by M C Beaton
Mrs Halburton-Smythe was a faded blonde woman with quick, timid movements. She was so often dominated by her husband that she rarely voiced an opinion on anything. She would even have allowed Priscilla to invite that dreadful joke of a policeman if her husband had not been so much against it. But it could be said in Mrs Halburton-Smythe’s favour that she hardly ever listened to gossip, and that was why she had seated Captain Peter Bartlett between Jessica and Diana. Jessica tried to ignore the captain by talking to Jeremy, who was on her other side, while Diana picked at her food and stared sulkily in front of her, wondering what on earth Henry Withering found so fascinating about the terrible Lady Helmsdale.
The captain, who had been drinking steadily, glanced to right and left and announced suddenly, ‘Well, I must say you two girls make a lousy pair of po-faced dinner companions.’
Jessica shied like a horse and turned her head away. Diana affected not to hear. Opposite the captain, Mrs Vera Forbes-Grant leaned forward. ‘I’ll entertain you, darling,’ she said in her husky whisky voice, ‘if you don’t think it rude to talk across the table.’
‘I’m rather like you, old girl,’ slurred the captain. ‘Anything’s permissible so long as it don’t frighten the horses.’
‘Oh, Peter.’ Vera gave a nervous laugh. ‘You’re such a little boy when you try to shock. Do you think you’ll get the first brace?’ Word of the bet had already gone around the guests.
‘Who knows?’ said Peter. ‘Damned birds have been dying off like flies.’ ‘S all a Communist plot to ruin sport.’
‘What on earth have the Reds got to do with a lot of game birds?’ asked Vera.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said the captain, leaning forward and putting his elbow in the remains of some cauliflower au gratin. ‘Acid rain.’
‘Acid rain?’
‘Yes, they take it up frozen, see, in planes, above the moors, and they drop out great chunks of frozen acid rain on the grouse.’
‘Oh, I see. They’re stunned to death,’ mocked Vera.
‘Y’know, Vera,’ said the captain, roaring to make himself heard above the boom of Lady Helmsdale’s voice, ‘you are one very dumb blonde … or would be if you got your roots done. Never seen them so black.’
‘There’s no need to get so bloody personal,’ snapped Vera.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded her husband, Freddy, sharply.
‘Peter’s had too much to drink, that’s all,’ whispered Vera. ‘Ignore him.’
But Peter Bartlett had found a new quarry. ‘Turn the volume down a bit, Agatha,’ he shouted suddenly in Lady Helmsdale’s direction. ‘Can’t hear myself think.’
‘You never can,’ roared Lady Helmsdale. ‘Don’t you know it’s because you never think?’
With one of his inexplicable changes of mood, the captain sent Lady Helmsdale an amused wink and then turned to Diana. ‘You are looking very fetching tonight,’ he said. ‘I like that little black number. Suits you.’
Priscilla had met Peter Bartlett before but had never spent more than a few minutes in his company. She was amused to see how the obnoxious captain so easily turned on the charm. Diana was beginning to giggle and blush. Peter then said something across the table to Vera, who looked first startled, then gratified. Then he turned to Jessica and began to whisper in her ear until the frozen look of disapproval left her face and she began to look happy and excited. Priscilla then looked down the table to where Henry was laughing uproariously at something Lady Helmsdale had said.
He really is a pet, thought Priscilla. Mummy and Daddy are so pleased. It’s nice to do the right thing for once. Poor Hamish. I do hope he won’t feel the snub too painfully.
At that moment, Hamish was leaning on his garden gate outside the police station, enjoying the quiet evening. His slavering pet mongrel, Towser, as usual, had flopped down to sleep across his master’s boots. Behind Hamish, from the back of the police station, came the mournful clucking of the hens.
The only thing that worried him was where to find a dinner jacket for the party. He had quickly recovered from the shock of Priscilla’s engagement. Hamish had long ago discovered that it was easier to tuck painful things he could do nothing about at the present away into a far corner of his brain until such time as he could take some action.
