The Lammas Curse (16 page)

The Countess was well pleased
too. While everyone had been discussing the death of Mr Brown and
its effect on the tournament, she had been staring at a portrait of
the previous Lord Cruddock, the sire of Duncan, and his distinctive
mane of red hair.

“Keep your wits about you,” Dr
Watson warned the Countess before setting off the next morning. “We
don’t need another accident!” He tried to make light of it but a
quaver in his voice betrayed him. The death of Mr Brown pointed to
the fact someone wanted to halt the tournament and would go to any
lengths to achieve that aim. The doctor did not for a moment
believe the poacher to have anything to do with the death of the
caddy. Simple men preferred simple villains and simple solutions
but years of working with Sherlock had taught him that murder was
rarely simple. From the outset he had been inclined to go with the
winning-at-all-costs theory, possibly spurred by his instant
dislike of Catherine and Carter Dee, but once he removed his
feelings from the matter, he had to admit their heartfelt pleas
last night during supper suggested it was unlikely they would have
jeopardised the golf tournament by eliminating four people – the
last one a mere caddy. If they wanted to win why act so early? Why
not wait until the field had been whittled down and then just
eliminate the best golfer? Despite his initial dismissal, gut
instinct now told him that current events were tied to the swindle
in India.

Mr MacDuff was waiting for him
at the entrance of the hotel, pacing up and down, puffing away at a
cigarette. He had the key to Mr Brown’s bedroom in his pocket and
handed it over before the doctor even thought to ask for it. Nor
did he waste time on small talk but got straight down to brass
tacks after a quick greeting.

“Mrs Ardkinglas sent the ostler
to Duns to report the death of Mr Brown to the police
constable.”

“What time did he set off?”
asked Dr Watson, trying to calculate how much time he had before
the police arrived and took over the investigation.

“I was up early this morning,
but he had already set off. It must have been prior to six
o’clock.”

“Was he one of the men in the
courtyard yesterday?”

“He was the one with the
hare-lip.”

“Oh, yes,” said the doctor,
remembering the cocky fellow. “Did you get the names of all five
men before they dispersed?”

“Yes and I added Mrs Ardkinglas
to the list and young Robbie Fyfe.”

The doctor glanced at the list
of names. The writing was neat and legible. MacDuff had proven his
worth yet again. “Do you remember which name corresponds to the
ostler?”

“It is Walter Shiels. The last
name on the list. I thought that if I left him till last he would
not get his back up so much. And it seemed to do the trick. He had
dropped the chip off his shoulder and when he was certain the other
men had cleared off he told me that he might have something useful
by way of information. He said it in a low voice so as not to be
overheard. I asked him what it was but he said he would only tell
it you. I think you must have put the wind up him when you
mentioned the Yard.”

The doctor ran his eye over the
list of names: Colin Nesbit, Ned Dawes, Graham Ayr, Brian Stornway,
Walter Shiels, Mrs Ardkinglas, Robbie Fyfe.

“Do you know the occupations of
the other three men?”

MacDuff nodded as he took one
last puff of his cigarette and tossed it on the ground, grinding
the butt down with the toe of his boot. “Colin Nesbit and Brian
Stornway are gardeners. Graham Ayr is the groom.”

“What about the lad?”

“Young Robbie is employed as
boot boy but he does all the odd jobs inside and out. He is as
quick as a fox and not as stupid as most of the jobbing lads I have
come across. I think if anyone saw something suspicious it would be
young Robbie.”

The doctor pocketed the list
and cast a quick glance over both shoulders. He had made sure to
have the conversation away from any windows and doors where they
might be overheard but he wanted to make sure the gardeners were
not lurking in the shrubbery. It was time to go inside and check
the bedroom of Mr Brown. He got as far as the hotel foyer before he
realized the caddy was shadowing him.

“Your help has been invaluable,
Mr MacDuff, but I would like to examine the bedroom on my own.”

