He met the sturdy Mrs. Kerr in the hall. She dumped her large carrier bag of cleaning supplies on the stone floor and unknotted the headscarf under her all but non-existent chin, proffering the customary Hogmanay greetings and commenting on the dreary weather. Wiry gray hair sprouted around her face where the small features congregated at the center, the surrounding skin a mottled expanse of bumps and depressions, putting Rex in mind of a scrubbed potato.
Rex enumerated what was required of her, explaining that the police had been to investigate the disappearance of some law books, weighty tomes of reference written by scholars on the subject of riparian rights and feudal justice.
“I dinna ken what they would want wi’ those,” she remarked. “Weel, less to dust! Long as they dinna come back to rob me of ma virtue!”
“Slim chance of that,” Alistair, the master of undertone, murmured as he came up behind Rex and grabbed his coat off the polished mahogany stand.
Rex admonished him with a mock-stern look. “Set the alarm and lock yourself in if it’ll make you feel more secure,” he advised the cleaning woman. “I’ll be gone an hour or so. We’ll be at the Gleneagle Arms. You have my number.”
“If you see ma Willie, shoo him oot o’ there, will ye? The pub’s open today, reit enough, and he’ll be the first one in it.”
“Open? Grand,” Alistair said rubbing his hands in anticipation. “Happy Hogmanay to you, Mrs. Kerr.”
“And tae ye.”
Alistair and Rex exited the front door and sauntered forth into the bleak day that threatened rain. The ice was melting, and they stepped carefully to Alistair’s Porsche, avoiding the puddles.
“Off to the local pub in style!” Rex said as he skirted around to the passenger side. Alistair beeped open the doors and Rex eased himself into the new-smelling leather upholstery. Alistair had owned the car a couple of years, but it retained the distinctive luxurious scent.
“You could afford a car like this, Rex,” his friend said, pulling his long limbs into the driver’s compartment and strapping himself in. “You’re far too big for that Mini Cooper. It pains me every time I see you get in it.”
“It is too cramped for me,” Rex agreed, “But it’s easy to park and extremely fuel efficient.” However, he now took the train to Derby to visit Helen, a more comfortable alternative. “And I cannot afford a Porsche, not with maintaining this money pit, the upkeep of my mother’s house, and the wedding coming up.”
Alistair was to be his best man. Rex and Helen had also invited John, Flora and Jason, and Humphrey “& guest.” Well, Margarita would not be attending now. He trusted the others would be present at the big day, barring further complications.
Alistair swung the sports car around in the courtyard and began the climb up the gravel driveway to the wet road winding its way to Gleneagle Village. Grimy ice laced the blacktop and glistened in the muddy verges where bluebells blossomed in summer. On a day like today it was hard to picture the transformation the warmer months brought to the countryside, especially when the pall of murder hung over the view.
Rex’s companion, sensitive to his moods and methods, refrained from interrupting his reverie with idle chatter, and soon they were entering the village, where few people were abroad, and those who were carried umbrellas.
Alistair parked on the road outside the Gleneagle Arms, wedged between Murray’s Newsagent’s and a modest house with dingy net curtains. There was little through-traffic, particularly on New Year’s Day. Rex got out of the car and felt the raw newness that the first of January always held for him. He stooped under the gray stone lintel and entered the pub, followed by his friend, who also had to watch his head as he crossed the threshold.
The cramped quarters compressed the ale fumes and smoke from the stone hearth, and Rex knew from experience that the combined odor would cling to his clothes all day, not altogether pleasantly. When he was here he always felt as though he were in a horror film where the traveler stumbles into a pub in the remotest part of the Highlands and feels several pairs of eyes drilling into his back while the locals make menacing comments in unintelligible Gaelic. And this time was no exception as he and Alistair settled into a corner, although there were fewer customers than usual. He thought the Gleneagle Arms should be featured in Zoe’s television series. The low-beamed ceiling and small windows accentuated the gloom within the dank walls, giving the place just the right atmosphere for a murder mystery.
