Chapter 23 The Wild Girl, Chapter 13
Melrose did one final inspection of the room.
He didn’t know how much clothing the son of a laird brought with him on a visit, but he suspected it was a lot more than he, Melrose, would ever have owned.
So perhaps Chisholm had taken a good amount with him and left the items he didn’t care for.
He looked back at Morag, still standing nervously in the doorway as if she was unwilling to come into the room.
“Morag, you say you brought Mr Chisholm his food from time to time. What did you think of him?”
She flushed bright red. “That’s not for me to say, sir.”
“Was he pleasant to you? Rude?”
Her face turned even redder if that was possible. “Well, sir, if you want the truth he was a little too friendly.”
“Too friendly?”
“Too free with his hands, if you get my meaning. I tried to get in and out of there as quickly as possible.”
“He was fresh with you?” Melrose hesitated, hoping to use words that would not upset her.
“Well, sir, I suppose you could call it that.” Her face was a picture of embarrassment. Melrose had been around long enough to get her meaning.
“What did you do?”
“I tried to stop him. I said I’d scream. And he said if I did he’d tell the laird I had been rude to him and I’d be given the sack.”
“So you had no choice?” Melrose fought back his anger.
“That’s right, sir. I had no choice. I need my position for my family. Besides, it’s what you have to get used to if you’re a servant. The laird himself is that kind of a man. I expect they all are. They like to think of servants as possessions. They have the power. We have none.”
“So the laird made passes at you?”
She nodded, turning away so that she didn’t make eye contact with him. “He’d run his hands over my body to see if I was developing nicely. That’s what he said, anyway. And once he put a hand down inside my shirt and he felt . . . you know.”
Melrose did know. He’d spoken to young rape victims in his days on the streets. There was never any use pressing charges. The courts always hint that she asked for it, wore provocative clothing. And the jurors were all male.
“I’m sorry, Morag,” he said. “But at least Mr Chisholm is gone now. One of your worries is over.”
She nodded.
“So would you take me up through the servant’s door to speak to Agnes? I’d prefer not to encounter Sir Henry until later.”
Her eyes darted nervously again. “I don’t know, sir. I could get in trouble.”
“I’ll tell your master that I ordered you to do this, if you’re worried. You will not be my coconspirator.”
She gave him a nervous little grin. “Come on. Let’s cross the courtyard quickly then. You can be seen from the windows.”
He followed her, hugging the wall of the keep until she came to a flight of steps in the wall of the castle, went up and in through a small side door. The smell of cooking reached him, and voices speaking softly in Gaelic. Morag hurried him past the open door.
“Let me see if she’s in the servant’s hall or up in her room.
” She glanced inside, shook her head and beckoned him onward, leading him up a flight of narrow wooden stairs to a second flight, this one a spiral stair and steep.
He pitied the servants who had to go up and down these with coal, water and anything else their masters needed and felt a great wave of sympathy for Stewart, who dared to speak up for the crofters.
After another steep flight Morag opened a door, and they came out onto a landing. “Agnes?” she called. “Are you up here?”
A young girl appeared, her wiry hair tucked under a cap. Her eyes were puffy as if she had been crying. Melrose put her at no older than seventeen or eighteen. She stepped back with a horrified expression when she saw Melrose. “What are you doing up here, sir? These are the young ladies’ quarters.”
“I want a word with you, Agnes,” he said. “I’m a police detective, and we’re trying to find out who killed your mistress. You’d want to help with that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, I would, sir. I’ve been so upset, I’ve been crying my eyes out. I can’t think who would want to harm that dear, sweet girl. She never did an unkind thing in her life.”
“Young ladies often confide in their maids. Did she ever talk to you about Mr Chisholm or Mr Stewart?”
She squirmed uncomfortably. “She did mention Mr Chisholm, sir. She did not like him. She said he was overbearing and what sort of life would she have if she married him. He’d order her around and she’d not have a life of her own.”
“So how did she plan to get out of marrying him? Was that why she decided to latch on to Stewart and run off with him?”
“I’ve no idea, sir. She didn’t mention Mr Stewart much. I know I heard her talking about him once with Miss Flora and I heard her say, ‘He’s not bad-looking, but he hasn’t two pennies to rub together.’”
“And what did Miss Flora say?”
“I think she said that money wasn’t everything.
She said, ‘You’d have plenty of money if you married Chisholm.
’ And Miss Lucy said, ‘Yes, and be a prisoner in a worse castle than this one. I’d have to grow my hair like Rapunzel.
’ And they laughed. They were so close, those two.
They certainly enjoyed each other’s company. ”
“Miss Flora is nowhere to be found, Agnes. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“No idea, sir. Back to her father, I suppose. She went off to see him right before the tragedy.”
“Miss Lucy took a bag with her when she went. You didn’t help her pack it?”
“Oh no, sir. I had no idea, until we found she’d gone. And she didn’t take much with her either. Only the minimum of undergarments and maybe a jumper or two. She did take her jewellery, though.”
“For sentimental reasons or was it valuable?”
“Oh, quite valuable, sir, I’d imagine. She had her grandmother’s diamond brooch and pearls and some other lovely things.
I suppose they’re all lying at the bottom of the water now.
” She hesitated, thinking. “Oh, and her greatcoat was missing. She must have taken that. That’s probably what pulled her under.
It was quite heavy to start with, and with all that water—”
“Interesting,” Melrose interrupted. “She wasn’t wearing a coat. She was wearing a hooded cloak and trousers.”
