The Screaming Gull

by Angus MacVicar

  With my pulses throbbing I leaped through the gateway and knelt down beside the body; and, just before the moon again disappeared, I saw that it was Merriman. I put a shaking hand beneath the coat and flannel jacket and to my relief felt the faint flutter of his heart. But oozing through my fingers when I withdrew them was a thick, sticky fluid like melting tar.

  Black as coal, on the vanishing of the moon, the darkness again descended. And fear once more discovered my weakness. I had the feeling that near at hand someone — a potential murderer — was watching and waiting. A queer cold finger ran downwards along my spine, and the muscles of my back tightened involuntarily, as if by their very hardening I should be able to withstand the impact of a bullet.

  And in my terror I found myself possessing unusual strength. I am fairly tall and broad, but up to that eventful day I had always agreed with the opinion, held in common by my sister and aunt, that I was delicate, and lacking in full vigour. Now, however, I lifted Merriman’s inert form in my arms with scarcely an effort and walked quickly with him towards the cottage.

  It was with great thankfulness that I regained the hall, and, after laying Merriman on a couch in the parlour, once again barred the door. If it lay within my power, there would be no more shooting that night.

  Aunt Jane, to whom I called, was horrified when she saw Merriman’s condition. She wept a little and asked questions until I made her bring some hot water to bathe the bullet wound, which, situated just above the heart, was bleeding slowly. She became quite efficient and composed while her hands were occupied, though the grey pigtails which formed her nightly coiffure shook suspiciously as she worked.

  “I must phone for the local doctor. Anderson’s his name, isn’t it?” I saw that the preparations for first aid were well in hand. “What’s his number?”

  “Cairngarroch three. He lives only four houses away… Oh, William, what is the meaning of all this?”

  I was rude enough not to answer, hurrying instead to the telephone in the hall.

  *

  Dr. Anderson, whom I was seeing for the first time, was a young man with a dark, lined face and thin hands. He looked sleepy and irritable when I ushered him in, his small, emaciated figure muffled in a heavy cloth overcoat. The look in his dark brown eyes was interrogative, but I was determined to give nothing away at the moment. All I had told him over the wire was that a friend of mine had met with a nasty accident in my aunt’s home.

  The irritable expression vanished from his face, however, when he saw his patient. He bent over the couch with an exclamation.

  “Attempted murder!” he snapped, when he glanced at the wound. “Isn’t that so, Mr. Dunbar?”

  “Murder!” I retorted. “Nonsense! He was examining his revolver when it suddenly went off in his hand.”

  It was a lame enough explanation, I knew; but it was the only one I could think of on the spur of the moment.

  Dr. Anderson grunted and continued deftly with his probing of the wound; while Aunt Jane, shivering in her dressing-gown, looked at me curiously. But I kept my face steady.

  I had a fair idea that Merriman, were he conscious, would do all in his power to keep secret the fact that he had been shot at. Whatever his calling, it was not one, apparently, that could succeed in the light of publicity; for earlier in the evening he has asked me specially to curb my curiosity regarding his affairs. And were the local reporters to get on the scent of an attempted murder the whole country would soon be aware of the circumstance.

  In my opinion it was for me to shield Merriman until he could speak and act for himself. He had been a guest in my aunt’s house, and it was my duty, therefore, to try and carry out his wishes to the best of my ability. Furthermore, I had conceived a considerable respect for his determination and courage and it was the least I could do to help him in his difficulty.

  At the same time, however, I knew that it must be obvious to the doctor and to Aunt Jane that both Merriman and I had been outside; for our clothes had been rendered damp by the recent sleet shower.

  “A fairly serious wound,” announced Dr. Anderson when he had completed his bandaging. “But I’ve got the bullet out and I don’t think it will be long before your friend regains consciousness. He has a slight concussion, too. Must have been caused by his head striking the — er — floor when he felt shot. We should be able to move him to the Stranraer Cottage Hospital tomorrow. I’m afraid he’ll have to spend a good many days in bed.”

