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Authors: Anthony Wynne

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“Children,” Christina repeated, “are mair sensitive than auld folks. They seem to ken when there's anything against them. They're fashed and frightened, like. It doesna do to say that there's nothing in that. What means have we of knowing all that passes through a child's mind?”

She spoke gently without a trace of disrespect. It was obvious that anxiety alone dictated her thoughts.

“I'm afraid,” Dr. Hailey agreed, “that we have very small means.”

“Aye, verra small means. You, that has the skill, kens that them turns is comin' from the nerves, but what is it that's workin' on the nerves? That's what I would like to ken.”

The doctor shook his head.

“That's very difficult to say,” he confessed. “Rheumatism sometimes causes this kind of nervous irritability. But undoubtedly other causes exist. I saw a case once that was certainly due to a severe fright and I saw another case which I was able to trace to nervous exhaustion brought on by anxiety. That poor child was terrified of its father, who was a drunkard.”

A quick flush spread over the old nurse's cheeks.

“Highland folks,” she said, “believes that there's more causes of trouble than any skill can find.”

She spoke cryptically but with great earnestness. Dr. Hailey saw a faint smile pass across McDonald's lips. Was this a veiled reference to the relations existing between Eoghan and his wife? Oonagh's eyes suggested that she thought so.

“Do you believe,” he asked Christina, “that the feelings of older people are known and understood by children?”

“Aye, that I do, doctor. What's more, I believe that you can poison a mind the same as you can poison a body.”

When they left the nursery, McDonald put his hand on his companion's arm.

“You see what Highland people are,” he declared. “We haven't changed.”

“It isn't only Highland people, you know, who are superstitious about nervous ailments,” Dr. Hailey said. “Mankind as a whole is afraid of them. People who bruised easily were looked upon with veneration in the Middle Ages. There are thousands of records of men and women who could, at will, produce the stigmata of the Cross on their hands and feet and brows. It was supposed that these people were in intimate touch with divine beings. Others bore blemishes that were popularly ascribed to the touch of the Devil or the influence of the Evil Eye. It seems, for example, to be true that the real reason why Henry VIII got rid of Anne Boleyn so quickly was that he observed such blemishes on her skin as were reputed to be borne only by witches. He was more superstitious than any of your Highlanders.”

They returned to the smoking-room to Duchlan and his son. As they did so, Angus the piper came to the door. He announced that a young fisherman wished to speak to the laird.

“Show him in, Angus.”

A tall fellow in a blue jersey appeared. He carried a tam-o'-shanter in his hand. When he had half-crossed the room he stood and began to fidget with his cap in the fashion of a woman unpicking a seam. Duchlan greeted him cordially.

“Well, Dugald, what has brought you here to-night?” he asked, and then before the lad could reply introduced him as the brother of “my two good friends and helpers, Mary and Flora Campbell”.

Dugald recovered his self-possession slowly. He stated that he had been told by his friends that the laird was anxious to meet a fisherman who had not been asleep during the last hour and who had therefore been in a position to see what was happening at the castle.

“I wass in the farthest out of the boats,” he added, “and I wass not sleeping. I could see the house all the time.”

Angus brought a chair and the young fellow sat down. Dr. Hailey asked him:

“Were you looking at the house?”

“Yess, I wass.”

“What did you see?”

“There wass a window with a light in it. A big man came to the window and then, after a long time, a little man.”

“You didn't see their faces?”

“No, sir. Because the light wass behind them. The moon wass shining on the windows but it wass not so bright as the light in the room.”

The doctor nodded his agreement with these just considerations.

“Quite. Now do you remember which of the two men whom you saw remained longest at the window, the big man or the little man?”

“The big man, sir.”

Dr. Hailey turned to his companions.

“I looked out of the window after I reached the room. I was feeling very hot and remained at the window a little time. So far, therefore, we seem to be on solid ground.” He addressed the fisherman: “Can you describe what you saw of the little man?”

“I saw him at the window. He went away again in a moment.”

The doctor leaned forward.

“You noticed nothing peculiar about his coming or going?”

“No, sir.”

“Think very carefully, please.”

