You must know I was familiar enough with the castle as a lad in the old laird’s time, but of the tower top I had little memory. Only I knew there was an entrance from the parapet walk and when I emerged through the trapdoor it was my plan to walk boldly in and say I’d come as a friend of Lindsay’s to see him safely away with his bride.
The wind was high and I stood for a moment wondering whether to turn to left or right along the open parapet walk. I chose left, which happened to be wrong. That is to say the scene Miss Guthrie came on by holding forward from her French window I came on from the other side. The American lassie’s presence I never knew of. Nor, I think, did Ranald Guthrie: she must have been wrong in thinking he heard her cry out.
I was on the scene a few seconds earlier than she; our movements can be fitted to each other accurately enough by the cry she heard – the cry that brought her away from her window. It was my cry. And I don’t doubt it was loud enough. For I was going cautiously along the battlement, my lantern at my feet, when something rolled out of the darkness that almost tripped me up and sent me over the tower. I put down my lantern and stooped over it. It was a human body.
Everything was a matter of seconds after that. I saw that there was another lantern burning in a niche above a door – the little bedroom door. And the next instant through the door came Guthrie. I straightened up from the huddled form I was stooping over – sore afraid it was Neil Lindsay’s – and took a step back that overturned and put out my lantern. Guthrie became aware of me on that and his axe came up in menace – which was the moment at which Miss Guthrie got her first imperfect sight of what was forward. He advanced on me; the step took him out of the light; the next minutes were a stealthy groping. I knew I was in mortal danger – knew it as well as if Guthrie had read out a declaration of war. And on getting out of it depended not only my own life but that of the man lying helplessly at my feet. For that it was murder that the laird was about I was certain.
He was crouching somewhere in the darkness, manoeuvring for position with all the cunning of that powerful brain. And suddenly he rose up by the parapet, full in the light. He had me in silhouette – as Miss Guthrie had; he had judged that it was enough and that he would take me by surprise that way. His axe was swung back low – a rising stroke that would either gut me or cleave me from the chin up. I had to get in first and I did. So much, Reader, for the death of Ranald Guthrie.
3
I knelt down by the figure in the snow – you’ll remember that Miss Guthrie had retreated and saw nothing of this – and said softly: ‘Man Lindsay – are you all right?’ And at that the figure stirred and turned over on its face. You may take it I was fair scunnered when I saw I was looking at a Guthrie. It was my first awful thought that in the darkness I’d killed the wrong man.
He was drugged, I think, but coming round rapidly. It was only seconds before he opened his eyes on me and whispered: ‘Who are you?’ And at my name his eyes lit up as if he had last heard it but yesterday. He said: ‘I’m Ian – Ian Guthrie. Get me away – secretly.’
Maybe I’d had my fair share of activity that night – enough to satisfy the Athletic Ideal of Miss Strachan herself. But there was no help for it. I pitched my own lantern over the parapet, took up the one burning in the niche, and got Ian Guthrie on my back. I’ve carried a calf that was fell heavier often enough on my father’s croft.
I got him to the trapdoor and through it, and I bolted it from below. It must have been only a couple of minutes later, I suppose, that the Gylby lad was out on the deserted battlements looking about him. With a little help Ian staggered down that long winding stair and along the corridor to near the schoolroom. I looked in; Christine had gone. I got him in and he rested a bit, warming himself before the little fire. Presently he said: ‘Ranald?’
‘I killed him – knocked him over the parapet.’
His face was paper-pale, but now it drained yet paler. ‘Poor crazy chap!’ He was silent for a moment. ‘He was just going to kill me, Mr Bell – after a little operation.’ And he spread out his right hand. ‘Hence the axe.’
It was to be a long time before I fully understood that. You’ll remember Mr Appleby saying that the California Flinders must display no marked character-trait which might become known as quite alien to the Sydney Flinders, and how because of that Ranald had to attempt to get the better of his miserliness. That was true enough. But there was something else about the Sydney Flinders that Appleby didn’t know – and that Ranald, thanks to what Ian had written him, did. In the early days of his radiology Flinders had lost two fingers – as you can easily do, it seems, with that unchancy stuff. Well, Ranald could arrive in California without two fingers readily enough: a little surgical reading, a period of seclusion, rather more than common fortitude – these were all that was necessary. But the body that was to be found in the moat and taken to be Ranald Guthrie’s presented a more difficult problem. Clearly it must not display two fingers amputated long ago. On the other hand a further operation to conceal this would, in normal circumstances, arouse suspicion at once – arouse suspicion through the question: Why have Guthrie’s fingers been cut off? But once Neil Lindsay was suspected of murdering Guthrie that question would – thanks to the dark legend of the Lindsays and the Guthries – receive a sufficient answer, and an answer incriminating Lindsay. The grand difficulty in Ranald’s way with his one enemy was made the most startling point in the case against the other. As Appleby is fond of saying, Ranald Guthrie’s jigsaw was a right neat and economical affair.
