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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man From the Clouds, 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: The Man From the Clouds
+
+Author: J. Storer Clouston
+
+Posting Date: December 5, 2011 [EBook #9852]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 24, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS
+
+BY
+
+J. STORER CLOUSTON
+
+1919
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I In the Clouds
+
+   II The Man on the Shore
+
+  III Alone Again
+
+   IV The Suspicious Stranger
+
+    V The Doctor's House
+
+   VI A Petticoat
+
+  VII At the Mansion House
+
+ VIII Sunday
+
+   IX An Ally
+
+    X The Coast Patrol
+
+   XI A Near Thing
+
+  XII The Key Turned
+
+ XIII On the Drifter
+
+  XIV My Cousin's Letter
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I An Idea
+
+   II A Little Dinner
+
+  III The Alcoholic Patient
+
+   IV The Test
+
+    V Waiting
+
+   VI The Spectacled Man
+
+  VII A Reminiscence
+
+ VIII H.M.S. _Uruguay_
+
+   IX Bolton on the Track
+
+    X Where the Clue Led
+
+   XI An Eye-Opener
+
+  XII The Confidant
+
+ XIII Jean's Guesses
+
+  XIV The Pocket Book
+
+   XV Part of the Truth
+
+  XVI Tracked Down
+
+ XVII The Rest of the Truth
+
+XVIII The Frosty Road
+
+  XIX Our Morning Call
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+I
+
+IN THE CLOUDS
+
+
+"My God," said Rutherford, "the cable has broken!"
+
+In an instant I was craning over the side of the basket. Five hundred
+feet, 700 feet, 1000 feet, 2000 feet below us, the cruiser that had been
+our only link with the world of man was diminishing so swiftly that, as
+far as I remember, she had shrunk to the smallness of a tug and then
+vanished into the haze before I even answered him.
+
+"Anything to be done?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing," said he.
+
+It had been growing steadily more misty even down near the water, and now
+as the released balloon shot up into an altitude of five, ten, and
+presently twelve thousand feet, everything in Heaven and earth
+disappeared except that white and clammy fog. By a simultaneous impulse
+he lit a cigarette and I a pipe, and I remember very plainly wondering
+whether he felt any touch of that self-conscious defiance of fate and
+deliberate intention to do the coolest thing possible, which I am free to
+confess I felt myself. Probably not; Rutherford was the real Navy and I
+but a zig-zag ringed R.N.V.R. amateur. Still, the spirit of the Navy is
+infectious and I made a fair attempt to keep his stout heart company.
+
+"What _ought_ to happen to a thing like this?" I enquired.
+
+"If this wind holds we might conceivably make a landing somewhere--with
+extraordinary luck."
+
+"On the other side?"
+
+He nodded and I reflected.
+
+It was towards the end of August, 1914. We were somewhere about the
+middle of the North Sea when the observation balloon was sent up, and I
+had persuaded Rutherford to take me up with him in the basket. Five
+minutes ago I had been telling myself I was the luckiest R.N.V.R.
+Sub-Lieutenant in the Navy; and then suddenly the appalling thing
+happened. I may not give away any naval secrets, but everybody knows, I
+presume, that towed balloons are sometimes used at sea, and it is pretty
+obvious that certain accidents are liable to happen to them. In this case
+the most obvious of all accidents happened; the cable snapped, and there
+we were heading, as far as I could judge, for the stars that twinkle over
+the German coast. At least, our aneroid showed that we were going upwards
+faster than any bird could rise, and the west wind was blowing straight
+for the mouth of the Elbe when we last felt it--for, of course, in a free
+balloon one ceases to feel wind altogether.
+
+Neither of us spoke for some time, and then a thought struck me suddenly
+and I asked:--
+
+"Did you notice what o'clock it was when we broke loose?"
+
+Rutherford nodded.
+
+"I'm taking the time," said he, "and assuming the twenty knot breeze
+holds, we might risk a drop about six o'clock."
+
+"A drop" meant jumping into space and trusting one's parachute to do its
+business properly. I felt a sudden tightening inside me as I thought of
+that dive into the void, but I asked calmly enough:
+
+"And assuming the breeze doesn't hold?"
+
+"Oh, it will hold all right; it will rise if anything," said he.
+
+We had only been shipmates for a week (that being the extent of my
+nautical experience), but I had learned enough about Rutherford in that
+time to know that he was one of the most positive and self-confident men
+breathing. One had to make allowance for this; still, that is the kind of
+company one wants in an involuntary balloon expedition across the North
+Sea through a dense fog.
+
+"And where are we likely to come down?" I enquired.
+
+"We might make the German coast as far south as Borkum or one of the
+other islands, or we might land somewhere as far north as Holstein."
+
+"Not Holland or Denmark?"
+
+He shook his head positively, "No such luck."
+
+Though this was a trifle depressing, it was comforting to feel that one
+was with a man who knew his way about the air so thoroughly. I looked at
+our map, judged the wind, and decided that he was probably right. The
+chances of fetching a neutral country seemed very slender. Curiously
+enough the chances of never reaching any country at all had passed out of
+my calculations for the moment. Rutherford was so perfectly assured.
+
+"And what's the programme when we do land?" I asked.
+
+"Well, we've got to get out of the place as quickly as possible. That's
+pretty evident."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You know the lingo, don't you?"
+
+"Pretty well."
+
+"Well enough not to be spotted as a foreigner?"
+
+"I almost think so."
+
+"First thing I ever heard to the credit of the diplomatic service!" he
+laughed. "Well, you'll have to pitch a yarn of some kind if we fall in
+with any of the natives. Of course we'll try and avoid 'em if we can, and
+work across country either for Denmark or Holland by compass."
+
+"Have you got a compass?" I asked.
+
+"Damn!" he exclaimed, and for a few moments a frown settled on his bull
+dog face. Then it cleared again and he said, "After all we'll have to
+move about by night and the stars will do just as well."
+
+He was never much of a talker and after this he fell absolutely silent
+and I was left to my thoughts. Though I had fortunately put on plenty of
+extra clothes for the ascent, I began to feel chilly up at that altitude
+enshrouded in that cold white mist, and I don't mind admitting that my
+thoughts gradually became a little more serious than (to be quite honest)
+they usually are. I hardly think Rutherford, with all his virtues, had
+much imagination. I have a good deal--a little too much at times--and
+several other possible endings to our voyage besides a safe landing and
+triumphant escape began to present themselves. Two especially I had to
+steel my thoughts against continually--a descent with a parachute that
+declined to open, whether on to German or any other soil, or else a
+splash and then a brief struggle in the cold North Sea. I am no great
+swimmer and it would be soon over.
+
+And so the hours slowly passed; always the same mist and generally the
+same silence. Occasionally we talked a little, and then for a long space
+our voices would cease and there would be utter and absolute quiet,--not
+the smallest sound of any sort or kind. We had been silent for a long,
+long time and I had done quite as much thinking as was good for my
+nerves, when Rutherford suddenly exclaimed,
+
+"We are over land!"
+
+He was looking over the edge of the basket, and instantly I was staring
+into space on my side. There was certainly nothing to see but mist.
+
+"I can smell land," said he, "and I heard something just now."
+
+"At this height!" I exclaimed.
+
+"We are down to well under six thousand feet," said he.
+
+I wanted to be convinced, but this was more than I could believe.
+
+"The smell must be devilish strong," I observed. "And I'm afraid I must
+have a cold in my head. Besides, it's only five-thirty."
+
+As I have said, poor Rutherford was the most positive fellow in the
+world. He stuck to it that we were over land, but I managed to persuade
+him to wait a little longer to make sure. He waited half an hour and
+when he spoke then I could see that his mind was made up.
+
+"We are falling pretty rapidly," said he, "and personally I'd sooner take
+my chance in a parachute than stick in this basket till we bump. If one
+is going to try a drop, the great thing is to see that it's a long drop.
+Parachutes don't always open as quick as they're intended to. At any
+moment we may begin to fall suddenly, so I'm going overboard now."
+
+My own career has hitherto failed to convince my friends that prudence is
+my besetting virtue, but whether it was the sobering effect of those long
+hours of chilly thinking, or whether my good angel came to my rescue, I
+know not; anyhow I shook my head as firmly as he nodded his.
+
+"We have only been going the minimum time you allowed for making land," I
+argued, "and quite possibly the breeze may have dropped a bit. Honestly I
+haven't heard a sound or smelt a smell that faintly suggested land
+underneath, and we can still drop a lot more and have room to take to the
+parachutes. Let's wait till we get down to one thousand feet."
+
+"You do as you please," said he. "I'm going over."
+
+"And I'm not going yet," said I.
+
+We looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then he held
+out his hand.
+
+"Well, good-bye and good luck!" said he.
+
+"Wait a little bit longer!" I implored him.
+
+"My dear Merton," he said, "I feel it in my bones that we've been going a
+lot faster than we calculated. In fact I _know_ we have! One gets an
+instinct for that sort of thing, and also one gets a sort of general idea
+when to cut the basket and jump. I tell you we've been over land for the
+last half hour. Come on, old chap, I honestly advise you to jump too."
+
+I almost yielded, but some instinct seemed to hold me back. The thought
+that he might think I was deserting him, the suspicion that he
+suspected I was a little afraid of the drop, nearly drove me over the
+edge of the basket with him. I felt a brute for hanging back, but in my
+heart I felt just as certain he was jumping too soon as he felt that I
+was waiting too long. So I shook his hand, and over he went; I had one
+glimpse of something dark below me, and then the mist swallowed him up.
+Rutherford was gone, and I may as well say now that not a sign of him
+was ever seen again.
+
+If you want to know what loneliness--real horrifying loneliness--is like,
+I know no better recipe than drifting through a fog in a balloon, with
+your only companion gone, and not the faintest belief in your heart that
+you are within a hundred miles of any square inch of earth. I almost
+think the fact that the balloon was steadily sinking and that sooner or
+later I should have to leap from it too was the one thing that kept my
+spirits anyways up to the mark. The prospect of even the most desperate
+action was better than interminably facing that clammy void.
+
+Though the chance of making land seemed to me infinitesimally remote by
+this time, yet in case I had such almost inconceivable luck, it was well
+to make some preparations for having a run for my money in an enemy
+country. I took off my uniform coat, transferring everything I wanted to
+keep from its pockets to those of my oilskin. I then put this on and
+buttoned it up, and of course I took off my cap.
+
+And then I smoked another pipe and watched the aneroid and tried not to
+think at all, till with a start I realised we were considerably less than
+a thousand feet above--the land or the sea? Heaven knew which, but we
+were falling fast and there was no more time to lose. I hitched the
+parachute on to my leg, got on the edge of the basket, and then--well, I
+all but funked it. I remember my last thought was a horrible simile of a
+man jumping off a tree with a rope round his neck, and then somehow or
+other I forced myself to let go.
+
+Concerning the next few seconds I can give no statistics, whether as to
+height or pace. I only know that when I first became conscious of
+anything, I was drifting like a snow flake down through the mist, and
+that I could fill several pages with my thoughts in the course of that
+drift. It seemed to me that there was hardly an incident in my life
+which didn't fly through my brain like a cinema being worked at lightning
+speed. Some of the most vivid incidents were the last three balls of the
+over in which I topped the century in the 'Varsity match, my interview
+with my poor dear uncle when I broke the news that I had to face the
+official receiver and chuck the diplomatic service, and the first night
+of "Bill's All Right" when I made my debut on the stage. A brilliant
+career! And very swiftly reviewed, for just as I had reached the
+theatrical episodes, there was an extraordinary change in the light, and
+my thoughts very abruptly shifted from my past misdemeanours.
+
+It had been evening when I dropped from the clouds, but the mist kept the
+light very white though rather dim. Now a sudden blackness seemed to rise
+up underneath my descending feet, and at the same moment the mist thinned
+out till I could see for a space all round below me. This space was green
+and almost before I realised what the greenness meant I was sitting in a
+field of clover.
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE MAN ON THE SHORE
+
+
+The breeze that had been driving the balloon along high overhead was
+evidently an upper current only, for it was almost quite still in that
+clover field. What between the falling of evening and the thin mist, my
+vision was limited to a radius of about a quarter of a mile or so, but I
+can assure you I studied that visible space more intently than I have
+ever studied anything in my life. It seemed to be an almost flat country
+I had landed in, all cultivated but very bare. I was within fifty yards
+or so of a low rough stone wall, and on the further side of that lay a
+field of corn. On every other side other fields faded into the evening
+and the mist, and that was all there was to be seen. I saw no sign of a
+house, or of a tree, or of a hedgerow, and I heard not a sound but the
+cry of a distant sea bird.
+
+In the gay days when I was attache at Berlin I had acquired a fair
+general acquaintance with Germany, and I instantly put down the place I
+had landed in as some part of the flat wind-swept country not far from
+the North Sea coast. In fact the crying seagull suggested that the shore
+was fairly close at hand. This so exactly fitted in with our calculations
+that I made up my mind definitely and at once to start with it as a
+working hypothesis and behave accordingly.
+
+But how precisely was one to behave accordingly? In which direction
+should I turn? What should I aim at? Should I look for a house or a
+native and trust to my German still being up to its old high water mark,
+or should I lie low for the night? I simply stood and wondered for some
+minutes, and then I decided on one prompt and immediate deed. The
+parachute must be hidden, so far as that countryside was capable of
+hiding anything.
+
+I packed it up as neatly as I could, and then started for the low wall.
+My first steps on the firm ground with its soft mat of clover and grasses
+gave me an extraordinary sensation of pleasure. Merely to be alive and on
+the earth again seemed to leave nothing to wish for. Close to the wall a
+peewee rose suddenly from my feet and flapped off into the dusk with one
+melancholy cry after another. "Peewee! Peewee!" I shall never hear that
+sound without thinking of that lonesome misty field. I stopped and looked
+round me anxiously, but not a living thing besides had been disturbed,
+and presently I was stowing the parachute away in a bed of high rank
+grass and docken just under the wall.
+
+Then I stood still and listened again. Once more a distant sea bird
+cried and I decided to make for the sound on the chance of finding the
+coast line and getting at least one bearing. I followed the line of the
+wall, crossed another low wall and another field of thin rough grass, and
+then I realised that I was almost on the brink of the sea. The wash of
+the swell on rocks met my ear and the dull misty green of the land faded
+into the misty grey of wide waters.
+
+I stepped over yet another of those low tumbledown walls and now I was on
+the crisp short grass that fringes coasts, with rocks before me and the
+sea quite visible about thirty feet below. So I had just made land and no
+more! Poor Rutherford; I guessed his fate at once.
+
+A little aimlessly I set out to the left. Somehow or other I had got it
+into my head that I was nearer the Dutch than the Danish border and my
+idea was to head for a neutral country. The coast line swung inland round
+a cove and at the same time dipped sharply, and hardly had I turned to
+follow it when a figure seemed to spring up out of the dip.
+
+Whether the man had been squatting down, or whether it was the slope of
+the ground that suddenly revealed him, I know not, but there he was not
+ten paces away. I could see that he wore an oilskin and sou'wester and
+judged him at once as a fisherman.
+
+"Good evening!" I cried genially in my best German. "It's a fine night!"
+
+"Good evening!" said he, also in German and quite involuntarily it
+seemed, for the next instant he spoke again in a very different key, and
+_in English_.
+
+"My God! Are you insane?" he said in a low intense voice and with a
+distinct trace of guttural accent. "Don't speak German here! Have you no
+other language? Don't you speak English?"
+
+I don't know whether you could have literally knocked me down with a
+feather, but a stout feather would certainly have come pretty near doing
+it. I simply gaped at him.
+
+Again he spoke; this time in German, but almost in a whisper.
+
+"Do not speak German here so loudly! Do you not know any English?"
+
+A dim perception of the almost incredible truth began to dawn on me
+and I did my best to grapple with the situation. I had to account
+for my astonished stare; that was the first thought that flashed
+through my head.
+
+"Of course I speak English," I said, and by the favour of Heaven I found
+myself instinctively saying those words in the very accents of the German
+waiter in "Bill's All Right" (my first offence on the professional
+stage), "but I thought you were Hans Eckstein. I could hardly believe my
+own eyes!"
+
+"Hans Eckstein? Who is he?" demanded my new acquaintance, and I was
+pleased to observe no suspicion in his voice, merely a little
+astonishment.
+
+"A friend," I answered glibly, "one of us."
+
+He looked at me for a moment, very narrowly, and in those seconds of
+silence I began to realise more exactly what must have happened. The
+upper current of air had been blowing _westwards_--not eastwards as the
+wind blew on the surface. The good land under my feet was assuredly not
+Germany; almost certainly it must be part of my own blessed native
+island, or why this insistence on my speaking English, rather than, say,
+Dutch or Danish? And then the man I was speaking to, what must he
+obviously be? There was only one answer possible.
+
+I may add that I had the presence of mind not to stare blankly at him
+while I thought these thoughts. I let him do the staring while I fished
+my pipe out of my oilskin pocket and began to fill it.
+
+"So!" he murmured, and I thought he seemed satisfied enough, especially
+as he asked with manifest curiosity but without any apparent suspicion in
+his voice, "And how did you get here?"
+
+Yet when I looked up from my pipe-filling to answer him I could almost
+swear that he had done something to make his features less
+visible--pulled his sou'wester further down and sunk his chin into the
+high collar of his oilskin, it certainly seemed to me. As I had gathered
+a very insufficient impression of him before, this was a little
+provoking. Still, I told myself that our acquaintance was only beginning.
+How to ripen it--that was the problem. I tried the effect of merely
+winking and saying with a cool, knowing air:
+
+"The usual way. Do you have to ask?"
+
+He looked sharply up and down the rocks and out to sea and I saw
+instantly what was in his mind.
+
+"Impossible! There was no signal. I have been looking out all the
+time," said he.
+
+I merely laughed.
+
+"How else do you think I could have come?"
+
+"So!" he murmured again, and then he asked a curious question.
+
+"Do you know if there are many sheep on this island?"
+
+So I had landed on an island! That was the first and chief deduction
+I drew from this enquiry. The second was that the man's English must
+be a little weak. Obviously he meant something rather different from
+what he said.
+
+"Sheep?" I said with a laugh. "No, my friend, I have something else to do
+than count sheep."
+
+Again he looked at me for a moment, his face now almost completely
+hidden by the peak of his sou'wester. If by any chance he were still
+doubting me the best thing seemed to be a touch of candour and an appeal
+he could scarcely resist.
+
+"See here," I said, lowering my voice, "I want to stop in this island
+to-night. In fact those are my orders. Now where can you find me a
+safe place?"
+
+He lowered his voice too. In fact he seemed to reciprocate my confidence
+very satisfactorily.
+
+"We must be very careful. I must see that the coast is clear first. Just
+you sit and wait here for ten minutes. I will be back."
+
+He nodded at me to enforce his injunctions and added as he turned away,
+
+"Keep sitting down. Mind that!"
+
+I sat down, finished filling my pipe, lit it, and waited. And as I waited
+I frankly confess I fairly hugged myself. Never before was there such a
+bit of luck, thought I. That that vagabond balloon should actually bring
+its passenger back to his native land instead of dropping him in the sea
+or landing him in Germany was fortunate almost beyond belief, but that he
+should then stumble on a German spy and actually convince the man that he
+was a confederate and lead him straight into the net already spreading
+for him, surely showed that after a considerable run of ill luck (and, I
+must confess, ill guidance), the passenger had suddenly become Fortune's
+prime favourite. Several very eligible and commodious castles were
+constructed in the night air by that lonely shore as I sat and smoked.
+
+And then I heard a cautious but distinct whistle, and up I jumped and
+looked all round me. There was no one to be seen, but the sound came from
+the right--the way I had come, and I set off through the thickening dusk
+in that direction. But the odd thing was that I walked considerably
+further than the sound of the whistle could have carried and never a sign
+of human being or of house did I see--nothing but that desolate grassy
+sea-board and the faintly gleaming waters.
+
+I stopped and began to wonder, and then I heard the whistle again. It was
+still ahead of me, so on I walked and once more the same thing occurred.
+This time I paused for at least another ten minutes, but nobody appeared
+and nothing whatever happened. There I was, utterly alone once more, with
+the land growing black and the sea dim and not a sound now even from the
+sea gulls.
+
+
+
+III
+
+ALONE AGAIN
+
+
+"The man has suspected me!" I said to myself.
+
+It was an unpleasant conclusion, but the more carefully I thought over
+every little circumstance the more certain I felt it was the true one. To
+begin with, there was the way in which he kept his face concealed after
+the first few sentences we exchanged. Then there was that curious
+question about the sheep. It must have been a password--I saw that now,
+and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had
+no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with some
+equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was using
+a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I had
+missed the point absolutely.
+
+Finally there was his conduct in slipping away and leaving me stranded
+like this. Surely it was the very last trick to play on an accomplice. In
+fact it settled the matter. But why then did he whistle--and, moreover,
+whistle twice?
+
+For a few minutes I was utterly puzzled, and then an explanation flashed
+upon me. He wished to lead me in this particular direction! And why?
+Evidently because he himself was living or hiding in the other. I tried
+to put myself in his shoes and think what I would do myself, and if I had
+had the wit to think of it, that would obviously be the soundest thing.
+So obvious did it seem to me that I decided to set to work on that
+assumption.
+
+First of all I walked a little further to see if I could test this
+theory, and in a minute or two I saw dimly ahead of me houses near the
+beach. I stopped and thought again. Could it possibly be that this was
+the refuge he was providing and that he did not suspect me after all?
+
+"In that case," I said to myself, "would any man in his senses use such
+a vague and misleading method of conducting a friend, especially when a
+mistake might be--and probably would be--fatal to his schemes?
+Obviously not!"
+
+On the other hand, these houses fitted excellently into the theory that
+he wanted me to take shelter there simply because they were well removed
+from his own lair.
+
+"And then what's the fellow doing himself all this time?" I thought.
+"Evidently scuttling back in the opposite direction!"
+
+So back I turned and set out on a very cheerless and solitary walk. There
+was no sense of immediate action ahead now, no anticipation of any
+further excitement this night, and, the more I came to think of it, not
+one chance in a thousand of stumbling upon the man again even though I
+were really heading towards him.
+
+As I walked along that dark shore, I tried to think out all the
+possibilities of the situation.
+
+"Is the man living on this island?" (assuming it is an island, and as the
+sheep weren't real sheep it may not be a real island) I asked myself. "Or
+has he simply landed from a submarine or some other enemy craft, and by
+this time is hurrying off again?"
+
+I recalled our conversation, especially his words when I said I had
+arrived in "the usual way." "Impossible! There was no signal. I have been
+looking out all the time," he had answered. Surely that implied he was
+living here on shore, and indeed his very presence alone by himself and
+his whole attitude and behaviour were consistent only with that theory.
+
+"What conclusions has he come to about me?" was my next question, and as
+I debated this problem my spirits began to rise a little.
+
+"Hang it, he must be puzzled!" I said to myself confidently, and I do
+think justly. "For supposing I were on his job in Germany and an entire
+stranger suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, hailed me in excellent
+English, and then (even if he didn't know the particular riddle I used
+as pass-word) conducted himself like a confederate, made no attempt to
+arrest me or interfere with me, and spoke German with a distinct English
+accent, what would I think?"
+
+I debated the answer for some minutes and then it came to me
+involuntarily and inevitably.
+
+"I'd be dashed if I'd know what to think! And that's just exactly the
+hole this fellow must be in. I may be a fellow Hun and I may be an enemy,
+and he has got to make up his mind which. So far I'm quite certain he
+hasn't enough evidence either way."
+
+The obvious corollary to this was that he must be presented with evidence
+which would make him think me a fellow Hun. Of course this assumed that
+he would have some means of getting news of my doings and my movements
+and forming conclusions from what he heard. But I thought it a pretty
+safe assumption to make. Confederates the man must have, and he would
+certainly tell them of the mysterious stranger, and the whole gang as
+certainly would make it their business to learn everything about me.
+
+"What would a fellow Hun do in my place?" I said to myself. "Knowing the
+breed as I do, he would certainly overdo the patriotic John Bull
+business, he would be a little too polite to everybody, and he would eat
+like a hog."
+
+This then should be my role, and I may as well confess honestly that the
+last item appealed to me particularly. I kept on smoking till my head
+reeled in the hope of forgetting my hunger, but between pipes I felt
+ready to chew my oilskin. Of course I should also keep up a touch of the
+German waiter accent, and if this programme failed to lead either to my
+arrest or to my friend coming to my rescue, I felt that my reputation
+both as an ex-diplomatist and a rising young actor would be seriously
+tarnished.
+
+And then all at once a light seemed to be extinguished in my brain. I
+ceased to be able to think any longer and my knees felt shaky as I
+walked. It was the reaction after what had really been a pretty long
+strain of one kind and another. Looking back, it seems now inevitable
+enough, but at the time I felt desperately ashamed of myself. Perhaps I
+might have been able to pull myself together had I chanced to fall in
+with that oilskinned figure again, but I thought at the moment I had
+become utterly useless and I felt inclined to throw myself down on the
+grass and go to sleep and forget everything. In fact I very soon should
+have, when I saw at last some farm buildings close ahead. They stood on
+the edge of a small cove and the ground dipped down to them so that they
+were not against the sky line, and I had nearly walked straight into the
+wall of an out-house before I saw a sign of them.
+
+And then I remember rather hazily knocking at a door and presently
+finding myself in a low kitchen with a peat fire burning on an open
+hearth and what seemed to be dozens of people sitting round it. I
+probably counted each of them three or four times over.
+
+They gave me a huge bowl of milk and a pile of oat cakes and cheese, and
+the one item of my programme I carried out faithfully was to eat like a
+famished animal. I believe I put some sort of an accent into the few
+words I murmured, but most of the time my mouth was too full for much
+conversation. I know that I never attempted any explanation of how I got
+there, and that night nobody asked me, and I certainly postponed the
+patriotic John Bull business.
+
+When I finished my supper I felt better, but still a little dazed. There
+now seemed to be fewer in the family, but my eyes must still have been
+multiplying them for I thought there were three or four rather pretty
+girls, presumably daughters, with high pink cheeks, when there actually
+turned out next morning to be only two; and two poor idiots, presumably
+sons, with unpleasant stares and stubbly beards and open mouths, when
+daylight revealed only one. In fact the father of the household and his
+wife were the only people I counted accurately.
+
+And then I remember being led to the barn, and seeing a vast pile of soft
+hay and throwing myself into the midst of it; and there my recollections
+of that day end. I actually had not even enquired into what part of the
+world I had dropped.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE SUSPICIOUS STRANGER
+
+
+There seem to be two distinct kinds of dreamers; to judge at least from
+their confessions next morning. There is the superior kind which dreams a
+condensed novel and remembers it distinctly to retail at breakfast, and
+there is the inferior kind which only carries away a vague impression of
+having vaguely striven to stride out and escape from some nebulous
+horror, or of trying to purchase a pound of golf balls at a counter which
+would persist in turning into a couple of parallel bars or a roll-top
+writing desk. Personally I belong to the inferior species, and I cannot
+even swear that I really had a dream at all that night. I only know that
+when I woke up at last I found that my oilskin was unbuttoned and thrown
+back, whereas I thought I had gone to sleep with it buttoned up; and that
+when I noticed this, I then began to have a confused memory of a dream
+wherein I was seized by some one or something and struggled violently to
+free myself.
+
+I sat up in my bed of straw and looked round me. The sunshine was
+streaming through a small window and under the door, but the door was
+closed, the bar was very still and quite empty save for my own presence,
+and the crowing of a cock and the clucking of hens were at first the only
+sounds that reached me from outside. Then I became conscious of a soft
+and regular "swish," rising and falling constantly and perpetually, and I
+remembered the sea close at hand, and a shiver of gratitude ran through
+me to think how narrowly I had escaped having that heaving surface
+fathoms over my head.
+
+I have often wished since that I had lain there for a little while and
+tried to remember the dream, and whether I had actually gone to sleep
+with my oilskin buttoned, while the circumstances, such as they were,
+were fresh in my memory. When I thought of them afterwards I could swear
+to nothing and finally concluded the whole thing was probably fancy.
+
+But if by any chance it were not, then evidently _some one_ had tried to
+search me in the night, and who would it be likely to be but my vanished
+acquaintance on the shore, or his confederates? And in that case one of
+them must have been lurking very close at hand. However, when I tried to
+piece my recollections together afterwards it was too late to make
+anything of them at all.
+
+I only know for certain that I missed nothing from my pockets, and that
+as a matter of fact I had actually carried nothing in them that would
+have given me away--so far at least as I could judge.
+
+These, as I say, were my subsequent reflections. What I did at the time
+was not to think about the matter any further, but jump up, open the barn
+door and walk out into the sunshine. It was now about ten o'clock on a
+flawless August morning, and not easily shall I forget the picture of
+that blue sea gently heaving far out to a bright horizon, and the
+semi-circle of white sand fringing the little cove, and the glimpse of
+green and smiling inland country, and the group of low grey farm
+buildings just out of reach of the wash of the waves. Whatever part of
+the world it might be, I felt entirely satisfied with it.
+
+I stood for a few minutes gazing absently out to sea, and rehearsing in
+my mind my plan of campaign. My voice, manners and conduct must be such
+that if by some stroke of luck I actually fell in with my friend of last
+night or one of his confederates they would assume I was a friend and at
+least give me a nod, wink, password, or something to test me--and I vowed
+I would overlook nothing suspicious this time.
+
+If, however, as was unfortunately far more likely, I met mere honest
+folk, they would quickly spread the news that a suspicious stranger was
+in the neighbourhood, and surely the report would reach at least one of
+the gang (for I confidently assumed a gang), and they would make it
+their business to seek me out. Finally I decided I had no time to waste,
+for several reasons. Through the clucking hens I strolled across to the
+dwelling house and there in the kitchen I found the mother, one of the
+pink-cheeked daughters, and the idiot son. They set about getting me some
+breakfast, and a few minutes later in came the father and another son, a
+strapping fellow not in the least resembling the idiot, and shortly
+afterwards appeared the other daughter.
+
+I gave them my proper name, Roger Merton, since it was just the sort of
+ultra English name which a disguised Hun would adopt, and I learned
+that theirs was Scollay:--Peter Scollay, the father, Mrs. Scollay,
+Peter, the younger, Maggie, and Jane; besides Jock, the idiot. I was
+excessively affable, and they were not openly cool, but I noticed with
+satisfaction that they were far from demonstrative, with the marked
+exception of Jock who burst into several very loud and friendly laughs
+on extremely small provocation. He was horrid to look at, but I could
+not help feeling rather friendly towards the only member of the
+household who exhibited a glimpse of geniality, even though I was doing
+my level best to chill them.
+
+As for the others, Peter Scollay the senior was a big tawny-bearded
+fellow, undeniably handsome despite one small defect. His eyes were a
+trifle too hard and cautious, and in one of them was a distinct cast.
+Curiously enough, his wife also had a slight cast, and so it was not
+surprising to see a trace of this in Peter junior and his red-cheeked
+sisters. Jock, however, seemed to have been endowed with imbecility
+instead of a cast. Apart from him, they were all good-looking, despite
+the family defect; and they were all very reticent this morning. I seemed
+indeed to trace the father's wariness as well as the cast in each pair of
+eyes that furtively studied me.
+
+"And your very beautiful island," I enquired, in guttural accents that
+would have made me flee for the police instantly, had I been in their
+shoes, "so pleasantly situated in the sea--what is its name?"
+
+They looked a little astonished, as well they might, and then in dry
+accents the father replied, "Ransay."
+
+"Ransay?" I repeated, and then all at once I realised where I was.
+Ransay was one of the northern isles of that not unknown archipelago
+which at the present moment it is safer to leave unnamed. Or perhaps for
+purposes of reference one may call it The Windy Isles. Somewhere in the
+same archipelago, twenty or thirty miles to the south'ard, was a
+particularly important naval base and I began to realise what I had
+stumbled up against.
+
+In those early days of the war one heard a great many tales of spies and
+spying, but many of them were so palpably absurd and there was as yet
+such a total lack of evidence to support any one of them, that I--like a
+good many other people--felt sceptical of the whole thing. The
+distinguished General in German pay, the well known member of the Cabinet
+in hourly communication with the Kaiser, the group of German strategists
+working in the cellars of a West End London mansion, and all the rest of
+the early legends had made even the very moderately sensible extremely
+chary of believing anything we heard. But I thought very hard and
+seriously now. A real spy--seen and heard--actually living in the Isle of
+Ransay, in the back premises, so to speak, of that all important base,
+with Heaven only knew what means of the information concerning matters to
+the south'ard, and in immediate touch with any marauders who might tap
+gently at the back door on a dark night; here was something to sober even
+a bankrupt ex-light-comedian.
+
+I kept my mouth very full while I thought these thoughts and
+conscientiously made the typical German chewing noise, and by the time my
+lips were cleared for action again a beaming smile enwreathed them.
+
+"Do you have many ships which pass this way?" I enquired.
+
+The question was a great success. Jock laughed with vacant glee and the
+rest of the family exchanged glances.
+
+"No' very many," said Mr. Scollay warily.
+
+Now I decided to give them the John Bull turn.
+
+"No German ships I am sure!" I cried through a mouthful of porridge.
+"They are cowards! They will not venture _here_--no fears! They fear our
+brave sailors too much! Aha! We know that, eh?"
+
+They agreed as coldly as I could wish. Evidently I was producing a
+thoroughly bad impression. At the same time nobody broke into whispered
+German, or made any comment that could conceivably be taken for a
+pass-word. I thought I would try giving them one myself.
+
+"Are there many sheep in this island?" I asked.
+
+Jock emitted another blast of genial laughter and Mr. Scollay as
+cautiously as ever replied,
+
+"A good few."
+
+But there was no sign of any secret understanding of my words, and
+reluctantly I began to come to the conclusion that neither my friend of
+last night nor any of his confederates were here. It is true that the
+position of the house fitted my theory, and that its lonely situation on
+the very edge of the sea was ideal, and quite possibly these people might
+know more than they ought, they might in fact be abettors of treason and
+concealers of traitors, but that they were not the principals seemed
+evident enough.
+
+Still, in any event it seemed to me of prime importance to disseminate a
+report of a suspicious stranger as widely and quickly as possible, so I
+selected the middle of another mouthful as the moment of enquiring.
+
+"This pretty farm, my friend, does it belong to you?"
+
+"No," said my host, "the island a' belongs to Mr. Rendall."
+
+"So!" said I. "And this Mr. Rendall, where does he live--in London?"
+
+"Not him!" said Mr. Scollay, "he bides in Ransay."
+
+I pricked up my ears at this, and my spy-hunt seemed suddenly a much more
+promising venture. Some of the difficulties of playing a lone hand had
+already become apparent. But with some one I could confide in, some one
+who would know everybody in the island and a good deal about them, and
+who could advise and abet me, it seemed heavy odds against my vanished
+friend evading me for long.
+
+"I think perhaps I ought to pay my respects to Mr. Rendall," I said in a
+doubtful ruminating way, as though I were debating whether it were quite
+a safe move.
+
+"You'll find him at home," was all the comment my host made.
+
+But now that there was a prospect of losing their suspicious visitor,
+the family all at once set about extracting some information regarding
+the manner of his arrival in their midst.
+
+"You'll no have been long in Ransay?" began my hostess.
+
+"Oh no, just a short time," I beamed.
+
+"You'll not have come by the boat," pronounced my host.
+
+"Not _the_ boat, but surely I must have come by _a_ boat!" I smiled. "I
+cannot swim from Aberdeen!"
+
+I don't know exactly why I mentioned Aberdeen, but it seemed to have a
+distinctly sedative effect.
+
+"You'll not be a dealer?" enquired my host.
+
+Here was a simple solution thrust into my hand. For a moment I
+thought of confessing I actually was a dealer and had got too drunk
+last night to remember how I arrived. But then I feared the tale
+might sound too credible and the reports of a suspicious stranger be
+stifled at their birth.
+
+"Well," I said, "I do deal in some things."
+
+I could see that suspicion had revived and I thought it better to leave
+it at that, and be off. With a little difficulty I made my hosts take
+payment for my night's lodging, and then asked for directions to the
+laird's mansion.
+
+"You'll no can miss it," said Mr. Scollay.
+
+"It's the big house. Just keep along the road and you'll see it
+afore you."
