My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 4

Death of a Laird

‘Safe in a ditch he bides.

With twenty trenched gashes on his head.’

Shakespeare

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LAURA had knocked up the hotel to get in. There was no night porter. The manageress herself came down and unbarred the door.

‘I’m right glad to see you,’ she said. ‘We guessed you had lost yourself and feared you were benighted again.’ She felt Laura’s sleeve. ‘Losh, but you’re wet! Out of your things and leave them outside your bedroom door. I’ll put them in the drying cupboard and stuff your good shoes with paper. Did you dine?’

Laura thanked and reassured her, and had not been in bed five minutes when the manageress came up with a bowl of broth and a hot-water bottle.

‘Do you take cold easily?’ she asked. Laura again reassured her, supped the broth, then switched off the light and snuggled down, but not immediately to sleep. She needed very little sleep and her day had been an interesting one. She lay awake and thought it over. She had enjoyed her walk, in spite of the rain; she had enjoyed, in a different way, her visit to An Tigh Mór on Tannasgan, but she had no regrets about the cavalier fashion in which she had left the house. The laird was obviously crazy, and Laura had the normal person’s horror of being in close contact with the mentally afflicted. The strangest part of the business was her encounter with the man at the boathouse, for she could think of no reason for his having been there, apparently on duty, at that time of night

At last she slept. In the morning she received her clothes, dried and pressed, retrieved the hired car and was off by noon. She still had three days’ leave before she needed to return to Edinburgh, so she decided to leave Strathpeffer, Dingwall and Inverness out of her itinerary and return through Tigh-Osda, stopping before she got there in order to revisit Coinneamh Lodge in order to tell Mrs Grant of her encounter with the laird of An Tigh Mór.

Mrs Grant was more than interested. She fed Laura on oat-cake and heather honey while they talked, and plied her with questions about the laird. At last she said:

‘You have me puzzled. You say he made no trouble about taking you over in his boat? That he made you welcome? That you ate with him? That he wanted you to stay there a week? That he was red-haired and red-bearded and talked havers about creatures unknown to natural science?’

‘That’s so. He may be harmless, but he’s rather more than a crank, and I have a superstitious horror of insanity, although I work for a psychiatrist, so I made my getaway, as I told you. It was horribly rude of me, of course, but I had thanked him for his hospitality before I went up to bed, and I shall write to him this evening from the hotel.’

‘I cannot make it out. If that was wicked old Bradan – did I tell you I call him Cù Dubh?—Black Dog—he’s a changed man. And if he’s grown a beard it’s the first time. And as for a kind heart – losh!’

‘He may be more of a humanitarian than you thought. I was in a pretty fine pickle, you know – soaked to the skin and with no idea of where I could find shelter for the night, and miles from my hotel, and the dark coming on.’

‘The Bradan I know would laugh to see a body in such a situation as that. No, no. There’s something here I do not understand’

Laura did not like to mention the secretive borrowing of her car, but she refused an invitation to stay to lunch on the plea that she must be getting along, and, passing through Tigh-Osda, she followed the railway-line until it branched off to skirt Loch Carron, while she herself followed the road which led to the ferry. She took the car across and was still debating with herself when they reached the other side. She could take the little road to Kyle of Lochalsh and cross to Kyleakin on Skye, or she could take the opposite way and go by the northern shore of Loch Duich to Invergarry and Spean Bridge and finish the day at Fort William. In the end she compromised by opting for Skye.

She drove carefully off the ferry-steamer on to the quay at Kyleakin and then, instead of heading for Broadford, as at first she had thought of doing, she branched off southwards, recollecting a pension, or guest-house, kept by two maiden ladies, sisters, at Isleornsay, on the coast. It would have been opened for the summer at the beginning of the month, although it was closed all the winter, but she had stayed there before and knew that although the only meat she would get would be boiled mutton, the beds would be aired and there would be a fire of peats in every room. So early in the season there would be no difficulty in finding accommodation there.

She was received with kindly courtesy and was conducted to her room. It was a turret chamber, well endowed with windows from which she obtained a magnificent view of the Sound of Sleat. Laura promised herself a morning walk along the coast to Armadale and perhaps as far as the Point of Sleat, from which she could get a view of the mountains of Rum and, northwards, the extraordinary outline of the Cuillin.

