‘Travel? Travel where?’
‘To Leith.’
‘What for?’
‘For advertisement, so I was told.’
‘Who told you? The laird?’
‘Ay. I had to row them, two at a time it was mostly, across the loch to meet Grant from Coinneamh Lodge wi’ his motor van and tell him the wee shop in Leith was doing badly again and needed a window-dressing to attract customers. That was all. When I had handed over whichever of the beasties I had been given, I would walk in for the laird’s letters and then row myself back here.’
‘What do you know of another man called Grant? – a reporter on the Freagair Advertiser.’
‘I’d like fine to skelp that young limmer!’ He turned to Laura. ‘You’ll mind the day you turned up here and the laird brought ye ower the loch the way my guidwife could warm ye wi’ a hot brick to your bed?’
‘Yes,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve blessed her ever since.’
‘Ay. Well, I had orders to tak’ the boat over to the other side before dinner and give a message on the public telephone that’s on the road to Freagair.’
‘Do you remember the message?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Ay.’ He glanced at her sharply. ‘But I’ve told all this to the police. What way would you be speiring at me as well?’
Dame Beatrice had been expecting this question and she replied without hesitation:
‘The young Mr Grant, the reporter, is expecting to be questioned by the police. Mrs Gavin is in the same predicament. Both were here round about the time of the murder. If the police question Mrs Gavin, naturally she wants to know exactly where she stands. Of course, she possesses no guilty knowledge, but we want to be sure that the police will accept that as a fact. We are asking you for help.’
‘Ay.’ He stroked a craggy chin. ‘I can tell you all I ken, but it willna help Mrs Gavin ower much, I’m thinking. The old laird might hae been still alive while she was here, and I couldna swear she didna kill him.’
Laura was speechless, but Dame Beatrice appeared to take only the most casual interest in this damaging statement.
‘Oh?’ she said. ‘How do you know that he might have been alive while Mrs Gavin was here?’
‘I was telling you about the reiver of a young Grant.’
‘Oh, yes. You rowed across to the mainland and went off to telephone, leaving the boat tied up, and when you came back .’
‘Ay. When I came back it was across on the other side.’
‘So you turned the lantern and rang the handbell?’
‘Na, na. Naething o’ the kind. That would have vexed the laird. I whustled.’
‘You—?’
‘He whistled,’ said Laura.
‘Ah, yes. And what happened then?’
‘Then my guid wife left her cooking and brought the boat across. A rare cuddy she called me, but I pointed out that not the biggest gowk in Scotland would leave his boat the wrong side o’ the water. It was then she told me o’ this young journalist frae the Freagair paper, and how he was wanting speech wi’ Mr Macbeth, but Mr Macbeth – wouldna see him but had gi’en orders that when I was home I was to throw him into the loch.’
‘Which order you were prepared to carry out because he had pinched your boat and left you high and dry,’ said Laura. Corrie’s grim face creased into a smile.
‘I was fully prepared to gie him the length o’ my tongue, but it’s ill to maltreat the Press, and I was considering what best to do, when the laird came out of the dining-room and speired at me what I had been hearing on the telephone, for I had felt bound to tell him what my orders were.’
‘Now you said you thought the old laird was still alive while Mrs Gavin was here,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘May we return to that point?’
‘I hae na left it, mistress. Ye gie me no time. I ken verra weel that the old laird was alive while Mrs Gavin was here. It was himself that I rang up on the telephone.’
‘I see. You are certain, I suppose, that it was his voice you heard?’
‘It was that, then. I had to ring him up to find out whether he wanted a car to be ready for him at Tigh-Osda railway station and, if so, at what time. He did wish a car and he told me the time of the train should be in.’
‘So, having rung off, you telephoned the garage for a car. Is there a garage at Tigh-Osda? I don’t remember one,’ said Laura.
‘There’s no’ a garage, but the station-master obliges when he kens the person who wishes to hire.’
