The Man from the Sea (13 page)

“It’s clean skite, Dick Cranston, and I canna thole such daftness.” Sandy rose resignedly. “When I drive in, what am I to tell the creature Patullo at the lodge?”

“You’re to tell him it’s an emergency, and then drive on past the first turn in the drive. Then you stop, and I get out and fetch the man I’m speaking of. He’s in the old garden now. And then we drive away and go back to the quarry.”

“And Patullo when he lets me out again?”

“You’re to say it was all a mistake, and that it’s not Dinwiddie you should be at, but Dindervie.”

“And what o’ Sir Alex? Suppose he’s up and ploutering, and syne finds an ambulance in his drive. Won’t he be dumbfoundered?”

“You must scratch your head, Sandy, like a regular daftie, and have nothing sensible to say of yourself. He’ll do no more than turn you out, and make a great joke of your gormless wandering… But now listen. Later today, or perhaps tomorrow or the next day, strangers may come checking up on you, asking what took the ambulance to Dinwiddie. You’ll say it was an emergency call for the cook there, and that the poor soul is now in the Infirmary having her appendix out. You’re to say that, and nothing more or other, to any stranger or foreign creature that asks. Because somebody else is going to be telling the same story.”

“It seems there’s a muckle o’ falsehood being required o’ me for auld acquaintance sake, Dick Cranston.” And Sandy shook his head gloomily. “We maun hope your foreign creatures don’t do their speiring on the Sabbath.”

Sally’s vigil had lasted rather longer than he had intended. But at least he had turned the general awkwardness of the morning to positive account. Or he would have done so if this plan worked. To get Day away from the castle unobserved so that the man with the trilby hat would still be left guessing, would be an unexpected gain. And now the success or failure of his stratagem was imminent. The ambulance had swung out of the glen and the castle was straight ahead. Cranston glanced across at George. “You understand your instructions?”

She nodded – and then frowned at what must have been an incautious grin. “I’m a tremendous figure of fun?” she asked.

He allowed the grin cheerfully to grow. “Do you remember whether Phoebus Apollo had a sister?”

“No – I don’t.”

“A
big
sister? Well, if she existed, and was banished from Calydon to Caledonia, and took service in a manse, succeeding to attire which the minister’s wife had judged suitable and adequate for some merely mortal handmaiden–”

“Shut up!” He believed she was really angry. “I don’t mind the cap, or even this idiotic starched apron. But these black woollen stockings I pretty well can’t stand.”

“They scratch? You must just thole them, as Sandy there would say, for ten minutes more.” Cranston peered out. “And now, George, get ready. We’ll be stopping between the gatehouses while old Patullo opens up. That means that for a minute we’ll be quite cut off from any possibility of close observation. So when you nip out and stroll down the road, you’ll appear to have come out from the castle. You’ve got the letter?”

“Here.”

“The pillar-box is at the foot of the hill. The castle folk don’t really use it, but the chap won’t know that – just as he won’t know that Melbourne and not that manse framed your accents.”

“You think he’ll really come?”

“It’s a pretty good bet… Watch the gates as you walk back, and try not to reach them until they’re opening again. Ten to one the chap will have strolled away a bit after pumping you, and you’ll be able to slip back in here quite undetected. If Patullo sees, he may think it a bit queer, but he’s a stupid old boy and will have a dim notion you’re a nurse.”

“We’re slowing down. Is this it?”

“Yes.” Cranston put a hand on the door of the ambulance and pushed it open. “
Now!
” he said.

She was gone. He closed the door. There was a murmur of voices – Sandy blathering and Patullo havering, he thought – and then the ambulance moved forward again. Presently it turned a corner and stopped. He thrust the door wide open and jumped out. Sandy was looking round at him apprehensively. “Dick,” he said, “what if that dreich auld Patullo telephones up tae the castle and doon comes the laird? They’ll never gie me the hearse if–”

“Turn round, Sandy. And dinna fash. I’ll be back with my man in five minutes.”

