Chapter VI: Part II: I (3)

"I must have detective instincts myself," I smiled. "I had already thought of the same lie."

In fact it came in very handy no later than Mr. Bolton's departure that night. The doctor wondered very much what the detective had to say to his patient that took him so long to tell, and his curiosity was satisfied as per arrangement.

X

WHERE THE CLUE LED

I saw nothing of Bolton next day, nor as a matter of fact did I expect to. Indeed, when he called for me on the morning after, it was a good deal sooner than I had counted on. The doctor was out, so no fable was necessary, and I took him into the smoking room and offered him an easy chair.

"Well, Mr. Bolton, any news?" I enquired.

He remained standing, and shook his head at the chair.

"I've no time to sit down," he said, "but I thought I'd just look in as I passed."

There was a note in his voice that made me look at him sharply.

"Have you discovered anything?" I asked.

He nodded his head slowly.

"Not very much, Mr. Merton, but something."

Yet there seem to be a hint of jubilation in his eye.

"Won't you tell the other terrier?"

His face relaxed a little and for a moment I half thought he was going to confide in me, and then he said,

"It's a little too soon to say much. But I'm on the track of something, I don't mind admitting; something pretty surprising too, if it's the right track. Possibly I may be able to tell you more to-night. Could you come out this evening with me if I needed you?"

"Rather!"

"Well," he said, moving towards the door, "any time after dark I may look in--if this leads to anything."

"Even if it doesn't, look in and put me out of suspense, like a good fellow-'tec,' Mr. Bolton."

He smiled again. Evidently he was decidedly pleased with himself this morning.

"All right, Mr. Merton. I'll do that much for you."

Just before I opened the door for him I had one last shot.

"Won't you even give me a hint, Mr. Bolton?"

He looked at me for a moment, and then said in a low voice (for we were near the door),

"There's some one in this island who hasn't lived in it all their life--not by any means. I've found that out."

He nodded significantly at me, but his lips closed tight again and I saw there was no more to be got out of him, so I wished him luck and returned to my chair to think.

Whether excitement at the prospect of actually reaching the crisis of this adventure that very night, or chagrin at seeing the problem which had eluded me solved straight off by this great drover of a fellow was my uppermost feeling, I should be afraid to say. I know both were strongly mingled and for a few minutes it never even occurred to me to question whether the man really was within sight of a solution. And then I began to wonder.

Who was this mysterious person who had not lived all "their" life on the island? He had concealed, probably deliberately, "their" sex. And was it then a fact of which I myself was unaware? Bolton said he had found it out. But it might be no news to me. I thought of several people, a woman and at least two men, who had certainly lived a considerable part of their lives out of the island. But there was no use speculating with the test so near at hand.

All the same I felt so restless that I should have gone out to walk it off there and then had it not been for the fear that I might chance to follow in Bolton's tracks and lead him to think I was doing it deliberately. At all costs I wanted him to see that I was playing the game (as I was playing it), so I waited till after our early dinner and then set off.

I well remember the day, a nasty raw specimen of March weather, not exactly raining, but trying to all the time, and altogether grey and dismal. The spring ploughing was proceeding apace, and as the fields grew brown, there was less and less trace of colour left in the landscape. In fact it was a day when something evil could scarcely help happening; or at least it seems so looking back.

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. I kept along near this northern cliff line, still thinking all the while, until with a start and a quickening of my heart I became abruptly conscious of a figure fifty yards or so ahead.

I had a sudden dim recollection; he seemed disturbingly familiar, and then in a moment I recognised Jock, though why the sight of Jock should rouse a disturbing thought was more than I could say. When I saw him he was close to one of those little dips, but whether he had been down at the shore or not, I could not say, for up to that instant I had been quite inattentive. But in any case Jock was such a chronic aimless wanderer that his appearance anywhere never surprised his acquaintances.

Evidently he recognised the harmless eccentric Mr. Hobhouse quickly enough, for he broke into a shambling trot and came towards me with an unusual air of eagerness.

"Stones!" he cried as he came up to me. "Jock knows stones!"

"Stones?" said I genially. "Dear me, Jock, this is great news. Are these the stones?" and I pointed to the rocks all about us.

"Stones here!" cried Jock pointing eagerly across towards the other side of the promontory, and catching me by the arm in a friendly way.

I had never seen the creature so excited before and for a moment could make neither head nor tail of it. And then I remembered. On my last visit to the knoll near the Scollays', Jock had been watching me, and by way of playing my part thoroughly I had affected a vast interest in certain large slabs of stone showing here and there through the grass. Looking at stones was the last thing I was keen about this afternoon, but there was simply no resisting Jock. With the air of a pleased child he led me in the way he wished me to go, only letting go my arm when he saw I really meant to inspect his stones.

