My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 18

Young Grant Corries Not Quite Clean

‘The Doctor examined carefully the body of the dead man. The face of the corpse was distorted and looked horrible in the candle-light.

‘ “Shot?” said the Inspector laconically. ‘ “No,” replied the Doctor.’

Barry Pain

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YOUNG Grant had shed his waterproof motor-cycling outfit in the outer vestibule of the hotel. He came forward buoyantly, bowed to the ladies and was asked to sit down. Laura went to the bar and ordered him a large whisky.

‘And now,’ she said, ‘what about coming clean?’

‘I’d like to,’ said young Grant. ‘It’s about time I shed the load. Somebody took a pop at me as I came here. Luckily he missed me and missed my tyres, but it just goes to show.’

‘You were fired on?’ asked Dame Beatrice, interested. ‘Where did this take place?’

‘Not long after I left Crioch. I was passing little Loch Breac, which is screened, you’ll likely know, by bushes—’

‘Did you see your adversary?’

‘No. I had gone past him when he fired, and although I have a mirror on the handlebars it was no good to me in all this rain.’

‘Have you decided who it was?’

‘The likeliest would be the man Macbeth.’

‘Oh? What makes you think so?’

‘Wait until you hear my tale, and maybe you’ll think so, too. Oh, and I have an item of news which may interest you. The police have arrested Cosmo Bradan, the dead man’s son.’

‘Have they, indeed? Then the man who fired at you could not have been he and could not have known of the arrest.’

‘That will be so. Mind you, the arrest may be a sort of smoke-screen. It may make the murderer careless.’

‘By the murderer, you mean the man who killed Mr Bradan, of course?’

‘Whom else should I mean?’

‘Do you not remember confirming Mrs Gavin’s report of the Edinburgh murder?’

‘Oh, yes, certainly. But there would be no reason to suspect Cosmo Bradan of being concerned in that. I told you I saw who did it, and I told you that I should certainly recognise him again.’

‘Well, let us have your story. Is it to be the whole truth this time? I must tell you that we know all about the skian-dhu.’

‘You do?’

‘And, to clear up a point which has baffled us, do tell us how Mr Bradan was killed.

‘I will, so. And this time you shall hear the whole truth. I shall begin with the trouble in Edinburgh. As I told you, I was there to report the Conference in which, Dame Beatrice, you (if I may say so) were a leading light. Well, that left me, as I have also said, with time on my hands, and it was in one of those times that I met a man from Newhaven named Dorg. When he knew that I was a journalist and worked in Freagair he said he had a news item for me. Well, I have ambitions, like most people, so I bought him some drinks and, with them, his information. I was disappointed, in a way, for there seemed nothing to print of what he said. He was telling me about some tramp steamers that he thought were gey mysterious in their comings and goings. I speired at him in what way they were mysterious, but, although I plied him with enough whisky to loosen the tongue of anybody but a Dutchman, I could get nothing out of him but an invitation to go and see for myself. I went, but there was nobody able to tell me anything, so I telephoned the Edinburgh office of the Caledonia and asked them what they knew of ships under the names Dorg had given me. They had nothing to tell me except that they were owned by a man named Bradan of Tannasgan.

‘Well, this has some sort of local interest for the people of my district, I thought, so I thanked them for their information and went back to my lodgings to write up my piece about the Conference and another (rather imaginative) piece about the ships.’

‘Which was never published?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Luckily for me, I’m beginning to think. No, I needed something straight from the horse’s mouth – that is, from Bradan himself.’

‘Ah, yes, now.’ Dame Beatrice, who had produced her notebook, turned back to a former entry. ‘Let me remind you of a statement you made at Inversnaid.’

‘Please do not!’

‘I am not teasing. You claimed that Cù Dubh, as Mr Bradan was sometimes called, died just as you were tying up the boat to set Mrs Gavin ashore. That was, or was not, true?’

‘It was not true. That is, it may have been, but I just don’t know.’

‘I suppose it was because of the skian-dhu that you were anxious to persuade Mrs Gavin to give you an alibi. We know a considerable amount about that visit of yours to Tannasgan. That, I may tell you, is a warning.’

