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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Simon, by J. Storer Clouston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Simon
+
+Author: J. Storer Clouston
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26306]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ SIMON
+
+ BY
+
+ J. STORER CLOUSTON
+
+ AUTHOR OF "THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS," "THE SPY
+ IN BLACK," "THE LUNATIC AT LARGE," ETC.
+
+ NEW YORK
+ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1919,
+ BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+       I. The Solitary Passenger                              9
+      II. The Procurator Fiscal                              16
+     III. The Heir                                           23
+      IV. The Man from the West                              31
+       V. The Third Visitor                                  40
+      VI. At Night                                           48
+     VII. The Drive Home                                     56
+    VIII. Sir Reginald                                       67
+      IX. A Philosopher                                      74
+       X. The Letter                                         80
+      XI. News                                               89
+     XII. Cicely                                            100
+    XIII. The Deductive Process                             106
+     XIV. The Question of Motive                            114
+      XV. Two Women                                         123
+     XVI. Rumour                                            128
+    XVII. A Suggestion                                      135
+   XVIII. £1200                                             143
+     XIX. The Empty Compartment                             148
+      XX. The Sporting Visitor                              154
+     XXI. Mr. Carrington's Walk                             161
+    XXII. Mr. Carrington and the Fiscal                     168
+   XXIII. Simon's Views                                     176
+    XXIV. Mr. Bisset's Assistant                            185
+     XXV. A Telegram                                        196
+    XXVI. At Stanesland                                     201
+   XXVII. Flight                                            209
+  XXVIII. The Return                                        216
+    XXIX. Brother and Sister                                224
+     XXX. A Marked Man                                      229
+    XXXI. The Letter Again                                  240
+   XXXII. The Sympathetic Stranger                          247
+  XXXIII. The House of Mysteries                            253
+   XXXIV. A Confidential Conversation                       261
+    XXXV. In the Garden                                     271
+   XXXVI. The Walking Stick                                 278
+  XXXVII. Bisset's Advice                                   285
+ XXXVIII. Trapped                                           291
+   XXXIX. The Yarn                                          301
+      XL. The Last Chapter                                  312
+
+
+
+
+SIMON
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE SOLITARY PASSENGER
+
+
+The train had come a long journey and the afternoon was wearing on.
+The passenger in the last third class compartment but one, looking
+out of the window sombrely and intently, saw nothing now but desolate
+brown hills and a winding lonely river, very northern looking under
+the autumnal sky.
+
+He was alone in the carriage, and if any one had happened to study his
+movements during the interminable journey, they would have concluded
+that for some reason he seemed to have a singularly strong inclination
+for solitude. In fact this was at least the third compartment he had
+occupied, for whenever a fellow traveller entered, he unostentatiously
+descended, and in a moment had slipped, also unostentatiously, into an
+empty carriage. Finally he had selected one at the extreme end of the
+train, a judicious choice which had ensured privacy for the last couple
+of hours.
+
+When the train at length paused in the midst of the moorlands and for
+some obscure reason this spot was selected for the examination of
+tickets, another feature of this traveller's character became apparent.
+He had no ticket, he confessed, but named the last station as his place
+of departure and the next as his destination. Being an entirely
+respectable looking person, his statement was accepted and he slipped
+the change for half a crown into his pocket; just as he had done a
+number of times previously in the course of his journey. Evidently the
+passenger was of an economical as well as of a secretive disposition.
+
+As the light began to fade and the grey sky to change into a deeper
+grey, and the lighted train to glitter through the darkening moors, and
+he could see by his watch that their distant goal was now within an
+hour's journey, the man showed for the first time signs of a livelier
+interest. He peered out keenly into the dusk as though recognising old
+landmarks, and now and then he shifted in his seat restlessly and a
+little nervously.
+
+He was a man of middle age or upwards, of middle height, and thickset.
+Round his neck he wore a muffler, so drawn up as partially to conceal
+the lower part of his face, and a black felt hat was drawn down over
+his eyes. Between them could be seen only the gleam of his eyes, the
+tip of his nose, and the stiff hairs of a grizzled moustache.
+
+Out of his overcoat pocket he pulled a pipe and for a moment looked at
+it doubtfully, and then, as if the temptation were irresistible, he
+took out a tobacco pouch too. It was almost flat and he jealously
+picked up a shred that fell on the floor, and checked himself at last
+when the bowl was half filled. And then for a while he smoked very
+slowly, savouring each whiff.
+
+When they stopped at the last station or two, the reserved and exclusive
+disposition of this traveller became still more apparent. Not only was
+he so muffled up as to make recognition by an unwelcome acquaintance
+exceedingly difficult, but so long as they paused at the stations he sat
+with his face resting on his hand, and when they moved on again, an air
+of some relief was apparent.
+
+But a still more remarkable instance of this sensitive passion for
+privacy appeared when the train stopped at the ticket platform just
+outside its final destination. Even as they were slowing down, he fell
+on his knees and then stretched himself at full length on the floor, and
+when the door was flung open for an instant, the compartment was to all
+appearances empty. Only when they were well under way again did this
+retiring traveller emerge from beneath the seat.
+
+And when he did emerge, his conduct continued to be of a piece with this
+curious performance. He glanced out of the window for an instant at the
+lights of the platform ahead, and the groups under them, and the arch of
+the station roof against the night sky, and then swiftly stepped across
+the carriage and gently opened the door on the wrong side. By the time
+the train was fairly at rest, the door had been as quietly closed again
+and the man was picking his way over the sleepers in the darkness, past
+the guard's van and away from the station and publicity. Certainly he
+had succeeded in achieving a singularly economical and private journey.
+
+For a few minutes he continued to walk back along the line, and then
+after a wary look all round him, he sprang up the low bank at the side,
+threw his leg over a wire fence, and with infinite care began to make
+his way across a stubble field. As he approached the wall on the further
+side of the field his precautions increased. He listened intently,
+crouched down once or twice, and when at last he reached the wall, he
+peered over it very carefully before he mounted and dropped on the other
+side.
+
+"Well," he murmured, "I'm here, by God, at last!"
+
+He was standing now in a road on the outskirts of the town. On the one
+hand it led into a dim expanse of darkened country; on the other the
+lights of the town twinkled. Across the road, a few villas stood back
+amidst trees, with gates opening on to a footpath, the outlying houses
+of the town; and the first lamp-post stood a little way down this path.
+The man crossed the road and turned townwards, walking slowly and
+apparently at his ease. What seemed to interest him now was not his own
+need for privacy but the houses and gates he was passing. At one open
+gate in particular he half paused and then seemed to spy something ahead
+that altered his plans. Under a lamp-post a figure appeared to be
+lingering, and at the sight of this, the man drew his hat still more
+closely over his face and moved on.
+
+As he drew near the lamp the forms of two youths became manifest,
+apparently loitering there idly. The man kept his eyes on the ground,
+passed them at a brisk walk and went on his way into the town.
+
+"Damn them!" he muttered.
+
+This incident seemed to have deranged his plans a little for his
+movements during the next half hour were so purposeless as to suggest
+that he was merely putting in time. Down one street and up another he
+walked, increasing his pace when he had to pass any fellow walkers, and
+then again falling slow at certain corners and looking round him
+curiously as though those dark lanes and half-lit streets were
+reminiscent.
+
+Even seen in the light of the infrequent lamps and the rays from thinly
+blinded windows, it was evidently but a small country town of a hard,
+grey stone, northern type. The ends of certain lanes seemed to open into
+the empty country itself, and one could hear the regular cadence of
+waves hard by upon a shore.
+
+"It doesn't seem to have changed much," said the man to himself.
+
+He worked his way round, like one quite familiar with the route he
+followed, till at length he drew near the same quiet country road whence
+he had started. This time he stopped for a few minutes in the thickest
+shadow and scanned each dim circle of radiance ahead. Nobody seemed now
+to be within the rays of the lamps or to be moving in the darkness
+between. He went on warily till he had come nearly to the same open gate
+where he had paused before, and then there fell upon his ears the sound
+of steps behind him and he stopped again and looked sharply over his
+shoulder.
+
+Somebody was following, but at a little distance off, and after
+hesitating for an instant, he seemed to make up his mind to risk it, and
+turned swiftly and stealthily through the gates. A short drive of some
+pretentions ran between trees and then curved round towards the house,
+but there was no lodge or any sign of a possible watcher, and the man
+advanced for a few yards swiftly and confidently enough. And then he
+stopped abruptly. Under the shade of the trees the drive ahead was pitch
+dark, but footsteps and voices were certainly coming from the house. In
+an instant he had vanished into the belt of plantation along one side of
+the drive.
+
+The footsteps and voices ceased, and then the steps began again, timidly
+at first and then hurriedly. The belt of shrubs and trees was just thick
+enough to hide a man perfectly on a moonless cloudy night like this. Yet
+on either side the watcher could see enough of what was beyond to note
+that he stood between the dark drive on one hand and a lighter space of
+open garden on the other, and he could even catch a glimpse of the
+house against the sky. Light shone brightly from the fanlight over the
+front door, and less distinctly from one window upstairs and through the
+slats of a blind in a downstairs room. For a moment he looked in that
+direction and then intently watched the drive.
+
+The footsteps by this time were almost on the run. The vague forms of
+two women passed swiftly and he could see their faces dimly turned
+towards him as they hurried by. They passed through the gates and were
+gone, and then a minute later men's voices in the road cried out a
+greeting. And after that the silence fell profound.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PROCURATOR FISCAL
+
+
+The procurator fiscal breakfasted at 8.30, punctually, and at 8.30
+as usual he entered his severely upholstered dining-room and shut th
+door behind him. The windows looked into a spacious garden with a belt
+of trees leading up to the house from the gate, and this morning Mr.
+Rattar, who was a machine for habit, departed in one trifling particular
+from his invariable routine. Instead of sitting straight down to the
+business of breakfasting, he stood for a minute or two at the window
+gazing into the garden, and then he came to the table very thoughtfully.
+
+No man in that northern county was better known or more widely
+respected than Mr. Simon Rattar. In person, he was a thickset man of
+middle height and elderly middle age, with cold steady eyes and
+grizzled hair. His clean shaved face was chiefly remarkable for the
+hardness of his tight-shut mouth, and the obstinacy of the chin beneath
+it. Professionally, he was lawyer to several of the larger landowners
+and factor on their estates, and lawyer and adviser also to many other
+people in various stations in life. Officially, he was procurator fiscal
+for the county, the setter in motion of all criminal processes, and
+generalissimo, so to speak, of the police; and one way and another, he
+had the reputation of being a very comfortably well off gentleman
+indeed.
+
+As for his abilities, they were undeniably considerable, of the hard,
+cautious, never-caught-asleep order; and his taciturn manner and way of
+drinking in everything said to him while he looked at you out of his
+steady eyes, and then merely nodded and gave a significant little grunt
+at the end, added immensely to his reputation for profound wisdom.
+People were able to quote few definite opinions uttered by "Silent
+Simon," but any that could be quoted were shrewdness itself.
+
+He was a bachelor, and indeed, it was difficult for the most fanciful to
+imagine Silent Simon married. Even in his youth he had not been
+attracted by the other sex, and his own qualities certainly did not
+attract them. Not that there was a word to be said seriously against
+him. Hard and shrewd though he was, his respectability was extreme and
+his observance of the conventions scrupulous to a fault. He was an elder
+of the Kirk, a non-smoker, an abstemious drinker (to be an out and out
+teetotaler would have been a little too remarkable in those regions for
+a man of Mr. Rattar's conventional tastes), and indeed in all respects
+he trod that sober path that leads to a semi-public funeral and a vast
+block of granite in the parish kirkyard.
+
+He had acquired his substantial villa and large garden by a very shrewd
+bargain a number of years ago, and he lived there with just the decency
+that his condition in life enjoined, but with not a suspicion of display
+beyond it. He kept a staff of two competent and respectable girls, just
+enough to run a house of that size, but only just; and when he wanted to
+drive abroad he hired a conveyance exactly suitable to the occasion from
+the most respectable hotel. His life, in short, was ordered to the very
+best advantage possible.
+
+Enthusiastic devotion to such an extremely exemplary gentleman was a
+little difficult, but in his present housemaid, Mary MacLean, he had a
+girl with a strong Highland strain of fidelity to a master, and an
+instinctive devotion to his interests, even if his person was hardly the
+chieftain her heart demanded. She was a soft voiced, anxious looking
+young woman, almost pretty despite her nervous high strung air, and of a
+quiet and modest demeanour.
+
+Soon after her master had begun breakfast, Mary entered the dining-room
+with an apologetic air, but a conscientious eye.
+
+"Begging your pardon, sir," she began, "but I thought I ought to tell
+you that when cook and me was going out to the concert last night we
+thought we saw _something_ in the drive."
+
+Mr. Rattar looked up at her sharply and fixed his cold eyes on her
+steadily for a moment, never saying a word. It was exactly his ordinary
+habit, and she had thought she was used to it by now, yet this morning
+she felt oddly disconcerted. Then it struck her that perhaps it was the
+red cut on his chin that gave her this curious feeling. Silent Simon's
+hand was as steady as a rock and she never remembered his having cut
+himself shaving before; certainly not as badly as this.
+
+"Saw 'something'?" he repeated gruffly. "What do you mean?"
+
+"It looked like a man, sir, and it seemed to move into the trees almost
+as quick as we saw it!"
+
+"Tuts!" muttered Simon.
+
+"But there was two friends of ours meeting us in the road," she hurried
+on, "and they thought they saw a man going in at the gate!"
+
+Her master seemed a little more impressed.
+
+"Indeed?" said he.
+
+"So I thought it was my duty to tell you, sir."
+
+"Quite right," said he.
+
+"For I felt sure it couldn't just be a gentleman coming to see you, sir,
+or he wouldn't have gone into the trees."
+
+"Of course not," he agreed briefly. "Nobody came to see me."
+
+Mary looked at him doubtfully and hesitated for a moment.
+
+"Didn't you even hear anything, sir?" she asked in a lowered voice.
+
+Her master's quick glance made her jump.
+
+"Why?" he demanded.
+
+"Because, sir, I found footsteps in the gravel this morning--where it's
+soft with the rain, sir, just under the library window."
+
+Mr. Rattar looked first hard at her and then at his plate. For several
+seconds he answered nothing, and then he said:
+
+"I did hear some one."
+
+There was something both in his voice and in his eye as he said this
+that was not quite like the usual Simon Rattar. Mary began to feel a
+sympathetic thrill.
+
+"Did you look out of the window, sir?" she asked in a hushed voice.
+
+Her master nodded and pursed his lips.
+
+"But you didn't see him, sir?"
+
+"No," said he.
+
+"Who could it have been, sir?"
+
+"I have been wondering," he said, and then he threw a sudden glance at
+her that made her hurry for the door. It was not that it was an angry
+look, but that it was what she called so "queer-like."
+
+Just as she went out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr.
+Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke.
+The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angry
+twitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen the
+master do a thing of that kind.
+
+A little later the library bell called her. Mr. Rattar had finished
+breakfast and was seated beside the fire with a bundle of legal papers
+on a small table beside him, just as he always sat, absorbed in work,
+before he started for his office. The master's library impressed Mary
+vastly. The furniture was so substantial, new-looking, and conspicuous
+for the shininess of the wood and the brightness of the red morocco
+seats to the chairs. And it was such a tidy room--no litter of papers or
+books, nothing ever out of place, no sign even of pipe, tobacco jar,
+cigarette or cigar. The only concession to the vices were the ornate ash
+tray and the massive globular glass match box on the square table in the
+middle of the room, and they were manifestly placed there for the
+benefit of visitors merely. Even they, Mary thought, were admirable as
+ornaments, and she was concerned to note that there was no nice
+red-headed bundle of matches in the glass match box this morning. What
+had become of them she could not imagine, but she resolved to repair
+this blemish as soon as the master had left the house.
+
+"I don't want you to go gossiping about this fellow who came into the
+garden, last night," he began.
+
+"Oh, no, sir!" said she.
+
+Simon shot her a glance that seemed compounded of doubt and warning.
+
+"As procurator fiscal, it is my business to inquire into such affairs.
+I'll see to it."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir; I know," said she. "It seemed so impudent like of the man
+coming into the fiscal's garden of all places!"
+
+Simon grunted. It was his characteristic reply when no words were
+absolutely necessary.
+
+"That's all," said he, "don't gossip! Remember, if we want to catch the
+man, the quieter we keep the better."
+
+Mary went out, impressed with the warning, but still more deeply
+impressed with something else. Gossip with cook of course was not to be
+counted as gossip in the prohibited sense, and when she returned to the
+kitchen, she unburdened her Highland heart.
+
+"The master's no himsel'!" she said. "I tell you, Janet, never have I
+seen Mr. Rattar look the way he looked at breakfast, nor yet the way he
+looked in the library!"
+
+Cook was a practical person and apt to be a trifle unsympathetic.
+
+"He couldna be bothered with your blethering most likely!" said she.
+
+"Oh, it wasna that!" said Mary very seriously. "Just think yoursel' how
+would you like to be watched through the window at the dead of night as
+you were sitting in your chair? The master's feared of yon man, Janet!"
+
+Even Janet was a little impressed by her solemnity.
+
+"It must have taken something to make silent Simon feared!" said she.
+
+Mary's voice fell.
+
+"It's my opinion, the master knows more than he let on to me. The
+thought that came into my mind when he was talking to me was just--'The
+man feels he's being _watched_!'"
+
+"Oh, get along wi' you and your Hieland fancies!" said cook, but she
+said it a little uncomfortably.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE HEIR
+
+
+At 9.45 precisely Mr. Rattar arrived at his office, just as he had
+arrived every morning since his clerks could remember. He nodded curtly
+as usual to his head clerk, Mr. Ison, and went into his room. His
+letters were always laid out on his desk and from twenty minutes to half
+an hour were generally spent by him in running through them. Then he
+would ring for Mr. Ison and begin to deal with the business of the day.
+But on this morning the bell went within twelve minutes, as Mr. Ison (a
+most precise person) noted on the clock.
+
+"Bring the letter book," said Mr. Rattar. "And the business ledger."
+
+"Letter book and business ledger?" repeated Mr. Ison, looking a little
+surprised.
+
+Mr. Rattar nodded.
+
+The head clerk turned away and then paused and glanced at the bundle of
+papers Mr. Rattar had brought back with him. He had expected these to be
+dealt with first thing.
+
+"About this Thomson business--" he began.
+
+"It can wait."
+
+The lawyer's manner was peremptory and the clerk fetched the letter
+book and ledger. These contained, between them, a record of all the
+recent business of the firm, apart from public business and the affairs
+of one large estate. What could be the reason for such a comprehensive
+examination, Mr. Ison could not divine, but Mr. Rattar never gave
+reasons unless he chose, and the clerk who would venture to ask him was
+not to be found on the staff of Silent Simon.
+
+In a minute or two the head clerk returned with the books. This time he
+was wearing his spectacles and his first glance through them at Mr.
+Rattar gave him an odd sensation. The lawyer's mouth was as hard set and
+his eyes were as steady as ever. Yet something about his expression
+seemed a little unusual. Some unexpected business had turned up to
+disturb him, Mr. Ison felt sure; and indeed, this seemed certain from
+his request for the letter book and ledger. He now noticed also the cut
+on his chin, a sure sign that something had interrupted the orderly
+tenor of Simon Rattar's life, if ever there was one. Mr. Ison tried to
+guess whose business could have taken such a turn as to make Silent
+Simon cut himself with his razor, but though he had many virtues,
+imagination was not among them and he had to confess that it was fairly
+beyond James Ison.
+
+And yet, curiously enough, his one remark to a fellow clerk was not
+unlike the comment of the imaginative Mary MacLean.
+
+"The boss has a kin' of unusual look to-day. There was something kin'
+of suspicious in that eye of his--rather as though he thought someone
+was watching him."
+
+Mr. Rattar had been busy with the books for some twenty minutes when his
+head clerk returned.
+
+"Mr. Malcolm Cromarty to see you, sir," he said.
+
+Silent Simon looked at him hard, and it was evident to his clerk that
+his mind had been extraordinarily absorbed, for he simply repeated in a
+curious way:
+
+"Mr. _Malcolm_ Cromarty?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Mr. Ison, and then as even this seemed scarcely to be
+comprehended, he added, "Sir Reginald's cousin."
+
+"Ah, of course!" said Mr. Rattar. "Well, show him in."
+
+The young man who entered was evidently conscious of being a superior
+person. From the waviness of his hair and the studied negligence of his
+tie (heliotrope with a design in old gold), it seemed probable that he
+had literary or artistic claims to be superior to the herd. And from the
+deference with which Mr. Ison had pronounced his name and his own
+slightly condescending manner, it appeared that he felt himself in other
+respects superior to Mr. Rattar. He was of medium height, slender, and
+dark-haired. His features were remarkably regular, and though his face
+was somewhat small, there could be no doubt that he was extremely good
+looking, especially to a woman's eye, who would be more apt than a
+fellow man to condone something a little supercilious in his smile.
+
+The attire of Mr. Malcolm Cromarty was that of the man of fashion
+dressed for the country, with the single exception of the tie which
+intimated to the discerning that here was no young man of fashion
+merely, but likewise a young man of ideas. That he had written, or at
+least was going to write, or else that he painted or was about to paint,
+was quite manifest. The indications, however, were not sufficiently
+pronounced to permit one to suspect him of fiddling, or even of being
+about to fiddle.
+
+This young gentleman's manner as he shook hands with the lawyer and then
+took a chair was on the surface cheerful and politely condescending. Yet
+after his first greeting, and when he was seated under Simon's
+inscrutable eye, there stole into his own a hint of quite another
+emotion. If ever an eye revealed apprehension it was Malcolm Cromarty's
+at that instant.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rattar, here I am again, you see," said he with a little
+laugh; but it was not quite a spontaneous laugh.
+
+"I see, Mr. Cromarty," said Simon laconically.
+
+"You have been expecting to hear from me before, I suppose," the young
+man went on, "but the fact is I've had an idea for a story and I've been
+devilish busy sketching it out."
+
+Simon grunted and gave a little nod. One would say that he was studying
+his visitor with exceptional attention.
+
+"Ideas come to one at the most inconvenient times," the young author
+explained with a smile, and yet with a certain hurried utterance not
+usually associated with smiles, "one just has to shoot the bird when he
+happens to come over your head, don't you know, you can't send in
+beaters after that kind of fowl, Mr. Rattar. And when he does come out,
+there you are! You have to make hay while the sun shines."
+
+Again the lawyer nodded, and again he made no remark. The apprehension
+in his visitor's eye increased, his smile died away, and suddenly he
+exclaimed:
+
+"For God's sake, Mr. Rattar, say something! I meant honestly to pay you
+back--I felt sure I could sell that last thing of mine before now, but
+not a word yet from the editor I sent it to!"
+
+Still there came only a guarded grunt from Simon and the young man went
+on with increasing agitation.
+
+"You won't give me away to Sir Reginald, will you? He's been damned
+crusty with me lately about money matters, as it is. If you make me
+desperate----!" He broke off and gazed dramatically into space for a
+moment, and then less dramatically at his lawyer.
+
+Silent Simon was proverbially cautious, but it seemed to his visitor
+that his demeanour this morning exceeded all reasonable limits. For
+nearly a minute he answered absolutely nothing, and then he said very
+slowly and deliberately:
+
+"I think it would be better, Mr. Cromarty, if you gave me a brief,
+explicit statement of how you got into this mess."
+
+"Dash it, you know too well--" began Cromarty.
+
+"It would make you realise your own position more clearly," interrupted
+the lawyer. "You want me to assist you, I take it?"
+
+"Rather--if you will!"
+
+"Well then, please do as I ask you. You had better start at the
+beginning of your relations with Sir Reginald."
+
+Malcolm Cromarty's face expressed surprise, but the lawyer's was
+distinctly less severe, and he began readily enough:
+
+"Well, of course, as you know, my cousin Charles Cromarty died about 18
+months ago and I became the heir to the baronetcy--" he broke off and
+asked, "Do you mean you want me to go over all that?"
+
+Simon nodded, and he went on:
+
+"Sir Reginald was devilish good at first--in his own patronising way,
+let me stay at Keldale as often and as long as I liked, made me an
+allowance and so on; but there was always this fuss about my taking up
+something a little more conventional than literature. Ha, ha!" The young
+man laughed in a superior way and then looked apprehensively at the
+other. "But I suppose you agree with Sir Reginald?"
+
+Simon pursed his lips and made a non-committal sound.
+
+"Well, anyhow, he wanted me to be called to the Bar or something of that
+kind, and then there was a fuss about money--his ideas of an allowance
+are rather old fashioned, as you know. And then you were good enough to
+help me with that loan, and--well, that's all, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. Rattar had been listening with extreme attention. He now nodded, and
+a smile for a moment seemed to light his chilly eyes.
+
+"I see that you quite realise your position, Mr. Cromarty," he said.
+
+"Realise it!" cried the young man. "My God, I'm in a worse hole----" he
+broke off abruptly.
+
+"Worse than you have admitted to me?" said Simon quickly and again with
+a smile in his eye.
+
+Malcolm Cromarty hesitated, "Sir Reginald is so damned narrow! If he
+wants to drive me to the devil--well, let him! But I say, Mr. Rattar,
+what are you going to do?"
+
+For some moments Simon said nothing. At length he answered:
+
+"I shall not press for repayment at present."
+
+His visitor rose with a sigh of relief and as he said good-bye his
+condescending manner returned as readily as it had gone.
+
+"Good morning and many thanks," said he, and then hesitated for an
+instant. "You couldn't let me have a very small cheque, just to be going
+on with, could you?"
+
+"Not this morning, Mr. Cromarty."
+
+Mr. Cromarty's look of despair returned.
+
+"Well," he cried darkly as he strode to the door, "people who treat a
+man in my position like this are responsible for--er----!" The banging
+of the door left their precise responsibility in doubt.
+
+Simon Rattar gazed after him with an odd expression. It seemed to
+contain a considerable infusion of complacency. And then he rang for his
+clerk.
+
+"Get me the Cromarty estate letter book," he commanded.
+
+The book was brought and this time he had about ten minutes to himself
+before the clerk entered again.
+
+"Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland to see you, sir," he announced.
+
+This announcement seemed to set the lawyer thinking hard. Then in his
+abrupt way he said:
+
+"Show him in."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MAN FROM THE WEST
+
+
+Mr. Rattar's second visitor was of a different type. Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland stood about 6 feet two and had nothing artistic in his
+appearance, being a lean strapping man in the neighbourhood of forty,
+with a keen, thin, weather-beaten face chiefly remarkable for its
+straight sharp nose, compressed lips, reddish eye-brows, puckered into a
+slight habitual frown, and the fact that the keen look of the whole was
+expressed by only one of his eyes, the other being a good imitation but
+unmistakeably glass. The whole effect of the face, however, was
+singularly pleasing to the discerning critic. An out of door, reckless,
+humorous, honest personality was stamped on every line of it and every
+movement of the man. When he spoke his voice had a marked tinge of the
+twang of the wild west that sounded a little oddly on the lips of a
+country gentleman in these northern parts. He wore an open flannel
+collar, a shooting coat, well cut riding breeches and immaculate leather
+leggings, finished off by a most substantial pair of shooting boots.
+Unlike Mr. Malcolm Cromarty, he evidently looked upon his visit as
+expected.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Rattar," said he, throwing his long form into the
+clients' chair as he spoke. "Well, I guess you've got some good advice
+for me this morning."
+
+Simon Rattar was proverbially cautious, but to-day his caution struck
+his visitor as quite remarkable.
+
+"Um," he grunted. "Advice, Mr. Cromarty? Umph!"
+
+"Don't trouble beating about the bush," said the tall man. "I've been
+figuring things out myself and so far as I can see, it comes to
+this:--that loan from Sir Reginald put me straight in the meantime, but
+I've got to cut down expense all round to keep straight, and I've got to
+pay him back. Of course you know his way when it's one of the clan he's
+dealing with. 'My dear Ned, no hurry whatever. If you send my heir a
+cheque some day after I'm gone it will have the added charm of
+surprise!' Well, that's damned decent, but hardly business. I want to
+get the whole thing off my chest. Got the statement made up?"
+
+Simon shook his head.
+
+"Very sorry, Mr. Cromarty. Haven't had time yet."
+
+"Hell!" said Mr. Cromarty, though in a cheerful voice, and then added
+with an engaging smile, "Pardon me, Mr. Rattar. I'm trying to get
+educated out of strong language, but, Lord, at my time of life it's not
+so damned--I mean dashed easy!"
+
+Even Simon Rattar's features relaxed for an instant into a smile.
+
+"And who is educating you?" he enquired.
+
+Mr. Cromarty looked a little surprised.
+
+"Who but the usual lady? Gad, I've told you before of my sister's well
+meant efforts. It's a stiff job making a retired cow puncher into a high
+grade laird. However, I can smoke without spitting now, which is a step
+on the road towards being a Lord Chesterfield."
+
+He smiled humorously, stretched out his long legs and added:
+
+"It's a nuisance, your not having that statement ready. When I've got to
+do business I like pushing it through quick. That's an American habit I
+don't mean to get rid of, Mr. Rattar."
+
+Mr. Rattar nodded his approval.
+
+"Certainly not," said he.
+
+"I've put down my car," his visitor continued. "Drive a buggy now--beg
+its pardon, a trap, and a devilish nice little mare I've got in her too.
+In fact, there are plenty of consolations for whatever you have to do in
+this world. I'm only sorry for my sister's sake that I have to draw in
+my horns a bit. Women like a bit of a splash--at least judging from the
+comparatively little I know of 'em."
+
+"Miss Cromarty doesn't complain, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, I think she's beginning to see the necessity for reform. You see,
+when both my civilised elder brothers died----" he broke off, and then
+added: "But you know the whole story."
+
+"I would--er--like to refresh my memory," said Simon; and there seemed
+to be a note of interest and almost of eagerness in his voice that
+appeared to surprise his visitor afresh.
+
+"First time I ever heard of your memory needing refreshing!" laughed his
+visitor. "Well, you know how I came back from the wild and woolly west
+and tried to make a comfortable home for Lilian. We were neither of us
+likely to marry at our time of life, and there were just the two of us
+left, and we'd both of us knocked about quite long enough on our own,
+and so why not settle down together in the old place and be comfortable?
+At least that's how it struck me. Of course, as you know, we hadn't met
+for so long that we were practically strangers and she knew the ways of
+civilisation better than me, and I gave her a pretty free hand in
+setting up the establishment. I don't blame her, mind you, for setting
+the pace a bit too fast to last. My own blamed fault entirely. However,
+we aren't in a very deep hole, thank the Lord. In fact if I hadn't got
+to pay Sir Reginald back the £1,200 it would be all right, so far I can
+figure out. But I want your exact statement, Mr. Rattar, and as quick as
+you can let me have it."
+
+Simon nodded and grunted.
+
+"You'll get it." And then he added: "I think I can assure you there is
+nothing to be concerned about."
+
+Ned Cromarty smiled and a reckless light danced for a moment in his one
+efficient eye.
+
+"I guess I almost wish there were something to be concerned about! Sir
+Reginald is always telling me I'm the head of the oldest branch of the
+whole Cromarty family and it's my duty to live in the house of my
+ancestors and be an ornament to the county, and all the rest of it. But
+I tell you it's a damned quiet life for a man who's had his eye put out
+with a broken whisky bottle and hanged the man who did it with his own
+hands!"
+
+"Hanged him!" exclaimed the lawyer sharply.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't merely for the eye. That gave the performance a kind of
+relish it would otherwise have lacked, being a cold-blooded ceremony and
+a little awkward with the apparatus we had. We hanged him for murder, as
+a matter of fact. Now, between ourselves, Mr. Rattar, we don't want to
+crab our own county, but you must confess that real good serious crime
+is devilish scarce here, eh?"
+
+Cromarty's eye was gleaming humorously, and Simon Rattar might have been
+thought the kind of tough customer who would have been amused by the
+joke. He seemed, however, to be affected unpleasantly and even a little
+startled.
+
+"I--I trust we don't," he said.
+
+"Well," his visitor agreed, "as it means that something or somebody has
+got to be sacrificed to start the sport of man-hunting, I suppose
+there's something to be said for the quiet life. But personally I'd
+sooner be after men than grouse, from the point of view of getting
+thorough satisfaction while it lasts. My sister says it means I haven't
+settled down properly yet--calls me the bold bad bachelor!"
+
+Through this speech Simon seemed to be looking at his visitor with an
+attention that bordered on fascination, and it was apparently with a
+slight effort that he asked at the end:
+
+"Well, why don't you marry?"
+
+"Marry!" exclaimed Ned Cromarty. "And where will you find the lady
+that's to succumb to my fascinations? I'm within a month of forty, Mr.
+Rattar, I've the mind, habits, and appearance of a backwoodsman, and
+I've one working eye left. A female collector of antique curiosities, or
+something in the nature of a retired wardress might take on the job, but
+I can't think of any one else!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, and yet something remarkably like a sigh
+followed the laugh, and for a moment after he had ceased speaking his
+eye looked abstractedly into space.
+
+Before either spoke again, the door opened and the clerk, seeing Mr.
+Rattar was still engaged, murmured a "beg pardon" and was about to
+retire again.
+
+"What is it?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Miss Farmond is waiting to see you, sir."
+
+"I'll let you know when I'm free," said Simon.
+
+Had his eye been on his visitor as his clerk spoke, he might have
+noticed a curious commentary on Mr. Cromarty's professed lack of
+interest in womankind. His single eye lit up for an instant and he
+moved sharply in his chair, and then as suddenly repressed all sign of
+interest.
+
+A minute or two later the visitor jumped up.
+
+"Well," said he, "I guess you're pretty busy and I've been talking too
+long as it is. Let me have that statement as quick as you like. Good
+morning!"
+
+He strode to the door, shut it behind him, and then when he was on the
+landing, his movements became suddenly more leisurely. Instead of
+striding downstairs he stood looking curiously in turn at each closed
+door. It was an old fashioned house and rather a rabbit warren of an
+office, and it would seem as though for some reason he wished to leave
+no door unwatched. In a moment he heard the lawyer's bell ring and very
+slowly he moved down a step or two while a clerk answered the call and
+withdrew. And then he took a cigar from his case, bit off the end, and
+felt for matches; all this being very deliberately done, and his eye
+following the clerk. Thus when a girl emerged from the room along a
+passage, she met, apparently quite accidentally, Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland.
+
+At the first glance it was quite evident that the meeting gave more
+pleasure to the gentleman than to the lady. Indeed, the girl seemed too
+disconcerted to hide the fact.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Farmond," said he with what seemed intended for an
+air of surprise; as though he had no idea she had been within a mile of
+him. "You coming to see Simon on business too?" And then taking the cue
+from her constrained manner, he added hurriedly, and with a note of
+dejection he could not quite hide, "Well, good-bye."
+
+The girl's expression suddenly changed, and with that change the laird
+of Stanesland's curious movements became very explicable, for her face
+was singularly charming when she smiled. It was a rather pale but fresh
+and clear-skinned face, wide at the forehead and narrowing to a firm
+little chin, with long-lashed expressive eyes, and a serious expression
+in repose. Her smile was candid, a little coy and irresistibly engaging,
+and her voice was very pleasant, rather low, and most engaging too. She
+was of middle height and dressed in mourning. Her age seemed rather
+under than over twenty.
+
+"Oh," she said, with a touch of hesitation at first, "I didn't mean----"
+She broke off, glanced at the clerk, who being a discreet young man was
+now in the background, and then with lowered voice confessed, "The fact
+is, Mr. Cromarty, I'm not really supposed to be here at all. That's to
+say nobody knows I am."
+
+Mr. Cromarty looked infinitely relieved.
+
+"And you don't want anybody to know?" he said in his outspoken way.
+"Right you are. I can lie low and say nothing, or lie hard and say what
+you like; whichever you choose."
+
+"Lying low will do," she smiled. "But please don't think I'm doing
+anything very wrong."
+
+"I'll think what you tell me," he said gallantly. "I _was_ thinking
+Silent Simon was in luck's way--but perhaps you're going to wig him?"
+
+She laughed and shook her head.
+
+"Can you imagine me daring to wig Mr. Simon Rattar?"
+
+"I guess he needs waking up now and then like other people. He's been
+slacking over my business. In fact, I can't quite make him out this
+morning. He's not quite his usual self for some reason. Don't be afraid
+to wig him if he needs it!"
+
+The clerk in the background coughed and Miss Cicely Farmond moved
+towards the door of the lawyer's room, but Ned Cromarty seemed reluctant
+to end the meeting so quickly.
+
+"How did you come?" he asked.
+
+"Walked," she smiled.
+
+"Walked! And how are you going back?"
+
+"Walk again."
+
+"I say," he suggested eagerly, "I've got my trap in. Let me drive you!"
+
+She hesitated a moment.
+
+"It's awfully good of you to think of it----"
+
+"That's settled then. I'll be on the look out when you leave old Simon's
+den."
+
+He raised his cap and went downstairs this time without any hesitation.
+He had forgotten to light his cigar, and it was probably as a substitute
+for smoking that he found himself whistling.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE THIRD VISITOR
+
+
+Miss Cicely Farmond's air as she entered Simon Rattar's room seemed
+compounded of a little shyness, considerable trepidation, and yet more
+determination. In her low voice and with a fleeting smile she wished him
+good morning, like an acquaintance with whom she was quite familiar, and
+then with a serious little frown, and fixing her engaging eyes very
+straight upon him, she made the surprising demand:
+
+"Mr. Rattar, I want you to tell me honestly who I am."
+
+For an instant Simon's cold eyes opened very wide, and then he was
+gazing at her after his usual silent and steadfast manner.
+
+"Who you are?" he repeated after a few seconds' pause.
+
+"Yes. Indeed, Mr. Rattar, I _insist_ on knowing!"
+
+Simon smiled slightly.
+
+"And what makes you think I can assist you to--er--recover your
+identity, Miss Farmond?"
+
+"To discover it, not recover it," she corrected.
+
+"Don't you really know that I am honestly quite ignorant?"
+
+Mr. Rattar shook his head cautiously.
+
+"It is not for me to hazard an opinion," he answered.
+
+"Oh please, Mr. Rattar," she exclaimed, "don't be so dreadfully
+cautious! Surely you can't have thought that I knew all the time!"
+
+Again he was silent for a moment, and then enquired:
+
+"Why do you come to me now?"
+
+"Because I _must_ know! Because--well, because it is so unsatisfactory
+not knowing--for various reasons."
+
+"And why are you so positive that I can tell you?"
+
+"Because all my affairs and arrangements went through your hands, and of
+course you know!"
+
+Again he seemed to reflect for a moment.
+
+"May I ask, Miss Farmond," he enquired, "why, in that case, you think I
+shouldn't have told you before, and why--also in that case--I should
+tell you now?"
+
+This enquiry seemed to disconcert Miss Farmond a little.
+
+"Oh, of course I presume Sir Reginald and you had some reasons," she
+admitted.
+
+"And don't you think then we have them still?"
+
+"I can't honestly see why you should make such a mystery of
+it--especially as I can guess the truth perfectly easily!"
+
+"If you can guess it----" he began.
+
+"Oh please don't answer me like that! Why won't you tell me?"
+
+He seemed to consider the point for a moment, and then he said:
+
+"I am not at all sure that I am at liberty to tell you, Miss Farmond,
+without further consultation."
+
+"Has Sir Reginald really any good reasons for not telling me?"
+
+"Have you asked him that question?"
+
+"No," she confessed. "He and Lady Cromarty have been so frightfully
+kind, and yet so--so reserved on that subject, that I have never liked
+to ask them direct. But they know that I have guessed, and they haven't
+done anything to prevent me finding out more for myself, which means
+that they really are quite willing to let me find out if I can."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I am afraid I shall require more authority than that."
+
+She pursed her lips and looked at the floor in silence, and then she
+rose.
+
+"Well, if you absolutely refuse to tell me _anything_, Mr. Rattar, I
+suppose----"
+
+A dejected little shrug completed her sentence, and as she turned
+towards the door her eloquent eyes looked at him for a moment beneath
+their long lashes with an expression in them that might have moved a
+statue. Although Simon Rattar had the reputation of being impervious to
+woman's wiles, he may have been moved by this unspoken appeal. He
+certainly seemed struck by something, for even as her back was turning
+towards him, he said suddenly, and in a distinctly different voice:
+
+"You say you can guess yourself?"
+
+She nodded, and added with a pathetic coaxing note in her low voice:
+
+"But I want to _know_!"
+
+"Supposing," he suggested, "you were to tell me precisely how much you
+do know already, and then I could judge whether the rest might or might
+not be divulged."
+
+Her face brightened and she returned to her chair with a promptitude
+that suggested she was not unaccustomed to win a lost battle with these
+weapons.
+
+"Well," she said, "it was only six months ago--when mother died--that I
+first had the least suspicion there was any mystery about me--anything
+to hide. I knew she hadn't always been happy and that her trouble had
+something to do with my father, simply because she hardly ever mentioned
+him. But she lived at Eastbourne just like plenty of other widows and we
+had a few friends, though never very many, and I was very happy at
+school, and so I never troubled much about things."
+
+"And knew nothing up till six months ago?" asked Simon, who was
+following her story very attentively.
+
+"Nothing at all. Then, about a month after mother's death, I got a note
+from you asking me to go up to London and meet Sir Reginald Cromarty. I
+had never even heard of him before! Well, I went and he was simply as
+kind as--well, as he always is to everybody, and said he was a kind of
+connection of my family and asked me to pay them a long visit to
+Keldale."
+
+"How long ago precisely was that?"
+
+She looked a little surprised.
+
+"Oh, you know exactly. Almost just four months ago, wasn't it?"
+
+He nodded, but said nothing, and she went on:
+
+"From the very first it had seemed very strange that I had never heard a
+word about the Cromartys from mother, and as soon as I got to Keldale
+and met Lady Cromarty, I felt sure there was something wrong. I mean
+that I wasn't an ordinary distant relation. For one thing they never
+spoke of our relationship and exactly what sort of cousins we were, and
+considering how keen Sir Reginald is on his pedigree and all his
+relations and everybody, that alone made me certain I wasn't the
+ordinary kind. That was obvious, wasn't it?"
+
+"It seems so," the lawyer admitted cautiously.
+
+"Of course it was! Well, one day I happened to be looking over an old
+photograph album and suddenly I saw my father's photograph! Mother had a
+miniature of him--I have it still, and I was certain it was the same
+man. I pulled myself together and asked Sir Reginald in a very ordinary
+voice who that was, and I could see that both he and Lady Cromarty
+jumped a little. He had to tell me it was his brother Alfred and I
+discovered he had long been dead, but I didn't try to get any more
+information from them. I applied to Bisset."
+
+She gave a little laugh and looked at him with a touch of defiance. His
+inscrutable countenance appeared to annoy her.
+
+"Well?" he remarked.
+
+"Perhaps you think I oughtn't to have gone to a butler about such a
+thing, but Bisset is practically one of the family and I didn't give him
+the least idea of what I was after. I simply drew him on the subject of
+the Cromarty family history and among other things--that didn't so much
+interest me--I found that Mr. Alfred Cromarty was never married and
+seemed to have had rather a gay reputation."
+
+She looked at him with an expression that would have immediately
+converted any susceptible man into a fellow conspirator, and asked in
+her most enticing voice:
+
+"Need you ask what I guessed? What is the use in not telling me simply
+whether I have guessed right!"
+
+Silent Simon's face remained a mask.
+
+"What precisely did you guess?"
+
+"That my mother wasn't married," she said, her voice falling very low,
+"and I am really Sir Reginald's niece though he never can acknowledge
+it--and I don't want him to! But I do want to be sure. Dear Mr. Rattar,
+won't you tell me?"
+
+Dear Mr. Rattar never relaxed a muscle.
+
+"Your guess seems very probable," he admitted.
+
+"But tell me definitely."
+
+"Why?" he enquired coldly.
+
+"Oh, have you no _curiosity_ yourself--especially about who your parents
+were; supposing you didn't know?"
+
+"Then it's only out of curiosity that you enquired?"
+
+"Only!" she repeated with a world of woman's scorn. "But what sort of
+motives did you expect? I have walked in the whole way this morning just
+to end the suspense of wondering! Of course, I'll never tell a soul you
+told me."
+
+She threw on him a moving smile.
+
+"You needn't actually tell me outright. Just use some legal
+word--'Alibi' if I am right and 'forgery' if I'm wrong!"
+
+Silent Simon's sudden glance chilled her smile. She evidently felt she
+had been taking the law in vain.
+
+"I only meant----" she began anxiously.
+
+"I must consult Sir Reginald," he interrupted brusquely.
+
+She made no further effort. That glance seemed to have subdued her
+spirit.
+
+"I am sorry I have bothered you," she said as she went.
+
+As the door closed behind her, Mr. Rattar took out his handkerchief and
+wiped his brow and his neck. And then he fell to work again upon the
+recent records of the firm. Yet, absorbed though he seemed, whenever a
+door opened or shut sharply or a step sounded distinctly outside his
+room, he would look up quickly and listen, or that expression would come
+into his eye which both Mary MacLean and Mr. Ison had described as the
+look of one who was watched.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+AT NIGHT
+
+
+When Simon Rattar came to his present villa, he brought from his old
+house in the middle of the town (which had been his father's before him)
+a vast accumulation of old books and old papers. Being a man who never
+threw away an opportunity or anything else, and also a person of the
+utmost tidyness, he compromised by keeping this litter in the spare
+rooms at the top of the house. In fact Simon was rather pleased at
+discovering this use for his superfluous apartments, for he hated
+wasting anything.
+
+On this same morning, just before he started for his office, he had
+again called his housemaid and given her particular injunctions that
+these rooms were not to be disturbed during the day. He added that this
+was essential because he expected a gentleman that evening who would be
+going through some of the old papers with him.
+
+Perhaps it was the vague feeling of disquiet which possessed Mary
+MacLean this morning that made his injunction seem a little curious.
+She had been with the master three years and never presumed or dreamt
+of presuming to touch his papers. He might have known that, thought
+she, without having to tell her not to. Indeed, she felt a little
+aggrieved at the command, and in the course of the morning she made a
+discovery that seemed to her a further reflection on her discretion.
+
+When she came to dust the passage in which these rooms opened her eye
+was at once caught by a sheet of white paper pinned to each of the three
+doors. On each of these sheets was written in her master's hand the
+words "This room not to be entered. Papers to be undisturbed." The
+result was a warning to those who take superfluous precautions. Under
+ordinary circumstances Mary would never have thought of touching the
+handles of those doors. Now, she looked at them for a few moments and
+then tried the handle nearest to her. The door was locked. She tried the
+second and the third, and they stood locked too. And the three keys had
+all been removed.
+
+"To think of the master locking the doors!" said she to herself after
+failing at each in turn. "As if I'd have tried to open them!"
+
+That top storey was of the semi-attic kind, with roofs that sloped
+and a sky-light in one of them and the slates close overhead. It was
+a grey windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that large
+house save for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slate
+rattling in the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over the
+sky-light, she began all at once to feel uncomfortable. Those locked
+doors were uncanny--something was not as it should be; there was a
+sinister moan in the wind; the slate did not rattle quite like an
+ordinary slate. Tales of her childhood, tales from the superstitious
+western islands, rushed into her mind. And then, all at once, she
+heard another sound. She heard it but for one instant, and then with
+a pale face she fled downstairs and stood for a space in the hall
+trembling and wondering.
+
+She wondered first whether the sound had really come from behind the
+locked doors, and whether it actually was some one stealthily moving.
+She wondered next whether she could bring herself to confide in cook
+and stand Janet's cheerful scorn. She ended by saying not a word, and
+waiting to see what happened when the master came home.
+
+He returned as usual in time for a cup of tea. It was pretty dark by
+then and Mary was upstairs lighting the gas (but she did not venture up
+to the top floor). She heard Mr. Rattar come into the hall, and then,
+quite distinctly this time, she heard overhead a dull sound, a kind of
+gentle thud. The next moment she heard the master running upstairs, and
+when he was safely past she ran even more swiftly down and burst into
+the kitchen.
+
+"There's something in yon top rooms!" she panted.
+
+"There's something in your top storey!" snapped cook; and poor Mary said
+no more.
+
+When she brought his tea in to Mr. Rattar, she seemed to read in his
+first glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in the
+morning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy,
+laconic way.
+
+"Have you noticed rats in the house?" he asked.
+
+"Rats, sir!" she exclaimed. "Oh, no, sir, I don't think there are any
+rats."
+
+"I saw one just now," he said. "If we see it again we must get some rat
+poison."
+
+So it had only been a rat! Mary felt vastly relieved; and yet not
+altogether easy. One could not venture to doubt the master, but it was
+a queer-like sound for a rat to make.
+
+Mr. Rattar had brought back a great many papers to-day, and sat
+engrossed in them till dinner. After dinner he fell to work again, and
+then about nine o'clock he rang for her and said:
+
+"The gentleman I expect this evening will probably be late in coming.
+Don't sit up. I'll hear him and let him in myself. We shall be working
+late and I shall be going upstairs about those papers. If you hear
+anybody moving about, it will only be this gentleman and myself."
+
+This was rather a long speech for silent Simon, and Mary thought it
+considerate of him to explain any nocturnal sounds beforehand; unusually
+considerate, in fact, for he seldom went out of his way to explain
+things. And yet those few minutes in his presence made her uncomfortable
+afresh. She could not keep her eyes away from that red cut on his chin.
+It made him seem odd-like, she thought. And then as she passed through
+the hall she heard faintly from the upper regions that slate rattling
+again. At least it was either the slate or--she recalled a story of her
+childhood, and hurried on to the kitchen.
+
+She and the cook shared the same bedroom. It was fairly large with two
+beds in it, and along with the kitchen and other back premises it was
+shut off from the front part of the house by a door at the end of the
+hall. Cook was asleep within ten minutes. Mary could hear her heavy
+breathing above the incessant droning and whistling of the wind, and she
+envied her with all her Highland heart. In her own glen people would
+have understood how she felt, but here she dared not confess lest she
+were laughed at. It was such a vague and nameless feeling, a sixth sense
+warning her that all was not well; that _something_ was in the air. The
+longer she lay awake the more certain she grew that evil was afoot; and
+yet what could be its shape? Everything in that quiet and respectable
+household was going on exactly as usual; everything that any one else
+would have considered material. The little things she had noticed would
+be considered absurd trifles by the sensible. She knew that as well as
+they.
+
+She thought she had been in bed about an hour, though the time passed so
+slowly that it might have been less, when she heard, faintly and gently,
+but quite distinctly, the door from the hall into the back premises
+being opened. It seemed to be held open for nearly a minute, as though
+some one were standing there listening. She moved a little and the bed
+creaked; and then, as gently as it had been opened, the door was closed
+again.
+
+Had the intruder come through or gone away? And could it only be
+the master, doing this curious thing, or was it some one--or
+something--else? Dreadful minutes passed, but there was not a sound of
+any one moving in the back passage, or the kitchen, and then in the
+distance she could hear the grating noise of the front door being opened
+and the rush of wind that accompanied it. It was closed sharply in a
+moment and she could catch the sound of steps in the hall and the
+master's voice making some remark. Another voice replied, gruff and
+muffled and indistinct, and then again the master spoke. Evidently the
+late caller had arrived, and a moment later she heard the library door
+shut, and it was plain that he and Mr. Rattar were closeted there.
+
+They seemed to remain in the library about a quarter of an hour before
+the door opened again, and in a moment the stairs were creaking faintly.
+Evidently one or both were going up for the old papers.
+
+All this was exactly what she had been led to expect, and ought to
+have reassured her, yet, for no reason at all, the conviction remained
+as intense and disturbing as ever, that something unspeakable was
+happening in this respectable house. The minutes dragged by till quite
+half an hour must have passed, and then she heard the steps descending.
+They came down very slowly this time, and very heavily. The obvious
+explanation was that they were bringing down one of those boxes filled
+with dusty papers which she had often seen in the closed rooms; yet
+though Mary knew perfectly that this was the common sense of the matter,
+a feeling of horror increased till she could scarcely refrain from
+crying out. If cook had not such a quick temper and such a healthy
+contempt for this kind of fancy, she would have rushed across to her
+bed; but as it was, she simply lay and trembled.
+
+The steps sounded still heavy but more muffled on the hall carpet,
+though whether they were the steps of one man or two she could not feel
+sure. And then she heard the front door open again and then close; so
+that it seemed plain that the visitor had taken the box with him and
+gone away. And with this departure came a sense of relief, as devoid of
+rational foundation as the sense of horror before. She felt at last that
+if she could only hear the master going upstairs to bed, she might go to
+sleep.
+
+But though she listened hard as she lay there in the oppressive dark,
+she heard not another sound so long as she kept awake, and that was for
+some time, she thought. She did get off at last and had been asleep she
+knew not how long when she awoke drowsily with a confused impression
+that the front door had been shut again. How late it was she could but
+guess--about three or four in the morning her instinct told her. But
+then came sleep again and in the morning the last part of her
+recollections was a little uncertain.
+
+At breakfast the master was as silently formidable as ever and he never
+said a word about his visitor. When Mary went to the top floor later the
+papers were off the doors and the keys replaced.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE DRIVE HOME
+
+
+Under the grey autumnal sky Miss Cicely Farmond drove out of the town
+wrapped in Ned Cromarty's overcoat. He assured her he never felt cold,
+and as she glanced a little shyly up at the strapping figure by her
+side, she said to herself that he certainly was the toughest looking man
+of her acquaintance, and she felt a little less contrition for the loan.
+She was an independent young lady and from no one else would she have
+accepted such a favour, but the laird of Stanesland had such an off-hand
+authoritative way with him that, somewhat to her own surprise, she had
+protested--and submitted.
+
+The trap was a high dog cart and the mare a flier.
+
+"What a splendid horse!" she exclaimed as they spun up the first hill.
+
+"Isn't she?" said Ned. "And she can go all the way like this, too."
+
+Cicely was therefore a little surprised when at the next hill this flier
+was brought to a walk.
+
+"I thought we were going all the way like that!" she laughed.
+
+Ned glanced down at her.
+
+"Are you in a hurry?" he enquired.
+
+"Not particularly," she admitted.
+
+"No more am I," said he, and this time he smiled down at her in a very
+friendly way.
+
+So far they had talked casually on any indifferent subject that came to
+hand, but now his manner grew a little more intimate.
+
+"Are you going to stay on with the Cromartys long?" he asked.
+
+"I am wondering myself," she confessed.
+
+"I hope you will," he said bluntly.
+
+"It is very kind of you to say so," she said smiling at him a little
+shyly.
+
+"I mean it. The fact is, Miss Farmond, you are a bit of a treat."
+
+The quaintness of the phrase was irresistible and she laughed outright.
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"It's a fact," said he, "you see I live an odd lonely kind of life here,
+and for most of my career I've lived an odd lonely kind of life too, so
+far as girls were concerned. It may sound rum to you to hear a backwood
+hunks of my time of life confessing to finding a girl of your age a bit
+of a treat, but it's a fact."
+
+"Yes," she said. "I should have thought I must seem rather young and
+foolish."
+
+"Lord, I don't mean that!" he exclaimed. "I mean that _I_ must seem a
+pretty uninteresting bit of elderly shoe-leather."
+
+"Uninteresting? Oh no!" she cried in protest, and then checked herself
+and her colour rose a little.
+
+He smiled humorously.
+
+"I can't see you out of this glass eye unless I turn round, so whether
+you're pulling my leg or not I don't know, but I was just saying to old
+Simon that the only kind of lady likely to take an interest in me was a
+female collector of antique curiosities, and you don't seem that sort,
+Miss Farmond."
+
+She said nothing for a moment, and then asked:
+
+"Were you discussing ladies then with Mr. Rattar?"
+
+He also paused for a moment before replying.
+
+"Incidentally in the course of a gossip, as the old chap hadn't got my
+business ready for me. By the way, did you get much change out of him?"
+
+She shook her head a little mournfully.
+
+"Nothing at all. He just asked questions instead of answering them."
+
+"So he did with me! Confound the man. I fancy he has made too much money
+and is beginning to take it easy. That's one advantage of not being too
+rich, Miss Farmond; it keeps you from waxing fat."
+
+"I'm not likely to wax fat then!" she laughed, and yet it was not quite
+a cheerful laugh.
+
+He turned quickly and looked at her sympathetically.
+
+"That your trouble?" he enquired in his outspoken way.
+
+Cicely was not by way of giving her confidences easily, but this
+straight-forward, friendly attack penetrated her reserve.
+
+"It makes one so dependent," she said, her voice even lower than usual.
+
+"That must be the devil," he admitted.
+
+"It is!" said she.
+
+He whipped up the mare and ruminated in silence. Then he remarked:
+
+"I'm just wondering."
+
+Cicely began to smile.
+
+"Wondering what?"
+
+"What the devil there can be that isn't utterly uninteresting about
+me--assuming you weren't pulling my leg."
+
+"Oh," she said, "no man can be uninteresting who has seen as much and
+done as much as you have."
+
+"The Lord keep you of that opinion!" he said, half humorously, but only
+half, it seemed. "It's true I've knocked about and been knocked about,
+but I'd have thought you'd have judged more by results."
+
+She laughed a little low laugh.
+
+"Do you think yourself the results are very bad?"
+
+"Judging by the mirror, beastly! Judging by other standards--well, one
+can't see one's self in one's full naked horror, thank Heaven for it
+too! But I'm not well read, and I'm not--but what's the good in telling
+you? You're clever enough to see for yourself."
+
+For a man who had no intention of paying compliments, Ned Cromarty had
+a singular gift for administering the pleasantest--because it was so
+evidently the most genuine--form of flattery. In fact, had he but known
+it, he was a universal favourite with women, whenever he happened to
+meet them; only he had not the least suspicion of the fact--which made
+him all the more favoured.
+
+"I don't know very many men," said Cicely, with her serious expression
+and a conscientious air, "and so perhaps I am not a good judge, but
+certainly you seem to me quite unlike all the others."
+
+"I told you," he laughed, "that the female would have to be a bit of a
+collector."
+
+"Oh," she cried, quite serious still, "I don't mean that in the least. I
+don't like freaks a bit myself. I only mean--well, people do differ in
+character and experience, don't they?"
+
+"I guess you're pretty wise," said he simply. "And I'm sized up right
+enough. However, the trouble at present is this blamed mare goes too
+fast!"
+
+On their left, the chimneys and roof of a large mansion showed through
+the surrounding trees. In this wind-swept seaboard country, its acres of
+plantation were a conspicuous landmark and marked it as the seat of some
+outstanding local magnate. These trees were carried down to the road in
+a narrow belt enclosing an avenue that ended in a lodge and gates. At
+the same time that the lodge came into view round a bend in the road, a
+man on a bicycle appeared ahead of them, going in the same direction,
+and bent over his handle-bars against the wind.
+
+"Hullo, that's surely Malcolm Cromarty!" said Ned.
+
+"So it is!" she exclaimed, and there was a note of surprise in her
+voice. "I wonder where he has been."
+
+The cyclist dismounted at the lodge gates a few moments before the trap
+pulled up there too, and the young man turned and greeted them. Or
+rather he greeted Miss Farmond, for his smile was clearly aimed at her
+alone.
+
+"Hullo! Where have you been?" he cried.
+
+"Where have you?" she retorted as she jumped out and let him help her
+off with the driving coat.
+
+They made a remarkably good-looking young couple standing together there
+on the road and their manner to one another was evidently that of two
+people who knew each other well. Sitting on his high driving seat, Ned
+Cromarty turned his head well round so as to bring his sound eye to bear
+and looked at them in silence. When she handed him his coat and thanked
+him afresh, he merely laughed, told her, in his outspoken way, that all
+the fun had been his, and whipped up his mare.
+
+"That's more the sort of fellow!" he said to himself gloomily, and for a
+little the thought seemed to keep him depressed. And then as he let the
+recollections of their drive have their own way undisturbed, he began to
+smile again, and kept smiling most of the way home.
+
+The road drew ever nearer to the sea, trees and hedgerows grew even
+rarer and more stunted, and then he was driving through a patch of
+planting hardly higher than a shrubbery up to an ancient building on the
+very brink of the cliffs. The sea crashed white below and stretched grey
+and cold to the horizon, the wind whistled round the battlements and
+sighed through the stunted trees, and Ned (who had been too absorbed to
+remember his coat) slapped his arms and stamped his feet as he descended
+before a nail-studded front door with a battered coat of arms above it.
+
+"Lord, what a place!" he said to himself, half critically, half
+affectionately.
+
+The old castle of Stanesland was but a small house as castles, or even
+mansions, go, almost devoid of architectural ornament and evidently
+built in a sterner age simply for security, and but little embellished
+by the taste of more degenerate times. As a specimen of a small early
+15th Century castle it was excellent; as a home it was inconvenience
+incarnate. How so many draughts found their way through such thick walls
+was a perennial mystery, and how to convey dishes from the kitchen to
+the dining room without their getting cold an almost insoluble problem.
+
+The laird and his sister sat down to lunch and in about ten minutes Miss
+Cromarty remarked,
+
+"So you drove Cicely Farmond home?"
+
+Her brother nodded. He had mentioned the fact as soon as he came in, and
+rather wondered why she referred to it again.
+
+Miss Cromarty smiled her own peculiar shrewd worldly little smile, and
+said:
+
+"You are very silent, Ned."
+
+Lilian Cromarty was a few years older than her brother; though one
+would hardly have guessed it. Her trim figure, bright eyes, vivacity
+of expression when she chose to be vivacious, and quick movements
+might have belonged to a woman twenty years younger. She had never
+been pretty, but she was always perfectly dressed and her smile could
+be anything she chose to make it. Until her youngest brother came into
+the property, the place had been let and she had lived with her friends
+and relations. She had had a good time, she always frankly confessed,
+but as frankly admitted that it was a relief to settle down at last.
+
+"I was thinking," said her brother.
+
+"About Cicely?" she asked in her frankly audacious way.
+
+He opened his eyes for a moment and then laughed.
+
+"You needn't guess again, Lilian," he admitted.
+
+"Funny little thing," she observed.
+
+"Funny?" he repeated, and his tone brought an almost imperceptible
+change of expression into his sister's eye.
+
+"Oh," she said as though throwing the subject aside, "she is nice and
+quite pretty, but very young, and not very sophisticated; is she?
+However, I should think she would be a great success as a man's girl.
+That low voice and those eyes of hers are very effective. Pass me the
+salt, Ned."
+
+Ned looked at her in silence, and then over her shoulder out through the
+square window set in the vast thickness of the wall, to the grey horizon
+line.
+
+"I guess you've recommended me to marry once or twice, Lilian," he
+observed.
+
+"Don't 'guess' please!" she laughed, "or I'll stick my bowie knife or
+gun or something into you! Yes, I've always advised you to marry--if you
+found the right kind of wife."
+
+She took some credit to herself for this disinterested advice, since, if
+he took it, the consequences would be decidedly disconcerting to
+herself; but she had never pointed out any specific lady yet, or made
+any conspicuous effort to find one for him.
+
+"Well----" he began, and then broke off.
+
+"You're not thinking of Cicely, are you?" she asked, still in the same
+bright light way, but with a quick searching look at him.
+
+"It seems a bit absurd. I don't imagine for an instant she'd look at
+me."
+
+"Wouldn't look----!" she began derisively, and then pulled herself up
+very sharply, and altered her tactics on the instant. "She might think
+you a little too old for her," she said in a tone of entire agreement
+with him.
+
+"And also that I've got one too few eyes, and in fact several other
+criticisms."
+
+His sister shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"A girl of that age might think those things," she admitted, "but it
+seems to me that the criticism ought to be on the other side. Who is
+she?"
+
+Ned looked at her and she broke into a laugh.
+
+"Well," she said, "I suppose we both have a pretty good idea. She's
+somebody's something--Alfred Cromarty's, I believe; though of course
+her mother may have fibbed, for she doesn't look much like the
+Cromartys. Anyhow that pretty well puts her out of the question."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"If you were a mere nobody, it mightn't make so much difference, but
+your wife must have some sort of a family behind her. One needn't be
+a snob to think that one mother and a guess at the father is hardly
+enough!"
+
+"After all, that's up to me. I wouldn't be wanting to marry her
+great-mothers, even if she had any."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders again.
+
+"My dear Ned, I'm no prude, but there's always some devilment in the
+blood in these cases."
+
+"Rot!" said he.
+
+"Well, rot if you like, but I know more than one instance."
+
+He said nothing for a moment and as he sat in silence, a look of keen
+anxiety came into her eye. She hid it instantly and compressed her
+lips, and then abruptly her brother said:
+
+"I wonder whether she's at all taken up with Malcolm Cromarty!"
+
+She ceased to meet his eye, and her own became expressionless.
+
+"They have spent some months in the same house. At their age the
+consequences seem pretty inevitable."
+
+She had contrived to suggest a little more than she said, and he started
+in his chair.
+
+"What do you know?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, of course, there would be a dreadful row if anything was actually
+known abroad. Sir Reginald has probably other ideas for his heir."
+
+"Then there _is_ something between them?"
+
+She nodded, and though she still did not meet his eye, he accepted the
+nod with a grim look that passed in a moment into a melancholy laugh.
+
+"Well," he said, rising, "it was a pretty absurd idea anyhow. I'll go
+and have a look at myself in the glass and try to see the funny side of
+it!"
+
+His sister sat very still after he had left the room.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SIR REGINALD
+
+
+Cicely Farmond and Malcolm Cromarty walked up the avenue together, he
+pushing his bicycle, she walking by his side with a more than usually
+serious expression.
+
+"Then you won't tell me where you've been?" said he.
+
+"You won't tell me where you've been!"
+
+He was silent for a moment and then said confidentially:
+
+"We might as well say we've been somewhere together. I mean, if any one
+asks."
+
+"Thank you, I don't need to fib," said she.
+
+"I don't mean I need to. Only----" he seemed to find it difficult to
+explain.
+
+"I shall merely say I have been for a walk, and you need only say you
+have been for a ride--if you don't want to say where you have really
+been."
+
+"And if you don't want to mention that you were driving with Ned
+Cromarty," he retorted.
+
+"He only very kindly offered me a lift!"
+
+She looked quickly at him as she spoke and as quickly away again. The
+glint in her eye seemed to displease him.
+
+"You needn't always be so sharp with me, Cicely," he complained.
+
+"You shouldn't say stupid things."
+
+Both were silent for a space and then in a low mournful voice he said:
+
+"I wish I knew how to win your sympathy, Cicely. You don't absolutely
+hate me, do you?"
+
+"Of course I don't hate you. But the way to get a girl's sympathy is not
+always to keep asking for it."
+
+He looked displeased again.
+
+"I don't believe you know what I mean!"
+
+"I don't believe you do either."
+
+He grew tender.
+
+"_Your_ sympathy, Cicely, would make all the difference to my life!"
+
+"Now, Malcolm----" she began in a warning voice.
+
+"Oh, I am not asking you to love me again," he assured her quickly. "It
+is only sympathy I demand!"
+
+"But you mix them up so easily. It isn't safe to give you anything."
+
+"I won't again!" he assured her.
+
+"Well," she said, though not very sympathetically, "what do you want to
+be sympathised with about now?"
+
+"When you offer me sympathy in that tone, I can't give you my
+confidence!" he said unhappily.
+
+"Really, Malcolm, how can I possibly tell what your confidence is going
+to be beforehand? Perhaps it won't deserve sympathy."
+
+"If you knew the state of my affairs!" he said darkly.
+
+"A few days ago you told me they were very promising," she said with a
+little smile.
+
+"So they would be--so they are--if--if only you would care for me,
+Cicely!"
+
+"You tell me they are promising when you want me to marry you, and
+desperate when you want me to sympathise with you," she said a little
+cruelly. "Which am I to believe?"
+
+"Hush! Here's Sir Reginald," he said.
+
+The gentleman who came through a door in the walled garden beside the
+house was a fresh-coloured, white-haired man of sixty; slender and not
+above middle height, but very erect, and with the carriage of a person a
+little conscious of being of some importance. Sir Reginald Cromarty was,
+in fact, extremely conscious of his position in life, and the rather
+superior and condescending air he was wont to assume in general society
+made it a little difficult for a stranger to believe that he could
+actually be the most popular person in the county; especially as it was
+not hard to discover that his temper could easily become peppery upon
+provocation. If, however, the stranger chanced to provide the worthy
+baronet with even the smallest opening of exhibiting his extraordinary
+kindness of heart--were it only by getting wet in a shower or mislaying
+a walking stick, he would quickly comprehend. And the baronet's sympathy
+never waited to be summoned; it seemed to hover constantly over all men
+and women he met, spying for its chance.
+
+He himself was totally unconscious of this attribute and imagined the
+respect in which he was held to be due to his lineage, rank, and
+superior breeding and understanding. Indeed, few people in this world
+can have cut a more dissimilar figure as seen from his own and from
+other men's eyes; though as both parties were equally pleased with Sir
+Reginald Cromarty, it mattered little.
+
+At the sight of Cicely his smile revealed the warmth of his feelings in
+that direction.
+
+"Ah, my dear girl," said he, "we've been looking for you. Where have you
+been?"
+
+"I've been having a walk."
+
+She smiled at him as she answered, and on his side it was easy to see
+that the good gentleman was enraptured, and that Miss Farmond was not
+likely to be severely cross-examined as to her movements. Towards
+Malcolm, on the other hand, though his greeting was kindly enough, his
+eye was critical. The young author's tie seemed to be regarded with
+particular displeasure.
+
+"My God, Margaret, imagine being found dead in such a thing!" he had
+exclaimed to his wife, after his first sight of it; and time had done
+nothing to diminish his distaste for this indication of a foreign way of
+life.
+
+Lady Cromarty came out of the garden a moment later; a dark thin-faced
+lady with a gracious manner when she spoke, but with lips that were
+usually kept very tight shut and an eye that could easily be hard.
+
+"Nearly time for lunch," she said. "You two had better hurry up!"
+
+The young people hurried on to the house and the baronet and his lady
+walked slowly behind.
+
+"So they have been away all morning together, Reginald," she remarked.
+
+"Oh, I don't think so," said he. "He had his bicycle and she has been
+walking."
+
+"You are really too unsuspicious, Reggie!"
+
+"A woman, my dear, is perhaps a little too much the reverse where a
+young couple is concerned. I have told you before, and I repeat it now
+emphatically, that neither Cicely nor Malcolm is in a position to
+contemplate matrimony for an instant."
+
+"He is your heir--and Cicely is quite aware of it."
+
+"I assure you, Margaret," he said with great conviction, "that Cicely is
+not a girl with mercenary motives. She is quite charming----"
+
+"Oh, I know your opinion of her, Reggie," Lady Cromarty broke in a
+trifle impatiently, "and I am fond of her too, as you know. Still, I
+don't believe a girl who can use her eyes so effectively is quite as
+simple as you think."
+
+Sir Reginald laughed indulgently.
+
+"Really, my love, even the best of women are sometimes a trifle
+uncharitable! But in any case Malcolm has quite enough sense of his
+future position to realise that his wife must be somebody without the
+blemish on her birth, which is no fault of dear Cicely's, but--er--makes
+her ineligible for this particular position."
+
+"I wish I could think that Malcolm is the kind of young man who would
+consult anything but his own wishes. I have told you often enough,
+Reggie, that I don't think it is wise to keep these two young people
+living here in the same house for months on end."
+
+"But what can one do?" asked the benevolent baronet. "Neither of them
+has any home of their own. Hang it, I'm the head of their family and I'm
+bound to show them a little hospitality."
+
+"But Malcolm has rooms in town. He needn't spend months on end at
+Keldale."
+
+The baronet was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"To tell the truth, my dear, I'm afraid Malcolm is not turning out quite
+so well as I had hoped. He certainly ought to be away doing something.
+At the same time, hang it, you wouldn't have me turn my own kinsman and
+heir out of my house, Margaret; would you?"
+
+Lady Cromarty sighed, and then her thin lips tightened.
+
+"You are hopeless, Reggie. I sometimes feel as though I were here merely
+as matron of a home for lost Cromartys! Well, I hope your confidence
+won't be abused. I confess I don't feel very comfortable about it
+myself."
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Reginald. "My own eyes are open too, I assure
+you. I shall watch them very carefully at lunch, in the light of what
+you have been saying."
+
+The baronet was an old Etonian, and as his life had been somewhat
+uneventful since, he was in the habit of drawing very largely on his
+recollections of that nursery of learning. Lunch had hardly begun before
+a question from Cicely set him going, and for the rest of the meal he
+regaled her with these reminiscences.
+
+After luncheon he said to his wife:
+
+"Upon my word, I noticed nothing whatever amiss. Cicely is a very
+sensible as well as a deuced pretty girl."
+
+"I happened to look at Malcolm occasionally," said she.
+
+Sir Reginald thought that she seemed to imply more than she said, but
+then women were like that, he had noticed, and if one took all their
+implications into account, life would be a troublesome affair.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A PHILOSOPHER
+
+
+During luncheon an exceedingly efficient person had been moving briskly
+behind the chairs. His face was so expressionless, his mouth so tightly
+closed, and his air of concentration on the business in hand so intense,
+that he seemed the perfect type of the silent butler. But as soon as
+lunch was over, and while Cicely still stood in the hall listening with
+a dubious eye to Malcolm's suggestion of a game of billiards, Mr. James
+Bisset revealed the other side of his personality. He came up to the
+young couple with just sufficient deference, but no more, and in an
+accent which experts would have recognised as the hall mark of the
+western part of North Britain, said:
+
+"Excuse me, miss, but I've mended your bicycle and I'll show it you if
+ye like, and just explain the principle of the thing."
+
+There was at least as much command as invitation in his tones. The
+billiard invitation was refused, and with a hidden smile Cicely followed
+him to the bicycle house.
+
+Expert knowledge was James Bisset's foible. Of some subjects, such as
+buttling, carpentry, and mending bicycles, it was practical; of others,
+such as shooting, gardening, and motoring, it was more theoretical. To
+Sir Reginald and my lady he was quite indispensable, for he could repair
+almost anything, knew his own more particular business from A to Z, and
+was ready at any moment to shoulder any responsibility. Sir Reginald's
+keeper, gardener, and chauffeur were apt however to be a trifle less
+enthusiastic, Mr. Bisset's passion for expounding the principles of
+their professions sometimes exceeding his tact.
+
+In person, he was an active, stoutly built man (though far too energetic
+to be fat), with blunt rounded features, eyes a little protruding, and
+sandy hair and a reddish complexion which made his age an unguessable
+secret. He might have been in the thirties or he might have been in the
+fifties.
+
+"With regard to these ladies' bicycles, miss--" he began with a
+lecturer's air.
+
+But by this time Cicely was also an expert in side-tracking her friend's
+theoretical essays.
+
+"Oh, how clever of you!" she exclaimed rapturously. "It looks as good as
+ever!"
+
+The interruption was too gratifying to offend.
+
+"Better in some ways," he said complacently. "The principle of these
+things is----"
+
+"I did miss it this morning," she hurried on. "In fact I had to have
+quite a long walk. Luckily Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland gave me a lift
+coming home."
+
+"Oh, indeed, miss? Stanesland gave ye a lift, did he? An interesting
+gentleman yon."
+
+This time she made no effort to divert Mr. Bisset's train of thought.
+
+"You think Mr. Cromarty interesting, then?" said she.
+
+"They say he's hanged a man with his ain hands," said Bisset
+impressively.
+
+"What!" she cried.
+
+"For good and sufficient reason, we'll hope, miss. But whatever the way
+of it, it makes a gentleman more interesting in a kin' of way than the
+usual run. And then looking at the thing on general principles, the
+theory of hanging is----"
+
+"Oh, but surely," she interrupted, "that isn't the only reason why Mr.
+Cromarty--I mean why you think he is interesting?"
+
+"There's that glass eye, too. That's very interesting, miss."
+
+She still seemed unsatisfied.
+
+"His glass eye! Oh--you mean it has a story?"
+
+"Vera possibly. He says himself it was done wi' a whisky bottle, but
+possibly that's making the best of it. But what interests me, miss,
+about yon eye is this----"
+
+He paused dramatically and she enquired in an encouraging voice:
+
+"Yes, Bisset?"
+
+"It's the principle of introducing a foreign substance so near the man's
+brain. What's glass? What's it consist of?"
+
+"I--I don't know," confessed Cicely weakly.
+
+"Silica! And what's silica? Practically the same as sand! Well now if ye
+put a handful of sand into a man's brain--or anyhow next door to it,
+it's bound to have some effect, bound to have some effect!"
+
+Bisset's voice fell to a very serious note, and as he was famous for the
+range of his reading and was generally said to know practically by heart
+"The People's Self-Educator in Science and Art," Cicely asked a little
+apprehensively:
+
+"But what effect can it possibly have?"
+
+"It might take him different ways," said the philosopher cautiously
+though sombrely. "But it's a good thing, anyway, Miss Farmond, that the
+laird of Stanesland is no likely to get married."
+
+"Isn't he?" she asked, again with that encouraging note.
+
+Bisset replied with another question, asked in an ominous voice:
+
+"Have ye seen yon castle o' his, miss?"
+
+Cicely nodded.
+
+"I called there once with Lady Cromarty."
+
+"A most interesting place, miss, illustrating the principle of thae
+castles very instructively."
+
+Mr. Bisset had evidently been studying architecture as well as science,
+and no doubt would have given Miss Farmond some valuable information on
+the subject. But she seemed to lack enthusiasm for it to-day.
+
+"But will the castle prevent him marrying?" she enquired with a smile.
+
+"The lady in it will," said the philosopher with a sudden descent into
+worldly shrewdness.
+
+"Miss Cromarty! Why?"
+
+"She's mair comfortable there than setting off on her travels again.
+That's a fac', miss."
+
+"But--but supposing he----" Cicely began and then paused.
+
+"Oh, the laird's no the marrying sort anyhow. He says to me himself one
+day when I'd taken the liberty of suggesting that a lady would suit the
+castle fine--we was shooting and I was carrying his cartridges, which I
+do for amusement, miss, whiles--'Bisset,' says he, 'the lady will have
+to be a damned keen shot to think me worth a cartridge. I'm too tough
+for the table,' says he, 'and not ornamental enough to stuff. They've
+let me off so far, and why the he--' begging your pardon, miss, but
+Stanesland uses strong expressions sometimes. 'Why the something,' says
+he, 'should they want to put me in the bag now? I'm happier free--and
+so's the lady.' But he's a grand shot and a vera friendly gentleman,
+vera friendly indeed. It's a pity, though, he's that ugly."
+
+"Ugly!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I don't think him ugly at all. He's very
+striking looking. I think he is rather handsome."
+
+Bisset looked at her with a benevolently reproving eye.
+
+"Weel, miss, it's all a matter of taste, but to my mind Stanesland is a
+fine gentleman, but the vera opposite extreme from a Venus." He broke
+off and glanced towards the house. "Oh, help us! There's one of thae
+helpless women crying on me. How this house would get on wanting
+me----!"
+
+He left Miss Farmond to paint the gloomy picture for herself.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE LETTER
+
+
+It was a few days later that Cicely looked up from the local paper she
+was reading and asked:
+
+"Who was George Rattar?"
+
+Sir Reginald laid down his book and looked at her in some surprise.
+
+"George Rattar? What do you know about him?"
+
+"I see the announcement of his death. 'Son of the late John Simon
+Rattar' he's called."
+
+"That's Silent Simon's brother!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "Where did he
+die?"
+
+"In New York, it says."
+
+Sir Reginald turned to his wife.
+
+"We can hardly send our sympathies to Simon on this bereavement!"
+
+"No," she said significantly. "I suppose congratulations would be more
+appropriate."
+
+The baronet took the paper from Cicely and studied it himself.
+
+"Died about a fortnight ago, I see," he observed. "I wonder whether
+Simon put this announcement in himself, or whether brother George
+arranged it in his will? It would be quite like the fellow to have this
+posthumous wipe at Simon. George had a certain sense of humour--which
+Simon lacks. And there was certainly no love lost between them!"
+
+"Why should it annoy Mr. Rattar?" asked Cicely.
+
+"Because brother George was not a member of his family he would care to
+be reminded of. Though on the other hand, Simon is as hard as whinstone
+and has as much sentiment as this teapot, and he may have put the notice
+in himself simply to show the world he was rid of the fellow."
+
+"What was George Rattar then?" enquired Cicely.
+
+"He was once Simon Rattar's partner, wasn't he, Reginald?" said Lady
+Cromarty. "And then he swindled him, didn't he?"
+
+"Swindled several other people as well," said Sir Reginald, "myself
+included. However, the thing was hushed up, and brother George
+disappeared. Then he took to forgery on his own account and among other
+people's signatures he imitated with remarkable success was Simon's.
+This let old Simon in for it again and there was no hushing it up a
+second time. Simon gave evidence against him without mercy, and since
+then George has been his Majesty's guest for a number of years. So if
+you meet Mr. Simon Rattar, Cicely, you'd better not tell him how sorry
+you are to hear of poor George's decease!"
+
+"I wish I could remember him more distinctly," said Lady Cromarty. "I'm
+afraid I always mix him up with our friend Mr. Simon."
+
+"It's little wonder," her husband replied. "They were twins. George was
+the one with a moustache; one knew them apart by that. Extraordinary
+thing, it has always seemed to me, that their natures should have been
+so different."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Cicely compassionately, with her serious air, "it
+was only that George was tempted."
+
+Sir Reginald laughed heartily.
+
+"You little cynic!" he cried. "You mean to insinuate that if you tempted
+Simon, he'd be as bad a hat as his brother?"
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Cicely. "I meant----"
+
+"Tempt him and see!" chuckled the baronet. "And we'll have a little bet
+on the result!" He was glancing at the paper as he laughed, and now he
+suddenly stopped laughing and exclaimed, "Hullo! Here's a much more
+serious loss for our friend. Would you like to earn £1, Cicely?"
+
+"Very much," said she.
+
+"Well then if you search the road very carefully between Mr. Simon
+Rattar's residence and his office you may find his signet ring and
+obtain the advertised, and I may say princely, reward of one pound."
+
+"Only a pound!" exclaimed Lady Cromarty, "for that handsome old ring of
+his?"
+
+"If he had offered a penny more, I should have taken my business out of
+his hands!" laughed Sir Reginald. "It would have meant that Silent Simon
+wasn't himself any longer. A pound is exactly his figure; a respectable
+sum, but not extravagant."
+
+"What day did he lose it?" asked Cicely.
+
+"The advertisement doesn't say."
+
+"He wasn't wearing it----" Cicely pulled herself up sharply.
+
+"When?" asked Lady Cromarty.
+
+"Where can I have seen him last?" wondered Cicely with an innocent air.
+
+"Not for two or three weeks certainly," said Lady Cromarty decisively.
+"And he can't have lost it then if this advertisement is only just put
+in."
+
+"No, of course not," Cicely agreed.
+
+"Well," said Sir Reginald, "he'll miss his ring more than his brother!
+And remember, Cicely, you get a pound for finding the ring, and you win
+a pair of gloves if you can tempt Simon to stray from the paths of
+honesty and virtue! By Jingo, I'll give you the gloves if you can even
+make him tell a good sporting lie!"
+
+When the good baronet was in this humour no man could excel him in
+geniality, and, to do him justice, a kindly temper and hearty spirits
+were the rule with him six days out of seven. On the other hand, he was
+easily ruffled and his tempers were hot while they lasted. Upon the very
+next morning there arose on the horizon a little cloud, a cloud that
+seemed at the moment the merest fleck of vapour, which upset him, his
+family thought, quite unduly.
+
+It took the form of a business letter from Mr. Simon Rattar, a letter
+on the surface perfectly innocuous and formally polite. Yet Sir Reginald
+seemed considerably disturbed.
+
+"Damn the man!" he exclaimed as he cast it on the breakfast table.
+
+"Reggie!" expostulated his wife gently. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Matter?" snapped her husband. "Simon Rattar has the impudence to tell
+me he is letting the farm of Castleknowe to that fellow Shearer after
+all!"
+
+"But why not? You meant to some time ago, I know."
+
+"Some time ago, certainly. But I had a long talk with Simon ten days ago
+and told him what I'd heard about Shearer and said I wouldn't have the
+fellow on my property at any price. I don't believe the man is solvent,
+in the first place; and in the second place he's a socialistic,
+quarrelsome, mischievous fellow!"
+
+"And what did Mr. Rattar think?"
+
+"He tried to make some allowances for the man, but in the end when he
+saw I had made up my mind, he professed to agree with me and said he
+would look out for another tenant. Now he tells me that the matter is
+settled as per my instructions of the 8th. That's weeks ago, and not a
+word does he say about our conversation cancelling the whole
+instructions!"
+
+"Then Shearer gets the farm?"
+
+"No, he doesn't! I'm dashed if he does! I shall send Mr. Simon a letter
+that will make him sit up! He's got to alter the arrangement somehow."
+
+He turned to Malcolm and added:
+
+"When your time comes, Malcolm, beware of having a factor who has run
+the place so long that he thinks it's his own property! By Gad, I'm
+going to tell him a bit of my mind!"
+
+During the rest of breakfast he glanced at the letter once or twice, and
+each time his brows contracted, but he said nothing more in presence of
+Cicely and Malcolm. After he had left the dining room, however, Lady
+Cromarty followed him and said:
+
+"Don't be too hasty with Mr. Rattar, Reggie! After all, the talk may
+have slipped his memory."
+
+"Slipped his memory? If you had heard it, Margaret, you'd know better. I
+was a bit cross with him for a minute or two then, which I hardly ever
+am, and that alone would make him remember it, one would think. We
+talked for over an hour on the business and the upshot was clear and
+final. No, no, he has got a bit above himself and wants a touch of the
+curb."
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked.
+
+"I'm going to send in a note by car and tell him to come out and see me
+about the business at once."
+
+"Let me see the letter before you send it, Reggie."
+
+He seemed to growl assent, but when she next saw him the letter had
+gone; and from the baronet's somewhat crusty explanation, she suspected
+that it was a little sharper than he knew she would have approved.
+
+When the car returned his annoyance was increased again for a space. Mr.
+Rattar had sent a brief reply that he was too busy to come out that
+afternoon, but he would call on Sir Reginald in the morning. For a time
+this answer kept Sir Reginald in a state of renewed irritation, and then
+his natural good humour began to prevail, till by dinner time he was
+quite calm again, and after dinner in as genial humour as he had been in
+the day before.
+
+He played a game of pyramids with Cicely and Malcolm in the billiard
+room, and then he and Cicely joined Lady Cromarty in the drawing room
+while the young author went up to his room to work, he declared. He had
+a large bedroom furnished half as a sitting room where he retired each
+night to compose his masterpieces as soon as it became impossible to
+enjoy Miss Farmond's company without having to share it in the drawing
+room with his host and hostess. At least, that was the explanation of
+his procedure given by Lady Cromarty, whose eye was never more critical
+than when it studied her husband's kinsman and heir.
+
+Lady Cromarty's eye was not uncritical also of Cicely at times, but
+to-night she was so relieved to see how Sir Reginald's temper improved
+under her smiles and half shy glances, that she let her stay up later
+than usual. Then when she and the girl went up to bed, she asked her
+husband if he would be late.
+
+"The magazines came this morning," said he. "I'd better sleep in my
+dressing room."
+
+The baronet was apt to sit up late when he had anything to read that
+held his fancy, and the procedure of sleeping in his dressing room was
+commonly followed then.
+
+He bade them good-night and went off towards the library, and a few
+minutes later, as they were going upstairs, they heard the library door
+shut.
+
+When they came to Lady Cromarty's room, Cicely said good-night to her
+hostess and turned down the passage that led to her own bedroom. A door
+opened quietly as she passed and a voice whispered:
+
+"Cicely!"
+
+She stopped and regarded the young author with a reproving eye.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
+
+"I just wanted to speak to you!" he pleaded.
+
+"Now, Malcolm," she said severely, "you know quite well that Lady
+Cromarty trusts us _not_ to do this sort of thing!"
+
+"She's in her room, isn't she?"
+
+"What does that matter?"
+
+"And where's Sir Reginald?"
+
+"Still in the library."
+
+"Sitting up late?"
+
+"Yes, but that doesn't matter either. Good night!"
+
+"Wait just one minute, Cicely! Come into my room--I won't shut the
+door!"
+
+"Certainly not!" she said emphatically.
+
+"Well then, don't speak so loudly! I must confide in you, Cicely; I'm
+getting desperate. My position is really serious. Something's got to
+happen! If you would only give me your sympathy----"
+
+"I thought you were writing," she interrupted.
+
+"I've been trying to, but----"
+
+"Well, write all this down and read it to me to-morrow," she smiled.
+"Good night!"
+
+"The blame be on your head!" began the author dramatically, but the slim
+figure was already moving away, throwing him a parting smile that seemed
+to wound his sensitive soul afresh.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+NEWS
+
+
+Even in that scattered countryside of long distances by windy roads,
+with scarcely ever a village as a focus for gossip, news flew fast. The
+next morning Ned Cromarty had set out with his gun towards a certain
+snipe marsh, but while he was still on the high road he met a man on a
+bicycle. The man had heard strange news and stopped to pass it on, and
+the next moment Ned was hurrying as fast as his long legs could take him
+back to the castle.
+
+He saw his sister only for a moment.
+
+"Lilian!" he cried, and the sound of his voice made her start and stare
+at him. "There's a story that Sir Reginald was murdered last night."
+
+"Murdered!" she repeated in a low incredulous voice. "Ridiculous, Ned!
+Who told you?"
+
+"I only know the man by sight, but he seemed to believe it right
+enough."
+
+"But how--who did it?"
+
+Her brother shook his head.
+
+"Don't know. He couldn't tell me. My God, I hope it's not true! I'm off
+to see."
+
+A few minutes later he was driving his mare headlong for his kinsman's
+house. It had begun to rain by this time, and the mournful wreaths of
+vapour that swept over the bare, late autumnal country and drove in fine
+drops against his face sent his spirits down ever lower as the mare
+splashed her way along the empty miles of road. The melancholy thrumming
+of the telegraph wires droned by his side all the while, and as this
+dirge waxed for the moment as they passed each post, his eye would
+glance grimly at those gaunt poles. Very suitable and handy for a
+certain purpose, they struck him--if by any possibility this tale were
+true.
+
+He knew the worst when he saw Bisset at the door.
+
+"Thank God, you've come, sir," said the butler devoutly. "The master
+would have expected it of you."
+
+"How did it happen? What does it mean? Do you mean to say it's actually
+_true_?"
+
+Bisset shook his head sombrely.
+
+"Ower true," said he. "But as to how it happened, come in to the
+library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and
+Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial
+evidence. Most extraordinary mystery, sir--most extraordinary!"
+
+In the library they found Simon Rattar and Superintendent Sutherland.
+The Superintendent was a big burly red-moustached man; his face a
+certificate of honesty, but hardly of the intellectual type. Ned looked
+round him apprehensively for something else, but Bisset said:
+
+"We've taken him upstairs, sir."
+
+For a moment as he looked round that spacious comfortable room with its
+long bookcases and easy chairs, and on the tables and mantel-piece a
+hundred little mementoes of its late owner, the laird of Stanesland was
+unable to speak a word, and the others respected his silence. Then he
+pulled himself together sharply and asked:
+
+"How did it happen? Tell me all about it!"
+
+Perhaps there might have been for a moment in Simon's eye a hint that
+this demand was irregular, but the superintendent evidently took no
+exception to the intrusion. Besides being a considerable local magnate
+and a kinsman of the dead baronet, Stanesland had a forcible personality
+that stood no gainsaying.
+
+"Well, sir," said the superintendent, "Mr. Rattar could perhaps explain
+best----"
+
+"Explain yourself, Sutherland," said Simon briefly.
+
+The superintendent pointed to a spot on the carpet a few paces from the
+door.
+
+"We found Sir Reginald lying there," he said. "His skull had been fairly
+cracked, just over the right eye, sir. The blow would have been enough
+to kill him I'd think myself, but there were marks in his neck too,
+seeming to show that the murderer had strangled him afterwards to make
+sure. However, we'll be having the medical evidence soon. But there's no
+doubt that was the way of it, and Mr. Rattar agrees with me."
+
+The lawyer merely nodded.
+
+"What was it done with?"
+
+The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.
+
+"That's one of the mysterious things in the case, sir. There's no sign
+of any weapon in the room. The fire irons are far too light. But it was
+an unco' heavy blow. There was little bleeding, but the skull was fair
+cracked."
+
+"Was anything stolen?"
+
+"That's another mystery, sir. Nothing was stolen anywhere in the house
+and there was no papers in a mess like, or anything."
+
+"When was he found?" asked Ned.
+
+"Seven-fifty this morning, sir," said Bisset. "The housemaid finding the
+door lockit came to me. I knew the dining-room key fitted this door too,
+so I opened it--and there he lay."
+
+"All night, without any one knowing he hadn't gone to bed?"
+
+"That's the unfortunate thing, sir," said the superintendent. "It seems
+that Sir Reginald had arranged to sleep in his dressing room as he was
+going to be sitting up late reading."
+
+"Murderer must have known that," put in Simon.
+
+"Almost looks like it," agreed the superintendent.
+
+"And nobody in the house heard or saw anything?"
+
+"Nobody, sir," said the superintendent.
+
+"That's their statement," added the lawyer in his driest voice.
+
+"Was anybody sitting up late?"
+
+"Nobody admits it," said the lawyer, again very drily.
+
+"Thirteen," said Bisset softly.
+
+They turned towards him, but it seemed that he was talking to himself.
+He was, in fact, quietly taking measurements with a tape.
+
+"Go on," said Cromarty briefly.
+
+"Well, sir," said the superintendent. "The body was found near the door
+as I was pointing out, but it's a funny thing that a small table had
+been upset apparently, and Bisset tells us that that table stood near
+the window."
+
+"Humph," grunted Simon sceptically.
+
+"I'm quite sure of it, Mr. Rattar," said Bisset confidently, looking
+round from his work of measurement.
+
+"No positive proof it was upset," said the lawyer.
+
+"Did you find it upset?" asked Ned.
+
+The lawyer shook his head emphatically and significantly, and the
+superintendent agreed.
+
+"No, it was standing just where it is now near the wall."
+
+"Then why do you think it was upset?"
+
+"I picked up yon bits of sealing wax and yon piece of India rubber,"
+said Bisset, looking round again. "I know they were on the wee table
+yesterday and I found them under the curtain in the morning and the
+table moved over to the wall. It follows that the table has been cowpit
+and then set up again in another place, and the other things on it put
+back. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
+
+Ned nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"Seems to me so," he said.
+
+"It seems likely enough," the superintendent also agreed. "And if that's
+the case there would seem to have been some kind of ongoings near the
+window."
+
+The Procurator Fiscal still seemed unconvinced.
+
+"Nothing to go on. No proper evidence. It leads nowhere definitely," he
+said.
+
+"Well now," continued the superintendent, "the question is--how did the
+murderer get into the room? The door was found locked and the key had
+been taken away, so whether he had locked it from the inside or the
+outside we can't tell. There's small chance of finding the key, I doubt,
+for a key's a thing easy hidden away."
+
+"So he might have come in by the door and then left by the door and
+locked it after him," said Ned. "Or he might have come in by the window,
+locked the door and gone out by the window. Or he might have come in by
+the window and gone out by the door, locking it after him. Those are all
+the chances, aren't they?"
+
+"Indeed, that seems to be them all," said the superintendent with a note
+of admiration for this clear exposition that seemed to indicate he was
+better himself at details than deductions.
+
+"And now what about the window? Was that open or shut or what?"
+
+"Shut but not snibbed, sir."
+
+Ned turned to Bisset.
+
+"Did Sir Reginald ever forget to snib the windows, supposing one
+happened to be open?"
+
+"Practically never, sir."
+
+"Last thing before he left the room, I suppose?" said the lawyer.
+
+The butler hesitated.
+
+"I suppose so, sir," he admitted, "but of course I was never here to
+see."
+
+"Exactly!" said Simon. "Therefore one can draw no conclusions as to
+whether the window had been standing all the time just as it is now, or
+whether it had been opened and shut again from the outside; seeing that
+Sir Reginald was presumably killed before his usual time for looking to
+the windows."
+
+"Wait a bit!" said Ned. "I was assuming a window had been open. But were
+the windows fastened before Sir Reginald came in to sit here last
+thing?"
+
+"Certainly they were that," said the butler emphatically.
+
+"It was a mild night, he might have opened one himself," replied the
+Procurator Fiscal. "Or supposing the man had come in and left again by
+the door, what's more likely than that he unsnibbed the window to make
+people think he had come that way?"
+
+"He would surely have left it wide open," objected Ned.
+
+"Might have thought that too obvious," replied the lawyer, "or might
+have been afraid of the noise. Unsnibbing would be quite enough to
+suggest entry that way."
+
+Ned turned his keen eye hard on him.
+
+"What's your own theory then?"
+
+"I've none," grunted Simon. "No definite evidence one way or the other.
+Mere guesses are no use."
+
+Ned walked to the window and looked at it carefully. Then he threw it up
+and looked out into the garden.
+
+"Of course you've looked for footsteps underneath?" he asked.
+
+"Naturally," said Simon. "But it's a hard gravel path and grass beyond.
+One could fancy one saw traces, but no definite evidence."
+
+The window was one of three together, with stone mullions between. They
+were long windows reaching down nearly to the level of the floor, so
+that entrance that way was extremely easy if one of them were open.
+Cromarty got out and stood on the sill examining the middle sash.
+
+Simon regarded him with a curious caustic look for a moment in his eye.
+
+"Looking for finger marks?" he enquired.
+
+"Yes," said Ned. "Did you look for them?"
+
+For a single instant the Procurator Fiscal seemed a little taken aback.
+Then he grunted with a half laugh:
+
+"Don't believe much in them."
+
+"Experienced criminals, that's been convicted before, frequently wears
+gloves for to prevent their finger prints being spotted," said the
+learned Bisset.
+
+Mr. Rattar shot him a quick ambiguous glance, and then his eyes assumed
+their ordinary cold look and he said:
+
+"No evidence anybody ever opened that window from the outside. If they
+had, Sir Reginald would have heard them."
+
+"Well," said Ned, getting back into the room, "there are no finger marks
+anyhow."
+
+"The body being found near the door certainly seems to be in favour of
+Mr. Rattar's opinion," observed the superintendent.
+
+"I thought Mr. Rattar had formed no opinion yet," said Cromarty.
+
+"No more I have," grunted the lawyer.
+
+The superintendent looked a trifle perplexed.
+
+"Before Mr. Cromarty had come in, sir, I understood you for to say
+everything pointed to the man having come in by the door and hit Sir
+Reginald on the head as he came to see who it was when he heard him
+outside."
+
+"I merely suggested that," said Simon Rattar sharply. "It fits the
+facts, but there's no definite evidence yet."
+
+Ned Cromarty had turned and was frowning out of the window. Now he
+wheeled quickly and exclaimed:
+
+"If the murderer came in through the window while Sir Reginald was in
+the room, either the window was standing open or Sir Reginald opened it
+for him! Did Sir Reginald ever sit with his window open late at night at
+this time of year?"
+
+"Never once, sir," said Bisset confidently. "He likit fresh air outside
+fine but never kept his windies open much unless the weather was vera
+propitious."
+
+"Then," said Ned, "why should Sir Reginald have opened the window of his
+own accord to a stranger at the dead of night?"
+
+"Exactly!" said Mr. Rattar. "Thing seems absurd. He'd never do it."
+
+"That's my own opinion likewise, sir," put in Bisset.
+
+"It's only common sense," added the superintendent.
+
+"Then how came the window to be unfastened?" demanded Ned.
+
+"I've suggested a reason," said Simon.
+
+"As a blind? Sounds to me damned thin."
+
+Simon Rattar turned away from him with an air that suggested that he
+thought it time to indicate distinctly that he was in charge of the case
+and not the laird of Stanesland.
+
+"That's all we can do just now, Sutherland," he said. "No use disturbing
+the household any longer at present."
+
+Cromarty stepped up to him suddenly and asked:
+
+"Tell me honestly! Do you suspect anybody?"
+
+Simon shook his head decidedly.
+
+"No sufficient evidence yet. Good morning, Mr. Cromarty."
+
+Ned was following him to the door, his lips compressed and his eyes on
+the floor, when Bisset touched his arm and beckoned him back.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but could you not manage just to stop on for
+a wee bit yet?"
+
+Ned hesitated.
+
+"They won't be wanting visitors, Bisset."
+
+"They needn't know if you don't want them to, sir. Lady Cromarty is shut
+up in her room, and the others are keeping out of the way. If you
+wouldn't mind my giving you a little cold luncheon in my sitting room,
+sir, I'd like to have your help. I'm making a few sma' bits of
+investigation on my own. You're one of the family, sir, and I know
+you'll be wanting to find out who killed the master."
+
+Ned's eye flashed suddenly.
+
+"By God, I'll never rest in this world or the next till I do! All right,
+I'll wait for a bit."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+CICELY
+
+
+Ned Cromarty waited in the hall while Bisset went to the door with the
+Procurator Fiscal and Superintendent of Police. As he stood there in the
+darkened silence of the house, there came to his ears for an instant the
+faint sound of a voice, and it seemed to be a woman's. With that the
+current of his thoughts seemed to change, and when Bisset returned he
+asked, though with marked hesitation:
+
+"Do you think, Bisset, I could do anything for any of them, Mr. Malcolm
+Cromarty, or--er--Miss Farmond?"
+
+Bisset considered the point judicially. It was clear he felt that the
+management of the household was in his hands now.
+
+"I am sure Miss Farmond would be pleased, sir--poor young lady!"
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Ned, and his manner brightened visibly.
+"Well, if she won't mind----"
+
+"I think if you come this way, sir, you will find her with Sir Malcolm."
+
+"_Sir_ Malcolm!" exclaimed Ned. "My God, so he is!"
+
+To himself he added:
+
+"And she will soon be Lady Cromarty!"
+
+But the thought did not seem to exhilarate him.
+
+He was led towards the billiard room, an addition to the house which lay
+rather apart. The door was half open and through it he could see that
+the blinds had been drawn down, and he could hear a murmur of voices.
+
+"They are in there, sir," said Bisset, and he left him.
+
+As Ned Cromarty entered he caught the words, spoken by the new baronet:
+
+"My dear Cicely, I depend on your sympathy----"
+
+He broke off as he heard a footstep, and seemed to move a little apart
+from the chair where Cicely was sitting.
+
+The two young people greeted their visitor, Cicely in a voice so low
+that it was scarcely audible, but with a smile that seemed, he thought,
+to welcome him; Sir Malcolm with a tragic solemnity which no doubt was
+quite appropriate to a bereaved baronet. The appearance of a third party
+seemed, however, to afford him no particular gratification, and after
+exchanging a sentence or two, he begged, in a very serious tone, to be
+excused, and retired, walking softly and mournfully. Ned noticed then
+that his face was extraordinarily pale and his eye disturbed.
+
+"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Ned. He was embarrassed, a rare
+condition with him, which, when it did afflict him, resulted in an
+impression of intimidating truculence.
+
+Cicely seemed to shrink a little, and he resolved to leave instantly.
+
+"Oh no!" she said shyly.
+
+"I only wanted to say that if I could do anything for you--well, you've
+only to let me know."
+
+"It's awfully kind of you," she murmured.
+
+There was something so evidently sincere in this murmur that his
+embarrassment forthwith left him.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" he said after his outspoken habit. "I was afraid I was
+putting my foot in it. But if you really don't mind my seeing you for a
+minute or two, I'd just like to say----"
+
+He broke off abruptly, and she looked up at him questioningly.
+
+"Dash it, I can't say it, Miss Farmond! But you know, don't you?"
+
+She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it
+was, he knew she understood and appreciated.
+
+Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the
+blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a
+basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.
+
+"I've been too stunned till now to grasp what's happened," he said in a
+moment. "Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!"
+
+He had said exactly the right thing now.
+
+"He certainly was mine!" she said.
+
+"And mine too. We may live to be a brace of Methuselahs, but I guess
+we'll never see his like again!"
+
+His odd phrase made her smile for a moment despite herself. It passed
+swiftly and she said:
+
+"_I_ can't believe it yet."
+
+Again there was silence, and then he said abruptly:
+
+"It's little wonder you can't believe it. The thing is so extraordinary.
+It's incredible. A man without an enemy in the world--no robbery
+attempted--sitting in his own library--in just about the most peaceful
+and out of the way county in Scotland--not a sound heard by anybody--not
+a reason that one can possibly imagine--and yet murdered!"
+
+"But it must have been a robber surely!"
+
+"Why didn't he rob something then?"
+
+"But how else----?"
+
+"How indeed! You've not a suspicion of any one yourself, Miss Farmond?
+Say it right out if you have. We don't lynch here. At least," he
+corrected himself as he recalled the telegraph posts, "it hasn't been
+done yet."
+
+"I _can't_ suspect any one!" she said earnestly. "I never met any one in
+my life that I could possibly imagine doing such a thing!"
+
+"No," he said. "I guess our experiences have been pretty different. I've
+met lots, but then there are none of those boys here. Who is there in
+this place?"
+
+He paused and stared into space.
+
+"It must have been a tramp--some one who doesn't belong here!"
+
+"I was trying to think whether there are any lunatics about," he said in
+a moment. "But there aren't any."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. He was thinking; she never moved.
+Then he heard a sound, and looking down saw that she had her
+handkerchief in her hand. He had nearly bent over her before he
+remembered Sir Malcolm, and at the recollection he said abruptly:
+
+"Well, I've disturbed you too long. If I can do anything--anything
+whatever, you'll let me know, won't you?"
+
+"You are very, very kind," she murmured, and a note in her voice nearly
+made him forget the new baronet. In fact, he had to retire rather
+quickly to be sure of himself.
+
+The efficiency of James Bisset was manifest at every conjuncture.
+Businesslike and brisk he appeared from somewhere as Cromarty reached
+the hall, and led him from the front regions to the butler's sitting
+room.
+
+"I will bring your lunch in a moment, sir," he murmured, and vanished
+briskly.
+
+The room looked out on a courtyard at the back, and through the window
+Ned could see against the opposite buildings the rain driving in clouds.
+In the court the wind was eddying, and beneath some door he could hear
+it drone insistently. Though the toughest of men, he shivered a little
+and drew up a wicker chair close in front of the fire.
+
+"It's incredible!" he murmured, and as he stared at the flames this
+thought seemed to haunt him all the time.
+
+Bisset laid the table and another hour passed. Ned ate a little lunch
+and then smoked and stared at the fire while the wind droned and
+blustered without ceasing, and occasionally a cross gust sent the rain
+drops softly pattering on the panes.
+
+"I'm damned if I see a thing!" he suddenly exclaimed half aloud, and
+jumped to his feet.
+
+Before he had time to start for the door, Bisset's mysterious efficiency
+was made manifest again. Precisely as he was wanted, he appeared, and
+this time it was clear that his own efforts had not been altogether
+fruitless. He had in fact an air of even greater complacency than usual.
+
+"I have arrived at certain conclusions, sir," he announced.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE DEDUCTIVE PROCESS
+
+
+Bisset laid on the table a sheet of note paper.
+
+"Here," said he, "is a kin' of bit sketch plan of the library. Observing
+this plan attentively, you will notice two crosses, marked A and B. A is
+where yon wee table was standing--no the place against the wall where it
+was standing this morning, but where it was standing before it was
+knocked over last night. B is where the corp was found. You follow that,
+sir?"
+
+Ned nodded.
+
+"I follow," said he.
+
+"Now, the principle in a' these cases of crime and detection," resumed
+the philosopher, assuming his lecturer's air, "is noticing such sma'
+points of detail as escape the eye of the ordinar' observer, taking full
+and accurate measurements, making a plan with the principal sites
+carefully markit, and drawing, as it were, logical conclusions. Applying
+this method now to the present instance, Mr. Cromarty, the first point
+to observe is that the room is twenty-six feet long, measured from the
+windie, which is a bit recessed or set back, as it were, to the other
+end of the apartment. Half of 26 is 13, and if you take the half way
+line and draw approximate perpendiculars to about where the table was
+standing and to as near as one can remember where the middle of the corp
+roughly was lying, you get exactly six feet ten and five-eighths inches,
+in both cases."
+
+"An approximate perpendicular to roughly about these places gives this
+exact measurement?" repeated Cromarty gravely. "Well, what next?"
+
+"Well, sir, I'll not insist too much on the coincidence, but it seems to
+me vera remarkable. But the two significant features of this case seem
+to me yon table being upset over by the windie and the corp being found
+over by the door."
+
+"You're talking horse sense now," murmured Ned.
+
+"Now, yon table was upset by Sir Reginald falling on it!"
+
+Ned looked at him keenly.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because one of the legs was broken clean off!"
+
+"What, when we saw it this morning?"
+
+"We had none of us noticed it then, sir; but I've had a look at it
+since, and there's one leg broken fair off at the top. The break was
+half in the socket, as it were, leaving a kind of spike, and if you
+stick that into the socket you can make the table look as good as new.
+It's all right, in fac', until you try to move it, and then of course
+the leg just drops out."
+
+"And it wasn't like that yesterday?"
+
+"I happened to move it myself not so long before Sir Reginald came into
+the room, and that's how I know for certain where it was standing and
+that it wasn't broken. And yon wee light tables dinna lose their legs
+just with being cowped, supposing there was nothing else than that to
+smash them. No, sir, it was poor Sir Reginald falling on top of it that
+smashed yon leg."
+
+"Then he was certainly struck down near the window!"
+
+"Well, we'll see that in a minute. It's no in reason, Mr. Cromarty, to
+suppose he deliberately opened the windie to let his ain murderer in.
+And it's a' just stuff and nonsense to suggest Sir Reginald was sitting
+on a winter's night--or next door to winter onyhow, with his windie wide
+open. I'm too well acquaint with his habits to believe that for a
+minute. And it's impossible the man can have opened a snibbed windie and
+got in, with some one sitting in the room, and no alarm given. So it's
+perfectly certain the man must have come in at the door. That's a fair
+deduction, is it not, sir?"
+
+Ned Cromarty frowned into space in silence. When he spoke it seemed to
+be as much to himself as to Bisset.
+
+"How did the window get unsnibbed? Everything beats me, but that beats
+me fairly."
+
+"Well, sir, Mr. Rattar may no be just exac'ly as intellectual as me and
+you, but I think there's maybe something in his idea it was done to put
+us off the scent."
+
+"Possibly--but it strikes me as a derned feeble dodge. However, what's
+your next conclusion?"
+
+"My next conclusion is, sir, that Simon Rattar may not be so vera far
+wrong either about Sir Reginald hearing some one at the door and
+starting to see who it was. Then--bang!--the door would suddenly open,
+and afore he'd time to speak, the man had given him a bat on the heid
+that finished him."
+
+"And where does the table come in?"
+
+"Well, my explanation is just this, that Sir Reginald suspected
+something and took the wee table as a kind of weapon."
+
+"Rot!" said Ned ruthlessly. "You think he left the fireplace and went
+round by the window to fetch such a useless weapon as that?"
+
+James Bisset was not easily damped.
+
+"That's only a possibility, sir. Excluding that, what must have
+happened? For that's the way, Mr. Cromarty, to get at the fac's; you
+just exclude what's not possible and what remains is the truth. If you'd
+read----"
+
+"Well, come on. What's your theory now?"
+
+"Just that Sir Reginald backed away from the door with the man after
+him, till he got to the table. And then down went him and the table
+together."
+
+"And why didn't he cry out or raise the alarm in some way while he was
+backing away?"
+
+"God, but that fits into my other deductions fine!" cried Bisset. "I
+hadna thought of that. Just wait, sir, till you see how the case is
+going to hang together in a minute."
+
+"But how did Sir Reginald's body come to be lying near the door?"
+
+The philosopher seemed to be inspired afresh.
+
+"The man clearly meant to take it away and hide it somewhere--that'll be
+just it! And then he found it ower heavy and decided to leave it after
+all."
+
+"And who was this man?"
+
+"That's precisely where proper principles, Mr. Cromarty, lead to a
+number of vera interesting and instructive discoveries, and I think
+ye'll see, sir, that the noose is on the road to his neck already. I've
+not got the actual man, mind! In fac' I've no idea who he is, but I can
+tell you a good few things about him--enough, in fac', to make escape
+practically impossible. In the first place, he was one well acquaint
+with the ways of the house. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
+
+"Sure!" said Ned. "I've put my bottom dollar on that already."
+
+"He came from inside this house and not outside it. How long he'd been
+in the house, that I cannot say, but my own deductions are he'd been in
+the house waiting for his chance for a good while before the master
+heard him at yon door. Is that not a fair deduction too, sir?"
+
+"It's possible," said Ned, though not with great conviction.
+
+"And now here's a point that accounts for Sir Reginald giving no
+alarm--Sir Reginald knew the man and couldna believe he meant
+mischief!"
+
+Ned looked at him quickly and curiously.
+
+"Well?" said he.
+
+"Is that not a fair deduction, Mr. Cromarty?"
+
+"Seems to fill the bill."
+
+"And now, here's a few personal details. Yon man was a fair active
+strong man to have dealt with the master the way he did. But he was not
+strong enough to carry off the corp like a sack of potatoes; he was no a
+great muckle big giant, that's to say. And finally, calculating from the
+distance the body was from the door and the number of steps he would be
+likely to take to the door, and sae arriving at his stride and deducing
+his height accordingly, he'd be as near as may be five feet nine inches
+tall. Now, sir, me and you ought to get him with a' that known!"
+
+Ned Cromarty looked at him with a curious gleam in his eye.
+
+"What's your own height, Bisset?" he enquired.
+
+"Five feet nine inches," said the reasoner promptly, and then suddenly
+his mouth fell open but his voice ceased.
+
+"And now," pursued Ned with a grimly humorous look, "can you not think
+of a man just that height, pretty hefty but not a giant, who was
+certainly in the house last night, who knew all the ways of it, and who
+would never have been suspected by Sir Reginald of meaning mischief?"
+
+"God!" exclaimed the unfortunate reasoner. "I've proved it was mysel'!"
+
+"Well, and what shall I do--string you up now or hand you over to the
+police?"
+
+"But, Mr. Cromarty--you don't believe that's right surely?"
+
+Tragic though the occasion was, Ned could not refrain from one brief
+laugh. And then his face set hard again and he said:
+
+"No, Bisset, I do not believe it was you. In fact, I wouldn't believe it
+was you if you confessed to it. But I'd advise you not to go spreading
+your deductions abroad! Deduction's a game that wants a bit more
+practice than you or I have had."
+
+It is possible that James Bisset had never looked quite so crestfallen
+in his life.
+
+"Then that's all nonsense I've been talking, sir?" he said lugubriously.
+
+"No," said Ned emphatically. "I'll not say that either. You've brought
+out some good points--that broken table, the place the body was found,
+the possible reason why Sir Reginald gave no alarm; seems to me those
+have something to them. But what they mean--what to conclude; we're as
+far off that, Bisset, as ever!"
+
+The philosopher's self esteem was evidently returning as fast as it had
+gone.
+
+"Then you wouldn't think there would be any harm, sir, in my continuing
+my investigations?"
+
+"On your present lines, the only harm is likely to be to yourself. Keep
+at it--but don't hang yourself accidentally. And let me know if you
+discover anything else--mind that."
+
+"I'll mind on it, no fears, Mr. Cromarty!"
+
+Ned left him with an expression on his countenance which indicated that
+the deductive process had already been resumed.
+
+Till he arrived at his own door, the laird of Stanesland was unconscious
+of a single incident of his drive home. All the way his eye stared
+straight into space. Sometimes a gleam would light it for an instant,
+and then he would shake his head and the gleam would fade away.
+
+"I can see neither a damned head nor a damned tail to it!" he said to
+himself as he alighted.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE QUESTION OF MOTIVE
+
+
+Two days later Mr. Ison entered Mr. Simon Rattar's room and informed him
+that Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland wished to see him on particular
+business. The lawyer was busy and this interruption seemed for the
+moment distinctly unwelcome. Then he grunted:
+
+"Show him in."
+
+In the minute or two that passed before the laird's entrance, Simon
+seemed to be thinking intently and finally to come to a decision, which,
+to judge from his reception of his client, was on rather different lines
+from his first thoughts when Mr. Cromarty's name was announced. To
+describe Simon Rattar at any time as genial would be an exaggeration,
+but he showed his nearest approach to geniality as he bade his client
+good-morning.
+
+"Sorry to interrupt you," said Ned, "but I can't get this business out
+of my head, night or day. Whether you want me or not, I've got to play a
+hand in this game; but it's on your side, Mr. Rattar, and maybe I might
+be able to help a little if I could get something to go on."
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+"I quite understand. Glad to have your help, Mr. Cromarty. Dreadful
+affair. We're all trying to get to the bottom of it, I can assure you."
+
+"I believe you," said Ned. "There never was a man better worth avenging
+than Sir Reginald."
+
+"Quite so," said Simon briefly, his eyes fixed on the other's face.
+
+"Any fresh facts?"
+
+Simon drew a sheet of paper from his desk.
+
+"Superintendent Sutherland has given me a note of three--for what they
+are worth, discovered by the butler. The first is about that table. It
+seems a leg has been broken."
+
+"Bisset told me that before I left the house."
+
+"And thought it was an important fact, I suppose?"
+
+"What its importance is, it's hard to say, but it's a fact, and seems to
+me well worth noting."
+
+"It is noted," said the Procurator Fiscal drily. "But I can't see that
+it leads anywhere."
+
+"Bisset maintains it implies Sir Reginald fell over it when he was
+struck down; and that seems to me pretty likely."
+
+Simon shook his head.
+
+"How do we know Sir Reginald hadn't broken it himself previously and
+then set it up against the wall--assuming it ever stood anywhere else,
+which seems to want confirmation?"
+
+"A dashed thin suggestion!" said Ned. "However, what are the other
+discoveries?"
+
+"The second is that one or two small fragments of dried mud were found
+under the edge of the curtain, and the third is that the hearth brush
+was placed in an unusual position--according to Bisset."
+
+"And what are Bisset's conclusions?"
+
+"That the man, whoever he was, had brought mud into the room and then
+swept it up with the hearth brush; these fragments being pieces that he
+had swept accidentally under the curtain and so overlooked."
+
+"Good for Bisset!" exclaimed Ned. "He has got there this time, I do
+believe."
+
+Simon smiled sceptically.
+
+"Sir Reginald was in the library in his walking boots that afternoon.
+Naturally he would leave mud, and quite likely he swept it up himself
+then, though the only evidence of sweeping is Bisset's statement about
+the brush. And what proof is that of anything? Does your hearth brush
+always stay in the same position?"
+
+"Never noticed," said Ned.
+
+"And I don't believe anybody notices sufficiently closely to make their
+evidence on such a point worth a rap!" said Simon.
+
+"A servant would."
+
+"Well, Mr. Cromarty, make the most of the hearth brush then."
+
+There seemed for an instant to be a defiant note in the Procurator
+Fiscal's voice that made Ned glance at him sharply. But he saw nothing
+in his face but the same set and steady look.
+
+"We're on the same side in this racket, Mr. Rattar," said Ned. "I'm
+only trying to help--same as you."
+
+Simon's voice seemed now to have exactly the opposite note. For him, his
+tone of acquiescence was even eager.
+
+"Quite so; quite so, Mr. Cromarty. We are acting together; exactly."
+
+"That's all the new evidence then?"
+
+Simon nodded, and a few moments of silence followed.
+
+"Tell me honestly," demanded Ned at last, "have you actually no clue at
+all? No suspicion of any kind? Haven't you got on the track of any
+possible reason for the deed?"
+
+"Reason?" repeated Simon. "Now we come to business, Mr. Cromarty. What's
+the motive? That's the point."
+
+"Have you found one?"
+
+Simon looked judicially discreet.
+
+"At this moment all I can tell you is to answer the question: 'Who
+benefits by Sir Reginald Cromarty's death?'"
+
+"Well--who did? Seems to me every one who knew him suffered."
+
+"Sentimentally perhaps--but not financially."
+
+Ned looked at him in silence, as if an entirely new point of view were
+dawning on his mind. But he compressed his lips and merely asked:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"To begin with, nothing was stolen from the house. Therefore no outside
+thief or burglar gained anything. I may add also that the police have
+made enquiries throughout the whole county, and no bad characters are
+known to be in the place. Therefore there is no ground for supposing the
+deed was the work of a robber, and to my mind, no evidence worth
+considering to support that view. The only people that gained anything,
+Mr. Cromarty, are those who will benefit under Sir Reginald's will."
+
+Cromarty's expression did not change again. This was evidently the new
+point of view.
+
+Simon opened a drawer and took from it a document.
+
+"In the ordinary course of events Sir Reginald's will would not be known
+till after his funeral to-morrow, but if I may regard this conversation
+as confidential, I can tell you the principal facts so far as they
+affect this case."
+
+"I don't want you to do anything you shouldn't," said Ned quickly. "If
+it's not the proper game to read the will now, don't."
+
+But Silent Simon seemed determined to oblige this morning.
+
+"It is a mere matter of form delaying till to-morrow, and I shall not
+read it now; merely tell you the pertinent facts briefly."
+
+"Fire away then. The Lord knows I want to learn every derned pertinent
+fact--want to badly!"
+
+"In the first place," the lawyer began, "Lady Cromarty is life rented in
+the mansion and property, less certain sums to be paid to other people,
+which I am coming to. She therefore lost her husband and a certain
+amount of income, and gained nothing that we know of."
+
+"That's a cold-blooded way of putting it," said Ned with something like
+a shiver. "However, what next?"
+
+"Sir Malcolm gets £1,000 a year to support him during the life time of
+Lady Cromarty, and afterwards falls heir to the whole estate. He
+therefore gains a baronetcy and £1,000 a year immediately, and the
+estate is brought a stage nearer him. Miss Farmond gets a legacy of
+£2,000. She therefore gained £2,000."
+
+"Not that she'll need it," said Ned quickly. "That item doesn't count."
+
+Simon looked at him curiously.
+
+"Why not?" he enquired.
+
+Ned hesitated a moment.
+
+"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said anything," he said, "but this
+conversation is confidential, and anyhow the fact will be known soon
+enough now, I guess. She is engaged to Sir Malcolm."
+
+For a moment Simon continued to look at him very hard. Then he merely
+said:
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Of course you won't repeat this till they care to make it known
+themselves. I told you so that you'd see a legacy of two thousand pounds
+wouldn't count much. It only means an income of--what?"
+
+"One hundred pounds at five per cent; eighty pounds at four."
+
+"Well, that will be neither here nor there now."
+
+Again Simon stared in silence for a moment, but rather through than at
+his visitor, it seemed. Then he glanced down at the document again.
+
+"James Bisset gets a legacy of three hundred pounds. There are a few
+smaller legacies to servants, but the only two that might have affected
+this case do not actually do so. One is John Robertson, Sir Reginald's
+chauffeur, but on the night of the crime he was away from home and an
+alibi can be established till two in the morning. The other is Donald
+Mackay, the gardener, but he is an old man and was in bed with
+rheumatism that night."
+
+"I see," observed Ned, "you are giving everybody mentioned in the will
+credit for perhaps having committed the murder, supposing it was
+physically possible?"
+
+"I am answering the question--who that could conceivably have committed
+it, had a motive for doing so? And also, what was that motive?"
+
+"Is that the whole list of them?"
+
+Mr. Rattar glanced at the will again.
+
+"Sir Reginald has cancelled your own debt of twelve hundred pounds, Mr.
+Cromarty."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Ned, and for a moment could say no more. Then he said
+in a low voice: "It's up to me more than ever!"
+
+"That is the full list of persons within the vicinity two nights ago who
+gained by Sir Reginald's death," said Simon in a dry voice, as he put
+away the will.
+
+"Including me?" said Ned. "Well, all I've got to say is this, Mr.
+Rattar, that my plain common sense tells me that those are no motives at
+all. For who knew what they stood to gain by this will? Or that they
+stood to gain any blessed thing at all? I hadn't the foggiest notion Sir
+Reginald meant to cancel that debt!"
+
+"You may not have known," said Simon still very drily, "and it is quite
+possible that Bisset may not have known of his legacy. Though, on the
+other hand, it is likely enough that Sir Reginald mentioned the fact
+that he would be remembered. But Lady Cromarty presumably knew his
+arrangements. And it is most unlikely that he should have said nothing
+to his heir about his intention to make him an adequate allowance if he
+came into the title and Lady Cromarty was still alive and life rented in
+the place. Also, it is highly probable that either Sir Reginald or Lady
+Cromarty told Miss Farmond that some provision would be made for her."
+
+Ned Cromarty said nothing for a few moments, but he seemed to be
+thinking very hard. Then he rose from his chair and remarked:
+
+"Well, I guess this has all got to be thought over."
+
+He moved slowly to the door, while Simon gazed silently into space. His
+hand was on the handle when the lawyer turned in his chair and asked:
+
+"Why was nothing said about Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond?"
+
+"Well," said Ned, "the whole thing is no business of mine, but Sir
+Reginald had pretty big ideas in some ways and probably one of them was
+connected with his heir's marriage."
+
+"A clandestine engagement then?"
+
+Ned Cromarty seemed to dislike the term.
+
+"It's none of my business," he said shortly. "There was no blame on
+anyone, anyhow; and mind you, this is absolutely confidential."
+
+The door closed behind him and Simon was left still apparently thinking.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+TWO WOMEN
+
+
+On the day after the funeral Lady Cromarty for the first time felt able
+to see the family lawyer. Simon Rattar came out in the morning in a
+hired car and spent more than a couple of hours with her. Then for a
+short time he was closeted with Sir Malcolm, who, referring to the
+interview afterwards, described him as "infernally close and
+unsatisfactory"; and finally, in company with the young baronet and
+Cicely Farmond, he ate a hurried lunch and departed.