After breakfast, however, she changed her mind about walking the whole distance. A look at the map, and a swift computation of the mileage involved, persuaded her that, if she left the car at Isleornsay, she would have very little time for loitering to look at the coastal scenery, so she drove as far as Armadale Castle, the seat of the chief of Clan Macdonald, found a parking spot off the road, and walked on from there to Point of Sleat.

Beyond Armadale the road soon deteriorated, but from Point of Sleat the views were remarkably fine, and Laura, standing on the barren cliffs, could see, silhouetted against a pale sky, the mountains of Rum. What interested her more, however, was a man in a boat. He appeared from between two of the long, dark rocks below her and was standing up and propelling the boat by punting it along in the shallow water by means of a heavy pole.

Laura watched him approach the seaweed-strewn shore. His back was towards her, but something about him struck her as being slightly familiar. She did not want company, so she dropped down behind an outcropping of rock to be out of his view, but from where she could still keep an eye on him, for she was determined to discover who he was. She soon knew, for, as he slipped his pole and, letting the boat drift in, caught at a bit of iron piping which had been driven into the shingle, she recognised him. He was the curious character who had insisted upon her crossing the loch to take shelter on Tannasgan and who translated every sentence word by word from the Gaelic.

She kept him in view as he beached the boat and then lost sight of him as he crunched his way over the shingle. Her attention would have been distracted in any case, for a voice behind her said:

‘I believe I have the honour, madam…’

Laura stood up and swung round.

‘Good heavens!’ she said. ‘Yes, I believe you have. Aren’t you the boatman from Tannasgan? I didn’t see you so very clearly in the moonlight, but I’m sure I recognise your voice.’

‘I am the boatman. I am glad to see you safe and well.’

‘Yes, I got a lift, luckily enough. I must thank you for helping me. Do you remember the laird’s playing the pipes and how he stopped so suddenly?’

‘The laird? The pipes? Of course! I’d forgotten. I was away to my bed after I had put you ashore. And now, what way were you leaving An Tigh Mór at such an hour? Very much surprised I was, to see you bob up at the boathouse.’

‘Not more surprised than I was to run into you like that. It gave me quite a turn.’

‘I suppose so, yes. But I was speiring at you what way…’

‘Oh, I was literally running away. I think the laird must be mad. I went across the loch, in the first place, only to shelter from the rain and he wanted me to stay a week!’

‘I can well understand that,’ said the young man courteously. ‘Did – did there seem anything – well – queer about the evening you passed there?’

‘It was all a bid odd,’ said Laura. ‘The laird had been represented to me as a thoroughly nasty bit of work, but, although, as I say, he’s obviously wrong in the head, he seemed quite a fellow-citizen.’

The man stared at her and then laughed, but before he could speak again, the other man reappeared.

‘Do you know that chap?’ asked Laura. ‘He’s the person who got me on to Tannasgan in the first place.’

‘He did?’

‘Yes. He hailed the laird with a sort of red and green lantern thing and a dirty great handbell.’

‘I’ve never set eyes on him before,’ declared the young man. Some small but interesting experience of Dame Beatrice’s psychopathic patients caused Laura to believe that he was lying.

‘Well, he’s a long way from where I met him,’ she remarked.

‘I suppose you are thinking the same about me, but the fact is – well, never mind. You’re not the only body who welcomes a wee holiday.’

He nodded to her and stalked away. The other man had disappeared. She strolled down to take a look at his boat, but it was the ordinary local type, broad and heavy, and it contained nothing but its own oars. She returned to her car and drove back to the boarding house.

In the early morning she ate porridge and kippers and after breakfast she paid her score, drove to Armadale Castle and took the mainland ferry to Mallaig. From there she dropped down to Arisaig and reached Fort William in time for lunch. She booked a table, although it was too early in the season for this to be absolutely necessary, and then went into the bar for a cocktail. Seated on a high stool at the counter was the man she had left on Skye, the man who had rowed her to the shore from An Tigh Mór. She could not be certain that he had seen her, but the moment she appeared he shot out of the door.

The hotel possessed two dining-rooms.

They were connected by a wide archway, but, as it was early in the season and few guests were expected, this archway was blocked by a large screen. The head waiter showed Laura to a table by the wall. The dining-room was less than a quarter full and there was no sign of her boatman. He must have left by the hall door and gone straight out into the street

While she was having lunch she debated which of two routes she should take and where she would spend the last night of her holiday. At Ballachulish she could follow the coast road southward towards Oban and then go by the Pass of Brander to Loch Awe and Dalmally, or she could drive eastward from Ballachulish through Glencoe and across the Moor of Rannoch to Tyndrum and Crianlarich. She remained very much in two minds during the whole of the meal and had come to no final decision when she paid her bill. In the end she decided to see what she felt like when she reached Ballachulish.

