The Dancing Horse

by Angus MacVicar

  Bowing in courtly fashion, Charles made the introductions, then discreetly withdrew. For a moment, while Bulldog and Donald pulled in chairs and sat down, there was an atmosphere of slight awkwardness. But soon, when they explained about their car and suggested that she might care to accompany them to Kintyre, she lost her chilly reserve and smiled with a warmth which transfigured her thin-lipped mouth.

  ‘It’s really most courteous of you, gentlemen.’ Her accent, though not her choice of words, had a flavour of the Gaelic; and as she bowed acknowledgment to both of them, jelly-firm grey hair trembled under its nets and frills, and heavy amber beads crackled against a silver Celtic brooch on her corsage. ‘But you see, I already have my aeroplane ticket. Renfrew to Machrihanish Airport near Campbeltown. Friends are meeting me there with a car.’

  Donald smiled back. ‘It was only an idea, Lady Mary. Not entirely unselfish, either. We hoped you’d be able to tell us something about the countryside.’

  ‘The motive is unimportant, Mr. Grant. It was an exceptionally nice idea. I do appreciate it, and I am only sorry that in the circumstances I cannot fall in with it.’

  Bulldog offered her a cigarette, which she accepted and smoked in a long black holder. ‘As a matter of fact we might have flown as well,’ he said. ‘But being on holiday we decided on a car. Grant and I are both Scots, but we’re not so well up in our knowledge of Argyll.’

  ‘You’ll like my part of the world.’ She nodded again, mouth prim, grey eyes alert. The faintly wrinkled, weather-tanned skin of her narrow cheeks reminded Donald of chamois leather. ‘But Mr. MacPhail,’ she went on, with a hint of condescension, ‘are newspapermen ever really on holiday?’

  He chuckled, preferring not to take umbrage. ‘That’s a point,’ he said. ‘For instance, if you told us now of some new and interesting development in your work for Displaced Persons, we’d report it at once.’

  ‘There you are, I knew it!’ She shook her head and drew heavily on her cigarette. ‘But I’m afraid my organization does a very ordinary, mundane task. Nothing at all spectacular.’ Sighing a little, and glancing down at the little book in her lap, she went on: ‘Did you know, I have a new volume of poetry coming out next week?’

  Bulldog tried to look interested. ‘Have you, now? Good luck to it!’

  But to a hardened professional reporter poetry in itself is not news. Donald was such a reporter and reacted accordingly, the job on hand remaining firmly in the forefront of his mind. He butted in: ‘Lady Mary, I believe you have an atomic station in Kintyre. Can you tell us anything about that?’

  A peculiar glint appeared in her eyes. It might have been suspicion — or anger that her artistic hobby should be so brashly dismissed from the conversation. She smiled a narrow smile and said: ‘Oh, Mr. Grant! Atomic stations before poetry!’

  He realized his breach of good manners. I’m sorry,’ he said. I — er — I didn’t mean it like that — ’

  ‘Of course not!’ She was genial again, if still supercilious. ‘You simply have the modern point of view. You may be interested to learn,’ she added, heaping coals of fire, ‘that the atomic station is actually built on my estate.’

  Donald sat up straight. ‘That is interesting!’

  ‘In the shadow of a mountain called “An t-each dannsa”,’ she went on, ‘which is the Gaelic for “The Dancing Horse”.’

  There was a silence. Lady Mary was looking at her companions with the air of a grown-up trying to please children with a story. She adjusted her tartan stole, fingered her jewellery and flicked the stump of her cigarette from its holder into an ashtray. Neither Donald nor Bulldog made any sign to the other. Their expressions remained uninterested, but their very lack of animation betrayed the animation in their minds.

  Bulldog, too, got rid of his cigarette. The glass ashtray rubbed gratingly against the glass of the table-top. ‘Then you must live quite near it?’ he said quietly, out of the back of his throat. ‘Near the station, I mean.’

  ‘Yes. Only about three miles away. The scientists are odd creatures — or so I’m led to believe — but fortunately they never intrude on my privacy.’ She shrugged, in a ladylike way which made her beads resume their crackling. ‘You know, we put far too much stress on the importance of scientists nowadays, too little on the value of philosophy and the arts. Don’t you agree?’

