Lament for a Maker

2

Stewart, we found, had been called urgently to Dunwinnie and had left with a promise to follow us presently to Erchany. During the drive through the darkness I got from Wedderburn most of that information embodied in his narrative that I did not already possess, and I believe my ideas were in tolerable order by the time we arrived at the castle. From fragmentary evidences of what had happened here on Christmas Eve Wedderburn had that afternoon built up a picture that was coherent and convincing. Only he had failed – in the image drawn so significantly from Ranald Guthrie’s jigsaws – to use all the pieces and his picture was therefore necessarily incomplete. Despite every appearance to the contrary, it was possible that the pieces yet to be fitted would confound or reverse the meaning of those outlines which were already clearly established – much as the figure, say, of an assassin, belatedly discovered in some shadowy corner, of a painting, will give sudden sinister significance to what may have appeared a merely sentimental or spectacular composition. The Erchany affair could scarcely become more sinister, but I was fairly sure that as more pieces were added the composition would deepen and complicate itself. What I could not tell was that the jigsaw metaphor was wholly inadequate; that we were confronted rather by a chemical mixture, complex and unstable, ready to take final and unexpected form only at the adding of the last ingredient of all. Perhaps it was because I had the jigsaw metaphor fatally in my head that in looking back on the Erchany mystery I have to remind myself of Ewan Bell’s words: there’s ever a judgement waits on arrogance.

Both Mrs Hardcastle and the lad Tammas had been taken in by kindly or curious folk in Kinkeig and the castle was deserted when we drove up to it. The moon had not risen but the sky was clear and starry; driving over the drawbridge and into the central court I could distinguish first the vague bulk of the main building, encircling and menacing us, and then, soaring into increasing definition where the sky grew more luminous towards its zenith, the strong sheer lines of the tower. From his boyhood, I reflected, Ranald Guthrie must have been familiar with that great drop to the moat; time and again, leaning over the parapet more or less venturesomely according to his temperament, he must have tested his nerve against the dizzying sense of it. And for how many years, perhaps, had he been fascinated by the thought of a body swaying, toppling, falling – finally hurtling with the velocity of a projectile to the hard stone below? I said to Wedderburn: ‘I should like to begin by visiting the moat.’

Gylby got a lantern and together we climbed down by Gamley’s route. The snow was soft and watery in the thaw and we made a thoroughly uncomfortable progress. We found the little crater made by the body – it was still readily distinguishable, such had been the force of the impact that created it – and we looked at it for a few moments in silence. Then I said: ‘All those pieces of the puzzle – there’s a missing piece we ought to find hereabouts. Could you get a spade?’

Gylby went off and returned presently through the slush with two spades. ‘Here you are,’ he said happily. ‘And now for the skull of Yorick.’

We prodded and dug about – the job would have been much better performed by daylight – and by mere good luck my spade eventually rang on something deep in the snow. A minute’s digging and I had uncovered a small, sharp axe. Gylby studied it carefully. ‘It will make a nice present,’ he said, ‘for Speight.’

‘It wasn’t Speight’s fault it wasn’t found. There was no occasion to suspect its existence till this afternoon. And of course it fell from that height clean and deep into the snow. But it will please Wedderburn: a suitable finger-lopping implement is a most desirable accessory to his case.’ I fingered the edge of the axe. ‘“To settle accounts with a great rat.” I cannot say that the character of friend Ranald grows on me. Let us go in.’

We found Wedderburn and Miss Guthrie in a little island of candle-light amid the gloom of the great hall or chamber of the castle. I suppose that a few days before the place must have given some impression of a dwelling. Now, though it had been empty but a few hours, there hung heavily about it the atmosphere of an ancient monument. The tenancy of Ranald Guthrie had been a thread holding it to the present; that thread broken, it had slipped into the past as inevitably as a ripe apricot falls to the ground. We might have been idle tourists on some nocturnal sightseeing had we not carried with us our own heavy sense of fresh mortality. The clock of which Gylby had become so sharply aware still ticked, but with the sinister pulse of a watch in a dead man’s pocket.

I took a deep breath of that chill, dank air. Here surely rather than in Kinkeig was the right haunt for Guthrie’s wrath, fitly attended by the shade of Hardcastle and a scampering wreath of ghostly rats. And though I did not believe that these spirits walked I yet found myself almost yielding to a sudden and powerful impulse of superstition. That afternoon Wedderburn had laid the Erchany mystery to rest: it were better not to agitate it anew, lest worse might befall. So strong was this feeling that I had to summon the abstract principle of my profession – the principle of justice – before I could shake myself free of it and say to my companions: ‘May we go up to the tower at once?’

