The Mystery of the Green Ray
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There was only one possible reason for that – Hilderman was an enemy. In that case, I thought, he has come here to try and find out how much we know and to keep an eye on us. Possibly he might be attempting to keep us there so that Fuller could get up to some satanic trick elsewhere. I decided to act at once. I turned back to the den and put my head round the door.
“Will you people excuse me for a bit?” I said lightly. “The General wants me.” And with that I left them. I had almost asked Hilderman not to go till I came back, but I was afraid it might sound suspicious to his acute ears. I hardly knew what to do. I should have liked to have been able to speak with Dennis, if only for a moment. Indeed, I am quite ready to confess that just then I would have given all I possessed for ten minutes’ conversation with my friend. I stole quietly out of the house, and thought furiously.
If Hilderman wanted to keep us from spying on Fuller, where was Fuller? Would I be wiser to wait and try to keep an eye on Hilderman, or was my best plan to ignore him and try and locate his German friend? I decided on the latter course. I went back and wrote a short note to Dennis and slipped it inside his cap.
“I’m convinced they are both enemies. Take care of Myra. I may be out all night. Don’t let her worry about me; I may not be back for some time, but I shall come back all right. – R.”
I left this for my friend, knowing that sooner or later he would find it, and went down to the landing-stage. The Baltimore II. and Myra’s boat, the Jenny Spinner, were drawn up alongside, and I realised that if I took the Jenny I should be raising Hilderman’s suspicions at once. Anchored a little way out was another small motor-boat – the first the General had – which Myra had also called after a trout fly – the Coch-a-Bondhu– though the play upon words was lost on most people. The boat was still in constant use, and Angus and Hamish continually went into Mallaig and Glenelg in it to collect parcels and so on. I ran to the petrol shed, and got three tins of Shell, put them in the dinghy and pushed out to the Bondhu, climbed on board, sounded the tank, filled it up, and started out across the Loch. I can only plead my anxiety to get well out of sight and hearing before Hilderman should think of leaving the house, as an excuse for my lamentable thoughtlessness on this occasion. Indeed, it was not till long afterwards that I realised I had forgotten to anchor the dinghy, and I left it, just as it was, to drift out to sea on the tide.
I made all the pace I could and reached the other side in about twenty minutes. I was sadly equipped for an adventurous expedition! I had no flask to sustain me in case of need, no weapon in case I should be called to defend myself; I was wearing a dinner-jacket, no hat, and a pair of thin patent-leather pumps!
I ran the boat right in shore, heedless of the danger to the propeller, in a small sandy cove round the point, so that I was hidden from Glasnabinnie. Then I realised that I had been a little too precipitate in my departure. There was no anchor-chain on board, and the painter was admirably suited for making fast to pier-heads and landing-stages at high tide, but was nothing like long enough to enable me to make the craft secure on short. However, I dragged her as far up as I could, and prayed that I might be able to return before the tide caught her up and carried her away. In those circumstances I should have been stranded in the enemy’s country, by no means a pleasing prospect!
Having done the best I could for Myra’s faithful motor-boat, I made my way round the hill, climbing cautiously upwards all the time, my dinner-jacket carefully buttoned in case a gleam of moonlight on my shirt-front should give me away at a critical moment. It was a rocky and difficult climb, and I soon regretted that I had not taken the bridle path to Glasnabinnie and made my way boldly up the bed of the burn. However, it was too late to turn back, and eventually, after one or two false steps and stumbles, I succeeded in reaching a spot from which I could obtain a good view of the hut. No, there was no light there, no sign of movement at all. I decided to work my way round to the other side and then, if I continued to get no satisfaction, to descend to the house. The windows of the hut, or smoking-room, as the reader will no doubt remember, extended the whole length of the structure; and surely, I thought, if there were a light in the place it would be bound to be visible. I edged round the face of a steep crag, floundered across the stream between the two falls, getting myself soaked above the knees as I did so, and crouched among the heather on the other side of the building. No, there was no one there, the place was deserted. I knelt down and peered about me listening intently.
