by Anna Lord
“No, I’m not a witch. I’m a Countess.”
“Do you count things?”
“My name is Countess Volodymyrovna.”
“That sounds like a witch’s name.”
“Do I look like a witch?”
He studied the mannish great coat. “You could be a shape-shifter. Mother MacBee is a shape-shifter. Sometimes she is a stag and sometimes she is a blackbird.”
“Were you coming to Graymalkin to see me?”
He nodded, looking over his shoulder to make sure they were alone.
“Did you remember something important?”
A sheepish look reminded her he remembered the extra shilling. She extracted a coin and gave it over.
“What did you remember?”
“I remembered I saw a broom down the well.”
“A broom?”
“The sort that is rid by witches.”
“Ah! A broom that witches ride? A besom broom?”
He nodded quickly and pocketed the shilling.
“Did you tell anyone else about the broom?”
He shook his head sheepishly and shuffled his feet while he looked down at the ground.
“You kept it secret except foooor…?”
“Becky,” he finished quickly.
“Becky,” she repeated gently. “Why Becky?”
“Because she were cussing and crying and searching everywhere for it. It stood in the doorway to the scullery – for sweeping the fag ends into the well because Mrs Ardkinglas didn’t like the lassies smoking. Does that mean I can not have the extra shilling?”
The Countess thought quickly. The besom broom tied in with the Wicca symbolism but it was also an item common to kitchen courtyards and most likely the weapon the murderer used to strike Mr Brown on the back of the neck before shoving him down the well. The police would need to know about it. It didn’t need to stay a secret.
“You can have the extra shilling because you were a brave lad to come into Jackdaw Wood but first tell me who else might have seen the broom down the well.”
“Anyone coulda but I reckon they didna because none thought to look for it. You could just make out the straw bobbing next to Mr Brown’s boots. It musta gone handle-end first.”
“Yes, I see. When you get back to the hotel you must tell Mrs Ardkinglas that the broom is down the well. Now, off you go home for lunch. Hurry and don’t stop.”
Heeding her own advice, the Countess hurried home but unlike young Robbie she had no idea which path to take. She stood still and took stock, and gradually from a distance she could hear the sound of rushing water and knew she couldn’t be too far from Fickle Beck. She followed the sound and a short time later came into a clearing where the water burbled down the stones. She had walked in a large arc and was downstream from Graymalkin. All she had to do was follow the brook back upstream, but no sooner had she started off than she spotted a large stag with enormous antlers drinking at the river. And that’s when she first heard the singing. A childish chant from somewhere close:
“Ding, dong, dell, pushed down the well…”
The Countess knew at once who the voice belonged to and braced herself for some unpleasantness but when the third sister stepped out from behind a tree she felt her breath catch. MacBee was back-bent and wizened, prematurely aged from years spent foraging in the wilderness - her long, loose, scraggly, white hair had the texture of bleached straw. She was cloaked in black and green tartan, the sort known as Black Watch, and it was easy to see how she might be mistaken for a giant blackbird. Her scratchy voice sounded like rats’ feet on dry grass and whenever she spoke she tilted her head to one side. It made her appear slightly demented.
“Where hast thou been, sister?”
“Killing swine,” replied the Countess glibly, employing Shakespeare in order to sound more confident than she felt.
Mad Mother MacBee threw back her head and laughed at the unlikely response. The sound was exaggerated and sounded like: Caw! Caw! Caw! “Ah! The rump-fed ronyon speaks! Her master’s to Aleppo gone! In a sieve I’ll thither sail! And like a rat… ” Theatrically, she plucked a large dead rat out of a little hessian sack and dangled it by the tail.
The Countess forced herself not to breathe deeply and slowly as she gave her concentration over to the Bard. “I’ll give thee a wind, sister.”
MacBee tilted her head the way a dog does when listening to its master, narrowed her gaze and peered slyly through watery eyes. “Th’art a kind one.”
“And you another,” returned the Countess in a level tone as MacBee dangled the dead rat in front of her horrified face before dropping it back into her sack.
“You know me?”
“The three sisters go together – I know the other two.”
MacBee caterwauled another lunatic laugh and danced a jig, capering on the spot, kicking up her heels, chanting:
“Thus we go in and out,
Once, twice, thrice, about,
All three go into the wood,
To make the charm firm and good!”
An appearance of outward calm was called for. “Hail thee – sister!”
“Hail to all! Hail Macbeth! Murderer! Once, twice, thrice! Hail!”
“Murderer you say – from whence owe you this strange intelligence?”
MacBee circled slowly and seemed pleased when the Countess tensed under her watery scrutiny. “Good sister, why do you start and seem to fear?”
“I fear not the truth - if you can look back in the seeds of time – say it.”
MacBee leapt back as if taking fright and vanished behind a tree.
The Countess whirled on the spot, and whirled again, but there was no sign of the third sister. “Speak - say more to the new sister who neither begs nor fears but seeks the truth.”
“Hail Macbeth! Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”
MacBee sprang out from behind a tree and danced another impromptu little jig on the spot, singing: “Lesser than, yet greater - not happy, yet much happier.”