Here she had no difficulty in making up her mind, for she realised that, so early in the year, the Pass of Glencoe would be free of trippers. The wild wastes of Rannoch had always exercised a strong fascination for her, so she turned eastward and was soon on the road through the pass. At Tyndrum she decided not to go on to Crianlarich, but to turn westwards to a village called Slanleibh.

It was easy enough here to get a room and the hotel was modern and pleasant. Laura garaged the car after she had been to the reception desk, unpacked, had a bath and put on a dinner gown, the first time she had worn one on the trip. Then she went into the large, beautifully-furnished lounge with its cocktail bar in a discreet alcove, and, picking up an illustrated weekly, sat by the fire.

After a bit, she walked up the three broad, carpeted steps which led to the cocktail bar and there, seated against the right-hand wall so that she had not been able to see him from her fireside chair, was her familiar, the Tannasgan boatman, respectably clad in a dinner jacket and smooth-cheeked from a recent shave. Laura ordered her drink and decided to take the bull by the horns.

‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘You again?’

The man looked at her over the rim of his glass, and said:

‘Let me buy you a drink. A dry Martini, is it?’

They went in to dinner together and sat at the same table. Laura was soon telling him about her unexpected holiday and describing her trip, but, obtaining no reciprocal information, she said, at a venture:

‘Do you know some people called Grant who live at Coinneamh Lodge, not so very many miles from Tannasgan?’

‘I do not, I’m afraid. What about them?’

‘Oh, nothing much. They also sheltered me from the rain, that’s all.’

‘Oh, I see. Tell me, where do you make for tomorrow?’

‘Oh, Edinburgh. I shall be on duty again the day after tomorrow.’

‘On duty?’

‘Yes, I’m a personal private secretary.’

She excused herself after dinner by saying she had letters to write and went up to her room. Here she saved her oath by writing a letter to her mother and sending her son a couple of picture postcards; then she sat at the window, looked at the view and decided that, in spite of the long drive to Edinburgh which faced her on the morrow, she would get up early and take a walk before breakfast.

This she did, but paused on the threshold of the hotel front door to look at the view and assess the weather. Before her, beyond the little river, rose the mountains, not threatening and dark, but scooped roundly out, with cup-like peaks, and against the mountain flanks the lower hills showed green. Near at hand, cattle grazed in a small paddock with trees in it, but away to Laura’s right the distant peaks had bare and ragged outlines, threatening, and capped with purple cloud.

Laura shrugged, liking neither the clear outlines of the mountains before her nor the cloud behind the peaks away to the west, but she stepped out briskly and walked towards the main part of the village which lay in the direction of Loch Awe. Once past the post office she took a track to the left, a rough and stony road but one which, as she climbed, provided vast views of the mountains.

At breakfast, which she took as soon as she returned to the hotel, she glanced round the dining-room for her boatman, but he was nowhere to be seen. She concluded that he was breakfasting later, but when the waiter removed her porridge plate he produced an unaddressed envelope.

‘The gentleman asked me to give you this during breakfast, madam.’

‘What gentleman?’

‘The one you dined with last night.’

‘Oh, of course. Thank you.’ She took out the letter. It was written on the hotel notepaper and was signed A.D. Grant.

If the need arises, please don’t forget that you saw me on Tannasgan. Kindly enter the date in your diary before you forget it. You’ll know why later on.

‘Of all the cheek!’ muttered Laura ‘Don’t flatter yourself, my lad. Anyway, I don’t keep a diary.’ Then the signature struck her. ‘Grant? Grant?’ she thought. ‘Oh, of course, Grant!’ Then she reflected that there were thousands of Grants in the world and that it was probably only a coincidence that this one possessed the same surname as the acquaintances she had made at Tigh-Osda. All the same, coincidence certainly had had a long arm on this holiday of hers.

