The Man from the Sea

by Michael Innes

  “You didn’t say anything about this at home.”

  “No more I did, George.” He used her name for the first time. “But when I said I was going south alone I was fibbing.”

  She was disconcerted. “But, Richard, I asked if I was butting in.”

  “You’re not. You’re going to help. You see the castle on the map? I’m going to smuggle somebody out of it, and make hell-for-leather for London.”

  “Do you mean that I’m going to help at an elopement?” George spoke coldly – and the effect struck him as so ludicrous that he had to smile. “I thought the Gretna Green business happened the other way on.”

  “It’s a man, George – not a girl.” He paused. “It’s John Day.”

  “The scientist who disappeared? And he’s now in Dinwiddie Castle?”

  Cranston’s estimate of the possible usefulness of George shot up. And that was how he had come to regard her. She was a great Amazonian creature who had blundered in, and she must take her chance. He would shove her out of the affair if real peril threatened. Short of that, she was expendable. After all, he hadn’t scrupled to involve Sally – whom he had already wronged in ways that Sally might or might not know. So why not exploit this monster of a cousin? But he had been taking it for granted that the monster was shock-headed. Now he knew that he was wrong. Her way of taking the thing was in some indefinable way indicative of intelligence. “Yes,” he said. “The scientist. He walked out of the sea and into my arms in the small hours of this morning.”

  “You mean that you were waiting for him? Is this Cold War stuff – with you active in it…on one side or another?”

  “It was pure chance. And the Cold War aspect of John Day is over. He’s a dying man. And he wants to see his wife.”

  “You’re making it your business that he should?”

  “Just that. He happens to be temporarily blinded, which makes things difficult. Will you help?”

  “No.” She looked at him seriously. “Not unless you convince me that you have to.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.” Cranston paused – and as he did so it came to him like a revelation that he could tell this Amazonian intruder the whole thing. Or almost the whole thing. It might be brutal. He had the sense to know that a girl may not be the less maidenly for calling herself George and striding about the countryside in inconsiderable pants. He had not the slightest disposition to believe that Britomart herself had been more virginal. So if he told her she might hate it. But at least there was nothing between them that could be damaged by revelation. “Listen,” he said. “It’s simple, really. Day feels he acted unforgivably towards his wife, and that he has some sort of gesture – and no more than a gesture – to offer her. Well, he tumbled into my arms last night only because I was out fooling with a married woman. And it wasn’t just fooling. There is something – I needn’t go into it – that makes it vile. Mine’s another unforgivable thing. And my gesture is to risk something, seeing this chap through.”

  George had gone very still, and for a moment he thought she was going to say nothing at all. And when she did speak it was with painful constraint. “I can’t say I didn’t ask for it – your story. Which doesn’t mean that you should have told it, all the same.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Or am I being a fool? Probably I am… And what do you mean by risking something?”

  “Being killed, for one thing. There was shooting last night. The chaps to whom he’s given the slip are out for his blood – and that of anybody holding in with him.”

  “Very understandably, I’d say.”

  “Yes. But there’s another risk, less easy to express. If Day had murdered somebody, or was a wicked blackmailer, or a defaulting financier or something of that sort, I’d only be risking – and inviting you to risk – being uncomfortably packed off to gaol. But behind Day – and willy-nilly all around him still – the issues are tremendous. He may have vitally important information which some Cabinet Minister, or old colleague, or efficient policeman could show him he ought to come out with. I may keep him away from these people only to see him successfully hunted down and killed by his former employers. And there are other possibilities. I’m risking – well, having to admit that I’ve been an irresponsible ass in rather a big way.”

  “It’s an awkward situation, Richard – I agree.”

  “It’s a regular cow, George.”

  She faintly smiled. “We’d better get on. What do I do?”

  “Could you impersonate a Scottish housemaid?”

  “Better, I suppose, than I could impersonate a Scottish countess. But I couldn’t manage the accent.”

  “That won’t matter. You’ll only be talking to a foreigner – and then no more than a few words.”

