He looked. The hairs on his hands were picked out by the light; there was a small fleck of white paint on one knuckle. He closed his eyes and concluded his prayer. “And I ask one final thing,”
he muttered. “I ask that you restore to me my dog.”
He rose to his feet and looked about him. How foolish, he thought, to imagine that words uttered by him could change the world in the slightest way, what a massive, sentimental delusion!
But then the telephone rang. Angus gave a start, and then crossed the room to answer. For a second or two, he imagined that his prayer had brought results and that the call would bring news of Cyril. But that, he knew, was not how the world worked.
The world was one of chance, a biological lottery, not one ruled by eternal verities and design. Prayer was a wishful-thinking conversation with self; that’s what he told himself. Of course he knew that.
He picked up the telephone. It was his lawyer, George More, on the other end. “Come round to the office,” said the lawyer.
“There’s somebody here who’s looking forward to seeing you again.”
Angus frowned. Who could George have in the office? Then he heard, coming down the line, a bark.
say something memorable – which nobody ever did – and in walked Angus Lordie, with –
Cyril barked once or twice, but for the most part accepted the fuss calmly and with dignity. Unfamiliar hands ruffled the fur on his head, stroked him, patted him vigorously on the back, all of which he took in his stride, for this is what humans do to dogs, and Cyril understood his place.
Angus, glowing with pleasure, ordered his drink from the bar and the dish of beer for Cyril. Then he went over to his table, where friends were ready to ply him with questions.
“He’s been acquitted?”
“What happened at the trial?”
“Is he on probation?”
None of these questions were relevant, and Angus simply shook his head. Then he began to explain.
“I received a telephone call this morning,” he said. “I must admit I was feeling somewhat low, and I almost didn’t answer the phone. Thank heavens I did! There was George More on the line and he said . . .” He looked down at Cyril, who had finished his beer and was looking up at his master, his eyes damp with contentment.
“He said,” Angus continued, “that he had acted on the information which we passed on – information about the real culprit, which that funny wee boy in Scotland Street . . .”
“Bertie,” prompted Maggie. “The one with the . . .”
“With the mother,” said Harry.
Angus nodded. “Anyway, George said to me that he had been in touch with the powers that be and told them that we intended to lodge a special defence of incrimination. Apparently, that’s what you do when you say that it wasn’t you, it was somebody else.
256
“Apparently, this caused disarray at the other end, because nobody has ever lodged that defence in a case involving a dog.
And there was the additional issue of whether or not any of the defences normally available in a criminal trial would be able to be applied to a dog. Nobody at the Crown Office seemed to know!”
“So?” asked Maggie, reaching down to pat Cyril again.
“So the fiscal asked the police to go and see if they could find the dog in question. Which they did . . . with very convenient results. Convenient for us, that is.”
Angus looked about him at the expressions of his friends.
“They found that dog all right,” he went on. “They found him and the dog very obligingly bit one of the policemen on the shins. Not a bad bite – just a nip really, but enough to suggest that the finger was pointing in the right direction.”
There were expressions of satisfaction all round. Most people in the Cumberland Bar had been convinced of Cyril’s innocence, and this result merely confirmed what they had always believed.
Now they crowded round Angus, sharing his manifest joy and relief.
“I can get back to work now,” Angus said, smiling. “I haven’t been able to paint a thing – not a thing.”
His friends nodded in sympathy. And when, an hour or so later, Angus rose to go home, they raised their glasses to Cyril as he walked past, a triumph of sorts, a victory march. Cyril wagged his tail and his gold tooth flashed in the light. “He’s a very great dog,” said the barman. “Would you just look at him?
One of the finest dogs of his generation.”
As they made their way out onto Dundonald Street, Cyril raised his head and sniffed at the air. There were the familiar smells of Drummond Place, the smell of the gardens in the centre, the sharp smell of oil on the stone setts, a cooking smell from somewhere close by, the smell of damp. All of that was there, but there was something else, a smell so exciting that Cyril quivered in anticipation.
