Cold, Lone and Still

remedy. Better, he said, to push on and get a longer rest at the end of the day.

‘What of the students?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘I understand from Mr Melrose that they too preferred to linger a little on The Way.’ (That, of course, although again I did not remember telling anybody about it, had begun at Inchcailloch, the Loch Lomond island which Hera and I had not visited. It was to do with the geological survey.) However, it did not seem that there had been any more serious disputes among the party. The men, in fact, had taken it in turns to carry Jane’s rucksack as well as their own, the exception being Trickett, who said that, with the extra equipment the geologists carried, he was physically incapable of knight-errantry.

‘Did you yourself lend a hand to beauty in distress?’ said Dame Beatrice to Perth.

‘Oo aye, I did my share, but the going, in some places, was verra severe on a lassie wi’ sair feet, even if she wasna hampered wi’ her gear.’

‘Would you say that any one person in the party took a particular dislike to Carbridge?’ asked Dame Beatrice. Perth shook his head and answered that the nearest to that would be the two clerks, Tansy and Rhoda. For one thing, he said, Tansy in particular had an eye on Todd and found Carbridge, with his extreme mateyness and his determination to keep his flock together and permit no straying for purposes of dalliance, extremely frustrating and irritating.

‘Although I’m bound to tell ye,’ said Perth, ‘that the man Todd showed nae disposition to respond to her female wiles. Gin his een strayed ony place when Miss Camden wisna wi’ us, it would hae been that he lookit at the student Patsy Carlow.’

I said nothing, but I could have remarked that, if Todd’s thoughts were on Hera, he would hardly have looked twice at Tansy, anyway. Although, as I had thought when first I met her and Rhoda, Tansy was probably kind- hearted, she could scarcely be called glamorous. The forthcoming and much younger Patsy might be a different proposition.

‘The twa clerks left the party at Crianlarich,’ Perth went on. ‘They didna spend the night at the hostel, but went on to Fort William and there we met them again. Myself and the students spent three days in the hills and slept at the Crianlarich youth hostel, while the ither four — Todd, Carbridge and the Minches, went on. We were a wee thing hindered by mist, but guid work was done to the satisfaction o’ the students and we also took transport, as did the women Parks and Green, to get ourselves to Fort William.’

‘Did you do anything there apart from climbing the mountain?’ asked Laura.

‘Oo, aye. There are shops in the toon, ye’ll ken, and lassies always go wild when there are shops. Souvenirs were purchased and displayed, for, as we were all intending to take the train when we had put in three nights at the youth hostel at Fort William, there was little need to fash about a little extra weight in the packs and the students could leave everything at the hostel while we climbed the mountain.’

‘What kind of things did they buy?’ asked Laura.

‘Och, what you would expect. Rhoda had a tweed for a skirt, Patsy bought Todd a wee present of a knife and Tansy, also fu’ of improper thoughts about Todd, I’m thinking, purchased, at an awfu’ lang price — but, of course, she earned money in her job — she bought him a knife, too. It was a genuine antique. Patsy’s knife was an imitation of a sgian dubh.’

‘A sgian dubh, eh?’ said Laura.

‘Ye’ll be thinking on the murder,’ said Perth, ‘but gin ye think yon man Todd would stab a fellow creature in the back, as I am telled was done tae Carbridge, ye hae Todd summed up wrangly, Mistress Gavin.’

‘The stabbing, as I understand it, was only a coup de grace in case the strangling hadn’t done the job completely,’ I reminded the company.

‘Oo, aye, verra like,’ agreed Perth. ‘I hae to tell ye, mistress,’ he added, addressing Laura again, ‘as I hae been speired at tae mention purchases, that Jane Minch made purchase of some beautiful notepaper wi’ headings o’ the Loch Ness monster and various flowers and birds and knights on horseback — verra fine indeed.’

‘From the Malin Workshop in Claggan Road,’ I said. ‘Hera bought some, too. Beautiful drawings. Hedderwick, I remember, is the artist’s name. Did anybody else purchase anything in the nature of a weapon?’

‘The maist o’ them made a purchase,‘ said Perth,’but naebody else bought a knife. There was the fake sgian dubh and the knife bought by the woman Tansy Parks. She had it frae a shop which sold antiques. I was wi’ her when she bought it and I wrestled vairbally wi’ the proprietor on her behalf tae hae the price reduced. “Ye’ll ne’er get your money for that bauble,” I was telling him. “A’ the visitors are requiring are souvenirs. Not by ony length is that knife a souvenir o’ a trip to Fort William. It’s no even o’ Scottish manufacture.” ’

‘So what sort of dagger was it?’ asked Laura.

‘I am not convairsant wi’ the history o’ dirks, but, according tae the man, it was Spanish-made in about 1878, and to my mind there was naething so verra special aboot it. It was not what I would ca’ an object o’ distinction, but the lassie fancied it. It was broadish and the blade would ha’ been, in my reckoning, aboot seven inches in length and the knife overall aboot fifteen inches, but there wasna a sheath wi’ it. He had anither, a verra superior specimen, wi’ a tortoiseshell and mother o’ pearl handle, but the price was quite inordinate, so she took the first ane.’

‘What made her choose such an object?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘She said she wanted to mak’ a gift of it, but she didna then say to whom. As I telled ye, my thought upon it was that she intended to gift it to Todd.’

‘What you tell us is of the greatest interest,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Do the police know about all this?’

‘I dinna ken.’

We learned later what had happened to Patsy’s knife. Chagrined to find her gift redundant when she discovered the destination of Tansy’s purchase, she had raffled it when the students got back and it had been won by Freddie Brown.

15: Talking Things Over

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