Miss Seeton Rocks the Cradle (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 13)

by Hamilton Crane

  Mrs. McScurrie withered the chorus with one look, and the subsequent silence was of pin-dropping intensity. Miss Seeton’s wavering smile of gratitude did not go unnoticed.

  “There, there, you puir wee soul.” Mrs. McScurrie’s tone was so soothing and gentle that Ranald had to look twice to make certain it was his housekeeper who spoke. “Dinna you fash yourself over anything, hen. Just bide here until the doctor comes . . .”

  “The doctor’s here.” From the doorway came the sound of scraping feet, and a large man with a black bag in his hand strode into the hall, nodded to Ranald, allowed his gaze to sweep over everyone else until it fastened upon Miss Seeton in her wrappings, and uttered a cheerful “Ha!”

  “Doctor? Oh, dear.” Miss Seeton only now appeared to understand even a part of what was happening. “Oh, dear—a doctor—but I do feel rather . . .”

  “Which is no surprise,” volunteered Alexander, who stood farthest from Mrs. McScurrie and therefore felt less at risk. “If you were a cat, hen, you’d have barely a life left—one inch lower, and yon thunderbolt would have burned you to a crisp.” He turned to his friends. “Lucky for her, was it not, lads, that we were in search of shelter too, and coming up behind her in our cars, and able to carry her back here in safety once the bolt had struck?”

  “And lucky for us,” said Archie, seizing his cue, “that we’d not already reached that shelter, else it would have been us burned to a crisp, instead. Scattered to the four winds, what’s more,” he made a point of adding, as his colleagues muttered corroboratively beside him. “I havenae seen anything like the way yon wee wooden hut was blown to shivereens since I don’t know when—but lightning’s gey powerful stuff. A body can never tell what it will do.”

  The conspirators tried not to look at Miss Seeton as the story they’d taken such care to concoct was presented for her approval. Since nobody else in the hall was disputing their version of events, it rested with their former victim, now their (possible) nemesis, who, while Dr. Beltie held one hand captive as he took her pulse, raised the other to her head again, blinked, and said,

  “Oh, dear—I suppose—that is, I know I must thank you kind gentlemen, from what you have said, but I really can’t—can’t say—can’t remember, I’m afraid, anything about it. There was another kind gentleman, driving the bus—and he told me about the loch, and the bird-watching shelter . . .”

  As she paused, and frowned with the effort of memory, the conspiratorial chorus was heard murmuring that it, too, had harboured a desire to learn more of the loch’s feathered denizens—at which Hamish McQueest, whose attention, like that of everyone else, had been focussed on Miss Seeton, put his hand thoughtfully to his moustache and twirled it. Not a hint of doubt, however, could be sensed in any other occupants of the hall.

  “Amnesia,” pronounced the doctor, now shining a pencil torch into Miss Seeton’s eyes. “Mild concussion as well, of course, and shock—but they’ll both wear off, in time.”

  “And what about the amnesia?” enquired Alexander, while his fellow conspirators held their collective breath. “Puir wee soul—it’s to be hoped she never remembers what a gey close shave she’s had . . .”

  Dr. Beltie shrugged. “She might, she might not—there’s always a risk, in a case of this sort. Amnesia’s a funny thing—but she’ll come to no harm, that’s for certain. She was lucky, though, that you found her when you did. Lying out in the rain, unconscious . . .”

  He clicked his tongue, and began to issue instructions concerning Miss Seeton’s well-being which rendered inaudible the sighs of relief from Alexander, Archie, Angus, and their friends. That thunderbolt which had knocked Miss Seeton’s umbrella out of Alexander’s stunned grasp had served also to knock the nonsense out of the entire Jacobite gang, who had watched with horrified eyes the explosion of the wooden hut, to which they had been on the point of returning once their captive was safely immured within Archie’s battered van; and the realisation of exactly what they had planned to do—of what they’d been urged to do by somebody else who’d done most of the planning for them—had struck them with as much force as the thunderbolt had struck the hut. It did not require Alexander’s frantic words, once he had regained his sense of balance, to convince them that their revolutionary zeal had just undergone a sudden, terminal decline. Their energies would henceforth be concentrated on nothing more important than Miss Seeton’s survival . . .

  “Will she be all right, though, Doctor?” persisted Alexander, as Dr. Beltie drew breath and Miss Seeton murmured her repeated thanks and apologies for all his—for everyone’s—trouble. “She’s taken no serious harm?”

