"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 JackWhiteclett. "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!" announcedSir 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 hasconfessed!" repeated my uncle. "We know that he is aGerman 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!"
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 MissRendall, 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 alittlerisk," 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 didthinkof 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.
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 SirFrancis.
"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,youclaim 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 remarkedà proposof 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