+
+Ever since the fatal evening, Lady Cromarty had been shut up in her own
+apartments and the two young people had taken their meals together. Sir
+Malcolm at his brightest and best had been capricious company. He was
+now moody beyond all Cicely's experience of him. His newborn solemnity
+was the most marked feature of his demeanour, but sometimes it dissolved
+into pathetic demands for sympathy, and then again froze into profound
+and lugubrious silence. He said that he was sleeping badly, and the
+pallor of his face and the darkness beneath his eyes seemed to confirm
+this. Several times he appeared to be on the point of some peculiarly
+solemn disclosure of his feelings or his symptoms, but always ended by
+upbraiding his fellow guest for her lack of sympathy, and then relapsing
+into silence.
+
+Every now and then on such occasions Cicely caught him staring at her
+with an expression she had never seen before, and then looking hurriedly
+away; a disconcerting habit that made her own lot none the easier. So
+far as the observant Bisset could judge, the baronet seemed, indeed, to
+be having so depressing an effect upon the young lady that as her friend
+and counsellor he took the liberty of advising a change of air.
+
+"We'll miss you vera much, Miss Farmond," he was good enough to say,
+"but I'm thinking that what you want is a seaside resort."
+
+She smiled a little sadly.
+
+"I shall have to make a change very soon, Bisset," she said. "Indeed,
+perhaps I ought to have let Lady Cromarty know already that I was ready
+to go the moment I was sure I could do nothing more for her."
+
+She began her packing on the morning of Simon's visit. At lunch her air
+was a little livelier at first, as if even Simon Rattar were a welcome
+variety in a régime of undiluted baronet. Sir Malcolm, too, endeavoured
+to do the honours with some degree of cheerfulness; but short though the
+meal was, both were silent before the end and vaguely depressed
+afterwards.
+
+"I can't stand the old fellow's fishy eye!" declared Sir Malcolm. "I'd
+as soon lunch with a cod-fish, dash it! Didn't you feel it too, Cicely?"
+
+
+"He seemed to look at one so uncomfortably," she agreed. "I couldn't
+help feeling he had something on his mind against me, though I suppose
+he really doesn't trouble his head about my existence."
+
+"I'm hanged if I like the way he looks at me!" muttered the baronet, and
+once again Cicely caught that odd expression in his eye.
+
+That afternoon Bisset informed Miss Farmond that her ladyship desired to
+see her. Lady Cromarty's face looked thinner than ever and her lips more
+tightly compressed. In her deep mourning and with her grave air, she
+seemed to Cicely a monumental figure of tragedy. Her thinness and pallor
+and tight lips, she thought only natural, but there was one note that
+seemed discordant with pure desolation. The note was sounded by Lady
+Cromarty's eyes. At all times they had been ready to harden upon an
+occasion, but Cicely thought she had never seen them as hard as they
+were now.
+
+"What are your plans, Cicely?" she asked in a low, even voice that
+showed no feeling one way or the other.
+
+"I have begun to pack already," said the girl. "I don't want to leave so
+long as I can be of any use here, but I am ready to go at any time."
+
+She had expected to be asked where she was going, but Lady Cromarty
+instead of putting any question, looked at her for a few moments in
+silence. And it was then that a curious uncomfortable feeling began to
+possess the girl. It had no definite form and was founded on no reason,
+beyond the steady regard of those hard dark eyes.
+
+"I had rather you stayed."
+
+Cicely's own eyes showed her extreme surprise.
+
+"Stayed--here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But are you sure? Wouldn't you really rather be alone? It isn't for my
+sake, is it? because--"
+
+"It is for mine. I want you to remain here and keep me company."
+
+She spoke without a trace of smile or any softening of her face, and
+Cicely still hesitated.
+
+"But would it really be convenient? You have been very kind to me, and
+if you really want me here--"
+
+"I do," interrupted Lady Cromarty in the same even voice. "I want you
+particularly to remain."
+
+"Very well then, I shall. Thank you very much--"
+
+Again she was cut short.
+
+"That is settled then. Perhaps you will excuse me now, Cicely."
+
+The girl went downstairs very thoughtfully. At the foot the young
+baronet met her.
+
+"Have you settled where to go?" he asked.
+
+"Lady Cromarty has asked me to stay on with her."
+
+His face fell.
+
+"Stay on in this house of mourning? Oh, no, Cicely!"
+
+"I have promised," she said.
+
+The young man grew curiously agitated.
+
+"Oh, don't stay here!" he besought her. "It keeps me in such dreadful
+suspense!"
+
+"In suspense!" she exclaimed. "Whatever do you mean, Malcolm?"
+
+Again she saw that look in his eye, and again he raised a
+sympathy-beseeching wail. Cicely's patience began to give way.
+
+"Really, Malcolm!" she cried tartly, "if you have anything to say, say
+it, but don't go on like a baby!"
+
+"Like a baby!" repeated the deeply affronted baronet. "Heavens, would
+you liken me to _that_, of all things! I had meant to confide in you,
+Cicely, but you have made it impossible. Impossible!" he repeated
+sombrely, and stalked to the door.
+
+Next morning, Sir Malcolm left for London, his confidence still locked
+in his breast, and Cicely was alone with Lady Cromarty.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+RUMOUR
+
+
+One windy afternoon a man on a bicycle struggled up to the door of
+Stanesland Castle and while waiting for an answer to his ring, studied
+the front of that ancient building with an expression which would at
+once have informed his intimates that he was meditating on the
+principles of Scottish baronial architecture. A few minutes later Mr.
+Bisset was shown into the laird of Stanesland's smoking room and
+addressed Mr. Cromarty with a happy blend of consciousness of his own
+importance and respect for the laird's.
+
+"I have taken the liberty of calling, sir, for to lay before you a few
+fresh datas."
+
+"Fire away," said the laird.
+
+"In the first place, sir, I understand that you have been making
+enquiries through the county yourself, sir; is that not so?"
+
+"I've been through this blessed county, Bisset, from end to end to see
+whether I could get on the track of any suspicious stranger. I've been
+working both with the police and independent of the police, and I've
+drawn blank."
+
+Bisset looked distinctly disappointed.
+
+"I've heard, sir, one or two stories which I was hoping might have
+something in them."
+
+"I've heard about half a dozen and gone into them all, and there's
+nothing in one of them."
+
+"Half a dozen stories?" Bisset's eye began to look hopeful again. "Well,
+sir, perhaps if I was to go into some of them again in the light of my
+fresh datas, they might wear, as it were, a different aspect."
+
+"Well," said Ned. "What have you found? Have a cigar and let's hear what
+you've been at."
+
+The expert crackled the cigar approvingly between his fingers, lit it
+with increased approval, and began:
+
+"Yon man was behind the curtains all the time."
+
+"The devil he was! How do you know?"
+
+"Well, sir, it's a matter of deduction. Ye see supposing he came in by
+the door, there are objections, and supposing he came in by the windie
+there are objections. Either way there are objections which make it
+difficult for to accept those theories. And then it struck me--the man
+must have been behind the curtains all the while!"
+
+"He must have come either by the door or window to get there."
+
+"That's true, Mr. Cromarty. But such minor points we can consider in a
+wee while, when we have seen how everything is otherwise explained. Now
+supposing we have the murderer behind the curtains; that brings him
+within six feet of where the wee table was standing. How did he get Sir
+Reginald to come to the table? He made some kind of sound. What kind of
+sound? Some imitation of an animal; probably of a cat. How did Sir
+Reginald not cry out when he saw the man? Because he never did see the
+man! How did he not see him?"
+
+"Man was a ventriloquist and made a sound in the other direction,"
+suggested Ned with extreme gravity.
+
+"God, but that's possible, Mr. Cromarty! I hadna thought of that! Well,
+it'll fit into the facts all right, you'll see. My theory was that
+either the man threw something at the master and knocked him down that
+way, or he was able to reach out and give him a bat on the heid without
+moving from the curtains."
+
+"He must have been an awkward customer."
+
+"He was that! A great tall man with long arms. And what had he at the
+end of them? Either a club such as savages use or something to throw
+like a boomerang. And he could imitate animals, and as you say, he was
+probably a ventriloquist. And he was that active and strong he could get
+into the house through one of the windies, just like a great monkey. Now
+what's the history of that man?"
+
+"Pretty wild, I guess."
+
+"Ah, but one can say more than that, sir. He was not an ordinary
+Englishman or Scotchman. He was from the Colonies or America or one of
+thae wild places! Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
+
+"It all points to that," said Ned, with a curious look.
+
+"It points to that indeed, sir. Now where's he hidden himself? It should
+not be difficult to find him with all that to go on."
+
+"A tall active strong man who has lived in the Colonies or America; one
+ought to get him. Has he only one eye, by any chance?"
+
+The reasoner gazed petrified at his counsellor.
+
+"God, but I've just described yoursel', sir!" he cried in an unhappy
+voice.
+
+"You're determined to hang one of us, Bisset."
+
+For a moment Bisset seemed to find conversation difficult. Then he said
+miserably:
+
+"So it's no good, and all the alternatives just fa' to pieces."
+
+The extreme dejection of his voice struck the other sharply.
+
+"Alternatives to what?" he asked.
+
+For a few seconds Bisset did not answer.
+
+"What's on your mind, man?" demanded Cromarty.
+
+"The reason, sir, I've got that badly off the rails with my deductions
+is just that I _had_ to find some other theory than the story that's
+going about."
+
+"What story?"
+
+"You've no heard it, sir?"
+
+Ned shook his head.
+
+"I hardly like to repeat it, sir; it's that cruel and untrue. They're
+saying Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond had got engaged to be married."
+
+"Well?" said Ned sharply, and he seemed to control his feelings with an
+effort.
+
+"A secret engagement, like, that Sir Reginald would never have allowed.
+But there I think they're right, sir. Sir Reginald was unco' taken up
+with Miss Farmond, but he'd have looked higher for his heir. And so as
+they couldn't get married while he was alive--neither of them having any
+money, well, sir, this story says--"
+
+He broke off and neither spoke for an instant.
+
+"Good God!" murmured Cromarty. "They actually accuse Malcolm Cromarty
+and Miss Cicely of--?"
+
+He paused too, and Bisset nodded.
+
+"Who is saying this?"
+
+"It seems to be the clash of the haill country by this time, sir."
+
+He seemed a little frightened at the effect of his own words; and it was
+small wonder. Ned Cromarty was a nasty looking customer at that moment.
+
+"Who started the lie?"
+
+"It's just ignorance and want of education of the people, I'm thinking,
+Mr. Cromarty. They're no able to grasp the proper principles--"
+
+"Lady Cromarty must be told! She could put a stop to it--"
+
+Something in Bisset's look pulled him up sharply.
+
+"I'm afraid her ladyship believes it herself, sir. Maybe you have heard
+she has keepit Miss Farmond to stay on with her."
+
+"I have."
+
+"Well, sir," said Bisset very slowly and deliberately, "I'm
+thinking--it's just to watch her."
+
+Ned Cromarty had been smoking a pipe. There was a crack now as his teeth
+went through the mouthpiece. He flung the pipe into the fire, jumped up,
+and began pacing the room without a word or a glance at the other. At
+last he stopped as abruptly as he had started.
+
+"This slander has got to be stopped!"
+
+And then he paced on.
+
+"Just what I was saying to myself, sir. It was likely a wee thing of
+over anxiety to stop it that made me think o' the possibility of a wild
+man from America, which was perhaps a bit beyond the limits of what ye
+might call, as it were, scientific deduction."
+
+"When did Lady Cromarty begin to take up this attitude?"
+
+"Well, the plain truth is, sir, that her ladyship has been keeping sae
+much to herself that it's not rightly possible to tell what's been in
+her mind. But it was the afternoon when Mr. Rattar had been at the house
+that she sent for Miss Farmond and tellt her then she was wanting her to
+stop on."
+
+"That would be after she knew the contents of the will! I wonder if the
+idea had entered her head before, or if the will alone started it? Old
+Simon would never start such a scandal himself about his best client. He
+knows too well which side his bread is buttered for that! But he might
+have talked his infernal jargon about the motive and the people who
+stood to gain by the death. That might have been enough to set her
+suspicions off."
+
+"Or I was thinking maybe, sir, it was when her ladyship heard of the
+engagement."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Ned, stopping suddenly again, "that's possible. When did
+she hear?"
+
+Bisset shook his head.
+
+"That beats me again, sir. Her own maid likely has been telling her
+things the time we've not been seeing her."
+
+"Did the maid--or did you know about the engagement?"
+
+"Servants are uneducated creatures," said Bisset contemptuously. "And
+women at the best have just the ae' thought--who's gaun to be fool
+enough to marry next? They were always gossiping about Mr. Malcolm and
+Miss Cicely, but there was never what I should call a data to found a
+deduction on; not for a sensible person. I never believed it myself, but
+it's like enough her ladyship may have suspected it for a while back."
+
+"I suppose Lady Cromarty has been nearly distracted?"
+
+"Very near, sir."
+
+"That's her only excuse. But the story is such obvious nonsense, Bisset,
+that surely no one in their proper senses really believes it?"
+
+The philosopher shook a wise head.
+
+"I have yet to learn, Mr. Cromarty, what folks will not believe."
+
+"They've got to stop believing this!" said Ned emphatically.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+A SUGGESTION
+
+
+Next morning Simon Rattar was again informed that Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland wished to see him, and again the announcement seemed to be
+unwelcome. He was silent for several seconds before answering, and when
+he allowed Mr. Cromarty to be shown in, it was with an air which
+suggested the getting over a distasteful business as soon as possible.
+
+"Well, Mr. Cromarty?" he grunted brusquely.
+
+Mr. Cromarty never beat about the bush.
+
+"I've come to see you about this scandalous story that's going round."
+
+The lawyer glanced at the papers he had been busy with, as if to
+indicate that they were of more importance than scandals.
+
+"What story?" he enquired.
+
+"That Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned in Sir Reginald's
+murder."
+
+There was something compelling in Ned's directness. Simon pushed aside
+the papers and looked at him fixedly.
+
+"Oh," he said. "They say that, do they?"
+
+"Haven't you heard?"
+
+Simon's grunt was non-committal.
+
+"Well anyway, this derned story is going about, and something's got to
+be done to stop it."
+
+"What do you suggest?"
+
+"Are you still working the case for all you know how?"
+
+Simon seemed to resent this enquiry a little.
+
+"I am the Procurator Fiscal. The police make the actual enquiries. They
+have done everything they could."
+
+"'They have done'? Do you mean that they have stopped looking for the
+murderer?"
+
+"Certainly not. They are still enquiring; not that it is likely to be
+much further use."
+
+There seemed to be a sardonic note in his last words that deepened
+Cromarty's frown and kindled his eye.
+
+"You mean to suggest that any conclusion has been reached?"
+
+"Nothing is absolutely certain," said Simon.
+
+Again the accent on the "absolutely" seemed to rouse his visitor's ire.
+
+"You believe this story, do you?"
+
+"If I _believed_ it, I should order an arrest. I have just told you
+nothing is absolutely certain."
+
+"Look here," said Cromarty, "I don't want to crab Superintendent
+Sutherland or his men, but you want to get somebody better than them on
+to this job."
+
+Though the Procurator Fiscal kept his feelings well in hand, it was
+evident that this suggestion struck him more unfavourably than anything
+his visitor had said yet. He even seemed for one instant to be a little
+startled by its audacity.
+
+"I disagree," he muttered.
+
+"Now don't you take offence, Mr. Rattar," said Ned with a sudden smile.
+"I'm not aiming this at you, but, hang it, you know as well as I do that
+Sutherland is no great shakes at detection. They are all just country
+bobbies. What we want is a London detective."
+
+Simon seemed to have recovered his equanimity during this speech. He
+shook his head emphatically, but his voice was as dispassionately
+brusque as ever.
+
+"London detective? Much over-rated people, I assure you. No use in a
+case of this kind."
+
+"The very kind of case a real copper-bottomed expert would be some use
+in!"
+
+"You are thinking of detectives in stories, Mr. Cromarty. The real men
+are no better than Sutherland--not a bit. I believe in Sutherland.
+Better man than he looks. Very shrewd, most painstaking. Couldn't have a
+better man. Useless expense getting a man from London."
+
+"Don't you trouble about the expense, Mr. Rattar. That can be arranged
+all right. I want a first class man engaged."
+
+The sudden glance which the lawyer shot at him, struck Ned as unusual in
+his experience of Simon Rattar. He appeared to be startled again, and
+yet it was not mere annoyance that seemed to show for the fraction of a
+second in his eye. And then the next instant the man's gaze was as cold
+and steady as ever. He pursed his lips and considered his answer in
+silence before he spoke.
+
+"You are a member of the family, Mr. Cromarty; the actual head of it, in
+fact, I believe."
+
+"Going by pedigrees, I believe I am, but being a member is reason enough
+for my wanting to get daylight through this business--and seeing
+somebody swing for it!"
+
+"What if you made things worse?"
+
+"Worse! How could they be?"
+
+"Mr. Cromarty, I am the Procurator Fiscal in charge of this case. But I
+am also lawyer and factor to the Cromarty family, and my father was
+before me. If there was evidence enough--clear and proper evidence--to
+convict any person of this crime, it would be my duty as Procurator
+Fiscal to convict them. But there is no definite evidence, as you know
+yourself. All we can do, if we push this matter too far, is to make a
+family scandal public. Are you as the head of the Cromarty family, and I
+as their factor, to do this?"
+
+It was difficult to judge with what feelings Ned Cromarty heard this
+deliberate statement and appeal. His mouth was as hard as the lawyer's
+and his eye revealed nothing.
+
+"Then you propose to hush the thing up?"
+
+"I said nothing about hushing up. I propose to wait till I get some
+_evidence_, Mr. Cromarty. It is a little difficult perhaps for a layman
+to realise what evidence means, but I can tell you--and any lawyer, or
+any detective, would tell you--we have nothing that can be called
+evidence yet."
+
+"And you won't get any till you call in somebody a cut above
+Sutherland."
+
+"The scent is too cold by this time--"
+
+"Who let it cool?" interrupted Ned.
+
+For a moment the lawyer's eyes looked unpleasant.
+
+"Every effort was made to find a clue; by yourself as well as by the
+police. And let me tell you, Mr. Cromarty, that our efforts have not
+been as fruitless as you seem to think."
+
+"What have we discovered?"
+
+"In the first place that there was no robbery committed and no sign of
+anybody having entered the house from the outside."
+
+Ned shook his head.
+
+"That's a lot too strong. I believe the man _did_ come in by the
+window."
+
+"You admit there is no proof?"
+
+"Sure," said Ned candidly. "I quite admit there is no proof of
+anything--yet."
+
+"No robbery, no evidence of anyone having come in by the window--"
+
+"No proof," corrected Ned. "I maintain that the window being unsnibbed
+and that mud on the floor and the table near the window being upset is
+evidence; but not proof positive."
+
+Simon's patience had by this time become exemplary. His only wish seemed
+to be to convince by irresistible argument this obstinate objector. It
+struck the visitor, moreover, that in this effort the lawyer was
+displaying a fluency not at all characteristic of silent Simon.
+
+"Well, let us leave it at that. Suppose there be a possibility that
+entry was actually made by the window. It is a bare possibility against
+the obvious and easy entrance by the door,--near which, remember, the
+body was found. Then, as I have pointed out, there was no robbery, and
+not a trace has been found of anybody outside that house with a motive
+for the crime."
+
+"Except me."
+
+"Unless you care to except yourself. But neither you nor the police have
+found any bad characters in the place."
+
+"That's true enough," Ned admitted reluctantly.
+
+"On the other hand, there were within the house two people with a very
+strong motive for committing the crime."
+
+"I deny that!" cried Ned with a sudden gleam of ferocity in his eye that
+seemed to disconcert the lawyer.
+
+"Deny it? You can scarcely deny that two young people, in love with one
+another and secretly engaged, with no money, and no chance of getting
+married, stood to gain everything they wanted by a death that gave them
+freedom to marry, a baronetcy, a thousand a year, and two thousand in
+cash besides?"
+
+"Damn it, Mr. Rattar, is the fact that a farmer benefits by a shower any
+evidence that he has turned on the rain?"
+
+"I have repeatedly said, Mr. Cromarty, that there is no definite
+evidence to convict anybody. But nothing would have been easier than
+making an end of Sir Reginald Cromarty, to anybody inside that house
+whom he would never suspect till they struck the blow. All the necessary
+conditions are fulfilled by this view of the case, whereas every other
+view--every other view, mind you, Mr. Cromarty--is confronted with these
+difficulties:--no robbery, no definite evidence of entry, no explanation
+of Sir Reginald's extraordinary silence when the man appeared, no bad
+characters in the neighbourhood, and, above all, no motive."
+
+At the end of this speech Simon shut his mouth tight and leaned back in
+his chair. For a moment it seemed as though Ned Cromarty was impressed
+by the lawyer's view of the case. But when he replied, his voice, though
+deliberate had a fighting ring in it, and his single eye, a fighting
+light.
+
+"Then you propose to leave this young couple under the most damnable
+cloud of suspicion that a man and a woman could lie under--simply leave
+'em there, and let that be the end of it?"
+
+Simon seemed to be divided between distaste for this way of putting the
+case, and anxiety still to convince his visitor.
+
+"I propose to avoid the painful family scandal which further disclosures
+and more publicity would almost certainly bring about; so long as I am
+justified as Procurator Fiscal in taking this course. And until I get
+more evidence, I am not only justified but forced to take this course."
+
+Ned suddenly jumped to his feet.
+
+"I'm no lawyer," said he, "but to me you seem to be arguing in the
+damnedest circle I ever met. You won't do anything because you can't
+get more evidence. And you won't look for more evidence because you
+don't want to do anything."
+
+There was more than a hint of temper in Simon's eye and his answer was
+rapped out sharply.
+
+"I certainly do not _want_ to cause a family scandal. I haven't said all
+I could say about Sir Malcolm if I were pressed."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I've told you. Suspicion is not evidence, but if I do get evidence,
+those who will suffer by it had better beware!"
+
+Ned turned at the door and surveyed him with a cool and caustic eye.
+
+"That's talk," he said, "and something has got to be _done_."
+
+He was gone, and Simon Rattar was left frowning at the closed door
+behind him. The frown remained, but became now rather thoughtful than
+indignant. Then he sprang up and began to pace the floor, deliberately
+at first, and then more rapidly and with increasing agitation.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+£1200
+
+
+Ned Cromarty had returned home and was going upstairs, when he heard a
+voice cry:
+
+"Ned!"
+
+The ancient stone stair, spiralling up round the time-worn pillar that
+seemed to have no beginning or end, gave at intervals on to doors which
+looked like apertures in a cliff. Through one of these he turned and at
+the end of a brief passage came to his sister's sitting room. In that
+mediæval setting of ponderous stone, it looked almost fantastic in its
+daintiness. It was a small room of many cushions and many colours, its
+floor covered with the softest rugs and its walls with innumerable
+photographs, largely of country houses where Miss Cromarty had visited.
+
+Evidently she was a lady accustomed to a comfortable life in her roving
+days, and her sitting room seemed to indicate very distinctly that she
+proposed to live up to this high standard permanently.
+
+"Oh Neddy dear, I want to talk to you about something," she began in her
+brisk way and with her brightest smile.
+
+Her brother, though of a simple nature, was by this time aware that when
+he was termed "Neddy dear" the conversation was apt to turn on Miss
+Cromarty's requirements.
+
+"Well," said he, "how much is the cheque to be this time?"
+
+"How clever you're getting!" she laughed. "But it isn't a cheque I want
+this time. It's only a motor car."
+
+He looked at her doubtfully for a moment.
+
+"Pulling my leg; or a real car?"
+
+"Real car of course--nice one too!"
+
+"But, my dear girl, we've just put down our car. You agreed it was
+necessary."
+
+"I agreed then; but it isn't necessary now."
+
+"Have you come into a fortune? I haven't!"
+
+"You've come into £1200."
+
+Again he looked at her, and this time his expression changed.
+
+"That's only a debt wiped out."
+
+"Well, and your great argument for economy was that you had to pay back
+that debt. Now you haven't. See, Neddy dear?"
+
+Her brother began to shake his head, and her smile became a little less
+bright.
+
+"I don't want to get my affairs into a tangle again just yet."
+
+"But they weren't in a bad tangle. Cancelling that debt makes us
+absolutely all right again. It's absurd for people like us not to have a
+car! Look at the distances from our neighbours! One can't go anywhere.
+I'll undertake to keep down the household expenses if you get the car."
+
+Her brother frowned out of the window.
+
+"No," he said, "it's too soon to get a car again."
+
+"But you told me you had got part of that £1200 in hand and hoped to
+make up the rest very soon. What are you going to do with the money
+now?"
+
+He glanced at her over his shoulder for an instant and then his mouth
+assumed a grim and obstinate look she knew too well.
+
+"I may need the money," he said briefly. "And I'm not much in the mood
+at this moment for buying things."
+
+Behind his back Lilian made a little grimace. Then in a tone of sisterly
+expostulation she said:
+
+"You are worrying too much over this affair, Ned. You've done all you
+can----"
+
+He interrupted her brusquely:
+
+"And it's dashed little! What have I actually done? Nothing! One needs a
+better man than me."
+
+"Well, there's your friend Silent Simon, and all the police--"
+
+"A fat lot of good they are!" said Ned.
+
+His sister looked a little surprised at his unusual shortness of temper.
+To her he was very rarely like this.
+
+"You need a good day's shooting to take your mind off it for a little,"
+she suggested.
+
+He turned upon her hotly.
+
+"Do you know the story that's going about, Lilian?"
+
+"Sir Malcolm and the Farmond girl? Oh, rather," she nodded.
+
+"Is that how it strikes you?"
+
+Lilian Cromarty jumped. There was something very formidable in her
+brother's voice.
+
+"My dear Ned, don't frighten me! Eat me if you like, but eat me quietly.
+I didn't say I believed the story."
+
+"I hope not," he said in the same grim tone, "but do you mean to say it
+doesn't strike you as the damnedest slander ever spread?"
+
+"Between myself I hadn't called it the 'damnedest' anything. But how do
+I know whether it's a slander?"
+
+"You actually think it might conceivably be true?"
+
+She shrugged her well-gowned shoulders.
+
+"I never could stand Malcolm Cromarty--a conceited little jackanapes. He
+hasn't a penny and he was head over ears in debt."
+
+It was his turn to start.
+
+"Was he?"
+
+"Oh, rather! Didn't you know? Owed money everywhere."
+
+"But such a crime as that!"
+
+"A man with ties and hair like his is capable of anything. You know
+quite well yourself he is a rotter."
+
+"Anyhow you can't believe Cicely Farmond had anything to do with it?"
+
+Again she shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"My dear Ned, I'm not a detective. A pretty face is no proof a woman is
+a saint. I told you before that there was generally something in the
+blood in those cases."
+
+As he stared at her, it seemed as though her words had indeed rushed
+back to his memory, and that they hit him hard.
+
+"People don't say that, do they?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Really, Ned, I don't know everything people say: but they are not
+likely to overlook much in such a case."
+
+He stood for a moment in silence.
+
+"She--I mean they've both got to be cleared!" he said, and strode out of
+the room.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE EMPTY COMPARTMENT
+
+
+It was on this same evening that Superintendent Sutherland was almost
+rewarded for his vigilance by having something distinctly suspicious to
+report. As it happened, it proved a disappointing incident, but it gave
+the superintendent something to think about.
+
+He was going a few stations down the line to investigate a rumour of a
+suspicious person seen in that neighbourhood. It was a vague and
+improbable rumour and the superintendent was setting out merely as a
+matter of form, and to demonstrate his vigilance and almost abnormal
+sense of duty. Darkness had already fallen for an hour or two when he
+strode with dignified gait down the platform, exchanging a greeting with
+an acquaintance or two, till he came to the front carriage of the train.
+He threw open the door of the rear compartment, saw that it was empty,
+and was just going to enter when glancing over his shoulder he perceived
+his own cousin Mr. MacAlister upon the platform. Closing the door, he
+stepped down again and greeted him.
+
+Mr. MacAlister hailed him with even more than usual friendliness, and
+after a few polite preliminaries drew him insidiously towards the far
+side of the platform. An intelligent, inveterate and persevering
+curiosity was Mr. MacAlister's dominating characteristic, and as soon as
+he had got his distinguished kinsman out of earshot of the herd, he
+inquired in a hushed voice:
+
+"And what's doing aboot the murder noo, George?"
+
+The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.
+
+"Aye, man, yon's a proper puzzle," said he.
+
+"But you'll have gotten a guid idea whae's din it by noo, George?" said
+Mr. MacAlister persuasively.
+
+"Weel," admitted the superintendent, "we maybe have our notions, but
+there's no evidence yet, Robbie; that's the fair truth. As the fiscal
+says, there's no evidence."
+
+"I'd like fine to hae a crack wi' you aboot it, George," sighed Mr.
+MacAlister. "I may tell you I've notions of ma own; no bad notions
+either."
+
+"Well," said the superintendent, moving off, "I'd have enjoyed a crack
+myself if it wasna that I've got to be off by this train--"
+
+"Man!" cried his kinsman, "I'm for off by her mysel'! Come on, we'll hae
+our crack yet."
+
+The tickets had already been taken and the doors were closed as the two
+recrossed the platform.
+
+"This carriage is empty," said the superintendent, and threw open the
+door of the same compartment he had almost entered before.
+
+But it was not empty now. In one of the further corners sat a man
+wrapped in a dark coloured ulster. A black felt hat was drawn down over
+his eyes, and his muffled face was resting on his hand. So much the
+superintendent saw in the brief moment during which he stood at the open
+door, and it struck him at once that the man must be suffering from
+toothache. And then his cousin caught him by the arm and drew him back.
+
+"Here, man, the carriage next door is empty!" cried he, and the
+superintendent closed the door and followed him.
+
+It was scarcely more than a minute later when the whistle blew and they
+were off, and Mr. MacAlister took out his pipe and prepared himself to
+receive official confidences. But the miles went by, and though he plied
+his questions incessantly and skilfully, no confidences were
+forthcoming. The superintendent, in fact, had something else to think
+about. All at once he asked abruptly:
+
+"Robbie, did ye see yon man next door sitting with his face in his
+hands?"
+
+"Aye," said Mr. MacAlister, "I noticed the man."
+
+"Did ye ken who he was?"
+
+"No," said Mr. MacAlister, "I did not."
+
+"Had ye seen him on the platform?"
+
+"No," said Mr. MacAlister, "I had not."
+
+"I didna see him myself," said the superintendent musingly. "It seems
+funny-like a man dressed like yon and with his face wrapped up too--and
+a man forbye that's a stranger to us both, coming along the platform
+and getting into that carriage, and me not noticing him. I'm not used
+not to notice people, Robbie."
+
+"It's your business, George," said Mr. MacAlister, and then as he gazed
+at his cousin's thoughtful face, his own grew suddenly animated.
+
+"You're not thinking he's to dae wi' the murder, are you!" he cried.
+
+"I'm not sure what to think till I've had another look into yon
+carriage," said the superintendent cautiously.
+
+"We're slowing doon the noo!" cried Mr. MacAlister, "God, George, I'll
+come and hae a look wi' you!"
+
+The train was hardly in the platform before the superintendent was out,
+with Mr. MacAlister after him, and the door of the next compartment
+was open almost as soon as the train was at rest. Never had the
+superintendent been more vigilant; and never had his honest face
+looked blanker.
+
+"God! It's empty!" he murmured.
+
+"God save us!" murmured Mr. MacAlister, and then he was visited by an
+inspiration which struck his relative afterwards as one of the
+unhappiest he had ever suffered from. "This canna be the richt
+carriage!" he cried. "Come on, Geordie, let's hae a look in the ithers!"
+
+By the time they had looked into all the compartments of the carriage,
+the guard was waving his flag and the two men climbed hurriedly in
+again. The brooding silence of the superintendent infected even Mr.
+MacAlister, and neither spoke for several minutes. Then the
+superintendent said bitterly:
+
+"It was you hurrying me off to look in thae other carriages, Robbie!"
+
+"What was?" inquired Mr. MacAlister a little nervously.
+
+"I ought to have stopped and looked under the seats!"
+
+Mr. MacAlister shook his head and declared firmly:
+
+"There was naething under the seats. I could see that fine. And onyhow
+we can hae a look at the next stop."
+
+"As if he'll be waiting for us, now he kens we're looking for him!"
+
+"But there was naething there!" persisted Mr. MacAlister.
+
+"Then what's come over the man? Here were we sitting next the platform.
+He can't have got out afore we started, or we'd have seen him. Folks
+don't disappear into the air! I'll try under the seats, though I doubt
+the man will have been up and out while we were wasting our time in yon
+other carriages."
+
+At the next station they searched that mysterious compartment earnestly
+and thoroughly, but there was not a sign of the muffled stranger, under
+the seats or anywhere else. Again the superintendent was silent for a
+space, and then he said confidentially:
+
+"I'm just wondering if it's worth while reporting the thing, Robbie. The
+fiscal might have a kin' of unpleasant way of looking at it. Besides,
+there's really naething to report. Anyhow I'll think it over. And that
+being the case, the less said the better. I can tell ye all that's known
+about the case, Robbie; knowing that you'll be discreet."
+
+"Oh, you can trust me," said Mr. MacAlister earnestly,--"I'll no breathe
+a word o' yon man. Weel, now, you were saying you'd tell me the haill
+story."
+
+By this judicious arrangement Mr. MacAlister got his money's worth of
+sensational disclosures, and the superintendent was able to use his
+discretion and think the incident over. He thought over it very hard and
+finally decided that he was demonstrating his vigilance quite
+sufficiently without mentioning the trifling mystery of the empty
+compartment.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE SPORTING VISITOR
+
+
+In summer and autumn, visitors were not uncommon in this remote
+countryside; mostly shooting or fishing people who rented the country
+houses, raised the local prices, and were described by the tradesmen as
+benefiting the county greatly. But in late autumn and winter this
+fertilising stream ceased to flow, and when the trains from the south
+crawled in, the porters and the boots from the hotels resigned
+themselves to welcoming a merely commercial form of traveller.
+
+It was therefore with considerable pleasure and surprise that they
+observed one afternoon an unmistakeably sporting gentleman descend from
+a first class compartment and survey them with a condescending yet
+affable eye.
+
+"Which is the best of these hotels?" he demanded with an amiable smile,
+as he surveyed through a single eyeglass the names on the caps of the
+various boots.
+
+His engaging air disarmed the enquiry of embarrassment, and even when he
+finally selected the Kings Arms Hotel, the other boots merely felt
+regret that they had not secured so promising a client. His luggage
+confirmed the first favourable impression. It included a gun case, a
+bag of golf clubs, and one or two handsome leather articles. Evidently
+he meant to make more than a passing visit, and as he strolled down the
+platform, his leisurely nonchalant air and something even in the way in
+which he smoked his cigarette in its amber holder, suggested a gentleman
+who, having arrived here, was in no hurry to move on. On a luggage label
+the approving boots noted the name of "F. T. Carrington."
+
+When he arrived at the Kings Arms, Mr. Carrington continued to produce
+favourable impressions. He was a young man, apparently a little over
+thirty, above middle height, with a round, ingenuous, very agreeable
+face, smooth fair hair, a little, neatly trimmed moustache, and a
+monocle that lent just the necessary touch of distinction to what might
+otherwise have been a too good-humoured physiognomy. His tweed suit was
+fashionably cut and of a distinctly sportive pattern, and he wore a pair
+of light spats. In short, there could be no mistaking him for anything
+but a gentleman of position and leisure with strong sporting
+proclivities, and his manner amply confirmed this. It was in fact almost
+indolent in its leisurely ease.
+
+Miss Peterkin, the capable manageress of the Kings Arms, was at
+first disposed to think Mr. Carrington a trifle too superior, and,
+as she termed it, "la-de-da," but a very few minutes' conversation
+with the gentleman completely reassured her. He was so polite and so
+good-humoured and so ready to be pleased with everything he saw and
+anything she suggested, that they became firm friends within ten minutes
+of his arrival, and after Mr. Carrington had disposed of his luggage in
+the bedroom and private sitting room which he engaged, and partaken of a
+little dinner, she found herself welcoming him into her own sitting room
+where a few choice spirits nightly congregated.
+
+It is true that these spirits, though choice, were hardly of what she
+called Mr. Carrington's "class," but then in all her experience she had
+never met a gentleman of such fashion and such a superior air, who
+adapted himself so charmingly to any society. In fact, "charming" was
+the very adjective for him, she decided.
+
+About his own business he was perfectly frank. He had heard of the
+sporting possibilities of the county and had come to look out for a bit
+of fishing or shooting; preferably fishing, for it seemed he was an
+enthusiastic angler. Of course, it was too late in the season for any
+fishing this year, but he was looking ahead as he preferred to see
+things for himself instead of trusting to an agent's description. He had
+brought his gun just on the chance of getting a day somewhere, and his
+club in case there happened to be a golf links. In short, he seemed
+evidently to be a young man of means who lived for sport; and what other
+question could one ask about such a satisfactory type of visitor?
+Absolutely none, in Miss Peterkin's opinion.
+
+As a matter of fact, she found very early in the evening, and continued
+to find thereafter, that the most engaging feature of Mr. Carrington's
+character was the interest he took in other people's business, so that
+the conversation very quickly strayed away from his own concerns--and
+remained away. It was not that he showed any undue curiosity; far from
+it. He was simply so sympathetic and such a good listener and put
+questions that showed he was following everything you said to him in a
+way that really very few people did. And, moreover, in spite of his
+engaging frankness, there was an indefinable air of discretion about him
+that made one feel safe to tell him practically everything. She herself
+told him the sad story of her brother in Australia (a tale which, as a
+rule, she told only to her special intimates) before he had been in her
+room half an hour.
+
+But with the arrival of three or four choice spirits, the conversation
+became more general, and it was naturally not long before it turned on
+the greatest local sensation and mystery within the memory of man--the
+Cromarty murder. Mr. Carrington's surprise was extreme when he realised
+that he was actually in the county where the tragedy had occurred,
+within a very few miles of the actual spot, in fact. Of course, he had
+read about it in the papers, but only cursorily, it seemed, and he had
+no idea he was coming into the identical district that had acquired such
+a sinister notoriety.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed more than once when he had made this discovery,
+"I say, how interesting!"
+
+"Oh," said Miss Peterkin with becoming pride, "we are getting quite
+famous, I can assure you, Mr. Carrington."
+
+"Rather so!" cried he, "I've read quite a lot about this Carnegie
+case----"
+
+"Cromarty," corrected one of the spirits.
+
+"Cromarty, of course, I mean! I'm rather an ass at names, I'm afraid."
+The young man smiled brightly and all the spirits sympathised. "Oh yes,
+I've seen it reported in the papers. And now to think here I am in the
+middle of it, by George! How awfully interesting! I say, Miss Peterkin,
+what about these gentlemen having another wee droppie with me, all
+round, just to celebrate the occasion?"
+
+With such an appreciative and hospitable audience, Miss Peterkin and the
+choice spirits spent a long and delightful evening in retailing every
+known circumstance of the drama, and several that were certainly unknown
+to the authorities. He was vastly interested, though naturally very
+shocked, to hear who was commonly suspected of the crime.
+
+"Do you mean to say his own heir--and a young girl like that----? By
+Jove, I say, how dreadful!" he exclaimed, and, in fact, he would hardly
+believe such a thing conceivable until all the choice spirits in turn
+had assured him that there was practically no doubt about it.
+
+The energetic part played by Mr. Simon Rattar in unravelling the dark
+skein, or at least in trying to, was naturally described at some length,
+and Mr. Carrington showed his usual sympathetic, and, one might almost
+say, entranced appreciation of the many facts told him concerning that
+local celebrity.
+
+Finally Miss Peterkin insisted on getting out the back numbers of the
+local paper giving the full details of the case, and with many thanks he
+took these off to read before he went to bed.
+
+"But mind you don't give yourself the creeps and keep yourself from
+going to sleep, Mr. Carrington!" she warned him with the last words.
+
+"By Jove, that's an awful thought!" he exclaimed, and then his eyes
+twinkled. "Send me up another whisky and soda to cure the creeps!" said
+he.
+
+Miss Peterkin thought he was quite one of the pleasantest, and promised
+to be one of the most profitable gentlemen she had met for a very long
+time.
+
+Next morning he assured her he had kept the creeps at bay sufficiently
+to enjoy an excellent night's sleep in a bed that did the management
+credit. In fact, he had thoroughly enjoyed reading the mystery and had
+even begun to feel some curiosity to see the scene of the tragedy. He
+proposed to have a few walks and drives through the neighbouring
+country, he said, looking at its streams and lochs with an eye to
+sporting possibilities, and it would be interesting to be able to
+recognise Keldale House if he chanced to pass near it.
+
+Miss Peterkin told him which road led to Keldale and how the house might
+be recognised, and suggested that he should walk out that way this very
+morning. He seemed a little doubtful; spoke of his movements as things
+that depended very much on the whim of the moment, just as such an
+easy-going young man would be apt to do, and rather indicated that a
+shorter walk would suit him better that morning.
+
+And then a few minutes later she saw him saunter past her window,
+wearing a light gray felt hat at a graceful angle and apparently taking
+a sympathetic interest in a small boy trying to mount a bicycle.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+MR. CARRINGTON'S WALK
+
+
+Mr. Carrington's easy saunter lasted till he had turned out of the
+street on which the Kings Arms stood, when it passed into an easy walk.
+Though he had seemed, on the whole, disinclined to go in the Keldale
+direction that morning, nevertheless he continued to head that way till
+at last he was on the high road with the little town behind him; and
+then his pace altered again. He stepped out now like the sportsman he
+was, and was doing a good four miles an hour by the time he was out of
+sight of the last houses.
+
+For a man who had come out to gather ideas as to the sporting
+possibilities of the country, Mr. Carrington seemed to pay singularly
+little attention to his surroundings. He appeared, in fact, to be
+thinking about something else all the time, and the first sign of
+interest he showed in anything outside his thoughts was when he found
+himself within sight of the lodge gates of Keldale House, with the
+avenue sweeping away from the road towards the roofs and chimneys amid
+the trees. At the sight of this he stopped, and leaning over the low
+wall at the road side gazed with much interest at the scene of the
+tragedy he had heard so much of last night. The choice spirits, had
+they been there to see, would have been gratified to find that their
+graphic narratives had sent this indolent looking gentleman to view the
+spot so swiftly.
+
+From the house and grounds his eye travelled back to the road and then
+surveyed the surrounding country very attentively. He even stood on top
+of the wall to get a wider view; and then all of a sudden he jumped down
+again and adopted the reverse procedure, bending now so that little more
+than his head appeared above the wall. And the reason for this change of
+plan appeared to be a figure which had emerged from the trees and began
+to move along a path between the fields.
+
+Mr. Carrington studied this figure with concentrated attention, and as
+it drew nearer and became more distinct, a light leapt into his eye that
+gave him a somewhat different expression from any his acquaintances of
+last night had observed. He saw that the path followed a small stream
+and ran at an angle to the high road, joining it at last at a point some
+little distance back towards the town. He looked quickly up and down the
+road. Not a soul was in sight to see his next very curious performance.
+The leisurely Mr. Carrington crossed to the further side, where he was
+invisible from the path, and then set out to run at a rapid pace till he
+reached the junction of path and road. And then he turned down the path.
+
+But now his bearing altered again in a very extraordinary way. His gait
+fell once more to a saunter and his angling enthusiasm seemed suddenly
+to have returned, for he frequently studied the burn as he strolled
+along, and there was no sign of any thoughtfulness on his ingenuous
+countenance. There were a few willows beside the path, and the path
+itself meandered, and this was doubtless the reason why he appeared
+entirely unconscious of the approach of another foot passenger till they
+were within a few yards of one another. And then Mr. Carrington stopped
+suddenly, seemed to hesitate, pulled out his watch and glanced at it,
+and then with an apologetic air raised his hat.
+
+The other foot passenger was face to face with him now, a slim figure in
+black, with a sweet, serious face.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Carrington, "but can you tell me where this path
+leads?"
+
+He was so polite and so evidently anxious to give no offence, and his
+face was such a certificate to his amiable character that the girl
+stopped too and answered without hesitation:
+
+"It leads to Keldale House."
+
+"Keldale House?" he repeated, and then the idea seemed to arouse
+associations. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "Really? I'm an utter stranger
+here, but isn't that the place where the murder took place?"
+
+Had Mr. Carrington been a really observant man, one would think he would
+have noticed the sudden change of expression in the girl's face--as if
+he had aroused painful thoughts. He did seem to look at her for an
+instant as he asked the question, but then turned his gaze towards the
+distant glimpse of the house.
+
+"Yes," she murmured and looked as though she wanted to pass on; but Mr.
+Carrington seemed so excited by his discovery that he never noticed this
+and still stood right in her path.
+
+"How very interesting!" he murmured. "By Jove, how very interesting!"
+And then with the air of passing on a still more interesting piece of
+news, he said suddenly, "I hear they have arrested Sir Malcolm
+Cromarty."
+
+This time he kept his monocle full on her.
+
+"Arrested him!" she cried. "What for?"
+
+This question, put with the most palpable wonder, seemed to disconcert
+Mr. Carrington considerably. He even hesitated in a very unusual way for
+him.
+
+"For--for the murder, of course."
+
+Her eyes opened very wide.
+
+"For Sir Reginald's murder? How ridiculous!"
+
+Again Mr. Carrington seemed a little disconcerted.
+
+"Er--why is it ridiculous?" he asked. "Of course, I--I know nothing
+about the gentleman."
+
+"Evidently!" she agreed with reproach in her eyes. "If Sir Malcolm
+really has been arrested, it can only have been for something quite
+silly. He couldn't commit a murder!"
+
+The fact that this tribute to the baronet's innocence was not wholly
+devoid of a flavour of criticism seemed to strike Mr. Carrington, for
+his eye twinkled for an instant.
+
+"You are acquainted with him then?" said he.
+
+"I am staying at Keldale; in fact, I am a relation."
+
+There was no doubt of her intention to rebuke the too garrulous
+gentleman by this information, and it succeeded completely. He passed at
+once to the extreme of apology.
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea. Really, I hope
+you will accept my apologies, Miss--er--Cromarty."
+
+"Miss Farmond," she corrected.
+
+"Miss Farmond, I mean. It was frightfully tactless of me!"
+
+He said it so nicely and looked so innocently guilty and so contrite,
+that her look lost its touch of indignation.
+
+"I still can't understand what you mean about Sir Malcolm being
+arrested," she said. "How did you hear?"
+
+"Oh, I was very likely misinformed. An old fellow at the hotel last
+night was saying so."
+
+Her eye began to grow indignant again.
+
+"What old fellow?"
+
+"Red hair, shaky knees, bit of a stammer, answers to the name of Sandy,
+I believe."
+
+"Old Sandy Donaldson!" she exclaimed. "That drunken old thing! He was
+simply talking nonsense as usual!"
+
+"He seemed a little in liquor," he admitted, "but you see I am a mere
+stranger. I didn't realise what a loose authority I quoted. There is
+nothing in the report, I am certain. And this path leads only to Keldale
+House? Thank you very much. Good morning!"
+
+How Mr. Carrington had obtained this erroneous information from a person
+whose back he had merely seen for a couple of minutes the night before,
+as the reprobate in question was being ejected from the Kings Arms, he
+did not stop to explain. In fact, at this point he showed no inclination
+to continue the conversation, but bowing very politely, continued his
+stroll.
+
+But the effect of the conversation on him remained, and a very marked
+effect it appeared to be. He took no interest in the burn any longer,
+but paced slowly on, his eyes sometimes on the path and sometimes
+staring upwards at the Heavens. So far as his face revealed his
+sensations, they seemed to be compounded of surprise and perplexity.
+Several times he shook his head as though some very baffling point had
+cropped up in his thoughts, and once he murmured:
+
+"I'm damned!"
+
+When the path reached the policies of the house, he stopped and seemed
+to take some interest in his surroundings once more. For a moment it was
+clear that he was tempted to enter the plantations, and then he shook
+his head and turned back.
+
+All the way home he remained immersed in thought and only recovered his
+nonchalant air as he entered the door of the Kings Arms. He was the same
+easy-going, smiling young man of fashion as he passed the time of day
+with Miss Peterkin; but when he had shut the door of his private sitting
+room and dropped into an easy chair over the fire, he again became so
+absorbed in thought that he had to be reminded that the hour of luncheon
+had passed.
+
+Thought seemed to vanish during lunch, but when he had retired to his
+room again, it returned for another half hour. At the end of that time
+he apparently came to a decision, and jumping up briskly, repaired to
+the manageress' room. And when Miss Peterkin was taken into his
+confidence, it appeared that the whole problem had merely concerned the
+question of taking either a shooting or a fishing for next season.
+
+"I have been thinking," said he, "that my best plan will perhaps be to
+call upon Mr. Simon Rattar and see whether he knows of anything to let.
+I gather that he is agent for several estates in the county. What do you
+advise?"
+
+Miss Peterkin decidedly advised this course, so a few minutes later Mr.
+Carrington strolled off towards the lawyer's office.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+MR. CARRINGTON AND THE FISCAL
+
+
+The card handed in to Mr. Simon Rattar contained merely the name "Mr. F.
+T. Carrington" and the address "Sports Club." Simon gazed at it
+cautiously and in silence for the better part of a minute, and when he
+glanced up at his head clerk to tell him that Mr. Carrington might be
+admitted, Mr. Ison was struck by the curious glint in his eye. It seemed
+to him to indicate that the fiscal was very wide awake at that moment;
+it struck him also that Mr. Rattar was not altogether surprised by the
+appearance of this visitor.
+
+The agreeable stranger began by explaining very frankly that he thought
+of renting a place for next season where he could secure good fishing
+and a little shooting, and wondered if any of the properties Mr. Rattar
+was agent for would suit him. Simon grunted and waited for this overture
+to develop.
+
+"What about Keldale House?" the sporting visitor suggested. "That's the
+place where the murder was committed, isn't it?" and then he laughed.
+"Your eye betrays you, Mr. Rattar!" said he.
+
+The lawyer seemed to start ever so slightly.
+
+"Indeed?" he murmured.
+
+"Look here," said Carrington with a candid smile, "let's put our cards
+on the table. You know my business?"
+
+"Are you a detective?" asked the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Carrington smiled and nodded.
+
+"I am; or rather I prefer to call myself a private enquiry agent. People
+expect so much of a detective, don't they?"
+
+Simon grunted, but made no other comment.
+
+"In a case like this," continued Carrington, "when one is called in
+weeks too late and the household broom and scrubbing brush and garden
+rake have removed most of the possible clues, and witnesses'
+recollections have developed into picturesque legends, it is better to
+rouse as few expectations as possible, since it is probably impossible
+to find anything out. However, in the capacity of a mere enquiry agent I
+have come to pick up anything I can. May I smoke?"
+
+He asked in his usual easy-going voice and with his usual candid smile,
+and then his eye was arrested by an inscription printed in capital
+letters, and hung in a handsome frame upon the office wall. It ran:
+
+                    "MY THREE RULES OF LIFE,
+
+               "1. I DO NOT SMOKE.
+                2. I LAY BY A THIRD OF MY INCOME.
+                3. I NEVER RIDE WHEN I CAN WALK."
+
+Beneath these precepts appeared the lithographed signature of an eminent
+philanthropist, but it seemed reasonable to assume that they also formed
+the guiding maxims of Mr. Simon Rattar.
+
+His visitor politely apologised for his question.
+
+"I had not noticed this warning," said he.
+
+"Smoke if you like. My clients sometimes do. I don't myself," said the
+lawyer.
+
+His visitor thanked him, placed a cigarette in his amber holder, lit it,
+and let his eyes follow the smoke upwards.
+
+Mr. Rattar, on his part, seemed in his closest, most taciturn humour.
+His grunt and his nod had, in fact, seldom formed a greater proportion
+of his conversation. He made no further comment at all now, but waited
+in silence for his visitor to proceed.
+
+"Well," resumed Carrington, "the simple facts of the case are these. I
+have been engaged through a certain firm of London lawyers, whose name I
+am not permitted to mention, on behalf of a person whose name I don't
+know."
+
+At this a flash of keen interest showed for an instant in Simon's eye;
+and then it became as cold as ever again.
+
+"Indeed?" said he.
+
+"I am allowed to incur expense," continued the other, "up to a certain
+figure, which is so handsome that it gives me practically a free hand,
+so far as that is concerned. On the other hand, the arrangement entails
+certain difficulties which I daresay you, Mr. Rattar, as a lawyer, and
+especially as a Procurator Fiscal accustomed to investigate cases of
+crime, will readily understand."
+
+"Quite so; quite so," agreed Mr. Rattar, who seemed to be distinctly
+relaxing already from his guarded attitude.
+
+"I arrived last night, put up at the Kings Arms--where I gathered
+beforehand that the local gossip could best be collected, and in the
+course of the evening I collected enough to hang at least two people;
+and in the course of a few more evenings I shall probably have enough to
+hang half a dozen--if one can believe, say, a twentieth of what one
+hears. This morning I strolled out to Keldale House and had a look at it
+from the road, and I learned that it was a large mansion standing among
+trees. That's all I have been able to do so far."
+
+"Nothing more than that?"
+
+Mr. Carrington seemed to have a singularly short memory.
+
+"I think that's the lot," said he. "And what is more, it seems to me the
+sum total of all I am likely to do without a little assistance from
+somebody in possession of rather more authentic facts than my friend
+Miss Peterkin and her visitors."
+
+"I quite understand," said the lawyer; and it was plain that his
+interest was now thoroughly enlisted.
+
+"Well," continued Mr. Carrington, "I thought things over, and rightly or
+wrongly, I came to this decision. My employer, whoever he is, has made
+it an absolute condition that his name is not to be known. His reasons
+may have been the best imaginable, but it obviously made it impossible
+for me to get any information out of _him_. For my own reasons I always
+prefer to make my enquiries in these cases in the guise of an
+unsuspected outsider, whenever it is possible; and it happens to be
+particularly possible in this case, since nobody here knows me from
+Adam. But I must get facts--as distinguished from the Kings Arms'
+gossip, and how was I to get them without giving myself away? That was
+the problem, and I soon realised that it was insoluble. I saw I must
+confide in somebody, and so I came to the decision to confide in you."
+
+Simon nodded and made a sound that seemed to indicate distinctly his
+opinion that Mr. Carrington had come to a sensible decision.
+
+"You were the obvious person for several reasons," resumed Carrington.
+"In the first place you could pretty safely be regarded as above
+suspicion yourself--if you will pardon my associating even the word
+suspicion with a Procurator Fiscal." He smiled his most agreeable smile
+and the Fiscal allowed his features to relax sympathetically. "In the
+second place you know more about the case than anybody else. And in the
+third place, I gather that you are--if I may say so, a gentleman of
+unusual discretion."
+
+Again he smiled pleasantly, and again Mr. Rattar's features relaxed.
+
+"Finally," added Carrington, "I thought it long odds that you were
+either actually my employer or acting for him, and therefore I should
+be giving nothing away by telling you my business. And when I mentioned
+Keldale House and the murder I saw that I was right!"
+
+He laughed, and Simon permitted himself to smile. Yet his answer was as
+cautious as ever.
+
+"Well, Mr. Carrington?" said he.
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "if you actually are my employer and we both
+lay our cards on the table, there's much to be gained, and--if I may say
+so--really nothing to be lost. I won't give you away if you won't give
+me."
+
+The lawyer's nod seemed to imply emphatic assent, and the other went on:
+
+"I'll keep you informed of everything I'm doing and anything I may
+happen to discover, and you can give me very valuable information as to
+what precisely is known already. Otherwise, of course, one could hardly
+exchange confidences so freely. Frankly then, you engaged me to come
+down here?"
+
+Even then Simon's caution seemed to linger for an instant. The next he
+answered briefly but decidedly:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well, now to business. I got a certain amount of literature on the
+case before I left town, and Miss Peterkin gave me some very valuable
+additions in the shape of the accounts in the local papers. Are there
+any facts known to you or the police beyond those I have read?"
+
+Simon considered the question and then shook his head.
+
+"None that I can think of, and I fear the local police will be able to
+add no information that can assist you."
+
+"They are the usual not too intelligent country bobbies, I suppose?"
+
+"Quite so," said Simon.
+
+"In that case," asked Mr. Carrington, still in his easy voice, but with
+a quick turn of his eyeglass towards the lawyer, "why was no outside
+assistance called in at once?"
+
+For a moment Simon Rattar's satisfaction with his visitor seemed to be
+diminished. He seemed, in fact, a little disconcerted, and his reply
+again became little more than a grunt.
+
+"Quite satisfied with them," seemed to be the reading of his answer.
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "no doubt you knew best, Mr. Rattar."
+
+His eyes thoughtfully followed the smoke of his cigarette upwards for a
+moment, and then he said:
+
+"That being so, my first step had better be to visit Keldale House and
+see whether it is still possible to find any small point the local
+professionals have overlooked."
+
+Mr. Rattar seemed to disapprove of this.
+
+"Nothing to discover," said he. "And they will know what you have come
+about."
+
+Mr. Carrington smiled.
+
+"I think, Mr. Rattar, that, on the whole, my appearance provokes no
+great amount of suspicion."
+
+"Your appearance, no," admitted Simon, "but--"
+
+"Well, if I go to Keldale armed with a card of introduction from you, to
+make enquiry about the shootings, I think I can undertake to turn the
+conversation on to other matters without exciting suspicion."
+
+"Conversation with whom?" enquired the lawyer sceptically.
+
+"I had thought of Mr. Bisset, the butler."
+
+"Oh--" began Mr. Rattar with a note of surprise, and then pulled himself
+up.
+
+"Yes," smiled Mr. Carrington, "I have picked up a little about the
+household. My friends of last night were exceedingly communicative--very
+gossipy indeed. I rather gather that omniscience is Mr. Bisset's foible,
+and that he is not averse from conversation."
+
+The look in Simon's eye seemed to indicate that his respect for this
+easy-going young man was increasing; though whether his liking for him
+was also increased thereby was not so manifest. His reply was again a
+mere grunt.
+
+"Well, that can easily be arranged," said Carrington, "and it is
+obviously the first thing to do."
+
+He blew a ring of smoke from his lips, skilfully sent a second ring in
+chase of it, and then turning his monocle again on the lawyer, enquired
+(though not in a tone that seemed to indicate any very acute interest in
+the question):
+
+"Who do you think yourself murdered Sir Reginald Cromarty?"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+SIMON'S VIEWS
+
+
+"Well," said Mr. Rattar deliberately, "I think myself that the actual
+evidence is very slight and extremely inclusive."
+
+"You mean the direct evidence afforded by the unfastened window,
+position of the body, table said to have been overturned, and so forth?"
+
+"Exactly. That evidence is slight, but so far as it goes it seems to me
+to point to entry by the door and to the man having been in the house
+for some little time previously."
+
+"Well?" said Carrington in an encouraging voice.
+
+"So much for the direct evidence. I may be wrong, but that is my decided
+opinion. No bad characters are known to the police to have been in the
+county at that time, and there was no robbery."
+
+"Apparently confirming the direct evidence?"
+
+"Decidedly confirming it--or so it seems to me."
+
+"Then you think there is something in the popular theory that the
+present baronet and Miss Farmond were the guilty parties?"
+
+Simon was silent for a moment, but his face was unusually expressive.
+
+"I fear it looks like it."
+
+"An unpleasant conclusion for you to come to," observed Mr. Carrington.
+"You are the family lawyer, I understand."
+
+"Very unpleasant," Mr. Rattar agreed. "But, of course, there is no
+absolute proof."
+
+"Naturally; or they'd have been arrested by now. What sort of a fellow
+is Sir Malcolm?"
+
+"My own experience of him," said the lawyer drily, "is chiefly confined
+to his visits to my office to borrow money of me."
+
+"Indeed?" said Carrington with interest. "That sort of fellow, is he? He
+writes, I understand."
+
+Simon nodded.
+
+"Any other known vices?"
+
+"I know little about his vices except that they cost him considerably
+more than he could possibly have paid, had it not been for Sir
+Reginald's death."
+
+"So the motive is plain enough. Any evidence against him?"
+
+Simon pursed his lips and became exceedingly grave.
+
+"When questioned next morning by the superintendent of police and
+myself, he led us to understand that he had retired to bed early and was
+in no position to hear or notice anything. I have since found that he
+was in the habit of sitting up late."
+
+"'In the habit,'" repeated Carrington quickly. "But you don't suggest
+he sat up that night in particular?"
+
+"Undoubtedly he sat up that night."
+
+"But merely as he always did?"
+
+"He might have been waiting for his chance on the previous nights."
+
+Carrington smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then asked:
+
+"But there is no evidence that he left his room or was heard moving
+about that night, is there?"
+
+"There is not yet any positive evidence. But he was obviously in a
+position to do so."
+
+"Was his room near or over the library?"
+
+"N--no," said the fiscal, and there seemed to be a hint of reluctance in
+his voice.
+
+Carrington glanced at him quickly and then gazed up at the ceiling.
+
+"What sort of a girl is Miss Farmond?" he enquired next.
+
+"She is the illegitimate daughter of a brother of the late Sir
+Reginald's."
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"So I gathered from the local gossips. But that fact is hardly against
+her, is it?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Carrington looked a little surprised.
+
+"Girls don't generally murder their uncles for choice, in my own
+experience; especially if they are also their benefactors."
+
+"This was hardly the usual relationship," said the lawyer with a touch
+of significance.
+
+"Do you suggest that the irregularity is apt to breed crime?"
+
+Simon's grunt seemed to signify considerable doubt as to the morals of
+the type of relative.
+
+"But what sort of girl is she otherwise?"
+
+"I should call Miss Farmond the insinuating type. A young man like
+yourself would probably find her very attractive--at first anyhow."
+
+Mr. Carrington seemed to ponder for a moment on this suggestive
+description of Miss Farmond's allurements. And then he asked:
+
+"Is it the case that she is engaged to Sir Malcolm?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+Something in his voice seemed to make the lawyer reflect.
+
+"Is it called in question?" he asked.
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"By nobody who has spoken to me on the subject. But I understand that it
+has not yet been announced."
+
+"No," said Simon. "It was a secret engagement; and marriage would have
+been impossible while Sir Reginald lived."
+
+"So there we get the motive on her part. And you yourself, Mr. Rattar,
+_know_ both these young people, and you believe that this accusation
+against them is probably well founded?"
+
+"I believe, Mr. Carrington, that there is no proof and probably never
+will be any; but all the evidence, positive and negative, together with
+the question of motive, points to nobody else. What alternative is
+possible?"
+
+"That is the difficulty, so far," agreed Carrington, but his thoughts at
+the moment seemed to be following his smoke rings up towards the
+ceiling. For a few moments he was silent, and then he asked:
+
+"What other people benefited by the will and to what extent?"
+
+The lawyer went to his safe, brought out the will, and read through the
+legacies to the servants, mentioning that the chauffeur and gardener
+were excluded by circumstances from suspicion.
+
+"That leaves Mr. Bisset," observed Carrington. "Well, I shall be seeing
+him to-morrow. Any other legatees who might conceivably have committed
+the crime?"
+
+Simon looked serious and spoke with a little reluctance that he seemed
+to make no effort to conceal.
+
+"There is a relative of the family, a Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland, who
+certainly benefited considerably by the will and who certainly lives in
+the neighbourhood--if one once admitted the possibility of the crime
+being committed by some one outside the house. And I admit that it is a
+possibility."
+
+"Ah!" said Carrington. "I heard about him last night, but so far
+suspicion certainly hasn't fastened on him. What sort of a fellow is
+he?"
+
+"He has lived the greater part of his life in the wilder parts of
+America--rather what one might call a rough and ready customer."
+
+It was apparent that Mr. Carrington, for all his easy-going air, was
+extremely interested.
+
+"This is quite interesting!" he murmured. "To what extent did he benefit
+by the will?"
+
+"£1,200."
+
+"£1,200!" Carrington repeated the words with an odd intonation and
+stared very hard at the lawyer. There was no doubt that his interest was
+highly excited now, and yet it seemed to be rather a different quality
+of interest this time.
+
+"A considerable sum," said Simon.
+
+"That is the only point about it which strikes you?"
+
+Simon was manifestly puzzled.
+
+"What else?" he enquired.
+
+"No coincidence occurs to you?"
+
+The lawyer's puzzled look remained, and the next instant Carrington
+broke into a hearty laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rattar," he cried. "What an owl I am! I have
+just been dealing lately with a case where that sum of money was
+involved, and for the moment I mixed the two up together!" He laughed
+again, and then resuming his businesslike air, asked: "Now, what else
+about this Mr. Cromarty? You say he is a relation. Near or distant?"
+
+"Oh, quite distant. Another branch altogether."
+
+"Younger branch, I presume."
+
+"Poorer but not younger. He is said to be the head of the family."
+
+"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington, and this information seemed to have
+set him thinking again. "He is the head of the family, and I hear he
+took up the case with some energy."
+
+Simon's grunt seemed to be critical.
+
+"He got in our way," he said.
+
+"Got in your way, did he?"
+
+Carrington was silent for a few moments, and then said:
+
+"Well I am afraid I have taken up a great deal of your time. May I have
+a line of introduction to Mr. Bisset before I go?"
+
+While the line was being written he walked over to the fire and cleared
+the stump of his last cigarette out of the holder. This operation was
+very deliberately performed, and through it his eyes seemed scarcely to
+note what his hands were doing.
+
+He put the note in his pocket, shook hands, and then, just as he was
+going, he said:
+
+"I want to understand the lie of the land as exactly as possible. Your
+own attitude, so far has been, I take it--no proof, therefore no arrest;
+but a nasty family scandal left festering, so you decided to call me in.
+Now, I want to know this--is there anybody else in the neighbourhood who
+knows that I have been sent for?"
+
+Mr. Rattar replied with even more than his usual deliberation, and after
+what is said by foreigners to be the national habit, his reply
+consisted of another question.
+
+"You say that your employer made a particular point of having his
+identity concealed?"
+
+"Yes, a particular point."
+
+"Doesn't that answer your question, Mr. Carrington?"
+
+"No," said Carrington, "not in the least. I am asking now whether there
+is any other employer in this neighbourhood besides yourself. And I may
+say that I ask for the very good reason that it might be awkward for me
+if there were and I didn't know him, while if I did know him, I could
+consult with him if it happened to be advisable. Is there any one?"
+
+He seemed to hang on the lawyer's answer, and Simon to dislike making
+the answer.
+
+Yet when he did make it, it was quite emphatic.
+
+"No," he replied.
+
+"That's all right then," said Mr. Carrington with his brightest smile.
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Rattar."
+
+The smile faded from his ingenuous face the moment the door had closed
+behind him, and it was a very thoughtful Mr. Carrington who slowly went
+downstairs and strolled along the pavement. If his morning's interview
+had puzzled him, his afternoon's interview seemed to have baffled him
+completely. He even forgot to relapse into the thoughtless young
+sportsman when he entered the hotel, and his friend the manageress,
+after eyeing him with great surprise, cried archly:
+
+"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Carrington! About shooting or fishing,
+I'm sure!"
+
+Mr. Carrington recovered his pleasant spirits instantly.
+
+"Quite right," said he. "I was thinking about fishing--in very deep
+waters."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+MR. BISSET'S ASSISTANT
+
+
+At eleven o'clock next morning a motor car drove up to Keldale House and
+an exceedingly affable and pleasing stranger delivered a note from Mr.
+Simon Rattar to Mr. James Bisset. Even without an introduction, Mr.
+Carrington would have been welcome, for though Mr. Bisset's sway over
+Keldale House was by this time almost despotic, he had begun to find
+that despotism has its lonely side, and to miss "the gentry." With an
+introduction, Mr. Carrington quickly discovered that Mr. Bisset and the
+mansion he supervised were alike entirely at his disposal.
+
+The preliminary discussion on the sporting possibilities of the estate
+and the probability of its being let next season impressed Mr. Bisset
+very favourably indeed with his visitor; and then when the conversation
+had passed very naturally to the late tragedy in the house, he was still
+further delighted to find that Mr. Carrington not only shared his own
+detective enthusiasm, but was vastly interested in his views on this
+particular mystery.
+
+"Come along here, sir," said he, "we can just have a look at the
+library and I'll explain to you the principles of the thing."
+
+"I'd like to see the actual scene of the crime immensely!" cried Mr.
+Carrington eagerly. "You are sure that Lady Cromarty won't object?"
+
+"Not her," said Bisset. "She's never in this part of the house now.
+She'll be none the wiser anyhow."
+
+This argument seemed to assure Mr. Carrington completely, and they went
+along to the library.
+
+"Now," began Bisset, "I'll just explain to you the haill situation. Here
+where I'm laying this sofie cushion was the corp. Here where I'm
+standing the now was the wee table, and yon's the table itself."
+
+To the disquisition that followed, Mr. Carrington listened with the most
+intelligent air. Bisset had by this time evolved quite a number of new
+theories, but the one feature common to them all was the hypothesis that
+the murderer must have come in by the window and was certainly not an
+inmate of the household. His visitor said little till he had finished,
+and then he remarked:
+
+"Well, Bisset, you don't seem to put much faith in the current theory, I
+see."
+
+"Meaning that Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned?" said Bisset
+indignantly. "That's just the ignorance of the uneducated masses, sir!
+The thing's physically impossible, as I've just been demonstrating!"
+
+Carrington smiled and gently shook his head.
+
+"I don't know much about these things," said he, "but I'm afraid I can't
+see the physical impossibility. It was very easy for any one in the
+house to come downstairs and open that door, and if Sir Reginald knew
+him, it would account for his silence and the absence of any kind of a
+struggle."
+
+"But yon table and the windie being unfastened! And the mud I picked up
+myself--and the hearth brush!"
+
+"They scarcely make it impossible," said Carrington.
+
+"Well, sir," demanded the butler, "what's your own theory?"
+
+Carrington said nothing for several minutes. He strolled up and down the
+room, looked at the table and the window, and at last asked:
+
+"Do you remember quite distinctly what Sir Reginald looked like when you
+found him--the position of the body--condition of the clothes--and
+everything else?"
+
+"I see him lying there every night o' my life, just as plain as I see
+you now!"
+
+"The feet were towards the door, just as though he had been facing the
+door when he was struck down?"
+
+"Aye, but then my view is the body was moved----"
+
+He was interrupted by a curious performance on Mr. Carrington's part.
+His visitor was in fact stretching himself out on the floor on the spot
+where Sir Reginald was found.
+
+"He lay like this?" he asked.
+
+"Aye, practically just like that, sir."
+
+"Now, Bisset," said the recumbent visitor, "just have a very good look
+at me and tell me if you notice any difference between me and the body
+of Sir Reginald."
+
+Bisset looked for a few seconds and then exclaimed:
+
+"Your clothes are no alike! The master's coat was kind of pulled up like
+about his shoulders and neck. Oh, and I mind now the tag at the back for
+hanging it up was broken and sticking out."
+
+Carrington sprang to his feet with a gleam in his eye.
+
+"The tag was not broken before he put on the coat?"
+
+"It certainly was not that! But what's your deduction, sir?"
+
+Carrington smiled at him.
+
+"What do you think yourself, Bisset? You saw how I threw myself down
+quite carelessly and yet my coat wasn't pulled up like that."
+
+"God, sir!" cried the butler. "You mean the corp had been pulled along
+the floor by the shoulders!"
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"Then he had been killed near the windie!"
+
+"Not too fast, not too fast!" smiled Carrington. "Your own first
+statement which I happened to read in a back number of the newspaper
+the other day said that the windows were all fastened when Sir Reginald
+came into the room."
+
+"Ah, but I've been altering my opinion on that point, sir."
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"I'm afraid because a fastened window doesn't suit your theory."
+
+"But the master might have opened it to him, thinking it was some one he
+knew."
+
+"Sounds improbable," said Carrington thoughtfully.
+
+"But not just absolutely impossible."
+
+"No," said Carrington, still very thoughtfully, "not impossible."
+
+"Sir Reginald might never have seen it was a stranger till the man was
+fairly inside."
+
+Carrington smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Thin, Bisset; very thin. Why need the man have been a stranger at all?"
+
+Bisset's face fell.
+
+"But surely you're not believing yon story that it was Sir Malcolm and
+Miss Farmond after a'?"
+
+His visitor stood absolutely silent for a full minute. Then he seemed
+suddenly to banish the line of thought he was following.
+
+"Is it quite certain that those two are engaged?" he asked.
+
+Bisset's face showed his surprise at the question.
+
+"They all say so," said he.
+
+"Have either of them admitted it?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Why don't they acknowledge it now and get married?"
+
+"They say it's because they daurna for fear of the scandal."
+
+"'They' say again!" commented Carrington. "But, look here, Bisset, you
+have been in the house all the time. Did you think they were engaged?"
+
+"Honestly, sir, I did not. There's nae doubt Sir Malcolm was sweet on
+the young lady, but deil a sign of sweetness on him did I ever see in
+her!"
+
+"Do they correspond now?"
+
+Bisset shook his head.
+
+"Hardly at a'. But of course folks just say they are feared to now."
+
+"Has anybody asked either of them if they are--or ever were--engaged?"
+
+"No, sir. But if they denied it now, folks would just say the same
+thing."
+
+"Yes. I see--naturally. Lady Cromarty believes it and is keeping Miss
+Farmond under her eye, the gossips tell me. Is that so?"
+
+"Oh, that's true right enough, sir."
+
+"Who told Lady Cromarty?"
+
+"That I do not know, sir."
+
+Again the visitor seemed to be thinking, and again to cast his thoughts
+aside and take up a new aspect of the case.
+
+"Supposing," he suggested, "we were to draw the curtains and light these
+candles for a few minutes? It might help us to realise the whole
+thing."
+
+This suggestion pleased Mr. Bisset greatly and in a minute or two the
+candles were lit and the curtains drawn.
+
+"Put the table where it stood," said Carrington. "Now which was Sir
+Reginald's chair? This?"
+
+He sat in it and looked slowly round the darkened, candle-lit library.
+
+"Now," said he, "suppose I was Sir Reginald, and there came a tap at
+that window, what would I do?"
+
+"If you were the master, sir, you'd go straight to the windie to see who
+it was."
+
+"I wouldn't get in a funk and ring the bell?"
+
+"No fears!" said Bisset confidently.
+
+"And any one who knew Sir Reginald at all well could count on his not
+giving the alarm then if they tapped at the window?"
+
+"They could that."
+
+Carrington looked attentively towards the window.
+
+"Those curtains hang close against the window, I see," he observed. "A
+very slight gap in them would enable any one to get a good view of the
+room, if the blinds were not down. Were the blinds down that night?"
+
+Bisset slapped his knee.
+
+"The middle blind wasn't working!" he cried. "What a fool I've been not
+to think on the extraordinar' significance of that fac'! My, the
+deductions to be drawn! You've made it quite clear now, sir. The man
+tappit at that windie----"
+
+"Steady, steady!" said Carrington, smiling and yet seriously. "Don't you
+go announcing that theory! If there's anything in it--mum's the word!
+But mind you, Bisset, it's only a bare possibility. There's no good
+evidence against the door theory yet."
+
+"Not the table being cowpit and the body moved?"
+
+"They might be explained."
+
+He was thoughtful for a moment and then said deliberately:
+
+"I want--I mean you want certain evidence to exclude the door theory.
+Without that, the window theory remains a guess. Sir Malcolm is in
+London, I understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Likely to be coming north soon?"
+
+"No word of it, sir."
+
+Mr. Carrington reflected for a moment and then rose and went towards the
+window.
+
+"We can draw back the curtains now," said he.
+
+He drew them as he spoke and on the instant stepped involuntarily back
+and down went the small table. Miss Cicely Farmond was standing just
+outside, evidently arrested by the drawn curtains. Her eyes opened very
+wide indeed at the sight of Mr. Carrington suddenly revealed. Her lips
+parted for an instant as though she would cry out, and then she hurried
+away.
+
+Mr. Carrington seemed more upset by this incident than one would expect
+from such a composed, easy-going young man.
+
+"What will they think of me!" he exclaimed. "You must be sure to tell
+Miss Farmond--and Lady Cromarty too if she hears of this--that I came
+solely to enquire about the shootings and not to poke my nose into their
+library! Make that very explicit, Bisset."
+
+Even though assured by Bisset that the young lady was the most amiable
+person imaginable, he was continuing to lay stress on the point when his
+attention was abruptly diverted by the sight of another lady in deep
+black walking slowly away from the house.
+
+"Is that Lady Cromarty?" he asked, and no sooner had Bisset said "yes"
+than the window was up and Mr. Carrington stepping out of it.
+
+"I really must explain and apologise to her ladyship," said he.
+
+"Her ladyship will never know----!" began Bisset, but the surprising
+visitor was already hastening after the mourning figure. Had the worthy
+man been able to hear the conversation which ensued he would have been
+more surprised still.
+
+"Lady Cromarty, I believe?" said the stranger in a deferential voice.
+
+She turned quickly, and her eyes searched him with that hard glance they
+wore always nowadays.
+
+"Yes, I am Lady Cromarty," she said.
+
+"Pardon me for disturbing you," said he. "It is a mere brief matter of
+business. I represent an insurance company to which Sir Malcolm Cromarty
+has made certain proposals. We are not perfectly satisfied with his
+statements, and from other sources learn that he is engaged to be
+married. I have come simply to ascertain whether that is the case."
+
+Lady Cromarty was (as Mr. Carrington had shrewdly divined) no better
+versed in the intricate matter of insurance than the majority of her
+sex, and evidently perceived nothing very unusual in this enquiry. It
+may be added in her excuse that the manner in which it was put by the
+representative of the company was a perfect example of how a business
+man should address a lady.
+
+"It is the case," said she.
+
+"May I ask your ladyship's authority--in strict confidence of course?"
+enquired the representative firmly, but very courteously.
+
+"I learned it from my own man of business," said she.
+
+"Thank you," said the insurance representative. "I beg that your
+ladyship will say nothing of my call, and I shall undertake not to
+mention the source of my information," and with an adequate bow he
+returned to the house.
+
+Before disappearing through her library window, Mr. Carrington saw that
+her ladyship's back was turned, and he then gave this candid, if
+somewhat sketchy, account of his interview to her butler.
+
+"It suddenly struck me," said he, "that Lady Cromarty might think it
+somewhat unseemly of me to come enquiring about shooting so soon after
+her bereavement; so I gave her a somewhat different explanation. She is
+not likely to make any further enquiries about me and so you need say
+nothing about my visit."
+
+He was careful however to impress on his friend Mr. Bisset that he
+actually had come from purely sporting motives. In fact he professed
+some anxiety to get in touch with Sir Malcolm on the subject, even
+though assured that the young baronet had nothing to do with the
+shootings.
+
+"Ah, but it will gratify him, Bisset," said he, "and I think it is the
+nice thing to do. Could you give me his London address?"
+
+He jotted this down in his pocket book, and then as he was leaving he
+said confidentially:
+
+"You tell me that you think Sir Malcolm is interested in Miss Farmond,
+though she seemed not so keen on him?"
+
+"That was the way of it to my thinking," said Bisset. "And what
+deduction would you draw from that, sir?"
+
+"I should deduce," said this sympathetic and intelligent visitor, "the
+probable appearance of certain evidence bearing on our theories,
+Bisset."
+
+Mr. Bisset thought he had seldom met a pleasanter gentleman or a more
+helpful assistant.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+A TELEGRAM
+
+
+The car took Mr. Carrington straight back to the town and dropped him at
+the door of Mr. Rattar's office.
+
+"I shall want you again at two o'clock sharp," he said to the chauffeur,
+and turned in to the office.
+
+He caught the lawyer just before he went out to lunch and said at once:
+
+"I want to see Sir Malcolm Cromarty. Can you arrange for him to run up
+here for a day?"
+
+Simon stared at him hard, and there seemed to be even more caution than
+usual in his eye; almost, indeed, a touch of suspicion. The lawyer was
+not looking quite as well as usual; there was a drawn look about the
+upper part of the face and a hint of strain both in eyes and mouth.
+
+"Why do you want to see Sir Malcolm?" he enquired.
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "the fact of the matter is, Mr. Rattar, that,
+as you yourself said, the direct evidence is practically nil, and one is
+forced to go a good deal by one's judgment of the people suspected or
+concerned."
+
+Simon grunted sceptically.
+
+"Very misleading," he said.
+
+"That depends entirely on one's judgment, or rather on one's instinct
+for distinguishing bad eggs from good. As a matter of observation I
+don't find that certain types of men and women commit certain actions,
+and I do find that they are apt to commit others. And contrariwise with
+other types."
+
+"Very unsafe doctrine," said Simon emphatically.
+
+"Extremely--in the hands of any one who doesn't know how to apply it. On
+the other hand, it can be made a short and commonsense cut to the truth
+in many cases. For instance, the man who suspected Mr. Bisset of
+committing the crime would simply be wasting his time and energy, even
+if there seemed to be some evidence against him."
+
+"Any man can commit any crime," said Simon dogmatically.
+
+Carrington smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Personally," said he, "if you had a young and pretty wife, I am capable
+of running away with her, and possibly even of letting her persuade me
+to abscond with some of your property, but I am not capable of laying
+you out in cold blood and rifling that safe. And a good judge of men
+ought to be able to perceive this and not waste his time in trying to
+convict me of an offence I couldn't commit. On the other hand, if the
+crime was one that my type is apt to commit he would be a fool to acquit
+me off-hand, even if there was next to no evidence against me."
+
+"Then you simply go by your impressions of people?"
+
+"Far from it. A complete absence of motive would force me to acquit even
+the most promising looking blackguard, unless of course there were some
+form of lunacy in his case. One must have motive and one must have
+evidence as well, but character is the short cut--if the circumstances
+permit you to use it. Sometimes of course they don't, but in this case
+they force me to depend on it very largely. Therefore I want to see Sir
+Malcolm Cromarty."
+
+The lawyer shook his head.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Carrington," he said, "I can't bring him down here on such
+trivial grounds."
+
+"But you yourself suspect him!"
+
+For a moment the lawyer was silent.
+
+"I think suspicion points to him; but what is wanted is _evidence_. You
+can't get evidence merely by bringing him here. You don't suppose he
+will confess, do you?"
+
+"Have you ever studied the French methods of getting at the truth?"
+enquired Carrington, and when Simon shook his head contemptuously, he
+added with some significance: "We can learn a good deal from our
+neighbours."
+
+"Trivial grounds!" muttered Simon. "No, no!"
+
+Carrington became unusually serious and impressive.
+
+"I am investigating this case, Mr. Rattar, and I want to see Sir
+Malcolm. Will you send for him or not?"
+
+"He wouldn't come."
+
+"It depends on the urgency of the message."
+
+"I can't invent bogus urgent messages to my clients."
+
+Carrington smiled.
+
+"I might do the inventing for you."
+
+Again the lawyer stared at him and again there was the same extreme
+caution in his eye, mingled with a hint of suspicion.
+
+"I'll think about it," he said.
+
+"I want to see him immediately."
+
+"Call again to-morrow morning."
+
+Carrington's manner altered at once into his usual easy-going air.
+
+"Very well, then, Mr. Rattar," said he as he rose.
+
+"By the way," said Simon, "you have been out at Keldale this morning, I
+presume?"
+
+"Yes," said Carrington carelessly, "but there is really nothing new to
+be found."
+
+Simon looked at him hard.
+
+"No fresh evidence?"
+
+Carrington laughed.
+
+"Not likely, after you and your sleuth hounds had been over the ground!"
+
+He went to the door, and there Simon again spoke.
+
+"What are you doing next?"
+
+"Upon my word, I am rather wondering. I must think about it. Good
+morning."
+
+For a man who was rather wondering, Mr. Carrington's next movements were
+remarkably prompt. He first went straight to the Post Office and
+dispatched a wire. It was addressed to Sir Malcolm Cromarty and it
+ran--"Come immediately urgent news don't answer please don't delay." The
+only thing that seemed to indicate a wondering and abstracted mind was
+the signature to this message. Instead of "Carrington" he actually wrote
+"Cicely Farmond."
+
+He then hurried to the hotel, which he reached at one-fifty. In ten
+minutes he had bolted a hasty lunch and at two o'clock was sitting in
+the car again.
+
+"To Stanesland Castle," he commanded. "And be as quick as you can."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+AT STANESLAND
+
+
+Mr. Carrington's interview with the laird of Stanesland began on much
+the same lines as his talk with Bisset. The amiable visitor was shown
+into the laird's smoking room--an apartment with vast walls like a
+dungeon and on them trophies from the laird's adventurous days, and
+proceeded to make enquiry whether Mr. Cromarty was disposed to let his
+shootings for next season, or, if not, whether he could recommend any
+others.
+
+As the visitor was in no hurry, he declared, to fix anything up, it was
+very natural that this conversation, like the morning's, should
+eventually turn on to the subject of the great local mystery. Through it
+all Mr. Carrington's monocle was more continually fixed on the other
+than usual, but if he were looking for peculiarities in the laird's
+manner or any admissions made either by tongue or eye, he was
+disappointed. Cromarty was as breezy and as direct as ever, but even
+when his visitor confessed his extreme interest in such cases of
+remarkable crime, he (to all seeming) scented nothing in this beyond a
+not uncommon hobby. There was no doubt, however, of his keenness to
+discuss the subject. Carrington gave him an entertaining account of his
+efforts to assist Mr. Bisset, and then Ned asked:
+
+"Well, what do you think of his theory that the man came in by the
+window?"
+
+Carrington smiled.
+
+"Bisset is evidently extremely anxious to save the credit of the
+family."
+
+Ned Cromarty was aroused now.
+
+"Good God!" he cried. "But do you mean to say that you think that story
+will hold water?"
+
+"What story?" enquired Carrington mildly.
+
+"You know what I mean--the scandal that Sir Malcolm and--and a lady were
+concerned in the murder."
+
+"They are said to have actually committed it, aren't they?"
+
+Ned's eye began to look dangerous.
+
+"Do you think it's credible?" he asked brusquely.
+
+"You know them better than I. Do you think it is?"
+
+"Not for an instant!"
+
+"I haven't met Sir Malcolm," said Carrington, wiping his eyeglass on his
+handkerchief. "I can't judge of him. What sort of a fellow is he?"
+
+"A bit of a young squirt," said Ned candidly. "But I'll not believe he's
+a murderer till I get some proof of it."
+
+"And Miss Farmond? Is she at all a murderous lady?"
+
+He fixed his monocle in his eye just in time to see his host control
+himself after what seemed to have been a somewhat violent spasm.
+
+"I'll stake my life on her innocence!" said Ned, and it was hard to know
+whether his manner as he said this should be termed fierce or solemn.
+
+For the space of perhaps two seconds Carrington's eyeglass stared very
+straight at him, and immediately afterwards was taken out for cleaning
+again, while its owner seemed to have found some new food for thought.
+The silence was broken by Ned asking brusquely:
+
+"Don't you believe me?"
+
+Again his visitor fixed the monocle in his eye, and he answered now very
+quietly and deliberately:
+
+"I happened to meet a young lady one afternoon, whom I discovered to be
+Miss Farmond. My own impression--for what it is worth--is that it would
+be a mere waste of time to investigate the suspicion against her,
+supposing, that is, that one were a detective or anything of that kind
+engaged in this case."
+
+"You think she is innocent?" asked Ned eagerly.
+
+"I am quite certain of it, so far as I am any judge."
+
+Ned heaved a sigh of relief, and for an instant a smile flitted across
+Carrington's face. It seemed as though he were amused at such a tribute
+to the opinion of a mere chance visitor.
+
+"And Sir Malcolm?" enquired Ned.
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"I have no means of judging--yet."
+
+Ned glanced at him quickly.
+
+"Do you expect to get hold of a means?"
+
+Carrington's smile was his only answer to the question. And then, still
+smiling, he said:
+
+"I rather wonder, Mr. Cromarty, that you who have taken so much interest
+in this case, and who are, I am told, the head of the family, don't get
+some professional assistance to help you to get at the bottom of it."
+
+Ned's mouth shut hard and his eyes turned to the fire. He said nothing
+for a moment and then remarked:
+
+"Well, I guess that's worth thinking over."
+
+Carrington's shoulders moved in an almost imperceptible shrug, but he
+made no comment aloud. In a moment Ned said:
+
+"Supposing those two are scored out, there doesn't seem to be anybody
+else inside the house who could have committed the crime, does there?
+You wouldn't suspect Lady Cromarty or Bisset, would you?"
+
+"Lady Cromarty is physically incapable of giving her husband the blow he
+must have received. Besides, they were a very devoted couple, I
+understand, and she gained nothing by his death--lost heavily, in fact.
+As for Bisset----" Carrington let his smile finish the sentence.
+
+"Then it must have been some one from outside--but who?"
+
+"Can you think of any one?" asked Carrington.
+
+Ned shook his head emphatically.
+
+"Can you?" he asked.
+
+"Me?" said his visitor with an innocent air, and yet with a twinkle for
+an instant in his eye. "I am a mere stranger to the place, and if you
+and Mr. Rattar and the police are baffled, what can I suggest?"
+
+Ned seemed for a moment a trifle disconcerted. Then he said:
+
+"That's so, of course, Mr. Carrington. But since we happen to be talking
+about it--well, I guess I'm quite curious to know if any ideas have just
+happened to occur to you."
+
+"Well," said the other, "between ourselves, Mr. Cromarty, and speaking
+quite confidentially, one idea has struck me very forcibly."
+
+"What's that?" asked Ned eagerly.
+
+"Simply this, that though it _might_ be conceivable to think of somebody
+or other, the difficulty that stares me in the face is--motive!"
+
+Ned's face fell.
+
+"Well, that's what has struck all of us."
+
+"Sir Reginald was a popular landlord, I hear."
+
+"The most popular in the county."
+
+"This isn't Ireland," continued Carrington. "Tenants don't lay out their
+landlords on principle, and in this particular instance they would
+simply stand to lose by his death. Then take his tradesmen and his agent
+and so on, they all stand to lose too. An illicit love affair and a
+vengeful swain might be a conceivable theory, if his character gave
+colour to it; but there's not a hint of that, and some rumour would
+have got about for certain if that had been the case."
+
+"You may dismiss that," said Ned emphatically.
+
+"Then there you are--what's the motive?"
+
+"If one could think of a possible man, one could probably think of a
+possible motive."
+
+On Carrington's face a curious look appeared for an instant.
+
+"I only wish one could," he murmured.
+
+A gong sounded and Ned rose.
+
+"That means tea," said he. "I always have it in my sister's room. Come
+up."
+
+They went up the stone stair and turned into Miss Cromarty's boudoir. On
+her, Mr. Carrington produced a favourable impression that was evident at
+once. At all times she liked good-looking and agreeable gentlemen, and
+lately she had been suffering from a dearth of them. She had been
+suffering also from her brother's pig-headed refusal to reconsider his
+decision not to buy a car; and finally from the lack of some one to
+sympathise with her in this matter. In the opulent-looking and
+sportingly attired Mr. Carrington she quickly perceived a kindred
+spirit, and having a tongue that was not easily intimidated even by the
+formidable looking laird, she launched into her grievance. They had been
+talking about the long distances that separated most of the mansions in
+the county.
+
+"Isn't it ridiculous, Mr. Carrington," said she, "we haven't got a car!"
+
+"Absurd," agreed Mr. Carrington, helping himself to cake.
+
+"Do you know, this brother of mine here has actually come into a
+fortune, and yet he won't buy me even one little motor car!"
+
+Ned frowned and muttered something that might have checked their
+visitor's reply, had he noticed the laird's displeasure, but for the
+moment he seemed to have become very unobserving.
+
+"Come into a fortune?" said he. "What a bit of luck! How much--a
+million--two million?"
+
+"Oh, not as much as that, worse luck! But quite enough to buy at least
+three decent cars if he was half a sportsman! And he won't get one!"
+
+Mr. Carrington was now trying to balance his cake in his saucer and was
+evidently too absorbed in his efforts to notice his host's waxing
+displeasure.
+
+"In my experience," said he, "you can't get a decent car much under four
+hundred."
+
+"Well," said she, "that's just the figure it would bring it to."
+
+"Lilian!" muttered her brother wrathfully.
+
+But at that moment Mr. Carrington coughed, evidently over a cake crumb,
+and failed to hear the expostulation.
+
+"But perhaps he is going to buy you something even handsomer instead,"
+he suggested.
+
+"Is he!" she scoffed, with a defiant eye on her brother. "I believe he's
+going to blue it in something too scandalous to talk about in mixed
+society! Anyhow it's something too mysterious to tell me!"
+
+By this time Ned's face was a thundercloud in which lightning was
+clearly imminent, but Mr. Carrington now recovered his wonted tact as
+suddenly as he had lost it.
+
+"That reminds me of a very curious story I heard at my club the other
+day," he began, and in a few minutes the conversation was far away from
+Miss Cromarty's grievances. And then, having finished his cup of tea, he
+looked at his watch with an exclamation and protested that he must
+depart on the instant.
+
+As he lay back in his car he murmured with a satisfied smile:
+
+"That's settled anyhow!"
+
+And then for the whole drive home he fell very thoughtful indeed. Only
+one incident aroused him, and that but for a moment. It was quite dark
+by this time, and somewhere between the Keldale House lodge and the
+town, the lamps of the car swept for an instant over a girl riding a
+bicycle in the opposite direction. Carrington looked round quickly and
+saw that she was Miss Cicely Farmond.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+FLIGHT
+
+
+On the morning after his visit from Mr. Carrington, Ned Cromarty took
+his keeper with him and drove over to shoot on a friend's estate. He
+stayed for tea and it was well after five o'clock and quite dark when he
+started on his long drive home. The road passed close to a wayside
+station with a level crossing over the line, and when they came to this
+the gates were closed against them and the light of the signal of the up
+line had changed from red to white.
+
+"Train's up to time," said Ned to the keeper. "I thought we'd have got
+through before she came."
+
+There was no moon, a fine rain hung in the air, and the night was
+already pitch dark. Sitting there in the dogcart before the closed
+gates, behind the blinding light of the gig lamps, they were quite
+invisible themselves; but about thirty yards to their left they saw the
+station platform plainly in the radiance of its lights, and, straight
+before them in the radiance of their own, they could see less distinctly
+the road beyond the line.
+
+At first, save for the distant rumble of the southward bound train,
+there was no sign of life or of movement anywhere, and then all at once
+a figure on a bicycle appeared on the road, and in a moment dismounted
+beside the station. It was a girl in black, and at the sight of her, Ned
+bent forward suddenly in his driving seat and stared intently into the
+night. He saw her unstrap a small suit case from the bicycle and lead
+the bicycle into the station. A minute or two passed and then she
+emerged from the ticket office on to the platform carrying the suit case
+in her hand. The bicycle she had evidently left in the station, and it
+seemed manifest that she was going by this train.
+
+"That's Miss Farmond, sir, from Keldale House!" exclaimed the keeper.
+
+His master said nothing but kept his eye intently fixed on the girl. One
+of the platform lamps lit her plainly, and he thought she looked the
+most forlorn and moving sight that had ever stirred his heart. There was
+something shrinking in her attitude, and when she looked once for a few
+moments straight towards him, there seemed to be something both sad and
+frightened in her face. Not another soul was on the platform, and seen
+in that patch of light against an immensity of dark empty country and
+black sky, she gave him such an impression of friendlessness that he
+could scarcely stay in his seat. And all the while the roar of the
+on-coming train was growing louder and ever louder. In a few minutes she
+would be gone--"Where?" he asked himself.
+
+"I'm wondering where she'll be going at this time o' night with nae
+mair luggage than yon," said the keeper.
+
+That decided it.
+
+"Take the trap home and tell Miss Cromarty not to expect me to-night,"
+said his master, quickly. "Say I've gone--oh, anywhere you derned well
+like! There's something up and I'm going to see what it is."
+
+He jumped quietly on the road just as the engine thundered between the
+gates in front. By the time the train was at rest, he was over the gate
+and making his way to the platform. He stopped in the darkness by the
+rear end of the train till he saw the figure in black disappear into a
+carriage, and then he stepped into a compartment near the guard's van.
+
+"Haven't got a ticket, but I'll pay as I go along," he said to the guard
+as he passed the window.
+
+The guard knew Mr. Cromarty well and touched his cap, and then the train
+started and Mr. Cromarty was embarked upon what he confessed to himself
+was the blindest journey he had ever made in all his varied career.
+
+Where was she going--and why was she going? He asked himself these
+questions over and over again as he sat with a cigar between his teeth
+and his long legs stretched out on the opposite seat, and the train
+drove on into an ever wilder and more desolate land. It would be very
+many miles and a couple of hours or more before they reached any sort of
+conceivable destination for her, and as a matter of fact this train did
+not go beyond that destination. Then it struck him sharply that up till
+the end of last month the train had continued its southward journey. The
+alteration in the timetable was only a few days old. Possibly she was
+not aware of it and had counted on travelling to--where? He knew where
+she had got to stop, but where had she meant to stop? Or where would she
+go to-morrow? And above all, why was she going at all, leaving her
+bicycle at a wayside station and with her sole luggage a small suit
+case? Ned shook his head, tried to suck life into his neglected cigar,
+and gave up the problem in the meanwhile.
+
+As to the question of what business he had to be following Miss Farmond
+like this, he troubled his head about it not at all. If she needed him,
+here he was. If she didn't, he would clear out. But very strong and very
+urgent was the conviction that she required a friend of some sort.
+
+The stations were few and far between and most desolate, improbable
+places as endings for Cicely Farmond's journey. He looked out of the
+window at each of them, but she never alighted.
+
+"She's going to find herself stuck for the night. That's about the size
+of it," he said to himself as they left the last station before the
+journey ended.
+
+Though their next stop was the final stop, he did not open the carriage
+door when the train pulled up. He did not even put his head far out of
+the window, only just enough to see what passed on the platform ahead.
+
+"I'm not going to worry her if she doesn't need me," he said to himself.
+
+He saw the slip of a figure in black talking to the stationmaster, and
+it was hardly necessary to hear that official's last words in order to
+divine what had happened.
+
+"Weel, miss," he overheard the stationmaster say, "I'm sorry ye're
+disappointed, but it's no me that has stoppit the train. It's aff for
+the winter. If ye turn to the left ye'll fin' the hotel."
+
+The girl looked round her slowly and it seemed to Ned that the way she
+did it epitomised disappointment and desolation, and then she hurried
+through the station buildings and was gone.
+
+He was out of the carriage and after her in an instant. Beyond the
+station the darkness was intense and he had almost passed a road
+branching to the left without seeing it. He stopped and was going to
+turn down it when it struck him the silence was intense that way, but
+that there was a light sound of retreating footsteps straight ahead.
+
+"She's missed the turning!" he said to himself, and followed the
+footsteps.
+
+In a little he could see her against the sky, a dim hurrying figure, and
+his own stride quickened. He had never been in this place before, but he
+knew it for a mere seaboard village with an utterly lonely country on
+every inland side. She was heading into a black wilderness, and he took
+his decision at once and increased his pace till he was overhauling her
+fast.
+
+At the sound of his footsteps he could see that she glanced over her
+shoulder and made the more haste till she was almost running. And then
+as she heard the pursuing steps always nearer she suddenly slackened
+speed to let him pass.
+
+"Miss Farmond!" said he.
+
+He could hear her gasp as she stopped short and turned sharply. She was
+staring hard now at the tall figure looming above her.
+
+"It's only me--Ned Cromarty," he said quietly.
+
+And then he started in turn, for instead of showing relief she gave a
+half smothered little cry and shrank away from him. For a moment there
+was dead silence and then he said, still quietly, though it cost him an
+effort.
+
+"I only mean to help you if you need a hand. Are you looking for the
+hotel?"
+
+"Yes," she said in a low frightened voice.
+
+"Well," said he, "I guess you'd walk till morning before you reached an
+hotel along this road. You missed the turning at the station. Give me
+your bag. Come along!"
+
+She let him take the suit case and she turned back with him, but it
+struck him painfully that her docility was like that of a frightened
+animal.
+
+"Where are you bound for?" he enquired in his usual direct way.
+
+She murmured something that he could not catch and then they fell
+altogether silent till they had retraced their road to the station and
+turned down towards a twinkling light or two which showed where the
+village lay.
+
+"Now, Miss Farmond," said he, "we are getting near this pub and as we've
+both got to spend the night there, you'll please observe these few short
+and simple rules. I'm your uncle--Uncle Ned. D'you see?"
+
+There was no laugh, or even a smile from her. She gave a little start of
+surprise and in a very confused voice murmured:
+
+"Yes, I see."
+
+"My full name is Mr. Ned Dawkins and you're Louisa Dawkins my niece.
+Just call me 'Uncle Ned' and leave me to do the talking. We are touring
+this beautiful country and I've lost my luggage owing to the derned
+foolishness of the railroad officials here. And then when we've had a
+little bit of dinner you can tell me, if you like, why you've eloped and
+why you've got a down on me. Or if you don't like to, well, you needn't.
+Ah, here's the pub at last."
+
+He threw open the door and in a loud and cheerful voice cried:
+
+"Well, here we are, Louisa. Walk right in, my dear!"
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+His friends would scarcely have picked out Mr. Ned Cromarty of
+Stanesland as likely to make a distinguished actor, but they might have
+changed their opinion had they heard him breezily announce himself as
+Mr. Dawkins from Liverpool and curse the Scottish railways which had
+lost his luggage for him. It is true that the landlord looked at him a
+trifle askance and that the landlady and her maid exchanged a knowing
+smile when he ordered a room for his niece Louisa, but few people shut
+up in a little country inn with such a formidable looking, loud voiced
+giant, would have ventured to question his statements openly, and the
+equanimity of Mr. Dawkins remained undisturbed.
+
+"Sit right down, Louisa!" he commanded when dinner was served; and then,
+addressing the maid, "You needn't wait. We'll ring when we need you."
+
+But the moment she had gone he checked a strong expression with an
+effort.
+
+"Damn--confound it!" he cried. "I ought to have remembered to say grace!
+That would have given just the finishing touch to the Uncle Ned
+business. However, I don't think they've smelt any rats."
+
+Cicely smiled faintly and then her eyes fell and she answered nothing.
+Their only other conversation during dinner consisted in his
+expostulations on her small appetite and her low-voiced protests that
+she wasn't hungry. But when it was safely over, he pushed back his
+chair, crossed his knees, and began:
+
+"Now, Louisa, I'm going to take an uncle's privilege of lighting my pipe
+before I begin to talk, if you don't mind."
+
+He lit his pipe, and then suddenly dropping the rôle of uncle
+altogether, said gently:
+
+"I don't want to press you with any questions that you don't want to
+answer, but if you need a friend of any sort, size, or description, here
+I am." He paused for a moment and then asked still more gently: "Are you
+afraid of me?"
+
+For the first time she let her long-lashed eyes rest full on his face
+and in her low voice, she answered:
+
+"Partly afraid."
+
+"And partly what else?"
+
+"Partly puzzled--and partly ashamed."
+
+"Ashamed!" he exclaimed with a note of indignant protest. "Ashamed of
+what?"
+
+"The exhibition I've made of myself," she said, her voice still very
+low.
+
+"Well," he smiled, "that's a matter of opinion. But why are you afraid?"
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed. "You know of course!"
+
+He stared at her blankly.
+
+"I pass; I can't play to that!" he replied. "I honestly do not know,
+Miss Farmond."
+
+Her eyes opened very wide.
+
+"That's what I meant when I said I was puzzled. You _must_ know--and
+yet----!"
+
+She broke off and looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"Look here," said he, "some one's got to solve this mystery, and I'll
+risk a leading question. Why did you run away?"
+
+"Because of what you have been doing!"
+
+"_Me_ been doing! And what have I been doing?"
+
+"Suspecting me and setting a detective to watch me!"
+
+Ned's one eye opened wide, but for a moment he said not a word. Then he
+remarked quietly:
+
+"This is going to be a derned complicated business. Just you begin at
+the beginning, please, and let's see how things stand. Who told you I
+was setting a detective on to you?"
+
+"I found out myself I was being watched."
+
+"How and when?"
+
+She hesitated, and the doubtful look returned to her eyes.
+
+"Come, Louisa!" he said. "No nonsense this time! We've got to have this
+out--or my name's Dawkins!"
+
+For the first time she smiled spontaneously, and the doubtful look
+almost vanished. Just a trace was left, but her voice, though still very
+low, was firmer now.
+
+"I only discovered for the first time the wicked suspicion about poor
+Malcolm," she said, "when I met a gentleman a few days ago who told me
+he had heard Malcolm was arrested for the murder of Sir Reginald."
+
+"But that's not true!" cried Ned.
+
+"No, and he admitted it was only a story he had heard at the hotel, but
+it suddenly seemed to throw light on several things I hadn't been able
+to understand. I spoke to Lady Cromarty about it, and then I actually
+found that I was suspected too!"
+
+"Did she tell you so?"
+
+"Not in so many words, but I knew what was in her mind. And then the
+very next day I caught the same man examining the library with Bisset
+and I saw him out of the window follow Lady Cromarty and speak to her,
+and then I knew he was a detective!"
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Oh, by instinct, and I was right! The position was so horrible--so
+unbearable, that I went in to see Mr. Rattar about it."
+
+"Why Rattar?"
+
+"Because he is the family lawyer and he's also investigating the case,
+and I thought of course he was employing the detective. And Mr. Rattar
+told me you were really employing him. Are you?"
+
+There was a pleading note in this question--a longing to hear the answer
+"No" that seemed to affect Ned strangely.
+
+"It's all right, Miss Farmond!" he said. "Don't you worry! I got that
+man down here to clear you--just for that purpose and no other!"
+
+"But----" she exclaimed, "Mr. Rattar said you suspected Malcolm and me
+and were determined to prove our guilt!"
+
+"Simon Rattar said that!"
+
+There was something so menacing in his voice that Cicely involuntarily
+shrank back.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, honour bright, that Simon Rattar told you that
+lie in so many words?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "he did indeed. And he said that this Mr. Carrington
+was a very clever man and was almost certain to trump up a very strong
+case against us, and so he advised me to go away."
+
+He seemed almost incapable of speech at this.
+
+"He actually advised you to bolt?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"To slip away quietly to London and stay in an hotel he recommended till
+I heard from him. He said you had sworn to track down the criminals and
+hang them with your own hands, and so when I saw you suddenly come up
+behind me in that dark road to-night--oh, you've no idea how terrified I
+was! Mr. Rattar had frightened away all the nerve I ever had, and then
+when I thought I was safely away, you suddenly came up behind me in that
+dark road!"
+
+"You poor little----" he began, laying his hand upon hers, and then he
+remembered Sir Malcolm and altered his sentence into: "You know now
+that was all one infernal pack of lies, don't you?"
+
+Though he took away his hand, she had not moved her own, and she gave
+him now a look which richly rewarded him for his evening's work.
+
+"I believe every word you tell me," she said.
+
+"Well then," said Ned, "I tell you that I got this fellow Carrington
+down to take up the case so that I could clear you in the first place
+and find the right man in the second. So as to give him an absolutely
+clear field, he wasn't told who was employing him, and then he could
+suspect me myself if he wanted to. As a matter of fact, I rather think
+he has guessed who's running him. Anyhow, yesterday afternoon he told me
+straight and emphatically that he knew you were innocent. So you've run
+away a day too late!"
+
+She laughed at last, and then fell serious again.
+
+"But what did Mr. Rattar mean by saying you had engaged the detective
+because you suspected Malcolm and me?"
+
+"That's precisely what I want to find out," said Ned grimly. "He could
+guess easy enough who was employing Carrington, because I had suggested
+getting a detective, only Simon wouldn't rise to it. But as to saying I
+suspected you, he knew that was a lie, and I can only suspect he's
+getting a little tired of life!"
+
+They talked on for a little longer, still sitting by the table, with her
+eyes now constantly smiling into his, until at last he had to remind
+himself so vigorously of the absent and lucky baronet that the pleasure
+began to ebb. And then they said good-night and he was left staring
+into the fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning they faced one another in a first class carriage on a
+homeward bound train.
+
+"What shall I say to Lady Cromarty?" she asked, half smiling, half
+fearfully.
+
+He reflected for a few minutes.
+
+"Tell her the truth. Lies don't pay in the long run. I can bear witness
+to this part of the story, and to the Carrington part if necessary,
+though I don't want to give him away if I can help it."
+
+"Oh no!" she said, "we mustn't interfere with him. But supposing Lady
+Cromarty doesn't believe----"
+
+"Come straight to Stanesland! Will you?"
+
+"Run away again?"
+
+"It's the direction you run in that matters," said he. "Now, mind you,
+that's understood!"
+
+She was silent for a little and then she said:
+
+"I can't understand why these horrible stories associate Malcolm and me.
+Why should we have conspired to do such a dreadful thing?"
+
+He stared at her, and then hesitated.
+
+"Because--well, being engaged to him----"
+
+"Engaged to Malcolm!" she exclaimed. "Whatever put that into people's
+heads?"
+
+"What!" he cried. "Aren't you?"
+
+"Good gracious no! Was _that_ the reason then?"
+
+He seemed too lost in his own thoughts to answer her; but they were
+evidently not unhappy thoughts this time.
+
+"Who can have started such a story?" she demanded.
+
+"Who started it?" he repeated and then was immersed in thought again;
+only now there was a grim look on his face.
+
+"Well anyhow," he cried, in a minute or two, "we're out of that wood!
+Aren't we, Louisa?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle Ned," she smiled back.
+
+He stirred impulsively in his seat and then seemed to check himself, and
+for the rest of the journey he appeared to be divided between content
+with the present hour and an impulse to improve upon it. And then before
+he had realised where they were, they had stopped at a station, and she
+was exclaiming:
+
+"Oh, I must get out here! I've left my bike in the station!"
+
+"Look here," said he, with his hand on the door handle, "before you go
+you've got to swear that you'll come straight to Stanesland if there's
+another particle of trouble. Swear?"
+
+"But what about Miss Cromarty?" she smiled.
+
+"Miss Cromarty will say precisely the same as I do," he said with a
+curiously significant emphasis. "So now, I don't open this door till you
+promise!"
+
+"I promise!" said she, and then she was standing on the platform waving
+a farewell.
+
+"I half wish I'd risked it!" he said to himself with a sigh as the train
+moved on, and then he ruminated with an expression on his face that
+seemed to suggest a risk merely deferred.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER
+
+
+Ned Cromarty found his sister in her room.
+
+"Well, Ned," she asked, "where on earth have you been?"
+
+He shut the door before he answered, and then came up to the fireplace,
+and planted himself in front of her.
+
+"Who told you that Cicely Farmond was engaged to Malcolm Cromarty?" he
+demanded.
+
+She made a little grimace of comic alarm, but her eye was apprehensive.
+
+"Don't eat my head off, Neddy! How can I remember?"
+
+"You've got to remember," said her brother grimly. "And you'd better be
+careful what you tell me, for I'll go straight to the woman, or man, you
+name."
+
+She looked at him boldly enough.
+
+"I don't know if you are aware of it, but this isn't the way I'm
+accustomed to be talked to."
+
+"It's the way you're being talked to now," said he. "Who told you?"
+
+"I absolutely refuse to answer if you speak to me like that, Ned!"
+
+"Then we part company, Lilian."
+
+There was no doubt about the apprehension in her eye now. For a moment
+it seemed to wonder whether he was actually in earnest, and then to
+decide that he was.
+
+"I--I don't know who told me," she said in an altered voice.
+
+"Did anybody tell you, or did you make it up?"
+
+"I never actually said they were engaged."
+
+He looked at her in silence and very hard, and then he spoke
+deliberately.
+
+"I won't ask you why you deceived me, Lilian, but it was a low down
+trick to play on me, and it has turned out to be a damned cruel trick to
+play on that girl. I mentioned the engagement as a mere matter of course
+to somebody, and though I mentioned it confidentially, it started this
+slander about Malcolm Cromarty and Cicely Farmond conspiring to
+murder--to _murder_, Lilian!--the man of all men they owed most to.
+That's what you've done!"
+
+By this time Lilian Cromarty's handkerchief was at her eyes.
+
+"I--I am very sorry, Ned," she murmured.
+
+But he was not to be soothed by a tear, even in the most adroit lady's
+eye.
+
+"The latest consequence has been," he said sternly, "that through a
+mixture of persecution and bad advice she has been driven to run away.
+Luckily I spotted her at the start and fetched her back, and I've told
+her that if there is the least little bit more trouble she is to come
+straight here and that you will give her as good a welcome as I shall.
+Is that quite clear?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured through her handkerchief.
+
+"Otherwise," said he, "there's no room for us both here. One single
+suggestion that she isn't welcome--and you have full warning now of the
+consequences!"
+
+"When is she coming?" she asked in an uncertain voice.
+
+"When? Possibly never. But there's some very fishy--and it looks to me,
+some very dirty business going on, and this port stands open in case of
+a storm. You fully understand?"
+
+"Of course I do," she said, putting away her handkerchief. "I'm not
+quite a fool!"
+
+And indeed, none of her friends or acquaintances had ever made that
+accusation against Lilian Cromarty.
+
+"Well, that's all," said Ned, and began to move across the room.
+
+But now the instinct for finding a scapegoat began to revive.
+
+"Who did you tell it to, Ned?" she asked.
+
+"Simon Rattar."
+
+"Then _he_ has spread this dreadful story!" she exclaimed with righteous
+indignation.
+
+Her brother stopped and slowly turned back.
+
+"By heaven, I've scarcely had time to think it all out yet--but it looks
+like it!"
+
+"It _must_ be that nasty grumpy old creature! If you told nobody
+else--well, it can't be anybody else!"
+
+"But why should he go and spread such a story?"
+
+"Because he wants to shelter some one else!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Ah, that's for the police to find out. But I'm quite certain, Ned, that
+that pig-headed old Simon with his cod-fish eyes and his everlasting
+grunt is at the bottom of it all!"
+
+He stared thoughtfully into space.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "he has certainly been asking for trouble in one
+or two ways, and this seems another invitation. But he'll get it, sure!
+At the same time--what's his object?"
+
+His sister had no hesitation.
+
+"Either to make money or hide something disgraceful. You really must
+enquire into this, Ned!"
+
+He dropped into a chair and sat for a few minutes with his face in his
+hands. At last he looked up and shook his head.
+
+"I'm out of my depth," he said. "I guess I'd better see Carrington."
+
+"Mr. Carrington?" she exclaimed.
+
+"I had a long talk with him," he explained. "He seems an uncommon shrewd
+fellow. Yes, that's the proper line!"
+
+She looked at him curiously but evidently judged it tactful in the
+present delicate situation to ask no more. He rose now and went, still
+thoughtful, to the door.
+
+"What a dreadful thing of Simon Rattar to do! Wasn't it, Ned?" she said
+indignantly, her eyes as bright as ever again.
+
+He turned as she went out.
+
+"The whole thing has been damnable!"
+
+As the door closed behind him she made a little grimace again and then
+gave a little shrug.
+
+"He's going to marry her!" she said to herself, and acting immediately
+on a happy inspiration, sat down to write a long and affectionate letter
+to an old friend whose country house might, with judicious management,
+be considered good for a six months' visit.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+A MARKED MAN
+
+
+The unexpected energy displayed by her charming guest in bustling all
+over the country had surprised and a little perplexed Miss Peterkin, but
+she now decided that it was only a passing phase, for on the day
+following his visits to Keldale and Stanesland he exhibited exactly the
+same leisurely calm she had admired at first. He sought out the local
+golf course and for an hour or two his creditable game confirmed his
+reputation as a sportsman, and for the rest of the time he idled in a
+very gentlemanly manner.
+
+In the course of the afternoon he strolled out and gradually drifted
+through the dusk towards the station. Finding the train was, as usual,
+indefinitely late, he strolled out again and finally drifted back just
+as the signals had fallen at last. It was quite dark by this time and
+the platform lamps were lit, but Mr. Carrington chanced to stand
+inconspicuously in a background of shadows. As the engine hissed
+ponderously under the station roof and the carriage doors began to open,
+he still stood there, the most casual of spectators. A few passengers
+passed him, and then came a young man in a fur coat, on whom some very
+curious glances had been thrown when he alighted from his first class
+compartment. Mr. Carrington, however, seemed to take no interest either
+in him or anybody else till the young man was actually passing him, and
+then he suddenly stepped out of the shadows, touched him on the shoulder
+and said in a much deeper and graver voice than usual:
+
+"Sir Malcolm Cromarty, I believe!"
+
+The young man started violently and turned a pale face.
+
+"Ye--es, I am," he stammered.
+
+"May I have a word with you?" said Carrington gravely.
+
+With a dreadfully nervous air Sir Malcolm accompanied him out into the
+dark road, neither speaking, and then the young man demanded hoarsely:
+
+"What do you want with me?"
+
+Carrington's voice suddenly resumed its usual cheerful note.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, "for collaring you like this, but the fact is I
+am very keen to see you about the Keldale shootings."
+
+Sir Malcolm gave a gasp of relief.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" he exclaimed. "Good Lord, what a fright you gave me!"
+
+"I say I'm awfully sorry!" said Carrington anxiously. "How frightfully
+stupid I must have been!"
+
+The young man looked at him, and, like most other people, evidently
+found his ingenuous face and sympathetic manner irresistibly confidence
+inspiring.
+
+"Oh, not at all," he said. "In fact you must have wondered at my manner.
+The fact is Mr.--er----"
+
+"Carrington."
+
+"Mr. Carrington, that I'm in a most awful position at present. You know
+of course that I'm suspected of murder!"
+
+"No!" exclaimed Carrington, with vast interest. "Not really?"
+
+"It's an absolute fact--suspected of murder! Good God, just imagine it!"
+
+The young baronet stopped and faced his new acquaintance dramatically.
+In spite of his nervousness, it was evident that his notoriety had
+compensations.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I--the head of an ancient and honourable house--am
+actually suspected of having murdered my cousin, Sir Reginald Cromarty!"
+
+"What, that murder!" exclaimed Carrington. "By Jove, of course, I've
+heard a lot about the case. And you are really suspected?"
+
+"So much so," said the baronet darkly, "that when you touched me on the
+shoulder I actually thought you were going to arrest me!"
+
+Carrington seemed equally astounded and penitent at this unfortunate
+reading of his simple and natural action in stepping suddenly out of the
+dark and tapping a nervous stranger on the shoulder.
+
+"How very tactless of me!" he repeated more than once. "Really, I must
+be more careful another time!"
+
+And then he suddenly turned his monocle on to the baronet and enquired:
+
+"But how do you know you are suspected?"
+
+"How do I know! My God, all fingers are pointing at me! Even in my club
+in London I feel I am a marked man. I have discussed my awful position
+with all my friends, and by this time they tell me that everybody else
+knows too!"
+
+"That is--er--not unnatural," said Carrington drily. "But how did you
+first learn?"
+
+The young man's voice fell almost to a whisper and he glanced
+apprehensively over his shoulder as he spoke.
+
+"I knew I should be suspected the moment I heard of the crime! The very
+night before--perhaps at the actual moment when the deed was being
+done--I did a foolish thing!"
+
+"You don't say so!" exclaimed his new friend with every appearance of
+surprise.
+
+"Yes, you may not believe me, but I acted like a damned silly ass. Mind
+you, I am not as a rule a silly ass," the baronet added with dignity,
+"but that night I actually confided in a woman!"
+
+"What woman?"'
+
+"My relative Miss Cicely Farmond--a charming girl, I may mention; there
+was every excuse for me, still it was a rotten thing to do, I quite
+admit. I told her that I was hard up and feeling desperate, and I even
+said I was going to sit up late! And on top of that Sir Reginald was
+murdered that very night. Imagine my sensations for the next few days,
+living in the same house with the woman who had heard me say _that_! She
+held my fate in her hands, but, thank God, she evidently had such faith
+in my honour and humanity that she forebore to--er----"
+
+"Peach," suggested Carrington, "though as a matter of fact, I fancy she
+had forgotten all about the incident."
+
+"Forgotten my words!" exclaimed the baronet indignantly. "Impossible! I
+can never forget them myself so long as I live!"
+
+"Well," said Carrington soothingly, "let us suppose she remembered them.
+Anyhow she said nothing, and, that being so, how did you first actually
+know that you were suspected?"
+
+"My own man of business thought it his duty to drop me a hint!" cried
+the baronet.
+
+This piece of information seemed to produce quite as much impression on
+his new acquaintance as his first revelation, though he took it rather
+more quietly.
+
+"Really!" said he in a curious voice. "And what course of action did he
+advise?"
+
+"He advised me to keep away from the place. In fact he even suggested I
+should go abroad--and, by Gad, I'm going too!"
+
+To this, Carrington made no reply at all. His thoughts, in fact, seemed
+to have wandered entirely away from Sir Malcolm Cromarty. The baronet
+seemed a trifle disappointed at his lack of adequate interest.
+
+"Don't you sympathise with me," he enquired.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carrington, "my thoughts were wandering for
+the moment. I do sympathise. By the way, what are you going to do now?"
+
+The baronet started.
+
+"By Gad, my own thoughts are wandering!" said he, "though I certainly
+have some excuse! I must get down to the Kings Arms and order a trap to
+take me out to Keldale House as quickly as I can." And then he added
+mysteriously, "I only came down here because I was urgently wired for by
+some one who--well, I couldn't refuse."
+
+"I'm going to the Kings Arms, too. We'll walk down together, if you
+don't mind."
+
+"Delighted," said the baronet, "if you don't mind being seen with such a
+marked man."
+
+"I rather like them marked," smiled Carrington.
+
+All the way to the hotel the notorious Sir Malcolm pursued what had
+evidently become his favourite subject:--the vast sensation he was
+causing in society and the pain it gave a gentleman of title and
+position to be placed in such a predicament. When they reached the Kings
+Arms, his new acquaintance insisted in a very friendly and confident way
+that there was no immediate hurry about starting for Keldale, and that
+the baronet must come up to his sitting room first and have a little
+refreshment.
+
+The effect of a couple of large glasses of sloe gin was quickly
+apparent. Sir Malcolm became decidedly happier and even more
+confidential. He was considerably taken aback, however, when his host
+suddenly asked, with a disconcertingly intense glance:
+
+"Are you quite sure you are really innocent?"
+
+"Innocent!" exclaimed the baronet, leaping out of his chair. "Do you
+mean to tell me you doubt it? Do you actually believe I am capable of
+killing a man in cold blood? Especially the honoured head of my own
+house?"
+
+Carrington seemed to suppress a smile.
+
+"No," said he, "I don't believe it."
+
+"Then, sir," said the baronet haughtily, "kindly do not question my
+honour!"
+
+This time Carrington allowed his smile to appear.
+
+"Sit down, Sir Malcolm," he said, "pull yourself together, and listen to
+a few words."
+
+Sir Malcolm looked extremely surprised, but obeyed.
+
+"What I am going to say is in the strictest confidence and you must give
+me your word not to repeat one single thing I tell you."
+
+His serious manner evidently impressed the young man.
+
+"I give you my word, sir," said he.
+
+"Well then, in the first place, I am a detective."
+
+For a few seconds Sir Malcolm stared at him in silence and then burst
+into a hearty laugh.
+
+"Good egg, sir!" said he. "Good egg! If I had not finished my sloe gin
+I should drink to your health!"
+
+It was Carrington's turn to look disconcerted. Recovering himself he
+said with a smile:
+
+"You shall have another glass of sloe gin when you have grasped the
+situation. I assure you I am actually a detective--or, rather, a private
+enquiry agent."
+
+Sir Malcolm shook a knowing head.
+
+"My dear fellow," said he, "you can't really pull my leg like that. I
+can see perfectly well you are a gentleman."
+
+"I appreciate the compliment," said Carrington, "but just let me tell
+you what was in the telegram which has brought you here. It ran--'Come
+immediately urgent news don't answer please don't delay. Cicely
+Farmond.'"
+
+Sir Malcolm's mouth fell open.
+
+"How--how do you know that?" he asked.
+
+"Because I wrote it myself. Miss Farmond is quite unaware it was sent."
+
+The baronet began to look indignant.
+
+"But--er--why the devil, sir----"
+
+"Because I am a detective," interrupted Carrington, "and I wished to see
+you."
+
+Sir Malcolm evidently began to grasp the situation at last.
+
+"What about?" he asked, and his face was a little paler already.
+
+"About this murder. I wanted to satisfy myself that you were--or were
+not--innocent."
+
+"But--er--how?"
+
+"By your actions, conversation, and appearance. I am now satisfied, Sir
+Malcolm."
+
+"That I am innocent."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then will this be the end of my--er--painful position?"
+
+"So far as your own anxiety goes; yes. You need no longer fear arrest."
+
+The first look of relief which had rushed to the young man's face became
+clouded with a suggestion of chagrin.
+
+"But won't people then--er--talk about me any longer?"
+
+"I am afraid I can't prevent that--for a little longer."
+
+The last of the baronet's worries seemed to disappear.
+
+"Ah!" he said complacently. "Well, let them talk about me!"
+
+Carrington rose and rang the bell.
+
+"You deserve a third sloe gin!" said he.
+
+While the third sloe gin was being brought, he very deliberately and
+very thoughtfully selected and lit a cigarette, and then he said:
+
+"You tell me specifically that Mr. Rattar was the first person to inform
+you that suspicion was directed against you, and that he advised you to
+keep away, and for choice to go abroad. There is no doubt about that, is
+there?"
+
+"Well," said Sir Malcolm, "he didn't specifically advise me to go
+abroad, but certainly his letter seemed to suggest it."
+
+"Ah!" said Carrington and gazed into space for a moment.
+
+"I am now going to take the liberty of suggesting your best course of
+action," he resumed. "In the first place, there is no object in your
+going out to Keldale House, so I think you had better not. In the second
+place, you had better call on Mr. Rattar first thing to-morrow and
+consult him about any point of business that strikes you as a sufficient
+reason for coming so far to see him. I may tell you that he has given
+you extremely bad advice, so you can be as off-hand and brief with him
+as you like. Get out of his office, in fact, as quick as you can."
+
+"That's what I always want to do," said the baronet. "I can't stick the
+old fellow at any price."
+
+"If he asks you whether you have seen me, say you have just seen me but
+didn't fancy me, and don't give him the least idea of what we talked
+about. You can add that you left the Kings Arms because you didn't care
+for my company."
