The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (39 page)

Tofu and Ranald were both pleased that Bertie was taking over, and Ranald quickly passed him the map. Then they set off. But it so happened that at exactly that time, the Royal Company of Archers was holding its annual ceremonial competition shoot – for the Edinburgh Arrow, a trophy awarded to the member who actually hit the target. On years when nobody hit it – and this was a not an uncommon occurrence – then the arrow was awarded to the archer who came closest.

Dressed in their fine green uniforms, feathers protruding proudly from their bonnets, the archers stood in ranks near the corporation tennis courts. A few arrows had already been fired, including a wildly inaccurate shot from one of the brigadiers, in which the arrow had slithered along the grass in the direction of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, to be intercepted by a playful dog, who had seized it and carried it away in the direction of the Sick Kids Hospital.

Bertie, Tofu and Ranald, standing by a hedge, watched the competition with great interest.

“They’re the Queen’s bodyguard in Scotland,” explained Bertie. “They’re very important.”

They watched as one of the archers stepped up to the plate and fitted an arrow to his bow. He was a powerfully built man and he drew the string well back. Then, taking aim at the distant target, a large, straw circle, he let the arrow fly which it did, convincingly so, but not in the direction anticipated by the bowman. Caught in the breeze, the arrow curved a slow arc across the sky and fell to earth at exactly the point where a man was walking along the perimeter of the park. Although its force was largely spent by that stage of its flight, there was enough velocity in it to pierce the sleeve of his jacket and lodge in the fabric.

The archers had now finished their shoot, and were packing up to leave, to return to Archers’ Hall, their fine headquarters off Buccleuch Place. The archer who had fired the last shot looked furtively about him, and slipped off at a fast walk.

“Did you see that?” whispered Bertie. “Did you see him shoot that man?”

Ranald shivered. “Let’s go home before they shoot us,” he said miserably.

“No,” said Bertie. “We must get on with what we’re meant to be doing.”

He looked at the map and pointed out the route they should
take. This led them past the place where the victim of the misfired arrow, a handsome-looking man dressed in black, was still standing indignantly, wrestling with the arrow that was protruding from his sleeve. He had pulled it out of its resting place, but its tip had become caught in the material and was proving difficult to extricate.

“We saw who did it, mister,” said Tofu. “We saw him.”

The man greeted this information with interest. “Could you point him out to me?”

“I think so,” said Bertie. “But they’ve all walked away.”

“I know who they are,” said the man. “It’s that Royal Company of Archers. They’ve got a clubhouse of some sort back there. That’s where they’ll be heading.”

Bertie looked at the man who had been shot by the arrow. He looked familiar for some reason, but he could not remember why. Then he remembered: he had seen his picture on a book his father had been reading, and he had asked him who it was. “Ian Rankin,” Stuart had replied.

“Excuse me,” Bertie now said. “Excuse me, but aren’t you Mr. Rankin?”

“Yes, I am. And you are?”

“Bertie Pollock, sir. I’m a member of the First Morningside Cub Scouts and – ”

Tofu interrupted him. “And my name is Tofu,” he said. “It’s an Irish name meaning …”

“Vegetable paste,” offered Bertie.

Tofu scowled. “Chieftain,” he said. “It means chieftain.”

Ian Rankin turned to the third member of the party. “And you, young man?”

“Ranald Braveheart McPherson,” came the squeaky voice.

“Well then,” said Ian Rankin. “I suggest that you three help
me to solve the mystery of who shot me. Shall we go round to the Archers’ Hall?”

They made their way round the edge of the Meadows. Ian Rankin passed the arrow to Bertie to look after. “Evidence,” he said. “We must keep the evidence.”

“Will they try to run away again?” asked Tofu.

“We’ll see,” said Ian Rankin. “I don’t think they could run very fast – most of them. But we’ll see. We must realise that we’re dealing with some pretty desperate characters here. Earls and people of that sort. You never know what people like that will do.”

They continued along Buccleuch Place and then turned the corner at the second-hand bookshop.

“There’s one of your books in the window there, Mr. Rankin,” Bertie pointed out. “Look. And, look, it’s only one pound.”

They turned another corner and began to make their way down a small lane. At the end of the lane was a handsome building, in the eighteenth-century style, the front door of which was surmounted by a large coat of arms executed in stone. The door seemed firmly closed, but there was a light within indicating that the hall was in use.

Ian Rankin knocked firmly on the door and he, and his three uniformed assistants, to all intents and purposes Baker Street Irregulars, waited for a response.

Inside the hall, one of the archers, a brigadier, peered out of a small peep-hole.

“Oh no,” he muttered to somebody behind him. “That chap you shot by mistake. He’s outside with a gang of helpers.”

The other archer moved forward and looked through the peep-hole. “Oh dear,” he said. “But at least he’s still alive. And, do you know what? I think it’s that Rankin chap. What are we going to do?”

“Get the form,” said an archer behind him. “The usual form. It works every time.”

There was a general scurrying among the archers and a piece of paper was produced from a drawer in a bureau at the
back of the hall. This was a waiver of liability form, drafted years ago by one of the lawyer members of the company, and it offered membership of the Royal Company of Archers in return for an agreement by the injured party not to pursue the matter.

“It’s saved an awful lot of trouble in the past,” said the brigadier, blowing the dust off the form. “Many years ago one of the then governors of the Bank of Scotland hit a city councillor in the leg when he let off an arrow at the Garden Party. Fortunately we had the form, and it did the trick. They’re thrilled to be invited, you see, and they sign it, in almost every case. Then we tell them what the uniform costs, and they go away. Works every time.”

With form in hand, the brigadier opened the door. “Yes?” he said, quite politely.

Ian Rankin turned to Bertie. “Was it him?” he asked.

