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 £200 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 _à 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