  “Don’t housemaids in this part of the world dress in a particular way?”

  “I’ve got the proper clothes in the back. I borrowed them from our maid at home. Only I’m afraid they’ll be on the small side.”

  “But I’m used to giving rather skimpy effects?” George was amused at the discomfort this thrust occasioned him. “Do I have to do things with your Sandy Morrison?”

  Cranston shook his head, and climbed out of the car. “No. But if I can’t nail him to do his own turn we’ll have to think again. Sit tight. I’m going in to try.”

  “Hullo, Sandy.”

  “Good morning, Mr Cranston.”

  This was unpromising, and Cranston took cautious stock of his erstwhile fellow scholar. With one hand Sandy was frugally rotating a crust in the last of the bacon fat on his plate, while with the other he drained a large mug of tea. They had dressed him decorously in some approximation to uniform for the purpose of driving the ambulance – but he was discernably Sandy Morrison still. He was freckled and snub-nosed and tousle-haired, with a dour pious expression and a glint of dangerous mischief in his eye. Cranston contrived to look at him insolently. “Is that the way they’ve taught you to talk, you silly loon?”

  Sandy set down his mug. “It isn’t often that we have the pleasure of seeing you in the north, sir.”

  Cranston advanced and towered above him. “I could take you by the lug,” he said, “and haul you behind the kirk, and hammer you till you were roaring like a two-headed calf, Sandy Morrison. And that would learn you good morning and pleasure of seeing you in the north.”

  Sandy got to his feet. “And could you that?”

  “That I could – as I did the first day that ever I had sight of your ill features – Sandy Snotnose.”

  “Then come awa’ – Dickie-Big-Doup.” Sandy was breathing wrathfully.

  Cranston sat down. “Sandy,” he whispered, “are you for a splore?”

  “The devil take you, Dick.” Sandy sat down too. His expression was now less pious than sanctimonious, but the glint in his eye was correspondingly wilder. “Can’t you see, man, that they’ve turned me respectable? The ambulance is probation. If I pass I’m to have the hearse.” He paused and dropped his voice. “Is it salmon?”

  “Nothing of the kind. It’s just to drive your ambulance up to the castle and through the gates. And to bide there a while not much noticing things. And then to come away again.”

  Sandy looked apprehensive. “Is it something to dae wi’ a quean?”

  “It is not. I’m not one that goes after women.”

  “It’s no’ to dae wi’ her leddyship there?”

  “No.” Cranston had a moment of panic. His madness – his late madness – must have become gossip already. “I want to smuggle a man out of the place, Sandy – and without some that may be watching knowing it.”

  “I’m to be back at the Infirmary in the forenoon.”

  “And so you shall be.” Cranston rose. “I’ve got my car – and somebody in it who’s helping me. I’ll drive to the head of the glen and park in the quarry. Do you follow in five minutes, Sandy. After that, the whole thing won’t take half an hour.”

  “It’s clean skite, Dick Cranston, and I canna
thole such daftness.” Sandy rose resignedly. “When I drive in, what am I to tell the creature Patullo at the lodge?”

  “You’re to tell him it’s an emergency, and then drive on past the first turn in the drive. Then you stop, and I get out and fetch the man I’m speaking of. He’s in the old garden now. And then we drive away and go back to the quarry.”

  “And Patullo when he lets me out again?”

  “You’re to say it was all a mistake, and that it’s not Dinwiddie you should be at, but Dindervie.”

  “And what o’ Sir Alex? Suppose he’s up and ploutering, and syne finds an ambulance in his drive. Won’t he be dumbfoundered?”

  “You must scratch your head, Sandy, like a regular daftie, and have nothing sensible to say of yourself. He’ll do no more than turn you out, and make a great joke of your gormless wandering… But now listen. Later today, or perhaps tomorrow or the next day, strangers may come checking up on you, asking what took the ambulance to Dinwiddie. You’ll say it was an emergency call for the cook there, and that the poor soul is now in the Infirmary having her appendix out. You’re to say that, and nothing more or other, to any stranger or foreign creature that asks. Because somebody else is going to be telling the same story.”

