Call of Glengarron (16 page)

What was it had been fixed in my bathroom? And why?

I glanced around. There was the light in the center of the ceiling, and a pull switch hanging by the door. A central heating convector stood across the room under the window. What else? The only other electrical fitting I could see was the heated towel rail, fixed within easy reach of the bath.

Within easy reach of the bath.

Grim stories of accidental death in the bathtub came flooding to mind. It happened all too often, through faulty electrical appliances. In the bath, an electric shock was almost certain to kill... I

I stared at that towel rail in horrified fascination, drawing back slowly, as if the yard that already separated me from it was not enough for safety. Had it been tampered with? Had another “accident” been arranged for me?

The cable came from a floor socket. I knelt down and very gingerly reached out an arm and knocked up the switch. Then, to make doubly sure, I pulled the plug out. Now the thing was isolated from the main supply.

Was I being an over-imaginative fool? Somehow I had to check up on that towel rail. I had to know for sure whether it had been fixed as a booby trap.

I knew mighty little about electrical technicalities. But if my body had been intended to complete the circuit, it didn’t take a genius to see that for experimental purposes I could use something else. What had I got that was a good conductor—a metal—and long enough to reach from the towel rail to the water in the bath?

A quick search of my bedroom suggested nothing. But I remembered that in my suitcase there were a couple of wire coat hangers, covered in white plastic. I got them right away. Maybe the two together, opened out and joined, would be long enough for the purpose.

I set to work bending the wire back and forth, back and forth until it broke and I could roughly straighten it out. Then I took the nail clippers from my manicure case, and managed to scrape off the plastic covering from each end of both pieces. The wire was too thick for me to twist the two ends together, but I managed to make a fair joint by overlapping them and binding them tightly with a bandaid. Now I had a length of wire a little over three feet long. It ought to do the

trick.

I took the contraption into the bathroom. Struggling, hurting my fingers, I managed to bend over one of the bared ends to form a hook. I checked that I’d left the plug well clear of its socket before very carefully putting my makeshift gadget into position, with the hooked end over the towel rail, and the other end dangling in the bath water. I knelt on the floor again, and cautiously pushed the plug back home.

Now all I had to do was to switch it on.

It sounded simple enough, but I had to screw up my courage. First I dodged into the bedroom again and got one of a pair of rubber-soled shoes. Then standing well back, holding my breath, I used the shoe to press the switch on.

It clicked. There was a flash, a sharp crackle. My crazily improvised conductor collapsed into the water with a hiss.

Lingering in the air was an acrid tang, the burnt metal smell of an electrical short.

Weakly, I sat down on the bathroom stool behind me, unable to take my eyes off the towel rail. The innocent appliance had become a tool of evil.

There was no room for doubt any more. Somebody had rigged the wiring of that rail deliberately, expecting me to reach out for a towel with wet hands....

I should certainly have been killed outright.

This was the second attempt on my life within twenty-four hours. And this time it had been right inside the castle. Where would I be safe? Who could I go to for help?

If I announced that I was going to leave immediately, it would look very suspicious. Craig would surely try to stop me. And even if I found a means of escape, I couldn’t leave Jamie behind. He would have to come with me.

I’d forgotten that Jamie was still in bed, waiting for me. Steeling myself to be calm, I washed up quickly at the sink and went through to dress. I was wondering what I ought to say about my close shave this morning.

Perhaps it would be best to say nothing and let Craig think his plan had misfired. But my tinkering must surely have blown a fuse. That would bring someone looking for the fault. It
struck me that I ought to remove the evidence of my activities before anything else.

I looked at the towel rail dubiously. The thing was probably quite dead now, but I dared not risk leaving it as it was. If a fuse had blown at the main box it would probably be rectified soon. And then the towel rail would be alive again, and the maid who came in to do the cleaning might take my place as the victim.

To be on the safe side I switched it off and swiftly pulled the plug out once more. Then I removed the tangled remains of my coat hangers and let the bath water drain out.

