Dagger Magic

The sight of the officers from Traffic Division reminded Adam of Claire Crawford. He had looked in on her briefly the night before, when he checked in at the hospital, but there had been no time to follow up on their work with the forensic artist; nor would there be time today or even tomorrow. Nonetheless, her spirits had seemed much improved, even when he told her he must be away for a few days.

He tried not to dwell on the reason he must absent himself. The plans for that exercise were as well laid as could be done until he and his fellow Huntsmen actually arrived in Ireland. Meanwhile, he must not shortchange his patients or his students by letting himself be distracted from the morning's duties.

To that end, he returned to the review of his notes. Traffic opened up, once they eased past the knackered caravan, and Humphrey managed to make up the lost time and deposit his employer at the main hospital entrance with a full five minutes to spare.

"Thank you, Humphrey," Adam said as he tucked his notes into an inside coat pocket. "If you could take my bag up to my office and leave it there, I should just about make this lecture. I'll be in touch as I can. It may be Sunday before we get back."

"Very good, sir. And may I add, good hunting."

Experience and determination enabled Adam to make a reasonably good presentation, despite his growing distraction, and the question-and-answer period that followed was lively and thought-provoking. When he emerged from the hall some two hours later, still engaged in animated discussion with two of his students, a young aide in a candy-striped uniform was waiting to hand him a pink telephone message slip.

"Mrs. Fisken said it was urgent, Dr. Sinclair," she said, "and that you're to ring back right away."

His first sinking thought, as he unfolded the slip, was that some complication must have arisen over the arrangements he had made to cover his absence. He was hardly relieved when he read McLeod's name and number.

"Sorry, Doctors, I'll need to attend to this," he said, tucking the note into a pocket. "We'll continue our discussion on Monday."

When he had reached the refuge of his office, he tapped in McLeod's number at police headquarters with some apprehension.

"It's Adam," he said, at the sound of McLeod's voice. "Is there a problem?"

"For a change, no," came McLeod's reply, a touch of excitement in his tone. "It may take more than this to make your day, but I wanted to let you know before you left the hospital. Donald just brought me a report that Carlisle Police faxed in early this morning. Guess what? Last night, about an hour after pub-closing, a bloke by the name of Avery Melville turned himself in at a local police station. He's claiming to be the man responsible for a drunken hit-and-run accident that took place up here in Edinburgh about a year ago, on the A70 road to Lanark."

It took but half a heartbeat for Adam to realize the import of what McLeod seemed to be telling him.

"This is is the Claire Crawford case we're talking about?"

"The very same."

The sense of relief that flooded through him was mixed with equal parts of wonder and astonishment.

"Well done, Donald! I expect he's as pleased as the rest of us. But before I go running off to tell Claire about this development, have we done any double-checking? How close are the facts? Could this really be the hit-and-run driver who killed her husband?"

"It looks a dead certainty to me," McLeod said, on a note of grim triumph. "McSwain down in Carlisle says this Melville's looks match up with the sketch we put out. And the account he gave of himself coincides at every salient point with the story as Claire told it. No, I don't think there's much doubt that Melville's the perpetrator, all right. Hit-and-run drunk-driving isn't a sufficiently glamorous crime to inspire a false confession."

"I see your point," Adam allowed. "All the same, I wonder…"

"You wonder what?"

"I wonder about the timing. Assuming this Melville is the guilty party, what do you suppose impelled him to make a clean breast of things now, after remaining at large for so long?"

"I was wondering the same thing," came McLeod's reply, "and so was Donald. He rang Carlisle and asked if they'd fax him a transcript of Melville's confession. Want me to read it to you? The pertinent bit isn't very long."

"Please do."