Susan felt as if the curtain ought to come down on the frozen tableau; no author could have invented a more effective ending to a scene. Unfortunately, this was not a theater. Sooner or later, someone would have to do something. Susan looked at James. He was staring at Dugald, but his look of outraged indignation was slightly overdone.
Ewen was the first to regain his voice. Emotion made him revert to pure Scots.
“Ye’re daft, mon,” he bellowed. “Daft! What are ye havering aboot?”
“It—it was on the telly,” Dugald stuttered. “In a hotel in Blair Atholl, a few hours ago. He stabbed an old man—killed him. The sgian-dhu had the Erskine crest—”
“What?” James shouted.
“That’s not proof,” Ewen said slowly.
“He was seen,” Dugald insisted. “Seen leaving the house in the middle of the night. Along with a lassie—” His rigid arm swiveled toward Susan.
“Man, you are out of your mind,” Ewen exclaimed. “Susan isn’t…Susan doesn’t…”
“Oh, but she is, and she does,” said Ellie. Her soft, precise voice sounded strange after the shouts of the men; but it held a quiet malevolence that was even more threatening. “I don’t know Mr. Erskine, but I know about her. She’s wicked. Evil and treacherous. Don’t let her get away.”
“You know her?” Ewen asked dazedly. “How could you? Where did you meet her?”
The thick lenses of Ellie’s glasses flashed as she turned her head away.
“I—I know about her. I didn’t say…. Can’t you take my word? She’s a murderer!”
“Jamie,” Susan said urgently. “I think I know who—”
“All right, Susan.” James stood up, pushing his chair back. He nodded at Dugald, who had finally freed himself of his knapsack and was dancing up and down waving his arms and uttering incoherent challenges. “I’m Erskine, all right. I suppose Dugald has seen me around the University. His face is vaguely familiar to me. But the rest of it is all wrong. We’ve been framed. I don’t know who framed us, or why, but I’m going to find out. And I suspect some of the answers start right here. Damn it, can’t we sit down and talk like reasonable people? I’m as anxious to discover the truth as you are.”
“Hmph.” Ewen rubbed his chin. “I’ve never been one for turning a man over to the police. Start talking, Erskine. Shut up, Ellie. And for God’s sake, Dugald, stop dancing about.”
Dugald had closed the door, presumably to keep the miscreants from escaping, but they might have heard the sounds outside if they had not been so preoccupied. The opening of the door took everyone by surprise and sent Dugald staggering back against the bar.
The man who stood in the open doorway seemed to fill it, psychologically if not physically. Susan didn’t recognize him at first. He was out of context. She had not expected to see him again, certainly not here. After a moment she finally found the name.
“Ed Jackson!”
The cool dark eyes focused on her.
“Jackson, yes. From Interpol. It took me a while to track you two down. I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to come here.”
“Inter——” Dugald began.
Jackson waved him to silence.
“These two are wanted for murder. Ah, I see you know that. What you don’t know is that there are international ramifications. This girl…. Well, that’s not your worry. But assisting the police is. You, there—” He gestured at Ewen. “Tie him up. And do a good job of it, I’ve no intention of driving back to Edinburgh with him loose in the back seat. Come on, move!”
“But—” Ewen’s voice had risen a full octave.
“The alternative is for me to immobilize him,” Jackson said coldly. “He won’t like it. Unarmed combat is one of my many specialties.”
“Wait a minute!” Susan moved toward him. “You can’t—”
He struck her across the face, a crisp openhanded slap that sent her reeling.
James jumped at Jackson. Ewen grabbed him, wrapping long arms around his body and pinning his hands. They struggled, mouthing breathless interjections. Finally James gave up.
“Et tu, Brute,” he said unoriginally. “Susan, are you hurt?”
“Yes,” said Susan, from the bench to which she had been flung. She rubbed her stinging cheek.
“Brutus be damned,” Ewen panted. “I’m no ally to a murderer, Erskine. Just stand still now, like a good lad, while I tie you up. Would you rather be skelped by that fearsome man there? No, surely you would not, it would be a foolish act. Just be still…. Good lad, now….”
He removed his grip and smiled reassuringly at Jackson, who was watching the performance with ill-concealed impatience and no amusement whatever.
“Rope,” said Ewen, looking around the room. “Wouldn’t you know that there’s never a wee rope about when it’s needed. What…. Ah.”
He unbuckled his belt and pulled it free. James retreated, one slow step after another; Ewen followed him, clutching his trousers with one hand, waving the belt like a leash, and mumbling encouragement.
“Stand, that’s a good lad. It willna hurt…. Not…. Damn these trousers!”
Susan overcame an insane desire to laugh. It was quite obvious to her what Ewen was doing. She didn’t know why he was doing it; she only hoped Jackson was not sufficiently acute to anticipate the next move.
Ewen had maneuvered James across the room toward the bar. Dugald was still near the door, staring like a man bereft of his wits. With a sharp, profane word, Jackson started forward. At the same moment Ewen’s pants dropped. Susan had a flashing glimpse of gaudy tartan shorts, but she did not have time to study the effect with the appreciation it deserved; Ewen stumbled, clutching with both hands at his recalcitrant garment. He fell against Jackson. The two crashed to the floor.
Whirling around, James hit the staring Dugald smack on the chin, and followed it up by a nasty blow in an illegal area. Dugald joined the pair thrashing around on the floor. James caught Susan’s wrist and yanked her out the door.
He slammed it shut, looked wildly about, and picked up a stout piece of kindling from the wood stack by the steps. He wedged the stick into a crack in the stone step so that it was braced against the door.
Jackson’s car, a tan Morris, was parked by the steps.
“The car,” Susan gasped. “Let’s take it.”
James didn’t even bother to answer. He was already busy with the car, and as he raised the hood Susan realized the folly of her suggestion. Only an idiot would have left the keys in the ignition, and Jackson was no idiot. Starting the car without keys would take time, and they had none. It would also leave the pursuers with a vehicle of equal speed—the motorcycle. One of the vehicles had to be disabled, and James proceeded to do this without delay and without finesse. The terrain, like that of most of Scotland, was littered with stones. James grabbed the biggest he could conveniently lift and threw it into the engine of the car. A satisfactory cracking, splitting sound ensued, followed by a hiss and a spout of liquid.