Not a sound greeted my expectant ear save the incessant rumble of the falls. Then as I turned my attention to the house itself and looked down the course of the burn to Glasnabinnie, I could scarcely suppress a cry of astonishment. For there below me, moving to and fro between the house and the hut, was a constant procession of small lights, like a slowly moving stream of glow-worms, twenty or thirty yards apart. I was rooted to the spot. What could it mean? Was this another weird natural manifestation, or was it, as was much more likely, a couple of dozen men bearing lights? Yes, that was it, men bearing lights – and what else besides? Men don’t climb up and down steep watercourses in the night for the sake of giving an impromptu firework display to an unexpected visitor, I told myself. There was only one thing to do, and that was to investigate the matter and chance what might happen to me. I crept down to the hut, and lay on my face among the heather and listened. Here and there a mumble of voices, now and then a subdued shout, apparently an order to be carried out by the mysterious light-bearers, broken occasionally by the shrill call of a gull, conveyed nothing to me that I could not see. I looked up at the hut. No, there was no one there, and the windows were not screened, because I could see the moonlight streaming through the far side. Yet, surely, the hut must be their objective, I thought. Where else could they be going to? Fascinated, I crawled on my hands and knees till I could touch the walls of the smoking-room by putting out my arm. I heard a great commotion coming, it seemed, from the very ground beneath my feet.
I laid my ear to the ground and listened. The noise grew louder, and the voices seemed to be shouting against a more powerful sound – the waterfall, possibly. I thought perhaps the floor of the hut would give me more opportunity to locate the source of the disturbance. I threw caution to the winds and slipped through the wide windows into the room. I moved as carefully as I could, however, once my feet found the floor, for if there should be anyone below they would probably hear me up above. I turned back the carpet in order to hear more distinctly, and as I did so I noticed a rectangular shaft of light which trickled through the floor. There was a trap-door. I knelt down and lifted it cautiously by a leather tab which was attached to one side of it and peered through. I can never understand how it was I did not drop that hatch again with a self-confessing crash when I realised the extraordinary nature of the sight that greeted my eyes. There was I in the smoking-hut of a peaceful American citizen, where only a few hours before I had spent a pleasant hour in friendly conversation, and now I was lying on the edge of the entrance to a great cavern.
Below me there was a confused mass of machinery and men. Some were working on scaffolding, others were many feet below. The nearest of them was so close to me that I could have leaned down and laid my hand on his head. I tried to make out what they were doing, but except that they were dismantling the machinery, whatever it might be, I could make nothing of it. I watched them breathlessly, trembling lest at any moment one of them should look up and detect my presence.
The place was lighted by electricity, though there were not enough lamps to illuminate the cavern very brightly, and as my eyes got accustomed to the lights and shadows I was able to make out the cause of this.
Evidently there was a turbine engine below, driven by the water from the falls, which supplied the necessary power. After a moment or two it dawned on me how the cavern came to be there; it was, or had been, the course of a hidden river, such as are common enough among the mountains, but the stream had been diverted, probably by some sort of landslide, and had left this tumbler-shaped cave, resembling a pit shaft. Now, I thought, I have only to find out what all this machinery is for and the whole mystery is solved. I opened the trap a little further, and allowed my body to hang slightly over the edge.
Then for the first time I saw, to my right, fixed so that it almost touched the floor of the hut, a great round brass object, mounted on an enormous tripod, which, again, stood on a platform. In front of this was a large square thing like a mammoth rectangular condenser, such as is used for photographic enlarging and other projection purposes. Had it not been for this condenser I should have taken the whole thing to be an elaborate searchlight. But, I asked myself, what would be the good of a searchlight there? Suddenly the whole truth dawned upon me.
The searchlight must operate through a trap in the wall of the hut just below the floor. I leaned further in, forgetting my danger in the intoxication of sudden discovery.
Only a foot or two away from me a man was working on the searchlight. Carefully taking it to pieces, he was handing the parts to another man, who was perched on the scaffold below him. He was so close to me that I could hear him breathing. I was about to wriggle back to safety when he looked up. He gave a sudden loud shout. I lay there fascinated. After all, I thought, before they can reach me I can slip out and edge round the cliff, run down on to the shore, and get away in the motor-boat. But I had reckoned without my host. Even as the man shouted, and the others left their work to see what was the matter, Fuller dashed out from behind the platform, gave one terrified look at me, and, flinging himself at the wall of the cavern, threw all his weight on a rope which dangled there. I scuttled to my feet, intending to make a bolt for it. But the boards shivered beneath me, and, before I could realise what was happening, I found myself hurtling through the air to the floor of the cavern below.
