The Lammas Curse

by Anna Lord

  That was as far as he got. Shocked gasps were followed by an immediate barrage of questions: What did this mean for the tournament? Had the police been notified? Had the Yard been informed?

  Everyone looked pale and frightened. Up to this point they may have convinced themselves that the other deaths had been accidents but as the hare-lip man had pointed out – a man did not plunge headfirst down a covered well by accident.

  Lord Cruddock’s voice was grim. “I will have to cancel the tournament. Mr Bancoe has no caddy and the police will want to look into the matter.”

  Catherine and Carter Dee both cried out at the same time: “No! God-father, please! Postpone it if you must but you cannot cancel!”

  It was Dr Watson who answered their prayers. “I don’t think it will be necessary to cancel the tournament. The accident happened at the hotel not on the golf course or the Cruddock estate. Naturally, the police will want to question everyone but they will not have the right to halt a tournament being played on private property. As for the caddy – I have been giving the matter some thought, and if Mr Bancoe will have me, I will be happy to volunteer my services. I was hoping to be able to observe the tournament from close quarters and what better way than as a caddy.”

  Mr Bancoe thanked him profusely and accepted his offer most gratefully.

  The Dees applauded his generous spirit.

  “Bravo, Dr Watson!” trilled Miss Dee, clapping her hands.

  When the buzz died down and everyone returned to their plates of food, albeit with appetites dulled, it was the doctor who spoke once again.

  “I have offered to examine the body of Mr Brown first thing tomorrow since I have had some experience in this area, so may I be so bold as to suggest the tournament be postponed by one day. If his lordship is in agreement, it can recommence the day after tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yes! Absolutely!” chimed the chorus led by Mr Bancoe and Mr Larssensen who were delighted to have an extra day to recover from another late night and a stomach weighed down with countless courses of rich food.

  By the end of the evening the doctor was fairly pleased with himself. He had handled that well, he thought. And his time on stage had not been a total disaster.

  The Countess was well pleased too. While everyone had been discussing the death of Mr Brown and its effect on the tournament, she had been staring at a portrait of the previous Lord Cruddock, the sire of Duncan, and his distinctive mane of red hair.

  “Keep your wits about you,” Dr Watson warned the Countess before setting off the next morning. “We don’t need another accident!” He tried to make light of it but a quaver in his voice betrayed him. The death of Mr Brown pointed to the fact someone wanted to halt the tournament and would go to any lengths to achieve that aim. The doctor did not for a moment believe the poacher to have anything to do with the death of the caddy. Simple men preferred simple villains and simple solutions but years of working with Sherlock had taught him that murder was rarely simple. From the outset he had been inclined to go with the winning-at-all-costs theory, possibly spurred by his instant dislike of Catherine and Carter Dee, but once he removed his feelings from the matter, he had to admit their heartfelt pleas last night during supper suggested it was unlikely they would have jeopardised the golf tournament by eliminating four people – the last one a mere caddy. If they wanted to win why act so early? Why not wait until the field had been whittled down and then just eliminate the best golfer? Despite his initial dismissal, gut instinct now told him that current events were tied to the swindle in India.

  Mr MacDuff was waiting for him at the entrance of the hotel, pacing up and down, puffing away at a cigarette. He had the key to Mr Brown’s bedroom in his pocket and handed it over before the doctor even thought to ask for it. Nor did he waste time on small talk but got straight down to brass tacks after a quick greeting.

  “Mrs Ardkinglas sent the ostler to Duns to report the death of Mr Brown to the police constable.”

  “What time did he set off?” asked Dr Watson, trying to calculate how much time he had before the police arrived and took over the investigation.

  “I was up early this morning, but he had already set off. It must have been prior to six o’clock.”

  “Was he one of the men in the courtyard yesterday?”

  “He was the one with the hare-lip.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the doctor, remembering the cocky fellow. “Did you get the names of all five men before they dispersed?”