‘Spare me! I’ve promised to tell the whole truth.’

‘And I am prepared to help you to do so,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We must clear away the mist.’

‘By which token, it’s stopped raining,’ said Laura. ‘And what about all that phoney stuff you told us about Corrie being your uncle and getting you a job as saboteur at the hydro-electric works near Tigh-Osda?’

Young Grant laughed uncomfortably.

‘I didna really think you’d swallow that,’ he said. ‘Anyhow, it was put right afterwards, when you found out what my real job was.’

‘No thanks to you that we did,’ said Laura sternly. ‘You seem to have acted as a liar and a fool all the way through.’

‘I was able to back up your story about the man who was murdered in Edinburgh by being pushed under a car, though, was I not?’

‘Pity you don’t know who he was.’

‘But I do know. It was Dorg.’

‘Really?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I saw the report in the Edinburgh papers. It was not given much prominence and I should not have been particularly interested except for Mrs Gavin’s insistence that it was murder. The name of the dead man was given’ – she flipped back another two or three pages – ‘as Grant. Quite a coincidence, I feel.’

‘It was Dorg,’ insisted Grant, ‘and one of his murderers was employed by Cù Dubh, as I told you.’

‘That sounds as though Dorg was one of Bradan’s men, then,’ said Laura. ‘I wonder who named him as Grant?’

‘He might have had papers on him in that name.’

‘If he was mixed up in something shady, that’s quite likely, I suppose. Do you think he was killed because he had been seen talking to you and perhaps giving away secrets?’

‘I do not. If that had been the case, they would not have waited until now to shoot at me. Oh, no! I am certain in my own mind that Macbeth was behind that gun.’

‘I suppose the shot was intended for you? You don’t think it may have been some misguided sportsman potting at something on the other side of the road?’

Young Grant shook his head.

‘I do not.’

‘Well, you have one good friend in the world, at any rate,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘Do you remember Mr Curtis, a travelling salesman for a firm of horticulturalists?’

‘Curtis? Oh, yes. An English laddie. I ken him very well. Many’s the crack we’ve had together when he was travelling through Crioch to Gàradh. So he spoke up for me, did he?’

‘He indicated that you were harmless. Let us come now to the story you told us at Gàradh. First, what about your determination to blackmail Mr Bradan?’

‘That bit was true enough, but I badly needed my story.’

‘And your assertion that you made the long journey between Edinburgh and Loch na Gréine on various evenings?’

‘Well, there, I admit I did telescope the time a little, but otherwise what I said was true enough. The evening after I had seen Dorg murdered in Edinburgh I motorcycled to Inverness and spent the night there, before going on to Loch na Gréine to tackle Bradan.’

‘One moment! On the Friday afternoon when that Edinburgh murder took place, my Conference had not begun. What, then, were you doing in Edinburgh?’

‘Well, as I told you, I wanted to interview some of the notables in their hotels before the Conference started.’

‘I see. Now, just let me check some other facts against these things that you are telling me. This death in Edinburgh took place on a Friday, as I have said. Mrs Gavin and I left my home in Hampshire on the previous Wednesday and made a leisurely progress northward. On the Saturday we went sightseeing in Edinburgh, then we spent a quiet Sunday, and the Conference opened at ten o’clock on the Monday morning.’

‘Yes, I reported the opening. I can show you my piece in the Advertiser. I posted it off immediately after lunch.’

‘I see. But, before you reported the opening of the Conference, you had been to Tannasgan. Is that right?’

‘Oh, well – no. Not before I reported the opening.’

‘Please take your time, but you did say that on the evening following that on which you had seen Dorg murdered you motorcycled to Inverness, did you not?’

Grant flushed and scowled.

‘Very well,’ he said, the scowl changing suddenly to a smile. ‘Maybe I’m mixing up the days. What day would it be when I first met Mrs Gavin on Tannasgan?’

Laura glanced at Dame Beatrice and received a nod.

‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘Pitlochry on the Monday, Kingussie on the Tuesday, Inverness on the Wednesday, Freagair on the Thursday. Then on the Friday I motored over to Gàradh to visit Mrs Stewart and stayed the night at Coinneamh Lodge. I drove back to Freagair on the Saturday morning and went to Tannasgan the same afternoon, then got back to Freagair late at night after you’d rowed me ashore and we heard the piping.’