When Jamie and I entered the breakfast room I looked directly at Craig. He must have been astounded at seeing me walk in apparently quite unharmed, but he allowed no trace of surprise to register in those smoky blue eyes of his. With a quick smile he jumped up from the table to greet us.

“Are you sure you felt well enough to get up this morning, Lucy?”

I lied with smooth defiance. “I feel fine.”

Alistair Lennox was breakfasting downstairs for once, so I took the bull by the horns. As I started on my grapefruit I observed as casually as I could that something appeared to be wrong with the towel rail in my bathroom.

“It gave a sort of ‘phut’ and then there was an odd smell.”

Duncan was bringing in a fresh pot of coffee, and happened to overhear me.

“If you will excuse me, Miss Calvert, I am very glad you have mentioned it because one of the fuses blew this morning. Now we shall know where to find the fault.”

Craig looked worried. “That could be very dangerous,” he said. “I’ll see to it myself directly after breakfast. Duncan, you’d better tell the maids to keep away from Miss Calvert’s bathroom for the moment.”

“Very good, sir.”

Mr. Lennox looked a bit nettled, and I guessed he felt his authority was being usurped. But he waited until the servant had gone before handing out a mild rebuke.

“You mustn’t upset Duncan, my boy. He’s a valuable man.”

Craig gave his uncle a surprised look. “Upset Duncan? How?”

“He’s a very competent electrician, you know. After all, he is the one who copes with our generating plant, so he must be quite knowledgeable.”

Craig shrugged. “I imagine he’ll be glad enough to let me fix it. I’m sure he’s got plenty to keep him busy.”

The moment he’d finished eating, Craig got up from the table, and asked permission to go into my room. I would have liked to refuse. A dreadful fear was growing inside me that he would tamper with something else while he was there. Already he’d made two attempts to kill me. The third time he might be lucky.

I determined to keep close to other people today. That seemed the best insurance of safety while I planned how I was to get myself right away, clear of any danger.

Craig was upstairs almost half an hour. When he came down I was in the sitting room, trying to give my attention to Jamie, while Mrs. Lennox sat at the writing table dealing with some correspondence.

Craig showed every appearance of concern about what he’d found in my bathroom. “The live wire was actually touching the casing,” he explained. “Of course, it should have blown the fuse long ago, but the earth connection seemed to be a bit loose.” He smiled grimly. “The towel rail should never have been placed in reach of the bath. I’ve disconnected it now, but I don’t like to think ...”

So he had neatly covered his tracks. There would be no possibility of anyone ever discovering that the towel rail had been tampered with. How cunning of Craig to have dismissed Duncan and taken over the job himself.

I had no doubt about the towel rail being quite safe now. But had Craig taken the opportunity to fix something else? I vowed that if I had to stay another night in this house, I wouldn’t even put a foot in that bathroom. I’d use Jamie’s next door.

And I’d be constantly on my guard with every smallest move I made. Before I ever touched a thing that could by any stretch of the imagination be potentially dangerous, I would pause to consider if it might be a trap.

Mrs. Lennox rose from the writing table, and I gathered from her vague remarks that she was going to get on with her tapestry work. Hastily, I asked if Jamie and I might accompany her. “I’d be fascinated to watch you,” I explained.

She looked faintly surprised, but agreed readily enough.

Once established in her private sitting room, I began to feel a bit safer. I still had no workable ideas about getting away from Glengarron—how to get Jamie and myself well out of reach before the alarm was raised. There wasn’t anyone I could turn to for help.

How could I go the police with such an incredible story? How could I hope to make them believe that there had been two attempts on my life? In both instances any evidence of deliberate tampering would be impossible to find by now.

I did possess one concrete piece of information. I knew Craig had been in Margo’s flat the night she died. But would that fact condemn him? He hadn’t broken any law by being there. And as for his subsequent disappearance, he could claim that he hadn’t known of Margo’s right away. In any case, the police had presumably been satisfied with their inquiries. Would there be the slightest reason for the authorities to believe Craig might have killed his wife?

