Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘This is a right tirravee,’ said John Sempill of Muirend angrily. ‘Why did you have to rout Maidie out her bed and all? It’s none o her mind, any o this.’

‘John,’ said his wife, putting a hand on his arm. ‘If it’s a matter for the law, I’ve no complaint, though I’ll not deny the time could be better chosen. Is it about my godmother, sir? Have you discerned who it was,’ she bit her lip, ‘that killed her?’

The servants had been sent home, Lowrie and Philip Sempill had made signed depositions and left reluctantly, the boy Berthold, asleep on his feet, had been tucked in a corner of the guardroom despite Alys’s objections. Otter-burn wanted him handy, he said. And four men-at-arms had been despatched to escort Sempill of Muirend and his wife to the Castle, and not to take any refusal.

Gil, watching from the window space, could not decide how much either of them understood of Sempill’s position. Three candles in the pricket-stand beside Otterburn’s desk did not show their expressions clearly, but Lady Magdalen certainly seemed ignorant of wrongdoing, merely puzzled. He looked down at Alys, and found her watching intently despite her weariness. Socrates was sprawled across her feet, snoring.

‘Aye, well,’ said Otterburn. ‘I’m tellt you’d likely prefer to be turned out your bed the night rather than the morn, what wi the morn being the Sabbath.’

Ah ah! thought Gil. So Otterburn has got there too, has he?

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sempill said quickly.

‘John.’ Lady Magdalen turned to the Provost. ‘Any day’s right for God’s work, and surely finding the truth is aye God’s work? May we no sit down, sir?’

‘Aye, get on wi’t,’ said Sempill. ‘I want my bed. I’ve had a long ride the day.’

‘So has my wife, John,’ said Gil, ‘and a fight wi a dangerous man forbye, while you stood and watched.’

‘You can keep out o this,’ snarled Sempill over his wife’s shocked exclamation. ‘If the pair o ye’d kept yir noses out fro the start it would ha been easier!’

‘Very likely,’ said Gil, ‘but would it ha been honest?’

Otterburn cleared his throat significantly.

‘We’ll all be seated, if you please,’ he said firmly, ‘and we’ve a few things to discuss. Maister Cunningham, will you begin?’

Gil drew his stool forward so he could see all four faces in the candlelight. Sempill was scowling, Lady Magdalen wore her usual calm smile, Otterburn and Alys were both watching him with care. He marshalled the facts in his head and began.

‘On Wednesday evening, John, you had a word wi Dame Isabella at her window. You were heard,’ he forestalled interruption, ‘after she’d kept you waiting, and then refused to see you. What was it she ordered you to do?’

‘None o your mind,’ retorted Sempill.

‘On Wednesday evening?’ queried Lady Magdalen. ‘No, no, you said you never had a word wi her, John.’

‘Aye, well,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘she wouldny see me alone, dismissed me like a groom, and after I’d waited as long. Was it those sleekit servants?’ he demanded of Gil. ‘Sneaking about listening in corners?’

‘By what I’m tellt,’ said Gil, amused, ‘there was no need for that. The whole of the Drygate might ha heard you. She gave you an order, and you said you’d see her in Hell afore you did that. What did she say then, John? Will we hear it?’

Sempill opened his mouth to answer, closed it and stared at him, cornered and baffled.

‘Did she bid you,’ Gil chose his words with care, ‘have no more to do wi the Ballencleroch toft? The one that holds Clachan of Campsie and the glen?’

‘Aye,’ said Sempill in relief. ‘That was it.’

‘The one you thought was mine, John?’ said Lady Magdalen. ‘Well, that was right. There was no need for you to be concerned wi that toft, unless she was to give it to me.’

‘That’s true,’ agreed Gil. ‘So what were you doing out there?’

‘That’s my business,’ said Sempill, with more confidence.

‘No, John, let us know,’ prompted Lady Magdalen. ‘Were you dealing wi the factor and so forth? Was that it?’

‘There’s no factor,’ said Gil. ‘He’s been collecting the rents, and taking an interest, haven’t you, John.’

‘Aye.’

‘Well, if that’s all-’

‘And he put the miners into the glen.’

‘Miners?’ Lady Magdalen looked from Gil to her husband, the dark woollen veil sliding over her shoulders as she turned her head. ‘Surely no, maister, there’s no mining in Strathblane. It’s no coal country.’

‘Not coal,’ said Gil, watching Sempill. ‘It’s silver, as my wife worked out, and there were three men working it. A nice wee vein, the boy tells us, and should last another year or so.’

‘Silver?’ Lady Magdalen repeated in astonishment.

‘Nothing to do wi me,’ said Sempill defiantly.

I never met so many liars in the one case, Gil thought. All along, folk have not merely concealed things, they’ve lied outright.

‘Silver,’ repeated Lady Magdalen. ‘I canny believe it, sir. Has it gone to the Crown, as it ought? You’d see to that, would you no, John?’

‘Well, I would have done,’ said Sempill unconvincingly, ‘but I never had the chance.’

‘How was that?’ Gil asked. ‘What prevented you?’

‘Surely, all you had to do was send to the Treasurer,’ Lady Magdalen said. ‘That’s no hard task, John. I could have writ the letter, if you wanted.’

‘The old — the old — Dame Isabella,’ Sempill burst out. ‘She wouldny let me! She insisted — she’s been buying it off me! It was all to come down here, and I never had the least notion what she was doing wi’t.’

And if you believe that, thought Gil, you’ll believe anything. Aloud he said,

‘So the silver was worked up in Strathblane, and run into ingots, or bars, or what you call them, and brought down to Glasgow. Was it Neil Campbell and his brother that fetched it?’

‘Aye, damn you!’ said Sempill grudgingly. His wife sat back, looking at him reproachfully. ‘If you’ve nosed out that much, why do you need to ask me?’

Gil thought about the rest of the detail Berthold had given them. It had been the angry man who had brought his father and uncle to Scotland, and put them in that narrow valley and told them to keep the local folk away. Well, miners were used to that attitude, so they had used the tricks they always had, which had worked. The man who fetched the silver had brought them meal, which they had disliked, and onions and cheese. They had spoken to nobody else. Nothing to unsettle Sempill there.

‘What happened to it next?’ he asked instead. ‘Where did the Campbell brothers take it to?’

‘Oh, that was all the old dame’s concern,’ said Sempill loftily. ‘None o my mind, so I got paid for it.’

‘What, you just let it out o your hands?’ Sempill nodded. ‘Well, well. So on Wednesday evening Dame Isabella ordered you to have no more to do wi the toft that holds the mine.’

‘Why would she do that?’ Lady Magdalen asked in puzzlement. Sempill glowered, but Alys looked up and caught Gil’s eye.

‘Dame Isabella had just learned that there was a confusion,’ she pointed out. ‘The toft with the mine on it was hers, not Lady Magdalen’s.’ Or possibly Archie Livingstone’s, Gil thought, but did not say. ‘She had been buying silver which was her own.’

‘Did she ask for her money back, John?’ Gil asked in some amusement.

‘Aye, she did, the auld-’ Sempill bit off the next word as his wife laid a hand on his sleeve. ‘I told her I’d see her in Hell first, and I meant it.’

‘Did you now,’ said Otterburn. Sempill looked at him in alarm, and then at Lady Magdalen’s dismayed expression.