Upon a secluded road in the quiet suburb of Trinity stood the residence of Mr Robert Drummond. It was a neat unpretentious little villa graced by a number of trees and a clinging Virginia creeper, and Mr Drummond was a neat unpretentious little gentleman, graced by a number of virtues, and a devoted Mrs Drummond. From the upper windows of his house you could catch a glimpse of the castled and templed hills of Edinburgh on the one side, and the shining Forth and green coasts of Fife on the other. The Forth, in fact, was close at hand, and of late Mr Drummond had been greatly entertained by observing many interesting movements upon its waters.
He had looked forward to exhibiting and expounding these features to his friend Mr Burnett, and felt considerably disappointed when upon the morning of the day when the minister should have come, a telegram arrived instead. It ran—
"Unavoidably prevented from coming to stay with you. Shall explain later. Many regrets. Don't trouble reply. Leaving home immediately.
"BURNETT."
As Mr Drummond studied this telegram he began to feel not only disappointed but a trifle critical.
"Alec Burnett must have come into a fortune!" he said to himself. "Six words—the whole of threepence—wasted in telling me not to reply! As if I'd be spending my money on anything so foolish. I never saw such extravagance!"
On the following morning Mr Drummond was as usual up betimes. He had retired a year or two before from a responsible position in an insurance office, but he still retained his active business habits, and by eight o'clock every morning of the summer was out and busy in his garden. It still wanted ten minutes to eight, and he was just buttoning up his waistcoat when he heard the front-door bell ring. A minute or two later the maid announced that Mr Topham was desirous of seeing Mr Drummond immediately.
"Mr Topham?" he asked.
"He's a Navy Officer, sir," said the maid.
Vaguely perturbed, Mr Drummond hurried downstairs, and found in his study a purposeful-looking young man, with the two zigzag stripes on his sleeve of a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve.
"Mr Drummond?" he inquired.
"The same," said Mr Drummond, firmly yet cautiously.
"You expected a visit from a Mr Burnett yesterday, I believe?"
"I had been expecting him till I got his wire."
"His wire!" exclaimed Lieutenant Topham. "Did he telegraph to you?"
"Yes: he said he couldn't come."
"May I see that telegram?"
Caution had always been Mr Drummond's most valuable asset.
"Is it important?" he inquired.
"Extremely," said the lieutenant a trifle brusquely.
Mr Drummond went to his desk and handed him the telegram. He could see Topham's eyebrows rise as he read it.
"Thank you," he said when he had finished. "May I keep it?"
Without waiting for permission, he put it in his pocket, and with a grave air said—
"I am afraid I have rather serious news to give you about Mr Burnett."
"Dear me!" cried Mr Drummond. "It's not mental trouble, I hope? That was a queer wire he sent me!"
"He didn't send you that wire," said Lieutenant Topham.
"What!" exclaimed Mr Drummond. "Really—you don't say so? Then who did?"
"That's what we've got to find out."
The lieutenant glanced at the door, and added—
"I think we had better come a little farther away from the door."
They moved to the farther end of the room and sat down.
"Mr Burnett has been knocked on the head and then nearly drowned," said the lieutenant.
Mr Drummond cried aloud in horror. Topham made a warning gesture.
"This is not to be talked about at present," he said in a guarded voice. "The facts simply are that I'm in command of a patrol-boat, and last night we were off the Berwickshire coast when we found your friend in the water with a bad wound in his head and a piece of cord tied round his feet."
"You mean some one had tried to murder him?" cried Mr Drummond.
"It looked rather like it," said Topham drily.
"And him a minister too!" gasped Mr Drummond.
"So we found later."
"But you'd surely tell that from his clothes!"
"He had no clothes when we found him."
"No clothes on! Then do you mean——"
"We took him straight back to the base," continued the lieutenant quickly, "and finally he came round and was able to talk a little. Then we learned his name and heard of you, and Captain Blacklock asked me to run up and let you know he was safe, and also get you to check one or two of his statements. Mr Burnett is naturally a little light-headed at present."
Mr Drummond was a persistent gentleman.
"But do you mean you found him with no clothes on right out at sea?"
"No; close under the cliffs."
"Did you see him fall into the water?"
"We heard a cry, and picked him up shortly afterwards," said the lieutenant, rather evasively, Mr Drummond thought.
"However, the main thing is that he will recover all right. You can rest assured he is being well looked after."
"I'd like to know more about this," said Mr Drummond with an air of determination.
"So would we," said Topham drily, "and I'd just like to ask you one or two questions, if I may. Mr Burnett was on his way to the Windy Islands, I believe?"
"He was. He had got all his papers and everything ready to start to-night."
