“Sit down, Mr. McCunn. Take the arm-chair by the fire. I’ve had a wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you. I was just going to have a glass of toddy—a grand thing for these uncertain April nights. You’ll join me? No? Well, you’ll smoke anyway. There’s cigars at your elbow. Certainly, a pipe if you like. This is Liberty Hall.”
Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast himself. He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial, virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence. It has been mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he found himself confronted with bold and candid eyes. He felt abashed and a little nervous.
“I’ve come to see you about Huntingtower House,” he began.
“I know, so Glendonans informed me. Well, I’m very glad to hear it. The place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for a new house than an old house. There’s not much money to spend on it either, unless we can make sure of a good tenant. How did you hear about it?”
“I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with an old auntie of mine. You must understand I’ve just retired from business, and I’m thinking of finding a country place. I used to have the provision shop in Mearns Street—now the United Supply Stores, Limited. You’ve maybe heard of it?”
The other bowed and smiled. “Who hasn’t? The name of Dickson McCunn is known far beyond the city of Glasgow.”
Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with more freedom. “I took a walk and got a glisk of the House, and I liked the look of it. You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town, and at the same time a house with all modern conveniences. I suppose Huntingtower has that?”
“When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model—six bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, and independent boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks. I won’t say but what some of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been some time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can guarantee that the bones of the house are good.”
“Well, that’s all right,” said Dickson. “I don’t mind spending a little money myself if the place suits me. But of that, of course, I’m not yet certain, for I’ve only had a glimpse of the outside. I wanted to get into the policies, but a man at the lodge wouldn’t let me. They’re a mighty uncivil lot down there.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
“Ay, and if I take the place I’ll stipulate that you get rid of the lodgekeepers.”
“There won’t be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are only weekly tenants. But I’m vexed to hear they were uncivil. I was glad to get any tenant that offered, and they were well recommended to me.”
“They’re foreigners.”
“One of them is—a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took an interest in. But the other—Spittal, they call him—I thought he was Scotch.”
“He’s not that. And I don’t like the innkeeper either. I would want him shifted.”
Dr. Loudon laughed. “I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond. There’s worse folk in the world all the same, but I don’t think he will want to stay. He only went there to pass the time till he heard from his brother in Vancouver. He’s a roving spirit, and will be off overseas again.”
“That’s all right!” said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all. “Well, the next thing is for me to see over the House.”
“Certainly. I’d like to go with you myself. What day would suit you? Let me see. This is Friday. What about this day week?”
“I was thinking of to-morrow. Since I’m down in these parts I may as well get the job done.”
Mr. Loudon looked puzzled. “I quite see that. But I don’t think it’s possible. You see, I have to consult the owners and get their consent to a lease. Of course they have the general purpose of letting, but—well, they’re queer folk the Kennedys,” and his face wore the half-embarrassed smile of an honest man preparing to make confidences. “When poor Mr. Quentin died, the place went to his two sisters in joint ownership. A very bad arrangement, as you can imagine. It isn’t entailed, and I’ve always been pressing them to sell, but so far they won’t hear of it. They both married Englishmen, so it will take a day or two to get in touch with them. One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in Devonshire. The other—Miss Katie that was— married Sir Frances Morewood, the general, and I hear that she’s expected back in London next Monday from the Riviera. I’ll wire and write first thing to-morrow morning. But you must give me a day or two.”
Dickson felt himself waking up. His doubts about his own sanity were dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared to do anything he asked—but only after a week had gone. What he was concerned with was the next few days.
“All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow, even if nothing comes of it.”
Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed. “You will think me absurdly fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea. The Kennedys, as I have said, are—well, not exactly like other people, and I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the house without their express leave. It sounds a ridiculous rule, but I assure you it’s as much as my job is worth to disregard it.”
“D’you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?”
“Not a soul.”
“Well, Mr. Loudon, I’m going to tell you a queer thing, which I think you ought to know. When I was taking a walk the other night—your Belgian wouldn’t let me into the policies, but I went down the glen—what’s that they call it? the Garple Dean—I got round the back where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House. I tell you there was somebody in it.”
“It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker.”
“It was not. It was a woman. I saw her on the verandah.”
The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to bring his own shy orbs to meet them. He thought that he detected a shade of hesitation. Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood on the hearthrug looking down at his visitor. He laughed, with some embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
“I really don’t know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn. Here are you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that infernal white elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you for the last five minutes. I humbly ask your pardon. Set it down to the loyalty of an old family lawyer. Now, I am going to tell you the truth and take you into our confidence, for I know we are safe with you. The Kennedys are—always have been—just a wee bit queer. Old inbred stock, you know. They will produce somebody like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as sane as you or me, but as a rule in every generation there is one member of the family—or more—who is just a little bit—” and he tapped his forehead. “Nothing violent, you understand, but just not quite ‘wise and world-like,’ as the old folk say. Well, there’s a certain old lady, an aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has always been about tenpence in the shilling. Usually she lives at Bournemouth, but one of her crazes is a passion for Huntingtower, and the Kennedys have always humoured her and had her to stay every spring. When the House was shut up that became impossible, but this year she took such a craving to come back, that Lady Morewood asked me to arrange it. It had to be kept very quiet, but the poor old thing is perfectly harmless, and just sits and knits with her maid and looks out of the seaward windows. Now you see why