by Alan Hunter
‘About the Affairs of Egypt – and – what was he called? The Lord Thistle.’
Gently nodded slowly. ‘The Lord Thistle – the grand Chieftain of the Chieftains. Who else would McGuigan go to see if the Dunglass murder were a Nationalist business? And it fits. It accounts for the way he drove up here and went straight in. He’s one of the top Nationalists himself and he’d certainly have direct access to the leader.’
‘Then – the murder is a Nationalist job?’
‘It’s beginning to look very much that way.’
‘And Jamie and Mary are in the clear.’
‘Not quite yet,’ Gently said. ‘Not quite yet.’ He took the glasses and stared again at the tantlizing tableau beyond the doors. But it was just too far away for him to exercise his talent for lip-reading. McGuigan was still sawing away, the other man straight, motionless, listening. He was slighter than McGuigan, though still tall, with dark hair cut short.
Gently lowered the glasses. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘We’ll just have to get in a bit closer.’
‘We can’t,’ Brenda said. ‘They’re bound to spot us.’
‘We can get down here to the edge of the trees.’
‘But you couldn’t hear them from there.’
‘Let’s go,’ Gently said. ‘Perhaps we can work something else when we get there.’
‘I’ll bet we can,’ Brenda said. ‘And it won’t be a game-store this time. There’ll be a deep, dank dungeon in that castle, and that’s where our skeletons will be found.’
In fact there was a regular path from the pavilion leading down to the lawns. It dived under the gloomy cover of a rhododendron thicket which waved bright blossom high above them. It proceeded downwards with stone-flagged steps to a wrought-iron gate facing the fountain. The gate was flanked by wistaria trees. The trees offered just the right amount of cover.
‘Now,’ Gently said, raising his glasses. But again he was disappointed. He found McGuigan standing with his back to him and the other man retiring into the room. The other man went on his knees. He was fiddling with something. Gently suddenly realized the something was a safe. Its door swung open, the man reached inside, came up carrying a blue-bound folio.
‘Glory!’ Brenda breathed. ‘Another bluebook. And I can see the dirk on it from here.’
‘And it isn’t minutes this time,’ Gently muttered. ‘McGuigan wasn’t doing his top to consult those.’
The dark-haired man, whose sharp features they could now distinguish for the first time, ran down a thumb-index on the folio, opened and consulted it. He read something from it to McGuigan, but with his face at an angle from Gently, then closed it and laid it on a table. McGuigan had reacted with a fierce snatch of his head. ‘And that’s all?’ the dark-haired man’s lips said. ‘Ay, it’s enough,’ McGuigan’s lips replied. ‘I don’t have to warn you, Jamie,’ the dark-haired man’s lips said, then he put his hand on McGuigan’s shoulder and accompanied him towards an inner door.
‘Quick!’ Gently exclaimed. ‘Round to the front. Keep them busy there for five minutes.’
‘But what shall I do!’ Brenda wailed.
‘Scream – break windows – strip – anything!’
‘Oh my God,’ Brenda wailed. ‘This is the last time – ever!’
But she darted through the gate and across the lawn and round the blind bastion of the corner tower. Gently hung on a moment. For a short space the peace of McClune Castle proceeded, then a car-door slammed, an engine pealed, chippings rattled and there came a shout of anger.
‘Good girl!’ Gently grinned. He raced over the lawn and through the french doors. The blue folio was lying where the dark-haired man had placed it, its silver dirk gleaming uppermost. Gently snatched it up, flicked it open. It was entitled: The Chieftain Roll of Glenny. On the first sheet after the title appeared twenty names and addresses together with the ‘Knockman’, ‘Hillman’ aliases. Some hundreds, perhaps thousands, more names and addresses were contained in the indexed pages, and these names were entered, not under their own initials, but under those of one or another of the aliases. The book, in effect, was a complete register of Action Group members, chiefs and divisions.
Gently laid the book down open at the list of chiefs, whipped out a notebook, began to scribble. Most of the names were completely unknown to him, but one or two made him round his lips. There were a junior minister, two M.P.s, a shipping magnate, a noted barrister. The one name that didn’t figure in the list was the name of the owner of McClune Castle.