+
+So off I set through this unknown isle, still hatless and buttoned
+up in my oilskin, but smoking a peculiarly soothing pipe and
+thoroughly enjoying my adventure. The prospect of an ally ahead was
+delightfully cheering.
+
+"Provided Mr. Rendall isn't an utter ass, we ought to have these fellows
+sitting!" I said to myself.
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE
+
+
+The rough road from the shore kept gently mounting and I soon stood high
+enough to get a very good general idea of the island of Ransay. It was a
+green, low-lying, undulating fragment of the world, set that morning in
+a sea of sapphire blue, open to the horizon on the one hand and strewn
+with sister isles on the other. The Scollay's house stood near the
+northwest end, and beyond it there seemed to be little save sea-turf and
+rocks, but in the direction I was walking one small green farm followed
+another for what I guessed to be four or five miles, and from side to
+side perhaps a couple of miles or less. There was only one rise in the
+land that could be called a hill, and that only by courtesy; elsewhere
+nothing but green undulations with a small reedy loch or two tucked away
+in their gentle folds.
+
+Far to the southward, on other isles, higher hills, brown and blue, broke
+the horizon, but apart from these one saw nothing but a green and blue
+plain lying beneath an immensity of white and blue sky. With sea birds
+hovering and crying and larks mounting and singing over this, and the sun
+shining, and a northwest breeze that tasted like dry champagne, and
+myriads of wild flowers, yellow, blue, white, red, pink, and purple,
+underfoot, I felt almost too light-hearted. In fact I actually started
+singing, and only stopped when I bethought me that it was a trifle
+inconsistent with the character of a man slinking about in fear of his
+life, looking for a fellow miscreant to befriend him.
+
+But it was quite impossible not to feel elated. Now that I realised the
+limited size of the place and its open surface, it was obvious that no
+man could lurk there unknown to the inhabitants. He must live in a house
+and pass for one of themselves. It seemed then impossible to believe
+(especially with an ally in prospect) that a spy whom I had actually seen
+and talked with (and knew moreover to have a foreign accent) could escape
+my clutches. And, apart from patriotic motives, of what a lift that would
+give to my tarnished character!
+
+"Let me recall the fellow carefully," said I to myself, "and get his face
+and voice well into my head against our next meeting."
+
+I tried to reconstruct our first meeting exactly as it had happened, to
+see again that dark figure rise in my path, and look into the face
+beneath the sou'wester. I shall not say precisely that this endeavour
+shook my confidence, but it certainly made me realise that I should have
+to set to work very warily to trap the man, for the harder I tried to see
+in my mind's eye that face distinctly, the less distinct it grew. I could
+certainly swear to a moustache, and I felt pretty sure there was a beard
+as well, but not absolutely certain. He was of middle height, say between
+5 feet 6, and 5 feet 10; but that was a fairly wide margin. In fact all I
+could positively swear to was that he was neither an obviously tall nor
+an obviously short man.
+
+As to his build, he seemed thick-set and sturdy, but then who does not in
+an oilskin coat? It would take a very slight figure indeed to look
+slender in an oilskin. So here again I could only say that he was neither
+a remarkably stout man nor a remarkably thin man. And this was really all
+I could swear to in the matter of his outward appearance; though I told
+myself confidently enough that if I actually fell in with him again I
+should recognise him fast enough.
+
+"He can't disguise his voice anyhow," I said to myself.
+
+And then here again I began to realise a small difficulty; though
+nothing, it seemed to me very serious. After his first involuntary reply
+to me in German, the man had spoken in low, half-whispered tones. In
+ordinary conversation, especially if he were on his guard, he would speak
+quite differently. But could he eradicate his distinct touch of foreign
+accent? No; I thought decidedly that was beyond him.
+
+I was so immersed in my thoughts that I had become quite oblivious to
+everything outside them. Beyond the fact that I had struck a hard
+macadamed road and was striding down it, I realised nothing else, till of
+a sudden I looked up and noticed a large house close before me, and at
+that I stopped dead and awoke from my reverie.
+
+That it was Mr. Rendall's mansion I never doubted. I saw now that it was
+not a really big house, but it was large compared with the small farm
+houses, and its utterly bare situation and the way in which it was set on
+a slight rise in the ground made it seem obviously the "big hoose" I was
+looking for. But somehow or other at the sight of it my spirits were
+instantly damped. Indeed I never saw a chillier, less inviting looking
+habitation, or one that seemed to repel confidence in it more subtly.
+
+The road ran straight at it and then curved round the low wall that
+bounded the domains. And these domains consisted of absolutely nothing
+more than a rough grass paddock with a short straight drive leading from
+an open and dilapidated iron gate in the wall just where the curve began.
+There was no ivy, or any sort of creeper on the walls, but, instead, a
+sort of grey-green damp hue, broken only by a very few staring windows.
+I passed through that dilapidated gate with no temptation at all to sing.
+
+The drive was covered with an infamous species of large pebble, so
+uncomfortable to walk on that I chose the grass at the side and I only
+stepped on to this apology for gravel when I was quite close to the
+house; approaching the front of it, I may say, at an angle. My footsteps
+made a noise like a cart and horse, and instantly down went the blind of
+the nearest window of the ground floor.
+
+I stopped dead instinctively and looked at this bleak mansion narrowly.
+At the angle from which I had approached the front, I could see the blind
+go down quite plainly, but it was impossible to get even a glimpse into
+the room behind it.
+
+"What the devil!" I murmured.
+
+And then I told myself that I was really getting too suspicious. It
+must be a lady's bed-room obviously. The ground floor near the front
+door seemed an odd place for such an apartment. Still, one never knows
+what a lady's fancy may be. In any case there was nothing to be
+achieved by standing there staring, so I resumed my resounding progress
+across the pebbles.
+
+I was at the front door and just going to ring, when round the corner of
+the house, right ahead of me, appeared a gentleman, and my spirits fell
+still further. I can't exactly say that his was a face I disliked, but
+it was decidedly not one I took to. He had eyes set somewhat close
+together, a well trimmed short black beard, and an expression in which I
+seemed to read impudence and certainly read suspicion. He stopped at the
+sight of me and looked me up and down at least as curiously as I studied
+him. Only I trust I conducted my inspection less obviously.
+
+"Mr. Rendall?" I enquired, and though I had come here meaning to confide
+in him, I found myself instinctively putting in a touch of accent; not
+with a wet brush as I did for the Scollays' benefit, still I threw in a
+little, and, as I say, quite without intending it.
+
+Curiously enough I saw his face clear the moment I spoke.
+
+"Oh," said he, with an air of relief, "it's the doctor you're wanting, is
+it? Well, he's at home. Come in."
+
+So the laird was a doctor? Of which sort, I wondered; medical,
+theological, or what?
+
+"I'm Mr. O'Brien," added my new acquaintance as he opened the front door
+for me. "You're quite sure it's not me you're wanting?"
+
+I had noticed more than a trace of accent in his own voice when he spoke,
+and there was no doubt now what it was; a very palpable Irish brogue. As
+he asked this question he looked at me with a curious mixture of humour
+and defiance. It seemed to me that the humour was assumed and the
+defiance genuine, but that may have been simply because the man impressed
+me unfavourably.
+
+"No," I replied with a continental bow, "I am not so fortunate."
+
+And then suddenly a thought flashed across me. Ought I to have answered
+in a very different key? But we were in the hall now and the next moment
+another gentleman appeared.
+
+"Here's Dr. Rendall," said Mr. O'Brien, and I bowed again.
+
+"My name is Mr. Roger Merton," I explained. "I have taken the liberty of
+calling upon you."
+
+"Come into my study, Mr. Merton," said Dr. Rendall.
+
+He spoke in a friendly enough voice, but if there was not a trace of
+suspicion in his eye too, I am greatly mistaken. And in both cases it
+seemed to me that it was suspicion tinged with apprehension, rather than
+the suspicion I was so deliberately cultivating. Indeed, I had not
+intended to cultivate any suspicion at all in this house, but fortunately
+(I think) I simply acted automatically.
+
+Taking him altogether, Dr. Rendall was a decidedly more prepossessing
+looking man than O'Brien. In fact he was rather good-looking, with grey
+hair and moustache, face of a deep bronze-red hue and very blue eyes. He
+was well set up, and quite well dressed too in rough tweeds, and the
+only thing against him was that look in his eye as we exchanged our first
+sentences.
+
+My wits were very wide awake by this time; I carried a picture of the
+outside of the house distinctly in my head as we turned out of the hall,
+and when we entered the study I knew it for the room where the blind had
+shut down.
+
+"Is Mrs. Rendall at home?" I enquired.
+
+O'Brien laughed.
+
+"There are no ladies in this house, but just the doctor and me!" said he.
+
+So no modest matron or maid had pulled the blind down. It had been Dr.
+Rendall's study blind, whipped down obviously by the doctor himself the
+instant he heard a strange footstep, and now raised again. Why had it
+been dropped? What had it hidden? In the look of the room itself there
+was not a suggestion of an answer to either question. It was just an
+ordinary man's study, a cross between a smoking room and a library, a
+much more comfortable room than the outside of that house promised. Yet
+people do not suddenly pull down blinds in the middle of the forenoon for
+no reason at all.
+
+For a moment I thought of a passage at arms with a pretty housemaid as a
+solution. But it would obviously have been much quicker and simpler for
+any other party to flee the room than to make for the window and lower
+the blind. No; something had to be done which took a few minutes to do.
+I thought instantly of one possibility--the folding up or putting away of
+maps or plans. No doubt there were several other possibilities, but there
+seemed the best of reasons for not giving these worthy gentlemen my
+confidence. In fact quite a different course of action suggested itself.
+
+Transfixing the doctor suddenly with a significant eye, I demanded in
+rather a low voice, "Are there many sheep in this island?" I still think
+it was a shot well worth risking, but to be quite candid it failed to
+come off. At least it did not come off entirely. Both the gentlemen
+certainly looked a little startled, but all Dr. Rendall did was to stare
+at me very hard, while O'Brien exclaimed.
+
+"Faith, he's a dealer!"
+
+But again I refused the proffered explanation, even though it was quite
+evidently the easiest way of accounting for myself.
+
+"No," said I, "but I am very greatly interested in your beautiful island,
+Dr. Rendall. What a convenient spot to own!"
+
+I still threw a touch of significance into my remark--especially on the
+word "convenient"--but this time I got a wholly unexpected answer.
+
+"But I am sorry to say I don't own it," said the doctor. "I am afraid you
+must be mistaking me for my cousin, Philip Rendall. He's the laird; I'm
+only the doctor."
+
+"The damned doctor," added Mr. O'Brien with a grin.
+
+I began to apologise, but O'Brien who was by this time in capital
+spirits, interrupted me with,
+
+"Faith, you needn't apologise, Mr. Merton. As long as you're not one of
+my damned relations I'm delighted to see you, and the doctor here is
+always pining for a fresh face. He's getting sick of mine!"
+
+This remark seemed to have a spice of malice behind it, and the doctor
+certainly frowned, but I was so anxious to seize this opportunity of
+putting a question or two that I did not stop to wonder what was implied;
+not, at least, till afterwards.
+
+"I suppose you have little society in this charming island?" I suggested.
+
+O'Brien was certainly ready enough to give me exactly the information I
+was after.
+
+"There are just four civilised houses in the whole place, counting this,"
+said he. "There's the laird's--and saving the dear doctor's presence I
+must say his cousin is a damned queer fish, besides being as poor as he's
+cranky, and there are the two ministers, only one's away and the other's
+as dry as my own throat's getting. What do you say to a drink, doctor?"
+
+He grinned at Dr. Rendall with a malicious significance I could make
+nothing of. I could see that it perturbed the doctor, who answered in
+evident embarrassment,
+
+"If Mr. Merton would care for a glass of lemonade"
+
+A hoot of laughter interrupted him. It reminded me of Jock, except that
+Mr. O'Brien's laugh had such a flavour of ill-nature. The man might or
+might not be what I suspected, but he was indubitably objectionable.
+
+"No, thank you," I answered him. "I set out to call on Mr. Rendall and
+the time is passing."
+
+"Damned pleasantly in our society, eh?" put in O'Brien with the same
+sardonic laugh.
+
+They both saw me to the door, and we said good-bye, without enthusiasm on
+the doctor's part, with a grin on Mr. O'Brien's, and with very mixed
+emotions on my own.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A PETTICOAT
+
+
+I was very thankful to get out of that depressing house and away from Mr.
+O'Brien's laugh, and yet hardly was I on the high road again before I was
+blaming myself for not having lingered longer and pursued my
+investigations there a little further.
+
+The other "Civilised" households in the island apparently numbered only
+three. Now, if my spy were working single handed he might conceivably be
+some better educated farmer who had lived abroad and turned traitor, but
+it seemed to me most unlikely that he should have no confederates, and it
+was scarcely possible for two or three men of that particular type to be
+gathered in so small a community. Brains and education seemed implied in
+every step of the dangerous game they were playing. Therefore it was only
+common sense to suspect one at least of these "civilised" houses, unless
+they could all manifestly clear their characters. Anyhow it were
+foolishness to neglect this consideration.
+
+And what had I discovered already? A couple of men living by themselves
+in a criminal looking mansion, who hurriedly pulled down blinds, looked
+both suspicious and apprehensive at the sight of a stranger, and made odd
+innuendoes and allusions in their conversation. Why hadn't I stayed on
+and pursued my investigations? Well, because the moment I discovered I
+was in the wrong house, my insistent idea was to push on to Mr. Rendall's
+and consult with him about the whole situation. But now I began to
+reconsider this decision very seriously.
+
+I was out of sight by this time in a secluded part of the road, where it
+ran through a dip in the ground, with the head of one of those little
+reedy lochs only a yard or two away, and a bright glimpse of the sea
+beyond. The marshy shores were a perfect blaze of yellow wild flowers and
+it looked so jolly that I sat down on the water's edge and began to think
+things over.
+
+First I thought Mr. O'Brien over. Middle height, a beard, and an Irish
+brogue. Could the German accent have been put on to conceal the brogue?
+Looking to what I was doing myself, why not? Then I thought Dr. Rendall
+over. Also middle height, a moustache, and no particular accent. But then
+again, if I put on an accent, why not he? Then I thought over what I had
+learned of the laird. A cousin of the doctor's, a "damned queer fish,"
+almost the only associate of this couple, and hard up. Ought I to go
+straight off and confide in him?
+
+"Not to begin with anyhow!" I said to myself, and up I jumped and
+continued my walk.
+
+About a hundred yards further on I rounded a corner and came upon a very
+miserable figure. He was an old, old man with tinted spectacles and a
+long white beard, and the raggedest overcoat I ever saw, and he was
+sitting on the grass with his feet in the ditch apparently doing nothing
+but simply sitting still. As I approached he peered at me as though he
+were more than half blind and then in an extraordinary thin, high, piping
+voice he said,
+
+"A fine day, mister!"
+
+This time I did the Teutonic bully. It went horribly against the grain to
+strafe such a miserable object, but with no one looking on I thought that
+the kind of Hun I was supposed to be would probably treat a worm like
+this to a touch of the All-Highest.
+
+"Be dashed and damned to you!" I growled.
+
+The old boy started perceptibly, and in rather an eager voice he asked,
+
+"Have you got a wax match, mister?"
+
+"Wax match? No, and be confounded!" said I.
+
+For the next quarter of a mile or so I felt too ashamed of myself and too
+contrite to think much about what the old fellow had said, and then
+suddenly it began to strike me that a _wax_ match was rather a curious
+thing to ask for. A match was natural enough, but why need it be wax?
+
+And then I stopped, wheeled round, and walked back. I told myself that I
+was growing absurd and getting passwords on the brain. Still, there
+seemed no harm in exchanging a few more remarks with the old man.
+
+But when I reached the same spot on the road he was gone. There were one
+or two small houses not far away and it was quite possible he had
+reached them by now, especially if he wanted his match badly; though it
+would mean moving a little faster than I had given him credit for. Or he
+might be lying down out of sight having a nap, and as the day was warm
+and he had apparently nothing better to do, that seemed a very possible
+solution. Anyhow, there was no sign of him, and if there had been, I
+told myself he would probably have proved to be merely the island
+patriarch with a senile fancy for wax vestas, so I resumed my journey to
+the "big house."
+
+As I topped another rise I got the best view I had yet seen of the lie of
+the island. A group of larger buildings on another hillock, still well
+over a mile ahead, was evidently the mansion at last. Behind me I saw the
+doctor's house and noted with a nod unto myself that it stood distinctly
+in the northwest district of the island. It was no long walk from that
+bleak habitation to the Scollays' on the shore.
+
+And now I addressed myself to a delicate question. If I were going to
+keep up the part of suspicious stranger at the Rendall's, at all events
+to begin with, what account of my arrival should I give? It must be a
+tale plausible enough to keep them in doubt, for unless the laird himself
+were actually up to his neck in treason (and though I was prepared for
+anything by this time, there were limits to the assumptions I ventured to
+make), he would certainly wire either to the police or the naval
+authorities and I should immediately become a mere spectator. In fact, I
+would probably not be allowed even to stay and look on.
+
+And this was not mere selfish desire for glory and excitement. I was
+quite capable of seeing that my tale might not convince older and wiser
+people as thoroughly as it convinced myself. In fact I felt a strong
+presentiment that I should merely be put down as a brilliant liar and the
+spy hunt would come to an end--_with the spy still in the island_. That
+was where I still do think I was justified in playing the hand myself.
+
+But what tale could I tell? The truth--that I had dropped out of a
+balloon? Who would believe it for an instant unless I produced the hidden
+parachute? And if I unearthed the parachute the whole island would know
+in a couple of hours and the people I was after would also be convinced.
+And it would not be a conviction that I was a fellow Hun.
+
+And then I chanced to turn my head and I had an inspiration. About five
+miles out to sea I saw a ship, quite distinctly enough to spot her as a
+cruiser of much the same type as the ship I had soared out of yesterday.
+I filled in the details of the inspiration as I walked and when at last I
+saw her head away into the far distance the final touch was given.
+
+When I drew near the house the road showed a tendency to meander, and as
+I was getting pretty hungry and counted on luncheon with the laird, be he
+patriot or traitor, I left the highway and followed a path across a
+clover field. Though the house and its farm were so near, and I could see
+half a dozen other homesteads not far away, yet there was not a living
+soul in sight, or any sound save from the peewees and the gulls. I don't
+know how to convey the impression of out-of-the-worldness and
+back-of-beyondness produced by this sense of silence and space, and by
+the look of the house and its whole surroundings. The path sloped up to
+it through a grass paddock, rather like the approach to the doctor's
+house, only this grass was short and well-tended and there were one or
+two flower beds before the door and ivy on one of the walls (where the
+wind was least destructive); and though the mansion was weather-beaten
+and plain and grey, it had nothing of the bleak and chilly aspect of the
+other house. It simply looked as though it had lived a long and stormy
+life and had now gone to sleep.
+
+At one side stretched a high-walled garden with the tops of a few stunted
+trees just showing their heads, and close at the back of the place one
+could see a collection of farm buildings, very like the mansion
+architecturally, only greyer and more weathered. A fairly steep roof,
+crow-stepped gables, rough-cast walls, and rather small windows seemed to
+my untutored eye to be the chief features of the whole stone gathering.
+
+"Somebody very primitive obviously lives here," I said to myself as I
+pulled the bell.
+
+Out it came bodily in my hand, so I carefully pushed it back, and tried a
+large brass knocker instead, a massive affair that looked as though it
+had once been part of a shipwreck. I knocked once, I knocked twice, I
+knocked thrice, and then the door opened and I enjoyed a fresh sensation.
+
+Instead of the prehistoric being I had expected, a girl stood in the open
+door looking at me out of a quite remarkably bright pair of
+eyes--disconcertingly bright in fact. She was dressed in the very
+smartest and most-up-to-date country kit; short tweed skirt of a pleasing
+greenish hue, stockings to match, brown brogued shoes, and a blouse that
+might have come from Paris. Her hair was dressed as fashionably as the
+rest of her, and her face was of precisely the kind I had least expected
+to see, rather thin with neatly chiselled features and delicate
+eye-brows, and an entirely sophisticated expression. There was no doubt
+she was decidedly pretty, and quite delightfully fresh and trim looking.
+But her eyes were her best feature. As I looked straight into them for an
+instant I could scarcely bring myself to play the part I had arranged.
+They seemed as though they would be a little difficult to deceive.
+
+However, thank Heaven I have lived down most of the virtues that
+embarrass the young. I had lied before, been found out, and lived through
+it; so I clicked my heels together, bowed, and enquired,
+
+"Is Master Rindall in?"
+
+(My accent wasn't really quite as bad as that, but I should have to
+invent fresh vowels to illustrate what it actually sounded like.)
+
+I had expected some slight symptoms of alarm, but she answered with
+perfect composure and in a voice that matched the hair and blouse,
+
+"Yes, he is. Will you come in?"
+
+I bowed again and entered the mansion of Mr. Rendall.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+AT THE MANSION HOUSE
+
+
+As I followed the girl through the hall, a man's voice asked,
+
+"Is that O'Brien?"
+
+"No," she said, "it's some one to see you, father."
+
+She showed me into a room and closed the door, and in the course of the
+next few minutes I came to one or two pretty obvious conclusions. She was
+clearly Mr. Rendall's daughter, and they were equally clearly in the
+habit of receiving visits at odd times from Mr. O'Brien; in fact they
+evidently concluded it was he, or Miss Rendall herself would scarcely
+have opened the door to me. Also, her reply might be taken as implying
+that if Mr. O'Brien had been the visitor, it would not have been her
+father he had come to see. But whether or no this were the true
+interpretation, I so thoroughly disliked and suspected O'Brien that any
+suggestion of intimacy was alone enough to make me glad I had started on
+the defensive.
+
+"Otherwise," said I to myself, "what a charming girl to find in
+such a place!"
+
+However, I reminded myself that I had not come here to be charmed, and
+proceeded next to take stock of the room.
+
+It was not large, but pleasantly proportioned, low in the ceiling, and
+pervaded with a delicate yet distinct flavour of the past, I found myself
+instinctively wondering how one could reproduce this particular flavour
+on the stage; no armour or tapestry or any of the usual antique
+paraphernalia to be allowed, for beyond the thick walls and rather small
+windows, it was so difficult to lay one's finger on any one specific
+thing that palpably suggested age. Finally I decided that it was
+impossible to re-create such an atmosphere. It was compounded of
+stillness within and the glimpses of primeval quiet without, of a touch
+of comfortable shabbiness, of plenty of elderly books, and of a faint
+odour of the dampness of centuries mingled with the scent of honeysuckle.
+My suspicions were suddenly lulled, and with that prompt decision which
+has landed me in and pulled me out of so many holes, I decided to drop my
+German accent. That the charming Miss Rendall might miss it, and wonder
+what had become of it, was (I must confess) a reflection which did not
+occur to me till afterwards.
+
+Just as I had come to this decision, in walked the laird, and in two
+minutes I had come to another decision, which was to adhere to the plan
+of campaign I had thought of as I walked, in so far as keeping my
+business to myself was concerned. My first impression of Mr. Rendall was
+of height, and a certain quiet, formidable quality. He was grey-haired,
+with a close-clipped grizzled moustache, loose clothes as though he had
+shrunk a little in girth, and the unmistakable air of a man who had seen
+considerably more of the world than the island of Ransay. He received me
+quite politely and hospitably, but with every moment that passed I grew
+more acutely conscious of something deterrent behind his courtesy. A
+sense of a strong personality in the background, not actually hostile as
+yet, but ironic and critical, set me instinctively and instantly on
+guard. Not that I actually suspected the man; but to take him straightway
+into my confidence was simply impossible. A man of another temperament
+might have done so--and quite possibly have been right; but his effect on
+me was like tapping a limpet.
+
+I gave him my name and then I said in a quiet confidential way,
+
+"Forgive this intrusion, Mr. Rendall, but the fact is my ship has
+evidently been called away."
+
+I glanced towards the window, and following my look he could see the
+smoke of the cruiser just visible on the horizon. He gave a little nod
+but said nothing.
+
+"I was landed last night on a certain piece of business," I went on,
+"and it is no part of that business to make myself conspicuous, and so I
+have taken the liberty of coming to your house."
+
+"You wish to wait here till your ship returns?" he enquired.
+
+"I thought perhaps you might know of some lodging where I might
+remain quietly."
+
+He smiled slightly.
+
+"You had better stay here. There is no other lodging."
+
+I began to thank him, but he cut me short.
+
+"It is Hobson's choice," said he, "and my house is not overcrowded at
+present. Have you lunched?"
+
+"I am afraid I haven't."
+
+"Come and join us. My daughter and I had just sat down."
+
+He moved towards the door.
+
+"I have no luggage," I said.
+
+"I can lend you what you want."
+
+I thanked him again, and said brazenly,
+
+"May I ask for the loan of a coat. I am anxious not to exhibit my uniform
+coat in the island if I can help it."
+
+I thought he looked a trifle surprised (it must be remembered that all
+this time I was in a buttoned-up oilskin), but he merely nodded again and
+led me upstairs to a pleasant bed-room with a low ceiling and some heavy
+old-fashioned mahogany furniture. There he left me and in a moment
+returned with a brush and comb and a tweed coat.
+
+I had noticed that in one of the drawers there was a key, and as I took
+the coat I said,
+
+"I hope you won't think me unduly cautious if I lock my uniform coat up
+in one of these drawers. There are certain papers in the pockets which I
+am bound to be careful of."
+
+Again I fancied I caught a brief look of surprise, but it must have been
+very brief, for his face was as inscrutable as ever as he answered,
+
+"Do exactly as you like."
+
+A maid came with a jug of hot water and then I was alone.
+
+"I wonder if the man believes me?" I said to himself. "Things are going a
+little too dashed smoothly!"
+
+However, there was nothing for it now but playing the game out. I first
+took the precaution of suddenly and quietly opening the door. There was
+nobody at the key hole, so I took off my oilskin and put on the tweed
+coat, and then locked up the top drawer and put the key in my pocket.
+Hardly necessary to say that drawer remained as empty as the others.
+
+"I call that either a very neat dodge, or a devilish silly one," I said
+to myself. "And which it is depends entirely on the results."
+
+As I brushed my hair I thanked my stars I was fair, for a shave was now
+long overdue.
+
+"What a pirate I'd look if I were a brunette!" I thought, and as it was,
+the recollection of dainty Miss Rendall made me determined to borrow a
+razor forthwith.
+
+I foresaw that lunch would be a function demanding considerable tact.
+Seeing that I had decided, rightly or wrongly (and the Lord knew which!),
+not to trust these people, they had to be kept in a nice equilibrium
+betwixt doubt and confidence. To persuade them too thoroughly that they
+were entertaining a genuine British naval officer would be fatal if they
+were treasonably inclined, and a serious mistake if they were not, for
+then they might reassure the other islanders and my gang would go to
+earth, not to be dug up again in a hurry. On the other hand, to have them
+too suspicious would be all right if they were treasonable, but would
+probably end my adventure if they were honest.
+
+The line I selected was a blend of mystery regarding my business, breezy
+chat on non-committal topics, and an occasional oddity of conduct, such
+as might have been caused by a guilty conscience or a harmless strain of
+eccentricity (and I left them to make their choice).
+
+Here are a few choice excerpts from our conversation, which I happen to
+remember more or less verbatim.
+
+_Myself (chattily):_ "Delightful air you have in your island!
+Like champagne--or perhaps in these parts I ought to say like
+whisky and soda."
+
+_Mr. Rendall (somewhat drily_): "We do happen to be acquainted with
+champagne."
+
+_Miss Rendall (smiling pleasantly as she ate_): "We probably don't look
+as though we were, father. Mr. Merton's metaphor was safer."
+
+_Myself (feeling rather an ass, but outwardly gay):_ "I meant no
+reflection on your cellar, Miss Rendall. I was merely aiming at
+local colour."
+
+At this point I fell abruptly silent, the laugh, as it were, frozen on my
+lips. I gazed at my plate and then glanced furtively at my host (I was
+giving them their choice). The next fragment of conversation which I
+remember ran somewhat thus:--
+
+_Myself (leading up deliberately to the test question):_ "There's one
+thing I envy the natives of this happy island. What a wonderful show of
+wild flowers they have! Do they make good grazing?"
+
+_Mr. Rendall (again drily_): "If one happens to have ruminant tastes, I
+believe they are edible."
+
+_Miss Rendall (brightly, but evidently unkindly):_ "Mr. Merton was
+probably thinking chiefly of the ruminant natives."
+
+_Myself (keeping sternly to the point):_ "I was thinking chiefly of
+sheep." _(With a direct and steady look at the laird.)_ "Are there many
+sheep on this island?"
+
+_Mr. Rendall (quite calmly):_ "A good many. Are you anxious for
+statistics?"
+
+_Myself (concealing my disappointment under a brave smile):_ "Oh no.
+Please don't mistake me for an intelligent enquirer."
+
+I turned the brave smile on to Miss Rendall. She smiled back very
+slightly. In her face I seemed to read a trace of scepticism; as if
+she did not quite agree with my modest estimate of myself, but at the
+same time thought none the better of me. I would have given a good
+deal to know exactly what was in her mind. Did she suspect something?
+And if so, what?
+
+I had one more shot. It was an inspiration which came to me at the end of
+lunch when my host offered me a cigar.
+
+"Matches?" he observed, pushing a box towards me.
+
+Again I looked at him hard and asked,
+
+"Have you such a thing as a _wax_ match?"
+
+His eyebrows rose slightly.
+
+"If you prefer to light a cigar with a wax match I daresay I can
+find one."
+
+"If Mr. Merton doesn't mind waiting for half an hour perhaps I might
+discover a box in the store room," said Miss Rendall, and she added
+demurely, "beside the champagne."
+
+My only consolation was that I was making an idiot of myself in a
+good cause.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SUNDAY
+
+
+I said good-night early that evening and did a heap of thinking in my
+bed-room. Nothing that seems to me now to be worth recording had been
+said or done since luncheon. I went for a solitary walk in the
+afternoon, as much to carry out the part of one with some business in
+the isle as for any other reason. It is true I actually did do some
+business in the way of accosting a few inhabitants and trying tactfully
+to convey a suspicious impression. None of them, however, had seemed in
+the least likely to belong to the gang I was after, and the sheep and
+wax match conundrums had left them cold. I was the less concerned at
+this since I had realised that the day was Saturday. To-morrow in church
+I meant to take stock of the islanders--and give them a chance of taking
+stock of me.
+
+That night my thoughts ran chiefly on my host and hostess. I had learnt a
+few more facts about them and these I now put together to see what
+picture they suggested. In the first place, the Rendalls were an ancient
+family in these parts and had owned their property for some centuries.
+As all my prejudices ran in favour of old families, old port, and old
+furniture, this was so far reassuring.
+
+On the other hand, Mr. Rendall had apparently lived much abroad but he
+dropped no hint as to whether he had sojourned in foreign parts for
+reasons of pleasure, health, or business. In fact he was close as a clam
+on the subject, and, indeed, on every other subject. Add to this that I
+had heard he was hard up, that he had no wife to look after him, and that
+he evidently took a caustic rather than an enthusiastic view of life, and
+in my present state of mind there seemed a _prima facie_ case for
+suspicion. Anyhow he was a man to be watched.
+
+As to his daughter, I had learned that her name was Jean, that she had
+been to school at a somewhat select seminary which I chanced to have
+heard of, and that she had finished her education a couple of years ago
+in Switzerland.
+
+"Nothing very suspicious in all that," I thought. "Still, what is this
+surprising apparition doing in this out of the way island? 'Looking after
+my father,' she'd say. But why look after him here instead of some more
+amusing place. Perhaps because they are hard up. On the other hand,
+perhaps not."
+
+Then I thought over the pair simply as one thought of any new
+acquaintances before war was dreamt of, and I am bound to say they came
+out of the ordeal very creditably. He was well born, well bred, and very
+far from a fool. She was--well, I don't mind confessing that that night I
+considered her charming, in spite of the pretty obvious fact that she was
+not at all charmed with me. Or if she was, she concealed her feelings
+admirably. She had a good enough excuse, either way; whether she were
+honest and thought me a traitor, or whether she were treacherous and
+thought me honest. Besides, I had not yet shaved.
+
+So I forgave Miss Jean her prejudice and reflected on her attractions. I
+changed my mind about them later, as will appear, but that first evening
+she seemed to me a most piquant and dainty young lady. Slim, trim, and
+demure, with eyes like stars (I borrow the metaphor unblushingly), and a
+pleasant spice of mischief in her tongue, and a touch of the devil very
+carefully and properly hidden away; that was my first impression of Miss
+Jean Rendall.
+
+And then I turned in, and slept that night without a dream.
+
+Sunday was another gorgeous day. The breeze had almost quite died away,
+the sea glimmered through a heat haze, and the colours of the wild
+flowers were brighter than any palette. I came down shaved, but found
+Miss Rendall still cool, and her father as inaccessible as ever.
+
+"Anyhow," I consoled myself by reflecting, "I have eliminated my
+bristles as a cause for my unpopularity. They have something else on
+their minds!"
+
+The laird lent me a felt hat and as the hour of noon drew nigh we set
+off for the parish kirk. There was another church in the island (as in
+every self-respecting Scottish parish, I believe), but by the greatest
+good luck the rival minister was away and the congregations were
+assembled together. I gathered afterwards that this happy result was
+partly due to the hope of seeing the laird's mysterious guest, and that
+several very prickly theological scruples were swallowed by divers of
+the other congregation. At all events the church was crowded and I had
+the chance I wanted.
+
+As we approached the kirk I thought I had never seen a plainer, more
+primitive little building even in a Scottish kirkyard; no spire, no
+ornament, nothing but grey roughcast walls (what they call in
+Scotland "harled") and a roof of small yellowish flagstones, set in
+a bed of mingled nettles and tombstones. Amid the tombstones stood
+the congregation, all in black and staring steadfastly at the
+mysterious stranger, while over the door a plaintive little bell
+creaked and clanged.
+
+We entered the little church and I shall never forget my surprise. It was
+the year 1914 without; it became the year 1514 (or perhaps some centuries
+earlier still) within. On one side two minute windows pierced a wall
+quite four feet thick. The other wall was broken only by a great empty
+niche whence an image once adored had vanished. It is true there were now
+pews, but they were not of yesterday--square boxes where people sat and
+faced in four directions, and the odour of damp bibles smelt prehistoric.
+
+The bell ceased clanging, the people trooped in and filled the boxes, and
+presently there uprose in the pulpit a grim venerable man in black. By
+this time my better feelings were under control and I studied this figure
+critically. He represented one of those four "civilised" and suspect
+houses. One was untenanted, two I had now visited, and the fourth I was
+now almost ready to discharge with a cleared character. Outwardly at
+least this sedate divine suggested nothing but the austerer virtues.
+
+For two hours the minister prayed, the minister read and the minister
+preached to us; at intervals we were allowed to sing, and abused the
+privilege shockingly; and all the time I studied that congregation. I
+recognised the Scollay family, Peter elder, Peter younger, Mrs.
+Scollay, the two rosy daughters, and even poor Jock. The three or four
+people I had spoken to in the afternoon were all there too. In fact I
+saw every one I had consciously met before in that island, with three
+exceptions. The doctor and O'Brien were not in church, and narrowly
+though I looked, I saw no sign of the ancient with tinted spectacles
+and a taste for wax matches.
+
+I very soon was made aware that there was no fear of myself going
+unobserved. At one time or another I caught every eye in that
+congregation rivetted on me, and it only remained for me to give the
+proper impression to carry away with them.
+
+As I was unable to see myself as others saw me, I cannot say precisely
+what effect I produced, but if a habit of looking suddenly and guiltily
+at the floor when I caught a hard staring eye, a conspicuous difficulty
+in following the order of the service and knowing what book to be picked
+up and whether to kneel, sit, or stand, and peculiarly unpleasant shake
+which I introduced into my top note--if all these manifestations failed
+to convey the impression that I was a very suspicious person indeed,
+well, all I can say is that they ought to have done so, and that that
+congregation must have been singularly deficient in the proper kind of
+imagination. Of course I could hardly expect a sympathetic signal to be
+actually made in church, but I did hope my performance would surely bear
+fruit before many hours had passed.
