The Key of the Chest Page 6

  Just as the sheep farmers and their kin had in turn disappeared, when imported wool and mutton from the colonies made sheep rearing on the Ros uneconomic. But the landowner was again lucky, for wealthy men, who made their money in all kinds of industries from coal to table condiments, were prepared to pay handsome rents for sport. So the square sheep farmer’s house grew wings and became Ros Lodge.

  Nor was that the end, for in turn the Highland landlord found it necessary to sell most of his ancient estate and the Sandemans had bought the Ros outright, while continuing to hold a lease of a neighbouring deer forest. When the lease expired the Sandemans made no effort to purchase the forest.

  They were losing interest in Highland sport, for fashion had its moods and changes, and were on the point of selling the Ros, prompted if indeed not stung thereto by an agitation (which gained considerable publicity through the Press) by the poor crofters of Cruime to have the Ros as a common sheep grazing, when the second son of the Sandeman house dramatically changed the parental intention.

  Michael’s career at Oxford was irregular enough, but thereafter his conception of how life should be lived in all its phases was so completely shocking to his parents that a crisis was reached. As a boy he had been passionately fond of hill sports, and on more than one occasion had had search parties scouring the mountains for him. His excuse had always been simple: a wounded stag or a rare bird, darkness or mist.

  So at the moment of crisis, the ultimatum was made very clear. Either Michael would reform and take his appointed place in the family fortunes or he would be banished to the Ros on the meagre but utterly rigid allowance of £2,000 a year, payable quarterly through the bank. He would understand, however, that if he elected to be banished, his debts and misalliances would alike be utterly ignored.

  Michael had chosen the Ros.

  So much the doctor had gathered from odd phrases let fall by Michael when recounting some amusing experience of the past. Whether that final scene had been a painful irrevocable one or whether it had been tempered by a father’s secret hope that a few years’ banishment beyond the civilized pale might help an irresponsible youth to find a man’s feet, the doctor could not be sure. But Michael had been at Ros Lodge now over two years, and there seemed to be no early prospect of his departure. His advent pleased the crofters very well, for they got the sheep grazing at a moderate rental and Michael retained the sporting rights.

  But here were the first houses of Ardnarie, Maclean’s shop with its pile of wooden packing cases, old Alie with his grandchild at his heels, a long thatched croft house here, another there, a wash of gold on the corn, flowers on the potatoes, and now at last the white harled walls of the doctor’s house.

  His mother had heard him coming a long way off. As indeed did the neighbours, who would be wondering what had kept the doctor all day.

  She was a tidy white-haired woman of seventy years, active, with colour in her cheeks.

  ‘David, what’s kept you?’ she asked on a sharp note of concern.

  ‘Oh, the usual,’ he replied, with a tired smile.

  ‘Have you had anything to eat since the morning?’

  ‘Eat? No.’

  ‘Oh dear me, will you never learn sense?’ and she retreated hurriedly into the house.

  CHAPTER SIX

  With chisel and hammer, the small seaman’s chest was opened the following day in the policeman’s parlour. There were documents, including the ship’s log, but as most of them were in Swedish their examination did not take very long. It was, however, quite clear that she was a Swedish vessel of some 800 gross tons, bound from a port in Finland to the Clyde with a cargo of wood pulp and timber. Entries in the log no doubt fully described the weather and how the vessel had fared in the storm. There seemed to be nothing of an unusual nature – and, anyhow, the documents would, of course, have to be studied in the proper quarter, as they would provide the basis for all considerations and claims, human and financial. The policeman’s wife had put a fire in the parlour and now the Fiscal was carefully drying some of the documents. The doctor was examining the chest. Remarkably little sea-water had seeped through. ‘A very neat job,’ he murmured, fingering some fine oilskin lining. But the way the inner wood-work tightly overlapped when the box was closed, so that even the keyhole, small as it was, did not go right through, held his attention.

  The policeman, who was assisting the Fiscal, glanced at the doctor, for they had already decided that the box had definitely no appearance of having been tampered with. The doctor was merely having his last look at the ruptured lock. His motor-cycle had given him an interest in mechanisms.

  Presently there was the noise of Kenneth Grant’s gig outside, and when the policeman had locked away the chest and its contents, they prepared to set out for Sgeir.

  The Fiscal, a stout man, with a clear mind and a rather thin but precise voice, was a Bachelor of Laws with about thirty years’ experience of all kinds of legal work. The policeman had already warned him that the gig would be able to proceed at only a walking pace, and that indeed often they would have to get out and walk themselves, the track was so rutted and rough.

  Now as his eyes took in the tall policeman, the doctor, the man who sat respectfully with the reins in his hand, and his own weight, the Fiscal began to laugh softly, almost without sound. Without a word, they all saw the humour of the heavily laden vehicle with the single horse on the impossible road. Then they got in, and every eye within sight – and that meant most of the eyes in Cruime – watched them set off.