But now I was still staring at that right hand of Ian Guthrie’s in mere puzzlement when he got unsteadily to his feet. ‘I hear voices,’ he said – it must have been Gylby and the others coming down from the tower – ‘we’ll be going.’
I looked at him fair stammagasted. ‘Going!’
‘Nobody knows I’m here except the scoundrel Hardcastle, who won’t talk. And Ranald’s death will pass, maybe, as accident or suicide.’
‘Mr Ian, you needn’t think I’m feared of owning to the killing of your daft brother. It was him or you and me.’
‘True enough, Ewan Bell. But do you think I want a lurid scandal because Ranald went off his head? We’ll away to Kinkeig while we may.’
I thought he must be off his head himself to think of getting through the snows that night in his condition. But I know now, of course, what was driving him: he had near a passion – the dark Guthrie passion – to end his days as Richard Flinders. Not unnaturally, when you come to chew on it, for Richard Flinders was what he had made himself through nigh fifty years. At the moment I had to submit to what I had no understanding of and follow him out of the castle. You must remember he knew nothing of Lindsay or the danger the lad was like to be brought to. Nor had I any clear picture of it myself, or maybe I would have made him stay.
An hour before I had been wondering if my strength would take me to Erchany; now I had the task of getting a sick man back the long road to Kinkeig. The shock of it all must have made me half indifferent. I had no thought but that we were like to perish on the way and I felt simply that what must be must be. As it happened we both proved uncommonly tough and we passed Kinkeig kirk as the bell was tolling for the early service. We met no one and for the next twenty-four hours Ian Guthrie lay low in my house. But not quite low enough. The thought of seeing Kinkeig again fascinated him and the next evening he went for a bit dander in the gloaming. Hence, Reader, Ranald Guthrie’s ghost.
He told me his story and by comparing what we knew we puzzled out most of the jigsaw. But Ian still didn’t want to come forward. There would be an inquiry, he said, and he would hold his hand till that was over: if suspicion fell on Lindsay forward he would come; otherwise away he would sail as Richard Flinders and no one any the wiser. And meantime I was to persuade Christine not to let on that I had been at Erchany.
You must judge if I did right when at one point I opposed his plan absolutely. Even if it so turned out that Ian Guthrie need not come alive aga
in to public knowledge, I said, the family and the lawyers must know. And that bit common sense I did succeed in imposing on the rank Guthrie eccentricity of the man. When and if all was quietly over, he agreed, I might get the folk intimately concerned to the castle by night and he would come over from Dunwinnie again and have it out with them. And on that Ian slipped away from Kinkeig in the darkness and tramped back to his Dunwinnie hotel – where, certain, in all the confloption of sporters and curlers Richard Flinders had not been missed.
And that’s all – though I had uneasy hours enough thereafter. I didn’t reckon on the policeman Appleby having gone up to the meikle house when I engineered that family meeting right fortunate it was that he proved a wise man, knowing where to let be. Ranald Guthrie and the coarse creature Hardcastle were both dead, and Ian Guthrie was a childless man whose attitude to the Erchany estate was his own affair. And silence for a time on the full and final story, while it was but indulgence to him, was mercy to Christine Mathers.
4
And so the Guthries have gone from these lands and Castle Erchany is to let. What gear was left in the place unrotted has been dispersed; the family portraits and all the schoolroom stuff were shipped away to Sybil and Christine and then there was a grand sale. The great Flemish table where they sat and had their caviare that night was bought by Dr Jervie for the kirk session. The globes that wee Isa Murdoch hid behind in the gallery were bought by Mistress Roberts of the Arms; she sits in the private now with her teapot on one side and the terrestrial globe on the other, ready to show you what port her bairns wrote from last. Fairbairn of Glenlippet – him that licenses his motor ever by the quarter – bought a great granite louping-stone from the court; folk were sore puzzled to know what use he would make of it but Will Saunders says it will bear a brave inscription to Mistress Fairbairn one day. And all the mouldering theology in the gallery I bought myself: right solid stuff to chew on it has proved and a grand stand-by in the discussions I whiles hold with the minister.
Today I have wandered through the meikle house perhaps for the last time. The winds that ever eddy about Erchany are sighing through the broken windows; warm and scented from the braes though they are they scarcely bring to the castle a suggestion of summer or of the sun. Utterly the place has slipped into the past: I doubt that its only tenants hereafter will be the rats – they have already forgotten the dottled Hardcastle wife – and the martins that know their season. Stone will fall from stone and this high tower to which I have climbed be as forgotten as the Lindsays’ tower in Mervie – the Guthries of Erchany, that have so passionately lived in the life of Scotland, like their rivals remembered only in footnotes to history.
