“And that would have been?”
“What had happened to a ship, probably based on Leith, whose name began with the letters SA. Well, as it happened, my informant at Lloyds was able to inform me that a ship based on Leith, whose lawful trade appears to have been that of a collier, blew up and burnt out in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago. She was called the Saracen. She blew up, with all hands, and the cause of the explosion was unknown.”
“What was the amount of the insurance?”
“That I did not ask, but as my informant did not mention the matter, I take it that the insurance was adequate and the premiums not abnormally high, and that the underwriters had no proof or even suspicion of sabotage.”
“Sabotage,” said the inspector thoughtfully. “What gared you think of sabotage, ma’am?”
“Simply that I cannot see why a cargo of coal, destined, it appeared, for Montevideo, should blow up at all. A fire, of itself, I could understand, but an explosion in such a ship sounds rather unlikely. Of course, I am biased by the fact that I believe these murders to be connected in some way with these ships which camouflage their names as soon as they are on the high seas. Then,” she added thoughtfully, “we must get rid of that skian-dhu.”
“That what?” cried Laura. “But that and the barrel of rum are the most picturesque touches in the whole thing!”
“We must get rid of the skian-dhu,” her employer repeated. “It is a red herring so far as I can see.”
“Now how on earth do you know that, ma’am?” demanded the inspector. “I ken well that you’re a distinguished member of the medical profession, but you did not even see the body, let alone perform a post-mortem on it! We’ve been keeping very quiet about the other injury, but there’s no doubt whatever that we believe the knife-wound was the death wound, ay, and the murderer must go on thinking so, too. But what way…?”
“Well, I confess that, in the beginning, I was as much in the dark as the rest of the public. It was something Laura said which made me think that the stabbing might be a gesture on the part of somebody who wanted the murder to appear an even more dramatic business than it was.”
“Good Lord! That young ass Grant!” said Laura. “But what pearl of great price fell from my lips to put you wise about the knife-wound?”
“When it was known that it was an empty cask of rum in which the body was found. Do you not remember asking…”
“Whisky! Of course!”
“And, of course, if the skian-dhu had any place in the matter, it ought to have been connected with whisky. Rum goes…”
“With a cutlass and not with a skian-dhu,” said Laura, slapping her hand on the arm of her chair. “Well, Inspector, what do you say about that?”
The inspector’s smile replied to her, but he spoke as well.
“About that, Mrs. Gavin, all that I can say has been said already. ‘There’s a chiel amang us taking notes.’ I congratulate you on your logic and your powers of deduction, ma’am,” he added gallantly, addressing Dame Beatrice. “Of course, whatever activities are going on in the West Indies, South America, or Mexico (or anywhere else, for that matter), is not our business at present. No, no. But what is our business is murder.”
“Well, you’ve got two murders on your hands, then,” said Laura. “There’s the man who was pushed under a car in Edinburgh and now the laird of Tannasgan.”
“I doubt whether the incident in Edinburgh was intended to result in death,” said the inspector. “You couldna guarantee that the man would be killed. I am inclined to look upon it as a disciplinary action. It was intended to frighten and maybe punish somebody who was threatening to sell out to the police. I must look up the files. They may well cast a good deal of light.”
Laura and Dame Beatrice were about to take their leave when there came across the water the loud sound of a bell.
“Somebody coming,” said the inspector. He glanced out of the window. “Now, why ding the bell? Corrie is there with the wee boat. Ah, it is Mr. Macbeth. It might be as well if you were not in evidence, ladies. Gin you would just efface yourselves, maybe…”
Dame Beatrice and Laura effaced themselves, the former at the bend of the stairs and the latter in the kitchen, and both heard the front door flung open. Macbeth’s voice cried violently:
“Will you not bring that young man’s heart to me on a siller dish and with cresses heaped around it!”