The copy complete, Gently tore it from the notebook, folded it, thrust it down his sock. Still through the french doors he could hear the roaring and skidding of the misused Cortina. He picked up the book again, riffled down the index, sprang it open under S. The alias Strathman headed the page boldly, followed by a wilderness of Mcs and Macs. He ran his finger down them, turned the page, turned another, and another. To the end of the entry he’d found no address in Strathtudlem, or a village near it. Frowning, he was about to try again when he heard the Cortina’s horn sounding urgently. He dropped the book and turned. He was too late. McGuigan sprang panting through the french doors.
At the same moment the inner door opened and the dark-haired man stepped into the room.
‘Guard the window, Jamie,’ he said, in a low, flat voice. ‘I’m thinking there’s something here to be looked into.’
He was a man of Gently’s age and a comfortable six feet in height. He was sparely built, with a trace of lankiness, but with strong shoulders and a straight carriage. His hair, seen at closer range, showed flecks and edgings of grey, and his face, which lengthened to a sharp chin, was pale-complexioned and harshly lined. He had a duelling scar on his left cheek. His grey eyes were cold and small.
‘So,’ he said to Gently. ‘You’re a common burglar, ma mannie. Stealing in through people’s windows – like a true English thief.’
‘He’s not exactly a burglar, Glenny,’ McGuigan growled. ‘I ken fine who and what he is – and the lady too, who has been makin’ so dooms free with my car.’
‘I say he’s a burglar,’ the dark-haired man said. ‘Or else a house-breaker, which is as bad. I catch him here by an open safe while his accomplice creates a diversion outside. You say you ken him. I don’t ken him. I ken only the facts before my eyes. I’ll just be ringing the police at Logie and committing him to jail.’’
‘Och, no, Glenny!’ McGuigan objected. ‘You canna be doin’ it to such a man.’
‘Cannot?’ the dark-haired man said, his eyes glittering. ‘That’s a word I ken nothing about, James o’ Knockie. Why cannot I do it?’
‘It’s just he’s no burglar – you couldna make the flea stick. He’s the Whitehall mannie I was tellin’ you of – he’s in with Blayne – he kens all.’
‘He does, does he?’ the dark-haired man said, flickering a glance at the folio. ‘Then what’s he doing here, James o’ Knockie – who taught him to pry at Castle McClune?’
‘I canna say, Glenny.’
‘You canna say – but I can say, you red-haired loon! He followed you in here.’
‘Glenny, I swear—’
‘Och, man, be quiet. You’re a puling infant.’
McGuigan looked sadly abashed. He stood hanging his head, his ears crimsoned. The dark-haired man looked grimly at Gently, a muscle twitching by the scar on his cheek.
‘You’re a cunning chiel,’ he said. ‘No lack of the English guile with you. And here you are, my worst enemy, running free in my own house.’
‘Perhaps we could be introduced,’ Gently said mildly.
‘Ay – my name wasn’t in the book! And to think I left it there – plump and plain – instead of locking it away in the safe. You can hold your beard up, James o’ Knockie – ye’re not the only fule at the fair.’
‘I take it you’re the Lord Thistle,’ Gently said.
‘You’ll be for taking, like every southron. You’re talking to Alan Stewart McClune – McClune of McClune – Lord Inverlo
chy.’
‘Chief Superintendent George Gently,’ Gently said.
‘And a rare title, that, for a house-breaker.’
‘My apologies,’ Gently said, ‘for irregular entry.’
McClune glared at him. ‘You may rue it,’ he said. He stood some moments in smouldering silence, his small eyes fixed on the book; then he cast a savage look at McGuigan, who was shifting uneasily in the doorway.
‘Back to Knockie, Jamie!’ he snapped. ‘Or wherever your bit business takes you. I’ll handle the English mannie you’ve brought down on me. Take your car, man – away!’
‘Glenny, if I could have a word—’
‘Ye heard me tell ye, James o’ Knockie!’
McGuigan looked sullen, but drew himself up with stiff dignity and turned to go. At just that moment Brenda walked in.
‘Are you leaving us, Jamie?’ she inquired coolly. ‘Man, it’s a peach of a car you have there. I’d be happy to drive it all day long.’
‘Miss Merryn—’ McGuigan began, from deep in his chest.
