The Lammas Curse (29 page)

“I shadowed my darlings as
often as I could. I wanted to spend as much time with them as
possible. I wanted to soak up everything about them. I had yearned
and pined and dreamed of my darlings for so long. I was watching
from behind a tree when Carter drove his golf club into the man’s
head. I was still watching when Carter hurried away and Catherine
arrived dressed as her brother and drove a golf ball into the
bloody wound, cleaned up the club, put it into her golf bag and
hurried off another way. I knew they would be suspected. I arranged
the dead hand in the horned pose to point the finger at the mad
witch of the wood.”

“And the second death?”

“Murder is like madness. Once
it has taken seed there is no un-seeding it, once it has taken root
it will grow and grow. I became vigilant. And sure enough it came
to pass. I didn’t witness what happened exactly but when I came
across the drowned man I knew at once it must have been Carter’s
doing. I had the dead cat at the ready in my sack. I threw it in
the water next to the body.”

“You came back later to cut off
the paw. Why?”

“When I got wind that the Irish
actress intended to stage the Scottish play I decided to stage a
little play of my own. I decided to collect some bits and bobs from
the dead bodies and anything else that might recall the three weird
sisters on the heath. It would be proof of my madness should the
time come to confess and save their souls. It fooled you, admit it
now.”

The Countess conceded that it
did. “It was a grand performance. I think Carter must get his
acting skills from his mother.”

The old crone chuckled and
looked pleased. She was enjoying herself. “Some more tea,
dearie?”

The Countess held out her cup.
“Dandelion and nettle, did you say? It’s very refreshing and has a
pleasing taste. Thank you, kindly. And the third?”

MacBee stared at the steam
curling from her teacup. “There was fog that morning. I was
watching from the top of Graymalkin tower to see if I could spot my
darlings before the fog thickened. I saw Carter run toward
Widdershins Brig and Catherine head for the abbey ruin. She was
carrying two golf bags and I thought, ah, the game’s afoot.
Shortly, along came a witless golfer and his feckless caddy. Fog
cloaked the view and I couldn’t see what happened next but I knew
in my bones something wicked had taken place. I hurried as fast as
I could go to the brig. Nothing! I was cutting through the birch
wood to the abbey ruin when I almost tripped over the dead body.
Quick as a wink I whipped out a corn dolly and tied it to a
branch.”

“An inspired touch,”
complimented the Countess, her eyes darting once again to the queer
shape under the blanket.

“Thank you, dearie, I thought
so too. It did confound those London men. They scratched their
heads and it did amuse me. It had been so long since I had laughed
or even smiled.”

“Carter and Catherine must have
been baffled too?”

“Oh, yes, they must have
scratched their heads more than once. All things pointed to me but
who could say why I would bother to kill three strangers when I had
kept myself to myself for so long. I was a toothless dog, a
harmless hag, a mad old loon gone soft in the head. Everyone said
so for years and years.”

“Someone must have suspected –
Hecate perhaps?”

The watery eyes twinkled. “Oh,
yes, you are a bright one. I saw that from our first meeting.
Hecate would have guessed for herself whose hand was behind the
deaths and whose hand was behind the witchy things, but she had
blood on her hands already and so put about the story of
supernatural happenings and unhappy spirits to confound the thing.
It was a lark!”

“Why so? She is a Spiritualist.
She believes in the spirit world.”

“That’s what made it so
believable, dearie. When you want to spread an untruth always start
with what is true.”

“What did you mean: blood on
her hands already?”

“It was she who helped Crawford
and his childless chit to spirit my babes away in the night. They
could not have done it without her cunning.”

“That’s what you meant by:
traffic in my affair. But why would Lady Moira do such an evil
thing?”

“Why? Why? Why? Jealousy and
hate - she resented me because of the hate she harboured for my
sister who had had a child to her husband while she had not!”

“But Lady Moira
did
have
a child to her husband.”

“Oh, no, dearie, she had a
child to Crawford Dee’s father, the ghillie before Hamish.”

The Countess’s mind ticked over
rapidly and in the rush she stammered. “But, but, that would make
the current Lord Cruddock illegitimate!”

