Read Online 08 - The Highland Fling Murders by Jessica Fletcher, Donald Bain - Free Book Online

desk, took off his wide-brimmed hat and patted his hair flat in front of a tiny mirror, put his hat back on, and led us from the office.
    We stood in a circle over the lifeless body of Daisy Wemyss. Constable McKay knelt next to the body and touched his fingertips to her neck. He looked up at us: “She’s been dead for some time,” he said. “Ten, twelve hours.”
    “The pitchfork,” I said. “And the cross on her neck. The same as Evelyn Gowdie.”
    Constable McKay stood, stretched, and grimaced against a pain somewhere in his body. “You know about that,” he said to me.
    “Yes, I do.”
    McKay turned to Mr. Wemyss and said, “You’d better inform your brother.”
    “Ay. Not a pleasant task.”
    “If it’s all right,” I said, “I’d like to go back to Sutherland Castle.”
    “By all means,” McKay said. “How long will you be staying there?”
    “Another week.”
    “Good. I’ll be wanting to speak with you again.”
    “I look forward to it, Constable. I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Wemyss.”
    “Nothing guaranteed in this life, Mrs. Fletcher. Dying is the price we pay for living.”
    “I’ll inform George Sutherland and the others at the castle about Ms. Wemyss’s death.”
    “Do that,” said Constable McKay.
    I went to the street and slowly made my way back to Sutherland Castle, looming on the horizon, a bleak stone bastion of the ages rising imposingly over the modest village of Wick, Scotland.
    I quickened my pace, legs aching as I climbed the steep incline leading to my home for the next week. George was on the lawn pruning a bush.
    “Pleasant walk?” he asked, placing the pruning shears in the jacket of a tan vest.
    “No.”
    “Sorry to hear that, Jessica. Why?”
    I told him about Daisy Wemyss.
    His face turned hard and ashen.
    “George. What’s going on here?”
    “I don’t know, Jessica, but it’s obvious there’s a madman out there.”
    “The same one who killed Evelyn Gowdie twenty years ago?”
    “ ‘And from his wallet drew a human hand, shriveled and dry and black....’ ”
    “What?”
    “ ‘And fitting, as he spoke, a taper in his hold ... pursued a murderer on this stake had died....’ ”
    “George.”
    “Southey. He wrote it in Thalabra. A popular belief centuries ago that the hand of a man executed for murder, if prepared properly, could cast a perpetual spell over future generations.”
    George Sutherland was fond of quoting ancient passages, and had a remarkable memory for them.
    “You don’t believe in such things, do you, George?”
    “I believe in good and evil, Jessica. Come. If spells can be cast over evil doers, I intend to try my best to cast one myself. This was not what I intended when inviting you and your friends to my family home.”

Chapter Eight
    George and I sat in front of the fireplace where I’d enjoyed tea that morning. When he informed the cook, Mrs. Gower, of Daisy Wemyss’s death, the shocking news didn’t appear to shock her. She muttered something about young people asking for trouble these days before flouncing off to fetch us tea and scones.
    After serving us, George said, “I’m so sorry about this, Jessica.”
    “Please, George, don’t be. It wasn’t anything you could have prevented.”
    “I’m not certain that’s true.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “It’s hard to explain, Jessica. There’s really nothing tangible to account for it, just a lot of Scottish lore involving my family, this castle, and Wick itself.”
    “I’ll do my best to understand,” I said.
    “Yes, I’m sure you will.”
    He tasted his tea. I offered the plate of scones to him, but he shook his head.
    “Let me see where to begin,” he said thoughtfully. “It started centuries ago, when this castle was built by my ancestors. They were a staunch, fearless people. ‘Without fear’ is our clan motto.”
    “I saw that on the shield.”
    “A proud clan, Jessica. A proud people. But from the beginning, the existence of this castle