‘There is brandy in the Great Hall, my lord,’ said Naismyth, with some urgency.
‘Then let us avail ourselves of it. Go and bring it in: we cannot leave poor Tibo on his own.’
Naismyth looked as if that had not been entirely what he had intended, but was grateful for small mercies. He scuttled off, wings flapping, and was back in slightly longer than he might have taken: there was a dampness around his lips, Murray noticed, and the smell of spirits off him was stronger than before.
‘Now,’ said Lord Scoggie, with a hollow authority. ‘Does anyone have any idea who might have done this terrible thing?’ He glanced down at the covered face of Tibo on the table beside him, as if Tibo himself could have answered. For an awkward moment, it seemed they were all waiting for it. Then Naismyth spoke.
‘The laddie there wasna at the dance the whole evening.’ Everyone turned to look at him. Naismyth’s narrow brow was shiny with sweat, and his lower lip trembled unaccustomedly. He jerked his head at Andrew, and pointed a long finger. ‘Him,’ he added, for emphasis.
‘Were you, lad?’ asked Lord Scoggie, for want of any other response.
‘Eh ... I was in and out, my lord.’ Andrew seemed as surprised as any of them. ‘But I was never far from the barn or the kitchens, I swear.’
‘What reason would he have for killing Tibo, my lord?’ asked Murray. If everyone who had not been in the barn all evening was to be accused, Tibo’s solitary murder would start to look like an Edinburgh street riot. Andrew flashed him a look of – no, it was not gratitude. Amusement, perhaps? Murray put it aside in his mind for later.
‘A boy like that needs little reason to cause an aff-ff-fray,’ said Naismyth, with a curious ferocity. He was glaring, not at Andrew, but at Lord Scoggie, with an odd twitching and jerking of his thin eyebrows. It was baffling. Naismyth had never before shown much concern over Andrew, or why would Andrew still be working in the castle? Naismyth had only to give him his notice.
‘Well, Andrew, I think you must spend a night in the cells, I’m afraid,’ said Lord Scoggie. Murray stared at him in surprise. Lord Scoggie, who suddenly seemed inexpressibly tired, was also looking not at Andrew, but with concern towards Naismyth.
‘In the cells, my lord!’ Andrew no longer looked amused.
‘Aye, you’ll find that any soldier accused of any crime, innocent or guilty, will flee given the chance,’ Major Keyes put in. ‘Much better, my lad, to jail you now, and we can think the matter over more clearly in the morning. It’s fairer for you.’ Naismyth tried to nod his agreement, and wobbled on his stork legs.
‘Aye, lad, for your own safety, if nothing else,’ added Lord Scoggie. ‘Naismyth will take you down there.’
‘Aye, my ...’ Naismyth tailed off.
‘I think –’ said Murray, who had been watching Naismyth’s gradual decline, ‘I think someone else had better do it, my lord.’
‘Oh, I’ll take myself down there,’ sighed Andrew. ‘Where are they?’
‘Under the kitchens,’ said Murray. Naismyth’s legs gave way gently and he sagged on to the floor, a slow look of surprise on his beaked face. ‘Shall I show him, my lord?’
Lord Scoggie looked with shock at Naismyth.
‘It’s the brandy, cousin, I reckon,’ said Keyes with his usual authority.
‘He was very shocked when we came on Mr. Tibo’s body, my lord,’ added Murray, in Naismyth’s defence. Naismyth, half-leaning on a chair, was now snoring very softly.
‘I – brandy?’ Lord Scoggie had a desperate look, as if he were a general whose officers were being picked off one by one. He sipped at the glass Naismyth had poured him before passing out, and looked down at it suspiciously. ‘What ... Look,’ he said, pulling himself together. ‘Mr. Murray, will you and – Andrew, isn’t it? You and Andrew carry Naismyth off to his bed. Then, Mr. Murray, will you lock Andrew in one of the cells – with a blanket, of course. Then see to the boys, if they are still awake. Cousin Alec ... come, we must arrange for poor Tibo to be watched over. I fear you and I must do it until morning, if you are ready for it.’
