He undressed that night with thoughtful deliberation. What he needed was a spot of luck — something which would reveal to him the present identity of the Actor. That Max Bergman was somewhere in Glendale — masquerading in some convenient disguise — he was more certain than ever.
Chapter 7
A Chink In The Armour
In the morning, however, with the sun shining and the village smoke rising in straight plumes to a cloudless sky, Kenneth was again inclined to believe that what had happened the night before was simply a matter of nerves. He said nothing about it to his friends, and though Sheena and Hector pulled his leg at breakfast about being scared of escorting Veronica Jane to Drumeden Farm, he merely smiled and allowed them to believe that this diagnosis was correct — as of course it was, to some extent.
Mrs. Connacher did her best to reassure him.
"Dinna be shy wi' her," she said. "Whiles the maist modem lookin' lassie is the kindest an' maist innocent, it's the douce, quiet sort that are gey often dangerous."
"I hope you don't include me in the second category,"
laughed Sheena. "I'm quiet and douce enough"
"Now, don't you go fishing for compliments," interrupted Nellie, severely. “You’re different. You’re a schoolteacher.” Hector laughed and clapped the table with a heavy hand, making the cups dance; and in the confusion Kenneth escaped.
At the hotel he saw Morag McShannon — a regal lady with a pronounced shade of purple lipstick to match her raven hair; and though she was harassed at the time with the morning chores of a busy hostess, she was able to assure him that to the best of her knowledge none of her guests had been out after ten o’clock the previous night. Kenneth rubbed his chin and went to look for Veronica Jane.
As he entered the hall he saw her coming downstairs, wearing a pastel blue sweater and navy slacks. The gay trimness of her appearance made him feel a drab kind of character himself. But though he didn’t notice it, her eyes brightened as soon as she saw him.
“Say, Sergeant,” she cried, running lightly down the last few steps, “I am glad to see you. Aren’t we lucky! I guess the weather’s going to be perfect.”
“Looks like it.” Her fresh enthusiasm made him smile in spite of himself. He glanced at her strong brogues. “I see you’re sensibly clad for the heather,” he added, approvingly.
“Of course. I told you before I’m not nearly so fragile and feminine as I look sometimes.”
“I — er — you’re not fragile — in any way at all,” he said, the words spilling out unbidden.
She laughed. “Is that a compliment — or not?”
He grinned suddenly. “You never can tell with policemen,” he said.
“Sergeant MacDonald!” she exclaimed, and stood back to look up at him with a puckered brow. “I don’t believe you’re nearly so gruff and — and official as you look!”
“Perhaps not,” he returned and was about to enlarge on the subject when the dining-room door opened and two men appeared in the hall loudly discussing golf in general and John Panton in particular.
From Veronica Jane’s description Kenneth recognized at once the small bristly moustache of one and the lanky golfer’s hands of the other, and when she beckoned them over to be introduced he had an idea that both Colonel Huskisson-Smythe and Arthur Paterson greeted him without much fervour. But whether their coolness derived from guilty consciences or from the fact that he appeared to be an intimate friend of Veronica Jane’s, he could not decide.
It was obvious, however, that Paterson, though possibly an ally, could not be Max Bergman himself. Bergman was slim and of medium height. Paterson was a tall man, gawky and big-boned. Huskisson-Smythe, on the other hand, possessed a build not unlike the Actor’s. But though Kenneth studied him closely as they talked, he could find no definite resemblance between the Army man and the ‘'electrical engineer” he had encountered on Rest-and-be-thankful. The Colonel had a habit of touching the ends of his moustache; but there was no sign of drumming fingers.
“What are your plans for this evening, Miss MacKay?” he queried hurriedly, turning his back on Kenneth. “Mr. Paterson and I have hired a boat from the local fisherman chap — Ned MacCallum I think his name is. Have you met him?”
“I have,” replied Veronica Jane, with demure innocence.
“What about it, then?” continued the Colonel. “Plenty of lithe and saithe out there in the bay, I’ll be bound.”
