Lang Andrew
The Disentanglers
‘You’re rather patronising,’ said Merton, a little hurt.
‘No, no,’ said Logan. ‘I have played second fiddle to you often, do let me take command this time – or, at all events, wait till you see my plot unfolded. Then you can take your part, or leave it alone, or modify to taste. Nothing can be fairer.’
Merton admitted that these proposals were loyal, and worthy of their old and tried friendship.
‘Un dragon volant, flying over the empty sea!’ said Logan. ‘The Highlanders beat the world for fantastic visions, and the Islanders beat the Highlanders. But, look here, am I too inquisitive? The night when we first thought of the Disentanglers you said there was – somebody. But I understood that she and you were of one mind, and that only parents and poverty were in the way. And now, from what you told me this morning at Inchnadampf, it seems that there is no understanding between you and this lady, Miss Macrae.’
‘There is none,’ said Merton. ‘I tried to keep my feelings to myself – I’m ashamed to say that I doubt if I succeeded.’
‘Any chance?’ asked Logan, putting his arm in Merton’s in the old schoolboy way.
‘I would rather not speak about it,’ said Merton. ‘I had meant to go myself on the Monday. Then came the affair of Sunday night,’ and he sighed.
‘Then the somebody before was another somebody?’
‘Yes,’ said Merton, turning rather red.
‘Men have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love,’ muttered Logan.
IV. The Adventure of Eachain of the Hairy Arm
On arriving at the Castle Logan and Merton found poor Mr. Macrae comparatively cheerful. Bude and Lady Bude had told what they had gleaned, and the millionaire, recognising his daughter’s hair-pin, had all but broken down. Lady Bude herself had wept as he thanked her for this first trace, this endearing relic, of the missing girl, and he warmly welcomed Merton, who had detected the probable meaning of the enigmatic ‘Seven Hunters.’
‘It is to you,’ he said, ‘Mr. Merton, that I owe the intelligence of my daughter’s life and probable comfort.’
Lady Bude caught Merton’s eye; one of hers was slightly veiled by her long lashes.
The telegrams of the day had only brought the usual stories of the fruitless examination of yachts, and of hopes unfulfilled and clues that led to nothing. The outermost islets were being searched, and a steamer had been sent to St. Kilda. At home Mr. Gianesi had explained to Mr. Macrae that he and his partner were forced, reluctantly, by the nature of the case, to suspect treason within their own establishment in London, a thing hitherto unprecedented. They had therefore installed a new machine in a carefully locked chamber at their place, and Mr. Gianesi was ready at once to set up a corresponding recipient engine at Castle Skrae. Mr. Macrae wished first to remove the machine in the smoking-room, but Blake ventured to suggest that it had better be left where it was.
‘The conspirators,’ he said, ‘have made one blunder already, by mentioning “The Seven Hunters,” unless, indeed, that was intentional; they may have meant to lighten our anxiety, without leaving any useful clue. They may make another mistake: in any case it is as well to be in touch with them.’
At this moment the smoking-room machine began to tick and emitted a message. It ran, ‘Glad you visited the Hunters. You see we do ourselves very well. Hope you drank our health, we left some bottles of champagne on purpose. No nasty feeling, only a matter of business. Do hurry up and come to terms.’
‘Impudent dogs!’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘But I think you are right, Mr. Blake; we had better leave these communications open.’
Mr. Gianesi agreed that Blake had spoken words of wisdom. Merton felt surprised at his practical common sense. It was necessary to get another pole to erect on the roof of the observatory, with another box at top for the new machine, but a flagstaff from the Castle leads was found to serve the purpose, and the rest of the day was passed in arranging the installation, the new machine being placed in Mr. Merton’s own study. Before dinner was over, Mr. Gianesi, who worked like a horse, was able to announce that all was complete, and that a brief message, ‘Yours received, all right,’ had passed through from his firm in London.
Soon after dinner Blake retired to his room; his head was still suffering, and he could not bear smoke. Gianesi and Mr. Macrae were in the Castle, Mr. Macrae feverishly reading the newspaper speculations on the melancholy affair: leading articles on Science and Crime, the potentialities of both, the perils of wealth, and such other thoughts as occurred to active minds in Fleet Street. Gianesi’s room was in the observatory, but he remained with Mr. Macrae in case he might be needed. Merton and Logan were alone in the smoking-room, where Bude left them early.
