My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 13

Story told by the Corries

‘Heard the rivulet rippling near him,

Talking to the darks tone forest.’

H. W. Longfellow

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IRRATIONALLY to Laura’s surprise, the lantern and the bell on the mainland were answered at once. The boatman was Corrie, whom she had known previously only as a waiter at table. Also, to her astonishment, he spoke.

‘You’re welcome. Maybe you can speak up and save us all this anxiety.’

‘Right,’ said Laura. ‘All aboard!’ She handed Dame Beatrice (who needed no such assistance) into the broad-beamed rowing-boat. ‘And how’s the laird?’

‘He does well enough in his grave.’

‘Oh, come now! You know perfectly well that I was speaking of the one who calls himself Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth,’ said Laura, stepping into the boat.

‘He’s awa’ to Dingwall.’

‘Did he do it? Did he kill the laird?’

‘I dinna ken. Maybe he did, and maybe he did not.’

‘Fair enough. What is your own opinion?’

‘I have given it to you. What will be your business this time at An Tigh Mór?’

‘You’ll find out when we get there,’ said Laura, matching her tone to his. He dug the short oars into the calm waters of the loch and soon was tying up on the other side.

‘Come ben,’ he said, leading the way to the house.

‘Is your wife at home, Mr Corrie?’ asked Dame Beatrice, addressing him for the first time.

‘Ay.’ The front door was open. ‘She will be speaking to you in the dining-room. Mr Macbeth said to be always keeping a fire in the dining-room, for he didna ken when he would be coming back.’

He showed them into the dining-room and drew an armchair a little nearer to the fire for Dame Beatrice. She and Laura seated themselves and in a moment Mrs Corrie came in and stood between them and the enormous dining-table.

‘Well, well!’ she said, grimly smiling at Laura. ‘Such a to-do when the laird came down to breakfast and I had to report that you were missing.’

‘Yes, it was very ungrateful of me to sneak off like that after all his kindness – and yours. But I had to get back to Freagair, to my hotel, you know. I didn’t want to be reported to the police as a missing person,’ said Laura, improvising with some success. Mrs Corrie wagged her head in sympathetic agreement.

‘Police!’ she exclaimed. ‘We were swarming with them after they discovered the old laird’s body. Police all over the house and all over the policies. They rowed themselves about on the loch and they searched the wee inch with the trees on it – ay, and every nook and cranny on the other rocks that stands up out of the water.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I wonder what they made of the statuary?’

‘They speired at us about that, but we could tell them nothing. My man had seen the strange beasties, but I had not. Those were here before our time, and that’s as much as we could say.’

‘Mr Corrie told us that Mr Macbeth had gone to Dingwall. Did the police take him there?’

‘No, no. He went of his own will to make a statement and to see a lawyer.’

‘And he went – when?’

‘Corrie took him across the loch the morn.’

‘Today?’

‘Ay.’

‘How much do you know about the death of Cù Dubh?’

‘Well, there’s mony a mickle mak’s a muckle, as they say. Things were adding up. There was the visit of the young laird.’

‘Not a chap who translates his sentences from the Gaelic into literal English?’ asked Laura.

‘That same. Dinna tell me you are acquainted with him!’

‘Considering that he was the man who got me on to Tannasgan in the first place, and that I saw him on Skye a day or so later, I think I may claim that I’ve met him.’

‘Deary me! Did it come to you that you should visit at An Tigh Mór, then?’

‘No, it most certainly did not. I was terribly wet and this man was near the little quay and insisted upon turning the lantern and ring the bell.’

‘Ay,’ said Corrie. ‘I heard it, but the laird insisted that himself should take the boat over. “I ken well who it is,” he said, “and I have a thing or two to say to him,” he said. “It is not he who is the heir to Tannasgan, but myself.” And with that he ordered me to the kitchen to help with the dinner, and himself rowed the boatie over the loch to bid the visitor come ben.’

‘He must have had a surprise when he saw me there,’ said Laura.

