by M C Beaton
“Och, Mr Macbeth,” she said impatiently, “whit d’ye want at this time o’ night?”
It always surprised Hamish to hear a Scottish accent emitting from such exotic features. He said he wanted to speak to her husband and Mrs Patel reluctantly let him in. Their living-room was bright and gaudy with a three–piece plush suite in bright red, still covered with the plastic casing it had been delivered in. A huge display of plastic tulips in a woven gilt basket sat on a carved table top, which was supported by four carved elephants. Everything smelled strongly of curry. Mr Patel came in. He was a small brown man with liquid brown eyes and a beak of a nose.
“Evening, Mr Macbeth,” he said. “Will ye be havin’ a wee dram?”
“Not tonight. Mr Patel, you were asked if you had sold any rat poison and you said you hadn’t and yet Mrs Maclean told me she had bought some here a year ago. It’s called Dead-O.”
“I thought you meant recently! Aye, I got about two dozen frae a wholesaler in Strathbane a year ago. Used it myself. No’ very good. Didnae even slow them up.”
“You realize what this means?” said Hamish gloomily. “Blair will want me to go around every house in the village tomorrow collecting cans of rat poison.”
“Keep ye out o’ trouble,” said Mr Patel with a grin. “Why bother yer heid about Blair anyways? That man’s a pillock.”
“A pillock who is senior to me in rank. Now, Mr Patel, I don’t suppose you can remember who bought it?”
“I can remember Mrs Wellington had a can for the mice in the church. I hadn’t any mouse poison and she didn’t want traps so she said she’d try the rat stuff. Then there was Mrs Brodie, the doctor’s wife. Mice, too.”
“Anyone else?”
“Let me see. Oh, I ken. The estate agent for the Willets, them that used to own the Thomases’ place. It had been standing empty for so long that they were getting rats in, or so they thought.”
Hamish thanked him and then phoned and left a message for Blair about the rat poison. Then he went to see John Parker, who told him that Miss Halburton-Smythe had phoned and had invited him up to the castle at ten in the morning. Hamish knew Blair would have him searching for all those other cans of poison, but that would give him a good excuse to read that manuscript John Parker had been so anxious to hide.
He said good night and then made his way back along the waterfront to the pub. An ordinary common or garden Scottish Highland drunk would come as a relief.
∨ Death of a Perfect Wife ∧
6
I am silent in the club,
I am silent in the pub,
I am silent on a bally peak in Darien;
For I stuff away for life.
Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am at heart a Vegetarian.
No more the milk of cows.
Shall pollute my private house.
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian;
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very.
So very, very, very Vegetarian.
—G. K. Chesterton.
It was the detective Jimmy Anderson who arrived at the police station first thing in the morning with the expected orders from Blair to search the village for rat poison. “Anything left in that bottle?” he said hopefully. “At eight o’clock in the morning!” exclaimed Hamish. “Come back later. Is Blair all ready to meet the press?”
“He’s blinding and blasting but he’s got his Sunday suit on and his hair all slicked down aboot his horrible ears,” said Anderson with a grin.
Hamish shut Towser out in the garden and set off. Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was his first call. She was in her kitchen. Her husband was poking distastefully at a bowl of muesli with his spoon. “Sit down,” ordered Mrs Wellington when she saw Hamish, “and I’ll give you a cup of coffee.”
Hamish sat down at the kitchen table. “That’s a good, healthy breakfast,” said Hamish to the minister. Mr Wellington put down his spoon with a sigh. “I cannot think starvation is good for anyone,” he said. “I feel like a child again – if you don’t eat it, you won’t get anything else.”
“Well, that’s the road to the Kingdom of Heaven,” said Hamish cheerfully. “You know, become like a little child again.”
“Don’t quote the scriptures to me, Macbeth,” said the minister testily. “Why are you here?”
Mrs Wellington put a mug of coffee in front of Hamish. He took a sip and coughed. “I am here to look for a rat poison called Dead-O. What is this coffee, Mrs Wellington?”
