‘Dunwinnie.’
‘Your business is there?’
‘My business, my dear Clanclacket, is there or thereabouts.’ For a few minutes the emphasis of my remark did hold him up, but we were scarcely through North Queensferry before he was employing another tactic.
‘Um, yes – Dunwinnie. A bonny spot. I don’t know, though, that I know many people in that neighbourhood. Do you know the Frasers of Mervie?’
‘No.’
‘The Grants of Kildoon?’
‘I believe I have met Colonel Grant. But we are not acquainted.’
‘The Guthries of Erchany?’
‘I have never, I think, met a member of that family.’
‘Old Lady Anderson of Dunwinnie Lodge?’
‘She was a friend of my father’s. But our firm has never done business for her and I do not know that we have met.’
Clanclacket relapsed for some minutes now into baffled silence. I had got past the danger-point, I congratulated myself, by a neat formula enough. Presently he tried another shot. ‘I wonder about the other families thereabout. Do you know who they are?’
With great satisfaction I replied: ‘I am acquainted with none of them.’
That – as Aeneas is accustomed to put it – really fixed him. And balked in his endeavours to acquire information he presently fell back on imparting it. ‘About the Frasers of Mervie,’ he said. ‘I could tell you of certain curious episodes–’
This is Clanclacket’s customary proem to extended dissertation; for over an hour we pursued the eccentricities of the Frasers of Mervie and all their kin about the globe. In these matters Clanclacket is notoriously encyclopaedic and as the Frasers began to show signs of exhaustion it occurred to me that this knowledgeableness, if tactfully exploited, might have its immediate utility for me. ‘Clanclacket,’ I said as if with sudden interest, ‘the Grants of Kildoon – do you know much about them?’
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No! Nothing at all. But if you had happened to ask me about the Guthries of Erchany–’
I endeavoured to assume the identical expression with which I had listened to the vagaries of the Frasers, though with quite other feelings. My knowledge of Mr Guthrie of Erchany, the dead man to whose late seat I was now travelling, was confined to the intelligence, gleaned from a corner of that morning’s Scotsman, that he had fallen from a tower on the night of Christmas Eve in circumstances that awaited investigation. Any information that I could glean from the anecdotal habit of Clanclacket as to the character and connections of this unfortunate person was likely to be serviceable. I confess to stimulating a yawn as I asked indifferently: ‘They are interesting folk?’
‘They have been interesting folk for centuries! Take Andrew Guthrie, known as the Gory Guthrie, who was killed at Solway Moss–’
There was no doubt, I reflected as some forty minutes later my companion’s chronicle was approaching the fringes of the eighteenth century, that these Guthries of Erchany were interesting folk enough; it was doubtful whether one could find a more picturesque record among the minor families of Scotland. But my interests were on the present occasion contemporary and I possessed my soul in patience until Clanclacket should come down to the present generation and its immediate predecessors. As evening fell and we ran further north through a countryside submerged in snow I was not inclined to feel the mission on which I was engaged the less uncomfortable and wearisome; nevertheless, I almost regretted the speed at which we were travelling, being apprehensive lest we should arrive at Perth before we arrived at Mr Ranald Guthrie.
‘…And take Ranald Guthrie, the present laird. Once more, the same morbid constitution – I believe in an aggravated form. I believe’ – and here Clanclacket sank his voice and glanced into the corridor to make sure he was not overheard – ‘I believe he is artistically inclined.’
‘Dear me!’
‘But we must be accurate, Wedderburn; we must always be accurate. I hasten to add that this inclination may be a thing of the past.’
‘I am sure it is, Clanclacket.’
‘Eh – what’s that? You know nothing about it, man. I’m telling you that as a lad this Ranald ran away from home and went on the stage.’
‘Ah!’
‘Exactly. A thoroughly unstable stock. But we must be fair. He was then exceedingly young. And he was reclaimed. After some months – a year maybe – he was reclaimed and, of course, sent abroad. Colonial life was plainly the only thing. They chose Australia; it has the advantage over Canada in such cases of being three or four times as far away. But Ranald didn’t like it. On first seeing Fremantle harbour he endeavoured to commit suicide.’