“Hurry,” James yelled, running for the motorcycle. The door of the inn vibrated as something heavy struck it from within.
They were off down the pebbly track amid a storm of dust. Susan closed her eyes and hung on.
When they swung onto the main road James increased speed. Conversation was impossible and unnecessary. The main thing was to get as far away from the inn as possible in the shortest possible time. That time would be very short. Immobilizing Jackson’s car had given them a few extra minutes; but there must be other means of transportation in the village, and there definitely was a telephone. Susan had seen the wires. Jackson wouldn’t know whether they had gone east or west on the main road, but he could call and have roadblocks set up at both ends.
Susan moaned. Her stomach hurt. The pain was not caused by fear. She was hungry. Even mutton stew would have tasted good, and she had a feeling it was going to be a long time before she got anything to eat.
They lay in a moonlit clearing under the shelter of a pine. The sharp, aromatic tang of the fir trees blended with the exquisite clarity of cold mountain air. Wrapped in one another’s arms, they watched the moonlight silver the darkness of night.
“I’m hungry,” Susan said.
“You had the remains of the ham sandwich.”
“A lot of help that was.”
“What do you expect me to do, run out to the nearest café and fetch you a snack?”
“I’m cold.”
“I,” said James, “am doing all I can to remedy that.”
“It’s not enough. You are the most ill-equipped fugitive I’ve ever heard of. No food, no sleeping bag, no blanket, no—”
“I am not a seer. How the hell did I know we’d have to run for it?”
He shifted position, pulling her closer to him and wrapping the folds of his jacket more tightly around her. The movement brought Susan’s cheek into contact with his beard, and she swore. The beard had been the final disillusionment in a generally annoying day. Beards were supposed to be sleek and silky and sensuous. James’s beard felt like a bristly doormat.
“I should think you’d be tired enough to forget food,” James said. “God knows how long it’s been since we slept.”
“You don’t seem to be that tired,” said Susan pointedly. She reached back and shifted James’s hand.
“You said you were cold. There’s one activity that is particularly—”
“I think men are crazy,” said Susan. “How can you think about that at a time like this? Anyhow, your beard turns me off.”
She felt James stiffen in outrage, and added, in a more conciliatory voice, “We’ve got a lot to talk about. How are we going to get out of this mess?”
“You said you were too tired to talk. You said you—”
“Stop quoting me! We might as well talk; I’m too tired to sleep. Where is this place we’re heading for? I’ll bet you’re lost. Since we turned off the road we’ve been winding all over the forest primeval. You can’t possibly—”
James sat up. The insult to his beard still rankled; he let Susan’s head drop to the ground with a thud.
“Damn it, I can’t sleep either. And,” he added meaningfully, “it isn’t because I’m hungry. As for our destination, I told you. I’m going home. Not to the castle, because they may be expecting me to go there—”
“The castle!”
“It’s a small castle,” said James defensively.
“Are you anybody—well—anybody important?”
James laughed. “Good Lord, no. We’re the most obscure branch of the Erskines. Never had a bean, or an office worth mentioning. The castle is a crumbling ruin. I’d swap it for a nice modern flat any day. Especially now. It’s probably surrounded by police.”
Susan turned onto her back and clasped her hands under her head. She had never seen such brilliant stars. They looked as if they were caught in the boughs above, like scattered diamonds.
“Jackson seems to know all about us,” she agreed. “He’s probably got some of his men staked out on your home ground.”
“We had better have a talk, at that,” James said. “You didn’t believe that rot about Interpol, did you?”
“Well…”
“If Jackson is the chap you encountered, oh, so accidentally, on that bus tour you told me about, he’s a phony. How could he possibly take you for an international crook?”
“That was after Tammas gave me the message,” Susan said. “Obviously he mistook me for someone else. Jackson could have made the same mistake. What baffles me is how Tammas could have made such a boo-boo. I have a hunch, now, as to whom he took me for; but there’s no resemblance between me and that scrawny little wench. I mean, I’m not conceited—”
“Oh, no,” said James.
“Tammas was a rotten conspirator,” Susan said stubbornly. “I wouldn’t have anyone that sloppy in my conspiracy.”
“Evidently someone else felt the same way,” James said.
The shiver that ran through Susan’s body was not induced by the cool night air.
“Let’s take it from the start,” James said. He leaned back against the bole of a tree and clasped his hands around his bent knees. A single shaft of moonlight, which left the rest of his body in shadow, outlined the long, curled fingers and brought out the ridged musculature and bone structure of his wrists, whitening them like the marble hands of a knight’s effigy.
“A good deal of this is conjecture.” James went on. “But it fits together rather well. The paper Tammas gave you was a message. Only he gave it to the wrong person. Now I don’t believe in this double business; and even if you did have a twin somewhere, it would be too wild a coincidence if you were both in Edinburgh at the same time. So why did Tammas select you? The only possible answer is that he was told to give the message to a girl—any further information would be wasted on Tammas—who was doing something, or wearing something, that would identify her. The only thing about you that distinguishes you from all the other young females in Edinburgh is your archaeological background. Were you by any chance carrying that book the night you saw Tammas? The Penguin?”
“I don’t remember. I might have been. I probably was.”
“You probably were. Anyhow, let’s assume, for a starter, that Tammas had been told to pass on his message to a contact who carried something connected with the dig, or the Picts, or Professor Campbell. Presumably that contact was Ellie. Only you showed up first, so you got the message. Ordinarily, the error wouldn’t have mattered. The quotation is meaningless on the surface; a normal tourist would have thrown the paper away and forgotten about it. But you aren’t normal. You’re a frustrated romantic who knows Scottish history cold, and who has memorized thousand of lines of useless poetry. Several days after the event you were able to quote the lines and give the source. Now think, Susan. Who else knew you were able to do that?”
“Oh, God,” said Susan. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her shivering body. “Me and my big mouth! Everybody in the hotel could have known. I spouted off in front of the policeman and the clerk and the manager and…Jackson. He was there when I got mad and started babbling about James the First and The King’s Quair. But that wasn’t when he first discovered my expertise about Scottish poetry. He followed me on that bus tour…. How do you suppose they found out about me?”