“I’m so sorry,” she answered. “I have another appointment. Another time, perhaps?”
The Colonel frowned with disappointment, and Kenneth eyed his charge with disfavour. He had hoped that by now she would have decided against the proposed poaching expedition with Wee Ned; but it appeared as if she had every intention of going on with it.
“A game of golf this afternoon instead?” suggested Paterson. “Decent little course, you know. Short but tricky. I’d be delighted to show you round.”
She shook her head, looking up into his eyes with a soulful expression which infuriated Kenneth. “Oh dear, I seem to be awfully unsociable. But I’m just on my way to see my father’s old home with Mr. MacDonald here — Drumeden Farm,’way up among the hills. And as I’m going out in the evening I really think I should rest this afternoon. Being rather delicate, you know.”
Kenneth felt better at once. Anyone hardier and stronger than Veronica Jane he had never come across, and her final remark must obviously have been made to side-step Paterson’s invitation. On the same basis, her soulful attitude had probably been assumed in order to balance her refusal. It occurred to him suddenly that for the first time he had been able to read a woman's mind.
“It's her heart, you know," he murmured.
Veronica Jane's eyes were almost as startled as the two men's; but she rallied quickly.
“We must be going," she said, touching Kenneth's arm. Then she smiled to the others. “I do hope you have a nice day, golfing and fishing."
Five minutes later, as Kenneth and his charge left the rough cart-track and began a short-cut across the hills, she glanced at him sideways.
“How did you know I had heart-trouble?" she inquired.
He reddened. “Perhaps I should have kept quiet. It was just to help you out."
She said nothing in reply; but he considered that her expression was rather odd. Then all of a sudden he had an idea — an idea which caused him acute discomfort and annoyance. Her silence could mean only one thing. She did have heart-trouble — figurative heart-trouble on account of young Dr. Cameron…
To reach Drumeden they had to cross the valley in which the Hydro-Electric Company was constructing a dam. Spanning the neck of Glen Eden, the giant white curve of concrete was complete except for a small, irregular gap in the centre. As they approached the works from the shoulder of Cnoc Ban, wading down almost knee-deep in heather, they could see men swarming like ants around the gap.
The impression of beauty and smoothness was soon dissipated, however, when they reached the side of the dam. Concrete-mixers, cranes and bulldozers whined and roared in a cacophony of sound which echoed through the windless glen like a blast of sin.
“I thought all the hustlers were in the States," said Veronica Jane, wrinkling her nose as they picked their way through a litter of duck-boards and cement-heaps.
Kenneth smiled. “We're quite expert when we make up our minds to do a thing. Trouble is, we're usually so long in making up our minds."
“I've noticed that," she answered.
To their right was a huge hole gaping out at the very top of the glen. They could see how the water from a distant loch would come gushing through this tunnel-mouth and fill the area behind the dam. Directly underneath the hole was a square of Nissen huts. In one of them Kenneth found the man in charge of personnel. He had a stubble of reddish beard on a stout and weatherbeaten face, and he wore a bowler-hat like a badge of office. Behind his ear was a pencil-stub.
His small red-rimmed eyes studied Kenneth with belligerent suspicio
n. But when they went together into his untidy office, leaving Veronica Jane sitting on a plank outside, his expression changed at once on seeing the other’s official card.
“Detective, eh? What’s up?”
“Keep it to yourself,’’ Kenneth said. “I’m making a few inquiries about an American criminal. Max Bergman his name is — called the Actor in police circles. I’ve reason to believe he’s in this district, masquerading under an assumed identity. He probably arrived here yesterday or the night before last, and I was just wondering if you engaged any new men within the past forty-eight hours.’’
The foreman frowned. “Not one,’’ he answered. “Not one, I tell you.’’ He expressed himself in a downright, opinionative way, which probably accounted for his position of authority; but an underlying lack of self-confidence was apparent in his habit of loudly repeating himself. “This is a Glasgow firm,’’ he explained, “and most of our men — even the labourers — are permanent. We did take on a couple o’ Irishmen a fortnight ago, but they wouldn’t be in your line.”
