Laura thought it best to ignore this insult to her Highland ancestry. She nodded in her turn and followed Dame Beatrice into the open air.
‘Do you still want to put in the rest of the day here?’ her employer asked, when Laura told her that the man, Grant or Campbell, had booked in at the hotel and had spent the night under the same roof as themselves.
‘But perhaps the encounter had spoilt the place for you.’
‘No, of course not. What do you yourself feel about it?’
‘That, if you go off by yourself, I shall feel happier if you borrow a stout ashplant from the array which I noticed in the glassed-in porch.’
‘By no means a bad idea, although I’m hardly likely to meet our friend on the slopes of Ben Lomond.’
‘One never knows. You are proposing to climb, then?’
‘On second thoughts, said to be best, I believe I’d like to leave here after lunch and make for Fort William, where we’re booked for a bed tonight, so I shall give Ben Lomond a miss and take a scramble up the steps beside the falls and come back by road. But there’s no hurry for that. The weather, praise be, is fine, so we might as well take a seat out here and meditate. I always like an after-breakfast cigarette.’
It was while she was enjoying this as they sat on an uncomfortable bench provided by the hotel, that Grant- Campbell came back for a late breakfast. Either he did not notice (the seat was well below the level of the gravel forecourt of the hotel), or else he avoided looking at them, for he marched straight to the glassed-in porch and passed into the entrance hall.
Laura decided to stay where she was, in order to see what he did and where he went when he emerged. He did not keep her very long. After about thirty-five minutes he came out again and descended the rough flight of steps to board the hotel launch.
Laura earnestly hoped that they had seen the last of him, but this was not the case. He conferred for a short time with the two men who ran the launch as a ferry service, climbed the steps again, paused, and looked about him, then saw Laura. With a slightly exaggerated bow, which was intended to include Dame Beatrice, he asked whether he might share the seat with them. Laura scowled, but her employer gave the interloper an encouraging leer and moved up to give him room to sit down.
‘A pleasant prospect,’ she observed, waving a proprietory hand towards Loch Lomond. ‘Are you staying here long?’
‘I’m staying here as long as you do,’ he replied. I’m in trouble and I need this lady’s help. I don’t know why she refuses it.’
‘Possibly because she has not been told in sufficient detail why you solicit it. Should you not put all your cards on the table?’
‘Should I? Can I trust you?’
‘How do I know?’
‘Well, I can’t be worse off. I’m certain to be arrested, anyway.’
‘Even if Mrs Gavin and I are able to succour you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know! I’ve been on Mrs Gavin’s trail ever since the night I rowed her across the loch, hoping she’d consent to speak up for me when the time came. But women are flint-hearted, even when a man’s life may be at stake.’
‘But what makes you believe that Mrs Gavin
‘Because,’ said the young man, ‘Cu Dubh was murdered just as I was tying up the boat to set Mrs Gavin ashore, so, if there is any trouble, it will be up to her to clear me.’
Chapter 6
The Piper’s Tune
‘…
« ^ »
‘INTERESTING,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Pray go on.’
‘I can do you the next bit myself,’ said Laura, ‘but we’d better have the revised version.’
The young man looked at her with loathing.
It’s no revised version you’ll be getting, but the authorised account,’ he protested, ‘and you can check it against your own knowledge. Now, then!’
‘My own knowledge isn’t extensive,’ said Laura, assuming a meekness she did not feel, but aware that Dame Beatrice did not want the witness antagonised beyond the point which had been reached. ‘Carry on. We’re all agog.’
‘I went to Tannasgan in answer to a letter from my uncle.’
