By the time we gave up our hunt for Sholto that night and saw Hilderman into theBaltimore II.at the landing-stage, the harvest moon had splashed the mountain side with patches of silver in reckless profusion. But we were in no mood for æsthetics. We applied the moonlight to more practical purposes.
“Show me the river, Mr. Ewart,” said Garnesk, as we turned away from the shore. Accordingly I took him up stream till we came to Dead Man’s Pool.
“What do you make of things now?” I asked, as we walked along.
“I can’t make anything of the stealing of a dog except that someone coveted it and has now got it. Can you?”
“No,” I answered thoughtfully, “I can’t. But it’s an extraordinary coincidence, at the least; and who on earth could have stolen him? You see, no one round here would dream of taking anything that belonged to Miss McLeod. And, though Sholto is well enough bred, he’s never been in a show, and has no reputation. I can’t make it out.”
“I’m very sorry it happened just now,” said the oculist.“I was in hopes that by experimenting on the animal I could cure the girl. But at any rate that is beyond grieving about now. Is this the place?”
“Yes,” I said, “this is Dead Man’s Pool. That dim white shape there is the Chemist’s Rock. It was there that Miss McLeod lost her sight, and here that the General had his extraordinary experience. It looks innocent and peaceful enough,” I added, with a sigh.
“The General was very lucky—very lucky indeed!” murmured my companion.
“Why?” I asked.
“He was down here looking at the rock, and he saw some sort of vision; Miss McLeod was up at the rock looking down at the pool, and she lost her sight. The General might have been looking this way instead of that, in which case we might have had another case on our hands.”
“Then you think the two adventures are different aspects of the same thing? If only we knew where Sholto was it might give us even more to go on.”
“Have you any tobacco?” he asked abruptly. “I’ve got a pipe, but I left my tobacco in my room.”
We were in evening dress, and my pouch and pipe were in the house; so I left him there while I ran in to fetch them. When I returned he was nowhere to be seen, and for a moment I half suspected some new tragedy; but as I looked round I caught the gleam of the moonlight on his shirt-front. I found him kneeling on the Chemist’s Rock, looking out to sea.
“Many thanks, Mr. Ewart,” he said, as he handed me back my pouch and took the light I offered him. “Ah! I’m glad to see you smoke real tobacco. By the way,” he added, “have you a friend—a real friend—you can trust?”
“I have, thank God!” I replied fervently. “Why?”
“I should like you to send for him. Do anything you can to get him here at once. Go and drag him here, if you like—only get him here.”
“But why this urgency?” I asked again. “I admit that we have some very horrible natural phenomena to deal with; but, apart from the fact that some wretched poacher has stolen a dog, we have no human element to fear. I don’t see how he can help, and he might run a risk himself.”
“Never mind—fetch him or send for him. If you could have seen yourself start when you returned to the pool yonder to find me missing, you would realise that your nervous system would be the better for a little congenial companionship. Frankly, Mr. Ewart, I don’t like the idea of you being left alone here during the next few days with a blind girl and an old man—if you’ll pardon me for being so blunt.”
“But you’ll be here,” I said; “and I hope you will have something to say to us that will put nerves out of the question when you have examined Myra.”
Garnesk rose to his feet and laid a friendly hand on my arm.
“As soon as I’ve seen what this place looks like at a quarter-past four to a quarter-past five in the afternoon I shall leave you.”
“But—good heavens, man!” I cried, aghast, “you won’t leave us like that. We hoped for so much from your visit. You can’t realise, man, what it may mean to—to us all! You see——”
“My dear chap,” said my companion, cutting me short with a laugh, “it is just because I do realise that my presence here may be dangerous to Miss McLeod that I propose to leave.”
“Dangerous to her?” I gasped. “What on earth do you mean now?” The whole world seemed to have taken leave of its senses, and I mentally vowed that I should wire for Dennis first thing in the morning.
“I say that because her dog has been drugged and taken away.”
“But some fool of a poacher was responsible for that!” I cried.
My companion looked at me thoughtfully as he puffed at his pipe.
“I was the cause of the dog’s disappearance,” he said quietly.
“I see what you’re driving at,” I said.“You pretended to steal the dog because you were afraid Myra would make overwhelming objections to your vivisecting him, or whatever you want to do. Of course, now I see you would be the only person about Invermalluch Lodge likely to have chloroform. But even then I don’t see what you mean by saying that your presence here would be dangerous to Miss McLeod.”
“That’s a very ingenious construction to put on my words, my dear fellow,” he said; “but in my mind I was relying on you to overcome my patient’s objections to any experiments that might be deemed advisable on her dog. I meant something much more serious than that. I have known you only a few hours, Mr. Ewart; but nobody need tell me you are anything of a fool, unless he wants a very flat contradiction. You are looking at this affair from a personal point of view—and no wonder, either. But if you were not so worried about yourfiancéeyour brain would have grasped my point at once. That is why I want you to send for a friend.”
“I will,” I promised solemnly. “Now tell me—what did you mean?”
“When I said I was the cause of the dog’s disappearance, I meant that if I hadn’t arrived on the scene the dog would never have been touched. The dog was taken by someone who knew he was blind, who knew that I would experiment on him, and who was determined to get there first.”
“But,” I exclaimed, “that would be carrying professional jealousy a bit too far—if that’s what you mean!”
“It would be carrying it so far that we can rule it out of court,” he answered.“So that’s what I don’t mean. Let’s go back and analyse the occurrence. I say the dog was not stolen by poachers, because of the chloroform; you said the same yourself. I say that the thief knew the dog was blind, because he knew he was in a darkened room above the coach-house, and he stole him from there. A poacher would have gone to the kennel, and found it empty—and that would have been the end of that. But the man who knew the dog was in a special room must have known why he was there; and it seems to me that the man who steals a blind dog steals him because, for some reason or other, he wants a blind dog—that very one, probably. Have you got me?”
“Yes,” I said, “I follow you so far. Go on.” And I was surprised to find how relieved I was at this suggested complication. I felt that if we could only attribute this amazing week of mysteries to some human agent I should be able to grapple with it.
“Now I come to my main point,” Garnesk continued, “and it’s this: The man who wanted Sholto because he was blind wanted him to experiment on. But no professional man would do a thing like that, even supposing there to be one about. That motive again is ruled out of court. There remains one possible solution——”
“Well?” I asked breathlessly, for even now I failed to grasp the conclusion my scientific companion could be coming to. “Go on!”
