and fell in the Seine.”
“What about the note?”
“Oh, that. Probably some prankster.”
“Aunt Elizabeth, two women have been murdered!”
“But what kind of women, hey? Tarts, that’s what. And that sort of creature is always getting into trouble.”
Rose opened her mouth to argue further, but then decided against it. She feared Aunt Elizabeth might become angry and send her away.
¦
That night, she tossed and turned, wishing the shrieking wind would abate. She wondered about that new footman. He wasn’t exactly young, perhaps in his early thirties. But Aunt Elizabeth had said he had good references. If only Harry would return.
She remembered there was a bookcase in the drawing room. The castle did not boast a library. Perhaps it might be a good idea to read herself to sleep. She got out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown, lit her bed candle and went out into the corridor and down the stairs. She began to experience that earlier feeling of unease. Her candle threw great shadows up on the stone walls as the flame streamed in the draught. The fire was still lit in the drawing room. The sound of the wind was less than it was upstairs. She lit an oil lamp, chose a copy of an old favourite,
When she went into her room, she stiffened. There was a foreign smell in it, a smell of sweat. Rose hurried to Daisy’s room and woke her up.
“I want you to come with me, Daisy. I went downstairs to the drawing room to read and while I was away, I think someone entered my room.”
“Don’t worry. I’m coming.” Daisy got out of bed and picked up a brass poker from the fireplace.
They lit all the lamps in Rose’s room and looked around. “What made you think someone had been in here?” asked Daisy.
“There was the smell of sweat.”
“Can’t smell anything. Why would anyone come into your room?”
“I’m worried about that new footman. Remember how those letters were hidden in my luggage? Perhaps someone has tried to hide something incriminating.”
Daisy stifled a yawn. “All the trunks and hatboxes are down in the storage room.”
“Think, Daisy. If you wanted to hide something, where would you put it?”
“In the wardrobe there, among your clothes. What about your jewel box?”
“It’s locked and Hunter has the key.”
Daisy longed to go back to bed, but Rose looked so frightened that she said, “I’ll look in the wardrobe and you look under your pillows and places like that.”
“Nothing here,” said Daisy after awhile.
“Try the pockets. Oh, let me.”
Rose searched feverishly through the pockets of various costumes and coats. She came to an old tweed coat she often wore when she was walking along the cliffs and plunged her hand into the pocket. Her fingers encountered something hard and smooth. She pulled it out. “Look at this, Daisy!”
It was a necklace of black pearls, smooth and heavy.
“Isn’t it yours?”
“No. Oh, Daisy, what if it belonged to Dolores? I remember they said certain items of her jewellery had been stolen. Don’t you see? Someone is trying to implicate me in the murder again. I’m sure it’s that footman. I’d better rouse Aunt Elizabeth.”
Aunt Elizabeth was annoyed at being awakened. At first she tried to persuade Rose that it was merely a piece of jewellery she had forgotten about but Rose had pointed out that no woman could forget the possession of a genuine black pearl necklace.
“I am sure it’s something to do with that new footman,” she said. “Please, please rouse the servants and have him brought here. The police will need to be called.”
“Very well. Anything so that we may get back to sleep.” Aunt Elizabeth pulled on the bell rope beside her bed. The first to arrive was her lady’s maid, Queen.
“Rouse all the servants from their beds and bring them down to the drawing room,” ordered Aunt Elizabeth.
They waited until all the servants in various stages of undress had gathered. “Now,” began Aunt Elizabeth, “did one of you put a pearl necklace in the pocket of a coat in Lady Rose’s wardrobe?”
The head footman, Jamie, stepped forward and said crossly, “We’ve all been in our beds, my lady.”
“Where’s that new footman, what’s-his-name?”
“Charlie. He’s here. Step forward, Charlie.”
But Charlie, who had been standing at the back of the group, had disappeared.
Now thoroughly alarmed, Aunt Elizabeth cried, “Search the castle, search the grounds. Get the stable staff up and the keepers and water bailiffs. Get them out on the moors. I want him brought back here. Tell John keeper to ride over to Inveraray and tell the police to come here immediately.”
Rose, later looking out of the castle window, saw figures bearing torches streaming out across the moors. Please catch him, she prayed, and let this all be over. Then she worried that Aunt Elizabeth might prove to be like the duchess in Paris and decide she did not like being near someone who caused such upheaval.
¦
Harry, arriving with Becket the following morning, having driven through the night, saw, to his dismay, a policeman standing on guard outside the castle door.
“Now what?” he muttered under his breath.
Becket was too tired to care. He felt he had been unable to spend any proper time with Daisy since their honeymoon.
Harry strode into the castle demanding to know the reason for the police presence. Jamie, the footman, told him they were all in the drawing room and Harry went up the stairs as fast as his bad leg would allow.
A police inspector rose as he entered the room. “I am so glad you are back,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “May I present Inspector Macleod. Inspector Macleod, Captain Cathcart.” She indicated a portly gentleman seated by the fire. “And this is our Lord Lieutenant, Sir Edwin Godfrey. Sir Edwin, Captain Cathcart.”
Harry shook hands with both of them. He smiled at Rose. A shaft of sunlight shone on the ring on her finger. Despite his fatigue, he felt a surge of gladness that she was unharmed and that she was wearing his ring.
Then he turned to the inspector. “What has been happening?”
He listened carefully to the story of the pearls. “But we can’t find hair nor hide o’ the fellow,” ended the inspector. “The policeman in Golspie went up to Dunrobin Castle early this morning and the Countess of Sutherland’s butler there said he had never heard of this so-called footman. I believe you have been working on this case.”
“Yes, and I have some more news. Dolores Duval was actually Betty Biles, brought up in the East End of London. Her father was English and her mother, French. Father, it seems, was a bit of a brute. When Dolores – I will always think of her as Dolores – was fifteen, her father was going to sell her to a local businessman. No question of marriage. The mother had died. Dolores ran away. The father owned a small grocery store. Dolores had taken the money out of the till. She must have gone straight to France. Now, there is a brother. Jeffrey. What did this footman look like?”
Rose gave him a description. “That sounds like the description we had of the brother. No one has seen him for a long time. As he seems to be hell-bent on putting the blame for the murders on Lady Rose, he must have committed them himself.”
“But to kill his own sister!” exclaimed Aunt Elizabeth. “Why?”
“As her next of kin, he would inherit unless she had left her money and property to someone else. That is why Madame de Peurey was killed, I think. How he can hope to inherit anything now that we are on to him, I don’t know.”
