Death of a Poison Pen

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘All right.’ Glass capitulated. ‘See this letter to a Mrs Wellington accusing her of having an affair with you?’ He looked up at Hamish and a little gleam of malice darted through his eyes.

  ‘Aye. You would pick that one. Go on. I’m looking.’ Hamish bent over him.

  ‘As far as I can see, she has made no effort to disguise her handwriting.’

  ‘She? You’re sure?’

  ‘Pretty sure. She suffers from a low opinion of herself and never really feels safe.’

  ‘I’m not surprised the biddy doesnae feel safe, writing letters like that.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I mean. She is always frightened of people finding out what her character really is like so that then they won’t like her. She is often depressed. See how the lines of her writing descend and how the letters turn back? Look at the low t-bars. She wears a mask the whole time.’

  ‘Like the Phantom of the Opera?’

  ‘No, no. She assumes a role, possibly that of a strong, confident woman, and has probably been playing that part all her life.’

  ‘She’s old?’

  ‘I think so. She has an overstretched personality. Because she thinks so little of herself, she tries to achieve more than she is capable of.’

  ‘So even though she may be retired, she may have worked at something. I mean, not married and had children and been a housewife?’

  ‘I can’t go as far as that. You’ll need to give me more time.’

  ‘Phone me at Lochdubh when you’ve got something more.’

  The following morning Hamish telephoned headquarters but was told that the results from the pathologist would not be ready until later that day.

  There was a knock at the door. He opened it and recognized Jenny. The day was crisp and clear and she was dressed in her new ‘sensible’ clothes.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Hamish. He was anxious to get off to Braikie.

  Jenny blinked. She had forgotten to come armed with an excuse. She thought of one rapidly.

  ‘It’s very remote up here,’ she began, batting a pair of eyelashes, heavy with waterproof mascara, at him.

  ‘So?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘I wonder if it’s safe for a woman on her own to travel around?’

  ‘Safest place in the world. Now, if you don’t mind . . .’

  Jenny’s face reddened. ‘Are you usually so rude to visitors?’

  Hamish took another look at her. She was very pretty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a case that’s worrying me. Look, I’ll take you for dinner tonight.’

  Jenny brightened. This was more than she had hoped for. ‘Where?’

  ‘That Italian restaurant on the waterfront. At eight this evening? I should be free then.’

  ‘Lovely. I’ll look forward to it.’

  As she walked off, Hamish shook his head. A pretty girl lands on your doorstep, he chided himself, and you practically tell her to get lost.

  Jenny had left the door open. He went to close it and found Elspeth standing there, staring up at him. He had not heard her arrive. But Elspeth always seemed to materialize.

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘The handwriting expert. Did you see him?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, come in. I’m trying to get off on the road to Braikie, but maybe it would be a good idea for you to hear what the man said.’

  Elspeth followed him into the kitchen. ‘What was she doing here?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The newcomer, Jenny Ogilvie.’

  ‘Wanted some advice, that’s all. Now, here’s what the handwriting expert said.’ He told her of Glass’s findings. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what is there in Braikie for an over-achiever? Maybe it is some woman who left and went to London, say, and made a success of whatever she did, then retired and returned to Braikie.’

  ‘I don’t think so. She’s obviously had a lifetime of studying the locals.’

  ‘Okay, Sherlock, come up with a better idea.’

  ‘I think it would be someone with some sort of local power. The minister isn’t a woman. The bank manager’s a man and a newcomer at that. I have it!’

  ‘Have what?’

  ‘What about a schoolteacher? Braikie School is small and the headmistress has a lot of power.’

  ‘They don’t call them headmistresses any more,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s “head teacher” in this politically correct world.’

  ‘Bugger political correctness,’ said Elspeth. ‘Who do we know?’

  Hamish thought about it. ‘Miss McAndrew retired last year. I never really knew her.’

  ‘Try her,’ urged Elspeth.

  ‘All right. But from the little I know of her, she seems a highly respectable lady.’

  ‘I’d better get off.’ Elspeth walked to the door and then hesitated. She turned round. ‘We haven’t had dinner together for a while. What about this evening?’

