WILDFIRE

by Mary Stewart

  There was only one pair of shoes: a woman's. I hastily retrieved the one I had kicked over, and put it back beside its fellow, They were handmade Laforgues, exquisite, absurd things with four-inch heels.- Marcia Maling's.

  There was silence now behind the door. I almost ran down the stairs, plunging, heedless of the streaming candle flame, into the darker depths of the hall. I felt angry and ashamed and sick, as if I myself had been caught out in some questionable action. God knew, I thought bitterly, as I crossed the hall and pushed open the glass door of the lounge, it was none of my business, but all the same. . . . She had, after all, only met Nicholas tonight. And where was Fergus in all this? Surely I hadn't misread the hints she had dropped about Fergus? And where, too, did Hartley Corrigan come in, I wondered, remembering the look in his eyes, and, even more significantly, the look on his wife's face.

  And here I paid for my speed and my heedlessness as the swing door rushed shut behind me and tore the flame from my candle into a long streamer of sharp-smelling smoke. Shadows surged up towards me, pouncing from the corners of the dim lounge, and I halted in my tracks and put a hand back to the door, already half in retreat towards the safety of my room. But the lounge was untenanted save by those shadows; in the glow of the banked peat fire I could see it all now clearly enough. I threw one haunted glance back at the hall beyond the glass door, then I went very quietly across the lounge towards where I knew my handbag ought to lie.

  Marcia and Nicholas . . . the coupled names thrust themselves back into my mind. The odd thing about it, I thought, was that one couldn't dislike Marcia Maling— though I might feel differently about it if, like Mrs. Corrigan, I had a man to lose. It was to be supposed—I skirted a coffee table with some care—it was to be supposed that she couldn't help it. There was a long and ugly name for her kind of woman, but, remembering her vivid, generous beauty as she sat opposite me in this very room, I could not find it in me to dislike her. She was impossible, she was wanton, but she was amusing, and very lovely, and, I thought, kind. Perhaps she was even being kind to me, in a queer way, by attracting Nicholas's attention to herself when she guessed I wished to escape it—though this, I felt, was perhaps giving a little too much credit to Miss Maling's disinterested crusading spirit.

  I grinned wryly to myself as I stooped and groped beside the chair for my precious handbag. My fingers met nothing. I felt anxiously along the empty floor, sweeping my hands round in little questing circles that grew wider and more urgent with failure . . . and then I saw the faint glint of the bag's metal clasp, not on the floor, but on a level with my eye as I stooped. Someone must have picked it up and put it on the bookshelf beside the chair. I grabbed it, yanked out with it some magazines and a couple of books, and flew back across the lounge with my skirts billowing behind me.

  I was actually at the glass door, and shoving it open with my shoulder, when I heard the outer door of the hotel porch open, very quietly. I stood stock-still, clutching books and bag and dead candle to a suddenly thudding heart.

  Someone came softly into the porch. I heard the scrape of a nailed boot on the flags, and faint sounds as he moved about among the climbing and fishing gear that always cluttered the place. I waited. Roderick Grant had told me the hotel stayed open all night. This was surely—surely— nothing more sinister than some late fisherman, putting his things away. That was all.

  But all the same, I was not going to cross the hall and climb the stairs in full view of him, whoever he was. So I waited, trying to still my sickening heartbeats, backing away from the glass door as I remembered my white housecoat.

  Then the outer door opened and shut again, just as softly as before, and, clear in the still night, I heard his boots crunch once, twice, on the gravel road. I hesitated only for a moment, then I shouldered aside the glass door and flew across the hall to the outer porch, peering after him through the window.

  The valley was mist-dimmed, and full of vague shadows, but I saw him. He had stepped off the gravel onto the grass and was walking quickly away, head bent, along the verge of the road towards Strathaird. A man, slim, tallish, who walked with a long swinging stride. I saw him pause once, and turn, looking back over his shoulder, but his face was no more than a dim blur. Then he vanished into the shadows.

  I turned back from the window in the not-quite-darkness, gazing round the little porch. My eyes had adjusted themselves now. could see the table, with its weighing machine and the white enamel trays for fish; the wicker chairs holding rucksacks, boots, fishing nets; pale ovals of climbing rope depending from, pegs; coats and mackintoshes, scarves and caps, fishing rods and walking sticks. . . .

