Inspector McLevy Omnibus by David Ashton

Author:David Ashton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Mystery & Detective
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

29

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying.

ROBERT HERRICK,

‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’

Mulholland took a deep, soul-satisfied breath. This was the life. A grand destination.

He’d worried in the coach all the way back from West Calder, cursing the weakness for sheep’s head which had let McLevy inveigle him out there in the first place, chewing a bitter lip that he’d be late – but no, just made it in time.

Slipped in at the back as the first note quavered in the air. This was the life.

The recital had unfolded with one sweet mystery after another. To begin. A succession of young ladies who held their violins like newborn lambs as they sawed their graceful way through compositions by various, by the sound of it, foreigners.

And then to follow some songs which delighted the ear, while the eye was being entertained as the daughters of the Muse swayed tastefully to the constrained passion of the melody. They never moved their legs though. Good breeding saw to that.

Madrigals and pastoral fancies, chansons and saluts d’amour, the notes ascended to the corniced ceiling like rose petals in a high wind.

One piece which particularly impressed the constable was andante sostenuto, slow and deliberate like a herd of cows coming home to be milked of an evening, steam rising from their flanks. The fellow must have had a decent farm somewhere in his background. What was the name now? He’d want to be wafting it in front of McLevy first thing in the morning, unless it was some false coiner from Naples.

Donizetti! Your very man. Italian by the sound but none the worse for all that.

Indeed had Mulholland known the fate of Gaetano Donizetti, the poor songsmith dying mad, eaten up by cerebrospinal syphilis, he may have reflected that fine music, like most things, comes at a cost.

But he did not know that. And his attention had been captured by one particular young lady who had played piano accompaniment for the various performers.

Emily Forbes was her name. Her father Robert sat at the front, stern but proud, a widower of three years.

The whole society seemed to be in mourning for someone or other, from the Queen downwards. A nation of glum faces, surrounded by black crape.

Mulholland had sat at the front beside Mrs Roach, the lieutenant holding to the outer reaches of the audience, and the constable could have sworn that Emily had cast some sidelong glances in his direction though she might have just been following the pages of the score.

There was the satisfied buzz of honey-laden bees as, recital over, the young ladies congratulated each other and were in turn complimented by the sons of upright citizens.

The constable found himself rather isolated, suddenly conscious of his low rank. These fellows were of a different breed, a confident assumption of their own self-worth wafting around them like horse-breath in November. Money does that.

One of them, a fellow Mulholland had disliked on sight, was making great play over Emily who

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