“Well, now, Mr. Bradan,” Dame Beatrice heard the inspector’s soothing voice respond, “what way is it that you’re speiring after Mr. Grant’s youthful heart?”
“Bradan? I am not Bradan! What gars you call me a salmon? I was born a Scot, like yourself.”
“Come, come, now! Something has vexed you. Did you not get what you wanted at Tigh-Òsda?”
“I did not. You might just as well arrest me for my cousin’s murder and have done with it. Who am I, to protest my innocence?”
“You may protest your innocence with all the voice you have, man. It was a good day you had when you invited Mrs. Gavin—you mind her, do you?—to stay to dinner that time.”
“Mrs. Gavin? And who may she be?”
“She will—ah, well, maybe you had better see her, for she’s here again.” He called loudly, “Come, if you please, Mrs. Gavin, for a word with Mr.…” He hesitated.
“Grant,” said Macbeth. Laura slipped noiselessly out of the kitchen, glanced up the stairs, received a confirmatory nod from Dame Beatrice, and presented herself in the dining-room doorway.
“Well, well,” said Macbeth. “So the water-kelpie has come ashore again!”
“Unicorn on leash,” said Laura, advancing with a smile.
“Unicorn?” He looked puzzled. Laura waved a large and shapely hand.
“One of the fabulous beasts not on display,” she said. “What did happen to the salamander, by the way?”
“Not by the way, but on the sea. Burnt out. I managed it myself to spite Cousin Bradan, but that he never knew.”
“Nonsense!” said Dame Beatrice, suddenly entering the room. “You knew nothing about it until you heard that it had happened. Now tell us about the bagpipes.”
“The bagpipes? Oh, yes. Well, what about them?”
“Why were they played on the night Mr. Bradan died?”
“Do you know about salmon?” asked Macbeth.
“Indeed I do. Their life-story has been a study of mine for many years.”
“And of mine. Well was he called Bradan, good Gaelic for Salmon. He was spawned in the Spey, gravitated—I call it that because of the very strong pull—to South America, returned to his native river, and has fouled it ever since. Now all that he held is mine.”
“Yes,” said Dame Beatrice, “but could he really bear to disinherit his only son?”
“His only son, say you? Well, but, mistress, what about Grant of Coinneamh?”
“I see,” said Dame Beatrice. “And what about the young Mr. Grant who lives at Crioch post office?”
“Oh, that one,” said Macbeth. He waved a hand, imitating Laura’s gesture. “That would be a collateral branch, maybe. A clansman, ay, but nothing—I would say nobody—to signify.” He was extremely drunk.
“But the bagpipes! You must remember the bagpipes? Mrs. Gavin heard them and so did this young Mr. Grant.”
“Ah, so that’s the limmer you mean? I ken him well. He was a rare nuisance here, speiring after the laird. I was telling him I was the laird, but he would none of it. He said he would be claiming squatter’s rights until the laird came home, so I bade him go squat in the policies, for I would not have him in the house.”
Yes, he squatted in the boathouse,” said Laura. “I nearly fell over him when I left An Tigh Mór that night. A fine old fright he gave me, because, of course, I wasn’t expecting to find anybody there. Still, he made up for it by rowing me across the loch, and it was then that we heard you playing a lament on the pipes.”
“Me? That was no me.”
“Corrie, then?”
; “No, no.”
“Don’t tell me Mrs. Corrie plays the pipes!”
“It was no Mrs. Corrie, although, between you and me, mistress, I do not believe they twae are married.”
“That’s as may be. Well, there was nobody else on the island at that time, was there?”
“Nobody but the Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie.”
Laura stared at him.
“Oh, well,” said Dame Beatrice, rising, “whoever played the pipes knew that Mr. Bradan, or Salmon, was dead.”
But Macbeth was not to be drawn. Laura got up, too, and the inspector opened the door for them and followed them into the hall. Here he jerked his head towards the room they had just vacated and significantly tapped his forehead.