CHAPTER XVII.
SOME GRAVE FEARS
And now, as the reader will readily understand, I must continue the story as it was afterwards related to me.
Myra, the General, and Dennis sat up and waited for me till the early hours of the morning, but I did not return. The young people did what they could to assure the old man that my sudden and unexpected disappearance had been entirely voluntary, and Dennis, who had found my note, as soon as he put on his cap to stroll out casually, and see where I had got to, gave him subtly to understand that it was really part of a prearranged plan, and Myra at length persuaded him to go to bed at midnight.
When I failed to put in an appearance at breakfast-time, however, even they began to be a trifle alarmed, but they did their best to conceal their fears. They scoured the hillside and then went down to the landing-stage. Dennis had reported the previous night that the motor-boat was still in its place when he saw Hilderman off, and it never occurred to Myra that I might make my departure in the Coch-a-Bondhu.
“He hasn’t gone by the sea, any way,” Dennis announced again, as he and the girl stood on the landing-stage.
“You mean the Jenny is still there?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Dennis, “she’s just where she was when we arrived from Glasnabinnie in Hilderman’s boat yesterday.”
“Mr. Burnham!” Myra cried suddenly, “is there another boat, a brown motor-boat, anchored just out there?”
“No,” said Dennis, realising how terribly handicapped they were by Myra’s inability to see.
“Are you sure?” the girl asked anxiously.
“Quite sure,” said Dennis positively. “There is one motor-boat here, and that is all.”
“I suppose he took that to put Hilderman off the scent,” Myra mused, “and in that case he is probably quite safe. I daresay he’s gone to look for our friend von What’s-his name’s yacht or his house at Loch Duich.”
Dennis clutched at the opportunity this theory gave him to allay her fears, and declared that it was ridiculous of him not to have thought of it before, and he gave Myra his arm to the house. But he was not at all satisfied with it, and, as it turned out afterwards, Myra was not very confident about it either. Dennis knew me well enough to know that I should never have set out with the deliberate intention of stopping away overnight without leaving some more definite message for my fiancée. However, their thoughts were speedily diverted, for they had hardly reached the house before a strange man made his way towards them through the heather.
“Mr. Ewart, sir?” he asked.
“Do you wish to speak to Mr. Ewart?” Dennis asked cautiously.
“I have a parcel and a message for him from Mr. Garnesk,” said the stranger, a young man, who might have been anything by profession.
“Oh, indeed,” said Dennis, his suspicions aroused at once. Garnesk, he knew, had only arrived in Glasgow the night before.
“I see you are wondering how I got here and why I came down the hill, instead of up a road of some sort,” said the youth with a smile.
“Frankly, I was,” Dennis admitted.
“Then, perhaps, I had better explain who I am and how I come to be here. My name is McKenzie. I am employed by Welton and Delaunay, the Glasgow opticians, makers of the ‘Weldel’ telescopes and binoculars. Mr. Garnesk has a good deal to do with our firm in the matter of designs for special glasses to withstand furnace heat, for ironworkers, etc. He arrived at the works last night in a car, and, after consulting with the manager, they kept a lot of us at work all night on a new design of spectacles.
“I was sent with this parcel in the early hours of the morning. There was no passenger train, but Mr. Garnesk got me a military pass on a fish train, and here I am. I was to deliver the parcel to Mr. Ewart, or, failing him, to Miss McLeod. When I saw this lady with the – er – the shade over her eyes I thought you were probably Mr. Ewart, sir.”
“I’m not, as a matter of fact,” said Dennis. “But where have you come from, and why didn’t you come up the path?”
“Mr. Garnesk gave me instructions, sir, which I read to the boatman who brought me here. Mr. Garnesk said I would find several fishermen at Mallaig who had motor-boats, and would bring me across. He also gave me this paper, and told me on no account to deviate from the directions he gave.”
Dennis held out his hand for the paper. He glanced through it, and then read it to Myra.
