‘Fabulous animals? What kind of fabulous animals?’
‘I suppose you were not the other man concerned in the Edinburgh murder?’
This question seemed to shake Corrie.
‘What would that have been?’ he asked feebly. Dame Beatrice pressed home what seemed to be an advantage.
‘There are two independent witnesses of what you did, you and Grant of Coinneamh,’ she said. ‘The two of you pushed a man under a fast car. The man stood no chance of surviving. What have you to say about that?’
Corrie looked dumbfounded.
‘But I have naething to say about it. I didna do it. I had nae part in it,’ he said.
‘All the same, you knew about it,’ said Dame Beatrice, implacably. ‘You overheard something.’
‘I did, yes,’ Corrie looked even more unhappy. ‘But the old laird said that I should keep quiet.’
‘The old laird is dead. What have you to tell us?’
‘That there are things you’d never guess.’
‘Really? There you are wrong, you know. I think that by this time we have guessed nearly everything. Why was the bronze or brass delineation of the basilisk the most important piece of sculpture on the wooded island over there? Moreover, what is the significance of the maze?’
Corrie shook his head.
‘I dinna ken.’
‘About the metal serpent, or the maze?’
‘I hae nae knowledge of either. Will it please you to step into the boat?’
It will.’
He handed them in with aloof, punctilious courtesy and sat at the oars. His choppy, almost vicious, strokes soon carried them across the water.
‘Ye’ll be for the house?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘We are for speaking with Mr Macbeth.’
Dame Beatrice replied. Corrie shook his head again.
‘He’s no here.’
‘You mean he is on the other island?’
Corrie stuck out an obstinate underlip.
‘Gin ye’ll wait in the house, maybe he’ll come to you,’ he said.
‘You go and fetch him,’ said Laura. ‘I think we’d better wait here.’
‘No, no,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Let it be the house. Never mind, Mr Corrie. We have been here before. We can find our own way.’
‘Eh, well,’ said Corrie. ‘The door’s open.’ He repeated the words and added to them. ‘The door’s open and syne the spider will be walking in on ye.’ For the first time since Laura had known him, he chuckled, a gnome-like, ghoulish sound.
‘A bit of a sinister character, our friend, wouldn’t you say?’ suggested Laura when, having left Corrie at the boathouse, they were walking up to the house. ‘You don’t really think he was one of the men who pushed that man under the car in Edinburgh, do you?’
‘Reporter Grant’s insistence that the other man was employed by Mr Bradan makes me feel that we cannot dismiss him from our minds.’
‘And you believe that the other man was Grant of Coinneamh?’
‘I think it is likely. I cannot put it more strongly than that. It may have been Bradan himself.’
‘But Grant told us…’
‘I know. We are not bound necessarily to believe him. Well, Corrie has spoken sooth. The door is open.’
They stood in the passage while Laura shouted to find out whether anybody was at home. From the door which led to the kitchen Mrs Corrie appeared. She was wiping her hands on her apron and, clean though it was, it appeared to be no whiter than her face.
‘Save and presairve us!’ she cried. ‘Are ye in the flesh?’
‘If you’re asking whether we’re ghosts, I can tell you that we most certainly are not,’ retorted Laura. ‘May we come in?’
Mrs Corrie’s colour began to come back, but she still wiped nervous hands down her apron.
‘Ay, certainly. Come ben,’ she said. ‘But, gin ye’re for calling on the laird, ye’ve chosen a gey ill time, for he’s abroad the day.’
‘Yes, but he’s expected back,’ said Laura. ‘We know well enough where he is.’
‘Then ye ken mair aboot him than I,’ said Mrs Corrie, with something of her old spirit. Laura laughed, but Dame Beatrice said seriously:
‘Mrs Corrie, the Edinburgh police have been making enquiries into the death (supposed, at the time, to be accidental) of a man who was killed by a car. I believe they have questioned you about it.’
‘They speired at me was the laird ben the house that day.’
‘Exactly. You told them that he was.’
‘It was the truth. All day, from sun-up to sun-down. He was here, and he had an Inverness gentleman with him and Corrie and I were called in to put our names to a paper.’
