Grant finished his drink, and poured himself another.
‘I don’t know him,’ he said. ‘Let me give you a wee drop more whisky.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Then some more sherry for you, ma’am?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Right. Then let us be on our way. It’s curious I am to see this island of yours.’ He drank off the dram he had poured for himself and heaved himself out of his chair. I’ll not trouble to fasten the door, although the lassie who’s to look to me has a key.’
A point occurred to Laura. The servant was no longer afraid to be left with her master while the wife was away from home. So much was clear, but the significance of it, if any, eluded her. She led the way to Dame Beatrice’s car and addressed the stocky chauffeur.
‘Back to that island, George. We’re taking Mr Grant to vet it for us, to make sure it really
‘I shall have to move my bus,’ said Grant. ‘It’s blocking your man’s way out.’ He climbed into the station wagon and backed it as far as the bridge. In the ooze of the river bank he brought it out of the way of the other car. George reversed until he found room to turn, picked up Grant and drove cautiously on to the narrow, winding road.
They were soon at the landing-stage opposite Tannasgan. Here Grant leaned back.
‘Yon’s Tannasgan and this is Loch na Greine,’ he said. ‘You were not deceived. And the Black One was found chained to the jetty, his body in the water, was he not? Well, well! It’s a strange thing, that.’
Laura turned round.
‘Not in the water. In a barrel in the water,’ she said. ‘By the way, what were you doing in Inverness? And why didn’t you come home when you were supposed to? Your wife seemed terribly worried about you.’
If she expected to surprise or discomfit Grant, she was disappointed. He half-closed his eyes and answered:
‘Well, do you see, I was kidnapped.’
Laura found this incredible.
‘But Inverness isn’t Chicago,’ she protested.
‘No, no, Inverness isn’t Chicago,’ he agreed, ‘but kidnapped I was, although not held to ransom. I was released in Tomnahurich Street after being blindfolded before we left the hotel!’
‘What hotel would that have been, I wonder? I know Inverness pretty well, you see, so I’m interested.’
‘The one I always use when my business takes me to Inverness. Maybe you wouldn’t dignify it by the name of hotel, but it’s a most respectable place, or so I always thought. That has been my reason for staying there. However, after I had had my dinner that night, three gentlemen came up as I was drinking my coffee and asked me, with civility, would I make a fourth at bridge. I was willing and went with them to a private sitting-room they’d hired.’
‘In the hotel?’
‘Certainly. It was a room on the second floor, but I did not take note of the number. Well, we played for a couple of hours and I won a few shillings – the stakes were very low, otherwise I would not have played – and then they sent down for drinks and the drinks came up with a bit of a sour face on the waiter because it was late, and the next thing I knew was that I woke up in broad daylight with a splitting headache and a bad taste in my mouth, to find one of the villains at my bedside with a gun in his fist.’
‘ “You’ll stay in this room and we’ll have your meals sent up,” he said.
‘ “Like hell,” I told him.
‘ “Keep your good health,” he said, fingering the gun in a meaningful kind of way. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
‘ “But what’s the idea?” I asked. He shook his head and said he’d be hanged if he knew, but he had his orders. I thought it was something of a shady deal connected with my work and I was to be kept out of the way until it was through. That gave me something to think about. I asked him what was contemplated. He didn’t know, or, if he knew, he wouldn’t say. I asked him whether it had anything to do with the hydro-electrical work I was engaged on. He said it might have, and then, again, it might not. He was only a hired gun and did as he was told and didn’t ask questions.’
‘Didn’t you – couldn’t you reach a bell or anything?’ asked Laura.
‘I could not, without the risk of having a hole blown in me. The fellow seemed amiable enough, but he had an eye like that of a very dead fish and a mouth like a bit of steel cable. I wasn’t prepared to take chances. He must have known that the thought of trying to escape had crossed my mind, though, for he advised me not to try any funny business – those were his words – because the hotel people knew I’d been carried up to bed dead drunk the night before, and had been told that I’d had a nasty knock on the head at work and wasn’t fully responsible for anything I did or said.’
‘He didn’t mention that the laird of Tannasgan had been murdered?’
‘He did not. Anyway, how could he have known? Inverness is a long way from Tannasgan.’
‘No,’ said Laura thoughtfully, ‘he did not know, and the chief reason, apart from what you say, is that it hadn’t happened as soon as that. What did you do when they released you?’
‘Nothing. They escorted me down the stairs and I paid my score at the desk and then all three of them came with the car into which they pushed me and when the car stopped they just told me to get out. I did that, and waited until the car had turned the corner into Ardross Street and then I went to our Inverness office to transact the business I’d come to see about and told them the tale. I could see that they didn’t believe a word of it.’
