He phoned Tommel Castle and asked for Priscilla without remembering to disguise his voice.
“Miss Halburton-Smythe is not here,” said Jenkins.
Hamish wondered whether she was still waiting in Inverness.
He phoned the castle again and, disguising his voice, stated he was John Burlington. This time Priscilla answered the phone.
“Oh, it’s you, Hamish,” she said in a flat voice.
“I’m awfully sorry, Priscilla,” said Hamish. He told her about the chair.
“That’s all right,” said Priscilla, although her voice sounded distant. “There’s a little bit of information that might interest you. Jessie, the maid, says she saw Trixie going over to the seer’s at Coyle. You could ask him what he told her.”
When Hamish put down the phone, he thought about going over to the seer’s that evening, but decided to leave it till the morning. Angus Macdonald, the seer, had built up a reputation for being able to predict the future. Hamish thought he was an old fraud, but the local people were proud of him and believed every word he said. On the other hand, it would be unlike Trixie to go alone. She probably had taken some of her acolytes with her. He asked Angela Brodie, Mrs Wellington, and several others but they knew nothing about it. He asked Mrs Kennedy and the boarder, John Parker, and then Paul, without success.
Then he remembered that Colonel Halburton-Smythe had said he was going to take Trixie over to Mrs Haggerty’s old cottage. He looked at his watch. They would be finishing dinner at the castle and so the colonel could not accuse him of scrounging and perhaps he could talk to Priscilla and apologize again for having left her in Inverness.
But the colonel was determined Hamish was not going to be allowed anywhere near his daughter.
He told Hamish curtly that Trixie had taken several bits and pieces of old furniture.
“I’d better go and look at the place,” said Hamish, “if that’s all right with you.”
“I suppose I’d better let you have the key,” said the colonel, “but I can’t see what it’s got to do with a murder investigation.”
“I’ll look anyway,” said Hamish. “She sold some of that furniture and a chair that Angela Brodie gave her for nearly a thousand pounds at the auction in Inverness.”
“I find that hard to believe,” blustered the colonel. “Fine woman, she was. Very womanly, if you know what I mean. That lout of a husband probably sold the stuff when he was down at the dentist’s. She would not have tricked me.”
“Maybe. Let me have the key anyway. Did she say anything about going over to Angus Macdonald?”
“Not that I remember. I hope that’s an end to your questions, Macbeth. If I thought for one moment you suspected me of this murder, I would report you to your superiors.”
Hamish sadly left the castle. Priscilla must know he had been visiting for the servants would have told her. But there was no sign of her. The castle door slammed behind him, a bleak finality in the sound. He was disgusted with himself. He thought of his fevered fantasies at the station, of the way that kiss had started him dreaming again, and put Priscilla Halburton-Smythe firmly from his mind.
But there seemed to be a great black emptiness there for she had occupied his thoughts for so long.
? Death of a Perfect Wife ?
5
—
Hamish was just moving out of the police station in the Land Rover in the morning when Blair appeared, holding up a beefy hand.
“I hear ye’re going to consult the oracle,” he said with a grin.
“Meaning what?”
“It’s all over the village that Angus Macdonald is going tae solve the case by looking at his crystal balls.”
“Want to go yourself?” asked Hamish.
“I’ve got mair to dae with ma time. Typed out your report frae the dentist?”
“Why bother?” said Hamish laconically. “It’s the same stuff you got from the police in Inverness. But there’s something you should know.” He told Blair about the dealer.
“Bugger it,” said Blair. That complicates things.
“She’d probably made off with someone’s family heirloom.”
“You should ask Halburton-Smythe,” said Hamish maliciously. “He was driving her around while she looked for antiques.”
Blair’s face darkened. The Daviots had been bragging about their dinner at the castle and he had no desire to run foul of the new super by putting the colonel’s back up. “Aye, well, I might send Anderson up. This is the devil of a case. There was nae arsenic in that curry. Must hae been in something else.”
Towser, who was sitting beside Hamish, growled softly.
“You look right daft with that mongrel beside you,” sneered Blair.
“This is a highly trained police dog,” said Hamish, “and I’ve already been offered five hundred pounds for him.”
Blair’s mouth dropped in surprise as Hamish drove off.
“It wasn’t really a lie,” Hamish told Towser. “If they had any sense in this place, I’m sure they would have given me an offer for you.” Towser lolled his tongue and put a large affectionate paw on Hamish’s knee.
“Should be a woman’s hand on my knee,” said Hamish, “and not a mangy dog like yourself.”
The seer lived in a small white-washed cottage on the top of a round green hill with a winding path leading up to it. It looked like a child’s drawing. Hamish parked his vehicle at the foot of the path and began to walk up. Black storm clouds rolled across the heavens and the wind roared through a pylon overhead with a dismal shriek. At least the wind is keeping away the flies and midges, thought Hamish, leaning against its force as he walked towards the cottage. A thin column of grey smoke from one of the cottage’s chimneys was being whipped and shredded by the wind.
Angus Macdonald was a tall, thin man in his sixties. He had a thick head of white hair and a craggy face with an enormous beak of a nose. His eyes were very pale grey.
He opened the door as Hamish reached it. “So ye’ve come at last,” he said. “I knew you’d be by. Cannae solve the case?”
“And I suppose you can,” said Hamish, following the seer into his small kitchen-cum-living room.
“Aye, maybe, maybe,” said Angus. “Whit have ye brought me?”
“Nothing. What did you want? Your palm crossed with silver?”
“Folks aye bring me something. A bit o’ salmon, or a piece of venison or a homemade cake.”
“I am here to ask you to tell me as an officer of the law what you know about Trixie Thomas.”
“She’s dead,” said the seer and cackled with laughter.
“When she came to see you, what did you tell her?”
Angus lifted a black kettle from its chain over the open fire and took it over to the sink and filled it with water and then hung it back on the hook. “I’ve a bad memory these days.” he said. “Seems tae me that there’s nothing like a wee dram for bringing it to life.”
“I haven’t brought any whisky with me,” said Hamish crossly.
The seer turned from the fire and bent a penetrating gaze on Hamish. “She’ll never marry you,” he said.
The Highland part of Hamish repressed a superstitious shudder. The policeman part decided to be diplomatic.
“Look, you auld scunner,” he said, “I’ll be back in a bit with a dram. You’d better get your brains working by then.”
Angus smiled when Hamish had left and then set about making a pot of tea. The wind howled and screeched about his cottage like a banshee. He could hear nothing but the fury of the wind. He hoped Hamish would be back soon with that whisky. The wind depressed him. It seemed like a live thing, some monster howling about his cottage, seeking a way in.
