Eileen shivered, and there was a long period of quiet at the table. James again lapsed into his black mood of depression. More than ever he felt himself to be an immeasurably small cog in the wheels of a mighty machine.
“What do the local force propose to make their next move?” asked the Rev. Duncan Nicholson at last.
And it was then that James suddenly remembered his excuse for visiting Dalbeg. After a moment’s hesitation he said:
“Miss Campbell, Major Dallas has an idea that you may be able to help us in our search for the shrine of Na Daoine Deadh Ghinn in Blaan.” He spoke very correctly, since they were not alone. “As you know, your father was … interrupted, just as he was on the point of explaining this matter to us last night. But before he was taken away he mentioned The Book of Dalriada. You will remember, Nicholson … Could you tell us, Miss Campbell, where we might have access to that book? It may prove to be of assistance to us should your father not recover sufficiently to … to speak to us before next Wednesday.”
“I can help you,” replied Eileen quietly, and James and the young minister waited expectantly.
“The Book of Dalraida,” she went on presently, “is one of the oldest of the Celtic writings to be preserved in print, dating almost as far back as The Red Book of Ulster. It is in Gaelic, of course, and is nothing more than a huge collection of old tales, poems and lists of place-names concerning Argyllshire and the West of Scotland generally. Kin tyre, as you know, once formed part of the ancient kingdom of Dalraida. A very old printed copy of the original manuscript — the only copy in existence, I believe — is at present in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University. Daddy often refers to it in his books.”
“We must see it at once,” said James with decision. “And we shall need you, Miss Campbell, to assist us in translating the Gaelic … You know Gaelic, of course?”
Eileen nodded. James, being acquainted with the characteristics of the members of the Kintyre Presbytery, was well enough aware that the Rev. Duncan Nicholson, despite his name, did not know a word of the old tongue.
For some time there was a strained silence. And an ancient document was not the cause. It was an ancient emotion. But at last the Rev. Duncan Nicholson solved the problem, temporarily at least.
“We could fly to Glasgow to-morrow,” he suggested. “All three of us ought to go, I think. It will ensure greater safety for Eileen.”
“If we take the usual nine o’clock ’plane from the Campbeltown Aerodrome to-morrow morning,” said James shortly, “we could get back by five in the afternoon. A ʼplane leaves Renfrew at four, I think.”
The arrangements were agreed to, and shortly afterwards the two young men left Dalbeg — together.
*
It was rather a remarkable fact that following his depression on the previous day James experienced no recurrence of the attack. Indeed, the gloom that habitually rested in his eyes almost entirely vanished — save at periods when he was worried by reporters or by casual inquirers into the Allan case — and a certain novel cheerfulness took its place. He faced the last stages of the affair of the “Mistletoe Murders” with a joyousness which had been entirely lacking in his earlier co-operation with the police.
Only a psychologist could have explained satisfactorily the change which had occurred in his character. The subtle change, too, was lasting, and Eileen, to whom it was at once apparent, experienced a quiet little triumph. She knew that in some way she had contributed to the new brightness in James’s outlook; but it was long afterwards that she came dimly to apprehend the root reason of it all. James, from being a hard and calculating egoist, a local dictator and scorner of other people’s opinions, had learned to be conscious of his own failings and his need of understanding and affection. He had, in short, fallen in love: he had become a very human James. Moreover, he had fallen in love with someone at first he did not believe could return his love, and the fact had tended to eradicate some at least of his inherent selfishness.
*
James was out and about early that Saturday morning, for the time being resolutely putting aside all thoughts of the coming expedition to Glasgow. That a great deal depended upon what they discovered in The Book of Dalraida he was well aware; but he refused to let his excitement come uppermost in his mind. Big Peter had to be attended to, and innumerable small tasks of a routine nature had to be completed.
He laboured mightily until half-past eight, when he judged that his work had been satisfactorily overtaken. Then, visiting the composing-room upstairs to present Andy, the linotype operator, with certain items of “copy” — a dozen gossip paragraphs and a string of badminton scores — he encountered Peter in the passage.