"This is an unusual exhibition for Jock," I thought, but in the character of Mr. Hobhouse there was nothing for it but pretending high gratification and going where he led me.

The promontory was about a third of a mile across at this point and when we had made this journey, my intelligent guide triumphantly pointed out a few ordinary boulders at the end of it. They were large, it is true, but there their merits ended. However, I examined them with every appearance of pleasure, thanked Jock effusively and even gave him a sixpence, and at last bade him good-day and started for home.

It had been a queer little episode, and had I been in my usual clue-hunting humour I should no doubt have dissected it carefully--and then abused myself for being a fanciful fool. But this afternoon I had too much else to think of and the incident passed out of my mind in the meantime.

At tea I prepared the doctor for the possibility of my going out at night by a long-winded, babbling, and entirely fictitious account of Bolton's morning call, from which it appeared that Mr. Bolton was so interested in Mr. Hobhouse's account of how he saw the ship blow up that he would probably call in the evening to verify certain particulars and might even want Mr. Hobhouse to come with him to the house where he was lodging. And then after tea I smoked and read and waited.

Darkness was beginning to fall when we finished tea that night and the lamps were lit when we went into the smoking room. At any moment the summons might come, and yet eight o'clock struck, and nine, and ten, and I even induced the doctor to sit up till after eleven, but still there was no sign of Bolton. And then at last I said some severe things to myself about the man, and we went to bed.

Next morning was equally chilly and dismal, and after the doctor went out to visit a case, I sat over the fire resolved to stay there till Mr. Bolton came and explained himself. I stayed there all morning, but he never came, and no more did Dr. Rendall. Our dinner hour approached and passed, and at last I sat down and had my meal alone. I had just finished when I heard the front door open sharply and the doctor's step in the passage. It struck me instantly as curiously quick for him. He entered the dining room and I saw at once that something was very much the matter.

"Bolton has been murdered," he said abruptly. "His body has just been found in the sea."

XI

AN EYE-OPENER

I leapt to my feet and stared at him. "Drowned?" I gasped.

"No, he was shot first with a pistol at close quarters. I've just been examining the body."

"Where was it found?"

"Away right at the very North end."

Yesterday's episode rushed into my mind.

"At the very end?"

"Practically."

"It wasn't by any chance as much as half a mile on this side?"

He stared at me curiously and I remembered that this was certainly an odd enquiry, and also that Mr. Hobhouse was speaking very concisely.

"No," he said. "Why do you ask?"

I took refuge in an ultra-Hobhousian explanation of how I had been there myself a few days ago, and it had struck me as a very murderous looking place, and then I asked,

"Is anything more known, doctor?"

"No," he answered, and then added abruptly and with unusual energy, "This is absolutely damnable!"

He walked out of the room again as he spoke, and I was left to my thoughts. I went into the smoking room but forgot to light my pipe. With my head in my hands I bent over the fire and tried in the first place to grasp this second tragedy, and then to piece things together and see some sequence in them.

That Bolton had really been on the right scent now seemed highly probable, though as he made no concealment of his business, it was possible that an agency which had tried to murder me, defied all efforts to check it for months, and to all seeming had lately blown up a cruiser, might get rid of him simply on general principles. Still, the working hypothesis must be that he had got on to their track. And, oh, if he had only told me what he had discovered! But that secret had died with him, and now once more one must begin all over again.

Yet this time I had secured one significant-looking starting point. The coincidence of Jock's appearance out at that lonely place more or less about the time when the murder must have taken place, and his leading me away in another direction from that in which I was heading, was certainly suggestive. The creature had exhibited more appearance of intelligence than I had given him credit for, and might he not then be used by some one who knew him well and had strong influence over him, to play such a simple part as he had acted? Supposing he were with such a person and that person saw me coming and did not wish me to spy him, how easy it would be to say, "Go, Jock, and show that gentleman stones over there!"

As to whom to suspect of having such influence over him, that was easy enough. I recalled young Peter Scollay's stare and laugh when I suggested that they were going to look at the ship, and it sounded to me now a very sinister laugh.

And yet the more I thought over all this, the more objections I saw. In the first place the body was not found where I had seen Jock. True, it might have been moved if the murderer had been wily and suspicious enough to think that the simple Mr. Hobhouse was capable of connecting the harmless episode of the stones with his gruesome work, though even that seemed to imply more than was likely; but a more formidable difficulty was the evidence of educated cunning in every crime committed or attempted by that hand. For "that hand" I decided I must certainly substitute "those hands." I had always thought there was more than one in it, and now I felt surer of this than ever.

With the back of my head, as they say, I heard Dr. Rendall go into dinner and then come out again into the hall, and then I heard him, instead of coming into the smoking room, open and shut the front door. He had evidently gone out again and I was not sorry to be left alone.