  “Oh, she’ll live.” The doctor looked at Ranald. “I’ll have to deprive you of your guest for a day or so, though. A short stay at the cottage hospital, a few tests, and—”

  “Hospital? What’s wrong? Who’s ill?” The interruption came from Liusaidh, who, flanked by Mel and Miss Beigg, had arrived at the open door in time to catch Dr. Beltie’s final words. “Ranald, is it Marguerite? Where is—Miss Seeton!” The countess caught her breath as she observed her guest’s rather woebegone appearance. “Miss Seeton . . .”

  “Miss S.!” Mel ran across to the oaken bench, brushed aside Dr. Beltie and Mrs. McScurrie, and took her old friend by the hand. “Honey, are you all right? How come you’re always in the wars like this? And what on earth am I going to tell the Oracle?”

  Miss Seeton was seen to perk up at these words, and to look startled. Really, it was most kind of dear Mel to concern herself—but then she was here, wasn’t she, so it was understandable—though she would hardly have supposed that dear Mr. Delphick needed to hear about her having had such a . . . a very remarkable . . .

  As words failed Miss Seeton, so they found expression through almost everyone else. It took a while for Ranald and the rest to explain—in unison until the laird’s authority prevailed—how Miss Seeton had suffered a hairsbreadth visitation from a thunderbolt, appeared to have a touch of amnesia, was otherwise unharmed, had been ministered to by all of them. Mrs. McScurrie, sniffing, then added that such excitement had so upset the bairn—who had come down from the nursery the minute before Miss Seeton was brought in—that she’d been taken straight back upstairs again in the care of the third housemaid. Who had, Armorel appended in her bleakest tones, been threatened with instant dismissal if the nursery door was opened by so much as a crack until the fuss had died down. “As I have no doubt your leddyship,” she concluded, “would have said yourself. If you had been here at the time.”

  “Er, yes.” The housekeeper was skilled at making her employers feel superfluous—and guilty. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. McScurrie.” Liusaidh had retreated to the doorway while Armorel made her complaint, ostensibly to stand beside Miss Beigg, who of the three newcomers was the only one not to have moved since that first appearance. “Ranald,” Liusaidh said, justifying her retreat, “just listen to what we’ve—to what Miss Beigg has found! You’ll never guess, not in a hundred years—Miss Beigg, tell him!”

  Philomena’s eyes sparkled at thus becoming the centre of attention. She had been a silent, though interested, observer of all that was said and done since the return of the Land Rover’s passengers to the castle—and she’d been thinking rapidly. The various attitudes of the assorted groups of men had given her particular cause to ponder. She looked from Miss Seeton to Lord Glenclachan, and from his lordship to Hamish, still hovering close to Calum and the other builders. She rubbed the tip of her nose.

  “I wouldn’t want to be before anyone else who has business with the laird,” she said slowly. “Mr. McQueest, for instance. I’m sure you haven’t taken time away from your hotel to come and help repair the castle roof, have you?”

  “Oh, well, it’s not important, now,” said Hamish, glancing across at Miss Seeton. “Really, it’s not,” and he twirled the tip of his moustache again.

  Alexander stirred. He looked at Hamish. “You’re a wee bit nervous, seemingly,” he said. “There’s no need
of that. There’s nothing at all to worry about. Is there, now?” to the hall in general.

  “Certainly not,” said Ranald, who wondered why Alexander spoke with such strange emphasis, but decided that he, like Miss Seeton, was no doubt suffering from shock. “Nobody has any need to worry about anything now that Miss Seeton’s safe home again—isn’t that right, Doctor?”

  “She’ll be fine,” agreed Dr. Beltie. “Although I’m not so sure about Miss Beigg, if she isn’t allowed to tell us what’s on her mind,” he added, with a smile for Philomena. “Watch your blood pressure there, Philly!”

  Ranald, after a quick look at Liusaidh, begged Philomena’s pardon and asked her to expound upon what his wife had given them to understand was a momentous discovery.

  “That’s one word,” said Philomena, with another glance at Hamish. “If you’re sure?” He nodded, noticing for the first time how she was still standing in the doorway. “We have found,” said Philomena calmly, “the probable motive for Ewen Campbell’s death. If anyone’s interested, that is.”

