The Pearl Thief

  There was a light and more than one human voice by the Salmon Stane in Inchfort Field.

  I switched off my own torch to save the batteries. I could see the standing stone from the bottom of the field, a pure black silhouette against a less black and star-salted sky, and there was another lit electric torch burning in the long grass at the base of the stone to show me the way. Pinkie pressed close against my legs, keeping quiet and sensible, which made me think she knew who was up there. She was subdued and submissive, but she wasn’t paralysed with fear.

  Presumably Ellen wasn’t either.

  When I got closer I could see that there were two people there, faintly foot-lit by the torch on the ground as if they were on stage. One was Ellen, with her back against the stone like Joan of Arc tied to the stake. The man she was facing held her prisoner with a stick like a spear shaft, pinning her arms and chest against the stone. She was struggling like a salmon and spitting protests.

  Pinkie dropped and cowered silently.

  ‘I didnae!’ Ellen swore.

  ‘The librarian’s seen ye,’ said the other. ‘And I’ve seen ye. Bold as brass, beneath her door, on the footbridge, on the path. Do you not bring your young man here the night?’

  ‘I never had a man here – never, day or night. Never! I said so to the inspector – you heard – it was he as said I did that, not I! I’m working at the library with the Earl of Strathfearn. I don’t – No, I won’t – Oh!’ She gasped, and twisted at the waist, and I could not see what his free hand was doing to her.

  The man said in a low, clear voice, ‘Aye, but ye will, ye teasing tinkie hussy, ye will. Or I’ll have your brother arrested for the murder of yon Dr Housman. Ye ken? He’ll hang for it.’

  He could, I suddenly realised with horror. He could. Mary’s alibi for Euan only made sense if Housman had committed suicide – if he’d waded away into the river right after I saw him. It wouldn’t work if Housman had been murdered later.

  ‘No!’ Ellen’s entire body made another wrenching bid for freedom, and she suddenly let out a squealing, outraged sob. ‘O, God, I’ll have you down Sheriff Court mysel’, I swear, you filthy scaldy bastard!’

  ‘And whose word will they take, lassie, yours or mine?’

  There was no way in the world I was ever again going to stand frozen, frightened and cowed and passive, and watch this man launch a violent attack on any McEwen.

  I lit my own electric torch and shone it at his head.

  ‘Angus Henderson,’ I said coldly, ‘what the bloody hell are you doing?’

  He turned swiftly, and got a faceful of light. I knew he couldn’t see a thing.

  Instinctively he raised his cromach, freeing Ellen, and hit out at me. The staff caught me a thudding thump on the shoulder that knocked me sideways on to one knee.

  I dropped the torch with a shrieking gasp.

  Pinkie, surely in desperation, did the bravest thing she’s probably ever done in her life and leaped at Henderson with a snarl.

  ‘Pinkie! Down! No!’ Ellen yelled. ‘Down!’ She wrestled the dog to the ground.

  My arm was numb. I scrabbled for the torch with shaking, unsteady fingers.

  ‘Let her go, Ellen!’

  ‘No,’ Ellen said, crouched, holding the dog tight against her. ‘One dunt o’ that cromach will break her skull.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Suddenly I felt sure I knew how I’d got that dunt on the head.

  The river watcher was towering over me, a dark shadow like the standing stone. My frantic fingers found the torch at last, cold and solid metal, and I aimed its beam into his craggy face, trying to blind him. I could hear my own breath coming harsh and fast, and swallowed bile.

  ‘Oh, Angus Henderson,’ I articulated carefully, getting to my feet. I licked my lips. ‘You want to dally with a lassie in the dark? Come kiss me. Come here …’

  He was frozen in the beam of my torch like a hare, baffled by this turn of events. ‘Why –’

  I stepped closer, bringing myself toe to toe with him. ‘Come along, big man.’

  I hooked my hand around the base of his skull and pulled his face down to mine. My shoulder felt like it was in flames. I found his mouth and kissed him like I meant it, hard and deep.

  And I did mean it – but not as a kiss. I meant it as a threat, and a warning, and a curse.

  He pulled our mouths apart and backed away from me. I’d spooked him. Tangled up with the hysterical dog and the blinding beam of the light and the two conspiring girls, he was no longer so sure of either his strength or his authority.