+
+At last the service ended, the commons crowded out, and the laird and his
+daughter rose in their wake and greeted the minister on their way to the
+door. I noticed that they did not introduce me, and also that the
+Reverend Mr. Mackenzie regarded me--over Miss Rendall's shoulder--with a
+sternly suspicious glance. Evidently he had heard ill of me already, and
+hope burned higher. If the minister had heard dark rumours, surely the
+spies had! Or anyhow they would when that congregation had all reached
+their homes (if they were not among the congregation themselves).
+
+We passed again through many eyes in the kirkyard, and then the Rev. Mr.
+Mackenzie and the laird walked together for a short way and I found
+myself alone with Miss Jean.
+
+"I didn't see Dr. Rendall or Mr. O'Brien in church," I remarked.
+
+"They very seldom come to church," said she.
+
+"I gather that Mr. O'Brien is visiting the doctor," I observed.
+
+"Yes," said she, in a tone that promised little further information.
+
+"Has he been staying with him long?" I preserved.
+
+"For some time."
+
+"Old friends, I suppose."
+
+She did not seem to hear me, and I gave it up--in the meanwhile; but to
+myself I said complacently,
+
+"Some mystery here!"
+
+Presently I remarked,
+
+"There was another face I didn't see--the island patriarch."
+
+She looked at me quickly.
+
+"The patriarch--who do you mean?"
+
+"An old gentleman with a white beard, tinted spectacles, and overcoat
+somewhat the worse for wear. He hailed me on the road yesterday and asked
+for a match. I imagine he must live somewhere near the doctor's house."
+
+She looked very thoughtful for a moment and then said:
+
+"There is no one in the island with tinted spectacles, and nobody in the
+least like that living anywhere near Dr. Rendall's."
+
+I looked at her sharply.
+
+"Are you quite sure?"
+
+She seemed to think again for a moment and then said:
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+I had something to think about on my way home to lunch.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+AN ALLY
+
+
+After lunch I set out by myself with pretty high hopes. It seemed to me
+inconceivable that men (or even one man for the sake of argument, though
+I felt sure there must be more), who were lurking here on the business
+this gang were engaged upon, would actually take no steps one way or the
+other to deal with a stranger who knew of their existence, and who to all
+seeming was one of their own kidney. I flattered myself by this time that
+every report they could have heard and every observation they might have
+made must incline them to the view that it was their duty to get in touch
+with me again. And now I proposed to take a solitary ramble along the
+very shore where I had stumbled upon my oil-skinned friend, and give them
+a chance of getting in touch.
+
+It was an afternoon of sunshine and gleaming seas. At first the air was
+redolent of clover, and then--as I drew near the shore--of seaware. On
+this day of rest there was hardly any one to be seen about, so that a
+quiet meeting by the beach could be simply arranged. Only a meeting
+implies two, and though I walked right along the coast till I got
+within a stone's throw of the Scollays' farm I remained as solitary as
+when I started.
+
+I turned back and slowly retraced my steps for a mile or so, my hopes
+fading and my perplexity increasing.
+
+"What ought I to have done that I haven't done?" I asked myself. "And
+what have I done that I oughtn't to?"
+
+I paused and sat down on the crisp sea turf with a rough stone wall to
+landward, and below me the shelving rocks and the glassy ocean, and it
+was then the idea struck me that I might do something to attract
+attention to my presence. A thoughtful aunt had presented me with a
+revolver when I got my commission, and as anything to do with hitting
+things, from cricket balls to pheasants, has always amused me, I used to
+carry it in my hip pocket regardless of chaff (one happily inspired wag
+dubbed me "jolly Roger"). I took it out now, descended to the beach, set
+up a stone as a mark, and proceeded to combine business with pleasure by
+doing a little fancy shooting. The thing made just enough noise to
+attract anybody fairly near at hand without scandalising the inhabitants,
+and as I chanced to be in good form I quite enjoyed myself.
+
+I had just brought off a pretty sequence of snap shots and was thinking
+regretfully that in one of the happy lands which still encouraged the
+duel I should be a much more respected member of society, when I suddenly
+realised that I had a spectator of my prowess. He was standing on the
+turf above me, a little indistinct owing to the wall at his back, and for
+an instant my heart leapt and I thought I had met the friend I was
+seeking at last. And then I saw that it was only poor Jock.
+
+I waved to him and he came scrambling down to the beach, his mouth wide
+open as usual and wreathed in smiles. As he approached a wild thought
+struck me. He was bearded, thickset, and of medium height. Wrap him in an
+oilskin, and there you were! I mention all my inspirations to show that I
+really did cover the ground pretty thoroughly in that blessed island. It
+is true that the conduct of my oil-skinned acquaintance was scarcely that
+of a congenital idiot; still, I was resolved to leave no stone unturned.
+
+"Shoots, shoots!" he babbled in his curious thick voice. "Jock
+heard shoots!"
+
+I looked at him fixedly and in a serious voice replied in a German accent
+you could have cut with a knife,
+
+"I vant to know zomezing about sheeps, Herr Jock, not about shoots. How
+many sheeps are zere in zis island, eh?"
+
+Did I see a gleam of intelligence for an instant in Jock's eye? I cannot
+honestly say. I only know that he looked not unnaturally surprised, and
+then thickly answered what sounded like "A hundred and six." Anyhow it
+was nothing that seemed to illuminate the subject very brightly.
+
+"And how many wax matches?" I enquired.
+
+Jock hooted with laughter. He sounded so cheerful, that I perforce
+laughed too, and then I gazed at him sombrely.
+
+"Jock," I said, "you are a fraud and a disappointment."
+
+He laughed again, and then all at once a much more sensible idea struck
+me. He was not a very promising ally, but he might prove better than
+none at all.
+
+"Jock," said I, "I am a stranger."
+
+He nodded and seemed to understand.
+
+"Have you seen any other strangers in this island of yours?" I asked.
+
+He seemed a little confused.
+
+"No, no," he began, and then altered it into "Yes, yes."
+
+Which did he mean, or did he mean anything at all.
+
+"A man in an oilskin coat, with a moustache on his lip--here," I went on,
+touching my own lip. "Who goes out at night and walks along the shore;
+have you seen any one like that?"
+
+Again he seemed to look intelligent, but he only shook his head vaguely.
+
+"Well," I said, "if you do see any one like that let me know, and you
+will see some more shoots. Also I shall give you this."
+
+I held up a new half crown and he laughed so joyfully that I began to
+have a faint hope he might prove of some use after all.
+
+And yet when I had left him and resumed my walk back to the Rendalls'
+house, my spirits were not very high. As an ally Jock did not impress me
+with a feeling of great confidence, while his failure to recognise my
+description of the oil-skinned man depressed me unreasonably. I told
+myself that the opinion of the parish idiot on the subject of strangers
+was of small value. Besides, quite likely the oilskinned man would not be
+a stranger to the people in the neighbourhood. They might know him
+familiarly as a prosperous farmer or a hardy fisherman--or as their own
+doctor or their doctor's guest, or--no, he could not be their laird for
+Mr. Rendall was too tall. In short my talk with Jock had proved nothing
+one way or the other.
+
+And yet my whole failure to come upon any trace of the gang in spite of
+all my ingenuity did set me thinking. Could it possibly be that my entire
+adventure had been an hallucination? I confessed frankly to myself that I
+have a pretty lively imagination, and I recalled vividly how I had
+almost collapsed on my way to the Scollays under the strain of an intense
+reaction, how my brain had whirled, and how I peopled the farm kitchen
+with full thrice the number of persons actually assembled. I had been
+conscious of all that, but supposing my brain had actually begun to whirl
+half an hour sooner, before I had become conscious of it? Might I not
+have imagined my whole mysterious adventure?
+
+It was a nasty thought, for in that case what a superfluous fool I had
+made of myself since! But I faced it manfully, and sternly asked myself
+what the opinion of the average hard-headed, soberly reasoning man would
+be, if he were given the facts and requested to pronounce his verdict on
+them. What would be my own verdict if I were told such a yarn? Would I
+swallow it without demur?
+
+"Be hanged if I would!" I said candidly.
+
+By the time I got back to the big house, I had very nearly ceased to
+believe in the tale myself.
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE COAST PATROL
+
+
+That evening we were all three sitting in the library (the same old-world
+room into which I had first been shown), when a servant entered and gave
+a message to Mr. Rendall. He rose and went out, leaving his daughter and
+myself each apparently immersed in a book. She may genuinely have been,
+but I was making the covers of mine a screen for inward debate. Had I
+made a mere fool of myself and should I make a clean breast of everything
+to my hosts? Or should I wait a little longer before deciding? I went on
+thinking after the laird had left the room, and Miss Jean still kept her
+eyes immovably on her page. I frankly confess I have never cut less ice
+with any woman--especially one who decidedly attracted me.
+
+In a few minutes her father returned and said to her:
+
+"John Howiseon has cried off to-night. I must go myself."
+
+She started up with a word of expostulation, but he merely smiled in his
+grim way, nodded at her (not at me, I noticed) and was gone. With a
+little sigh she sat down again and plunged into her book, but my
+curiosity had been roused and in a moment I enquired,
+
+"Is your father going out for long?"
+
+Her concern seemed to have broken down her reticence
+
+"All night," she said. "I wish he wouldn't!"
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+"The coast patrol," said she.
+
+"The coast patrol!" I exclaimed. "What's that?"
+
+She seemed to look at me for an instant a little doubtfully before
+she answered,
+
+"The Admiralty have asked all the Justices of Peace to have the coast
+patrolled."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"Anybody they can get. We have the whole island mapped out into beats and
+the different; farmers take it night about."
+
+For the moment I only half believed her. Such an amateur way of keeping
+watch and ward in such a vital area seemed hardly credible, but I learned
+afterwards that in those early days of the war that was one of the things
+which actually happened. Another fact also made me doubtful. On the night
+I landed I had met no watchers.
+
+"Who watches the shore up at the north end--near the Scollays'
+farm?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien look after that beat," said she.
+
+In a flash my belief in my own adventure had begun to return. Either that
+couple neglected their duty--or I had met one of the watchers!
+
+"Do the doctor and Mr. O'Brien ever go out themselves--like your father
+to-night?" I asked.
+
+"Mr. O'Brien goes out pretty often, I believe."
+
+I thought for a moment longer and then I jumped up.
+
+"This seems the very job for an able-bodied young man," I said with a
+laugh. "I'm going out to join the watchers!"
+
+"You!" she exclaimed, springing up too.
+
+I looked her straight in the eye.
+
+"Why not me?" I enquired.
+
+She said nothing for an instant, and then she remarked in quite a matter
+of fact voice,
+
+"Very well; if you are going, I'll come with you."
+
+I could not resist parodying her.
+
+"You!" I exclaimed.
+
+But I got no smile in response.
+
+"I'll be ready in five minutes," she said as she left the room.
+
+"Now what the devil does this mean?" I said to myself.
+
+Five minutes of course meant quarter of an hour, and then we sallied
+forth into the night, she in a long tweed coat and I in my
+inevitable oilskin.
+
+"Which way do you want to go?" she asked.
+
+"Suppose we work our way towards the north end," I suggested.
+
+She said nothing more and we made our way by a track to the shore and
+then turned toward the left. I had been filling my pipe and when we got
+to the last stone wall, I stopped, bent under its shelter and struck a
+match. My face was towards her and in the fraction of a second before
+the first match blew out I caught a glimpse of something just visible in
+the mouth of one of the big pockets of her tweed coat. It was the butt
+end of a pistol.
+
+I struck three more matches before I got my pipe alight and I contrived
+to face her each time, but she had turned and kept her other side towards
+me. When we resumed our walk I noticed that she consistently kept two or
+three yards away from me.
+
+"Just shooting distance!" I said to myself.
+
+"By the way, what are we supposed to be looking for?" I enquired
+presently.
+
+"Chiefly periscopes, I think," said she.
+
+I stopped short and gazed over the inky sea.
+
+"Do they light them up for us?" I asked.
+
+She laughed despite herself.
+
+"That is what I've been wondering myself," said she.
+
+This was her only sympathetic relapse, and to tell the truth I made no
+further remarks worthy of being smiled at. That pistol kept me thinking.
+That she had come out to watch me, and if necessary shoot me, seemed a
+pretty obvious deduction, and much as I admired her nerve, it made
+humorous conversation a trifle difficult.
+
+On we walked, on and on for what seemed an interminable distance. It was
+quite moonless and only a few stars twinkled here and there through a
+veil of light clouds that had drifted up with the sunset. The grass
+underfoot was black, the sea was nearly as dark, and the inland country
+invisible. Once I remarked:
+
+"It's a curious thing that we haven't met any of our fellow watchers."
+
+"The beats are very long," she said, "and I'm afraid all the watchers
+don't keep at their posts all the time."
+
+"What; they take a nap now and then?"
+
+She seemed as though she were going to agree, and then to change her
+mind.
+
+"Oh, we shall meet some one very soon. I think father is taking
+this beat."
+
+But we met no one, and as we pursued our lonely way I began to think that
+here was quite a possible reason for my not having come upon one of these
+coast patrols two nights ago. Still, it was only a possible reason; the
+other alternative remained.
+
+And then, I know not how it was, but I began gradually to get a curious
+impression that _something_ was in the air, _something_ was going to
+happen. It is easy to say I only imagine now in the retrospect that I had
+this feeling. But I noted the sensation clearly and positively at the
+time. I strained my eyes, I looked this way and that, so strong did the
+feeling become. Once I thought for a moment I heard soft footsteps
+somewhere on the inland side and I stopped short then and listened, but
+when I stopped I heard nothing.
+
+It can only have been a few minutes after this that the figure at my side
+(which had been so silent that I had almost forgotten it was a girl, and
+a pretty girl too) stopped suddenly, and I stood still beside her.
+
+"Do you hear anything?" she asked, and there seemed to be a little catch
+in her breath.
+
+I listened and shook my head. I could see that she was gazing intently
+down at the beach.
+
+"Do you see anything?" I asked in a voice instinctively hushed.
+
+"No," she answered in the same low tone, "but I thought I heard
+something."
+
+Again I strained my ears, and this time I distinctly did hear something;
+it might have been a movement among the rocks below, or on the bank ahead
+of us. She said nothing more but she seemed to be peering down into the
+gloom that veiled the beach.
+
+"I'll go down and see what it is," I said.
+
+For an instant I thought she was going to demur, but she said nothing,
+and with a bold air I stepped off the turf and began to make my way
+down, first through loose boulders and then along a ledge below. I
+confess frankly that I felt a trifle less bold than I looked, especially
+when I discovered the hazardous nature of the going. I remember that the
+sky began to seem lighter by contrast, but that the rocks were sheer
+chaotic darkness.
+
+I must have been feeling my way along for some minutes, with a growing
+sense of the futility of the performance, when I first heard the sharp
+tinkle of a loose stone on rock. I turned towards the sound and heard it
+again. Either three or four times I had heard it distinctly when I found
+myself close to the grass again, only at this place there was a steep
+little cliff, higher than my head, between it and me, instead of a slope
+of boulders, so that any one on the bank above would be looking straight
+down on to me. All this I can swear to.
+
+And then when my shoulder was rubbing this low cliff face, I
+thought--indeed I am sure--I heard something move above, and certainly
+there was a sharp grating sound on the rock at my back; within an inch of
+me, it seemed. I looked round quickly just in time to catch a glimpse of
+something thin and curved and sinister passing upwards, against the
+night sky. I did not see it descend again, but the next moment came the
+sharp grating, close to my head this time, and once more the long curved
+menace passed up, faintly visible against the sky.
+
+I did not wait for it to descend again. That somebody was striking at
+me from above and that I had better get out of the way seemed so
+evident that I spent no further time in watching the operation. I
+started from the cliff, my foot struck a patch of seaweed, and with a
+half smothered "Damn!" I did the next few yards sliding seawards on my
+side. A peculiarly hard ledge stopped my career and for a moment I lay
+there wondering what bones were broken. By the time I had found there
+were none, and scrambled to my feet, the sky line above the bank was
+clear. Whoever had struck at me was gone and there was not even the
+slightest sound, save the gurgling of the sea below. And then I
+gingerly picked my way back.
+
+I drew near the turf bank at the top and now again I stopped. Low voices
+reached my ear distinctly and presently I spied two vague forms standing
+close together. Before I moved again I had transferred something from my
+hip pocket to my oilskin jacket and I kept my hand there too, closed upon
+it and ready. Then I advanced.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Merton?" said a voice I knew.
+
+"It is, Mr. Rendall," I answered drily.
+
+"Did you see anybody?"
+
+"No," I answered truthfully.
+
+"We thought we heard a cry," said Miss Jean.
+
+"I may have startled a sea gull," I suggested; and then I asked with a
+sharpness in my voice I could not quite control, "Where did Mr. Rendall
+spring from?"
+
+"I told you I thought we should meet him," she answered, with a cool note
+in her voice that countered mine.
+
+"What a curious chance that we should all meet here!" I exclaimed.
+
+"It is precisely what I expected," said she.
+
+"Did you think then it was Mr. Rendall down among the rocks?" I enquired.
+
+"No," she said, "and it wasn't."
+
+"Oh," I replied in a tone which (if I achieved my intention) might have
+meant anything--or nothing.
+
+Her father had been standing perfectly silent during this bout, a
+towering figure muffled in a heavy ulster and scarf, with the rim of his
+hat turned down over his face. Now he spoke in his dry caustic way,
+
+"Have you had enough exercise, Mr. Merton?"
+
+"Quite, thank you."
+
+"Then we can all go back together."
+
+He turned and his daughter took his arm. I walked behind them--it seemed
+on the whole safer, and I kept my hand in my pocket all the while.
+
+I had seen no one, it is true; I had heard no sound that could be sworn
+to as made by a human being, the thing I saw so dimly might possibly not
+have been a lethal weapon (and if it was a weapon, what in Heaven's name
+could it be? I wondered); it might conceivably have been a large bird
+some distance off, just as by a reverse illusion men are said to have
+fired at bumble bees when grouse driving. Also, it was within the bounds
+of possibility that the tinkling stones might not have been thrown down
+by some one above in order to draw me under that face. Everything had
+been so vague that all these alternatives were conceivable. But my own
+mind was quite and finally determined now that my adventure with the
+stranger on the shore had been no figment of my fancy, and I felt sure
+moreover that _they_ had made up their minds about me and decided to act.
+How and why they had come to such a definite conclusion despite all my
+efforts to mislead them, beat me at first completely. And then I stopped
+short and almost shouted "Idiot!"
+
+I had addressed Miss Rendall at her own door in a German accent. Then I
+had abruptly dropped it and through all my deliberate mystifications one
+fact had been clear--that I spoke in the accents of an ordinary more or
+less educated Englishman. The Rendalls clearly had the material for
+coming to a conclusion, and now in their company I had all but ended my
+days on earth.
+
+Yet somehow or other now that I saw all this so clearly, I found myself
+singularly reluctant to accept the logical conclusion that this gentleman
+of good lineage and standing and this attractive high-spirited girl were
+actually traitors of the basest sort, and murderous traitors too.
+
+"Hang it, I may be wrong after all!" I said to myself. "I know I'm
+young: I am told I'm rash; I have made a fool of myself periodically as
+long as I've known myself, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt a
+little longer."
+
+At the door Mr. Rendall left us to resume his conscientious patrol. I
+said a brief and cool good-night to Jean, went up to my room and tumbled
+straight into bed.
+
+"In the morning I'll think things over," I decided.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+A NEAR THING
+
+
+Being an optimist has compensations. Indeed, it would need to have, for
+no virtue has ever landed any one in more damnable scrapes than optimism
+has landed me. But before the crash comes it does help to keep one happy.
+
+Next morning, after that nasty night, I was singing in my bath and full
+of wild hopes; the fact being that a new and consoling way of looking at
+things had suggested itself in the very act of shaving.
+
+"They are afraid of me!" I said to myself.
+
+After a night's sleep the adventure by the shore had grown perhaps a
+little blurred in some of its details. I wished I could see that curved
+thing rising against the night sky a trifle more distinctly in my mind's
+eye; so that I could take my oath in court it was a weapon. Still, I
+remained perfectly assured I had been attacked, and the sustaining
+conclusions I now drew were, firstly, that "they" (whoever they were; and
+I tried to keep an open mind on that point) were so afraid of me that
+they were ready to stick at nothing to lay me out; secondly, that they
+were afraid to tackle me by day but had to choose a dark night and a
+lonely place; and thirdly, that with such a splendid chance it must have
+been nerves that made them bungle it.
+
+"People in that state of mind will do something or other to give
+themselves away," I thought hopefully.
+
+In this confident state of mind I came down for breakfast. My host, I
+found, was staying in bed after his night's vigil, and my hostess was
+daintier and more inaccessible than ever. After breakfast I reflected for
+a little over a pipe and then I asked her for a bit of lunch to put in my
+pocket and told her I was going for a long walk. She got the lunch and
+gave it to me without wasting a superfluous word, and off I set.
+
+It was a breezy morning with a lot of thin cloud in the sky and a ruffled
+sea; cool and stimulating; the very day for a walk. I followed the exact
+route we took the night before, trying to identify such landmarks as
+rises and falls in the ground and sharp curves in the shore and farms
+close to the coast, but I found it was practically impossible; every
+feature seemed so utterly altered in daylight. My object was to find the
+spot where I had been attacked, and at last I had to be content with
+knowing that it must have been one of three or four places where the
+feature of a low cliff immediately under the turf was to be seen.
+
+At one such place there was a long stretch of wall following the shore
+line, which could have given shelter for any one to stalk me practically
+from the start. At another I noticed a farm close by, and from this an
+assailant could easily have slipped down to the beach and run back again.
+At a third the configuration of the rocks was such that it would have
+been simple for him to have waited below the bank till he heard us
+coming, made a noise to bring me down, and then gone up above without
+exposing himself against the sky. In fact one could draw no definite
+conclusions at all.
+
+Besides, there was the very distasteful alternative (and the more
+plausible it seemed, the more distasteful it grew) that there might well
+have been two people in it; one--who might have followed me, the stone
+thrower; and the other--who might, for instance, have been patrolling the
+shore from the opposite direction, the attacker.
+
+Suspicious as I had felt at the moment, I shrank from this alternative,
+and in justification I asked myself,
+
+"Why didn't she use her pistol, and be done with it?"
+
+But, on the other hand, it was a most extraordinary coincidence that her
+father should have passed that spot certainly within three or four
+minutes previously, and that he should have seen no sign of my enemy. So
+far as I could remember the length of time I had spent groping among the
+rocks, it was just possible for Mr. Rendall to pass by and for the other
+man then to begin his work of decoying me, but certainly it was an
+unpleasant coincidence.
+
+And finally there was a last alternative: that I might have been mistaken
+in thinking I was actually assailed and instead of that--But what
+other conceivable explanation could there be? I tried hard but could
+think of none.
+
+With the flame of optimism burning now somewhat low, I kept on following
+the shore till I was well past the scenes of both my night adventures and
+had come to the little sandy bay with the huddle of low grey farm
+buildings just clear of the tide. I found Peter senior painting his boat
+on the shore and hailed him cheerfully with the same old guttural accent.
+
+"Painting your boat, I see," said I.
+
+He gave me a long look and one word.
+
+"Ay," said he, and went on painting.
+
+It struck me at once that he was even more wary and more reticent than
+before, but I was determined to extract some information.
+
+"I have been guarding you against the Germans! Last night I patrolled
+your coast!" I informed him with great enthusiasm.
+
+He looked at me rather curiously, I thought.
+
+"Did ye see anything?" he enquired.
+
+"I thought I did, but ach! how can one be sure in the dark?"
+
+"It's no easy," he agreed.
+
+"Then you have tried too, my friend?"
+
+"Ay," he admitted, splashing on the paint.
+
+"Were any of your family patrolling last night?"
+
+"No," said he curtly.
+
+"Who was guarding this part here?" I asked.
+
+"I dinna ken."
+
+I wondered, but I saw that there was not much more to be learned here. He
+had denied that any of his household were out, for what that was worth,
+and at that I bade him good morning and turned back.
+
+I fell to walking more and more slowly and at last I stopped and decided
+to accompany my thoughts with a little lunch. The boundary wall at this
+point ran close to the edge of the rocks and was rather higher than
+usual. I thought for a moment of sitting down and lunching under its lee,
+and then I noticed that it was very loosely built of large beach boulders
+and that the off shore breeze was whistling through it like a sieve; so I
+decided to descend to the sheltered beach and lunch there. That decision
+saved my life.
+
+I clambered down, chose a rock to sit behind, and was just putting my
+hand in my pocket for my packet of sandwiches, when "Crack!"--something
+whistled close to my head and smacked against a ledge behind me. "Crack!"
+again, and the smack this time resounded from the rock beside me. At the
+third "Crack!" I was flat on my face behind that rock and my hand was in
+another pocket. It brought out something more to the point than
+sandwiches.
+
+I had a pretty good idea by this time where the shots were coming from
+and I risked a quick rise of my head to make quite sure. I just had time
+to see a flash through one of the holes in the wall and down went my head
+again as a bullet smacked once more upon the ledge behind. Yet another
+shot followed and seemed to miss everything, for I heard no sound of lead
+on stone, and then up went my head and hand together and I was covering
+that bit of wall with my own revolver. I saw that my enemy was no very
+dead shot and I meant to risk his fire and snap at the flash through the
+wall. I knew I could get quite near enough his peep hole to startle him,
+and after I had sprinkled the near neighbourhood of that aperture for
+five or six seconds I thought it probably odds against his keeping his
+head sufficiently to do much aiming. To be quite candid I must confess
+that it was a soothing sensation to feel I was the better man with a gun,
+and that I should have been in a proper fright if it had been the other
+way about. One hears a good deal of discussion on the quality of courage
+nowadays, and there is my own small contribution.
+
+The seconds passed, my finger on the trigger and my eyes glued to the
+largest crevice I could spy in that wall, but there was never another
+flash or crack. And then it suddenly struck me that the man might be
+moving down the wall to get a shot at me from another angle. As usual I
+acted on impulse, and this time I think correctly. Scarcely had the
+thought struck me than I was up and rushing forward to the shelter of the
+grass bank where the rocks began. There, quite safe but rather cramped, I
+crept along parallel to the wall for about a hundred yards. And then I
+jumped up, charged the wall, and brought half of it down as I hurled
+myself over. As my feet touched the ground I looked in both directions,
+very nearly simultaneously, and saw--nothing.
+
+Whether in that first instant I was more disappointed or relieved, I
+should be afraid to say, but as soon as I had had a few seconds to think,
+my one feeling was disgust that the fellow had given me the slip. I took
+to my heels and ran along that wall first in one direction and then in
+the other, but there was not a sign of a living creature. And the
+sickening thing was that by this time he might have done one of several
+things--headed away from the shore at top speed as soon as he ceased
+firing, in which case he would be far enough by now, or lain down in one
+of the several fields of corn near by, or crossed the wall further along
+and hidden among the rocks; and it was quite impossible to guess which. I
+pondered over the problem for a few moments and then decided that as it
+was perfectly hopeless to search the corn or the beach I would risk it
+and hasten inland on the off chance of getting a clue, so I chose a grass
+field and set off across it at a trot.
+
+The ground rose for about fifty yards and then fell sharply, and as I
+topped this rise I came right on to a familiar figure. It was my friend
+Jock and he seemed unusually excited; almost, in fact, intelligent.
+
+"Stranger!" he gabbled, pointing in the direction I was going. "Jock seen
+stranger!"
+
+I followed his dirty finger and a couple of hundred yards or so ahead I
+spied a figure strolling along a by road, rather ostentatiously
+strolling, it seemed to me.
+
+"Thank you, Jock," said I, "you're a good man! Here's your half crown!"
+
+I dropped to a walk now and by the time the stranger and I met I think I
+looked about as cool as he did. It was Mr. O'Brien, as I had guessed at
+the first glance.
+
+"Been for a walk?" he enquired.
+
+"Having a stroll along the shore," said I.
+
+He started a little and looked at me hard.
+
+"Hullo!" said he, "I could have sworn you talked like a foreigner the
+last and first time I had the honour of meeting you. Were we both sober,
+do you think?"
+
+I in turn looked at the man keenly. If his surprise was not genuine, it
+was as good a bit of acting as I ever saw, on or off the stage, and it
+was exactly the most disarming thing he could possibly say. Indeed it
+turned the tables on me completely and it was I who was now left in the
+position of having something awkward to explain away.
+
+"It must have been the weather," I said lightly, "I'm never drunk
+before lunch;"
+
+"And be damned if I get the chance at any time of day! You've heard of my
+sad complaint, eh?"
+
+"No," said I, "I'm afraid I haven't. Nothing infectious?"
+
+He gave one of his unpleasant hoots of laughter.
+
+"Lord, you think I'm a respectable member of society then? Good for you,
+keep on thinking it--but you'll have to keep away from my friends!"
+
+"It takes me all my time to keep clear of my own," said I.
+
+His narrow eyes seemed to approve of me.
+
+"You're not Irish?" he enquired.
+
+"No; I've enough to answer for without that."
+
+"You ought to be," said he. "You've got some wit. Damn the English, and
+double-damn the Scotch! Well we're evidently both going in the other
+direction, so good-bye to you!"
+
+What was I to make of this? What was to be thought of the whole morning's
+adventure? Only one thing was perfectly clear to me: that I had a very
+dangerous, very determined, and very artful enemy in this island--or,
+almost certainly, several enemies, and that instead of the hunter I had
+become the hunted. They might fear me but they certainly did not fear to
+attack me whether by day or night. Had I sat down behind that
+trellis-like wall as I intended, I shivered a little to think of my fate.
+I should have been shot at twelve inches range, and that would have been
+the end of my spy hunt. I began to realise that it was much longer odds
+on my being dead within the next forty-eight hours than on my getting on
+the traces of that oilskinned man.
+
+And then as I was walking back thinking these none too cheery thoughts,
+something put the parachute into my head. I had not thought of it before
+since the first night when I hid it. It took me a little time to get my
+bearings, but I found my way to the clover field at last and then made
+for the low wall with the bed of rank grass and docken leaves beneath it.
+I hunted up that wall and down that wall, but never a sign of the
+parachute was there.
+
+"That is how they've bowled me out!" I said to myself. "They have heard
+by this time of the missing balloon; then they found the parachute, saw
+that the dates coincided, and spotted me!"
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE KEY TURNED
+
+
+When I got back I felt very little inclined for society. I passed through
+the hall as quietly as I could, went straight up to my room, and heaved a
+sigh of relief when the door was safely shut behind me. Perhaps my
+adventures had been following a little too quickly on the heels of one
+another; anyhow it was quiet which I craved at that moment. It was a
+reposeful room, scented with honeysuckle, and for a few minutes I enjoyed
+an unwonted sensation of peace; and then my eyes chanced to fall on the
+chest of drawers. I stared for a moment and then bent over the lock of
+the upper drawer, that drawer which concealed the mythical uniform coat
+with the important mythical papers in the pocket.
+
+There could not be a shadow of doubt as to what had happened. The lock
+had been taken off and put in again since I last saw it. And now of
+course my hosts knew as well as I did that no uniform coat had ever lain
+there, and consequently that their guest had never worn one.
+
+I had meant to slack, but this situation obviously required some thinking
+over, so I lit a pipe, threw myself down on the bed, and began.
+
+"Bowled out again!" I thought. "At the rate the wickets are going down,
+the innings must be dashed near over. They've found out my German accent
+was a fake, they've discovered the parachute and know I neither landed
+from a British cruiser nor a German submarine, and now they know that I
+lied about that coat.
+
+"And what is my own score? By Gad, I don't honestly think I've made a
+single run! I have no idea whether these discoveries have been made by
+people in league with one another, who pool their knowledge, or whether
+my enemies only know part of all this, and if so which part. However,
+that matters less since they know enough to shoot at sight.
+
+"Furthermore, I don't know which of them are my enemies, or how many
+there are, or in fact any dashed thing about them. Therefore--"
+
+At that point I fell fast asleep. My late night, the long morning in that
+stirring air, and the excitement of two missed-by-a-hair's-breath
+murders, had trundled me out again. The last wicket was down and the
+innings over as I slept. The one bit of luck I did have was not setting
+the bed on fire with my pipe.
+
+It was about three o'clock when I went up to my room. It was 6-10 when I
+was awakened by a sharp click. I opened my eyes stupidly and looked all
+round the room. There was absolutely nothing to be seen there. Then with
+a strong presentiment I jumped up and tried to open the door. It was as I
+suspected. I was locked in.
+
+My hand went to my hip pocket and found my revolver all right. They had
+not ventured to try and get at that. Then I began to wonder why the key
+had not been turned sooner.
+
+"Something has just happened to make them lock the door," I thought, and
+thereupon I went to the window and looked out.
+
+My room faced right down the island, the north shore to the right--the
+scene of all my adventures, the sheltered south shore to the left.
+Craning my head to the left I could just spy a small vessel of the
+trawler or drifter type lying close inshore. She seemed to be flying a
+white flag--it might have been the white ensign at the distance. And then
+I got a glimpse of three or four figures walking towards the house, and
+one of these wore a white cap.
+
+"Now we shan't be long!" I said to myself. "But what the dickens does it
+all mean?"
+
+About ten long minutes passed before I heard voices and footsteps on the
+stairs. The lock clicked again, the door opened, and there stood a
+square-shouldered man in dark blue, with three gold rings on his sleeve
+and a familiarly firm mouth and pair of steady eyes. For an instant I
+could scarcely believe my own eyes, and then I knew that it actually
+was--of all people--my own cousin. Commander John P. N. Whiteclett, R.N.,
+whom I had last heard of two years before the war when he was on the East
+Indies Station. And behind him I caught a glimpse of Jean Rendall. There
+may have been others, but all I was conscious of was her eager face, the
+eyes brighter than ever, and the lips a little parted in tense
+excitement.
+
+My cousin Jack spoke first.
+
+"Good Lord, _you_ of all people, Roger!"
+
+"My dear Jack!" I cried, and then I checked myself and shut that door.
+
+"Well," said my cousin, with more candour than politeness, "I always
+thought you would end in gaol, Roger, and you've had a dashed near squeak
+this time, let me tell you. What new form of lunacy have you bust out
+into?" His eye fell on my revolver. "And what are you doing with that
+thing? If it's going to be suicide, let me fetch in a witness before you
+begin. I hate being found alone with a body."
+
+"Is that your ship?" I demanded.
+
+"She's one of 'em. I'm boss of a few dozen of these floating palaces at
+present. In fact we're a patrol and I've caught you red-handed on my own
+beat, and what I want to know is what the devil are you doing on it? Not
+trying to elope with that little bit of fluff, I hope, because I can
+assure you she doesn't love you in the least, Roger."
+
+"You mean well, old thing," I said, "but you've guessed wrong as usual,
+Jack. Take me to your ship, for the Lord's sake, and I'll tell you the
+whole yarn there."
+
+"These good people probably expect a bit of explanation," he suggested.
+
+"The Rendalls? Not yet! Wait till you've heard everything yourself. Tell
+'em then if you like--but I don't think you will."
+
+He looked at me curiously.
+
+"Well," said he, "let's be off then. Don't you even want to say
+good-bye?"
+
+"I'll send them a Christmas card," I said.
+
+"What, after all the trouble they've taken to round you up?"
+
+"Do you mean to say they sent for you?"
+
+"Rather! Urgent wire."
+
+The prospect of facing my grim host and his disdainful daughter struck me
+forcibly as less pleasing than ever.
+
+"Come on!" I said. "I'm going to bolt!"
+
+We went downstairs and out of the front door like a couple of burglars.
+The Commander did not appear to relish this performance particularly, but
+I went first and he had to keep pace with me.
+
+At the door we found the escort provided for me, and very surprised they
+looked as they followed us to see their Commander so unaccountably
+intimate with his captive; but fortunately there was no sign of the laird
+or his daughter. I looked round me and felt sure I saw a well known slip
+of a figure standing against the weather beaten wall of the old mansion,
+gazing after us--with what sensations? I wondered very much.
+
+"When did they wire for you?" I asked.
+
+"Somewhere round about mid-day."
+
+"And what did they say?"
+
+"'They'?" repeated my cousin. "Why drag in the fair Miss Rendall? Her
+father did the wiring. At least I presume so."
+
+"Assuming he did, what did he say?"
+
+"Suspicious stranger come to Ransay--gave incorrect account of
+himself--that was the gist of it. Oh, he used the word 'urgent' I
+remember."
+
+"Incorrect account? That was probably after they had picked the lock of
+my drawer and had something to go upon."
+
+Again my cousin looked at me curiously.
