Hamish MacBeth 01 (1985) - Death of a Gossip

by M C Beaton

  “Yes, yes,” mumbled Jeremy against her hair. He started to unbutton her blouse, and Alice was so thrilled and excited that he had confessed his love that she almost enjoyed the next ten minutes.

  Day Six

  Hope not for minde in women.

  —John Donne

  Hamish was up very early. He had been unable to sleep. It had been a miserable dinner party. Only Alice had seemed to enjoy herself. Daphne Gore appeared to be haunted by the spirit of Lady Jane in that she had seemed hell-bent on ruining the evening for everyone. Hamish could only be glad young Charlie was not present. The boy was suffering enough from hysterical women in the shape of his mother. Hamish had worn the dark grey suit that he kept for his occasional visits to church, and Daphne Gore had said he looked dressed for a funeral. She had then started to harangue the Roths over the American Cruise missiles, although it was evident to all that she was merely trying to be bitchy and didn’t care much one way or the other.

  They had all drunk too much, because Amy had the nervous habit of constantly refilling their glasses without waiting for the waiter to come around.

  And then as the climax to a truly horrible evening, Priscilla had arrived for dinner at the hotel with John Harrington. Harrington was everything Hamish detested in a man. He had a loud, carrying English voice, he fussed over the wine, he criticized the food. He had beautifully tailored clothes, a square, immaculately barbered chin, a tanned rugged face, and crinkly brown hair. And he made Priscilla laugh.

  Hamish decided to take his boat out and try to catch some mackerel. He wandered down to the beach and untied the painter of his rowing boat. It was then that he saw the small figure of Charlie Baxter wistfully watching him.

  “Want to go out with me?” called Hamish, and Charlie scampered down the beach.

  “What are you doing out so early, laddie?” asked Hamish. “It isn’t even six o’clock yet.”

  “I wanted to get out,” said Charlie. “My mother won’t mind. I often go out early for a walk. Things are pretty rough. I want to stay on with Auntie, and Mother wants me to go back.”

  “Maybe I’ll have a wee word with her,” said Hamish. “Hop in and keep still.”

  Charlie obeyed, sitting in the boat while Hamish pushed it out into the still waters of Lochdubh. The sun was just peeping over the horizon. The water was like glass, and the sky above was cloudless. “Looks as if it’s going to be a hot day,” said Hamish, climbing in and taking the oars. He rowed them steadily out into the loch.

  “Where are we going?” asked Charlie.

  “To catch mackerel. Dead easy.”

  “What with?”

  “A spinner. I’ll stop in a bit and show you how to do it.”

  “Are we going right out to sea?”

  “No, just a bit further.”

  Charlie relapsed into silence, hanging over the side of the boat and staring at the sunlight dancing on the water.

  Hamish at last shipped the oars and picked up a reel of stout twine with several hooks and silver spinners attached to it.

  “Do we bait the hooks?” asked Charlie with interest.

  “No, the spinners do the trick. Mackerel will go for nearly anything. That’s why they’re sometimes called the scavengers of the sea. Just unwind the line and let it trail out behind the boat,” said Hamish.

  He began to row again, this time slowly and easily, shipping the oars from time to time.

  Behind them, smoke began to rise from the chimneys of the village, and the twisted grotesque forms of the mountains stood out sharp against the clear sky.

  “Stop the boat,” shrieked Charlie suddenly. “I think there’s something biting.”

  “Pull in the line,” said Hamish, shipping the oars. Charlie wound the line in feverishly. “There’s fish on the end,” he said. “Fish!”

  “Pull them in, there’s a good lad.”

  Charlie jerked the line and hooks, spinners, fish and all crashed behind him in the boat.

  “There’s four mackerel,” said Charlie as Hamish expertly dislodged the hooks and killed the fish. “Can we try again?”

  “Och, no,” said Hamish. “We’ll just keep to what we can eat. Ready for breakfast?”

  “You mean we’ll cook them?”

  “Of course we will. It’s too early to wake your mother, so we’ll drop a note through the door to tell her where you are.”