  ‘I have a date.’

  ‘Oh, Hamish. There’s something odd there. She’s stalking you.’ And with that she was gone, leaving Hamish staring at the empty space where she had been standing only a second before.

  Hamish fed Lugs but decided not to take his dog with him. It was going to be a tricky call. He could hardly walk into Miss McAndrew’s home and accuse her of being a poison-pen writer. Maybe he should pretend he wanted her advice.

  He drove off to Braikie, enjoying the splendid day, wondering how long it would last before the weather broke again. He drove along the shore road, noticing that for once the sea was calm, smooth glassy waves tumbling on to the rocky beach.

  He called at the school and asked a teacher if he might have Miss McAndrew’s address. He was told she lived in a bungalow called Braikie Manor on the shore road.

  Interested to meet this woman who wanted to give the impression that she lived in a manor house, Hamish drove back out again on the shore road. He had been told that the bungalow was situated on a rise, just beyond the edge of Braikie.

  It was a small square box of a house with one large bay window. The views out over the sea must be magnificent, he thought, as he parked the Land Rover at the side of the road and got out.

  There was a short tarmac drive up to the front door. The garden was scrubby grass and a few trees permanently bent into a crouch by the Atlantic gales. The front door was slightly ajar.

  He rang the doorbell in the wall on the side and listened as Westminster chimes sounded inside the house. No one came to the door. There was a garage at the side of the house. He walked up to it. There was a window at the side of the garage. It was grimy. He rubbed it with his sleeve and peered in. A small Ford Escort was inside. So she hadn’t driven off anywhere.

  He returned to the door and rang the bell again. Behind him, waves crashed on the beach and a seagull screamed overhead. He pushed the door wider and called, ‘Miss McAndrew!’

  Silence.

  He took off his cap and tucked it under his arm. Perhaps she was asleep. He walked inside. There was a narrow hall. He looked down. The morning post was lying on the floor. He could feel his heartbeat quicken.

  ‘Miss McAndrew!’ he shouted again.

  He opened a door on his left. The living room. No one there. A door on his right opened into the lounge, musty and slightly damp, obviously the ‘best’ room, used only on special occasions. There was an open door at the back of the hall leading into the kitchen. Before it, on the left and right, were two more doors. He opened the first.

  It was a bedroom, the curtains tightly drawn. He fumbled for the light switch beside the door and switched it on. Light glared down on an awful figure on the bed soaked in blood. He walked forward. Dead eyes stared up at him. To make sure, he felt for her pulse and found none.

  Miss McAndrew had been viciously and violently stabbed to death – a frenzy of stabbing. He took out his phone and called Strathbane. He pulled on a pair of thin gloves and went through to the living room. There was a desk by the window. On the top were a few bills and circulars. He slid open the desk drawers, one af
ter the other. In the bottom drawer he found a packet of cheap stationery and a packet of envelopes. In one at the left top of the desk he found the beginning of a letter. ‘Dear Effie,’ it began, ‘I have not heard from you for a while.’ The handwriting looked like the writing on the anonymous letters.

  He walked outside the bungalow and breathed in great gulps of fresh air. A car drove up and Jimmy Anderson got out, followed by his sidekick, MacNab, and two police officers. Hamish went to meet them. ‘How did you get here so quickly?’

  ‘Blair ’ll be along in a minute,’ said Jimmy. ‘We were in Braikie when we got your message. We were investigating that other murder.’

  ‘You mean Miss Beattie?’

  ‘Aye, that’s the one. You were right. She’d been heavily drugged.’

  ‘But I phoned this morning and was told the results weren’t through.’

  ‘I don’t know who told you that, but it turns out you were right. So what’ve we got here?’

  ‘A fatal stabbing.’

  ‘Victim?’

  ‘A Miss McAndrew, retired schoolteacher.’

  ‘We’ve got the forensic team with us. They were going over the postmistress’s flat again. We’ll wait until they arrive. Any idea who murdered her or why?’

  ‘I don’t know who,’ said Hamish heavily. ‘But I know why.’