+
+"This sounds interesting," he said, and quickened his stride.
+
+We reached a little unfrequented pier and jumped into the drifter's boat.
+Sitting in the stern I looked over my shoulder with very mixed feeling at
+the receding shores of the island of Ransay. It had baffled me, made a
+fool of me, nearly murdered me; but after all it had saved my life when
+the odds were a million to one against me, and it had crowded into that
+life the four most exciting days and nights I had ever spent.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+ON THE DRIFTER
+
+
+My cousin led me into the small deck house that served as his cabin when
+he was aboard. Through the windows we could see the afternoon gradually
+fading into evening, and the western sky turn crimson as we ploughed our
+way up winding sounds between the low-lying isles.
+
+He produced a flask and a couple of bottles of soda water, lit his pipe,
+saw that door and windows were safely closed, and leaned over the table.
+
+"Now," said he, "how the devil did you get to this place? That's the
+first question. They told me some yarn about a parachute, which I take it
+was really a hair net or a lobster pot--"
+
+"It wasn't," I interrupted, "it was a parachute and I landed in it.
+Do you mean to say you hadn't heard of my disappearance in a
+runaway balloon?"
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "Are you the same Merton? I noticed the name of
+course, but do you mean to tell me they're giving away R.N. V.R.
+commissions as promiscuously as all that?"
+
+"They give 'em to the pick of young England's manhood," I assured him.
+"The idea is to make the Navy into a real live force, capable of
+originality and enterprise."
+
+He grinned.
+
+"They've struck the originality all right," he admitted, "but, Lord, the
+time that will be wasted court-martialling you fellows! However, let's
+hear the whole yarn from the beginning."
+
+I began at the snapping of the cable and told him my adventures
+faithfully down to the moment when he unlocked my bedroom door. He only
+interrupted once or twice to get some point or other clear, and then when
+I had finished he leaned back and looked at me hard across the table.
+
+"Roger," he said, "I've known you long enough and well enough to know
+that you are not a deliberate liar, but I hope you'll forgive my saying
+that this is a damned tough bullet to chew."
+
+"It sounds a tall order," I admitted, "but it's true."
+
+He filled his pipe thoughtfully.
+
+"I may as well tell you," he said in a moment, "that I am not at present
+a very credulous person. From the moment this blessed war began and I got
+this job, I have done little else than investigate spy legends, and I
+have come to the deliberate conclusion that there is either a lot more
+imagination in the world than any one has ever dreamt of, or that
+mankind are chronic and inveterate liars. I haven't yet had the luck to
+find one single true bill in any story I've investigated."
+
+"Your luck has turned now, Jack."
+
+"Possibly," he said slowly, "and mind you, Roger, there's no doubt
+whatever that a devilish secret service system exists; or that it's being
+used against us for all it's worth. Secret petrol bases for their
+submarines, secret signallying from the shore, mine-laying by so-called
+neutral ships; all that sort of thing is going on under our noses. I've
+got several very shrewd suspicions and hope to bring off one or two
+little discoveries not a thousand miles from this very spot. In fact, if
+you had pitched on any one of three or four other islands for the scene
+of your tale, or if what you'd seen had been just a little different I
+wouldn't have questioned a word of your story. But Ransay is not one of
+the suspected islands, and your friend in oilskins doesn't fit into
+anything I happen to have heard from other sources."
+
+"Look here," I said, "what's the good of being cousins if we aren't
+candid? Do you or don't you believe me?"
+
+John Whiteclett looked at me very steadily and spoke in his most
+deliberate accents.
+
+"I believe that you believe every word of it. But I know you're an
+imaginative fellow and I can see for myself already that at least three
+quarters of your yarn can be explained away very easily."
+
+"Explain it."
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, just look at things for a moment from the point of
+view of a perfectly innocent and loyal inhabitant of Ransay--the Rendalls
+for instance. You appear on their shores absolutely mysteriously in the
+dead of night, you admit yourself you lay yourself out to behave like a
+thinly disguised Hun--d----d thinly too, apparently! You blow in from
+nowhere on the doctor and talk with a German accent. You blow in on the
+laird, begin talking with an accent and then drop it. You pitch him a
+cock and bull yarn about being landed from a cruiser and wanting to hide
+your uniform coat and so on. You conduct yourself like a criminal in
+church and wander out at night. Naturally the Rendalls--and everybody
+else--eye you strangely to your face and try to find out a little more
+behind your back. Do you see?"
+
+"There's something certainly in all this," I had to admit.
+
+"Then they find your parachute--"
+
+"Who found it?"
+
+"I haven't asked that yet; but I shall of course. Anyhow it was found,
+and as evidently you had hid it. One point discovered against you. Then
+the Rendalls decide on stronger measures--and very rightly too, I think.
+They open your drawer and find you never had a uniform coat at all. Most
+wisely they then wire to me, and to keep you from bolting, lock you in
+your room."
+
+"Dash it," said I, "I seem at least to have succeeded in providing them
+with a devilish good excuse for every blessed thing they did!"
+
+"I don't honestly think you have left yourself with any grounds whatever
+for suspecting the Rendalls of anything."
+
+"On the other hand, sending for you and having me arrested would be an
+excellent way of getting rid of me when they were certain who I was--or
+rather, wasn't."
+
+"And who did they make apparently certain you were not? A British
+officer! That was the natural conclusion when they opened that drawer.
+No, no, the Rendalls come out of it all right. Then let's take the
+doctor. He looks at you suspiciously--as well he might."
+
+"Before I spoke!" I interjected.
+
+"And do you flatter yourself that your appearance, without a cap and in a
+buttoned-up oilskin on a fine day, was reassuring?"
+
+"But the blind?"
+
+"Did you never see a blind come down with a run by mistake? There's a
+blind in my smoking room at home that comes down like that whenever you
+touch it. There's nothing against the doctor either--so far anyhow."
+
+"And his friend O'Brien?"
+
+"Ah, that's a different story. Mind you, you have shown me not a shred of
+evidence against the fellow. Still, what's he doing there? That's a thing
+I'm going to find out within the next four and twenty hours. But you
+can't prove that he _did_ anything, and you can't suspect a man of
+treason just because you don't like his looks. There are possibly
+prejudiced people who don't like ours."
+
+"Wait till you see him."
+
+"I shall," said my cousin with an emphasis that hardly seemed to mean
+what I meant. "As for the Scollay family--nothing against them whatever,
+except that they live at a lonely spot on the shore, which I should say
+was rather their misfortune than their fault."
+
+"And the old boy on the road, who, Miss Rendall declared, doesn't exist?"
+
+"How long did you give her to run over all the inhabitants of the island?
+Did she look up a list of them, or a rent roll or anything?"
+
+"No," I admitted. "Still, she seemed very positive, and she lives in the
+place and must know everybody. If she fibbed, that's certainly
+suspicious. If she was correct, then I met some one in disguise."
+
+"Well," said he with an indulgent and extremely irritating smile, "I
+shall enquire about that old gentleman too. But, frankly, I've no doubt
+whatever that Miss Rendall simply forgot him when you asked her."
+
+"All the characters seem cleared except mine," I remarked.
+
+"Wait a bit, old chap. Now we'll come to the really suspicious things
+that you actually did see. First, the man on the shore."
+
+"Can't he be explained away?"
+
+"Possibly," said Jack imperturbably, "but he needs a good deal more
+explaining. You admit you became a bit light-headed soon afterwards."
+
+"I've thought of that explanation myself, but it won't wash when he or
+one of his friends went for me on the shore."
+
+"Are you dead certain anybody did try to go for you? You admit you
+saw nobody."
+
+"I saw that curved thing--like a scimitar."
+
+"But who on earth would be using a scimitar in these islands? And what a
+futile way to use it--jabbing down at you from overhead!"
+
+"The point of it hit the rock hard enough."
+
+"You had only the sound to go by."
+
+"That's all," I admitted.
+
+"And you heard that in the dark." He shook his head, "My dear fellow! I
+know you are telling me honestly what you _think_ happened, but to be
+quite frank--"
+
+He broke off and shook his head again.
+
+"Well," said I, "that's explained away very happily. What I saw was only
+something else and what I heard was something else too. You put the
+alternatives so clearly, Jack, that one can't help being convinced. And
+what about the shooting affair? I only heard a thingumabob and saw a
+what-you-may-call-it, I suppose?"
+
+"My dear Roger, I only want to test the alternatives and see what _can't_
+be explained away. Have you ever been under fire before?"
+
+"No, but I've seen pictures of it in the illustrated papers."
+
+"Dash it, be serious!" said he. "You have no doubt whatever that somebody
+blazed either at you or at something else from behind that wall?"
+
+"Or at something else? What do you mean?"
+
+"There weren't any duck about, or anything of that kind? I've known a
+wild shot blaze both barrels within six inches of my own head and explain
+he had never noticed me."
+
+"I was rather too preoccupied to notice whether there were any duck there
+when he began," said I, "but unless they were deaf duck there certainly
+wouldn't be any left after he'd loosed off his first bullet. Besides one
+doesn't usually shoot duck with bullets."
+
+"One might with a rook rifle."
+
+"I admit that one might; also that a very excitable person might go on
+shooting after the duck had gone. But do you really mean to tell me,
+Jack, that that explanation satisfies you?"
+
+"I don't say that it does absolutely, and I quite admit that the
+weakness of my explanations is that your story requires three of them;
+none being perfectly satisfactory. However, it comes to this, that we
+have narrowed the field down to three incidents that want a bit of
+explanation. Everything else points as much one way as the other."
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"To your being mistaken for a spy yourself."
+
+A horried thought struck me. It was so horrid that it took a little pluck
+to get it out.
+
+"In that case, supposing some patriotic individual had tried first to
+stab and then to shoot me, for his country's sake?"
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed my cousin and gazed thoughtfully into space for a
+bit. Then he said, "That's possible, but it's a tall order too; and it
+leaves out the man on the shore."
+
+I was visited by another horrid thought.
+
+"He might have been spy hunting!"
+
+"Well, in that case we can easily get on to his tracks. There will be no
+point in his denying it. But would the conversation fit that theory?"
+
+I thought for a moment and then said with heart-felt relief,
+
+"No, it couldn't possibly."
+
+My cousin fell silent and stared into the thickening dusk. Then he looked
+round with a start and said,
+
+"We're nearly in."
+
+We both went out on deck and saw at the head of the bay before us houses
+and lights on shore and a church tower against the evening sky.
+
+"Well, Roger," said he, "I'll go into this business very carefully and
+make the most thorough enquiry. Don't think I'm not keen on getting at
+the bottom of it. You've got to get off at once and rejoin your ship
+of course?"
+
+I said I must.
+
+"I tell you what I'll do," he went on; "of course we've got to lie very
+low about this sort of thing, but I feel I owe you some account of what
+happens. I'll write and let you know as soon as I have finished my
+investigation."
+
+John Whiteclett was the best of fellows, shrewd and level-headed and a
+first class officer, but somehow or other I felt small confidence in his
+getting the better of the cunning foe on Ransay. However, it was all that
+could be done now. My own part was finished and I had to confess I had
+failed ignominiously.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+MY COUSIN'S LETTER
+
+
+Three weeks later I received this letter from my cousin:
+
+"My dear Roger,
+
+"As I promised I am sending you a chit to tell you the result of our
+enquiry into the Ransay mystery. Of course you will understand that this
+is strictly for your own eye and mustn't be talked about.
+
+"Well, I wanted to leave no stone unturned to get at the bottom of the
+affair so we got up a pukka detective from London, a man named Bolton,
+said to be a first class fellow at the job. He spent a solid week in the
+island and seems to have poked his nose into pretty nearly every house
+and spoken to pretty nearly every inhabitant from the laird down. Taking
+a tip from your tale he posed as a cattle dealer (which is precisely what
+he looks like) and of course he never let on that he knew of your
+existence--or mine either.
+
+"The result of his enquiries is, firstly--nothing proved against anybody
+and no evidence of anything fishy going on in the place. This last point
+confirms my own experience, for, as I told you, I haven't yet been able
+to associate this particular island with any of the suspicious ongoings
+which undoubtedly are happening.
+
+"Secondly, your friend O'Brien turns out to be a gentleman with a failing
+for liquor who was sent up by his relations in Ireland about six months
+ago to live under Dr. Rendall's charge, there being no pubs in
+Ransay--and many in the island he came from. I find that it is by no
+means unusual to send thirsty souls to publess isles, and beyond the fact
+that O'Brien came up very 'convanient' for this war and is pretty free
+with his tongue on the subject of England's sins and shortcomings, there
+is really nothing positive against the man. However we are running no
+risks, and as we are God and Destiny rolled into one in these islands, we
+gave Mr. O'Brien his marching orders and by this time he has presumably
+either secured a drink at last or his friends have shut him up in some
+teetotal paradise a little further from the scene of war.
+
+"Bolton's opinion is that O'Brien was without doubt the man who fired at
+you, looking to the type of gentleman he is, and the fact that you ran
+into him immediately afterwards, and especially the fact that he actually
+does possess an old rook rifle. He thinks he may have done it out of
+sheer Irish deviltry, you offering so convenient a target, just as they
+pot landlords in his own happy country. A man can hardly have drunk as
+heavily as he must have done without upsetting his brain a bit, and this
+theory seems to me not at all unlikely.
+
+"Bolton thinks it hardly conceivable that O'B. can have had any
+deliberate idea of getting rid of you, since it is certain that he wasn't
+the man in oilskins you met the night you landed--or rather, dropped. He
+can't have been _because he doesn't know a word of German_. We ought to
+have thought of that clue ourselves. Bolton was on to it at once and
+points out that it puts out of court the whole inhabitants of the island
+except Miss Rendall who has a pretty good school-girl's knowledge of
+German, and her father who has been abroad a lot and knows a bit of the
+language. And apart from all other considerations, the man in oilskins
+can't have been either of them owing to their height. Miss R. is too
+short and Mr. R. too tall.
+
+"Assuming therefore that you weren't a bit light-headed or anything of
+that kind (which, I am bound to say, Bolton thinks quite a likely
+explanation), the man you met _must_ have landed from a submarine and
+gone away again in her. Bolton feels positive on this point, and I must
+say I agree with him.
+
+"The only remaining difficulty is the attack on the shore. Here Bolton
+takes exactly the same line as I did when I questioned you. He thinks
+that as you didn't actually see anybody, and as what you think you saw
+and heard are so vague and indefinite and so difficult to fit into any
+known method of murder, one can't really draw any conclusions, and he
+quotes various cases he has known of people who fancied they were struck
+or seized or fired at in the dark, when actually there was some other
+explanation.
+
+"By the way, as to the old gentleman with tinted spectacles who asked for
+a match, Bolton made enquiries of a number of people about the old men in
+the island, and he even took the trouble to interview them all. None have
+tinted spectacles and all deny having spoken with you. I am afraid that
+this discovery made him a bit sceptical about some of the other
+incidents. However he went into the whole thing very carefully indeed and
+I think we can all feel satisfied that with the departure of Mr. O'Brien
+the possibility of trouble within the island has been eliminated. Of
+course the Lord only knows who may not land in the place by night, and
+they may quite possibly have squared one or two of the natives to show a
+light, or to keep their eyes shut, or help them in one way or another.
+But that's rather a different story.
+
+"I am sorry I have nothing better to satisfy your dramatic soul, but hang
+it, a fellow who flies from the middle of the North Sea in a balloon and
+then drops through a fog and hits an island a few miles square, and
+afterwards gets mistaken for a spy, and shot at and finally arrested,
+oughtn't to complain!
+
+"Good luck to you. Keep out of balloons and don't part with that
+revolver.
+
+"Yours ever,
+
+"J.P.N. WHITECLETT."
+
+And there for the present--and perhaps for ever--the story ends. I sat
+down straight off and began to write out this full, true, and particular
+account of the whole adventure, partly to keep my memory of everything
+fresh, and partly because it strikes me as not half a bad yarn in itself.
+Now that I have finished the job I must say that whether or no it will
+convince anybody else, it makes me feel more certain than ever that more
+has been going on in that island than met Mr. Bolton's eye.
+
+Professional detectives are no doubt very useful men at jobs they are
+accustomed to and when pitted against the ordinary criminal. But these
+war problems are quite new, and utterly different even from the German
+secret service machinations in time of peace. And the men they are
+opposed to are very extraordinary criminals indeed; they are a highly
+trained, scientific force, as much a wing of the German fighting forces
+as their air service or their submarines.
+
+What chance has a man who looks like a cattle-dealer against these
+experts, especially when he is only in action for a week and starts with
+the assumption that the few invaluable facts given him are mostly works
+of imagination? Possibly he may have fluked upon the remedy by removing
+O'Brien, and if the island of Ransay gives no more trouble for the rest
+of this war, it will certainly look as though he had. But in that case he
+will have been uncommon lucky, because he seems to me to have overlooked
+or dismissed practically everything significant.
+
+Take, for instance, the actual words used by my oilskinned friend. They
+most distinctly implied that he was living on shore. Take the incident of
+the blind, which may perhaps have been, as John Whiteclett says, an
+every-day accident, but which certainly happened in the house where the
+one man they do suspect was living, and would certainly involve the
+doctor if it were not a mere accident. Look at my security while I was
+humbugging them by my suspicious conduct, and then the unscrupulous and
+quickly repeated attempts to get rid of me after two things had
+happened--my dropping of my accent at the Rendalls and the discovery of
+the parachute. Take that night on the shore when Miss Rendall escorted me
+armed with a pistol and her father joined her at the very place and the
+very time when the attack was made on me. As to its being an imaginary
+attack, my last doubts dissipated when I was fired at next day.
+
+Then as to the idea of Mr. O'Brien trying to shoot duck, or suddenly
+being inspired by high-spirited homicidal mania, I simply decline to
+accept such absurd interpretations. I am not in the least sure it was
+he, to begin with. I feel convinced that more than one man is in it,
+and which conspirator took which part, who can say on the little
+evidence one has?
+
+Again, take Mr. Bolton's brilliant idea of enquiring who could speak
+German. How did he enquire? Probably asked them! Is he a German scholar
+himself? The odds are a thousand to one against it. Or take the
+mysterious old man with the tinted spectacles. His appearance by that
+roadside and subsequent disappearance into space is one of the oddest
+features of the case. I have no doubt at all now that the wax match
+enquiry was the beginning of a series of questions and answers which
+would have proved me a fellow conspirator if I had only known them. They
+probably became doubly suspicious of me from that moment and only waited
+to make quite sure before going all out to kill me. And yet, Bolton by
+coolly assuming I was a liar or a dreamer missed the entire significance
+of the incident.
+
+But when it comes to asking myself honestly which people precisely I
+suspect, and how I propose to separate the incidents which (I freely
+admit) are perfectly consistent with the theory that I was genuinely
+suspected myself, from the incidents which cannot be explained on those
+grounds, and work out a water-tight case against anybody in particular, I
+must confess that I am fairly beaten. I know that I don't want to suspect
+that girl, though she did treat me like a member of a lower race and
+scored off me badly at the end; and I do want to suspect O'Brien. By the
+way, was he a real drunkard? I rather begin to wonder.
+
+And that is the very unsatisfactory end of the matter so far.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN IDEA
+
+
+I wish I had said that I felt sure my cousin's letter was not the last of
+the business on Ransay. One would like to be the only correct prophet
+this war has produced. It was not the end by any manner of means, as I
+learned within two days of finishing that last chapter. I wrote it, and
+the two or three before it, in the convalescent hospital at Winterdean
+Hall, finishing it, I remember, on a Wednesday; and I picked up the scent
+again on the very Friday following.
+
+I had been laid out in an insignificant North Sea scrap, but though the
+scrap was small the wounds were unpleasant and I was still rather glad to
+lie easy in a moveable summerhouse on the terrace. I was well on the mend
+but had walked a little too far that morning and there I lay stretched
+half asleep in a deck chair, out of the wind and basking in the sun. It
+was the end of the first week in February, but the day was mild as milk
+and in my overcoat I felt positively hot. Rooks were cawing over the
+winter woodlands below the terrace, a faint, restful line of blue hills
+rose far away beyond, and a gorgeous peacock was strolling sedately on
+the lawn. I was utterly content to lie there and doze, when I heard a
+familiar voice.
+
+"Right! I see where he is, thank you," it said.
+
+"Jack Whiteclett!" I said to myself.
+
+It was always pleasant to see Jack, but at that moment a bore to be
+disturbed. Little did I guess how thorough and final that disturbance was
+going to be.
+
+He appeared in the open door of my shelter, keen eyes, blue serge, three
+rings, and all complete. I expected a jibe at my beard, but evidently I
+struck him too sorry an object for mirth.
+
+"Well, old chap," said he, "you've earned a rest and I'm glad to see
+you're taking it."
+
+This from Jack was subtily flattering and I did my best to look the
+wounded hero.
+
+"Where did they get you?" he asked.
+
+"In my beard," said I, "left side of the jaw. Also right ankle and a
+souvenir under the ribs."
+
+"Lame?"
+
+"Still a little, but improving."
+
+"The beard is quite becoming," he observed.
+
+"Look at it well then while you have the chance for they say they'll let
+me shave it in a week."
+
+"You're well on the mend then?"
+
+"Thank the Lord."
+
+"Then I needn't give you any more sympathy. Congratulations instead."
+
+"On getting a bit of Blighty?"
+
+"On getting a bit of ribbon."
+
+I opened my eyes, for this was the first I had heard of it.
+
+"It isn't out yet," said he, "but I believe it's to be your doom.
+Somebody has presumably bribed some one at the Admiralty. Uncle Francis
+tipped me the wink. You've evidently quite made your peace there, Roger,
+so congratulations again."
+
+This hint of a decoration was gratifying enough, and to hear, on top of
+it, his assurance that my dear old uncle had really opened his heart
+again nearly upset me disgracefully. I was evidently still a little
+weaker than I realised. However, Jack was tact itself and the talk turned
+to every-day matters.
+
+He had been sitting beside me for some little time discussing the war,
+the world, and the devil, before it began to strike me as quite
+remarkably kind, even for so good a fellow as Jack Whiteclett, to come so
+far out of his way to look me up. His own wife was at Portsmouth last I
+heard of her, all his other interests were in London, and yet here he
+was looking up a cousin in a hospital a couple of hundred miles away from
+either place.
+
+"By the way, how long have you got?" I asked.
+
+"A week."
+
+I sat up in my deck chair.
+
+"Only a week! I say this is extraordinarily good of you to come down here
+and see me."
+
+"Oh, I wanted to see how heroes bear their wounds," he smiled, but I felt
+certain there was something more left unsaid.
+
+"Jack, old chap, what's up? I see in your eye there's something else."
+
+He hesitated a moment and then said,
+
+"There was, but I'm not going to bother you with it now. I didn't know
+how fit you might be."
+
+Naturally I made him go on.
+
+"Would it worry you if I were to yarn a little about that adventure of
+yours in Ransay?" he asked.
+
+"Worry me! I've been thinking of little else since I came to this restful
+place. In fact I've been finishing off a full, true, and particular
+account of the adventure. Any further news?"
+
+His mouth grew compressed and a frown settled over his eyes.
+
+"Nothing definite, except that the infernal island has been worrying me a
+lot lately. You were quite right, Roger, and I withdraw my last doubt
+with many apologies. Something is very far wrong in that place.
+Submarines have been seen for certain two or three times, and signals on
+shore, and the devil knows all what. But we can't find a clue or a trace
+of anything to lay our hands on!"
+
+"And all this is since O'Brien left?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Yes. If he were in it you were quite right in suspecting a gang. If he
+wasn't, then the fellow, or fellows, are still there. I am quite certain
+now, Roger, that you were absolutely right. Some one is actually living
+in that comparatively small island, and working a lot of mischief, and we
+haven't even the foggiest notion who to suspect."
+
+"Have you applied to Mr. Bolton?" I asked a little maliciously.
+
+"Damn Mr. Bolton! The fellow botched the whole business. He lost the
+scent while it was still warm, and now it's as cold as mutton and one has
+to begin all over again! I wanted badly to have a yarn with you about it,
+Roger. You may have some ideas. Bolton had none and I have none."
+
+"Are you allowed to tell me exactly what has been seen?"
+
+"I am not allowed, but I can tell you, if you won't repeat anything."
+
+And so I may not go into particulars in this narrative. However, that
+makes no difference, for beyond indicating that the northwest end, out
+by the Scollays' farm, and the barren uninhabited tip of the island
+beyond, was the danger zone, these particulars gave no clue and suggested
+no fresh idea. Of course they naturally suggested people living in that
+vicinity, and yet this was far from inevitable because that coast was the
+best for the enemy's purpose, and his friend or friends on shore might
+come some considerable distance to get in touch with him. In fact, it
+would be a pretty obvious precaution to live as far from the scene of
+actual operations as possible; though equally obviously it would be a
+less convenient arrangement.
+
+As for the precautions which Whiteclett was able to take, all that I am
+permitted to say about them is that, instead of the amateur coast patrol
+arrangement in vogue when I was there, a few men from a certain unit were
+put on to the job instead. But my cousin had no control over this, and as
+he alone realised--in fact, could realise--the peculiar danger on this
+particular island. The number of men spared for Ransay was very small
+(you could count them on one hand with something over) and they were but
+ordinary honest members of this unit at that--not experts at the game.
+Consequently he was a little doubtful whether the safeguard was any
+better than before.
+
+Well, we talked the whole thing over and over again, and I honestly
+could suggest nothing to add to what I had told him before. And then I
+asked him,
+
+"Have you yourself seen no cause whatever to suspect any one? Nothing
+happened--even a very little thing?"
+
+He began to shake his head, and then said,
+
+"Well, there was just one thing that made me suspicious for a moment, but
+then I came to the conclusion that my suspicious wouldn't hold water. A
+short time ago Dr. Rendall came in to see me and begged for leave to keep
+another drunk--what he called an alcoholic patient. He said he had heard
+of a man whose friends wanted to send him up to him, and offered to give
+me all sorts of guarantees of his honesty, et cetera, et cetera. I
+gathered that the doctor must be pretty hard up and this patient would
+make all the difference to him. In fact he practically told me so."
+
+"Of course you said no?"
+
+"I was sympathetic but told him I was afraid it was no good. I didn't
+want to seem too sharp with him, just in case he might be a wrong 'un and
+would be the better of a little show of guilelessness. Of course I let
+him know later he couldn't have the fellow. But honestly, Roger, I can't
+think there was really anything suspicious in his request. In the first
+place the trouble is going on without his inebriate. In the second
+place, the request would be too bareface if he meant mischief."
+
+"Still," I said, "it shows the man is hard up. Suppose he has been
+tempted?"
+
+"In that case we must also suppose he has fallen and pocketed a bribe;
+and then he wouldn't be hard up any more."
+
+"One doesn't know his difficulties. He might require a lot to cover them,
+and be in need of a fresh cheque now. And there's one thing, Jack, that
+has made me wonder sometimes. He is a cut above the ordinary local doctor
+in such a place. What's he doing there?"
+
+"Well," said my cousin after a moment's thought, "the problem in my mind
+always comes back to this, that we are never likely to get much forrader
+until we can station a spy of our own in the place to watch what's going
+on. And how can one possibly manage that without giving away who the
+watcher is? If they know who he is, he will find out nothing, and
+probably have his throat cut. That's the difficulty."
+
+I said nothing for a moment. A brilliant idea was beginning to dawn
+upon my mind.
+
+"Nothing to suggest?" he asked.
+
+"I suppose," I said, thinking hard, "that if you had wanted to, you could
+have let Dr. Rendall have that man?"
+
+My cousin stared at me.
+
+"I shouldn't take the responsibility myself, but I daresay if I were
+lunatic enough to back him up, the powers that be might agree."
+
+"Jack!" I exclaimed, "I'll be the alcoholic patient!"
+
+For a moment I thought my cousin's eyes were going to start out of his
+head. Then they subsided and a grin began to steal over his face instead.
+
+"By Gad!" he murmured.
+
+"I'm the very man for the job! I've actually spoken to at least one of
+the gang in that island, apart from the old chap with spectacles. I know
+the ropes, so far as they are knowable. In fact I've a kind of
+prescriptive right to the job."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I quite admit that you have; also that I'd sooner have you there than
+anyone else. Looking back, I think you had a most sporting try last time,
+and I must say it seems to me that only some devilish bit of bad luck
+prevented you from bringing it off. Though what actually the bit of bad
+luck was has often puzzled me. But then," he added, "you aren't the
+fellow he wants."
+
+"One drunk is as good as another so long as he pays the fee."
+
+"But supposing, for the sake of argument, he had some reason for wanting
+this other man. Would he take you in that case?"
+
+"He must or he'd give himself away!"
+
+"True for you, Roger. But how are we going to open negotiations without
+arousing suspicion? One might as well face all the difficulties."
+
+"Oh, we can easily fix that up," said I. "My guardians will write and say
+they have heard of his excellent system, et cetera, and have hopes of
+making arrangements with the naval authorities, and so on. There will be
+no difficulty at all so far as that part goes."
+
+"But, my dear chap, when you'd got there they'd spot you."
+
+"With this beard--dyed black?" I cried, as inspiration trod on
+inspiration's heels. "And a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, and this
+limp--which will hide even my walk, and a complete change of clothes;
+who will spot me? Remember I was only there for a very few days six
+months ago."
+
+"Your voice?"
+
+"I only spoke in my natural voice to the two Rendalls; never to the
+doctor; in fact I've only met him once."
+
+"But his cousins saw a good deal of you."
+
+"I haven't been on the stage for nothing," I assured him. "I'll change my
+voice very little, not enough to make it difficult to keep up--throw in a
+lisp or something of that kind. You can trust me to do the thing
+thoroughly, Jack."
+
+My cousin looked at me carefully.
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I think you are changed enough already to puzzle
+'em; and with your beard dyed black--by the way, don't forget to dye
+your hair too, old chap!--and glasses, et cetera, by jingo I do believe
+you'll pass!"
+
+"Now the thing is how to get permission: first, leave for me, and second,
+leave to land an alcoholic on the island. What about Uncle Francis--could
+he pull any strings for us? And will he if he can?"
+
+"The very man!" said Jack, "if he really will take the thing up. He's in
+it with the best kind of big-wig for our purpose. And I rather think the
+idea might appeal to his sense of humour. Anyhow, I'll see him to-night
+when I get back to town, and failing him I'll try some one else."
+
+And that was the abrupt end of those restful days, dozing in a deck chair
+listening to the cawing rooks at Winterdean Hall Convalescent Hospital.
+
+
+
+II
+
+A LITTLE DINNER
+
+
+On the Tuesday evening, just four days later, I hobbled up the steps of
+my Uncle's club and put the same question I had so often put before to
+the same sleek benignant hall porter.
+
+"Sir Francis Merton?"
+
+He was as benignant as ever, but he handed me over to an attractive war
+worker with a detached air that showed he was quite unconscious of ever
+having seen me before. For an instant I was chilled, and then I realised
+the happiness of the omen. If my beard alone so changed me, there would
+be no fear of recognition when art had reinforced nature.
+
+The only other guest had already arrived:--Commander John Whiteclett. My
+uncle was talking to him confidentially before the fire, and at the sight
+of that familiar upstanding figure with the dominating nose above the
+determined mouth and the fresh complexion and snow-white hair and genial
+eyes, all just the same as ever, I felt a sudden sense of confidence in
+the issue of my adventure. With such an ally at my back, the chances of
+failure seemed almost negligible.
+
+"Well, Roger," he cried in his bluff strong voice (though I noticed it
+was discreetly lowered while there was any one within earshot), "I hear
+you've taken to liquor so badly that your friends have got to remove you
+from society! We always did think it would come to something of this
+kind; eh, Jack?"
+
+"He always was a bad egg, sir," said my cousin. "I don't mind betting he
+hasn't brushed his beard."
+
+"And that limp!" added Sir Francis. "Gad, I believe he's been kicked
+downstairs by an indignant husband!"
+
+However, he pressed my arm as he laughed, and it was not a
+critical pressure.
+
+"I can't shave owing to my shaky hand," I explained, "and the limp is
+port in the big toe."
+
+"Port?" exclaimed my uncle. "No, no, my dear fellow, it's whisky
+poisoning you suffer from. You began in secret in your sixteenth year and
+have been a trouble to your friends since you were twenty-one. However,
+I've got all the particulars written out for you, and mind you get 'em
+into your head and don't contradict yourself or me when you go to live
+with that doctor fellow."
+
+Jack winked at me from the shelter of our respected uncle's back and I
+hid a responsive smile. With all his virtues, Sir Francis Merton had
+never been fond of playing second fiddle, and this masterful seizure of
+our scheme and dictation of all the details was exceedingly
+characteristic. At the same time he was as shrewd as he was peremptory
+and I felt satisfied his details would be sound.
+
+"It's all right so long as he doesn't insist on disguising himself too
+and coming with me," I whispered to Jack as we went into dinner.
+
+"What I'm afraid of is that he'll go _instead_ of you!" said Jack. "I
+never saw him keener about an idea."
+
+We dined at a corner table whence we could see at once if any one
+approached too near, and I think my uncle must have arranged that neither
+of the nearest tables should he occupied; so he was able to get to work
+with the soup.
+
+"I've arranged everything, Roger," he said, "you are on furlough so long
+as this job lasts. No questions will be asked and you'll have a free
+hand. Only of course Jack will always keep an eye on you, and I shall be
+able to advise both of you according to circumstances."
+
+Jack winked again hurriedly, and said with as much deference as though he
+were speaking to an Admiral,
+
+"That's very good of you, sir. I shall keep you in touch with the
+situation, for I take it it will be safer for Roger not to write more
+letters than necessary."
+
+I glanced my thanks at him, and our Uncle, after frowning for a moment
+dubiously, agreed that he feared he must be content with hearing from the
+Commander only.
+
+"But there will be no harm in my writing to you, Roger, now and
+then," he added.
+
+"No harm at all," I agreed.
+
+"Well then," continued our host, "we come to the specific arrangements.
+Only two persons at the Admiralty know of this scheme, but they are quite
+powerful enough to get you into this island of yours all right. Of course
+people who happen to hear of it may open their eyes a bit and talk of the
+slackness of our Naval Authorities, and it will do no harm, Jack, if you
+damn them a bit yourself--confidentially, you know, in case any one asks
+you how the devil this drunken fellow here has got into the place."
+
+"If I simply give 'em my candid opinion of the drunken fellow's
+character," said Jack, "no one will dream for an instant we're supposed
+to be friends."
+
+"They may guess we're near relations however, old fellow," I suggested.
+
+Sir Francis guffawed.
+
+"I wonder if Roger will be as witty after a few weeks teetotal diet?" he
+chuckled. "Mind you, Roger, you've got to play the game properly. No
+bringing a flask in your baggage or any humbug of that sort!"
+
+"Don't you think an occasional relapse would add a touch of realism?" I
+suggested.
+
+"Oh, if you can find liquor in the place, relapse by all means, so long
+as you don't give yourself away in your cups. But you've got to arrive
+without bottle, flask, or cup in your possession."
+
+"It might be rather a happy touch, sir, if I were to go round sponging
+for drinks."
+
+My uncle's earnestness was delightful. At this suggestion he put on his
+spectacles, and drew a paper from his pocket.
+
+"Let me see," said he. "Here are a few directions given me by my own
+doctor, Sir James Macpherson. I had to give him some inkling of what I
+was after, but he is sworn to secrecy. Hum--No, Roger, you are trying
+religiously to cure yourself, and only very occasionally must the craving
+so far overcome you that you actually endeavour to secure alcoholic
+refreshment, as Sir James calls it. No promiscuous sponging, my boy, but
+a sponge now and then at considerable intervals might be advisable."
+
+There was an interval of general conversation while one course succeeded
+another, and then Sir Francis resumed his instructions.
+
+"With the help of a few tips from Sir James and my friends at the
+Admiralty, I have worked out the scheme very carefully, and I must beg
+you to get every detail most firmly into your head, Roger. Mind you,
+these poisonous fellows won't hesitate to stick a knife or a bullet into
+you, if they have the least suspicion of you. You know that as well as I
+do, and I don't want you to go and throw your life away, my boy."
+
+I felt half inclined to smile, and half to do something more sentimental.
+He was such a dictatorial boss, and yet such a dear old fellow.
+
+"I assure you I set more value on my life even than my friends
+do," I said.