  It was a little snub but once again Bulldog chose to disregard it. ‘Possibly. But we’re newspapermen. Our job is to reflect the views of the majority of our readers.’

  ‘I do see that. But here again I’m afraid I must disappoint you. I know so little about the station and the people who work there. Except that within the past few weeks a new Director has arrived. I did hear that. A Doctor somebody or other.’

  She snapped long, dry fingers. ‘Oh, I can’t remember,’ she said, with impatience. ‘It just shows how much interest I take — ’

  In the hallway a grandfather clock, which, like Charles, was a gimmick of the hotel, wheezingly chimed two quarters. ‘Oh, dear, half-past nine!’ exclaimed Lady Mary. She rose, beginning to gather her things together and causing a helpful Charles to appear as if by magic. ‘Excuse me — I simply must fly! I have to be at St. Enoch Air Station at nine fifty-five and my taxi will be waiting.’

  She fussed and flurried, ignoring helpful advice from the head porter. It was as if a small summer storm had blown into the quiet precincts of Muir’s.

  ‘Good-bye, Lady Mary,’ said Bulldog, still on his best behaviour. ‘I’m sorry we can’t give you a lift.’

  She flashed him a smile. ‘So am I. Truly sorry. Newspapermen are always such interesting company, I find. And instead of saying good-bye let us say au revoir. If you and Mr. Grant are staying near the Mull of Kintyre do remember to call. Drumgarvie Lodge. Any afternoon between four and six.’

  ‘Thank you, madam.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Donald, almost missing his cue in his astonishment at Bulldog’s uncharacteristic suavity. ‘Au revoir.’

  ‘Au revoir, gentlemen. Safe journey.’

  Attended by Charles, she disappeared out of the revolving door on to the street, leaving behind a faint aroma of tweed and eau de cologne.

  Soon afterwards the head porter brought news that the drive-yourself Morris Oxford was outside the front entrance. When documents had been signed and other papers checked, the chauffeur handed over the wheel to Donald. Dumping the grips on the back seat, Bulldog got in beside him and, with the benison of a courteous wave from Charles on the pavement edge, they were off.

  At the corner of Asia Street and St. Vincent Street a hatless man stooped to light a cigarette, shielding the flame of the match from a slight breeze. He was middle-aged, bald-headed and bald-faced, with an American style tweed jacket. He saw the Morris Oxford go by, with Donald and Bulldog inside it.

  They didn’t see him. They were unaware, therefore, of his smile as he looked after them with narrowed eyes.

  SEVEN

  When the engine warmed up, the Oxford moved along at a comfortable speed, making light of slow-moving traffic in Great Western Road and, on the sunny Dumbarton Boulevard, responding slickly to the pressure of Donald’s toe on the accelerator. On the narrow twisting road by Loch Lomondside, however, where trees sprouted from rocky crags on the one side and water sparkled like silver on the other, its pace had to be carefully watched. Several times the sharpness of the corners took Donald by surprise and his passenger had to clutch the arm-rest to maintain balance.

  On the third occasion Bulldog said: ‘For heaven’s sake take it easy! You’ll have us skidding into the Loch if you don’t look out.’

  ‘We’re only doing fifty.’

  ‘Much too fast to appreciate the beauties of nature! After all it’s less than a hundred and forty miles from Glasgow to Campbeltown. We’ll get there in plenty of time.’

  Donald took the hint. He eased his foot, and the car slowed down and ran on sedately at the tail of a milk lo
rry. The faint odour of burnt diesel oil began to mix with the fir-scented breeze coming in by the open windows. ‘How’s that?’ he said.

  ‘A lot better. Now we can enjoy ourselves. Loch Lomond there like glass, and the Ben beyond it, like a noble dame with a scarf about her shoulders.’

  The streamer of mist on the mountain-top was indeed like a gauzy scarf. Donald smiled. ‘I didn’t know you were a poet, boss?’

  ‘H’m. Used to write poetry at school. I still feel like writing it, when my hunches pay off.’

  ‘Talking about noble dames, we didn’t get much joy out of Lady Mary.’

  ‘Well, she told us that the station is built “in the shadow of The Dancing Horse”, as she put it. And the fact that a new Director has just been appointed may be important.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘How the blazes should I know!’ Bulldog frowned. After a momentary pause he continued: ‘But there’s one tiling I’m becoming more convinced about than ever — our man was murdered because he found out something queer about the Kintyre atomic station.’