+
+"But am I to leave it?" exclaimed the young man.
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"It's better that we shouldn't stay in the same hotel. It will support
+your account of me. And finally, get back to London by the first train
+after you have seen Mr. Rattar."
+
+"Then aren't you working with old Simon?" enquired Sir Malcolm.
+
+"Oh, in a sense, I am," said Carrington carelessly, "but I daresay you
+have found him yourself an arbitrary, meddlesome old boy, and I like to
+be independent."
+
+"By Gad, so do I," the baronet agreed cordially. "I am quite with you
+about old Silent Simon. I'll do just exactly as you suggest. He won't
+get any change out of me!"
+
+"And now," said Carrington, "get your bag taken to any other hotel you
+like. I'll explain everything to Miss Peterkin."
+
+Sir Malcolm by this time had finished his third sloe gin and he said
+farewell with extreme affability, while his friend Mr. Carrington
+dropped into the manageress' room and explained that the poor young man
+had seemed so nervous and depressed that he had advised his departure
+for a quieter lodging. He added with great conviction that as a sporting
+man he would lay long odds on Sir Malcolm's innocence, and that between
+Miss Peterkin and himself he didn't believe a word of the current
+scandals.
+
+That evening Mr. Carrington joined the choice spirits in the manageress'
+room, and they had a very long and entertaining gossip. The conversation
+turned this time chiefly on the subject of Mr. Simon Rattar, and if by
+the end of it the agreeable visitor was not fully acquainted with the
+history of that local celebrity, of his erring partner, and of his
+father before him, it was not the fault of Miss Peterkin and her
+friends. Nor could it fairly be said to be the visitor's fault either,
+for his questions were as numerous as they were intelligent.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE LETTER AGAIN
+
+
+On the morning after Sir Malcolm's fleeting visit to the Kings Arms, the
+manageress was informed by her friend Mr. Carrington that he would like
+a car immediately after breakfast.
+
+"I really must be a little more energetic, or I'll never find anything
+to suit me," he smiled in his most leisurely manner. "I am thinking of
+running out to Keldale to have another look at the place. It might be
+worth taking if they'd let it."
+
+"But you've been to Keldale already, Mr. Carrington!" said Miss
+Peterkin. "I wonder you don't have a look at one of the other places."
+
+"I'm one of those fellows who make up their minds slowly," he explained.
+"But when we cautious fellows do make up our minds, well, something
+generally happens!"
+
+Circumstances, however, prevented this enthusiastic sportsman from
+making any further enquiry as to the letting of the Keldale shootings.
+When Bisset appeared at the front door consternation was in his face. It
+was veiled under a restrained professional manner, but not sufficiently
+to escape his visitor's eye.
+
+"What's up?" he asked at once.
+
+Bisset looked for a moment into his sympathetic face, and then in grave
+whisper said:
+
+"Step in, sir, and I'll tell ye."
+
+He led him into a small morning room, carefully closed the door, and
+announced,
+
+"Miss Farmond has gone, sir!"
+
+"Gone. When and how?"
+
+"Run away, sir, on her bicycle yesterday afternoon and deil a sign of
+her since!"
+
+"Any luggage?"
+
+"Just a wee suit case."
+
+"No message left, or anything of that kind?"
+
+"Not a word or a line, sir."
+
+"The devil!" murmured Carrington.
+
+"That's just exac'ly it, sir!"
+
+"No known cause? No difficulty with Lady Cromarty or anything?"
+
+"Nothing that's come to my ears, sir."
+
+Carrington stared blankly into space and remained silent for several
+minutes. Bisset watched his assistant with growing anxiety.
+
+"Surely, sir," he burst forth at last, "you're not thinking this goes to
+indicate any deductions or datas showing she's guilty?"
+
+"I'm dashed if I know what to think," murmured Carrington still lost in
+thought.
+
+Suddenly he turned his eyeglass on the other.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "the day before yesterday I passed that girl
+riding on a bicycle towards Keldale House after dark! Do you know where
+she had been?"
+
+"Into the town, sir. I knew she was out, of course, and she just
+mentioned afterwards where she had been."
+
+"Have you any idea whom she saw or what she did?"
+
+Bisset shook his head.
+
+"I have no datas, sir, that's the plain fac'."
+
+"But you can't think of any likely errand to take her in so late in the
+afternoon?"
+
+"No, sir. In fact, I mind thinking it was funny like her riding about
+alone in the dark like yon, for she's feared of being out by hersel' in
+the dark; I know that."
+
+Carrington reflected for a few moments longer and then seemed to dismiss
+the subject.
+
+"By the way," he asked, "can you remember if, by any chance, Sir
+Reginald had any difficulty or trouble or row of any kind with anyone
+whatever during, say, the month previous to his death? I mean with any
+of the tenants, or his tradesmen--or his lawyer? Take your time and
+think carefully."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carrington dismissed his car at Mr. Rattar's office. When he was shown
+into the lawyer's room, he exhibited a greater air of keenness than
+usual.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rattar," said he, "you'll be interested to hear that I've got
+rather a new point of view with regard to this case."
+
+"Indeed?" said Simon, and his lips twitched a little as he spoke. There
+was no doubt that he was not looking so well as usual. His face had
+seemed drawn and worried last time Carrington had seen him; now it
+might almost be termed haggard.
+
+"I find," continued Carrington, "that Sir Reginald displayed a curious
+and unaccountable irritability before his death. I hear, for instance,
+that a letter from you had upset him quite unduly."
+
+Carrington paused for an instant, and his monocle was full on Simon all
+the time, and yet he did not seem to notice the very slight but distinct
+start which the lawyer gave, for he continued with exactly the same
+confidential air.
+
+"These seem to me very suggestive symptoms, Mr. Rattar, and I am
+wondering very seriously whether the true solution of his mysterious
+death is not--" he paused for an instant and then in a low and earnest
+voice said, "suicide!"
+
+There was no mistake about the lawyer's start this time, or about the
+curious fact that the strain seemed suddenly to relax, and a look of
+relief to take its place. And yet Carrington seemed quite oblivious to
+anything beyond his own striking new theory.
+
+"That's rather a suggestive idea, isn't it?" said he.
+
+"Very!" replied Simon with the air of one listening to a revelation.
+
+"How he managed to inflict precisely those injuries on himself is at
+present a little obscure," continued Carrington, "but no doubt a really
+expert medical opinion will be able to suggest an explanation. The
+theory fits all the other facts remarkably, doesn't it?"
+
+"Remarkably," agreed Simon.
+
+"This letter of yours, for instance, was a very ordinary business
+communication, I understand."
+
+"Very ordinary," said Simon.
+
+"Of course, you have a copy of it in your letter book--and also Sir
+Reginald's reply?"
+
+There was a moment's pause and then Simon's grunt seemed to be forced
+out of himself. But he followed the grunt with a more assured,
+"Certainly."
+
+"May I see them?"
+
+"You--you think they are important?"
+
+"As bearing on Sir Reginald's state of mind only."
+
+Simon rang his bell and ordered the letter book to be brought in. While
+Carrington was examining it, his eyes never left his visitor's face, but
+they would have had to be singularly penetrating to discover a trace of
+any emotion there. Throughout his inspection, Carrington's air remained
+as imperturbable as though he were reading the morning paper.
+
+"According to these letters," he observed, "there seems to have been a
+trifling but rather curious misunderstanding. In accordance with written
+instructions of a fortnight previously, you had arranged to let a
+certain farm to a certain man, and Sir Reginald then complained that you
+had overlooked a conversation between those dates in which he had
+cancelled these instructions. He writes with a warmth that clearly
+indicates his own impression that this conversation had been perfectly
+explicit and that your forgetfulness or neglect of it was unaccountable,
+and he proposes to go into this and one or two other matters in the
+course of a conversation with you which should have taken place that
+afternoon. You then reply that you are too busy to come out so soon, but
+will call on the following morning. In the meantime Sir Reginald is
+murdered, and so the conversation never takes place and no explanation
+passes between you. Those are the facts, aren't they?"
+
+He looked up from the letter book as he spoke and there was no doubt he
+noticed something now. Indeed, the haggard look on Simon's face and a
+bead of perspiration on his forehead were so striking, and so singular
+in the case of such a tough customer, that the least observant--or the
+most circumspect--must have stared. Carrington's stare lasted only for
+the fraction of a second, and then he was polishing his eyeglass with
+his handkerchief in the most indifferent way.
+
+A second or two passed before Simon answered, and then he said abruptly:
+
+"Sir Reginald was mistaken. No such conversation."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me literally that _no_ such conversation took
+place? Was it a mere delusion?"
+
+"Er--practically. Yes, a delusion."
+
+"Suicide!" declared Carrington with an air of profound conviction.
+"Yes, Mr. Rattar, that is evidently the solution. The unfortunate man
+had clearly not been himself, probably for some little time previously.
+Well, I'll make a few more enquiries, but I fancy my work is nearly at
+an end. Good-morning."
+
+He rose and was half way across the room, when he stopped and asked, as
+if the idea had suddenly occurred to him:
+
+"By the way, I hear that Miss Farmond was in seeing you a couple of days
+ago."
+
+Again Simon seemed to start a little, and again he hesitated for an
+instant and then replied with a grunt.
+
+"Had she any news?" asked the other.
+
+Simon grunted again and shook his head, and Carrington threw him a
+friendly nod and went out.
+
+He maintained the same air till he had turned down a bye street and was
+alone, and only then he gave vent to his feelings.
+
+"I'm dashed!" he muttered, "absolutely jiggered!"
+
+All the while he shook his head and slashed with his walking stick
+through the air. There was no doubt that Mr. Carrington was thoroughly
+and genuinely puzzled.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+THE SYMPATHETIC STRANGER
+
+
+Carrington's soliloquy was interrupted by the appearance of someone on
+the pavement ahead of him. He pulled himself together, took out his
+watch, and saw that it was still only twenty minutes past twelve. After
+thinking for a moment, he murmured:
+
+"I might as well try 'em!"
+
+And thereupon he set out at a brisk walk, and a few minutes later was
+closeted with Superintendent Sutherland in the Police Station. He began
+by handing the Superintendent a card with the name of Mr. F. T.
+Carrington on it, but with quite a different address from that on the
+card he had sent up to Mr. Rattar. It was, in fact, his business card,
+and the Superintendent regarded him with respectful interest.
+
+After explaining his business and his preference for not disclosing it
+to the public, he went briefly over the main facts of the case.
+
+"I see you've got them all, sir," said the Superintendent, when he had
+finished. "There really seems nothing to add and no new light to be seen
+anywhere."
+
+"I'm afraid so," agreed Carrington. "I'm afraid so."
+
+In fact he seemed so entirely resigned to this conclusion that he
+allowed, and even encouraged, the conversation to turn to other matters.
+The activity and enterprise of the Procurator Fiscal seemed to have
+particularly impressed him, and this led to a long talk on the subject
+of Mr. Simon Rattar. The Superintendent was also a great admirer of the
+Fiscal and assured Mr. Carrington that not only was Mr. Simon himself
+the most capable and upright of men, but that the firm of Rattar had
+always conducted its business in a manner that was above reproach. Mr.
+Carrington had made one or two slightly cynical but perfectly
+good-natured comments on lawyers in general, but he got no countenance
+from the Superintendent so far as Mr. Rattar and his business were
+concerned.
+
+"But hadn't he some trouble at one time with his brother?" his visitor
+enquired.
+
+The Superintendent admitted that this was so, and also that Sir Reginald
+Cromarty had suffered thereby, but he was quite positive that this
+trouble was entirely a thing of the past. There was no doubt that this
+information had a somewhat depressing effect even on the good-humoured
+Mr. Carrington, and at last he confessed with a candid air:
+
+"The fact is, Superintendent, that I have a theory Sir Reginald was
+worrying about something before his death, and as all his business
+affairs are conducted by Mr. Rattar, I was wondering whether he had any
+difficulties in that direction. Now about this bad brother of Mr.
+Rattar's--there couldn't be trouble still outstanding, you think?"
+
+"Mr. George Rattar was out of the firm, sir, years ago," the
+Superintendent assured him. "No, it couldna be that."
+
+"And Mr. George Rattar certainly died a short time ago, did he?"
+
+"I can show you the paper with his death in it. I kept it as a kind of
+record of the end of him."
+
+He fetched the paper and Carrington after looking at it for a few
+minutes, remarked:
+
+"I see here an advertisement stating that Mr. Rattar lost a ring."
+
+"Yes," said the Superintendent, "that was a funny thing because it's not
+often a gentleman loses a ring off his hand. I've half wondered since
+whether it was connected with a story of Mr. Rattar's maid that his
+house had been broken into."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Curiously enough it was the very night Sir Reginald was murdered."
+
+Carrington's chair squeaked on the floor as he sat up sharply.
+
+"The very night of the murder?" he repeated. "Why has this never come
+out before?"
+
+The stolid Superintendent looked at him in surprise.
+
+"But what connection could there possibly be, sir? Mr. Rattar thought
+nothing of it himself and just mentioned it so that I would know it was
+a mere story, in case his servants started talking about it."
+
+"But you yourself seemed just now to think that it might not be a mere
+story."
+
+"Oh, that was just a kind o' idea," said the Superintendent easily. "It
+only came in my mind when the ring was never recovered."
+
+"What were the exact facts?" demanded Carrington.
+
+"Oh," said the Superintendent vaguely, "there was something about a
+window looking as if it had been entered, but really, sir, Mr. Rattar
+paid so little attention to it himself, and we were that taken up by the
+Keldale case that I made no special note of it."
+
+"Did the servants ever speak of it again?"
+
+"Everybody was that taken up about the murder that I doubt if they've
+minded on it any further."
+
+Carrington was silent for a few moments.
+
+"Are the servants intelligent girls?" he enquired.
+
+"Oh, quite average intelligent. In fact, the housemaid is a particular
+decent sort of a girl."
+
+At this point, Mr. Carrington's interest in the subject seemed to wane,
+and after a few pleasant generalities, he thanked the Superintendent for
+his courtesy, and strolled down to the hotel for lunch. This time his
+air as he walked was noticeably brisker and his eye decidedly brighter.
+
+About three o'clock that afternoon came a ring at the front door bell of
+Mr. Simon Rattar's commodious villa. Mary MacLean declared afterwards
+that she had a presentiment when she heard it, but then the poor girl
+had been rather troubled with presentiments lately. When she opened the
+front door she saw a particularly polite and agreeable looking gentleman
+adorned with that unmistakeable mark of fashion, a single eyeglass; and
+the gentleman saw a pleasant looking but evidently high strung and
+nervous young woman.
+
+"Is Mr. Simon Rattar at home?" he enquired in a courteous voice and with
+a soothing smile that won her heart at once; and on hearing that Mr.
+Rattar always spent the afternoons at his office and would not return
+before five o'clock, his disappointment was so manifest that she felt
+sincerely sorry for him.
+
+He hesitated and was about to go away when a happy idea struck him.
+
+"Might I come in and write a line to be left for him?" he asked, and
+Mary felt greatly relieved at being able to assist the gentleman to
+assuage his disappointment in this way.
+
+She led him into the library and somehow or other by the time she had
+got him ink and paper and pen she found herself talking to this
+distinguished looking stranger in the most friendly way. It was not that
+he was forward or gallant, far from it; simply that he was so nice and
+so remarkably sympathetic. Within five minutes of making his
+acquaintance, Mary felt that she could tell him almost anything.
+
+This sympathetic visitor made several appreciative remarks about the
+house and garden, and then, just as he had dipped his pen into the ink,
+he remarked:
+
+"Rather a tempting house for burglars, I should think--if such people
+existed in these peaceable parts."
+
+"Oh, but they do, sir," she assured him. "We had one in this very house
+one night!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THE HOUSE OF MYSTERIES
+
+
+The sympathetic stranger almost laid down his pen, he was so interested
+by this unexpected reply.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "Really a burglary in this house? I say, how
+awfully interesting! When did it happen?"
+
+"Well, sir," said Mary in an impressive voice, "it's a most
+extraordinary thing, but it was actually the very self same night of Sir
+Reginald's murder!"
+
+So surprised and interested was the visitor that he actually did lay
+down his pen this time.
+
+"Was it the same man, do you think?" he asked in a voice that seemed to
+thrill with sympathetic excitement.
+
+"Indeed I've sometimes wondered!" said she.
+
+"Tell me how it happened!"
+
+"Well, sir," said Mary, "it was on the very morning that we heard about
+Sir Reginald--only before we'd heard, and I was pulling up the blinds in
+the wee sitting room when I says to myself. 'There's been some one in at
+this window!'"
+
+"The wee sitting room," repeated her visitor. "Which is that?"
+
+He seemed so genuinely interested that before she realised what
+liberties she was taking in the master's house, she had led him into a
+small sitting room at the end of a short passage leading out of the
+hall. It had evidently been intended for a smoking room or study when
+the villa was built, but was clearly never used by Mr. Rattar, for it
+contained little furniture beyond bookcases. Its window looked on to the
+side of the garden and not towards the drive, and a grass lawn lay
+beneath it, while the room itself was obviously the most isolated, and
+from a burglarious point of view the most promising, on the ground
+floor.
+
+"This is the room, sir," said Mary. "And look! You still can see the
+marks on the sash."
+
+"Yes," said the visitor thoughtfully, "they seem to have been made by a
+tacketty boot."
+
+"And forbye that, there was a wee bit mud on the floor and a tacket mark
+in that!"
+
+"Was the window shut or open?"
+
+"Shut, sir; and the most extraordinary thing was that it was snibbed
+too! That's what made the master say it couldna have been a burglar at
+all, or how did he snib the window after he went out again?"
+
+"Then Mr. Rattar didn't believe it was a burglar?"
+
+"N--no, sir," said Mary, a little reluctantly.
+
+"Was anything stolen?"
+
+"No, sir; that was another funny thing. But it must have been a
+burglar!"
+
+"What about the other windows, and the doors? Were they all fastened in
+the morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, it's the truth they were," she admitted.
+
+"And what did Mr. Rattar do with the piece of mud?"
+
+"Just threw it out of the window."
+
+The sympathetic stranger crossed to the window and looked out.
+
+"Grass underneath, I see," he observed. "No footprints outside, I
+suppose?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did the police come down and make enquiries?"
+
+"Well, sir, the master said he would inform the pollis, but then came
+the news of the murder, and no one had any thoughts for anything else
+after that."
+
+The sympathetic visitor stood by the window very thoughtfully for a few
+moments, and then turned and rewarded her with the most charming smile.
+
+"Thank you awfully for showing me all this," said he. "By the way,
+what's your name?" She told him and he added with a still nicer smile,
+"Thank you, Mary!"
+
+They returned to the library and he sat down before the table again, but
+just as he was going to pick up the pen a thought seemed to strike him.
+
+"By the way," he said, "I remember hearing something about the loss of a
+ring. The burglar didn't take that, did he?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I remember the advertisement was in the paper before the
+night of the burglary."
+
+He opened his eyes and then smiled.
+
+"Brilliant police you've got!" he murmured, and took up the pen again.
+
+"There was another burglar here and he might have taken it!" said Mary
+in a low voice.
+
+The visitor once more dropped the pen and looked up with a start.
+
+"Another burglar!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well, sir, this one didn't actually burgle, but--"
+
+She thought of the master if he chanced to learn how she had been
+gossiping, and her sentence was cut short in the midst.
+
+"Yes, Mary! You were saying?" cooed the persuasive visitor, and Mary
+succumbed again and told him of that night when a shadow moved into the
+trees and footprints were left in the gravel outside the library window,
+and the master looked so strangely in the morning. Her visitor was so
+interested that once she began it was really impossible to stop.
+
+"How very strange!" he murmured, and there was no doubt he meant it.
+
+"But about the master's ring, sir--" she began.
+
+"You say he looked as though he were being _watched_?" he interrupted,
+but it was quite a polite and gentle interruption.
+
+"Yes, sir; but the funny thing about losing the ring was that he never
+could get it off his finger before! I've seen him trying to, but oh, it
+wouldn't nearly come off!"
+
+Again he sat up and gazed at her.
+
+"Another mystery!" he murmured. "He lost a ring which wouldn't come off
+his finger? By Jove! That's very rum. Are there any more mysteries,
+Mary, connected with this house?"
+
+She hesitated and then in a very low voice answered:
+
+"Oh, yes, sir; there was one that gave me even a worse turn!"
+
+By this time her visitor seemed to have given up all immediate thoughts
+of writing his note to Mr. Rattar. He turned his back to the table and
+looked at her with benevolent calm.
+
+"Let's hear it, Mary," he said gently.
+
+And then she told him the story of that dreadful night when the unknown
+visitor came for the box of old papers. He gazed at her, listening very
+attentively, and then in a soothing voice asked her several questions,
+more particularly when all these mysterious events occurred.
+
+"And are these all your troubles now, Mary?" he enquired.
+
+He asked so sympathetically that at last she even ventured to tell him
+her latest trouble. Till he fairly charmed it out of her, she had shrunk
+from telling him anything that seemed to reflect directly on her master
+or to be a giving away of his concerns. But now she confessed that Mr.
+Rattar's conduct, Mr. Rattar's looks, and even Mr. Rattar's very
+infrequent words had been troubling her strangely. How or why his looks
+and words should trouble her, she knew not precisely, and his conduct,
+generally speaking, she admitted was as regular as ever.
+
+"You don't mean that just now and then he takes a wee drop too much?"
+enquired her visitor helpfully.
+
+"Oh, no, sir," said she, "the master never did take more than what a
+gentleman should, and he's not a smoking gentleman either--quite a
+principle against smokers, he has, sir. Oh, it's nothing like that!"
+
+She looked over her shoulder fearfully as though the walls might repeat
+her words to the master, as she told him of the curious and disturbing
+thing. Mr. Rattar had been till lately a gentleman of the most exact
+habits, and then all of a sudden he had taken to walking in his garden
+in a way he never did before. First she had noticed him, about the time
+of the burglary and the removal of the papers, walking there in the
+mornings. That perhaps was not so very disturbing, but since then he had
+changed this for a habit of slipping out of the house every night--every
+single night!
+
+"And walking in the garden!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington.
+
+"Sometimes I've heard his footsteps on the gravel, sir! Even when it has
+been raining I've heard them. Perhaps sometimes he goes outside the
+garden, but I've never heard of anyone meeting him on the road or
+streets. It's in the garden I've heard the master's steps, sir, and if
+you had been with him as long as I've been, and knew how regular his
+habits was, you'd know how I'm feeling, sir!"
+
+"I do know, Mary; I quite understand," Mr. Carrington assured her in his
+soothing voice, and there could be no doubt he was wondering just as
+hard as she.
+
+"What o'clock does he generally go out?" he asked.
+
+"At nine o'clock almost exactly every night, sir!"
+
+Mr. Carrington looked thoughtfully out of the window into the garden,
+and then at last looked down at the ink and paper and pen. Not a word
+was written on the paper yet.
+
+"Look here, Mary," he said very confidentially. "I am a friend of Mr.
+Rattar's and I am sure you would like me to try and throw a little light
+on this. Perhaps something is troubling him and I could help you to
+clear it up."
+
+"Oh, sir," she cried, "you are very kind! I wish you could!"
+
+"Perhaps the best thing then," he suggested, "would be for me not to
+leave a note for him after all, and for you not even to mention that I
+have called. As he knows me pretty well he would be almost sure to ask
+you whether I had come in and if I had left any message and so on, and
+then he might perhaps find out that we had been talking, and that
+wouldn't perhaps be pleasant for you, would it?"
+
+"Oh, my! No, indeed, it wouldn't!" she agreed. "I'm that feared of the
+master, sir, I'd never have him know I had been talking about him, or
+about anything that has happened in this house!"
+
+So, having come to this judicious decision, Mr. Carrington wished Mary
+the kindest of farewells and walked down the drive again. There could be
+no question he had plenty to think about now, though to judge from his
+expression, it seemed doubtful whether his thoughts were very clear.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+A CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION
+
+
+The laird of Stanesland strode into the Kings Arms and demanded:
+
+"Mr. Carrington? What, having a cup of tea in his room? What's his
+number? 27--right! I'll walk right up, thanks."
+
+He walked right up, made the door rattle under his knuckles and strode
+jauntily in. There was no beating about the bush with Mr. Cromarty
+either in deed or word.
+
+"Well, Mr. Carrington," said he, "don't trouble to look surprised. I
+guess you've seen right through me for some time back."
+
+"Meaning--?" asked Carrington with his engaging smile.
+
+"Meaning that I'm the unknown, unsuspected, and mysterious person who's
+putting up the purse. Don't pretend you haven't tumbled to that!"
+
+"Yes," admitted Carrington, "I have tumbled."
+
+"I knew my sister had given the whole blamed show away! I take it you
+put your magnifying glass back in your pocket after your trip out to
+Stanesland?"
+
+"More or less," admitted Carrington.
+
+"Well," said Ned, "that being so, I may as well tell you what my idea
+was. It mayn't have been very bright; still there was a kind of method
+in my madness. You see I wanted you to have an absolutely clear field
+and let you suspect me just as much as anybody else."
+
+"In short," smiled Carrington, "you wanted to start with the other
+horses and not just drop the flag."
+
+"That's so," agreed Ned. "But when my sister let out about that £1200,
+and I saw that you must have spotted me, there didn't seem much point in
+keeping up the bluff, when I came to think it over. And since then, Mr.
+Carrington, something has happened that you ought to know and I decided
+to come and see you and talk to you straight."
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+Ned smiled for an instant his approval of this prompt plunge into
+business, and then his face set hard.
+
+"It's a most extraordinary thing," said he, "and may strike you as
+hardly credible, but here's the plain truth put shortly. Yesterday
+afternoon Miss Farmond ran away." Carrington merely nodded, and he
+exclaimed, "What! You know then?"
+
+"I learned from Bisset this morning."
+
+"Ah, I see. Did you know I'd happened to see her start and gone after
+her and brought her back?"
+
+Carrington's interest was manifest.
+
+"No," said he, "that's quite news to me."
+
+"Well, I did, and I learnt the whole story from her. You can't guess who
+advised her to bolt?"
+
+"I think I can," said Carrington quietly.
+
+"Either you're on the wrong track, or you've cut some ice, Mr.
+Carrington. It was Simon Rattar!"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+"How the devil did you guess?"
+
+"Tell me Miss Farmond's story first and I'll tell you how I guessed."
+
+"Well, she spotted you were a detective--"
+
+Carrington started and then laughed.
+
+"Confound these women!" said he. "They're so infernally independent of
+reason, they always spot things they shouldn't!"
+
+"Then she discovered she was suspected and so she got in a stew, poor
+girl, and went to see Rattar. Do you know what he told her? That I was
+employing you and meant to convict Sir Malcolm and her and hang them
+with my own hands!"
+
+"The old devil!" cried Carrington. "Well, no wonder she bolted, Mr.
+Cromarty!"
+
+"But even that was done by Simon's advice. He actually gave her an
+address in London to go to."
+
+"Pretty thorough!" murmured Carrington.
+
+"Now what do you make of that? And what ought one to do? And, by the
+way, how did you guess Simon was at the bottom of it?"
+
+Carrington leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment before
+answering.
+
+"We are in pretty deep waters, Mr. Cromarty," he said slowly. "As to
+what I make of it--nothing as yet. As to what we are to do--also nothing
+in the meantime. But as to how I guessed, well I can tell you this much.
+I had to get information from someone, and so I called on Mr. Rattar and
+told him who I was--in strict confidence, by the way, so that he had no
+business to tell Miss Farmond or anybody else. I had started off, I may
+say, with a wrong guess: I thought Rattar himself was probably either my
+employer or acting for my employer, and when I suggested this he told me
+I was right."
+
+"What!" shouted Ned. "The grunting old devil told you that?" He stared
+at the other for a moment, and then demanded, "Why did he tell you that
+lie?"
+
+"Fortune played my cards for me. Quite innocently and unintentionally. I
+tempted him. I said if I could be sure he was my employer I'd keep him
+in touch with everything I was doing. I had also let him know that my
+employer had made it an absolute condition that his name was not to
+appear. He evidently wanted badly to know what I was doing, and thought
+he was safe not to be given away."
+
+"Then have you kept him in touch with everything you have done?"
+
+Carrington smiled.
+
+"I tell you, Mr. Cromarty, my cards were being played for me. Five
+minutes later I asked him who benefited by the will and I learned that
+you had scored the precise sum of £1200."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that when I made my limit £1200!" exclaimed Ned.
+"Lord, you must have bowled me out at once! Of course, you spotted the
+coincidence straight off?"
+
+"But Rattar didn't! I pushed it under his nose and he didn't see it!
+Inside of one second I'd asked myself whether it was possible for an
+astute man like that not to notice such a coincidence supposing he had
+really guaranteed me exactly that sum--an extraordinarily large and
+curious sum too."
+
+"I like these simple riddles," said Ned with a twinkle in his single
+eye. "I guess your answer to yourself was 'No!'"
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"That's what I call having my cards played for me. I knew then that the
+man was lying; so I threw him off the scent, changed the subject, and
+did _not_ keep Mr. Simon Rattar in touch with any single thing I did
+after that."
+
+"Good for you!" said Ned.
+
+"Good so far, but the next riddle wasn't of the simple kind--or else I'm
+even a bigger ass than I endeavour to look! What was the man's game?"
+
+"Have you spotted it yet?"
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"Mr. Simon Rattar's game is the toughest proposition in the way of
+puzzles I've ever struck. While I'm at it I'll just tell you one or two
+other small features of that first interview."
+
+He lit a cigarette and leant over the arm of his chair towards his
+visitor, his manner growing keener as he talked.
+
+"I happened to have met Miss Farmond that morning and my interview had
+knocked the bottom out of the story that she was concerned in the crime.
+I had satisfied myself also that she was not engaged to Sir Malcolm."
+
+"How did you discover that?" exclaimed Ned.
+
+"Her manner when I mentioned him. But I found that old Rattar was wrong
+on both these points and apparently determined to remain wrong. Of
+course, it might have been a mere error of judgment, but at the same
+time he had no evidence whatever against her, and it seemed to suggest a
+curious bias. And finally, I didn't like the look of the man."
+
+"And then you came out to see me?"
+
+"I went out to Keldale House first and then out to you. I next
+interviewed Sir Malcolm."
+
+"Interviewed Malcolm Cromarty!" exclaimed Ned. "Where?"
+
+"He came up to see me," explained Carrington easily, "and the gentleman
+had scarcely spoken six sentences before I shared your opinion of him,
+Mr. Cromarty--a squirt but not homicidal. He gave me, however, one very
+interesting piece of information. Rattar had advised him to keep away
+from these parts, and for choice to go abroad. I need hardly ask whether
+you consider that sound advice to give a suspected man."
+
+"Seems to me nearly as rotten advice as he gave Miss Farmond."
+
+"Exactly. So when I heard that Miss Farmond had flown and discovered she
+had paid a visit to Mr. Rattar the previous day, I guessed who had given
+her the advice."
+
+Carrington sat back in his chair with folded arms and looked at his
+employer with a slight smile, as much as to say, "Tell me the rest of
+the story!" Cromarty returned his gaze in silence, his heaviest frown
+upon his brow.
+
+"It seems to me," said Ned at last, "that Simon Rattar is mixed up in
+this business--sure! He has something to hide and he's trying to put
+people off the scent, I'll lay my bottom dollar!"
+
+"What is he hiding?" enquired Carrington, looking up at the ceiling.
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+Carrington shook his head, his eyes still gazing dreamily upwards.
+
+"I wish to Heaven I knew what to think!" he murmured; and then he
+resumed a brisker air and continued, "I am ready to suspect Simon Rattar
+of any crime in the calendar--leaving out petty larceny and probably
+bigamy. But he's the last man to do either good or evil unless he saw a
+dividend at the end, and where does he score by taking any part or
+parcel in conniving at or abetting or concealing evidence or anything
+else, so far as this particular crime is concerned? He has lost his best
+client, with whom he was on excellent terms and whose family he had
+served all his life, and he has now got instead an unsatisfactory young
+ass whom he suspects, or says he suspects, of murder, and who so
+loathes Rattar that, as far as I can judge, he will probably take his
+business away from him. To suspect Rattar of actually conniving at, or
+taking any part in the actual crime itself is, on the face of it, to
+convict either Rattar or oneself of lunacy!"
+
+"I knew Sir Reginald pretty well," said Ned, "but of course I didn't
+know much about his business affairs. He hadn't been having any trouble
+with Rattar, had he?"
+
+Carrington threw him a quick, approving glance.
+
+"We are thinking on the same lines," said he, "and I have unearthed one
+very odd little misunderstanding, but it seems to have been nothing more
+than that, and, apart from it, all accounts agree that there was no
+trouble of any kind or description."
+
+He took a cigarette out of his case and struck a match.
+
+"There must be _some_ motive for everything one does--even for smoking
+this cigarette. If I disliked cigarettes, knew smoking was bad for me,
+and stood in danger of being fined if I was caught doing it, why should
+I smoke? I can see no point whatever in Rattar's taking the smallest
+share even in diverting the course of justice by a hair's breadth. He
+and you and I have to all appearances identical interests in the
+matter."
+
+"You are wiser than I am," said Ned simply, but with a grim look in his
+eye, "but all I can say is I am going out with my gun to look for Simon
+Rattar."
+
+Carrington laughed.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to catch him at something a little better known
+to the charge-sheets than giving bad advice to a lady client, before
+it's safe to fire!" said he.
+
+"But, look here, Carrington, have you collected no other facts whatever
+about this case?"
+
+Carrington shot him a curious glance, but answered nothing else.
+
+"Oh well," said Ned, "if you don't want to say anything yet, don't say
+it. Play your hand as you think best."
+
+"Mr. Cromarty," replied Carrington, "I assure you I don't want to make
+facts into mysteries, but when they _are_ mysteries--well, I like to
+think 'em over a bit before I trust myself to talk. In the course of
+this very afternoon I've collected an assortment either of facts or
+fiction that seem to have broken loose from a travelling nightmare."
+
+"Mind telling where you got 'em?" asked Ned.
+
+"Chiefly from Rattar's housemaid, a very excellent but somewhat
+high-strung and imaginative young woman, and how much to believe of what
+she told me I honestly don't know. And the more one can believe, the
+worse the puzzle gets! However, there is one statement which I hope to
+be able to check. It may throw some light on the lady's veracity
+generally. Meantime I am like a man trying to build a house of what may
+be bricks or may be paper bags."
+
+Ned rose with his usual prompt decision.
+
+"I see," said he. "And I guess you find one better company than two at
+this particular moment. I won't shoot Simon Rattar till I hear from you,
+though by Gad, I'm tempted to kick him just to be going on with! But
+look here, Carrington, if my services will ever do you the least bit of
+good--in fact, so long as I'm not actually in the way--just send me a
+wire and I'll come straight. You won't refuse me that?"
+
+Carrington looked at the six feet two inches of pure lean muscle and
+smiled.
+
+"Not likely!" he said. "That's not the sort of offer I refuse. I won't
+hesitate to wire if there's anything happening. But don't count on it. I
+can't see any business doing just yet."
+
+Ned held out his hand, and then suddenly said, "You don't see any
+business doing just yet? But you feel you're on his track, sure! Now,
+don't you?"
+
+Carrington glanced at him out of an eye half quizzical, half abstracted.
+
+"Whose track?" he asked.
+
+Ned paused for a second and then rapped out:
+
+"Was it Simon himself?"
+
+"If we were all living in a lunatic asylum, probably yes! If we were
+living in the palace of reason, certainly not--the thing's ridiculous!
+What we are actually living in, however, is--" he broke off and gazed
+into space.
+
+"What?" said Ned.
+
+"A blank fog!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+IN THE GARDEN
+
+
+It was a few minutes after half past eight when Miss Peterkin chanced to
+meet her friend Mr. Carrington in the entrance hall of the Kings Arms.
+He was evidently going out, and she noticed he was rather differently
+habited from usual, wearing now a long, light top coat of a very dark
+grey hue, and a dark coloured felt hat. They were not quite so becoming
+as his ordinary garb, she thought, but then Mr. Carrington looked the
+gentleman in anything.
+
+"Are you going to desert us to-night, Mr. Carrington?" asked the
+manageress.
+
+"I have a letter or two to post," said he, "they are an excuse for a
+stroll. I want a breath of fresh air."
+
+He closed the glass door of the hotel behind him and stood for a moment
+on the pavement in the little circle of radiance thrown by the light of
+the hall. Mr. Carrington's leisurely movements undoubtedly played no
+small part in the unsuspecting confidence which he inspired. Out of the
+light he turned, strolling easily, down the long stretch of black
+pavement with its few checkers of lamplight here and there, and the
+empty, silent street of the little country town at his side. It was a
+very dark, moonless night, and the air was almost quite still. Looking
+upward, he could see a rare star or two twinkle, but all the rest of the
+Heavens were under cloud. Judging from his contented expression the
+night seemed to please him.
+
+He passed the post office, but curiously enough omitted to drop any
+letters into the box. The breath of fresh air seemed, in fact, to be his
+sole preoccupation. Moving with a slightly quickened stride, but still
+easily, he turned out of that street into another even quieter and
+darker, and in a short time he was nearing the lights of the station. He
+gave these a wide birth, however, and presently was strolling up a very
+secluded road, with a few villas and gardens upon the one side, and
+black space on the other. There for a moment he stopped and transferred
+something from the pocket of his inner coat into the pocket of his top
+coat. It was a small compact article, and a ray of light from a
+lamp-post behind him gleamed for an instant upon a circular metal
+orifice at one end of it.
+
+Before he moved on, he searched the darkness intently, before him and
+behind, but saw no sign of any other passenger. And then he turned the
+rim of his dark felt hat down over his face, stepped out briskly for
+some fifty yards further, and turned sharply through an open gate. Once
+again he stopped and listened keenly, standing now in the shadow of the
+trees beside the drive. In his dark top coat and with his hat turned
+over his face he was as nearly invisible as a man could be, but even
+this did not seem to satisfy him, for in a moment he gently parted the
+branches of the trees and pushed through the belt of planting to the
+lawn beyond.
+
+The villa of Mr. Simon Rattar was now half seen beyond the curving end
+of the belt that bounded the drive. It was dim against the night sky,
+and the garden was dimmer still. Carrington kept on the grass, following
+the outside of the trees, and then again plunged into them when they
+curved round at the top of the drive. Pushing quietly through, he
+reached the other side, and there his expedition in search of fresh air
+seemed to have found its goal, for he leaned his back against a tree
+trunk, folded his arms, and waited.
+
+He was looking obliquely across a sweep of gravel, with the whole front
+of the house full in view. A ray came from the fanlight over the front
+door and a faint radiance escaped through the slats of the library
+blinds, but otherwise the villa was a lump of darkness in the dark.
+
+One minute after another passed without event and with scarcely even the
+faintest sound. Then, all at once, a little touch of breeze sprang up
+and sighed overhead through the tree tops, and from that time on, there
+was an alternation of utter silence with the sough of branches gently
+stirred.
+
+From a church tower in the town came the stroke of a clock. Carrington
+counted nine and his eyes were riveted on the front door now. Barely
+two more minutes passed before it opened quietly; a figure appeared for
+an instant in the light of the hall, and then, as quietly, the door
+closed again. There was a lull at the moment, but Carrington could hear
+not a sound. The figure must be standing very still on the doorstep,
+listening--evidently listening. And then the thickset form of Simon
+Rattar appeared dimly on the gravel, crossing to the lawn beyond. The
+pebbles crunched a little, but not very much. He seemed to be walking
+warily, and when he reached the further side he stood still again and
+Carrington could see his head moving, as though he were looking all
+round him through the night.
+
+But now the figure was moving again, coming this time straight for the
+head of the belt of trees. Carrington had drawn on a pair of dark
+gloves, and he raised his arm to cover the lower part of his face,
+looking over it through the branches, and facing the silent owner of the
+garden, till there were hardly three paces between them, the one on the
+lawn, the other in the heart of the plantation.
+
+And then when Simon was exactly opposite, he stopped dead. Carrington's
+other hand slipped noiselessly into the pocket where he had dropped that
+little article, but otherwise he never moved a muscle and he breathed
+very gently. The man on the turf seemed to be doing something with his
+hands, but what, it was impossible to say. The hands would move into his
+pocket and then out again, till quite three or four minutes had passed,
+and then came a sudden flash of light. Carrington's right hand moved
+halfway out of his pocket and then was stayed, for by the light of the
+match he saw a very singular sight.
+
+Simon Rattar was not looking at him. His eyes were focussed just before
+his nose where the bowl of a pipe was beginning to glow. Carrington
+could hear the lips gently sucking, and then the aroma of tobacco came
+in a strong wave through the trees. Finally the match went out, and the
+glowing pipe began to move slowly along the turf, keeping close to the
+shelter of the trees.
+
+For a space Carrington stood petrified with wonder, and then, very
+carefully and quite silently, he worked his way through the trees out on
+to the turf, and at once fell on his hands and knees. Had any one been
+there to see, they would have beheld for the next five minutes a strange
+procession of two slowly moving along the edge of the plantation; a
+thickset man in front smoking a pipe and something like a great gorilla
+stalking him from behind. This procession skirted the plantation nearly
+down to the gate; then it turned at right angles, following the line of
+trees that bordered the wall between the garden and the road; and then
+again at right angles when it had reached the further corner of Mr.
+Rattar's demesne. Simon was now in a secluded path with shrubs on either
+hand, and instead of continuing his tour, he turned at the end of this
+path and paced slowly back again. And seeing this, the ape behind him
+squatted in the shadow of a laurel and waited.
+
+A steady breeze was now blowing and the trees were sighing continuously.
+The sky at the same time cleared, and more and more stars came out till
+the eyes of the man behind the bush could follow the moving man from end
+to end of the path. The wind made the pipe smoke quickly, and presently
+a shower of sparks showed that it was being emptied, and in a minute or
+two another match flashed and a second pipe glowed faintly.
+
+Backwards and forwards paced the lawyer, and backwards and forwards
+again, but for the space of nearly an hour from his first coming out,
+that was everything that happened; and then at last came a tapping of
+the bowl and more sparks flying abroad in the wind. The procession was
+resumed, Simon in front, the ape-like form behind; but with a greater
+space between them this time as the night was clearer, and now they were
+heading for the house. The lawyer's steps crunched lightly on the gravel
+again, the front door opened and closed, and Carrington was alone in the
+garden.
+
+Still crawling, he reached the shelter of the belt of trees and then
+rose and made swiftly for the gate, and out into the road. As he passed
+under a lamp, his face wore a totally new expression, compounded of
+wonder, excitement, and urgent thought. He was walking swiftly, and his
+pace never slackened, nor did the keenness leave his face, till he was
+back at the door of the Kings Arms Hotel. Before he entered, he took off
+his hat and turned up the brim again, and his manner when he tapped at
+the door of the manageress' room was perfectly sedate. He let it appear,
+however, that he had some slight matter on his mind.
+
+"What is the name of Mr. Rattar's head clerk?" he enquired. "An oldish,
+prim looking man, with side whiskers."
+
+"Oh, that will be Mr. Ison," said the manageress.
+
+"I have just remembered a bit of business I ought to have seen about
+to-night," he continued. "I can't very well call on Mr. Rattar himself
+at this hour, but I was thinking of looking up Mr. Ison if I could
+discover his whereabouts."
+
+"The boots will show you the way to his house," said she, and rang the
+bell.
+
+While waiting for the boots, Mr. Carrington asked another casual
+question or two and learned that Mr. Ison had been in the office since
+he was a boy. No man knew the house of Rattar throughout its two
+generations better than Mr. Ison, said Miss Peterkin; and she remembered
+afterwards that this information seemed to give Mr. Carrington peculiar
+satisfaction. He seemed so gratified, indeed, that she wondered a little
+at the time.
+
+And then the visitor and the boots set out together for the clerk's
+house, and at what hour her guest returned she was not quite sure. The
+boots, it seemed, had been instructed to wait up for him, but she had
+long gone to bed.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE WALKING STICK
+
+
+Had there been, next morning, any curious eyes to watch the conduct of
+the gentleman who had come to rent a sporting estate, they would
+probably have surmised that he had found something to please his fancy
+strangely, and yet that some perplexity still persisted. They would also
+have put him down as a much more excitable, and even demonstrative,
+young man than they had imagined. On a lonely stretch of shore hard by
+the little town he paced for nearly an hour, his face a record of the
+debate within, and his cane gesticulating at intervals.
+
+Of a sudden he stopped dead and his lips moved in a murmured
+ejaculation, and then after standing stock still for some minutes, he
+murmured again:
+
+"Ten to one on it!"
+
+His cane had been stationary during this pause. Now he raised it once
+more, but this time with careful attention. It was a light bamboo with a
+silver head. He looked at it thoughtfully, bent it this way and that,
+and then drove it into the sand and pressed it down. Though to the
+ordinary eye a very chaste and appropriate walking stick for such a
+gentleman as Mr. Carrington, the result of these tests seemed to
+dissatisfy him. He shook his head, and then with an air of resolution
+set out for the town.
+
+A little later he entered a shop where a number of walking sticks were
+on view and informed the proprietor that he desired to purchase
+something more suitable for the country than the cane he carried. In
+fact, his taste seemed now to run to the very opposite extreme, for the
+points on which he insisted were length, stiffness, and a long and if
+possible somewhat pointed ferule. At last he found one to his mind, left
+his own cane to be sent down to the hotel, and walked out with his new
+purchase.
+
+His next call was at Mr. Simon Rattar's villa. This morning he
+approached it without any of the curious shyness he had exhibited on the
+occasion of his recent visit. His advance was conducted openly up the
+drive and in an erect posture, and he crossed the gravel space boldly,
+and even jauntily, while his ring was firmness itself. Mary answered the
+bell, and her pleasure at seeing so soon again the sympathetic gentleman
+with the eyeglass was a tribute to his tact.
+
+"Good morning, Mary," said he, with an air that combined very happily
+the courtesy of a gentleman with the freedom of an old friend, "Mr.
+Rattar is at his office, I presume."
+
+She said that he was, but this time the visitor exhibited neither
+surprise nor disappointment.
+
+"I thought he would be," he confessed confidentially, "and I have come
+to see whether I couldn't do something to help you to get at the bottom
+of these troublesome goings on. Anything fresh happened?"
+
+"The master was out in the garden again last night, sir!" said she.
+
+"Was he really?" cried Mr. Carrington. "By Jove, how curious! We really
+must look into that: in fact, I've got an idea I want you to help me
+with. By the way, it sounds an odd question to ask about Mr. Rattar, but
+have you ever seen any sign of a pipe or tobacco in the house?"
+
+"Oh, never indeed!" said she. "The master has never been a smoking
+gentleman. Quite against smoking he's always been, sir."
+
+"Ever since you have known him?"
+
+"Oh, and before that, sir."
+
+"Ah!" observed Mr. Carrington in a manner that suggested nothing
+whatever. "Well, Mary, I want this morning to have a look round the
+garden."
+
+Her eyes opened.
+
+"Because the master walks there at nights?"
+
+He nodded confidentially.
+
+"But--but if he was to know you'd been interfering, sir--I mean what
+he'd think was interfering, sir--"
+
+"He shan't know," he assured her. "At least not if you'll do what I tell
+you. I want you to go now and have a nice quiet talk with cook for half
+an hour--half an hour by the kitchen clock, Mary. If you don't look out
+of the window, you won't know that I'm in the garden, and then nobody
+can blame you whatever happens. We haven't mentioned the word 'garden'
+between us--so you are out of it! Remember that."
+
+He smiled so pleasantly that Mary smiled back.
+
+"I'll remember, sir," said she. "And cook is to be kept talking in the
+kitchen?"
+
+"You've tumbled to it exactly, Mary. If neither of you see me, neither
+of you know anything at all."
+
+She got a last glimpse of his sympathetic smile as she closed the door,
+and then she went faithfully to the kitchen for her talk with cook. It
+was quite a pleasant gossip at first, but half an hour is a long time to
+keep talking, when one has been asked not to stop sooner, and it so
+happened, moreover, that cook was somewhat busy that morning and began
+at length to indicate distinctly that unless her friend had some matter
+of importance to communicate she would regard further verbiage with
+disfavour. At this juncture Mary decided that twenty minutes was
+practically as good as half an hour, and the conversation ceased.
+
+Passing out of the kitchen regions, Mary glanced towards a distant
+window, hesitated, and then came to another decision. Mr. Carrington
+must surely have left the garden now, so there was no harm in peeping
+out. She went to the window and peeped.
+
+It was only a two minutes' peep, for Mr. Carrington had not left the
+garden, and at the end of that space of time something very disturbing
+happened. But it was long enough to make her marvel greatly at her
+sympathetic friend's method of solving the riddle of the master's
+conduct. When she first saw him, he seemed to be smoothing the earth in
+one of the flower beds with his foot. Then he moved on a few paces,
+stopped, and drove his walking stick hard into the bed. She saw him lean
+on it to get it further in and apparently twist it about a little. And
+then he withdrew it again and was in the act of smoothing the place when
+she saw him glance sharply towards the gate, and the next instant leap
+behind a bush. Simultaneously the hum of a motor car fell on her ear,
+and Mary was out of the room and speeding upstairs.
+
+She heard the car draw up before the house and listened for the front
+door bell, but the door opened without a ring and she marvelled and
+trembled afresh. That the master should return in a car at this hour of
+the morning seemed surely to be connected with the sin she had connived
+at. It swelled into a crime as she held her breath and listened. She
+wished devoutly she had never set eyes on the insinuating Mr.
+Carrington.
+
+But there came no call for her, or no ringing of any bell; merely sounds
+of movement in the hall below, heard through the thrumming of the
+waiting car. And then the front door opened and shut again and she
+ventured to the window. It was a little open and she could hear her
+master speak to the chauffeur as he got in. He was now wearing, she
+noticed, a heavy overcoat. A moment more and he was off again, down the
+drive, and out through the gates. When she remembered to look again for
+her sympathetic friend, he was quietly driving his walking stick once
+more into a flower bed.
+
+About ten minutes afterwards the front door bell rang and there stood
+Mr. Carrington again. His eye seemed strangely bright, she thought, but
+his manner was calm and soothing as ever.
+
+"I noticed Mr. Rattar return," he said, "and I thought I would like to
+make sure that it was all right, before I left. I trust, Mary, that you
+have got into no trouble on my account."
+
+She thought it was very kind of him to enquire.
+
+"The master was only just in and out again," she assured him.
+
+"He came to get his overcoat, I noticed," he remarked.
+
+Mr. Carrington's powers of observation struck her as very surprising for
+such an easy-going gentleman.
+
+"Yes, sir, that was all."
+
+"Well, I'm very glad it was all right," he smiled and began to turn
+away. "By the way," he asked, turning back, "did he tell you where he is
+going to now?"
+
+"He didn't see me, sir."
+
+"You didn't happen to overhear him giving any directions to the
+chauffeur, did you? I noticed you at an open window."
+
+For the first time Mary's sympathetic friend began to make her feel a
+trifle uncomfortable. His eyes seemed to be everywhere.
+
+"I thought I heard him say 'Keldale House,'" she confessed.
+
+"Really!" he exclaimed and seemed to muse for a moment. In fact, he
+appeared to be still musing as he walked away.
+
+Mary began to wonder very seriously whether Mr. Carrington was going to
+prove merely a fresh addition to the disquieting mysteries of that
+house.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+BISSET'S ADVICE
+
+
+The short November afternoon was fading into a gusty evening, as Ned
+Cromarty drew near his fortalice. He carried a gun as usual, and as
+usual walked with seven league strides. Where the drive passed through
+the scrap of stunted plantation it was already dusk and the tortured
+boughs had begun their night of sighs and tossings. Beyond them, pale
+daylight lingered and the old house stood up still clear against a
+broken sky and a grey waste with flitting whitecaps all the way to the
+horizon. He had almost reached the front door when he heard the sound of
+wheels behind him. Pausing there, he spied a pony and a governess' car,
+with two people distinct enough to bring a sudden light into his eye.
+The pony trotted briskly towards the door, and he took a stride to meet
+them.
+
+"Miss Farmond!" he said.
+
+A low voice answered, and though he could not catch the words, the tone
+was enough for him. And then another voice said:
+
+"Aye, sir, I've brought her over."
+
+"Bisset!" said he. "It's you, is it? Well, what's happened?"
+
+He was lifting her out of the trap and not hesitating to hold her hand
+a little longer than he had ever held it before, now that he could see
+her face quite plainly and read what was in her eyes.
+
+"I've dared to come after all!" she said, with a little smile, which
+seemed to hint that she knew the risk was over now.
+
+"I advised her vera strongly, sir, to come over with me to Stanesland,"
+explained her escort. "The young lady has had a trying experience at
+Keldale, and forby the fair impossibility of her stopping on under the
+unfortunate circumstances, I was of the opinion that the sea air would
+be a fine change and the architectural features remarkably interesting.
+In fac', sir, I practically insisted that Miss Farmond had just got to
+come."
+
+"Good man!" said Ned. "Come in and tell me the unfortunate
+circumstances." He bent over Cicely and in a lowered voice added:
+"Personally I call 'em fortunate--so long as they haven't been too
+beastly for you!"
+
+"It's all right now!" she murmured, and as they went up the steps he
+found, somehow or other, her hand for an instant in his again.
+
+"If you'll stand by your pony for a moment, Bisset, I'll send out some
+one to take her," he said with happy inspiration.
+
+But Mr. Bisset was not so easily shaken off.
+
+"She'll stand fine for a wee while," he assured his host. "You'll be the
+better of hearing all about it from me."
+
+They went into the smoking room and the escort began forthwith.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Cromarty, that yon man Simon Rattar is a fair
+discredit. Miss Farmond has been telling me the haill story of her
+running away, and your ain vera seasonable appearance and judicious
+conduct, sir; which I am bound to say, Mr. Cromarty, is neither more nor
+less than I'd have expectit of a gentleman of your intelligence. Weel,
+to continue, Miss Farmond acted on your advice--which would have been my
+own, sir, under the circumstances--and tellt her ladyship the plain
+facts. Weel then----"
+
+"And what did Lady Cromarty say to you?" demanded Ned.
+
+"Hardly a word. She simply looked at me and said she would send for Mr.
+Rattar."
+
+Not a whit rebuffed, Mr. Bisset straightway resumed his narrative.
+
+"A perfectly proper principle if the man was capable of telling the
+truth. I'm no blaming her ladyship at that point, but where she departit
+from the proper principles of evidence----"
+
+"When did Rattar come?"
+
+"This morning," said Cicely. "And--can you believe it?--he absolutely
+denied that he had ever advised me to go away!"
+
+"I can believe it," said Ned grimly. "And I suppose Lady Cromarty
+believed him?"
+
+"God, but you're right, sir!" cried Bisset. "Your deductions are
+perfectly correct. Yon man had the impudence to give the haill thing a
+flat denial! And then naturally Miss Farmond was for off, but at first
+her ladyship was no for letting her go. Indeed she went the length of
+sending for me and telling me the young lady was not to be permitted to
+shift her luggage out of the house or use any conveyance."
+
+"But Bisset was splendid!" cried Cicely. "Do you know what the foolish
+man did? He gave up his situation and took me away!"
+
+Bisset, the man, permitted a gleam of pleasure to illuminate his blunt
+features; but Bisset, the philosopher, protested with some dignity.
+
+"It was a mere matter of principle, sir. Detention of luggage like yon
+is no legal. I tellt her ladyship flatly that she'd find herself afore
+the Shirra', and that I was no going to abet any such proceedings. I
+further informed her, sir, of my candid opinion of Simon Rattar, and I
+said plainly that he was probably meaning to marry her and get the
+estate under his thumb, and these were the kind o' tricks rascally
+lawyers took in foolish women wi'."
+
+"You told Lady Cromarty that!" exclaimed Ned. "And what did she say?"
+
+"We had a few disagreeable passages, as it were, sir," said the
+philosopher calmly. "And then I borrowed yon trap and having advised
+Miss Farmond to come to Stanesland and she being amenable, I just
+brought her along to you."
+
+"Oh, it was on your advice then?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Cicely and her host exchanged one fleeting glance and then looked
+extremely unconscious.
+
+"She's derned wise!" said he to himself.
+
+He held out his hand to the gratified counsellor.
+
+"Well done, Bisset, you've touched your top form to-day, and I may tell
+you I've been wanting some one like you badly for a long while, if you
+are willing to stay on with me. Put that in your pipe, Bisset, and smoke
+over it! And now, you know your way, go and get yourself some tea, and a
+drink of the wildest poison you fancy!"
+
+Hardly was the door closed behind him than the laird put his fate to the
+test as promptly and directly as he did most other things.
+
+"I want you to stop on too, Cicely--for ever. Will you?"
+
+Her eyes, shyly questioning for a moment and then shyly tender, answered
+his question before her lips had moved, and it would have been hard to
+convince them that the minutes which followed ever had a parallel within
+human experience.
+
+A little later he confessed:
+
+"Do you know, Cicely, I've always had a funky feeling that if I ever
+proposed my glass eye would drop out!"
+
+The next event was the somewhat sudden entry of Lilian Cromarty, and
+that lady's self control was never more severely tested or brilliantly
+vindicated. One startled glance, and then she was saying, briskly, and
+with the old bright smile:
+
+"A telegram for you, Ned."
+
+"Thanks," said he. "By the way, here's the future Mrs. Ned--that's to
+say if she doesn't funk it before the wedding."
+
+Lilian's welcome, Lilian's embrace, and Lilian's congratulations were
+alike perfect. Cicely wondered how people could ever have said the
+critical things of her which some of her acquaintances were unkind
+enough to say at times. As to Bisset's dictum regarding the lady in the
+castle, that was manifestly absurd on the face of it. Miss Cromarty was
+clearly overjoyed to hear of her brother's engagement.
+
+"And now, Neddy dear!" cried the bright lady, "tell me how it all came
+about!"
+
+Ned looked up from his telegram with a glint in his eye that was hardly
+a lover's glance.
+
+"Cicely will tell you all about it," said he. "I'm afraid I've got to be
+off pretty well as quick as I can."
+
+He handed them the wire and they read: "Meet me eight to-night Kings
+Arms urgent. Carrington."
+
+"From Mr. Carrington!" exclaimed his sister.
+
+Ned smiled.
+
+"Cicely will explain him too," he said. "By Gad, I wonder if this is
+going to be the finishing bit of luck!"
+
+In another twenty minutes the lights of his gig lamps were raking the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+TRAPPED
+
+
+Cromarty and Carrington slipped unostentatiously out of the hotel a few
+minutes after eight o'clock.
+
+"Take any line you like," said Carrington, "but as he knows now that you
+brought Miss Farmond back and have heard her version, he'll naturally be
+feeling a little uncomfortable about the place where one generally gets
+kicked, when he sees you march in. He will expect you to open out on
+that subject, so if I were you I'd take the natural line of country and
+do what he expects."
+
+"Including the kicking?"
+
+Carrington laughed.
+
+"Keep him waiting for that. Spin it out; that's your job to-night."
+
+"I wish it were more than talking!" said Ned.
+
+"Well," drawled Carrington, "it may lead to something more amusing. Who
+knows? You haven't bought your own gun, I suppose? Take mine."
+
+He handed him the same little article he had taken out the night before,
+and Ned's eye gleamed.
+
+"What!" said he. "That kind of gun once more? This reminds me of old
+times!"
+
+"It's a mere precaution," said the other. "Don't count on using it!
+Remember, you're going to visit the most respectable citizen of the
+town--perhaps on a wild goose errand."
+
+"I guess not," said Ned quietly.
+
+"We daren't assume anything. I don't want to make a fool of myself, and
+no more do you, I take it."
+
+"I see," said Ned, with a nod. "Well, I'll keep him in his chair for
+you."
+
+"That's it."
+
+They were walking quickly through the silent town under the windy night
+sky. It was a dark boisterous evening, not inviting for strollers, and
+they scarcely passed a soul till they were in the quiet road where the
+villa stood. There, from the shadows of a gateway, two figures moved out
+to meet them, and Cromarty recognised Superintendent Sutherland and one
+of his constables. The two saluted in silence and fell in behind. They
+each carried, he noticed, something long-shaped wrapped up loosely in
+sacking.
+
+"What have they got there?" he asked.
+
+"Prosaic instruments," smiled Carrington. "I won't tell you more for
+fear the gamble doesn't come off."
+
+"Like the sensation before one proposes, I suppose," said Ned. "Well,
+going by that, the omens ought to be all right."
+
+They turned in through Simon's gates and then the four stopped.
+
+"We part here," whispered Carrington. "Good luck!"
+
+"Same to you," said Ned briefly, and strode up the drive.
+
+As he came out into the gravel sweep before the house, he looked hard
+into the darkness of the garden, but beyond the tossing shapes of trees,
+there was not a sign of movement.
+
+"Mr. Rattar in?" he enquired. "Sitting in the library I suppose? Take me
+right to him. Cromarty's my name."
+
+"Mr. Cromarty to see you, sir," announced Mary, and she was startled to
+see the master's sudden turn in his chair and the look upon his face.
+
+"Whether he was feared or whether he was angered, I canna rightly say,"
+she told cook, "but anyway he looked fair mad like!"
+
+"Good evening," said Ned.
+
+His voice was restrained and dry, and as he spoke he strode across the
+room and seated himself deliberately in the arm chair on the side of the
+fire opposite to the lawyer.
+
+Simon had banished that first look which Mary saw, but there remained in
+his eyes something more than their usual cold stare. Each day since
+Carrington came seemed to have aged his face and changed it for the
+worse: a haggard, ugly, malicious face it seemed to his visitor looking
+hard at it to-night. His only greeting was a briefer grunt than
+ordinary.
+
+"I daresay you can guess what's brought me here," said Ned.
+
+The lawyer rapped out his first words jerkily.
+
+"No. I can't."
+
+"Try three guesses," suggested his visitor. "Come now, number one----?"
+
+For a moment Simon was silent, but to-night he could not hide the
+working of that face which usually hid his thoughts so effectually. It
+was plain he hesitated what line to take.
+
+"You have seen Miss Farmond, I hear," he said.
+
+"You're on the scent," said his visitor encouragingly. "Have another
+go."
+
+"You believe her story."
+
+"I do."
+
+"It's false."
+
+Ned stared at him very hard and then he spoke deliberately.
+
+"I'm wondering," said he.
+
+"Wondering what?" asked Simon.
+
+"Whether a horse whip or the toe of a shooting boot is the best cure for
+your complaint."
+
+The lawyer shrank back into his chair.
+
+"Do you threaten me?" he jerked out. "Be careful!"
+
+"If I threatened you I'd certainly do what I threatened," said Ned. "So
+far I'm only wondering. Where did you learn to lie, Mr. Rattar?"
+
+The lawyer made no answer at all. His mind seemed concentrated on
+guessing the other's probable actions.
+
+"Out with it, man! I've met some derned good liars in my time, but you
+beat the lot. I'm anxious to know where you learned the trick, that's
+all."
+
+"Why do you believe her more than me?" asked Simon.
+
+"Because you've been found out lying before. That was a pretty stiff one
+about your engaging Carrington, wasn't it?"
+
+Simon was quite unable to control his violent start, and his face turned
+whiter.
+
+"I--I didn't say I did," he stammered.
+
+"Well," said Ned, "I admit I wasn't there to hear you, but I know
+Carrington made you put your foot fairly in it just by way of helping
+him to size you up, and he got your size right enough too."
+
+"Then----" began Simon, and stopped and changed it into: "What does
+Carrington suspect--er--accuse me of?"
+
+Ned stared at him for several seconds without speaking, and this
+procedure seemed to disconcert the lawyer more than anything had done
+yet.
+
+"What--what does Carrington mean?" he repeated.
+
+"He means you've lied, and he believes Miss Farmond, and he believes Sir
+Malcolm, and he believes me, and he puts you down as a pretty bad egg.
+What did you expect to be accused of?"
+
+Simon could no more hide his relief to-night than he could hide his
+fears.
+
+"Only of what you have told me--only of course of what you say! But I
+can explain. In good time I can explain."
+
+It was at that moment that the door opened sharply and the start the
+lawyer gave showed the state of his nerves after Mr. Cromarty's
+handling. Mary MacLean stood in the doorway, her face twitching.
+
+"What's the matter?" snapped her master.
+
+"Please, sir, there are men in the garden!" she cried.
+
+The lawyer leapt to his feet.
+
+"Men in the garden!" he cried, and there was a note in his voice which
+startled even tough Ned Cromarty. "What are they doing?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. It sounded almost as if they was digging."
+
+Simon swayed for an instant and grasped the back of his chair. Then in a
+muffled voice he muttered:
+
+"I'm going to see!"
+
+He had scarcely made a step towards the door when Cromarty was on his
+feet too.
+
+"Steady!" he cried. "Get out there, and shut the door!"
+
+The towering form and formidable voice sent Mary out with a shut door
+between them almost as the command was off his tongue. A couple of
+strides and he had got the lawyer by the shoulder and pulled him back.
+
+"Sit down!" he commanded.
+
+Simon turned on him with a new expression. The terror had passed away
+and he stood there now as the sheer beast at bay.
+
+"Damn you!" he muttered, and turned his back for a moment.
+
+The next, his hand rose and simultaneously Ned's arm shot out and got
+him by the wrist, while the shock of his onslaught drove the man back
+and down into his chair. Though Simon was tough and stoutly built, he
+was as a child in the hands of his adversary. A sharp twist of the wrist
+was followed by an exclamation of pain and the thud of something heavy
+on the floor. Ned stooped and picked up the globular glass match box
+that had stood on the table. For a few moments he stared at it in dead
+silence, balancing it in his hands. It was like a small cannon ball for
+concentrated weight. Then in a curious voice he asked:
+
+"Is this the first time you have used this?"
+
+Simon made no reply. His face was dead white now, but dogged and grim,
+and his mouth stayed tight as a trap. Ned replaced the match box on the
+table, and planted himself before the fire.
+
+"Nothing to say?" he asked, and Simon said nothing.
+
+They remained like this for minute after minute; not a movement in the
+room and the booming of the wind the only sound. And then came
+footsteps on the gravel and the ringing of a bell.
+
+"We'll probably learn something now," said Ned, but the other still said
+nothing, and only a quick glance towards the door gave a hint of his
+thoughts.
+
+There was no announcement this time. Superintendent Sutherland entered
+first, then the constable, and Carrington last. The superintendent went
+straight up to the lawyer, his large face preternaturally solemn.
+Touching him on the shoulder he said:
+
+"I arrest you in the King's name!"
+
+The man in the chair half started up and then fell back again.
+
+"What for?" he asked huskily.
+
+"The murder of Simon Rattar."
+
+The lawyer took it as one who had seen the sword descending, but not so
+Ned Cromarty.
+
+"Of Simon Rattar!" he shouted. "What the--then who the devil is this?"
+
+Carrington answered. He spoke with his usual easy smile, but his
+triumphant eye betrayed his heart.
+
+"The superintendent has omitted part of the usual formalities," he said.
+"This person should have been introduced as Mr. George Rattar."
+
+"George!" gasped Ned. "But I thought he was dead!"
+
+"So did I," said Carrington, "but he wasn't."
+
+"What proof have you of this story?" demanded the man in the chair
+suddenly.
+
+"We have just dug up your brother's body from that flower bed," said
+Carrington quietly. "Do you recognise his ring?"
+
+He held up a gold signet ring, and the lawyer fell back in his chair.
+
+"But look here!" exclaimed Ned, "what about Sir Reginald's murder? He
+did that too, I suppose!"
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"We hope to add that to his account in a day or two. This is enough to
+be going on with, but as a matter of fact we have nearly enough evidence
+now to add the other charge."
+
+"I can add one bit," said Ned, picking up the match box. "He has just
+tried to do me in with this little thing, and I take it, it was the
+third time of using."
+
+Carrington weighed it in his hand, and then said to the prisoner:
+
+"You put it in the end of a stocking, I suppose?"
+
+The man looked up at him with a new expression in his eye. If it were
+not a trace of grim humour, it was hard to say what else it could be.
+
+"Get me a drink," he said huskily, nodding towards the tantalus on the
+side table, "and I'll tell you the whole damned yarn. My God, I'm dry as
+a damned bone!"
+
+"Give me the key of the tantalus," said Carrington promptly.
+
+But the superintendent seemed somewhat taken aback.
+
+"Anything you say may be used against you," he reminded the prisoner.
+
+"You know enough to swing me, anyhow," said Rattar, "but I'd like you to
+know that I didn't really mean to do it. I want that drink first
+though!"
+
+He took the glass of whisky and water and as he raised it to his lips,
+that same curious look came back into his eye.
+
+"Here's to the firm of S. and G. Rattar, and may their clients be as
+damned as themselves!" he said with a glance at Cromarty, and finished
+the drink at a draught.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+THE YARN
+
+
+"I needn't trouble you with my adventures before I came down here to
+visit brother Simon," began the prisoner, "for you know them well
+enough. It was about a month ago when I turned up at this house one
+night."
+
+"How did you get here?" demanded the superintendent.
+
+"I did the last bit under the seat of the carriage," grinned Rattar,
+"and when we got into the station I hopped out on the wrong side of the
+train. The way I paid my fare wasn't bad either, considering I hadn't
+half of the fare from London in my pocket when I started--or anything
+like it. However, the point is I got here and just as I'd come through
+the gates I had the luck to see both the maids going out. So the coast
+was clear.
+
+"Well, I rang the bell and out came Simon--the man who'd got me
+convicted, and my own brother too, mind you!--looking as smug as the
+hard-hearted old humbug he was. He got the shock of his life when he saw
+who it was, but I began gently and I put a proposition to him. I'll bet
+none of you will guess what it was!"
+
+He looked round the company, and Carrington answered:
+
+"Blackmail of some sort."
+
+"You may call it blackmail if you like, but what was the sort? Well,
+you'd never guess. I was wearing a beard and moustaches then, but I knew
+if I took them off I'd look so like Simon that no one meeting one of us
+would know which it was, supposing we were dressed exactly alike and I
+did Simon's grunting tricks and all that. And Simon knew it too.
+
+"'Well, Simon, my dear brother,' I said to him, 'I'll make you a
+sporting proposition. My idea is to settle down in this old place, and
+I'm so fond of you I mean to shave, get an outfit just like yours, and
+give free rein to my affection for you. I'm so fond of you,' I said,
+'that I know I shan't be able to keep more than five yards away from you
+whenever you are walking the streets, and I'll have to sit in church
+beside you, Simon. That's my present programme.'
+
+"I let that sink in, and then I went on:
+
+"'Supposing this programme embarrasses you, Simon, well there's one way
+out of it, and I leave it to your judgment to say what it is.'
+
+"Now, mind you, I'd banked on this coming off, for I knew what a
+stickler Simon was for the respectable and the conventional and all
+that. Can't you see the two of us going through the streets together,
+five yards apart and dressed exactly alike! Wouldn't the small boys have
+liked it! That was my only idea in coming down here. I meant no more
+mischief, I'll swear to that! Unfortunately, though, I'd got so keen on
+the scheme that I hadn't thought of its weak spot.
+
+"Simon said not a word, but just looked at me--exactly as I've been
+looking at people since I took his place in society. And then he asked
+me if I was really very hard up. Like a fool I told him the plain truth,
+that I had inside of five bob in my pockets and that was every penny I
+owned in the world.
+
+"He grinned then--I can see him grinning now--and he said:
+
+"'In that case you'll have a little difficulty in paying your board and
+lodging here, and still more in buying clothes. I tell you what I'll
+do,' he said, 'I'll buy a ticket back to London for you and leave it
+with the stationmaster, and that's every penny you'll ever get out of
+me!'
+
+"I saw he had me, but I wasn't going off on those terms. I damned him to
+his face and he tried to shut the door on me. We were talking at the
+front door all this while, I may mention. I got my foot in the way, and
+as I was always a bit stronger than Simon, I had that door open after a
+tussle and then I followed him into the library.
+
+"I knew the man was hard as flint and never showed mercy to any one in
+his life when he had them on toast, and I knew he had me on toast. How
+was I to get any change out of him? That was what I was wondering as I
+followed him, and then all at once something--the devil if you
+like--put the idea into my head. I'd _be_ Simon!"
+
+He looked round on his audience as though he still relished the memory
+of that inspiration.
+
+"The beauty of the idea was that no one would ever dream of suspecting a
+man of not being himself! They might suspect him of a lot of things, but
+not of that. I hadn't thought of the scheme ten seconds before I
+realised how dead safe it was so long as I kept my head. And I have kept
+it. No one can deny that!"
+
+His glance this time challenged a contradiction, but no one spoke. The
+circle of steadfast eyes and silent lips he seemed to take as a tribute
+to his address, for he smiled and then went on:
+
+"Yes, I kept my head from the beginning. I stood talking to him in this
+very room, he refusing to answer anything except to repeat that he'd buy
+a ticket to London and leave it with the stationmaster, and I working
+out the scheme--what to do it with and how to manage afterwards. I knew
+it was a swinging risk, but against that was a starving certainty, and
+then I spied that match box and the thing was settled. I got him to look
+the other way for a moment--and then he was settled. Give me another
+drink!"
+
+Carrington got him a drink and he gulped it down, and then turned
+suddenly on Ned Cromarty.
+
+"Your damned glass eye has been getting on my nerves long enough!" he
+exclaimed. "My God, that eye and your habit of hanging people--I've had
+enough of them! Can't you turn it away from me?"
+
+"Won't turn," said Ned coolly, "spring broken. Get on with your story!"
+
+Even in his privileged position as prisoner, Rattar seemed disinclined
+to have trouble with his formidable ex-client. He answered nothing, but
+turned his shoulder to him and continued:
+
+"After that was over I set about covering my tracks. The first part was
+the worst. Before the maids came back I had to get Simon stowed away for
+the night--no time to bury him then of course, and I had to get into his
+clothes, shave, and learn the lie of the house and all that. I did it
+all right and came down to breakfast next morning and passed muster with
+the servants, and never a suspicion raised!"
+
+"There was a little," remarked Carrington, "but never enough."
+
+"Not enough was good enough!"
+
+"I am not quite certain of that," said Carrington. "However, go on. Your
+next bunker was the office."
+
+The prisoner nodded.
+
+"It took some nerve," he said complacently, "and I'm free to confess
+that to begin with I always had a beastly feeling that some one was
+watching me and spotting something that didn't look quite right, but,
+good Lord, keeping my head the way I kept it, there was nothing to worry
+about! Who would ever think that the Simon Rattar who walked into his
+office and grunted at his clerks on Wednesday morning, wasn't the same
+Simon Rattar who walked in and grunted on Tuesday morning? And then I
+had one tremendous pull in knowing all the ropes from old days. Simon
+was a conservative man, nothing was ever changed--not even the clerks,
+so I had the whole routine at my fingers. And he was an easy man to
+imitate too. That was where I scored again. I daresay I have inherited
+some of the same tricks myself. I know I found them come quite easy--the
+stare and the silence and the grunts and the rest of them. And then I
+always had more brains than Simon and could pick up business quicker.
+You should have heard me making that ass Malcolm Cromarty, and the
+Farmond girl, and this hangman with the glass eye tell me all about
+themselves and what their business was, without their ever suspecting
+they were being pumped! For, mind you, I'd never set eyes on Malcolm
+Cromarty or the Farmond girl before in my life! No, it wasn't at the
+office I had the nastiest time. It was burying the body that night."
+
+The boastful smile died off his lips and for a moment he shivered a
+little.
+
+"What happened about that?" enquired Carrington keenly.
+
+Rattar's voice instinctively fell a little.
+
+"When I got home that afternoon I found he wasn't quite dead after all!"
+
+"That accounts for it!" murmured Carrington.
+
+"For what?"
+
+"Your maid heard him moving."
+
+The prisoner seemed to have recovered from his passing emotion.
+
+"And I told her it was a rat, and she swallowed it!" he laughed. "Well,
+he didn't move for long, and I had fixed up quite a good scheme for
+getting him out of the house. A man was to call for old papers. I even
+did two voices talking in the hall to make the bluff complete! Not being
+able to get his ring off his finger rather worried me, but I put that
+right by an advertisement in the paper saying I'd lost it!"
+
+He was arrested by the look on Carrington's face.
+
+"What happened?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that gave me away?"
+
+"Those superfluous precautions generally give people away."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"It doesn't matter now. You'll learn later. What next?"
+
+"Next?" said Rattar. "Well, I just went on keeping my head and bluffing
+people----" he broke off, looked at Superintendent Sutherland, and gave
+a short laugh. "I only lost my nerve a bit once, and that was when the
+glass-eyed hangman butted in and said he was going to get down a
+detective. It struck me then it was time I was off--and what's more, I
+started!"
+
+The superintendent's mouth fell open.
+
+"You--you weren't the man----" he began.
+
+"Yes," scoffed the prisoner, "I was the man with toothache in that
+empty carriage. I'd got in at the wrong side after the ticket collector
+passed and just about twenty seconds before you opened the door. But the
+sight of your red face made me change my plans, and I was out again
+before that train started! A bright policeman you are! After that I
+decided to stick it out and face the music; and I faced it."
+
+His mouth shut tight and he sat back in his chair, his eyes travelling
+round the others as though to mark their unwilling admiration. He
+certainly saw it in the faces of the two open-eyed policemen, but
+Cromarty's was hard and set, and he seemed still to be waiting.
+
+"You haven't told us about Sir Reginald yet," he said.
+
+Rattar looked at him defiantly.
+
+"No evidence there," he said with a cunning shake of his head, "you can
+go on guessing!"
+
+"Would you like to smoke a pipe?" asked Carrington suddenly.
+
+The man's eyes gleamed.
+
+"By God, yes!"
+
+"You can have one if you tell us about Sir Reginald. We've got you
+anyhow, and there will be evidence enough there too when we've put it
+together."
+
+The superintendent looked a trifle shocked, but Carrington's sway over
+him was by this time evidently unbounded. He coughed an official protest
+but said nothing.
+
+The prisoner only hesitated for a moment. He saw Carrington taking out a
+cigarette, and then he took out his keys and said:
+
+"This is the key for that drawer. You'll find my pipe and baccy there.
+I'll tell you the rest." And then he started and exclaimed: "But how the
+h-- did you know I smoked?"
+
+"At five minutes past nine o'clock last night," said Carrington, as he
+handed him his pipe, "I was within three paces of you."
+
+The prisoner stared at him with a wry face.
+
+"You devil!" he murmured, and then added with some philosophy: "After
+all, I'd sooner be hanged than stop smoking." And with that he lit his
+pipe.
+
+"You want to know about old Cromarty," he resumed. "Well, I made my
+first bad break when I carried on a correspondence with him which Simon
+had begun, not knowing they had had a talk between whiles cancelling the
+whole thing. You know about it and about the letter Sir Reginald sent me
+after I'd written. Well, when I got that letter I admit it rattled me a
+bit. I've often wondered since whether he had really suspected anything
+or whether he would have sooner or later. Anyhow I got it into my head
+that the game was up if something didn't happen. And so it happened."
+
+"You went and killed him?" said Ned.
+
+"That's for you and your glass eye to find out!" snapped the prisoner.
+
+"Take his pipe away," said Carrington quietly.
+
+"Damn it!" cried Rattar, "I'll tell you, only I'm fed up with that man's
+bullying! I put it in a stocking" (he nodded towards the match box)
+"just as you guessed and I went out to Keldale that night. My God, what
+a walk that was in the dark! I'd half forgotten the way down to the
+house and I thought every other tree was a man watching me. I don't know
+yet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and I
+thought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, and
+I'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping in
+his dressing room. Give me another drink!"
+
+Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.
+
+"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on the
+glass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinned
+at him and he let me in, and then----" He broke off and fell forward in
+his chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!"
+he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"
+
+Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by the
+arm.
+
+"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary.
+You can't touch him now."
+
+Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.
+
+"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to the
+superintendent.
+
+They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+THE LAST CHAPTER
+
+
+On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and that
+was to exclaim:
+
+"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me more
+before I went in?"
+
+"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish
+undiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."
+
+They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sitting
+room and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed away
+an empty tumbler.
+
+"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tell
+me how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupid
+I've been!"
+
+"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at this
+game, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as good
+guidance that put me on to the truth at last."
+
+"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were up
+against it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying at
+the start. Well, that was pretty smart of you to begin with. Then, what
+next? How did things come?"
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "I picked up a little something on my first
+visit to Keldale. From Bisset's description I gathered that the body
+must have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why?
+Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, the
+broken table, the mud on the floor, and the hearth brush, the odds
+seemed heavy on entry by the window. I also found that the middle blind
+had been out of order that night and that it _might_ have been quite
+possible for any one outside to have seen Sir Reginald sitting in the
+room and known he was alone there. Again, it seemed long odds on his
+having recognised the man outside and opened the window himself, which,
+again, pointed to the man being some one he knew quite well and never
+suspected mischief from."
+
+"Those were always my own ideas, except that I felt bamboozled where you
+felt clear--which shows the difference between our brains!"
+
+Carrington laughed and shook his head.
+
+"I wish I could think so! No, no, it's merely a case of every man to his
+own trade. And as a matter of fact I was left just as bamboozled as you
+were. For who could this mysterious man be? Of the people inside the
+house, I had struck out Miss Farmond, Bisset, Lady Cromarty, and all the
+female servants. Only Sir Malcolm was left. I wired for him to come up
+and was able to score him out too. I also visited you and scored you
+out. So there I was--with no conceivable criminal!"
+
+"But you'd already begun to suspect Rattar, hadn't you?"
+
+"I knew he had lied about engaging me; I discovered from Lady Cromarty
+that he had told her of Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond--and I
+suspected he had started her suspicions of them; and I saw that he was
+set on that theory, in spite of the fact that it was palpably improbable
+if one actually knew the people. Of course if one didn't, it was
+plausible enough. When I first came down here it seemed to me a very
+likely theory and I was prepared to find a guilty couple, but when I met
+Miss Farmond and told her suddenly that Sir Malcolm was arrested, and
+she gazed blankly at me and asked 'What for?' well, I simply ran my
+pencil, so to speak, through her name and there was an end of her! The
+same with Sir Malcolm when I met him. And yet here was the family
+lawyer, who knew them both perfectly, so convinced of their guilt that
+he was obviously stifling investigation in any other direction. And on
+top of all that, all my natural instincts and intuitions told me that
+the man was a bad hat."
+
+"But didn't all that make you suspect him?"
+
+"Of what? Of leaving his respectable villa at the dead of night,
+tramping several miles at his age in the dark, and deliberately
+murdering his own best client and old friend under circumstances so
+risky to himself that only a combination of lucky chances saw him
+safely through the adventure? Nothing--absolutely nothing but homicidal
+mania could possibly account for such a performance, and the man was
+obviously as sane as you or I. I felt certain that there was something
+wrong somewhere, but as for suspecting him of being the principal in the
+crime, the idea was stark lunacy!"
+
+"By George, it was a tough proposition!" said Ned. "By the way, had you
+heard of George Rattar at that time?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I heard of him, and knew they resembled one another, but as I
+was told that he had left the place for years and was now dead, my
+thoughts never even once ran in that direction until I got into a state
+of desperation, and then I merely surmised that his misdeeds might have
+been at the bottom of some difficulty between Simon and Sir Reginald."
+
+"Then how on earth did you ever get on to the right track?"
+
+"I never would have if the man hadn't given himself away. To begin with,
+he was fool enough to fall in with my perfectly genuine assumption that
+he was either employing me or acting for my employer. No doubt he stood
+to score if the bluff had come off, and he banked on your stipulation
+that your name shouldn't appear. But if he had only been honest in that
+matter, my suspicions would never have started--not at that point
+anyhow."
+
+"That was Providence--sure!" said Ned with conviction.
+
+"I'm inclined to think it was," agreed Carrington. "Then again his
+advice to Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond was well enough designed to
+further his own scheme of throwing suspicion on them, but it simply
+ended in his being bowled out both times, and throwing suspicion on
+himself. But _the_ precaution which actually gave him away was putting
+in that advertisement about his ring."
+
+"I was just wondering," said Ned, "how that did the trick."
+
+"By the merest fluke. I noticed it when I was making enquiries at the
+Police Office on quite different lines, but you can imagine that I
+switched off my other enquiries pretty quick when Superintendent
+Sutherland calmly advanced the theory that the ring was stolen when
+Rattar's house was entered by some one unknown on the very night of the
+murder!"
+
+"This is the first I've heard of that!" cried Ned.
+
+"It was the first I had, but it led me straight to Rattar's house and a
+long heart to heart talk with his housemaid. That was when I collected
+that extraordinary mixed bag of information which I was wondering
+yesterday whether to believe or not. Here are the items, and you can
+judge for yourself what my state of mind was when I was carrying about
+the following precious pieces of information."
+
+He ticked the items off on his fingers.
+
+"A mysterious man who entered the garden one night and left his
+footprints in the gravel, and whose visit had a strange and mysterious
+effect on Rattar. Funny feelings produced in the bosom of the housemaid
+by the presence of her master. Doors of unused rooms mysteriously locked
+and keys taken away; said to be old papers inside. Mysterious visit of
+mysterious man at dead of night to remove the said papers. A ring that
+couldn't come off the owner's finger mysteriously lost. Mysterious
+burglary on night of the murder by mysterious burglar who left all
+windows and doors locked behind him and took nothing away. Mysterious
+perambulations of his garden every night at nine o'clock by Mr. Simon
+Rattar."
+
+"Great Scot!" murmured Cromarty.
+
+"I have given you the items in what turned out to be their order of
+date, but I got them higgledy-piggledy and served up in a sauce of
+mystery and trembly sensations that left me utterly flummoxed as to how
+much--if anything--was sober fact. However, I began by fastening on to
+two things. The first was the burglary, which of course at once
+suggested the possibility that the man who had committed the crime at
+Keldale had returned to Rattar's house and got in by that window. The
+second was the nightly perambulations, which could easily be tested.
+When Mr. Rattar emerged at nine that night, I was in the garden before
+him. And what do you think he did?"
+
+"Had a look at his brother's grave?"
+
+"Smoked two pipes of tobacco! A man who was an anti-tobacco fanatic! The
+truth hit me straight in the eye--'That man is not Simon Rattar!' And
+then of course everything dropped into its place. The ex-convict twin
+brother, the only evidence of whose supposititious death was an
+announcement in the paper, obviously put in as a blind. The personal
+resemblance between the two. All the yarns told me by the housemaid,
+including the strange visitor--George of course arriving; the man who
+came for the papers--George himself taking out the body; and the
+vanished ring. Everything fitted in now, and the correspondence between
+Sir Reginald and Rattar which had beaten me before, gave the clue at
+once as to motive."
+
+"I guess you felt you had deserved a drink that trip!" said Ned.
+
+"I didn't stop to have my drink. I went straight off to see old Ison
+and pumped him for the rest of the evening. He wasn't very helpful
+but everything I could get out of him went to confirm my theory. I
+found for certain that Simon Rattar had never smoked in his life, and
+that George used to be a heavy smoker. I also learned that a few
+recent peculiarities of conduct had struck the not too observant Ison,
+one being very suggestive. Rattar, it seemed, kept an old pair of kid
+gloves in his desk which he was in the habit of wearing when he was
+alone in the office."
+
+"Don't quite see the bearing of that."
+
+"Well, on my hypothesis it was to avoid leaving finger marks. You see
+George was an ex-convict. It was a very judicious precaution too, and
+made it extremely difficult to catch him out by that means, for one
+could scarcely approach a respectable solicitor and ask him for an
+impression of his fingers! And anyhow, nothing could be definitely
+proved against him until we had found Simon's body. That was the next
+problem. Where had he hidden it?"
+
+"And how did you get at that?"
+
+"Guessed it. At first my thoughts went too far afield, but when I went
+over the times mentioned in the maid's story of the man who took away
+the papers, and the fact that she heard no sound of a wheeled vehicle, I
+realised that he must have simply planted it in one of the flower beds.
+This morning I prodded them all with a stout walking stick and found the
+spot. Then I talked like a father to old Sutherland and fixed everything
+up with him. And then I sent my wire to you."
+
+"And you deliberately tell me you got there as much by good luck as good
+guidance?"
+
+Carrington's eyes thoughtfully followed his smoke rings.
+
+"I can see the luck at every turn," he answered, "and though I'd like to
+believe in the guidance, I'm hanged if it's quite as distinct!"
+
+"If you are telling me the neat, unvarnished truth, Carrington," said
+his admiring employer, "I can only say that you've a lot to learn about
+your own abilities--and I hope to Heaven you'll never learn it!"
+
+"But I assure you there are some people who think me conceited!"
+
+"There are guys of all sorts in the world," said Ned. "For instance
+there's a girl who has mistaken me for a daisy, and I've got to get back
+to her now. Good night! I won't say 'Thanks' because I can't shout it
+loud enough."
+
+When his gig lamps had flashed up the silent street and Carrington had
+turned back from the pavement into the hotel, he met his friend Miss
+Peterkin.
+
+"Mr. Cromarty's late to-night," said she. "A fine gentleman that! I
+always say there are few like Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland."
+
+"That's lucky for me," said Carrington with a smile that puzzled her a
+little. "My business in life would be gone if there were!"
+
+                              THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Simon, by J. Storer Clouston
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Simon, by J. Storer Clouston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Simon
+
+Author: J. Storer Clouston
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26306]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="bbox centerbox">
+<div class="bt"></div>
+<div class="bb"></div>
+<h1>SIMON</h1>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>J. STORER CLOUSTON</h2>
+
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS," "THE SPY<br />
+IN BLACK," "THE LUNATIC AT LARGE," ETC.</p>
+
+<p class="gap">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>NEW
+<img src="images/i001.jpg" class="bottom" width="98" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+YORK</h2>
+
+<h2>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h2>
+
+<div class="bb2">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="bt">&nbsp;</div></div>
+
+<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1919,<br />
+BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" summary="CONTENTS">
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">CHAPTER</td>
+<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">I.</td>
+<td align="left">The Solitary Passenger</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#SIMON">9</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">II.</td>
+<td align="left">The Procurator Fiscal</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#II">16</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">III.</td>
+<td align="left">The Heir</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#III">23</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">IV.</td>
+<td align="left">The Man from the West</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#IV">31</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">V.</td>
+<td align="left">The Third Visitor</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#V">40</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">VI.</td>
+<td align="left">At Night</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#VI">48</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">VII.</td>
+<td align="left">The Drive Home</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#VII">56</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">VIII.</td>
+<td align="left">Sir Reginald</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#VIII">67</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">IX.</td>
+<td align="left">A Philosopher</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#IX">74</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">X.</td>
+<td align="left">The Letter</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#X">80</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XI.</td>
+<td align="left">News</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XI">89</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XII.</td>
+<td align="left">Cicely</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XII">100</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XIII.</td>
+<td align="left">The Deductive Process</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XIII">106</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XIV.</td>
+<td align="left">The Question of Motive</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XIV">114</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XV.</td>
+<td align="left">Two Women</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XV">123</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XVI.</td>
+<td align="left">Rumour</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XVI">128</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XVII.</td>
+<td align="left">A Suggestion</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XVII">135</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XVIII.</td>
+<td align="left">&pound;1200</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XVIII">143</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XIX.</td>
+<td align="left">The Empty Compartment</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XIX">148</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XX.</td>
+<td align="left">The Sporting Visitor</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XX">154</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXI.</td>
+<td align="left">Mr. Carrington's Walk</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXI">161</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXII.</td>
+<td align="left">Mr. Carrington and the Fiscal</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXII">168</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXIII.</td>
+<td align="left">Simon's Views</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXIII">176</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXIV.</td>
+<td align="left">Mr. Bisset's Assistant</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXIV">185</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXV.</td>
+<td align="left">A Telegram</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXV">196</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXVI.</td>
+<td align="left">At Stanesland</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXVI">201</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXVII.</td>
+<td align="left">Flight</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXVII">209</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXVIII.</td>
+<td align="left">The Return</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXVIII">216</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXIX.</td>
+<td align="left">Brother and Sister</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXIX">224</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXX.</td>
+<td align="left">A Marked Man</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXX">229</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXI.</td>
+<td align="left">The Letter Again</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXI">240</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXII.</td>
+<td align="left">The Sympathetic Stranger</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXII">247</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXIII.</td>
+<td align="left">The House of Mysteries</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXIII">253</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXIV.</td>
+<td align="left">A Confidential Conversation</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXIV">261</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXV.</td>
+<td align="left">In the Garden</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXV">271</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXVI.</td>
+<td align="left">The Walking Stick</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXVI">278</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXVII.</td>
+<td align="left">Bisset's Advice</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXVII">285</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXVIII.</td>
+<td align="left">Trapped</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXVIII">291</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XXXIX.</td>
+<td align="left">The Yarn</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XXXIX">301</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="right">XL.</td>
+<td align="left">The Last Chapter</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#XL">312</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="SIMON" id="SIMON"></a>SIMON</h2>
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SOLITARY PASSENGER</h3>
+
+<p>The train had come a long journey and the afternoon was wearing on. The
+passenger in the last third class compartment but one, looking out of
+the window sombrely and intently, saw nothing now but desolate brown
+hills and a winding lonely river, very northern looking under the
+autumnal sky.</p>
+
+<p>He was alone in the carriage, and if any one had happened to study his
+movements during the interminable journey, they would have concluded
+that for some reason he seemed to have a singularly strong inclination
+for solitude. In fact this was at least the third compartment he had
+occupied, for whenever a fellow traveller entered, he unostentatiously
+descended, and in a moment had slipped, also unostentatiously, into an
+empty carriage. Finally he had selected one at the extreme end of the
+train, a judicious choice which had ensured privacy for the last couple
+of hours.</p>
+
+<p>When the train at length paused in the midst of the moorlands and for
+some obscure reason <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>this spot was selected for the examination of
+tickets, another feature of this traveller's character became apparent.
+He had no ticket, he confessed, but named the last station as his place
+of departure and the next as his destination. Being an entirely
+respectable looking person, his statement was accepted and he slipped
+the change for half a crown into his pocket; just as he had done a
+number of times previously in the course of his journey. Evidently the
+passenger was of an economical as well as of a secretive disposition.</p>
+
+<p>As the light began to fade and the grey sky to change into a deeper
+grey, and the lighted train to glitter through the darkening moors, and
+he could see by his watch that their distant goal was now within an
+hour's journey, the man showed for the first time signs of a livelier
+interest. He peered out keenly into the dusk as though recognising old
+landmarks, and now and then he shifted in his seat restlessly and a
+little nervously.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of middle age or upwards, of middle height, and thickset.
+Round his neck he wore a muffler, so drawn up as partially to conceal
+the lower part of his face, and a black felt hat was drawn down over his
+eyes. Between them could be seen only the gleam of his eyes, the tip of
+his nose, and the stiff hairs of a grizzled moustache.</p>
+
+<p>Out of his overcoat pocket he pulled a pipe and for a moment looked at
+it doubtfully, and then, as if the temptation were irresistible, he took
+out a tobacco pouch too. It was almost flat and he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>jealously picked up
+a shred that fell on the floor, and checked himself at last when the
+bowl was half filled. And then for a while he smoked very slowly,
+savouring each whiff.</p>
+
+<p>When they stopped at the last station or two, the reserved and exclusive
+disposition of this traveller became still more apparent. Not only was
+he so muffled up as to make recognition by an unwelcome acquaintance
+exceedingly difficult, but so long as they paused at the stations he sat
+with his face resting on his hand, and when they moved on again, an air
+of some relief was apparent.</p>
+
+<p>But a still more remarkable instance of this sensitive passion for
+privacy appeared when the train stopped at the ticket platform just
+outside its final destination. Even as they were slowing down, he fell
+on his knees and then stretched himself at full length on the floor, and
+when the door was flung open for an instant, the compartment was to all
+appearances empty. Only when they were well under way again did this
+retiring traveller emerge from beneath the seat.</p>
+
+<p>And when he did emerge, his conduct continued to be of a piece with this
+curious performance. He glanced out of the window for an instant at the
+lights of the platform ahead, and the groups under them, and the arch of
+the station roof against the night sky, and then swiftly stepped across
+the carriage and gently opened the door on the wrong side. By the time
+the train was fairly at rest, the door had been as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>quietly closed again
+and the man was picking his way over the sleepers in the darkness, past
+the guard's van and away from the station and publicity. Certainly he
+had succeeded in achieving a singularly economical and private journey.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes he continued to walk back along the line, and then
+after a wary look all round him, he sprang up the low bank at the side,
+threw his leg over a wire fence, and with infinite care began to make
+his way across a stubble field. As he approached the wall on the further
+side of the field his precautions increased. He listened intently,
+crouched down once or twice, and when at last he reached the wall, he
+peered over it very carefully before he mounted and dropped on the other
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he murmured, "I'm here, by God, at last!"</p>
+
+<p>He was standing now in a road on the outskirts of the town. On the one
+hand it led into a dim expanse of darkened country; on the other the
+lights of the town twinkled. Across the road, a few villas stood back
+amidst trees, with gates opening on to a footpath, the outlying houses
+of the town; and the first lamp-post stood a little way down this path.
+The man crossed the road and turned townwards, walking slowly and
+apparently at his ease. What seemed to interest him now was not his own
+need for privacy but the houses and gates he was passing. At one open
+gate in particular he half paused and then seemed to spy something ahead
+that altered his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>plans. Under a lamp-post a figure appeared to be
+lingering, and at the sight of this, the man drew his hat still more
+closely over his face and moved on.</p>
+
+<p>As he drew near the lamp the forms of two youths became manifest,
+apparently loitering there idly. The man kept his eyes on the ground,
+passed them at a brisk walk and went on his way into the town.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn them!" he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>This incident seemed to have deranged his plans a little for his
+movements during the next half hour were so purposeless as to suggest
+that he was merely putting in time. Down one street and up another he
+walked, increasing his pace when he had to pass any fellow walkers, and
+then again falling slow at certain corners and looking round him
+curiously as though those dark lanes and half-lit streets were
+reminiscent.</p>
+
+<p>Even seen in the light of the infrequent lamps and the rays from thinly
+blinded windows, it was evidently but a small country town of a hard,
+grey stone, northern type. The ends of certain lanes seemed to open into
+the empty country itself, and one could hear the regular cadence of
+waves hard by upon a shore.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't seem to have changed much," said the man to himself.</p>
+
+<p>He worked his way round, like one quite familiar with the route he
+followed, till at length he drew near the same quiet country road whence
+he had started. This time he stopped for a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>minutes in the thickest
+shadow and scanned each dim circle of radiance ahead. Nobody seemed now
+to be within the rays of the lamps or to be moving in the darkness
+between. He went on warily till he had come nearly to the same open gate
+where he had paused before, and then there fell upon his ears the sound
+of steps behind him and he stopped again and looked sharply over his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody was following, but at a little distance off, and after
+hesitating for an instant, he seemed to make up his mind to risk it, and
+turned swiftly and stealthily through the gates. A short drive of some
+pretentions ran between trees and then curved round towards the house,
+but there was no lodge or any sign of a possible watcher, and the man
+advanced for a few yards swiftly and confidently enough. And then he
+stopped abruptly. Under the shade of the trees the drive ahead was pitch
+dark, but footsteps and voices were certainly coming from the house. In
+an instant he had vanished into the belt of plantation along one side of
+the drive.</p>
+
+<p>The footsteps and voices ceased, and then the steps began again, timidly
+at first and then hurriedly. The belt of shrubs and trees was just thick
+enough to hide a man perfectly on a moonless cloudy night like this. Yet
+on either side the watcher could see enough of what was beyond to note
+that he stood between the dark drive on one hand and a lighter space of
+open garden on the other, and he could even catch a glimpse of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>house against the sky. Light shone brightly from the fanlight over the
+front door, and less distinctly from one window upstairs and through the
+slats of a blind in a downstairs room. For a moment he looked in that
+direction and then intently watched the drive.</p>
+
+<p>The footsteps by this time were almost on the run. The vague forms of
+two women passed swiftly and he could see their faces dimly turned
+towards him as they hurried by. They passed through the gates and were
+gone, and then a minute later men's voices in the road cried out a
+greeting. And after that the silence fell profound.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PROCURATOR FISCAL</h3>
+
+<p>The procurator fiscal breakfasted at 8.30, punctually, and at 8.30 as
+usual he entered his severely upholstered dining-room and shut the door
+behind him. The windows looked into a spacious garden with a belt of
+trees leading up to the house from the gate, and this morning Mr.
+Rattar, who was a machine for habit, departed in one trifling particular
+from his invariable routine. Instead of sitting straight down to the
+business of breakfasting, he stood for a minute or two at the window
+gazing into the garden, and then he came to the table very thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>No man in that northern county was better known or more widely respected
+than Mr. Simon Rattar. In person, he was a thickset man of middle height
+and elderly middle age, with cold steady eyes and grizzled hair. His
+clean shaved face was chiefly remarkable for the hardness of his
+tight-shut mouth, and the obstinacy of the chin beneath it.
+Professionally, he was lawyer to several of the larger landowners and
+factor on their estates, and lawyer and adviser also to many other
+people in various stations in life. Officially, he was procurator fiscal
+for the county, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>the setter in motion of all criminal processes, and
+generalissimo, so to speak, of the police; and one way and another, he
+had the reputation of being a very comfortably well off gentleman
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>As for his abilities, they were undeniably considerable, of the hard,
+cautious, never-caught-asleep order; and his taciturn manner and way of
+drinking in everything said to him while he looked at you out of his
+steady eyes, and then merely nodded and gave a significant little grunt
+at the end, added immensely to his reputation for profound wisdom.
+People were able to quote few definite opinions uttered by "Silent
+Simon," but any that could be quoted were shrewdness itself.</p>
+
+<p>He was a bachelor, and indeed, it was difficult for the most fanciful to
+imagine Silent Simon married. Even in his youth he had not been
+attracted by the other sex, and his own qualities certainly did not
+attract them. Not that there was a word to be said seriously against
+him. Hard and shrewd though he was, his respectability was extreme and
+his observance of the conventions scrupulous to a fault. He was an elder
+of the Kirk, a non-smoker, an abstemious drinker (to be an out and out
+teetotaler would have been a little too remarkable in those regions for
+a man of Mr. Rattar's conventional tastes), and indeed in all respects
+he trod that sober path that leads to a semi-public funeral and a vast
+block of granite in the parish kirkyard.</p>
+
+<p>He had acquired his substantial villa and large <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>garden by a very shrewd
+bargain a number of years ago, and he lived there with just the decency
+that his condition in life enjoined, but with not a suspicion of display
+beyond it. He kept a staff of two competent and respectable girls, just
+enough to run a house of that size, but only just; and when he wanted to
+drive abroad he hired a conveyance exactly suitable to the occasion from
+the most respectable hotel. His life, in short, was ordered to the very
+best advantage possible.</p>
+
+<p>Enthusiastic devotion to such an extremely exemplary gentleman was a
+little difficult, but in his present housemaid, Mary MacLean, he had a
+girl with a strong Highland strain of fidelity to a master, and an
+instinctive devotion to his interests, even if his person was hardly the
+chieftain her heart demanded. She was a soft voiced, anxious looking
+young woman, almost pretty despite her nervous high strung air, and of a
+quiet and modest demeanour.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after her master had begun breakfast, Mary entered the dining-room
+with an apologetic air, but a conscientious eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Begging your pardon, sir," she began, "but I thought I ought to tell
+you that when cook and me was going out to the concert last night we
+thought we saw <i>something</i> in the drive."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar looked up at her sharply and fixed his cold eyes on her
+steadily for a moment, never saying a word. It was exactly his ordinary
+habit, and she had thought she was used to it by now, yet this morning
+she felt oddly disconcerted. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>Then it struck her that perhaps it was the
+red cut on his chin that gave her this curious feeling. Silent Simon's
+hand was as steady as a rock and she never remembered his having cut
+himself shaving before; certainly not as badly as this.</p>
+
+<p>"Saw 'something'?" he repeated gruffly. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It looked like a man, sir, and it seemed to move into the trees almost
+as quick as we saw it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tuts!" muttered Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"But there was two friends of ours meeting us in the road," she hurried
+on, "and they thought they saw a man going in at the gate!"</p>
+
+<p>Her master seemed a little more impressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"So I thought it was my duty to tell you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"For I felt sure it couldn't just be a gentleman coming to see you, sir,
+or he wouldn't have gone into the trees."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," he agreed briefly. "Nobody came to see me."</p>
+
+<p>Mary looked at him doubtfully and hesitated for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you even hear anything, sir?" she asked in a lowered voice.</p>
+
+<p>Her master's quick glance made her jump.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, sir, I found footsteps in the gravel this morning&mdash;where it's
+soft with the rain, sir, just under the library window."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar looked first hard at her and then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>at his plate. For several
+seconds he answered nothing, and then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I did hear some one."</p>
+
+<p>There was something both in his voice and in his eye as he said this
+that was not quite like the usual Simon Rattar. Mary began to feel a
+sympathetic thrill.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you look out of the window, sir?" she asked in a hushed voice.</p>
+
+<p>Her master nodded and pursed his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"But you didn't see him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Who could it have been, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been wondering," he said, and then he threw a sudden glance at
+her that made her hurry for the door. It was not that it was an angry
+look, but that it was what she called so "queer-like."</p>
+
+<p>Just as she went out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr.
+Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke.
+The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angry
+twitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen the
+master do a thing of that kind.</p>
+
+<p>A little later the library bell called her. Mr. Rattar had finished
+breakfast and was seated beside the fire with a bundle of legal papers
+on a small table beside him, just as he always sat, absorbed in work,
+before he started for his office. The master's library impressed Mary
+vastly. The furniture was so substantial, new-looking, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>conspicuous
+for the shininess of the wood and the brightness of the red morocco
+seats to the chairs. And it was such a tidy room&mdash;no litter of papers or
+books, nothing ever out of place, no sign even of pipe, tobacco jar,
+cigarette or cigar. The only concession to the vices were the ornate ash
+tray and the massive globular glass match box on the square table in the
+middle of the room, and they were manifestly placed there for the
+benefit of visitors merely. Even they, Mary thought, were admirable as
+ornaments, and she was concerned to note that there was no nice
+red-headed bundle of matches in the glass match box this morning. What
+had become of them she could not imagine, but she resolved to repair
+this blemish as soon as the master had left the house.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to go gossiping about this fellow who came into the
+garden, last night," he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>Simon shot her a glance that seemed compounded of doubt and warning.</p>
+
+<p>"As procurator fiscal, it is my business to inquire into such affairs.
+I'll see to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir; I know," said she. "It seemed so impudent like of the man
+coming into the fiscal's garden of all places!"</p>
+
+<p>Simon grunted. It was his characteristic reply when no words were
+absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said he, "don't gossip! Remember, if we want to catch the
+man, the quieter we keep the better."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>Mary went out, impressed with the warning, but still more deeply
+impressed with something else. Gossip with cook of course was not to be
+counted as gossip in the prohibited sense, and when she returned to the
+kitchen, she unburdened her Highland heart.</p>
+
+<p>"The master's no himsel'!" she said. "I tell you, Janet, never have I
+seen Mr. Rattar look the way he looked at breakfast, nor yet the way he
+looked in the library!"</p>
+
+<p>Cook was a practical person and apt to be a trifle unsympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>"He couldna be bothered with your blethering most likely!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it wasna that!" said Mary very seriously. "Just think yoursel' how
+would you like to be watched through the window at the dead of night as
+you were sitting in your chair? The master's feared of yon man, Janet!"</p>
+
+<p>Even Janet was a little impressed by her solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"It must have taken something to make silent Simon feared!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>Mary's voice fell.</p>
+
+<p>"It's my opinion, the master knows more than he let on to me. The
+thought that came into my mind when he was talking to me was just&mdash;'The
+man feels he's being <i>watched</i>!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, get along wi' you and your Hieland fancies!" said cook, but she
+said it a little uncomfortably.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HEIR</h3>
+
+<p>At 9.45 precisely Mr. Rattar arrived at his office, just as he had
+arrived every morning since his clerks could remember. He nodded curtly
+as usual to his head clerk, Mr. Ison, and went into his room. His
+letters were always laid out on his desk and from twenty minutes to half
+an hour were generally spent by him in running through them. Then he
+would ring for Mr. Ison and begin to deal with the business of the day.
+But on this morning the bell went within twelve minutes, as Mr. Ison (a
+most precise person) noted on the clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring the letter book," said Mr. Rattar. "And the business ledger."</p>
+
+<p>"Letter book and business ledger?" repeated Mr. Ison, looking a little
+surprised.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar nodded.</p>
+
+<p>The head clerk turned away and then paused and glanced at the bundle of
+papers Mr. Rattar had brought back with him. He had expected these to be
+dealt with first thing.</p>
+
+<p>"About this Thomson business&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"It can wait."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer's manner was peremptory and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>clerk fetched the letter
+book and ledger. These contained, between them, a record of all the
+recent business of the firm, apart from public business and the affairs
+of one large estate. What could be the reason for such a comprehensive
+examination, Mr. Ison could not divine, but Mr. Rattar never gave
+reasons unless he chose, and the clerk who would venture to ask him was
+not to be found on the staff of Silent Simon.</p>
+
+<p>In a minute or two the head clerk returned with the books. This time he
+was wearing his spectacles and his first glance through them at Mr.
+Rattar gave him an odd sensation. The lawyer's mouth was as hard set and
+his eyes were as steady as ever. Yet something about his expression
+seemed a little unusual. Some unexpected business had turned up to
+disturb him, Mr. Ison felt sure; and indeed, this seemed certain from
+his request for the letter book and ledger. He now noticed also the cut
+on his chin, a sure sign that something had interrupted the orderly
+tenor of Simon Rattar's life, if ever there was one. Mr. Ison tried to
+guess whose business could have taken such a turn as to make Silent
+Simon cut himself with his razor, but though he had many virtues,
+imagination was not among them and he had to confess that it was fairly
+beyond James Ison.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, curiously enough, his one remark to a fellow clerk was not
+unlike the comment of the imaginative Mary MacLean.</p>
+
+<p>"The boss has a kin' of unusual look to-day. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>There was something kin'
+of suspicious in that eye of his&mdash;rather as though he thought someone
+was watching him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar had been busy with the books for some twenty minutes when his
+head clerk returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Malcolm Cromarty to see you, sir," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Silent Simon looked at him hard, and it was evident to his clerk that
+his mind had been extraordinarily absorbed, for he simply repeated in a
+curious way:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. <i>Malcolm</i> Cromarty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Mr. Ison, and then as even this seemed scarcely to be
+comprehended, he added, "Sir Reginald's cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, of course!" said Mr. Rattar. "Well, show him in."</p>
+
+<p>The young man who entered was evidently conscious of being a superior
+person. From the waviness of his hair and the studied negligence of his
+tie (heliotrope with a design in old gold), it seemed probable that he
+had literary or artistic claims to be superior to the herd. And from the
+deference with which Mr. Ison had pronounced his name and his own
+slightly condescending manner, it appeared that he felt himself in other
+respects superior to Mr. Rattar. He was of medium height, slender, and
+dark-haired. His features were remarkably regular, and though his face
+was somewhat small, there could be no doubt that he was extremely good
+looking, especially <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>to a woman's eye, who would be more apt than a
+fellow man to condone something a little supercilious in his smile.</p>
+
+<p>The attire of Mr. Malcolm Cromarty was that of the man of fashion
+dressed for the country, with the single exception of the tie which
+intimated to the discerning that here was no young man of fashion
+merely, but likewise a young man of ideas. That he had written, or at
+least was going to write, or else that he painted or was about to paint,
+was quite manifest. The indications, however, were not sufficiently
+pronounced to permit one to suspect him of fiddling, or even of being
+about to fiddle.</p>
+
+<p>This young gentleman's manner as he shook hands with the lawyer and then
+took a chair was on the surface cheerful and politely condescending. Yet
+after his first greeting, and when he was seated under Simon's
+inscrutable eye, there stole into his own a hint of quite another
+emotion. If ever an eye revealed apprehension it was Malcolm Cromarty's
+at that instant.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Rattar, here I am again, you see," said he with a little
+laugh; but it was not quite a spontaneous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I see, Mr. Cromarty," said Simon laconically.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been expecting to hear from me before, I suppose," the young
+man went on, "but the fact is I've had an idea for a story and I've been
+devilish busy sketching it out."</p>
+
+<p>Simon grunted and gave a little nod. One <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>would say that he was studying
+his visitor with exceptional attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Ideas come to one at the most inconvenient times," the young author
+explained with a smile, and yet with a certain hurried utterance not
+usually associated with smiles, "one just has to shoot the bird when he
+happens to come over your head, don't you know, you can't send in
+beaters after that kind of fowl, Mr. Rattar. And when he does come out,
+there you are! You have to make hay while the sun shines."</p>
+
+<p>Again the lawyer nodded, and again he made no remark. The apprehension
+in his visitor's eye increased, his smile died away, and suddenly he
+exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, Mr. Rattar, say something! I meant honestly to pay you
+back&mdash;I felt sure I could sell that last thing of mine before now, but
+not a word yet from the editor I sent it to!"</p>
+
+<p>Still there came only a guarded grunt from Simon and the young man went
+on with increasing agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't give me away to Sir Reginald, will you? He's been damned
+crusty with me lately about money matters, as it is. If you make me
+desperate&mdash;&mdash;!" He broke off and gazed dramatically into space for a
+moment, and then less dramatically at his lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Silent Simon was proverbially cautious, but it seemed to his visitor
+that his demeanour this morning exceeded all reasonable limits. For
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>nearly a minute he answered absolutely nothing, and then he said very
+slowly and deliberately:</p>
+
+<p>"I think it would be better, Mr. Cromarty, if you gave me a brief,
+explicit statement of how you got into this mess."</p>
+
+<p>"Dash it, you know too well&mdash;" began Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"It would make you realise your own position more clearly," interrupted
+the lawyer. "You want me to assist you, I take it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather&mdash;if you will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, please do as I ask you. You had better start at the
+beginning of your relations with Sir Reginald."</p>
+
+<p>Malcolm Cromarty's face expressed surprise, but the lawyer's was
+distinctly less severe, and he began readily enough:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, as you know, my cousin Charles Cromarty died about 18
+months ago and I became the heir to the baronetcy&mdash;" he broke off and
+asked, "Do you mean you want me to go over all that?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon nodded, and he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Reginald was devilish good at first&mdash;in his own patronising way,
+let me stay at Keldale as often and as long as I liked, made me an
+allowance and so on; but there was always this fuss about my taking up
+something a little more conventional than literature. Ha, ha!" The young
+man laughed in a superior way and then looked apprehensively at the
+other. "But I suppose you agree with Sir Reginald?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><p>Simon pursed his lips and made a non-committal sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, he wanted me to be called to the Bar or something of that
+kind, and then there was a fuss about money&mdash;his ideas of an allowance
+are rather old fashioned, as you know. And then you were good enough to
+help me with that loan, and&mdash;well, that's all, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar had been listening with extreme attention. He now nodded, and
+a smile for a moment seemed to light his chilly eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I see that you quite realise your position, Mr. Cromarty," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Realise it!" cried the young man. "My God, I'm in a worse hole&mdash;&mdash;" he
+broke off abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Worse than you have admitted to me?" said Simon quickly and again with
+a smile in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>Malcolm Cromarty hesitated, "Sir Reginald is so damned narrow! If he
+wants to drive me to the devil&mdash;well, let him! But I say, Mr. Rattar,
+what are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>For some moments Simon said nothing. At length he answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not press for repayment at present."</p>
+
+<p>His visitor rose with a sigh of relief and as he said good-bye his
+condescending manner returned as readily as it had gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning and many thanks," said he, and then hesitated for an
+instant. "You couldn't let me have a very small cheque, just to be going
+on with, could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not this morning, Mr. Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Cromarty's look of despair returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he cried darkly as he strode to the door, "people who treat a
+man in my position like this are responsible for&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;!" The banging
+of the door left their precise responsibility in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Simon Rattar gazed after him with an odd expression. It seemed to
+contain a considerable infusion of complacency. And then he rang for his
+clerk.</p>
+
+<p>"Get me the Cromarty estate letter book," he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>The book was brought and this time he had about ten minutes to himself
+before the clerk entered again.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland to see you, sir," he announced.</p>
+
+<p>This announcement seemed to set the lawyer thinking hard. Then in his
+abrupt way he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Show him in."</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAN FROM THE WEST</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar's second visitor was of a different type. Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland stood about 6 feet two and had nothing artistic in his
+appearance, being a lean strapping man in the neighbourhood of forty,
+with a keen, thin, weather-beaten face chiefly remarkable for its
+straight sharp nose, compressed lips, reddish eye-brows, puckered into a
+slight habitual frown, and the fact that the keen look of the whole was
+expressed by only one of his eyes, the other being a good imitation but
+unmistakeably glass. The whole effect of the face, however, was
+singularly pleasing to the discerning critic. An out of door, reckless,
+humorous, honest personality was stamped on every line of it and every
+movement of the man. When he spoke his voice had a marked tinge of the
+twang of the wild west that sounded a little oddly on the lips of a
+country gentleman in these northern parts. He wore an open flannel
+collar, a shooting coat, well cut riding breeches and immaculate leather
+leggings, finished off by a most substantial pair of shooting boots.
+Unlike Mr. Malcolm Cromarty, he evidently looked upon his visit as
+expected.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>"Good morning, Mr. Rattar," said he, throwing his long form into the
+clients' chair as he spoke. "Well, I guess you've got some good advice
+for me this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Simon Rattar was proverbially cautious, but to-day his caution struck
+his visitor as quite remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>"Um," he grunted. "Advice, Mr. Cromarty? Umph!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't trouble beating about the bush," said the tall man. "I've been
+figuring things out myself and so far as I can see, it comes to
+this:&mdash;that loan from Sir Reginald put me straight in the meantime, but
+I've got to cut down expense all round to keep straight, and I've got to
+pay him back. Of course you know his way when it's one of the clan he's
+dealing with. 'My dear Ned, no hurry whatever. If you send my heir a
+cheque some day after I'm gone it will have the added charm of
+surprise!' Well, that's damned decent, but hardly business. I want to
+get the whole thing off my chest. Got the statement made up?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Very sorry, Mr. Cromarty. Haven't had time yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Hell!" said Mr. Cromarty, though in a cheerful voice, and then added
+with an engaging smile, "Pardon me, Mr. Rattar. I'm trying to get
+educated out of strong language, but, Lord, at my time of life it's not
+so damned&mdash;I mean dashed easy!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>Even Simon Rattar's features relaxed for an instant into a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And who is educating you?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cromarty looked a little surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Who but the usual lady? Gad, I've told you before of my sister's well
+meant efforts. It's a stiff job making a retired cow puncher into a high
+grade laird. However, I can smoke without spitting now, which is a step
+on the road towards being a Lord Chesterfield."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled humorously, stretched out his long legs and added:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a nuisance, your not having that statement ready. When I've got to
+do business I like pushing it through quick. That's an American habit I
+don't mean to get rid of, Mr. Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar nodded his approval.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I've put down my car," his visitor continued. "Drive a buggy now&mdash;beg its pardon, a trap, and a devilish nice little
+mare I've got in her too. In fact, there are plenty of consolations for
+whatever you have to do in this world. I'm only sorry for my sister's
+sake that I have to draw in my horns a bit. Women like a bit of a
+splash&mdash;at least judging from the comparatively little I know of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cromarty doesn't complain, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think she's beginning to see the necessity for reform. You see,
+when both my civilised elder brothers died&mdash;&mdash;" he broke off, and then
+added: "But you know the whole story."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p><p>"I would&mdash;er&mdash;like to refresh my memory," said Simon; and there seemed
+to be a note of interest and almost of eagerness in his voice that
+appeared to surprise his visitor afresh.</p>
+
+<p>"First time I ever heard of your memory needing refreshing!" laughed his
+visitor. "Well, you know how I came back from the wild and woolly west
+and tried to make a comfortable home for Lilian. We were neither of us
+likely to marry at our time of life, and there were just the two of us
+left, and we'd both of us knocked about quite long enough on our own,
+and so why not settle down together in the old place and be comfortable?
+At least that's how it struck me. Of course, as you know, we hadn't met
+for so long that we were practically strangers and she knew the ways of
+civilisation better than me, and I gave her a pretty free hand in
+setting up the establishment. I don't blame her, mind you, for setting
+the pace a bit too fast to last. My own blamed fault entirely. However,
+we aren't in a very deep hole, thank the Lord. In fact if I hadn't got
+to pay Sir Reginald back the &pound;1,200 it would be all right, so far I can
+figure out. But I want your exact statement, Mr. Rattar, and as quick as
+you can let me have it."</p>
+
+<p>Simon nodded and grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get it." And then he added: "I think I can assure you there is
+nothing to be concerned about."</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty smiled and a reckless light danced for a moment in his one
+efficient eye.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><p>"I guess I almost wish there were something to be concerned about! Sir
+Reginald is always telling me I'm the head of the oldest branch of the
+whole Cromarty family and it's my duty to live in the house of my
+ancestors and be an ornament to the county, and all the rest of it. But
+I tell you it's a damned quiet life for a man who's had his eye put out
+with a broken whisky bottle and hanged the man who did it with his own
+hands!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hanged him!" exclaimed the lawyer sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it wasn't merely for the eye. That gave the performance a kind of
+relish it would otherwise have lacked, being a cold-blooded ceremony and
+a little awkward with the apparatus we had. We hanged him for murder, as
+a matter of fact. Now, between ourselves, Mr. Rattar, we don't want to
+crab our own county, but you must confess that real good serious crime
+is devilish scarce here, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Cromarty's eye was gleaming humorously, and Simon Rattar might have been
+thought the kind of tough customer who would have been amused by the
+joke. He seemed, however, to be affected unpleasantly and even a little
+startled.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I trust we don't," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," his visitor agreed, "as it means that something or somebody has
+got to be sacrificed to start the sport of man-hunting, I suppose
+there's something to be said for the quiet life. But personally I'd
+sooner be after men than grouse, from the point of view of getting
+thorough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>satisfaction while it lasts. My sister says it means I haven't
+settled down properly yet&mdash;calls me the bold bad bachelor!"</p>
+
+<p>Through this speech Simon seemed to be looking at his visitor with an
+attention that bordered on fascination, and it was apparently with a
+slight effort that he asked at the end:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't you marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marry!" exclaimed Ned Cromarty. "And where will you find the lady
+that's to succumb to my fascinations? I'm within a month of forty, Mr.
+Rattar, I've the mind, habits, and appearance of a backwoodsman, and
+I've one working eye left. A female collector of antique curiosities, or
+something in the nature of a retired wardress might take on the job, but
+I can't think of any one else!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed as he spoke, and yet something remarkably like a sigh
+followed the laugh, and for a moment after he had ceased speaking his
+eye looked abstractedly into space.</p>
+
+<p>Before either spoke again, the door opened and the clerk, seeing Mr.
+Rattar was still engaged, murmured a "beg pardon" and was about to
+retire again.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Farmond is waiting to see you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll let you know when I'm free," said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>Had his eye been on his visitor as his clerk spoke, he might have
+noticed a curious commentary on Mr. Cromarty's professed lack of
+interest in womankind. His single eye lit up for an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>instant and he
+moved sharply in his chair, and then as suddenly repressed all sign of
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>A minute or two later the visitor jumped up.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "I guess you're pretty busy and I've been talking too
+long as it is. Let me have that statement as quick as you like. Good
+morning!"</p>
+
+<p>He strode to the door, shut it behind him, and then when he was on the
+landing, his movements became suddenly more leisurely. Instead of
+striding downstairs he stood looking curiously in turn at each closed
+door. It was an old fashioned house and rather a rabbit warren of an
+office, and it would seem as though for some reason he wished to leave
+no door unwatched. In a moment he heard the lawyer's bell ring and very
+slowly he moved down a step or two while a clerk answered the call and
+withdrew. And then he took a cigar from his case, bit off the end, and
+felt for matches; all this being very deliberately done, and his eye
+following the clerk. Thus when a girl emerged from the room along a
+passage, she met, apparently quite accidentally, Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland.</p>
+
+<p>At the first glance it was quite evident that the meeting gave more
+pleasure to the gentleman than to the lady. Indeed, the girl seemed too
+disconcerted to hide the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Miss Farmond," said he with what seemed intended for an
+air of surprise; as though he had no idea she had been within a mile of
+him. "You coming to see Simon on business <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>too?" And then taking the cue
+from her constrained manner, he added hurriedly, and with a note of
+dejection he could not quite hide, "Well, good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's expression suddenly changed, and with that change the laird
+of Stanesland's curious movements became very explicable, for her face
+was singularly charming when she smiled. It was a rather pale but fresh
+and clear-skinned face, wide at the forehead and narrowing to a firm
+little chin, with long-lashed expressive eyes, and a serious expression
+in repose. Her smile was candid, a little coy and irresistibly engaging,
+and her voice was very pleasant, rather low, and most engaging too. She
+was of middle height and dressed in mourning. Her age seemed rather
+under than over twenty.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said, with a touch of hesitation at first, "I didn't mean&mdash;&mdash;"
+She broke off, glanced at the clerk, who being a discreet young man was
+now in the background, and then with lowered voice confessed, "The fact
+is, Mr. Cromarty, I'm not really supposed to be here at all. That's to
+say nobody knows I am."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cromarty looked infinitely relieved.</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't want anybody to know?" he said in his outspoken way.
+"Right you are. I can lie low and say nothing, or lie hard and say what
+you like; whichever you choose."</p>
+
+<p>"Lying low will do," she smiled. "But please don't think I'm doing
+anything very wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll think what you tell me," he said gallantly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>"I <i>was</i> thinking
+Silent Simon was in luck's way&mdash;but perhaps you're going to wig him?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you imagine me daring to wig Mr. Simon Rattar?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he needs waking up now and then like other people. He's been
+slacking over my business. In fact, I can't quite make him out this
+morning. He's not quite his usual self for some reason. Don't be afraid
+to wig him if he needs it!"</p>
+
+<p>The clerk in the background coughed and Miss Cicely Farmond moved
+towards the door of the lawyer's room, but Ned Cromarty seemed reluctant
+to end the meeting so quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Walked," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Walked! And how are you going back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Walk again."</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he suggested eagerly, "I've got my trap in. Let me drive you!"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"It's awfully good of you to think of it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's settled then. I'll be on the look out when you leave old Simon's
+den."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his cap and went downstairs this time without any hesitation.
