Death of a Cad

by M C Beaton

  The nearest town to both was Lybster. He sat down at his desk and phoned his fourth cousin, Diarmuid Grant, who had a croft outside Lybster. The conversation took over an hour. Things could not be hurried. There was the weather to be discussed, the decline in the grouse population, the vagaries of tourists, the price of sheep at the Lairg sales, the welfare of Diarmuid’s large brood of children, before the backgrounds of Jessica Villiers and Diana Bryce could be gone into.

  By the time he put down the phone, Hamish was conscious of a feeling of excitement. He may as well, he thought, put through a few more calls and find out what he could about the other members of the house party.

  By eleven o’clock, he had only gone halfway down the list.

  He decided to leave the rest until the morning.

  The next day was calm and quiet, ‘a nice soft day’ as they say in Scotland, which means a warm and weeping drizzle.

  There was no news from the castle. Even Jessie failed to appear in the village. Hamish politely dealt with any members of the press who turned up. He considered ‘No comment’ too rude a form of dismissal for his Highland taste, served anyone who arrived at the police station with strong tea and biscuits, and sent them on their way to Tommel Castle, turning a deaf ear to their complaints that they had already been there and had been turned away at the gates.

  He called in at the grocers-cum-hardware-cum-post-office-cum-off-licence for a bottle of good whisky in anticipation of Anderson’s promised evening visit. He made various phone calls to friends and relatives around Scotland and then to Rory Grant on the Daily Chronicle in London. Satisfied he had collected enough to open up several new angles in the case, he settled down to wait for Anderson.

  But the long quiet day dripped its way into darkness and there was no sign of the detective.

  Again, Hamish felt anger rising up inside him. A proper superior officer would at least have had him out searching the moors for clues instead of leaving him in such isolation.

  He tried to forget about the case, but his mind kept turning over what he had heard on the phone and what he had overheard at the party.

  Hamish usually preferred warm bottled beer as a drink, but that evening he found himself opening up the bottle he had bought to entertain Anderson and pouring himself a hefty measure.

  Soothed at last by the spirit, he was able to convince himself he was better off out of the case. Surely Blair, with the whole forensic team and two detectives to help him, would produce something.

  But the next morning he awoke to a day of wind and glitter. A warm gale was blowing in from the Gulf Stream, carrying snatches of voices and strains of radio music from the nearby houses. The sun sparkled on the choppy waters of Lochdubh, hurting Hamish’s eyes as he struggled out to feed the hens and geese. A sea-gull floated with insolent ease near his head, eyeing the buckets of feed with one prehistoric eye. In the field behind the police station, rabbits scampered for shelter, and up against the blinding blue of the sky, rooks were being tossed by buffets of wind like bundles of black rags. It was a day of false spring, a day of anticipation, a day when you felt that if something did not happen soon, you would burst. Streams of peat-smoke rushed down from the chimney, to be shredded by the minor gales blowing around the corner of the station. Hamish, like most of the villagers, kept the kitchen fire going winter and summer because the hot water was supplied from a boiler at the back of the hearth.

  The one nagging fact that there was a murderer on the loose and that he was not being allowed to do anything about it returned to plague him.

  Hamish collected the eggs from the hen-house and returned to the kitchen. Someone was knocking loudly on the door of the police station.

  Expecting a hung-over member of the press, Hamish went to open it.

  Anderson stood on the step, a wide grin on his face.

  ‘You’re to come with me, Macbeth,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘To the castle. Blair’s been deposed.’

  ‘Come in and wait till I put my uniform on,’ said Hamish. ‘What happened?’

  Anderson followed him into the bedroom.

  ‘Well, you ken how Blair’s been oiling and creeping around the colonel …’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Hamish. ‘You just said he’d turned creepy.’

