The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story Page 16

  CHAPTER XVI

  With her white paint and her scarlet smokestack, the _Inverashiel_--oneof the two small steamers that during the summer months plied up anddown the loch, and incidentally carried on communication betweenInverashiel and Crianan--was a picturesque addition to the landscape,as she approached the wooden landing-stage that stood half a mile belowthe promontory on which the castle was built. It was the morning ofFriday, the day following the funeral, and clouds were settling slowlydown on to the tops and shoulders of the hills in spite of thebrilliant sunset of the previous evening. The loch lay dark and still,its surface wore an oily, treacherous look; every detail of the_Inverashiel's_ tub-like shape was reflected and beautifully distortedin the water, which broke in long low waves from her bows as sheswerved round to come alongside the pier.

  As the few passengers who were waiting for her crossed the short gangway,a shower burst over the loch and in a few minutes had driven every oneinto the little cabin, except the two or three men who constituted theofficers and crew of the steamer. One of these was in the act ofslackening the rope by which the boat had been warped alongside, when arunning, gesticulating figure appeared in the distance, shouting to themto wait for him.

  Waited for accordingly he was; and in a few minutes Gimblet, rather outof breath after his run, hurried on board, and with a word of apology andthanks to the obliging skipper turned, like the other passengers, towardsthe shelter of the cabin.

  With his hand on the knob of the door he hesitated. Through the glass tophe had just caught sight of a figure that seemed familiar. He had seenthat tweed before; the short girl with her back to him was wearing thedress in which he had seen her on the Wednesday night, searching amongLord Ashiel's papers in the library at the castle. It was Julia Romaninovbeyond a doubt, and Gimblet drew back quickly and took up his positionbehind the funnels on the after-deck. In spite of the rain he remainedthere until the boat reached Crianan, leaning against the rail with hiscollar turned up and his soft felt hat pulled down over his ears, so thatlittle of him was visible except the tip of his nose.

  His mind, always active, was busier than usual as he watched theripples roll away in endless succession from the sides of the_Inverashiel_--which looked so strangely less white on closerinspection--or followed the smooth soaring movements of the gulls thatswooped and circled around her, as she puffed and panted on her wayacross the black, taciturn waters.

  As they drew near to Crianan he concealed himself still more carefullybehind a pile of crates, and not till Miss Romaninov had left the steamerdid he emerge from his hiding-place and step warily off the boat.

  The young lady was still in sight, making her way up the steep pitch ofthe main street, and the detective followed her discreetly, loiteringbefore shop windows, as if fascinated by the display of Scottishhomespuns, or samples of Royal Stewart tartan, and taking anextraordinary interest in fishing-tackle and trout-flies.

  But, though the girl looked back more than once, the little man in theulster who was so intent on picking his way between the puddles didnot apparently provide her with any food for suspicion; and she madeno attempt to see who was so carefully sheltered beneath the umbrellahe carried.

  At last they left the cobble-stones of the little town and emerged uponthe high road, which here ran across the open moorland.

  It was difficult now to continue the pursuit unobserved: and Gimbletbecame absorbed in the contemplation of an enormous cairngorm, which wasmasquerading as an article of personal adornment in the window of thelast outlying shop.

  From this position--not without its embarrassments, since a couple ofbarefooted children came instantly to the door, where they stood andstared at him unblinkingly--he saw the Russian advancing at a rapid paceacross the moor; and, look where he would, could perceive no means ofkeeping up with her unobserved upon the bare side of the hill.

  Just as he decided that the distance separating them had increased to anextent which warranted his continuing the chase, he joyfully saw herslacken her pace, and at the same moment a man, who must have beensitting behind a boulder beside the road, rose to his feet out of theheather, and came forward to meet her. For ten long minutes they stoodtalking, driving poor Gimblet to the desperate expedient of entering theshop and demanding a closer acquaintance with the cairngorm. It ishumiliating to relate that he recoiled before it when it was placed inhis hand, and nearly fled again into the road. However, he pulled himselftogether and held the proud proprietress, a gaunt, grey-haired woman withknitting-needles ever clicking in her dexterous hands, in conversationupon the theme of its unique beauties until the subject was exhausted tothe point of collapse.

  Every other minute he must stroll to the door and take a look up and downthe road. A friend, he explained, had promised to meet him in that place;and though the shopwoman plainly doubted his veracity, and kept a sharpeye that he did not take to his heels with the cairngorm, she did not goso far as to suggest his removing himself from the zone of temptation.

  At last, when for the twentieth time he put his nose round the doorpost,he saw that the pair had separated, and were walking in oppositedirections, the girl continuing on her way, while the man returned to thetown. He was, indeed, not a hundred yards off.

  Gimblet plunged once more into the shop, and fastened upon some pencilswith a zeal not very convincing after his disappointing vacillation overthe brooch. The gaunt woman cheered up, however, when he bought the firstseventeen she offered him, and, the stock being exhausted, finished bypurchasing a piece of india-rubber, a stylographic pen, and a penny paperof pins, which she pressed upon him as particularly suited to his needsand charged him fourpence for.

  By the time he issued forth into the open air, his pockets full ofpackages, the stranger had passed the shop and was turning the corner ofthe next house. To him, now, Gimblet devoted his powers of shadowing.

  There was no great difficulty about it. The man walked straight beforehim, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and as he strode alongthe wet roads Gimblet noted with satisfaction the long, narrow, pointedfootprints that were deeply impressed in the muddy places. He had nodoubt they were the same as those he had noticed on the beach on the dayof his arrival at Inverashiel.