  ‘Do I know you? You’re no’ one of them travelling folk.’

  He could hear that in the dripping sarcasm of my exaggeratedly aristocratic voice.

  ‘You know me in the day,’ I said. I held up the torch and poured light down my body, over the borrowed gold velvet bolero jacket and the flimsy rose georgette and all the curves and corners that lay barely hidden beneath. ‘I’m Julia Beaufort-Stuart.’

  ‘Och, Lady Julia,’ he breathed, and took another step back.

  ‘You can kiss me if you like,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind. You can stand here and have me up against the stone like you were going to –’

  ‘You know I never would, Lady Julia!’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ I said. ‘You took me for a dirty tinker once before, didn’t you, when you thought you’d found me poaching Strathfearn’s trout by the Drookit Stane? What did you do then? Thumped me on the head for fun!’

  ‘I didnae! I didnae touch you!’

  I didn’t believe a word of this denial.

  ‘You carried me up the path to Inchfort Field so you could make it look like some McEwen lad had done the damage,’ I accused.

  ‘Aye, I did that, but I didnae touch you,’ Henderson elaborated meaningfully – if you can call changing the meaning of your words by changing your tone ‘elaboration’.

  ‘You can now,’ I said. ‘Come on, big man, I’m gasping for you! Maybe I’ll like it and not tell anyone. But maybe I’ll say you forced me, here in the dark when I was bringing Ellen home from the theatre. And whose word will they take, Angus, yours or mine?’

  He stood frozen and silent for a long moment.

  ‘Speak one false word against Euan McEwen,’ I warned coolly, ‘and I’ll tell my lady mother that you raped me.’

  He dropped a few cold, angry words at my feet.

  ‘You filthy wee bitch.’

  Then he picked up his own fallen torch, and took his cromach, and strode away down the field to wherever it was he’d left his bicycle.

  We heard him rattling away and, for a few seconds, watched the light of his headlamp bobbing like a will-o’-the-wisp through the birch wood. Then he was gone.

  Ellen gasped, ‘He could –’

  ‘He won’t dare.’

  ‘O, God pity me, Julie, I cannae stay here alone the night,’ she sobbed.

  I was still trembling. I felt like I’d been dropped down one of the Aberfearn Castle chimneys.

  ‘Of course you can’t,’ I said. ‘Come back with me.’

  There wasn’t any place to put Ellen in the Big House except in my narrow bed, so that’s where we both collapsed, with our arms tight around each other so we wouldn’t fall out. Ellen fell asleep almost straight away. But I lay awake with my heart full of hatred and love so evenly distributed I felt like my chest was going to explode, and my head full of the deathless, chill voice of the river and the living, volcanic voice of Le Sphinx, winding me in night and day and ‘Night and Day’.

  16

  AN’ WHA DARE MEDDLE WI’ ME?

  Getting dressed the next morning I had a scrap with Mother, who grabbed me by the arm so suddenly it shocked me into a howl of pain.

  ‘Julia, how on earth did you get that black mark across your shoulder? You look as if you’ve been hit by a train! You can’t wear your birthday frock with that – it has no sleeves!’

  ‘That’s where Sergeant Henderson hit me with his cromach.’


  I told her about what had happened at Inchfort Field last night.

  ‘Hanging’s too good for him. That man ought to be horsewhipped first,’ Mother said furiously.

  ‘Mary thinks he is a dear.’

  Mother went raging down to the hall telephone to ring the police.

  Ellen spent all of Sunday morning sulking and scaffing Mémère’s French coffee in a corner of the morning room, with Jamie waiting on her like a knight’s squire. Much the way he waits on me. Watching him sitting on the floor at her feet, pouring her another cup and stirring in sugar without even having to ask how many she wanted, I realised whom the river watcher had meant when he’d said he’d seen her with someone, bold as brass.

  And why wouldn’t she and Jamie have kissed on the footbridge to the library as bold as brass, if they wanted to? They were the same age. They weren’t married to other people. No one told them not to. It wasn’t like me and Frank Dunbar.

  Sly old Jamie! He didn’t kiss her any time I might have seen it.