  “Yes and I added Mrs Ardkinglas to the list and young Robbie Fyfe.”

  The doctor glanced at the list of names. The writing was neat and legible. MacDuff had proven his worth yet again. “Do you remember which name corresponds to the ostler?”

  “It is Walter Shiels. The last name on the list. I thought that if I left him till last he would not get his back up so much. And it seemed to do the trick. He had dropped the chip off his shoulder and when he was certain the other men had cleared off he told me that he might have something useful by way of information. He said it in a low voice so as not to be overheard. I asked him what it was but he said he would only tell it you. I think you must have put the wind up him when you mentioned the Yard.”

  The doctor ran his eye over the list of names: Colin Nesbit, Ned Dawes, Graham Ayr, Brian Stornway, Walter Shiels, Mrs Ardkinglas, Robbie Fyfe.

  “Do you know the occupations of the other three men?”

  MacDuff nodded as he took one last puff of his cigarette and tossed it on the ground, grinding the butt down with the toe of his boot. “Colin Nesbit and Brian Stornway are gardeners. Graham Ayr is the groom.”

  “What about the lad?”

  “Young Robbie is employed as boot boy but he does all the odd jobs inside and out. He is as quick as a fox and not as stupid as most of the jobbing lads I have come across. I think if anyone saw something suspicious it would be young Robbie.”

  The doctor pocketed the list and cast a quick glance over both shoulders. He had made sure to have the conversation away from any windows and doors where they might be overheard but he wanted to make sure the gardeners were not lurking in the shrubbery. It was time to go inside and check the bedroom of Mr Brown. He got as far as the hotel foyer before he realized the caddy was shadowing him.

  “Your help has been invaluable, Mr MacDuff, but I would like to examine the bedroom on my own.”

  “I may be able to spot if something is awry. I have been in Mr Brown’s room several times. We shared a smoke in there when it was too wet to go outside. His room is at the end of the hall, you see, and the smoke does not float down the stairwell the way it does from my room.”

  “Be that as it may, I cannot compromise the search for evidence.”

  “No fear, Dr Watson, but if I was going to compromise any evidence I would have done it last night. I had the key. I could have sneaked in at any time during the night and removed anything I wanted.”

  Dammit! The man was right! He’d had the key all night. And it was true that he would be the best person to spot if something was missing or out of place. And since the doctor had no idea what that something might be he could use an extra pair of eyes.

  “Very well, Mr MacDuff, but please don’t touch anything, confine yourself to your powers of observation.”

  At the turning of the stairs they met Mrs Ardkinglas coming down, a bundle of dirty bed linen in her arms. She looked as if she had been crying a good deal. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. The doctor was overcome with pity for the widow.

  “Are you alright?” he asked softly.

  Her voice sounded as brittle as broken glass. “I cannot fathom what is happening. It seems like a bad dream from which there is no waking up. First my husband and now Mr Brown, both down the well! What can it mean, Dr Watson?”

  “Do not wear yourself out with worry, Mrs Ardkinglas. I will get to the bottom of this.”

  “Oh, Doctor, I do hope so!” she said, sucking back air in an attempt to stifle the sobs that threatened
to rise up and choke off her oxygen supply. “But was Mr Brown murdered or did he choose to end his own life? That is what I want to know.”

  “That is something for the police and the coroner to decide. There is no rushing their verdict. Would you like me to give you something to calm your nerves and help you sleep?”

  “Oh, would you, Doctor! Yes, yes, I would like something. I am all on edge. I feel cursed. Yes, cursed. And I am frightened. Yes, frightened.”

  “My medical bag is in the landau. I will give you something before I leave. But first I want to have a look in Mr Brown’s bedroom and then I will have a look at Mr Brown’s body.”

  “Oh, to think of it – a dead body in the cellar! It is this god-awful place! It has brought nothing but bad luck since the day I first set eyes on it. It is cursed! And so am I as long as I remain here! But where else am I to go!”