  The easy confidence of the Fiscal, the complete absence of anything in the nature of importance or stress, greatly heartened the policeman. No further reference was made to the inquiry, but the Fiscal asked quite a lot of questions about the history of the Ros. The doctor found the journey much more agreeable than he had anticipated, for, though he recognized the necessity for officials and their procedures, he usually adopted in their presence a cool and precise form of talk or answer. Now he found himself smiling and chatting in a friendly way. The Fiscal had already thanked him for the extra trouble he was giving himself and the doctor had replied that he was really interested in the case.

  The heather was in full bloom. Its purple wash lapped hillock and boulder and ran inland with the eye. So naturally pervasive was it that the policeman did not consciously observe it, but the Fiscal, in a moment of sudden realization, was silent in surprise. There was such a lot of it, and as it receded from him in slow waves, it gathered the mist and bloom of purple. The freshness that had followed the storm was still in the air, was warm under the September sun, and the fragrance of the heather was an exquisite memory of wild honey. The track dipped and here were ruins, strangely still and silent. So silent indeed lay those ravaged upturned faces that involuntarily the ear listened for their immortal speech. Here and there, amid a green fume of bracken, hung a frond yellow as a woman’s hair. But much of the bracken had been scythed and the short stalks stuck up like thin brittle bones.

  ‘Who cuts the bracken?’ asked the Fiscal.

  ‘Dougald MacIan,’ answered the policeman. ‘Whatever else he may be, he’s a good shepherd.’

  The Fiscal said no more, and when the gig faced the opposing slope they all got out and walked.

  With the freshness alive on the blue sea they came at last in sight of Dougald’s cottage.

  The policeman, with solemn face, introduced the Procurator-Fiscal to the two brothers, and at once in the air was born the knowledge that here men were come together in their several functions to decide issues of life and death.

  They became separate from one another in a curious quietude. The Fiscal looked about him and said he would like first to see the shore. The policeman led the way, followed by the Fiscal, Charlie, Dougald, and the doctor. Sandy Grant (Kenneth’s younger brother), who had driven the trap, stood at the horse’s head gazing at that silent procession of men in single file until they disappeared over the cliff-head.

  On the shore, th
e Fiscal questioned Charlie in a direct natural way. Charlie had shaved but his face was still rather grey. His manner was reserved but he spoke clearly and intelligently, for he had been a bright schoolboy before going on to take the divinity course at Edinburgh University where he studied for over two years.

  The Fiscal grew deeply interested in the terrific onset of the recent storm, considered how the great seas smashed upon the skerries, how an incoming current was set up that met the face of the opposing cliff, was turned toward the small bouldered shore, to ebb under the lee of the near skerry – a sort of slow vast whirlpool.

  Upon this heaving movement of water the seaman had come: into it Charlie had dashed and got a grip of him, lost his feet but held on. There was some confusion until they fetched against the skerry. Charlie pointed to the jagged outthrust of rock that anchored them long enough for him to get his wind and fight his way back, taking the seaman with him.

  ‘You still had him by the clothes at the back of his neck?’ asked the Fiscal.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Charlie.

  The Fiscal looked around upon the wild scene. ‘I see. Then, I suppose, you grabbed him with the other hand and hauled him up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was he still holding on to the chest?’

  ‘Yes. He was. I—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was a bit in the way.’

  ‘That’s how you remember it? I see. I am merely trying to get a picture of the whole thing. Did you haul him out then by the one hand or did you use your other?’

  Charlie hesitated and for the first time his brows gathered.

  ‘I just hauled him out.’

  ‘Is it difficult for you to remember precisely?’

  As Charlie remained silent, the Fiscal went on, ‘You must not think we are doubting what happened. This is an official inquiry, and questions have got to be asked and answered. You understand that?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Charlie.

  ‘Very good,’ said the Fiscal quietly. He turned and looked towards the outermost spit. ‘Have you been out to see if the vessel is there?’

  ‘No,’ answered Charlie.

  ‘I think we might pull out and have a look,’ said the Fiscal.

  The boat was launched and Charlie and Dougald took an oar apiece.

  They found her in deep water on the southern side of the spit. From her position and a knowledge of the direction in which the gale had been blowing, it was not very difficult to see where she must first have struck. They discussed the time and the state of the tide, and then the Fiscal asked about lighthouses on the coast.

  Charlie told him of the nearest lighthouse to the north by which the master of the vessel could have been guided.

  ‘Do you think the weather was so thick that he could not have seen the lighthouse?’ the Fiscal asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ answered Charlie.

  Thought gathered about the Fiscal’s small eyes. It seemed to the doctor that he was on the verge of speaking but then decided to hold his tongue. A curious silence fell on the boat. The doctor regarded Charlie’s face for a moment, then looked over the side with the others, and, through the clear water, saw dimly the dark hull of the vessel. A lighthouse, a light, thought the doctor, and his mind tried to rationalize a vague but ominous inrush of fantasy from forgotten tales of wrecks and wreckers. There was no tradition on this coast of vessels being lured to their doom. The notion was preposterous, absurd. For the moment, his reason balked. The Fiscal ordered the boat to be rowed back, and they went all the way to the house in silence.