  Looking more childlike than Hamish had seen him before, Charlie smiled shyly and said, “You know, everything’s really so much better now that terrible woman has gone. I wish I could stay here.”

  “But your auntie has just come up for the summer.”

  “I overheard her say that she would stay on and put me to the school in Strathbane if my mother would leave me.”

  “And you would like that?”

  “Yes, Mr Macbeth. There’s that Mr Blair waiting for you on the beach,” said Charlie. “Does that mean we can’t cook our catch?”

  “No, whatever happens, we’ll have time to eat.”

  But Hamish privately thought it must be something very important to get Mr Blair out of his bed so early.

  “Well, we’ve got our man,” said Mr Blair after Hamish had pulled up his boat on the beach. “While you were out enjoying yourself and playing with the weans, I got a call from Scotland Yard. Major Peter Frame was arrested two years ago for trying to strangle the secretary of the Buffers Club in Pall Mall. What d’you make of that?”

  “I would say it was still not proof the man strangled Lady Jane.”

  “Yes, well that’s why you’re a village bobby and I’m not. The man threatened her in front of witnesses.”

  “Have you arrested him?”

  “Not yet. He’s just helping us with our inquiries.”

  “I gather he’s got a fine war record.”

  “Not him,” sneered Blair. “That’s something else we found out about him. He looks old enough, God knows, but he’s only fifty-four. He never was in the war, he never saw any action. He was a major in the Educational Corps in some unit down in Lincolnshire.”

  “I am sure Lady Jane knew that,” said Hamish slowly.

  “We’re managing fine without your help, although instead of wasting your time fishing, you might see to your duties. That prick, Halburton-Smythe, was howling down the phone last night about some poacher.”

  “I will see to it,” said Hamish, but Blair was already striding away.

  Hamish stood looking after the detective, lost in thought. What if there had been a Lady Jane present at one of the other fishing classes? Would the same lies and petty snobberies have risen to the surface as well?

  Charlie tugged his sleeve. “I rather like Major Frame,” he said. “He’s a bit of an ass, but he’s jolly kind.”

  “Let’s leave a note for your mother,” said Hamish, “and then we will have our breakfast.”

  But before he cooked breakfast, he phoned Angus MacGregor, a layabout who lived on the other side of the village.

  “Is that yourself?” said Hamish. “Aye, well, Angus, your sins have found you out because I am coming to arrest you after I have had my breakfast.”

  Charlie listened with interest as the phone squawked.

  “Nonsense,” said Hamish at last. “Havers. You bought that new rifle and it is well known that you could not hit the barn door. I will be over soon with the handcuffs.”

  Hamish put the phone down and grinned at Charlie.

  “If he knows you are going to arrest him he might run away,” said the boy, round-eyed.

  “That’s just what he will do,” said Hamish, leading the way to the kitchen. “We’d best hide out in here, for they’ll be along with the major any moment. Yes, you see Angus has the wife and three children and it would not be right to take their useless father away from them to prison, so he will probably go to Aberdeen for a bit and he will return when he thinks I have forgotten about it. But he will not be trying to bag one of the colonel’s stags again.”

  After a s
ustaining breakfast of mackerel dipped in oatmeal and fried in butter, Hamish accompanied Charlie home and was shortly closeted with Mrs Baxter for what seemed to the anxiously awaiting Charlie a very long time indeed.

  When he emerged, he merely ruffled Charlie’s curls and took himself off.

  He wandered along to the hotel to learn what the fishing school intended to do for the day. He found them all, with the exception of young Charlie and the major, seated in the lounge, getting a lecture on the ways of trout and salmon from John.

  The Roths, Daphne, Jeremy and Alice were in high spirits. Even John Cartwright was cracking jokes. All had heard of the major’s ‘arrest’, and all were determined to believe him guilty.

  “It seems as if Mr Blair won’t be needing to grill us anymore,” said John, “so we can go back to Loch Alsh and get some good fishing.”

  As they all left the hotel, Hamish noticed that Jeremy had an arm around Alice’s shoulders.