“And you know he did not kill his cousin?” murmured Dame Beatrice.
“Impossible that he committed the deed with his own hand, but less certain that he was not the head of a conspiracy to make away with him.”
“Is there any possibility that Grant of Coinneamh is Mr. Bradan’s son?”
“None in the world, ma’am. We know a good deal about that Mr. Grant. We know that he has shipping interests and we know the names of the ships and that one of them, the Saracen, as you already know, blew up and was written off as a total loss.”
“Sabotage, do you suppose? Or done to collect the insurance money?” asked Laura.
“There was no reason at the time for any suspicion, Mrs. Gavin. She was not over-insured and she was a well-found ship, so far as we know. No, no. It was just one of those things and the case is too firmly closed for anybody to reopen it now, even if there seemed any reason for doing so.”
“What happened to the officers and the crew?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“Unhappily, all lost. I would say they never stood a chance of surviving.”
“I suppose it would be possible to obtain a list of their names?”
“Certainly.”
“I should be grateful if I could be furnished with such a list.”
“You’re not suggesting…?”
“It is a long shot, Inspector, but, as I think you will agree, we still do not know for certain what motive the murderer or murderers of Mr. Bradan may have had for what they did to him.”
“Motive?”
“Well, self-interest, in one form or another, is seen to be a motive in most cases of murder, is it not?” asked Dame Beatrice. “But in this case I would postulate revenge.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Following the Death of a Salamander
“Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.”
Shakespeare
* * *
THE list of names and addresses, supplied to Dame Beatrice at her hotel in Slanliebh two days later, at first offered no hope of providing any clue to the still mysterious death of the laird of Tannasgan. It transpired that most of the crew of the lost collier Saracen had been Lascars and that of the captain and three officers (the third officer, so-called, was an apprentice), only one was a Scotsman. This was the second-mate, a man named Baillie. Dame Beatrice decided to try his wife first.
The address was that of a street in Glasgow; this to the surprise of Laura, who insisted that the man must have lived in Leith. Dame Beatrice confirmed the address with the inspector and in due course George drew up the car in front of a quiet, respectable house in Govan.
The door was opened by a quiet, respectable woman who confirmed that her name was Mrs. Baillie. She asked Dame Beatrice and Laura in, and produced strong tea, bannocks, and shortbread.
“Ye’ll be from the police,” she said. “I had word.”
“Full marks for the inspector,” said Laura. “That’s going to save a lot of explanation.”
Dame Beatrice picked up the cue. They had rehearsed several openings to this conversation on the way from Slanliebh.
“We are conducting an enquiry into the destruction of the collier Saracen, which was lost somewhere in the Atlantic five years ago. As you know, I have no doubt one of the owners has been found killed. The circumstances seem mysterious and the motive for the murder rather obscure. Did your husband ever express any opinion as to the nature and scope of his employment?”
Mrs. Baillie sipped tea and thought over the question.
“Nature…and scope…” she repeated, with long pauses. “Well, maybe he did. I mind well him saying that, once he had his master’s certificate, he could be very sure of a command. It is not all those who hold a master’s certificate that can get a ship of their own, ye ken.”
“You mean that your husband hoped to captain one?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“Just that. It sours on a man, not to get his own ship. But Ian was always hopeful—too hopeful, I thought, times—of getting a command, but he always said that, once he had his wee bit of paper, he trusted the Company to do the right thing by him. I was not so hopeful.”
“Why not, Mrs. Baillie?”
“Ian was too old. He was no verra guid at studying. I couldna see him passing an examination. Practical seamanship, ay, certainly; but to write it all down—well, I had ma doubts; I certainly had ma doubts.”
“What did you think of the shipping firm for which he worked?”
“I kenned little about it, but I thought the money was too guid. Not that I scorned the pay—oh, no, not that!—but it was way aboon what the Union were asking.”
“So you suspected that something was wrong?”
