Ten minutes later, only one person responded to the broadcast appeal-a diffident young man in a blazing yellow and orange tartan. “I don’t carry any tools with me,” he explained. “But I thought I’d just come along and offer advice, if you needed any.”
“Thank you very much for coming,” said Elizabeth politely. “Actually, I needed to ask you a few questions about the murder.”
He gasped. “I’ve already spoken to the sheriff.” Noticing Geoffrey for the first time, he began to back away. “It was a trap, wasn’t it?” he hissed. “I didn’t mean to tell them, sir…”
Geoffrey lowered his handkerchief and glared at the cowering dentist. “You would do well to give this young lady all your cooperation,” he said sternly. “She is an operative.”
“Who is this?” muttered Elizabeth.
“I’m Jerry Buchanan, ma’am. And I just wanted another tartan!”
Tartan! Elizabeth nodded grimly. “And you discussed this with Colin Campbell, didn’t you?”
“Well… yes. I know he wasn’t one of us, but I knew that he was an expert on Scottish tartans and things, and I didn’t think it would do any harm to ask.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, I asked him who assigned tartans to the different clans, and how you got in touch with them, and he wanted to know why I was asking.” Jerry glanced about nervously. “At first I refused to tell him, but then when I asked if an earl had the power to change his clan’s tartan, he started to browbeat me, and I guess I let some information slip about the S.R.A.”
Elizabeth, who was mystified, was about to ask what the S.R.A. was, but Geoffrey interrupted her, “The organization was news to him, of course?”
“He was furious about it. Wanted to know who was behind it.”
“And you told him…?”
“I didn’t mention you!” Jerry protested. “Honest! Well, I’d forgotten your name, actually.”
“So you told him about Lachlan,” said Geoffrey smoothly.
“I may have mentioned him.”
Geoffrey stood up with the dignity of an irate prince. “We will take no action against you,” he said grandly. “But your earldom is canceled.”
Jerry Buchanan nodded miserably. “Just don’t kill me.”
“Out of my sight!” thundered Geoffrey. He kept up the pose of outrage until the yellow and orange tartan had disappeared into the crowd on the sidelines.
“What the devil is going on?” Elizabeth demanded. “And why do you know anything about it?” she added as an afterthought.
“Oh, that. I told you that it was handy to know Shakespeare. Apparently, I stumbled on to the password of a terrorist organization.”
“Terrorists? You mean they killed Dr. Campbell?”
“No. They don’t kill anybody, dear. They just think they do.” He explained to Elizabeth about Lachlan Forsyth’s scheme for profiting from the misplaced patriotism of the more radical Scottish-Americans. “He told me all about it after I crashed the conspirators’ party. He really didn’t feel too bad about taking their money. The way he figured it, he was keeping them from doing real harm with their money, and he provided them with a little excitement. It was very theatrical, really.”
“You have the morals of a fungus!” Elizabeth informed him. “I suppose you wouldn’t have dreamed of reporting this to the sheriff?”
“I didn’t feel that it was relevant. Lachlan is a con man, not a killer.”
“Ha! Does Cameron know about this?”
“I told him a little while ago. That worm of a dentist may have forgotten my name when he was talking to Colin Campbell, but he dropped it in front of the sheriff quick enough. They hauled me in for questioning this morning as a high-ranking official in the S.R.A.”
“What about Cameron?”
“Well, that may have been my fault. In an excess of youthful spirits last night…”
“Drambuie!”
“Precisely. As I say, in an excess of good spirits, I told the conspirators that Dr. Dawson was a British secret agent.”
“Oh, my God. Geoffrey, somebody is going around killing people at this festival! How do you know you didn’t put Cameron in danger?”
“Your concern for the prince of pancake syrup is most touching, but there is something in your indifference toward my well-being that I don’t quite like.”
“You could be wrong, you know. Lachlan Forsyth may have killed Dr. Campbell in an attempt to cover up his illegal activities. Is he a U.S. citizen, do you think? If convicted of a crime, he could have been deported.”
“Back to Scotland-the air fares to which you were lamenting at the National Trust booth earlier? Oh, worst of fates!”
“Hush. Be serious for a minute. He may not have wanted to go back to Scotland. Maybe he’s wanted for being a con man there.”
“Really clever people do not kill their enemies. They outwit them. My faith in Lachlan is unshakable. You, on the other hand…”
“I’m going to talk to Lachlan Forsyth. Now that we know what the fraud was… Say, how did Colin Campbell know that the organization was a fraud?”
“Common sense!”
“Not entirely. Knowing what an old bully Campbell was, I’ll bet you anything he had it out with Lachlan last night.”
“Perhaps.”
“I’ll talk to him first. Then I’ll check for witnesses to that quarrel.”
“Go to, then. Have you no further need of a Watson? I thought I might go and observe the country dancing. For purposes of choreography.”
“Fine. If you see Cameron, tell him I’ll find him later.”
“Perhaps you’d like to compose a singing telegram?”
Elizabeth, at a loss for a clever rejoinder, made a face at him and hurried away.
The pageantry of the festival hardly registered with Elizabeth now. Her mind was too busy with shades of gray. Did Lachlan Forsyth kill Dr. Campbell in order to protect his con operation? Did one of the conspirators do it out of misplaced patriotism? Or, in the heat of a quarrel, did Walter Hutcheson do it after all? What’s Heather to him or he to Heather?
The meadow was getting hot again as the mid-afternoon sun bled the color out of the landscape. Elizabeth was glad that she had given up wearing her tartan; it was really too hot. Besides, she wasn’t sure anymore what it meant. In all the previous festivals, it had meant: I am Scottish; this is the badge of my culture.
But the one thing Cameron did-besides make her heart turn over when she looked at him-was to make her un easy about the significance of that culture. Every time she knew some bit of Scottish history or tradition and Cameron did not know it, it made her wonder just what they were preserving so carefully with their little groups. Perhaps it was culture of a sort, but it wasn’t Scotland. Elizabeth, who had been a sociology major, considered the disparity. What did it remind her of? A culture artificially preserved like… Latin. The language so carefully nurtured in the Vatican was a piece of culture preserved like a fly in amber; but modern Italian was a living culture, Latin that had been allowed to evolve. One was dead and the other was alive. Less colorful, maybe (how would Cameron look in a kilt?), but still alive, the real thing.
She decided that she wasn’t surprised about Lachlan Forsyth’s con game. She remembered how the festival folk had spoken approvingly of his being a real Scot. He wore the kilt, spoke some Gaelic, and knew all about the plaids and the history. He was, in fact, a professional Scot. Now that she had Cameron to compare him with, it was obvious to her that Lachlan was up to something. He was too good to be true.
He wasn’t there.
The canopied souvenir stall was as busy as ever, with tourists two-deep at the record bins and pawing through the woolens, but the only person behind the counter was a little blond boy. Elizabeth’s purpose wavered as she looked at the wonderful bits of bric-a-brac at the stalclass="underline" thistle-patterned china, toy Nessies, a case of jewelry. Maybe she should get Cameron a MacPherson scarf: he ought to know his own tartan… She waited patiently in the same spot for several minutes until the boy behind the counter had time to notice her.