‘A point which had not escaped me, but we must accept the medical evidence, don’t you think? A Scottish doctor is not easily deceived, but might hold his tongue.’
‘It’s a great pity you did not have a chance to examine the body.’
‘I should have welcomed the opportunity.’
‘You know, we shall need to see young Grant again and make him confess to the skian-dhu.’
‘And to other matters. You are quite right.’
‘If we’ve guessed about the skian-dhu, it stands to reason that he must have been on Tannasgan when the laird was brought home if it was, as seems likely.’
‘Quite. Oh, yes, our young Mr Grant has a great deal to explain.’
‘We ought to warn young Grant.’
‘We will do so when we see him, which may be some time this afternoon or tomorrow morning.’
‘You’ve sent for him, then?’
‘Well, this hotel is neutral ground, so to speak. But let us get back to Mr and Mrs Corrie and scrutinise the evidence they have given us. First, there is the uncompromising comment made by Corrie about Mr Bradan.’
‘Oh, yes! That he does well enough in his grave.’
‘Exactly. That remark interests me for two reasons: first, that he did not love Mr Bradan, and, second, that he must have known perfectly well that it was not to Bradan that I was referring, when I mentioned the laird, but to Mr Macbeth. Then there was his equivocal reply when you asked whether Macbeth had killed the laird.’
‘ “Maybe he did, and maybe he did not,” ’ quoted Laura. ‘Yes, that was a pretty dodgy answer. It might mean that he knew very well who the murderer was.’
‘If he did not know for certain, I think he had very shrewd suspicions.’
‘Suspicions which the police didn’t get him to voice, then!’
‘A country with a Covenanting History and one which steadfastly refused to betray Prince Charles Edward Stuart, would be unlikely to produce sons who could be bullied or cajoled into supplying information which they had intended to keep to themselves,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘That’s true enough. Then, of course, Mrs Corrie was a bit cagey, too. Remember asking her what she knew about the murder?’
‘I do, indeed. Mind you, she qualified what you are pleased to call the cagey reply by giving us a piece of information.’
‘That the son had visited the island. Yes, but we didn’t find out when. He certainly didn’t come over in the boat with Macbeth and me.’
‘Reading between the lines, child, I deducted that the visit was paid before the father’s death and that the disinheriting was done on the occasion of that visit, and that Mr Macbeth was present. I suppose the inspector has seen a copy of Mr Bradan’s will? When I meet him again I shall ask him what was in it, but I see no reason to doubt that Macbeth is the heir. The Corries have accepted him as such, and they, most likely, witnessed the will. Even if they were not permitted to read it, I am sure they knew that Macbeth was to be the new laird of Tannasgan.’
‘Corrie seemed to have some suspicions of Mr Grant of Coinneamh, I thought,’ said Laura. ‘He admitted that there was no love lost between him and Cù Dubh. But what did you make of his statements that the fabulous beasts used to travel to Leith?’
‘Of itself, I am certain that the statement was moonshine.’
‘Lie number one, you think? Well, it’s lies we’re looking for, isn’t it?’
‘I am not prepared to call it a lie. I think it was in the nature of a pointer, you know.’
‘To direct our attention to Leith or, perhaps, Newhaven?’
‘So I suppose.’
‘What about Corrie’s story that he had been sent across the loch to telephone about an arrangement for a car to meet Bradan at Tigh-Osda station?’
‘I see no reason to disbelieve it. When young Grant arrives he may be able to tell us a little more about that.’
‘But do you think Corrie telephoned Cù Dubh? Can we accept that he was alive when Corrie telephoned?’
‘That I cannot answer at present. The story that Corrie did tell – and I have not yet decided whether it is true – is that Mr Bradan, as a living man, came back to Tannasgan.’
‘Yes, I couldn’t make out about that, either.’
‘Mr Bradan, as we know, did come back to Tannasgan that night, but we do not know whether he was dead or alive.’
‘So the piper may have been Macbeth, after all!’
‘Yes. He played the pipes because he had seen the body, one might suppose. You remember telling me that the piper began with a lament, went on with an almost indecently triumphant skirling, then the lament again?’
‘It was a most extraordinary performance.’
‘Yes. He could have mourned his cousin and then realised that he had inherited the family property. Did you ever – no, you’re probably too young—’
‘Did I ever what?’
‘See a slender witch of a girl named, I think, Susan Salaman, perform a ballet solo called Funeral Dance for a Rich Aunt?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘It called for the same extraordinary mingling of two emotions.’
‘It must have been wildly comic!’
‘It was, wildly and brilliantly so.’
‘Well, we’ve sorted the Corries, so what about the Grants? Those of Coinneamh, I mean.’
‘Today’s thought. Well, now, what strikes you most about the Grants?’
‘Fishy people. I’ve changed my mind about them.’
‘By that you infer?’
‘I no longer think I can believe a word they say.’
‘They have not uttered very many words, child, when one comes to think of it.’
‘Granted,’ Laura agreed. ‘But what have we got on them, after all? There was the matter of my hired car and then the silly business of Grant’s being kidnapped, but – well, what else?’
‘Let us see.’ Dame Beatrice turned over a page of her notebook. ‘We begin, as you very rightly point out, with that so-far unexplained borrowing of your car. There was something very odd indeed about that. We have assumed that it made the journey between Coinneamh and Tannasgan, but there is no evidence, except that of the mileage, to show that that was indeed where the car went that night Then, as we have already noted, if Mrs Grant cannot drive, it cannot have been she who borrowed the car.’
‘But there’s nobody else it could have been,’ Laura protested. ‘I think she was lying.’
‘There is something in that. I see that it is still raining,’ said Dame Beatrice, with apparent inconsequence. ‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘Yes, with rum in it. Oh, well, no, perhaps not rum. I’d forgotten for the moment. Wonder what Cù Dubh looked like? I ought to have asked Mrs Grant when we were there.’ She signalled to the waiter, who had just served morning coffee at another table. ‘And now, what about the Grants and the possibility that they were lying at that last interview when we managed to get them both together?’
‘Let us have our coffee and enjoy it in peace,’ said Dame Beatrice, closing her notebook and restoring it to her skirt pocket. ‘I see that the bar is open. There is no reason why you should not drink rum. It is a kindly spirit and may assist thought.’
The waiter brought their coffee while Laura was at the bar and, when she returned to her seat, Dame Beatrice talked about the more amusing aspects of the Edinburgh Conference and then said:
‘I want to hear again exactly what happened on that afternoon and evening which you spent on Tannasgan.’
‘I don’t think you’ll pick up anything new,’ said Laura, ‘but here goes.’ When she had concluded her account, her employer, warning her that it was a leading question, asked whether, at any point during her walk, she had suspected that she was being dogged, followed or kept under any form of surveillance.