  “Take heart, dear lady. I will get to the bottom of whatever is happening here.”

  He recognized a woman on the edge of hysteria when he saw one and knew that words were meaningless, she was deaf to them. He moved slowly past her and up the stairs, leaving her standing there with the bundle of dirty washing in her arms as if lost in a fog.

  The bedroom of Mr Brown was small and plainly decorated. There was one sash window, open about one inch for ventilation. It looked out over the rear of the hotel onto the kitchen garden. By all appearances Mr Brown was a tidy man. His golf clothes were hanging neatly over the back of a chair where he had placed them yesterday afternoon when he changed into a tweed suit. In one of the pockets was his golfing notebook for keeping score and a sharpened pencil. Underneath the chair were his golfing boots, brushed clean. A battered suitcase was standing open in a corner of the room and in the bottom of it were socks, singlet vests, long-johns and handkerchiefs folded in separate piles. On his bedside table was a cheap bottle of whiskey, two-thirds empty, and a glass. He had a set of cheap golf clubs. The leather golf bag was scratched and battered. The set was a bit old-fashioned, possibly second hand. On the wash stand was a hairbrush and a pair of small scissors for trimming his beard.

  The room did not appear to be the room of a man in mental anguish about to throw himself down a well. It was the room of a man with tidy habits and simple tastes. The clean boots, the unfinished whiskey bottle, the neatly folded garments all indicated a man who intended to return to his room.

  “Do you see anything out of place?” asked the doctor, scanning high and low for a Wicca symbol.

  Mr MacDuff shook his head. “It all seems as it was from when I was last here. The room was tidy and still is. I thought there might be a note.”

  “A suicide note?”

  “A note to meet someone.”

  “Meet someone?”

  “The kitchen courtyard was closed off to guests. We always had a smoke on the terrace on the east side. There is a wooden bench out of the wind and a view of the loch. His tobacco pouch and cigarette papers are not here on the bedside table where he liked to put them so he must have had them in his pocket. I think he smoked a fag or two while he waited for someone because there were dozens of fag ends in the courtyard, though I could not tell if any were the brand he favoured. I don’t think he killed himself. He said something the other day about his luck finally changing. He said things were finally looking up.”

  “What do you think he meant by that?”

  “I took that to mean he was coming into some money, maybe a bonus for caddying for Mr Bancoe. I was about to ask him but the conversation was interrupted by one of the gardeners who joined us for a smoke.”

  The two men left the room, locked the door, and proceeded to the cellar where the body had been placed the previous evening. It was lying on the brick floor in a damp patch of water.

  The doctor could not make a thorough examination of the body without permission from the police but he checked the pockets of the tweed jacket and there indeed was a soggy pouch of tobacco and some cigarette papers, soaking wet. There were also some coins and a small piece of paper, roughly torn from a notebook. The colour of the paper was different to the one found in the dead man’s bedroom. Mr Brown’s notebook was white; here the paper was pale green. The paper was cheap, and having been submerged in water, practically disintegrated upon touch. The words were illegible for the ink had all but washed away.

  The body had been placed face up but with the help of Mr MacDuff the doctor turned the body over and began to examine the back of it. The head was intact, not battered, indicating the body had gone straight down the well, head first, without hitting the sides. He imagined the limbs and torso to have fared less well and be severely bruised underneath all the clothing, but it was the back of the neck that caught his eye. There was a horizontal bruise as if the neck had sustained a severe blow with a heavy object. That would explain how the killer managed to shove the body down the well. If Mr Brown had had his neck-bone snapped by a great whack it would have given the killer ample time to remove the cover from the well. It was still an audacious crime but so had the other deaths been audacious, relying on timing and luck.

  They righted the body and left the cellar, locking the door behind them, and made their way to the kitchen courtyard. They entered it through the same gate as the previous day. It was tucked around a turret as the drive curved and disappeared behind some bushes on its way to the carriage house. A high stone wall surrounded the courtyard and the paving stones were littered with several dozen fag ends. Mr MacDuff confirmed that several of them belonged to Mr Brown.

