His voice fell to a whisper. “I’ve heard my father, the late Duchlan, speak of swimmers, half-man, half-fish, whose mission it was…”
He broke off. The awe in his tones sufficiently declared the nature of the fear which was compelling him. He gazed seaward again, expecting, apparently, a further glimpse of the shining object he had already seen.
“The Highland superstition is a byword in the Lowlands,” he added after a few minutes. “They mock and jeer at us. But so might blind men mock at those possessed of sight. If our scientists were blind they would, believe me, furnish indisputable proof that sight is no more than an illusion of the simple.”
“What was the object like which gleamed?” Dr. Hailey asked in impatient tones.
“Like a fish. A leaping salmon gleams in that way, in moonlight; but this was bigger than any salmon. And it did not leave the water.”
“You saw it once only?”
The old man nodded.
“Yes, only once. I’ve been watching to see if I could catch another glimpse of it, but it has disappeared.”
He spoke in tones which left no doubt that he believed that what he had witnessed was no mere reflection of the moon’s light on the water. The doctor watched the play of emotion on his features, and realized that he had already reached his own conclusions about the murders. He turned to Eoghan and McDonald and asked them if they had observed anything.
“Nothing,” Eoghan said.
“And you, doctor?”
“I’ve seen nothing at all.”
McDonald’s voice was unsteady. He stood gazing at the facade of the house as if he expected to gain enlightenment from it. Suddenly he turned and raised his hand to his eyes. He pointed to the herring-boats.
“If they’re not all asleep they must have seen something,” he declared.
Dr. Hailey was busy with his lamp. He turned the beam on the wall.
There was no sign of any attempt to climb the wall. He walked for some distance to right and left and repeated his examination. The grass was innocent of any mark such as must have been imprinted on it had a ladder been used to reach the window. He turned to Duchlan who was standing beside him.
“The Procurator Fiscal told me that he examined the ground under your sister’s window?” he said.
“He did, yes. I was with him. We had the advantage of bright sunlight on that occasion and also of the fact that there’s a flower bed under the window. We found absolutely nothing. Neither footprint nor ladder-print.”
“There seems to be nothing here either.”
“Nothing.”
They stood facing each other in silence. The murmur of voices came softly to them from the herring-boats. Dr. Hailey turned and descended the bank to the shore. He hailed the nearest of the boats and was answered in the soft accents of the Highlands.
“Did you see anybody at that lighted window up there?”
“I did not. We’ve been sleeping. It was your voices that wakened us.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No, sir.”
Dr. Hailey felt exasperated at the man’s calmness and told him what had happened. The news was received with a stream of exclamations.
“I thought your look-out man might have seen something at the window.”
“We have no look-out man when we anchor in-shore. But we’re light sleepers, all of us. As I told you, it was your voices wakened us. There was no cry from the bedroom. Not a sound at all whatever.”
They returned to the house and entered Duchlan’s study. Dr. Hailey told Eoghan Gregor that he wished to see his little boy before they dealt further with the case of Dundas, and he and McDonald left father and son together and climbed the stairs to the top floor of the house. Oonagh met them at the top of the stairs.
“He’s had another attack,” she cried in anxious tones.
She paused an instant before the word “attack”. Dr. Hailey realized that she had meant to say “fit”. That short word carried too great a burden of fear. She led the way into a big room, the walls of which were covered with texts from the Bible. The little boy was lying down; as he approached the bed an old woman in cap and apron, who had been bending over the child, stood up and moved aside to let him pass. Her broad, deeply-wrinkled face was streaked with tears. Dr. Hailey lifted the ice-bag from the child’s brow and looked into the wide-open eyes. He lit his lamp and flashed it, suddenly, on the small face. When the patient winced, he nodded reassuringly.
“What about the signs?” he asked McDonald.
“They’re all negative.”
“Kernig’s?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Hailey patted the hand which lay, closed, on the coverlet beside him. He asked the child to tell him his name and got a clear answer: “Hamish Gregor of Duchlan”. Even the babes in Duchlan Castle were taught, it seemed, to set store on their territorial right.
“Who taught you your name?” he asked.
“Aunt Mary.”
He bent and drew his nail lightly across the child’s forearm, a proceeding watched with careful eyes by the nurse. After a short interval a red wheal appeared on the skin where he had stroked it. The wheal became, rapidly, more marked and acquired a pallor in the middle, which suggested that the arm had been lashed with a whipcord. Both Oonagh and the nurse exclaimed in dismay.
“What does it mean?” Oonagh asked.
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“It’s a sign of a certain type of nervous temperament, that’s all. The attacks belong to the same order. They’ll soon pass off though they may return.” Dr. Hailey exchanged a smile with his patient, who was now viewing the wheal with astonishment. He added: “There’s absolutely nothing to fear, now or later.”
Oonagh thanked him with a sincerity that admitted of no question. She seemed to have changed since the night on which he had rescued her but he did not fail to observe that she was strung up to a high pitch. He wondered if it was from her that the child had inherited its weakness, but decided that, in all probability, Dundas’s view was the correct one. This girl was physically healthy even if her mind was being severely tried. She listened with an admirable self-control to his direction about the treatment of her boy and emphasized these directions for the guidance of the old nurse.
