“So he was up to n.b.g.,” said Laura, as they went back to pick up the car. “Where do we go from here?”
“To the police, child.”
The police received them with courtesy and an understandable degree of aloofness. They had no knowledge of Grant and pointed out that any further enquiries had better be made in Dingwall, the county town of Western Ross. Dame Beatrice, however, thought otherwise.
“Before we go to the police in Dingwall,” she said, “we shall add up our assets. Now, it seems to me that we have five suspects. That is to say, I am counting the married Grants and the Corries as one each, not two. In spite of what you say about Mrs. Grant, the wives may have nothing to do with their husbands’ secrets, although I have a feeling that there you are right.”
“The Corries?”
“We can scarcely leave them out. They were employed—or so we suppose—at the time of the murder and must surely know something about it.”
“I like the Corries,” said Laura. “I feel positively certain they’re all right. It’s only a hunch, of course.”
“And, as such, has some claim on our attention, but we cannot dismiss them at present. I also have a hunch—considerably more far-fetched than yours, I may add.”
“Spill?”
“Let us first name the rest of the suspects.”
“Young reporter Grant? That tale of his struck me as containing a fair quantity of baloney. What did you think?”
“That what he said was the truth, but not the whole truth. However, now that we know where he lives, and what he does for a living, we can see him later. I do not consider him a vital link in our chain of evidence.”
“He saw murder committed in Edinburgh.”
“And knows the guilty party. So much is evident. There remain the mysterious young man who arranged for the boat to take you on to Tannasgan that night and, of course, our extraordinary acquaintance Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth.”
“What about motives? Yes, I can see what the last-named could have been up to. He inherits.”
“If he does! We have his word for it, I know, but I should wish for confirmation of that.”
“Why should he say he does, if he doesn’t? It’s a most dangerous ploy. The police always think the lowest motives are the strongest. Does he want to be convicted?”
“He is a strange character and a most intriguing one. I revert continually to thoughts of his absorbing interest in fabulous beasts.”
“Oh, he’s quite crazy, wouldn’t you say?”
“Like Hamlet, only north-north-west, I fancy. He knows a hawk from a handsaw. However, let us see what possible motives for murder we may attribute to the rest of our suspects.”
“All right,” said Laura, grinning. “Keep yourself to yourself, but it ain’t very sociable, you know. What about the married Grants?”
“There are two possibilities, if not more. The laird may have uncovered what Mr. Grant, whose story of the kidnapping—a misnomer, surely?—we have no longer any reason to believe…”
“We never did believe it! Kidnapping and general skull-duggery in Inverness! It doesn’t make sense!”
“The laird,” pursued Dame Beatrice patiently, “may have found out what Mr. Grant really did in Inverness and (if his wife is to be believed) in Edinburgh, too, and Mr. Grant may have been sufficiently concerned about this to wish the laird out of the way.”
“If wishes were horses…”
“In Mazeppa’s case, of course, they were. Did you ever have to learn those fearful verses?”
“Don’t think so. Anyway, you think the laird was a blackmailer?”
“Well, I mentioned a while ago that I had what you call a hunch. It may seem far-fetched, but did it never occur to you that Mr. Macbeth (for want of his real name) was trying to find out from you, that evening you spent on Tannasgan, whether the names of fabulous animals had for you anything more than a slight academic interest?”
“Good heavens, no! I just thought the poor old red-beard was bats.”
“Did you? You have an excellent verbal memory and, I am pretty sure, you reported your conversation with him verbatim. I have my notes.”
She produced a small, black-covered book and studied it thoughtfully.
“Verbatim? Well, I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Laura. “The whole thing was more than a bit outré, if that’s the word I want, so I wasn’t likely to forget anything that was said. But what’s your idea?”
“Vaguely, that the fabulous animals represent some kind of code.”
“Whatever for?”
“That is what we have to find out. Cast your mind back to the evening in question, and I will read out what you told me of what passed between you and Mr. Macbeth. But, first, were you not a little surprised when you were welcomed, dried, warmed, and fed?”
“Well, after what Mrs. Grant had said about the laird, I suppose I was, although Highlanders are always hospitable. But, of course, I was so horribly wet and cold that I was only too thankful to get into the house, and when the old boy actually welcomed me, in his odd sort of way, all my critical faculty left me.”
“Not altogether. You knew that it would be wise to leave Tannasgan instead of waiting until the morning. Well, now, this is what you told me. I give it in the form of a dialogue. I may add my own comments if I see fit.
Macbeth: Are there werewolves in your part of the country?
Laura: No. They live in the Hartz Mountains. (An equivocal answer, if he was trying to pump you.)
Macbeth: They live in the Grampians; they thrive in the Cairngorms; they have been known at Leith and now they are here.”
Laura: So is the basilisk.
Macbeth (interested to a degree which makes Laura wonder whether he is rather more than eccentric): Do you tell me that? (Did you not think that there was something in your answer which caused him to deepen his suspicion that there was more behind your unexpected visit than he had supposed? No, don’t answer now. Just think it over.)
