Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom Read online

  I am always reminded of my younger son, Teddy, whenever I see this; it took him years to learn the ways of a tailcoat, years and years before he could sit without threat of strangulation. ‘The coat grabs on to the waistcoat, Mummy,’ he would say. ‘And the waistcoat sticks to the shirt which is buttoned to the collar, so when you anchor the coat to a chair with your behind, it gets you right in the windpipe. Why must I wear it?’ I would tell him that generations of Etonians had worn them every day and survived, and would advise him to watch Daddy, but it was not until around 1922 and those accursed dropped waistlines that I ever experienced the sensation for myself and truly sympathised.

  ‘Now then,’ said Sir Percival, once he was settled. ‘You come highly recommended, although by someone who wishes his name to be withheld, but I have a few questions to ask before we begin. If we begin.’

  ‘Bounce!’ said Lady Stott for some reason.

  I tried to look unsurprised and I saw Alec struggling with his eyebrows.

  Sir Percival ignored her. ‘You have no formal training in investigation,’ he said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘We are not police officers,’ said Alec, ‘if that’s what you mean.’

  Lady Stott raised a fluttery hand to her six strands of pearls and Sir Percival swallowed so hard that the knot of his tie moved at least an inch down his neck and then up again.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’m a Special Constable of the Edinburgh Constabulary. And have been since 1926.’ It was true; I had been sworn in during the General Strike and, through oversight more than anything, had never been sworn out again. ‘But we answer to no one,’ I went on. ‘Except you, our clients, and Him, our maker.’ I had a hunch that rigid respectability was the way to go.

  Sir Percival nodded slightly.

  ‘And we have solved a good many crimes of every size and seriousness from petty theft to murder,’ said Alec.

  Sir Percival swallowed again and Lady Stott lay back in her chair with a creak of whalebone.

  ‘Tweetie,’ she breathed.

  This time I know that my brows knitted as I tried to understand her and Alec chewed his lip for a moment or two while he sought a rejoinder.

  ‘Eunice!’ said her husband, rather more sharply than the first time, before turning back to Alec and me. ‘And how did you fall into this line of work?’

  Alec and I shared a glance and he nodded imperceptibly. I was to take the lead, he meant to say. I knew what was wanted for, while Alec is our silver tongue, I am our archivist. It is not a role that comes all that easily but I do what I can; it would be unseemly, given what is in our archives, for Alec to attempt it.

  ‘Our very first case came about when a dear friend of mine was being threatened by a scoundrel,’ I said. ‘I stepped in to help and discovered an aptitude for investigation. Mr Osborne here, on the other hand, could hardly help becoming involved. The threatener killed his fiancée.’ No matter how matter-of-factly one recounts it, this fact always startles. Today, it was rewarded with a gasp from Lady Stott and a twitch from Sir Percy. Alec stared straight ahead.

  ‘I hope you will accept Lady Stott’s and my condolences, Mr Osborne,’ said Sir Percy.

  ‘When was this?’ said Lady Stott.

  ‘Nine years ago,’ I said. I could see her checking his hands for the kind of signet rings gentlemen sometimes put on their little fingers when they marry. She was aquiver to ask if he had replaced the fiancée and embarked on his intended bliss after the disruption.

  ‘Since you mention a fiancée,’ said Sir Percy. He cleared his throat. ‘I did want to ask, as a matter of fact … I was surprised to hear that the Gilver of Gilver and Osborne was a lady, if I might be so frank as to speak my mind. And we wondered, Lady Stott and I, if “Mrs” is a courtesy title. Like a cook.’

  Alec snorted but managed to turn it into a cough.

  Lady Stott shot upright again with another creak in her rigging. ‘We did not!’ she said. ‘You might have. Mrs Gilver, I must apol—’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Alec magnanimously on my behalf. ‘If the case concerns your daughter, Lady Stott, I quite see that your husband would want to exercise the utmost caution.’

  ‘I am flattered, Sir Percival,’ I said. ‘But the truth is that I have been married to Mr Gilver, of Gilverton in Perthshire, for more than twenty years and have two grown-up sons. Young Mr Osborne here is our neighbour and friend and my professional partner.’ Alec preened himself rather to be described that way and I looked forward to kicking him when we were alone.

  ‘Two sons,’ said Lady Stott. ‘You’re a mother? She’s a mother, Bounce.’

