Sybil for the first time in our acquaintance looked really startled; I saw that I had brought forward a point that had escaped her. She said: ‘Where is the bell?’
‘Over here by the fireplace.’
‘Then Guthrie rang no bell. And he certainly didn’t go to the door and shout. Hardcastle lied.’
‘And Hardcastle was next to livid at finding you here. In fact Hardcastle had a game. Come over here.’
I led her across the room to one of the bays into which I had been peering earlier. There was an old bureau in which a drawer had been violently broken open. It was empty save for a few scattered gold coins. ‘The miser’s toy cupboard,’ I said, ‘and the toys are gone.’
I glanced at Sybil as I spoke and saw that she had turned pale. For a long moment she was silent; then she said, in odd antithesis to what had been her most familiar phrase hitherto: ‘No – no, I don’t see.’ She knit her brows. ‘And even if–’ She broke off and I could see that she was searching desperately in her mind, perhaps in her memory. ‘I couldn’t be mistaken on that.’ And she turned away from the rifled drawer. ‘Of course, Noel, it adds to the puzzle, but no further problem is involved.’
I must have looked my bewilderment at this outburst of riddling speech, for Sybil laughed at me as she walked across the room and rather wearily threw her cigarette into the fireplace. ‘Noel, what will your lawyer be like? I’m rather wanting to see him.’ She stretched herself with an engaging affectation of laziness and added: ‘And I’m rather wanting to go to bed and sleep.’
‘Then off you go. You have some hours before the rumpus. I’ll see you to your room.’
But Sybil gave a dismissive nod. ‘You needn’t come down, Noel Gylby. Ranald’s ghost won’t trouble me; as you know, I’m not really romantically inclined. But I’m glad you smashed my car. Good night.’
And so I was left in possession of Ranald Guthrie’s tower. And here I have sat scribbling away like Pamela – who, you remember, wrote home thousands and thousands of words on every attempt of her master’s on her virtue. I always liked Pamela and now I know why: I have that itch – hers, I mean, not her master’s. As they said to the Historian of the Roman Empire: ‘Scribble, scribble, Mr Gibbon!’ The story’s a good one, but I forget it. I’m tired. Take it these last few lines are sleep-writing absolute.
Very presently, I suppose, Tammas will bring back a few hardy representatives of order and sanity to this crazy castle. Crazycastle, Dampcastle, Coldcastle, Hardcastle. Hardcastle – grrr!
Good night, lady, good night, sweet lady, good night, good night.
Quoth
NOEL YVON MERYON GYLBY.
PART THREE
THE INVESTIGATIONS OF ALJO WEDDERBURN
1
I must begin my contribution to this record of the curious events at Castle Erchany with a confession. From the very beginning I had the gravest doubts – doubts which I cannot conscientiously say subsequent events resolved – as to whether, in the large utterance of the young man Gylby, ‘the right sort of person had been dispatched’.
It will doubtless be within the knowledge of readers familiar with the legal institutions of these Islands that the society of Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh is for the most part happily associated with the quieter, the more spacious, the truly learned aspects of the law. And I can modestly say that the firm of Wedderburn, Wedderburn and McTodd has amply contributed to this respectable tradition. Our clients are never harassed by importunate endeavours to bring their affairs to an issue, for the passions of today are the forgotten follies of tomorrow and procrastination in consequence is of the essence of soundly conservative legal practice. Again, they are seldom exposed to the uncertainties of litigation, for the harmonious and profitable commerce between solicitor and client can only be disturbed by the intrusion – not unaccompanied by heavy demands of a pecuniary nature – of our learned brethren of the Faculty of Advocates. The pleasures of conveyancing – a science often of the greatest antiquarian interest – together with the discreet superintendence of bankruptcies, alimonies, insanities and irresponsibilities among the best Scottish families has made the major part of our professional activities for some generations. Especially have we been reluctant to engage ourselves in the lurid limelight of the criminal law!
With this preliminary observation – which I trust will obviate any misunderstanding that may arise – I will plunge, in the phrase already employed by my worthy friend Ewan Bell, in medias res. On the afternoon of the Christmas Day upon which this chronicle centres, having dispatched my family to the pantomime – a mode of entertainment which has for me, I fear, a very limited appeal – I walked up the Mound and let myself into the Signet Library, proposing a few hours’ quiet study: some of my readers at least may not be uninterested to know that I hope shortly to publish a monograph entitled Run-rig, In-field and Out-field in the Scottish Land Courts of the Eighteenth Century. I was in the act of consulting a valuable article by the learned Dr Macgonigle in the Scottish Historical Review when I was interrupted by the appearance of my chauffeur with the news that General Gylby had called at my home on a matter of considerable urgency and was now awaiting my return.
Gylby and I had shot together in Morayshire and he had some claim upon my friendship; I was aware, moreover, that his wife’s sister was engaged to the young Earl of Inverallochy: I therefore commended my man’s intelligence in summoning me and drove home.
It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that General Gylby’s business concerned a telegram he had received from his nephew: this young man, together with a female friend, had become involved in an episode of a violent and mysterious sort – and in such a way as to make immediate legal advice desirable. The telegram was brief and necessarily obscure, and but for the risk of offending the General I believe I should simply have recommended him to some competent young solicitor unconnected with our firm. As the matter stood, however, I determined to turn to my nephew Aeneas. Aeneas has now been some years my junior partner, and it must be avowed that during this period he has shown a very considerable flair for just those over-colourful branches of the law which we have always been concerned to eschew. When Mrs Macrattle of Dunk poisoned her head keeper by injecting sheep-dip into a haggis with the local doctor’s hypodermic syringe it was by Aeneas that the matter was adjusted; when the Macqueady was sensationally arraigned for discharging an extensive land-mine under an entire house-party organized by his wife it was Aeneas who instructed counsel in the successful plea that nothing but a geological experiment of a purely scientific kind had been intended. Aeneas, in fact, seemed just the man for General Gylby’s nephew; and on the evening of Christmas Day he set out for Dunwinnie. My perturbation may be imagined when I received a telegram early next morning to say that while hastily changing trains at Perth he had slipped on the ice and broken a leg. I need not detail the alternative arrangements I endeavoured to make. They failed; we were pledged to General Gylby; that afternoon I set out for Dunwinnie myself.
It must not be concealed that I climbed into my carriage at the Caledonian station in a mood of considerable annoyance – nor indeed that this annoyance was increased rather than diminished by the discovery that I was to have as travelling companion my old schoolfellow Lord Clanclacket. With all proper deference to a Senator of the College of Justice it must be frankly said that Clanclacket is a bore. Not only a bore but a chilly bore: the last man one would choose to sit opposite to on a journey uncommonly dull and chilly in itself.