“I can think of several possibilities,” James said. “Perhaps Tammas followed you back to your hotel that night. Or—here’s an idea—when Ellie turned up, the conspirators learned that an error had been made. Campbell hadn’t mentioned you to Ewen, but he might have done to Ellie. Once they knew your name it would be easy to locate you. Jackson trailed you to the bus station….”
“…to find out who I was and how much I knew,” Susan finished the sentence. “The bus was half empty; he could have bought a ticket at the last minute. Looking back on our conversation, I can see that he was pumping me. And what did I do? I quoted obscure Scottish poets at him all day long? He made love to me so he could search my purse—looking for the message or any other incriminating evidence…”
“That must have been his only motive,” James agreed, in a singularly unpleasant voice. “So he made love to you, did he? Are you certain you can tell the difference between mad passion and homicidal mania?”
“A certain doubt did pass through my mind at the time,” Susan admitted in a small voice. “He seems to have a rather hasty temper. I can see why he was mad. He must have thought I was leading him on. But he couldn’t risk strangling me then, in a public place, with the bus waiting. So he followed me to the hotel to—to—finish the job?”
“I doubt that,” James said calmly. “It wasn’t your knowledge of Scottish poetry that worried Jackson. You might still be an innocent bystander. He was afraid you might be more than that—a rival conspirator. He had to get a look into your purse to see if you were carrying a false passport, or a gun, or any of the other useful items conspirators habitually carry. I suppose during the—er—encounter, he managed to ascertain that you were not concealing a weapon on your person?”
“I suppose he did,” Susan muttered. Her face was hot. She was glad the darkness concealed it from James.
“He found nothing,” James continued. “But he still wasn’t certain; you must have confused the hell out of him with your little quotations from the poets. You look, and behave, like a baby-faced innocent, but to a suspicious mind your boasts must have sounded like veiled taunts. Jackson followed you to the hotel because he was still in doubt, and he arrived on the scene to discover that poor auld Tammas had done it again. In attempting to correct his initial error, he had committed an even more serious mistake. By going to such lengths to retrieve an otherwise meaningless scrap of paper, he had emphasized its importance.
“You proceeded to clear yourself, in Jackson’s eyes, by telling the police about the quotation. You wouldn’t have been so candid if you had known that it was significant. But the incident convinced Jackson that Tammas was no longer dependable. So—exit Tammas.”
“It makes sense,” Susan agreed gloomily. “So Jackson is not a policeman. He’s a bad guy. One of them—whoever they are. I think I’d rather be chased by the police than by a nameless gang of professional criminals.”
“We are being chased by both,” James pointed out. “The professional touch is evident in the quickness with which the conspirators took advantage of our discovering Tammas’s body. They may have been in the neighborhood when we arrived—the body was still warm. They let us go, which was clever of them. Two more murders wouldn’t have been a bright idea. If you were killed, after having made a public outcry about your encounter with Tammas, the police might be moved to investigate Tammas’s recent activities. The gang decided to put us out of action in a more subtle manner. They substituted my sgian-dhu for the knife that had been used—swiped it right out of my room after we left. It wouldn’t be difficult to bribe a witness to say he had seen us. Now that we’re fugitives, we are fair game. We could be killed resisting arrest; we could have a fatal accident during our wild escape; we could even disappear, permanently, if Jackson catches up with us out here. It’s not hard to hide a pair of corpses in the Highlands.”
“You are the most cheerful conversationalist.” Susan groaned. “Why don’t we give ourselves up, then? If your theories are right, we’d be a helluva lot safer in jail.”
“Undoubtedly. But we’d also be out of action. I don’t believe we could be railroaded into a prison sentence for a murder we didn’t commit, but arguing with the police is not my idea of how to spend the summer. You see what all this implies, don’t you? Our unknown adversaries don’t care whether we’re dead, or simply preoccupied. Their plans will come to head within a certain period of time. They want us out of the way until the job is done.”
“What job? What is the point of all this?”
“That’s a good question. Let’s get back to the archaeological clue. And if you think my theories thus far are based on insufficient evidence, wait till you hear the rest. I think there are two groups of what you childishly refer to as bad guys. Tammas was daft, but he was not a criminal in the ordinary sense. It’s impossible that he could have had anything to do with a cold-blooded rat like Jackson. I tell you, that chap is a pro. He wasn’t bragging when he said he was a specialist in unarmed combat. I’ll wager he’s pretty good at armed combat too. He was carrying a gun; did you notice the way his jacket bulged? Ewen saw it; that’s why he grabbed me, to keep me from getting shot.”
“God bless him,” Susan said devoutly. “I wondered why he helped us get away.”
“I don’t think he knew himself. He took rather a fancy to you, and he didn’t like Jackson’s looks—or the gun. I doubt that Ewen is mixed up in the plot, but somebody on that staff is.”
“Ellie.”
“Ellie. She gave herself away with her innuendoes about you, but I have a feeling she honestly believes we killed Tammas. She’s not a professional crook either. Therefore she must be a member of Tammas’s organization.”
“How could he have mistaken me for her, if she’s one of his group?”
“You don’t know these people,” James said wisely. “The Innocent Fanatics, one might call them. They simply adore playing silly tricks and behaving like stage spies. The organization is probably divided into cells, like the Communist underground. No member knows more than two other members, and they communicate by means of cryptic idiocies like the message you got.”
“You sound as if you knew a lot about the organization,” Susan said suspiciously.
There was a slight pause before James replied.
“Merely logical surmise.”
“Hmm. All right, then; the Innocent Fanatics are one group. How do you suppose they got mixed up with Jackson? Innocent he is not.”
“An excellent question.” James sounded very smug. Susan peered at him through the darkness, trying to see his face.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “When Ewen mentioned treasure, you stiffened like a pointer.”
“What else could it be? Professional criminals wouldn’t be interested in Tammas’s wild plots. One thing attracts those types—money. You know and I know that there’s a fortune being made out of illicit archaeological smuggling these days. There is something buried in those ruins that means big money.”
“But Tammas wasn’t interested in money,” Susan argued. “Whatever your treasure may be, it has some appeal beyond mere cash value.”
