My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 17

Following the Death of a Salamander

‘Treason has done his worst: nor steel,

nor poison.

Malice domestic .foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.’

Shakespeare

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THE list of names and addresses, supplied to Dame Beatrice at her hotel in Slanliebh two days later, at first offered no hope of providing any clue to the still mysterious death of the laird of Tannasgan. It transpired that most of the crew of the lost collier Saracen had been Lascars and that of the captain and three officers (the third officer, so-called, was an apprentice), only one was a Scotsman. This was the second-mate, a man named Baillie. Dame Beatrice decided to try his wife first.

The address was that of a street in Glasgow; this to the surprise of Laura, who insisted that the man must have lived in Leith. Dame Beatrice confirmed the address with the inspector and in due course George drew up the car in front of a quiet, respectable house in Govan.

The door was opened by a quiet, respectable woman who confirmed that her name was Mrs Baillie. She asked Dame Beatrice and Laura in, and produced strong tea, bannocks and shortbread.

‘Ye’ll be from the police,’ she said. ‘I had word.’

‘Full marks for the inspector,’ said Laura. ‘That’s going to save a lot of explanation.’

Dame Beatrice picked up the cue. They had rehearsed several openings to this conversation on the way from Slanliebh.

‘We are conducting an enquiry into the destruction of the collier Saracen, which was lost somewhere in the Atlantic five years ago. As you know, I have no doubt, one of the owners has been found killed. The circumstances seem mysterious and the motive for the murder rather obscure. Did your husband ever express any opinion as to the nature and scope of his employment?’

Mrs Baillie sipped tea and thought over the question.

‘Nature… and scope…’ she repeated, with long pauses. ‘Well, maybe he did. I mind well him saying that, once he had his master’s certificate, he could be very sure of a command. It is not all those who hold a master’s certificate that can get a ship of their own, ye ken.’

‘You mean that your husband hoped to captain one?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Just that. It sours on a man, not to get his own ship. But Ian was always hopeful – too hopeful, I thought, times – of getting a command, but he always said that, once he had his wee bit of paper, he trusted the Company to do the right thing by him. I was not so hopeful.’

‘Why not, Mrs Baillie?’

‘Ian was too old. He was no verra guid at studying. I couldna see him passing an examination. Practical seamanship, ay, certainly; but to write it all down – well, I had ma doubts; I certainly had ma doubts.’

‘What did you think of the shipping firm for which he worked?’

‘I kenned little about it, but I thought the money was too guid. Not that I scorned the pay – oh, no, not that! – but it was way aboon what the Union were asking.’

‘So you suspected that something was wrong?’

‘Maybe not just at first. You ken the way it would be. Nobody looks twice at guid siller when it’s to your hand. It was only afterwards that I began to wonder.’

‘Since the Saracen went down, you mean?’

‘Ay. Mind ye, there was naething wrong wi’ the ship and there was naething wrong wi’ the owners – only—’

‘Yes?’

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Baillie, almost with violence. ‘It was the money. The money was too guid. Danger money, it was. I can see that fine the now.’

‘Did you ever meet the captain of the Saracen?’

‘I did that. Many’s the crack he and Ian had together in this very house. Ou, ay, many and many’s the crack. I’ve left them laughing over their rum mair than twenty or thairty times, I would say. Ay, mair than twenty or thairty times.’

‘What about the first officer?’

‘That one? There went a bubblyjock of a man for ye. Ay, a right down bubblyjock of a man.’

‘A foreigner?’

‘Ay, and as black as the minister’s hat.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, he would hae been a fine visitor at the first footing o’ Hogmanay.’

‘Did he speak English?’

‘Ou, ay, in a fashion, but for swearing he relied on his native tongue, whatever that might hae been. My man always had it that he was no sailor. Of navigation he knew nothing.’

‘I thought that the mate of a cargo ship was responsible chiefly for the cargo.’

‘Ay,’ said Mrs Baillie, narrowing her eyes, ‘and since I’ve been capable of thinking about it at all, I’ve been speiring – in my own mind, ye’ll agree – what kind of cargo it would be to blow up like that.’

‘A cargo of coal, so we heard.’

‘And what way does a cargo of coal blow up and not leave a big enough piece of the ship for them that kens about such things to study? No, no. Coal there may have been, but something mair was underneath it.’

‘Did your husband ever mention a man named Grant as being one of the ship’s company?’

‘Grant? I dinna think so.’

‘What did you make of her?’ asked Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were in the car again.

