The Disentanglers

‘Blake owes you a rare candle, Merton,’ said Bude, adding, ‘A great deal may be done, or said, in a long walk by a young man with his advantages. And if you had not had your knife in him last night I do not think she would have accompanied us this morning to attend the ministrations of Father McColl. He preached in Gaelic.’

‘That must have been edifying,’ said Merton, wincing.

‘The effect, when one does not know the language, and is within six feet of an energetic Celt in the pulpit, is rather odd,’ said Bude. ‘But you have put your foot in it, not a doubt of that.’

This appeared only too probable. The laggards arrived late for luncheon, and after luncheon Miss Macrae allowed Blake to read his manuscript poems to her in the hall, and to discuss the prospects of the Celtic drama. Afterwards, fearing to hurt the religious sentiments of the Highland servants by playing ping-pong on Sunday in the hall, she instructed him elsewhere, and clandestinely, in that pastime till the hour of tea arrived.

Merton did not appear at the tea-table. Tired of this Castle of Indolence, loathing Blake, afraid of more talk with Lady Bude, eating his own heart, he had started alone after luncheon for a long walk round the loch. The day had darkened, and was deadly still; the water was like a mirror of leaden hue; the air heavy and sulphurous.

These atmospheric phenomena did not gladden the heart of Merton. He knew that rain was coming, but he would not be with her by the foaming stream, or on the black waves of the loch. Climbing to the top of the hill, he felt sure that a storm was at hand. On the east, far away, Clibrig, and Suilvean of the double peak, and the round top of Ben More, stood shadowy above the plain against the lurid light. Over the sea hung ‘the ragged rims of thunder’ far away, veiling in thin shadow the outermost isles, whose mountain crests looked dark as indigo. A few hot heavy drops of rain were falling as Merton began to descend. He was soaked to the skin when he reached the door of the observatory, and rushed up stairs to dress for dinner. A covered way led from the observatory to the Castle, so that he did not get drenched again on his return, which he accomplished punctually as the gong for dinner sounded.

In the drawing-room were the Budes, and Mr. Macrae was nervously pacing the length and breadth of the room.

‘They must have taken refuge from the rain somewhere,’ Lady Bude was saying, and ‘they’ were obviously Blake and the daughter of the house. Where were they? Merton’s heart sank with a foolish foreboding.

‘I know,’ the lady went on, ‘that they were only going down to the cove – where you and I were yesterday evening, Mr. Merton. It is no distance.’

‘A mile and a half is a good deal in this weather, said Merton, ‘and there is no cottage on this side of the sea loch. But they must have taken shelter,’ he added; he must not seem anxious.

At this moment came a flash of lightning, followed by a crack like that of a cosmic whip-lash, and a long reverberating roar of thunder.

‘It is most foolish to have stayed out so late,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘Any one could see that a storm was coming. I told them so, I am really annoyed.’

Every one was silent, the rain fell straight and steady, the gravel in front of the window was a series of little lakes, pale and chill in the wan twilight.

‘I really think I must send a couple of men down with cloaks and umbrellas,’ said the nervous father, pressing an electric knob.

The butler appeared.

‘Are Donald and Sandy and Murdoch about?’ asked Mr. Macrae.

‘Not returned from church, sir;’ said the butler.

‘There was likely to be a row at the Free Kirk,’ said Mr. Macrae, absently.

‘You must go yourself, Benson, with Archibald and James. Take cloaks and umbrellas, and hurry down towards the cove. Mr. Blake and Miss Macrae have probably found shelter on the way somewhere.’

The butler answered, ‘Yes, sir;’ but he cannot have been very well pleased with his errand. Merton wanted to offer to go, anything to be occupied; but Bude said nothing, and so Merton did not speak.

The four in the drawing-room sat chatting nervously: ‘There was nothing of course to be anxious about,’ they told each other. The bolt of heaven never strikes the daughters of millionaires; Miss Macrae was indifferent to a wetting, and nobody cared tremulously about Blake. Indeed the words ‘confound the fellow’ were in the minds of the three men.

The evening darkened rapidly, the minutes lagged by, the clock chimed the half-hour, three-quarters, nine o’clock.

Mr. Macrae was manifestly growing more and more nervous, Merton forgot to grow more and more hungry. His tongue felt dry and hard; he was afraid of he knew not what, but he bravely tried to make talk with Lady Bude.