“I may be able to spot if
something is awry. I have been in Mr Brown’s room several times. We
shared a smoke in there when it was too wet to go outside. His room
is at the end of the hall, you see, and the smoke does not float
down the stairwell the way it does from my room.”

“Be that as it may, I cannot
compromise the search for evidence.”

“No fear, Dr Watson, but if I
was going to compromise any evidence I would have done it last
night. I had the key. I could have sneaked in at any time during
the night and removed anything I wanted.”

Dammit! The man was right! He’d
had the key all night. And it was true that he would be the best
person to spot if something was missing or out of place. And since
the doctor had no idea what that something might be he could use an
extra pair of eyes.

“Very well, Mr MacDuff, but
please don’t touch anything, confine yourself to your powers of
observation.”

At the turning of the stairs
they met Mrs Ardkinglas coming down, a bundle of dirty bed linen in
her arms. She looked as if she had been crying a good deal. Her
eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. The doctor was overcome with pity
for the widow.

“Are you alright?” he asked
softly.

Her voice sounded as brittle as
broken glass. “I cannot fathom what is happening. It seems like a
bad dream from which there is no waking up. First my husband and
now Mr Brown, both down the well! What can it mean, Dr Watson?”

“Do not wear yourself out with
worry, Mrs Ardkinglas. I will get to the bottom of this.”

“Oh, Doctor, I do hope so!” she
said, sucking back air in an attempt to stifle the sobs that
threatened to rise up and choke off her oxygen supply. “But was Mr
Brown murdered or did he choose to end his own life? That is what I
want to know.”

“That is something for the
police and the coroner to decide. There is no rushing their
verdict. Would you like me to give you something to calm your
nerves and help you sleep?”

“Oh, would you, Doctor! Yes,
yes, I would like something. I am all on edge. I feel cursed. Yes,
cursed. And I am frightened. Yes, frightened.”

“My medical bag is in the
landau. I will give you something before I leave. But first I want
to have a look in Mr Brown’s bedroom and then I will have a look at
Mr Brown’s body.”

“Oh, to think of it – a dead
body in the cellar! It is this god-awful place! It has brought
nothing but bad luck since the day I first set eyes on it. It is
cursed! And so am I as long as I remain here! But where else am I
to go!”

“Take heart, dear lady. I will
get to the bottom of whatever is happening here.”

He recognized a woman on the
edge of hysteria when he saw one and knew that words were
meaningless, she was deaf to them. He moved slowly past her and up
the stairs, leaving her standing there with the bundle of dirty
washing in her arms as if lost in a fog.

The bedroom of Mr Brown was
small and plainly decorated. There was one sash window, open about
one inch for ventilation. It looked out over the rear of the hotel
onto the kitchen garden. By all appearances Mr Brown was a tidy
man. His golf clothes were hanging neatly over the back of a chair
where he had placed them yesterday afternoon when he changed into a
tweed suit. In one of the pockets was his golfing notebook for
keeping score and a sharpened pencil. Underneath the chair were his
golfing boots, brushed clean. A battered suitcase was standing open
in a corner of the room and in the bottom of it were socks, singlet
vests, long-johns and handkerchiefs folded in separate piles. On
his bedside table was a cheap bottle of whiskey, two-thirds empty,
and a glass. He had a set of cheap golf clubs. The leather golf bag
was scratched and battered. The set was a bit old-fashioned,
possibly second hand. On the wash stand was a hairbrush and a pair
of small scissors for trimming his beard.

The room did not appear to be
the room of a man in mental anguish about to throw himself down a
well. It was the room of a man with tidy habits and simple tastes.
The clean boots, the unfinished whiskey bottle, the neatly folded
garments all indicated a man who intended to return to his
room.

“Do you see anything out of
place?” asked the doctor, scanning high and low for a Wicca
symbol.

Mr MacDuff shook his head. “It
all seems as it was from when I was last here. The room was tidy
and still is. I thought there might be a note.”

“A suicide note?”

“A note to meet someone.”

“Meet someone?”