+
+"Well then get these instructions off by heart--and don't forget one of
+them! I'll give you the paper to take away with you to-night, but
+meanwhile here are the principal points. In the first place, your name is
+Hobhouse--Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse."
+
+I saw he was very pleased with this selection and asked tactfully,
+
+"How did you manage to choose such excellent names, Uncle Francis?"
+
+"I chose one name from the Red Book, another from the Peerage, and
+another from the Clerical Directory, so that one gets--er--a more natural
+and lifelike combination in that way; and yet avoids a real name. I think
+Thomas came from the Clerical directory--or was it the Peerage? Well, no
+matter, that's your name."
+
+"And my occupation?"
+
+"None: it saves prevarication and confusion. You've always been
+an idle dog, Roger, so I think 'a gentleman of no occupation' will
+be a sufficiently correct description. You are very well connected
+by the way."
+
+"I am aware of it," I said, with a polite bow to my uncle and cousin.
+
+But my uncle had grown too serious to appreciate such small change of
+conversation.
+
+"Your relatives," he continued, "are in such high positions that they are
+entitled to ask Dr. Rendall not to make any indiscreet enquiries of his
+patient regarding his family, and also to appeal with success to a
+certain influential gentleman in the Government for permission to dump
+you in these prohibited islands. You, of course, know nothing of these
+steps. You have just recovered from a severe attack of _delirium
+tremens_--"
+
+"My dear uncle!" I gasped, "is that Sir James's idea?"
+
+"It is putting into definite terms what he obviously suggested. Under
+those circumstances you naturally know nothing of what your friends have
+been doing on your behalf. Dr. Rendall being informed of all these facts
+will of course refrain from putting awkward questions, the answers to
+which you might forget, even if I composed them for you."
+
+"And how did my relatives hear of Dr. Rendall and the island of Ransay?"
+I enquired.
+
+"I have thought over that point very carefully, Roger, and I think the
+best plan will be to take Sir James a little more into my confidence and
+get him to write a personal letter to Dr. Rendall. He will do it if I
+assure him it is for his country's sake, and his name will lull all
+suspicions."
+
+My cousin and I thoroughly agreed with this last suggestion. In fact we
+found little fault with any part of the programme dictated to us, except
+the _delirium tremens_. Even Jack, though he itched to see me thus
+labelled, agreed with me that a less definite form of drunkenness would
+be safer, and finally Sir Francis decided to substitute "an alcoholic
+breakdown."
+
+As for the rest of my instructions, I made one or two mental
+reservations. For instance, if Dr. Rendall himself was mixed up in the
+affair, he would scarcely refrain from putting questions to find out all
+about his guest; but I felt I need scarcely trouble my worthy uncle to
+compose the replies before hand.
+
+I remember that little dinner very vividly. As it chanced it was my one
+glimpse of the old life of town and clubland and everything that goes
+with evening dress, seen just for that brief evening between months of
+mine-dodging and blizzard-facing in the North Sea followed by a hospital
+bed, and the lonely tempestuous isle of Ransay. The white napery, the
+gleam of glasses, the shaded electric lamps, the blazing fire, and the
+lofty soft-carpeted room left an impression that stayed with me for
+many a month to come. And in an easy chair after dinner, smoking the
+special cigar that my uncle conscientiously recommended and sipping the
+ancient cognac he advised, I should have been perfectly willing to
+listen to him had he suggested pushing me into a soft shore billet and
+letting some other poor devil grow a beard and hunt for spies in
+northern gales instead.
+
+But he was not that sort of uncle.
+
+"It's the chance of your life, Roger," he said. "By Gad, I wish I were
+young enough to take on the job myself. But you'll do the family credit
+I'm sure--if you only remember that this business requires discretion and
+caution quite as much as daring and resource!"
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Jack. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it
+thoroughly, Roger."
+
+"Whatever you do, don't trust one living soul in that place! The
+unlikeliest person may prove to be up to the neck in the business."
+
+"Or only up to the ankles, yet they may give you away to some one else,"
+added my cousin.
+
+"And _a propos_ of ankles," said my uncle, who was a confirmed bachelor,
+"Beware of women most of all! Never trust a secret to a woman,
+Roger--never!"
+
+"There are none to confide in," I assured him, "except Miss Rendall--and
+she is one of the suspected; whatever Jack's gallantry may say."
+
+"My gallantry is a thing of the past," said Jack, "I suspect everybody in
+that d----d place. And I'd advise you to do the same."
+
+"Everybody!" echoed Sir Francis. "And confide in no one."
+
+The evening came to an end at last, and with a sigh I left that
+comfortable smoking room. As I passed out into the hall, however, my
+uncle took my arm and made one brief but comforting speech in my ear.
+
+"Don't worry about money matters, Roger, old fellow. Of course I'm paying
+the doctor's fee, and if you ever need anything more just let me know. If
+you bring this off--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence but pressed my arm and gave me a nod
+and a smile.
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE ALCOHOLIC PATIENT
+
+
+On a raw grey February morning Mr. Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse bade a
+polite farewell to the medical gentlemen who had escorted him thus far,
+and stepped aboard the little steamer sailing from a certain small and
+ancient port out into the northern isles of that archipelago. This
+medical escort was a typical instance of my uncle's relentless
+thoroughness. He was not in the secret, and so all the way from Euston to
+those remote islands I had to endure the ordeal of sitting under the eye
+of a conscientious middle-aged gentleman with a strong Yorkshire accent
+and but one idea in his head:--to keep in readiness to seize me at each
+station in case I leapt out of the carriage and headed for the
+refreshment rooms. We parted, I think, with equal relief on either side.
+
+Under a heavy sky and a chilly wind we steamed through divers waterways,
+touched at divers islands, and shipped and unshipped many cattle. At
+last, when it had turned afternoon and the wind was beginning to feel wet
+as well as chilly, Thomas Sylvester stepped ashore on the modest pier at
+Ransay. Already he had noted from the deck his prospective host, pipe in
+mouth and hands in his knickerbocker pockets among a small knot of
+inhabitants, but to his relief there were no other familiar faces.
+
+"Let me be firmly established as Mr. Hobhouse, the doctor's new paying
+guest, before they look at me too closely!" he said to himself.
+
+In the doctor's blue eyes there was not a sign of recognition or
+suspicion. I noticed again his habit of glancing at one askance which had
+raised my ready suspicions last time we had met, but apart from that his
+greeting was cordial and pleasant enough.
+
+"I've only got an open trap, Mr. Hobhouse," he said, "and it's a three
+mile drive. I hope you have got a warm coat."
+
+Mr. Hobhouse, I may mention, was a gentleman with an extremely polite,
+nervously effusive manner, who always agreed with everybody and blinked a
+little as he looked at them with apologetic friendliness through his
+gold-rimmed glasses. Those who have seen that sprightly comedy "Heels Up"
+may perhaps remember the not unsuccessful character of Sir Douglas
+Jenkinson Bart (played by Mr. Roger Merton). Mr. Thomas Sylvester
+Hobhouse would have reminded them of Sir Douglas forcibly.
+
+"Oh yes, doctor, a beautifully warm coat; you needn't worry about me at
+all. I shall be very comfortable--very comfortable indeed, thank you,"
+Mr. Hobhouse assured him.
+
+Dr. Rendall eyed his patient again, and there seemed to be a gleam of
+satisfaction in his glance, as though this were the kind of polite,
+acquiescent gentleman he liked.
+
+There was a weary delay in getting my baggage out of the hold, and the
+February afternoon had grown greyer by the time we started in the
+doctor's pony trap. As the road was heavy with mud and covered with
+patches of loose metal every here and there, those three miles proved the
+longest I have ever driven. By this time the wind was sweeping clouds of
+fine rain into our faces, and seen through this driving vapour the island
+looked another place from the Ransay of summer time. The flowers were
+gone, and the corn, and even the greenness of the grass, which now was of
+a pale yellowish-olive hue; and I thought that a nakeder, more
+inhospitable looking spot surely man had never visited.
+
+Under such circumstances we talked little; the doctor only making a
+remark now and then in a dutiful way, and Mr. Hobhouse effusively
+agreeing with him. That gentleman was quite content to postpone his
+enquiries until he had got a little warmer and drier, and at times he
+even felt acute anxiety lest the bleak house that loomed ahead, visible
+afar over the treeless country, was actually moving away from them. They
+seemed to approach it so slowly.
+
+Evening was near at hand when Mr. Hobhouse entered his teetotal haven,
+and his effusiveness was quite sincere as he rubbed his hands over a
+blazing fire in the doctor's smoking room, and still sincerer when he
+faced an excellent high tea.
+
+The conversation naturally turned on the war, and Thomas Sylvester showed
+an anxiety to learn his host's opinions and an enthusiastic agreement
+with each one of them that seemed to please the doctor. He became more
+and more talkative and genial, but though his guest mentally went through
+his words with a tooth-comb as he uttered them, he had to confess at the
+end of a chatty hour that the doctor exhibited neither any special
+knowledge of military and naval affairs, nor any lack of zeal for the
+cause of his country.
+
+"No treason so far!" said Thomas to himself.
+
+Then with what he flattered himself was the art which conceals art, Mr.
+Hobhouse brought the conversation round to the subject of the doctor
+himself and his household. He enthusiastically assured his host that each
+arrangement he mentioned was the best imaginable--from the doctor's being
+a bachelor to his having no hot water laid on in the bathroom but large
+cans brought when necessary. And presently he blinked more amiably than
+ever and enquired,
+
+"And do you often have--er--guests, doctor; guests such as myself?"
+
+The doctor's geniality seemed suddenly to contract a little.
+
+"Occasionally," he said briefly.
+
+"Quite so," agreed Mr. Hobhouse. "Too often would be a great nuisance.
+Occasionally--yes, yes, that must be much pleasanter. Just when you feel
+inclined; I see. And I hope you get decent fellows as a rule, doctor. It
+would be very unpleasant otherwise."
+
+"It is," said Dr. Rendall with distinct emphasis.
+
+"I trust _I_ won't be a nuisance," said Mr. Hobhouse anxiously.
+
+"Oh, no, no," said the doctor hurriedly, "I was thinking of--"
+
+He broke off, and his amiable guest tactfully changed the subject. A
+little later, with what he hoped was equal tact, he returned to it again.
+Assuring the doctor of his anxiety to give no trouble, he said,
+
+"I'll do just as the last fellow did. You just put me into his shoes,
+doctor, and then you'll always know where you are."
+
+There was no doubt about the oddness of the glance which Dr. Rendall shot
+at his guest this time. His answer was a murmur that might have meant
+anything. Mr. Hobhouse innocently rattled on.
+
+"I presume he fitted into your ways all right and so will I if you tell
+me first what--er--you did mention his name--or didn't you?"
+
+"O'Brien," said the doctor.
+
+"O'Brien?" repeated Mr. Hobhouse with a distinct air of distaste for so
+mild a gentleman.
+
+The doctor looked at him quickly.
+
+"Do you know him?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Oh, no, no! Oh dear me, no! It's only that I have a very foolish and
+very stupid prejudice against Irishmen--as I presume he was."
+
+Mr. Hobhouse laughed pleasantly, and inwardly he laughed still more
+pleasantly, for his shot came off.
+
+"So have I," agreed the doctor, and there was no doubt that he was
+in earnest.
+
+Mr. Hobhouse decided that he had probed the matter sufficiently for the
+present, and with what he was now beginning to consider his usual tact he
+changed the subject.
+
+Before they parted that night he could not resist one touch of art
+despite the counsels of Sir Francis.
+
+"Before we go to bed, doctor," he said, with his most ingratiating smile,
+"do you think one little drop would do us any harm? I feel as though I
+might have a little cold coming on--"
+
+But the doctor was shaking his head, kindly but firmly.
+
+"Well, well, better not; I quite agree with you, doctor," gushed his
+guest. "Good-night, doctor. Good-night!"
+
+"I wonder if the doctor ever had such a blinkin' ass in his house
+before!" said the amiable gentleman to himself as he shut his bed-room
+door behind him.
+
+Looking at myself in the glass with a kind of chastened complacence, I
+decided that the man who could perceive in Mr. Hobhouse any reminiscence
+of the mysterious young stranger of six months ago would have a
+singularly piercing eye. At the same time it was a sobering experience to
+gaze at that black-bearded gentleman, with his hair parted in the middle
+and brushed low down over his forehead, and his foolish looking
+pince-nezs, and reflect that there was no artificial difference between
+him and the vanished Roger Merton save those eye-glasses and a little
+hair dye. That was my own face, and my own hair, and, I presumed, my own
+natural latent idiocy blinking behind those glasses. I turned away from
+the mirror with mingled feelings.
+
+As the hour was not late (early to bed being part of the cure), I put on
+my dressing gown and sat down to smoke and chew the cud of my evening's
+conversation with Dr. Rendall. The more I saw of him, the more favourably
+on the whole the man impressed me. He was a gentleman and seemed a good
+fellow. Being a bachelor with outdoor tastes and an easygoing
+disposition, it was not at all impossible to understand his choosing the
+estate of his family to settle down on, isolated though it was. Certainly
+one could not honestly charge it against him as a suspicious
+circumstance.
+
+By far the most interesting discovery was his obvious dislike to Mr.
+O'Brien. Not once but several times he had shown it in the course of our
+talk. He conveyed the suggestion moreover that the man had oppressed him
+in some way and that it was a relief to have got rid of him. In view of
+the fact that he had been so anxious to secure another resident patient,
+this seemed a little odd, and a theory began to take shape in my mind.
+Supposing O'Brien had in some way induced the doctor unwillingly to abet
+a treasonable scheme, that would account for his feelings very well,
+especially looking to O'Brien's unpleasing personality. But on the other
+hand, events had made it clear that treason was going on without O'Brien,
+so how could the doctor have got clear of it? And if he were still in it,
+this theory of his relations to his late patient was manifestly weak.
+
+"To bed!" said Thomas Sylvester to himself, after an hour of these
+reflections. "You are theorizing too soon."
+
+In the morning he was up betimes and downstairs a good ten minutes
+before he knew the doctor was likely to appear. Into the smoking room
+he went, shut the door carefully behind him, and made for the window. A
+grey and windy prospect met his eyes, but they scarcely glanced at it.
+Mr. Hobhouse had something else to think of. Twice or thrice he pulled
+the blind up and down, and minutely examined the string and the little
+brass pulley.
+
+"That blind certainly does not come down at a touch," he said to himself,
+"and there is not a sign of its having been repaired within the last few
+years. Therefore it did not drop accidentally six months ago."
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TEST
+
+
+That afternoon, as the weather had cleared somewhat, Dr. Rendall
+proposed walking over to his cousin's house and presenting Mr. Hobhouse
+to the laird and his daughter. This ordeal had to be undergone sooner or
+later, so I decided I had better fall in with his suggestion and get it
+over at once. Besides, it was an obvious part of my programme to make a
+great deal of outdoor exercise a principal feature of Mr. Hobhouse's
+cure, and I felt bound to agree at once with any proposal to take a
+walk. We had taken the precaution, by the way, of telling the doctor
+beforehand of my limp (caused by a motoring accident when I was at the
+wheel in a condition I should not have been in) and assuring him that
+the surgeon encouraged exercise to complete the cure. So off we set for
+the "big house."
+
+On the way the doctor gave his guest a certain amount of general
+information concerning the people they were going to meet, but as Mr.
+Hobhouse happened to know it already, it need not be chronicled here.
+
+As the pair approached the weather beaten old mansion, looking now in
+its true setting against the wintry sky, Thomas Sylvester became acutely
+conscious of the return of a familiar sensation. It was, in fact,
+precisely the sensation which one Roger Merton had enjoyed when waiting
+for his cue to step from dim obscurity into the flare of the footlights
+on the first night of a new drama. Would his old acquaintances accept Mr.
+Hobhouse without question as an entire stranger? If he spied so much as
+one suspicious questioning glance, his whole scheme was exploded.
+
+We were shown into the drawing room, and to my great relief Mr. Rendall
+was the first to appear, for I felt I could stand the scrutiny of Jean's
+bright eyes a deal more readily if I had once got into the swing of talk
+with her father. In his eye there was certainly no trace of question.
+With his dry and formidable courtesy he greeted Mr. Hobhouse and in a
+minute or two they were talking away in that friendly fashion which Mr.
+Hobhouse was pleased to notice people fell into very readily with him.
+And small wonder, for the creature was so grossly affable, and (if I say
+it myself) so infernally plausible.
+
+His great hobby, it appeared, was antiquarian research, and though he let
+slip a few remarks that showed he was well versed in his subject, his
+role, as usual, was that of the flatteringly eager enquirer. Needless to
+say, his learning had been acquired by diligent application within the
+last week, and that it had a very definite object behind it. The laird
+had but a smattering of the subject, but being an intelligent, well-read
+man, he was quite able to discuss Mr. Hobhouse's favourite pursuit, so
+that when his daughter entered the room she found herself in an
+atmosphere as little reminiscent of the mysterious stranger as it was
+possible to create in the time.
+
+All the same, it was an anxious moment when Jean's eyes first fell upon
+him, and he heaved a deep sigh of relief when he saw not a spark of
+recognition in them. On his part, Thomas Sylvester was scrupulously
+careful to avoid the least resemblance to the conduct of the mysterious
+Merton, even in the smallest point. There was no assurance, no tribute of
+attention and consciousness of her presence, such as a girl as charming
+as Miss Rendall has the right to expect from every man with an eye in his
+head; and which I must confess the mysterious stranger used to pay her,
+for all her dislike to him. Mr. Hobhouse of course was dreadfully polite,
+but seemed a little shy of the sex, and after a few commonplaces on
+either side, she turned to her cousin and he to his host.
+
+Tea was brought in, and the party chatted away as amicably as any party
+of four in the kingdom. Thomas had found his tea party legs by this time
+and quite enjoyed the situation. Mr. Rendall impressed him much more
+favourably than he had impressed Roger Merton. The grimness seemed to
+fall off the man when one got him going in talk and a vein of kindliness
+opened instead.
+
+"I'm dashed if there seems to be anything suspicious in anybody this
+time!" said Mr. Hobhouse to himself rather disconsolately.
+
+He had hardly made this reflection when he happened to glance at Jean.
+This as a matter of fact had happened several times previously. For one
+thing she was looking a picture, and for another the alcoholic visitor
+liked to reassure himself at intervals that she was still without shadow
+of suspicion. And each time he had felt perfectly reassured.
+
+But this time he was conscious of a sudden thrill of certainty that Miss
+Rendall had been covertly studying him, and that now (though her eyes
+turned away instantly) she had some new food for thought. Instantly he
+asked for another cup of tea and blinked at her benignantly as their eyes
+met. Did he actually read in hers confirmation of his first instinctive
+feeling, or was it only a too quick imagination? Mr. Hobhouse wondered
+very seriously.
+
+Thereafter for some little time, as he talked with her father, he was
+acutely aware that both she and the doctor were very silent, and when now
+and then he glanced at her, she seemed to be thinking rather than
+listening. And then, just as he was beginning to grow a trifle uneasy,
+this phase seemed to pass away and the next time he looked at her she met
+his glance with a faint smile. In fact she had smiled several times
+before the doctor and his patient took their departure, and as they shook
+hands at the end Thomas Sylvester was agreeably conscious of the kindest
+look she had ever favoured him with. And finally when her father hoped
+they might see their new acquaintance soon again, she joined him in
+hoping, both with her words, and (it seemed to him) her eyes.
+
+During the first part of their walk home, Mr. Hobhouse was very silent.
+Going back over their call, while everything was fresh in his memory, he
+had to confess that his prejudices against Mr. Rendall were ready to
+vanish altogether if he were ready to let them. In fact the grim ironic
+Mr. Rendall conversing with the suspicious stranger was an entirely
+different person from the friendly Mr. Rendall who conversed with the
+innocent-looking Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse. On the face of it this was
+obviously to be explained by his suspicions of the stranger. But of what
+did he suspect him? Of being a German spy, as he professed? Or of being
+what he was? That was the whole point, and it seemed to me that getting
+him arrested and removed was equally consistent with either alternative.
+
+But what of his daughter, that slim, dangerously dainty piece of mystery?
+Were her two changes of attitude in the course of this afternoon mere
+mirages seen by an eye disordered by suspicion? They might be, but Mr.
+Hobhouse was prepared to stake his davy that they were real. And what
+then did they imply? Surely not that she suspected the truth. He could
+not read them into that. That she was simply a coquette and for want of
+more amusing game (such for instance as Mr. O'Brien) was prepared to have
+a little flirtation with his successor? This was, somehow or other, not a
+very agreeable solution, but I began to suspect it might be the true one.
+In any case she was a puzzling factor, and the best course of action
+seemed to me to be to avoid her society in the meanwhile, and to keep my
+eyes wide open for possible trouble. I hardly thought there would be
+trouble, but it were well to be on the lookout.
+
+This being decided, the amiable Mr. Hobhouse started conversation with
+the doctor, and gradually by gentle and circuitous methods led the talk,
+via the war in general, to the part in the war played by these islands,
+and to any interesting events that might have happened in them. He was
+heading in his devious way for the visit of the suspicious stranger, but
+at this point the doctor brought him in of his own accord.
+
+"We had one most extraordinary thing happen in this place," said he.
+"Nobody has got to the bottom of it yet."
+
+"Really!" cried Mr. Hobhouse. "How very interesting! What was it?"
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "one morning when I had that fellow O'Brien
+staying with me, a young man walked into my house under the
+impression--so he said--that it was my cousin's. Whether he told the
+truth or not I've often wondered since. He had no cap, was buttoned up in
+an oilskin coat (though I may say it was a fine morning) and talked with
+a distinct foreign accent. I could swear it was German, but O'Brien, who
+contradicted everything, stuck to it it was Russian. A lot he knew about
+Russian! He was only in the house about five minutes, for when he
+discovered his mistake--or what he said was his mistake--he went off. And
+that is all I saw of him personally."
+
+"But did he go to Mr. Rendall's then?"
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"He turned up there and spent two or three nights in the house. The chap
+had the impudence of the devil. He said he had been landed from one of
+our own cruisers and didn't want to be recognised as an officer, so would
+they be kind enough to lend him a coat and let him lock his uniform coat
+up in a drawer! He was in his oilskin all this time, you must remember. A
+day or two later my cousins grew suspicious and opened that drawer. What
+do you think they found?"
+
+"Maps!" guessed Mr. Hobhouse.
+
+"Nothing at all! He had never had a uniform coat. They promptly wired to
+the Naval Authorities, locked him in his room meanwhile, and when
+Commander Whiteclett appeared he arrested him and took him off."
+
+"And who was he?"
+
+The doctor turned to his guest with an expression of considerable
+indignation.
+
+"The damned secrecy of these navy people is past belief! Do you know that
+not even my cousins who caught the man for them were ever told a single
+word about him! Whiteclett took him straight off to his drifter without
+so much as saying good-bye--much less thank you--to my cousin Philip, and
+that was the last of it!"
+
+"Then you never learned who the fellow was?"
+
+"He gave his name as Merton--George or was it Roger?--Merton. But you can
+believe as much of that as you like."
+
+"And did he land from a cruiser?"
+
+"Not likely! But nobody was ever told how he did land. They found what
+they said was a parachute, but it's my belief that was either a blind or
+it was really some kind of collapsible boat. I never saw the thing
+myself, and O'Brien, who did see it, having heard somebody say it was a
+parachute, of course swore it was not."
+
+"And did the man do nothing while he was on the island?"
+
+"God knows what he may not have done! Naturally he told nobody what he
+was after, and no one actually saw him doing anything, but there are
+plenty of stories."
+
+"What kind of stories?"
+
+"Oh, the usual kind, that he was seen flashing lights on the shore and
+carrying petrol tins. But you can believe as much of them as you like."
+
+"And have your cousins no theory? They apparently saw a good deal of
+him."
+
+"My cousin Philip says frankly he is absolutely beaten by the whole
+performance. Jean--well girls are rum things."
+
+"What are Miss Rendall's views then?" I enquired.
+
+"She is generally quick enough at guessing, and as fond of gossip as most
+of her sex, but for some reason she keeps very quiet about it. It's my
+belief she knows something. In fact I shouldn't be surprised if
+Whiteclett had told her a little and sworn her to secrecy. Men do tell
+women things sometimes, as I daresay you have noticed for yourself, Mr.
+Hobhouse."
+
+"What a very strange story!" murmured Mr. Hobhouse.
+
+So this was the tale of my escapade as it was told in Ransay. The
+doctor's manner of telling it was the best guarantee of his own good
+faith I could wish, and I was ready now to dismiss the blind incident as
+a misleading trifle. But O'Brien seemed to have gone out of his way to
+throw doubt on every point raised,--and curiously enough to have always
+offered a wrong solution. It might be sheer contrariness, but it stuck me
+as odd. As to Miss Jean's silence, what did that mean? I resolved to keep
+my eyes very wide open indeed.
+
+
+
+V
+
+WAITING
+
+
+By a fortunate chance Dr. Rendall was no expert in antiquarian matters,
+and yet had sufficient respect for those who were to give them every
+encouragement and make all allowances for any irregularity in their hours
+caused thereby. Mr. Hobhouse possessed several very learned looking
+volumes, such as "The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland," "The Windy
+Isles in Early Celtic Times," "Ecclesiological Notes on Some of the
+Islands of Scotland," and other tomes of that nature, and from these he
+could quote whole paragraphs without so much as pausing for breath (in
+fact he dared not pause, lest he forget). Mr. Hobhouse moreover talked in
+his garrulous way of adding his own modest contribution to this
+literature in the shape of a monograph on the antiquities of Ransay.
+
+With this end in view it was therefore very natural that he should spend
+much of his time rambling over the island, particularly along the coasts,
+where he declared the early monuments he was especially interested in
+were mostly to be found, and should even at times be detained by his
+enthusiasm till darkness had fallen. It was also very natural that he
+should wish to consult all the most ancient inhabitants, and should in
+consequence seek out and interview every native over sixty years of age.
+In short this hobby not only gave this enthusiastic gentleman a sound
+pretext for being in the most out of the way places at the most unlikely
+hours, but also for inspecting narrowly with his own eyes each white
+bearded patriarch who might, or might not, have worn six months ago a
+pair of tinted spectacles; which--to descend slightly in the literary
+scale--accounts for the milk in the cocoanut.
+
+All this of course was not only perceived by his guardian medical
+attendant, but blessed with his strong approval, for nothing counteracts
+the taste for liquor so effectually as another hobby. But what Thomas
+Sylvester devoutly prayed the doctor did not see was his patient slipping
+out of his window in the small hours of the morning, and from the roof of
+an out-house just below, examining the shore through a night glass. In
+February and March weather this was far too uncomfortable to last long or
+to be repeated every night, and the shore was too far away to make it
+very effective. Still, he did think he noticed a glimmer once or twice,
+and each time his antiquarian expedition next day included certain
+artless enquiries which might have thrown some light on the matter had
+the answers been satisfactory. As a matter of fact, however, they never
+were, and the extraordinary appearance of interest with which the
+effusive gentleman listened to useless information reflected more credit
+on his resolution than any one will ever realise.
+
+I may add that the professional watchers in the island were not of course
+in the secret of Mr. Hobhouse's identity, and therefore could not report
+to him directly anything they might see or suspect. But if they did see
+or suspect anything he would very quickly be informed through another
+source. However Commander Whiteclett based no great hopes on the
+possibility of catching our wily enemy out by means of a palpable man in
+uniform, and Mr. H. had been instructed to act exactly as though he were
+alone on the job.
+
+One of his earliest expeditions was made to the site of a prehistoric
+building in the near vicinity of the Scollays' farm. At least there was a
+grassy knoll visible which Mr. H.'s expert eye at once pronounced to be
+worthy of very careful inspection, and in order to confirm his theories
+he decided to visit the farm to make enquiry as to any possible
+traditions regarding it.
+
+He passed round the knoll with this purpose, to discover that he was no
+longer meditating alone. A familiar figure confronted him, with dark
+staring eyes, gaping mouth, and stubby beard; my old friend Jock. For a
+moment there returned that feeling of stage fright. Next to the
+Rendalls, the Scollay household, and particularly Jock, had seen and
+conversed most often with the mysterious Merton. Jock was only an idiot,
+but where reason is lacking instinct is apt to be strong, and instinct
+might distinguish an old acquaintance through all my disguise. Anyhow,
+rightly or wrongly, I felt that this was another delicate moment.
+
+"Good-day, my good fellow. Good-day to you!" said the friendly Mr.
+Hobhouse. "A little better weather to-day!"
+
+The surprise of the affable gentleman at getting only a grunt in reply,
+his air of gradual comprehension, and then of friendly sympathy, were
+acted for all they were worth. And to my vast relief, Jock showed no
+glimmer of recognition of the young man with the revolver.
+
+"Do you know who lives at that farm?" enquired Mr. Hobhouse speaking very
+distinctly. "Tolly, you say? Oh, jolly? Yes, very jolly! Ha, ha!
+Good-bye, my lad, good-bye to you!"
+
+Jock's hoot of laughter was answered by Mr. Hobhouse's giggle, and they
+set off down to the farm, the antiquary in front limping rather more
+markedly than usual, and the idiot rambling behind.
+
+The visit to the Scollays was a distinct success, so far as establishing
+the personality of Mr. Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse went. At first they
+looked at him with an obvious suspicion and replied to his questions
+with a reticence that gave him a few uneasy moments. But in ten minutes
+his indefatigable friendliness had conquered the household and he knew
+that he was safe to visit that knoll whenever the fancy took him. Peter
+senior told him a long story about the fairies who were seen dancing
+round the knoll in his father's time, and though his family were
+evidently a little distressed by his reference to anything so
+unfashionable, and Jock hooted several times, their visitor exhibited the
+liveliest interest and put the tale religiously down in his note book.
+
+This was all that could be done at the moment; the establishment of a
+perfectly harmless reputation and of a natural reason for visiting that
+particular place at odd times. Mr. Hobhouse obtained permission to do a
+little digging there if he desired it, and parted with the family on the
+best of terms.
+
+"Slow work!" he said to himself as he struck out for home, with his limp
+rapidly vanishing. "But what the devil else can one do? What is there
+definite to take hold of?"
+
+That was the baffling feature of the business. As my cousin said, such
+scent as there was had grown cold by this time, and one had to begin at
+the beginning again. And so far there seemed to be no beginning. The
+detectives of fiction might have found some clue to start a train of
+logical and inevitable reasoning that led straight to the criminal, but
+the detective of fact had utterly failed, and the brilliant young amateur
+of fact was likewise completely at sea.
+
+What good for instance had my visit to the Scollays done? I asked
+myself. If they were innocent I had wasted my time. If they were guilty,
+what had I discovered to bring it home to them? Absolutely nothing! And
+the same with each inhabitant of that island whom I had seen. Some
+cunning and powerful organisation was certainly at work, to the
+detriment of my country, but the only point I had scored against them,
+was that I had got into the place without their recognising me. At least
+I presumed I had or I should scarcely still be alive to tell the
+tale--unless they had grown either more merciful or more timid since I
+was here last. And their continued immunity would scarcely be likely to
+produce either of those effects.
+
+The only specific thing I could think of looking for was the old man with
+the tinted spectacles. So far I was well on the way to proving one thing
+about him, and that the least satisfactory thing I could prove.
+Apparently Bolton was right and no such person existed. Therefore I was
+as far off catching him as ever, and had merely the added certainty that
+my enemies were extremely resourceful and spared no trouble to make sure
+of things when in doubt. However, I meant to go on looking till I had
+exhausted all the old men in the place. I was about half way through them
+by this time, so far as I could calculate.
+
+Thus the winter days passed, growing longer but no warmer and no finer.
+One would have had early touches of spring by this time in the South, but
+here it was still winter undiluted. The violence and frequency of the
+winds was amazing. Indeed I seldom remember having less than a stiff
+breeze, and every now and then a full tearing howling gale would scour
+the bare low-lying island till it seemed as if even the houses could
+scarcely stand up to it much longer, while the sea would be one
+bewildering chaos of breaking and subsiding crests, white against the
+leaden furrows, surging on till they smashed into a continuous line of
+foam along our iron coast.
+
+How the wind howled and whistled round that melancholy mansion of the
+doctor's! I forget who had built it, or why; some land agent or factor, I
+think, who had once lived on the estate, but I know I frequently cursed
+him. It stood up just high enough to catch the full force of every blast
+that blew, and not quite high enough to get a really fine view. There was
+too much bleak foreground, so that one got no value from the site
+whatever so far as I could see. And, lord, it was draughty!
+
+My only company was the doctor, and he was out most of the day. Even at
+nights I began to find him a curiously moody companion. There were
+moments when my suspicions revived again; he used to glance at me
+furtively, leave the room mysteriously for half an hour at a time, and do
+little more than grunt when he was spoken to. And then next day he would
+be such a pleasant, sensible, downright sort of fellow that I could only
+remember his simple telling of the tale of my own visit, and dismiss him
+from my calculations.
+
+And so life went on for some three weeks uneventfully enough for a
+desperate and disguised adventurer. I received several letters from my
+uncle, and I was thankful it had been arranged I should not answer them.
+The dear man had evidently such a twopenny-coloured conception of the
+hazardous life I was leading that a truthful recital of my adventures
+might have brought him down in person to stir things up. But there was
+nothing to stir; I could only wait.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE SPECTACLED MAN
+
+
+It was, I remember, on a rare day of bright, still, frosty weather, that
+Mr. Hobhouse returned a little late for the doctor's mid-day dinner. The
+garrulous creature was looking thoughtful and, as it were, subdued;
+wanting a dram, no doubt, thought any who chanced to spy him in this
+unusual condition. But as he opened the front door he became his foolish
+self instantaneously. The sound of a strange voice had reached him
+distinctly.
+
+"Let me introduce Captain Whiteclett--Mr. Hobhouse," said the doctor,
+
+He and the stranger had already begun dinner, and Commander Whiteclett
+rose and bowed politely. Mr. Hobhouse bowed still more politely and
+having the advantage of being at the doctor's back for the moment, was
+able to embellish his low obeisance with several curious facial
+expressions. The Commander at the same moment was attacked with a sharp
+bout of coughing, but presently recovering, the meal proceeded very
+pleasantly.
+
+It appeared that Commander Whiteclett was visiting the island in the
+course of a tour of inspection, and having some acquaintance with the
+doctor had dropped in for lunch. He seemed pleased to meet Mr. Hobhouse
+and was as affable as naval officers always are, though every now and
+then it might have been noticed by a very close observer that after
+meeting that gentleman's eye, he showed a tendency to stare suddenly
+out of the window for several moments. Mr. Hobhouse on his part was in
+his most gushing humour, and in fact chatted almost continuously
+through the meal.
+
+As they passed out of the dining room ahead of the doctor, the two guests
+exchanged a whisper, and about quarter of an hour later Mr. Hobhouse
+declared that he must set forth and resume his antiquarian researches,
+and effusively bade the Commander good-bye. Thereupon the Commander said
+he also must be off and wondered in which direction his fellow guest was
+walking. It chanced that they were both going the same way and so they
+departed together.
+
+"Well, you ridiculous looking dipsomaniac, how do you like water for
+dinner?" enquired the Commander when they were safely out of earshot.
+
+"It lies cold on the tummy," said I, "and if you've brought a
+flask, Jack--"
+
+"I have," said my cousin, "but wait a bit till there are no
+witnesses. And by the way, old chap, I must tell you that you're a
+d----d good actor."
+
+"My photograph has appeared in the _Tatler_" I confessed.
+
+"And what news?" he asked.
+
+"Up till this morning I should have said 'none.' My dear Jack, it has
+been the most hopelessly baffling business you can possibly imagine. I
+think I am quite a success as an alcoholic patient, and also accepted by
+this time as the typical harmless antiquary. So I am able to wander all
+over the place and talk to everybody, but there has been nothing to take
+hold of! I have seen no sign of anything happening--" I caught his eye
+and asked quickly, "Has anything happened?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Signalling night before last and a submarine seen yesterday that we
+suspect of having been here."
+
+"Under my nose!" I groaned. "A fat lot of good I am!"
+
+"My dear chap, you can't possibly watch the whole coast all night and
+every night. This time the signals were seen from the sea as a matter of
+fact. But you can note the night, and also the hour, which was 2:45 a.m.,
+G.M.T., as near as I can make out from the report. By the way, you had
+better set your watch by mine now while we remember. Possibly you may be
+able to discover who was out at that hour night before last."
