Lament for a Maker

‘That depends entirely on the point from which one looks, does it not? Perhaps you have grounds for believing that the young Mr Lindsay has committed some crime?’

I had reckoned accurately in counting on a streak of irritation latent in Inspector Speight. My bland manner drew him at once. He said abruptly: ‘The lad pitched Guthrie to his death. I haven’t a doubt of it.’

‘Perhaps so, inspector. I would say myself it is a little early to cherish convictions. And I think there may be some evidence in direct rebuttal?’

‘To be sure, there’s Miss Guthrie.’

So Miss Guthrie had already told the police her story. I rose. ‘I think, inspector, I must now seek my client.’

Inspector Speight made a protesting gesture. ‘You mustn’t be taking it, sir, I think it necessary to discredit what the young lady has told us entirely. But she was scared and confused out there in the storm and she wanted to see as little ill in the business up there as might be.’ The inspector paused. ‘Perhaps she’ll come to a clearer recollection, though, on thinking it over.’

I was again aware that Inspector Speight was an intelligent man. And for a moment I wondered if he might not be positively guileful. Miss Guthrie, who had been mysteriously on the very battlement from which the dead man had fallen, was, it appeared, that dead man’s heir. Of the delicacy of this position Speight had given no hint.

‘So you think, inspector, that it’s either Lindsay or nothing?’ Speight nodded emphatically. ‘An old feud, a new quarrel, a witness that he was in blazing passion, the gold broken into, him and the girl gone. One could hardly ask for more.’

‘Unless, perhaps, the chopping of the fingers from the corpse.’ The inspector stared. ‘You’ve heard that? It but shows the daft and dirty gossip that country folk will seize on. Never heed their foolish claik, Mr Wedderburn. You and I are concerned with facts.’

‘A healthy reminder, inspector. It frequently falls from my friend Lord Clanclacket on the bench. And you think there is no other direction in which the facts can point?’

Almost happily, Speight smiled. ‘Mr Wedderburn, I’ll give you something away. The American lassie didn’t do it. There’s such a thing as experience in the ways of crime. And thirty years of that tells me not to waste time that way. The lassie’s real nice.’

‘I need hardly say that your impression is a most welcome one. Of course Neil Lindsay may prove real nice too.’

Speight chuckled. ‘Time enough to decide that when we lay hands on him. I say it’s Lindsay or nothing. And I think you really agree with me, sir.’

‘No, inspector, I don’t agree. I cannot claim your experience of crime. But I have another opinion.’

‘Mr Wedderburn, it would be a real privilege to have it.’

‘If, as I hope, it turns to conviction you shall have it before the sheriff this afternoon. But – as I said – it’s early for convictions yet.’

4

I was received by Miss Guthrie in what is referred to throughout these narratives as the schoolroom. She struck me at once as possessing that blend of elegance and‚ elan which gives many of her cultivated countrywomen their slightly baffling charm; I was inclined to think that Inspector Speight, in finding her ‘nice’ had displayed at once an accurate and unexpectedly sophisticated taste. She was evidently determined to be businesslike. I judged her to be a person familiar with the elementary proprieties of legal business; nevertheless I thought it proper to say a few words on the relations generally presumed to exist between solicitor and clients in these Islands. She listened with a very becoming attention – the readers must not think me unaware of a slight tendency in myself to what might be unkindly termed pomposity on such occasions – and presently we were seated comfortably together on a sofa. Miss Guthrie, indeed, was so kind as to give me permission to smoke a pipe.

‘So far,’ I said, ‘I have interviewed only a certain Mr Bell, our friend Mr Gylby – from whom I have had a very full narrative both orally and in writing – and the Hardcastles. Gylby’s character-sketch of Hardcastle seems to me penetrating.’

‘Noel,’ said Miss Guthrie briskly, ‘is quite an able youth.’

‘No doubt. He has also given something of a character-sketch – writing, you will understand, to a most confidential correspondent – of yourself.’

Perhaps a shade blankly, Miss Guthrie said: ‘Oh!’

‘He has recorded the opinion that you are not romantically disposed.’

‘I call that a mite unkind of Noel. All nice girls are romantic.’

I smiled. ‘But some perhaps conceal it.’

Sybil Guthrie lit a cigarette. ‘Mr Wedderburn,’ she said, ‘is this the right way about our business?’

‘I conceive it,’ I replied gravely, ‘to be a suitable approach.’

‘Very well. And I am a romantic girl and Noel was wrong. Will you tell me just why?’

‘Consider the manner of your coming to Erchany, Miss Guthrie. Mr Gylby, who was involved with your plan at the very closest quarters, is chiefly impressed by its ingenuity and efficiency. But to one like myself, at some distance from the affair, it is its aspect as a romantic prank that is most evident. You had eminent medical testimony, I gather, that Mr Guthrie was in no sense certifiably insane, and your own covert visit to him could be of no practical utility. But you liked the excitement – the romance and excitement – of besieging the castle, of carrying it not by storm but by a ruse. You even sent a slightly flamboyant telegram to your American lawyer in London. What were you fundamentally engaged in? Family business? Not a bit of it. You were simply after adventure – and adventure seasoned with at least an appreciable spice of danger, for Mr Guthrie was a very eccentric man. Noel Gylby has been so struck by what I may term your executive ability that he has quite missed what must be called the romanticism of the underlying motive.’

Miss Guthrie manipulated a delicate veil of cigarette smoke between us. ‘And then, Mr Wedderburn, what?’

‘I am wondering whether this same impulse has not made you manipulate a little what you witnessed in the tower.’

‘You mean that Ranald Guthrie didn’t commit suicide at all?’

‘On the contrary, I am quite sure he committed suicide. Believe me that if I thought the account you gave to Mr Gylby a fundamental perversion I could not possibly consent to act for you. And now, Miss Guthrie, we had better hold the rest of our consultation on the site of the incidents involved.’

‘You mean the tower? Must we? I hate the place now.’

‘Nevertheless I think that if you will be so good, and if the police will permit us, it will be a useful move.’

My friend Inspector Speight proved good enough simply to hand me the keys of the staircase and the dead man’s study; I rejoined Miss Guthrie and together we made the laborious ascent of the tower. Once entered, I looked about me with the liveliest curiosity. Flush with the door by which we stood, and but a few feet away, was what must be the door to the little bedroom. Half-way along the left-hand wall was the French window to the battlements. In the middle of the room was a square table serving as a desk. And everywhere were books.

I was struck by the agelessness of the place: not a thing but might have held its place where it stood for generations. The late Mr Guthrie, it was to be concluded, had been of more than conservative temperament – in addition to which, of course, he had spent no penny that he could help. Half idly, I cast round for some sign of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, and found it abruptly in the form of a hand telephone on the desk. I glanced at Miss Guthrie in perplexity. ‘Surely,’ I said, ‘Erchany isn’t on the telephone!’

‘Of course not, Mr Wedderburn; we weren’t as dumb as that. The machine here must be some sort of house- telephone to the offices. I haven’t seen another in the castle.’

‘An interesting innovation of the penurious laird’s. The police, I suppose, have been most efficiently over these rooms; nevertheless I suggest that before further talk we make a little inspection of our own. Let us begin with the rifled bureau.’

The piece of furniture to which my client led me would have delighted a connoisseur, but it struck me as a most improperly fragile strong-box. Its single drawer had been broken open – a single powerful wrench would have sufficed – and in the bottom there still lay the few odd coins that had been noticed by Gylby. I stared at them, I