“It’s dandelion coffee. Mrs Thomas showed me how to make it.”
Hamish sadly pushed his mug away.
“You see what I mean?” said the minister. “Why not stay for lunch? We’re having nettle soup.”
Hamish ignored him. “The rat poison,” he said. “You bought some from Patel about a year ago. You had the mice.”
“So we did,” called Mrs Wellington over one large tweed shoulder. She was scrubbing dishes in the sink with ferocious energy. “Not very good. I think the mice just left of their own accord.”
“Have you any of the stuff left?” asked Hamish patiently.
“No, I threw it out months ago.”
“You are sure?”
Mrs Wellington turned around and put her soapy hands on her hips. “I am not in the habit of lying, Mr Macbeth.”
“I’d better go and try somewhere else,” said Hamish, getting to his feet.
“Oh, but you haven’t had your coffee,” said the minister sweetly.
“It’s all rush.” Hamish picked up his hat and headed for the kitchen door. The minister followed him outside. “When is it all going to end?” he asked mournfully. “I dream of large T-bone steaks and mounds of fried potatoes. You know, Mr Macbeth, I think all that wretched Thomas woman did was give the women of Lochdubh an opportunity to persecute their husbands. There’s a strong bullying streak in women, lying down in there, always waiting to be tapped.”
“Perhaps when the murder is solved, they’ll all go back to normal,” said Hamish. “When’s the funeral?”
“It’s today, at three this afternoon.”
“It surprises me to know Mrs Thomas was a member of the Church of Scotland.”
“She wasn’t,” said the minister. “She wasn’t a member of anything. But her husband wants her to have a Christian burial.”
“Are any of her family from England going to be present?”
“No. That’s the odd thing. Her parents are dead and she had no sisters or brothers, but usually someone has some sort of aunt or uncle or friend who would like to come along. Perhaps she was unpopular.”
“Yes,” said Hamish slowly. “I think if she had lived, she would have gradually become very unpopular here. Mind you, someone hated her enough to murder her. Did she get any furniture from you, any ornaments?”
“Yes,” said Mr Wellington, growing angry. “We had a Victorian ewer and basin that belonged to my grandparents. My wife gave her that. I was furious. Those things are valuable these days.”
Hamish stood for a moment, looking across the rain pocked loch. “While I’m searching for rat poison,” he said, “I may as well try to find out if she got her hands on anything really valuable.”
“An as yet unrecognized Rembrandt?” said the minister. “It was amazing what she sot out of people when you consider that the dealers are always calling around these old croft houses and village houses in the hope of a bargain. Why, old Mrs MacGowan on the other side has been plagued by dealers for years but she’s too crafty to let anything go. Mrs Thomas was going to call on her. I wonder whether she was successful or not?”
Hamish had not called on Mrs MacGowan for some time. She was a lonely, crusty old woman and he did not enjoy visiting her, but felt it his duty to call in on her from time to time and make sure she was well. She could easily drop dead one of these days, he reflected, and no-one would know.
“I’d better be on my way,”
Hamish said, taking out a stick of repellent and wiping his face with it, “before the midges make a meal of me. Blair will be in a bad temper. The attempted murder of Angus Macdonald is bound to bring the press in hordes.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said the minister. “Angus was interviewed by television and several newspapers before the last election for his prediction. He got it all wrong and since then no-one outside Lochdubh has shown any interest in him. Do you think he really saw something?”
“Yes,” said Hamish. “For once in his lying life, I think he must have actually had some sort of forewarning.”
He made several more calls in his search for rat poison and then at ten o’clock, he made his way to The Laurels. Paul was chopping logs. He was fatter, his stomach hanging over his trouser belt as he bent to his work. When Hamish said he was going to take a look at John Parker’s room but did not want the writer to know, Paul answered with an indifferent shrug and went on with his work.
Hamish climbed the uncarpeted staircase to John Parker’s room. In Victorian times when the villa had been built the stairs would have been thickly carpeted and the rooms over-furnished. There was a bleak air about it now, a smell of pine and disinfectant and wood smoke and cheap soap, rather like a youth hostel.
