“I hate to think ill of the Corries, so let’s take them first and get it over.”
“Very well” Dame Beatrice took out her notebook. “But let us banish prejudice from our minds.”
“For me, that’s difficult, if not impossible, but I’ll do my best. Do you think there was any truth in that crack of Macbeth’s that they’re not married?”
“If there is, it might provide a motive for the murder of Mr. Bradan.”
“You mean blackmail. But an employer wouldn’t find it worthwhile to blackmail people like the Corries. I mean, even if you put their earnings together, they can’t amount to very much.”
“I was not thinking in terms of money, child. Suppose they had wanted to apply for another post and the laird had not wanted to part with two good and faithful servants? After all, it is not every middle-aged couple who would be willing to spend their lives on a small island in a West Highland loch.”
“I see what you mean, but it still doesn’t seem an adequate motive for murder.”
“Suppose, then, that Mr. Bradan, whose activities, as we are beginning to find out (thanks largely to the nose for crime of our dear Robert), must have been of a nefarious nature, desired the Corries to connive at, or assist in, some project of which their Lowland consciences could not approve? What then?”
“I suppose…yes. But, even so, I can’t see the Corries dumping the body in an empty rum-barrel, can you?”
“From what I have seen of them, no, child, I cannot. Do not forget, however, that our young friend Grant may not be the only fanciful embroiderer. We have put down the presence of the skian-dhu to him, but there may have been another artist at work, you know.”
“Macbeth, for example?”
“He is a possibility, yes.”
“One thing that strikes me,” said Laura, “is that if the skian-dhu was inserted after death, we still don’t know what was the weapon which actually killed the laird.”
“A point which had not escaped me, but we must accept the medical evidence, don’t you think? A Scottish doctor is not easily deceived, but might hold his tongue.”
“It’s a great pity you did not have a chance to examine the body.”
“I should have welcomed the opportunity.”
“You know, we shall need to see young Grant again and make him confess to the skian-dhu.”
“And to other matters. You are quite right.”
“If we’ve guessed about the skian-dhu, it stands to reason that he must have been on Tannasgan when the laird was brought home if it was, as seems likely.”
“Quite. Oh, yes, our young Mr. Grant has a great deal to explain.”
“We ought to warn young Grant.”
“We will do so when we see him, which may be some time this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
“You’ve sent for him, then?”
“Well, this hotel is neutral ground, so to speak. But let us get back to Mr. and Mrs. Corrie and scrutinise the evidence they have given us. First, there is the uncompromising comment made by Corrie about Mr. Bradan.”
“Oh, yes! That he does well enough in his grave.”
“Exactly. That remark interests me for two reasons: first, that he did not love Mr. Bradan, and, second, that he must have known perfectly well that it was not to Bradan that I was referring, when I mentioned the laird, but to Mr. Macbeth. Then there was his equivocal reply when you asked whether Macbeth had killed the laird.”
“‘Maybe he did, and maybe he did not,’” quoted Laura. “Yes, that was a pretty dodgy answer. It might mean that he knew very well who the murderer was.”
“If he did not know for certain, I think he had very shrewd suspicions.”
“Suspicions which the police didn’t get him to voice, then!”
“A country with a Covenanting history and one which steadfastly refused to betray Prince Charles Edward Stuart would be unlikely to produce sons who could be bullied or cajoled into supplying information which they had intended to keep to themselves,” said Dame Beatrice.
“That’s true enough. Then, of course, Mrs. Corrie was a bit cagey, too. Remember asking her what she knew about the murder?”
“I do, indeed. Mind you, she qualified what you are pleased to call the cagey reply by giving us a piece of information.”
“That the son had visited the island. Yes, but we didn’t find out when. He certainly didn’t come over in the boat with Macbeth and me.”
“Reading between the lines, child, I deduced that the visit was paid before the father’s death and that the disinheriting was done on the occasion of that visit, and that Mr. Macbeth was present. I suppose the inspector has seen a copy of Mr. Bradan’s will? When I meet him again I shall ask him what was in it, but I see no reason to doubt that Macbeth is the heir. The Corries have accepted him as such, and they, most likely, witnessed the will. Even if they were not permitted to read it, I am sure they knew that Macbeth was to be the new laird of Tannasgan.”
“Corrie seemed to have some suspicions of Mr. Grant of Coinneamh, I thought,” said Laura. “He admitted that there was no love lost between him and Cù Dubh. But what did you make of his statement that the fabulous beasts used to travel to Leith?”
“Of itself, I am certain that the statement was moon-shine.”
“Lie number one, you think? Well, it’s lies we’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“I am not prepared to call it a lie. I think it was in the nature of a pointer, you know.”
“To direct our attention to Leith or, perhaps, New-haven?”
“So I suppose.”
“What about Corrie’s story that he had been sent across the loch to telephone about an arrangement for a car to meet Bradan at Tigh-Òsda station?”
“I see no reason to disbelieve it. When young Grant arrives he may be able to tell us a little more about that”
“But do you think Corrie telephoned Cù Dubh? Can we accept that he was alive when Corrie telephoned?”