"You feel sure of that?"
"He wrote and told me so himself."
Lieutenant Topham nodded in silence. Then he inquired—
"Do you know a Mr Taylor?"
"Taylor? I know a John Taylor——"
"Who comes from Lancashire and keeps a motor-car?"
"No," said Mr Drummond. "I don't know that one. Why?"
"Then you didn't send a long telegram to Mr Burnett yesterday telling him that Mr Taylor would call for him in his motor-car and drive him to your house?"
"Certainly not!" cried Mr Drummond indignantly. "I never sent a long telegram to any one in my life. I tell you I don't know anything about this Mr Taylor or his motor-car. If Mr Burnett told you that, he's light-headed indeed!"
"Those are merely the questions Captain Blacklock asked me to put," said the lieutenant soothingly.
"Is he the officer in command of the base?" demanded Mr Drummond a little fiercely.
"No," said Topham briefly; "Commander Blacklock is an officer on special service at present."
"Commander!" exclaimed Mr Drummond with a menacing sniff. "But you just called him Captain."
"Commanders get the courtesy title of Captain," explained the lieutenant, rising as he spoke. "Thank you very much, Mr Drummond. There's only one thing more I'd like to say——"
"Ay, but there are several things I'd like to say!" said Mr Drummond very firmly. "I want to know what's the meaning of this outrage to my friend. What's your theory?"
Before the war Lieutenant Topham had been an officer in a passenger liner, but he had already acquired in great perfection the real Navy mask.
"It seems rather mysterious," he replied—in a most unsuitably light and indifferent tone, Mr Drummond considered.
"But surely you havesomeideas!"
The Lieutenant shook his head.
"We'll probably get to the bottom of it sooner or later."
"A good deal later than sooner, I'm afraid," said Mr Drummond severely. "You've informed the police, I presume."
"The affair is not in my hands, Mr Drummond."
"Then whose hands is it in?"
"I have not been consulted on that point."
Ever since the war broke out Mr Drummond's views concerning the Navy had been in a state of painful flux. Sometimes he felt a genuine pride as a taxpayer in having provided himself with such an efficient and heroic service; at other times he sadly suspected that his money had been wasted, and used to urge upon all his acquaintance the strong opinion that the Navy should really "do something"—and be quick about it too!
Lieutenant Topham depressed him greatly. There seemed such an extraordinary lack of intelligent interest about the fellow. How differently Nelson would have replied!
"Well, there's one thing I absolutely insist upon getting at the bottom of," he said resolutely. "I am accused of sending a long telegram to Mr Burnett about a Mr Taylor. Now I want to know the meaning of that!"
Lieutenant Topham smiled, but his smile, instead of soothing, merely provoked the indignant householder.
"Neither you nor Mr Burnett are accused of sending telegrams. We only know that you received them."
"Then who sent them, I'd like to know?"
"That, no doubt, will appear in time. I must get back now, Mr Drummond; but I must first ask you not to mention a word to any one of this—in the meantime anyhow."
The householder looked considerably taken aback. He had anticipated making a very pleasant sensation among his friends.
"I—er—of course shall use great discretion——" he began.
Lieutenant Topham shook his head.
"I am directed to ask you to tellnobody."
"Of course Mrs Drummond——"
"Not even Mrs Drummond."
"But this is really very high-handed, sir! Mr Burnett is a very old friend of mine——"
The Lieutenant came a step nearer to him, and said very earnestly and persuasively—
"You have an opportunity, Mr Drummond, of doing a service to your country by keeping absolute silence. We can trust you to do that for England, surely?"
"For Great Britain," corrected Mr Drummond, who was a member of a society for propagating bagpipe music and of another for commemorating Bannockburn,—"well, yes, if you put it like that—Oh, certainly, certainly. Yes, you can trust me, Mr Topham. But—er—what am I to say to Mrs Drummond about your visit?"
"Say that I was sent to ask you to keep your lights obscured," suggested the lieutenant with a smile.
"Capital!" said the householder. "I've warned her several times about the pantry window. That will kill two birds with one stone!"
"Good morning, sir. Thank you very much," said the lieutenant.
Mr Drummond was left in a very divided state of mind regarding the Navy's competence, Mr Burnett's sanity, and his own judgment.
A procession came down the long slope at the head of the bay. Each vehicle but one rumbled behind a pair of leisurely horses. That one, a car with a passenger and his luggage, hooted from tail to head of the procession, and vanished in the dust towards the pier. The sea stretched like a sheet of brilliant glass right out across the bay and the firth beyond to the great blue island hills, calm as far as the eye could search it; on the green treeless shores, with their dusty roads and their dykes of flagstones set on edge, there was scarcely enough breeze to stir the grasses. "We shall have a fine crossing," said the passengers in the coaches to one another.
