Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘We know all this,’ growled Sempill. ‘Get to the point, man.’

‘Campbell of Glenstriven, leaving his limmer in the High Street, followed Euan into the kirk.’

‘There’s a sight too many Campbells in this tale,’ muttered Sempill.

Gil, who had felt this from the start, nodded, and went on. ‘I was near to your party in the kirk. I saw both these two arrive. I saw Campbell of Glenstriven slip away briefly and return. I saw other comings and goings.’

‘I went away to pray before St Catherine,’ said Euphemia wanly, returning.

‘I saw you before her altar. The one I did not see go away, the one I had my eye on every few verses, was the lutenist. He cannot have killed Bess Stewart.’

‘Why did you not — ‘began John Sempill, and stopped.

‘You gave me little chance, John. You were aye quick with your hands.’

He looked at the faces again. The harper’s face turned towards him, Ealasaidh staring sourly at the opposite bench, the mason intent. His uncle watching without expression, the way he did when a witness was about to become entangled in the facts. Philip concerned, James Campbell with a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip, John Sempill looking baffled. Euphemia, wilting elegantly on a stool near the kitchen stair, her waiting-woman bending over her and glaring at Gil. Checking that Tam was nearby, and Neil by the other stairs, Gil continued.

‘Bess was not in the trees when we all came out of Compline. She was already dead, inside the building site of the Bishop’s new work. Archbishop,’ he corrected himself. Ealasaidh made a small angry sound, and her brother put one hand over hers. ‘Whoever killed her had probably come out of the kirk, enticed her into the building site, presumably to be private, knifed her, and then gone back into the kirk. Unless it was a reasonless killing, and it seemed too carefully done for that, it had to be someone who knew her.’ Gil counted off. ‘You yourself John, James Campbell, Philip, Lady Euphemia, all came and went. I knew, at first, of no reason why any of the others should wish to kill Bess Stewart, and I did you the credit of believing that you would not have summoned her publicly and then murdered her secretly.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Sempill ungraciously.

‘I found her the next morning, and was charged with tracking down her killer. Maister Mason here, also concerned because it was his building site, has hunted with me. It has not been easy.’

‘Get on with it, man!’

‘The kirkyard appeared to be empty, but there were in fact two witnesses, a young couple still a-Maying. What I think happened was that they found Bess’s plaid where she had hung it on a tree so that her husband would know she was not far away. They decided to make use of it for greater comfort in the masons’ lodge, against the side of the Fergus Aisle, and I think they overheard some of the conversation and the killing. They may have looked, and seen murder committed by a wealthy individual, one of the baronial classes who could be assumed to have the backing of powerful people, people who could be a threat to a mason’s laddie and his sweetheart. The two of them certainly fled. The boy broke his skull running into a tree, and has been able to tell us nothing. The girl got away.’

Gil exchanged a glance with Maistre Pierre, who pulled a face and nodded.

‘I think the burden of guilt must be shared here. If we had not hunted so openly for Bridie Miller, who was the boy’s previous leman, she would be alive yet. She had quarrelled with the boy on Good Friday, and spent May Eve in the kitchen and part of May Day with her new lover.’ He looked at James Campbell, who was now staring fixedly at his boots, still sweating. ‘The boy had a new lass. Her name is Annie Thomson, and we have traced her in Dumbarton.’ Was it imagination, or did Campbell’s eyes widen briefly?

‘Bridie Miller was killed at the market on Thursday. She had been persuaded to step aside to a place where many of the girls go to ease themselves. She was killed in the same way as Bess Stewart, by a fine-bladed knife, with no sign of a struggle. It could have been a separate killing, but two killers abroad in Glasgow at the one time, with the same method of killing, seemed unlikely. Most of your household, John, was down the town that morning, but you and Philip can swear for each other, Lady Euphemia was with her lutenist, and I saw James Campbell myself near the Tolbooth about the time Bridie was killed.’

Campbell’s eyes did flicker this time.

‘We know all this,’ said Sempill again. ‘Get to the point, in Christ’s name!’

‘Then the serjeant came to arrest Antonio.’

‘I feel sick,’ said Euphemia again, raising her head from her companion’s bosom. They all paused to watch her sway towards the garde-robe. Maistre Pierre sneezed.

‘Antonio was killed,’ said Gil elisively, ‘and therefore could not be questioned. Nor could he swear to anything he did or did not do or see.’

Sempill frowned, staring at him.

‘By this time I had eliminated yourself and Philip, John.’ Philip Sempill looked up with a crooked grin. ‘I went down to Bute to discover who benefited, and dislodged a fine mess. I had the wrong philosopher. Not Aristotle but Socrates: there is always a previous crime.’

‘Thank you for nothing,’ grunted Sempill. ‘I’d have caught up with it eventually.’

Gil, suppressing comment, counted off points again.

‘I found there was evidence of misdirected rents, more than one version of what happened the night Bess Stewart left Bute, the curious story of the plate-chest, and one name that kept coming up in all these inconsistencies. It is clear to me that you and James Campbell of Glenstriven have a lot to settle between you, John.’

James Campbell leapt to his feet, his whinger hissing from its sheath. The narrow Italian blade appeared as if by magic in his other hand, and he backed wide round the Official’s table as if he had eyes in his heels.

‘I’ll take at least one of you with me,’ he said. ‘Who will it be? It wasny me that killed Bess, or Bridie, the poor wee trollop, and I’ll prove it on any of you that cares to try. Come on, then.’

There was a tense silence, into which the harper said something calmly in Gaelic. Then Ealasaidh sprang up with a cry of fury and hurled herself, not at Argyll’s grandson but the other way, towards the door which Neil guarded. Gil whirled, to see her grappling with the gallowglass and shrieking vengefully in Gaelic. He ran to intervene, and she fell back, ranting incoherently.

‘She is gone, she is escaped, this hallirakit kempie, this Campbell has let her go! Let me by, you ill-done loon!’

‘She bade me,’ stammered Neil. ‘I thought it was Maister James we was after, I thought — ‘

At the foot of the stairs the house-door slammed. Gil stared round, and saw the curtain of the garde-robe still swinging, and met the triumphant gaze of Euphemia’s waiting-woman. He stepped hastily to the window, flinging the shutters wide.

‘Leave her,’ said John Sempill. ‘Get on with it. Are we to take my good-brother or no, and are you going to be at the front of the assault?’

‘No,’ said Gil, ‘for it was not Campbell of Glenstriven that killed your wife.’

‘Well, if it’s Euphemia we’re after, she’ll not get far. Is that her down at the gate now?’ Keeping one wary eye on his brother-in-law, Sempill came to join Gil at the window.

Across the street Euphemia had just succeeded in opening the gate of the Sempill yard. Hitching up her tawny satin skirts, she slipped through the gap and made straight for the house-door. She was half-way across the yard when the second tawny shape emerged from the kennel.

‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ exclaimed the mason behind Gil as the mastiff bounded across the cobbles, silent but for its dragging clanking chain.