J. Storer Clouston

“ My cousin Jack spoke first.
"Good Lord, you of all people, Roger!"
"My dear Jack!" I cried, and then I checked myself and shut that door.
"Well," said my cousin, with more candour than politeness, "I always thought you would end in gaol, Roger, and you've had a dashed near squeak this time, let me tell you. What new form of lunacy have you bust out into?" His eye fell on my revolver. "And what are you doing with that thing? If it's going to be suicide, let me fetch in a witness before you begin. I hate being found alone with a body." ”

“ Not that I actually suspected the man; but to take him straightway into my confidence was simply impossible. A man of another temperament might have done so—and quite possibly have been right; but his effect on me was like tapping a limpet.
I gave him my name and then I said in a quiet confidential way,
"Forgive this intrusion, Mr. Rendall, but the fact is my ship has evidently been called away."
I glanced towards the window, and following my look he could see the smoke of the cruiser just visible on the horizon. He gave a little nod but said nothing. ”

“ XIV THE POCKET BOOK Out of the doctor's smoking-room window you saw nothing but a field or two of bleached wintry grass, with a glimpse of grey sea beyond and that iniquitous pebble drive close at hand. That at least was all I could see on the blighting March morning after my tea with Jean Rendall. The chilly damp weather had given place to chillier hard weather. With the temperature below freezing and thin showers of dry snow driving up every now and then before a biting nor'east wind, there was little temptation to go abroad without excuse. ”

“ Rendall's study blind, whipped down obviously by the doctor himself the instant he heard a strange footstep, and now raised again. Why had it been dropped? What had it hidden? In the look of the room itself there was not a suggestion of an answer to either question. It was just an ordinary man's study, a cross between a smoking room and a library, a much more comfortable room than the outside of that house promised. Yet people do not suddenly pull down blinds in the middle of the forenoon for no reason at all. ”

“ On the way the doctor gave his guest a certain amount of general information concerning the people they were going to meet, but as Mr. Hobhouse happened to know it already, it need not be chronicled here.
As the pair approached the weather beaten old mansion, looking now in its true setting against the wintry sky, Thomas Sylvester became acutely conscious of the return of a familiar sensation. It was, in fact, precisely the sensation which one Roger Merton had enjoyed when waiting for his cue to step from dim obscurity into the flare of the footlights on the first night of a new drama. ”

“ On the night I landed I had met no watchers.
"Who watches the shore up at the north end—near the Scollays' farm?" I asked.
"Oh, Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien look after that beat," said she.
In a flash my belief in my own adventure had begun to return. Either that couple neglected their duty—or I had met one of the watchers!
"Do the doctor and Mr. O'Brien ever go out themselves—like your father to-night?" I asked.
"Mr. O'Brien goes out pretty often, I believe."
I thought for a moment longer and then I jumped up.
"This seems the very job for an able-bodied young man," I said with a laugh. ”

“ Bolton's brilliant idea of enquiring who could speak German. How did he enquire? Probably asked them! Is he a German scholar himself? The odds are a thousand to one against it. Or take the mysterious old man with the tinted spectacles. His appearance by that roadside and subsequent disappearance into space is one of the oddest features of the case. I have no doubt at all now that the wax match enquiry was the beginning of a series of questions and answers which would have proved me a fellow conspirator if I had only known them. ”

“ In fact I was bound to admit that he looked a fine upstanding man, with his grey moustache, high colour, and an air of unmistakable indignation in his face.
"Who the devil are you?" he demanded.
"I may tell you that I am not Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse, and that I have never taken liquor enough in my life to hurt myself. I am here to investigate certain things that have been going on in this island, and I'll put one question to you straight, Dr. Rendall. You remember being visited by a certain man Merton last August, When you heard him approaching your house why did you pull down your blind?" ”

“ You appear on their shores absolutely mysteriously in the dead of night, you admit yourself you lay yourself out to behave like a thinly disguised Hun—d——d thinly too, apparently! You blow in from nowhere on the doctor and talk with a German accent. You blow in on the laird, begin talking with an accent and then drop it. You pitch him a cock and bull yarn about being landed from a cruiser and wanting to hide your uniform coat and so on. You conduct yourself like a criminal in church and wander out at night. ”

“ I also remembered my cousin's cautions and my own good resolutions. A woman, of all things, I was to beware of; but I knew I was perfectly safe to throw overboard the whole collection of cautions: and already I had a strong suspicion I should be far from a loser by it. Miss Rendall seemed, in fact, to have distinctly more natural capacity for detective work than I had, judging by her performances so far.
So I plunged straight into the tale of my first landing on Ransay and my adventure with the oilskinned man on the shore, and may I always have as attentive an audience when I tell a story. ”

“ With the flame of optimism burning now somewhat low, I kept on following the shore till I was well past the scenes of both my night adventures and had come to the little sandy bay with the huddle of low grey farm buildings just clear of the tide. I found Peter senior painting his boat on the shore and hailed him cheerfully with the same old guttural accent. ”

“ The upper current of air had been blowing westwards—not eastwards as the wind blew on the surface. The good land under my feet was assuredly not Germany; almost certainly it must be part of my own blessed native island, or why this insistence on my speaking English, rather than, say, Dutch or Danish? And then the man I was speaking to, what must he obviously be? There was only one answer possible.
I may add that I had the presence of mind not to stare blankly at him while I thought these thoughts. I let him do the staring while I fished my pipe out of my oilskin pocket and began to fill it. ”

