A Death in the Highlands Page 13

  Merry was already abed and snoring loudly. I undressed without light. Since my entrance into service I had become quite adept at handling buttons in the dark. I pushed a chair against the door. I would never grow used to having an unlockable sleeping chamber and slid under the covers, but sleep was far from my weary grasp. I turned the situation over and over in my mind, but every time I thought through the sequence of events, I became more confused. I felt as if my brain would rattle to pieces. The feeling was so intense I fancied I could actually hear the noise of my poor mind disintegrating.

  It was then I realised there really was a rattling noise. I turned my head slowly, not wishing to see what I feared I must. Helpfully, a shaft of moonlight broke across the room and I saw the door handle, wedged tight on the top of the chair, was twisting slowly back and forth.

  I threw back the covers and hurried across to Merry’s bed. ‘Merry,’ I hissed, shaking her. ‘Wake up! Someone is trying to get in!’

  ‘Hermpf? What?’ said Merry sleepily.

  I lowered my lip to her ear and whispered forcefully. ‘Someone is trying to break into our room!’

  The chair moved slightly, scraping along the ground with an eerie squeak. Merry sat up in bed. Her eyes fixed on the door handle. It twisted back and forth. Whoever was trying the door wasn’t prepared to give up easily.

  ‘The chair’ll hold it,’ said Merry quietly.

  The chair slid a little farther.

  ‘Not for long,’ I said.

  ‘Who do you think it is? Rory?’ said Merry, suppressing a giggle at the thought.

  ‘I think it’s the murderer,’ I said softly. ‘I think someone heard me say I was going up to the site tomorrow and they don’t want me to go.’

  ‘Oh lor’,’ said Merry.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I said looking her in the eye and willing her to give the right response. ‘Do we cower in our beds and hope the chair holds or do we expose the man and save Susan?’

  In answer Merry grabbed the candlestick off her nightstand. I picked up mine. ‘I reckon if we yank the door open and scream, it’ll scare the life out of the bugger,’ said Merry. ‘If we both bash him at the same time, that should do it.’

  I nodded. We padded over to the door. I placed my hand on the back of the chair. It had almost slid entirely free. The door handle still turned. I looked at Merry. ‘Ready?’ I asked. Merry nodded. ‘On three,’ I said. ‘One, two, three!’

  We both inhaled deeply as I thrust the chair aside. Merry flung open the door. We rushed forth, screaming with our candlesticks aloft and met only empty air.

  Whoever had been there had fled.

  ‘They must have overheard us,’ I said.

  ‘Two stout-hearted maids armed with candlesticks and powerful screams are not to be taken lightly,’ joked Merry. Even in the dark, I could see she was trembling with fear despite her brave words.

  I closed the door. ‘That’s as may be, but it gets us no nearer to solving this mystery. I must continue with my plan.’

  ‘But they might have heard you!’ exclaimed Merry.

  ‘It might also have been Baggy Tipton looking for female companionship.’

  ‘He wouldn’t!’ exclaimed Merry. ‘He’s a wimpy little man.’

  ‘Brandy is a great disinhibitor,’ I said.

  ‘But what if it wasn’t?’ persisted Merry.

  ‘I’m going. Whatever the risk. I have to,’ I said resolutely. ‘And don’t you breathe a word to anyone!’

  Chapter Nine

  A Meeting in the Glen

  I slept little that night. We wedged the chair more tightly in place and shored it up with a nightstand, but I think neither Merry nor I were able to give ourselves over to slumber after what had occurred. I rose at first light.

  The sun was still rising when I let myself out of the back door. No one else was stirring and I found myself walking along a wet, leafy lane with only the morning cries of hidden birds for company.

