‘Does the nickname “Creepy Jesus” suggest anything?’ Keith asked.
There was a pause. Keith had a vague recollection of the proprietor of the shop, and could imagine him blinking through thick lenses. ‘Yes, by God!’ said his voice suddenly. ‘That describes him to a T. Tall, thin chap with a beard and fanatical eyes. Thin as a rake. And creepy. I’m not even sure he cast a shadow. He was only in here the once.’
‘He bought the crossbow?’
‘Yes. Definitely. He seemed to know what he was at. Made out that he was a bit of a marksman. Why didn’t he bring it back to me?’
‘Couldn’t remember where he bought it,’ Keith said. ‘I’ll send him back to you if he doesn’t want to pay me for the repair.’
Keith broke off the call and returned to the word processor. He added the fresh information and ran off half a dozen new copies.
‘I’d be glad of the afternoon to get on with things,’ Molly said as she served his lunch. ‘But are you safe, driving yourself?’
‘I can manage,’ Keith said. ‘I’m more fashed about leaving you alone. I’ve tried to take the heat off, by letting it be known that killing me wouldn’t hush anything up. But for God’s sake take care and call the fuzz at the first sign of anything unfriendly. The last thing I could be doing with’s a kidnapping.’ He paused and frowned. ‘I lent you a little Derringer once before,’ he said. ‘But I can’t put my hand on it.’
Molly laid a finger between her breasts. ‘I’ve already got it here,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s something else to be careful about. I wouldn’t love you so much with one tit shot off.’
‘You’re going to have to be more careful with that tongue of yours, my boy,’ Molly said serenely. ‘Deborah’s beginning to take it all in.’
*
The shop was quiet. Keith kept himself occupied with a thin trickle of customers which dried up in the early afternoon. He was interrupted once by a phone-call to say that the coaster carrying his crated guns had docked at long last in Leith. He spent a few minutes in the basement, trying to puzzle out how on earth Wallace had achieved his extraordinary result on the barrels of Mr Threadgold’s gun. Then, with little in prospect but the occasional request for catapult rubber, airgun pellets and fish hooks, he had nothing to do but to glower at some of Wallace’s innovations. These might be good business, but they detracted from the shop as Keith preferred to remember it – a dignified establishment where gentlemen could meet to chat about guns and trout rods. He tried hard to ignore the bright row of skateboards on the topmost shelf.
It was a relief when the shop bell rang. Keith turned, smiling, to greet the new customer.
A man in drag walked into the shop. Keith blinked and looked again. By the articulation of hip and shoulder joints he realized that this was indeed a woman, but of such a stocky and masculine appearance as to make nylon hose, skirt and lacy blouse appear an indecent travesty.
‘Mr Calder? I’m glad I’ve found you alone. I’m Lady Batemore.’ Her voice, in startling contrast to her appearance, was feminine, even sexy and verging on erotic.
Keith came out from behind the counter and offered her the only chair. Then, rather than stand before her like a guilty schoolboy, he returned and busied himself tidying some catalogues. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘That is the question.’ She glanced up at him. Her eyes, too, were feminine, but Keith thought that he could see dislike in their depths. Her voice, he noticed, had a trace of some Mediterranean accent. ‘When you met my husband,’ she went on, ‘he made you an offer. Have you decided to accept it?’
Keith shook his head. ‘No. Before I commit myself, I intend to find out a lot more than I know now. Which reminds me.’ He pulled out a copy of his resumé. ‘After I saw your husband, I was attacked and nearly killed. So I’ve been noting down what I know and handing it out, just to make it known that attacks on me won’t hide anything.’
She dropped it unopened into her bag. ‘I have already seen a copy.’
‘I added to it this morning. My solicitor and bank manager have fresh copies.’
‘I shall read it later. I assume that its content does not differ greatly from the earlier version. That was a statement of the facts as you knew them, but you went on to draw certain inferences. I would like to assure you, Mr Calder, that at least as far as my family is concerned those inferences are wrong.’
‘But not actionable,’ Keith said.
