Escort to Adventure

by Angus MacVicar

Quite suddenly the tension drained from her body. Her glance dropped, and she swayed weakly towards him.

  “Oh, Kenneth!” she whispered.

  He held her at arm's length. He had an instinct to comfort her, to substitute tenderness for this rough and bitter conduct; but he hardened his heart. Her capitulation was probably only a sham — a temporary truce which would enable her to resume the struggle at a more opportune time.

  The moment passed. His hands fell from her shoulders. She turned away, and without another word they made quickly towards the hotel…

  During the afternoon, as he sat trying to read the daily paper in Mrs. Connacher’s front garden, Kenneth’s conscience began to trouble him. He was sorry for his ungallant outburst and would have given up his promotion to wipe it from the record. Besides, he had come to appreciate Veronica Jane’s point of view.

  She was young and adventurous, visiting her father’s native parish for the first time. In spite of the Actor, she was ready and, in fact, determined to enjoy herself. She was a grand-daughter of the spirited Jane Dallas, and as such had responded to Wee Ned’s invitation in a perfectly natural way.

  Furthermore, he knew that there was nothing gravely wrong with the idea of poaching an occasional rabbit. As long as the practice remained within reasonable bounds, the old laird, Sir William MacNeil, had blinked at it, for there was an abundance of rabbits on his estate for everyone; and though Mr. Albert Woodward, the new laird, a retired business man from Manchester, appeared to be a much less accommodating type of man — “a sliddery Sassenach”, according to Nellie — Kenneth admitted to himself that had it not been for his strong sense of duty, he himself would have been just as eager as Veronica Jane to arrange a night’s “ploy” with Wee Ned.

  Mrs. Connacher saw that he was worried and produced her panacea for all emotional crises — a cup of strong tea. He drank it and felt better.

  Afterwards he wandered down by the shore. There he found Hector, long hair lifting in the breeze, mouth streaked with paint sucked from his brushes, earnestly engaged on the background of his picture. Hearing footsteps on the rocks, the artist swung round from his easel.

  "Kenneth!’’ he exclaimed, with relief. “I’m in an awful jam. That grey-green colour on Dunaverty — am I getting it right?’’

  Kenneth stood at ten yards range. He saw the shape of the great rock leap out of the canvas, with a force that almost took his breath away. Its shape and colour, as Hector had painted them, were far from being photographic; but the impression of strength and majesty was there, unmistakable to the eye of the mind.

  He saw Hector’s anxious look and smiled. "The grey-green colour would be all wrong — in a kodachrome," he said. "But what’s more important, in your picture Dunaverty is exactly right. I knew you were a popular painter before the war, Hector — but I didn’t realize until now that you’re a great one, too.’’

  Hector stood motionless, the sea pulsing on the rocks behind him, gannets flashing white above his easel. Then he blushed dark red and dropped one of his brushes. He retrieved it from a salty cranny and sucked it clean.

  "I — I” He broke off. He thrust his long hair back with a sweeping motion of his hand. "Thanks, Kenneth,’’ he said.

  They sat down and watched the gannets diving for herring in the Bay.

  "She’s coming on Saturday — tomorrow," announced the artist, presently.

  "Sheena, you mean?’’

  "Yes. As a model. Wearing that yellow frock, and with her dark hair loose." Hector’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "I think this is going to be a real picture at last," he added.

  But Kenneth was silent. He was remembering what Veronica Jane had said about their new friend and the young schoolteacher. He felt a vague unhappiness for Sheena’s sake. She had obviously become interested in Hector — and Hector in her. But whereas she regarded him as a person — a living person of flesh and blood, Kenneth was afraid that the artist was seeing her only as a model in a yellow dress.

  After a while, however, he forgot about Sheena in the urgency of his own problem.

  "Hector!’’ he said, abruptly, as the other, detecting a flaw in the evening light, began to dismantle his easel. "I wonder if you’d do something for me?"

  “Of course. Tell me the worst!”

  In a matter-of-fact voice which bore no relation to his true feelings Kenneth described his difference of opinion with Veronica Jane.

