Death of a Gentle Lady - M. C. Beaton [1]
The drawing room was country-house elegant with graceful antique furniture and paintings in gilt frames on the walls. She urged him to sit down and rang a little silver bell. A tall, blonde, statuesque girl appeared. ‘Tea, please,’ ordered Mrs Gentle.
‘Is that one of your family?’ asked Hamish.
Again that trill of laughter. ‘My dear man, do I look as if I could have given birth to a Brunhild like that? That’s my maid. I think she’s from Slovenia or Slovakia or one of those outlandish places. I got her through an agency in Inverness. Now tell me all about yourself.’
Hamish suppressed a frisson of dislike. Perhaps, he thought as he chatted amiably about his police work, it was because of that remark to her daughter he had overheard.
Tea was served; a splendid tea. Hamish felt too uncomfortable to enjoy it. He later described his experience to his friend Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, as ‘drowning in syrup.’
He left as soon as he could. As he stood outside the front door, he noticed that the lace on one of his large regulation boots was untied. He bent down to fix it.
Behind him, inside the house, he heard a voice he recognized as Sarah’s. ‘Well, have you finished oiling all over the village bobby?’
Then came Mrs Gentle’s voice: ‘Such a clown, my dear. Improbable red hair and about seven feet tall. These highlanders!’
‘If you don’t like highlanders, you should get back down south, Mother. Of course you can’t, can you? Can’t play lady of the manor down there.’
Hamish walked off slowly. He felt uneasy. He had felt it before when some incomer had started to spread an evil atmosphere around the peace of the Highlands.
‘Evil!’ exclaimed Angela Brodie when he met her later on a sunny afternoon on the waterfront. ‘That’s a bit strong. Everyone adores her. Do you know, she has just promised a large sum of money to the church to help with the restoration of the roof?’
‘I still don’t like her,’ grumbled Hamish. His cat, Sonsie, and his dog, Lugs, lay at his feet, panting in the sunshine. ‘I should get the animals indoors where it’s cool.’
‘Have you heard from Elspeth?’ Elspeth Grant, once a local reporter, was now working at a Glasgow newspaper: Hamish had toyed too long with the idea of marrying her so she had become engaged to a fellow reporter. But the reporter had jilted her on their wedding day.
‘No,’ said Hamish curtly.
‘Or Priscilla?’
‘Neither.’
Hamish moved off. He liked Angela but he wished she would not ferret about in his love life – or lack of it. He had once been engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of a colonel who ran the local hotel, but had ended the engagement because of her chilly nature.
In the comparative coolness of the police station, where he also lived, he suddenly felt he was being overimaginative. Mrs Gentle was, in his opinion, a pretentious bitch. But to think of her as evil was going too far.
Autumn arrived early, bringing gusty gales and showers of rain sweeping in from the Atlantic to churn up the waters of the sea loch at Lochdubh. Hamish was involved in coping with a series of petty crimes. His beat was large because the police station in the nearby village of Cnothan had been closed down. He was soon to find out that his own station had come up again on the list of closures. The news came from Detective Inspector Jimmy Anderson, who called one blustery Saturday.
‘Got any whisky?’ he asked, sitting at the kitchen table and shrugging off his coat.
‘You’re not getting any,’ said Hamish. ‘Have coffee. You’ll get caught one day and off the force you’ll go.’
‘You’ll want a dram yourself when you hear what I have to say,’ said Jimmy.
‘What’s that?’
‘You’d best start selling off your livestock.’ Hamish kept sheep and hens. ‘This police station is being put up for sale.’
Hamish sank into a chair opposite Jimmy, his hazel eyes troubled. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Do you ken a woman called Gentle?’
‘Oh, her, aye. What’s she got to do with it?’
‘It’s like this. I was