Here and there, on the green uplands which surrounded the bay, were the white houses of the crofters which had succeeded the ancient dwellings, stone-built, thatched, the roofs weighted down with stones, in which, less than two generations ago, their ancestors had lived.
Behind the hotel, on the opposite side of the rough and narrow road which came north from Kyleakin, Sligachan and Portree, and which followed the coast from Staffin and Flodigarry round to Uig and southward, rose mountainous cliffs of bare and stratified rock. To the south was the extraordinary formation called the Quiraing. To the north, at the turn of the road, Duntulm Castle, the ruined stronghold of the MacDonalds of Skye, was perched on its tremendous headland.
Gavin had not brought his car. They had hired transport in Kyleakin and would return to the ferry by the same means. They had walked, keeping to the roads, (for the mountain mists were treacherous), they had eaten, they had lazed and they had gone to bed early and risen late. It was an ideal existence, from their point of view, and Gavin’s exclamation had cut into a silence of repletion after breakfast on the fourth morning of their stay.
‘Done what again? And who has?’ asked Laura. Her husband handed her the newspaper, now several days old, which the manager of the hotel had offered him and which he was perusing more for courtesy’s sake than because he wanted to read stale news.
‘This strangler of young women,’ he said. Laura read the paragraph he pointed out, and then re-read it before she handed the paper back.
‘It’s what Phillips was afraid of,’ she said. ‘Do we have to go back straight away?’
‘I see no reason why we should. It isn’t anything to do with us officially. Wonder whether Dame B. knows about it?’
‘Doubtful, I think. She never reads the newspapers at Christmas time, and, anyway, she isn’t at home. She went to spend Christmas with Carey Lestrange on his pig-farm in Oxfordshire. The paper doesn’t tell us much, does it?’
‘It tells us quite enough. The same district, the same kind of death, the same verdict at the inquest.’
‘Another foreign girl, too.’
‘Ah, well, Miss Schumann claimed to be English. Both her parents were naturalised.’
‘I think I’ll telephone Mrs Croc.’
‘Why? She won’t thank you for interrupting her holiday. Time enough for her to take action when you’re both back at the Stone House. What about hiring a car and taking a run to Dunvegan this morning?’
‘In this rain? Not worth it. I’d rather take a walk and get really wet.’
‘You have strange tastes.’
‘They are what endeared you to me when we met. No, stop scrapping! Remember I’m the mother of your son!’
‘Talking of which, it sometimes seems to me that we’ve rather put all our eggs into one basket. What do you think?’
‘Please yourself. But I don’t admire your description of our child.’
‘Got your marriage lines to back up your opinion, too, haven’t you? Anyway, I’m not sure Hamish would approve of a baby sister.’
‘Why sister? I’d be just as likely to have another boy.’
‘Ah, no,’ said Gavin, ‘Shakespeare knew the answer to that one. “Make thee another self, for love of me, That beauty still may live in thine or thee.”’
Laura stared at him.
‘So you really mean it,’ she said.
(2)
Dame Beatrice had been back in the Stone House for less than two hours when she received a frenzied telephone call.
‘Oh, my dear friend, it is I, Karla Schumann. I am in dreadful trouble. Please may I come to see you? I am so sorry, but I am so desperate.’
‘Of course you must come,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘What about lunch tomorrow?’
‘I am distracted!’ announced Mrs Schumann, as soon as she was shown in on the following morning. ‘First my Karen and now that wicked Otto! Perhaps you have heard?’
‘No. I’ve been away since just before Christmas and have not seen a newspaper or listened to any of the broadcast programmes except for the Queen’s speech. Let us have lunch first, and then you shall tell me all about it.’
‘I am not anxious for food,’ said Mrs Schumann. She did some sort of justice, however, to the meal prepared by Dame Beatrice’s French chef and, as soon as coffee had been brought in and there would be no further interruptions, she told her story.
‘Where to begin? I tell you I am distracted! I cannot think. I do not know where to turn. Help me! Please help me!’
‘What has happened to Otto? Why do you call him wicked?’
‘Nothing happens to him yet. I think he has murdered Maria Mercedes Machrado.’
‘Your lodger? The student from the University?’
‘Ja, ja! I will tell you. You know already that I have this young girl at week-ends and for the College vacation at Christmas. Well, she seems a very nice girl, quiet, modest, anxious to give no trouble, but soon I am finding her not so nice. All I ask of her is to make her bed and be a little tidy, that is all – no dusting, no polishing of furniture, no floors – and to be indoors on Fridays and Saturdays by ten o’clock. That is all I ask, and also, if she have boy-friends to call, that they shall please to be out of the house by ten o’clock, when I like to go to bed. Not unreasonable, I think?’
Dame Beatrice doubted whether the modern young would think it not unreasonable, but she made no comment.
‘Well, at first, the first two week-ends, all is as I wish. Nobody could be nicer, quieter, more considerate. I am very happy – well, as happy as I can be without my Karen. Then comes the end of the term – a concert, a dance and so on. Maria asks whether
