My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 14

Story told by the Grants and Others

‘And up from thence, a wet and

misty road…

Clouds of white rolling vapours fill

the vale.’

Matthew Arnold

« ^ »

‘WELL,’ said Laura, when Corrie had rowed them across the loch and they were back in the waiting car, ‘something to think about, definitely, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Say on,’ said Dame Beatrice, as George let in the clutch, and the car, in spite of the rough ground at the roadside, moved sedately on to the highway. ‘You have comments to make?’

‘Haven’t you? There’s one thing, surely, that sticks out a mile and a half.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Of course. The business of the Grants and my car.’

‘Recapitulate.’

‘As though you didn’t have both episodes at your fingers’ ends!’

‘You make me sound like one of the Norns, child.’

‘Well, so you may be, for all I know. And that’s not intended to be flippant. No, honestly, though, let’s face the facts.’

‘Willingly. Say on.’

‘Well, how truthful do you think the Corries are?’

‘Possibly truthful and probably trusting, child.’

‘Meaning that they trusted Cù Dubh?’

‘And ourselves, you know.’

‘Yes, well, if we accept (and, like you, I do) that Corrie was telling the truth, why did the Grants ask me to drive Mrs Grant home, that first night I came back in the rain from Gàradh, when they must have known they could hire the station-master’s car?’

‘There are two possible, and, I venture to think, obvious explanations.’

‘Oh?’ said Laura, belligerently. ‘I can’t think of even one. Oh, yes! Of course I can,’ she added, altering her tone. ‘You mean that the station-master’s car was already on hire.’

‘Exactly, and what is so satisfactory is that it will be a simple business to find that out.’

‘Maybe not as simple as you would think,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘I don’t suppose for an instant that the station-master keeps any records of the hire of his car. A Highlander wouldn’t, you know. It isn’t that he wants to dodge the tax-collector, but simply that he has very little sense of time and is just too lazy, anyway, to bother. Besides, he probably doesn’t think of payment for hiring out his car as being part of his income. He’d tell you – and he’d believe it – that he only does it to oblige, and that, as he had to pay for the car in the first place, it is not the business of anybody else how he uses it.’

‘I see,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I must show him my notebook.’

Laura made a rude, hooting noise, well aware that few, if any, could read her employer’s cryptic shorthand, Dame Beatrice’s own invention. Dame Beatrice sedately explained that she would produce the notebook and read aloud to the station-master certain dates and times.

‘Well, all right,’ said Laura. ‘There may be, as I say, this probable explanation of why the Grants couldn’t hire the car. But what else had you thought of? You said the other explanation was also a possible one. Expatiate.’

‘They had your car free of charge, child.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, but, against that, Mrs Grant put me up for the night and fed me jolly well, you know, and she more than replaced the petrol.’

‘There is usually food in a house, dear Laura. The production of ready money in order to cope with an unforeseen situation is another matter.’

‘It’s still all a bit odd, you know,’ said Laura, moodily.

‘An understatement, I feel.’

‘So we go and see the station-master?’

‘Yes, indeed. He may not remember whether his car was on hire that afternoon and evening but he will most certainly remember whether Mr Grant did, or did not, travel by train to Inverness that day.’

‘Good enough. Have you decided who killed Black Dog?’

‘Oh, yes, of course, child. That was fairly obvious from the beginning. The police know, too. Their trouble is the same as ours – lack of proof.’

‘Well, who did it, then?’

‘Suppose you tell me what you think.’

‘Mr Grant Senior, assisted by Mr Grant Junior, in which case they must be related, and I don’t believe they are,’ said Laura; but she spoke doubtfully. ‘The name is a common one and, although I know they live fairly near to one another, I don’t see that that makes them either relatives or fellow criminals. It’s just a hunch I have, that’s all.’

‘What else makes sense, my dear Laura?’

‘Well, there’s Macbeth. He must come into the picture somewhere. I just can’t fit him in. I can’t see him as a murderer, though. And then, what about the disinherited son? We simply must regard him as a suspect. You know – revenge and all that.’

‘But there is nothing to suggest that he was on Tannasgan when the murder was committed.’

‘But is there anything to suggest that he wasn’t?’

‘I think there may be, but of that I am a little uncertain.’

‘Yes? How do you mean?’

‘Nobody has mentioned that he was there. To particularise, you did not see him, Macbeth has not suggested that he was on the island and the Corries cannot have thought that he was there.’

‘It wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to have hidden himself from all of us. However, I still think the Grants know most about what happened. Oh, well, now for the station-master at Tigh-Osda.’

