by M C Beaton
“Good morning, Chief Inspector,” said Hamish.
Blair swung about, his piggy eyes gleaming. He opened his mouth to yell.
“It was murder,” said Hamish Macbeth. “Captain Peter Bartlett was murdered. And I hae the proof o’ it right here.”
Blair’s mouth dropped open and he stared stupidly. A heavy shocked silence fell on the room.
Into that silence came again the soft Highland voice of PC Macbeth.
“Och, aye,” he said. “It was nearly the perfect murder.”
SIX
You may kill or you may miss,
But at all times think of this—
All the pheasants ever bred,
Won’t repay for one man dead.
—Mark Beaufoy.
Hamish walked into the room and placed a red-and-white plastic shopping bag on a small table by the window. He rummaged in the bag, then turned around, holding up to the stunned gathering two spent shotgun cartridges.
“These,” he said, “are number seven shot, not number six.”
There was a puzzled silence, finally broken by Blair. “What the devil are you talking about, you great gowk?” he cried furiously. “What has all this nonsense got to do with murder?”
“I think these belonged to Captain Bartlett, and I think he used them yesterday,” said Hamish, unperturbed.
“Nonsense,” said Blair. “Anyone could have fired them.”
“But the captain was the only one out shooting,” replied Hamish, inwardly sending an apology up to heaven for the lie when he thought of Angus the poacher’s brace of grouse. But Angus had just assured him they had been shot miles from where the captain died, although still on the estate, and Hamish had years of experience of knowing when the poacher was telling the truth and when he was lying. “Besides, the season just began yesterday.”
“Then they were from last season,” said Blair with a pitying smile.
“Och, no,” said Hamish. “The last season’s shooting ended in December, eight months ago. They haven’t been lying out on the moor all that time, in all that rain and snow.”
Lord Helmsdale nodded in agreement. Blair saw that nod and felt his lovely neat accident verdict beginning to slip away. “Get on with it, then,” he snarled.
Hamish turned back to the plastic bag and produced two grouse. He held them up.
“I found these hidden in the heather, not very far from where the captain was murdered. Angus’s dog found them. I think we shall find that they were killed with number seven shot, with these”—he held up the two spent cartridges—“and that the captain had bagged them before he was killed.”
“Oh, aye?” sneered Blair. “Your poacher friend found them, did he? Maybe that was because he bagged them and he hid them away.”
“Well, he was up on the moor on the morning of the murder,” admitted Hamish.
“And what number of shot does he use?”
“Number six,” said Hamish.
“Bartlett was shot with number six, so, if it was murder, then, you great pillock, your friend did it!”
“Och, but he couldn’t have…” Hamish began, but Blair started to interrupt. He was silenced by Lord Helmsdale.
“Let Macbeth speak,” said Lord Helmsdale crossly. “When it comes to guns and shooting, he knows what he’s talking about.”
Blair looked about to protest, but then he nodded to Hamish to continue.
“The time of the shooting was put at around seven in the morning,” said Hamish. “I was down at the harbour at seven and there was Angus, sleeping like a pig. So he didn’t murder the captain.”
There was a restless stirring among the small audience. I didn’t know Hamish could look so cold and hard, thought Priscilla illogically. She glanced round at the others. All were staring fixedly at Blair, as if willing the detective to prove Hamish wrong.
“How did you come to this ridiculous conclusion?” scoffed Colonel Halburton-Smythe. “Murder, indeed! Those grouse and cartridges don’t mean a thing.”
“Well,” said Hamish, “you remember when we found the captain, he had been climbing over the fence when he was shot.”
“Yes, yes,” said the colonel testily.
Hamish glanced quickly at the others who had come with them to the scene of the shooting -Henry, Freddy, and Lord Helmsdale. They all nodded.
“Good,” said Hamish. “We’re all agreed. Now, it is obvious Bartlett was coming in this direction, away from the moor. So, that could only mean, as his game bag was empty and his gun was still loaded, that he had been unable to bag his brace and was giving up and heading back here. He should have unloaded the gun, but people are careless sometimes, and that’s how they shoot themselves accidentally.”
