The Mystery of the Green Ray

Dennis puffed at his pipe and smiled, and I was surprised to see that he really was bringing his mind to bear on the trivial problem with all the acuteness he had in him.

“Well, in the first place,” he asked, “do you stop in port very often overnight, or for any length of time during the day?”

“I never stop in port longer than I can help,” laughed Fuller, “or the owner of that knife would probably take the opportunity of buying a new one, and throwing this old thing away. All the same, I don’t see how that is going to help you.”

“Ah,” said Dennis, in bantering vein, “you mustn’t expect me to give away my process, you know. The secret’s been in the family for years.”

“What’s your second question, Den?” I asked.

“Is there a hotel within reasonable distance of your house on Loch Whatever-it-is, Mr. Fuller?”

“Loch Duich?” our host replied. “There’s one about six miles by road and eleven or twelve by the sea.”

“I don’t think I need ask you the third question, then,” said Dennis. “You can begin your examination now.”

“Now, Mr. Burnham,” Fuller commenced, “you quite understand that anything you say will be taken down in writing, and may be used as evidence against you?”

“I assure you I have a keen appreciation of the gravity of the situation,” Dennis replied seriously.

“Well,” said Fuller. “I’ll begin with an easy one – one that won’t tax your powers of observation beyond endurance.”

“Yes,” I urged, “let him down gently. He does his best.”

“What profession does the owner of that knife follow?”

Hilderman and I laughed.

“We may as well count that answer as read,” he said.

“There’s a catch there, Dennis,” I warned him. “The legal designation is ‘mariner.’”

“I don’t think it is,” said my friend.

“We won’t quarrel about terms,” laughed our host graciously. “Sailor or seaman or deckhand will do just as well.”

“No,” said Dennis, “it won’t. The owner of this knife is not a sailor by profession.”

“But,” Fuller protested, “it must belong to one of my crew, and it is obviously a seaman’s knife.”

“In that case,” Dennis answered, “I think you’ll find that you have a man on board who is not a professional seaman in the ordinary use of the term. I’ll tell you what I think of this knife, shall I?”

“By all means,” urged Hilderman and his friend together, and I began to take a keen interest in this curious discussion, for I could see that Dennis was no longer playing. He turned the knife over in his hand, and looked up at Fuller.

“Mr. Fuller,” he said quietly, “the owner of this knife is not a sailor by profession. He is probably a schoolmaster. I can’t be sure of that, but I can say this definitely: he is a professional man of some sort, possibly an engineer, but, as I say, more probably a mathematical master. He is left-handed, has red hair, a wife, and at least one child.”

I shouted with laughter when I realised how thoroughly my friend had pulled my leg, but I broke off abruptly when Hilderman sat bolt upright, and his chair and Fuller’s cigar fell unheeded on to the deck. But in a second they took their cue from me, and roared with laughter.

“Oh, excellent, Mr. Burnham,” said Hilderman between his guffaws. “But you forgot to mention that his sister married a butcher’s assistant.”

“Ah, but I don’t admit she did,” Dennis protested.

“I’m very much indebted to you for exposing this masquerader,” said Fuller. “I shall have the matter inquired into. But seriously, Mr. Burnham, you made one extraordinary fluke in your deductions, which almost took my breath away. I have a man on board with red hair, and when the boat came into the harbour he was working about here. I saw him leave his work to come ashore for us. I shouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the knife belonged to him.”

“Oh, well,” Dennis laughed, “one shot right is not a bad average for a beginner, you know.”

“No,” said Hilderman, puffing a cloud of smoke, and dreamily following its ascent with his eyes, “not bad at all. Not bad at all.”

And then, the joke of the clasp-knife being played out, we admired the scenery, and conversed of less speculative subjects till we arrived at Glasnabinnie.

We were pulled ashore by the man with the red hair, and when our host confronted him with the knife he promptly claimed it.

“I think you won, Mr. Burnham,” laughed Fuller, and Dennis smiled in reply. We slid alongside the landing-stage and stepped out, and Dennis’s schoolmaster was about to slip the painter through a ring and make the boat fast. But evidently the ring was broken. The man came ashore, and Hilderman began to lead us up the path. But Dennis deliberately turned and watched the sailor. Hilderman and his companion strolled ahead while I stood beside Dennis. The man with the red hair fished among a pile of wire rope, and picked out a small marline-spike. Then he lifted a large stone, held the marline-spike on the wooden planking of the landing-stage, and hammered it in with the stone. Then he threw the painter round it, and made the boat secure in that way.

