My Bones Will Keep

‘It seemed like it.’

‘And their estate car didn’t break down until they got to the station, or near enough to the station.’

‘True.’

‘Well, he couldn’t have hoped, if the estate car had been all right, to drive his wife to Coinneamh Lodge and get back to the station in time to catch the train, if his account of the quarter of an hour’s wait was true.’

‘Therefore the original arrangement must have been that Mrs Grant was to drop him at the station and drive herself home, you think?’

‘I don’t see what else one can think.’

‘Ably argued, child. You must be right. What did you make of Mr Grant’s kindly presenting us with a powerful reason for his having hated Mr Bradan?’

‘You mean the loss of his brother when that ship blew up? I think it could have been a bold bit of bluff.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, it may have been a clever way of throwing dust in our eyes, I think. In other words, he had a strong motive for killing Bradan and he presents us with a completely phony one instead. It would have put quite a lot of people off the scent, I should imagine.’

‘Possibly. I wonder whether he really had a brother on that ship?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘you have not forgotten that Mrs Grant, on the first occasion you met her, made no secret of the fact that she, as well as her husband, hated Mr Bradan?’

‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ said Laura. She was sitting up straight by this time and her settee faced the window. ‘Here comes a motor-cyclist. Can it be – yes, it is.’

‘Our young friend Grant?’

‘And as wet as a fish. Here he comes.’

‘And there was nobody named Grant among the lost crew of the Saracen, you remember? But, as we said, that may mean nothing. So many people, even respectable ones, go under an alias nowadays.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ said Laura.

‘Well, as I said, it might pay to confess to having a motive for a crime which you cannot possibly have committed, in order to confuse the issue of one which you certainly could have committed and which, in point of fact, you did help to commit. I speak merely theoretically, of course.’

‘Like hell you do,’ said Laura.

Chapter 18

Young Grant Corries Not Quite Clean

‘The Doctor examined carefully the body of the dead man. The face of the corpse was distorted and looked horrible in the candle-light.

‘ “Shot?” said the Inspector laconically. ‘ “No,” replied the Doctor.’

Barry Pain

« ^ »

YOUNG Grant had shed his waterproof motor-cycling outfit in the outer vestibule of the hotel. He came forward buoyantly, bowed to the ladies and was asked to sit down. Laura went to the bar and ordered him a large whisky.

‘And now,’ she said, ‘what about coming clean?’

‘I’d like to,’ said young Grant. ‘It’s about time I shed the load. Somebody took a pop at me as I came here. Luckily he missed me and missed my tyres, but it just goes to show.’

‘You were fired on?’ asked Dame Beatrice, interested. ‘Where did this take place?’

‘Not long after I left Crioch. I was passing little Loch Breac, which is screened, you’ll likely know, by bushes —’

‘Did you see your adversary?’

‘No. I had gone past him when he fired, and although I have a mirror on the handlebars it was no good to me in all this rain.’

‘Have you decided who it was?’

‘The likeliest would be the man Macbeth.’

‘Oh? What makes you think so?’

‘Wait until you hear my tale, and maybe you’ll think so, too. Oh, and I have an item of news which may interest you. The police have arrested Cosmo Bradan, the dead man’s son.’

‘Have they, indeed? Then the man who fired at you could not have been he and could not have known of the arrest.’

‘That will be so. Mind you, the arrest may be a sort of smoke-screen. It may make the murderer careless.’