“The kitchen courtyard was
closed off to guests. We always had a smoke on the terrace on the
east side. There is a wooden bench out of the wind and a view of
the loch. His tobacco pouch and cigarette papers are not here on
the bedside table where he liked to put them so he must have had
them in his pocket. I think he smoked a fag or two while he waited
for someone because there were dozens of fag ends in the courtyard,
though I could not tell if any were the brand he favoured. I don’t
think he killed himself. He said something the other day about his
luck finally changing. He said things were finally looking up.”

“What do you think he meant by
that?”

“I took that to mean he was
coming into some money, maybe a bonus for caddying for Mr Bancoe. I
was about to ask him but the conversation was interrupted by one of
the gardeners who joined us for a smoke.”

The two men left the room,
locked the door, and proceeded to the cellar where the body had
been placed the previous evening. It was lying on the brick floor
in a damp patch of water.

The doctor could not make a
thorough examination of the body without permission from the police
but he checked the pockets of the tweed jacket and there indeed was
a soggy pouch of tobacco and some cigarette papers, soaking wet.
There were also some coins and a small piece of paper, roughly torn
from a notebook. The colour of the paper was different to the one
found in the dead man’s bedroom. Mr Brown’s notebook was white;
here the paper was pale green. The paper was cheap, and having been
submerged in water, practically disintegrated upon touch. The words
were illegible for the ink had all but washed away.

The body had been placed face
up but with the help of Mr MacDuff the doctor turned the body over
and began to examine the back of it. The head was intact, not
battered, indicating the body had gone straight down the well, head
first, without hitting the sides. He imagined the limbs and torso
to have fared less well and be severely bruised underneath all the
clothing, but it was the back of the neck that caught his eye.
There was a horizontal bruise as if the neck had sustained a severe
blow with a heavy object. That would explain how the killer managed
to shove the body down the well. If Mr Brown had had his neck-bone
snapped by a great whack it would have given the killer ample time
to remove the cover from the well. It was still an audacious crime
but so had the other deaths been audacious, relying on timing and
luck.

They righted the body and left
the cellar, locking the door behind them, and made their way to the
kitchen courtyard. They entered it through the same gate as the
previous day. It was tucked around a turret as the drive curved and
disappeared behind some bushes on its way to the carriage house. A
high stone wall surrounded the courtyard and the paving stones were
littered with several dozen fag ends. Mr MacDuff confirmed that
several of them belonged to Mr Brown.

“Where does that door lead?”
asked the doctor pointing to the doorway where young Robbie had
been standing in the shadows, virtually unnoticed until he stepped
up to speak.

“It goes into the
scullery.”

“Do you know where that second
gate leads?”

“I had a poke around last
night. It leads into the wood yard. There are some compost heaps to
one side and a large stack of chopped wood ready for burning on the
other side. At the end is a gate that leads into the kitchen garden
with some raised beds for vegetables, some fruit trees and a small
potting shed. The gate at the far end of that takes you into Crow
Wood.”

Dr Watson had a walk around the
well and peered down it. He left the wooden cover where it was. He
checked the cigarette butts. The variety of brands was enormous and
the state of decay of many was advanced. When he was satisfied that
he had seen all there was to see in the courtyard he passed through
the second gate into the wood yard and then into the kitchen garden
to check the layout for himself. It was as Mr MacDuff had
described. A door from the main kitchen led directly into this
walled garden. He walked past the potting shed, as far as the gate,
and opened it to look out on Crow Wood.

A poacher or some other person
could easily have come this way unobserved and left by the same
route. But why? Why kill Mr Brown? Why kill a caddy? The only
answer that made sense was to force Mr Bancoe from the tournament.
If that was the case it pointed to only two people – The Dee twins.
The likeliest suspect was Carter Dee.

They walked back the long way
around the stables and the carriage house and as they came around
the corner there was the ostler, Walter Shiels, unsaddling a horse.
The horse was coated in sweat and so was the man.

Dr Watson motioned with his
head for Mr MacDuff to continue back to the hotel while he paused
at the stable door.

“You have just returned from
Duns?” he put conversationally.