My Bones Will Keep

and her employer nodded to her to answer.

‘Not so far as I know,’ said Laura. ‘One of Bradan’s ships went up in smoke – the Salamander. Did you hear about that?’

Stewart shook his head.

‘I have never heard of such a ship,’ he said. ‘The Salamander! No, that is new to me. What more do you require me to tell you?’

‘I have no idea. Can you say anything more about the enforced holiday that Mr Bradan spent at Garadh?’

‘I don’t know of anything more, beyond what I’ve already said. I asked him there because, as you will know, there is a relaxed atmosphere at Garadh and I hope to be able to get him to make some concessions.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, to be a bit easier on the freight charges and all that sort of thing. We used his ships, of course, because our own could not carry all we wanted.’

‘Were you hopeful of success?’

‘Oh, well, I felt it was worth trying, you know. I was in a position to offer him a fairly substantial increase of business if he could agree to our terms.’

‘And how did the negotiations go?’

‘Not particularly well. The snow finished matters, I’m afraid. He was a man of few resources and I don’t think, during that fortnight, he knew what on earth to do with himself between meals. He didn’t care for billiards or snooker and there was nobody at Garadh anything like as clever at cards as he was.’

‘Surely that was a source of satisfaction to him?’

‘Well, no. You see, my mother will not allow gambling in her house, not even for the most trifling stakes and, as it is her own house, her word is law. When we discovered what a brilliant player he was, I don’t think anyone was sorry. I thought you would have known of her little foible in that respect.’

‘I do not play cards,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I have always thought card games a waste of time and intelligence.’

‘Well, well, so they are, maybe. Then, Bradan was no reader, except of newspapers, and those, of course, could not be got at in that weather. The telephone was off, too, and the man became more and more morose. I am afraid he sorely taxed my mother’s patience.’

‘You said, I think, that you were not snowed up with him.’

‘As it happened, I was not. I had to go to Edinburgh on business and was expected back, but then came the blizzards and I could not make it. When I did manage to get through, I found a very disgruntled Bradan, with his bags packed, just ready to go. It was hopeless to reopen our business conversations. I could see that. I felt it would be wiser to give him time to cool off before I mentioned the matter again. His last words to me were that my invitation to him to visit Garadh had lost him a business deal worth ten thousand pounds. Oh, he wasn’t pleased with me. He wasn’t pleased at all.’

‘Yet he sent your mother some plants for her rock garden.’

Stewart’s eyes twinkled.

‘Oh, that!’ he said. ‘No, no. I let my mother think so, because if she’d known that I bought them myself as a wee bit of compensation to her for having had to put up with the curmudgeonly old fellow, she would have been vexed at my extravagance.’ He laughed ‘It amazed me to discover what you can pay for rare little plants for a rockery.’

‘And did you ever get the chance to reopen negotiations with Mr Bradan?’

‘I tried again, three months later. I visited him on Tannasgan. He was curt to the point of rudeness and told me, in the most uncouth manner, to take my business elsewhere. He was not prepared to carry our extra freight any longer.’

‘Really? And what did you deduce from that?’

‘As I think I said, there was not much doubt but that he wanted to get rid of us, having found some more lucrative use for his ships. I guessed it might be something questionable, but that was none of my business and I’d found another connection, anyway, in case he should refuse to play ball.’

‘You were well out of it,’ said Laura. ‘I’d like you to meet my husband at some time.’

‘It will be a pleasure,’ said Stewart courteously.

‘You say you visited Tannasgan,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Can you tell me whether anyone besides the laird was living at An Tigh Mor?’

‘There were two servants, a man and his wife, named Corrie, Bradan’s son (with whom, it struck me, he was at loggerheads) and a rather curious character with red hair and a red beard – a tall, thin man wearing a kilt in a tartan which he said was of his own designing (and I can well believe it!), who told me that, although he had been introduced to me as Bradan’s cousin, he was, in fact, the poet Ossian. He was, of course, M. D. Macbeth.’

‘Mad, would you say?’ enquired Laura. ‘He introduced himself to us by the same fancy name.’

‘An eccentric; not, I thought, mad. Maybe he had a quirky sense of humour.’

‘Not a pawky one?’

‘No, no. Mind you, Mrs Gavin, he appeared to take himself very seriously, but it is characteristic of the Scots to be able to keep the solemn face of an elder of the kirk when they’re telling a funny story.’

Laura herself had not this gift. She had lived in England too long for that, but she agreed with the observation and, to show this, she gave a vigorous nod of approval.

‘On what terms were the poet Ossian and Mr Bradan?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.