The Mystery of the Green Ray

“Mr. Garnesk described everybody I should be likely to meet,” McKenzie replied, “including Mr. Hilderman and Mr. Fuller. I know you are Mr. Ewart’s friend because you have a small white scar above your left eyebrow. So, being with you, and wearing a shade and an Indian bangle, I thought I was safe in concluding the lady was Miss McLeod.”

“Garnesk doesn’t seem to miss much!” Dennis laughed.

“He made me repeat his descriptions about twenty times,” said McKenzie, “so I felt pretty sure of myself.”

When they got up to the lodge, and the messenger’s requirements had been administered to, Dennis unpacked the parcel. The spectacles proved to be something like motor goggles; they fitted closely over the nose and forehead, and entirely excluded all light except that which could be seen through the glass. The only curious thing about them was the glass itself. Instead of being white, or even blue, it was red, and the surface was scratched diagonally in minute parallel lines. Myra and Dennis hurried upstairs, and lighted the lamp in the dark-room. When the girl came down again she declared that she could see beautifully. Everything was red, of course, but she could see quite distinctly.

“Have you any idea why these glasses are ruled in lines like this?” Dennis asked McKenzie.

“I couldn’t say for certain, sir,” the youth replied. “But I should think it was because Mr. Garnesk thought the glasses would be so near the eye as to be ineffective. In photography, for instance, you can’t print either bromide or printing-out paper in a red light. But if you coat a red glass with emulsion, and make an exposure on it, you can print the negative in the usual way. I don’t know why it is.”

“Perhaps there is no space for a ray to form,” Myra suggested.

“You must tell Mr. Garnesk how deeply grateful we all are to him,” said Dennis. “I’ll give you a letter to take back to him. It has been a wonderfully quick bit of work!”

“I should think he has got some hundreds of the glasses finished by this time,” said McKenzie, “and he has already asked for an estimate for fifty thousand of them.”

“Whatever for?” Myra exclaimed.

“I couldn’t say at all, but Mr. Garnesk probably has it all mapped out. He always knows what he’s about.”

A couple of hours later McKenzie left for Glenelg, with ample time to catch his boat, and the others sat down to lunch. Myra was delighted that she could see, even though everything was red. Just as they had finished lunch a telegram was delivered to Dennis. It was handed in at Mallaig, and it read: “Don’t worry about me. May be away for a few days. – Ewart.”

“Oh, good!” exclaimed Dennis. “A wire from Ron. He’s all right. ‘Don’t worry about me. May be away for a few days.’ Sent from Mallaig. He may have got something he feels he must tell Garnesk about, and has gone to Glasgow.”

“I expect that’s it,” Myra agreed. “I’m glad he’s wired. I do hope he’ll write from wherever he is to-night. Do you think I shall get a letter in the morning?”

“Certain to,” Dennis vowed, laying the telegram on the mantelpiece. “He’s sure to write, however busy he is.”

Though Myra was disappointed that there was no personal message for her, she tried to believe that everything was all right. Dennis went on what he called coastguard duty, and watched the sea and shores with the untiring loyalty of a faithful dog. That night, after dinner, he went out to keep an eye on things, and left Myra with her father. She has told me since that she felt miserable that I had not wired to her, and went to fetch my telegram in order to get what comfort she could from my message to Dennis. She held the telegram under the light, and read it through. The words were: “May be away for a few days. – Ewart.” She made out the faint pencil writing slowly through the red glass. She read it twice through, and then suddenly collapsed into an armchair in the horror of swift realisation. “Ewart!” she whispered, “Ewart! He would never sign a telegram to Mr. Burnham in that way. If Ronnie didn’t send that wire, who did?”

In a moment she jumped to her feet. She must act, and act quickly.

She ran into the den, and picked up the revolver and cartridges which Garnesk had sent, and which she had put carefully away until I should come and claim them. She loaded the revolver, and tucked it in the pocket of the Burberry coat which she slipped on in the hall. Then she tore down to the landing-stage, and made straight for Glasnabinnie in the Jenny Spinner. She had got about half a mile when Dennis, coming up to the top of the cliff on his self-imposed coastguard duties, saw her and recognised her through his binoculars.

He ran down to the landing-stage, putting on his red glasses as he went. His horror was complete when he found there was no craft of any kind about, not even a rowboat. Alas! I had idiotically allowed the dinghy to drift away. He ran along the shore, every now and then looking anxiously through his binoculars for any sign of any kind of boat that would get him over to Glasnabinnie in time to fulfil his promise of looking after “Ron’s little girl.”