+He had forgotten to light his cigar, and it was probably as a substitute
+for smoking that he found himself whistling.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THIRD VISITOR</h3>
+
+<p>Miss Cicely Farmond's air as she entered Simon Rattar's room seemed
+compounded of a little shyness, considerable trepidation, and yet more
+determination. In her low voice and with a fleeting smile she wished him
+good morning, like an acquaintance with whom she was quite familiar, and
+then with a serious little frown, and fixing her engaging eyes very
+straight upon him, she made the surprising demand:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rattar, I want you to tell me honestly who I am."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant Simon's cold eyes opened very wide, and then he was
+gazing at her after his usual silent and steadfast manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Who you are?" he repeated after a few seconds' pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Indeed, Mr. Rattar, I <i>insist</i> on knowing!"</p>
+
+<p>Simon smiled slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"And what makes you think I can assist you to&mdash;er&mdash;recover your
+identity, Miss Farmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"To discover it, not recover it," she corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you really know that I am honestly quite ignorant?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Rattar shook his head cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not for me to hazard an opinion," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh please, Mr. Rattar," she exclaimed, "don't be so dreadfully
+cautious! Surely you can't have thought that I knew all the time!"</p>
+
+<p>Again he was silent for a moment, and then enquired:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you come to me now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I <i>must</i> know! Because&mdash;well, because it is so unsatisfactory
+not knowing&mdash;for various reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"And why are you so positive that I can tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because all my affairs and arrangements went through your hands, and of
+course you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Again he seemed to reflect for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask, Miss Farmond," he enquired, "why, in that case, you think I
+shouldn't have told you before, and why&mdash;also in that case&mdash;I should
+tell you now?"</p>
+
+<p>This enquiry seemed to disconcert Miss Farmond a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course I presume Sir Reginald and you had some reasons," she
+admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And don't you think then we have them still?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't honestly see why you should make such a mystery of
+it&mdash;especially as I can guess the truth perfectly easily!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you can guess it&mdash;&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p><p>"Oh please don't answer me like that! Why won't you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to consider the point for a moment, and then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at all sure that I am at liberty to tell you, Miss Farmond,
+without further consultation."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Sir Reginald really any good reasons for not telling me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you asked him that question?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she confessed. "He and Lady Cromarty have been so frightfully
+kind, and yet so&mdash;so reserved on that subject, that I have never liked
+to ask them direct. But they know that I have guessed, and they haven't
+done anything to prevent me finding out more for myself, which means
+that they really are quite willing to let me find out if I can."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I shall require more authority than that."</p>
+
+<p>She pursed her lips and looked at the floor in silence, and then she
+rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you absolutely refuse to tell me <i>anything</i>, Mr. Rattar, I
+suppose&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A dejected little shrug completed her sentence, and as she turned
+towards the door her eloquent eyes looked at him for a moment beneath
+their long lashes with an expression in them that might have moved a
+statue. Although Simon Rattar had the reputation of being impervious to
+woman's wiles, he may have been moved by this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>unspoken appeal. He
+certainly seemed struck by something, for even as her back was turning
+towards him, he said suddenly, and in a distinctly different voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You say you can guess yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, and added with a pathetic coaxing note in her low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to <i>know</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing," he suggested, "you were to tell me precisely how much you
+do know already, and then I could judge whether the rest might or might
+not be divulged."</p>
+
+<p>Her face brightened and she returned to her chair with a promptitude
+that suggested she was not unaccustomed to win a lost battle with these
+weapons.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "it was only six months ago&mdash;when mother died&mdash;that I
+first had the least suspicion there was any mystery about me&mdash;anything
+to hide. I knew she hadn't always been happy and that her trouble had
+something to do with my father, simply because she hardly ever mentioned
+him. But she lived at Eastbourne just like plenty of other widows and we
+had a few friends, though never very many, and I was very happy at
+school, and so I never troubled much about things."</p>
+
+<p>"And knew nothing up till six months ago?" asked Simon, who was
+following her story very attentively.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all. Then, about a month after mother's death, I got a note
+from you asking me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>to go up to London and meet Sir Reginald Cromarty. I
+had never even heard of him before! Well, I went and he was simply as
+kind as&mdash;well, as he always is to everybody, and said he was a kind of
+connection of my family and asked me to pay them a long visit to
+Keldale."</p>
+
+<p>"How long ago precisely was that?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked a little surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know exactly. Almost just four months ago, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, but said nothing, and she went on:</p>
+
+<p>"From the very first it had seemed very strange that I had never heard a
+word about the Cromartys from mother, and as soon as I got to Keldale
+and met Lady Cromarty, I felt sure there was something wrong. I mean
+that I wasn't an ordinary distant relation. For one thing they never
+spoke of our relationship and exactly what sort of cousins we were, and
+considering how keen Sir Reginald is on his pedigree and all his
+relations and everybody, that alone made me certain I wasn't the
+ordinary kind. That was obvious, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so," the lawyer admitted cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it was! Well, one day I happened to be looking over an old
+photograph album and suddenly I saw my father's photograph! Mother had a
+miniature of him&mdash;I have it still, and I was certain it was the same
+man. I pulled myself together and asked Sir Reginald in a very ordinary
+voice who that was, and I could see that both he and Lady Cromarty
+jumped a little. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>had to tell me it was his brother Alfred and I
+discovered he had long been dead, but I didn't try to get any more
+information from them. I applied to Bisset."</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little laugh and looked at him with a touch of defiance. His
+inscrutable countenance appeared to annoy her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you think I oughtn't to have gone to a butler about such a
+thing, but Bisset is practically one of the family and I didn't give him
+the least idea of what I was after. I simply drew him on the subject of
+the Cromarty family history and among other things&mdash;that didn't so much
+interest me&mdash;I found that Mr. Alfred Cromarty was never married and
+seemed to have had rather a gay reputation."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with an expression that would have immediately
+converted any susceptible man into a fellow conspirator, and asked in
+her most enticing voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Need you ask what I guessed? What is the use in not telling me simply
+whether I have guessed right!"</p>
+
+<p>Silent Simon's face remained a mask.</p>
+
+<p>"What precisely did you guess?"</p>
+
+<p>"That my mother wasn't married," she said, her voice falling very low,
+"and I am really Sir Reginald's niece though he never can acknowledge
+it&mdash;and I don't want him to! But I do want to be sure. Dear Mr. Rattar,
+won't you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>Dear Mr. Rattar never relaxed a muscle.</p>
+
+<p>"Your guess seems very probable," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me definitely."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he enquired coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have you no <i>curiosity</i> yourself&mdash;especially about who your parents
+were; supposing you didn't know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's only out of curiosity that you enquired?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only!" she repeated with a world of woman's scorn. "But what sort of
+motives did you expect? I have walked in the whole way this morning just
+to end the suspense of wondering! Of course, I'll never tell a soul you
+told me."</p>
+
+<p>She threw on him a moving smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't actually tell me outright. Just use some legal
+word&mdash;'Alibi' if I am right and 'forgery' if I'm wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>Silent Simon's sudden glance chilled her smile. She evidently felt she
+had been taking the law in vain.</p>
+
+<p>"I only meant&mdash;&mdash;" she began anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I must consult Sir Reginald," he interrupted brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>She made no further effort. That glance seemed to have subdued her
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry I have bothered you," she said as she went.</p>
+
+<p>As the door closed behind her, Mr. Rattar took out his handkerchief and
+wiped his brow and his neck. And then he fell to work again upon the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>recent records of the firm. Yet, absorbed though he seemed, whenever a
+door opened or shut sharply or a step sounded distinctly outside his
+room, he would look up quickly and listen, or that expression would come
+into his eye which both Mary MacLean and Mr. Ison had described as the
+look of one who was watched.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>AT NIGHT</h3>
+
+<p>When Simon Rattar came to his present villa, he brought from his old
+house in the middle of the town (which had been his father's before him)
+a vast accumulation of old books and old papers. Being a man who never
+threw away an opportunity or anything else, and also a person of the
+utmost tidyness, he compromised by keeping this litter in the spare
+rooms at the top of the house. In fact Simon was rather pleased at
+discovering this use for his superfluous apartments, for he hated
+wasting anything.</p>
+
+<p>On this same morning, just before he started for his office, he had
+again called his housemaid and given her particular injunctions that
+these rooms were not to be disturbed during the day. He added that this
+was essential because he expected a gentleman that evening who would be
+going through some of the old papers with him.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was the vague feeling of disquiet which possessed Mary
+MacLean this morning that made his injunction seem a little curious. She
+had been with the master three years and never presumed or dreamt of
+presuming to touch his papers. He might have known that, thought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>she,
+without having to tell her not to. Indeed, she felt a little aggrieved
+at the command, and in the course of the morning she made a discovery
+that seemed to her a further reflection on her discretion.</p>
+
+<p>When she came to dust the passage in which these rooms opened her eye
+was at once caught by a sheet of white paper pinned to each of the three
+doors. On each of these sheets was written in her master's hand the
+words "This room not to be entered. Papers to be undisturbed." The
+result was a warning to those who take superfluous precautions. Under
+ordinary circumstances Mary would never have thought of touching the
+handles of those doors. Now, she looked at them for a few moments and
+then tried the handle nearest to her. The door was locked. She tried the
+second and the third, and they stood locked too. And the three keys had
+all been removed.</p>
+
+<p>"To think of the master locking the doors!" said she to herself after
+failing at each in turn. "As if I'd have tried to open them!"</p>
+
+<p>That top storey was of the semi-attic kind, with roofs that sloped and
+a sky-light in one of them and the slates close overhead. It was a grey
+windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that large house save
+for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slate rattling in
+the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over the sky-light, she began
+all at once to feel uncomfortable. Those locked doors were
+uncanny&mdash;something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>was not as it should be; there was a sinister moan
+in the wind; the slate did not rattle quite like an ordinary slate.
+Tales of her childhood, tales from the superstitious western islands,
+rushed into her mind. And then, all at once, she heard another sound.
+She heard it but for one instant, and then with a pale face she fled
+downstairs and stood for a space in the hall trembling and wondering.</p>
+
+<p>She wondered first whether the sound had really come from behind the
+locked doors, and whether it actually was some one stealthily moving.
+She wondered next whether she could bring herself to confide in cook and
+stand Janet's cheerful scorn. She ended by saying not a word, and
+waiting to see what happened when the master came home.</p>
+
+<p>He returned as usual in time for a cup of tea. It was pretty dark by
+then and Mary was upstairs lighting the gas (but she did not venture up
+to the top floor). She heard Mr. Rattar come into the hall, and then,
+quite distinctly this time, she heard overhead a dull sound, a kind of
+gentle thud. The next moment she heard the master running upstairs, and
+when he was safely past she ran even more swiftly down and burst into
+the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something in yon top rooms!" she panted.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something in your top storey!" snapped cook; and poor Mary said
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>When she brought his tea in to Mr. Rattar, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>she seemed to read in his
+first glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in the
+morning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy,
+laconic way.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you noticed rats in the house?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Rats, sir!" she exclaimed. "Oh, no, sir, I don't think there are any
+rats."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw one just now," he said. "If we see it again we must get some rat
+poison."</p>
+
+<p>So it had only been a rat! Mary felt vastly relieved; and yet not
+altogether easy. One could not venture to doubt the master, but it was a
+queer-like sound for a rat to make.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar had brought back a great many papers to-day, and sat
+engrossed in them till dinner. After dinner he fell to work again, and
+then about nine o'clock he rang for her and said:</p>
+
+<p>"The gentleman I expect this evening will probably be late in coming.
+Don't sit up. I'll hear him and let him in myself. We shall be working
+late and I shall be going upstairs about those papers. If you hear
+anybody moving about, it will only be this gentleman and myself."</p>
+
+<p>This was rather a long speech for silent Simon, and Mary thought it
+considerate of him to explain any nocturnal sounds beforehand; unusually
+considerate, in fact, for he seldom went out of his way to explain
+things. And yet those few minutes in his presence made her uncomfortable
+afresh. She could not keep her eyes away from that red cut on his chin.
+It made him seem odd-like, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>she thought. And then as she passed through
+the hall she heard faintly from the upper regions that slate rattling
+again. At least it was either the slate or&mdash;she recalled a story of her
+childhood, and hurried on to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>She and the cook shared the same bedroom. It was fairly large with two
+beds in it, and along with the kitchen and other back premises it was
+shut off from the front part of the house by a door at the end of the
+hall. Cook was asleep within ten minutes. Mary could hear her heavy
+breathing above the incessant droning and whistling of the wind, and she
+envied her with all her Highland heart. In her own glen people would
+have understood how she felt, but here she dared not confess lest she
+were laughed at. It was such a vague and nameless feeling, a sixth sense
+warning her that all was not well; that <i>something</i> was in the air. The
+longer she lay awake the more certain she grew that evil was afoot; and
+yet what could be its shape? Everything in that quiet and respectable
+household was going on exactly as usual; everything that any one else
+would have considered material. The little things she had noticed would
+be considered absurd trifles by the sensible. She knew that as well as
+they.</p>
+
+<p>She thought she had been in bed about an hour, though the time passed so
+slowly that it might have been less, when she heard, faintly and gently,
+but quite distinctly, the door from the hall into the back premises
+being opened. It seemed to be held open for nearly a minute, as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>though
+some one were standing there listening. She moved a little and the bed
+creaked; and then, as gently as it had been opened, the door was closed
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Had the intruder come through or gone away? And could it only be the
+master, doing this curious thing, or was it some one&mdash;or
+something&mdash;else? Dreadful minutes passed, but there was not a sound of
+any one moving in the back passage, or the kitchen, and then in the
+distance she could hear the grating noise of the front door being opened
+and the rush of wind that accompanied it. It was closed sharply in a
+moment and she could catch the sound of steps in the hall and the
+master's voice making some remark. Another voice replied, gruff and
+muffled and indistinct, and then again the master spoke. Evidently the
+late caller had arrived, and a moment later she heard the library door
+shut, and it was plain that he and Mr. Rattar were closeted there.</p>
+
+<p>They seemed to remain in the library about a quarter of an hour before
+the door opened again, and in a moment the stairs were creaking faintly.
+Evidently one or both were going up for the old papers.</p>
+
+<p>All this was exactly what she had been led to expect, and ought to have
+reassured her, yet, for no reason at all, the conviction remained as
+intense and disturbing as ever, that something unspeakable was happening
+in this respectable house. The minutes dragged by till quite half an
+hour must have passed, and then she heard the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>steps descending. They
+came down very slowly this time, and very heavily. The obvious
+explanation was that they were bringing down one of those boxes filled
+with dusty papers which she had often seen in the closed rooms; yet
+though Mary knew perfectly that this was the common sense of the matter,
+a feeling of horror increased till she could scarcely refrain from
+crying out. If cook had not such a quick temper and such a healthy
+contempt for this kind of fancy, she would have rushed across to her
+bed; but as it was, she simply lay and trembled.</p>
+
+<p>The steps sounded still heavy but more muffled on the hall carpet,
+though whether they were the steps of one man or two she could not feel
+sure. And then she heard the front door open again and then close; so
+that it seemed plain that the visitor had taken the box with him and
+gone away. And with this departure came a sense of relief, as devoid of
+rational foundation as the sense of horror before. She felt at last that
+if she could only hear the master going upstairs to bed, she might go to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>But though she listened hard as she lay there in the oppressive dark,
+she heard not another sound so long as she kept awake, and that was for
+some time, she thought. She did get off at last and had been asleep she
+knew not how long when she awoke drowsily with a confused impression
+that the front door had been shut again. How late it was she could but
+guess&mdash;about three or four in the morning her instinct told her. But
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>then came sleep again and in the morning the last part of her
+recollections was a little uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast the master was as silently formidable as ever and he never
+said a word about his visitor. When Mary went to the top floor later the
+papers were off the doors and the keys replaced.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DRIVE HOME</h3>
+
+<p>Under the grey autumnal sky Miss Cicely Farmond drove out of the town
+wrapped in Ned Cromarty's overcoat. He assured her he never felt cold,
+and as she glanced a little shyly up at the strapping figure by her
+side, she said to herself that he certainly was the toughest looking man
+of her acquaintance, and she felt a little less contrition for the loan.
+She was an independent young lady and from no one else would she have
+accepted such a favour, but the laird of Stanesland had such an off-hand
+authoritative way with him that, somewhat to her own surprise, she had
+protested&mdash;and submitted.</p>
+
+<p>The trap was a high dog cart and the mare a flier.</p>
+
+<p>"What a splendid horse!" she exclaimed as they spun up the first hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she?" said Ned. "And she can go all the way like this, too."</p>
+
+<p>Cicely was therefore a little surprised when at the next hill this flier
+was brought to a walk.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought we were going all the way like that!" she laughed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>Ned glanced down at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you in a hurry?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Not particularly," she admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"No more am I," said he, and this time he smiled down at her in a very
+friendly way.</p>
+
+<p>So far they had talked casually on any indifferent subject that came to
+hand, but now his manner grew a little more intimate.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to stay on with the Cromartys long?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am wondering myself," she confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will," he said bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very kind of you to say so," she said smiling at him a little
+shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean it. The fact is, Miss Farmond, you are a bit of a treat."</p>
+
+<p>The quaintness of the phrase was irresistible and she laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fact," said he, "you see I live an odd lonely kind of life here,
+and for most of my career I've lived an odd lonely kind of life too, so
+far as girls were concerned. It may sound rum to you to hear a backwood
+hunks of my time of life confessing to finding a girl of your age a bit
+of a treat, but it's a fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "I should have thought I must seem rather young and
+foolish."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, I don't mean that!" he exclaimed. "I mean that <i>I</i> must seem a
+pretty uninteresting bit of elderly shoe-leather."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p><p>"Uninteresting? Oh no!" she cried in protest, and then checked herself
+and her colour rose a little.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled humorously.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see you out of this glass eye unless I turn round, so whether
+you're pulling my leg or not I don't know, but I was just saying to old
+Simon that the only kind of lady likely to take an interest in me was a
+female collector of antique curiosities, and you don't seem that sort,
+Miss Farmond."</p>
+
+<p>She said nothing for a moment, and then asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Were you discussing ladies then with Mr. Rattar?"</p>
+
+<p>He also paused for a moment before replying.</p>
+
+<p>"Incidentally in the course of a gossip, as the old chap hadn't got my
+business ready for me. By the way, did you get much change out of him?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head a little mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all. He just asked questions instead of answering them."</p>
+
+<p>"So he did with me! Confound the man. I fancy he has made too much money
+and is beginning to take it easy. That's one advantage of not being too
+rich, Miss Farmond; it keeps you from waxing fat."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not likely to wax fat then!" she laughed, and yet it was not quite
+a cheerful laugh.</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly and looked at her sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>"That your trouble?" he enquired in his outspoken way.</p>
+
+<p>Cicely was not by way of giving her confidences easily, but this
+straight-forward, friendly attack penetrated her reserve.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes one so dependent," she said, her voice even lower than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"That must be the devil," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"It is!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>He whipped up the mare and ruminated in silence. Then he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just wondering."</p>
+
+<p>Cicely began to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Wondering what?"</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil there can be that isn't utterly uninteresting about
+me&mdash;assuming you weren't pulling my leg."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said, "no man can be uninteresting who has seen as much and
+done as much as you have."</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord keep you of that opinion!" he said, half humorously, but only
+half, it seemed. "It's true I've knocked about and been knocked about,
+but I'd have thought you'd have judged more by results."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed a little low laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think yourself the results are very bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Judging by the mirror, beastly! Judging by other standards&mdash;well, one
+can't see one's self in one's full naked horror, thank Heaven for it
+too! But I'm not well read, and I'm not&mdash;but what's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>the good in telling
+you? You're clever enough to see for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>For a man who had no intention of paying compliments, Ned Cromarty had a
+singular gift for administering the pleasantest&mdash;because it was so
+evidently the most genuine&mdash;form of flattery. In fact, had he but known
+it, he was a universal favourite with women, whenever he happened to
+meet them; only he had not the least suspicion of the fact&mdash;which made
+him all the more favoured.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know very many men," said Cicely, with her serious expression
+and a conscientious air, "and so perhaps I am not a good judge, but
+certainly you seem to me quite unlike all the others."</p>
+
+<p>"I told you," he laughed, "that the female would have to be a bit of a
+collector."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried, quite serious still, "I don't mean that in the least. I
+don't like freaks a bit myself. I only mean&mdash;well, people do differ in
+character and experience, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you're pretty wise," said he simply. "And I'm sized up right
+enough. However, the trouble at present is this blamed mare goes too
+fast!"</p>
+
+<p>On their left, the chimneys and roof of a large mansion showed through
+the surrounding trees. In this wind-swept seaboard country, its acres of
+plantation were a conspicuous landmark and marked it as the seat of some
+outstanding local magnate. These trees were carried down to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>road in
+a narrow belt enclosing an avenue that ended in a lodge and gates. At
+the same time that the lodge came into view round a bend in the road, a
+man on a bicycle appeared ahead of them, going in the same direction,
+and bent over his handle-bars against the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, that's surely Malcolm Cromarty!" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is!" she exclaimed, and there was a note of surprise in her
+voice. "I wonder where he has been."</p>
+
+<p>The cyclist dismounted at the lodge gates a few moments before the trap
+pulled up there too, and the young man turned and greeted them. Or
+rather he greeted Miss Farmond, for his smile was clearly aimed at her
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Where have you been?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you?" she retorted as she jumped out and let him help her
+off with the driving coat.</p>
+
+<p>They made a remarkably good-looking young couple standing together there
+on the road and their manner to one another was evidently that of two
+people who knew each other well. Sitting on his high driving seat, Ned
+Cromarty turned his head well round so as to bring his sound eye to bear
+and looked at them in silence. When she handed him his coat and thanked
+him afresh, he merely laughed, told her, in his outspoken way, that all
+the fun had been his, and whipped up his mare.</p>
+
+<p>"That's more the sort of fellow!" he said to himself gloomily, and for a
+little the thought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>seemed to keep him depressed. And then as he let the
+recollections of their drive have their own way undisturbed, he began to
+smile again, and kept smiling most of the way home.</p>
+
+<p>The road drew ever nearer to the sea, trees and hedgerows grew even
+rarer and more stunted, and then he was driving through a patch of
+planting hardly higher than a shrubbery up to an ancient building on the
+very brink of the cliffs. The sea crashed white below and stretched grey
+and cold to the horizon, the wind whistled round the battlements and
+sighed through the stunted trees, and Ned (who had been too absorbed to
+remember his coat) slapped his arms and stamped his feet as he descended
+before a nail-studded front door with a battered coat of arms above it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, what a place!" he said to himself, half critically, half
+affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>The old castle of Stanesland was but a small house as castles, or even
+mansions, go, almost devoid of architectural ornament and evidently
+built in a sterner age simply for security, and but little embellished
+by the taste of more degenerate times. As a specimen of a small early
+15th Century castle it was excellent; as a home it was inconvenience
+incarnate. How so many draughts found their way through such thick walls
+was a perennial mystery, and how to convey dishes from the kitchen to
+the dining room without their getting cold an almost insoluble problem.</p>
+
+<p>The laird and his sister sat down to lunch and in about ten minutes Miss
+Cromarty remarked,</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>"So you drove Cicely Farmond home?"</p>
+
+<p>Her brother nodded. He had mentioned the fact as soon as he came in, and
+rather wondered why she referred to it again.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cromarty smiled her own peculiar shrewd worldly little smile, and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You are very silent, Ned."</p>
+
+<p>Lilian Cromarty was a few years older than her brother; though one would
+hardly have guessed it. Her trim figure, bright eyes, vivacity of
+expression when she chose to be vivacious, and quick movements might
+have belonged to a woman twenty years younger. She had never been
+pretty, but she was always perfectly dressed and her smile could be
+anything she chose to make it. Until her youngest brother came into the
+property, the place had been let and she had lived with her friends and
+relations. She had had a good time, she always frankly confessed, but as
+frankly admitted that it was a relief to settle down at last.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking," said her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"About Cicely?" she asked in her frankly audacious way.</p>
+
+<p>He opened his eyes for a moment and then laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't guess again, Lilian," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Funny little thing," she observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Funny?" he repeated, and his tone brought an almost imperceptible
+change of expression into his sister's eye.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p><p>"Oh," she said as though throwing the subject aside, "she is nice and
+quite pretty, but very young, and not very sophisticated; is she?
+However, I should think she would be a great success as a man's girl.
+That low voice and those eyes of hers are very effective. Pass me the
+salt, Ned."</p>
+
+<p>Ned looked at her in silence, and then over her shoulder out through the
+square window set in the vast thickness of the wall, to the grey horizon
+line.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you've recommended me to marry once or twice, Lilian," he
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't 'guess' please!" she laughed, "or I'll stick my bowie knife or
+gun or something into you! Yes, I've always advised you to marry&mdash;if you
+found the right kind of wife."</p>
+
+<p>She took some credit to herself for this disinterested advice, since, if
+he took it, the consequences would be decidedly disconcerting to
+herself; but she had never pointed out any specific lady yet, or made
+any conspicuous effort to find one for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;&mdash;" he began, and then broke off.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not thinking of Cicely, are you?" she asked, still in the same
+bright light way, but with a quick searching look at him.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems a bit absurd. I don't imagine for an instant she'd look at
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't look&mdash;&mdash;!" she began derisively, and then pulled herself up
+very sharply, and altered her tactics on the instant. "She might <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>think
+you a little too old for her," she said in a tone of entire agreement
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"And also that I've got one too few eyes, and in fact several other
+criticisms."</p>
+
+<p>His sister shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"A girl of that age might think those things," she admitted, "but it
+seems to me that the criticism ought to be on the other side. Who is
+she?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned looked at her and she broke into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "I suppose we both have a pretty good idea. She's
+somebody's something&mdash;Alfred Cromarty's, I believe; though of course her
+mother may have fibbed, for she doesn't look much like the Cromartys.
+Anyhow that pretty well puts her out of the question."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you were a mere nobody, it mightn't make so much difference, but
+your wife must have some sort of a family behind her. One needn't be a
+snob to think that one mother and a guess at the father is hardly
+enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"After all, that's up to me. I wouldn't be wanting to marry her
+great-mothers, even if she had any."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders again.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ned, I'm no prude, but there's always some devilment in the
+blood in these cases."</p>
+
+<p>"Rot!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, rot if you like, but I know more than one instance."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p><p>He said nothing for a moment and as he sat in silence, a look of keen
+anxiety came into her eye. She hid it instantly and compressed her lips,
+and then abruptly her brother said:</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder whether she's at all taken up with Malcolm Cromarty!"</p>
+
+<p>She ceased to meet his eye, and her own became expressionless.</p>
+
+<p>"They have spent some months in the same house. At their age the
+consequences seem pretty inevitable."</p>
+
+<p>She had contrived to suggest a little more than she said, and he started
+in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course, there would be a dreadful row if anything was actually
+known abroad. Sir Reginald has probably other ideas for his heir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there <i>is</i> something between them?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, and though she still did not meet his eye, he accepted the
+nod with a grim look that passed in a moment into a melancholy laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, rising, "it was a pretty absurd idea anyhow. I'll go
+and have a look at myself in the glass and try to see the funny side of
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>His sister sat very still after he had left the room.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>SIR REGINALD</h3>
+
+<p>Cicely Farmond and Malcolm Cromarty walked up the avenue together, he
+pushing his bicycle, she walking by his side with a more than usually
+serious expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you won't tell me where you've been?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't tell me where you've been!"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment and then said confidentially:</p>
+
+<p>"We might as well say we've been somewhere together. I mean, if any one
+asks."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, I don't need to fib," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean I need to. Only&mdash;&mdash;" he seemed to find it difficult to
+explain.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall merely say I have been for a walk, and you need only say you
+have been for a ride&mdash;if you don't want to say where you have really
+been."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you don't want to mention that you were driving with Ned
+Cromarty," he retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"He only very kindly offered me a lift!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked quickly at him as she spoke and as quickly away again. The
+glint in her eye seemed to displease him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p><p>"You needn't always be so sharp with me, Cicely," he complained.</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't say stupid things."</p>
+
+<p>Both were silent for a space and then in a low mournful voice he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I knew how to win your sympathy, Cicely. You don't absolutely
+hate me, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I don't hate you. But the way to get a girl's sympathy is not
+always to keep asking for it."</p>
+
+<p>He looked displeased again.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you know what I mean!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you do either."</p>
+
+<p>He grew tender.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> sympathy, Cicely, would make all the difference to my life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Malcolm&mdash;&mdash;" she began in a warning voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not asking you to love me again," he assured her quickly. "It
+is only sympathy I demand!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you mix them up so easily. It isn't safe to give you anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't again!" he assured her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, though not very sympathetically, "what do you want to
+be sympathised with about now?"</p>
+
+<p>"When you offer me sympathy in that tone, I can't give you my
+confidence!" he said unhappily.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Malcolm, how can I possibly tell what your confidence is going
+to be beforehand? Perhaps it won't deserve sympathy."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>"If you knew the state of my affairs!" he said darkly.</p>
+
+<p>"A few days ago you told me they were very promising," she said with a
+little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"So they would be&mdash;so they are&mdash;if&mdash;if only you would care for me,
+Cicely!"</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me they are promising when you want me to marry you, and
+desperate when you want me to sympathise with you," she said a little
+cruelly. "Which am I to believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Here's Sir Reginald," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman who came through a door in the walled garden beside the
+house was a fresh-coloured, white-haired man of sixty; slender and not
+above middle height, but very erect, and with the carriage of a person a
+little conscious of being of some importance. Sir Reginald Cromarty was,
+in fact, extremely conscious of his position in life, and the rather
+superior and condescending air he was wont to assume in general society
+made it a little difficult for a stranger to believe that he could
+actually be the most popular person in the county; especially as it was
+not hard to discover that his temper could easily become peppery upon
+provocation. If, however, the stranger chanced to provide the worthy
+baronet with even the smallest opening of exhibiting his extraordinary
+kindness of heart&mdash;were it only by getting wet in a shower or mislaying
+a walking stick, he would quickly comprehend. And the baronet's sympathy
+never waited to be summoned; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>it seemed to hover constantly over all men
+and women he met, spying for its chance.</p>
+
+<p>He himself was totally unconscious of this attribute and imagined the
+respect in which he was held to be due to his lineage, rank, and
+superior breeding and understanding. Indeed, few people in this world
+can have cut a more dissimilar figure as seen from his own and from
+other men's eyes; though as both parties were equally pleased with Sir
+Reginald Cromarty, it mattered little.</p>
+
+<p>At the sight of Cicely his smile revealed the warmth of his feelings in
+that direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my dear girl," said he, "we've been looking for you. Where have you
+been?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been having a walk."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him as she answered, and on his side it was easy to see
+that the good gentleman was enraptured, and that Miss Farmond was not
+likely to be severely cross-examined as to her movements. Towards
+Malcolm, on the other hand, though his greeting was kindly enough, his
+eye was critical. The young author's tie seemed to be regarded with
+particular displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, Margaret, imagine being found dead in such a thing!" he had
+exclaimed to his wife, after his first sight of it; and time had done
+nothing to diminish his distaste for this indication of a foreign way of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Cromarty came out of the garden a moment later; a dark thin-faced
+lady with a gracious manner when she spoke, but with lips <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>that were
+usually kept very tight shut and an eye that could easily be hard.</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly time for lunch," she said. "You two had better hurry up!"</p>
+
+<p>The young people hurried on to the house and the baronet and his lady
+walked slowly behind.</p>
+
+<p>"So they have been away all morning together, Reginald," she remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't think so," said he. "He had his bicycle and she has been
+walking."</p>
+
+<p>"You are really too unsuspicious, Reggie!"</p>
+
+<p>"A woman, my dear, is perhaps a little too much the reverse where a
+young couple is concerned. I have told you before, and I repeat it now
+emphatically, that neither Cicely nor Malcolm is in a position to
+contemplate matrimony for an instant."</p>
+
+<p>"He is your heir&mdash;and Cicely is quite aware of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you, Margaret," he said with great conviction, "that Cicely is
+not a girl with mercenary motives. She is quite charming&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know your opinion of her, Reggie," Lady Cromarty broke in a
+trifle impatiently, "and I am fond of her too, as you know. Still, I
+don't believe a girl who can use her eyes so effectively is quite as
+simple as you think."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Reginald laughed indulgently.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, my love, even the best of women are sometimes a trifle
+uncharitable! But in any case Malcolm has quite enough sense of his
+future position to realise that his wife must be somebody <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>without the
+blemish on her birth, which is no fault of dear Cicely's, but&mdash;er&mdash;makes
+her ineligible for this particular position."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could think that Malcolm is the kind of young man who would
+consult anything but his own wishes. I have told you often enough,
+Reggie, that I don't think it is wise to keep these two young people
+living here in the same house for months on end."</p>
+
+<p>"But what can one do?" asked the benevolent baronet. "Neither of them
+has any home of their own. Hang it, I'm the head of their family and I'm
+bound to show them a little hospitality."</p>
+
+<p>"But Malcolm has rooms in town. He needn't spend months on end at
+Keldale."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was silent for a moment. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, my dear, I'm afraid Malcolm is not turning out quite
+so well as I had hoped. He certainly ought to be away doing something.
+At the same time, hang it, you wouldn't have me turn my own kinsman and
+heir out of my house, Margaret; would you?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Cromarty sighed, and then her thin lips tightened.</p>
+
+<p>"You are hopeless, Reggie. I sometimes feel as though I were here merely
+as matron of a home for lost Cromartys! Well, I hope your confidence
+won't be abused. I confess I don't feel very comfortable about it
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," said Sir Reginald. "My own eyes are open too, I assure
+you. I shall watch <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>them very carefully at lunch, in the light of what
+you have been saying."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was an old Etonian, and as his life had been somewhat
+uneventful since, he was in the habit of drawing very largely on his
+recollections of that nursery of learning. Lunch had hardly begun before
+a question from Cicely set him going, and for the rest of the meal he
+regaled her with these reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon he said to his wife:</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, I noticed nothing whatever amiss. Cicely is a very
+sensible as well as a deuced pretty girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I happened to look at Malcolm occasionally," said she.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Reginald thought that she seemed to imply more than she said, but
+then women were like that, he had noticed, and if one took all their
+implications into account, life would be a troublesome affair.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A PHILOSOPHER</h3>
+
+<p>During luncheon an exceedingly efficient person had been moving briskly
+behind the chairs. His face was so expressionless, his mouth so tightly
+closed, and his air of concentration on the business in hand so intense,
+that he seemed the perfect type of the silent butler. But as soon as
+lunch was over, and while Cicely still stood in the hall listening with
+a dubious eye to Malcolm's suggestion of a game of billiards, Mr. James
+Bisset revealed the other side of his personality. He came up to the
+young couple with just sufficient deference, but no more, and in an
+accent which experts would have recognised as the hall mark of the
+western part of North Britain, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, miss, but I've mended your bicycle and I'll show it you if
+ye like, and just explain the principle of the thing."</p>
+
+<p>There was at least as much command as invitation in his tones. The
+billiard invitation was refused, and with a hidden smile Cicely followed
+him to the bicycle house.</p>
+
+<p>Expert knowledge was James Bisset's foible. Of some subjects, such as
+buttling, carpentry, and mending bicycles, it was practical; of others,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>such as shooting, gardening, and motoring, it was more theoretical. To
+Sir Reginald and my lady he was quite indispensable, for he could repair
+almost anything, knew his own more particular business from A to Z, and
+was ready at any moment to shoulder any responsibility. Sir Reginald's
+keeper, gardener, and chauffeur were apt however to be a trifle less
+enthusiastic, Mr. Bisset's passion for expounding the principles of
+their professions sometimes exceeding his tact.</p>
+
+<p>In person, he was an active, stoutly built man (though far too energetic
+to be fat), with blunt rounded features, eyes a little protruding, and
+sandy hair and a reddish complexion which made his age an unguessable
+secret. He might have been in the thirties or he might have been in the
+fifties.</p>
+
+<p>"With regard to these ladies' bicycles, miss&mdash;" he began with a
+lecturer's air.</p>
+
+<p>But by this time Cicely was also an expert in side-tracking her friend's
+theoretical essays.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how clever of you!" she exclaimed rapturously. "It looks as good as
+ever!"</p>
+
+<p>The interruption was too gratifying to offend.</p>
+
+<p>"Better in some ways," he said complacently. "The principle of these
+things is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I did miss it this morning," she hurried on. "In fact I had to have
+quite a long walk. Luckily Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland gave me a lift
+coming home."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed, miss? Stanesland gave ye a lift, did he? An interesting
+gentleman yon."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>This time she made no effort to divert Mr. Bisset's train of thought.</p>
+
+<p>"You think Mr. Cromarty interesting, then?" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"They say he's hanged a man with his ain hands," said Bisset
+impressively.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"For good and sufficient reason, we'll hope, miss. But whatever the way
+of it, it makes a gentleman more interesting in a kin' of way than the
+usual run. And then looking at the thing on general principles, the
+theory of hanging is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but surely," she interrupted, "that isn't the only reason why Mr.
+Cromarty&mdash;I mean why you think he is interesting?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's that glass eye, too. That's very interesting, miss."</p>
+
+<p>She still seemed unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"His glass eye! Oh&mdash;you mean it has a story?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vera possibly. He says himself it was done wi' a whisky bottle, but
+possibly that's making the best of it. But what interests me, miss,
+about yon eye is this&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused dramatically and she enquired in an encouraging voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Bisset?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the principle of introducing a foreign substance so near the man's
+brain. What's glass? What's it consist of?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," confessed Cicely weakly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p><p>"Silica! And what's silica? Practically the same as sand! Well now if ye
+put a handful of sand into a man's brain&mdash;or anyhow next door to it,
+it's bound to have some effect, bound to have some effect!"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset's voice fell to a very serious note, and as he was famous for the
+range of his reading and was generally said to know practically by heart
+"The People's Self-Educator in Science and Art," Cicely asked a little
+apprehensively:</p>
+
+<p>"But what effect can it possibly have?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might take him different ways," said the philosopher cautiously
+though sombrely. "But it's a good thing, anyway, Miss Farmond, that the
+laird of Stanesland is no likely to get married."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he?" she asked, again with that encouraging note.</p>
+
+<p>Bisset replied with another question, asked in an ominous voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Have ye seen yon castle o' his, miss?"</p>
+
+<p>Cicely nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I called there once with Lady Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p>"A most interesting place, miss, illustrating the principle of thae
+castles very instructively."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bisset had evidently been studying architecture as well as science,
+and no doubt would have given Miss Farmond some valuable information on
+the subject. But she seemed to lack enthusiasm for it to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"But will the castle prevent him marrying?" she enquired with a smile.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p><p>"The lady in it will," said the philosopher with a sudden descent into
+worldly shrewdness.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cromarty! Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's mair comfortable there than setting off on her travels again.
+That's a fac', miss."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but supposing he&mdash;&mdash;" Cicely began and then paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the laird's no the marrying sort anyhow. He says to me himself one
+day when I'd taken the liberty of suggesting that a lady would suit the
+castle fine&mdash;we was shooting and I was carrying his cartridges, which I
+do for amusement, miss, whiles&mdash;'Bisset,' says he, 'the lady will have
+to be a damned keen shot to think me worth a cartridge. I'm too tough
+for the table,' says he, 'and not ornamental enough to stuff. They've
+let me off so far, and why the he&mdash;' begging your pardon, miss, but
+Stanesland uses strong expressions sometimes. 'Why the something,' says
+he, 'should they want to put me in the bag now? I'm happier free&mdash;and
+so's the lady.' But he's a grand shot and a vera friendly gentleman,
+vera friendly indeed. It's a pity, though, he's that ugly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugly!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I don't think him ugly at all. He's very
+striking looking. I think he is rather handsome."</p>
+
+<p>Bisset looked at her with a benevolently reproving eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, miss, it's all a matter of taste, but to my mind Stanesland is a
+fine gentleman, but the vera opposite extreme from a Venus." He broke
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>off and glanced towards the house. "Oh, help us! There's one of thae
+helpless women crying on me. How this house would get on wanting
+me&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>He left Miss Farmond to paint the gloomy picture for herself.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LETTER</h3>
+
+<p>It was a few days later that Cicely looked up from the local paper she
+was reading and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Who was George Rattar?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Reginald laid down his book and looked at her in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"George Rattar? What do you know about him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see the announcement of his death. 'Son of the late John Simon
+Rattar' he's called."</p>
+
+<p>"That's Silent Simon's brother!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "Where did he
+die?"</p>
+
+<p>"In New York, it says."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Reginald turned to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"We can hardly send our sympathies to Simon on this bereavement!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said significantly. "I suppose congratulations would be more
+appropriate."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet took the paper from Cicely and studied it himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Died about a fortnight ago, I see," he observed. "I wonder whether
+Simon put this announcement in himself, or whether brother George
+arranged it in his will? It would be quite like the fellow to have this
+posthumous wipe at Simon. George had a certain sense of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>humour&mdash;which
+Simon lacks. And there was certainly no love lost between them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it annoy Mr. Rattar?" asked Cicely.</p>
+
+<p>"Because brother George was not a member of his family he would care to
+be reminded of. Though on the other hand, Simon is as hard as whinstone
+and has as much sentiment as this teapot, and he may have put the notice
+in himself simply to show the world he was rid of the fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"What was George Rattar then?" enquired Cicely.</p>
+
+<p>"He was once Simon Rattar's partner, wasn't he, Reginald?" said Lady
+Cromarty. "And then he swindled him, didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Swindled several other people as well," said Sir Reginald, "myself
+included. However, the thing was hushed up, and brother George
+disappeared. Then he took to forgery on his own account and among other
+people's signatures he imitated with remarkable success was Simon's.
+This let old Simon in for it again and there was no hushing it up a
+second time. Simon gave evidence against him without mercy, and since
+then George has been his Majesty's guest for a number of years. So if
+you meet Mr. Simon Rattar, Cicely, you'd better not tell him how sorry
+you are to hear of poor George's decease!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could remember him more distinctly," said Lady Cromarty. "I'm
+afraid I always mix him up with our friend Mr. Simon."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p><p>"It's little wonder," her husband replied. "They were twins. George was
+the one with a moustache; one knew them apart by that. Extraordinary
+thing, it has always seemed to me, that their natures should have been
+so different."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," suggested Cicely compassionately, with her serious air, "it
+was only that George was tempted."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Reginald laughed heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"You little cynic!" he cried. "You mean to insinuate that if you tempted
+Simon, he'd be as bad a hat as his brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" cried Cicely. "I meant&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Tempt him and see!" chuckled the baronet. "And we'll have a little bet
+on the result!" He was glancing at the paper as he laughed, and now he
+suddenly stopped laughing and exclaimed, "Hullo! Here's a much more
+serious loss for our friend. Would you like to earn &pound;1, Cicely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then if you search the road very carefully between Mr. Simon
+Rattar's residence and his office you may find his signet ring and
+obtain the advertised, and I may say princely, reward of one pound."</p>
+
+<p>"Only a pound!" exclaimed Lady Cromarty, "for that handsome old ring of
+his?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he had offered a penny more, I should have taken my business out of
+his hands!" laughed Sir Reginald. "It would have meant that Silent Simon
+wasn't himself any longer. A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>pound is exactly his figure; a respectable
+sum, but not extravagant."</p>
+
+<p>"What day did he lose it?" asked Cicely.</p>
+
+<p>"The advertisement doesn't say."</p>
+
+<p>"He wasn't wearing it&mdash;&mdash;" Cicely pulled herself up sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"When?" asked Lady Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"Where can I have seen him last?" wondered Cicely with an innocent air.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for two or three weeks certainly," said Lady Cromarty decisively.
+"And he can't have lost it then if this advertisement is only just put
+in."</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not," Cicely agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Sir Reginald, "he'll miss his ring more than his brother!
+And remember, Cicely, you get a pound for finding the ring, and you win
+a pair of gloves if you can tempt Simon to stray from the paths of
+honesty and virtue! By Jingo, I'll give you the gloves if you can even
+make him tell a good sporting lie!"</p>
+
+<p>When the good baronet was in this humour no man could excel him in
+geniality, and, to do him justice, a kindly temper and hearty spirits
+were the rule with him six days out of seven. On the other hand, he was
+easily ruffled and his tempers were hot while they lasted. Upon the very
+next morning there arose on the horizon a little cloud, a cloud that
+seemed at the moment the merest fleck of vapour, which upset him, his
+family thought, quite unduly.</p>
+
+<p>It took the form of a business letter from Mr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>Simon Rattar, a letter
+on the surface perfectly innocuous and formally polite. Yet Sir Reginald
+seemed considerably disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn the man!" he exclaimed as he cast it on the breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>"Reggie!" expostulated his wife gently. "What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Matter?" snapped her husband. "Simon Rattar has the impudence to tell
+me he is letting the farm of Castleknowe to that fellow Shearer after
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>"But why not? You meant to some time ago, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Some time ago, certainly. But I had a long talk with Simon ten days ago
+and told him what I'd heard about Shearer and said I wouldn't have the
+fellow on my property at any price. I don't believe the man is solvent,
+in the first place; and in the second place he's a socialistic,
+quarrelsome, mischievous fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did Mr. Rattar think?"</p>
+
+<p>"He tried to make some allowances for the man, but in the end when he
+saw I had made up my mind, he professed to agree with me and said he
+would look out for another tenant. Now he tells me that the matter is
+settled as per my instructions of the 8th. That's weeks ago, and not a
+word does he say about our conversation cancelling the whole
+instructions!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then Shearer gets the farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he doesn't! I'm dashed if he does! I shall send Mr. Simon a letter
+that will make him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>sit up! He's got to alter the arrangement somehow."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Malcolm and added:</p>
+
+<p>"When your time comes, Malcolm, beware of having a factor who has run
+the place so long that he thinks it's his own property! By Gad, I'm
+going to tell him a bit of my mind!"</p>
+
+<p>During the rest of breakfast he glanced at the letter once or twice, and
+each time his brows contracted, but he said nothing more in presence of
+Cicely and Malcolm. After he had left the dining room, however, Lady
+Cromarty followed him and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be too hasty with Mr. Rattar, Reggie! After all, the talk may
+have slipped his memory."</p>
+
+<p>"Slipped his memory? If you had heard it, Margaret, you'd know better. I
+was a bit cross with him for a minute or two then, which I hardly ever
+am, and that alone would make him remember it, one would think. We
+talked for over an hour on the business and the upshot was clear and
+final. No, no, he has got a bit above himself and wants a touch of the
+curb."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to send in a note by car and tell him to come out and see me
+about the business at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see the letter before you send it, Reggie."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to growl assent, but when she next saw him the letter had
+gone; and from the baronet's somewhat crusty explanation, she suspected
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>that it was a little sharper than he knew she would have approved.</p>
+
+<p>When the car returned his annoyance was increased again for a space. Mr.
+Rattar had sent a brief reply that he was too busy to come out that
+afternoon, but he would call on Sir Reginald in the morning. For a time
+this answer kept Sir Reginald in a state of renewed irritation, and then
+his natural good humour began to prevail, till by dinner time he was
+quite calm again, and after dinner in as genial humour as he had been in
+the day before.</p>
+
+<p>He played a game of pyramids with Cicely and Malcolm in the billiard
+room, and then he and Cicely joined Lady Cromarty in the drawing room
+while the young author went up to his room to work, he declared. He had
+a large bedroom furnished half as a sitting room where he retired each
+night to compose his masterpieces as soon as it became impossible to
+enjoy Miss Farmond's company without having to share it in the drawing
+room with his host and hostess. At least, that was the explanation of
+his procedure given by Lady Cromarty, whose eye was never more critical
+than when it studied her husband's kinsman and heir.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Cromarty's eye was not uncritical also of Cicely at times, but
+to-night she was so relieved to see how Sir Reginald's temper improved
+under her smiles and half shy glances, that she let her stay up later
+than usual. Then when she and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>girl went up to bed, she asked her
+husband if he would be late.</p>
+
+<p>"The magazines came this morning," said he. "I'd better sleep in my
+dressing room."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was apt to sit up late when he had anything to read that
+held his fancy, and the procedure of sleeping in his dressing room was
+commonly followed then.</p>
+
+<p>He bade them good-night and went off towards the library, and a few
+minutes later, as they were going upstairs, they heard the library door
+shut.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to Lady Cromarty's room, Cicely said good-night to her
+hostess and turned down the passage that led to her own bedroom. A door
+opened quietly as she passed and a voice whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Cicely!"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and regarded the young author with a reproving eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Is anything the matter?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I just wanted to speak to you!" he pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Malcolm," she said severely, "you know quite well that Lady
+Cromarty trusts us <i>not</i> to do this sort of thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's in her room, isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does that matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"And where's Sir Reginald?"</p>
+
+<p>"Still in the library."</p>
+
+<p>"Sitting up late?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but that doesn't matter either. Good night!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>"Wait just one minute, Cicely! Come into my room&mdash;I won't shut the
+door!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not!" she said emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, don't speak so loudly! I must confide in you, Cicely; I'm
+getting desperate. My position is really serious. Something's got to
+happen! If you would only give me your sympathy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were writing," she interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been trying to, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, write all this down and read it to me to-morrow," she smiled.
+"Good night!"</p>
+
+<p>"The blame be on your head!" began the author dramatically, but the slim
+figure was already moving away, throwing him a parting smile that seemed
+to wound his sensitive soul afresh.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>NEWS</h3>
+
+<p>Even in that scattered countryside of long distances by windy roads,
+with scarcely ever a village as a focus for gossip, news flew fast. The
+next morning Ned Cromarty had set out with his gun towards a certain
+snipe marsh, but while he was still on the high road he met a man on a
+bicycle. The man had heard strange news and stopped to pass it on, and
+the next moment Ned was hurrying as fast as his long legs could take him
+back to the castle.</p>
+
+<p>He saw his sister only for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Lilian!" he cried, and the sound of his voice made her start and stare
+at him. "There's a story that Sir Reginald was murdered last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Murdered!" she repeated in a low incredulous voice. "Ridiculous, Ned!
+Who told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I only know the man by sight, but he seemed to believe it right
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"But how&mdash;who did it?"</p>
+
+<p>Her brother shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know. He couldn't tell me. My God, I hope it's not true! I'm off
+to see."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later he was driving his mare headlong for his kinsman's
+house. It had begun <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>to rain by this time, and the mournful wreaths of
+vapour that swept over the bare, late autumnal country and drove in fine
+drops against his face sent his spirits down ever lower as the mare
+splashed her way along the empty miles of road. The melancholy thrumming
+of the telegraph wires droned by his side all the while, and as this
+dirge waxed for the moment as they passed each post, his eye would
+glance grimly at those gaunt poles. Very suitable and handy for a
+certain purpose, they struck him&mdash;if by any possibility this tale were
+true.</p>
+
+<p>He knew the worst when he saw Bisset at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God, you've come, sir," said the butler devoutly. "The master
+would have expected it of you."</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen? What does it mean? Do you mean to say it's actually
+<i>true</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset shook his head sombrely.</p>
+
+<p>"Ower true," said he. "But as to how it happened, come in to the
+library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and
+Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial
+evidence. Most extraordinary mystery, sir&mdash;most extraordinary!"</p>
+
+<p>In the library they found Simon Rattar and Superintendent Sutherland.
+The Superintendent was a big burly red-moustached man; his face a
+certificate of honesty, but hardly of the intellectual type. Ned looked
+round him apprehensively for something else, but Bisset said:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>"We've taken him upstairs, sir."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment as he looked round that spacious comfortable room with its
+long bookcases and easy chairs, and on the tables and mantel-piece a
+hundred little mementoes of its late owner, the laird of Stanesland was
+unable to speak a word, and the others respected his silence. Then he
+pulled himself together sharply and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen? Tell me all about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there might have been for a moment in Simon's eye a hint that
+this demand was irregular, but the superintendent evidently took no
+exception to the intrusion. Besides being a considerable local magnate
+and a kinsman of the dead baronet, Stanesland had a forcible personality
+that stood no gainsaying.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said the superintendent, "Mr. Rattar could perhaps explain
+best&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Explain yourself, Sutherland," said Simon briefly.</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent pointed to a spot on the carpet a few paces from the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"We found Sir Reginald lying there," he said. "His skull had been fairly
+cracked, just over the right eye, sir. The blow would have been enough
+to kill him I'd think myself, but there were marks in his neck too,
+seeming to show that the murderer had strangled him afterwards to make
+sure. However, we'll be having the medical evidence soon. But there's no
+doubt that was the way of it, and Mr. Rattar agrees with me."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer merely nodded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>"What was it done with?"</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"That's one of the mysterious things in the case, sir. There's no sign
+of any weapon in the room. The fire irons are far too light. But it was
+an unco' heavy blow. There was little bleeding, but the skull was fair
+cracked."</p>
+
+<p>"Was anything stolen?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's another mystery, sir. Nothing was stolen anywhere in the house
+and there was no papers in a mess like, or anything."</p>
+
+<p>"When was he found?" asked Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Seven-fifty this morning, sir," said Bisset. "The housemaid finding the
+door lockit came to me. I knew the dining-room key fitted this door too,
+so I opened it&mdash;and there he lay."</p>
+
+<p>"All night, without any one knowing he hadn't gone to bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the unfortunate thing, sir," said the superintendent. "It seems
+that Sir Reginald had arranged to sleep in his dressing room as he was
+going to be sitting up late reading."</p>
+
+<p>"Murderer must have known that," put in Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost looks like it," agreed the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"And nobody in the house heard or saw anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody, sir," said the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"That's their statement," added the lawyer in his driest voice.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p><p>"Was anybody sitting up late?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody admits it," said the lawyer, again very drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirteen," said Bisset softly.</p>
+
+<p>They turned towards him, but it seemed that he was talking to himself.
+He was, in fact, quietly taking measurements with a tape.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Cromarty briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said the superintendent. "The body was found near the door
+as I was pointing out, but it's a funny thing that a small table had
+been upset apparently, and Bisset tells us that that table stood near
+the window."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph," grunted Simon sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm quite sure of it, Mr. Rattar," said Bisset confidently, looking
+round from his work of measurement.</p>
+
+<p>"No positive proof it was upset," said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you find it upset?" asked Ned.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shook his head emphatically and significantly, and the
+superintendent agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it was standing just where it is now near the wall."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you think it was upset?"</p>
+
+<p>"I picked up yon bits of sealing wax and yon piece of India rubber,"
+said Bisset, looking round again. "I know they were on the wee table
+yesterday and I found them under the curtain in the morning and the
+table moved over to the wall. It follows that the table has been cowpit
+and then set up again in another place, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>other things on it put
+back. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned nodded thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me so," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems likely enough," the superintendent also agreed. "And if that's
+the case there would seem to have been some kind of ongoings near the
+window."</p>
+
+<p>The Procurator Fiscal still seemed unconvinced.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to go on. No proper evidence. It leads nowhere definitely," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well now," continued the superintendent, "the question is&mdash;how did the
+murderer get into the room? The door was found locked and the key had
+been taken away, so whether he had locked it from the inside or the
+outside we can't tell. There's small chance of finding the key, I doubt,
+for a key's a thing easy hidden away."</p>
+
+<p>"So he might have come in by the door and then left by the door and
+locked it after him," said Ned. "Or he might have come in by the window,
+locked the door and gone out by the window. Or he might have come in by
+the window and gone out by the door, locking it after him. Those are all
+the chances, aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, that seems to be them all," said the superintendent with a note
+of admiration for this clear exposition that seemed to indicate he was
+better himself at details than deductions.</p>
+
+<p>"And now what about the window? Was that open or shut or what?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><p>"Shut but not snibbed, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Ned turned to Bisset.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Sir Reginald ever forget to snib the windows, supposing one
+happened to be open?"</p>
+
+<p>"Practically never, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Last thing before he left the room, I suppose?" said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>The butler hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so, sir," he admitted, "but of course I was never here to
+see."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" said Simon. "Therefore one can draw no conclusions as to
+whether the window had been standing all the time just as it is now, or
+whether it had been opened and shut again from the outside; seeing that
+Sir Reginald was presumably killed before his usual time for looking to
+the windows."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a bit!" said Ned. "I was assuming a window had been open. But were
+the windows fastened before Sir Reginald came in to sit here last
+thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly they were that," said the butler emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a mild night, he might have opened one himself," replied the
+Procurator Fiscal. "Or supposing the man had come in and left again by
+the door, what's more likely than that he unsnibbed the window to make
+people think he had come that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"He would surely have left it wide open," objected Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Might have thought that too obvious," replied <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>the lawyer, "or might
+have been afraid of the noise. Unsnibbing would be quite enough to
+suggest entry that way."</p>
+
+<p>Ned turned his keen eye hard on him.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your own theory then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've none," grunted Simon. "No definite evidence one way or the other.
+Mere guesses are no use."</p>
+
+<p>Ned walked to the window and looked at it carefully. Then he threw it up
+and looked out into the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you've looked for footsteps underneath?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Simon. "But it's a hard gravel path and grass beyond.
+One could fancy one saw traces, but no definite evidence."</p>
+
+<p>The window was one of three together, with stone mullions between. They
+were long windows reaching down nearly to the level of the floor, so
+that entrance that way was extremely easy if one of them were open.
+Cromarty got out and stood on the sill examining the middle sash.</p>
+
+<p>Simon regarded him with a curious caustic look for a moment in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking for finger marks?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ned. "Did you look for them?"</p>
+
+<p>For a single instant the Procurator Fiscal seemed a little taken aback.
+Then he grunted with a half laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't believe much in them."</p>
+
+<p>"Experienced criminals, that's been convicted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>before, frequently wears
+gloves for to prevent their finger prints being spotted," said the
+learned Bisset.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar shot him a quick ambiguous glance, and then his eyes assumed
+their ordinary cold look and he said:</p>
+
+<p>"No evidence anybody ever opened that window from the outside. If they
+had, Sir Reginald would have heard them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ned, getting back into the room, "there are no finger marks
+anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"The body being found near the door certainly seems to be in favour of
+Mr. Rattar's opinion," observed the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Mr. Rattar had formed no opinion yet," said Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"No more I have," grunted the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent looked a trifle perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"Before Mr. Cromarty had come in, sir, I understood you for to say
+everything pointed to the man having come in by the door and hit Sir
+Reginald on the head as he came to see who it was when he heard him
+outside."</p>
+
+<p>"I merely suggested that," said Simon Rattar sharply. "It fits the
+facts, but there's no definite evidence yet."</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty had turned and was frowning out of the window. Now he
+wheeled quickly and exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"If the murderer came in through the window while Sir Reginald was in
+the room, either the window was standing open or Sir Reginald <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>opened it
+for him! Did Sir Reginald ever sit with his window open late at night at
+this time of year?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never once, sir," said Bisset confidently. "He likit fresh air outside
+fine but never kept his windies open much unless the weather was vera
+propitious."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Ned, "why should Sir Reginald have opened the window of his
+own accord to a stranger at the dead of night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" said Mr. Rattar. "Thing seems absurd. He'd never do it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my own opinion likewise, sir," put in Bisset.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only common sense," added the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"Then how came the window to be unfastened?" demanded Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"I've suggested a reason," said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"As a blind? Sounds to me damned thin."</p>
+
+<p>Simon Rattar turned away from him with an air that suggested that he
+thought it time to indicate distinctly that he was in charge of the case
+and not the laird of Stanesland.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all we can do just now, Sutherland," he said. "No use disturbing
+the household any longer at present."</p>
+
+<p>Cromarty stepped up to him suddenly and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me honestly! Do you suspect anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon shook his head decidedly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p><p>"No sufficient evidence yet. Good morning, Mr. Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p>Ned was following him to the door, his lips compressed and his eyes on
+the floor, when Bisset touched his arm and beckoned him back.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but could you not manage just to stop on for
+a wee bit yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't be wanting visitors, Bisset."</p>
+
+<p>"They needn't know if you don't want them to, sir. Lady Cromarty is shut
+up in her room, and the others are keeping out of the way. If you
+wouldn't mind my giving you a little cold luncheon in my sitting room,
+sir, I'd like to have your help. I'm making a few sma' bits of
+investigation on my own. You're one of the family, sir, and I know
+you'll be wanting to find out who killed the master."</p>
+
+<p>Ned's eye flashed suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, I'll never rest in this world or the next till I do! All right,
+I'll wait for a bit."</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>CICELY</h3>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty waited in the hall while Bisset went to the door with the
+Procurator Fiscal and Superintendent of Police. As he stood there in the
+darkened silence of the house, there came to his ears for an instant the
+faint sound of a voice, and it seemed to be a woman's. With that the
+current of his thoughts seemed to change, and when Bisset returned he
+asked, though with marked hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think, Bisset, I could do anything for any of them, Mr. Malcolm
+Cromarty, or&mdash;er&mdash;Miss Farmond?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset considered the point judicially. It was clear he felt that the
+management of the household was in his hands now.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure Miss Farmond would be pleased, sir&mdash;poor young lady!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think so?" said Ned, and his manner brightened visibly.
+"Well, if she won't mind&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think if you come this way, sir, you will find her with Sir Malcolm."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sir</i> Malcolm!" exclaimed Ned. "My God, so he is!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p><p>To himself he added:</p>
+
+<p>"And she will soon be Lady Cromarty!"</p>
+
+<p>But the thought did not seem to exhilarate him.</p>
+
+<p>He was led towards the billiard room, an addition to the house which lay
+rather apart. The door was half open and through it he could see that
+the blinds had been drawn down, and he could hear a murmur of voices.</p>
+
+<p>"They are in there, sir," said Bisset, and he left him.</p>
+
+<p>As Ned Cromarty entered he caught the words, spoken by the new baronet:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Cicely, I depend on your sympathy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off as he heard a footstep, and seemed to move a little apart
+from the chair where Cicely was sitting.</p>
+
+<p>The two young people greeted their visitor, Cicely in a voice so low
+that it was scarcely audible, but with a smile that seemed, he thought,
+to welcome him; Sir Malcolm with a tragic solemnity which no doubt was
+quite appropriate to a bereaved baronet. The appearance of a third party
+seemed, however, to afford him no particular gratification, and after
+exchanging a sentence or two, he begged, in a very serious tone, to be
+excused, and retired, walking softly and mournfully. Ned noticed then
+that his face was extraordinarily pale and his eye disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Ned. He was embarrassed, a rare
+condition with him, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>which, when it did afflict him, resulted in an
+impression of intimidating truculence.</p>
+
+<p>Cicely seemed to shrink a little, and he resolved to leave instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" she said shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"I only wanted to say that if I could do anything for you&mdash;well, you've
+only to let me know."</p>
+
+<p>"It's awfully kind of you," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>There was something so evidently sincere in this murmur that his
+embarrassment forthwith left him.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven!" he said after his outspoken habit. "I was afraid I was
+putting my foot in it. But if you really don't mind my seeing you for a
+minute or two, I'd just like to say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off abruptly, and she looked up at him questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dash it, I can't say it, Miss Farmond! But you know, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it
+was, he knew she understood and appreciated.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the
+blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a
+basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been too stunned till now to grasp what's happened," he said in a
+moment. "Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!"</p>
+
+<p>He had said exactly the right thing now.</p>
+
+<p>"He certainly was mine!" she said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p><p>"And mine too. We may live to be a brace of Methuselahs, but I guess
+we'll never see his like again!"</p>
+
+<p>His odd phrase made her smile for a moment despite herself. It passed
+swiftly and she said:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> can't believe it yet."</p>
+
+<p>Again there was silence, and then he said abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"It's little wonder you can't believe it. The thing is so extraordinary.
+It's incredible. A man without an enemy in the world&mdash;no robbery
+attempted&mdash;sitting in his own library&mdash;in just about the most peaceful
+and out of the way county in Scotland&mdash;not a sound heard by anybody&mdash;not
+a reason that one can possibly imagine&mdash;and yet murdered!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it must have been a robber surely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't he rob something then?"</p>
+
+<p>"But how else&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"How indeed! You've not a suspicion of any one yourself, Miss Farmond?
+Say it right out if you have. We don't lynch here. At least," he
+corrected himself as he recalled the telegraph posts, "it hasn't been
+done yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>can't</i> suspect any one!" she said earnestly. "I never met any one in
+my life that I could possibly imagine doing such a thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said. "I guess our experiences have been pretty different. I've
+met lots, but then there are none of those boys here. Who is there in
+this place?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused and stared into space.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p><p>"It must have been a tramp&mdash;some one who doesn't belong here!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was trying to think whether there are any lunatics about," he said in
+a moment. "But there aren't any."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for some minutes. He was thinking; she never moved.
+Then he heard a sound, and looking down saw that she had her
+handkerchief in her hand. He had nearly bent over her before he
+remembered Sir Malcolm, and at the recollection he said abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've disturbed you too long. If I can do anything&mdash;anything
+whatever, you'll let me know, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are very, very kind," she murmured, and a note in her voice nearly
+made him forget the new baronet. In fact, he had to retire rather
+quickly to be sure of himself.</p>
+
+<p>The efficiency of James Bisset was manifest at every conjuncture.
+Businesslike and brisk he appeared from somewhere as Cromarty reached
+the hall, and led him from the front regions to the butler's sitting
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"I will bring your lunch in a moment, sir," he murmured, and vanished
+briskly.</p>
+
+<p>The room looked out on a courtyard at the back, and through the window
+Ned could see against the opposite buildings the rain driving in clouds.
+In the court the wind was eddying, and beneath some door he could hear
+it drone insistently. Though the toughest of men, he shivered a little
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>and drew up a wicker chair close in front of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"It's incredible!" he murmured, and as he stared at the flames this
+thought seemed to haunt him all the time.</p>
+
+<p>Bisset laid the table and another hour passed. Ned ate a little lunch
+and then smoked and stared at the fire while the wind droned and
+blustered without ceasing, and occasionally a cross gust sent the rain
+drops softly pattering on the panes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm damned if I see a thing!" he suddenly exclaimed half aloud, and
+jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Before he had time to start for the door, Bisset's mysterious efficiency
+was made manifest again. Precisely as he was wanted, he appeared, and
+this time it was clear that his own efforts had not been altogether
+fruitless. He had in fact an air of even greater complacency than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"I have arrived at certain conclusions, sir," he announced.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DEDUCTIVE PROCESS</h3>
+
+<p>Bisset laid on the table a sheet of note paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said he, "is a kin' of bit sketch plan of the library. Observing
+this plan attentively, you will notice two crosses, marked A and B. A is
+where yon wee table was standing&mdash;no the place against the wall where it
+was standing this morning, but where it was standing before it was
+knocked over last night. B is where the corp was found. You follow that,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I follow," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, the principle in a' these cases of crime and detection," resumed
+the philosopher, assuming his lecturer's air, "is noticing such sma'
+points of detail as escape the eye of the ordinar' observer, taking full
+and accurate measurements, making a plan with the principal sites
+carefully markit, and drawing, as it were, logical conclusions. Applying
+this method now to the present instance, Mr. Cromarty, the first point
+to observe is that the room is twenty-six feet long, measured from the
+windie, which is a bit recessed or set back, as it were, to the other
+end of the apartment. Half of 26 is 13, and if you take the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>half way
+line and draw approximate perpendiculars to about where the table was
+standing and to as near as one can remember where the middle of the corp
+roughly was lying, you get exactly six feet ten and five-eighths inches,
+in both cases."</p>
+
+<p>"An approximate perpendicular to roughly about these places gives this
+exact measurement?" repeated Cromarty gravely. "Well, what next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I'll not insist too much on the coincidence, but it seems to
+me vera remarkable. But the two significant features of this case seem
+to me yon table being upset over by the windie and the corp being found
+over by the door."</p>
+
+<p>"You're talking horse sense now," murmured Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, yon table was upset by Sir Reginald falling on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned looked at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because one of the legs was broken clean off!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, when we saw it this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"We had none of us noticed it then, sir; but I've had a look at it
+since, and there's one leg broken fair off at the top. The break was
+half in the socket, as it were, leaving a kind of spike, and if you
+stick that into the socket you can make the table look as good as new.
+It's all right, in fac', until you try to move it, and then of course
+the leg just drops out."</p>
+
+<p>"And it wasn't like that yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"I happened to move it myself not so long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>before Sir Reginald came into
+the room, and that's how I know for certain where it was standing and
+that it wasn't broken. And yon wee light tables dinna lose their legs
+just with being cowped, supposing there was nothing else than that to
+smash them. No, sir, it was poor Sir Reginald falling on top of it that
+smashed yon leg."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he was certainly struck down near the window!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll see that in a minute. It's no in reason, Mr. Cromarty, to
+suppose he deliberately opened the windie to let his ain murderer in.
+And it's a' just stuff and nonsense to suggest Sir Reginald was sitting
+on a winter's night&mdash;or next door to winter onyhow, with his windie wide
+open. I'm too well acquaint with his habits to believe that for a
+minute. And it's impossible the man can have opened a snibbed windie and
+got in, with some one sitting in the room, and no alarm given. So it's
+perfectly certain the man must have come in at the door. That's a fair
+deduction, is it not, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty frowned into space in silence. When he spoke it seemed to
+be as much to himself as to Bisset.</p>
+
+<p>"How did the window get unsnibbed? Everything beats me, but that beats
+me fairly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, Mr. Rattar may no be just exac'ly as intellectual as me and
+you, but I think there's maybe something in his idea it was done to put
+us off the scent."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p><p>"Possibly&mdash;but it strikes me as a derned feeble dodge. However, what's
+your next conclusion?"</p>
+
+<p>"My next conclusion is, sir, that Simon Rattar may not be so vera far
+wrong either about Sir Reginald hearing some one at the door and
+starting to see who it was. Then&mdash;bang!&mdash;the door would suddenly open,
+and afore he'd time to speak, the man had given him a bat on the heid
+that finished him."</p>
+
+<p>"And where does the table come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my explanation is just this, that Sir Reginald suspected
+something and took the wee table as a kind of weapon."</p>
+
+<p>"Rot!" said Ned ruthlessly. "You think he left the fireplace and went
+round by the window to fetch such a useless weapon as that?"</p>
+
+<p>James Bisset was not easily damped.</p>
+
+<p>"That's only a possibility, sir. Excluding that, what must have
+happened? For that's the way, Mr. Cromarty, to get at the fac's; you
+just exclude what's not possible and what remains is the truth. If you'd
+read&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come on. What's your theory now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just that Sir Reginald backed away from the door with the man after
+him, till he got to the table. And then down went him and the table
+together."</p>
+
+<p>"And why didn't he cry out or raise the alarm in some way while he was
+backing away?"</p>
+
+<p>"God, but that fits into my other deductions fine!" cried Bisset. "I
+hadna thought of that. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>Just wait, sir, till you see how the case is
+going to hang together in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did Sir Reginald's body come to be lying near the door?"</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher seemed to be inspired afresh.</p>
+
+<p>"The man clearly meant to take it away and hide it somewhere&mdash;that'll be
+just it! And then he found it ower heavy and decided to leave it after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"And who was this man?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's precisely where proper principles, Mr. Cromarty, lead to a
+number of vera interesting and instructive discoveries, and I think
+ye'll see, sir, that the noose is on the road to his neck already. I've
+not got the actual man, mind! In fac' I've no idea who he is, but I can
+tell you a good few things about him&mdash;enough, in fac', to make escape
+practically impossible. In the first place, he was one well acquaint
+with the ways of the house. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" said Ned. "I've put my bottom dollar on that already."</p>
+
+<p>"He came from inside this house and not outside it. How long he'd been
+in the house, that I cannot say, but my own deductions are he'd been in
+the house waiting for his chance for a good while before the master
+heard him at yon door. Is that not a fair deduction too, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's possible," said Ned, though not with great conviction.</p>
+
+<p>"And now here's a point that accounts for Sir Reginald giving no
+alarm&mdash;Sir Reginald knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>the man and couldna believe he meant
+mischief!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned looked at him quickly and curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that not a fair deduction, Mr. Cromarty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to fill the bill."</p>
+
+<p>"And now, here's a few personal details. Yon man was a fair active
+strong man to have dealt with the master the way he did. But he was not
+strong enough to carry off the corp like a sack of potatoes; he was no a
+great muckle big giant, that's to say. And finally, calculating from the
+distance the body was from the door and the number of steps he would be
+likely to take to the door, and sae arriving at his stride and deducing
+his height accordingly, he'd be as near as may be five feet nine inches
+tall. Now, sir, me and you ought to get him with a' that known!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty looked at him with a curious gleam in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your own height, Bisset?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Five feet nine inches," said the reasoner promptly, and then suddenly
+his mouth fell open but his voice ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," pursued Ned with a grimly humorous look, "can you not think
+of a man just that height, pretty hefty but not a giant, who was
+certainly in the house last night, who knew all the ways of it, and who
+would never have been suspected by Sir Reginald of meaning mischief?"</p>
+
+<p>"God!" exclaimed the unfortunate reasoner. "I've proved it was mysel'!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p><p>"Well, and what shall I do&mdash;string you up now or hand you over to the
+police?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Cromarty&mdash;you don't believe that's right surely?"</p>
+
+<p>Tragic though the occasion was, Ned could not refrain from one brief
+laugh. And then his face set hard again and he said:</p>
+
+<p>"No, Bisset, I do not believe it was you. In fact, I wouldn't believe it
+was you if you confessed to it. But I'd advise you not to go spreading
+your deductions abroad! Deduction's a game that wants a bit more
+practice than you or I have had."</p>
+
+<p>It is possible that James Bisset had never looked quite so crestfallen
+in his life.</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's all nonsense I've been talking, sir?" he said lugubriously.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ned emphatically. "I'll not say that either. You've brought
+out some good points&mdash;that broken table, the place the body was found,
+the possible reason why Sir Reginald gave no alarm; seems to me those
+have something to them. But what they mean&mdash;what to conclude; we're as
+far off that, Bisset, as ever!"</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher's self esteem was evidently returning as fast as it had
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you wouldn't think there would be any harm, sir, in my continuing
+my investigations?"</p>
+
+<p>"On your present lines, the only harm is likely to be to yourself. Keep
+at it&mdash;but don't hang yourself accidentally. And let me know if you
+discover anything else&mdash;mind that."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p><p>"I'll mind on it, no fears, Mr. Cromarty!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned left him with an expression on his countenance which indicated that
+the deductive process had already been resumed.</p>
+
+<p>Till he arrived at his own door, the laird of Stanesland was unconscious
+of a single incident of his drive home. All the way his eye stared
+straight into space. Sometimes a gleam would light it for an instant,
+and then he would shake his head and the gleam would fade away.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see neither a damned head nor a damned tail to it!" he said to
+himself as he alighted.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE QUESTION OF MOTIVE</h3>
+
+<p>Two days later Mr. Ison entered Mr. Simon Rattar's room and informed him
+that Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland wished to see him on particular
+business. The lawyer was busy and this interruption seemed for the
+moment distinctly unwelcome. Then he grunted:</p>
+
+<p>"Show him in."</p>
+
+<p>In the minute or two that passed before the laird's entrance, Simon
+seemed to be thinking intently and finally to come to a decision, which,
+to judge from his reception of his client, was on rather different lines
+from his first thoughts when Mr. Cromarty's name was announced. To
+describe Simon Rattar at any time as genial would be an exaggeration,
+but he showed his nearest approach to geniality as he bade his client
+good-morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to interrupt you," said Ned, "but I can't get this business out
+of my head, night or day. Whether you want me or not, I've got to play a
+hand in this game; but it's on your side, Mr. Rattar, and maybe I might
+be able to help a little if I could get something to go on."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer nodded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p><p>"I quite understand. Glad to have your help, Mr. Cromarty. Dreadful
+affair. We're all trying to get to the bottom of it, I can assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you," said Ned. "There never was a man better worth avenging
+than Sir Reginald."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," said Simon briefly, his eyes fixed on the other's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Any fresh facts?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon drew a sheet of paper from his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Superintendent Sutherland has given me a note of three&mdash;for what they
+are worth, discovered by the butler. The first is about that table. It
+seems a leg has been broken."</p>
+
+<p>"Bisset told me that before I left the house."</p>
+
+<p>"And thought it was an important fact, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"What its importance is, it's hard to say, but it's a fact, and seems to
+me well worth noting."</p>
+
+<p>"It is noted," said the Procurator Fiscal drily. "But I can't see that
+it leads anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Bisset maintains it implies Sir Reginald fell over it when he was
+struck down; and that seems to me pretty likely."</p>
+
+<p>Simon shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"How do we know Sir Reginald hadn't broken it himself previously and
+then set it up against the wall&mdash;assuming it ever stood anywhere else,
+which seems to want confirmation?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dashed thin suggestion!" said Ned. "However, what are the other
+discoveries?"</p>
+
+<p>"The second is that one or two small fragments of dried mud were found
+under the edge <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>of the curtain, and the third is that the hearth brush
+was placed in an unusual position&mdash;according to Bisset."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are Bisset's conclusions?"</p>
+
+<p>"That the man, whoever he was, had brought mud into the room and then
+swept it up with the hearth brush; these fragments being pieces that he
+had swept accidentally under the curtain and so overlooked."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for Bisset!" exclaimed Ned. "He has got there this time, I do
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>Simon smiled sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Reginald was in the library in his walking boots that afternoon.
+Naturally he would leave mud, and quite likely he swept it up himself
+then, though the only evidence of sweeping is Bisset's statement about
+the brush. And what proof is that of anything? Does your hearth brush
+always stay in the same position?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never noticed," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't believe anybody notices sufficiently closely to make their
+evidence on such a point worth a rap!" said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"A servant would."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Cromarty, make the most of the hearth brush then."</p>
+
+<p>There seemed for an instant to be a defiant note in the Procurator
+Fiscal's voice that made Ned glance at him sharply. But he saw nothing
+in his face but the same set and steady look.</p>
+
+<p>"We're on the same side in this racket, Mr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>Rattar," said Ned. "I'm
+only trying to help&mdash;same as you."</p>
+
+<p>Simon's voice seemed now to have exactly the opposite note. For him, his
+tone of acquiescence was even eager.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so; quite so, Mr. Cromarty. We are acting together; exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all the new evidence then?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon nodded, and a few moments of silence followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me honestly," demanded Ned at last, "have you actually no clue at
+all? No suspicion of any kind? Haven't you got on the track of any
+possible reason for the deed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Reason?" repeated Simon. "Now we come to business, Mr. Cromarty. What's
+the motive? That's the point."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you found one?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon looked judicially discreet.</p>
+
+<p>"At this moment all I can tell you is to answer the question: 'Who
+benefits by Sir Reginald Cromarty's death?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;who did? Seems to me every one who knew him suffered."</p>
+
+<p>"Sentimentally perhaps&mdash;but not financially."</p>
+
+<p>Ned looked at him in silence, as if an entirely new point of view were
+dawning on his mind. But he compressed his lips and merely asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"To begin with, nothing was stolen from the house. Therefore no outside
+thief or burglar gained anything. I may add also that the police <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>have
+made enquiries throughout the whole county, and no bad characters are
+known to be in the place. Therefore there is no ground for supposing the
+deed was the work of a robber, and to my mind, no evidence worth
+considering to support that view. The only people that gained anything,
+Mr. Cromarty, are those who will benefit under Sir Reginald's will."</p>
+
+<p>Cromarty's expression did not change again. This was evidently the new
+point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Simon opened a drawer and took from it a document.</p>
+
+<p>"In the ordinary course of events Sir Reginald's will would not be known
+till after his funeral to-morrow, but if I may regard this conversation
+as confidential, I can tell you the principal facts so far as they
+affect this case."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to do anything you shouldn't," said Ned quickly. "If
+it's not the proper game to read the will now, don't."</p>
+
+<p>But Silent Simon seemed determined to oblige this morning.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a mere matter of form delaying till to-morrow, and I shall not
+read it now; merely tell you the pertinent facts briefly."</p>
+
+<p>"Fire away then. The Lord knows I want to learn every derned pertinent
+fact&mdash;want to badly!"</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place," the lawyer began, "Lady Cromarty is life rented in
+the mansion and property, less certain sums to be paid to other people,
+which I am coming to. She therefore lost her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>husband and a certain
+amount of income, and gained nothing that we know of."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a cold-blooded way of putting it," said Ned with something like
+a shiver. "However, what next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Malcolm gets &pound;1,000 a year to support him during the life time of
+Lady Cromarty, and afterwards falls heir to the whole estate. He
+therefore gains a baronetcy and &pound;1,000 a year immediately, and the
+estate is brought a stage nearer him. Miss Farmond gets a legacy of
+&pound;2,000. She therefore gained &pound;2,000."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that she'll need it," said Ned quickly. "That item doesn't count."</p>
+
+<p>Simon looked at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>Ned hesitated a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said anything," he said, "but this
+conversation is confidential, and anyhow the fact will be known soon
+enough now, I guess. She is engaged to Sir Malcolm."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Simon continued to look at him very hard. Then he merely
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you won't repeat this till they care to make it known
+themselves. I told you so that you'd see a legacy of two thousand pounds
+wouldn't count much. It only means an income of&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred pounds at five per cent; eighty pounds at four."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that will be neither here nor there now."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>Again Simon stared in silence for a moment, but rather through than at
+his visitor, it seemed. Then he glanced down at the document again.</p>
+
+<p>"James Bisset gets a legacy of three hundred pounds. There are a few
+smaller legacies to servants, but the only two that might have affected
+this case do not actually do so. One is John Robertson, Sir Reginald's
+chauffeur, but on the night of the crime he was away from home and an
+alibi can be established till two in the morning. The other is Donald
+Mackay, the gardener, but he is an old man and was in bed with
+rheumatism that night."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," observed Ned, "you are giving everybody mentioned in the will
+credit for perhaps having committed the murder, supposing it was
+physically possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am answering the question&mdash;who that could conceivably have committed
+it, had a motive for doing so? And also, what was that motive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the whole list of them?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar glanced at the will again.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Reginald has cancelled your own debt of twelve hundred pounds, Mr.
+Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" exclaimed Ned, and for a moment could say no more. Then he said
+in a low voice: "It's up to me more than ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the full list of persons within the vicinity two nights ago who
+gained by Sir Reginald's death," said Simon in a dry voice, as he put
+away the will.</p>
+
+<p>"Including me?" said Ned. "Well, all I've got <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>to say is this, Mr.
+Rattar, that my plain common sense tells me that those are no motives at
+all. For who knew what they stood to gain by this will? Or that they
+stood to gain any blessed thing at all? I hadn't the foggiest notion Sir
+Reginald meant to cancel that debt!"</p>
+
+<p>"You may not have known," said Simon still very drily, "and it is quite
+possible that Bisset may not have known of his legacy. Though, on the
+other hand, it is likely enough that Sir Reginald mentioned the fact
+that he would be remembered. But Lady Cromarty presumably knew his
+arrangements. And it is most unlikely that he should have said nothing
+to his heir about his intention to make him an adequate allowance if he
+came into the title and Lady Cromarty was still alive and life rented in
+the place. Also, it is highly probable that either Sir Reginald or Lady
+Cromarty told Miss Farmond that some provision would be made for her."</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty said nothing for a few moments, but he seemed to be
+thinking very hard. Then he rose from his chair and remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess this has all got to be thought over."</p>
+
+<p>He moved slowly to the door, while Simon gazed silently into space. His
+hand was on the handle when the lawyer turned in his chair and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Why was nothing said about Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ned, "the whole thing is no business <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>of mine, but Sir
+Reginald had pretty big ideas in some ways and probably one of them was
+connected with his heir's marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"A clandestine engagement then?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty seemed to dislike the term.</p>
+
+<p>"It's none of my business," he said shortly. "There was no blame on
+anyone, anyhow; and mind you, this is absolutely confidential."</p>
+
+<p>The door closed behind him and Simon was left still apparently thinking.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>TWO WOMEN</h3>
+
+<p>On the day after the funeral Lady Cromarty for the first time felt able
+to see the family lawyer. Simon Rattar came out in the morning in a
+hired car and spent more than a couple of hours with her. Then for a
+short time he was closeted with Sir Malcolm, who, referring to the
+interview afterwards, described him as "infernally close and
+unsatisfactory"; and finally, in company with the young baronet and
+Cicely Farmond, he ate a hurried lunch and departed.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since the fatal evening, Lady Cromarty had been shut up in her own
+apartments and the two young people had taken their meals together. Sir
+Malcolm at his brightest and best had been capricious company. He was
+now moody beyond all Cicely's experience of him. His newborn solemnity
+was the most marked feature of his demeanour, but sometimes it dissolved
+into pathetic demands for sympathy, and then again froze into profound
+and lugubrious silence. He said that he was sleeping badly, and the
+pallor of his face and the darkness beneath his eyes seemed to confirm
+this. Several times he appeared to be on the point of some peculiarly
+solemn disclosure of his feelings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>or his symptoms, but always ended by
+upbraiding his fellow guest for her lack of sympathy, and then relapsing
+into silence.</p>
+
+<p>Every now and then on such occasions Cicely caught him staring at her
+with an expression she had never seen before, and then looking hurriedly
+away; a disconcerting habit that made her own lot none the easier. So
+far as the observant Bisset could judge, the baronet seemed, indeed, to
+be having so depressing an effect upon the young lady that as her friend
+and counsellor he took the liberty of advising a change of air.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll miss you vera much, Miss Farmond," he was good enough to say,
+"but I'm thinking that what you want is a seaside resort."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to make a change very soon, Bisset," she said. "Indeed,
+perhaps I ought to have let Lady Cromarty know already that I was ready
+to go the moment I was sure I could do nothing more for her."</p>
+
+<p>She began her packing on the morning of Simon's visit. At lunch her air
+was a little livelier at first, as if even Simon Rattar were a welcome
+variety in a r&eacute;gime of undiluted baronet. Sir Malcolm, too, endeavoured
+to do the honours with some degree of cheerfulness; but short though the
+meal was, both were silent before the end and vaguely depressed
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stand the old fellow's fishy eye!" declared Sir Malcolm. "I'd
+as soon lunch with a cod-fish, dash it! Didn't you feel it too, Cicely?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p><p>"He seemed to look at one so uncomfortably," she agreed. "I couldn't
+help feeling he had something on his mind against me, though I suppose
+he really doesn't trouble his head about my existence."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm hanged if I like the way he looks at me!" muttered the baronet, and
+once again Cicely caught that odd expression in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon Bisset informed Miss Farmond that her ladyship desired to
+see her. Lady Cromarty's face looked thinner than ever and her lips more
+tightly compressed. In her deep mourning and with her grave air, she
+seemed to Cicely a monumental figure of tragedy. Her thinness and pallor
+and tight lips, she thought only natural, but there was one note that
+seemed discordant with pure desolation. The note was sounded by Lady
+Cromarty's eyes. At all times they had been ready to harden upon an
+occasion, but Cicely thought she had never seen them as hard as they
+were now.</p>
+
+<p>"What are your plans, Cicely?" she asked in a low, even voice that
+showed no feeling one way or the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I have begun to pack already," said the girl. "I don't want to leave so
+long as I can be of any use here, but I am ready to go at any time."</p>
+
+<p>She had expected to be asked where she was going, but Lady Cromarty
+instead of putting any question, looked at her for a few moments in
+silence. And it was then that a curious uncomfortable feeling began to
+possess the girl. It had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>no definite form and was founded on no reason,
+beyond the steady regard of those hard dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I had rather you stayed."</p>
+
+<p>Cicely's own eyes showed her extreme surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Stayed&mdash;here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you sure? Wouldn't you really rather be alone? It isn't for my
+sake, is it? because&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is for mine. I want you to remain here and keep me company."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke without a trace of smile or any softening of her face, and
+Cicely still hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"But would it really be convenient? You have been very kind to me, and
+if you really want me here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," interrupted Lady Cromarty in the same even voice. "I want you
+particularly to remain."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well then, I shall. Thank you very much&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Again she was cut short.</p>
+
+<p>"That is settled then. Perhaps you will excuse me now, Cicely."</p>
+
+<p>The girl went downstairs very thoughtfully. At the foot the young
+baronet met her.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you settled where to go?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Cromarty has asked me to stay on with her."</p>
+
+<p>His face fell.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p><p>"Stay on in this house of mourning? Oh, no, Cicely!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have promised," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The young man grew curiously agitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't stay here!" he besought her. "It keeps me in such dreadful
+suspense!"</p>
+
+<p>"In suspense!" she exclaimed. "Whatever do you mean, Malcolm?"</p>
+
+<p>Again she saw that look in his eye, and again he raised a
+sympathy-beseeching wail. Cicely's patience began to give way.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Malcolm!" she cried tartly, "if you have anything to say, say
+it, but don't go on like a baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like a baby!" repeated the deeply affronted baronet. "Heavens, would
+you liken me to <i>that</i>, of all things! I had meant to confide in you,
+Cicely, but you have made it impossible. Impossible!" he repeated
+sombrely, and stalked to the door.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, Sir Malcolm left for London, his confidence still locked
+in his breast, and Cicely was alone with Lady Cromarty.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>RUMOUR</h3>
+
+<p>One windy afternoon a man on a bicycle struggled up to the door of
+Stanesland Castle and while waiting for an answer to his ring, studied
+the front of that ancient building with an expression which would at
+once have informed his intimates that he was meditating on the
+principles of Scottish baronial architecture. A few minutes later Mr.
+Bisset was shown into the laird of Stanesland's smoking room and
+addressed Mr. Cromarty with a happy blend of consciousness of his own
+importance and respect for the laird's.</p>
+
+<p>"I have taken the liberty of calling, sir, for to lay before you a few
+fresh datas."</p>
+
+<p>"Fire away," said the laird.</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, sir, I understand that you have been making
+enquiries through the county yourself, sir; is that not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been through this blessed county, Bisset, from end to end to see
+whether I could get on the track of any suspicious stranger. I've been
+working both with the police and independent of the police, and I've
+drawn blank."</p>
+
+<p>Bisset looked distinctly disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard, sir, one or two stories which I was hoping might have
+something in them."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p><p>"I've heard about half a dozen and gone into them all, and there's
+nothing in one of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Half a dozen stories?" Bisset's eye began to look hopeful again. "Well,
+sir, perhaps if I was to go into some of them again in the light of my
+fresh datas, they might wear, as it were, a different aspect."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ned. "What have you found? Have a cigar and let's hear what
+you've been at."</p>
+
+<p>The expert crackled the cigar approvingly between his fingers, lit it
+with increased approval, and began:</p>
+
+<p>"Yon man was behind the curtains all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil he was! How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, it's a matter of deduction. Ye see supposing he came in by
+the door, there are objections, and supposing he came in by the windie
+there are objections. Either way there are objections which make it
+difficult for to accept those theories. And then it struck me&mdash;the man
+must have been behind the curtains all the while!"</p>
+
+<p>"He must have come either by the door or window to get there."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, Mr. Cromarty. But such minor points we can consider in a
+wee while, when we have seen how everything is otherwise explained. Now
+supposing we have the murderer behind the curtains; that brings him
+within six feet of where the wee table was standing. How did he get Sir
+Reginald to come to the table? He made some kind of sound. What kind of
+sound? Some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>imitation of an animal; probably of a cat. How did Sir
+Reginald not cry out when he saw the man? Because he never did see the
+man! How did he not see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Man was a ventriloquist and made a sound in the other direction,"
+suggested Ned with extreme gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"God, but that's possible, Mr. Cromarty! I hadna thought of that! Well,
+it'll fit into the facts all right, you'll see. My theory was that
+either the man threw something at the master and knocked him down that
+way, or he was able to reach out and give him a bat on the heid without
+moving from the curtains."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been an awkward customer."</p>
+
+<p>"He was that! A great tall man with long arms. And what had he at the
+end of them? Either a club such as savages use or something to throw
+like a boomerang. And he could imitate animals, and as you say, he was
+probably a ventriloquist. And he was that active and strong he could get
+into the house through one of the windies, just like a great monkey. Now
+what's the history of that man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty wild, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but one can say more than that, sir. He was not an ordinary
+Englishman or Scotchman. He was from the Colonies or America or one of
+thae wild places! Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"It all points to that," said Ned, with a curious look.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p><p>"It points to that indeed, sir. Now where's he hidden himself? It should
+not be difficult to find him with all that to go on."</p>
+
+<p>"A tall active strong man who has lived in the Colonies or America; one
+ought to get him. Has he only one eye, by any chance?"</p>
+
+<p>The reasoner gazed petrified at his counsellor.</p>
+
+<p>"God, but I've just described yoursel', sir!" he cried in an unhappy
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You're determined to hang one of us, Bisset."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Bisset seemed to find conversation difficult. Then he said
+miserably:</p>
+
+<p>"So it's no good, and all the alternatives just fa' to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>The extreme dejection of his voice struck the other sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Alternatives to what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds Bisset did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What's on your mind, man?" demanded Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"The reason, sir, I've got that badly off the rails with my deductions
+is just that I <i>had</i> to find some other theory than the story that's
+going about."</p>
+
+<p>"What story?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've no heard it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly like to repeat it, sir; it's that cruel and untrue. They're
+saying Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond had got engaged to be married."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Ned sharply, and he seemed to control his feelings with an
+effort.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>"A secret engagement, like, that Sir Reginald would never have allowed.
+But there I think they're right, sir. Sir Reginald was unco' taken up
+with Miss Farmond, but he'd have looked higher for his heir. And so as
+they couldn't get married while he was alive&mdash;neither of them having any
+money, well, sir, this story says&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off and neither spoke for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" murmured Cromarty. "They actually accuse Malcolm Cromarty
+and Miss Cicely of&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused too, and Bisset nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is saying this?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to be the clash of the haill country by this time, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed a little frightened at the effect of his own words; and it was
+small wonder. Ned Cromarty was a nasty looking customer at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Who started the lie?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's just ignorance and want of education of the people, I'm thinking,
+Mr. Cromarty. They're no able to grasp the proper principles&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Cromarty must be told! She could put a stop to it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Something in Bisset's look pulled him up sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid her ladyship believes it herself, sir. Maybe you have heard
+she has keepit Miss Farmond to stay on with her."</p>
+
+<p>"I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said Bisset very slowly and deliberately, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>"I'm
+thinking&mdash;it's just to watch her."</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty had been smoking a pipe. There was a crack now as his teeth
+went through the mouthpiece. He flung the pipe into the fire, jumped up,
+and began pacing the room without a word or a glance at the other. At
+last he stopped as abruptly as he had started.</p>
+
+<p>"This slander has got to be stopped!"</p>
+
+<p>And then he paced on.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I was saying to myself, sir. It was likely a wee thing of
+over anxiety to stop it that made me think o' the possibility of a wild
+man from America, which was perhaps a bit beyond the limits of what ye
+might call, as it were, scientific deduction."</p>
+
+<p>"When did Lady Cromarty begin to take up this attitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the plain truth is, sir, that her ladyship has been keeping sae
+much to herself that it's not rightly possible to tell what's been in
+her mind. But it was the afternoon when Mr. Rattar had been at the house
+that she sent for Miss Farmond and tellt her then she was wanting her to
+stop on."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be after she knew the contents of the will! I wonder if the
+idea had entered her head before, or if the will alone started it? Old
+Simon would never start such a scandal himself about his best client. He
+knows too well which side his bread is buttered for that! But he might
+have talked his infernal jargon about the motive and the people who
+stood to gain by the death. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>That might have been enough to set her
+suspicions off."</p>
+
+<p>"Or I was thinking maybe, sir, it was when her ladyship heard of the
+engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Ned, stopping suddenly again, "that's possible. When did
+she hear?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"That beats me again, sir. Her own maid likely has been telling her
+things the time we've not been seeing her."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the maid&mdash;or did you know about the engagement?"</p>
+
+<p>"Servants are uneducated creatures," said Bisset contemptuously. "And
+women at the best have just the ae' thought&mdash;who's gaun to be fool
+enough to marry next? They were always gossiping about Mr. Malcolm and
+Miss Cicely, but there was never what I should call a data to found a
+deduction on; not for a sensible person. I never believed it myself, but
+it's like enough her ladyship may have suspected it for a while back."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Lady Cromarty has been nearly distracted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very near, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That's her only excuse. But the story is such obvious nonsense, Bisset,
+that surely no one in their proper senses really believes it?"</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher shook a wise head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have yet to learn, Mr. Cromarty, what folks will not believe."</p>
+
+<p>"They've got to stop believing this!" said Ned emphatically.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SUGGESTION</h3>
+
+<p>Next morning Simon Rattar was again informed that Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland wished to see him, and again the announcement seemed to be
+unwelcome. He was silent for several seconds before answering, and when
+he allowed Mr. Cromarty to be shown in, it was with an air which
+suggested the getting over a distasteful business as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Cromarty?" he grunted brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cromarty never beat about the bush.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come to see you about this scandalous story that's going round."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer glanced at the papers he had been busy with, as if to
+indicate that they were of more importance than scandals.</p>
+
+<p>"What story?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"That Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned in Sir Reginald's
+murder."</p>
+
+<p>There was something compelling in Ned's directness. Simon pushed aside
+the papers and looked at him fixedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said. "They say that, do they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you heard?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon's grunt was non-committal.</p>
+
+<p>"Well anyway, this derned story is going <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>about, and something's got to
+be done to stop it."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suggest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you still working the case for all you know how?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon seemed to resent this enquiry a little.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the Procurator Fiscal. The police make the actual enquiries. They
+have done everything they could."</p>
+
+<p>"'They have done'? Do you mean that they have stopped looking for the
+murderer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. They are still enquiring; not that it is likely to be
+much further use."</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be a sardonic note in his last words that deepened
+Cromarty's frown and kindled his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to suggest that any conclusion has been reached?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is absolutely certain," said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>Again the accent on the "absolutely" seemed to rouse his visitor's ire.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe this story, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I <i>believed</i> it, I should order an arrest. I have just told you
+nothing is absolutely certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Cromarty, "I don't want to crab Superintendent
+Sutherland or his men, but you want to get somebody better than them on
+to this job."</p>
+
+<p>Though the Procurator Fiscal kept his feelings well in hand, it was
+evident that this suggestion struck him more unfavourably than anything
+his visitor had said yet. He even seemed for one instant to be a little
+startled by its audacity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p><p>"I disagree," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't you take offence, Mr. Rattar," said Ned with a sudden smile.
+"I'm not aiming this at you, but, hang it, you know as well as I do that
+Sutherland is no great shakes at detection. They are all just country
+bobbies. What we want is a London detective."</p>
+
+<p>Simon seemed to have recovered his equanimity during this speech. He
+shook his head emphatically, but his voice was as dispassionately
+brusque as ever.</p>
+
+<p>"London detective? Much over-rated people, I assure you. No use in a
+case of this kind."</p>
+
+<p>"The very kind of case a real copper-bottomed expert would be some use
+in!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are thinking of detectives in stories, Mr. Cromarty. The real men
+are no better than Sutherland&mdash;not a bit. I believe in Sutherland.
+Better man than he looks. Very shrewd, most painstaking. Couldn't have a
+better man. Useless expense getting a man from London."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you trouble about the expense, Mr. Rattar. That can be arranged
+all right. I want a first class man engaged."</p>
+
+<p>The sudden glance which the lawyer shot at him, struck Ned as unusual in
+his experience of Simon Rattar. He appeared to be startled again, and
+yet it was not mere annoyance that seemed to show for the fraction of a
+second in his eye. And then the next instant the man's gaze was as cold
+and steady as ever. He pursed his lips and considered his answer in
+silence before he spoke.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>"You are a member of the family, Mr. Cromarty; the actual head of it, in
+fact, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Going by pedigrees, I believe I am, but being a member is reason enough
+for my wanting to get daylight through this business&mdash;and seeing
+somebody swing for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"What if you made things worse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Worse! How could they be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cromarty, I am the Procurator Fiscal in charge of this case. But I
+am also lawyer and factor to the Cromarty family, and my father was
+before me. If there was evidence enough&mdash;clear and proper evidence&mdash;to
+convict any person of this crime, it would be my duty as Procurator
+Fiscal to convict them. But there is no definite evidence, as you know
+yourself. All we can do, if we push this matter too far, is to make a
+family scandal public. Are you as the head of the Cromarty family, and I
+as their factor, to do this?"</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult to judge with what feelings Ned Cromarty heard this
+deliberate statement and appeal. His mouth was as hard as the lawyer's
+and his eye revealed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you propose to hush the thing up?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing about hushing up. I propose to wait till I get some
+<i>evidence</i>, Mr. Cromarty. It is a little difficult perhaps for a layman
+to realise what evidence means, but I can tell you&mdash;and any lawyer, or
+any detective, would tell you&mdash;we have nothing that can be called
+evidence yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't get any till you call in somebody a cut above
+Sutherland."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p><p>"The scent is too cold by this time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who let it cool?" interrupted Ned.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the lawyer's eyes looked unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Every effort was made to find a clue; by yourself as well as by the
+police. And let me tell you, Mr. Cromarty, that our efforts have not
+been as fruitless as you seem to think."</p>
+
+<p>"What have we discovered?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place that there was no robbery committed and no sign of
+anybody having entered the house from the outside."</p>
+
+<p>Ned shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lot too strong. I believe the man <i>did</i> come in by the
+window."</p>
+
+<p>"You admit there is no proof?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," said Ned candidly. "I quite admit there is no proof of
+anything&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>"No robbery, no evidence of anyone having come in by the window&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No proof," corrected Ned. "I maintain that the window being unsnibbed
+and that mud on the floor and the table near the window being upset is
+evidence; but not proof positive."</p>
+
+<p>Simon's patience had by this time become exemplary. His only wish seemed
+to be to convince by irresistible argument this obstinate objector. It
+struck the visitor, moreover, that in this effort the lawyer was
+displaying a fluency not at all characteristic of silent Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us leave it at that. Suppose there be a possibility that
+entry was actually made by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>the window. It is a bare possibility against
+the obvious and easy entrance by the door,&mdash;near which, remember, the
+body was found. Then, as I have pointed out, there was no robbery, and
+not a trace has been found of anybody outside that house with a motive
+for the crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Except me."</p>
+
+<p>"Unless you care to except yourself. But neither you nor the police have
+found any bad characters in the place."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true enough," Ned admitted reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"On the other hand, there were within the house two people with a very
+strong motive for committing the crime."</p>
+
+<p>"I deny that!" cried Ned with a sudden gleam of ferocity in his eye that
+seemed to disconcert the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Deny it? You can scarcely deny that two young people, in love with one
+another and secretly engaged, with no money, and no chance of getting
+married, stood to gain everything they wanted by a death that gave them
+freedom to marry, a baronetcy, a thousand a year, and two thousand in
+cash besides?"</p>
+
+<p>"Damn it, Mr. Rattar, is the fact that a farmer benefits by a shower any
+evidence that he has turned on the rain?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have repeatedly said, Mr. Cromarty, that there is no definite
+evidence to convict anybody. But nothing would have been easier than
+making an end of Sir Reginald Cromarty, to anybody <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>inside that house
+whom he would never suspect till they struck the blow. All the necessary
+conditions are fulfilled by this view of the case, whereas every other
+view&mdash;every other view, mind you, Mr. Cromarty&mdash;is confronted with these
+difficulties:&mdash;no robbery, no definite evidence of entry, no explanation
+of Sir Reginald's extraordinary silence when the man appeared, no bad
+characters in the neighbourhood, and, above all, no motive."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of this speech Simon shut his mouth tight and leaned back in
+his chair. For a moment it seemed as though Ned Cromarty was impressed
+by the lawyer's view of the case. But when he replied, his voice, though
+deliberate had a fighting ring in it, and his single eye, a fighting
+light.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you propose to leave this young couple under the most damnable
+cloud of suspicion that a man and a woman could lie under&mdash;simply leave
+'em there, and let that be the end of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon seemed to be divided between distaste for this way of putting the
+case, and anxiety still to convince his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"I propose to avoid the painful family scandal which further disclosures
+and more publicity would almost certainly bring about; so long as I am
+justified as Procurator Fiscal in taking this course. And until I get
+more evidence, I am not only justified but forced to take this course."</p>
+
+<p>Ned suddenly jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no lawyer," said he, "but to me you seem to be arguing in the
+damnedest circle I ever met. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>You won't do anything because you can't
+get more evidence. And you won't look for more evidence because you
+don't want to do anything."</p>
+
+<p>There was more than a hint of temper in Simon's eye and his answer was
+rapped out sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do not <i>want</i> to cause a family scandal. I haven't said all
+I could say about Sir Malcolm if I were pressed."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've told you. Suspicion is not evidence, but if I do get evidence,
+those who will suffer by it had better beware!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned turned at the door and surveyed him with a cool and caustic eye.</p>
+
+<p>"That's talk," he said, "and something has got to be <i>done</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He was gone, and Simon Rattar was left frowning at the closed door
+behind him. The frown remained, but became now rather thoughtful than
+indignant. Then he sprang up and began to pace the floor, deliberately
+at first, and then more rapidly and with increasing agitation.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>&pound;1200</h3>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty had returned home and was going upstairs, when he heard a
+voice cry:</p>
+
+<p>"Ned!"</p>
+
+<p>The ancient stone stair, spiralling up round the time-worn pillar that
+seemed to have no beginning or end, gave at intervals on to doors which
+looked like apertures in a cliff. Through one of these he turned and at
+the end of a brief passage came to his sister's sitting room. In that
+medi&aelig;val setting of ponderous stone, it looked almost fantastic in its
+daintiness. It was a small room of many cushions and many colours, its
+floor covered with the softest rugs and its walls with innumerable
+photographs, largely of country houses where Miss Cromarty had visited.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently she was a lady accustomed to a comfortable life in her roving
+days, and her sitting room seemed to indicate very distinctly that she
+proposed to live up to this high standard permanently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Neddy dear, I want to talk to you about something," she began in her
+brisk way and with her brightest smile.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother, though of a simple nature, was by this time aware that when
+he was termed "Neddy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>dear" the conversation was apt to turn on Miss
+Cromarty's requirements.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "how much is the cheque to be this time?"</p>
+
+<p>"How clever you're getting!" she laughed. "But it isn't a cheque I want
+this time. It's only a motor car."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her doubtfully for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Pulling my leg; or a real car?"</p>
+
+<p>"Real car of course&mdash;nice one too!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear girl, we've just put down our car. You agreed it was
+necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"I agreed then; but it isn't necessary now."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you come into a fortune? I haven't!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've come into &pound;1200."</p>
+
+<p>Again he looked at her, and this time his expression changed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's only a debt wiped out."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and your great argument for economy was that you had to pay back
+that debt. Now you haven't. See, Neddy dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Her brother began to shake his head, and her smile became a little less
+bright.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to get my affairs into a tangle again just yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But they weren't in a bad tangle. Cancelling that debt makes us
+absolutely all right again. It's absurd for people like us not to have a
+car! Look at the distances from our neighbours! One can't go anywhere.
+I'll undertake to keep down the household expenses if you get the car."</p>
+
+<p>Her brother frowned out of the window.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p><p>"No," he said, "it's too soon to get a car again."</p>
+
+<p>"But you told me you had got part of that &pound;1200 in hand and hoped to
+make up the rest very soon. What are you going to do with the money
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her over his shoulder for an instant and then his mouth
+assumed a grim and obstinate look she knew too well.</p>
+
+<p>"I may need the money," he said briefly. "And I'm not much in the mood
+at this moment for buying things."</p>
+
+<p>Behind his back Lilian made a little grimace. Then in a tone of sisterly
+expostulation she said:</p>
+
+<p>"You are worrying too much over this affair, Ned. You've done all you
+can&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He interrupted her brusquely:</p>
+
+<p>"And it's dashed little! What have I actually done? Nothing! One needs a
+better man than me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's your friend Silent Simon, and all the police&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A fat lot of good they are!" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>His sister looked a little surprised at his unusual shortness of temper.
+To her he was very rarely like this.</p>
+
+<p>"You need a good day's shooting to take your mind off it for a little,"
+she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>He turned upon her hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the story that's going about, Lilian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Malcolm and the Farmond girl? Oh, rather," she nodded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>"Is that how it strikes you?"</p>
+
+<p>Lilian Cromarty jumped. There was something very formidable in her
+brother's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ned, don't frighten me! Eat me if you like, but eat me quietly.
+I didn't say I believed the story."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," he said in the same grim tone, "but do you mean to say it
+doesn't strike you as the damnedest slander ever spread?"</p>
+
+<p>"Between myself I hadn't called it the 'damnedest' anything. But how do
+I know whether it's a slander?"</p>
+
+<p>"You actually think it might conceivably be true?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her well-gowned shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I never could stand Malcolm Cromarty&mdash;a conceited little jackanapes. He
+hasn't a penny and he was head over ears in debt."</p>
+
+<p>It was his turn to start.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather! Didn't you know? Owed money everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"But such a crime as that!"</p>
+
+<p>"A man with ties and hair like his is capable of anything. You know
+quite well yourself he is a rotter."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow you can't believe Cicely Farmond had anything to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>Again she shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ned, I'm not a detective. A pretty face is no proof a woman is
+a saint. I told you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>before that there was generally something in the
+blood in those cases."</p>
+
+<p>As he stared at her, it seemed as though her words had indeed rushed
+back to his memory, and that they hit him hard.</p>
+
+<p>"People don't say that, do they?" he asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Ned, I don't know everything people say: but they are not
+likely to overlook much in such a case."</p>
+
+<p>He stood for a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;I mean they've both got to be cleared!" he said, and strode out of
+the room.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EMPTY COMPARTMENT</h3>
+
+<p>It was on this same evening that Superintendent Sutherland was almost
+rewarded for his vigilance by having something distinctly suspicious to
+report. As it happened, it proved a disappointing incident, but it gave
+the superintendent something to think about.</p>
+
+<p>He was going a few stations down the line to investigate a rumour of a
+suspicious person seen in that neighbourhood. It was a vague and
+improbable rumour and the superintendent was setting out merely as a
+matter of form, and to demonstrate his vigilance and almost abnormal
+sense of duty. Darkness had already fallen for an hour or two when he
+strode with dignified gait down the platform, exchanging a greeting with
+an acquaintance or two, till he came to the front carriage of the train.
+He threw open the door of the rear compartment, saw that it was empty,
+and was just going to enter when glancing over his shoulder he perceived
+his own cousin Mr. MacAlister upon the platform. Closing the door, he
+stepped down again and greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. MacAlister hailed him with even more than usual friendliness, and
+after a few polite preliminaries drew him insidiously towards the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>far
+side of the platform. An intelligent, inveterate and persevering
+curiosity was Mr. MacAlister's dominating characteristic, and as soon as
+he had got his distinguished kinsman out of earshot of the herd, he
+inquired in a hushed voice:</p>
+
+<p>"And what's doing aboot the murder noo, George?"</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, man, yon's a proper puzzle," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll have gotten a guid idea whae's din it by noo, George?" said
+Mr. MacAlister persuasively.</p>
+
+<p>"Weel," admitted the superintendent, "we maybe have our notions, but
+there's no evidence yet, Robbie; that's the fair truth. As the fiscal
+says, there's no evidence."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like fine to hae a crack wi' you aboot it, George," sighed Mr.
+MacAlister. "I may tell you I've notions of ma own; no bad notions
+either."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the superintendent, moving off, "I'd have enjoyed a crack
+myself if it wasna that I've got to be off by this train&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Man!" cried his kinsman, "I'm for off by her mysel'! Come on, we'll hae
+our crack yet."</p>
+
+<p>The tickets had already been taken and the doors were closed as the two
+recrossed the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"This carriage is empty," said the superintendent, and threw open the
+door of the same compartment he had almost entered before.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p><p>But it was not empty now. In one of the further corners sat a man
+wrapped in a dark coloured ulster. A black felt hat was drawn down over
+his eyes, and his muffled face was resting on his hand. So much the
+superintendent saw in the brief moment during which he stood at the open
+door, and it struck him at once that the man must be suffering from
+toothache. And then his cousin caught him by the arm and drew him back.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, man, the carriage next door is empty!" cried he, and the
+superintendent closed the door and followed him.</p>
+
+<p>It was scarcely more than a minute later when the whistle blew and they
+were off, and Mr. MacAlister took out his pipe and prepared himself to
+receive official confidences. But the miles went by, and though he plied
+his questions incessantly and skilfully, no confidences were
+forthcoming. The superintendent, in fact, had something else to think
+about. All at once he asked abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Robbie, did ye see yon man next door sitting with his face in his
+hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye," said Mr. MacAlister, "I noticed the man."</p>
+
+<p>"Did ye ken who he was?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mr. MacAlister, "I did not."</p>
+
+<p>"Had ye seen him on the platform?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mr. MacAlister, "I had not."</p>
+
+<p>"I didna see him myself," said the superintendent musingly. "It seems
+funny-like a man dressed like yon and with his face wrapped up too&mdash;and
+a man forbye that's a stranger to us <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>both, coming along the platform
+and getting into that carriage, and me not noticing him. I'm not used
+not to notice people, Robbie."</p>
+
+<p>"It's your business, George," said Mr. MacAlister, and then as he gazed
+at his cousin's thoughtful face, his own grew suddenly animated.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not thinking he's to dae wi' the murder, are you!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure what to think till I've had another look into yon
+carriage," said the superintendent cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"We're slowing doon the noo!" cried Mr. MacAlister, "God, George, I'll
+come and hae a look wi' you!"</p>
+
+<p>The train was hardly in the platform before the superintendent was out,
+with Mr. MacAlister after him, and the door of the next compartment was
+open almost as soon as the train was at rest. Never had the
+superintendent been more vigilant; and never had his honest face looked
+blanker.</p>
+
+<p>"God! It's empty!" he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"God save us!" murmured Mr. MacAlister, and then he was visited by an
+inspiration which struck his relative afterwards as one of the
+unhappiest he had ever suffered from. "This canna be the richt
+carriage!" he cried. "Come on, Geordie, let's hae a look in the ithers!"</p>
+
+<p>By the time they had looked into all the compartments of the carriage,
+the guard was waving his flag and the two men climbed hurriedly in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>again. The brooding silence of the superintendent infected even Mr.
+MacAlister, and neither spoke for several minutes. Then the
+superintendent said bitterly:</p>
+
+<p>"It was you hurrying me off to look in thae other carriages, Robbie!"</p>
+
+<p>"What was?" inquired Mr. MacAlister a little nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have stopped and looked under the seats!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. MacAlister shook his head and declared firmly:</p>
+
+<p>"There was naething under the seats. I could see that fine. And onyhow
+we can hae a look at the next stop."</p>
+
+<p>"As if he'll be waiting for us, now he kens we're looking for him!"</p>
+
+<p>"But there was naething there!" persisted Mr. MacAlister.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what's come over the man? Here were we sitting next the platform.
+He can't have got out afore we started, or we'd have seen him. Folks
+don't disappear into the air! I'll try under the seats, though I doubt
+the man will have been up and out while we were wasting our time in yon
+other carriages."</p>
+
+<p>At the next station they searched that mysterious compartment earnestly
+and thoroughly, but there was not a sign of the muffled stranger, under
+the seats or anywhere else. Again the superintendent was silent for a
+space, and then he said confidentially:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>"I'm just wondering if it's worth while reporting the thing, Robbie. The
+fiscal might have a kin' of unpleasant way of looking at it. Besides,
+there's really naething to report. Anyhow I'll think it over. And that
+being the case, the less said the better. I can tell ye all that's known
+about the case, Robbie; knowing that you'll be discreet."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you can trust me," said Mr. MacAlister earnestly,&mdash;"I'll no breathe
+a word o' yon man. Weel, now, you were saying you'd tell me the haill
+story."</p>
+
+<p>By this judicious arrangement Mr. MacAlister got his money's worth of
+sensational disclosures, and the superintendent was able to use his
+discretion and think the incident over. He thought over it very hard and
+finally decided that he was demonstrating his vigilance quite
+sufficiently without mentioning the trifling mystery of the empty
+compartment.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SPORTING VISITOR</h3>
+
+<p>In summer and autumn, visitors were not uncommon in this remote
+countryside; mostly shooting or fishing people who rented the country
+houses, raised the local prices, and were described by the tradesmen as
+benefiting the county greatly. But in late autumn and winter this
+fertilising stream ceased to flow, and when the trains from the south
+crawled in, the porters and the boots from the hotels resigned
+themselves to welcoming a merely commercial form of traveller.</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore with considerable pleasure and surprise that they
+observed one afternoon an unmistakeably sporting gentleman descend from
+a first class compartment and survey them with a condescending yet
+affable eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is the best of these hotels?" he demanded with an amiable smile,
+as he surveyed through a single eyeglass the names on the caps of the
+various boots.</p>
+
+<p>His engaging air disarmed the enquiry of embarrassment, and even when he
+finally selected the Kings Arms Hotel, the other boots merely felt
+regret that they had not secured so promising a client. His luggage
+confirmed the first favourable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>impression. It included a gun case, a
+bag of golf clubs, and one or two handsome leather articles. Evidently
+he meant to make more than a passing visit, and as he strolled down the
+platform, his leisurely nonchalant air and something even in the way in
+which he smoked his cigarette in its amber holder, suggested a gentleman
+who, having arrived here, was in no hurry to move on. On a luggage label
+the approving boots noted the name of "F. T. Carrington."</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the Kings Arms, Mr. Carrington continued to produce
+favourable impressions. He was a young man, apparently a little over
+thirty, above middle height, with a round, ingenuous, very agreeable
+face, smooth fair hair, a little, neatly trimmed moustache, and a
+monocle that lent just the necessary touch of distinction to what might
+otherwise have been a too good-humoured physiognomy. His tweed suit was
+fashionably cut and of a distinctly sportive pattern, and he wore a pair
+of light spats. In short, there could be no mistaking him for anything
+but a gentleman of position and leisure with strong sporting
+proclivities, and his manner amply confirmed this. It was in fact almost
+indolent in its leisurely ease.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Peterkin, the capable manageress of the Kings Arms, was at first
+disposed to think Mr. Carrington a trifle too superior, and, as she
+termed it, "la-de-da," but a very few minutes' conversation with the
+gentleman completely reassured her. He was so polite and so
+good-humoured <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>and so ready to be pleased with everything he saw and
+anything she suggested, that they became firm friends within ten minutes
+of his arrival, and after Mr. Carrington had disposed of his luggage in
+the bedroom and private sitting room which he engaged, and partaken of a
+little dinner, she found herself welcoming him into her own sitting room
+where a few choice spirits nightly congregated.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that these spirits, though choice, were hardly of what she
+called Mr. Carrington's "class," but then in all her experience she had
+never met a gentleman of such fashion and such a superior air, who
+adapted himself so charmingly to any society. In fact, "charming" was
+the very adjective for him, she decided.</p>
+
+<p>About his own business he was perfectly frank. He had heard of the
+sporting possibilities of the county and had come to look out for a bit
+of fishing or shooting; preferably fishing, for it seemed he was an
+enthusiastic angler. Of course, it was too late in the season for any
+fishing this year, but he was looking ahead as he preferred to see
+things for himself instead of trusting to an agent's description. He had
+brought his gun just on the chance of getting a day somewhere, and his
+club in case there happened to be a golf links. In short, he seemed
+evidently to be a young man of means who lived for sport; and what other
+question could one ask about such a satisfactory type of visitor?
+Absolutely none, in Miss Peterkin's opinion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>As a matter of fact, she found very early in the evening, and continued
+to find thereafter, that the most engaging feature of Mr. Carrington's
+character was the interest he took in other people's business, so that
+the conversation very quickly strayed away from his own concerns&mdash;and
+remained away. It was not that he showed any undue curiosity; far from
+it. He was simply so sympathetic and such a good listener and put
+questions that showed he was following everything you said to him in a
+way that really very few people did. And, moreover, in spite of his
+engaging frankness, there was an indefinable air of discretion about him
+that made one feel safe to tell him practically everything. She herself
+told him the sad story of her brother in Australia (a tale which, as a
+rule, she told only to her special intimates) before he had been in her
+room half an hour.</p>
+
+<p>But with the arrival of three or four choice spirits, the conversation
+became more general, and it was naturally not long before it turned on
+the greatest local sensation and mystery within the memory of man&mdash;the
+Cromarty murder. Mr. Carrington's surprise was extreme when he realised
+that he was actually in the county where the tragedy had occurred,
+within a very few miles of the actual spot, in fact. Of course, he had
+read about it in the papers, but only cursorily, it seemed, and he had
+no idea he was coming into the identical district that had acquired such
+a sinister notoriety.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed more than once when he had made this discovery,
+"I say, how interesting!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Miss Peterkin with becoming pride, "we are getting quite
+famous, I can assure you, Mr. Carrington."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather so!" cried he, "I've read quite a lot about this Carnegie
+case&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cromarty," corrected one of the spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"Cromarty, of course, I mean! I'm rather an ass at names, I'm afraid."
+The young man smiled brightly and all the spirits sympathised. "Oh yes,
+I've seen it reported in the papers. And now to think here I am in the
+middle of it, by George! How awfully interesting! I say, Miss Peterkin,
+what about these gentlemen having another wee droppie with me, all
+round, just to celebrate the occasion?"</p>
+
+<p>With such an appreciative and hospitable audience, Miss Peterkin and the
+choice spirits spent a long and delightful evening in retailing every
+known circumstance of the drama, and several that were certainly unknown
+to the authorities. He was vastly interested, though naturally very
+shocked, to hear who was commonly suspected of the crime.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say his own heir&mdash;and a young girl like that&mdash;&mdash;? By
+Jove, I say, how dreadful!" he exclaimed, and, in fact, he would hardly
+believe such a thing conceivable until all the choice spirits in turn
+had assured him that there was practically no doubt about it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p><p>The energetic part played by Mr. Simon Rattar in unravelling the dark
+skein, or at least in trying to, was naturally described at some length,
+and Mr. Carrington showed his usual sympathetic, and, one might almost
+say, entranced appreciation of the many facts told him concerning that
+local celebrity.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Miss Peterkin insisted on getting out the back numbers of the
+local paper giving the full details of the case, and with many thanks he
+took these off to read before he went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"But mind you don't give yourself the creeps and keep yourself from
+going to sleep, Mr. Carrington!" she warned him with the last words.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, that's an awful thought!" he exclaimed, and then his eyes
+twinkled. "Send me up another whisky and soda to cure the creeps!" said
+he.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Peterkin thought he was quite one of the pleasantest, and promised
+to be one of the most profitable gentlemen she had met for a very long
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he assured her he had kept the creeps at bay sufficiently
+to enjoy an excellent night's sleep in a bed that did the management
+credit. In fact, he had thoroughly enjoyed reading the mystery and had
+even begun to feel some curiosity to see the scene of the tragedy. He
+proposed to have a few walks and drives through the neighbouring
+country, he said, looking at its streams and lochs with an eye to
+sporting possibilities, and it would be interesting to be able to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>recognise Keldale House if he chanced to pass near it.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Peterkin told him which road led to Keldale and how the house might
+be recognised, and suggested that he should walk out that way this very
+morning. He seemed a little doubtful; spoke of his movements as things
+that depended very much on the whim of the moment, just as such an
+easy-going young man would be apt to do, and rather indicated that a
+shorter walk would suit him better that morning.</p>
+
+<p>And then a few minutes later she saw him saunter past her window,
+wearing a light gray felt hat at a graceful angle and apparently taking
+a sympathetic interest in a small boy trying to mount a bicycle.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. CARRINGTON'S WALK</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington's easy saunter lasted till he had turned out of the
+street on which the Kings Arms stood, when it passed into an easy walk.
+Though he had seemed, on the whole, disinclined to go in the Keldale
+direction that morning, nevertheless he continued to head that way till
+at last he was on the high road with the little town behind him; and
+then his pace altered again. He stepped out now like the sportsman he
+was, and was doing a good four miles an hour by the time he was out of
+sight of the last houses.</p>
+
+<p>For a man who had come out to gather ideas as to the sporting
+possibilities of the country, Mr. Carrington seemed to pay singularly
+little attention to his surroundings. He appeared, in fact, to be
+thinking about something else all the time, and the first sign of
+interest he showed in anything outside his thoughts was when he found
+himself within sight of the lodge gates of Keldale House, with the
+avenue sweeping away from the road towards the roofs and chimneys amid
+the trees. At the sight of this he stopped, and leaning over the low
+wall at the road side gazed with much interest at the scene of the
+tragedy he had heard so much of last night. The choice spirits, had
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>they been there to see, would have been gratified to find that their
+graphic narratives had sent this indolent looking gentleman to view the
+spot so swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>From the house and grounds his eye travelled back to the road and then
+surveyed the surrounding country very attentively. He even stood on top
+of the wall to get a wider view; and then all of a sudden he jumped down
+again and adopted the reverse procedure, bending now so that little more
+than his head appeared above the wall. And the reason for this change of
+plan appeared to be a figure which had emerged from the trees and began
+to move along a path between the fields.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington studied this figure with concentrated attention, and as
+it drew nearer and became more distinct, a light leapt into his eye that
+gave him a somewhat different expression from any his acquaintances of
+last night had observed. He saw that the path followed a small stream
+and ran at an angle to the high road, joining it at last at a point some
+little distance back towards the town. He looked quickly up and down the
+road. Not a soul was in sight to see his next very curious performance.
