For an instant, in a blaze of anger, Bergman toyed with the idea of stalking MacDonald and putting a bullet in his head. But this pleasant notion he reluctantly thrust aside. If he failed again — even Colts were not a hundred per cent accurate — MacDonald would on this occasion be liable to spot his method of disguise, and his careful planning might be ruined for a second time. Much better to admit temporary defeat and let Veronica Jane go. He still had a fortnight in which to do his work.
Crouching down in a clump of bent, he watched the policeman's tall figure breasting a knoll fifteen yards away. He tried to accept the situation with calm philosophy; but at the back of his mind there nagged dissatisfaction. Earlier in the evening he had decided that this was to be the night, and it irked him to realize that MacDonald had again got the better of him. Was there nothing he could do to change the complexion of affairs and make it a decisive moment after all?
And suddenly he knew what he could do. If he got up, showed himself and then began to race back towards the Rock of Dunaverty, MacDonald might be tempted to follow him. Twenty yards to the right he had noticed a little hollow into which he could disappear and lie in ambush. A quick swing of the pistol-butt as his pursuer stumbled down on top of him — then curtains for the policeman and a golden opportunity for himself to catch up with the young couple before they reached the main road.
He stood up, confident that at such a distance he could not be recognized for what he was. Loudly he sneezed.
Kenneth turned. He heard the sneeze and saw his opponent scuttle and run like a ghost. Involuntarily he began to move after him. Then he stopped. His shoulder was a mass of pain and his thoughts were still on the rack of his feeling for Veronica Jane; but his training as a policeman functioned instinctively and did not let him down. He suspected at once that the Actor meant to lure him away from the girl; and it took him only a short time to decide on a new course of action. Bergman had vanished by now and, when he discovered that his opponent didn't mean to follow him, might reappear almost anywhere. It was Kenneth's duty, therefore, to overtake Veronica Jane and Hugh Cameron, explain the position and give them his company and protection until they got to the hotel.
Such a course, especially in his present mood, was utterly repugnant; but he forced himself to follow it. Looking back over his shoulder every few seconds, he began to run in their direction.
“Veronica Jane!" he shouted.
They recognized his voice. As he made his way awkwardly through the sand and bent, they waited for him. Hugh Cameron’s mind flooded with quick annoyance. Could this boorish policeman not leave them alone — even for an hour? Had he no sense of the proprieties at all? Then a darker and more evil thought flickered in his mind. Had MacDonald been following them — ostensibly on a plea of duty but actually with the deliberate intention of spoiling his chances with Veronica Jane?
A pulse began to hammer in his head. Until this moment he had blamed his lack of success with Veronica Jane on his own impetuosity. Now, in opposition to all logic, he was prepared to put the onus on Sergeant MacDonald. She must have sensed that someone was near them. That would account for her cold and agitated response.
He glanced down at her, but he couldn't quite make out her expression. Her fingers, however, had tightened on his arm, and she was holding herself stiff and erect as if summoning up hard resistance to a challenge. He felt pleased about that.
Kenneth approached them. Even in the dim light Veronica Jane noticed at once the stiffness in his left arm.
“What — what’s happened?” she said.
His heart pounded as he saw her lovely face framed in the big collar of her coat. But he did his best to ignore its appeal. He was remembering bitterly the way she and Hugh Cameron had come together — apparently with such intimate abandon.
“Bergman’s here,” he replied. “I’ve come to see you safely back to the hotel.”
It was Hugh Cameron who answered. “Is that so?” he said, with a hard inflection in his voice.
Kenneth glanced at him. His chin stuck out. “That’s so,” he retorted, gruffly. “Let’s get going.”
The young doctor didn’t move. He said: “How do you know Bergman’s here?”
“I’ve just seen him.” Kenneth tried to be patient — to be a policeman rather than an ordinary individual with hot anger in his heart. “He made a pass at me with the butt of his pistol.”
Veronica Jane looked up at him. “Is your shoulder badly hurt?” she asked.