“Even more a bastard than
Hamish!”

The repercussions were serious
and far-reaching, though not where Hamish was concerned. There were
no degrees of bastardry. You either were or you were not – and she
should know it! “Who else knew of this?”

“Hecate, the queen of witches
and the three weird sisters, tis all - we keep it to ourselves and
the hell-broth bubbles - double, double, toil and trouble in the
cauldron called resentment.”

Tormented and distracted to the
point of madness, the Countess could stand it no longer. She pushed
to her feet, rushed around the table and whipped off the
blanket.

“Antlers! It was you who stole
the antlers from Graymalkin the other night!”

“You looked out of your
window,” tsk-tsked MacBee, scratching her head. “That was careless
of me to stop and look back and to put the antlers on my noggin.
But they were heavier than I thought and my arms were aching from
the weight of them and I still had far to go.”

“I thought I must have been
dreaming, but yesterday when I was giving Catherine and Carter a
tour of Graymalkin I noticed the empty gap along the wall where
some antlers had recently hung. Why did you take them?”

MacBee gave a lazy shrugged. “I
thought I might do some decorating, spruce the old place up a bit.
Who knows? I might get used to entertaining and hold an afternoon
tea for my darlings to celebrate their success.” She began to sing.
“Dandelion and nettle tea. Dundee cake for three! Eye of newt and
toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog!” She gave a short,
shrill, hysterical laugh. “Do you want the antlers back? Take them,
dearie, if that is what you came for.”

The Countess shook her head and
returned to the table even more confused than before she whipped
off the blanket, and tried to think how everything she had learned
about what had happened long ago was related to what had recently
happened and what was happening now.

“No, no, you may keep
them.”

What did the purloining of the
antlers suggest? Did it mean anything? Was it related to the
murders? Only one fact sprang to mind.

“You are able to gain ingress
and egress from the hotel, the tower and the castle at will?”

MacBee smiled furtively, an
ugly, occult, evil smile that sent a cold shiver up the Countess’s
spine. “I am a witch, a shape-shifter, a spell-spinner. I have the
power to come and go as I please, dearie. I am the wind, the
darkness, the night...”

“Oh, nonsense!” snapped the
Countess, frustrated with herself, exasperated with her inability
to see whatever it was that remained maddeningly elusive and out of
reach - sensing too that she was being led by the nose, lured away
from something MacBee did not want her to see. “Did you steal the
Lammas tiara?”

MacBee did not laugh away the
accusation and no blink of the eye betrayed her. “No, dearie, I did
not. Why should I?”

“You stole the antlers,”
reminded the Countess.

“I might make use of them in my
decorating. Do you want them back?”

“No, no, keep them - you might
want to destroy Lord Cruddock.”

“With the antlers?”

“By stealing the tiara!”

“I tried it on once and it did
not fit. My head was too small. It fit Hecate’s fat head quite
nicely. And it will fit that red-haired drab too. I have no call
for tiaras.”

“Are you covering for your
children? Is that it? Did they steal the tiara?”

“I cannot deny they are
wrong-uns, like their father and his father before him and so on,
but ambition is not the same as greed. I think not. I would look at
the darkie if I were you.”

“Mr Chandrapur?”

“If that is what they call the
one who creeps about like a cat. I know every hidey-hole and secret
tunnel inside Cruddock Castle but I swear that black devil can walk
through walls.”

The Countess frowned, she could
not help thinking there was something she was missing; something
MacBee was keeping back; something the weird sister did not want
her to comprehend. Then she remembered Mr Brown.

“What about the fourth
death?”

“Ah, yes, might as well be
hanged for a sheep as a lamb. A few days before Mr Brown drowned in
the well my sister was taking a fresh towel to his room and spotted
a note he had been in the process of writing. He had ducked out to
the latrine at the time. It said something like: I saw what you
did. Meet me in the kitchen courtyard at twenty minutes after three
on Thursday.”

“She mentioned the note to
you?”