“If this thief did not want Sholto to experiment on himself, he stole the dog in order to prevent me from experimenting on him.”
I laughed aloud from sheer excitement and the relief of finding some tangible thing to go on, for the oculist’s argument struck me as very nearly perfect.
“You ought to be at Scotland Yard,” I said. “You seem to me to have hit the nail on the head.”
“The two callings are very closely allied,” he said modestly. “Detectives deal with murderers and thieves, and I with nerves and tissues. It is all a question of diagnosis.”
“I must say I think you’ve diagnosed this case very well, Mr. Garnesk,” I said, “though we are just at the beginning of our troubles if what you suppose is correct.”
“I can’t think of any other solution,” he answered thoughtfully; “and we are, as you say, just at the beginning of our troubles. The first thing to do is——”
“To find the man who stole the dog,” I cut in.
“To find the man who knew the dog was blind,” he corrected. “By that means we may come to the man who stole the dog; then we may get his reason from his own lips, if we are exceptionally lucky. But I fancy I can supply his motive, failing a full confession.”
“You can?” I cried. “Let’s hear it.”
“You’ve thought of one yourself, of course?” he asked.
“The only motive I can think of is too fantastic altogether. It is weak enough to presuppose that someone has a grievance against Miss McLeod or the General, and that someone took advantage of the extraordinary circumstances to steal Sholto, and if possible prevent Myra getting her sight back. Oh, it’s too ridiculous!”
“We have to remember,” my companion suggested, “that our unknown quantity not only knew that the dog was blind, but also knew that I was coming or had arrived, and would probably experiment on the beast. It argues a very terrible urgency that the animal disappeared within an hour or two of my arrival. From all that I deduce what seems to me the only possible motive. The dog was stolen by the man who made Miss McLeod blind.”
“Madeher blind!” I cried. “You don’t seriously mean that you think someone—some fiend of hell—deliberately blinded her?”
“Not deliberately,” my companion replied. “But I believe it was through some human agency that she was blinded. I think some person or persons were anxious that Miss McLeod should remain blind, in case we should, in the process of recovering her sight, hit upon the cause of her losing it.”
In silence I sat for a few moments, thinking over this extraordinary new outlook. I must certainly wire for Dennis in the morning.
“Mr. Garnesk,” I said presently,“you are bringing a very terrible charge against some human monster whom we have yet to discover. But I must admit that you seem to have logic on your side. It remains for me to discover who these people are—if there are more than one.”
“Yes,” he mused; “that is what we must discover.”
“We!” I exclaimed. “Then you’re not going away?”
“Yes,” he said. “I think it would be fairer to you all if I left you. I think my arrival has done some good—my departure may do more. But I assure you, Mr. Ewart, I shall not give up this case till Miss McLeod recovers her sight. I give you my hand on that.”
I shook hands with him warmly.
“Thank you,” I said, as I noticed the eager look on his keen, handsome face. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. To-morrow I hope I shall find the man who knew Sholto was blind.”
“I only know of one outside the General’s household,” he answered.
“But I don’t even know that!” I cried, forgetting Dennis for the moment. As for Olvery, he had gone clean out of my mind. “Who do you mean?”
“The American,” said my companion.
“Hilderman!” I exclaimed. “Surely you must be mistaken. Why, he was absolutely astonished when we told him. He can’t have known.”
“Still,” Garnesk insisted,“I felt sure he knew. I suspected something about him, but I was wrong to do that, quite wrong; I admit that now. I couldn’t at first see why he pretended he hadn’t heard that Sholto was blind. You may have noticed that I tried to give him the impression that I had examined Miss McLeod and come to the conclusion that I could do nothing. I confess I did that to see how he took it. But I was on a wrong scent altogether. He knew about the dog, that was obvious, but it was also obvious that he hadn’t been told from an official source, so to speak. He kept fishing for information. He brought up the dog several times, each time with a query mark in his voice—as you might say. He remarked that thelasttime he saw Miss McLeod she had her beautiful dog with her. That made me suspicious, because from what you told me she always had her dog with her. Then he said her dog must be feeling it very keenly, you remember. I tried him with my pessimistic conclusions to see how he took it. You see, as soon as I saw the dog I put contagious disease out of the question. Natural forces unguided seemed impossible, but natural forces of some nature that we can’t yet understand seemed probable. Still I was wrong to suspect Hilderman, quite wrong. Besides he couldn’t possibly have stolen the dog.”
“I’m glad you feel you were wrong there,” I said, “because I rather like the man. I shouldn’t care to have to suspect him.”
“Don’t suspect him, whatever you do,” said the oculist earnestly.“Whatever you do, don’t do that. He might be very useful. Make a friend of him. You’ll want all your friends.”
He rose and stretched his legs, and I followed suit. We stood for a moment on the Chemist’s Rock and gazed up the river, over the top of the falls, into the silver and purple symphony of a highland night. Presently my companion turned and took my arm.
“I’ve seen all I want to see,” he said as he began to lead me down to the pool again. “They’ll wonder what has become of us. And as I’ve seen enough for one night, let’s get back to the house.”
“It’s a wonderful view at any time of the day or night,” I agreed, and I sighed as I thought of poor Myra.
“It must be,” said Garnesk absently, picking his way across the rocks. “It must be a magnificent view. I haven’t noticed it; you must bring me here to-morrow.”
When we got back to the house we found Myra and her father—not unnaturally—wondering what had become of us.
“What have you been doing, and where have you been, and what do you mean by it?” she asked, playfully. “I wish I could see you. I’m sure you must be looking very guilty.”
Garnesk and I exchanged hurried glances. It was obvious from her remark that the General had not told her of Sholto’s disappearance. I decided there and then that I would have to tell her the whole truth myself, and I gave the others a pretty broad hint that we would like to be left alone. I left the drawing-room and went with them to the library, and answered the old man’s feverish questions as to the result of our search.
Then I returned to Myra. It was a difficult and unpleasant task that I had to perform, but I got through it somehow; and, as I expected, Myra was very distressed about her dog, but not in the least frightened. I had thought it wiser not to acquaint her with the specialist’s deductions as to the connection between her own affliction and the theft of Sholto. When I had given her as many particulars as I thought advisable, the other two rejoined us.
“Can you think of anyone at all, Miss McLeod,” the specialist asked, “who would be likely to steal Sholto?”
