“And who is the chief suspect?” asked Hamish, rising and filling up Anderson’s glass.
“Thanks. Well, the chief suspect is Jeremy Pomfret. He’s the one who had the bet with Bartlett.”
“Dearie me,” said Hamish. “Mr Pomfret has pots of money, and five thousand pounds to him would be like a five-pound note to me.”
“OK, Sherlock, who would you pick?”
“I think there’s a lot of them with motives,” said Hamish. “I was at a party at the castle the night before the shooting. One minute Vera Forbes-Grant was drooling over Bartlett, and the next, she’d flung her drink in his face. Jessica and Diana had their heads together and they were staring at the captain in hate and horror, as if they’d just learned something awful. Diana started to yaJk to me about how easy it is to die from an accident in the Highlands, and when I said I was the local bobby, she clammed up. I think Freddy Forbes-Grant knows his wife had an affair with Bartlett. I think Sir Humphrey Throgmorton has reason to hate Bartlett as well. The Helmsdales didn’t like him either. Henry Withering knew him. How well, I don’t know.
“As for Jeremy Pomfret, he wanted me to come up to the castle and referee the shoot, but I had to tell him the colonel wouldnae stand for that. He didn’t trust Bartlett and he didn’t like him.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Anderson, “is that this house party is supposed to be so that the chosen few can meet the famous playwright. But most of them seem to have a grudge against Bartlett, and all seem to have known him. Weird that they should all end up at the same house party.”
“Not really,” said Hamish. “Diana was right about meeting the same people. These landed gentry only visit each other, you know, and there’s not that many folk this far north, so it stands to reason you’d end up running into the same people over and over again. I thought you would have known that.”
“Not me,” grinned Anderson. “You don’t often get crime in such elevated circles. The only high-falutin one I was ever on was that fishing one last year, but they were all visitors. I’m a town man, and there’s usually plenty in Strathbane to keep us busy, what with keeping an eye on thae Russians from the Eastern Bloc fleet and trying to smash the poaching gangs. We’ve got those big council estates and most of the folks are unemployed and as tight as ticks with booze from one week’s end to the other.”
“What about the paraffin test?” asked Hamish suddenly.
“Oh, to see if anyone had fired a gun recently? They don’t use the paraffin test any more. They took swabs from everyone’s hands and they’ve taken them back to the lab for tests. But they’re pretty sure the murderer was wearing gloves.”
“So you’re looking for the gloves?”
“Everyone’s going to be up at dawn, combing the grounds,” yawned Anderson. “Then we’re checking up on all the guests. We’ll soon be getting reports from all over. They’re a cagey lot. They must know we’ll find out all about them sooner or later, so you’d think they’d come clean.”
“With someone like Chief Inspector Blair, it’s a pleasure not to help him in anything,” said Hamish.
“He’s not bad when you get to know him. He’s awf’y good at routine work. This is a bit out of his league.”
Hamish picked up the whisky bottle and put it away in a cupboard. Anderson cast a longing look after it before getting to his feet. “Will I pass on to Blair what you said about the motives?” he asked.
Hamish thought of Blair, and then reminded himself severely there was a murderer at large. He shrugged. “Why not?” he said.
“I’ll drop along tomorrow evening,” said Anderson, “and let you know how things are going.”
“Aye, well, that would be grand,” said Hamish reluctantly. He had a very human longing to leave Blair to his own devices and watch him make a muck of the case.
After Anderson had left, Hamish began to wonder if he would be any better than Blair at finding out who the murderer was. And the more he wondered, the more his curiosity took over from his hurt at Blair’s snub.
He went into his office. There would be no harm in making a few calls to various friends and relatives. Like many Highlanders, Hamish had relatives scattered all over the world, and he was thankful he had still a good few of the less ambitious ones in different parts of Scotland.
He walked over to the wall where there was a large faded map of the north of Scotland and gazed at the county of Caithness, finally pinpointing the Bryces’ and Villierses’ estates.
The nearest town to both was Lybster. He sat down at his desk and phoned his fourth cousin, Diarmuid Grant, who had a croft outside Lybster. The conversation took over an hour. Things could not be hurried. There was the weather to be discussed, the decline in the grouse population, the vagaries of tourists, the price of sheep at the Lairg sales, the welfare of Diarmuid’s large brood of children, before the backgrounds of Jessica Villiers and Diana Bryce could be gone into.
By the time he put down the phone, Hamish was conscious of a feeling of excitement. He may as well, he thought, put through a few more calls and find out what he could about the other members of the house party.
By eleven o’clock, he had only gone half-way down the list.
He decided to leave the rest until the morning.
The next day was calm and quiet, ‘a nice soft day’ as they say in Scotland, which means a warm and weeping drizzle.
There was no news from the castle. Even Jessie failed to appear in the village. Hamish politely dealt with any members of the press who turned up. He considered ‘No comment’ too rude a form of dismissal for his Highland taste, served anyone who arrived at the police station with strong tea and biscuits, and sent them on their way to Tommel Castle, turning a deaf ear to their complaints that they had already been there and had been turned away at the gates.
He called in at the grocers-cum-hardware-cum-post-office-cum-off-licence for a bottle of good whisky in anticipation of Anderson’s promised evening visit. He made various phone calls to friends and relatives around Scotland and then to Rory Grant on the Daily Chronicle in London. Satisfied he had collected enough to open up several new angles in the case, he settled down to wait for Anderson.
But the long quiet day dripped its way into darkness and there was no sign of the detective.
Again, Hamish felt anger rising up inside him. A proper superior officer would at least have had him out searching the moors for clues instead of leaving him in such isolation.
He tried to forget about the case, but his mind kept turning over what he had heard on the phone and what he had overheard at the party.
Hamish usually preferred warm bottled beer as a drink, but that evening he found himself opening up the bottle he had bought to entertain Anderson and pouring himself a hefty measure.
Soothed at last by the spirit, he was able to convince himself he was better off out of the case. Surely Blair, with the whole forensic team and two detectives to help him, would produce something.
But the next morning he awoke to a day of wind and glitter. A warm gale was blowing in from the Gulf Stream, carrying snatches of voices and strains of radio music from the nearby houses. The sun sparkled on the choppy waters of Lochdubh, hurting Hamish’s eyes as he struggled out to feed the hens and geese. A sea-gull floated with insolent ease near his head, eyeing the buckets of feed with one prehistoric eye. In the field behind the police station, rabbits scampered for shelter, and up against the blinding blue of the sky, rooks were being tossed by buffets of wind like bundles of black rags. It was a day of false spring, a day of anticipation, a day when you felt if something did not happen soon, you would burst. Streams of peat-smoke rushed down from the chimney, to be shredded by the minor gales blowing around the corner of the station. Hamish, like most of the villagers, kept the kitchen fire going winter and summer because the hot water was supplied from a boiler at the back of the hearth.