The Mystery of the Green Ray

“But,” I exclaimed, “that would be carrying professional jealousy a bit too far – if that’s what you mean!”

“It would be carrying it so far that we can rule it out of court,” he answered. “So that’s what I don’t mean. Let’s go back and analyse the occurrence. I say the dog was not stolen by poachers, because of the chloroform; you said the same yourself. I say that the thief knew the dog was blind, because he knew he was in a darkened room above the coach-house, and he stole him from there. A poacher would have gone to the kennel, and found it empty – and that would have been the end of that. But the man who knew the dog was in a special room must have known why he was there; and it seems to me that the man who steals a blind dog steals him because, for some reason or other, he wants a blind dog – that very one, probably. Have you got me?”

“Yes,” I said, “I follow you so far. Go on.” And I was surprised to find how relieved I was at this suggested complication. I felt that if we could only attribute this amazing week of mysteries to some human agent I should be able to grapple with it.

“Now I come to my main point,” Garnesk continued, “and it’s this: The man who wanted Sholto because he was blind wanted him to experiment on. But no professional man would do a thing like that, even supposing there to be one about. That motive again is ruled out of court. There remains one possible solution – ”

“Well?” I asked breathlessly, for even now I failed to grasp the conclusion my scientific companion could be coming to. “Go on!”

“If this thief did not want Sholto to experiment on himself, he stole the dog in order to prevent me from experimenting on him.”

I laughed aloud from sheer excitement and the relief of finding some tangible thing to go on, for the oculist’s argument struck me as very nearly perfect.

“You ought to be at Scotland Yard,” I said. “You seem to me to have hit the nail on the head.”

“The two callings are very closely allied,” he said modestly. “Detectives deal with murderers and thieves, and I with nerves and tissues. It is all a question of diagnosis.”

“I must say I think you’ve diagnosed this case very well, Mr. Garnesk,” I said, “though we are just at the beginning of our troubles if what you suppose is correct.”

“I can’t think of any other solution,” he answered thoughtfully; “and we are, as you say, just at the beginning of our troubles. The first thing to do is – ”

“To find the man who stole the dog,” I cut in.

“To find the man who knew the dog was blind,” he corrected. “By that means we may come to the man who stole the dog; then we may get his reason from his own lips, if we are exceptionally lucky. But I fancy I can supply his motive, failing a full confession.”

“You can?” I cried. “Let’s hear it.”

“You’ve thought of one yourself, of course?” he asked.

“The only motive I can think of is too fantastic altogether. It is weak enough to presuppose that someone has a grievance against Miss McLeod or the General, and that someone took advantage of the extraordinary circumstances to steal Sholto, and if possible prevent Myra getting her sight back. Oh, it’s too ridiculous!”

“We have to remember,” my companion suggested, “that our unknown quantity not only knew that the dog was blind, but also knew that I was coming or had arrived, and would probably experiment on the beast. It argues a very terrible urgency that the animal disappeared within an hour or two of my arrival. From all that I deduce what seems to me the only possible motive. The dog was stolen by the man who made Miss McLeod blind.”

“Made her blind!” I cried. “You don’t seriously mean that you think someone – some fiend of hell – deliberately blinded her?”

“Not deliberately,” my companion replied. “But I believe it was through some human agency that she was blinded. I think some person or persons were anxious that Miss McLeod should remain blind, in case we should, in the process of recovering her sight, hit upon the cause of her losing it.”

In silence I sat for a few moments, thinking over this extraordinary new outlook. I must certainly wire for Dennis in the morning.

“Mr. Garnesk,” I said presently, “you are bringing a very terrible charge against some human monster whom we have yet to discover. But I must admit that you seem to have logic on your side. It remains for me to discover who these people are – if there are more than one.”

“Yes,” he mused; “that is what we must discover.”

“We!” I exclaimed. “Then you’re not going away?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think it would be fairer to you all if I left you. I think my arrival has done some good – my departure may do more. But I assure you, Mr. Ewart, I shall not give up this case till Miss McLeod recovers her sight. I give you my hand on that.”

I shook hands with him warmly.

“Thank you,” I said, as I noticed the eager look on his keen, handsome face. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. To-morrow I hope I shall find the man who knew Sholto was blind.”

