I was at the front door and just going to ring, when round the corner of the house, right ahead of me, appeared a gentleman, and my spirits fell still further. I can’t exactly say that his was a face I disliked, but it was decidedly not one I took to. He had eyes set somewhat close together, a well trimmed short black beard, and an expression in which I seemed to read impudence and certainly read suspicion. He stopped at the sight of me and looked me up and down at least as curiously as I studied him. Only I trust I conducted my inspection less obviously.
“Mr. Rendall?” I enquired, and though I had come here meaning to confide in him, I found myself instinctively putting in a touch of accent; not with a wet brush as I did for the Scollays’ benefit, still I threw in a little, and, as I say, quite without intending it.
Curiously enough I saw his face clear the moment I spoke.
“Oh,” said he, with an air of relief, “it’s the doctor you’re wanting, is it? Well, he’s at home. Come in.”
So the laird was a doctor? Of which sort, I wondered; medical, theological, or what?
“I’m Mr. O’Brien,” added my new acquaintance as he opened the front door for me. “You’re quite sure it’s not me you’re wanting?”
I had noticed more than a trace of accent in his own voice when he spoke, and there was no doubt now what it was; a very palpable Irish brogue. As he asked this question he looked at me with a curious mixture of humour and defiance. It seemed to me that the humour was assumed and the defiance genuine, but that may have been simply because the man impressed me unfavourably.
“No,” I replied with a continental bow, “I am not so fortunate.”
And then suddenly a thought flashed across me. Ought I to have answered in a very different key? But we were in the hall now and the next moment another gentleman appeared.
“Here’s Dr. Rendall,” said Mr. O’Brien, and I bowed again.
“My name is Mr. Roger Merton,” I explained. “I have taken the liberty of calling upon you.”
“Come into my study, Mr. Merton,” said Dr. Rendall.
He spoke in a friendly enough voice, but if there was not a trace of suspicion in his eye too, I am greatly mistaken. And in both cases it seemed to me that it was suspicion tinged with apprehension, rather than the suspicion I was so deliberately cultivating. Indeed, I had not intended to cultivate any suspicion at all in this house, but fortunately (I think) I simply acted automatically.
Taking him altogether, Dr. Rendall was a decidedly more prepossessing looking man than O’Brien. In fact he was rather good-looking, with grey hair and moustache, face of a deep bronze-red hue and very blue eyes. He was well set up, and quite well dressed too in rough tweeds, and the only thing against him was that look in his eye as we exchanged our first sentences.
My wits were very wide awake by this time; I carried a picture of the outside of the house distinctly in my head as we turned out of the hall, and when we entered the study I knew it for the room where the blind had shut down.
“Is Mrs. Rendall at home?” I enquired.
O’Brien laughed.
“There are no ladies in this house, but just the doctor and me!” said he.
So no modest matron or maid had pulled the blind down. It had been Dr. Rendall’s study blind, whipped down obviously by the doctor himself the instant he heard a strange footstep, and now raised again. Why had it been dropped? What had it hidden? In the look of the room itself there was not a suggestion of an answer to either question. It was just an ordinary man’s study, a cross between a smoking room and a library, a much more comfortable room than the outside of that house promised. Yet people do not suddenly pull down blinds in the middle of the forenoon for no reason at all.
For a moment I thought of a passage at arms with a pretty housemaid as a solution. But it would obviously have been much quicker and simpler for any other party to flee the room than to make for the window and lower the blind. No; something had to be done which took a few minutes to do. I thought instantly of one possibility—the folding up or putting away of maps or plans. No doubt there were several other possibilities, but there seemed the best of reasons for not giving these worthy gentlemen my confidence. In fact quite a different course of action suggested itself.
Transfixing the doctor suddenly with a significant eye, I demanded in rather a low voice, “Are there many sheep in this island?” I still think it was a shot well worth risking, but to be quite candid it failed to come off. At least it did not come off entirely. Both the gentlemen certainly looked a little startled, but all Dr. Rendall did was to stare at me very hard, while O’Brien exclaimed.
“Faith, he’s a dealer!”
But again I refused the proffered explanation, even though it was quite evidently the easiest way of accounting for myself.
“No,” said I, “but I am very greatly interested in your beautiful island, Dr. Rendall. What a convenient spot to own!”
I still threw a touch of significance into my remark—especially on the word “convenient”—but this time I got a wholly unexpected answer.
“But I am sorry to say I don’t own it,” said the doctor. “I am afraid you must be mistaking me for