‘So we need an account of your adventures on that Saturday and the preceding Friday,’ said Dame Beatrice to Grant. “Pray relate to us what happened after you left Inverness. Can you now recollect which day that would have been?’

‘Yes, I can work it out, I think. I took two days – well, one evening and part of the next day – to get to Loch na Gréine and I spent the rest of that day and all the next day on Tannasgan, waiting for Cù Dubh to come home. That means I got to Inverness on the Thursday after I’d written up my report on that session of the Conference. So I must have arrived off Tannasgan on the Friday afternoon, camped out – Mrs Corrie gave me my bread, the good woman – here and there, out of sight of old Macbeth, spent Friday night in the boathouse and – and was in hiding there on Saturday night when Mrs Gavin decided to go back to Freagair.’

‘And at what point did you see the dead laird?’

‘He was brought back on the Saturday.’

‘Who brought him?’

‘Who but Corrie?’

‘Really? Corrie brought his body across to Tannasgan?’

‘He did that. You can ask him if you don’t believe me.’

‘We have heard Corrie’s story.’

‘You mean he didn’t mention the dead man?’

‘He told us that Mr Bradan was alive after Mrs Gavin arrived on Tannasgan.’

‘Then he was lying. I tell you it was a dead man Corrie ferried over the water.’

‘Come, come!’ protested Dame Beatrice, giving him a rather unkindly leer. ‘Corrie waited with the boat and Mr Bradan turned up at the jetty in the station-master’s car. That is his story and I am bound to point out that it is a considerably more sensible one than your own.’

‘Have it your own way,’ said the young man sulkily.

‘But I don’t want to. His is the more sensible, but yours is by far the more sensational. Why not tell us the rest of it?’

‘There is nothing more to tell.’

‘When did you produce your skian-dhu?’

‘I really forget.’

‘And what were you doing with one, anyway.’

‘I was wearing the philibeg!’

‘Not when I saw you in the boathouse,’ said Laura austerely. ‘You weren’t wearing a kilt then.’

‘Was I not?’

‘You know you weren’t. Why on earth don’t you come clean and stop wasting our time?’

‘Because I don’t trust you,’ said Grant wildly. ‘I don’t trust either of you. You’ll get me tried for murder if you can. But you’ve the inspector to reckon with. Do not forget that he kens very well when and where Bradan was murdered and I am telling you that it was a dead man who was brought to Tannasgan that night.’

‘And Corrie brought him?’ asked Dame Beatrice in a pacific tone which warned Laura not to lose her temper.

‘Corrie brought him?’ Young Grant asked the question in a stupefied tone. ‘I do not know. I canna say. Who else would have brought him? I had better go.’

‘There is only one answer to that,’ said Dame Beatrice, when he had flung himself out of the lounge. ‘Well, he has missed his lunch here. I wonder how much of the truth he knows and how much of it he has told?’

‘I really believe he thinks it was a dead man who was brought across to Tannasgan that night,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice shook her head, but Laura, unperturbed by this, went on, ‘What’s more, it must have happened before I left. It was sheer instinct that made me flee the place, I suppose. If only you had been there, instead of me, we wouldn’t have had this mystery on our hands.’

‘But how much more empty our lives would have been without it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We could not have prevented the murders, but we can appreciate the puzzle they present.’

‘We’re still no further forward.’

‘Are we not? Suppose that young Mr Grant was speaking the truth?’

‘Oh, you mean…? Well, who do you mean, Dame B.? Have we come to a full stop, do you suppose?’

‘By no means,’ said Dame Beatrice comfortably. ‘For one thing, there is a witness whom we’ve never contacted.’

‘Really? You’ve got me worried. I thought we’d interviewed everybody who might be of the slightest use.’

‘Cast your mind back to your first visit to Mrs Stewart at Gàradh.’

‘Yes, well, while I was at Gàradh, Mrs Stewart happened to mention that her son had had business dealings with Cù Dubh.’

‘Those might be of interest, don’t you think?’