“I can’t,” the girl replied helplessly. “I wish I could.”
“The two classes of people we want to find,” I suggested, “are those who like Sholto so much as to be prepared to steal him, and those who dislike him so much as to be anxious to destroy him.”
“You don’t think they’ll hurt him,” she cried, anxiously. “Poor old fellow! It’s bad enough his being blind; but I would rather know he was dead than being ill-treated.”
“It’s much more likely to be the act of some very human person who covets his neighbour’s goods,” said Garnesk, reassuringly. “But, at the same time, we must not overlook the other possibility. Can you remember anyone who does dislike the dog?”
“Only one,” said Myra, thoughtfully, “and I don’t think he could have done it. He has a small croft away up above Tor Beag, and Sholto and I were up there one day; but it’s months ago. Sholto went nosing round as usual, and the man came out and got very excited in Gaelic—and you know how excited one can be in that language. He was very rude to me about the dog, and it made me rather suspicious. I told daddy about it after.”
“Yes, and I hope you won’t go wandering about so far from home without saying where you’re going in future, my dear; because——” said the old man, and pulled himself up in pained confusion as he realised the tragic significance of his words.
“Some sort of poacher, perhaps,” suggested Garnesk, coming quickly to the rescue.
“An illicit whisky still somewhere about, more likely,” Myra replied. And as she could think of no other likely person, and the crofter seemed out of the question, we had to confess ourselves puzzled. I had hoped that Myra would have been able to give us some clue with which we could have satisfied her, while we kept our suspicions to ourselves. Then we left Myra with the specialist, who made a temporary examination. In twenty minutes he assured us that he could make nothing of the case, but that he was willing to stake his reputation that there was nothing organically wrong; and he gave us, so far as he dared, distinct reason to hope that she would eventually regain full possession of her lost faculty. So, after general rejoicings all round, in which I quite forgot the mystery of the man who stole the dog, I went to bed feeling ten years younger, and slept like a top.
When I awoke in the morning much of my elation of spirit had evaporated, and I felt again the oppression of surrounding tragedy. I got up immediately—it was just after six—dressed, and went down to bathe. I was strolling downthe drive, with a towel round my neck, when Garnesk put his head out of his window and shouted that he would join me. The tide being in, we saved ourselves a walk to the diving-rock, as the point was called, and bathed from the landing-stage. Refreshed by the swim, we determined to scour the country-side for any tracks of the thief.
“What beats me is how anybody in a place like this, where everybody for miles round knows more about you than you do yourself, could get rid of an enormous beast like Sholto. He was big even for a Dane, and his weight must have been tremendous when he was drugged,” said Garnesk, as we walked up the beach path. “Have you ever tried to carry a man who’s fainted?”
“I have,” I answered with feeling, “and I quite agree with you. If the thief wanted to do away with the dog the beast’s body is probably somewhere near.”
“What about the river?” my companion suggested.
“More likely the loch,” I decided,“or the sea. But that would mean a boat, because it would have to be buried in deep water, or the body would be washed up again on the rocks, even with a heavy weight attached. There are many deep pools in the river, but they are constantly fished, and that would lead to eventual detection. We are dealing with a man who knows his way about. It might be the loch or one of the burns, easily.”
Accordingly we decided to try the loch first; but though we followed the path from the house, carefully studying the ground every foot of the way, and examined the banks equally carefully, we were forced to the conclusion that we were on the wrong scent. Then we came down one of the burns that runs from the loch to the sea, and met with the same result.
“We’ll walk along the beach and go up the next stream,” Garnesk suggested. “Hullo,” he exclaimed suddenly, as we clambered over the huge rocks into a tiny cove, “there’s been a boat in here!”
I looked at the shingly beach, and saw the keel-marks of a boat and the footprints of its occupants in the middle of the cove. We went up gingerly, for fear of disturbing the ground of our investigations. I looked at the marks, and pondered them for a moment. By this time my senses were wide awake.
“What do you make of it?” the oculist asked.
“Well,” I replied, with an apologetic laugh, “I’m afraid you’ll think me more picturesque than businesslike if I tell you all the conclusions I’ve already come to; but the man who came ashore in this boat didn’t steal Sholto.”
“Go on,” he said. “Why, I told you I knew you weren’t a fool.”
“Thank you!” I laughed.“It seems to me that if a man arrived in a boat and went ashore to steal a dog, he would go away again in the same boat.”
“And didn’t he?”
“I feel convinced he didn’t,” I replied, and pointed out to him what must have been obvious to both of us. “Compare the keel-marks with high-water mark. There is less than half a boat’s length of keel-mark, and it is just up above high-water mark. This craft, which appears to have been a small rowing-boat, was run ashore at high tide, or very near it, and run out again very quickly. It might conceivably have come in and been caught up by the sea. But Sholto was stolen between a quarter past eight and half-past nine, when the tide was well on the way out. If Sholto went out to sea it was not in this boat.”
“Well,” said Garnesk, thoughtfully, “your point is good enough for me. We must look somewhere else.”
“I hope my attempts at detective work will not put us off the scent,” I said, doubtfully.
“I don’t think they will, Ewart,” said my companion, graciously. “Not in this case, anyway. I’m sure you’re right, because this bay can be seen from the top windows of the house.”
“You evidently reached my conclusions with half the effort in half the time,” I laughed.
“Oh, nonsense!” he exclaimed.“It was you who pointed out that the one man in this boat came in daylight.”
“Why ‘one man’ so emphatically?” I asked.
“When two men come in a boat to commit a theft, and only one of them goes ashore, the other would hardly be expected to sit in the boat and twiddle his thumbs. It’s a thousand pounds to a penny that he would get out and walk about the beach. Now, only one gentleman came ashore from this boat, and only one got on board again. One set of footprints going and one coming decided me on that. Besides, if anyone came along and saw a solitary man sitting in a boat, they might ask him how his wife and children were, and he would have to reply; whereas an empty boat, being unable to answer questions, would raise no suspicions.”
“You seem to be arguing that this boat may have been the one we are looking for,” I pointed out; “and yet we are agreed that the state of the tide made it impossible for Sholto to have been taken away in it.”
