Death at Glamis Castle (6 page)

Unfortunately, occupied as he was in establishing himself in his career, Oliver had not had the time in the past two years to pay the proper attention to Flora. Now that he felt comfortable in his position and was sure that he could earn enough to support a growing family, however, he was ready to resume their loving friendship, to make her, in short, his wife.

But while Oliver was furthering his professional ambitions and making a name for himself in the district, Flora had herself grown and changed, from girl-child to young woman. She worked with her mother at the castle, as housemaid and attendant to an invalid resident there, some friend of the Strathmore family. And Oliver now saw, to his great delight, that his Flora had become more winsome and lovesome than ever, with her soft brown hair and steady gray eyes, her skin of roses and cream, her buxom figure. He was more than ready to offer himself, heart and soul and body, to this dear, sweet creature, whom he now admitted had never lost her place in his heart.

Flora, however, did not seem quite so ready to accept as Oliver was to offer. She had rejected his first proposal some weeks ago, but so gently and sweetly that his hopes were not in the least discouraged. After all, it was scarcely immodest of him to believe that Flora MacDonald could find no better husband in all Glamis (in all the Strathmore Vale, come to that), no finer a man in appearance and health nor richer in both present possession and future prospect. And for her part, sweet, shy Flora was not likely to stray far from the village, nor entertain the attentions of a stranger from another district. No, his sweetheart might put him off and protest that she was not ready to marry, but he was confident that she would come round in the course of events—the sooner, of course, the better—and agree to be his dear wife.

However, something terrible had recently happened, something that was likely to affect his relations with Flora, and it was for this reason that Constable Graham's customarily self-satisfied countenance had turned dark and forbidding. Flora had suffered a grave harm a few days ago, and it was the constable's responsibility to see that the perpetrator was brought to justice as quickly as possible. Her mother, Hilda MacDonald, had been viciously murdered—her throat slit from ear to ear, a quick and ugly death—and poor Flora herself had discovered the body on the path between Glamis Castle and the village, early on Monday morning. It was now Wednesday evening, the inquest was scheduled for the following day, and Constable Graham had not yet discovered the murderer, nor uncovered even a single clue to his identity. It was a failure he felt keenly, both professionally and personally. He had failed not only his duty, but Flora as well—Flora, who trusted him to bring her mother's killer to justice; Flora, who would soon, pray God, consent to be his wife.

The constable strode around the corner, past John Buchanan's tobacconist shop, and into the pub room of the Glamis Inn, a gray-stone two-story building with a green-slate roof and chimneys at either end. As usual, the low-ceilinged, smoky room was crowded with village men enjoying a pint and a pipe and discussing the events of the day with their friends, while a generous fire blazed on the brick hearth. The loud buzz of voices that filled the air was silenced when the constable entered, however, and he felt the bitter stab of pitying looks, like poisoned darts digging under his skin. Everyone in the room, including Herman Memsdorff, Flora's cousin, knew he had failed so far to discover the identity of Hilda MacDonald's killer—the first and most significant failure in the two years he had served as their constable—and all felt sorry for him.

Oliver glanced at Memsdorff, to whom he planned to talk. But the man, who came frequently from Edinburgh to visit his aunt and cousin, was engaged in close conversation with Douglas Hamilton, the assistant gamekeeper up at the castle. Hamilton was a cocky, hot-headed little fellow who smoked stinking cigars and was always bragging about his exploits, and the constable had no use for him. Anyway, conversation with Memsdorff could wait until Oliver had fortified himself with a pint in hand.

He pushed his way to the pub's bar, its smoky mirror decorated with two large framed photographs: Queen Victoria's on one side, hung with dusty crape, King Edward's on the other. The difference between the two was evident to any viewer. The Queen wore the gloomy face and mourning she had put on at her husband's death some four decades earlier, while a smiling King Edward was pictured with his last-year's Derby winner, Diamond Jubilee. Behind the bar, Thomas Collpit gave him a sympathetic nod. “The usu'l, Oliver?”

