Michael Innes - Lament for a Maker

As yet I have got only the outline of what it is all about. The American Guthries – Sybil and her widowed mother – were served some dirty financial turn by Ranald Guthrie; they heard rumours that he was mad and irresponsible; and having an interest in his estate they have been trying in various ways to discover the true state of affairs. Sybil, being in England, decided to discover for herself. She explored the ground some weeks ago and when the snow came she saw her chance. What she didn’t see, poor child, was the awkward scrape into which her irresponsible jaunt was going to lead her. She really is a bit scared now – which only shows her common sense. It is a most extraordinary position.

But if she’s scared she’s also full of fight. Standing before the empty fireplace in Guthrie’s study and looking down on her as she perched once more on the desk, I thought of the motto that I now knew was hers by right. Touch not the Tyger . It was not inappropriate: the beast was lurking there truly enough and I felt that I had neither touched nor scratched it – I knew, in other words, very little about Sybil. Only I guessed that she would leap at danger if she felt the call; and I knew that there were ways in which she could be quite, quite ruthless. Observe, Diana, that the attraction of Miss Sybil Guthrie is a lunar echo of the attraction of Miss Diana Sandys: observe this and hold your peace.

She perched there full of fight, scarcely needing my prompting that her situation was awkward. I was puzzled, indeed, by an obscure feeling that she was planning ahead further than I could see – a feeling prompted, I knew, by some association in the recent past. A second later I got it: it was Sybil’s eye. She was looking at me, and about the study, with the very glance that Ranald Guthrie had bent upon his unexpected guests. I could scarcely have had a more dramatic reminder that there was a Guthrie at Erchany still.

‘What is known,’ I asked, ‘of your earlier reconnoitring here?’

‘I don’t know. Not much. I sent a telegram from the pub in Kinkeig saying I expected to get something soon.’

‘Whom to?’

‘Our lawyer. He was in London then but he’s sailed for home now. Noel, I think I’d better have a lawyer or someone.’

‘I think you better had. As a matter of fact, you have. I wired.’

‘Noel Gylby! Explain yourself.’

‘I didn’t like it at all: Guthrie dead and Hardcastle muttering murder and you being found up here. We must protect ourselves, mustn’t we? And I have an uncle in Edinburgh just now; he’s a soldier and has the Scottish Command. He’ll see the right sort of person is dispatched.’

‘I’ll say you have a neck.’

‘So have you, Sybil. That’s the point.’

‘Yes, I see.’

So that was that. I didn’t think anyone would really want to hang Sybil; I rather hoped they would be able to hang Hardcastle, though I couldn’t see just how. The thought prompted a question. ‘Sybil, you say Guthrie and Lindsay were in view all the time? What about Guthrie’s ringing a bell and going to the door and shouting to Hardcastle to invite me up?’

Sybil for the first time in our acquaintance looked really startled; I saw that I had brought forward a point that had escaped her. She said: ‘Where is the bell?’

‘Over here by the fireplace.’

‘Then Guthrie rang no bell. And he certainly didn’t go to the door and shout. Hardcastle lied.’

‘And Hardcastle was next to livid at finding you here. In fact Hardcastle had a game. Come over here.’

I led her across the room to one of the bays into which I had been peering earlier. There was an old bureau in which a drawer had been violently broken open. It was empty save for a few scattered gold coins. ‘The miser’s toy cupboard,’ I said, ‘and the toys are gone.’

I glanced at Sybil as I spoke and saw that she had turned pale. For a long moment she was silent; then she said, in odd antithesis to what had been her most familiar phrase hitherto: ‘No – no, I don’t see.’ She knit her brows. ‘And even if–’ She broke off and I could see that she was searching desperately in her mind, perhaps in her memory. ‘I couldn’t be mistaken on that.’ And she turned away from the rifled drawer. ‘Of course, Noel, it adds to the puzzle, but no further problem is involved.’

I must have looked my bewilderment at this outburst of riddling speech, for Sybil laughed at me as she walked across the room and rather wearily threw her cigarette into the fireplace. ‘Noel, what will your lawyer be like? I’m rather wanting to see him.’ She stretched herself with an engaging affectation of laziness and added: ‘And I’m rather wanting to go to bed and sleep.’

‘Then off you go. You have some hours before the rumpus. I’ll see you to your room.’

But Sybil gave a dismissive nod. ‘You needn’t come down, Noel Gylby. Ranald’s ghost won’t trouble me; as you know, I’m not really romantically inclined. But I’m glad you smashed my car. Good night.’

And so I was left in possession of Ranald Guthrie’s tower. And here I have sat scribbling away like Pamela – who, you remember, wrote home thousands and thousands of words on every attempt of her master’s on her virtue. I always liked Pamela and now I know why: I have that itch – hers, I mean, not her master’s. As they said to the Historian of the Roman Empire: ‘Scribble, scribble, Mr Gibbon!’ The story’s a good one, but I forget it. I’m tired. Take it these last few lines are sleep-writing absolute.

Very presently, I suppose, Tammas will bring back a few hardy representatives of order and sanity to this crazy castle. Crazycastle, Dampcastle, Coldcastle, Hardcastle. Hardcastle – grrr!

Good night, lady, good night, sweet lady, good night, good night.

Quoth

NOEL YVON MERYON GYLBY.

PART THREE

THE INVESTIGATIONS OF ALJO WEDDERBURN

1

I must begin my contribution to this record of the curious events at Castle Erchany with a confession. From the very beginning I had the gravest doubts – doubts which I cannot conscientiously say subsequent events resolved – as to whether, in the large utterance of the young man Gylby, ‘the right sort of person had been dispatched’.

It will doubtless be within the knowledge of readers familiar with the legal institutions of these Islands that the society of Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh is for the most part happily associated with the quieter, the more spacious, the truly learned aspects of the law. And I can modestly say that the firm of Wedderburn, Wedderburn and McTodd has amply contributed to this respectable tradition. Our clients are never harassed by importunate endeavours to bring their affairs to an issue, for the passions of today are the forgotten follies of tomorrow and procrastination in consequence is of the essence of soundly conservative legal practice. Again, they are seldom exposed to the uncertainties of litigation, for the harmonious and profitable commerce between solicitor and client can only be disturbed by the intrusion – not unaccompanied by heavy demands of a pecuniary nature – of our learned brethren of the Faculty of Advocates. The pleasures of conveyancing – a science often of the greatest antiquarian interest – together with the discreet superintendence of bankruptcies, alimonies, insanities and irresponsibilities among the best Scottish families has made the major part of our professional activities for some generations. Especially have we been reluctant to engage ourselves in the lurid limelight of the criminal law!

With this preliminary observation – which I trust will obviate any misunderstanding that may arise – I will plunge, in the phrase already employed by my worthy friend Ewan Bell, in medias res . On the afternoon of the Christmas Day upon which this chronicle centres, having dispatched my family to the pantomime – a mode of entertainment which has for me, I fear, a very limited appeal – I walked up the Mound and let myself into the Signet Library, proposing a few hours’ quiet study: some of my readers at least may not be uninterested to know that I hope shortly to publish a monograph entitled Run-rig, In-field and Out-field in the Scottish Land Courts of the Eighteenth Century . I was in the act of consulting a valuable article by the learned Dr Macgonigle in the Scottish Historical Review when I was interrupted by the appearance of my chauffeur with the news that General Gylby had called at my home on a matter of considerable urgency and was now awaiting my return.