  This side of the house led by a series of interconnected narrow lanes and pathways to the estate cottages. The drive was still impassable by carriage and I had not fancied my chances of scrambling along it even in a very strong pair of boots. My plan was to walk almost to the second set of cottages, where Susan lodged, but to break off and head up the hill at this point. I hoped I could then make my way across country to the shooting site. I anticipated a long, difficult and muddy climb, but no worse than I had attempted when I lived in Sweetfield. I could only hope my time at Stapleford Hall had not sapped my strength. Considering the long hours and hard work Mrs Wilson put me to, I had every reason to believe myself fitter than ever.

  However, fit though I might be, an hour later I was beginning to fear that Scottish mud and steep inclines would triumph over my intentions. It had also begun to drizzle lightly and all in all I was feeling much less enthusiastic about my whole plan. I doubted my ability, my skills, my sense and was a miserable bedraggled creature when the lane I was currently traversing opened up and revealed a crossroads. I sat down on the edge of the small mile-marker and enjoyed a very necessary rest.

  The rain pattered off the leaves and the air was full of the scent of earth. I took a moment to focus on my surroundings and remind myself of the peace that is to be found in nature. It is not something I have had enough occasion to do while working for the Staplefords. The glory of the natural world worked its magic upon me and, in a short while, I found myself confident of success. Justice was on my side and Pa had always taught me that, with the aid of quick wits, a stout heart and determination, good and right would always prevail.6 Of course, it was his vocation to believe such things.

  I took my notebook out of my pocket and discovered that the waxed paper I had used to protect it from the rain had done its job well. I closed my eyes and quickly sketched what I remembered of the shooting site and the position of the pegs. I knew where Mr Smith had fallen and could well recall the grouping of gentlemen Rory and I had seen near the body. I hoped a return to the scene might correct any errors and perhaps allow my shocked mind to remember any slight detail that would make a difference. I certainly intended to walk the very journey the cartridge bags had gone and by working my way through the events in proper sequence I might yet discover something that drew suspicion away from Susan.

  I was quite lost in thought when I heard the clip-clop of hooves. Looking up I saw a small trap coming along the lane. A man in a large hat and waxed coat was driving. There appeared to be logs and other materials piled behind him in what had obviously once been meant for transporting people. I was unsure of local etiquette, but I stood up to greet him as he passed.

  ‘It’s a wet day for a walk,’ he said in a thick accent. Under the wide brim I looked up into a pair of friendly hazel eyes, set all about with the lines of many years. ‘Where ye off to, lass? Can I give yous a ride?’

  As I have sadly remarked before, lying comes more easily to me now I work for the Staplefords. ‘One of the gentlemen at the lodge lost an expensive, engraved hipflask at the shoot and I am sent to search for it.’

  The old man made a hawking noise in his throat and spat into the road. I flinched although his aim was true and it landed far from me. ‘Them calls themselves gentlemen and make more a fuss of a piece of trumpery than a life!’

  ‘I believe it was his father’s and may have some sentimental attachment, but I agree it is nothing compared to what has happened. But I’m only a servant.’

  ‘You don’t sound like one,’ he said suspiciously.

  ‘My father was a vicar – a minister, I believe you call them here – and when he died my mother could not support me or herself, so I entered service.’

  ‘I’m sure he is enjoying the Lord’s reward,’ said the man with unexpected kindness that brought tears to my eyes. ‘Hop up, lass. I’m heading to the upper woods and I can drop you close to the site. I won’t be able to bring you back though. I’ll be working the woods for the rest of the day.’

  I climbed up the sid
e of the trap and sat beside him. ‘This is very welcome, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m sure the walk down will be easier than the walk up. I grew up in the country, but it was not as wild or as beautiful as here.’

  The man clicked his tongue and the horse moved off. ‘It’s a grand country, but a cruel mistress,’ he said. ‘I’m Donal Strachan. I’m gamekeeper on the estate.’

  ‘You must have worked with Susan’s husband,’ I blurted out.

  ‘Aye, a grand man. There was more than enough work for two. Still is. Yer ken Susan?’

  ‘A little. Well, enough not to believe she did what they say she did.’

  ‘She’s a passionate lass. Aye-ways was. If it had been the new master that had died I might have credited it, but this Mr Smith that no one has ever heard of? It makes no sense.’