“You’ve noticed, I suppose,” Dr. Hailey said to the nurse, “that the child bruises easily, and sometimes more easily than at other times.”
“Yes, doctor, I have.” The old woman’s grave, attractive face darkened. “I call him ‘Hamish hurt himself’ whiles because he always seems to be covered with bruises. There’s bruises that come of themselves, too, without his hurting himself. I didna know that it was his nerves.”
Her voice was soft and urgent like a deep stream in spate. Its tones suggested that she was only half convinced. Duchlan’s descriptions of his servants as friends was evidently fully justified.
“He’ll grow out of it.”
The nurse hesitated a moment. Then the blood darkened in her withered cheeks.
“I should tell you, doctor,” she said, “that Hamish has been losing ground lately. He seems that lifeless and depressed. I think whiles it’s as if he was frightened of something or somebody. Children are mair sensitive like than old folk.”
She broke off and glanced at Oonagh as if she feared that she had exceeded her right. But the girl nodded.
‘‘I’ve noticed that too,” she said. “He seems what we call in Ireland ‘droopy’.”
“Children,” Christina repeated, “are mair sensitive than auld folks. They seem to ken when there’s anything against them. They’re fashed and frightened, like. It doesna do to say that there’s nothing in that. What means have we of knowing all that passes through a child’s mind?”
She spoke gently without a trace of disrespect. It was obvious that anxiety alone dictated her tho
ughts.
“I’m afraid,” Dr. Hailey agreed, “that we have very small means.”
“Aye, verra small means. You, that has the skill, kens that them turns is comin’ from the nerves, but what is it that’s workin’ on the nerves? That’s what I would like to ken.”
The doctor shook his head.
“That’s very difficult to say,” he confessed. “Rheumatism sometimes causes this kind of nervous irritability. But undoubtedly other causes exist. I saw a case once that was certainly due to a severe fright and I saw another case which I was able to trace to nervous exhaustion brought on by anxiety. That poor child was terrified of its father, who was a drunkard.”
A quick flush spread over the old nurse’s cheeks.
“Highland folks,” she said, “believes that there’s more causes of trouble than any skill can find.”
She spoke cryptically but with great earnestness. Dr. Hailey saw a faint smile pass across McDonald’s lips. Was this a veiled reference to the relations existing between Eoghan and his wife? Oonagh’s eyes suggested that she thought so.
“Do you believe,” he asked Christina, “that the feelings of older people are known and understood by children?”
“Aye, that I do, doctor. What’s more, I believe that you can poison a mind the same as you can poison a body.”
When they left the nursery, McDonald put his hand on his companion’s arm.
“You see what Highland people are,” he declared. “We haven’t changed.”
“It isn’t only Highland people, you know, who are superstitious about nervous ailments,” Dr. Hailey said. “Mankind as a whole is afraid of them. People who bruised easily were looked upon with veneration in the Middle Ages. There are thousands of records of men and women who could, at will, produce the stigmata of the Cross on their hands and feet and brows. It was supposed that these people were in intimate touch with divine beings. Others bore blemishes that were popularly ascribed to the touch of the Devil or the influence of the Evil Eye. It seems, for example, to be true that the real reason why Henry VIII got rid of Anne Boleyn so quickly was that he observed such blemishes on her skin as were reputed to be borne only by witches. He was more superstitious than any of your Highlanders.”
They returned to the smoking-room to Duchlan and his son. As they did so, Angus the piper came to the door. He announced that a young fisherman wished to speak to the laird.
“Show him in, Angus.”
A tall fellow in a blue jersey appeared. He carried a tam-o’-shanter in his hand. When he had half-crossed the room he stood and began to fidget with his cap in the fashion of a woman unpicking a seam. Duchlan greeted him cordially.
“Well, Dugald, what has brought you here to-night?” he asked, and then before the lad could reply introduced him as the brother of “my two good friends and helpers, Mary and Flora Campbell”.
Dugald recovered his self-possession slowly. He stated that he had been told by his friends that the laird was anxious to meet a fisherman who had not been asleep during the last hour and who had therefore been in a position to see what was happening at the castle.
“I wass in the farthest out of the boats,” he added, “and I wass not sleeping. I could see the house all the time.”
Angus brought a chair and the young fellow sat down. Dr. Hailey asked him:
“Were you looking at the house?”
“Yess, I wass.”
“What did you see?”
“There wass a window with a light in it. A big man came to the window and then, after a long time, a little man.”
“You didn’t see their faces?”
“No, sir. Because the light wass behind them. The moon wass shining on the windows but it wass not so bright as the light in the room.”
The doctor nodded his agreement with these just considerations.
“Quite. Now do you remember which of the two men whom you saw remained longest at the window, the big man or the little man?”
“The big man, sir.”
Dr. Hailey turned to his companions.