Brenda placed a finger on him. ‘Don’t say it,’ she said. ‘And let me give you a tip. Radial ply. It’ll cut out all that distressing wheel-spin.’
‘I would have you know, Miss Merryn—’
‘Get out!’ McClune bawled. ‘No more o’ your clatter. If you weren’t so susceptible to the sex, Jamie, you’d not have Blayne on your barrow this minute.’
McGuigan breathed fiercely and marched away. McClune listened to the heavy footsteps fading; then he went quietly to the french doors, closed them, came back into the room.
‘There goes a great laddie,’ he said, ‘Jamie McGuigan. You’ll scarcely find his better in the glens. But damn it, man, he shouldn’t have come havering in here with a London detective on his tail. But this is men’s work – I put on the show for him – ye ken I cannot be less than McClune. Miss Merryn (if so they call you), sit ye down. George, ma mannie, take a chair.’
He went across to a Dutch cabinet and poured whisky from a decanter standing on it. He returned with three pot-bellied silver quaighs and handed one to each of them.
‘Tae us,’ he said. ‘George, fine I ken the barrel you have me over. Now down your dram like a douce body, and tell me – in God’s name – what you would be after!’
Gently drank the whisky slowly. It had a smooth, dry, heathery quality. He looked at McClune, at the blue-bound folio. McClune had made no attempt to remove it. Gently set down the quaigh.
‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘I’d be after exactly the same thing as McGuigan. He’ll have asked you two questions, you’ll have given him the answers. I’d like you to do the same for me.’
‘Depending,’ McClune said. ‘Depending, Geordie. What would these two questions be?’
‘The first is’ – Gently’s deceptively mild eyes held McClune’s – ‘if the killing of Donald Dunglass was ordered by the Nationalist Action Group.’
‘Man, man!’ McClune exclaimed, slamming his quaigh down with a bang. ‘I could stomach such a question from James o’ Knockie, who – between ourselves – isn’t blessed with much intellect. But to hear it from the likes of you, Geordie, with all your kennings and advantages, is enough to make a man spit and kick his own ancestral furniture.’
‘Still, I’m asking it,’ Gently said.
‘And the answer is no, man. No! The Movement you speak of is a civilized undertaking with no more murder in it than green ginger. We wouldn’t soil our hands with violence. Our aims and means are all political. We aren’t above twisting the Lion’s tail, but there’s the limit – we fight clean.’
‘I’d like to believe you,’ Gently said. ‘But that doesn’t quite square with what I know of you. We were in Knockie yesterday. We saw militia training. We were held at gun-point and imprisoned.
‘I ken – I ken!’ McClune exclaimed. ‘That fool Jamie told me of it. You accepted satisfaction, he says – it was over-generous – you should have skinned him.’
‘But you’re not denying you’re training militia?’
‘Denying it – no. I can’t deny it. But the sort of construction you’ll maybe put on it – give me your quaigh, man – you’re arguing dry.’
He snatched up the three quaighs and refilled them with the excellent whisky. He gave a perfunctory ‘Tae us!’ and drank his own in two gulps. Then he held his quaigh before his eyes a moment as though appraising its shape and scrolling, before setting it on the table and again turning to Gently.
‘Man,’ he said. ‘Think where ye are – in a wild-like country – with proud men. It’s a long, sad, sair story that comes echoin’ down from the glens. We’re a small nation – some millions of us – with pith and brain but little siller – and no power but our own right to make head against an aggressor. And we’re held in tutelage, man. We’re the eldest colony of a powerful nation to the south. They make our laws for us, mint our money, station their armed forces in our territory. And it’s been goin’ on for centuries, man, with bloody oppression and legal, and not a voice raised for us by the tender conscience of other nations. If we were Jews – if we were black – would you daur treat us as you do? If my face was the colour of that ebony chair would you not be thrusting independence on me? But I’m not black – I’m a Scot – I’m one of the race that runs the world – and I must content myself with being a shameful, shabby, second-class English citizen. Will you swallow it, man, being English? Are you proud to have it so with the Scots? Does it make you stand six inches taller because your foot is on our neck? You ken it will come – it must come – when the Land o’ the Free is free again – why are you not beside us, helpin’ it, pushin’ it, clamourin’ in the lugs and lobbies of Westminster?’