“Take a motor-boat from Mallaig to Invermalluch Lodge,” he read. “Tell the man to cross the top of Loch Hourn as if he were going to Glenelg, but when he gets well round the point he is to double back, and land you as near as he can to the house, but to keep on the far side of the point. You are on no account to be taken to the landing-stage at the lodge. When you arrive at the lodge insist on seeing Mr. Ewart, or Miss McLeod personally, if Mr. Ewart is not there. Then rejoin your motor-boat, and go on to Glenelg. Wait there for the first boat that will take you to Mallaig, and come back by the train. Do not return to Mallaig by motor-boat.”
“Those are very elaborate instructions, Mr. Burnham,” said Myra. “It would seem that Mr. Garnesk is very suspicious about something.”
“Evidently,” Dennis agreed. “You’d better let Miss McLeod have that parcel,” he added to McKenzie. The youth handed him the parcel, and at Myra’s suggestion Dennis opened it. Topmost among its contents was a letter addressed to me. Dennis tore it open and read it.
“Miss McLeod is to wear a pair of these glasses until I see her again. She will be able to see through them fairly well, but she must not remove them. The consequences might be fatal. The three other pairs are for you and Burnham, and one extra in case of accidents. It will also come in handy if you take Hilderman into your confidence. Wear these glasses when you are in any danger of coming in contact with the green ray. I have an idea that they will act as a decided protection. I also enclose one Colt automatic pistol and cartridges, the only one I could get in the middle of the night. If you decide to ask Hilderman’s help tell him everything. I am sure he will be very useful to you. Keep your courage up, old man! The best to you all. In haste. – H.G.”
“We’re certainly learning something,” said Dennis, as he finished. “Obviously Garnesk is very suspicious of somebody, but it’s not Hilderman. He writes as if he were pretty sure of himself. Probably he has proved his theory about Hilderman being a Government detective.”
“I have a message for Mr. Ewart, sir,” the messenger interrupted.
“You had better tell it me,” Dennis suggested.
“I’d rather Miss McLeod asked me,” McKenzie demurred. “Those were Mr. Garnesk’s instructions. He said ‘failing Mr. Ewart, insist on seeing Miss McLeod.’”
“Very well,” laughed Myra. “I quite appreciate your point. May I know the message?”
“Mr. Ewart was to take no notice whatever of anything Mr. Garnesk said in his letter about Mr. Hilderman. He was on no account to trust Mr. Hilderman, but to be very careful not to let him see he was suspected. The gentlemen were always to wear their glasses whenever they were in sight of the hut above – Glas. – above Mr. Hilderman’s house.”
“Whew!” Dennis whistled. “But why didn’t he – ? Oh, I see. He was afraid the letter might fall into Hilderman’s hands.”
“I wonder where Ron can have got to?” Myra mused wistfully.
“We’re very much obliged to you for all the trouble you have taken, Mr. McKenzie,” said Dennis. “You’ve done very well indeed.”
“Oh, Mr. Garnesk also said that Miss McLeod was to put on her glasses by the red light.”
“Yes; that’s important,” Dennis agreed. “We’ll go up to the house now, shall we, Miss McLeod?”
“Yes,” said Myra, “and Mr. McKenzie must come and have a meal and a rest, as I’m sure he needs both after his journey. I’ll send Angus to look after the boatman.” So the three strolled up to the lodge.
“By the way,” said Dennis, “of course it’s all right, and you’ve carried out your instructions to the letter, but how can you be sure this is Miss McLeod, and how do you know I’m not Hilderman?”
“Mr. Garnesk described everybody I should be likely to meet,” McKenzie replied, “including Mr. Hilderman and Mr. Fuller. I know you are Mr. Ewart’s friend because you have a small white scar above your left eyebrow. So, being with you, and wearing a shade and an Indian bangle, I thought I was safe in concluding the lady was Miss McLeod.”
“Garnesk doesn’t seem to miss much!” Dennis laughed.
“He made me repeat his descriptions about twenty times,” said McKenzie, “so I felt pretty sure of myself.”
When they got up to the lodge, and the messenger’s requirements had been administered to, Dennis unpacked the parcel. The spectacles proved to be something like motor goggles; they fitted closely over the nose and forehead, and entirely excluded all light except that which could be seen through the glass. The only curious thing about them was the glass itself. Instead of being white, or even blue, it was red, and the surface was scratched diagonally in minute parallel lines. Myra and Dennis hurried upstairs, and lighted the lamp in the dark-room. When the girl came down again she declared that she could see beautifully. Everything was red, of course, but she could see quite distinctly.
