The Missing Duchess by Alanna Knight Page A

picture was taking shape in his mind. The road to Musselburgh passed through Aberlethie. Destroyed by the Reformation, the priory was in ruins and the Crusader lay on his ravaged tomb.
    'The bailie in charge of burning the Major's rod described it as looking like a serpent, hissing like a snake, as it perished. The Major's money was entrusted to his care. He took it home with him and locked it in his study. None of his family slept that night. There were dreadful noises issuing from the locked room, as if the house was going to fall down on them -'
    'This bailie,' Faro interrupted. 'Do we know his name?'
    Millar smiled. 'Yes. Bailie James Lethie.'
    'Lethie!' Faro exclaimed, and Millar nodded.
    'In all probability a relation of the present-day family.'
    'The original castle - when was it built?'
    'Begun in September 1670, completed two years later.'
    Surely it was no coincidence that it had been built by the same bailie soon after he had both the magic staff, which he had been entrusted to burn, and the Major's money, too.
    No great feat of detection was needed to unravel this two-hundred-year-old mystery. Major Weir's secret was certainly in the staff he carried, and he issued warnings about its supernatural powers in order to keep it safe. Everyone who came into contact with him would be too terrified to steal it.
    Intriguing as this information was, Faro decided that it contributed little to the more urgent matter of solving the mystery of the missing Grand Duchess. He did not greatly relish the prospect of facing an irate Prime Minister and having to give an account of his failure to the Queen herself.
    When Faro took his leave of Millar, he decided to walk over to the priory before catching the next train.
    The storm had cleared and left in its wake the legacy of a mellow autumn evening with the rich smell of damp earth and a sky, azure and cloudless, echoing with birdsong.
    As he looked down at the Crusader's Tomb for the second time that day, his experience was quite different from his earlier visit. Gone was the electric atmosphere which he had interrupted between Miss Fortescue and the two men. Now he felt there was nothing left in this heap of mouldering stone, nothing in this effigy that could help solve his more immediate problem.
    The truth or fiction behind the history so colourfully interwoven with legend that had once marked this spot had been lost for ever under the dust and ashes of centuries past.
    Often, when Faro stood on a spot where history had been created, he would have given much to be transported back in time for just one brief glimpse of that magic occasion. He could never walk towards the new university on Chambers Street without seeing Kirk o' Field on its site and wishing with all his heart that he could have been there and solved one of Scotland's most tantalising mysteries.
    What had really happened that February night? And was the Queen of Scots implicated in the destruction of her odious husband, Lord Darnley? Now there was only hearsay, dry as dust. But if one could have been there to pick up the clues and prove Mary innocent, then her desperate plight might have changed the whole course of Scotland's history.
    Such is the stuff dreams - or nightmares - are made of. And now, in like manner, Faro wished for a time machine that could carry him back to the scene of David de Lethie returning triumphant from the Crusades, bearing with him a strange trophy.
    But tonight he was not the only pilgrim.
    Miss Fortescue walked cautiously through the shrubbery. A manservant who had the unfortunate look of a gaoler hovered at a discreet distance, trying to look as if he hadn't been instructed to keep an eye on her.
    It was an interesting idea, one which would bear further investigation, Faro thought as he stepped out of the shadow of the priory wall.
    As for Miss Fortescue, she was not at all put out by his sudden appearance. She smiled. 'Why, Inspector Faro, I am so glad to see you. I have your cape. It