The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Straloch seemed pleased to have got that business – that women’s business – over with. He strode over to his desk and poured us each a drink of wine. His manner was brisk now, no longer hesitant. ‘Well, then, let us get down to the matter in hand. Your good provost writes that the map he has sent you with was found amongst the belongings of a visitor to your town, and that he would have my advice on its nature. He asks that I should speak to no one but yourself about this business.’ He took a key from a chain in his pocket and unlocked the box I had seen him put the map next to that afternoon. I experienced some little relief to be fulfilling my commission at last, and sat back to wait.

The laird opened out the sheet and took an eyeglass from his desk. He began at the top left corner and worked very slowly with the glass over the entire sheet. As he did so, I studied the arras hangings on the panelled wall behind him – a well-worked suite depicting the journey of the Egyptian Princess Scota, daughter of the Pharaoh, and progenitrix of our race, to our cold shores. The myth had been used three hundred years ago to argue the rights of our nation against the overlordship of an English king. What did Straloch think of those rights, now that the king in England was our own? I looked at my host; no word escaped him. At length he put the glass down, and sat heavily back into his chair. He looked up at me.

‘Have you seen this work, Mr Seaton?’

I affirmed that I had.

‘And what is your assessment of it?’

I had not expected this again, and had no intention this time either of making accusations against a man who was not able to answer for himself. My only course was to lie.

‘I have no assessment of it – none of any significance. It is a map, it is of the coast near Banff, and it is a tidy and detailed bit of work.’

I did not meet Straloch’s eye; I knew he did not believe me.

‘Come now, Mr Seaton, you are a man of some intelligence. This document gives rise to no curiosity, no conjecture, in your mind?’

I met his gaze now. ‘Only a fool would not be curious,’ I said. ‘I am as curious as our provost and the rest concerned in this business to know what this map signifies. As to conjecture, though, I have learnt that it is a habit best indulged in solitude.’

Straloch nodded. ‘I believe you may well be right. If more of our countrymen were of the same opinion, this would be a more peaceable land.’ He laid the map on a table near the fire, and motioned for me to join him at it. ‘But as to this map, we must deal in specifics, and I cannot believe that you have not formed any view as to why it might have been drawn. The authorities in Banff would never have sent it to me for examination had they no notion at all of what it might be used for. And you must be of their counsel, since you have been entrusted with the document itself, and with my reply – should I choose to make one.’

There might have been some hostility in the laird’s tone; I could not tell, for I did not know him well enough. I could not blame him for it: if I would not be frank with him, why should he be so with me? What did I owe to the town of Banff, or to those who had sent me on this commission, that I should lie for them? Straloch returned to the map. ‘I will tell you straightly. This is fine work, amongst the finest I have seen. Whose is it? Who is this mysterious visitor to the burgh who has such a thing in his possession?’ The provost had warned me that I was not to answer the laird’s questions, but I was a guest in the laird’s house, and the provost was not here.

‘It is the work of the provost’s nephew, apprentice to Edward Arbuthnott, apothecary of Banff.’

Straloch set down the document. The expression on his face did not allow of further dissembling. ‘Do you tell me that this map was drawn by the man lately found murdered in Banff?’ He saw my awkwardness but waved it away. ‘Do your minister and baillie really think such matters can be kept within the bounds of your burgh like a tethered cow? The whole country is alive with the news, and that the music master is in jail, suspected, all over the love of a woman. But what you bring me today is no lover’s trick. I think you fear you have the wrong man in jail, and perhaps for the wrong crime.’

‘I know that the wrong man is in jail. Charles Thom is no more capable of murder than I am, over a woman or anything else. And as to the crime – I speak for myself here, you understand, and not for those who sent me?’

He acquiesced.

‘That there has been a crime is not in doubt; that there has been a murder, is not in doubt. The reason for the murder – that is in doubt. If once that can be established, the rest should follow. But in truth,’ and here I knew I was departing completely from the commission given to me, ‘I think those in whose place I have come – the provost, baillie, minister and notary public of Banff – have forgotten there ever was a murder, so aroused are their fears by the discovery of the document before you.’