‘Surprise? You couldna surprise that one gin you were putting a charge of dynamite in his breeks! No, no, he was not surprised. Said he to me whiles you were to your bed and he was waiting on his dinner, “The poor-spirited clarty gowk! He sends a lassie to speak for him!” Those were his words, mistress, and that is what he thought.’

‘So the man who signalled for the boat was the laird’s son?’

‘Disinherited.’

‘And you think he killed his father?’

‘Him? No, no, mistress. He hasn’t it in him to kill anybody.’

‘What do you know of some people named Grant who live this side of the hydro-electric power station?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Grant? Ay, Grant.’ He stopped to think. ‘Would that be the Grant who lives at Coinneamh Lodge?’

‘It would.’

‘Ay.’ He spent more time in thought. ‘I canna tell you anything about him.’

‘Can’t, or won’t?’ asked Laura.

‘I canna. Aiblins he killed the old laird; aiblins he didna. There was nae love lost between them.’

‘Oh? How do you know that?’

‘I dinna ken. It might be something I overheard. The old laird kenned something about Grant that was no to his credit.’

‘Such as?’

But Corrie shook his head.

‘Who fashioned those curious animals on the little island with the trees and the maze?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘The fabled beasties? I dinna ken. All I ken is that they used to travel.’

‘Travel? Travel where?’

‘To Leith.’

‘What for?’

‘For advertisement, so I was told.’

‘Who told you? The laird?’

‘Ay. I had to row them, two at a time it was mostly, across the loch to meet Grant from Coinneamh Lodge wi’ his motor van and tell him the wee shop in Leith was doing badly again and needed a window-dressing to attract customers. That was all. When I had handed over whichever of the beasties I had been given, I would walk in for the laird’s letters and then row myself back here.’

‘What do you know of another man called Grant? – a reporter on the Freagair Advertiser.’

‘I’d like fine to skelp that young limmer!’ He turned to Laura. ‘You’ll mind the day you turned up here and the laird brought ye ower the loch the way my guidwife could warm ye wi’ a hot brick to your bed?’

‘Yes,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve blessed her ever since.’

‘Ay. Well, I had orders to tak’ the boat over to the other side before dinner and give a message on the public telephone that’s on the road to Freagair.’

‘Do you remember the message?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Ay.’ He glanced at her sharply. ‘But I’ve told all this to the police. What way would you be speiring at me as well?’

Dame Beatrice had been expecting this question and she replied without hesitation:

‘The young Mr Grant, the reporter, is expecting to be questioned by the police. Mrs Gavin is in the same predicament. Both were here round about the time of the murder. If the police question Mrs Gavin, naturally she wants to know exactly where she stands. Of course, she possesses no guilty knowledge, but we want to be sure that the police will accept that as a fact. We are asking you for help.’

‘Ay.’ He stroked a craggy chin. ‘I can tell you all I ken, but it willna help Mrs Gavin ower much, I’m thinking. The old laird might hae been still alive while she was here, and I couldna swear she didna kill him.’

Laura was speechless, but Dame Beatrice appeared to take only the most casual interest in this damaging statement.

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘How do you know that he might have been alive while Mrs Gavin was here?’

‘I was telling you about the reiver of a young Grant.’

‘Oh, yes. You rowed across to the mainland and went off to telephone, leaving the boat tied up, and when you came back .’

‘Ay. When I came back it was across on the other side.’

‘So you turned the lantern and rang the handbell?’

‘Na, na. Naething o’ the kind. That would have vexed the laird. I whustled.’

‘You—?’

‘He whistled,’ said Laura.

‘Ah, yes. And what happened then?’

‘Then my guid wife left her cooking and brought the boat across. A rare cuddy she called me, but I pointed out that not the biggest gowk in Scotland would leave his boat the wrong side o’ the water. It was then she told me o’ this young journalist frae the Freagair paper, and how he was wanting speech wi’ Mr Macbeth, but Mr Macbeth – wouldna see him but had gi’en orders that when I was home I was to throw him into the loch.’