‘Now, Merton,’ said Logan, ‘you are going to come on in the next scene. Have you a revolver?’
‘Heaven forbid!’ said Merton.
‘Well, I have! Now this is what you are to do. We shall both turn in about twelve, and make a good deal of clatter and talk as we do so. You will come with me into my room. I’ll hand you the revolver, loaded, silently, while we talk fishing shop with the door open. Then you will go rather noisily to your room, bang the door, take off your shoes, and slip out again – absolutely noiselessly – back into the smoking-room. You see that window in the embrasure here, next the door, looking out towards the loch? The curtain is drawn already, you will go on the window-seat and sit tight! Don’t fall asleep! I shall give you my portable electric lamp for reading in the train. You may find it useful. Only don’t fall asleep. When the row begins I shall come on.’
‘I see,’ said Merton. ‘But look here! Suppose you slip out of your own room, locking the door quietly, and into mine, where you can snore, you know – I snore myself – in case anybody takes a fancy to see whether I am asleep? Leave your dog in your own room, he snores, all Spanish bull-dogs do.’
‘Yes, that will serve,’ said Logan. ‘Merton, your mind is not wholly inactive.’
They had some whisky and soda-water, and carried out the manœuvres on which they had decided.
Merton, unshod, silently re-entered the smoking-room, his shoes in his hand; Logan as tactfully occupied Merton’s room, and then they waited. Presently, the smoking-room door being slightly ajar, Merton heard Logan snoring very naturally; the Spanish bull-dog was yet more sonorous. Gianesi came in, walked upstairs to his bedroom, and shut his door; in half an hour he also was snoring; it was a nasal trio.
Merton ‘drove the night along,’ like Dr. Johnson, by repeating Latin and other verses. He dared not turn on the light of his portable electric lamp and read; he was afraid to smoke; he heard the owls towhitting and towhooing from the woods, and the clock on the Castle tower striking the quarters and the hours.
One o’clock passed, two o’clock passed, a quarter after two, then the bell of the wireless machine rang, the machine began to tick; Merton sat tight, listening. All the curtains of the windows were drawn, the room was almost perfectly dark; the snorings had sometimes lulled, sometimes revived. Merton lay behind the curtains on the window-seat, facing the door. He knew, almost without the help of his ears, that the door was slowly, slowly opening. Something entered, something paused, something stole silently towards the wireless machine, and paused again. Then a glow suffused the further end of the room, a disc of electric light, clearly from a portable lamp. A draped form, in deep shadow, was exposed to Merton’s view. He stole forward on tiptoe with noiseless feet; he leaped on the back of the figure, threw his left arm round its neck, caught its right wrist in a grip of steel, and yelled:
‘Mr. Eachain of the Hairy Arm, if I am not mistaken!’
At the same moment there came a click, the electric light was switched on, Logan bounced on to the figure, tore away a revolver from the right hand of which Merton held the wrist, and the two fell on the floor above a struggling Highland warrior in the tartans of the Macraes. The figure was thrown on its face.
‘Got you now, Mr. Blake!’ said Logan, turning the head to the light. ‘D-n!’ he added; ‘it is Gianesi! I thought we had the Irish minstrel.’
The figure only snarled, and swore in Italian.
‘First thing, anyhow, to tie him up,’ said Logan, producing a serviceable cord.
Both Logan and Merton were muscular men, and presently had the intruder tightly swathed in inextricable knots and gagged in a homely but sufficient fashion.
‘Now, Merton,’ said Logan, ‘this is a bitter disappointment! From your dream, or vision, of Eachain of the Hairy Arm, it was clear to me that somebody, the poet for choice, had heard the yarn of the Highland ghost, and was masquerading in the kilt for the purpose of tampering with the electric dodge and communicating with the kidnappers. Apparently I owe the bard an apology. You’ll sit on this fellow’s chest while I go and bring Mr. Macrae.’
‘A message has come in on the machine,’ said Merton.