‘Dear me! I suppose this is all ancient gossip now? It would be difficult to have that attempted suicide, for instance, sworn to?’
‘Really Wedderburn, you should know I never gossip. These are facts confidentially communicated. Long-past history though the incident be, and remote as is the site of it, I could as it happens put my finger on an eyewitness tomorrow. Ranald Guthrie, I say, attempted to drown himself and his life was fortunately saved by the bravery of his elder brother.’
‘So a brother went to Australia with him?’
‘Ian Guthrie. He too had given a little trouble. Not, I think, anything serious: I have no evidence of artistic temperament in Ian. Possibly merely a matter of young women; we must be fair. And I believe that no scandal circulated. Both these brothers were generally thought to have gone abroad because they were reluctant to enter the ministry. Of course when Ranald inherited he came home.’
‘Ian had died?’
‘Yes. There was some tragedy. I believe both went prospecting or exploring and that Ian got lost. His body was later recovered by a rescue party. Ranald, who is as I say an unstable person, was upset.’
‘Upset?’
‘Greatly upset. When he came home he lived in a very peculiar manner. I understand that he still does and that he is, in fact, a miser and a recluse.’
‘Was.’
‘I beg your pardon, Wedderburn?’
‘Ranald Guthrie has just died. And here is Perth. I am afraid I must hurry. Pray, Clanclacket, keep Blackwood’s. Goodbye.’
2
From Perth to Dunwinnie the railway line had as yet been but imperfectly cleared of snow and as a result my train ran over an hour late. Once arrived, moreover, I had the utmost difficulty in securing a conveyance the driver of which was willing to undertake the perils of a night drive to Kinkeig. I was told that Dr Noble had been through, as also the police and the sheriff, and that word had come back of the sheriff’s judging it necessary to hold an inquiry into the manner of Mr Guthrie’s death. I saw that it was necessary to push forward and, having secured some modification – though a mere solacium indeed – of the first exorbitant tariff proposed, I succeeded in reaching Kinkeig without notable hazard just short of eleven o’clock. It is the merest hamlet and I counted myself fortunate in securing simple but adequate accommodation at an inn laconically known as the Arms.
My client, whom I supposed to be the young Mr Gylby, was still at Erchany and thither I proposed to proceed – I had better, perhaps, say penetrate – on the following morning. Precise information would then be available. Meanwhile I did not think it wise altogether to neglect the voice of rumour. I proceeded to the parlour – the bar being of course closed – and rang the bell. The mistress of the house, a Mrs Roberts, answered, and to her I said: ‘Would you be so good as to bring me–’
‘What you’ll be in need of,’ interrupted Mrs Roberts firmly, ‘is a nice cup of malted milk.’
It is a maxim of sound forensic practice that to give play to the eccentricities of a witness’ character is the surest technique for landing fish. I said: ‘That is exactly what I was going to ask for. Please let me have a nice cup of – ah – malted milk.’
Mrs Roberts hurried away and it is proper to testify that the potation with which she returned was not unpalatable. Moreover she was disposed
to be talkative, and for the next half-hour I listened to information about the affair at Erchany which in places made me open my eyes very wide indeed. Little more than twenty-four hours before I had been absorbed in the tranquil study of in-field and out-field in the eighteenth century. Now I was confronted with a story having all the characteristics of what students call the Senecan Drama: revenge, murder, mutilations and a ghost. Must I confess to a trick of my nephew Aeneas’ temper coming upon me as I listened, and to an unwonted quickening of the pulse of the senior partner of Wedderburn, Wedderburn and McTodd? I have always felt a curious attraction in romances of detection – a species of popular fiction which bears much the same relation to the world of actual crime as does pastoral poetry to the realities of rural economy – and now as I listened to the good Mrs Roberts I seemed to be faced with a rank confusion of kinds. Mr Guthrie’s death was actual enough, but it was set in just such a context of fantasy as might have been woven round it by the operation of a wayward and irresponsible literary mind. Or perhaps it was rather the folk-mind, with its instinct for bizarre elaboration, that I had to deal with. In listening to Mrs Roberts I was listening to the voice of rumour, perhaps to the lingering myth-making faculty of simple people. Revenge, murder, mutilations and a ghost – these, it might be, were but adding one more to the romantic legends of the Guthries with which Clanclacket had been entertaining me earlier that day.