‘She has done nothing more than confirm our suspicions, child. There were certainly explosives aboard the Saracen. That we know. There was nobody named Grant aboard when she blew up. That is what interests me most.’

‘Well, where do we go from here?’

‘Back to Slanliebh, child.’

‘We’re not washing our hands of the case?’

‘Time will show.’

‘You’re not going to visit any more of the relatives of those men?’

‘Not at present, if at all. We must wait upon events.’

‘At Slanliebh?’

‘At Slanleibh. It is a pleasant spot.’

Laura snorted with frustration.

‘Action! Give me action!’ she said. Dame Beatrice greeted this cry from the heart with an eldritch cackle.

‘You will have action, and to spare, before very long, if I am any judge,’ she said. ‘Sit still; let time pass; enjoy your native land.’

‘All right, if you say so,’ said Laura. ‘By the way, don’t you think the inspector may be underestimating our friend Macbeth? And there’s still that claim by Grant that his brother was killed when the Saracen went up in smoke. Either he was lying or else his brother was going under another name. Fishy, in either case, wouldn’t you say?’

Dame Beatrice declined to comment.

‘Now,’ said Dame Beatrice, later in the week, ‘I am wondering whether we know enough of the truth to decide which persons who have supplied us with information are lying, to what extent and what their reasons are for doing so.’

‘Everybody has something to hide,’ said Laura. They were in the lounge of the hotel at Slanliebh. Outside it was pouring with rain. Laura, who had decided to take a pre-breakfast walk, had been caught on the hillside in a deluge and had hurried back to a boiling hot bath. She was now lounging, in slacks and a wind-cheater, on one of the settees, while Dame Beatrice, upright and straight-backed as a nun, sat in a chair beside her. There were other visitors in the large room, but these were gathered in groups or couples about small tables sufficiently far apart to make private conversations possible.

‘Yes, everybody has something to hide.’

Dame Beatrice agreed, ‘so, while this inclement weather keeps us within doors, let us take the opportunity of examining the evidence, such as it is, of the Grants and the Corries.’

‘I hate to think ill of the Corries, so let’s take them first and get it over.’

‘Very well.’ Dame Beatrice took out her notebook. ‘But let us banish prejudice from our minds.’

‘For me, that’s difficult, if not impossible, but I’ll do my best Do you think there was any truth in that crack of Macbeth’s that they’re not married?’

‘If there is, it might provide a motive for the murder of Mr Bradan.’

‘You mean blackmail. But an employer wouldn’t find it worthwhile to blackmail people like the Corries. I mean, even if you put their earnings together, they can’t amount to very much.’

‘I was not thinking in terms of money, child. Suppose they had wanted to apply for another post and the laird had not wanted to part with two good and faithful servants? After all, it is not every middle-aged couple who would be willing to spend their lives on a small island in a West Highland loch.’

‘I see what you mean, but it still doesn’t seem an adequate motive for murder.’

‘Suppose, then, that Mr Bradan, whose activities, as we are beginning to find out (thanks largely to the nose for crime of our dear Robert), must have been of a nefarious nature, desired the Corries to connive at, or assist in, some project of which their Lowland consciences could not approve? What then?’

‘I suppose… yes. But, even so, I can’t see the Corries dumping the body in an empty rum-barrel, can you?’

‘From what I have seen of them, no, child, I cannot. Do not forget, however, that our young friend Grant may not be the only fanciful embroiderer. We have put down the presence of the skian-dhu to him, but there may have been another artist at work, you know.’

‘Macbeth, for example?’

‘He is a possibility, yes.’

‘One thing that strikes me,’ said Laura, ‘is that if the skian-dhu was inserted after death, we still don’t know what was the weapon which actually killed the laird.’

‘A point which had not escaped me, but we must accept the medical evidence, don’t you think? A Scottish doctor is not easily deceived, but might hold his tongue.’

‘It’s a great pity you did not have a chance to examine the body.’

‘I should have welcomed the opportunity.’

‘You know, we shall need to see young Grant again and make him confess to the skian-dhu.’

‘And to other matters. You are quite right.’

‘If we’ve guessed about the skian-dhu, it stands to reason that he must have been on Tannasgan when the laird was brought home if it was, as seems likely.’

‘Quite. Oh, yes, our young Mr Grant has a great deal to explain.’

‘We ought to warn young Grant.’

‘We will do so when we see him, which may be some time this afternoon or tomorrow morning.’