But the Gamleys are back at the home farm. One of Gamley’s lads has taken a wife, a Speyside lass, and now I hear her singing in the field – some crude ephemeral tune such as has nigh killed the true minstrelsy of Scotland. And yet – because it rises joyous and full-throated from the earth – I hear it as an enduring song.
Endnote
[1] Sprunting. Running among the stacks after the girls at night. Ed.
Note on Inspector (later, Sir John) Appleby Series
John Appleby first appears in Death at the President’s Lodging, by which time he has risen to the rank of Inspector in the police force. A cerebral detective, with ready wit, charm and good manners, he rose from humble origins to being educated at ‘St Anthony’s College’, Oxford, prior to joining the police as an ordinary constable.
Having decided to take early retirement just after World War II, he nonetheless continued his police career at a later stage and is subsequently appointed an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, where his crime solving talents are put to good use, despite the lofty administrative position. Final retirement from the police force (as Commissioner and Sir John Appleby) does not, however, diminish Appleby’s taste for solving crime and he continues to be active, Appleby and the Ospreys marking his final appearance in the late 1980’s.
In Appleby’s End he meets Judith Raven, whom he marries and who has an involvement in many subsequent cases, as does their son Bobby and other members of his family.
Copyright & Information
Lament For A Maker
First published in 1938
© Michael Innes Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1938-2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Michael Innes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2009 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 0755121007 EAN: 9780755121007
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
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Appleby Titles in order of first publication
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
1. Death at the President’s Lodging Also as: Seven Suspects 1936 2. Hamlet! Revenge 1937 3. Lament for a Maker 1938 4. Stop Press Also as: The Spider Strikes 1939 5. The Secret Vanguard 1940 6. Their Came Both Mist and Snow Also as: A Comedy of Terrors 1940 7. Appleby on Ararat 1941 8. The Daffodil Affair 1942 9. The Weight of the Evidence 1943 10. Appleby’s End 1945 11. A Night of Errors 1947 12. Operation Pax Also as: The Paper Thunderbolt 1951 13. A Private View Also as: One Man Show and Murder is an Art 1952 14. Appleby Talking Also as: Dead Man’s Shoes 1954 15. Appleby Talks Again 1956 16. Appleby Plays Chicken Also as: Death on a Quiet Day 1957 17. The Long Farewell 1958 18. Hare Sitting Up 1959 19. Silence Observed 1961 20. A Connoisseur’s Case Also as: The Crabtree Affair 1962 21. The Bloody Wood 1966 22. Appleby at Allington Also as: Death by Water 1968 23. A Family Affair Also as: Picture of Guilt 1969 24. Death at the Chase 1970 25. An Awkward Lie 1971 26. The Open House 1972 27. Appleby’s Answer 1973 28. Appleby’s Other Story 1974 29. The Appleby File 1975 30. The Gay Phoenix 1976 31. The Ampersand Papers 1978 32. Shieks and Adders 1982 33. Appleby and Honeybath 1983 34. Carson’s Conspiracy 1984 35. Appleby and the Ospreys 1986
Honeybath Titles in order of first publication
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
1. The Mysterious Commission 1974 2. Honeybath’s Haven 1977 3. Lord Mullion’s Secret 1981 4. Appleby and Honeybath 1983
Synopses (Both Series & ‘Stand-alone’ Titles)
Published by House of Stratus
The Ampersand Papers
While Appleby is strolling along a Cornish beach, he narrowly escapes being struck by a body falling dow
n a cliff. The body is that of Dr Sutch, an archivist, and he has fallen from the North Tower of Treskinnick Castle, home of Lord Ampersand. Two possible motivations present themselves to Appleby – the Ampersand gold, treasure from an Armada galleon; and the Ampersand papers, valuable family documents that have associations with Wordsworth and Shelley.
Appleby and Honeybath
Every English mansion has a locked room, and Grinton Hall is no exception – the library has hidden doors and passages…and a corpse. But when the corpse goes missing, Sir John Appleby and Charles Honeybath have an even more perplexing case on their hands – just how did it disappear when the doors and windows were securely locked? A bevy of helpful houseguests offer endless assistance, but the two detectives suspect that they are concealing vital information. Could the treasures on the library shelves be so valuable that someone would murder for them?
Appleby and the Ospreys
Clusters, a great country house, is troubled by bats, as Lord and Lady Osprey complain to their guests, who include first rate detective, Sir John Appleby. In the matter of bats, Appleby is indifferent, but he is soon faced with a real challenge – the murder of Lord Osprey, stabbed with an ornate dagger in the library.
Appleby at Allington
Sir John Appleby dines one evening at Allington Park, the Georgian home of his acquaintance Owain Allington, who is new to the area. His curiosity is aroused when Allington mentions his nephew and heir to the estate, Martin Allington, whose name Appleby recognises. The evening comes to an end but just as Appleby is leaving, they find a dead man – electrocuted in the son et lumière box which had been installed in the grounds.
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