My Bones Will Keep mb-35

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Please take your time, but you did say that on the evening following that on which you had seen Dorg murdered you motorcycled to Inverness, did you not?’

  Grant flushed and scowled.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, the scowl changing suddenly to a smile. ‘Maybe I’m mixing up the days. What day would it be when I first met Mrs Gavin on Tannasgan?’

  Laura glanced at Dame Beatrice and received a nod.

  ‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘Pitlochry on the Monday, Kingussie on the Tuesday, Inverness on the Wednesday, Freagair on the Thursday. Then on the Friday I motored over to Gàradh to visit Mrs Stewart and stayed the night at Coinneamh Lodge. I drove back to Freagair on the Saturday morning and went to Tannasgan the same afternoon, then got back to Freagair late at night after you’d rowed me ashore and we heard the piping.’

  ‘So we need an account of your adventures on that Saturday and the preceding Friday,’ said Dame Beatrice to Grant. “Pray relate to us what happened after you left Inverness. Can you now recollect which day that would have been?’

  ‘Yes, I can work it out, I think. I took two days – well, one evening and part of the next day – to get to Loch na Gréine and I spent the rest of that day and all the next day on Tannasgan, waiting for Cù Dubh to come home. That means I got to Inverness on the Thursday after I’d written up my report on that session of the Conference. So I must have arrived off Tannasgan on the Friday afternoon, camped out – Mrs Corrie gave me my bread, the good woman – here and there, out of sight of old Macbeth, spent Friday night in the boathouse and – and was in hiding there on Saturday night when Mrs Gavin decided to go back to Freagair.’

  ‘And at what point did you see the dead laird?’

  ‘He was brought back on the Saturday.’

  ‘Who brought him?’

  ‘Who but Corrie?’

  ‘Really? Corrie brought his body across to Tannasgan?’

  ‘He did that. You can ask him if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘We have heard Corrie’s story.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t mention the dead man?’

  ‘He told us that Mr Bradan was alive after Mrs Gavin arrived on Tannasgan.’

  ‘Then he was lying. I tell you it was a dead man Corrie ferried over the water.’

  ‘Come, come!’ protested Dame Beatrice, giving him a rather unkindly leer. ‘Corrie waited with the boat and Mr Bradan turned up at the jetty in the station-master’s car. That is his story and I am bound to point out that it is a considerably more sensible one than your own.’

  ‘Have it your own way,’ said the young man sulkily.

  ‘But I don’t want to. His is the more sensible, but yours is by far the more sensational. Why not tell us the rest of it?’

  ‘There is nothing more to tell.’

  ‘When did you produce your skian-dhu?’

  ‘I really forget.’

  ‘And what were you doing with one, anyway.’

  ‘I was wearing the philibeg!’

  ‘Not when I saw you in the boathouse,’ said Laura austerely. ‘You weren’t wearing a kilt then.’

  ‘Was I not?’

  ‘You know you weren’t. Why on earth don’t you come clean and stop wasting our time?’

  ‘Because I don’t trust you,’ said Grant wildly. ‘I don’t trust either of you. You’ll get me tried for murder if you can. But you’ve the inspector to reckon with. Do not forget that he kens very well when and where Bradan was murdered and I am telling you that it was a dead man who was brought to Tannasgan that night.’

  ‘And Corrie brought him?’ asked Dame Beatrice in a pacific tone which warned Laura not to lose her temper.

  ‘Corrie brought him?’ Young Grant asked the question in a stupefied tone. ‘I do not know. I canna say. Who else would have brought him? I had better go.’

  ‘There is only one answer to that,’ said Dame Beatrice, when he had flung himself out of the lounge. ‘Well, he has missed his lunch here. I wonder how much of the truth he knows and how much of it he has told?’

  ‘I really believe he thinks it was a dead man who was brought across to Tannasgan that night,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice shook her head, but Laura, unperturbed by this, went on, ‘What’s more, it must have happened before I left. It was sheer instinct that made me flee the place, I suppose. If only you had been there, instead of me, we wouldn’t have had this mystery on our hands.’