“No, sir, I noticed nothing at all. He came and he went, like the big man before him.”

“There was no cry?”

“I did not hear any cry.”

“Was that the only window on the floor that was lighted?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're quite sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you say, Duchlan?”

The old man inclined his head.

“He's quite right. I was here with Eoghan. The nursery window doesn't overlook the sea.”

Dr. Hailey put his eyeglass in his eye.

“You said the moon was shining on the house? Did you see anything unusual on the wall or the roof?”

“No, sir, nothing at all.”

“Do you think that, if somebody had climbed up to the window by means of a ladder, you would have seen him?”

“Oh, yes, I would.”

“In spite of the lighted window?”

“Yes. If a cat had climbed up to the window I would have seen her. There wass no ladder.”

“You can swear to that?”

“I can swear to it.”

“Tell me, Dugald,” Duchlan asked, “did you see anything float by your boat about the time when the wee man was at the window?”

A look of fear crept into the lad's eyes. He raised his eyebrows and then contracted them sharply.

“No, laird.”

“Something that shone.”

“No, laird.”

Dugald plucked more vigorously at his tam-o'-shanter. The fear in his eyes had deepened. It was evident that he was well aware of the tales about the fish-like swimmers. He looked inquiringly at Duchlan.

“I thought,” the old man said, “that I saw something gleam near one of the boats. But you can't be sure in the moonlight.”

Dugald's uneasiness was increasing.

“I saw nothing, laird, nothing at all, whatever. But Sandy Dreich he said that to-night would be a bad night for us because we passed four women when we wass going down to the boats. And, sure enough, there's been no fishin'. Sandy, he saw a shoal a wee bit out from the burn and we shot the net. But there wass nothing in the net.”

This information was given with extreme seriousness. It was so received by Duchlan. Laird and fisherman appeared to be in agreement about the probable cause of the poor fishing.

“Is it unlucky,” Dr. Hailey asked, “to meet women when you're going to your boats?”

“Yess, sir; there's many as turns back when that happens.”

The doctor turned to Duchlan:

“The fishermen of Holy Island, on the Northumbrian coast, won't go out if anybody speaks the word ‘pig' in their hearing. They never speak that word themselves. All the pigs on Holy Island are creatures—‘craturs' as they call them.”

The old man inclined his head gravely. He offered no comment, and it was clear that he thought the subject undesirable in present circumstances.

Angus was told to give the fisherman a drink. When he had gone Duchlan roused himself from the lethargy into which he seemed to have fallen.

“You yourself can testify, Dr. Hailey,” he asked, “that nobody entered the room after you had left it?”

“I can.”

“So that both door and windows were as effectually sealed as if they had been locked and bolted?”

“It seems so.”

“As effectually as were the windows and door of my poor sister's room?”

“Yes.”

The old man straightened in his chair.

“Can you suggest any explanation of those two tragedies?” he demanded.

“None.”

“They're exactly alike?”

“Yes.”

“In conception and execution, exactly alike?”

“Yes.”

“The same hand must have struck both blows?”

“It seems so.”

Silence fell in the room; they glanced at one another uneasily.

“On the face of it, it's impossible that murder can have been committed in either case,” Duchlan said at last.

His voice faded away. He began to move uneasily in his chair. The habit into which he had fallen, of ascribing so many of the events of his life to supernatural agencies, was doubtless the cause of the fear which was expressed vividly on his features.

“It will be necessary,” Dr. Hailey said, “to recall Mr. McLeod. I may be wrong but I feel we have no time to lose. What has happened twice may happen a third time.”

That thought had, apparently, been present to the minds of his companions. Dr. McDonald glanced uncomfortably about him while Duchlan wiped his brow. There was alacrity too in Eoghan's manner of promising to go at once to the police office in Ardmore.

Chapter XIII

“A Curse on this House”

Dr. Hailey spent the next morning examining the ground under Dundas's window. The hot weather had hardened the turf so that it was idle to expect that it would reveal much; it revealed nothing. The hardest lawn must have taken some imprint from a ladder that bore a man's weight. He stood looking at the blank slope with eyes that betrayed no feeling; then his gaze moved over the grass, down to the burn; and beyond the burn, to the loch. He shook his head and returned to the castle, where he found Mr. McLeod, newly arrived from Campbeltown, awaiting him. The Procurator Fiscal seemed to be deeply moved by the new tragedy.