He did not know the Halburton-Smythes had written to him not to come. Jessie, their dizzie housemaid, was walking out with Geordie, the baker’s boy, and had met her swain only five yards from the police station. The encounter had made her forget the reason for her having been sent to the village. The housekeeper, Mrs Wilson, had told her to buy a packet of soap powder when she was down in the village, and Jessie remembered only that request. She did not find the note, undelivered, still in her apron pocket until two days later.
Chapter Three
Keep your place and silent be,
Game can hear and game can see.
– Mark Beaufoy
The members of the house party, with the exception of the guest of honour, Henry Withering, and his fiancée, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, looked rather jaded when they gathered in the dining room of the castle on the following evening for the buffet supper.
Jeremy Pomfret appeared looking like a dissipated cherub, with blue circles under his eyes. His room and Peter’s had originally been one triangular-shaped room. It had been converted into two by a wall of thin plasterboard, and the bathroom had been installed to cut across the point of the triangle. Jeremy’s sleep had been disturbed by sounds of noisy love-making coming from Peter’s room all night long. There had also been a lot of toing and froing, and it had sounded as if the gallant captain had been entertaining more than one lady during the night.
The beginnings of a very deep hatred for Peter Bartlett had begun to burn in Jeremy’s old-fashioned, fastidious soul. That hatred had leaped into a flame that very evening, when Jeremy had gone into the bathroom to wash and shave before dinner. There were sopping-wet towels lying all over the floor, and there was a stomach-churning ring of hair round the bathtub, showing that Captain Peter Bartlett had shaved while he was having his bath.
‘Filthy beast,’ raged Jeremy, glowering at Peter across the room. The captain, lean, handsome, beautifully tailored, was being fawned on by Vera, Jessica, and Diana. How can any woman even tolerate being near the man? thought Jeremy. Tomorrow was the Glorious Twelfth, and Peter had still not yet said at what time he would be going out. It was not as if Jeremy could ask the servants; since it was only the pair of them, there were to be no loaders or beaters or even dogs.
Also looking the worse for wear were Lord and Lady Helmsdale. Both wore men’s pyjamas in bed, and they had discovered last night that someone had poured glue into the crotch of each pair. They had spent hours trying to get the offending mess off the embarrassing places it had stuck to. They both blamed the captain.
Sir Humphrey Throgmorton sat listlessly in a corner. He never slept very well anyway. Prunella Smythe had stayed awake most of the night in a stagestruck fever of excitement. Freddy Forbes-Grant had been awakened by his wife’s getting out of bed at two in the morning, saying she was going down to the kitchens to get a glass of milk. When she had not returned by three, he became anxious and went in search of her. When he had given up the search and returned to the bedroom, it was to find Vera once more in bed and fast asleep. He wondered what she had been up to, and that wonder had kept him awake and in a nasty temper until dawn.
Colonel and Mrs Halburton-Smythe had sat up very late debating whether their daughter actually meant to marry this splendid catch or whether she would change her mind. She had resisted their best efforts and had turned down so many eligibles that they found it hard to believe she meant to meet this one at the altar. They also planned to tell the captain to leave immediately after he had bagged his brace, but as they were both frightened of Peter Bartlett’s erratic bouts of vicious temper, each wanted the other to give the captain his marching orders. They had never entertained him as a house guest before and h
ad not realized until now the full horror of the captain’s behaviour. They at last settled on that well-worn ruse employed by the landed gentry for speeding the unwelcome guest on his way – placing a railway timetable beside his bed with the soonest, fastest train underlined in red, and instructing the housekeeper to pack his case and leave it in the hall.
Whatever had put the shadows under the eyes of both Diana and Jessica, they were hugging to themselves, occasionally casting triumphant looks at each other, and then turning away puzzled, each obviously wondering what the other had to look triumphant about.
As well as the members of the house party, there was a sprinkling of local notables, now clustered about Henry, asking for his autograph and laughing at his slightest joke.
Priscilla was proud of Henry. He was so good-natured, so likeable, and so much at ease that all her doubts about their engagement had been laid to rest.
He had appeared during the day in respectably worn casual clothes and was now dressed in a beautifully tailored dinner jacket, the only relic of his past reputation for bohemianism being a pink-striped frilled shirt.
And then she looked across the dining room – it was the only large room in the castle, which was why it was being used for the party – and witnessed the full glory of the arrival of PC Macbeth.