The door opened, letting the blaze of electric light from the hall into the darkling room. They all turned eagerly towards the door. It was only one of the servants. Merton’s heart felt like lead. ‘Mr. Benson has returned, sir; he would be glad if he might speak to you for a moment.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Mr. Macrae.

‘At the outer door, sir, in the porch. He is very wet.’

Mr. Macrae went out; the others found little to say to each other.

‘Very awkward,’ muttered Bude. ‘They cannot have been climbing the cliffs, surely.’

‘The bridge is far above the highest water-mark of the burn, in case they crossed the water,’ said Merton.

Lady Bude was silent.

Mr. Macrae returned. ‘Benson has come back,’ he said, ‘to say that he can find no trace of them. The other men are still searching.’

‘Can they have had themselves ferried across the sea loch to the village opposite?’ asked Merton.

‘Emmiline had not the key of our boat,’ said Mr. Macrae, ‘I have made sure of that; and not a man in the village would launch a boat on Sunday.’

‘We must go and help to search for them,’ said Merton; he only wished to be doing something, anything.

‘I shall not be a minute in changing my dress.’

Bude also volunteered, and in a few minutes, having drunk a glass of wine and eaten a crust of bread, they and Mr. Macrae were hurrying towards the cove. The storm was passing; by the time when they reached the sea-side there were rifts of clear light in the sky above them. They had walked rapidly and silently, the swollen stream roaring beneath them. It had rained torrents in the hills. There was nothing to be said, but the mind of each man was busy with the gloomiest conjectures. These had to be far-fetched, for in a country so thinly peopled, and so honest and friendly, within a couple of miles at most from home, on a Sunday evening, what conceivable harm could befall a man and a maid?

‘Can we trust the man?’ was in Merton’s mind. ‘If they have been ferried across to the village, they would have set out to return before now,’ he said aloud; but there was no boat on the faint silver of the sea loch. ‘The cliffs are the likeliest place for an accident, if there was an accident,’ he considered, with a pang. The cliffs might have tempted the light-footed girl. In fancy he saw her huddled, a ghastly heap, the faint wind fluttering the folds of her dress, at the bottom of the rocks. She had been wearing a long skirt, not her wont in the Highlands; it would be dangerous to climb in that; she might have forgotten, climbed, and caught her foot, and fallen.

‘Blake may have snatched at her, and been dragged down with her,’ Merton thought. All the horrid fancies of keen anxiety flitted across his mind’s eye. He paused, and made an effort over himself. There must be some other harmless explanation, an adventure to laugh at – for Blake and the girl. Poor comfort, that!

The men who had been searching were scattered about the sides of the cove, and, distinguishing the new-comers, gathered towards them.

‘No,’ they said, ‘they had found nothing except a little book that seemed to belong to Mr. Blake.’

It had been discovered near the place where Merton and Lady Bude were sitting on the previous evening. When found it was lying open, face downwards. In the faint light Merton could see that the book was full of manuscript poems, the lines all blotted and run together by the tropical rain. He thrust it into the pocket of his ulster.

Merton took the most intelligent of the gillies aside. ‘Show me where you have searched,’ he said. The man pointed to the shores of the cove; they had also examined the banks of the burn, and under all the trees, clearly fearing that the lost pair might have been lightning-struck, like the nymph and swain in Pope’s poem. ‘You have not searched the cliffs?’ asked Merton.

‘No, sir,’ said the man.

Merton then went to Mr. Macrae, and suggested that the boat should be sent across the sea ferry, to try if anything could be learned in the village. Mr. Macrae agreed, and himself went in the boat, which was presently unmoored, and pulled by two gillies across the loch, that ran like a river with the outgoing tide.

Merton and Bude began to search the cliffs; Merton could hear the hoarse pumping of his own heart. The cliff’s base was deep in flags and bracken, then the rocks began climbing to the foot of the perpendicular basaltic crag. The sky, fortunately, was now clear in the west, and lent a wan light to the seekers. Merton had almost reached the base of the cliff, when, in the deep bracken, he stumbled over something soft. He stooped and held back the tall fronds of bracken.

It was the body of a man; the body did not stir. Merton glanced to see the face, but the face was bent round, leaning half on the earth. It was Blake. Merton’s guess seemed true. They had fallen from the cliffs! But where was that other body? Merton yelled to Bude. Blake seemed dead or insensible.