“Yes,” murmured Dennis quietly, as we turned to join the others, “I think I won.”

For the man had held the stone in his left hand.

CHAPTER XIV.

A FURTHER MYSTERY

“Well,” said Hilderman, as we caught them up, “what about lunch? After his journey I daresay Mr. Burnham has an appetite, not to mention his excursion into the realm of detective fiction.”

“We lunched at Mallaig,” I explained, “with Mr. Garnesk before we saw him off.”

“Oh, did you?” he asked, with evident surprise. “I didn’t see you at the hotel.”

“We went to the Marine,” I replied, “to save ourselves a climb up the hill.”

“We had a snack at Mallaig too,” the American continued, “intending to lunch here. Are you sure you couldn’t manage something?”

“It would have to be a very slight something,” Dennis put in. “But I daresay we could manage that.”

“Good!” said Hilderman. “Come along, then, and let’s see what we can do.”

We strolled into the drawing-room through the inevitable verandah, and though Hilderman was the tenant of the furnished house he had contrived to impart a suggestion of his own personality to the room. The furniture was arranged in a delightfully lazy manner that almost made you yawn. The walls were hung with photographic enlargements of some of the most beautiful spots in the neighbourhood. I remembered what Myra had told me as to his being an enthusiastic photographer, so I asked him about them.

“Did you take these, Mr. Hilderman?”

“Yes,” he answered. “These are just a few of the best. I have many others which I should like you to see some time. I always leave the enlarging to keep me alive during the winter months. These are a few odd ones I enlarged for decorative purposes.”

“They are beautiful,” I said enthusiastically, for they were real beauties, more like drawings in monochrome than photographs. “And you certainly seem to have got about the neighbourhood since your arrival.”

“Yes,” he laughed, “I don’t miss much when I get out with my camera. Most of these were taken during the first month of my stay here.”

“These snow scenes from the Cuchulins are simply gorgeous, and surely this is the Kingie Pool on the Garry?”

“Right first time,” he admitted, evidently pleased to see his work admired. I thought of Garnesk’s suspicion that our American friend was engaged on detective work of some kind, and it struck me that with his camera and his obvious talent he had an excellent excuse for going almost anywhere, supposing he were called upon at any time to explain his presence in some outlandish spot.

“You must have kept yourself exceedingly busy,” I remarked in conclusion.

After the meal we adjourned to the hut above the falls. Hilderman certainly had some right to be proud of his view. It was magnificent. We stood outside the door and gazed out to sea, north, south and west, for some minutes.

“You have the same uninterrupted view from inside,” said Hilderman, as we mounted the three steps to the door. He held the door open, and I stepped in first, followed by Dennis and Fuller. The window extended the whole length of the room, and folded inwards and upwards, in the same way as some greenhouse windows do. Suddenly I laughed aloud.

“What’s the joke?” asked Hilderman.

“This,” I said, pointing to a large carbon transparency of a mountain under snow, which hung in the window on the north side. “You’ve no idea how this has been annoying us over at Invermalluch.”

“How?” asked Dennis.

“It swings about in the breeze,” I replied, “and it reflects the light and catches everybody’s eye. It’s a very beautiful photograph, Mr. Hilderman, but, like many human beings, it’s exceedingly unpopular owing to the position it holds.”

“A thousand apologies, Mr. Ewart,” said the American. “It shall be removed at once.”

“Oh, not at all!” I protested. “Surely you are entitled to hang a positive of a photograph in your window without receiving a protest from neighbours who live nearly three miles away.”

“That’s Invermalluch Lodge, then, across the water,” Dennis asked.

“Yes,” I replied, and we forgot about the transparency, which remained in undisputed possession of a pitch to which it was certainly entitled. We sat and smoked, and looked out at the mountains of Skye and the wonderful panorama of sea and loch, with an occasional glance at the gurgling waterfall at our feet, and presently I picked up a copy of an illustrated paper which was lying at my hand. I turned the pages idly, and threw a cursory glance at the photographs of the week’s brides, and the latest efforts of the theatrical press agents, and I noticed, without thinking anything of the fact, that one page had been roughly torn out. I was about to remark that probably the most interesting or amusing picture in the whole paper had been accidentally destroyed, when Fuller leaned across Dennis, and took the paper out of my hands.