+
+"I may, but it's a thousand to one against it. Give me a thousand
+such chances, and I'll get him! That's just about how it seems to
+work out so far."
+
+"Haven't you got any new ideas?"
+
+"Without new evidence, what new ideas can one get? And I only got my
+first piece of evidence this morning. In fact, I haven't had time to
+think it over yet."
+
+"Let's hear it," said my cousin keenly.
+
+"I have been on the track of that old boy with spectacles, as being the
+only definite thing to look for so far. I did what Bolton did--went to
+see every old man in the place, and this morning I polished off the last
+of them and came to the same conclusion as he did. There is no such old
+gentleman on the island. But there _was_ one, for a short time one
+morning; and he was a fake like Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse; and this
+morning I've heard of some one else who saw him!"
+
+"By Gad!" exclaimed my cousin. "That sounds like the beginning of
+business."
+
+"Only the beginning, I'm afraid. This morning I interview my last old
+man--to find of course he wasn't the fellow I was after. I interviewed
+him on the usual subject--ancient traditions of the island, and from that
+we passed on to the latest tradition, the legend of the mysterious
+visitor last August. He told me all about it, with many embellishments.
+However he was shrewd enough not to believe all he heard, and to show me
+what absurd stories are put about, he informed me that his own small
+grand-daughter, aged six, had declared that she had seen the mysterious
+visitor, only she described him as having a white beard and funny
+spectacles. I asked him exactly where this phenomenon had been observed,
+and by Jingo, Jack, it was at the very place I met him; only when she saw
+him he had left the road and was hurrying down to the sea. She described
+him as running, which finally demolished her reputation for truthfulness,
+for as her grandfather observed, men of his age don't run. But that was
+my friend right enough!"
+
+"Heading for the sea?"
+
+"For the beach, I take it. You see you can pop over the edge almost
+anywhere along that shore, and get out of sight among the rocks in a
+moment. I presume he squatted down there, pocketed his spectacles and
+beard, took off his disreputable overcoat, and either hid it or possibly
+pinned up the skirts and put it on under his other coat, and walked off
+looking like--well, that's the rub, what did he look like then? And
+that's just where I seem no forrader."
+
+"Still, this is something."
+
+"Yes, and I suppose we ought to deduce something more from the episode.
+I've already concluded that the high piping voice he used might well
+have concealed an accent, and I've also decided from what I've heard of
+the local language since that he hadn't the native intonation."
+
+"And he headed for the beach," added my cousin. "Therefore he certainly
+did not come from any house in the near neighbourhood."
+
+"That puts the doctor's house out of court, if you're right. But he may
+possibly have thought it better not to do his dressing up at home."
+
+"I see you've still got you knife into O'Brien!" laughed my cousin. "But
+I think my notion is the likeliest--"
+
+He broke off suddenly and we instinctively moved a pace further apart. A
+figure had appeared round a turn of the road just ahead of us, a trim,
+dainty figure, delightful to see in such a place, but a little
+disconcerting to see so suddenly and so close to us. It was Jean Rendall,
+looking her best, but not, it seemed to me, quite in the right place.
+
+Had she noticed anything? There was not a sign of it in her greeting. She
+gave us both one of her quick smiles, and as Jack pulled up to speak to
+her, she stopped too, and in talking to him, I noticed afresh how full of
+expression those neatly chiselled, rather petite, features became when
+she talked, and what a charming little air of knowing her way about the
+world she had. Young though she was, I could see in her very clearly
+either a valuable friend or a dangerous enemy--and what an easy girl to
+fall in love with, had circumstances been very different!
+
+Jack explained in a very natural off-hand manner how he came to be in Mr.
+Hobhouse's company, and Mr. Hobhouse corroborated his statement in his
+own effusive way. And then as we parted, she threw her smile full on that
+gentleman, and asked,
+
+"Why haven't you been to see us again, Mr. Hobhouse? Do come to
+tea one day!"
+
+Mr. Hobhouse gabbled a polite but slightly, evasive reply, and we
+walked on.
+
+"Do you mean to say," demanded my cousin, "that you have only been to see
+this delectable lady once?"
+
+"That's all," I admitted.
+
+"What's the reason? It isn't very like our methods, Roger."
+
+"It isn't," I admitted again. "But then you see what with pestilential
+weather and all these antiquarian visits to pay, my available time has
+been pretty well occupied."
+
+"But that house is one to keep a particular eye on."
+
+"That house has got a pair of particularly bright eyes in it. On my one
+visit there I felt a little too like walking on the edge of a precipice
+to wish to repeat the experience often. If that girl suspects me, Jack,
+and _if_ she isn't the right sort, we are dished."
+
+"Oh, dash it. I can't believe she's mixed up in this business!" he
+declared. "Of course one mustn't trust anybody; still, that doesn't
+prevent your going to tea with her. In fact what you really ought to be
+doing is making love to her--so long as you keep your head."
+
+"I am handicapped," I pointed out, "by drunken habits, a beard, and
+Mother Beagle's Beautiful Black Dye. No, Jack, I do not see orange
+blossom this trip."
+
+"Apart from these romantic dreams," persisted my cousin, "she is far more
+likely to be inquisitive about you if you never go near the house. In
+fact I could see it in her eye to-day."
+
+"Well," I said, "I'll call to-morrow and dispel her interest in me."
+
+Since my talk with the doctor, his theory about Jean Rendall had crossed
+my mind occasionally, and improbable as it was, I thought I might as
+well test it.
+
+"By the way," I asked, "did you by any chance ever speak to Miss Rendall
+about my last visit to the island?"
+
+His look of surprise was a sufficient answer in itself.
+
+"Speak to her of your adventure? Not a word at any time! Why?"
+
+"The doctor has an idea that she knows more than she says, and that you
+may have told her something."
+
+"Rubbish!"
+
+"I knew it was," I assured him.
+
+And so that possibility was finally eliminated.
+
+We thought it wiser that our ways should part some little distance
+from the pier.
+
+"Good-luck, old chap," said he, shaking my hand. "Keep playing the game
+you're at and don't worry about trying to keep a lookout at nights.
+That's being done already, and though I don't believe the fellows are
+much use--not with such crafty devils against them--you can't do anything
+to help 'em. Getting out at night is too risky, and you're too far away
+at the house. Your game is to work it from the other end. Sooner or later
+they are absolutely bound to give you a clue."
+
+His spirit and my little discovery of the morning sent me back in a
+distinctly more hopeful mood.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+A REMINISCENCE
+
+
+Next day I set out in the early afternoon to pay my call. The fine
+weather still held, bright sunshine with a nip in the air and the road
+underfoot firm with frost, and I strode along in a wonderfully confident
+mood, all things considered. For to tell the truth, I had been funking
+this visit. Instinctively I did not trust myself with Miss Jean Rendall.
+If she had any suspicions and if she turned on to me the art of her sex
+and the charms of her particular self, I was well aware that Thomas
+Sylvester would have a bad time of it. In fact I really dared not answer
+for the fellow's nerve. He being both critical and susceptible, a girl
+with Jean's distinctive aroma was dangerous company with a job of this
+kind on hand. And playing the whisky-enfeebled fool in a dirty black
+beard ceased entirely to amuse me when the other party was Miss Rendall.
+However, this morning Mr. Hobhouse felt braver, and stepped out briskly,
+resolved to do his bit.
+
+As he approached the house, the front door opened and the very lady
+herself appeared. She carried a stick and was evidently setting forth
+on a walk.
+
+"This is very nice of you to come so soon, Mr. Hobhouse," she said. "I am
+glad I hadn't gone further before you appeared."
+
+"Oh, but don't let me stop you, Miss Rendall," said Mr. Hobhouse
+anxiously. "Really, I can't allow it; no, no, really not. You mustn't
+turn back, indeed you mustn't! Perhaps I shall find Mr. Rendall at home."
+
+"I was only going for a walk to nowhere in particular." She looked at
+him with an irresistible mixture of coyness and frankness and
+suggested, "Would you care to come for a little walk too? It's far too
+early for tea."
+
+What could the poor gentleman do? He gushed over the suggestion of
+course, and accepted it.
+
+"I was going to walk down to the shore," she said. "Will that suit you?"
+
+Mr. Hobhouse assured her that anywhere would suit him; he had no choice
+at all: anywhere, everywhere, nowhere would be all the same to him.
+
+As they walked side by side down towards the sea, he was suddenly struck
+with the sense of being in a familiar situation, of a repetition of
+something that had happened before. And then he realised that this was
+actually the walk that the same girl and a young man Merton had taken on
+a memorable August night. He noted through his glasses the very wall
+behind which he had lit his pipe when the flare of his match revealed the
+butt end of a pistol, and presently they were following the same winding
+way above the beach.
+
+This did not serve to make the playing of his part any the easier. It
+filled him in fact with a continual fear of giving himself away by doing
+something he had done before. It was really a most irrational fear; but
+there it was. Under the circumstances his sustained babble and blink were
+distinctly creditable.
+
+But what gave him a more excusable cause for apprehension was Miss
+Rendall's own attitude. That there was something on her mind, something
+behind her words, he felt morally certain. She spoke in the most natural
+way and on the most commonplace topics, but there were frequent silences
+and it was during those he felt that without looking directly at him,
+she was watching him. And once or twice he got it into his head that she
+was a little puzzled and uncertain, though whether it was about what to
+think or what to do, he had no conception. He told himself that all this
+was only his own morbid imagination. Still, it made that walk an
+uncomfortable ordeal and seldom did actor have to work harder to keep
+his end up.
+
+Luckily however the man had the virtue of impudence and not only did
+he manage to entertain the lady with a garrulous account of his
+antiquarian researches (reasoning acutely that women are seldom experts
+in such matters), but he even ventured to broach a delicate subject for
+his own ends.
+
+"The gentleman who--er--resided with Dr. Rendall last summer was not, I
+believe, very interested in antiquities," he observed. "Did you know him,
+Miss Rendall? Mr. O'Brien was his name, I believe."
+
+"Yes," she said, "I knew Mr. O'Brien."
+
+There was certainly no trace of any feeling, whether of like or dislike,
+in her voice.
+
+"Not a very pleasant fellow, I believe," Mr. Hobhouse went on. "At least
+I should judge not; I should gather not. But I trust he wasn't a friend
+of yours, Miss Rendall?"
+
+"Not a particular friend. But why do you think he was unpleasant?"
+
+"Oh, only from Dr. Rendall's references to him--only from that, I assure
+you," said Mr. Hobhouse with propitiating eagerness.
+
+"Really?" said she, her eyes opening.
+
+There was no doubt that this information genuinely surprised her.
+
+"I thought they seemed great friends," she added.
+
+"Oh, they may have been--they may have been. I may be doing Mr. O'Brien
+an injustice. Possibly I misunderstood your relative--quite possibly."
+
+She was silent for a little while after this, and Mr. Hobhouse too ceased
+chatting. He was eyeing the shore line very curiously and trying to piece
+together his recollections of it.
+
+"I think perhaps we have gone far enough now," said she, and for a minute
+or two they stood still; and a very distinct sense of being in a familiar
+situation was borne in upon her companion.
+
+And then all at once she exclaimed,
+
+"Do you hear anything?"
+
+I started and stared at her. For the moment I had ceased to be Mr.
+Hobhouse, so straight had I been carried back to that night six months
+ago. Those were her very words, and if I were not much mistaken this was
+the very place. I nearly answered as I had answered before, but was just
+able to check myself. And then she broke the spell by laughing.
+
+"It's only the sea! But it sounded so funny and hollow."
+
+There was indeed a low gurgle just audible, as if the waves were
+breaking into some cave. It struck me that she must have singularly
+sharp ears to have noticed it. We stood there for a minute or two
+longer, and then she asked,
+
+"Do you see any ancient remains, Mr. Hobhouse?"
+
+It was not in fact ancient remains that the eye glasses were looking at,
+but I jumped at the chance of making sure of my bearings, and with an
+appearance of great eagerness told her that there seemed to be something
+decidedly interesting in the appearance of the rocks at that place.
+
+"I can wait for a moment if you'd like to look at them nearer," she said.
+
+"This is luck!" I said to myself as I scrambled down. "I believe I've
+found the actual place."
+
+A few minutes exploration left no doubt in my mind. I found the very
+cliff face under which I had been decoyed and was able to clear up one
+point. A man above could easily have struck at me with some implement,
+say, six feet long. I shut my eyes and pictured that curved mystery,
+and then in a flash I had it: a scythe blade tied to a pole! If I
+could find a scythe blade fastened to a pole, or a blade and pole
+separate, I should not be far off the end of my quest. The next moment
+I smiled at my own optimism when I realised what a house to house hunt
+that would imply. Still, I saw a fresh possibility and came back
+silently thanking my guide.
+
+Conversation was rather easier coming back, perhaps because I felt in
+higher spirits and could play my absurd part with more gusto. Still, the
+girl remained a little disquieting. She was now in a very smiling and
+friendly mood, and a man who blinked through gold rimmed glasses and
+giggled through a dyed beard ought to have felt exceedingly flattered.
+But now I was saying to myself that for a girl of fastidious taste she
+was really too nice to such a fellow. And then I remembered that O'Brien
+had a black beard too, and the thought struck me,
+
+"Can she have such pleasant recollections of black beards that I am
+providing her with reminiscent romance?"
+
+I think it was just as this idea occurred to me that she roused me very
+sharply from my meditations.
+
+"I suppose you have heard of the mysterious man who appeared here last
+summer?" she enquired.
+
+It took Mr. Hobhouse all this time to adjust himself to this question,
+but I think he managed it not unsuccessfully.
+
+"The--ah? Oh, yes, oh, yes. The doctor told me the story. Most
+mysterious--most mysterious! What do you make of it yourself, Miss
+Rendall?"
+
+"Did the doctor tell you that I once walked with him along this very
+shore? It was at night too, and he was armed with a pistol!"
+
+A single stare of astonishment was fortunately able to cover two
+emotions. My own was expressed in the thought, "What the devil is she
+driving at now?" Mr. Hobhouse's was expressed otherwise.
+
+"You don't say so! God bless me; what a risk to run! He didn't--er--shoot
+at you, I hope?"
+
+"No," she said, "he seemed pretty harmless."
+
+"Ah, but you shouldn't run such risks, my dear young lady; you really
+shouldn't! Now I remember a young lady whom I used to know--" And
+thereupon Mr. Hobhouse launched into an improbable anecdote which tried
+his inventive powers considerably. However, he was able to make it, and
+the comments thereupon lasted till they were back at the house.
+
+The fact was that my hardihood was not quite sufficient to stand a
+conversation about my own self behind my own back. It might have been
+amusing, and it might have been instructive, but it would certainly have
+been embarrassing. However the incident served to reassure me that
+whatever she suspected me of (and I could not get that sense of being
+watched out of my head), it was not the correct suspicion. Had she
+guessed the truth I could see no point at all in her reminiscence of the
+mysterious stranger, unless it were sheer pointless mischief, and she did
+not seem a pointless lady. Besides, when I glanced at myself in the
+drawing room mirror, I said to myself, "Who could possibly guess!"
+
+After that walk, tea and a talk with her father were unexciting
+episodes. She kept very much in the background, but when we parted I
+seemed to note again that flicker of a very alluring smile.
+
+"Can it be that she has a morbid taste for inebriates?" I wondered. "One
+has heard of women with curiously diseased fancies. Or perhaps she has
+simply a passion for reforming them. One of those smiles for every sober
+hour would be a distinct inducement to behave!"
+
+But this was not business and as I walked home I turned my thoughts
+sternly to that scythe blade.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+H.M.S. _Uruguay_
+
+
+As I neared my bleak sanatorium I said to myself,
+
+"If only something would happen!"
+
+Week after week spent within those walls or in wandering over this
+limited space of muddy roads and sodden fields, with nothing to show for
+it, was an unexhilarating prospect. Perhaps the recollection of the
+comfortable house and the pleasant company I had just left accentuated
+this feeling, and the swift disappearance of our glimpse of crispness and
+sunshine did nothing to raise the heart. In that low-lying isle one got
+the most extraordinary views of the weather and could see storms
+approaching when they were still leagues away, and portents of rain or
+wind hours ahead of their coming. This evening the frost had vanished,
+the sun was sinking into a grey-blue bank, little filaments of wind
+clouds were reaching all over the sky, and a stiff chilly breeze was
+already blowing in from the sea.
+
+"We are going to have a change," I thought.
+
+And we were indeed going to have a change; and of more than weather.
+Those storm clouds were blowing up the something I wanted to happen,
+though how promptly would I have changed my wish had I but guessed! But
+Fate had loosed that nor'west gale and there was no stopping the order of
+things now.
+
+In the night I remember waking once or twice to hear the wind shouting
+down the chimney, and to feel very snug in bed. When I got up it was
+still blowing a full gale, and looking out of my window I could just
+catch a glimpse of the masts and funnels of a large steamer which seemed
+to be lying under the lee side of the island for shelter. What she was
+precisely I could not see enough of her to say, nor when we met at
+breakfast, did the doctor know more about her.
+
+Like many a storm that springs up very suddenly, this one began to
+subside as fast, and in the course of the morning I set out to have a
+closer look at the strange ship. Quarter of an hour's walk in that
+direction told me all I wanted to know about her. In fact I recognised
+her as no stranger at all but an old acquaintance, H.M.S. _Uruguay_, a
+great lump of an ex-liner once running to South American ports with a
+band in the saloon at nights. Now, painted grey, with the white ensign
+flying over her, and some hundreds of blue jackets and a formidable
+complement of six inch guns aboard, she was one of those auxiliary
+cruisers which have been doing so many odd jobs and getting through so
+much dirty, risky, arduous work during this war.
+
+What had brought her under the lee of Ransay I could but guess; some
+engine trouble and that gale on top of it most probably, but there she
+was, and there were the islanders standing at each door gazing at her. I
+gazed too for a while and then came back to our early dinner.
+
+Going out again in the afternoon, the affable Mr. Hobhouse was passing
+the time of day with a couple of petty officers within five minutes, and
+as he continued his walk he saw that, whatever was the reason, H.M.S.
+_Uruguay_ was not going to leave immediately. The wind had now fallen to
+a stiff breeze, and as she lay under the shelter of the island, shore
+leave had evidently been given to a number of the men. First at one farm
+and then at another he could spy parties of blue jackets buying butter
+and eggs, poultry and cheeses, everything fresh from the land they could
+get. It was cheerful to see them again, and yet one uncomfortable thought
+did cross my mind as I looked at their great grey ship anchored there.
+
+"What a sitting target for a submarine!" I said to myself. "Pray Heaven
+no submarine turns up here to-day!"
+
+I had gone out to the bare northern headland and was heading home again
+for tea when I happened to see on the road a small knot of these blue
+jackets, just parting from a couple of countrymen. This pair turned
+towards me and in a moment I recognised my acquaintances Peter Scollay
+junior and Jock. Mr. Hobhouse had visited their house several times by
+now and was on the most friendly terms with the family.
+
+"Good-day, Peter!" he cried as he passed them. "Have you been taking your
+brother to look at the ship?"
+
+For some reason Peter stared at him in an odd way, and Jock burst into
+one of his loudest laughs. Peter seemed to mumble something which Mr.
+Hobhouse failed to catch, and then when they had passed, he could see him
+laughing too.
+
+To be laughed at without knowing the reason why is always irritating,
+even to one of Mr. Hobhouse's exceptionally amiable temperament, and it
+had the effect of suddenly sharpening his critical faculties. A thing
+struck him that had never happened to strike him before. What was that
+great strapping Scollay fellow doing at home on a small croft where he
+was quite superfluous, when his country needed every man? And why did
+the lout stare and then laugh? Considering what a vigilant eye was
+watching him behind Mr. Hobhouse's glasses, it seemed to me unwise as
+well as rude.
+
+In a moment I passed the blue jackets, who were distributing some
+purchases among their party before they set out for their ship, and I
+saw a possible excuse for Peter's amusement, though it seemed a poor
+one. The men were carrying a couple of baskets of eggs, two or three
+large cheeses, a parcel which probably contained butter, and one or two
+poultry. Presumably the pair had been selling them some of this
+assortment, and perhaps my suggestion that they had been merely
+sight-seeing struck them as humorous. It argued a poor sense of humour;
+still, there was one possibility.
+
+Once more the amiable Mr. Hobhouse showed his friendly spirit by
+addressing a few kindly words to the good fellows (that was what he
+called them, as being the phrase most suited to his foolish appearance),
+and in his artless way he was able to gather that he had been correct in
+supposing that Peter and Jock had been amongst their purveyors.
+Unfortunately he had not the foresight to enquire particularly which of
+the articles those two had purveyed. But I wonder very much whether any
+possible reader of this account, given what I knew up to this point, can
+honestly say that he would have put that question?
+
+Well, I got home and sat down to high tea with Dr. Rendall, and of course
+he began to talk of the _Uruguay's_ visit. Even if nothing else had
+happened afterwards, such an event would have given Ransay food for
+several days' conversation.
+
+"We are probably eating our last eggs and our last butter for the next
+week to come," he said with a laugh. "These sailors have cleared the
+island out, from all I can hear. They've even been to this house and
+got what they could, and I believe they practically cleaned out my
+cousin's farm."
+
+"Really?" said Mr. Hobhouse. "Really indeed? Ha, ha! Do you know I found
+even the Scollays selling them things."
+
+"Oh, I expect every one has been making hay while the sun shines," said
+he.
+
+He had had one of his moody attacks so lately as the day before, but he
+had quite recovered his good humour by now, and in fact was in an extra
+jovial mood that evening. We sat up till about half-past ten, and then
+went up to our bedrooms.
+
+I had reached the stage of pyjamas and was just opening my window for the
+night when the dreadful thing happened. Suddenly the whole island seemed
+to be illuminated. I turned my eyes instinctively to the place where the
+_Uruguay_ lay, and there high into the heavens mounted a blinding pillar
+of flame. The wind was still blowing pretty fresh away from me and
+towards the ship, but even against it the roar that followed shook every
+window and door in the house. The pillar of flame vanished the next
+instant, but high in the air fire-balls seemed to linger for some
+minutes. And then the pillar of smoke rose up. It rose and rose, swift
+and gigantic, growing all the while greater and more terrible in girth,
+till at last when it was some hundreds of feet high it slowly stretched
+out at the top until it looked like some huge evil tree seen in a
+nightmare.
+
+And there I stood at the window and stared. And there on the spot where
+H.M.S. _Uruguay_ with her crew of hundreds and all her complement of
+officers (largely R.N.R. and R.N.V.R. men like myself) had lain, stood
+that gigantic pillar of smoke. Then all at once I realised that
+everything living in that ship and most of her inanimate self was
+represented now only by that foul column.
+
+I heard the doctor's door open and his voice say: "Mr. Hobhouse!
+Hobhouse!"
+
+I had presence of mind to clap my glasses hurriedly on my nose, before I
+rushed into the passage.
+
+"What has happened? Is that the ship gone, do you think?" he asked in a
+low voice.
+
+I noticed that he seemed a man with a good control over his feelings. I
+had mine, too, pretty well in hand, but to play the absurd Thomas
+Hobhouse at such a moment was more than I cared to do. I preferred to
+show a little of what I felt and get away from him on that excuse. So I
+stammered something, and then we looked at one another for a moment, and
+I hurriedly went back to my room.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+BOLTON ON THE TEACK
+
+
+"Only one survivor."
+
+The doctor looked into my room about eight o'clock next morning to give
+me this brief bulletin. At breakfast he told me he had been out most of
+the night, but there had only been that single case for him. A boat from
+the island had picked a solitary living seaman out of the scum of oil,
+blackened by it like a negro and without a stitch of clothing. Some of
+the dead had been found, but not in a condition to be discussed, and of
+course many fragments of debris. And now a number of patrol boats were on
+the scene, he had handed over his patient to a naval doctor, and that was
+all the news of the tragedy up till eight o'clock.
+
+I knew that John Whiteclett would certainly be in one of the patrol
+boats, and I spent the morning in looking out for him. Thus by an
+apparent accident when the Commander did land about noon he very soon
+walked into Mr. Hobhouse. My cousin's face was grave and set, and there
+being no witnesses, neither of us luckily had to act.
+
+"Well, Jack?" I said.
+
+"Did you see it happen?" he demanded.
+
+"I happened to be at my window."
+
+"Tell me what you saw," said he.
+
+I told him and he nodded at intervals.
+
+"Just what a couple of other witnesses have told me," he said.
+
+"Submarines?" I asked.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"The odds against a torpedo sending a ship straight up like that are
+enormous. And one would have heard two explosions--which nobody did.
+Besides, the one man who was picked up has luckily been able to talk a
+little already. I am certain there was no torpedo attack."
+
+"She simply blew up then?"
+
+"That was it."
+
+"Accident or design?"
+
+"God knows! Perhaps no one else ever will. It may have merely been the
+ammunition. As you know, that has happened before now. But it's a very
+curious coincidence that it should have happened off Ransay, knowing what
+we know. I hear a lot of the men were ashore buying things. I wonder what
+they brought aboard with them!"
+
+"I can tell you what one lot brought: eggs, poultry, cheeses, and a large
+parcel in newspaper which I took to be butter. But that was only one
+party I happened to see. They were all over the island."
+
+He thought in silence for a few moments, and then he glanced at
+his watch.
+
+"Look here, old chap," he said, "I'm afraid I must be getting off again
+now. Walk back with me as far as it's safe and I'll tell you something
+that you must know. We can discuss the evidence later, when a little more
+has been collected. The point that concerns you is that Bolton has been
+sent for again."
+
+"The devil he has! Do I retire then?"
+
+"Not at all. You see nobody in these parts is in the Hobhouse secret, so
+they sent for Bolton at once to make his own kind of enquiries while we
+make ours. You of course go on making yours in your own way just the
+same. All the same I think it would be tactful to stand aside--with your
+eyes open of course--while Bolton is on the job."
+
+"Tactful," I agreed, "but a little annoying."
+
+"Well, Roger, it can't be helped, I'm afraid. I'm not the boss here and
+the man is on his way now as fast as he can travel. And now what about
+telling him who you really are? I've been thinking it over, and if you
+are agreeable I think I ought to."
+
+I saw that this meant that he had decided he was going to, so I
+merely said:
+
+"If you think it best, certainly tell him. Only swear him to secrecy."
+
+"Certainly. And I'm sure the man himself will see the point in that. But
+you see if I didn't tell him who you really were, he'd very likely put
+you down as a suspicious character and recommend your removal."
+
+"You're quite right," I agreed.
+
+"Besides what you know may help him, and it would be a dog in the manger
+kind of game to keep back anything, now that he has taken up the
+business."
+
+"Right again. Well, I'll keep my nose out of the business till Bolton has
+had his innings."
+
+"Good man!" said Jack. "Well, we'd better separate now. Good luck to
+you both!"
+
+I trust I am not of an unduly jealous disposition, but being thus asked
+to take a back seat just as something really definite had happened was a
+strain on my philosophy. The tragedy of the _Uruguay_ might not have
+anything to do with the secret agency in the island--though I felt in my
+bones it had, and Mr. Bolton might come and go and leave me possibly with
+a little information to help my own quest. Still, it was annoying.
+
+At the same time, my cousin's arguments were absolutely sound and I saw
+perfectly that it would have been both foolish and ungenerous to play
+Hobhouse with the man. So I went back and picked up a novel and tried to
+dismiss the whole business from my mind in the meantime.
+
+For the next twenty-four hours the island was full of gruesome stories
+and the wildest rumours, but for most of the time Mr. Hobhouse stayed at
+home and finished his novel. It was on the evening of the day after the
+tragedy, when the doctor and he were sitting over the smoking room fire,
+lighting their pipes after tea, that the bell rang. "Hallo, who's that at
+this hour?" said the doctor.
+
+I heard a heavy footstep in the passage, and guessed, but the only
+announcement was that a gentleman wished to see Dr. Rendall. He was out
+of the room for a long time, nearly an hour by the clock, and when he
+came back his manner was serious and a little apologetic.
+
+"I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hobhouse," said he, "and I assure you
+there is nothing to worry about, but the fact is a detective is here and
+wants to have a word with you."
+
+"A detective!" exclaimed Mr. Hobhouse nervously. "You don't say so? Dear
+me, what can he want me for!"
+
+"He's a man Bolton," said the doctor, "the very man who came up about six
+months ago under the name of Thompson and gave himself out as a cattle
+dealer. By Jove, I can see now what he came for! But anyhow it's about
+the _Uruguay_ business this time and he is interviewing everybody, and if
+you don't mind, he'd like a few words with you."
+
+I went into the dining room and saw for the first time my rival. He was
+a big, sturdy, red-faced man, with a plain bluff manner, an ideal
+dealer; but his eyes were shrewd and keen. In fact once I had looked into
+them I put him down as a better man than I had fancied. We exchanged a
+conventional word on either side, and then both of us instinctively
+glanced at the door.
+
+"Better speak quietly, Mr. Merton," said he.
+
+I nodded and said with a smile: "So you are not here as a dealer this
+time, Mr. Bolton?"
+
+"No," said he, "I want to get straight to business, and there's too much
+humbug and waste of time if one has to talk cattle for half an hour
+first. Besides, after what has just happened they'd be quite sharp enough
+here to tumble to the game. Anyhow, the people I want to get at would be,
+and there's no point in humbugging the others."
+
+"Well," I said, "you know what I'm here for, and though I'm sorry to say
+I haven't been able to pick up much so far, anything I have picked up is
+at your service."
+
+"Much obliged, Mr. Merton," said he. "We're like a couple of terriers
+after the same rat, and as long as we get him that's all that matters.
+You've had your go and now I'm going to have a little go."
+
+He laughed genially, but it was clear enough that when he said two
+terriers, he meant one terrier at a time, and I accepted the
+situation frankly.
+
+"Right you are," I said. "I'll take a breather while you go in and finish
+him off. Only of course if you want me to lend a hand, here I am, with
+nothing else to do."
+
+He seemed distinctly relieved by this declaration and grew more friendly
+than ever.
+
+"Well now to come to business," he said. "I must tell you frankly in the
+first place, Mr. Merton, that there were some things in your story last
+time you were here that I didn't know just how much to believe in. The
+most truthful people sometimes imagine the queerest things. If you'd had
+my experience, Mr. Merton, you'd feel just the same about a tale like
+yours. But now I know you and know what's been happening here, and
+particularly what's happened yesterday, it's a different story. Do you
+mind just telling me in your own words about what you saw last time and
+anything you've noticed this trip?"
+
+My opinion of Mr. Bolton's shrewdness continued to rise as I noticed his
+close attention to my tale and how much to the point his questions were.
+Every now and then he stopped me while he made a jotting in a fat little
+brown leather pocket book, and at the end he observed.
+
+"Well, Mr. Merton, it's a queer case but I daresay I may be able to
+throw a bit of light on things before I've done."
+
+I wondered very much, and from the look on his face I do not believe for
+a moment that he saw a single blink of light at that time.
+
+"And now," said he, "coming to this explosion, I don't want to hear
+anything more about the flames and smoke and such like. All that is for
+the Navy people. It doesn't come under the head of my department, Mr.
+Merton; but this buying of stuff ashore and taking parcels aboard the
+ship, that does come under it. In fact that's what I'm up here to
+investigate, for it's pretty clear even to a man like me that knows
+nothing of ships that any one on this island couldn't swim out and hold a
+match to a ship o' war and blow her up that way! If it _was_ done from
+here, it must have been by one of those parcels."
+
+"Obviously," I agreed. "And I also agree that it's for the experts to
+decide whether a bomb could be slipped into a paper parcel of butter or a
+large cheese, or anything else they bought; and for you simply to find
+out exactly what was bought and who sold it."
+
+"A paper parcel of butter and a large cheese," he repeated. "Did you
+happen to see any of those things being sold yourself?"
+
+"I happened to pass some blue jackets who had just bought them."
+
+He made me tell him exactly the circumstances of my seeing the men and
+my passing Peter and Jock previously; precisely in fact as I have told it
+in this account. He thought for a few moments in silence after I had
+finished and then asked me if I knew definitely of any other people who
+had sold anything to the sailors.
+
+"I happen to know for certain of Dr. Rendall and his cousin Mr. Philip
+Rendall--or rather Mr. Philip Rendall's farmer, but from all I saw and
+all I heard I fancy the difficulty will be to find a house that did not
+sell something."
+
+He nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"That's exactly the difficulty," he said, and then he rose and held out
+his hand. "Goodnight, Mr. Merton, I'm much obliged to you and I'll
+promise you to make an excuse for looking you up very soon again and
+letting you know how I am getting on. By the way, you had better tell the
+doctor I was much interested in your account of how the explosion
+happened. That will account for my calling again."
+
+"I must have detective instincts myself," I smiled. "I had already
+thought of the same lie."
+
+In fact it came in very handy no later than Mr. Bolton's departure that
+night. The doctor wondered very much what the detective had to say to his
+patient that took him so long to tell, and his curiosity was satisfied as
+per arrangement.
+
+
+
+X
+
+WHERE THE CLUE LED
+
+
+I saw nothing of Bolton next day, nor as a matter of fact did I expect
+to. Indeed, when he called for me on the morning after, it was a good
+deal sooner than I had counted on. The doctor was out, so no fable was
+necessary, and I took him into the smoking room and offered him an
+easy chair.
+
+"Well, Mr. Bolton, any news?" I enquired.
+
+He remained standing, and shook his head at the chair.
+
+"I've no time to sit down," he said, "but I thought I'd just look in as
+I passed."
+
+There was a note in his voice that made me look at him sharply.
+
+"Have you discovered anything?" I asked.
+
+He nodded his head slowly.
+
+"Not very much, Mr. Merton, but something."
+
+Yet there seem to be a hint of jubilation in his eye.
+
+"Won't you tell the other terrier?"
+
+His face relaxed a little and for a moment I half thought he was going
+to confide in me, and then he said,
+
+"It's a little too soon to say much. But I'm on the track of something, I
+don't mind admitting; something pretty surprising too, if it's the right
+track. Possibly I may be able to tell you more to-night. Could you come
+out this evening with me if I needed you?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"Well," he said, moving towards the door, "any time after dark I may look
+in--if this leads to anything."
+
+"Even if it doesn't, look in and put me out of suspense, like a good
+fellow-'tec,' Mr. Bolton."
+
+He smiled again. Evidently he was decidedly pleased with himself
+this morning.
+
+"All right, Mr. Merton. I'll do that much for you."
+
+Just before I opened the door for him I had one last shot.
+
+"Won't you even give me a hint, Mr. Bolton?"
+
+He looked at me for a moment, and then said in a low voice (for we were
+near the door),
+
+"There's some one in this island who hasn't lived in it all their
+life--not by any means. I've found that out."
+
+He nodded significantly at me, but his lips closed tight again and I saw
+there was no more to be got out of him, so I wished him luck and returned
+to my chair to think.
+
+Whether excitement at the prospect of actually reaching the crisis of
+this adventure that very night, or chagrin at seeing the problem which
+had eluded me solved straight off by this great drover of a fellow was my
+uppermost feeling, I should be afraid to say. I know both were strongly
+mingled and for a few minutes it never even occurred to me to question
+whether the man really was within sight of a solution. And then I began
+to wonder.
+
+Who was this mysterious person who had not lived all "their" life on the
+island? He had concealed, probably deliberately, "their" sex. And was it
+then a fact of which I myself was unaware? Bolton said he had found it
+out. But it might be no news to me. I thought of several people, a woman
+and at least two men, who had certainly lived a considerable part of
+their lives out of the island. But there was no use speculating with the
+test so near at hand.
+
+All the same I felt so restless that I should have gone out to walk it
+off there and then had it not been for the fear that I might chance to
+follow in Bolton's tracks and lead him to think I was doing it
+deliberately. At all costs I wanted him to see that I was playing the
+game (as I was playing it), so I waited till after our early dinner and
+then set off.
+
+I well remember the day, a nasty raw specimen of March weather, not
+exactly raining, but trying to all the time, and altogether grey and
+dismal. The spring ploughing was proceeding apace, and as the fields grew
+brown, there was less and less trace of colour left in the landscape. In
+fact it was a day when something evil could scarcely help happening; or
+at least it seems so looking back.