‘No,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘But there are further implications which you did not set down and which could be very harmful to us if anything were to happen to you.’
‘Then it’d be best, for all our sakes, that nothing happens to me. Is this what you came to talk about?’
‘No. I came in the hope that I might be able to improve on my husband’s offer to you, and perhaps to persuade you to accept it. Would you be willing to show me your list of the guns from France?’
‘I don’t see why not; I’ll be re-issuing my catalogue soon anyway.’ Keith was still carrying his pencilled draft, awaiting a chance to discuss it with Wallace. He passed it across.
Lady Batemore ran her eye down it eagerly. ‘Several of these guns are still unpriced,’ she said.
‘Those ones won’t be going into my catalogue until I’ve investigated further or done some repair work.’
‘I understand. This miquelet musket, decorated with copper nails, is that the one which you bought from a family named Detournville, near Lizerche?’ Keith felt his hands jump. She must have seen the movement, because she smiled. ‘I have many business interests in France,’ she said. ‘It was not difficult to have your movements traced. Tell me, what is a miquelet?’
Keith felt himself back on firmer ground. ‘An early form of flintlock, developed in Spain. It was soon superseded, but the Spanish remained faithful to it for a couple of hundred years. In fact, the style was popular all round the Mediterranean, especially in Arab countries. You can tell it by the short, straight-stemmed cock with a ring-headed screw at the top, and by the external main springs. It was probably the first lock to combine the steel with the flashpancover –’
‘That’s enough,’ she barked. (Keith stopped dead, blinking. How could anybody not want to hear the fascinating history of the miquelet lock, and its important place in the evolution of the gun?) ‘These duelling pistols, are these the ones by C. J. Ross of Edinburgh? The ones found in the coach in the barn?’
‘They are.’
‘You avoided mention of them when you spoke to my husband.’
‘I didn’t avoid mentioning them,’ Keith said. ‘I just didn’t single them out for mention.’
Their discussion was broken by the arrival of a customer to collect a set of chokes for his repeater. Lady Batemore spent the interval studying Keith’s list. When the door closed again she said, ‘You charge high prices, Mr Calder.’
‘They’re valuable guns, Lady Batemore.’
‘My husband made you an offer for his choice of any two guns. He may have erred on the miserly side. Suppose I were to repeat his offer for my choice of any one gun, or double it for my choice of any three?’
Keith began, yet again, to revise his theories. ‘And for any two guns?’ he asked tentatively.
They settled down to haggle. Her ladyship proved to be as dedicated as her husband.
‘Do we have a deal?’ she asked at last.
Keith decided to keep his options open. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘is Thursday. I’ll make a decision on Saturday morning. The day after tomorrow. Please invite Sir Henry to be at my house by ten-thirty a.m. You’ll meet old friends. The Duguidsons.’
Lady Batemore threw up her head and snorted. ‘Certainly not,’ she said. ‘Those two are little better than criminals. You would be ill advised to do any business with them.’
‘Come at twelve, then. I’ll see them separately.’
‘But you won’t dispose of anything to them before you’ve seen us?’
‘
I doubt if the question will arise.’
‘We’ll be there. I take it that the guns are now in this country?’
‘Oh yes. They’re in this country.’
She stood up. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said.
As soon as he could decently close the shop, Keith went in search of his brother-in-law. As it turned out, Molly’s brother expected to be away on Sir Peter’s business the next day and his Land Rover with him. Keith made a firm arrangement for Saturday morning and drove home.
‘Fancy a day’s shopping in Edinburgh?’ he asked Molly.
‘Silly question,’ she answered. Keith knew that nothing short of his funeral or her own would come between Molly and the chance of a day among the bright lights of Princes Street.
Chapter Eight
The prospect of physical danger to himself had never worried Keith; nor was he overly concerned about most of his personal possessions. But because of the historical and cash value of the guns under the Briesland House roof, and also the possibility that these might attract intruders who would pose a threat to Molly and such children as she might bear, he had installed the latest and best fire and burglary alarms. But, because he was always interested in knowing who might be casting covetous glances in his direction and why, he had, with the aid of a friend skilled in modern electronics, added a refinement of his own. This permitted the optional inclusion of a delay between those virtually silent infra-red intruder-alarms on the ground floor going off and the yodelling electronic siren on the roof starting up.