+The leisurely Mr. Carrington crossed to the further side, where he was
+invisible from the path, and then set out to run at a rapid pace till he
+reached the junction of path and road. And then he turned down the path.</p>
+
+<p>But now his bearing altered again in a very extraordinary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>way. His gait
+fell once more to a saunter and his angling enthusiasm seemed suddenly
+to have returned, for he frequently studied the burn as he strolled
+along, and there was no sign of any thoughtfulness on his ingenuous
+countenance. There were a few willows beside the path, and the path
+itself meandered, and this was doubtless the reason why he appeared
+entirely unconscious of the approach of another foot passenger till they
+were within a few yards of one another. And then Mr. Carrington stopped
+suddenly, seemed to hesitate, pulled out his watch and glanced at it,
+and then with an apologetic air raised his hat.</p>
+
+<p>The other foot passenger was face to face with him now, a slim figure in
+black, with a sweet, serious face.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," said Mr. Carrington, "but can you tell me where this path
+leads?"</p>
+
+<p>He was so polite and so evidently anxious to give no offence, and his
+face was such a certificate to his amiable character that the girl
+stopped too and answered without hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"It leads to Keldale House."</p>
+
+<p>"Keldale House?" he repeated, and then the idea seemed to arouse
+associations. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "Really? I'm an utter stranger
+here, but isn't that the place where the murder took place?"</p>
+
+<p>Had Mr. Carrington been a really observant man, one would think he would
+have noticed the sudden change of expression in the girl's face&mdash;as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>if
+he had aroused painful thoughts. He did seem to look at her for an
+instant as he asked the question, but then turned his gaze towards the
+distant glimpse of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she murmured and looked as though she wanted to pass on; but Mr.
+Carrington seemed so excited by his discovery that he never noticed this
+and still stood right in her path.</p>
+
+<p>"How very interesting!" he murmured. "By Jove, how very interesting!"
+And then with the air of passing on a still more interesting piece of
+news, he said suddenly, "I hear they have arrested Sir Malcolm
+Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p>This time he kept his monocle full on her.</p>
+
+<p>"Arrested him!" she cried. "What for?"</p>
+
+<p>This question, put with the most palpable wonder, seemed to disconcert
+Mr. Carrington considerably. He even hesitated in a very unusual way for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"For&mdash;for the murder, of course."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened very wide.</p>
+
+<p>"For Sir Reginald's murder? How ridiculous!"</p>
+
+<p>Again Mr. Carrington seemed a little disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;why is it ridiculous?" he asked. "Of course, I&mdash;I know nothing
+about the gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently!" she agreed with reproach in her eyes. "If Sir Malcolm
+really has been arrested, it can only have been for something quite
+silly. He couldn't commit a murder!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p><p>The fact that this tribute to the baronet's innocence was not wholly
+devoid of a flavour of criticism seemed to strike Mr. Carrington, for
+his eye twinkled for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"You are acquainted with him then?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I am staying at Keldale; in fact, I am a relation."</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt of her intention to rebuke the too garrulous
+gentleman by this information, and it succeeded completely. He passed at
+once to the extreme of apology.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea. Really, I hope
+you will accept my apologies, Miss&mdash;er&mdash;Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Farmond," she corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Farmond, I mean. It was frightfully tactless of me!"</p>
+
+<p>He said it so nicely and looked so innocently guilty and so contrite,
+that her look lost its touch of indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I still can't understand what you mean about Sir Malcolm being
+arrested," she said. "How did you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I was very likely misinformed. An old fellow at the hotel last
+night was saying so."</p>
+
+<p>Her eye began to grow indignant again.</p>
+
+<p>"What old fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Red hair, shaky knees, bit of a stammer, answers to the name of Sandy,
+I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Old Sandy Donaldson!" she exclaimed. "That drunken old thing! He was
+simply talking nonsense as usual!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p><p>"He seemed a little in liquor," he admitted, "but you see I am a mere
+stranger. I didn't realise what a loose authority I quoted. There is
+nothing in the report, I am certain. And this path leads only to Keldale
+House? Thank you very much. Good morning!"</p>
+
+<p>How Mr. Carrington had obtained this erroneous information from a person
+whose back he had merely seen for a couple of minutes the night before,
+as the reprobate in question was being ejected from the Kings Arms, he
+did not stop to explain. In fact, at this point he showed no inclination
+to continue the conversation, but bowing very politely, continued his
+stroll.</p>
+
+<p>But the effect of the conversation on him remained, and a very marked
+effect it appeared to be. He took no interest in the burn any longer,
+but paced slowly on, his eyes sometimes on the path and sometimes
+staring upwards at the Heavens. So far as his face revealed his
+sensations, they seemed to be compounded of surprise and perplexity.
+Several times he shook his head as though some very baffling point had
+cropped up in his thoughts, and once he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm damned!"</p>
+
+<p>When the path reached the policies of the house, he stopped and seemed
+to take some interest in his surroundings once more. For a moment it was
+clear that he was tempted to enter the plantations, and then he shook
+his head and turned back.</p>
+
+<p>All the way home he remained immersed in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>thought and only recovered his
+nonchalant air as he entered the door of the Kings Arms. He was the same
+easy-going, smiling young man of fashion as he passed the time of day
+with Miss Peterkin; but when he had shut the door of his private sitting
+room and dropped into an easy chair over the fire, he again became so
+absorbed in thought that he had to be reminded that the hour of luncheon
+had passed.</p>
+
+<p>Thought seemed to vanish during lunch, but when he had retired to his
+room again, it returned for another half hour. At the end of that time
+he apparently came to a decision, and jumping up briskly, repaired to
+the manageress' room. And when Miss Peterkin was taken into his
+confidence, it appeared that the whole problem had merely concerned the
+question of taking either a shooting or a fishing for next season.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking," said he, "that my best plan will perhaps be to
+call upon Mr. Simon Rattar and see whether he knows of anything to let.
+I gather that he is agent for several estates in the county. What do you
+advise?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Peterkin decidedly advised this course, so a few minutes later Mr.
+Carrington strolled off towards the lawyer's office.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. CARRINGTON AND THE FISCAL</h3>
+
+<p>The card handed in to Mr. Simon Rattar contained merely the name "Mr. F.
+T. Carrington" and the address "Sports Club." Simon gazed at it
+cautiously and in silence for the better part of a minute, and when he
+glanced up at his head clerk to tell him that Mr. Carrington might be
+admitted, Mr. Ison was struck by the curious glint in his eye. It seemed
+to him to indicate that the fiscal was very wide awake at that moment;
+it struck him also that Mr. Rattar was not altogether surprised by the
+appearance of this visitor.</p>
+
+<p>The agreeable stranger began by explaining very frankly that he thought
+of renting a place for next season where he could secure good fishing
+and a little shooting, and wondered if any of the properties Mr. Rattar
+was agent for would suit him. Simon grunted and waited for this overture
+to develop.</p>
+
+<p>"What about Keldale House?" the sporting visitor suggested. "That's the
+place where the murder was committed, isn't it?" and then he laughed.
+"Your eye betrays you, Mr. Rattar!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer seemed to start ever so slightly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p><p>"Indeed?" he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Carrington with a candid smile, "let's put our cards
+on the table. You know my business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a detective?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington smiled and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I am; or rather I prefer to call myself a private enquiry agent. People
+expect so much of a detective, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon grunted, but made no other comment.</p>
+
+<p>"In a case like this," continued Carrington, "when one is called in
+weeks too late and the household broom and scrubbing brush and garden
+rake have removed most of the possible clues, and witnesses'
+recollections have developed into picturesque legends, it is better to
+rouse as few expectations as possible, since it is probably impossible
+to find anything out. However, in the capacity of a mere enquiry agent I
+have come to pick up anything I can. May I smoke?"</p>
+
+<p>He asked in his usual easy-going voice and with his usual candid smile,
+and then his eye was arrested by an inscription printed in capital
+letters, and hung in a handsome frame upon the office wall. It ran:</p>
+
+<p class="center">"MY THREE RULES OF LIFE,</p>
+
+<p class="left">1. I DO NOT SMOKE.</p>
+
+<p class="left">2. I LAY BY A THIRD OF MY INCOME.</p>
+
+<p class="left">3. I NEVER RIDE WHEN I CAN WALK."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>Beneath these precepts appeared the lithographed signature of an eminent
+philanthropist, but it seemed reasonable to assume that they also formed
+the guiding maxims of Mr. Simon Rattar.</p>
+
+<p>His visitor politely apologised for his question.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not noticed this warning," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Smoke if you like. My clients sometimes do. I don't myself," said the
+lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>His visitor thanked him, placed a cigarette in his amber holder, lit it,
+and let his eyes follow the smoke upwards.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar, on his part, seemed in his closest, most taciturn humour.
+His grunt and his nod had, in fact, seldom formed a greater proportion
+of his conversation. He made no further comment at all now, but waited
+in silence for his visitor to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," resumed Carrington, "the simple facts of the case are these. I
+have been engaged through a certain firm of London lawyers, whose name I
+am not permitted to mention, on behalf of a person whose name I don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>At this a flash of keen interest showed for an instant in Simon's eye;
+and then it became as cold as ever again.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I am allowed to incur expense," continued the other, "up to a certain
+figure, which is so handsome that it gives me practically a free hand,
+so far as that is concerned. On the other hand, the arrangement entails
+certain difficulties which I daresay you, Mr. Rattar, as a lawyer, and
+especially <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>as a Procurator Fiscal accustomed to investigate cases of
+crime, will readily understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so; quite so," agreed Mr. Rattar, who seemed to be distinctly
+relaxing already from his guarded attitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I arrived last night, put up at the Kings Arms&mdash;where I gathered
+beforehand that the local gossip could best be collected, and in the
+course of the evening I collected enough to hang at least two people;
+and in the course of a few more evenings I shall probably have enough to
+hang half a dozen&mdash;if one can believe, say, a twentieth of what one
+hears. This morning I strolled out to Keldale House and had a look at it
+from the road, and I learned that it was a large mansion standing among
+trees. That's all I have been able to do so far."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more than that?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington seemed to have a singularly short memory.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's the lot," said he. "And what is more, it seems to me the
+sum total of all I am likely to do without a little assistance from
+somebody in possession of rather more authentic facts than my friend
+Miss Peterkin and her visitors."</p>
+
+<p>"I quite understand," said the lawyer; and it was plain that his
+interest was now thoroughly enlisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Mr. Carrington, "I thought things over, and rightly or
+wrongly, I came to this decision. My employer, whoever he is, has made
+it an absolute condition that his name is not to be known. His reasons
+may have been the best <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>imaginable, but it obviously made it impossible
+for me to get any information out of <i>him</i>. For my own reasons I always
+prefer to make my enquiries in these cases in the guise of an
+unsuspected outsider, whenever it is possible; and it happens to be
+particularly possible in this case, since nobody here knows me from
+Adam. But I must get facts&mdash;as distinguished from the Kings Arms'
+gossip, and how was I to get them without giving myself away? That was
+the problem, and I soon realised that it was insoluble. I saw I must
+confide in somebody, and so I came to the decision to confide in you."</p>
+
+<p>Simon nodded and made a sound that seemed to indicate distinctly his
+opinion that Mr. Carrington had come to a sensible decision.</p>
+
+<p>"You were the obvious person for several reasons," resumed Carrington.
+"In the first place you could pretty safely be regarded as above
+suspicion yourself&mdash;if you will pardon my associating even the word
+suspicion with a Procurator Fiscal." He smiled his most agreeable smile
+and the Fiscal allowed his features to relax sympathetically. "In the
+second place you know more about the case than anybody else. And in the
+third place, I gather that you are&mdash;if I may say so, a gentleman of
+unusual discretion."</p>
+
+<p>Again he smiled pleasantly, and again Mr. Rattar's features relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"Finally," added Carrington, "I thought it long odds that you were
+either actually my employer or acting for him, and therefore I should
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>be giving nothing away by telling you my business. And when I mentioned
+Keldale House and the murder I saw that I was right!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and Simon permitted himself to smile. Yet his answer was as
+cautious as ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Carrington?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Carrington, "if you actually are my employer and we both
+lay our cards on the table, there's much to be gained, and&mdash;if I may say
+so&mdash;really nothing to be lost. I won't give you away if you won't give
+me."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer's nod seemed to imply emphatic assent, and the other went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll keep you informed of everything I'm doing and anything I may
+happen to discover, and you can give me very valuable information as to
+what precisely is known already. Otherwise, of course, one could hardly
+exchange confidences so freely. Frankly then, you engaged me to come
+down here?"</p>
+
+<p>Even then Simon's caution seemed to linger for an instant. The next he
+answered briefly but decidedly:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, now to business. I got a certain amount of literature on the
+case before I left town, and Miss Peterkin gave me some very valuable
+additions in the shape of the accounts in the local papers. Are there
+any facts known to you or the police beyond those I have read?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon considered the question and then shook his head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p><p>"None that I can think of, and I fear the local police will be able to
+add no information that can assist you."</p>
+
+<p>"They are the usual not too intelligent country bobbies, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," asked Mr. Carrington, still in his easy voice, but with
+a quick turn of his eyeglass towards the lawyer, "why was no outside
+assistance called in at once?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Simon Rattar's satisfaction with his visitor seemed to be
+diminished. He seemed, in fact, a little disconcerted, and his reply
+again became little more than a grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite satisfied with them," seemed to be the reading of his answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Carrington, "no doubt you knew best, Mr. Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes thoughtfully followed the smoke of his cigarette upwards for a
+moment, and then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"That being so, my first step had better be to visit Keldale House and
+see whether it is still possible to find any small point the local
+professionals have overlooked."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar seemed to disapprove of this.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to discover," said he. "And they will know what you have come
+about."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Mr. Rattar, that, on the whole, my appearance provokes no
+great amount of suspicion."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p><p>"Your appearance, no," admitted Simon, "but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I go to Keldale armed with a card of introduction from you, to
+make enquiry about the shootings, I think I can undertake to turn the
+conversation on to other matters without exciting suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>"Conversation with whom?" enquired the lawyer sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought of Mr. Bisset, the butler."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;" began Mr. Rattar with a note of surprise, and then pulled himself
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," smiled Mr. Carrington, "I have picked up a little about the
+household. My friends of last night were exceedingly communicative&mdash;very
+gossipy indeed. I rather gather that omniscience is Mr. Bisset's foible,
+and that he is not averse from conversation."</p>
+
+<p>The look in Simon's eye seemed to indicate that his respect for this
+easy-going young man was increasing; though whether his liking for him
+was also increased thereby was not so manifest. His reply was again a
+mere grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that can easily be arranged," said Carrington, "and it is
+obviously the first thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>He blew a ring of smoke from his lips, skilfully sent a second ring in
+chase of it, and then turning his monocle again on the lawyer, enquired
+(though not in a tone that seemed to indicate any very acute interest in
+the question):</p>
+
+<p>"Who do you think yourself murdered Sir Reginald Cromarty?"</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>SIMON'S VIEWS</h3>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mr. Rattar deliberately, "I think myself that the actual
+evidence is very slight and extremely inclusive."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the direct evidence afforded by the unfastened window,
+position of the body, table said to have been overturned, and so forth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. That evidence is slight, but so far as it goes it seems to me
+to point to entry by the door and to the man having been in the house
+for some little time previously."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Carrington in an encouraging voice.</p>
+
+<p>"So much for the direct evidence. I may be wrong, but that is my decided
+opinion. No bad characters are known to the police to have been in the
+county at that time, and there was no robbery."</p>
+
+<p>"Apparently confirming the direct evidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly confirming it&mdash;or so it seems to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think there is something in the popular theory that the
+present baronet and Miss Farmond were the guilty parties?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon was silent for a moment, but his face was unusually expressive.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p><p>"I fear it looks like it."</p>
+
+<p>"An unpleasant conclusion for you to come to," observed Mr. Carrington.
+"You are the family lawyer, I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Very unpleasant," Mr. Rattar agreed. "But, of course, there is no
+absolute proof."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally; or they'd have been arrested by now. What sort of a fellow
+is Sir Malcolm?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own experience of him," said the lawyer drily, "is chiefly confined
+to his visits to my office to borrow money of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" said Carrington with interest. "That sort of fellow, is he? He
+writes, I understand."</p>
+
+<p>Simon nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Any other known vices?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know little about his vices except that they cost him considerably
+more than he could possibly have paid, had it not been for Sir
+Reginald's death."</p>
+
+<p>"So the motive is plain enough. Any evidence against him?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon pursed his lips and became exceedingly grave.</p>
+
+<p>"When questioned next morning by the superintendent of police and
+myself, he led us to understand that he had retired to bed early and was
+in no position to hear or notice anything. I have since found that he
+was in the habit of sitting up late."</p>
+
+<p>"'In the habit,'" repeated Carrington quickly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>"But you don't suggest
+he sat up that night in particular?"</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly he sat up that night."</p>
+
+<p>"But merely as he always did?"</p>
+
+<p>"He might have been waiting for his chance on the previous nights."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then asked:</p>
+
+<p>"But there is no evidence that he left his room or was heard moving
+about that night, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is not yet any positive evidence. But he was obviously in a
+position to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Was his room near or over the library?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no," said the fiscal, and there seemed to be a hint of reluctance in
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Carrington glanced at him quickly and then gazed up at the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a girl is Miss Farmond?" he enquired next.</p>
+
+<p>"She is the illegitimate daughter of a brother of the late Sir
+Reginald's."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"So I gathered from the local gossips. But that fact is hardly against
+her, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington looked a little surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls don't generally murder their uncles for choice, in my own
+experience; especially if they are also their benefactors."</p>
+
+<p>"This was hardly the usual relationship," said the lawyer with a touch
+of significance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p><p>"Do you suggest that the irregularity is apt to breed crime?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon's grunt seemed to signify considerable doubt as to the morals of
+the type of relative.</p>
+
+<p>"But what sort of girl is she otherwise?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should call Miss Farmond the insinuating type. A young man like
+yourself would probably find her very attractive&mdash;at first anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington seemed to ponder for a moment on this suggestive
+description of Miss Farmond's allurements. And then he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it the case that she is engaged to Sir Malcolm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure?"</p>
+
+<p>Something in his voice seemed to make the lawyer reflect.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it called in question?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Carrington shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"By nobody who has spoken to me on the subject. But I understand that it
+has not yet been announced."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Simon. "It was a secret engagement; and marriage would have
+been impossible while Sir Reginald lived."</p>
+
+<p>"So there we get the motive on her part. And you yourself, Mr. Rattar,
+<i>know</i> both these young people, and you believe that this accusation
+against them is probably well founded?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, Mr. Carrington, that there is no proof and probably never
+will be any; but all the evidence, positive and negative, together with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>the question of motive, points to nobody else. What alternative is
+possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the difficulty, so far," agreed Carrington, but his thoughts at
+the moment seemed to be following his smoke rings up towards the
+ceiling. For a few moments he was silent, and then he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What other people benefited by the will and to what extent?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer went to his safe, brought out the will, and read through the
+legacies to the servants, mentioning that the chauffeur and gardener
+were excluded by circumstances from suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"That leaves Mr. Bisset," observed Carrington. "Well, I shall be seeing
+him to-morrow. Any other legatees who might conceivably have committed
+the crime?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon looked serious and spoke with a little reluctance that he seemed
+to make no effort to conceal.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a relative of the family, a Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland, who
+certainly benefited considerably by the will and who certainly lives in
+the neighbourhood&mdash;if one once admitted the possibility of the crime
+being committed by some one outside the house. And I admit that it is a
+possibility."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Carrington. "I heard about him last night, but so far
+suspicion certainly hasn't fastened on him. What sort of a fellow is
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has lived the greater part of his life in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>the wilder parts of
+America&mdash;rather what one might call a rough and ready customer."</p>
+
+<p>It was apparent that Mr. Carrington, for all his easy-going air, was
+extremely interested.</p>
+
+<p>"This is quite interesting!" he murmured. "To what extent did he benefit
+by the will?"</p>
+
+<p>"&pound;1,200."</p>
+
+<p>"&pound;1,200!" Carrington repeated the words with an odd intonation and
+stared very hard at the lawyer. There was no doubt that his interest was
+highly excited now, and yet it seemed to be rather a different quality
+of interest this time.</p>
+
+<p>"A considerable sum," said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the only point about it which strikes you?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon was manifestly puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No coincidence occurs to you?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer's puzzled look remained, and the next instant Carrington
+broke into a hearty laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rattar," he cried. "What an owl I am! I have
+just been dealing lately with a case where that sum of money was
+involved, and for the moment I mixed the two up together!" He laughed
+again, and then resuming his businesslike air, asked: "Now, what else
+about this Mr. Cromarty? You say he is a relation. Near or distant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite distant. Another branch altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"Younger branch, I presume."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p><p>"Poorer but not younger. He is said to be the head of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington, and this information seemed to have
+set him thinking again. "He is the head of the family, and I hear he
+took up the case with some energy."</p>
+
+<p>Simon's grunt seemed to be critical.</p>
+
+<p>"He got in our way," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Got in your way, did he?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington was silent for a few moments, and then said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well I am afraid I have taken up a great deal of your time. May I have
+a line of introduction to Mr. Bisset before I go?"</p>
+
+<p>While the line was being written he walked over to the fire and cleared
+the stump of his last cigarette out of the holder. This operation was
+very deliberately performed, and through it his eyes seemed scarcely to
+note what his hands were doing.</p>
+
+<p>He put the note in his pocket, shook hands, and then, just as he was
+going, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to understand the lie of the land as exactly as possible. Your
+own attitude, so far has been, I take it&mdash;no proof, therefore no arrest;
+but a nasty family scandal left festering, so you decided to call me in.
+Now, I want to know this&mdash;is there anybody else in the neighbourhood who
+knows that I have been sent for?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rattar replied with even more than his usual deliberation, and after
+what is said by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>foreigners to be the national habit, his reply
+consisted of another question.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that your employer made a particular point of having his
+identity concealed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a particular point."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't that answer your question, Mr. Carrington?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Carrington, "not in the least. I am asking now whether there
+is any other employer in this neighbourhood besides yourself. And I may
+say that I ask for the very good reason that it might be awkward for me
+if there were and I didn't know him, while if I did know him, I could
+consult with him if it happened to be advisable. Is there any one?"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to hang on the lawyer's answer, and Simon to dislike making
+the answer.</p>
+
+<p>Yet when he did make it, it was quite emphatic.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right then," said Mr. Carrington with his brightest smile.
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>The smile faded from his ingenuous face the moment the door had closed
+behind him, and it was a very thoughtful Mr. Carrington who slowly went
+downstairs and strolled along the pavement. If his morning's interview
+had puzzled him, his afternoon's interview seemed to have baffled him
+completely. He even forgot to relapse into the thoughtless young
+sportsman when he entered the hotel, and his friend the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>manageress,
+after eyeing him with great surprise, cried archly:</p>
+
+<p>"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Carrington! About shooting or fishing,
+I'm sure!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington recovered his pleasant spirits instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," said he. "I was thinking about fishing&mdash;in very deep
+waters."</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. BISSET'S ASSISTANT</h3>
+
+<p>At eleven o'clock next morning a motor car drove up to Keldale House and
+an exceedingly affable and pleasing stranger delivered a note from Mr.
+Simon Rattar to Mr. James Bisset. Even without an introduction, Mr.
+Carrington would have been welcome, for though Mr. Bisset's sway over
+Keldale House was by this time almost despotic, he had begun to find
+that despotism has its lonely side, and to miss "the gentry." With an
+introduction, Mr. Carrington quickly discovered that Mr. Bisset and the
+mansion he supervised were alike entirely at his disposal.</p>
+
+<p>The preliminary discussion on the sporting possibilities of the estate
+and the probability of its being let next season impressed Mr. Bisset
+very favourably indeed with his visitor; and then when the conversation
+had passed very naturally to the late tragedy in the house, he was still
+further delighted to find that Mr. Carrington not only shared his own
+detective enthusiasm, but was vastly interested in his views on this
+particular mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along here, sir," said he, "we can just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>have a look at the
+library and I'll explain to you the principles of the thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to see the actual scene of the crime immensely!" cried Mr.
+Carrington eagerly. "You are sure that Lady Cromarty won't object?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not her," said Bisset. "She's never in this part of the house now.
+She'll be none the wiser anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>This argument seemed to assure Mr. Carrington completely, and they went
+along to the library.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," began Bisset, "I'll just explain to you the haill situation. Here
+where I'm laying this sofie cushion was the corp. Here where I'm
+standing the now was the wee table, and yon's the table itself."</p>
+
+<p>To the disquisition that followed, Mr. Carrington listened with the most
+intelligent air. Bisset had by this time evolved quite a number of new
+theories, but the one feature common to them all was the hypothesis that
+the murderer must have come in by the window and was certainly not an
+inmate of the household. His visitor said little till he had finished,
+and then he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Bisset, you don't seem to put much faith in the current theory, I
+see."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning that Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned?" said Bisset
+indignantly. "That's just the ignorance of the uneducated masses, sir!
+The thing's physically impossible, as I've just been demonstrating!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p><p>Carrington smiled and gently shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know much about these things," said he, "but I'm afraid I can't
+see the physical impossibility. It was very easy for any one in the
+house to come downstairs and open that door, and if Sir Reginald knew
+him, it would account for his silence and the absence of any kind of a
+struggle."</p>
+
+<p>"But yon table and the windie being unfastened! And the mud I picked up
+myself&mdash;and the hearth brush!"</p>
+
+<p>"They scarcely make it impossible," said Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," demanded the butler, "what's your own theory?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington said nothing for several minutes. He strolled up and down the
+room, looked at the table and the window, and at last asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember quite distinctly what Sir Reginald looked like when you
+found him&mdash;the position of the body&mdash;condition of the clothes&mdash;and
+everything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see him lying there every night o' my life, just as plain as I see
+you now!"</p>
+
+<p>"The feet were towards the door, just as though he had been facing the
+door when he was struck down?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, but then my view is the body was moved&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by a curious performance on Mr. Carrington's part.
+His visitor was in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>fact stretching himself out on the floor on the spot
+where Sir Reginald was found.</p>
+
+<p>"He lay like this?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, practically just like that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Bisset," said the recumbent visitor, "just have a very good look
+at me and tell me if you notice any difference between me and the body
+of Sir Reginald."</p>
+
+<p>Bisset looked for a few seconds and then exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Your clothes are no alike! The master's coat was kind of pulled up like
+about his shoulders and neck. Oh, and I mind now the tag at the back for
+hanging it up was broken and sticking out."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington sprang to his feet with a gleam in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"The tag was not broken before he put on the coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly was not that! But what's your deduction, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think yourself, Bisset? You saw how I threw myself down
+quite carelessly and yet my coat wasn't pulled up like that."</p>
+
+<p>"God, sir!" cried the butler. "You mean the corp had been pulled along
+the floor by the shoulders!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he had been killed near the windie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not too fast, not too fast!" smiled Carrington. "Your own first
+statement which I happened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>to read in a back number of the newspaper
+the other day said that the windows were all fastened when Sir Reginald
+came into the room."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I've been altering my opinion on that point, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid because a fastened window doesn't suit your theory."</p>
+
+<p>"But the master might have opened it to him, thinking it was some one he
+knew."</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds improbable," said Carrington thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"But not just absolutely impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Carrington, still very thoughtfully, "not impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Reginald might never have seen it was a stranger till the man was
+fairly inside."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smiled and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Thin, Bisset; very thin. Why need the man have been a stranger at all?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset's face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"But surely you're not believing yon story that it was Sir Malcolm and
+Miss Farmond after a'?"</p>
+
+<p>His visitor stood absolutely silent for a full minute. Then he seemed
+suddenly to banish the line of thought he was following.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it quite certain that those two are engaged?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Bisset's face showed his surprise at the question.</p>
+
+<p>"They all say so," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Have either of them admitted it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p><p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't they acknowledge it now and get married?"</p>
+
+<p>"They say it's because they daurna for fear of the scandal."</p>
+
+<p>"'They' say again!" commented Carrington. "But, look here, Bisset, you
+have been in the house all the time. Did you think they were engaged?"</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, sir, I did not. There's nae doubt Sir Malcolm was sweet on
+the young lady, but deil a sign of sweetness on him did I ever see in
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do they correspond now?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly at a'. But of course folks just say they are feared to now."</p>
+
+<p>"Has anybody asked either of them if they are&mdash;or ever were&mdash;engaged?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. But if they denied it now, folks would just say the same
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I see&mdash;naturally. Lady Cromarty believes it and is keeping Miss
+Farmond under her eye, the gossips tell me. Is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's true right enough, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told Lady Cromarty?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I do not know, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Again the visitor seemed to be thinking, and again to cast his thoughts
+aside and take up a new aspect of the case.</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing," he suggested, "we were to draw the curtains and light these
+candles for a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>minutes? It might help us to realise the whole
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion pleased Mr. Bisset greatly and in a minute or two the
+candles were lit and the curtains drawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Put the table where it stood," said Carrington. "Now which was Sir
+Reginald's chair? This?"</p>
+
+<p>He sat in it and looked slowly round the darkened, candle-lit library.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, "suppose I was Sir Reginald, and there came a tap at
+that window, what would I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you were the master, sir, you'd go straight to the windie to see who
+it was."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't get in a funk and ring the bell?"</p>
+
+<p>"No fears!" said Bisset confidently.</p>
+
+<p>"And any one who knew Sir Reginald at all well could count on his not
+giving the alarm then if they tapped at the window?"</p>
+
+<p>"They could that."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington looked attentively towards the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Those curtains hang close against the window, I see," he observed. "A
+very slight gap in them would enable any one to get a good view of the
+room, if the blinds were not down. Were the blinds down that night?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset slapped his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"The middle blind wasn't working!" he cried. "What a fool I've been not
+to think on the extraordinar' significance of that fac'! My, the
+deductions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>to be drawn! You've made it quite clear now, sir. The man
+tappit at that windie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Steady, steady!" said Carrington, smiling and yet seriously. "Don't you
+go announcing that theory! If there's anything in it&mdash;mum's the word!
+But mind you, Bisset, it's only a bare possibility. There's no good
+evidence against the door theory yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the table being cowpit and the body moved?"</p>
+
+<p>"They might be explained."</p>
+
+<p>He was thoughtful for a moment and then said deliberately:</p>
+
+<p>"I want&mdash;I mean you want certain evidence to exclude the door theory.
+Without that, the window theory remains a guess. Sir Malcolm is in
+London, I understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Likely to be coming north soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No word of it, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington reflected for a moment and then rose and went towards the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"We can draw back the curtains now," said he.</p>
+
+<p>He drew them as he spoke and on the instant stepped involuntarily back
+and down went the small table. Miss Cicely Farmond was standing just
+outside, evidently arrested by the drawn curtains. Her eyes opened very
+wide indeed at the sight of Mr. Carrington suddenly revealed. Her lips
+parted for an instant as though she would cry out, and then she hurried
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington seemed more upset by this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>incident than one would expect
+from such a composed, easy-going young man.</p>
+
+<p>"What will they think of me!" he exclaimed. "You must be sure to tell
+Miss Farmond&mdash;and Lady Cromarty too if she hears of this&mdash;that I came
+solely to enquire about the shootings and not to poke my nose into their
+library! Make that very explicit, Bisset."</p>
+
+<p>Even though assured by Bisset that the young lady was the most amiable
+person imaginable, he was continuing to lay stress on the point when his
+attention was abruptly diverted by the sight of another lady in deep
+black walking slowly away from the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that Lady Cromarty?" he asked, and no sooner had Bisset said "yes"
+than the window was up and Mr. Carrington stepping out of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I really must explain and apologise to her ladyship," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Her ladyship will never know&mdash;&mdash;!" began Bisset, but the surprising
+visitor was already hastening after the mourning figure. Had the worthy
+man been able to hear the conversation which ensued he would have been
+more surprised still.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Cromarty, I believe?" said the stranger in a deferential voice.</p>
+
+<p>She turned quickly, and her eyes searched him with that hard glance they
+wore always nowadays.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am Lady Cromarty," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me for disturbing you," said he. "It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>is a mere brief matter of
+business. I represent an insurance company to which Sir Malcolm Cromarty
+has made certain proposals. We are not perfectly satisfied with his
+statements, and from other sources learn that he is engaged to be
+married. I have come simply to ascertain whether that is the case."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Cromarty was (as Mr. Carrington had shrewdly divined) no better
+versed in the intricate matter of insurance than the majority of her
+sex, and evidently perceived nothing very unusual in this enquiry. It
+may be added in her excuse that the manner in which it was put by the
+representative of the company was a perfect example of how a business
+man should address a lady.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the case," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask your ladyship's authority&mdash;in strict confidence of course?"
+enquired the representative firmly, but very courteously.</p>
+
+<p>"I learned it from my own man of business," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said the insurance representative. "I beg that your
+ladyship will say nothing of my call, and I shall undertake not to
+mention the source of my information," and with an adequate bow he
+returned to the house.</p>
+
+<p>Before disappearing through her library window, Mr. Carrington saw that
+her ladyship's back was turned, and he then gave this candid, if
+somewhat sketchy, account of his interview to her butler.</p>
+
+<p>"It suddenly struck me," said he, "that Lady <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>Cromarty might think it
+somewhat unseemly of me to come enquiring about shooting so soon after
+her bereavement; so I gave her a somewhat different explanation. She is
+not likely to make any further enquiries about me and so you need say
+nothing about my visit."</p>
+
+<p>He was careful however to impress on his friend Mr. Bisset that he
+actually had come from purely sporting motives. In fact he professed
+some anxiety to get in touch with Sir Malcolm on the subject, even
+though assured that the young baronet had nothing to do with the
+shootings.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but it will gratify him, Bisset," said he, "and I think it is the
+nice thing to do. Could you give me his London address?"</p>
+
+<p>He jotted this down in his pocket book, and then as he was leaving he
+said confidentially:</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me that you think Sir Malcolm is interested in Miss Farmond,
+though she seemed not so keen on him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was the way of it to my thinking," said Bisset. "And what
+deduction would you draw from that, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should deduce," said this sympathetic and intelligent visitor, "the
+probable appearance of certain evidence bearing on our theories,
+Bisset."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bisset thought he had seldom met a pleasanter gentleman or a more
+helpful assistant.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>A TELEGRAM</h3>
+
+<p>The car took Mr. Carrington straight back to the town and dropped him at
+the door of Mr. Rattar's office.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall want you again at two o'clock sharp," he said to the chauffeur,
+and turned in to the office.</p>
+
+<p>He caught the lawyer just before he went out to lunch and said at once:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see Sir Malcolm Cromarty. Can you arrange for him to run up
+here for a day?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon stared at him hard, and there seemed to be even more caution than
+usual in his eye; almost, indeed, a touch of suspicion. The lawyer was
+not looking quite as well as usual; there was a drawn look about the
+upper part of the face and a hint of strain both in eyes and mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you want to see Sir Malcolm?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Carrington, "the fact of the matter is, Mr. Rattar, that,
+as you yourself said, the direct evidence is practically nil, and one is
+forced to go a good deal by one's judgment of the people suspected or
+concerned."</p>
+
+<p>Simon grunted sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"Very misleading," he said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p><p>"That depends entirely on one's judgment, or rather on one's instinct
+for distinguishing bad eggs from good. As a matter of observation I
+don't find that certain types of men and women commit certain actions,
+and I do find that they are apt to commit others. And contrariwise with
+other types."</p>
+
+<p>"Very unsafe doctrine," said Simon emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Extremely&mdash;in the hands of any one who doesn't know how to apply it. On
+the other hand, it can be made a short and commonsense cut to the truth
+in many cases. For instance, the man who suspected Mr. Bisset of
+committing the crime would simply be wasting his time and energy, even
+if there seemed to be some evidence against him."</p>
+
+<p>"Any man can commit any crime," said Simon dogmatically.</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smiled and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Personally," said he, "if you had a young and pretty wife, I am capable
+of running away with her, and possibly even of letting her persuade me
+to abscond with some of your property, but I am not capable of laying
+you out in cold blood and rifling that safe. And a good judge of men
+ought to be able to perceive this and not waste his time in trying to
+convict me of an offence I couldn't commit. On the other hand, if the
+crime was one that my type is apt to commit he would be a fool to acquit
+me off-hand, even if there was next to no evidence against me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p><p>"Then you simply go by your impressions of people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Far from it. A complete absence of motive would force me to acquit even
+the most promising looking blackguard, unless of course there were some
+form of lunacy in his case. One must have motive and one must have
+evidence as well, but character is the short cut&mdash;if the circumstances
+permit you to use it. Sometimes of course they don't, but in this case
+they force me to depend on it very largely. Therefore I want to see Sir
+Malcolm Cromarty."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Mr. Carrington," he said, "I can't bring him down here on such
+trivial grounds."</p>
+
+<p>"But you yourself suspect him!"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the lawyer was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I think suspicion points to him; but what is wanted is <i>evidence</i>. You
+can't get evidence merely by bringing him here. You don't suppose he
+will confess, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever studied the French methods of getting at the truth?"
+enquired Carrington, and when Simon shook his head contemptuously, he
+added with some significance: "We can learn a good deal from our
+neighbours."</p>
+
+<p>"Trivial grounds!" muttered Simon. "No, no!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington became unusually serious and impressive.</p>
+
+<p>"I am investigating this case, Mr. Rattar, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>I want to see Sir
+Malcolm. Will you send for him or not?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wouldn't come."</p>
+
+<p>"It depends on the urgency of the message."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't invent bogus urgent messages to my clients."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I might do the inventing for you."</p>
+
+<p>Again the lawyer stared at him and again there was the same extreme
+caution in his eye, mingled with a hint of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll think about it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see him immediately."</p>
+
+<p>"Call again to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's manner altered at once into his usual easy-going air.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, Mr. Rattar," said he as he rose.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," said Simon, "you have been out at Keldale this morning, I
+presume?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Carrington carelessly, "but there is really nothing new to
+be found."</p>
+
+<p>Simon looked at him hard.</p>
+
+<p>"No fresh evidence?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely, after you and your sleuth hounds had been over the ground!"</p>
+
+<p>He went to the door, and there Simon again spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, I am rather wondering. I must think about it. Good
+morning."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p><p>For a man who was rather wondering, Mr. Carrington's next movements were
+remarkably prompt. He first went straight to the Post Office and
+dispatched a wire. It was addressed to Sir Malcolm Cromarty and it
+ran&mdash;"Come immediately urgent news don't answer please don't delay." The
+only thing that seemed to indicate a wondering and abstracted mind was
+the signature to this message. Instead of "Carrington" he actually wrote
+"Cicely Farmond."</p>
+
+<p>He then hurried to the hotel, which he reached at one-fifty. In ten
+minutes he had bolted a hasty lunch and at two o'clock was sitting in
+the car again.</p>
+
+<p>"To Stanesland Castle," he commanded. "And be as quick as you can."</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>AT STANESLAND</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington's interview with the laird of Stanesland began on much
+the same lines as his talk with Bisset. The amiable visitor was shown
+into the laird's smoking room&mdash;an apartment with vast walls like a
+dungeon and on them trophies from the laird's adventurous days, and
+proceeded to make enquiry whether Mr. Cromarty was disposed to let his
+shootings for next season, or, if not, whether he could recommend any
+others.</p>
+
+<p>As the visitor was in no hurry, he declared, to fix anything up, it was
+very natural that this conversation, like the morning's, should
+eventually turn on to the subject of the great local mystery. Through it
+all Mr. Carrington's monocle was more continually fixed on the other
+than usual, but if he were looking for peculiarities in the laird's
+manner or any admissions made either by tongue or eye, he was
+disappointed. Cromarty was as breezy and as direct as ever, but even
+when his visitor confessed his extreme interest in such cases of
+remarkable crime, he (to all seeming) scented nothing in this beyond a
+not uncommon hobby. There was no doubt, however, of his keenness to
+discuss the subject. Carrington <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>gave him an entertaining account of his
+efforts to assist Mr. Bisset, and then Ned asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you think of his theory that the man came in by the
+window?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Bisset is evidently extremely anxious to save the credit of the
+family."</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty was aroused now.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" he cried. "But do you mean to say that you think that story
+will hold water?"</p>
+
+<p>"What story?" enquired Carrington mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean&mdash;the scandal that Sir Malcolm and&mdash;and a lady were
+concerned in the murder."</p>
+
+<p>"They are said to have actually committed it, aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned's eye began to look dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it's credible?" he asked brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>"You know them better than I. Do you think it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for an instant!"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't met Sir Malcolm," said Carrington, wiping his eyeglass on his
+handkerchief. "I can't judge of him. What sort of a fellow is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bit of a young squirt," said Ned candidly. "But I'll not believe he's
+a murderer till I get some proof of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And Miss Farmond? Is she at all a murderous lady?"</p>
+
+<p>He fixed his monocle in his eye just in time to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>see his host control
+himself after what seemed to have been a somewhat violent spasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stake my life on her innocence!" said Ned, and it was hard to know
+whether his manner as he said this should be termed fierce or solemn.</p>
+
+<p>For the space of perhaps two seconds Carrington's eyeglass stared very
+straight at him, and immediately afterwards was taken out for cleaning
+again, while its owner seemed to have found some new food for thought.
+The silence was broken by Ned asking brusquely:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>Again his visitor fixed the monocle in his eye, and he answered now very
+quietly and deliberately:</p>
+
+<p>"I happened to meet a young lady one afternoon, whom I discovered to be
+Miss Farmond. My own impression&mdash;for what it is worth&mdash;is that it would
+be a mere waste of time to investigate the suspicion against her,
+supposing, that is, that one were a detective or anything of that kind
+engaged in this case."</p>
+
+<p>"You think she is innocent?" asked Ned eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite certain of it, so far as I am any judge."</p>
+
+<p>Ned heaved a sigh of relief, and for an instant a smile flitted across
+Carrington's face. It seemed as though he were amused at such a tribute
+to the opinion of a mere chance visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"And Sir Malcolm?" enquired Ned.</p>
+
+<p>Carrington shook his head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p><p>"I have no means of judging&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>Ned glanced at him quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect to get hold of a means?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's smile was his only answer to the question. And then, still
+smiling, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I rather wonder, Mr. Cromarty, that you who have taken so much interest
+in this case, and who are, I am told, the head of the family, don't get
+some professional assistance to help you to get at the bottom of it."</p>
+
+<p>Ned's mouth shut hard and his eyes turned to the fire. He said nothing
+for a moment and then remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess that's worth thinking over."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's shoulders moved in an almost imperceptible shrug, but he
+made no comment aloud. In a moment Ned said:</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing those two are scored out, there doesn't seem to be anybody
+else inside the house who could have committed the crime, does there?
+You wouldn't suspect Lady Cromarty or Bisset, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Cromarty is physically incapable of giving her husband the blow he
+must have received. Besides, they were a very devoted couple, I
+understand, and she gained nothing by his death&mdash;lost heavily, in fact.
+As for Bisset&mdash;&mdash;" Carrington let his smile finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it must have been some one from outside&mdash;but who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you think of any one?" asked Carrington.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p><p>Ned shook his head emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Me?" said his visitor with an innocent air, and yet with a twinkle for
+an instant in his eye. "I am a mere stranger to the place, and if you
+and Mr. Rattar and the police are baffled, what can I suggest?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned seemed for a moment a trifle disconcerted. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, of course, Mr. Carrington. But since we happen to be talking
+about it&mdash;well, I guess I'm quite curious to know if any ideas have just
+happened to occur to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the other, "between ourselves, Mr. Cromarty, and speaking
+quite confidentially, one idea has struck me very forcibly."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" asked Ned eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Simply this, that though it <i>might</i> be conceivable to think of somebody
+or other, the difficulty that stares me in the face is&mdash;motive!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned's face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's what has struck all of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Reginald was a popular landlord, I hear."</p>
+
+<p>"The most popular in the county."</p>
+
+<p>"This isn't Ireland," continued Carrington. "Tenants don't lay out their
+landlords on principle, and in this particular instance they would
+simply stand to lose by his death. Then take his tradesmen and his agent
+and so on, they all stand to lose too. An illicit love affair and a
+vengeful swain might be a conceivable theory, if his character gave
+colour to it; but there's not a hint of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>that, and some rumour would
+have got about for certain if that had been the case."</p>
+
+<p>"You may dismiss that," said Ned emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there you are&mdash;what's the motive?"</p>
+
+<p>"If one could think of a possible man, one could probably think of a
+possible motive."</p>
+
+<p>On Carrington's face a curious look appeared for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"I only wish one could," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>A gong sounded and Ned rose.</p>
+
+<p>"That means tea," said he. "I always have it in my sister's room. Come
+up."</p>
+
+<p>They went up the stone stair and turned into Miss Cromarty's boudoir. On
+her, Mr. Carrington produced a favourable impression that was evident at
+once. At all times she liked good-looking and agreeable gentlemen, and
+lately she had been suffering from a dearth of them. She had been
+suffering also from her brother's pig-headed refusal to reconsider his
+decision not to buy a car; and finally from the lack of some one to
+sympathise with her in this matter. In the opulent-looking and
+sportingly attired Mr. Carrington she quickly perceived a kindred
+spirit, and having a tongue that was not easily intimidated even by the
+formidable looking laird, she launched into her grievance. They had been
+talking about the long distances that separated most of the mansions in
+the county.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it ridiculous, Mr. Carrington," said she, "we haven't got a car!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p><p>"Absurd," agreed Mr. Carrington, helping himself to cake.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, this brother of mine here has actually come into a
+fortune, and yet he won't buy me even one little motor car!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned frowned and muttered something that might have checked their
+visitor's reply, had he noticed the laird's displeasure, but for the
+moment he seemed to have become very unobserving.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into a fortune?" said he. "What a bit of luck! How much&mdash;a
+million&mdash;two million?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not as much as that, worse luck! But quite enough to buy at least
+three decent cars if he was half a sportsman! And he won't get one!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington was now trying to balance his cake in his saucer and was
+evidently too absorbed in his efforts to notice his host's waxing
+displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"In my experience," said he, "you can't get a decent car much under four
+hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said she, "that's just the figure it would bring it to."</p>
+
+<p>"Lilian!" muttered her brother wrathfully.</p>
+
+<p>But at that moment Mr. Carrington coughed, evidently over a cake crumb,
+and failed to hear the expostulation.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps he is going to buy you something even handsomer instead,"
+he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he!" she scoffed, with a defiant eye on her brother. "I believe he's
+going to blue it in something too scandalous to talk about in mixed
+society! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>Anyhow it's something too mysterious to tell me!"</p>
+
+<p>By this time Ned's face was a thundercloud in which lightning was
+clearly imminent, but Mr. Carrington now recovered his wonted tact as
+suddenly as he had lost it.</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me of a very curious story I heard at my club the other
+day," he began, and in a few minutes the conversation was far away from
+Miss Cromarty's grievances. And then, having finished his cup of tea, he
+looked at his watch with an exclamation and protested that he must
+depart on the instant.</p>
+
+<p>As he lay back in his car he murmured with a satisfied smile:</p>
+
+<p>"That's settled anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>And then for the whole drive home he fell very thoughtful indeed. Only
+one incident aroused him, and that but for a moment. It was quite dark
+by this time, and somewhere between the Keldale House lodge and the
+town, the lamps of the car swept for an instant over a girl riding a
+bicycle in the opposite direction. Carrington looked round quickly and
+saw that she was Miss Cicely Farmond.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>FLIGHT</h3>
+
+<p>On the morning after his visit from Mr. Carrington, Ned Cromarty took
+his keeper with him and drove over to shoot on a friend's estate. He
+stayed for tea and it was well after five o'clock and quite dark when he
+started on his long drive home. The road passed close to a wayside
+station with a level crossing over the line, and when they came to this
+the gates were closed against them and the light of the signal of the up
+line had changed from red to white.</p>
+
+<p>"Train's up to time," said Ned to the keeper. "I thought we'd have got
+through before she came."</p>
+
+<p>There was no moon, a fine rain hung in the air, and the night was
+already pitch dark. Sitting there in the dogcart before the closed
+gates, behind the blinding light of the gig lamps, they were quite
+invisible themselves; but about thirty yards to their left they saw the
+station platform plainly in the radiance of its lights, and, straight
+before them in the radiance of their own, they could see less distinctly
+the road beyond the line.</p>
+
+<p>At first, save for the distant rumble of the southward bound train,
+there was no sign of life or of movement anywhere, and then all at once
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>a figure on a bicycle appeared on the road, and in a moment dismounted
+beside the station. It was a girl in black, and at the sight of her, Ned
+bent forward suddenly in his driving seat and stared intently into the
+night. He saw her unstrap a small suit case from the bicycle and lead
+the bicycle into the station. A minute or two passed and then she
+emerged from the ticket office on to the platform carrying the suit case
+in her hand. The bicycle she had evidently left in the station, and it
+seemed manifest that she was going by this train.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Miss Farmond, sir, from Keldale House!" exclaimed the keeper.</p>
+
+<p>His master said nothing but kept his eye intently fixed on the girl. One
+of the platform lamps lit her plainly, and he thought she looked the
+most forlorn and moving sight that had ever stirred his heart. There was
+something shrinking in her attitude, and when she looked once for a few
+moments straight towards him, there seemed to be something both sad and
+frightened in her face. Not another soul was on the platform, and seen
+in that patch of light against an immensity of dark empty country and
+black sky, she gave him such an impression of friendlessness that he
+could scarcely stay in his seat. And all the while the roar of the
+on-coming train was growing louder and ever louder. In a few minutes she
+would be gone&mdash;"Where?" he asked himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wondering where she'll be going at this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>time o' night with nae
+mair luggage than yon," said the keeper.</p>
+
+<p>That decided it.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the trap home and tell Miss Cromarty not to expect me to-night,"
+said his master, quickly. "Say I've gone&mdash;oh, anywhere you derned well
+like! There's something up and I'm going to see what it is."</p>
+
+<p>He jumped quietly on the road just as the engine thundered between the
+gates in front. By the time the train was at rest, he was over the gate
+and making his way to the platform. He stopped in the darkness by the
+rear end of the train till he saw the figure in black disappear into a
+carriage, and then he stepped into a compartment near the guard's van.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got a ticket, but I'll pay as I go along," he said to the guard
+as he passed the window.</p>
+
+<p>The guard knew Mr. Cromarty well and touched his cap, and then the train
+started and Mr. Cromarty was embarked upon what he confessed to himself
+was the blindest journey he had ever made in all his varied career.</p>
+
+<p>Where was she going&mdash;and why was she going? He asked himself these
+questions over and over again as he sat with a cigar between his teeth
+and his long legs stretched out on the opposite seat, and the train
+drove on into an ever wilder and more desolate land. It would be very
+many miles and a couple of hours or more before they reached any sort of
+conceivable destination for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>her, and as a matter of fact this train did
+not go beyond that destination. Then it struck him sharply that up till
+the end of last month the train had continued its southward journey. The
+alteration in the timetable was only a few days old. Possibly she was
+not aware of it and had counted on travelling to&mdash;where? He knew where
+she had got to stop, but where had she meant to stop? Or where would she
+go to-morrow? And above all, why was she going at all, leaving her
+bicycle at a wayside station and with her sole luggage a small suit
+case? Ned shook his head, tried to suck life into his neglected cigar,
+and gave up the problem in the meanwhile.</p>
+
+<p>As to the question of what business he had to be following Miss Farmond
+like this, he troubled his head about it not at all. If she needed him,
+here he was. If she didn't, he would clear out. But very strong and very
+urgent was the conviction that she required a friend of some sort.</p>
+
+<p>The stations were few and far between and most desolate, improbable
+places as endings for Cicely Farmond's journey. He looked out of the
+window at each of them, but she never alighted.</p>
+
+<p>"She's going to find herself stuck for the night. That's about the size
+of it," he said to himself as they left the last station before the
+journey ended.</p>
+
+<p>Though their next stop was the final stop, he did not open the carriage
+door when the train <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>pulled up. He did not even put his head far out of
+the window, only just enough to see what passed on the platform ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to worry her if she doesn't need me," he said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the slip of a figure in black talking to the stationmaster, and
+it was hardly necessary to hear that official's last words in order to
+divine what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, miss," he overheard the stationmaster say, "I'm sorry ye're
+disappointed, but it's no me that has stoppit the train. It's aff for
+the winter. If ye turn to the left ye'll fin' the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked round her slowly and it seemed to Ned that the way she
+did it epitomised disappointment and desolation, and then she hurried
+through the station buildings and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>He was out of the carriage and after her in an instant. Beyond the
+station the darkness was intense and he had almost passed a road
+branching to the left without seeing it. He stopped and was going to
+turn down it when it struck him the silence was intense that way, but
+that there was a light sound of retreating footsteps straight ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"She's missed the turning!" he said to himself, and followed the
+footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>In a little he could see her against the sky, a dim hurrying figure, and
+his own stride quickened. He had never been in this place before, but he
+knew it for a mere seaboard village with an utterly lonely country on
+every inland side. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>She was heading into a black wilderness, and he took
+his decision at once and increased his pace till he was overhauling her
+fast.</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of his footsteps he could see that she glanced over her
+shoulder and made the more haste till she was almost running. And then
+as she heard the pursuing steps always nearer she suddenly slackened
+speed to let him pass.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Farmond!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>He could hear her gasp as she stopped short and turned sharply. She was
+staring hard now at the tall figure looming above her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only me&mdash;Ned Cromarty," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>And then he started in turn, for instead of showing relief she gave a
+half smothered little cry and shrank away from him. For a moment there
+was dead silence and then he said, still quietly, though it cost him an
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"I only mean to help you if you need a hand. Are you looking for the
+hotel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said in a low frightened voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "I guess you'd walk till morning before you reached an
+hotel along this road. You missed the turning at the station. Give me
+your bag. Come along!"</p>
+
+<p>She let him take the suit case and she turned back with him, but it
+struck him painfully that her docility was like that of a frightened
+animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you bound for?" he enquired in his usual direct way.</p>
+
+<p>She murmured something that he could not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>catch and then they fell
+altogether silent till they had retraced their road to the station and
+turned down towards a twinkling light or two which showed where the
+village lay.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Miss Farmond," said he, "we are getting near this pub and as we've
+both got to spend the night there, you'll please observe these few short
+and simple rules. I'm your uncle&mdash;Uncle Ned. D'you see?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no laugh, or even a smile from her. She gave a little start of
+surprise and in a very confused voice murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"My full name is Mr. Ned Dawkins and you're Louisa Dawkins my niece.
+Just call me 'Uncle Ned' and leave me to do the talking. We are touring
+this beautiful country and I've lost my luggage owing to the derned
+foolishness of the railroad officials here. And then when we've had a
+little bit of dinner you can tell me, if you like, why you've eloped and
+why you've got a down on me. Or if you don't like to, well, you needn't.
+Ah, here's the pub at last."</p>
+
+<p>He threw open the door and in a loud and cheerful voice cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here we are, Louisa. Walk right in, my dear!"</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RETURN</h3>
+
+<p>His friends would scarcely have picked out Mr. Ned Cromarty of
+Stanesland as likely to make a distinguished actor, but they might have
+changed their opinion had they heard him breezily announce himself as
+Mr. Dawkins from Liverpool and curse the Scottish railways which had
+lost his luggage for him. It is true that the landlord looked at him a
+trifle askance and that the landlady and her maid exchanged a knowing
+smile when he ordered a room for his niece Louisa, but few people shut
+up in a little country inn with such a formidable looking, loud voiced
+giant, would have ventured to question his statements openly, and the
+equanimity of Mr. Dawkins remained undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit right down, Louisa!" he commanded when dinner was served; and then,
+addressing the maid, "You needn't wait. We'll ring when we need you."</p>
+
+<p>But the moment she had gone he checked a strong expression with an
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn&mdash;confound it!" he cried. "I ought to have remembered to say grace!
+That would have given just the finishing touch to the Uncle Ned
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>business. However, I don't think they've smelt any rats."</p>
+
+<p>Cicely smiled faintly and then her eyes fell and she answered nothing.
+Their only other conversation during dinner consisted in his
+expostulations on her small appetite and her low-voiced protests that
+she wasn't hungry. But when it was safely over, he pushed back his
+chair, crossed his knees, and began:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Louisa, I'm going to take an uncle's privilege of lighting my pipe
+before I begin to talk, if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>He lit his pipe, and then suddenly dropping the r&ocirc;le of uncle
+altogether, said gently:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to press you with any questions that you don't want to
+answer, but if you need a friend of any sort, size, or description, here
+I am." He paused for a moment and then asked still more gently: "Are you
+afraid of me?"</p>
+
+<p>For the first time she let her long-lashed eyes rest full on his face
+and in her low voice, she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Partly afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"And partly what else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Partly puzzled&mdash;and partly ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>"Ashamed!" he exclaimed with a note of indignant protest. "Ashamed of
+what?"</p>
+
+<p>"The exhibition I've made of myself," she said, her voice still very
+low.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he smiled, "that's a matter of opinion. But why are you afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she exclaimed. "You know of course!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p><p>He stared at her blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"I pass; I can't play to that!" he replied. "I honestly do not know,
+Miss Farmond."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened very wide.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I meant when I said I was puzzled. You <i>must</i> know&mdash;and
+yet&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>She broke off and looked at him doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said he, "some one's got to solve this mystery, and I'll
+risk a leading question. Why did you run away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because of what you have been doing!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Me</i> been doing! And what have I been doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suspecting me and setting a detective to watch me!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned's one eye opened wide, but for a moment he said not a word. Then he
+remarked quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"This is going to be a derned complicated business. Just you begin at
+the beginning, please, and let's see how things stand. Who told you I
+was setting a detective on to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I found out myself I was being watched."</p>
+
+<p>"How and when?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, and the doubtful look returned to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Louisa!" he said. "No nonsense this time! We've got to have this
+out&mdash;or my name's Dawkins!"</p>
+
+<p>For the first time she smiled spontaneously, and the doubtful look
+almost vanished. Just a trace was left, but her voice, though still very
+low, was firmer now.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p><p>"I only discovered for the first time the wicked suspicion about poor
+Malcolm," she said, "when I met a gentleman a few days ago who told me
+he had heard Malcolm was arrested for the murder of Sir Reginald."</p>
+
+<p>"But that's not true!" cried Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"No, and he admitted it was only a story he had heard at the hotel, but
+it suddenly seemed to throw light on several things I hadn't been able
+to understand. I spoke to Lady Cromarty about it, and then I actually
+found that I was suspected too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did she tell you so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in so many words, but I knew what was in her mind. And then the
+very next day I caught the same man examining the library with Bisset
+and I saw him out of the window follow Lady Cromarty and speak to her,
+and then I knew he was a detective!"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by instinct, and I was right! The position was so horrible&mdash;so
+unbearable, that I went in to see Mr. Rattar about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why Rattar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is the family lawyer and he's also investigating the case,
+and I thought of course he was employing the detective. And Mr. Rattar
+told me you were really employing him. Are you?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pleading note in this question&mdash;a longing to hear the answer
+"No" that seemed to affect Ned strangely.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p><p>"It's all right, Miss Farmond!" he said. "Don't you worry! I got that
+man down here to clear you&mdash;just for that purpose and no other!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" she exclaimed, "Mr. Rattar said you suspected Malcolm and me
+and were determined to prove our guilt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Simon Rattar said that!"</p>
+
+<p>There was something so menacing in his voice that Cicely involuntarily
+shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me, honour bright, that Simon Rattar told you that
+lie in so many words?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, "he did indeed. And he said that this Mr. Carrington
+was a very clever man and was almost certain to trump up a very strong
+case against us, and so he advised me to go away."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed almost incapable of speech at this.</p>
+
+<p>"He actually advised you to bolt?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"To slip away quietly to London and stay in an hotel he recommended till
+I heard from him. He said you had sworn to track down the criminals and
+hang them with your own hands, and so when I saw you suddenly come up
+behind me in that dark road to-night&mdash;oh, you've no idea how terrified I
+was! Mr. Rattar had frightened away all the nerve I ever had, and then
+when I thought I was safely away, you suddenly came up behind me in that
+dark road!"</p>
+
+<p>"You poor little&mdash;&mdash;" he began, laying his hand upon hers, and then he
+remembered Sir Malcolm and altered his sentence into: "You know now
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>that was all one infernal pack of lies, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Though he took away his hand, she had not moved her own, and she gave
+him now a look which richly rewarded him for his evening's work.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe every word you tell me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," said Ned, "I tell you that I got this fellow Carrington
+down to take up the case so that I could clear you in the first place
+and find the right man in the second. So as to give him an absolutely
+clear field, he wasn't told who was employing him, and then he could
+suspect me myself if he wanted to. As a matter of fact, I rather think
+he has guessed who's running him. Anyhow, yesterday afternoon he told me
+straight and emphatically that he knew you were innocent. So you've run
+away a day too late!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at last, and then fell serious again.</p>
+
+<p>"But what did Mr. Rattar mean by saying you had engaged the detective
+because you suspected Malcolm and me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's precisely what I want to find out," said Ned grimly. "He could
+guess easy enough who was employing Carrington, because I had suggested
+getting a detective, only Simon wouldn't rise to it. But as to saying I
+suspected you, he knew that was a lie, and I can only suspect he's
+getting a little tired of life!"</p>
+
+<p>They talked on for a little longer, still sitting by the table, with her
+eyes now constantly smiling into his, until at last he had to remind
+himself so vigorously of the absent and lucky baronet that the pleasure
+began to ebb. And then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>they said good-night and he was left staring
+into the fire.</p>
+
+<hr class="medium" />
+
+<p>Next morning they faced one another in a first class carriage on a
+homeward bound train.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I say to Lady Cromarty?" she asked, half smiling, half
+fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>He reflected for a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her the truth. Lies don't pay in the long run. I can bear witness
+to this part of the story, and to the Carrington part if necessary,
+though I don't want to give him away if I can help it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" she said, "we mustn't interfere with him. But supposing Lady
+Cromarty doesn't believe&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come straight to Stanesland! Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Run away again?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the direction you run in that matters," said he. "Now, mind you,
+that's understood!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a little and then she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand why these horrible stories associate Malcolm and me.
+Why should we have conspired to do such a dreadful thing?"</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her, and then hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;well, being engaged to him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Engaged to Malcolm!" she exclaimed. "Whatever put that into people's
+heads?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he cried. "Aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious no! Was <i>that</i> the reason then?"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed too lost in his own thoughts to answer her; but they were
+evidently not unhappy thoughts this time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p><p>"Who can have started such a story?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Who started it?" he repeated and then was immersed in thought again;
+only now there was a grim look on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well anyhow," he cried, in a minute or two, "we're out of that wood!
+Aren't we, Louisa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Uncle Ned," she smiled back.</p>
+
+<p>He stirred impulsively in his seat and then seemed to check himself, and
+for the rest of the journey he appeared to be divided between content
+with the present hour and an impulse to improve upon it. And then before
+he had realised where they were, they had stopped at a station, and she
+was exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I must get out here! I've left my bike in the station!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said he, with his hand on the door handle, "before you go
+you've got to swear that you'll come straight to Stanesland if there's
+another particle of trouble. Swear?"</p>
+
+<p>"But what about Miss Cromarty?" she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cromarty will say precisely the same as I do," he said with a
+curiously significant emphasis. "So now, I don't open this door till you
+promise!"</p>
+
+<p>"I promise!" said she, and then she was standing on the platform waving
+a farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"I half wish I'd risked it!" he said to himself with a sigh as the train
+moved on, and then he ruminated with an expression on his face that
+seemed to suggest a risk merely deferred.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>BROTHER AND SISTER</h3>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty found his sister in her room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ned," she asked, "where on earth have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>He shut the door before he answered, and then came up to the fireplace,
+and planted himself in front of her.</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you that Cicely Farmond was engaged to Malcolm Cromarty?" he
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>She made a little grimace of comic alarm, but her eye was apprehensive.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't eat my head off, Neddy! How can I remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've got to remember," said her brother grimly. "And you'd better be
+careful what you tell me, for I'll go straight to the woman, or man, you
+name."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him boldly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know if you are aware of it, but this isn't the way I'm
+accustomed to be talked to."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the way you're being talked to now," said he. "Who told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I absolutely refuse to answer if you speak to me like that, Ned!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we part company, Lilian."</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt about the apprehension in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>her eye now. For a moment
+it seemed to wonder whether he was actually in earnest, and then to
+decide that he was.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know who told me," she said in an altered voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Did anybody tell you, or did you make it up?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never actually said they were engaged."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in silence and very hard, and then he spoke
+deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't ask you why you deceived me, Lilian, but it was a low down
+trick to play on me, and it has turned out to be a damned cruel trick to
+play on that girl. I mentioned the engagement as a mere matter of course
+to somebody, and though I mentioned it confidentially, it started this
+slander about Malcolm Cromarty and Cicely Farmond conspiring to
+murder&mdash;to <i>murder</i>, Lilian!&mdash;the man of all men they owed most to.
+That's what you've done!"</p>
+
+<p>By this time Lilian Cromarty's handkerchief was at her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I am very sorry, Ned," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not to be soothed by a tear, even in the most adroit lady's
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>"The latest consequence has been," he said sternly, "that through a
+mixture of persecution and bad advice she has been driven to run away.
+Luckily I spotted her at the start and fetched her back, and I've told
+her that if there is the least little bit more trouble she is to come
+straight here and that you will give her as good a welcome as I shall.
+Is that quite clear?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p><p>"Yes," she murmured through her handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Otherwise," said he, "there's no room for us both here. One single
+suggestion that she isn't welcome&mdash;and you have full warning now of the
+consequences!"</p>
+
+<p>"When is she coming?" she asked in an uncertain voice.</p>
+
+<p>"When? Possibly never. But there's some very fishy&mdash;and it looks to me,
+some very dirty business going on, and this port stands open in case of
+a storm. You fully understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do," she said, putting away her handkerchief. "I'm not
+quite a fool!"</p>
+
+<p>And indeed, none of her friends or acquaintances had ever made that
+accusation against Lilian Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's all," said Ned, and began to move across the room.</p>
+
+<p>But now the instinct for finding a scapegoat began to revive.</p>
+
+<p>"Who did you tell it to, Ned?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Simon Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>"Then <i>he</i> has spread this dreadful story!" she exclaimed with righteous
+indignation.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother stopped and slowly turned back.</p>
+
+<p>"By heaven, I've scarcely had time to think it all out yet&mdash;but it looks
+like it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>must</i> be that nasty grumpy old creature! If you told nobody
+else&mdash;well, it can't be anybody else!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p><p>"But why should he go and spread such a story?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he wants to shelter some one else!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that's for the police to find out. But I'm quite certain, Ned, that
+that pig-headed old Simon with his cod-fish eyes and his everlasting
+grunt is at the bottom of it all!"</p>
+
+<p>He stared thoughtfully into space.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said slowly, "he has certainly been asking for trouble in one
+or two ways, and this seems another invitation. But he'll get it, sure!
+At the same time&mdash;what's his object?"</p>
+
+<p>His sister had no hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Either to make money or hide something disgraceful. You really must
+enquire into this, Ned!"</p>
+
+<p>He dropped into a chair and sat for a few minutes with his face in his
+hands. At last he looked up and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm out of my depth," he said. "I guess I'd better see Carrington."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Carrington?" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a long talk with him," he explained. "He seems an uncommon shrewd
+fellow. Yes, that's the proper line!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him curiously but evidently judged it tactful in the
+present delicate situation to ask no more. He rose now and went, still
+thoughtful, to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"What a dreadful thing of Simon Rattar to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>do! Wasn't it, Ned?" she said
+indignantly, her eyes as bright as ever again.</p>
+
+<p>He turned as she went out.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole thing has been damnable!"</p>
+
+<p>As the door closed behind him she made a little grimace again and then
+gave a little shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to marry her!" she said to herself, and acting immediately
+on a happy inspiration, sat down to write a long and affectionate letter
+to an old friend whose country house might, with judicious management,
+be considered good for a six months' visit.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>A MARKED MAN</h3>
+
+<p>The unexpected energy displayed by her charming guest in bustling all
+over the country had surprised and a little perplexed Miss Peterkin, but
+she now decided that it was only a passing phase, for on the day
+following his visits to Keldale and Stanesland he exhibited exactly the
+same leisurely calm she had admired at first. He sought out the local
+golf course and for an hour or two his creditable game confirmed his
+reputation as a sportsman, and for the rest of the time he idled in a
+very gentlemanly manner.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the afternoon he strolled out and gradually drifted
+through the dusk towards the station. Finding the train was, as usual,
+indefinitely late, he strolled out again and finally drifted back just
+as the signals had fallen at last. It was quite dark by this time and
+the platform lamps were lit, but Mr. Carrington chanced to stand
+inconspicuously in a background of shadows. As the engine hissed
+ponderously under the station roof and the carriage doors began to open,
+he still stood there, the most casual of spectators. A few passengers
+passed him, and then came a young man in a fur coat, on whom some very
+curious glances had been thrown when he alighted from his first class
+compartment. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>Mr. Carrington, however, seemed to take no interest either
+in him or anybody else till the young man was actually passing him, and
+then he suddenly stepped out of the shadows, touched him on the shoulder
+and said in a much deeper and graver voice than usual:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Malcolm Cromarty, I believe!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man started violently and turned a pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye&mdash;es, I am," he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"May I have a word with you?" said Carrington gravely.</p>
+
+<p>With a dreadfully nervous air Sir Malcolm accompanied him out into the
+dark road, neither speaking, and then the young man demanded hoarsely:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want with me?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's voice suddenly resumed its usual cheerful note.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," he said, "for collaring you like this, but the fact is I
+am very keen to see you about the Keldale shootings."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Malcolm gave a gasp of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven!" he exclaimed. "Good Lord, what a fright you gave me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I say I'm awfully sorry!" said Carrington anxiously. "How frightfully
+stupid I must have been!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked at him, and, like most other people, evidently
+found his ingenuous face and sympathetic manner irresistibly confidence
+inspiring.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, not at all," he said. "In fact you must have wondered at my manner.
+The fact is Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Carrington."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Carrington, that I'm in a most awful position at present. You know
+of course that I'm suspected of murder!"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" exclaimed Carrington, with vast interest. "Not really?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's an absolute fact&mdash;suspected of murder! Good God, just imagine it!"</p>
+
+<p>The young baronet stopped and faced his new acquaintance dramatically.
+In spite of his nervousness, it was evident that his notoriety had
+compensations.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I&mdash;the head of an ancient and honourable house&mdash;am
+actually suspected of having murdered my cousin, Sir Reginald Cromarty!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, that murder!" exclaimed Carrington. "By Jove, of course, I've
+heard a lot about the case. And you are really suspected?"</p>
+
+<p>"So much so," said the baronet darkly, "that when you touched me on the
+shoulder I actually thought you were going to arrest me!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington seemed equally astounded and penitent at this unfortunate
+reading of his simple and natural action in stepping suddenly out of the
+dark and tapping a nervous stranger on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"How very tactless of me!" he repeated more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>than once. "Really, I must
+be more careful another time!"</p>
+
+<p>And then he suddenly turned his monocle on to the baronet and enquired:</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you know you are suspected?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know! My God, all fingers are pointing at me! Even in my club
+in London I feel I am a marked man. I have discussed my awful position
+with all my friends, and by this time they tell me that everybody else
+knows too!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is&mdash;er&mdash;not unnatural," said Carrington drily. "But how did you
+first learn?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man's voice fell almost to a whisper and he glanced
+apprehensively over his shoulder as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew I should be suspected the moment I heard of the crime! The very
+night before&mdash;perhaps at the actual moment when the deed was being
+done&mdash;I did a foolish thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so!" exclaimed his new friend with every appearance of
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you may not believe me, but I acted like a damned silly ass. Mind
+you, I am not as a rule a silly ass," the baronet added with dignity,
+"but that night I actually confided in a woman!"</p>
+
+<p>"What woman?"'</p>
+
+<p>"My relative Miss Cicely Farmond&mdash;a charming girl, I may mention; there
+was every excuse for me, still it was a rotten thing to do, I quite
+admit. I told her that I was hard up and feeling desperate, and I even
+said I was going to sit up late! And on top of that Sir Reginald was
+murdered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>that very night. Imagine my sensations for the next few days,
+living in the same house with the woman who had heard me say <i>that</i>! She
+held my fate in her hands, but, thank God, she evidently had such faith
+in my honour and humanity that she forebore to&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Peach," suggested Carrington, "though as a matter of fact, I fancy she
+had forgotten all about the incident."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgotten my words!" exclaimed the baronet indignantly. "Impossible! I
+can never forget them myself so long as I live!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Carrington soothingly, "let us suppose she remembered them.
+Anyhow she said nothing, and, that being so, how did you first actually
+know that you were suspected?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own man of business thought it his duty to drop me a hint!" cried
+the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>This piece of information seemed to produce quite as much impression on
+his new acquaintance as his first revelation, though he took it rather
+more quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" said he in a curious voice. "And what course of action did he
+advise?"</p>
+
+<p>"He advised me to keep away from the place. In fact he even suggested I
+should go abroad&mdash;and, by Gad, I'm going too!"</p>
+
+<p>To this, Carrington made no reply at all. His thoughts, in fact, seemed
+to have wandered entirely away from Sir Malcolm Cromarty. The baronet
+seemed a trifle disappointed at his lack of adequate interest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p><p>"Don't you sympathise with me," he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Carrington, "my thoughts were wandering for
+the moment. I do sympathise. By the way, what are you going to do now?"</p>
+
+<p>The baronet started.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gad, my own thoughts are wandering!" said he, "though I certainly
+have some excuse! I must get down to the Kings Arms and order a trap to
+take me out to Keldale House as quickly as I can." And then he added
+mysteriously, "I only came down here because I was urgently wired for by
+some one who&mdash;well, I couldn't refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to the Kings Arms, too. We'll walk down together, if you
+don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted," said the baronet, "if you don't mind being seen with such a
+marked man."</p>
+
+<p>"I rather like them marked," smiled Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>All the way to the hotel the notorious Sir Malcolm pursued what had
+evidently become his favourite subject:&mdash;the vast sensation he was
+causing in society and the pain it gave a gentleman of title and
+position to be placed in such a predicament. When they reached the Kings
+Arms, his new acquaintance insisted in a very friendly and confident way
+that there was no immediate hurry about starting for Keldale, and that
+the baronet must come up to his sitting room first and have a little
+refreshment.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of a couple of large glasses of sloe <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>gin was quickly
+apparent. Sir Malcolm became decidedly happier and even more
+confidential. He was considerably taken aback, however, when his host
+suddenly asked, with a disconcertingly intense glance:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite sure you are really innocent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Innocent!" exclaimed the baronet, leaping out of his chair. "Do you
+mean to tell me you doubt it? Do you actually believe I am capable of
+killing a man in cold blood? Especially the honoured head of my own
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington seemed to suppress a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he, "I don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir," said the baronet haughtily, "kindly do not question my
+honour!"</p>
+
+<p>This time Carrington allowed his smile to appear.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Sir Malcolm," he said, "pull yourself together, and listen to
+a few words."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Malcolm looked extremely surprised, but obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"What I am going to say is in the strictest confidence and you must give
+me your word not to repeat one single thing I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>His serious manner evidently impressed the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"I give you my word, sir," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, in the first place, I am a detective."</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds Sir Malcolm stared at him in silence and then burst
+into a hearty laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Good egg, sir!" said he. "Good egg! If I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>had not finished my sloe gin
+I should drink to your health!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Carrington's turn to look disconcerted. Recovering himself he
+said with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have another glass of sloe gin when you have grasped the
+situation. I assure you I am actually a detective&mdash;or, rather, a private
+enquiry agent."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Malcolm shook a knowing head.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow," said he, "you can't really pull my leg like that. I
+can see perfectly well you are a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"I appreciate the compliment," said Carrington, "but just let me tell
+you what was in the telegram which has brought you here. It ran&mdash;'Come
+immediately urgent news don't answer please don't delay. Cicely
+Farmond.'"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Malcolm's mouth fell open.</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;how do you know that?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I wrote it myself. Miss Farmond is quite unaware it was sent."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet began to look indignant.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;er&mdash;why the devil, sir&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am a detective," interrupted Carrington, "and I wished to see
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Malcolm evidently began to grasp the situation at last.</p>
+
+<p>"What about?" he asked, and his face was a little paler already.</p>
+
+<p>"About this murder. I wanted to satisfy myself that you were&mdash;or were
+not&mdash;innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;er&mdash;how?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p><p>"By your actions, conversation, and appearance. I am now satisfied, Sir
+Malcolm."</p>
+
+<p>"That I am innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then will this be the end of my&mdash;er&mdash;painful position?"</p>
+
+<p>"So far as your own anxiety goes; yes. You need no longer fear arrest."</p>
+
+<p>The first look of relief which had rushed to the young man's face became
+clouded with a suggestion of chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"But won't people then&mdash;er&mdash;talk about me any longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I can't prevent that&mdash;for a little longer."</p>
+
+<p>The last of the baronet's worries seemed to disappear.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he said complacently. "Well, let them talk about me!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington rose and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"You deserve a third sloe gin!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>While the third sloe gin was being brought, he very deliberately and
+very thoughtfully selected and lit a cigarette, and then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me specifically that Mr. Rattar was the first person to inform
+you that suspicion was directed against you, and that he advised you to
+keep away, and for choice to go abroad. There is no doubt about that, is
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Sir Malcolm, "he didn't specifically advise me to go
+abroad, but certainly his letter seemed to suggest it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p><p>"Ah!" said Carrington and gazed into space for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am now going to take the liberty of suggesting your best course of
+action," he resumed. "In the first place, there is no object in your
+going out to Keldale House, so I think you had better not. In the second
+place, you had better call on Mr. Rattar first thing to-morrow and
+consult him about any point of business that strikes you as a sufficient
+reason for coming so far to see him. I may tell you that he has given
+you extremely bad advice, so you can be as off-hand and brief with him
+as you like. Get out of his office, in fact, as quick as you can."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I always want to do," said the baronet. "I can't stick the
+old fellow at any price."</p>
+
+<p>"If he asks you whether you have seen me, say you have just seen me but
+didn't fancy me, and don't give him the least idea of what we talked
+about. You can add that you left the Kings Arms because you didn't care
+for my company."</p>
+
+<p>"But am I to leave it?" exclaimed the young man.</p>
+
+<p>Carrington nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It's better that we shouldn't stay in the same hotel. It will support
+your account of me. And finally, get back to London by the first train
+after you have seen Mr. Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>"Then aren't you working with old Simon?" enquired Sir Malcolm.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in a sense, I am," said Carrington carelessly, "but I daresay you
+have found him yourself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>an arbitrary, meddlesome old boy, and I like to
+be independent."</p>
+
+<p>"By Gad, so do I," the baronet agreed cordially. "I am quite with you
+about old Silent Simon. I'll do just exactly as you suggest. He won't
+get any change out of me!"</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said Carrington, "get your bag taken to any other hotel you
+like. I'll explain everything to Miss Peterkin."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Malcolm by this time had finished his third sloe gin and he said
+farewell with extreme affability, while his friend Mr. Carrington
+dropped into the manageress' room and explained that the poor young man
+had seemed so nervous and depressed that he had advised his departure
+for a quieter lodging. He added with great conviction that as a sporting
+man he would lay long odds on Sir Malcolm's innocence, and that between
+Miss Peterkin and himself he didn't believe a word of the current
+scandals.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Mr. Carrington joined the choice spirits in the manageress'
+room, and they had a very long and entertaining gossip. The conversation
+turned this time chiefly on the subject of Mr. Simon Rattar, and if by
+the end of it the agreeable visitor was not fully acquainted with the
+history of that local celebrity, of his erring partner, and of his
+father before him, it was not the fault of Miss Peterkin and her
+friends. Nor could it fairly be said to be the visitor's fault either,
+for his questions were as numerous as they were intelligent.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LETTER AGAIN</h3>
+
+<p>On the morning after Sir Malcolm's fleeting visit to the Kings Arms, the
+manageress was informed by her friend Mr. Carrington that he would like
+a car immediately after breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"I really must be a little more energetic, or I'll never find anything
+to suit me," he smiled in his most leisurely manner. "I am thinking of
+running out to Keldale to have another look at the place. It might be
+worth taking if they'd let it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you've been to Keldale already, Mr. Carrington!" said Miss
+Peterkin. "I wonder you don't have a look at one of the other places."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm one of those fellows who make up their minds slowly," he explained.
+"But when we cautious fellows do make up our minds, well, something
+generally happens!"</p>
+
+<p>Circumstances, however, prevented this enthusiastic sportsman from
+making any further enquiry as to the letting of the Keldale shootings.
+When Bisset appeared at the front door consternation was in his face. It
+was veiled under a restrained professional manner, but not sufficiently
+to escape his visitor's eye.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?" he asked at once.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p><p>Bisset looked for a moment into his sympathetic face, and then in grave
+whisper said:</p>
+
+<p>"Step in, sir, and I'll tell ye."</p>
+
+<p>He led him into a small morning room, carefully closed the door, and
+announced,</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Farmond has gone, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone. When and how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Run away, sir, on her bicycle yesterday afternoon and deil a sign of
+her since!"</p>
+
+<p>"Any luggage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a wee suit case."</p>
+
+<p>"No message left, or anything of that kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word or a line, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil!" murmured Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just exac'ly it, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"No known cause? No difficulty with Lady Cromarty or anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that's come to my ears, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington stared blankly into space and remained silent for several
+minutes. Bisset watched his assistant with growing anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, sir," he burst forth at last, "you're not thinking this goes to
+indicate any deductions or datas showing she's guilty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm dashed if I know what to think," murmured Carrington still lost in
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he turned his eyeglass on the other.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "the day before yesterday I passed that girl
+riding on a bicycle towards Keldale House after dark! Do you know where
+she had been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Into the town, sir. I knew she was out, of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>course, and she just
+mentioned afterwards where she had been."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any idea whom she saw or what she did?"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no datas, sir, that's the plain fac'."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't think of any likely errand to take her in so late in the
+afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. In fact, I mind thinking it was funny like her riding about
+alone in the dark like yon, for she's feared of being out by hersel' in
+the dark; I know that."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington reflected for a few moments longer and then seemed to dismiss
+the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," he asked, "can you remember if, by any chance, Sir
+Reginald had any difficulty or trouble or row of any kind with anyone
+whatever during, say, the month previous to his death? I mean with any
+of the tenants, or his tradesmen&mdash;or his lawyer? Take your time and
+think carefully."</p>
+
+<hr class="medium" />
+
+<p>Carrington dismissed his car at Mr. Rattar's office. When he was shown
+into the lawyer's room, he exhibited a greater air of keenness than
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Rattar," said he, "you'll be interested to hear that I've got
+rather a new point of view with regard to this case."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" said Simon, and his lips twitched a little as he spoke. There
+was no doubt that he was not looking so well as usual. His face had
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>seemed drawn and worried last time Carrington had seen him; now it
+might almost be termed haggard.</p>
+
+<p>"I find," continued Carrington, "that Sir Reginald displayed a curious
+and unaccountable irritability before his death. I hear, for instance,
+that a letter from you had upset him quite unduly."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington paused for an instant, and his monocle was full on Simon all
+the time, and yet he did not seem to notice the very slight but distinct
+start which the lawyer gave, for he continued with exactly the same
+confidential air.</p>
+
+<p>"These seem to me very suggestive symptoms, Mr. Rattar, and I am
+wondering very seriously whether the true solution of his mysterious
+death is not&mdash;" he paused for an instant and then in a low and earnest
+voice said, "suicide!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistake about the lawyer's start this time, or about the
+curious fact that the strain seemed suddenly to relax, and a look of
+relief to take its place. And yet Carrington seemed quite oblivious to
+anything beyond his own striking new theory.</p>
+
+<p>"That's rather a suggestive idea, isn't it?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Very!" replied Simon with the air of one listening to a revelation.</p>
+
+<p>"How he managed to inflict precisely those injuries on himself is at
+present a little obscure," continued Carrington, "but no doubt a really
+expert medical opinion will be able to suggest an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>explanation. The
+theory fits all the other facts remarkably, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Remarkably," agreed Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"This letter of yours, for instance, was a very ordinary business
+communication, I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Very ordinary," said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you have a copy of it in your letter book&mdash;and also Sir
+Reginald's reply?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause and then Simon's grunt seemed to be forced
+out of himself. But he followed the grunt with a more assured,
+"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"May I see them?"</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you think they are important?"</p>
+
+<p>"As bearing on Sir Reginald's state of mind only."</p>
+
+<p>Simon rang his bell and ordered the letter book to be brought in. While
+Carrington was examining it, his eyes never left his visitor's face, but
+they would have had to be singularly penetrating to discover a trace of
+any emotion there. Throughout his inspection, Carrington's air remained
+as imperturbable as though he were reading the morning paper.</p>
+
+<p>"According to these letters," he observed, "there seems to have been a
+trifling but rather curious misunderstanding. In accordance with written
+instructions of a fortnight previously, you had arranged to let a
+certain farm to a certain man, and Sir Reginald then complained that you
+had overlooked a conversation between those dates in which he had
+cancelled these instructions. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>He writes with a warmth that clearly
+indicates his own impression that this conversation had been perfectly
+explicit and that your forgetfulness or neglect of it was unaccountable,
+and he proposes to go into this and one or two other matters in the
+course of a conversation with you which should have taken place that
+afternoon. You then reply that you are too busy to come out so soon, but
+will call on the following morning. In the meantime Sir Reginald is
+murdered, and so the conversation never takes place and no explanation
+passes between you. Those are the facts, aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked up from the letter book as he spoke and there was no doubt he
+noticed something now. Indeed, the haggard look on Simon's face and a
+bead of perspiration on his forehead were so striking, and so singular
+in the case of such a tough customer, that the least observant&mdash;or the
+most circumspect&mdash;must have stared. Carrington's stare lasted only for
+the fraction of a second, and then he was polishing his eyeglass with
+his handkerchief in the most indifferent way.</p>
+
+<p>A second or two passed before Simon answered, and then he said abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Reginald was mistaken. No such conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me literally that <i>no</i> such conversation took
+place? Was it a mere delusion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;practically. Yes, a delusion."</p>
+
+<p>"Suicide!" declared Carrington with an air of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>profound conviction.
+"Yes, Mr. Rattar, that is evidently the solution. The unfortunate man
+had clearly not been himself, probably for some little time previously.
+Well, I'll make a few more enquiries, but I fancy my work is nearly at
+an end. Good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>He rose and was half way across the room, when he stopped and asked, as
+if the idea had suddenly occurred to him:</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, I hear that Miss Farmond was in seeing you a couple of days
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>Again Simon seemed to start a little, and again he hesitated for an
+instant and then replied with a grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Had she any news?" asked the other.</p>
+
+<p>Simon grunted again and shook his head, and Carrington threw him a
+friendly nod and went out.</p>
+
+<p>He maintained the same air till he had turned down a bye street and was
+alone, and only then he gave vent to his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm dashed!" he muttered, "absolutely jiggered!"</p>
+
+<p>All the while he shook his head and slashed with his walking stick
+through the air. There was no doubt that Mr. Carrington was thoroughly
+and genuinely puzzled.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SYMPATHETIC STRANGER</h3>
+
+<p>Carrington's soliloquy was interrupted by the appearance of someone on
+the pavement ahead of him. He pulled himself together, took out his
+watch, and saw that it was still only twenty minutes past twelve. After
+thinking for a moment, he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"I might as well try 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon he set out at a brisk walk, and a few minutes later was
+closeted with Superintendent Sutherland in the Police Station. He began
+by handing the Superintendent a card with the name of Mr. F. T.
+Carrington on it, but with quite a different address from that on the
+card he had sent up to Mr. Rattar. It was, in fact, his business card,
+and the Superintendent regarded him with respectful interest.</p>
+
+<p>After explaining his business and his preference for not disclosing it
+to the public, he went briefly over the main facts of the case.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you've got them all, sir," said the Superintendent, when he had
+finished. "There really seems nothing to add and no new light to be seen
+anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid so," agreed Carrington. "I'm afraid so."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>In fact he seemed so entirely resigned to this conclusion that he
+allowed, and even encouraged, the conversation to turn to other matters.
+The activity and enterprise of the Procurator Fiscal seemed to have
+particularly impressed him, and this led to a long talk on the subject
+of Mr. Simon Rattar. The Superintendent was also a great admirer of the
+Fiscal and assured Mr. Carrington that not only was Mr. Simon himself
+the most capable and upright of men, but that the firm of Rattar had
+always conducted its business in a manner that was above reproach. Mr.
+Carrington had made one or two slightly cynical but perfectly
+good-natured comments on lawyers in general, but he got no countenance
+from the Superintendent so far as Mr. Rattar and his business were
+concerned.</p>
+
+<p>"But hadn't he some trouble at one time with his brother?" his visitor
+enquired.</p>
+
+<p>The Superintendent admitted that this was so, and also that Sir Reginald
+Cromarty had suffered thereby, but he was quite positive that this
+trouble was entirely a thing of the past. There was no doubt that this
+information had a somewhat depressing effect even on the good-humoured
+Mr. Carrington, and at last he confessed with a candid air:</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is, Superintendent, that I have a theory Sir Reginald was
+worrying about something before his death, and as all his business
+affairs are conducted by Mr. Rattar, I was wondering whether he had any
+difficulties in that direction. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>Now about this bad brother of Mr.
+Rattar's&mdash;there couldn't be trouble still outstanding, you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. George Rattar was out of the firm, sir, years ago," the
+Superintendent assured him. "No, it couldna be that."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. George Rattar certainly died a short time ago, did he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can show you the paper with his death in it. I kept it as a kind of
+record of the end of him."</p>
+
+<p>He fetched the paper and Carrington after looking at it for a few
+minutes, remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"I see here an advertisement stating that Mr. Rattar lost a ring."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the Superintendent, "that was a funny thing because it's not
+often a gentleman loses a ring off his hand. I've half wondered since
+whether it was connected with a story of Mr. Rattar's maid that his
+house had been broken into."</p>
+
+<p>"When was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Curiously enough it was the very night Sir Reginald was murdered."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's chair squeaked on the floor as he sat up sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"The very night of the murder?" he repeated. "Why has this never come
+out before?"</p>
+
+<p>The stolid Superintendent looked at him in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"But what connection could there possibly be, sir? Mr. Rattar thought
+nothing of it himself and just mentioned it so that I would know it was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>a mere story, in case his servants started talking about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you yourself seemed just now to think that it might not be a mere
+story."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was just a kind o' idea," said the Superintendent easily. "It
+only came in my mind when the ring was never recovered."</p>
+
+<p>"What were the exact facts?" demanded Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said the Superintendent vaguely, "there was something about a
+window looking as if it had been entered, but really, sir, Mr. Rattar
+paid so little attention to it himself, and we were that taken up by the
+Keldale case that I made no special note of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the servants ever speak of it again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody was that taken up about the murder that I doubt if they've
+minded on it any further."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington was silent for a few moments.</p>
+
+<p>"Are the servants intelligent girls?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite average intelligent. In fact, the housemaid is a particular
+decent sort of a girl."</p>
+
+<p>At this point, Mr. Carrington's interest in the subject seemed to wane,
+and after a few pleasant generalities, he thanked the Superintendent for
+his courtesy, and strolled down to the hotel for lunch. This time his
+air as he walked was noticeably brisker and his eye decidedly brighter.</p>
+
+<p>About three o'clock that afternoon came a ring at the front door bell of
+Mr. Simon Rattar's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>commodious villa. Mary MacLean declared afterwards
+that she had a presentiment when she heard it, but then the poor girl
+had been rather troubled with presentiments lately. When she opened the
+front door she saw a particularly polite and agreeable looking gentleman
+adorned with that unmistakeable mark of fashion, a single eyeglass; and
+the gentleman saw a pleasant looking but evidently high strung and
+nervous young woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mr. Simon Rattar at home?" he enquired in a courteous voice and with
+a soothing smile that won her heart at once; and on hearing that Mr.
+Rattar always spent the afternoons at his office and would not return
+before five o'clock, his disappointment was so manifest that she felt
+sincerely sorry for him.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated and was about to go away when a happy idea struck him.</p>
+
+<p>"Might I come in and write a line to be left for him?" he asked, and
+Mary felt greatly relieved at being able to assist the gentleman to
+assuage his disappointment in this way.</p>
+
+<p>She led him into the library and somehow or other by the time she had
+got him ink and paper and pen she found herself talking to this
+distinguished looking stranger in the most friendly way. It was not that
+he was forward or gallant, far from it; simply that he was so nice and
+so remarkably sympathetic. Within five minutes of making his
+acquaintance, Mary felt that she could tell him almost anything.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p><p>This sympathetic visitor made several appreciative remarks about the
+house and garden, and then, just as he had dipped his pen into the ink,
+he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"Rather a tempting house for burglars, I should think&mdash;if such people
+existed in these peaceable parts."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but they do, sir," she assured him. "We had one in this very house
+one night!"</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HOUSE OF MYSTERIES</h3>
+
+<p>The sympathetic stranger almost laid down his pen, he was so interested
+by this unexpected reply.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he exclaimed. "Really a burglary in this house? I say, how
+awfully interesting! When did it happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said Mary in an impressive voice, "it's a most
+extraordinary thing, but it was actually the very self same night of Sir
+Reginald's murder!"</p>
+
+<p>So surprised and interested was the visitor that he actually did lay
+down his pen this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it the same man, do you think?" he asked in a voice that seemed to
+thrill with sympathetic excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I've sometimes wondered!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me how it happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said Mary, "it was on the very morning that we heard about
+Sir Reginald&mdash;only before we'd heard, and I was pulling up the blinds in
+the wee sitting room when I says to myself. 'There's been some one in at
+this window!'"</p>
+
+<p>"The wee sitting room," repeated her visitor. "Which is that?"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed so genuinely interested that before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>she realised what
+liberties she was taking in the master's house, she had led him into a
+small sitting room at the end of a short passage leading out of the
+hall. It had evidently been intended for a smoking room or study when
+the villa was built, but was clearly never used by Mr. Rattar, for it
+contained little furniture beyond bookcases. Its window looked on to the
+side of the garden and not towards the drive, and a grass lawn lay
+beneath it, while the room itself was obviously the most isolated, and
+from a burglarious point of view the most promising, on the ground
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the room, sir," said Mary. "And look! You still can see the
+marks on the sash."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the visitor thoughtfully, "they seem to have been made by a
+tacketty boot."</p>
+
+<p>"And forbye that, there was a wee bit mud on the floor and a tacket mark
+in that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was the window shut or open?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut, sir; and the most extraordinary thing was that it was snibbed
+too! That's what made the master say it couldna have been a burglar at
+all, or how did he snib the window after he went out again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then Mr. Rattar didn't believe it was a burglar?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no, sir," said Mary, a little reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Was anything stolen?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; that was another funny thing. But it must have been a
+burglar!"</p>
+
+<p>"What about the other windows, and the doors? Were they all fastened in
+the morning?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, sir, it's the truth they were," she admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did Mr. Rattar do with the piece of mud?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just threw it out of the window."</p>
+
+<p>The sympathetic stranger crossed to the window and looked out.</p>
+
+<p>"Grass underneath, I see," he observed. "No footprints outside, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the police come down and make enquiries?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, the master said he would inform the pollis, but then came
+the news of the murder, and no one had any thoughts for anything else
+after that."</p>
+
+<p>The sympathetic visitor stood by the window very thoughtfully for a few
+moments, and then turned and rewarded her with the most charming smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you awfully for showing me all this," said he. "By the way,
+what's your name?" She told him and he added with a still nicer smile,
+"Thank you, Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>They returned to the library and he sat down before the table again, but
+just as he was going to pick up the pen a thought seemed to strike him.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," he said, "I remember hearing something about the loss of a
+ring. The burglar didn't take that, did he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir, I remember the advertisement was in the paper before the
+night of the burglary."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p><p>He opened his eyes and then smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Brilliant police you've got!" he murmured, and took up the pen again.</p>
+
+<p>"There was another burglar here and he might have taken it!" said Mary
+in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor once more dropped the pen and looked up with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Another burglar!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, this one didn't actually burgle, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She thought of the master if he chanced to learn how she had been
+gossiping, and her sentence was cut short in the midst.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mary! You were saying?" cooed the persuasive visitor, and Mary
+succumbed again and told him of that night when a shadow moved into the
+trees and footprints were left in the gravel outside the library window,
+and the master looked so strangely in the morning. Her visitor was so
+interested that once she began it was really impossible to stop.</p>
+
+<p>"How very strange!" he murmured, and there was no doubt he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>"But about the master's ring, sir&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"You say he looked as though he were being <i>watched</i>?" he interrupted,
+but it was quite a polite and gentle interruption.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; but the funny thing about losing the ring was that he never
+could get it off his finger before! I've seen him trying to, but oh, it
+wouldn't nearly come off!"</p>
+
+<p>Again he sat up and gazed at her.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p><p>"Another mystery!" he murmured. "He lost a ring which wouldn't come off
+his finger? By Jove! That's very rum. Are there any more mysteries,
+Mary, connected with this house?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated and then in a very low voice answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir; there was one that gave me even a worse turn!"</p>
+
+<p>By this time her visitor seemed to have given up all immediate thoughts
+of writing his note to Mr. Rattar. He turned his back to the table and
+looked at her with benevolent calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's hear it, Mary," he said gently.</p>
+
+<p>And then she told him the story of that dreadful night when the unknown
+visitor came for the box of old papers. He gazed at her, listening very
+attentively, and then in a soothing voice asked her several questions,
+more particularly when all these mysterious events occurred.</p>
+
+<p>"And are these all your troubles now, Mary?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>He asked so sympathetically that at last she even ventured to tell him
+her latest trouble. Till he fairly charmed it out of her, she had shrunk
+from telling him anything that seemed to reflect directly on her master
+or to be a giving away of his concerns. But now she confessed that Mr.
+Rattar's conduct, Mr. Rattar's looks, and even Mr. Rattar's very
+infrequent words had been troubling her strangely. How or why his looks
+and words should trouble her, she knew not precisely, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>and his conduct,
+generally speaking, she admitted was as regular as ever.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean that just now and then he takes a wee drop too much?"
+enquired her visitor helpfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir," said she, "the master never did take more than what a
+gentleman should, and he's not a smoking gentleman either&mdash;quite a
+principle against smokers, he has, sir. Oh, it's nothing like that!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked over her shoulder fearfully as though the walls might repeat
+her words to the master, as she told him of the curious and disturbing
+thing. Mr. Rattar had been till lately a gentleman of the most exact
+habits, and then all of a sudden he had taken to walking in his garden
+in a way he never did before. First she had noticed him, about the time
+of the burglary and the removal of the papers, walking there in the
+mornings. That perhaps was not so very disturbing, but since then he had
+changed this for a habit of slipping out of the house every night&mdash;every
+single night!</p>
+
+<p>"And walking in the garden!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I've heard his footsteps on the gravel, sir! Even when it has
+been raining I've heard them. Perhaps sometimes he goes outside the
+garden, but I've never heard of anyone meeting him on the road or
+streets. It's in the garden I've heard the master's steps, sir, and if
+you had been with him as long as I've been, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>knew how regular his
+habits was, you'd know how I'm feeling, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do know, Mary; I quite understand," Mr. Carrington assured her in his
+soothing voice, and there could be no doubt he was wondering just as
+hard as she.</p>
+
+<p>"What o'clock does he generally go out?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"At nine o'clock almost exactly every night, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington looked thoughtfully out of the window into the garden,
+and then at last looked down at the ink and paper and pen. Not a word
+was written on the paper yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Mary," he said very confidentially. "I am a friend of Mr.
+Rattar's and I am sure you would like me to try and throw a little light
+on this. Perhaps something is troubling him and I could help you to
+clear it up."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir," she cried, "you are very kind! I wish you could!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the best thing then," he suggested, "would be for me not to
+leave a note for him after all, and for you not even to mention that I
+have called. As he knows me pretty well he would be almost sure to ask
+you whether I had come in and if I had left any message and so on, and
+then he might perhaps find out that we had been talking, and that
+wouldn't perhaps be pleasant for you, would it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my! No, indeed, it wouldn't!" she agreed. "I'm that feared of the
+master, sir, I'd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>never have him know I had been talking about him, or
+about anything that has happened in this house!"</p>
+
+<p>So, having come to this judicious decision, Mr. Carrington wished Mary
+the kindest of farewells and walked down the drive again. There could be
+no question he had plenty to think about now, though to judge from his
+expression, it seemed doubtful whether his thoughts were very clear.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION</h3>
+
+<p>The laird of Stanesland strode into the Kings Arms and demanded:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Carrington? What, having a cup of tea in his room? What's his
+number? 27&mdash;right! I'll walk right up, thanks."</p>
+
+<p>He walked right up, made the door rattle under his knuckles and strode
+jauntily in. There was no beating about the bush with Mr. Cromarty
+either in deed or word.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Carrington," said he, "don't trouble to look surprised. I
+guess you've seen right through me for some time back."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning&mdash;?" asked Carrington with his engaging smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning that I'm the unknown, unsuspected, and mysterious person who's
+putting up the purse. Don't pretend you haven't tumbled to that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," admitted Carrington, "I have tumbled."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew my sister had given the whole blamed show away! I take it you
+put your magnifying glass back in your pocket after your trip out to
+Stanesland?"</p>
+
+<p>"More or less," admitted Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ned, "that being so, I may as well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>tell you what my idea
+was. It mayn't have been very bright; still there was a kind of method
+in my madness. You see I wanted you to have an absolutely clear field
+and let you suspect me just as much as anybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"In short," smiled Carrington, "you wanted to start with the other
+horses and not just drop the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," agreed Ned. "But when my sister let out about that &pound;1200,
+and I saw that you must have spotted me, there didn't seem much point in
+keeping up the bluff, when I came to think it over. And since then, Mr.
+Carrington, something has happened that you ought to know and I decided
+to come and see you and talk to you straight."</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned smiled for an instant his approval of this prompt plunge into
+business, and then his face set hard.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a most extraordinary thing," said he, "and may strike you as
+hardly credible, but here's the plain truth put shortly. Yesterday
+afternoon Miss Farmond ran away." Carrington merely nodded, and he
+exclaimed, "What! You know then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I learned from Bisset this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I see. Did you know I'd happened to see her start and gone after
+her and brought her back?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's interest was manifest.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he, "that's quite news to me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p><p>"Well, I did, and I learnt the whole story from her. You can't guess who
+advised her to bolt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can," said Carrington quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Either you're on the wrong track, or you've cut some ice, Mr.
+Carrington. It was Simon Rattar!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>"How the devil did you guess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me Miss Farmond's story first and I'll tell you how I guessed."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she spotted you were a detective&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington started and then laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Confound these women!" said he. "They're so infernally independent of
+reason, they always spot things they shouldn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then she discovered she was suspected and so she got in a stew, poor
+girl, and went to see Rattar. Do you know what he told her? That I was
+employing you and meant to convict Sir Malcolm and her and hang them
+with my own hands!"</p>
+
+<p>"The old devil!" cried Carrington. "Well, no wonder she bolted, Mr.
+Cromarty!"</p>
+
+<p>"But even that was done by Simon's advice. He actually gave her an
+address in London to go to."</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty thorough!" murmured Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what do you make of that? And what ought one to do? And, by the
+way, how did you guess Simon was at the bottom of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment before
+answering.</p>
+
+<p>"We are in pretty deep waters, Mr. Cromarty," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>he said slowly. "As to
+what I make of it&mdash;nothing as yet. As to what we are to do&mdash;also nothing
+in the meantime. But as to how I guessed, well I can tell you this much.
+I had to get information from someone, and so I called on Mr. Rattar and
+told him who I was&mdash;in strict confidence, by the way, so that he had no
+business to tell Miss Farmond or anybody else. I had started off, I may
+say, with a wrong guess: I thought Rattar himself was probably either my
+employer or acting for my employer, and when I suggested this he told me
+I was right."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" shouted Ned. "The grunting old devil told you that?" He stared
+at the other for a moment, and then demanded, "Why did he tell you that
+lie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fortune played my cards for me. Quite innocently and unintentionally. I
+tempted him. I said if I could be sure he was my employer I'd keep him
+in touch with everything I was doing. I had also let him know that my
+employer had made it an absolute condition that his name was not to
+appear. He evidently wanted badly to know what I was doing, and thought
+he was safe not to be given away."</p>
+
+<p>"Then have you kept him in touch with everything you have done?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Mr. Cromarty, my cards were being played for me. Five
+minutes later I asked him who benefited by the will and I learned that
+you had scored the precise sum of &pound;1200."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p><p>"I hadn't thought of that when I made my limit &pound;1200!" exclaimed Ned.
+"Lord, you must have bowled me out at once! Of course, you spotted the
+coincidence straight off?"</p>
+
+<p>"But Rattar didn't! I pushed it under his nose and he didn't see it!
+Inside of one second I'd asked myself whether it was possible for an
+astute man like that not to notice such a coincidence supposing he had
+really guaranteed me exactly that sum&mdash;an extraordinarily large and
+curious sum too."</p>
+
+<p>"I like these simple riddles," said Ned with a twinkle in his single
+eye. "I guess your answer to yourself was 'No!'"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I call having my cards played for me. I knew then that the
+man was lying; so I threw him off the scent, changed the subject, and
+did <i>not</i> keep Mr. Simon Rattar in touch with any single thing I did
+after that."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for you!" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Good so far, but the next riddle wasn't of the simple kind&mdash;or else I'm
+even a bigger ass than I endeavour to look! What was the man's game?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you spotted it yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Simon Rattar's game is the toughest proposition in the way of
+puzzles I've ever struck. While I'm at it I'll just tell you one or two
+other small features of that first interview."</p>
+
+<p>He lit a cigarette and leant over the arm of his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>chair towards his
+visitor, his manner growing keener as he talked.</p>
+
+<p>"I happened to have met Miss Farmond that morning and my interview had
+knocked the bottom out of the story that she was concerned in the crime.
+I had satisfied myself also that she was not engaged to Sir Malcolm."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you discover that?" exclaimed Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Her manner when I mentioned him. But I found that old Rattar was wrong
+on both these points and apparently determined to remain wrong. Of
+course, it might have been a mere error of judgment, but at the same
+time he had no evidence whatever against her, and it seemed to suggest a
+curious bias. And finally, I didn't like the look of the man."</p>
+
+<p>"And then you came out to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I went out to Keldale House first and then out to you. I next
+interviewed Sir Malcolm."</p>
+
+<p>"Interviewed Malcolm Cromarty!" exclaimed Ned. "Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"He came up to see me," explained Carrington easily, "and the gentleman
+had scarcely spoken six sentences before I shared your opinion of him,
+Mr. Cromarty&mdash;a squirt but not homicidal. He gave me, however, one very
+interesting piece of information. Rattar had advised him to keep away
+from these parts, and for choice to go abroad. I need hardly ask whether
+you consider that sound advice to give a suspected man."</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me nearly as rotten advice as he gave Miss Farmond."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p><p>"Exactly. So when I heard that Miss Farmond had flown and discovered she
+had paid a visit to Mr. Rattar the previous day, I guessed who had given
+her the advice."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington sat back in his chair with folded arms and looked at his
+employer with a slight smile, as much as to say, "Tell me the rest of
+the story!" Cromarty returned his gaze in silence, his heaviest frown
+upon his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," said Ned at last, "that Simon Rattar is mixed up in
+this business&mdash;sure! He has something to hide and he's trying to put
+people off the scent, I'll lay my bottom dollar!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is he hiding?" enquired Carrington, looking up at the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington shook his head, his eyes still gazing dreamily upwards.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to Heaven I knew what to think!" he murmured; and then he
+resumed a brisker air and continued, "I am ready to suspect Simon Rattar
+of any crime in the calendar&mdash;leaving out petty larceny and probably
+bigamy. But he's the last man to do either good or evil unless he saw a
+dividend at the end, and where does he score by taking any part or
+parcel in conniving at or abetting or concealing evidence or anything
+else, so far as this particular crime is concerned? He has lost his best
+client, with whom he was on excellent terms and whose family he had
+served all his life, and he has now got instead an unsatisfactory young
+ass whom he suspects, or says he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>suspects, of murder, and who so
+loathes Rattar that, as far as I can judge, he will probably take his
+business away from him. To suspect Rattar of actually conniving at, or
+taking any part in the actual crime itself is, on the face of it, to
+convict either Rattar or oneself of lunacy!"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew Sir Reginald pretty well," said Ned, "but of course I didn't
+know much about his business affairs. He hadn't been having any trouble
+with Rattar, had he?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington threw him a quick, approving glance.</p>
+
+<p>"We are thinking on the same lines," said he, "and I have unearthed one
+very odd little misunderstanding, but it seems to have been nothing more
+than that, and, apart from it, all accounts agree that there was no
+trouble of any kind or description."</p>
+
+<p>He took a cigarette out of his case and struck a match.</p>
+
+<p>"There must be <i>some</i> motive for everything one does&mdash;even for smoking
+this cigarette. If I disliked cigarettes, knew smoking was bad for me,
+and stood in danger of being fined if I was caught doing it, why should
+I smoke? I can see no point whatever in Rattar's taking the smallest
+share even in diverting the course of justice by a hair's breadth. He
+and you and I have to all appearances identical interests in the
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wiser than I am," said Ned simply, but with a grim look in his
+eye, "but all I can say <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>is I am going out with my gun to look for Simon
+Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you'll have to catch him at something a little better known
+to the charge-sheets than giving bad advice to a lady client, before
+it's safe to fire!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"But, look here, Carrington, have you collected no other facts whatever
+about this case?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington shot him a curious glance, but answered nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well," said Ned, "if you don't want to say anything yet, don't say
+it. Play your hand as you think best."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cromarty," replied Carrington, "I assure you I don't want to make
+facts into mysteries, but when they <i>are</i> mysteries&mdash;well, I like to
+think 'em over a bit before I trust myself to talk. In the course of
+this very afternoon I've collected an assortment either of facts or
+fiction that seem to have broken loose from a travelling nightmare."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind telling where you got 'em?" asked Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Chiefly from Rattar's housemaid, a very excellent but somewhat
+high-strung and imaginative young woman, and how much to believe of what
+she told me I honestly don't know. And the more one can believe, the
+worse the puzzle gets! However, there is one statement which I hope to
+be able to check. It may throw some light on the lady's veracity
+generally. Meantime I am like a man trying to build a house of what may
+be bricks or may be paper bags."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p><p>Ned rose with his usual prompt decision.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said he. "And I guess you find one better company than two at
+this particular moment. I won't shoot Simon Rattar till I hear from you,
+though by Gad, I'm tempted to kick him just to be going on with! But
+look here, Carrington, if my services will ever do you the least bit of
+good&mdash;in fact, so long as I'm not actually in the way&mdash;just send me a
+wire and I'll come straight. You won't refuse me that?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington looked at the six feet two inches of pure lean muscle and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely!" he said. "That's not the sort of offer I refuse. I won't
+hesitate to wire if there's anything happening. But don't count on it. I
+can't see any business doing just yet."</p>
+
+<p>Ned held out his hand, and then suddenly said, "You don't see any
+business doing just yet? But you feel you're on his track, sure! Now,
+don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington glanced at him out of an eye half quizzical, half abstracted.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose track?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Ned paused for a second and then rapped out:</p>
+
+<p>"Was it Simon himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"If we were all living in a lunatic asylum, probably yes! If we were
+living in the palace of reason, certainly not&mdash;the thing's ridiculous!
+What we are actually living in, however, is&mdash;" he broke off and gazed
+into space.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"A blank fog!"</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE GARDEN</h3>
+
+<p>It was a few minutes after half past eight when Miss Peterkin chanced to
+meet her friend Mr. Carrington in the entrance hall of the Kings Arms.
+He was evidently going out, and she noticed he was rather differently
+habited from usual, wearing now a long, light top coat of a very dark
+grey hue, and a dark coloured felt hat. They were not quite so becoming
+as his ordinary garb, she thought, but then Mr. Carrington looked the
+gentleman in anything.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to desert us to-night, Mr. Carrington?" asked the
+manageress.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a letter or two to post," said he, "they are an excuse for a
+stroll. I want a breath of fresh air."</p>
+
+<p>He closed the glass door of the hotel behind him and stood for a moment
+on the pavement in the little circle of radiance thrown by the light of
+the hall. Mr. Carrington's leisurely movements undoubtedly played no
+small part in the unsuspecting confidence which he inspired. Out of the
+light he turned, strolling easily, down the long stretch of black
+pavement with its few checkers of lamplight here and there, and the
+empty, silent street of the little country town at his side. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>It was a
+very dark, moonless night, and the air was almost quite still. Looking
+upward, he could see a rare star or two twinkle, but all the rest of the
+Heavens were under cloud. Judging from his contented expression the
+night seemed to please him.</p>
+
+<p>He passed the post office, but curiously enough omitted to drop any
+letters into the box. The breath of fresh air seemed, in fact, to be his
+sole preoccupation. Moving with a slightly quickened stride, but still
+easily, he turned out of that street into another even quieter and
+darker, and in a short time he was nearing the lights of the station. He
+gave these a wide birth, however, and presently was strolling up a very
+secluded road, with a few villas and gardens upon the one side, and
+black space on the other. There for a moment he stopped and transferred
+something from the pocket of his inner coat into the pocket of his top
+coat. It was a small compact article, and a ray of light from a
+lamp-post behind him gleamed for an instant upon a circular metal
+orifice at one end of it.</p>
+
+<p>Before he moved on, he searched the darkness intently, before him and
+behind, but saw no sign of any other passenger. And then he turned the
+rim of his dark felt hat down over his face, stepped out briskly for
+some fifty yards further, and turned sharply through an open gate. Once
+again he stopped and listened keenly, standing now in the shadow of the
+trees beside the drive. In his dark top coat and with his hat turned
+over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>his face he was as nearly invisible as a man could be, but even
+this did not seem to satisfy him, for in a moment he gently parted the
+branches of the trees and pushed through the belt of planting to the
+lawn beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The villa of Mr. Simon Rattar was now half seen beyond the curving end
+of the belt that bounded the drive. It was dim against the night sky,
+and the garden was dimmer still. Carrington kept on the grass, following
+the outside of the trees, and then again plunged into them when they
+curved round at the top of the drive. Pushing quietly through, he
+reached the other side, and there his expedition in search of fresh air
+seemed to have found its goal, for he leaned his back against a tree
+trunk, folded his arms, and waited.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking obliquely across a sweep of gravel, with the whole front
+of the house full in view. A ray came from the fanlight over the front
+door and a faint radiance escaped through the slats of the library
+blinds, but otherwise the villa was a lump of darkness in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>One minute after another passed without event and with scarcely even the
+faintest sound. Then, all at once, a little touch of breeze sprang up
+and sighed overhead through the tree tops, and from that time on, there
+was an alternation of utter silence with the sough of branches gently
+stirred.</p>
+
+<p>From a church tower in the town came the stroke of a clock. Carrington
+counted nine and his eyes were riveted on the front door now. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>Barely
+two more minutes passed before it opened quietly; a figure appeared for
+an instant in the light of the hall, and then, as quietly, the door
+closed again. There was a lull at the moment, but Carrington could hear
+not a sound. The figure must be standing very still on the doorstep,
+listening&mdash;evidently listening. And then the thickset form of Simon
+Rattar appeared dimly on the gravel, crossing to the lawn beyond. The
+pebbles crunched a little, but not very much. He seemed to be walking
+warily, and when he reached the further side he stood still again and
+Carrington could see his head moving, as though he were looking all
+round him through the night.</p>
+
+<p>But now the figure was moving again, coming this time straight for the
+head of the belt of trees. Carrington had drawn on a pair of dark
+gloves, and he raised his arm to cover the lower part of his face,
+looking over it through the branches, and facing the silent owner of the
+garden, till there were hardly three paces between them, the one on the
+lawn, the other in the heart of the plantation.</p>
+
+<p>And then when Simon was exactly opposite, he stopped dead. Carrington's
+other hand slipped noiselessly into the pocket where he had dropped that
+little article, but otherwise he never moved a muscle and he breathed
+very gently. The man on the turf seemed to be doing something with his
+hands, but what, it was impossible to say. The hands would move into his
+pocket and then out again, till quite three or four minutes had passed,
+and then came a sudden flash <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>of light. Carrington's right hand moved
+halfway out of his pocket and then was stayed, for by the light of the
+match he saw a very singular sight.</p>
+
+<p>Simon Rattar was not looking at him. His eyes were focussed just before
+his nose where the bowl of a pipe was beginning to glow. Carrington
+could hear the lips gently sucking, and then the aroma of tobacco came
+in a strong wave through the trees. Finally the match went out, and the
+glowing pipe began to move slowly along the turf, keeping close to the
+shelter of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>For a space Carrington stood petrified with wonder, and then, very
+carefully and quite silently, he worked his way through the trees out on
+to the turf, and at once fell on his hands and knees. Had any one been
+there to see, they would have beheld for the next five minutes a strange
+procession of two slowly moving along the edge of the plantation; a
+thickset man in front smoking a pipe and something like a great gorilla
+stalking him from behind. This procession skirted the plantation nearly
+down to the gate; then it turned at right angles, following the line of
+trees that bordered the wall between the garden and the road; and then
+again at right angles when it had reached the further corner of Mr.
+Rattar's demesne. Simon was now in a secluded path with shrubs on either
+hand, and instead of continuing his tour, he turned at the end of this
+path and paced slowly back again. And seeing this, the ape behind him
+squatted in the shadow of a laurel and waited.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p><p>A steady breeze was now blowing and the trees were sighing continuously.
+The sky at the same time cleared, and more and more stars came out till
+the eyes of the man behind the bush could follow the moving man from end
+to end of the path. The wind made the pipe smoke quickly, and presently
+a shower of sparks showed that it was being emptied, and in a minute or
+two another match flashed and a second pipe glowed faintly.</p>
+
+<p>Backwards and forwards paced the lawyer, and backwards and forwards
+again, but for the space of nearly an hour from his first coming out,
+that was everything that happened; and then at last came a tapping of
+the bowl and more sparks flying abroad in the wind. The procession was
+resumed, Simon in front, the ape-like form behind; but with a greater
+space between them this time as the night was clearer, and now they were
+heading for the house. The lawyer's steps crunched lightly on the gravel
+again, the front door opened and closed, and Carrington was alone in the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>Still crawling, he reached the shelter of the belt of trees and then
+rose and made swiftly for the gate, and out into the road. As he passed
+under a lamp, his face wore a totally new expression, compounded of
+wonder, excitement, and urgent thought. He was walking swiftly, and his
+pace never slackened, nor did the keenness leave his face, till he was
+back at the door of the Kings Arms Hotel. Before he entered, he took off
+his hat and turned up the brim again, and his manner <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>when he tapped at
+the door of the manageress' room was perfectly sedate. He let it appear,
+however, that he had some slight matter on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the name of Mr. Rattar's head clerk?" he enquired. "An oldish,
+prim looking man, with side whiskers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that will be Mr. Ison," said the manageress.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just remembered a bit of business I ought to have seen about
+to-night," he continued. "I can't very well call on Mr. Rattar himself
+at this hour, but I was thinking of looking up Mr. Ison if I could
+discover his whereabouts."</p>
+
+<p>"The boots will show you the way to his house," said she, and rang the
+bell.</p>
+
+<p>While waiting for the boots, Mr. Carrington asked another casual
+question or two and learned that Mr. Ison had been in the office since
+he was a boy. No man knew the house of Rattar throughout its two
+generations better than Mr. Ison, said Miss Peterkin; and she remembered
+afterwards that this information seemed to give Mr. Carrington peculiar
+satisfaction. He seemed so gratified, indeed, that she wondered a little
+at the time.</p>
+
+<p>And then the visitor and the boots set out together for the clerk's
+house, and at what hour her guest returned she was not quite sure. The
+boots, it seemed, had been instructed to wait up for him, but she had
+long gone to bed.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WALKING STICK</h3>
+
+<p>Had there been, next morning, any curious eyes to watch the conduct of
+the gentleman who had come to rent a sporting estate, they would
+probably have surmised that he had found something to please his fancy
+strangely, and yet that some perplexity still persisted. They would also
+have put him down as a much more excitable, and even demonstrative,
+young man than they had imagined. On a lonely stretch of shore hard by
+the little town he paced for nearly an hour, his face a record of the
+debate within, and his cane gesticulating at intervals.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden he stopped dead and his lips moved in a murmured
+ejaculation, and then after standing stock still for some minutes, he
+murmured again:</p>
+
+<p>"Ten to one on it!"</p>
+
+<p>His cane had been stationary during this pause. Now he raised it once
+more, but this time with careful attention. It was a light bamboo with a
+silver head. He looked at it thoughtfully, bent it this way and that,
+and then drove it into the sand and pressed it down. Though to the
+ordinary eye a very chaste and appropriate walking stick for such a
+gentleman as Mr. Carrington, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>the result of these tests seemed to
+dissatisfy him. He shook his head, and then with an air of resolution
+set out for the town.</p>
+
+<p>A little later he entered a shop where a number of walking sticks were
+on view and informed the proprietor that he desired to purchase
+something more suitable for the country than the cane he carried. In
+fact, his taste seemed now to run to the very opposite extreme, for the
+points on which he insisted were length, stiffness, and a long and if
+possible somewhat pointed ferule. At last he found one to his mind, left
+his own cane to be sent down to the hotel, and walked out with his new
+purchase.</p>
+
+<p>His next call was at Mr. Simon Rattar's villa. This morning he
+approached it without any of the curious shyness he had exhibited on the
+occasion of his recent visit. His advance was conducted openly up the
+drive and in an erect posture, and he crossed the gravel space boldly,
+and even jauntily, while his ring was firmness itself. Mary answered the
+bell, and her pleasure at seeing so soon again the sympathetic gentleman
+with the eyeglass was a tribute to his tact.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Mary," said he, with an air that combined very happily
+the courtesy of a gentleman with the freedom of an old friend, "Mr.
+Rattar is at his office, I presume."</p>
+
+<p>She said that he was, but this time the visitor exhibited neither
+surprise nor disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he would be," he confessed confidentially, "and I have come
+to see whether I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>couldn't do something to help you to get at the bottom
+of these troublesome goings on. Anything fresh happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"The master was out in the garden again last night, sir!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he really?" cried Mr. Carrington. "By Jove, how curious! We really
+must look into that: in fact, I've got an idea I want you to help me
+with. By the way, it sounds an odd question to ask about Mr. Rattar, but
+have you ever seen any sign of a pipe or tobacco in the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, never indeed!" said she. "The master has never been a smoking
+gentleman. Quite against smoking he's always been, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since you have known him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, and before that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" observed Mr. Carrington in a manner that suggested nothing
+whatever. "Well, Mary, I want this morning to have a look round the
+garden."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Because the master walks there at nights?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded confidentially.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but if he was to know you'd been interfering, sir&mdash;I mean what
+he'd think was interfering, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He shan't know," he assured her. "At least not if you'll do what I tell
+you. I want you to go now and have a nice quiet talk with cook for half
+an hour&mdash;half an hour by the kitchen clock, Mary. If you don't look out
+of the window, you won't know that I'm in the garden, and then nobody
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>can blame you whatever happens. We haven't mentioned the word 'garden'
+between us&mdash;so you are out of it! Remember that."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled so pleasantly that Mary smiled back.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember, sir," said she. "And cook is to be kept talking in the
+kitchen?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've tumbled to it exactly, Mary. If neither of you see me, neither
+of you know anything at all."</p>
+
+<p>She got a last glimpse of his sympathetic smile as she closed the door,
+and then she went faithfully to the kitchen for her talk with cook. It
+was quite a pleasant gossip at first, but half an hour is a long time to
+keep talking, when one has been asked not to stop sooner, and it so
+happened, moreover, that cook was somewhat busy that morning and began
+at length to indicate distinctly that unless her friend had some matter
+of importance to communicate she would regard further verbiage with
+disfavour. At this juncture Mary decided that twenty minutes was
+practically as good as half an hour, and the conversation ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Passing out of the kitchen regions, Mary glanced towards a distant
+window, hesitated, and then came to another decision. Mr. Carrington
+must surely have left the garden now, so there was no harm in peeping
+out. She went to the window and peeped.</p>
+
+<p>It was only a two minutes' peep, for Mr. Carrington had not left the
+garden, and at the end <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>of that space of time something very disturbing
+happened. But it was long enough to make her marvel greatly at her
+sympathetic friend's method of solving the riddle of the master's
+conduct. When she first saw him, he seemed to be smoothing the earth in
+one of the flower beds with his foot. Then he moved on a few paces,
+stopped, and drove his walking stick hard into the bed. She saw him lean
+on it to get it further in and apparently twist it about a little. And
+then he withdrew it again and was in the act of smoothing the place when
+she saw him glance sharply towards the gate, and the next instant leap
+behind a bush. Simultaneously the hum of a motor car fell on her ear,
+and Mary was out of the room and speeding upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>She heard the car draw up before the house and listened for the front
+door bell, but the door opened without a ring and she marvelled and
+trembled afresh. That the master should return in a car at this hour of
+the morning seemed surely to be connected with the sin she had connived
+at. It swelled into a crime as she held her breath and listened. She
+wished devoutly she had never set eyes on the insinuating Mr.
+Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>But there came no call for her, or no ringing of any bell; merely sounds
+of movement in the hall below, heard through the thrumming of the
+waiting car. And then the front door opened and shut again and she
+ventured to the window. It was a little open and she could hear her
+master <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>speak to the chauffeur as he got in. He was now wearing, she
+noticed, a heavy overcoat. A moment more and he was off again, down the
+drive, and out through the gates. When she remembered to look again for
+her sympathetic friend, he was quietly driving his walking stick once
+more into a flower bed.</p>
+
+<p>About ten minutes afterwards the front door bell rang and there stood
+Mr. Carrington again. His eye seemed strangely bright, she thought, but
+his manner was calm and soothing as ever.</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed Mr. Rattar return," he said, "and I thought I would like to
+make sure that it was all right, before I left. I trust, Mary, that you
+have got into no trouble on my account."</p>
+
+<p>She thought it was very kind of him to enquire.</p>
+
+<p>"The master was only just in and out again," she assured him.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to get his overcoat, I noticed," he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carrington's powers of observation struck her as very surprising for
+such an easy-going gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, that was all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm very glad it was all right," he smiled and began to turn
+away. "By the way," he asked, turning back, "did he tell you where he is
+going to now?"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't see me, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't happen to overhear him giving any directions to the
+chauffeur, did you? I noticed you at an open window."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p><p>For the first time Mary's sympathetic friend began to make her feel a
+trifle uncomfortable. His eyes seemed to be everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard him say 'Keldale House,'" she confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" he exclaimed and seemed to muse for a moment. In fact, he
+appeared to be still musing as he walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Mary began to wonder very seriously whether Mr. Carrington was going to
+prove merely a fresh addition to the disquieting mysteries of that
+house.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>BISSET'S ADVICE</h3>
+
+<p>The short November afternoon was fading into a gusty evening, as Ned
+Cromarty drew near his fortalice. He carried a gun as usual, and as
+usual walked with seven league strides. Where the drive passed through
+the scrap of stunted plantation it was already dusk and the tortured
+boughs had begun their night of sighs and tossings. Beyond them, pale
+daylight lingered and the old house stood up still clear against a
+broken sky and a grey waste with flitting whitecaps all the way to the
+horizon. He had almost reached the front door when he heard the sound of
+wheels behind him. Pausing there, he spied a pony and a governess' car,
+with two people distinct enough to bring a sudden light into his eye.
+The pony trotted briskly towards the door, and he took a stride to meet
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Farmond!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>A low voice answered, and though he could not catch the words, the tone
+was enough for him. And then another voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, sir, I've brought her over."</p>
+
+<p>"Bisset!" said he. "It's you, is it? Well, what's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>He was lifting her out of the trap and not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>hesitating to hold her hand
+a little longer than he had ever held it before, now that he could see
+her face quite plainly and read what was in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I've dared to come after all!" she said, with a little smile, which
+seemed to hint that she knew the risk was over now.</p>
+
+<p>"I advised her vera strongly, sir, to come over with me to Stanesland,"
+explained her escort. "The young lady has had a trying experience at
+Keldale, and forby the fair impossibility of her stopping on under the
+unfortunate circumstances, I was of the opinion that the sea air would
+be a fine change and the architectural features remarkably interesting.
+In fac', sir, I practically insisted that Miss Farmond had just got to
+come."</p>
+
+<p>"Good man!" said Ned. "Come in and tell me the unfortunate
+circumstances." He bent over Cicely and in a lowered voice added:
+"Personally I call 'em fortunate&mdash;so long as they haven't been too
+beastly for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right now!" she murmured, and as they went up the steps he
+found, somehow or other, her hand for an instant in his again.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll stand by your pony for a moment, Bisset, I'll send out some
+one to take her," he said with happy inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Bisset was not so easily shaken off.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll stand fine for a wee while," he assured his host. "You'll be the
+better of hearing all about it from me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p><p>They went into the smoking room and the escort began forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is, Mr. Cromarty, that yon man Simon Rattar is a fair
+discredit. Miss Farmond has been telling me the haill story of her
+running away, and your ain vera seasonable appearance and judicious
+conduct, sir; which I am bound to say, Mr. Cromarty, is neither more nor
+less than I'd have expectit of a gentleman of your intelligence. Weel,
+to continue, Miss Farmond acted on your advice&mdash;which would have been my
+own, sir, under the circumstances&mdash;and tellt her ladyship the plain
+facts. Weel then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did Lady Cromarty say to you?" demanded Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly a word. She simply looked at me and said she would send for Mr.
+Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>Not a whit rebuffed, Mr. Bisset straightway resumed his narrative.</p>
+
+<p>"A perfectly proper principle if the man was capable of telling the
+truth. I'm no blaming her ladyship at that point, but where she departit
+from the proper principles of evidence&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"When did Rattar come?"</p>
+
+<p>"This morning," said Cicely. "And&mdash;can you believe it?&mdash;he absolutely
+denied that he had ever advised me to go away!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can believe it," said Ned grimly. "And I suppose Lady Cromarty
+believed him?"</p>
+
+<p>"God, but you're right, sir!" cried Bisset. "Your deductions are
+perfectly correct. Yon man had the impudence to give the haill thing a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>flat denial! And then naturally Miss Farmond was for off, but at first
+her ladyship was no for letting her go. Indeed she went the length of
+sending for me and telling me the young lady was not to be permitted to
+shift her luggage out of the house or use any conveyance."</p>
+
+<p>"But Bisset was splendid!" cried Cicely. "Do you know what the foolish
+man did? He gave up his situation and took me away!"</p>
+
+<p>Bisset, the man, permitted a gleam of pleasure to illuminate his blunt
+features; but Bisset, the philosopher, protested with some dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a mere matter of principle, sir. Detention of luggage like yon
+is no legal. I tellt her ladyship flatly that she'd find herself afore
+the Shirra', and that I was no going to abet any such proceedings. I
+further informed her, sir, of my candid opinion of Simon Rattar, and I
+said plainly that he was probably meaning to marry her and get the
+estate under his thumb, and these were the kind o' tricks rascally
+lawyers took in foolish women wi'."</p>
+
+<p>"You told Lady Cromarty that!" exclaimed Ned. "And what did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"We had a few disagreeable passages, as it were, sir," said the
+philosopher calmly. "And then I borrowed yon trap and having advised
+Miss Farmond to come to Stanesland and she being amenable, I just
+brought her along to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it was on your advice then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p><p>Cicely and her host exchanged one fleeting glance and then looked
+extremely unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>"She's derned wise!" said he to himself.</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand to the gratified counsellor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, Bisset, you've touched your top form to-day, and I may tell
+you I've been wanting some one like you badly for a long while, if you
+are willing to stay on with me. Put that in your pipe, Bisset, and smoke
+over it! And now, you know your way, go and get yourself some tea, and a
+drink of the wildest poison you fancy!"</p>
+
+<p>Hardly was the door closed behind him than the laird put his fate to the
+test as promptly and directly as he did most other things.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to stop on too, Cicely&mdash;for ever. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes, shyly questioning for a moment and then shyly tender, answered
+his question before her lips had moved, and it would have been hard to
+convince them that the minutes which followed ever had a parallel within
+human experience.</p>
+
+<p>A little later he confessed:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Cicely, I've always had a funky feeling that if I ever
+proposed my glass eye would drop out!"</p>
+
+<p>The next event was the somewhat sudden entry of Lilian Cromarty, and
+that lady's self control was never more severely tested or brilliantly
+vindicated. One startled glance, and then she was saying, briskly, and
+with the old bright smile:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p><p>"A telegram for you, Ned."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said he. "By the way, here's the future Mrs. Ned&mdash;that's to
+say if she doesn't funk it before the wedding."</p>
+
+<p>Lilian's welcome, Lilian's embrace, and Lilian's congratulations were
+alike perfect. Cicely wondered how people could ever have said the
+critical things of her which some of her acquaintances were unkind
+enough to say at times. As to Bisset's dictum regarding the lady in the
+castle, that was manifestly absurd on the face of it. Miss Cromarty was
+clearly overjoyed to hear of her brother's engagement.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Neddy dear!" cried the bright lady, "tell me how it all came
+about!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned looked up from his telegram with a glint in his eye that was hardly
+a lover's glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Cicely will tell you all about it," said he. "I'm afraid I've got to be
+off pretty well as quick as I can."</p>
+
+<p>He handed them the wire and they read: "Meet me eight to-night Kings
+Arms urgent. Carrington."</p>
+
+<p>"From Mr. Carrington!" exclaimed his sister.</p>
+
+<p>Ned smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Cicely will explain him too," he said. "By Gad, I wonder if this is
+going to be the finishing bit of luck!"</p>
+
+<p>In another twenty minutes the lights of his gig lamps were raking the
+night.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>TRAPPED</h3>
+
+<p>Cromarty and Carrington slipped unostentatiously out of the hotel a few
+minutes after eight o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Take any line you like," said Carrington, "but as he knows now that you
+brought Miss Farmond back and have heard her version, he'll naturally be
+feeling a little uncomfortable about the place where one generally gets
+kicked, when he sees you march in. He will expect you to open out on
+that subject, so if I were you I'd take the natural line of country and
+do what he expects."</p>
+
+<p>"Including the kicking?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep him waiting for that. Spin it out; that's your job to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it were more than talking!" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," drawled Carrington, "it may lead to something more amusing. Who
+knows? You haven't bought your own gun, I suppose? Take mine."</p>
+
+<p>He handed him the same little article he had taken out the night before,
+and Ned's eye gleamed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p><p>"What!" said he. "That kind of gun once more? This reminds me of old
+times!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a mere precaution," said the other. "Don't count on using it!
+Remember, you're going to visit the most respectable citizen of the
+town&mdash;perhaps on a wild goose errand."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not," said Ned quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"We daren't assume anything. I don't want to make a fool of myself, and
+no more do you, I take it."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Ned, with a nod. "Well, I'll keep him in his chair for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it."</p>
+
+<p>They were walking quickly through the silent town under the windy night
+sky. It was a dark boisterous evening, not inviting for strollers, and
+they scarcely passed a soul till they were in the quiet road where the
+villa stood. There, from the shadows of a gateway, two figures moved out
+to meet them, and Cromarty recognised Superintendent Sutherland and one
+of his constables. The two saluted in silence and fell in behind. They
+each carried, he noticed, something long-shaped wrapped up loosely in
+sacking.</p>
+
+<p>"What have they got there?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Prosaic instruments," smiled Carrington. "I won't tell you more for
+fear the gamble doesn't come off."</p>
+
+<p>"Like the sensation before one proposes, I suppose," said Ned. "Well,
+going by that, the omens ought to be all right."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p><p>They turned in through Simon's gates and then the four stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"We part here," whispered Carrington. "Good luck!"</p>
+
+<p>"Same to you," said Ned briefly, and strode up the drive.</p>
+
+<p>As he came out into the gravel sweep before the house, he looked hard
+into the darkness of the garden, but beyond the tossing shapes of trees,
+there was not a sign of movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rattar in?" he enquired. "Sitting in the library I suppose? Take me
+right to him. Cromarty's my name."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cromarty to see you, sir," announced Mary, and she was startled to
+see the master's sudden turn in his chair and the look upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether he was feared or whether he was angered, I canna rightly say,"
+she told cook, "but anyway he looked fair mad like!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>His voice was restrained and dry, and as he spoke he strode across the
+room and seated himself deliberately in the arm chair on the side of the
+fire opposite to the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Simon had banished that first look which Mary saw, but there remained in
+his eyes something more than their usual cold stare. Each day since
+Carrington came seemed to have aged his face and changed it for the
+worse: a haggard, ugly, malicious face it seemed to his visitor looking
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>hard at it to-night. His only greeting was a briefer grunt than
+ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you can guess what's brought me here," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer rapped out his first words jerkily.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Try three guesses," suggested his visitor. "Come now, number one&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Simon was silent, but to-night he could not hide the
+working of that face which usually hid his thoughts so effectually. It
+was plain he hesitated what line to take.</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen Miss Farmond, I hear," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You're on the scent," said his visitor encouragingly. "Have another
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"You believe her story."</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"It's false."</p>
+
+<p>Ned stared at him very hard and then he spoke deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wondering," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Wondering what?" asked Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether a horse whip or the toe of a shooting boot is the best cure for
+your complaint."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shrank back into his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you threaten me?" he jerked out. "Be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>"If I threatened you I'd certainly do what I threatened," said Ned. "So
+far I'm only wondering. Where did you learn to lie, Mr. Rattar?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer made no answer at all. His mind <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>seemed concentrated on
+guessing the other's probable actions.</p>
+
+<p>"Out with it, man! I've met some derned good liars in my time, but you
+beat the lot. I'm anxious to know where you learned the trick, that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you believe her more than me?" asked Simon.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you've been found out lying before. That was a pretty stiff one
+about your engaging Carrington, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon was quite unable to control his violent start, and his face turned
+whiter.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I didn't say I did," he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ned, "I admit I wasn't there to hear you, but I know
+Carrington made you put your foot fairly in it just by way of helping
+him to size you up, and he got your size right enough too."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;&mdash;" began Simon, and stopped and changed it into: "What does
+Carrington suspect&mdash;er&mdash;accuse me of?"</p>
+
+<p>Ned stared at him for several seconds without speaking, and this
+procedure seemed to disconcert the lawyer more than anything had done
+yet.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what does Carrington mean?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"He means you've lied, and he believes Miss Farmond, and he believes Sir
+Malcolm, and he believes me, and he puts you down as a pretty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>bad egg.
+What did you expect to be accused of?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon could no more hide his relief to-night than he could hide his
+fears.</p>
+
+<p>"Only of what you have told me&mdash;only of course of what you say! But I
+can explain. In good time I can explain."</p>
+
+<p>It was at that moment that the door opened sharply and the start the
+lawyer gave showed the state of his nerves after Mr. Cromarty's
+handling. Mary MacLean stood in the doorway, her face twitching.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" snapped her master.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, sir, there are men in the garden!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer leapt to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Men in the garden!" he cried, and there was a note in his voice which
+startled even tough Ned Cromarty. "What are they doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir. It sounded almost as if they was digging."</p>
+
+<p>Simon swayed for an instant and grasped the back of his chair. Then in a
+muffled voice he muttered:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to see!"</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely made a step towards the door when Cromarty was on his
+feet too.</p>
+
+<p>"Steady!" he cried. "Get out there, and shut the door!"</p>
+
+<p>The towering form and formidable voice sent Mary out with a shut door
+between them almost as the command was off his tongue. A couple <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>of
+strides and he had got the lawyer by the shoulder and pulled him back.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down!" he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>Simon turned on him with a new expression. The terror had passed away
+and he stood there now as the sheer beast at bay.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn you!" he muttered, and turned his back for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>The next, his hand rose and simultaneously Ned's arm shot out and got
+him by the wrist, while the shock of his onslaught drove the man back
+and down into his chair. Though Simon was tough and stoutly built, he
+was as a child in the hands of his adversary. A sharp twist of the wrist
+was followed by an exclamation of pain and the thud of something heavy
+on the floor. Ned stooped and picked up the globular glass match box
+that had stood on the table. For a few moments he stared at it in dead
+silence, balancing it in his hands. It was like a small cannon ball for
+concentrated weight. Then in a curious voice he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the first time you have used this?"</p>
+
+<p>Simon made no reply. His face was dead white now, but dogged and grim,
+and his mouth stayed tight as a trap. Ned replaced the match box on the
+table, and planted himself before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to say?" he asked, and Simon said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>They remained like this for minute after minute; not a movement in the
+room and the booming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>of the wind the only sound. And then came
+footsteps on the gravel and the ringing of a bell.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll probably learn something now," said Ned, but the other still said
+nothing, and only a quick glance towards the door gave a hint of his
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>There was no announcement this time. Superintendent Sutherland entered
+first, then the constable, and Carrington last. The superintendent went
+straight up to the lawyer, his large face preternaturally solemn.
+Touching him on the shoulder he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I arrest you in the King's name!"</p>
+
+<p>The man in the chair half started up and then fell back again.</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" he asked huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"The murder of Simon Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer took it as one who had seen the sword descending, but not so
+Ned Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"Of Simon Rattar!" he shouted. "What the&mdash;then who the devil is this?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington answered. He spoke with his usual easy smile, but his
+triumphant eye betrayed his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"The superintendent has omitted part of the usual formalities," he said.
+"This person should have been introduced as Mr. George Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>"George!" gasped Ned. "But I thought he was dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"So did I," said Carrington, "but he wasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"What proof have you of this story?" demanded the man in the chair
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p><p>"We have just dug up your brother's body from that flower bed," said
+Carrington quietly. "Do you recognise his ring?"</p>
+
+<p>He held up a gold signet ring, and the lawyer fell back in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"But look here!" exclaimed Ned, "what about Sir Reginald's murder? He
+did that too, I suppose!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"We hope to add that to his account in a day or two. This is enough to
+be going on with, but as a matter of fact we have nearly enough evidence
+now to add the other charge."</p>
+
+<p>"I can add one bit," said Ned, picking up the match box. "He has just
+tried to do me in with this little thing, and I take it, it was the
+third time of using."</p>
+
+<p>Carrington weighed it in his hand, and then said to the prisoner:</p>
+
+<p>"You put it in the end of a stocking, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>The man looked up at him with a new expression in his eye. If it were
+not a trace of grim humour, it was hard to say what else it could be.</p>
+
+<p>"Get me a drink," he said huskily, nodding towards the tantalus on the
+side table, "and I'll tell you the whole damned yarn. My God, I'm dry as
+a damned bone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the key of the tantalus," said Carrington promptly.</p>
+
+<p>But the superintendent seemed somewhat taken aback.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p><p>"Anything you say may be used against you," he reminded the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"You know enough to swing me, anyhow," said Rattar, "but I'd like you to
+know that I didn't really mean to do it. I want that drink first
+though!"</p>
+
+<p>He took the glass of whisky and water and as he raised it to his lips,
+that same curious look came back into his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's to the firm of S. and G. Rattar, and may their clients be as
+damned as themselves!" he said with a glance at Cromarty, and finished
+the drink at a draught.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE YARN</h3>
+
+<p>"I needn't trouble you with my adventures before I came down here to
+visit brother Simon," began the prisoner, "for you know them well
+enough. It was about a month ago when I turned up at this house one
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get here?" demanded the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"I did the last bit under the seat of the carriage," grinned Rattar,
+"and when we got into the station I hopped out on the wrong side of the
+train. The way I paid my fare wasn't bad either, considering I hadn't
+half of the fare from London in my pocket when I started&mdash;or anything
+like it. However, the point is I got here and just as I'd come through
+the gates I had the luck to see both the maids going out. So the coast
+was clear.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I rang the bell and out came Simon&mdash;the man who'd got me
+convicted, and my own brother too, mind you!&mdash;looking as smug as the
+hard-hearted old humbug he was. He got the shock of his life when he saw
+who it was, but I began gently and I put a proposition to him. I'll bet
+none of you will guess what it was!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p><p>He looked round the company, and Carrington answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Blackmail of some sort."</p>
+
+<p>"You may call it blackmail if you like, but what was the sort? Well,
+you'd never guess. I was wearing a beard and moustaches then, but I knew
+if I took them off I'd look so like Simon that no one meeting one of us
+would know which it was, supposing we were dressed exactly alike and I
+did Simon's grunting tricks and all that. And Simon knew it too.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Simon, my dear brother,' I said to him, 'I'll make you a
+sporting proposition. My idea is to settle down in this old place, and
+I'm so fond of you I mean to shave, get an outfit just like yours, and
+give free rein to my affection for you. I'm so fond of you,' I said,
+'that I know I shan't be able to keep more than five yards away from you
+whenever you are walking the streets, and I'll have to sit in church
+beside you, Simon. That's my present programme.'</p>
+
+<p>"I let that sink in, and then I went on:</p>
+
+<p>"'Supposing this programme embarrasses you, Simon, well there's one way
+out of it, and I leave it to your judgment to say what it is.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now, mind you, I'd banked on this coming off, for I knew what a
+stickler Simon was for the respectable and the conventional and all
+that. Can't you see the two of us going through the streets together,
+five yards apart and dressed exactly alike! Wouldn't the small boys have
+liked it! That was my only idea in coming down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>here. I meant no more
+mischief, I'll swear to that! Unfortunately, though, I'd got so keen on
+the scheme that I hadn't thought of its weak spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Simon said not a word, but just looked at me&mdash;exactly as I've been
+looking at people since I took his place in society. And then he asked
+me if I was really very hard up. Like a fool I told him the plain truth,
+that I had inside of five bob in my pockets and that was every penny I
+owned in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"He grinned then&mdash;I can see him grinning now&mdash;and he said:</p>
+
+<p>"'In that case you'll have a little difficulty in paying your board and
+lodging here, and still more in buying clothes. I tell you what I'll
+do,' he said, 'I'll buy a ticket back to London for you and leave it
+with the stationmaster, and that's every penny you'll ever get out of
+me!'</p>
+
+<p>"I saw he had me, but I wasn't going off on those terms. I damned him to
+his face and he tried to shut the door on me. We were talking at the
+front door all this while, I may mention. I got my foot in the way, and
+as I was always a bit stronger than Simon, I had that door open after a
+tussle and then I followed him into the library.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew the man was hard as flint and never showed mercy to any one in
+his life when he had them on toast, and I knew he had me on toast. How
+was I to get any change out of him? That was what I was wondering as I
+followed him, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>and then all at once something&mdash;the devil if you
+like&mdash;put the idea into my head. I'd <i>be</i> Simon!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked round on his audience as though he still relished the memory
+of that inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"The beauty of the idea was that no one would ever dream of suspecting a
+man of not being himself! They might suspect him of a lot of things, but
+not of that. I hadn't thought of the scheme ten seconds before I
+realised how dead safe it was so long as I kept my head. And I have kept
+it. No one can deny that!"</p>
+
+<p>His glance this time challenged a contradiction, but no one spoke. The
+circle of steadfast eyes and silent lips he seemed to take as a tribute
+to his address, for he smiled and then went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I kept my head from the beginning. I stood talking to him in this
+very room, he refusing to answer anything except to repeat that he'd buy
+a ticket to London and leave it with the stationmaster, and I working
+out the scheme&mdash;what to do it with and how to manage afterwards. I knew
+it was a swinging risk, but against that was a starving certainty, and
+then I spied that match box and the thing was settled. I got him to look
+the other way for a moment&mdash;and then he was settled. Give me another
+drink!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington got him a drink and he gulped it down, and then turned
+suddenly on Ned Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"Your damned glass eye has been getting on my nerves long enough!" he
+exclaimed. "My God, that eye and your habit of hanging people&mdash;I've <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>had
+enough of them! Can't you turn it away from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't turn," said Ned coolly, "spring broken. Get on with your story!"</p>
+
+<p>Even in his privileged position as prisoner, Rattar seemed disinclined
+to have trouble with his formidable ex-client. He answered nothing, but
+turned his shoulder to him and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"After that was over I set about covering my tracks. The first part was
+the worst. Before the maids came back I had to get Simon stowed away for
+the night&mdash;no time to bury him then of course, and I had to get into his
+clothes, shave, and learn the lie of the house and all that. I did it
+all right and came down to breakfast next morning and passed muster with
+the servants, and never a suspicion raised!"</p>
+
+<p>"There was a little," remarked Carrington, "but never enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Not enough was good enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not quite certain of that," said Carrington. "However, go on. Your
+next bunker was the office."</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It took some nerve," he said complacently, "and I'm free to confess
+that to begin with I always had a beastly feeling that some one was
+watching me and spotting something that didn't look quite right, but,
+good Lord, keeping my head the way I kept it, there was nothing to worry
+about! Who would ever think that the Simon Rattar who walked into his
+office and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>grunted at his clerks on Wednesday morning, wasn't the same
+Simon Rattar who walked in and grunted on Tuesday morning? And then I
+had one tremendous pull in knowing all the ropes from old days. Simon
+was a conservative man, nothing was ever changed&mdash;not even the clerks,
+so I had the whole routine at my fingers. And he was an easy man to
+imitate too. That was where I scored again. I daresay I have inherited
+some of the same tricks myself. I know I found them come quite easy&mdash;the
+stare and the silence and the grunts and the rest of them. And then I
+always had more brains than Simon and could pick up business quicker.
+You should have heard me making that ass Malcolm Cromarty, and the
+Farmond girl, and this hangman with the glass eye tell me all about
+themselves and what their business was, without their ever suspecting
+they were being pumped! For, mind you, I'd never set eyes on Malcolm
+Cromarty or the Farmond girl before in my life! No, it wasn't at the
+office I had the nastiest time. It was burying the body that night."</p>
+
+<p>The boastful smile died off his lips and for a moment he shivered a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened about that?" enquired Carrington keenly.</p>
+
+<p>Rattar's voice instinctively fell a little.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got home that afternoon I found he wasn't quite dead after all!"</p>
+
+<p>"That accounts for it!" murmured Carrington.</p>
+
+<p>"For what?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p><p>"Your maid heard him moving."</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner seemed to have recovered from his passing emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"And I told her it was a rat, and she swallowed it!" he laughed. "Well,
+he didn't move for long, and I had fixed up quite a good scheme for
+getting him out of the house. A man was to call for old papers. I even
+did two voices talking in the hall to make the bluff complete! Not being
+able to get his ring off his finger rather worried me, but I put that
+right by an advertisement in the paper saying I'd lost it!"</p>
+
+<p>He was arrested by the look on Carrington's face.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that gave me away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those superfluous precautions generally give people away."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter now. You'll learn later. What next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Next?" said Rattar. "Well, I just went on keeping my head and bluffing
+people&mdash;&mdash;" he broke off, looked at Superintendent Sutherland, and gave
+a short laugh. "I only lost my nerve a bit once, and that was when the
+glass-eyed hangman butted in and said he was going to get down a
+detective. It struck me then it was time I was off&mdash;and what's more, I
+started!"</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent's mouth fell open.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you weren't the man&mdash;&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," scoffed the prisoner, "I was the man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>with toothache in that
+empty carriage. I'd got in at the wrong side after the ticket collector
+passed and just about twenty seconds before you opened the door. But the
+sight of your red face made me change my plans, and I was out again
+before that train started! A bright policeman you are! After that I
+decided to stick it out and face the music; and I faced it."</p>
+
+<p>His mouth shut tight and he sat back in his chair, his eyes travelling
+round the others as though to mark their unwilling admiration. He
+certainly saw it in the faces of the two open-eyed policemen, but
+Cromarty's was hard and set, and he seemed still to be waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't told us about Sir Reginald yet," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Rattar looked at him defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"No evidence there," he said with a cunning shake of his head, "you can
+go on guessing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to smoke a pipe?" asked Carrington suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The man's eyes gleamed.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"You can have one if you tell us about Sir Reginald. We've got you
+anyhow, and there will be evidence enough there too when we've put it
+together."</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent looked a trifle shocked, but Carrington's sway over
+him was by this time evidently unbounded. He coughed an official protest
+but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p><p>The prisoner only hesitated for a moment. He saw Carrington taking out a
+cigarette, and then he took out his keys and said:</p>
+
+<p>"This is the key for that drawer. You'll find my pipe and baccy there.
+I'll tell you the rest." And then he started and exclaimed: "But how the
+h&mdash; did you know I smoked?"</p>
+
+<p>"At five minutes past nine o'clock last night," said Carrington, as he
+handed him his pipe, "I was within three paces of you."</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner stared at him with a wry face.</p>
+
+<p>"You devil!" he murmured, and then added with some philosophy: "After
+all, I'd sooner be hanged than stop smoking." And with that he lit his
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to know about old Cromarty," he resumed. "Well, I made my
+first bad break when I carried on a correspondence with him which Simon
+had begun, not knowing they had had a talk between whiles cancelling the
+whole thing. You know about it and about the letter Sir Reginald sent me
+after I'd written. Well, when I got that letter I admit it rattled me a
+bit. I've often wondered since whether he had really suspected anything
+or whether he would have sooner or later. Anyhow I got it into my head
+that the game was up if something didn't happen. And so it happened."</p>
+
+<p>"You went and killed him?" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"That's for you and your glass eye to find out!" snapped the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"Take his pipe away," said Carrington quietly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p><p>"Damn it!" cried Rattar, "I'll tell you, only I'm fed up with that man's
+bullying! I put it in a stocking" (he nodded towards the match box)
+"just as you guessed and I went out to Keldale that night. My God, what
+a walk that was in the dark! I'd half forgotten the way down to the
+house and I thought every other tree was a man watching me. I don't know
+yet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and I
+thought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, and
+I'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping in
+his dressing room. Give me another drink!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on the
+glass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinned
+at him and he let me in, and then&mdash;&mdash;" He broke off and fell forward in
+his chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!"
+he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"</p>
+
+<p>Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary.
+You can't touch him now."</p>
+
+<p>Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p><p>"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to the
+superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST CHAPTER</h3>
+
+<p>On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and that
+was to exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me more
+before I went in?"</p>
+
+<p>"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish
+undiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."</p>
+
+<p>They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sitting
+room and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed away
+an empty tumbler.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tell
+me how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupid
+I've been!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at this
+game, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as good
+guidance that put me on to the truth at last."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were up
+against it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying at
+the start. Well, that was pretty smart <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>of you to begin with. Then, what
+next? How did things come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Carrington, "I picked up a little something on my first
+visit to Keldale. From Bisset's description I gathered that the body
+must have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why?
+Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, the
+broken table, the mud on the floor, and the hearth brush, the odds
+seemed heavy on entry by the window. I also found that the middle blind
+had been out of order that night and that it <i>might</i> have been quite
+possible for any one outside to have seen Sir Reginald sitting in the
+room and known he was alone there. Again, it seemed long odds on his
+having recognised the man outside and opened the window himself, which,
+again, pointed to the man being some one he knew quite well and never
+suspected mischief from."</p>
+
+<p>"Those were always my own ideas, except that I felt bamboozled where you
+felt clear&mdash;which shows the difference between our brains!"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington laughed and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could think so! No, no, it's merely a case of every man to his
+own trade. And as a matter of fact I was left just as bamboozled as you
+were. For who could this mysterious man be? Of the people inside the
+house, I had struck out Miss Farmond, Bisset, Lady Cromarty, and all the
+female servants. Only Sir Malcolm was left. I wired for him to come up
+and was able to score him out too. I also visited you and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>scored you
+out. So there I was&mdash;with no conceivable criminal!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you'd already begun to suspect Rattar, hadn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he had lied about engaging me; I discovered from Lady Cromarty
+that he had told her of Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond&mdash;and I
+suspected he had started her suspicions of them; and I saw that he was
+set on that theory, in spite of the fact that it was palpably improbable
+if one actually knew the people. Of course if one didn't, it was
+plausible enough. When I first came down here it seemed to me a very
+likely theory and I was prepared to find a guilty couple, but when I met
+Miss Farmond and told her suddenly that Sir Malcolm was arrested, and
+she gazed blankly at me and asked 'What for?' well, I simply ran my
+pencil, so to speak, through her name and there was an end of her! The
+same with Sir Malcolm when I met him. And yet here was the family
+lawyer, who knew them both perfectly, so convinced of their guilt that
+he was obviously stifling investigation in any other direction. And on
+top of all that, all my natural instincts and intuitions told me that
+the man was a bad hat."</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't all that make you suspect him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of what? Of leaving his respectable villa at the dead of night,
+tramping several miles at his age in the dark, and deliberately
+murdering his own best client and old friend under circumstances so
+risky to himself that only a combination <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>of lucky chances saw him
+safely through the adventure? Nothing&mdash;absolutely nothing but homicidal
+mania could possibly account for such a performance, and the man was
+obviously as sane as you or I. I felt certain that there was something
+wrong somewhere, but as for suspecting him of being the principal in the
+crime, the idea was stark lunacy!"</p>
+
+<p>"By George, it was a tough proposition!" said Ned. "By the way, had you
+heard of George Rattar at that time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I heard of him, and knew they resembled one another, but as I
+was told that he had left the place for years and was now dead, my
+thoughts never even once ran in that direction until I got into a state
+of desperation, and then I merely surmised that his misdeeds might have
+been at the bottom of some difficulty between Simon and Sir Reginald."</p>
+
+<p>"Then how on earth did you ever get on to the right track?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never would have if the man hadn't given himself away. To begin with,
+he was fool enough to fall in with my perfectly genuine assumption that
+he was either employing me or acting for my employer. No doubt he stood
+to score if the bluff had come off, and he banked on your stipulation
+that your name shouldn't appear. But if he had only been honest in that
+matter, my suspicions would never have started&mdash;not at that point
+anyhow."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p><p>"That was Providence&mdash;sure!" said Ned with conviction.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm inclined to think it was," agreed Carrington. "Then again his
+advice to Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond was well enough designed to
+further his own scheme of throwing suspicion on them, but it simply
+ended in his being bowled out both times, and throwing suspicion on
+himself. But <i>the</i> precaution which actually gave him away was putting
+in that advertisement about his ring."</p>
+
+<p>"I was just wondering," said Ned, "how that did the trick."</p>
+
+<p>"By the merest fluke. I noticed it when I was making enquiries at the
+Police Office on quite different lines, but you can imagine that I
+switched off my other enquiries pretty quick when Superintendent
+Sutherland calmly advanced the theory that the ring was stolen when
+Rattar's house was entered by some one unknown on the very night of the
+murder!"</p>
+
+<p>"This is the first I've heard of that!" cried Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the first I had, but it led me straight to Rattar's house and a
+long heart to heart talk with his housemaid. That was when I collected
+that extraordinary mixed bag of information which I was wondering
+yesterday whether to believe or not. Here are the items, and you can
+judge for yourself what my state of mind was when I was carrying about
+the following precious pieces of information."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p><p>He ticked the items off on his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"A mysterious man who entered the garden one night and left his
+footprints in the gravel, and whose visit had a strange and mysterious
+effect on Rattar. Funny feelings produced in the bosom of the housemaid
+by the presence of her master. Doors of unused rooms mysteriously locked
+and keys taken away; said to be old papers inside. Mysterious visit of
+mysterious man at dead of night to remove the said papers. A ring that
+couldn't come off the owner's finger mysteriously lost. Mysterious
+burglary on night of the murder by mysterious burglar who left all
+windows and doors locked behind him and took nothing away. Mysterious
+perambulations of his garden every night at nine o'clock by Mr. Simon
+Rattar."</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scot!" murmured Cromarty.</p>
+
+<p>"I have given you the items in what turned out to be their order of
+date, but I got them higgledy-piggledy and served up in a sauce of
+mystery and trembly sensations that left me utterly flummoxed as to how
+much&mdash;if anything&mdash;was sober fact. However, I began by fastening on to
+two things. The first was the burglary, which of course at once
+suggested the possibility that the man who had committed the crime at
+Keldale had returned to Rattar's house and got in by that window. The
+second was the nightly perambulations, which could easily be tested.
+When Mr. Rattar emerged at nine that night, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>was in the garden before
+him. And what do you think he did?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had a look at his brother's grave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Smoked two pipes of tobacco! A man who was an anti-tobacco fanatic! The
+truth hit me straight in the eye&mdash;'That man is not Simon Rattar!' And
+then of course everything dropped into its place. The ex-convict twin
+brother, the only evidence of whose supposititious death was an
+announcement in the paper, obviously put in as a blind. The personal
+resemblance between the two. All the yarns told me by the housemaid,
+including the strange visitor&mdash;George of course arriving; the man who
+came for the papers&mdash;George himself taking out the body; and the
+vanished ring. Everything fitted in now, and the correspondence between
+Sir Reginald and Rattar which had beaten me before, gave the clue at
+once as to motive."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you felt you had deserved a drink that trip!" said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't stop to have my drink. I went straight off to see old Ison and
+pumped him for the rest of the evening. He wasn't very helpful but
+everything I could get out of him went to confirm my theory. I found for
+certain that Simon Rattar had never smoked in his life, and that George
+used to be a heavy smoker. I also learned that a few recent
+peculiarities of conduct had struck the not too observant Ison, one
+being very suggestive. Rattar, it seemed, kept an old pair of kid gloves
+in his desk which he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>was in the habit of wearing when he was alone in
+the office."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't quite see the bearing of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, on my hypothesis it was to avoid leaving finger marks. You see
+George was an ex-convict. It was a very judicious precaution too, and
+made it extremely difficult to catch him out by that means, for one
+could scarcely approach a respectable solicitor and ask him for an
+impression of his fingers! And anyhow, nothing could be definitely
+proved against him until we had found Simon's body. That was the next
+problem. Where had he hidden it?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you get at that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Guessed it. At first my thoughts went too far afield, but when I went
+over the times mentioned in the maid's story of the man who took away
+the papers, and the fact that she heard no sound of a wheeled vehicle, I
+realised that he must have simply planted it in one of the flower beds.
+This morning I prodded them all with a stout walking stick and found the
+spot. Then I talked like a father to old Sutherland and fixed everything
+up with him. And then I sent my wire to you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you deliberately tell me you got there as much by good luck as good
+guidance?"</p>
+
+<p>Carrington's eyes thoughtfully followed his smoke rings.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see the luck at every turn," he answered, "and though I'd like to
+believe in the guidance, I'm hanged if it's quite as distinct!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p><p>"If you are telling me the neat, unvarnished truth, Carrington," said
+his admiring employer, "I can only say that you've a lot to learn about
+your own abilities&mdash;and I hope to Heaven you'll never learn it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I assure you there are some people who think me conceited!"</p>
+
+<p>"There are guys of all sorts in the world," said Ned. "For instance
+there's a girl who has mistaken me for a daisy, and I've got to get back
+to her now. Good night! I won't say 'Thanks' because I can't shout it
+loud enough."</p>
+
+<p>When his gig lamps had flashed up the silent street and Carrington had
+turned back from the pavement into the hotel, he met his friend Miss
+Peterkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cromarty's late to-night," said she. "A fine gentleman that! I
+always say there are few like Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland."</p>
+
+<p>"That's lucky for me," said Carrington with a smile that puzzled her a
+little. "My business in life would be gone if there were!"</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Simon, by J. Storer Clouston
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,9909 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Simon, by J. Storer Clouston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Simon
+
+Author: J. Storer Clouston
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26306]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ SIMON
+
+ BY
+
+ J. STORER CLOUSTON
+
+ AUTHOR OF "THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS," "THE SPY
+ IN BLACK," "THE LUNATIC AT LARGE," ETC.
+
+ NEW YORK
+ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1919,
+ BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+       I. The Solitary Passenger                              9
+      II. The Procurator Fiscal                              16
+     III. The Heir                                           23
+      IV. The Man from the West                              31
+       V. The Third Visitor                                  40
+      VI. At Night                                           48
+     VII. The Drive Home                                     56
+    VIII. Sir Reginald                                       67
+      IX. A Philosopher                                      74
+       X. The Letter                                         80
+      XI. News                                               89
+     XII. Cicely                                            100
+    XIII. The Deductive Process                             106
+     XIV. The Question of Motive                            114
+      XV. Two Women                                         123
+     XVI. Rumour                                            128
+    XVII. A Suggestion                                      135
+   XVIII. L1200                                             143
+     XIX. The Empty Compartment                             148
+      XX. The Sporting Visitor                              154
+     XXI. Mr. Carrington's Walk                             161
+    XXII. Mr. Carrington and the Fiscal                     168
+   XXIII. Simon's Views                                     176
+    XXIV. Mr. Bisset's Assistant                            185
+     XXV. A Telegram                                        196
+    XXVI. At Stanesland                                     201
+   XXVII. Flight                                            209
+  XXVIII. The Return                                        216
+    XXIX. Brother and Sister                                224
+     XXX. A Marked Man                                      229
+    XXXI. The Letter Again                                  240
+   XXXII. The Sympathetic Stranger                          247
+  XXXIII. The House of Mysteries                            253
+   XXXIV. A Confidential Conversation                       261
+    XXXV. In the Garden                                     271
+   XXXVI. The Walking Stick                                 278
+  XXXVII. Bisset's Advice                                   285
+ XXXVIII. Trapped                                           291
+   XXXIX. The Yarn                                          301
+      XL. The Last Chapter                                  312
+
+
+
+
+SIMON
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE SOLITARY PASSENGER
+
+
+The train had come a long journey and the afternoon was wearing on.
+The passenger in the last third class compartment but one, looking
+out of the window sombrely and intently, saw nothing now but desolate
+brown hills and a winding lonely river, very northern looking under
+the autumnal sky.
+
+He was alone in the carriage, and if any one had happened to study his
+movements during the interminable journey, they would have concluded
+that for some reason he seemed to have a singularly strong inclination
+for solitude. In fact this was at least the third compartment he had
+occupied, for whenever a fellow traveller entered, he unostentatiously
+descended, and in a moment had slipped, also unostentatiously, into an
+empty carriage. Finally he had selected one at the extreme end of the
+train, a judicious choice which had ensured privacy for the last couple
+of hours.
+
+When the train at length paused in the midst of the moorlands and for
+some obscure reason this spot was selected for the examination of
+tickets, another feature of this traveller's character became apparent.
+He had no ticket, he confessed, but named the last station as his place
+of departure and the next as his destination. Being an entirely
+respectable looking person, his statement was accepted and he slipped
+the change for half a crown into his pocket; just as he had done a
+number of times previously in the course of his journey. Evidently the
+passenger was of an economical as well as of a secretive disposition.
+
+As the light began to fade and the grey sky to change into a deeper
+grey, and the lighted train to glitter through the darkening moors, and
+he could see by his watch that their distant goal was now within an
+hour's journey, the man showed for the first time signs of a livelier
+interest. He peered out keenly into the dusk as though recognising old
+landmarks, and now and then he shifted in his seat restlessly and a
+little nervously.
+
+He was a man of middle age or upwards, of middle height, and thickset.
+Round his neck he wore a muffler, so drawn up as partially to conceal
+the lower part of his face, and a black felt hat was drawn down over
+his eyes. Between them could be seen only the gleam of his eyes, the
+tip of his nose, and the stiff hairs of a grizzled moustache.
+
+Out of his overcoat pocket he pulled a pipe and for a moment looked at
+it doubtfully, and then, as if the temptation were irresistible, he
+took out a tobacco pouch too. It was almost flat and he jealously
+picked up a shred that fell on the floor, and checked himself at last
+when the bowl was half filled. And then for a while he smoked very
+slowly, savouring each whiff.
+
+When they stopped at the last station or two, the reserved and exclusive
+disposition of this traveller became still more apparent. Not only was
+he so muffled up as to make recognition by an unwelcome acquaintance
+exceedingly difficult, but so long as they paused at the stations he sat
+with his face resting on his hand, and when they moved on again, an air
+of some relief was apparent.
+
+But a still more remarkable instance of this sensitive passion for
+privacy appeared when the train stopped at the ticket platform just
+outside its final destination. Even as they were slowing down, he fell
+on his knees and then stretched himself at full length on the floor, and
+when the door was flung open for an instant, the compartment was to all
+appearances empty. Only when they were well under way again did this
+retiring traveller emerge from beneath the seat.
+
+And when he did emerge, his conduct continued to be of a piece with this
+curious performance. He glanced out of the window for an instant at the
+lights of the platform ahead, and the groups under them, and the arch of
+the station roof against the night sky, and then swiftly stepped across
+the carriage and gently opened the door on the wrong side. By the time
+the train was fairly at rest, the door had been as quietly closed again
+and the man was picking his way over the sleepers in the darkness, past
+the guard's van and away from the station and publicity. Certainly he
+had succeeded in achieving a singularly economical and private journey.
+
+For a few minutes he continued to walk back along the line, and then
+after a wary look all round him, he sprang up the low bank at the side,
+threw his leg over a wire fence, and with infinite care began to make
+his way across a stubble field. As he approached the wall on the further
+side of the field his precautions increased. He listened intently,
+crouched down once or twice, and when at last he reached the wall, he
+peered over it very carefully before he mounted and dropped on the other
+side.
+
+"Well," he murmured, "I'm here, by God, at last!"
+
+He was standing now in a road on the outskirts of the town. On the one
+hand it led into a dim expanse of darkened country; on the other the
+lights of the town twinkled. Across the road, a few villas stood back
+amidst trees, with gates opening on to a footpath, the outlying houses
+of the town; and the first lamp-post stood a little way down this path.
+The man crossed the road and turned townwards, walking slowly and
+apparently at his ease. What seemed to interest him now was not his own
+need for privacy but the houses and gates he was passing. At one open
+gate in particular he half paused and then seemed to spy something ahead
+that altered his plans. Under a lamp-post a figure appeared to be
+lingering, and at the sight of this, the man drew his hat still more
+closely over his face and moved on.
+
+As he drew near the lamp the forms of two youths became manifest,
+apparently loitering there idly. The man kept his eyes on the ground,
+passed them at a brisk walk and went on his way into the town.
+
+"Damn them!" he muttered.
+
+This incident seemed to have deranged his plans a little for his
+movements during the next half hour were so purposeless as to suggest
+that he was merely putting in time. Down one street and up another he
+walked, increasing his pace when he had to pass any fellow walkers, and
+then again falling slow at certain corners and looking round him
+curiously as though those dark lanes and half-lit streets were
+reminiscent.
+
+Even seen in the light of the infrequent lamps and the rays from thinly
+blinded windows, it was evidently but a small country town of a hard,
+grey stone, northern type. The ends of certain lanes seemed to open into
+the empty country itself, and one could hear the regular cadence of
+waves hard by upon a shore.
+
+"It doesn't seem to have changed much," said the man to himself.
+
+He worked his way round, like one quite familiar with the route he
+followed, till at length he drew near the same quiet country road whence
+he had started. This time he stopped for a few minutes in the thickest
+shadow and scanned each dim circle of radiance ahead. Nobody seemed now
+to be within the rays of the lamps or to be moving in the darkness
+between. He went on warily till he had come nearly to the same open gate
+where he had paused before, and then there fell upon his ears the sound
+of steps behind him and he stopped again and looked sharply over his
+shoulder.
+
+Somebody was following, but at a little distance off, and after
+hesitating for an instant, he seemed to make up his mind to risk it, and
+turned swiftly and stealthily through the gates. A short drive of some
+pretentions ran between trees and then curved round towards the house,
+but there was no lodge or any sign of a possible watcher, and the man
+advanced for a few yards swiftly and confidently enough. And then he
+stopped abruptly. Under the shade of the trees the drive ahead was pitch
+dark, but footsteps and voices were certainly coming from the house. In
+an instant he had vanished into the belt of plantation along one side of
+the drive.
+
+The footsteps and voices ceased, and then the steps began again, timidly
+at first and then hurriedly. The belt of shrubs and trees was just thick
+enough to hide a man perfectly on a moonless cloudy night like this. Yet
+on either side the watcher could see enough of what was beyond to note
+that he stood between the dark drive on one hand and a lighter space of
+open garden on the other, and he could even catch a glimpse of the
+house against the sky. Light shone brightly from the fanlight over the
+front door, and less distinctly from one window upstairs and through the
+slats of a blind in a downstairs room. For a moment he looked in that
+direction and then intently watched the drive.
+
+The footsteps by this time were almost on the run. The vague forms of
+two women passed swiftly and he could see their faces dimly turned
+towards him as they hurried by. They passed through the gates and were
+gone, and then a minute later men's voices in the road cried out a
+greeting. And after that the silence fell profound.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PROCURATOR FISCAL
+
+
+The procurator fiscal breakfasted at 8.30, punctually, and at 8.30
+as usual he entered his severely upholstered dining-room and shut th
+door behind him. The windows looked into a spacious garden with a belt
+of trees leading up to the house from the gate, and this morning Mr.
+Rattar, who was a machine for habit, departed in one trifling particular
+from his invariable routine. Instead of sitting straight down to the
+business of breakfasting, he stood for a minute or two at the window
+gazing into the garden, and then he came to the table very thoughtfully.
+
+No man in that northern county was better known or more widely
+respected than Mr. Simon Rattar. In person, he was a thickset man of
+middle height and elderly middle age, with cold steady eyes and
+grizzled hair. His clean shaved face was chiefly remarkable for the
+hardness of his tight-shut mouth, and the obstinacy of the chin beneath
+it. Professionally, he was lawyer to several of the larger landowners
+and factor on their estates, and lawyer and adviser also to many other
+people in various stations in life. Officially, he was procurator fiscal
+for the county, the setter in motion of all criminal processes, and
+generalissimo, so to speak, of the police; and one way and another, he
+had the reputation of being a very comfortably well off gentleman
+indeed.
+
+As for his abilities, they were undeniably considerable, of the hard,
+cautious, never-caught-asleep order; and his taciturn manner and way of
+drinking in everything said to him while he looked at you out of his
+steady eyes, and then merely nodded and gave a significant little grunt
+at the end, added immensely to his reputation for profound wisdom.
+People were able to quote few definite opinions uttered by "Silent
+Simon," but any that could be quoted were shrewdness itself.
+
+He was a bachelor, and indeed, it was difficult for the most fanciful to
+imagine Silent Simon married. Even in his youth he had not been
+attracted by the other sex, and his own qualities certainly did not
+attract them. Not that there was a word to be said seriously against
+him. Hard and shrewd though he was, his respectability was extreme and
+his observance of the conventions scrupulous to a fault. He was an elder
+of the Kirk, a non-smoker, an abstemious drinker (to be an out and out
+teetotaler would have been a little too remarkable in those regions for
+a man of Mr. Rattar's conventional tastes), and indeed in all respects
+he trod that sober path that leads to a semi-public funeral and a vast
+block of granite in the parish kirkyard.
+
+He had acquired his substantial villa and large garden by a very shrewd
+bargain a number of years ago, and he lived there with just the decency
+that his condition in life enjoined, but with not a suspicion of display
+beyond it. He kept a staff of two competent and respectable girls, just
+enough to run a house of that size, but only just; and when he wanted to
+drive abroad he hired a conveyance exactly suitable to the occasion from
+the most respectable hotel. His life, in short, was ordered to the very
+best advantage possible.
+
+Enthusiastic devotion to such an extremely exemplary gentleman was a
+little difficult, but in his present housemaid, Mary MacLean, he had a
+girl with a strong Highland strain of fidelity to a master, and an
+instinctive devotion to his interests, even if his person was hardly the
+chieftain her heart demanded. She was a soft voiced, anxious looking
+young woman, almost pretty despite her nervous high strung air, and of a
+quiet and modest demeanour.
+
+Soon after her master had begun breakfast, Mary entered the dining-room
+with an apologetic air, but a conscientious eye.
+
+"Begging your pardon, sir," she began, "but I thought I ought to tell
+you that when cook and me was going out to the concert last night we
+thought we saw _something_ in the drive."
+
+Mr. Rattar looked up at her sharply and fixed his cold eyes on her
+steadily for a moment, never saying a word. It was exactly his ordinary
+habit, and she had thought she was used to it by now, yet this morning
+she felt oddly disconcerted. Then it struck her that perhaps it was the
+red cut on his chin that gave her this curious feeling. Silent Simon's
+hand was as steady as a rock and she never remembered his having cut
+himself shaving before; certainly not as badly as this.
+
+"Saw 'something'?" he repeated gruffly. "What do you mean?"
+
+"It looked like a man, sir, and it seemed to move into the trees almost
+as quick as we saw it!"
+
+"Tuts!" muttered Simon.
+
+"But there was two friends of ours meeting us in the road," she hurried
+on, "and they thought they saw a man going in at the gate!"
+
+Her master seemed a little more impressed.
+
+"Indeed?" said he.
+
+"So I thought it was my duty to tell you, sir."
+
+"Quite right," said he.
+
+"For I felt sure it couldn't just be a gentleman coming to see you, sir,
+or he wouldn't have gone into the trees."
+
+"Of course not," he agreed briefly. "Nobody came to see me."
+
+Mary looked at him doubtfully and hesitated for a moment.
+
+"Didn't you even hear anything, sir?" she asked in a lowered voice.
+
+Her master's quick glance made her jump.
+
+"Why?" he demanded.
+
+"Because, sir, I found footsteps in the gravel this morning--where it's
+soft with the rain, sir, just under the library window."
+
+Mr. Rattar looked first hard at her and then at his plate. For several
+seconds he answered nothing, and then he said:
+
+"I did hear some one."
+
+There was something both in his voice and in his eye as he said this
+that was not quite like the usual Simon Rattar. Mary began to feel a
+sympathetic thrill.
+
+"Did you look out of the window, sir?" she asked in a hushed voice.
+
+Her master nodded and pursed his lips.
+
+"But you didn't see him, sir?"
+
+"No," said he.
+
+"Who could it have been, sir?"
+
+"I have been wondering," he said, and then he threw a sudden glance at
+her that made her hurry for the door. It was not that it was an angry
+look, but that it was what she called so "queer-like."
+
+Just as she went out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr.
+Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke.
+The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angry
+twitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen the
+master do a thing of that kind.
+
+A little later the library bell called her. Mr. Rattar had finished
+breakfast and was seated beside the fire with a bundle of legal papers
+on a small table beside him, just as he always sat, absorbed in work,
+before he started for his office. The master's library impressed Mary
+vastly. The furniture was so substantial, new-looking, and conspicuous
+for the shininess of the wood and the brightness of the red morocco
+seats to the chairs. And it was such a tidy room--no litter of papers or
+books, nothing ever out of place, no sign even of pipe, tobacco jar,
+cigarette or cigar. The only concession to the vices were the ornate ash
+tray and the massive globular glass match box on the square table in the
+middle of the room, and they were manifestly placed there for the
+benefit of visitors merely. Even they, Mary thought, were admirable as
+ornaments, and she was concerned to note that there was no nice
+red-headed bundle of matches in the glass match box this morning. What
+had become of them she could not imagine, but she resolved to repair
+this blemish as soon as the master had left the house.
+
+"I don't want you to go gossiping about this fellow who came into the
+garden, last night," he began.
+
+"Oh, no, sir!" said she.
+
+Simon shot her a glance that seemed compounded of doubt and warning.
+
+"As procurator fiscal, it is my business to inquire into such affairs.
+I'll see to it."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir; I know," said she. "It seemed so impudent like of the man
+coming into the fiscal's garden of all places!"
+
+Simon grunted. It was his characteristic reply when no words were
+absolutely necessary.
+
+"That's all," said he, "don't gossip! Remember, if we want to catch the
+man, the quieter we keep the better."
+
+Mary went out, impressed with the warning, but still more deeply
+impressed with something else. Gossip with cook of course was not to be
+counted as gossip in the prohibited sense, and when she returned to the
+kitchen, she unburdened her Highland heart.
+
+"The master's no himsel'!" she said. "I tell you, Janet, never have I
+seen Mr. Rattar look the way he looked at breakfast, nor yet the way he
+looked in the library!"
+
+Cook was a practical person and apt to be a trifle unsympathetic.
+
+"He couldna be bothered with your blethering most likely!" said she.
+
+"Oh, it wasna that!" said Mary very seriously. "Just think yoursel' how
+would you like to be watched through the window at the dead of night as
+you were sitting in your chair? The master's feared of yon man, Janet!"
+
+Even Janet was a little impressed by her solemnity.
+
+"It must have taken something to make silent Simon feared!" said she.
+
+Mary's voice fell.
+
+"It's my opinion, the master knows more than he let on to me. The
+thought that came into my mind when he was talking to me was just--'The
+man feels he's being _watched_!'"
+
+"Oh, get along wi' you and your Hieland fancies!" said cook, but she
+said it a little uncomfortably.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE HEIR
+
+
+At 9.45 precisely Mr. Rattar arrived at his office, just as he had
+arrived every morning since his clerks could remember. He nodded curtly
+as usual to his head clerk, Mr. Ison, and went into his room. His
+letters were always laid out on his desk and from twenty minutes to half
+an hour were generally spent by him in running through them. Then he
+would ring for Mr. Ison and begin to deal with the business of the day.
+But on this morning the bell went within twelve minutes, as Mr. Ison (a
+most precise person) noted on the clock.
+
+"Bring the letter book," said Mr. Rattar. "And the business ledger."
+
+"Letter book and business ledger?" repeated Mr. Ison, looking a little
+surprised.
+
+Mr. Rattar nodded.
+
+The head clerk turned away and then paused and glanced at the bundle of
+papers Mr. Rattar had brought back with him. He had expected these to be
+dealt with first thing.
+
+"About this Thomson business--" he began.
+
+"It can wait."
+
+The lawyer's manner was peremptory and the clerk fetched the letter
+book and ledger. These contained, between them, a record of all the
+recent business of the firm, apart from public business and the affairs
+of one large estate. What could be the reason for such a comprehensive
+examination, Mr. Ison could not divine, but Mr. Rattar never gave
+reasons unless he chose, and the clerk who would venture to ask him was
+not to be found on the staff of Silent Simon.
+
+In a minute or two the head clerk returned with the books. This time he
+was wearing his spectacles and his first glance through them at Mr.
+Rattar gave him an odd sensation. The lawyer's mouth was as hard set and
+his eyes were as steady as ever. Yet something about his expression
+seemed a little unusual. Some unexpected business had turned up to
+disturb him, Mr. Ison felt sure; and indeed, this seemed certain from
+his request for the letter book and ledger. He now noticed also the cut
+on his chin, a sure sign that something had interrupted the orderly
+tenor of Simon Rattar's life, if ever there was one. Mr. Ison tried to
+guess whose business could have taken such a turn as to make Silent
+Simon cut himself with his razor, but though he had many virtues,
+imagination was not among them and he had to confess that it was fairly
+beyond James Ison.
+
+And yet, curiously enough, his one remark to a fellow clerk was not
+unlike the comment of the imaginative Mary MacLean.
+
+"The boss has a kin' of unusual look to-day. There was something kin'
+of suspicious in that eye of his--rather as though he thought someone
+was watching him."
+
+Mr. Rattar had been busy with the books for some twenty minutes when his
+head clerk returned.
+
+"Mr. Malcolm Cromarty to see you, sir," he said.
+
+Silent Simon looked at him hard, and it was evident to his clerk that
+his mind had been extraordinarily absorbed, for he simply repeated in a
+curious way:
+
+"Mr. _Malcolm_ Cromarty?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Mr. Ison, and then as even this seemed scarcely to be
+comprehended, he added, "Sir Reginald's cousin."
+
+"Ah, of course!" said Mr. Rattar. "Well, show him in."
+
+The young man who entered was evidently conscious of being a superior
+person. From the waviness of his hair and the studied negligence of his
+tie (heliotrope with a design in old gold), it seemed probable that he
+had literary or artistic claims to be superior to the herd. And from the
+deference with which Mr. Ison had pronounced his name and his own
+slightly condescending manner, it appeared that he felt himself in other
+respects superior to Mr. Rattar. He was of medium height, slender, and
+dark-haired. His features were remarkably regular, and though his face
+was somewhat small, there could be no doubt that he was extremely good
+looking, especially to a woman's eye, who would be more apt than a
+fellow man to condone something a little supercilious in his smile.
+
+The attire of Mr. Malcolm Cromarty was that of the man of fashion
+dressed for the country, with the single exception of the tie which
+intimated to the discerning that here was no young man of fashion
+merely, but likewise a young man of ideas. That he had written, or at
+least was going to write, or else that he painted or was about to paint,
+was quite manifest. The indications, however, were not sufficiently
+pronounced to permit one to suspect him of fiddling, or even of being
+about to fiddle.
+
+This young gentleman's manner as he shook hands with the lawyer and then
+took a chair was on the surface cheerful and politely condescending. Yet
+after his first greeting, and when he was seated under Simon's
+inscrutable eye, there stole into his own a hint of quite another
+emotion. If ever an eye revealed apprehension it was Malcolm Cromarty's
+at that instant.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rattar, here I am again, you see," said he with a little
+laugh; but it was not quite a spontaneous laugh.
+
+"I see, Mr. Cromarty," said Simon laconically.
+
+"You have been expecting to hear from me before, I suppose," the young
+man went on, "but the fact is I've had an idea for a story and I've been
+devilish busy sketching it out."
+
+Simon grunted and gave a little nod. One would say that he was studying
+his visitor with exceptional attention.
+
+"Ideas come to one at the most inconvenient times," the young author
+explained with a smile, and yet with a certain hurried utterance not
+usually associated with smiles, "one just has to shoot the bird when he
+happens to come over your head, don't you know, you can't send in
+beaters after that kind of fowl, Mr. Rattar. And when he does come out,
+there you are! You have to make hay while the sun shines."
+
+Again the lawyer nodded, and again he made no remark. The apprehension
+in his visitor's eye increased, his smile died away, and suddenly he
+exclaimed:
+
+"For God's sake, Mr. Rattar, say something! I meant honestly to pay you
+back--I felt sure I could sell that last thing of mine before now, but
+not a word yet from the editor I sent it to!"
+
+Still there came only a guarded grunt from Simon and the young man went
+on with increasing agitation.
+
+"You won't give me away to Sir Reginald, will you? He's been damned
+crusty with me lately about money matters, as it is. If you make me
+desperate----!" He broke off and gazed dramatically into space for a
+moment, and then less dramatically at his lawyer.
+
+Silent Simon was proverbially cautious, but it seemed to his visitor
+that his demeanour this morning exceeded all reasonable limits. For
+nearly a minute he answered absolutely nothing, and then he said very
+slowly and deliberately:
+
+"I think it would be better, Mr. Cromarty, if you gave me a brief,
+explicit statement of how you got into this mess."
+
+"Dash it, you know too well--" began Cromarty.
+
+"It would make you realise your own position more clearly," interrupted
+the lawyer. "You want me to assist you, I take it?"
+
+"Rather--if you will!"
+
+"Well then, please do as I ask you. You had better start at the
+beginning of your relations with Sir Reginald."
+
+Malcolm Cromarty's face expressed surprise, but the lawyer's was
+distinctly less severe, and he began readily enough:
+
+"Well, of course, as you know, my cousin Charles Cromarty died about 18
+months ago and I became the heir to the baronetcy--" he broke off and
+asked, "Do you mean you want me to go over all that?"
+
+Simon nodded, and he went on:
+
+"Sir Reginald was devilish good at first--in his own patronising way,
+let me stay at Keldale as often and as long as I liked, made me an
+allowance and so on; but there was always this fuss about my taking up
+something a little more conventional than literature. Ha, ha!" The young
+man laughed in a superior way and then looked apprehensively at the
+other. "But I suppose you agree with Sir Reginald?"
+
+Simon pursed his lips and made a non-committal sound.
+
+"Well, anyhow, he wanted me to be called to the Bar or something of that
+kind, and then there was a fuss about money--his ideas of an allowance
+are rather old fashioned, as you know. And then you were good enough to
+help me with that loan, and--well, that's all, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. Rattar had been listening with extreme attention. He now nodded, and
+a smile for a moment seemed to light his chilly eyes.
+
+"I see that you quite realise your position, Mr. Cromarty," he said.
+
+"Realise it!" cried the young man. "My God, I'm in a worse hole----" he
+broke off abruptly.
+
+"Worse than you have admitted to me?" said Simon quickly and again with
+a smile in his eye.
+
+Malcolm Cromarty hesitated, "Sir Reginald is so damned narrow! If he
+wants to drive me to the devil--well, let him! But I say, Mr. Rattar,
+what are you going to do?"
+
+For some moments Simon said nothing. At length he answered:
+
+"I shall not press for repayment at present."
+
+His visitor rose with a sigh of relief and as he said good-bye his
+condescending manner returned as readily as it had gone.
+
+"Good morning and many thanks," said he, and then hesitated for an
+instant. "You couldn't let me have a very small cheque, just to be going
+on with, could you?"
+
+"Not this morning, Mr. Cromarty."
+
+Mr. Cromarty's look of despair returned.
+
+"Well," he cried darkly as he strode to the door, "people who treat a
+man in my position like this are responsible for--er----!" The banging
+of the door left their precise responsibility in doubt.
+
+Simon Rattar gazed after him with an odd expression. It seemed to
+contain a considerable infusion of complacency. And then he rang for his
+clerk.
+
+"Get me the Cromarty estate letter book," he commanded.
+
+The book was brought and this time he had about ten minutes to himself
+before the clerk entered again.
+
+"Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland to see you, sir," he announced.
+
+This announcement seemed to set the lawyer thinking hard. Then in his
+abrupt way he said:
+
+"Show him in."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MAN FROM THE WEST
+
+
+Mr. Rattar's second visitor was of a different type. Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland stood about 6 feet two and had nothing artistic in his
+appearance, being a lean strapping man in the neighbourhood of forty,
+with a keen, thin, weather-beaten face chiefly remarkable for its
+straight sharp nose, compressed lips, reddish eye-brows, puckered into a
+slight habitual frown, and the fact that the keen look of the whole was
+expressed by only one of his eyes, the other being a good imitation but
+unmistakeably glass. The whole effect of the face, however, was
+singularly pleasing to the discerning critic. An out of door, reckless,
+humorous, honest personality was stamped on every line of it and every
+movement of the man. When he spoke his voice had a marked tinge of the
+twang of the wild west that sounded a little oddly on the lips of a
+country gentleman in these northern parts. He wore an open flannel
+collar, a shooting coat, well cut riding breeches and immaculate leather
+leggings, finished off by a most substantial pair of shooting boots.
+Unlike Mr. Malcolm Cromarty, he evidently looked upon his visit as
+expected.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Rattar," said he, throwing his long form into the
+clients' chair as he spoke. "Well, I guess you've got some good advice
+for me this morning."
+
+Simon Rattar was proverbially cautious, but to-day his caution struck
+his visitor as quite remarkable.
+
+"Um," he grunted. "Advice, Mr. Cromarty? Umph!"
+
+"Don't trouble beating about the bush," said the tall man. "I've been
+figuring things out myself and so far as I can see, it comes to
+this:--that loan from Sir Reginald put me straight in the meantime, but
+I've got to cut down expense all round to keep straight, and I've got to
+pay him back. Of course you know his way when it's one of the clan he's
+dealing with. 'My dear Ned, no hurry whatever. If you send my heir a
+cheque some day after I'm gone it will have the added charm of
+surprise!' Well, that's damned decent, but hardly business. I want to
+get the whole thing off my chest. Got the statement made up?"
+
+Simon shook his head.
+
+"Very sorry, Mr. Cromarty. Haven't had time yet."
+
+"Hell!" said Mr. Cromarty, though in a cheerful voice, and then added
+with an engaging smile, "Pardon me, Mr. Rattar. I'm trying to get
+educated out of strong language, but, Lord, at my time of life it's not
+so damned--I mean dashed easy!"
+
+Even Simon Rattar's features relaxed for an instant into a smile.
+
+"And who is educating you?" he enquired.
+
+Mr. Cromarty looked a little surprised.
+
+"Who but the usual lady? Gad, I've told you before of my sister's well
+meant efforts. It's a stiff job making a retired cow puncher into a high
+grade laird. However, I can smoke without spitting now, which is a step
+on the road towards being a Lord Chesterfield."
+
+He smiled humorously, stretched out his long legs and added:
+
+"It's a nuisance, your not having that statement ready. When I've got to
+do business I like pushing it through quick. That's an American habit I
+don't mean to get rid of, Mr. Rattar."
+
+Mr. Rattar nodded his approval.
+
+"Certainly not," said he.
+
+"I've put down my car," his visitor continued. "Drive a buggy now--beg
+its pardon, a trap, and a devilish nice little mare I've got in her too.
+In fact, there are plenty of consolations for whatever you have to do in
+this world. I'm only sorry for my sister's sake that I have to draw in
+my horns a bit. Women like a bit of a splash--at least judging from the
+comparatively little I know of 'em."
+
+"Miss Cromarty doesn't complain, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, I think she's beginning to see the necessity for reform. You see,
+when both my civilised elder brothers died----" he broke off, and then
+added: "But you know the whole story."
+
+"I would--er--like to refresh my memory," said Simon; and there seemed
+to be a note of interest and almost of eagerness in his voice that
+appeared to surprise his visitor afresh.
+
+"First time I ever heard of your memory needing refreshing!" laughed his
+visitor. "Well, you know how I came back from the wild and woolly west
+and tried to make a comfortable home for Lilian. We were neither of us
+likely to marry at our time of life, and there were just the two of us
+left, and we'd both of us knocked about quite long enough on our own,
+and so why not settle down together in the old place and be comfortable?
+At least that's how it struck me. Of course, as you know, we hadn't met
+for so long that we were practically strangers and she knew the ways of
+civilisation better than me, and I gave her a pretty free hand in
+setting up the establishment. I don't blame her, mind you, for setting
+the pace a bit too fast to last. My own blamed fault entirely. However,
+we aren't in a very deep hole, thank the Lord. In fact if I hadn't got
+to pay Sir Reginald back the L1,200 it would be all right, so far I can
+figure out. But I want your exact statement, Mr. Rattar, and as quick as
+you can let me have it."
+
+Simon nodded and grunted.
+
+"You'll get it." And then he added: "I think I can assure you there is
+nothing to be concerned about."
+
+Ned Cromarty smiled and a reckless light danced for a moment in his one
+efficient eye.
+
+"I guess I almost wish there were something to be concerned about! Sir
+Reginald is always telling me I'm the head of the oldest branch of the
+whole Cromarty family and it's my duty to live in the house of my
+ancestors and be an ornament to the county, and all the rest of it. But
+I tell you it's a damned quiet life for a man who's had his eye put out
+with a broken whisky bottle and hanged the man who did it with his own
+hands!"
+
+"Hanged him!" exclaimed the lawyer sharply.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't merely for the eye. That gave the performance a kind of
+relish it would otherwise have lacked, being a cold-blooded ceremony and
+a little awkward with the apparatus we had. We hanged him for murder, as
+a matter of fact. Now, between ourselves, Mr. Rattar, we don't want to
+crab our own county, but you must confess that real good serious crime
+is devilish scarce here, eh?"
+
+Cromarty's eye was gleaming humorously, and Simon Rattar might have been
+thought the kind of tough customer who would have been amused by the
+joke. He seemed, however, to be affected unpleasantly and even a little
+startled.
+
+"I--I trust we don't," he said.
+
+"Well," his visitor agreed, "as it means that something or somebody has
+got to be sacrificed to start the sport of man-hunting, I suppose
+there's something to be said for the quiet life. But personally I'd
+sooner be after men than grouse, from the point of view of getting
+thorough satisfaction while it lasts. My sister says it means I haven't
+settled down properly yet--calls me the bold bad bachelor!"
+
+Through this speech Simon seemed to be looking at his visitor with an
+attention that bordered on fascination, and it was apparently with a
+slight effort that he asked at the end:
+
+"Well, why don't you marry?"
+
+"Marry!" exclaimed Ned Cromarty. "And where will you find the lady
+that's to succumb to my fascinations? I'm within a month of forty, Mr.
+Rattar, I've the mind, habits, and appearance of a backwoodsman, and
+I've one working eye left. A female collector of antique curiosities, or
+something in the nature of a retired wardress might take on the job, but
+I can't think of any one else!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, and yet something remarkably like a sigh
+followed the laugh, and for a moment after he had ceased speaking his
+eye looked abstractedly into space.
+
+Before either spoke again, the door opened and the clerk, seeing Mr.
+Rattar was still engaged, murmured a "beg pardon" and was about to
+retire again.
+
+"What is it?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Miss Farmond is waiting to see you, sir."
+
+"I'll let you know when I'm free," said Simon.
+
+Had his eye been on his visitor as his clerk spoke, he might have
+noticed a curious commentary on Mr. Cromarty's professed lack of
+interest in womankind. His single eye lit up for an instant and he
+moved sharply in his chair, and then as suddenly repressed all sign of
+interest.
+
+A minute or two later the visitor jumped up.
+
+"Well," said he, "I guess you're pretty busy and I've been talking too
+long as it is. Let me have that statement as quick as you like. Good
+morning!"
+
+He strode to the door, shut it behind him, and then when he was on the
+landing, his movements became suddenly more leisurely. Instead of
+striding downstairs he stood looking curiously in turn at each closed
+door. It was an old fashioned house and rather a rabbit warren of an
+office, and it would seem as though for some reason he wished to leave
+no door unwatched. In a moment he heard the lawyer's bell ring and very
+slowly he moved down a step or two while a clerk answered the call and
+withdrew. And then he took a cigar from his case, bit off the end, and
+felt for matches; all this being very deliberately done, and his eye
+following the clerk. Thus when a girl emerged from the room along a
+passage, she met, apparently quite accidentally, Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland.
+
+At the first glance it was quite evident that the meeting gave more
+pleasure to the gentleman than to the lady. Indeed, the girl seemed too
+disconcerted to hide the fact.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Farmond," said he with what seemed intended for an
+air of surprise; as though he had no idea she had been within a mile of
+him. "You coming to see Simon on business too?" And then taking the cue
+from her constrained manner, he added hurriedly, and with a note of
+dejection he could not quite hide, "Well, good-bye."
+
+The girl's expression suddenly changed, and with that change the laird
+of Stanesland's curious movements became very explicable, for her face
+was singularly charming when she smiled. It was a rather pale but fresh
+and clear-skinned face, wide at the forehead and narrowing to a firm
+little chin, with long-lashed expressive eyes, and a serious expression
+in repose. Her smile was candid, a little coy and irresistibly engaging,
+and her voice was very pleasant, rather low, and most engaging too. She
+was of middle height and dressed in mourning. Her age seemed rather
+under than over twenty.
+
+"Oh," she said, with a touch of hesitation at first, "I didn't mean----"
+She broke off, glanced at the clerk, who being a discreet young man was
+now in the background, and then with lowered voice confessed, "The fact
+is, Mr. Cromarty, I'm not really supposed to be here at all. That's to
+say nobody knows I am."
+
+Mr. Cromarty looked infinitely relieved.
+
+"And you don't want anybody to know?" he said in his outspoken way.
+"Right you are. I can lie low and say nothing, or lie hard and say what
+you like; whichever you choose."
+
+"Lying low will do," she smiled. "But please don't think I'm doing
+anything very wrong."
+
+"I'll think what you tell me," he said gallantly. "I _was_ thinking
+Silent Simon was in luck's way--but perhaps you're going to wig him?"
+
+She laughed and shook her head.
+
+"Can you imagine me daring to wig Mr. Simon Rattar?"
+
+"I guess he needs waking up now and then like other people. He's been
+slacking over my business. In fact, I can't quite make him out this
+morning. He's not quite his usual self for some reason. Don't be afraid
+to wig him if he needs it!"
+
+The clerk in the background coughed and Miss Cicely Farmond moved
+towards the door of the lawyer's room, but Ned Cromarty seemed reluctant
+to end the meeting so quickly.
+
+"How did you come?" he asked.
+
+"Walked," she smiled.
+
+"Walked! And how are you going back?"
+
+"Walk again."
+
+"I say," he suggested eagerly, "I've got my trap in. Let me drive you!"
+
+She hesitated a moment.
+
+"It's awfully good of you to think of it----"
+
+"That's settled then. I'll be on the look out when you leave old Simon's
+den."
+
+He raised his cap and went downstairs this time without any hesitation.
+He had forgotten to light his cigar, and it was probably as a substitute
+for smoking that he found himself whistling.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE THIRD VISITOR
+
+
+Miss Cicely Farmond's air as she entered Simon Rattar's room seemed
+compounded of a little shyness, considerable trepidation, and yet more
+determination. In her low voice and with a fleeting smile she wished him
+good morning, like an acquaintance with whom she was quite familiar, and
+then with a serious little frown, and fixing her engaging eyes very
+straight upon him, she made the surprising demand:
+
+"Mr. Rattar, I want you to tell me honestly who I am."
+
+For an instant Simon's cold eyes opened very wide, and then he was
+gazing at her after his usual silent and steadfast manner.
+
+"Who you are?" he repeated after a few seconds' pause.
+
+"Yes. Indeed, Mr. Rattar, I _insist_ on knowing!"
+
+Simon smiled slightly.
+
+"And what makes you think I can assist you to--er--recover your
+identity, Miss Farmond?"
+
+"To discover it, not recover it," she corrected.
+
+"Don't you really know that I am honestly quite ignorant?"
+
+Mr. Rattar shook his head cautiously.
+
+"It is not for me to hazard an opinion," he answered.
+
+"Oh please, Mr. Rattar," she exclaimed, "don't be so dreadfully
+cautious! Surely you can't have thought that I knew all the time!"
+
+Again he was silent for a moment, and then enquired:
+
+"Why do you come to me now?"
+
+"Because I _must_ know! Because--well, because it is so unsatisfactory
+not knowing--for various reasons."
+
+"And why are you so positive that I can tell you?"
+
+"Because all my affairs and arrangements went through your hands, and of
+course you know!"
+
+Again he seemed to reflect for a moment.
+
+"May I ask, Miss Farmond," he enquired, "why, in that case, you think I
+shouldn't have told you before, and why--also in that case--I should
+tell you now?"
+
+This enquiry seemed to disconcert Miss Farmond a little.
+
+"Oh, of course I presume Sir Reginald and you had some reasons," she
+admitted.
+
+"And don't you think then we have them still?"
+
+"I can't honestly see why you should make such a mystery of
+it--especially as I can guess the truth perfectly easily!"
+
+"If you can guess it----" he began.
+
+"Oh please don't answer me like that! Why won't you tell me?"
+
+He seemed to consider the point for a moment, and then he said:
+
+"I am not at all sure that I am at liberty to tell you, Miss Farmond,
+without further consultation."
+
+"Has Sir Reginald really any good reasons for not telling me?"
+
+"Have you asked him that question?"
+
+"No," she confessed. "He and Lady Cromarty have been so frightfully
+kind, and yet so--so reserved on that subject, that I have never liked
+to ask them direct. But they know that I have guessed, and they haven't
+done anything to prevent me finding out more for myself, which means
+that they really are quite willing to let me find out if I can."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I am afraid I shall require more authority than that."
+
+She pursed her lips and looked at the floor in silence, and then she
+rose.
+
+"Well, if you absolutely refuse to tell me _anything_, Mr. Rattar, I
+suppose----"
+
+A dejected little shrug completed her sentence, and as she turned
+towards the door her eloquent eyes looked at him for a moment beneath
+their long lashes with an expression in them that might have moved a
+statue. Although Simon Rattar had the reputation of being impervious to
+woman's wiles, he may have been moved by this unspoken appeal. He
+certainly seemed struck by something, for even as her back was turning
+towards him, he said suddenly, and in a distinctly different voice:
+
+"You say you can guess yourself?"
+
+She nodded, and added with a pathetic coaxing note in her low voice:
+
+"But I want to _know_!"
+
+"Supposing," he suggested, "you were to tell me precisely how much you
+do know already, and then I could judge whether the rest might or might
+not be divulged."
+
+Her face brightened and she returned to her chair with a promptitude
+that suggested she was not unaccustomed to win a lost battle with these
+weapons.
+
+"Well," she said, "it was only six months ago--when mother died--that I
+first had the least suspicion there was any mystery about me--anything
+to hide. I knew she hadn't always been happy and that her trouble had
+something to do with my father, simply because she hardly ever mentioned
+him. But she lived at Eastbourne just like plenty of other widows and we
+had a few friends, though never very many, and I was very happy at
+school, and so I never troubled much about things."
+
+"And knew nothing up till six months ago?" asked Simon, who was
+following her story very attentively.
+
+"Nothing at all. Then, about a month after mother's death, I got a note
+from you asking me to go up to London and meet Sir Reginald Cromarty. I
+had never even heard of him before! Well, I went and he was simply as
+kind as--well, as he always is to everybody, and said he was a kind of
+connection of my family and asked me to pay them a long visit to
+Keldale."
+
+"How long ago precisely was that?"
+
+She looked a little surprised.
+
+"Oh, you know exactly. Almost just four months ago, wasn't it?"
+
+He nodded, but said nothing, and she went on:
+
+"From the very first it had seemed very strange that I had never heard a
+word about the Cromartys from mother, and as soon as I got to Keldale
+and met Lady Cromarty, I felt sure there was something wrong. I mean
+that I wasn't an ordinary distant relation. For one thing they never
+spoke of our relationship and exactly what sort of cousins we were, and
+considering how keen Sir Reginald is on his pedigree and all his
+relations and everybody, that alone made me certain I wasn't the
+ordinary kind. That was obvious, wasn't it?"
+
+"It seems so," the lawyer admitted cautiously.
+
+"Of course it was! Well, one day I happened to be looking over an old
+photograph album and suddenly I saw my father's photograph! Mother had a
+miniature of him--I have it still, and I was certain it was the same
+man. I pulled myself together and asked Sir Reginald in a very ordinary
+voice who that was, and I could see that both he and Lady Cromarty
+jumped a little. He had to tell me it was his brother Alfred and I
+discovered he had long been dead, but I didn't try to get any more
+information from them. I applied to Bisset."
+
+She gave a little laugh and looked at him with a touch of defiance. His
+inscrutable countenance appeared to annoy her.
+
+"Well?" he remarked.
+
+"Perhaps you think I oughtn't to have gone to a butler about such a
+thing, but Bisset is practically one of the family and I didn't give him
+the least idea of what I was after. I simply drew him on the subject of
+the Cromarty family history and among other things--that didn't so much
+interest me--I found that Mr. Alfred Cromarty was never married and
+seemed to have had rather a gay reputation."
+
+She looked at him with an expression that would have immediately
+converted any susceptible man into a fellow conspirator, and asked in
+her most enticing voice:
+
+"Need you ask what I guessed? What is the use in not telling me simply
+whether I have guessed right!"
+
+Silent Simon's face remained a mask.
+
+"What precisely did you guess?"
+
+"That my mother wasn't married," she said, her voice falling very low,
+"and I am really Sir Reginald's niece though he never can acknowledge
+it--and I don't want him to! But I do want to be sure. Dear Mr. Rattar,
+won't you tell me?"
+
+Dear Mr. Rattar never relaxed a muscle.
+
+"Your guess seems very probable," he admitted.
+
+"But tell me definitely."
+
+"Why?" he enquired coldly.
+
+"Oh, have you no _curiosity_ yourself--especially about who your parents
+were; supposing you didn't know?"
+
+"Then it's only out of curiosity that you enquired?"
+
+"Only!" she repeated with a world of woman's scorn. "But what sort of
+motives did you expect? I have walked in the whole way this morning just
+to end the suspense of wondering! Of course, I'll never tell a soul you
+told me."
+
+She threw on him a moving smile.
+
+"You needn't actually tell me outright. Just use some legal
+word--'Alibi' if I am right and 'forgery' if I'm wrong!"
+
+Silent Simon's sudden glance chilled her smile. She evidently felt she
+had been taking the law in vain.
+
+"I only meant----" she began anxiously.
+
+"I must consult Sir Reginald," he interrupted brusquely.
+
+She made no further effort. That glance seemed to have subdued her
+spirit.
+
+"I am sorry I have bothered you," she said as she went.
+
+As the door closed behind her, Mr. Rattar took out his handkerchief and
+wiped his brow and his neck. And then he fell to work again upon the
+recent records of the firm. Yet, absorbed though he seemed, whenever a
+door opened or shut sharply or a step sounded distinctly outside his
+room, he would look up quickly and listen, or that expression would come
+into his eye which both Mary MacLean and Mr. Ison had described as the
+look of one who was watched.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+AT NIGHT
+
+
+When Simon Rattar came to his present villa, he brought from his old
+house in the middle of the town (which had been his father's before him)
+a vast accumulation of old books and old papers. Being a man who never
+threw away an opportunity or anything else, and also a person of the
+utmost tidyness, he compromised by keeping this litter in the spare
+rooms at the top of the house. In fact Simon was rather pleased at
+discovering this use for his superfluous apartments, for he hated
+wasting anything.
+
+On this same morning, just before he started for his office, he had
+again called his housemaid and given her particular injunctions that
+these rooms were not to be disturbed during the day. He added that this
+was essential because he expected a gentleman that evening who would be
+going through some of the old papers with him.
+
+Perhaps it was the vague feeling of disquiet which possessed Mary
+MacLean this morning that made his injunction seem a little curious.
+She had been with the master three years and never presumed or dreamt
+of presuming to touch his papers. He might have known that, thought
+she, without having to tell her not to. Indeed, she felt a little
+aggrieved at the command, and in the course of the morning she made a
+discovery that seemed to her a further reflection on her discretion.
+
+When she came to dust the passage in which these rooms opened her eye
+was at once caught by a sheet of white paper pinned to each of the three
+doors. On each of these sheets was written in her master's hand the
+words "This room not to be entered. Papers to be undisturbed." The
+result was a warning to those who take superfluous precautions. Under
+ordinary circumstances Mary would never have thought of touching the
+handles of those doors. Now, she looked at them for a few moments and
+then tried the handle nearest to her. The door was locked. She tried the
+second and the third, and they stood locked too. And the three keys had
+all been removed.
+
+"To think of the master locking the doors!" said she to herself after
+failing at each in turn. "As if I'd have tried to open them!"
+
+That top storey was of the semi-attic kind, with roofs that sloped
+and a sky-light in one of them and the slates close overhead. It was
+a grey windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that large
+house save for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slate
+rattling in the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over the
+sky-light, she began all at once to feel uncomfortable. Those locked
+doors were uncanny--something was not as it should be; there was a
+sinister moan in the wind; the slate did not rattle quite like an
+ordinary slate. Tales of her childhood, tales from the superstitious
+western islands, rushed into her mind. And then, all at once, she
+heard another sound. She heard it but for one instant, and then with
+a pale face she fled downstairs and stood for a space in the hall
+trembling and wondering.
+
+She wondered first whether the sound had really come from behind the
+locked doors, and whether it actually was some one stealthily moving.
+She wondered next whether she could bring herself to confide in cook
+and stand Janet's cheerful scorn. She ended by saying not a word, and
+waiting to see what happened when the master came home.
+
+He returned as usual in time for a cup of tea. It was pretty dark by
+then and Mary was upstairs lighting the gas (but she did not venture up
+to the top floor). She heard Mr. Rattar come into the hall, and then,
+quite distinctly this time, she heard overhead a dull sound, a kind of
+gentle thud. The next moment she heard the master running upstairs, and
+when he was safely past she ran even more swiftly down and burst into
+the kitchen.
+
+"There's something in yon top rooms!" she panted.
+
+"There's something in your top storey!" snapped cook; and poor Mary said
+no more.
+
+When she brought his tea in to Mr. Rattar, she seemed to read in his
+first glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in the
+morning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy,
+laconic way.
+
+"Have you noticed rats in the house?" he asked.
+
+"Rats, sir!" she exclaimed. "Oh, no, sir, I don't think there are any
+rats."
+
+"I saw one just now," he said. "If we see it again we must get some rat
+poison."
+
+So it had only been a rat! Mary felt vastly relieved; and yet not
+altogether easy. One could not venture to doubt the master, but it was
+a queer-like sound for a rat to make.
+
+Mr. Rattar had brought back a great many papers to-day, and sat
+engrossed in them till dinner. After dinner he fell to work again, and
+then about nine o'clock he rang for her and said:
+
+"The gentleman I expect this evening will probably be late in coming.
+Don't sit up. I'll hear him and let him in myself. We shall be working
+late and I shall be going upstairs about those papers. If you hear
+anybody moving about, it will only be this gentleman and myself."
+
+This was rather a long speech for silent Simon, and Mary thought it
+considerate of him to explain any nocturnal sounds beforehand; unusually
+considerate, in fact, for he seldom went out of his way to explain
+things. And yet those few minutes in his presence made her uncomfortable
+afresh. She could not keep her eyes away from that red cut on his chin.
+It made him seem odd-like, she thought. And then as she passed through
+the hall she heard faintly from the upper regions that slate rattling
+again. At least it was either the slate or--she recalled a story of her
+childhood, and hurried on to the kitchen.
+
+She and the cook shared the same bedroom. It was fairly large with two
+beds in it, and along with the kitchen and other back premises it was
+shut off from the front part of the house by a door at the end of the
+hall. Cook was asleep within ten minutes. Mary could hear her heavy
+breathing above the incessant droning and whistling of the wind, and she
+envied her with all her Highland heart. In her own glen people would
+have understood how she felt, but here she dared not confess lest she
+were laughed at. It was such a vague and nameless feeling, a sixth sense
+warning her that all was not well; that _something_ was in the air. The
+longer she lay awake the more certain she grew that evil was afoot; and
+yet what could be its shape? Everything in that quiet and respectable
+household was going on exactly as usual; everything that any one else
+would have considered material. The little things she had noticed would
+be considered absurd trifles by the sensible. She knew that as well as
+they.
+
+She thought she had been in bed about an hour, though the time passed so
+slowly that it might have been less, when she heard, faintly and gently,
+but quite distinctly, the door from the hall into the back premises
+being opened. It seemed to be held open for nearly a minute, as though
+some one were standing there listening. She moved a little and the bed
+creaked; and then, as gently as it had been opened, the door was closed
+again.
+
+Had the intruder come through or gone away? And could it only be
+the master, doing this curious thing, or was it some one--or
+something--else? Dreadful minutes passed, but there was not a sound of
+any one moving in the back passage, or the kitchen, and then in the
+distance she could hear the grating noise of the front door being opened
+and the rush of wind that accompanied it. It was closed sharply in a
+moment and she could catch the sound of steps in the hall and the
+master's voice making some remark. Another voice replied, gruff and
+muffled and indistinct, and then again the master spoke. Evidently the
+late caller had arrived, and a moment later she heard the library door
+shut, and it was plain that he and Mr. Rattar were closeted there.
+
+They seemed to remain in the library about a quarter of an hour before
+the door opened again, and in a moment the stairs were creaking faintly.
+Evidently one or both were going up for the old papers.
+
+All this was exactly what she had been led to expect, and ought to
+have reassured her, yet, for no reason at all, the conviction remained
+as intense and disturbing as ever, that something unspeakable was
+happening in this respectable house. The minutes dragged by till quite
+half an hour must have passed, and then she heard the steps descending.
+They came down very slowly this time, and very heavily. The obvious
+explanation was that they were bringing down one of those boxes filled
+with dusty papers which she had often seen in the closed rooms; yet
+though Mary knew perfectly that this was the common sense of the matter,
+a feeling of horror increased till she could scarcely refrain from
+crying out. If cook had not such a quick temper and such a healthy
+contempt for this kind of fancy, she would have rushed across to her
+bed; but as it was, she simply lay and trembled.
+
+The steps sounded still heavy but more muffled on the hall carpet,
+though whether they were the steps of one man or two she could not feel
+sure. And then she heard the front door open again and then close; so
+that it seemed plain that the visitor had taken the box with him and
+gone away. And with this departure came a sense of relief, as devoid of
+rational foundation as the sense of horror before. She felt at last that
+if she could only hear the master going upstairs to bed, she might go to
+sleep.
+
+But though she listened hard as she lay there in the oppressive dark,
+she heard not another sound so long as she kept awake, and that was for
+some time, she thought. She did get off at last and had been asleep she
+knew not how long when she awoke drowsily with a confused impression
+that the front door had been shut again. How late it was she could but
+guess--about three or four in the morning her instinct told her. But
+then came sleep again and in the morning the last part of her
+recollections was a little uncertain.
+
+At breakfast the master was as silently formidable as ever and he never
+said a word about his visitor. When Mary went to the top floor later the
+papers were off the doors and the keys replaced.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE DRIVE HOME
+
+
+Under the grey autumnal sky Miss Cicely Farmond drove out of the town
+wrapped in Ned Cromarty's overcoat. He assured her he never felt cold,
+and as she glanced a little shyly up at the strapping figure by her
+side, she said to herself that he certainly was the toughest looking man
+of her acquaintance, and she felt a little less contrition for the loan.
+She was an independent young lady and from no one else would she have
+accepted such a favour, but the laird of Stanesland had such an off-hand
+authoritative way with him that, somewhat to her own surprise, she had
+protested--and submitted.
+
+The trap was a high dog cart and the mare a flier.
+
+"What a splendid horse!" she exclaimed as they spun up the first hill.
+
+"Isn't she?" said Ned. "And she can go all the way like this, too."
+
+Cicely was therefore a little surprised when at the next hill this flier
+was brought to a walk.
+
+"I thought we were going all the way like that!" she laughed.
+
+Ned glanced down at her.
+
+"Are you in a hurry?" he enquired.
+
+"Not particularly," she admitted.
+
+"No more am I," said he, and this time he smiled down at her in a very
+friendly way.
+
+So far they had talked casually on any indifferent subject that came to
+hand, but now his manner grew a little more intimate.
+
+"Are you going to stay on with the Cromartys long?" he asked.
+
+"I am wondering myself," she confessed.
+
+"I hope you will," he said bluntly.
+
+"It is very kind of you to say so," she said smiling at him a little
+shyly.
+
+"I mean it. The fact is, Miss Farmond, you are a bit of a treat."
+
+The quaintness of the phrase was irresistible and she laughed outright.
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"It's a fact," said he, "you see I live an odd lonely kind of life here,
+and for most of my career I've lived an odd lonely kind of life too, so
+far as girls were concerned. It may sound rum to you to hear a backwood
+hunks of my time of life confessing to finding a girl of your age a bit
+of a treat, but it's a fact."
+
+"Yes," she said. "I should have thought I must seem rather young and
+foolish."
+
+"Lord, I don't mean that!" he exclaimed. "I mean that _I_ must seem a
+pretty uninteresting bit of elderly shoe-leather."
+
+"Uninteresting? Oh no!" she cried in protest, and then checked herself
+and her colour rose a little.
+
+He smiled humorously.
+
+"I can't see you out of this glass eye unless I turn round, so whether
+you're pulling my leg or not I don't know, but I was just saying to old
+Simon that the only kind of lady likely to take an interest in me was a
+female collector of antique curiosities, and you don't seem that sort,
+Miss Farmond."
+
+She said nothing for a moment, and then asked:
+
+"Were you discussing ladies then with Mr. Rattar?"
+
+He also paused for a moment before replying.
+
+"Incidentally in the course of a gossip, as the old chap hadn't got my
+business ready for me. By the way, did you get much change out of him?"
+
+She shook her head a little mournfully.
+
+"Nothing at all. He just asked questions instead of answering them."
+
+"So he did with me! Confound the man. I fancy he has made too much money
+and is beginning to take it easy. That's one advantage of not being too
+rich, Miss Farmond; it keeps you from waxing fat."
+
+"I'm not likely to wax fat then!" she laughed, and yet it was not quite
+a cheerful laugh.
+
+He turned quickly and looked at her sympathetically.
+
+"That your trouble?" he enquired in his outspoken way.
+
+Cicely was not by way of giving her confidences easily, but this
+straight-forward, friendly attack penetrated her reserve.
+
+"It makes one so dependent," she said, her voice even lower than usual.
+
+"That must be the devil," he admitted.
+
+"It is!" said she.
+
+He whipped up the mare and ruminated in silence. Then he remarked:
+
+"I'm just wondering."
+
+Cicely began to smile.
+
+"Wondering what?"
+
+"What the devil there can be that isn't utterly uninteresting about
+me--assuming you weren't pulling my leg."
+
+"Oh," she said, "no man can be uninteresting who has seen as much and
+done as much as you have."
+
+"The Lord keep you of that opinion!" he said, half humorously, but only
+half, it seemed. "It's true I've knocked about and been knocked about,
+but I'd have thought you'd have judged more by results."
+
+She laughed a little low laugh.
+
+"Do you think yourself the results are very bad?"
+
+"Judging by the mirror, beastly! Judging by other standards--well, one
+can't see one's self in one's full naked horror, thank Heaven for it
+too! But I'm not well read, and I'm not--but what's the good in telling
+you? You're clever enough to see for yourself."
+
+For a man who had no intention of paying compliments, Ned Cromarty had
+a singular gift for administering the pleasantest--because it was so
+evidently the most genuine--form of flattery. In fact, had he but known
+it, he was a universal favourite with women, whenever he happened to
+meet them; only he had not the least suspicion of the fact--which made
+him all the more favoured.
+
+"I don't know very many men," said Cicely, with her serious expression
+and a conscientious air, "and so perhaps I am not a good judge, but
+certainly you seem to me quite unlike all the others."
+
+"I told you," he laughed, "that the female would have to be a bit of a
+collector."
+
+"Oh," she cried, quite serious still, "I don't mean that in the least. I
+don't like freaks a bit myself. I only mean--well, people do differ in
+character and experience, don't they?"
+
+"I guess you're pretty wise," said he simply. "And I'm sized up right
+enough. However, the trouble at present is this blamed mare goes too
+fast!"
+
+On their left, the chimneys and roof of a large mansion showed through
+the surrounding trees. In this wind-swept seaboard country, its acres of
+plantation were a conspicuous landmark and marked it as the seat of some
+outstanding local magnate. These trees were carried down to the road in
+a narrow belt enclosing an avenue that ended in a lodge and gates. At
+the same time that the lodge came into view round a bend in the road, a
+man on a bicycle appeared ahead of them, going in the same direction,
+and bent over his handle-bars against the wind.
+
+"Hullo, that's surely Malcolm Cromarty!" said Ned.
+
+"So it is!" she exclaimed, and there was a note of surprise in her
+voice. "I wonder where he has been."
+
+The cyclist dismounted at the lodge gates a few moments before the trap
+pulled up there too, and the young man turned and greeted them. Or
+rather he greeted Miss Farmond, for his smile was clearly aimed at her
+alone.
+
+"Hullo! Where have you been?" he cried.
+
+"Where have you?" she retorted as she jumped out and let him help her
+off with the driving coat.
+
+They made a remarkably good-looking young couple standing together there
+on the road and their manner to one another was evidently that of two
+people who knew each other well. Sitting on his high driving seat, Ned
+Cromarty turned his head well round so as to bring his sound eye to bear
+and looked at them in silence. When she handed him his coat and thanked
+him afresh, he merely laughed, told her, in his outspoken way, that all
+the fun had been his, and whipped up his mare.
+
+"That's more the sort of fellow!" he said to himself gloomily, and for a
+little the thought seemed to keep him depressed. And then as he let the
+recollections of their drive have their own way undisturbed, he began to
+smile again, and kept smiling most of the way home.
+
+The road drew ever nearer to the sea, trees and hedgerows grew even
+rarer and more stunted, and then he was driving through a patch of
+planting hardly higher than a shrubbery up to an ancient building on the
+very brink of the cliffs. The sea crashed white below and stretched grey
+and cold to the horizon, the wind whistled round the battlements and
+sighed through the stunted trees, and Ned (who had been too absorbed to
+remember his coat) slapped his arms and stamped his feet as he descended
+before a nail-studded front door with a battered coat of arms above it.
+
+"Lord, what a place!" he said to himself, half critically, half
+affectionately.
+
+The old castle of Stanesland was but a small house as castles, or even
+mansions, go, almost devoid of architectural ornament and evidently
+built in a sterner age simply for security, and but little embellished
+by the taste of more degenerate times. As a specimen of a small early
+15th Century castle it was excellent; as a home it was inconvenience
+incarnate. How so many draughts found their way through such thick walls
+was a perennial mystery, and how to convey dishes from the kitchen to
+the dining room without their getting cold an almost insoluble problem.
+
+The laird and his sister sat down to lunch and in about ten minutes Miss
+Cromarty remarked,
+
+"So you drove Cicely Farmond home?"
+
+Her brother nodded. He had mentioned the fact as soon as he came in, and
+rather wondered why she referred to it again.
+
+Miss Cromarty smiled her own peculiar shrewd worldly little smile, and
+said:
+
+"You are very silent, Ned."
+
+Lilian Cromarty was a few years older than her brother; though one
+would hardly have guessed it. Her trim figure, bright eyes, vivacity
+of expression when she chose to be vivacious, and quick movements
+might have belonged to a woman twenty years younger. She had never
+been pretty, but she was always perfectly dressed and her smile could
+be anything she chose to make it. Until her youngest brother came into
+the property, the place had been let and she had lived with her friends
+and relations. She had had a good time, she always frankly confessed,
+but as frankly admitted that it was a relief to settle down at last.
+
+"I was thinking," said her brother.
+
+"About Cicely?" she asked in her frankly audacious way.
+
+He opened his eyes for a moment and then laughed.
+
+"You needn't guess again, Lilian," he admitted.
+
+"Funny little thing," she observed.
+
+"Funny?" he repeated, and his tone brought an almost imperceptible
+change of expression into his sister's eye.
+
+"Oh," she said as though throwing the subject aside, "she is nice and
+quite pretty, but very young, and not very sophisticated; is she?
+However, I should think she would be a great success as a man's girl.
+That low voice and those eyes of hers are very effective. Pass me the
+salt, Ned."
+
+Ned looked at her in silence, and then over her shoulder out through the
+square window set in the vast thickness of the wall, to the grey horizon
+line.
+
+"I guess you've recommended me to marry once or twice, Lilian," he
+observed.
+
+"Don't 'guess' please!" she laughed, "or I'll stick my bowie knife or
+gun or something into you! Yes, I've always advised you to marry--if you
+found the right kind of wife."
+
+She took some credit to herself for this disinterested advice, since, if
+he took it, the consequences would be decidedly disconcerting to
+herself; but she had never pointed out any specific lady yet, or made
+any conspicuous effort to find one for him.
+
+"Well----" he began, and then broke off.
+
+"You're not thinking of Cicely, are you?" she asked, still in the same
+bright light way, but with a quick searching look at him.
+
+"It seems a bit absurd. I don't imagine for an instant she'd look at
+me."
+
+"Wouldn't look----!" she began derisively, and then pulled herself up
+very sharply, and altered her tactics on the instant. "She might think
+you a little too old for her," she said in a tone of entire agreement
+with him.
+
+"And also that I've got one too few eyes, and in fact several other
+criticisms."
+
+His sister shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"A girl of that age might think those things," she admitted, "but it
+seems to me that the criticism ought to be on the other side. Who is
+she?"
+
+Ned looked at her and she broke into a laugh.
+
+"Well," she said, "I suppose we both have a pretty good idea. She's
+somebody's something--Alfred Cromarty's, I believe; though of course
+her mother may have fibbed, for she doesn't look much like the
+Cromartys. Anyhow that pretty well puts her out of the question."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"If you were a mere nobody, it mightn't make so much difference, but
+your wife must have some sort of a family behind her. One needn't be
+a snob to think that one mother and a guess at the father is hardly
+enough!"
+
+"After all, that's up to me. I wouldn't be wanting to marry her
+great-mothers, even if she had any."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders again.
+
+"My dear Ned, I'm no prude, but there's always some devilment in the
+blood in these cases."
+
+"Rot!" said he.
+
+"Well, rot if you like, but I know more than one instance."
+
+He said nothing for a moment and as he sat in silence, a look of keen
+anxiety came into her eye. She hid it instantly and compressed her
+lips, and then abruptly her brother said:
+
+"I wonder whether she's at all taken up with Malcolm Cromarty!"
+
+She ceased to meet his eye, and her own became expressionless.
+
+"They have spent some months in the same house. At their age the
+consequences seem pretty inevitable."
+
+She had contrived to suggest a little more than she said, and he started
+in his chair.
+
+"What do you know?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, of course, there would be a dreadful row if anything was actually
+known abroad. Sir Reginald has probably other ideas for his heir."
+
+"Then there _is_ something between them?"
+
+She nodded, and though she still did not meet his eye, he accepted the
+nod with a grim look that passed in a moment into a melancholy laugh.
+
+"Well," he said, rising, "it was a pretty absurd idea anyhow. I'll go
+and have a look at myself in the glass and try to see the funny side of
+it!"
+
+His sister sat very still after he had left the room.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SIR REGINALD
+
+
+Cicely Farmond and Malcolm Cromarty walked up the avenue together, he
+pushing his bicycle, she walking by his side with a more than usually
+serious expression.
+
+"Then you won't tell me where you've been?" said he.
+
+"You won't tell me where you've been!"
+
+He was silent for a moment and then said confidentially:
+
+"We might as well say we've been somewhere together. I mean, if any one
+asks."
+
+"Thank you, I don't need to fib," said she.
+
+"I don't mean I need to. Only----" he seemed to find it difficult to
+explain.
+
+"I shall merely say I have been for a walk, and you need only say you
+have been for a ride--if you don't want to say where you have really
+been."
+
+"And if you don't want to mention that you were driving with Ned
+Cromarty," he retorted.
+
+"He only very kindly offered me a lift!"
+
+She looked quickly at him as she spoke and as quickly away again. The
+glint in her eye seemed to displease him.
+
+"You needn't always be so sharp with me, Cicely," he complained.
+
+"You shouldn't say stupid things."
+
+Both were silent for a space and then in a low mournful voice he said:
+
+"I wish I knew how to win your sympathy, Cicely. You don't absolutely
+hate me, do you?"
+
+"Of course I don't hate you. But the way to get a girl's sympathy is not
+always to keep asking for it."
+
+He looked displeased again.
+
+"I don't believe you know what I mean!"
+
+"I don't believe you do either."
+
+He grew tender.
+
+"_Your_ sympathy, Cicely, would make all the difference to my life!"
+
+"Now, Malcolm----" she began in a warning voice.
+
+"Oh, I am not asking you to love me again," he assured her quickly. "It
+is only sympathy I demand!"
+
+"But you mix them up so easily. It isn't safe to give you anything."
+
+"I won't again!" he assured her.
+
+"Well," she said, though not very sympathetically, "what do you want to
+be sympathised with about now?"
+
+"When you offer me sympathy in that tone, I can't give you my
+confidence!" he said unhappily.
+
+"Really, Malcolm, how can I possibly tell what your confidence is going
+to be beforehand? Perhaps it won't deserve sympathy."
+
+"If you knew the state of my affairs!" he said darkly.
+
+"A few days ago you told me they were very promising," she said with a
+little smile.
+
+"So they would be--so they are--if--if only you would care for me,
+Cicely!"
+
+"You tell me they are promising when you want me to marry you, and
+desperate when you want me to sympathise with you," she said a little
+cruelly. "Which am I to believe?"
+
+"Hush! Here's Sir Reginald," he said.
+
+The gentleman who came through a door in the walled garden beside the
+house was a fresh-coloured, white-haired man of sixty; slender and not
+above middle height, but very erect, and with the carriage of a person a
+little conscious of being of some importance. Sir Reginald Cromarty was,
+in fact, extremely conscious of his position in life, and the rather
+superior and condescending air he was wont to assume in general society
+made it a little difficult for a stranger to believe that he could
+actually be the most popular person in the county; especially as it was
+not hard to discover that his temper could easily become peppery upon
+provocation. If, however, the stranger chanced to provide the worthy
+baronet with even the smallest opening of exhibiting his extraordinary
+kindness of heart--were it only by getting wet in a shower or mislaying
+a walking stick, he would quickly comprehend. And the baronet's sympathy
+never waited to be summoned; it seemed to hover constantly over all men
+and women he met, spying for its chance.
+
+He himself was totally unconscious of this attribute and imagined the
+respect in which he was held to be due to his lineage, rank, and
+superior breeding and understanding. Indeed, few people in this world
+can have cut a more dissimilar figure as seen from his own and from
+other men's eyes; though as both parties were equally pleased with Sir
+Reginald Cromarty, it mattered little.
+
+At the sight of Cicely his smile revealed the warmth of his feelings in
+that direction.
+
+"Ah, my dear girl," said he, "we've been looking for you. Where have you
+been?"
+
+"I've been having a walk."
+
+She smiled at him as she answered, and on his side it was easy to see
+that the good gentleman was enraptured, and that Miss Farmond was not
+likely to be severely cross-examined as to her movements. Towards
+Malcolm, on the other hand, though his greeting was kindly enough, his
+eye was critical. The young author's tie seemed to be regarded with
+particular displeasure.
+
+"My God, Margaret, imagine being found dead in such a thing!" he had
+exclaimed to his wife, after his first sight of it; and time had done
+nothing to diminish his distaste for this indication of a foreign way of
+life.
+
+Lady Cromarty came out of the garden a moment later; a dark thin-faced
+lady with a gracious manner when she spoke, but with lips that were
+usually kept very tight shut and an eye that could easily be hard.
+
+"Nearly time for lunch," she said. "You two had better hurry up!"
+
+The young people hurried on to the house and the baronet and his lady
+walked slowly behind.
+
+"So they have been away all morning together, Reginald," she remarked.
+
+"Oh, I don't think so," said he. "He had his bicycle and she has been
+walking."
+
+"You are really too unsuspicious, Reggie!"
+
+"A woman, my dear, is perhaps a little too much the reverse where a
+young couple is concerned. I have told you before, and I repeat it now
+emphatically, that neither Cicely nor Malcolm is in a position to
+contemplate matrimony for an instant."
+
+"He is your heir--and Cicely is quite aware of it."
+
+"I assure you, Margaret," he said with great conviction, "that Cicely is
+not a girl with mercenary motives. She is quite charming----"
+
+"Oh, I know your opinion of her, Reggie," Lady Cromarty broke in a
+trifle impatiently, "and I am fond of her too, as you know. Still, I
+don't believe a girl who can use her eyes so effectively is quite as
+simple as you think."
+
+Sir Reginald laughed indulgently.
+
+"Really, my love, even the best of women are sometimes a trifle
+uncharitable! But in any case Malcolm has quite enough sense of his
+future position to realise that his wife must be somebody without the
+blemish on her birth, which is no fault of dear Cicely's, but--er--makes
+her ineligible for this particular position."
+
+"I wish I could think that Malcolm is the kind of young man who would
+consult anything but his own wishes. I have told you often enough,
+Reggie, that I don't think it is wise to keep these two young people
+living here in the same house for months on end."
+
+"But what can one do?" asked the benevolent baronet. "Neither of them
+has any home of their own. Hang it, I'm the head of their family and I'm
+bound to show them a little hospitality."
+
+"But Malcolm has rooms in town. He needn't spend months on end at
+Keldale."
+
+The baronet was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"To tell the truth, my dear, I'm afraid Malcolm is not turning out quite
+so well as I had hoped. He certainly ought to be away doing something.
+At the same time, hang it, you wouldn't have me turn my own kinsman and
+heir out of my house, Margaret; would you?"
+
+Lady Cromarty sighed, and then her thin lips tightened.
+
+"You are hopeless, Reggie. I sometimes feel as though I were here merely
+as matron of a home for lost Cromartys! Well, I hope your confidence
+won't be abused. I confess I don't feel very comfortable about it
+myself."
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Reginald. "My own eyes are open too, I assure
+you. I shall watch them very carefully at lunch, in the light of what
+you have been saying."
+
+The baronet was an old Etonian, and as his life had been somewhat
+uneventful since, he was in the habit of drawing very largely on his
+recollections of that nursery of learning. Lunch had hardly begun before
+a question from Cicely set him going, and for the rest of the meal he
+regaled her with these reminiscences.
+
+After luncheon he said to his wife:
+
+"Upon my word, I noticed nothing whatever amiss. Cicely is a very
+sensible as well as a deuced pretty girl."
+
+"I happened to look at Malcolm occasionally," said she.
+
+Sir Reginald thought that she seemed to imply more than she said, but
+then women were like that, he had noticed, and if one took all their
+implications into account, life would be a troublesome affair.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A PHILOSOPHER
+
+
+During luncheon an exceedingly efficient person had been moving briskly
+behind the chairs. His face was so expressionless, his mouth so tightly
+closed, and his air of concentration on the business in hand so intense,
+that he seemed the perfect type of the silent butler. But as soon as
+lunch was over, and while Cicely still stood in the hall listening with
+a dubious eye to Malcolm's suggestion of a game of billiards, Mr. James
+Bisset revealed the other side of his personality. He came up to the
+young couple with just sufficient deference, but no more, and in an
+accent which experts would have recognised as the hall mark of the
+western part of North Britain, said:
+
+"Excuse me, miss, but I've mended your bicycle and I'll show it you if
+ye like, and just explain the principle of the thing."
+
+There was at least as much command as invitation in his tones. The
+billiard invitation was refused, and with a hidden smile Cicely followed
+him to the bicycle house.
+
+Expert knowledge was James Bisset's foible. Of some subjects, such as
+buttling, carpentry, and mending bicycles, it was practical; of others,
+such as shooting, gardening, and motoring, it was more theoretical. To
+Sir Reginald and my lady he was quite indispensable, for he could repair
+almost anything, knew his own more particular business from A to Z, and
+was ready at any moment to shoulder any responsibility. Sir Reginald's
+keeper, gardener, and chauffeur were apt however to be a trifle less
+enthusiastic, Mr. Bisset's passion for expounding the principles of
+their professions sometimes exceeding his tact.
+
+In person, he was an active, stoutly built man (though far too energetic
+to be fat), with blunt rounded features, eyes a little protruding, and
+sandy hair and a reddish complexion which made his age an unguessable
+secret. He might have been in the thirties or he might have been in the
+fifties.
+
+"With regard to these ladies' bicycles, miss--" he began with a
+lecturer's air.
+
+But by this time Cicely was also an expert in side-tracking her friend's
+theoretical essays.
+
+"Oh, how clever of you!" she exclaimed rapturously. "It looks as good as
+ever!"
+
+The interruption was too gratifying to offend.
+
+"Better in some ways," he said complacently. "The principle of these
+things is----"
+
+"I did miss it this morning," she hurried on. "In fact I had to have
+quite a long walk. Luckily Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland gave me a lift
+coming home."
+
+"Oh, indeed, miss? Stanesland gave ye a lift, did he? An interesting
+gentleman yon."
+
+This time she made no effort to divert Mr. Bisset's train of thought.
+
+"You think Mr. Cromarty interesting, then?" said she.
+
+"They say he's hanged a man with his ain hands," said Bisset
+impressively.
+
+"What!" she cried.
+
+"For good and sufficient reason, we'll hope, miss. But whatever the way
+of it, it makes a gentleman more interesting in a kin' of way than the
+usual run. And then looking at the thing on general principles, the
+theory of hanging is----"
+
+"Oh, but surely," she interrupted, "that isn't the only reason why Mr.
+Cromarty--I mean why you think he is interesting?"
+
+"There's that glass eye, too. That's very interesting, miss."
+
+She still seemed unsatisfied.
+
+"His glass eye! Oh--you mean it has a story?"
+
+"Vera possibly. He says himself it was done wi' a whisky bottle, but
+possibly that's making the best of it. But what interests me, miss,
+about yon eye is this----"
+
+He paused dramatically and she enquired in an encouraging voice:
+
+"Yes, Bisset?"
+
+"It's the principle of introducing a foreign substance so near the man's
+brain. What's glass? What's it consist of?"
+
+"I--I don't know," confessed Cicely weakly.
+
+"Silica! And what's silica? Practically the same as sand! Well now if ye
+put a handful of sand into a man's brain--or anyhow next door to it,
+it's bound to have some effect, bound to have some effect!"
+
+Bisset's voice fell to a very serious note, and as he was famous for the
+range of his reading and was generally said to know practically by heart
+"The People's Self-Educator in Science and Art," Cicely asked a little
+apprehensively:
+
+"But what effect can it possibly have?"
+
+"It might take him different ways," said the philosopher cautiously
+though sombrely. "But it's a good thing, anyway, Miss Farmond, that the
+laird of Stanesland is no likely to get married."
+
+"Isn't he?" she asked, again with that encouraging note.
+
+Bisset replied with another question, asked in an ominous voice:
+
+"Have ye seen yon castle o' his, miss?"
+
+Cicely nodded.
+
+"I called there once with Lady Cromarty."
+
+"A most interesting place, miss, illustrating the principle of thae
+castles very instructively."
+
+Mr. Bisset had evidently been studying architecture as well as science,
+and no doubt would have given Miss Farmond some valuable information on
+the subject. But she seemed to lack enthusiasm for it to-day.
+
+"But will the castle prevent him marrying?" she enquired with a smile.
+
+"The lady in it will," said the philosopher with a sudden descent into
+worldly shrewdness.
+
+"Miss Cromarty! Why?"
+
+"She's mair comfortable there than setting off on her travels again.
+That's a fac', miss."
+
+"But--but supposing he----" Cicely began and then paused.
+
+"Oh, the laird's no the marrying sort anyhow. He says to me himself one
+day when I'd taken the liberty of suggesting that a lady would suit the
+castle fine--we was shooting and I was carrying his cartridges, which I
+do for amusement, miss, whiles--'Bisset,' says he, 'the lady will have
+to be a damned keen shot to think me worth a cartridge. I'm too tough
+for the table,' says he, 'and not ornamental enough to stuff. They've
+let me off so far, and why the he--' begging your pardon, miss, but
+Stanesland uses strong expressions sometimes. 'Why the something,' says
+he, 'should they want to put me in the bag now? I'm happier free--and
+so's the lady.' But he's a grand shot and a vera friendly gentleman,
+vera friendly indeed. It's a pity, though, he's that ugly."
+
+"Ugly!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I don't think him ugly at all. He's very
+striking looking. I think he is rather handsome."
+
+Bisset looked at her with a benevolently reproving eye.
+
+"Weel, miss, it's all a matter of taste, but to my mind Stanesland is a
+fine gentleman, but the vera opposite extreme from a Venus." He broke
+off and glanced towards the house. "Oh, help us! There's one of thae
+helpless women crying on me. How this house would get on wanting
+me----!"
+
+He left Miss Farmond to paint the gloomy picture for herself.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE LETTER
+
+
+It was a few days later that Cicely looked up from the local paper she
+was reading and asked:
+
+"Who was George Rattar?"
+
+Sir Reginald laid down his book and looked at her in some surprise.
+
+"George Rattar? What do you know about him?"
+
+"I see the announcement of his death. 'Son of the late John Simon
+Rattar' he's called."
+
+"That's Silent Simon's brother!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "Where did he
+die?"
+
+"In New York, it says."
+
+Sir Reginald turned to his wife.
+
+"We can hardly send our sympathies to Simon on this bereavement!"
+
+"No," she said significantly. "I suppose congratulations would be more
+appropriate."
+
+The baronet took the paper from Cicely and studied it himself.
+
+"Died about a fortnight ago, I see," he observed. "I wonder whether
+Simon put this announcement in himself, or whether brother George
+arranged it in his will? It would be quite like the fellow to have this
+posthumous wipe at Simon. George had a certain sense of humour--which
+Simon lacks. And there was certainly no love lost between them!"
+
+"Why should it annoy Mr. Rattar?" asked Cicely.
+
+"Because brother George was not a member of his family he would care to
+be reminded of. Though on the other hand, Simon is as hard as whinstone
+and has as much sentiment as this teapot, and he may have put the notice
+in himself simply to show the world he was rid of the fellow."
+
+"What was George Rattar then?" enquired Cicely.
+
+"He was once Simon Rattar's partner, wasn't he, Reginald?" said Lady
+Cromarty. "And then he swindled him, didn't he?"
+
+"Swindled several other people as well," said Sir Reginald, "myself
+included. However, the thing was hushed up, and brother George
+disappeared. Then he took to forgery on his own account and among other
+people's signatures he imitated with remarkable success was Simon's.
+This let old Simon in for it again and there was no hushing it up a
+second time. Simon gave evidence against him without mercy, and since
+then George has been his Majesty's guest for a number of years. So if
+you meet Mr. Simon Rattar, Cicely, you'd better not tell him how sorry
+you are to hear of poor George's decease!"
+
+"I wish I could remember him more distinctly," said Lady Cromarty. "I'm
+afraid I always mix him up with our friend Mr. Simon."
+
+"It's little wonder," her husband replied. "They were twins. George was
+the one with a moustache; one knew them apart by that. Extraordinary
+thing, it has always seemed to me, that their natures should have been
+so different."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Cicely compassionately, with her serious air, "it
+was only that George was tempted."
+
+Sir Reginald laughed heartily.
+
+"You little cynic!" he cried. "You mean to insinuate that if you tempted
+Simon, he'd be as bad a hat as his brother?"
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Cicely. "I meant----"
+
+"Tempt him and see!" chuckled the baronet. "And we'll have a little bet
+on the result!" He was glancing at the paper as he laughed, and now he
+suddenly stopped laughing and exclaimed, "Hullo! Here's a much more
+serious loss for our friend. Would you like to earn L1, Cicely?"
+
+"Very much," said she.
+
+"Well then if you search the road very carefully between Mr. Simon
+Rattar's residence and his office you may find his signet ring and
+obtain the advertised, and I may say princely, reward of one pound."
+
+"Only a pound!" exclaimed Lady Cromarty, "for that handsome old ring of
+his?"
+
+"If he had offered a penny more, I should have taken my business out of
+his hands!" laughed Sir Reginald. "It would have meant that Silent Simon
+wasn't himself any longer. A pound is exactly his figure; a respectable
+sum, but not extravagant."
+
+"What day did he lose it?" asked Cicely.
+
+"The advertisement doesn't say."
+
+"He wasn't wearing it----" Cicely pulled herself up sharply.
+
+"When?" asked Lady Cromarty.
+
+"Where can I have seen him last?" wondered Cicely with an innocent air.
+
+"Not for two or three weeks certainly," said Lady Cromarty decisively.
+"And he can't have lost it then if this advertisement is only just put
+in."
+
+"No, of course not," Cicely agreed.
+
+"Well," said Sir Reginald, "he'll miss his ring more than his brother!
+And remember, Cicely, you get a pound for finding the ring, and you win
+a pair of gloves if you can tempt Simon to stray from the paths of
+honesty and virtue! By Jingo, I'll give you the gloves if you can even
+make him tell a good sporting lie!"
+
+When the good baronet was in this humour no man could excel him in
+geniality, and, to do him justice, a kindly temper and hearty spirits
+were the rule with him six days out of seven. On the other hand, he was
+easily ruffled and his tempers were hot while they lasted. Upon the very
+next morning there arose on the horizon a little cloud, a cloud that
+seemed at the moment the merest fleck of vapour, which upset him, his
+family thought, quite unduly.
+
+It took the form of a business letter from Mr. Simon Rattar, a letter
+on the surface perfectly innocuous and formally polite. Yet Sir Reginald
+seemed considerably disturbed.
+
+"Damn the man!" he exclaimed as he cast it on the breakfast table.
+
+"Reggie!" expostulated his wife gently. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Matter?" snapped her husband. "Simon Rattar has the impudence to tell
+me he is letting the farm of Castleknowe to that fellow Shearer after
+all!"
+
+"But why not? You meant to some time ago, I know."
+
+"Some time ago, certainly. But I had a long talk with Simon ten days ago
+and told him what I'd heard about Shearer and said I wouldn't have the
+fellow on my property at any price. I don't believe the man is solvent,
+in the first place; and in the second place he's a socialistic,
+quarrelsome, mischievous fellow!"
+
+"And what did Mr. Rattar think?"
+
+"He tried to make some allowances for the man, but in the end when he
+saw I had made up my mind, he professed to agree with me and said he
+would look out for another tenant. Now he tells me that the matter is
+settled as per my instructions of the 8th. That's weeks ago, and not a
+word does he say about our conversation cancelling the whole
+instructions!"
+
+"Then Shearer gets the farm?"
+
+"No, he doesn't! I'm dashed if he does! I shall send Mr. Simon a letter
+that will make him sit up! He's got to alter the arrangement somehow."
+
+He turned to Malcolm and added:
+
+"When your time comes, Malcolm, beware of having a factor who has run
+the place so long that he thinks it's his own property! By Gad, I'm
+going to tell him a bit of my mind!"
+
+During the rest of breakfast he glanced at the letter once or twice, and
+each time his brows contracted, but he said nothing more in presence of
+Cicely and Malcolm. After he had left the dining room, however, Lady
+Cromarty followed him and said:
+
+"Don't be too hasty with Mr. Rattar, Reggie! After all, the talk may
+have slipped his memory."
+
+"Slipped his memory? If you had heard it, Margaret, you'd know better. I
+was a bit cross with him for a minute or two then, which I hardly ever
+am, and that alone would make him remember it, one would think. We
+talked for over an hour on the business and the upshot was clear and
+final. No, no, he has got a bit above himself and wants a touch of the
+curb."
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked.
+
+"I'm going to send in a note by car and tell him to come out and see me
+about the business at once."
+
+"Let me see the letter before you send it, Reggie."
+
+He seemed to growl assent, but when she next saw him the letter had
+gone; and from the baronet's somewhat crusty explanation, she suspected
+that it was a little sharper than he knew she would have approved.
+
+When the car returned his annoyance was increased again for a space. Mr.
+Rattar had sent a brief reply that he was too busy to come out that
+afternoon, but he would call on Sir Reginald in the morning. For a time
+this answer kept Sir Reginald in a state of renewed irritation, and then
+his natural good humour began to prevail, till by dinner time he was
+quite calm again, and after dinner in as genial humour as he had been in
+the day before.
+
+He played a game of pyramids with Cicely and Malcolm in the billiard
+room, and then he and Cicely joined Lady Cromarty in the drawing room
+while the young author went up to his room to work, he declared. He had
+a large bedroom furnished half as a sitting room where he retired each
+night to compose his masterpieces as soon as it became impossible to
+enjoy Miss Farmond's company without having to share it in the drawing
+room with his host and hostess. At least, that was the explanation of
+his procedure given by Lady Cromarty, whose eye was never more critical
+than when it studied her husband's kinsman and heir.
+
+Lady Cromarty's eye was not uncritical also of Cicely at times, but
+to-night she was so relieved to see how Sir Reginald's temper improved
+under her smiles and half shy glances, that she let her stay up later
+than usual. Then when she and the girl went up to bed, she asked her
+husband if he would be late.
+
+"The magazines came this morning," said he. "I'd better sleep in my
+dressing room."
+
+The baronet was apt to sit up late when he had anything to read that
+held his fancy, and the procedure of sleeping in his dressing room was
+commonly followed then.
+
+He bade them good-night and went off towards the library, and a few
+minutes later, as they were going upstairs, they heard the library door
+shut.
+
+When they came to Lady Cromarty's room, Cicely said good-night to her
+hostess and turned down the passage that led to her own bedroom. A door
+opened quietly as she passed and a voice whispered:
+
+"Cicely!"
+
+She stopped and regarded the young author with a reproving eye.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
+
+"I just wanted to speak to you!" he pleaded.
+
+"Now, Malcolm," she said severely, "you know quite well that Lady
+Cromarty trusts us _not_ to do this sort of thing!"
+
+"She's in her room, isn't she?"
+
+"What does that matter?"
+
+"And where's Sir Reginald?"
+
+"Still in the library."
+
+"Sitting up late?"
+
+"Yes, but that doesn't matter either. Good night!"
+
+"Wait just one minute, Cicely! Come into my room--I won't shut the
+door!"
+
+"Certainly not!" she said emphatically.
+
+"Well then, don't speak so loudly! I must confide in you, Cicely; I'm
+getting desperate. My position is really serious. Something's got to
+happen! If you would only give me your sympathy----"
+
+"I thought you were writing," she interrupted.
+
+"I've been trying to, but----"
+
+"Well, write all this down and read it to me to-morrow," she smiled.
+"Good night!"
+
+"The blame be on your head!" began the author dramatically, but the slim
+figure was already moving away, throwing him a parting smile that seemed
+to wound his sensitive soul afresh.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+NEWS
+
+
+Even in that scattered countryside of long distances by windy roads,
+with scarcely ever a village as a focus for gossip, news flew fast. The
+next morning Ned Cromarty had set out with his gun towards a certain
+snipe marsh, but while he was still on the high road he met a man on a
+bicycle. The man had heard strange news and stopped to pass it on, and
+the next moment Ned was hurrying as fast as his long legs could take him
+back to the castle.
+
+He saw his sister only for a moment.