+
+I walked briskly to keep the chill out, following the winding road, but
+so wrapt in my thoughts that I hardly noticed where I was going till I
+found myself passing from the metalled highway on to the rough track that
+led one beyond the last of the farms out to the desolate stretch of
+country at the nor' west end of the island. At both sides, and especially
+on the north, the rocks rose here till they became genuine cliffs, not
+very high, but rugged and broken, with little hollows dipping down
+through them here and there and giving scrambling access to small coves.
+I kept along near this northern cliff line, still thinking all the while,
+until with a start and a quickening of my heart I became abruptly
+conscious of a figure fifty yards or so ahead.
+
+I had a sudden dim recollection; he seemed disturbingly familiar, and
+then in a moment I recognised Jock, though why the sight of Jock should
+rouse a disturbing thought was more than I could say. When I saw him he
+was close to one of those little dips, but whether he had been down at
+the shore or not, I could not say, for up to that instant I had been
+quite inattentive. But in any case Jock was such a chronic aimless
+wanderer that his appearance anywhere never surprised his acquaintances.
+
+Evidently he recognised the harmless eccentric Mr. Hobhouse quickly
+enough, for he broke into a shambling trot and came towards me with an
+unusual air of eagerness.
+
+"Stones!" he cried as he came up to me. "Jock knows stones!"
+
+"Stones?" said I genially. "Dear me, Jock, this is great news. Are these
+the stones?" and I pointed to the rocks all about us.
+
+"Stones here!" cried Jock pointing eagerly across towards the other side
+of the promontory, and catching me by the arm in a friendly way.
+
+I had never seen the creature so excited before and for a moment could
+make neither head nor tail of it. And then I remembered. On my last visit
+to the knoll near the Scollays', Jock had been watching me, and by way of
+playing my part thoroughly I had affected a vast interest in certain
+large slabs of stone showing here and there through the grass. Looking at
+stones was the last thing I was keen about this afternoon, but there was
+simply no resisting Jock. With the air of a pleased child he led me in
+the way he wished me to go, only letting go my arm when he saw I really
+meant to inspect his stones.
+
+"This is an unusual exhibition for Jock," I thought, but in the
+character of Mr. Hobhouse there was nothing for it but pretending high
+gratification and going where he led me.
+
+The promontory was about a third of a mile across at this point and when
+we had made this journey, my intelligent guide triumphantly pointed out a
+few ordinary boulders at the end of it. They were large, it is true, but
+there their merits ended. However, I examined them with every appearance
+of pleasure, thanked Jock effusively and even gave him a sixpence, and at
+last bade him good-day and started for home.
+
+It had been a queer little episode, and had I been in my usual
+clue-hunting humour I should no doubt have dissected it carefully--and
+then abused myself for being a fanciful fool. But this afternoon I had
+too much else to think of and the incident passed out of my mind in
+the meantime.
+
+At tea I prepared the doctor for the possibility of my going out at night
+by a long-winded, babbling, and entirely fictitious account of Bolton's
+morning call, from which it appeared that Mr. Bolton was so interested in
+Mr. Hobhouse's account of how he saw the ship blow up that he would
+probably call in the evening to verify certain particulars and might even
+want Mr. Hobhouse to come with him to the house where he was lodging.
+And then after tea I smoked and read and waited.
+
+Darkness was beginning to fall when we finished tea that night and the
+lamps were lit when we went into the smoking room. At any moment the
+summons might come, and yet eight o'clock struck, and nine, and ten, and
+I even induced the doctor to sit up till after eleven, but still there
+was no sign of Bolton. And then at last I said some severe things to
+myself about the man, and we went to bed.
+
+Next morning was equally chilly and dismal, and after the doctor went
+out to visit a case, I sat over the fire resolved to stay there till Mr.
+Bolton came and explained himself. I stayed there all morning, but he
+never came, and no more did Dr. Rendall. Our dinner hour approached and
+passed, and at last I sat down and had my meal alone. I had just
+finished when I heard the front door open sharply and the doctor's step
+in the passage. It struck me instantly as curiously quick for him. He
+entered the dining room and I saw at once that something was very much
+the matter.
+
+"Bolton has been murdered," he said abruptly. "His body has just been
+found in the sea."
+
+
+
+XI
+
+AN EYE-OPENER
+
+
+I leapt to my feet and stared at him. "Drowned?" I gasped.
+
+"No, he was shot first with a pistol at close quarters. I've just been
+examining the body."
+
+"Where was it found?"
+
+"Away right at the very North end."
+
+Yesterday's episode rushed into my mind.
+
+"At the very end?"
+
+"Practically."
+
+"It wasn't by any chance as much as half a mile on this side?"
+
+He stared at me curiously and I remembered that this was certainly an odd
+enquiry, and also that Mr. Hobhouse was speaking very concisely.
+
+"No," he said. "Why do you ask?"
+
+I took refuge in an ultra-Hobhousian explanation of how I had been there
+myself a few days ago, and it had struck me as a very murderous looking
+place, and then I asked,
+
+"Is anything more known, doctor?"
+
+"No," he answered, and then added abruptly and with unusual energy,
+"This is absolutely damnable!"
+
+He walked out of the room again as he spoke, and I was left to my
+thoughts. I went into the smoking room but forgot to light my pipe. With
+my head in my hands I bent over the fire and tried in the first place to
+grasp this second tragedy, and then to piece things together and see some
+sequence in them.
+
+That Bolton had really been on the right scent now seemed highly
+probable, though as he made no concealment of his business, it was
+possible that an agency which had tried to murder me, defied all efforts
+to check it for months, and to all seeming had lately blown up a cruiser,
+might get rid of him simply on general principles. Still, the working
+hypothesis must be that he had got on to their track. And, oh, if he had
+only told me what he had discovered! But that secret had died with him,
+and now once more one must begin all over again.
+
+Yet this time I had secured one significant-looking starting point. The
+coincidence of Jock's appearance out at that lonely place more or less
+about the time when the murder must have taken place, and his leading me
+away in another direction from that in which I was heading, was certainly
+suggestive. The creature had exhibited more appearance of intelligence
+than I had given him credit for, and might he not then be used by some
+one who knew him well and had strong influence over him, to play such a
+simple part as he had acted? Supposing he were with such a person and
+that person saw me coming and did not wish me to spy him, how easy it
+would be to say, "Go, Jock, and show that gentleman stones over there!"
+
+As to whom to suspect of having such influence over him, that was easy
+enough. I recalled young Peter Scollay's stare and laugh when I suggested
+that they were going to look at the ship, and it sounded to me now a very
+sinister laugh.
+
+And yet the more I thought over all this, the more objections I saw. In
+the first place the body was not found where I had seen Jock. True, it
+might have been moved if the murderer had been wily and suspicious enough
+to think that the simple Mr. Hobhouse was capable of connecting the
+harmless episode of the stones with his gruesome work, though even that
+seemed to imply more than was likely; but a more formidable difficulty
+was the evidence of educated cunning in every crime committed or
+attempted by that hand. For "that hand" I decided I must certainly
+substitute "those hands." I had always thought there was more than one in
+it, and now I felt surer of this than ever.
+
+With the back of my head, as they say, I heard Dr. Rendall go into dinner
+and then come out again into the hall, and then I heard him, instead of
+coming into the smoking room, open and shut the front door. He had
+evidently gone out again and I was not sorry to be left alone.
+
+A little later, in the same absent-minded way, I heard the front door
+bell faintly ring and I only woke out of my reverie when the smoking room
+door opened.
+
+"Dr. Rendall is out, I hear," said a voice that made me jump up very
+hurriedly.
+
+It was Jean Rendall, delightful to look at as ever, but with a new
+expression on her face. If she was not anxious, and very keenly anxious
+too, about something, I was much mistaken.
+
+Unwillingly I resumed the role of Thomas Hobhouse and informed her
+nervously that the doctor had gone out, I knew not where.
+
+She said nothing for a moment, but still lingered. Then she said,
+
+"What a dreadful thing about poor Mr. Bolton!"
+
+"Dreadful!" agreed Mr. Hobhouse. "Terrible! Dreadful! Terrible!"
+
+"Did my cousin tell you much about it?"
+
+"Oh, no, not much, very little. He was upset, very much upset, I
+could see."
+
+"Everybody is," she said, and then added, "I should think you must be,
+Mr. Hobhouse."
+
+There seemed to be an odd note in her voice set up a vague chain
+of disquieting emotions, but Mr. Hobhouse answered in the same
+tone as before:
+
+"Oh, yes, I am distressed; dreadfully distressed."
+
+Again she was silent, but still she lingered.
+
+"I am going to walk home again," she said suddenly. "Would you care to
+walk a little way with me?"
+
+At that moment I wanted my own company and had a certain shrinking from
+hers; so the voice of Mr. Hobhouse bleated something about having caught
+a slight chill.
+
+"Please come a little way," she said. "I want to speak to you
+particularly."
+
+There was a note of appeal in her voice which would have taken a stouter
+man than Thomas Hobhouse to resist. Besides, he felt exceedingly curious.
+Her whole manner during the interview in fact roused a very strong
+sensation of curiosity.
+
+He got his hat and his coat (Mr. Hobhouse always wore a topcoat) and they
+crunched their way down the knobbly drive and passed out into the road,
+neither saying a word. And then Mr. Hobhouse got the most rousing
+eye-opener of his career, or of Roger Merton's either. She turned to him
+and said quietly,
+
+"I hope you are taking care of your own life, Mr. Merton."
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE CONFIDANT
+
+
+A second or two passed before I was able to answer at all, and even then
+my first remark was not in the least worthy of the occasion; but it
+expressed precisely what was in my mind.
+
+"How the--how on earth did you find me out?"
+
+She smiled a little, but her manner was anxious still.
+
+"I haven't lived all my life in Ransay," she said. "I have even been to
+London and to quite a good many London theatres. In fact I've seen you
+act before, Mr. Merton."
+
+"What an extraordinary way to be found out!" I thought, and aloud I said,
+
+"But my name isn't on the programme in Ransay."
+
+"It was, when you were last here, you must remember," said she.
+
+I looked at her for a moment, and she at me, and in that exchange of
+glances I decided emphatically that there was no sign of evil in those
+eyes. Anyhow, I stood to lose nothing if I got her confidence, and my
+own could be withheld or not as I saw fit.
+
+"We might as well be frank," I said. "How exactly did you come to spot
+me?"
+
+Again she smiled, and each time she smiled straight at me like that, I
+confess frankly I grew less cautious.
+
+"Do you remember when Captain Whiteclett came to arrest you, your
+bed-room door was open just for a minute?"
+
+I did remember now and recalled her face outside and its very
+expression vividly.
+
+"I heard him call you 'Roger' and saw that you knew each other well, and
+then of course I knew we had been utterly wrong in thinking you a--"
+
+She paused and I finished the sentence for her.
+
+"A spy."
+
+"Well, are you honestly surprised? You did do some most extraordinary
+things, Mr. Merton! I only began to get the least idea of what you were
+about some time afterwards."
+
+"And what idea did you get then? And how did you get it?"
+
+"It was when we began to hear of the bad name our island was getting.
+_Then_ I guessed you must have been trying to investigate and catch the
+traitor--and I had gone and interfered--and even locked you up!"
+
+"It was you, then?"
+
+"Well, father, of course, approved, but I locked the door. And after I
+had found out the truth, I could have murdered myself! But why did you
+puzzle us so?"
+
+Her charm and sincerity and animation almost made me tell her there and
+then, but I had just enough hold of myself to ask instead,
+
+"But this doesn't explain how you came to find me out this time?"
+
+"Well in a way it does; for I knew then that Roger Merton was your real
+name and then I remembered where I had heard it before, and I knew you
+were the same person. When you called as Mr. Hobhouse that first day I
+hadn't the least suspicion to begin with, and then suddenly you began to
+look familiar--"
+
+"With this beard!"
+
+"Well, your face isn't all hidden by your beard and I thought I
+recognised the other bits. If I hadn't known you were an actor--"
+
+"A pretty bad one, it appears," I interposed.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed, you were simply splendid! You still kept me puzzled and
+only half certain even after I had met you and Captain Whiteclett
+walking together and noticed you move apart when you saw me. In fact I
+wasn't sure till that walk along the shore. I arranged that to make
+quite certain."
+
+"You arranged it!" I exclaimed. "The deuce you did, Miss Rendall!"
+
+She laughed defiantly.
+
+"I was dying to make sure! So when I saw you coming towards the house, I
+rushed into my things and went out to meet you. I thought if I could take
+you the same walk as we had been before, you could hardly help doing
+something to give yourself away. And at last you did!"
+
+"May I ask what my relapse was?"
+
+"When I got you to the same place as last time and said the same thing,
+I noticed you jump. And then you did really rather give yourself away
+when I asked you if you wanted to look at the rocks, and you jumped at
+the chance. I know nothing about antiquities--not even as much as you
+do, Mr. Merton--"
+
+"Hit me again!" I laughed.
+
+"Oh, but it was very clever of you to pretend to be so learned!" she
+hastened to say. "Still, I did know that there are no antiquities below
+high water mark, so I knew you just wanted to inspect the place where
+something happened to you before."
+
+"Where what happened?" I enquired.
+
+"That's what I want you to tell me! Oh, if you only knew how I've died to
+know what happened that night!"
+
+"How do you know anything happened?"
+
+"I guessed," she said.
+
+This may not sound convincing on paper, but it did as she said it. I was
+almost ready, in fact, to swear by Jean Rendall now.
+
+"And so you made sure of Thomas Hobhouse!" I said. "But why then didn't
+you unmask him at once?"
+
+"Oh, but it wasn't my business to! Of course I had guessed what you were
+doing here--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Trying to rid our island of traitors of course! I had interfered with
+you once, but I wasn't going to do it again. In fact I tried to reassure
+you by talking of my walk with Mr. Merton."
+
+"Miss Rendall," I said, "I am a child at this game. You did reassure
+me. I have been as clay in your hands. But tell me one thing more. Why
+on earth did you come out with me on that first walk--armed with that
+horse pistol?"
+
+"Oh, you saw it then!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I almost smelt the slow match! But why did you do it?"
+
+"Well, you know what I thought you were then, and there was no one else
+to go with you."
+
+"Then you actually went out with a spy at night to keep an eye on
+him--and shoot him if he spied?"
+
+"I should probably have missed!" she laughed.
+
+I was quite ready to swear by Jean Rendall now. Talk of pluck! I never
+heard of a more fearless performance!
+
+"Please understand, Mr. Merton," she went on earnestly, "that I should
+never have dreamt of letting you know that I had recognised you--I
+haven't even told father, I assure you!--only when I heard of this
+dreadful death of Mr. Bolton--"
+
+She paused and glanced at me, half apologetically, half beseechingly,
+it seemed.
+
+"Well?" I said.
+
+"Well, I realised the danger you were in supposing anybody else
+guessed. And I thought I'd come and speak to you. I'm afraid I
+sometimes act on impulse."
+
+"So do I," I confessed. "In fact I'm going to act on impulse now. Do you
+care to hear some bits of the story you don't know?"
+
+Her eyes absolutely danced.
+
+"Oh, I'd love to! I've been longing--dying to know the rest of it!
+I've guessed and guessed, but I haven't been able to make any sense
+out of things!"
+
+I remembered my uncle's injunctions distinctly. I also remembered my
+cousin's cautions and my own good resolutions. A woman, of all things, I
+was to beware of; but I knew I was perfectly safe to throw overboard the
+whole collection of cautions: and already I had a strong suspicion I
+should be far from a loser by it. Miss Rendall seemed, in fact, to have
+distinctly more natural capacity for detective work than I had, judging
+by her performances so far.
+
+So I plunged straight into the tale of my first landing on Ransay and my
+adventure with the oilskinned man on the shore, and may I always have as
+attentive an audience when I tell a story.
+
+"So there is actually a German who dares to live on Ransay!" she
+exclaimed, her cheeks flushing a little.
+
+"A man whom I certainly took to be a German--a man who talks German
+fluently."
+
+She fell very thoughtful and presently repeated,
+
+"Middle-sized--with a beard--and dark eyes?"
+
+"Yes," I said confidently; for somehow or other I began to feel
+singularly sure of these features.
+
+"Of course I know who you suspect," she said, looking up suddenly. "And
+you had him removed from the island afterwards."
+
+"You mean O'Brien? Yes, I did suspect him--though, mind you, I had
+nothing to go on. Do you know if he talked German?"
+
+"He once told me he did, but I never heard him, and I didn't
+believe him."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"One couldn't believe half he said, and I don't think he intended one to.
+He was very Irish. But I don't believe he was the man."
+
+"Why not?" I asked again.
+
+"Oh, just because I don't. And what happened next?"
+
+I told her of my night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the
+spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to
+hear her hearty approval of this scheme.
+
+"It was awfully ingenious," she said decidedly. "I can't imagine a better
+plan, and you did it so well that you took us all in completely. I
+suppose you felt you had to count us among the suspicious characters, but
+what a pity you hadn't confided in father or me as it happened! We would
+have done everything we could to help you. I'd have loved to spread
+dreadful rumours about you!"
+
+"I'm sure you would," I said, "but as things turned out, and in the light
+of what has happened since, I believe you saved my life by arresting me."
+
+She turned on me and asked breathlessly.
+
+"Did they guess who you really were? Did they try to do anything to you?"
+
+"Merely murder me, as they murdered poor Bolton. The first attempt was
+made that night on the shore."
+
+I saw her lips parting as I neared the end of telling her that story, and
+the instant I finished she cried,
+
+"Of course you thought it was father!"
+
+I did my best to shuffle out, but she was a hopeless person to try
+to deceive.
+
+"It was quite natural you should," she said, "but I can tell you
+something now that throws some light on things. Next morning I heard that
+a man had been calling for you after dinner and was told that you had
+gone out with me. And the funny thing was that the maid didn't know him
+by sight, or know his voice. He kept his face rather hidden, she said,
+and talked in a low voice. Of course it simply increased our suspicions
+of you. But that was how they knew where you were! And that was the man
+who tried to kill you."
+
+"And who'd have done it for certain if he had found me at home that
+night," I added.
+
+I must frankly confess that this little incident made me feel
+uncomfortable. The audacity of the steps my enemies took, their
+remorseless thoroughness, the extraordinary completeness with which they
+covered their tracks, their appearances from nowhere and disappearances
+into space, were particularly nasty to contemplate with Bolton's fate so
+fresh in my mind.
+
+"They are pretty thorough," I said.
+
+She seemed to divine the thoughts behind this remark.
+
+"But they haven't suspected you yet," she said reassuringly, "and they
+mustn't! And now, tell me some more, Mr. Merton."
+
+So I went on telling her more:--about the man with spectacles, the
+shooting episode, every single thing in fact I could remember. As we
+neared the house we walked more and more slowly, but my tale was barely
+finished when we got there.
+
+"You'll come in, won't you?" she said. "I know father is out, so we can
+go on talking."
+
+She saw me hesitate and her colour faintly rose.
+
+"You do trust me now, surely!" she said.
+
+"All the way, Miss Rendall. But these devils may be on to my track at any
+moment, and if they suspect you are in my confidence--"
+
+"What nonsense!" she cried, "if there's any risk I _want_ to share it.
+For the credit of our island these people have got to be hunted down, and
+I'd like them to know I'm hunting them! Besides, there's rather a nice
+cake for tea; you must come in."
+
+And in we went.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+JEAN'S GUESSES
+
+
+"Come into father's room and then you can smoke," said Jean.
+
+It was the same pleasant, well-remembered room into which she had shown
+me that day when I first made her acquaintance, and as I followed her in
+now it struck me forcibly that I had taken the wrong turning that August
+morning. If I had taken these people into my confidence then, I should at
+least have started on the right road. Better than ever I realised what
+tricks my instincts play me. Or perhaps it may be my efforts to regulate
+them by the light of what I am pleased to call my reason that produce
+such unhappy results.
+
+"I am wondering how they found you out," she began. "It seems so
+mysterious that they should have suddenly started to try and murder you
+like that. They must have felt quite positive--and what made them feel
+positive?"
+
+"Did you or your father say anything to anybody about my voice; that I
+didn't seem to have so much accent as I had at first, or anything of
+that kind?"
+
+"Not a word," she said positively. "Father is the most uncommunicative of
+people, and I have inherited some of his closeness."
+
+"Your servants?" I suggested.
+
+"They are Ransay girls, and one foreign accent is the same as another to
+them," she laughed.
+
+"Then it must have been finding the parachute. I always thought that
+gave me away."
+
+"But it wasn't found till Monday morning, after we had been for
+that walk."
+
+"It might have been found by these people sooner."
+
+"It might," she admitted without much conviction. "But still--who did you
+see or speak to apart from us and Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien?"
+
+"The Scollays," I said, "and several farmers I happened to meet; but
+always with a most suspicious accent. Oh, and there was one incident I
+forgot to mention. On the Sunday afternoon I was doing a little fancy
+shooting with my revolver down on the beach when Jock turned up. You know
+Jock the idiot?"
+
+"Well," she said, but her attention had evidently been caught by my first
+words. "You were doing fancy shooting," she repeated. "Are you a very
+good shot?"
+
+"Quite useful," I admitted with becoming modesty. "That afternoon I was
+rather above myself."
+
+"Then," she cried, "you were seen, and that's why the man stopped
+firing at you as soon as you aimed at him! He knew he would be hit if
+he went on!"
+
+I opened my eyes a little and smiled.
+
+"That is a flattering solution," I said, "but if I may venture to say so,
+it seems rather a bold inference."
+
+"I'm certain it's right," she said confidently. "Did you speak to Jock?"
+
+"Yes, I had a little talk with him; that's to say of course I did all
+the talking."
+
+"In your natural voice?"
+
+"Latterly I did," I admitted.
+
+"Were you far from the wall above the beach."
+
+"Not very."
+
+"And I suppose there were lots of rocks about?"
+
+"The usual supply."
+
+"Then some one was behind either the wall or the rocks and you were
+overheard! That's how you were found out!"
+
+"Miss Rendall," I said, "you arrive at solutions by such brilliant short
+cuts that I feel like an old cart horse stumbling along out of sight
+behind you. My models hitherto have been the classical detectives--"
+
+"Tuts!" she laughed, "they were only men!"
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "we are not much of a sex. And now, guess again please,
+it's a very simple conundrum this time--for you. Who was the man behind
+the wall--or the rocks?"
+
+She looked the least trifle hurt.
+
+"I am really trying to help," she said,
+
+"I know it!" I assured her. "And don't think I am laughing at you. This
+jumping to conclusions is probably the right way of reaching them. Anyhow
+my way has failed, and I am only too keen to try yours."
+
+But I could see that I had a sensitive as well as a clever ally, and her
+ardour was evidently a little damped. I tried my best to rekindle it.
+
+"I haven't told you yet," I said, "about Mr. Hobhouse's attempts at
+detection. He discovered one little fact. The old man with the tinted
+spectacles was seen by a small child running towards the beach after he
+had interviewed me."
+
+I could see her pricking up her ears again, but she said little this
+time, and I went on to tell her of Bolton's two talks with me. When I
+came to his discovery her ardour was fairly aflame again, yet she still
+seemed to be holding herself in a little.
+
+"Some one who hasn't lived all 'their' life in the place," she repeated.
+"Yes, it sounds as if he meant a woman."
+
+"Oh, I didn't say that," I interposed.
+
+"You thought it," she retorted, "and in that case I suppose it was me."
+
+"But surely he must have known that before!"
+
+"One would think so," she said thoughtfully, "but he didn't look a very
+intelligent man--poor fellow! Still, it would be a stupid kind of
+discovery to make a fuss about."
+
+"There's just one thing more to tell you," I said; and I told her of the
+curious episode by the cliffs on the day Bolton was murdered, and
+mentioned my own conclusions, such as they were, and my difficulties in
+fitting them into the evidence.
+
+There was no doubt about her keenness now, yet I noticed that there were
+no bold inferences this time. Nor did she even ask me many questions. But
+I saw her grow very thoughtful.
+
+"Well," I said, "have you any ideas--any suspicions?"
+
+She gave no answer for a few moments, and then she said.
+
+"I am not going to jump to conclusions again, Mr. Merton. There is no use
+trying to act on wild ideas till we have found a little more out. You
+might just be running risks for no purpose, and you are in quite enough
+danger as it is."
+
+"Hobhouse will look after me," I assured her.
+
+She glanced at me with a look in her eyes that gave me a little thrill,
+and then I saw a slight shiver run over her.
+
+"You are too brave to realise what danger you are in! Remember Bolton!"
+
+"Believe me, Miss Rendall, I am just as careful of my skin as other
+people, but there is absolutely no danger so long as they don't spot me."
+
+"But how long will that be? And you are taking no precautions at all!"
+
+"But I am! I assure you I am. I have a code wire arranged with my cousin
+and when he gets the message 'Request permission to be visited by my own
+doctor,' he will be in Ransay as fast as he can steam."
+
+She gave a little laugh, but looked anxious still.
+
+"What a delicious message! Well, that's better than nothing. But you
+don't imagine they will give you warning, do you?"
+
+"You will," I said confidently. "When you guess there's danger I'll wire.
+And now, I hope you have some idea in your head besides this notion of my
+danger. Be honest! what's in your mind?"
+
+But I now perceived I had also an obstinate ally.
+
+"I have told you," she persisted, "we must find out a little more before
+doing anything rash. And I promise not to keep anything back, and to tell
+you at once if I find out anything worth knowing. Oh, if you only knew
+how I want you to catch those people! As if I could possibly do anything
+again to interfere with you!"
+
+What I should have liked to do was to take her hands and say something
+very friendly. What I did do was to thank her and assure her I trusted
+her, in words that I think she knew were sincere; and arrange to see her
+accidentally next day. And then I set off for my sanatorium with thoughts
+that were not in the least of the detective type.
+
+It was Jean Rendall's eyes, voice, smile and face--herself from her hair
+to her ankles--that filled my mind as I hummed my way home. Unlike the
+suspicious stranger, Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse had not been given to
+singing, whistling, or humming as he walked, but he broke loose now. I
+had instinctively dreaded a too close acquaintance with that girl while
+the case was doubtful. I felt in my bones she would be dangerous. Now I
+was enraptured to discover she was fatal.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE POCKET BOOK
+
+
+Out of the doctor's smoking-room window you saw nothing but a field or
+two of bleached wintry grass, with a glimpse of grey sea beyond and that
+iniquitous pebble drive close at hand. That at least was all I could see
+on the blighting March morning after my tea with Jean Rendall. The chilly
+damp weather had given place to chillier hard weather. With the
+temperature below freezing and thin showers of dry snow driving up every
+now and then before a biting nor'east wind, there was little temptation
+to go abroad without excuse. My excuse was due in an hour's time when
+Miss Rendall and Mr. Hobhouse proposed to encounter one another
+accidentally on the road, and meantime I was turning away from the window
+towards the fire when I heard the gravel crunch.
+
+On general principles I turned back and looked out, to see a certain
+small farmer approaching the front door. I knew the man slightly and
+was not in the least interested in him. Presumably, I thought, it was
+a call for the doctor; and then my attention was sharply caught. He
+was carrying in his hand a fat little brown leather pocket book and in
+an instant I had remembered where I had seen exactly such a pocket
+book before.
+
+A minute or two later it so chanced that as the maid was speaking to the
+man at the door, the amiable Mr. Hobhouse came out into the hall, and in
+his friendly way approached to see what the matter was; and very
+interested indeed he became when he heard. The pocket book, said the
+farmer, bore the name of James Bolton inside, and the maid was shuddering
+over a dull stain on the cover when Mr. Hobhouse appeared. The man went
+on to explain that he and a friend had been visiting the scene of the
+tragedy early that morning and had discovered the pocket book among the
+rocks close to where the body had been found. The local police had been
+in the island and visited the spot yesterday afternoon, he said, and he
+had meant to give his find to them, but now he heard that they had left
+again. They were coming back, and London police with them, people said,
+but meanwhile he thought the pocket book should be deposited either with
+the doctor or the laird (being Justices of the Peace), and he had called
+at the doctor's first. Now, the doctor being out, he meant to take it to
+Mr. Rendall's.
+
+Hardly necessary to say, Mr. Hobhouse instantly took upon himself the
+responsibility of seeing that the doctor got the pocket book the moment
+he returned, and the farmer, glad enough to save himself a longer walk,
+handed it over. And then Mr. Hobhouse put a few very natural questions.
+
+"Was the pocket book wet when it was found?"
+
+"No wetter than she is now," said the man.
+
+"Then it must have fallen out of poor Bolton's pocket before his body was
+thrown into the sea! Dreadful! Dreadful!" exclaimed the distressed
+gentleman. "And was it quite conspicuous--easily seen on the rocks?"
+
+"We saw it a' right," said the man.
+
+"And yet the police never noticed it? Dear me, dear me! Well, well, I'll
+give it to the doctor. Good morning, my good fellow, and many thanks;
+good morning!"
+
+Over the smoking room fire I examined this discovery very thoughtfully.
+That it should have lain on the rocks all the time, and nobody, not even
+the police, noticed it till now, seemed strange. Still, when one came to
+think of it, the brown colour was very like the seaweed, and among that
+jumble of boulders such a thing might readily have happened. But
+certainly it had fallen out before the body was thrown into the sea, as
+its condition proved.
+
+I glanced through the entries till I came to the very last the poor man
+had made; and then I sat up and opened my eyes very wide indeed. Plainly
+and distinctly these mems. were jotted:
+
+"Proof positive O'B. or confederate.
+
+"To be discovered whether O'B. himself--or the other?
+
+"Possibilities--Thomsons--No Scotts--No Scollays--No."
+
+The Thomsons and Scotts I knew to be tenants of seaboard farms like the
+Scollays, and after the Scollays came three other names, each with "No"
+written after them. A pencil mark also scored across all the six names.
+
+So here was Bolton's secret. Either O'Brien was actually in the island
+himself, or he had a "confederate" here, and since that entry was made,
+one of the two had crowned his series of crimes by murdering the man who
+was on his track. And who was this confederate? Or alternatively, where
+was O'Brien himself lurking? Obviously the six names were people
+definitely acquitted, in Bolton's estimation anyhow; for the "No" and the
+line through their names could only mean that.
+
+In this list certain names were not included--I had got so far when I
+happened to glance at the clock and started to my feet. My appointment
+with Jean was already overdue.
+
+No sign of her when I reached the road, so I set off to walk slowly
+towards her house, thinking, thinking, thinking. Of course the man most
+of all to be suspected was her own cousin. And if he were in it, I knew
+that any person of common sense would warn me to beware of confiding in
+his only relatives in the island. But I felt sure I knew better than any
+person of mere common sense. Still, I could scarcely ask her to abet me
+in convicting the doctor. Then I must not show her the note book. And
+that meant a breach in our confidence at the very start.
+
+I had walked on till I was approaching her house, and still there was no
+sign of her ahead, nor was there any conclusion in my mind. And then I
+chanced to look round and saw her hastening after me, about a couple of
+hundred yards away. I wheeled round and on the instant leapt to one of my
+typical haphazard decisions. I would simply show her the pocket book and
+see how she took it.
+
+She had evidently been running and met me half cross and half laughing
+and divinely flushed after her stern chase.
+
+"I've been chasing you for miles!" she cried. "Why ever didn't you
+look round?"
+
+"But I thought you were coming straight from home!"
+
+"I never said so, and I wasn't! I've been somewhere else first."
+
+There seemed to be a hint of something significant in these last
+words, but I was so eager to come to the point that I never paused to
+question her.
+
+"I am dreadfully sorry," I said, "but I was thinking so hard I never
+thought of looking round. I have got some news for you."
+
+Her eyes sparkled.
+
+"What is it?" she cried.
+
+"Bolton's pocket book has been found among the rocks, and this was his
+last entry before he was killed."
+
+I handed her the book open at the place and watched her face as she read.
+And one thing her expression revealed beyond any possibility of doubt.
+She was utterly and completely taken aback, and for some moments simply
+stared at the jottings in dead silence. Then I saw a sudden gleam in her
+eye, and a moment later she turned to me and cried,
+
+"This wasn't written by Bolton!"
+
+It was my turn to stare.
+
+"Not written by Bolton!" I exclaimed. "Let me look at it again."
+
+Standing there in the middle of the windy road, we quite forgot the
+temperature, and a passing snow shower even whipped us unnoticed.
+
+"Look!" she said. "The writing is thicker and blacker and a little bigger
+than the other entries."
+
+"It was evidently written with a different pencil, or with a blunt
+pointed pencil. A man writing with a short blunt stump naturally
+writes a little bigger and blacker. But look at the _t_s and the _r_s,
+and the capital _P;_ in fact, look at all the letters. They are exactly
+the same type."
+
+"Of course any one trying to copy another man's hand would make his
+letters the same," she retorted, "but the character isn't the same.
+Can't you see?"
+
+"There is a slight difference," I admitted, "but I really can't honestly
+say I see any sufficient ground for putting this down as a fake. Besides,
+what do you suppose it is--a practical joke?"
+
+"No, of course not. It was written by the real murderer to put people off
+the scent."
+
+I tried not to smile, but I am afraid I did.
+
+"Another brilliant guess!" I said, and then hastened to add, "But a most
+ingenious one and quite possibly--very probably, in fact, you are right."
+
+But she saw through my compliments, and I felt rather than observed an
+instant change in her.
+
+"Oh, you may be right," she said, and handed me back the pocket book.
+
+"Or wrong," I replied, "but I mean to try and discover which."
+
+Instead of asking me what I meant to do, as I feared and expected, she
+walked by my side very thoughtfully and in silence. I gave her a
+moment or two to put the question which never came, and then changed
+the subject.
+
+"And have you discovered anything?" I asked.
+
+"Not discovered--only guessed," she answered with a smile in her eyes,
+half defiant, half mischievous.
+
+"And what have you guessed?"
+
+"Oh, I won't trouble you with more guesses. I must find something out
+first--something really convincing, like that note book."
+
+I was a little piqued, but I merely laughed and said,
+
+"Well, we'll see!"
+
+By this time we were quite near the house.
+
+"Won't you come in and have lunch with us?" she asked.
+
+The temptation was strong, but the scent seemed too warm to lose, and I
+said I must be back for lunch at home. We stopped, and as she looked at
+me I noticed in her eyes what first seemed to be doubt and anxiety and a
+moment later to become resolution.
+
+"Mr. Merton," she said; her voice rather low, "which ever of us is right,
+I think we must be getting near rather a critical point. Don't you think
+you had better send off that wire to Captain Whiteclett?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Not quite yet," I said. "You see it's a serious matter dragging my
+cousin out here unless one is quite certain he will be needed."
+
+"But then he may not be in time!"
+
+"I must risk that. But you may rest assured I'll wire the very instant I
+know it won't be bringing him out on a wild goose chase."
+
+For an instant she was silent again, and then she suddenly said,
+
+"I'm sure that writing was forged!"
+
+It seemed to me that I read in her exclamation a kind of whipping up of
+her unbelief, as though she needed to reassure herself.
+
+"A pair of gloves on it?" I suggested.
+
+I quite confess that it was not one of my most tactful suggestions. She
+froze up again at once. Not that there was anything unkind in her eye as
+we said good-bye, only it was clear that in the meantime we were each
+going our own way.
+
+I set out at my best pace back for I was hot for instant action, and
+Jean's doubts, though I dismissed them as quite unjustified by anything
+in the writing, nevertheless made me anxious to settle the question at
+once. The end might be very near indeed, I told myself, as I strode out
+with the last remains of my limp quite vanished. But what prompted those
+doubts; a genuine disbelief in the authenticity of the handwriting, or a
+perception of the logical consequences and a very natural shrinking from
+them? I wondered very much. The fact that she had refrained from asking
+a single question as to what I meant to do, suggested the second
+solution. And yet it was curiously unlike Jean Rendall's fearless spirit.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+PART OF THE TRUTH
+
+
+I never remember feeling more intensely chagrined than when I reached our
+bleak house twenty minutes late for our early dinner to find the doctor
+had eaten a hurried meal quarter of an hour before the usual hour and
+rushed out to attend an urgent case.
+
+I asked at once whether he had been told of the pocket book. Yes, it
+appeared he had. He had seemed very interested, but had immediately
+ordered his dinner hour to be advanced and then hurried away without
+putting further questions.
+
+Was his haste a consequence of what he was told, or merely a
+coincidence? Well, I was resolved to leave that point in doubt no later
+than his return. I hardly debated at all the question of what to do. The
+baffling business of groping in the dark, and daily scheming to discover
+a window, without giving myself away, had gone on long enough. I had
+found a head at last and I meant to hit it. It might turn out to be the
+wrong head; still, I felt convinced I could scarcely fail to discover
+something fresh.
