Hamish Macbeth 01; Death of a Gossip

∨ Death of a Gossip ∧

Day Four

Above all, when playing a big fish, stay calm.

—Peter Wheat, The Observer’s Book of Fly Fishing

It was a very subdued party that met in the lounge in the morning. Heather Cartwright was visibly losing her usual phlegmatic calm. Her plump face was creased with worry, and her voice shook as she asked them to be seated.

Lady Jane was absent, but everyone seemed to jump a little when anyone entered the room. John Cartwright, in a weary voice, said he felt they had not all learnt the art of casting properly and so he would take them out to the lawn at the back to give a demonstration. His eyes turned to the major to make his usual remark, that those with experience could go ahead, but somehow he could not bring himself to say anything.

They stood about him, shivering in the chill, misty morning air as he demonstrated how to make the perfect cast. He warmed to his subject but his little audience fidgetted restlessly and moved from foot to foot.

Finally, their unease reached him, and he stopped his lecture with a little sigh. “Enough from me,” he said. “We will go to the upper reaches of the river Anstey. I’ll leave word at the, desk for Lady Jane. There is no point in disturbing her if she’s sleeping late.”

Like the day before, the warmth of the sun began to penetrate the mist. “Bad day for fishing,” said the major knowledgeably, and Alice could only envy the quick way in which he had recovered from his humiliation.

“I like the sunshine,” she said, and then could not resist adding, “and I hope Lady Jane doesn’t turn up to spoil it.”

“Got a feeling we won’t be seeing her,” said the major cheerfully.

And then it was as if they all had the same feeling. Everyone’s spirits began to lift. John Cartwright smiled at his wife and pressed her hand as he drove up the twists and winds to the river. “I’ve a feeling we’ve been worrying too much about that woman,” he murmured to Heather. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it she doesn’t plague us anymore.”

Alice gave a little sigh of relief. Obviously the Cartwrights were going to tell Lady Jane to leave. She grinned at Charlie, but Charlie was looking white and sick and turned his head away.

She shrugged. Again, the sunshine was bleaching away the worries of the night. She was prepared to accept that she did not stand a chance with Jeremy. Let him have Daphne. There was no use fighting it. She would enjoy the exercise and scenery as much as she could. Once more her thoughts returned to Mr Patterson-James. She was sure he would be impressed when she described her holiday.

But when she climbed out of the car and waited for Heather to hand her her rod, she could not help wishing Jeremy would join her as he had done on the other days.

But John Cartwright, with the continued absence of Lady Jane, was once more on form. He was determined his little class should get the proper schooling. He said he was going to give them a demonstration of how to catch a salmon. When they all had their gear on he led the way up a twisting path beside the river at a smart trot. Alice felt the sweat beginning to trickle down her face as she stumbled along after him. Below them, at the bottom of the steep bank, the river Anstey foamed and frothed. At times, delicate strands of silver birch and alder and hazel screened the river from their view, and then, around another turn it would appear again, tumbling headlong on its way to the sea. To the right, the tangled forest climbed up the mountainside.

Marvin Roth put an arm around his wife’s shoulders to help her. “Didn’t mean to take you on a survival course,” he said. Amy shook his arm away and strode ahead of him up the path with long, athletic strides. Marvin hesitated, took off his cap, and passed a hand over the dome of his bald head. Then he replaced his cap and plunged after her.

“What’s up with you this morning, Miss Alice?” came Jeremy’s voice behind Alice. “Don’t I get a smile?”

Remember, ifs no use, Alice chided herself fiercely. Aloud she said, “I haven’t any energy to do anything other than try to keep up. It’s so hot. I didn’t think the Scottish Highlands would be so hot.”

“It’s like this sometimes,” said Jeremy, falling into step beside her. He was wearing a blue cotton shirt open at the neck, as blue as the sky above. He smelled of clean linen, aftershave, and masculine sweat. The heavy gold band of his wrist watch lay against the brand-new tan of his arm. Alice’s good resolutions began to fade.

“What did you think about our major’s little trick?” Jeremy went on. “Not quite the manner of the officer or the gentleman, as our Lady Jane would point out.”

