“Blair doesn’t know his arse from his elbow,” said Mr Johnson roundly. The bell rang on the reception desk outside. He hurried to answer it. Hamish listened, amused, to the sudden horrible refinement of the hotel manager’s accent. “Oh, yes, Major Finlayson, sir,” twittered Mr Johnson. “We have a very good cellar, and Monsieur Pierre, our maitre d’, will be delighted to discuss our wine list with you. Is modom well? Good, good. Grand day for the fishing, ha, ha.”
“Silly old fart,” said the manager, walking into the office and shutting the door. “I hate wine snobs.”
“Who in the name o’ the wee man is Monsieur Pierre?” asked Hamish.
“Och, it’s Jimmy Cathcart from Glasgow. He thought it would look better if he pretended to be French. Mind you, when we get the French tourists, he says he’s American. Now, what about this murder, Hamish?”
Hamish looked hopefully towards the coffee machine in the corner.
Mr Johnson took the hint and poured him out a cup.
Hamish sat down, nursing his cup of coffee, and described his findings.
“But you can’t just leave it there!” exclaimed Mr Johnson when Hamish had finished.
“It is not my murder. It is Blair’s.”
“Good heavens! That man couldn’t find his own hands if they weren’t attached to his arms. Are you going to let a murderer roam around on the loose? He might murder again.”
“It’s not my case,” said Hamish stubbornly. He drank his coffee in one gulp and put the cup down on the desk. “To tell you the truth, I no longer care if the whole damn lot of them up at that castle drop dead tomorrow.”
? Death of a Cad ?
7
one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
—saki.
By early evening, the mist had thickened. Hamish was able to make out some figures clustered around the outside of the police station. He quietly made his way around to the back door so as to avoid the gentlemen of the press.
The thick mist had blotted out all sound. Hamish fried a couple of herring for his dinner and gave Towser a bowl of Marvel Dog, a new dog food given to him free by the local shop to try out. Towser ate a mouthful and then tottered around the kitchen, making dismal retching sounds.
“What a clown you are,” said Hamish. “You know I brought home some liver just in case you didn’t like Marvel Dog. Sit yourself down until it’s cooked.”
He had been feeling calm and peaceful just before his return home, but as he lifted down the heavy frying pan – Towser liked his liver medium rare – he was overcome by another wave of sadness. Was this what the future held for him?
Chatting away in the evenings to a spoilt mongrel?
There came a sharp, impatient knocking on the front door. Hamish hesitated. He began to wonder if his relative, Rory Grant, who worked in London for the
He put the pan on the stove and dumped the liver into it and then cautiously tiptoed his way to the front door. He pulled aside the lace curtain at the window at the side of the door. In the misty half-light, he could just make out the sharp features of Detective Jimmy Anderson, Blair’s underling.
Cursing his own curiosity, he unlocked the door. “Come in quickly,” said Hamish. “I’ve been avoiding the press.”
“They’ve had short shrift from Blair,” said Anderson. “But headquarters in Strathbane phoned the news of the murder to the local paper after Blair told them about it. They’ll have phoned Fleet Street. The Scottish television stations are here and all the Scottish papers from Dumfries to John o’Groat’s. You’d think they’d never had a murder in Scotland before.”
“It’s a rich-folks’ murder,” said Hamish, “and that makes a world o’difference. Come ben.”
Anderson followed Hamish into the kitchen and stood watching as Hamish seized the frying pan and turned the liver over.
“That smells good,” said Anderson. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”
“It’s no’ for me,” said Hamish, blushing. “It’s fur ma dog.”
“I bet ye buy it presents for its birthday,” jeered Anderson.
“Don’t be daft,” said Hamish furiously, remembering with shame that he had bought Towser a new basket for his birthday just last month. “What brings you here?”
“The fact is,” said Anderson, “I could do with a dram.”
“Oh, aye? And you staying in splendour at Tommel Castle.”
“I rang the bell to ask for a drink,” said Anderson, his sharp blue eyes roaming about the kitchen as if searching for a whisky bottle, “and that berk, Jenkins, answered. “Police are not to ring bells for the servants,” he says. “I’ll remember that, mac,” says I. “Just fetch me a drink.” “Colonel Halburton-Smythe’s instructions,” says he, “but the officers of the law are not to imbibe intoxicating liquor while on duty and will take their meals in the servants’ hall.” I told thon old ponce where he could put his servants’ meals and he told the colonel, who told Blair, and Blair’s gone all creepy and told me I’d better take a walk until he calmed the colonel down.”
“I might have something,” said Hamish, piling the liver into Towser’s bowl. “Then again, I might not.”
“I thought,” said Anderson, staring at the ceiling, “that perhaps you might like to get a run-down on all the statements.”
“I’m not on the case,” said Hamish, “but come through to the living room and I’ll see what I can do.”
Hamish’s living room was not often used. It did not even boast a television set. Bookshelves lined the walls, and the mantelpiece was crammed with various trophies, which Anderson examined. “You seem to have won everything,” he commented. “Hill running, clay-pigeon shooting, angling competition, even chess! Bring in much money?”
“The hill running does, and the angling,” said Hamish, “and sometimes the shooting if it’s at a big game fair. But often the prize is something like a salmon or a bottle of whisky.”
He took out a glass and began to fill it with whisky.
“Steady on,” said Anderson. “I’ll need some water in that.”
“It’s watered already,” said Hamish, “and don’t ask me why, for I cannae be bothered telling you.” For although Hamish did not mind discussing the laird’s wife’s penchant for topping up the prize bottles of whisky with water with the locals or Priscilla, he had no intention of running down the good lady’s reputation to an outsider.
“Here’s to you,” said Anderson. “Round the wallies, round the gums, look out, stomach, here it comes.”
“Chust so,” said Hamish stolidly. He studied Anderson covertly. Anderson was a thin, restless man with oily fair hair and a discontented foxy face. Of the three, Blair, McNab, and Anderson, Hamish had, in the past, found Anderson the most approachable.
The last thing’, said Anderson, “that I heard before I left was that forensic had taken a gun out of the gun room. It was a John Rigby. They’ve taken it back to Strathbane to double-check, but they’re sure as anything it was cleaned right after the murder. Could the murderer have switched cartridges, seeing as how Bartlett had a Purdey and he had a John Rigby?”
“The Rigby’s a twelve-bore, isn’t it?” asked Hamish.
Anderson nodded.
“Any twelve-bore cartridge goes into any twelve-bore gun.”
“How long would it take to clean a shotgun?”
“About five minutes,” said Hamish. “You put a little gun-cleaning fluid into each barrel and then you scrub the inside of each barrel with a phosphor-bronze brush. Then you put a patch on the jag – that’s a wee piece of