‘Oh, I see. Hm!’ said Laura, meeting Dame Beatrice’s understanding eye. ‘Would you say he “knows” the passengers who regularly travel by train from his platform?’
‘Certainly. There’s no a great deal of passenger traffic at Tigh-Osda, for maist o’ the workers at the hydro-electric works use their own cars, although the station was built for them when the hydro-electric scheme was first planned. There’s the mail frae the wee post office at Crioch that a bicycle-laddie brings and puts on to the train, and there’s the mail frae Tigh-Osda itself, although there wouldna be a muckle of letters there, for few in the village write mair than once a year to their relations in Canada. Ay, and them that are putting up for the night at the hotel – for such Ian Beg chooses to call it – are bagmen wi’ their samples, puir bodies that are mair like tinklers or pedlars, to my mind, than the sort you would find in a city.’
‘So you booked the station-master’s car for the old laird,’ said Dame Beatrice patiently. ‘For what time in the evening was it booked? Can you remember?’
‘For half after nine, the way I would be able to wait at table on the laird and Mrs Gavin here, and the guid-wife would be able to prepare a supper for the old laird, the way he would no’ be compelled to eat up the remains of the gigot which was served at dinner.’
‘I see. So the old laird arrived at An Tigh Mór at soon after ten, I suppose. Did he give the usual signal for the boat to be brought across for him?
‘He did not. I had orders to have the boat on the other side to meet him, the way he wouldna be kept waiting, so at ten o’clock I went to the boathouse and rowed across. He showed up in the station-master’s car after a bit – Ian Beg, the porter, driving – and I took him back to the boathouse and he stepped ashore and we brought him up to the house.’
‘Did you see anything of young Mr Grant in the boathouse? I ought to tell you that he was there when Mrs Gavin decided to leave the island for Freagair.’
‘I didna see hide nor hair of him.’
‘I wonder where he got to?’ said Laura. ‘You say you went up to the house with the old laird?’
‘I did that.’
‘And actually saw him go in?’
‘I helped him along the path and up the steps. He was fou.’
‘How fou?’ asked Laura.
‘Verra fou. He was telling me that the Devil was after him and that he wouldna have any supper. He was going to play on the pipes and frighten the Devil away. That is what he said. Ay, those were his very words.’
Laura again caught Dame Beatrice’s eye.
‘And did he play on the pipes?’ asked the latter.
‘He did that. Well enough it was at first, but he finished wi’ such a skirling ye would have thought the Devil had snatched the pipes from him and was piping his soul to damnation.’
‘Are you certain it was not Mr Macbeth who was piping?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘Mrs Gavin, I think, put the piping down to him.’
Corrie looked undecided. ‘I couldna say. The laird was in the mood,’ he replied.
Chapter 14
Story told by the Grants and Others
‘And up from thence, a wet and
misty road…
Clouds of white rolling vapours fill
the vale.’
Matthew Arnold
« ^ »
‘WELL,’ said Laura, when Corrie had rowed them across the loch and they were back in the waiting car, ‘something to think about, definitely, wouldn’t you say?’
�
�Say on,’ said Dame Beatrice, as George let in the clutch, and the car, in spite of the rough ground at the roadside, moved sedately on to the highway. ‘You have comments to make?’
‘Haven’t you? There’s one thing, surely, that sticks out a mile and a half.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Of course. The business of the Grants and my car.’
‘Recapitulate.’
‘As though you didn’t have both episodes at your fingers’ ends!’
‘You make me sound like one of the Norns, child.’
‘Well, so you may be, for all I know. And that’s not intended to be flippant. No, honestly, though, let’s face the facts.’
‘Willingly. Say on.’
‘Well, how truthful do you think the Corries are?’
‘Possibly truthful and probably trusting, child.’
‘Meaning that they trusted Cù Dubh?’
‘And ourselves, you know.’