  ‘Percy, please,’ said her husband, flushing. ‘I’m in rubber,’ he added, for Alec and me. ‘Started out in ladies’ foundation garments and expanded into dampeners. These days we grow our own.’

  I might have managed to contain myself, had not Alec asked in a studious way, ‘Grow your own what?’

  I whinnied and coughed. ‘Dam—’ I managed before I was overtaken. I tried again. ‘Dampeners?’

  ‘Is something the matter?’ said Sir Percy.

  Alec’s mouth was beginning to twitch.

  ‘I keep telling you,’ said Lady Stott. ‘I keep telling him. I was brought up with my father saying he travelled in marmalade and never understanding why people tittered.’

  ‘Dampeners for motorcar engines,’ said Sir Percy. ‘We did so well out of them that I bought into a plantation in British Malaysia.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Alec. ‘Grow your own rubber.’

  Lady Stott started to giggle then and, although her husband continued to look far from pleased, the ice was broken and the decision seemed to be made that Gilver and Osborne were employed by the Stotts to look into their troubles for them.

  A minute later the neat maid came back with a coffee tray.

  ‘It’s our daughter,’ said Lady Stott again, while pouring. ‘Our darling Theresa. Someone is making her life rather unpleasant.’

  ‘And she’s too stubborn to do the sensible thing,’ said Sir Percy.

  ‘She’s too principled to let herself be intimi—’ said Lady Stott, interrupting him.

  ‘She’s too spoiled to forgo her whims—’ Sir Percy cut in.

  ‘She’s come too far to give up just becau—’

  ‘Perhaps!’ said Alec. ‘You should fill in some of the more factual details.’

  Both Stotts gathered themselves. Sir Percy’s gathering was completed first and he resumed speaking.

  ‘Our daughter Theresa is engaged to Julian Armour.’ He paused, apparently for reaction. ‘Of Armour Ely.’ He paused again. ‘One of the city’s most prestigious firms of solicitors. His father started it up in eighteen hundred and ninety-two.’

  I knew that some appreciation was in order. While it would have been heartbreaking for a daughter of mine to attach herself to a Glaswegian lawyer, Sir Percy was clearly delighted. ‘How lovely,’ I said.

  Sir Percy, mollified, went on. ‘Her wedding is in July and if we can get her there, she has promised to settle down and be a credit to us.’

  ‘But?’ said Alec.

  ‘But,’ said Sir Percy, ‘in the meantime, there are “the Championships”. Theresa, despite her upbringing and all her advantages and despite Julian and the good fortune of her engagement, has got herself mixed up in … dancing.’

  I let go of the enormous pent-up breath I had been holding. ‘Dancing,’ I said.

  ‘Not ballet dancing, which would be bad enough the way they flit about in their nighties,’ he said. ‘And not good Scottish country dancing either.’

  ‘She likes a dance!’ said Lady Stott. ‘It’s a bit of harmless fun.’ Sir Percy snorted. ‘And, besides, Julian knows nothing about it.’

  ‘That seems rather risky,’ I put in. ‘What kind of dancing is it exactly?’

  ‘The Charleston,’ said Sir Percy, with some venom. ‘The paso doble. The black …’ He stalled.

  ‘Bottom,’ said Lady Stott. ‘But I keep telling yo
u, Bounce – I keep telling him – that the Scottish Professional Championship covers the waltz, the quickstep, the foxtrot and … Well, yes, the tango, I’ll grant you.’

  ‘Professional?’ I said. Sir Percy swept his arm out towards me in a grand gesture, supposed to show to his wife that I agreed with him in his horror. To be fair, I rather did; at least, I wanted to hear more about it.

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ said Lady Stott. ‘Some of the other professionals run dancing schools and some of them work in hotels and on the pleasure boats, but Tweetie just practises and competes and lives quietly at home between times.’

  ‘Quietly!’ said her husband. ‘She’s out every night at that dance-hall—’

  ‘Tweetie is Theresa?’ said Alec.

  ‘Tweetie Bird,’ said Lady Stott. ‘Oh, you should see her costumes, with the feathers and the little wings on her headdresses. She’s as pretty as a picture. And trips around the floor like a little fairy in Roland’s arms.’

  ‘Roland!’ growled Sir Percy.

