“I’ll go out and see him now,” said Blair.
Priscilla looked up and saw Hamish, with Angus MacGregor behind him, standing at the entrance to the breakfast room. She signalled wildly to him to escape, but Hamish stayed where he was, his face unusually set and grim.
“Good morning, Chief Inspector,” said Hamish.
Blair swung about, his piggy eyes gleaming. He opened his mouth to yell.
“It was murder,” said Hamish Macbeth. “Captain Peter Bartlett was murdered. And I hae the proof o’ it right here.”
Blair’s mouth dropped open and he stared stupidly. A heavy shocked silence fell on the room.
Into that silence came again the soft Highland voice of PC Macbeth.
“Och, aye,” he said. “It was nearly the perfect murder.”
∨ Death of a Cad ∧
6
You may kill or you may miss,
But at all times think of this –
All the pheasants ever bred,
Won’t repay for one man dead.
—Mark Beaufoy.
Hamish walked into the room and placed a red-and-white plastic shopping bag on a small table by the window. He rummaged in the bag, then turned around, holding up to the stunned gathering two spent shotgun cartridges.
“These,” he said, “are number seven shot, not number six.”
There was a puzzled silence, finally broken by Blair. “What the devil are you talking about, you great gowk?” he cried furiously. “What has all this nonsense got to do with murder?”
“I think these belonged to Captain Bartlett, and I think he used them yesterday,” said Hamish, unperturbed.
“Nonsense,” said Blair. “Anyone could have fired them.”
“But the captain was the only one out shooting,” replied Hamish, inwardly sending an apology up to heaven for the lie when he thought of Angus the poacher’s brace of grouse. But Angus had just assured him they had been shot miles from where the captain died, although still on the estate, and Hamish had years of experience of knowing when the poacher was telling the truth and when he was lying. “Besides, the season just began yesterday.”
“Then they were from last season,” said Blair with a pitying smile.
“Och, no,” said Hamish. “The last season’s shooting ended in December, eight months ago. They haven’t been lying out on the moor all that time, in all that rain and snow.”
Lord Helmsdale nodded in agreement. Blair saw that nod and felt his lovely neat accident verdict beginning to slip away. “Get on with it, then,” he snarled.
Hamish turned back to the plastic bag and produced two grouse. He held them up.
“I found these hidden in the heather, not very far from where the captain was murdered. Angus’s dog found them. I think we shall find that they were killed with number seven shot, with these” – he held up the two spent cartridges – “and that the captain had bagged them before he was killed.”
“Oh, aye?” sneered Blair. “Your poacher friend found them, did he? Maybe that was because he bagged them and he hid them away.”
“Well, he was up on the moor on the morning of the murder,” admitted Hamish.
“And what number of shot does he use?”
“Number six,” said Hamish.
“Bartlett was shot with number six, so, if it was murder, then, you great pillock, your friend did it!”
“Och, but he couldn’t have…” Hamish began, but Blair started to interrupt. He was silenced by Lord Helmsdale.
“Let Macbeth speak,” said Lord Helmsdale crossly. “When it comes to guns and shooting, he knows what he’s talking about.”
Blair looked about to protest, but then he nodded to Hamish to continue.
“The time of the shooting was put at around seven in the morning,” said Hamish. “I was down at the harbour at seven and there was Angus, sleeping like a pig. So he didn’t murder the captain.”
There was a restless stirring among the small audience. I didn’t know Hamish could look so cold and hard, thought Priscilla illogically. She glanced round at the others. All were staring fixedly at Blair, as if willing the detective to prove Hamish wrong.
“How did you come to this ridiculous conclusion?” scoffed Colonel Halburton-Smythe. “Murder, indeed! Those grouse and cartridges don’t mean a thing.”
“Well,” said Hamish, “you remember when we found the captain, he had been climbing over the fence when he was shot.”
“Yes, yes,” said the colonel testily.
Hamish glanced quickly at the others who had come with them to the scene of the shooting – Henry, Freddy, and Lord Helmsdale. They all nodded.
“Good,” said Hamish. “We’re all agreed. Now, it is obvious Bartlett was coming in this direction, away from the moor. So, that could only mean, as his game bag was empty and his gun was still loaded, that he had been unable to bag his brace and was giving up and heading back here. He should have unloaded the gun, but people are careless sometimes, and that’s how they shoot themselves accidentally.”
“Just like Bartlett did,” said Blair, looking triumphantly around the room, but Hamish continued as if he had not heard him.
“But I stepped easily over that fence, and the captain’s legs are – were – as long as mine, so there was no need for him to use the gun to help himself over. That’s what made me suspicious in the first place. So I checked the game bag again and it wasn’t empty.” There was a sharp intake of breath from someone in the room. Hamish turned and dipped again into the plastic bag. From it, he produced a small box for carrying fishing hooks. He took something out and held it up. They craned forward to see. It was a tiny feather, a greyish feather with a brown tip. “A breast feather from a grouse,” said Hamish. “And there was another one.” He held it up. “It was lying on the ground near the body.
“It looked to me as if the captain had bagged his brace before he died. So that would mean he was on his way back here. And it would also mean he would not have needed to reload the gun. It meant, too, that someone had removed the grouse from the bag, and that someone” – he looked slowly round the room – “is the one who murdered him.”
“Look, laddie,” said Blair heavily, “say Bartlett was going to cheat and get his grouse before the agreed time, then why wouldn’t he have been the one who hid them in the heather, ready to be picked up quickly and get them first to the castle to win the bet, and then to the helicopter to ship them to London?” Everyone knew by this time what the helicopter had been doing there.
Hamish’s soft voice went inexorably on. “The captain was too experienced on the moors. He would know there would be a great likelihood of a fox picking them up. And if not, the crows would have found them. There was already a crow picking at this pair when we got to them. They wouldn’t have been in any fit state to go to London.”
“This is all very well,” said Diana in a strained voice. “But I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at. How did the murderer go about it?”
“This is how I think it happened,” said Hamish. “I believe that the murderer intended to kill the captain sometime during their stay here. If the captain had gone out at nine o’clock as agreed, he couldn’t have managed it, what with people up and awake. He would have waited for another opportunity.
“But the captain decided to cheat and left at dawn. The murderer must have seen him, realized what he was up to, and saw his opportunity to kill him without a witness. He followed him out to the moor, taking a gun and cartridges with him.