Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [46]
“Wouldn’t that give him an advantage?”
Rex sucked on his pipe stem and blew out a ring of smoke. “The islet,” he said at length.
“What about it?”
“The person who disposed of Moira’s body can’t have known about the islet when they dumped her in the middle of the loch. Too much risk of the body getting washed up, which is what happened. But with all the rain, the murderer wouldn’t have seen it.”
“I suppose,” Helen conceded. “However, the Farquharsons came just before the rain started, so they might have seen the island, even though it is quite a way off. That’s if they were paying attention. All Cuthbert could think about was going after deer. And Estelle was talking nineteen to the dozen and wouldn’t have noticed if the monster of Loch Lown had done an impersonation of Free Willy right in front of her.”
Rex chuckled at the vision of the killer whale, transformed into Bessie, vaulting the barricade to freedom. “Estelle is strong enough to have hoisted Moira’s body through the bathroom window,” he pointed out. “And Flora described someone fitting her description appearing on the stairs with a weapon. She could have used it to threaten Moira.”
“I’ve got it!” Helen cried out in excitement. “Estelle knocked at the bathroom door, using some pretext to get Moira out of the bath and then forced her back into it and drowned her.”
“Continue.”
“Then she pushed Moira’s body out the window and got herself down somehow … Perhaps the ladder was already in place. All she had to do then was drag the body into the boat and row it out onto the lake.”
“No drag marks,” Rex pointed out. “A dead body would have made deep tracks in the lawn, which even the rain couldn’t wash away.”
“She used a twig or something to get rid of them.”
“No time. Someone might have noticed her disappearance.”
“Well, I don’t really think it was her, anyway. I can’t think of a reason for Estelle to kill Moira, except that her chump of a husband was playing the gallant knight to the poor damsel in distress. And Flora and Shona don’t have the gumption. So other than Hamish, we’re left with that oddball Rob Roy, whose only interest is loch monsters, and Donnie. But he’s as slow-witted as Cuthbert is inept. Plus he roams the glens. He might have known about the island in the loch.”
“What aboot a complete stranger to these parts?”
“Who? Oh, you mean the man at the Gleneagle Arms wearing something on his head? The barman said he entered the pub at nine o’clock last night and asked for directions to the lodge.”
“That was probably Moira’s cab driver. She told me they got lost. That might explain why the man was in a bad mood. He’d driven all the way from Edinburgh. It was dark and raining, and he had no doubt been given the runaround by the xenophobic villagers. Still, the fact that he was wearing something unspecified on his head, perhaps to protect him from the rain, is curious …”
They resumed their walk. The path, cutting through Scots pine, branched off to the left and then rose steadily to give a bird’s-eye view of Loch Lown, looking remote and secretive as it pointed its long pale finger of water. Beyond, on the northern slopes, sheep grazed in upland pastures dotted with scree and cairns of gray rock. Farther away, the moors rose in a brown and green camouflage pattern, while in the far distance soared misty-topped mountains clad in native Caledonian pine and stippled with waterfalls.
“Come on.” Rex told Helen, turning his back to the loch and house. “There will be plenty of time for sightseeing later. I hope.”
That’s when they saw it. In a clearing on a hillside, no more than thirty yards away, a stag with fourteen points on its new antlers stood motionless and regal, its reddish-brown hair matted almost black from the rain.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” Helen said in an awed breath.
“It’s an Imperial. Don’t move a muscle now.”
Suddenly a shot rang out in the still silence. The stag reared and bolted into the forest.
“Is he hurt?” Helen cried, staring after it.
“I don’t think so, but I’ll hurt the person who fired. Sounds