Bertie shook his head. He could see the guilty archer, standing in the shadows, and he pointed to him. “It was that man over there, Mr. Rankin,” he said.

“All right,” said the brigadier. “Sorry about that. Some of the chaps are a little bit wonky in their shooting. Terribly sorry. But, here’s an idea. If you would care to forget about the matter, then we’ll make you a member! We have great fun and, as you see, we’ve got this marvellous hall! That picture over there is by Allan Ramsay, for example. It shows the Earl of Wemyss in his archer’s kit.”

He thrust the piece of paper into Ian Rankin’s hands.

“You should join, Mr. Rankin,” said Tofu. “It looks fun.”

“Ask them how much it costs first,” whispered Bertie.

The brigadier glowered at Bertie. “Just sign there,” he said.

Ian Rankin hesitated. There was no harm in this, he thought, and he was a kind man. He had received his apology and this very generous offer of membership. He signed.

“Good,” said the brigadier. “Now we’ll send you the details of the annual dues and the cost of the uniform. You can get it made up for just under five thousand.”

“Pounds?” said an astonished Ian Rankin.

“Yes,” said the brigadier. “Frightfully expensive. Sorry about that. But there we are. Sorry you won’t be joining us after all!”

And with that he shut the door. “I should have listened to you, Bertie,” said Ian Rankin. “That’s the way the establishment operates in this city, of course. They assimilate critics. It’s an old trick.” They walked back to Buccleuch Place.

“We’d better get on with our map-reading exercise,” said Bertie.

“And I should get on with my walk,” said Ian Rankin. “But I must thank you three young men for being such excellent detectives. I think that we solved that mystery really rather satisfactorily.”

They bade farewell to each other, and the three boys made their way back in the direction of the University Library. They were back on course now, and with some good navigation from Bertie, they soon succeeded in completing the task. Twenty minutes or so later, they found themselves reunited with Akela and the other cubs. Everybody was accounted for, except for one or two stragglers, who would probably turn up later on, Akela thought.

With the need to deal quickly with the late Lard O’Connor’s painting, before the much regretted Glaswegian gangster’s younger brother, Frankie O’Connor, travelled to Edinburgh to reclaim it, Angus had invited James Holloway to his studio to inspect the portrait of Burns.

“I’m pretty sure that this painting is what you think it is,” said James. “There’s so much evidence now. But the jardinière really clinches it.”

Angus had raised with James the issue of the jardinière which appeared in the background of the painting. He had been convinced that he had seen it somewhere before, and had wondered whether it had appeared in any other paintings of the period. James thought that it had not, but had taken the matter further and had eventually identified it as the Chinese jardinière belonging to Lord Monboddo, the famous eighteenth-century philosopher, linguist and lawyer.

“Here’s a recent photograph of that very jardinière,” said James, passing a glossy print to Angus. “You see, it’s the same in every particular.”

Angus took the photograph and held it alongside the jardinière in the Raeburn. There could be no doubt: the two were the same.

“So what that suggests,” James went on, “is that Raeburn painted Burns’s portrait when the poet was visiting Edinburgh. We know that he was received by Monboddo, who ran a salon in his house at 13 St. John’s Street. It was quite a salon, of course: not only Burns attended what Monboddo called his ‘learned suppers,’ but all the leading intellectual lights of the day.

“I thought,” James went on, “that if we ever found a Raeburn portrait of Burns it would have been painted at Dr. Ferguson’s house in Sciennes, but there we are. This is definitely in Monboddo’s house.”

Angus smiled in pleasure. “That makes it even more exciting,” he said. “I have a lot of time for Monboddo.”

“Of course,” said James. “He was a most remarkable man. And yet people made fun of him. The portrait of him by John Kay, for instance, depicts him against a framed picture of a group of tailed men dancing round in a circle.”

“Well, he did say that men used to have tails,” Angus pointed out.

“Didn’t Darwin have something rather similar to say?” retorted James.

Angus nodded. “Oh, I agree. He was in some respects a
Darwinian before his time. But, moving on from Monboddo, we have an immediate problem on our hands.”

“This Glasgow gangster?” asked James. “Or rather, his brother?”

“Yes. We must do everything we can to stop them getting this picture. They have no right to it – they obviously stole it.”

James thought about this. “Fair enough. But in those circumstances, it will have to go to the police, won’t it?”

Angus stroked the frame of the painting lovingly. “Yes, but I can tell them, quite honestly, that it was brought in by somebody who has now disappeared and who can’t be traced, and that in these circumstances I would propose donating it to the nation if they can find no lawful owner from whom it has been stolen.”

“A very sound idea,” agreed James. “And a perfectly legal and morally correct one too. And, on behalf of the nation, I accept.”

With the broad policy agreed, James and Angus set about prising the Raeburn from its frame. Once removed, the painting seemed a somehow diminished thing, naked and vulnerable – a mere creature of canvas and wooden stretchers. But even with this, it glowed with that wonderful muted light that infused each Raeburn, and one could tell that this was from the hand of a master.

Next, Angus fetched the redundant portrait of Ramsey Dunbarton and measured it against the frame that the Raeburn had just vacated. Some adjustment would be required to Ramsey’s portrait, but nothing excessive, and it was while he was marking this with chalk on the surface of the canvas that a telephone call came through from Domenica.

James could tell that the call was an important one. “No!” exclaimed Angus down the line, his eyes widening. “Is there no end to her brass neck?” And, “She’ll be wanting to keep her distance from the actual transaction – that’s what she’ll be wanting!” followed by, “We’ll come down to Scotland Street immediately. Stay where you are, and keep calm.”

“Trouble?” asked James when Angus had replaced the receiver.

Angus rolled his eyes. “Serious trouble,” he said. “We shall have to go to Domenica’s flat without delay, James. I shall explain on our way.”