Lament for a Maker

3

The road from Dunwinnie to Kinkeig and the road from Kinkeig through Glen Erchany to Castle Erchany form with the long line of Loch Cailie a rough equilateral triangle. In the centre of this soars the bulk of Ben Cailie, buttressed to the south by the smaller mass of Ben Mervie and skirted to the south again first by Glen Mervie and then by the precipitous Pass of Mervie. The panorama of this on our right as we drove – peak upon peak of virgin snow soaring into a bleakly sunlit winter sky – was a spectacle well-calculated at once to soothe and elevate the mind. The latter part of our journey was performed in silence, broken only by an involuntary exclamation of my own when we finally turned a bend and sighted the castle across a final arm of the loch. As a historical monument it is, I suppose, of quite minor importance, and additions in the later seventeenth century have somewhat modified – though they have not destroyed – its stern medieval character. But my first impression of it was of something so darkly powerful and so inviolably lonely – like a monster of the most solitary habit half couched in a lair of larch and snow – that I could not have been more struck by the sudden appearance of the original Tintagel itself. Particularly impressive was the tower, massive but remarkably lofty, and built, it may be supposed, for observation as well as defence. Looking at the sheer lines of it from a distance I could understand Gylby’s instant knowledge that the man who had fallen from that height was inevitably dead.

We drove over a drawbridge and pulled up in the central court. Young Gylby said cheerfully: ‘Home again!’ and assisted me to alight.

My first awareness – like that of Erchany’s unbidden guests a few nights before – was of the dogs; confined in a system of kennels at the farther end of the court, they were signalizing their disapproval of our advent in no uncertain terms. I was next aware of an elderly and infirm old woman in a shawl and snow-boots, hobbling towards us with every appearance of haste and anxiety. For a moment I was almost afraid we were to hear the announcement of another fatality; then she called out eagerly: ‘You’ll have minded my poison? You won’t have disremembered it, Mr Gylby, sir?’

‘Here you are, Mrs Hardcastle.’ And Gylby handed her out the parcels from beside the driver. She was about to make off with them as hastily as she had come when she became aware of the presence of a stranger. Not – as I imagine – without some discomfort in the joints, she made me a ramshackle curtsy. Gylby said politely: ‘Mr Wedderburn – Mrs Hardcastle.’

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘you’d best know at once what Mr Gylby knows. There’s a terrible great number of rats in Erchany.’ She tapped her parcels and looked fearfully about her. ‘But I’m tholing it no more! I’m an old body grown and now I’m going to sleep of nights.’ Her voice sank hoarsely and she nodded her head to where the figure of a man had appeared beside the kennels. ‘But don’t tell my man! He’s fell unkind. Whiles he sets them at me.’

‘The dogs, Mrs Hardcastle?’

‘The rats.’

And Mrs Hardcastle, concealing her parcels beneath her shawl, hurried away. I turned to Gylby. ‘That is Hardcastle over by the kennels? It occurs to me to have a word with him before we go in.’

I crossed the court. The late laird’s factor was giving the dogs a more than meagre meal and cursing them heartily the while. ‘Down, Caesar,’ I heard him call as I came up, ‘down, you tink cur!’

My approach in the snow had been quite unheard. I said pleasantly in his ear: ‘Bonny beasts, Mr Hardcastle.’

He swung round and glared at me suspiciously – not, I fancy, merely because of the obvious irony of my remark. His villainy as sketched by Gylby was apparent enough. But it was not an assured villainy; he seemed, indeed, woefully lacking in confidence. He said now with a sort of surly uncertainty: ‘Maybe so.’

‘And this is Caesar? I should be inclined to give him a powder and follow it up with a little red meat. Now pray, Mr Hardcastle, which is Doctor?’

Rather weakly, Hardcastle pointed at a recumbent animal. ‘That’s him.’

‘Is it indeed? Let’s have a look at him. Doctor! Hey, Doctor! You know, Mr Hardcastle, I think Doctor must be deaf.’

Hardcastle positively brightened. ‘He is deaf.’

‘Really now? That is a little unusual in so young a dog. I wonder, can you be mistaken? It should be easy to devise a test.’

‘Damn’t to hell!’ cried Hardcastle. ‘Will you leave the beast alone?’

‘Certainly if you wish it; I believe my interest in the animal is exhausted. A dumb – and deaf – witness, is he not? I am solicitor to Miss Guthrie, the incoming proprietor. I should be obliged if you would take me to her.’

