The Man from the Sea

by Michael Innes

  She handed it over. “What about people at this pub?”

  “There may be nobody more than the man and his wife. And after that I don’t think there’s a habitation until we drop into the clachan of Urquhart itself.”

  “The what?” George was at a loss.

  “The village. It lies just south of the house.”

  Again they moved forward. It seemed to Cranston that Day was tiring. Perhaps it was the man’s terrific swim beginning to tell. “If we just make the Canty Quean,” he said, “ – or the forest close by it – you can shelter, if you like, and I can go on. Lord Urquhart would send down a car.”

  Day shook his head. “I don’t think I shall be beaten by a remaining six or seven miles. But aren’t you rather confidently banking on the benevolent interest of this nobleman?”

  Cranston laughed. “It’s going to involve telling some lies. Do you mind?”

  “Not if they are convincing lies, my dear young man.”

  “Well – I rather do mind, as a matter of fact.” Cranston felt a now familiar irritation rising in him. “I rather like old Lord Urquhart.”

  “But I understood you to say that he was the deadly enemy of your good friends at the castle. Perhaps that’s irrelevant?”

  “It’s not, I’m afraid.” Cranston frowned. “It’s what I’ll have to exploit. And I’ll have to exploit your eyes, damn them.” He flushed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not at all, not at all.” Day was bland. “You interest me. Did the castle folk blind me in an access of hideous barbarity?”

  “Something of the sort. You’ll have to back up the story that–”

  Cranston broke off. George had stopped dead. “Listen!” she said.

  “I wondered when you’d hear it.” Day was at his most detached. “An aeroplane, without a doubt.”

  The sound hung, minute after minute, in air. In volume it rose, dropped, rose again, and then once more dropped. The suggestion was unmistakable; it was of a machine lazily circling somewhere far to the south. George searched the horizon with the binoculars. “Nothing to be seen. And I hardly suppose–” She was silent for a moment. “But one does come to feel that anything’s possible.”

  Cranston nodded, but without much appearance of worry. “That’s true enough. And it may be worth while, as we get along, keeping an eye open for cover.”

  “Are we likely,” Day asked, “to find any – short of that forest?”

  “I don’t know that we are. But my guess is that the thing’s harmless. If it comes in sight, we’ll think again.”

  “Wait.” George had turned a little to the west. “There it is – just coming over the horizon. It must be flying quite low. And it’s only a little one.”

  “The job scarcely requires a B47.” Day had one of his flashes of savagery. “A ditch would help.”

  “Unfortunately we’ve hardly time to dig one.” George got her own back with some energy. “There’s just heather. Given a little time, you could do something quite effective with that. But it’s not exactly stuff you can climb under. What about sitting down on it for a start? They say it’s movement that’s first spotted from the air.”

  “Then we’ll sit down.” Cranston was still easy. “It should pass straight over us.”

  They sat down. The plane was revealing itself as a small flimsy thing. But for the increasingly audible throb of the engine one might have taken it for a glider. “A sort of run-about,” George said.

  Cranston followed it with his eye. “It’s going straight home.”

  “Home?” She was puzzled.

  “Lunch-time.” Cranston spoke confidently. “And I’m hungry myself. Let’s get on.”

  “Wait.” George pointed. “You’re wrong – whatever you mean by home. It’s started fooling around again.”

  This was true. The little plane had banked and begun its lazy circling. It dropped in a wide spiral and rose again. Its movement was entirely the movement of a mechanical thing. Nevertheless, the suggestion it conveyed was that of a hawk.

  Cranston spoke abruptly. “We’ll take no extra risks. Down on our tummies is the thing. Heads under heather – and feet too, if it can be managed. Then don’t move. And don’t look up.”

  They got down as he directed, and lay quite still. “What’s odd,” George said, “is that we can talk – or even sing. Do you still think it isn’t the enemy?”

