Read Online Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne - Free Book Online Page B

dispute this idea; indeed, he seemed to agree with it. He went away saying that he would come back if Dundas agreed to the terms. Dr. Hailey joined John MacCallien under the pine trees in front of the house and sat down in the deck chair which awaited him. The day was insufferably hot and close, so hot and so close that even Loch Fyne seemed to be destitute of a ripple.
    â€œWell?”
    â€œDundas sent him. But I can’t work with Dundas.”
    John MacCallien nodded.
    â€œOf course not. I was talking to the postman while you were indoors. He says that Dundas has got the whole place by the ears. There’s a panic.”
    â€œSo McDonald suggested.”
    â€œDundas has found out that Eoghan Gregor is in debt. Eoghan’s his aunt’s heir, so you can guess what inference has been drawn. But there’s the shut room to be got over. The man has had an inventory made of every ladder in Argyll.”
    â€œThe windows were bolted. Nobody can have got into the room through the windows.”
    â€œNo, so I supposed. But you know what Dundas and his kind are: detail, detail, till you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
    The haze which veiled the loch about Otter and which blotted out the rolling contours of the hills of Cowal seemed to be charged with fire and suffocation. Even in the shade of the trees, a hot vapour lay on the ground. The doctor took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.
    â€œI never realized that it could be so hot in the Highlands.”
    He lay back and looked up at the clumps of dark green pine-needles above him.
    â€œDid you know Miss Gregor well?” he asked his friend suddenly.
    â€œNot very well. Since my return from India I’ve seen very little of her. My knowledge belongs chiefly to my youth. My father always spoke of her as a latter-day saint, and I suppose I adopted that opinion readymade.”
    He remained thoughtful for a few minutes, during which the doctor observed his kindly face with satisfaction. John MacCallien, he reflected, was one of those men who do not change their opinions gladly and who are specially reluctant to revise the teachings of their parents.
    â€œMy father,” he added, “had the outlook of the nineteenth century on men and women. He demanded a standard of behaviour and made no allowances. Miss Gregor not only conformed to that standard, but exceeded it. Her horror of what was vaguely called ‘impropriety’ was known and admired all over Argyll. For example, I believe that she never herself spoke of a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’, but only of a ‘gentleman’ or a ‘lady’. Ladies and gentlemen were beings whose chief concern it was to prove by their lives and manners that they lacked the human appetites.”
    â€œI know.”
    John MacCallien sighed.
    â€œI suppose there was something to be said for that point of view,” he declared. “But I’m afraid it was a fruitful begetter of cruelty and harshness. Anything was justified which could be shown to inflict shame or sorrow on the unregenerate. Besides, these good people lived within the ring-fence of a lie. They were not the disembodied spirits they pretended to be—far from it. Consequently their emotions and appetites were active in all kinds of hidden and even unsuspected ways.” He paused and added: ‘‘Cruelty, as I say, was one of these ways, the easiest and the most hateful.”
    â€œWas Miss Gregor cruel?” Dr. Hailey asked.
    â€œDo you know that’s an extraordinary difficult question to answer. Offhand, I should say, ‘Of course not’. But it depends, really, on what you mean by cruel. Her code was full, I’m sure, of unpardonable sins, sins that put people right outside the pale. On the other hand she could be extraordinarily kind and charitable. I told you that even tinkers and gipsies used to bless her. She was always bothering herself about people of that sort.