“Yes,” said Garnesk,“I agree to that. But I fancy the thief came by that boat. It seems to me that our man jumps out of the boat, runs ashore, and his friend pulls away and picks him up elsewhere—probably nearer the house. It would look perfectly natural for a man who has apparently been giving a companion a pull across from Skye, say, to land him and then go back. The more I think of this the more it interests me. You see, if the top windows of the house can be seen from the bay, it means that the lower windows can be seen from the top of the cliff. If we can find where our thief lay in wait on the cliff and watched the house, probably with his eyes glued on the dining-room windows to see when we commenced dinner, if we can also find where he left his sea-boots while he went to the house, and then where he rejoined his companion, we are getting on.”
“What makes you say ‘sea-boots’?” I asked. “You can’t tell a top-boot by the footmarks.”
“Indirectly you can,” Garnesk replied, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe.“That boat was pulled in and pushed out by a man who exerted hardly any pressure, although the beach only slopes gently. His companion did not lend a hand by pushing her out with an oar; if he had done so we should have seen the marks, and I couldn’t find any. The only other way to account for it is that our friend, who exerted so little pressure, was wearing sea-boots and walked into the water with the boat. Had he been alone, the jerk of his final jump into the boat would have left a deeper impression on the beach. The tide was just going out; it would have no time to wash this mark away. I looked for the mark, and it wasn’t there; so I came to the final conclusion that two men arrived in the cove shortly after seven last night in a small open boat. One of them—a tall, left-handed man in sea-boots—pushed the boat out again and went ashore.”
I am afraid I was rude enough to shout with laughter at this very definite statement; but it was mainly with excited admiration that I laughed—certainly not with ridicule. Garnesk turned to me apologetically.
“I know it sounds far-fetched, my dear chap,” he said; “but we shall have to think a lot over this business, and I am simply thinking aloud in order that you can give me your help in my own conclusions.”
“My dear fellow,” I cried, “don’t, for heaven’s sake, imagine that I am laughing at you. It was the left-handed touch that made me guffaw with sheer excitement.”
“Well, I think he was left-handed, because the footmarks were going ashore on the right-hand side of the keel-marks, and going seawards on the left-hand side. Jump out of a boat and push it out to sea, and notice which side of the boat you stand by instinct—provided you were doing as he was, pushing on the point of the bows. The fact that his feet obliterate the keel-marks in one place proves that. So now we want to find a left-handed man in sea-boots who knew Sholto was blind”—and he laughed in a half-apology.
“What about these sea-boots,” I asked, “and the place we are to find where he left them?”
“We’ll look for that now; and if we find it we can be pretty sure our mariner stole the dog.”
“You seem to be taking it for granted already,” I pointed out.
“The easiest way to prove he didn’t is to satisfy ourselves that there’s no evidence he did,” said the oculist. “But I fancy he did.”
“From the way you’ve sized it up so far I should be inclined to back your fancy,” I admitted frankly. “I take it, from your diagnosis, that our nautical friend came ashore here, went up on to the cliff, and glued his eye to the dining-room window. When he saw we were at dinner, and it was getting dusk—in fact, almost dark—he took off his sea-boots and slipped up to the Lodge in his stocking-soles. So if we climb the cliff, we expect to find the spot on which he deposited his boots.”
“If we expected that,” Garnesk replied, “we should also expect to find his boots; and he wouldn’t be likely to leave such incriminating evidence in our hands as that. No, my dear Ewart; when he left the cliff he was wearing his boots, and he left them at some point on the path between the house and his embarking place. Come—let’s look.”
I was intensely interested in my friend’s deductions, and I felt convinced that he was right. So we climbed the cliff, he by one route and I by another, in order to see if we could find any traces of last night’s visitor. But that wasimpossible; the rocks were too storm-swept to harbour any sort of lichen which would have shown evidence of footmarks. Still, we were not disappointed when we reached the top, and Garnesk looked at me with a charming expression of boyish triumph when we came across a patch of ground where the heather had obviously been trampled about and worn down by someone recently lying there.
“I don’t think we’ll worry about tracing him from here just now,” said the specialist. “It would be a very difficult job, and we may as well make for the most likely spot to embark from.”
“Right you are,” I agreed. “I think there can only be one—that is a secluded little inlet, almost hidden by the rocks on the other side of the house.”
“Come on, let’s have a look at it,” my companion urged; and we blundered down the side of the cliff and hurried along the shore. But when we came to the small bay which I had in mind there was certainly some sign of disturbance among the rough gravel with which the shore was carpeted; and that was all the evidence we could find.
“It is such an ideal spot for the job that this almost knocks our theory on the head,” murmured Garnesk ruefully. “There are no boat-marks, or anything.”
“Which, in a way, bears out your diagnosis,” I cried, suddenly hitting on what I thought to be the solution of the difficulty.
“How, in heaven’s name?”
“Our old friend the tide,” I declared, with returning confidence.
“Of course,” he almost shouted. “I’ve got you, Ewart. The boat came in here while the tide was going out—when, in fact, it was some distance out, possibly nearly an hour after it ran into the other cove. Since then the tide has come in again and obliterated any marks the men may have made. If we find any evidence on a line running between this place and the house, we can call it a certainty.”
In feverish excitement we hurried towards the house, casting anxious glances to right and left, but the stubborn heather showed no sign of any recent passenger that way. At last Garnesk, who was some distance to my right, hailed me with an exultant shout. There, sure enough, was a broad patch bearing marks of recent occupation, much the same as the other at the top of the cliff. We were able easily to distinguish the exact spot where the thief had laid the unconscious dog while he put on his boots. The discovery of an unmistakable footprint in a more marshy spot, which could only have been imprinted by a stockinged foot, completed my friend’s triumph.
“My dear fellow,” I cried heartily, slapping my companion on the back,“I congratulate you. If you go on like this we shall have the dog and the thief in no time.”
“It will be some days, even at this rate,” he warned me solemnly, “before we get as far as that. Now, back to the embarking-point, and see if we can reconstruct the thing fully.”
So we retraced our steps, and studied the shingle once more, but failed to discover any marks of any value. Then we sat down, and the oculist drew a vivid picture of the journey the thief had made. At last, feeling more than satisfied with our work, we rose to go in to breakfast.
“Ewart, I want you to wire for that friend of yours before you do anything else. You may want him soon. I will leave by the morning train to-morrow, but I shall continue on this case till the mystery is solved. In the meantime, you will need someone you can trust at your side all the time.”
