“Do you have any ideas as to who might have done this?”
“I don’t.”
“So, the killer maybe knew aboot the cut on her thumb,” Dalgerry said with an astuteness that possibly belied Rex’s earlier impression that he had been at the whisky that night.
“So it would seem.”
Dalgerry asked when the accident with the glass had occurred.
“Around nine.”
“What poison did you say on the phone?” The chief inspector consulted his notes. “Not sure I got it down right.”
“Curare.”
“Sure aboot that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s how Professor Cleverly identified it. He lectures in history at Edinburgh University, but he’s an avid anthropologist. He said the compound, a brown sticky substance, is made out of poisonous bark found in the Amazon rainforest and used by the natives to kill their prey. It paralyses them and, though death can take up to half an hour in humans, the victim cannot use any of their muscles to alert anyone of their predicament. They cannot blink, point, or speak. They can only suffer in silence.” Rex had questioned Humphrey further about the effects of curare in the final moments before the police arrived.
“Good God. What happens then?”
“They end up suffocating.”
“Hm, verra interesting. But perhaps a wee bit far-fetched?”
Rex confessed that it was. “The totality of the circumstances is bizarre. A double poisoning of the last known survivors of a branch of the Fraser clan, heirs to an old castle reputed to be harbouring a cache of gold—”
Dalgerry shot him a look of surprise.
“I stress the word ‘reputed.’ It could all be nonsense, but the Frasers believed that part of the Loch Arkaig Treasure is buried there.”
The chief inspector stamped his foot and turned around on the spot. “The Loch Arkaig Treasure belonging to Bonnie Prince Charlie? Och, man, ye canna be serious!” Incredulous astonishment had rendered his Highland Scots all the more pronounced. “That’s been lost for centuries. Why should it turn up now in your neck of the woods? I canna believe it! Any of it.”
Rex toyed with the idea of revealing the existence of Jason’s coin, but decided against it for the time being. He would prefer that the lad tell the police himself. It had been his find, after all. Of course, without Drew Harper’s intervention, none of them would have been any the wiser. If Jason had kept quiet about it since the autumn and not told his girlfriend, chances were he never would have confessed.
“What can you tell me aboot these people before I go over?” Dalgerry spoke in a low voice, glancing across at the weary group by the fireplace. “How well do you know them?”
“You’ll remember my fiancée Helen from the Moor Murders Case. And Flora Allerdice.”
“Aye, I thought I recognized the lass when she passed in the hall.” She now sat with her back to them. “Brother Donnie, right? A bit slow.”
“A good lad.”
“How’s your son Campbell doing?”
Rex was impressed he remembered his son’s name. “He’s in Florida.”
“Never followed in your footsteps, did he?”
“No, his passion is marine science.”
“Ah, well, neither of my lads joined the police force. As you were saying …”
“Ehm, Helen’s friend from Derby, Julie Brownley, is staying with us for a few days. She teaches at the school where Helen works. They’ve known each other for years. Drew Harper, the man sitting beside her, is a local house agent. He helped me look for a place in the Highlands. Alistair Frazer is another face you’ll recognize from my summer housewarming party.”
“A colleague of yours. I mind him clearly.” Dalgerry made notes in his pad. “Any more from your previous party? Not planning on having any more, are you?” he asked, a bushy gray eyebrow raised in a circumflex.
“Not for the time being. Helen and I plan to hold our wedding in Edinburgh.”
“Probably a good idea.”
“John Dunbar was a medic in the previous case,” Rex continued with the list. “That’s how he and Alistair met.”
Dalgerry stared across the room, where the two men sat together. “So a total of four, besides yourself, who were here that other time. Right. Go on.”
“The lad next to Flora is her boyfriend, Jason Short, also a student of art at Inverness College. Let’s see. Vanessa Weaver in the purple dress was my interior designer for this place. She brought her husband and daughter. Ace Weaver is the gentleman in the wheelchair.”
“Is he ambulatory?”
“Aye, but only with difficulty.”
Dalgerry continued to make notes with his short yellow pencil on which the eraser was worn flat as a nail head.
“That leaves Margarita Delacruz, the professor’s guest,” Rex said.
“She must be the foreign-looking lady. Spanish?”
“From Venezuela, I believe. I found currency from that country in her evening bag.”
“Searched them all, did you?”
“That’s how we found the darts. They were in the ladies’ bags, hers and Vanessa’s.”
“What is the professor’s full name?”
“Humphrey Lawrence Cleverly.”
“And how well do you know him?”
“We were at university together, and then lost touch for many years. We ran into each other recently at a town and gown function in Edinburgh.”
“And can you vouch for all these people?”
Rex hesitated before he said cautiously, “Tonight is the first time I’ve met Señora Delacruz, Jason Short, and Zoe and Ace Weaver. The rest have been to the lodge before.”
The chief inspector reviewed his hieroglyphics. “Jason Short, that’s Flora’s boyfriend. And Vanessa Weaver’s daughter and husband. Got it. What does the daughter do?”
“She’s an actress, or hoping to be.”
“Looks the part, from what I can see. Wish we had more light. You called the power company, I assume?”