  ‘She’d have known then about the danger of a wrong cartridge. I don’t really understand it myself.’

  ‘Aye. More so than most of the gentlemen, I reckon. Lachlan, that’s her husband, and I used to make our own loads. Fill the cartridges ourselves. It’s a dirty job, but cheaper by far than buying them from some fancy gunmaker. We also tend to be given the old guns, so you have to know the risks. A shotgun is a powerful weapon. The blast is gives out …’ He looked at me. ‘Do you know what is in a cartridge?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘I suppose your father being a man of God wasn’t prone to shooting the Lord’s beasts.’

  ‘No,’ I said simply, hoping he would continue.

  ‘Well, inside one of those wee cylinders is the exploding powder like you’d get in any gun, a wad that holds the shot together and lots and lots of wee metal balls. Think of them like tiny cannonballs and you’ll not go far wrong. When the gun is fired, the powder ignites and pushes the wad and the shot along the barrel. The wad is needed to hold the shot close, so it can fly together for longer. Otherwise you’d get the effect of an old blunderbuss. The shot flies true and gradually spreads into a cloud form as it travels through the air. A good close shot peppers your target with holes. If it’s close enough, it punches a hole straight through. Farther off and a few pellets will catch this and that. That’s one of the reasons you need a good dog at a shoot so it will find the wounded, as well as the slaughtered birds, so they can be put out of their misery.’

  I felt slightly sick, but I managed to ask, ‘What happens to the wad?’

  ‘Smart lassie,’ said the man approvingly. ‘It flies out the chamber, falling away from the shot.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the wad stuck in the chamber that caused the gun to go off?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘I don’t understand what happened then.’

  ‘From what I heard it sounds like someone put in a 20 bore cartridge. That’s a smaller cartridge – the kind a lady’s gun uses – instead of a 12 bore. Despite the numbers, that’s a bigger cartridge.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it just fall out of the barrel?’

  ‘Nay, bless you lass. Would that it could. It drops down a wee bit, so when the gun is fired the cap doesn’t ignite. It just lodges in the chamber, but far enough down that it’s easy enough to put another cartridge in on top. And when the second cartridge is fired the chamber is blocked, so the explosion doesn’t go out along the barrel but back towards the head of the man holding the gun.’

  ‘So his head receives all the full force of the blast.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ said Donal. ‘Sometimes the wad from a home-load lodges in the barrel or someone takes a wrong cartridge. That’s why you’ll see a man who knows about guns check his barrels after each shot. But it should never happen with the posh stuff your master buys.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have been doing that on the 12th, would they?’

  ‘Nay, lass. The competition to get the most birds and the bloodlust that gets on them’ll drive the sense out of most gentlemen.’

  ‘I doubt they realise the risk.’

  ‘Probably not,’ the man admitted. ‘That’s one of the reasons the loader is there. He loads a second gun between shots and passes the loaded gun to the shooter. He takes back the gun that’s been used and checks it. Folks think his job, and the second gun, are just about making the gentleman shoot faster, but it’s as much about safety.’

  ‘Could a bought cartridge not be faulty too? Badly made?’

  ‘I’d like to think so, lass. But I heard they found a mixture of cartridges on him.’ The man sighed. ‘He didn’t have a loader with him, did he?’

  ‘No, he’d been called away.’

  ‘It’s a shame that. A good loader would have spotted it.’ He smiled slightly. ‘A bad loader would have had his head shot off too.’

  ‘It would have killed him?’ I asked my voice catching in my throat.

  ‘Anyone standing next to a gun that explodes is a dead man.’

  ‘But none of the other shooters were injured.’

  ‘I can tell you’ve never seen a shoot up close,’ said Donal. ‘It works like this. The Glorious Twelfth is a competitive time. The guns, the gentlemen, insist on knowing their own tally. So pegs – shooting spots – are set up across the hill, each far enough apart from the other so the kills will be easily attributed.’

