The Scotsman muttered something, and Marriott made a show of cocking an ear.
'Did you get that, Detective Stringer?'
I shook my head.
'I didn't either. He's not a great one for talk, as I say.'
'Wi'oot me,' muttered Small David, picking up a newspaper, 'ye'd be deed - and ye stull could be.'
Marriott rolled his eyes at me, saying, 'I just can't help wishing that fellow was a little more - just ever so slightly English.'
Small David put down his paper, and closed on Marriott, saying, 'Haud yer tongue or I'll gie ye somethin' for yersel'—'
Marriott turned once more to me, saying, 'He is not a university man, you know.'
I had a quick impression of Marriott in the position of an old- fashioned boxer, with fists high and chin lifted for Queensberry Rules, but the scrap itself was a wild affair lasting not more than a few seconds.
And it was Marriott who was bloodied - and almost knocked on to the stove. Steadying himself against the wall, he again turned to me, saying, 'Small David was not on the Classics side, Detective Stringer, but then again he was not on the Modern side either. On the face of it a black mystery, until you remember this: Small David was not at the University.'
The Scotsman stood for a moment, as though deciding whether to give this latest provocation the go-by, and he evidently decided not to, for he clouted the lawyer a second time, sending him sprawling amid the newspapers and journals on the floor.
'Look, I know this is all fun, but can we drop it?' said Bowman, who'd had his hands over his glasses as the blows had been struck. Marriott was finding a shaky pair of legs, blood running freely from his nose. He did not look strong, being so thin, but there again he was not the sort of man you expected to see felled.
'I'm not a university man either, if it comes to that,' Bowman was saying. 'Not by a long chalk.'
The lawyer was now standing in silence before the stove, occasionally giving a flick of his head so as to send the blood from his nose away from his mouth. He would not raise his hand to it, for that would show weakness. He was all ablaze inside, but still no colour showed in his face, and he paid no heed as his son stood and walked out of the room, preferring, as I supposed, to sit in the poorly warmed scullery rather than hear more of his old man's ravings.
'The boy is not vigorous like me,' Marriott said, 'and he cannot scrap, as I can. I learnt to take a punch in the boxing club, Detective Stringer ... it was at the University.''
He shot another quick glance at Small David, who did not rise to the bait this third time, but sat back down on his bed. Marriott then removed the photograph from his coat pocket and looked it over, nodding the while.
'It proves you were all on the train that morning,' I said. 'The newspaper in your son's hand proves it.'
The lawyer turned and opened the stove door with the fire tool, placing the photograph carefully on top of the burning wood within.
'I have another print,' I said,'... and the negatives, of course.'
The lawyer looked at me and sighed, brushing his hair back once again. And now at last he raised a handkerchief to his bleeding nose.
'You are not helping the case I am trying to make for keeping you above ground, Detective Stringer.'
At which the Scotsman, who had his head buried in one of the newspapers, muttered something like: 'Aye, that's right enough.'
'You killed Falconer,' I said to Marriott, 'but why?'
The lawyer looked at me fixedly as he dabbed at the blood - almost with real curiosity.
'You killed Lee as well,' I added, 'though I daresay not with your own hands.'
I turned towards Small David, who was still reading, and making such a great show of coolness that I almost believed he wasn't listening.
'Or did you pay him to do it?'
The Scotsman read on.
'You are of a questioning humour,' Marriott said, rocking on his feet before the fireplace, quite composed again. 'It is the mark of a good pleader. Have you considered the Bar? There's a good deal of reading to put in, much burning of the midnight oil with your Stephens's Commentaries, your Hunter's Roman Law, but it's quite a democracy, you know. There's no 'mister' at the Bar, still less any 'sir'. In fact, it's not at all such a toff's profession as you might suppose, Stringer ...'
I was plain Stringer to him now, which meant I had riled him, about which I was glad.
'Any man with brains might aspire even to the silk gown of the King's Counsel - army officer, actor, schoolmaster. A university training usually precedes the call, but not necessarily. Fluency of speech is the chief requirement, you see, thinking on one's leg - although of course you must also become fashionable, and in that, I confess, I never succeeded . . .'
'Now I winder why not?' put in Small David, looking up from his paper.
Marriott ignored him, saying, 'I did well enough for a time, mark you. Three or four cases a day was nothing to me - not all of them jury cases, of course, but stilclass="underline" seven guineas for a thirty-minute consultation . . . Five shillings to the clerk, yes, but even so . . . Unfortunately, I did not put in the hours flattering the important men of my acquaintance. Rather than dine with the benchers in my evening at the Temple, I would go off to the German gymnasium at King's Cross, Stringer.'
He kept saying my name. The man was speaking only for my benefit.
'I worked at my boxing night and day at that gymnasium,' he went on, at which Small David, turning the page of his paper, muttered, 'And much guid it did ye.'
I thought that the lawyer might fly at Small David for a second time, but instead he touched the handkerchief to his nose again, saying, 'Unfortunately, I did not generally like the judges. I knew many of them, Stringer, and I knew many that were inclined to hanging.'
At which he fell silent for a space, during which time I watched Small David turn two further pages of newspaper.
It was the Sutherland Gazette that Small David was looking over. Bowman, as far as I could make out, was now asleep, the bottle at his feet, but he righted himself a moment later when the boy Richie walked in with two bowls of steaming broth. He gave the first to his father, who began sipping from the bowl directly, and somehow doing so in a mannerly sort of way. The other bowl went to Small David - so that the two governors had been fed first.
The boy returned a moment later with a bowl for Bowman, who, after staring at the concoction for a while, said, '. . . Looks almost good enough to eat.'
The last bowl was given to me. A spoon rolled in the brownish stuff; a hunk of bread floated on it. I nodded thanks, and the boy nodded back - which was the first communication between us. I tasted the soup, which was like slow Oxo - Oxo slowed by flour and something that might have been potatoes. But I hadn't tasted food for hours, so it was nectar to me.
But just after I'd taken my second spoonful, something made me glance up towards Small David, who was eyeing me narrowly.
'Ye ken ye're gaun to dee, don't ye?'
Well, I could not believe it; I seemed to be living in a dream, as we all ate in the dimly lit room on the hillside, while the blizzard wind made a repeated low note, like the sound of a ship coming into harbour, as it blew across the chimney top. Presently, Richie went around the room again, this time collecting up the bowls. The lawyer drained whatever was left in his small glass, and put it on the mantelshelf. He did not seem in need of another dram. He watched after his son as the boy left the room, and turned towards me again. He seemed minded to talk, and I had the powerful notion that he wanted to tell me as much as I wanted to know.