“Of course.”
“I noticed other lights were oot around here.”
“That’s good. Hopefully those residents will have called as well.”
“A fallen tree branch somewhere, I expect. What can you tell me aboot the old man? Looks harmless enough from where I’m standing.”
“He was a fighter pilot in the Second World War. Ace is his nickname. Don’t know what his civilian job was. Quite a sharp cookie for his age.” Rex told the chief inspector about Weaver supplying an alibi for Margarita Delacruz at around the time Ken Fraser disappeared. “By the time I brought the oil lamp from the kitchen, everyone except Ken and Catriona were present in the living room, except Jason whom I bumped into when I went back into the hall to check the fuses.”
Dalgerry made a note. “We need to find oot more on the Frasers. The state of their finances, where they live, any potential enemies, and so on. What did they do for a living, do you know?”
“I think I heard something aboot Ken being involved in an export business, supplying Scottish merchandise to the States. A huge market over there, I understand. Not sure aboot Catriona. They were both interested in genealogy. Theirs in particular. They were an offshoot of Clan Fraser, their ancestors having fallen oot of favour with the illustrious clan in the fifteen-hundreds. Seems a member of their immediate clan, Red Dougal, brought his small band of supporters to Gleneagle and built that castle.”
“There could be a long-standing feud involved, then.” Dalgerry wrote furiously on his pad. “Someone in the family could have wished them dead.”
“I was led to believe they were the sole survivors.”
“Och, just wait and see who crawls oot of the woodwork once news of their death gets oot. I don’t suppose you know if they left a will?”
“I do not.
I only know the castle could only be left to a clan member, and that person had to be married to someone in that branch of the clan.”
“Sounds verra restrictive.”
“It was meant to be, I suppose to make sure the castle stayed within the sub-clan.”
“They had no children?”
“No. I don’t think they’ve been married that long.”
“So, no legally adopted heirs we could look at?”
Rex shook his head decisively. “Not to my knowledge.”
“Pity. Still, the export business might be worth looking into. Partners and such, whether Ken Fraser had stiffed anyone, or else some mafia aspect.”
Rex thought this last lead highly improbable, but the Russians were infiltrating everywhere nowadays. Perhaps they were diversifying into kilts, bagpipes, and sporrans. He held back a chuckle. Sergeant Milner approached them, removing his damp woolen gloves.
“Nothing of much interest so far,” he reported. “I’m having the men follow the deer trail through the trees leading to the road.”
“And what aboot around the window?” The chief inspector pointed behind him.
“Nothing appears to be disturbed on the ground. I’ll have the examiners dust the window inside and oot, but chances are the killer wore gloves anyway on a night like this. Someone closed it, unfortunately.”
“Aye, I can see that.” Dalgerry turned to Rex for an explanation.
“Helen did, while we, that is, Alistair, John, Drew and I, were looking for Ken Fraser. With the central heating oot, it was beginning to get cold. And we didn’t know anyone had been murdered at that point. We simply thought Ken had gone to get something from his car or else wandered off to a different part of the house.”
“The exterior door to the kitchen was unlocked, you said, so an intruder could have come in that way. It’s a moonless night and not much traffic on the roads around midnight on Hogmanay. Housebreakers often case remote properties over holidays to see if there’s an opportunity to break in while the owners are away. You said you’d seen shoe prints ootside the kitchen door.”
“While I was getting wood from the shed. They were visible in the slush on the doorstep and patio.”
“We found quite a lot of foot traffic in that area,” the detective sergeant said. “But only two different sets of prints on the patio. One shoe and one boot.”
“I don’t think those will be mine,” Rex said. “I stuck to the path on the way to the woodshed. But one set could belong to John. He was searching for Ken at the back of the house and by the loch. And he’s wearing boots.”
“Right,” Dalgerry told Milner. “One set of boot prints to confirm and one set of shoe prints to identify.”
During the ensuing exchange between the police officers, Rex looked about him. The two white body sheets rose eerily out of the dimly lit room. The fire had died down, but enough candlelight filtered through the darkness to illuminate the pale ovals of the guests’ faces as they slouched bundled up in their seats around the coffee table.
He tried to remember who had been standing where at the end of “Auld Lang Syne” when the lights went out. Helen had been beside him for the dance, Julie on his other side, Catriona and Ken opposite, Flora and Jason somewhere to his left. Beyond that, he couldn’t be sure. The circle had broken up and people had moved about in the dark. Catriona had tripped or been pushed back in an armchair. Ken must have wandered off before then or he would have gone to his wife’s aid.
Everybody would have to be questioned regarding their movements around midnight: A tedious prospect, but better to do so while events were still relatively fresh in the guests’ memories, and before they could be influenced by other information. Milner, armed with a flashlight, went to take the guests’ statements. The detective was just crossing the room when suddenly the lights came back on.
The miracle of artificial light! Rex could not have been happier if he had been the first cave dweller to discover fire. His was not the only euphoric reaction. Everyone blinked in the electricity and exclaimed with delight, relieved to have their basic comforts restored. Rex offered up a silent prayer of thanks. He switched on more table lamps. The living room suddenly looked smaller and more welcoming.