Cranston turned and ran. The old inner ward was the awkward stretch, because parts of the modern building commanded it. After that he had the cover of the ruined shell-keep until he had gained the garden. What would he do if he bumped into Sir Alex – or even into Caryl, limping about with her martyred ankle? But he was all right for the moment – safe in the garden and making full tilt for the summerhouse. He glimpsed Sally – she was sitting precisely where he had left her – and saw her wave. “Day,” he called, “are you ready? We’ll be away in no time.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been wondering.” Day’s voice was conversational and unreproachful. “I still see damned little. But I’d no longer run straight into a tree.”

“Then, come along. But better take my hand to make sure. I’ve arranged a private departure for the south.”

“Splendid.”

The return through the garden was less rapid, but without disaster. Sandy had turned the ambulance and Cranston thrust Day into it. “Right!” he called. “But don’t forget the girl.”

“The girl?” Day was instantly questioning. “The step-daughter?”

“No, no – not Sally. Somebody else I’ve had to bring in to help. I’ll tell you later. Keep quiet.” The ambulance had stopped. He could hear Patullo grumbling. He was a surly old brute. But this held one advantage: to any stranger’s questioning he would be unlikely to offer any response at all.

They were through the gates. He could hear Patullo banging them to. The ambulance was crawling. He opened the door. George tumbled in. “Can I take them off?” she asked.

Cranston laughed aloud. “Elspeth’s stockings?” He felt an extraordinary exhilaration in the sense that Dinwiddie was behind them. “This minute, if you like. And the whole outfit, as soon as we get back to the quarry.” He took a deep breath. “May I introduce John Day? Day, this is my cousin Georgiana Cranston from Australia.” He turned to her. “Did it happen?”

“The encounter? You’re telling me. But it wasn’t a Slavonic gentleman with a trilby hat. It was an American lady with field-glasses and a camera.”

“Oh!” Cranston was disconcerted. “Perhaps there was nothing in it. Perhaps it was just chance.”

“I don’t think so.” George had sat down on a species of stretcher and was composedly rolling off the offending stockings. “In a casual way, she was much too much on the spot. Was this romantic pile Dinwiddie Castle and did I work there? There wasn’t much in that. But she wanted to know about the ambulance. So I told her your story about our poor cook. I said that the letter I was posting was to poor cook’s married daughter in Glasgow telling her that her mother had been taken poorly. Was taken poorly right?”

“Not bad.”

“I didn’t forget to call her madam. And then she asked if we had a lot of visitors, and if any had just arrived. So I said no, I was sure nobody had. And then I turned shy and came away.”

George, who had delivered all this with some complacency, glanced at her now bare feet and then tucked them away beneath the stretcher. Cranston turned to Day. “What do you think?”

“That they could muster one or two agents pretty quickly…and any number quite soon. My guess is that it wasn’t just an idle tourist.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t.” George, although she was studying Day with attention, spoke crisply. “I left her and walked back up the road. But just before I turned into the gatehouse I took a look round. She had climbed a bank and was scanning a high stone wall – is it the garden wall? – towards the cliff. And then she put up a hand and waved. It wasn’t – well, one tourist’s wave to another who has gone astray. In fact, it wasn’t a wave at all. It was a signal.”

There was a moment’s silence in the swaying ambulance. Sandy Morrison was driving fast. George, Cranston thought, had no particular flair for the dramatic. Nevertheless, her last words had touched an ominous note. And it was Day who spoke. “Could you say what sort of signal?”

“It was a slow horizontal movement with one arm. I’d say she was giving a negative report.”

“And so far, so good.” Cranston nodded confidently. “They’re left quite at sea about what has happened in the last seven or eight hours. All the same, we mustn’t waste time. It looks as if, even in that quarry, we mightn’t escape observation for long… And here we are.” The ambulance had stopped. Cranston braced himself. “Listen, George. You’ve been wonderful. And now Day and I will hop out, and you can change into your own things.”

“No, you don’t.”

He was confused. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t bundle Mr Day into your car and make off quietly while I’m turning into your exasperating cousin again. If you don’t promise me to wait, I come as I am.”

“George, you’ve been involved quite enough in this. Probably we’re now going to show those people a clean pair of heels. But we can’t be sure. And it just isn’t right that you should be–”

“But you’ve got to get me out of this, Richard. Think of that woman. She’d recognise me again in a flash – ghastly stockings or no ghastly stockings. And where should I be, supposing she and her friends came upon me defencelessly tramping through these wilds? I’ve earned your protection Richard Cranston, and I claim it.”

