The Mystery of the Green Ray

“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.

“Garnesk!” I bawled. “Garnesk! Come here!”

“What is it?” he shouted to me, as he came hurtling over the rocks.

“Look at it,” I replied tersely, and placed it in his outstretched palm. He glanced at it, and then at me.

“That settles it,” he said, and whistled softly, for I had found a small piece of brass, and on it was engraved: —

“Sholto, The Douglas, Invermalluch Lodge, Inverness-shire.”

It was the name-plate from Sholto’s collar.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MYSTERY OF SHOLTO

We discussed our discovery pretty thoroughly on the way back to the house, and both agreed that it left no doubt upon one aspect of this strange affair – the man who stole Sholto was no ordinary thief.

The General was standing on the verandah, looking about for us, as we came up the beach path. I told him of Garnesk’s deductions and their interesting result, and the old man was greatly affected.

“I never dreamt I should live to see the old place abused in this shocking manner,” he grunted. “’Pon me soul, it’s – it’s begad disgraceful. I’ve lived here all my life, on and off, and I’ve never been troubled with anything like this, scarcely so much as a tramp even. I hope to God it’ll soon be over, that’s all.”

“Thanks to Mr. Garnesk, we’re moving along in the right direction,” I tried to reassure him. “And we have the satisfaction, in one way, of being able to tell Myra that Sholto is still alive, even if we don’t know where he is.”

“Seems to me, Ronald,” said the General, “you don’t know that, or anything about the poor beast, except that he has been stolen, and probably taken away in a boat. Judging by Mr. Garnesk’s theory, they probably threw him overboard in deep water.”

“No one who intended destroying a dog would take the trouble to wrench the name-plate off his collar,” I pointed out. “The dog is alive, and not unconscious. They need his collar to keep him in hand, but they are afraid the plate might give them away. Mr. Garnesk is right, I’m sure, and if we find the thief we find the cause for Myra’s terrible misfortune.”

“Where do you imagine they can have taken him to then? Seems to me we’re getting some pretty queer neighbours.”

“That is just what we have to find out,” said Garnesk, “and I for one will not rest until I do.”

“’Pon my soul, my dear chap,” said the old man warmly, “it’s very good of you to take so much interest in the affairs of total strangers. It is, indeed, thundering good of you.”

“Not at all, General,” laughed the visitor. “If you spent your life trying to cure fussy ladies of imaginary eye trouble, without putting it to them that their livers are out of order, you’d welcome this as a very appetising antidote.”

“Talking about appetites,” his host suggested, “who says breakfast?”

“I fancy we both do,” I answered, and we turned indoors.

During breakfast Garnesk announced his determination to devote as much of the day as necessary to an examination of Myra, and then catch the evening train from Mallaig, but the girl herself rose in rebellion at this immediately.

“You mustn’t do anything of the sort,” she declared emphatically. “Daddy, tell him he’s not to. The idea of coming up here, and looking at me, and then going away again! It’s ridiculous!”

“I assure you, it is ample reward,” declared the oculist gallantly, and everybody laughed at the frank compliment.

“But you must fish the river, have a day on the loch. Ron must take you in the motor-boat up to Kinlochbourn. Then you’ve simply got to see Scavaig and Coruisk – oh! and a hundred other things besides.”

Garnesk insisted that, much as he would like to stay, he felt bound to leave at once, but Myra was equally obstinate; and, as was natural, being a woman, she won on a compromise. Garnesk agreed to stay over the week-end. I was very glad that Myra liked my new friend. She had been very shy of Olvery, but she took an immediate fancy to the Glasgow specialist. She liked his voice, she told me afterwards, and on the second day of his visit she asked him if his sister was very much younger than he. Garnesk looked up in surprise.

“One of them is,” he replied, “nearly twenty years. What made you ask?”

“I guessed it by the way you talk to me,” Myra declared confidently.

“The detective instinct seems to be in the air,” I laughed.

