Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Murder

by Bonnie MacBird

  I knocked, but he did not answer. As I stood there listening, Mungo, our elderly attendant approached with a tray of water, whisky, and biscuits to tide us through the evening. ‘Refreshments for you both, sir.’

  I noted that his hands trembled, causing the glasses on the tray to rattle.

  ‘Please bring them to my room. Mr Holmes appears to have retired.’

  ‘Very good sir.’ He began following me down the hall to my room. ‘If I were you, I would go inside your room, sir, and remain there,’ said he.

  ‘One moment, Mungo,’ I said. ‘I saw a chamber pot in my room. Surely there is plumbing? I believe you pointed out the lavatory at the end of the hall. It is modernised, operable, is it not?’

  We had reached my door, and Mungo stood there, with an unreadable expression.

  ‘Do not go down there, sir, at any time during the night. During the day, yes, but not at night.’

  ‘Why? Is it operable or is it not?’ said I with some asperity.

  ‘There is a ghost who often appears at night. It is a danger, sir. A servant fell down the steps nearby and broke his neck. Please do not ask me more.’ The tray rattling grew louder.

  ‘Give me that, please.’ I relieved him of his tray before its contents were dashed to the floor. ‘I do not believe in spirits, Mungo, save those that you have brought me to imbibe. Either the plumbing works, or it does not. Which is it?’

  The old man hesitated, then answered with reluctance.

  ‘It is built over a very old latrine from centuries past, sir. Just a long empty channel, several storeys deep, that is how they did it then.’

  ‘But the laird has modernised the buildings. You have electric lighting, at least in some places. You mentioned modern plumbing earlier in the day.’

  ‘When the workmen came to clear out the one in this hall … down there,’ Mungo indicated the end of our hallway past Holmes’s rooms, ‘to build the new facilities, they found …’ he shuddered.

  ‘Spare me the details, Mungo.’

  ‘No, sir. They found what were thought to be human remains. More than one body, in fact.’

  ‘My God! Recent?’ I was beginning to think the McLaren estate was a veritable minefield of tragedy.

  ‘Difficult to tell, because of, well, the condition, after time, in … you understand. But the bones were shattered, as if fallen from a great height. Fallen, pushed, we do not know. Imagine, sir!’

  I inwardly cringed at the thought of such barbarity. Accident or murder, the image was horrifying. ‘The child who disappeared from this hall, little Anne?’ I asked. ‘Could the remains have been hers? What was the state of the latrine at that time?’

  ‘’Twas not in use then. The long channel was covered over by a wooden lid, quite heavy, and this whole end of the hall boarded up. The police had a look, I think. But the idea was dismissed.’

  ‘Dismissed? How?’

  ‘I do not know, sir. Only that it was looked at, and left.’

  ‘What is the current state of the plumbing? Why may I not use it if needed?’

  ‘All is new, sir. The long channel has been blocked. The latest toilets have been installed in this hall, modern plumbing, even hot water!’ He paused. ‘And yes, sir, it works.’

  ‘That is all I need to know.’

  Mungo began edging away from me and towards the staircase. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  I sighed. ‘Thank you, Mungo.’ With the tray of refreshments in one hand, I entered my room and closed the door. He called in after me.

  ‘Please stay in, sir.’

  I shook my head in annoyance. Taking stock of my room, I pushed a side table nearer the bed and lit two more candles there so that I would have enough light to read. Neither Verne nor Shelley appealed to my raw nerves, but perhaps Kingston’s Popular Sea Tales would settle me nicely. Once in bed, however, I could not concentrate. Images of ghosts, bodies, missing children and, strangely, the lovely face of Isla McLaren, crowded my thoughts. I took another swallow of McLaren Top and extinguished the candles.

  It was some hours later when I awoke. The wind had come up again and was dancing around the stone ramparts of the castle with an eerie howl. I could hear a flapping, as though curtains had become loose somewhere and were attempting flight. One of my windows rattled. I sighed. The whisky and overheated room, followed by all the water I had drunk were making their effects felt. I now had need of the plumbing.

