"It's a great chance for you!" she said warmly.
"It's one that I'll niver get again if I slip up on't." His face looked suddenly very young and troubled. She saw the over-sharp modeling of jaw and high cheekbone. Mackay could do with more food than he had been having lately, she thought.
"As far as determination is concerned I'll no slip. But it's ma brains, I doot, ma reasoning powers. And what you want in detecting, Miss Young, is logic."
"I'm only here over the week-end, but I'll help you find out anything I can," she said impulsively.
"What? Join forces wi' an unmasked gairdener and reporter?" he asked with a swift smile.
"I guess I can call most people's bluff," she said, smiling too. The pleasant smile facing her came off promptly.
"But if it isna bluff in yon hoose? And it may not be, Miss Young. Detecting isna a game for a leddy. Though I winna say but that there micht be bits of information and—well, just bits like, where an insider could help a lot."
She rose.
"Well, I must go now. But I'll keep my ears and eyes open, and if I can think of anything brilliant I'll let you know. And if anything humble enough to entrust me with comes along you'll be so kind and condescending as to mention it, I hope."
He thanked her warmly.
"Ye're a plucky lassie," he murmured gratefully. "I kennt that weel the moment I felt your hand on ma coat. Not a tremble. Not a fumble, and not a soond. But is this summer-hoose safe for a crack?"
"It's stoutly built," she assured him. "I noticed this morning that you can't hear voices outside. Unless, of course, you were to put your ear against the cracks. But why not come to the villa? Call on me, if you like."
"I canna come ben," he said firmly. "Mr. Smith doesna like repairters, ye said yoursel'. And I've sent in ma name as a repairter. But there's an old gentleman staying in yon villa; I saw him fishing this evening. He and I passed a word together. Maist interresting talk on the ruins we had."
"Professor Murgatroyd, yes?"
"I'll watch for him, and mok' friends wi' him. He may know summat that'll help. I feel a bit like a wee laddie oot in his big brither's breeks," he confided whimsically.
"Your great chance will be the fancy-dress ball. Oh, say, Mr. Mackay, it's masked! Until supper at one. Why don't you come and go over to the bedrooms carefully, if you suspect any one in the house. Do you suspect any one in the house?" she asked. She meant, did he suspect Smith or Tibbitts.
He could not, or would not, tell her.
"I'm not a guid detective," he said at once, "and never shall be, but at least I dinna blab a' my thochts. But the ball—that's a fine idea—I'll think that over—"
"Sakes alive, Mr. Mackay, you don't want to think things over! You want to grab at them! Jump and land them!"
"Na, na!" he expostulated in a deeply shocked tone, "one should aye act according to the light o' reason, Miss Young. After long and careful deliberation."
She gave him a derisive glance.
"You're young enough to learn better, fortunately. My father was a Texas Ranger. One of the best. And his motto was 'Leap before you look.'"
"Tut, tut!" Mackay clucked, shaking his head in open horror.
"It's a good one," she said promptly. "None better."
"In Texas, verra likely," he said politely; "but in oor parrt o' the globe, Miss Young, the licht o' reason is what we maun go by."
"Shucks!" was Miss Young's reception of that bit of wisdom, after which she arranged the hour of their next meeting and said good-night.
CHAPTER THREE
NEXT morning, Vivian, Mrs. Brownlow, and Mrs. Brownlow's faithful slave, Tibbitts, went out with Mr. Murgatroyd to an old fortress close beside the villa, from whose ancient battlements they had a good view.
It was a glorious day. Vivian shook off all fancies and riddles, and enjoyed it to the full. The meadows were one blaze of buttercups, the hawthorns white with blossom.
Behind them lay the wooded slopes of Fouettin and Saint Mayeul. A lane of lime trees, centuries old, still in full flower, led to the little town on their right. The smell of its blossoms, surely one of the sweetest smells in the world, rose all about them. Girls with big baskets on their arms were cutting off the thick clusters for the famous tilleul tisane. To one side the Grosne, crystal clear, glittered past meadows where maize was tossing its great golden plumes. There was a hint of ripening grapes in the air from the vineyards all around.
There is magic in Cluny by night or by day. A spell woven by man, and the mind of man. A spell from out the great days when:
En tout pays où le vent vente
L'Abbé de Cluny a rente.
The days when this little town was an asylum for kings, when its abbey led the world of Christian thought, and led it well; when Cardinals of Guise, and Richelieu, and Mazarin, and princes of the blood royal were content to be its "abbot of abbots;" when four Popes came from its grand old walls; when its library, and its learning, and its high standards; were only equaled by its power and its wealth.
Vivian leaned over the coping and studied the scene. For a while the historian let them idle, then he set to work. He had promised them a glimpse of the Cluny that he knew. A very different place from the sleepy ville that they saw.
Of the great Basilica, that monumental work of the eleventh century, the noblest church in Christendom of its time, he could only speak of as of a lost treasure, save for two towers of the narthex still left standing.
But he built it up again for them. In its green setting, with its triple roofs, its soaring steeples, its innumerable buttresses.
Then he showed them where the abbey ran, a world in itself, with its gardens, and its immense cloisters, its buildings, towers and ramparts.
Vivian was not greatly interested in architecture, but she liked hearing any man talk on what he knew well. Also, she had sent home a delicious little vignette of "The Professor at the Dinner-table," and she wanted another. Even if he had read them, Mr. Murgatroyd would only have been flattered, for she drew him with a very friendly pen.
Mrs. Brownlow seemed interested. But there was so little else doing at Cluny that Vivian suspected her of gracefully making the best of a dull day. Tibbitts shifted heavily from one big foot to the other and breathed hard. When he could, he leaned over the battlements and betted with Vivian on the various depths. He had a quite unexpectedly accurate eye, she found.
"And now"—Mr. Murgatroyd beamed at them like a father promising his youngsters a treat—"now we will go and have another look at the beautiful double-arched entrance gate of the old abbey. We won't go on to the museum. I don't doubt you, too, know that by heart."
"Bet your life!" Tibbitts agreed, adding in an aside, "I don't think!"
They walked to the school of arts and crafts, now housed in the old abbey, or part of it. Mrs. Brownlow said that she knew the gate well with its charming view. Why, Vivian asked herself, was she always so interested in Mrs. Brownlow? It was not only because of that odd incident of her picture in Anthony Cross's hands. It was something in the woman herself. Some charm that emanated from her, as perfume from a damask rose. Whether she were a vamp or no, Vivian could well imagine her to be a spell-binder.
Murgatroyd leading, they passed into the building. It was then that Vivian missed Tibbitts.
She believed that they would find him at some café outside, in front of an aperitif, but, to her surprise, looking over her shoulder,