“What is this manner of death, doctor,” he asked, “which can pass through locked doors?” His tones accused; he added, “Duchlan tells me that you and McDonald hadn't left the poor man more than a minute before he was killed. Is that so?”

“I don't think that a minute elapsed between our leaving him and his death.”

Mr. McLeod's big face grew pale. “You're saying that Dundas was struck down, not that he was murdered,” he exclaimed in tones of awe.

They had entered the study. The Procurator Fiscal sat down and bent his head. When he had remained in that posture of humility for a few minutes he stated that he had sent to Glasgow for help.

“They'll send their best, depend on it.”

“I hope so.”

“Poor Dundas!” he moralized in unsteady tones. “This case was to have made his name. How little we know, Dr. Hailey, of the secret designs of Providence.” He paused and then added: “I have heard it said that there is a curse on this house.”

A kind of paralysis seemed to have affected him, for he sank lower in his chair. He kept nodding his head and mumbling as if he was repeating chastening truths to himself and registering his acceptance of them. Dr. Hailey got the impression that he was greatly afraid lest his own life might be taken at any moment.

“I spoke to Duchlan as I came in,” Mr. McLeod said. “He tells me he thought he saw some bright object on the water a few minutes after Dundas met his death.”

“Yes.”

“He told you that, too, did he?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Hailey's tones were not encouraging.

“It's very strange if it's true.” Again the worthy man wiped his face. “There's queer stories about Loch Fyne as you may know. The fishermen tell very queer stories sometimes.”

“So I believe.”

Mr. McLeod roused himself.

“Aye,” he exclaimed with warmth, “it's easy to say you don't believe in old wives' tales. But these men are shrewd observers with highly developed and trained senses. Who knows but what they may be able to see and hear and feel more than you or I could see or hear or feel? All the time they are watching the face of the water, which is the mirror of the heavens.”

The doctor assented. Mr. McLeod, he observed, was divided, in his fear, between his natural credulousness and his acquired ideas. These ideas were based on gloomy reflections about the trivial character and brief duration of human life derived from the minor Hebrew prophets. No wonder the man found whisky essential to his well-being!

He left him and went up to Dundas's bedroom. The body had not been moved. A shaft of sunlight touched the yellow hair. It was easy to discount the panic of McLeod and the others, but not so easy to escape from the influences which had wrought that panic. He picked up one of the notebooks which the detective had filled with details of his investigation. It made melancholy reading. The pages were crowded with negative observations; everything had been eliminated, door, windows, walls, ceiling, floor. The last note was not without pathos: “It will be necessary to begin again.”

He put the book back in its place and polished his eyeglass. He held the glass above the dead man's head where the skull was fractured and marvelled again at the strange, savage violence of the blow. The bedroom, assuredly, did not contain any weapon capable of inflicting this grievous injury. He had already examined such pieces of the movable furniture as might have been made use of. The murderer had carried his own weapon, or rather two weapons; an axe, perhaps, in the case of Miss Gregor, a bludgeon or a knuckle-duster in this case. The first weapon, had it been employed in the second case, must have split Dundas's skull from vault to base. Again he turned to the window and again surveyed the bank between the house and the burn. Autumn was dressing herself in her scarlets and saffrons; already the air held that magical quality of light which belongs only to diminishing days and which seems to be of the same texture as the colours it illuminates. He marked the fans of the chestnuts across the burn, pale gold and pale green. The small coin of birch leaves a-jingle in the wind, light as the sequins on a girl's dress, the beeches and oaks, wine-stained from the winds' Bacchanal, the rowans, flushed with their fruiting. A man might easily from this place throw a tell-tale weapon into that fervent tangle or into the burn even. But no, he had searched diligently and knew that no weapon lay hidden in any of these places. He turned back to the room. He bent forward and then strode quickly to the dead man's side.

The light had revealed a gleam of silver among the golden hair. He recognized another herring scale.

BOOK: Murder of a Lady
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