Chapter 22
Emma put down the pages with a sigh of impatience.
“Why are you waiting until tomorrow,” she said out loud, frowning at the pages. “This is a murder mystery. Time is of the essence to keep up the tension. Get on with it. Go and get wet.”
She realized if she took on this story it would need some editing and paring down.
Melrose had said the same things to so many people and it didn’t seem as if they were getting anywhere.
Emma wondered if this ongoing rambling was Iris floundering a little, wondering herself where to go next and waiting for inspiration.
She leafed through the remaining pages. There were not that many.
Had Iris had a flash of inspiration, had Melrose suddenly found the clue that put him on the right track so that the story could be brought to a conclusion?
Or . . . Emma paused . . . did Iris really no longer remember what she wanted to happen?
Emma poured herself a cup of tea, took the slice of Victoria sponge cake and put another log on the fire before curling up on the sofa again.
She added Young Jock and Roland to her list of characters.
She liked the former immediately but wasn’t sure about Roland.
He was already exhibiting some of his father’s arrogance, but then he was recently out of university and might just have been showing off to impress a lowly policeman.
And he clearly grieved for his sister. She brushed crumbs off her notebook, then picked up the next chapter.
The Wild Girl, Chapter 12
The morning dawned bright and brisk, giving Melrose renewed hope that they might finally get somewhere, although where that might be he had no idea. He ate a hearty breakfast of black pudding and oatcakes as well as eggs and porridge and was ready when Jock showed up at nine.
The previous afternoon he had telephoned Inspector MacDonald to ask him if he had any photographs of the missing Euan Chisholm and was told he did not.
When people are shown an actual photograph it stirs a memory they might otherwise have forgotten.
He remembered that Sir Henry had shown him the snapshot including Chisholm.
He’d have to ask to borrow it, although he wasn’t relishing the thought of facing Sir Henry again.
He put this sentiment aside and told Jock they’d start at the castle.
He’d ask for the photograph and speak with the servants there.
Then he’d question the villagers and finally the boatmen at the ferry.
If they had time they’d ferry across to speak with the governess.
At this Jock’s friendly face registered alarm.
“You’re not expecting me to go across to the mainland with my taxi? ”
“Is that a problem? Is it not a car ferry?”
“It is, so to speak,” Jock said. “But this taxi is my livelihood. I’m not taking risks with it. If the weather blows up and the vehicles are tossed around . . . No, I think I’ll stay safely on land, thank you. I wasn’t born for seafaring.”
Melrose was amused by this as the crossing from Kyle of Lochalsh to Kyleakin was not a long one.
“Very well,” he said. “I can do that on foot later. But the other thing we have to do is to search for Flora MacLeod. She’ll have got wet and cold last night if she was hiding out in the hills. She might have come home, or even come back to the castle.”
“The Wild Girl?” Jock said. “I don’t think she’d be returning to the castle after what happened. She’d fear she’d be blamed in some way.”
“Why is that?”
Jock shrugged. “She was taken on as Miss Lucy’s companion, was she not. Supposed to keep an eye on her and act as her chaperon. Well then, if something bad befell the young lady, then Flora was not doing her job.”
“Oh, I don’t think anyone would blame her if Lucy slipped out in the middle of the night,” Melrose said.
“All the same, people like Flora’s father have always been wary of police matters. No doubt he’s done his share of smuggling and salvaging in his time. Most of the fishermen around here have. If a few crates of whisky wash ashore they disappear rather rapidly.”
Melrose smiled and nodded to let Jock know that he quite understood this. When people have so little no one can blame them for seeing washed-up treasure as a gift from the gods.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
After the storm the day was crystal clear.
The peaks of the Cuillin stood out in the background sharp and jagged against an arc of blue sky.
Today they looked almost close enough to touch.
Across the strait the mountains of the mainland rose, tier after tier, one after the other, as far as the eye could see.
Sgurr na Coinnich reared defiantly ahead of them as they went over the crest. The castle, as they approached it, looked as gaunt and hostile as those mountains, and again Melrose found himself wondering about why a family would still choose to live there.
No wonder Lucy couldn’t wait to get away, he thought.
They approached the castle from the rear this time, taking the track that wound around the bluff to the promontory.
A high wall encircled the property but the wooden gates were open and they drove in.
Ahead of them was the woodland that he had seen the day before.
They drove through it, the Scots pines reaching above the drive to form a canopy and shutting out the daylight.
He was glad when they came out again on the other side to see the sunlight.
They crossed an area of close-cropped grass on which some sheep were grazing before coming to a halt at the gate of the keep.
Here they got out and Jock opened the gate.
They stepped into the forecourt. Jock looked around nervously as if he wasn’t too happy about being there.
“I should keep an eye on my motor car,” he said. “I would nae want a branch to fall on it.”
“All right.” Melrose understood. “I shouldn’t be too long.”
“Take your time. You’re paying.” Jock grinned as he turned back to his waiting taxi.
Melrose took a deep breath then headed to the main door of the castle.
Before he could reach it he heard footsteps, and a maid came out of one of the outbuildings.
She started in surprise when she saw Melrose and froze like a woodland creature in fight-or-flight mode.
“Hello,” he said before she could run off to warn anyone. “I’m Inspector Melrose. We’re trying to find out what happened to Miss Lucy. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
The girl’s eyes darted nervously. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “I can’t help you, and the master wouldn’t want me speaking with outsiders.”
“I’m a police officer on an investigation,” he said. “So I am allowed to speak with anyone I choose and ask any question I want. Is that clear? You will not get into trouble for speaking with me. Now, what’s your name?”
“Morag, sir.” She was looking down at her feet, not meeting his eyes.
“And what is your position here?”