The station-master at Tigh-Osda proved to be a cautious softly-spoken man who received them in his primitive little office behind the booking-clerk’s den, offered them seats and asked what their complaint was.

‘We have no complaint whatever,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We are hoping for information.’

‘You cannot understand the time-tables, maybe?’

‘Nothing of that kind. I am sure they are as clear as British Railways can make them. Our enquiries, in short, are connected with a Mr Grant who lives at Coinneamh Lodge, about a dozen miles from here.’

‘Ay?’ said the station-master. ‘I know Mr Grant very well as a passenger to Inverness.’

‘You do? That is helpful, then. Would you remember a Friday at the end of last month when there was a deluge of rain, severe even for the Western Highlands, when Mr and Mrs Grant left their station wagon or estate car here because it had broken down?’

‘I mind it very well. This young lady here’ – he nodded at Laura – ‘was good enough to drive Mrs Grant home.’

‘That is so.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Laura. The station-master pointed to the windows on either side of the little room.

‘That way I can keep my eye on the platform. That way I can see who comes in from the road.’

‘Oh, of course. Well, I spent the night at Coinneamh Lodge, as the weather was so atrocious, and, some time during the time I was there, my car vanished. It was returned – I mean, I’ve got it back all right – but it was a hired car and I was responsible for it, so I’d rather like to know who had it. All I can think of is that somebody who knew the Grants also knew that they owned a station wagon and went to Coinneamh Lodge to borrow it. They found my car in the shed, so borrowed that instead.’

‘Did it suffer damage, then?’

‘Well,’ said Laura, treading on delicate ground because she did not want to tell a direct lie, ‘it certainly wasn’t quite in the same condition as when I left it, and judging by the mileage figures and the – er—’

‘The petrol consumption?’

‘ – I just wondered whether somebody – it would have to be two people, actually – used it to reach the station here so that one of them could catch a train.’

‘What would be the latest time you could be sure it was safely housed at Coinneamh Lodge?’

‘Well, I didn’t go to bed until well after midnight and I should have heard it being driven away, I’m sure, or the door being slammed, or something. From what I can work out, it was taken away some time between about two o’clock and six in the morning.’

The station-master fished out a timetable.

‘You may see for yourself, mistress, that there is no train leaves this station after the one Mr Grant catches at eight-fifteen when he travels to Inverness during the clement months of the year. The earliest morning train does not go out until nine-five.’

‘Well, anyway, thank you for telling me,’ said Laura. ‘I just thought it might be somebody who wanted to catch a train.’

‘Does Mrs Grant have no suspicion who might have helped himself to the loan of it? Coinneamh Lodge lies a long way off the road.’

‘She seems to have no idea.’

‘Well, well, I’m sorry you were in trouble over a hired car. That would be sorely vexing for you, yes, and expensive, too.’

‘Talking of car hire,’ said Laura, ‘I think somebody told me that there was a car here at the station. Is that so?’

‘It is, indeed.’

‘But the Grants took shelter in the station entrance instead of having it take Mrs Grant home. That seems odd to me. After all, they couldn’t have known that I was coming along, could they?’

‘No, no, they could not.’

‘I only stopped because I had made up my mind I would have to find a bed at the hotel.’

‘Yes, I see. That was a fortunate thing indeed for Mrs Grant.’

‘If you don’t mind my asking, was the station car on hire that evening?’

‘My mind is not clear about that. Ian Beg may know.’ He went out and returned with a thin, very shy young man whom he introduced as, ‘This will be Ian. He issues the tickets and does the portering and holds the train if there should be those on the road wishful to ride on it. Now, then, man Ian, put your thoughts to the wet Friday Mr Grant’s estate car broke down and himself pushing it with his wife at the steering. Do you mind the Friday I mean?’

‘I do so, Mr Murray.’

‘Well, now, was our own car away?’

‘It was not, then.’

‘It was not? Did Mr Grant speak of wishing it on hire for his wife to get home?’

‘He did not.’

‘I suppose,’ said Laura, ‘that, if he had driven his wife home in it, he would not have been able to get to Coinneamh Lodge and back in time for the train?’

‘That would be the way of it.’

‘You mean, then,’ said Dame Beatrice, giving Ian a friendly leer which obviously frightened him very much, ‘that Mrs Grant was absolutely dependent upon some friendly motorist coming along and offering her a lift?’

‘It would be like that, yes, indeed.’

‘Was it a likely thing to have happened? I should have thought that this was rather a lonely road.’

‘Anybody would give anybody a lift on such a night,’ said Ian.