  ‘Roland’s a lovely boy and so discreet,’ said his wife. Sir Percy snorted again and looked, briefly, as though he had caught a sudden whiff of something nasty. ‘He’s a clerk in Julian’s office. That’s where Theresa met him, don’t you know? But he never says a word out of turn and he knows it’s only until the wedding.’

  ‘He’s got her twisted round his little finger,’ said Sir Percy, his voice rising. ‘She couldn’t pull out now even if she wanted to. Roland could destroy her with a word. One word in Julian’s ear and—’

  ‘Dear me,’ I said. ‘Are you saying that Theresa would like to withdraw but that her dancing partner is threatening to expose her to her fiancé?’

  For the first time both Stotts were in complete agreement. ‘No!’ they chorused.

  ‘It’s much worse than that,’ said Sir Percy. ‘Someone is really trying to frighten her.’

  ‘What has this person been doing?’ asked Alec.

  I was not sure at all that I wanted to know.

  ‘Well,’ said Lady Stott, but before she could go on, we heard a sudden commotion at the front door. It was flung open and then there came the sound of soft but hurried footsteps crossing the hall and the morning-room door was flung open too. A young girl stood there, framed in the doorway, with her head hanging down as though she were exhausted and her chest heaving with ragged, panting breaths.

  ‘Tweetie?’ said her mother.

  ‘It’s happened again,’ said the girl. ‘Worse than ever.’ And very elegantly, dropping her handbag and her wrap on the way, she sank to the floor in a faint.

  3

  Alec lifted her and laid her on one of the plush sofas, then he and I stood looking down at her while her father chafed her hands and kissed her forehead and her mother ran to the bell pull.

  She would have been a remarkable sight anywhere, as true beauty always is, but in that solid Glasgow morning room she was astonishing. Her face, pure white at the moment, was heart-shaped and framed by soft dark hair which fell across her forehead in a fan, echoed by the fans of soft dark lashes which fluttered against her cheekbones. They were quite an inch long but looked real to me. She wore no make-up or jewellery and actually very little at all. Her slender body was dressed in a single floating garment of pale blue crepe and she had a pair of peculiar little low-heeled shoes, fastened with elastic on her bare feet.

  ‘Send for Dr Mackie!’ commanded Lady Stott when the maid answered the bell.

  The girl’s eyelids fluttered even more, the extraordinary lashes batting up and down on her pale cheeks, and she groaned.

  ‘Mother?’ she said very faintly. ‘Mother, is that you?’

  ‘She’s coming round,’ said Sir Percy. ‘Bring a glass of water, Mary.’

  ‘Ring the doctor!’ said his wife.

  ‘Get the water!’ shouted her husband.

  ‘Father?’ said Theresa, half opening her eyes and smiling wanly. Then she saw Alec and me for the first time and suddenly her eyes were as round and wide as two blue marbles, and her cheeks flushed deep pink. ‘Who are you?’ she said, sitting up. ‘I don’t need a doctor and I’d rather have a cup of tea than water, Mary please.’

  ‘These are the people we’ve got to help you, Tweetie,’ said Lady Stott, coming over and taking her hand. ‘Now, you must sit quietly – none of your leaping about – but you have to tell them everything.’

  ‘But who are you?’ said the girl. In one smooth motion she tucked her legs up under her and laid one of her bare arms along the sofa back.

  ‘Private detectives,’ I said. ‘I’m Mrs Gilver and this is Mr Osborne. Your parents have engaged us to find out who’s been upsetting you.’

  She did not gasp or gape or even so much as blink. She merely grew very still while she considered it.

  ‘I hardly know what to say to that,’ she offered at last. ‘It makes it seem much more real somehow. Private detectives?’

  She sounded very different from her parents. Their voices swooped and soared in true Glasgow fashion, which always sounds to my ears like a music-hall tune, romping along and trembling on the high notes. Theresa had either had elocution lessons to iron matters out or had been sent away to school to be worked on by packs of girls. This latter was more likely, I decided, because she spoke in an off-hand manner, halfway to the languid drawl of my own sons, and elocution lessons do tend to leave their recipients rather careful.

  ‘Just tell them, Tweetie,’ said Lady Stott.

  Theresa drew in a huge gathering breath as though about to start singing. ‘I thought at first it was nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s a very competitive world and there are bound to be little jealousies, especially once a couple starts to win things. So when I found the first “wee giftie”, I laughed it off.’