A little later, in the same absent-minded way, I heard the front door bell faintly ring and I only woke out of my reverie when the smoking room door opened.

"Dr. Rendall is out, I hear," said a voice that made me jump up very hurriedly.

It was Jean Rendall, delightful to look at as ever, but with a new expression on her face. If she was not anxious, and very keenly anxious too, about something, I was much mistaken.

Unwillingly I resumed the role of Thomas Hobhouse and informed her nervously that the doctor had gone out, I knew not where.

She said nothing for a moment, but still lingered. Then she said,

"What a dreadful thing about poor Mr. Bolton!"

"Dreadful!" agreed Mr. Hobhouse. "Terrible! Dreadful! Terrible!"

"Did my cousin tell you much about it?"

"Oh, no, not much, very little. He was upset, very much upset, I could see."

"Everybody is," she said, and then added, "I should think you must be, Mr. Hobhouse."

There seemed to be an odd note in her voice set up a vague chain of disquieting emotions, but Mr. Hobhouse answered in the same tone as before:

"Oh, yes, I am distressed; dreadfully distressed."

Again she was silent, but still she lingered.

"I am going to walk home again," she said suddenly. "Would you care to walk a little way with me?"

At that moment I wanted my own company and had a certain shrinking from hers; so the voice of Mr. Hobhouse bleated something about having caught a slight chill.

"Please come a little way," she said. "I want to speak to you particularly."

There was a note of appeal in her voice which would have taken a stouter man than Thomas Hobhouse to resist. Besides, he felt exceedingly curious. Her whole manner during the interview in fact roused a very strong sensation of curiosity.

He got his hat and his coat (Mr. Hobhouse always wore a topcoat) and they crunched their way down the knobbly drive and passed out into the road, neither saying a word. And then Mr. Hobhouse got the most rousing eye-opener of his career, or of Roger Merton's either. She turned to him and said quietly,

"I hope you are taking care of your own life, Mr. Merton."

XII

THE CONFIDANT

A second or two passed before I was able to answer at all, and even then my first remark was not in the least worthy of the occasion; but it expressed precisely what was in my mind.

"How the--how on earth did you find me out?"

She smiled a little, but her manner was anxious still.

"I haven't lived all my life in Ransay," she said. "I have even been to London and to quite a good many London theatres. In fact I've seen you act before, Mr. Merton."

"What an extraordinary way to be found out!" I thought, and aloud I said,

"But my name isn't on the programme in Ransay."

"It was, when you were last here, you must remember," said she.

I looked at her for a moment, and she at me, and in that exchange of glances I decided emphatically that there was no sign of evil in those eyes. Anyhow, I stood to lose nothing if I got her confidence, and my own could be withheld or not as I saw fit.

"We might as well be frank," I said. "How exactly did you come to spot me?"

Again she smiled, and each time she smiled straight at me like that, I confess frankly I grew less cautious.

"Do you remember when Captain Whiteclett came to arrest you, your bed-room door was open just for a minute?"

I did remember now and recalled her face outside and its very expression vividly.

"I heard him call you 'Roger' and saw that you knew each other well, and then of course I knew we had been utterly wrong in thinking you a--"

She paused and I finished the sentence for her.

"A spy."

"Well, are you honestly surprised? You did do some most extraordinary things, Mr. Merton! I only began to get the least idea of what you were about some time afterwards."

"And what idea did you get then? And how did you get it?"

"It was when we began to hear of the bad name our island was getting. _Then_ I guessed you must have been trying to investigate and catch the traitor--and I had gone and interfered--and even locked you up!"

"It was you, then?"

"Well, father, of course, approved, but I locked the door. And after I had found out the truth, I could have murdered myself! But why did you puzzle us so?"

Her charm and sincerity and animation almost made me tell her there and then, but I had just enough hold of myself to ask instead,

"But this doesn't explain how you came to find me out this time?"

"Well in a way it does; for I knew then that Roger Merton was your real name and then I remembered where I had heard it before, and I knew you were the same person. When you called as Mr. Hobhouse that first day I hadn't the least suspicion to begin with, and then suddenly you began to look familiar--"

"With this beard!"

"Well, your face isn't all hidden by your beard and I thought I recognised the other bits. If I hadn't known you were an actor--"

"A pretty bad one, it appears," I interposed.

"Oh, no, indeed, you were simply splendid! You still kept me puzzled and only half certain even after I had met you and Captain Whiteclett walking together and noticed you move apart when you saw me. In fact I wasn't sure till that walk along the shore. I arranged that to make quite certain."

"You arranged it!" I exclaimed. "The deuce you did, Miss Rendall!"

She laughed defiantly.