“I only know of one outside the General’s household,” he answered.

“But I don’t even know that!” I cried, forgetting Dennis for the moment. As for Olvery, he had gone clean out of my mind. “Who do you mean?”

“The American,” said my companion.

“Hilderman!” I exclaimed. “Surely you must be mistaken. Why, he was absolutely astonished when we told him. He can’t have known.”

“Still,” Garnesk insisted, “I felt sure he knew. I suspected something about him, but I was wrong to do that, quite wrong; I admit that now. I couldn’t at first see why he pretended he hadn’t heard that Sholto was blind. You may have noticed that I tried to give him the impression that I had examined Miss McLeod and come to the conclusion that I could do nothing. I confess I did that to see how he took it. But I was on a wrong scent altogether. He knew about the dog, that was obvious, but it was also obvious that he hadn’t been told from an official source, so to speak. He kept fishing for information. He brought up the dog several times, each time with a query mark in his voice – as you might say. He remarked that the last time he saw Miss McLeod she had her beautiful dog with her. That made me suspicious, because from what you told me she always had her dog with her. Then he said her dog must be feeling it very keenly, you remember. I tried him with my pessimistic conclusions to see how he took it. You see, as soon as I saw the dog I put contagious disease out of the question. Natural forces unguided seemed impossible, but natural forces of some nature that we can’t yet understand seemed probable. Still I was wrong to suspect Hilderman, quite wrong. Besides he couldn’t possibly have stolen the dog.”

“I’m glad you feel you were wrong there,” I said, “because I rather like the man. I shouldn’t care to have to suspect him.”

“Don’t suspect him, whatever you do,” said the oculist earnestly. “Whatever you do, don’t do that. He might be very useful. Make a friend of him. You’ll want all your friends.”

He rose and stretched his legs, and I followed suit. We stood for a moment on the Chemist’s Rock and gazed up the river, over the top of the falls, into the silver and purple symphony of a highland night. Presently my companion turned and took my arm.

“I’ve seen all I want to see,” he said as he began to lead me down to the pool again. “They’ll wonder what has become of us. And as I’ve seen enough for one night, let’s get back to the house.”

“It’s a wonderful view at any time of the day or night,” I agreed, and I sighed as I thought of poor Myra.

“It must be,” said Garnesk absently, picking his way across the rocks. “It must be a magnificent view. I haven’t noticed it; you must bring me here to-morrow.”

CHAPTER VIII.

MISTS OF UNCERTAINTY

When we got back to the house we found Myra and her father – not unnaturally – wondering what had become of us.

“What have you been doing, and where have you been, and what do you mean by it?” she asked, playfully. “I wish I could see you. I’m sure you must be looking very guilty.”

Garnesk and I exchanged hurried glances. It was obvious from her remark that the General had not told her of Sholto’s disappearance. I decided there and then that I would have to tell her the whole truth myself, and I gave the others a pretty broad hint that we would like to be left alone. I left the drawing-room and went with them to the library, and answered the old man’s feverish questions as to the result of our search.

Then I returned to Myra. It was a difficult and unpleasant task that I had to perform, but I got through it somehow; and, as I expected, Myra was very distressed about her dog, but not in the least frightened. I had thought it wiser not to acquaint her with the specialist’s deductions as to the connection between her own affliction and the theft of Sholto. When I had given her as many particulars as I thought advisable, the other two rejoined us.

“Can you think of anyone at all, Miss McLeod,” the specialist asked, “who would be likely to steal Sholto?”

“I can’t,” the girl replied helplessly. “I wish I could.”

“The two classes of people we want to find,” I suggested, “are those who like Sholto so much as to be prepared to steal him, and those who dislike him so much as to be anxious to destroy him.”

“You don’t think they’ll hurt him,” she cried, anxiously. “Poor old fellow! It’s bad enough his being blind; but I would rather know he was dead than being ill-treated.”

“It’s much more likely to be the act of some very human person who covets his neighbour’s goods,” said Garnesk, reassuringly. “But, at the same time, we must not overlook the other possibility. Can you remember anyone who does dislike the dog?”

