Faro frowned. 'Who could that be?'
'Our housekeeper - Mrs Brook, of course.'
Faro opened his mouth, closed it again. In a voice heavy with indignation, he said, 'I have never even considered such a thing. The whole idea is quite intolerable, Vince. I trust you are joking,' he added coldly.
'Come now, Stepfather, give it a little thought. She has all the qualifications my mother had. Homely, kind, a good cook - a damned good cook, come to that. And she is the right age for you,' he added triumphantly.
'The right age, is she?' Faro demanded. 'Nearer fifty-five than forty. Really, Vince. I'm appalled. Quite appalled. I do need a little intellectual stimulus beyond the kitchen stove and the household accounts, you know.'
'You didn't get it from mamma, did you? But it didn't stop you loving her and producing two daughters.'
Faro was speechless as Vince went on: 'Don't you see what I'm getting at? You've come a long way since you met my Ma. Granted she was right for you then but, alas, she wouldn't be right for you now. You've gone up in the world, she would never have kept up with you. You'd have left her in the kitchen long ago,' he said sadly. 'You need a wife who could enjoy the world at your pace, share your love of books and music, your vast and ever-growing knowledge.'
'The kind of relationship you have with Olivia,' said Faro, determined to have the last word on marriages.
'Perhaps. Time will tell.' Vince's expression gave nothing away, but because he was equally determined, 'Like Mark and Harriet, we hope. They seem well suited. Miss Gilchrist says they have loved each other since childhood, but the vicar's daughter was not a suitable match for Sir Archie's heir. He wanted an alliance with this rich plain girl, coal owner's only daughter. But Mark and Harriet wanted each other. As you saw, true love won the day.'
Faro, listening silently, hoped it hadn't been helped by murder.
Mysteries were by no means ended and next morning yet another was thrown into the equation. Invited to accompany Owen and Olivia back to Branxton, Miss Gilchrist was extremely keen that they should see the old battlefield of Flodden and the pretty villages of Ford and Etal.
As they met in the Castle grounds, Olivia said, 'I don't know how I will ever manage to eat luncheon. Such a breakfast. I was hoping to see Miss Kent again when we said goodbye to Lady Elrigg. I'm very curious about her.'
Asked to explain, she continued, 'I am almost certain she is the same Beatrice Kent who was at boarding school in Edinburgh at the same time I was. Of course I didn't know her very well, she was a few years ahead of me. And it was all hushed up.'
'What was all hushed up, Livvy?' asked Vice patiently, knowing her weakness for going off on a tangent.
'Protecting the younger girls from scandal, of course.'
'What sort of scandal?'
Olivia regarded the two men, biting her lip. 'You know, I don't even care to discuss it.'
'Oh, come along, now that you've told us this much, we're intrigued. Don't be mean, Olivia,' said Vince as she glanced uncomfortably in Faro's direction.
'Well - I don't know.'
'Oh, don't be a goose, you can tell Stepfather anything. I do.' Vince chided her gently.
'Yes, but you're different. You're a man.'
'So I've heard,' Vince laughed. 'So is Stepfather. And he has seen and heard of most of the frailties of human nature, haven't you?
'I'm afraid so.'
'Well, what was it? Don't tell me she cheated at exams?' said Vince.
Olivia shuddered. 'Oh no, that was quite common.'
'Games, then?'
'We all cheated at games. No. It was much worse than that.'
'I know,' said Vince triumphantly. 'She flirted with the gardener's boy and was seen kissing him behind the garden shed.'
Olivia pushed him, laughing, then, suddenly serious, 'If only it was just that.'
'Surely you can't get anything more serious in a girls' boarding school than an illicit kiss with the gardener's boy -'
'Vince, listen to me, please. It was nothing like this. I mean, normal.' She stopped and then went on rapidly. 'She was expelled and the music teacher dismissed.'
That bad,' Vince whistled. 'Pupils do fall in love with their teachers, especially in girls' schools.'
'You still don't understand. We didn't have men teachers at St Grace's.'
'Oh?'
'This was a woman teacher.' Olivia gulped and blushed. 'They were caught - together - in bed,' she whispered.
Faro, listening to the conversation in mild amusement, did not take in the immediate significance. Girls in schools frequently slept in the same bed and his first thought was that it was the fact of a schoolgirl sleeping next to one of the teachers.
But the emphasis 'together' and Olivia's accompanying blushing discomfort removed all doubts. Although he had encountered the homosexual's forbidden world during his years with the Edinburgh City Police, he found it difficult to understand - as did many of his fellow men, Vince included - that women were capable of a deep physical relationship.
Indeed, although there was a criminal law against male homosexuals, there existed no such law against lesbians, simply because Her Majesty, outraged at such a suggestion, refused to believe her sex capable of such depravity.
Faro sighed. Olivia's revelations gave an added motive for murder. Two women who loved passionately and between them the unwanted husband.
'It is also one possibility,' said Vince later, 'why there were no children. Sir Archie was known as a collector of beautiful objects. Presumably he regarded his lovely wife in the same light. I wonder if he knew about Miss Kent when he married her.'
'I doubt whether he would have considered it of any significance, since most rich women have companions,' said Faro.
'Perhaps he was impotent. That would account for no children by his first marriage and the adoption of his stepson as the future heir of Elrigg,' said Vince.
How ironic, thought Faro. A castle with splendid estates, a life, to the outside world, that had every material blessing and yet Sir Archie had every