“How many do you employ altogether?”
“About a hundred and fifty.”
“Would it be possible for someone to dress up as a workman and live among the crowd without your knowing it?”
The foreman uttered a short laugh. “No fears! I keep an eye on them. Anyway, they work in recognized squads and a stranger would be noticed at once. I said a stranger would be noticed at once.”
“I see. So you’re positive Max Bergman’s not in this outfit?”
“Positive. Absolutely.”
“What about the staff? I mean the surveyors, consulting engineers — in other words the bosses?”
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'There’s not many. Know them all well. I said I know them all well, and I haven’t seen any new faces around.”
"You'd be told if there were any changes?”
"Yes, indeed. I run the canteen — second hut to the right out there. Get the numbers every morning — staff and labourers. Push everything on to me they do. Even last month when the B.B.C. arrived — Workers’ Playtime from Glen Eden — I had to do all the arranging. All the arranging, I said.”
Kenneth sighed. "Thanks a lot,” he murmured. "Sorry to have troubled you at this time of morning… By the way, do the men sleep here at nights?”
"No. We go back to Campbeltown by bus — about five o’clock every evening. Twelve on Saturdays. Most of us live there in digs and hostels. Not much of a life, I tell you.” He pushed back his bowler-hat and spat on the wooden floor…
Kenneth continued his walk with Veronica Jane, climbing up the opposite side of the valley through a profusion of heather and bracken. She asked no questions about the interview, for which he was thankful. In fact her usual gay chatter was conspicuous by its absence, and it gave him time to think.
As they reached the far shoulder of the hill and struck across country, he found himself relieved in one way and disappointed in another: relieved that to all appearances his casting about for Bergman need not be done in the confused and difficult locality of the new dam; disappointed because at the back of his mind he had harboured the idea that the Actor would be very likely to choose the Hydro-Electric Scheme as a camouflage. But he did not explain his mood to Veronica Jane, in case he might spoil the pleasure and excitement of her first sight of Drumeden.
The present tenant of the farm was a youngish man with a pleasant smile and a tall and dignified red-haired wife. Donald Craig welcomed the visitors with enthusiasm; and after he had shown them round, smiling at Veronica Jane’s exclamations of delight over the quaint, old-fashioned outhouses in which her father had played as a boy, over the calves and chickens and lambs and young pigs, he took them into a peat-scented parlour where Mrs. Craig was waiting to serve a snack of buttermilk and oatcakes.
It was after twelve o’clock when they left the farm at last and began their journey back to the hotel across the torn and busy valley. The scramble up the shoulder of Cnoc Ban almost took their breath away, and as they reached the highest point she caught his arm.
“Let’s sit down. I guess I’m tired after that!”
They chose a flat-topped boulder showing above the heather. Her eyes were sparkling, and her fair hair was blown about her head. There was vivid colour in her cheeks.
“You don’t look tired,” he returned.
She smiled. “That’s the nicest thing a man can possibly tell a woman!”
For a time they sat in silence. Then, with a characteristic sideways dart of thought, she said: “Your childhood sweetheart seems to be more interested in Hector nowadays.”
He wrinkled his brows. “My childhood sweetheart?”
“Sheena Mathieson. Didn’t you notice yesterday how she fussed around him when he upset the pot-stand?”
“Yes. But good heavens — Sheena was never my sweetheart, childhood or otherwise. What on earth gave you that impression?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a passing thought… Kenneth, do you think there might be something between them?”
“Between Sheena and Hector?”
“Yes.”
He grinned. “You’re a Yankee hustler and no mistake! Give them time.”
“I’m not sure if it would turn out very well, even though there was.” She leaned forward, thoughtfully cupping her chin on her hands. “Hector’s an artist, living in a world of his own. Would she ever get inside that world — to share his thoughts and ideals?”