“Only one,” said Myra, thoughtfully, “and I don’t think he could have done it. He has a small croft away up above Tor Beag, and Sholto and I were up there one day; but it’s months ago. Sholto went nosing round as usual, and the man came out and got very excited in Gaelic – and you know how excited one can be in that language. He was very rude to me about the dog, and it made me rather suspicious. I told daddy about it after.”

“Yes, and I hope you won’t go wandering about so far from home without saying where you’re going in future, my dear; because – ” said the old man, and pulled himself up in pained confusion as he realised the tragic significance of his words.

“Some sort of poacher, perhaps,” suggested Garnesk, coming quickly to the rescue.

“An illicit whisky still somewhere about, more likely,” Myra replied. And as she could think of no other likely person, and the crofter seemed out of the question, we had to confess ourselves puzzled. I had hoped that Myra would have been able to give us some clue with which we could have satisfied her, while we kept our suspicions to ourselves. Then we left Myra with the specialist, who made a temporary examination. In twenty minutes he assured us that he could make nothing of the case, but that he was willing to stake his reputation that there was nothing organically wrong; and he gave us, so far as he dared, distinct reason to hope that she would eventually regain full possession of her lost faculty. So, after general rejoicings all round, in which I quite forgot the mystery of the man who stole the dog, I went to bed feeling ten years younger, and slept like a top.

When I awoke in the morning much of my elation of spirit had evaporated, and I felt again the oppression of surrounding tragedy. I got up immediately – it was just after six – dressed, and went down to bathe. I was strolling down the drive, with a towel round my neck, when Garnesk put his head out of his window and shouted that he would join me. The tide being in, we saved ourselves a walk to the diving-rock, as the point was called, and bathed from the landing-stage. Refreshed by the swim, we determined to scour the country-side for any tracks of the thief.

“What beats me is how anybody in a place like this, where everybody for miles round knows more about you than you do yourself, could get rid of an enormous beast like Sholto. He was big even for a Dane, and his weight must have been tremendous when he was drugged,” said Garnesk, as we walked up the beach path. “Have you ever tried to carry a man who’s fainted?”

“I have,” I answered with feeling, “and I quite agree with you. If the thief wanted to do away with the dog the beast’s body is probably somewhere near.”

“What about the river?” my companion suggested.

“More likely the loch,” I decided, “or the sea. But that would mean a boat, because it would have to be buried in deep water, or the body would be washed up again on the rocks, even with a heavy weight attached. There are many deep pools in the river, but they are constantly fished, and that would lead to eventual detection. We are dealing with a man who knows his way about. It might be the loch or one of the burns, easily.”

Accordingly we decided to try the loch first; but though we followed the path from the house, carefully studying the ground every foot of the way, and examined the banks equally carefully, we were forced to the conclusion that we were on the wrong scent. Then we came down one of the burns that runs from the loch to the sea, and met with the same result.

“We’ll walk along the beach and go up the next stream,” Garnesk suggested. “Hullo,” he exclaimed suddenly, as we clambered over the huge rocks into a tiny cove, “there’s been a boat in here!”

I looked at the shingly beach, and saw the keel-marks of a boat and the footprints of its occupants in the middle of the cove. We went up gingerly, for fear of disturbing the ground of our investigations. I looked at the marks, and pondered them for a moment. By this time my senses were wide awake.

“What do you make of it?” the oculist asked.

“Well,” I replied, with an apologetic laugh, “I’m afraid you’ll think me more picturesque than businesslike if I tell you all the conclusions I’ve already come to; but the man who came ashore in this boat didn’t steal Sholto.”

“Go on,” he said. “Why, I told you I knew you weren’t a fool.”

“Thank you!” I laughed. “It seems to me that if a man arrived in a boat and went ashore to steal a dog, he would go away again in the same boat.”

“And didn’t he?”

“I feel convinced he didn’t,” I replied, and pointed out to him what must have been obvious to both of us. “Compare the keel-marks with high-water mark. There is less than half a boat’s length of keel-mark, and it is just up above high-water mark. This craft, which appears to have been a small rowing-boat, was run ashore at high tide, or very near it, and run out again very quickly. It might conceivably have come in and been caught up by the sea. But Sholto was stolen between a quarter past eight and half-past nine, when the tide was well on the way out. If Sholto went out to sea it was not in this boat.”