“Guid day tae ye,” the scowling publican greeted them in perfunctory tones.
“And to you, my good man,” Alistair urbanely replied. “My friend here will have a Guinness and I’ll take a Glenfiddich. And we wish to order the soup advertised on your board.”
The Cullen skink was consumed under the suspicious stares of the locals, but Alistair’s eulogies concerning the haddock soup managed to thaw the landlady’s frozen demeanor by a couple of degrees at least. During lunch, he listened to Rex lay out his conclusions regarding the recent triple deaths, and declared them to be sound, if more than a little startling.
Rex roundly agreed. “The difficulty will be in presenting them in such a way as to persuade Chief Inspector Dalgerry to change the focus of his investigation.”
Not an easy task, he anticipated.
15
conclusions
When Rex returned from the Gleneagle Arms, having thanked Alistair for lunch and seen him off, he went straight to his library, which he had asked Mrs. Kerr to clean first. He could hear the hum of the vacuum cleaner upstairs. The wood exuded an aroma of beeswax furniture polish and a hint of lavender, and he spent a few moments putting objects back in their proper place and straightening pictures, lest they provide a distraction. The important task he was about to undertake would require all his concentration.
He had stuck to one pint of Guinness at the pub to keep a clear head, though he had been sorely tempted to have two. He longed for a smoke of his pipe but resisted.
Sitting behind his desk and stretching his fingers, he prepared to commit to paper his conclusions for the benefit of Chief Inspector Dalgerry. He drew his Gleneagle Lodge notepaper toward him, able to write in longhand with more fluidity than when he typed on a keyboard, and began with the date, that of January first. The letter continued thus:
Dear Chief Inspector,
Upon considerable thought, and based on the information available to me, I feel I am now able to offer a possible hypothesis with regard to the perpetration of the murders here at Gleneagle Lodge and at The Brambles hotel. I have to say it pains me in no small measure to finger the individual, but as an instrument of the law I am duty bound to voice my suspicions. Let me start with the first clue that set me on the path to my final deduction, and which was also, curiously enough, the last clue to occur to me as such. I make reference to the matches in the ashtray by the living room fireplace.
Since the beginning of the night, Margarita Delacruz was smoking a cigarette in her elegant black lacquer holder. She was using the box of matches on the mantelpiece. However, at the juncture where Alistair and I were conducting a search of the guests’ handbags and pockets, she was offered a light from a lighter monogramed in gold with her initials.
It occurred to me that if someone had fetched her lighter for her from her evening bag, that person would have had an opportunity to plant or hide the dart used on Ken Fraser, and even substitute methadone for the aspirin. As for what could have happened to the aspirin, it could have been swallowed without serious detriment to the killer. When it was Margarita’s turn to be searched, we found her pill box. We took her word for it that the pills inside were aspirin, but by that point they might, unbeknownst to her, have been methadone.
Why switch mode of death from a poison to a drug?
My theory is that the killer came with a contingency plan. AND THAT PERSON HAD TO HAVE KNOWN ABOUT MARGARITA’S ‘WEE CURE’. The problem with methadone is tha
t it requires a while to take effect, whereas curare immediately incapacitates the victim, rendering them unable to react or request assistance and, finally, to breathe, even as the heart continues to beat.
I further submit that the third murder might not have been planned to take place so soon. I believe the killer saw an opportunity and acted upon it. I refer to the mix-up with the New Year resolution cards. Margarita’s is missing. She might have decided not to put hers with the others, but I failed to find any logical reason why. Her resolution was not personal in nature, nor did it commit her to a resolution she felt unequal to fulfill. And yet, another guest wrote two, claiming the first was inappropriate. In that event, it would be only natural to take back the discarded card so no one could see it. This did not happen. The person “mistakenly” picked up Margarita’s.
Again, why?
