Again, take Mr. 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 s.p.a.ce 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. They probably became doubly suspicious of me from that moment and only waited to make quite sure before going all out to kill me. And yet, Bolton by coolly a.s.suming I was a liar or a dreamer missed the entire significance of the incident.
But when it comes to asking myself honestly which people precisely I suspect, and how I propose to separate the incidents which (I freely admit) are perfectly consistent with the theory that I was genuinely suspected myself, from the incidents which cannot be explained on those grounds, and work out a water-tight case against anybody in particular, I must confess that I am fairly beaten. I know that I don"t want to suspect that girl, though she did treat me like a member of a lower race and scored off me badly at the end; and I do want to suspect O"Brien. By the way, was he a real drunkard? I rather begin to wonder.
And that is the very unsatisfactory end of the matter so far.
PART II
I
AN IDEA
I wish I had said that I felt sure my cousin"s letter was not the last of the business on Ransay. One would like to be the only correct prophet this war has produced. It was not the end by any manner of means, as I learned within two days of finishing that last chapter. I wrote it, and the two or three before it, in the convalescent hospital at Winterdean Hall, finishing it, I remember, on a Wednesday; and I picked up the scent again on the very Friday following.
I had been laid out in an insignificant North Sea sc.r.a.p, but though the sc.r.a.p was small the wounds were unpleasant and I was still rather glad to lie easy in a moveable summerhouse on the terrace. I was well on the mend but had walked a little too far that morning and there I lay stretched half asleep in a deck chair, out of the wind and basking in the sun. It was the end of the first week in February, but the day was mild as milk and in my overcoat I felt positively hot. Rooks were cawing over the winter woodlands below the terrace, a faint, restful line of blue hills rose far away beyond, and a gorgeous peac.o.c.k was strolling sedately on the lawn. I was utterly content to lie there and doze, when I heard a familiar voice.
"Right! I see where he is, thank you," it said.
"Jack Whiteclett!" I said to myself.
It was always pleasant to see Jack, but at that moment a bore to be disturbed. Little did I guess how thorough and final that disturbance was going to be.
He appeared in the open door of my shelter, keen eyes, blue serge, three rings, and all complete. I expected a jibe at my beard, but evidently I struck him too sorry an object for mirth.
"Well, old chap," said he, "you"ve earned a rest and I"m glad to see you"re taking it."
This from Jack was subtily flattering and I did my best to look the wounded hero.
"Where did they get you?" he asked.
"In my beard," said I, "left side of the jaw. Also right ankle and a souvenir under the ribs."
"Lame?"
"Still a little, but improving."
"The beard is quite becoming," he observed.
"Look at it well then while you have the chance for they say they"ll let me shave it in a week."
"You"re well on the mend then?"
"Thank the Lord."
"Then I needn"t give you any more sympathy. Congratulations instead."
"On getting a bit of Blighty?"
"On getting a bit of ribbon."
I opened my eyes, for this was the first I had heard of it.
"It isn"t out yet," said he, "but I believe it"s to be your doom.
Somebody has presumably bribed some one at the Admiralty. Uncle Francis tipped me the wink. You"ve evidently quite made your peace there, Roger, so congratulations again."
This hint of a decoration was gratifying enough, and to hear, on top of it, his a.s.surance that my dear old uncle had really opened his heart again nearly upset me disgracefully. I was evidently still a little weaker than I realised. However, Jack was tact itself and the talk turned to every-day matters.
He had been sitting beside me for some little time discussing the war, the world, and the devil, before it began to strike me as quite remarkably kind, even for so good a fellow as Jack Whiteclett, to come so far out of his way to look me up. His own wife was at Portsmouth last I heard of her, all his other interests were in London, and yet here he was looking up a cousin in a hospital a couple of hundred miles away from either place.
"By the way, how long have you got?" I asked.
"A week."
I sat up in my deck chair.
"Only a week! I say this is extraordinarily good of you to come down here and see me."
"Oh, I wanted to see how heroes bear their wounds," he smiled, but I felt certain there was something more left unsaid.
"Jack, old chap, what"s up? I see in your eye there"s something else."
He hesitated a moment and then said,
"There was, but I"m not going to bother you with it now. I didn"t know how fit you might be."
Naturally I made him go on.
"Would it worry you if I were to yarn a little about that adventure of yours in Ransay?" he asked.
"Worry me! I"ve been thinking of little else since I came to this restful place. In fact I"ve been finishing off a full, true, and particular account of the adventure. Any further news?"
His mouth grew compressed and a frown settled over his eyes.
"Nothing definite, except that the infernal island has been worrying me a lot lately. You were quite right, Roger, and I withdraw my last doubt with many apologies. Something is very far wrong in that place.
Submarines have been seen for certain two or three times, and signals on sh.o.r.e, and the devil knows all what. But we can"t find a clue or a trace of anything to lay our hands on!"
"And all this is since O"Brien left?"
He nodded.
"Yes. If he were in it you were quite right in suspecting a gang. If he wasn"t, then the fellow, or fellows, are still there. I am quite certain now, Roger, that you were absolutely right. Some one is actually living in that comparatively small island, and working a lot of mischief, and we haven"t even the foggiest notion who to suspect."
"Have you applied to Mr. Bolton?" I asked a little maliciously.