‘Lord!’ said Laura remorsefully. ‘It’s awful of me to have forgotten it all this time, but I’ve never given it another thought.’

‘There can have been no association of ideas in your mind, that is all. Besides, it is never too late to mend! Pray tell me again what Mrs Stewart said.’

‘It isn’t so much, really. She just said that her son had had some business to conclude and had invited Bradan to join the house-party at Gàradh and that they had been snowed-up there for a fortnight and she didn’t like Bradan at all, but that he had given her some pretty decent rock plants, although she thought it was her son’s idea.’

‘Excellent. We must return to London forthwith, for I have discovered from his mother, over the telephone, that Alexander Stewart is staying in London on business for his Edinburgh firm. I have the address and have sent him a telegram. I hope he will be able to call.’

‘I should have thought of him before,’ said Laura.

‘Not at all, child. The matter has arisen at the crucial time. Besides, I shall be delighted to meet the young man again.’

‘I doubt whether he’ll be able to tell us any more than, I suppose, he’s told the inspector here, you know,’ said Laura. ‘I mean, the police are sure to know about the business side of it by this time.’

Morning found them heading south, behind the sturdy, reassuring back of George, through the Moorfoot hills and by way of Carter Bar. As they left the Border country, Laura was moved to declaim:

‘O wha will shoe my bonny foot?

And wha will glove my hand?

And wha will bind my middle jimp

Wi’ a lang, lang linen band?

O wha will kame my yellow hair

Wi’ a haw barberry kame?

And wha will be my bairn’s father

Till Gregory come hame?’

Dame Beatrice looked slightly startled by this confession that Laura was beginning to miss her husband, and insisted on stopping at Newcastle for lunch. They spent the night at Harrogate and were back in Dame Beatrice’s Kensington house by tea-time on the following day. From here Laura telephoned Alexander Stewart and received his promise that he would be round to see Dame Beatrice at soon after nine that evening.

He was as good as his word and presented himself, a fair-haired, tall man of about thirty, at nine-ten. Célestine, Dame Beatrice’s French servant, showed him in with an inappropriate but obviously excited:

‘Monsieur Stewart baisse les mains à madame!’

‘Does he, indeed? Very Spanish of him,’ said Dame Beatrice, holding out her somewhat monstrously bejewelled hands and embracing the young man warmly instead of allowing him to kiss her fingers. ‘And what are you doing in these borrowed French and Spanish plumes, my gay Lothario?’

Célestine, long a trusted and uninhibited member of Dame Beatrice’s household, stifled a giggle and withdrew to the kitchen where her husband, a superb and not particularly temperamental chef, was preparing a meal. As usual, as he cooked, he was alternately praising Laura’s appetite and lamenting that of Dame Beatrice.

‘This one,’ his wife stated, describing Stewart, ‘is, like all the Scots, demented but adorable.’

‘But yes,’ said Henri, busy with his own thoughts.

Meanwhile, the demented but adorable Scot under review was being introduced to Laura. His mother, he told her, had written eulogistically about the visits to Gàradh and had expressed the hope that these would occur often. The courtesies having been exchanged, he was provided with a drink and called to order.

‘What do you know of a man named Bradan of Tannasgan?’ demanded Dame Beatrice.

‘Murdered, and then put into an empty hogshead, or whatever you call it, of rum? I knew him, in a sort of business way, very well.’

‘Expound.’

‘I met him first when I was working up a connection to export dried fish to the Canaries in exchange for bananas. It went all right for a bit, but then the ships – all owned or partly owned by him – seemed an unreasonable time in getting back, and I felt that my firm was losing money and – just as important – goodwill. In the end I stood him off and went to Liverpool for a tender. Their ideas tied in with mine, so I blew Bradan’s lot a nice fat raspberry and our relationship ended, just like that.’

‘You mean that you realised…’

‘No, not really. I just thought they were plucking me for a pigeon, and I didn’t want to be stood up, that was all.’

‘You have never received threatening letters from them?’

Stewart looked surprised.

‘Gracious, no!’ he replied. ‘There was a wee bit of a fuss when I turned them down, but I received the impression that they were just as pleased to see the back of me as I was to see the back of them.’