They bent round the corner of the bay and passed the little row of houses, pressed close beneath the high grassy bank, and rumbled on to the pier. The sentries and the naval guard eyed the passengers with professional suspicion as they gathered in a cue to show their passports, and then gradually straggled towards the mail boat. But there was one passenger who was particularly eyed; though if all the glances toward her were prompted by suspicion, it was well concealed. She was a girl of anything from twenty-two to twenty-five, lithe, dressed to a miracle, dark-haired, and more than merely pretty. Her dark eyebrows nearly meeting, her bright and singularly intelligent eyes, her firm mouth and resolute chin, the mixture of thoughtfulness in her expression and decision in her movements, were not the usual ingredients of prettiness. Yet her features were so fine and her complexion so clear, and there was so much charm as well as thought in her expression, that the whole effect of her was delightful. Undoubtedly she was beautiful.
She was clearly travelling alone, and evidently a stranger to those parts. No one on the pier or steamer touched a hat or greeted her, and from her quick looks of interest it was plain that everything was fresh to her. The string of passengers was blocked for a moment on the narrow deck, and just where she paused stood a tall man who had come aboard a minute or two before. He took his eyes discreetly off her face, and they fell upon her bag. There on the label he could plainly read, "Miss Eileen Holland." Then she passed on, and the tall man kept looking after her.
Having piled her lighter luggage on a seat in a very brisk and business-like fashion, Miss Holland strolled across the deck and leaned with her back against the railings and her hands in the pockets of her loose tweed coat, studying with a shrewd glance her fellow-passengers. They included a number of soldiers in khaki, on leave apparently; several nondescript and uninteresting people, mostly female; and the tall man. At him she glanced several times. He was very obviously a clergyman of some sort, in the conventional black felt hat and a long dark overcoat; and yet though his face was not at all unclerical, it seemed to her that he was not exactly the usual type. Then she saw his eyes turn on her again, and she gazed for some minutes at the pier just above their heads.
The cable was cast off and the little steamer backed through the foam of her own wake, and wheeling, set forth for the Isles. For a while Miss Holland watched the green semicircle slowly receding astern and the shining waters opening ahead, and then turned to a more practical matter. Other passengers were eyeing the laden deck-seat.
"I'm afraid my things are in your way," she said, and crossing the deck took up a bag and looked round where to put it.
The clergyman was beside her in a stride.
"Allow me. I'll stow it away for you," he said.
He spoke with a smile, but with an air of complete decision and quiet command, and with a murmur of thanks she yielded the bag almost automatically. As he moved off with it, it struck her that here was a clergyman apparently accustomed to very prompt obedience from his flock.
They had been standing just aft of the deck-house, and with the bag in his hand he passed by this to where a pile of lighter luggage had been arranged on the deck. As he went he looked at the bag curiously, and then before putting it down he glanced over his shoulder. The lady was not in sight, and very swiftly but keenly he studied it more closely. It was a suit-case made of an unusual brown, light material. Turning one end up quickly he read on a little plate this assurance by the makers, "Garantirt echt Vulcanfibre." And then slowly, and apparently rather thoughtfully, he strolled back.
"You'll find it among the other luggage, just beyond the deck-house," he said, and then with an air of sudden thought added, "Perhaps I ought to have put it with your other things, wherever they are."
"I have practically nothing else," said she, "except a trunk in the hold."
"You are travelling very light," he remarked. "That wasn't a very substantial suit-case."
For a moment she seemed to be a little doubtful whether to consider him a somewhat forward stranger. Then she said with a frank smile—
"No; it was made in Germany."
As she spoke he glanced at her with a curious sudden intensity, that might have been an ordinary trick of manner.
"Oh," he said with a smile. "Before the war, I presume?"
"Yes," she answered briefly, and looked round her as though wondering whether she should move.
But the clergyman seemed oblivious to the hint.
"Do you know Germany well?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Do you?"
He nodded.
"Yes, pretty well—as it was before the war, of course. I had some good friends there at one time."
"So had I," she said.
"All in the past tense now," said he.
"I suppose so," she answered; "yet I sometimes find it hard to believe that they are all as poisoned against England and as ignorant and callous as people think. I can't picture some of my friends like that!"
She seemed to have got over her first touch of resentment. There was certainly an air of good-breeding and even of distinction about the man, and after all, his extreme assurance sat very naturally on him. It had an unpremeditated matter-of-course quality that made it difficult to remain offended.
"It is hard to picture a good many things," he said thoughtfully. "Were you long in Germany?"