  When the Fiscal and the doctor had finished with the body, the doctor went to the outside door and called to the brothers. As they came up he turned to Dougald: ‘Was the minister here last night?’

  ‘He was,’ said Dougald.

  The doctor felt the suppressed force in the man coming at him. It was elemental, terrific. He had not spoken one word until that moment. The doctor asked Charlie to enter and followed him with a queer irrational need to smile. Everything was on that level, with the possibility of incalculable eruption. The quietness of their procedure was acquiring the automatic in a fatal way.

  The Fiscal sat in the chair which the policeman had occupied on his first visit, laid some papers on the table, then turned towards Charlie, who was sitting with the light on his face.

  While the Fiscal was making his cautionary remarks about the need for truth and the nature and use of evidence, the doctor, who was sitting opposite him and had the back of his head to the window, was able to watch Charlie’s face.

  It was an interesting face, with its fair clean skin and that elusive gleam of yellow in the hair. That the fair skin could, contrary to fair skin generally, go a trifle grey, suggested a capacity for introverted thought. At the same time there was about the face, as its native inalienable characteristic, a certain gallant careless air. The man was well made, tall, with an easy swaying movement of the body. About thirty years of age. It was not difficult to understand how attractive he could be, given the moment, with desire in himself.

  Methodically the Fiscal traversed the evidence, as it had in all important detail already been given to the policeman, until the moment arrived where Charlie again asserted that the seaman was alive in the cottage.

  ‘Are you prepared now, or in a court of law, to take your oath on it that the seaman was alive?’

  ‘I thought he was alive.’

  ‘Listen to me. Are you prepared to state on oath that he was alive in the water when you rescued him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are absolutely certain of that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you prepared to state on oath that he was alive in this room?’

  Charlie hesitated.

  The doctor actually felt his own heart beat as he saw Charlie’s face assume an inner dourness. He knew well the attitude of mind. He had seen it locally too often. Having said something, the man would stick to it whatever the consequences. Yet Charlie was troubled in some other subtle way that the doctor could not follow.

  The Fiscal waited, his solid bulk unmoving.

  ‘I thought he was alive,’ answered Charlie at last.

  ‘Are you prepared to swear to it?’

  The Fiscal’s thin voice gathered a certain body, remorseless and without any colour. The moment became still and solemn.

  Charlie twisted slightly on the hard wooden chair. And then, almost as if drawn out of him against his very nature, he said, ‘No.’

  The Fiscal moved.

  After a few more questions concerning Charlie’s direct dealing with the body and the absence of any reaction to the warm blanket and the hot tea, the Fiscal asked him if he had seen or been in contact with any other living person during the night.

  Charlie looked directly at him.‘No,’ he answered, and seemed to wait, as if something suspicious were about to be revealed.

  ‘I have to put to you a very direct question,’ said the Fiscal solemnly. He looked at Charlie steadily. ‘The medical evidence would seem to suggest that this body has been strangled.’

  He paused, and the doctor, in a silence in which each breath was held, watched Charlie’s face as the eyes stared. The mouth fell slightly apart and the underlying bone structure of the face was revealed. Then the eyes roved but came back to the Fiscal’s face.

  ‘Did you strangle the body of this seaman?’ asked the Fiscal quietly.

  The chair scraped back from the straightening of Charlie’s legs as he arose. ‘So that’s what it’s all about!’ There was a bitter derision in his voice.

  ‘Please sit down,’ said the Fiscal.

  But Charlie went towards the fire and turned round. His face was completely drained of blood. It was in a way as if he had not heard the question, had not yet realized its personal import. So this was what it was all about! And yet the doctor, had his life depended on it, could not have sworn that Charlie was now reacting naturally. It was extremely like the way in which a H
ighland temperament, such as Charlie’s, would react in all the circumstances: the staring amazement, the derisive intolerance, the pallor of anger behind; but somehow the doctor was left with a feeling of uncertainty, of something concealed in Charlie’s mind.

  ‘Will you answer my question?’ asked the Fiscal in his even, unavoidable voice. ‘Did you strangle this seaman?’

  Charlie looked at him.‘No,’ he answered in a voice suddenly cool as his own.

  ‘To your conscious knowledge you did not in any way bring about his death?’

  ‘No.’

  The Fiscal at last withdrew his eyes and wrote for a minute or two. Then again he looked at Charlie. ‘Are you still prepared to assert that you thought he was alive in the cottage?’

  ‘I thought he was alive,’ said Charlie at once.

  ‘But you may have been mistaken?’

  ‘I may.’

  ‘Can you give any idea at all of how the seaman may have met such a death?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yet you were the only one in his company from the moment you found him alive until his death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it possible that you may have, all unknown to yourself – and please understand that I mean all unknown to yourself – that you may have brought pressure about his throat in the struggle and confusion of getting ashore?’

  Charlie stood rigidly staring through the window. ‘I don’t know,’ he said tonelessly.

  ‘Think,’ said the Fiscal. ‘You are an educated man. Do you mind if we attempt a reconstruction of what happened on the shore?’ He got up. ‘Perhaps,’ he said to the policeman, ‘you wouldn’t mind acting the seaman?’