‘A country with a Covenanting History and one which steadfastly refused to betray Prince Charles Edward Stuart, would be unlikely to produce sons who could be bullied or cajoled into supplying information which they had intended to keep to themselves,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘That’s true enough. Then, of course, Mrs Corrie was a bit cagey, too. Remember asking her what she knew about the murder?’
‘I do, indeed. Mind you, she qualified what you are pleased to call the cagey reply by giving us a piece of information.’
‘That the son had visited the island. Yes, but we didn’t find out when. He certainly didn’t come over in the boat with Macbeth and me.’
‘Reading between the lines, child, I deducted that the visit was paid before the father’s death and that the disinheriting was done on the occasion of that visit, and that Mr Macbeth was present. I suppose the inspector has seen a copy of Mr Bradan’s will? When I meet him again I shall ask him what was in it, but I see no reason to doubt that Macbeth is the heir. The Corries have accepted him as such, and they, most likely, witnessed the will. Even if they were not permitted to read it, I am sure they knew that Macbeth was to be the new laird of Tannasgan.’
‘Corrie seemed to have some suspicions of Mr Grant of Coinneamh, I thought,’ said Laura. ‘He admitted that there was no love lost between him and Cù Dubh. But what did you make of his statements that the fabulous beasts used to travel to Leith?’
‘Of itself, I am certain that the statement was moonshine.’
‘Lie number one, you think? Well, it’s lies we’re looking for, isn’t it?’
‘I am not prepared to call it a lie. I think it was in the nature of a pointer, you know.’
‘To direct our attention to Leith or, perhaps, Newhaven?’
‘So I suppose.’
‘What about Corrie’s story that he had been sent across the loch to telephone about an arrangement for a car to meet Bradan at Tigh-Osda station?’
‘I see no reason to disbelieve it. When young Grant arrives he may be able to tell us a little more about that.’
‘But do you think Corrie telephoned Cù Dubh? Can we accept that he was alive when Corrie telephoned?’
‘That I cannot answer at present. The story that Corrie did tell – and I have not yet decided whether it is true – is that Mr Bradan, as a living man, came back to Tannasgan.’
‘Yes, I couldn’t make out about that, either.’
‘Mr Bradan, as we know, did come back to Tannasgan that night, but we do not know whether he was dead or alive.’
‘So the piper may have been Macbeth, after all!’
‘Yes. He played the pipes because he had seen the body, one might suppose. You remember telling me that the piper began with a lament, went on with an almost indecently triumphant skirling, then the lament again?’
‘It was a most extraordinary performance.’
‘Yes. He could have mourned his cousin and then realised that he had inherited the family property. Did you ever – no, you’re probably too young—’
‘Did I ever what?’
‘See a slender witch of a girl named, I think, Susan Salaman, perform a ballet solo called Funeral Dance for a Rich Aunt?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘It called for the same extraordinary mingling of two emotions.’
‘It must have been wildly comic!’
‘It was, wildly and brilliantly so.’
‘Well, we’ve sorted the Corries, so what about the Grants? Those of Coinneamh, I mean.’
‘Today’s thought. Well, now, what strikes you most about the Grants?’
‘Fishy people. I’ve changed my mind about them.’
‘By that you infer?’
‘I no longer think I can believe a word they say.’
‘They have not uttered very many words, child, when one comes to think of it.’
‘Granted,’ Laura agreed. ‘But what have we got on them, after all? There was the matter of my hired car and then the silly business of Grant’s being kidnapped, but – well, what else?’
‘Let us see.’ Dame Beatrice turned over a page of her notebook. ‘We begin, as you very rightly point out, with that so-far unexplained borrowing of your car. There was something very odd indeed about that. We have assumed that it made the journey between Coinneamh and Tannasgan, but there is no evidence, except that of the mileage, to show that that was indeed where the car went that night Then, as we have already noted, if Mrs Grant cannot drive, it cannot have been she who borrowed the car.’