She told him two years, and then questioned him in return; but he seemed to have a gift for conveying exceedingly little information with an air of remarkable finality—as though he had given a complete report and there was an end of it. On the other hand, he had an equal gift for putting questions in a way that made it impossible not to answer without churlishness. For his manner never lacked courtesy, and he showed a flattering interest in each word of her replies. She felt that she had never met a man who had put her more on her mettle and made her instinctively wish more to show herself to advantage.
Yet she seemed fully capable of holding her own, for after half an hour's conversation it would have been remarkably difficult to essay a biographical sketch of Miss Eileen Holland. She had spent a number of years abroad, and confessed to being a fair linguist; she was going to the Islands "to stay with some people"; and she had previously done "a little" war work—so little, apparently, that she had been advised to seek a change of air, as her companion observed with a smile.
"Anyhow, I have not done enough," she said with a sudden intensity of suppressed feeling in her voice.
The keen-faced clergyman glanced at her quickly, but said nothing. A minute or two later he announced that he had some correspondence to look over, and thereupon he left her with the same air of decision instantly acted on with which he had first addressed her. He passed through the door of the deck-house, and she got a glimpse of his head going down the companion. Her face remained quite composed, but in her eyes there seemed to be the trace of a suggestion that she was unused to see gentlemen quit her side quite so promptly.
A few minutes later she went down herself to the ladies' cabin. Coming out, the foot of the companion was immediately opposite, and beyond stretched the saloon. At the far end of this sat the clergyman, and at the sight of him Miss Holland paused for a moment at the foot of the ladder and looked at him with a face that seemed to show both a little amusement and a little wonder. He sat quite by himself, with a bundle of papers on the table at his elbow. One of these was in his hand, and he was reading it with an air of extraordinary concentration. He had carelessly pushed back his black felt hat, and what arrested her was the odd impression this produced. With his hat thus rakishly tilted, all traces of his clerical profession seemed mysteriously to have vanished. The white dog-collar was there all right, but unaided it seemed singularly incapable of making him into a conventional minister. Miss Holland went up on deck rather thoughtfully. The little mail boat was now far out in the midst of a waste of waters. The ill-omened tideway was on its best behaviour; but even so, there was a constant gentle roll as the oily swell swung in from the Atlantic. Ahead, on the starboard bow, loomed the vast island precipices; astern the long Scottish coast faded into haze. One other vessel alone was to be seen—a long, low, black ship with a single spike of a mast and several squat funnels behind it. An eccentric vessel this seemed; for she first meandered towards the mail boat and then meandered away again, with no visible business on the waters.
The girl moved along the deck till she came to the place where her suit-case had been stowed. Close beside it were two leather kit-bags, and as she paused there it was on these that her eyes fell. She looked at them, in fact, very attentively. On each were the initials "A.B.", and on their labels the legend, "The Rev. Alex. Burnett." She came a step nearer and studied them still more closely. A few old luggage-labels were still affixed, and one at least of these bore the word "Berwick." Miss Holland seemed curiously interested by her observations.
A little later the clergyman reappeared, and approached her like an old acquaintance. By this time they were running close under the cliffs, and they gazed together up to the dizzy heights a thousand feet above their heads, where dots of sea-birds circled hardly to be distinguished by the eye, and then down to the green swell and bursting foam at the foot of that stupendous wall. In the afternoon sun it glowed like a wall of copper. For a few minutes both were instinctively silent. There was nothing to be said of such a spectacle.
Then Miss Holland suddenly asked—
"Do you live near the sea?"
"Not very," he answered with his air of finality.
But this time she persisted.
"What is your part of the country?"
"Berwickshire," he said briefly.
"Do you happen to know a minister there—a Mr Burnett?" she inquired.
"That is my own name," he said quietly.
"Mr Alexander Burnett?"
He nodded.
"That is very funny," she said. "There must be two of you. I happen to have stayed in those parts and met the other."
There seemed to be no expression at all in his eyes as they met hers; nor did hers reveal anything. Then he looked round them quietly. There were several passengers not far away.
"It would be rather pleasant in the bows," he suggested. "Shall we move along there for a little?"
He made the proposal very courteously, and yet it sounded almost as much a command as a suggestion, and he began to move even as he spoke. She started too, and exchanging a casual sentence as they went, they made their way forward till they stood together in the very prow with the bow wave beneath their feet, and the air beating cold upon their faces,—a striking solitary couple.
"I'm wondering if yon's a married meenister!" said one of their fellow-passengers—a facetious gentleman.
"It's no' his wife, anyhow!" grinned his friend.
A little later the wit wondered again.
"I'm wondering how long thae two are gaun tae stand there!" he said this time.