‘How many passengers do you usually expect on the evening train?’ asked Laura.

‘Och, it might be as many as fifteen, times it would be two.’

‘Well, that doesn’t exactly sound like a London rush hour. Couldn’t you have offered to drive her home yourself? Surely, when she was in such difficulties, and had to get home to her baby to free the baby-sitter, Mr Murray here would have looked after the train for you?’

‘Ay,’ Ian appeared to lose himself in thought. ‘Och, ay. There is something in what you say. Only, you see, our car was suffering from a defective clutch, righted on the following morning.’

Laura wanted to laugh, but knew that this reaction would deeply offend the young Highlander.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘But you told us that Mr Grant made no enquiry about hiring the car. I quite understand when you said that he himself had no time to take her home because of missing his train, but couldn’t he have suggested that, for once, you yourself could have taken her? – before he knew that the station car was out of action, I mean.’

‘He could not. He would be knowing that not for anyone would I enter the policies of Coinneamh.’

‘Why not, then, Mr Beg?’

‘It is clear to me that you have not the Gaelic,’ said Ian, shaking his head. The station-master rose and, courteous to the last, showed out Dame Beatrice and Laura.

‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, when they were in her car and clear of the station, ‘I am stunned by the way in which you dominated that interview. I offer congratulations, and rejoice that the mantle of Elijah should have fallen upon Elisha to such excellent effect.’

Laura grinned.

‘We’ve found out what we wanted to know, anyway,’ she said, ‘so a truce to the leg-pulling. We know Grant went by train that night, but, if that lad Ian is right, we can’t be at all sure that it was Mrs Grant who borrowed my car that early morning. And yet who else could it have been, and what about the crack of my not knowing the Gaelic? I do know what Coinneamh means. It means Meeting.’

‘Does it, indeed?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Well, now for the Grants, for, as Mr Peacham indicates in The Beggar’s Opera, matters must not be left where they are.’

As it happened, both Mr and Mrs Grant were at home. So was the baby. The first sounds which greeted the visitors were those of a screaming child.

‘Temper,’ said Laura, pounding vigorously upon the door.

‘Teething, perhaps?’ suggested Dame Beatrice, whose children were a good many years older than Laura’s little son. The door was opened quietly, and yet dramatically, by a girl of about seventeen.

‘Yes, please you?’ she said. Dame Beatrice enquired for Mrs Grant and was informed that she and her husband were both at home. As this exchange was taking place, Mrs Grant came into the hall. She greeted Laura first and then looked a little doubtfully at Dame Beatrice before she led them into the dining-room. Grant stood up and said:

‘I take it you’re interested in the papers.’

‘To some extent,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘At the moment I am much more interested in Newhaven.’

She allowed this name to sink in, but it was evident from his demeanour that it had touched no chord in Grant.

‘Newhaven?’ he said at last ‘And what will Newhaven have to do with it?’

‘Well, that is just what I’d like to know,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘Come, now, Mr Grant! Admit that your story of the kidnapping was a fake.’

Grant glanced at his wife and then grinned.

‘A fake?’ he said. ‘Well, well, perhaps the less said about that the better. I was hard pressed. You see, there are a number of people who think I may have killed the laird. Maybe you are one of them.’

‘One of many?’

‘Ay. You remember reading about the loss of a ship called the Saracen.’

‘Do you not mean the Salamander?’

Grant looked startled.

‘I see that you know it all,’ he said. Dame Beatrice, pleased at the result of a shot in the dark, shook her head.

‘Oh, no, Mr Grant, I do not. I wish I did,’ she said. ‘Why did she blow up?’

‘I dinna ken. Christie, some tea for the ladies.’

‘You don’t know?’ said Dame Beatrice, as Mrs Grant went out of the room. Mr Grant’s face darkened.

‘It was listed as “an unfortunate incident” in our official files, but it was sabotage,’ he said. ‘I have no doubt about that. My only brother was lost when the Salamander or, when she was in Scottish waters, the Saracen, blew up.’

‘If you know it was sabotage, you must have some idea of who was responsible.’

‘An idea is not a proof, Dame Beatrice.’

Dame Beatrice wagged her head in acceptance of this view.

‘Very true,’ she agreed, ‘so I will not press for your opinion.’

‘Oh, you are welcome to my opinion. I think Bradan arranged it all.’

‘Why should you think that?’

‘He believed we had an informer aboard that ship. You see, our trade would not bear too close an inspection.’

‘Really?’

‘I shall say no more about that.’

