‘Well, consider this,’ said Alec. ‘We ’ve been thinking that they went to Kirkandrews because it was a quiet spot to stage a fire, but what, when you get right down to it, is its main feature?’ I looked at him blankly, and he continued: ‘The sea, Dandy, it’s on the coast. And how better to get far away with the greatest possible discretion than in a boat?’
‘It’s all a bit Bonnie Prince Charlie,’ I said. ‘But I suppose you may be right. Although, if someone was coming to get Cara in a boat, then they might just as easily have come in a car. We hadn’t thought of her being fetched before. I wish I did have a good excuse to go back to Gatehouse and quiz the Mrs Marshalls.’ I was speaking idly.
‘And find the man with the dog and try to find out if someone saw a boat,’ said Alec, who clearly was not.
‘I think the local fishermen might be more in your line,’ I said, but Alec shook his head.
‘We can’t possibly both go again. You need a plausible motive for your return and I should only undermine it. Besides, I intend to cultivate Clemence and get a hold of those photographs by hook or by crook. I might just let slip to Kiki and Kuku that the album exists and let Clemence try to resist their attempts to winkle a copy out of her.’
I was rather hurt that Alec felt he needed to see them for himself, as though my conclusions could not be trusted, and my face must have shown some emotion, which he correctly interpreted.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘Don’t, please, be in any doubt about that, Dandy. But the time may be coming close when we find ourselves trying to convince someone that more official investigation is needed, and at that point we shall need some proof.’
‘So I’m off to Gatehouse again,’ I said. ‘What on earth am I going to tell Hugh this time?’
Alec had already stopped listening, I think, although he answered, after a fashion: ‘Say you’ve gone to see a man about a dog.’
Chapter Ten
After a long, fruitless attempt to think up something better, I did, in fact, in the end, tell Hugh that I had gone to see a man about a dog.
Clemence had described the one being walked by the man who tried to help them with their pictures as ‘a hideous little thing’ and for some reason I got it into my head that this meant a Jack Russell terrier. Assuming her to be as snobbish about dogs as most people are, I felt sure that any of the hideous breeds which happened to have some social cachet – bulldogs, King Charles spaniels, all the bulging of eye and bald of bottom – she would perceive with scrupulous correctness as adorable, but that a sweet little Jack Russell terrier would be an affront.
So I told Hugh in an innocent voice at breakfast, that whilst in Galloway I had met a man whose terrier bitch had recently been brought to bed and that I had resolved on going back to procure one of the puppies. Hugh looked rather pulled about by this. He has always despised what he calls my silliness about Bunty, not seeing why she should not sleep and be fed with his dogs, and the news was most welcome that I was considering another to dilute my adoration, and a terrier at that. On the other hand, there was the possibility that two dogs on cushions in my sitting room being fed chicken from two little china dishes might only be twice as annoying. I have to say I do not agree with Hugh’s assessment of my sentimentality over Bunty. She is simply my companion, as the hairy pack which follows him around is his, and since I spend my days inside in the comfort of my sitting room it is only common sense that she should be clean and sweet-breathed, while his dogs can with just as much common sense be reeking of carrion and caked in mud as he and they tramp around the woods and farms. Besides, Bunty is a Dalmatian and it is quite simply a waste of God’s considerable efforts to let a Dalmatian get dirty.
‘I thought you would approve,’ I said. ‘The breed as a whole and these puppies’ parents in particular are excellent molers.’ Hugh’s ears perked up at this. He is inordinately fond of his gardens, to the point of being quite peculiar at times, and we were suffering just then from a savage attack of moles, causing him acute pain each morning as he surveyed the desecration of yet more of the sward. Add to this the lamentable fact that a good mole-catcher is one thing the neighbourhood of Gilverton lacked (what mole-catchers there were being variously incompetent, lazy and, in one case, drunk by noon) and it is easy to see why a Jack Russell terrier from a talented moling lineage might be a very welcome addition to the household.
For one dreadful moment I thought I had gone too far and he was going to suggest he come with me but, thinking quickly, I put a stop to it.
‘I shall go in the motor car and take Grant with me this time,’ I said. ‘And Bunty, of course. There’s no use in bringing home a puppy she hasn’t met and might not take to.’ He disappeared behind his newspaper with a deep frown and one of those little harumphs he has begun to emit since he turned forty. Hugh is bored and pained by Grant’s and my conversations and would have been irritated beyond anything by the sight of my letting Bunty choose a puppy. I myself was quite looking forward to this bit, until I remembered that it was part of my cover story and was not actually going to happen.
Mrs McCall was delighted to see me again, all the more so since this time I was travelling as she obviously thought I should, with my maid and my chauffeur, and she took to Bunty immediately although not to the extent of letting her sleep in my bedroom; she treated this suggestion of mine as a joke.
Early the following morning I got Drysdale to drop me off at a convenient spot north of the patch of coast in question and arranged to be met again on the road to Borgue in two hours’ time. The morning was fresh and bright, a stiff sea breeze making me glad I had put a great deal of cream on my face but bringing no low cloud to threaten my walk. I had a snapshot of Cara, taken from Alec’s wallet, to jog memories and Bunty was straining to be off, plunging around with excitement and wagging her whole body from the shoulders backwards in delight.
‘That’s a grand-looking beastie,’ said a voice behind me, and I turned to see a young man in corduroys and a rather shabby mackintosh smiling at Bunty as he came towards us. ‘As they say in these parts,’ he went on. ‘What a beauty.’ He was not, after all, I saw as he drew nearer, a young man in the usual sense of the phrase, being rather creased about the eyes as well as the mackintosh, but ‘young man’ was his type in that he looked unburdened the way young men do, and utterly unmarried.
I looked about him for a dog of his own, thinking what luck it would be if this were the bumbling photographer already. There was no sign of one, but I tried my theory anyway.
‘Yes, she’s a dear,’ I said, falling into step with him as it seemed our paths both lay towards the beach. ‘Do you have a dog of your own? Only I’m on the hunt for someone around here – not sure who exactly – who has some Jack Russell puppies going begging.’ I stopped short, too late. I should never find an unknown man with a dog of some inelegant kind by making it a bitch, having it pregnant and dreaming up a breed for it all out of my own fluff-filled head. ‘Or so I heard. But I daresay the puppies are spoken for, if they even exist. Village gossip being what it is there’s a fair chance that some blameless little dog just happened to have a large meal of rabbit one day. Do you? Have a dog, I mean?’ I tried a light laugh, as though unaware of or at least unconcerned by the inanities I was spouting.
‘Cats,’ said the young man. ‘Cats for me every time, I’m afraid. Although this handsome creature gets close.’ With that he tipped his hat and disappeared into an opening in the hawthorn hedge which marked the start of a path.