There was no sound, and there was nothing to break the darkness. Silence and darkness filled the cave. The pale phosphorescent eyes which had watched them were gone. The soft sucking sound had ceased. All sounds had ceased. There was nothing but empty silence and the even featureless dark.
Charles said very quietly, “It’s gone, darling.”
Jimmy let go his pent-up breath in a convulsive sob. Charles had lifted his head and was staring into the dark. Ann put up a hand and touched his cheek.
“Really?” she said in a small whispering voice.
“I think so. Lean back against the rock—I’ve got to get at my torch.”
Its thin ray went out into the dark. He turned it downwards, and it showed the boulders beneath them, and the black edge of the pool, and the hole into which the lamp had fallen. He sent it farther, and all that black water lay still as death.
He switched off the light.
“It’s gone,” he said. “It was that damned light of Halliday’s that attracted it. Now we’ve got to get away as quick as we can. I’m going back by the way we came—it’s the nearest and we know it. I’m going down first—then you, Ann—Halliday last. I want you to hold the torch and light me. Halliday—have you got any string in those pockets of yours? You’ve got enough of them. Come along, man, pull yourself together! Have you got any string?… Oh, you have. Well then, get it ready, and as soon as I’m down, lower the torch to me and I’ll light you both.”
Ann came down the boulder with the feeling that about a hundred years had passed since that frantic upward climb. Suppose the Thing came back—suppose it was only waiting for them to leave their place of safety.… She shut that resolutely away. She had got to do what Charles told her. She mustn’t let herself think—or remember.
She reached the bottom and saw Jimmy come sliding down behind her. They had to skirt the pool before they could reach the ledge. Charles took her by the arm.
“Don’t look, and don’t think. We’ll be out of this in a moment.… There—that’s the worst part over.”
Their feet were on the ledge. Every step took them farther from the pool. Ann was lifted up to the mouth of the rift, and the two men scrambled after her, helping one another.
To come through into the other cave was like coming into another world—fresh air to breathe after that musky stench, and a plain track for their feet. Jimmy Halliday was recovering himself. He regretted the electric lamp, and dwelt brokenly upon its usefulness and its cost. Its loss seemed to affect him a good deal. He also deplored the fate of Hector, but had no tears for Gale Anderson, with regard to whom he was disposed to take a high moral tone. By the time they had reached the cellar he had begun to cock a wary eye in the direction of his own immediate future.
The barrel had been removed, and the flagstone stood open at the top of the cellar stair. They came through the wash-house into the kitchen and saw the daylight which they had never thought to see again. It was just the plain grey light of a cloudy day. It showed them to each other torn and dishevelled, streaked with dirt and slime, but it had an almost unbearable beauty. The common air, the common light, the common day were just for one enchanted moment something rare and strange. They were safety and release.
Mary stood in the middle of the kitchen and watched them come, her face grey and her eyes fixed. Then, before any of them could speak, she said in a strained whisper,
“Is he deid? Is Hector deid?”
It was Ann who answered her, clinging to Charles’ arm. She said, “Oh, Mary!” but it was enough.
Mary lifted her head and said with dry lips,
“The Lord be thankit! He was an ill man.”
Ann ran to her, and suddenly she cast her apron over her head and broke into bitter weeping.
“Mary! Mary—dear! Don’t cry! Don’t cry like that!”
“And wha’ll greet for him if I dinna?” The voice broke with sobs. “An ill man—and his mither’s deid! Let me be, lassie, for there’s naebody tae greet for him but me!”
Jimmy coughed in an embarrassed manner.
“I’d like a word with you, Mr. Anstruther,” he said.
Between the two doors, which led on the left to the parlour and on the right to the dining-room, he paused, scratched his head, and listened. The silence of a summer afternoon filled the house. Charles, listening too, thought of the silence of the cave. His mind shuddered away from the thought. This silence in the house was a comfortable, restful thing, not a dead weight to crush out courage and endurance.