  I lit a candle and climbed down from the bed.

  The fire had dwindled to embers and the room was freezing. Should I venture into the hall? I argued against it for convenience, and so pulled the chamber pot from under my bed. Holding the candle close, I noticed a crack in it, and put it back. I did not believe in ghosts, after all, and as a doctor I had a high opinion of personal hygiene.

  Throwing on both my dressing gown and my tweed jacket for warmth, I left my room, pulling the door shut behind me, and turned towards the darkened end where the latrine was located.

  The candles all down the hall still glowed faintly, but the end of the hall faded into utter blackness. As I advanced towards this darkness I suddenly made out a glowing white shape that emerged into the black and seemed to hang suspended in the air. From this distance I gauged it to be the size of a small, slender adult. Vivid yet pale, it appeared to be hovering about two feet off the ground. A long dress floated around it, lifted as if by random breezes, the whole thing semi-transparent. There was a diffuse, moon-like orb where a face might be expected. In a languid gesture, the figure raised an arm and held a hand out in front of itself. The sound of the wind suddenly keened in the corridor, and half of the candlelit sconces went out all at once.

  I found myself unable to move. As I stared at the apparition, two more candles suddenly went out, leaving the hall in darkness with only this glowing figure at the end.

  I heard a sound, a low moan of anguish. It seemed to come from the thing itself. I felt a terrible rising in the back of my throat and a band constricting my chest.

  I do not believe in ghosts, I told myself. I do not believe. And then the candle in my hand went out, as if blown by an unseen entity.

  In a flash I was back in my room, locking the door behind me. I lit four candles in rapid succession, threw two logs on the fire and stirred the embers until they took hold, and only then did I remove my jacket. I was quaking like the whisky glasses on Mungo’s tray. I stood close to the light and the warmth, rubbing my hands in a fever to get them warm again.

  I glanced in the mirror but, as earlier, saw little but smudges in the dim reflection. Of what use was such a mirror?

  But more to the point, what had I just seen? Surely there was an explanation. I needed to talk to Holmes.

  I took several deep breaths, willing myself to calm down. Holmes was asleep in the room down the hall. I would have to go out of my room and towards the darkness and the apparition – if it was still there – to reach him.

  And then what would I do? Wake him to tell him I had seen a ghost, like a child running to its father?

  It must have been the whisky clouding my brain. I had drunk far more than was my habit. This hallucination must have been the result of this overstimulation and fatigue. What I needed was sleep. I reluctantly made use of the room’s ‘facilities’, then drew another blanket from a trunk placed at the foot of the bed, spread it over the thick pile already there, and crawled in to get warm.

  I slept fitfully for some time, and then awoke with a start. It must have been several hours later as the fire had devoured the two logs and had once more succumbed to the cold draughts in my room. I opened my eyes. Only a faint orange glow came from between the tiles in the fireplace surround. The wind had died down and was silent. Was it the absence of noise that awoke me? I lit a candle and checked my pocket watch. It was three in the morning.

  And then I heard it.

  It was a terrible sound. A kind of gurgling, followed by the sound of strangulation or choking. A few seconds of silence, then a single
keening sound. Then silence. I got up, put on my dressing gown and my coat once more over it. I tiptoed to my door and listened.

  The high-pitched groan came again, off to the right. It was followed by more choking, not unlike the sounds I heard when I once witnessed a neighbour’s dog choking on a chicken bone. Something or someone was in distress.

  I felt in my coat pocket for my Webley, and for extra measure, jammed the knife from the shopkeeper into the other pocket. I took the candle, opened the door and stepped into the hall.

  The tiny flame threw only a dim glow for a foot or two. The candles were all out, and at the end of the moonlit corridor the gloom faded into utter blackness. But there was no floating apparition.

  I exhaled in relief. But then the choking sound came again. I froze. To my horror, something pale and white emerged from the blackness at the end of the hall. It was a larger figure than before. It floated about a foot and a half above the stone pavers and as I watched, it grew larger.