  Cranston laughed. “I think it’s somebody quite different – our prospective host.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “Old Lord Urquhart. He’s air crazy, and has a little fleet of aircraft of his own. He’s one of the Scottish Representative Peers–”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That he’s in the House of Lords. And he’s constantly making speeches there about opening up the Highlands by means of air transport. Most enterprising, too.” Cranston raised his voice, for the sound of the engine was now rapidly increasing. “Last summer he sold a herd of Highland cattle to the Duke of Horton – and dropped them by parachute into the park at Scamnum Court. And he does a lot of flying himself. It’s my guess that here he is, having a little morning spin.”

  “I hope you’re right. And I hope it’s cooler up there than it is grovelling like this… Listen!”

  What there was to listen to was sudden silence. It was a good deal more unnerving than the mounting roar of the engine had been. Then suddenly the heather was whipping and tossing around them, and for a fraction of a second they lay not in bright sunshine but in shadow. It passed over them like a blade and in the same instant the engine broke into life again. Cranston looked up. The little plane seemed to skim the heather straight in front of his nose. Then it climbed and vanished from his field of vision. He had caught a glimpse of the pilot, a white-helmeted figure in an open cockpit. He had a confused impression that the man had waved an arm.

  For minutes they continued to lie still. But the sound of the engine now steadily receded, and as it died away they sat up. It was only a speck in the sky in front of them. It glinted momentarily in the sun and then vanished.

  “I hope you were right.” Day spoke rather grimly as they trudged on.

  “It’s in the direction of Urquhart, more or less, that it has vanished.” Cranston was still cheerful. “So I still think it’s our eccentric peer. And I hope I’m right about his going home to lunch. If we don’t find him about the place, we shall be badly held up.”

  George, who had retrieved the rucksack, hitched it higher on her shoulders. “Richard, what sort of a place is this Urquhart anyway? Is it grander than Dinwiddie Castle?”

  “Good lord, yes. It’s one of Scotland’s best attempts at a great house.”

  Day had taken off the dark glasses and was cautiously dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. “And you really have the entrée, my dear young man, to its splendours? We shall try not to be visibly over-awed.”

  “I know Lord Urquhart quite well.” Cranston was curt. “How are your eyes?”

  “Call them five per cent – which is a good deal better than they were. But they get more deucedly painful as they insist on seeing a little. Your father with his bandages might have been not a bad idea… Isn’t there a breeze again?”

  George stopped. She was excited. “There is. And it’s because we’re at the top. Richard, what a tremendous view!”

  “I hope I may be told about it.” Day was ironic. “But if this means that we’re posturing happily on a skyline, I suggest that we move down a little.”

  “Quite right.” Cranston moved on, pointing ahead as he did so. “There’s Urquhart Forest, George, in the distance on the right. You can just see the high-road running from the left and plunging into it.”

  “And just there I see smoke – blue smoke.”

  “Peat smoke. That’s the Canty Quean. It’s all a good deal farther than it looks. Nearly a couple of hours, I’d say. Now look a little to the left – at about ten o’clock from the edge of the forest and on the very horizo
n. Can you just see a pale streak? That’s Urquhart. A tremendous Doric façade.”

  “We’ll make it yet.” George spoke with sober confidence. “And I think I can now take a guess at why it’s so desirable. You’re reckoning that Lord Urquhart, if properly approached, will–”

  George paused, and Cranston nodded. “Yes…fly us out.”

  13

  Day was suddenly in a fever. It was as if energy had poured back into him so abundantly that he was unable to use it with economy. Cranston realised that until this moment he had been accompanying a man without hope. When in the quarry he had told Day that they were beaten, it had been something which Day already believed. He had been carrying on not out of any substantial hope but as the consequence of a sheer effort of will. Now he had seen a real chance. Only a few miles away there was waiting something that could transform his situation. He was moving forward with complete concentration on the physical task of covering with all possible speed this uneven and impeded ground. He was treating the moor as he had treated the ocean not many hours before.

