high neckline at her throat.
Her husband was quite dapper by comparison.
Indeed, if I had to pick the married couple in the room, I’d have paired him with his sister-in-law.
He seemed to take pride in his thick, dark hair, wearing it swept up into a wave at the front with the help of pomade.
Unlike most men his age, he still had impressive locks.
His clothes, too, were modish with a thin pinstripe through the dark blue wool, and a gold stag’s head pinned to his tartan cravat.
It must be his clan’s crest. I’d seen cheap versions of similar pins in the souvenir seller’s cart at the station.
“This is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Buchanan,” Mrs. Gordon said in a soft Scottish accent.
“Her late husband was my brother. She and Juliette have lived alone in Aberdeen since his death several years ago.” It was a rather mechanical account, but I couldn’t tell if she felt no emotion toward her brother and his family or she was steeling herself against too much emotion.
Oscar introduced us again and restated the reason for our visit. All three expressed their eagerness to help us in any way, but Mrs. Buchanan became upset. She pressed a handkerchief to her nose as tears welled in her eyes.
“Thank you for assisting the police,” she said, her voice cracking. “The detective in charge of the investigation didn’t seem particularly competent.”
“I say,” Mr. Gordon protested in an English accent. “He’s doing his best.”
Mrs. Buchanan’s lips pinched but she didn’t respond.
“Can you tell us why Juliette was staying with you?” Miss Wheeler asked the Gordons.
“She wrote to us expressing a strong desire to visit. Mrs. Gordon and I were happy to have her. She’s my wife’s only family, after all.”
“Had she written to you much before?”
“From time to time,” Mrs. Gordon said.
Although she hadn’t looked at Mrs. Buchanan, Juliette’s mother nevertheless seemed to take the lack of correspondence as an accusation directed at her. “She would have written more if you’d written to her.”
“What changed?” I asked before the two women could blame one another for not writing.