  “It seems there’s a muckle o’ falsehood being required o’ me for auld acquaintance sake, Dick Cranston.” And Sandy shook his head gloomily. “We maun hope your foreign creatures don’t do their speiring on the Sabbath.”

  Sally’s vigil had lasted rather longer than he had intended. But at least he had turned the general awkwardness of the morning to positive account. Or he would have done so if this plan worked. To get Day away from the castle unobserved so that the man with the trilby hat would still be left guessing, would be an unexpected gain. And now the success or failure of his stratagem was imminent. The ambulance had swung out of the glen and the castle was straight ahead. Cranston glanced across at George. “You understand your instructions?”

  She nodded – and then frowned at what must have been an incautious grin. “I’m a tremendous figure of fun?” she asked.

  He allowed the grin cheerfully to grow. “Do you remember whether Phoebus Apollo had a sister?”

  “No – I don’t.”

  “A big sister? Well, if she existed, and was banished from Calydon to Caledonia, and took service in a manse, succeeding to attire which the minister’s wife had judged suitable and adequate for some merely mortal handmaiden–”

  “Shut up!” He believed she was really angry. “I don’t mind the cap, or even this idiotic starched apron. But these black woollen stockings I pretty well can’t stand.”

  “They scratch? You must just thole them, as Sandy there would say, for ten minutes more.” Cranston peered out. “And now, George, get ready. We’ll be stopping between the gatehouses while old Patullo opens up. That means that for a minute we’ll be quite cut off from any possibility of close observation. So when you nip out and stroll down the road, you’ll appear to have come out from the castle. You’ve got the letter?”

  “Here.”

  “The pillar-box is at the foot of the hill. The castle folk don’t really use it, but the chap won’t know that – just as he won’t know that Melbourne and not that manse framed your accents.”

  “You think he’ll really come?”

  “It’s a pretty good bet… Watch the gates as you walk back, and try not to reach them until they’re opening again. Ten to one the chap will have strolled away a bit after pumping you, and you’ll be able to slip back in here quite undetected. If Patullo sees, he may think it a bit queer, but he’s a stupid old boy and will have a dim notion you’re a nurse.”

  “We’re slowing down. Is this it?”

  “Yes.” Cranston put a hand on the door of the ambulance and pushed it open. “Now!” he said.

  She was gone. He closed the door. There was a murmur of voices – Sandy blathering and Patullo havering, he thought – and then the ambulance moved forward again. Presently it turned a corner and stopped. He thrust the door wide open and jumped out. Sandy was looking round at him apprehensively. “Dick,” he said, “what if that dreich auld Patullo telephones up tae the castle and doon comes the laird? They’ll never gie me the hearse if–”

  “Turn round, Sandy. And dinna fash. I’ll be back with my man in five minutes.”

  Cranston turned and ran. The old inner ward was the awkward stretch, because parts of the modern building commanded it. After that he had the cover of the ruined shell-keep until he had gained the garden. What would he do if he bumped into Sir Alex – or even into Caryl, limping about with her martyred ankle? But he was all right for the moment – safe in the garden and making full tilt for the summerhouse. He glimpsed Sally – she was sitting precisely where he had left her – and saw her wave. “Day,” he called, “are you ready? We’ll be away in no time.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been wondering.” Day’s voice was conversational and unreproachful. “I still see damned little. But I’d no longer run straight into a tree.”

  “Then, come along. But better take my hand to make sure. I’ve arranged a private departure for the south.”

  “Splendid.”

  The return through the garden was less rapid, but without disaster. Sandy had turned the ambulance and Cranston thrust Day into it. “Right!” he called. “But don’t forget the girl.”

  “The girl?” Day was instantly questioning. “The step-daughter?”