He saw the soaring green sides of the glen beneath and heard the monotonous rumble of machinery. High above them a lark was singing.
“Perhaps not,” he returned, quietly. Then he chopped off a branch of heather with his stick. “You’re in a queer mood today,” he said.
“Am I now?” She jumped up and twirled round like a dancer. “How do you like my new sweater and slacks?” she inquired, her arms outstretched to model the clothes to their best advantage.
Kenneth liked them very much indeed. They appeared to him exactly right for Glendale, just as her wispy hat and sophisticated suit had appeared exactly right for town. But he remembered he was a policeman — very much on duty — and was cautious in his reply.
“Very nice,’ he conceded. “The different shades of blue go well with your — er — fair hair.”
She smiled as if satisfied and returned to her seat on the stone.
“I'm wearing them tonight,” she told him. “With an old mackintosh.”
He understood now. This was it — the long-delayed climax to their poaching argument. In spite of himself, he couldn't help admiring the skilful way in which she had introduced the subject and the pains she had taken to choose a suitable time and place for its discussion — when he was comfortable and relaxed on the quiet hill.
“Don't be sore with me,” she went on. “It's just to please Ned. I wish you’d come.”
He resolved to be calm — calm and reasonable.
“My dear Miss MacKay,” he began but was interrupted by a flicker of her long lashes.
“Why so formal?” she complained. “I've called you Kenneth. And I’m really very young, you know — quite a child compared with you…”
I must keep calm, he told himself. No matter what happens I must keep calm. What age does she think I am, anyway! He swallowed, struggling to remember what he had intended to say.
“My dear — er — Veronica Jane,” he continued, at last, “I've told you before it's out of the question for a policeman to take part in a poaching expedition. In this case it's quite innocent and harmless — I know. But…”
“Then I'll go by myself, though it won't be nearly so much fun.”
He flicked a gnat from his flannels. His voice was controlled, even grim. “Don't you understand? I can't allow you to go by yourself. The Actor may be watching every move you make; and if anything should happen”
“But nothing can happen — with Ned to look after me.”
“It might. He's not a policeman.”
Her eyes flashed.
Colour mounted in her cheeks. “I think you’re unreasonable,” she said, her chin lifting. I’ll be just as safe in the dark as out here in daylight”
“You won’t.” His studied calm was waning; his voice had taken on a brittle quality. “I shan’t be with you in the dark.”
“Then why not come? Even if we do catch a few rabbits, I guess it won’t hurt a soul.”
He raised his stick and thrust the ferrule into the peaty ground at his feet. “I keep telling you, I’m not going. I'm a policeman…”
“Sure you’re a policeman. Am I ever allowed to forget it! But that’s not the reason. You’re dead scared!”
“Scared! Don’t be childish!”
“You're being childish!”
She rose, abruptly. Within herself, she knew that she was acting like a spoilt child — that for her own safety she ought to accept his experienced advice. But the perverse imp of mischief in her brain had taken control, making her reckless and contrary.
“In any case,” she continued, as she led the way downhill, “in any case, I’m going out with Ned tonight, no matter what you say!”
She heard him increase his pace, and with an odd sensation of mingled guilt, apprehension and anticipation, she began to run. But before she had covered a dozen yards in the clinging heather he had overtaken her. His hands were on her shoulders, whirling her round like a ninepin.
He shook her. He gripped her so tightly that the crook of the stick in his left hand bit into the flesh of her arm. But she looked up at him with unflinching defiance. Then her red lips parted, and her breathing became irregular as she saw the bright anger in his eyes.
“You’re not going tonight,” he said. “You needn’t think because you’re a pretty girl, because you’ve been pampered and spoilt all your life — that you can get your own way every time. I’m in command here, for the next three weeks at any rate.”
Far down in the glen a curlew rose with a sharp, melancholy cry. But neither of them heard it. They stood facing each other, their wills clashing, a strange new emotion pulsing in their veins.
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