‘I cannot blame you. The cargoes which came back to this country…’

‘Were innocent enough. Ah, here comes Christie with the tea.’

‘I soon found out that you were not employed on the hydro-electrical project,’ said Dame Beatrice conversationally. Grant laughed.

‘You did that! Ay, it was not a very effective smoke-screen that I put up there.’ He handed over the cups of tea as his wife poured them out. ‘But I dinna fash myself about that, as some people say.’

‘Of course not. Well, it is very kind of you to have us here and give us tea when our object – I will not mince matters – is to find out, if we can, whether one or both of you slaughtered the laird of Tannasgan.’

Laura gasped at hearing this frank statement, but Grant laughed again and turned to his wife.

‘Did you hear that Christie? What will folk think of next?’

‘We have found out why you were stranded at Tigh-Osda station,’ Dame Beatrice went on. ‘The station-master’s car was out of action owing to a faulty clutch.’

‘Even if it had not been out of action it would have been of no use to us,’ said Grant ‘Nobody at the station would have been willing to leave his work to drive Christie home, and I could not have done it myself for fear of missing my train.’

‘How long had you been at the station when I turned up?’ asked Laura. Grant considered the question.

‘About a quarter of an hour, I would say,’ he replied.

‘Ah,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘By the way, who did kill Mr Bradan?’

Grant put down his cup.

‘I have told you that my brother went down with the Saracen.’

‘You have, yes.’

‘If I had killed Cù Dubh, that would have been my reason.’

‘But you didn’t kill him?’

‘I did not. Consider the facts. Here am I, an honest poor man, the Dear knows, tied in partnership with a scoundrel. Oh, ay, Bradan was a rascal all right. Now he’s dead – murdered. But, mistress, he was my bread and butter, ay, and my cake, too. What way would I wish to lose all that? Forbye, I’ll tell you this: what we were doing was against the law. So much I am well prepared to admit. What I am not prepared to admit is that it was sinful.’

‘You do not think of gun-running as being sinful?’

‘Woman, if they hadna got the stuff from us, they would only have bought it elsewhere!’

‘Sophistry!’

Grant grinned again. He might be a villain, thought Laura, but he was a likeable one.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But the gun-running was a bit of an afterthought. It was the moonshine trade that brought in the dollars first of all.’

‘Rum?’

‘Ay, rum. There was nothing difficult about it. We took out coal, potatoes, pig-iron – that kind of innocent stuff – and we sold it. We had regular customers out there, and it was a good business. Bradan, to give the man his due, had a good head on his shoulders. Then all we had to do was to buy rum in the islands and work it to the ‘dry’ places, pick up a cargo of sugar and cotton and land it in a perfectly legitimate way at Leith (or maybe Newhaven) and that’s all there was to it.’

‘Interesting. And the Salamander, of course, was not engaged in the innocent pursuit of rum-running.’

‘You ken very well that she was not.’

‘Now, Mr Grant, you have been comparatively frank with us, and I realise that this is a story which you can hardly tell to the police.’

‘And you?’

Dame Beatrice indicated her cup of tea.

‘It is not for me to cast – what is the rest of it, Laura?’

Laura, who had been studying the tea-leaves in the bottom of her cup before relinquishing it to Mrs Grant, looked up.

‘I prefer not to call the police swine, Dame B.,’ she said, with affected seriousness.

‘No, no. I was not thinking of asking you to do so. We cannot think of pigs and our dear Robert at the same time,’ responded Dame Beatrice in a similar tone.

‘Casting bread upon the waters, doesn’t fit.’

‘You know, you’re not trying,’ said Dame Beatrice, giving a harsh cackle which had the curious effect of quietening the baby in the next room.

‘Casting nasturtiums? Care to the winds? A clout before May is out? The runes? The lie in someone’s teeth?’

‘Dear, dear! I had no idea that I should provoke all this! Anyhow, Mr Grant, I shall not betray you to the police under any circumstances except one.’

‘Well, I didna murder Bradan,’ said Grant

‘And the kidnapping story?’

‘I willna talk about that. It was all in the course of business. I had to make contacts. It had naething at all to do with Bradan’s death except that I had to shoulder some of his work.’

‘But this would have been before his death, would it not?’

Grant gave her a very odd look.

‘Maybe it would,’ he said ‘We had reasons, and that’s all I’m prepared to say.’

‘I see. Mr Grant, I ask for no names, but do you know who killed Mr Bradan?’

‘I wish him well, whoever he was, although he’s cost me my cake, if not some of my bread and butter.’

‘That is not an answer, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice gently. Grant passed his cup to his wife for more tea.