‘But there’s nobody else it could have been,’ Laura protested. ‘I think she was lying.’
‘There is something in that. I see that it is still raining,’ said Dame Beatrice, with apparent inconsequence. ‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘Yes, with rum in it. Oh, well, no, perhaps not rum. I’d forgotten for the moment. Wonder what Cù Dubh looked like? I ought to have asked Mrs Grant when we were there.’ She signalled to the waiter, who had just served morning coffee at another table. ‘And now, what about the Grants and the possibility that they were lying at that last interview when we managed to get them both together?’
‘Let us have our coffee and enjoy it in peace,’ said Dame Beatrice, closing her notebook and restoring it to her skirt pocket. ‘I see that the bar is open. There is no reason why you should not drink rum. It is a kindly spirit and may assist thought.’
The waiter brought their coffee while Laura was at the bar and, when she returned to her seat, Dame Beatrice talked about the more amusing aspects of the Edinburgh Conference and then said:
‘I want to hear again exactly what happened on that afternoon and evening which you spent on Tannasgan.’
‘I don’t think you’ll pick up anything new,’ said Laura, ‘but here goes.’ When she had concluded her account, her employer, warning her that it was a leading question, asked whether, at any point during her walk, she had suspected that she was being dogged, followed or kept under any form of surveillance.
‘You’re thinking of the disinherited son.’ said Laura, ‘but I’m positive that my meeting him like that, at the edge of the loch, was sheer chance.’
‘I would still like to know why he signalled the island so that you were taken to An Tigh Mór.’
‘Can’t we put it down to a chivalrous gesture towards a damsel in distress?’
‘Well, we can,’ said Dame Beatrice doubtfully. ‘Let us place this tray on that vacant table and get to work again on the Grants.’
‘You noticed that Grant the elder said they had been marooned at Tigh-Osda station only for about a quarter of an hour?’ said Laura, when she had moved the tray.
‘I did notice it.’
‘Well, that was a fishy answer and I don’t think it was the truth. I mean, the Grants can’t have it both ways, can they?’
‘By which you mean…?’
‘Either she can drive, in which case (as I’ve felt certain all along) she did borrow my car that time I stayed there, or else they must have been at the station a lot longer than a quarter of an hour.’
‘Excellent. Pray expound your theory.’
‘Well, he was dead set on catching his train, wasn’t he?’
‘It seemed like it.’
‘And their estate car didn’t break down until they got to the station, or near enough to the station.’
‘True.’
‘Well, he couldn’t have hoped, if the estate car had been all right, to drive his wife to Coinneamh Lodge and get back to the station in time to catch the train, if his account of the quarter of an hour’s wait was true.’
‘Therefore the original arrangement must have been that Mrs Grant was to drop him at the station and drive herself home, you think?’
‘I don’t see what else one can think.’
‘Ably argued, child. You must be right. What did you make of Mr Grant’s kindly presenting us with a powerful reason for his having hated Mr Bradan?’
‘You mean the loss of his brother when that ship
blew up? I think it could have been a bold bit of bluff.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, it may have been a clever way of throwing dust in our eyes, I think. In other words, he had a strong motive for killing Bradan and he presents us with a completely phony one instead. It would have put quite a lot of people off the scent, I should imagine.’
‘Possibly. I wonder whether he really had a brother on that ship?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘you have not forgotten that Mrs Grant, on the first occasion you met her, made no secret of the fact that she, as well as her husband, hated Mr Bradan?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ said Laura. She was sitting up straight by this time and her settee faced the window. ‘Here comes a motor-cyclist. Can it be – yes, it is.’
‘Our young friend Grant?’
‘And as wet as a fish. Here he comes.’
‘And there was nobody named Grant among the lost crew of the Saracen, you remember? But, as we said, that may mean nothing. So many people, even respectable ones, go under an alias nowadays.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ said Laura.