  “I — er — I’ve been thinking it over,” he concluded, still trying hard to achieve detachment, “and I may have been a bit hard on her. She’s dead keen on going out tonight, and I was wondering if you could possibly go along with her and Ned — in my place, as it were — to keep an eye on things. If anything did go wrong — well, judging from what happened on Rest-and-be-thankful the other day, you’d be able to give a good account of yourself… I know it’s asking a great deal, and it may seem strange for a policeman to suggest such a thing, but” he hesitated.

  Hector was smiling from ear to ear.

  “My dear chap!” he exclaimed. “I’m rarin’ to go! So not another word. I quite understand it would be awkward for…”

  “It’s not that altogether,” interrupted Kenneth, flushing. “I’d risk it, I think. But it would mean going back on my word — and giving in to her!”

  Hector chuckled. “I see!” he said, adding in a tone of sympathetic understanding: “Quite a handful, this Veronica Jane of yours!”

  “Yes, indeed.” Kenneth got to his feet. “I’d better go up to the hotel and let her know you’re joining the party.”

  He found her in the sun-lounge with a tall, thin, bespectacled lady to whom she was describing the beauties of Glendale — and particularly of Glen Eden — as if she were a native. The lady regarded Kenneth somewhat sourly when her companion, becoming oddly tense, brought the conversation to an end and came to meet him.

  “That’s Miss Cunningham,” confided Veronica Jane with a valiant effort to appear at ease. “A retired missionary from the Gold Coast, who obviously thinks I’m a brand ready to be plucked from the burning… Kenny boy, do I look like a heathen?”

  As they went out into the hall he couldn’t help laughing. “You can never judge people by how they look,” he returned, ambiguously.

  They stood at the front door, high above the sparkling bay.

  "I — I'm sorry about this morning,” he said, presently. "You were quite right — I was unreasonable.”

  "So I'm to be allowed out tonight after all,” she replied, with a quick change of expression which puzzled him. "Are you coming, then?”

  "No. But Hector is. He’s looking forward to it.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Thanks a lot, Kenneth. It’s nice having a master-mind to arrange the details of one’s life.”

  He was taken aback. He had expected gratitude for his apology and change of outlook. Instead, unpredictable as ever, she had ignored his good intentions and treated him to a broadside of sarcasm at point-blank range.

  Before he could think of a suitable retort she was gone — no doubt to resume her talk with the female missionary in the sun-lounge.

  Chapter 8

  The Poachers

  That evening Kenneth was restless. His usually steady nerves were on edge.

  Mrs. Connacher and Sheena Mathieson had gone to a W.R.I. meeting in the village hall; and when Hector, cheerfully whistling "The Lincolnshire Poacher”, went off to keep his appointment with Veronica Jane and Ned MacCallum, he was left alone in the cottage.

  He tried to read a novel, but the meagre light of the oil-lamp in his room made concentration difficult. He kept thinking of what the three adventurers might be doing. He wondered if Wee Ned were despising him for his lack of spirit and if Veronica Jane really thought him as much of a wet blanket as her parting words at the hotel seemed to indicate.

  Finally, about nine o’clock, he decided to go out for a walk. The night was fine, and a moon rode up among the stars, spreading a shimmering line of
silver on the North Channel. But he turned his back on the sea and strode along the road in the opposite direction — towards the plantation which, three miles away, surrounded Glendale House.

  There were only a few shadowy figures in the village street — farm boys for the most part, on their way to the general store for cigarettes, sweets or lemonade. Passing the brightly lit hall, he heard a burst of feminine talk and laughter inside. With a grim smile he wondered how the Glendale W.R.I. would react to the news that their quiet parish had been — or would soon be — invaded by an American gangster.

  Before he reached the northern flank of the plantation, it was almost ten o'clock. He climbed the fence at the roadside, and by a path remembered from his boyhood began to make his way among the trees in the direction of the Con.

  It was so quiet and still that his footsteps seemed loud on the mossy undergrowth. A slight wind rustled through the upper branches of the trees, which murmured like ghosts. Here and there small animals moved in the grass, carefully keeping out of his way but still remaining close enough to watch.