  Behind me the door opened without a sound, and a man came quietly in out of the night.

  I didn't scream, after all. Perhaps I couldn't. I merely dropped everything with a crash that seemed to shake the hotel, then stood, dumb and paralyzed, with my mouth open.

  The porch door swung to with a bang behind him. He jerked out a startled oath, and then, with a click, a torch beam shot out and raked me, blindingly.

  He said: "Janet!" And then laughed. "My God, but you startled me! What on earth are you doing down here at this hour?"

  I blinked into the light, which went off. "Alastair?"

  "The same." He swung his haversack from his shoulder, and began to take off his Burberry. "What was that you dropped? It sounded like an atom bomb."

  "Books, mostly," I said. "I couldn't sleep."

  "Oh." He laughed again, and pitched his coat over a chair. "You looked like a ghost standing there in that white thing. I was unmanned, but positively. I nearly screamed."

  "So did I." I stooped to pick up my things. "I'd better go back to bed."

  He had a foot up on one of the chairs. "If you'd stay half a minute more and hold the torch for me, Janet, I could get these blasted bootlaces undone. They're wet."

  I took the torch. "Is it raining?"

  "In fits and starts."

  "You've been fishing, I suppose?"

  "Yes. Up the Strath."

  "Any luck?"

  "Pretty fair. I got two or three good fish, and Hart took a beauty. One and a half pounds.'1

  "Hart? Oh—Hartley Corrigan/'

  "Mm. Don't wave the light about, my girl."

  "Sorry. Is Mr. Corrigan not back yet, then?"

  "Lord, yes. He came back a couple of hours since, but I'd just had some good rises, so 1 stayed. Strictly illegal, of course, so don't tell on me, will you?"

  "Illegal?"

  "It's the Sabbath, my dear. Had you forgotten? I should have stopped at midnight, like Hart." He pulled his second boot off, and straightened up.

  "His fish aren't in the tray," I said.

  "What?" His eyes followed the torch beam to the table. "Neither are they . . . that's odd."

  "Alastair."

  He turned his head sharply at the note in my voice. "Well?"

  I said, baldly: "Someone came into this porch five minutes ago, messed around for a bit, and then went out again."

  "What? Oh—" he laughed. "Don't sound so worried! That would be Jamesy." "Jamesy?"

  "Jamesy Farlane; he was out with us. He's a better walker than I am, and he was in a hurry. He lives some way over towards Strathaird."

  "I see," I said. I swallowed hard.

  "Did you think he was a burglar? You don't need to worry about such urban horrors here, Janet. Nobody locks their doors in the Islands. There aren't such things as thieves."

  "No," I said. I put the torch down on the table, and turned to go. "Only murderers."

  I heard the sharp intake of his breath.

  "Who told you?"

  "Roderick Grant."

  "I see. Worried?"

  "Naturally."

  He said: "I shouldn't be. Whatever it is all about, it can't touch you."

  "I wasn't worried about myself." "Who, then?" He sounded wary.

  I said, with an edge to my voice: "Heather Macrae, of course. The girl—and her people. What had she done th
at a filthy grotesque thing like that should catch up with her'7 What was it all about9 There's something more than queer about it. Alastair. can't explain just how I feel about it, but it-—it's somehow particularly nasty."

  He said, inadequately: "'Murder's never pretty."

  "But it can be plain," I said, ''and this isn't just plain wicked murder. She wasn't just hit or stabbed or choked in a fit of human passion. She was deliberately done to death, and then—arranged. It was cold-blooded, calculating, and—and evil. Yes, evil. Here, too, of all places, where you'd think that sort of perverted ugliness had no existence. It's haunting me, Alastair."

  He said, a little lamely: "The police are still on it, and they won't let up, you know."

  I said: "Who do you think did it?"

  "Janet—"

  "You must have thought about it. Who? Jamesy Far-lane?"

  "I—look, Janet, I wouldn't talk too much about it—"

  I said: "You mean, in case it's someone in the hotel?"

  He said uncomfortably: "Well—"

  "Do you think it's someone in the hotel?"

