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Douglas leaned forward eager for me to go on, but I shut my mouth. Better late than never. My clients expect confidentiality and it wasn’t my place to blab about ancient curses or a modern-day prince searching for The Silent Princess of Druid Wood. That case ended in marriage, by the way, just as the prince wanted. Unfortunately he demanded a refund when the princess wasn’t as silent as he’d expected. Well, you’d talk a lot too if you’d been imprisoned inside a tree for a thousand years.

I changed the subject. “Is there any more coffee?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

We hadn’t gone two steps before I heard a man call out, “Douglas!”

The man was white-faced and sweating profusely. As he moved closer I recognized him from the pub last night. He’d been drinking with McEwen but he wasn’t one of The Three M’s.

“What’s wrong, Hamish?” said Douglas. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Hamish shook his head. He was panting as though he’d run a long way very fast.

“Sit down,” said Douglas, easing Hamish onto one of the benches on the terrace. “Catch your breath. Now, slowly, tell me what’s happened.”

“Cannae—I—I…” Hamish stuttered to a halt, and tried again. “Cannae explain. Have to show you.”

“Have to show me what?” asked Douglas.

“Near the rose,” gasped Hamish.

Immediately I sprang into action. “Come on. We’ll take my car.” Taking Hamish’s arm, I helped him to his feet. Douglas took his other arm. Although Hamish’s legs wobbled like Jell-O, between us we managed to get him out to my car.

When everyone was buckled in I sped along Loch Road until I screeched to a stop near the track that led to the rose.

I leapt out and hurried around to help Hamish but he was already climbing out of the car. Although still unsteady on his feet, he managed to walk down the track unaided. But he stopped long before we reached the rose.

“I dinnae want to go any further,” he said, as the color drained from his face. “You’ll find it in the grass beside the rose.”

Leaving him where he stood, Douglas and I headed down the track. I smelled it before I saw it, but that didn’t make the sight less grim.

Holding my breath against the stale fish smell, I surveyed what appeared to be a large marine creature that had been caught in a bundle of rags. With the toe of my shoe, I tried to flip it over, but it was too heavy. There was no choice but to use my hands. Trying not to grimace, I took hold of the thing and heaved it onto its back.

“Oh my God,” Douglas said. I heard him gag.

I uttered a single word. “McEwen.”

By his appearance, McEwen had drowned, but that wasn’t what had prompted Douglas’s reaction, which had now progressed from gagging to vomiting quietly into the undergrowth.

Leaving Douglas to lose his breakfast in private, I inspected the body more closely. It had been savaged by some kind of animal.

Much of McEwen’s clothing had been torn away, leaving large areas of pale skin exposed to the elements. But that wasn’t the worst of it. There were bite marks in his flesh. Some of them had drawn blood.

I felt rather than saw Douglas move to my side.

“Sorry,” he said. “I dinnae usually have a weak stomach, but this… What kind of creature would do this?”

I didn’t answer, not because I wanted to spare him, but because I had no idea.

“We’ll have to call the police,” I said, getting out my cell phone before I remembered there was no coverage.

“We can call them from the pub,” said Douglas.

“Are you near finished?” Hamish called from a safe distance. His voice was thin and quavery.

“We’re done,” I assured him, and headed back to my car.

When we arrived back at Mac’s, Douglas called the police. They promised to come immediately but Douglas estimated it could take up to an hour to drive from their base in the nearest town, depending on the condition of the roads.

Unwilling to twiddle my thumbs for the next two hours, I asked Douglas how far it was to the clearing where McEwen had seen Lady Justina dancing naked.

Douglas glanced at my legs as though estimating the length of my stride. “You could probably get there in twenty minutes