The one nagging fact that there was a murderer on the loose and that he was not being allowed to do anything about it returned to plague him.
Hamish collected the eggs from the hen-house and returned to the kitchen. Someone was knocking loudly on the door of the police station.
Expecting a hung-over member of the press, Hamish went to open it.
Anderson stood on the step, a wide grin on his face.
“You’re to come with me, Macbeth,” he said.
“Where?” asked Hamish.
“To the castle. Blair’s been deposed.”
“Come in and wait till I put my uniform on,” said Hamish. “What happened?”
Anderson followed him into the bedroom.
“Well, you ken how Blair’s been oiling and creeping around the colonel…”
“I didn’t,” said Hamish. “You just said he’d turned creepy.”
“Aye, well, he’s been touching his forelock to the colonel while snapping and bullying the guests. I told him what you had said, and he lost his temper and insisted on keeping them all up half the night. Turns out the colonel roused the Chief Constable out of his bed and read the riot act and the Chief roused the Super at Strathbane out of his bed and read the riot act, so at dawn Chief Superintendent John Chalmers arrives and rouses us up out of our beds. Why had Blair subjected possibly innocent people to such a grilling? Because, says Blair, of vital new evidence. Where did said evidence come from? From the local bobby, chips in I. Where is said local bobby? Dismissed from the case, says Miss Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, appearing in a dressing gown, because Hamish Macbeth is too highly intelligent a man for Inspector Blair, she says nastily, and if you ask her opinion, Blair wants said Macbeth off said murder in case said Macbeth solves it. Get Macbeth, says the Super, and sends Blair out to join the common bobbies who are plowing through the heather still looking for that gun-cleaning outfit. So here I am.”
Hamish laughed. “I’d love to see Blair’s face. But will he no’ make life a misery for you when this case is over?”
“No,” said Anderson. “I’m a bigger creep than Blair, and I’ll toady so much, he’ll forget about the whole thing.”
“Nearly ready,” said Hamish, buttoning his tunic.
“What about a bit o’ breakfast?” wheedled Anderson. “They’re not going to give us time to have any when we get to the castle.”
Hamish made bacon-and-egg baps and tea, eating his own breakfast in record time and then standing impatiently over Anderson until the detective had finished.
He agreed to go in Anderson’s car, leaving Towser to roam the garden.
“Find out anything more?” asked Anderson.
“Aye,” said Harnish. “A lot more. I tell you this, Jimmy Anderson, it’s a fair wonder someone waited this long to murder Bartlett!”
∨ Death of a Cad ∧
8
Boundless intemperance,
In nature is a tyranny, it hath been,
The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And the fall of many kings.
—shakespeare.
Superintendent John Chalmers looked like an ageing bank clerk. He was tall and thin, with grey hair and watery blue eyes that peered warily out at the world as if expecting another onslaught of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He had a small black moustache like a postage stamp above a rabbity mouth. His ears stuck out like jug handles, as if God had specially made them that way to support his bowler hat.
He had been out in the grounds somewhere and was returning to the castle when Hamish and the detective arrived.
He greeted Hamish courteously and asked him to accompany him into the castle.
The colonel had given up his study to the police. It was a dim little room filled with the clutter of a man who had lost interest in field sports some years ago. Dusty game bags were thrown in one corner under shelves of Badminton Library books on hunting, shooting, and fishing. A pair of green Wellington boots held a selection of fishing rods.
There was an unusual stuffed fox in a glass case. It was lying down on its side, looking as if it had been sleeping peacefully at the time it was shot. The superintendent looked down at it sadly for several moments before taking off his bowler hat, polishing it with his sleeve and hanging it on one of the fishing rods.
He sat down behind a battered wooden desk, waved Hamish into a chair opposite, and said to Anderson, who was hovering in the doorway, “Go down to the kitchens and question the servants again. See if you can get them to like you. People will not talk if you put their backs up.”
When Anderson had gone, he turned to Macbeth. “Now, Constable,” he said, “it looks as if we’ll need to start over from the beginning. The people at this house party are very upset and claim they have been treated badly. I do not know if that is true or not, but we’ll soon find out. I gather from Anderson that you know a little about the guests?”
“I know quite a lot more now,” said Hamish. “I made various phone calls to find out about their backgrounds.”
“We now have several reports coming in from different police stations. Ah, here is PC Mac-pherson, who will take the shorthand notes. Now, the first one who’s agreed to be interviewed all over again is Colonel Halburton-Smythe. Having dragged me into the case, he is naturally now anxious to be as helpful as possible. You listen closely to my line of questioning, and if there’s something you know that we don’t know, I shall expect you to step in and put in your own questions. Take that chair over by the window and look as unobtrusive as possible.”
Macpherson went to fetch the colonel, who soon came bustling in. He looked taken aback to see Hamish there, but after a little hesitation he sat down and faced the superintendent.
The colonel appeared pleased to answer the series of polite and simple questions. He said the party had gone on much later than they had expected – until two in the morning. No-one had therefore been up and about around the time the captain was supposed to have gone out on the moors. Yes, he had known about the bet with Pomfret, but not about Bartlett’s deal with the Arabs. The guns in the gun room had not been used since last season. This August, Bartlett and Pomfret had brought their own guns.
Hamish remained quietly in his chair, looking out of the window, which faced on to the front of the castle.
The colonel ended by saying that Henry Withering and his daughter wanted to be interviewed next, as they were going out for the day.
The colonel went out and Henry Withering came in. He was wearing a lovat green sweater over a checked shirt and cavalry-twill trousers. He seemed composed and anxious to be helpful.
No, he said, he hadn’t a clue who would want to bump off poor Peter. Mind you, he went on, there was no denying Peter was a terror with the ladies and had a way of putting people’s backs up.