+
+"Lilian!" he cried, and the sound of his voice made her start and stare
+at him. "There's a story that Sir Reginald was murdered last night."
+
+"Murdered!" she repeated in a low incredulous voice. "Ridiculous, Ned!
+Who told you?"
+
+"I only know the man by sight, but he seemed to believe it right
+enough."
+
+"But how--who did it?"
+
+Her brother shook his head.
+
+"Don't know. He couldn't tell me. My God, I hope it's not true! I'm off
+to see."
+
+A few minutes later he was driving his mare headlong for his kinsman's
+house. It had begun to rain by this time, and the mournful wreaths of
+vapour that swept over the bare, late autumnal country and drove in fine
+drops against his face sent his spirits down ever lower as the mare
+splashed her way along the empty miles of road. The melancholy thrumming
+of the telegraph wires droned by his side all the while, and as this
+dirge waxed for the moment as they passed each post, his eye would
+glance grimly at those gaunt poles. Very suitable and handy for a
+certain purpose, they struck him--if by any possibility this tale were
+true.
+
+He knew the worst when he saw Bisset at the door.
+
+"Thank God, you've come, sir," said the butler devoutly. "The master
+would have expected it of you."
+
+"How did it happen? What does it mean? Do you mean to say it's actually
+_true_?"
+
+Bisset shook his head sombrely.
+
+"Ower true," said he. "But as to how it happened, come in to the
+library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and
+Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial
+evidence. Most extraordinary mystery, sir--most extraordinary!"
+
+In the library they found Simon Rattar and Superintendent Sutherland.
+The Superintendent was a big burly red-moustached man; his face a
+certificate of honesty, but hardly of the intellectual type. Ned looked
+round him apprehensively for something else, but Bisset said:
+
+"We've taken him upstairs, sir."
+
+For a moment as he looked round that spacious comfortable room with its
+long bookcases and easy chairs, and on the tables and mantel-piece a
+hundred little mementoes of its late owner, the laird of Stanesland was
+unable to speak a word, and the others respected his silence. Then he
+pulled himself together sharply and asked:
+
+"How did it happen? Tell me all about it!"
+
+Perhaps there might have been for a moment in Simon's eye a hint that
+this demand was irregular, but the superintendent evidently took no
+exception to the intrusion. Besides being a considerable local magnate
+and a kinsman of the dead baronet, Stanesland had a forcible personality
+that stood no gainsaying.
+
+"Well, sir," said the superintendent, "Mr. Rattar could perhaps explain
+best----"
+
+"Explain yourself, Sutherland," said Simon briefly.
+
+The superintendent pointed to a spot on the carpet a few paces from the
+door.
+
+"We found Sir Reginald lying there," he said. "His skull had been fairly
+cracked, just over the right eye, sir. The blow would have been enough
+to kill him I'd think myself, but there were marks in his neck too,
+seeming to show that the murderer had strangled him afterwards to make
+sure. However, we'll be having the medical evidence soon. But there's no
+doubt that was the way of it, and Mr. Rattar agrees with me."
+
+The lawyer merely nodded.
+
+"What was it done with?"
+
+The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.
+
+"That's one of the mysterious things in the case, sir. There's no sign
+of any weapon in the room. The fire irons are far too light. But it was
+an unco' heavy blow. There was little bleeding, but the skull was fair
+cracked."
+
+"Was anything stolen?"
+
+"That's another mystery, sir. Nothing was stolen anywhere in the house
+and there was no papers in a mess like, or anything."
+
+"When was he found?" asked Ned.
+
+"Seven-fifty this morning, sir," said Bisset. "The housemaid finding the
+door lockit came to me. I knew the dining-room key fitted this door too,
+so I opened it--and there he lay."
+
+"All night, without any one knowing he hadn't gone to bed?"
+
+"That's the unfortunate thing, sir," said the superintendent. "It seems
+that Sir Reginald had arranged to sleep in his dressing room as he was
+going to be sitting up late reading."
+
+"Murderer must have known that," put in Simon.
+
+"Almost looks like it," agreed the superintendent.
+
+"And nobody in the house heard or saw anything?"
+
+"Nobody, sir," said the superintendent.
+
+"That's their statement," added the lawyer in his driest voice.
+
+"Was anybody sitting up late?"
+
+"Nobody admits it," said the lawyer, again very drily.
+
+"Thirteen," said Bisset softly.
+
+They turned towards him, but it seemed that he was talking to himself.
+He was, in fact, quietly taking measurements with a tape.
+
+"Go on," said Cromarty briefly.
+
+"Well, sir," said the superintendent. "The body was found near the door
+as I was pointing out, but it's a funny thing that a small table had
+been upset apparently, and Bisset tells us that that table stood near
+the window."
+
+"Humph," grunted Simon sceptically.
+
+"I'm quite sure of it, Mr. Rattar," said Bisset confidently, looking
+round from his work of measurement.
+
+"No positive proof it was upset," said the lawyer.
+
+"Did you find it upset?" asked Ned.
+
+The lawyer shook his head emphatically and significantly, and the
+superintendent agreed.
+
+"No, it was standing just where it is now near the wall."
+
+"Then why do you think it was upset?"
+
+"I picked up yon bits of sealing wax and yon piece of India rubber,"
+said Bisset, looking round again. "I know they were on the wee table
+yesterday and I found them under the curtain in the morning and the
+table moved over to the wall. It follows that the table has been cowpit
+and then set up again in another place, and the other things on it put
+back. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
+
+Ned nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"Seems to me so," he said.
+
+"It seems likely enough," the superintendent also agreed. "And if that's
+the case there would seem to have been some kind of ongoings near the
+window."
+
+The Procurator Fiscal still seemed unconvinced.
+
+"Nothing to go on. No proper evidence. It leads nowhere definitely," he
+said.
+
+"Well now," continued the superintendent, "the question is--how did the
+murderer get into the room? The door was found locked and the key had
+been taken away, so whether he had locked it from the inside or the
+outside we can't tell. There's small chance of finding the key, I doubt,
+for a key's a thing easy hidden away."
+
+"So he might have come in by the door and then left by the door and
+locked it after him," said Ned. "Or he might have come in by the window,
+locked the door and gone out by the window. Or he might have come in by
+the window and gone out by the door, locking it after him. Those are all
+the chances, aren't they?"
+
+"Indeed, that seems to be them all," said the superintendent with a note
+of admiration for this clear exposition that seemed to indicate he was
+better himself at details than deductions.
+
+"And now what about the window? Was that open or shut or what?"
+
+"Shut but not snibbed, sir."
+
+Ned turned to Bisset.
+
+"Did Sir Reginald ever forget to snib the windows, supposing one
+happened to be open?"
+
+"Practically never, sir."
+
+"Last thing before he left the room, I suppose?" said the lawyer.
+
+The butler hesitated.
+
+"I suppose so, sir," he admitted, "but of course I was never here to
+see."
+
+"Exactly!" said Simon. "Therefore one can draw no conclusions as to
+whether the window had been standing all the time just as it is now, or
+whether it had been opened and shut again from the outside; seeing that
+Sir Reginald was presumably killed before his usual time for looking to
+the windows."
+
+"Wait a bit!" said Ned. "I was assuming a window had been open. But were
+the windows fastened before Sir Reginald came in to sit here last
+thing?"
+
+"Certainly they were that," said the butler emphatically.
+
+"It was a mild night, he might have opened one himself," replied the
+Procurator Fiscal. "Or supposing the man had come in and left again by
+the door, what's more likely than that he unsnibbed the window to make
+people think he had come that way?"
+
+"He would surely have left it wide open," objected Ned.
+
+"Might have thought that too obvious," replied the lawyer, "or might
+have been afraid of the noise. Unsnibbing would be quite enough to
+suggest entry that way."
+
+Ned turned his keen eye hard on him.
+
+"What's your own theory then?"
+
+"I've none," grunted Simon. "No definite evidence one way or the other.
+Mere guesses are no use."
+
+Ned walked to the window and looked at it carefully. Then he threw it up
+and looked out into the garden.
+
+"Of course you've looked for footsteps underneath?" he asked.
+
+"Naturally," said Simon. "But it's a hard gravel path and grass beyond.
+One could fancy one saw traces, but no definite evidence."
+
+The window was one of three together, with stone mullions between. They
+were long windows reaching down nearly to the level of the floor, so
+that entrance that way was extremely easy if one of them were open.
+Cromarty got out and stood on the sill examining the middle sash.
+
+Simon regarded him with a curious caustic look for a moment in his eye.
+
+"Looking for finger marks?" he enquired.
+
+"Yes," said Ned. "Did you look for them?"
+
+For a single instant the Procurator Fiscal seemed a little taken aback.
+Then he grunted with a half laugh:
+
+"Don't believe much in them."
+
+"Experienced criminals, that's been convicted before, frequently wears
+gloves for to prevent their finger prints being spotted," said the
+learned Bisset.
+
+Mr. Rattar shot him a quick ambiguous glance, and then his eyes assumed
+their ordinary cold look and he said:
+
+"No evidence anybody ever opened that window from the outside. If they
+had, Sir Reginald would have heard them."
+
+"Well," said Ned, getting back into the room, "there are no finger marks
+anyhow."
+
+"The body being found near the door certainly seems to be in favour of
+Mr. Rattar's opinion," observed the superintendent.
+
+"I thought Mr. Rattar had formed no opinion yet," said Cromarty.
+
+"No more I have," grunted the lawyer.
+
+The superintendent looked a trifle perplexed.
+
+"Before Mr. Cromarty had come in, sir, I understood you for to say
+everything pointed to the man having come in by the door and hit Sir
+Reginald on the head as he came to see who it was when he heard him
+outside."
+
+"I merely suggested that," said Simon Rattar sharply. "It fits the
+facts, but there's no definite evidence yet."
+
+Ned Cromarty had turned and was frowning out of the window. Now he
+wheeled quickly and exclaimed:
+
+"If the murderer came in through the window while Sir Reginald was in
+the room, either the window was standing open or Sir Reginald opened it
+for him! Did Sir Reginald ever sit with his window open late at night at
+this time of year?"
+
+"Never once, sir," said Bisset confidently. "He likit fresh air outside
+fine but never kept his windies open much unless the weather was vera
+propitious."
+
+"Then," said Ned, "why should Sir Reginald have opened the window of his
+own accord to a stranger at the dead of night?"
+
+"Exactly!" said Mr. Rattar. "Thing seems absurd. He'd never do it."
+
+"That's my own opinion likewise, sir," put in Bisset.
+
+"It's only common sense," added the superintendent.
+
+"Then how came the window to be unfastened?" demanded Ned.
+
+"I've suggested a reason," said Simon.
+
+"As a blind? Sounds to me damned thin."
+
+Simon Rattar turned away from him with an air that suggested that he
+thought it time to indicate distinctly that he was in charge of the case
+and not the laird of Stanesland.
+
+"That's all we can do just now, Sutherland," he said. "No use disturbing
+the household any longer at present."
+
+Cromarty stepped up to him suddenly and asked:
+
+"Tell me honestly! Do you suspect anybody?"
+
+Simon shook his head decidedly.
+
+"No sufficient evidence yet. Good morning, Mr. Cromarty."
+
+Ned was following him to the door, his lips compressed and his eyes on
+the floor, when Bisset touched his arm and beckoned him back.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but could you not manage just to stop on for
+a wee bit yet?"
+
+Ned hesitated.
+
+"They won't be wanting visitors, Bisset."
+
+"They needn't know if you don't want them to, sir. Lady Cromarty is shut
+up in her room, and the others are keeping out of the way. If you
+wouldn't mind my giving you a little cold luncheon in my sitting room,
+sir, I'd like to have your help. I'm making a few sma' bits of
+investigation on my own. You're one of the family, sir, and I know
+you'll be wanting to find out who killed the master."
+
+Ned's eye flashed suddenly.
+
+"By God, I'll never rest in this world or the next till I do! All right,
+I'll wait for a bit."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+CICELY
+
+
+Ned Cromarty waited in the hall while Bisset went to the door with the
+Procurator Fiscal and Superintendent of Police. As he stood there in the
+darkened silence of the house, there came to his ears for an instant the
+faint sound of a voice, and it seemed to be a woman's. With that the
+current of his thoughts seemed to change, and when Bisset returned he
+asked, though with marked hesitation:
+
+"Do you think, Bisset, I could do anything for any of them, Mr. Malcolm
+Cromarty, or--er--Miss Farmond?"
+
+Bisset considered the point judicially. It was clear he felt that the
+management of the household was in his hands now.
+
+"I am sure Miss Farmond would be pleased, sir--poor young lady!"
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Ned, and his manner brightened visibly.
+"Well, if she won't mind----"
+
+"I think if you come this way, sir, you will find her with Sir Malcolm."
+
+"_Sir_ Malcolm!" exclaimed Ned. "My God, so he is!"
+
+To himself he added:
+
+"And she will soon be Lady Cromarty!"
+
+But the thought did not seem to exhilarate him.
+
+He was led towards the billiard room, an addition to the house which lay
+rather apart. The door was half open and through it he could see that
+the blinds had been drawn down, and he could hear a murmur of voices.
+
+"They are in there, sir," said Bisset, and he left him.
+
+As Ned Cromarty entered he caught the words, spoken by the new baronet:
+
+"My dear Cicely, I depend on your sympathy----"
+
+He broke off as he heard a footstep, and seemed to move a little apart
+from the chair where Cicely was sitting.
+
+The two young people greeted their visitor, Cicely in a voice so low
+that it was scarcely audible, but with a smile that seemed, he thought,
+to welcome him; Sir Malcolm with a tragic solemnity which no doubt was
+quite appropriate to a bereaved baronet. The appearance of a third party
+seemed, however, to afford him no particular gratification, and after
+exchanging a sentence or two, he begged, in a very serious tone, to be
+excused, and retired, walking softly and mournfully. Ned noticed then
+that his face was extraordinarily pale and his eye disturbed.
+
+"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Ned. He was embarrassed, a rare
+condition with him, which, when it did afflict him, resulted in an
+impression of intimidating truculence.
+
+Cicely seemed to shrink a little, and he resolved to leave instantly.
+
+"Oh no!" she said shyly.
+
+"I only wanted to say that if I could do anything for you--well, you've
+only to let me know."
+
+"It's awfully kind of you," she murmured.
+
+There was something so evidently sincere in this murmur that his
+embarrassment forthwith left him.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" he said after his outspoken habit. "I was afraid I was
+putting my foot in it. But if you really don't mind my seeing you for a
+minute or two, I'd just like to say----"
+
+He broke off abruptly, and she looked up at him questioningly.
+
+"Dash it, I can't say it, Miss Farmond! But you know, don't you?"
+
+She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it
+was, he knew she understood and appreciated.
+
+Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the
+blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a
+basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.
+
+"I've been too stunned till now to grasp what's happened," he said in a
+moment. "Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!"
+
+He had said exactly the right thing now.
+
+"He certainly was mine!" she said.
+
+"And mine too. We may live to be a brace of Methuselahs, but I guess
+we'll never see his like again!"
+
+His odd phrase made her smile for a moment despite herself. It passed
+swiftly and she said:
+
+"_I_ can't believe it yet."
+
+Again there was silence, and then he said abruptly:
+
+"It's little wonder you can't believe it. The thing is so extraordinary.
+It's incredible. A man without an enemy in the world--no robbery
+attempted--sitting in his own library--in just about the most peaceful
+and out of the way county in Scotland--not a sound heard by anybody--not
+a reason that one can possibly imagine--and yet murdered!"
+
+"But it must have been a robber surely!"
+
+"Why didn't he rob something then?"
+
+"But how else----?"
+
+"How indeed! You've not a suspicion of any one yourself, Miss Farmond?
+Say it right out if you have. We don't lynch here. At least," he
+corrected himself as he recalled the telegraph posts, "it hasn't been
+done yet."
+
+"I _can't_ suspect any one!" she said earnestly. "I never met any one in
+my life that I could possibly imagine doing such a thing!"
+
+"No," he said. "I guess our experiences have been pretty different. I've
+met lots, but then there are none of those boys here. Who is there in
+this place?"
+
+He paused and stared into space.
+
+"It must have been a tramp--some one who doesn't belong here!"
+
+"I was trying to think whether there are any lunatics about," he said in
+a moment. "But there aren't any."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. He was thinking; she never moved.
+Then he heard a sound, and looking down saw that she had her
+handkerchief in her hand. He had nearly bent over her before he
+remembered Sir Malcolm, and at the recollection he said abruptly:
+
+"Well, I've disturbed you too long. If I can do anything--anything
+whatever, you'll let me know, won't you?"
+
+"You are very, very kind," she murmured, and a note in her voice nearly
+made him forget the new baronet. In fact, he had to retire rather
+quickly to be sure of himself.
+
+The efficiency of James Bisset was manifest at every conjuncture.
+Businesslike and brisk he appeared from somewhere as Cromarty reached
+the hall, and led him from the front regions to the butler's sitting
+room.
+
+"I will bring your lunch in a moment, sir," he murmured, and vanished
+briskly.
+
+The room looked out on a courtyard at the back, and through the window
+Ned could see against the opposite buildings the rain driving in clouds.
+In the court the wind was eddying, and beneath some door he could hear
+it drone insistently. Though the toughest of men, he shivered a little
+and drew up a wicker chair close in front of the fire.
+
+"It's incredible!" he murmured, and as he stared at the flames this
+thought seemed to haunt him all the time.
+
+Bisset laid the table and another hour passed. Ned ate a little lunch
+and then smoked and stared at the fire while the wind droned and
+blustered without ceasing, and occasionally a cross gust sent the rain
+drops softly pattering on the panes.
+
+"I'm damned if I see a thing!" he suddenly exclaimed half aloud, and
+jumped to his feet.
+
+Before he had time to start for the door, Bisset's mysterious efficiency
+was made manifest again. Precisely as he was wanted, he appeared, and
+this time it was clear that his own efforts had not been altogether
+fruitless. He had in fact an air of even greater complacency than usual.
+
+"I have arrived at certain conclusions, sir," he announced.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE DEDUCTIVE PROCESS
+
+
+Bisset laid on the table a sheet of note paper.
+
+"Here," said he, "is a kin' of bit sketch plan of the library. Observing
+this plan attentively, you will notice two crosses, marked A and B. A is
+where yon wee table was standing--no the place against the wall where it
+was standing this morning, but where it was standing before it was
+knocked over last night. B is where the corp was found. You follow that,
+sir?"
+
+Ned nodded.
+
+"I follow," said he.
+
+"Now, the principle in a' these cases of crime and detection," resumed
+the philosopher, assuming his lecturer's air, "is noticing such sma'
+points of detail as escape the eye of the ordinar' observer, taking full
+and accurate measurements, making a plan with the principal sites
+carefully markit, and drawing, as it were, logical conclusions. Applying
+this method now to the present instance, Mr. Cromarty, the first point
+to observe is that the room is twenty-six feet long, measured from the
+windie, which is a bit recessed or set back, as it were, to the other
+end of the apartment. Half of 26 is 13, and if you take the half way
+line and draw approximate perpendiculars to about where the table was
+standing and to as near as one can remember where the middle of the corp
+roughly was lying, you get exactly six feet ten and five-eighths inches,
+in both cases."
+
+"An approximate perpendicular to roughly about these places gives this
+exact measurement?" repeated Cromarty gravely. "Well, what next?"
+
+"Well, sir, I'll not insist too much on the coincidence, but it seems to
+me vera remarkable. But the two significant features of this case seem
+to me yon table being upset over by the windie and the corp being found
+over by the door."
+
+"You're talking horse sense now," murmured Ned.
+
+"Now, yon table was upset by Sir Reginald falling on it!"
+
+Ned looked at him keenly.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because one of the legs was broken clean off!"
+
+"What, when we saw it this morning?"
+
+"We had none of us noticed it then, sir; but I've had a look at it
+since, and there's one leg broken fair off at the top. The break was
+half in the socket, as it were, leaving a kind of spike, and if you
+stick that into the socket you can make the table look as good as new.
+It's all right, in fac', until you try to move it, and then of course
+the leg just drops out."
+
+"And it wasn't like that yesterday?"
+
+"I happened to move it myself not so long before Sir Reginald came into
+the room, and that's how I know for certain where it was standing and
+that it wasn't broken. And yon wee light tables dinna lose their legs
+just with being cowped, supposing there was nothing else than that to
+smash them. No, sir, it was poor Sir Reginald falling on top of it that
+smashed yon leg."
+
+"Then he was certainly struck down near the window!"
+
+"Well, we'll see that in a minute. It's no in reason, Mr. Cromarty, to
+suppose he deliberately opened the windie to let his ain murderer in.
+And it's a' just stuff and nonsense to suggest Sir Reginald was sitting
+on a winter's night--or next door to winter onyhow, with his windie wide
+open. I'm too well acquaint with his habits to believe that for a
+minute. And it's impossible the man can have opened a snibbed windie and
+got in, with some one sitting in the room, and no alarm given. So it's
+perfectly certain the man must have come in at the door. That's a fair
+deduction, is it not, sir?"
+
+Ned Cromarty frowned into space in silence. When he spoke it seemed to
+be as much to himself as to Bisset.
+
+"How did the window get unsnibbed? Everything beats me, but that beats
+me fairly."
+
+"Well, sir, Mr. Rattar may no be just exac'ly as intellectual as me and
+you, but I think there's maybe something in his idea it was done to put
+us off the scent."
+
+"Possibly--but it strikes me as a derned feeble dodge. However, what's
+your next conclusion?"
+
+"My next conclusion is, sir, that Simon Rattar may not be so vera far
+wrong either about Sir Reginald hearing some one at the door and
+starting to see who it was. Then--bang!--the door would suddenly open,
+and afore he'd time to speak, the man had given him a bat on the heid
+that finished him."
+
+"And where does the table come in?"
+
+"Well, my explanation is just this, that Sir Reginald suspected
+something and took the wee table as a kind of weapon."
+
+"Rot!" said Ned ruthlessly. "You think he left the fireplace and went
+round by the window to fetch such a useless weapon as that?"
+
+James Bisset was not easily damped.
+
+"That's only a possibility, sir. Excluding that, what must have
+happened? For that's the way, Mr. Cromarty, to get at the fac's; you
+just exclude what's not possible and what remains is the truth. If you'd
+read----"
+
+"Well, come on. What's your theory now?"
+
+"Just that Sir Reginald backed away from the door with the man after
+him, till he got to the table. And then down went him and the table
+together."
+
+"And why didn't he cry out or raise the alarm in some way while he was
+backing away?"
+
+"God, but that fits into my other deductions fine!" cried Bisset. "I
+hadna thought of that. Just wait, sir, till you see how the case is
+going to hang together in a minute."
+
+"But how did Sir Reginald's body come to be lying near the door?"
+
+The philosopher seemed to be inspired afresh.
+
+"The man clearly meant to take it away and hide it somewhere--that'll be
+just it! And then he found it ower heavy and decided to leave it after
+all."
+
+"And who was this man?"
+
+"That's precisely where proper principles, Mr. Cromarty, lead to a
+number of vera interesting and instructive discoveries, and I think
+ye'll see, sir, that the noose is on the road to his neck already. I've
+not got the actual man, mind! In fac' I've no idea who he is, but I can
+tell you a good few things about him--enough, in fac', to make escape
+practically impossible. In the first place, he was one well acquaint
+with the ways of the house. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
+
+"Sure!" said Ned. "I've put my bottom dollar on that already."
+
+"He came from inside this house and not outside it. How long he'd been
+in the house, that I cannot say, but my own deductions are he'd been in
+the house waiting for his chance for a good while before the master
+heard him at yon door. Is that not a fair deduction too, sir?"
+
+"It's possible," said Ned, though not with great conviction.
+
+"And now here's a point that accounts for Sir Reginald giving no
+alarm--Sir Reginald knew the man and couldna believe he meant
+mischief!"
+
+Ned looked at him quickly and curiously.
+
+"Well?" said he.
+
+"Is that not a fair deduction, Mr. Cromarty?"
+
+"Seems to fill the bill."
+
+"And now, here's a few personal details. Yon man was a fair active
+strong man to have dealt with the master the way he did. But he was not
+strong enough to carry off the corp like a sack of potatoes; he was no a
+great muckle big giant, that's to say. And finally, calculating from the
+distance the body was from the door and the number of steps he would be
+likely to take to the door, and sae arriving at his stride and deducing
+his height accordingly, he'd be as near as may be five feet nine inches
+tall. Now, sir, me and you ought to get him with a' that known!"
+
+Ned Cromarty looked at him with a curious gleam in his eye.
+
+"What's your own height, Bisset?" he enquired.
+
+"Five feet nine inches," said the reasoner promptly, and then suddenly
+his mouth fell open but his voice ceased.
+
+"And now," pursued Ned with a grimly humorous look, "can you not think
+of a man just that height, pretty hefty but not a giant, who was
+certainly in the house last night, who knew all the ways of it, and who
+would never have been suspected by Sir Reginald of meaning mischief?"
+
+"God!" exclaimed the unfortunate reasoner. "I've proved it was mysel'!"
+
+"Well, and what shall I do--string you up now or hand you over to the
+police?"
+
+"But, Mr. Cromarty--you don't believe that's right surely?"
+
+Tragic though the occasion was, Ned could not refrain from one brief
+laugh. And then his face set hard again and he said:
+
+"No, Bisset, I do not believe it was you. In fact, I wouldn't believe it
+was you if you confessed to it. But I'd advise you not to go spreading
+your deductions abroad! Deduction's a game that wants a bit more
+practice than you or I have had."
+
+It is possible that James Bisset had never looked quite so crestfallen
+in his life.
+
+"Then that's all nonsense I've been talking, sir?" he said lugubriously.
+
+"No," said Ned emphatically. "I'll not say that either. You've brought
+out some good points--that broken table, the place the body was found,
+the possible reason why Sir Reginald gave no alarm; seems to me those
+have something to them. But what they mean--what to conclude; we're as
+far off that, Bisset, as ever!"
+
+The philosopher's self esteem was evidently returning as fast as it had
+gone.
+
+"Then you wouldn't think there would be any harm, sir, in my continuing
+my investigations?"
+
+"On your present lines, the only harm is likely to be to yourself. Keep
+at it--but don't hang yourself accidentally. And let me know if you
+discover anything else--mind that."
+
+"I'll mind on it, no fears, Mr. Cromarty!"
+
+Ned left him with an expression on his countenance which indicated that
+the deductive process had already been resumed.
+
+Till he arrived at his own door, the laird of Stanesland was unconscious
+of a single incident of his drive home. All the way his eye stared
+straight into space. Sometimes a gleam would light it for an instant,
+and then he would shake his head and the gleam would fade away.
+
+"I can see neither a damned head nor a damned tail to it!" he said to
+himself as he alighted.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE QUESTION OF MOTIVE
+
+
+Two days later Mr. Ison entered Mr. Simon Rattar's room and informed him
+that Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland wished to see him on particular
+business. The lawyer was busy and this interruption seemed for the
+moment distinctly unwelcome. Then he grunted:
+
+"Show him in."
+
+In the minute or two that passed before the laird's entrance, Simon
+seemed to be thinking intently and finally to come to a decision, which,
+to judge from his reception of his client, was on rather different lines
+from his first thoughts when Mr. Cromarty's name was announced. To
+describe Simon Rattar at any time as genial would be an exaggeration,
+but he showed his nearest approach to geniality as he bade his client
+good-morning.
+
+"Sorry to interrupt you," said Ned, "but I can't get this business out
+of my head, night or day. Whether you want me or not, I've got to play a
+hand in this game; but it's on your side, Mr. Rattar, and maybe I might
+be able to help a little if I could get something to go on."
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+"I quite understand. Glad to have your help, Mr. Cromarty. Dreadful
+affair. We're all trying to get to the bottom of it, I can assure you."
+
+"I believe you," said Ned. "There never was a man better worth avenging
+than Sir Reginald."
+
+"Quite so," said Simon briefly, his eyes fixed on the other's face.
+
+"Any fresh facts?"
+
+Simon drew a sheet of paper from his desk.
+
+"Superintendent Sutherland has given me a note of three--for what they
+are worth, discovered by the butler. The first is about that table. It
+seems a leg has been broken."
+
+"Bisset told me that before I left the house."
+
+"And thought it was an important fact, I suppose?"
+
+"What its importance is, it's hard to say, but it's a fact, and seems to
+me well worth noting."
+
+"It is noted," said the Procurator Fiscal drily. "But I can't see that
+it leads anywhere."
+
+"Bisset maintains it implies Sir Reginald fell over it when he was
+struck down; and that seems to me pretty likely."
+
+Simon shook his head.
+
+"How do we know Sir Reginald hadn't broken it himself previously and
+then set it up against the wall--assuming it ever stood anywhere else,
+which seems to want confirmation?"
+
+"A dashed thin suggestion!" said Ned. "However, what are the other
+discoveries?"
+
+"The second is that one or two small fragments of dried mud were found
+under the edge of the curtain, and the third is that the hearth brush
+was placed in an unusual position--according to Bisset."
+
+"And what are Bisset's conclusions?"
+
+"That the man, whoever he was, had brought mud into the room and then
+swept it up with the hearth brush; these fragments being pieces that he
+had swept accidentally under the curtain and so overlooked."
+
+"Good for Bisset!" exclaimed Ned. "He has got there this time, I do
+believe."
+
+Simon smiled sceptically.
+
+"Sir Reginald was in the library in his walking boots that afternoon.
+Naturally he would leave mud, and quite likely he swept it up himself
+then, though the only evidence of sweeping is Bisset's statement about
+the brush. And what proof is that of anything? Does your hearth brush
+always stay in the same position?"
+
+"Never noticed," said Ned.
+
+"And I don't believe anybody notices sufficiently closely to make their
+evidence on such a point worth a rap!" said Simon.
+
+"A servant would."
+
+"Well, Mr. Cromarty, make the most of the hearth brush then."
+
+There seemed for an instant to be a defiant note in the Procurator
+Fiscal's voice that made Ned glance at him sharply. But he saw nothing
+in his face but the same set and steady look.
+
+"We're on the same side in this racket, Mr. Rattar," said Ned. "I'm
+only trying to help--same as you."
+
+Simon's voice seemed now to have exactly the opposite note. For him, his
+tone of acquiescence was even eager.
+
+"Quite so; quite so, Mr. Cromarty. We are acting together; exactly."
+
+"That's all the new evidence then?"
+
+Simon nodded, and a few moments of silence followed.
+
+"Tell me honestly," demanded Ned at last, "have you actually no clue at
+all? No suspicion of any kind? Haven't you got on the track of any
+possible reason for the deed?"
+
+"Reason?" repeated Simon. "Now we come to business, Mr. Cromarty. What's
+the motive? That's the point."
+
+"Have you found one?"
+
+Simon looked judicially discreet.
+
+"At this moment all I can tell you is to answer the question: 'Who
+benefits by Sir Reginald Cromarty's death?'"
+
+"Well--who did? Seems to me every one who knew him suffered."
+
+"Sentimentally perhaps--but not financially."
+
+Ned looked at him in silence, as if an entirely new point of view were
+dawning on his mind. But he compressed his lips and merely asked:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"To begin with, nothing was stolen from the house. Therefore no outside
+thief or burglar gained anything. I may add also that the police have
+made enquiries throughout the whole county, and no bad characters are
+known to be in the place. Therefore there is no ground for supposing the
+deed was the work of a robber, and to my mind, no evidence worth
+considering to support that view. The only people that gained anything,
+Mr. Cromarty, are those who will benefit under Sir Reginald's will."
+
+Cromarty's expression did not change again. This was evidently the new
+point of view.
+
+Simon opened a drawer and took from it a document.
+
+"In the ordinary course of events Sir Reginald's will would not be known
+till after his funeral to-morrow, but if I may regard this conversation
+as confidential, I can tell you the principal facts so far as they
+affect this case."
+
+"I don't want you to do anything you shouldn't," said Ned quickly. "If
+it's not the proper game to read the will now, don't."
+
+But Silent Simon seemed determined to oblige this morning.
+
+"It is a mere matter of form delaying till to-morrow, and I shall not
+read it now; merely tell you the pertinent facts briefly."
+
+"Fire away then. The Lord knows I want to learn every derned pertinent
+fact--want to badly!"
+
+"In the first place," the lawyer began, "Lady Cromarty is life rented in
+the mansion and property, less certain sums to be paid to other people,
+which I am coming to. She therefore lost her husband and a certain
+amount of income, and gained nothing that we know of."
+
+"That's a cold-blooded way of putting it," said Ned with something like
+a shiver. "However, what next?"
+
+"Sir Malcolm gets L1,000 a year to support him during the life time of
+Lady Cromarty, and afterwards falls heir to the whole estate. He
+therefore gains a baronetcy and L1,000 a year immediately, and the
+estate is brought a stage nearer him. Miss Farmond gets a legacy of
+L2,000. She therefore gained L2,000."
+
+"Not that she'll need it," said Ned quickly. "That item doesn't count."
+
+Simon looked at him curiously.
+
+"Why not?" he enquired.
+
+Ned hesitated a moment.
+
+"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said anything," he said, "but this
+conversation is confidential, and anyhow the fact will be known soon
+enough now, I guess. She is engaged to Sir Malcolm."
+
+For a moment Simon continued to look at him very hard. Then he merely
+said:
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Of course you won't repeat this till they care to make it known
+themselves. I told you so that you'd see a legacy of two thousand pounds
+wouldn't count much. It only means an income of--what?"
+
+"One hundred pounds at five per cent; eighty pounds at four."
+
+"Well, that will be neither here nor there now."
+
+Again Simon stared in silence for a moment, but rather through than at
+his visitor, it seemed. Then he glanced down at the document again.
+
+"James Bisset gets a legacy of three hundred pounds. There are a few
+smaller legacies to servants, but the only two that might have affected
+this case do not actually do so. One is John Robertson, Sir Reginald's
+chauffeur, but on the night of the crime he was away from home and an
+alibi can be established till two in the morning. The other is Donald
+Mackay, the gardener, but he is an old man and was in bed with
+rheumatism that night."
+
+"I see," observed Ned, "you are giving everybody mentioned in the will
+credit for perhaps having committed the murder, supposing it was
+physically possible?"
+
+"I am answering the question--who that could conceivably have committed
+it, had a motive for doing so? And also, what was that motive?"
+
+"Is that the whole list of them?"
+
+Mr. Rattar glanced at the will again.
+
+"Sir Reginald has cancelled your own debt of twelve hundred pounds, Mr.
+Cromarty."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Ned, and for a moment could say no more. Then he said
+in a low voice: "It's up to me more than ever!"
+
+"That is the full list of persons within the vicinity two nights ago who
+gained by Sir Reginald's death," said Simon in a dry voice, as he put
+away the will.
+
+"Including me?" said Ned. "Well, all I've got to say is this, Mr.
+Rattar, that my plain common sense tells me that those are no motives at
+all. For who knew what they stood to gain by this will? Or that they
+stood to gain any blessed thing at all? I hadn't the foggiest notion Sir
+Reginald meant to cancel that debt!"
+
+"You may not have known," said Simon still very drily, "and it is quite
+possible that Bisset may not have known of his legacy. Though, on the
+other hand, it is likely enough that Sir Reginald mentioned the fact
+that he would be remembered. But Lady Cromarty presumably knew his
+arrangements. And it is most unlikely that he should have said nothing
+to his heir about his intention to make him an adequate allowance if he
+came into the title and Lady Cromarty was still alive and life rented in
+the place. Also, it is highly probable that either Sir Reginald or Lady
+Cromarty told Miss Farmond that some provision would be made for her."
+
+Ned Cromarty said nothing for a few moments, but he seemed to be
+thinking very hard. Then he rose from his chair and remarked:
+
+"Well, I guess this has all got to be thought over."
+
+He moved slowly to the door, while Simon gazed silently into space. His
+hand was on the handle when the lawyer turned in his chair and asked:
+
+"Why was nothing said about Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond?"
+
+"Well," said Ned, "the whole thing is no business of mine, but Sir
+Reginald had pretty big ideas in some ways and probably one of them was
+connected with his heir's marriage."
+
+"A clandestine engagement then?"
+
+Ned Cromarty seemed to dislike the term.
+
+"It's none of my business," he said shortly. "There was no blame on
+anyone, anyhow; and mind you, this is absolutely confidential."
+
+The door closed behind him and Simon was left still apparently thinking.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+TWO WOMEN
+
+
+On the day after the funeral Lady Cromarty for the first time felt able
+to see the family lawyer. Simon Rattar came out in the morning in a
+hired car and spent more than a couple of hours with her. Then for a
+short time he was closeted with Sir Malcolm, who, referring to the
+interview afterwards, described him as "infernally close and
+unsatisfactory"; and finally, in company with the young baronet and
+Cicely Farmond, he ate a hurried lunch and departed.
+
+Ever since the fatal evening, Lady Cromarty had been shut up in her own
+apartments and the two young people had taken their meals together. Sir
+Malcolm at his brightest and best had been capricious company. He was
+now moody beyond all Cicely's experience of him. His newborn solemnity
+was the most marked feature of his demeanour, but sometimes it dissolved
+into pathetic demands for sympathy, and then again froze into profound
+and lugubrious silence. He said that he was sleeping badly, and the
+pallor of his face and the darkness beneath his eyes seemed to confirm
+this. Several times he appeared to be on the point of some peculiarly
+solemn disclosure of his feelings or his symptoms, but always ended by
+upbraiding his fellow guest for her lack of sympathy, and then relapsing
+into silence.
+
+Every now and then on such occasions Cicely caught him staring at her
+with an expression she had never seen before, and then looking hurriedly
+away; a disconcerting habit that made her own lot none the easier. So
+far as the observant Bisset could judge, the baronet seemed, indeed, to
+be having so depressing an effect upon the young lady that as her friend
+and counsellor he took the liberty of advising a change of air.
+
+"We'll miss you vera much, Miss Farmond," he was good enough to say,
+"but I'm thinking that what you want is a seaside resort."
+
+She smiled a little sadly.
+
+"I shall have to make a change very soon, Bisset," she said. "Indeed,
+perhaps I ought to have let Lady Cromarty know already that I was ready
+to go the moment I was sure I could do nothing more for her."
+
+She began her packing on the morning of Simon's visit. At lunch her air
+was a little livelier at first, as if even Simon Rattar were a welcome
+variety in a regime of undiluted baronet. Sir Malcolm, too, endeavoured
+to do the honours with some degree of cheerfulness; but short though the
+meal was, both were silent before the end and vaguely depressed
+afterwards.
+
+"I can't stand the old fellow's fishy eye!" declared Sir Malcolm. "I'd
+as soon lunch with a cod-fish, dash it! Didn't you feel it too, Cicely?"
+
+
+"He seemed to look at one so uncomfortably," she agreed. "I couldn't
+help feeling he had something on his mind against me, though I suppose
+he really doesn't trouble his head about my existence."
+
+"I'm hanged if I like the way he looks at me!" muttered the baronet, and
+once again Cicely caught that odd expression in his eye.
+
+That afternoon Bisset informed Miss Farmond that her ladyship desired to
+see her. Lady Cromarty's face looked thinner than ever and her lips more
+tightly compressed. In her deep mourning and with her grave air, she
+seemed to Cicely a monumental figure of tragedy. Her thinness and pallor
+and tight lips, she thought only natural, but there was one note that
+seemed discordant with pure desolation. The note was sounded by Lady
+Cromarty's eyes. At all times they had been ready to harden upon an
+occasion, but Cicely thought she had never seen them as hard as they
+were now.
+
+"What are your plans, Cicely?" she asked in a low, even voice that
+showed no feeling one way or the other.
+
+"I have begun to pack already," said the girl. "I don't want to leave so
+long as I can be of any use here, but I am ready to go at any time."
+
+She had expected to be asked where she was going, but Lady Cromarty
+instead of putting any question, looked at her for a few moments in
+silence. And it was then that a curious uncomfortable feeling began to
+possess the girl. It had no definite form and was founded on no reason,
+beyond the steady regard of those hard dark eyes.
+
+"I had rather you stayed."
+
+Cicely's own eyes showed her extreme surprise.
+
+"Stayed--here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But are you sure? Wouldn't you really rather be alone? It isn't for my
+sake, is it? because--"
+
+"It is for mine. I want you to remain here and keep me company."
+
+She spoke without a trace of smile or any softening of her face, and
+Cicely still hesitated.
+
+"But would it really be convenient? You have been very kind to me, and
+if you really want me here--"
+
+"I do," interrupted Lady Cromarty in the same even voice. "I want you
+particularly to remain."
+
+"Very well then, I shall. Thank you very much--"
+
+Again she was cut short.
+
+"That is settled then. Perhaps you will excuse me now, Cicely."
+
+The girl went downstairs very thoughtfully. At the foot the young
+baronet met her.
+
+"Have you settled where to go?" he asked.
+
+"Lady Cromarty has asked me to stay on with her."
+
+His face fell.
+
+"Stay on in this house of mourning? Oh, no, Cicely!"
+
+"I have promised," she said.
+
+The young man grew curiously agitated.
+
+"Oh, don't stay here!" he besought her. "It keeps me in such dreadful
+suspense!"
+
+"In suspense!" she exclaimed. "Whatever do you mean, Malcolm?"
+
+Again she saw that look in his eye, and again he raised a
+sympathy-beseeching wail. Cicely's patience began to give way.
+
+"Really, Malcolm!" she cried tartly, "if you have anything to say, say
+it, but don't go on like a baby!"
+
+"Like a baby!" repeated the deeply affronted baronet. "Heavens, would
+you liken me to _that_, of all things! I had meant to confide in you,
+Cicely, but you have made it impossible. Impossible!" he repeated
+sombrely, and stalked to the door.
+
+Next morning, Sir Malcolm left for London, his confidence still locked
+in his breast, and Cicely was alone with Lady Cromarty.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+RUMOUR
+
+
+One windy afternoon a man on a bicycle struggled up to the door of
+Stanesland Castle and while waiting for an answer to his ring, studied
+the front of that ancient building with an expression which would at
+once have informed his intimates that he was meditating on the
+principles of Scottish baronial architecture. A few minutes later Mr.
+Bisset was shown into the laird of Stanesland's smoking room and
+addressed Mr. Cromarty with a happy blend of consciousness of his own
+importance and respect for the laird's.
+
+"I have taken the liberty of calling, sir, for to lay before you a few
+fresh datas."
+
+"Fire away," said the laird.
+
+"In the first place, sir, I understand that you have been making
+enquiries through the county yourself, sir; is that not so?"
+
+"I've been through this blessed county, Bisset, from end to end to see
+whether I could get on the track of any suspicious stranger. I've been
+working both with the police and independent of the police, and I've
+drawn blank."
+
+Bisset looked distinctly disappointed.
+
+"I've heard, sir, one or two stories which I was hoping might have
+something in them."
+
+"I've heard about half a dozen and gone into them all, and there's
+nothing in one of them."
+
+"Half a dozen stories?" Bisset's eye began to look hopeful again. "Well,
+sir, perhaps if I was to go into some of them again in the light of my
+fresh datas, they might wear, as it were, a different aspect."
+
+"Well," said Ned. "What have you found? Have a cigar and let's hear what
+you've been at."
+
+The expert crackled the cigar approvingly between his fingers, lit it
+with increased approval, and began:
+
+"Yon man was behind the curtains all the time."
+
+"The devil he was! How do you know?"
+
+"Well, sir, it's a matter of deduction. Ye see supposing he came in by
+the door, there are objections, and supposing he came in by the windie
+there are objections. Either way there are objections which make it
+difficult for to accept those theories. And then it struck me--the man
+must have been behind the curtains all the while!"
+
+"He must have come either by the door or window to get there."
+
+"That's true, Mr. Cromarty. But such minor points we can consider in a
+wee while, when we have seen how everything is otherwise explained. Now
+supposing we have the murderer behind the curtains; that brings him
+within six feet of where the wee table was standing. How did he get Sir
+Reginald to come to the table? He made some kind of sound. What kind of
+sound? Some imitation of an animal; probably of a cat. How did Sir
+Reginald not cry out when he saw the man? Because he never did see the
+man! How did he not see him?"
+
+"Man was a ventriloquist and made a sound in the other direction,"
+suggested Ned with extreme gravity.
+
+"God, but that's possible, Mr. Cromarty! I hadna thought of that! Well,
+it'll fit into the facts all right, you'll see. My theory was that
+either the man threw something at the master and knocked him down that
+way, or he was able to reach out and give him a bat on the heid without
+moving from the curtains."
+
+"He must have been an awkward customer."
+
+"He was that! A great tall man with long arms. And what had he at the
+end of them? Either a club such as savages use or something to throw
+like a boomerang. And he could imitate animals, and as you say, he was
+probably a ventriloquist. And he was that active and strong he could get
+into the house through one of the windies, just like a great monkey. Now
+what's the history of that man?"
+
+"Pretty wild, I guess."
+
+"Ah, but one can say more than that, sir. He was not an ordinary
+Englishman or Scotchman. He was from the Colonies or America or one of
+thae wild places! Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
+
+"It all points to that," said Ned, with a curious look.
+
+"It points to that indeed, sir. Now where's he hidden himself? It should
+not be difficult to find him with all that to go on."
+
+"A tall active strong man who has lived in the Colonies or America; one
+ought to get him. Has he only one eye, by any chance?"
+
+The reasoner gazed petrified at his counsellor.
+
+"God, but I've just described yoursel', sir!" he cried in an unhappy
+voice.
+
+"You're determined to hang one of us, Bisset."
+
+For a moment Bisset seemed to find conversation difficult. Then he said
+miserably:
+
+"So it's no good, and all the alternatives just fa' to pieces."
+
+The extreme dejection of his voice struck the other sharply.
+
+"Alternatives to what?" he asked.
+
+For a few seconds Bisset did not answer.
+
+"What's on your mind, man?" demanded Cromarty.
+
+"The reason, sir, I've got that badly off the rails with my deductions
+is just that I _had_ to find some other theory than the story that's
+going about."
+
+"What story?"
+
+"You've no heard it, sir?"
+
+Ned shook his head.
+
+"I hardly like to repeat it, sir; it's that cruel and untrue. They're
+saying Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond had got engaged to be married."
+
+"Well?" said Ned sharply, and he seemed to control his feelings with an
+effort.
+
+"A secret engagement, like, that Sir Reginald would never have allowed.
+But there I think they're right, sir. Sir Reginald was unco' taken up
+with Miss Farmond, but he'd have looked higher for his heir. And so as
+they couldn't get married while he was alive--neither of them having any
+money, well, sir, this story says--"
+
+He broke off and neither spoke for an instant.
+
+"Good God!" murmured Cromarty. "They actually accuse Malcolm Cromarty
+and Miss Cicely of--?"
+
+He paused too, and Bisset nodded.
+
+"Who is saying this?"
+
+"It seems to be the clash of the haill country by this time, sir."
+
+He seemed a little frightened at the effect of his own words; and it was
+small wonder. Ned Cromarty was a nasty looking customer at that moment.
+
+"Who started the lie?"
+
+"It's just ignorance and want of education of the people, I'm thinking,
+Mr. Cromarty. They're no able to grasp the proper principles--"
+
+"Lady Cromarty must be told! She could put a stop to it--"
+
+Something in Bisset's look pulled him up sharply.
+
+"I'm afraid her ladyship believes it herself, sir. Maybe you have heard
+she has keepit Miss Farmond to stay on with her."
+
+"I have."
+
+"Well, sir," said Bisset very slowly and deliberately, "I'm
+thinking--it's just to watch her."
+
+Ned Cromarty had been smoking a pipe. There was a crack now as his teeth
+went through the mouthpiece. He flung the pipe into the fire, jumped up,
+and began pacing the room without a word or a glance at the other. At
+last he stopped as abruptly as he had started.
+
+"This slander has got to be stopped!"
+
+And then he paced on.
+
+"Just what I was saying to myself, sir. It was likely a wee thing of
+over anxiety to stop it that made me think o' the possibility of a wild
+man from America, which was perhaps a bit beyond the limits of what ye
+might call, as it were, scientific deduction."
+
+"When did Lady Cromarty begin to take up this attitude?"
+
+"Well, the plain truth is, sir, that her ladyship has been keeping sae
+much to herself that it's not rightly possible to tell what's been in
+her mind. But it was the afternoon when Mr. Rattar had been at the house
+that she sent for Miss Farmond and tellt her then she was wanting her to
+stop on."
+
+"That would be after she knew the contents of the will! I wonder if the
+idea had entered her head before, or if the will alone started it? Old
+Simon would never start such a scandal himself about his best client. He
+knows too well which side his bread is buttered for that! But he might
+have talked his infernal jargon about the motive and the people who
+stood to gain by the death. That might have been enough to set her
+suspicions off."
+
+"Or I was thinking maybe, sir, it was when her ladyship heard of the
+engagement."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Ned, stopping suddenly again, "that's possible. When did
+she hear?"
+
+Bisset shook his head.
+
+"That beats me again, sir. Her own maid likely has been telling her
+things the time we've not been seeing her."
+
+"Did the maid--or did you know about the engagement?"
+
+"Servants are uneducated creatures," said Bisset contemptuously. "And
+women at the best have just the ae' thought--who's gaun to be fool
+enough to marry next? They were always gossiping about Mr. Malcolm and
+Miss Cicely, but there was never what I should call a data to found a
+deduction on; not for a sensible person. I never believed it myself, but
+it's like enough her ladyship may have suspected it for a while back."
+
+"I suppose Lady Cromarty has been nearly distracted?"
+
+"Very near, sir."
+
+"That's her only excuse. But the story is such obvious nonsense, Bisset,
+that surely no one in their proper senses really believes it?"
+
+The philosopher shook a wise head.
+
+"I have yet to learn, Mr. Cromarty, what folks will not believe."
+
+"They've got to stop believing this!" said Ned emphatically.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+A SUGGESTION
+
+
+Next morning Simon Rattar was again informed that Mr. Cromarty of
+Stanesland wished to see him, and again the announcement seemed to be
+unwelcome. He was silent for several seconds before answering, and when
+he allowed Mr. Cromarty to be shown in, it was with an air which
+suggested the getting over a distasteful business as soon as possible.
+
+"Well, Mr. Cromarty?" he grunted brusquely.
+
+Mr. Cromarty never beat about the bush.
+
+"I've come to see you about this scandalous story that's going round."
+
+The lawyer glanced at the papers he had been busy with, as if to
+indicate that they were of more importance than scandals.
+
+"What story?" he enquired.
+
+"That Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned in Sir Reginald's
+murder."
+
+There was something compelling in Ned's directness. Simon pushed aside
+the papers and looked at him fixedly.
+
+"Oh," he said. "They say that, do they?"
+
+"Haven't you heard?"
+
+Simon's grunt was non-committal.
+
+"Well anyway, this derned story is going about, and something's got to
+be done to stop it."
+
+"What do you suggest?"
+
+"Are you still working the case for all you know how?"
+
+Simon seemed to resent this enquiry a little.
+
+"I am the Procurator Fiscal. The police make the actual enquiries. They
+have done everything they could."
+
+"'They have done'? Do you mean that they have stopped looking for the
+murderer?"
+
+"Certainly not. They are still enquiring; not that it is likely to be
+much further use."
+
+There seemed to be a sardonic note in his last words that deepened
+Cromarty's frown and kindled his eye.
+
+"You mean to suggest that any conclusion has been reached?"
+
+"Nothing is absolutely certain," said Simon.
+
+Again the accent on the "absolutely" seemed to rouse his visitor's ire.
+
+"You believe this story, do you?"
+
+"If I _believed_ it, I should order an arrest. I have just told you
+nothing is absolutely certain."
+
+"Look here," said Cromarty, "I don't want to crab Superintendent
+Sutherland or his men, but you want to get somebody better than them on
+to this job."
+
+Though the Procurator Fiscal kept his feelings well in hand, it was
+evident that this suggestion struck him more unfavourably than anything
+his visitor had said yet. He even seemed for one instant to be a little
+startled by its audacity.
+
+"I disagree," he muttered.
+
+"Now don't you take offence, Mr. Rattar," said Ned with a sudden smile.
+"I'm not aiming this at you, but, hang it, you know as well as I do that
+Sutherland is no great shakes at detection. They are all just country
+bobbies. What we want is a London detective."
+
+Simon seemed to have recovered his equanimity during this speech. He
+shook his head emphatically, but his voice was as dispassionately
+brusque as ever.
+
+"London detective? Much over-rated people, I assure you. No use in a
+case of this kind."
+
+"The very kind of case a real copper-bottomed expert would be some use
+in!"
+
+"You are thinking of detectives in stories, Mr. Cromarty. The real men
+are no better than Sutherland--not a bit. I believe in Sutherland.
+Better man than he looks. Very shrewd, most painstaking. Couldn't have a
+better man. Useless expense getting a man from London."
+
+"Don't you trouble about the expense, Mr. Rattar. That can be arranged
+all right. I want a first class man engaged."
+
+The sudden glance which the lawyer shot at him, struck Ned as unusual in
+his experience of Simon Rattar. He appeared to be startled again, and
+yet it was not mere annoyance that seemed to show for the fraction of a
+second in his eye. And then the next instant the man's gaze was as cold
+and steady as ever. He pursed his lips and considered his answer in
+silence before he spoke.
+
+"You are a member of the family, Mr. Cromarty; the actual head of it, in
+fact, I believe."
+
+"Going by pedigrees, I believe I am, but being a member is reason enough
+for my wanting to get daylight through this business--and seeing
+somebody swing for it!"
+
+"What if you made things worse?"
+
+"Worse! How could they be?"
+
+"Mr. Cromarty, I am the Procurator Fiscal in charge of this case. But I
+am also lawyer and factor to the Cromarty family, and my father was
+before me. If there was evidence enough--clear and proper evidence--to
+convict any person of this crime, it would be my duty as Procurator
+Fiscal to convict them. But there is no definite evidence, as you know
+yourself. All we can do, if we push this matter too far, is to make a
+family scandal public. Are you as the head of the Cromarty family, and I
+as their factor, to do this?"
+
+It was difficult to judge with what feelings Ned Cromarty heard this
+deliberate statement and appeal. His mouth was as hard as the lawyer's
+and his eye revealed nothing.
+
+"Then you propose to hush the thing up?"
+
+"I said nothing about hushing up. I propose to wait till I get some
+_evidence_, Mr. Cromarty. It is a little difficult perhaps for a layman
+to realise what evidence means, but I can tell you--and any lawyer, or
+any detective, would tell you--we have nothing that can be called
+evidence yet."
+
+"And you won't get any till you call in somebody a cut above
+Sutherland."
+
+"The scent is too cold by this time--"
+
+"Who let it cool?" interrupted Ned.
+
+For a moment the lawyer's eyes looked unpleasant.
+
+"Every effort was made to find a clue; by yourself as well as by the
+police. And let me tell you, Mr. Cromarty, that our efforts have not
+been as fruitless as you seem to think."
+
+"What have we discovered?"
+
+"In the first place that there was no robbery committed and no sign of
+anybody having entered the house from the outside."
+
+Ned shook his head.
+
+"That's a lot too strong. I believe the man _did_ come in by the
+window."
+
+"You admit there is no proof?"
+
+"Sure," said Ned candidly. "I quite admit there is no proof of
+anything--yet."
+
+"No robbery, no evidence of anyone having come in by the window--"
+
+"No proof," corrected Ned. "I maintain that the window being unsnibbed
+and that mud on the floor and the table near the window being upset is
+evidence; but not proof positive."
+
+Simon's patience had by this time become exemplary. His only wish seemed
+to be to convince by irresistible argument this obstinate objector. It
+struck the visitor, moreover, that in this effort the lawyer was
+displaying a fluency not at all characteristic of silent Simon.
+
+"Well, let us leave it at that. Suppose there be a possibility that
+entry was actually made by the window. It is a bare possibility against
+the obvious and easy entrance by the door,--near which, remember, the
+body was found. Then, as I have pointed out, there was no robbery, and
+not a trace has been found of anybody outside that house with a motive
+for the crime."
+
+"Except me."
+
+"Unless you care to except yourself. But neither you nor the police have
+found any bad characters in the place."
+
+"That's true enough," Ned admitted reluctantly.
+
+"On the other hand, there were within the house two people with a very
+strong motive for committing the crime."
+
+"I deny that!" cried Ned with a sudden gleam of ferocity in his eye that
+seemed to disconcert the lawyer.
+
+"Deny it? You can scarcely deny that two young people, in love with one
+another and secretly engaged, with no money, and no chance of getting
+married, stood to gain everything they wanted by a death that gave them
+freedom to marry, a baronetcy, a thousand a year, and two thousand in
+cash besides?"
+
+"Damn it, Mr. Rattar, is the fact that a farmer benefits by a shower any
+evidence that he has turned on the rain?"
+
+"I have repeatedly said, Mr. Cromarty, that there is no definite
+evidence to convict anybody. But nothing would have been easier than
+making an end of Sir Reginald Cromarty, to anybody inside that house
+whom he would never suspect till they struck the blow. All the necessary
+conditions are fulfilled by this view of the case, whereas every other
+view--every other view, mind you, Mr. Cromarty--is confronted with these
+difficulties:--no robbery, no definite evidence of entry, no explanation
+of Sir Reginald's extraordinary silence when the man appeared, no bad
+characters in the neighbourhood, and, above all, no motive."
+
+At the end of this speech Simon shut his mouth tight and leaned back in
+his chair. For a moment it seemed as though Ned Cromarty was impressed
+by the lawyer's view of the case. But when he replied, his voice, though
+deliberate had a fighting ring in it, and his single eye, a fighting
+light.
+
+"Then you propose to leave this young couple under the most damnable
+cloud of suspicion that a man and a woman could lie under--simply leave
+'em there, and let that be the end of it?"
+
+Simon seemed to be divided between distaste for this way of putting the
+case, and anxiety still to convince his visitor.
+
+"I propose to avoid the painful family scandal which further disclosures
+and more publicity would almost certainly bring about; so long as I am
+justified as Procurator Fiscal in taking this course. And until I get
+more evidence, I am not only justified but forced to take this course."
+
+Ned suddenly jumped to his feet.
+
+"I'm no lawyer," said he, "but to me you seem to be arguing in the
+damnedest circle I ever met. You won't do anything because you can't
+get more evidence. And you won't look for more evidence because you
+don't want to do anything."
+
+There was more than a hint of temper in Simon's eye and his answer was
+rapped out sharply.
+
+"I certainly do not _want_ to cause a family scandal. I haven't said all
+I could say about Sir Malcolm if I were pressed."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I've told you. Suspicion is not evidence, but if I do get evidence,
+those who will suffer by it had better beware!"
+
+Ned turned at the door and surveyed him with a cool and caustic eye.
+
+"That's talk," he said, "and something has got to be _done_."
+
+He was gone, and Simon Rattar was left frowning at the closed door
+behind him. The frown remained, but became now rather thoughtful than
+indignant. Then he sprang up and began to pace the floor, deliberately
+at first, and then more rapidly and with increasing agitation.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+L1200
+
+
+Ned Cromarty had returned home and was going upstairs, when he heard a
+voice cry:
+
+"Ned!"
+
+The ancient stone stair, spiralling up round the time-worn pillar that
+seemed to have no beginning or end, gave at intervals on to doors which
+looked like apertures in a cliff. Through one of these he turned and at
+the end of a brief passage came to his sister's sitting room. In that
+mediaeval setting of ponderous stone, it looked almost fantastic in its
+daintiness. It was a small room of many cushions and many colours, its
+floor covered with the softest rugs and its walls with innumerable
+photographs, largely of country houses where Miss Cromarty had visited.
+
+Evidently she was a lady accustomed to a comfortable life in her roving
+days, and her sitting room seemed to indicate very distinctly that she
+proposed to live up to this high standard permanently.
+
+"Oh Neddy dear, I want to talk to you about something," she began in her
+brisk way and with her brightest smile.
+
+Her brother, though of a simple nature, was by this time aware that when
+he was termed "Neddy dear" the conversation was apt to turn on Miss
+Cromarty's requirements.
+
+"Well," said he, "how much is the cheque to be this time?"
+
+"How clever you're getting!" she laughed. "But it isn't a cheque I want
+this time. It's only a motor car."
+
+He looked at her doubtfully for a moment.
+
+"Pulling my leg; or a real car?"
+
+"Real car of course--nice one too!"
+
+"But, my dear girl, we've just put down our car. You agreed it was
+necessary."
+
+"I agreed then; but it isn't necessary now."
+
+"Have you come into a fortune? I haven't!"
+
+"You've come into L1200."
+
+Again he looked at her, and this time his expression changed.
+
+"That's only a debt wiped out."
+
+"Well, and your great argument for economy was that you had to pay back
+that debt. Now you haven't. See, Neddy dear?"
+
+Her brother began to shake his head, and her smile became a little less
+bright.
+
+"I don't want to get my affairs into a tangle again just yet."
+
+"But they weren't in a bad tangle. Cancelling that debt makes us
+absolutely all right again. It's absurd for people like us not to have a
+car! Look at the distances from our neighbours! One can't go anywhere.
+I'll undertake to keep down the household expenses if you get the car."
+
+Her brother frowned out of the window.
+
+"No," he said, "it's too soon to get a car again."
+
+"But you told me you had got part of that L1200 in hand and hoped to
+make up the rest very soon. What are you going to do with the money
+now?"
+
+He glanced at her over his shoulder for an instant and then his mouth
+assumed a grim and obstinate look she knew too well.
+
+"I may need the money," he said briefly. "And I'm not much in the mood
+at this moment for buying things."
+
+Behind his back Lilian made a little grimace. Then in a tone of sisterly
+expostulation she said:
+
+"You are worrying too much over this affair, Ned. You've done all you
+can----"
+
+He interrupted her brusquely:
+
+"And it's dashed little! What have I actually done? Nothing! One needs a
+better man than me."
+
+"Well, there's your friend Silent Simon, and all the police--"
+
+"A fat lot of good they are!" said Ned.
+
+His sister looked a little surprised at his unusual shortness of temper.
+To her he was very rarely like this.
+
+"You need a good day's shooting to take your mind off it for a little,"
+she suggested.
+
+He turned upon her hotly.
+
+"Do you know the story that's going about, Lilian?"
+
+"Sir Malcolm and the Farmond girl? Oh, rather," she nodded.
+
+"Is that how it strikes you?"
+
+Lilian Cromarty jumped. There was something very formidable in her
+brother's voice.
+
+"My dear Ned, don't frighten me! Eat me if you like, but eat me quietly.
+I didn't say I believed the story."
+
+"I hope not," he said in the same grim tone, "but do you mean to say it
+doesn't strike you as the damnedest slander ever spread?"
+
+"Between myself I hadn't called it the 'damnedest' anything. But how do
+I know whether it's a slander?"
+
+"You actually think it might conceivably be true?"
+
+She shrugged her well-gowned shoulders.
+
+"I never could stand Malcolm Cromarty--a conceited little jackanapes. He
+hasn't a penny and he was head over ears in debt."
+
+It was his turn to start.
+
+"Was he?"
+
+"Oh, rather! Didn't you know? Owed money everywhere."
+
+"But such a crime as that!"
+
+"A man with ties and hair like his is capable of anything. You know
+quite well yourself he is a rotter."
+
+"Anyhow you can't believe Cicely Farmond had anything to do with it?"
+
+Again she shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"My dear Ned, I'm not a detective. A pretty face is no proof a woman is
+a saint. I told you before that there was generally something in the
+blood in those cases."
+
+As he stared at her, it seemed as though her words had indeed rushed
+back to his memory, and that they hit him hard.
+
+"People don't say that, do they?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Really, Ned, I don't know everything people say: but they are not
+likely to overlook much in such a case."
+
+He stood for a moment in silence.
+
+"She--I mean they've both got to be cleared!" he said, and strode out of
+the room.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE EMPTY COMPARTMENT
+
+
+It was on this same evening that Superintendent Sutherland was almost
+rewarded for his vigilance by having something distinctly suspicious to
+report. As it happened, it proved a disappointing incident, but it gave
+the superintendent something to think about.
+
+He was going a few stations down the line to investigate a rumour of a
+suspicious person seen in that neighbourhood. It was a vague and
+improbable rumour and the superintendent was setting out merely as a
+matter of form, and to demonstrate his vigilance and almost abnormal
+sense of duty. Darkness had already fallen for an hour or two when he
+strode with dignified gait down the platform, exchanging a greeting with
+an acquaintance or two, till he came to the front carriage of the train.
+He threw open the door of the rear compartment, saw that it was empty,
+and was just going to enter when glancing over his shoulder he perceived
+his own cousin Mr. MacAlister upon the platform. Closing the door, he
+stepped down again and greeted him.
+
+Mr. MacAlister hailed him with even more than usual friendliness, and
+after a few polite preliminaries drew him insidiously towards the far
+side of the platform. An intelligent, inveterate and persevering
+curiosity was Mr. MacAlister's dominating characteristic, and as soon as
+he had got his distinguished kinsman out of earshot of the herd, he
+inquired in a hushed voice:
+
+"And what's doing aboot the murder noo, George?"
+
+The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.
+
+"Aye, man, yon's a proper puzzle," said he.
+
+"But you'll have gotten a guid idea whae's din it by noo, George?" said
+Mr. MacAlister persuasively.
+
+"Weel," admitted the superintendent, "we maybe have our notions, but
+there's no evidence yet, Robbie; that's the fair truth. As the fiscal
+says, there's no evidence."
+
+"I'd like fine to hae a crack wi' you aboot it, George," sighed Mr.
+MacAlister. "I may tell you I've notions of ma own; no bad notions
+either."
+
+"Well," said the superintendent, moving off, "I'd have enjoyed a crack
+myself if it wasna that I've got to be off by this train--"
+
+"Man!" cried his kinsman, "I'm for off by her mysel'! Come on, we'll hae
+our crack yet."
+
+The tickets had already been taken and the doors were closed as the two
+recrossed the platform.
+
+"This carriage is empty," said the superintendent, and threw open the
+door of the same compartment he had almost entered before.
+
+But it was not empty now. In one of the further corners sat a man
+wrapped in a dark coloured ulster. A black felt hat was drawn down over
+his eyes, and his muffled face was resting on his hand. So much the
+superintendent saw in the brief moment during which he stood at the open
+door, and it struck him at once that the man must be suffering from
+toothache. And then his cousin caught him by the arm and drew him back.
+
+"Here, man, the carriage next door is empty!" cried he, and the
+superintendent closed the door and followed him.
+
+It was scarcely more than a minute later when the whistle blew and they
+were off, and Mr. MacAlister took out his pipe and prepared himself to
+receive official confidences. But the miles went by, and though he plied
+his questions incessantly and skilfully, no confidences were
+forthcoming. The superintendent, in fact, had something else to think
+about. All at once he asked abruptly:
+
+"Robbie, did ye see yon man next door sitting with his face in his
+hands?"
+
+"Aye," said Mr. MacAlister, "I noticed the man."
+
+"Did ye ken who he was?"
+
+"No," said Mr. MacAlister, "I did not."
+
+"Had ye seen him on the platform?"
+
+"No," said Mr. MacAlister, "I had not."
+
+"I didna see him myself," said the superintendent musingly. "It seems
+funny-like a man dressed like yon and with his face wrapped up too--and
+a man forbye that's a stranger to us both, coming along the platform
+and getting into that carriage, and me not noticing him. I'm not used
+not to notice people, Robbie."
+
+"It's your business, George," said Mr. MacAlister, and then as he gazed
+at his cousin's thoughtful face, his own grew suddenly animated.
+
+"You're not thinking he's to dae wi' the murder, are you!" he cried.
+
+"I'm not sure what to think till I've had another look into yon
+carriage," said the superintendent cautiously.
+
+"We're slowing doon the noo!" cried Mr. MacAlister, "God, George, I'll
+come and hae a look wi' you!"
+
+The train was hardly in the platform before the superintendent was out,
+with Mr. MacAlister after him, and the door of the next compartment
+was open almost as soon as the train was at rest. Never had the
+superintendent been more vigilant; and never had his honest face
+looked blanker.
+
+"God! It's empty!" he murmured.
+
+"God save us!" murmured Mr. MacAlister, and then he was visited by an
+inspiration which struck his relative afterwards as one of the
+unhappiest he had ever suffered from. "This canna be the richt
+carriage!" he cried. "Come on, Geordie, let's hae a look in the ithers!"
+
+By the time they had looked into all the compartments of the carriage,
+the guard was waving his flag and the two men climbed hurriedly in
+again. The brooding silence of the superintendent infected even Mr.
+MacAlister, and neither spoke for several minutes. Then the
+superintendent said bitterly:
+
+"It was you hurrying me off to look in thae other carriages, Robbie!"
+
+"What was?" inquired Mr. MacAlister a little nervously.
+
+"I ought to have stopped and looked under the seats!"
+
+Mr. MacAlister shook his head and declared firmly:
+
+"There was naething under the seats. I could see that fine. And onyhow
+we can hae a look at the next stop."
+
+"As if he'll be waiting for us, now he kens we're looking for him!"
+
+"But there was naething there!" persisted Mr. MacAlister.
+
+"Then what's come over the man? Here were we sitting next the platform.
+He can't have got out afore we started, or we'd have seen him. Folks
+don't disappear into the air! I'll try under the seats, though I doubt
+the man will have been up and out while we were wasting our time in yon
+other carriages."
+
+At the next station they searched that mysterious compartment earnestly
+and thoroughly, but there was not a sign of the muffled stranger, under
+the seats or anywhere else. Again the superintendent was silent for a
+space, and then he said confidentially:
+
+"I'm just wondering if it's worth while reporting the thing, Robbie. The
+fiscal might have a kin' of unpleasant way of looking at it. Besides,
+there's really naething to report. Anyhow I'll think it over. And that
+being the case, the less said the better. I can tell ye all that's known
+about the case, Robbie; knowing that you'll be discreet."
+
+"Oh, you can trust me," said Mr. MacAlister earnestly,--"I'll no breathe
+a word o' yon man. Weel, now, you were saying you'd tell me the haill
+story."
+
+By this judicious arrangement Mr. MacAlister got his money's worth of
+sensational disclosures, and the superintendent was able to use his
+discretion and think the incident over. He thought over it very hard and
+finally decided that he was demonstrating his vigilance quite
+sufficiently without mentioning the trifling mystery of the empty
+compartment.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE SPORTING VISITOR
+
+
+In summer and autumn, visitors were not uncommon in this remote
+countryside; mostly shooting or fishing people who rented the country
+houses, raised the local prices, and were described by the tradesmen as
+benefiting the county greatly. But in late autumn and winter this
+fertilising stream ceased to flow, and when the trains from the south
+crawled in, the porters and the boots from the hotels resigned
+themselves to welcoming a merely commercial form of traveller.
+
+It was therefore with considerable pleasure and surprise that they
+observed one afternoon an unmistakeably sporting gentleman descend from
+a first class compartment and survey them with a condescending yet
+affable eye.
+
+"Which is the best of these hotels?" he demanded with an amiable smile,
+as he surveyed through a single eyeglass the names on the caps of the
+various boots.
+
+His engaging air disarmed the enquiry of embarrassment, and even when he
+finally selected the Kings Arms Hotel, the other boots merely felt
+regret that they had not secured so promising a client. His luggage
+confirmed the first favourable impression. It included a gun case, a
+bag of golf clubs, and one or two handsome leather articles. Evidently
+he meant to make more than a passing visit, and as he strolled down the
+platform, his leisurely nonchalant air and something even in the way in
+which he smoked his cigarette in its amber holder, suggested a gentleman
+who, having arrived here, was in no hurry to move on. On a luggage label
+the approving boots noted the name of "F. T. Carrington."
+
+When he arrived at the Kings Arms, Mr. Carrington continued to produce
+favourable impressions. He was a young man, apparently a little over
+thirty, above middle height, with a round, ingenuous, very agreeable
+face, smooth fair hair, a little, neatly trimmed moustache, and a
+monocle that lent just the necessary touch of distinction to what might
+otherwise have been a too good-humoured physiognomy. His tweed suit was
+fashionably cut and of a distinctly sportive pattern, and he wore a pair
+of light spats. In short, there could be no mistaking him for anything
+but a gentleman of position and leisure with strong sporting
+proclivities, and his manner amply confirmed this. It was in fact almost
+indolent in its leisurely ease.
+
+Miss Peterkin, the capable manageress of the Kings Arms, was at
+first disposed to think Mr. Carrington a trifle too superior, and,
+as she termed it, "la-de-da," but a very few minutes' conversation
+with the gentleman completely reassured her. He was so polite and so
+good-humoured and so ready to be pleased with everything he saw and
+anything she suggested, that they became firm friends within ten minutes
+of his arrival, and after Mr. Carrington had disposed of his luggage in
+the bedroom and private sitting room which he engaged, and partaken of a
+little dinner, she found herself welcoming him into her own sitting room
+where a few choice spirits nightly congregated.
+
+It is true that these spirits, though choice, were hardly of what she
+called Mr. Carrington's "class," but then in all her experience she had
+never met a gentleman of such fashion and such a superior air, who
+adapted himself so charmingly to any society. In fact, "charming" was
+the very adjective for him, she decided.
+
+About his own business he was perfectly frank. He had heard of the
+sporting possibilities of the county and had come to look out for a bit
+of fishing or shooting; preferably fishing, for it seemed he was an
+enthusiastic angler. Of course, it was too late in the season for any
+fishing this year, but he was looking ahead as he preferred to see
+things for himself instead of trusting to an agent's description. He had
+brought his gun just on the chance of getting a day somewhere, and his
+club in case there happened to be a golf links. In short, he seemed
+evidently to be a young man of means who lived for sport; and what other
+question could one ask about such a satisfactory type of visitor?
+Absolutely none, in Miss Peterkin's opinion.
+
+As a matter of fact, she found very early in the evening, and continued
+to find thereafter, that the most engaging feature of Mr. Carrington's
+character was the interest he took in other people's business, so that
+the conversation very quickly strayed away from his own concerns--and
+remained away. It was not that he showed any undue curiosity; far from
+it. He was simply so sympathetic and such a good listener and put
+questions that showed he was following everything you said to him in a
+way that really very few people did. And, moreover, in spite of his
+engaging frankness, there was an indefinable air of discretion about him
+that made one feel safe to tell him practically everything. She herself
+told him the sad story of her brother in Australia (a tale which, as a
+rule, she told only to her special intimates) before he had been in her
+room half an hour.
+
+But with the arrival of three or four choice spirits, the conversation
+became more general, and it was naturally not long before it turned on
+the greatest local sensation and mystery within the memory of man--the
+Cromarty murder. Mr. Carrington's surprise was extreme when he realised
+that he was actually in the county where the tragedy had occurred,
+within a very few miles of the actual spot, in fact. Of course, he had
+read about it in the papers, but only cursorily, it seemed, and he had
+no idea he was coming into the identical district that had acquired such
+a sinister notoriety.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed more than once when he had made this discovery,
+"I say, how interesting!"
+
+"Oh," said Miss Peterkin with becoming pride, "we are getting quite
+famous, I can assure you, Mr. Carrington."
+
+"Rather so!" cried he, "I've read quite a lot about this Carnegie
+case----"
+
+"Cromarty," corrected one of the spirits.
+
+"Cromarty, of course, I mean! I'm rather an ass at names, I'm afraid."
+The young man smiled brightly and all the spirits sympathised. "Oh yes,
+I've seen it reported in the papers. And now to think here I am in the
+middle of it, by George! How awfully interesting! I say, Miss Peterkin,
+what about these gentlemen having another wee droppie with me, all
+round, just to celebrate the occasion?"
+
+With such an appreciative and hospitable audience, Miss Peterkin and the
+choice spirits spent a long and delightful evening in retailing every
+known circumstance of the drama, and several that were certainly unknown
+to the authorities. He was vastly interested, though naturally very
+shocked, to hear who was commonly suspected of the crime.
+
+"Do you mean to say his own heir--and a young girl like that----? By
+Jove, I say, how dreadful!" he exclaimed, and, in fact, he would hardly
+believe such a thing conceivable until all the choice spirits in turn
+had assured him that there was practically no doubt about it.
+
+The energetic part played by Mr. Simon Rattar in unravelling the dark
+skein, or at least in trying to, was naturally described at some length,
+and Mr. Carrington showed his usual sympathetic, and, one might almost
+say, entranced appreciation of the many facts told him concerning that
+local celebrity.
+
+Finally Miss Peterkin insisted on getting out the back numbers of the
+local paper giving the full details of the case, and with many thanks he
+took these off to read before he went to bed.
+
+"But mind you don't give yourself the creeps and keep yourself from
+going to sleep, Mr. Carrington!" she warned him with the last words.
+
+"By Jove, that's an awful thought!" he exclaimed, and then his eyes
+twinkled. "Send me up another whisky and soda to cure the creeps!" said
+he.
+
+Miss Peterkin thought he was quite one of the pleasantest, and promised
+to be one of the most profitable gentlemen she had met for a very long
+time.
+
+Next morning he assured her he had kept the creeps at bay sufficiently
+to enjoy an excellent night's sleep in a bed that did the management
+credit. In fact, he had thoroughly enjoyed reading the mystery and had
+even begun to feel some curiosity to see the scene of the tragedy. He
+proposed to have a few walks and drives through the neighbouring
+country, he said, looking at its streams and lochs with an eye to
+sporting possibilities, and it would be interesting to be able to
+recognise Keldale House if he chanced to pass near it.
+
+Miss Peterkin told him which road led to Keldale and how the house might
+be recognised, and suggested that he should walk out that way this very
+morning. He seemed a little doubtful; spoke of his movements as things
+that depended very much on the whim of the moment, just as such an
+easy-going young man would be apt to do, and rather indicated that a
+shorter walk would suit him better that morning.
+
+And then a few minutes later she saw him saunter past her window,
+wearing a light gray felt hat at a graceful angle and apparently taking
+a sympathetic interest in a small boy trying to mount a bicycle.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+MR. CARRINGTON'S WALK
+
+
+Mr. Carrington's easy saunter lasted till he had turned out of the
+street on which the Kings Arms stood, when it passed into an easy walk.
+Though he had seemed, on the whole, disinclined to go in the Keldale
+direction that morning, nevertheless he continued to head that way till
+at last he was on the high road with the little town behind him; and
+then his pace altered again. He stepped out now like the sportsman he
+was, and was doing a good four miles an hour by the time he was out of
+sight of the last houses.
+
+For a man who had come out to gather ideas as to the sporting
+possibilities of the country, Mr. Carrington seemed to pay singularly
+little attention to his surroundings. He appeared, in fact, to be
+thinking about something else all the time, and the first sign of
+interest he showed in anything outside his thoughts was when he found
+himself within sight of the lodge gates of Keldale House, with the
+avenue sweeping away from the road towards the roofs and chimneys amid
+the trees. At the sight of this he stopped, and leaning over the low
+wall at the road side gazed with much interest at the scene of the
+tragedy he had heard so much of last night. The choice spirits, had
+they been there to see, would have been gratified to find that their
+graphic narratives had sent this indolent looking gentleman to view the
+spot so swiftly.
+
+From the house and grounds his eye travelled back to the road and then
+surveyed the surrounding country very attentively. He even stood on top
+of the wall to get a wider view; and then all of a sudden he jumped down
+again and adopted the reverse procedure, bending now so that little more
+than his head appeared above the wall. And the reason for this change of
+plan appeared to be a figure which had emerged from the trees and began
+to move along a path between the fields.
+
+Mr. Carrington studied this figure with concentrated attention, and as
+it drew nearer and became more distinct, a light leapt into his eye that
+gave him a somewhat different expression from any his acquaintances of
+last night had observed. He saw that the path followed a small stream
+and ran at an angle to the high road, joining it at last at a point some
+little distance back towards the town. He looked quickly up and down the
+road. Not a soul was in sight to see his next very curious performance.
+The leisurely Mr. Carrington crossed to the further side, where he was
+invisible from the path, and then set out to run at a rapid pace till he
+reached the junction of path and road. And then he turned down the path.
+
+But now his bearing altered again in a very extraordinary way. His gait
+fell once more to a saunter and his angling enthusiasm seemed suddenly
+to have returned, for he frequently studied the burn as he strolled
+along, and there was no sign of any thoughtfulness on his ingenuous
+countenance. There were a few willows beside the path, and the path
+itself meandered, and this was doubtless the reason why he appeared
+entirely unconscious of the approach of another foot passenger till they
+were within a few yards of one another. And then Mr. Carrington stopped
+suddenly, seemed to hesitate, pulled out his watch and glanced at it,
+and then with an apologetic air raised his hat.
+
+The other foot passenger was face to face with him now, a slim figure in
+black, with a sweet, serious face.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Carrington, "but can you tell me where this path
+leads?"
+
+He was so polite and so evidently anxious to give no offence, and his
+face was such a certificate to his amiable character that the girl
+stopped too and answered without hesitation:
+
+"It leads to Keldale House."
+
+"Keldale House?" he repeated, and then the idea seemed to arouse
+associations. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "Really? I'm an utter stranger
+here, but isn't that the place where the murder took place?"
+
+Had Mr. Carrington been a really observant man, one would think he would
+have noticed the sudden change of expression in the girl's face--as if
+he had aroused painful thoughts. He did seem to look at her for an
+instant as he asked the question, but then turned his gaze towards the
+distant glimpse of the house.
+
+"Yes," she murmured and looked as though she wanted to pass on; but Mr.
+Carrington seemed so excited by his discovery that he never noticed this
+and still stood right in her path.
+
+"How very interesting!" he murmured. "By Jove, how very interesting!"
+And then with the air of passing on a still more interesting piece of
+news, he said suddenly, "I hear they have arrested Sir Malcolm
+Cromarty."
+
+This time he kept his monocle full on her.
+
+"Arrested him!" she cried. "What for?"
+
+This question, put with the most palpable wonder, seemed to disconcert
+Mr. Carrington considerably. He even hesitated in a very unusual way for
+him.
+
+"For--for the murder, of course."
+
+Her eyes opened very wide.
+
+"For Sir Reginald's murder? How ridiculous!"
+
+Again Mr. Carrington seemed a little disconcerted.
+
+"Er--why is it ridiculous?" he asked. "Of course, I--I know nothing
+about the gentleman."
+
+"Evidently!" she agreed with reproach in her eyes. "If Sir Malcolm
+really has been arrested, it can only have been for something quite
+silly. He couldn't commit a murder!"
+
+The fact that this tribute to the baronet's innocence was not wholly
+devoid of a flavour of criticism seemed to strike Mr. Carrington, for
+his eye twinkled for an instant.
+
+"You are acquainted with him then?" said he.
+
+"I am staying at Keldale; in fact, I am a relation."
+
+There was no doubt of her intention to rebuke the too garrulous
+gentleman by this information, and it succeeded completely. He passed at
+once to the extreme of apology.
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea. Really, I hope
+you will accept my apologies, Miss--er--Cromarty."
+
+"Miss Farmond," she corrected.
+
+"Miss Farmond, I mean. It was frightfully tactless of me!"
+
+He said it so nicely and looked so innocently guilty and so contrite,
+that her look lost its touch of indignation.
+
+"I still can't understand what you mean about Sir Malcolm being
+arrested," she said. "How did you hear?"
+
+"Oh, I was very likely misinformed. An old fellow at the hotel last
+night was saying so."
+
+Her eye began to grow indignant again.
+
+"What old fellow?"
+
+"Red hair, shaky knees, bit of a stammer, answers to the name of Sandy,
+I believe."
+
+"Old Sandy Donaldson!" she exclaimed. "That drunken old thing! He was
+simply talking nonsense as usual!"
+
+"He seemed a little in liquor," he admitted, "but you see I am a mere
+stranger. I didn't realise what a loose authority I quoted. There is
+nothing in the report, I am certain. And this path leads only to Keldale
+House? Thank you very much. Good morning!"
+
+How Mr. Carrington had obtained this erroneous information from a person
+whose back he had merely seen for a couple of minutes the night before,
+as the reprobate in question was being ejected from the Kings Arms, he
+did not stop to explain. In fact, at this point he showed no inclination
+to continue the conversation, but bowing very politely, continued his
+stroll.
+
+But the effect of the conversation on him remained, and a very marked
+effect it appeared to be. He took no interest in the burn any longer,
+but paced slowly on, his eyes sometimes on the path and sometimes
+staring upwards at the Heavens. So far as his face revealed his
+sensations, they seemed to be compounded of surprise and perplexity.
+Several times he shook his head as though some very baffling point had
+cropped up in his thoughts, and once he murmured:
+
+"I'm damned!"
+
+When the path reached the policies of the house, he stopped and seemed
+to take some interest in his surroundings once more. For a moment it was
+clear that he was tempted to enter the plantations, and then he shook
+his head and turned back.
+
+All the way home he remained immersed in thought and only recovered his
+nonchalant air as he entered the door of the Kings Arms. He was the same
+easy-going, smiling young man of fashion as he passed the time of day
+with Miss Peterkin; but when he had shut the door of his private sitting
+room and dropped into an easy chair over the fire, he again became so
+absorbed in thought that he had to be reminded that the hour of luncheon
+had passed.
+
+Thought seemed to vanish during lunch, but when he had retired to his
+room again, it returned for another half hour. At the end of that time
+he apparently came to a decision, and jumping up briskly, repaired to
+the manageress' room. And when Miss Peterkin was taken into his
+confidence, it appeared that the whole problem had merely concerned the
+question of taking either a shooting or a fishing for next season.
+
+"I have been thinking," said he, "that my best plan will perhaps be to
+call upon Mr. Simon Rattar and see whether he knows of anything to let.
+I gather that he is agent for several estates in the county. What do you
+advise?"
+
+Miss Peterkin decidedly advised this course, so a few minutes later Mr.
+Carrington strolled off towards the lawyer's office.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+MR. CARRINGTON AND THE FISCAL
+
+
+The card handed in to Mr. Simon Rattar contained merely the name "Mr. F.
+T. Carrington" and the address "Sports Club." Simon gazed at it
+cautiously and in silence for the better part of a minute, and when he
+glanced up at his head clerk to tell him that Mr. Carrington might be
+admitted, Mr. Ison was struck by the curious glint in his eye. It seemed
+to him to indicate that the fiscal was very wide awake at that moment;
+it struck him also that Mr. Rattar was not altogether surprised by the
+appearance of this visitor.
+
+The agreeable stranger began by explaining very frankly that he thought
+of renting a place for next season where he could secure good fishing
+and a little shooting, and wondered if any of the properties Mr. Rattar
+was agent for would suit him. Simon grunted and waited for this overture
+to develop.
+
+"What about Keldale House?" the sporting visitor suggested. "That's the
+place where the murder was committed, isn't it?" and then he laughed.
+"Your eye betrays you, Mr. Rattar!" said he.
+
+The lawyer seemed to start ever so slightly.
+
+"Indeed?" he murmured.
+
+"Look here," said Carrington with a candid smile, "let's put our cards
+on the table. You know my business?"
+
+"Are you a detective?" asked the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Carrington smiled and nodded.
+
+"I am; or rather I prefer to call myself a private enquiry agent. People
+expect so much of a detective, don't they?"
+
+Simon grunted, but made no other comment.
+
+"In a case like this," continued Carrington, "when one is called in
+weeks too late and the household broom and scrubbing brush and garden
+rake have removed most of the possible clues, and witnesses'
+recollections have developed into picturesque legends, it is better to
+rouse as few expectations as possible, since it is probably impossible
+to find anything out. However, in the capacity of a mere enquiry agent I
+have come to pick up anything I can. May I smoke?"
+
+He asked in his usual easy-going voice and with his usual candid smile,
+and then his eye was arrested by an inscription printed in capital
+letters, and hung in a handsome frame upon the office wall. It ran:
+
+                    "MY THREE RULES OF LIFE,
+
+               "1. I DO NOT SMOKE.
+                2. I LAY BY A THIRD OF MY INCOME.
+                3. I NEVER RIDE WHEN I CAN WALK."
+
+Beneath these precepts appeared the lithographed signature of an eminent
+philanthropist, but it seemed reasonable to assume that they also formed
+the guiding maxims of Mr. Simon Rattar.
+
+His visitor politely apologised for his question.
+
+"I had not noticed this warning," said he.
+
+"Smoke if you like. My clients sometimes do. I don't myself," said the
+lawyer.
+
+His visitor thanked him, placed a cigarette in his amber holder, lit it,
+and let his eyes follow the smoke upwards.
+
+Mr. Rattar, on his part, seemed in his closest, most taciturn humour.
+His grunt and his nod had, in fact, seldom formed a greater proportion
+of his conversation. He made no further comment at all now, but waited
+in silence for his visitor to proceed.
+
+"Well," resumed Carrington, "the simple facts of the case are these. I
+have been engaged through a certain firm of London lawyers, whose name I
+am not permitted to mention, on behalf of a person whose name I don't
+know."
+
+At this a flash of keen interest showed for an instant in Simon's eye;
+and then it became as cold as ever again.
+
+"Indeed?" said he.
+
+"I am allowed to incur expense," continued the other, "up to a certain
+figure, which is so handsome that it gives me practically a free hand,
+so far as that is concerned. On the other hand, the arrangement entails
+certain difficulties which I daresay you, Mr. Rattar, as a lawyer, and
+especially as a Procurator Fiscal accustomed to investigate cases of
+crime, will readily understand."
+
+"Quite so; quite so," agreed Mr. Rattar, who seemed to be distinctly
+relaxing already from his guarded attitude.
+
+"I arrived last night, put up at the Kings Arms--where I gathered
+beforehand that the local gossip could best be collected, and in the
+course of the evening I collected enough to hang at least two people;
+and in the course of a few more evenings I shall probably have enough to
+hang half a dozen--if one can believe, say, a twentieth of what one
+hears. This morning I strolled out to Keldale House and had a look at it
+from the road, and I learned that it was a large mansion standing among
+trees. That's all I have been able to do so far."
+
+"Nothing more than that?"
+
+Mr. Carrington seemed to have a singularly short memory.
+
+"I think that's the lot," said he. "And what is more, it seems to me the
+sum total of all I am likely to do without a little assistance from
+somebody in possession of rather more authentic facts than my friend
+Miss Peterkin and her visitors."
+
+"I quite understand," said the lawyer; and it was plain that his
+interest was now thoroughly enlisted.
+
+"Well," continued Mr. Carrington, "I thought things over, and rightly or
+wrongly, I came to this decision. My employer, whoever he is, has made
+it an absolute condition that his name is not to be known. His reasons
+may have been the best imaginable, but it obviously made it impossible
+for me to get any information out of _him_. For my own reasons I always
+prefer to make my enquiries in these cases in the guise of an
+unsuspected outsider, whenever it is possible; and it happens to be
+particularly possible in this case, since nobody here knows me from
+Adam. But I must get facts--as distinguished from the Kings Arms'
+gossip, and how was I to get them without giving myself away? That was
+the problem, and I soon realised that it was insoluble. I saw I must
+confide in somebody, and so I came to the decision to confide in you."
+
+Simon nodded and made a sound that seemed to indicate distinctly his
+opinion that Mr. Carrington had come to a sensible decision.
+
+"You were the obvious person for several reasons," resumed Carrington.
+"In the first place you could pretty safely be regarded as above
+suspicion yourself--if you will pardon my associating even the word
+suspicion with a Procurator Fiscal." He smiled his most agreeable smile
+and the Fiscal allowed his features to relax sympathetically. "In the
+second place you know more about the case than anybody else. And in the
+third place, I gather that you are--if I may say so, a gentleman of
+unusual discretion."
+
+Again he smiled pleasantly, and again Mr. Rattar's features relaxed.
+
+"Finally," added Carrington, "I thought it long odds that you were
+either actually my employer or acting for him, and therefore I should
+be giving nothing away by telling you my business. And when I mentioned
+Keldale House and the murder I saw that I was right!"
+
+He laughed, and Simon permitted himself to smile. Yet his answer was as
+cautious as ever.
+
+"Well, Mr. Carrington?" said he.
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "if you actually are my employer and we both
+lay our cards on the table, there's much to be gained, and--if I may say
+so--really nothing to be lost. I won't give you away if you won't give
+me."
+
+The lawyer's nod seemed to imply emphatic assent, and the other went on:
+
+"I'll keep you informed of everything I'm doing and anything I may
+happen to discover, and you can give me very valuable information as to
+what precisely is known already. Otherwise, of course, one could hardly
+exchange confidences so freely. Frankly then, you engaged me to come
+down here?"
+
+Even then Simon's caution seemed to linger for an instant. The next he
+answered briefly but decidedly:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well, now to business. I got a certain amount of literature on the
+case before I left town, and Miss Peterkin gave me some very valuable
+additions in the shape of the accounts in the local papers. Are there
+any facts known to you or the police beyond those I have read?"
+
+Simon considered the question and then shook his head.
+
+"None that I can think of, and I fear the local police will be able to
+add no information that can assist you."
+
+"They are the usual not too intelligent country bobbies, I suppose?"
+
+"Quite so," said Simon.
+
+"In that case," asked Mr. Carrington, still in his easy voice, but with
+a quick turn of his eyeglass towards the lawyer, "why was no outside
+assistance called in at once?"
+
+For a moment Simon Rattar's satisfaction with his visitor seemed to be
+diminished. He seemed, in fact, a little disconcerted, and his reply
+again became little more than a grunt.
+
+"Quite satisfied with them," seemed to be the reading of his answer.
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "no doubt you knew best, Mr. Rattar."
+
+His eyes thoughtfully followed the smoke of his cigarette upwards for a
+moment, and then he said:
+
+"That being so, my first step had better be to visit Keldale House and
+see whether it is still possible to find any small point the local
+professionals have overlooked."
+
+Mr. Rattar seemed to disapprove of this.
+
+"Nothing to discover," said he. "And they will know what you have come
+about."
+
+Mr. Carrington smiled.
+
+"I think, Mr. Rattar, that, on the whole, my appearance provokes no
+great amount of suspicion."
+
+"Your appearance, no," admitted Simon, "but--"
+
+"Well, if I go to Keldale armed with a card of introduction from you, to
+make enquiry about the shootings, I think I can undertake to turn the
+conversation on to other matters without exciting suspicion."
+
+"Conversation with whom?" enquired the lawyer sceptically.
+
+"I had thought of Mr. Bisset, the butler."
+
+"Oh--" began Mr. Rattar with a note of surprise, and then pulled himself
+up.
+
+"Yes," smiled Mr. Carrington, "I have picked up a little about the
+household. My friends of last night were exceedingly communicative--very
+gossipy indeed. I rather gather that omniscience is Mr. Bisset's foible,
+and that he is not averse from conversation."
+
+The look in Simon's eye seemed to indicate that his respect for this
+easy-going young man was increasing; though whether his liking for him
+was also increased thereby was not so manifest. His reply was again a
+mere grunt.
+
+"Well, that can easily be arranged," said Carrington, "and it is
+obviously the first thing to do."
+
+He blew a ring of smoke from his lips, skilfully sent a second ring in
+chase of it, and then turning his monocle again on the lawyer, enquired
+(though not in a tone that seemed to indicate any very acute interest in
+the question):
+
+"Who do you think yourself murdered Sir Reginald Cromarty?"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+SIMON'S VIEWS
+
+
+"Well," said Mr. Rattar deliberately, "I think myself that the actual
+evidence is very slight and extremely inclusive."
+
+"You mean the direct evidence afforded by the unfastened window,
+position of the body, table said to have been overturned, and so forth?"
+
+"Exactly. That evidence is slight, but so far as it goes it seems to me
+to point to entry by the door and to the man having been in the house
+for some little time previously."
+
+"Well?" said Carrington in an encouraging voice.
+
+"So much for the direct evidence. I may be wrong, but that is my decided
+opinion. No bad characters are known to the police to have been in the
+county at that time, and there was no robbery."
+
+"Apparently confirming the direct evidence?"
+
+"Decidedly confirming it--or so it seems to me."
+
+"Then you think there is something in the popular theory that the
+present baronet and Miss Farmond were the guilty parties?"
+
+Simon was silent for a moment, but his face was unusually expressive.
+
+"I fear it looks like it."
+
+"An unpleasant conclusion for you to come to," observed Mr. Carrington.
+"You are the family lawyer, I understand."
+
+"Very unpleasant," Mr. Rattar agreed. "But, of course, there is no
+absolute proof."
+
+"Naturally; or they'd have been arrested by now. What sort of a fellow
+is Sir Malcolm?"
+
+"My own experience of him," said the lawyer drily, "is chiefly confined
+to his visits to my office to borrow money of me."
+
+"Indeed?" said Carrington with interest. "That sort of fellow, is he? He
+writes, I understand."
+
+Simon nodded.
+
+"Any other known vices?"
+
+"I know little about his vices except that they cost him considerably
+more than he could possibly have paid, had it not been for Sir
+Reginald's death."
+
+"So the motive is plain enough. Any evidence against him?"
+
+Simon pursed his lips and became exceedingly grave.
+
+"When questioned next morning by the superintendent of police and
+myself, he led us to understand that he had retired to bed early and was
+in no position to hear or notice anything. I have since found that he
+was in the habit of sitting up late."
+
+"'In the habit,'" repeated Carrington quickly. "But you don't suggest
+he sat up that night in particular?"
+
+"Undoubtedly he sat up that night."
+
+"But merely as he always did?"
+
+"He might have been waiting for his chance on the previous nights."
+
+Carrington smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then asked:
+
+"But there is no evidence that he left his room or was heard moving
+about that night, is there?"
+
+"There is not yet any positive evidence. But he was obviously in a
+position to do so."
+
+"Was his room near or over the library?"
+
+"N--no," said the fiscal, and there seemed to be a hint of reluctance in
+his voice.
+
+Carrington glanced at him quickly and then gazed up at the ceiling.
+
+"What sort of a girl is Miss Farmond?" he enquired next.
+
+"She is the illegitimate daughter of a brother of the late Sir
+Reginald's."
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"So I gathered from the local gossips. But that fact is hardly against
+her, is it?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Carrington looked a little surprised.
+
+"Girls don't generally murder their uncles for choice, in my own
+experience; especially if they are also their benefactors."
+
+"This was hardly the usual relationship," said the lawyer with a touch
+of significance.
+
+"Do you suggest that the irregularity is apt to breed crime?"
+
+Simon's grunt seemed to signify considerable doubt as to the morals of
+the type of relative.
+
+"But what sort of girl is she otherwise?"
+
+"I should call Miss Farmond the insinuating type. A young man like
+yourself would probably find her very attractive--at first anyhow."
+
+Mr. Carrington seemed to ponder for a moment on this suggestive
+description of Miss Farmond's allurements. And then he asked:
+
+"Is it the case that she is engaged to Sir Malcolm?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+Something in his voice seemed to make the lawyer reflect.
+
+"Is it called in question?" he asked.
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"By nobody who has spoken to me on the subject. But I understand that it
+has not yet been announced."
+
+"No," said Simon. "It was a secret engagement; and marriage would have
+been impossible while Sir Reginald lived."
+
+"So there we get the motive on her part. And you yourself, Mr. Rattar,
+_know_ both these young people, and you believe that this accusation
+against them is probably well founded?"
+
+"I believe, Mr. Carrington, that there is no proof and probably never
+will be any; but all the evidence, positive and negative, together with
+the question of motive, points to nobody else. What alternative is
+possible?"
+
+"That is the difficulty, so far," agreed Carrington, but his thoughts at
+the moment seemed to be following his smoke rings up towards the
+ceiling. For a few moments he was silent, and then he asked:
+
+"What other people benefited by the will and to what extent?"
+
+The lawyer went to his safe, brought out the will, and read through the
+legacies to the servants, mentioning that the chauffeur and gardener
+were excluded by circumstances from suspicion.
+
+"That leaves Mr. Bisset," observed Carrington. "Well, I shall be seeing
+him to-morrow. Any other legatees who might conceivably have committed
+the crime?"
+
+Simon looked serious and spoke with a little reluctance that he seemed
+to make no effort to conceal.
+
+"There is a relative of the family, a Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland, who
+certainly benefited considerably by the will and who certainly lives in
+the neighbourhood--if one once admitted the possibility of the crime
+being committed by some one outside the house. And I admit that it is a
+possibility."
+
+"Ah!" said Carrington. "I heard about him last night, but so far
+suspicion certainly hasn't fastened on him. What sort of a fellow is
+he?"
+
+"He has lived the greater part of his life in the wilder parts of
+America--rather what one might call a rough and ready customer."
+
+It was apparent that Mr. Carrington, for all his easy-going air, was
+extremely interested.
+
+"This is quite interesting!" he murmured. "To what extent did he benefit
+by the will?"
+
+"L1,200."
+
+"L1,200!" Carrington repeated the words with an odd intonation and
+stared very hard at the lawyer. There was no doubt that his interest was
+highly excited now, and yet it seemed to be rather a different quality
+of interest this time.
+
+"A considerable sum," said Simon.
+
+"That is the only point about it which strikes you?"
+
+Simon was manifestly puzzled.
+
+"What else?" he enquired.
+
+"No coincidence occurs to you?"
+
+The lawyer's puzzled look remained, and the next instant Carrington
+broke into a hearty laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rattar," he cried. "What an owl I am! I have
+just been dealing lately with a case where that sum of money was
+involved, and for the moment I mixed the two up together!" He laughed
+again, and then resuming his businesslike air, asked: "Now, what else
+about this Mr. Cromarty? You say he is a relation. Near or distant?"
+
+"Oh, quite distant. Another branch altogether."
+
+"Younger branch, I presume."
+
+"Poorer but not younger. He is said to be the head of the family."
+
+"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington, and this information seemed to have
+set him thinking again. "He is the head of the family, and I hear he
+took up the case with some energy."
+
+Simon's grunt seemed to be critical.
+
+"He got in our way," he said.
+
+"Got in your way, did he?"
+
+Carrington was silent for a few moments, and then said:
+
+"Well I am afraid I have taken up a great deal of your time. May I have
+a line of introduction to Mr. Bisset before I go?"
+
+While the line was being written he walked over to the fire and cleared
+the stump of his last cigarette out of the holder. This operation was
+very deliberately performed, and through it his eyes seemed scarcely to
+note what his hands were doing.
+
+He put the note in his pocket, shook hands, and then, just as he was
+going, he said:
+
+"I want to understand the lie of the land as exactly as possible. Your
+own attitude, so far has been, I take it--no proof, therefore no arrest;
+but a nasty family scandal left festering, so you decided to call me in.
+Now, I want to know this--is there anybody else in the neighbourhood who
+knows that I have been sent for?"
+
+Mr. Rattar replied with even more than his usual deliberation, and after
+what is said by foreigners to be the national habit, his reply
+consisted of another question.
+
+"You say that your employer made a particular point of having his
+identity concealed?"
+
+"Yes, a particular point."
+
+"Doesn't that answer your question, Mr. Carrington?"
+
+"No," said Carrington, "not in the least. I am asking now whether there
+is any other employer in this neighbourhood besides yourself. And I may
+say that I ask for the very good reason that it might be awkward for me
+if there were and I didn't know him, while if I did know him, I could
+consult with him if it happened to be advisable. Is there any one?"
+
+He seemed to hang on the lawyer's answer, and Simon to dislike making
+the answer.
+
+Yet when he did make it, it was quite emphatic.
+
+"No," he replied.
+
+"That's all right then," said Mr. Carrington with his brightest smile.
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Rattar."
+
+The smile faded from his ingenuous face the moment the door had closed
+behind him, and it was a very thoughtful Mr. Carrington who slowly went
+downstairs and strolled along the pavement. If his morning's interview
+had puzzled him, his afternoon's interview seemed to have baffled him
+completely. He even forgot to relapse into the thoughtless young
+sportsman when he entered the hotel, and his friend the manageress,
+after eyeing him with great surprise, cried archly:
+
+"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Carrington! About shooting or fishing,
+I'm sure!"
+
+Mr. Carrington recovered his pleasant spirits instantly.
+
+"Quite right," said he. "I was thinking about fishing--in very deep
+waters."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+MR. BISSET'S ASSISTANT
+
+
+At eleven o'clock next morning a motor car drove up to Keldale House and
+an exceedingly affable and pleasing stranger delivered a note from Mr.
+Simon Rattar to Mr. James Bisset. Even without an introduction, Mr.
+Carrington would have been welcome, for though Mr. Bisset's sway over
+Keldale House was by this time almost despotic, he had begun to find
+that despotism has its lonely side, and to miss "the gentry." With an
+introduction, Mr. Carrington quickly discovered that Mr. Bisset and the
+mansion he supervised were alike entirely at his disposal.
+
+The preliminary discussion on the sporting possibilities of the estate
+and the probability of its being let next season impressed Mr. Bisset
+very favourably indeed with his visitor; and then when the conversation
+had passed very naturally to the late tragedy in the house, he was still
+further delighted to find that Mr. Carrington not only shared his own
+detective enthusiasm, but was vastly interested in his views on this
+particular mystery.
+
+"Come along here, sir," said he, "we can just have a look at the
+library and I'll explain to you the principles of the thing."
+
+"I'd like to see the actual scene of the crime immensely!" cried Mr.
+Carrington eagerly. "You are sure that Lady Cromarty won't object?"
+
+"Not her," said Bisset. "She's never in this part of the house now.
+She'll be none the wiser anyhow."
+
+This argument seemed to assure Mr. Carrington completely, and they went
+along to the library.
+
+"Now," began Bisset, "I'll just explain to you the haill situation. Here
+where I'm laying this sofie cushion was the corp. Here where I'm
+standing the now was the wee table, and yon's the table itself."
+
+To the disquisition that followed, Mr. Carrington listened with the most
+intelligent air. Bisset had by this time evolved quite a number of new
+theories, but the one feature common to them all was the hypothesis that
+the murderer must have come in by the window and was certainly not an
+inmate of the household. His visitor said little till he had finished,
+and then he remarked:
+
+"Well, Bisset, you don't seem to put much faith in the current theory, I
+see."
+
+"Meaning that Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned?" said Bisset
+indignantly. "That's just the ignorance of the uneducated masses, sir!
+The thing's physically impossible, as I've just been demonstrating!"
+
+Carrington smiled and gently shook his head.
+
+"I don't know much about these things," said he, "but I'm afraid I can't
+see the physical impossibility. It was very easy for any one in the
+house to come downstairs and open that door, and if Sir Reginald knew
+him, it would account for his silence and the absence of any kind of a
+struggle."
+
+"But yon table and the windie being unfastened! And the mud I picked up
+myself--and the hearth brush!"
+
+"They scarcely make it impossible," said Carrington.
+
+"Well, sir," demanded the butler, "what's your own theory?"
+
+Carrington said nothing for several minutes. He strolled up and down the
+room, looked at the table and the window, and at last asked:
+
+"Do you remember quite distinctly what Sir Reginald looked like when you
+found him--the position of the body--condition of the clothes--and
+everything else?"
+
+"I see him lying there every night o' my life, just as plain as I see
+you now!"
+
+"The feet were towards the door, just as though he had been facing the
+door when he was struck down?"
+
+"Aye, but then my view is the body was moved----"
+
+He was interrupted by a curious performance on Mr. Carrington's part.
+His visitor was in fact stretching himself out on the floor on the spot
+where Sir Reginald was found.
+
+"He lay like this?" he asked.
+
+"Aye, practically just like that, sir."
+
+"Now, Bisset," said the recumbent visitor, "just have a very good look
+at me and tell me if you notice any difference between me and the body
+of Sir Reginald."
+
+Bisset looked for a few seconds and then exclaimed:
+
+"Your clothes are no alike! The master's coat was kind of pulled up like
+about his shoulders and neck. Oh, and I mind now the tag at the back for
+hanging it up was broken and sticking out."
+
+Carrington sprang to his feet with a gleam in his eye.
+
+"The tag was not broken before he put on the coat?"
+
+"It certainly was not that! But what's your deduction, sir?"
+
+Carrington smiled at him.
+
+"What do you think yourself, Bisset? You saw how I threw myself down
+quite carelessly and yet my coat wasn't pulled up like that."
+
+"God, sir!" cried the butler. "You mean the corp had been pulled along
+the floor by the shoulders!"
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"Then he had been killed near the windie!"
+
+"Not too fast, not too fast!" smiled Carrington. "Your own first
+statement which I happened to read in a back number of the newspaper
+the other day said that the windows were all fastened when Sir Reginald
+came into the room."
+
+"Ah, but I've been altering my opinion on that point, sir."
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"I'm afraid because a fastened window doesn't suit your theory."
+
+"But the master might have opened it to him, thinking it was some one he
+knew."
+
+"Sounds improbable," said Carrington thoughtfully.
+
+"But not just absolutely impossible."
+
+"No," said Carrington, still very thoughtfully, "not impossible."
+
+"Sir Reginald might never have seen it was a stranger till the man was
+fairly inside."
+
+Carrington smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Thin, Bisset; very thin. Why need the man have been a stranger at all?"
+
+Bisset's face fell.
+
+"But surely you're not believing yon story that it was Sir Malcolm and
+Miss Farmond after a'?"
+
+His visitor stood absolutely silent for a full minute. Then he seemed
+suddenly to banish the line of thought he was following.
+
+"Is it quite certain that those two are engaged?" he asked.
+
+Bisset's face showed his surprise at the question.
+
+"They all say so," said he.
+
+"Have either of them admitted it?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Why don't they acknowledge it now and get married?"
+
+"They say it's because they daurna for fear of the scandal."
+
+"'They' say again!" commented Carrington. "But, look here, Bisset, you
+have been in the house all the time. Did you think they were engaged?"
+
+"Honestly, sir, I did not. There's nae doubt Sir Malcolm was sweet on
+the young lady, but deil a sign of sweetness on him did I ever see in
+her!"
+
+"Do they correspond now?"
+
+Bisset shook his head.
+
+"Hardly at a'. But of course folks just say they are feared to now."
+
+"Has anybody asked either of them if they are--or ever were--engaged?"
+
+"No, sir. But if they denied it now, folks would just say the same
+thing."
+
+"Yes. I see--naturally. Lady Cromarty believes it and is keeping Miss
+Farmond under her eye, the gossips tell me. Is that so?"
+
+"Oh, that's true right enough, sir."
+
+"Who told Lady Cromarty?"
+
+"That I do not know, sir."
+
+Again the visitor seemed to be thinking, and again to cast his thoughts
+aside and take up a new aspect of the case.
+
+"Supposing," he suggested, "we were to draw the curtains and light these
+candles for a few minutes? It might help us to realise the whole
+thing."
+
+This suggestion pleased Mr. Bisset greatly and in a minute or two the
+candles were lit and the curtains drawn.
+
+"Put the table where it stood," said Carrington. "Now which was Sir
+Reginald's chair? This?"
+
+He sat in it and looked slowly round the darkened, candle-lit library.
+
+"Now," said he, "suppose I was Sir Reginald, and there came a tap at
+that window, what would I do?"
+
+"If you were the master, sir, you'd go straight to the windie to see who
+it was."
+
+"I wouldn't get in a funk and ring the bell?"
+
+"No fears!" said Bisset confidently.
+
+"And any one who knew Sir Reginald at all well could count on his not
+giving the alarm then if they tapped at the window?"
+
+"They could that."
+
+Carrington looked attentively towards the window.
+
+"Those curtains hang close against the window, I see," he observed. "A
+very slight gap in them would enable any one to get a good view of the
+room, if the blinds were not down. Were the blinds down that night?"
+
+Bisset slapped his knee.
+
+"The middle blind wasn't working!" he cried. "What a fool I've been not
+to think on the extraordinar' significance of that fac'! My, the
+deductions to be drawn! You've made it quite clear now, sir. The man
+tappit at that windie----"
+
+"Steady, steady!" said Carrington, smiling and yet seriously. "Don't you
+go announcing that theory! If there's anything in it--mum's the word!
+But mind you, Bisset, it's only a bare possibility. There's no good
+evidence against the door theory yet."
+
+"Not the table being cowpit and the body moved?"
+
+"They might be explained."
+
+He was thoughtful for a moment and then said deliberately:
+
+"I want--I mean you want certain evidence to exclude the door theory.
+Without that, the window theory remains a guess. Sir Malcolm is in
+London, I understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Likely to be coming north soon?"
+
+"No word of it, sir."
+
+Mr. Carrington reflected for a moment and then rose and went towards the
+window.
+
+"We can draw back the curtains now," said he.
+
+He drew them as he spoke and on the instant stepped involuntarily back
+and down went the small table. Miss Cicely Farmond was standing just
+outside, evidently arrested by the drawn curtains. Her eyes opened very
+wide indeed at the sight of Mr. Carrington suddenly revealed. Her lips
+parted for an instant as though she would cry out, and then she hurried
+away.
+
+Mr. Carrington seemed more upset by this incident than one would expect
+from such a composed, easy-going young man.
+
+"What will they think of me!" he exclaimed. "You must be sure to tell
+Miss Farmond--and Lady Cromarty too if she hears of this--that I came
+solely to enquire about the shootings and not to poke my nose into their
+library! Make that very explicit, Bisset."
+
+Even though assured by Bisset that the young lady was the most amiable
+person imaginable, he was continuing to lay stress on the point when his
+attention was abruptly diverted by the sight of another lady in deep
+black walking slowly away from the house.
+
+"Is that Lady Cromarty?" he asked, and no sooner had Bisset said "yes"
+than the window was up and Mr. Carrington stepping out of it.
+
+"I really must explain and apologise to her ladyship," said he.
+
+"Her ladyship will never know----!" began Bisset, but the surprising
+visitor was already hastening after the mourning figure. Had the worthy
+man been able to hear the conversation which ensued he would have been
+more surprised still.
+
+"Lady Cromarty, I believe?" said the stranger in a deferential voice.
+
+She turned quickly, and her eyes searched him with that hard glance they
+wore always nowadays.
+
+"Yes, I am Lady Cromarty," she said.
+
+"Pardon me for disturbing you," said he. "It is a mere brief matter of
+business. I represent an insurance company to which Sir Malcolm Cromarty
+has made certain proposals. We are not perfectly satisfied with his
+statements, and from other sources learn that he is engaged to be
+married. I have come simply to ascertain whether that is the case."
+
+Lady Cromarty was (as Mr. Carrington had shrewdly divined) no better
+versed in the intricate matter of insurance than the majority of her
+sex, and evidently perceived nothing very unusual in this enquiry. It
+may be added in her excuse that the manner in which it was put by the
+representative of the company was a perfect example of how a business
+man should address a lady.
+
+"It is the case," said she.
+
+"May I ask your ladyship's authority--in strict confidence of course?"
+enquired the representative firmly, but very courteously.
+
+"I learned it from my own man of business," said she.
+
+"Thank you," said the insurance representative. "I beg that your
+ladyship will say nothing of my call, and I shall undertake not to
+mention the source of my information," and with an adequate bow he
+returned to the house.
+
+Before disappearing through her library window, Mr. Carrington saw that
+her ladyship's back was turned, and he then gave this candid, if
+somewhat sketchy, account of his interview to her butler.
+
+"It suddenly struck me," said he, "that Lady Cromarty might think it
+somewhat unseemly of me to come enquiring about shooting so soon after
+her bereavement; so I gave her a somewhat different explanation. She is
+not likely to make any further enquiries about me and so you need say
+nothing about my visit."
+
+He was careful however to impress on his friend Mr. Bisset that he
+actually had come from purely sporting motives. In fact he professed
+some anxiety to get in touch with Sir Malcolm on the subject, even
+though assured that the young baronet had nothing to do with the
+shootings.
+
+"Ah, but it will gratify him, Bisset," said he, "and I think it is the
+nice thing to do. Could you give me his London address?"
+
+He jotted this down in his pocket book, and then as he was leaving he
+said confidentially:
+
+"You tell me that you think Sir Malcolm is interested in Miss Farmond,
+though she seemed not so keen on him?"
+
+"That was the way of it to my thinking," said Bisset. "And what
+deduction would you draw from that, sir?"
+
+"I should deduce," said this sympathetic and intelligent visitor, "the
+probable appearance of certain evidence bearing on our theories,
+Bisset."
+
+Mr. Bisset thought he had seldom met a pleasanter gentleman or a more
+helpful assistant.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+A TELEGRAM
+
+
+The car took Mr. Carrington straight back to the town and dropped him at
+the door of Mr. Rattar's office.
+
+"I shall want you again at two o'clock sharp," he said to the chauffeur,
+and turned in to the office.
+
+He caught the lawyer just before he went out to lunch and said at once:
+
+"I want to see Sir Malcolm Cromarty. Can you arrange for him to run up
+here for a day?"
+
+Simon stared at him hard, and there seemed to be even more caution than
+usual in his eye; almost, indeed, a touch of suspicion. The lawyer was
+not looking quite as well as usual; there was a drawn look about the
+upper part of the face and a hint of strain both in eyes and mouth.
+
+"Why do you want to see Sir Malcolm?" he enquired.
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "the fact of the matter is, Mr. Rattar, that,
+as you yourself said, the direct evidence is practically nil, and one is
+forced to go a good deal by one's judgment of the people suspected or
+concerned."
+
+Simon grunted sceptically.
+
+"Very misleading," he said.
+
+"That depends entirely on one's judgment, or rather on one's instinct
+for distinguishing bad eggs from good. As a matter of observation I
+don't find that certain types of men and women commit certain actions,
+and I do find that they are apt to commit others. And contrariwise with
+other types."
+
+"Very unsafe doctrine," said Simon emphatically.
+
+"Extremely--in the hands of any one who doesn't know how to apply it. On
+the other hand, it can be made a short and commonsense cut to the truth
+in many cases. For instance, the man who suspected Mr. Bisset of
+committing the crime would simply be wasting his time and energy, even
+if there seemed to be some evidence against him."
+
+"Any man can commit any crime," said Simon dogmatically.
+
+Carrington smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Personally," said he, "if you had a young and pretty wife, I am capable
+of running away with her, and possibly even of letting her persuade me
+to abscond with some of your property, but I am not capable of laying
+you out in cold blood and rifling that safe. And a good judge of men
+ought to be able to perceive this and not waste his time in trying to
+convict me of an offence I couldn't commit. On the other hand, if the
+crime was one that my type is apt to commit he would be a fool to acquit
+me off-hand, even if there was next to no evidence against me."
+
+"Then you simply go by your impressions of people?"
+
+"Far from it. A complete absence of motive would force me to acquit even
+the most promising looking blackguard, unless of course there were some
+form of lunacy in his case. One must have motive and one must have
+evidence as well, but character is the short cut--if the circumstances
+permit you to use it. Sometimes of course they don't, but in this case
+they force me to depend on it very largely. Therefore I want to see Sir
+Malcolm Cromarty."
+
+The lawyer shook his head.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Carrington," he said, "I can't bring him down here on such
+trivial grounds."
+
+"But you yourself suspect him!"
+
+For a moment the lawyer was silent.
+
+"I think suspicion points to him; but what is wanted is _evidence_. You
+can't get evidence merely by bringing him here. You don't suppose he
+will confess, do you?"
+
+"Have you ever studied the French methods of getting at the truth?"
+enquired Carrington, and when Simon shook his head contemptuously, he
+added with some significance: "We can learn a good deal from our
+neighbours."
+
+"Trivial grounds!" muttered Simon. "No, no!"
+
+Carrington became unusually serious and impressive.
+
+"I am investigating this case, Mr. Rattar, and I want to see Sir
+Malcolm. Will you send for him or not?"
+
+"He wouldn't come."
+
+"It depends on the urgency of the message."
+
+"I can't invent bogus urgent messages to my clients."
+
+Carrington smiled.
+
+"I might do the inventing for you."
+
+Again the lawyer stared at him and again there was the same extreme
+caution in his eye, mingled with a hint of suspicion.
+
+"I'll think about it," he said.
+
+"I want to see him immediately."
+
+"Call again to-morrow morning."
+
+Carrington's manner altered at once into his usual easy-going air.
+
+"Very well, then, Mr. Rattar," said he as he rose.
+
+"By the way," said Simon, "you have been out at Keldale this morning, I
+presume?"
+
+"Yes," said Carrington carelessly, "but there is really nothing new to
+be found."
+
+Simon looked at him hard.
+
+"No fresh evidence?"
+
+Carrington laughed.
+
+"Not likely, after you and your sleuth hounds had been over the ground!"
+
+He went to the door, and there Simon again spoke.
+
+"What are you doing next?"
+
+"Upon my word, I am rather wondering. I must think about it. Good
+morning."
+
+For a man who was rather wondering, Mr. Carrington's next movements were
+remarkably prompt. He first went straight to the Post Office and
+dispatched a wire. It was addressed to Sir Malcolm Cromarty and it
+ran--"Come immediately urgent news don't answer please don't delay." The
+only thing that seemed to indicate a wondering and abstracted mind was
+the signature to this message. Instead of "Carrington" he actually wrote
+"Cicely Farmond."
+
+He then hurried to the hotel, which he reached at one-fifty. In ten
+minutes he had bolted a hasty lunch and at two o'clock was sitting in
+the car again.
+
+"To Stanesland Castle," he commanded. "And be as quick as you can."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+AT STANESLAND
+
+
+Mr. Carrington's interview with the laird of Stanesland began on much
+the same lines as his talk with Bisset. The amiable visitor was shown
+into the laird's smoking room--an apartment with vast walls like a
+dungeon and on them trophies from the laird's adventurous days, and
+proceeded to make enquiry whether Mr. Cromarty was disposed to let his
+shootings for next season, or, if not, whether he could recommend any
+others.
+
+As the visitor was in no hurry, he declared, to fix anything up, it was
+very natural that this conversation, like the morning's, should
+eventually turn on to the subject of the great local mystery. Through it
+all Mr. Carrington's monocle was more continually fixed on the other
+than usual, but if he were looking for peculiarities in the laird's
+manner or any admissions made either by tongue or eye, he was
+disappointed. Cromarty was as breezy and as direct as ever, but even
+when his visitor confessed his extreme interest in such cases of
+remarkable crime, he (to all seeming) scented nothing in this beyond a
+not uncommon hobby. There was no doubt, however, of his keenness to
+discuss the subject. Carrington gave him an entertaining account of his
+efforts to assist Mr. Bisset, and then Ned asked:
+
+"Well, what do you think of his theory that the man came in by the
+window?"
+
+Carrington smiled.
+
+"Bisset is evidently extremely anxious to save the credit of the
+family."
+
+Ned Cromarty was aroused now.
+
+"Good God!" he cried. "But do you mean to say that you think that story
+will hold water?"
+
+"What story?" enquired Carrington mildly.
+
+"You know what I mean--the scandal that Sir Malcolm and--and a lady were
+concerned in the murder."
+
+"They are said to have actually committed it, aren't they?"
+
+Ned's eye began to look dangerous.
+
+"Do you think it's credible?" he asked brusquely.
+
+"You know them better than I. Do you think it is?"
+
+"Not for an instant!"
+
+"I haven't met Sir Malcolm," said Carrington, wiping his eyeglass on his
+handkerchief. "I can't judge of him. What sort of a fellow is he?"
+
+"A bit of a young squirt," said Ned candidly. "But I'll not believe he's
+a murderer till I get some proof of it."
+
+"And Miss Farmond? Is she at all a murderous lady?"
+
+He fixed his monocle in his eye just in time to see his host control
+himself after what seemed to have been a somewhat violent spasm.
+
+"I'll stake my life on her innocence!" said Ned, and it was hard to know
+whether his manner as he said this should be termed fierce or solemn.
+
+For the space of perhaps two seconds Carrington's eyeglass stared very
+straight at him, and immediately afterwards was taken out for cleaning
+again, while its owner seemed to have found some new food for thought.
+The silence was broken by Ned asking brusquely:
+
+"Don't you believe me?"
+
+Again his visitor fixed the monocle in his eye, and he answered now very
+quietly and deliberately:
+
+"I happened to meet a young lady one afternoon, whom I discovered to be
+Miss Farmond. My own impression--for what it is worth--is that it would
+be a mere waste of time to investigate the suspicion against her,
+supposing, that is, that one were a detective or anything of that kind
+engaged in this case."
+
+"You think she is innocent?" asked Ned eagerly.
+
+"I am quite certain of it, so far as I am any judge."
+
+Ned heaved a sigh of relief, and for an instant a smile flitted across
+Carrington's face. It seemed as though he were amused at such a tribute
+to the opinion of a mere chance visitor.
+
+"And Sir Malcolm?" enquired Ned.
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"I have no means of judging--yet."
+
+Ned glanced at him quickly.
+
+"Do you expect to get hold of a means?"
+
+Carrington's smile was his only answer to the question. And then, still
+smiling, he said:
+
+"I rather wonder, Mr. Cromarty, that you who have taken so much interest
+in this case, and who are, I am told, the head of the family, don't get
+some professional assistance to help you to get at the bottom of it."
+
+Ned's mouth shut hard and his eyes turned to the fire. He said nothing
+for a moment and then remarked:
+
+"Well, I guess that's worth thinking over."
+
+Carrington's shoulders moved in an almost imperceptible shrug, but he
+made no comment aloud. In a moment Ned said:
+
+"Supposing those two are scored out, there doesn't seem to be anybody
+else inside the house who could have committed the crime, does there?
+You wouldn't suspect Lady Cromarty or Bisset, would you?"
+
+"Lady Cromarty is physically incapable of giving her husband the blow he
+must have received. Besides, they were a very devoted couple, I
+understand, and she gained nothing by his death--lost heavily, in fact.
+As for Bisset----" Carrington let his smile finish the sentence.
+
+"Then it must have been some one from outside--but who?"
+
+"Can you think of any one?" asked Carrington.
+
+Ned shook his head emphatically.
+
+"Can you?" he asked.
+
+"Me?" said his visitor with an innocent air, and yet with a twinkle for
+an instant in his eye. "I am a mere stranger to the place, and if you
+and Mr. Rattar and the police are baffled, what can I suggest?"
+
+Ned seemed for a moment a trifle disconcerted. Then he said:
+
+"That's so, of course, Mr. Carrington. But since we happen to be talking
+about it--well, I guess I'm quite curious to know if any ideas have just
+happened to occur to you."
+
+"Well," said the other, "between ourselves, Mr. Cromarty, and speaking
+quite confidentially, one idea has struck me very forcibly."
