Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Murder

by Bonnie MacBird

  ‘Your plan was ill-conceived from the start, Laird Robert,’ said Holmes. ‘Fiona had an admirer who kept his feelings secret. That was Cameron Coupe, was it not?’ Here he turned to the foreman, whose face revealed the truth of that statement. ‘Perhaps you can imagine just how painful this made your assignment to him, Sir Robert. And yet he carried it out. Tell us why, Mr Coupe.’

  The man still stood, hands bound behind him. He seemed to have shrunk in grief and guilt. And yet he retained a flame of righteousness. ‘It is true. I loved Fiona,’ said Cameron Coupe. ‘You asked, Mr Holmes, if she might have wandered into the distillery, met with some of the workers. I made sure that did not happen, though I had to be much on my guard as she was an adventurous girl. But I could do nothing about what went on in the castle. I knew that there, she had been sorely used. Charles had taken advantage and would soon discard her, like so much rubbish. It is his way.’

  ‘You know nothing of this, Coupe!’ shouted Charles.

  ‘I knew why the laird wished to discourage all the attention. I naively thought it would work. And that she might – I do not know – be humbled, or made sensible. And then, perhaps I could—’

  ‘You might comfort her? And thus gain her favour?’ exclaimed Isla McLaren. ‘My God, you men think the world of yourselves!’

  Coupe was white with shame. ‘You are right, Mrs McLaren. But oh, how smart that girl was. Even though the other servants teased her when she came back without a hair on her head, how they goaded her, making her think it was ghosts, all the time that clever girl was thinking, thinking. And then she found, in my room, I stupidly kept—’

  ‘You kept what?’ asked the laird.

  Holmes nodded to Coupe.

  ‘I kept her hair. Foolish, but—’

  ‘You imbecile!’ cried the laird.

  ‘When she discovered it, she knew at once it was I who had done the deed,’ said Coupe. ‘She attacked me! I tried to talk to her, to explain, but she was in a rage. She flew at me and we struggled. I was being so careful, but she was wild. I took her arms to stop her but she wrenched away, and she fell. She fell and hit the back of her head and then she was still.’

  Coupe turned slowly to face Holmes. ‘But how, sir, how did you know?’

  ‘I examined your rooms earlier and found evidence of a struggle, and the torn shirt which you attempted to repair. And then, upon examining her body tonight, I found a matching piece of this torn shirt clutched in her hand. You are careless, Coupe, with your crimes.’

  A silence fell over the room.

  A single tear coursed down the face of the disgraced foreman. ‘She was dead, sir, and no one unhappier than myself.’

  ‘But what then?’ cried the laird. ‘How did her body come to be found in the icehouse, and her head delivered to the South of France?’

  Coupe hung his head, unable to speak.

  ‘I can answer the first part,’ said Holmes. He turned to Coupe, repeating what he had told me earlier. ‘The ground was frozen and so you could not bury her. There was no easy place to hide her body above ground where it would not be found. You had to act quickly. And so, the idea came to you to use the icehouse, which once filled, is not accessed in the winter. This must have been, in your mind, only a temporary measure. Am I right, Mr Coupe?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It is as if you witnessed my every move.’

  ‘Just as you thought of the cask of whisky ten years past. You thought. You thought—’ stammered the laird.

  Cameron Coupe looked down at the ground, filled with remorse.

  ‘But you have two more things to tell us, Mr Coupe,’ said Holmes. ‘First, why and how was Fiona’s head delivered to the Grand Hôtel du Cap?’

  Coupe opened his mouth to speak, and stopped suddenly at the explosive retort of a gunshot. He looked down in utter surprise to see a bloom of crimson appear on his chest.

  The laird had drawn what I had taken to be only an ornamental pistol from the front of his velvet dress jacket, and had fired point blank at Cameron Coupe.

  ‘Sir Robert!’ cried Holmes, and leapt upon the man, wrenching the gun away.

  Coupe staggered back and fell.

  Holmes confronted the laird, his face terrible with anger. I rushed to Coupe’s side. Everyone else in the room was motionless, pinned by shock.

  Coupe lay bleeding on the floor. ‘Release his hands,’ I cried. Alistair did so as I knelt beside the fallen man, took a pillow from the sofa and pressed on it to staunch the wound. My doctor’s bag was already in the room and without a word, Isla McLaren brought it to me.