The cliffs fell and a green sound opened. The mail boat turned into the sound, opening inland prospects all the while. A snug bay followed the sound, with a little grey-gabled town clinging to the very wash of the tide, and a host of little vessels in the midst. Into the bay pounded the mail boat and up towards the town, and only then did the gallant minister and his fair acquaintance stroll back from the bows. The wag and his friend looked at them curiously, but they had to admit that such a prolonged flirtation had seldom left fewer visible traces. They might have been brother and sister, they both looked so indifferent.
The gangway shot aboard, and with a brief hand-shake the pair parted. A few minutes later Miss Holland was being greeted by an elderly gentleman in a heavy ulster, whilst the minister was following a porter towards a small waggonette.
The house of Breck was a mansion of tolerable antiquity as mansions went in the islands, and several curious stories had already had time to encrust it, like lichen on an aged wall. But none of them were stranger than the quite up-to-date and literally true story of the vanishing governess.
Richard Craigie, Esq., of Breck, the popular, and more or less respected, laird of the mansion and estate, was a stout grey-bearded gentleman, with a twinkling blue eye, and one of the easiest-going dispositions probably in Europe. His wife, the respected, and more or less popular, mistress of the mansion, was lean and short, and very energetic. Their sons were employed at present like everybody else's sons, and do not concern this narrative. But their two daughters, aged fifteen and fourteen, were at home, and do concern it materially.
It was only towards the end of July that Mrs Craigie thought of having a governess for the two girls during the summer holidays. With a letter in her hand, she bustled into Mr Craigie's smoking-room, and announced that her friend Mrs Armitage, in Kensington, knew a lady who knew a charming and well-educated girl—
"And who does she know?" interrupted her husband.
"Nobody," said Mrs Craigie. "She is the girl."
"Oh!" said the laird. "Now I thought that she would surely know another girl who knows a woman, who knows a man——"
"Richard!" said his wife. "Kindly listen to me!"
It had been her fate to marry a confirmed domestic humourist, but she bore her burden stoically. She told him now simply and firmly that the girl in question required a holiday, and that she proposed to give her one, and in return extract some teaching and supervision for their daughters.
"Have it your own way, my dear. Have it your own way," said he. "It was economy yesterday. It's a governess to-day. Have you forced the safe?"
"Which safe?" demanded the unsuspecting lady.
"At the bank. I've no more money of my own, I can tell you. However, send for your governess—get a couple of them as you're at it!"
The humourist was clearly so pleased with his jest that no further debate was to be apprehended, and his wife went out to write the letter. Mr Craigie lit his sixteenth pipe since breakfast and chewed the cud of his wit very happily.
A fortnight later he returned one evening in the car, bringing Miss Eileen Holland, with her trunk and her brown suit-case.
"My hat, Selina!" said he to his wife, as soon as the girls had led Miss Holland out of hearing, "that's the kind of governess for me! You don't mind my telling her to call me Dick, do you? It slipped out when she was squeezing my hand."
"I don't mind you're being undignified," replied Mrs Craigie in a chilly voice, "but I do wish you wouldn't be vulgar."
As Mr Craigie's chief joys in life were entertaining his daughters and getting a rise out of his wife, and as he also had a very genuine admiration for a pretty face, he was in the seventh heaven of happiness, and remained there for the next three days. Pipe in mouth, he invaded the schoolroom constantly and unseasonably, and reduced his daughters to a state of incoherent giggling by retailing to Miss Holland various ingenious schemes for their corporal punishment, airing humorous fragments of a language he called French, and questioning their instructor on suppositious romantic episodes in her career. He thought Miss Holland hardly laughed as much as she ought; still, she was a fine girl.
At table he kept his wife continually scandalised by his jocularities; such as hoarsely whispering, "I've lost my half of the sixpence, Miss Holland," or repeating, with a thoughtful air, "Under the apple-tree when the moon rises—I must try and not forget the hour!" Miss Holland was even less responsive to these sallies, but he enjoyed them enormously himself, and still maintained she was a fine girl.
Mrs Craigie's opinion of her new acquisition was only freely expressed afterwards, and then she declared that clever though Miss Holland undoubtedly was, and superior though she seemed, she had always suspected that something was a little wrong somewhere. She and Mr Craigie had used considerable influence and persuasion to obtain a passport for her, and why should they have been called upon to do this (by a lady whom Mrs Armitage admitted she had only met twice), simply to give a change of air to a healthy-looking girl? There was something behindthat. Besides, Miss Holland was just a trifle too good-looking. That type always had a history.
"My wife was plain Mrs Craigie before the thing happened," observed her husband with a twinkle, "but, dash it, she's been Mrs Solomon ever since!"
