‘I dinna ken ony mair. The neist thing I knew was Corrie banging on my door the morn and speiring did I know that the laird was in a barrel over at the quay. I thought the man was haverin’, but he was right, so I sent him off for a doctor and the doctor – from Freagair he was – found that Bradan had been killed.’
‘Yes,’ put in Dame Beatrice, ‘but how? By what means?’
‘He had a muckle great lump on the back of his head and a skian-dhu intil his ribs.’
‘The lump on the head would account for his having to be helped up to the house, I suppose, but what about the skian-dhu?’
‘I dinna ken. It was not mine.’
‘Did they test it for fingerprints?’ asked Laura.
‘I dinna ken that, either. The police move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform, but what they do is no business of mine so long as I keep out of their hands, and that I’m determined to do. So, mistress’ – he met Dame Beatrice’s eye – ‘gin ye ken ony gowk wha will put up good siller for a house and an island, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mór are in feu.’
‘I would rent them myself for a fortnight,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘A sennight would do. Verra guid.’
‘Very well. How much are you asking?’
‘I wouldna want to take a cheque. Will ya give me ten pounds? I’m a man of my word. I want naething signed, ye ken, and I’ll no give ye a receipt. Gin ye’ll hand me twa five-pound notes, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mór will be yours for seven days. Doubtless ye’re thinking of taking a wee holiday.’
‘Yes, and a childish one,’ said Dame Beatrice. She pulled out a notecase and handed over the money. Laura looked on, amazed, but she realised that there was a tacit understanding that she should say nothing until Macbeth had gone. He wrung Dame Beatrice’s yellow fingers, nodded to Laura and went out of the room. In no time he was back, a kit-bag slung over his shoulder.
‘Well, gu’n robh maith agad,’ he said.
‘Is e do bheatha,’ responded Laura, not to be outdone in the civilities. Macbeth bowed and departed.
‘Translate, child,’ commanded Dame Beatrice. ‘I had no idea that you had the Gaelic.’
‘I haven’t. All he said was, “Thank you,” and all I said was, “You’re welcome.” ’
‘Poor Sherlock Holmes!’
‘You mean the explanations always seem so obvious when they come? Never mind. You shall play Sherlock now and, as always, I’ll be Watson. Why have we rented this island for a week?’
‘First let us sort Corrie as soon as he brings the boat back from taking Mr Macbeth ashore. To do this at leisure, I ought to see that Mrs Corrie is engaged, or embroiled, or in some way prevented from coming to his rescue.’
‘Can do,’ said Laura, decidedly. ‘I’ll have a crack with her in the kitchen while you go ahead. It’s such a lonely life here for one woman on her own that, once I can get her talking, she’ll probably go on until Domesday.’
So they parted, Laura waylaying Corrie on her way to the kitchen on his return from the boathouse to tell him that he was wanted in the dining-room, Dame Beatrice to sharpen her hatchet.
‘Well, Corrie,’ she said, as soon as he came in, ‘you’ll have heard from Mr Macbeth that Tannasgan has changed hands for a week.’
‘Ay, the laird was telling me.’
‘Did he mention his plans?’
‘Ay, he’s awa’ to Skye.’
To Skye?’ (She remembered that Laura had seen young Bradan, as well as young Grant, on Skye, and she wondered where was the connection, if a connection existed.)
‘Maybe he’ll be climbing Sgurr Dearg,’ said Corrie, with a crafty little smile. Dame Beatrice dismissed the unscaleable peak with a wave of her yellow claw.
‘Well, never mind that,’ she said. ‘The point is that he thinks he’s running away from the police.’
‘The laird has done naething wrang.’
‘So he himself seems to think. Why, then, should he be afraid?’
‘Maybe it would be the skian-dhu?’
‘I am asking you. What about the skian-dhu?’
‘Maybe it belonged to the laird.’
‘Macbeth?’
‘Ay.’
‘So that his fingerprints might be on it?’
‘They were not.’
‘Oh, I see. The police tested it, I suppose?’
‘I dinna ken.’
Dame Beatrice was becoming a little tired of this Scottish circumlocution, but she spoke patiently.
‘Did the police ask to take your own fingerprints?’
‘Aye. I made no objection. I kenned fine it was no masel that put the knife in the old laird’s ribs.’
‘Man Corrie,’ said Dame Beatrice impressively, ‘I know so much about the whole affair that it would be better for nearly everybody if I knew all. Tell me about the night you and another brought Mr Bradan back to An Tigh Mór and put him in the cellar.’
‘So the laird had split on us!’
‘He has indeed, if you choose to put it that way. But as he had not been taken into your confidence and (as I see it) had gone into the cellar simply and solely to get himself something to drink and discovered Bradan there, I scarcely follow your argument. Surely one can only betray one’s fellow-conspirators?’
‘Ye’re in the right of it,’ Corrie gloomily agreed. ‘Here’s for it, then – and this time it’s the whole truth I’ll be telling ye.’
‘And quite time, too. Fire away.’
Corrie’s story did not differ, in a sense, from the one he had told before, but there were some significant additions and one or two important contradictions. He maintained that, when Macbeth had taken the boat over to pick up Laura, he had been expecting a visit from young Bradan on the score that the young man who had been disinherited would want to argue with Macbeth about the rights and wrongs of the matter while his father (of whom, Corrie claimed, he had always been in awe) was out of the way.
‘You told us that the fabulous beasts travelled to Leith for purposes of advertisement. I don’t think that was true,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Well, well!’ said Corrie. ‘The truth is that they did and they didna.’
‘Indeed?’
‘The old laird had wee images of them made.’
‘Oh, yes, I saw some of them,’ said Laura.
‘And it was the wee images that were taken across to Grant of Coinneamh and his motor-van. I understand now. Pray go on.’
Corrie again referred to the activities of young Grant and reasserted that he himself had had orders to go to the public telephone on the Freagair road and ring up Bradan.
‘And you are certain that his was the voice you heard?’ Dame Beatrice deliberately spoke in a tone of doubt, but Corrie was adamant. He could have sworn to it anywhere, he declared.
‘I press the point,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘because I cannot see how, if Mr Bradan was answering the telephone from Edinburgh at the time you say, he could have reached Loch na Gréine at soon after ten.’
‘But wha spoke of Edinburgh?’ demanded Corrie. ‘It was an Inverness number I was to call.’ He went on to speak of meeting the station-master’s newly-repaired car and of the sorry state of Cù Dubh. He had smelled strongly of spirits and was in a comatose condition.
‘Ye’ll appreciate,’ said Corrie, ‘that I had no suspicion then that he had been hit on the head and was to die.’
‘You helped him up to the house and into it, believing that he was drunk.’
‘I did that.’
‘And you saw nothing of young Grant.’
‘I did not.’
‘Now, Corrie, Mr Macbeth has told us that you and another man had almost to carry Mr Bradan up to the house, and that young Grant was suspicious about this and, seeing the chance of a scoop for his paper, he bearded Mr Macbeth, who, by that time, must have been aware of what had happened to his cousin, and then Grant was told he might search where he pleased. He found the body in the cellar. What have you to say about that?’