  “Where does that door lead?” asked the doctor pointing to the doorway where young Robbie had been standing in the shadows, virtually unnoticed until he stepped up to speak.

  “It goes into the scullery.”

  “Do you know where that second gate leads?”

  “I had a poke around last night. It leads into the wood yard. There are some compost heaps to one side and a large stack of chopped wood ready for burning on the other side. At the end is a gate that leads into the kitchen garden with some raised beds for vegetables, some fruit trees and a small potting shed. The gate at the far end of that takes you into Crow Wood.”

  Dr Watson had a walk around the well and peered down it. He left the wooden cover where it was. He checked the cigarette butts. The variety of brands was enormous and the state of decay of many was advanced. When he was satisfied that he had seen all there was to see in the courtyard he passed through the second gate into the wood yard and then into the kitchen garden to check the layout for himself. It was as Mr MacDuff had described. A door from the main kitchen led directly into this walled garden. He walked past the potting shed, as far as the gate, and opened it to look out on Crow Wood.

  A poacher or some other person could easily have come this way unobserved and left by the same route. But why? Why kill Mr Brown? Why kill a caddy? The only answer that made sense was to force Mr Bancoe from the tournament. If that was the case it pointed to only two people – The Dee twins. The likeliest suspect was Carter Dee.

  They walked back the long way around the stables and the carriage house and as they came around the corner there was the ostler, Walter Shiels, unsaddling a horse. The horse was coated in sweat and so was the man.

  Dr Watson motioned with his head for Mr MacDuff to continue back to the hotel while he paused at the stable door.

  “You have just returned from Duns?” he put conversationally.

  Hare-lip man eyed him warily. “Aye,” he said.

  “The police constable will be arriving shortly?”

  “Aye.”

  The doctor realized they could go on playing silly-buggers all morning. He decided to save time. “Did you see anything out of the ordinary yesterday, Mr Shiels?”

  “Aye.”

  “Could you tell me what that was?”

  Hare-lip finished hanging up the bridle and bit before replying. “Come outside,” he said, leading the doctor to a large horse chestnut. “I was relieving myself, see, here behind this old tree
where ‘tis private from the hotel-like, when I looks round to make sure no one is coming up the drive and what do I see but Mr Brown hurrying out the front door and heading to the gate yonder.” He paused and indicated with his head the wooden gate that led to the kitchen courtyard. “He was looking over his shoulder to make sure he weren’t being followed and I thought, aha, he looks like he’s up to something.” He paused and looked rather proud of himself.

  “What did you think he might be up to?” prompted the doctor.

  “Well, the courtyard is where the lassies go with their cigarette since the missus don’t allow ‘em to smoke in the kitchens, so I presume, yes I presume, Mr Brown is going to meet one of the lassies.”

  “Did you see who he met?”

  Hare-lip shook his head. “I could not see over the top of the wall, but,” he paused and smiled cunningly, “but I could hear two voices – and the second voice weren’t no lassie.”

  “You mean they were both male voices?”

  “That’s it! So I say to myself – This is queer, this is - and I am about to open the gate for a look when Dobbin – Mr Ayr – calls: Come and give me a hand with Black Bess – she has a loose shoe and is limping!”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I went with Dobbin to the stable and before too long we heard young Robbie squeal like a banshee so we dropped everything and ran for the courtyard. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! I never expected Mr Brown down the well!”

  “If you had to guess – who do you think the other man in the courtyard could have been?”

  Hare-lip scratched his head. “All I can say is it weren’t a voice from these parts.”

  “Not Scottish, you mean?”

  “That’s right.”

  Dr Watson thanked the ostler, retrieved his medical bag from the landau and went in search of Mrs Ardkinglas. She was in the dining room laying the table. The strain on her face was telling despite the lack of light filtering in through the small window.