M.C. Beaton - Death of a Gentle Lady

He took out his phone and called Jimmy.

Jimmy listened impatiently as Hamish told him how he had set himself up as bait and about the wire on the stairs.

“I don’t want to know this,” he groaned. “But wait there. I’ll be right over.”

Hamish went outside. There was a small gravelled parking area in front of the castle. It did not seem to have been disturbed.

He walked round the castle. At the side was the kitchen door. He tried it. It was locked. He examined the lock closely, but there did not seem to be any sign that someone had tried to pick it. He walked to the back. He could see where chunks of the cliff had fallen into the sea over the years, leaving the castle perilously close to the sea’s edge. There was no door at the back.

He returned to the front and entered the castle again.

He had finished searching the last room when he heard Jimmy arrive.

Hamish went out to meet him. “I didn’t bring anyone with me,” said Jimmy. “I just hope it was someone in the family leaving that wire there in case of burglars.”

“Don’t be daft, Jimmy. Someone dropped that great pot in the hall, someone who knew I was upstairs and knew that I would come racing down. What we need are blueprints to this place. I could see no signs that anyone had come up to the front door or had left by that way. There must be another entrance. So far, I’ve searched everywhere and can’t find it. Might be something in the study.”

“The case was all nicely tied up,” said Jimmy.

“Confessed, did he?”

“No, he’s still protesting his innocence.”

“So let’s look for blueprints.”

They went into the study. “They might be rolled up somewhere,” said Hamish.

“There’s nothing in the bookshelves that I can see,” said Jimmy.

“Might be in a big bound book,” suggested Hamish. “Like those on the bottom shelf.”

Jimmy pulled out one and opened it. “Victorian photo album,” he said. “Must have been quite a place in its heyday. Look at the maids and butler lined up behind the family.”

“What about that thin one underneath?”

Jimmy tugged it out, laid it on the desk, and opened it.

“Blueprints!” he cried. “You have a look, Hamish. I’m fair lousy at making these things out.”

“Leave me with it and go up and have a look at that wire. You’ll see what I mean,” said Hamish, settling himself behind the desk.

He began to study the blueprints carefully. His eyes widened as his long finger traced a staircase. Of course! When the castle had been built, there would have been a back staircase for the servants. It led down to the kitchen. There was a small stillroom, butler’s room, larder, and laundry room. The staircase led from the back of the kitchen. He called to Jimmy and when he entered the study said, “Look at this!”

“What is it?” asked Jimmy.

“It’s a staircase. The back stairs for the servants. Let’s go and look.”

They made their way into the kitchen, Hamish carrying the book of blueprints, which he put on the kitchen table. He looked around. “It should be over there where the new units have been put in.”

He knelt down and searched the floor. “There are scratch marks here. This cupboard is on castors. Help me wheel it out.”

The cupboard slid out easily. Behind was a door. Hamish put on a pair of latex gloves and opened it. “There are your back stairs,” he said. “He could have come in this way. Look, there are footprints in the dust on the stairs.”

They walked up to the first landing. A door which had led off it was bricked up. On they went to the second landing. Here they found a door. Hamish pushed it open and found himself looking at the back of a large wardrobe. He edged round it and found himself in one of the bedrooms.

“That’s how he did it,” said Hamish. “He must also have a key to the kitchen door. When he heard me coming down the stairs, all he had to do was nip out the kitchen door and wait until the coast was clear. He could walk along the cliff edge and nip over the boundary wall. May have had his car parked out on the road.”

“We’d better go back downstairs and get everyone up here,” said Jimmy gloomily. “These stairs and the kitchen have got to be dusted all over again. And I thought I was in for a few peaceful days!”

♦

No one was pleased with Hamish Macbeth. There were grumbles at headquarters, even Daviot saying, “Why couldn’t he have left things alone, instead of setting himself up like some sort of stalking horse?”

It meant all the family had to be contacted again about the wire on the stairs, and all their alibis checked. Hours and days of police time and police money. “I’ve a good mind to sell that damn police station of his to recoup our losses,” raged Daviot.

The fact that they might have arrested the wrong man hung over headquarters like a black cloud.

The next morning, Hamish was in his police station when Elspeth arrived. “I’ve been summoned back to Glasgow,” she said. “Nothing to report until the court case.”

“You’d best come in,” said Hamish. “Something’s come up.”

Elspeth listened eagerly. “This is grand, Hamish. What a story! Secret staircase and all.”

“The trouble is,” said Hamish, “that you’ll need to get the facts officially. I suggest you go up to the castle, where they’re still searching for clues. I’d better give a hint to Matthew Campbell. Is he at the Highland Times’? ”

“No, he’s off to cover a dried-flower show at Bonar Bridge. Don’t worry. I’ll fill him in when I get back. Are you going to be all right? What if the murderer tries again?”

“Don’t say anything in the paper about me suggesting I really knew something, or I’ll be plagued by time-wasting nutters,” said Hamish.

“I won’t.”

“Now get out of here fast. I bet that Russian inspector will soon be here.”

♦

And so it turned out. No sooner had Elspeth’s car disappeared along the waterfront than Anna was at the door.

“We have to talk,” she said.

“You’re in plain-clothes,” said Hamish.

“I was about to leave when your news broke.” Anna was wearing a tailored grey suit over a white blouse. Her hair was tied at the back of her head with a thin black ribbon.

When she was seated at the kitchen table, she said, “If Mark Gentle did not murder Mrs. Gentle or Irena, then it might have been you.”

“How do you work that out?” demanded Hamish.

“You did not want to marry Irena, so you killed her. Mrs. Gentle found out something that would incriminate you, and so you lured her out and pushed her over the cliff. You put the wire on the stair yourself so as to mislead the police.”

Hamish thought, illogically, I wish she didn’t look so much like Putin in drag.

“I couldn’t have killed Irena because Jimmy Anderson was with me from the early morning until we left for Inverness. Now that you all have a suspect and thought the case closed, why should I try to open it? What gave you such a crazy idea?”

“You are a man of great intelligence and yet you choose to remain in this isolated village and stay in the rank of an ordinary policeman. Only someone who is psychologically flawed would opt for that.”

“What on earth is wrong with being contented and unambitious?” said Hamish. “I enjoy my life here, I love this village – that is, when I am not beset by murderers and foreign police officers.”

“You forget the respect that is due to my rank!”

“It’s not every day I am accused of being a murderer,” said Hamish mildly. “Coffee?”

“Yes.”

When Hamish had served them both with coffee and shortbread, he said, “The facts are simply these. I put it about night before last that Irena had told me something important. I knew the gossip would spread like wildfire over the Highlands. What puzzles me about the wire across the stairs is that it is not something I would expect a cold-blooded murderer to do.”