“I’m for Glasgow this morning, Peter,” announced James. “’Plane at nine o’clock.”
Peter stopped short and hauled off his glasses with an exasperated motion.
“Leaving us again!” he roared, beginning to shake. He turned away, swung back and faced James. “I’m leaving this bloody place, too then. Guid sakes, man! You havena been a whole day in this office since Tuesday!”
“I’m sorry, Peter,” said James mildly. “It’s a police job.”
Peter ceased to shake and glanced curiously at James. He didn’t care twopence whether it was a police job or not: the Gazette was infinitely more important than any such consideration. But this was a strange tone, surely, for John James MacPherson to employ. Seldom had Peter resigned without having received, in stinging rejoinder, as good as he gave.
“That’s different, James,” he said at last with a puzzled air, and James grinned at him with great good humour.
Peter replaced his spectacles and stumped back to his “frame,” pondering weightily over the manifold uncertainty connected with men and affairs.
James, who had booked seats in the ’plane on returning to Campbeltown on the previous night, met one of the Aerodrome taxis outside the White Hart Hotel. Eileen and the Rev. Duncan Nicholson had decided to proceed straight to the landing-ground from Blaan in the former’s two-seater.
As he stood on the kerb, waiting for the driver to emerge from the hotel, Inspector McMillan, swelling with importance, swaggered up the street and stopped to speak to him.
“Good morning! Good morning!” greeted the policeman. “Is it not a fine day?”
“It is,” agreed James, who sensed definite news behind his friend’s studiously casual demeanour. “You’ve got something to tell me, Inspector,” he added calmly.
“Well, well! And how did you know, James? You are like a hawk, indeed!”
Having spent five years in almost daily contact with the Inspector, James had heard this phrase before.
“However,” continued the policeman, “I don’t see why I should not be letting you know … A man very high up in the Secret Service is arriving here on Monday. In the Secret Service, I am telling you! And he is going to be here until Wednesday, forby. There will be great doings in Campbeltown now, James, I can see … And I may just hint to you, young man, that Scotland Yard have found out where all the mistletoe was gathered.”
The engine of the taxi roared into life.
“All this will mean promotion for you, Inspector,” remarked James.
As the latter climbed into the car, Inspector McMillan marched off up the street, in the direction of the police station, his stout shoulders well back and swinging jauntily.
The Campbeltown Municipal Aerodrome is situated some three miles west of the town, in the Laggan of Kintyre, and constitutes the chief pride of an enterprising Town Council. James, indeed, had at one time considered that he himself was in no small way responsible for its inauguration, for before it had come into being, two years previously, the Gazette had demanded its construction in no kind of modified terms.
Eileen and the young minister were already on the ground, standing near the trim grey and red ’plane, when James, in the company of three other prospective passengers, arrived in the taxi. Eileen, James thought, looked much fresher an
d gayer that morning, and he stifled a vain regret at the participation of Nicholson in their adventure. She wore a smart grey costume and a little grey hat with a blue feather that matched her eyes. Nicholson had discarded his clerical collar and was dressed in an obviously new flannel suit and felt hat, strikingly in contrast with James’s aged blazer, baggy flannels and lack of any headgear whatsoever. But for all that Eileen had a very charming smile for the editor of the Gazette, who had discarded his sticking-plaster. The cut was healed, but a red line remained, angry and sore, below his left cheekbone.
Professor Campbell, James learned, was able to speak and to answer questions that morning, and his physical condition had greatly improved. His memory, however, was still a complete blank. Major Dallas, it transpired, had put in an appearance at Dalbeg before Eileen left, and had decided to remain with the Professor until her return.
An official of Midland and Scottish Air Ferries warned them that the ten-seater machine was about to start, and indeed, as they walked over to the short ladder, its engine broke into a staccato roar. Its propeller flung back the air behind it in tearing gusts. The Rev. Duncan Nicholson, who was not so used to the ways of aeroplanes as James, ignored the flighty nature of these gusts, and had his new felt hat whisked neatly off his head as he was about to climb into the cabin. It whirled away over the flat ground, curvetting and leaping like a nimble lamb.