“No.” He was deliberately blunt. “No damage at all.” He turned again to her companion. “As I said, let’s get going, before Bergman cooks up another plan of attack.”
Though Veronica Jane made a move to accept this suggestion, Hugh still stood his ground. “I’m not sure that we want your company,” he remarked.
With difficulty Kenneth maintained a semblance of calm. “That’s beside the point,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned what happens to you is quite immaterial. But my job here is to protect Miss MacKay, and that I intend to do.”
Veronica Jane was vividly aware of the enmity between the two men and tried not to think that she herself was the cause of it. She said: “We understand that, Sergeant MacDonald. We’ll be glad if you’ll come with us. Won’t we, Hugh?”
She did her best to smile with warm persuasiveness; but the young doctor’s evil mood was not to be allayed so easily. “Have you discovered who the Actor is?” he inquired of Kenneth.
The latter shook his head. “I only got a glimpse of him — a kind of vague shadow. But he’s behind us there — somewhere among the sand-dunes. The danger is very real, I assure you.”
“I wonder.” Hugh stood very still and straight. “How did you get involved with him at all? Were you following us?”
In the quiet dark Kenneth flushed. A twinge of pain went through his shoulder, fanning the glow of his anger.
“Yes — and it's a damned good job I was!” he said. “Otherwise you’d have been stretched out cold by this time, and Miss MacKay would have been in Bergman’s clutches.”
Hugh shrugged. “Rather a melodramatic statement, don’t you think?”
There was a silence. Frantically Veronica Jane sought for words to relieve the tension. But before inspiration came to her Kenneth said: “Policemen can’t afford to be melodramatic. They consider facts in a scientific way. What I’m telling you, Cameron, is the truth. If I hadn’t had previous experience — at the Kintyre Gathering — of your complete ineptitude in a crisis, I’d certainly never have come here tonight.”
Hugh blazed at him. “You’re a blasted snooper — that’s what you are!”
By a supreme effort Kenneth maintained his temper. “Call me what you like,” he answered, grimly. “I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt your outing with Miss MacKay; but sentimental considerations don’t enter into a policeman’s job.”
He heard Veronica Jane draw in her breath, and his suppressed fury again surged to the surface. “Whether you like it or not,” he continued, “I’m accompanying you to the hotel — not because I want to, but because Bergman will probably think twice before tackling the three of us together. If you say another word about it, Cameron, I promise you’ll regret it.”
He glowered at them both with unmistakable menace. At first Hugh seemed prepared to reply in kind; but in the end he thought better of it.
“For Veronica Jane’s sake,” he muttered, “perhaps we’d better go.”
It was only about half-a-mile to the hotel, and they accomplished the walk in silence. Kenneth kept wary watch for any move by Bergman; but nothing happened, and the only sounds were those of the sea on the shingle and of a garrulous night-bird among the rocks.
He bade the others good night in the hall of the hotel. For a fleeting moment, as he looked down at Veronica Jane, his hard expression changed.
‘Take care of yourself/' he said, quietly. “Don't take any more risks.’’
Then he turned away abruptly and went in search of Donald McShannon, th
e manager. The latter, it appeared, was still engaged in attending to customers in the lounge; but Morag McShannon came from the kitchen to answer his questions.
The honeymoon couple, it appeared, had already gone to bed — and Miss Cunningham had been in her room all evening with a headache. Paterson was telling golfing yarns in the lounge.
“And Colonel Huskisson-Smythe?”
“He's not in yet, Kenneth. After dinner he told me he had letters to post. I offered to send someone down to the village with them, but he said he'd do it himself. Keen on walking, of course…”
Chapter 11
At Glendale Kirk
As Kenneth left the hotel he met the Colonel under the bright light at the front entrance. Huskisson-Smythe was wearing a heavy overcoat and a checked cloth cap. He curled his moustached upper lip and made a remark about the improving weather. Then he passed inside.