What if Margarita had put her signature on the back of her card, as had Alistair Frazer? A lady as formal in manner as Señora Delacruz might well have signed her name in full. Her signature might have value for someone. She was now the only surviving member of the Red Dougal clan of Fraser. Old French gold had been proven to exist at Gleneagle Castle, thanks to Jason Short’s metal detector. A poem translated from the Gaelic by Professor Cleverly pointed to its burial there, as did a diary entry written by a priest in 1786.
The professor was also able to inform us that the poison used on Ken and Catriona Fraser was curare, and even how this fatal poison was typically administered. He was, in fact, so helpful one might never suspect him of being the killer. And yet, ‘The longer the pipe, the greater the velocity,’ he said, or words to that effect, never suggesting a short tube might do the trick, and thereby seeking to mislead.
Since he was standing nearest the hall, he had offered to answer the door when a knock was heard shortly after midnight. He might have seen Ken leave the living room and, with the power out, have again seized his opportunity. The knock at the door could have been branches tapping on wood, or it could have been Ken bumping into the door in his inebriated state. Here is how I envision the scene:
After Cleverly was in the hall and out of sight, he set down his candle and, aiming the party tube, struck at Ken with the dart from several paces away, an easy enough shot. No struggle was involved, and therefore no noise except for the sound of Ken slumping to the floor, which might have been construed as the door opening. Cleverly quietly opened the door at that point, as suggested by the draught, and dragged Ken into the broom cupboard. These sounds were covered by the storm and by conversation going on inside the living room. During this time he said he was searching outside. He may have observed the overgrown vine hitting the door when he arrived at the party. By the time Jason went to the cloakroom, Ken Fraser was nowhere to be seen.
The professor then took advantage of the dark, while most of the men were searching for Ken, and Helen and the other guests were either in the kitchen or seated around the coffee table, to approach Catriona in her armchair and insert poison in her thumb. A prick in the existing cut would have sufficed and, in her deep sleep, she did not react loud enough for anyone to hear.
Luck was with Cleverly even though he had no doubt anticipated more people at the party. The lack of light compensated for the diminished number of guests as potential suspects, although he would have counted upon dimmed lighting and the blowing of party horns to carry out his plan. Had the dart used on Catriona not been found, he may well not have revealed his knowledge of curare. He no doubt intended to dispose of both darts. His luck, fortunately for us, did not extend this far, since he must have dropped the one dart and been unable to retrieve it in the dark.
Later, as he said goodbye to Margarita, he advised her to take adequate “aspirin” for her hangover headache and get a good night’s rest, secure in the knowledge that, with her dead, she could not incriminate him if she remembered his having fetched her lighter from her bag, where he had hidden Ken’s dart. It might even be supposed she committed suicide out of remorse for murdering her relatives. If ever he had feelings for Margarita, they were overridden by fear and greed. Perhaps she had spurned him, adding fuel to the fire?
The professor asserted that his first resolution was sentimental and he had second thoughts about presenting it. I came to doubt his story. Humphrey is not a man prone to spontaneous declarations of love, to the point of putting such a declaration in writing. This was a ruse for the purpose of substituting it for Margarita’s presumably signed piece of paper, and not so he could secure a keepsake.
Perhaps a search of his flat or university rooms will provide further answers and reveal a motive for all three murders, for I am convinced Margarita Delacruz did not die from suicide. At one point I wondered if she was in on the plot with Cleverly, who subsequently eliminated her out of fear of discovery, but I concluded her involvement was unlikely. She had not appeared interested in exploiting any gold hidden at the castle, believing it cursed, and superstitious of its power to destroy the Red Dougal clan.
I strongly suspect the murders have something to do with this Jacobite gold and Professor Cleverly’s keen interest in it, regardless of any direct monetary value it might have for him. He appeared last night heavily invested in its history, indeed passionate. I would look to ambition as motive.
