Or he
might be lying down out of sight having a nap, and as the day was warm
and he had apparently nothing better to do, that seemed a very possible
solution. Anyhow, there was no sign of him, and if there had been, I
told myself he would probably have proved to be merely the island
patriarch with a senile fancy for wax vestas, so I resumed my journey to
the "big house."
As I topped another rise I got the best view I had yet seen of the lie of
the island. A group of larger buildings on another hillock, still well
over a mile ahead, was evidently the mansion at last. Behind me I saw the
doctor's house and noted with a nod unto myself that it stood distinctly
in the northwest district of the island. It was no long walk from that
bleak habitation to the Scollays' on the shore.
And now I addressed myself to a delicate question. If I were going to
keep up the part of suspicious stranger at the Rendall's, at all events
to begin with, what account of my arrival should I give? It must be a
tale plausible enough to keep them in doubt, for unless the laird himself
were actually up to his neck in treason (and though I was prepared for
anything by this time, there were limits to the assumptions I ventured to
make), he would certainly wire either to the police or the naval
authorities and I should immediately become a mere spectator.
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