  But it was still a slow progress. Sandy Morrison – if he had been sufficiently impressed to do as he was told – was by this time in Constable Carfrae’s lock-up in Drumtoul. Lord Urquhart had landed and was addressing himself to his luncheon – with a copy of The Aeroplane, Cranston seemed to remember, propped up against a large kebbuck of cheese. Caryl Blair was very probably consulting his father about her sprained ankle – and perhaps asking more questions than she ought to about the movements of the doctor’s son. Sally –

  Cranston checked himself and carefully scanned the country ahead. “I think,” he said presently, “that we had better bear to the right now and skirt the forest. When we come to the last stretch – I mean before the high-road and the Canty Quean – we ought to do it through the trees. It’s bound to slow us down a lot, but we can afford to be prudent before the last lap.”

  “And on the other side of the high-road?” Sweat was trickling down Day’s forehead. It was clear that he still found it difficult and almost useless to open his eyes. His face looked as if it had been brutally scrubbed with some abrasive substance.

  “We can either chance it and walk straight along the road. Or we can do a sort of Red Indian approach through the trees.”

  “Pine trees, I suppose?”

  “Almost entirely.” Cranston turned to George. “Did you ever play hide-and-seek in a pine wood? It’s rather fun. You don’t make a sound, because the ground is thick with the fallen needles. But you can’t just hide behind a tree. It doesn’t often have sufficient girth. And there’s hardly any undergrowth. You have to keep far enough away from the chap that’s after you to be screened by a whole band of trunks. It’s like a game in some enormous colonnade… Do you notice how the smell of the forest is getting on top of the smell of the heather as we approach? Do you like it?”

  George sniffed. “It’s all right. But it’s not my idea of what trees should smell like. Did you ever smell eucalypts?”

  “Gum trees?” He smiled. “Only in a botanic garden. Is it something hard to do without?”

  She nodded. “Impossible.”

  Cranston glanced at her curiously. It hadn’t occurred to him that a sun-goddess could be home-sick. “We’ll get into the trees just there,” he said – and pointed ahead. “But have a go at the high-road with the glasses first.”

  George sat down and carefully focused the binoculars, balancing bare elbows on bare knees. “There’s no sign of life about the pub. What did you say it’s called?”

  “The Canty Quean. It means the cheerful girl.”

  “It doesn’t look cheerful – only rather lonely and forlorn. I can’t think where it gets its customers.” George swept the binoculars to the left. “But wait a minute. Perhaps there are some approaching now. Can you see? A car – a large closed car – coming slowly along the high-road from the west.”

  “I can see. It probably hasn’t any idea of stopping. But we’ll approach with a good deal of caution if it does. And now we take to the woods.”

  And presently they were moving silently through the trees. It made, quite suddenly, another world. Day would no longer be guided. The going had ceased to be treacherous underfoot, and out of the sunlight he seemed to find himself among massively distinguishable shapes. He went forward groping and peering. The effect was of something curiously savage. It was possible to feel that he would have been more congruously dressed in skins than in Sir Alex Blair’s eminently civilised clothes. And if his sight was virtually useless still, his other senses appeared to have gained an almost primitive acuteness. “Listen.” He had stopped – and the word was uttered only in a whisper. “There’s a noise – a queer whistle.” He relaxed. “Are there telephone wires?”

  Cranston thought for a moment. “I think so.”

  George nodded. “I know there are – along the high-road. I noticed the posts.”

  “Then it’s only the wind in them.” Day had a strained smile that showed ghastly on his injured face. “But there’s another thing. Somebody’s cooking.”

  Cranston sniffed, but was aware of nothing. “Picnickers? It’s more likely to be the old wife in the pub. It’s not fifty yards away. But I don’t think we’ll linger to see what she has in the pot. Let’s trust Lord Urquhart to put on a magnificent cold collation round about three o’clock.”