“I think it was understandable,” said Alice. “It must have been a terrible temptation to lie. Only think the way people go on about cars and horses and…boats. It’s surely more in the nature of a gentleman to lie when it comes to sports.”

She gave Jeremy a rather hard-eyed stare. Alice’s better nature was trying to drive him away, but Jeremy only felt she had gone off him and was a little piqued.

“Didn’t you lie yourself?” he jeered. “Our gossip accused you of lying about the fish you were supposed to have caught.”

Easy tears rushed to Alice’s eyes. “I think you’re horrid. How can you accuse me of such a thing?”

“Hey, steady on!” Jeremy caught her arm. “There’s no need to fly off the handle like that.”

“I don’t know what’s up with me,” said Alice, scrubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “I think it’s that Jane female. She’s always hinting things in a spiteful sort of way.”

“You know,” said Jeremy, taking Alice’s hand in a warm clasp. “I don’t think we’ll ever see her again. I feel she’s taken the hint and left. No one can be that thick-skinned – it surely got through to her that not one of us can stand her.”

He gave her hand a squeeze. Alice’s mercurial spirits soared, and her resolution to forget about Jeremy whirled up to the summer sky and disappeared. After they had been climbing about a mile, and Amy Roth was loudly and clearly threatening to call it a day and turn back, John finally came to a stop. “Down here to the Keeper’s Pool,” he called, “and be very quiet.” The tangled undergrowth gave way at their side of the pool where a ledge of flat rocks hung over the water. The pool swirled and boiled like a witch’s cauldron.

It was a joy to watch John casting. He did a roll cast across the pool, landing the fly delicately on the surface. All at once, fishing fever gripped John and he forgot about his class. Suddenly, with a flash of silver scales, a salmon leapt high in the air. Alice clapped her hands in excitement, and everyone said, “Shhhhh.”

Now the whole class was as intense as their teacher. Then, just as John was casting, Charlie slipped and nearly fell into the pool. Heather shouted, “Look out!” and caught his arm. John turned to make sure the boy was safe, leaving his line tumbling and turning in the water.

He turned back once he had assured himself that Charlie was all right. He flicked at his line and his rod began to bend. “You’ve got one,” breathed the major.

“I don’t know…I think it’s a rock,” muttered John. He moved to another angle and tried to reel in his line. He had something heavy on the end of it, something that was twisting and turning.

His heart began to beat hard. Of course, if it wasn’t a rock, it could be a sunken branch, twisting and turning in the churning of the water. He moved back round to where the group was standing on the beach of rocks. Underneath the rock shelf the water was clear and still, a little island of calm just outside the churning of the pool.

He reeled in again, feeling his excitement fade as whatever it was that he had hooked moved from the turbulent water into the still shallows. A log, he thought.

And then Daphne Gore, the usually cool and unflappable Daphne, began to scream and scream, harsh, terror-stricken screams tearing apart the sylvan picture of pretty woods, singing birds, and tumbling water.

Alice stared down into the golden water directly below her feet as she stood on the ledge. And Lady Jane stared back.

Slowly rising to the surface came the bloated, distorted features of Lady Jane Winters. Her tongue was sticking out, and her blue eyes bulged and glared straight up into the ring of faces.

“She must have hit her head and fallen in,” whispered Alice, clinging to Jeremy.

John waded into the water, heaved the body up, and then let it fall with a splash. He turned a chalk-white face up to Heather. “Get Macbeth,” he said. “Get the police.”

“But didn’t she just fall?” asked Heather, as white as her husband.

John prodded at Lady Jane’s fat neck. “There’s a leader round her neck. She’s been strangled. And look.” He pointed to Lady Jane’s legs.

“Oh, God,” said Alice, “there’s chains wrapped round them.”

“She could have done it herself,” said Amy Roth through white lips. “Marvin. Help me. I feel sick.”

“Get the police, dammit,” shouted John. “And get that child out of here. The rest, stay where you are.”

“If it’s murder, we’d better all stay,” said Marvin, holding Amy tightly against him.