“Don’t insult Mr. Hilderman’s precious view by reading the paper in his smoking-room, Mr Ewart,” he said, with a loud laugh. “As a Highlander you should have more tact than that.”

Hilderman turned round, and looked from one to other of us.

“What paper is he reading? I didn’t know there was one here.”

I explained what paper it was, adding, “I quite admit that it was a waste of time when I ought to be admiring your unrivalled view, Mr. Hilderman. I offer you my sincere apologies.”

Hilderman threw a quick glance at Mr. Fuller.

“Better give it him back, Fuller,” he said. “There is nothing more annoying than to have a paper snatched away from you when you’re half-way through it.”

Shortly after that Fuller declared that he must be leaving, and asked Hilderman rather pointedly whether he felt like a trip to Loch Duich. I determined to step in with an idea of my own.

“I was going to make a suggestion myself, Mr. Hilderman,” I began, “but it doesn’t matter if you are engaged.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’m particularly keen to come with you this afternoon, Fuller,” he remarked. “What was your suggestion, Mr. Ewart?”

“I was wondering whether you would come over to Invermalluch with Burnham and me and – er – have a look round with us?”

“Well, if Fuller doesn’t think it exceedingly rude of me, I should like to,” the American replied, “especially as Mr. Burnham will be leaving you to-morrow, or the day after at latest.”

“Incidentally, I don’t know how we shall get back without you,” I pointed out. “You see, we sent the motor-boat on.”

“By Jove, so you did!” Hilderman exclaimed. “Well, that settles it, Fuller.”

“I could take them on the Fiona and put them ashore,” his companion persisted. Hilderman gave Fuller a look which seemed to clinch the matter, however, for the little man beamed at me through his spectacles, and explained that if he took us in his yacht it would be killing two birds with one stone.

“Still, of course, my dear fellow,” he concluded, “you must please yourselves entirely.”

So we saw him safely on board the Fiona, and then started for Invermalluch in Hilderman’s magnificent Wolseley launch.

“Fuller knows me,” he explained, by way of apology. “I go up with him sometimes as often as three times a week, but I gathered that you asked me with a view to discussing the mystery of the green flash, or whatever you call it.”

“You’re quite right; I did,” I replied. “I simply want you to come and have a look at the river, and see what you can make of it.”

“Anything I can do, you know, Mr. Ewart,” he assured me, “I shall be delighted to do. If you think it will be of any assistance to you if I explore the river with you – well, I’m ready now.”

From that we proceeded to give him, at his request, minute details of Garnesk’s conclusions on the matter, and I am afraid I departed from the truth with a ready abandon and a certain relish of which I ought to have been most heartily ashamed.

When we stepped ashore at Invermalluch Hilderman looked back across the water.

“If I’d waited for Fuller,” he laughed, “I should have been stuck there yet. He’s let the water go off the boil or something.”

We went up to the house and had tea on the verandah, for the General had taken Myra up Loch Hourn in the motor-boat. After tea we got to business.

“Now that I’ve had a very refreshing cup of tea,” the American remarked, “I feel rather like the mouse who said ‘Now bring out your cat’ when he had consumed half a teaspoonful of beer! Now show me the river.”

“I don’t want to sound at all panicky,” I said, “but I think I ought to warn you that our experiences at the particular spot we are going to have – well, shall we say they have provided a striking contrast from the routine of our daily life?”

“I’m not at all afraid of the river, Mr. Ewart,” he replied lightly. “I should be the last person to doubt the statements of yourself and Miss McLeod and the General, but I am inclined to think the river has no active part in the proceedings.”

“You hold the view that it was the merest coincidence that Miss McLeod and the General both had terrible and strange experiences at the same spot?” asked Dennis.

“It seems to be the only sensible view to hold,” Hilderman declared emphatically. “I must say I think Miss McLeod’s blindness might have happened in her own room or anywhere else, and the General’s strange experience seems to me to be the delusion of overwrought nerves. I confess there is only one thing I don’t understand, and that is the disappearance of the dog. That’s got me beaten, unless it was that crofter.”

“We intend to go to the Saddle to-morrow and make a few investigations. I was going by myself,” I added cautiously, “but I think I can persuade Burnham to stay and go with me.”