“Possibly. But I don’t think we’ll get anywhere speculating about its nature. We haven’t enough information. The question is, what are we going to do about all this?”
“The police—”
“Would you care to explain our theories to a local bobby in your home town?” James inquired politely. “Our lads are no more imaginative, darling.”
“You mean we should—”
“Look here, my girl, I’m not aching to play young detective. We haven’t any choice. I don’t give a damn about saving one of Scotland’s archaeological treasures; I just want to keep my valuable hide unholed. If we don’t stop them, they’ll stop us. Jackson is efficient enough to scare me, and he can’t be the only one of them. There’s one clue we haven’t discussed, but it must be important, or they wouldn’t be so anxious to quiet you. The quotation, Susan. What meaning does it have?”
“I can’t think. I’m too hungry.”
“All right, then.” James pushed himself to a standing position. “We may as well get on. I thought some rest would be a good idea, but I can’t seem to sleep either. The trails are bad in the dark, and we’ll have to do most of it on foot. Are you game?”
“I’ll do anything,” Susan said, “that will bring me to something to eat.”
In the following hours she was to regret this statement. The motorcycle had to be abandoned; its description had undoubtedly been circulated to every policeman in Scotland. They pushed it into a rocky hollow and piled branches over it so that no sparkle of chrome could betray its presence. James lingered over the job, arranging the camouflage with tender care, until Susan remarked sarcastically, “Why don’t you shoot it? It would be the kindest thing to do.”
After that, James allowed her to carry her own knapsack. He had an electric lantern, but he wouldn’t use it except in the roughest areas. The moonlight helped a little. Under its eerie glow they plodded through the gorse and heather of upland moors. That was the easy part. After the moon went down, the terrain changed. Some of the slopes were so steep they had to be traversed on all fours. One section involved a bit of rock climbing that would have been nasty enough in daylight. In the dark it was utterly foolhardy; Susan could not have managed it if James had not relieved her of her pack and guided her every step with infinite patience. “Three inches down…now a bit to the left, that’s got it, your toe in that crevice…Now let go with your right hand, it’s okay, I’ve got you….” Her hunger was no longer a joke. Exertion and nervous fatigue had burned up her reserves and she began to feel light-headed as she staggered after James.
Finally the interminable night ended, not in the spectacle of sunrise, but in a gradual lightening of the air. Susan had sunk into a haze of weariness, plodding along one step at a time, without thinking of anything beyond the next impossible step. When James stopped she walked into him. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. His face was an ugly shade of gray from sheer fatigue, but he grinned cheerfully at her.
“Almost there, love. You’re a Spartan. Can you keep it up for another ten minutes? Bed and breakfast at the end of it all.”
Susan nodded. She sought numbly for a suitable response. “I’m sorry I said that about your beard,” she muttered.
Her knees began to sag, in spite of her best efforts. James tightened his grip.
“Look there,” he said, and pushed aside a branch.
They stood on the edge of a sheer drop. Down below lay a small glen, long and winding, but so narrow Susan could have thrown a ball and hit the opposite cliff. At the far end, where the glen broadened out, stood the castle, on its own small hill. It might be as ruined as James had claimed, but distance lent it perfection. Lichen and ivy stroked green fingers along the soft gray stone of the walls, which were reflected in the mirror-smooth waters of a blue loch. A purple mountain, cloud-capped, formed a backdrop. And on the loch floated white shapes, barely visible in the distance….
“Glen Ealachan,” said James. “The word means ‘swans’—and there they are. Mean-tempered brutes,” he added. “Bite your finger off if you give them the chance. The old man adores them. There’s a stupid tradition that so long as the swans swim on Loch Ealachan, the laird of Glen Ealachan will hold his ancient heritage. Dad’s had it printed up in a little booklet. He sells it to tourists.”
Susan nodded dumbly. She was speechless, not so much with fatigue as with a sharp attack of love at first sight. The castle was just right—not too big, not too small; built in a square, with circular towers on three corners. The towers had conical roofs, like witches’ caps. On the fourth corner stood a massive battlemented keep, with arched Gothic windows. Susan wanted it, with an instant, unreasoning passion.
A neat picture-book village lay beyond the castle, and there was considerable traffic on the road that ran through the glen. Other houses were scattered about, some of them almost hidden among the trees that covered the lower hills. Only trails of blue smoke betrayed their existence. The smoke suggested fire, fire suggested cooking…. Susan’s stomach let out a loud, insistent rumble.
“Quite,” said James. “This way.”
After the ordeals of the night, the path James indicated looked like duck soup. It led through the trees and at times vanished altogether, but James never hesitated.
“One of my childhood rambles,” he observed, helping Susan over a fallen log. His voice was soft; when Susan started to speak he touched his finger to her lips. “There seems to be considerable activity around the place this morning. Mairi’s cottage ought to be safe; it’s quite a distance from any other house.”
The cottage had no backyard. A grove of larches came right up to the back door. James surveyed the house for several minutes from behind a tree, and then led Susan in a rush to the door. It opened before he had a chance to knock. The woman who confronted them stood with her clenched fists on her ample hips. Iron-gray hair, pulled back into a bun, framed a face as weather-beaten as the surrounding rocks. She paid no attention whatever to Susan, but looked James up and down critically.
“Ye were lang in coming, Jamie. The sight gave me warning yesternicht.”
“You’ve no more of the sight than Prince there,” James answered, nodding at a fuzzy black-and-white heap that lay on the kitchen floor behind the woman. An eye appeared among the fuzz. It studied James disinterestedly and then closed again.
“And who’s to say Prince hasna the sight? The wee doggie has as much sense as you, laddie.”
“He looks a lot like you too,” Susan said, unable to resist.
Mairi let out a snort of laughter.
“Aye, the lassie has the richt o’ it. I ken yer reasons, Jamie, but—”
“Can’t we argue inside?” James pleaded. “We’re starved, Mairi, and dead tired.”
“And fleeing frae the poliss.” Mairi nodded in dour agreement. She stepped back from the door and motioned them in. “They were here yester even. Come in, laddie, come in; but dinna fear, there isna a mon i’ the glen would betray the young laird—”
“Don’t pay any attention to the way she talks,” James said to Susan. “She picked it up from dad, while she was guiding tourists through the castle. The trippers love it; they expect all Scots to talk like Bobby Burns. Mairi, I can think of half a dozen men who’d turn me in for a pint.”
