Mr. Macrae looked at him rather curiously. "You are dying of fatigue,"
he said. "All your ideas have been excellent, but I cannot let you kill yourself. Ideas are what I want. You must stay with me to-day: I shall be communicating with London and other centres by the Giambresi machine; I shall need your advice, your suggestions. Now, do go to bed: you shall be called if you are needed."
He wrung Merton"s hand, and Merton crept up to his bedroom. He took a bath, turned in, and was wrapped in all the blessedness of sleep.
Before five o"clock the house was astir. Bude, in the yacht, steamed down the coast, touching at Lochinver, and wherever there seemed a faint hope of finding intelligence. But he learned nothing. Yachts and other vessels came and went (on Sundays, of course, more seldom), and if the heiress had been taken straight to sea, northwards or west, round the b.u.t.t of Lewis, by night, there could be no chance of news of her.
Returning, Bude learned that the local search parties had found nothing but the black ashes of a burned boat in a creek on the south side of the cliffs. There the captors of Miss Macrae must have touched, burned their coble, and taken to some larger and fleeter vessel. But no such vessel had been seen by shepherd, fisher, keeper, or gillie. The grooms arrived from Lairg, in the tandem, with the doctor and a rural policeman. Bude had telegraphed to Scotland Yard from Lochinver for detectives, and to Glasgow, Oban, Tobermory, Salen, in fact to every place he thought likely, with minute particulars of Miss Macrae"s appearance and dress.
All this Merton learned from Bude, when, long after luncheon time, our hero awoke suddenly, refreshed in body, but with the ghastly blank of misery and doubt before the eyes of his mind.
"I wired," said Bude, "on the off chance that yesterday"s storm might have deranged the wireless machine, and, by Jove, it is lucky I did. The wireless machine won"t work, not a word of message has come through; it is jammed or something. I met Donald Macdonald, who told me."
"Have you seen our host yet?"
"No," said Bude, "I was just going to him."
They found the millionaire seated at a table, his head in his hands. On their approach he roused himself.
"Any news?" he asked Bude, who shook his head. He explained how he had himself sent various telegrams, and Mr. Macrae thanked him.
"You did well," he said. "Some electric disturbance has cut us off from our London correspondent. We sent messages in the usual way, but there has been no reply. You sent to Scotland Yard for detectives, I think you said?"
"I did."
"But, unluckily, what can London detectives do in a country like this?"
said Mr. Macrae.
"I told them to send one who had the Gaelic," said Bude.
"It was well thought of," said Mr. Macrae, "but this was no local job.
Every man for miles round has been examined, and accounted for."
"I hope you have slept well, Mr. Merton?" he asked.
"Excellently. Can you not put me on some work if it is only to copy telegraphic despatches? But, by the way, how is Blake?"
"The doctor is still with him," said Mr. Macrae; "a case of concussion of the brain, he says it is. But you go out and take the air, you must be careful of yourself."
Bude remained with the millionaire, Merton sauntered out to look at the river: running water drew him like a magnet. By the side of the stream, on a woodland path, he met Lady Bude. She took his hand silently in her right, and patted it with her left. Merton turned his head away.
"What can I say to you?" she asked. "Oh, this is too horrible, too cruel."
"If I had listened to you and not irritated her I might have been with her, not Blake," said Merton, with keen self-respect.
"I don"t quite see that you would be any the better for concussion of the brain," said Lady Bude, smiling. "Oh, Mr. Merton, you _must_ find her, I know how you have worked already. You must rescue her. Consider, this is your chance, this is your opportunity to do something great. Take courage!"
Merton answered, with a rather watery smile, "If I had Logan with me."
"With or without Lord Fastcastle, you _must do it_!" said Lady Bude.
They saw Mr. Macrae approaching them deep in thought and advanced to meet him.
"Mr. Macrae," asked Lady Bude suddenly, "have you had Donald with you long?"
