predicament. Both were here round about the time of the murder. If the police question Mrs Gavin, naturally she wants to know exactly where she stands. Of course, she possesses no guilty knowledge, but we want to be sure that the police will accept that as a fact. We are asking you for help.’
‘Ay.’ He stroked a craggy chin. ‘I can tell you all I ken, but it willna help Mrs Gavin ower much, I’m thinking. The old laird might hae been still alive while she was here, and I couldna swear she didna kill him.’
Laura was speechless, but Dame Beatrice appeared to take only the most casual interest in this damaging statement.
‘Oh?’ she said. ‘How do you know that he might have been alive while Mrs Gavin was here?’
‘I was telling you about the reiver of a young Grant.’
‘Oh, yes. You rowed across to the mainland and went off to telephone, leaving the boat tied up, and when you came back .’
‘Ay. When I came back it was across on the other side.’
‘So you turned the lantern and rang the handbell?’
‘Na, na. Naething o’ the kind. That would have vexed the laird. I whustled.’
‘You—?’
‘He whistled,’ said Laura.
‘Ah, yes. And what happened then?’
‘Then my guid wife left her cooking and brought the boat across. A rare cuddy she called me, but I pointed out that not the biggest gowk in Scotland would leave his boat the wrong side o’ the water. It was then she told me o’ this young journalist frae the Freagair paper, and how he was wanting speech wi’ Mr Macbeth, but Mr Macbeth – wouldna see him but had gi’en orders that when I was home I was to throw him into the loch.’
‘Which order you were prepared to carry out because he had pinched your boat and left you high and dry,’ said Laura. Corrie’s grim face creased into a smile.
‘I was fully prepared to gie him the length o’ my tongue, but it’s ill to maltreat the Press, and I was considering what best to do, when the laird came out of the dining-room and speired at me what I had been hearing on the telephone, for I had felt bound to tell him what my orders were.’
‘Now you said you thought the old laird was still alive while Mrs Gavin was here,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘May we return to that point?’
‘I hae na left it, mistress. Ye gie me no time. I ken verra weel that the old laird was alive while Mrs Gavin was here. It was himself that I rang up on the telephone.’
‘I see. You are certain, I suppose, that it was his voice you heard?’
‘It was that, then. I had to ring him up to find out whether he wanted a car to be ready for him at Tigh-Osda railway station and, if so, at what time. He did wish a car and he told me the time of the train should be in.’
‘So, having rung off, you telephoned the garage for a car.
‘There’s no’ a garage, but the station-master obliges when he kens the person who wishes to hire.’
‘Oh, I see. Hm!’ said Laura, meeting Dame Beatrice’s understanding eye. ‘Would you say he “knows” the passengers who regularly travel by train from his platform?’
‘Certainly. There’s no a great deal of passenger traffic at Tigh-Osda, for maist o’ the workers at the hydro- electric works use their own cars, although the station was built for them when the hydro-electric scheme was first planned. There’s the mail frae the wee post office at Crioch that a bicycle-laddie brings and puts on to the train, and there’s the mail frae Tigh-Osda itself, although there wouldna be a muckle of letters there, for few in the village write mair than once a year to their relations in Canada. Ay, and them that are putting up for the night at the hotel – for such Ian Beg chooses to call it – are bagmen wi’ their samples, puir bodies that are mair like tinklers or pedlars, to my mind, than the sort you would find in a city.’
‘So you booked the station-master’s car for the old laird,’ said Dame Beatrice patiently. ‘For what time in the evening was it booked? Can you remember?’
‘For half after nine, the way I would be able to wait at table on the laird and Mrs Gavin here, and the guid-wife would be able to prepare a supper for the old laird, the way he would no’ be compelled to eat up the remains of the gigot which was served at dinner.’
‘I see. So the old laird arrived at An Tigh Mor at soon after ten, I suppose. Did he give the usual signal for the boat to be brought across for him?
‘He did not. I had orders to have the boat on the other side to meet him, the way he wouldna be kept waiting, so at ten o’clock I went to the boathouse and rowed across. He showed up in the station-master’s car after a bit – Ian Beg, the porter, driving – and I took him back to the boathouse and he stepped ashore and we brought him up to the house.’
‘Did you see anything of young Mr Grant in the boathouse? I ought to tell you that he was there when Mrs Gavin decided to leave the island for Freagair.’
‘I didna see hide nor hair of him.’
‘I wonder where he got to?’ said Laura. ‘You say you went up to the house with the old laird?’
‘I did that.’
‘And actually saw him go in?’
‘I helped him along the path and up the steps. He was fou.’
‘How fou?’ asked Laura.
‘Verra fou. He was telling me that the Devil was after him and that he wouldna have any supper. He was going