  He looked up at me just as I was putting this together, saw that I had twigged him and blushed.

  I didn’t think Ellen could be any more serious with Jamie than she was with me. She was enjoying herself, testing the peaty water. Probably he was too.

  But my heart twisted a little enviously that they could do it in daylight.

  ‘Are you thinking of challenging Angus Henderson to a duel?’ I asked. ‘Because don’t forget he strangled a German officer with his bare hands and you are not a lot bigger than me.’

  ‘What stupid sort of fox challenges a hound?’ Jamie parried. ‘I’ve a better idea. Let’s get Ellen out of the Strathfearn estate at night.’

  He glanced up at her. ‘There’s a good train to Comrie from Brig O’Fearn every two hours. I’ll take you and Pinkie tomorrow and show you how to change at Perth. You can stay with your own folk and take the train to work, like a banker!’

  That was Sunday; it was August bank holiday on Monday and the building works were quiet and the police did not get back to us.

  Then while Mother and I were in Perth on Tuesday, having my fairy dress altered to be made more modest, representatives of the Perthshire and Kinross-shire Constabulary arrived at the Big House and arrested Solange on a charge of murder for the death of Dr Hugh Housman.

  Unbelievable, unbearable gloom descended on Strathfearn House.

  Mother was hardly ever there that week. She launched a one-woman assault on His Majesty’s Prison in Perth, seeing to it that Solange was supplied with every comfort a prisoner was allowed, even attempting to send her armfuls of roses (they had to sit in the prison office). Many telephone calls were made to Father in Craig Castle, and to Mémère’s sister in France, concerning lawyers. Mémère kept up her stoic folding of hankies with Colette in attendance, and Jamie and I worked with Sandy and Ellen to pull together the catalogue for the Murray Collection. We weren’t allowed to visit Solange and the catalogue had to be completed regardless of the Murray and Beaufort-Stuart household’s emotional state.

  ‘The Strathfearn Murder’ (it was officially murder now) was shouted in all the papers every day. For a few days it was relegated to the inside pages, but the inevitable post-mortem revealed that the killing was utterly horrific. The poor fellow wasn’t just garrotted. Perhaps he was like Rasputin and simply wouldn’t die? He was so battered that now ‘the examining doctor has not been able to determine the actual cause of death’.

  There was a great hole in the back of his head where his skull was bashed in and also – ugh – his throat had been cut.

  How could they possibly believe it was Solange! Surely the Water Bailiff was the most likely suspect when it came to brutal violence?

  But even I could see that he had no motive. If he’d known about the pearls, he’d have taken them away weeks ago and we’d never have found them. And Solange had admitted to striking Dr Housman. She’d admitted to a fight. She’d admitted to winning. And no one had seen either one of them that afternoon except me, and everything I’d seen suggested that she could have come along to finish the job. She was even intimate enough with him that she could have hidden his clothes.

  Eventually the papers printed pictures of all the wounds. Not photographs, which I suppose would have been too lurid even for the Mercury. They were just pencil drawings.

  ‘They’re not as good as yours,’ I told Ellen when I showed her.

  ‘That’s not what the rope looked like at all. They’ve made it look like something you’d lead a pony with. It was bonnier than that.’

  ‘Bonnier! What, you mean, prettier?’

  She scowled. She had been fearsomely crabbit, even for Ellen, since Henderson smeared her with his mucky paws.

  ‘Aye, prettier than that, all right, Lady Julia? Like a … a dressing-gown cord.’

  ‘Decorative, you mean?’

  ‘Stop telling me what I mean!’

  I thought she was angry that I had had to come to her rescue. Not that I did – she’d been glad to be rescued – but that I had to. She couldn’t have saved herself and we both knew it. And it was the good fortune of my being ‘Lady Julia’ that let me do it. It was embarrassing to both of us.

  I also had an argument with Sandy. Of all people.

  It was my own stupid fault, especially as I’d already remarked that he was ready to take on anyone. It started innocently enough, when we were all having rare drinks on the terrace on the Thursday after Mother came home from visiting Solange. We were just all so tired of being miserable that Mémère started pouring sherry.