“That I cannot answer at present. The story that Corrie did tell—and I have not yet decided whether it is true ‒ is that Mr. Bradan, as a living man, came back to Tannasgan.”
“Yes, I couldn’t make out about that, either.”
“Mr. Bradan, as we know, did come back to Tannasgan that night, but we do not know whether he was dead or alive.”
“So the piper may have been Macbeth, after all!”
“Yes. He played the pipes because he had seen the body, one might suppose. You remember telling me that the piper began with a lament, went on with an almost indecently triumphant skirling, then the lament again?”
“It was a most extraordinary performance.”
“Yes. He could have mourned his cousin and then realised that he had inherited the family property. Did you ever—no, you’re probably too young”…
“Did I ever what?”
“See a slender witch of a girl named, I think, Susan Salaman, perform a ballet solo called Funeral Dance for a Rich Aunt?” asked Dame Beatrice. “It called for the same extraordinary mingling of two emotions.”
“It must have been wildly comic!”
“It was, wildly and brilliantly so.”
“Well, we’ve sorted the Corries, so what about the Grants? Those of Coinneamh, I mean.”
“Today’s thought. Well, now, what strikes you most about the Grants?”
“Fishy people. I’ve changed my mind about them.”
“By that you infer…?”
“I no longer think I can believe a word they say.”
“They have not uttered very many words, child, when one comes to think of it.”
“Granted,” Laura agreed. “But what have we got on them, after all? There was the matter of my hired car and then the silly business of Grant’s being kidnapped, but—well, what else?”
“Let us see.” Dame Beatrice turned over a page of her notebook. “We begin, as you very rightly point out, with that so-far unexplained borrowing of your car. There was something very od
d indeed about that. We have assumed that it made the journey between Coinneamh and Tannasgan, but there is no evidence, except that of the mileage, to show that that was indeed where the car went that night. Then, as we have already noted, if Mrs. Grant cannot drive, it cannot have been she who borrowed the car.”
“But there’s nobody else it could have been,” Laura protested. “I think she was lying.”
“There is something in that. I see that it is still raining,” said Dame Beatrice, with apparent inconsequence. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, with rum in it. Oh, well, no, perhaps not rum. I’d forgotten for the moment. Wonder what Cù Dubh looked like? I ought to have asked Mrs. Grant when we were there.” She signalled to the waiter, who had just served morning coffee at another table. “And now, what about the Grants and the possibility that they were lying at that last interview when we managed to get them both together?”
“Let us have our coffee and enjoy it in peace,” said Dame Beatrice, closing her notebook and restoring it to her skirt pocket. “I see that the bar is open. There is no reason why you should not drink rum. It is a kindly spirit and may assist thought.”
The waiter brought their coffee while Laura was at the bar and, when she returned to her seat, Dame Beatrice talked about the more amusing aspects of the Edinburgh Conference and then said:
“I want to hear again exactly what happened on that afternoon and evening which you spent on Tannasgan.”
“I don’t think you’ll pick up anything new,” said Laura, “but here goes.” When she had concluded her account, her employer, warning her that it was a leading question, asked whether, at any point during her walk, she had suspected that she was being dogged, followed, or kept under any form of surveillance.
“You’re thinking of the disinherited son,” said Laura, “but I’m positive that my meeting him like that, at the edge of the loch, was sheer chance.”
“I would still like to know why he signalled the island so that you were taken to An Tigh Mór.”
“Can’t we put it down to a chivalrous gesture towards a damsel in distress?”
“Well, we can,” said Dame Beatrice doubtfully. “Let us place this tray on that vacant table and get to work again on the Grants.”
“You noticed that Grant the elder said they had been marooned at Tigh-Òsda station only for about a quarter of an hour?” said Laura, when she had moved the tray.
“I did notice it.”
“Well, that was a fishy answer and I don’t think it was the truth. I mean, the Grants can’t have it both ways, can they?”
“By which you mean…?”
“Either she can drive, in which case (as I’ve felt certain all along) she did borrow my car that time I stayed there, or else they must have been at the station a lot longer than a quarter of an hour.”
“Excellent. Pray expound your theory.”
“Well, he was dead set on catching his train, wasn’t he?”
“It seemed like it.”
“And their estate car didn’t break down until they got to the station, or near enough to the station.”
“True.”
“Well, he couldn’t have hoped, if the estate car had been all right, to drive his wife to Coinneamh Lodge and get back to the station in time to catch the train, if his account of the quarter of an hour’s wait was true.”
“Therefore the original arrangement must have been that Mrs. Grant was to drop him at the station and drive herself home, you think?”
“I don’t see what else one can think.”
“Ably argued, child. You must be right. What did you make of Mr. Grant’s kindly presenting us with a powerful reason for his having hated Mr. Bradan?”
“You mean the loss of his brother when that ship blew up? I think it could have been a bold bit of bluff.”
“In what way?”
“Well, it may have been a clever way of throwing dust in our eyes, I think. In other words, he had a strong motive for killing Bradan and he presents us with a completely phony one instead. It would have put quite a lot of people off the scent, I should imagine.”