‘I’ll be beside you,’ Brenda said. ‘I’ll march up Whitehall with a placard.’
‘Ay,’ McClune said. ‘You’re a spirited lassie. I ken that much about ye.’
‘This is all very well,’ Gently said, ‘and I’ve no axe to grind with the crusade. But training militia is another matter – it comes under the heading of treasonable practices.’
‘I’m coming to it,’ McClune said. ‘But you’re only an Englishman, Geordie, and I maun brief you – and by way of preface you’ll not mind me saying that ‘‘militia’’ is too strong a term for our outdoor pastimes. You may take my word for it – and whose is better – that the Gorseprick Project is harmless enough, a manner of organized games, you could call it – I wouldn’t have given it countenance else. It isn’t putting guns in the hands of the ghillies – the ghillies have guns in their hands already. That mannie Dunglass was a fool to kick up about it. There’s never a gliff of sinister intent.’
‘Not with strong Nationalist feelings behind it?’
‘I tell you no, man. You’re misconceiving it.’
‘And though it results in misconduct towards innocent tourists?’
‘Och man, that’s explained. Jamie’s worried by deer-stealing.’
Gently drank. ‘Just the same,’ he said. ‘My feeling is that military training is going too far. Pinching the Stone of Scone I’d shut my eyes to, but not bullets aimed at my tyres. So I’d rather like your word – and whose is better – that the Gorseprick Project will be cancelled. It would save so much red tape and perhaps unfortunate publicity.’
‘Geordie,’ McClune said. ‘You turn a knife sweetly. You’ve a surgeonly touch, ma mannie. Maybe I will just be sendin’ some lines to a score of names out of yon book. Will it answer the purpose?’
Gently gave a nod. ‘To nineteen – as of Friday night.’
‘You’re a good reckoner, too,’ McClune said. ‘And I dare not hope you have a poor memory. But touching this other question of Jamie’s – I ken we’ve settled with the first just what were you thinking that would be?’
Gently drank some more. ‘You tell me,’ he said.
McClune’s broad brow wrinkled and he looked askance at his quaigh. ‘This is putting me in a queer position, Geordie,’ he said. ‘It’s asking me to poi
nt at my own cousins. Murder is an evil thing, that’s true, and it behoves a man to help put it down – and if the affair were clear of suspicion I wouldn’t hesitate, ye ken. But as it stands it’s a cloudy business with cousins squintin’ across at cousins – and the McClune looked to guard his own, and not to be communicating his knowledge to police chiefs.’
‘The McClune is also the Lord Thistle,’ Gently said. ‘With the reputation of the Action Group to maintain.’
‘True,’ McClune said. ‘You can press me with that – we’ll be under suspicion till the matter is clarified.’
‘And one of your cousins is already suspect and in a fair way to being arrested.’
‘And as innocent as a babe,’ Brenda put in. ‘Or are you insinuating Jamie did it?’
‘Just listen to the pair of you,’ McClune said. ‘Will you not leave me a leg to stand on? Was ever a McClune so badgered and mishandled in his own drawing-room in his own castle! Yell have it, will ye?’
‘We’ll have it,’ Brenda said. ‘Though all the bens fall into the glens.’
‘Which would be a sair catastrophe,’ McClune said. ‘So I’ll say no more – except hand up your quaighs.’
He collected the quaighs and refilled them again. This time he gave the toast standing. The whisky was bringing a flush to his cheeks and his eyes were twinkling down at Gently.
‘Our Jamie, you ken – for all I’ve said – is not without his glimmerings of sense – a man’s mind can get strangely clear when his own Craig is nearing the widdie. And he was thinking it was a queerish thing how the murderer kent his movements so well – and the braeside, how the murderer kent that, like maybe it was his own backyard. For one way or another Jamie kens Tudlem almost as well as he kens Knockie, and he couldn’t make out in his own mind any Tudlem body he could suspect. And Tudlem, you ken, is fairly remote – it’s a few good miles to the next village – and there was no vehicle used that Jamie kent of – but there was the murderer, watchin’ and waitin’.’
‘Yes,’ Gently admitted. ‘That puzzled me, though I wasn’t in a position to eliminate the villagers. But if it wasn’t a villager, who fits? Where did this knowledgeable killer spring from?’