‘Yes, well, if we accept (and, like you, I do) that Corrie was telling the truth, why did the Grants ask me to drive Mrs Grant home, that first night I came back in the rain from Gàradh, when they must have known they could hire the station-master’s car?’
‘There are two possible, and, I venture to think, obvious explanations.’
‘Oh?’ said Laura, belligerently. ‘I can’t think of even one. Oh, yes! Of course I can,’ she added, altering her tone. ‘You mean that the station-master’s car was already on hire.’
‘Exactly, and what is so satisfactory is that it will be a simple business to find that out.’
‘Maybe not as simple as you would think,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘I don’t suppose for an instant that the station-master keeps any records of the hire of his car. A Highlander wouldn’t, you know. It isn’t that he wants to dodge the tax-collector, but simply that he has very little sense of time and is just too lazy, anyway, to bother. Besides, he probably doesn’t think of payment for hiring out his car as being part of his income. He’d tell you – and he’d believe it – that he only does it to oblige, and that, as he had to pay for the car in the first place, it is not the business of anybody else how he uses it.’
‘I see,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I must show him my notebook.’
Laura made a rude, hooting noise, well aware that few, if any, could read her employer’s cryptic shorthand, Dame Beatrice’s own invention. Dame Beatrice sedately explained that she would produce the notebook and read aloud to the station-master certain dates and times.
‘Well, all right,’ said Laura. ‘There may be, as I say, this probable explanation of why the Grants couldn’t hire the car. But what else had you thought of? You said the other explanation was also a possible one. Expatiate.’
‘They had your car free of charge, child.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, but, against that, Mrs Grant put me up for the night and fed me jolly well, you know, and she more than replaced the petrol.’
‘There is usually food in a house, dear Laura. The production of ready money in order to cope with an unforeseen situation is another matter.’
‘It’s still all a bit odd, you know,’ said Laura, moodily.
‘An understatement, I feel.’
‘So we go and see the station-master?’
‘Yes, indeed. He may not remember whether his car was on hire that afternoon and evening but he will most certainly remember whether Mr Grant did, or did not, travel by train to Inverness that day.’
‘Good enough. Have you decided who killed Black Dog?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, child. That was fairly obvious from the beginning. The police know, too. Their trouble is the same as ours – lack of proof.’
‘Well, who did it, then?’
‘Suppose you tell me what you think.’
‘Mr Grant Senior, assisted by Mr Grant Junior, in which case they must be related, and I don’t believe they are,’ said Laura; but she spoke doubtfully. ‘The name is a common one and, although I know they live fairly near to one another, I don’t see that that makes them either relatives or fellow criminals. It’s just a hunch I have, that’s all.’
‘What else makes sense, my dear Laura?’
‘Well, there’s Macbeth. He must come into the picture somewhere. I just can’t fit him in. I can’t see him as a murderer, though. And then, what about the disinherited son? We simply must regard him as a suspect. You know – revenge and all that.’
‘But there is nothing to suggest that he was on Tannasgan when the murder was committed.’
‘But is there anything to suggest that he wasn’t?’
‘I think there may be, but of that I am a little uncertain.’
‘Yes? How do you mean?’
‘Nobody has mentioned that he was there. To particularise, you did not see him, Macbeth has not suggested that he was on the island and the Corries cannot have thought that he was there.’
‘It wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to have hidden himself from all of us. However, I still think the Grants know most about what happened. Oh, well, now for the station-master at Tigh-Osda.’
The station-master at Tigh-Osda proved to be a cautious softly-spoken man who received them in his primitive little office behind the booking-clerk’s den, offered them seats and asked what their complaint was.
‘We have no complaint whatever,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We are hoping for information.’
‘You cannot understand the time-tables, maybe?’
‘Nothing of that kind. I am sure they are as clear as British Railways can make them. Our enquiries, in short, are connected with a Mr Grant who lives at Coinneamh Lodge, about a dozen miles from here.’