  A car screeched to a halt at the foot of the garden and Detective Chief Inspector Blair heaved his bulk out of it.

  ‘Why?’ Jimmy asked Hamish.

  ‘Miss McAndrew was the poison-pen writer and somebody found out.’

  Chapter Three

  Methought I heard a voice cy, ‘Sleep no more!

  Macbeth does murder sleep!’ the innocent sleep,

  Sleep that knits up the ravel’d sleeve of care.

  – William Shakespeare

  Blair was in a bad mood. He felt resentful that somehow Hamish Macbeth had turned what had appeared to be a simple suicide into a murder. And now that long drip of water, that glaikit Highland teuchter, had found another dead body.

  He brushed past Hamish and said to Jimmy, ‘Let’s be having a look at the body.’

  ‘Well, sir, the forensic team’s just coming. Might be as well to wait for them.’

  Blair’s eyes bulged with fury, but he saw the wisdom of what Jimmy was saying and he rounded on Hamish. ‘What prompted ye to call on her?’

  Hamish patiently went through what the handwriting expert had told him and how he thought a retired schoolteacher might fit the profile. Blair listened to him, his great bull head on one side.

  The police photographer arrived, then the forensic team, and then the pathologist, Mr Sinclair. ‘As soon as you’re finished, I want a look inside the place,’ growled Blair. ‘And as for you, laddie, you may as well get back to your sheep or whatever.’

  He stood to attention as a sleek black BMW halted behind the row of cars. Daviot got out. ‘I was on my way to Braikie when I got a phone call telling me the news. You found the body, Macbeth?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  So Hamish told him how he had come to believe that Miss McAndrew might be the poison-pen writer and how he had found stationery which matched the paper used by the poison-pen writer in her desk.

  ‘As you know by now, you were right about Miss Beattie’s death. It’s estimated the murder took place on the Saturday evening, maybe somewhere between nine and ten,’ said Daviot.

  ‘Aye, and I’m wondering why I wasnae told that the findings were in when I phoned this morning,’ said Hamish.

  Blair scowled at the sky. He had been passing by when he heard the girl taking Hamish’s call and had told her to say that nothing had been discovered yet. Blair was jealous of Hamish and was always afraid that this peculiar policeman might one day decide not to sidestep promotion, move to Strathbane, and replace him.

  ‘I don’t know how that happened,’ said Daviot. ‘I think the best idea is for you to question people in Braikie and try to find out whether anyone was seen going up the stairs to Miss Beattie’s flat. When we’re finished here, I’ll have some men released to help you.’

  ‘I take it that countermands Mr Blair’s order?’

  ‘What order?’

  ‘I was told to go back to my sheep, sir.’

  Blair forced a jolly laugh. ‘The trouble wi’ you Highlanders,’ he said, ‘is that you cannae take a joke.’

  ‘There you are, Macbeth. Now off you go.’

  Another car screeched to a halt, and Elspeth and Pat Mallone got out. ‘And get rid of those press,’ ordered Daviot.

  Hamish went up to Elspeth. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m supposed to get rid of you,’ said Hamish. ‘Follow me to Braikie and I’ll tell you about it, but mind, you didn’t hear it from me.’

  They went into a dingy pub in Braikie called the Red Rory In a puritan place like Braikie, thought Hamish, it followed that any drinking establishment should be as grim as possible. They ordered soft drinks and sat down at a table by the window.

  Hamish explained what he had found out.

  ‘A double murder!’ Pat’s Irish eyes gleamed with excitement. ‘I never thought I’d find such excitement up here.’

  ‘Where are you from?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Dublin.’

  ‘And what brought you here?’

  ‘I saw Sam’s advertisement in the National Union of Journalists magazine and applied.’ He grinned. ‘I think I was the cheapest he could get, and I didn’t have any experience in newspapers. I had been an advertising copywriter since I left university. Mind you, when I saw Lochdubh and the Highland Times, I thought, what a dump. I can’t live here. But then Elspeth walked in.’ He smiled blindingly at her. Elspeth looked vaguely out of the grimy bar window.