"I was dying to make sure! So when I saw you coming towards the house, I rushed into my things and went out to meet you. I thought if I could take you the same walk as we had been before, you could hardly help doing something to give yourself away. And at last you did!"

"May I ask what my relapse was?"

"When I got you to the same place as last time and said the same thing, I noticed you jump. And then you did really rather give yourself away when I asked you if you wanted to look at the rocks, and you jumped at the chance. I know nothing about antiquities--not even as much as you do, Mr. Merton--"

"Hit me again!" I laughed.

"Oh, but it was very clever of you to pretend to be so learned!" she hastened to say. "Still, I did know that there are no antiquities below high water mark, so I knew you just wanted to inspect the place where something happened to you before."

"Where what happened?" I enquired.

"That's what I want you to tell me! Oh, if you only knew how I've died to know what happened that night!"

"How do you know anything happened?"

"I guessed," she said.

This may not sound convincing on paper, but it did as she said it. I was almost ready, in fact, to swear by Jean Rendall now.

"And so you made sure of Thomas Hobhouse!" I said. "But why then didn't you unmask him at once?"

"Oh, but it wasn't my business to! Of course I had guessed what you were doing here--"

"What?"

"Trying to rid our island of traitors of course! I had interfered with you once, but I wasn't going to do it again. In fact I tried to reassure you by talking of my walk with Mr. Merton."

"Miss Rendall," I said, "I am a child at this game. You did reassure me. I have been as clay in your hands. But tell me one thing more. Why on earth did you come out with me on that first walk--armed with that horse pistol?"

"Oh, you saw it then!" she exclaimed.

"I almost smelt the slow match! But why did you do it?"

"Well, you know what I thought you were then, and there was no one else to go with you."

"Then you actually went out with a spy at night to keep an eye on him--and shoot him if he spied?"

"I should probably have missed!" she laughed.

I was quite ready to swear by Jean Rendall now. Talk of pluck! I never heard of a more fearless performance!

"Please understand, Mr. Merton," she went on earnestly, "that I should never have dreamt of letting you know that I had recognised you--I haven't even told father, I assure you!--only when I heard of this dreadful death of Mr. Bolton--"

She paused and glanced at me, half apologetically, half beseechingly, it seemed.

"Well?" I said.

"Well, I realised the danger you were in supposing anybody else guessed. And I thought I'd come and speak to you. I'm afraid I sometimes act on impulse."

"So do I," I confessed. "In fact I'm going to act on impulse now. Do you care to hear some bits of the story you don't know?"

Her eyes absolutely danced.

"Oh, I'd love to! I've been longing--dying to know the rest of it! I've guessed and guessed, but I haven't been able to make any sense out of things!"

I remembered my uncle's injunctions distinctly. 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.

"So there is actually a German who dares to live on Ransay!" she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing a little.

"A man whom I certainly took to be a German--a man who talks German fluently."

She fell very thoughtful and presently repeated,

"Middle-sized--with a beard--and dark eyes?"

"Yes," I said confidently; for somehow or other I began to feel singularly sure of these features.

"Of course I know who you suspect," she said, looking up suddenly. "And you had him removed from the island afterwards."

"You mean O'Brien? Yes, I did suspect him--though, mind you, I had nothing to go on. Do you know if he talked German?"

"He once told me he did, but I never heard him, and I didn't believe him."

"Why not?"

"One couldn't believe half he said, and I don't think he intended one to. He was very Irish. But I don't believe he was the man."

"Why not?" I asked again.

"Oh, just because I don't. And what happened next?"

I told her of my night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to hear her hearty approval of this scheme.

"It was awfully ingenious," she said decidedly. "I can't imagine a better plan, and you did it so well that you took us all in completely. I suppose you felt you had to count us among the suspicious characters, but what a pity you hadn't confided in father or me as it happened! We would have done everything we could to help you. I'd have loved to spread dreadful rumours about you!"

"I'm sure you would," I said, "but as things turned out, and in the light of what has happened since, I believe you saved my life by arresting me."

She turned on me and asked breathlessly.

"Did they guess who you really were? Did they try to do anything to you?"

"Merely murder me, as they murdered poor Bolton. The first attempt was made that night on the shore."

I saw her lips parting as I neared the end of telling her that story, and the instant I finished she cried,

"Of course you thought it was father!"

I did my best to shuffle out, but she was a hopeless person to try to deceive.

"It was quite natural you should," she said, "but I can tell you something now that throws some light on things. Next morning I heard that a man had been calling for you after dinner and was told that you had gone out with me. And the funny thing was that the maid didn't know him by sight, or know his voice. He kept his face rather hidden, she said, and talked in a low voice. Of course it simply increased our suspicions of you. But that was how they knew where you were! And that was the man who tried to kill you."

"And who'd have done it for certain if he had found me at home that night," I added.