‘Ay?’ said the station-master. ‘I know Mr Grant very well as a passenger to Inverness.’
‘You do? That is helpful, then. Would you remember a Friday at the end of last month when there was a deluge of rain, severe even for the Western Highlands, when Mr and Mrs Grant left their station wagon or estate car here because it had broken down?’
‘I mind it very well. This young lady here’ – he nodded at Laura – ‘was good enough to drive Mrs Grant home.’
‘That is so.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Laura. The station-master pointed to the windows on either side of the little room.
‘That way I can keep my eye on the platform. That way I can see who comes in from the road.’
‘Oh, of course. Well, I spent the night at Coinneamh Lodge, as the weather was so atrocious, and, some time during the time I was there, my car vanished. It was returned – I mean, I’ve got it back all right – but it was a hired car and I was responsible for it, so I’d rather like to know who had it. All I can think of is that somebody who knew the Grants also knew that they owned a station wagon and went to Coinneamh Lodge to borrow it. They found my car in the shed, so borrowed that instead.’
‘Did it suffer damage, then?’
‘Well,’ said Laura, treading on delicate ground because she did not want to tell a direct lie, ‘it certainly wasn’t quite in the same condition as when I left it, and judging by the mileage figures and the – er—’
‘The petrol consumption?’
‘ – I just wondered whether somebody – it would have to be two people, actually – used it to reach the station here so that one of them could catch a train.’
‘What would be the latest time you could be sure it was safely housed at Coinneamh Lodge?’
‘Well, I didn’t go to bed until well after midnight and I should have heard it being driven away, I’m sure, or the door being slammed, or something. From what I can work out, it was taken away some time between about two o’clock and six in the morning.’
The station-master fished out a timetable.
‘You may see for yourself, mistress, that there is no train leaves this station after the one Mr Grant catches at eight-fifteen when he travels to Inverness during the clement months of the year. The earliest morning train does not go out until nine-five.’
‘W
ell, anyway, thank you for telling me,’ said Laura. ‘I just thought it might be somebody who wanted to catch a train.’
‘Does Mrs Grant have no suspicion who might have helped himself to the loan of it? Coinneamh Lodge lies a long way off the road.’
‘She seems to have no idea.’
‘Well, well, I’m sorry you were in trouble over a hired car. That would be sorely vexing for you, yes, and expensive, too.’
‘Talking of car hire,’ said Laura, ‘I think somebody told me that there was a car here at the station. Is that so?’
‘It is, indeed.’
‘But the Grants took shelter in the station entrance instead of having it take Mrs Grant home. That seems odd to me. After all, they couldn’t have known that I was coming along, could they?’
‘No, no, they could not.’
‘I only stopped because I had made up my mind I would have to find a bed at the hotel.’
‘Yes, I see. That was a fortunate thing indeed for Mrs Grant.’
‘If you don’t mind my asking, was the station car on hire that evening?’
‘My mind is not clear about that. Ian Beg may know.’ He went out and returned with a thin, very shy young man whom he introduced as, ‘This will be Ian. He issues the tickets and does the portering and holds the train if there should be those on the road wishful to ride on it. Now, then, man Ian, put your thoughts to the wet Friday Mr Grant’s estate car broke down and himself pushing it with his wife at the steering. Do you mind the Friday I mean?’
‘I do so, Mr Murray.’
‘Well, now, was our own car away?’
‘It was not, then.’
‘It was not? Did Mr Grant speak of wishing it on hire for his wife to get home?’
‘He did not.’
‘I suppose,’ said Laura, ‘that, if he had driven his wife home in it, he would not have been able to get to Coinneamh Lodge and back in time for the train?’
‘That would be the way of it.’
‘You mean, then,’ said Dame Beatrice, giving Ian a friendly leer which obviously frightened him very much, ‘that Mrs Grant was absolutely dependent upon some friendly motorist coming along and offering her a lift?’
‘It would be like that, yes, indeed.’
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