So it was by a discreet buzz that Keith (and not the entire neighbourhood) was awakened in the middle of the night. At first he thought that he was only hearing the alarm-clock and he prepared to ignore it, but Molly jerked him awake with a cruel elbow.
‘Keith! We’re being burgled!’
Reluctantly, Keith levered his mind up out of its nest of slumber and fumbled for his slippers. He opened the door very gently and tiptoed to the head of the stairs. Bright moonlight lay across the hall. The intruder was still on the ground floor or the alarm would have gone off in earnest; but he had a margin of two minutes from the first intimation until the siren sounded, after which the cottager at the market garden would phone the police and claim a promised bottle of whisky.
Keith waited, with bowel-watering impatience, while the hall clock ticked away his time. He did not want Chief Inspector Munro poking his long, Hebridean nose in. Nor was he anxious to part with a bottle of whisky to the undeserving and rather smelly old man in the market garden cottage. But he had not the least intention of going downstairs until he knew precisely where the other man was.
A sound came from below him; stealthy fumbling followed by a double click and then the whisper of a door opening. The intruder would pass immediately beneath him. Keith had one of his duelling pistols in his hand. He knew that he could easily lean over the banisters and bat the intruder over the head with it, but because of the twin risks of an accidental discharge and of damage to a valuable gun he preferred not to. He laid the pistol softly down on a nearby table and instead picked up a solid ornament, ostensibly of bronze, a wedding present from one of Molly’s relatives. Molly set some store by it, but Keith did not. It portrayed a knight in armour rescuing a naked damsel from some unspecified peril. Something about the knight’s attitude suggested that his intent was less than honourable, although a full suit of armour was hardly ideal garb for such pastimes. Keith considered it vulgar without being funny, but well suited for dropping on the heads of burglars passing beneath.
Keith knew that, contrary to popular belief, there is a dangerously small margin between the force of blow which will stun a man and that which will kill him. The man might be thin-skulled. As a dark figure appeared below, Keith made a guess and lowered his hands slightly. Then he saw the silhouette of a sawn-off shotgun and raised his hands almost to full stretch before letting go.
The flat base of the bronze descended accurately on the man’s skull. The noise would have been sickening, but Keith was unable to hear it. The alarm siren chose that instant to burst into its wobbling wail.
Keith went down the stairs in a series of leaps, deciding as he went what he was going to do. He knew precisely his proper course of action, but had not the least intention of sticking to it.
He jerked open the hall cupboard and punched the code to silence the alarm. He was almost certainly too late. His neighbour, who had been known to doze off at the wheel of a tractor, was almost insomniac when there was whisky in prospect. Keith’s ears sang in the sudden silence.
The intruder was out but seemed to be breathing naturally. Keith seized him by the ankles, dragged him through a door and let him bump heavily down the stairs into the former kitchen now a utility room. Keith grabbed Molly’s spare clothes line and slashed it into random lengths with a carving knife. The man was already beginning to stir. Keith was not disposed to be clement. With vicious jerks he knotted the man’s wrists behind him, and then tied his ankles together and connected them to his wrists with a generous length of line. Finally, he used a folded duster as a gag and bound it in place with several turns of line. By this time the man’s eyes – fanatic’s eyes, Keith thought, sunk deep in the skull under the weight of venom – were open and glaring unsteadily.
‘Don’t go away,’ Keith said. ‘The police are just coming. If you make enough noise you might be able to get their attention. I can think of several reasons why you’d better not. You can probably think of many more.’
Keith hurried upstairs to the hall. Molly was leaning over the banisters. ‘Keith, what’s happening?’