‘Corrie and you? Both of you?’
‘I dinna ken, Mrs Gavin, what way you would be surprised at that. Mind you, I’m no very sure, but I thought – ay, and Corrie thought – that the paper was maybe the laird’s will.’
‘At what time did you sign it?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘What time? Well, now, the tea – I infused the tea at four o’clock instead of five, because the gentleman wanted to get the Inverness train at Freagair – the tea was cleared at a quarter to five and before I could turn round and wash up the things I was brought back into the room and Corrie was called from splitting kindling wood beyond the hen-house, and we both signed the paper.’
‘At soon after a quarter to five?’
‘At very soon after a quarter to five. It wouldna have been five minutes after I carried out the trays.’
‘I see. Thank you, Mrs Corrie,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Oh, one more question: do you happen to remember what day of the week it was?’
‘The police asked me the date, and I remembered that it was the twenty-third.’
‘Which day of the week was it?’ asked Laura, reinforcing Dame Beatrice’s question. ‘Don’t you remember that?’
‘It wasna the Sabbath, anyway. Folk up here dinna do business on the Sabbath.’
‘So you remember that it was the twenty-third, but not which day it was.’
‘For the best of reasons. I mind it was the twenty-third because that was the date on the bottom of the paper.’
Laura laughed. Then she said, ‘It might interest you to know—’ she began.
‘Or, rather, to tell us,’ broke in Dame Beatrice, ‘whether the present laird, Mr Macbeth, was on Tannasgan at the time.’
‘Him? Oh, ay, he was here.’
‘All the time?’
‘Ay, all the time. I never listen ahint doors, mind ye, but the old laird and the present laird hae muckle big voices, and for two days they had been talking about Tannasgan and the loch and An Tigh Mór.’
‘And the young man? Young Mr Bradan?’
‘That one had left Tannasgan lang syne. His father turned him out. Oh, it was an ill business, that, to disinherit and send awa’ his only son.’
‘Turned him out, you say. How had he offended his father?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘I dinna altogether ken. I think there were debts.’
‘Oh, he was that kind of young man.’
‘Then there was a lassie. I dinna ken the rights and wrongs of that, either, but when I was about to take in the dishes I heard the old laird say something about making a bed and lying on it, and the young man pleading that without siller he couldna marry on the lassie and make an honest woman of her.’
‘But the old man didn’t fall for that,’ said Laura.
‘He did not, indeed. When I went in to clear the table they were still at it and, when I got outside the door again, the old laird told him to get out and tramp the Edinburgh gutters with his fancy woman. It was all they were fit for, to sing in the street for bawbees.’
‘Very Victorian. And has the young one ever been back?’ asked Laura, interested in this hoary, classical, vintage tale.
‘Ay, he’s been back, but since his father’s time, you ken. And he’s been sent off again with a flea in his ear. The police wa
s sent for and took him awa’ with them. Ay, and such a carrying-on as he made! You never heard the like. Accusing here, accusing there! He even spoke against my man. Ay, but for the police my man would have dinged him in the neb.’
‘Very proper,’ said Laura. Taking this as a sign of dismissal, Mrs Corrie went back to her domain and Laura took Dame Beatrice into the dining-room. ‘Why wouldn’t you let me tell her that I’d seen the Edinburgh murder and that it did not take place on the twenty-third?’ she asked, in a low voice, when she had shut the door and had moved away from it to the window.
‘Witnesses to a murder are not invulnerable, and neither are people with inconveniently accurate memories. Mrs Corrie herself would not hurt you, but we cannot be certain that she would not talk. Apart from anyone else, she would mention the matter to her husband, you may be sure.’
‘Oh, well – Hullo! here comes Macbeth, and from the Island of Strange Beasts, by the look of it. Corrie is just tying up the boat, so now the fun begins.’
Chapter 20
Tannasgan Changes Hands
What a haste looks through his eyes!
So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.’