Revenge and murder. A certain Neil Lindsay, a young man of loose principles and a cruel heart, had taken upon himself to revive and prosecute an immemorial family feud with the Guthries. This he had done by hurling Ranald Guthrie from a high tower at midnight on Christmas Eve, stealing a large sum of gold, and making off with a young woman variously reported as his enemy’s ward, niece, daughter and mistress.
Mutilations and a ghost. Not content with these abominable deeds the young man Lindsay had paused in his flight to inflict a most horrid outrage upon Guthrie’s dead body, chopping a number of fingers from the corpse in macabre requital of some savage incident between the families five hundred years ago. And this lurid and perverted deed was in its turn crying out for vengeance; at the midnight of Christmas Day Ranald Guthrie’s ghost had been abroad in Kinkeig, waving its maimed hands to the moon and crying out awfully of that hell from which it had been a few hours released to walk the earth.
I have here compressed the narrative of Mrs Roberts into a few sentences; rumour is invariably diffuse. But I was, as I have intimated, curiously compelled by her wandering recital; the story had a measure of imaginative coherence which evoked something like conviction; I found a positive effort was required to view it critically – to note, for instance, the interesting rapidity with which the legend had been enriched with supernatural accretions. As a humble student of folklore I thought this aspect of Kinkeig’s reactions to the death of its laird worth some further inquiry. ‘Mrs Roberts,’ I asked, ‘have many folk seen the ghost?’
‘Faith, yes.’
‘You yourself?’
‘No, faith!’ Mrs Roberts looked quite scared at the mere suggestion.
‘Then who?’
Mrs Roberts considered. ‘The first would be Mistress McLaren, the smith’s wife. The pump in her yard was frozen fast and she was going down the road for water when she saw the uncouthy thing right afore her in the moonlight. She gave a scraitch poor creature, that was heard by half Kinkeig. And you couldn’t have better proof than that.’ Mrs Roberts must have detected a sceptical temper in my inquiries, for she produced Mrs McLaren’s conclusive scream with a good deal of triumph.
‘No indeed, Mrs Roberts. And what happened then?’
‘The McLaren body was just outside Ewan Bell the sutor’s. She ran in to him fair terrified and he took her home.’
‘And did Mr Bell see the ghost?’
‘That he did not.’
‘Does Mrs McLaren often see ghosts?’
My hostess was much struck by this question. ‘Fancy your asking that, sir! A Highland body she is and second-sighted; it’s her that says she foresaw the Erchany daftie come louping through the snow with news of the Guthrie’s death. And it was her that knew the Guthrie had the evil eye.’
‘Well, in your own words, Mrs Roberts, you couldn’t have better proof than that. And who was the next to meet the ghost?’
Mrs Roberts looked at me rather suspiciously. ‘The next would be Miss Strachan the schoolmistress.’
‘Miss Strachan. Now do you happen to know if this Miss Strachan had any reason to have Erchany and its affairs much on her mind?’
Mrs Roberts’ suspicion became plainly tinged with respect. ‘Faith, and that’s unco strange to ask! It was the Strachan quean that had a right awesome meeting with the laird at Erchany a while back.’
‘Quite so. And who else saw Mr Guthrie’s ghost?’
Mrs Roberts looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don’t for certain know that –’
‘In fact, nobody else! Just those two and not, as you suggested, a number of people?’
I was really quite remorseful over this examination, Mrs Roberts looked so dashed. ‘No,’ she said; ‘I suppose no one else really. Except, of course–’
At this point we were interrupted by the entrance of the lady’s husband, who appeared to be going round shutting up the inn for the night. ‘Mr Wedderburn, sir,’ he said, ‘you’ll surely be wanting a nightcap? And it will be a toddy, I’m thinking, in this dreich weather?’
Mrs Roberts seized my empty cup. ‘Mr Wedderburn, you’ll take another malted milk?’
