“The man in the queue?” she said, and Grant nodded. Even yet he was waiting momentarily for the “I don’t believe it.” But it did not come. He had at last met a woman whose common sense was greater than her emotions. She had known the man only three days, he had lied to her every hour of these days, and the police wanted him for murder. That was sufficient evidence in her clear eyes to prevent her taking any brief in his favour.
“I have just put the kettle on the gas-ring in the bathroom for tea,” she said. “Will you have some?” and Grant accepted and they drank the scalding liquid by the open window, the sea heaving below them in the strangely balmy west-coast night. And Grant went to bed again quite sure that it was not Miss Dinmont’s emotions that worried him, but still uneasy about something. And now, writing triumphant telegrams to Barker in the golden morning, with the comfortable smell of bacon and eggs contending amiably with the fragrance of seaweed, he was still not as happy as he should have been. Miss Dinmont had come in, still in the white overall that made her look half surgeon, half religieuse, to say that her patient was conscious, but would Grant not come to him until Dr. Anderson had been?—she was afraid of the excitement; and Grant had thought that eminently reasonable.
“Has he just come round?” he asked.
No, she said; he had been conscious for some hours, and she went serenely away, leaving Grant wondering what had passed between patient and nurse in those few hours. Drysdale joined him at breakfast, with his queer mixture of taciturnity and amiability, and arranged that he should have a real day’s fishing as an offset to the distracted flogging of the water which had occupied him yesterday. Grant said that, once Anderson had been and he had heard a report of his man, he would go. He supposed any telegrams could be sent down to him.
“Oh, yes; there’s nothing Pidgeon likes like being important. He’s in his element at the moment.”
Dr. Anderson, a little man in ancient and none too clean tweeds, said that the patient was very well indeed—even his memory was unimpaired—but he would advise Grant, whom he took to be the man’s nearest friend, not to see him until this evening. It would be best to give him a day to be quiet in. And since Miss Dinmont seemed determined to look after him, they need have no fear about him. She was an excellent nurse.
“When can he travel?” asked Grant. “We’re in a hurry to get south.”
“If it is very important, the day after tomorrow, perhaps.” And seeing Grant look disappointed, “Or even tomorrow, if the journey were made comfortable. It all depends on the comfort of the travel. But I wouldn’t recommend it till the day after tomorrow at the earliest.”
“What’s the hurry?” Drysdale said. “Why spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar?”
“Afraid of loose moorings,” Grant said.
“Don’t worry. The excellent Pidgeon will dote on being head warder.”
Then Grant turned to the surprised doctor and explained the truth of the situation. “There’s no chance of his getting away if we let him stay here till he is stronger?”
“He’s safe enough today,” Anderson said. “The man isn’t fit to lift a little finger at the moment. He’d have to be carried if he escaped, and I don’t suppose there’s any one here who would be willing to carry him.”
So Grant, conscious of being entirely unreasonable and at sea with himself, agreed, wrote a second report to Barker to supplement the one he had written on the previous night, and departed to the river with Drysdale.
After a day of wide content, broken only by the arrival of Pidgeon’s subordinate, a youth with a turned-up nose and ears that stuck out like handles, with telegrams from Barker, they came back to the house between tea and dinner; and Grant, after a wash, knocked at the door that sheltered Lamont. Miss Dinmont admitted him, and he met the black eyes of the man on the bed with a distinct feeling of relief; he was still there.
Lamont was the first to speak. “Well, you’ve got me,” he said, drawling a little.
“Looks like it,” said Grant. “But you had a good run for your money.”
“Yes,” agreed the man, his eyes going to Miss Dinmont and coming back at once.
“Tell me, what made you dive off the boat? What was the idea?”
“Because swimming and diving is the thing I’m best at. If I hadn’t slipped, I could have got to the rocks under water and lain there, with only my nose and my mouth out, until you got tired looking for me, or the dark came. But you won—by a head.” The pun seemed to please him.
There was a little silence, and Miss Dinmont said in her clear, deliberate voice, “I think, Inspector, he’s well enough to be left now. At least, he won’t need professional services any longer. Perhaps some one in the house would look after him tonight?”
Grant deduced that this was her way of saying that the man was strong enough now to have a more adequate guard, and thankfully agreed. “Do you want to go now?”
“Just as soon as some one can take my place without any one being upset.”
Grant rang, and explained the situation to the maid that came. “I’ll stay if you would like to go now,” he said when the maid had gone, and she agreed.
Grant went to the window and stood looking out at the loch, so that, if she wanted to say anything to Lamont, the way was clear, and she began to collect her things. There was no sound of conversation, and, looking round, he saw that she was apparently quite absorbed in the task of leaving nothing behind her, and the man was watching her unblinkingly, his whole being waiting for the moment of her leave-taking. Grant turned back to the sea, and presently he heard her say, “Shall I see you again before you go?” There was no answer to that, and Grant turned round to find that she was addressing himself.
“Oh, yes, I hope so,” he said. “I’ll call at the manse if I don’t see you otherwise—if I may.”
“All right,” she said, “then I needn’t say goodbye just now.” And she went out of the room with her bundle.
Grant glanced at his captive and looked away at once. It is indecent to pry too far into even a murderer’s soul. When he looked back again, the man’s eyes were closed and his face was a mask of such unspeakable misery that Grant was unexpectedly moved. He had cared for her, then—it had not been merely opportunism.
“Can I do anything for you, Lamont?” he asked presently.
The black eyes opened and considered him unseeingly. “I suppose it is too much to expect any one to believe that I didn’t do it,” he said at length.
“It is, rather,” said Grant dryly.
“But I didn’t, you know.”
“No? Well, we hardly expected you to say you did.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Who?” asked Grant, surprised.
“Miss Dinmont. When I told her I hadn’t done it.”
“Oh? Well, it’s a simple process of elimination, you see. And everything fits in too well for the possibility of a mistake. Even down to this.” And picking up Lamont’s hand from where it lay on the counterpane, he indicated the scar on the inside of his thumb. “Where did you get that?”
“I got it carrying my trunk up the stairs to my new rooms in Brixton—that morning.”
“Well, well,” said Grant indulgently, “we won’t argue the affair now, and you’re not well enough to make a statement. If I took one now, they’d hold it up to me that I had got it from you when you weren’t compos mentis.”
“My statement’ll