“I’ll go into Glenelg, and wire immediately after breakfast,” I promised. “Hullo, more reflections,” I laughed, and pointed to a small, bright object some distance away on the rocks, which was catching the glint of the sun.
“We seem to be surrounded by a spying army of glittering objects,” laughed my companion, as we strolled on. We had walked some forty yards when some instinct—I know not what—prompted me to investigate the affair. I turned back, and went to pick up the shining object,though for the life of me I could not have told you what I expected to find.
“Garnesk!” I bawled. “Garnesk! Come here!”
“What is it?” he shouted to me, as he came hurtling over the rocks.
“Look at it,” I replied tersely, and placed it in his outstretched palm. He glanced at it, and then at me.
“That settles it,” he said, and whistled softly, for I had found a small piece of brass, and on it was engraved:—
“Sholto, The Douglas, Invermalluch Lodge, Inverness-shire.”
It was the name-plate from Sholto’s collar.
We discussed our discovery pretty thoroughly on the way back to the house, and both agreed that it left no doubt upon one aspect of this strange affair—the man who stole Sholto was no ordinary thief.
The General was standing on the verandah, looking about for us, as we came up the beach path. I told him of Garnesk’s deductions and their interesting result, and the old man was greatly affected.
“I never dreamt I should live to see the old place abused in this shocking manner,” he grunted. “’Pon me soul, it’s—it’s begad disgraceful. I’ve lived here all my life, on and off, and I’ve never been troubled with anything like this, scarcely so much as a tramp even. I hope to God it’ll soon be over, that’s all.”
“Thanks to Mr. Garnesk, we’re moving along in the right direction,” I tried to reassure him. “And we have the satisfaction, in one way, of being able to tell Myra that Sholto is still alive, even if we don’t know where he is.”
“Seems to me, Ronald,” said the General,“you don’t know that, or anything about the poor beast, except that he has been stolen, and probably taken away in a boat. Judging by Mr. Garnesk’s theory, they probably threw him overboard in deep water.”
“No one who intended destroying a dog would take the trouble to wrench the name-plate off his collar,” I pointed out. “The dog is alive, and not unconscious. They need his collar to keep him in hand, but they are afraid the plate might give them away. Mr. Garnesk is right, I’m sure, and if we find the thief we find the cause for Myra’s terrible misfortune.”
“Where do you imagine they can have taken him to then? Seems to me we’re getting some pretty queer neighbours.”
“That is just what we have to find out,” said Garnesk, “and I for one will not rest until I do.”
“’Pon my soul, my dear chap,” said the old man warmly, “it’s very good of you to take so much interest in the affairs of total strangers. It is, indeed, thundering good of you.”
“Not at all, General,” laughed the visitor. “If you spent your life trying to cure fussy ladies of imaginary eye trouble, without putting it to them that their livers are out of order, you’d welcome this as a very appetising antidote.”
“Talking about appetites,” his host suggested, “who says breakfast?”
“I fancy we both do,” I answered, and we turned indoors.
During breakfast Garnesk announced his determination to devote as much of the day as necessary to an examination of Myra, and thencatch the evening train from Mallaig, but the girl herself rose in rebellion at this immediately.
“You mustn’t do anything of the sort,” she declared emphatically. “Daddy, tell him he’s not to. The idea of coming up here, and looking at me, and then going away again! It’s ridiculous!”
“I assure you, it is ample reward,” declared the oculist gallantly, and everybody laughed at the frank compliment.
“But you must fish the river, have a day on the loch. Ron must take you in the motor-boat up to Kinlochbourn. Then you’ve simply got to see Scavaig and Coruisk—oh! and a hundred other things besides.”
Garnesk insisted that, much as he would like to stay, he felt bound to leave at once, but Myra was equally obstinate; and, as was natural, being a woman, she won on a compromise. Garnesk agreed to stay over the week-end. I was very glad that Myra liked my new friend. She had been very shy of Olvery, but she took an immediate fancy to the Glasgow specialist. She liked his voice, she told me afterwards, and on the second day of his visit she asked him if his sister was very much younger than he. Garnesk looked up in surprise.
“One of them is,” he replied, “nearly twenty years. What made you ask?”
“I guessed it by the way you talk to me,” Myra declared confidently.
“The detective instinct seems to be in the air,” I laughed.
So when I borrowed Angus’s ramshackle old cycle, and went into Glenelg along a road which is more noteworthy for its picturesqueness than its navigable qualities, I left Garnesk to his examination with the knowledge that he would do his utmost, and that she would help him all she could.
I wired to Dennis: “I can meet you at Mallaig Monday morning. Wire reply.—Ronald.” Then I sent a couple of picture postcards to Tommy and Jack, wishing them luck, and explaining that I had not returned to join them because Myra was ill. I was sure Dennis would appreciate the urgency of my message, but I worded it carefully, deliberately making it appear to be the answer to an inquiry, for the reason that it is always wise to do as little as you can to stimulate local gossip. Anything like “Come at once; most urgent,” despatched by one who was known to be a visitor at the lodge, would have set the entire country-side talking. So I jumped on to Angus’s collection of old metal, and jolted back again as fast as I could. Garnesk was still engaged with Myra, and I took the opportunity of a chat with her father.
“Would you care to see the discoveries we made this morning?” I asked, when I found him in the library.
“Yes, I should indeed, my boy,” heresponded eagerly, and I think he was glad of the diversion. “I’ll come with you now.”
“There is one thing I want to say, sir, before we go any farther.”
“What is it?” he asked, looking rather anxiously at me.
“I want to tell you,” I said, “that in the event of Myra not regaining her sight I should like your permission to marry her as soon as she herself wishes it. As you know, I have a small private income, which is sufficient for my needs in London, and would be more than I should require up here. If Myra is to be blind, I should like to marry her in order that I may always be able to take care of her, and I should propose to settle down somewhere near you. I dabble in contributory journalism, and I could extend that as far as possible, and I might even do pretty well at it. Both she and you would know then that, in the event of anything happening to you, she would be cared for by someone she loves.”
“My dear Ronald,” exclaimed the old man, affectionately laying a hand on my shoulder,“I’m very glad to hear you say that. As a matter of fact, whatever happens, I don’t care how soon you marry my dear girl. She wants it with all her heart, and I have always been fond of you myself. The only thing that has held me back up to now is the question of money, and, possibly, a little selfishness. I’m not a rich man, as you know, and if it were not for my pension I couldn’t even live in my father’s house. But now my one desire is to see my poor little girl happy, and we’ll scrape together a shilling or two somehow. Shake hands, my boy.”