‘Well, he can read it; it is not our affair.’
Logan went off; Merton poured out a glass of Apollinaris water, added a little whisky, and lit a cigarette. The figure on the floor wriggled; Merton put the revolver which the man had dropped and Logan’s pistol into a drawer of the writing-table, which he locked.
‘I do detest all that cheap revolver business,’ said Merton.
The row had awakened Logan’s dog, which was howling dolefully in the neighbouring room.
‘Queer situation, eh?’ said Merton to the prostrate figure.
Hurrying footsteps climbed the stairs; Mr. Macrae (with a shot-gun) and Logan entered.
Mr. Macrae all but embraced Merton. ‘Had I a son, I could have wished him to be like you,’ he said; ‘but my poor boy – ’ his voice broke. Merton had not known before that the millionaire had lost a son. He did understand, however, that the judicious Logan had given him the whole credit of the exploit, for reasons too obvious to Merton.
‘Don’t thank me,’ he was saying, when Logan interrupted:
‘Don’t you think, Mr. Macrae, you had better examine the message that has just come in?’
Mr. Macrae read, ‘Glad they found the hair-pin, it will console the old boy. Do not quite see how to communicate, if Gianesi, who, you say, has arrived, removes the machine.’
‘Look here,’ cried Merton, ‘excuse my offering advice, but we ought, I think, to send for Donald Macdonald at once. We must flash back a message to those brutes, so they may think they are still in communication with the traitor in our camp. That beast on the floor could work it, of course, but he would only warn them; we can’t check him. We must use Donald, and keep them thinking that they are sending news to the traitor.’
‘But, by Jove,’ said Logan, ‘they have heard from him, whoever he is, since Bude came back, for they know about the finding of the hair-pin. You,’ he said to the wretched captive, ‘have you been at this machine?’
The man, being gagged, only gasped.
‘There’s this, too,’ said Merton, ‘the senders of the last message clearly think that Gianesi is against them. If Gianesi removes the machine, they say – ’
Merton did not finish his sentence, he rushed out of the room. Presently he hurried back. ‘Mr. Macrae,’ he said, ‘Blake’s door is locked. I can’t waken him, and, if he were in his room, the noise we have made must have wakened him already. Logan, ungag that creature!’
Logan removed the gag.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
The captive was silent.
‘Mr. Macrae,’ said Merton, ‘may I run and bring Donald and the other servants here? Donald must work the machine at once, and we must break in Blake’s door, and, if he is off, we must rouse the country after him.’
Mr. Macrae seemed almost dazed, the rapid sequence of unusual circumstances being remote from his experience. In spite of the blaze of electric light, the morning was beginning to steal into the room; the refreshments on the table looked oddly dissipated, there was a heavy stale smell of tobacco, and of whisky from a bottle that had been upset in the struggle. Mr. Macrae opened a window and inhaled the fresh air from the Atlantic.
This revived him. ‘I’ll ring the alarm bell,’ he said, and, putting a small key to an unnoticed keyhole in a panel, he opened a tiny door, thrust in his hand, and pressed a knob. Instantly from the Castle tower came the thunderous knell of the alarm. ‘I had it put in in case of fire or burglars,’ explained the millionaire, adding automatically, ‘every modern improvement.’
In a few minutes the servants and gillies had gathered, hastily clad; they were met by Logan, who briefly bade some bring hammers, and the caber, or pine-tree trunk that is tossed in Highland sports. It would make a good battering-ram. Donald Macdonald he sent at once to Mr. Macrae. He met Bude and Lady Bude, and rapidly explained that there was no danger of fire. The Countess went back to her rooms, Bude returned with Logan into the observatory. Here they found Donald telegraphing to the conspirators, by the wireless engine, a message dictated by Merton:
‘Don’t be alarmed about communications. I have got them to leave our machine in its place on the chance that you might say something that would give you away. Gianesi suspects nothing. Wire as usual, at about half-past two in the morning, when you mean it for me.’