“Possibly. I wonder whether he really had a brother on that ship?” said Dame Beatrice. “Of course,” she added, “you have not forgotten that Mrs. Grant, on the first occasion you met her, made no secret of the fact that she, as well as her husband, hated Mr. Bradan?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” said Laura. She was sitting up straight by this time and her settee faced the window. “Here comes a motor-cyclist. Can it be—yes, it is.”
“Our young friend Grant?”
“And as wet as a fish. Here he comes.”
“And there was nobody named Grant among the lost crew of the Saracen, you remember? But, as we said, that may mean nothing. So many people, even respectable ones, go under an alias nowadays.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” said Laura.
“Well, as I said, it might pay to confess to having a motive for a crime which you cannot possibly have committed, in order to confuse the issue of one which you certainly could have committed and which, in point of fact, you did help to commit. I speak merely theoretically, of course.”
“Like hell you do,” said Laura.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Young Grant Comes Not Quite Clean
“The Doctor examined carefully the body of the dead man. The face of the corpse was distorted and looked horrible in the candle-light.
“‘Shot?’ said the Inspector laconically.
“‘No,’ replied the Doctor.”
Barry Pain
* * *
YOUNG Grant had shed his waterproof motor-cycling outfit in the outer vestibule of the hotel. He came forward buoyantly, bowed to the ladies, and was asked to sit down. Laura went to the bar and ordered him a large whisky.
“And now,” she said, “what about coming clean?”
“I’d like to,” said young Grant. “It’s about time I shed the load. Somebody took a pop at me as I came here. Luckily he missed me and missed my tyres, but it just goes to show.”
“You were fired on?” asked Dame Beatrice, interested. “Where did this take place?”
“Not long after I left Crioch. I was passing little Loch Breac, which is screened, you’ll likely know, by bushes…”
“Did you see your adversary?”
“No. I had gone past him when he fired, and although I have a mirror on the handlebars it was no good to me in all this rain.”
“Have you decided who it was?”
“The likeliest would be the man Macbeth.”
“Oh? What makes you think so?”
“Wait until you hear my tale, and maybe you’ll think so, too. Oh, and I have an item of news which may interest you. The police have arrested Cosmo Bradan, the dead man’s son.”
“Have they, indeed? Then the man who fired at you could not have been he and could not have known of the arrest.”
“That will be so. Mind you, the arrest may be a sort of smoke-screen. It may make the murderer careless.”
“By the murderer, you mean the man who killed Mr. Bradan, of course?”
“Whom else should I mean?”
“Do you not remember confirming Mrs. Gavin’s report of the Edinburgh murder?”
“Oh, yes, certainly. But there would be no reason to suspect Cosmo Bradan of being concerned in that. I told you I saw who did it, and I told you that I should certainly recognise him again.”
“Well, let us have your story. Is it to be the whole truth this time? I must tell you that we know all about the skian-dhu.”
“You do?”
“And, to clear up a point which has baffled us, do tell us how Mr. Bradan was killed.
“I will, so. And this time you shall hear the whole truth. I shall begin with the trouble in Edinburgh. As I told you, I was there to report the Conference in which, Dame Beatrice, you (if I may say so) were a leading light. Well, that left me, as I have also said, with
time on my hands, and it was in one of those times that I met a man from Newhaven named Dorg. When he knew that I was a journalist and worked in Freagair he said he had a news item for me.
“Well, I have ambitions, like most people, so I bought him some drinks and, with them, his information. I was disappointed, in a way, for there seemed nothing to print of what he said. He was telling me about some tramp steamers that he thought were gey mysterious in their comings and goings. I speired at him in what way they were mysterious, but, although I plied him with enough whisky to loosen the tongue of anybody but a Dutchman, I could get nothing out of him but an invitation to go and see for myself. I went, but there was nobody able to tell me anything, so I telephoned the Edinburgh office of the Caledonia and asked them what they knew of ships under the names Dorg had given me. They had nothing to tell me except that they were owned by a man named Bradan of Tannasgan.
“Well, this had some sort of local interest for the people of my district, I thought, so I thanked them for their information and went back to my lodgings to write up my piece about the Conference and another (rather imaginative) piece about the ships.”
“Which was never published?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“Luckily for me, I’m beginning to think. No, I needed something straight from the horse’s mouth—that is, from Bradan himself.”
“Ah, yes, now.” Dame Beatrice, who had produced her notebook, turned back to a former entry. “Let me remind you of a statement you made at Inversnaid.”
“Please do not!”
“I am not teasing. You claimed that Cù Dubh, as Mr. Bradan was sometimes called, died just as you were tying up the boat to set Mrs. Gavin ashore. That was, or was not, true?”
“It was not true. That is, it may have been, but I just don’t know.”
“I suppose it was because of the skian-dhu that you were anxious to persuade Mrs. Gavin to give you an alibi. We know a considerable amount about that visit of yours to Tannasgan. That, I may tell you, is a warning.”
“Spare me! I’ve promised to tell the whole truth.”
My Bones Will Keep (Mrs. Bradley) Page 17