They continued to bicker amicably while Mairi heaped the table with food. Susan ignored them. Oatmeal with thick yellow cream, eggs fried in bacon drippings, scones and homemade jam occupied her full attention. There was no coffee, but the sweet black tea was almost as good. Mairi seemed pleased at her appetite, remarking, “There’s some point to feeding a lassie that can eat like yon.”
“What we need now,” said James, replete, “is a wash and bed. We’ve been up for two nights, Mairi.”
“A basin in the kitchen is what ye’ll have,” said Mairi. “And,” she added, fixing James with a stern eye, “twa beds. The one i’ the loft for you, Jamie. Unless…the Laird save us, laddie, ye’ve not—”
“I’ve done a number of mad things in the last two days,” said James. “But marriage is not one of them. Mairi, you could put us side by side and not feel a twinge in your Calvinist conscience. We’re both too tired.”
“Aye,” said Mairi skeptically. “But ye’ll have two beds a’ the same.”
It was late evening before Susan woke up. The slanted sunrays gave her an approximate idea of the time. She yawned and stretched, feeling about a thousand years younger than she had felt when she fell into the narrow bed. The mattress made strange rustling noises when she moved, but the linen was as soft as the finest percale, and it smelled of sunshine, fresh air, and pine.
The room was Mairi’s own bedroom. The cottage was the classic but-and-ben—two rooms, with the added amenity of a loft. The bedroom was tiny and roughly furnished. White curtains blew in the breeze. A violently tinted calendar bearing the legend “MacRae’s Feed and Grain” and the picture of a puppy nuzzling an apprehensive-looking kitten was the only ornament in the room.
Susan stretched again. The mattress rustled. The door opened and Mairi’s head appeared.
“Ye maun be hungry,” she said. “Hasten to yer tea.”
“I think you and I are going to be good friends,” said Susan approvingly.
It was her first experience with a genuine Scottish high tea, and it was almost too much for her. Ham and eggs, two kinds of cake, scones, biscuits of all varieties—the feast went on and on. James joined them, climbing down a ladder from a dark hole in the ceiling of the combined kitchen-living room, and trying, without much success, to keep the pleats of his kilt tightly wrapped around his knees. Susan stopped eating to watch.
“That’s not the Erskine sett,” she remarked.
“Ma husband was a MacKinnon,” Mairi answered, putting another platter of bacon and eggs on the table. “The plaid an’ philabeg he had frae his fayther. I wove the sark for the puir mon masel’. It would be foolish, now wouldn’t it, for Jamie to run aboot the countryside in the Erskine tartan?”
“I want my jeans,” James said sullenly.
“Well, ye canna hae your jeans. They’re i’ the wash. Sit doon an’ eat, Jamie.”
James obeyed, glancing suspiciously at Susan’s freshly washed and ironed garments, which she had found laid out for her at the foot of the bed.
“Her clothes are clean,” he said. “Why can’t I—”
“Because the poliss hae a descreeption o’ yer claes,” said Mairi. “Ye maun change yer appearance the noo. After tea I’ll juist take a wee clip wi’ the scissors—”
“Oh, no,” said James.
“It’s a good idea,” Susan said. “In those clothes, with your hair cut and your beard gone, nobody would—”
“No!”
Susan exchanged glances with Mairi.
“Aye, aye,” said the latter, nodding grimly. “Juist like a’ the men. Not a grain o’ guid sense amang the sex. We’ll leave it tae the laird to argue wi’ the fule laddie.”
James looked up from his plate.
“Does he know we’re here?”
“Ay, he kens. I went tae the castle while ye slept. He’ll be waiting for ye i’ the forenicht.”
“You’re daft,” James said. “I’m not going to stroll up to the castle in the twilight or any other time. He’ll have to come here. The police must have left a man on guard—”
“Aye, they did,” said Mairi, rocking placidly. “A wee bit man he is. But ye’ll nae want to meet him. Na, na, ye maun gae by the tunnel. The laird has said so.”
“Oh, no,” James set his cup down with a crash. “Not that damned tunnel—sorry, Mairi, but it is a damned tunnel. Why, the whole thing is about to collapse. We’ll be buried alive. Susan—”
He looked at Susan and threw up his hands.
“I might have known.”
“A tunnel,” breathed Susan rapturously. “A secret tunnel!”
The tunnel did look as if it were about to cave in. So far as Susan was concerned, this only added to the charm of the adventure, as did the candle Mairi insisted on carrying instead of James’s flashlight. The light flickered weirdly over the old woman’s gaunt features as she turned to warn them of obstacles in the way or to caution them to silence, which was probably unnecessary. Mairi was a frustrated romantic. She was genuinely concerned about James, but saw no reason why she should not enjoy the situation. Susan was in complete sympathy.
According to James, the tunnel had been dug for the convenience of a remote ancestor. It had proved useful on many occasions; the family had consistently dedicated itself to hopeless causes. Or, as James disgustedly put it, they never backed a winner. They had been out in the Fifteen and the Forty-Five, as well as the even more abortive Stuart failure of 1719. “Only four clans sent men to Loch Duich in 1719,” said James bitterly. “Guess who…. We were with the Claverhouse at Killiecrankie and with Montrose at Philiphaugh. It isn’t only the Erskines. One of my mother’s ancestors was hanged, drawn and quartered on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots. And guess who happened to be visiting the MacDonalds at Glencoe on the night of the massacre!”
The tunnel ended in a flight of stone stairs. They went through a wooden door into the cellars of the castle. Mairi left them in the hall above, saying she would take a cup of tea with the cook while she waited; and James, squaring his shoulders and drawing a deep breath, knocked on a massive oak door.
A voice bade him enter. His hand on the knob, James turned to Susan and started to speak. Then he shrugged.
“Too late,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly prepare you.” And he opened the door.
