M.C. Beaton - Death of a Charming Man

The rehearsal began. Nancy, in a gown which was obviously straining at the seams, sang her song and exited without incident. Annie Duncan, as the Principal Boy, actually had a splendid pair of legs, Hamish noted. He also noticed that the minister had come in, had not taken a seat but was leaning against a pillar, his face tight with disapproval.

The choice of music was a mixture of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Scottish folk songs and a Gaelic song for the bit where everyone was supposed to join in. Heather, who had been persuaded to leave her father’s side and get into her costume, made an excellent cat.

Hamish sat back with his arms folded, his eyes moving from one face to another. There was one face that was tugging at his mind. He felt it was a face he had seen before. His eyes ranged from the stage and round the audience.

By the end of the rehearsal, there was a stabbing pain over his right eye. He did not wait for Edie but went back to her house and let himself in. He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. It was like being haunted. Something, someone he had seen at the rehearsal, was the ciue to the whole affair.

Edie came in, rather huffy because he had not waited for her. She had had a lovely time at the rehearsal with Ailsa, Alice, and Nancy, hinting at a romance with Hamish, slyly implying that she, Edie, had seen Priscilla off and they had all giggled over it, quite like old times.

“Coffee?” she asked.

Hamish opened his mouth to say yes and then he looked at her blindly.

“What’s the matter?” asked Edie. “I have a headache,” he said. “Got to lie down.” He went up and lay fully clothed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Something in his gut was telling him how it had been done and who had done it, but he had not one shred of proof, and this, he was sure, was one criminal who would not break except under extreme pressure. But how to apply that pressure?

He lay awake long into the night, falling at last into an uneasy sleep, and waking late, still in his clothes, and with all the thoughts of the night before rushing into his head. He had an urge to go to Lochdubh, to see Priscilla, to tell her what he thought had happened and see what she said. And then he heard a furious knocking at the door downstairs and Edie’s voice raised in questioning alarm. Then he heard her running up the state and swung his legs out of bed and stood up, feeling dizzy and groggy.

“Come quickly, Hamish,” panted Edie. “It’s Mr. Apple. He’s found a body.”

♦

Hamish followed the gesticulating and exclaiming builder up towards his cottage where his workmen were standing in a circle on the peatbog staring down at something.

“We were starting to drain the peatbog early,” said Mr. Apple, “and to dig it up for the drains and the men found the body.”

News had spread fast. People were running out of their houses.

Hamish went up to the circle of men. They parted to let him through. There, lying in the peat, was the figure of a man, black with peat mud, encrusted with peat mud. Hamish felt a red rage against the murderer, which he afterwards tried to explain allowed for his subsequent unorthodox action.

He turned to the men. “Get that body up and get it on some kind of stretcher and take it to the community hall. Get everyone in the village to the hall…now!”

He stood grimly while, with a terrible sucking sound, the bog gave up its prey. The blackened body was put on a door and a little procession of men carried it into the community hall. Hamish ordered them to place it on a table below the stage and stood beside it with his arms folded while the whole of the village filed in.

The minister strode to the front of the crowd. “This is disgraceful,” he said. “There are children here. What do you think you are playing at?”

Hamish raised his voice. “This is the body of Peter Hynd,” he said. “And the murderer of Peter Hynd is in this hall. This body may be covered in peatbog, but forensic science can do marvels these days to find out how, when, and why the man was killed. But I know who did it.”

His eyes ranged over the startled faces. He sent up a prayer. He was acting on a wild hunch. But he had wanted pressure, and pressure was here in this still, dead body.

“Step forward, Annie Duncan,” he said in a loud voice, “and look at what you have done.”

Her face was white and drawn and she moved towards him like a sleep-walker. “Why is he so black?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I thought he would be clean with all that water. Why is he so black?”

“You did it,” said Hamish. “I know you did it and I can prove it. Peter Hynd did not sign the final papers for the house sale. You did. A handwriting expert will soon prove it.”

The minister found his voice. “You madman,” he howled. “How dare you? Come along, Annie.”

He tugged at her arm but she went on staring at Hamish as if hypnotized. “Leave me, Callum,” she said quietly. “Don’t you see he knows?”

“Knows what?”

“That I killed Peter Hynd.”

There was an indrawn hiss of amazement from the hall. “Phone Strathbane,” said Hamish to Mr. Apple, who was standing beside him. “Come with me, Mrs. Duncan.”

As he led her to a side-room, he could hear a voice saying, “Thank goodness it wass not one of us. It wass an outsider.”

Annie Duncan had lived many years in the village but she was still regarded as an outsider.

They faced each other over a table in a side-room of the community hall. “While we’re waiting for the team from Strathbane,” said Hamish, “you’d better tell me how you did it and why you did it.”

She gave a dry sob and then seemed to compose herself. “How did you know it was me?” she asked.

“I knew it was you when I saw you dressed as a principal boy. You had deepened your voice for the part. You are English. I realized you could have impersonated Peter. I remembered the way your face became transformed when I first called at the manse when Peter Hynd’s name was mentioned. I remembered Peter’s sister. She looked very like him but vaguely like you. How did you do it? Men’s clothes and a blonde wig?” She nodded.

“Why?”

She stared off into space, a blind look on her face. Then she said, “He was the most marvellous thing that had ever happened to me. He said he loved me, that we would go away together. He told me he planned to sell the house. We were above these peasants in this village, Peter and I. He was the sort of man I should have married. I had never known love like it. And then I heard the men were going to throw a brick through his window and I went to warn him, but as I crept up to the cottage I could hear the tinkling of glass. I waited until they had gone away and I crept forward to look in the broken window. When he came down, I would call to him. He did come down. He was naked and he looked so beautiful, I stood and stared, enjoying looking at him, about to call to him. And then she came down from the bedroom. Silly, fat Betty Baxter, with her coarse face and her great coarse thighs. I saw them together, I saw them going up to the bedroom together, and I thought I would die of loss and shame. I think it drove me mad. Then I saw my moment. There was a film to be shown at the community hall and I knew all the village would be there. I had overheard him saying he had already seen the film in London.

“I went up to the cottage. I wanted it all to be the same. I wanted him back again. I did not think anymore of killing him. He smiled when he saw me, that blinding smile of his and I wanted to think I had imagined him with Betty. But I told him I had seen him. He looked a bit taken aback and then he began to laugh. He tugged my hair and said, ‘You don’t think you’re the only woman in this dead-alive place that I’ve laid to pass the time.’