“Don’t be silly,” said Heather. “It took someone powerful to overcome a woman like Lady Jane and strangle her with a leader. Come along, Charlie. I’ll take you to your aunt’s and then I’ll bring Constable Macbeth.”

“Take me to your leader,” said Daphne and began to giggle.

“Can’t anyone stop her?” pleaded Amy.

“Pull yourself together, Daphne,” snapped John Cartwright.

“Steady the buffs,” urged the major.

Daphne sat down abruptly, pulled out a gold cigarette case, and extracted a cigarette with hands that trembled so much the cigarettes spilled out on the rock. Jeremy stooped to help her. Their eyes met and held in a long stare.

“Go up the hill and wait at the top,” commanded John. “I’ll stay with the body.”

Alice, Jeremy, Daphne, the major, and Marvin and Amy Roth made their way up the path. They moved, bunched together, along the upper path until it opened out into a small glade. They sat down in silence. Major Peter Frame pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered them around.

Marvin was the first to speak. “I always knew that dame was a party pooper,” he said gloomily. “She’s worse dead than alive. She was murdered, of course.”

“Well, it wasn’t any of us,” said Alice. She tried to speak bravely, but her voice trembled and she rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arms.

“Yeah, she was the sort of woman anyone would have murdered, I reckon,” said Amy Roth shakily. “Was she rich? Maybe one of her relatives followed her up here and bumped her off.”

“By Jove, I think you’re right,” the major chimed in eagerly. “I mean de mortuis and all that, but she was a really repulsive, nasty woman. Look at the way she kept getting at each of us. Stands to reason she’d been doing the same thing to other people for years.”

“I suppose the holiday’s over,” said Daphne, looking once more her calm self. “I mean, what’s going to happen to us?”

“It won’t be left to Macbeth, not a murder,” said Jeremy. “They’ll be sending in some of the big brass. I s’pose they’ll take statements from us, take a note of our home addresses, and let us go.”

“It’s so unfair,” drawled Daphne. “Just as I was getting the hang of this fishing thing. You know, I felt so sure that today would be the day I would catch something.”

Everyone looked at Daphne with approval. They were not only joined by the tragedy of the murder but bound in fellowship by that old-as-time obsession, the lure of the kill.

“Well, I’ve paid for this week and I jolly well expect to get full value,” said the major, “or they’ll need to give me my money back. As soon as that oaf of a village copper gets our statements, I’m off to spend the rest of the day fishing, and if John Cartwright isn’t up to it, I’ll take any of you as pupils if you’ll have me.”

“I’ll go with you for a start,” said Jeremy, and the others nodded. The major might have lied about his magnificent salmon bag, but he was undoubtedly an expert angler. His line never became tangled in bushes, and he made his own flies, several of which flaunted their garish colours on his hat.

“I thought of killing her,” said Alice suddenly. “I’m glad she’s dead, and I feel guilty at the same time. I feel I wished her to death.”

There was a shocked silence.

“Well,” said Jeremy uncomfortably, “may as well be honest. I think we all felt like that.”

“Not me,” said Amy Roth. The skin at the corners of her eyelids had a stretched, almost oriental look. “We Blanchards are made of pretty strong stuff.”

“Tell us about it,” said Daphne harshly. “Tell us about the bloody ol’ plantation and massah’s in de col’, col’ ground. Tell us anything in the world, but don’t talk about the murder.”

“Not if you’re going to be rude,” said Amy, leaning against her husband’s shoulder and seeking his hand for comfort.

“I didn’t mean to be rude. I really would like to hear about it. All I can think of is a sort of Gone With the Wind setting, all crinolines and mint juleps.”

Amy laughed. “Believe it or not, it was a little bit like that. Of course, that life all went when I was still a child. Pa was a gambler in the true Southern tradition. Well, lemme see. It was a big barn of a place, the Blanchard mansion, like you see in the movies. Pillared colonial front, wide verandahs all round. Green shutters, cool rooms smelling of beeswax and lavender. Flowers evvywheah,” said Amy, becoming Southern in accent as she warmed to her subject. Amy’s normal voice was a light, almost Bostonian accent. “And antiques! I decleah, there were more Chippendales and whatyoucallums there than you’d get in one of your English stately homes. We hud been importing them for yeahs.”