The beatific expression on Nicholson’s handsome face changed to one of dismay, and James caught Eileen’s eye. He could not help it: he pulled a long face to resemble Nicholson’s. Eileen, after a desperate effort, broke into a peal of laughter. The faces of the other passengers softened into smiles, while the small, lean-jawed pilot, his head twisted round in the cockpit, watched the progress of the flying hat with amused interest.
Nicholson, red-faced, turned and confronted the girl, and James was shocked and amazed at the utter rage which distorted his features. In the suave and easy-going minister the diabolical change was almost incredible. A little pulse was hammering beneath his left ear. His hands were clenched until the knuckles showed white. The polish had completely disappeared.
“Thereʼs very little to laugh at,” he said slowly and deliberately.
Eileen flushed and then grew pale as death.
“I suppose there is, Duncan,” she replied quietly.
James stepped quickly to her side.
“I shouldn’t be crude, Nicholson,” he remarked, remembering a previous occasion, and the young minister suddenly regained his sang froid. He laughed shortly.
“Sorry!” he exclaimed. “It was a good hat.”
The whole incident was over in less than thirty seconds, and to a casual observer it was unimportant and harmless enough. But as a matter of fact its effects were so far-reaching that none of the three protagonists ever forgot it.
*
James thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Renfrew, and was sorry that it lasted only a bare half-hour. There were four passengers in the ’plane — all men — besides Eileen, Nicholson and himself; but none of them were known to him. He had an idea that they were commercial travellers, to whose fraternity the air-service to Campbeltown and Islay had come as a veritable godsend.
It was a perfect June morning; but it quickly became apparent that air-pockets were numerous, and the curious dropping sensation, like that experienced in a descending lift, which occurred every few seconds, seemed at first to startle Eileen. She sat opposite James, and watched his face intently when the first queer drop occurred.
James, who had been in the air before, grinned at her.
“Don’t you worry, Eileen,” he said softly, so that above the hum of the engine none of the others might hear.
She smiled back and looked down on the earth.
“You must tell me about all those places, James,” she said. “I don’t know this part of the country well at all.”
Nicholson, who sat behind her, leaned forward.
“By Jove!” he said. “Isn’t it a marvellous view!”
Steadily the aeroplane droned on through the morning sunshine. They passed over Campbeltown, nestling beneath Bengullion, and encircling the shores of the landlocked bay with a lover’s arms. The smoke of a thousand breakfast fires still hung over the buildings like a pall, stagnant in the still air. Out they soared over Davaar Island, dwarfed and squat in perspective, and as they crossed over Kilbrannan Sound, towards Arran, the quiet sea flashed up at them with blinding radiance. Eileen was delighted with the fairy scene and with James’s expert running commentary; and she answered the Rev. Duncan Nicholson’s questions with great kindliness. James was of the opinion that she was a little sorry for her laughter at the young minister’s expense, and had chosen to overlook the momentary fury in his eyes.
They did not mention the reason for their mission until, after passing round a shoulder of Goatfell in Arran, over a further stretch of glinting water to the south of the Cumbraes and above the white blur of Ardrossan, they came within sight of Glasgow. Eileen picked out the spire of the University at once, high on Gilmorehill.
“I wonder what we will find?” she said. “You are sure it was The Book of Dalraida that my father mentioned?”
“Quite certain,” returned the Rev. Duncan Nicholson, and James nodded.
Gracefully they ’planed down for the Renfrew Aerodrome.
*
A taxi brought them swiftly into Glasgow. The bustle and roar of the traffic was rather pleasing to James. It soothed and reassured him, acting like a drug on nerves which, for the last three days, had been tautened to breaking-point.