  By this time, he calculated, Veronica Jane, Hector and Wee Ned would be at work in a certain clearing — one which the rabbits crossed at night on their way to drink and where, in the old days, he had spent many happy and exciting hours with the long net. He was fairly certain that Wee Ned's standby would still be the long net, laid in a wide curve on the edge of the plantation to intercept the rabbits scurrying back from the river. Kenneth could picture Veronica Jane and Hector acting as drivers, with Wee Ned, his torch flashing, darting about in high spirits as the fleeing rabbits struck the net and became entangled in its mesh.

  The path he was following began to slope down more steeply, and he knew he was approaching the river and the clearing. A few hundred yards to his left the trees thinned, and for a moment he had a glimpse in the moonlight of a substantial gable-end — part of the west wing of Glendale House. But as he proceeded quietly, cautiously — with scarcely a sound — the building vanished again behind a screen of unkempt rhododendron bushes, which overflowed from the lawns into the plantation.

  He was puzzled to account for his own actions. He had no intention of joining the others and would take care not to advertise his presence. Why, then, had he made this journey to the scene of the poaching expedition?

  In a flash of insight, he saw the answer. He had been drawn to the plantation simply because he was afraid that in his absence something might happen to Veronica Jane: not because she was officially under his protection, but because she was — Veronica Jane.

  And as a result of this moment of clear thinking, he now realized that the situation ought never to have occurred at all. By permitting Veronica Jane to take part in the expedition, he had allowed his head to be overruled by his heart — the first time such a thing had happened in his sober and industrious career as a policeman. He thanked his stars that Superintendent McIntosh was unaware of his most unprofessional conduct.

  He topped a slight rise, and the trees suddenly opened out in front. Hearing a murmur of voices, he halted in his tracks. The clearing lay about two hundred yards downhill — a glistening patch of pale green in the moonlight; and beyond it the sinuous burn shone like a thread of silver.

  As he watched, leaning against the smooth trunk of a larch, he imagined that he saw shadows in the clearing; but the light was so indefinite and the clearing so far away that he couldn't be certain. Then a torch flashed at the edge of the plantation, and he decided that his first impression had been correct. His friends were down there all right, enjoying themselves.

  He waited, content with a watching brief for as long as events took a normal course. Once he heard a thud, followed by a stifled shriek of feminine laughter. He smiled to himself, for it sounded as if Hector, much to Veronica Jane's amusement, had come a cropper on some unseen obstacle.

  All at once, as he leant against the tree, he became stiff as a wand. A few yards away, on his left, something moved. A man coughed and cleared his throat.

  Kenneth stared into the gloomy shadows. He made no attempt to conceal himself, aware that in all probability the stranger had already spotted him, his dark coat smudged against the silvery larch.

  Then a small, stout man, hatless and wearing a suit of Harris tweed plus-fours, came out into the open, his bald head gleaming.

  He regarded Kenneth with suspicion. “Who are you?” he demanded, in a brusque Lancashire accent. “Trespassing, eh?”

  Kenneth's mind was racing. From Nellie's description he recognized this clean-shaven, heavily jowled man as Mr. Albert Woodward, the new laird and owner of Glendale House. What was he doing, prowling in the wood at this time of night? Was he on the look-out for poachers? If so, then Veronica Jane, Hector and Wee Ned were in an extremely awkward position.

  Almost at once he decided on a plan of action. He smiled, with a hint of deference.

  “I'm on holiday — a police sergeant from Glasgow,” he explained, in a loud, clear voice which he hoped would carry as far as the clearing. “And if I'm trespassing, please accept my apologies. I was walking on the road, as a matter of fact, when I imagined I heard people talking and came to investigate.”

  The small man peered at him, his eyes wary. But it was obvious that Kenneth's words and manner had done a great deal to allay his suspicions.

  “Professional instinct, eh?”

  “More or less. I was born in Glendale — a son of the Rev. Peter MacDonald who used to be minister here. I remembered there used to be a lot of poachers in the old days, and as you say my professional instinct took the upper hand… I presume you're Mr. Woodward?”