We both of us forgot all about the terrible war, and, naturally enough, the mysterious trouble which faced us then was sufficient for the moment. Having settled that question at last, I conducted the old man to the small cove where we had made our first discovery, but we began by visiting the coach-house. I daresay that to the trained eye there may have been valuable evidence lying under our very noses, but the only confused marks which we found on the surrounding ground conveyed nothing to either of us. Later, on our way back to the house, from what we now called “the embarking-point,” we came upon a spot where the heather had been cut off in fairly large quantities. The old man stood, and contemplated the shorn stumps for a moment, and shook his head solemnly. It was not that he had any sentimental regret for the heather which grew on almost every inch of ground for hundreds of miles round, but he objected to the sign of visitors, or, as he would have said, “trippers.”
“Who would want to cut heather here?” I asked, for I could not see the slightest reason for gathering anything which could be obtained at your door wherever you lived in the Highlands.
“Holiday-makers,” he said ruefully. “They take rooms in the village, and get it into their heads that the heather in one spot is better than anything else for miles round, so they walk out to that spot, and cut some to take away with them when they go back home. I wish they’d always go back home and stop there.”
When I showed the General the keel-marks in the cove and explained to him in detail how Garnesk had arrived at his conclusions, the old man was quite awed.
“’Pon me soul, he must be thundering clever, thundering clever,” he muttered. “But it’s not healthy, you know, Ronald; in fact, it’s begad unhealthy. I’ve always been a bit scared of these people who see things that are not there. Still, I suppose it’s the modern way; reading all these detective yarns and so on does it, no doubt.”
He was still marvelling at this new mystery when we got back to the house to find Myra sitting on the verandah with the specialist, who was keeping her in fits of laughter with anecdotes of some of his wealthy women patients.
He sprang up as he saw us approaching, and ran down to meet us.
“I’m certain of one thing,” he said excitedly, as he walked between us, and answered the General’s question.“We have got to solve the mystery, and she will see again. This is something new, but it has a very simple solution, which we must find out by hook or by crook. When I know how Miss McLeod lost her sight I shall very likely be able to find out how to restore it, and I shall also know something that perhaps no other oculist has ever dreamed of. There isn’t the slightest sign of any organic disease, which probably means that Nature will assert herself, and she will eventually regain her sight naturally. But we mustn’t wait for that. We’ve got to be up and doing. I tell you, sir, I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. Have you been exploring?”
“We’ve been having a look at those marks which meant so much to you and conveyed nothing whatever to me, although I was once considered something of a scout,” the General admitted.
“Did you find anything fresh?”
“No, only some trippers, as the General calls them, had been cutting heather,” I replied.
“That’s not likely to help us much,” the oculist agreed, “unless they were not trippers at all, and were cutting the heather as a blind. What were they like?”
“Oh, we didn’t see them. We only saw the results of their iconoclasm. The heather was recently, but not freshly, cut,” I replied, and the old man glanced at me with some slight suspicion, as if he feared I, too, was about to take up the deduction business.
“Recent, but not fresh?” muttered Garnesk.
“Now, why should a man who wanted——Good heavens! I’ve got it.”
“Whatareyou dear people getting so excited about?” Myra asked, for by this time we had almost reached the verandah.
“We’ll tell you in a minute, dear,” I called, and waited for Garnesk to explain.
“Of course,” he continued, as if thinking aloud, “it’s obvious. The man came ashore in a small boat, picked some heather, and carried it in his arms. Anyone who noticed him would have noticed his load of heather. Then he stole Sholto, concealed him under the heather, and was still apparently only carrying a bundle of innocent heath. Why! they seem to have thought of everything, and made no mistake.”
“Except that the man was wandering about the country-side, gathering wild flowers, in his stockinged soles,” I pointed out.
“Still, it was almost dark, and he chanced that,” said Garnesk.
“What I don’t understand about it is this,” the General joined in: “Where did he come from to gather this heather? A man must know that if he is seen to come ashore and pick heather and get into his boat again he is doing a very curious thing. That boat can only have come from Knoydart or Skye at the farthest, and everybody knows you wouldn’t take heather there.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you’re right, General,” Garnesk admitted, with a sigh of regret, and I was compelled to agree with him.
“I know where he came from, then.”
It was said so quietly that it startled us all, though it was Myra who spoke.
“Where, then?” we all asked together.
“He must have come from a yacht.”
We made exhaustive inquiries everywhere, but no one had seen a yacht anchored or otherwise resting off the point the previous night. One or two vessels had been noticed passing the mouth of Loch Hourn during the evening, but they were mostly recognisable as belonging to residents in the neighbourhood, and in any case not one of them had been seen to drop the two men in a boat who were causing us so much anxiety. When Garnesk and I went up the river to the Chemist’s Rock we were equally unsuccessful there.
“Look here,” I said, “suppose you were to go blind, Mr. Garnesk? I can’t allow you to run any risks of that sort. We have every reason to know that there is something gruesome and uncanny about this spot, and I should feel happier if you would keep at a safe distance.”
“How about yourself?” he replied.
“It’s a personal affair with me,” I pointed out, “but I can’t let your kindness in assisting us as you are doing run the length of possible blindness.”
“Nonsense, my dear fellow,” he exclaimed;“we’re in this together. I am just as keen to get to the bottom of this matter as you are. But it behoves us both to be careful. It is most important that you should take care of yourself at the present moment. What would happen to Miss McLeod if I carried you back to the house in a state of total blindness?”
“Oh, I shall be all right,” I declared confidently. “But, of course, your point is a good one, and I shall not run any risks.”
“And yet you start by careering up the river here when we have very excellent reasons for supposing that it is hardly the place to spend a quiet afternoon.”
“You don’t really believe that there is anything curious about the river itself, do you?” I asked. “We have agreed that some human agency is responsible for the tragic affliction that has fallen upon poor Myra. In that case we are not safe anywhere.”
“That’s true enough,” he agreed, “but everything that has happened so far has happened here. Sooner or later, no doubt, the operations will be extended to some other region, but at present we know there is a possibility of our being overcome by some strange peril between the Chemist’s Rock and Dead Man’s Pool.”
