The Man from the Clouds Part 21

"Up till this morning I should have said 'none.' My dear Jack, it has been the most hopelessly baffling business you can possibly imagine. I think I am quite a success as an alcoholic patient, and also accepted by this time as the typical harmless antiquary. So I am able to wander all over the place and talk to everybody, but there has been nothing to take hold of! I have seen no sign of anything happening--" I caught his eye and asked quickly, "Has anything happened?"

He nodded.

"Signalling night before last and a submarine seen yesterday that we suspect of having been here."

"Under my nose!" I groaned. "A fat lot of good I am!"

"My dear chap, you can't possibly watch the whole coast all night and every night. This time the signals were seen from the sea as a matter of fact. But you can note the night, and also the hour, which was 2:45 a.m., G.M.T., as near as I can make out from the report. By the way, you had better set your watch by mine now while we remember. Possibly you may be able to discover who was out at that hour night before last."

"I may, but it's a thousand to one against it. Give me a thousand such chances, and I'll get him! That's just about how it seems to work out so far."

"Haven't you got any new ideas?"

"Without new evidence, what new ideas can one get? And I only got my first piece of evidence this morning. In fact, I haven't had time to think it over yet."

"Let's hear it," said my cousin keenly.

"I have been on the track of that old boy with spectacles, as being the only definite thing to look for so far. I did what Bolton did--went to see every old man in the place, and this morning I polished off the last of them and came to the same conclusion as he did. There is no such old gentleman on the island. But there _was_ one, for a short time one morning; and he was a fake like Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse; and this morning I've heard of some one else who saw him!"

"By Gad!" exclaimed my cousin. "That sounds like the beginning of business."

"Only the beginning, I'm afraid. This morning I interview my last old man--to find of course he wasn't the fellow I was after. I interviewed him on the usual subject--ancient traditions of the island, and from that we pa.s.sed on to the latest tradition, the legend of the mysterious visitor last August. He told me all about it, with many embellishments.

However he was shrewd enough not to believe all he heard, and to show me what absurd stories are put about, he informed me that his own small grand-daughter, aged six, had declared that she had seen the mysterious visitor, only she described him as having a white beard and funny spectacles. I asked him exactly where this phenomenon had been observed, and by Jingo, Jack, it was at the very place I met him; only when she saw him he had left the road and was hurrying down to the sea. She described him as running, which finally demolished her reputation for truthfulness, for as her grandfather observed, men of his age don't run. But that was my friend right enough!"

"Heading for the sea?"

"For the beach, I take it. You see you can pop over the edge almost anywhere along that sh.o.r.e, and get out of sight among the rocks in a moment. I presume he squatted down there, pocketed his spectacles and beard, took off his disreputable overcoat, and either hid it or possibly pinned up the skirts and put it on under his other coat, and walked off looking like--well, that's the rub, what did he look like then? And that's just where I seem no forrader."

"Still, this is something."

"Yes, and I suppose we ought to deduce something more from the episode.

I've already concluded that the high piping voice he used might well have concealed an accent, and I've also decided from what I've heard of the local language since that he hadn't the native intonation."

"And he headed for the beach," added my cousin. "Therefore he certainly did not come from any house in the near neighbourhood."

"That puts the doctor's house out of court, if you're right. But he may possibly have thought it better not to do his dressing up at home."

"I see you've still got you knife into O'Brien!" laughed my cousin. "But I think my notion is the likeliest--"

He broke off suddenly and we instinctively moved a pace further apart. A figure had appeared round a turn of the road just ahead of us, a trim, dainty figure, delightful to see in such a place, but a little disconcerting to see so suddenly and so close to us. It was Jean Rendall, looking her best, but not, it seemed to me, quite in the right place.

Had she noticed anything? There was not a sign of it in her greeting. She gave us both one of her quick smiles, and as Jack pulled up to speak to her, she stopped too, and in talking to him, I noticed afresh how full of expression those neatly chiselled, rather pet.i.te, features became when she talked, and what a charming little air of knowing her way about the world she had. Young though she was, I could see in her very clearly either a valuable friend or a dangerous enemy--and what an easy girl to fall in love with, had circ.u.mstances been very different!

Jack explained in a very natural off-hand manner how he came to be in Mr.

Hobhouse's company, and Mr. Hobhouse corroborated his statement in his own effusive way. And then as we parted, she threw her smile full on that gentleman, and asked,

"Why haven't you been to see us again, Mr. Hobhouse? Do come to tea one day!"

Mr. Hobhouse gabbled a polite but slightly, evasive reply, and we walked on.

"Do you mean to say," demanded my cousin, "that you have only been to see this delectable lady once?"

"That's all," I admitted.

"What's the reason? It isn't very like our methods, Roger."

"It isn't," I admitted again. "But then you see what with pestilential weather and all these antiquarian visits to pay, my available time has been pretty well occupied."

"But that house is one to keep a particular eye on."

"That house has got a pair of particularly bright eyes in it. On my one visit there I felt a little too like walking on the edge of a precipice to wish to repeat the experience often. If that girl suspects me, Jack, and _if_ she isn't the right sort, we are dished."

"Oh, dash it. I can't believe she's mixed up in this business!" he declared. "Of course one mustn't trust anybody; still, that doesn't prevent your going to tea with her. In fact what you really ought to be doing is making love to her--so long as you keep your head."

"I am handicapped," I pointed out, "by drunken habits, a beard, and Mother Beagle's Beautiful Black Dye. No, Jack, I do not see orange blossom this trip."

"Apart from these romantic dreams," persisted my cousin, "she is far more likely to be inquisitive about you if you never go near the house. In fact I could see it in her eye to-day."

"Well," I said, "I'll call to-morrow and dispel her interest in me."

Since my talk with the doctor, his theory about Jean Rendall had crossed my mind occasionally, and improbable as it was, I thought I might as well test it.

"By the way," I asked, "did you by any chance ever speak to Miss Rendall about my last visit to the island?"

His look of surprise was a sufficient answer in itself.

"Speak to her of your adventure? Not a word at any time! Why?"

"The doctor has an idea that she knows more than she says, and that you may have told her something."

"Rubbish!"

"I knew it was," I a.s.sured him.

And so that possibility was finally eliminated.

We thought it wiser that our ways should part some little distance from the pier.

"Good-luck, old chap," said he, shaking my hand. "Keep playing the game you're at and don't worry about trying to keep a lookout at nights.

That's being done already, and though I don't believe the fellows are much use--not with such crafty devils against them--you can't do anything to help 'em. Getting out at night is too risky, and you're too far away at the house. Your game is to work it from the other end. Sooner or later they are absolutely bound to give you a clue."

His spirit and my little discovery of the morning sent me back in a distinctly more hopeful mood.

VII

A REMINISCENCE