My Bones Will Keep

‘Our slumbering red-beard?’ suggested Dame Beatrice.

‘Yes. I told you about his fixation on fabulous animals, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, indeed you did. The discovery of this very permanent-looking stonework raises the question of whether An Tigh Mor was really the dead laird’s home – or, rather, whether the house we have just vacated is An Tigh Mor. I shall be interested to talk with our friend when he is able to carry on a conversation. Some of your suspicions may be justified.’

After a further study of the group, which was carved in Portland stone except for the basilisk, which, owing to its serpentine shape, was of bronze, they were about to find out whether the path continued among the trees on the other side of the clearing when they caught the sound of George’s police-whistle. They returned to their boat and were soon on the return journey to Tannasgan. George was at the boathouse to meet them, his heavy spanner in his hand. Taller by a head, and leaning on a cromach, the red-bearded man stood beside him and helped to pull the boat in. Laura stepped ashore and held out a hand to Dame Beatrice.

‘Well, well,’ said the tenant of An Tigh Mor. ‘To what will I be indebted for this honour?’

Laura gravely introduced him to Dame Beatrice as ‘my host and benefactor of some days ago, of whom I told you.’

‘Is Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth my name,’ said the man. It was a statement and, Laura felt with some reason, an alias.

‘That’s a very fine cromach,’ she said, indicating the walking-stick.

‘Ah, but the callant here has a spanner.’ said Malcolm Donalbain Macbeth. ‘Up to the house with you, till you tell me what way you stole off like a thief in the night when I was after offering you hospitality for a week.’

‘Dame Beatrice wants a word with you first,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘We only waited until you woke up. Is the whisky out of you?’

He took no manner of offense at this blunt question, but led the way to the house.

Chapter 11

The Big House Again

‘There sometimes doth a leaping fish

Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;

The crags repeat the ravens’ croak

In symphony austere.’

Wordsworth

« ^ »

‘NOW,’ said Macbeth, when they were seated in a well-furnished room whose windows overlooked the loch, ‘what will be your business with me?’

‘The death of the Laird of Tannasgan, whose house this was,’ Dame Beatrice replied. He looked at her out of his very bright blue eyes and puffed out smoke from the pipe he had filled and lighted.

‘What had you to do with the laird?’ he asked at last.

‘Nothing.’ Dame Beatrice gave back look for look.

‘Then his death will be none of your business.’

‘I do not endorse that opinion.’

‘Your reason?’

‘Mrs Gavin here, my secretary and close friend, may have been in this house, or, at any rate, in this neighbourhood, when the murder was committed. What is more, she has been followed and accosted by a man who was here at the same time as herself. He wants her to give him an alibi for the time of the murder – or thereabouts – and had made a considerable nuisance of himself.’

There was another interval of silence. Macbeth, his eyes now veiled, puffed away. Dame Beatrice waited. Laura, who had received no cue, stared at the carpet.

‘You wish me to say that I am prepared to co-operate with you?’ asked the red-bearded man at last. ‘I’ll need to give thought to that. I was bidden here by the laird. Did you ken that I was his cousin?’

‘No, that is news to me.’

‘And I am his heir.’

‘I see. That could mean that you had an interest of a selfish kind of his death.’

‘It could. Well, now, I hold to my opinion that you are meddling, but if it will rid me of your company to speir at me what I know, then speir away.’

‘You have been questioned by the police?’

‘I have that.’

‘With what result?’

‘They went away very discontented. I was just no help at all.’