  Lady Stott rose and went to the writing desk in the corner of the room. She sat, with a great deal of creaking either from the dainty chair or from the undergarments containing her considerable person, and opened one of the many little drawers.

  ‘It was tucked into my slipper-case in the ladies’ cloakroom,’ Theresa went on as her mother returned. ‘And it was so pretty it took me a minute to understand. A pretty picture of a rose bush, I thought. How lovely.’

  It was a prayer card, I saw, as Lady Stott handed it to me and Alec leaned over to see better. I had had an aunt who went in for such things when I was a child and so I recognised it at once. Deckle-edged and gilded, and illustrated with all the sentiment that high Victorian taste could summon, which is a great deal, its import escaped me until I read the verse printed below the picture. ‘He sees each little sparrow fall,’ it said. I took a closer look and there, below all the tumbling pink roses, in the shadows, was the tiny form of a small brown bird.

  ‘Are you sure …?’ Alec said.

  ‘And then another,’ said Lady Stott, handing him a more substantial item.

  This was a booklet and once again it was familiar to me. Alec recognised it too, I concluded from the curl of his lip. Perhaps his nursery days had been spent, like mine, trying not to weep over it while an older brother teased him for being a ninny.

  ‘The Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin,’ said Sir Percy. ‘There’s no other way to understand that than as a threat to our darling girl, is there?’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be at first glance,’ said Alec. He leafed through the little book, holding it carefully by its edges.

  ‘Fingerprints?’ I asked, from the care he was taking with it.

  All three Stotts squeaked. At least, Lady Stott and her daughter did; the noise emitted by Sir Percy was more complicated although hardly more manly.

  ‘We don’t want the police involved,’ said Lady Stott.

  ‘Well, we certainly don’t want anything public,’ said Sir Percy. ‘Anything that might attract the so-called gentlemen of the press. Not after last time …’

  ‘Last time?’ I said.

  ‘Hush, Bounce,’ said his wife. ‘It’s not that at all. It’s jus
t that we don’t want dear Julian to …’ What she could not bring herself to say was ‘get wind of a scandal and be frightened off before the wedding’.

  ‘Theresa,’ said her father. ‘Why, for the love of everything sacred, can you not just be done with it? It’s only a month until your happy day and then you can please yourself for the rest of your life. Parties, balls, cruises; you can dance every night if you’ve a mind to.’

  ‘With Julian,’ said Theresa. Her voice sounded like the toll of a passing bell. ‘I shan’t be bullied, Father. I shan’t. And when you see the latest, maybe you’ll agree. Mary?’

  The maid had been standing quietly in the background, in that way that maids do, trying to turn herself into a lamp so that she missed none of the news. She started forward with only a little flush of colour in her cheeks.

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘Bring me my bag, please?’ said Theresa, unfurling an elegant white hand. ‘And a sheet of writing paper from the desk.’

  The maid bustled to and fro while the rest of us gathered around the couch. Theresa laid the writing paper on her lap and then opened the clasp of her little round bag, one of those rustling, crocheted affairs which always remind me of a dish scrubber. She took out a handkerchief and used it to cover her fingers, then she reached inside the bag again and as daintily as someone choosing a sandwich from a tea-stand she drew out a small dead bird and laid it on the white paper.

  Lady Stott shrieked, although the hands she had clapped to her mouth muffled it nicely. Sir Percy gasped so sharply it set him off coughing. Even Mary gave a little cry and looked down at the hand she had used to touch the bag. Alec drew nearer to look more closely.

  ‘Good heavens,’ he said, bending over the paper and peering at it. He picked it up and turned to the light from the tall windows, then glanced at Theresa over his shoulder. ‘No chance that it just flew in the window and died of old age in the bag then.’

  Curiosity piqued, I went over and stood behind him.

  ‘Oh my,’ I said. It was a pitiful thing, as a dead bird must always be, so impossibly tiny and frail-looking, its little claws clenched as though in pain and its little beak open as though it were panting. Its eyes were half open too and rather dull in the usual way of death, but its eyes were not what arrested me, for, reaching down in a peak between them, and all over its head, like a cap, were stuck coloured spangles or sequins of some kind. The same sequins, iridescent and twinkling, edged its wings and its tail feathers too.