My Bones Will Keep

‘Oh, Lord!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘No wonder young Grant chased me for that alibi after he’d read the papers! You mean…’

‘That the coup de grace was not delivered by young Bradan. The medical evidence was perfectly clear. It was the skian-dhu which killed Cu Dubh.’

‘But young Grant had no motive!’

‘He thought that Cu Dubh was already dead, and that the skian-dhu and the barrel would provide a nation-wide sensation. And I have no doubt whatever of his absolute horror when he found out what he had done. I have very little doubt, either, mind you, that Mr Bradan eventually would have died of the injury to his head, but that we must check.’

‘And tonight? If it were bright moonlight we could go back and tackle the fabulous beasts again.’

‘No, child, not even by moonlight. We have to find the lion and the unicorn, and I believe I know where to look for them. Where a man’s heart is, you know.’

‘The cellar!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘He was badly hurt, but he did manage to crawl into the cellar! He’d shifted the treasure from Haugr when he knew his son was stealing it! I can’t wait to get back to An Tigh Mor.’

It did not take them long to do this. The cars and the pedestrians from the hydroelectric plant were gone by the time they took the road for Tannasgan. Laura wondered whether they would pass the Grants’ station-wagon again, and she looked out for it, but there was nothing on the road except a solitary small ambulance which seemed in no hurry and from which a cheery greeting was waved as they passed it.

Tannasgan looked deserted. It seemed so, too, for Laura jangled the handbell and turned the lantern in vain.

‘Goodness! What’s happened to Corrie?’ she demanded. The answer came from just behind her.

‘I am saying that Corrie was away to Freagair.’

Laura swung round, but it was not young Bradan (as, from the Gaelic construction of the sentence, she had half-expected) but young Grant. He smiled at her. Laura, who now knew him to have been, however unintentionally, the actual killer of Cu Dubh, looked as astounded as she felt.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘And if Corrie is in Freagair, why isn’t the boat tied up on this side?’

‘Mrs Corrie rowed it back to the boathouse,’ said Grant, in his ordinary tones. He put two fingers to his mouth and split the air with a screeching, piercing, almost ferocious whistle. This had an effect, for, a minute later, Mrs Corrie was at the boathouse and was untying the heavy, clumsy boat. As Grant helped her to hold it against the side of the small quay, while she tied up, she said to him:

‘I am not having ye set foot again on Tannasgan.’

‘Why not, then?’

‘Because ye did enough mischief the last time ye were here.’

‘Oh, come, now, Maggie, you must make some allowance for the Press. It was only a story I was after.’

‘Ay, and ye got one, too! How dared ye stab the old laird and gie him his death-blaw?’

‘What?’ said Grant, in a kind of strangled yelp. ‘What are you saying, you old…?’

‘I’m no an old what you said the now, and my name’s not Maggie. I say I ken verra well how Mr Bradan came by his death. I haena told any other body, but gin ye dinna tak’ yoursel’ awa’ from here and let me never set een on ye mair, I will go to the police and swear to them on my aith that ye murdered the old laird.’

Grant was unable to speak, but Laura said:

‘You’ve bought it, chum. So my word wouldn’t have helped you, even if I had been able to give it, you see.’

Grant turned and ran. The three women gazed after him until they lost him at the bend in the road. George joined them on the quayside.

‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you have saved me from a most unwelcome duty, Mrs Corrie. I thought I should have been obliged to present the same home truth to young Mr Grant as you have done.’

‘Are ye for the boatie?’ Mrs Corrie demanded.

Her passengers stepped in and George relieved her of the oars.

‘Had Corrie any particular reason for visiting Freagair?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. ‘He said nothing about it before we left this afternoon.’

‘He was needing a pick-axe and he kens a man in Freagair will no be sweer to gie him the loan of one. My man was fair fashed tae be howking over at Haugr wi’ a fork and shovel the morn.’

‘Oh, I see. He thought that a pick-axe would do the work more quickly and easily, and, if we were going on with that same work, there is no doubt that he would be right.’

‘Ye’ll no be howking over there the morn’s morn, then?’

‘No, the digging I intended is all done.’ No more was said until they had tied up the boat and were at the front door of An Tigh Mor. Then Dame Beatrice added as though there had been no break in the conversation, ‘I suppose there is a key to the cellar?’

‘And what would ye be wanting wi’ the cellar?’ asked Mrs Corrie, preparing to make her way to her own regions at the back of the house. ‘There’s naething of interest in the cellar but a dozen bottles, maybe, of whisky.’

‘I should like the key of the cellar, all the same.’

‘It will be in the door, then. That is where my man left it when he took all the old laird’s siller and hid it where nane o’ ye will find it.’