Kenneth could still not bring himself to believe that this apparently typical product of the regular army was the Actor in disguise. As he walked back to the village along the main road he tried to focus his impressions of the dark shadow he had encountered among the sand-dunes; but these remained a nebulous quantity and bore no resemblance to his mental image of Huskisson-Smythe.
On his way to Mrs. Connacher’s he stopped at the public kiosk and put through a call to Glendale House. Mr. Woodward himself answered the phone.
Kenneth explained who he was. He went on: “Sorry to trouble you, sir. But this is a routine inquiry.’’
"Well, shoot the works,” came the abrupt but not unfriendly voice of the laird.
"I should be obliged if you would treat this conversation as strictly confidential.”
"All right — if you want it that way, son. What's your trouble?”
"Could you tell me if your guest, Professor Symington, is at home?”
"He’s here all right — drinking my whisky in the library and talking about fossils as usual. Want to speak to him?” "No. As a matter of fact, I just wanted to check up on his movements this evening. Has he been in all night?”
For a moment there was no reply. The only sound was a thoughtful wheezing at the other end of the line.
"Listen, son,” said the laird, at last, "I’m a self-made man — an upstart — all that kind of twaddle. But the Professor’s my guest and even though I’m not what you might call a pukkah sahib I’m damned if I like discussing what he does and what he doesn’t do with a comparative stranger. Is it necessary for me to answer that question?”
"I’m afraid it is. You deserve credit for your attitude. But the point is — I’m not a private individual. I’m a policeman.”
"Yes. I see… Well, then — the Professor did go out. To stretch his legs he said. He came back ten minutes ago.” "How long was he out altogether?”
"About an hour.”
"Right, Mr. Woodward. Thanks for being so decent about it. And again — please keep this conversation to yourself.”
"I certainly will, Sergeant MacDonald. What’s behind it, anyway?”
"Sorry. I can’t tell you just yet.”
"H’m. All right.”
"Good night, sir.”
"Good night, son.”
Kenneth let himself into Mrs. Connacher’s quietly, with the intention of going straight to his room. His mind was tense. One half of it was anxiously concerned with the mechanical problem of his job — how best to carry out Bulldog Bill’s instructions and keep Veronica Jane from harm. The other half wrestled with his personal feelings for his charge. He wanted a quiet hour in which to prove to his own satisfaction that she meant nothing to him — absolutely nothing — and that if she were in love with Hugh Cameron it really didn't affect him in any way at all. His thoughts strained against each other in such awkward chaos that his head was throbbing. His shoulder was aching, too; and between everything he felt disinclined for company. But Hector, passing through the hall, waylaid him as he hung up his coat.
“I say, Kenneth — can you spare a moment?"
"What for?"
“It's my picture." The artist was diffident, shuffling his large feet and scratching the back of his head. "You — er — you seemed to know what I was getting at yesterday. Well, today Sheena and I were busy all morning and afternoon, and it's — it's taking shape. I thought you might — er — like to see it and say what you think."
Hector was so like a child trying to interest his parent in some innocent hobby that Kenneth hadn't the heart to refuse.
"Right-ho," he said. "Though I'm not much of an art critic, you know."
"What does it matter about art critics!" returned Hector, leading the way into the sitting-room. "I'm painting this to please myself — not to satisfy the critics."
Mrs. Connacher was seated at one side of the fire, knitting, with Sheena glancing at a newspaper on the armchair opposite. Hector dashed towards the far end of the room, where his canvas was lying face-inwards against the legs of the easel. On his way he stumbled over Mrs. Connacher's feet.
He apologized profusely.
The elderly lady smiled. "Don't worry, Mr. MacNab. It's quite all right… Oh, there you are, Kenneth," she went on, with an accent of relief. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"No, thanks. I’ve come in to see Hector's painting."
"I wonder what you’ll think of it," said Sheena, quietly. Her voice betrayed no particular emotion; but Kenneth was surprised by the tenderness in her eyes as she watched Hector arrange the easel and place the almost completed picture on the pegs.