“Listen!” The major put a hand to his ear in a sort of list-who-approacheth way. Most of his gestures were stagey.

Heather appeared with Constable Macbeth behind her. The policeman was wearing his usual black uniform, shiny with wear. He pulled off his cap, and his red hair blazed in the sun like fire. It was that true Highland red that sometimes looked as if it has purple lights.

“I will chust go down and look at the body,” he said placidly. “There will be detectives coming up from Strathbane by this afternoon, but I must make sure nothing is touched. If you will wait where you are, I will return in a wee moment and take the statements.”

They waited now in silence. A little knot of dread was beginning to form in the pit of each stomach. It had just been becoming comfortably unreal. Now reality was with them in the shape of the village constable who was down at the pool bent over the body.

A small, fussy man erupted into the glade and glared about him. “Dr MacArthur,” said Heather, “I’ll take you down. Mr Macbeth is with the body now.”

“The procurator fiscal is on his way from Strathbane,” said the doctor. “But I may as well make a preliminary examination. Macbeth’s talking about murder. But the man’s havering. She could have got her own leader wrapped around her neck and fallen into the pool.”

“And wrapped chains around her legs to sink her?” said Marvin Roth dryly.

“Eh, what? Better go and see.”

He disappeared with Heather.

Again, the group waited.

“I’m hungry,” said Alice at last. “I know I shouldn’t feel hungry, but I am. Would it be too awful if we went back to the cars and had something to eat?”

“Better wait,” said the major. “Can’t be very long now.”

But it seemed ages. They could hear people coming and going. The sun was very high in the sky, and flies droned and danced in the green quiet of the glade.

At last, Hamish Macbeth appeared looking hot and grim.

“We’ll all just be going back to the hotel,” he said. “I’m getting this path closed off until the big brass arrives. The water bailiffs have said they will stand guard.”

A moment before, each one of them had felt he would give anything to be able to move. Now they were overcome by a strange reluctance. There was one large fact each of them had to face up to sooner or later, and each one was putting off the moment.

They all gathered in the hotel lounge. Constable Macbeth surveyed them solemnly.

“The manager has given me the use of the wee room off the reception, so I’ll take you one at a time. You first, Mr Cartwright.”

“I’ll come too,” said Heather quickly.

“No need for that,” said the constable easily. “This way, Mr Cartwright.”

Heather sat down, flushed with distress. She looked like a mother seeing her youngest off to boarding school for the first time.

John followed Hamish Macbeth into a small, dark room furnished simply with a scarred wooden desk, some old filing cabinets, and two hard chairs. Hamish sat down behind the desk, and John took the chair opposite.

“Now,” said the policeman, producing a large notebook, “we’ll make a start. It is the doctor’s guess that Lady Jane was in the water all night. When did you last see her?”

“At dinner last night,” said John. “We were celebrating the major’s catch.”

“Or rather, the major’s find,” murmured Hamish. “And was she wearing then what she was wearing when she was found dead?”

“Yes, I mean no. No, she was wearing a flowery trouser suit thing last night with evening sandals. She seemed to be wearing her usual fishing outfit when…when we saw her in the pool.”

Hamish made a note and then looked up. “Did you know Lady Jane’s job?”

“Job?” said John. “I didn’t know she worked.”

“Well, we’ll leave that until later. Did your wife know the nature of Lady Jane’s job, I wonder?”

A faint line of sweat glistened on John’s upper lip. There was a silence. Hamish patiently repeated the question.

“No,” said John, suddenly and savagely. “Look here, Macbeth, what is this? You know us both. Do you think either of us would kill her?”

“That is not for me to say,” said Hamish. “But I willnae get to the person who did it if I don’t start to eliminate those that did not. Now what were you doing late last night?”

“How late?”

“She was last seen going up to her room at ten-thirty, according to the hotel servants.”

“I went to bed,” said John, “and Heather too. We’d had a fairly exhausting day.”