Perhaps MacBee was merely ranting, spouting nonsense, mad as a March hare in November. “In the name of truth. Sing what name you know.”
“The earth hath bubbles.”
“As the water has,” responded the Countess, exercising infinite patience.
MacBee looked up to the grey heavens. She appeared momentarily confused, as if she had lost her train of thought in the ethers. “Wither are they vanished?”
“Into the air, melted, as breath into the wind – speak!” prompted the Countess.
MacBee appeared to rouse herself but her train of thought had veered abruptly. “Alack! Alack! See what treasure is in my sack!”
The Countess decided to humour the old woman. “Show me, show me.”
MacBee placed her little sack carefully on a cushion of leaves and opened the drawstring with bent and bony fingers:
“Fillet of a fenny snake, thumb from dead-man in a lake,
eye of newt and leg of frog, paw of cat and tongue of dog,
eyelash from a red-haired drab, wart from Redbeard on a slab,
root of hemlock, slip of yew, gore from fathead cleaved in two,
tooth plucked from a Roman jaw, fingernail from Darkie’s claw,
blond hair from a Viking nob, spittle from an old Salt’s gob,
sweltered venom sleeping got from a posh lord in his cot,
but nowt as yet to see from double-double Dee.”
Shock coursed through the Countess. It was clear that many of the so-called treasures in MacBee’s collection had been taken from the bodies of the deceased – thumb, wart, tooth! But how, when, why? Did MacBee purloin them after the men had been killed but before the bodies were discovered? And if so, did she see who killed them? Or was she, herself, the murderess? Mad in more than name! The Countess tempered her revulsion though her heart was pounding like a war drum and she felt physically sick.
“Oh, well done!” she managed with outward calm. “I commend your pains!”
A rustling sound startled them both and they turned their heads to the noise. MacBee stooped like a pecking bird and quickly packed up her hessian sack, carefully tightening the drawstring on her bower bag. The sound came again but this time she recognized it and laughed softly, strangely.
“By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way doth come.”
Sensing the strange sister was about to take flight, the Countess pressed her for more information. “A deed without a name. Name the deed. Name the name.”
“Harpier! Paddock! Grimalkin! Hark! They sit in the foggy cloud and wait for me! Make haste! I come!”
“Wait! When shall we two meet again?”
MacBee turned back. “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the game’s lost and won.”
“Name the place.”
MacBee cupped an ear. “The brindled cat doth mew. Aroint thee, now!”
“Name the place,” repeated the Countess a little more desperately.
“Upon the ruined heath.”
No sooner had Mother MacBee vanished than the Countess angled for home and gasped with fright. In the exact spot where the stag had been drinking now stood Mrs Ross. Over her arm was a basket full of chanterelles and brown caps. The Countess decided not to mention her encounter with the third sister unless Mrs Ross brought it up, but as they walked back together to Graymalkin, the latter dropped no hint that she was cognisant of it.
Mrs Ross was the most stoic and the most taciturn of the sisters. Apart from the fact that she was the mother of Hamish and supplemented her income by basket weaving, the Countess knew next to nothing about her. Over lunch the Countess tried to remedy this by taking her meal in the kitchen. She broached several topics ranging from the romance between Hamish Ross and Miss Lambert to the Scottish play - to no avail. Finally she resorted to the ins and outs of basket weaving as a way to learn more about her housekeeper but all she learned was that the new bodkins would come in handy and that the baskets were sold in the market at Duns.
Mrs Ross was an exemplary housekeeper and an excellent cook but she was also a woman who kept her own counsel and never wore her heart on her sleeve. Unsurprising, considering she had lived for many years on her own in a lonely old castle, no husband, and her only child off at boarding school in Edinburgh. It must have been a lonely life until Colonel and Mrs Ardkinglas arrived at the hunting lodge. The third sister was another puzzle. Was she always mad? How did she come to make her home in the middle of Jackdaw Wood? And why, if she was a triplet, did she not resemble her two siblings?
Dr Watson returned in time for dinner, cold, exhausted, but rather pleased with himself. His caddying skills were well received and he was able to make some instructive suggestions that improved Mr Bancoe’s score. Mr Bancoe and Mr Larsenssen played a very decent 3 under par – their best score yet. Tomorrow he would return to the links, along with the other three members of his group, to oversee the game of Miss Dee and Mr Dee, who carry their own clubs and do the caddying for each other.
“So nothing untoward happened?” remarked the Countess.
“There were no attempts on anyone’s life, if that’s what you mean,” he returned lightly before his brows pleated. “There was just one thing that seemed, well, odd.”
“Odd?”
“Odd is probably not the right word. I don’t mean strange or supernatural but it’s something that struck me as, well, odd.”
“Your instinct noted something at odds with your brain – is that what you are getting at?”
“Yes, that’s a good way of putting it.”
“And what was this oddness?”
“Mr MacDuff is the worst caddy I have ever come across.”
She was expecting something a little more significant and felt disappointed. But there was nothing odd about male rivalry especially when it came to sport. No doubt he had told himself all day that he was the better caddy. “Oh,” she said.
“He couldn’t tell one club from another.”
“Is that important?”