  "I don't know. I—don't—know. If it frightens you, my dear, why don't you go somewhere else? Broadford, or Portree, or—"

  "I'm staying here," I said. "I want to be here when they do nose out this devil, whoever he is. Whoever he is."

  He was silent.

  I said: "Good night, Alastair," and went back upstairs to my room.

  I never took the tablets, after all. My dead-of-night walk among the murderers must have been the kind of shock therapy that my headache needed, for when I got back to my room I realized that the pain had completely gone.

  I got into bed and surveyed the rest of my booty.

  I had got, I discovered, two copies of The Autocar. The books were The Bride of Lammermoor, and the abridged edition of Frazer's Golden Bough.

  The Bride of Lammermoor put me to sleep in something under ten minutes.

  Chapter 7

  NEXT MORNING, SURE ENOUGH, IT WAS RAINING, with a small, persistent, wetting rain. The sheep grazing in the glen near the hotel looked damp and miserable, and all but the nearest landmarks were invisible. Even Sgurr na Stri, just beyond the river, was dim in its shroud of grey.

  When I came down, a little late, to breakfast, the place was quiet, though this was the Sabbath quiet rather than a depression due to the weather. I could see Alastair Braine and the Corrigans sitting over newspapers in the lounge, while Mrs. Cowdray-Simpson and the old lady had already brought their knitting into play. There were, however, signs that even a wet Sunday in the Highlands could not damp some enthusiasms: Colonel Cowdray-Simpson, at the grille of the manager's office, was conducting a solemn discussion on flies with Mr. Persimmon and a big countryman in respectable black; Marion Bradford and Roberta were in the porch, staring out at the wet landscape; and near them Roderick Grant bent, absorbed, over a landing net that he was mending with a piece of string.

  He looked up, saw me, and grinned. "Hullo. It's too bad it's Sunday, isn't it? Wouldn't you have loved a nice day's fishing in the rain?"

  "No, thank you," I said with decision. "I suppose this is what you fishing maniacs call ideal weather?"

  "Oh, excellent." He cocked an eye at the sullen prospect. "Though it mightn't prove too dismal even for laymen. This is the sort of day that can clear up in a flash. Miss Symes might get her climb after all."

  "Do you think so?" Roberta turned eagerly.

  "It's possible. But"—he shot a wary half glance at Marion Bradford's back, still uncompromisingly turned—"be careful if you do go, and don't get up too high. The mist can drop again as quickly as it can rise."

  He had spoken quietly, but Marion Bradford heard. She turned and sent him a smouldering look.

  "More good advice?" she asked in that tense, overconfident voice that made anything she said sound like an insult.

  Roberta said quickly: ' It's good of Mr. Grant to bother, Marion. He knows I know nothing about it."

  Marion Bradford looked as if she would like to retort, but she merely pressed her lips together and turned back to stare out of the window. Roderick smiled at Roberta and turned his attention to his landing net. Then Ronald Beagle came out into- the porch, with a rucksack on his back.

  "Why," said Roberta, "Mr. Beagle's going. Are you really going up Sgurr nan Gillean in this, Mr. Beagle?"

  "I think it'll clear," said Beagle. "I'm going over there anyway, and if it clears in an hour or so, as I think it will, I'll be ready." He waved vaguely to all of us, and went out into the rain.

  "Well," I said to Roberta, "both the oracles have spoken, so I hope you do get your climb." "Are you going out too?"

  "My dear, I haven't even had my breakfast yet! And if I don't hurry I doubt if I'll get any!"

  But as I was halfway across the hall towards the dining room I was stopped by Major Persimmon's voice calling me from the office grille. I went over. The tall, thickset countryman was still there, bending over a tray of casts, his big fingers moving them delicately.

  Bill Persimmon leaned forward across the counter.

  "I believe you said you wanted to hire a rod, Mrs.— er, Miss Brooke, and fish a bit?"

  "Yes, I do, but I'm not quite sure when. I think I might wait a day or so, and have a look round first."

  "Just as you like, of course, only—" He glanced at the other man. "If you'd really like to be shown some fishing, you might care to fix it up in advance with Dougal Macrae here. He'd be glad to go with you, I know."

