My Bones Will Keep

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‘AND what are we supposed to make of that tale?’ asked Laura, when young Grant had gone.

‘What are your own reactions?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Those of Sherlock Holmes and the dog.’

‘Yes, I noticed that point. I suppose you would have been bound to hear the bell if he had rung for the boat to be brought over?’

‘Absolutely. It’s a fine big bell and rings out like the knell of doom and, whatever my shortcomings, I’m not hard of hearing. So the bell, like the dog, did nothing in the night. You know, we shall need to check that whole story with the Corries.’

‘You would regard them as reliable witnesses?’

‘I don’t really know. She struck me very favourable, but one can’t go by that. The point is whether their story fits young Grant’s and, if it doesn’t, we’ve got a platform from which to question him. Anyway, now that I know he’s a reporter, I shall give up suspecting him of being the murderer.’

‘Why should you do that? Did you not notice that there was another point on which his account of the evening differed from yours?’

‘Was there? Let’s see, now. Ah, I’ve got it! The piping. According to him – let’s see – he left Edinburgh at five, when the Conference rose, and went to Loch na Greine on his motor-bike. It’s – good gracious me! – it’s a sheer stark impossibility!’

‘Did you not realise that, while he was talking?’

‘No, I didn’t I believe I was thinking of Inverness, not Edinburgh. So he actually had the crust to think he could persuade us that on two successive evenings he rode from Edinburgh at five and got to Lock na Greine and across to Tannasgan before I left at about half-past ten. He must be crazy to think we’d swallow it.’

‘But you did swallow it,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out. She cackled harshly and Mrs Stewart, who had been a silent, interested listener while her fingers had been busy on the never-ending knitting of the Scotswoman, joined in with an appreciative chuckle.

Laura grinned and acknowledged the palpable hit, protesting, however, that she had spotted the lie about the time he had heard the piping and that when she had thought over young Grant’s story she would have seen the light about the journeys from Edinburgh.

‘What do you think happened, then?’ she asked.

‘He did ride to Loch na Greine, that is certain,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘My guess, for what it is worth, is that he spent the night somewhere en route and came to the island on the same night as you did. It will be interesting to find out why he told such an obvious lie, and we must interview the Corries, as you say.’

‘If the police have been questioning them—and they must have done so – they may not be in much of a mood to confide in us,’ said Laura. ‘Mrs Corrie was a sweet soul so far as I was concerned, but I wouldn’t put it past her to be very, very sticky if she felt like it. As for Corrie, I didn’t hear him utter a word. All he did was to bring in the dishes at dinner and collect up as we finished each course. He might have been a deaf mute for all that I could tell.’

‘Well, you assert, on no evidence at all (so far as I can see), that young Grant is not the murderer,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘so who is your candidate? I gather you do not suspect the Corries?’

‘Well, I don’t know about him. And, somehow, I can’t see my eccentric red-beard in the role. What do you think?’

‘I have no idea, but I look forward to meeting him. Let us hope that he is still at An Tigh Mor.’

The following two days passed pleasantly and talk of the murder was shelved. Dame Beatrice sat on Mrs Stewart’s broad terrace above the rock gardens and gazed at the sea and the mass of Ben Caraid, or read Professor John Dover Wilson on What Happens in Hamlet. Laura was carted round the garden, again in remorseless and systematic fashion, by her hostess, and heard a great many more Latin names than she expected to be able to remember, but the sea and the mountains which surrounded the gardens were satisfying and soothing, and her hostess’s gentle voice and Edinburgh speech were music in the ears of one who had lived long in southern England.

The murder of the laird of Tannasgan was not mentioned again until they were ready to leave Garadh. Then Mrs Stewart said:

‘I suppose, Beatrice, nothing will satisfy you until you’ve had a finger in the Tannasgan pie, but if you’ll take my advice, which, from a lifetime of knowledge of you, I am perfectly sure you will not, you will keep away from An Tigh Mor. Everybody knows there’s a curse on the place, and although, the Dear kens, I am not a superstitious body, there are things better not meddled with, and what has gone on in The Big House will be one of them, I’m thinking.’

‘If I took your advice, Laura wouldn’t,’ stated Dame Beatrice. ‘She regards herself as a heaven-sent investigator of crime and thinks that Tannasgan is her especial province.’

‘Well, well, if you’ll not take my advice, at least have a care of yourselves.’

‘We always do that,’ said Laura. ‘I take care of Mrs Croc. and she takes care of me. Besides, she always totes a small gat on these little expeditions of ours. It scares me stiff. I can’t abide firearms, but I suppose it would be a very present help in time of trouble.’

They did not call in at the post office, but at Crioch Laura swam. Miraculously the weather still held up. There was a clear, almost Greek, light over the beautiful bay and a shimmer on the level, wet sands. The water, to Laura’s powerful, vigorous body, did not even strike cold. When she was dressed they had coffee in the hotel lounge before they took the turning for the Loch called Coig Eich, the Five Horses, and the winding hilly road to Tigh-Osda and Tannasgan.