‘You’ve sent for him, then?’

‘Well, this hotel is neutral ground, so to speak. But let us get back to Mr and Mrs Corrie and scrutinise the evidence they have given us. First, there is the uncompromising comment made by Corrie about Mr Bradan.’

‘Oh, yes! That he does well enough in his grave.’

‘Exactly. That remark interests me for two reasons: first, that he did not love Mr Bradan, and, second, that he must have known perfectly well that it was not to Bradan that I was referring, when I mentioned the laird, but to Mr Macbeth. Then there was his equivocal reply when you asked whether Macbeth had killed the laird.’

‘ “Maybe he did, and maybe he did not,” ’ quoted Laura. ‘Yes, that was a pretty dodgy answer. It might mean that he knew very well who the murderer was.’

‘If he did not know for certain, I think he had very shrewd suspicions.’

‘Suspicions which the police didn’t get him to voice, then!’

‘A country with a Covenanting History and one which steadfastly refused to betray Prince Charles Edward Stuart, would be unlikely to produce sons who could be bullied or cajoled into supplying information which they had intended to keep to themselves,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘That’s true enough. Then, of course, Mrs Corrie was a bit cagey, too. Remember asking her what she knew about the murder?’

‘I do, indeed. Mind you, she qualified what you are pleased to call the cagey reply by giving us a piece of information.’

‘That the son had visited the island. Yes, but we didn’t find out when. He certainly didn’t come over in the boat with Macbeth and me.’

‘Reading between the lines, child, I deducted that the visit was paid before the father’s death and that the disinheriting was done on the occasion of that visit, and that Mr Macbeth was present. I suppose the inspector has seen a copy of Mr Bradan’s will? When I meet him again I shall ask him what was in it, but I see no reason to doubt that Macbeth is the heir. The Corries have accepted him as such, and they, most likely, witnessed the will. Even if they were not permitted to read it, I am sure they knew that Macbeth was to be the new laird of Tannasgan.’

‘Corrie seemed to have some suspicions of Mr Grant of Coinneamh, I thought,’ said Laura. ‘He admitted that there was no love lost between him and Cù Dubh. But what did you make of his statements that the fabulous beasts used to travel to Leith?’

‘Of itself, I am certain that the statement was moonshine.’

‘Lie number one, you think? Well, it’s lies we’re looking for, isn’t it?’

‘I am not prepared to call it a lie. I think it was in the nature of a pointer, you know.’

‘To direct our attention to Leith or, perhaps, Newhaven?’

‘So I suppose.’

‘What about Corrie’s story that he had been sent across the loch to telephone about an arrangement for a car to meet Bradan at Tigh-Osda station?’

‘I see no reason to disbelieve it. When young Grant arrives he may be able to tell us a little more about that.’

‘But do you think Corrie telephoned Cù Dubh? Can we accept that he was alive when Corrie telephoned?’

‘That I cannot answer at present. The story that Corrie did tell – and I have not yet decided whether it is true – is that Mr Bradan, as a living man, came back to Tannasgan.’

‘Yes, I couldn’t make out about that, either.’

‘Mr Bradan, as we know, did come back to Tannasgan that night, but we do not know whether he was dead or alive.’

‘So the piper may have been Macbeth, after all!’

‘Yes. He played the pipes because he had seen the body, one might suppose. You remember telling me that the piper began with a lament, went on with an almost indecently triumphant skirling, then the lament again?’

‘It was a most extraordinary performance.’

‘Yes. He could have mourned his cousin and then realised that he had inherited the family property. Did you ever – no, you’re probably too young—’

‘Did I ever what?’

‘See a slender witch of a girl named, I think, Susan Salaman, perform a ballet solo called Funeral Dance for a Rich Aunt?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘It called for the same extraordinary mingling of two emotions.’

‘It must have been wildly comic!’

‘It was, wildly and brilliantly so.’

‘Well, we’ve sorted the Corries, so what about the Grants? Those of Coinneamh, I mean.’

‘Today’s thought. Well, now, what strikes you most about the Grants?’

‘Fishy people. I’ve changed my mind about them.’

‘By that you infer?’

‘I no longer think I can believe a word they say.’

‘They have not uttered very many words, child, when one comes to think of it.’

‘Granted,’ Laura agreed. ‘But what have we got on them, after all? There was the matter of my hired car and then the silly business of Grant’s being kidnapped, but – well, what else?’