Gylby’s estimate of the factor, I reflected, had been remarkably accurate. A cunning ruffian, but one whose cunning was soon exhausted. I was not displeased to find him fitting neatly enough into the picture that was forming in my mind of the events of Christmas Eve. This picture was as yet far from complete; only the cardinal pieces – if I may use an image suggested by what I had heard of Ranald Guthrie’s jigsaws – were as yet in place. But these gave me – unless I was greatly mistaken – the first outlines of a very curious situation. Inevitably, there was a great deal that was still obscure and invited the most careful and cautious investigation. I pause on this word. I had come to Erchany in my professional character as a solicitor; it will be not without amusement that the reader perceives me, while yet standing but on the threshold of the castle, as lured into the undignified role of a private detective agent!

As I entered the great hall of the castle a uniformed police officer stepped forward, introduced himself as Inspector Speight, and invited me into a small and bare room in which he had apparently established his headquarters. I might properly have insisted on being conducted to my client before assisting at any conference with the police; there seemed, however, to be no necessity for this and I accepted the invitation. I found Inspector Speight a civil and intelligent officer and judged it might be useful to show him I already had some grip of the situation. After a few preliminary remarks I therefore said: ‘I suppose you’ve found Gamley?’

‘Yes, there was no difficulty in that. We have a line on him for this afternoon.’

‘And you have no doubt traced the young people who were packed off by the late Mr Guthrie?’

‘Packed off? I don’t know about that.’

‘A point that will emerge, inspector. I think it will be found to be of some importance. And where had they got to?’

The inspector shook his head. ‘Strangely enough, Mr Wedderburn, we’ve had no word of them yet. But then they had good reason to lie pretty low.’

‘I wonder, inspector, I wonder. It is possible that now Mr Guthrie is dead the necessity for their departing unobtrusively is over. I venture to think it is very possible.’

‘If I may say so, Mr Wedderburn, that seems a singularly wrong-headed way of looking at it.’

‘That depends entirely on the point from which one looks, does it not? Perhaps you have grounds for believing that the young Mr Lindsay has committed some crime?’

I had reckoned accurately in counting on a streak of irritation latent in Inspector Speight. My bland manner drew him at once. He said abruptly: ‘The lad pitched Guthrie to his death. I haven’t a doubt of it.’

‘Perhaps so, inspector. I would say myself it is a little early to cherish convictions. And I think there may be some evidence in direct rebuttal?’

‘To be sure, there’s Miss Guthrie.’

So Miss Guthrie had already told the police her story. I rose. ‘I think, inspector, I must now seek my client.’

Inspector Speight made a protesting gesture. ‘You mustn’t be taking it, sir, I think it necessary to discredit what the young lady has told us entirely. But she was scared and confused out there in the storm and she wanted to see as little ill in the business up there as might be.’ The inspector paused. ‘Perhaps she’ll come to a clearer recollection, though, on thinking it over.’

I was again aware that Inspector Speight was an intelligent man. And for a moment I wondered if he might not be positively guileful. Miss Guthrie, who had been mysteriously on the very battlement from which the dead man had fallen, was, it appeared, that dead man’s heir. Of the delicacy of this position Speight had given no hint.

‘So you think, inspector, that it’s either Lindsay or nothing?’ Speight nodded emphatically. ‘An old feud, a new quarrel, a witness that he was in blazing passion, the gold broken into, him and the girl gone. One could hardly ask for more.’

‘Unless, perhaps, the chopping of the fingers from the corpse.’ The inspector stared. ‘You’ve heard that? It but shows the daft and dirty gossip that country folk will seize on. Never heed their foolish claik, Mr Wedderburn. You and I are concerned with facts.’

‘A healthy reminder, inspector. It frequently falls from my friend Lord Clanclacket on the bench. And you think there is no other direction in which the facts can point?’

Almost happily, Speight smiled. ‘Mr Wedderburn, I’ll give you something away. The American lassie didn’t do it. There’s such a thing as experience in the ways of crime. And thirty years of that tells me not to waste time that way. The lassie’s real nice.’

‘I need hardly say that your impression is a most welcome one. Of course Neil Lindsay may prove real nice too.’

Speight chuckled. ‘Time enough to decide that when we lay hands on him. I say it’s Lindsay or nothing. And I think you really agree with me, sir.’

‘No, inspector, I don’t agree. I cannot claim your experience of crime. But I have another opinion.’

‘Mr Wedderburn, it would be a real privilege to have it.’

‘If, as I hope, it turns to conviction you shall have it before the sheriff this afternoon. But – as I said – it’s early for convictions yet.’