We were on the Forth Bridge before Clanclacket spoke. He then said: ‘Well Wedderburn, you’re going north?’
It is with questions of just this degree of perspicacity that Clanclacket is wont to entrap unwary young advocates from the bench. I briefly agreed that I was going north and ventured to suppose that he was in much the same case.
‘A week’s quiet in Perthshire,’ he said. ‘It is a holiday you are taking, Wedderburn?’
‘A professional journey – a little matter of family business. Notice, Clanclacket, that the fleet is in. I wonder, can that be Renown just opposite Rosyth?’
My companion made what I fear was but a decent pretence of being diverted for a moment to these naval matters. We were still rattling through the cantilevers of the bridge when he resumed: ‘What’s your station?’
‘I change at Perth. Let me offer you Blackwood’s.’
Clanclacket took the journal – an offering made, I may say, with considerable reluctance – and studied its cover much as if it had been an unfamiliar document put in evidence. Then he said heavily: ‘Ah, Blackwood’s. Thank you. Excellent. Very good.’ And at that he tucked it firmly away – so firmly, indeed, that it would not be seriously inaccurate to say he sat on it. ‘You were saying, Wedderburn, that you change at Perth for – ?’
‘Dunwinnie.’
‘Your business is there?’
‘My business, my dear Clanclacket, is there or thereabouts.’ For a few minutes the emphasis of my remark did hold him up, but we were scarcely through North Queensferry before he was employing another tactic.
‘Um, yes – Dunwinnie. A bonny spot. I don’t know, though, that I know many people in that neighbourhood. Do you know the Frasers of Mervie?’
‘No.’
‘The Grants of Kildoon?’
‘I believe I have met Colonel Grant. But we are not acquainted.’
‘The Guthries of Erchany?’
‘I have never, I think, met a member of that family.’
‘Old Lady Anderson of Dunwinnie Lodge?’
‘She was a friend of my father’s. But our firm has never done business for her and I do not know that we have met.’
Clanclacket relapsed for some minutes now into baffled silence. I had got past the danger-point, I congratulated myself, by a neat formula enough. Presently he tried another shot. ‘I wonder about the other families thereabout. Do you know who they are?’
With great satisfaction I replied: ‘I am acquainted with none of them.’
That – as Aeneas is accustomed to put it – really fixed him. And balked in his endeavours to acquire information he presently fell back on imparting it. ‘About the Frasers of Mervie,’ he said. ‘I could tell you of certain curious episodes–’
This is Clanclacket’s customary proem to extended dissertation; for over an hour we pursued the eccentricities of the Frasers of Mervie and all their kin about the globe. In these matters Clanclacket is notoriously encyclopaedic and as the Frasers began to show signs of exhaustion it occurred to me that this knowledgeableness, if tactfully exploited, might have its immediate utility for me. ‘Clanclacket,’ I said as if with sudden interest, ‘the Grants of Kildoon – do you know much about them?’
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No! Nothing at all. But if you had happened to ask me about the Guthries of Erchany–’
I endeavoured to assume the identical expression with which I had listened to the vagaries of the Frasers, though with quite other feelings. My knowledge of Mr Guthrie of Erchany, the dead man to whose late seat I was now travelling, was confined to the intelligence, gleaned from a corner of that morning’s Scotsman, that he had fallen from a tower on the night of Christmas Eve in circumstances that awaited investigation. Any information that I could glean from the anecdotal habit of Clanclacket as to the character and connections of this unfortunate person was likely to be serviceable. I confess to stimulating a yawn as I asked indifferently: ‘They are interesting folk?’
‘They have been interesting folk for centuries! Take Andrew Guthrie, known as the Gory Guthrie, who was killed at Solway Moss–’
There was no doubt, I reflected as some forty minutes later my companion’s chronicle was approaching the fringes of the eighteenth century, that these Guthries of Erchany were interesting folk enough; it was doubtful whether one could find a more picturesque record among the minor families of Scotland. But my interests were on the present occasion contemporary and I possessed my soul in patience until Clanclacket should come down to the present generation and its immediate predecessors. As evening fell and we ran further north through a countryside submerged in snow I was not inclined to feel the mission on which I was engaged the less uncomfortable and wearisome; nevertheless, I almost regretted the speed at which we were travelling, being apprehensive lest we should arrive at Perth before we arrived at Mr Ranald Guthrie.
‘…And take Ranald Guthrie, the present laird. Once more, the same morbid constitution – I believe in an aggravated form. I believe’ – and here Clanclacket sank his voice and glanced into the corridor to make sure he was not overheard – ‘I believe he is artistically inclined.’
‘Dear me!’
‘But we must be accurate, Wedderburn; we must always be accurate. I hasten to add that this inclination may be a thing of the past.’
‘I am sure it is, Clanclacket.’
‘Eh – what’s that? You know nothing about it, man. I’m telling you that as a lad this Ranald ran away from home and went on the stage.’
‘Ah!’
‘Exactly. A thoroughly unstable stock. But we must be fair. He was then exceedingly young. And he was reclaimed. After some months – a year maybe – he was reclaimed and, of course, sent abroad. Colonial life was plainly the only thing. They chose Australia; it has the advantage over Canada in such cases of being three or four times as far away. But Ranald didn’t like it. On first seeing Fremantle harbour he endeavoured to commit suicide.’
‘Dear me! I suppose this is all ancient gossip now? It would be difficult to have that attempted suicide, for instance, sworn to?’
‘Really Wedderburn, you should know I never gossip. These are facts confidentially communicated. Long-past history though the incident be, and remote as is the site of it, I could as it happens put my finger on an eyewitness tomorrow. Ranald Guthrie, I say, attempted to drown himself and his life was fortunately saved by the bravery of his elder brother.’
‘So a brother went to Australia with him?’
‘Ian Guthrie. He too had given a little trouble. Not, I think, anything serious: I have no evidence of artistic temperament in Ian. Possibly merely a matter of young women; we must be fair. And I believe that no scandal circulated. Both these brothers were generally thought to have gone abroad because they were reluctant to enter the ministry. Of course when Ranald inherited he came home.’
‘Ian had died?’
‘Yes. There was some tragedy. I believe both went prospecting or exploring and that Ian got lost. His body was later recovered by a rescue party. Ranald, who is as I say an unstable person, was upset.’
‘Upset?’
‘Greatly upset. When he came home he lived in a very peculiar manner. I understand that he still does and that he is, in fact, a miser and a recluse.’
‘Was.’
‘I beg your pardon, Wedderburn?’
‘Ranald Guthrie has just died. And here is Perth. I am afraid I must hurry. Pray, Clanclacket, keep Blackwood’s. Goodbye.’