Priscilla stifled a sharp exclamation of dismay and crossed the room to join him.
‘Hamish,’ she hissed, ‘where on earth did you get that frightful dinner jacket from?’
‘It’s a wee bit on the short side,’ admitted Hamish ruefully, looking down at his long, lanky figure. ‘But wee Archie was the only waiter at the Lochdubh Hotel who was off duty tonight.’
The dinner jacket hung loosely on him and the sleeves only came three-quarters of the way down his arm, and his trousers were exposing a long length of woolly plaid sock.
‘Come with me quickly,’ urged Priscilla. ‘Uncle Harry often leaves some of his gear here, and he’s tall and thin. Mummy’s glaring already.’
The Halburton-Smythes had double-barrelled their name after their marriage. Uncle Harry was Mr Paul Halburton, Mary Halburton-Smythe’s brother, an archaeologist who travelled far and wide with the minimum of baggage and who always left most of his wardrobe behind at Tommel Castle after one of his flying visits.
Priscilla led Hamish quickly from the room before her mother could reach her.
Upstairs, in a cell-like room at the top of the castle, Priscilla rummaged through her Uncle Harry’s wardrobe until she found a respectable dinner jacket and trousers. ‘Put these on immediately, Hamish,’ she said. ‘You can hand them back tomorrow. I’ll parcel up Archie’s clothes and put the parcel in the hall and you can pick it up when you leave. Didn’t you get my parents’ message telling you not to come?’
‘No,’ said Hamish, removing the waiter’s dinner jacket and then the abbreviated trousers. ‘I would hae been most offended. I think, as it is, I should go home.’
Priscilla wrestled with her conscience. Her parents would be furious. But Hamish looked so miserable, and he did not seem to have much fun – except with some of the local ladies, Priscilla reminded herself sharply. But he saved every penny to send back to his mother and father and large brood of brothers and sisters over on the east and she was sure he never ate enough.
The door opened, and Jenkins, the Halburton-Smythe’s English butler, walked in. Hamish was just about to put on Uncle Harry’s trousers.
‘Don’t you ever knock?’ snapped Priscilla.
‘A good servant never knocks,’ said Jenkins, his gooseberry eyes bulging with outrage. ‘And what, may I ask, are you doing with this constable, and him without his trousers?’
‘Don’t be a silly twit, Jenkins,’ said Priscilla. ‘You saw Mr Macbeth arrive. He could not possibly put in an appearance in that awful dinner jacket, so I am lending him one of Uncle Harry’s. What are you doing here anyway?’
‘Mrs Halburton-Smythe sent me to look for you. One of the maids said she had seen you coming up here.’
Priscilla bit her lip. Somehow it had never crossed her mind even to turn her back while Hamish was changing his trousers. She had become used to the fact that the Highlander, though quite prudish and shy in some respects, was never self-conscious about appearing undressed. But Jenkins was not a Highlander. And if she pleaded with Jenkins not to tell her mother what he had seen, that might make the whole innocent business seem sinister.
‘Very well, Jenkins,’ said Priscilla. ‘You may go.’
‘And what shall I tell Mrs Halburton-Smythe?’ asked Jenkins, his eyes gleaming with malice. It was not that he disliked Priscilla in any way; it was just that he was a terrible snob and he thought Hamish Macbeth had no right to be attending Tommel Castle as one of the guests.
‘Chust say,’ said Hamish, whose Highland accent became more marked and sibilant when he was annoyed or upset, ‘that Miss Halburton-Smythe will be doon the stairs shortly, and if you add anything to that statement, ye great pudding, I’ll hear o’ it and I’ll take ye apart bit by bit.’
Jenkins glared awfully and then he wheeled about, his arms held out as if carrying a tray, and made a ponderous, stiff-legged exit.
‘He’s like a butler in a fillum,’ said Hamish. ‘I think when he feels his act or accent is slipping, he takes the bus down tae Strathbane and sees another old movie.’
‘Don’t blame old Jenkins too much,’ said Priscilla ruefully. ‘We must have looked like a bedroom farce.’