Jimmy opened the parlour door a handsbreadth and looked in. Mrs. Halliday and Riddle slept each in a stiff armchair on either side of the hearth. The fire had been lighted after lunch. It had burned away to a bed of red ashes. The windows were tightly shut. The room was very stuffy. The old ladies looked very comfortable.
Jimmy shut the door without a sound and tiptoed over to the dining-room.
“This way, Mr. Anstruther, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to wake the old lady—and you’ll be ready for a drink.”
His hand was quite steady as he produced a bottle and glasses. He drank off about half a tumbler of rum, after which he got out his handkerchief and gave his face what he called a bit of a polish up. Charles watched him with interest. As he had been invited to a conference, he thought he would wait for Jimmy to begin. He took down his own drink, refused the offer of another, and continued to wait.
Jimmy stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and began.
“Well, Mr. Anstruther, I thought we’d better have a bit of a talk—man to man, as you may say. But take a seat, won’t you?”
Charles sat down on one of the neat Victorian chairs.
“Well?” he said briefly.
Jimmy scratched his head. His efforts with the handkerchief had not really improved his appearance. His pale freckled skin was horribly smeared, and his sandy hair was patched with greenish slime.
“Well,” he said—“well, as man to man, Mr. Anstruther—what about it?”
Charles leaned an elbow on the table and smiled a little.
“What about what?”
“Oh, come, Mr. Anstruther!” Jimmy’s tone was reproachful.
Charles continued to smile.
“Oh, come, Mr. Anstruther!”
“Very well,” said Charles, “what shall we take first—your attempt to murder me, or your attempt to murder Miss Vernon?”
Jimmy Halliday looked genuinely pained.
“If I hadn’t thought you were a gentleman, Mr. Anstruther, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to you. Murder Miss Vernon? Now why should I want to murder her—a young lady that I admire and respect? Why, I wanted to marry her—you heard me ask her yourself.”
“Well, do you know, Halliday, I think on the whole she’d rather have been murdered.”
Jimmy decided to treat that as a pleasantry.
“Ah!” he said. “You’re a young gentleman that will have your joke. But to talk of me hurting Miss Vernon—why, I saved her life only yesterday! I suppose she hasn’t had time to tell you about that.”
“Yes,” said Charles, “she told me. And I don’t mind saying that it’s precious lucky for you. I notice you don’t say anything about trying to murder me.”
Jimmy was all outraged innocence.
“Me, Mr. Anstruther? Now you know that’s carrying a joke too far!”
“Halliday,” said Charles, “when we were in that damned cave, you were kind enough to tell me that I wasn’t such a fool as I looked, or words to that effect. Now, as man to man—I think that’s how you put it just now—what’s the good of talking like that?”
“Mr. Anstruther—”
“Look here, Halliday—I went over that cliff because someone had banked up the bend with rocks, but I’m going to let that go. You did save Miss Vernon’s life, so I’m prepared to call quits. Then there’s the matter of your having tried to force Miss Vernon into marrying you so that you might have the handling of Mr. Paulett’s money. Well, we are prepare
d to let that go too. A prosecution would be unpleasant for Miss Vernon.”
Jimmy poured himself out some more rum.
“Now, Mr. Anstruther—now! You can’t prosecute a man for asking a young lady to marry him!”
“Then there’s the dope-running,” said Charles. “I give you fair warning that I shall report that to the Procurator Fiscal—isn’t that what they call him in these parts? And they don’t have coroners in Scotland, do they? I shall have to see someone like that about the deaths of those two men.”
Jimmy leaned forward with his glass in his hand.
“Now that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said earnestly. “If you go into a police-station, or an office, or a court, and say you saw two men killed by a sea-serpent, what’s going to happen? Why, you’ll be laughed at, Mr. Anstruther. There’ll be policemen trying to keep their faces straight, and clerks”—he pronounced it clurks—“sniggering behind their hands, and maybe before you know where you are a couple of loony-doctors trying to get you put away. No, no, you take my advice—those two chaps were drowned along of their boat getting upset when they were out fishing. If all three of us say that and stick to it, who’s going to say anything different?”