I must frankly confess that this little incident made me feel uncomfortable. The audacity of the steps my enemies took, their remorseless thoroughness, the extraordinary completeness with which they covered their tracks, their appearances from nowhere and disappearances into space, were particularly nasty to contemplate with Bolton's fate so fresh in my mind.

"They are pretty thorough," I said.

She seemed to divine the thoughts behind this remark.

"But they haven't suspected you yet," she said reassuringly, "and they mustn't! And now, tell me some more, Mr. Merton."

So I went on telling her more:--about the man with spectacles, the shooting episode, every single thing in fact I could remember. As we neared the house we walked more and more slowly, but my tale was barely finished when we got there.

"You'll come in, won't you?" she said. "I know father is out, so we can go on talking."

She saw me hesitate and her colour faintly rose.

"You do trust me now, surely!" she said.

"All the way, Miss Rendall. But these devils may be on to my track at any moment, and if they suspect you are in my confidence--"

"What nonsense!" she cried, "if there's any risk I _want_ to share it. For the credit of our island these people have got to be hunted down, and I'd like them to know I'm hunting them! Besides, there's rather a nice cake for tea; you must come in."

And in we went.

XIII

JEAN'S GUESSES

"Come into father's room and then you can smoke," said Jean.

It was the same pleasant, well-remembered room into which she had shown me that day when I first made her acquaintance, and as I followed her in now it struck me forcibly that I had taken the wrong turning that August morning. If I had taken these people into my confidence then, I should at least have started on the right road. Better than ever I realised what tricks my instincts play me. Or perhaps it may be my efforts to regulate them by the light of what I am pleased to call my reason that produce such unhappy results.

"I am wondering how they found you out," she began. "It seems so mysterious that they should have suddenly started to try and murder you like that. They must have felt quite positive--and what made them feel positive?"

"Did you or your father say anything to anybody about my voice; that I didn't seem to have so much accent as I had at first, or anything of that kind?"

"Not a word," she said positively. "Father is the most uncommunicative of people, and I have inherited some of his closeness."

"Your servants?" I suggested.

"They are Ransay girls, and one foreign accent is the same as another to them," she laughed.

"Then it must have been finding the parachute. I always thought that gave me away."

"But it wasn't found till Monday morning, after we had been for that walk."

"It might have been found by these people sooner."

"It might," she admitted without much conviction. "But still--who did you see or speak to apart from us and Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien?"

"The Scollays," I said, "and several farmers I happened to meet; but always with a most suspicious accent. Oh, and there was one incident I forgot to mention. On the Sunday afternoon I was doing a little fancy shooting with my revolver down on the beach when Jock turned up. You know Jock the idiot?"

"Well," she said, but her attention had evidently been caught by my first words. "You were doing fancy shooting," she repeated. "Are you a very good shot?"

"Quite useful," I admitted with becoming modesty. "That afternoon I was rather above myself."

"Then," she cried, "you were seen, and that's why the man stopped firing at you as soon as you aimed at him! He knew he would be hit if he went on!"

I opened my eyes a little and smiled.

"That is a flattering solution," I said, "but if I may venture to say so, it seems rather a bold inference."

"I'm certain it's right," she said confidently. "Did you speak to Jock?"

"Yes, I had a little talk with him; that's to say of course I did all the talking."

"In your natural voice?"

"Latterly I did," I admitted.

"Were you far from the wall above the beach."

"Not very."

"And I suppose there were lots of rocks about?"

"The usual supply."

"Then some one was behind either the wall or the rocks and you were overheard! That's how you were found out!"

"Miss Rendall," I said, "you arrive at solutions by such brilliant short cuts that I feel like an old cart horse stumbling along out of sight behind you. My models hitherto have been the classical detectives--"

"Tuts!" she laughed, "they were only men!"

"Yes," I agreed, "we are not much of a sex. And now, guess again please, it's a very simple conundrum this time--for you. Who was the man behind the wall--or the rocks?"

She looked the least trifle hurt.

"I am really trying to help," she said,

"I know it!" I assured her. "And don't think I am laughing at you. This jumping to conclusions is probably the right way of reaching them. Anyhow my way has failed, and I am only too keen to try yours."

But I could see that I had a sensitive as well as a clever ally, and her ardour was evidently a little damped. I tried my best to rekindle it.

"I haven't told you yet," I said, "about Mr. Hobhouse's attempts at detection. He discovered one little fact. The old man with the tinted spectacles was seen by a small child running towards the beach after he had interviewed me."

I could see her pricking up her ears again, but she said little this time, and I went on to tell her of Bolton's two talks with me. When I came to his discovery her ardour was fairly aflame again, yet she still seemed to be holding herself in a little.

"Some one who hasn't lived all 'their' life in the place," she repeated. "Yes, it sounds as if he meant a woman."