“Just like Bartlett did,” said Blair, looking triumphantly around the room, but Hamish continued as if he had not heard him.
“But I stepped easily over that fence, and the captain’s legs are—were—as long as mine, so there was no need for him to use the gun to help himself over. That’s what made me suspicious in the first place. So I checked the game bag again and it wasn’t empty.” There was a sharp intake of breath from someone in the room. Hamish turned and dipped again into the plastic bag. From it, he produced a small box for carrying fishing hooks. He took something out and held it up. They craned forward to see. It was a tiny feather, a greyish feather with a brown tip. “A breast feather from a grouse,” said Hamish. “And there was another one.” He held it up. “It was lying on the ground near the body.
“It looked to me as if the captain had bagged his brace before he died. So that would mean he was on his way back here. And it would also mean he would not have needed to reload the gun. It meant, too, that someone had removed the grouse from the bag, and that someone”—he looked slowly round the room—“is the one who murdered him.”
“Look, laddie,” said Blair heavily, “say Bartlett was going to cheat and get his grouse before the agreed time, then why wouldn’t he have been the one who hid them in the heather, ready to be picked up quickly and get them first to the castle to win the bet, and then to the helicopter to ship them to London?” Everyone knew by this time what the helicopter had been doing there.
Hamish’s soft voice went inexorably on. “The captain was too experienced on the moors. He would know there would be a great likelihood of a fox picking them up. And if not, the crows would have found them. There was already a crow picking at this pair when we got to them. They wouldn’t have been in any fit state to go to London.”
“This is all very well,” said Diana in a strained voice. “But I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at. How did the murderer go about it?”
“This is how I think it happened,” said Hamish. “I believe that the murderer intended to kill the captain sometime during their stay here. If the captain had gone out at nine o’clock as agreed, he couldn’t have managed it, what with people up and awake. He would have waited for another opportunity.
“But the captain decided to cheat and left at dawn. The murderer must have seen him, realized what he was up to, and saw his opportunity to kill him without a witness. He followed him out to the moor, taking a gun and cartridges with him.
“It wouldn’t have been easy to find him in the poor light, but when the captain got his brace, the murderer followed the sound of the shots. He met the captain on his way back here to the castle and they came face to face as the captain stepped over that fence.
“The murderer fired both barrels at point-blank range. What he did next shows he is a very clever man indeed. He opened the captain’s gun and found it unloaded. He checked the game bag and found the grouse, so he knew the gun had been fired. He took the spent cartridges from his own gun, the ones that had killed the captain, and put them in the captain’s gun, closed it again, then carefully tangled it in the gorse bush. Now it looked like an accident.
“But our murderer was more than just clever. He examined the captain’s pockets and came across a handful of unused ca
rtridges. They were number seven shot, and the captain was killed with number six shot. So the murderer took the number sevens and replaced them with the number sixes he had brought with him.
“Then he had to get rid of the grouse, otherwise the police would wonder why his gun was still loaded after the captain had got his brace. He took them from the bag and hid them in the heather. He should have hidden them farther away, but maybe he wanted to rush back and get into his bed before the household was awake.
“What the police found was a dead man full of number six shot, two spent number six cartridges in his gun, and more number sixes in his pocket. The murderer was sure everyone would think it was accidental death. It should have been the perfect murder.” He glanced sharply at the faces turned towards him, faces that were no longer looking to Blair for help. They all looked shocked and strained.
“But the fence and the feather in the game bag made me suspicious, so I arranged with Angus and our dogs to do a bit of tracking this morning. We backtracked over the captain’s trail, in the direction away from the castle and, sure enough, we found the freshly used cartridges, number sevens. It took us a couple of hours, tracking in increasing circles away from the spot where the body was found, to find the grouse.
“I think that when the birds are examined, it’ll be found they were shot around the morning of the twelfth and that they were killed with number seven shot.”
“It’s still all speculation,” said Blair furiously.
“I should suppose,” said Hamish, “that his gear is still in his room and his car is still out front. I suggest we search both and see if he had any more cartridges with him.”
