My Bones Will Keep

‘I was wearing the philibeg!’

‘Not when I saw you in the boathouse,’ said Laura austerely. ‘You weren’t wearing a kilt then.’

‘Was I not?’

‘You know you weren’t. Why on earth don’t you come clean and stop wasting our time?’

‘Because I don’t trust you,’ said Grant wildly. ‘I don’t trust either of you. You’ll get me tried for murder if you can. But you’ve the inspector to reckon with. Do not forget that he kens very well when and where Bradan was murdered and I am telling you that it was a dead man who was brought to Tannasgan that night.’

‘And Corrie brought him?’ asked Dame Beatrice in a pacific tone which warned Laura not to lose her temper.

‘Corrie brought him?’ Young Grant asked the question in a stupefied tone. ‘I do not know. I canna say. Who else would have brought him? I had better go.’

‘There is only one answer to that,’ said Dame Beatrice, when he had flung himself out of the lounge. ‘Well, he has missed his lunch here. I wonder how much of the truth he knows and how much of it he has told?’

‘I really believe he thinks it was a dead man who was brought across to Tannasgan that night,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice shook her head, but Laura, unperturbed by this, went on, ‘What’s more, it must have happened before I left. It was sheer instinct that made me flee the place, I suppose. If only you had been there, instead of me, we wouldn’t have had this mystery on our hands.’

‘But how much more empty our lives would have been without it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘We could not have prevented the murders, but we can appreciate the puzzle they present.’

‘We’re still no further forward.’

‘Are we not? Suppose that young Mr Grant was speaking the truth?’

‘Oh, you mean…? Well, who do you mean, Dame B.? Have we come to a full stop, do you suppose?’

‘By no means,’ said Dame Beatrice comfortably. ‘For one thing, there is a witness whom we’ve never contacted.’

‘Really? You’ve got me worried. I thought we’d interviewed everybody who might be of the slightest use.’

‘Cast your mind back to your first visit to Mrs Stewart at Garadh.’

‘Yes, well, while I was at Garadh, Mrs Stewart happened to mention that her son had had business dealings with Cu Dubh.’

‘Those might be of interest, don’t you think?’

‘Lord!’ said Laura remorsefully. ‘It’s awful of me to have forgotten it all this time, but I’ve never given it another thought.’

‘There can have been no association of ideas in your mind, that is all. Besides, it is never too late to mend! Pray tell me again what Mrs Stewart said.’

‘It isn’t so much, really. She just said that her son had had some business to conclude and had invited Bradan to join the house-party at Garadh and that they had been snowed-up there for a fortnight and she didn’t like Bradan at all, but that he had given her some pretty decent rock plants, although she thought it was her son’s idea.’

‘Excellent. We must return to London forthwith, for I have discovered from his mother, over the telephone, that Alexander Stewart is staying in London on business for his Edinburgh firm. I have the address and have sent him a telegram. I hope he will be able to call.’

‘I should have thought of him before,’ said Laura.

‘Not at all, child. The matter has arisen at the crucial time. Besides, I shall be delighted to meet the young man again.’

‘I doubt whether he’ll be able to tell us any more than, I suppose, he’s told the inspector here, you know,’ said Laura. ‘I mean, the police are sure to know about the business side of it by this time.’

Morning found them heading south, behind the sturdy, reassuring back of George, through the Moorfoot hills and by way of Carter Bar. As they left the Border country, Laura was moved to declaim:

‘O wha will shoe my bonny foot?

And wha will glove my hand?

And wha will bind my middle jimp

Wi’ a lang, lang linen band?

O wha will kame my yellow hair

Wi’ a haw barberry kame?

And wha will be my bairn’s father

Till Gregory come hame?’

Dame Beatrice looked slightly startled by this confession that Laura was beginning to miss her husband, and insisted on stopping at Newcastle for lunch. They spent the night at Harrogate and were back in Dame Beatrice’s Kensington house by tea-time on the following day. From here Laura telephoned Alexander Stewart and received his promise that he would be round to see Dame Beatrice at soon after nine that evening.

He was as good as his word and presented himself, a fair-haired, tall man of about thirty, at nine-ten. Celestine, Dame Beatrice’s French servant, showed him in with an inappropriate but obviously excited:

‘Monsieur Stewart baisse les mains a madame!’