"Oh, I didn't say that," I interposed.

"You thought it," she retorted, "and in that case I suppose it was me."

"But surely he must have known that before!"

"One would think so," she said thoughtfully, "but he didn't look a very intelligent man--poor fellow! Still, it would be a stupid kind of discovery to make a fuss about."

"There's just one thing more to tell you," I said; and I told her of the curious episode by the cliffs on the day Bolton was murdered, and mentioned my own conclusions, such as they were, and my difficulties in fitting them into the evidence.

There was no doubt about her keenness now, yet I noticed that there were no bold inferences this time. Nor did she even ask me many questions. But I saw her grow very thoughtful.

"Well," I said, "have you any ideas--any suspicions?"

She gave no answer for a few moments, and then she said.

"I am not going to jump to conclusions again, Mr. Merton. There is no use trying to act on wild ideas till we have found a little more out. You might just be running risks for no purpose, and you are in quite enough danger as it is."

"Hobhouse will look after me," I assured her.

She glanced at me with a look in her eyes that gave me a little thrill, and then I saw a slight shiver run over her.

"You are too brave to realise what danger you are in! Remember Bolton!"

"Believe me, Miss Rendall, I am just as careful of my skin as other people, but there is absolutely no danger so long as they don't spot me."

"But how long will that be? And you are taking no precautions at all!"

"But I am! I assure you I am. I have a code wire arranged with my cousin and when he gets the message 'Request permission to be visited by my own doctor,' he will be in Ransay as fast as he can steam."

She gave a little laugh, but looked anxious still.

"What a delicious message! Well, that's better than nothing. But you don't imagine they will give you warning, do you?"

"You will," I said confidently. "When you guess there's danger I'll wire. And now, I hope you have some idea in your head besides this notion of my danger. Be honest! what's in your mind?"

But I now perceived I had also an obstinate ally.

"I have told you," she persisted, "we must find out a little more before doing anything rash. And I promise not to keep anything back, and to tell you at once if I find out anything worth knowing. Oh, if you only knew how I want you to catch those people! As if I could possibly do anything again to interfere with you!"

What I should have liked to do was to take her hands and say something very friendly. What I did do was to thank her and assure her I trusted her, in words that I think she knew were sincere; and arrange to see her accidentally next day. And then I set off for my sanatorium with thoughts that were not in the least of the detective type.

It was Jean Rendall's eyes, voice, smile and face--herself from her hair to her ankles--that filled my mind as I hummed my way home. Unlike the suspicious stranger, Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse had not been given to singing, whistling, or humming as he walked, but he broke loose now. I had instinctively dreaded a too close acquaintance with that girl while the case was doubtful. I felt in my bones she would be dangerous. Now I was enraptured to discover she was fatal.

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. My excuse was due in an hour's time when Miss Rendall and Mr. Hobhouse proposed to encounter one another accidentally on the road, and meantime I was turning away from the window towards the fire when I heard the gravel crunch.

On general principles I turned back and looked out, to see a certain small farmer approaching the front door. I knew the man slightly and was not in the least interested in him. Presumably, I thought, it was a call for the doctor; and then my attention was sharply caught. He was carrying in his hand a fat little brown leather pocket book and in an instant I had remembered where I had seen exactly such a pocket book before.

A minute or two later it so chanced that as the maid was speaking to the man at the door, the amiable Mr. Hobhouse came out into the hall, and in his friendly way approached to see what the matter was; and very interested indeed he became when he heard. The pocket book, said the farmer, bore the name of James Bolton inside, and the maid was shuddering over a dull stain on the cover when Mr. Hobhouse appeared. The man went on to explain that he and a friend had been visiting the scene of the tragedy early that morning and had discovered the pocket book among the rocks close to where the body had been found. The local police had been in the island and visited the spot yesterday afternoon, he said, and he had meant to give his find to them, but now he heard that they had left again. They were coming back, and London police with them, people said, but meanwhile he thought the pocket book should be deposited either with the doctor or the laird (being Justices of the Peace), and he had called at the doctor's first. Now, the doctor being out, he meant to take it to Mr. Rendall's.

Hardly necessary to say, Mr. Hobhouse instantly took upon himself the responsibility of seeing that the doctor got the pocket book the moment he returned, and the farmer, glad enough to save himself a longer walk, handed it over. And then Mr. Hobhouse put a few very natural questions.

"Was the pocket book wet when it was found?"

"No wetter than she is now," said the man.

"Then it must have fallen out of poor Bolton's pocket before his body was thrown into the sea! Dreadful! Dreadful!" exclaimed the distressed gentleman. "And was it quite conspicuous--easily seen on the rocks?"

"We saw it a' right," said the man.