‘That ought to be good enough,’ said Logan approvingly, while the hammers and the caber, under Mr. Macrae’s directions, were thundering on the door of Blake’s room. The door, which was very strong, gave way at last with a crash; in they burst. The room was empty, a rope fastened to the ironwork of the bedstead showed the poet’s means of escape, for a long rope-ladder swung from the window. On the table lay a letter directed to
Thomas Merton, Esq.,
care of Ronald Macrae, Esq.,
Castle Skrae.
Mr. Macrae took the letter, bidding Benson, the butler, search the room, and conveyed the epistle to Merton, who opened it. It ran thus: —
‘Dear Merton, – As a man of the world, and slightly my senior, you must have expected to meet me in the smoking-room to-night, or at least Lord Fastcastle probably entertained that hope. I saw that things were getting a little too warm, and made other arrangements. It is a little hard on the poor fellow whom you have probably mauled, if you have not shot each other. As he has probably informed you, he is not Mr. Gianesi, but a dismissed employé, whom we enlisted, and whom I found it desirable to leave behind me. These discomforts will occur; I myself did not look for so severe an assault as I suffered down at the cove on Sunday evening. The others carried out their parts only too conscientiously in my case. You will not easily find an opportunity of renewing our acquaintance, as I slit and cut the tyres of all the motors, except that on which I am now retiring from hospitable Castle Skrae, having also slit largely the tyres of the bicycles. Mr. Macrae’s new wireless machine has been rendered useless by my unfortunate associate, and, as I have rather spiked all the wheeled conveyances (I could not manage to scuttle the yacht), you will be put to some inconvenience to re-establish communications. By that time my trail will be lost. I enclose a banknote for 10l., which pray, if you would oblige me, distribute among the servants at the Castle. Please thank Mr. Macrae for all his hospitality. Among my books you may find something to interest you. You may keep my manuscript poems.
Very faithfully yours,
Gerald Blake.’
‘P. S. – The genuine Gianesi will probably arrive at Lairg to-morrow. My unfortunate associate (whom I cannot sufficiently pity), relieved him of his ingenious machine en route, and left him, heavily drugged, in a train bound for Fort William. Or perhaps Gianesi may come by sea to Loch Inver. G.B.’
When Merton had read this elegant epistle aloud, Benson entered, bearing electrical apparatus which had been found in the book boxes abandoned by Blake. What he had done was obvious enough. He had merely smuggled in, in his book boxes, a machine which corresponded with that of the kidnappers, and had substituted its mechanism for that supplied to Mr. Macrae by Gianesi and Giambresi. This he must have arranged on the Saturday night, when Merton saw the kilted appearance of Eachain of the Hairy Arm. A few metallic atoms from the coherer on the floor of the smoking-room had caught Merton’s eye before breakfast on Sunday morning. Now it was Friday morning! And still no means of detecting and capturing the kidnappers had been discovered.
Out of the captive nothing could be extracted. The room had been cleared, save for Mr. Macrae, Logan, and Bude, and the man had been interrogated. He refused to answer any questions, and demanded to be taken before a magistrate. Now, where was there a magistrate?
Logan lighted the smoking-room fire, thrust the poker into it, and began tying hard knots in a length of cord, all this silently. His brows were knit, his lips were set, in his eye shone the wild light of the blood of Restalrig. Bude and Mr. Macrae looked on aghast.
‘What are you about?’ asked Merton.
‘There are methods of extracting information from reluctant witnesses,’ snarled Logan.
‘Oh, bosh!’ said Merton. ‘Mr. Macrae cannot permit you to revive your ancestral proceedings.’
Logan threw down his knotted cord. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Macrae,’ he said, ‘but if I had that dog in my house of Kirkburn – ’ he then went out.
‘Lord Fastcastle is a little moved,’ said Merton. ‘He comes of a wild stock, but I never saw him like this.’
Mr. Macrae allowed that the circumstances were unusual.
A horrible thought occurred to Merton. ‘Mr. Macrae,’ he exclaimed, ‘may I speak to you privately? Bude, I dare say, will be kind enough to remain with that person.’
Mr. Macrae followed Merton into the billiard-room.