“Did anyone in the group seem to hate Lady Jane?”

“No, we all loved her,” said John sarcastically. “Good God, man, use your wits. Nobody liked her, not even you.”

“Mphmm. Lady Jane had a nasty habit of making remarks. Did she say anything to you?”

“Nothing in particular. Just general carping.”

“Aye, well, that will do for now. If you’ll just send Mrs Cartwright in.”

As John entered the room, Alice was saying with a nervous giggle, “Just think. One of us must have killed her. I mean, it stands to reason…”

It was out in the open now, put into words; that thought they had been keeping resolutely at bay since Lady Jane’s body was discovered.

“He wants to see you,” said John to Heather. He added in a low voice as he held open the door for her, “I told him we didn’t know what she did.”

The door to the lounge opened, and a small, anxious-looking woman dressed in a lumpy, powder-blue dress fussed in, dragging Charlie with her. “I’m Mrs Baxter, Tina Baxter,” she announced, staring around the room with rather bulging blue eyes. “I only arrived today. My poor boy.” She tried to hug Charlie, but he flinched away from this public demonstration of maternal affection.

“You should keep the boy away from this,” said John. “There was no need to bring him along.”

“There was every need,” said Una Baxter. “I was told the police wanted to interrogate the whole fishing class and nobody is going to frighten my little boy with a lot of questions.”

She proceeded to tell the bemused company about her divorce and the difficulties of rearing a boy single-handed, and that Charlie had written to her saying this Lady Jane was a cruel and evil woman. Her words began to tumble out one over the other in an increasingly unintelligible stream.

Then she stopped suddenly and stared at the door with her mouth open. Hamish’s big brass had arrived from Strathbane.

A big, heavyset man draped in a grey double-breasted suit introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Blair. He was flanked by two other detectives, Jimmy Anderson and Harry MacNab. Jimmy Anderson was thin and wiry with suspicious blue eyes, and MacNab was short and dumpy with thick black hair and wet-looking black eyes.

“Which one of you runs this school?” demanded Mr Blair. He spoke with a thick Glaswegian accent.

“I do,” said John. “Constable Macbeth is talking to my wife at the moment.”

“Where?”

“In there,” said John. “I’ll show you the way.”

“No need,” said Blair. “We’ll introduce ourselves.”

Hamish got to his feet as the three men entered the small office. Heather gratefully escaped.

“Macbeth, is it?” said Blair, sitting down in the chair Hamish had just vacated. “We’ve got a real juicy one here. Bit out of your league, Constable. The boys and the forensic team are combing the ground. Good bit of work on your part to get the water bailiffs to stand guard.”

He smiled at Hamish and waited for a look of gratitude to appear on the constable’s face at the compliment. Hamish looked stolidly back, and Blair scowled with irritation.

“Yes, well, I suppose they all know they’re supposed to stay put until I’m satisfied that no one in this school did it. School, indeed. All that money and fuss just to catch a fish.”

“I think it would be better if I told them they are not to leave Lochdubh at the moment,” said Hamish. “Them not having the ESP.”

“Enough of that,” snapped Blair. “Before I have the rest in, what do you think the motive was for this murder?”

“I think it had something to do with Lady Jane’s job,” said Hamish slowly.

“Job? What job?”

“Lady Jane Winters was, in fact, Jane Maxwell, columnist for the London Evening Star.”

“That rag! Well, what’s so bad about being a columnist?”

“I understand she specialized in taking holidays where there were going to be small groups of British people. She would find out something nasty about each one, since she liked to prove that everyone has a skeleton in the closet. There have been complaints to the press council, but her column’s been too popular. Folks chust lap it up and think it will never happen to them. Maybe someone in this group knew about her column, although the fact that she was Jane Maxwell was kept a closely guarded secret.”

“And how did you find out if it’s that much of a secret?” asked Blair, his eyes raking over the lanky length of the village constable.

“I naff my methods, Watson,” grinned Hamish.

“I am not putting up with any cheek from a Highlander,” snarled Blair. “How did you find out?”