  “No, no – not Sally. Somebody else I’ve had to bring in to help. I’ll tell you later. Keep quiet.” The ambulance had stopped. He could hear Patullo grumbling. He was a surly old brute. But this held one advantage: to any stranger’s questioning he would be unlikely to offer any response at all.

  They were through the gates. He could hear Patullo banging them to. The ambulance was crawling. He opened the door. George tumbled in. “Can I take them off?” she asked.

  Cranston laughed aloud. “Elspeth’s stockings?” He felt an extraordinary exhilaration in the sense that Dinwiddie was behind them. “This minute, if you like. And the whole outfit, as soon as we get back to the quarry.” He took a deep breath. “May I introduce John Day? Day, this is my cousin Georgiana Cranston from Australia.” He turned to her. “Did it happen?”

  “The encounter? You’re telling me. But it wasn’t a Slavonic gentleman with a trilby hat. It was an American lady with field-glasses and a camera.”

  “Oh!” Cranston was disconcerted. “Perhaps there was nothing in it. Perhaps it was just chance.”

  “I don’t think so.” George had sat down on a species of stretcher and was composedly rolling off the offending stockings. “In a casual way, she was much too much on the spot. Was this romantic pile Dinwiddie Castle and did I work there? There wasn’t much in that. But she wanted to know about the ambulance. So I told her your story about our poor cook. I said that the letter I was posting was to poor cook’s married daughter in Glasgow telling her that her mother had been taken poorly. Was taken poorly right?”

  “Not bad.”

  “I didn’t forget to call her madam. And then she asked if we had a lot of visitors, and if any had just arrived. So I said no, I was sure nobody had. And then I turned shy and came away.”

  George, who had delivered all this with some complacency, glanced at her now bare feet and then tucked them away beneath the stretcher. Cranston turned to Day. “What do you think?”

  “That they could muster one or two agents pretty quickly…and any number quite soon. My guess is that it wasn’t just an idle tourist.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.” George, although she was studying Day with attention, spoke crisply. “I left her and walked back up the road. But just before I turned into the gatehouse I took a look round. She had climbed a bank and was scanning a high stone wall – is it the garden wall? – towards the cliff. And then she put up a hand and waved. It wasn’t – well, one tourist’s wave to another who has gone astray. In fact, it wasn’t a wave at all. It w
as a signal.”

  There was a moment’s silence in the swaying ambulance. Sandy Morrison was driving fast. George, Cranston thought, had no particular flair for the dramatic. Nevertheless, her last words had touched an ominous note. And it was Day who spoke. “Could you say what sort of signal?”

  “It was a slow horizontal movement with one arm. I’d say she was giving a negative report.”

  “And so far, so good.” Cranston nodded confidently. “They’re left quite at sea about what has happened in the last seven or eight hours. All the same, we mustn’t waste time. It looks as if, even in that quarry, we mightn’t escape observation for long… And here we are.” The ambulance had stopped. Cranston braced himself. “Listen, George. You’ve been wonderful. And now Day and I will hop out, and you can change into your own things.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t bundle Mr Day into your car and make off quietly while I’m turning into your exasperating cousin again. If you don’t promise me to wait, I come as I am.”

  “George, you’ve been involved quite enough in this. Probably we’re now going to show those people a clean pair of heels. But we can’t be sure. And it just isn’t right that you should be–”

  “But you’ve got to get me out of this, Richard. Think of that woman. She’d recognise me again in a flash – ghastly stockings or no ghastly stockings. And where should I be, supposing she and her friends came upon me defencelessly tramping through these wilds? I’ve earned your protection Richard Cranston, and I claim it.”

  George, it seemed, could manage drama after all. In a way, she was just being too clever for him. At the same time, there was a positive truth in the proposition with which she had trapped him. He ought to have thought of it. It was a sober fact that he had involved this girl not only in an episode of danger but in a continuing danger – whether they parted or kept together.

  “All right,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Then out you get, both of you. And I think I’ll get into my walking things again, rather than that frock. If you don’t mind, that is to say.”