The Mystery Of Sholto
: The Mystery Of The Green RayWe 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.
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."
He was still marvelling at this new mystery when we got back to the
house to find Myra sitting on the verandah with the specialist, who
was keeping her in fits of laughter with anecdotes of some of his
wealthy women patients.
He sprang up as he saw us approaching, and ran down to meet us.
"I'm certain of one thing," he said excitedly, as he walked between
us, and answered the General's question. "We have got to solve the
mystery, and she will see again. This is something new, but it has a
very simple solution, which we must find out by hook or by crook.
When I know how Miss McLeod lost her sight I shall very likely be able
to find out how to restore it, and I shall also know something that
perhaps no other oculist has ever dreamed of. There isn't the
slightest sign of any organic disease, which probably means that
Nature will assert herself, and she will eventually regain her sight
naturally. But we mustn't wait for that. We've got to be up and doing.
I tell you, sir, I wouldn't have missed this for anything. Have you
been exploring?"
"We've been having a look at those marks which meant so much to you
and conveyed nothing whatever to me, although I was once considered
something of a scout," the General admitted.
"Did you find anything fresh?"
"No, only some trippers, as the General calls them, had been cutting
heather," I replied.
"That's not likely to help us much," the oculist agreed, "unless they
were not trippers at all, and were cutting the heather as a blind.
What were they like?"
"Oh, we didn't see them. We only saw the results of their iconoclasm.
The heather was recently, but not freshly, cut," I replied, and the
old man glanced at me with some slight suspicion, as if he feared I,
too, was about to take up the deduction business.
"Recent, but not fresh?" muttered Garnesk.
"Now, why should a man who wanted----Good heavens! I've got it."
"What are you dear people getting so excited about?" Myra asked, for
by this time we had almost reached the verandah.
"We'll tell you in a minute, dear," I called, and waited for Garnesk
to explain.
"Of course," he continued, as if thinking aloud, "it's obvious. The
man came ashore in a small boat, picked some heather, and carried it
in his arms. Anyone who noticed him would have noticed his load of
heather. Then he stole Sholto, concealed him under the heather, and
was still apparently only carrying a bundle of innocent heath. Why!
they seem to have thought of everything, and made no mistake."
"Except that the man was wandering about the country-side, gathering
wild flowers, in his stockinged soles," I pointed out.
"Still, it was almost dark, and he chanced that," said Garnesk.
"What I don't understand about it is this," the General joined in:
"Where did he come from to gather this heather? A man must know that
if he is seen to come ashore and pick heather and get into his boat
again he is doing a very curious thing. That boat can only have come
from Knoydart or Skye at the farthest, and everybody knows you
wouldn't take heather there."
"Yes, I'm afraid you're right, General," Garnesk admitted, with a
sigh of regret, and I was compelled to agree with him.
"I know where he came from, then."
It was said so quietly that it startled us all, though it was Myra who
spoke.
"Where, then?" we all asked together.
"He must have come from a yacht."
More
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