‘How do I look now?’ asked Hamish anxiously, straightening down the lapels of Uncle Harry’s dinner jacket.
‘Splendid,’ said Priscilla, thinking privately what a difference good clothes made to Hamish’s appearance. He was really quite a good-looking man with his red hair and clear hazel eyes, particularly when he was out of that joke of a uniform. It would be fun to take Hamish in hand. She gave herself a mental shake.
‘Well, if you’re ready, let’s go,’ she added.
‘Are you sure it is all right?’ asked Hamish, hesitating.
‘You shall go to the ball,’ said Priscilla with a grin.
Hamish moved closer to her and looked down at her shyly. ‘You’re looking awf’y pretty tonight, Priscilla.’
Priscilla always dressed in what pleased her and never bothered about the dictates of fashion. She was wearing a leaf-green chiffon blouse with a V-necked frilled collar and a black evening skirt. Her fair hair fell in a smooth line to her shoulders. Her only jewellery was the emerald-and-diamond engagement ring Henry had bought her at Aspreys. She looked up into Hamish’s eyes and felt strangely awkward and uncomfortable. Up until that precise moment, Priscilla had always been at ease in the policeman’s company. With Hamish, she felt obscurely that she could be herself and that Hamish would always like her no matter what she did. It was that old feeling of undemanding intimacy that had made her stay in the room while he changed his trousers. For the moment that easiness had fled, and Priscilla felt herself beginning to blush.
She took a step backwards and mumbled, ‘Let’s go.’ Aware of Hamish’s curious eyes on her, she scooped up the waiter’s clothes, draped them over her arm, and hurried from the room without looking back to see if he was following her.
When she reached the dining room, she abandoned Hamish to his fate and went to join Henry. He was happily talking to his admirers and, to her relief, had not noticed her absence from the room.
At last she looked over to see how Hamish was faring. The policeman was engaged in conversation with Jeremy Pomfret and the Helmsdales. Priscilla’s parents had been thwarted in their intention of throwing Hamish out by the Helmsdales’ welcome of him. For Hamish took many prizes at shooting contests and Lord Helmsdale was one of his admirers, as was Jeremy Pomfret. Lady Helmsdale did not know Hamish, but she found him a nice, pleasant man with a refreshing air of shyness – unlike that horrible Peter Bartlett, that cad, who had now drunk enough to turn nasty.
Lady Helmsdale was further pleased when Hamish turned out to
have intelligent views on the decline of the grouse population. ‘If the decline continues,’ said Hamish, ‘most of Scotland’s moor owners will hae no alternative but to opt for intensive sheep farming or forestry planting, and that would mean the loss of the heather and the heather accounts for ninety per cent of the grouse. It would also lead to a verra serious loss of sporting income, rural employment, not to mention the tourist revenue.’
Jeremy, encouraged by Hamish’s shy, respectful manner, found courage to air his own views. Hamish listened with half an ear, while he picked up snippets of conversation from other parts of the room. While appearing to attend closely to Jeremy and the Helms-dales, he was indulging that intense Highland curiosity of his to the hilt.
There wasn’t a woman as well-dressed as Priscilla in the room, he thought. Vera was wearing last year’s fashion of slim sheath with three belts. But Vera was plump, and all she had achieved was three spare tyres instead of one. Hamish knew Vera by sight. He did not know Diana, but he thought it was a pity that such a beautiful girl should be dressed in funereal black that was bunched up, Japanese-style, about her middle. The horsy girl beside her, mused Hamish, turning his gaze on Jessica, should surely never have gone in for an orange strapless gown. Every time she moved her shoulders, her bones stuck out in all sorts of odd places.
Jessica and Diana had drawn a little aside from Vera and Peter.
‘I wish you would stop staring at me in that smug way and saying how tired you are,’ whispered Diana. ‘If you’ve got one of the gamekeepers into your bed, you should keep quiet about it.’
‘I would hardly call Peter a gamekeeper,’ giggled Jessica.
‘What!’ Diana almost spluttered with rage. ‘He was with me!’
‘He couldn’t have been,’ said Jessica. ‘He was with me.’
Both girls glared at each other and then gradually the anger died out of their eyes to be replaced by a look of mutual consternation.
