Laura (continuing after he has explained that the basilisk and the cockatrice were one and the same creature): I should have asked about the salamander.
Macbeth (speaking, I think, allegorically): I had one once … until he fell into the fire … There was a blaze! It nearly had my house burnt down … Half-way to the Golden Gate – I mean the Antipodes – is the salamander. Ay, on fire he feeds and grows … (At this point he was quite certain that you knew what he was talking about. Now, does nothing strike you as significant?’)
‘The mention of Leith and the slip of the tongue about the Antipodes,’ said Laura.
‘The mention of Leith I am taking to be a deliberate attempt to test you. The Antipodes reference I am inclined to leave for further investigation. The other was no slip of the tongue. The Golden Gate, if I am right, meant something other than a geographical location. I think it referred to money.’
Laura knitted her brows.
‘Down in the forest nothing stirs,’ she said. ‘Ought it to?’
Dame Beatrice waved an apologetic claw.
‘All will be gay when noontide wakes anew the buttercups,’ she said. ‘Meanwhile, what of our other suspects?’
‘Well, we have mentioned the Corries, but you know what I think about her.’
‘Like you, I think we may forget Mrs Corrie as a suspect, although I still wish to talk with her. You did remark once, though, I believe, that the Corries did not seem the kind of people who would have consented to serve a man such as the laird.’
‘No. In a way, though, Mrs C. seemed quite the type to look after the loony Macbeth. I thought her simple and dignified and kind, and no end fond of a joke.’
‘Just so. Well, the only reason for her to have murdered the laird would seem to be that she was tired of his ways and preferred those of his successor.’
Laura laughed. ‘Could be,’ she said. ‘Well, who’s next?’
‘Young Grant wanted his newspaper scoop so badly that he murdered the laird and then reported the death.’
Laura laughed again.
‘That rabbit? Oh, rot, whatever you may say. We agreed, long ago, I thought, that, liar though he’s proved himself to be, he isn’t a murderer.’
‘I am not convinced that I fully associated myself with that opinion. What was he doing on Tannasgan?’
‘I should say that he’s got reason to hope for some sort of scoop – that part of his story may be true – and had the horrors when he found out that he might have let himself in for being suspected of murder. He was in a panic all right, following me about all over the place like that. Don’t you think so?’
‘I shall call upon the editor of the Freagair local newspaper,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘In fact, we might make it our next assignment.’
‘Well, we didn’t get much out of Ye Ed., did we?’ said Laura, an hour or two later.
‘Only that young Mr Grant, although permanently employed as a reporter, is allowed to act as a freelance when the editor has no particular assignment for him; only that the editor’s his father’s friend and, for that reason, he a person of some importance on the paper; only that he receives an expenses allowance out of all proportion to his salary—’
‘Ye Ed. being his father’s friend would account for that, I suppose. It’s his way of giving him an allowance which doesn’t actually come out of his own pocket. Quite an idea, in a way. Wonder what the other reporters think of it?’
‘I doubt whether there are any other reporters, child.’
‘Ye Ed. is his own newshound? How dashed improper! I thought they always sat glued to a swivel chair and wore a green eye-shade and got all hectic beacuse they’d got a blank half-column or their advertisers weren’t kicking in the dough at the appointed time.’
‘From what I gathered, the editor covers all the purely local or Freagairian excitements, sometimes accompanied by a photographer, but that young Mr Grant has a roving commission, over a wide area, but no photographer.’
There’s an office boy, anyway. Did you see him? – a freckled, intelligent-looking kid of about fifteen.’
The son of the editor, I understood.’
‘You seem to have understood a whole lot more than I did. You think the kid is left in charge while father is out nosing around for news? Is that the set-up?’
‘It may be. You know, young Mr Grant was not reporting our Conference all the time he was in Edinburgh.’
‘Well, he said he liked crowds and the bright lights and soft music, so I expect he went to the pictures and did himself well at the best restaurants and all that kind of thing.’
‘I think he may have spent some of his time in Leith, child.’
‘How that place is beginning to crop up! What’s its importance in this tangled history?’
‘What is its general importance?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘Or did you never study geography?’
‘Shades of Cartaret Training College and the ghost of one Tweetman, whose jogger notes I inherited from one Cartwright! Remember? Oh, no, you weren’t in on that one. Leith is the port for Edinburgh, not that that bit of information was in Tweetman’s notes, those being of local importance only. Leith – my Uncle Hamish used to point in its direction when I was a child of tender years and during those times when he used to instruct, inform and entertain me on the heights of Edinburgh Castle. And talking of Edinburgh, what about that bit of young Grant’s story?’
‘The death of the man in the street?’
‘I told you at the time that it was murder.’
‘He seemed quite sure of it, too. It must have startled him when he recognised you as the woman who had made one of the crowd with him at that time.’
‘Once seen, never forgotten,’ said Laura smugly. ‘But what did you want me to tell you about Leith?’
‘Leith does not quite fit in with my ideas and yet it has been mentioned. What I am in quest of is something smaller, less important and populated by people who can emulate the three wise monkeys – people, in short, who are conservative, inbred, not particularly interested in strangers, can mind their own business and—’
‘Newhaven,’ said Laura. ‘My uncle took me there once to have a special fish dinner. It’s a fishing port just west of Leith and the fish dinners there are quite something. The population are all decended from Danes and Dutchmen and keep themselves to themselves. They don’t care to marry anybody from outside and their women are enormously tough and strong. They seem to be a community quite on their own. How will Newhaven suit your book?’
‘So beautifully that I regard you with reverence, my dear Laura.’
‘It’s Uncle Hamish you should regard with reverence. There’s nothing about the environs of Edinburgh that he doesn’t know. What do we do? – dash to Newhaven and put the inhabitants in a panic? I really doubt whether we could.’
‘I feel sure we could not. Neither would it be desirable. We need not even go to Newhaven at present – if, indeed, at all.’
‘Pity! I could easily manage another of those fish dinners. What next, then?’
‘Next we find out the significance of the fabulous animals and supply the authorities with a code. To do this we shall need a digest from Lloyd’s Register of Shipping.’
‘I begin to see daylight – at least, I think I do. You mean that each of Macbeth’s fabulous beasts represents a ship?’
‘That is my theory, and, of course, it is nothing but a theory. I may be hopelessly wrong.’
‘And these ships use Newhaven as a base?’
‘If I am right, these ships bring sugar and coffee from a self-governing island, and, so far as anybody on this side is concerned, they are owned by a reputable and honest trading company whose name we shall learn in due course.’