“I have a relative that works in Fleet Street.”

“And which of these fishing lot knew about her being Jane Maxwell?”

“I do not know,” said Hamish patiently. “I was just beginning to find out when you arrived. I have talked with John Cartwright and you interrupted me when I was in the process of talking to Mrs Heather Cartwright.”

“Before I start with the rest, I’d better fix up accommodation for me and my men. I’ll stay here myself, but it’s a bit pricey for the lot of us. We’ve got five officers combing the bushes along with the forensic team at the moment. I saw that police station of yours. You do yourself very well. Any chance of a spare bed or two?”

“I have not the room. I have the one bed for myself and the other bedroom has not the bed but the gardening stuff and the poultry feed and the bags of fertilizer…”

“Okay, okay, spare me the rural details.” Blair looked piercingly at Hamish, who gave him a sweet smile.

Simple, thought Blair. Would have to be to live here all year round.

He placed his beefy hands on the desk and looked at Hamish in a kindly way. “I’m thinking you’re a wee bit too inexperienced for this sort of high-class crime,” he said. “We’ll use your office at the station because I’m damned if I’ll pay hotel phone prices. I have to fight hard enough to get my expenses as it is. Just you attend to your usual rounds and leave the detective work to us. We’re all experienced men.”

Hamish looked at the detective chief inspector blankly. Only a few minutes before he had been wondering how to keep out of the case. He had taken a dislike to the chief detective and his sidekicks and did not want to tag around after them. But now he had been told to keep clear, well, all that did was give him a burning desire to find out who had killed Lady Jane.

“I’ll be off then,” said Hamish. Blair watched him go and shook his head sadly. “Poor fellow,” he said. “Never had to do any real work in his life before, and, like all these Highlanders, fights shy of it as much as possible. Send in that American couple, MacNab. Typical pair of tourists. May as well get rid of them first.”

♦

Hamish ambled along the front, gazing dreamily out over the loch. The early evening sun was flooding the bay with gold. A pair of seals were rolling and turning lazily, sending golden ripples washing about the white hulls of the yachts and the green and black hulls of the fishing boats.

He saw the slim, elegant figure of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe walking towards him, and, suddenly overcome with a mixture of shyness and longing, he stopped and leaned his elbows on the mossy stone wall above the beach.

She stopped and stood beside him. “What’s all this I hear?” said Priscilla. “The hillside’s crawling with bobbies, putting things in plastic bags.”

“Lady Jane Winters has been murdered.”

“I heard something to that effect. Big, fat, nasty woman, wasn’t she?”

“Aye, you could say that.”

“And who did it, Holmes?”

“I chust don’t know, and I’ve been more or less told to go home and feed my chickens by the detectives from Strathbane.”

“Well, you must be pleased about that. I mean, you never were exactly one of the world’s greatest workers.”

“How would you know that, Miss Halburton-Smythe? It is not as if I have the murder on my hands every day of the week.”

“You must admit when Daddy wants to talk to you about poaching or something, you’re never where you should be. I told Daddy not to worry you about, poachers since you’re one yourself.”

“That is not a very nice thing to say.”

“I was only joking. Do you really want to find the murderer? Do you need a Watson? I shall follow you about saying, ‘By Jove, you’re a wonder. How on earth did you think of that?’”

“Oh, I suppose I’ll do as I’m told and keep out of the way,” said Hamish equably.

“Funny, I thought you’d have been dying to find out for yourself. All that Highland curiosity.” Priscilla sounded disappointed.

“Aye, well…” began Hamish, and then his gaze suddenly sharpened. Mrs Baxter and Charlie could be seen leaving the hotel.

“Are you going to ask them questions?” asked Priscilla, following his gaze. “Can I listen?”

“Och, no. The wee lad has a very interesting stamp and I wanted to have another look at it.”

“Hamish Macbeth, I give you up!”

He gave her a crooked grin. “I did not know you had ever taken me on, Miss Halburton-Smythe.”

He pushed his hat up on his forehead, thrust his hands in his pockets, and strolled off to meet the Baxters.

Highly irritated, Priscilla watched him go.