“I’m a housemaid, sir. I clean, I wait at table, I make beds.”
“Were you the one who discovered that Miss Lucy’s bed had not been slept in and Miss Flora was gone?”
“No sir, that would have been her maid, Agnes.”
“Agnes. I must speak to her. Do you happen to know what time that was?”
“Not exactly. Late in the morning, sir. I had done the sweeping.”
“So Miss Lucy did not have her morning tea brought to her room like most of the fancy folk do?”
“She did, sometimes. But she let her maid know that she had a headache and wanted to sleep it off.”
“I see. That would be Agnes?”
“That’s right, sir. She’s the maid who takes care of her and of the mistress.”
“And who took care of Mr Chisholm when he was here?”
“Ian the footman looked after his clothes and shoes, sir, but I took him his meals when he did not want to eat at the big house.”
“Can you show me where he was staying?”
She glanced up at the castle, afraid someone was watching her. “It’s this way, sir. This cottage by the gates.”
She led him to a grey stone outbuilding.
The inside was not what he would have considered fit for an aristocrat, especially one like Chisholm, who sounded as if he was used to comfort.
A room with a bed, a giant carved oak wardrobe, a dressing table, washbasin stand.
A small desk in the window and at the back a simple bathroom, clearly added on in recent years. Adequate but not luxury.
“You took him his meals, including the last day he was here, when he felt poorly?”
“I did, sir.”
“Who told you to take him his food?”
“Why, Cook did, sir. She said the young gentleman had put a note outside his door saying he was feeling poorly and would be keeping to his room that day. So Cook said the poor man should have some nourishment before nightfall and sent me over with it.”
“And how was he? Did he seem to be sick?”
“I didnae get to see him, sir. He’d left a note on the door saying he was not to be disturbed. So I tapped on the door and left the food outside. But he never did take it, sir. And the next day when we looked, he had gone.”
“I see.” Melrose examined the room. He opened the wardrobe.
A suit was still hanging there, but no shirts.
He went over to the chest of drawers. They were in disarray and some items were clearly missing.
Chisholm had packed a bag in a hurry and had only taken what he could carry.
He turned his attention to the bed. It had not been slept in, or someone had made it.
“Was no maid called in that day to make the bed?”
“Oh no, sir. That would have been me, and I was told to leave the gentleman in peace. Ian, that’s the footman, said he thought the young gentleman must have taken a drop too much whisky the night before and was sleeping it off.”
“I see,” Melrose repeated. He noticed the slippers, tucked under the bed.
He pulled back the coverlet and found pyjamas, neatly folded.
He supposed that rich people didn’t worry too much about leaving items of clothing behind, but who would not want to take their nightclothes with them?
He went through to the bathroom and saw that the man’s sponge bag was not there, but his razor still lay on the shelf over the bathtub.
Melrose tried to make sense of Chisholm’s actions.
Somehow Chisholm had overheard Lucy and Stewart planning to run away together.
He had decided to make sure that didn’t happen, so he went down to the harbour and damaged Stewart’s boat.
But then did he come back to the castle and pretend to be sick all day or did he pack his bag and leave as soon as he had done his dirty work, putting a note outside to say he must not be disturbed?
And where had he gone then? If the ferrymen had not seen him, had he bribed a boatman to take him to the mainland? Melrose’s next task, after speaking with the members of this household, would be to have a chat with the occupants of that row of cottages on the quayside.
“So, Morag,” he said, turning back to the maid, who stood patiently in the doorway, “tell me, did you ever notice Miss Lucy chatting with Mr Stewart? Alone, I mean?”
She frowned. “No sir. I never did. Miss Lucy was rarely alone. They made sure Flora was with her, especially when she went for walks or rides with Mr Chisholm. That was only proper.”
“So did Mr Stewart interact much with the family?”
She shook her head firmly at this. “He did not, sir. He took his supper with them and sometimes he ate his breakfast at the same time as one of them, but usually he was out for the day long before they all woke up. I’d say he was not comfortable being amongst the fine folk.
He was more like one of us, except that he’d been educated at the university.
But apparently he’d been speaking with the crofters and telling them that they should refuse to move if the laird said they had to.
He said it was their right. Tenancy laws. ”
“And the laird did not like that?”
“He did not, sir. We could hear the shouting. I was sweeping the stairs at the time. It was terrible, just. Sir Henry said, ‘I want you out of my house this minute, and if you are not off the island by the end of the day, then I can’t vouch for your safety.’”
“So he went?”
“He did, sir. He went up, got his bag and left.”
“Did you see where he went?”
“Why, down to his boat, I presume.”
“But he didn’t sail back to the mainland until that night.”
“Apparently not, sir.”
“And nobody saw him speaking with Miss Lucy in the meantime? Did she overhear the shouting? Was she upset?”
“I don’t know, sir. She might not even have been awake. It was morning and she liked to sleep late.”
“What about Flora?”
“She wasn’t at the house, sir. She went to take the broth to her father the day before.”
“The day before? You mean the day before the row between Stewart and the laird? The day before Chisholm was feeling ill and stayed in his cottage?”
“I suppose so, sir.” She looked troubled now.
“Did you see her leave with the broth?”
“Not personally, sir. I was working, and if she’d come out of the kitchen it would have been by the back door and straight down the steps.”
Melrose was still trying to put together a timeline.
Flora had left the day before, carrying broth, but had never gone to her father, so he claimed.
Chisholm had kept to his room, claiming to be sick, and was not seen all day.
Stewart had been banished from the castle that morning.
And Miss Lucy had slept late. Nobody had seen anybody.
So what really happened? Surely one of the staff would know.
He’d have to find a way to interview them all without Sir Henry or the family listening in.