Death of a Sweep - M. C. Beaton [11]
She found it by opening a top drawer and taking the drawer out. Behind it was another little drawer. She opened it and found a bundle of letters – and the letters looked fairly new.
She sat down on an old nursing chair and began to read. The letters were from lawyers, angrily demanding money back that Henry owed their clients. But there was one from the man himself. ‘Pay up, Henry, or I’ll kill you, you damn cheat,’ it said.
Philomena had felt humiliated by the arrival of Tam in Milly’s life. She had not liked the way Hamish Macbeth had treated her, either. She was consumed by a desire to show them all up; to show that she, Philomena, could find a murderer. Her mind worked fast. She would contact this man and arrange to meet him in a public place, and she would take a powerful tape recorder with her and see if she could get enough evidence before she went to the police. She put the lawyers’ letters back in the drawer, dusted off any prints she might have left in the room, and went quietly down the stairs.
There was no police guard outside. Headquarters had decreed that if Mrs Davenport was foolish enough to leave the ‘safe house’, then she would just have to take the consequences.
Philomena walked outside and into the shelter of the shrubbery. Far above her, the monkey puzzle tree groaned and creaked and swayed in the gale while ragged clouds raced across a small moon. With a little smile on her face, Philomena took out her mobile phone.
Tam left and Philomena said curtly after supper that she was going to have an early night and planned to go to Inverness shopping on the following day.
No sooner had she gone to bed than the doorbell rang. ‘Who is it?’ called Milly through the letter box.
‘It’s me, Hamish Macbeth. Mind if I come in for a moment?’
Milly opened the door. ‘Has anything happened?’
‘No, no,’ said Hamish soothingly. ‘I was just wondering, is there anywhere the captain might have hidden anything, like papers?’
‘I think the house has been searched from top to bottom.’ They walked into the kitchen together.
‘I spend most of the time in here now,’ said Milly. ‘It’s warmer, and here I’m not haunted by the vision of poor Henry up the chimney.’
The kitchen was old-fashioned with a stone floor: Belfast sinks and a large dresser holding willow-pattern plates against one wall and a Raeburn cooker against another.
‘You haven’t really had time,’ said Hamish, ‘to have a proper think. Anything anywhere? The attics?’
‘I left the search to the police.’
‘Mind if I go upstairs and have a look?’
‘Go ahead. At least there’s electric light in the attics. You’ll be able to see all right.’
Hamish checked around the attics looking for hiding places such as loose floorboards. He was about to give up as he was standing in the nursery when his eyes fell on the campaign chest. Although the village women had cleaned well, the attics were not at all insulated, and scurrying draughts had begun to cover objects already with a thin coating of dust. The campaign chest against the wall was the one object free of dust.
He went back down to the kitchen. ‘Mrs Davenport,’ he said, ‘there’s a chest up in the old nursery against the wall. Know anything about it?’
‘I don’t think so. I’ll come back up with you and have a look.’
In the nursery, Milly surveyed the chest. ‘Oh, that. Henry was proud of that. It belonged to his father.’
‘I ’member an auctioneer in Inverness telling me these old chests often had a secret drawer.’
‘Henry didn’t mention anything.’
‘Well, someone’s been having a look. Let me see if I can remember. It’s maybe at the back of one of the drawers. He said you aye look for a shorter drawer. Here we are! Right at the top.’ He took a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on. His nimble fingers found the secret drawer. Hamish scanned the lawyers’ letters and let out a low whistle.
‘What is it?’ asked Milly.
‘These are letters from four lawyers all demanding money for their clients, money they say that Henry borrowed and was refusing to pay back. I’ll need tae rush these ower tae Strathbane,’ said