‘Recapitulate.’
‘As though you didn’t have both episodes at your fingers’ ends!’
‘You make me sound like one of the Norns, child.’
‘Well, so you may be, for all I know. And that’s not intended to be flippant. No, honestly, though, let’s face the facts.’
‘Willingly. Say on.’
‘Well, how truthful do you think the Corries are?’
‘Possibly truthful and probably trusting, child.’
‘Meaning that they trusted Cù Dubh?’
‘And ourselves, you know.’
‘Yes, well, if we accept (and, like you, I do) that Corrie was telling the truth, why did the Grants ask me to drive Mrs Grant home, that first night I came back in the rain from Gàradh, when they must have known they could hire the station-master’s car?’
‘There are two possible, and, I venture to think, obvious explanations.’
‘Oh?’ said Laura, belligerently. ‘I can’t think of even one. Oh, yes! Of course I can,’ she added, altering her tone. ‘You mean that the station-master’s car was already on hire.’
‘Exactly, and what is so satisfactory is that it will be a simple business to find that out.’
‘Maybe not as simple as you would think,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘I don’t suppose for an instant that the station-master keeps any records of the hire of his car. A Highlander wouldn’t, you know. It isn’t that he wants to dodge the tax-collector, but simply that he has very little sense of time and is just too lazy, anyway, to bother. Besides, he probably doesn’t think of payment for hiring out his car as being part of his income. He’d tell you – and he’d believe it – that he only does it to oblige, and that, as he had to pay for the car in the first place, it is not the business of anybody else how he uses it.’
‘I see,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I must show him my notebook.’
Laura made a rude, hooting noise, well aware that few, if any, could read her employer’s cryptic shorthand, Dame Beatrice’s own invention. Dame Beatrice sedately explained that she would produce the notebook and read aloud to the station-master certain dates and times.
‘Well, all right,’ said Laura. ‘There may be, as I say, this probable explanation of why the Grants couldn’t hire the car. But what else had you thought of? You said the other explanation was also a possible one. Expatiate.’
‘They had your car free of charge, child.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, but, against that, Mrs Grant put me up for the night and fed me jolly well, you know, and she more than replaced the petrol.’
‘There is usually food in a house, dear Laura. The production of ready money in order to cope with an unforeseen situation is another matter.’
‘It’s still all a bit odd, you know,’ said Laura, moodily.
‘An understatement, I feel.’
‘So we go and see the station-master?’
‘Yes, indeed. He may not remember whether his car was on hire that afternoon and evening but he will most certainly remember whether Mr Grant did, or did not, travel by train to Inverness that day.’
‘Good enough. Have you decided who killed Black Dog?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, child. That was fairly obvious from the beginning. The police know, too. Their trouble is the same as ours – lack of proof.’
‘Well, who did it, then?’
‘Suppose you tell me what you think.’
‘Mr Grant Senior, assisted by Mr Grant Junior, in which case they must be related, and I don’t believe they are,’ said Laura; but she spoke doubtfully. ‘The name is a common one and, although I know they live fairly near to one another, I don’t see that that makes them either relatives or fellow criminals. It’s just a hunch I have, that’s all.’
‘What else makes sense, my dear Laura?’
‘Well, there’s Macbeth. He must come into the picture somewhere. I just can’t fit him in. I can’t see him as a murderer, though. And then, what about the disinherited son? We simply must regard him as a suspect. You know – revenge and all that.’
‘But there is nothing to suggest that he was on Tannasgan when the murder was committed.’
‘But is there anything to suggest that he wasn’t?’
‘I think there may be, but of that I am a little uncertain.’
‘Yes? How do you mean?’
‘Nobody has mentioned that he was there. To particularise, you did not see him, Macbeth has not suggested that he was on the island and the Corries cannot have thought that he was there.’
‘It wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to have hidden himself from all of us. However, I still think the Grants know most about what happened. Oh, well, now for the station-master at Tigh-Osda.’
The station-master at Tigh-Osda proved to be a cautious softly-spoken man who received them in his primitive little office behind the booking-clerk’s den, offered them seats and asked what their complaint was.
‘We have no complaint whatever,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We are hoping for information.’
‘You cannot understand the time-tables, maybe?’
‘Nothing of that kind. I am sure they are as clear as British Railways can make them. Our enquiries, in short, are connected with a Mr Grant who lives at Coinneamh Lodge, about a dozen miles from here.’
‘Ay?’ said the station-master. ‘I know Mr Grant very well as a passenger to Inverness.’
‘You do? That is helpful, then. Would you remember a Friday at the end of last month when there was a deluge of rain, severe even for the Western Highlands, when Mr and Mrs Grant left their station wagon or estate car here because it had broken down?’
‘I mind it very well. This young lady here’ – he nodded at Laura – ‘was good enough to drive Mrs Grant home.’
‘That is so.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Laura. The station-master pointed to the windows on either side of the little room.
‘That way I can keep my eye on the platform. That way I can see who comes in from the road.’
‘Oh, of course. Well, I spent the night at Coinneamh Lodge, as the weather was so atrocious, and, some time during the time I was there, my car vanished. It was returned – I mean, I’ve got it back all right – but it was a hired car and I was responsible for it, so I’d rather like to know who had it. All I can think of is that somebody who knew the Grants also knew that they owned a station wagon and went to Coinneamh Lodge to borrow it. They found my car in the shed, so borrowed that instead.’
‘Did it suffer damage, then?’
‘Well,’ said Laura, treading on delicate ground because she did not want to tell a direct lie, ‘it certainly wasn’t quite in the same condition as when I left it, and judging by the mileage figures and the – er—’
‘The petrol consumption?’
‘ – I just wondered whether somebody – it would have to be two people, actually – used it to reach the station here so that one of them could catch a train.’
‘What would be the latest time you could be sure it was safely housed at Coinneamh Lodge?’
‘Well, I didn’t go to bed until well after midnight and I should have heard it being driven away, I’m sure, or the door being slammed, or something. From what I can work out, it was taken away some time between about two o’clock and six in the morning.’
The station-master fished out a timetable.
‘You may see for yourself, mistress, that there is no train leaves this station after the one Mr Grant catches at eight-fifteen when he travels to Inverness during the clement months of the year. The earliest morning train does not go out until nine-five.’
‘Well, anyway, thank you for telling me,’ said Laura. ‘I just thought it might be somebody who wanted to catch a train.’
‘Does Mrs Grant have no suspicion who might have helped himself to the loan of it? Coinneamh Lodge lies a long way off the road.’