Chapter Twenty-One #2
‘I’ll go down,’ she says, giving the butler nothing.
He helps with her coat and hat and stands in the doorway, staring after her as if there might be answers to his many questions in the shape of her departure.
From Princes Street the church bell sounds the half hour, and Araminta doesn’t notice Harry Thom, mounted, at a distance, following from the far side of the square.
When they stop at the milliner’s, the first shop to be visited, Davey points him out as he opens the carriage door. ‘Ma’am,’ he flicks his head. ‘Mr Thom.’
Araminta peers obliquely. Then she smiles. ‘We’ll lead him a merry dance, shall we, Davey?’
Davey grins.
Over the next few hours, Mr Thom proceeds to witness a great deal of shopping.
After the milliner’s on Princes Street Araminta proceeds to a jeweller’s booth on the first floor of a building on George Street adjacent to the Assembly Rooms, where it takes her almost an hour to choose the Cairngorm stones she thinks will most delight her husband.
She discusses the formation of these smoky quartz gems and also takes two large beryls, rarer than the Cairngorms. A further hour is expended in buying several yards of good tweed and tartan in a dowdy-looking shop on Hanover Street, which, Brodie assured Mrs Moore yesterday, her great aunt often patronised.
By half past one, Thom is ready to throttle someone.
He loiters, overhearing Mrs Moore order wooden trunks from the carpenter on Thistle Street Lane to transport her great aunt’s goods to London.
Through the small shop window, Araminta views Thom in the doorway of a saddler’s.
He’s handsome, she thinks, in a dark-eyed way.
And well-dressed. Something of the lothario about him.
Smartly, she checks her pocket watch. Then she directs Davey to take her home.
Thom waits by the mews.
‘It’s surely inadvisable for you to be seen here, sir,’ Davey points out. ‘The butler asked me questions about you earlier.’
Thom kicks an old anvil that has been there so long nobody can recall where it came from.
‘I must take her in hand,’ he snarls.
‘In hand, sir?’
‘I must break her open.’
Davey’s eyes widen.
‘When your mistress went to the castle the other day, how did she seem after?’ Thom barks.
Davey grins. ‘Wet, sir. It was terrible weather. One of the maids said it took a full hour to dry the lady’s things.’
‘Speak to the maids often, do you?’
‘They bring my meals. Pies from the kitchen. Porridge. And notices from the mistress when she requires the carriage.’
‘And she didn’t seem unduly excited that day?’ Thom pushes.
Davey shakes his head. ‘I don’t see the mistress much, sir. She’s inside the carriage, you see.’
‘And the last few days she’s only required you for this shopping trip, a trip to her lawyer, Heriot’s Hospital and the castle? And her great aunt’s funeral?’
‘And the first night I took her to St Giles’, if you recall. I told you about that. And she went to that house, sir, beyond the Water of Leith,’ he adds, remembering exactly which lies he’s told.
Thom eyes the boy. He knows just where Davey means.
The row of houses beyond the water, where that minx of a whore kept him busy most of the night before last. But he’s checked and no aristocratic personage resides there.
Nowhere near, in fact. Things aren’t adding up but it’s difficult to tell if the boy is actually lying.
He steps closer. ‘You must disclose everything, do you understand?’ he growls.
‘Yes, sir.’ Davey shows no fear, though the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
‘Have you seen nuns, boy?’
Davey shakes his head.
‘I believe your mistress has been beyond the city walls to the south. She’s been there recently.’
Davey isn’t sure what to say. He’s happy to lie, but there’s no need.
‘To Heriot’s Hospital, sir? Is that what you mean?’
‘Beyond there,’ Thom growls. Davey seems such a cheerful, simple fellow.
He hates that. And he’s sure Araminta McKenzie Moore is laughing at him.
The crown, the object of his mission, is under his nose and the damn woman is leading him a merry dance.
In league with nuns, it seems she’s bamboozled him, playing cat and mouse across the city.
Damn women and their damn shopping. ‘I won’t have it,’ he says, out of the blue.
‘Yes, sir,’ Davey responds obligingly.
‘It’ll be mine,’ Thom adds gruffly, and by this he means not so much the crown itself as the glory in which he will bask in London when he delivers it.
‘How many women has she met since she has been here?’ he pushes.
‘I don’t know who visits the house, sir. But she hasn’t returned any calls in the carriage.’
‘A nun,’ Thom pushes. ‘There’s been a nun.’
‘No, sir.’ Davey, again, can say this with complete honesty. He hasn’t seen Sister Winifred and is beginning to wonder if Mr Thom is deranged.
Thom’s eyes narrow. There’s something he can’t quite put his finger on but his instincts rarely let him down.
The trouble is that there are no other members of the McKenzie staff to bribe.
The butler is a family retainer of longstanding with, apparently, no personal proclivities upon which pressure might be exerted.
McGhie approached the footman before the old woman died but Douglas was not amenable to his attention.
Besides that, the maids of all work are too junior and McGhie in any case, judges them almost moronic.
‘I doubt they can distinguish between information and sheer nonsense,’ he said.
Then there’s Cook, who scarcely leaves the basement floor.
Thom lets out a disheartened sigh. He’s lost the trail.
The castle. The visit to Heriot’s. The mound in the meadows.
These all prove the crown’s existence. But the women got away with whatever they dug up.
He hates having to doggedly follow – he’d rather lead – but it seems that’s his lot.
‘You’ll come tomorrow to Mr McGhie’s,’ he says as a parting shot to Davey, who he decides is better than nothing.
In the meantime, Harry Thom knows he’ll have to press on.
Somewhere there’s another clue. And to solve it the women will have to speak to each other.
If he can catch them doing so, he’ll have another shot at taking matters into his own hands.
They’re up to something, the witches. In the meantime, he’s hungry, and decides to return the horse and order an oyster pie and a pint of stout at a hostelry on South Bridge.
It’ll give him an hour or two to mull things over.