‘Will you not bring that young man’s heart to me on a siller dish and with cresses heaped around it!’
‘Well, now, Mr Bradan,’ Dame Beatrice heard the inspector’s soothing voice respond, ‘what way is it that you’re speiring after Mr Grant’s youthful heart?’
‘Bradan? I am not Bradan! What gars you call me a salmon? I was born a Scot, like yourself.’
‘Come, come, now! Something has vexed you. Did you not get what you wanted at Tigh-Osda?’
‘I did not. You might just as well arrest me for my cousin’s murder and have done with it. Who am I, to protest my innocence?’
‘You may protest your innocence with all the voice you have, man. It was a good day you had when you invited Mrs Gavin – you mind her, do you? – to stay to dinner that time.’
‘Mrs Gavin? And who may she be?’
‘She will – ah, well, maybe you had better see her, for she’s here again.’ He called loudly, ‘Come, if you please, Mrs Gavin, for a word with Mr…’ He hesitated.
‘Grant,’ said Macbeth. Laura slipped noiselessly out of the kitchen, glanced up the stairs, received a confirmatory nod from Dame Beatrice and presented herself in the dining-room doorway.
‘Well, well,’ said Macbeth. ‘So the water-kelpie has come ashore again!’
‘Unicorn on leash,’ said Laura, advancing with a smile.
‘Unicorn?’ He looked puzzled. Laura waved a large and shapely hand.
‘One of the fabulous beasts not on display,’ she said. ‘What did happen to the salamander, by the way?’
‘Not by the way, but on the sea. Burnt out. I managed it myself to spite Cousin Bradan, but that he never knew.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Dame Beatrice, suddenly entering the room. ‘You knew nothing about it until you heard that it had happened. Now tell us about the bagpipes.’
‘The bagpipes? Oh, yes. Well, what about them?’
‘Why were they played on the night Mr Bradan died?’
‘Do you know about salmon?’ asked Macbeth.
‘Indeed I do. Their life-story has been a study of mine for many years.’
‘And of mine. Well was he called Bradan, good Gaelic for Salmon. He was spawned in the Spey, gravitated – I call it that because of the very strong pull – to South America, returned to his native river and has fouled it ever since. Now all that he held is mine.’
‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but could he really bear to disinherit his only son?’
‘His only son, say you? Well, but, mistress, what about Grant of Coinneamh?’
‘I see,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘And what about the young Mr Grant who lives at Crioch post office?’
‘Oh, that one,’ said Macbeth. He waved a hand, imitating Laura’s gesture. ‘That would be a collateral branch, maybe. A clansman, ay, but nothing – I would say nobody – to signify.’ He was extremely drunk.
‘But the bagpipes! You must remember the bagpipes? Mrs Gavin heard them and so did this young Mr Grant.’
‘Ah, so that’s the limmer you mean? I ken him well. He was a rare nuisance here, speiring after the laird. I was telling him I was the laird, but he would none of it. He said he would be claiming squatter’s rights until the laird came home, so I bade him go squat in the policies, for I would not have him in the house.’
‘Yes, he squatted in the boathouse,’ said Laura. ‘I nearly fell over him when I left An Tigh Mór that night. A fine old fright he gave me, because, of course, I wasn’t expecting to find anybody there. Still, he made up for it by rowing me across the loch, and it was then that we heard you playing a lament on the pipes.’
‘Me? That was no me.’
‘Corrie, then?’
‘No, no.’
‘Don’t tell me Mrs Corrie plays the pipes!’
‘It was no Mrs Corrie, although, between you and me, mistress, I do not believe they twae are married.’
‘That’s as may be. Well, there was nobody else on the island at that time, was there?’
‘Nobody but the Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie.’
Laura stared at him.
‘Oh, well,’ said Dame Beatrice, rising, ‘whoever played the pipes knew that Mr Bradan, or Salmon, was dead.’
But Macbeth was not to be drawn. Laura got up, too, and the inspector opened the door for them and followed them into the hall. Here he jerked his head towards the room they had just vacated and significantly tapped his forehead.
‘And you know he did not kill his cousin?’ murmured Dame Beatrice.
‘Impossible that he committed the deed with his own hand, but less certain that he was not the head of a conspiracy to make away with him.’
‘Is there any possibility that Grant of Coinneamh is Mr Bradan’s son?’
‘None in the world, ma’am. We know a good deal about that Mr Grant. We know that he has shipping interests and we know the names of the ships and that one of them, the Saracen, as you already know, blew up and was written off as a total loss.’
‘Sabotage, do you suppose? – or done to collect the insurance money?’ asked Laura.
‘There was no reason at the time for any suspicion, Mrs Gavin. She was not over-insured and she was a well-found ship, so far as we know. No, no. It was just one of those things and the case is too firmly closed for anybody to reopen it now, even if there seemed any reason for doing so.’
‘What happened to the officers and the crew?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Unhappily, all lost. I would say they never stood a chance of surviving.’
‘I suppose it would be possible to obtain a list of their names?’
‘Certainly.’
‘I should be grateful if I could be furnished with such a list.’
‘You’re not suggesting…?’
‘It is a long shot, Inspector, but, as I think you will agree, we still do not know for certain what motive the murderer or murderers of Mr Bradan may have had for what they did to him.’
‘Motive?’
‘Well, self-interest, in one form or another, is seen to be a motive in most cases of murder, is it not?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘But in this case I would postulate revenge.’
Chapter 17
Following the Death of a Salamander
‘Treason has done his worst: nor steel,
nor poison.
Malice domestic .foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.’
Shakespeare
« ^ »
THE list of names and addresses, supplied to Dame Beatrice at her hotel in Slanliebh two days later, at first offered no hope of providing any clue to the still mysterious death of the laird of Tannasgan. It transpired that most of the crew of the lost collier Saracen had been Lascars and that of the captain and three officers (the third officer, so-called, was an apprentice), only one was a Scotsman. This was the second-mate, a man named Baillie. Dame Beatrice decided to try his wife first.
The address was that of a street in Glasgow; this to the surprise of Laura, who insisted that the man must have lived in Leith. Dame Beatrice confirmed the address with the inspector and in due course George drew up the car in front of a quiet, respectable house in Govan.
The door was opened by a quiet, respectable woman who confirmed that her name was Mrs Baillie. She asked Dame Beatrice and Laura in, and produced strong tea, bannocks and shortbread.
‘Ye’ll be from the police,’ she said. ‘I had word.’
‘Full marks for the inspector,’ said Laura. ‘That’s going to save a lot of explanation.’
Dame Beatrice picked up the cue. They had rehearsed several openings to this conversation on the way from Slanliebh.
‘We are conducting an enquiry into the destruction of the collier Saracen, which was lost somewhere in the Atlantic five years ago. As you know, I have no doubt, one of the owners has been found killed. The circumstances seem mysterious and the motive for the murder rather obscure. Did your husband ever express any opinion as to the nature and scope of his employment?’