It was on the fourth morning of Miss Holland's visit that the telegram came for her. Mr Craigie himself brought it into the schoolroom and delivered it with much facetious mystery. He noticed that it seemed to contain a message of some importance, and that she failed to laugh at all when he offered waggishly to put "him" up for the night. But she simply put it in her pocket and volunteered no explanation. He went away feeling that he had wasted a happy quip.
After lunch Mrs Craigie and the girls were going out in the car, and Miss Holland was to have accompanied them. It was then that she made her only reference to the telegram. She had got a wire, she said, and had a long letter to write, and so begged to be excused. Accordingly the car went off without her.
Not five minutes later Mr Craigie was smoking a pipe and trying to summon up energy to go for a stroll, when Miss Holland entered the smoking-room. He noticed that she had never looked so smiling and charming.
"Oh, Mr Craigie," she said, "I want you to help me. I'm preparing a little surprise!"
"For the girls?"
"For all of you!"
The laird loved a practical jest, and scented happiness at once.
"I'm your man!" said he. "What can I do for you?"
"I'll come down again in half an hour," said she. "And then I want you to help me to carry something."
She gave him a swift bewitching smile that left him entirely helpless, and hurried from the room.
Mr Craigie looked at the clock and decided that he would get his stroll into the half-hour, so he took his stick and sauntered down the drive. On one side of this drive was a line of huddled wind-bent trees, and at the end was a gate opening on the highroad, with the sea close at hand. Just as he got to the gate a stranger appeared upon the road, walking very slowly, and up to that moment concealed by the trees. He was a clergyman, tall, clean-shaved, and with what the laird afterwards described as a "hawky kind of look."
There was no haughtiness whatever about the laird of Breck. He accosted every one he met, and always in the friendliest way.
"A fine day!" said he heartily. "Grand weather for the crops, if we could just get a wee bit more of rain soon."
The clergyman stopped.
"Yes, sir," said he, "it is fine weather."
His manner was polite, but not very hearty, the laird thought. However, he was not easily damped, and proceeded to contribute several more observations, chiefly regarding the weather prospects, and tending to become rapidly humorous. And then he remembered his appointment in the smoking-room.
"Well," said he, "good day to you! I must be moving, I'm afraid."
"Good day," said the stranger courteously, and moved off promptly as he spoke.
"I wonder who will that minister be?" said Mr Craigie to himself as he strolled back. "It's funny I never saw the man before. And I wonder, too, where he was going?"
And then it occurred to him as an odd circumstance that the minister had started to go back again, not to continue as he had been walking.
"That's a funny thing," he thought.
He had hardly got back to his smoking-room when Miss Holland appeared, dressed to go out, in hat and tweed coat, and dragging, of all things, her brown suit-case. It seemed to be heavily laden.
She smiled at him confidentially, as one fellow-conspirator at another.
"Do you mind giving me a hand with this?" said she.
"Hullo!" cried the laird. "What's this—an elopement? Can you not wait till I pack my things too? The minister's in no hurry. I've just been speaking to him."
It struck him that Miss Holland took his jest rather seriously.
"The minister?" said she in rather an odd voice. "You've spoken to him?"
"He was only asking if I had got the licence," winked Mr Craigie.
The curious look passed from her face, and she laughed as pleasantly as he could wish.
"I'll take the bag myself," said the laird. "Oh, it's no weight for me. I used to be rather a dab at throwing the hammer in my day. But where am I to take it?"
"I'll show you," said she.
So out they set, Mr Craigie carrying the suit-case, and Miss Holland in the most delightful humour beside him. He felt he could have carried it for a very long way. She led him through the garden and out into a side lane between the wall and a hedge.
"Just put it down here," she said. "And now I want you to come back for something else, if you don't mind."
"Mind?" said the laird gallantly. "Not me! But I'm wondering what you are driving at."
She only smiled, but from her merry eye he felt sure that some very brilliant jest was afoot, and he joked away pleasantly as they returned to the house.
"Now," she said, "do you mind waiting in the smoking-room for ten minutes or so?"
She went out, and Mr Craigie waited, mystified but happy. He waited for ten minutes; he waited for twenty, he waited for half an hour, and still there was no sign of the fascinating Miss Holland. And then he sent a servant to look for her. Her report gave Mr Craigie the strongest sensation that had stirred that good-natured humourist for many a day. Miss Holland was not in her room, and no more, apparently, were her belongings. The toilette table was stripped, the wardrobe was empty; in fact, the only sign of her was her trunk, strapped and locked.