  ‘You may be right.’ Thankfully Donald increased speed on the long straight near the village of Luss. ‘Pity we didn’t have more time to question her ladyship,’ he added, as the Oxford nipped past the lumbering lorry.

  ‘Aye.’ Bulldog smiled a sinister smile. ‘A bit of a character, yon one.’

  ‘Feudal, I should think. Chief of the clan, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Could be. And having no clan to boss and look after nowadays she turns her attention to unresisting D.P.’s on the Continent.’

  ‘Snooty into the bargain.’

  ‘Well, some Highland aristocrats give that impression. Anyway, she didn’t like how you gave her poetry the brush-off!’

  Donald stamped hard on the brake-pedal at another unexpected corner. There was a feeling of looseness and inefficiency about it, and he had to press harder than he thought should be necessary. But the moment passed.

  ‘She was only looking for a free puff,’ he said, scornfully. ‘Like every other author nowadays.’

  ‘Sure. But you must learn how to be tactful.’

  ‘What chance have I got, in present company?’

  ‘H’m.’ Bulldog took a sharp look at the driver’s deadpan face, then settled back to light a cigarette. ‘How are we going?’ he asked.

  Donald glanced at the trip-reading on the speedometer. ‘A hundred miles to Campbeltown — roughly. When we get there we begin casting at once, I suppose?’

  ‘Time’s money, boy.’

  In the mirror, there appeared behind them a grey Austin-Healey. It was running steadily but comparatively slowly, and the driver — obscured in the distance behind the windscreen — was making no attempt to use its vastly greater speed to pass them. The road was tricky, of course, and the day fine, and he was probably enjoying a pleasant dawdle. Or so Donald decided.

  ‘The bait’s good,’ he said, more lightly than he felt. ‘Top editor, top reporter.’

  ‘You flatter yourself. But roughly that’s the idea.’

  ‘We’re bound to get a few false nibbles before the big fish rises.’

  ‘That’s the problem. We must decide what’s significant, what’s not.’

  Donald gunned the Oxford through Tarbet, then turned sharp left away from Loch Lomond and into the road past Arrochar to Rest-and-be-Thankful. ‘Read all copy before subbing?’ he commented.

  ‘Yes.’ Bulldog sounded unusually sombre. ‘Always remembering that one mistake may be fatal, as it was for that poor devil in Soho.’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget.’

  ‘Good boy!’

  They passed the torpedo-testing base in Loch Long, the peak of ‘The Cobbler’ like a jagged paper cut-out against the sky, and began the long ascent to the summit of Rest-and-be-Thankful. As the road climbed higher in a series of rough switchbacks, the other mountains of Argyll began to encircle them with giant arms.

  There was little traffic now — only the Austin-Healey still half a mile behind — and a sense of isolation crept up on them. Bulldog surveyed the daunting landscape. Presently he said: ‘Big Shots in Long Acre should come here to have their egos deflated!’

  ‘I know what you mean, boss,’ replied Donald, inwardly amused by this Freudian remark. He must remember to tell Harry Schwab about it.

  Far down to their left a stream glinted in the sun as it washed and bubbled over boulders in its path. Above it a whole mountainside planted with fir-trees basked in green warmth in the sunshine, making them wonder how many billion match-sticks might be growing there. On the other side crags and screes and ale-brown waterfalls obscured their view of the sun itself.

  The Oxford swung into a corner. Donald saw a ewe with a lamb directly in front, walking the unfenced road. He toed the brake-pedal. The car slowed. Then the pedal sank loosely to the floorboards and their speed increased again. Fortunately the ewe and lamb were used to traffic and skipped nimbly out of the way. But a small knot of worry was tied in the skein of his thoughts.

  ‘Oil in the brake linings,’ he said, conversationally. ‘Maybe water. They’re slipping a bit.’

  Bulldog was paying no attention to mechanical details. He was looking into the airy abyss of the glen, on one flank of which the road had been laid like a discarded measuring tape. ‘Magnificent!’ he muttered. ‘Features might care for an article on this.’

  Three private cars and a couple of heavy lorries swept down past them on the way towards Arrochar. The Oxford whined on gamely against the gradient, still in top gear. In the mirror Donald saw the grey sports car taking its ease behind them.