“Well,” said Garnesk, thoughtfully, “your point is good enough for me. We must look somewhere else.”

“I hope my attempts at detective work will not put us off the scent,” I said, doubtfully.

“I don’t think they will, Ewart,” said my companion, graciously. “Not in this case, anyway. I’m sure you’re right, because this bay can be seen from the top windows of the house.”

“You evidently reached my conclusions with half the effort in half the time,” I laughed.

“Oh, nonsense!” he exclaimed. “It was you who pointed out that the one man in this boat came in daylight.”

“Why ‘one man’ so emphatically?” I asked.

“When two men come in a boat to commit a theft, and only one of them goes ashore, the other would hardly be expected to sit in the boat and twiddle his thumbs. It’s a thousand pounds to a penny that he would get out and walk about the beach. Now, only one gentleman came ashore from this boat, and only one got on board again. One set of footprints going and one coming decided me on that. Besides, if anyone came along and saw a solitary man sitting in a boat, they might ask him how his wife and children were, and he would have to reply; whereas an empty boat, being unable to answer questions, would raise no suspicions.”

“You seem to be arguing that this boat may have been the one we are looking for,” I pointed out; “and yet we are agreed that the state of the tide made it impossible for Sholto to have been taken away in it.”

“Yes,” said Garnesk, “I agree to that. But I fancy the thief came by that boat. It seems to me that our man jumps out of the boat, runs ashore, and his friend pulls away and picks him up elsewhere – probably nearer the house. It would look perfectly natural for a man who has apparently been giving a companion a pull across from Skye, say, to land him and then go back. The more I think of this the more it interests me. You see, if the top windows of the house can be seen from the bay, it means that the lower windows can be seen from the top of the cliff. If we can find where our thief lay in wait on the cliff and watched the house, probably with his eyes glued on the dining-room windows to see when we commenced dinner, if we can also find where he left his sea-boots while he went to the house, and then where he rejoined his companion, we are getting on.”

“What makes you say ‘sea-boots’?” I asked. “You can’t tell a top-boot by the footmarks.”

“Indirectly you can,” Garnesk replied, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe. “That boat was pulled in and pushed out by a man who exerted hardly any pressure, although the beach only slopes gently. His companion did not lend a hand by pushing her out with an oar; if he had done so we should have seen the marks, and I couldn’t find any. The only other way to account for it is that our friend, who exerted so little pressure, was wearing sea-boots and walked into the water with the boat. Had he been alone, the jerk of his final jump into the boat would have left a deeper impression on the beach. The tide was just going out; it would have no time to wash this mark away. I looked for the mark, and it wasn’t there; so I came to the final conclusion that two men arrived in the cove shortly after seven last night in a small open boat. One of them – a tall, left-handed man in sea-boots – pushed the boat out again and went ashore.”

I am afraid I was rude enough to shout with laughter at this very definite statement; but it was mainly with excited admiration that I laughed – certainly not with ridicule. Garnesk turned to me apologetically.

“I know it sounds far-fetched, my dear chap,” he said; “but we shall have to think a lot over this business, and I am simply thinking aloud in order that you can give me your help in my own conclusions.”

“My dear fellow,” I cried, “don’t, for heaven’s sake, imagine that I am laughing at you. It was the left-handed touch that made me guffaw with sheer excitement.”

“Well, I think he was left-handed, because the footmarks were going ashore on the right-hand side of the keel-marks, and going seawards on the left-hand side. Jump out of a boat and push it out to sea, and notice which side of the boat you stand by instinct – provided you were doing as he was, pushing on the point of the bows. The fact that his feet obliterate the keel-marks in one place proves that. So now we want to find a left-handed man in sea-boots who knew Sholto was blind” – and he laughed in a half-apology.

“What about these sea-boots,” I asked, “and the place we are to find where he left them?”

“We’ll look for that now; and if we find it we can be pretty sure our mariner stole the dog.”

“You seem to be taking it for granted already,” I pointed out.

“The easiest way to prove he didn’t is to satisfy ourselves that there’s no evidence he did,” said the oculist. “But I fancy he did.”