Moving with exceptional velocity, Mr Craigie made straight for the lane beyond the garden. The brown suit-case had disappeared.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" murmured the baffled humourist.
Very slowly and soberly he returned to the house, lit a fresh pipe, and steadied his nerves with a glass of grog. When Mrs Craigie returned, she found him sufficiently revived to jest again, though in a minor key.
"To think of the girl having the impudence to make me carry her luggage out of the house for her!" said he. "Gad, but it was a clever dodge to get clear with no one suspecting her! Well, anyhow, my reputation is safe again at last, Selina."
"Your reputation!" replied Mrs Craigie in a withering voice. "For what? Not for common-sense anyhow!"
"You're flustered, my dear," said the laird easily. "It's a habit women get into terrible easy. You should learn a lesson from Miss Eileen Holland. Dashed if I ever met a cooler hand in my life!"
"And what do you mean to do about it?" demanded his wife.
"Do?" asked Mr Craigie, mildly surprised. "Well, we might leave the pantry window open at night, so that she can get in again if she's wanting to; or——"
"It's your duty to inform the authorities, Richard!"
"Duty?" repeated the laird, still more surprised. "Fancy me starting to do my duty at my time of life!"
"Anyhow," cried Mrs Craigie, "we've still got her trunk!"
"Ah," said Mr Craigie, happily at last, "so we have! Well, that's all right then."
And with a benign expression the philosopher contentedly lit another pipe.
As the dusk rapidly thickened and I lay in the heather waiting for the signal, I gave myself one last bit of good advice. Of "him" I was to meet, I had received officially a pretty accurate description, and unofficially heard one or two curious stories. I had also, of course, had my exact relationship to him officially defined. I was to be under his orders, generally speaking; but in purely naval matters, or at least on matters of naval detail, my judgment would be accepted by him. My last word of advice to myself simply was to be perfectly firm on any such point, and permit no scheme to be set afoot, however tempting, unless it was thoroughly practical from the naval point of view.
From the rim of my hollow there on the hillside I could see several of the farms below me, as well as the manse, and I noted one little sign of British efficiency—no glimmer of light shown from any of their windows. At sea a light or two twinkled intermittently, and a searchlight was playing, though fortunately not in my direction. Otherwise land and water were alike plunged in darkness. And then at last one single window of the manse glowed red for an instant. A few seconds passed, and it shone red again. Finally it showed a brighter yellow light twice in swift succession.
I rose and very carefully led my cycle over the heather down to the road, and then, still pushing it, walked quickly down the steep hill to where the side road turned off. There was not a sound save my footfall as I approached the house. A dark mass loomed in front of me, which I saw in a moment to be a garden wall with a few of the low wind-bent island trees showing above it. This side road led right up to an iron gate in the wall, and just as I got close enough to distinguish the bars, I heard a gentle creak and saw them begin to swing open. Beyond, the trees overarched the drive, and the darkness was profound. I had passed between the gate-posts before I saw or heard anything more. And then a quiet voice spoke.
"It is a dark night," it said in perfect English.
"Dark as pitch," I answered.
"It was darker last night," said the voice.
"It is dark enough," I answered.
Not perhaps a very remarkable conversation, you may think; but I can assure you my fingers were on my revolver, just in case one single word had been different. Now I breathed freely at last.
"Herr Tiel?" I inquired.
"Mr Tiel," corrected the invisible man beside me.
I saw him then for the first time as he stepped out from the shelter of the trees and closed the gate behind me—a tall dim figure in black.
"I'll lead your cycle," he said in a low voice, as he came back to me; "I know the way best."
He took it from me, and as we walked side by side towards the house he said—
"Permit me, Mr Belke, to give you one little word of caution. While you are here, forget that you can talk German!Thinkin English, if you can. We are walking on a tight-rope, not on the pavement.Noprecaution is excessive!"
"I understand," I said briefly.
There was in his voice, perfectly courteous though it was, a note of command which made one instinctively reply briefly—and obediently. I felt disposed to be favourably impressed with my ally.
He left me standing for a moment in the drive while he led my motor-cycle round to some shed at the back, and then we entered the house by the front door.
"My servant doesn't spend the night here," he explained, "so we are safe enough after dark, as long as we make no sound that can be heard outside."
It was pitch-dark inside, and only when he had closed and bolted the front door behind us, did Tiel flash his electric torch. Then I saw that we stood in a small porch which opened into a little hall, with a staircase facing us, and a passage opening beside it into the back of the house. At either side was a door, and Tiel opened that on the right and led me into a pleasant, low, lamp-lit room with a bright peat fire blazing and a table laid for supper. I learned afterwards that the clergyman who had just vacated the parish had left hurriedly, and that his books and furniture had not yet followed him. Hence the room, and indeed the whole house, looked habitable and comfortable.