‘Well, as I said, it might pay to confess to having a motive for a crime which you cannot possibly have committed, in order to confuse the issue of one which you certainly could have committed and which, in point of fact, you did help to commit. I speak merely theoretically, of course.’
‘Like hell you do,’ said Laura.
Chapter 18
Young Grant Corries Not Quite Clean
‘The Doctor examined carefully the body of the dead man. The face of the corpse was distorted and looked horrible in the candle-light.
‘ “Shot?” said the Inspector laconically. ‘ “No,” replied the Doctor.’
Barry Pain
« ^ »
YOUNG Grant had shed his waterproof motor-cycling outfit in the outer vestibule of the hotel. He came forward buoyantly, bowed to the ladies and was asked to sit down. Laura went to the bar and ordered him a large whisky.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘what about coming clean?’
‘I’d like to,’ said young Grant. ‘It’s about time I shed the load. Somebody took a pop at me as I came here. Luckily he missed me and missed my tyres, but it just goes to show.’
‘You were fired on?’ asked Dame Beatrice, interested. ‘Where did this take place?’
‘Not long after I left Crioch. I was passing little Loch Breac, which is screened, you’ll likely know, by bushes—’
‘Did you see your adversary?’
‘No. I had gone past him when he fired, and although I have a mirror on the handlebars it was no good to me in all this rain.’
‘Have you decided who it was?’
‘The likeliest would be the man Macbeth.’
‘Oh? What makes you think so?’
‘Wait until you hear my tale, and maybe you’ll think so, too. Oh, and I have an item of news which may interest you. The police have arrested Cosmo Bradan, the dead man’s son.’
‘Have they, indeed? Then the man who fired at you could not have been he and could not have known of the arrest.’
‘That will be so. Mind you, the arrest may be a sort of smoke-screen. It may make the murderer careless.’
‘By the murderer, you mean the man who killed Mr Bradan, of course?’
‘Whom else should I mean?’
‘Do you not remember confirming Mrs Gavin’s report of the Edinburgh murder?’
‘Oh, yes, certainly. But there would be no reason to suspect Cosmo Bradan of being concerned in that. I told you I saw who did it, and I told you that I should certainly recognise him again.’
‘Well, let us have your story. Is it to be the whole truth this time? I must tell you that we know all about the skian-dhu.’
‘You do?’
‘And, to clear up a point which has baffled us, do tell us how Mr Bradan was killed.
‘I will, so. And this time you shall hear the whole truth. I shall begin with the trouble in Edinburgh. As I told you, I was there to report the Conference in which, Dame Beatrice, you (if I may say so) were a leading light. Well, that left me, as I have also said, with time on my hands, and it was in one of those times that I met a man from Newhaven named Dorg. When he knew that I was a journalist and worked in Freagair he said he had a news item for me. Well, I have ambitions, like most people, so I bought him some drinks and, with them, his information. I was disappointed, in a way, for there seemed nothing to print of what he said. He was telling me about some tramp steamers that he thought were gey mysterious in their comings and goings. I speired at him in what way they were mysterious, but, although I plied him with enough whisky to loosen the tongue of anybody but a Dutchman, I could get nothing out of him but an invitation to go and see for myself. I went, but there was nobody able to tell me anything, so I telephoned the Edinburgh office of the Caledonia and asked them what they knew of ships under the names Dorg had given me. They had nothing to tell me except that they were owned by a man named Bradan of Tannasgan.
‘Well, this has some sort of local interest for the people of my district, I thought, so I thanked them for their information and went back to my lodgings to write up my piece about the Conference and another (rather imaginative) piece about the ships.’
‘Which was never published?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Luckily for me, I’m beginning to think. No, I needed something straight from the horse’s mouth – that is, from Bradan himself.’
‘Ah, yes, now.’ Dame Beatrice, who had produced her notebook, turned back to a former entry. ‘Let me remind you of a statement you made at Inversnaid.’
‘Please do not!’
