‘And Corrie brought him?’ asked Dame Beatrice in a pacific tone which warned Laura not to lose her temper.
‘Corrie brought him?’ Young Grant asked the question in a stupefied tone. ‘I do not know. I canna say. Who else would have brought him? I had better go.’
‘There is only one answer to that,’ said Dame Beatrice, when he had flung himself out of the lounge. ‘Well, he has missed his lunch here. I wonder how much of the truth he knows and how much of it he has told?’
‘I really believe he thinks it was a dead man who was brought across to Tannasgan that night,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice shook her head, but Laura, unperturbed by this, went on, ‘What’s more, it must have happened before I left. It was sheer instinct that made me flee the place, I suppose. If only you had been there, instead of me, we wouldn’t have had this mystery on our hands.’
‘But how much more empty our lives would have been without it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We could not have prevented the murders, but we can appreciate the puzzle they present.’
‘We’re still no further forward.’
‘Are we not? Suppose that young Mr Grant was speaking the truth?’
‘Oh, you mean…? Well, who do you mean, Dame B.? Have we come to a full stop, do you suppose?’
‘By no means,’ said Dame Beatrice comfortably. ‘For one thing, there is a witness whom we’ve never contacted.’
‘Really? You’ve got me worried. I thought we’d interviewed everybody who might be of the slightest use.’
‘Cast your mind back to your first visit to Mrs Stewart at Gàradh.’
‘Yes, well, while I was at Gàradh, Mrs Stewart happened to mention that her son had had business dealings with Cù Dubh.’
‘Those might be of interest, don’t you think?’
‘Lord!’ said Laura remorsefully. ‘It’s awful of me to have forgotten it all this time, but I’ve never given it another thought.’
‘There can have been no association of ideas in your mind, that is all. Besides, it is never too late to mend! Pray tell me again what Mrs Stewart said.’
‘It isn’t so much, really. She just said that her son had had some business to conclude and had invited Bradan to join the house-party at Gàradh and that they had been snowed-up there for a fortnight and she didn’t like Bradan at all, but that he had given her some pretty decent rock plants, although she thought it was her son’s idea.’
‘Excellent. We must return to London forthwith, for I have discovered from his mother, over the telephone, that Alexander Stewart is staying in London on business for his Edinburgh firm. I have the address and have sent him a telegram. I hope he will be able to call.’
‘I should have thought of him before,’ said Laura.
‘Not at all, child. The matter has arisen at the crucial time. Besides, I shall be delighted to meet the young man again.’
‘I doubt whether he’ll be able to tell us any more than, I suppose, he’s told the inspector here, you know,’ said Laura. ‘I mean, the police are sure to know about the business side of it by this time.’
Morning found them heading south, behind the sturdy, reassuring back of George, through the Moorfoot hills and by way of Carter Bar. As they left the Border country, Laura was moved to declaim:
‘O wha will shoe my bonny foot?
And wha will glove my hand?
And wha will bind my middle jimp
Wi’ a lang, lang linen band?
O wha will kame my yellow hair
Wi’ a haw barberry kame?
And wha will be my bairn’s father
Till Gregory come hame?’
Dame Beatrice looked slightly startled by this confession that Laura was beginning to miss her husband, and insisted on stopping at Newcastle for lunch. They spent the night at Harrogate and were back in Dame Beatrice’s Kensington house by tea-time on the following day. From here Laura telephoned Alexander Stewart and received his promise that he would be round to see Dame Beatrice at soon after nine that evening.
He was as good as his word and presented himself, a fair-haired, tall man of about thirty, at nine-ten. Célestine, Dame Beatrice’s French servant, showed him in with an inappropriate but obviously excited:
‘Monsieur Stewart baisse les mains à madame!’
‘Does he, indeed? Very Spanish of him,’ said Dame Beatrice, holding out her somewhat monstrously bejewelled hands and embracing the young man warmly instead of allowing him to kiss her fingers. ‘And what are you doing in these borrowed French and Spanish plumes, my gay Lothario?’
Célestine, long a trusted and uninhibited member of Dame Beatrice’s household, stifled a giggle and withdrew to the kitchen where her husband, a superb and not particularly temperamental chef, was preparing a meal. As usual, as he cooked, he was alternately praising Laura’s appetite and lamenting that of Dame Beatrice.
‘This one,’ his wife stated, describing Stewart, ‘is, like all the Scots, demented but adorable.’
‘But yes,’ said Henri, busy with his own thoughts.
Meanwhile, the demented but adorable Scot under review was being introduced to Laura. His mother, he told her, had written eulogistically about the visits to Gàradh and had expressed the hope that these would occur often. The courtesies having been exchanged, he was provided with a drink and called to order.
‘What do you know of a man named Bradan of Tannasgan?’ demanded Dame Beatrice.
‘Murdered, and then put into an empty hogshead, or whatever you call it, of rum? I knew him, in a sort of business way, very well.’
‘Expound.’
‘I met him first when I was working up a connection to export dried fish to the Canaries in exchange for bananas. It went all right for a bit, but then the ships – all owned or partly owned by him – seemed an unreasonable time in getting back, and I felt that my firm was losing money and – just as important – goodwill. In the end I stood him off and went to Liverpool for a tender. Their ideas tied in with mine, so I blew Bradan’s lot a nice fat raspberry and our relationship ended, just like that.’
‘You mean that you realised…’
‘No, not really. I just thought they were plucking me for a pigeon, and I didn’t want to be stood up, that was all.’
‘You have never received threatening letters from them?’
Stewart looked surprised.
‘Gracious, no!’ he replied. ‘There was a wee bit of a fuss when I turned them down, but I received the impression that they were just as pleased to see the back of me as I was to see the back of them.’
‘And when did the break take place?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. Stewart wrinkled his brow.
‘Oh, a couple of years ago. Yes, about that.’
‘Do you remember asking Bradan to stay a day or two at your mother’s house at Gàradh?’
‘Yes, yes. There was snow. I got away in time, but I believe Bradan was snowed up there for a week or a fortnight. My mother was not very pleased. She did not take to Bradan overmuch.’
‘You are right. Is there any reason to think that this forcible exile at Gàradh upset any particular plans made by Mr Bradan?’
‘I think not. He told me once that his real business was carried on only in the summer. Something to do with tourists, I understood.’
‘Do you carry on your own export business during the winter?’
‘Not really. In the winter we mostly do coastal trips, picking up cargo where we can. We carry coal, pit-props and light machinery and make out in a hand-to-mouth sort of way until the Atlantic gets reasonable enough for our rather small ships. Oh, and sometimes we carry potatoes.’
‘I see. I hesitate to use the word because I think it is used (in the sense I am about to use it) out of context, but did you ever form the opinion that some, if not all, of Mr Bradan’s activities were – crooked.’