Laura: And what about the cockatrice? (And it was with this question that you really put the cat among the pigeons, I think. He thought you were one of the cognoscenti or else had been sent as a spy. The same sort of thing happened a moment later. Do you remember?)
Laura (continuing after he has explained that the basilisk and the cockatrice were one and the same creature): I should have asked about the salamander.
Macbeth (speaking, I think, allegorically): I had one once…until he fell into the fire…There was a blaze! It nearly had my house burnt down…Half-way to the Golden Gate—I mean the Antipodes—is the salamander. Ay, on fire he feeds and grows… (At this point he was quite certain that you knew what he was talking about. Now, does nothing strike you as significant?”)
“The mention of Leith and the slip of the tongue about the Antipodes,” said Laura.
“The mention of Leith I am taking to be a deliberate attempt to test you. The Antipodes reference I am inclined to leave for further investigation. The other was no slip of the tongue. The Golden Gate, if I am right, meant something other than a geographical location. I think it referred to money.”
Laura knitted her brows.
“Down in the forest nothing stirs,” she said. “Ought it to?”
Dame Beatrice waved an apologetic claw.
“All will be gay when noontide wakes anew the butter-cups,” she said. “Meanwhile, what of our other suspects?”
“Well, we have mentioned the Corries, but you know what I think about her.”
“Like you, I think we may forget Mrs. Corrie as a suspect, although I still wish to talk with her. You did remark once, though, I believe, that the Corries did not seem the kind of people who would have consented to serve a man such as the laird.”
“No. In a way, though, Mrs. C. seemed quite the type to look after the loony Macbeth. I thought her simple and dignified and kind, and no end fond of a joke.”
“Just so. Well, the only reason for her to have murdered the laird would seem to be
that she was tired of his ways and preferred those of his successor.”
Laura laughed. “Gould be,” she said. “Well, who’s next?”
“Young Grant wanted his newspaper scoop so badly that he murdered the laird and then reported the death.”
Laura laughed again.
“That rabbit? Oh, rot, whatever you may say. We agreed, long ago, I thought, that, liar though he’s proved himself to be, he isn’t a murderer.”
“I am not convinced that I fully associated myself with that opinion. What was he doing on Tannasgan?”
“I should say that he’d got reason to hope for some sort of scoop—that part of his story may be true—and had the horrors when he found out that he might have let himself in for being suspected of murder. He was in a panic all right, following me about all over the place like that. Don’t you think so?”
“I shall call upon the editor of the Freagair local newspaper,” said Dame Beatrice. “In fact, we might make it our next assignment.”
“Well, we didn’t get much out of Ye Ed., did we?” said Laura, an hour or two later.
“Only that young Mr. Grant, although permanently employed as a reporter, is allowed to act as a freelance when the editor has no particular assignment for him; only that the editor’s is father’s friend and, for that reason, he a person of some importance on the paper; only that he receives an expenses allowance out of all proportion to his salary…”
“Ye Ed. being his father’s friend would account for that, I suppose. It’s his way of giving him an allowance which doesn’t actually come out of his own pocket. Quite an idea, in a way. Wonder what the other reporters think of it?”
“I doubt whether there are any other reporters, child.”
“Ye Ed. is his own newshound? How dashed improper! I thought they always sat glued to a swivel chair and wore a green eye-shade and got all hectic because they’d got a blank half-column or their advertisers weren’t kicking in the dough at the appointed time.”
“From what I gathered, the editor covers all the purely local or Freagairian excitements, sometimes accompanied by a photographer, but that young Mr. Grant has a roving commission, over a wide area, but no photographer.”
There’s an office boy, anyway. Did you see him?—a freckled, intelligent-looking kid of about fifteen.”
“The son of the editor, I understood.”
“You seem to have understood a whole lot more than I did. You think the kid is left in charge while father is out nosing around for news? Is that the set-up?”
“It may be. You know, young Mr. Grant was not reporting our Conference all the time he was in Edinburgh.”
“Well, he said he liked crowds and the bright lights and soft music, so I expect he went to the pictures and did himself well at the best restaurants and all that kind of thing.”
“I think he may have spent some of his time in Leith, child.”
“How that place is beginning to crop up! What’s its importance in this tangled history?”
“What is its general importance?” asked Dame Beatrice. “Or did you never study geography?”
“Shades of Cartaret Training College and the ghost of one Tweetman, whose jogger notes I inherited from one Cartwright! Remember? Oh, no, you weren’t in on that one. Leith is the port for Edinburgh, not that that bit of information was in Tweetman’s notes, those being of local importance only. Leith—my Uncle Hamish used to point in its direction when I was a child of tender years and during those times when he used to instruct, inform, and entertain me on the heights of Edinburgh Castle. And talking of Edinburgh, what about that bit of young Grant’s story?”
“The death of the man in the street?”
“I told you at the time that it was murder.”
“He seemed quite sure of it, too. It must have startled him when he recognised you as the woman who had made one of the crowd with him at that time.”