“Certainly makes our task easier!” Dalgerry said, rubbing his hands together. “Any chance of a cup of tea for me and the lads, if it’s not too much trouble? And I seem to remember your lovely fiancée made excellent biscuits.”
Was this the chief inspector’s way of dismissing him, or had Helen’s baking made that much of an impression? Still, Rex did not begrudge the police a cup of tea to warm them up. He cocked his head at Helen, and she rose from the sofa and came toward him.
“The chief inspector has requested tea for his team. I wondered if you’d like to keep me company in the kitchen while I make it, and he and DS Milner talk to our guests.”
“I thought you’d never ask. I’m dying to know what he said. Sorry,” she added, wincing at her choice of expression. “Freudian slip.”
_____
As they repaired to the kitchen and started the tea, Rex filled her in on what Dalgerry had imparted, none of which had been very helpful. He left out the mafia angle, and limited the chief inspector’s hypotheses to a family feud or business dealings gone sour.
“So who has got a good motive for murdering the Frasers?” Helen asked.
“Me.”
“You? Be serious, Rex.”
“I am. The prospect of this serene spot being overrun by eager reporters and treasure hunters was raising my blood pressure.”
“If the murders were premeditated, who knew about the gold?”
Rex thought for a moment. “Drew Harper, presumably. He was the house agent advising them. He saw Jason poking around the castle. And Catriona, who was a very open and trusting person, would have confided their interest in Gleneagle Castle, over and above the fact they were the heirs and wanted to keep it in the family. Humphrey knew, of course, and may have told Margarita, although she professed to know nothing aboot the gold. Jason, obviously, because he found the coin. He might have thought there’d be more. He might have gone back. That’s a big lure, especially for an impoverished student.”
“According to what Drew said, he wouldn’t be able to sell his old coin or any others he found.”
“There’s always a black market for valuables. Paintings worth millions are stolen from galleries and museums and sold to private collectors.”
Rex removed the hissing kettle from the vintage range, while Helen fetched down the tin of homemade biscuits from the pantry shelf. “Who will inherit the castle now?” she asked.
“I suppose in the normal way of things any family member found to be alive. I’m not entirely sure how that arcane old deed was structured. But didn’t they say they were the last surviving heirs, bar an aunt who disappeared?”
“Who knew the Frasers were going to be here?”
Rex smiled to himself. Helen was asking the questions, clearly intent on cracking the case. Just as well she went along with his morbid hobby, he thought. In fact, on their vacation in Key West, she had proved herself a worthy partner in a most bizarre case involving the owners of a guesthouse.
“Pretty much everybody present knew they’d be here,” he replied. “I would have mentioned who was coming when I invited people. ‘Oh, so-and-so’s coming. You know them, don’t you?’ Or, ‘You might be interested in meeting so-and-so.’ ”
“Maybe someone wanted to kill them for a reason other than the gold.” Helen warmed the large earthenware tea pot and added an ample supply of loose Assam.
“What reason?” Rex inquired. He could not imagine Ken being ruthless in business or resisting the mafia. “They seemed like a very nice, ordinary couple. Ken was a bit of a bore, but boring someone to death is not a motive I’ve ever come across or heard applied literally.”
“No?” Rex reflected for a moment. “She barely spoke two words to them.”
“Precisely. And didn’t you say you first met the Frasers at the Loch Lochy Hotel?”
“Perhaps you’re right. Flora was there. I should talk to her and perhaps call Shona for more information. But Flora’s parents don’t know she’s here. They might be offended not to have been invited. I suppose there’ll be no concealing it now. Funny, I never noticed Flora’s attitude. But she and Jason have pretty much kept themselves to themselves all evening.”
Helen gave a discouraged sigh. “We’re not getting very far.”
“Perhaps we’re not meant to. We may be dealing with a truly cunning murderer.”
“It couldn’t be anything other than murder, I suppose?”
“Two well-directed poison darts? I doubt it was an accident and even less that they were self-inflicted. There are easier and less dramatic ways to kill oneself. In any case, the Frasers seemed happy and excited aboot their future.”
“Could someone have killed them in a jealous rage? They married quite late in life. Perhaps a spurned ex was out for revenge.”
“Hard to imagine either of them inspiring fits of passion.”
“Now, now, Rex. We don’t know what they were like when they were younger. But if they had no enemies,” Helen concluded, “it must be the treasure someone was after. There were gold bars as well, apparently.”
With no other leads, Rex made a note to ask Flora about her attitude toward the Frasers. She was a sensitive and secretive sort of lass, and still waters ran deep.
“An art student could have made one of those clay pipes,” Helen pointed out. “Jason sculpts, doesn’t he? He’s probably done some pottery.”
“Margarita or Humphrey could have got hold of a blowpipe on their travels. In fact, anyone could purchase something like that online.”
“True. And anyone could find out about deadly poisons.”
“But where’s the pipe now? Perhaps the police will find it.”
“We’ll have to give the police the mugs,” Helen said, looking in the cabinets. “We’re out of cups.”
Murder at Midnight Page 11