“Have you any idea why these glasses are ruled in lines like this?” Dennis asked McKenzie.
“I couldn’t say for certain, sir,” the youth replied. “But I should think it was because Mr. Garnesk thought the glasses would be so near the eye as to be ineffective. In photography, for instance, you can’t print either bromide or printing-out paper in a red light. But if you coat a red glass with emulsion, and make an exposure on it, you can print the negative in the usual way. I don’t know why it is.”
“Perhaps there is no space for a ray to form,” Myra suggested.
“You must tell Mr. Garnesk how deeply grateful we all are to him,” said Dennis. “I’ll give you a letter to take back to him. It has been a wonderfully quick bit of work!”
“I should think he has got some hundreds of the glasses finished by this time,” said McKenzie, “and he has already asked for an estimate for fifty thousand of them.”
“Whatever for?” Myra exclaimed.
“I couldn’t say at all, but Mr. Garnesk probably has it all mapped out. He always knows what he’s about.”
A couple of hours later McKenzie left for Glenelg, with ample time to catch his boat, and the others sat down to lunch. Myra was delighted that she could see, even though everything was red. Just as they had finished lunch a telegram was delivered to Dennis. It was handed in at Mallaig, and it read: “Don’t worry about me. May be away for a few days. – Ewart.”
“Oh, good!” exclaimed Dennis. “A wire from Ron. He’s all right. ‘Don’t worry about me. May be away for a few days.’ Sent from Mallaig. He may have got something he feels he must tell Garnesk about, and has gone to Glasgow.”
“I expect that’s it,” Myra agreed. “I’m glad he’s wired. I do hope he’ll write from wherever he is to-night. Do you think I shall get a letter in the morning?”
“Certain to,” Dennis vowed, laying the telegram on the mantelpiece. “He’s sure to write, however busy he is.”
Though Myra was disappointed that there was no personal message for her, she tried to believe that everything was all right. Dennis went on what he called coastguard duty, and watched the sea and shores with the untiring loyalty of a faithful dog. That night, after dinner, he went out to keep an eye on things, and left Myra with her father. She has told me since that she felt miserable that I had not wired to her, and went to fetch my telegram in order to get what comfort she could from my message to Dennis. She held the telegram under the light, and read it through. The words were: “May be away for a few days. – Ewart.” She made out the faint pencil writing slowly through the red glass. She read it twice through, and then suddenly collapsed into an armchair in the horror of swift realisation. “Ewart!” she whispered, “Ewart! He would never sign a telegram to Mr. Burnham in that way. If Ronnie didn’t send that wire, who did?”
In a moment she jumped to her feet. She must act, and act quickly.
She ran into the den, and picked up the revolver and cartridges which Garnesk had sent, and which she had put carefully away until I should come and claim them. She loaded the revolver, and tucked it in the pocket of the Burberry coat which she slipped on in the hall. Then she tore down to the landing-stage, and made straight for Glasnabinnie in the Jenny Spinner. She had got about half a mile when Dennis, coming up to the top of the cliff on his self-imposed coastguard duties, saw her and recognised her through his binoculars.
He ran down to the landing-stage, putting on his red glasses as he went. His horror was complete when he found there was no craft of any kind about, not even a rowboat. Alas! I had idiotically allowed the dinghy to drift away. He ran along the shore, every now and then looking anxiously through his binoculars for any sign of any kind of boat that would get him over to Glasnabinnie in time to fulfil his promise of looking after “Ron’s little girl.”
Myra has since admitted – and how proud I was to hear her say it – that she forgot about everything and everybody except that I was in danger, and probably Hilderman knew something about it. Her one thought was to hold the pistol to his head and demand my safe return.
She came ashore a little beyond the house, having made a rather wide detour, so that she should not be seen. She knew the best way to the hut, and there was a light in it. She thought Hilderman would be there. She had passed well to seaward of the Fiona, and noticed that she was standing by with steam up. Myra climbed the hill to the hut with as much speed as she could.