  “You presume right, young man.” The laird was still on the alert, like a fat terrier nosing round a mastiff. “But for my part,” he went on, “I made my money by never presuming anything until it was proved, so if you don’t mind I'd like to see your police badge.”

  Kenneth had a momentary desire to kick this pompous and self-satisfied individual in the seat of his voluminous plus-fours; but with an effort he restrained himself. He fished in an inside pocket.

  “Here you are,” he said, not quite so pleasantly.

  Mr. Woodward struck a match and examined the badge. As he did so, Kenneth caught another glimpse of torchlight in the clearing and swore silently to himself. They hadn't heard his voice after all: they were still there — in danger.

  He saw a dry stick at his feet, half hidden in the undergrowth. As if eager to assist the laird, he stepped forward and trod on the stick, which snapped with an ear-splitting report.

  If that doesn't warn them, he thought, nothing will. But as Mr. Woodward started and looked up with a momentary frown, he assumed an expression of self-disgust.

  “Sorry!" he muttered.

  The other handed back the badge.

  “That's all right,'' he said, convinced at last that Kenneth was a genuine policeman. “Though if there were poachers about, they'll have skedaddled by this time — after all that row."

  “I am a clumsy idiot," agreed Kenneth. “But I may have been mistaken about the poachers. Did you hear anything yourself, sir?"

  The “sir" was a master stroke. The little man smiled and caught Kenneth's sleeve.

  “I always have a breath of air about this time," he explained, confidentially. “Like, to keep my eye on things. The old laird was a bit of a soft mark — but you don't catch me knuckling down to every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants a rabbit for the pot! Clod-hoppers who think they're smart! I don’t grudge’em the rabbits — they’re welcome to as many as they like, if they ask my permission. But I won't stand for poaching."

  Kenneth nodded, as if with understanding.

  “Just before you came along," continued the laird, “I thought I heard sounds in this direction, but it was probably yourself, lad, barging about like a rhinoceros!" He chuckled, wheezingly, delighted by his own sense of humour.

  Kenneth swallowed the insult to his professional competence. “No doubt you’re right, sir," he smiled.
“Everything’s as quiet as a church."

  But as he spoke there was a distant splash, as if someone in a hurry had dislodged a stone and sent it rolling into the Con. Mr. Woodward swung round towards the clearing. His grip tightened on Kenneth’s sleeve.

  “Look!" he exclaimed, in a fierce whisper. "Yonder — at the bend of the river!"

  Kenneth had already spotted a blur of figures against the background of silver water. But he played for time.

  "What is it? Can't see a thing!"

  "People running away." The laird was almost dancing in his excitement. "Go on, lad — after them! I'll follow you as quickly as I can."

  The distant, moving figures suddenly stopped, then crouched down and became invisible. Kenneth wondered anxiously what had happened. Had Wee Ned decided to lead his companions along the bed of the burn, where they would be concealed by its high bank? Or had there been an accident to one of the party?

  He made up his mind. "Right you are, sir!" he said. "I'll try to overtake them. If you hear me shouting you’ll know I need assistance."

  With the speedy grace of a trained athlete, he set off down the slope, hurdling a belt of whin with coat-tails flying. Far in the rear panted Mr. Woodward, wobbling, short stout legs thrusting a slow way among the clinging bracken and thick grass. Very soon Kenneth was nearly a hundred yards in front; and as he vaulted the fence at the edge of the clearing he caught sight of the laird still toiling in the belt of whins.

  He sprinted across the wiry grass towards the burn. And as he reached the bend where the shadows disappeared, he looked over the brink and saw the sheen of Veronica Jane's blond head directly below him. She and Hector were bending over Wee Ned, who, sitting on a lumpy roll of net, was quietly cursing and rubbing his left leg.

  "What’s happened?" he demanded, in a low voice.

  They looked up, startled.

  "Kenneth!" exclaimed Veronica Jane.

  Wee Ned gulped. "Went ower my ruddy ankle on a stane," he muttered.

  "He wanted Hector and me to go on and leave him," continued Veronica Jane, breathlessly. "But of course we refused."