“Go and have a look, Jenkins,” barked the colonel.
“This is all a muddle, you village idiot,” said Blair, turning a dangerous colour of puce. “You keep calling the murderer a ‘he.’ How do you know it was a man?”
“I don’t,” said Hamish. “It could just as easily have been a woman.”
Voices rose in a furious buzz. “He’s a better fiction writer than I am,” came Henry’s sharp tones. And Mrs Halburton-Smythe’s voice, shaky with tears: “This is a nightmare. You must stop Macbeth making up these lies, Priscilla.”
Jenkins came back into the room, carrying a small box. He handed it to Colonel Halburton-Smythe. The colonel opened it and looked gloomily down at the contents. “Number seven,” he said in a hollow voice.
Everyone looked at Blair again as if he were their last hope. Hamish studied their faces. They were all, even Priscilla, willing Blair to say that Hamish Macbeth had made a mistake.
But Blair’s heavy head was down on his chest. “I’ll need to call the boys in,” he mumbled.
“Speak up!” demanded Lord Helmsdale.
“I’ll need tae get statements from ye,” roared Blair suddenly, making them all jump. “This is a bad business. And you’ll all need tae stay here until your rooms are searched. Come wi’ me, sir,” he said to the colonel.
The colonel followed him out. The rest stayed where they were, stricken, looking accusingly at Hamish, and listening to the mumble of voices from the hall.
Blair was hi a quandary. He sweated to think what his superiors would say if they learned he had been made to look a fool by the local bobby. But if he could get Hamish out of the investigation before anyone from Strathbane arrived, then he could make it look as if he, as a diligent officer, had been unsatisfied with the accident verdict and had returned to the scene of the crime.
“Look here, sir,” he said in oily, wheedling tones. “This is going to take a wee bit of time. Now I am sure you don’t want the television and press to harass your wife, daughter, or guests. If you would let me set up headquarters here with MacNab and Anderson, we’ll soon get to the bottom of this.”
“You’ll find this dreadful murder had nothing to do with me or my guests,” said Colonel Halburton-Smythe.
“Exactly,” cried Blair. “And you won’t want your family or guests troubled with a lot of haranguing, which they would get if they allowed that Macbeth to stay around.”
The colonel hesitated. In all fairness, he could hardly bring himself to agree with the detective inspector’s description of Macbeth’s possible line of questioning. It was Blair who was notorious for his bullying manner. But Blair now seemed conciliatory and was behaving in a servile manner -which was more the way the man ought to behave, thought the colonel. He knew Hamish Macbeth would suspect each and every one of the guests. And Hamish, never as overawed by the local gentry as the colonel thought he ought to be, would not dream of taking the heat away from the castle by questioning the locals first. Then there was Priscilla to consider. The colonel, deep down, had always feared that one day Priscilla might horrify them by upping and saying she wished to marry the village policeman. It was only a half-formulated idea, never openly admitted, for the colonel was too much of a snob to bring that thought up into the open and look at it. But it niggled away at the back of his mind. Then there was the final clincher. If it hadn’t been for Macbeth’s interference, this sordid death would still be considered a respectable and gentlemanly accident—which Colonel Halburton-Smythe was still convinced it was. He found himself saying that Blair could stay at Tommel Castle, provided he agreed to keep the press at bay.
“But don’t go upsetting the servants, mind,” said the colonel. “No ringing the bells and making them fetch and carry. It’s hard enough to get good servants these days. I don’t want them handing in their notice because some copper decides to behave like a lord of the manor.”
Blair bit back an angry retort and bared his teeth in a horrible fawning smile instead.
In his new cringing manner, he thanked the colonel profusely and then went back to the breakfast room and jerked his head at Hamish as a signal that the policeman was to follow him out into the hall.
“Not here,” said Hamish, seeing Jenkins lurking in a corner of the hall. “You’re chust dying to have a go at me. Let’s go outside.”
He walked ahead out of the castle, and with a muttered curse, Blair followed him.