+
+But though I proposed to take a bold course and make a short cut to the
+heart of this infernal mystery, I realised perfectly that if the cut
+actually led me there, it would prove an exceedingly dangerous by-way.
+It was such a gamble that I shrank from summoning my cousin until it had
+come off, but I wrote out the code telegram we had arranged and put it
+in my pocket ready for emergencies. Of the doctor's two servants the
+younger anyhow was absolutely trustworthy I was convinced, and I meant
+to send her with the wire to the post office while I kept guard over the
+prisoner. And then, to ensure there being a prisoner, I saw that all the
+chambers of my revolver were loaded and put it in my coat pocket ready
+to my hand.
+
+The afternoon dragged on, the wind still blustering round the house and
+the hail now and then rattling on the windows; but no Dr. Rendall
+appeared. Tea time arrived and still no sign of him. I gave him half an
+hour's grace and then had my own tea and returned to the smoking-room.
+The evening by this time had fallen and the curtains were drawn and the
+lamps lit.
+
+And then at last I heard him enter the front door. I jumped up and, with
+a dramatic instinct for taking the centre of the stage, placed myself
+before the fire, but I heard him run upstairs and it was some minutes
+before the sound of his descending steps reached me. The moment the door
+opened I was conscious that one of those peculiar changes I had so often
+noticed had taken place in the man. He smiled at me, but with a curiously
+furtive eye, and then he shut the door and came forward.
+
+"You have had tea, I hope," said he.
+
+I wasted no time in preliminaries. Keeping my right hand closed over the
+revolver in my pocket I held out the pocket book with my left.
+
+"Dr. Rendall," I said, "you have heard that Bolton's pocket book has been
+found. Here it is. Kindly look at that entry."
+
+The man started perceptibly and stared at me. Speaking in that tone and
+without my eye glasses I must have made an astonishing contrast to the
+Thomas Hobhouse he had last seen that morning at breakfast.
+
+"Read that," I commanded.
+
+He took the pocket book and I watched him closely. I saw his eyebrows
+rise as he read.
+
+"What's all this about?" he asked.
+
+"It is Bolton's last entry in his note book before he was murdered, and
+it means that O'Brien is either still in this island, or that a
+confederate of his is playing traitor in his place, and that one of the
+two has just committed murder. It is quite impossible that you don't know
+something of this!"
+
+His blue eyes now had considerably more anger than guilt in them. In
+fact I was bound to admit that he looked a fine upstanding man, with
+his grey moustache, high colour, and an air of unmistakable indignation
+in his face.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he demanded.
+
+"I may tell you that I am _not_ Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse, and that I
+have never taken liquor enough in my life to hurt myself. I am here to
+investigate certain things that have been going on in this island, and
+I'll put one question to you straight, Dr. Rendall. You remember being
+visited by a certain man Merton last August, When you heard him
+approaching your house why did you pull down your blind?"
+
+That shot went straight home. All the indignation vanished and I saw on
+the instant I had him at my mercy.
+
+"What--what--has that to do with it?" he stammered.
+
+"Don't trouble to try and hedge. As a matter of fact I am Merton and I
+saw the blind go down myself. Since then we have always been on your
+tracks, Dr. Rendall."
+
+"I swear that that had nothing to do with treason!"
+
+"You are accused of treason, your relations to O'Brien were very
+peculiar, and if you can't explain that blind and this entry and a number
+of other things, you will be in an extremely nasty position."
+
+The doctor made no further effort to stand up to me. He sank into a
+chair while I stood over him, and I knew I was going to hear the truth at
+last. And yet this sudden collapse, and indeed his whole attitude, were
+so unexpected that I felt more puzzled than triumphant.
+
+"Mr. Merton," he said, "for God's sake don't give me away and I'll tell
+you the whole truth. My cousin Philip can confirm it--or at least part of
+it. I came up here because--well, I'd married the wrong woman and gone
+off the rails a bit and Philip settled me here to keep me straight. I had
+debts too--I have them still, I may tell you frankly. That's why I took
+in O'Brien. I wasn't supposed to keep any liquor in the house--that was
+one of the conditions. But damn it, I wasn't born to be a teetotaler, and
+that's the plain truth, Mr. Merton. That devil O'Brien found me out and
+started to blackmail me--"
+
+"Blackmail?" I asked.
+
+"In his own way. He made me give him liquor--and there we were the pair
+of us! That's why I pulled down the blind. The decanter and glasses were
+all out on this table here! And that's why O'Brien was afraid you might
+be sent by his relations. That was the one thing he was afraid of,--that
+he might be found out and taken away."
+
+I bent over him and sniffed.
+
+"You have had a dram now!" I exclaimed.
+
+"And it's not the first since you've been here either. You see I'm
+perfectly frank with you, Mr. Merton. If you like to give me away to
+Philip--well be d----d, you can if you like. But you'll surely not? I've
+told you what I've told to no one else."
+
+There rushed into my mind confirmation enough of part at least of the
+poor devil's story. His curious moods, his manner as he entered the
+room this evening, O'Brien's impish allusions to liquor when I first
+visited the house, all fell into their places now. Yet utterly as this
+had exploded my hopes, I think I was more glad than sorry to see the
+doctor come out of the ordeal with only this kind of stain on his
+character. He was a likeable man, we had been capital friends--and he
+was Jean's cousin.
+
+"I promise you, doctor," I said, "that I shall repeat no word of this
+story--except of course in confidence to those who are on the track of
+this business in Ransay. Only in return you must tell me absolutely
+frankly if you have seen any grounds for suspecting O'Brien of anything
+treasonable--anything whatever."
+
+The doctor shook his head emphatically.
+
+"The only plotting the man was capable of was to get liquor. Otherwise he
+was just a gas bag. I've seen him too often in a state when he'd have
+given everything away, if there had been anything to give."
+
+And then I remembered the pocket book.
+
+"But this entry!" I cried. "How do you explain that?"
+
+The doctor looked at it again and his bewilderment was obviously sincere.
+
+"I'm frankly d----d if I can make head or tail of it," he said. "Bolton
+must have got on the wrong scent; that's the only thing I can imagine."
+
+And then, like a sharp smack in the face, Jean's reading of that entry
+came back to me. Could she have guessed right after all? It looked
+uncommonly like it.
+
+"And yet," I said to myself, "it's a great thing to have tested the other
+hypothesis."
+
+In fact, if one is not built to be easily dispirited, well, it is not
+easy to dispirit one. I looked at the doctor, and something in my
+expression seemed to make him smile. When he smiled he looked so pleasant
+that my conscience smote me. I told myself he certainly deserved some
+reparation for the ordeal I had put him through.
+
+"Doctor," I said, "I am devilish thirsty myself after this bout. Let's
+each have a whisky and soda!"
+
+It may or may not have been the wisest suggestion to make. I am not an
+expert in these matters. But anyhow if he enjoyed his drink as much as I
+enjoyed mine, it was at least a happy idea.
+
+We had lit our pipes with our glasses at our sides, and I was in the
+midst of giving the doctor some further reparation in the shape of the
+true tale of my adventures, when I saw him suddenly start and glance
+guiltily at his tumbler.
+
+"Is that some one in the hall?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Probably the servants," I suggested.
+
+The next instant the door opened and, without any announcement, in walked
+my uncle Sir Francis Merton followed by my cousin Commander John
+Whiteclett.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+TRACKED DOWN
+
+
+"I trust we are not interrupting you, Roger," said my uncle.
+
+His voice was caustic and his eye severe, and as the costume he had
+selected for this thunderbolt entrance was apparently designed to suggest
+a combination of North Sea pilot and pirate King (including a fur cap
+with ear flaps tied under his venerable chin) one might have fired a
+twelve inch gun into the room and produced much less impression.
+
+"Not a bit," I said, bounding to my feet, "but--er--wouldn't you like to
+untie your bonnet, Uncle Francis?"
+
+He frowned at me heavily but I was thankful to notice that his eye did
+twinkle for an instant.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
+
+"That is just the question, sir, I was going to put."
+
+My cousin interposed.
+
+"Uncle Francis arrived this morning to see how things were getting on and
+when I got your wire I brought him out with me. What has happened?"
+
+"Got my wire!" I exclaimed. "Surely--I'm certain I never sent it off!"
+
+I put my hand in my pocket, and there it was right enough.
+
+"My dear Jack, here it is. It never was sent."
+
+His hand dived into his own pocket and then held out a crumpled telegram.
+I took it and read this message.
+
+"Request permission to be visited by my own doctor. Hobhouse."
+
+"Do you mean to say you never sent that off yourself?" exclaimed
+Sir Francis.
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Then who the--!" My uncle's expression completed the sentence.
+
+Jack Whiteclett was looking uncommonly grave.
+
+"This is a somewhat serious matter, Roger," he said quietly. "Didn't you
+write this either?"
+
+He handed me a half sheet of paper on which was written in pencil
+these words.
+
+"GO TO DOCTOR'S. IF NO FURTHER MESSAGE THERE GO ON TO SCOLLAYS'
+_IMMEDIATELY_."
+
+It was printed in capital letters so as to give no clue to the
+handwriting.
+
+"When did you get that?" I cried.
+
+"It was handed to me as we landed. The messenger went off again at once,
+but I assumed of course it was from you."
+
+"Roger!" thundered my uncle. "Who have you taken into your confidence?"
+
+His eye turned manacingly on the doctor and I hastened to intervene.
+
+"Dr. Rendall--Sir Francis Merton," I introduced. "But it certainly wasn't
+Dr. Rendall who sent these messages. He has only just learned the facts."
+
+My uncle bowed very stiffly to the doctor and turned on me again.
+
+"And how many more people have 'learned the facts'--the facts, I may
+remind you, which it was so vital they should _not_ learn?"
+
+I bared my metaphorical breast, and with as close an imitation of a
+clear-conscienced young man revealing the harmless necessary truth as I
+could achieve without rehearsal, I told him,
+
+"I have only informed one person, and she is thoroughly trustworthy."
+
+"She!" said my uncle, not very loudly but extremely unpleasantly.
+
+"She is Miss Rendall," I added.
+
+My revelations to the doctor not having reached this stage when we were
+interrupted, I think I can honestly say that no utterance of mine ever
+produced a more telling effect on these men simultaneously.
+
+"Jean!" exclaimed the doctor.
+
+"Oh, is that her name?" said my uncle as soon as he could trust
+himself to speak.
+
+My cousin alone came straight to the point.
+
+"Then she has sent me this wire and this message?"
+
+"She must have," I agreed.
+
+"In that case we had better push on for the Scollays at once and see what
+she means."
+
+"You don't think it's a trap?" asked my uncle.
+
+Jack Whiteclett smiled slightly. The idea of the Navy pausing to weigh
+the risk appeared to amuse him.
+
+"We must take our chance," he said briefly. "We've both got our
+shooting irons."
+
+"And so have I," I added, "and certainly _I_ am going to the Scollays.
+You can trust Miss Rendall!"
+
+"You can that!" said the doctor heartily. "And if you don't mind I'll
+come with you."
+
+I saw doubt in my uncle's eye and put in quickly.
+
+"Certainly, doctor! We may all be needed. Come on!"
+
+It was quite dark, and mortal cold; the road was frozen hard and the
+nor'east wind swept over it without a break from wall or hedge-row. We
+all four trotted for a little to get up our circulation and then settled
+down to a fast five-mile-an-hour walk. About half the distance had been
+covered when I first heard a little sound ahead.
+
+"What's that!" I exclaimed, and we stood still and listened.
+
+"Somebody running!" said my cousin.
+
+"Towards us?" asked Sir Francis.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Plainer and plainer sounded the pattering steps on the frozen road, and
+as they drew nearer I thought I could tell that they were light steps--a
+woman's or a boy's, they seemed.
+
+"Let's drop into the ditch and see who it is," whispered Jack.
+
+We broke, two of us to either side of the road, and I found myself with
+my uncle stooping in one ditch, with Jack and the doctor across the road
+in the other. Thus bent down, one could see objects against the sky more
+distinctly and in a moment I spied the runner dimly, pattering down the
+middle of the road straight for us. And then, in a few seconds, this
+runner gradually took shape and my eyes at last could see the swing of a
+skirt and thought they could even recognise the slim figure. I jumped up.
+
+"Wait!" muttered my uncle.
+
+"It's all right! We mustn't frighten her," I said.
+
+I came out into the middle of the road and saw the other three rising at
+the sides. The runner was barely twenty yards away by now and I heard her
+gasp as she stopped abruptly.
+
+"Miss Rendall?" I said.
+
+The next moment she had rushed up to me, her eyes sparkling, her voice
+coming in pants.
+
+"Mr. Merton!" she panted and then her eyes fell on the others. "They've
+come then--I'm so glad!--forgive me for wiring--but--look!"
+
+She handed me something small and long-shaped. It was a spectacle case.
+
+"Take them out!" she said.
+
+We were all four gathered round her now and I heard my uncle say,
+
+"Where's that torch of yours, Jack?"
+
+Then the flash of my cousin's electric torch fell on the spectacles and
+my heart leapt.
+
+"The tinted spectacles!" I cried.
+
+"Where did you find them?" demanded my uncle and cousin
+simultaneously, and I could tell from their voices that all doubts had
+vanished, and that, like me, they were burning now only with the
+excitement of the chase.
+
+"At the Scollays'!" she said, still panting. "But there's no time
+to lose--you'll see everything if we only hurry--he may be back if
+we don't!"
+
+Sir Francis (of course) pocketed the spectacle case, and the whole five
+of us set out at the double, Jean trotting in front between Jack and me,
+and Sir Francis and the doctor clattering behind. My cousin and I each
+tried a question, but we saw that Jean's breath would be better saved for
+whatever was ahead, and so our voices fell silent and presently as we
+left the high road our feet fell almost silent too. We only dropped to a
+walk when the farm buildings loomed up close ahead, and then for a moment
+Jean stopped us and listened intently.
+
+"They are all in the house still," she whispered. "I think we are in
+time!"
+
+She led us, walking in single file and on our toes, into the midst of the
+huddle of low houses until we came to one open, pitch-dark door. And then
+she flashed a little torch and we followed her into a building which I
+remembered distinctly. One end was the barn where I slept that memorable
+first night in Ransay. The other was filled with a litter of odds and
+ends--coils of rope, fishing nets, a barrel or two, spades, a pick-axe,
+and I cannot remember what else. With feverish energy she pushed and
+pulled these things aside, my cousin's torch lighting up the jumble,
+until a large rough wooden box became visible, standing in the very
+corner against the wall. I could see at a glance that it had been locked
+and the lock forced.
+
+"I broke it open!" she whispered. "So there was no time to lose or he'd
+have known!"
+
+We raised the heavy lid and the very first thing my eyes fell on was a
+white false beard. Jean picked it up and I could hear her voice shaking
+with excitement.
+
+"There's the rest of the disguise!" she said.
+
+And there was the old coat, and a nasty looking scythe blade, and a
+number of other things of which the powers that be have an inventory now,
+but which they would scarcely thank me for mentioning here. I may say,
+however, that they made a very thorough outfit for the job the owner of
+them had been engaged on. Among them was one very curious looking find:
+the two halves of a large cheese hollowed out, and one-half broken
+across. Jack Whiteclett pointed to this with a grim look.
+
+"An unsuccessful experiment," he whispered. "He must have made a better
+one for the _Uruguay_"
+
+"Do you mean," gasped Jean, "that this was for a bomb?"
+
+"Looks like it," he answered.
+
+"Hush!" I whispered.
+
+The torch went out on the instant and in absolute inky darkness we held
+our breath and listened. Somebody was quietly approaching the barn. The
+steps were not exactly stealthy, but guarded and wary, though quite
+assured, as if the man were only exercising a general precaution.
+
+"Keep your faces hidden as much as you can!" whispered Whiteclett.
+
+There was enough light in the open door to silhouette a figure as it
+entered, and a moment later I saw for an instant quite distinctly the
+outline of that oilskinned man once more. And then for perhaps three
+long seconds he was lost in the gloom within and we only knew of his
+approach by the sound of his footsteps. Abruptly they stopped. He was
+little more than a couple of paces from us now and I thought I heard him
+move back a step. Probably he had seen the white of some one's face.
+
+There was a little click and Whiteclett's torch flashed full on him. In
+that instant I saw his hand rise, and with my head down I charged him.
+The report of his pistol rang through the barn and almost simultaneously
+down he came, and I had a firm grip of those oilskins at last.
+
+How the man fought! Not till I was sitting on his legs and Jack and the
+doctor each had an arm pinned to the floor did he cease to struggle, and
+even then he did not cease to swear. Sir Francis standing up over him,
+with the torch in his own hand, now turned the light on to his face. When
+I saw what it revealed I nearly let go our prisoner's legs through sheer
+bewilderment. For there in the torch's bright circle lay the poor idiot
+Jock, cursing us in fluent German.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE REST OF THE TRUTH
+
+
+"Does any one know him?" demanded my uncle.
+
+"It's the Scollays' idiot son!" I gasped.
+
+I heard an exclamation both from Jean and the doctor.
+
+"Son?" said Jean. "What! Did you think Jock was a Scollay?"
+
+"He was sent up here about a couple of years ago to be looked after by
+these Scollays," explained the doctor. "We always supposed he was
+somebody's--?" he glanced at Jean and hesitated--"er--somebody's son."
+
+"Good Heavens!" I cried. "What a fool I've been!"
+
+Swiftly I ran over in my mind my first night with the Scollay household.
+Had I ever been told Jock was a son? No, I had simply assumed it, and
+gone on that assumption without ever once thinking anything more about
+the matter. And so, with this impenetrable curtain between me and all
+possibility of guessing the truth I had gone on uselessly groping.
+
+"Fool!"
+
+A harsh voice startled me. It was Jock, gazing viciously up at me and
+talking guttural English now. His face was still framed in the circle of
+the torch, and as I looked at it now I realised that the truth had
+actually been written there all the time for a closely observing eye to
+read. This man's features differed vitally from the Scollays' and,
+especially, there was no cast in his eyes.
+
+"Fool!" he snarled, "yes, you have been a damned fool, you Hobhouse! Ach,
+if I had known, you should have been a dead fool!"
+
+"You mean if you hadn't been made a bit of a fool of too?" I suggested.
+
+He was a brave man and a useful man to his country, but the German
+boastfulness would out.
+
+"Ach, but I should have found you out soon! Me, you would have found
+out never!"
+
+His eyes rolled round our party and I could see curiosity overcoming even
+his bragging.
+
+"Who did tell you?" he demanded.
+
+"If it is any satisfaction to you to know," replied Sir Francis, "your
+machinations were discovered and you were tracked down and caught by a
+girl." He turned to Jean and added, "An exceedingly clever, brave and
+patriotic girl."
+
+I am sorry to say our prisoner still further smirched his record. What he
+said was fortunately in German and the words at the beginning of his
+sentence were not the kind that Jean would know. Before he had finished
+it my uncle had struck him with the butt end of the torch on the mouth.
+
+"Hold your foul tongue!" he cried and then turned away and I could see a
+kind of shiver run over him.
+
+"God forgive me!" he murmured. "I never struck a man when he was down
+before!" And then he recovered himself a little and added, "But is a
+German a human being?"
+
+Meanwhile Jean was already bringing a bundle of rope from the corner
+under my cousin's direction, and in a few minutes his practised hands had
+knotted our prisoner up so securely that we were able to move aside from
+him and hold a hasty council of war.
+
+"Now for the rest of the gang!" said my uncle. "Do you suppose they've
+heard us and bolted?"
+
+"Do you mean the Scollays?" asked Jean. "Oh, I don't believe they knew!"
+
+"My dear young lady, it's very painful for you to think your tenants are
+playing such games, but they simply must have known!"
+
+"We can't afford to give them the benefit of the doubt," said Jack
+Whiteclett. "That's absolutely certain. I am afraid I must arrest them,
+Miss Rendall, and the sooner it's over the better."
+
+"Jack!" commanded our uncle, "this is a matter I think I could handle
+rather better than a hot-headed young man." (Commander Whiteclett, it
+may be mentioned, was reputed in the Navy to have a remarkably cool
+head.) "Dr. Rendall, perhaps you will be good enough to keep watch over
+our prisoner for a few minutes while we are gone. Roger, give the doctor
+your pistol. If we hear you fire, doctor, we'll be out in a few seconds.
+Jack and Roger, come along with me."
+
+Jack and I exchanged a look but said nothing. Our uncle still held the
+torch, and flashing it before him led the way out of the barn. We
+followed him, but my eyes I am afraid were over my shoulder. I saw Jean
+slip her own torch into the doctor's hand and then she ran after me.
+
+"May I come too!" she whispered.
+
+"Of course!" I said, "you're in command of the party--or ought to be!"
+and out we went together.
+
+The farm yard made rough walking, and there seemed every excuse for my
+taking her arm and none for her objecting; nor did she.
+
+"Who is this delightful, arbitrary old gentleman?" she asked in my ear.
+"You never introduced me!"
+
+"Our uncle," I murmured back. "Jack and I both have expectations so we've
+got to give him his head!"
+
+I must say Sir Francis stage-managed our entrance into the Scollays'
+house very effectively. As he quietly opened the door, he got us all
+close behind him, exactly like a band of robbers, so that we trod on one
+another's heels down a yard or two of narrow passage. The Scollays were
+all seated round the kitchen table when our uncle's figure suddenly
+towered out of the gloom, his pistol covering Peter senior's head, and
+his voice thundering:
+
+"Hands up!"
+
+At the first command they simply gasped.
+
+"Hands up or I fire!" thundered Sir Francis again, and up went every pair
+of hands, and what is more they stayed up.
+
+"Your confederate is captured and has confessed everything!" announced
+Sir Francis.
+
+The family visibly trembled but looked more amazed than ever.
+
+"This fellow they call--" My uncle looked over his shoulder and
+whispered, "What the devil was the fellow's name." And then in his
+stentorian voice again, "This fellow called Jock has confessed! So I know
+all about it. What have you got to say for yourselves?"
+
+I saw their bewildered eyes wandering from one to the other of the
+family, and in a moment Mrs. Scollay asked in a quavering voice,
+
+"What's come over Jock, do ye say, sir?"
+
+"He has _confessed_!" repeated my uncle. "We know that he is a
+German spy!"
+
+He glared at each astounded face in turn and then exclaimed over
+his shoulder,
+
+"By Heaven, I actually don't believe they knew!"
+
+"I think, sir, if you'll allow me," suggested my cousin, "I'd like to put
+a few questions."
+
+"Well," growled our uncle, "fire away!"
+
+We all trooped into the kitchen and the whole four of us cross-examined
+that family in turn, so that by the end of it we got a pretty good idea
+of how the land lay.
+
+It seemed that two years before, the Scollays had been visited by a
+polite stranger apparently of the tourist species. This gentleman, after
+admiring the healthy yet retired situation of their residence, had
+suddenly been seized with an inspiration. The very place for an
+unfortunate young man of his acquaintance! he cried, and thereupon asked
+them if they could take charge of a blameless, helpless, harmless idiot.
+The stranger hinted that there were the best of reasons why the parents
+of this unfortunate wished him kept in the background. He had been
+boarded out previously, it appeared, but too near home, and now here was
+an ideal out-of-the-way spot for his retirement! The terms were so
+handsome that further enquiries on the Scollays' part seemed superfluous,
+and so in a week's time Jock had arrived.
+
+His harmlessness had been absolutely guaranteed, provided always that no
+restraints were put upon him and that any little innocent fancy was
+indulged. Thus he wandered all over the island and at all hours,
+sometimes even wandering out at night when the foolish fancy took him,
+until this was accepted as the normal thing for harmless Jock. Another
+innocent whim he had of making a collection of rubbishy odds and ends and
+keeping them in a box in the barn. He had even repeated "Lock! Lock!" and
+stamped his harmless foot till they good-naturedly provided him with a
+lock and key for this treasure chest. And thus long before August, 1914,
+Jock was provided with a character that rendered his habits above
+suspicion, and a strong box which nobody would ever dream of examining.
+
+Two or three times the same polite tourist paid a visit to the island to
+see how the poor demented young man was being looked after, and on these
+occasions he would take Jock out for quite a long walk, and afterwards
+assure the family that their guest's health was benefiting greatly. But
+this gentleman had not visited the island since the war, it seemed.
+
+This was the Scollays' story and I think we all believed that in the main
+it was true. In fact, since then it has stood the test of all the
+evidence that could be got to check it. At the same time it seemed pretty
+clear that their greed had made them blinder than any one without a
+strong monetary interest could possibly have been. For fear of losing
+their little gold mine they had shut their eyes when people of average
+common sense would have opened them pretty wide. Our questions convicted
+them of this much, and at the end Whiteclett said emphatically that the
+two Peters must depart that night with him for further examination, if
+for nothing more.
+
+"I'll leave you here with them, sir, for a moment, while I have a look at
+the other prisoner," he said quickly before our uncle could begin to
+issue the commands that we knew were coming, and with a sign to Jean and
+myself, hurried out.
+
+We were at his heels and followed him to the barn. There Jock was still
+lying bound with the doctor sitting over him.
+
+"Has he said anything to you?" asked my cousin when he had called the
+doctor aside.
+
+Dr. Rendall smiled under his grey moustache.
+
+"He offered me L200 in gold to be paid on the nail if I would let him
+loose. We must have a dig for that money to-morrow, Whiteclett."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Not a word after I had refused, and it's my belief you'll never get
+another word out of the man between now and his execution."
+
+"He seems that sort," my cousin agreed. "And now, doctor, you and I will
+carry him into the house and keep Sir Francis company. The three of us
+will have an eye on all the prisoners then, till I can get some fellows
+up from the drifter to escort them. Do you mind going down to the boat,
+Roger, and sending up a party? You can find your way in the dark?"
+
+"I'll make a shift to."
+
+"Perhaps if Miss Rendall is going home she might put you on the right
+road," he suggested.
+
+"Of course I will!" said Jean.
+
+As I left him, Jack pressed my hand and whispered,
+
+"Never say again I'm not tactful, Roger! Congratulations, old chap,
+you've brought off a triple event if I'm not mistaken!"
+
+"Triple?"
+
+"That's one," he said pointing to our prisoner, "Uncle Francis is
+another, and I'll bet you sixpence I'm right about the third as soon
+as you shave that filthy beard. Get off with you now and don't keep a
+lady waiting!"
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE FROSTY ROAD
+
+
+Sometimes we walked and sometimes we trotted in step side by side, her
+arm through mine, where I had persuaded it to venture, and where it
+thrilled me by remaining. Personally I was not in the least anxious to
+bring our errand to an early end, but Jean was fired with zeal to
+astonish my relations by the speed with which we brought reinforcements,
+and so, trot and walk, we hurried down the frosted road through that
+black March night, talking, talking, almost every step of the way.
+
+It was she who began as soon as we were clear of the farm.
+
+"Are your uncle and Captain Whiteclett going back tonight?" she asked
+anxiously, and when I said I didn't know, she cried, "Well then I must
+come back and see them in case they go. There has been no time to explain
+and they must be told that it was simply my stupidity that prevented you
+from catching Jock sooner!"
+
+"Your--what?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, I ought to have seen that you didn't know he wasn't one of the
+family!" she insisted. "And that was one of the reasons why I went and
+interfered again when I'd vowed I wouldn't. I thought if you didn't
+suspect him, perhaps I was wrong, and if I had been, you'd never have
+trusted my 'guesses' again; so I wanted to get some proof to show you.
+But all the credit is really yours."
+
+Our debate on this point was too one-sided to be worth recording. And yet
+though my arguments were irresistible, she would persist--and persists to
+this day--that somehow or other I unmasked Jock the spy.
+
+"Well, let's leave it at that," I said at last. "Disguised as Miss
+Rendall, alone I did it! And now tell me what made you suspect the man?"
+
+"It was only when you told me about meeting him by the cliffs on the day
+of the murder that I suddenly thought of Bolton's discovery and then I
+saw that he must have meant Jock. At least I guessed, but I knew it would
+seem the wildest idea until there was a little more proof, and so I
+determined to make a few enquiries and then tell you at once if there
+seemed to be anything in my idea. So next morning I went to the Scollays
+and paid them a friendly visit and began talking about Jock and his
+habits and movements, and I found he had disappeared for a good part of
+that day when Bolton was murdered. I also found he was often out at
+nights, and that he kept that locked box in the barn."
+
+"So you felt sure?"
+
+"I would have if you hadn't made me rather less confident about my
+guesses. Still, I'd have told you next morning, only when you showed me
+that pocket-book you seemed so positive that you quite shook me. And then
+I determined to go myself and break into the box and see if I could find
+some proof."
+
+"That's the one thing I can't quite forgive you for; running all that
+risk by yourself!"
+
+"But that was just the point! I had somehow got it into my head that
+since I had found you out, perhaps he had too, and I remembered what
+happened to Bolton, and I couldn't let you run the risk when it was quite
+safe for me!"
+
+"Quite safe!" I exclaimed. "Quite safe if he had caught you
+opening his box?"
+
+"Oh, one has to run a _little_ risk," she admitted. "But I knew unless he
+actually caught me he would never suspect me."
+
+"Well," I said, "every one has his own idea of what's a soft job. But you
+did think it worth wiring for my cousin?"
+
+"Believe me," she said earnestly, "I only really decided to do that
+after you had gone back and I couldn't consult you! I did _think_ of
+it while you were with me, but you were so positive that there was no
+need for wiring that I thought you might absolutely refuse to let me
+in any case--"
+
+"And so you decided to decide after I had gone? I see! Well, all I can
+say is I have been very judiciously handled."
+
+"You are frightfully good-natured!" she declared, apparently in all
+sincerity.
+
+I had given up debating my virtues by this time.
+
+"It's this sea air," I said modestly, and enjoyed the delicious sensation
+of trying to see her smile in the dark, and imagining how sweet she would
+look if it were lighter.
+
+Going over each incident together as we hurried down the island that
+night, I was glad to find, however, one part of my conduct which events
+had thoroughly justified. If on that first night I had not instantly
+assumed the role of a fellow Hun, I assuredly should not have been
+walking with Jean Rendall now. Undoubtedly I had kept my enemy thinking
+up till that unfortunate Sunday afternoon when I had made my fatal
+blunder of trying to enlist the gabbling Jock as an ally, or I should
+have been dead long before then.
+
+"You guessed right," I said. "That was when I gave myself away--only it
+was not to any one behind a wall! And do you know I believe the fellow
+actually tried me with the proper answer for the sheep riddle, only I
+could make nothing out of it. Was I an idiot, or would any one have done
+the same?"
+
+"Any one!" she said with conviction. "And don't you think I was right now
+about the reason why he stopped firing next day?"
+
+"I begin to think you were. He was cunning enough to see that it wasn't
+worth while running any risks, when he could probably get a sitting shot
+next time. And he would have got me if you hadn't arrested me. Heavens!
+To think of that man single-handed defying the British Navy and the
+British Police and actually making it impossible for any pursuer he
+considered dangerous to remain alive in this island! Bolton went, poor
+chap, and I would have gone but for you."
+
+Perhaps I pressed her arm a little. Anyhow, she answered nothing for a
+moment, and then in a low voice said,
+
+"Poor Bolton! Oh, you've no idea how frightened I got that morning when I
+heard the news!"
+
+I knew it was not for herself she was frightened, and my heart
+beat quicker.
+
+"I wonder how it happened," she went on. "I've often wondered since!"
+
+"If I may venture to guess too," I said, "I should say that Bolton was
+undoubtedly on the right track. He had found that Jock was not one of the
+family and had got suspicious of his movements, but one may safely take
+it Jock was watching him like a cat watching a mouse--very likely he
+managed to overhear Bolton making enquiries, and he deliberately laid a
+scent for him that took him to the cliffs."
+
+"That sounds very likely," said she. "And then he took Bolton's pocket
+book and made those entries."
+
+"That pocket book is rather a sore subject!" I said.
+
+I heard a little gurgle of laughter, but then she did not know how sore
+the subject was. My scene with the unfortunate doctor was hardly my
+happiest recollection of Ransay.
+
+And so we went on trotting and walking and talking, and all the time I
+was realising more and more vividly that if this could only be made the
+first of ten thousand evenings with her, I should be the luckiest man in
+the world. Also I was realising that for some reason she seemed to think
+I had done something rather heroic in returning to the place where I had
+nearly been scythed and shot, and tackling the unknown enemy
+single-handed; especially after she happened to discover I had been
+wounded. It made me feel--well, a little abashed and dreadfully afraid of
+being found out when she knew me better, but extraordinarily happy for
+the moment.
+
+But for one sobering fact I should have told her everything I felt and
+hoped before that walk was over. The beard of Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse
+still wagged between us. Till I had got rid of that black hirsute horror
+I was not going to risk my chances of happiness. It was pitch dark, I
+admit, but then in certain delicate situations, well, if I were a girl I
+should strongly object, especially if I knew it were dyed and didn't know
+if the dye would run.
+
+And so we sent up the reinforcements, and then I saw her home, and
+hurried back myself with a dancing heart to meet the others.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+OUR MORNING CALL
+
+
+John Whiteclett and the three prisoners went aboard at once, but the
+doctor and I easily persuaded my uncle to spend the night with us. He was
+very stiff, poor old boy, after his exertions, and went early to bed, but
+I had a busy night of it. With the aid of the doctor's razors and the
+doctor's medical skill I finally got rid of the beard and the dye about 2
+a.m. and went to sleep a clean-shaved blonde once more.
+
+During breakfast next morning, I noticed more than once my uncle's eyes
+fixed on me in a very significant way, and Dr. Rendall seemed to notice
+it too, for when breakfast was over he tactfully left us to ourselves.
+
+"H'm, you have lost no time in making yourself look like a Christian
+again, I notice," my uncle began.
+
+"I lost no time in beginning, sir, but I assure you it was a devilish
+stiff conversion."
+
+"And what was your hurry, Roger?"
+
+"Anxiety to do you credit, Uncle Francis."
+
+"You are becoming a dutiful nephew damned suddenly," observed Sir
+Francis.
+
+"It has come on during this lonely life," I explained.
+
+"In that case what shall we do with ourselves this morning? Revisit the
+scene of last night's affair, eh?"
+
+"I thought a walk in the other direction might give you a better idea of
+this interesting island," I suggested.
+
+"Is there anything to see in the other direction?" he enquired, still
+with the same gravity, but with an eye that inadvertently twinkled every
+now and then.
+
+"I thought of presenting you to the proprietor of the island, sir."
+
+My uncle looked at me fixedly for a moment and then abruptly enquired:
+
+"Do you mean to marry her, Roger?"
+
+"That's entirely for her to say, Uncle Francis."
+
+"Well, you'll be deuced lucky if she says 'yes'! By the way, what are you
+going to marry on?"
+
+This was a somewhat delicate question but I thought it best to be candid.
+
+"The advertised reward," I replied.
+
+"For what, may I ask?"
+
+"For catching the spy."
+
+"Oh, _you_ claim that!"
+
+"No, she does."
+
+My uncle smiled beneficently.
+
+"That's all right, old fellow," said he, "and I'll intimate as much to
+her father. Come on! Now you've shaved, what are you waiting for?"
+
+"Your blessing, sir; but I'm ready now."
+
+The very weather was encouraging, for the wind had fallen considerably,
+and it was just cold enough to make us step out over the frozen road in
+bursting spirits. My uncle literally whistled several times, and once he
+remarked _a propos_ of nothing:
+
+"I've always admired that type myself!"
+
+On what decent pretext I managed to get Jean out of the library within
+two minutes of her entrance with her father, or whether it actually was
+decent, my memory is a blank. I knew she loved me because she came out
+with me so quickly, and she knew my heart because I asked her to. And as
+we both had really known the night before, there scarcely needed a
+question to be asked and answered. And that is the end of Jean's and my
+part in the story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As for that brave, brutal and extraordinary man who had masqueraded as an
+imbecile for two whole years to serve the ambitions of his country,
+playing the part of a kind of isolated living base for the German Navy,
+as a spy, as a destroyer, and as a murderer, I have never learned his
+name or his past history to this day. After his first outburst of
+blasphemy, I believe he kept doggedly silent up to his speedy end. He
+lived and died like a savage, cunning, carnivorous beast; or, in other
+words, like his masters who employed him.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Man From the Clouds, by J. Storer Clouston
+
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