“From the way you’ve sized it up so far I should be inclined to back your fancy,” I admitted frankly. “I take it, from your diagnosis, that our nautical friend came ashore here, went up on to the cliff, and glued his eye to the dining-room window. When he saw we were at dinner, and it was getting dusk – in fact, almost dark – he took off his sea-boots and slipped up to the Lodge in his stocking-soles. So if we climb the cliff, we expect to find the spot on which he deposited his boots.”

“If we expected that,” Garnesk replied, “we should also expect to find his boots; and he wouldn’t be likely to leave such incriminating evidence in our hands as that. No, my dear Ewart; when he left the cliff he was wearing his boots, and he left them at some point on the path between the house and his embarking place. Come – let’s look.”

I was intensely interested in my friend’s deductions, and I felt convinced that he was right. So we climbed the cliff, he by one route and I by another, in order to see if we could find any traces of last night’s visitor. But that was impossible; the rocks were too storm-swept to harbour any sort of lichen which would have shown evidence of footmarks. Still, we were not disappointed when we reached the top, and Garnesk looked at me with a charming expression of boyish triumph when we came across a patch of ground where the heather had obviously been trampled about and worn down by someone recently lying there.

“I don’t think we’ll worry about tracing him from here just now,” said the specialist. “It would be a very difficult job, and we may as well make for the most likely spot to embark from.”

“Right you are,” I agreed. “I think there can only be one – that is a secluded little inlet, almost hidden by the rocks on the other side of the house.”

“Come on, let’s have a look at it,” my companion urged; and we blundered down the side of the cliff and hurried along the shore. But when we came to the small bay which I had in mind there was certainly some sign of disturbance among the rough gravel with which the shore was carpeted; and that was all the evidence we could find.

“It is such an ideal spot for the job that this almost knocks our theory on the head,” murmured Garnesk ruefully. “There are no boat-marks, or anything.”

“Which, in a way, bears out your diagnosis,” I cried, suddenly hitting on what I thought to be the solution of the difficulty.

“How, in heaven’s name?”

“Our old friend the tide,” I declared, with returning confidence.

“Of course,” he almost shouted. “I’ve got you, Ewart. The boat came in here while the tide was going out – when, in fact, it was some distance out, possibly nearly an hour after it ran into the other cove. Since then the tide has come in again and obliterated any marks the men may have made. If we find any evidence on a line running between this place and the house, we can call it a certainty.”

In feverish excitement we hurried towards the house, casting anxious glances to right and left, but the stubborn heather showed no sign of any recent passenger that way. At last Garnesk, who was some distance to my right, hailed me with an exultant shout. There, sure enough, was a broad patch bearing marks of recent occupation, much the same as the other at the top of the cliff. We were able easily to distinguish the exact spot where the thief had laid the unconscious dog while he put on his boots. The discovery of an unmistakable footprint in a more marshy spot, which could only have been imprinted by a stockinged foot, completed my friend’s triumph.

“My dear fellow,” I cried heartily, slapping my companion on the back, “I congratulate you. If you go on like this we shall have the dog and the thief in no time.”

“It will be some days, even at this rate,” he warned me solemnly, “before we get as far as that. Now, back to the embarking-point, and see if we can reconstruct the thing fully.”

So we retraced our steps, and studied the shingle once more, but failed to discover any marks of any value. Then we sat down, and the oculist drew a vivid picture of the journey the thief had made. At last, feeling more than satisfied with our work, we rose to go in to breakfast.

“Ewart, I want you to wire for that friend of yours before you do anything else. You may want him soon. I will leave by the morning train to-morrow, but I shall continue on this case till the mystery is solved. In the meantime, you will need someone you can trust at your side all the time.”

“I’ll go into Glenelg, and wire immediately after breakfast,” I promised. “Hullo, more reflections,” I laughed, and pointed to a small, bright object some distance away on the rocks, which was catching the glint of the sun.

“We seem to be surrounded by a spying army of glittering objects,” laughed my companion, as we strolled on. We had walked some forty yards when some instinct – I know not what – prompted me to investigate the affair. I turned back, and went to pick up the shining object, though for the life of me I could not have told you what I expected to find.