  Between us the doctor and I carried the insensible man upstairs to Aunt Jane’s spare room, where we dressed him in a pair of my pyjamas and made him comfortable in the big wooden-posted bed. I sent my aunt off to her bedroom with instructions that she was to go to sleep at once. She seemed a little resentful that I should be doing the ordering; for she had been accustomed to rule me with a prettily beribboned rod of iron. Nevertheless, she did as I suggested.

  “I’ll be round again first thing in the morning,” said the doctor shortly. “He ought to have recovered consciousness by then.”

  “Very well,” I answered. “Thanks for turning out so quickly on such a night.”

  For a moment he stood regarding the heavily breathing man lying on the bed; and it was then, I think, that I first began definitely to dislike Dr. Anderson. His eyes were cold and calculating and the notion struck me like a flash that I had aroused his suspicions. It was clear that he had not believed a word of what I had said regarding the cause of Merriman’s wound.

  “Has your friend shown you the queer mark on his left forearm?” he asked.

  I was taken aback.

  “Mark?” I said. “What mark?”

  He took a step towards the bed and rolled back Merriman’s sleeve.

  “See it?”

  I peered at the brown arm, only very scantily covered by fair, soft hairs; and I was surprised to see a blue-black picture tattooed there, some two inches below the elbow joint on the inner side. It represented a flying seagull with its beak open, as if it were in the act of calling.

  “Oh, that!” I exclaimed as lightly as I could. “He was a sailor, you know.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound, thought I.

  “A sailor,” remarked the little, young doctor slowly, his dark, suspicious eyes fixed on my face. “Of course, there may be no connection, but once before — in my student days — I attended another much younger man who had a tattoo-mark similar in every respect. He had been stabbed in a back street in Edinburgh. He was the son of a duke.”

  *

  I sat with Merriman throughout that night, dozing sometimes and starting up fearfully as some memory of the previous day chased across my half-dreaming mind. Towards morning the wind abated and the sleet showers became less frequent. I began to long for the winter daylight, though it was warm and comfortable in the bedroom.

  It would be about six o’clock when Merriman suddenly stirred, moaning a little as he strove to raise his head from the low pillow. I put my hand on his shoulder to soothe him, and he sank back as if exhausted by his efforts. Then slowly he opened his eyes. I thought at first that he did not recognize me; but after a while he spoke in a small, strained voice.

  “You again, Dunbar… There’s no use you trying to help me, old man. You’ll only get into trouble — you and Miss Mathieson.”

  Then his mind seemed to start wandering.

  “Let me go!” he cried “Let me go, Dunbar! I must be on my road. Oh, my God! It’s so hard! But I must find her. I must find the Blind One. It’s life or death for Britain. It’s hell on earth and carnage and sin if I fail… Look Dunbar! There they are following me. They know I am looking for the Blind One… If I do not find her before February the first then the sweetness of the world departs…”

  He grew quiet again, and I thought he had relapsed into complete unconsciousness. But in a moment he was talking fast and feverishly once more.

  “It’s all round me. It’s fluttering round my head… Heaven’s mercy. I see it! I see it! ‘The Screaming Gull!’”<
br />
  I did my best to help him, talking to him softly and trying to explain that he must lie quiet. And ultimately he dropped into a heavy slumber. But I sat on beside him until Dr. Anderson came at nine, wondering what terrible task Merriman had been set to accomplish before February the first. Whatever it was he could not now, being wounded, hope to succeed unaided, for the morning of January the twenty-fourth had dawned.

  The doctor was not so pleased with his patient on this occasion.

  “He’s running a high temperature, Dunbar,” he complained. “What’s he been like during the night?”

  “Raving a bit and very restless.”

  “Something on his mind.”

  While Dr. Anderson was putting a new dressing on the wound Merriman woke up, probably on account of the pain. His eyes were glazed and there was an unhealthy flush on his cheeks.

  “What day is it?” he exclaimed. “What is the date?”