"This is the place I have been looking for for a long time!" I cried cheerfully, for indeed it made a pleasant contrast to a ruinous farm or the interior of a submarine.
Tiel smiled. He had a pleasant smile, but it generally passed from his face very swiftly, and left his expression cool, alert, composed, and a trifle dominating.
"You had better take off your overalls and begin," he said. "There is an English warning against conversation between a full man and a fasting. I have had supper already."
When I took off my overalls, I noticed that he gave me a quick look of surprise.
"In uniform!" he exclaimed.
"It may not be much use if I'm caught," I laughed, "but I thought it a precaution worth taking."
"Excellent!" he agreed, and he seemed genuinely pleased. "It was very well thought of. Do you drink whisky-and-soda?"
"You have no beer?"
He smiled and shook his head.
"I am a Scottish divine," he said, "and I am afraid my guests must submit to whisky. Even in these little details it is well to be correct."
For the next half-hour there was little conversation. To tell you the truth I was nearly famished, and had something better to do than talk. Tiel on his part opened a newspaper, and now and then read extracts aloud. It was an English newspaper, of course, and I laughed once or twice at its items. He smiled too, but he did not seem much given to laughter. And all the while I took stock of my new acquaintance very carefully.
In appearance Adolph Tiel was just as he had been described to me, and very much as my imagination had filled in the picture: a man tall, though not very tall, clean-shaved, rather thin, decidedly English in his general aspect, distinctly good-looking, with hair beginning to turn grey, and cleverness marked clearly in his face. What I had not been quite prepared for was his air of good-breeding and authority. Not that there was any real reason why these qualities should have been absent, but as a naval officer of a country whose military services have pretty strong prejudices, I had scarcely expected to find in a secret-service agent quite this air.
Also what I had heard of Tiel had prepared me to meet a gentleman in whom cleverness was more conspicuous than dignity. Even those who professed to know something about him had admitted that he was a bit of a mystery. He was said to come either from Alsace or Lorraine, and to be of mixed parentage and the most cosmopolitan experience. One story had it that he served at one period of his very diverse career in the navy of a certain South American State, and this story I very soon came to the conclusion was correct, for he showed a considerable knowledge of naval affairs. Even when he professed ignorance of certain points, I was inclined to suspect he was simply trying to throw doubt upon the reports which he supposed I had heard, for rumour also said that he had quitted the service of his adopted country under circumstances which reflected more credit on his brains than his honesty.
In fact, my informants were agreed that Herr Tiel's brains were very remarkable indeed, and that his nerve and address were equal to his ability. He was undoubtedly very completely in the confidence of my own Government, and I could mention at least two rather serious mishaps that had befallen England which were credited to him by people who certainly ought to have known the facts.
Looking at him attentively as he sat before the fire studying 'The Scotsman' (the latest paper to be obtained in those parts), I thought to myself that here was a man I should a very great deal sooner have on my side than against me. If ever I had seen a wolf in sheep's clothing, it seemed to me that I beheld one now in the person of Adolph Tiel, attired as a Scottish clergyman, reading a solid Scottish newspaper over the peat fire of this remote and peaceful manse. And, to complete the picture, there sat I arrayed in a German naval uniform, with the unsuspecting Grand Fleet on the other side of those shuttered and curtained windows. The piquancy of the whole situation struck me so forcibly that I laughed aloud.
Tiel looked up and laid down his paper, and his eyebrows rose inquiringly. He was not a man who wasted many words.
"We are a nice pair!" I exclaimed.
I seemed to read approval of my spirit in his eye.
"You seem none the worse of your adventures," he said with a smile.
"No thanks to you!" I laughed.
Again he gave me that keen look of inquiry.
"I landed on this infernal island last night!" I explained.
"The deuce you did!" said he. "I was afraid you might, but as things turned out I couldn't get here sooner. What did you do with yourself?"
"First give me one of those cigars," I said, "and then I'll tell you."
He handed me the box of cigars and I drew up an easy-chair on the other side of the fire. And then I told him my adventures, and as I was not unwilling that this redoubtable adventurer should see that he had a not wholly unworthy accomplice, I told them in pretty full detail. He was an excellent listener, I must say that for him. With an amused yet appreciative smile, putting in now and then a question shrewd and to the point, he heard my tale to the end. And then he said in a quiet manner which I already realised detracted nothing from the value of his approval—
"You did remarkably well, Mr Belke. I congratulate you."
"Thank you, Mr Tiel," I replied. "And now may I ask you your adventures?"
"Certainly," said he. "I owe you an explanation."