“Aye,” Oliver replied gruffly.

Dr. Ogilvy was standing at the bar, surveying the room through his narrow, gold-rimmed glasses. “Good evenin', Oliver,” he said in a genial voice. “Wha hae ye found, m'lad?”

Oliver took the pint that the dour Mrs. Collpit pulled for him from a wooden keg. “I've nothing for ye, I'm sorry tae say,” he growled. “Ye shall hae t' render an open verdict.”

The doctor, a short, stout little man with a round face, bald head, and gold-rimmed glasses, was also the district's coroner, and would preside tomorrow at the inquest into Hilda MacDonald's murder. Oliver had wanted badly to present the killer to the coroner's jury, but although he had pursued his investigation vigorously—interviewing those who discovered the body, going from house to house in the village, questioning the gypsies camped at Roundyhill (who had of course been his first suspects)—he had come up with nothing. There were no witnesses, no weapon, no evidence, no clues, not even a motive for the especially vicious killing. He would have to report to Chief Superintendent McNaughton, with great regret and not a little chagrin, that there was nothing to report.

“Run against a stone wall, hae ye, now?” the doctor inquired gently. He pursed his lips. “Well, I dinna wonder ye ha'n't turned up the villain yet, Oliver. It takes a long spoon tae sup wi' such a de'il as killed our Hilda. How's Flora?” he added sympathetically, for he knew the constable's feelings. There was little about Glamis Village that Dr. Henry Ogilvy did not know, Oliver supposed, privvy as he was to all of the secrets in the neighborhood: the secret births, the secret marriages, the secret dreams and fears and hates. This intimacy made him a perfect coroner, for he knew very well when someone was tempted to testify falsely.

“Canna say, as to Flora,” Oliver replied, glum. “Ha'n't seen her this day. She's nowt tae hame, for I called there just now. S'pose she's workin' late at the castle.” To tell the truth, he suspected that Flora was deliberately keeping herself out of his way, for he had perhaps been a bit overzealous in pressing his romantic intentions upon her on the Sunday evening before her mother's body was discovered. And now—

There was a stir at the door, and Oliver turned to see a stranger enter the crowded room, an elderly, gray-haired gentleman dressed in clothing suited to tramping the countryside: thick woolen jacket and gray knickers, stout leather boots, a brown felt hat with the brim pulled over his forehead, a canvas pack on his back, a fiddle case strung over his shoulder, and a stout oak walking stick in his hand.

Limping badly, the old gentleman made his way to the bar and ordered a whiskey and water. “But dinna drown the miller,” he cautioned, and Thomas Collpits, with a ready laugh, splashed no more than a drop of water in the glass he pushed across the rough plank.

The men in the room visibly relaxed, for here was no stranger but a venerable fellow Scotsman, although perhaps an eccentric one, out on holiday. The constable, however, leaned forward, feeling it his duty to know the identity of every man in his district, particularly now, with a murder investigation under way.

“Good evenin', sir,” he said. He frowned, showing his suspicions. “And where'boots be ye frae, may I ask?”

“Glasgow,” the man said in broad Scots. “I'm called Alan Donovan. I coom i' search o' ballads and auld stories, for a collection I hae i' the makin'.”

The constable was about to inquire of Alan Donovan where in the district he was staying, but his question was forestalled.

“If ye know an auld ballad I dinna know aboot, I'd be pleased t' write it doon,” the elderly gentleman said to the room at large. And then, in a tuneful baritone, his pale blue eyes dancing merrily, he broke into the first verse of “The Bonny Earl of Murray”:

 

“Ah, yes,” said a dark-haired, slender man, turning from his conversation with the butcher. Robert Heriot was the village schoolmaster, and the resident expert on the ballads of Strathmore Vale, on the whole history of Scotland, for that matter. Heriot struck a pose and offered up the second verse:

 