The laird of Glen Ealachan stood before the great stone hearth. Stags’ antlers and stuffed heads and a motley collection of weaponry hung on the wall above him. He was dressed in Highland costume of such finicky perfection that it looked stagy. His sporran was of fur and considerably larger than a sporran ought to be; his socks were of the same tartan as his kilt, and the plaid draped around his stocky torso was pinned with an enormous brooch set with cairngorms. The only thing missing in the ensemble was a claymore, perhaps because the six-foot, two-handed blade was too unwieldy for his five-foot-six height. But he was adequately armed for hostilities, with a dirk in his belt and a sgian-dhu in his sock. He had a mane of white hair and bushy white eyebrows, as thick and as animated as the tails of Angora kittens.
Something else caught Susan’s attention, and for a moment she wondered if her regrettable habit of seeking resemblances had not gone too far. The laird looked like her father, and that was daft, as James would say, because her father was six three in his socks and had not a gray hair in his head and looked like Paul Newman and…. Then she realized that the resemblance was solely one of expression. How often had she seen that same look on her father’s face when she came in late from a date? But parental outrage had never been more gloweringly expressed than by the laird of Glen Ealachan as he contemplated, with agitated eyebrows, his son and heir.
But there was another resemblance. Susan frowned, trying to isolate it, while the laird greeted James in a voice that would have alerted any policeman who was less than sixty feet away.
“So ye’ve come at last—the last of the Erskines, a cowardly killer of auld men, dishonoring a great name, bringing my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave, and with this lassie, juist look at her, no better than she—”
“Prince Charlie,” exclaimed Susan.
The laird choked, swallowed, and turned his outraged stare on her. She continued enthusiastically,
“Excuse me, sir. You’re the image of Prince Charles Edward—the portrait in the National Gallery in Edinburgh.”
Susan saw no reason to specify which portrait she meant. There are two of them in Scotland’s National Portrait Gallery—the famous painting of the gallant young prince and another of Charles Edward at the age of fifty-five.
The laird’s eyes shifted toward a mirror which hung on the wall to his left.
“Aye, weel,” he said, in an accent so exaggerated that even Susan flinched, “so ye see the resemblance. It’s been noted. But few hae the e’en for it. Ahem. Aye.” He turned back to James, puffed out his chest like a bagpipe inflating, and took up his lecture at the precise syllable at which he had been interrupted.
“…should be, puir lassie, wi’ such a blaggard tae lead her astray. Black shame tae ye, unworthy son o’ a noble house, tae think I should live tae see the day—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut your mouth, you unspeakable old rascal,” shouted his son. “What an act! What a disgusting, shameless, hammy performance! What a revolting—”
He stopped, panting with fury. For a moment the two male Erskines glared at one another, so alike in their snorting anger and their belligerent poses that Susan had to stifle a laugh. The amenities having been concluded, the pair relaxed.
“Och, Jamie, Jamie,” said the laird plaintively. “What is this havers? You didn’t—you wouldn’t—”
He reached into his sporran and produced a large handkerchief—it was, of course, of the Erskine tartan—and blew his nose. Susan watched with fascinated interest. She knew what a Scot wore under his kilt, but she had always wondered what he carried in his sporran. She suspected, however, that she could not generalize about Scottish habits from the laird. He was unique.
“No, of course I didn’t,” James muttered.
“Then why didna ye gi’ yerself up? That I should live tae see the day when an Erskine turned his back on—”
“There you go again,” said James. He turned to Susan. “You see what he’s like. You see why I couldn’t explain about…. Dad, cut the theatrics for a minute and listen. This is serious. I didn’t go to the police for two reasons. First, I didn’t realize until yesterday that I was being framed. Second…. Dad, are you still a member of the Knights of the White Rose, or whatever the hell that daft organization is called? The one Tammas belonged to?”
The laird stood transfixed as his son’s meaning sank in.
“Jamie,” he said, in a low voice that had lost almost all traces of Scottish accent. “Lad, you surely didn’t think I—”
His voice trailed off into silence. James didn’t respond at first; then a long, deep breath lifted his chest. “No,” he said. “No. Sorry, Dad. I never really believed it, but…. You’re so damned unpredictable! When I heard about the sgian-dhu with our crest I had an insane moment of doubt—wondering whether my eyes had tricked me, somehow.”
The laird’s face had softened at the beginning of this speech, but James’s tactless comments brought back the scowl.
“Unpredictable, ye say! It’s nae masel’ that’s being chased by the poliss the length and breadth o’ Scotland! I niver doubted ye, Jamie,” he went on sorrowfully, apparently forgetting that his first speech to his son had been a direct accusation. “I ken weel that ye’ve been taken advantage of. But how could ye think that I—”
“Now, Dad, don’t play the innocent with me. You and Tammas used to be thick as thieves, mixed up in all sorts of daft plots—”
“Daft,” his father repeated in an outraged voice.
“Hamilton gave it up,” said James mysteriously. “But some of the thieves were never identified.”
The name was meaningless to Susan, but not to the laird. His ruddy face turned a shade redder.
“That was twenty-five years past,” he said regretfully. “Too long, Jamie. I’m auld now; I’ll leave such glorious deeds tae the young.”
“Never mind that. Can you understand why I was worried? Tammas was involved in some kind of plot. I had reason to suspect you might also be involved. I had to speak to you before I took action. You honestly don’t know anything about his recent activities?”
“So that’s why you rushed me out of town,” exclaimed Susan. “You weren’t worried about me at all!”
“I owe you an apology,” James said.
“I’m not sure which of us owes which an apology. In your case, concern for your father—”
“Ho!” said that gentleman, in tones of mocking irony. “Concern, d’ye say? He was hoping to catch me in some sort of foolishness so he could hold it over my head. Well, my lad, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it won’t wash. I haven’t spoken with Tammas for months. We fell out, you recall, over the question of the restoration. I could not agree to overthrowing the present House. Ignoble though its origins may be, it has proved worthy of loyalty, and our own connections with the family—”
His voice had risen in volume; James had to shout to make himself heard.
“Dad, that’s enough!”
“No, by God, it is damned well not enough! (I beg your pardon, young lady.) You will stop this foolishness; you will give up your improper notions about a future career; you will return to the University and apply yourself to the studies you have so consistently neglected; you will—”
“I will, will I? When I’ve finished serving my prison term, you mean? Can’t you get it through your bony skull that I am in trouble?”
A brief lull followed this unpleasant reminder. Both Erskines seemed refreshed by the outburst, which Susan was beginning to regard as typical of their conversations.