  ‘Aye, well, he’s been touching his forelock to the colonel while snapping and bullying the guests. I told him what you had said, and he lost his temper and insisted on keeping them all up half the night. Turns out the colonel roused the Chief Constable out of his bed and read the riot act and the Chief roused the Super at Strathbane out of his bed and read the dot act, so at dawn Chief Superintendent John Chalmers arrives and rouses us up out of our beds. Why had Blair subjected possibly innocent people to such a grilling? Because, says Blair, of vital new evidence. Where did said evidence come from? From the local bobby, chips in I. Where is said local bobby? Dismissed from the case, says Miss Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, appearing in a dressing gown, because Hamish Macbeth is too highly intelligent a man for Inspector Blair, she says nastily, and if you ask her opinion, Blair wants said Macbeth off said murder in case said Macbeth solves it. Get Macbeth, says the Super, and sends Blair out to join the common bobbies who are ploughing through the heather still looking for that gun-cleaning outfit. So here I am.’

  Hamish laughed. ‘I’d love to see Blair’s face. But will he no’ make life a misery for you when this case is over?’

  ‘No,’ said Anderson. ‘I’m a bigger creep than Blair, and I’ll toady so much, he’ll forget about the whole thing.’

  ‘Nearly ready,’ said Hamish, buttoning his tunic.

  ‘What about a bit o’ breakfast?’ wheedled Anderson. ‘They’re not going to give us time to have any when we get to the castle.’

  Hamish made bacon-and-egg baps and tea, eating his own breakfast in record time and then standing impatiently over Anderson until the detective had finished.

  He agreed to go in Anderson’s car, leaving Towser to roam the garden.

  ‘Find out anything more?’ asked Anderson.

  ‘Aye,’ said Hamish. ‘A lot more. I tell you this, Jimmy Anderson, it’s a fair wonder someone waited this long to murder Bartlett!’

  Chapter Eight

  Boundless intemperance

  In nature is a tyranny, it hath been

  The untimely emptying of the happy throne,

  And the fall of many kings.

  – Shakespeare

  Superintendent John Chalmers looked like an ageing bank clerk. He was tall and thin, with grey hair and watery blue eyes that peered warily out at the world as if expecting another onslaught of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He had a small black moustache like a postage stamp above a rabbity mouth. His ears stuck out like jug handles, as if God had specially made them that way to support his bowler hat.

  He had been out in the grounds somewhere and was returning to the castle when Hamish and the detective arrived.

  He greeted Hamish courteously and asked him to accompany him into the castle.

  The colonel had given up his study to the police. It was a dim little room filled with the clutter of a man who had lost interest in field sports some years ago. Dusty game bags were thrown in one corner under shelves of Badminton Library books on hunting, shooting and fishing. A pair of green wellington boots held a selection of fishing rods.

  There was an unusual stuffed fox in a glass case. It was lying down on its side, looking as if it had been sleeping peacefully at the time it was shot. The superintendent looked down at it sadly for several moments before taking off his bowler hat, polishing it with his sleeve and hanging it on one of the fishing rods.

  He sat down behind a battered wooden desk, waved Hamish into a chair opposite, and said to Anderson, who was hovering in the doorway, ‘Go down to the kitchens and question the servants again. See if you can get them to like you. People will not talk if you put their backs up.’

  When Anderson
had gone, he turned to Macbeth. ‘Now, Constable,’ he said, ‘it looks as if we’ll need to start again from the beginning. The people at this house party are very upset and claim they have been treated badly. I do not know if that is true or not, but we’ll soon find out. I gather from Anderson that you know a little about the guests?’

  ‘I know quite a lot more now,’ said Hamish. ‘I made various phone calls to find out about their backgrounds.’

  ‘We now have several reports coming in from different police stations. Ah, here is PC Macpherson, who will take the shorthand notes. Now, the first one who’s agreed to be interviewed all over again is Colonel Halburton-Smythe. Having dragged me into the case, he is naturally now anxious to be as helpful as possible. You listen closely to my line of questioning, and if there’s something you know that we don’t know, I shall expect you to step in and put in your own questions. Take that chair over by the window and look as unobtrusive as possible.’

