Laura gasped at hearing this frank statement, but Grant laughed again and turned to his wife.
‘Did you hear that Christie? What will folk think of next?’
‘We have found out why you were stranded at Tigh-Osda station,’ Dame Beatrice went on. ‘The station-master’s car was out of action owing to a faulty clutch.’
‘Even if it had not been out of action it would have been of no use to us,’ said Grant ‘Nobody at the station would have been willing to leave his work to drive Christie home, and I could not have done it myself for fear of missing my train.’
‘How long had you been at the station when I turned up?’ asked Laura. Grant considered the question.
‘About a quarter of an hour, I would say,’ he replied.
‘Ah,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘By the way, who did kill Mr Bradan?’
Grant put down his cup.
‘I have told you that my brother went down with the Saracen.’
‘You have, yes.’
‘If I had killed Cù Dubh, that would have been my reason.’
‘But you didn’t kill him?’
‘I did not. Consider the facts. Here am I, an honest poor man, the Dear knows, tied in partnership with a scoundrel. Oh, ay, Bradan was a rascal all right. Now he’s dead – murdered. But, mistress, he was my bread and butter, ay, and my cake, too. What way would I wish to lose all that? Forbye, I’ll tell you this: what we were doing was against the law. So much I am well prepared to admit. What I am not prepared to admit is that it was sinful.’
‘You do not think of gun-running as being sinful?’
‘Woman, if they hadna got the stuff from us, they would only have bought it elsewhere!’
‘Sophistry!’
Grant grinned again. He might be a villain, thought Laura, but he was a likeable one.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But the gun-running was a bit of an afterthought. It was the moonshine trade that brought in the dollars first of all.’
‘Rum?’
‘Ay, rum. There was nothing difficult about it. We took out coal, potatoes, pig-iron – that kind of innocent stuff – and we sold it. We had regular customers out there, and it was a good business. Bradan, to give the man his due, had a good head on his shoulders. Then all we had to do was to buy rum in the islands and work it to the ‘dry’ places, pick up a cargo of sugar and cotton and land it in a perfectly legitimate way at Leith (or maybe Newhaven) and that’s all there was to it.’
‘Interesting. And the Salamander, of course, was not engaged in the innocent pursuit of rum-running.’
‘You ken very well that she was not.’
‘Now, Mr Grant, you have been comparatively frank with us, and I realise that this is a story which you can hardly tell to the police.’
‘And you?’
Dame Beatrice indicated her cup of tea.
‘It is not for me to cast – what is the rest of it, Laura?’
Laura, who had been studying the tea-leaves in the bottom of her cup before relinquishing it to Mrs Grant, looked up.
‘I prefer not to call the police swine, Dame B.,’ she said, with affected seriousness.
‘No, no. I was not thinking of asking you to do so. We cannot think of pigs and our dear Robert at the same time,’ responded Dame Beatrice in a similar tone.
‘Casting bread upon the waters, doesn’t fit.’
‘You know, you’re not trying,’ said Dame Beatrice, giving a harsh cackle which had the curious effect of quietening the baby in the next room.
‘Casting nasturtiums? Care to the winds? A clout before May is out? The runes? The lie in someone’s teeth?’
‘Dear, dear! I had no idea that I should provoke all this! Anyhow, Mr Grant, I shall not betray you to the police under any circumstances except one.’
‘Well, I didna murder Bradan,’ said Grant
‘And the kidnapping story?’
‘I willna talk about that. It was all in the course of business. I had to make contacts. It had naething at all to do with Bradan’s death except that I had to shoulder some of his work.’
‘But this would have been before his death, would it not?’
Grant gave her a very odd look.
‘Maybe it would,’ he said ‘We had reasons, and that’s all I’m prepared to say.’
‘I see. Mr Grant, I ask for no names, but do you know who killed Mr Bradan?’
‘I wish him well, whoever he was, although he’s cost me my cake, if not some of my bread and butter.’
‘That is not an answer, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice gently. Grant passed his cup to his wife for more tea.
Chapter 15
The Meaning of Coinneamh
‘Up jumps old Peter, and, heaving the regelashuns away, yells, “Damn all the nonsense! Heave the body overboard”.’
Harry Lander
« ^ »
Meeting,’ said Dame Beatrice, referring to the English rendering of Coinneamh. ‘If so, I wonder why Mrs Grant was willing to put you up for the night? I wonder how she ever contrived to persuade a baby-sitter to stay in the house? I wonder how much Mr Macbeth knows about the Grants, and how much of the knowledge he had never disclosed?’
‘Golly!’ said Laura ‘What hare has poor Ian at the station started now?’
‘In what sense, dear child?’
‘This Coinneamh gag. Are we talking of witchcraft, do you think?’
‘Of one kind of witchcraft, no doubt. We now know that we are talking of the kind of witchcraft which (to coin a phrase and alter it just a little) has been running guns and butter in the same ships.’
‘As for Mrs Grant putting me up for the night, I am pretty sure that she may have wanted the use of a car in the early hours of the morning and saw how she could get it. But I may be wronging her hopelessly about that. Anyway, where do we go from here?’
‘Oh, back to Tannasgan.’
‘To confront Macbeth with our new knowledge, such as it is?’
‘To invite his co-operation, as I see it.’
‘Some hopes, if you ask me! I shouldn’t think he’d ever give anybody any cooperation in his life!’
‘We shall get it, provided that he has returned safely from Dingwall. I shall challenge him, and I am fairly certain that he will pick up the gage.’
‘Don’t forget to be quick on the draw with that lethal little gat of yours, then,’ said Laura. ‘Sheriff,’ she added unnecessarily.
Dame Beatrice cackled and her car drew in to one of the passing-places to let through a car coming from the opposite direction.
‘That was our friend Macbeth,’ she said. ‘Did you see him?’
‘Good Lord! We ought to follow him up,’ said Laura, ‘But I don’t see how George can turn on a road as narrow as this.’
‘There is no need for us to follow him,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘It will be much better to meet him on his own ground. We will await him at An Tigh Mór.’
Arrived on the shores of Loch na Gréine, the car drew in on to the grass verge and Laura got out. Macbeth, it seemed, had rowed himself ashore, for the boat was tied up to the jetty. George opened the car door for Dame Beatrice and then led the way to the boat, handed in his employer, waited for both women to seat themselves and then untied the boat and pushed off from the jetty.
‘Wonder whether the Corries are still in possession?’ said Laura, when they reached the boathouse. ‘Oh, well, we shall soon know.’
‘Do you wish me to accompany you to the house, madam?’ asked George. Dame Beatrice patted the pocket of her skirt.
‘Not this time, George, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I think you had better stay here in case the owner of the house comes back and needs the boat. If you hear the sound of a shot, you may come to our rescue.’
‘Very good, madam,’ He watched them as they walked towards the house, for the boathouse had wooden planking on three sides and the door was at the back and had been left open. Laura went up to the mansion and hammered on the door. It was opened by a police-sergeant.