‘Which order you were prepared to carry out because he had pinched your boat and left you high and dry,’ said Laura. Corrie’s grim face creased into a smile.

‘I was fully prepared to gie him the length o’ my tongue, but it’s ill to maltreat the Press, and I was considering what best to do, when the laird came out of the dining-room and speired at me what I had been hearing on the telephone, for I had felt bound to tell him what my orders were.’

‘Now you said you thought the old laird was still alive while Mrs Gavin was here,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘May we return to that point?’

‘I hae na left it, mistress. Ye gie me no time. I ken verra weel that the old laird was alive while Mrs Gavin was here. It was himself that I rang up on the telephone.’

‘I see. You are certain, I suppose, that it was his voice you heard?’

‘It was that, then. I had to ring him up to find out whether he wanted a car to be ready for him at Tigh-Osda railway station and, if so, at what time. He did wish a car and he told me the time of the train should be in.’

‘So, having rung off, you telephoned the garage for a car. Is there a garage at Tigh-Osda? I don’t remember one,’ said Laura.

‘There’s no’ a garage, but the station-master obliges when he kens the person who wishes to hire.’

‘Oh, I see. Hm!’ said Laura, meeting Dame Beatrice’s understanding eye. ‘Would you say he “knows” the passengers who regularly travel by train from his platform?’

‘Certainly. There’s no a great deal of passenger traffic at Tigh-Osda, for maist o’ the workers at the hydro-electric works use their own cars, although the station was built for them when the hydro-electric scheme was first planned. There’s the mail frae the wee post office at Crioch that a bicycle-laddie brings and puts on to the train, and there’s the mail frae Tigh-Osda itself, although there wouldna be a muckle of letters there, for few in the village write mair than once a year to their relations in Canada. Ay, and them that are putting up for the night at the hotel – for such Ian Beg chooses to call it – are bagmen wi’ their samples, puir bodies that are mair like tinklers or pedlars, to my mind, than the sort you would find in a city.’

‘So you booked the station-master’s car for the old laird,’ said Dame Beatrice patiently. ‘For what time in the evening was it booked? Can you remember?’

‘For half after nine, the way I would be able to wait at table on the laird and Mrs Gavin here, and the guid-wife would be able to prepare a supper for the old laird, the way he would no’ be compelled to eat up the remains of the gigot which was served at dinner.’

‘I see. So the old laird arrived at An Tigh Mór at soon after ten, I suppose. Did he give the usual signal for the boat to be brought across for him?

‘He did not. I had orders to have the boat on the other side to meet him, the way he wouldna be kept waiting, so at ten o’clock I went to the boathouse and rowed across. He showed up in the station-master’s car after a bit – Ian Beg, the porter, driving – and I took him back to the boathouse and he stepped ashore and we brought him up to the house.’

‘Did you see anything of young Mr Grant in the boathouse? I ought to tell you that he was there when Mrs Gavin decided to leave the island for Freagair.’

‘I didna see hide nor hair of him.’

‘I wonder where he got to?’ said Laura. ‘You say you went up to the house with the old laird?’

‘I did that.’

‘And actually saw him go in?’

‘I helped him along the path and up the steps. He was fou.’

‘How fou?’ asked Laura.

‘Verra fou. He was telling me that the Devil was after him and that he wouldna have any supper. He was going to play on the pipes and frighten the Devil away. That is what he said. Ay, those were his very words.’

Laura again caught Dame Beatrice’s eye.

‘And did he play on the pipes?’ asked the latter.

‘He did that. Well enough it was at first, but he finished wi’ such a skirling ye would have thought the Devil had snatched the pipes from him and was piping his soul to damnation.’

‘Are you certain it was not Mr Macbeth who was piping?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘Mrs Gavin, I think, put the piping down to him.’

Corrie looked undecided. ‘I couldna say. The laird was in the mood,’ he replied.