  The laird stood blinking at his wounded employee. I glanced up to see him sink to his knees with a moan. Alistair helped him into a chair, placing a hand on his shoulder to restrain him if needed. He nodded at Holmes.

  Choking back his fury, Holmes knelt beside me. ‘Watson?’

  I shook my head. The prognosis was dire. The bullet had entered Coupe’s upper left chest between the heart and the shoulder. If it had hit the subclavian artery he would have less than two minutes to live. But if it had missed that critical vessel, there was a chance. I pressed hard on the wound.

  ‘Coupe. Coupe!’ cried Holmes, turning to the prostate man. ‘Can you speak?’ But Coupe was insensible.

  Holmes leapt to his feet, and growled in frustration. ‘That was a foolhardy move, Sir Robert. I knew Coupe was the culprit in Fiona’s death, before I entered this room. But still we do not yet know how the head was sent to the South of France, nor how the cask came to be the one opened tonight. I am quite sure that this man, culpable as he was in other respects, is not personally responsible for all these things. He had more to tell us.’

  ‘One might almost think the ghost of August Bell Clarion has been at work,’ said Charles.

  ‘There are no ghosts,’ said Isla.

  ‘No, there are no ghosts. And Clarion is dead,’ said Holmes. ‘I am sure of it.’

  Given my friend’s history with August Bell Clarion I could well appreciate his thoroughness in this matter.

  ‘Then who switched the casks?’ asked Isla.

  ‘I had hoped Coupe would have a theory. Now we may never hear it, nor how Fiona’s head travelled to the Grand Hôtel du Cap. Both were perpetrated by someone who wished to destroy the McLaren family,’ said Holmes.

  ‘Perhaps just a madman,’ said Charles.

  ‘No,’ said Holmes. ‘This is far too planned, too carefully orchestrated. This family has a knack for seeding resentment. Look to someone on the property.’

  A groan arose from Cameron Coupe, as Holmes said these words. Holmes turned to him eagerly, but the man was beyond words. Holmes sighed in frustration.

  ‘I must attend to this bullet wound urgently,’ said I. ‘And the laird also needs care. Get me some men to transport them to a place I can see to them! I will need boiled water and clean sheets.’ A servant was called in and dispatched at a run.

  ‘That man killed Fiona,’ cried Charles, pointing to Coupe. ‘No matter what he says, I think he cut off her head and took it down south. He will rot in gaol!’

  ‘No,’ said Holmes. ‘Her death was an accident. And no, he did not send the head. He was away at a meeting of master distillers at the time when he would have to have done that. It was not Coupe.’

  ‘One of the workers, then?’ suggested Isla.

  Alistair stepped forward. ‘Yes, one of the workers must have been involved. There is one, a badly disfigured man, who works closely with Mr Coupe. That is, I saw them frequently in company. A remarkably ill-tempered individual, whom I recommended we let go. But Charles would not have it.’

  ‘It is not up to you to run this company,’ said Charles. ‘It is up to me. I am the master of the McLaren Distillery. And things will be very different from this day forward.’

  ‘You are master of nothing now,’ struck in Isla quietly. ‘The McLaren Distillery is finished. You will be lucky to avoid gaol yourself.’

  ‘My wife is correct,’ said Alistair. ‘I have you for
planning the bombing in Montpellier. As Isla says, gaol awaits. Come, Mr Holmes. Let me point out this man to you.’

  CHAPTER 34

  The Missing Man

  olmes hesitated as I took him aside and pressed my revolver into his hand once again. ‘Very well, Watson. But learn what you can from Cameron Coupe. At any cost.’ A violent wind had come up and as servants brought their coats, and more joined at Alistair’s behest, I will admit to worrying about Holmes’s physical state. But he would hear no objection, that was clear.

  He and Alistair departed with three servants into the whirling snow. I turned my attention back to my patients. The laird was not in immediate danger and I ordered his valet to attend to him, adding strict instructions about pupil dilation and breathing and what to do if he regained consciousness. This allowed me to focus my attention on Coupe, who was still unconscious and declining rapidly. I needed to remove the bullet, and stop any internal bleeding.