“ A familiar figure confronted him, with dark staring eyes, gaping mouth, and stubby beard; my old friend Jock. For a moment there returned that feeling of stage fright. Next to the Rendalls, the Scollay household, and particularly Jock, had seen and conversed most often with the mysterious Merton. Jock was only an idiot, but where reason is lacking instinct is apt to be strong, and instinct might distinguish an old acquaintance through all my disguise. ”

“ What chance has a man who looks like a cattle-dealer against these experts, especially when he is only in action for a week and starts with the assumption that the few invaluable facts given him are mostly works of imagination? Possibly he may have fluked upon the remedy by removing O'Brien, and if the island of Ransay gives no more trouble for the rest of this war, it will certainly look as though he had. ”

“ Quarter of an hour's walk in that direction told me all I wanted to know about her. In fact I recognised her as no stranger at all but an old acquaintance, H.M.S. Uruguay, a great lump of an ex-liner once running to South American ports with a band in the saloon at nights. Now, painted grey, with the white ensign flying over her, and some hundreds of blue jackets and a formidable complement of six inch guns aboard, she was one of those auxiliary cruisers which have been doing so many odd jobs and getting through so much dirty, risky, arduous work during this war. ”

“ The sunshine was streaming through a small window and under the door, but the door was closed, the bar was very still and quite empty save for my own presence, and the crowing of a cock and the clucking of hens were at first the only sounds that reached me from outside. Then I became conscious of a soft and regular "swish," rising and falling constantly and perpetually, and I remembered the sea close at hand, and a shiver of gratitude ran through me to think how narrowly I had escaped having that heaving surface fathoms over my head. ”

“ But he was not that sort of uncle.
"It's the chance of your life, Roger," he said. "By Gad, I wish I were young enough to take on the job myself. But you'll do the family credit I'm sure—if you only remember that this business requires discretion and caution quite as much as daring and resource!"
"Hear, hear!" said Jack. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it thoroughly, Roger."
"Whatever you do, don't trust one living soul in that place! The unlikeliest person may prove to be up to the neck in the business." ”

“ As my cousin said, such scent as there was had grown cold by this time, and one had to begin at the beginning again. And so far there seemed to be no beginning. The detectives of fiction might have found some clue to start a train of logical and inevitable reasoning that led straight to the criminal, but the detective of fact had utterly failed, and the brilliant young amateur of fact was likewise completely at sea.
What good for instance had my visit to the Scollays done? I asked myself. If they were innocent I had wasted my time. ”

“ I walked briskly to keep the chill out, following the winding road, but so wrapt in my thoughts that I hardly noticed where I was going till I found myself passing from the metalled highway on to the rough track that led one beyond the last of the farms out to the desolate stretch of country at the nor' west end of the island. At both sides, and especially on the north, the rocks rose here till they became genuine cliffs, not very high, but rugged and broken, with little hollows dipping down through them here and there and giving scrambling access to small coves. ”

“ But again I refused the proffered explanation, even though it was quite evidently the easiest way of accounting for myself.
"No," said I, "but I am very greatly interested in your beautiful island,
Dr. Rendall. What a convenient spot to own!"
I still threw a touch of significance into my remark—especially on the word "convenient"—but this time I got a wholly unexpected answer.
"But I am sorry to say I don't own it," said the doctor. "I am afraid you must be mistaking me for my cousin, Philip Rendall. He's the laird; I'm only the doctor."
"The damned doctor," added Mr. O'Brien with a grin. ”

“ If she had any suspicions and if she turned on to me the art of her sex and the charms of her particular self, I was well aware that Thomas Sylvester would have a bad time of it. In fact I really dared not answer for the fellow's nerve. He being both critical and susceptible, a girl with Jean's distinctive aroma was dangerous company with a job of this kind on hand. And playing the whisky-enfeebled fool in a dirty black beard ceased entirely to amuse me when the other party was Miss Rendall. However, this morning Mr. Hobhouse felt braver, and stepped out briskly, resolved to do his bit. ”

“ There's a blind in my smoking room at home that comes down like that whenever you touch it. There's nothing against the doctor either—so far anyhow."
"And his friend O'Brien?"
"Ah, that's a different story. Mind you, you have shown me not a shred of evidence against the fellow. Still, what's he doing there? That's a thing I'm going to find out within the next four and twenty hours. But you can't prove that he did anything, and you can't suspect a man of treason just because you don't like his looks. There are possibly prejudiced people who don't like ours." ”

“ I am sorry I have nothing better to satisfy your dramatic soul, but hang it, a fellow who flies from the middle of the North Sea in a balloon and then drops through a fog and hits an island a few miles square, and afterwards gets mistaken for a spy, and shot at and finally arrested, oughtn't to complain! ”

“ My cousin looked at me carefully.
"Yes," he admitted, "I think you are changed enough already to puzzle 'em; and with your beard dyed black—by the way, don't forget to dye your hair too, old chap!—and glasses, et cetera, by jingo I do believe you'll pass!"
"Now the thing is how to get permission: first, leave for me, and second, leave to land an alcoholic on the island. What about Uncle Francis—could he pull any strings for us? And will he if he can?"
"The very man!" said Jack, "if he really will take the thing up. He's in it with the best kind of big-wig for our purpose. ”

“ From the moment this blessed war began and I got this job, I have done little else than investigate spy legends, and I have come to the deliberate conclusion that there is either a lot more imagination in the world than any one has ever dreamt of, or that mankind are chronic and inveterate liars. ”

“ O'Brien was certainly ready enough to give me exactly the information I was after.
"There are just four civilised houses in the whole place, counting this," said he. "There's the laird's—and saving the dear doctor's presence I must say his cousin is a damned queer fish, besides being as poor as he's cranky, and there are the two ministers, only one's away and the other's as dry as my own throat's getting. What do you say to a drink, doctor?" ”