Light washed in through the window as a car turned on the gravel forecourt. ‘All’s well,’ Keith said. ‘Just hang on. Leave the talking to me.’ Hastily, he scooped up the bronze and set it on the hall table. Its descent had subtly altered the posture of the figures. The maiden was now slightly bow-legged and her head seemed to be cocked in anticipation. The knight’s buttocks now protruded as if he were trying to find more room in his armour. Keith decided that the ornament was improved.
He unchained the front door and opened it. Two constables were emerging from a panda car. ‘We had a burglar, but he’s away empty-handed,’ Keith said.
One constable returned to the car and the radio. The other walked past Keith into the house, looked in surprise at the bronze ornament, sat down beside the hall table and opened his notebook. Molly had withdrawn from sight but not, Keith guessed, from earshot.
‘You were quick,’ Keith said.
‘We were out this way, sir. What happened?’
Keith had not had time to think. He edited his story as he went along. ‘I was woken by the alarm,’ he said. ‘I rushed to the head of the stairs. There was a man in the hall, unlocking the front door. The alarm going off seemed to have scared him out of his wits. I’m not surprised, it makes one hell of a din. Anyway, he got the door open and rushed out.’
‘You’re sure he took nothing?’
‘He’d no time, and he wasn’t carrying anything large.’
‘You’ll let us know if you find that anything’s missing. . . . Did you get a good look at him?’
Keith thought. He had not taken in the man’s appearance, but it came back to him piecemeal. ‘Tall, over six feet,’ he said. ‘Thin. I mean thinly built and fleshless with it. Dark hair and . . .’ yes, he remembered it getting in the way of the gag ‘. . . a straggly beard.’ As he gave the description, he recognized it. And he decided to stretch his luck. ‘He looked like some Biblical character, except that he was wearing a dark sweater and jeans.’
The constable took it all down. ‘How did he get in?’ he asked.
Keith thought back to the noise which he had heard while he waited on the landing. ‘I don’t know until I look,’ he said. ‘But there’s a sort of back hall. The dogs sleep there and there’s a dog door cut through the bigger outside door. We lock the inner door but he may have picked it.’
The constable looked disbelieving. ‘Surely he
wouldn’t have come past two dogs without waking you?’
‘Those two greedy lumps would ignore the Second Coming if somebody threw them a lump of meat.’
‘We’d better take a look.’
Keith tried the door to the back hall and switched on the light. The two dogs, instead of bouncing forward in welcome, lay inert on the floor. Keith squatted and got up again. ‘Molly,’ he called.
‘Yes,’ from overhead.
‘Call the vet. Ask him to get here as soon as he can. The dogs have been doped. Barbiturates, probably.’
‘Are they going to be all right?’
‘That’s for the vet to tell us.’
‘All right.’
‘Just as well that you have the alarms,’ the constable said. He finished his examination of the back hall. ‘Somebody from C.I.D. will come out first thing and take a look around.’
‘Ask him to make it before ten. We’re going into Edinburgh.’
‘The vet’s on his way,’ Molly broke in. She was leaning on the banister above them.
The constable paused on his way through the hall and bent down to reach under the hall table. ‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘Nearly missed this against the pattern of the carpet. I’d have got stick if I had. A sawn-off shotgun, by God! We don’t see many of those in this neck of the woods. The numbers may help.’
‘Let Keith see it,’ Molly said. ‘He may recognize it. He never forgets a gun.’ Keith thought that there was something in her voice. She was up to something.
‘Yes?’ The constable sounded doubtful, but he turned round with the gun in his hands.
Keith took it from him and unloaded two BB cartridges from it. ‘It belongs,’ he said, ‘to a Mr Threadgold of Bonnyrigg. You might ask him whether he recognizes my description of the man.’
‘We’ve had no report of a gun being stolen in Bonnyrigg,’ said the constable.
‘If it was pinched out of his car he may not have missed it yet,’ Keith said.
*
As soon as the door closed behind the policeman, Molly came skittering down the stairs. She looked delicious in a frilly nightdress and negligee, both almost transparent, and Keith was glad that she had stayed in the background. ‘You’re up to something,’ she said. ‘I can tell. What is it?’
Cousin Once Removed Page 9