  ‘And, Jamie, take one to Monsieur Dunbar,’ she said magnanimously. ‘It is awkward him always sitting at work there with his terrace doors standing open.’

  I sat quiet, pointedly pretending I hadn’t heard and didn’t care. I had been very cautious all summer long about not letting Mother or Solange know about my crush on Frank Dunbar. But it was not a secret that Frank was so at home in his office adjoining the morning room that it had become a little den.

  Jamie disappeared next door with a sherry glass and came back a minute or so later commenting, ‘That man is in desperate need of a housekeeper. There’s cheese parings and a half-eaten loaf of bread going stale among his blueprints.’

  ‘Am I going to be remembered for leaving a legacy of mice to this house!’ Mémère exclaimed.

  I bit my lip. I couldn’t possibly leap to Frank’s defence without giving myself away.

  Mother sighed. ‘We really ought to have been more thoughtful of him since this trouble started. He could have certainly joined us for soup or cold meats from time to time. I suppose we should ask Mary to join us more often too.’

  ‘I do ask her.’ Sandy, who’d been standing at the stone railing gazing out over the grounds of his lost realm, joined in the conversation unexpectedly. ‘I asked her to come round tonight. But there’s a lecture at the library – “Victorian Angling” – and she has to be there to serve sandwiches.’

  Sandy paused, then turned around deliberately to face us all. ‘And I’ve asked her to come along to the shoot with me on Opening Day,’ he announced a little defiantly. ‘Perhaps I’ll even let her take the gun a time or two. She shoots rather well.’

  He sat down on the railing. I went and sat down next to him.

  Sandy turned to me. He looked as tired as Mother. He said to me in a low voice, ‘I didn’t ask her to the Menzies’ party after the shoot because I thought you should do that yourself, Julie. It being your birthday.’

  ‘Oh!’ I hadn’t thought about it. ‘Am I allowed to ask people? But Mary never goes to parties.’

  ‘She might if she were asked. She’s a great deal more of an explorer than you might think. She’s giving Miss Ellen McEwen a good second thought.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ I had to admit she was doing that. I wondered if I could ask Ellen to the party too. But I didn’t quite dare. It wasn’t really my party. I didn’t want to offend or upset Mrs Menzies, or indeed Mémère herself. br />
  I sulked, feeling cowardly and Victorian.

  ‘I want Mary to get out more,’ Sandy confessed. ‘She’ll have to, if I marry her.’

  ‘Sandy!’ I teased. ‘Would you really?’

  ‘Well, why not?’

  ‘But what if she wants children?’

  He stared at me as uncomprehendingly as if I’d spoken in cant. ‘What if she does?’

  ‘They might be like her. Isn’t it risky?’

  ‘They might all be as beautiful as you,’ he said coldly, ‘which would be riskier.’

  I felt truly slapped.

  Sandy took a swallow of his sherry.

  ‘They’d be your nieces and nephews, in any case,’ he added. ‘So get used to the idea.’

  I thought about it and felt so ashamed of myself I wanted to weep.

  O brave new world that has such people in’t!

  I lay awake trying to find some cast-iron way to prove Solange’s innocence, of which we were all convinced. The only piece of hard evidence I had to offer were the pearls in the jam pot. I still didn’t understand the connection, but I felt certain it existed. It would be worth giving up our priceless, pointless heritage to save Solange’s life.

  And at exactly the right time, the McEwens came back. They were getting ready to work with their cousins the Camerons on the shoot at Glenmoredun Castle on Opening Day – loading guns, beating the grouse out of the heather on the moor and collecting the dead birds afterwards. In the meantime they were harvesting flax at Bridge Farm, except Ellen who was now being reimbursed for her time by the Murray Estate itself at considerably higher wages than Euan was ever paid for his time digging on the pipeline for the Glenfearn School swimming bath.

  So it wasn’t just Jamie and I who went to collect the pearls from hiding, but the full reconnaissance party who had found them in the first place. We all wanted to see them again, Ellen and Euan just as much as we Beaufort-Stuarts, and we knew the only place to do it safely was right there in the dovecote under the last roofed room of Aberfearn Castle.

  I dressed for mountaineering in proper shoes and trousers, but did not take into account the sore shoulder until I was halfway up the chimney.