  Dr. Anderson answered before I had time to interpose.

  “Wednesday, the twenty-fourth.”

  Merriman raised his hand feebly to his forehead.

  “Seven days!” he muttered. “When can I get up, Doctor?”

  “Probably in about a fortnight,” returned Dr. Anderson callously and with coolness. “I booked a bed for you in Stranraer Cottage Hospital this morning. The ambulance should be round in an hour or two.”

  I saw Merriman close his eyes wearily and lie still; and like this he remained until the doctor had gone.

  Then suddenly he rose up on his elbow and gripped my arm with his free hand. He looked at me very seriously for a moment, and his sweat-damp brows went down in an effort to keep his mind from straying.

  “Dunbar!” he said at last. “Will you do something for me?”

  “Certainly,” I answered. “I shall be only too glad to do anything that will keep you from worrying. As long as you keep fretting your wound won’t heal.”

  “I should consider it a great favour, Dunbar,” he said very slowly, “if you would go personally to Sir David MacLaren and tell him exactly what has happened to me. He lives at Nineteen Park Terrace, Edinburgh. And if you go, please keep your mission secret.”

  I promised readily to carry out his wishes, for I liked him and wanted to see his mind easy. Later I detailed to him the story I had told Aunt Jane and Dr. Anderson to explain his wound, and he sank back as if relieved. His fever seemed to pass and he slept quietly and easily, like a tired child.

  My aunt came in about ten o’clock to relieve me of my vigil at the bedside.

  I slept soundly, until four in the afternoon. Then I got up, shaved, dressed carefully and packed a suitcase. I ascertained that Merriman had been removed to hospital about midday, talked seriously to Aunt Jane when she told me I was a fool to be worrying about the affairs of the firm so soon after my illness, and thereafter set out upon my adventures.

  Chapter 2

  Though my home was in Stranraer I had been in Edinburgh frequently attending to business. But when I stepped out of the train that night on to the long platform at Princes Street Station I was filled with an excitement which the city had never before occasioned me.

  I had forgotten my influenza. I had forgotten that I was a tender plant requiring careful attention. Though I was admittedly extremely nervous I felt as fit as a three-year-old colt. I even smiled a little to myself when in the draughty station I raised a hand to adjust my scarf and found that I had forgotten to put it on. Shades of Aunt Jane!

  Throughout the journey I had been thinking steadily of Merriman. What strange secret did he keep locked in his brain? What had he meant by saying that it was the end for Britain if he did not find some unknown woman by the first of February — next Thursday? What was ‘The Screaming Gull’? And would the brave little man recover from the dangerous wound above his heart?

  Now, however, I gave up asking myself futile questions. My immediate purpose was to interview Sir David MacLaren — whoever that gentleman might be — at Nineteen Park Terrace, and I would need a clear head to accomplish the task with success. The situation was apparently one of extreme urgency and I decided that I should see him that night though I had to rouse him from his bed.

  I was crossing the roadway to the long taxi-rank, when one of the uniformed drivers sprang from his vehicle and approached me.

  “Taxi, sir?” he inquired pleasantly.

  He was a young man, I saw, with flaxen hair and a heavy chin. His eyes were a queer shade of grey.

  “Thank you,” I answered, thinking his enterprise commendable. “Do you know Park Terrace? On the South Side, isn’t it?”

  “I know it well, sir.”

  “Good! Take me to Number Nineteen quickly.”

  I climbed into the dark interior of the taxi, which stood a little to the rear of the others, and, placing my suitcase at my feet, leaned back against the cushions.

  I think it must have been those cushions that first aroused my suspicions, for they were remarkably luxurious for a taxi. And then the speed at which the vehicle began to travel when it emerged from the station into the streets was too great for an ordinary city conveyance.

  We whisked past buses and private cars at a rate which brought my heart to my throat. Several times I glanced at the street names and was annoyed and frightened to see that we were careering eastwards in the direction of Calton Hill, and steadily farther and farther away from Park Terrace.

