Michael Innes - Lament for a Maker

‘May I ask if you have taken your Ph.D?’

‘Yes, Mr Wedderburn, I have.’

‘Then you are quite sure that you are not the “doctor” for whom Hardcastle was on the look out?’

Miss Guthrie flushed. ‘What an extraordinary piece of ingenuity! Of course I’m not. He knew nothing about me. And one doesn’t arrange to be called “Doctor Guthrie” all one’s days because of a roaring piece of pedantry in youth.’

‘I suppose not. Well, let us search further. I only wish that my own “youth” were as little behind me as yours.’

I found little more to interest me in the study. Books apart, it carried only a few traces of the career and interests of Ranald Guthrie: a boomerang and a native food-carrier from his Australian days, a few sketches by Beardsley to mark his contacts with a past generation of writers, a case or two of Pictish and Roman remains in token of his interest in archaeology. I moved into the bedroom. Here too there seemed little of interest. Guthrie had slept in a room immediately below. Except for a stretcher bed used perhaps for an occasional siesta this was little more than a lumber-room: a broken chair, a pile of old canvas, rope and sticks in a corner, a cracked mirror hung on the wall, a scrap of tattered curtain over the narrow windows. Much of Erchany, I gathered, was in just this state of dilapidation; I was turning away when my attention was caught by a book lying on the floor. I picked it up. ‘More medicine, Miss Guthrie. Experimental Radiology by Richard Flinders.’ I put it down again. ‘We are here by courtesy of the police and had better leave things as we find them. And now, perhaps, it is time to return to our discussion.’

Back in the study, Miss Guthrie took up what I knew to be her characteristic position perched on the desk. It was uncommonly chilly and I so far consulted the halting circulation of age as to talk while pacing about. ‘Miss Guthrie, I dare say you have read stories in which all sorts of revelations are effected by what is called a reconstruction of the crime?’

Obliquely but positively Miss Guthrie answered: ‘There was no crime. You’ve agreed to that yourself.’

‘I think you mistake me. But for the moment we will say “the events of Christmas Eve”. And I invite you, here in this room, to consider the probable results of the police attempting a reconstruction of those events.’

‘I don’t quite get what you mean.’

‘I mean simply that such a reconstruction would at once shake your testimony as it stands at present; and that it would shake it for a very good reason. The account you gave to Mr Gylby was as much coloured by your own desires as it was illuminated by the clear light of objective fact.’

Miss Guthrie stood up. ‘If you believe that, Mr Wedderburn, I really don’t think–’

‘But what I can see that the police might not see is that you are placing yourself in a hazardous and disagreeable position to no purpose at all. I will not presume, as a man, to judge your attitude, though as a lawyer I must think it wrong. The relevant point is this: romantic perjury can only embarrass us. And all we need is the facts.’

Miss Guthrie inspected the tips of her fingers. Then she said: ‘Please explain what you mean about a reconstruction.’

‘Imagine this room lit by two or three candles. The French window is not quite shut, there is a gale outside and the light is not only dim but uncertain and flickering. You are outside the window, peering in. Just how much could you see?’

‘Quite a lot – in a flickering way. And no reconstruction could prove that I saw just so much, no more and no less.’

‘Very true. But it is much easier to demonstrate that neither you nor anyone else can see round a corner. And I put it to you that without thrusting your head into the room it is impossible from that French window to see those two contiguous doors – to staircase and bedroom – fully and clearly . If either were opened wide you would no doubt be able to see the movement. But if one – or both – were opened only slightly , so that a man might slip through, you would see nothing. In other words, Miss Guthrie, your testimony translates an impression quite illegitimately into a certainty. The staircase door opened wide and you saw no more of Lindsay. The bedroom door opened wide and you saw no more of Guthrie. But Lindsay might in the moments following have slipped through the two doors – from staircase to bedroom and back – without your being any the wiser.’

Still perched on the desk, my client looked at the doors long and thoughtfully. ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘that is so.’

‘I think you liked Miss Mathers?’

‘I did.’

‘And this young Mr Lindsay, from what you saw of him?’ Miss Guthrie’s chin went up a decisive inch. ‘I thought him quite beautiful, Mr Wedderburn.’

‘And you had further formed the opinion that your kinsman was an almost wholly unbeautiful person?’

‘Very decidedly.’

‘Then we begin to see where we are. You were going to stick to these young people – whose circumstances are romantic, touching and beautiful – let the worst betide. All that stood between Lindsay and the gravest suspicion was your knowledge that he had gone out for good while Guthrie was alive. Therefore you have deliberately given your impression the status of knowledge… Miss Guthrie, have the police recorded your statement?’

‘No. Inspector Speight said he would take it formally later.’

‘Speight is a most circumspect officer. Now let me most earnestly tell you that you must go back to your mere and honest impression about the doors. You will lose credit if you don’t. And the one vital necessity is that your testimony should be seen to be reliable.’

‘Mr Wedderburn – I don’t understand. Vital to what?’

‘Vital to the safety of the quite beautiful young man Neil Lindsay.’

My client jumped up and approached me in considerable agitation. ‘You must tell me more of what is in your mind, Mr Wedderburn. You must .’

‘Simply this. That you couldn’t really and truly see the doors clearly is a thousand pities – still, it is not fundamentally important. What is fundamentally important is what took place between Guthrie and Lindsay. And that is where you have actually lied.’

Miss Guthrie was very pale and I thought I detected a rising tide of passion which might at any moment usher me from her presence for good and all. I therefore went on as hurriedly as was consonant with the impressiveness I knew to be necessary if I were to get my way with her. ‘You say Lindsay left quietly. Gylby says he left in a passion. And Gylby is speaking the truth. Now if Lindsay is to be vindicated we must have a clear picture of what actually happened. And that clear picture requires the truth – Gylby’s truth. Do you understand me?’

Miss Guthrie passed a hand over her forehead and sat down rather limply on a chair. ‘I don’t understand you at all.’

‘Let me then assure you of this – and I speak with nearly fifty years’ experience of the law. Neil Lindsay is safe. I have a picture of the case now which no prosecution could break through. Guthrie committed suicide. But that is far from implying that there has been no crime. A few hours ago I thought your evidence about the doors might be vital to him. I know now that all he needs is your simple story of what happened in this room. Please give it to me.’

Miss Guthrie rose, walked to the window and scanned the snow as if there might be counsel in it. ‘I find it,’ she said presently, ‘terribly hard to believe you.’ There was a silence. ‘But it is clear I must do as you say.’ And she turned and came back to her old position on the desk.