Shakespeare
« ^ »
MACBETH stalked up to the house. He was wearing a faded kilt in what Laura, as he approached, managed to identify as the Wemyss tartan. She was interested.
‘The Wemyss family, according to Thomas Innes of Learney,’ she explained to Dame Beatrice, ‘is descended from a third son of Macduff, twelfth-century Earl of Fife. For a Macbeth to identify himself with a Macduff is interesting, don’t you think? – although probably accidental, in this case.’
‘I call it fascinating,’ replied Dame Beatrice, her eyes not on Macbeth’s kilt, however, but upon his sweating bare chest and, alternatively, on his extremely muddy brogues. ‘I wonder what is the symbolic value of this latest excursion into history and literature, then?’
‘Maybe none. He may have bought it second-hand. He never gives the impression of having any money.’
Macbeth clumped into the hall, followed by Corrie. There came a thunderous knock on the dining-room door and both men marched in.
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, before anyone else could speak, ‘you will catch cold in here, Mr Macbeth. Will you not go and get a good rub down with a rough towel and put a shirt on? You are perspiring very freely.’
‘Ay, you shouldna be in the company of ladies. I tellt ye so,’ said Corrie. ‘Awa’ and freshen.’
Crestfallen, Macbeth bowed to the said ladies and departed, followed by his henchman.
‘What was the point?’ asked Laura, amused by the proceedings.
‘The poor man was too hot, both physically and mentally, for his company to be desirable or even tolerable, child. Now he will have time to cool off, in both senses, and we shall be able to converse reasonably with him.’
She was right. In about ten minutes’ time a clean, dry, completely clad Macbeth returned to them. His demeanour, so far as could be said of that of such a bristling, red-bearded giant, was still chastened. He apologised, adding:
‘I’ve done hard, dirty work without the reward I expected.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I do hope our visit has not inconvenienced you.’
‘No, no. I was for knocking off, anyway, when Corrie came over. Well, I have done what I could for the place. Tomorrow I must away.’
‘You are thinking of leaving Tannasgan?’
‘Well is it called Tannasgan! There’s nothing here but ghosts. Ay, and they leave their promises behind them, and the promises are as ghostly as their makers. Besides, I’m in danger. The police have been here again. A great fool I was to call them in! It’s true that they’ve taken off Bradan’s wee grilse. I hear he’s for trial on a major charge. But the inspector stayed behind and speired at me again about Bradan’s death. He means to pin that on me. I ken that very well.’
‘I wouldn’t run away. It looks bad,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘What does the deer do if it gets wind of the stalker? I tell you, yon man needs a scapegoat.’
‘Has he anything to build on in thinking that you might be the guilty person?’
‘Ay.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘I found Bradan’s body and I piped him a lament. Then it came to me that I was the heir to this’ – he waved an arm like the trunk of a young oak – ‘and I changed my tune.’
‘You certainly did,’ agreed Laura. ‘It sounded like hell gone mad.’
Macbeth, forgetting his grievances, looked gratified.
‘Ay,’ he said, ‘I’m a guid man on the pipes when I let masel go.’ His face changed again. ‘But it was an ill night for me when that reporter laddie heard me.’
‘We both heard you,’ said Laura. ‘Nobody could help it. I should think they heard you in Freagair.’
‘The newspaper laddie brought back the boat and seeped back into the house. He opened the door and then closed it behind him. I was marching up and down to my piping, you’ll understand, and as I turned I saw him. His hair was on end and his face was white, but he stood his ground.
‘ “You’re still here, then?” I speired at him, and at that he nods his head.
‘ “And I’m no leaving without my story,” he tells me.
‘ “And what story may that be?”
‘ “I spied Bradan being brought hame?”
‘ “You did? And what about it?”
‘ “He was in a verra bad way. There were twa men in the boat. They almost had to carry him ashore.”
‘ “Look, now,” I said, “if a gentleman and a landowner canna be fou with his ain friends in his ain boat, where can he be fou?”
‘ “He was no fou,” the laddie said. “The belief is on me that he’s dead.”