  Macpherson went to fetch the colonel, who soon came bustling in. He looked taken aback to see Hamish there, but after a little hesitation he sat down and faced the superintendent.

  The colonel appeared pleased to answer the series of polite and simple questions. He said the party had gone on much later than they had expected – until two in the morning. No one had therefore been up and about around the time the captain was supposed to have gone out on the moors. Yes, he had known about the bet with Pomfret, but not about Bartlett’s deal with the Arabs. The guns in the gun room had not been used since last season. This August, Bartlett and Pomfret had brought their own guns.

  Hamish remained quietly in his chair, looking out of the window, which faced on to the front of the castle.

  The colonel ended by saying that Henry Withering and his daughter wanted to be interviewed next, as they were going out for the day.

  The colonel went out and Henry Withering came in. He was wearing a lovat green sweater over a checked shirt and cavalry-twill trousers. He seemed composed and anxious to be helpful.

  No, he said, he hadn’t a clue who would want to bump off poor Peter. Mind you, he went on, there was no denying Peter was a terror with the ladies and had a way of putting people’s backs up.

  ‘And do you have a gun yourself, Mr Withering?’ asked Chalmers.

  There was a slight pause while Henry studied his nails. ‘I’ve got one somewhere,’ he said eventually. ‘Probably at home at my parents’ place in Sussex.’

  ‘Are you a good shot?’

  ‘Never was much good,’ said Henry. ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Just a little longer,’ said Chalmers soothingly. ‘How well did you know Captain Bartlett?’

  ‘Well, I used to run into him a lot. He spent a little time in London before he rejoined his regiment. One meets the same people at parties and that sort of thing.’

  ‘By parties, I assume you mean social parties?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it appears that, until recently, you did not go to social events. You are on record as saying you despised them.’

  Henry laughed. ‘Very possibly.’ he said. ‘I usually tell the press what they want to hear. But one went just the same.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Chalmers cautiously, ‘that I would say it was the press exactly, meaning the mass media. No one had heard of you until recently. But I believe you wrote an article once for The Liberated Workers’ World.’

  ‘One says silly things in one’s youth.’

  ‘This was three years ago.’

  ‘Look,’ said Henry with an engaging smile, ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit of a fraud. I had to go along with all that left-wing stuff simply because you have to be left-wing to get your plays put on. The big theatres only take trash. You’ve no idea what it’s like to sweat your guts out on a play and then find no one wants to put it on.’

  ‘So you only knew Captain Bartlett as someone you bumped into at parties?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘You must, on the other hand,’ said Hamish Macbeth softly, ‘haff seen a good bit of the captain when you were both sharing that flat off Sloane Square. That would be two years ago.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Henry, not looking at Hamish, but continuing to smile at the superintendent. ‘I said he could share my digs when he was up in London, that sort of thing. I was away in the provinces most of the time. I came back to find the place a mess and that he’d been using my phone to call someone in the States. I left his suitcase with the porter at the block of flats and changed the locks.’

  ‘Nonetheless, Mr Withering,’ said the superintendent severely, ‘you said nothing in your earlier statement about having known Captain Bartlett particularly well.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Henry. ‘Casual acquaintance, that’s all.’

  Chalmers took him slowly and carefully over all the things Henry had said in his earlier statement, congratulated him politely on his forthcoming marriage, and told him to tell Miss Halburton-Smythe to step along.

  ‘You’ve been busy, Constable,’ said Chalmers when Henry had left the room. ‘How did you find out Bartlett had been staying with him?’

  ‘I have a relative who works for the Daily Chronicle,’ said Hamish. ‘He asked the man who runs the social column about Bartlett. Seems this social editor has a memory like an elephant and he had written an article on Captain Bartlett, calling him the everlasting debs’ delight. It appears that part of doing the Season was to have an affair with Peter Bartlett. He had been an indefatigable deb-chaser since he was a young man. A merry life o’ broken hearts and paternity suits.’

  ‘Was he attractive?’