"And yet the police never noticed it? Dear me, dear me! Well, well, I'll give it to the doctor. Good morning, my good fellow, and many thanks; good morning!"

Over the smoking room fire I examined this discovery very thoughtfully. That it should have lain on the rocks all the time, and nobody, not even the police, noticed it till now, seemed strange. Still, when one came to think of it, the brown colour was very like the seaweed, and among that jumble of boulders such a thing might readily have happened. But certainly it had fallen out before the body was thrown into the sea, as its condition proved.

I glanced through the entries till I came to the very last the poor man had made; and then I sat up and opened my eyes very wide indeed. Plainly and distinctly these mems. were jotted:

"Proof positive O'B. or confederate.

"To be discovered whether O'B. himself--or the other?

"Possibilities--Thomsons--No Scotts--No Scollays--No."

The Thomsons and Scotts I knew to be tenants of seaboard farms like the Scollays, and after the Scollays came three other names, each with "No" written after them. A pencil mark also scored across all the six names.

So here was Bolton's secret. Either O'Brien was actually in the island himself, or he had a "confederate" here, and since that entry was made, one of the two had crowned his series of crimes by murdering the man who was on his track. And who was this confederate? Or alternatively, where was O'Brien himself lurking? Obviously the six names were people definitely acquitted, in Bolton's estimation anyhow; for the "No" and the line through their names could only mean that.

In this list certain names were not included--I had got so far when I happened to glance at the clock and started to my feet. My appointment with Jean was already overdue.

No sign of her when I reached the road, so I set off to walk slowly towards her house, thinking, thinking, thinking. Of course the man most of all to be suspected was her own cousin. And if he were in it, I knew that any person of common sense would warn me to beware of confiding in his only relatives in the island. But I felt sure I knew better than any person of mere common sense. Still, I could scarcely ask her to abet me in convicting the doctor. Then I must not show her the note book. And that meant a breach in our confidence at the very start.

I had walked on till I was approaching her house, and still there was no sign of her ahead, nor was there any conclusion in my mind. And then I chanced to look round and saw her hastening after me, about a couple of hundred yards away. I wheeled round and on the instant leapt to one of my typical haphazard decisions. I would simply show her the pocket book and see how she took it.

She had evidently been running and met me half cross and half laughing and divinely flushed after her stern chase.

"I've been chasing you for miles!" she cried. "Why ever didn't you look round?"

"But I thought you were coming straight from home!"

"I never said so, and I wasn't! I've been somewhere else first."

There seemed to be a hint of something significant in these last words, but I was so eager to come to the point that I never paused to question her.

"I am dreadfully sorry," I said, "but I was thinking so hard I never thought of looking round. I have got some news for you."

Her eyes sparkled.

"What is it?" she cried.

"Bolton's pocket book has been found among the rocks, and this was his last entry before he was killed."

I handed her the book open at the place and watched her face as she read. And one thing her expression revealed beyond any possibility of doubt. She was utterly and completely taken aback, and for some moments simply stared at the jottings in dead silence. Then I saw a sudden gleam in her eye, and a moment later she turned to me and cried,

"This wasn't written by Bolton!"

It was my turn to stare.

"Not written by Bolton!" I exclaimed. "Let me look at it again."

Standing there in the middle of the windy road, we quite forgot the temperature, and a passing snow shower even whipped us unnoticed.

"Look!" she said. "The writing is thicker and blacker and a little bigger than the other entries."

"It was evidently written with a different pencil, or with a blunt pointed pencil. A man writing with a short blunt stump naturally writes a little bigger and blacker. But look at the _t_s and the _r_s, and the capital _P;_ in fact, look at all the letters. They are exactly the same type."

"Of course any one trying to copy another man's hand would make his letters the same," she retorted, "but the character isn't the same. Can't you see?"

"There is a slight difference," I admitted, "but I really can't honestly say I see any sufficient ground for putting this down as a fake. Besides, what do you suppose it is--a practical joke?"

"No, of course not. It was written by the real murderer to put people off the scent."

I tried not to smile, but I am afraid I did.

"Another brilliant guess!" I said, and then hastened to add, "But a most ingenious one and quite possibly--very probably, in fact, you are right."

But she saw through my compliments, and I felt rather than observed an instant change in her.

"Oh, you may be right," she said, and handed me back the pocket book.

"Or wrong," I replied, "but I mean to try and discover which."

Instead of asking me what I meant to do, as I feared and expected, she walked by my side very thoughtfully and in silence. I gave her a moment or two to put the question which never came, and then changed the subject.

"And have you discovered anything?" I asked.

"Not discovered--only guessed," she answered with a smile in her eyes, half defiant, half mischievous.

"And what have you guessed?"

"Oh, I won't trouble you with more guesses. I must find something out first--something really convincing, like that note book."