+
+"What's that?" asked Ned eagerly.
+
+"Simply this, that though it _might_ be conceivable to think of somebody
+or other, the difficulty that stares me in the face is--motive!"
+
+Ned's face fell.
+
+"Well, that's what has struck all of us."
+
+"Sir Reginald was a popular landlord, I hear."
+
+"The most popular in the county."
+
+"This isn't Ireland," continued Carrington. "Tenants don't lay out their
+landlords on principle, and in this particular instance they would
+simply stand to lose by his death. Then take his tradesmen and his agent
+and so on, they all stand to lose too. An illicit love affair and a
+vengeful swain might be a conceivable theory, if his character gave
+colour to it; but there's not a hint of that, and some rumour would
+have got about for certain if that had been the case."
+
+"You may dismiss that," said Ned emphatically.
+
+"Then there you are--what's the motive?"
+
+"If one could think of a possible man, one could probably think of a
+possible motive."
+
+On Carrington's face a curious look appeared for an instant.
+
+"I only wish one could," he murmured.
+
+A gong sounded and Ned rose.
+
+"That means tea," said he. "I always have it in my sister's room. Come
+up."
+
+They went up the stone stair and turned into Miss Cromarty's boudoir. On
+her, Mr. Carrington produced a favourable impression that was evident at
+once. At all times she liked good-looking and agreeable gentlemen, and
+lately she had been suffering from a dearth of them. She had been
+suffering also from her brother's pig-headed refusal to reconsider his
+decision not to buy a car; and finally from the lack of some one to
+sympathise with her in this matter. In the opulent-looking and
+sportingly attired Mr. Carrington she quickly perceived a kindred
+spirit, and having a tongue that was not easily intimidated even by the
+formidable looking laird, she launched into her grievance. They had been
+talking about the long distances that separated most of the mansions in
+the county.
+
+"Isn't it ridiculous, Mr. Carrington," said she, "we haven't got a car!"
+
+"Absurd," agreed Mr. Carrington, helping himself to cake.
+
+"Do you know, this brother of mine here has actually come into a
+fortune, and yet he won't buy me even one little motor car!"
+
+Ned frowned and muttered something that might have checked their
+visitor's reply, had he noticed the laird's displeasure, but for the
+moment he seemed to have become very unobserving.
+
+"Come into a fortune?" said he. "What a bit of luck! How much--a
+million--two million?"
+
+"Oh, not as much as that, worse luck! But quite enough to buy at least
+three decent cars if he was half a sportsman! And he won't get one!"
+
+Mr. Carrington was now trying to balance his cake in his saucer and was
+evidently too absorbed in his efforts to notice his host's waxing
+displeasure.
+
+"In my experience," said he, "you can't get a decent car much under four
+hundred."
+
+"Well," said she, "that's just the figure it would bring it to."
+
+"Lilian!" muttered her brother wrathfully.
+
+But at that moment Mr. Carrington coughed, evidently over a cake crumb,
+and failed to hear the expostulation.
+
+"But perhaps he is going to buy you something even handsomer instead,"
+he suggested.
+
+"Is he!" she scoffed, with a defiant eye on her brother. "I believe he's
+going to blue it in something too scandalous to talk about in mixed
+society! Anyhow it's something too mysterious to tell me!"
+
+By this time Ned's face was a thundercloud in which lightning was
+clearly imminent, but Mr. Carrington now recovered his wonted tact as
+suddenly as he had lost it.
+
+"That reminds me of a very curious story I heard at my club the other
+day," he began, and in a few minutes the conversation was far away from
+Miss Cromarty's grievances. And then, having finished his cup of tea, he
+looked at his watch with an exclamation and protested that he must
+depart on the instant.
+
+As he lay back in his car he murmured with a satisfied smile:
+
+"That's settled anyhow!"
+
+And then for the whole drive home he fell very thoughtful indeed. Only
+one incident aroused him, and that but for a moment. It was quite dark
+by this time, and somewhere between the Keldale House lodge and the
+town, the lamps of the car swept for an instant over a girl riding a
+bicycle in the opposite direction. Carrington looked round quickly and
+saw that she was Miss Cicely Farmond.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+FLIGHT
+
+
+On the morning after his visit from Mr. Carrington, Ned Cromarty took
+his keeper with him and drove over to shoot on a friend's estate. He
+stayed for tea and it was well after five o'clock and quite dark when he
+started on his long drive home. The road passed close to a wayside
+station with a level crossing over the line, and when they came to this
+the gates were closed against them and the light of the signal of the up
+line had changed from red to white.
+
+"Train's up to time," said Ned to the keeper. "I thought we'd have got
+through before she came."
+
+There was no moon, a fine rain hung in the air, and the night was
+already pitch dark. Sitting there in the dogcart before the closed
+gates, behind the blinding light of the gig lamps, they were quite
+invisible themselves; but about thirty yards to their left they saw the
+station platform plainly in the radiance of its lights, and, straight
+before them in the radiance of their own, they could see less distinctly
+the road beyond the line.
+
+At first, save for the distant rumble of the southward bound train,
+there was no sign of life or of movement anywhere, and then all at once
+a figure on a bicycle appeared on the road, and in a moment dismounted
+beside the station. It was a girl in black, and at the sight of her, Ned
+bent forward suddenly in his driving seat and stared intently into the
+night. He saw her unstrap a small suit case from the bicycle and lead
+the bicycle into the station. A minute or two passed and then she
+emerged from the ticket office on to the platform carrying the suit case
+in her hand. The bicycle she had evidently left in the station, and it
+seemed manifest that she was going by this train.
+
+"That's Miss Farmond, sir, from Keldale House!" exclaimed the keeper.
+
+His master said nothing but kept his eye intently fixed on the girl. One
+of the platform lamps lit her plainly, and he thought she looked the
+most forlorn and moving sight that had ever stirred his heart. There was
+something shrinking in her attitude, and when she looked once for a few
+moments straight towards him, there seemed to be something both sad and
+frightened in her face. Not another soul was on the platform, and seen
+in that patch of light against an immensity of dark empty country and
+black sky, she gave him such an impression of friendlessness that he
+could scarcely stay in his seat. And all the while the roar of the
+on-coming train was growing louder and ever louder. In a few minutes she
+would be gone--"Where?" he asked himself.
+
+"I'm wondering where she'll be going at this time o' night with nae
+mair luggage than yon," said the keeper.
+
+That decided it.
+
+"Take the trap home and tell Miss Cromarty not to expect me to-night,"
+said his master, quickly. "Say I've gone--oh, anywhere you derned well
+like! There's something up and I'm going to see what it is."
+
+He jumped quietly on the road just as the engine thundered between the
+gates in front. By the time the train was at rest, he was over the gate
+and making his way to the platform. He stopped in the darkness by the
+rear end of the train till he saw the figure in black disappear into a
+carriage, and then he stepped into a compartment near the guard's van.
+
+"Haven't got a ticket, but I'll pay as I go along," he said to the guard
+as he passed the window.
+
+The guard knew Mr. Cromarty well and touched his cap, and then the train
+started and Mr. Cromarty was embarked upon what he confessed to himself
+was the blindest journey he had ever made in all his varied career.
+
+Where was she going--and why was she going? He asked himself these
+questions over and over again as he sat with a cigar between his teeth
+and his long legs stretched out on the opposite seat, and the train
+drove on into an ever wilder and more desolate land. It would be very
+many miles and a couple of hours or more before they reached any sort of
+conceivable destination for her, and as a matter of fact this train did
+not go beyond that destination. Then it struck him sharply that up till
+the end of last month the train had continued its southward journey. The
+alteration in the timetable was only a few days old. Possibly she was
+not aware of it and had counted on travelling to--where? He knew where
+she had got to stop, but where had she meant to stop? Or where would she
+go to-morrow? And above all, why was she going at all, leaving her
+bicycle at a wayside station and with her sole luggage a small suit
+case? Ned shook his head, tried to suck life into his neglected cigar,
+and gave up the problem in the meanwhile.
+
+As to the question of what business he had to be following Miss Farmond
+like this, he troubled his head about it not at all. If she needed him,
+here he was. If she didn't, he would clear out. But very strong and very
+urgent was the conviction that she required a friend of some sort.
+
+The stations were few and far between and most desolate, improbable
+places as endings for Cicely Farmond's journey. He looked out of the
+window at each of them, but she never alighted.
+
+"She's going to find herself stuck for the night. That's about the size
+of it," he said to himself as they left the last station before the
+journey ended.
+
+Though their next stop was the final stop, he did not open the carriage
+door when the train pulled up. He did not even put his head far out of
+the window, only just enough to see what passed on the platform ahead.
+
+"I'm not going to worry her if she doesn't need me," he said to himself.
+
+He saw the slip of a figure in black talking to the stationmaster, and
+it was hardly necessary to hear that official's last words in order to
+divine what had happened.
+
+"Weel, miss," he overheard the stationmaster say, "I'm sorry ye're
+disappointed, but it's no me that has stoppit the train. It's aff for
+the winter. If ye turn to the left ye'll fin' the hotel."
+
+The girl looked round her slowly and it seemed to Ned that the way she
+did it epitomised disappointment and desolation, and then she hurried
+through the station buildings and was gone.
+
+He was out of the carriage and after her in an instant. Beyond the
+station the darkness was intense and he had almost passed a road
+branching to the left without seeing it. He stopped and was going to
+turn down it when it struck him the silence was intense that way, but
+that there was a light sound of retreating footsteps straight ahead.
+
+"She's missed the turning!" he said to himself, and followed the
+footsteps.
+
+In a little he could see her against the sky, a dim hurrying figure, and
+his own stride quickened. He had never been in this place before, but he
+knew it for a mere seaboard village with an utterly lonely country on
+every inland side. She was heading into a black wilderness, and he took
+his decision at once and increased his pace till he was overhauling her
+fast.
+
+At the sound of his footsteps he could see that she glanced over her
+shoulder and made the more haste till she was almost running. And then
+as she heard the pursuing steps always nearer she suddenly slackened
+speed to let him pass.
+
+"Miss Farmond!" said he.
+
+He could hear her gasp as she stopped short and turned sharply. She was
+staring hard now at the tall figure looming above her.
+
+"It's only me--Ned Cromarty," he said quietly.
+
+And then he started in turn, for instead of showing relief she gave a
+half smothered little cry and shrank away from him. For a moment there
+was dead silence and then he said, still quietly, though it cost him an
+effort.
+
+"I only mean to help you if you need a hand. Are you looking for the
+hotel?"
+
+"Yes," she said in a low frightened voice.
+
+"Well," said he, "I guess you'd walk till morning before you reached an
+hotel along this road. You missed the turning at the station. Give me
+your bag. Come along!"
+
+She let him take the suit case and she turned back with him, but it
+struck him painfully that her docility was like that of a frightened
+animal.
+
+"Where are you bound for?" he enquired in his usual direct way.
+
+She murmured something that he could not catch and then they fell
+altogether silent till they had retraced their road to the station and
+turned down towards a twinkling light or two which showed where the
+village lay.
+
+"Now, Miss Farmond," said he, "we are getting near this pub and as we've
+both got to spend the night there, you'll please observe these few short
+and simple rules. I'm your uncle--Uncle Ned. D'you see?"
+
+There was no laugh, or even a smile from her. She gave a little start of
+surprise and in a very confused voice murmured:
+
+"Yes, I see."
+
+"My full name is Mr. Ned Dawkins and you're Louisa Dawkins my niece.
+Just call me 'Uncle Ned' and leave me to do the talking. We are touring
+this beautiful country and I've lost my luggage owing to the derned
+foolishness of the railroad officials here. And then when we've had a
+little bit of dinner you can tell me, if you like, why you've eloped and
+why you've got a down on me. Or if you don't like to, well, you needn't.
+Ah, here's the pub at last."
+
+He threw open the door and in a loud and cheerful voice cried:
+
+"Well, here we are, Louisa. Walk right in, my dear!"
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+His friends would scarcely have picked out Mr. Ned Cromarty of
+Stanesland as likely to make a distinguished actor, but they might have
+changed their opinion had they heard him breezily announce himself as
+Mr. Dawkins from Liverpool and curse the Scottish railways which had
+lost his luggage for him. It is true that the landlord looked at him a
+trifle askance and that the landlady and her maid exchanged a knowing
+smile when he ordered a room for his niece Louisa, but few people shut
+up in a little country inn with such a formidable looking, loud voiced
+giant, would have ventured to question his statements openly, and the
+equanimity of Mr. Dawkins remained undisturbed.
+
+"Sit right down, Louisa!" he commanded when dinner was served; and then,
+addressing the maid, "You needn't wait. We'll ring when we need you."
+
+But the moment she had gone he checked a strong expression with an
+effort.
+
+"Damn--confound it!" he cried. "I ought to have remembered to say grace!
+That would have given just the finishing touch to the Uncle Ned
+business. However, I don't think they've smelt any rats."
+
+Cicely smiled faintly and then her eyes fell and she answered nothing.
+Their only other conversation during dinner consisted in his
+expostulations on her small appetite and her low-voiced protests that
+she wasn't hungry. But when it was safely over, he pushed back his
+chair, crossed his knees, and began:
+
+"Now, Louisa, I'm going to take an uncle's privilege of lighting my pipe
+before I begin to talk, if you don't mind."
+
+He lit his pipe, and then suddenly dropping the role of uncle
+altogether, said gently:
+
+"I don't want to press you with any questions that you don't want to
+answer, but if you need a friend of any sort, size, or description, here
+I am." He paused for a moment and then asked still more gently: "Are you
+afraid of me?"
+
+For the first time she let her long-lashed eyes rest full on his face
+and in her low voice, she answered:
+
+"Partly afraid."
+
+"And partly what else?"
+
+"Partly puzzled--and partly ashamed."
+
+"Ashamed!" he exclaimed with a note of indignant protest. "Ashamed of
+what?"
+
+"The exhibition I've made of myself," she said, her voice still very
+low.
+
+"Well," he smiled, "that's a matter of opinion. But why are you afraid?"
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed. "You know of course!"
+
+He stared at her blankly.
+
+"I pass; I can't play to that!" he replied. "I honestly do not know,
+Miss Farmond."
+
+Her eyes opened very wide.
+
+"That's what I meant when I said I was puzzled. You _must_ know--and
+yet----!"
+
+She broke off and looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"Look here," said he, "some one's got to solve this mystery, and I'll
+risk a leading question. Why did you run away?"
+
+"Because of what you have been doing!"
+
+"_Me_ been doing! And what have I been doing?"
+
+"Suspecting me and setting a detective to watch me!"
+
+Ned's one eye opened wide, but for a moment he said not a word. Then he
+remarked quietly:
+
+"This is going to be a derned complicated business. Just you begin at
+the beginning, please, and let's see how things stand. Who told you I
+was setting a detective on to you?"
+
+"I found out myself I was being watched."
+
+"How and when?"
+
+She hesitated, and the doubtful look returned to her eyes.
+
+"Come, Louisa!" he said. "No nonsense this time! We've got to have this
+out--or my name's Dawkins!"
+
+For the first time she smiled spontaneously, and the doubtful look
+almost vanished. Just a trace was left, but her voice, though still very
+low, was firmer now.
+
+"I only discovered for the first time the wicked suspicion about poor
+Malcolm," she said, "when I met a gentleman a few days ago who told me
+he had heard Malcolm was arrested for the murder of Sir Reginald."
+
+"But that's not true!" cried Ned.
+
+"No, and he admitted it was only a story he had heard at the hotel, but
+it suddenly seemed to throw light on several things I hadn't been able
+to understand. I spoke to Lady Cromarty about it, and then I actually
+found that I was suspected too!"
+
+"Did she tell you so?"
+
+"Not in so many words, but I knew what was in her mind. And then the
+very next day I caught the same man examining the library with Bisset
+and I saw him out of the window follow Lady Cromarty and speak to her,
+and then I knew he was a detective!"
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Oh, by instinct, and I was right! The position was so horrible--so
+unbearable, that I went in to see Mr. Rattar about it."
+
+"Why Rattar?"
+
+"Because he is the family lawyer and he's also investigating the case,
+and I thought of course he was employing the detective. And Mr. Rattar
+told me you were really employing him. Are you?"
+
+There was a pleading note in this question--a longing to hear the answer
+"No" that seemed to affect Ned strangely.
+
+"It's all right, Miss Farmond!" he said. "Don't you worry! I got that
+man down here to clear you--just for that purpose and no other!"
+
+"But----" she exclaimed, "Mr. Rattar said you suspected Malcolm and me
+and were determined to prove our guilt!"
+
+"Simon Rattar said that!"
+
+There was something so menacing in his voice that Cicely involuntarily
+shrank back.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, honour bright, that Simon Rattar told you that
+lie in so many words?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "he did indeed. And he said that this Mr. Carrington
+was a very clever man and was almost certain to trump up a very strong
+case against us, and so he advised me to go away."
+
+He seemed almost incapable of speech at this.
+
+"He actually advised you to bolt?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"To slip away quietly to London and stay in an hotel he recommended till
+I heard from him. He said you had sworn to track down the criminals and
+hang them with your own hands, and so when I saw you suddenly come up
+behind me in that dark road to-night--oh, you've no idea how terrified I
+was! Mr. Rattar had frightened away all the nerve I ever had, and then
+when I thought I was safely away, you suddenly came up behind me in that
+dark road!"
+
+"You poor little----" he began, laying his hand upon hers, and then he
+remembered Sir Malcolm and altered his sentence into: "You know now
+that was all one infernal pack of lies, don't you?"
+
+Though he took away his hand, she had not moved her own, and she gave
+him now a look which richly rewarded him for his evening's work.
+
+"I believe every word you tell me," she said.
+
+"Well then," said Ned, "I tell you that I got this fellow Carrington
+down to take up the case so that I could clear you in the first place
+and find the right man in the second. So as to give him an absolutely
+clear field, he wasn't told who was employing him, and then he could
+suspect me myself if he wanted to. As a matter of fact, I rather think
+he has guessed who's running him. Anyhow, yesterday afternoon he told me
+straight and emphatically that he knew you were innocent. So you've run
+away a day too late!"
+
+She laughed at last, and then fell serious again.
+
+"But what did Mr. Rattar mean by saying you had engaged the detective
+because you suspected Malcolm and me?"
+
+"That's precisely what I want to find out," said Ned grimly. "He could
+guess easy enough who was employing Carrington, because I had suggested
+getting a detective, only Simon wouldn't rise to it. But as to saying I
+suspected you, he knew that was a lie, and I can only suspect he's
+getting a little tired of life!"
+
+They talked on for a little longer, still sitting by the table, with her
+eyes now constantly smiling into his, until at last he had to remind
+himself so vigorously of the absent and lucky baronet that the pleasure
+began to ebb. And then they said good-night and he was left staring
+into the fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning they faced one another in a first class carriage on a
+homeward bound train.
+
+"What shall I say to Lady Cromarty?" she asked, half smiling, half
+fearfully.
+
+He reflected for a few minutes.
+
+"Tell her the truth. Lies don't pay in the long run. I can bear witness
+to this part of the story, and to the Carrington part if necessary,
+though I don't want to give him away if I can help it."
+
+"Oh no!" she said, "we mustn't interfere with him. But supposing Lady
+Cromarty doesn't believe----"
+
+"Come straight to Stanesland! Will you?"
+
+"Run away again?"
+
+"It's the direction you run in that matters," said he. "Now, mind you,
+that's understood!"
+
+She was silent for a little and then she said:
+
+"I can't understand why these horrible stories associate Malcolm and me.
+Why should we have conspired to do such a dreadful thing?"
+
+He stared at her, and then hesitated.
+
+"Because--well, being engaged to him----"
+
+"Engaged to Malcolm!" she exclaimed. "Whatever put that into people's
+heads?"
+
+"What!" he cried. "Aren't you?"
+
+"Good gracious no! Was _that_ the reason then?"
+
+He seemed too lost in his own thoughts to answer her; but they were
+evidently not unhappy thoughts this time.
+
+"Who can have started such a story?" she demanded.
+
+"Who started it?" he repeated and then was immersed in thought again;
+only now there was a grim look on his face.
+
+"Well anyhow," he cried, in a minute or two, "we're out of that wood!
+Aren't we, Louisa?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle Ned," she smiled back.
+
+He stirred impulsively in his seat and then seemed to check himself, and
+for the rest of the journey he appeared to be divided between content
+with the present hour and an impulse to improve upon it. And then before
+he had realised where they were, they had stopped at a station, and she
+was exclaiming:
+
+"Oh, I must get out here! I've left my bike in the station!"
+
+"Look here," said he, with his hand on the door handle, "before you go
+you've got to swear that you'll come straight to Stanesland if there's
+another particle of trouble. Swear?"
+
+"But what about Miss Cromarty?" she smiled.
+
+"Miss Cromarty will say precisely the same as I do," he said with a
+curiously significant emphasis. "So now, I don't open this door till you
+promise!"
+
+"I promise!" said she, and then she was standing on the platform waving
+a farewell.
+
+"I half wish I'd risked it!" he said to himself with a sigh as the train
+moved on, and then he ruminated with an expression on his face that
+seemed to suggest a risk merely deferred.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER
+
+
+Ned Cromarty found his sister in her room.
+
+"Well, Ned," she asked, "where on earth have you been?"
+
+He shut the door before he answered, and then came up to the fireplace,
+and planted himself in front of her.
+
+"Who told you that Cicely Farmond was engaged to Malcolm Cromarty?" he
+demanded.
+
+She made a little grimace of comic alarm, but her eye was apprehensive.
+
+"Don't eat my head off, Neddy! How can I remember?"
+
+"You've got to remember," said her brother grimly. "And you'd better be
+careful what you tell me, for I'll go straight to the woman, or man, you
+name."
+
+She looked at him boldly enough.
+
+"I don't know if you are aware of it, but this isn't the way I'm
+accustomed to be talked to."
+
+"It's the way you're being talked to now," said he. "Who told you?"
+
+"I absolutely refuse to answer if you speak to me like that, Ned!"
+
+"Then we part company, Lilian."
+
+There was no doubt about the apprehension in her eye now. For a moment
+it seemed to wonder whether he was actually in earnest, and then to
+decide that he was.
+
+"I--I don't know who told me," she said in an altered voice.
+
+"Did anybody tell you, or did you make it up?"
+
+"I never actually said they were engaged."
+
+He looked at her in silence and very hard, and then he spoke
+deliberately.
+
+"I won't ask you why you deceived me, Lilian, but it was a low down
+trick to play on me, and it has turned out to be a damned cruel trick to
+play on that girl. I mentioned the engagement as a mere matter of course
+to somebody, and though I mentioned it confidentially, it started this
+slander about Malcolm Cromarty and Cicely Farmond conspiring to
+murder--to _murder_, Lilian!--the man of all men they owed most to.
+That's what you've done!"
+
+By this time Lilian Cromarty's handkerchief was at her eyes.
+
+"I--I am very sorry, Ned," she murmured.
+
+But he was not to be soothed by a tear, even in the most adroit lady's
+eye.
+
+"The latest consequence has been," he said sternly, "that through a
+mixture of persecution and bad advice she has been driven to run away.
+Luckily I spotted her at the start and fetched her back, and I've told
+her that if there is the least little bit more trouble she is to come
+straight here and that you will give her as good a welcome as I shall.
+Is that quite clear?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured through her handkerchief.
+
+"Otherwise," said he, "there's no room for us both here. One single
+suggestion that she isn't welcome--and you have full warning now of the
+consequences!"
+
+"When is she coming?" she asked in an uncertain voice.
+
+"When? Possibly never. But there's some very fishy--and it looks to me,
+some very dirty business going on, and this port stands open in case of
+a storm. You fully understand?"
+
+"Of course I do," she said, putting away her handkerchief. "I'm not
+quite a fool!"
+
+And indeed, none of her friends or acquaintances had ever made that
+accusation against Lilian Cromarty.
+
+"Well, that's all," said Ned, and began to move across the room.
+
+But now the instinct for finding a scapegoat began to revive.
+
+"Who did you tell it to, Ned?" she asked.
+
+"Simon Rattar."
+
+"Then _he_ has spread this dreadful story!" she exclaimed with righteous
+indignation.
+
+Her brother stopped and slowly turned back.
+
+"By heaven, I've scarcely had time to think it all out yet--but it looks
+like it!"
+
+"It _must_ be that nasty grumpy old creature! If you told nobody
+else--well, it can't be anybody else!"
+
+"But why should he go and spread such a story?"
+
+"Because he wants to shelter some one else!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Ah, that's for the police to find out. But I'm quite certain, Ned, that
+that pig-headed old Simon with his cod-fish eyes and his everlasting
+grunt is at the bottom of it all!"
+
+He stared thoughtfully into space.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "he has certainly been asking for trouble in one
+or two ways, and this seems another invitation. But he'll get it, sure!
+At the same time--what's his object?"
+
+His sister had no hesitation.
+
+"Either to make money or hide something disgraceful. You really must
+enquire into this, Ned!"
+
+He dropped into a chair and sat for a few minutes with his face in his
+hands. At last he looked up and shook his head.
+
+"I'm out of my depth," he said. "I guess I'd better see Carrington."
+
+"Mr. Carrington?" she exclaimed.
+
+"I had a long talk with him," he explained. "He seems an uncommon shrewd
+fellow. Yes, that's the proper line!"
+
+She looked at him curiously but evidently judged it tactful in the
+present delicate situation to ask no more. He rose now and went, still
+thoughtful, to the door.
+
+"What a dreadful thing of Simon Rattar to do! Wasn't it, Ned?" she said
+indignantly, her eyes as bright as ever again.
+
+He turned as she went out.
+
+"The whole thing has been damnable!"
+
+As the door closed behind him she made a little grimace again and then
+gave a little shrug.
+
+"He's going to marry her!" she said to herself, and acting immediately
+on a happy inspiration, sat down to write a long and affectionate letter
+to an old friend whose country house might, with judicious management,
+be considered good for a six months' visit.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+A MARKED MAN
+
+
+The unexpected energy displayed by her charming guest in bustling all
+over the country had surprised and a little perplexed Miss Peterkin, but
+she now decided that it was only a passing phase, for on the day
+following his visits to Keldale and Stanesland he exhibited exactly the
+same leisurely calm she had admired at first. He sought out the local
+golf course and for an hour or two his creditable game confirmed his
+reputation as a sportsman, and for the rest of the time he idled in a
+very gentlemanly manner.
+
+In the course of the afternoon he strolled out and gradually drifted
+through the dusk towards the station. Finding the train was, as usual,
+indefinitely late, he strolled out again and finally drifted back just
+as the signals had fallen at last. It was quite dark by this time and
+the platform lamps were lit, but Mr. Carrington chanced to stand
+inconspicuously in a background of shadows. As the engine hissed
+ponderously under the station roof and the carriage doors began to open,
+he still stood there, the most casual of spectators. A few passengers
+passed him, and then came a young man in a fur coat, on whom some very
+curious glances had been thrown when he alighted from his first class
+compartment. Mr. Carrington, however, seemed to take no interest either
+in him or anybody else till the young man was actually passing him, and
+then he suddenly stepped out of the shadows, touched him on the shoulder
+and said in a much deeper and graver voice than usual:
+
+"Sir Malcolm Cromarty, I believe!"
+
+The young man started violently and turned a pale face.
+
+"Ye--es, I am," he stammered.
+
+"May I have a word with you?" said Carrington gravely.
+
+With a dreadfully nervous air Sir Malcolm accompanied him out into the
+dark road, neither speaking, and then the young man demanded hoarsely:
+
+"What do you want with me?"
+
+Carrington's voice suddenly resumed its usual cheerful note.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, "for collaring you like this, but the fact is I
+am very keen to see you about the Keldale shootings."
+
+Sir Malcolm gave a gasp of relief.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" he exclaimed. "Good Lord, what a fright you gave me!"
+
+"I say I'm awfully sorry!" said Carrington anxiously. "How frightfully
+stupid I must have been!"
+
+The young man looked at him, and, like most other people, evidently
+found his ingenuous face and sympathetic manner irresistibly confidence
+inspiring.
+
+"Oh, not at all," he said. "In fact you must have wondered at my manner.
+The fact is Mr.--er----"
+
+"Carrington."
+
+"Mr. Carrington, that I'm in a most awful position at present. You know
+of course that I'm suspected of murder!"
+
+"No!" exclaimed Carrington, with vast interest. "Not really?"
+
+"It's an absolute fact--suspected of murder! Good God, just imagine it!"
+
+The young baronet stopped and faced his new acquaintance dramatically.
+In spite of his nervousness, it was evident that his notoriety had
+compensations.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I--the head of an ancient and honourable house--am
+actually suspected of having murdered my cousin, Sir Reginald Cromarty!"
+
+"What, that murder!" exclaimed Carrington. "By Jove, of course, I've
+heard a lot about the case. And you are really suspected?"
+
+"So much so," said the baronet darkly, "that when you touched me on the
+shoulder I actually thought you were going to arrest me!"
+
+Carrington seemed equally astounded and penitent at this unfortunate
+reading of his simple and natural action in stepping suddenly out of the
+dark and tapping a nervous stranger on the shoulder.
+
+"How very tactless of me!" he repeated more than once. "Really, I must
+be more careful another time!"
+
+And then he suddenly turned his monocle on to the baronet and enquired:
+
+"But how do you know you are suspected?"
+
+"How do I know! My God, all fingers are pointing at me! Even in my club
+in London I feel I am a marked man. I have discussed my awful position
+with all my friends, and by this time they tell me that everybody else
+knows too!"
+
+"That is--er--not unnatural," said Carrington drily. "But how did you
+first learn?"
+
+The young man's voice fell almost to a whisper and he glanced
+apprehensively over his shoulder as he spoke.
+
+"I knew I should be suspected the moment I heard of the crime! The very
+night before--perhaps at the actual moment when the deed was being
+done--I did a foolish thing!"
+
+"You don't say so!" exclaimed his new friend with every appearance of
+surprise.
+
+"Yes, you may not believe me, but I acted like a damned silly ass. Mind
+you, I am not as a rule a silly ass," the baronet added with dignity,
+"but that night I actually confided in a woman!"
+
+"What woman?"'
+
+"My relative Miss Cicely Farmond--a charming girl, I may mention; there
+was every excuse for me, still it was a rotten thing to do, I quite
+admit. I told her that I was hard up and feeling desperate, and I even
+said I was going to sit up late! And on top of that Sir Reginald was
+murdered that very night. Imagine my sensations for the next few days,
+living in the same house with the woman who had heard me say _that_! She
+held my fate in her hands, but, thank God, she evidently had such faith
+in my honour and humanity that she forebore to--er----"
+
+"Peach," suggested Carrington, "though as a matter of fact, I fancy she
+had forgotten all about the incident."
+
+"Forgotten my words!" exclaimed the baronet indignantly. "Impossible! I
+can never forget them myself so long as I live!"
+
+"Well," said Carrington soothingly, "let us suppose she remembered them.
+Anyhow she said nothing, and, that being so, how did you first actually
+know that you were suspected?"
+
+"My own man of business thought it his duty to drop me a hint!" cried
+the baronet.
+
+This piece of information seemed to produce quite as much impression on
+his new acquaintance as his first revelation, though he took it rather
+more quietly.
+
+"Really!" said he in a curious voice. "And what course of action did he
+advise?"
+
+"He advised me to keep away from the place. In fact he even suggested I
+should go abroad--and, by Gad, I'm going too!"
+
+To this, Carrington made no reply at all. His thoughts, in fact, seemed
+to have wandered entirely away from Sir Malcolm Cromarty. The baronet
+seemed a trifle disappointed at his lack of adequate interest.
+
+"Don't you sympathise with me," he enquired.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carrington, "my thoughts were wandering for
+the moment. I do sympathise. By the way, what are you going to do now?"
+
+The baronet started.
+
+"By Gad, my own thoughts are wandering!" said he, "though I certainly
+have some excuse! I must get down to the Kings Arms and order a trap to
+take me out to Keldale House as quickly as I can." And then he added
+mysteriously, "I only came down here because I was urgently wired for by
+some one who--well, I couldn't refuse."
+
+"I'm going to the Kings Arms, too. We'll walk down together, if you
+don't mind."
+
+"Delighted," said the baronet, "if you don't mind being seen with such a
+marked man."
+
+"I rather like them marked," smiled Carrington.
+
+All the way to the hotel the notorious Sir Malcolm pursued what had
+evidently become his favourite subject:--the vast sensation he was
+causing in society and the pain it gave a gentleman of title and
+position to be placed in such a predicament. When they reached the Kings
+Arms, his new acquaintance insisted in a very friendly and confident way
+that there was no immediate hurry about starting for Keldale, and that
+the baronet must come up to his sitting room first and have a little
+refreshment.
+
+The effect of a couple of large glasses of sloe gin was quickly
+apparent. Sir Malcolm became decidedly happier and even more
+confidential. He was considerably taken aback, however, when his host
+suddenly asked, with a disconcertingly intense glance:
+
+"Are you quite sure you are really innocent?"
+
+"Innocent!" exclaimed the baronet, leaping out of his chair. "Do you
+mean to tell me you doubt it? Do you actually believe I am capable of
+killing a man in cold blood? Especially the honoured head of my own
+house?"
+
+Carrington seemed to suppress a smile.
+
+"No," said he, "I don't believe it."
+
+"Then, sir," said the baronet haughtily, "kindly do not question my
+honour!"
+
+This time Carrington allowed his smile to appear.
+
+"Sit down, Sir Malcolm," he said, "pull yourself together, and listen to
+a few words."
+
+Sir Malcolm looked extremely surprised, but obeyed.
+
+"What I am going to say is in the strictest confidence and you must give
+me your word not to repeat one single thing I tell you."
+
+His serious manner evidently impressed the young man.
+
+"I give you my word, sir," said he.
+
+"Well then, in the first place, I am a detective."
+
+For a few seconds Sir Malcolm stared at him in silence and then burst
+into a hearty laugh.
+
+"Good egg, sir!" said he. "Good egg! If I had not finished my sloe gin
+I should drink to your health!"
+
+It was Carrington's turn to look disconcerted. Recovering himself he
+said with a smile:
+
+"You shall have another glass of sloe gin when you have grasped the
+situation. I assure you I am actually a detective--or, rather, a private
+enquiry agent."
+
+Sir Malcolm shook a knowing head.
+
+"My dear fellow," said he, "you can't really pull my leg like that. I
+can see perfectly well you are a gentleman."
+
+"I appreciate the compliment," said Carrington, "but just let me tell
+you what was in the telegram which has brought you here. It ran--'Come
+immediately urgent news don't answer please don't delay. Cicely
+Farmond.'"
+
+Sir Malcolm's mouth fell open.
+
+"How--how do you know that?" he asked.
+
+"Because I wrote it myself. Miss Farmond is quite unaware it was sent."
+
+The baronet began to look indignant.
+
+"But--er--why the devil, sir----"
+
+"Because I am a detective," interrupted Carrington, "and I wished to see
+you."
+
+Sir Malcolm evidently began to grasp the situation at last.
+
+"What about?" he asked, and his face was a little paler already.
+
+"About this murder. I wanted to satisfy myself that you were--or were
+not--innocent."
+
+"But--er--how?"
+
+"By your actions, conversation, and appearance. I am now satisfied, Sir
+Malcolm."
+
+"That I am innocent."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then will this be the end of my--er--painful position?"
+
+"So far as your own anxiety goes; yes. You need no longer fear arrest."
+
+The first look of relief which had rushed to the young man's face became
+clouded with a suggestion of chagrin.
+
+"But won't people then--er--talk about me any longer?"
+
+"I am afraid I can't prevent that--for a little longer."
+
+The last of the baronet's worries seemed to disappear.
+
+"Ah!" he said complacently. "Well, let them talk about me!"
+
+Carrington rose and rang the bell.
+
+"You deserve a third sloe gin!" said he.
+
+While the third sloe gin was being brought, he very deliberately and
+very thoughtfully selected and lit a cigarette, and then he said:
+
+"You tell me specifically that Mr. Rattar was the first person to inform
+you that suspicion was directed against you, and that he advised you to
+keep away, and for choice to go abroad. There is no doubt about that, is
+there?"
+
+"Well," said Sir Malcolm, "he didn't specifically advise me to go
+abroad, but certainly his letter seemed to suggest it."
+
+"Ah!" said Carrington and gazed into space for a moment.
+
+"I am now going to take the liberty of suggesting your best course of
+action," he resumed. "In the first place, there is no object in your
+going out to Keldale House, so I think you had better not. In the second
+place, you had better call on Mr. Rattar first thing to-morrow and
+consult him about any point of business that strikes you as a sufficient
+reason for coming so far to see him. I may tell you that he has given
+you extremely bad advice, so you can be as off-hand and brief with him
+as you like. Get out of his office, in fact, as quick as you can."
+
+"That's what I always want to do," said the baronet. "I can't stick the
+old fellow at any price."
+
+"If he asks you whether you have seen me, say you have just seen me but
+didn't fancy me, and don't give him the least idea of what we talked
+about. You can add that you left the Kings Arms because you didn't care
+for my company."
+
+"But am I to leave it?" exclaimed the young man.
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"It's better that we shouldn't stay in the same hotel. It will support
+your account of me. And finally, get back to London by the first train
+after you have seen Mr. Rattar."
+
+"Then aren't you working with old Simon?" enquired Sir Malcolm.
+
+"Oh, in a sense, I am," said Carrington carelessly, "but I daresay you
+have found him yourself an arbitrary, meddlesome old boy, and I like to
+be independent."
+
+"By Gad, so do I," the baronet agreed cordially. "I am quite with you
+about old Silent Simon. I'll do just exactly as you suggest. He won't
+get any change out of me!"
+
+"And now," said Carrington, "get your bag taken to any other hotel you
+like. I'll explain everything to Miss Peterkin."
+
+Sir Malcolm by this time had finished his third sloe gin and he said
+farewell with extreme affability, while his friend Mr. Carrington
+dropped into the manageress' room and explained that the poor young man
+had seemed so nervous and depressed that he had advised his departure
+for a quieter lodging. He added with great conviction that as a sporting
+man he would lay long odds on Sir Malcolm's innocence, and that between
+Miss Peterkin and himself he didn't believe a word of the current
+scandals.
+
+That evening Mr. Carrington joined the choice spirits in the manageress'
+room, and they had a very long and entertaining gossip. The conversation
+turned this time chiefly on the subject of Mr. Simon Rattar, and if by
+the end of it the agreeable visitor was not fully acquainted with the
+history of that local celebrity, of his erring partner, and of his
+father before him, it was not the fault of Miss Peterkin and her
+friends. Nor could it fairly be said to be the visitor's fault either,
+for his questions were as numerous as they were intelligent.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE LETTER AGAIN
+
+
+On the morning after Sir Malcolm's fleeting visit to the Kings Arms, the
+manageress was informed by her friend Mr. Carrington that he would like
+a car immediately after breakfast.
+
+"I really must be a little more energetic, or I'll never find anything
+to suit me," he smiled in his most leisurely manner. "I am thinking of
+running out to Keldale to have another look at the place. It might be
+worth taking if they'd let it."
+
+"But you've been to Keldale already, Mr. Carrington!" said Miss
+Peterkin. "I wonder you don't have a look at one of the other places."
+
+"I'm one of those fellows who make up their minds slowly," he explained.
+"But when we cautious fellows do make up our minds, well, something
+generally happens!"
+
+Circumstances, however, prevented this enthusiastic sportsman from
+making any further enquiry as to the letting of the Keldale shootings.
+When Bisset appeared at the front door consternation was in his face. It
+was veiled under a restrained professional manner, but not sufficiently
+to escape his visitor's eye.
+
+"What's up?" he asked at once.
+
+Bisset looked for a moment into his sympathetic face, and then in grave
+whisper said:
+
+"Step in, sir, and I'll tell ye."
+
+He led him into a small morning room, carefully closed the door, and
+announced,
+
+"Miss Farmond has gone, sir!"
+
+"Gone. When and how?"
+
+"Run away, sir, on her bicycle yesterday afternoon and deil a sign of
+her since!"
+
+"Any luggage?"
+
+"Just a wee suit case."
+
+"No message left, or anything of that kind?"
+
+"Not a word or a line, sir."
+
+"The devil!" murmured Carrington.
+
+"That's just exac'ly it, sir!"
+
+"No known cause? No difficulty with Lady Cromarty or anything?"
+
+"Nothing that's come to my ears, sir."
+
+Carrington stared blankly into space and remained silent for several
+minutes. Bisset watched his assistant with growing anxiety.
+
+"Surely, sir," he burst forth at last, "you're not thinking this goes to
+indicate any deductions or datas showing she's guilty?"
+
+"I'm dashed if I know what to think," murmured Carrington still lost in
+thought.
+
+Suddenly he turned his eyeglass on the other.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "the day before yesterday I passed that girl
+riding on a bicycle towards Keldale House after dark! Do you know where
+she had been?"
+
+"Into the town, sir. I knew she was out, of course, and she just
+mentioned afterwards where she had been."
+
+"Have you any idea whom she saw or what she did?"
+
+Bisset shook his head.
+
+"I have no datas, sir, that's the plain fac'."
+
+"But you can't think of any likely errand to take her in so late in the
+afternoon?"
+
+"No, sir. In fact, I mind thinking it was funny like her riding about
+alone in the dark like yon, for she's feared of being out by hersel' in
+the dark; I know that."
+
+Carrington reflected for a few moments longer and then seemed to dismiss
+the subject.
+
+"By the way," he asked, "can you remember if, by any chance, Sir
+Reginald had any difficulty or trouble or row of any kind with anyone
+whatever during, say, the month previous to his death? I mean with any
+of the tenants, or his tradesmen--or his lawyer? Take your time and
+think carefully."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carrington dismissed his car at Mr. Rattar's office. When he was shown
+into the lawyer's room, he exhibited a greater air of keenness than
+usual.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rattar," said he, "you'll be interested to hear that I've got
+rather a new point of view with regard to this case."
+
+"Indeed?" said Simon, and his lips twitched a little as he spoke. There
+was no doubt that he was not looking so well as usual. His face had
+seemed drawn and worried last time Carrington had seen him; now it
+might almost be termed haggard.
+
+"I find," continued Carrington, "that Sir Reginald displayed a curious
+and unaccountable irritability before his death. I hear, for instance,
+that a letter from you had upset him quite unduly."
+
+Carrington paused for an instant, and his monocle was full on Simon all
+the time, and yet he did not seem to notice the very slight but distinct
+start which the lawyer gave, for he continued with exactly the same
+confidential air.
+
+"These seem to me very suggestive symptoms, Mr. Rattar, and I am
+wondering very seriously whether the true solution of his mysterious
+death is not--" he paused for an instant and then in a low and earnest
+voice said, "suicide!"
+
+There was no mistake about the lawyer's start this time, or about the
+curious fact that the strain seemed suddenly to relax, and a look of
+relief to take its place. And yet Carrington seemed quite oblivious to
+anything beyond his own striking new theory.
+
+"That's rather a suggestive idea, isn't it?" said he.
+
+"Very!" replied Simon with the air of one listening to a revelation.
+
+"How he managed to inflict precisely those injuries on himself is at
+present a little obscure," continued Carrington, "but no doubt a really
+expert medical opinion will be able to suggest an explanation. The
+theory fits all the other facts remarkably, doesn't it?"
+
+"Remarkably," agreed Simon.
+
+"This letter of yours, for instance, was a very ordinary business
+communication, I understand."
+
+"Very ordinary," said Simon.
+
+"Of course, you have a copy of it in your letter book--and also Sir
+Reginald's reply?"
+
+There was a moment's pause and then Simon's grunt seemed to be forced
+out of himself. But he followed the grunt with a more assured,
+"Certainly."
+
+"May I see them?"
+
+"You--you think they are important?"
+
+"As bearing on Sir Reginald's state of mind only."
+
+Simon rang his bell and ordered the letter book to be brought in. While
+Carrington was examining it, his eyes never left his visitor's face, but
+they would have had to be singularly penetrating to discover a trace of
+any emotion there. Throughout his inspection, Carrington's air remained
+as imperturbable as though he were reading the morning paper.
+
+"According to these letters," he observed, "there seems to have been a
+trifling but rather curious misunderstanding. In accordance with written
+instructions of a fortnight previously, you had arranged to let a
+certain farm to a certain man, and Sir Reginald then complained that you
+had overlooked a conversation between those dates in which he had
+cancelled these instructions. He writes with a warmth that clearly
+indicates his own impression that this conversation had been perfectly
+explicit and that your forgetfulness or neglect of it was unaccountable,
+and he proposes to go into this and one or two other matters in the
+course of a conversation with you which should have taken place that
+afternoon. You then reply that you are too busy to come out so soon, but
+will call on the following morning. In the meantime Sir Reginald is
+murdered, and so the conversation never takes place and no explanation
+passes between you. Those are the facts, aren't they?"
+
+He looked up from the letter book as he spoke and there was no doubt he
+noticed something now. Indeed, the haggard look on Simon's face and a
+bead of perspiration on his forehead were so striking, and so singular
+in the case of such a tough customer, that the least observant--or the
+most circumspect--must have stared. Carrington's stare lasted only for
+the fraction of a second, and then he was polishing his eyeglass with
+his handkerchief in the most indifferent way.
+
+A second or two passed before Simon answered, and then he said abruptly:
+
+"Sir Reginald was mistaken. No such conversation."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me literally that _no_ such conversation took
+place? Was it a mere delusion?"
+
+"Er--practically. Yes, a delusion."
+
+"Suicide!" declared Carrington with an air of profound conviction.
+"Yes, Mr. Rattar, that is evidently the solution. The unfortunate man
+had clearly not been himself, probably for some little time previously.
+Well, I'll make a few more enquiries, but I fancy my work is nearly at
+an end. Good-morning."
+
+He rose and was half way across the room, when he stopped and asked, as
+if the idea had suddenly occurred to him:
+
+"By the way, I hear that Miss Farmond was in seeing you a couple of days
+ago."
+
+Again Simon seemed to start a little, and again he hesitated for an
+instant and then replied with a grunt.
+
+"Had she any news?" asked the other.
+
+Simon grunted again and shook his head, and Carrington threw him a
+friendly nod and went out.
+
+He maintained the same air till he had turned down a bye street and was
+alone, and only then he gave vent to his feelings.
+
+"I'm dashed!" he muttered, "absolutely jiggered!"
+
+All the while he shook his head and slashed with his walking stick
+through the air. There was no doubt that Mr. Carrington was thoroughly
+and genuinely puzzled.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+THE SYMPATHETIC STRANGER
+
+
+Carrington's soliloquy was interrupted by the appearance of someone on
+the pavement ahead of him. He pulled himself together, took out his
+watch, and saw that it was still only twenty minutes past twelve. After
+thinking for a moment, he murmured:
+
+"I might as well try 'em!"
+
+And thereupon he set out at a brisk walk, and a few minutes later was
+closeted with Superintendent Sutherland in the Police Station. He began
+by handing the Superintendent a card with the name of Mr. F. T.
+Carrington on it, but with quite a different address from that on the
+card he had sent up to Mr. Rattar. It was, in fact, his business card,
+and the Superintendent regarded him with respectful interest.
+
+After explaining his business and his preference for not disclosing it
+to the public, he went briefly over the main facts of the case.
+
+"I see you've got them all, sir," said the Superintendent, when he had
+finished. "There really seems nothing to add and no new light to be seen
+anywhere."
+
+"I'm afraid so," agreed Carrington. "I'm afraid so."
+
+In fact he seemed so entirely resigned to this conclusion that he
+allowed, and even encouraged, the conversation to turn to other matters.
+The activity and enterprise of the Procurator Fiscal seemed to have
+particularly impressed him, and this led to a long talk on the subject
+of Mr. Simon Rattar. The Superintendent was also a great admirer of the
+Fiscal and assured Mr. Carrington that not only was Mr. Simon himself
+the most capable and upright of men, but that the firm of Rattar had
+always conducted its business in a manner that was above reproach. Mr.
+Carrington had made one or two slightly cynical but perfectly
+good-natured comments on lawyers in general, but he got no countenance
+from the Superintendent so far as Mr. Rattar and his business were
+concerned.
+
+"But hadn't he some trouble at one time with his brother?" his visitor
+enquired.
+
+The Superintendent admitted that this was so, and also that Sir Reginald
+Cromarty had suffered thereby, but he was quite positive that this
+trouble was entirely a thing of the past. There was no doubt that this
+information had a somewhat depressing effect even on the good-humoured
+Mr. Carrington, and at last he confessed with a candid air:
+
+"The fact is, Superintendent, that I have a theory Sir Reginald was
+worrying about something before his death, and as all his business
+affairs are conducted by Mr. Rattar, I was wondering whether he had any
+difficulties in that direction. Now about this bad brother of Mr.
+Rattar's--there couldn't be trouble still outstanding, you think?"
+
+"Mr. George Rattar was out of the firm, sir, years ago," the
+Superintendent assured him. "No, it couldna be that."
+
+"And Mr. George Rattar certainly died a short time ago, did he?"
+
+"I can show you the paper with his death in it. I kept it as a kind of
+record of the end of him."
+
+He fetched the paper and Carrington after looking at it for a few
+minutes, remarked:
+
+"I see here an advertisement stating that Mr. Rattar lost a ring."
+
+"Yes," said the Superintendent, "that was a funny thing because it's not
+often a gentleman loses a ring off his hand. I've half wondered since
+whether it was connected with a story of Mr. Rattar's maid that his
+house had been broken into."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Curiously enough it was the very night Sir Reginald was murdered."
+
+Carrington's chair squeaked on the floor as he sat up sharply.
+
+"The very night of the murder?" he repeated. "Why has this never come
+out before?"
+
+The stolid Superintendent looked at him in surprise.
+
+"But what connection could there possibly be, sir? Mr. Rattar thought
+nothing of it himself and just mentioned it so that I would know it was
+a mere story, in case his servants started talking about it."
+
+"But you yourself seemed just now to think that it might not be a mere
+story."
+
+"Oh, that was just a kind o' idea," said the Superintendent easily. "It
+only came in my mind when the ring was never recovered."
+
+"What were the exact facts?" demanded Carrington.
+
+"Oh," said the Superintendent vaguely, "there was something about a
+window looking as if it had been entered, but really, sir, Mr. Rattar
+paid so little attention to it himself, and we were that taken up by the
+Keldale case that I made no special note of it."
+
+"Did the servants ever speak of it again?"
+
+"Everybody was that taken up about the murder that I doubt if they've
+minded on it any further."
+
+Carrington was silent for a few moments.
+
+"Are the servants intelligent girls?" he enquired.
+
+"Oh, quite average intelligent. In fact, the housemaid is a particular
+decent sort of a girl."
+
+At this point, Mr. Carrington's interest in the subject seemed to wane,
+and after a few pleasant generalities, he thanked the Superintendent for
+his courtesy, and strolled down to the hotel for lunch. This time his
+air as he walked was noticeably brisker and his eye decidedly brighter.
+
+About three o'clock that afternoon came a ring at the front door bell of
+Mr. Simon Rattar's commodious villa. Mary MacLean declared afterwards
+that she had a presentiment when she heard it, but then the poor girl
+had been rather troubled with presentiments lately. When she opened the
+front door she saw a particularly polite and agreeable looking gentleman
+adorned with that unmistakeable mark of fashion, a single eyeglass; and
+the gentleman saw a pleasant looking but evidently high strung and
+nervous young woman.
+
+"Is Mr. Simon Rattar at home?" he enquired in a courteous voice and with
+a soothing smile that won her heart at once; and on hearing that Mr.
+Rattar always spent the afternoons at his office and would not return
+before five o'clock, his disappointment was so manifest that she felt
+sincerely sorry for him.
+
+He hesitated and was about to go away when a happy idea struck him.
+
+"Might I come in and write a line to be left for him?" he asked, and
+Mary felt greatly relieved at being able to assist the gentleman to
+assuage his disappointment in this way.
+
+She led him into the library and somehow or other by the time she had
+got him ink and paper and pen she found herself talking to this
+distinguished looking stranger in the most friendly way. It was not that
+he was forward or gallant, far from it; simply that he was so nice and
+so remarkably sympathetic. Within five minutes of making his
+acquaintance, Mary felt that she could tell him almost anything.
+
+This sympathetic visitor made several appreciative remarks about the
+house and garden, and then, just as he had dipped his pen into the ink,
+he remarked:
+
+"Rather a tempting house for burglars, I should think--if such people
+existed in these peaceable parts."
+
+"Oh, but they do, sir," she assured him. "We had one in this very house
+one night!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THE HOUSE OF MYSTERIES
+
+
+The sympathetic stranger almost laid down his pen, he was so interested
+by this unexpected reply.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "Really a burglary in this house? I say, how
+awfully interesting! When did it happen?"
+
+"Well, sir," said Mary in an impressive voice, "it's a most
+extraordinary thing, but it was actually the very self same night of Sir
+Reginald's murder!"
+
+So surprised and interested was the visitor that he actually did lay
+down his pen this time.
+
+"Was it the same man, do you think?" he asked in a voice that seemed to
+thrill with sympathetic excitement.
+
+"Indeed I've sometimes wondered!" said she.
+
+"Tell me how it happened!"
+
+"Well, sir," said Mary, "it was on the very morning that we heard about
+Sir Reginald--only before we'd heard, and I was pulling up the blinds in
+the wee sitting room when I says to myself. 'There's been some one in at
+this window!'"
+
+"The wee sitting room," repeated her visitor. "Which is that?"
+
+He seemed so genuinely interested that before she realised what
+liberties she was taking in the master's house, she had led him into a
+small sitting room at the end of a short passage leading out of the
+hall. It had evidently been intended for a smoking room or study when
+the villa was built, but was clearly never used by Mr. Rattar, for it
+contained little furniture beyond bookcases. Its window looked on to the
+side of the garden and not towards the drive, and a grass lawn lay
+beneath it, while the room itself was obviously the most isolated, and
+from a burglarious point of view the most promising, on the ground
+floor.
+
+"This is the room, sir," said Mary. "And look! You still can see the
+marks on the sash."
+
+"Yes," said the visitor thoughtfully, "they seem to have been made by a
+tacketty boot."
+
+"And forbye that, there was a wee bit mud on the floor and a tacket mark
+in that!"
+
+"Was the window shut or open?"
+
+"Shut, sir; and the most extraordinary thing was that it was snibbed
+too! That's what made the master say it couldna have been a burglar at
+all, or how did he snib the window after he went out again?"
+
+"Then Mr. Rattar didn't believe it was a burglar?"
+
+"N--no, sir," said Mary, a little reluctantly.
+
+"Was anything stolen?"
+
+"No, sir; that was another funny thing. But it must have been a
+burglar!"
+
+"What about the other windows, and the doors? Were they all fastened in
+the morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, it's the truth they were," she admitted.
+
+"And what did Mr. Rattar do with the piece of mud?"
+
+"Just threw it out of the window."
+
+The sympathetic stranger crossed to the window and looked out.
+
+"Grass underneath, I see," he observed. "No footprints outside, I
+suppose?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did the police come down and make enquiries?"
+
+"Well, sir, the master said he would inform the pollis, but then came
+the news of the murder, and no one had any thoughts for anything else
+after that."
+
+The sympathetic visitor stood by the window very thoughtfully for a few
+moments, and then turned and rewarded her with the most charming smile.
+
+"Thank you awfully for showing me all this," said he. "By the way,
+what's your name?" She told him and he added with a still nicer smile,
+"Thank you, Mary!"
+
+They returned to the library and he sat down before the table again, but
+just as he was going to pick up the pen a thought seemed to strike him.
+
+"By the way," he said, "I remember hearing something about the loss of a
+ring. The burglar didn't take that, did he?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I remember the advertisement was in the paper before the
+night of the burglary."
+
+He opened his eyes and then smiled.
+
+"Brilliant police you've got!" he murmured, and took up the pen again.
+
+"There was another burglar here and he might have taken it!" said Mary
+in a low voice.
+
+The visitor once more dropped the pen and looked up with a start.
+
+"Another burglar!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well, sir, this one didn't actually burgle, but--"
+
+She thought of the master if he chanced to learn how she had been
+gossiping, and her sentence was cut short in the midst.
+
+"Yes, Mary! You were saying?" cooed the persuasive visitor, and Mary
+succumbed again and told him of that night when a shadow moved into the
+trees and footprints were left in the gravel outside the library window,
+and the master looked so strangely in the morning. Her visitor was so
+interested that once she began it was really impossible to stop.
+
+"How very strange!" he murmured, and there was no doubt he meant it.
+
+"But about the master's ring, sir--" she began.
+
+"You say he looked as though he were being _watched_?" he interrupted,
+but it was quite a polite and gentle interruption.
+
+"Yes, sir; but the funny thing about losing the ring was that he never
+could get it off his finger before! I've seen him trying to, but oh, it
+wouldn't nearly come off!"
+
+Again he sat up and gazed at her.
+
+"Another mystery!" he murmured. "He lost a ring which wouldn't come off
+his finger? By Jove! That's very rum. Are there any more mysteries,
+Mary, connected with this house?"
+
+She hesitated and then in a very low voice answered:
+
+"Oh, yes, sir; there was one that gave me even a worse turn!"
+
+By this time her visitor seemed to have given up all immediate thoughts
+of writing his note to Mr. Rattar. He turned his back to the table and
+looked at her with benevolent calm.
+
+"Let's hear it, Mary," he said gently.
+
+And then she told him the story of that dreadful night when the unknown
+visitor came for the box of old papers. He gazed at her, listening very
+attentively, and then in a soothing voice asked her several questions,
+more particularly when all these mysterious events occurred.
+
+"And are these all your troubles now, Mary?" he enquired.
+
+He asked so sympathetically that at last she even ventured to tell him
+her latest trouble. Till he fairly charmed it out of her, she had shrunk
+from telling him anything that seemed to reflect directly on her master
+or to be a giving away of his concerns. But now she confessed that Mr.
+Rattar's conduct, Mr. Rattar's looks, and even Mr. Rattar's very
+infrequent words had been troubling her strangely. How or why his looks
+and words should trouble her, she knew not precisely, and his conduct,
+generally speaking, she admitted was as regular as ever.
+
+"You don't mean that just now and then he takes a wee drop too much?"
+enquired her visitor helpfully.
+
+"Oh, no, sir," said she, "the master never did take more than what a
+gentleman should, and he's not a smoking gentleman either--quite a
+principle against smokers, he has, sir. Oh, it's nothing like that!"
+
+She looked over her shoulder fearfully as though the walls might repeat
+her words to the master, as she told him of the curious and disturbing
+thing. Mr. Rattar had been till lately a gentleman of the most exact
+habits, and then all of a sudden he had taken to walking in his garden
+in a way he never did before. First she had noticed him, about the time
+of the burglary and the removal of the papers, walking there in the
+mornings. That perhaps was not so very disturbing, but since then he had
+changed this for a habit of slipping out of the house every night--every
+single night!
+
+"And walking in the garden!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington.
+
+"Sometimes I've heard his footsteps on the gravel, sir! Even when it has
+been raining I've heard them. Perhaps sometimes he goes outside the
+garden, but I've never heard of anyone meeting him on the road or
+streets. It's in the garden I've heard the master's steps, sir, and if
+you had been with him as long as I've been, and knew how regular his
+habits was, you'd know how I'm feeling, sir!"
+
+"I do know, Mary; I quite understand," Mr. Carrington assured her in his
+soothing voice, and there could be no doubt he was wondering just as
+hard as she.
+
+"What o'clock does he generally go out?" he asked.
+
+"At nine o'clock almost exactly every night, sir!"
+
+Mr. Carrington looked thoughtfully out of the window into the garden,
+and then at last looked down at the ink and paper and pen. Not a word
+was written on the paper yet.
+
+"Look here, Mary," he said very confidentially. "I am a friend of Mr.
+Rattar's and I am sure you would like me to try and throw a little light
+on this. Perhaps something is troubling him and I could help you to
+clear it up."
+
+"Oh, sir," she cried, "you are very kind! I wish you could!"
+
+"Perhaps the best thing then," he suggested, "would be for me not to
+leave a note for him after all, and for you not even to mention that I
+have called. As he knows me pretty well he would be almost sure to ask
+you whether I had come in and if I had left any message and so on, and
+then he might perhaps find out that we had been talking, and that
+wouldn't perhaps be pleasant for you, would it?"
+
+"Oh, my! No, indeed, it wouldn't!" she agreed. "I'm that feared of the
+master, sir, I'd never have him know I had been talking about him, or
+about anything that has happened in this house!"
+
+So, having come to this judicious decision, Mr. Carrington wished Mary
+the kindest of farewells and walked down the drive again. There could be
+no question he had plenty to think about now, though to judge from his
+expression, it seemed doubtful whether his thoughts were very clear.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+A CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION
+
+
+The laird of Stanesland strode into the Kings Arms and demanded:
+
+"Mr. Carrington? What, having a cup of tea in his room? What's his
+number? 27--right! I'll walk right up, thanks."
+
+He walked right up, made the door rattle under his knuckles and strode
+jauntily in. There was no beating about the bush with Mr. Cromarty
+either in deed or word.
+
+"Well, Mr. Carrington," said he, "don't trouble to look surprised. I
+guess you've seen right through me for some time back."
+
+"Meaning--?" asked Carrington with his engaging smile.
+
+"Meaning that I'm the unknown, unsuspected, and mysterious person who's
+putting up the purse. Don't pretend you haven't tumbled to that!"
+
+"Yes," admitted Carrington, "I have tumbled."
+
+"I knew my sister had given the whole blamed show away! I take it you
+put your magnifying glass back in your pocket after your trip out to
+Stanesland?"
+
+"More or less," admitted Carrington.
+
+"Well," said Ned, "that being so, I may as well tell you what my idea
+was. It mayn't have been very bright; still there was a kind of method
+in my madness. You see I wanted you to have an absolutely clear field
+and let you suspect me just as much as anybody else."
+
+"In short," smiled Carrington, "you wanted to start with the other
+horses and not just drop the flag."
+
+"That's so," agreed Ned. "But when my sister let out about that L1200,
+and I saw that you must have spotted me, there didn't seem much point in
+keeping up the bluff, when I came to think it over. And since then, Mr.
+Carrington, something has happened that you ought to know and I decided
+to come and see you and talk to you straight."
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+Ned smiled for an instant his approval of this prompt plunge into
+business, and then his face set hard.
+
+"It's a most extraordinary thing," said he, "and may strike you as
+hardly credible, but here's the plain truth put shortly. Yesterday
+afternoon Miss Farmond ran away." Carrington merely nodded, and he
+exclaimed, "What! You know then?"
+
+"I learned from Bisset this morning."
+
+"Ah, I see. Did you know I'd happened to see her start and gone after
+her and brought her back?"
+
+Carrington's interest was manifest.
+
+"No," said he, "that's quite news to me."
+
+"Well, I did, and I learnt the whole story from her. You can't guess who
+advised her to bolt?"
+
+"I think I can," said Carrington quietly.
+
+"Either you're on the wrong track, or you've cut some ice, Mr.
+Carrington. It was Simon Rattar!"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+"How the devil did you guess?"
+
+"Tell me Miss Farmond's story first and I'll tell you how I guessed."
+
+"Well, she spotted you were a detective--"
+
+Carrington started and then laughed.
+
+"Confound these women!" said he. "They're so infernally independent of
+reason, they always spot things they shouldn't!"
+
+"Then she discovered she was suspected and so she got in a stew, poor
+girl, and went to see Rattar. Do you know what he told her? That I was
+employing you and meant to convict Sir Malcolm and her and hang them
+with my own hands!"
+
+"The old devil!" cried Carrington. "Well, no wonder she bolted, Mr.
+Cromarty!"
+
+"But even that was done by Simon's advice. He actually gave her an
+address in London to go to."
+
+"Pretty thorough!" murmured Carrington.
+
+"Now what do you make of that? And what ought one to do? And, by the
+way, how did you guess Simon was at the bottom of it?"
+
+Carrington leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment before
+answering.
+
+"We are in pretty deep waters, Mr. Cromarty," he said slowly. "As to
+what I make of it--nothing as yet. As to what we are to do--also nothing
+in the meantime. But as to how I guessed, well I can tell you this much.
+I had to get information from someone, and so I called on Mr. Rattar and
+told him who I was--in strict confidence, by the way, so that he had no
+business to tell Miss Farmond or anybody else. I had started off, I may
+say, with a wrong guess: I thought Rattar himself was probably either my
+employer or acting for my employer, and when I suggested this he told me
+I was right."
+
+"What!" shouted Ned. "The grunting old devil told you that?" He stared
+at the other for a moment, and then demanded, "Why did he tell you that
+lie?"
+
+"Fortune played my cards for me. Quite innocently and unintentionally. I
+tempted him. I said if I could be sure he was my employer I'd keep him
+in touch with everything I was doing. I had also let him know that my
+employer had made it an absolute condition that his name was not to
+appear. He evidently wanted badly to know what I was doing, and thought
+he was safe not to be given away."
+
+"Then have you kept him in touch with everything you have done?"
+
+Carrington smiled.
+
+"I tell you, Mr. Cromarty, my cards were being played for me. Five
+minutes later I asked him who benefited by the will and I learned that
+you had scored the precise sum of L1200."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that when I made my limit L1200!" exclaimed Ned.
+"Lord, you must have bowled me out at once! Of course, you spotted the
+coincidence straight off?"
+
+"But Rattar didn't! I pushed it under his nose and he didn't see it!
+Inside of one second I'd asked myself whether it was possible for an
+astute man like that not to notice such a coincidence supposing he had
+really guaranteed me exactly that sum--an extraordinarily large and
+curious sum too."
+
+"I like these simple riddles," said Ned with a twinkle in his single
+eye. "I guess your answer to yourself was 'No!'"
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"That's what I call having my cards played for me. I knew then that the
+man was lying; so I threw him off the scent, changed the subject, and
+did _not_ keep Mr. Simon Rattar in touch with any single thing I did
+after that."
+
+"Good for you!" said Ned.
+
+"Good so far, but the next riddle wasn't of the simple kind--or else I'm
+even a bigger ass than I endeavour to look! What was the man's game?"
+
+"Have you spotted it yet?"
+
+Carrington shook his head.
+
+"Mr. Simon Rattar's game is the toughest proposition in the way of
+puzzles I've ever struck. While I'm at it I'll just tell you one or two
+other small features of that first interview."
+
+He lit a cigarette and leant over the arm of his chair towards his
+visitor, his manner growing keener as he talked.
+
+"I happened to have met Miss Farmond that morning and my interview had
+knocked the bottom out of the story that she was concerned in the crime.
+I had satisfied myself also that she was not engaged to Sir Malcolm."
+
+"How did you discover that?" exclaimed Ned.
+
+"Her manner when I mentioned him. But I found that old Rattar was wrong
+on both these points and apparently determined to remain wrong. Of
+course, it might have been a mere error of judgment, but at the same
+time he had no evidence whatever against her, and it seemed to suggest a
+curious bias. And finally, I didn't like the look of the man."
+
+"And then you came out to see me?"
+
+"I went out to Keldale House first and then out to you. I next
+interviewed Sir Malcolm."
+
+"Interviewed Malcolm Cromarty!" exclaimed Ned. "Where?"
+
+"He came up to see me," explained Carrington easily, "and the gentleman
+had scarcely spoken six sentences before I shared your opinion of him,
+Mr. Cromarty--a squirt but not homicidal. He gave me, however, one very
+interesting piece of information. Rattar had advised him to keep away
+from these parts, and for choice to go abroad. I need hardly ask whether
+you consider that sound advice to give a suspected man."
+
+"Seems to me nearly as rotten advice as he gave Miss Farmond."
+
+"Exactly. So when I heard that Miss Farmond had flown and discovered she
+had paid a visit to Mr. Rattar the previous day, I guessed who had given
+her the advice."
+
+Carrington sat back in his chair with folded arms and looked at his
+employer with a slight smile, as much as to say, "Tell me the rest of
+the story!" Cromarty returned his gaze in silence, his heaviest frown
+upon his brow.
+
+"It seems to me," said Ned at last, "that Simon Rattar is mixed up in
+this business--sure! He has something to hide and he's trying to put
+people off the scent, I'll lay my bottom dollar!"
+
+"What is he hiding?" enquired Carrington, looking up at the ceiling.
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+Carrington shook his head, his eyes still gazing dreamily upwards.
+
+"I wish to Heaven I knew what to think!" he murmured; and then he
+resumed a brisker air and continued, "I am ready to suspect Simon Rattar
+of any crime in the calendar--leaving out petty larceny and probably
+bigamy. But he's the last man to do either good or evil unless he saw a
+dividend at the end, and where does he score by taking any part or
+parcel in conniving at or abetting or concealing evidence or anything
+else, so far as this particular crime is concerned? He has lost his best
+client, with whom he was on excellent terms and whose family he had
+served all his life, and he has now got instead an unsatisfactory young
+ass whom he suspects, or says he suspects, of murder, and who so
+loathes Rattar that, as far as I can judge, he will probably take his
+business away from him. To suspect Rattar of actually conniving at, or
+taking any part in the actual crime itself is, on the face of it, to
+convict either Rattar or oneself of lunacy!"
+
+"I knew Sir Reginald pretty well," said Ned, "but of course I didn't
+know much about his business affairs. He hadn't been having any trouble
+with Rattar, had he?"
+
+Carrington threw him a quick, approving glance.
+
+"We are thinking on the same lines," said he, "and I have unearthed one
+very odd little misunderstanding, but it seems to have been nothing more
+than that, and, apart from it, all accounts agree that there was no
+trouble of any kind or description."
+
+He took a cigarette out of his case and struck a match.
+
+"There must be _some_ motive for everything one does--even for smoking
+this cigarette. If I disliked cigarettes, knew smoking was bad for me,
+and stood in danger of being fined if I was caught doing it, why should
+I smoke? I can see no point whatever in Rattar's taking the smallest
+share even in diverting the course of justice by a hair's breadth. He
+and you and I have to all appearances identical interests in the
+matter."
+
+"You are wiser than I am," said Ned simply, but with a grim look in his
+eye, "but all I can say is I am going out with my gun to look for Simon
+Rattar."
+
+Carrington laughed.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to catch him at something a little better known
+to the charge-sheets than giving bad advice to a lady client, before
+it's safe to fire!" said he.
+
+"But, look here, Carrington, have you collected no other facts whatever
+about this case?"
+
+Carrington shot him a curious glance, but answered nothing else.
+
+"Oh well," said Ned, "if you don't want to say anything yet, don't say
+it. Play your hand as you think best."
+
+"Mr. Cromarty," replied Carrington, "I assure you I don't want to make
+facts into mysteries, but when they _are_ mysteries--well, I like to
+think 'em over a bit before I trust myself to talk. In the course of
+this very afternoon I've collected an assortment either of facts or
+fiction that seem to have broken loose from a travelling nightmare."
+
+"Mind telling where you got 'em?" asked Ned.
+
+"Chiefly from Rattar's housemaid, a very excellent but somewhat
+high-strung and imaginative young woman, and how much to believe of what
+she told me I honestly don't know. And the more one can believe, the
+worse the puzzle gets! However, there is one statement which I hope to
+be able to check. It may throw some light on the lady's veracity
+generally. Meantime I am like a man trying to build a house of what may
+be bricks or may be paper bags."
+
+Ned rose with his usual prompt decision.
+
+"I see," said he. "And I guess you find one better company than two at
+this particular moment. I won't shoot Simon Rattar till I hear from you,
+though by Gad, I'm tempted to kick him just to be going on with! But
+look here, Carrington, if my services will ever do you the least bit of
+good--in fact, so long as I'm not actually in the way--just send me a
+wire and I'll come straight. You won't refuse me that?"
+
+Carrington looked at the six feet two inches of pure lean muscle and
+smiled.
+
+"Not likely!" he said. "That's not the sort of offer I refuse. I won't
+hesitate to wire if there's anything happening. But don't count on it. I
+can't see any business doing just yet."
+
+Ned held out his hand, and then suddenly said, "You don't see any
+business doing just yet? But you feel you're on his track, sure! Now,
+don't you?"
+
+Carrington glanced at him out of an eye half quizzical, half abstracted.
+
+"Whose track?" he asked.
+
+Ned paused for a second and then rapped out:
+
+"Was it Simon himself?"
+
+"If we were all living in a lunatic asylum, probably yes! If we were
+living in the palace of reason, certainly not--the thing's ridiculous!
+What we are actually living in, however, is--" he broke off and gazed
+into space.
+
+"What?" said Ned.
+
+"A blank fog!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+IN THE GARDEN
+
+
+It was a few minutes after half past eight when Miss Peterkin chanced to
+meet her friend Mr. Carrington in the entrance hall of the Kings Arms.
+He was evidently going out, and she noticed he was rather differently
+habited from usual, wearing now a long, light top coat of a very dark
+grey hue, and a dark coloured felt hat. They were not quite so becoming
+as his ordinary garb, she thought, but then Mr. Carrington looked the
+gentleman in anything.
+
+"Are you going to desert us to-night, Mr. Carrington?" asked the
+manageress.
+
+"I have a letter or two to post," said he, "they are an excuse for a
+stroll. I want a breath of fresh air."
+
+He closed the glass door of the hotel behind him and stood for a moment
+on the pavement in the little circle of radiance thrown by the light of
+the hall. Mr. Carrington's leisurely movements undoubtedly played no
+small part in the unsuspecting confidence which he inspired. Out of the
+light he turned, strolling easily, down the long stretch of black
+pavement with its few checkers of lamplight here and there, and the
+empty, silent street of the little country town at his side. It was a
+very dark, moonless night, and the air was almost quite still. Looking
+upward, he could see a rare star or two twinkle, but all the rest of the
+Heavens were under cloud. Judging from his contented expression the
+night seemed to please him.
+
+He passed the post office, but curiously enough omitted to drop any
+letters into the box. The breath of fresh air seemed, in fact, to be his
+sole preoccupation. Moving with a slightly quickened stride, but still
+easily, he turned out of that street into another even quieter and
+darker, and in a short time he was nearing the lights of the station. He
+gave these a wide birth, however, and presently was strolling up a very
+secluded road, with a few villas and gardens upon the one side, and
+black space on the other. There for a moment he stopped and transferred
+something from the pocket of his inner coat into the pocket of his top
+coat. It was a small compact article, and a ray of light from a
+lamp-post behind him gleamed for an instant upon a circular metal
+orifice at one end of it.
+
+Before he moved on, he searched the darkness intently, before him and
+behind, but saw no sign of any other passenger. And then he turned the
+rim of his dark felt hat down over his face, stepped out briskly for
+some fifty yards further, and turned sharply through an open gate. Once
+again he stopped and listened keenly, standing now in the shadow of the
+trees beside the drive. In his dark top coat and with his hat turned
+over his face he was as nearly invisible as a man could be, but even
+this did not seem to satisfy him, for in a moment he gently parted the
+branches of the trees and pushed through the belt of planting to the
+lawn beyond.
+
+The villa of Mr. Simon Rattar was now half seen beyond the curving end
+of the belt that bounded the drive. It was dim against the night sky,
+and the garden was dimmer still. Carrington kept on the grass, following
+the outside of the trees, and then again plunged into them when they
+curved round at the top of the drive. Pushing quietly through, he
+reached the other side, and there his expedition in search of fresh air
+seemed to have found its goal, for he leaned his back against a tree
+trunk, folded his arms, and waited.
+
+He was looking obliquely across a sweep of gravel, with the whole front
+of the house full in view. A ray came from the fanlight over the front
+door and a faint radiance escaped through the slats of the library
+blinds, but otherwise the villa was a lump of darkness in the dark.
+
+One minute after another passed without event and with scarcely even the
+faintest sound. Then, all at once, a little touch of breeze sprang up
+and sighed overhead through the tree tops, and from that time on, there
+was an alternation of utter silence with the sough of branches gently
+stirred.
+
+From a church tower in the town came the stroke of a clock. Carrington
+counted nine and his eyes were riveted on the front door now. Barely
+two more minutes passed before it opened quietly; a figure appeared for
+an instant in the light of the hall, and then, as quietly, the door
+closed again. There was a lull at the moment, but Carrington could hear
+not a sound. The figure must be standing very still on the doorstep,
+listening--evidently listening. And then the thickset form of Simon
+Rattar appeared dimly on the gravel, crossing to the lawn beyond. The
+pebbles crunched a little, but not very much. He seemed to be walking
+warily, and when he reached the further side he stood still again and
+Carrington could see his head moving, as though he were looking all
+round him through the night.
+
+But now the figure was moving again, coming this time straight for the
+head of the belt of trees. Carrington had drawn on a pair of dark
+gloves, and he raised his arm to cover the lower part of his face,
+looking over it through the branches, and facing the silent owner of the
+garden, till there were hardly three paces between them, the one on the
+lawn, the other in the heart of the plantation.
+
+And then when Simon was exactly opposite, he stopped dead. Carrington's
+other hand slipped noiselessly into the pocket where he had dropped that
+little article, but otherwise he never moved a muscle and he breathed
+very gently. The man on the turf seemed to be doing something with his
+hands, but what, it was impossible to say. The hands would move into his
+pocket and then out again, till quite three or four minutes had passed,
+and then came a sudden flash of light. Carrington's right hand moved
+halfway out of his pocket and then was stayed, for by the light of the
+match he saw a very singular sight.
+
+Simon Rattar was not looking at him. His eyes were focussed just before
+his nose where the bowl of a pipe was beginning to glow. Carrington
+could hear the lips gently sucking, and then the aroma of tobacco came
+in a strong wave through the trees. Finally the match went out, and the
+glowing pipe began to move slowly along the turf, keeping close to the
+shelter of the trees.
+
+For a space Carrington stood petrified with wonder, and then, very
+carefully and quite silently, he worked his way through the trees out on
+to the turf, and at once fell on his hands and knees. Had any one been
+there to see, they would have beheld for the next five minutes a strange
+procession of two slowly moving along the edge of the plantation; a
+thickset man in front smoking a pipe and something like a great gorilla
+stalking him from behind. This procession skirted the plantation nearly
+down to the gate; then it turned at right angles, following the line of
+trees that bordered the wall between the garden and the road; and then
+again at right angles when it had reached the further corner of Mr.
+Rattar's demesne. Simon was now in a secluded path with shrubs on either
+hand, and instead of continuing his tour, he turned at the end of this
+path and paced slowly back again. And seeing this, the ape behind him
+squatted in the shadow of a laurel and waited.
+
+A steady breeze was now blowing and the trees were sighing continuously.
+The sky at the same time cleared, and more and more stars came out till
+the eyes of the man behind the bush could follow the moving man from end
+to end of the path. The wind made the pipe smoke quickly, and presently
+a shower of sparks showed that it was being emptied, and in a minute or
+two another match flashed and a second pipe glowed faintly.
+
+Backwards and forwards paced the lawyer, and backwards and forwards
+again, but for the space of nearly an hour from his first coming out,
+that was everything that happened; and then at last came a tapping of
+the bowl and more sparks flying abroad in the wind. The procession was
+resumed, Simon in front, the ape-like form behind; but with a greater
+space between them this time as the night was clearer, and now they were
+heading for the house. The lawyer's steps crunched lightly on the gravel
+again, the front door opened and closed, and Carrington was alone in the
+garden.
+
+Still crawling, he reached the shelter of the belt of trees and then
+rose and made swiftly for the gate, and out into the road. As he passed
+under a lamp, his face wore a totally new expression, compounded of
+wonder, excitement, and urgent thought. He was walking swiftly, and his
+pace never slackened, nor did the keenness leave his face, till he was
+back at the door of the Kings Arms Hotel. Before he entered, he took off
+his hat and turned up the brim again, and his manner when he tapped at
+the door of the manageress' room was perfectly sedate. He let it appear,
+however, that he had some slight matter on his mind.
+
+"What is the name of Mr. Rattar's head clerk?" he enquired. "An oldish,
+prim looking man, with side whiskers."
+
+"Oh, that will be Mr. Ison," said the manageress.
+
+"I have just remembered a bit of business I ought to have seen about
+to-night," he continued. "I can't very well call on Mr. Rattar himself
+at this hour, but I was thinking of looking up Mr. Ison if I could
+discover his whereabouts."
+
+"The boots will show you the way to his house," said she, and rang the
+bell.
+
+While waiting for the boots, Mr. Carrington asked another casual
+question or two and learned that Mr. Ison had been in the office since
+he was a boy. No man knew the house of Rattar throughout its two
+generations better than Mr. Ison, said Miss Peterkin; and she remembered
+afterwards that this information seemed to give Mr. Carrington peculiar
+satisfaction. He seemed so gratified, indeed, that she wondered a little
+at the time.
+
+And then the visitor and the boots set out together for the clerk's
+house, and at what hour her guest returned she was not quite sure. The
+boots, it seemed, had been instructed to wait up for him, but she had
+long gone to bed.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE WALKING STICK
+
+
+Had there been, next morning, any curious eyes to watch the conduct of
+the gentleman who had come to rent a sporting estate, they would
+probably have surmised that he had found something to please his fancy
+strangely, and yet that some perplexity still persisted. They would also
+have put him down as a much more excitable, and even demonstrative,
+young man than they had imagined. On a lonely stretch of shore hard by
+the little town he paced for nearly an hour, his face a record of the
+debate within, and his cane gesticulating at intervals.
+
+Of a sudden he stopped dead and his lips moved in a murmured
+ejaculation, and then after standing stock still for some minutes, he
+murmured again:
+
+"Ten to one on it!"
+
+His cane had been stationary during this pause. Now he raised it once
+more, but this time with careful attention. It was a light bamboo with a
+silver head. He looked at it thoughtfully, bent it this way and that,
+and then drove it into the sand and pressed it down. Though to the
+ordinary eye a very chaste and appropriate walking stick for such a
+gentleman as Mr. Carrington, the result of these tests seemed to
+dissatisfy him. He shook his head, and then with an air of resolution
+set out for the town.
+
+A little later he entered a shop where a number of walking sticks were
+on view and informed the proprietor that he desired to purchase
+something more suitable for the country than the cane he carried. In
+fact, his taste seemed now to run to the very opposite extreme, for the
+points on which he insisted were length, stiffness, and a long and if
+possible somewhat pointed ferule. At last he found one to his mind, left
+his own cane to be sent down to the hotel, and walked out with his new
+purchase.
+
+His next call was at Mr. Simon Rattar's villa. This morning he
+approached it without any of the curious shyness he had exhibited on the
+occasion of his recent visit. His advance was conducted openly up the
+drive and in an erect posture, and he crossed the gravel space boldly,
+and even jauntily, while his ring was firmness itself. Mary answered the
+bell, and her pleasure at seeing so soon again the sympathetic gentleman
+with the eyeglass was a tribute to his tact.
+
+"Good morning, Mary," said he, with an air that combined very happily
+the courtesy of a gentleman with the freedom of an old friend, "Mr.
+Rattar is at his office, I presume."
+
+She said that he was, but this time the visitor exhibited neither
+surprise nor disappointment.
+
+"I thought he would be," he confessed confidentially, "and I have come
+to see whether I couldn't do something to help you to get at the bottom
+of these troublesome goings on. Anything fresh happened?"
+
+"The master was out in the garden again last night, sir!" said she.
+
+"Was he really?" cried Mr. Carrington. "By Jove, how curious! We really
+must look into that: in fact, I've got an idea I want you to help me
+with. By the way, it sounds an odd question to ask about Mr. Rattar, but
+have you ever seen any sign of a pipe or tobacco in the house?"
+
+"Oh, never indeed!" said she. "The master has never been a smoking
+gentleman. Quite against smoking he's always been, sir."
+
+"Ever since you have known him?"
+
+"Oh, and before that, sir."
+
+"Ah!" observed Mr. Carrington in a manner that suggested nothing
+whatever. "Well, Mary, I want this morning to have a look round the
+garden."
+
+Her eyes opened.
+
+"Because the master walks there at nights?"
+
+He nodded confidentially.
+
+"But--but if he was to know you'd been interfering, sir--I mean what
+he'd think was interfering, sir--"
+
+"He shan't know," he assured her. "At least not if you'll do what I tell
+you. I want you to go now and have a nice quiet talk with cook for half
+an hour--half an hour by the kitchen clock, Mary. If you don't look out
+of the window, you won't know that I'm in the garden, and then nobody
+can blame you whatever happens. We haven't mentioned the word 'garden'
+between us--so you are out of it! Remember that."
+
+He smiled so pleasantly that Mary smiled back.
+
+"I'll remember, sir," said she. "And cook is to be kept talking in the
+kitchen?"
+
+"You've tumbled to it exactly, Mary. If neither of you see me, neither
+of you know anything at all."
+
+She got a last glimpse of his sympathetic smile as she closed the door,
+and then she went faithfully to the kitchen for her talk with cook. It
+was quite a pleasant gossip at first, but half an hour is a long time to
+keep talking, when one has been asked not to stop sooner, and it so
+happened, moreover, that cook was somewhat busy that morning and began
+at length to indicate distinctly that unless her friend had some matter
+of importance to communicate she would regard further verbiage with
+disfavour. At this juncture Mary decided that twenty minutes was
+practically as good as half an hour, and the conversation ceased.
+
+Passing out of the kitchen regions, Mary glanced towards a distant
+window, hesitated, and then came to another decision. Mr. Carrington
+must surely have left the garden now, so there was no harm in peeping
+out. She went to the window and peeped.
+
+It was only a two minutes' peep, for Mr. Carrington had not left the
+garden, and at the end of that space of time something very disturbing
+happened. But it was long enough to make her marvel greatly at her
+sympathetic friend's method of solving the riddle of the master's
+conduct. When she first saw him, he seemed to be smoothing the earth in
+one of the flower beds with his foot. Then he moved on a few paces,
+stopped, and drove his walking stick hard into the bed. She saw him lean
+on it to get it further in and apparently twist it about a little. And
+then he withdrew it again and was in the act of smoothing the place when
+she saw him glance sharply towards the gate, and the next instant leap
+behind a bush. Simultaneously the hum of a motor car fell on her ear,
+and Mary was out of the room and speeding upstairs.
+
+She heard the car draw up before the house and listened for the front
+door bell, but the door opened without a ring and she marvelled and
+trembled afresh. That the master should return in a car at this hour of
+the morning seemed surely to be connected with the sin she had connived
+at. It swelled into a crime as she held her breath and listened. She
+wished devoutly she had never set eyes on the insinuating Mr.
+Carrington.
+
+But there came no call for her, or no ringing of any bell; merely sounds
+of movement in the hall below, heard through the thrumming of the
+waiting car. And then the front door opened and shut again and she
+ventured to the window. It was a little open and she could hear her
+master speak to the chauffeur as he got in. He was now wearing, she
+noticed, a heavy overcoat. A moment more and he was off again, down the
+drive, and out through the gates. When she remembered to look again for
+her sympathetic friend, he was quietly driving his walking stick once
+more into a flower bed.
+
+About ten minutes afterwards the front door bell rang and there stood
+Mr. Carrington again. His eye seemed strangely bright, she thought, but
+his manner was calm and soothing as ever.
+
+"I noticed Mr. Rattar return," he said, "and I thought I would like to
+make sure that it was all right, before I left. I trust, Mary, that you
+have got into no trouble on my account."
+
+She thought it was very kind of him to enquire.
+
+"The master was only just in and out again," she assured him.
+
+"He came to get his overcoat, I noticed," he remarked.
+
+Mr. Carrington's powers of observation struck her as very surprising for
+such an easy-going gentleman.
+
+"Yes, sir, that was all."
+
+"Well, I'm very glad it was all right," he smiled and began to turn
+away. "By the way," he asked, turning back, "did he tell you where he is
+going to now?"
+
+"He didn't see me, sir."
+
+"You didn't happen to overhear him giving any directions to the
+chauffeur, did you? I noticed you at an open window."
+
+For the first time Mary's sympathetic friend began to make her feel a
+trifle uncomfortable. His eyes seemed to be everywhere.
+
+"I thought I heard him say 'Keldale House,'" she confessed.
+
+"Really!" he exclaimed and seemed to muse for a moment. In fact, he
+appeared to be still musing as he walked away.
+
+Mary began to wonder very seriously whether Mr. Carrington was going to
+prove merely a fresh addition to the disquieting mysteries of that
+house.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+BISSET'S ADVICE
+
+
+The short November afternoon was fading into a gusty evening, as Ned
+Cromarty drew near his fortalice. He carried a gun as usual, and as
+usual walked with seven league strides. Where the drive passed through
+the scrap of stunted plantation it was already dusk and the tortured
+boughs had begun their night of sighs and tossings. Beyond them, pale
+daylight lingered and the old house stood up still clear against a
+broken sky and a grey waste with flitting whitecaps all the way to the
+horizon. He had almost reached the front door when he heard the sound of
+wheels behind him. Pausing there, he spied a pony and a governess' car,
+with two people distinct enough to bring a sudden light into his eye.
+The pony trotted briskly towards the door, and he took a stride to meet
+them.
+
+"Miss Farmond!" he said.
+
+A low voice answered, and though he could not catch the words, the tone
+was enough for him. And then another voice said:
+
+"Aye, sir, I've brought her over."
+
+"Bisset!" said he. "It's you, is it? Well, what's happened?"
+
+He was lifting her out of the trap and not hesitating to hold her hand
+a little longer than he had ever held it before, now that he could see
+her face quite plainly and read what was in her eyes.
+
+"I've dared to come after all!" she said, with a little smile, which
+seemed to hint that she knew the risk was over now.
+
+"I advised her vera strongly, sir, to come over with me to Stanesland,"
+explained her escort. "The young lady has had a trying experience at
+Keldale, and forby the fair impossibility of her stopping on under the
+unfortunate circumstances, I was of the opinion that the sea air would
+be a fine change and the architectural features remarkably interesting.
+In fac', sir, I practically insisted that Miss Farmond had just got to
+come."
+
+"Good man!" said Ned. "Come in and tell me the unfortunate
+circumstances." He bent over Cicely and in a lowered voice added:
+"Personally I call 'em fortunate--so long as they haven't been too
+beastly for you!"
+
+"It's all right now!" she murmured, and as they went up the steps he
+found, somehow or other, her hand for an instant in his again.
+
+"If you'll stand by your pony for a moment, Bisset, I'll send out some
+one to take her," he said with happy inspiration.
+
+But Mr. Bisset was not so easily shaken off.
+
+"She'll stand fine for a wee while," he assured his host. "You'll be the
+better of hearing all about it from me."
+
+They went into the smoking room and the escort began forthwith.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Cromarty, that yon man Simon Rattar is a fair
+discredit. Miss Farmond has been telling me the haill story of her
+running away, and your ain vera seasonable appearance and judicious
+conduct, sir; which I am bound to say, Mr. Cromarty, is neither more nor
+less than I'd have expectit of a gentleman of your intelligence. Weel,
+to continue, Miss Farmond acted on your advice--which would have been my
+own, sir, under the circumstances--and tellt her ladyship the plain
+facts. Weel then----"
+
+"And what did Lady Cromarty say to you?" demanded Ned.
+
+"Hardly a word. She simply looked at me and said she would send for Mr.
+Rattar."
+
+Not a whit rebuffed, Mr. Bisset straightway resumed his narrative.
+
+"A perfectly proper principle if the man was capable of telling the
+truth. I'm no blaming her ladyship at that point, but where she departit
+from the proper principles of evidence----"
+
+"When did Rattar come?"
+
+"This morning," said Cicely. "And--can you believe it?--he absolutely
+denied that he had ever advised me to go away!"
+
+"I can believe it," said Ned grimly. "And I suppose Lady Cromarty
+believed him?"
+
+"God, but you're right, sir!" cried Bisset. "Your deductions are
+perfectly correct. Yon man had the impudence to give the haill thing a
+flat denial! And then naturally Miss Farmond was for off, but at first
+her ladyship was no for letting her go. Indeed she went the length of
+sending for me and telling me the young lady was not to be permitted to
+shift her luggage out of the house or use any conveyance."
+
+"But Bisset was splendid!" cried Cicely. "Do you know what the foolish
+man did? He gave up his situation and took me away!"
+
+Bisset, the man, permitted a gleam of pleasure to illuminate his blunt
+features; but Bisset, the philosopher, protested with some dignity.
+
+"It was a mere matter of principle, sir. Detention of luggage like yon
+is no legal. I tellt her ladyship flatly that she'd find herself afore
+the Shirra', and that I was no going to abet any such proceedings. I
+further informed her, sir, of my candid opinion of Simon Rattar, and I
+said plainly that he was probably meaning to marry her and get the
+estate under his thumb, and these were the kind o' tricks rascally
+lawyers took in foolish women wi'."
+
+"You told Lady Cromarty that!" exclaimed Ned. "And what did she say?"
+
+"We had a few disagreeable passages, as it were, sir," said the
+philosopher calmly. "And then I borrowed yon trap and having advised
+Miss Farmond to come to Stanesland and she being amenable, I just
+brought her along to you."
+
+"Oh, it was on your advice then?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Cicely and her host exchanged one fleeting glance and then looked
+extremely unconscious.
+
+"She's derned wise!" said he to himself.
+
+He held out his hand to the gratified counsellor.
+
+"Well done, Bisset, you've touched your top form to-day, and I may tell
+you I've been wanting some one like you badly for a long while, if you
+are willing to stay on with me. Put that in your pipe, Bisset, and smoke
+over it! And now, you know your way, go and get yourself some tea, and a
+drink of the wildest poison you fancy!"
+
+Hardly was the door closed behind him than the laird put his fate to the
+test as promptly and directly as he did most other things.
+
+"I want you to stop on too, Cicely--for ever. Will you?"
+
+Her eyes, shyly questioning for a moment and then shyly tender, answered
+his question before her lips had moved, and it would have been hard to
+convince them that the minutes which followed ever had a parallel within
+human experience.
+
+A little later he confessed:
+
+"Do you know, Cicely, I've always had a funky feeling that if I ever
+proposed my glass eye would drop out!"
+
+The next event was the somewhat sudden entry of Lilian Cromarty, and
+that lady's self control was never more severely tested or brilliantly
+vindicated. One startled glance, and then she was saying, briskly, and
+with the old bright smile:
+
+"A telegram for you, Ned."
+
+"Thanks," said he. "By the way, here's the future Mrs. Ned--that's to
+say if she doesn't funk it before the wedding."
+
+Lilian's welcome, Lilian's embrace, and Lilian's congratulations were
+alike perfect. Cicely wondered how people could ever have said the
+critical things of her which some of her acquaintances were unkind
+enough to say at times. As to Bisset's dictum regarding the lady in the
+castle, that was manifestly absurd on the face of it. Miss Cromarty was
+clearly overjoyed to hear of her brother's engagement.
+
+"And now, Neddy dear!" cried the bright lady, "tell me how it all came
+about!"
+
+Ned looked up from his telegram with a glint in his eye that was hardly
+a lover's glance.
+
+"Cicely will tell you all about it," said he. "I'm afraid I've got to be
+off pretty well as quick as I can."
+
+He handed them the wire and they read: "Meet me eight to-night Kings
+Arms urgent. Carrington."
+
+"From Mr. Carrington!" exclaimed his sister.
+
+Ned smiled.
+
+"Cicely will explain him too," he said. "By Gad, I wonder if this is
+going to be the finishing bit of luck!"
+
+In another twenty minutes the lights of his gig lamps were raking the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+TRAPPED
+
+
+Cromarty and Carrington slipped unostentatiously out of the hotel a few
+minutes after eight o'clock.
+
+"Take any line you like," said Carrington, "but as he knows now that you
+brought Miss Farmond back and have heard her version, he'll naturally be
+feeling a little uncomfortable about the place where one generally gets
+kicked, when he sees you march in. He will expect you to open out on
+that subject, so if I were you I'd take the natural line of country and
+do what he expects."
+
+"Including the kicking?"
+
+Carrington laughed.
+
+"Keep him waiting for that. Spin it out; that's your job to-night."
+
+"I wish it were more than talking!" said Ned.
+
+"Well," drawled Carrington, "it may lead to something more amusing. Who
+knows? You haven't bought your own gun, I suppose? Take mine."
+
+He handed him the same little article he had taken out the night before,
+and Ned's eye gleamed.
+
+"What!" said he. "That kind of gun once more? This reminds me of old
+times!"
+
+"It's a mere precaution," said the other. "Don't count on using it!
+Remember, you're going to visit the most respectable citizen of the
+town--perhaps on a wild goose errand."
+
+"I guess not," said Ned quietly.
+
+"We daren't assume anything. I don't want to make a fool of myself, and
+no more do you, I take it."
+
+"I see," said Ned, with a nod. "Well, I'll keep him in his chair for
+you."
+
+"That's it."
+
+They were walking quickly through the silent town under the windy night
+sky. It was a dark boisterous evening, not inviting for strollers, and
+they scarcely passed a soul till they were in the quiet road where the
+villa stood. There, from the shadows of a gateway, two figures moved out
+to meet them, and Cromarty recognised Superintendent Sutherland and one
+of his constables. The two saluted in silence and fell in behind. They
+each carried, he noticed, something long-shaped wrapped up loosely in
+sacking.
+
+"What have they got there?" he asked.
+
+"Prosaic instruments," smiled Carrington. "I won't tell you more for
+fear the gamble doesn't come off."
+
+"Like the sensation before one proposes, I suppose," said Ned. "Well,
+going by that, the omens ought to be all right."
+
+They turned in through Simon's gates and then the four stopped.
+
+"We part here," whispered Carrington. "Good luck!"
+
+"Same to you," said Ned briefly, and strode up the drive.
+
+As he came out into the gravel sweep before the house, he looked hard
+into the darkness of the garden, but beyond the tossing shapes of trees,
+there was not a sign of movement.
+
+"Mr. Rattar in?" he enquired. "Sitting in the library I suppose? Take me
+right to him. Cromarty's my name."
+
+"Mr. Cromarty to see you, sir," announced Mary, and she was startled to
+see the master's sudden turn in his chair and the look upon his face.
+
+"Whether he was feared or whether he was angered, I canna rightly say,"
+she told cook, "but anyway he looked fair mad like!"
+
+"Good evening," said Ned.
+
+His voice was restrained and dry, and as he spoke he strode across the
+room and seated himself deliberately in the arm chair on the side of the
+fire opposite to the lawyer.
+
+Simon had banished that first look which Mary saw, but there remained in
+his eyes something more than their usual cold stare. Each day since
+Carrington came seemed to have aged his face and changed it for the
+worse: a haggard, ugly, malicious face it seemed to his visitor looking
+hard at it to-night. His only greeting was a briefer grunt than
+ordinary.
+
+"I daresay you can guess what's brought me here," said Ned.
+
+The lawyer rapped out his first words jerkily.
+
+"No. I can't."
+
+"Try three guesses," suggested his visitor. "Come now, number one----?"
+
+For a moment Simon was silent, but to-night he could not hide the
+working of that face which usually hid his thoughts so effectually. It
+was plain he hesitated what line to take.
+
+"You have seen Miss Farmond, I hear," he said.
+
+"You're on the scent," said his visitor encouragingly. "Have another
+go."
+
+"You believe her story."
+
+"I do."
+
+"It's false."
+
+Ned stared at him very hard and then he spoke deliberately.
+
+"I'm wondering," said he.
+
+"Wondering what?" asked Simon.
+
+"Whether a horse whip or the toe of a shooting boot is the best cure for
+your complaint."
+
+The lawyer shrank back into his chair.
+
+"Do you threaten me?" he jerked out. "Be careful!"
+
+"If I threatened you I'd certainly do what I threatened," said Ned. "So
+far I'm only wondering. Where did you learn to lie, Mr. Rattar?"
+
+The lawyer made no answer at all. His mind seemed concentrated on
+guessing the other's probable actions.
+
+"Out with it, man! I've met some derned good liars in my time, but you
+beat the lot. I'm anxious to know where you learned the trick, that's
+all."
+
+"Why do you believe her more than me?" asked Simon.
+
+"Because you've been found out lying before. That was a pretty stiff one
+about your engaging Carrington, wasn't it?"
+
+Simon was quite unable to control his violent start, and his face turned
+whiter.
+
+"I--I didn't say I did," he stammered.
+
+"Well," said Ned, "I admit I wasn't there to hear you, but I know
+Carrington made you put your foot fairly in it just by way of helping
+him to size you up, and he got your size right enough too."
+
+"Then----" began Simon, and stopped and changed it into: "What does
+Carrington suspect--er--accuse me of?"
+
+Ned stared at him for several seconds without speaking, and this
+procedure seemed to disconcert the lawyer more than anything had done
+yet.
+
+"What--what does Carrington mean?" he repeated.
+
+"He means you've lied, and he believes Miss Farmond, and he believes Sir
+Malcolm, and he believes me, and he puts you down as a pretty bad egg.
+What did you expect to be accused of?"
+
+Simon could no more hide his relief to-night than he could hide his
+fears.
+
+"Only of what you have told me--only of course of what you say! But I
+can explain. In good time I can explain."
+
+It was at that moment that the door opened sharply and the start the
+lawyer gave showed the state of his nerves after Mr. Cromarty's
+handling. Mary MacLean stood in the doorway, her face twitching.
+
+"What's the matter?" snapped her master.
+
+"Please, sir, there are men in the garden!" she cried.
+
+The lawyer leapt to his feet.
+
+"Men in the garden!" he cried, and there was a note in his voice which
+startled even tough Ned Cromarty. "What are they doing?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. It sounded almost as if they was digging."
+
+Simon swayed for an instant and grasped the back of his chair. Then in a
+muffled voice he muttered:
+
+"I'm going to see!"
+
+He had scarcely made a step towards the door when Cromarty was on his
+feet too.
+
+"Steady!" he cried. "Get out there, and shut the door!"
+
+The towering form and formidable voice sent Mary out with a shut door
+between them almost as the command was off his tongue. A couple of
+strides and he had got the lawyer by the shoulder and pulled him back.
+
+"Sit down!" he commanded.
+
+Simon turned on him with a new expression. The terror had passed away
+and he stood there now as the sheer beast at bay.
+
+"Damn you!" he muttered, and turned his back for a moment.
+
+The next, his hand rose and simultaneously Ned's arm shot out and got
+him by the wrist, while the shock of his onslaught drove the man back
+and down into his chair. Though Simon was tough and stoutly built, he
+was as a child in the hands of his adversary. A sharp twist of the wrist
+was followed by an exclamation of pain and the thud of something heavy
+on the floor. Ned stooped and picked up the globular glass match box
+that had stood on the table. For a few moments he stared at it in dead
+silence, balancing it in his hands. It was like a small cannon ball for
+concentrated weight. Then in a curious voice he asked:
+
+"Is this the first time you have used this?"
+
+Simon made no reply. His face was dead white now, but dogged and grim,
+and his mouth stayed tight as a trap. Ned replaced the match box on the
+table, and planted himself before the fire.
+
+"Nothing to say?" he asked, and Simon said nothing.
+
+They remained like this for minute after minute; not a movement in the
+room and the booming of the wind the only sound. And then came
+footsteps on the gravel and the ringing of a bell.
+
+"We'll probably learn something now," said Ned, but the other still said
+nothing, and only a quick glance towards the door gave a hint of his
+thoughts.
+
+There was no announcement this time. Superintendent Sutherland entered
+first, then the constable, and Carrington last. The superintendent went
+straight up to the lawyer, his large face preternaturally solemn.
+Touching him on the shoulder he said:
+
+"I arrest you in the King's name!"
+
+The man in the chair half started up and then fell back again.
+
+"What for?" he asked huskily.
+
+"The murder of Simon Rattar."
+
+The lawyer took it as one who had seen the sword descending, but not so
+Ned Cromarty.
+
+"Of Simon Rattar!" he shouted. "What the--then who the devil is this?"
+
+Carrington answered. He spoke with his usual easy smile, but his
+triumphant eye betrayed his heart.
+
+"The superintendent has omitted part of the usual formalities," he said.
+"This person should have been introduced as Mr. George Rattar."
+
+"George!" gasped Ned. "But I thought he was dead!"
+
+"So did I," said Carrington, "but he wasn't."
+
+"What proof have you of this story?" demanded the man in the chair
+suddenly.
+
+"We have just dug up your brother's body from that flower bed," said
+Carrington quietly. "Do you recognise his ring?"
+
+He held up a gold signet ring, and the lawyer fell back in his chair.
+
+"But look here!" exclaimed Ned, "what about Sir Reginald's murder? He
+did that too, I suppose!"
+
+Carrington nodded.
+
+"We hope to add that to his account in a day or two. This is enough to
+be going on with, but as a matter of fact we have nearly enough evidence
+now to add the other charge."
+
+"I can add one bit," said Ned, picking up the match box. "He has just
+tried to do me in with this little thing, and I take it, it was the
+third time of using."
+
+Carrington weighed it in his hand, and then said to the prisoner:
+
+"You put it in the end of a stocking, I suppose?"
+
+The man looked up at him with a new expression in his eye. If it were
+not a trace of grim humour, it was hard to say what else it could be.
+
+"Get me a drink," he said huskily, nodding towards the tantalus on the
+side table, "and I'll tell you the whole damned yarn. My God, I'm dry as
+a damned bone!"
+
+"Give me the key of the tantalus," said Carrington promptly.
+
+But the superintendent seemed somewhat taken aback.
+
+"Anything you say may be used against you," he reminded the prisoner.
+
+"You know enough to swing me, anyhow," said Rattar, "but I'd like you to
+know that I didn't really mean to do it. I want that drink first
+though!"
+
+He took the glass of whisky and water and as he raised it to his lips,
+that same curious look came back into his eye.
+
+"Here's to the firm of S. and G. Rattar, and may their clients be as
+damned as themselves!" he said with a glance at Cromarty, and finished
+the drink at a draught.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+THE YARN
+
+
+"I needn't trouble you with my adventures before I came down here to
+visit brother Simon," began the prisoner, "for you know them well
+enough. It was about a month ago when I turned up at this house one
+night."
+
+"How did you get here?" demanded the superintendent.
+
+"I did the last bit under the seat of the carriage," grinned Rattar,
+"and when we got into the station I hopped out on the wrong side of the
+train. The way I paid my fare wasn't bad either, considering I hadn't
+half of the fare from London in my pocket when I started--or anything
+like it. However, the point is I got here and just as I'd come through
+the gates I had the luck to see both the maids going out. So the coast
+was clear.
+
+"Well, I rang the bell and out came Simon--the man who'd got me
+convicted, and my own brother too, mind you!--looking as smug as the
+hard-hearted old humbug he was. He got the shock of his life when he saw
+who it was, but I began gently and I put a proposition to him. I'll bet
+none of you will guess what it was!"
+
+He looked round the company, and Carrington answered:
+
+"Blackmail of some sort."
+
+"You may call it blackmail if you like, but what was the sort? Well,
+you'd never guess. I was wearing a beard and moustaches then, but I knew
+if I took them off I'd look so like Simon that no one meeting one of us
+would know which it was, supposing we were dressed exactly alike and I
+did Simon's grunting tricks and all that. And Simon knew it too.
+
+"'Well, Simon, my dear brother,' I said to him, 'I'll make you a
+sporting proposition. My idea is to settle down in this old place, and
+I'm so fond of you I mean to shave, get an outfit just like yours, and
+give free rein to my affection for you. I'm so fond of you,' I said,
+'that I know I shan't be able to keep more than five yards away from you
+whenever you are walking the streets, and I'll have to sit in church
+beside you, Simon. That's my present programme.'
+
+"I let that sink in, and then I went on:
+
+"'Supposing this programme embarrasses you, Simon, well there's one way
+out of it, and I leave it to your judgment to say what it is.'
+
+"Now, mind you, I'd banked on this coming off, for I knew what a
+stickler Simon was for the respectable and the conventional and all
+that. Can't you see the two of us going through the streets together,
+five yards apart and dressed exactly alike! Wouldn't the small boys have
+liked it! That was my only idea in coming down here. I meant no more
+mischief, I'll swear to that! Unfortunately, though, I'd got so keen on
+the scheme that I hadn't thought of its weak spot.
+
+"Simon said not a word, but just looked at me--exactly as I've been
+looking at people since I took his place in society. And then he asked
+me if I was really very hard up. Like a fool I told him the plain truth,
+that I had inside of five bob in my pockets and that was every penny I
+owned in the world.
+
+"He grinned then--I can see him grinning now--and he said:
+
+"'In that case you'll have a little difficulty in paying your board and
+lodging here, and still more in buying clothes. I tell you what I'll
+do,' he said, 'I'll buy a ticket back to London for you and leave it
+with the stationmaster, and that's every penny you'll ever get out of
+me!'
+
+"I saw he had me, but I wasn't going off on those terms. I damned him to
+his face and he tried to shut the door on me. We were talking at the
+front door all this while, I may mention. I got my foot in the way, and
+as I was always a bit stronger than Simon, I had that door open after a
+tussle and then I followed him into the library.
+
+"I knew the man was hard as flint and never showed mercy to any one in
+his life when he had them on toast, and I knew he had me on toast. How
+was I to get any change out of him? That was what I was wondering as I
+followed him, and then all at once something--the devil if you
+like--put the idea into my head. I'd _be_ Simon!"
+
+He looked round on his audience as though he still relished the memory
+of that inspiration.
+
+"The beauty of the idea was that no one would ever dream of suspecting a
+man of not being himself! They might suspect him of a lot of things, but
+not of that. I hadn't thought of the scheme ten seconds before I
+realised how dead safe it was so long as I kept my head. And I have kept
+it. No one can deny that!"
+
+His glance this time challenged a contradiction, but no one spoke. The
+circle of steadfast eyes and silent lips he seemed to take as a tribute
+to his address, for he smiled and then went on:
+
+"Yes, I kept my head from the beginning. I stood talking to him in this
+very room, he refusing to answer anything except to repeat that he'd buy
+a ticket to London and leave it with the stationmaster, and I working
+out the scheme--what to do it with and how to manage afterwards. I knew
+it was a swinging risk, but against that was a starving certainty, and
+then I spied that match box and the thing was settled. I got him to look
+the other way for a moment--and then he was settled. Give me another
+drink!"
+
+Carrington got him a drink and he gulped it down, and then turned
+suddenly on Ned Cromarty.
+
+"Your damned glass eye has been getting on my nerves long enough!" he
+exclaimed. "My God, that eye and your habit of hanging people--I've had
+enough of them! Can't you turn it away from me?"
+
+"Won't turn," said Ned coolly, "spring broken. Get on with your story!"
+
+Even in his privileged position as prisoner, Rattar seemed disinclined
+to have trouble with his formidable ex-client. He answered nothing, but
+turned his shoulder to him and continued:
+
+"After that was over I set about covering my tracks. The first part was
+the worst. Before the maids came back I had to get Simon stowed away for
+the night--no time to bury him then of course, and I had to get into his
+clothes, shave, and learn the lie of the house and all that. I did it
+all right and came down to breakfast next morning and passed muster with
+the servants, and never a suspicion raised!"
+
+"There was a little," remarked Carrington, "but never enough."
+
+"Not enough was good enough!"
+
+"I am not quite certain of that," said Carrington. "However, go on. Your
+next bunker was the office."
+
+The prisoner nodded.
+
+"It took some nerve," he said complacently, "and I'm free to confess
+that to begin with I always had a beastly feeling that some one was
+watching me and spotting something that didn't look quite right, but,
+good Lord, keeping my head the way I kept it, there was nothing to worry
+about! Who would ever think that the Simon Rattar who walked into his
+office and grunted at his clerks on Wednesday morning, wasn't the same
+Simon Rattar who walked in and grunted on Tuesday morning? And then I
+had one tremendous pull in knowing all the ropes from old days. Simon
+was a conservative man, nothing was ever changed--not even the clerks,
+so I had the whole routine at my fingers. And he was an easy man to
+imitate too. That was where I scored again. I daresay I have inherited
+some of the same tricks myself. I know I found them come quite easy--the
+stare and the silence and the grunts and the rest of them. And then I
+always had more brains than Simon and could pick up business quicker.
+You should have heard me making that ass Malcolm Cromarty, and the
+Farmond girl, and this hangman with the glass eye tell me all about
+themselves and what their business was, without their ever suspecting
+they were being pumped! For, mind you, I'd never set eyes on Malcolm
+Cromarty or the Farmond girl before in my life! No, it wasn't at the
+office I had the nastiest time. It was burying the body that night."
+
+The boastful smile died off his lips and for a moment he shivered a
+little.
+
+"What happened about that?" enquired Carrington keenly.
+
+Rattar's voice instinctively fell a little.
+
+"When I got home that afternoon I found he wasn't quite dead after all!"
+
+"That accounts for it!" murmured Carrington.
+
+"For what?"
+
+"Your maid heard him moving."
+
+The prisoner seemed to have recovered from his passing emotion.
+
+"And I told her it was a rat, and she swallowed it!" he laughed. "Well,
+he didn't move for long, and I had fixed up quite a good scheme for
+getting him out of the house. A man was to call for old papers. I even
+did two voices talking in the hall to make the bluff complete! Not being
+able to get his ring off his finger rather worried me, but I put that
+right by an advertisement in the paper saying I'd lost it!"
+
+He was arrested by the look on Carrington's face.
+
+"What happened?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that gave me away?"
+
+"Those superfluous precautions generally give people away."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"It doesn't matter now. You'll learn later. What next?"
+
+"Next?" said Rattar. "Well, I just went on keeping my head and bluffing
+people----" he broke off, looked at Superintendent Sutherland, and gave
+a short laugh. "I only lost my nerve a bit once, and that was when the
+glass-eyed hangman butted in and said he was going to get down a
+detective. It struck me then it was time I was off--and what's more, I
+started!"
+
+The superintendent's mouth fell open.
+
+"You--you weren't the man----" he began.
+
+"Yes," scoffed the prisoner, "I was the man with toothache in that
+empty carriage. I'd got in at the wrong side after the ticket collector
+passed and just about twenty seconds before you opened the door. But the
+sight of your red face made me change my plans, and I was out again
+before that train started! A bright policeman you are! After that I
+decided to stick it out and face the music; and I faced it."
+
+His mouth shut tight and he sat back in his chair, his eyes travelling
+round the others as though to mark their unwilling admiration. He
+certainly saw it in the faces of the two open-eyed policemen, but
+Cromarty's was hard and set, and he seemed still to be waiting.
+
+"You haven't told us about Sir Reginald yet," he said.
+
+Rattar looked at him defiantly.
+
+"No evidence there," he said with a cunning shake of his head, "you can
+go on guessing!"
+
+"Would you like to smoke a pipe?" asked Carrington suddenly.
+
+The man's eyes gleamed.
+
+"By God, yes!"
+
+"You can have one if you tell us about Sir Reginald. We've got you
+anyhow, and there will be evidence enough there too when we've put it
+together."
+
+The superintendent looked a trifle shocked, but Carrington's sway over
+him was by this time evidently unbounded. He coughed an official protest
+but said nothing.
+
+The prisoner only hesitated for a moment. He saw Carrington taking out a
+cigarette, and then he took out his keys and said:
+
+"This is the key for that drawer. You'll find my pipe and baccy there.
+I'll tell you the rest." And then he started and exclaimed: "But how the
+h-- did you know I smoked?"
+
+"At five minutes past nine o'clock last night," said Carrington, as he
+handed him his pipe, "I was within three paces of you."
+
+The prisoner stared at him with a wry face.
+
+"You devil!" he murmured, and then added with some philosophy: "After
+all, I'd sooner be hanged than stop smoking." And with that he lit his
+pipe.
+
+"You want to know about old Cromarty," he resumed. "Well, I made my
+first bad break when I carried on a correspondence with him which Simon
+had begun, not knowing they had had a talk between whiles cancelling the
+whole thing. You know about it and about the letter Sir Reginald sent me
+after I'd written. Well, when I got that letter I admit it rattled me a
+bit. I've often wondered since whether he had really suspected anything
+or whether he would have sooner or later. Anyhow I got it into my head
+that the game was up if something didn't happen. And so it happened."
+
+"You went and killed him?" said Ned.
+
+"That's for you and your glass eye to find out!" snapped the prisoner.
+
+"Take his pipe away," said Carrington quietly.
+
+"Damn it!" cried Rattar, "I'll tell you, only I'm fed up with that man's
+bullying! I put it in a stocking" (he nodded towards the match box)
+"just as you guessed and I went out to Keldale that night. My God, what
+a walk that was in the dark! I'd half forgotten the way down to the
+house and I thought every other tree was a man watching me. I don't know
+yet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and I
+thought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, and
+I'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping in
+his dressing room. Give me another drink!"
+
+Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.
+
+"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on the
+glass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinned
+at him and he let me in, and then----" He broke off and fell forward in
+his chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!"
+he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"
+
+Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by the
+arm.
+
+"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary.
+You can't touch him now."
+
+Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.
+
+"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to the
+superintendent.
+
+They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+THE LAST CHAPTER
+
+
+On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and that
+was to exclaim:
+
+"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me more
+before I went in?"
+
+"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish
+undiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."
+
+They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sitting
+room and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed away
+an empty tumbler.
+
+"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tell
+me how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupid
+I've been!"
+
+"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at this
+game, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as good
+guidance that put me on to the truth at last."
+
+"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were up
+against it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying at
+the start. Well, that was pretty smart of you to begin with. Then, what
+next? How did things come?"
+
+"Well," said Carrington, "I picked up a little something on my first
+visit to Keldale. From Bisset's description I gathered that the body
+must have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why?
+Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, the
+broken table, the mud on the floor, and the hearth brush, the odds
+seemed heavy on entry by the window. I also found that the middle blind
+had been out of order that night and that it _might_ have been quite
+possible for any one outside to have seen Sir Reginald sitting in the
+room and known he was alone there. Again, it seemed long odds on his
+having recognised the man outside and opened the window himself, which,
+again, pointed to the man being some one he knew quite well and never
+suspected mischief from."
+
+"Those were always my own ideas, except that I felt bamboozled where you
+felt clear--which shows the difference between our brains!"
+
+Carrington laughed and shook his head.
+
+"I wish I could think so! No, no, it's merely a case of every man to his
+own trade. And as a matter of fact I was left just as bamboozled as you
+were. For who could this mysterious man be? Of the people inside the
+house, I had struck out Miss Farmond, Bisset, Lady Cromarty, and all the
+female servants. Only Sir Malcolm was left. I wired for him to come up
+and was able to score him out too. I also visited you and scored you
+out. So there I was--with no conceivable criminal!"
+
+"But you'd already begun to suspect Rattar, hadn't you?"
+
+"I knew he had lied about engaging me; I discovered from Lady Cromarty
+that he had told her of Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond--and I
+suspected he had started her suspicions of them; and I saw that he was
+set on that theory, in spite of the fact that it was palpably improbable
+if one actually knew the people. Of course if one didn't, it was
+plausible enough. When I first came down here it seemed to me a very
+likely theory and I was prepared to find a guilty couple, but when I met
+Miss Farmond and told her suddenly that Sir Malcolm was arrested, and
+she gazed blankly at me and asked 'What for?' well, I simply ran my
+pencil, so to speak, through her name and there was an end of her! The
+same with Sir Malcolm when I met him. And yet here was the family
+lawyer, who knew them both perfectly, so convinced of their guilt that
+he was obviously stifling investigation in any other direction. And on
+top of all that, all my natural instincts and intuitions told me that
+the man was a bad hat."
+
+"But didn't all that make you suspect him?"
+
+"Of what? Of leaving his respectable villa at the dead of night,
+tramping several miles at his age in the dark, and deliberately
+murdering his own best client and old friend under circumstances so
+risky to himself that only a combination of lucky chances saw him
+safely through the adventure? Nothing--absolutely nothing but homicidal
+mania could possibly account for such a performance, and the man was
+obviously as sane as you or I. I felt certain that there was something
+wrong somewhere, but as for suspecting him of being the principal in the
+crime, the idea was stark lunacy!"
+
+"By George, it was a tough proposition!" said Ned. "By the way, had you
+heard of George Rattar at that time?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I heard of him, and knew they resembled one another, but as I
+was told that he had left the place for years and was now dead, my
+thoughts never even once ran in that direction until I got into a state
+of desperation, and then I merely surmised that his misdeeds might have
+been at the bottom of some difficulty between Simon and Sir Reginald."
+
+"Then how on earth did you ever get on to the right track?"
+
+"I never would have if the man hadn't given himself away. To begin with,
+he was fool enough to fall in with my perfectly genuine assumption that
+he was either employing me or acting for my employer. No doubt he stood
+to score if the bluff had come off, and he banked on your stipulation
+that your name shouldn't appear. But if he had only been honest in that
+matter, my suspicions would never have started--not at that point
+anyhow."
+
+"That was Providence--sure!" said Ned with conviction.
+
+"I'm inclined to think it was," agreed Carrington. "Then again his
+advice to Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond was well enough designed to
+further his own scheme of throwing suspicion on them, but it simply
+ended in his being bowled out both times, and throwing suspicion on
+himself. But _the_ precaution which actually gave him away was putting
+in that advertisement about his ring."
+
+"I was just wondering," said Ned, "how that did the trick."
+
+"By the merest fluke. I noticed it when I was making enquiries at the
+Police Office on quite different lines, but you can imagine that I
+switched off my other enquiries pretty quick when Superintendent
+Sutherland calmly advanced the theory that the ring was stolen when
+Rattar's house was entered by some one unknown on the very night of the
+murder!"
+
+"This is the first I've heard of that!" cried Ned.
+
+"It was the first I had, but it led me straight to Rattar's house and a
+long heart to heart talk with his housemaid. That was when I collected
+that extraordinary mixed bag of information which I was wondering
+yesterday whether to believe or not. Here are the items, and you can
+judge for yourself what my state of mind was when I was carrying about
+the following precious pieces of information."
+
+He ticked the items off on his fingers.
+
+"A mysterious man who entered the garden one night and left his
+footprints in the gravel, and whose visit had a strange and mysterious
+effect on Rattar. Funny feelings produced in the bosom of the housemaid
+by the presence of her master. Doors of unused rooms mysteriously locked
+and keys taken away; said to be old papers inside. Mysterious visit of
+mysterious man at dead of night to remove the said papers. A ring that
+couldn't come off the owner's finger mysteriously lost. Mysterious
+burglary on night of the murder by mysterious burglar who left all
+windows and doors locked behind him and took nothing away. Mysterious
+perambulations of his garden every night at nine o'clock by Mr. Simon
+Rattar."
+
+"Great Scot!" murmured Cromarty.
+
+"I have given you the items in what turned out to be their order of
+date, but I got them higgledy-piggledy and served up in a sauce of
+mystery and trembly sensations that left me utterly flummoxed as to how
+much--if anything--was sober fact. However, I began by fastening on to
+two things. The first was the burglary, which of course at once
+suggested the possibility that the man who had committed the crime at
+Keldale had returned to Rattar's house and got in by that window. The
+second was the nightly perambulations, which could easily be tested.
+When Mr. Rattar emerged at nine that night, I was in the garden before
+him. And what do you think he did?"
+
+"Had a look at his brother's grave?"
+
+"Smoked two pipes of tobacco! A man who was an anti-tobacco fanatic! The
+truth hit me straight in the eye--'That man is not Simon Rattar!' And
+then of course everything dropped into its place. The ex-convict twin
+brother, the only evidence of whose supposititious death was an
+announcement in the paper, obviously put in as a blind. The personal
+resemblance between the two. All the yarns told me by the housemaid,
+including the strange visitor--George of course arriving; the man who
+came for the papers--George himself taking out the body; and the
+vanished ring. Everything fitted in now, and the correspondence between
+Sir Reginald and Rattar which had beaten me before, gave the clue at
+once as to motive."
+
+"I guess you felt you had deserved a drink that trip!" said Ned.
+
+"I didn't stop to have my drink. I went straight off to see old Ison
+and pumped him for the rest of the evening. He wasn't very helpful
+but everything I could get out of him went to confirm my theory. I
+found for certain that Simon Rattar had never smoked in his life, and
+that George used to be a heavy smoker. I also learned that a few
+recent peculiarities of conduct had struck the not too observant Ison,
+one being very suggestive. Rattar, it seemed, kept an old pair of kid
+gloves in his desk which he was in the habit of wearing when he was
+alone in the office."
+
+"Don't quite see the bearing of that."
+
+"Well, on my hypothesis it was to avoid leaving finger marks. You see
+George was an ex-convict. It was a very judicious precaution too, and
+made it extremely difficult to catch him out by that means, for one
+could scarcely approach a respectable solicitor and ask him for an
+impression of his fingers! And anyhow, nothing could be definitely
+proved against him until we had found Simon's body. That was the next
+problem. Where had he hidden it?"
+
+"And how did you get at that?"
+
+"Guessed it. At first my thoughts went too far afield, but when I went
+over the times mentioned in the maid's story of the man who took away
+the papers, and the fact that she heard no sound of a wheeled vehicle, I
+realised that he must have simply planted it in one of the flower beds.
+This morning I prodded them all with a stout walking stick and found the
+spot. Then I talked like a father to old Sutherland and fixed everything
+up with him. And then I sent my wire to you."
+
+"And you deliberately tell me you got there as much by good luck as good
+guidance?"
+
+Carrington's eyes thoughtfully followed his smoke rings.
+
+"I can see the luck at every turn," he answered, "and though I'd like to
+believe in the guidance, I'm hanged if it's quite as distinct!"
+
+"If you are telling me the neat, unvarnished truth, Carrington," said
+his admiring employer, "I can only say that you've a lot to learn about
+your own abilities--and I hope to Heaven you'll never learn it!"
+
+"But I assure you there are some people who think me conceited!"
+
+"There are guys of all sorts in the world," said Ned. "For instance
+there's a girl who has mistaken me for a daisy, and I've got to get back
+to her now. Good night! I won't say 'Thanks' because I can't shout it
+loud enough."
+
+When his gig lamps had flashed up the silent street and Carrington had
+turned back from the pavement into the hotel, he met his friend Miss
+Peterkin.
+
+"Mr. Cromarty's late to-night," said she. "A fine gentleman that! I
+always say there are few like Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland."
+
+"That's lucky for me," said Carrington with a smile that puzzled her a
+little. "My business in life would be gone if there were!"
+
+                              THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Simon, by J. Storer Clouston
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