"Doesn’t show up too well in the artificial light," said the latter, shyly. “But — er — well, what’s the verdict?”
Kenneth said nothing for a time. He stood ten feet away, studying the oil painting. He saw the great dark mass of Dunaverty Rock leap out of the background. He saw the waves fumbling against its base and the long white strip of beach, with the oyster-catchers wading at the water’s edge; and in the foreground Sheena, in a yellow dress, leaning on one bare arm and stretching forward to pick a sea-campion from a crevice in the rocks.
For a moment the picture seemed to him crudely done and unnatural in its colouring. Then, quite suddenly, in spite of the tensity of his own feelings, and perhaps even because of it, the eye of his mind focused on its purpose. By the Rock Hector had symbolized the harshness of Nature; by the fresh sweetness and innocence of the girl the essential divinity of Man. Kenneth remembered the lecture on archaeology to which Professor Symington had treated him on the previous night.
“I think it’s splendid,” said Mrs. Connacher, vaguely. “Though I’m not sure Dunaverty’s just like that.”
“I don’t quite understand it,” Sheena confessed. She laughed, self-consciously. “I’m sure Hector has flattered me far too much.”
But Hector had no ears for what she said, no eyes for her fond smile of gratitude. He was staring at his friend with an expression that was almost desperate.
Kenneth looked away from the picture. “I see what you mean, Hector,” he said, quietly. “The Rock and the girl — the material world and spiritual Man.” He paused. Then he said: “To my mind it’s a masterpiece.”
There was a stillness in the room. Hector’s lean face flushed red, and to her astonishment Sheena saw that he was trembling.
“Thanks, Kenneth,” he said finally, in a strange, tight voice. “Thanks… I had to get away from — from calendars and postcards…”
He took the picture from the pegs and with awkward, fumbling hands folded the easel. As he did so, Sheena’s eyes grew troubled. There was something here she had failed to grasp — some undercurrent of knowledge and feeling which she couldn’t share with Hector. Kenneth’s remarks about the painting seemed odd. But they had obviously pleased the artist — and that was a good thing. In her heart, however, she wished she had been able to understand and by her criticism to please him as Kenneth had done. She felt suddenly hopeless and inadequate…
Mrs. Connacher had no such qualms. Art in its various forms was to her unimport
ant as compared with the physical well-being of her guests. She bundled up her knitting and said: ‘‘No matter what Kenneth says, we're going to have something to eat before bedtime. Sit down, all of you. I'll be back in a jiffy with a nice cup of tea."
Kenneth grinned in spite of himself. “How many will that be — your eighth since morning?"
“My ninth, if you want to know."
The strained atmosphere in the room was eased by laughter.
Later on, when he went to his room, Kenneth was unable to sleep for a long time. His thoughts kept shifting about from one set of ideas to another — from his personal anxieties with regard to Veronica Jane to his task in attempting to identify and checkmate Max Bergman. On neither subject could he concentrate for long, and the result was nervous tension and sleeplessness.
At one point he decided he would ring Bulldog Bill and ask for help. It was now certain that the Actor had arrived in Glendale. But in his present state of mind was he capable of dealing with the criminal alone? Was he the proper person to be guarding Veronica Jane?
Then his native common sense returned. He realized that even though he did ring the Superintendent that hard-headed and short-handed martinet would simply say: “Well, make use of the local police." And besides, when he looked at the situation calmly, he had an urge to fight the Actor by himself. Their enmity had now become highly personal.
Kenneth knew well enough that his best method of defending Veronica Jane was to identify his opponent and have him arrested. But how was that to be done? Who was the Actor?
He tossed restlessly. Until he made that discovery, his job of protecting Fraser MacKay's daughter would be a continuous strain. Could he stick it out for another fortnight? Could he go on seeing Veronica Jane every day, knowing that she loved Hugh Cameron?
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