Page 24 of Disturbing the Dead
Lady Christie turns to Isla. “I must speak to the children immediately, but I also need someone to look for my brother. I know which ship he came in on, and we were going to all meet him at the harbor, but with the delay, we did not know when he would arrive.”
“Is your brother familiar with Edinburgh?” I ask. “We bumped into someone who mistook Dr. Gray for him, and he seemed to expect Selim would only know Arabic.”
Her hands flutter in annoyance. “That is the way of things. Everyone presumes we are exotic and foreign creatures. My brother went to school in London, just as I did. Our father is a government official who recognized the importance of learning the English language and customs, for children who may one day find themselves subjects of the British Empire.” She pauses and winces. “I did not mean to sound quite so tart.”
“No need to apologize. I’ve seen how often people don’t expect Dr. Gray to know English. It is frustrating.”
Isla makes a tiny noise of agreement. “As someone who has seen him endure that all of his life, I must wholeheartedly agree. It is exceptionally frustrating.”
Lady Christie relaxes a little. “Thank you for understanding. As for Selim, he is my younger brother, and younger brothers can be somewhat… unmanageable in their way.”
Isla murmurs, “Once younger brothers decide they are men, they mistakenly believe they no longer need the guidance of an older sister.”
“Yes. Selim is reckless and most unmanageable, and while I could rely on him to supervise the mummy, I could not rely on him to come straight here instead of stopping at a public house first. That is why I did not worry when he was late.”
“But you didn’t need to worry that he might be lost in a foreign city?” I say.
Lady Christie smiles. “Selim knows Edinburgh well enough, and he is at home wherever he goes, which is why…” The smile evaporates as she pushes to her feet. “Someone must discover what has happened to him. I said that I was not surprised my husband seemed to be avoiding his own party, but I was surprised that Selim was not yet here. That isn’t like him. I would have been more concerned about Selim if my attention hadn’t been on Alastair.”
“If someone can give us his ship information,” I say, “we will have it investigated while you speak to the children.”
“Yes, thank you. I must…” She sways a little, hand going to her mouth. “The children. Phoebe. Oh, my poor Phoebe. First her mother and now…”
“She has you,” Isla says, rising and taking Lady Christie’s arm.
“Yes, of course.” Lady Christie straightens. “Whatever has happened, Phoebe will always have me. Let me go and speak to them.”
“Would you like me to accompany you?” Isla asks.
A wan smile. “Please. I could use an arm to hold, so that I do not break down in front of them.”
Isla holds out her arm, and I open the door for them.
EIGHT
The guests have left. There really wasn’t any way for McCreadie to detain them. More officers have only just now shown up, and we don’t yet live in a world where a detective can say “There’s been a murder. No one leaves until I say they leave” and expect any member of the upper crust to listen.
Instead, McCreadie has focused on the staff. The butler and the housekeeper have gathered everyone into a room for questioning. It’s easy to tell them to stay. And if the guests are outraged that no one is around to find their coat or hold the door or call their coach? Well, they’re welcome to talk to the police while they wait. No one takes McCreadie up on that offer.
I’ve conveyed Lady Christie’s statements to McCreadie, and he’s sent a groom to check whether the ship arrived. That’s fifty percent courtesy to Lady Christie and fifty percent acknowledgment that if Sir Alastair is dead and his brother-in-law is missing, the answer for that might not be “coincidence.”
I itch to help Gray with Sir Alastair’s body. I did pop in to see whether he needs me. He didn’t say no, but he does say that McCreadie needs me more, and he’s right there. Again, my former career supersedes my new one.
McCreadie needs to question the staff quickly, and Gray is in no hurry, with Addington having already told him to convey the body to the funerary parlor, where he’ll conduct the autopsy in the morning. The first time Addington did this, I was appalled. The second time, I was only annoyed on behalf of the deceased, whose death didn’t even warrant a sleepless night for the police surgeon. Now, I must admit it works in Gray’s favor, allowing him to do all but the internal examination before Addington gets his paws on the victim. In fact, if every murder victim died at night, I’d see it as a blessing for Edinburgh law enforcement.
I leave Gray to his work and help McCreadie with putting together a timeline.
We know the body wasn’t moved until after the party began. The footmen who carried it in confirmed that it was eight thirty before they did so. The mummy had been stored in the “artifact room”—a windowless chamber that acts as storage for anything Sir Alastair brings home from his excavations.
Are the artifacts on display tonight usually stored in there?
Yes, but the staff says they were moved out this morning, which was the last time anyone saw Sir Alastair, as he supervised the removal. Afterward the room was closed until the footmen entered to remove the mummy.
Closed? Or locked?
It’d been locked that morning. Sir Alastair needed to unlock it for the footmen, as he had the only key. Once they were done removing the artifacts, he relocked it, and one of them witnessed this. Yet when they went to retrieve the mummy, the artifact room was unlocked, which led them to believe Sir Alastair was at home. They presumed he’d opened it for them, knowing they would need access to the mummy.
So the artifacts on display had been removed while Sir Alastair was still at home. Then the door was locked and the only key returned to his pocket.