Myra has since admitted – and how proud I was to hear her say it – that she forgot about everything and everybody except that I was in danger, and probably Hilderman knew something about it. Her one thought was to hold the pistol to his head and demand my safe return.

She came ashore a little beyond the house, having made a rather wide detour, so that she should not be seen. She knew the best way to the hut, and there was a light in it. She thought Hilderman would be there. She had passed well to seaward of the Fiona, and noticed that she was standing by with steam up. Myra climbed the hill to the hut with as much speed as she could.

Hilderman was standing below the door of the smoking-room talking to three men. She knew that she would have no chance, even with a revolver, against four men. She might hurt one of them, but she recognised, fortunately, that the others would overpower her.

Eventually Hilderman went into the hut, and two of the men stayed outside talking. The other went down the hill. It was in watching this man that Myra saw the sight that had astonished me, the continuous stream of lights down the bed of the burn. She waited, so she said it seemed, for hours and hours, before she could see a real chance of attacking Hilderman.

Indeed, neither she nor Dennis can give any very clear idea precisely how long it was that she waited there, but it must have been a considerable time. At last Hilderman was alone. Myra crept to the edge of the little plateau on which the hut stood, and then made a dash for the door. She thrust it open and stepped inside, pulling it to behind her. Hilderman sprang to his feet with an oath as he saw her.

“Heavens!” he cried. “You!”

Myra drew the revolver and presented it at him.

“Put up your hands, Mr. Hilderman,” she said, with a calmness that astonished herself, “and tell me what you have done with Ronnie – Mr. Ewart.”

“I must admit you’ve caught me, Miss McLeod!” Hilderman replied. “I can only assure you that your fiancé is safe.”

“Where is he?” Myra asked.

“He is quite close at hand,” Hilderman assured her, “and quite safe. What do you want me to do?”

“You must set him free at once,” said Myra quietly.

“And if I refuse?”

“I shall shoot you and anyone else who comes near me.”

“Now look here, Miss McLeod,” said Hilderman, “I may be prepared to come to terms with you. If you shot me and half a dozen others it would not help you to find Mr. Ewart. On the other hand, it would be awkward for us to have a lot of shooting going on, and I have no wish to harm Mr. Ewart. If I produce him, and allow you two to go away, are you prepared to swear to me that you will neither of you breathe a word of anything you may know to any living soul for forty-eight hours? I think I can trust you.”

Myra thought it over quickly.

“Yes,” she said, “if you will – ”

But she never finished the sentence. At that moment someone caught her wrist in a grip of steel, and wrenched the pistol from her.

“Come, come, Miss McLeod,” said Fuller, “This is very un-neighbourly of you.”

Myra looked round her in despair. There must be some way out of this. She cudgelled her brains to devise some means of getting the better of her captives. Fuller laid the pistol on the table and sat down.

“You need not be alarmed,” he said. “We shall not hurt you. You will be left here, that is all. And we shall get safely away. After this we shall not be able to leave your precious lover with you, but Hilderman insists that he shall not be hurt, and we shall take him to Germany and treat him as a prisoner of war.”

Then Myra had an inspiration. She turned her head towards Fuller, as if she were looking about two feet to the right of his head.

“You may as well kill me as leave me here,” she said calmly.

“Nonsense,” said Hilderman. “If we leave you here, and see that you have no means of getting away by sea, you will have to find your way across the hills or round the cliffs. There is no road, and by the time you return to civilisation we shall be clear.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” said Myra. “You bargain on my falling over a precipice or something. A blind girl would have a splendid chance of getting back safely!”

“Good heavens!” Hilderman cried. “I thought you must be able to see. Fuller, this means that that fellow Burnham came with her, and is close at hand. What in the name – ”

But he, too, was interrupted, for a great, gaunt figure flashed like some weird animal through the window. A long bare arm reached over Fuller’s shoulder and snatched the pistol.

“Yes, Mr. Burnham is with her,” said Dennis quietly, as he stood in front of them, stripped to the waist, the water pouring off him in streams, and covered them with the revolver.

Hilderman and Fuller von Guernstein held up their hands as requested.

“This is very awkward,” said Fuller. “We shall have to let that wretched Ewart go.”

And then Dennis swayed, threw up his arms, and fell sideways, full length on the floor. Myra glanced at him, and threw herself on her knees beside the prostrate form.