  ‘Aye, he was a fine-looking man, a bit like a fillum star. I suppose you’ve had the forensic results of the swabs taken from everyone’s hands?’

  ‘Yes, they’re all as clean as a whistle. We had a bit of excitement over the results of Pomfret’s swabs, but he turns out to be a heavy smoker and it can often turn up almost the same results. I understand it was you who discovered it was murder, not accident.’

  ‘Did Mr Blair tell you that?’

  ‘No, it was Colonel Halburton-Smythe. Much as he dislikes Blair, he is confident that an expert like myself will soon prove Blair was right and you were wrong.’

  Hamish grinned. ‘And if it hadnae been for my interference, they could all have been feeling comfy?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Priscilla Halburton-Smythe walked into the room. She was wearing a dark red silk blouse with a cream pleated skirt. Her smooth blonde hair was curled in at the ends.

  Superintendent John Chalmers looked at her with approval.

  He took her through her statement, ticking off each point. Then he half-turned and looked expectantly at Hamish.

  And for the first time, the superintendent began to have serious doubts about Hamish’s intelligence. The constable was sitting staring vacantly into space, a half-smile curling his lips.

  Chalmers frowned. The minute he had heard of this village constable and of how competently he had outlined how the murder had been done, he had lost no time in sending Anderson to fetch him. Unlike Blair, Chalmers was only interested in results. The fact that this trait had elevated him to the rank of superintendent should have told Blair something.

  Hamish was in the grip of a powerful fantasy. He could see it all as clear as day. He was accusing Henry Withering of the murder, and Priscilla was throwing herself into Hamish’s arms for protection. Henry’s face was distorted in a villainous sneer.

  ‘Macbeth!’

  Hamish came back to reality with a bump.

  ‘Have you any questions to ask?’

  Hamish shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, Miss Halburton-Smythe,’ he said, not meeting Priscilla’s clear gaze. ‘I wass, as you know, at the party afore the morning the murder took place. I am surprised you have not mentioned in your statement that Mrs Forbes-Grant threw her drink at the captain.’

  Priscilla flushed and looked uncomfortable. ‘You must admit, when it came to
women Peter was enough to try the patience of a saint,’ she said. ‘I assumed at the time he had made one of his off remarks. Earlier in the day, he told me my home was the most pretentious, uncomfortable slum he had ever had the ill luck to be billeted in. I nearly slapped his face. I suppose you could describe him, on the face of it, as a man who could hold his drink in that he never fell over or was sick over your shoes or anything like that. But when he’d had a couple, he would turn immediately from being a very charming and attractive man to a downright nasty one.’

  ‘Had you known him particularly well before this visit?’ asked the superintendent.

  ‘If you mean, was I ever one of his victims, the answer is no. As I said in my earlier statement, I had met him from time to time during the shooting season at other people’s houses.’

  ‘And do you know how to handle a gun?’

  ‘A shotgun? Yes.’

  ‘And would you describe yourself as a good shot, Miss Halburton-Smythe?’

  ‘Oh, no, Superintendent.’ Priscilla suddenly smiled at Hamish. ‘I’m certainly not in Hamish’s class.’

  ‘Hamish being …?’

  ‘Police Constable Macbeth.’

  One watery blue eye swivelled curiously in Hamish’s direction. Hamish folded his arms and looked at the ceiling.

  ‘That will be all for the moment,’ said Chalmers, turning back to Priscilla. ‘Do you know who’s volunteered to be next?’

  ‘Pruney … I mean Miss Prunella Smythe. She wants to get it over with so that she can go down to the village and buy some things.’

  ‘Very well. Send her in.’

  ‘I suppose you’re looking for a pair of gloves?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Yes, we can’t eliminate the guests simply because they passed the forensic test. There is evidence that our murderer was wearing gloves,’ said Chalmers.

  Pruney fluttered in and sat down, crouched in the chair in front of the superintendent, and stared at her shoes – which were of the Minnie Mouse variety – as if she had never really seen them before.