“That is strange, sir,” she said. “She did have such a cloak but she rarely wore it. Nor the trousers. She only wore them if they were going stalking in the hills and she’d have to do her share of crawling on the ground.”
“Perhaps she wanted to look like a boy if necessary,” Melrose said. “And the cloak was dark and hid her face.”
“Of course.” Agnes nodded. “Then she’ll have packed her greatcoat to take with her, although it would have been heavy to carry. I suppose they didnae recover her bag?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” Melrose said. “Perhaps it will wash ashore one day.”
A puzzled expression had come over her face.
“That’s another thing, sir,” she said. “The day before I’d had to work on that coat.
She gave it to me with mud and dirt on it.
She said they’d sat down to take a rest during their walk and she hadn’t realized she had been sitting in some mud.
So I had to sponge and brush it for her. ”
“Who was they?”
“She didn’t say. It’s not my place to ask questions.”
“So it had mud and dirt caked on it?”
“It did, sir. And some pine needles stuck in the tweed.”
The woodland outside the gates was composed mainly of Scots pines, he thought.
She had taken a rest after a very short walk.
And he found himself wondering if Stewart had been hiding out in the wood after the blow-up with Sir Henry.
Had Lucy had a tryst with him there, and that was when they planned their escape?
But the mud on the coat was from the day before.
And the question still remained: Who knew?
Who had found out what they were planning?
Who had decided to stop them? On his way out he’d have to check whether Chisholm’s cottage was close enough to the woods that he might have seen or overheard something without leaving his room.
“How did Miss Lucy seem the day she left? Did she seem agitated, excited?”
“She didn’t want me near her that day, sir. She said she had a headache and wanted to be left alone.”
“Was that after Mr Stewart was banished?”
“I couldnae say, sir. I did not hear the row with Mr Stewart from up here. Our maids’ rooms are one floor above this, too far away.”
“So you don’t know if Miss Lucy went out at all that day?”
“Again I couldnae tell you, sir.”
Melrose wondered if this was loyalty to her dead mistress or if Agnes really had been kept in the dark.
He didn’t think he’d get much more out of her.
Lucy had kept to herself that day, feigning a headache and packing a bag while she was alone.
At some stage she’d have had to slip out to meet Stewart.
Had she appeared at meals and acted normally that day?
That was the next thing to find out. He was about to leave when, on impulse, he asked, “Agnes, I just heard from another of the maids that the master is a little too friendly at times. Has that been your experience, too?”
She eyed him warily. “I’m lucky. I’m usually up here in my mistress’s room and don’t have any opportunity to encounter the rest of the family. But I have heard rumours from other servants. And not just the master. Mr Roland, too. They’re all just as bad as each other.”
He thanked Agnes and was directed this time down the proper staircase, this one wider but still made of plain stone with whitewashed walls. As he came out onto the landing below he was confronted by Sir Henry. Had Sir Henry been listening to his conversation? How much could he have overheard?
“What the devil do you think you are doing?” Sir Henry bellowed. “Going up to my daughter’s room without my permission? Who let you in? Why was I not informed?”
“I have been to speak with Agnes, your daughter’s maid,” Melrose replied calmly. “I felt it was essential to know whether your daughter had confided in her and what Agnes knew. Was the escape long planned or was it a spur-of-the-moment decision after you turned Stewart out of your house.”
“And what did you discover?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” Melrose said. “Miss Lucy did not confide in her maid, or her maid is staying silent out of loyalty. I do know that she told Agnes she had a headache and wanted to be left alone, presumably while she packed a bag. But when she met Stewart to plan details, I could not say. Did she come to meals as usual that day?”
Sir Henry frowned, then he shook his head. “She did not. She pleaded a headache at luncheon and then said she wasn’t hungry at dinner time and would only have a bowl of soup in her room.”
“Did she actually eat that bowl of soup?”
“I gather she must have done, or it would have been mentioned to my wife that she was off her food.”
“So she was still in residence at suppertime?”
“I presume so.”
“And slipped out at some time after that. Do we have any idea when the boat sailed?”
Sir Henry’s face flushed red again. “Look, man, does any of this matter now? Someone had the means to sabotage that boat. It keeled over. They drowned. All we need to know is who did it. And my money is on Chisholm. So don’t waste any more time here speaking with my servants behind my back. Get busy and find the culprit.”
“I should like to speak with your wife again before I leave,” Melrose said. “Your daughter may have confided in her.”
Sir Henry’s face turned from red to puce.
“My wife? You will not disturb my wife. She is in a very delicate state, distraught with grief, and I will not allow you to put her through more misery. But I can tell you one thing—she was all for the marriage to Chisholm. She felt it was the perfect match. So no, Mr Policeman. Lucy would not have told my wife about her plans to run away with a no-good, interfering Communist agitator.”
Melrose could see he was not going to get any further with this family.
Sir Henry escorted him across the landing to the main staircase, also made of stone and winding down, hugging the wall of the castle.
Melrose glanced out of a slit of a window, looking back across the courtyard to the woodland and to the hills above.
Surely someone would have noticed Lucy slipping out to meet with Stewart on at least one occasion?
Those pine needles indicated they met in the wood.
But before he had time to contemplate this, Sir Henry barked, “Come on, man. Get a move on. We haven’t got all day. ”
And he was taken down the rest of the stair, across the foyer and out of the front door, Sir Henry leaving him with an abrupt “Good day to you, sir.”
He had been dismissed.