‘Well, I had to make up my mind. I wasna so very sure how much the laddie had seen, so I told him that, if he’s a mind to, he could take a keek at anything he liked, and then he was to print what he thought fit. I warned him to be careful what he printed, because a newspaper is fair game to extortionists, and then I left him to it. I kenned he would find the laird, for he was in the cellar.’ He turned to Laura ‘And gin I hadna been engaged with you and your fashes, mistress, I’d have heard them bring him in.’
‘Sorry,’ said Laura. ‘Pity neither of us knew. Do tell us more.’
‘I dinna ken ony mair. The neist thing I knew was Corrie banging on my door the morn and speiring did I know that the laird was in a barrel over at the quay. I thought the man was haverin’, but he was right, so I sent him off for a doctor and the doctor – from Freagair he was – found that Bradan had been killed.’
‘Yes,’ put in Dame Beatrice, ‘but how? By what means?’
‘He had a muckle great lump on the back of his head and a skian-dhu intil his ribs.’
‘The lump on the head would account for his having to be helped up to the house, I suppose, but what about the skian-dhu?’
‘I dinna ken. It was not mine.’
‘Did they test it for fingerprints?’ asked Laura.
‘I dinna ken that, either. The police move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform, but what they do is no business of mine so long as I keep out of their hands, and that I’m determined to do. So, mistress’ – he met Dame Beatrice’s eye – ‘gin ye ken ony gowk wha will put up good siller for a house and an island, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mór are in feu.’
‘I would rent them myself for a fortnight,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘A sennight would do. Verra guid.’
‘Very well. How much are you asking?’
‘I wouldna want to take a cheque. Will ya give me ten pounds? I’m a man of my word. I want naething signed, ye ken, and I’ll no give ye a receipt. Gin ye’ll hand me twa five-pound notes, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mór will be yours for seven days. Doubtless ye’re thinking of taking a wee holiday.’
‘Yes, and a childish one,�
� said Dame Beatrice. She pulled out a notecase and handed over the money. Laura looked on, amazed, but she realised that there was a tacit understanding that she should say nothing until Macbeth had gone. He wrung Dame Beatrice’s yellow fingers, nodded to Laura and went out of the room. In no time he was back, a kit-bag slung over his shoulder.
‘Well, gu’n robh maith agad,’ he said.
‘Is e do bheatha,’ responded Laura, not to be outdone in the civilities. Macbeth bowed and departed.
‘Translate, child,’ commanded Dame Beatrice. ‘I had no idea that you had the Gaelic.’
‘I haven’t. All he said was, “Thank you,” and all I said was, “You’re welcome.” ’
‘Poor Sherlock Holmes!’
‘You mean the explanations always seem so obvious when they come? Never mind. You shall play Sherlock now and, as always, I’ll be Watson. Why have we rented this island for a week?’
‘First let us sort Corrie as soon as he brings the boat back from taking Mr Macbeth ashore. To do this at leisure, I ought to see that Mrs Corrie is engaged, or embroiled, or in some way prevented from coming to his rescue.’
‘Can do,’ said Laura, decidedly. ‘I’ll have a crack with her in the kitchen while you go ahead. It’s such a lonely life here for one woman on her own that, once I can get her talking, she’ll probably go on until Domesday.’
So they parted, Laura waylaying Corrie on her way to the kitchen on his return from the boathouse to tell him that he was wanted in the dining-room, Dame Beatrice to sharpen her hatchet.
‘Well, Corrie,’ she said, as soon as he came in, ‘you’ll have heard from Mr Macbeth that Tannasgan has changed hands for a week.’
‘Ay, the laird was telling me.’
‘Did he mention his plans?’
‘Ay, he’s awa’ to Skye.’
To Skye?’ (She remembered that Laura had seen young Bradan, as well as young Grant, on Skye, and she wondered where was the connection, if a connection existed.)
‘Maybe he’ll be climbing Sgurr Dearg,’ said Corrie, with a crafty little smile. Dame Beatrice dismissed the unscaleable peak with a wave of her yellow claw.
‘Well, never mind that,’ she said. ‘The point is that he thinks he’s running away from the police.’
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