“Well, as we don’t know how to deal with the danger when it does arrive,” I suggested, “suppose we see as much as we can from the banks. I will go up the centre of the stream and report to you, if you like, but you stay here.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he cried.“I can’t imagine what we can possibly learn by standing on that rock, but if either of us goes, we go together, or I, in my capacity of bachelor unattached, go alone.”
Naturally, I could only applaud such generous sentiments, and at the same time refuse to countenance his proposal. So we sat among the heather, some distance above the bank, and awaited developments.
“It is four-twenty now,” said my companion presently, looking at his watch. “If anything is going to happen it should happen soon.”
“Don’t you think it was mere coincidence that Myra’s blindness and the General’s strange illusion occurred about this time? Why should this green ray only be visible between four and five?”
“It hasn’t really been visible at all,” Garnesk pointed out. “Miss McLeod saw a green flash, and the General saw a green rock, which had taken upon itself the responsibilities of transportation. That’s all we know about the green ray, except the green veil that Miss McLeod tells us of. I don’t expect to see that.”
“I wish I knew what we did expect to see,” I sighed.
“Exactly,” he replied solemnly. “By the way,” he added after a pause, “do you see anything peculiar about the rocks or the pool between four and five; I mean anything that you couldn’t notice at any other time of the day?”
“Nothing at all,” I answered despondently;“it is pleasanter here then than at any other time—or was until we came under this mysterious spell.”
“Why is it pleasanter?” he asked.
“It is just then that it gets most sunshine,” I pointed out.
I made the remark idly enough, for the course of the river, with its rugged banks and great massive rocks, looked particularly beautiful as the sun streamed full upon it, and I was immeasurably surprised when Garnesk jumped to his feet with a shout.
“What is it?” I cried in alarm. “You’re not——”
“The sun, Ewart, the sun!” he exclaimed, and, snatching a pair of binoculars which I carried in my hand, he dashed up the slope to the foot of a cliff that overhung the stream. I gazed after him for a moment in astonishment, and then set out in pursuit.
“Stop where you are, man!” he called to me as he turned, and saw me tearing after him. “No, no; I want you there. Don’t follow me.”
I did as I was told, for I trusted him implicitly, and I knew that he would not run any risk without first acquainting me of his intention, and I took it for granted that he had arranged a part for me to play, although he had not had time to tell me what it was. But my astonishment increased as I watched him climb the rock, for when he arrived a few feet from the summit he sat down on a ledge and calmly lighted a cigarette!
“What is it all about?” I called to him, when I had fully recovered from my surprise.
“I only wanted to have a look at the view,” he laughed back, and put the glasses to his eyes. First he examined the house, and then he turned his gaze in the direction of the sea. It was then that it dawned on me that he was looking for a yacht. This was the fateful hour, and it had naturally struck him that the unknown yacht might be in the vicinity.
“Well,” I shouted, “can you see the yacht?”
“No,” he replied, “there’s nothing in sight, only a paddle steamer; looks like an excursion of some sort.”
“Oh! that’s theGlencoe,” I explained; “she won’t help us at all. She runs with tourists from Mallaig.”
“She seems to be barely able to take care of herself,” he laughed. “I shouldn’t like to be on her in a storm.”
We conversed fairly easily while he was on the cliff, for we were not many yards apart, and I began to wonder when he was coming down again.
“Have you any objection to my joining you?” I asked presently, as there seemed to be nothing for me to do below.
“Stop where you are for a bit, old man,” he advised. “I shall be down in a minute.”
“As long as you like,” I replied. “You’ve got a fine view from there, anyway. Don’t worry about me.”
I sat down on a rock, refilled my pipe, and prepared to wait till he rejoined me.
“Hi! Ewart!” he called presently, for my mind had already wandered to that darkened “den” at the house.
“Hullo,” I answered, jumping to my feet. “What is it?”
“Do you notice anything unusual?”
“No,” I shouted, “nothing that——,” but suddenly I felt a strange singing in my ears, my pulses quickened, my voice died away into nothing. I looked up at Garnesk; he was leaning perilously near the edge of the cliff waving to me. I saw his lips move, yet I heard no sound. My heart was thumping against my chest with audible beats. I looked round me in every direction. No, there was nothing strange happening that the eye could see, yet here was I with a choking pulsation in my throat. My temples too were throbbing like a couple of steam hammers. Again I looked up at Garnesk; he was climbing hurriedly down the cliff. He paused and waved to me, and again his lips moved, and again I heard nothing.
Surely, I told myself, the events of the past few days had told on my strength. This was nerves, sheer nerves. Garnesk must give me his arm to the house. I would lie down and rest, and I should be all right in a few moments. It was nerves, that was all. But if Garnesk were not very quick about it I should have burst a blood-vessel in my brain before he reached me.Already my chest seemed to have swelled to twice its size. Garnesk, as I looked, seemed to be farther off than ever, a tiny speck in the distance.
The singing in my ears became a rushing torrent. It was the waterfall, I told myself; how stupid of me! Of course I should be all right in a minute. But my friend must hurry. I collapsed on the rock and gasped for breath. I looked for Garnesk. Still he seemed to be as far away as ever, and he scarcely seemed to be moving at all. I must tell him to be quick. It was simply nerves, of course; but I mustn’t let them get the better of me, or what would poor Myra do? I staggered to my feet to call to Garnesk.
“Hurry up; I’m not well.” I framed the words in my brain, but no sound passed my lips. I struggled for breath, and called again with all the power I could muster. I could not hear myself speak. And then I understood! My knees rocked beneath me, the river swirled round me, a rowan tree rushed by me in a flash, and as I fell sprawling on my face among the heather a thousand hammers seemed to pound the hideous sickening truth into the heaving pulp that was once my brain.
When I came to myself I was lying with my head pillowed on Garnesk’s arm. My coat and collar were on the ground beside me, and my head and shoulders were dripping with water.
“Ah!” said my companion, with a sigh of relief, “that’s better. You’ll be all right in a few minutes, Ewart. Take it easy, old chap, and rest.”
“Where am I?” I asked. “Good heavens!” I exclaimed, as I heard my own voice, and sat bolt upright in my astonishment, “I thought I was dumb!”
“Well, never mind about that now, old fellow,” Garnesk advised. “We’ll hear all about that later. Shut your eyes and rest a minute.”
“All right,” I agreed, “pass me my pipe and I will.”
Garnesk laughed aloud as he leaned over to reach my coat pocket.