‘My dear sir,’ said the pallid Merton, ‘Logan and I have made a terrible blunder! We never doubted that, if we caught any one, our captive would be Blake. I do not deny that this man is his accomplice, but we have literally no proof. He may persist, if taken before a magistrate, that he is Gianesi. He may say that, being in your employment as an electrician, he naturally entered the smoking-room when the electric bell rang. He can easily account for his possession of a revolver, in a place where a mysterious crime has just been committed. As to the Highland costume, he may urge that, like many Southrons, he had bought it to wear on a Highland tour, and was trying it on. How can you keep him? You have no longer the right of Pit and Gallows. Before what magistrate can you take him, and where? The sheriff-substitute may be at Golspie, or Tongue, or Dingwall, or I don’t know where. What can we do? What have we against the man? “Loitering with intent”? And here Logan and I have knocked him down, and tied him up, and Logan wanted to torture him.’
‘Dear Mr. Merton,’ replied Mr. Macrae, with paternal tenderness, ‘you are overwrought. You have not slept all night. I must insist that you go to bed, and do not rise till you are called. The man is certainly guilty of conspiracy, that will be proved when the real Gianesi comes to hand. If not, I do not doubt that I can secure his silence. You forget the power of money. Make yourself easy, go to sleep; meanwhile I must re-establish communications. Good-night, golden slumbers!’
He wrung Merton’s hand, and left him admiring the calm resolution of one whose conversation, ‘in the mad pride of intellectuality,’ he had recently despised. The millionaire, Merton felt, was worthy to be his daughter’s father.
‘The power of money!’ mused Mr. Macrae; ‘what is it in circumstances like mine? Surrounded by all the resources of science, I am baffled by a clever rogue and in a civilised country the aid of the law and the police is as remote and inaccessible as in the Great Sahara! But to business!’
He sent for Benson, bade him, with some gillies, carry the prisoner into the dungeon of the old castle, loose his bonds, place food before him, and leave him in charge of the stalker. He informed Bude that breakfast would be ready at eight, and then retired to his study, where he matured his plans.
The yacht he would send to Lochinver to await the real Gianesi there, and to send telegrams descriptive of Blake in all directions. Giambresi must be telegraphed to again, and entreated to come in person, with yet another electric machine, for that brought by the false Gianesi had been, by the same envoy, rendered useless. A mounted man must be despatched to Lairg to collect vehicles and transport there, and to meet the real Gianesi if he came that way. Thus Mr. Macrae, with cool patience and forethought, endeavoured to recover his position, happy in the reflection that treachery had at last been eliminated. He did not forget to write telegrams to remote sheriff-substitutes and procurators fiscal.
As to the kidnappers, he determined to amuse them with protracted negotiations on the subject of his daughter’s ransom. These would be despatched, of course, by the wireless engine which was in tune and touch with their own. During the parleyings the wretches might make some blunder, and Mr. Macrae could perhaps think out some plan for their detection and capture, without risk to his daughter. If not, he must pay ransom.
Having written out his orders and telegrams, Mr. Macrae went downstairs to visit the stables. He gave his commands to his servants, and, as he returned, he met Logan, who had been on the watch for him.
‘I am myself again, Mr. Macrae,’ said Logan, smiling. ‘After all, we are living in the twentieth century, not the sixteenth, worse luck! And now can you give me your attention for a few minutes?’
‘Willingly,’ said Mr. Macrae, and they walked together to a point in the garden where they were secure from being overheard.
‘I must ask you to lend me a horse to ride to Lairg and the railway at once,’ said Logan.
‘Must you leave us? You cannot, I fear, catch the 12.50 train south.’
‘I shall take a special train if I cannot catch the one I want,’ said Logan, adding, ‘I have a scheme for baffling these miscreants and rescuing Miss Macrae, while disappointing them of the monstrous ransom which they are certain to claim. If you can trust me, you will enter into protracted negotiations with them on the matter through the wireless machine.’
‘That I had already determined to do,’ said the millionaire. ‘But may I inquire what is your scheme?’
‘Would it be asking too much to request you to let me keep it concealed, even from you? Everything depends on the most absolute secrecy. It must not appear that you are concerned – must not be suspected. My plan has been suggested to me by trifling indications which no one else has remarked. It is a plan which, I confess, appears wild, but what is not wild in this unhappy affair? Science, as a rule beneficent, has given birth to potentialities of crime which exceed the dreams of oriental romance. But science, like the spear of Achilles, can cure the wounds which herself inflicts.’