In silence we traversed a long corridor and passed through the first of those doors the timely locking of which by Gylby had foiled Hardcastle in any attempt to remove the tell-tale telephone equipment. Then we climbed. The tower, psychologists tell us, is a symbol of ambition – of perilous altitude, like the apex of Fortune’s wheel. And the solid earth – the humble below – is a symbol of safety. And the man who feels a mad impulse to hurl himself from one to the other seeks only to pass from danger to security; he is betrayed by the treacherous logic of the buried mind. No doubt it was Guthrie’s ambition that had obscurely driven him to fix his quarters in this laboriously attained retreat. Might the psychologist’s theory of symbols illuminate what had happened on Christmas Eve? At some deep level of the mind had the ruining plunge held the significance of security gained or granted – of rescue – for Guthrie? Was there here, as it were, a subconscious piece in that biggest of all the jigsaws of which he had darkly announced the completion to Christine Mathers? I docketed the somewhat academic questions for consideration later: we had come to the study door.

The room has been described and I need add few details. Many towers of the sort have been added to storey by storey – building upwards being the most economical way of getting extra space. But this topmost storey of Erchany was clearly an integral part of the original structure. The walls, being set back some four feet in order to give space for the parapet walk surrounding them, could only be about half the thickness of their immediate foundations: nevertheless I was chiefly impressed by the strength as well as by the isolation of the place. These two rooms – study and adjoining small bedroom – belonged to a period when castles were true strongholds and not mere manifestoes of rank. And they preserved their character of inviolate medieval fastness.

The study was now embellished with a number of dead rats: otherwise nothing had changed since Gylby first locked the door on it. I had a good idea that Speight, when he had digested the afternoon’s proceedings, would be up and poking about again on the morrow, and I was glad of the opportunity of a quiet survey first. The rifled bureau, the bogus telephone – it was amateur work but a neat and simple job nevertheless – and the books on the desk: I examined them carefully before turning into the bedroom. Here I rummaged about among the lumber in the corner and then returned to the study with the book already discovered by Wedderburn: Flinders’ Experimental Radiology. ‘An interesting book,’ I said. ‘Or rather an interesting fly-leaf. You noticed?’

But nobody had noticed the fly-leaf and I now laid it open on the desk. Neatly written in ink was this inscription:

Richard Flinders

Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons

Born in South Australia February 1893

Died at

Wedderburn stared at this abrupted memorial in considerable perplexity. ‘Dear me! I ought not to have missed that. A most mysterious inscription. Can it be connected with Guthrie’s colonial days?’

I pointed to the second line. ‘Born 1893. Can we learn anything from that?’

There was a baffled silence and then Sybil Guthrie spoke.

‘Christine told me her uncle came home and inherited Erchany in 1894. Just a year after this person’s birth.’

I nodded. ‘Good. A significant fact – and one that doesn’t fit! Often the most useful sort of fact. Gylby, will you see if Guthrie’s recent purchases include a medical directory? I rather fancy they must.’

A brief search proved me right and I quickly turned the pages. ‘Here we are – and the sort of long entry they give to very big guns. M.B., B.S., Adelaide; worked there, then in Sydney, then a long spell in the United States. It’s on the strength of that, no doubt, that he has just been appointed emeritus fellow and pensioner of an American learned society. Then back in Sydney, with various short periods in London. A tiptop surgeon, apparently, who turned to experimental work – hence the need, I suppose, of a pension. Two standard text- books, including the one before us. Any amount of communications to journals and about a dozen monographs. Listen. Radiology of the Cardiac Region. Radiology and the Differential Diagnosis of Intestinal Maladies. An Historical Outline of the Medical Use of Radium. Analysis of a Case of Long-term Amnesia. Syringomyelia: the Radiological Approach. The Technique of Rapid Screening: A Contribution to Contemporary Radiology. Radon–’

Wedderburn interrupted. ‘My dear Mr Appleby, is this really interesting?’

‘Interesting? Well, there’s another point that might interest you more. The distinguished Flinders is not merely a big gun; he’s a prodigy.’

‘A prodigy?’

‘Definitely.’ I pointed to the inscribed fly-leaf. ‘“Born in South Australia February 1893.” If we accept that statement we have to believe that he graduated in medicine at the age of seven.’

Wedderburn exclaimed impatiently. ‘This is nonsense!’

‘On the contrary, it is the first glimpse of the truth. And now we had better aim at the truth all round. Miss Guthrie, I think these developments take you somewhat out of your depth?’

‘Indeed they do.’

‘Then listen. I give you the same promise about Lindsay that Mr Wedderburn gave. We have the truth of his position in the story. He is out of it. So now let me ask you the question Gylby asked. However did you know Guthrie committed suicide?’

‘I didn’t. In fact I saw him sent over the parapet.’

Wedderburn sighed and fell to polishing his glasses. ‘I think,’ I said, ‘we might usefully go up to the gallery.’