“Once seen, never forgotten,” said Laura smugly. “But what did you want me to tell you about Leith?”
“Leith does not quite fit in with my ideas and yet it has been mentioned. What I am in quest of is something smaller, less important, and populated by people who can emulate the three wise monkeys—people, in short, who are conservative, inbred, not particularly interested in strangers, can mind their own business, and––––”
“Newhaven,” said Laura. “My uncle took me there once to have a special fish dinner. It’s a fishing port just west of Leith and the fish dinners there are quite something. The population are all descended from Danes and Dutchmen and keep themselves to themselves. They don’t care to marry anybody from outside and their women are enormously tough and strong. They seem to be a community quite on their own. How will Newhaven suit your book?”
“So beautifully that I regard you with reverence, my dear Laura.”
“It’s Uncle Hamish you should regard with reverence. There’s nothing about the environs of Edinburgh that he doesn’t know. What do we do? ‒ dash to Newhaven and put the inhabitants in a panic? I really doubt whether we could.”
“I feel sure we could not. Neither would it be desirable. We need not even go to Newhaven at present—if, indeed, at all.”
“Pity! I could easily manage another of those fish dinners. What next, then?”
“Next we find out the significance of the fabulous animals and supply the authorities with a code. To do this we shall need a digest from Lloyds’ Register of Shipping.”
“I begin to see daylight—at least, I think I do. You mean that each of Macbeth’s fabulous beasts represents a ship?”
That is my theory, and, of course, it is nothing but a theory. I may be hopelessly wrong.”
“And these ships use Newhaven as a base?”
“If I am right, these ships bring sugar and coffee from a self-governing island, and, so far as anybody on this side is concerned, they are owned by a reputable and honest trading company whose name we shall learn in due course.”
“How do we get hold of Lloyds’ Register?”
“We do not. I write to a friend of mine who sees a copy yearly upon publication. He is one of Lloyds’ underwriters and will thoroughly enjoy playing detective for us.”
“And while he’s doing that?”
“We return to Tannasgan and endeavour to track down and interview the Corries. There may be considerable importance in what they tell us.”
“If they tell us anything. As I say, I don’t feel sanguine about getting them to talk, especially after the police have had a go at them—several goes, in fact, if I know the police. That reminds me! I’d better write to his grandparents and find out to what extent my son Hamish has wrecked the home and how soon they want to get rid of him. Gavin, bless his heart, is still happy with his barracuda and won’t be back in harness for another week.”
“His grandparents will probably refuse to part with your son.”
“What a hope! Anyway, you’ve now put me wise about Macbeth and his fabulous beasts. The very fact that I’d forgotten for the moment that the basilisk and the cockatrice are one and the same creature means that there are sister ships…the reference to the salamander, a lizard which is always connected with fire, means that a ship got burnt out…I say, do you really think so?”
“It is only a theory and may be wildly wide of the mark. It gives us something to work on, that is all.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Story Told by the Corries
“Heard the rivulet rippling near him,
Talking to the darksome forest.”
H. W. Longfellow
* * *
IRRATIONALLY to Laura’s surprise, the lantern and the bell on the mainland were answered at once. The boatman was Corrie, whom she had known previously only as a waiter at table. Also, to her astonishment, he spoke.
“You’re welcome. Maybe you can speak up and save us all this anxiety.”
“Right,” said Laura. “All aboard!” She handed Dame Beatrice (who needed no such
assistance) into the broad-beamed rowing-boat. “And how’s the laird?”
“He does well enough in his grave.”
“Oh, come now! You know perfectly well that I was speaking of the one who calls himself Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth,” said Laura, stepping into the boat.
“He’s awa’ to Dingwall.”
“Did he do it? Did he kill the laird?”
“I dinna ken. Maybe he did, and maybe he did not.”
“Fair enough. What is your own opinion?”
“I have given it to you. What will be your business this time at An Tigh Mór?”
“You’ll find out when we get there,” said Laura, matching her tone to his. He dug the short oars into the calm waters of the loch and soon was tying up on the other side.
“Come ben,” he said, leading the way to the house.
“Is your wife at home, Mr. Corrie?” asked Dame Beatrice, addressing him for the first time.
“Ay.” The front door was open. “She will be speaking to you in the dining-room. Mr. Macbeth said to be always keeping a fire in the dining-room, for he didna ken when he would be coming back.”
He showed them into the dining-room and drew an armchair a little nearer to the fire for Dame Beatrice. She and Laura seated themselves and in a moment Mrs. Corrie came in and stood between them and the enormous dining-table.
“Well, well!” she said, grimly smiling at Laura. “Such a to-do when the laird came down to breakfast and I had to report that you were missing.”
“Yes, it was very ungrateful of me to sneak off like that after all his kindness—and yours. But I had to get back to Freagair, to my hotel, you know. I didn’t want to be reported to the police as a missing person,” said Laura, improvising with some success. Mrs. Corrie wagged her head in sympathetic agreement.
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