“I certainly should stay for that, Mr. Burnham,” Hilderman advised. “One more day can’t make much difference.”

“I’ll think it over,” said Dennis, careful not to commit himself rashly.

We came to the Dead Man’s Pool, and crossed over the river, and began to walk up the other side.

“This is about the right time for a manifestation of the mystery,” I remarked lightly, though I was far from laughing about the whole thing.

“Well,” said Hilderman, “if we are to see the green flash in operation I hope it will be in a gentle mood, and not pull our teeth out one by one or anything of that sort.” Evidently he had little sympathy with our fear of the green ray and the awe with which we approached the neighbourhood of the river.

“Are we going to the right place?” Dennis asked. “I mean the identical spot?”

“That lozenge-shaped thing up there is the Chemist’s Rock,” I replied, “and the other important place is Dead Man’s Pool, which we have just left.”

“Miss McLeod went blind on the Chemist’s Rock, didn’t she?” Dennis inquired.

“Yes,” I replied, with a shudder. “She was fishing from it.”

“Then suppose we go back to the pool,” he suggested. We agreed readily enough, for I had no desire to hang about the fateful rock, and Hilderman for his part seemed to have no faith in the idea at all. I fancy he thought it would make no difference to us in what part of the river we might be, only provided we didn’t fall in. So Dennis led the way back, and he was the first to pick his way to the middle of the stream. Hilderman and I were some distance behind. Suddenly we stopped stock-still, and looked at him. He had begun to cough and splutter, and he seemed rooted to the small stone he was standing on in the middle of the stream. In a flash I understood, and with a cry I bounded after him, Hilderman following at my heels.

“It’s all right, Ewart,” cried Hilderman behind me. “He’s only choked, or something of that sort. He’ll be all right in a minute.”

Dennis had crossed to the centre of the stream by a way of his own, and we ran down to the stepping-stones by which we had come, in order to save the time which we should have been compelled to waste in feeling for a foothold as we went. Every second was of importance, and I fully expected to see Dennis topple unconscious into the pool below before I should be able to save him. I knew what it was exactly; he was going through my own horrible experience of “drowning on dry land,” to quote Garnesk’s vigorous phrase. Imagine my astonishment, therefore, when I reached Dennis’s side with only a slight difficulty in breathing. There was no sign, or at least very little, of the air which was “heavier than water.” Hilderman plunged along behind me, and we reached the stone on which my friend was standing almost simultaneously. Dennis held an arm pointing up the river, his face transfixed with an expression of horrified amazement. Suddenly Hilderman gave a hoarse, shrill shout, breaking almost into a scream.

“Shut your eyes!” he yelled. “Shut your eyes! Oh, for heaven’s sake, shut your eyes!”

But I never thought of following his advice. Dennis’s immovable arm, pointing like an inanimate signpost up the river, fascinated me. Slowly I raised my eyes in that direction. Then I stepped back with a startled cry, lost my footing, slipped, and fell on my face among the rocks.

The river had disappeared!

CHAPTER XV.

CONCERNS AN ILLUSTRATED PAPER

The river had disappeared!

In front of us was a great green wall of solid rock, which seemed to tower into the sky above us, and to stretch away for miles to right and left. The curious part about it was that the rock was undoubtedly solid. The shrubs that grew upon it, the great crevices and clefts, were all real. I knew – though I had a hard struggle to make myself believe – that it was all a marvellous and indescribable delusion, for there could be no cliff where only a few seconds before there had been a mighty, rushing torrent.

And yet I could have planted finger and foot on the ledges of that solid precipice and climbed to the invisible summit. Hilderman was muttering to himself beneath his breath, but I was too dazed, my brain was too numbed to make any sense out of the confused mumble of words which came from him. Dennis held my arm in a vice-like grip that stopped the circulation, and almost made me cry out with the pain.

Hilderman staggered, his arm over his eyes, across the stepping-stones to the side of the stream. I found my voice at last.

“Dennis!” I shouted at the top of my voice, though why I should have shouted I can never explain, for my friend was standing just beside me. “Dennis, come away, man. Get out of this!”

I exerted my strength to the uttermost, but Dennis was immovable, rooted to the spot by the strange, snake-like fascination of the nightmare. Then, as suddenly as it had arisen, the rock disappeared again, and there before our startled gaze was a peacefully flowing river. Dennis turned to me with a face as white as a sheet.