John Parker’s room was not locked. Hamish opened the door and went inside. There was no sign of that suitcase but he found it eventually on top of the wardrobe and lifted it down. He opened it and took out the pile of manuscript. He sat down on the bed and started to skim quickly through ‘The Amazon Women of Zar.’
Hamish reflected he had read some silly stories in the past, but this took the biscuit. The men were the slaves of the women and there were several colourful purple passages about how the men were called in each night of the full moons – Zar had five moons – and made to have sex with the women. He yawned and read on. Then the hero, Luke Jensen, who, like the Luke Mulligan of the Western, also had a craggy face, got hold of the rare and forbidden plant, Xytha, which was guarded by a three-headed monster, Zilka, and brewed a poison from it which killed the leader of the Amazon women, whereupon her bossy acolytes turned into nubile blonde bimbos, cooing over the men, and thanking Luke for having turned them back into ‘real women’ again.
Hamish put down the manuscript. Had Trixie been John’s Amazon woman? The leader of the women bore a startling resemblance to Trixie although she wore a brass brassiere and chain and leather loincloth instead of unbleached linen smock, blue jeans, and sneakers.
He carefully returned the manuscript to the suitcase and the suitcase to the top of the wardrobe and went downstairs. Mrs Kennedy was in the kitchen with her pallid children.
“I thought you would have been allowed home by now,” said Hamish.
“Aye, we’re going in a couple o’ days,” said Mrs Kennedy. “I decided tae stay on. I’m no’ payin’ rent and the fresh air’s good for the bairns.”
“I’m sure you’ve told the CID this already,” said Hamish. “But what brought you here? I know Mrs Thomas advertised in the Glasgow Herald.”
“I phoned up the Sutherland tourist board,” said Mrs Kennedy, “and they telt me this new place wus cheap.”
“What does your husband do, Mrs Kennedy?”
“I hivnae got one,” she said cheerfully.
“Then, what does the father of your children do?”
“Which father?” she said with a coarse laugh. “I cannae remember them all.”
“You shouldn’t say such things in front o’ the children,” said Hamish furiously.
“Ach, take yersel’ off, ye damp soda scone,” jeered Mrs Kennedy.
And Hamish did that, cursing himself for having wasted his time trying to appeal to the finer feelings of what was surely a Glaswegian prostitute. Despite the regeneration of that city, Glasgow still had some of the ugliest prostitutes in the world, and Mrs Kennedy probably shoved her bulk into a corset on Saturday nights and her swollen feet into high heels and trawled the pubs looking for someone blind drunk enough to buy her services.
He decided to drive up to Tommel Castle and get the key to Mrs Haggerty’s cottage and try to find out if Trixie had found anything valuable. It was only when he drove up and parked in the front of the castle that he realized with amazement and with a sharp sense of loss that his mind was totally on the case and he was not hoping for a meeting with Priscilla.
But Colonel Halburton-Smythe did not know that. He said with obvious relish that Priscilla was out in the grounds somewhere with Mr Parker, and handed over the cottage key.
Hamish hesitated. “I would like to ask you again – what was your opinion of Mrs Thomas?” he asked.
“I’ve already told your superior officers all I know,” snapped the colonel and turned away.
Hamish went out and drove over to Mrs Haggerty’s cottage. It had an abandoned, lost air about it. He unlocked the door and went in. There was an old–fashioned kitchen with a box bed in a recess, a small dark hall, a living-room crammed with furniture and knickknacks and photographs, and a toilet. No bathroom. Although he knew very little about antiques, Hamish was sure there was nothing of value left in the crowded living-room. There were sepia photographs on the walls and on the tables of men with walrus moustaches and women in enormous hats. Mrs Haggerty had died at the age of ninety-eight and had not left a surviving relative behind, or any that anyone knew of. Still, the colonel should not have allowed Trixie to take anything until it became absolutely sure that no-one was left to inherit the bits and pieces. And there were many of those. Mrs Haggerty had obviously found it hard to throw anything away. There were cupboards full of old Christmas cards and magazines and recipes and jam jars and bottles.