"Ever since he was a lad in Canada," answered the millionaire. "I have every confidence in Donald"s ability, and he was for half a year with Gianesi and Giambresi, learning to work their system."
Donald"s honesty, it was clear, he never dreamed of suspecting. Merton blushed, as he remembered that a doubt as to whether the engineer had been "got at" had occurred to his own mind. For a heavy bribe (Merton had fancied) Donald might have been induced, perhaps by some Stock Exchange operator, to tamper with the wireless centre of communication.
But, from Mr. Macrae"s perfect confidence, he felt obliged to drop this attractive hypothesis.
They dined at the usual hour, and not long after dinner Lady Bude said good-night, while her lord, who was very tired, soon followed her example. Merton and the millionaire paid a visit to Blake, whom they found asleep, and the doctor, having taken supper and accepted an invitation to stay all night, joined the two other men in the smoking- room. In answer to inquiries about the patient, Dr. MacTavish said, "It"s jist concussion, slight concussion, and nervous shoke. No that muckle the maiter wi" him but a clour on the hairnspan, and midge bites, forbye the disagreeableness o" being clamped doon for a wheen hours in a wat tussock o" bracken."
This diagnosis, though not perfectly intelligible to Merton, seemed to rea.s.sure Mr. Macrae.
"He"s a bit concetty, the chiel," added the worthy physician, "and it may be a day or twa or he judges he can leave his bed. Jist nervous collapse. But, bless my soul, what"s thon?"
"Thon" had brought Mr. Macrae to his feet with a bound. It was the thrill of the electric bell which preluded to communications from the wireless communicator! The instrument began to tick, and to emit its inscribed tape.
"Thank heaven," cried the millionaire, "now we shall have light on this mystery." He read the message, stamped his foot with an awful execration, and then, recovering himself, handed the doc.u.ment to Merton.
"The message is a disgusting practical joke," he said. "Some one at the central agency is playing tricks with the instrument."
"Am I to read the message aloud?" asked Merton.
It was rather a difficult question, for the doctor was a perfect stranger to all present, and the matters involved were of an intimate delicacy, affecting the most sacred domestic relations.
"Dr. MacTavish," said Mr. Macrae, "speaking as Highlander to Highlander, these are circ.u.mstances, are they not, under the seal of professional confidence?"
The big doctor rose to his feet.
"They are, sir, but, Mr. Macrae, I am a married man. This sad business of yours, I say it with sorrow, will be the talk of the world to-morrow, as it is of the country side to-day. If you will excuse me, I would rather know nothing, and be able to tell nothing, so I"ll take my pipe outside with me."
"Not alone, don"t go alone, Dr. MacTavish," said Merton; "Mr. Macrae will need his telegraphic operator probably. Let me play you a hundred up at billiards."
The doctor liked nothing better; soon the b.a.l.l.s were rattling, while the millionaire was closeted alone with Donald Macdonald and the wireless thing.
After one game, of which he was the winner, the doctor, with much delicacy, asked leave to go to bed. Merton conducted him to his room, and, returning, was hailed by Mr. Macrae.
"Here is the pleasant result of our communications," he said, reading aloud the message which he had first received.
"The Seven Hunters. August 9, 7.47 p.m.
"Do not be anxious about Miss Macrae. She is in perfect health, and accompanied by three chaperons accustomed to move in the first circles. The one question is How Much? Sorry to be abrupt, but the sooner the affair is satisfactorily concluded the better. A reply through your Gianesi machine will reach us, and will meet with prompt attention."
"A practical joke," said Merton. "The melancholy news has reached town through Bude"s telegrams, and somebody at the depot is playing tricks with the instrument."
"I have used the instrument to communicate that opinion to the manufacturers," said Mr. Macrae, "but I have had no reply."
"What does the jester mean by heading his communication "The Seven Hunters"?" asked Merton.
"The name of a real or imaginary public-house, I suppose," said Mr.
Macrae.