  The thing was advancing towards me! I squinted through the darkness at the white, swaying form.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ I shouted, drawing the gun in my right hand and holding the candle before me in an effort to see.

  The apparition stopped moving. I blinked, trying to clear my vision. It wobbled slightly and then, from an alcove behind a pillar, removed a candle and held it aloft. I now discerned that the floating white shape was a nightshirt. Below this shirt were two thin, bare legs. And above it, a pale and wan face.

  ‘Holmes?’

  ‘Of course, Watson. Did you think me a phantom?’

  ‘No. No, of course not.’ I pocketed my revolver and hoped he had not seen it.

  ‘What is the matter? You look terrified.’

  ‘Were you—have you been in this hallway before? A few hours ago?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I heard noises just now.’

  ‘I have been made sick by the soup, Watson. Either the chef was careless or someone had creative thoughts about dispatching me.’

  ‘Did Mungo tell you to stay away from that end of the hall?’

  ‘He left me a note, which I disregarded. Why?’

  A flood of relief washed over me followed immediately by another thought.

  ‘Do you think someone poisoned your soup?’

  ‘It is possible, Watson. But I had only one small spoonful before I detected something awry. It is at times beneficial to be a picky eater, although you could not have convinced those who raised me as a child of that fact.’

  I shivered suddenly in the dank cold.

  ‘Have you any food, Watson?’

  ‘Yes, some biscuits.’

  ‘Bring them and all your blankets to my room. You can stay on the large divan in the sitting area. It is near the fire. I can see you are shivering. You must be cold.’

  ‘It is cold, yes. My fire has gutted out for the second time.’

  ‘Mine lights well. Come.’

  Twenty minutes later I had warmed up and was ensconced in blankets on a sofa near a roaring fire in Holmes’s room. He had bolted the door, and to my surprise, stood a chair up against the latch to prevent entry.

  ‘Really, Holmes, do you think that someone might try to break in?’

  ‘Watson, until I can sort out this singular family, I think it best to stick together and remain on our guard. I have a feeling we will uncover more than one crime here, and if so, may encounter danger from unknown quarters. By the way, I managed to overhear your conversation with Mrs McLaren this evening.’

  ‘What? How? We were quite alone in the Great Hall!’

  ‘I was doing a bit of legwork on my own. Taking advantage of Laird Robert’s absence I returned to his room for a brief search. I had a certain suspicion, and sure enough, hidden in a closet was “the laird’s lug”.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Scots term for “the laird’s ear”. Inside the laird’s bedchamber, there is a small garderobe secreted behind a hidden door which is made to look like a part of the wall. This small chamber contains a listening tube which feeds directly from another part of the castle, in this case, the Great Hall. Do not look so surprised, Watson, there is one in Edinburgh castle, and another at Muchalls. You and the lady were conversing there and I could hear everything you said as though I were standing next to you.’

  ‘Devious! How did you stumble upon it?’

  Holmes laughed. ‘Stumble? You know my methods, Watson, I was looking for it. I wondered how the laird knew of our suspicions of Charles regarding the notes to Docteur Janvier. In any case, it is interesting that Fiona left all her worldly goods behind and that Coupe distributed them. I have begun to have a distinctly unfavourable view of that man.’

  ‘This family and their retinue are full of surprises.’

  ‘Yes, and there was more. Some of the laird’s private correspondence revealed he is more interested in the phylloxera epidemic than he led us to believe. But perhaps most interesting of all, I found this!’

  He strode over to an armoire and, reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat, pulled out a piece of jewellery. He held it in front of the fire and it glittered in warm tones, a small topaz drop earring, modest but quite beautiful. ‘It was in the laird’s bedroom, under a small table by the bed!’

  ‘Whose, do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘What can you infer from this, Watson?’

  ‘Holmes, I am too tired to play this game. Just tell me what you think, please.’

  ‘Well, the earring is not gold but merely gold plated. You see the coating worn away, here. Therefore, not an expensive item. The type of gift a servant or perhaps a young clerk would give his betrothed. Note that the backing is bent. This earring came out by force. Its position under a table next to the bed would indicate either that it landed there either during a struggle, or more likely, in the throes of passion. The topaz stone, small and relatively inexpensive is nonetheless quite tasteful. Its dark amber colour would well suit a redhead.’