There was even a bundle of fly papers, brown and smooth to the touch. He wondered whether their stickiness had vanished with age.
He heard a sound outside and then the door of the living-room opened and Priscilla walked in. She looked cool and neat in a white silk blouse and tweed skirt, sheer tights, and polished brogues. As usual, her bright hair fell in a smooth curve to her shoulders and the calm oval of her face was luminous in the gloom of the cottage parlour.
“Thank goodness Parker has left,” she said. “Gave me the creeps. Oily little man.”
Hamish looked at her with interest. “I thought he was quite ordinary and pleasant. What’s up with him?”
“Oh, he’s perfectly polite, but too polite, if you know what I mean. Kept thanking me and thanking me and saying what a lot of trouble he must be putting me to until I felt like smacking him, like a fly, splat!”
“You should read about the strong silent men in his books,” said Hamish, “with their whipcord muscles and their craggy faces softening with tenderness.”
“Inside every weak man there’s a macho man who only gets out on paper?” said Priscilla with a laugh. “I know a woman in London who writes romances and hasn’t got one romantic thought in her mind off paper. Oh, look at this old photograph. What splendid hats the women wore then.”
Did Priscilla ever have any romantic thoughts, Hamish wondered, studying her as she bent her head over the framed photograph she had picked up. And yet, she had had an inner glow when John Burlington had been around.
“Heard from that Burlington fellow?” he asked.
“Mmm? Oh, yes, he writes and phones regularly. He seems to be making tons of money.”
“And you like that?”
“I admire successful people, and talking about success, how’s the case going, Sherlock?”
“I’m still groping about in the dark,” said Hamish mournfully.
“Suspects,” said Priscilla briskly. “There’s the husband, Paul. All that shattering grief could be an act.”
“Aye, and then there’s Parker. Sneaky and weak enough to use poison. Who else?”
“Well, there’s poor Dr Brodie. He’s been drinking a lot recently. Looks miserable. Says he feels his wife has been taken over by a creature from another planet.”
“Archie Maclean or Mrs Maclean,” said Hamish. “Trixie Thomas ruined that marriage.”
“And there’s Iain Gunn.”
“What, over a lot o’ wee bats?”
“The bats are no more. You should have servants, Hamish. An endless source of useful gossip. It fell down last night, Gunn says.”
“Then he probably did it himself and I’ll hae the devil of a job proving it,” said Hamish. “But he wouldn’t kill just to get a wee bit more land.”
“Oh, yes he would. Or rather, that’s the gossip. He craves land and more land. You know what land greed’s like.”
“Fair enough, but I thought all that talk about Gunn’s greed was jist caused by jealousy. Maybe they could be right. Either there’s someone else we haven’t thought of or that’s the lot o’ suspects.”
“Has Mrs Kennedy’s background been gone into?”
“It would have been and if there had been anything there, Anderson would have told me.”
“Well, there’s Angus Macdonald.”
“Why him?”
“Look at it this way.” Priscilla leaned forward eagerly and he caught a whiff of French perfume. “He lost face over that wrong prediction about the general election. He could have poisoned that whisky himself.”
“And killed Trixie Thomas first? Come on, Priscilla.”
“I suppose it is rather far-fetched. But he could still have poisoned that whisky. I mean, Hamish, you don’t believe in the second sight, do you?”
“Yes, I do. I think there’s a handful of people who get a brief insight about something that’s going to happen about once in their lives. It’s hard to prove. So many people say after a disaster or a death that they had a premonition.”
“Where are you off to now?” asked Priscilla in surprise as Hamish made for the door.
“I’m off to continue to look for cans of rat poison called Dead-O. Could you ask the housekeeper if she ever bought any? Here’s the key for the cottage.”
He raised his hand in farewell and walked out. Priscilla crossed to the window and watched him go. She felt a little sad that Hamish did not seem to show the old eagerness to be in her company.