My Bones Will Keep

to play on the pipes and frighten the Devil away. That is what he said. Ay, those were his very words.’

Laura again caught Dame Beatrice’s eye.

‘And did he play on the pipes?’ asked the latter.

‘He did that. Well enough it was at first, but he finished wi’ such a skirling ye would have thought the Devil had snatched the pipes from him and was piping his soul to damnation.’

‘Are you certain it was not Mr Macbeth who was piping?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘Mrs Gavin, I think, put the piping down to him.’

Corrie looked undecided. ‘I couldna say. The laird was in the mood,’ he replied.

Chapter 14

Story told by the Grants and Others

‘And up from thence, a wet and

misty road…

Clouds of white rolling vapours fill

the vale.’

Matthew Arnold

« ^ »

‘WELL,’ said Laura, when Corrie had rowed them across the loch and they were back in the waiting car, ‘something to think about, definitely, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Say on,’ said Dame Beatrice, as George let in the clutch, and the car, in spite of the rough ground at the roadside, moved sedately on to the highway. ‘You have comments to make?’

‘Haven’t you? There’s one thing, surely, that sticks out a mile and a half.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Of course. The business of the Grants and my car.’

‘Recapitulate.’

‘As though you didn’t have both episodes at your fingers’ ends!’

‘You make me sound like one of the Norns, child.’

‘Well, so you may be, for all I know. And that’s not intended to be flippant. No, honestly, though, let’s face the facts.’

‘Willingly. Say on.’

‘Well, how truthful do you think the Corries are?’

‘Possibly truthful and probably trusting, child.’

‘Meaning that they trusted Cu Dubh?’

‘And ourselves, you know.’

‘Yes, well, if we accept (and, like you, I do) that Corrie was telling the truth, why did the Grants ask me to drive Mrs Grant home, that first night I came back in the rain from Garadh, when they must have known they could hire the station-master’s car?’

‘There are two possible, and, I venture to think, obvious explanations.’

‘Oh?’ said Laura, belligerently. ‘I can’t think of even one. Oh, yes! Of course I can,’ she added, altering her tone. ‘You mean that the station-master’s car was already on hire.’

‘Exactly, and what is so satisfactory is that it will be a simple business to find that out.’

‘Maybe not as simple as you would think,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘I don’t suppose for an instant that the station-master keeps any records of the hire of his car. A Highlander wouldn’t, you know. It isn’t that he wants to dodge the tax-collector, but simply that he has very little sense of time and is just too lazy, anyway, to bother. Besides, he probably doesn’t think of payment for hiring out his car as being part of his income. He’d tell you – and he’d believe it – that he only does it to oblige, and that, as he had to pay for the car in the first place, it is not the business of anybody else how he uses it.’

‘I see,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I must show him my notebook.’

Laura made a rude, hooting noise, well aware that few, if any, could read her employer’s cryptic shorthand, Dame Beatrice’s own invention. Dame Beatrice sedately explained that she would produce the notebook and read aloud to the station-master certain dates and times.

‘Well, all right,’ said Laura. ‘There may be, as I say, this probable explanation of why the Grants couldn’t hire the car. But what else had you thought of? You said the other explanation was also a possible one. Expatiate.’

‘They had your car free of charge, child.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, but, against that, Mrs Grant put me up for the night and fed me jolly well, you know, and she more than replaced the petrol.’

‘There is usually food in a house, dear Laura. The production of ready money in order to cope with an unforeseen situation is another matter.’