“I looked out of the window after I reached the room. I was feeling very hot and remained at the window a little time. So far, therefore, we seem to be on solid ground.” He addressed the fisherman: “Can you describe what you saw of the little man?”
“I saw him at the window. He went away again in a moment.”
The doctor leaned forward.
“You noticed nothing peculiar about his coming or going?”
“No, sir.”
“Think very carefully, please.”
“No, sir, I noticed nothing at all. He came and he went, like the big man before him.”
“There was no cry?”
“I did not hear any cry.”
“Was that the only window on the floor that was lighted?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you say, Duchlan?”
The old man inclined his head.
“He’s quite right. I was here with Eoghan. The nursery window doesn’t overlook the sea.”
Dr. Hailey put his eyeglass in his eye.
“You said the moon was shining on the house? Did you see anything unusual on the wall or the roof?”
“No, sir, nothing at all.”
“Do you think that, if somebody had climbed up to the window by means of a ladder, you would have seen him?”
“Oh, yes, I would.”
“In spite of the lighted window?”
“Yes. If a cat had climbed up to the window I would have seen her. There wass no ladder.”
“You can swear to that?”
“I can swear to it.”
“Tell me, Dugald,” Duchlan asked, “did you see anything float by your boat about the time when the wee man was at the window?”
A look of fear crept into the lad’s eyes. He raised his eyebrows and then contracted them sharply.
“No, laird.”
“Something that shone.”
“No, laird.”
Dugald plucked more vigorously at his tam-o’-shanter. The fear in his eyes had deepened. It was evident that he was well aware of the tales about the fish-like swimmers. He looked inquiringly at Duchlan.
“I thought,” the old man said, “that I saw something gleam near one of the boats. But you can’t be sure in the moonlight.”
Dugald’s uneasiness was increasing.
“I saw nothing, laird, nothing at all, whatever. But Sandy Dreich he said that to-night would be a bad night for us because we passed four women when we wass going down to the boats. And, sure enough, there’s been no fishin’. Sandy, he saw a shoal a wee bit out from the burn and we shot the net. But there wass nothing in the net.”
This information was given with extreme seriousness. It was so received by Duchlan. Laird and fisherman appeared to be in agreement about the probable cause of the poor fishing.
“Is it unlucky,” Dr. Hailey asked, “to meet women when you’re going to your boats?”
“Yess, sir; there’s many as turns back when that happens.”
The doctor turned to Duchlan:
“The fishermen of Holy Island, on the Northumbrian coast, won’t go out if anybody speaks the word ‘pig’ in their hearing. They never speak that word themselves. All the pigs on Holy Island are creatures—‘craturs’ as they call them.”
The old man inclined his head gravely. He offered no comment, and it was clear that he thought the subject undesirable in present circumstances.
Angus was told to give the fisherman a drink. When he had gone Duchlan roused himself from the lethargy into which he seemed to have fallen.
“You yourself can testify, Dr. Hailey,” he asked, “that nobody entered the room after you had left it?”
“I can.”
“So that both door and windows were as effectually sealed as if they had been locked and bolted?”
“It seems so.”
“As effectually as were the windows and door of my poor sister’s room?”
“Yes.”
The old man straightened in his chair.
“Can you suggest any explanation of those two tragedies?” he demanded.
“None.”
“They’re exactly alike?”
“Yes.”
“In conception and execution, exactly alike?”
“Yes.”
“The same hand must have struck both blows?”
“It seems so.”
Silence fell in the room; they glanced at one another uneasily.
“On the face of it, it’s impossible that murder can have been committed in either case,” Duchlan said at last.
His voice faded away. He began to move uneasily in his chair. The habit into which he had fallen, of ascribing so many of the events of his life to supernatural agencies, was doubtless the cause of the fear which was expressed vividly on his features.
“It will be necessary,” Dr. Hailey said, “to recall Mr. McLeod. I may be wrong but I feel we have no time to lose. What has happened twice may happen a third time.”
That thought had, apparently, been present to the minds of his companions. Dr. McDonald glanced uncomfortably about him while Duchlan wiped his brow. There was alacrity too in Eoghan’s manner of promising to go at once to the police office in Ardmore.
Chapter XIII
“A Curse on this House”
Dr. Hailey spent the next morning examining the ground under Dundas’s window. The hot weather had hardened the turf so that it was idle to expect that it would reveal much; it revealed nothing. The hardest lawn must have taken some imprint from a ladder that bore a man’s weight. He stood looking at the blank slope with eyes that betrayed no feeling; then his gaze moved over the grass, down to the burn; and beyond the burn, to the loch. He shook his head and returned to the castle, where he found Mr. McLeod, newly arrived from Campbeltown, awaiting him. The Procurator Fiscal seemed to be deeply moved by the new tragedy.
“What is this manner of death, doctor,” he asked, “which can pass through locked doors?” His tones accused; he added, “Duchlan tells me that you and McDonald hadn’t left the poor man more than a minute before he was killed. Is that so?”
Murder of a Lady Page 9