Charles stood up.
“Save your breath, Halliday,” he said. “I’m not telling any lies—they’ve a particularly nasty way of coming home to roost. Besides, did you ever hear of three people keeping a secret? You wouldn’t like to be hanged for someone you didn’t really murder—would you? That would be rotten luck. Now look here—I’m leaving with Miss Vernon as soon as she has changed and had something to eat and drink. We’re going in your car—the one you keep locked up in the ruin over there. I’ll leave the car in Glasgow at any garage you like to name—I expect you’ve got a friend who can fetch it away. I suppose you’ll do a bunk on the motor-bike. I don’t want to ask any questions about that, but if there’s anything we can do about getting your mother away from here, we shall be quite willing to do it.”
Jimmy got up rather dejectedly.
“Well,” he said, “I won’t trouble you. I’ve a cousin that I can get word to about the old lady. He’s in the family hotel business, and he won’t like it right in the season and all, but he’ll just have to come along and fetch her away. He owes me a good turn, for I set him going. And Mary’ll be wanting to go back to her own people, I expect. He’ll have to see about that for her.” He had the serious air of a family man considering the welfare of those for whom he was responsible, and it was all quite genuine. Charles simply couldn’t see him in the dock. A respectable man—a very respectable man.
“I suppose you wouldn’t shake hands, Mr. Anstruther?” Jimmy’s tone was modest and deprecating.
Charles shook hands.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Procurator Fiscal leaned back in his chair, set his finger-tips together, gazed from under his thick bushy eyebrows at Charles and Ann, and said,
“Imphm—”
This is a very ancient Scottish word. It means exactly what you want it to mean. It may express doubt, dissimulation, dubiety. It can agree, or disagree. It can convey any shade of surprise, pleasure, or annoyance. It can interrogate, deprecate, or assent. It is strange that other nations manage to get along without it.
Charles, not being a Scot, was not quite certain of his ground. The sound was strange to him. It did not encourage him to make any further remarks.
“Imphm—” said the Procurator Fiscal again.
Then, still leaning back, he inquired, “May I ask if you are a writer, Mr. Anstruther?”
Charles coloured under the scrutiny of a pair of very shrewd eyes, was furious with himself for colouring, and said,
“No.”
“Imphm—” said the Procurator Fiscal. There was a further pause before he resumed ordinary speech, which he did as if there had been no pause at all. “Because what you’ve been telling me would make a grand tale, I’ve no doubt.”
Ann put her chin in the air and looked at him indignantly.
“Imphm—” said the Procurator Fiscal. He sustained a flashing glance with calm. “Now, Mr. Anstruther—as I’ve been saying, that’s a very interesting tale you’ve just been telling me, and you told it very well. Now mind you, I’m not saying I don’t believe you, so there’s no need for you to get angry. In my private capacity I can believe as much as any man and perhaps a bit more, for I’ve Highland blood in me. But as Procurator Fiscal “—he paused and waved a hand—“let me tell you this. If it is your purpose to engage in writing one of those works of fiction commonly known as thrillers, you may put into it as many warlocks, bogles and sea-serpents as you will, but I must freely tell you that I do not propose to extend the hospitality of my office files to any such creatures.”
Charles had got over his annoyance. The shrewd eyes had a twinkle in them.
“All right, sir,” he said. “But those two men are dead, you know.”
“Imphm,” said the Procurator Fiscal in full agreement. “And by all accounts they’ll be no great loss. There’s no difficulty about that that I can see. You have deponed that they were drowned. Let us leave out your sea-serpent, Mr. Anstruther, and we have a plain tale. They’ll not be the first, nor the last, to be drowned in Loch Dhu. The place has an ill name—imphm. As to the man Halliday, he’ll be gone before the police can get there. You’ll be right about the drug-running, I’ve no doubt, and it’s a pity he’ll have had time to get away. I doubt there’d be no evidence. Now you’ll just leave me your address and Miss Vernon’s—”
Half an hour later Charles came into the lounge of the King’s Arms hotel and sat down by Ann. She looked up at him dreamily. Sitting here by herself, she had come very near going to sleep. She had not really slept the night before. They had stayed at a little country inn where a kind landlady had fussed over her, and brought her hot milk to drink in bed, and told her that if she wanted anything in the night she had only to knock on the wall and she would be with her. She had been coward enough to keep her light burning, but the early dawn had found her still awake. It was easier somehow to go to sleep in clear, safe daylight.
