It had taken several hours to make the ascent, and Laura, who liked hard and strenuous exercise, had enjoyed it. The easier descent gave her time and a chance to do a little constructive thinking, and she pondered on all that had happened from the time she had driven Mrs Grant from the station at Tigh-Osda to when she last had encountered her boatman at Inversnaid.
She had accepted Mrs Grant’s personal reaction to the laird of Tannasgan, but she did not share it. There was a mystery because there was, somewhere, a discrepancy. The portrait which Mrs Grant had painted of an overbearing and meanly spiteful man, who used his position unfairly in order to make difficulties for people he did not care for, did not square with Laura’s own impression of a hospitable eccentric, possibly mentally deranged to some degree, but definitely kind-hearted and obviously lonely. However, Mrs Stewart of Garadh, whom she and Dame Beatrice were to visit, had not liked the laird.
Laura pigeon-holed these thoughts and reconstructed what had happened, apart from her encounter with Mrs Grant and with the laird. There was the rather odd business of the bearded stranger who, in arbitrary fashion, had called over the boat which had borne her, soaking wet, to the Island of Ghosts. He seemed to have taken it for granted that she was bound thither, and for no better reason than that they had met on the shores of the loch more or less opposite An Tigh Mor. He might have been a mere busybody, one of those irritating Helping Hands whose interference, so often, has nothing but nuisance-value, but Laura did not think so. Without possessing Dame Beatrice’s trained psychological insight, she was intelligent when it came to summing people up, and, the more she thought of it, the more convinced she was that she had been sent to the Big House purposely. Then, was it another coincidence that she had seen him again on Skye?
Again she switched her thoughts, this time to the mysterious conduct of the boatman. She had been startled at meeting him so unexpectedly in the boathouse at that time of night, but had accepted his presence as one of the idiosyncrasies of the household. His subsequent dogging of her footsteps and his insistence upon her agreeing to furnish him with what seemed to be an alibi, together with his chameleon-like changes of speech and behaviour, added up to something remarkably like a man with a guilty conscience or else to a man who was afraid that, although he was innocent of any part in the murder, his presence at the Big House might implicate him. Laura could not help wondering how much he knew of the reason why the laird had come to his death in the manner in which this had occurred. A
By the time she had turned these thoughts over in her mind and had built various theories upon them, the climbers reached the refreshment hut, where they stayed for a quarter of an hour. After this, Laura dismissed the murder and turned to the scenery. From a spur on the ridge which they reached a little later, they halted to admire the northern face of Ben Nevis, impressively different from the humped and uninteresting mass which is the usual picture of the highest mountain in Britain.
The precipices here were so steep that they seemed living giants literally pouring themselves headlong into the glen. The escarpments cut the sky-line in sharp silhouette and the crags looked monumental. Two enormous shoulders jutted out in strong support of the magnificence of the scene. The mountain dominated the light-blue sky.
As the party continued to descend, Laura thought she might suggest to Dame Beatrice, when she got back, that they should remain at the hotel another day and walk along Glen Nevis, but by the time they reached Fort William she had thought better of it. She badly wanted to contact Mrs Grant again and obtain her reactions to the death of the laird, therefore to use up another day for the walk would be to put off this interesting encounter and would be a waste of time, she decided; so when Dame Beatrice enquired at what time they should order the car in the morning, Laura plumped for a nine o’clock start and they set off promptly at that hour for Inverness.
They stopped for coffee at half-past ten and, as they sat at the small table, Dame Beatrice said:
‘What was it you told me about the appearance of the laird of Tannasgan?’
‘Big, red-headed, red-bearded and with a wild and bright blue eye.’
‘Yes. I shall be glad to meet your Mrs Grant.’
‘Why, particularly?’
‘I am most interested to find out whether, as you two seemed not to see eye to eye in the matter of the laird’s nature and character, you are equally at variance in describing his looks.’
‘Oh?’
Dame Beatrice said no more, but finished her coffee and led the way out. George was talking to the driver of a motor-coach which had pulled up for the coffee-break. As soon as he saw his employer, he nodded to the man and came back to the car.
‘The driver of the coach-party tells me the Loch Ness monster has been seen again, madam,’ he said.
‘I bet it’s gone again, too,’ said Laura. ‘Always my luck! When was this, George?’
‘Yesterday evening, Mrs Gavin, just before sunset.’
‘Yes, she prefers the beginning and the end of the day when she decides to surface. Oh, well, it’s just one of those things. Do you believe in her, George?’
George permitted himself a slight smile.
‘You should hear some of the stories I’ve heard!’ he replied. ‘Skin divers who’ve gone down to look for her and never been seen again, and others who’ve come up, but can’t speak of what they’ve experienced because it’s too horrible, and others who’ve fallen out of boats, and their bodies never recovered. It’s all fairy tales, if you ask
‘Leaving all that aside – it may or may not be true, of course – what do you think yourself, George?’
‘Well, Mrs Gavin, they never expected to find a live coelacanth, did they?’
Laura nodded, well pleased with this contribution from a fellow-believer, and, judging it best to leave matters in this satisfactory state, she joined Dame Beatrice, who was already established on the back seat of the car, and said no more. George slammed the door, took his seat at the wheel, and off they drove.
Inverness offered its usual impression of narrow streets, a broad shallow river, bridges, a modern castle and a general air of knowing that the city was the capital of the Highlands. After dinner they went out to see some Highland dancing. The dancers were children of tender years; in fact, the youngest was four years old, and, because of this, the belle of the ball. She danced sedately, in her own time and rhythm, with an engaging singleness of purpose, for she was, at times, completely divorced from the rest of the set. Whether she was enjoying herself it was impossible for the charmed and sentimental onlookers to tell, but her concentration and sense of heavy responsibility were there for all to see.