Logan spoke calmly, but eloquently, as every reader must observe. He was no longer the fierce Border baron of an hour agone, but the polished modern gentleman. The millionaire marked the change.
‘Any further mystery cannot but be distasteful, Lord Fastcastle,’ said Mr. Macrae.
‘The truth is,’ said Logan, ‘that if my plan takes shape important persons and interests will be involved. I myself will be involved, and, for reasons both public and private, it seems to me to the last degree essential that you should in no way appear; that you should be able, honestly, to profess entire ignorance. If I fail, I give you my word of honour that your position will be in no respect modified by my action. If I succeed – ’
‘Then you will, indeed, be my preserver,’ said the millionaire.
‘Not I, but my friend, Mr. Merton,’ said Logan, ‘who, by the way, ought to accompany me. In Mr. Merton’s genius for success in adventures entailing a mystery more dark, and personal dangers far greater, than those involved by my scheme (which is really quite safe), I have confidence based on large experience. To Merton alone I owe it that I am a married, a happy, and, speaking to any one but yourself, I might say an affluent man. This adventure must be achieved, if at all, auspice Merton.’
‘I also have much confidence in him, and I sincerely love him,’ said Mr. Macrae, to the delight of Logan. He then paced silently up and down in deep thought. ‘You say that your scheme involves you in no personal danger?’ he asked.
‘In none, or only in such as men encounter daily in several professions. Merton and I like it.’
‘And you will not suffer in character if you fail?’
‘Certainly not in character; no gentleman of my coat ever entered on enterprise so free from moral blame,’ said Logan, ‘since my ancestor and namesake, Sir Robert, fell at the side of the good Lord James of Douglas, above the Heart of Bruce.’
He thrilled and changed colour as he spoke.
‘Yet it would not do for me to be known to be connected with the enterprise?’ asked Mr. Macrae.
‘Indeed it would not! Your notorious opulence would arouse ideas in the public mind, ideas false, indeed, but fatally compromising.’
‘I may not even subsidise the affair – put a million to Mr. Merton’s account?’
‘In no sort! Afterwards, after he succeeds, then I don’t say, if Merton will consent; but that is highly improbable. I know my friend.’
Mr. Macrae sighed deeply and remained pensive. ‘Well,’ he answered at last, ‘I accept your very gallant and generous proposal.’
‘I am overjoyed!’ said Logan. He had never been in such a big thing before.
‘I shall order my two best horses to be saddled after breakfast,’ said Mr. Macrae. ‘You will bait at Inchnadampf.’
‘Here is my address; this will always find me,’ said Logan, writing rapidly on a leaf of his note-book.
‘You will wire all news of your negotiations with the pirates to me, by the new wireless machine, when Giambresi brings it, and his firm in town will telegraph it on to me, at the address I gave you, in cypher. To save time, we must use a book cypher, we can settle it in the house in ten minutes,’ said Logan, now entirely in his element.
They chose The Bonnie Brier Bush, by Mr. Ian Maclaren – a work too popular to excite suspicion; and arranged the method of secret correspondence with great rapidity. Logan then rushed up to Merton’s room, hastily communicated the scheme to him, and overcame his objections, nay, awoke in him, by his report of Mr. Macrae’s words, the hopes of a lover. They came down to breakfast, and arranged that their baggage should be sent after them as soon as communications were restored.
Merton contrived to have a brief interview with Lady Bude. Her joyous spirit shone in her eyes.
‘I do not know what Lord Fastcastle’s plan is,’ she said, ‘but I wish you good fortune. You have won the father’s heart, and now I am about to be false to my sex’ – she whispered – ‘the daughter’s is all but your own! I can help you a little,’ she added, and, after warmly clasping both her hands in his, Merton hurried to the front of the house, where the horses stood, and sprang into the saddle. No motors, no bicycles, no scientific vehicles to-day; the clean wind piped to him from the mountains; a good steed was between his thighs! Logan mounted, after entrusting Bouncer to Lady Bude, and they galloped eastwards.