  The stranger turned into the Crianan Hotel, which stands on the lakefront, fifty yards from the landing-place of the loch steamers. Gimbletpassed the door without pausing and went down to the loch, where hemingled with the boatmen and loafers who congregated by the waterside.

  He kept, however, a strict eye on the door of the hotel, and after aquarter of an hour saw the object of his attentions emerge withfishing-rod and basket, and cross the road directly towards him. Gimblethad not been able to see his face before, but now he had a good look ashe passed close beside him.

  He was a tall, fair man, evidently a foreigner, but with nothing verystriking about his appearance. A pointed yellow beard hid the lower partof his face, and, for the rest, his nose was short, his eyes blue andclose together, and his forehead high and narrow. He looked closely atGimblet as he went by, and for a moment the eyes of the two men met, bothequally inscrutable and unflinching; then the stranger glanced aside andstrode on to where a small boat lay moored. The detective turned his backwhile the fair man got in and pushed off into the loch.

  "Gentleman going fishing?" he remarked to a man who lounged hard by uponthe causeway.

  "He's axtra fond o' the feeshin'," was the reply, "for a' that he's aforeign shentleman."

  Waiting till the boat had become a distant speck on the face of thewaters, Gimblet made his way into the inn and entered into conversationwith the landlord, on the pretext of engaging rooms for a friend. Thelandlord was sorry, but the house was full.

  "If ye wanted them in a fortnicht's time," he said, "ye could hae thehale hotel; but tae the end o' the holidays we're foll up. Folks tak'their rooms a month in advance; they come here for the fishin' on theloch, and because my hoose is the maist comfortable in the Hielands."

  "Indeed, I can well belie
ve that," Gimblet assured him. "I suppose youget a lot of tourists passing through, though, Americans, for instance?"

  "We hardly ever hae a room tae tak' them in. No, I seldom hae an Americanbidin' here; they maistly gang doon the loch," said the innkeeper.

  "I thought," said Gimblet, "that was a foreign-looking man whom I saw alittle while ago, coming out of the hotel."

  "We hae ae gintleman bidin' here wha belongs tae foreign pairts," thelandlord admitted. "A Polish gintleman, he is, Count Pretovsky, a varynice gintleman. I couldna just cae him a tourist. He's vary keen on thefishin' and was up here for it last year as well. He has his ain boat andis aye on the water trailin' aefter the salmon."

  "A great many sporting foreigners come to our island nowadays," Gimbletremarked. "Does he get many fish?"

  "Oh, it's a grand place for salmon," said the inn-keeper with obviouspride. "And there's troots tac. And pike, mair's the peety," he added.

  "Dear me," said Gimblet, "just what my friend wants. I'm sorry youcan't take him in. I must tell him to write in good time next year ifhe wants a room."

  As he parted from the landlord upon the doorstep of the Crianan Hotel,the _Rob Roy_--the second of the two loch steamers--was edging away fromthe pier, under a cloud of black smoke from her funnel The rain hadstopped; the passengers were scattered on the deck, and in the bows ofthe vessel the detective caught sight of Julia Romaninov's tweed-cladform. She was leaning against the rail, and gazing at a distant part ofthe loch where a black speck, which might represent a rowing boat, couldfaintly be discerned. She had come back, then, from her moorland walk. Itwas as Gimblet had expected; and, though he chafed at the delay, heregretted less than he would have otherwise that he could not catch the_Rob Roy_.

  The _Inverashiel_ would be due on her homeward trip in a couple of hours'time, and meanwhile he had other business that must be attended to.

  He went first to the post office, where he registered and posted toScotland Yard a packet he had brought with him. Then, after askinghis way of the sociable landlord of the hotel, he proceeded to thepolice station, a single-storied stone building standing at the endof a side street.

  Here he made himself known to the inspector, and imparted informationwhich made that personage open his eyes considerably wider than washis custom.

  "If you will bring one of your men, and come with me yourself," saidGimblet, at the conclusion of the interview, "I think I shall be able toconvince you that a mistake has been made. In the meantime there will beno harm done by a watch being kept on the foreign gentleman who is atthis moment trolling for salmon on the loch."

  The inspector agreed; and when the _Inverashiel_ started, an hour later,on her voyage down the loch, she carried the two policemen on her deck,as well as the most notorious detective she was ever likely to have theprivilege of conveying.

  It was nearly three o'clock when they landed on the Inverashiel pier.

  The weather, which for the last few hours had looked like clearing, hadnow turned definitely to rain; clouds had descended on the hills, and thetrees in the valleys stooped and dripped in the saturated, mist-ladenair. Gimblet conducted the men to the cottage, where Lady Ruth anxiouslyawaited them.

  "If you don't mind their staying here," he suggested to her, "while I goup to the castle and consult Lord Ashiel about a magistrate, it will bemost convenient, on account of the distance."

  "By all means," said Lady Ruth. "I feel safer with them. I expect youwill find Miss Byrne up there. She has not come in to lunch, and I thinkshe probably met Mark and went to lunch at the castle. She ought to knowbetter than to go to lunch alone with a young man, and I am justwondering if she has changed her mind and accepted him after all. Girlsare kittle cattle, but I've got quite fond of that one, and I hope she'snot forgotten poor David so soon. I really am feeling anxious about her."

  "I daresay she has only walked farther than she intended," said Gimblet,"or perhaps she came to a burn or some place she couldn't get over, andhas had to go round a mile or two. Depend on it, that's what's happened.But I promise you that if she is at the castle I will bring her back whenI return."