  ‘Then Fiona’s perhaps? But how could—’

  ‘Here is the puzzle, Watson. Given the aggressive housecleaning we know to have taken place directly after the laird and his family left for the South of France, it would have been found by the maids. No, the earring must have rolled under the table after that time. Therefore, it is likely the act occurred by someone using the room after the cleaning but before the family’s return.’

  ‘Fiona had purportedly eloped before then,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Very good, Watson, proceed.’

  ‘That is what everyone believed. Everyone who did not know better.’ The thought of a member of staff using the laird’s bedroom for an affair was abhorrent to me. I suppose it was possible, but, a sudden thought intruded. ‘Fiona’s jewellery! Why would she have left it behind? But Coupe gave some trinkets to Gillian. Do you suppose …?’

  ‘Bravo! But we need a few more facts in hand. Now rest your weary brain, Watson, for we have much to do tomorrow. I hope Dr Fleming’s final forensics report will arrive.’

  ‘And I hope that we may put this sad case to rest, the sooner the better,’ said I.

  ‘Amen to that, my dear fellow.’

  Holmes then blew out the candles, and retired to his bed, which stood behind a large folding screen, allowing us each a measure of privacy. Only minutes later I heard his faint snoring from across the room. I lay there awake a few minutes longer, wishing for his ease in dropping off to sleep as quickly as a child.

  I watched for a while as the fire burned slowly in the grate and the wild winds came up once more to whistle around the castle walls. Were there listening tubes elsewhere in Braedern castle? What other entrapments lay in wait for the unwary here?

  I would be happy to return to London and I endeavoured to bring my dear Mary’s face into my imagination. Gazing at this vision of her sweet countenance, I fell at last into a deep, dreamless slumber.

  CHAPTER 23

  Alistair

  he next morning was bright an
d cold. After a brief breakfast, served buffet style as was the custom in such places, we were guided to the South Wing, and the rooms of Alistair McLaren. My brief contact with him last night at dinner had left me with a distaste for both his sarcasm and his casual dismissiveness towards his wife.

  In contrast to his brother’s and father’s spacious apartments, Alistair’s rooms were crammed with books and scientific equipment of the type favoured by the mechanical engineer. A drafting table had been set up next to two of the largest windows I had seen in the estate, and he was bent over it, pencil and ruler in hand, when we entered.

  A servant announced us and departed. After a moment he looked up, distracted.

  ‘Oh, yes, you two. Come in and sit down. Have you had coffee? I shall ring.’

  ‘We have had breakfast,’ said Holmes, moving to stand beside him at the drafting table.

  The man stepped away in annoyance. ‘What is it you wish to see here?’ he demanded.

  ‘I do not know until I see it, Mr McLaren,’ said Holmes smoothly. ‘Ah, that looks like a new still design. That has, I believe, a longer neck than the ones your father showed us yesterday.’

  Alistair’s frown faded, and he stepped back to the table.

  ‘Indeed it does! It prolongs the contact of the alcohol vapour with the copper as it passes through the still. A more delicate flavour can be the result.’

  ‘A chemical reaction, then?’ I asked. ‘So that is the reason your stills are made of copper?’

  ‘There are several reasons, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘It affects the taste remarkably, in one respect by partly removing the sulphur compounds.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Alistair, with the briefest flash of admiration towards my friend. ‘You do not want your whisky to taste like rotten eggs, do you?’

  I laughed.

  ‘But a bit, aye, that you do want. It is little known to those who appreciate whisky, but the subtleties of flavour are the result of precise calibration, and are not always what one would suspect. I am known for my adjustments. Achieving the art, it all boils down to science really.’ Alistair smiled at us. ‘I have read of your methods, Mr Holmes, and they are not so very different from my own. Come, follow me to my office at the distillery and ask your questions there. It is more private and I can give you fifteen minutes.’