  Alice had spent the whole night in Jeremy’s bed. She felt light-headed with debility, happiness and relief. It was awful to have to go to the Cartwrights’ estate car with Charlie who had just joined the party and leave Jeremy with Daphne, but he had promised to spend the day with her, Alice, and now she was sure he was on the point of proposing.

  The nightmare was over. The murderer had been arrested. Alice, like the rest, had not really believed that ‘helping the police with their inquiries’ stuff. She began to wonder if she would have to give evidence at the trial. That would be exciting since she no longer had anything to fear from the newspapers.

  The countryside now looked friendly. Heather blazed purple down the flanks of the mountain sides, and a peregrine falcon soared high in the wind currents in the sky above.

  And then a little cloud began to appear on the sunny horizon of Alice’s mind. The clean, clear air was invigorating. Set against it, the dark, blanket-tussled writhings of the previous night seemed grimy. Then, again, he had not waited for her but had rushed off for breakfast, leaving her to make her own way down. There had been no long days of exchanged glances and holding hands. Alice shrugged and tried to feel worldly-wise. Wham bang, thank you, ma’am, was reality. All men were the same.

  But her heart lifted when she climbed out of the car and Jeremy grinned and winked at her.

  Her heart soared again when Daphne failed to lure Jeremy to join her in fishing at the mouth of the river. “I’ll stay here with Alice,” he said. “She seems to be lucky.”

  There it was—tantamount to an open declaration of love.

  Jeremy and Alice fished amiably, if unsuccessfully, up until lunchtime. Alice had lost her fishing fever. All she wanted was Jeremy’s company. But when they broke for lunch, it transpired that Jeremy was still gripped by the desire to catch a fish.

  “Where’s Daphne?” he said crossly. “I haven’t even had a nibble. Maybe I should have gone with her.”

  “She’s at the head of the loch by the river,” said Heather.

  “If she’s still fishing after this time, she must have got something,” said Jeremy. “I think I’ll go and look.”

  Heather glanced at Alice’s dismal face. “Finish your sandwiches,” she said placidly, “and we’ll all go and look. Oh, drat, here’s the village bobby. Imagine travelling all this way just to scrounge a sandwich…”

  Hamish sauntered up, red hair and shiny uniform gleaming in the sun.

  “How is Major Frame?” asked Alice. “Have they taken him off to Strathbane?”

  “No, I thought he would be here by now,” said Hamish.

  “Here?” shrieked everyone.

  “Aye,” said Hamish. “They had to let him go. That business where he was said to strangle the club secretary was a bit of a storm in a teacup. The good major was drunk and the secretary objected to the fact that the major hadn’t paid his membership fee and seemed to have no intention of doing so. One word led to another and the major attacked the secretary. Several members of the dub pulled them apart. The police were called, but no charges pressed. You can’t send a man to prison for a murder just because he got drunk and bad-tempered a wee while ago.”

  “But if he isn’t the murderer,” said Alice, “who is?”

  They all looked at each other in dismay.

  Then a faint scream reached their ears, borne on the light breeze.

  “Daphne!” said John Cartwright, lurching to his feet. They all scrambled for the loch and waded in. Hamish took off his boots, socks and trousers and, cutting a ridiculous figure in his tunic, cap and underpants, waded into the water after them.

  As they ploughed through the shallow loch towards the river, they saw Daphne. Her rod was bent, her line was taut, and she called over her shoulder, “Keep clear! I want to get this one myself.” They all moved forward, however, watching as she battled with the leaping, plunging fish.

  “She’ll lose it,” said Heather. “John, do something.”

  “Not me,” said John. “She wouldn’t thank me for any help. Just look at her face!”

  Daphne seemed to have aged. Her mouth was clamped tight with deep grooves of strain down either side.

  Half an hour passed. Even Hamish, ridiculous in his half dress, stayed where he was. Daphne had played her salmon—for a salmon it was -into the shallow water.

  With an exclamation of rage, she suddenly threw her rod down and leapt on the salmon, falling on it in a sort of rugby tackle. Then she rose from the frothing, swirling water, clutching the salmon to her bosom.

