Perhaps you had quite legitimate business with Mr. Pelham, but it would be less disquieting if we knew what it was.”
The young Chief had jumped to his feet, the shawl sliding to the ground; his expression was sufficiently menacing. Hector, all attention, had sprung up too, and was now at Ewen’s side.
“Do you imagine,” said Glenshian between his teeth, “that we are in Lochaber, Mr. Cameron, and that you can safely come the bully over me, the two of you? I thought the late Lochiel had tried to civilise his clan; it seems he had not much success! I tell you that I do not know Mr. Pelham, and have never been inside his house—and God damn you to hell,” he added in an access of fury, “how dare you put such a question to me?”
“Because,” answered Ewen unmoved, “I desire to find out who was the man that came out of Mr. Pelham’s house on the night of the fifteenth of May, a red-haired, Erse-speaking man as like you, Mr. MacPhair, as one pea is like another.”
“I’d like to know,” broke in Finlay bitterly, “why, if you see a red-headed Highlander coming out of an English minister’s door, you must jump to the conclusion not only that he is a Jacobite playing fast and loose with his principles, but that it is the future chief of Glenshian, a man who has lain near two years in the Tower for Jacobitism? Dhé, if it were not so amazing in its impudence——”
“You mean that I am to consider myself mistaken?”
“I do indeed, Mr. Cameron; and before you leave this room you’ll apologise for your assumption in any words I choose to dictate! Faith, I am not sure that an apology, even the humblest, is adequate!”
And here—if the assumption in question were mistaken—Ewen agreed with him.
“I am quite ready to apologise, Mr. MacPhair,” he said, “if you’ll prove to me that I was wrong. On my soul, I am only too anxious that you should. Or if you will convince me that your clandestine business with the Elector’s chief minister was such as an honourable man of our party might fairly have.”
“And who made you a judge over me?” cried Finlay the Red, and his left hand went to his side, gripping at nothing, for he was not wearing his sword. Then he flung out the other in a fiery gesture. “I’ll have that apology, by Heaven! You’ll be only too ready to offer it when you hear my secret!”
“If you tell me that your errand to Mr. Pelham’s house——” began Ewen.
“God’s name!” broke out the angry MacPhair, “am I to shout it at you that I never went there! He went, I don’t doubt, and you saw him coming out. I suppose therefore that I should not have been so hot with you just now. You’ll pardon me for that when you hear . . . and perhaps you’ll pardon me if I sit down again. I am still weakly.” Indeed he was palish, and there was moisture on his brow. “Be seated again, gentlemen, and I will tell you both why Mr. Cameron thought he saw me coming out of the minister’s house one night—a night, too, when, if he had inquired, he would have found that I was not in London.”
The visitors somewhat doubtfully reseated themselves, Hector frowning tensely on their host, but content to leave the weight of the business for the moment on Ardroy’s shoulders, where Mr. MacPhair himself seemed to have put it.
“The explanation,” said Glenshian, coughing a little, and picking up his shawl, “is—that I have, to my sorrow, a double.”
“A double!” exclaimed Ewen, raising his eyebrows. “Do you mean a man who resembles you?”
“Ay, a man who so resembles me that even my close acquaintance have been deceived. He dogs my path, Mr. Cameron, and I get the credit of his ill-deeds. He can even imitate my hand of write.”
“But who—who is he?”
Young Glenshian shrugged his shoulders. “Some by-blow of my father’s, I must believe. And that, no doubt (since I never heard of the Chief’s recognising him nor doing aught for him), has led him to take this method of revenge, by bringing discredit, when he can, upon my good name. ’Tis not, as you may guess, a pleasant secret for a man of honour to unveil, and I must be glad that I am dealing with gentlemen.”
“You hardly called us that a while ago,” retorted Ewen, knitting his brows. Had he been mistaken that night, in the quick, passing glare of the torch? If he had been, then he was wronging young Glenshian even more deeply than young Glenshian had wronged Archie.
Hector’s voice, silent for some time, broke in. “Is it not possible, Mr. MacPhair,” it said, “that this discreditable double of yours counts for something in my affair?”
“And how could that be?” asked Finlay with a shade of contempt. “I hold no communication with him; he has not access to my papers.”
“Your papers!” said Hector like lightning. “If he had had access—you mean that he might know something of my loss?—By Heaven, Mr. MacPhair, I believe you have communicated the circumstances of it to someone!”
For a second a very strange look had slid over Glenshian’s features. He drew himself up under the shawl. “Allow me to say, Mr. Grant, that I am heartily tired of this inquisition about the damned letter over which you make such a pother. I wish I had never been so weak as to listen to your woeful tale. But I can hold my tongue with any man on earth, and my friends would tell you that I am incapable of setting about anything resembling a slander.”
Ewen could not let it pass. He had sworn not to make it a subject of quarrel, but he could not let it pass. “If you search your memory, Mr. MacPhair,” he said meaningly, “I am afraid that you will find that is not true. I have it on the best authority that it was you who put about the slander concerning Doctor Cameron and the Loch Arkaig treasure.”
“Slander?” queried Finlay with an undisguised sneer. “My dear Mr. Cameron, the fact that the unfortunate gentleman is shortly to suffer for his loyalty, which we must all deplore, does not make my statement a slander! And, upon my soul, your presumption in coming here to take me to task, first for one supposed action, then for another, is . . .” He seemed unable to find a word to satisfy him. “But, by the God above us, if we were alone in the Highlands, or somewhere quiet . . .” He did not finish, but gritted his teeth.
“I am not going to quarrel with you over it,” said Ewen very sternly, “—at least, not now. Perhaps some day we may argue as to the ethics of your conduct—in the Highlands or elsewhere. For the moment I’ll say no more than that the action of traducing an innocent and scrupulously honourable man of your own party is worthy of this unnamed shadow of yours in whom you invite me to believe.”
“But surely, Ewen,” broke in Hector, suddenly pushing back his chair, “you are not taken in by that cock-and-bull story of a double! Why, a child——” He stopped, and involuntarily glanced behind him, as a mild crash announced that his abrupt movement had overturned some small article of furniture, and, on seeing that this was a little table with some books upon it, he got up with a muttered apology to set it on its legs again, having no wish to give Mr. MacPhair a chance to reflect upon his breeding. “Such a tale might deceive a child,” he went on meanwhile, picking up the fallen books and some papers which had accompanied them to the floor, “but not a grown——” He gave a great gasp, and was silent.
Ewen, whose attention had been withdrawn from Hector’s little mishap to the remarkable agitation which it had caused in their host, looked round once more to see the reason for the sudden cessation of his brother-in-law’s remarks. Hector was standing rigid, staring at a paper