  Perhaps, she thought gleefully, she should have been an actress rather than an author. The consciousness of having made a sensation—of being the centre of attention—people staring, listening, waiting for her next word—was delightful . . . but her father, of course, would have disapproved. She sighed, then brightened, as the gasps and exclamations died away.

  “I take it,” she said, “that you’re interested. And so will the police be, when we tell them. I’ll be surprised if they came across the sort of information which helped us to solve the crime—partly solve it, that is.” She’d allowed herself to be carried away—oh, Father, how shocking—and backtracked quickly. “We know why, but we don’t know who, not yet—though I’m starting to have my own ideas . . .”

  “It wasnae Malcolm Macdonald,” said Alexander firmly, to the accompaniment of nods and mutters from the other locals. “You’ll never make us believe that—he’s shocked himself to his bed, so he has. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

  Dr. Beltie nodded. “It’s hit him hard, all right—”

  “It wasn’t Malcolm,” broke in Philly Beigg. “At least, I doubt it. Malcolm’s always preferred pearls. He wouldn’t kill a man just for a share of—the gold . . .”

  The uproar as she paused was tremendous. Miss Seeton’s wince went unnoticed even by Mrs. McScurrie, although Mel did pat her comfortingly on the hand; but even Miss Seeton wanted to hear the rest of what Philomena had to say.

  “There have always been rumours of a gold mind around the Glenclachan area,” went on the historian, enjoying herself hugely. “As children, I don’t think any of us didn’t dream of finding it—but we wouldn’t have known what to look for. Nuggets, I imagine, or seams in the rock, but without proper knowledge . . . well, knowledgeable eyes ought to be able to find it, once they know where to look. And we can tell them that all they have to do is follow the track . . .”

  She narrated the Land Rover’s narrow escape, and told how the splitting boulder had revealed the veins of gold at its heart. “Right where Miss Forby, for some reason, seemed to think the answer to the mystery of Ewen’s murder lay . . .”

  Hamish McQueest said, “But of course she’d be trying to find the answer—she’s a police officer, isn’t she? It’s her job.” And once more he pulled at his moustache.

  Alexander spoke before Mel had time to deny her involvement with the constabulary. He had been staring at Hamish throughout the whole of Philomena’s narration, and now said, frowning, “You aye tug at those handlebars of yours when there’s something on your mind, Mr. McQueest. Reminds me of someone I once met—a heavy beard, he had, black as night, and speaking in a whisper on account of naebody was to hear us—fair-spoken he was, though. Could almost talk a body into believing the most remarkable tales . . .”

  Hamish looked at Alexander, then at Ranald. “There’s no law, I hope, that says a man can’t finger his own moustache? And as for resembling someone else with a beard—well, one beard is much like another, in the dark.”

  “I never said it was in the dark,” Alexander told him. Hamish stared, and shrugged.

  “Black as night—the beard or the time of day? To me, there’s very little difference. You’re talking nonsense, Alexander—no doubt it’s the shock of your own narrow escape. From the explosion,” he added, pointedly. “A surprisingly forceful one, for just a bolt of lightning, I believe you said?”

  But Alexander had made up his mind and was not to be intimidated. He shook his head. “That bolt of lightning destroyed all that was in the hut—but even had it not, it wouldnae matter. Ewen Campbell was one of us, Mr. McQueest, as you can never be.” He glanced round at his former colleagues, who were frowning, puzzled, yet had obvious confidence in their erstwhile leader. He spoke directly to Philomena. “You found the gold where Ewen died?”

  “Where his body was found, or near enough, yes.”

  “But it would take a . . . a specialist to know it for what it was, if yon stone hadnae shattered to pieces?”

  “I imagine so. The police will probably have a horde of experts checking the entire area for traces . . .” She wasn’t sure whether she meant traces of gold or traces to show the exact spot of Ewen’s murder.

  “There’s experts,” said Alexander, following her lead, “and experts, as everyone knows. History experts”—with a bow in Miss Beigg’s direction—“and police experts, and mining experts—and what do you suppose that would be, Mr. McQueest, but another word for a mining engineer!”

  At which accusation, Hamish lost his head and made a sudden run for it.

  And afterwards everyone agreed that Philomena could have done nothing else, after he’d so rudely thrust her out of the way, but snatch the targe from the nearest suit of armour and hurl it after him . . .