‘By all means, cousin.’ Keyes settled himself comfortably in one of the fireside chairs, pulling his cloak around him and propping his good leg on a stool, Tippoo curled beside him. Lord Scoggie, with a last glance at Tibo, followed suite. Murray caught Andrew’s eye, and, with a shrug, bent down to haul Naismyth to his feet. Andrew took the other side, and they staggered towards the door, trailing Naismyth’s long legs behind them in their aged dancing slippers. Murray scowled to himself – for all the dancing he had managed to do, it had hardly been worth polishing his own slippers. They were almost at the door, when Lord Scoggie stopped them with a sudden question.
‘You – Andrew, isn’t it?’
‘My lord.’
‘Andrew who?’
‘Kinkell, my lord. You’ll ken my faither.’
‘It’s a wise child that kens its faither,’ responded Lord Scoggie automatically. ‘You’re Geordie Kinkell’s younger boy?’
‘That’s right, my lord.’
‘Come here.’
Murray tried to take the full weight of Naismyth, while Andrew stepped across to the fireplace. Lord Scoggie lifted a candle, and stared hard at his face, beckoning him to bend closer.
‘The world is a strange place,’ he said at last, his voice suddenly faint. ‘Go along, then. And take care of that man – “I would not have him miscarry for the half my dowry”.’ He lapsed backwards into his chair, suddenly ten years older than he had been at supper.
Murray and Andrew struggled through the doorway, an odd mirror image of carrying Tibo’s body into the library earlier, and dragged Lord Scoggie’s own personal Malvolio away to his austere quarters, to sleep off his shock.
Chapter Fifteen
‘How are Henry and Robert? Did they sleep well at all?’ Lord Scoggie asked Murray, as they set out at Major Keyes’ steady pace down the frosty slope to the lake. Murray tried not to grimace.
‘No, they did not, my lord. Henry had a nightmare, and Robert was unsettled, too.’
‘Then you did not sleep well, either. I regret that.’ Lord Scoggie was a thoughtful employer. ‘How are they this morning?’
‘I left them to lie late, my lord. They seemed to be sleeping well.’
‘Good, good.’ He used his stick to ease himself down a particularly slippery part, and Murray and the Major slithered after. ‘I worry sometimes about Henry’s delicacy. Do you think he is too imaginative?’
‘Not at all, my lord.’ Murray was quick to jump to the defence of his favourite. ‘All boys will work themselves up around Hallowe’en. It is simply that they have had a good deal of upset besides that this year, with the deaths of Cockie Leckie and Hugh Farquhar. And it would disturb most people, I think, to happen upon a dead man in the dark.’
‘What I think is impressive,’ added Major Keyes, ‘is young Robert’s hardiness in the face of all of this. Why, the morning after Cocky Leckie’s death he was asking me for a sparring match.’
‘Yes,’ said Lord Scoggie, notably not meeting Murray’s eye. There was silence until they reached the place, just under the beginning of the trees by the lake, where Tibo’s body had lain. Lord Scoggie stopped, and the other two halted on either side of him, surveying the scene without really knowing what they were looking for.
‘He was facing that way, wasn’t he?’ asked Lord Scoggie, pointing with his stick.
‘His head was there.’ Murray pointed in turn. He could just see the dark patch on the smeared frost where Tibo’s battered head had lain. ‘And his feet were there, and his arm was out in front of him, with the other hand underneath. I think it gave me the impression that he had made a half-hearted attempt to save himself as he fell, but lost consciousness too quickly. And given that the blow was to the side of his head, falling slightly sideways wouldn’t be that surprising.’
‘So you think he was struck from behind, but on the side of the head?’ asked Lord Scoggie.
‘Where’s the weapon?’ asked Keyes, scouting about. He limped over to the edge of the woodland, looking amongst the low undergrowth for anything out of place. Tippoo snuffled about around his feet, clearly finding a number of interesting smells but unable to communicate them very usefully to the humans around. Murray, holding his own stick in his right hand like a club, swung it experimentally, trying to see angles in his head. Lord Scoggie turned about, surveying the land as it sloped down to this place, as if he was trying to picture his lawyer’s last walk to the place of his death.