“Ye do say so, do ye? Might hae been a king?” The old man smiled genially. Unstrapping his fiddle case and tucking the instrument under his chin, he answered with a third verse:

 

The air was filled with the plaintive cry of the fiddle as the two men traded the interminable verses of “The Earl of Murray.” Then the village butcher, fat Henry Arrat, whistled the refrain of “Broomfield Hill,” and the three of them took up that ballad, in harmony. That finished at last, the rest of the room joined in on “The Shepherd's Dochter.” The villagers were accustomed to singing hymns at St. Fergus Kirk on Sunday, but they did not often have the privilege of raising their voices to the old ballads, and especially with the accompaniment of such an accomplished fiddler. They laid into the familiar music with grateful hearts and a fervor fueled by yet another round of pints, generously contributed by the ballad collector.

As the men sang, Oliver turned his attention to the crowd, thinking again of the terrible crime that someone—one of them?—had committed this week. Some of the men worked at the castle, or on the castle farms and fields; others plied their trades or vocation in the village, such as the baker, Alex Ross, and Peter Chasehope, the joiner, and the Reverend Cecil Calderwood, the convivial vicar, who enjoyed his pint of ale just like the rest. The station clerk was there, too, and with him one of the signalmen, laughing together with the young clerk at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Oliver frowned. It was impossible to see any of these men as the man he sought, for they were almost all very well-known to him, and to Hilda, who was held in high regard throughout the village. Theirs was a close-knit, interrelated, and self-sufficient community, in which each man and woman depended on the work and the trade of the others. They worshipped together, attended school together, and danced at each other's weddings, mourned at each other's funerals. The constable could not imagine that any of these men could have killed her.

He did, however, have one suspect in mind. He leaned close to the doctor, lowering his voice so that he could be heard under the by-now raucous singing.

“Hilda once told me that her job at the castle, and Flora's too, was tae take care o' some invalid gentleman who lives in retirement there. Lord Osborne, his name is. Ye havena heard awt o' him?”

“Lord Osborne? Lord Osborne?” The doctor, his brow furrowed, took off his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. “Canna say, Oliver. Why d'ye ask?”

The constable shrugged, frustrated. “Well, somebody killed Hilda MacDonald,” he growled, “and the killer surely isn'a one o' us. I think I shall hae a wee bit o' talk wi' Simpson tomorrow mornin', and ask tae see this Lord Osborne.”

“Ye mun do as ye mun do.” Behind his glasses, the doctor's usually-sprightly glance was troubled. “Ye spoke wi' the gypsies up by Roundyhill?”

“At the very first,” the constable answered grimly. “None had awt tae say, o' course, and with nae evidence tae speak of—” He shrugged again and looked around, his eyes searching the crowd for a tall man with dark hair and eyes bright and black as the eyes of a crow, and a jagged scar across his jaw.

“Herman Memsdorff must hae gone hoom a'ready,” he said disgustedly. “I wanted tae talk wi' him.” He had thought to inquire about Flora's health and state of mind, hoping that her cousin might know how she was feeling. He hated to think of the girl having to give evidence at the inquest the next day, as low in mind and spirit as she must surely be, poor thing.

“Memsdorff? Aye, I saw him leave just after ye coom in,” the doctor said. “Strange chap, that.” He put his pipe in one pocket, tugged his watch out of another, and glanced at it. “Well, I must be off tae hoom, afore Mrs. Ogilvy cooms tae fetch me. I shall see ye at the inquest tomorrow, Oliver.” He pulled a long face. “Sad business, this, verra sad. I shall be glad when Hilda's laid tae rest.”

Oliver nodded. He lingered in the pub for an hour after the doctor departed, listening to the singing and hoping that Memsdorff might return. But Flora's cousin did not reappear, and finally, his ears ringing with the sound of the old man's fiddle and the lilting tune of “Loch Lomond,” the constable made his own way home, to his solidly thatched but lonely cottage.

It would be several days before he would learn that he had seen the last of Herman Memsdorff.