  ‘But how much more empty our lives would have been without it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We could not have prevented the murders, but we can appreciate the puzzle they present.’

  ‘We’re still no further forward.’

  ‘Are we not? Suppose that young Mr Grant was speaking the truth?’

  ‘Oh, you mean…? Well, who do you mean, Dame B.? Have we come to a full stop, do you suppose?’

  ‘By no means,’ said Dame Beatrice comfortably. ‘For one thing, there is a witness whom we’ve never contacted.’

  ‘Really? You’ve got me worried. I thought we’d interviewed everybody who might be of the slightest use.’

  ‘Cast your mind back to your first visit to Mrs Stewart at Gàradh.’

  ‘Yes, well, while I was at Gàradh, Mrs Stewart happened to mention that her son had had business dealings with Cù Dubh.’

  ‘Those might be of interest, don’t you think?’

  ‘Lord!’ said Laura remorsefully. ‘It’s awful of me to have forgotten it all this time, but I’ve never given it another thought.’

  ‘There can have been no association of ideas in your mind, that is all. Besides, it is never too late to mend! Pray tell me again what Mrs Stewart said.’

  ‘It isn’t so much, really. She just said that her son had had some business to conclude and had invited Bradan to join the house-party at Gàradh and that they had been snowed-up there for a fortnight and she didn’t like Bradan at all, but that he had given her some pretty decent rock plants, although she thought it was her son’s idea.’

  ‘Excellent. We must return to London forthwith, for I have discovered from his mother, over the telephone, that Alexander Stewart is staying in London on business for his Edinburgh firm. I have the address and have sent him a telegram. I hope he will be able to call.’

  ‘I should have thought of him before,’ said Laura.

  ‘Not at all, child. The matter has arisen at the crucial time. Besides, I shall be delighted to meet the young man again.’

  ‘I doubt whether he’ll be able to tell us any more than, I suppose, he’s told the inspector here, you know,’ said Laura. ‘I mean, the police are sure to know about the business side of it by this time.’

  Morning found them heading south, behind the sturdy, reassuring back of George, through the Moorfoot hills and by way of Carter Bar. As they left the Border country, Laura was moved to declaim:

  ‘O wha will shoe my bonny foot?

  And wha will glove my hand?

  And wha will bind my middle jimp

  Wi’ a lang, lang linen band?

  O wha will kame my yellow hair

  Wi’ a haw barberry kame?

  And wha will be my bairn’s father

  Till Gregory come hame?’

  Dame Beatrice looked slightly startled by this confession that Laura was beginning to miss her husband, and insisted on stopping at Newcastle for lunch. They spent the night at Harrogate and were back in Dame Beatrice’s Kensington house by tea-time on the following day. From here Laura telephoned Alexander Stewart and received his promise that he would be round to see Dame Beatrice at soon after nine that evening.

  He was as good as his word and presented himself, a fair-haired, tall man of about thirty, at nine-ten. Célestine, Dame Beatrice’s French servant, showed him in with an inappropriate but obviously excited:

  ‘Monsieur Stewart baisse les mains à madame!’

  ‘Does he, indeed? Very Spanish of him,’ said Dame Beatrice, holding out her somewhat monstrously bejewelled hands and embracing the young man warmly instead of allowin
g him to kiss her fingers. ‘And what are you doing in these borrowed French and Spanish plumes, my gay Lothario?’

  Célestine, long a trusted and uninhibited member of Dame Beatrice’s household, stifled a giggle and withdrew to the kitchen where her husband, a superb and not particularly temperamental chef, was preparing a meal. As usual, as he cooked, he was alternately praising Laura’s appetite and lamenting that of Dame Beatrice.

  ‘This one,’ his wife stated, describing Stewart, ‘is, like all the Scots, demented but adorable.’

  ‘But yes,’ said Henri, busy with his own thoughts.

  Meanwhile, the demented but adorable Scot under review was being introduced to Laura. His mother, he told her, had written eulogistically about the visits to Gàradh and had expressed the hope that these would occur often. The courtesies having been exchanged, he was provided with a drink and called to order.