  She ran to the shore, stumbled up the bank, fell and cut her knee, stood up with a great tear across one wader, ran again until she collapsed on the tussocky grass with the writhing fish under her.

  They all scrambled to shore. “Let me get the hook out and kill it for you,” called John.

  “Don’t you dare,” said Daphne. “That’s going to be my pleasure.”

  They were saved from watching Daphne kill her fish by a yell from the opposite shore. The major was standing there in full fishing rig.

  He waded across to join them.

  Hamish watched his approach. He would have expected the major to bluster, to scream about the disgrace of being taken along to the police station, but the major’s eyes were riveted on Daphne and her salmon.

  “By Jove, where did you get that?”

  “Over there,” panted Daphne.

  “What fly were you using?”

  “A Gore Inexpressible. It’s one of my father’s inventions.”

  “Where does he fish?”

  “He’s got an estate in Argyll he uses in the summer. Wouldn’t even let me try, which is why I came here. I want one hundred photos to send to him.”

  Heather opened her mouth to sympathize with the major over his treatment at the hands of the police, but he was already back in the water, a fanatical gleam in his eye, his whole concentration bent on the foaming water.

  Then she noticed the still, intent sort of look on Jeremy’s face. Oh dear, thought Heather. That remark of Daphne’s about her father having an estate in Argyll really got home. Poor Alice.

  “Coo-ee!”

  The slim figure of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe could be seen on the opposite shore. “Mr Macbeth,” she called.

  “Better put your pants on first,” said Marvin Roth to Hamish, but Hamish was already off and wading across the loch in Priscilla’s direction.

  “Sheesh!” said Marvin. “She’ll scream the place down when she sees him.”

  “Your Highlander is very prudish about some things,” said Heather. “But any state of undress doesn’t seem to embarrass them, and I’m sure the Halburton-Smythes have become used to it by now.”

  “You’re all wet,” giggled Priscilla as Hamish waded out. “I came rushing over to tell you that Daddy’s in a fearful rage. He’s had collect calls from the States and from London. Lucy Hanson, the secretary, accepted the calls and messages thinking they were something to do with the estate. I asked Daddy to give them to me to pass on, but he won’t.”
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br />   “Maybe if we went now we could take a look in the office when he’s not around,” said Hamish, water dripping down his long, red-haired legs.

  “We might be lucky. Everyone’s out in the garden having tea. Haven’t you got anything to dry yourself with? You look like something out of a Carry On film.”

  “If we open the windows of the car, I’ll dry soon enough,” said Hamish. “It is just my legs that are wet. The water did not reach my bum.”

  “We’ll take my car,” said Priscilla, “then I’ll drop you off back here. Anyone catch anything?”

  So as they drove along, Hamish told her about Daphne’s catch, and Priscilla threw back her head and laughed. She was wearing a simple pink cotton sheath, and her slim, tanned legs ended in white sandals with thin straps and very high heels. Her legs were like satin. Hamish wondered if she shaved them or whether they were naturally smooth. He wondered what it would be like to run a hand down—or up—all that silky smoothness.

  “Stop dreaming,” said Priscilla. “We’re here.”

  “I should have put my trousers on at a quiet bit down the road,” said Hamish. “But there doesn’t seem to be anyone about so I’ll just pop them on.”

  “Well, hurry up. Oh, lor!”

  Hamish had got his socks on and had his trousers draped on the gravel drive preparatory to putting them on when Colonel and Mrs Halburton-Smythe and five guests including John Harrington rounded the corner of the house.

  The colonel goggled at Hamish, who stood frozen, one leg in his trousers and one out. He’s going to say, “What the hell is the meaning of this?” thought Hamish.

  “What the hell is the meaning of this?” screamed the colonel. Mrs Halburton-Smythe, who was younger than the colonel and had rather pretty, if faded, blonde good looks, shouted, “Come here this minute, Priscilla.”

  Priscilla thought wildly of the crazy explanations about Daphne’s salmon and said hurriedly, “I’ll tell you about it later. Get in the car, Mr Macbeth.”

  The colonel started his wrathful advance.