I waved off the distraction. “Never mind Mrs. Gammidge. What did you see on Cieran’s Chapel?”
“Several things.” He paused, as if to gather his thoughts. “Mick Ferguson and Mrs. Muggoch have gone out of their way to convince us that the Chapel’s off-limits. It’s cursed, haunted, tainted, and so forth. They would have us believe that few people ever go there.”
“And those who do are rewarded with bad luck,” I said, recalling Percy’s story about the friend with the broken leg.
“If so few people visit the islet,” Damian went on, “why would anyone go the trouble of driving a ringbolt into the rock? The ring’s only purpose is to anchor boats. If boats rarely land there, why bother?” He pursed his lips. “The condition of the ringbolt is suggestive as well.”
I remembered Damian reaching out to tug on the iron ring before turning with Mick Ferguson to help me hop from Mick’s dinghy onto the islet’s slippery stone shelf.
“Suggestive of what?” I asked.
“The ring’s exposed constantly to seawater,” he said. “It’s either submerged by high tides or deluged with spray when the tides are low. Since it’s made of iron, it should be heavily corroded, but it isn’t. I can think of only one explanation: The ringbolt must be replaced at regular intervals and kept well oiled between replacements. Why take such good care of it if it’s so rarely used?”
Damian’s powers of observation were transcendently superior to mine. I’d been too busy keeping my balance to notice whether or not the iron ring was rusted, and it hadn’t for a moment occurred to me to wonder what it was doing there in the first place.
“Then there’s the matter of the old laird’s grave.” Damian rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and tented his fingers. “As you will recall, it lies at the bottom of a large, bowl-shaped depression. The depression isn’t natural—it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Chapel’s topography. I believe it was created when the old laird’s grave was dug.”
I visualized the oblong stone slab with its Celtic lettering and realized that Damian was right. The islet’s surface was rough and uneven, but it held only one bowl-shaped hollow.
“The soil is quite shallow on the Chapel,” Damian continued. “In order to dig the laird’s grave, the islanders would have had to cut through solid rock—a time-consuming, laborious task. Why, then, did they dig such a large grave? Unless the laird was laid to rest in an enormous sarcophagus—which seems unlikely, given the size and simplicity of the grave marker—the hole could have been much smaller. Why didn’t the gravediggers spare themselves the extra work?”
The list of rhetorical questions I couldn’t answer was growing by leaps and bounds, but I didn’t mind. I was looking forward to the thrilling conclusion, when Damian would sweep aside the veil of mystery and reveal all.
“The old laird died in 1937,” he said. “It seems safe to assume that he was buried soon after the grave had been prepared for him on Cieran’s Chapel. In other words, the laird’s grave was closed and the marker put into place many years ago.” Damian’s silvery eyes glinted in the firelight as he turned his head to face me. “But I’m willing to swear that the ground around the grave has been disturbed much more recently. As recently, perhaps, as two days ago, when you, Peter, and Cassie, saw the strange lights on Cieran’s Chapel.”
I tried to look intelligent, even though I was totally at sea. Damian had clearly given me a monumental clue, but I had no idea what to do with it. My best guess was so far-fetched that I could scarcely bring myself to voice it, but he sat there expecting a response, so I tamped down my misgivings and offered one.
“You don’t think someone was out there . . . digging up the old laird, do you?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” he replied. “I think they dug him up years ago.”
My jaw dropped. “I was kidding, Damian.”
“I’m not,” he said, and shifted his gaze back to the fire. “I suspect that the islanders exhumed the old laird’s remains some time ago and reinterred them on Erinskil. The tomb could then be expanded and used for the temporary storage of contraband. I suspect that couriers come and go fairly frequently—hence the installation and meticulous maintenance of the ringbolt. When visitors are on the island, the couriers move by night.” His eyes found mine again. “Your light wasn’t made by Brother Cieran’s ghost, Lori, but by someone picking up or delivering illegal goods stored in the old laird’s grave.”