Laura finished her breakfast, paid her bill and got out the car. It was nine o’clock and the weather was still holding up. It was raining over Ben More by the time she reached Crianlarich, but she had left the rain behind before she took a late lunch in Stirling, and from Linlithgow to Edinburgh the weather was perfect. She turned in the car at the garage from which she had hired it, flagged a taxi and reached the hotel in time for a bath and dinner. She was shown to her employer’s table and told the waiter that she would wait for Dame Beatrice. She was still studying the menu when Dame Beatrice appeared.

‘This calls for champagne,’ said the black-eyed, beaky-mouthed, elderly, thin psychiatrist, ‘but as neither of us cares for it much, we shall compromise with – let us see what we are eating and then I’ll order.’

Laura asked how the Conference had gone and was told that Dame Beatrice was glad that it was over. Dame Beatrice then demanded a complete account of Laura’s holiday and Laura described her rescue of Mrs Grant, whose car had broken down at Tigh-Osda, her walk from Freagair in the pelting rain and her reception by the laird of Tannasgan.

‘The laird of Tannasgan?’ Dame Beatrice repeated. ‘Do you know the name of his house?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s called An Tigh Mór, which simply means The Big House.’

‘And you were to have spent last Tuesday night there?’

‘Well, that was the idea.’

‘But you slipped away by moonlight?’

‘A moonlight flit describes it. But what,’ asked Laura, ‘is all this?’

‘All this is to explain my immeasurable relief at hearing that you did not spend the night there.’

‘The laird suggested that I should stay a week! As he was obviously crazy, I decided that it would save argument if I skipped. But I still can’t account for your eager interest in my ungrateful, uncivil act.’

‘Simply that on Wednesday afternoon the laird was found foully and treacherously murdered.’

‘Good heavens above! My guardian angel must have been working overtime!’

‘Indeed, yes. Have you not been reading the newspapers?’

‘Nary a single column.’

‘Nor heard any discussion in hotel lounges?’

‘No, I certainly haven’t, but there’s a bit more I can tell you about my doings which may interest you.’

She described her trip to Skye and her subsequent encounters with the man whom she had met in the laird’s boathouse and who had rowed her across the loch, and her glimpse of the man who had sent her across to Tannasgan. She finished by telling Dame Beatrice of the mysterious note left for her at Slanleibh.

‘Not, perhaps, so very mysterious now,’ Dame Beatrice suggested.

‘You mean he hopes I’ll give him an alibi for the time of the murder? But that means he knew the laird had been murdered, and that looks like guilty knowledge, doesn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily. He may have read the papers.’

‘How soon did the papers spread the news?’

‘I do not know. The body was found at two in the afternoon on Wednesday last, and the local press, based on Freagair, I believe, scooped the story.’

‘Who found the body?’

‘The factotum named Corrie, whose duty it is to cycle into Freagair for the newspapers and the correspondence. The laird had a poste-restante arrangement, it appears. The man put his bicycle into the boat, rowed across, and found his employer’s body lying in a barrel which had been partly submerged in the loch and prevented from drifting by being chained to an iron ring in the jetty.’

‘Had he been drowned, then?’

‘No. The man had been stabbed with a skian dhu.’

‘Any trace of the weapon?’

‘Well, the skian-dhu was still protruding from the victim’s body.’

‘Sounds like revenge.’

‘It does, indeed.’

‘Poor old boy! He seemed to me more than a bit crazy, but I hate to think of his coming to that sort of end. Are we—er—interesting ourselves in the affair?’

‘There is no suggestion that we should do so. The police have the matter in hand.’

‘Yes, of course. When do we go back to London?’

‘There is no hurry. In fact, now that you have seen Gàradh and have made the acquaintance of Mrs Stewart, I should like to call there.’

‘That’s splendid. On the way we might look in on Mrs Grant. As she lives not so far from Tannasgan, we might be able to pick up some local gossip about the laird’s death. There are certain to be lots of rumours and perhaps some cast-iron facts which won’t reach the ears of the police.’

‘You are determined to involve us both?’

‘Well, I didn’t dislike the laird and I deeply dislike murder. What about it?’

‘I see no harm in calling upon Mrs Grant’

‘Atta-baby! What’s the matter with starting out tomorrow? As there’s no hurry, we could go by way of Glasgow and Loch Lomond and spend a night at the Inversnaid hotel.’

‘Whence you can walk to Loch Katrine and the Trossachs?’

‘Don’t suppose I shall bother. I love Inversnaid, and I’m not the only one. What about William Wordsworth, not to mention Gerard Manley Hopkins?’ said Laura.