“What’s the argument about?” she asked, with genuine interest. “What is it you want him to study, sir?”
“What else could be an appropriate career for a Scot and an Erskine?” the laird demanded rhetorically. “History, of course. The glorious history of Scotland and his own distinguished house. Restoring the pride, the awareness of national honor that the foul Union of 1707 destroyed. And what does he want? Not only does he reject my ideas; he wants—he prefers—”
Outrage choked further utterance.
“What do you want?” Susan asked James.
“I want to be a policeman,” he said.
“A—what?”
“Scotland Yard,” said James, getting red in the face. “Detective work. Law enforcement. I mean, after all…”
His voice died away. Susan turned to the laird, and the two exchanged glances of perfect sympathy.
“Talk about irony,” said Susan. “All my life I’ve been interested in Scotland. And all he’s interested in is Scotland Yard. Jamie, I really don’t see how you could be farther away from that goal. Especially at this moment in your life.”
James sat down and hid his face in his hands.
With a courtly gesture, the laird indicated a chair.
“Sit down, Miss——”
“Please call me Susan.”
“Thank you. I am honored. How on earth did a girl of your caliber become involved with my wretched son? Jamie, it is intolerable that Susan should be implicated in your sordid affairs. I insist that you clear her at once.”
James opened his mouth to reply, but he was incapable of coherent speech. Taking advantage of his fury, his father proceeded, “I know nothing of Tammas’s recent activities. But I can put you in touch with someone who has that information. I had a caller this morning. He left a message for you, in case you came here.”
“A caller? He wasn’t a tall, dark-haired chap named Jackson? An American?”
“No, no. This fellow was a Scot. He was an associate of Tammas’s; no question of that, he knew the—er—passwords, so to speak. He was most distressed at your situation. Assured me he could explain everything, and would do so, to the police, after he had spoken to you. He wouldn’t leave a written message, for fear of its being intercepted. I memorized it. He will meet you in Room 212 in the Caledonian Hotel in Aldway tomorrow.”
“Hmph,” said James.
“That’s wonderful news,” Susan exclaimed. “How far is Aldway?”
“Fifteen or twenty miles, as the crow flies. It’s a long walk.”
“Walk,” Susan repeated sadly.
“How else do you suppose we can get there? I can’t very well drive out of here in Dad’s car.”
“We’ll think of a plan,” said the laird cheerfully. He flipped at the pleats of his kilt and seated himself in a big carved chair. Having conveyed the vital information, he allowed himself to relapse into broad Scots. “There’s nae rush. Jamie, fetch the uisqebagh. The puir lassie needs a nip—and a rest. We’ll hae a wee ceilidh, juist the three o’ us. D’ye ken any Scottish songs, Susan?”
Her eyes wide, Susan watched the laird take a guitar from its case. He struck a resounding chord. It might have been meant to be an E major chord.
“I had him taught the instrument,” said the laird, with a disparaging nod at his son. “But he’s nae mair music in him than a lump o’ stane.” He threw back his head and began,
“Ye Heilands and ye Lowlands, oh where hae ye been?
You hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and laid him on the green….”
With a glance at James, Susan joined in.
“He was a braw galland and he played at the glove,
O, the bonny Earl o’ Moray, he was the
Queen’s love.”
Susan only knew three verses of the lament. The laird taught her a fourth. While this was going on James got the whiskey decanter from a sideboard and poured himself a stiff drink. He waited till the song was over before remarking,
“Do you suppose I could ask a question?”
The laird moved his fingers uncertainly from D seventh to A.
“‘Yestreen the Queen had four maries,’” he crooned.
“Father.”
“‘The nicht she’ll hae but three,’” sang Susan.
“Dad!”
“‘There was Mary Seaton and Mary Beaton, and Mary Carmichael and me….’”
James flung his glass into the fireplace.
“Now then,” he said, into the silence that followed the crash. “I will ask my question. What precisely do the police know? I assume you talked to them?”
“Aye, aye,” said the laird irritably, continuing to strum.
Susan reached over and took the guitar away from him. James’s mounting rage didn’t bother her as much as the hideous discords. She slid her fingers into place and began an arpeggio in a minor key.
“Whist,” said the laird, beaming at her. “That’s a braw sound, lassie, we’ll sing ‘The Flowers o’ the Forest,’ as soon as I satisfy this fule laddie…. Aye, the poliss were here. They hae a picture o’ you, and a description of the lassie here. They ken the claes ye’re wearing and the vehicle ye’re driving…. Which was news tae me, I might add; where did y’get the siller for sich a bike?”
“Never mind that now,” said James, shifting uneasily. “What about the evidence against us? Dad, we were there. Tammas was stabbed, but not with a sgian-dhu.”
“The weapon the police found was yours,” said his father, looking grave. “They showed it to me. There’s a witness as well, some vagrant who saw you leave the house. And some wild tale about Susan accusing Tammas…. Daft, gey daft, the loto’ em! Susan, lass, would ye like tae hear the pipes?”
“You reach for those bagpipes and I’ll throttle you,” shouted James. “Dad, we cannot play and sing and dance. We cannot talk. I’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“There’s nae problem. Only one wee constable frae Edinburgh tae deal with; we’ll lock him i’ the dungeons and ye can drive oot o’ the glen—”
“With all the crofters standing at attention and waving flags? Dad, will you try to get it through your head that this is not 1745 and I am not Prince Charles Edward?” James included Susan in his scowl. “I am beginning to loathe Charles Edward Stuart. I wish he were still alive so I could kill him. If he’d come round here in 1746 after Culloden, I’d have turned him in and collected the reward.”
“Aye,” said the laird fiercely. “And I’d have stabbed ye t’ the heart masel’, for yer treachery!”
James waved his arms wildly. “Why are we talking about Charles Edward?” he demanded unreasonably. “Times have changed. I am not going to ride out of here on a white stallion, shouting defiance and waving a claymore! I am not going to leave in the Land Rover either. It’s known for forty miles around. We will leave as we came, on foot; and we must leave before daylight.”
“Is there danger?” asked the laird hopefully.