Merton (he was ashamed of it presently) left the body of Blake alone; he plunged wildly in and out of the bracken, still shouting to Bude, and looking for that which he feared to find. She could not be far off. He stumbled over rocks, into rabbit holes, he dived among the soaked bracken. Below and around he hunted, feverishly panting, then he set his face to the sheer cliff, to climb; she might be lying on some higher ledge, the shadow on the rocks was dark. At this moment Bude hailed him.

‘Come down!’ he cried, ‘she cannot be there!’

‘Why not?’ he gasped, arriving at the side of Bude, who was stooping, with a lantern in his hand, over the body of Blake, which faintly stirred.

‘Look!’ said Bude, lowering the lantern.

Then Merton saw that Blake’s hands were bound down beside his body, and that the cords were fastened by pegs to the ground. His feet were fastened in the same way, and his mouth was stuffed full of wet seaweed. Bude pulled out the improvised gag, cut the ropes, turned the face upwards, and carefully dropped a little whisky from his flask into the mouth. Blake opened his eyes.

‘Where are my poems?’ he asked.

‘Where is Miss Macrae?’ shrieked Merton in agony.

‘Damn the midges,’ said Blake (his face was hardly recognisable from their bites). ‘Oh, damn them all!’ He had fainted again.

‘She has been carried off,’ groaned Merton. Bude and he did all that they knew for poor Blake. They rubbed his ankles and wrists, they administered more whisky, and finally got him to sit up. He scratched his hands over his face and moaned, but at last he recovered full consciousness. No sense could be extracted from him, and, as the boat was now visible on its homeward track, Bude and Merton carried him down to the cove, anxiously waiting Mr. Macrae.

He leaped ashore.

‘Have you heard anything?’ asked Bude.

‘They saw a boat on the loch about seven o’clock,’ said Mr. Macrae, ‘coming from the head of it, touching here, and then pulling west, round the cliff. They thought the crew Sabbath-breakers from the lodge at Alt Garbh. What’s that,’ he cried, at last seeing Blake, who lay supported against a rock, his eyes shut.

Merton rapidly explained.

‘It is as I thought,’ said Mr. Macrae resolutely. ‘I knew it from the first. They have kidnapped her for a ransom. Let us go home.’

Merton and Bude were silent; they, too, had guessed, as soon as they discovered Blake. The girl was her father’s very life, and they admired his resolution, his silence. A gate was taken from its hinges, cloaks were strewn on it, and Blake was laid on this ambulance.

Merton ventured to speak.

‘May I take your boat, sir, across to the ferry, and send the fishermen from the village to search each end of the loch on their side? It is after midnight,’ he added grimly. ‘They will not refuse to go; it is Monday.’

‘I will accompany them,’ said Bude, ‘with your leave, Mr. Macrae, Merton can search our side of the loch, he can borrow another boat at the village in addition to yours. You, at the Castle, can organise the measures for to-morrow.’

‘Thank you both,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘I should have thought of that. Thank you, Mr. Merton, for the idea. I am a little dazed. There is the key of the boat.’

Merton snatched it, and ran, followed by Bude and four gillies, to the little pier where the boat was moored. He must be doing something for her, or go mad. The six men crowded into the boat, and pulled swiftly away, Merton taking the stroke oar. Meanwhile Blake was carried by four gillies towards the Castle, the men talking low to each other in Gaelic. Mr. Macrae walked silently in front.

Such was the mournful procession that Lady Bude ran out to meet. She passed Mr. Macrae, whose face was set with an expression of deadly rage, and looked for Bude. He was not there, a gillie told her what they knew, and, with a convulsive sob, she followed Mr. Macrae into the Castle.

‘Mr. Blake must be taken to his room,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘Benson, bring something to eat and drink. Lady Bude, I deeply regret that this thing should have troubled your stay with me. She has been carried off, Mr. Blake has been rendered unconscious; your husband and Mr. Merton are trying nobly to find the track of the miscreants. You will excuse me, I must see to Mr. Blake.’

Mr. Macrae rose, bowed, and went out. He saw Blake carried to a bathroom in the observatory; they undressed him and put him in the hot water. Then they put him to bed, and brought him wine and food. He drank the wine eagerly.

‘We were set on suddenly from behind by fellows from a boat,’ he said. ‘We saw them land and go up from the cove; they took us in the rear: they felled me and pegged me out. Have you my poems?’

‘Mr. Merton has the poems,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘What became of my daughter?’

‘I don’t know, I was unconscious.’

‘What kind of boat was it?’

‘An ordinary coble, a country boat.’

‘What kind of looking men were they?’