Charles sat down on the couch beside her and patted her on the shoulder.
“Wake up and listen—I’ve got things to tell you.”
“Charles—what?”
“Well, to begin with, Elias Paulett died yesterday. I got on the telephone to his house, and they told me.”
Ann said, “Oh!” She looked at him with startled eyes. Presently an expression of distress came into them. She fingered his sleeve and said, “It’s horrid not to be sorry when someone’s dead—but I didn’t ever see him.”
“No,” said Charles. What he had heard of Elias Paulett convinced him that she had not missed much, but it didn’t seem quite the moment to say so. He put her hand against his cheek and said, “I wouldn’t worry, darling.”
“I hope someone is sorry about him.… Perhaps Hilda is—”
Charles felt profoundly sceptical. He said nothing however.
Ann sighed.
“You didn’t speak to Hilda?”
“No. I’ll have to write to her. I suppose she was fond of that fellow Anderson, but she seemed awfully afraid of him. I expect she’ll get over it.”
“Charles, we shall have to do something for her.”
Charles made a face.
“I suppose so. But for heaven’s sake don’t ask me to have her to stay—I draw the line at that.”
“Charles—be good!”
“I am being good. You do realize you’re an heiress then? If I was all stuck up with pride like you were, it would be my turn to say I couldn’t possibly marry you.”
Ann snuggled up to him.
“But you’re not proud—you told me you weren’t. Charles, you will be able to keep Bewley?”
“I expect so. Now listen! We’re going to catch the next train south, because Scotch marriage law is too complicated for me, and I know we can get married in three days in Lon
don.”
Ann wasn’t dreamy any more. She was pale, and her eyes were bright. She sat back in her corner.
“Charles, we can’t!”
“Oh yes, we can. It’s all in train. I’ve sent my solicitor a wire and told him to get busy. And I got on to my sister—the one that’s married to the bishop—and she’s meeting us, so Mrs. Grundy can’t so much as lift an eyebrow.”
Ann gazed at Charles. Had he told his sister that she was Elias Paulett’s heiress? Would she be meeting them if he hadn’t? She opened her lips and closed them again. Some questions are better not asked.
“Well?” said Charles.
They were side by side on a big couch at the far end of the lounge. The lounge was empty. A stag at bay gazed at them from the left-hand wall. Another stag in the act of challenging a foe to mortal combat looked over their heads from the right-hand wall. Heads of other stags partially obscured the wall-paper, which was also of the Landseer period. The couch was covered with horse-hair and had three neat antimacassars laid along its back. Charles slid along the horse-hair, deranged the middle antimacassar, and put both arms round Ann.
“We’ll be married in three days,” he said.
Ann’s cheeks were as bright as her eyes.
“I didn’t say I would.”
“But you will,” said Charles.
“Perhaps,” said Ann.
THE END
Postscript
I do not apologize for my sea-serpent; I justify him—taking evidence on the one side from folk-lore, and on the other from fact.
In Mr. J. J. Bell’s delightful book The Glory of Scotland he refers to the monster of Loch Morar, whose appearance is believed to presage disaster. So much for folk-lore.
In Lieut.-Commander R. T. Gould’s enthralling work The Case for the Sea-serpent, to which I herewith make grateful acknowledgment, he prints as frontispiece a map upon which round black spots mark the various appearances of some unusual sea-monster. Three of these spots lie touching one another upon the west coast of Scotland, and a fourth sits on the top of John o’ Groats like a cap. These appearances are well authenticated, and occurred in the years 1808, 1872, 1893, and 1920 respectively. So much for fact.
Fear by Night: A Golden Age Mystery Page 25