Hamish walked up to his car and then turned and faced the detective inspector. “Out wi’ it, man,” he said laconically.
Blair took a deep breath.
“In the first place, Officer,” he snarled, “You are incorrectly dressed. I shall put in a report about that.”
Hamish was wearing a worn checked shirt and an old pair of flannel trousers.
“Secondly, I am still convinced that this was an accident. You had no right to crawl about the moors looking for clues wi’out phoning me and telling me what you were doing. Thirdly, you should not have sent that helicopter pilot off before I saw him. You’re standing there, you big scunner, thinking you’re cleverer than me because you think you solved that last case. Well, it was a fluke, see. It’s all going in ma report, and I’ll see you in front of a police committee yet, you cheeky bugger.”
“Aye, well,” said Hamish amiably, “that would be the terrible thing. I can see it now,” he went on dreamily, “telling all the bigwigs how Detective Chief Inspector Blair wanted to let a murder pass as an accident. I’m wearing my old clothes because that uniform of mine can’t stand much more—”
“Whit?” roared Blair. “Listen, laddie, I happen to know you had the money for a new uniform last year.”
Hamish bit his lip. He had not spent the money on a new uniform, but had sent it home to his family.
“Anyway,” said Hamish airily with a wave of his hand, “to get to the matter of the helicopter pilot. His name’s Billy Simpson and I typed out his statement and you can have it today. In any case, his statement doesn’t matter now, for the pathologist’s report says the captain died before the helicopter arrived. But I can tell all this to that police committee you were threatening me with.”
“Maybe I was a bit hasty,” said Blair. “We’ll forget about the pilot. Just you run along and look after all those interesting cases like kiddies nicking sweets from the local shop an
d leave the big stuff to the experts.”
“I was at a party here the night before the shooting,” said Hamish. “I could describe what the guests were like and how they behaved to the captain.”
Blair clapped him on the shoulder. “Maybe I’ll drop down to the station and get it from ye later.”
“So I’m not to have the honour of putting you up?” said Hamish.
Blair puffed out his chest. “I’ll be staying here at the castle. The colonel’s invitation.”
Hamish looked amused.
“So just run along and keep out of it,” said Blair.
“Aye, wi’ an expert like yourself around,” sighed Hamish, “you won’t be needing me.”
He opened the car door. “Don’t forget to get the grouse examined,” he said.
Blair grunted and turned to walk away.
“And don’t forget the gun room,” said Hamish sweetly.
Blair swung about.
“What?”
“The gun room…in the castle,” said Hamish patiently. “Someone shot the captain, and unless they were silly enough to have the gun lying about their bedroom, you’ll probably find a gun has been borrowed from the gun room, cleaned, and put back.”
Police Constable Macbeth drove sedately out of the estate and along the road to Lochdubh. He pulled to the side of the road at the top of the hill overlooking the village, switched off the engine, and climbed out of the car.
A mist was rising from the loch below, lifting and falling. One minute the village lay in its neat two rows, and the next was blotted from view.
“I hate that man!” cried Hamish loudly. A startled sheep skittered off on its black legs.
He took a great gulp of fresh air. Hamish hardly ever lost his temper, but Blair’s dismissal of him from the case was infuriating. Hamish, in that brief moment, hated not only Blair but Priscilla Halburton-Smythe as well. She was nothing but a silly girl who had become engaged to a man simply because he was famous. She was not worth a single moment’s heartbreak. And let Blair solve the case if he could!
Hamish reminded himself fiercely that he had settled for a quiet life. He had had chances of promotion and had sidestepped them all, for he knew he would find life in a large town unpleasant. He would need to obey his superiors who might turn out to be like Blair. He loved his easy, lazy life and the beauty of the countryside. Apart from his hens and geese, he rented a piece of croft land behind the police station where he kept sheep. There was enough to be made on the side in Lochdubh, what with the egg money, the sale of lambs, and the money prizes he won at the various Highland games. Why should he throw it all away out of hurt pride—because a detective had insulted him and the daughter of the castle had made it obvious she enjoyed money and fame, even if that fame was only reflected glory?