In the hope that these observations serve to be of some small assistance to you in your investigation,…
_____
Rex signed off with the usual formalities after reading over his letter, and folded the sheets of notepaper into the matching envelope with the intention of delivering the missive in person.
There remained some unresolved aspects to the case. For instance, had Margarita forgotten she had asked Cleverly to fetch her lighter? The act of forgetting such minutiae had happened to Rex numerous times. Only the other day he could have sworn he had taken a chicken out of the freezer to thaw, only to find approaching the dinner hour that he had not in fact done so. Helen had been furious. Well, as furious as she ever got. And then she had laughed and called him a senile old git. He smiled and glanced at his watch. She and Julie would be in Edinburgh by now, all being well.
Or had Margarita thought the lighter incident irrelevant to the investigation? In any case, her friend had betrayed and used her for his own ends. Ends that had yet to be fully exposed and proven.
The matter was now out of his hands. He would close up the house and return to Edinburgh after putting the letter in Dalgerry’s possession, and then salvage what remaining time he had left with Helen.
Cleverly would get his comeuppance—or not.
16
auld lang syne
OLD AND NEW MYSTERY SOLVED?
Professor Humphrey Cleverly, a lecturer of history at the University of Edinburgh is charged with murdering the heirs to Gleneagle Castle in Inverness-shire. His motive: To garner glory for recovering part of the lost Jacobite gold rumoured still to be buried at Loch Arkaig in Lochaber, Scotland…
Rex set aside the Sun tabloid, which Helen had picked up at the Derby train station when she saw the story, and pondered the events of the past fortnight. Cleverly’s DNA on the plastic mouthpiece of a tube missing its paper blowout and containing a microscopic feather fiber had substantiated Rex’s hypothesis and had served as grounds for the search of the professor’s flat. This in turn had revealed a typed document taped behind the back of a drawer, and which read:
In the event of my demise, I, Maighread Rose Delacruz, née Fraser, being of sound mind, do bequeath my Scottish estate, if such should come into my possession, in its entirety, to my dear friend Humphrey L. Cleverly in gratitude for his help and kindness. (Signed) Margarita R. Delacruz
The significance of Margarita’s missing, and now recovered, resolution was at present abundantly clear. Cleverly had pretended to have taken it in error, but in actuality he had stolen it because Margarita had written her signature on the back, and in those moments at the party the
professor had seen a way to acquire the castle and, more importantly, the historic treasure. Rex mentally applauded Cleverly’s cunning.
A document expert had compared the signature on the will, which was pre-dated a week before her death, to the one in her passport and in the hotel register, and to samples sent from Venezuela, and had found it to be a passable forgery. In addition, a container of methadone among discarded letters and other refuse belonging to the professor had been found in a dumpster in the vicinity of his flat.
Cleverly had confessed when confronted with the evidence against him. He had asked Chief Inspector Dalgerry during a final interview if Rex had solved the case. The chief inspector had conceded that Mr. Graves had indeed done so, “for the most part.” The professor seemed to derive pleasure from that, and reportedly said, “Tell Rex I take my hat off to him. He often got the better of me in debates. He has a very sharp mind behind that placid exterior.” Dalgerry had said he was forced to agree.
“What are you chuckling at?” Helen asked as she cleared the breakfast table.
“My phone conversation with the chief inspector.”
“Thanks to you, once again, he caught the murderer.” She glanced through the window. “Well, the weather’s finally cleared up. Do you still fancy a walk up to the castle?”
“I do. I want to see the old place again now that the case is closed. And I’m truly glad you were able to visit this weekend so you can go with me.”
Dressed in hiking boots and warm waterproof clothing, they trudged up the wooded slope, sliding and slipping in the mud. The deer trail they followed was a continuation of the one Jason had admitted to taking when his scarf snagged on the tree branch back in the autumn. Another false lead in the first two Fraser murders had been the tire marks on the road, which had been traced to a utility vehicle sent to mend the power line, and whose driver had stepped out briefly.
Murder at Midnight Page 16