  ‘That Austin-Healey’s in no hurry,’ he remarked. ‘Been trailing us for miles.’

  ‘What?’ The News Editor shifted in his seat, the glen and its rugged beauties suddenly forgotten. ‘Trailing us?’

  ‘I don’t mean in any sinister way,’ Donald made an effort to laugh. ‘It’s just there, that’s all. Not a day for hurrying.’

  Bulldog turned and glanced back through the rear window. ‘Aye, he’s certainly taking his time. In a fast job like that, too!’

  The Oxford reached the top of the long hill, swept round the curve past dark, peat-stained Loch Reastall and began the descent of the Black Spout into Glen Croe. Both men felt their ears singing in the high, thin air.

  A police patrol car came up from behind and passed them with effortless ease. The drivers companion — another constable — glanced into the Oxford as it did so. Donald imagined he was looking for something — or somebody.

  Glen Croe opened out like a panorama in a widescreen film — a huge gash among the water-scarred mountains, with the ribbon of the road to Inveraray running alongside the tumbling stream at the bottom. It resembled a view from a plane coming in to land.

  Their speed was increasing on the long, curving swoop to the burnside far below. To control it Donald touched the brake-pedal. Nothing happened.

  Urgently he pumped the pedal up and down, but the Oxford ran even faster. He grabbed the handle of the parking brake and jerked it up from the floor. For a moment the speed was checked. Then a metallic slapping occurred in the chassis, and the lever became loose in his tense fingers. The car leaped forward like a toboggan released on an icy slope.

  ‘Brakes gone!’ said Donald, out of the side of his mouth.

  Bulldog said nothing, but his ruddy cheeks seemed to shrink a little. He had only a rudimentary knowledge of cars, and in spite of this mention of the brakes, no spectacular disaster appeared to be imminent; but the note of alarm in the other’s voice was highly infectious.

  Donald’s first instinct was to try and change down into third gear to check the pace. He stamped on the clutch-pedal, revved up the engine until it screamed, then flicked at the elegant lever on the wheel. But he was used to the firm action of a gear-lever on the floor. The pinions jarred and shouted and refused to engage. In a split second of cold horror he realized that the Oxf
ord was loose, hurtling in neutral towards the sharp left-hand bend and narrow bridge far down at the bottom of the hill.

  ‘My God!’ he said.

  The News Editor sat stiff and still beside him. Words tumbled round in his mind, but he left them unuttered. Knowledge of the seriousness of the accident had been jarred into him by the dreadful grinding of the gears, and instinct directed him to preserve all his energy and resource for some unthinkable climax.

  Events had occurred so rapidly that the police car was still only about fifty yards ahead. Donald’s brain, numbed at first, now worked quickly. He smacked his hand down on the horn, which blared out a distress call echoing high among the mountains.

  As the Oxford gathered still more speed, he kept his hand hard on the chromium ring. He saw the constable in the passenger seat look round and say something to the driver. The driver shrugged and put a hand out to signal the Oxford past, probably vaguely annoyed that a family car should be challenging his Jaguar. It was clear, in any case, that neither policeman had an inkling of the truth.

  Donald maintained a prolonged blast on the horn. ‘As we pass,’ he shouted to Bulldog, ‘tell them what’s happened.’

  ‘Right, boy.’

  The police car slowed a little. The Oxford drew abreast, the needle of the speedometer touching 70. Head thrust out of the window, jowls mottled, Bulldog yelled: ‘Brakes gone! We’re out of control!’

  Like a momentary flash in a dream, Donald had a snapshot of both policemen: the driver lean and dark, a look of astonishment suddenly ousting the Highland resentment on his narrow face; the other fair and stout, with a well-clipped ginger moustache, alarmed understanding spreading in a red wave across his chubby cheeks. On the other side, however, telegraph poles, white concrete culverts, young trees green against the brown of the mountainside whirled past in a photographic blur.

  A heavy furniture van, labouring up the incline, appeared out of the bend at the bridge, a mile below. Donald and the police driver saw it at the same time, and the latter was galvanized into quick action. Instead of allowing the Oxford to pass, he sent the Jaguar screaming forward at the limit of its revs. His hand went out, directing Donald to move in to the left again, behind him.