‘It mustn’t have rained last night, anyway,’ said Keyes. The trodden frost was the same as it had been last night, after all.
‘So if the weapon is still here, it would be covered in blood still,’ Lord Scoggie followed.
‘There’s no sign of anything here,’ said Keyes, resignedly, whacking the brown bracken with his stick.
‘I think he was hit from behind, my lord,’ said Murray. ‘The blow lay up the side of his head, the left side, rising from the back to the front. Either the assailant was above him, striking from right to left, which seems unlikely –‘
‘Unless Tibo was bending over, or on his knees,’ said Lord Scoggie, who was following this closely.
‘I’ll come to that – or he was hit from behind, by an assailant using his right hand and swiping the weapon from left to right. If he was bending over, he wouldn’t have fallen so flat, I think. And if he was kneeling down, there would have been more frost on the knees of his breeches, and there wasn’t, I’m sure.’
‘So the assailant either struck him in a cowardly fashion from behind, creeping up on him unexpectedly,’ said Lord Scoggie, ‘or they had an argument and Tibo turned away, and the assailant leaped after him.’
‘And the weapon does not seem to be here,’ added Major Keyes.
‘So we may still find he has it, or has hidden it,’ said Lord Scoggie.
‘Or he may just have tossed it into the lake.’ Major Keyes turned and they all stared into the still, unspeaking waters.
Murray suddenly remembered an impression he had noticed the night before.
‘I think I have a point against the argument theory, my lord,’ he said suddenly. ‘Mr. Tibo was wearing a long cloak, was he not? And he was still suffering some discomfort from the knee wound he received at Cocky Leckie’s death.’
‘I believe so. He was still limping last night.’ Lord Scoggie was frowning.
‘Major Keyes, you and Mr. Tibo were of much the same height, weren’t you?’ The Major shrugged and nodded. ‘And you are accustomed to wearing a cloak, and you walk, forgive me, Major, with a limp. I wonder if there is someone nearby who thinks, this morning, that Major Keyes is dead, not Mr. Tibo?’
Lord Scoggie looked sideways at his cousin, fiddling with the handle of his stick. Murray could almost see the Major’s history going through his mind, as if he were totting up the men who would like to see Keyes dead. The Major, frowning, leaned to stroke Tippoo’s head.
‘Maybe, maybe,’ he said, more quietly than usual. Murray wondered if he was thinking of the anonymous letters he had received. Had he mentioned them at last to Lord Scoggie? If not, would he tell him now? Should he himself tell his employer?
‘I wish we knew, anyway,’ said Lord Scoggie with a deep sigh, ‘who it was he came out here to meet. There he was, with his cloak and gloves and hat. He quite clearly intended to go out, to go further than just to the barn for the dance.’
‘The same thing had occurred to me, my lord,’ Murray admitted. He had a fairly clear idea who it was that Tibo intended to meet, but he wanted to speak to her before he mentioned it to Lord Scoggie. Who knows what she might have seen?
‘I don’t think there could be anything else we can learn here,’ said Lord Scoggie, with a final look around at the trees, the lake, the crushed grass. ‘I don’t know if there ever was anything. I just wanted to see ...’ For another moment he gazed at the place where Tibo had lain. Then he turned and strode up the slope, faster than Major Keyes could manage. Left behind, Murray and the Major took it easy up the hill, with Tippoo running circles round them to keep warm.
‘Anyway,’ said Murray after a moment, ‘I think you should take care. If it was you the killer intended, he may well strike again.’
Keyes scowled, but he looked worried.
‘I think it might be time for me to tell Lord Scoggie about the letters I showed you,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’m not convinced that the writer really had any intention of carrying out any threats, but it might be as well for him to know what’s been going on.’
‘A very wise idea, I think.’
‘Any sign of Naismyth this morning?’ Keyes asked, with a grin.
‘I haven’t seen him. I doubt he’s feeling well. He really isn’t accustomed to drink: seeing Tibo’s body must have been an awful shock to him.’