  A second pair of hands would be helpful in what I was about to do, but it could not wait. We quickly moved Coupe to a guest bedroom nearby on the ground floor. Hot water and clean sheets arrived, and I took from my bag the few surgical instruments that I carried.

  As I made my preparations, the door was flung open and Isla peeked in. ‘The laird’s personal physician has arrived, are you in need of assistance?’

  ‘Send him in,’ I cried, grateful for this small bit of good fortune.

  I poured boiling water over the instruments and was scrubbing my own hands in another vessel when a stout woman with blonde braids ringing her broad face rushed into the room, accompanied by a bony young man who resembled a scarecrow.

  ‘Madam, please!’ I cried. But Isla followed them in.

  ‘Dr Watson, this is Dr MacLeish and her assistant, Geordie,’ said Isla. ‘And this is Dr Watson, former army surgeon.’

  Dr MacLeish was a woman! And a remarkable doctor, I was soon to discover.

  ‘How long since he was shot?’ she asked, moving to the bedside, and looking down at the handsome, pale face.

  ‘Twenty minutes.’

  ‘Ach, Cameron Coupe. Shame! Best distillery man in the county.’ I did not disabuse her of the notion. Without being asked, she began to scrub her hands.

  With no need of instruction, the two of them nimbly assisted me as I set up a makeshift surgical theatre in the room. The patient was draped in clean sheets, and Dr MacLeish had called for even more boiling water and applied herself to sterilizing my instruments, adding a few of her own.

  I nodded my approval. ‘Thank God. Not every doctor subscribes to the germ theory.’ I bent to examine the wound more closely. The patient had gone into shock. We would have to work quickly

  ‘Thank Joseph Lister, not God,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Well, I guess him, too. I will take all the help I can get.’

  Cameron Coupe’s pallor, sheen and rapid heart rate indicated shock, and I feared he was near death. I quickly finished washing. ‘Let us proceed,’ I said. Doctor MacLeish tied on a pristine white apron over her ample form, and faced me, her hands in the air to dry.

  ‘I certainly respect a war-trained surgeon,’ said she, peering sharply at me. ‘But you look as though you have been awake for three days straight, Doctor. I am glad to be here to assist you, sir.’

  At my hesitation, she added simply, ‘I took a surgical degree in America. Edinburgh has not yet caught up to the idea of ladies with blood on their hands. But be assured, Doctor, I can help you.’ Behind her, Isla nodded silently to me. I wondered briefly at this, but let it pass.

  In thirty minutes the two of us had the bullet out and the damage repaired as best we could. Doctor MacLeish was more competent than many battle-trained men, and was adept at clamping off bleeding vessels, freeing me to discover the bullet and remove it with minimal damage. I knew that Coupe had received his best chance at survival, though he had lost a lot of blood, and was not out of danger.

  We departed from the room, leaving Dr MacLeish’s gangly assistant, Geordie, to watch over the patient. Charles McLaren was instructing a large, imposing footman to keep watch outside the door to make sure Cameron Coupe ‘did not escape’. The irony was poignant, as it would be a miracle if the man survived the night. Coupe knew more than he had been able to tell us, and while it was highly unlikely that he would regain consciousness, young Geordie promised to fetch me promptly if he did.

  I briefly visited the laird in his rooms before retiring. The man was still unconscious, and resting peacefully. But his face was that of a man aged ten years in a single evening. A full recovery would be a miracle. Dr MacLeish concurred. She said she would remain with him through the night.

  Finally free to help Holmes, I ran to his room, hoping to find him there. The door was ajar but the room was empty and freezing cold. Disappointed, I closed the door and busied myself by resurrecting a healthy blaze in the grate. A wave of exhaustion swept over me.

  The discovery of Donal’s body floating in that cask was certainly one of the grislier moments of our adventures to date. But perhaps even more disturbing was the thought of what had transpired with little Anne some thirty years prior, at the end of the very hallway in which we were housed.

  I could not wait to be gone from this place.

  In the meantime, the temperature had dropped well below freezing and I grew concerned about Holmes down at the distillery after his earlier misadventure in the icehouse. But I was not to worry long, for soon afterwards the door clicked open and there stood Holmes, snow dusting his shoulders and dishevelled hair. He was pale as candle wax, and from his defeated posture, I knew at once he had not been successful.