‘I am not teasing. You claimed that Cù Dubh, as Mr Bradan was sometimes called, died just as you were tying up the boat to set Mrs Gavin ashore. That was, or was not, true?’
‘It was not true. That is, it may have been, but I just don’t know.’
‘I suppose it was because of the skian-dhu that you were anxious to persuade Mrs Gavin to give you an alibi. We know a considerable amount about that visit of yours to Tannasgan. That, I may tell you, is a warning.’
‘Spare me! I’ve promised to tell the whole truth.’
‘And I am prepared to help you to do so,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We must clear away the mist.’
‘By which token, it’s stopped raining,’ said Laura. ‘And what about all that phoney stuff you told us about Corrie being your uncle and getting you a job as saboteur at the hydro-electric works near Tigh-Osda?’
Young Grant laughed uncomfortably.
‘I didna really think you’d swallow that,’ he said. ‘Anyhow, it was put right afterwards, when you found out what my real job was.’
‘No thanks to you that we did,’ said Laura sternly. ‘You seem to have acted as a liar and a fool all the way through.’
‘I was able to back up your story about the man who was murdered in Edinburgh by being pushed under a car, though, was I not?’
‘Pity you don’t know who he was.’
‘But I do know. It was Dorg.’
‘Really?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I saw the report in the Edinburgh papers. It was not given much prominence and I should not have been particularly interested except for Mrs Gavin’s insistence that it was murder. The name of the dead man was given’ – she flipped back another two or three pages – ‘as Grant. Quite a coincidence, I feel.’
‘It was Dorg,’ insisted Grant, ‘and one of his murderers was employed by Cù Dubh, as I told you.’
‘That sounds as though Dorg was one of Bradan’s men, then,’ said Laura. ‘I wonder who named him as Grant?’
‘He might have had papers on him in that name.’
‘If he was mixed up in something shady, that’s quite likely, I suppose. Do you think he was killed because he had been seen talking to you and perhaps giving away secrets?’
‘I do not. If that had been the case, they would not have waited unti
l now to shoot at me. Oh, no! I am certain in my own mind that Macbeth was behind that gun.’
‘I suppose the shot was intended for you? You don’t think it may have been some misguided sportsman potting at something on the other side of the road?’
Young Grant shook his head.
‘I do not.’
‘Well, you have one good friend in the world, at any rate,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘Do you remember Mr Curtis, a travelling salesman for a firm of horticulturalists?’
‘Curtis? Oh, yes. An English laddie. I ken him very well. Many’s the crack we’ve had together when he was travelling through Crioch to Gàradh. So he spoke up for me, did he?’
‘He indicated that you were harmless. Let us come now to the story you told us at Gàradh. First, what about your determination to blackmail Mr Bradan?’
‘That bit was true enough, but I badly needed my story.’
‘And your assertion that you made the long journey between Edinburgh and Loch na Gréine on various evenings?’
‘Well, there, I admit I did telescope the time a little, but otherwise what I said was true enough. The evening after I had seen Dorg murdered in Edinburgh I motorcycled to Inverness and spent the night there, before going on to Loch na Gréine to tackle Bradan.’
‘One moment! On the Friday afternoon when that Edinburgh murder took place, my Conference had not begun. What, then, were you doing in Edinburgh?’
‘Well, as I told you, I wanted to interview some of the notables in their hotels before the Conference started.’
‘I see. Now, just let me check some other facts against these things that you are telling me. This death in Edinburgh took place on a Friday, as I have said. Mrs Gavin and I left my home in Hampshire on the previous Wednesday and made a leisurely progress northward. On the Saturday we went sightseeing in Edinburgh, then we spent a quiet Sunday, and the Conference opened at ten o’clock on the Monday morning.’
‘Yes, I reported the opening. I can show you my piece in the Advertiser. I posted it off immediately after lunch.’
‘I see. But, before you reported the opening of the Conference, you had been to Tannasgan. Is that right?’
‘Oh, well – no. Not before I reported the opening.’
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