Michael Innes - Lament for a Maker

‘Of course you are right about the doors. I didn’t realize it, but I see it’s something they could demonstrate as a fact simply with a scale plan. I couldn’t be certain Lindsay hadn’t slipped back and through the bedroom to the battlements for the necessary half minute – though I knew he hadn’t.’ Miss Guthrie looked at me squarely. ‘I knew Lindsay hadn’t killed Guthrie. And everything followed from that.’

‘Inaccurate evidence never follows legitimately from anything, my dear.’

With a sober nod Miss Guthrie acknowledged this final fatherly rebuke. Then she went on. ‘Everything I have said about the interview between Guthrie and Lindsay is true – except right at the end. They sat and had that formal parley. Guthrie never went and shouted to Hardcastle about asking Noel up. Neither of them could have gone near the bureau–’

‘Exactly. This is vital and they can’t shake you on it.’

‘But at the end they got up and walked about half-way to the door. I could still see them clearly and I thought they were going to part with formal civility – like I made up for Noel – when I suddenly saw that something had gone wrong. Guthrie was talking and though I couldn’t hear a word I could see just what he was doing. He was lashing the boy – the young man – Lindsay with words. It was as if he knew he had some hold on him – some hold that made it safe to be briefly and hideously cruel. I knew in that instant that I just hated my kinsman and I felt – horribly it now seems – a fierce longing that the boy should kill him there and then. That was why I felt afterwards that I must–’

‘I see. Had Lindsay actually killed Guthrie you would have been spiritually an accomplice.’

‘Something like that. It was a piece of obscene cruelty on Guthrie’s part, and it was over in a few seconds. I had just drawn breath from it when I saw that Lindsay was gone.’

‘And that is the whole story? Then you have nothing to do but come downstairs and repeat it formally to Inspector Speight.’

Miss Guthrie gave a sigh of relief. Then she hesitated. ‘Mr Wedderburn – you are sure? It’s terribly hard to believe.’

I smiled at the reiterated phrase. ‘You need have no doubts.’

‘You know, Noel said there was another thing. He said it would be thought very strange that I should guess on that cry that Guthrie had–’

‘My dear young lady, Mr Gylby’s experience is no doubt curious and extensive. Nevertheless I venture to assure you that you need have no apprehensions.’ I consulted my watch. ‘And now there will just be time to send post-haste to Dunwinnie for an electrician.’

‘An electrician!’

‘Precisely. And one, if possible, with an impressive and venerable exterior. Much depends on little matters of that sort. And now, Miss Guthrie, for Inspector Speight.’

We went out and I locked the study door behind me. I felt, I believe, much as I feel when I lock up a family deed box with the knowledge that its affairs are comfortably settled for a generation. In silence we descended the long staircase and made our way to the police inspector’s room. We found Speight consuming ham sandwiches in meditative solitude.

‘May we interrupt you, inspector? My client Miss Guthrie would like to make a formal statement. And I don’t think we shall have much more trouble over the Erchany mystery.’

‘You think not, Mr Wedderburn? I’m real glad to hear it. Come away, Miss Guthrie, and we’ll have your bit story down on paper for the sheriff.’

‘There is one other matter before we begin. I propose to send my car into Dunwinnie to find a competent electrician. I believe he may be useful to us.’

Inspector Speight put down his sandwich. ‘Mr Wedderburn, did you say an electrician?’

‘Just that. And if they have a stopwatch at the police station I believe that would be useful too.’

5

When my client’s statement had been taken I excused myself and sought out Noel Gylby. I saw that I should presently need an assistant, and realizing that Miss Guthrie’s considered evidence on the doors had confirmed Speight in his suspicions of Lindsay I judged it imprudent to attempt taking him into my confidence at this point. Gylby, I thought, would be reliable as well as intelligent, and he would certainly relish the business of unravelling a mystery. Together we found Mrs Hardcastle, who was creeping somewhat eerily about the castle in furtherance of her fugitive warfare with the rats, and persuaded her to cut us some sandwiches for an early luncheon. I then suggested that we find a quiet spot for a talk and Gylby, after a moment’s thought, led the way up to the long winding room known as the gallery. I paused to view the demolished door in some astonishment – I had not yet heard little Isa Murdoch’s story – and then we passed inside. After a cursory view of the family portraits and the mouldering theology we made ourselves as comfortable as we could in an alcove.

‘Mr Gylby, you will have some idea of what the police have in mind about this affair?’

‘Hanging the elusive Lindsay.’

‘Quite so. And have you any opinion of your own?’

‘Nothing so clear-cut as an opinion. But I have one or two feelings – the principal one being that there are too many pieces. It’s as if a couple of the laird’s famous jigsaws had got mixed up and one found oneself, as the picture progressed, with an embarras de richesses. ’

‘I find myself in agreement with you, Gylby. Pray go on.’

‘Too much villainy about. Active villainy in Hardcastle and a sort of lurking, prospective villainy in Guthrie himself. My idea rather is that Guthrie was up to some dirty game, that Lindsay was somehow too much for him and that in consequence he got what he more or less deserved. I have felt that Sybil has some suspicion or knowledge that it was that way – and that she has been trying to shield Lindsay as a result.’

‘A most interesting theory. Can you push it further?’

‘Well – it sounds fantastic and squalid and horrible – but what about this. Consider the apparently rifled bureau. Guthrie was proposing to plant a fake robbery on Lindsay at the very moment he was going off with his niece. Lindsay spotted the plot while up in the tower, slipped back without Sybil seeing him and sent Guthrie over the battlement. Then he simply made off with the girl.’

‘Excellent up to a point. But I think it has a psychological flaw. Such a plot against Lindsay implies a twisted mind of the perpetrator. We may grant that; it is evident that Guthrie was a most peculiar person. But what of Lindsay? Guthrie was in a sense his enemy, and that he should kill him in passion upon the discovery of such a plot is possible enough. But would he thereupon – as you put it – “simply make off with the girl”? I think that would almost imply another twisted mind in the case. The impulse of a normal man, killing his enemy in passion and upon the discovery of a dastardly plot, would be to face it out. Particularly, he would not make off as a fugitive with a girl he loved. Is that sentiment, Gylby? I am inclined to call it sound mental science.’

‘I rather agree.’

Moreover we should still be left with far too many pieces – have fitted in, indeed, little more than the rifled bureau. So let us go back and glance at what appears to be Speight’s present case. Lindsay kills Guthrie, steals his gold and runs off with his niece. What do you think of that as a picture?’

‘First of all, that Christine Mathers isn’t the sort to fall for that kind of chap. And that it’s lurid and crazy.’

‘And if Lindsay could be shown to have paused in his flight, and in requital of some legendary injury to have chopped a few fingers off the corpse?’