“Hell, yes! The police aren’t the only ones who are after us. The people who murdered Tammas and framed us are hot on our trail. One of them is an American—tall, dark, good-looking chap—”
“The Jackson you mentioned?” The old man was serious now.
“Yes. But he may use any name, and he’ll have the documents to back up his story. He’s extremely dangerous. Don’t play any of your little games with him. Simply tell him we haven’t been here, and you’ve no idea where we might be.”
“Very well. You’ll need money, I suppose.”
“I always need money.”
“Very true. But in this case…. Wait here. I’ve fifty pounds in the safe in my dressing room.”
He left the room. James collapsed into a chair and glared at Susan, who was still strumming.
“Coming here was a mistake. I might have known what would happen when you and the old man got together. You’re both hopeless romantics.”
“What’s wrong with being a romantic? I adore your father. He’s a character.”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it.” James leaned forward. His hair fell over his eyes, and he brushed at it impatiently. “It’s—it’s impractical. The real world is a rough, tough, dirty place. You have to live in it, not in some dreamworld of your own imagination. It’s bad enough to have my father talking like Harry Lauder and behaving like an aged undergraduate. Some of his tricks, when he was lecturing at Glasgow—”
“Oh!” Susan’s fingers slipped into a jangling discord. She stared at James. “I remember now! Hamilton—Glasgow University, 1950…. The Scots who stole the Stone of Scone. Was your father…?”
“They never proved it.” James grinned. He looked astonishingly like his father for a moment, before he remembered that he was supposed to be registering stern disapproval. “Now do you understand why I was afraid he was a party to Tammas’s latest scheme? Dad’s a hopeless case; he’s too old to change. But you’re young. There are moments when you display some shreds of sanity. But this obsession of yours with ghosts—”
“Aha,” said Susan. “You’re still mad about last night. Just because I wouldn’t—”
“Me, mad? Ridiculous. I am a realist. I recognize your right to reject me for rational reasons. So you don’t like beards. Fine. But if you shy away from normal physical relationships because you’re dreaming of the ghostly embraces of a dead—”
“You are disgusting,” said Susan frigidly.
“Perhaps I am,” James said, after a moment. “Strike the last remark. But my objections to your general attitude still stands. You’re frittering away your life with dusty old legends that have no relation to reality, and never did.”
“You are not only disgusting, you are dead wrong,” Susan snapped. “The dreamers and the romantics are the people who make history—not the dull clods like you. The mystics, who founded the world’s great religions; the explorers who discovered new worlds because they believed the legends the hardheaded realists jeered at; artists and poets and musicians, creating beauty out of their dreams…. Good Lord, you talk as if the two things were mutually exclusive. They aren’t. I can enjoy the songs and legends and still manage to cope pretty well with your damned real world—as well as you do, anyway. I can’t see that your performance in the past two days has been all that spectacular.”
“If we’re going to descend to personalities—”
“You descended first.”
“Hmm. So I did. Then let me be the first to ascend from this welter of inconsequential comment. If you will kindly put down that damned guitar, I would like to discuss our future plans.”
Susan complied with the request. She was still annoyed, but she had to admire James’s readiness to apologize.
“I assume we’ll go see that man in Aldway.”
“I don’t know about that. There are several loose ends I’d like to clear up. I wish we could persuade Ellie to confide in us.”
“She could be quite informative, I imagine. But we can’t go back to the dig; the police have probably traced us that far by now.”
“I’m not so concerned about the police as I am about Jackson and his gang. They might not expect us to return to the dig. However, that isn’t what I want to talk about. I’ve been brooding about the poem Tammas gave you. You remember the lines, of course.
“The bird, the beste, the fisch eke in the see
They lyve in fredome everich in his kynd;
And I a man, and lakkith libertee….”
“Write it down,” James said. “There’s paper on the desk.”
Susan obeyed.
“I’ve been thinking about it too,” she said, as she wrote. “And if this is a code it’s too fancy for me. Take the first letters of the words, for instance. T-B-T-B-T-F….”
“What about alternate words?”
Susan shook her head.
“You can read it backward or forward or upside down. It still doesn’t make any sense.”
James leaned over her shoulder, studying the lines.
“I rather expected that. Obviously you can’t use a well-known quotation for a simple cipher of that sort. The message must be concealed in the reference itself—the name of the poem, perhaps. It just so happens that there’s a manor house called King’s Quair, not far from Inchrory.”
“It’s a rendezvous, then,” Susan exclaimed.
“Possibly. The title of the poem gives the place. All we need is the time.”
“That may have been given in another message.”
“Not likely. Two messages would be unnecessarily devious. How does one communicate numbers?”
Susan frowned thoughtfully.
“The author’s name? James the First….”
“Insufficient. We need a date, possibly a time of day as well.”
“James the First,” Susan muttered. “Born 1394—”
“When was the poem written?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. Sometime during his captivity, which began in 1406. His father died that same year, so you could say he became king of Scotland in—”
“Fourteen six. What’s today’s date?”
“June something. I’ve lost track.”
“It’s the eighth, to be precise,” said James. “June eight. Eight-six.”
“Fourteen-six,” said Susan. “You think the rendezvous is for the fourteenth? That’s the craziest—”
“So was Tammas. It’s precisely the sort of fuzzy romantic message his crowd would invent. Furthermore, I suspect the naught in the date specifies the time. Noon or midnight.”
“Midnight, of course.”
“Of course. When I think of those poor innocents—”
He broke off, as the door began to open. “Here’s Dad, I don’t want him to hear any of this. It could be dangerous for—”
But the person who stood in the doorway was not the laird. It was a girl wearing a housemaid’s uniform. Her sandy hair was confined under a neat white cap; her narrow face held a look of furtive triumph.
“Master Jamie,” she breathed. “Oh, excuse me, sir. I didna ken….”
The door closed.
“That’s torn it,” James groaned. “I knew I should have locked that door.”
“What’s the problem?” Susan asked uneasily. “She wouldn’t—”
“Oh, wouldn’t she? It’s damned lucky for you that I’m here; you’d sit wrapped in romantic fantasies about loyal family retainers till they walked in and dropped the cuffs on your wrists. That wench has hated me since I set fire to her doll when we were kids. She also happens to be engaged to the local constable. Get ready to run, Susan.”