George, it seemed, could manage drama after all. In a way, she was just being too clever for him. At the same time, there was a positive truth in the proposition with which she had trapped him. He ought to have thought of it. It was a sober fact that he had involved this girl not only in an episode of danger but in a continuing danger – whether they parted or kept together.

“All right,” he said. “I promise.”

“Then out you get, both of you. And I think I’ll get into my walking things again, rather than that frock. If you don’t mind, that is to say.”

“I don’t care tuppence.” Aware that this was rather a boorish reply, Cranston made the more haste to throw open the door of the ambulance. The action revealed Sandy Morrison, scratching his tousled head and gazing round the deserted quarry in slow consternation. “Sandy,” he called out, “what’s taken you?”

“It’s no’ onything that’s tak’n me, ye great gaup. It’s some loon that’s tak’n your auld rattletrap.”

Cranston leapt to the ground. A single glance told him that Sandy spoke the truth. His car was gone.

“You’re sure it’s the same place?” Day spoke from the interior of the ambulance. He had not been prevented by Sandy Morrison’s inelegant vocabulary from tumbling instantly to what had happened.

“Of course it’s the same place – damn you!” Hearing himself swear, Cranston knew that he was rattled. His plan had been clever – but it looked as if somebody else had been cleverer still. And there was this girl. She was a tiresome irruption, certainly, from her uncouth wilderness. But she had played up very decently. And now he had allowed himself to land her in a trap. A single quick look round this lonely quarry had left him with no illusions. It was not the sort of spot in which professional car thieves find it profitable to lurk. His car had vanished as a move – probably a final and decisive move – in the melodrama in which this accursed John Day had involved him.

“In that case we know where we are.” Day’s tone had all its irritating calm.

“And what the hell does it matter to you?” Cranston rounded on him stupidly. “You’re going to die – aren’t you? But we don’t all share your blasted simple plan. Do you think I want to see this girl riddled with bullets – or Sandy here, or myself?”

“I’m sure you don’t. And that being so, perhaps we should attempt to drive on in this ambulance. It’s what they call a forlorn hope.”

“We can try.” Recovering himself, Cranston swung round quickly. “Sandy, climb in – and drive for all you’re worth. I’ll explain later. But it’s life or death, I promise you.”

“But, man, I’ve got to be back in the forenoon!” Sandy raised a protesting wail. “Gin I jine in your daft ploy ony mair, d’ye think I’ll ever hae that hearse?”

“You’ll have a hearse, all right – if we don’t get out of this.” It was Day who spoke, and again impassively. “But first, they’ll have to collect what’s left of you with a shovel.”

“And what sort of a daft speak is that, ye plookfaced–”

A sharp report from the edge of the quarry made Sandy break off. It was followed by a quick hiss of escaping air. Cranston turned round in time to see one of the rear wheels settle flat on its rim. By a single neat shot the ambulance had been virtually immobilised.

So that was that. Cranston took a quick survey of the terrain and acknowledged – what he already knew – that it could not be worse. Behind them, in an unbroken semicircle, was the face of the quarry. In front was the unfrequented road leading to the glen and to the moors beyond. On the other side of the road a bare brae rose gently to a sky-line perhaps a couple of hundred yards away. The enemy was presumably looking down from somewhere at the top of the quarry. Even if no more than a single person lurked there, it was a position admirably chosen. There was no conceivable line of flight that offered the slightest hope of a successful get-away… He found that George was standing beside him. “Get back,” he said. “Get back at once.”

“Nonsense. I was brought up on this.” Very deliberately, she took a dozen paces into the open. And he saw suddenly that she was an extraordinary sight. His joke about Apollo’s big sister had been only too near the mark; she was a divinity disguised as divinities must be disguised in opera – with grotesque inadequacy. In Elspeth’s clothes she had the appearance of some resplendent symbol of earth – say a great sheaf of corn – unconvincingly masquerading as a scare-crow. That whole business at the castle had been too clever by half. Or rather it had been too light-hearted – the sort of thing one contrives in a rag, and not in a desperate battle for survival. He watched her with compunction as she strolled back to him.