My Bones Will Keep

anything to do with Bradan’s death.’

‘As I supposed,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘But I think I hear your meal going in. Away and sup. We will hear more when you are refreshed.’

‘Looks well, doesn’t he?’ said Laura, when her handsome husband had taken himself off to the dining-room. ‘Very bronzed and sunburnt.’

Dame Beatrice agreed.

‘I wonder how much money Mr Bradan left?’ she added. Laura looked surprised.

‘I thought we’d decided it was a revenge job. I certainly had that impression,’ she said. ‘Hadn’t we discarded the idea of a murder for gain?’

‘Well, it would not have been the first of those, child.’

‘I suppose,’ said Laura thoughtfully, ‘that rum-running and gun-running could be pretty lucrative. Yes, it’s quite an idea you have there. The only thing about all this which puzzles me – apart from the identity of the murderer, of course – is why you think the police are wrong about Bradan’s son. You do think they’re wrong, don’t you?’

‘What causes you to ask such a question?’

‘Oh, come, now, Mrs Croc. dear! If you thought they were right, you wouldn’t still be spending time on the case. Besides, as the police have pinched young Bradan and stuck him in the nick, they must believe that the murder was done for revenge on his part because he’d been disinherited. Now you think it was done to get Bradan’s money, and that looks like Macbeth.’

‘We shall know more when we find out how much Mr Bradan had to leave and exactly how he left it.’

‘I’d still like to know more about how the body got on to the island, or, in fact, whether it did. Do you suppose the inspector knows? If he does, he may not tell us. I suppose you’re going to use Gavin as a sort of stool-pigeon when we get to Edinburgh.’

‘I am not certain that I understand you.’

‘Go on with you! Of course you understand me. Gavin is to be our surety. The inspector will be tickled to death to meet him, and will spill all sorts of beans.’

‘Possibly in private to our Robert, but with a suggestion that the disclosures are for no ears but Robert’s own.’

‘Oh, no, that would be too bad. Anyway, he would naturally suppose that Gavin would pass the gen to the wife of his bosom.’

‘I am not at all sure about that, and, even if it were so, it might not be possible for the said wife to pass on the information to a third party – myself.’

‘Oh, well, let’s not cross any bridges until we come to them. I’ll go into the dining-room and tell him what we expect, shall I?’

At this transparent excuse for Laura to have her husband to herself for a bit, Dame Beatrice cackled, but not until Laura had gone out of the room. At the end of about three-quarters of an hour the two returned and seated themselves. Gavin gently patted his stomach.

‘Best meal I’ve had since I dined here last time,’ he said. ‘And now, Dame B., I am at your service.’

‘Well, what can you tell us?’

‘As I said before, very little that can help you. We found out – thanks to Laura and my own rather talented young son – that there were some interesting goings-on in the West Indies and so on with regard to liquor and guns, but what on earth can be the connection between them and the death of Bradan is, at present, beyond conjecture. In fact, nothing ties up.’

‘I’d better tell you about the Edinburgh murder,’ said Laura.

‘But, my dear girl, one doesn’t murder people in Edinburgh nowadays,’ said Gavin, looking incredulous. ‘It’s no longer done, particularly since the introduction of the Festival.’

‘Oh, no?’ said Laura. ‘Well, big boy, listen to this.’ She gave him a vivid but not an exaggerated account of the street death she had witnessed. ‘Mrs Croc. was not impressed at first,’ she concluded, ‘but now I think she believes that what I said was true. It’s been confirmed, you see, by an impartial and independent witness.’ She went on to tell of their various encounters with the young reporter Grant. Gavin listened without interrupting her until she concluded with the words: ‘So you see.’

‘Um – yes,’ he said. ‘I do see. Pity he doesn’t know, or won’t give, the name of this chap he says he recognised. The fact that he says the chap was in Bradan’s employment doesn’t help much, as you point out. Got any theories, Dame B.?’

‘Well, I have formed some during the investigation (which, now, properly, I should give up), but there is no proof.’

‘Why should you give up?’

‘Because I began it only to make certain that Laura was not arrested,’ replied Dame Beatrice, accompanying, or, rather, concluding, this statement with her unnerving cackle.

‘Laura?’

‘Well, yes,’ his wife admitted. ‘I was on the island more or less at the time of Bradan’s murder and my story of why I was there would have sounded pretty thin in court.’

‘And now?’

‘Since we have met the inspector, I am no longer concerned for Laura’s safety,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘What were you doing on the island, anyway, chump?’ demanded Gavin. Laura grinned.