‘And when did the break take place?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. Stewart wrinkled his brow.

‘Oh, a couple of years ago. Yes, about that.’

‘Do you remember asking Bradan to stay a day or two at your mother’s house at Gàradh?’

‘Yes, yes. There was snow. I got away in time, but I believe Bradan was snowed up there for a week or a fortnight. My mother was not very pleased. She did not take to Bradan overmuch.’

‘You are right. Is there any reason to think that this forcible exile at Gàradh upset any particular plans made by Mr Bradan?’

‘I think not. He told me once that his real business was carried on only in the summer. Something to do with tourists, I understood.’

‘Do you carry on your own export business during the winter?’

‘Not really. In the winter we mostly do coastal trips, picking up cargo where we can. We carry coal, pit-props and light machinery and make out in a hand-to-mouth sort of way until the Atlantic gets reasonable enough for our rather small ships. Oh, and sometimes we carry potatoes.’

‘I see. I hesitate to use the word because I think it is used (in the sense I am about to use it) out of context, but did you ever form the opinion that some, if not all, of Mr Bradan’s activities were – crooked.’

Stewart frowned thoughtfully.

‘Crooked?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know. Now that you say it, I can see that they might have been, but, as we were not affected in any way except for the excessively slow turn-round (as it seemed to us) of his ships, I can’t say that I thought one way or the other about his general business dealings. There isn’t time to, you know. So long as the other party isn’t doing you down, I’m afraid you don’t worry.’

‘Yes, I see. Well, thank you very much for your help, my dear Alexander.’

‘I’m afraid it hasn’t really been of much help, Dame Beatrice, but if there is ever anything else I can do…’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Laura, surprising both herself and her employer. ‘What do you know about a red-haired, red-bearded man, obviously cuckoo, who calls himself Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth?’

‘Obviously cuckoo?’ Stewart considered this description with a truly Scottish mixture of humour and concern. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’

‘You know him, then?’ asked Laura, pressing her point.

‘I met him once, and I agree with you.’

‘Well, what do you know of him?’

‘That he’s a great reader of strange tales.’

‘Would these strange tales include stories of fabulous beasts?’ asked Dame Beatrice. Stewart looked doubtful.

‘What kind of fabulous beasts?’ he asked. Dame Beatrice looked at Laura.

‘Oh, the basilisk, and those sort of things,’ she said. Stewart looked astonished.

‘You wouldn’t be referring to the lion and the unicorn?’ he asked. Laura looked to Dame Beatrice for guidance and her employer nodded to her to answer.

‘Not so far as I know,’ said Laura. ‘One of Bradan’s ships went up in smoke – the Salamander. Did you hear about that?’

Stewart shook his head.

‘I have never heard of such a ship,’ he said. ‘The Salamander! No, that is new to me. What more do you require me to tell you?’

‘I have no idea. Can you say anything more about the enforced holiday that Mr Bradan spent at Gàradh?’

‘I don’t know of anything more, beyond what I’ve already said. I asked him there because, as you will know, there is a relaxed atmosphere at Gàradh and I hope to be able to get him to make some concessions.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, to be a bit easier on the freight charges and all that sort of thing. We used his ships, of course, because our own could not carry all we wanted.’

‘Were you hopeful of success?’

‘Oh, well, I felt it was worth trying, you know. I was in a position to offer him a fairly substantial increase of business if he could agree to our terms.’

‘And how did the negotiations go?’

‘Not particularly well. The snow finished matters, I’m afraid. He was a man of few resources and I don’t think, during that fortnight, he knew what on earth to do with himself between meals. He didn’t care for billiards or snooker and there was nobody at Gàradh anything like as clever at cards as he was.’

‘Surely that was a source of satisfaction to him?’

‘Well, no. You see, my mother will not allow gambling in her house, not even for the most trifling stakes and, as it is her own house, her word is law. When we discovered what a brilliant player he was, I don’t think anyone was sorry. I thought you would have known of her little foible in that respect.’

‘I do not play cards,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I have always thought card games a waste of time and intelligence.’

‘Well, well, so they are, maybe. Then, Bradan was no reader, except of newspapers, and those, of course, could not be got at in that weather. The telephone was off, too, and the man became more and more morose. I am afraid he sorely taxed my mother’s patience.’

