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 hedidanything, 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 youthinkhappened, 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 whatcan'tbe 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.
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 beenbecause 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 metmusthave 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,
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.
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.
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 goinsteadof 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 ofdelirium 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 thedelirium 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.
"Andà proposof 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.
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 trustIwon'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."
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.