‘And the young man? Young Mr Bradan?’
‘That one had left Tannasgan lang syne. His father turned him out. Oh, it was an ill business, that, to disinherit and send awa’ his only son.’
‘Turned him out, you say. How had he offended his father?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘I dinna altogether ken. I think there were debts.’
‘Oh, he was that kind of young man.’
‘Then there was a lassie. I dinna ken the rights and wrongs of that, either, but when I was about to take in the dishes I heard the old laird say something about making a bed and lying on it, and the young man pleading that without siller he couldna marry on the lassie and make an honest woman of her.’
‘But the old man didn’t fall for that,’ said Laura.
‘He did not, indeed. When I went in to clear the table they were still at it and, when I got outside the door again, the old laird told him to get out and tramp the Edinburgh gutters with his fancy woman. It was all they were fit for, to sing in the street for bawbees.’
‘Very Victorian. And has the young one ever been back?’ asked Laura, interested in this hoary, classical, vintage tale.
‘Ay, he’s been back, but since his father’s time, you ken. And he’s been sent off again with a flea in his ear. The police was sent for and took him awa’ with them. Ay, and such a carrying-on as he made! You never heard the like. Accusing here, accusing there! He even spoke against my man. Ay, but for the police my man would have dinged him in the neb.’
‘Very proper,’ said Laura. Taking this as a sign of dismissal, Mrs Corrie went back to her domain and Laura took Dame Beatrice into the dining-room. ‘Why wouldn’t you let me tell her that I’d seen the Edinburgh murder and that it did not take place on the twenty-third?’ she asked, in a low voice, when she had shut the door and had moved away from it to the window.
‘Witnesses to a murder are not invulnerable, and neither are people with inconveniently accurate memories. Mrs Corrie herself would not hurt you, but we cannot be certain that she would not talk. Apart from anyone else, she would mention the matter to her husband, you may be sure.’
‘Oh, well – Hullo! here comes Macbeth, and from the Island of Strange Beasts, by the look of it. Corrie is just tying up the boat, so now the fun begins.’
Chapter 20
Tannasgan Changes Hands
What a haste looks through his eyes!
So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.’
Shakespeare
« ^ »
MACBETH stalked up to the house. He was wearing a faded kilt in what Laura, as he approached, managed to identify as the Wemyss tartan. She was interested.
‘The Wemyss family, according to Thomas Innes of Learney,’ she explained to Dame Beatrice, ‘is descended from a third son of Macduff, twelfth-century Earl of Fife. For a Macbeth to identify himself with a Macduff is interesting, don’t you think? – although probably accidental, in this case.’
‘I call it fascinating,’ replied Dame Beatrice, her eyes not on Macbeth’s kilt, however, but upon his sweating bare chest and, alternatively, on his extremely muddy brogues. ‘I wonder what is the symbolic value of this latest excursion into history and literature, then?’
‘Maybe none. He may have bought it second-hand. He never gives the impression of having any money.’
Macbeth clumped into the hall, followed by Corrie. There came a thunderous knock on the dining-room door and both men marched in.
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, before anyone else could speak, ‘you will catch cold in here, Mr Macbeth. Will you not go and get a good rub down with a rough towel and put a shirt on? You are perspiring very freely.’
‘Ay, you shouldna be in the company of ladies. I tellt ye so,’ said Corrie. ‘Awa’ and freshen.’
Crestfallen, Macbeth bowed to the said ladies and departed, followed by his henchman.
‘What was the point?’ asked Laura, amused by the proceedings.
‘The poor man was too hot, both physically and mentally, for his company to be desirable or even tolerable, child. Now he will have time to cool off, in both senses, and we shall be able to converse reasonably with him.’
She was right. In about ten minutes’ time a clean, dry, completely clad Macbeth returned to them. His demeanour, so far as could be said of that of such a bristling, red-bearded giant, was still chastened. He apologised, adding:
‘I’ve done hard, dirty work without the reward I expected.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I do hope our visit has not inconvenienced you.’
‘No, no. I was for knocking off, anyway, when Corrie came over. Well, I have done what I could for the place. Tomorrow I must away.’
‘You are thinking of leaving Tannasgan?’
‘Well is it called Tannasgan! There’s nothing here but ghosts. Ay, and they leave their promises behind them, and the promises are as ghostly as their makers. Besides, I’m in danger. The police have been here again. A great fool I was to call them in! It’s true that they’ve taken off Bradan’s wee grilse. I hear he’s for trial on a major charge. But the inspector stayed behind and speired at me again about Bradan’s death. He means to pin that on me. I ken that very well.’
‘I wouldn’t run away. It looks bad,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘What does the deer do if it gets wind of the stalker? I tell you, yon man needs a scapegoat.’
‘Has he anything to build on in thinking that you might be the guilty person?’
‘Ay.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘I found Bradan’s body and I piped him a lament. Then it came to me that I was the heir to this’ – he waved an arm like the trunk of a young oak – ‘and I changed my tune.’
‘You certainly did,’ agreed Laura. ‘It sounded like hell gone mad.’
Macbeth, forgetting his grievances, looked gratified.
‘Ay,’ he said, ‘I’m a guid man on the pipes when I let masel go.’ His face changed again. ‘But it was an ill night for me when that reporter laddie heard me.’
‘We both heard you,’ said Laura. ‘Nobody could help it. I should think they heard you in Freagair.’
‘The newspaper laddie brought back the boat and seeped back into the house. He opened the door and then closed it behind him. I was marching up and down to my piping, you’ll understand, and as I turned I saw him. His hair was on end and his face was white, but he stood his ground.
‘ “You’re still here, then?” I speired at him, and at that he nods his head.
‘ “And I’m no leaving without my story,” he tells me.
‘ “And what story may that be?”
‘ “I spied Bradan being brought hame?”
‘ “You did? And what about it?”
‘ “He was in a verra bad way. There were twa men in the boat. They almost had to carry him ashore.”
‘ “Look, now,” I said, “if a gentleman and a landowner canna be fou with his ain friends in his ain boat, where can he be fou?”
‘ “He was no fou,” the laddie said. “The belief is on me that he’s dead.”
‘Well, I had to make up my mind. I wasna so very sure how much the laddie had seen, so I told him that, if he’s a mind to, he could take a keek at anything he liked, and then he was to print what he thought fit. I warned him to be careful what he printed, because a newspaper is fair game to extortionists, and then I left him to it. I kenned he would find the laird, for he was in the cellar.’ He turned to Laura ‘And gin I hadna been engaged with you and your fashes, mistress, I’d have heard them bring him in.’
‘Sorry,’ said Laura. ‘Pity neither of us knew. Do tell us more.’