  “Do I get in on that?” George presented this question with some urgency. “Your mother’s was a dinkum breakfast. But I’m beginning to feel–”

  Cranston nodded. The sun in some mysterious way manufactures its own fuel. But it would be only reasonable to suppose that George required substantial stoking. “You’re a problem,” he said. “But my idea is to treat you as Lord Urquhart’s problem, and not mine. I hope that noblesse oblige will do the rest… And now, if you ask me, the critical moment comes. Once across the high-road, and I think we’ve beaten them. Come along.”

  They advanced until they were once more looking out into bright sunlight. They were here among larches, and these, running right up to the yard of the Canty Quean, cast perpendicular lines of shadow across its white-washed walls. The outlines of the building were uncertain, and from their vantage-point it had the appearance of some shapeless fleecy creature slumbering behind enormous bars. The only sounds at first were that of a turkey gobbling and a few poultry scratching in dust. It was possible that to the high-road the Canty Quean presented an aspect more in keeping with its name. The back was dismal.

  Cranston put his mouth to Day’s ear. “Stay where you are. I’ll move round a bit and see what’s doing.”

  Day nodded. “Very well. But be careful. I thought I heard voices. And hadn’t we better go east for a little way and cross the high-road where it’s running through the forest?”

  “Perhaps so – but I’ll spy out the land.” There was a low tumbledown wall round the yard, and Cranston began to skirt it. The turkey still gobbled and there was the smell of a pig. He found that George was by his side. “Hadn’t you better stop with him?” he murmured.

  She shook her head. “Let’s leave him for a minute. With any luck he may vanish.”

  “Vanish?” he was alarmed.

  “Magically, I mean. Perhaps he isn’t true. I’m sure I hope so.”

  Cranston glanced at her oddly, but had no time to speak. For suddenly there were voices from the front of the building. They stood quite still, straining their ears.

  “Gentry,” George whispered. “Or is it what Sandy calls half-gentry? I wouldn’t know. But I think they must be from that car.” Without waiting for a reply she tiptoed away, and he saw that she was determined to have first peep. He let her go. For he knew by now that George, although physically overwhelming, had a very adequate command over her slightest movements. And within a minute she was back. “It is. An enormous vintage Daimler, I think. And it’s stopped with its bonnet turned down the road to Urquhart. It looks as if it might belong to your old Lord Urquhart’s grandmother.” />
  “It may at least belong to one of his venerable friends. I wonder –” Cranston hesitated. “Could you see who’d got out?”

  “No – but it sounds like an elderly man. And I think he’s talking to the woman of the place – the pub-keeper’s wife.”

  “Mrs Brash, I think she’s called. If this is somebody going to Urquhart, do you think we might bag a lift? Could there be any risk – after we’ve taken a better look? It would mean we had it in the bag. Let’s go round.”

  She looked at him in surprise – perhaps guessing that he had somehow become infected with Day’s new impatience. Then she put her hand on his arm. “I’ll go. A lone girl’s more appealing at a first shot. If he’s nice I can spin a yarn and fetch you both out. But I won’t break cover until I get a better look.”

  “George, no–”

  She slipped away before he could say more. He had been on the verge of going forward himself, and her action was taken on the strength of some sharp instinct. She rounded the corner of the yard and looked up the high-road as it ran through the forest. For as far as she could see, it was deserted. She looked across to the road that led, as she knew, to Urquhart. The big car was still stationary – but in shadow, so that she could not distinguish its occupants. She took a few steps farther and peeped cautiously round the corner of the building. The main door was there, sheltered by a small porch. The elderly man appeared just about to turn away from it, and his voice now came to her clearly. It was a Scottish voice – dry, cultivated and full of authority.

  “Then good day to you, Mrs Brash. If your son still seeks the tenancy, send him to see my factor. And I’ll speak to Lord Urquhart this afternoon.”

  The elderly man turned away from the door with a nod. George made up her mind, and stepped into the road. The elderly man saw her at once, and took off his hat politely as he turned away to his car. His glance had been appraising, courteously brief, and carefully unsurprised and unamused. She made up her mind that he was a judge. “Excuse me,” she said, “but can you tell me the road to Urquhart?”