So when I borrowed Angus’s ramshackle old cycle, and went into Glenelg along a road which is more noteworthy for its picturesqueness than its navigable qualities, I left Garnesk to his examination with the knowledge that he would do his utmost, and that she would help him all she could.

I wired to Dennis: “I can meet you at Mallaig Monday morning. Wire reply. – Ronald.” Then I sent a couple of picture postcards to Tommy and Jack, wishing them luck, and explaining that I had not returned to join them because Myra was ill. I was sure Dennis would appreciate the urgency of my message, but I worded it carefully, deliberately making it appear to be the answer to an inquiry, for the reason that it is always wise to do as little as you can to stimulate local gossip. Anything like “Come at once; most urgent,” despatched by one who was known to be a visitor at the lodge, would have set the entire country-side talking. So I jumped on to Angus’s collection of old metal, and jolted back again as fast as I could. Garnesk was still engaged with Myra, and I took the opportunity of a chat with her father.

“Would you care to see the discoveries we made this morning?” I asked, when I found him in the library.

“Yes, I should indeed, my boy,” he responded eagerly, and I think he was glad of the diversion. “I’ll come with you now.”

“There is one thing I want to say, sir, before we go any farther.”

“What is it?” he asked, looking rather anxiously at me.

“I want to tell you,” I said, “that in the event of Myra not regaining her sight I should like your permission to marry her as soon as she herself wishes it. As you know, I have a small private income, which is sufficient for my needs in London, and would be more than I should require up here. If Myra is to be blind, I should like to marry her in order that I may always be able to take care of her, and I should propose to settle down somewhere near you. I dabble in contributory journalism, and I could extend that as far as possible, and I might even do pretty well at it. Both she and you would know then that, in the event of anything happening to you, she would be cared for by someone she loves.”

“My dear Ronald,” exclaimed the old man, affectionately laying a hand on my shoulder, “I’m very glad to hear you say that. As a matter of fact, whatever happens, I don’t care how soon you marry my dear girl. She wants it with all her heart, and I have always been fond of you myself. The only thing that has held me back up to now is the question of money, and, possibly, a little selfishness. I’m not a rich man, as you know, and if it were not for my pension I couldn’t even live in my father’s house. But now my one desire is to see my poor little girl happy, and we’ll scrape together a shilling or two somehow. Shake hands, my boy.”

We both of us forgot all about the terrible war, and, naturally enough, the mysterious trouble which faced us then was sufficient for the moment. Having settled that question at last, I conducted the old man to the small cove where we had made our first discovery, but we began by visiting the coach-house. I daresay that to the trained eye there may have been valuable evidence lying under our very noses, but the only confused marks which we found on the surrounding ground conveyed nothing to either of us. Later, on our way back to the house, from what we now called “the embarking-point,” we came upon a spot where the heather had been cut off in fairly large quantities. The old man stood, and contemplated the shorn stumps for a moment, and shook his head solemnly. It was not that he had any sentimental regret for the heather which grew on almost every inch of ground for hundreds of miles round, but he objected to the sign of visitors, or, as he would have said, “trippers.”

“Who would want to cut heather here?” I asked, for I could not see the slightest reason for gathering anything which could be obtained at your door wherever you lived in the Highlands.

“Holiday-makers,” he said ruefully. “They take rooms in the village, and get it into their heads that the heather in one spot is better than anything else for miles round, so they walk out to that spot, and cut some to take away with them when they go back home. I wish they’d always go back home and stop there.”

When I showed the General the keel-marks in the cove and explained to him in detail how Garnesk had arrived at his conclusions, the old man was quite awed.

“’Pon me soul, he must be thundering clever, thundering clever,” he muttered. “But it’s not healthy, you know, Ronald; in fact, it’s begad unhealthy. I’ve always been a bit scared of these people who see things that are not there. Still, I suppose it’s the modern way; reading all these detective yarns and so on does it, no doubt.”