I was a little piqued, but I merely laughed and said,

"Well, we'll see!"

By this time we were quite near the house.

"Won't you come in and have lunch with us?" she asked.

The temptation was strong, but the scent seemed too warm to lose, and I said I must be back for lunch at home. We stopped, and as she looked at me I noticed in her eyes what first seemed to be doubt and anxiety and a moment later to become resolution.

"Mr. Merton," she said; her voice rather low, "which ever of us is right, I think we must be getting near rather a critical point. Don't you think you had better send off that wire to Captain Whiteclett?"

I shook my head.

"Not quite yet," I said. "You see it's a serious matter dragging my cousin out here unless one is quite certain he will be needed."

"But then he may not be in time!"

"I must risk that. But you may rest assured I'll wire the very instant I know it won't be bringing him out on a wild goose chase."

For an instant she was silent again, and then she suddenly said,

"I'm sure that writing was forged!"

It seemed to me that I read in her exclamation a kind of whipping up of her unbelief, as though she needed to reassure herself.

"A pair of gloves on it?" I suggested.

I quite confess that it was not one of my most tactful suggestions. She froze up again at once. Not that there was anything unkind in her eye as we said good-bye, only it was clear that in the meantime we were each going our own way.

I set out at my best pace back for I was hot for instant action, and Jean's doubts, though I dismissed them as quite unjustified by anything in the writing, nevertheless made me anxious to settle the question at once. The end might be very near indeed, I told myself, as I strode out with the last remains of my limp quite vanished. But what prompted those doubts; a genuine disbelief in the authenticity of the handwriting, or a perception of the logical consequences and a very natural shrinking from them? I wondered very much. The fact that she had refrained from asking a single question as to what I meant to do, suggested the second solution. And yet it was curiously unlike Jean Rendall's fearless spirit.

XV

PART OF THE TRUTH

I never remember feeling more intensely chagrined than when I reached our bleak house twenty minutes late for our early dinner to find the doctor had eaten a hurried meal quarter of an hour before the usual hour and rushed out to attend an urgent case.

I asked at once whether he had been told of the pocket book. Yes, it appeared he had. He had seemed very interested, but had immediately ordered his dinner hour to be advanced and then hurried away without putting further questions.

Was his haste a consequence of what he was told, or merely a coincidence? Well, I was resolved to leave that point in doubt no later than his return. I hardly debated at all the question of what to do. The baffling business of groping in the dark, and daily scheming to discover a window, without giving myself away, had gone on long enough. I had found a head at last and I meant to hit it. It might turn out to be the wrong head; still, I felt convinced I could scarcely fail to discover something fresh.

But though I proposed to take a bold course and make a short cut to the heart of this infernal mystery, I realised perfectly that if the cut actually led me there, it would prove an exceedingly dangerous by-way. It was such a gamble that I shrank from summoning my cousin until it had come off, but I wrote out the code telegram we had arranged and put it in my pocket ready for emergencies. Of the doctor's two servants the younger anyhow was absolutely trustworthy I was convinced, and I meant to send her with the wire to the post office while I kept guard over the prisoner. And then, to ensure there being a prisoner, I saw that all the chambers of my revolver were loaded and put it in my coat pocket ready to my hand.

The afternoon dragged on, the wind still blustering round the house and the hail now and then rattling on the windows; but no Dr. Rendall appeared. Tea time arrived and still no sign of him. I gave him half an hour's grace and then had my own tea and returned to the smoking-room. The evening by this time had fallen and the curtains were drawn and the lamps lit.

And then at last I heard him enter the front door. I jumped up and, with a dramatic instinct for taking the centre of the stage, placed myself before the fire, but I heard him run upstairs and it was some minutes before the sound of his descending steps reached me. The moment the door opened I was conscious that one of those peculiar changes I had so often noticed had taken place in the man. He smiled at me, but with a curiously furtive eye, and then he shut the door and came forward.

"You have had tea, I hope," said he.

I wasted no time in preliminaries. Keeping my right hand closed over the revolver in my pocket I held out the pocket book with my left.

"Dr. Rendall," I said, "you have heard that Bolton's pocket book has been found. Here it is. Kindly look at that entry."

The man started perceptibly and stared at me. Speaking in that tone and without my eye glasses I must have made an astonishing contrast to the Thomas Hobhouse he had last seen that morning at breakfast.

"Read that," I commanded.

He took the pocket book and I watched him closely. I saw his eyebrows rise as he read.

"What's all this about?" he asked.

"It is Bolton's last entry in his note book before he was murdered, and it means that O'Brien is either still in this island, or that a confederate of his is playing traitor in his place, and that one of the two has just committed murder. It is quite impossible that you don't know something of this!"

His blue eyes now had considerably more anger than guilt in 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.