  Twice I rapped loudly on the glass behind the driver’s head, but the fair-haired young man took no notice of my signal. I began to feel a little sick and for a moment I was on the verge of panic. My teeth were chattering like a monkey’s. But I clenched my hands and endeavoured to keep cool.

  Obviously I had been led neatly into a trap. I had been a very innocent youth indeed. Merriman’s enemies must have learned of my hurried departure from Cairngarroch, and, discovering that I had taken a ticket to Edinburgh from Stranraer, phoned up accomplices in the city to see me safely out of the way for the time being. They would guess, of course, that it had been Merriman’s business which I had caused me to set out so hurriedly. I was innocent, without a doubt.

  But why, I thought, should I weep over spilt milk? I had been a fool. It was my duty now to retrieve the position. I wondered what a brave man would have done in such a case — a brave man who was determined to visit the house of Sir David MacLaren that night in spite of all the thugs in Scotland.

  I knew that to attempt to leap from the taxi while it was going at such speed was to risk instant death. To break the glass partition and knock the driver on the head would also be courting disaster. If I were to lean out of the window and attract the attention of a policeman all sorts of explanations would be necessary, and Merriman’s name would certainly have to be dragged into them… In my predicament I swore aloud, luxuriously and long. And it may be noted that until that moment I hadn’t used a swear word since I was a little boy at school.

  Then suddenly an idea came to me, and I was somewhat shocked at my own temerity.

  The taxi, which had made a quick turn to the right, was purring along North Bridge, quite near the Scotsman offices. At intervals we passed brightly-lit trams, filled with suburban residents returning from the central amusement halls, most of which were moving quickly, for at that hour the streets were fairly clear.

  Slowly we drew closer to one tram which seemed to be emptier than the others we had left behind, and for a second or two, at the Tron corner, our quick passage was retarded by a private car in front. Between the pavement and the great, swaying vehicle we went, the youthful driver sounding his horn loudly in an effort to speed up the motor-car ahead.

  As the nose of my taxi gradually drew up to the platform of the tram I opened the door. I prayed that the driver might not hear my preparations and begin swerving.

  I waited until there was less than three feet between the running-board on which I stood and the platform of the tram. For a fraction of a second the two were running parallel at the same speed, and at th
at moment, with a supplication in my heart, I leaned out across the gulf. I gripped the upright steel bar at the rear of the tram and pulled myself vigorously forward. As I did so I was whisked away from the taxi and I heard its swinging door hit the side of the larger vehicle and, on the rebound, click shut.

  I landed on the platform with a thud and was hauled roughly to my feet by an angry conductor who emerged hurriedly from the interior of the tram.

  “What the hell!” he demanded with great frankness. “Are ye a film star?”

  “I’m sorry!” I gasped.

  I was trembling like a leaf with the reaction which had set in after my strange feat of acrobatics and with relief that I was rid of the mysterious taxi. I glimpsed its tail light passing out of vision in front as, supported by the conductor, I stood unsteadily on the swaying platform.

  “What’s the big idea?” asked the conductor, whose thirst for knowledge, it appeared, was insatiable.

  “Did it for a bet,” I replied, shaking. “Won’t you share my good fortune?”

  I handed him half a crown, and his eyes lighting up, he grinned.

  “Ye’re a plucky customer!” he said.

  Now, no one had ever before complimented me on my courage and my sudden surprised pride helped considerably to make me forget the trembling sensation in my legs. I got off at the next stop, feeling much easier in my mind, and waved goodbye to the conductor, who had informed me of the number of a bus, which, passing up towards Princes Street, would take me direct to Park Terrace. It was when I was almost at my destination that I remembered that I had left my suitcase in the taxi.

  *

  Number nineteen, I found, was a great, square building standing almost in the centre of the semicircle of wealthy homes which constituted the Terrace. The whole area was quiet and still, for it was past midnight and the majority of the families would be in bed. No light showed in the curtained windows of Sir David MacLaren’s house.