MacBee nodded. “I knew straight
off that the note was meant for Carter and Catherine and that Mr
Brown was intent on blackmailing them. My sister had given the
girls the half day off, that’s why he picked that time. I lay in
wait in the scullery. I saw when Carter arrived, painted up and
clothed in theatrical tartan. I did not witness the murder because
the scullery window does not give onto the well directly but when
he hurried off I ran into the courtyard.”

“You threw the broom down the
well?”

MacBee shook her head firmly.
“No, he must have done that himself. It made me smile. There was
nothing more for me to do. The man was dead so I went home.”

Dr Watson had been right about
the blackmail and Mr MacDuff had been right about the clandestine
meeting. How did he guess that? Did he see the note for himself?
Was he in on the blackmail? There was something about Mr MacDuff
that didn’t ring true.

“Thank you for the dandelion
and nettle tea. It has a pleasing aftertaste.”

MacBee’s voice caught her at
the door. “Are you going to hand my children over to the law?”

The Countess considered the
question thoughtfully and slowly shook her head. “This Scottish
play is not yet done. Something tells me there’s another act to
go.”

MacBee seemed satisfied with
her response. “Promise me you will not hand them over to the police
until after the golf tournament finishes. Carter has had his moment
in the sun. Catherine must have hers. Promise me.”

“Very well,” said the Countess
uneasily. “You have my word.”

“Sherlock would never have
countenanced such a thing!” Dr Watson declared vociferously as he
paced in front of the fireplace of their sitting room the next
morning.

It was a dirty old day. Rain
had set in early and had increased as the morning lengthened. There
was no hope of venturing outdoors.

“I am not Sherlock,” reminded
the Countess calmly as she stood at the window with her back to
him, gazing pensively through the panes of glass pearled with
raindrops.

“You claim to be his
daughter!”

“Certainly, but to paraphrase
Shakespeare, I must be true to myself.”

“You claim to be a
detective!”

“That does not make me a
Witchfinder General.”

“Oh, good grief! A detective’s
job is to solve the crime. We have done that!”

“We are missing something.”

“What are we missing?” he
demanded, growing hot under the collar, not with pacing to and fro
and not from the flames of the fire but from sheer
exasperation.

“I don’t know yet.”

“You agreed the night before
last that it was Carter and Catherine Dee.”

“I did not deny it,” she
conceded, “but there is something else, something more. What about
the missing tiara?”

“We came here to solve the
golfing murders,” he reminded. “The tiara is an afterthought, an
unrelated distraction. Not even his lordship is taking it
seriously. Yesterday’s search was a mere charade, a vainglorious
pantomime staged for the benefit of his distressed fiancé, his
disapproving mother and Scotland Yard prior to their arrival any
time soon.”

“Sherlock would never dismiss a
theft in the midst of four murders.”

“Ah! You invoke him when it
suits you and dismiss him when it does not!”

“Each action and reaction must
be decided on its merit. We want the correct outcome, not the most
convenient one.”

“If we do not act swiftly the
Dees may slip through our fingers.”

“No. This is their home. This
is their golf course. I doubt they will flee. Besides, where will
they go? What will they live on?”

“The proceeds of the sale of
the tiara will serve them very nicely in South Africa.”

The Countess turned to face him
and shook her head. “No, I cannot believe it. I do not believe they
stole the tiara.”

“How can you be so sure?”

The Countess did not wish to
reveal anything about her meeting with MacBee yesterday. She still
hadn’t thought through what she had learned and how it fitted in
with what they had previously suspected. And though she felt guilty
for not sharing the information with her companion in crime, she
told herself he would merely run like a bull at a gate, or worse,
act like a bull in a china shop, grunt and posture, smash and
confuse, and in the destruction he would overlook something
important. She needed time to think. This heated conversation was
going some way to ordering her incoherent and jumbled thoughts but
there was still something missing.

“The golf tournament?” she said
sparingly. “It is their raison d’être. It has not yet played itself
out. Mr Bancoe and Mr Larssensen will play a final round tomorrow
for one last chance to better their score. And as much as the Dees
might loath it, they must lump it. They will see it through to the
end.”