She led us, walking in single file and on our toes, into the midst of the huddle of low houses until we came to one open, pitch-dark door. And then she flashed a little torch and we followed her into a building which I remembered distinctly. One end was the barn where I slept that memorable first night in Ransay. The other was filled with a litter of odds and ends—coils of rope, fishing nets, a barrel or two, spades, a pickaxe, and I cannot remember what else. With feverish energy she pushed and pulled these things aside, my cousin’s torch lighting up the jumble, until a large rough wooden box became visible, standing in the very corner against the wall. I could see at a glance that it had been locked and the lock forced.
“I broke it open!” she whispered. “So there was no time to lose or he’d have known!”
We raised the heavy lid and the very first thing my eyes fell on was a white false beard. Jean picked it up and I could hear her voice shaking with excitement.
“There’s the rest of the disguise!” she said.
And there was the old coat, and a nasty looking scythe blade, and a number of other things of which the powers that be have an inventory now, but which they would scarcely thank me for mentioning here. I may say, however, that they made a very thorough outfit for the job the owner of them had been engaged on. Among them was one very curious looking find: the two halves of a large cheese hollowed out, and one-half broken across. Jack Whiteclett pointed to this with a grim look.
“An unsuccessful experiment,” he whispered. “He must have made a better one for the Uruguay.”
“Do you mean,” gasped Jean, “that this was for a bomb?”
“Looks like it,” he answered.
“Hush!” I whispered.
The torch went out on the instant and in absolute inky darkness we held our breath and listened. Somebody was quietly approaching the barn. The steps were not exactly stealthy, but guarded and wary, though quite assured, as if the man were only exercising a general precaution.
“Keep your faces hidden as much as you can!” whispered Whiteclett.
There was enough light in the open door to silhouette a figure as it entered, and a moment later I saw for an instant quite distinctly the outline of that oilskinned man once more. And then for perhaps three long seconds he was lost in the gloom within and we only knew of his approach by the sound of his footsteps. Abruptly they stopped. He was little more than a couple of paces from us now and I thought I heard him move back a step. Probably he had seen the white of someone’s face.
There was a little click and Whiteclett’s torch flashed full on him. In that instant I saw his hand rise, and with my head down I charged him. The report of his pistol rang through the barn and almost simultaneously down he came, and I had a firm grip of those oilskins at last.
How the man fought! Not till I was sitting on his legs and Jack and the doctor each had an arm pinned to the floor did he cease to struggle, and even then he did not cease to swear. Sir Francis standing up over him, with the torch in his own hand, now turned the light on to his face. When I saw what it revealed I nearly let go our prisoner’s legs through sheer bewilderment. For there in the torch’s bright circle lay the poor idiot Jock, cursing us in fluent German.
XVII
The Rest of the Truth
“Does anyone know him?” demanded my uncle.
“It’s the Scollays’ idiot son!” I gasped.
I heard an exclamation both from Jean and the doctor.
“Son?” said Jean. “What! Did you think Jock was a Scollay?”
“He was sent up here about a couple of years ago to be looked after by these Scollays,” explained the doctor. “We always supposed he was somebody’s—?” he glanced at Jean and hesitated—“er—somebody’s son.”
“Good Heavens!” I cried. “What a fool I’ve been!”
Swiftly I ran over in my mind my first night with the Scollay household. Had I ever been told Jock was a son? No, I had simply assumed it, and gone on that assumption without ever once thinking anything more about the matter. And so, with this impenetrable curtain between me and all possibility of guessing the truth I had gone on uselessly groping.
“Fool!”
A harsh voice startled me. It was Jock, gazing viciously up at me and talking guttural English now. His face was still framed in the circle of the torch, and as I looked at it now I realised that the truth had actually been written there all the time for a closely observing eye to read. This man’s features differed vitally from the Scollays’ and, especially, there was no cast in his eyes.
“Fool!” he snarled, “yes, you have been a damned fool, you Hobhouse! Ach, if I had known, you should have been a dead fool!”
“You mean if you hadn’t been made a bit of a fool of too?” I suggested.
He was a brave man and a useful man to his country, but the German boastfulness would out.
“Ach, but I should have found you out soon! Me, you would have found out never!”
His eyes rolled round our party and I could see curiosity overcoming even his bragging.
“Who did tell you?” he demanded.
“If it is any satisfaction to you to know,” replied Sir Francis, “your machinations were discovered and you were tracked down and caught by a girl.” He turned to Jean and added, “An exceedingly clever, brave and patriotic girl.”
I am sorry to say our prisoner still further smirched his record. What he said was fortunately in German and the words at the beginning of his sentence were not the kind that Jean would know. Before he
