During the first part of their walk home, Mr. Hobhouse was very silent. Going back over their call, while everything was fresh in his memory, he had to confess that his prejudices against Mr. Rendall were ready to vanish altogether if he were ready to let them. In fact the grim ironic Mr. Rendall conversing with the suspicious stranger was an entirely different person from the friendly Mr. Rendall who conversed with the innocent-looking Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse. On the face of it this was obviously to be explained by his suspicions of the stranger. But of what did he suspect him? Of being a German spy, as he professed? Or of being what he was? That was the whole point, and it seemed to me that getting him arrested and removed was equally consistent with either alternative.
But what of his daughter, that slim, dangerously dainty piece of mystery? Were her two changes of attitude in the course of this afternoon mere mirages seen by an eye disordered by suspicion? They might be, but Mr. Hobhouse was prepared to stake his davy that they were real. And what then did they imply? Surely not that she suspected the truth. He could not read them into that. That she was simply a coquette and for want of more amusing game (such for instance as Mr. O’Brien) was prepared to have a little flirtation with his successor? This was, somehow or other, not a very agreeable solution, but I began to suspect it might be the true one. In any case she was a puzzling factor, and the best course of action seemed to me to be to avoid her society in the meanwhile, and to keep my eyes wide open for possible trouble. I hardly thought there would be trouble, but it were well to be on the lookout.
This being decided, the amiable Mr. Hobhouse started conversation with the doctor, and gradually by gentle and circuitous methods led the talk, via the war in general, to the part in the war played by these islands, and to any interesting events that might have happened in them. He was heading in his devious way for the visit of the suspicious stranger, but at this point the doctor brought him in of his own accord.
“We had one most extraordinary thing happen in this place,” said he. “Nobody has got to the bottom of it yet.”
“Really!” cried Mr. Hobhouse. “How very interesting! What was it?”
“Well,” said the doctor, “one morning when I had that fellow O’Brien staying with me, a young man walked into my house under the impression—so he said—that it was my cousin’s. Whether he told the truth or not I’ve often wondered since. He had no cap, was buttoned up in an oilskin coat (though I may say it was a fine morning) and talked with a distinct foreign accent. I could swear it was German, but O’Brien, who contradicted everything, stuck to it it was Russian. A lot he knew about Russian! He was only in the house about five minutes, for when he discovered his mistake—or what he said was his mistake—he went off. And that is all I saw of him personally.”
“But did he go to Mr. Rendall’s then?”
The doctor nodded.
“He turned up there and spent two or three nights in the house. The chap had the impudence of the devil. He said he had been landed from one of our own cruisers and didn’t want to be recognised as an officer, so would they be kind enough to lend him a coat and let him lock his uniform coat up in a drawer! He was in his oilskin all this time, you must remember. A day or two later my cousins grew suspicious and opened that drawer. What do you think they found?”
“Maps!” guessed Mr. Hobhouse.
“Nothing at all! He had never had a uniform coat. They promptly wired to the Naval Authorities, locked him in his room meanwhile, and when Commander Whiteclett appeared he arrested him and took him off.”
“And who was he?”
The doctor turned to his guest with an expression of considerable indignation.
“The damned secrecy of these navy people is past belief! Do you know that not even my cousins who caught the man for them were ever told a single word about him! Whiteclett took him straight off to his drifter without so much as saying goodbye—much less thank you—to my cousin Philip, and that was the last of it!”
“Then you never learned who the fellow was?”
“He gave his name as Merton—George or was it Roger?—Merton. But you can believe as much of that as you like.”
“And did he land from a cruiser?”
“Not likely! But nobody was ever told how he did land. They found what they said was a parachute, but it’s my belief that was either a blind or it was really some kind of collapsible boat. I never saw the thing myself, and O’Brien, who did see it, having heard somebody say it was a parachute, of course swore it was not.”
“And did the man do nothing while he was on the island?”
“God knows what he may not have done! Naturally he told nobody what he was after, and no one actually saw him doing anything, but there are plenty of stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Oh, the usual kind, that he was seen flashing lights on the shore and carrying petrol tins. But you can believe as much of them as you like.”
“And have your cousins no theory? They apparently saw a good deal of him.”
“My cousin Philip says frankly he is absolutely beaten by the whole performance. Jean—well girls are rum things.”
“What are Miss Rendall’s views then?” I enquired.
“She is generally quick enough at guessing, and as fond of gossip as most of her sex, but for some reason she keeps very quiet about it. It’s my belief she knows something. In fact I shouldn’t be