I divined here some conjugal friction which I had no desire to exacerbate; murmuring an indistinguishable word I picked up my candle and betook myself to bed. But I verily believe that, for all my satisfactory demolition of the supernatural element in Mrs Roberts’ story, I half-expected to meet the ghost of Ranald Guthrie of Erchany in the corridor.
I was awakened in the morning by clamour; hastening to the window, I found this to proceed from the assembled young of Kinkeig, and to be occasioned by the appearance at the tail of the village of a tall and slender youth, armoured in the species of exquisiteness that defies exhaustion or disordered attire, and bearing on his shoulder – the prime cause, this, of the juvenile excitement by which I had been disturbed – implements which I presently identified as ski sticks and skis. It was to be conjectured that here was a visitor from Erchany; I dressed and hurried downstairs. As I had anticipated, the young man was awaiting me. He came forward and said: ‘I am Noel Gylby. I think you must be–’ I rather expected him to add ‘the person sent by my uncle.’ Instead, he concluded: ‘–the gentleman who has been good enough to come and help us?’
‘My name,’ I said, ‘is Wedderburn. And I have come to give what help I can.’
Warmly, but not without the deference proper in the young, Mr Gylby shook me by the hand. ‘Then, sir,’ he said, ‘begin by offering me breakfast!’
In the course of the hour ensuing I found Noel Gylby – though not perhaps without a due sense of his own charm – an agreeable and intelligent youth. His account of the events at Erchany was lively – in places, indeed, what Aeneas would call ‘hard boiled’ – but it was also confident and clear: I noted that if and when the time came here would be an excellent witness. And by extraordinary good fortune he had kept a journal at Erchany. He was good enough to hand it to me and I read it at once. I will here merely add a note on the events subsequent to his last entry.
The Erchany odd lad – orra lad, to give the phrase its local flavour – had reached Kinkeig, as Gylby predicted, shortly after dawn on Christmas Day. His exhaustion was such that it was some time before he could give an articulate account of himself; and it must have been between nine and ten o’clock before anything effective was done. A volunteer had to be found to struggle into Dunwinnie for the doctor, the telephone line having come down in the night. Even then there was likely to be delay; Dr Noble’s most practicable route to Erchany would be along the frozen length of Loch Cailie, and it would be unlikely
that a vehicle could be prepared for him under a matter of hours. A similar delay marked the immediate relief of Castle Erchany. The Kinkeig constable was justifiably doubtful of keeping his bearings without Tammas, and so Tammas had to be given time to recover. Eventually the constable, Tammas and two strong lads set off some time after noon – the escort being occasioned, it may be suspected, by the constable’s sense that he was about to storm a citadel of the blackest magic. Making remarkable time, they reached Erchany soon after four. The constable inspected tower and body, took statements, pocketed keys and drank tea – by which time the hour was too advanced for any sort of safe return. One of the lads, however, was resolute to get back that night – he had a tryst, Gylby imagined, with his lass – and he eventually set out alone and had the good fortune to reach Kinkeig safely at about nine o’clock, bringing with him the constable’s preliminary report. By this time the telephone line had been repaired and the police at Dunwinnie were provided – apparently by Mrs Johnstone the postmistress – with all the information that was available. Meanwhile Dr Noble had reached the castle by way of the loch; like the constable and the second strong lad he spent the night there.
Thursday the twenty-sixth December – the day of my own journey north – was distinguished by the appearance of senior police officers and the sheriff of the county, a person of adventurous disposition who was attracted by the notion of a mystery buried so deep in snow. He came by way of Kinkeig, set out accompanied by his clerk to tramp to Erchany, abandoned the clerk half-way, arrived at the castle, took notes and announced that he would hold an inquiry, turned back, found the unfortunate clerk in a critical condition and carried him on his shoulders back to the village. He then ate a supper the proportions of which I was later to hear graphically described by Roberts, excruciated Mrs Roberts by drinking a bottle and a half of bad claret, and was finally driven off to Dunwinnie, promising to arrange for a fleet of snowploughs next day. I should say that I recount these circumstances not as being strictly relevant to my narrative, but simply as likely to reflect credit on the legal profession in the northern part of these Islands.
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