‘Rough fellows with beards. I only saw them when they first passed us at some distance. Oh, my head! Oh damn, how these bites do sting! Get me some ammonia; you’ll find it in a bottle on the dressing-table.’

Mr. Macrae brought him the bottle and a handkerchief. ‘That is all you know?’ he asked.

But Blake was babbling some confusion of verse and prose: his wits were wandering.

Mr. Macrae turned from him, and bade one of the men watch him. He himself passed downstairs and into the hall, where Lady Bude was standing at the window, gazing to the north.

‘Indeed you must not watch, Lady Bude,’ said the millionaire. ‘Let me persuade you to take something and go to bed. I forget myself; I do not believe that you have dined.’ He himself sat down at the table, he ate and drank, and induced Lady Bude to join him. ‘Now, do let me persuade you to go back and to try to sleep,’ said Mr. Macrae gently. ‘Your husband is well accompanied.’

‘It is not for him that I am afraid,’ said the lady, who was in tears.

‘I must arrange for the day’s work,’ said the millionaire, and Lady Bude sighed and left him.

‘First,’ he said aloud, ‘we must get the doctor from Lairg to see Blake. Over forty miles.’ He rang. ‘Benson,’ he said to the butler, ‘order the tandem for seven. The yacht to have steam up at the same hour. Breakfast at half-past six.’

The millionaire then went to his own study, where he sat lost in thought. Morning had come before the sound of voices below informed him that Bude and Merton had returned. He hurried down; their faces told him all. ‘Nothing?’ he asked calmly.

Nothing! They had rowed along the loch sides, touching at every cottage and landing-place. They had learned nothing. He explained his ideas for the day.

‘If you will allow me to go in the yacht, I can telegraph from Lochinver in all directions to the police,’ said Bude.

‘We can use the wireless thing,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘But if you would be so good, you could at least see the local police, and if anything occurred to you, telegraph in the ordinary way.’

‘Right,’ said Bude, ‘I shall now take a bath.’

‘You will stay with me, Mr. Merton,’ said Mr. Macrae.

‘It is a dreadful country for men in our position,’ said Merton, for the sake of saying something. ‘Police and everything so remote.’

‘It gave them their chance; they have waited for it long enough, I dare say. Have you any ideas?’

‘They must have a steamer somewhere.’

‘That is why I have ordered the balloon, to reconnoitre the sea from,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘But they have had all the night to escape in. I think they will take her to America, to some rascally southern republic, probably.’

‘I have thought of the outer islands,’ said Merton, ‘out behind the Lewis and the Long Island.’

‘We shall have them searched,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘I can think of no more at present, and you are tired.’

Merton had slept ill and strangely on the night of Saturday; on Sunday night, of course, he had never lain down. Unshaven, dirty, with haggard eyes, he looked as wretched as he felt.

‘I shall have a bath, and then please employ me, it does not matter on what, as long as I am at work for – you,’ said Merton. He had nearly said ‘for her.’

Mr. Macrae looked at him rather curiously. ‘You are dying of fatigue,’ he said. ‘All your ideas have been excellent, but I cannot let you kill yourself. Ideas are what I want. You must stay with me to-day: I shall be communicating with London and other centres by the Giambresi machine; I shall need your advice, your suggestions. Now, do go to bed: you shall be called if you are needed.’

He wrung Merton’s hand, and Merton crept up to his bedroom. He took a bath, turned in, and was wrapped in all the blessedness of sleep.

Before five o’clock the house was astir. Bude, in the yacht, steamed down the coast, touching at Lochinver, and wherever there seemed a faint hope of finding intelligence. But he learned nothing. Yachts and other vessels came and went (on Sundays, of course, more seldom), and if the heiress had been taken straight to sea, northwards or west, round the Butt of Lewis, by night, there could be no chance of news of her. Returning, Bude learned that the local search parties had found nothing but the black ashes of a burned boat in a creek on the south side of the cliffs. There the captors of Miss Macrae must have touched, burned their coble, and taken to some larger and fleeter vessel. But no such vessel had been seen by shepherd, fisher, keeper, or gillie. The grooms arrived from Lairg, in the tandem, with the doctor and a rural policeman. Bude had telegraphed to Scotland Yard from Lochinver for detectives, and to Glasgow, Oban, Tobermory, Salen, in fact to every place he thought likely, with minute particulars of Miss Macrae’s appearance and dress. All this Merton learned from Bude, when, long after luncheon time, our hero awoke suddenly, refreshed in body, but with the ghastly blank of misery and doubt before the eyes of his mind.

