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.’‘Weren’t you there?’ I said.A spasm crossed the man’s face.‘Someone had to mind the shop,’ he answered.‘And they tell me Mr Muir carried out his task most competently.’ His look discouraged further comment and so I contented myself with a sympathetic smile and made to move away.‘It’s the second floor, madam,’ he said, ‘but the lift boy isnae on duty today.Do you think you could manage it?’‘No, no,’ I said, remembering the slow creaking.‘I’ll take the stairs, Ferguson, gladly.’‘Aye but the staff’s all using the big stairs, today,’ he said, ‘since the store’s closed anyway.’ He frowned at me, calculating how the necessary distinctions might be maintained, how the prospect of a shopgirl sharing stair treads with me might best be avoided, until his attention was summoned by a banging on the door.He turned and his brow cleared at the sight of a young girl in a suit of rather flashy grey hound’s-tooth check and, as Mrs Lumsden had feared, a great deal of red lipstick.‘Oh, here’s Miss McWilliam,’ he said, opening up again.‘She’s a dab hand with that shipper rope, are you no’, hen? Goan take Mrs Gilver up, will you?’‘Fine by me,’ said the girl.‘Save my legs in these shoes.’ And with that she swished off on her high heels, leaving me to follow her.The lift seemed wheezier and more arthritic than ever when we entered and the girl pulled the rope which was supposed to set it rising.It gave some very alarming clanks, moved a foot or so and stopped.‘I don’t mind the stairs, actually,’ I said and the girl, heels or no heels, nodded in fervent agreement, but then before we could get out again the carriage started moving and we had missed our chance.I held my breath as it hauled us up two storeys and only let it go once we had arrived and the girl had jerked the rope to stop us and opened both doors.Even then, as though by way of farewell, it dropped an inch or so as I stepped forward and we both got out very hurriedly.‘I’ll send it back for the missuses,’ said the girl, leaning in and tugging the rope again while beginning to close the carriage door with her other hand.‘It’s a knack,’ she said, hauling shut the shaft doors too.‘Takes years, but it’s Mrs Ninian’s rules.If staff must use the lift when the boy’s not on it – and only on urgent business for customers, mind – they send it back to wherever it was when they got on, so it’s like we never used it at all.’ She laughed and shook her head.‘This is not the day to be speaking lightly of any of the family, Lynne,’ said a voice.The thin manageress of ‘the ladies’ side’, whose name I had forgotten, had emerged from behind a display of curtain fabrics with a deep frown upon her face.‘I’m not, Miss Hutton,’ Lynne said.‘I’m devoted to them all.’ She turned and gave me a wink which showed that her fabulous black lashes had been applied at the same time as her red lips.‘Lynne?’ I said, remembering.‘Were you one of the nymphs?’Lynne laughed and Miss Hutton tried not to.‘I was supposed to be a water kelpie, madam,’ Morna said.‘If my old dad heard you calling me a nymph I’d be pitten oot the hoose.’‘You’ll be pitten oot the shoap, if you don’t mend your ways, Lynne McWilliam,’ said Miss Hutton, but she was smiling.‘Anyway,’ Lynne said, ‘I reckon the poor old lift wouldn’t be giving up the ghost like it is if it didn’t have to do so many double journeys, eh no, Miss Hutton?’Miss Hutton only shook her head.‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’m very glad to see you, Mrs Gilver.I advised against this party, you know.Most unseemly, but at least if there are guests as well as the staff it will keep the youngsters in some kind of order.’‘I was touched to be asked,’ I replied, feeling rather uncomfortable.‘I feel Mirren’s death most dreadfully.’ Miss Hutton raised a polite eyebrow.‘Oh, not the loss of her – I wouldn’t presume to say so to those of you who’ve known her so long and loved her so well – but the sense of being asked to find her, bring her home safe and sound, and then such a thing happening before I had even got started.I wouldn’t blame her poor parents if they never wanted to lay eyes on me again.’‘Her parents?’ said Miss Hutton, as though only just remembering that there were such people.‘Oh well, I shouldn’t think Mr and Mrs Jack will be here.But – forgive me, madam – when you say you were asked to find her.?’‘Mrs Ninian engaged me,’ I said.‘I’m a private detective.A staff member, after all, in a way.’ I saw no reason to keep it from Miss Hutton now but she reared backwards as though I had said I was a dancing girl.‘Mrs Ninian engaged you to find Miss Mirren?’Now why, I thought to myself, should that be puzzling? Before I could ask her we were distracted by the machinery of the lift starting up again beside us as it heaved another load up from the ground floor.‘You’re right, Lynne,’ said Miss Hutton, absently.‘It sounds worse than ever today.’Indeed, I was almost at the stage of crossing my fingers and holding my breath as we waited for it to arrive.When the doors opened, Bella and Mary Aitken stood there looking very tense and flustered under their veiled mourning hats, their mouths dropping open at the sight of me.They stared and stared until, once again, the lift dropped a sudden lurching inch and they practically jostled one another getting out of the contraption onto solid ground.‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said, addressing Mary, ‘thank you for asking me along.I’m very honoured to be included.’‘What—?’ said Mary Aitken.‘Mary?’ said Bella, turning to look at her.‘I didn’t know you had invited other people.’‘I—’ said Mary.For a long, skin-crawling moment we all stood there gawping at one another.My nerve cracked first.I fished in my pocket for the note and pretended to read it again [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]