  ‘What do you know of a man named Bradan of Tannasgan?’ demanded Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Murdered, and then put into an empty hogshead, or whatever you call it, of rum? I knew him, in a sort of business way, very well.’

  ‘Expound.’

  ‘I met him first when I was working up a connection to export dried fish to the Canaries in exchange for bananas. It went all right for a bit, but then the ships – all owned or partly owned by him – seemed an unreasonable time in getting back, and I felt that my firm was losing money and – just as important – goodwill. In the end I stood him off and went to Liverpool for a tender. Their ideas tied in with mine, so I blew Bradan’s lot a nice fat raspberry and our relationship ended, just like that.’

  ‘You mean that you realised…’

  ‘No, not really. I just thought they were plucking me for a pigeon, and I didn’t want to be stood up, that was all.’

  ‘You have never received threatening letters from them?’

  Stewart looked surprised.

  ‘Gracious, no!’ he replied. ‘There was a wee bit of a fuss when I turned them down, but I received the impression that they were just as pleased to see the back of me as I was to see the back of them.’

  ‘And when did the break take place?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. Stewart wrinkled his brow.

  ‘Oh, a couple of years ago. Yes, about that.’

  ‘Do you remember asking Bradan to stay a day or two at your mother’s house at Gàradh?’

  ‘Yes, yes. There was snow. I got away in time, but I believe Bradan was snowed up there for a week or a fortnight. My mother was not very pleased. She did not take to Bradan overmuch.’

  ‘You are right. Is there any reason to think that this forcible exile at Gàradh upset any particular plans made by Mr Bradan?’

  ‘I think not. He told me once that his real business was carried on only in the summer. Something to do with tourists, I understood.’

  ‘Do you carry on your own export business during the winter?’

  ‘Not really. In the winter we mostly do coastal trips, picking up cargo where we can. We carry coal, pit-props and light machinery and make out in a hand-to-mouth sort of way until the Atlantic gets reasonable enough for our rather small ships. Oh, and sometimes we carry potatoes.’

  ‘I see. I hesitate to use the word because I think it is used (in the sense I am about to use it) out of context, but did you ever form the opinion that some, if not all, of Mr Bradan’s activities were – crooked.’

  Stewart frowned thoughtfully.

  ‘Crooked?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know. Now that you say it, I can see that they might have been, but, as we were not affected in any way except for the excessively slow turn-round (as it seemed to us) of his ships, I can’t say that I thought one way or the other about his general business dealings. There isn’t time to, you know. So long as the other party isn’t doing you down, I’m afraid you don’t worry.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Well, thank you very much for your help, my dear Alexander.’

  ‘I’m afraid it hasn’t really been of much help, Dame Beatrice, but if there is ever anything else I can do…’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ said Laura, surprising both herself and her employer. ‘What do you know about a red-haired, red-bearded man, obviously cuckoo, who calls himself Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth?’

  ‘Obviously cuckoo?’ Stewart considered this description with a truly Scottish mixture of humour and concern. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’

  ‘You know him, then?’ asked Laura, pressing her point.

  ‘I met him once, and I agree with you.’

  ‘Well, what do you know of him?’

  ‘That he’s a great reader of strange tales.’

  ‘Would these strange tales include stories of fabulous beasts?’ asked Dame Beatrice. Stewart looked doubtful.

  ‘What kind of fabulous beasts?’ he asked. Dame Beatrice looked at Laura.

  ‘Oh, the basilisk, and those sort of things,’ she said. Stewart looked astonished.

  ‘You wouldn’t be referring to the lion and the unicorn?’ he asked. Laura looked to Dame Beatrice for guidance and her employer nodded to her to answer.

  ‘Not so far as I know,’ said Laura. ‘One of Bradan’s ships went up in smoke – the Salamander. Did you hear about that?’

  Stewart shook his head.

  ‘I have never heard of such a ship,’ he said. ‘The Salamander! No, that is new to me. What more do you require me to tell you?’

  ‘I have no idea. Can you say anything more about the enforced holiday that Mr Bradan spent at Gàradh?’