‘I wired,’ said Bude, ‘on the off chance that yesterday’s storm might have deranged the wireless machine, and, by Jove, it is lucky I did. The wireless machine won’t work, not a word of message has come through; it is jammed or something. I met Donald Macdonald, who told me.’

‘Have you seen our host yet?’

‘No,’ said Bude, ‘I was just going to him.’

They found the millionaire seated at a table, his head in his hands. On their approach he roused himself.

‘Any news?’ he asked Bude, who shook his head. He explained how he had himself sent various telegrams, and Mr. Macrae thanked him.

‘You did well,’ he said. ‘Some electric disturbance has cut us off from our London correspondent. We sent messages in the usual way, but there has been no reply. You sent to Scotland Yard for detectives, I think you said?’

‘I did.’

‘But, unluckily, what can London detectives do in a country like this?’ said Mr. Macrae.

‘I told them to send one who had the Gaelic,’ said Bude.

‘It was well thought of,’ said Mr. Macrae, ‘but this was no local job. Every man for miles round has been examined, and accounted for.’

‘I hope you have slept well, Mr. Merton?’ he asked.

‘Excellently. Can you not put me on some work if it is only to copy telegraphic despatches? But, by the way, how is Blake?’

‘The doctor is still with him,’ said Mr. Macrae; ‘a case of concussion of the brain, he says it is. But you go out and take the air, you must be careful of yourself.’

Bude remained with the millionaire, Merton sauntered out to look at the river: running water drew him like a magnet. By the side of the stream, on a woodland path, he met Lady Bude. She took his hand silently in her right, and patted it with her left. Merton turned his head away.

‘What can I say to you?’ she asked. ‘Oh, this is too horrible, too cruel.’

‘If I had listened to you and not irritated her I might have been with her, not Blake,’ said Merton, with keen self-respect.

‘I don’t quite see that you would be any the better for concussion of the brain,’ said Lady Bude, smiling. ‘Oh, Mr. Merton, you must find her, I know how you have worked already. You must rescue her. Consider, this is your chance, this is your opportunity to do something great. Take courage!’

Merton answered, with a rather watery smile, ‘If I had Logan with me.’

‘With or without Lord Fastcastle, you must do it!’ said Lady Bude.

They saw Mr. Macrae approaching them deep in thought and advanced to meet him.

‘Mr. Macrae,’ asked Lady Bude suddenly, ‘have you had Donald with you long?’

‘Ever since he was a lad in Canada,’ answered the millionaire. ‘I have every confidence in Donald’s ability, and he was for half a year with Gianesi and Giambresi, learning to work their system.’

Donald’s honesty, it was clear, he never dreamed of suspecting. Merton blushed, as he remembered that a doubt as to whether the engineer had been ‘got at’ had occurred to his own mind. For a heavy bribe (Merton had fancied) Donald might have been induced, perhaps by some Stock Exchange operator, to tamper with the wireless centre of communication. But, from Mr. Macrae’s perfect confidence, he felt obliged to drop this attractive hypothesis.

They dined at the usual hour, and not long after dinner Lady Bude said good-night, while her lord, who was very tired, soon followed her example. Merton and the millionaire paid a visit to Blake, whom they found asleep, and the doctor, having taken supper and accepted an invitation to stay all night, joined the two other men in the smoking-room. In answer to inquiries about the patient, Dr. MacTavish said, ‘It’s jist concussion, slight concussion, and nervous shoke. No that muckle the maiter wi’ him but a clour on the hairnspan, and midge bites, forbye the disagreeableness o’ being clamped doon for a wheen hours in a wat tussock o’ bracken.’

This diagnosis, though not perfectly intelligible to Merton, seemed to reassure Mr. Macrae.

‘He’s a bit concetty, the chiel,’ added the worthy physician, ‘and it may be a day or twa or he judges he can leave his bed. Jist nervous collapse. But, bless my soul, what’s thon?’

‘Thon’ had brought Mr. Macrae to his feet with a bound. It was the thrill of the electric bell which preluded to communications from the wireless communicator! The instrument began to tick, and to emit its inscribed tape.

‘Thank heaven,’ cried the millionaire, ‘now we shall have light on this mystery.’ He read the message, stamped his foot with an awful execration, and then, recovering himself, handed the document to Merton. ‘The message is a disgusting practical joke,’ he said. ‘Some one at the central agency is playing tricks with the instrument.’

‘Am I to read the message aloud?’ asked Merton.