  So that there were two patients for Dr. Beltie to take to the cottage hospital in his car. One suffering from shock, with slight amnesia, and one suffering from bruises, with severe concussion.

  chapter

  ~28~

  THREE DAYS LATER, Miss Seeton was once more a guest at MacSporran Castle, where she found, to her delight, that Mel had joined the party. As Ranald had explained when Mrs. McScurrie began to grumble, nobody could reasonably expect Miss Forby to feel happy staying on at a hotel whose proprietor she had been partly responsible for putting in gaol.

  For a day or so, Armorel continued to complain, but the discreet manner in which Mel handled her scoop, the skilful manner in which she fended off her importunate Fleet Street colleagues, and the affectionate manner in which she treated—and was treated by—Miss Seeton, all served to promote a gradual thaw. It was not long before the housekeeper was busy in the still room concocting strange herbal messes and producing new forms of liniment, poultice, and balsam which she insisted Miss Forby must use on her ankle, which, after Mel’s exertions during the hunt for Miss Seeton, was slow to recover its former strength.

  Ranald, being not only laird but provost of Glenclachan, was in a position to know much of the police investigations and imparted all the interesting items of news to his wife and guests as he himself learned them.

  One such item he waited to impart until Miss Seeton, who had not abandoned her intention to sketch the main street as a bread-and-butter gift, was safely on her way down to Glenclachan with her pencils, sketchbook, and a small easel the laird remembered using as a boy, which he had unearthed from one of the attics. When he could be sure that she was not about to return, Ranald looked at his wife and his remaining guest and swore them to secrecy before he would say a word.

  Mel had a brief struggle with her professional responsibilities, but the courtesy of a guest outweighed them, she supposed. Besides, she’d had her scoop, and she’d hate not to know the full story, even if she couldn’t use it.

  “Okay,” she said nobly. Ranald smiled.

  “Just this one matter, Mel, and you’ll understand why when you hear it. The rest, you’re free to use in whatever way you see fi
t.”

  “Fair enough.” Mel smiled back, and pronounced herself all ears. Liusaidh seconded this sentiment, and Ranald nodded. “Remember,” he warned them, “keep it quiet . . .”

  And he told them of how Alexander, throwing himself and his friends on the mercy of their clan chief, had confessed everything. The duplicity of Hamish McQueest had shocked them all: his deliberate public mockery of the sacred Cause, to inflame and incite the Jacobites he’d recruited himself; the stealth and disguise he’d used to do so; the reason he’d recruited them, mere sordid gain; the way he’d tried to send Mel, the supposed police officer, chasing after them so that official attention, as well as that of the locals, would be deflected from his recently discovered gold until his claim had been duly staked; the killing of Ewen Campbell, which he’d hoped to blame on Malcolm MacDonald until he realised the Jacobites were sitting targets . . .

  “If you ask me, they’ve learned their lesson,” concluded Ranald, with a smile. “Archduke Casimir and Her Highness Clementina, or whatever they call themselves, can be away back home as soon as they like—nobody’s going to miss them around here. Alexander and the others have sworn off revolution for life, they say, and I’m sure it’s true. They’re good lads, at heart, even if they’re sometimes a little slow on the uptake, which was how McQueest managed to take unfair advantage of them. I don’t honestly think it would serve any purpose to get them into trouble now. Their narrow escape was quite enough to shake them up—Alexander says the way that thunderbolt just missed the tip of Miss Seeton’s umbrella had a profound effect, and not simply because it set fire to the explosives in the hut. The Highlander can be very superstitious, you know. If they set up a sect of brolly worshippers, it wouldn’t surprise me! But seriously, they’re all glad everything’s over without their having had to hurt anyone . . .”

  He turned to Mel with a guilty smile. “I’m afraid I took it upon myself to warn them they’d better not start filling the hospital with flowers and boxes of chocolates, in case Sergeant Trumpie smelled a rat—they weren’t at all happy about hitting poor Miss Seeton on the head, and it’s been a great relief to them to see how quickly she’s bounced back. Your friend—our friend, I hope—is a truly remarkable woman. If that’s what yoga can do for you”—Miss Seeton’s daily routine, while of course private, was no secret; she’d been caught reading the chapter on “A Restless Body Means a Restless Mind” to the baby one evening when all the ministrations of Liusaidh had failed—“then I’m tempted to take it up for myself.”