“The place is haunted,” he said, with a somewhat hysterical laugh.

“Let’s get away from it and sit down, and think it over,” I urged, pulling him away. We made for the side of the river and sat down, at a very safe distance from the bank. I rolled up my sleeve, and had a look at my arm.

“Great Scott!” Dennis exclaimed, as I dangled the pinched and purple limb painfully. “What on earth did that?”

“I’m afraid it was your own delicate touch and dainty caress that did it, old man. You seized hold of me as if you hadn’t seen me for years, and I owed you a thousand pounds.”

“Ron, my dear fellow,” he said penitently, “I’m most awfully sorry. Why didn’t you shout?”

I burst out laughing.

“I entered a protest in vigorous terms, but you were otherwise engaged at the moment, and, anyway, don’t look so scared about it, old man; it’ll be quite all right in a minute.”

Poor Dennis was quite upset at the evidence I bore of his absorption in the miracle, and we postponed our discussion while he massaged the injured arm in order to restore the flow of blood.

“Where’s Hilderman?” I asked presently, and though we looked everywhere for the American he was nowhere to be seen.

“He didn’t look the sort to funk like that,” said Dennis thoughtfully.

“I should have been prepared to bet he was quite brave,” I concurred. “Well, anyway,” I added, “the main point is, what do you think of our entertainment? You’ve come a long way for it, but I hope you are not disappointed now you’ve seen it. It’s original, isn’t it?”

“By heaven, Ron!” he cried, “you’re right. It is original. It is even a more unholy, indescribable mystery than I expected, and I never accused you of exaggerating it, even in my own mind.”

“I’m glad that both you and Hilderman have had ocular demonstration of it,” I remarked. “It is so much more convincing, and will help you to go into the matter without any feeling that we are out on a hare-brained shadow-chase.”

“We’re certainly not that, anyhow,” Dennis agreed emphatically. “It is a real mystery, Ronald, my boy. A real danger, as well, I’m afraid. But we’ll stick at it till the end.”

“Thanks, old fellow,” I said simply, and then I added, “I wonder what can have become of Hilderman?”

“Gad!” cried Dennis, in sudden alarm. “He can’t have fallen into the river by any chance?”

We jumped to our feet and looked about us.

“No,” I said presently, “he hasn’t fallen into the river.” And I pointed a finger out to sea. The Baltimore II., churning a frantic way across to Glasnabinnie, seemed to divide the intervening water in one great white slash.

“I wonder,” said Dennis quietly, “is that funk, or isn’t it?”

We watched the diminishing craft for a minute or two in silence, and finally decided to keep an open mind on the subject until we might have an opportunity to see Hilderman and hear his own explanation.

“Talking about explanations, what about the left-handed schoolmaster with the red-headed wife, or whatever it was?” I asked.

“That was a bit of luck,” said Dennis modestly, “and I will admit, if you like, that we owe that to Garnesk.”

“Garnesk wasn’t there,” I protested.

“No,” my friend admitted, “he wasn’t there at the time, but he put me on the look-out for a left-handed sailor. I was very much impressed with his deductions about the man who stole Miss McLeod’s dog, and I determined to be on the look-out for a left-handed man. I also admit that I carefully watched everyone we met, especially the fishermen at Mallaig, to see if I could detect the sort of man I wanted. I was rewarded when we were pulled out to the Fiona by those two men of Fuller’s. One of them was red-headed, you remember? Well, that man was left-handed. It was very easy to observe that by the way he held his oar and generally handled things. Of course I was very bucked about it, so I paid very close attention to him. He wore a wedding-ring – ergo, he was married. It is not conclusive, of course, but a fairly safe guess when you’re playing at toy detectives. So when I found the knife I looked for some sign that it belonged to him, and found it. It was all quite simple.”

“I daresay it will be when you explain it, but you haven’t in the least explained it yet,” I pointed out. “How about the schoolmaster and all that, and what made you think the knife belonged to him.”

“Simply because he was very probably – working on the law of averages – the only left-handed man among the crew, and that knife belonged to a left-handed man.”

“But my dear old fellow,” I cried, “you don’t seriously mean to tell me that you can say whether a man is left-handed or not by looking at marks on the handle of his knife?”