As the car moved slowly over the George V Bridge and past the Central Station, the events of the past week began to appear unreal and nebulous. The evil power of the ‘well-meaning ones’ and the horror within the Piper’s Cave at Blaan seemed like the substance of a nightmare that had gone. Could such terrors exist in the same world as the kindly, noisy Glasgow traffic? Could the cheerful crowds boarding the clanging, whining trams and the roaring buses be of the same flesh and blood as O’Hare, who had the eyes of Balor?
And yet James knew that while they threaded their way up Hope Street, along Bothwell Street and Elmbank Street, and past Charing Cross, weary-faced men in many parts of the country, and in Glasgow, too, were studying the best means of eradicating a nameless menace to the peace and tranquillity of the nation. And a thousand eager, secret eyes were focused on events in Blaan …
The taxi brought them up the steep ascent of University Avenue, and they climbed out a short distance past the dingy Women’s Union. The Rev. Duncan Nicholson, who had spent six profitable sessions at Gilmorehill, led the way up the stairs and into the deserted Arts Quadrangle. Making inquiries of the languid female clerk in the office, they learned that the librarian might be interviewed immediately.
Ten minutes later, under the jealous eyes of an attendant in the Hunterian Museum, they were poring over the musty, ancient tome known as The Book of Dalraida.
*
The volume is one of the most cherished possessions of the University, which can boast the ownership of Caxton’s greatest effort, The Golden Legend, a first folio Shakespeare, the unique Chaucerian Roman de la Rose and several ancient Hebrew manuscripts. Its leaves are brown and tattered, but the bold lettering of the type used by Walter Chapman and Andro Myller, the first Scottish printers, from whose press the volume was published in modern Gaelic in 1508, is still almost as clean-cut as it must have appeared over four centuries ago. The original manuscript, Eileen told her escorts, was lost in a fire which occurred in Inverary thirty years after Chapman and Myller’s enterprise.
James, when his eyes fell for the first time upon the crinkly leather cover, stained and scored by the fingers of a thousand handlers, experienced the thrill of a prospector in new territory. He had the peculiar trait of the book-lover who, when confronted with a rare and valuable document, is quite unable to think reasonably and becomes like a child with an original toy. But as the minutes passed a fre
sh emotion mingled with his earlier excitement. Was this old book, he wondered, lovingly compiled by the Columban monks, the first Christian settlers in Scotland, to be partly the means of a final triumph over the last remnant of paganism in that country, almost two thousand years after its making? In one way James had no doubts on the question, and Longfellow’s line flashed in his mind:
*
“The mills of God grind slowly … ”
*
The wheels of one mill were coming full circle.
And Eileen’s face, too, was flushed, as she turned over the leaves with careful precision. But the Rev. Duncan Nicholson remained passive and calm. He had decided, it was clear, that no emotional breeze should again blow aside his mantle of suavity.
Eileen studied the pages with brow-puckering intentness, and James, leaning over her right shoulder, spared a long minute to love the whiteness of her neck below the grey hat and the tendril of dark brown hair which curved out in front of her ear. The first part of the book she skipped, as it is concerned mainly with place-names and legends relating to the Mid-Argyll district. But in the second part, which deals exclusively with Kintyre, she read industriously. A list of place-names both she and her escorts found to be of considerable interest. Blaan, Dunaverty, Kiel and Dalbeg, were all mentioned, while Lagnaha occurred first in one group of names.
“Dal-bhraddan, Ach-a-ruadh, Gleann-eadar-da-chnoc, Machribeg,” repeated Eileen in a monotone. Then the sound of her voice changed. “Gleann An t-Schleuchadh … Now, where is that, Duncan? Have you heard of it in Blaan?‘The Glen of Adoration.’”
Her eyes were bright. James saw her breast rising and falling with suppressed excitement.
“ʻThe Glen of Adoration,”’ mused the Rev. Duncan Nicholson, and there was a sudden tightening of his cheek muscles. “No … I’ve never heard of it, Eileen.”
“Nor have I.” James shook his head when Eileen turned to him. He hated to see that sparkle die down and the dark-lashed eyelids droop again. “Does it not give any explanation? It’s a mighty queer name.”
Death by the Mistletoe Page 14