Besides, something else would inevitably come out in the process of my telling this tale—the fact that Lambert Nairn had been at Margo’s flat earlier the same evening. Everybody would nod their heads knowingly, condemning poor Margo. Nobody else would understand as I did. Nobody else would try to understand. Margo would be labeled promiscuous, little better than a cheap tart. In the world of fashion, people could be very cruel.

My only hope was to get right away, to go into hiding with Jamie, and try to find some more evidence against Craig. Should I engage a private detective to do some investigating for me? The notion seemed wildly fanciful, but it was stuck firm in my mind. I needed something to cling to, right then.

For twenty minutes I’d been trying to show an intelligent interest in Isabel Lennox’s delicate needlework, at the same time stopping a bored Jamie from misbehaving. A tap on the door came as a relief, until I saw that it was Craig.

“Excuse me, Aunt Isabel. I was wondering if Lucy felt like going out on the lake for a while.” All his charm was in the smile he turned on me. “It’s such a lovely morning. We could use the motor launch.”

“Oh no,” I cried out in sudden panic. That would be far too easy for him. I certainly wasn’t going to play into his hands.

Craig looked rather nonplused. “I’m sorry,” he said uncomfortably. “It was just a thought.”

I had to avoid letting him guess how much I knew. He must think I was quite unsuspecting.

Swiftly I adopted an apologetic air. “I still feel a bit shaken up, you see. Maybe it’s best for me to stay indoors.”

“Yes, of course.” His solicitude was back at once. “Perhaps after lunch you might like that outing we didn’t manage yesterday. Just a quiet drive around, with a stop for tea at an inn somewhere.”

I believe I succeeded in turning him down without conveying how afraid I was at the very idea of having a drive alone with him.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I temporized. “If you wouldn’t mind leaving it.”

He went away then, and I guessed he felt at a loss. My determined refusal must have thrown a wrench in the works of his scheming mind.

Jamie and I stayed right there with Mrs. Lennox till lunch-time. She appeared not to mind, talking placidly if rather inconclusively about the tapestry she was working on.

I tried to be attentive, interjecting a question now and then. Apparently the tapestry depicted a particularly savage and bloody episode way back in medieval times. Several hundred men had been slain that day, before the McKinross faction emerged victorious, and Glengarron Castle was theirs.

I shuddered involuntarily. “Somehow I imagined that Glengarron had always belonged to your family.”

“No ... we are only here by right of conquest....” Isabel Lennox gave an apologetic little smile. “Time makes history …respectable.”

“Well anyway,” I put in for the sake of something to say, “it’s certainly a fine estate now.”

She nodded, absorbed in threading her needle with crimson silk.

“Of course, the days of the landed gentry are really over. The modern world has no place ...”

Mrs. Lennox dried up, and I made an encouraging noise.

“My brother had plans.... He was going to turn Glengarron into a center for experimental forestry, but...”

“Your husband didn’t carry on with that idea, then?”

Suddenly she was speaking rapidly and lucidly. “My husband was not experienced in forestry management when he took over here. Glengarron was already an efficient and profitable concern. He thought it best not to make any major changes.”

She had all the vehemence of an unwilling protagonist. I got the distinct impression that Alistair Lennox had kept things as they were simply because he reveled in the aristocratic way of life. I knew his wife didn’t share his tastes in this respect. I guessed she would infinitely prefer Glengarron to be used for something like forestry research, leaving her to lead a quiet, retiring sort of life.

I tried to steer the conversation around to the subject of Craig’s marriage. Even with Jamie right there in the room, I had to snatch this chance of finding out more about Craig and Margo. But Isabel Lennox made so many false starts and sudden stops that in the end I had to give up. I couldn’t make it out. Why was she suddenly so agitated? Was it the thought of Craig’s inhuman conduct? Or did she believe Margo responsible for the rift, and wished to avoid speaking critically of my cousin?

Whatever the reason, it was perfectly clear that I wasn’t going to get any useful information out of Isabel Lennox.

Fiona was away from home, playing in a golf tournament at Glenoustie. For the last couple of days she had been angling for Craig to go too. But in spite of her entreaties, in spite of all her pretty pouting, he had persistently refused.