‘You said, I think, that you were not snowed up with him.’

‘As it happened, I was not. I had to go to Edinburgh on business and was expected back, but then came the blizzards and I could not make it. When I did manage to get through, I found a very disgruntled Bradan, with his bags packed, just ready to go. It was hopeless to reopen our business conversations. I could see that. I felt it would be wiser to give him time to cool off before I mentioned the matter again. His last words to me were that my invitation to him to visit Gàradh had lost him a business deal worth ten thousand pounds. Oh, he wasn’t pleased with me. He wasn’t pleased at all.’

‘Yet he sent your mother some plants for her rock garden.’

Stewart’s eyes twinkled.

‘Oh, that!’ he said. ‘No, no. I let my mother think so, because if she’d known that I bought them myself as a wee bit of compensation to her for having had to put up with the curmudgeonly old fellow, she would have been vexed at my extravagance.’ He laughed ‘It amazed me to discover what you can pay for rare little plants for a rockery.’

‘And did you ever get the chance to reopen negotiations with Mr Bradan?’

‘I tried again, three months later. I visited him on Tannasgan. He was curt to the point of rudeness and told me, in the most uncouth manner, to take my business elsewhere. He was not prepared to carry our extra freight any longer.’

‘Really? And what did you deduce from that?’

‘As I think I said, there was not much doubt but that he wanted to get rid of us, having found some more lucrative use for his ships. I guessed it might be something questionable, but that was none of my business and I’d found another connection, anyway, in case he should refuse to play ball.’

‘You were well out of it,’ said Laura. ‘I’d like you to meet my husband at some time.’

‘It will be a pleasure,’ said Stewart courteously.

‘You say you visited Tannasgan,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Can you tell me whether anyone besides the laird was living at An Tigh Mór?’

‘There were two servants, a man and his wife, named Corrie, Bradan’s son (with whom, it struck me, he was at loggerheads) and a rather curious character with red hair and a red beard – a tall, thin man wearing a kilt in a tartan which he said was of his own designing (and I can well believe it!), who told me that, although he had been introduced to me as Bradan’s cousin, he was, in fact, the poet Ossian. He was, of course, M. D. Macbeth.’

‘Mad, would you say?’ enquired Laura. ‘He introduced himself to us by the same fancy name.’

‘An eccentric; not, I thought, mad. Maybe he had a quirky sense of humour.’

‘Not a pawky one?’

‘No, no. Mind you, Mrs Gavin, he appeared to take himself very seriously, but it is characteristic of the Scots to be able to keep the solemn face of an elder of the kirk when they’re telling a funny story.’

Laura herself had not this gift. She had lived in England too long for that, but she agreed with the observation and, to show this, she gave a vigorous nod of approval.

‘On what terms were the poet Ossian and Mr Bradan?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

‘On very good terms, I would say. I cannot recall any particular happening or conversation which may have caused me to think so, but the general impression was of two men in harmony. Their relationship was in contrast to the relationship of father and son.’

‘How did you yourself get on with Ossian?’

‘He seemed an agreeable although an eccentric fellow, but I was so much incensed by Bradan’s attitude that I did not stay very long.’

‘Who took you across the loch to the island?’ asked Laura.

‘Who but Bradan himself? He said he liked to scrutinise his guests before he allowed them to land.’

‘Oh, yes, so we heard. Who rowed you back across the loch?’

‘Oh, Corrie.’

‘Did you find him taciturn?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Yes, to some extent. He broke silence to ask me whether I’d got what I had come for, and I told him that I had not, to which he replied that nobody ever did who had dealings with Cù Dubh.’

‘Did he actually call him that?’ asked Laura, interested in this unfeudal appellation.

‘He did, indeed. I thought it an apt description.’

‘Black Dog?’ said Laura. ‘Oh, yes! But Black Dog was in Treasure Island.’

‘Ah, but not on it, said Dame Beatrice, ‘and that, you know, may prove to be a very significant fact – or, of course, of no importance to us whatsoever.’

‘Treasure Island?’ said Stewart. ‘One never knows.’