  ‘They can’t all be equally good places. Who decides who shoots where?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s done by lot right before they start shooting.’

  ‘It’s all very confusing.’

  ‘A shoot can be a confusing place and it grieves me to say it, but Susan would ken that.’

  ‘You think she changed the ammunition, don’t you?’

  ‘If she did, she put it in the wrong bag,’ said Donal. ‘The other person I’d be looking at close, if it were up to me, is his loader. It’s not usual for a loader to walk off, especially not on the Glorious Twelfth.’

  My stomach turned over. Could I have got everything very wrong and let free the real killer?

  My thoughts silenced me. Donal drove on and up the mountainside. Here the light rain became more mist-like. Although it was more than clear enough to drive by, there was a smudged whitish taint to everything. I was not looking forward to crossing the fields, but when Donal pulled up to let me down I had no choice. I thanked him politely and waved until the trap was out of sight.

  The echo of hooves and the rattle of the trap faded into the distance. I have always enjoyed walking in the country, but now, whether it was the dimness of the weather, the cold that was beginning to seep into my bones despite the shawl I had wrapped around myself, or simply the grim nature of my self-imposed task, I do not know, but I had the strangest feeling I was not alone.

  Unlike my brother, Little Joe, I am not given to fancying myself in the presence of spirits, but as I picked my way across the field towards the shooting site, I could not but think I would far rather encounter the ghost of the kindly Mr Smith than some dark stranger rising out of the mist.

  I reached the shooting site without incident. I found shelter beneath some trees. There was even a dry stretch of bark to lean against. I drew out my pocketbook and turned to my earlier sketch to check what I remembered from the terrible day. I was able to position Mr Smith accurately and, after some thought, draw in the situation of several of the gentlemen. It did not tell me who had been at which peg, but it gave some indication of nearness presuming all the men including the killer had responded in similar time to the explosion. One of the risks the killer would have had to have taken was that he might end up close to the exploding gun. I could think of no way that the taking of lots for the pegs could have been arranged.

  I reasoned if I were the killer I would have been careful to react in as innocent a manner as possible, which would include appearing to hasten to Smith’s aid even though I would have had good reason to know he was already dead.

  Tipton and Rory had arrived after the explosion, but that did not matter. The cartridge could have been placed at any time in the bag. Of course, if Rory was the killer, then he would have had to ensure the cartr
idge was not used while he was present. I went back over the events in my mind. Could the bag have been tampered with at lunch?

  I walked slowly back to the lunch site. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that a great many people would have had the opportunity to tamper with the bag. I could not precisely recall where the bags had been placed during luncheon, but the gentlemen had certainly not sat down with them still around their waists.

  I stopped, struck by a sudden thought. Why was I presuming the gentlemen were wearing the cartridge bags? I had paid little attention to their shooting attire. Might they not have been carried by the loaders? My head spun. There was so much I didn’t know. Mr Smith had both a bag and cartridges in his pocket. There was something in that, but I couldn’t grasp the thought.

  Had Mr Edward questioned the gentlemen about all of this? I could only presume he had. All my doubts washed over me again. Last time I had been involved with investigating a murder I had not had to think about where the weapon had come from. Instead I had concentrated solely on the personalities of the people involved. I had pursued my train of thought with such vigour that while tracking down clues I had attracted the attention of the murderer and in one case achieved a confession. However, the man who had confessed to me bore me no ill will and had been driven to his crime by deeds that would have tried the saintliest of men. I had no illusions any of the guests at the lodge were saints.

  Mr Bertram and Mr Fitzroy were right. I was out of my depth. I was lacking the kind of mind that focuses well on the tiny details of movement. My only successes were down to an understanding of the personalities involved and I barely knew the names of the guests here.

  But then, my inner voice prompted, you had been in the presence of the Staplefords for less than a day when you discovered a corpse and there were still leads for you to follow.

  I was now at the luncheon site. I managed to find a dry spot under a tree with protruding roots and made myself an uncomfortable seat.