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"Then you and I will search for it diligently, and the police will never suspect the real reason of our investigation. To-morrow I shall write to you telling you about my loss, and you will come over to Rannoch and offer to help me." I was silent for a moment. "Is Mr. Woodroffe back at the castle? I heard he was to return to-day." "No. I had a letter from him from Bordeaux a week ago.
Then I recollected that pretty little enameled cross that Mackenzie had found in Rannoch Wood, and it suddenly occurred to me that it might possibly be the miniature of one of the European orders of chivalry.
Perhaps it was the curious fact that some person had taken it from its frame on board the Lola and destroyed it that first aroused my interest; or it might have been the discovery of it in Muriel's room at Rannoch. Anyhow, it had for me an absorbing interest, for I often wondered whether the unknown girl who had secretly gone ashore from the yacht when I had left it was not Elma Heath herself.
Gregg!" he cried gladly, as he came in to find me seated in a chair patiently reading the newspaper. "You are the very person I wish to see. Have you heard of this strange affair at Rannoch?" "I have," was my answer. "Has the man in the hospital made any statement yet?" "None. He refuses point-blank," answered the detective.
Leithcourt's sudden flight, and are anxious to get at the bottom of the curious affair." "Naturally. And more especially after the tragedy up in Rannoch Wood a short time ago," I said. "That's just it," said the doctor, removing his pince-nez and rubbing them. "Mackenzie seems to suspect some connection between Leithcourt's sudden disappearance and that mysterious affair.
'I'se warrant he would go to his cousin's at Rannoch. 'Well, but if they followed him to Rannoch? 'That, quoth Evan, 'is beyond all belief; and, indeed, to tell you the truth, there durst not a Lowlander in all Scotland follow the fray a gun-shot beyond Bally-Brough, unless he had the help of the Sidier Dhu. 'Whom do you call so?
We exchanged a good many visits and dinners, and while my uncle several times invited Leithcourt and his friends to his shoot with al fresco luncheon, which the ladies joined, the tenant of Rannoch always invited us back in return. Thus I gained many opportunities of talking with Muriel, and of watching her closely.
Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch.
He was a typical Italian, about forty, with dark mustaches turned upwards, and an easy-going, careless manner. Seeing me, however, and believing me to be a customer, he turned and closed the door quickly. In that instant I noticed the high broadness of his shoulders, and his back struck me as strangely similar to that of the man in brown whom we had seen disappearing in Rannoch Wood.
"That fellow shall never marry Muriel," he declared in a fierce, hoarse voice. "What you have just told me reveals the truth. Did you meet Chater?" "He appeared suddenly at Rannoch, and the Leithcourts fled precipitately and have not since been heard of." "Ah, no wonder!" he remarked with a dry laugh. "No wonder!
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