  ‘So you have the facts,’ said Hamish. ‘But don’t quote me, not even as a source. Go out there and get quotes from the townspeople and quotes from Strathbane. Now I’m off to see what I can find out.’

  ‘Are you sweet on him?’ asked Pat after Hamish had left the pub.

  ‘The only thing I’m sweet on,’ said Elspeth coldly, ‘is this story. Why don’t we finish our drinks and see what we can find out so that we can print the stuff without betraying that Hamish told us.’

  ‘Okay. It’s going to be a long day. Why don’t we have dinner at the Italian’s tonight? Come on, Elspeth. You’ve been good taking me around and showing me the ropes. But we’ve got to relax sometime.’

  Elspeth suddenly smiled. Why not? she thought. It wasn’t as if Hamish Macbeth had shown any desire for her company recently.

  ‘Fine. Let’s get on.’

  Pat grinned happily. He tried to remember whether the restaurant had candlelight. Candlelight was so romantic.

  Hamish went first to see Mrs Harris, who had found Miss Beattie’s body. ‘It’s yourself again,’ she said, opening the door to him. ‘Why are all the polis swarming all ower the place?’

  ‘Can we go inside? I’ll tell you about it.’

  She lived in a flat above the shops near the post office. She led the way into a neat parlour where a budgie sang in a cage by the window and a large fat cat purred in front of the peat fire. ‘Sit down,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘I’ll get some tea.’

  Hamish sank down in a comfortable, battered armchair by the fire. The cat purred, the clock on the mantel ticked, and he felt suddenly weary of the whole business.

  He half-closed his eyes and thought hard. Miss Beattie, the postmistress, had been murdered. Who better to have guessed the identity of the poison-pen writer than the postmistress? But Miss McAndrew had been killed, and not in a planned and calculated manner, as in the murder of Miss Beattie, but by a frenzied stabbing. He felt he could now be looking for two murderers.

  Mrs Harris came back in, carrying a laden tray. Hamish jumped to his feet and relieved her of it. ‘Just set it on the table by the window,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldnae ha’ gone to all th
is trouble,’ said Hamish, looking down at plates of cakes and scones and a large pot of tea.

  ‘It’s not often I get the company, and now herself has gone, there’s really nobody.’ A tear rolled down Mrs Harris’s withered cheek and she wiped it away with a corner of her flowered apron.

  She poured tea. Hamish drew up a chair at the table. She sat down to the left of him, twisting her apron in her hands.

  ‘Don’t you have any family?’ asked Hamish gently.

  ‘My husband died twenty years ago. I never had the weans. My sister’s gone as well.’

  Hamish made a mental note to find out if there was some sort of old folks’ club in Braikie and then asked, between bites of scone, ‘Did Miss Beattie ever hint to you that she might have guessed the identity of the poison-pen writer?’

  She frowned in thought. ‘Wait a bittie. When you made that speech at the community hall, she says to me as we left, “It’s all very well being asked to do your civic duty, but what if you’ve only got a suspicion and some poor respectable body is going to end up grilled by the police and maybe lose her reputation for nothing?”

  ‘Well, I didn’t think that much of it at the time because folks were guessing all over the place. I thought her question was . . . was . . .’

  ‘Academic?’

  ‘Aye, just a theory.’

  ‘When did you last see her before you found her dead?’

  ‘Outside the post office. She was locking up. Afore she left, she says, “Come round tomorrow and I’ll give you some of my cakes.” She had a rare light hand.’

  ‘What of yourself? Did you ever have any suspicions about anyone?’

  She shook her head. ‘To tell the truth, I got fair sickened wi’ all the accusations flying around. Why all these questions and why all the polis?’

  ‘We like to be thorough,’ said Hamish. He couldn’t really tell her that her friend had been murdered until after the official announcement. She would find out soon enough, he thought.

  ‘Did Miss Beattie have any relatives?’

  ‘She had a sister, down in Perth. I think she’s on her way up to the procurator fiscal’s in Strathbane.’ Scotland has a system based on Roman law, and the procurator fiscal is the coroner and public prosecutor of a Scottish district.