and now down this one in his heavy fishing boots, with his wet tweeds weighing him down. Keen as he was, it required a real effort of will to make him double that last hundred yards up the north road to the gates of Carninnish House. Once there, the worst was over; the house lay only a few yards inside the gate, in the narrow strip between the road and the sea. When Drysdale’s butler beheld a damp and breathless man at the door, he immediately jumped to conclusions.
“It is the master?” he said. “What’s wrong? Is he drowned?”
“Isn’t he here?” said Grant. “Damn! Is that a motorboat? Can I have a loan of it?” He waved a none too accurate hand towards the boathouse, and the butler looked suspiciously at him. None of the servants had been present at Grant’s arrival in the morning.
“No, you cannot, my lad,” said the butler, “and the sooner you get out of this, the better it will be for you. Mr. Drysdale will make you look pretty small when he comes, I can tell you.”
“Is he coming soon? When is he coming?”
“He’ll be here any minute.”
“But any minute’s too late!”
“Get out!” said the butler. “And have one less next time.”
“Look here,” said Grant, gripping him by the arm, “don’t be a fool. I’m as sober as you are. Come down here where you can see the sea.”
Something in his tone arrested the man’s attention, but it was with obvious fear of personal violence that he approached the sea in company with the madman. Out in the middle of the loch was a rowing-boat, being rapidly propelled seawards down the narrow estuary on the ebbing tide.
“Do you see that?” Grant asked. “I want to overtake that boat, and I can’t do it in a rowing-boat.”
“No, you can’t,” said the man. “The tide goes out there like a mill stream.”
“That’s why I must have the motorboat. Who runs the motor? Mr. Drysdale?”
“No; I do usually when he goes out.”
“Come on, then. You’ll have to do it now. Mr. Drysdale knows all about me. I’ve been fishing the river all day. That man has a stolen boat, to begin with, and we want him very badly for other reasons, so get busy.”
“Are you going to take all the responsibility of it if I go?”
“Oh, yes; you’ll have the law on your side all right. I promise you that.”
“Well, I’ll just have to leave a message”—and he darted into the house.
Grant put out a hand to stop him, but was too late. For a second he was afraid that he was not, after all, convinced, and was merely making his escape; but in a moment he was back and they were running across the long, narrow lawn to the boathouse, where Master Robert floated. Drysdale had evidently christened the boat after the horse whose winning of the National had provided the money for her purchase. As the butler was fiddling with the engine, which uttered tentative spurts, Drysdale came round the end of the house with his gun, evidently just back from an afternoon on the hill, and Grant hailed him joyfully, and hurriedly explained what had happened. Drysdale said not a word, but came back to the boathouse with him and said, “It’s all right, Pidgeon; I’ll see to that, and take Mr. Grant out. Will you see that there is a good dinner waiting for two—no, three—when we get back?”
Pidgeon came out of the boat with an alacrity he took no trouble to hide. He gave Master Robert a push, Drysdale set the engine going, and with a roar they shot away from the jetty out into the loch. As they swerved round into their course down the loch, Grant’s eyes fixed themselves on the dark speck against the pale yellow of the western sky. What would Lamont do this time? Come quietly? Presently the dark speck altered its course. It seemed to be making in to the land on the south side, and as it went away from the lighted skyline it became invisible against the background of the southern hills.
“Can you see him?” Grant asked anxiously. “I can’t.”
“Yes; he’s making in to the south shore. Don’t worry; we’ll be there before he makes it.”
As they tore along, the south shore came up to meet them in a fashion seemingly miraculous. And in a moment or two Grant could make out the boat again. The man was rowing desperately for the shore. It was difficult for Grant, unacquainted with distances on water, to measure how far he was from the shore and how far they were from him, but a sudden slackening in Master Robert’s speed told him all he wanted to know. Drysdale was slowing up already. In a minute they would have overhauled him. When the boats were about fifty yards apart, Lamont suddenly stopped rowing. Given it up, thought Grant. Then he saw that the man was bending down in the boat. Does he think we’re going to shoot? thought Grant, puzzled. And then, when Drysdale had shut down the engine and they were approaching him with a smooth leisureliness, Lamont, coatless and hatless, sprang to his feet and then to the gunnel, as if to dive. His stockinged foot slipped on the wet gunnel, his feet went from under him. With a sickening crack that they heard quite distinctly, the back of his head hit the boat and he disappeared under water.
Grant had his coat and boots off by the time they were up to him.
“Can you swim?” asked Drysdale calmly. “If not, we’ll wait till he comes up.”
“Oh yes,” Grant said, “I can swim well enough when there is a boat there to rescue me. I think I’ll have to go for him if I want him. That was a terrific crack he got.” And he went over the side. Six or seven seconds later a dark head broke the surface, and Grant hauled the unconscious man to the boat, and with Drysdale’s help pulled him in.
“Got him!” he said, as he rolled the limp heap on the floor.
Drysdale secured the rowing-boat to the stern of Master Robert and set the engine going again. He watched with interest while Grant perfunctorily wrung his wet clothes and painstakingly examined his capture. The man was completely knocked out, and was bleeding from a cut on the back of the head.
“Sorry for your planking,” Grant apologized as the blood collected in a little pool.
“Don’t worry,” Drysdale said. “It will scrub. This the man you wanted?”
“Yes.”
He considered the dark, unconscious face for a while.
“What do you want him for, if it isn’t an indiscreet question?”
“Murder.”
“Really?” said Drysdale, very much as though Grant had said “sheep-stealing.” He considered the man again. “Is he a foreigner?”
“No; a Londoner.”
“Well, at the moment he looks very much as if he would cheat the gallows after all, doesn’t he?”
Grant looked sharply at the man he was tending. Was he as bad as that? Surely not!
As Carninnish House swam up to them from across the water Grant said, “He was staying with the Logans at the manse. I can’t very well take him back there. The hotel is the best place, I think. Then the Government can bear all the bother of the business.”
But