“Important! It is paramount! A good caddy will advise on the best club to use and the wind direction and the curve of the green and so on! It can mean the difference between a good game and a great one!”
“Mmm, try to find out all you can about him tomorrow. How long he has been caddying. How he came to be caddying for Mr Larssensen. And anything else that comes to mind.”
He nodded sagely, stewing over the fact he had taken the man into his confidence regarding the death of Mr Brown. “How was your day?” he asked to take his mind off his blunder, and was surprised by what she had to say. Her day was much more fruitful.
Firstly, she told him about the besom broom down the well. He agreed with her conclusion that the broom was probably the instrument that caused the mark to the back of Mr Brown’s neck. He made a mental note to quiz Mr MacDuff about it tomorrow morning as soon as he picked him up in the landau. Did he notice it down the well before the body had been fished out? And if he did, why didn’t he mention it when the injury to the back of the neck came to light? Suddenly, the coincidence of the pale green paper found in Mr Brown’s pocket and the colour of Mr MacDuff’s scoring booklet came back to bite him. Did MacDuff slip a note under Mr Brown’s door while he slept, arranging to meet him in the kitchen courtyard where he killed him?
Secondly, she recounted meeting Mother MacBee in Jackdaw Wood. He did not seem too perturbed as to how the third sister did not resemble the other two and recalled a colleague who once presided over the birth of triplets – two identical girls and the third a boy! “It can happen,” was all he said.
When she moved on to describe the sack of treasures he was all ears.
“I wrote down the rhyme as best as I could remember it as soon as I got home,” she said, extracting a piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to him. “Fortunately, I have an exceptional memory and it helped that each line contained its own rhyme. Once I remembered the first word the rest of the line followed quickly.
Ignoring the narcissism – he’d had long practice with Sherlock - his eyes skimmed the paper then went back to the beginning as he read out loud:
“Fillet of a fenny snake, thumb from dead-man in a lake,
Root of hemlock, slip of yew, gore from thickhead cleaved in two,
Eye of newt and leg of frog, paw of cat and tongue of dog,
Eyelash from a redhead drab, wart from Redbeard on a slab,
Tooth ripped from a Roman jaw, fingernail from Darkie’s claw,
Blond hair from a Viking nob, spittle from an old Salt’s gob,
Sweltered venom sleeping got from a posh lord in his cot,
But nowt as yet to see from double-double Dee.”
By the time he finished reading his thoughts were tripping over themselves in the rush to find coherence. “Do you realize what this means? Of course you do! That’s why you went to the effort of remembering every detail and writing it down!”
The Countess, having already digested the contents of MacBee’s sack, was one step ahead of him. “MacBee had access to the dead bodies – either just after they were killed because she killed them or some time shortly afterwards. Did Mycroft mention the missing thumb from the American’s hand?”
“No, and I don’t believe he would have overlooked such an important detail.”
“That means the missing thumb was overlooked and thus not reported – highly unlikely as a point was made of the horned god pose – or it was chopped off later. Logic says the latter – after the body was transferred to the ice house.”
Dr Watson was taking a different but parallel line. “The rhyme also suggests MacBee can get in and out of Cruddock Castle without being observed.”
“A fact confirmed by the sweat she got from a sleeping lord.”
“Exactly! She must have been in his bedchamber!”
“And she somehow wiped his brow using his own handkerchief which she took away with her. Perhaps she is a witch after all?”
“Do
n’t even suggest it! She must have a key. She could have stolen one any time in the last umpteen years. And I suspect that a glass of whiskey is rarely far from his lordship’s reach. I think it safe to assume he is a heavy sleeper.”
“She must have been in Lola’s bedchamber too. She has an eyelash.”
“The brazen old hag!”
“What about the wart from Redbeard on a slab? That must be a reference to Mr Brown. Did you notice any disfigurement or incision?”
“He was fully clothed. His face was horribly bloated but there was no disfiguring. Wait! I remember looking at his left hand and thinking that the knuckle had been badly skinned. I presumed it had scraped the wall of the well as it went down but now that I think on it the cut seemed too neat. She must have gone down to the cellar and incised the wart.”
“I thought you instructed Mr MacDuff to lock it and keep the key.”
“I did – that’s another question I want answered tomorrow morning.”
“Could she have sliced off the wart before the body was transferred to the cellar?”
He considered the question thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as he pictured the wound. “No, the blood had congealed before the wart was cut off. There was no bleeding around the knuckle.”
“That implies she in unlikely to be the murderess.”
“In other words, she is merely mad!”
“Or just practicing witchcraft – using body parts for her spells.”
“It is sickening! I cannot believe such practices are still going on at the dawn of the twentieth century.”
“I agree but let’s not get distracted by such issues.”
He cast his eyes back over the paper. “The gore from a thickhead cleaved in two must be a reference to the Australian who was killed by a falling branch. What form did the gore take?”
“It looked like dried blood on a section of scabrous white bark.”
“Yes, that matches the death in a birch wood. What about the tooth? Roman jaw suggests the Italian – what was his name?”
“Giuseppe Sforza,” she supplied.
“Incredible! She must have ripped the tooth straight out of the corpse’s mouth!”