“Maybe not just at first. You ken the way it would be. Nobody looks twice at guid siller when it’s to your hand. It was only afterwards that I began to wonder.”
“Since the Saracen went down, you mean?”
“Ay. Mind ye, there was naething wrong wi’ the ship and there was naething wrong wi’ the owners—only…”
“Yes?”
“No, no,” said Mrs. Baillie, almost with violence. “It was the money. The money was too guid. Danger money, it was. I can see that fine the now.”
“Did you ever meet the captain of the Saracen?”
“I did that. Many’s the crack he and Ian had together in this very house. Ou, ay, many and many’s the crack. I’ve left them laughing over their rum mair than twenty or thairty times, I would say. Ay, mair than twenty or thairty times.”
“What about the first officer?”
“That one? There went a bubblyjock of a man for ye. Ay, a right down bubblyjock of a man.”
“A foreigner?”
“Ay, and as black as the minister’s hat.”
“Really?”
“Well, he would hae been a fine visitor at the first footing o’ Hogmanay.”
“Did he speak English?”
“Ou, ay, in a fashion, but for swearing he relied on his native tongue, whatever that might hae been. My man always had it that he was no sailor. Of navigation he knew nothing.”
“I thought that the mate of a cargo ship was responsible chiefly for the cargo.”
“Ay,” said Mrs. Baillie, narrowing her eyes, “and since I’ve been capable of thinking about it at all, I’ve been speiring—in my own mind, ye’ll agree—what kind of cargo it would be to blow up like that.”
“A cargo of coal, so we heard.”
“And what way does a cargo of coal blow up and not leave a big enough piece of the ship for them that kens about such things to study? No, no. Goal there may have been, but something mair was underneath it.”
“Did your husband ever mention a man named Grant as being one of the ship’s company?”
“Grant? I dinna think so.”
“What did you make of her?” asked Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were in the car again.
“She has done nothing more than confirm our suspicions, child. There were certainly explosives aboard the Saracen. That we know. There was nobody named Grant aboard when she blew up. That is what interests me most.”
“Well, where do we go from
here?”
“Back to Slanliebh, child.”
“We’re not washing our hands of the case?”
“Time will show.”
“You’re not going to visit any more of the relatives of those men?”
“Not at present, if at all. We must wait upon events.”
“At Slanliebh?”
“At Slanleibh. It is a pleasant spot.”
Laura snorted with frustration.
“Action! Give me action!” she said. Dame Beatrice greeted this cry from the heart with an eldritch cackle.
“You will have action, and to spare, before very long, if I am any judge,” she said. “Sit still; let time pass; enjoy your native land.”
“All right, if you say so,” said Laura. “By the way, don’t you think the inspector may be underestimating our friend Macbeth? And there’s still that claim by Grant that his brother was killed when the Saracen went up in smoke. Either he was lying or else his brother was going under another name. Fishy, in either case, wouldn’t you say?”
Dame Beatrice declined to comment
“Now,” said Dame Beatrice, later in the week, “I am wondering whether we know enough of the truth to decide which persons who have supplied us with information are lying, to what extent, and what their reasons are for doing so.”
“Everybody has something to hide,” said Laura. They were in the lounge of the hotel at Slanliebh. Outside it was pouring with rain. Laura, who had decided to take a prebreakfast walk, had been caught on the hillside in a deluge and had hurried back to a boiling hot bath. She was now lounging, in slacks and a wind-cheater, on one of the settees, while Dame Beatrice, upright and straight-backed as a nun, sat in a chair beside her. There were other visitors in the large room, but these were gathered in groups or couples about small tables sufficiently far apart to make private conversations possible.
“Yes, everybody has something to hide,” Dame Beatrice agreed, “so, while this inclement weather keeps us within doors, let us take the opportunity of examining the evidence, such as it is, of the Grants and the Corries.”
My Bones Will Keep (Mrs. Bradley) Page 16