My Bones Will Keep

‘Well, you have one good friend in the world, at any rate,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘Do you remember Mr Curtis, a travelling salesman for a firm of horticulturalists?’

‘Curtis? Oh, yes. An English laddie. I ken him very well. Many’s the crack we’ve had together when he was travelling through Crioch to Garadh. So he spoke up for me, did he?’

‘He indicated that you were harmless. Let us come now to the story you told us at Garadh. First, what about your determination to blackmail Mr Bradan?’

‘That bit was true enough, but I badly needed my story.’

‘And your assertion that you made the long journey between Edinburgh and Loch na Greine on various evenings?’

‘Well, there, I admit I did telescope the time a little, but otherwise what I said was true enough. The evening after I had seen Dorg murdered in Edinburgh I motorcycled to Inverness and spent the night there, before going on to Loch na Greine to tackle Bradan.’

‘One moment! On the Friday afternoon when that Edinburgh murder took place, my Conference had not begun. What, then, were you doing in Edinburgh?’

‘Well, as I told you, I wanted to interview some of the notables in their hotels before the Conference started.’

‘I see. Now, just let me check some other facts against these things that you are telling me. This death in Edinburgh took place on a Friday, as I have said. Mrs Gavin and I left my home in Hampshire on the previous Wednesday and made a leisurely progress northward. On the Saturday we went sightseeing in Edinburgh, then we spent a quiet Sunday, and the Conference opened at ten o’clock on the Monday morning.’

‘Yes, I reported the opening. I can show you my piece in the Advertiser. I posted it off immediately after lunch.’

‘I see. But, before you reported the opening of the Conference, you had been to Tannasgan. Is that right?’

‘Oh, well – no. Not before I reported the opening.’

‘Please take your time, but you did say that on the evening following that on which you had seen Dorg murdered you motorcycled to Inverness, did you not?’

Grant flushed and scowled.

‘Very well,’ he said, the scowl changing suddenly to a smile. ‘Maybe I’m mixing up the days. What day would it be when I first met Mrs Gavin on Tannasgan?’

Laura glanced at Dame Beatrice and received a nod.

‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘Pitlochry on the Monday, Kingussie on the Tuesday, Inverness on the Wednesday, Freagair on the Thursday. Then on the Friday I motored over to Garadh to visit Mrs Stewart and stayed the night at Coinneamh Lodge. I drove back to Freagair on the Saturday morning and went to Tannasgan the same afternoon, then got back to Freagair late at night after you’d rowed me ashore and we heard the piping.’

‘So we need an account of your adventures on that Saturday and the preceding Friday,’ said Dame Beatrice to Grant. “Pray relate to us what happened after you left Inverness. Can you now recollect which day that would have been?’

‘Yes, I can work it out, I think. I took two days – well, one evening and part of the next day – to get to Loch na Greine and I spent the rest of that day and all the next day on Tannasgan, waiting for Cu Dubh to come home. That means I got to Inverness on the Thursday after I’d written up my report on that session of the Conference. So I must have arrived off Tannasgan on the Friday afternoon, camped out – Mrs Corrie gave me my bread, the good woman – here and there, out of sight of old Macbeth, spent Friday night in the boathouse and – and was in hiding there on Saturday night when Mrs Gavin decided to go back to Freagair.’

‘And at what point did you see the dead laird?’

‘He was brought back on the Saturday.’

‘Who brought him?’

‘Who but Corrie?’

‘Really? Corrie brought his body across to Tannasgan?’

‘He did that. You can ask him if you don’t believe me.’

‘We have heard Corrie’s story.’

‘You mean he didn’t mention the dead man?’

‘He told us that Mr Bradan was alive after Mrs Gavin arrived on Tannasgan.’

‘Then he was lying. I tell you it was a dead man Corrie ferried over the water.’

‘Come, come!’ protested Dame Beatrice, giving him a rather unkindly leer. ‘Corrie waited with the boat and Mr Bradan turned up at the jetty in the station-master’s car. That is his story and I am bound to point out that it is a considerably more sensible one than your own.’

‘Have it your own way,’ said the young man sulkily.

‘But I don’t want to. His is the more sensible, but yours is by far the more sensational. Why not tell us the rest of it?’

‘There is nothing more to tell.’

‘When did you produce your skian-dhu?’

‘I really forget.’

‘And what were you doing with one, anyway.’