“When a man shouts for his pipe he’s a long way from being dead or dumb or anything else,” he said.
Truth to tell, I was feeling very queer. I was dizzy and confused, but I felt that I wanted my pipe to help me collect my thoughts. So I lay there for some minutes quietly smoking,and indeed I felt as if I could have stayed like that for ever.
“I must have fainted,” I explained presently, overlooking the fact that Garnesk probably knew more about my ridiculous seizure than I did myself. “I don’t know when I did a thing like that before,” I added, beginning to get angry with myself.
“Well, I hope you won’t do it again,” said my friend fervently. “It’s not a thing to make a hobby of. And don’t you come near this infernal river any more until we know something definite.”
“You mean that the place has got on my nerves,” I said. “I suppose it has; I’m very sorry.”
“Do you feel well enough to tell me all about it?” he asked, “or would you rather wait till we get up to the house?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you now,” I agreed readily. “We mustn’t say anything about this at the house.” So I told him exactly how I had felt.
“When did it first come on?” he asked.
“When I heard you shout, and jumped up to see what it was. By the way, what was it?”
“Well,” he replied, “we’ll discuss the matter if you wouldn’t mind releasing my arm?”
“My dear fellow,” I cried, sitting up suddenly, as I realised that he was still propping up my head, “I’m most awfully sorry.”
“Now then,” he said, as he lighted his pipe and made himself comfortable,“we’ll go into the latest development. You remember what made me rush off and leave you there?”
“I remember saying something about the sunlight, and you suddenly dashed off.”
“To tell you the truth, I had very little faith in the theory that at this hour, above all, the spook of the Chemist’s Rock was active, until you pointed out that only about that time is the whole of the river course up to the rock, and the whole of the rock itself, flooded with sunlight. Then, when you made that remark, I suddenly felt that I ought to be on the cliff on the look out for this unknown yacht. We connect the two together in some way which we don’t yet understand, so I meant to go and have a look for the ship. I saw nothing of any importance until I shouted to you. Just then I was looking through the glasses at the shore. I turned them on the landing-stage and along the beach, and I had just lighted on the bay where we explored this morning when suddenly, for half a second or so, all the shadows of the rocks turned a vivid green, and then as suddenly resumed their natural colour again.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “Green again! Can you make anything of it at all, Garnesk? I’m sorry I’m such a duffer as to faint at the critical moment, when I might have been of some assistance to you. What in God’s name can it all mean?”
“I’m no further on,” he replied bitterly; “in fact, I’m further back.”
“Further back!” I cried. “How? I don’t see how you can be.”
“I’ll tell you what my theory was about all this affair, and it struck me as a good one—strange, of course, but then, this is a strange business.”
“It is, indeed,” I agreed ruefully. “Well, go on.”
“I had an idea, Ewart, that we should find some sort of wireless telegraphy at the bottom of this business. I had almost made up my mind that we had stumbled across the path of some inventor who was working with a new form of wireless transmission. I felt that in that way we might account for Miss McLeod’s blindness and the blindness of the dog. It also seemed to hold good as to the disappearance of Sholto. The inventor hears of the extraordinary effect of his invention, and is afraid he will get into a mess if it is found out. The yacht to experiment from fitted in beautifully. But now all that’s knocked on the head.”
“Why?” I asked.“It seems to me, Garnesk, that you are doing all the thinking in this affair, as if you had been used to it all your life. Your only trouble is that you’re too modest. I take it that because you didn’t see the yacht when you noticed the green flash you are taking it for granted you were wrong to expect it. I must say, old chap, I think you’ve done thundering well, as the General would put it, and even if you are prepared to admit your theory has been knocked on the head I’m not—at any rate, not until I have a jolly good reason. Yet it doesn’t seem to matter much what I say or do if I’m going to faint like a girl at the first sign of danger. If you hadn’t come to my rescue I might still be lying there waiting to come round, or something,” I finished in disgust.
My companion looked at me thoughtfully.
“Ewart,” he said, and solemnly shook his head, “you have brought me to the very thing that made me say my theory was exploded.”
“What thing?” I asked. “Surely my fainting can’t have made any difference to conclusions you had already come to?”
“But then you see,” my friend replied, “you didn’t faint. And if I had not seen you were in difficulties you would probably never have recovered.”
“Didn’t faint?” I exclaimed. “Well, I don’t know what the medical term for it is, and I daresay there are several technical phrases for the girlish business I went through. That idea of being dumb was simply imagination, but I assure you it was just what I should call a fainting fit.”
“I don’t want to alarm you if you’re not feeling well,” he began apologetically.
“Go on,” I urged. “I’m as fit as I ever was.”
“Well,” the young specialist responded, in aserious tone, “if you want to know the truth, Ewart, you were suffocated.”
“Suffocated!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “What in heaven’s name do you mean?”
“I can’t tell you exactly what I mean because I don’t know, but yours was certainly not an ordinary fainting fit. To put the whole thing in non-medical terms, you were practically drowned on dry land!”
I sat down again—heavily at that. Should we never come to an end of these mysterious attacks which were hurled at us in broad daylight from nowhere at all?
“I’m not sure that you hadn’t better rest before we go into this fully, Ewart,” Garnesk remarked doubtfully. “You’re not by any means as fit as you’ve ever been, in spite of your emphatic assurance.”
“Tell me what you think, why you think it, and what you feel we ought to do. Why, man, Myra might have been here alone, with no one to rescue her and—and——”
“Quite so,” said Ewart sympathetically. “So you must comfort yourself with the knowledge that it may be a great blessing that she has temporarily lost her sight. Now, I say you didn’t faint, because, medically, I know you didn’t. For the same reason I say you were suffocating as surely as if you had been drowning. Hang it, my dear chap, it’s my line of business, you know. I can’t account for it, but there is the naked fact for you.”
“How does this affect your previous conclusions?” I asked. “Before you tell me what you think brought on this suffocation I should like to hear why you give up your theory.”
“Simply because no wireless, or other electric current, could have that effect upon you. If you had had an electric shock in any of its many curious forms I could have said it bore me out; but, you see, it’s impossible. And, as I refuse to believe that we are continually bumping into new mysteries which have no connection with each other, it follows that if this suffocation was not caused by the supposed wireless experiments, the other can’t have been either.”
“I’m not making the slightest imputation on your medical knowledge,” I ventured, “but are you absolutely certain that you are not mistaken?”