  ‘I don’t know of anything more, beyond what I’ve already said. I asked him there because, as you will know, there is a relaxed atmosphere at Gàradh and I hope to be able to get him to make some concessions.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, to be a bit easier on the freight charges and all that sort of thing. We used his ships, of course, because our own could not carry all we wanted.’

  ‘Were you hopeful of success?’

  ‘Oh, well, I felt it was worth trying, you know. I was in a position to offer him a fairly substantial increase of business if he could agree to our terms.’

  ‘And how did the negotiations go?’

  ‘Not particularly well. The snow finished matters, I’m afraid. He was a man of few resources and I don’t think, during that fortnight, he knew what on earth to do with himself between meals. He didn’t care for billiards or snooker and there was nobody at Gàradh anything like as clever at cards as he was.’

  ‘Surely that was a source of satisfaction to him?’

  ‘Well, no. You see, my mother will not allow gambling in her house, not even for the most trifling stakes and, as it is her own house, her word is law. When we discovered what a brilliant player he was, I don’t think anyone was sorry. I thought you would have known of her little foible in that respect.’

  ‘I do not play cards,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I have always thought card games a waste of time and intelligence.’

  ‘Well, well, so they are, maybe. Then, Bradan was no reader, except of newspapers, and those, of course, could not be got at in that weather. The telephone was off, too, and the man became more and more morose. I am afraid he sorely taxed my mother’s patience.’

  ‘You said, I think, that you were not snowed up with him.’

  ‘As it happened, I was not. I had to go to Edinburgh on business and was expected back, but then came the blizzards and I could not make it. When I did manage to get through, I found a very disgruntled Bradan, with his bags packed, just ready to go. It was hopeless to reopen our business conversations. I could see that. I felt it would be wiser to give him time to cool off before I mentioned the matter again. His last words to me were that my invitation to him to visit Gàradh had lost him a business deal worth ten thousand pounds. Oh, he wasn’t pleased with me. He wasn’t pleased at all.’

  ‘Yet he sent your mother some plants for her rock garden.’

  Stewart’s eyes twinkled.

  ‘Oh, that!’ he said. ‘No, no. I let my mother think so, b
ecause if she’d known that I bought them myself as a wee bit of compensation to her for having had to put up with the curmudgeonly old fellow, she would have been vexed at my extravagance.’ He laughed ‘It amazed me to discover what you can pay for rare little plants for a rockery.’

  ‘And did you ever get the chance to reopen negotiations with Mr Bradan?’

  ‘I tried again, three months later. I visited him on Tannasgan. He was curt to the point of rudeness and told me, in the most uncouth manner, to take my business elsewhere. He was not prepared to carry our extra freight any longer.’

  ‘Really? And what did you deduce from that?’

  ‘As I think I said, there was not much doubt but that he wanted to get rid of us, having found some more lucrative use for his ships. I guessed it might be something questionable, but that was none of my business and I’d found another connection, anyway, in case he should refuse to play ball.’

  ‘You were well out of it,’ said Laura. ‘I’d like you to meet my husband at some time.’

  ‘It will be a pleasure,’ said Stewart courteously.

  ‘You say you visited Tannasgan,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Can you tell me whether anyone besides the laird was living at An Tigh Mór?’

  ‘There were two servants, a man and his wife, named Corrie, Bradan’s son (with whom, it struck me, he was at loggerheads) and a rather curious character with red hair and a red beard – a tall, thin man wearing a kilt in a tartan which he said was of his own designing (and I can well believe it!), who told me that, although he had been introduced to me as Bradan’s cousin, he was, in fact, the poet Ossian. He was, of course, M. D. Macbeth.’

  ‘Mad, would you say?’ enquired Laura. ‘He introduced himself to us by the same fancy name.’

  ‘An eccentric; not, I thought, mad. Maybe he had a quirky sense of humour.’

  ‘Not a pawky one?’

  ‘No, no. Mind you, Mrs Gavin, he appeared to take himself very seriously, but it is characteristic of the Scots to be able to keep the solemn face of an elder of the kirk when they’re telling a funny story.’

  Laura herself had not this gift. She had lived in England too long for that, but she agreed with the observation and, to show this, she gave a vigorous nod of approval.