‘Let us see.’ Dame Beatrice turned over a page of her notebook. ‘We begin, as you very rightly point out, with that so-far unexplained borrowing of your car. There was something very odd indeed about that. We have assumed that it made the journey between Coinneamh and Tannasgan, but there is no evidence, except that of the mileage, to show that that was indeed where the car went that night Then, as we have already noted, if Mrs Grant cannot drive, it cannot have been she who borrowed the car.’

‘But there’s nobody else it could have been,’ Laura protested. ‘I think she was lying.’

‘There is something in that. I see that it is still raining,’ said Dame Beatrice, with apparent inconsequence. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Yes, with rum in it. Oh, well, no, perhaps not rum. I’d forgotten for the moment. Wonder what Cù Dubh looked like? I ought to have asked Mrs Grant when we were there.’ She signalled to the waiter, who had just served morning coffee at another table. ‘And now, what about the Grants and the possibility that they were lying at that last interview when we managed to get them both together?’

‘Let us have our coffee and enjoy it in peace,’ said Dame Beatrice, closing her notebook and restoring it to her skirt pocket. ‘I see that the bar is open. There is no reason why you should not drink rum. It is a kindly spirit and may assist thought.’

The waiter brought their coffee while Laura was at the bar and, when she returned to her seat, Dame Beatrice talked about the more amusing aspects of the Edinburgh Conference and then said:

‘I want to hear again exactly what happened on that afternoon and evening which you spent on Tannasgan.’

‘I don’t think you’ll pick up anything new,’ said Laura, ‘but here goes.’ When she had concluded her account, her employer, warning her that it was a leading question, asked whether, at any point during her walk, she had suspected that she was being dogged, followed or kept under any form of surveillance.

‘You’re thinking of the disinherited son.’ said Laura, ‘but I’m positive that my meeting him like that, at the edge of the loch, was sheer chance.’

‘I would still like to know why he signalled the island so that you were taken to An Tigh Mór.’

‘Can’t we put it down to a chivalrous gesture towards a damsel in distress?’

‘Well, we can,’ said Dame Beatrice doubtfully. ‘Let us place this tray on that vacant table and get to work again on the Grants.’

‘You noticed that Grant the elder said they had been marooned at Tigh-Osda station only for about a quarter of an hour?’ said Laura, when she had moved the tray.

‘I did notice it.’

‘Well, that was a fishy answer and I don’t think it was the truth. I mean, the Grants can’t have it both ways, can they?’

‘By which you mean…?’

‘Either she can drive, in which case (as I’ve felt certain all along) she did borrow my car that time I stayed there, or else they must have been at the station a lot longer than a quarter of an hour.’

‘Excellent. Pray expound your theory.’

‘Well, he was dead set on catching his train, wasn’t he?’

‘It seemed like it.’

‘And their estate car didn’t break down until they got to the station, or near enough to the station.’

‘True.’

‘Well, he couldn’t have hoped, if the estate car had been all right, to drive his wife to Coinneamh Lodge and get back to the station in time to catch the train, if his account of the quarter of an hour’s wait was true.’

‘Therefore the original arrangement must have been that Mrs Grant was to drop him at the station and drive herself home, you think?’

‘I don’t see what else one can think.’

‘Ably argued, child. You must be right. What did you make of Mr Grant’s kindly presenting us with a powerful reason for his having hated Mr Bradan?’

‘You mean the loss of his brother when that ship blew up? I think it could have been a bold bit of bluff.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, it may have been a clever way of throwing dust in our eyes, I think. In other words, he had a strong motive for killing Bradan and he presents us with a completely phony one instead. It would have put quite a lot of people off the scent, I should imagine.’

‘Possibly. I wonder whether he really had a brother on that ship?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘you have not forgotten that Mrs Grant, on the first occasion you met her, made no secret of the fact that she, as well as her husband, hated Mr Bradan?’

‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ said Laura. She was sitting up straight by this time and her settee faced the window. ‘Here comes a motor-cyclist. Can it be – yes, it is.’

‘Our young friend Grant?’

‘And as wet as a fish. Here he comes.’

‘And there was nobody named Grant among the lost crew of the Saracen, you remember? But, as we said, that may mean nothing. So many people, even respectable ones, go under an alias nowadays.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ said Laura.

‘Well, as I said, it might pay to confess to having a motive for a crime which you cannot possibly have committed, in order to confuse the issue of one which you certainly could have committed and which, in point of fact, you did help to commit. I speak merely theoretically, of course.’

‘Like hell you do,’ said Laura.