‘Do you think there’s anything in his accusation of young – Andrew, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Well, I was surprised, put it that way, but then Andrew hasn’t been here for long. I don’t know him. But nor, I would have thought, does Naismyth. I must go and see if anyone has taken Andrew any breakfast: the other servants will be wondering where he is if Naismyth isn’t awake.’
They had reached the door of the castle, but Lord Scoggie was nowhere in sight. Both Keyes and Murray looked instinctively towards the door of the library.
‘I’ll go and find the surviving letters,’ said Keyes, limping towards the stairs, ‘and take them to him.’
‘I’ll go and see Andrew. See you at breakfast.’
The castle’s cells, intended anciently for the convenient accommodation of local criminals, recalcitrant servants and acrimonious wives, were reached by means of a narrow stone staircase under the kitchen, lit only by whatever poor candle could be found to be carried. The staircase was worn, though that was probably less indicative of the number of prisoners kept there over the years than of the fact that the last three lairds had kept their wines in the nearest two cells. The third cell, the only one with a scraping of window to let in what sunlight found the corner of the yard outside, was where Murray had locked Andrew the night before, provisioned with three blankets and his coat, a chamberpot, and a stump of tallow candle, lit. When Murray returned, Andrew was already sitting up in the nest he had made of the blankets, rubbing his eyes and peering up at the slit window. Murray unlocked the door, and Andrew pushed his blond hair back and stared up at him, blinking.
‘That’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I came here. You ken Mr. Naismyth snores like he’s practising for the Last Trump, and he’s just through the wall from me.’
‘I see you’re in a repentant frame of mind,’ said Murray lightly. Andrew stretched.
‘I’ve nothing to repent. Not concerning the lawyer, anyway. I scarcely knew who he was – I think last night was the longest I’ve ever laid eyes on him.’
‘So what do you repent, then?’ Murray propped himself against the doorway, waiting for Andrew to rise and straighten out the clothes he had slept in. Andrew laughed.
‘There’s a lot of schoolmasters go on to be ministers, aren’t there? It might suit you well, Mr. Murray. Ah, but there is something I repent, indeed.’ He suddenly looked older, and anxious. ‘Have you seen Grisell? Does she ken I’m down here?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘I’ve something to tell her.’
‘Something to do with the fact that you’re Geordie Kinkell’s son? I thought Geordie only had the one son, Peter.’
‘Peter’s my big brother, though he hasn’t the mind of a wean.’
‘Why did you not mention this in the servants’ hall? All you said was that you had worked in Kirkcaldy.’
Andrew gave a quick grin.
‘I didna want to be thought to be some country lad. And I did work in Kirkcaldy – I was there since I was eight. I think I ken enough of town manners not to have to
say my faither’s a weaver in a wee cottage down the road. And then there was Grisell ...’
‘You could be playing with fire there, my friend.’
‘And all the more when she finds out I’m from up the town, and her father’s a fisherman. Up the town you’d as well marry a Hindoo as a fisherman’s daughter. In fact she’d be made more welcome. And the same could be said of how I’d be greeted by her family.’ He had been folding the blankets with quick competence, but now he sagged back, leaning on an empty wine rack. ‘I can’t fathom what I’m going to do. I cannot tell her, or she’ll kill me. If she finds out herself, and I haven’t told her, she’ll kill me, too, only she’ll make it longer and more painful. And if I leave her, I’ll just have to kill myself. I’ve known a good few girls in my time, Mr. Murray, of all shapes and makes, but this one – she has me caught, without even words passing between us.’
Murray considered.
‘I think you’ll have to tell her. Lord Scoggie knows, now, and you know how gossip runs around this house.’
‘And around the village, even up and down the hill. I didn’t even tell my faither I was back. He heard it from one of the fishermen. I think he actually heard it from Grisell’s faither. Now isn’t that a neat thing?’
‘I came to ask you if you wanted some breakfast,’ said Murray. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had any instructions to let you out. But what I could do – I’m sure Grisell would bring you breakfast, if I asked her nicely.’
Knowledge of Sins Past (Murray of Letho Book 2) Page 23