  ‘The bird has flown, Watson. A man called Jowe Lammas was involved, without a doubt, though his motive eludes me. Disfigured in the Afghan wars. Gone some twelve hours ago. The trail is covered by snow, and is now cold in every sense of the word.’

  ‘Joey Lammas? A singular name. Is he the man we saw in the distillery with the laird?’

  ‘Yes. One eye, facial scarring. But it is “Jowe.”’ He pronounced it ‘jow – way’. ‘A Scottish word, apparently. But long gone.’

  Holmes stood swaying in the doorway as the energy left his body. I judged him to be on the brink of collapse, and ushered him to the sofa. I removed his coat, and threw a blanket over his shoulders. He stared at the flames, unable to speak for several minutes.

  ‘Coupe?’ he asked, finally, his voice a near whisper.

  ‘I removed the bullet. The laird’s personal physician arrived in time to help and is attending to Coupe and the laird. Coupe’s chances are slim.’

  ‘A double loss, then. I fear he was our only source to untangle the final strands of this web.’

  ‘But what of this man Lammas? Fled, you say?’

  Holmes’s investigation in the workers’ dormitory had only added to the puzzle. This Jowe Lammas, the man seen often in Coupe’s company, had vanished apparently after having murdered a fellow workman, Seamus Marchand, with a knife. Other workers confirmed that Lammas had indeed been the facially disfigured man we had noticed on our first visit to the distillery, who had separated the two fighting men. He had a fearsome reputation, prone to violence whenever he was called up to restore order, providing Coupe was not present.

  Lammas had made no effort to conceal the evidence of his crime; bloodstains and the murder weapon had been left behind, as had gin bottles, gambling stubs and chewing tobacco beneath his bed.

  ‘A common thug, then,’ I exclaimed.

  Holmes sighed. ‘It would appear so.’

  Holmes reckoned that it had been either Lammas or Marchand who removed the ladder and threw water down upon him. But why, or at whose behest?

  ‘That puzzle remains,’ said he, ‘as does the reason for Lammas and Marchand switching the casks for this evening, thus exposing Coupe.’

  ‘It was them, do you think?

  ‘It is the only thing I learned for certain. They were seen in the area of the maturation warehouse late this af
ternoon with no reason to be there.’ Holmes shook his head ruefully.

  ‘But how would Lammas know about Donal’s body in the cask?’

  ‘That is the question, Watson. We have presumed that only Clarion and Coupe knew of the ghastly interment. This leaves two possibilities. Either Coupe was so hell-bent on revenge at the time that he was sloppy, and was seen, or there was yet another party involved.’

  ‘What about this August Bell Clarion fellow? Might he be somewhere, somehow still in the picture?’ I asked.

  Holmes sighed. ‘I think not. I had a theory before I found Marchand’s body and the suggestive detritus left by Lammas. But it appears I was wrong.’

  ‘What theory, Holmes?’

  He did not reply, but leaned back on the sofa and sighed.

  ‘I am inclined to think it was Lammas or Marchand who brought the head down to the Grand Hôtel du Cap,’ said-Holmes.

  ‘But why? Initiated by them, or by some other?’

  ‘I wish I could say. Increasingly Cameron Coupe seems to be the answer. I had discounted this, but perhaps I have misjudged the man. And if he does not recover, we shall have no way to find out.’

  ‘Did you encounter the police? Alistair said they had been summoned?’

  Holmes closed his eyes. ‘Regrettably. The local man, Gerald, an “inspector” in name only, is an idiot. We spoke briefly of the icehouse bodies, and he ignored my findings entirely. His conclusion was that the two young people had probably killed each other!’

  ‘What a fool! I recall Mrs McLaren describing him to us in Baker Street.’

  ‘Yes. Alistair had the good sense to throw Gerald and his even more obtuse young constable off the property without even mentioning Donal’s body in the cask. He then wired the regional lawmen in Aberdeen. They will be out in the morning. God willing there is an intelligent man on the force there.’

  At this point exhaustion overcame us both. Things felt perilously out of control, and it was with great unease that we both retired. Once again, I chose to remain on the sofa in Holmes’s room, our door secured against any unwanted entry. I slept restlessly, but had I any foreknowledge of what would transpire in the morning, I might not have slept at all.