  The big man looked up. He had a square, brown face, deeply lined, and smallish blue eyes that looked as if, normally, they were good-tempered. Just now, they held no expression at all.

  He said, in the wonderfully soft voice of the Island men: "I should be glad to show the lady how to take a fish."

  "That's very good of you," I said. "Perhaps—shall we say Wednesday?"

  "Wednesday is a free day." Dougal Macrae nodded his big head. "Yes, indeed."

  "Thank you very much," I said.

  "Where shall I put you down for?" asked Major Persimmon.

  Dougal Macrae said: "The Camasunary river, please; the upper beat. If we cannot take a fish out of there it will be a bad day indeed."

  He straightened up, and picked up a well-brushed and formidable bowler hat from the office counter. "And now I must be on my way, or I shall be late at the kirk. Good day to you, mistress. Good day, Mr. Persimmon."

  And he went out into the grey morning. I found myself looking after him. It had been only the most trivial of conversations, but it was my first acquaintance with the beautifully simple courtesy of the Highlander, the natural but almost royally formal bearing of the crofter who has lived all his life in the Islands. I was very much impressed with this quiet man. Dougal Macrae. Heather Macrae's father. ...

  I nodded to Major Persimmon, and went to get my belated breakfast.

  I had been (rather foolishly, I suppose) dreading my next meeting with Marcia, so I was glad that she was not in the dining room. Indeed, before I had poured out my first cup of coffee, I saw a big cream-colored car come slowly past the window, and slide to a halt outside the porch door. Almost immediately, Marcia, looking enchanting and very urban in royal blue, hurried out of the hotel and was ushered into the front of the car by a handsome boy in uniform, who tucked rugs round her with solicitous care. Still in expensive and effortless silence, the car moved off.

  I drank coffee, wishing I had a morning paper, so that I could pretend I hadn't noticed Nicholas who, apart from Hubert Hay, was the only other occupant of the dining room.

  But it was after all the latter who in a short while rose and came over to my table.

  He walked with an odd, tittuping little step that made me think again of Marcia's bouncy rubber balls, or of a self-confident robin. This latter impression was heightened by the rounded expanse of scarlet pullover which enlivened his already gay green tweeds. His face was round, too, with a small pernickety mouth, and pale blue eyes set in
a multitude of radiating wrinkles. He had neat hands, and wore a big gold ring set with a black stone.

  He smiled at me, showing a flash of gold in his mouth.

  "Miss—cr—Brooke? My name is Hay."

  "How do you do?" I murmured politely.

  "1 hope you don't mind me coming over to speak, Miss Brooke, but the fact is"—he hesitated, and looked at me a little shyly—"the fact is, I wanted to ask a favor."

  "Of course." 1 wondered what on earth was coming next.

  "You see," he went on, still with that bashful expression that sat comically upon his round face, "you see, I'm footloose."

  "You're what?" I said, startled.

  "Footloose."

  "That's what I thought you said. But—"

  "It's my nom de ploom," he said. "I'm a writer." The scarlet pullover broadened perceptibly. "Footloose."

  "Oh, I see! A writer—but how very clever of you, Mr. Hay. Er, novels, is it?"

  "Travel books, Miss Brooke, travel books. I bring beauty to you at the fireside—that's what we put on the covers, you know. 'To you in your armchair I bring the glories of the English countryside.' And" he added, fairly, "the Scotch. That's why I'm here."

  "I see. Collecting material?"

  "Takin' walks," said Hubert Hay, simply. "I go on walks, and write about them, with maps. Then I mark them A, B, or C, according as to how difficult they are, and give them one, two or three stars according as to if they're pretty."

  "How—very original," I said lamely, conscious of Nicholas sitting well within hearing. "It must take a lot of time."

  "It's dead easy," said Hubert Hay frankly. "That is, if you can write like I can. I've always had the knack, somehow. And it pays all right."

  "I shall look out for your books," I promised, and he beamed down at me.

  "I'll send you one, I will indeed. The last one was called Sauntering in Somerset. You'd like it. And they're not books really, in a manner of speaking—they're paperbacks. I think the best I ever did was Wandering through Wales. I'll send you that too."