‘You’re thinking of the disinherited son.’ said Laura, ‘but I’m positive that my meeting him like that, at the edge of the loch, was sheer chance.’
‘I would still like to know why he signalled the island so that you were taken to An Tigh Mór.’
‘Can’t we put it down to a chivalrous gesture towards a damsel in distress?’
‘Well, we can,’ said Dame Beatrice doubtfully. ‘Let us place this tray on that vacant table and get to work again on the Grants.’
‘You noticed that Grant the elder said they had been marooned at Tigh-Osda station only for about a quarter of an hour?’ said Laura, when she had moved the tray.
‘I did notice it.’
‘Well, that was a fishy answer and I don’t think it was the truth. I mean, the Grants can’t have it both ways, can they?’
‘By which you mean…?’
‘Either she can drive, in which case (as I’ve felt certain all along) she did borrow my car that time I stayed there, or else they must have been at the station a lot longer than a quarter of an hour.’
‘Excellent. Pray expound your theory.’
‘Well, he was dead set on catching his train, wasn’t he?’
‘It seemed like it.’
‘And their estate car didn’t break down until they got to the station, or near enough to the station.’
‘True.’
‘Well, he couldn’t have hoped, if the estate car had been all right, to drive his wife to Coinneamh Lodge and get back to the station in time to catch the train, if his account of the quarter of an hour’s wait was true.’
‘Therefore the original arrangement must have been that Mrs Grant was to drop him at the station and drive herself home, you think?’
‘I don’t see what else one can think.’
‘Ably argued, child. You must be right. What did you make of Mr Grant’s kindly presenting us with a powerful reason for his having hated Mr Bradan?’
‘You mean the loss of his brother when that ship blew up? I think it could have been a bold bit of bluff.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, it may have been a clever way of throwing dust in our eyes, I think. In other words, he had a strong motive for killing Bradan and he presents us with a completely phony one instead. It would have put quite a lot of people off the scent, I should imagine.’
‘Possibly. I wonder whether he really had a brother on that ship?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘you have not forgotten that Mrs Grant, on the first occasion you met her, made no secret of the fact that she, as well as her husband, hated Mr Bradan?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ said Laura. She was sitting up straight by this time and her settee faced the window. ‘Here comes a motor-cyclist. Can it be – yes, it is.’
‘Our young friend Grant?’
‘And as wet as a fish. Here he comes.’
‘And there was nobody named Grant among the lost crew of the Saracen, you remember? But, as we said, that may mean nothing. So many people, even respectable ones, go under an alias nowadays.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ said Laura.
‘Well, as I said, it might pay to confess to having a motive for a crime which you cannot possibly have committed, in order to confuse the issue of one which you certainly could have committed and which, in point of fact, you did help to commit. I speak merely theoretically, of course.’
‘Like hell you do,’ said Laura.
Chapter 18
Young Grant Corries Not Quite Clean
‘The Doctor examined carefully the body of the dead man. The face of the corpse was distorted and looked horrible in the candle-light.
‘ “Shot?” said the Inspector laconically. ‘ “No,” replied the Doctor.’
Barry Pain
« ^ »
YOUNG Grant had shed his waterproof motor-cycling outfit in the outer vestibule of the hotel. He came forward buoyantly, bowed to the ladies and was asked to sit down. Laura went to the bar and ordered him a large whisky.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘what about coming clean?’
‘I’d like to,’ said young Grant. ‘It’s about time I shed the load. Somebody took a pop at me as I came here. Luckily he missed me and missed my tyres, but it just goes to show.’
‘You were fired on?’ asked Dame Beatrice, interested. ‘Where did this take place?’
‘Not long after I left Crioch. I was passing little Loch Breac, which is screened, you’ll likely know, by bushes—’
‘Did you see your adversary?’
‘No. I had gone past him when he fired, and although I have a mirror on the handlebars it was no good to me in all this rain.’
‘Have you decided who it was?’
‘The likeliest would be the man Macbeth.’
‘Oh? What makes you think so?’
‘Wait until you hear my tale, and maybe you’ll think so, too. Oh, and I have an item of news which may interest you. The police have arrested Cosmo Bradan, the dead man’s son.’
‘Have they, indeed? Then the man who fired at you could not have been he and could not have known of the arrest.’
‘That will be so. Mind you, the arrest may be a sort of smoke-screen. It may make the murderer careless.’
‘By the murderer, you mean the man who killed Mr Bradan, of course?’
‘Whom else should I mean?’
‘Do you not remember confirming Mrs Gavin’s report of the Edinburgh murder?’
‘Oh, yes, certainly. But there would be no reason to suspect Cosmo Bradan of being concerned in that. I told you I saw who did it, and I told you that I should certainly recognise him again.’
‘Well, let us have your story. Is it to be the whole truth this time? I must tell you that we know all about the skian-dhu.’
‘You do?’
‘And, to clear up a point which has baffled us, do tell us how Mr Bradan was killed.
‘I will, so. And this time you shall hear the whole truth. I shall begin with the trouble in Edinburgh. As I told you, I was there to report the Conference in which, Dame Beatrice, you (if I may say so) were a leading light. Well, that left me, as I have also said, with time on my hands, and it was in one of those times that I met a man from Newhaven named Dorg. When he knew that I was a journalist and worked in Freagair he said he had a news item for me. Well, I have ambitions, like most people, so I bought him some drinks and, with them, his information. I was disappointed, in a way, for there seemed nothing to print of what he said. He was telling me about some tramp steamers that he thought were gey mysterious in their comings and goings. I speired at him in what way they were mysterious, but, although I plied him with enough whisky to loosen the tongue of anybody but a Dutchman, I could get nothing out of him but an invitation to go and see for myself. I went, but there was nobody able to tell me anything, so I telephoned the Edinburgh office of the Caledonia and asked them what they knew of ships under the names Dorg had given me. They had nothing to tell me except that they were owned by a man named Bradan of Tannasgan.
‘Well, this has some sort of local interest for the people of my district, I thought, so I thanked them for their information and went back to my lodgings to write up my piece about the Conference and another (rather imaginative) piece about the ships.’
‘Which was never published?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Luckily for me, I’m beginning to think. No, I needed something straight from the horse’s mouth – that is, from Bradan himself.’
‘Ah, yes, now.’ Dame Beatrice, who had produced her notebook, turned back to a former entry. ‘Let me remind you of a statement you made at Inversnaid.’