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"And so have I," I added, "and certainly I am going to the Scollays. You can trust Miss Rendall!" "You can that!" said the doctor heartily. "And if you don't mind I'll come with you." I saw doubt in my uncle's eye and put in quickly. "Certainly, doctor! We may all be needed. Come on!"
Rendall impressed him much more favourably than he had impressed Roger Merton. The grimness seemed to fall off the man when one got him going in talk and a vein of kindliness opened instead. "I'm dashed if there seems to be anything suspicious in anybody this time!" said Mr. Hobhouse to himself rather disconsolately. He had hardly made this reflection when he happened to glance at Jean.
"I know I'm young: I am told I'm rash; I have made a fool of myself periodically as long as I've known myself, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt a little longer." At the door Mr. Rendall left us to resume his conscientious patrol. I said a brief and cool good-night to Jean, went up to my room and tumbled straight into bed. "In the morning I'll think things over," I decided.
"But still who did you see or speak to apart from us and Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien?" "The Scollays," I said, "and several farmers I happened to meet; but always with a most suspicious accent. Oh, and there was one incident I forgot to mention. On the Sunday afternoon I was doing a little fancy shooting with my revolver down on the beach when Jock turned up. You know Jock the idiot?"
He had eyes set somewhat close together, a well trimmed short black beard, and an expression in which I seemed to read impudence and certainly read suspicion. He stopped at the sight of me and looked me up and down at least as curiously as I studied him. Only I trust I conducted my inspection less obviously. "Mr. Rendall?"
"I know father is out, so we can go on talking." She saw me hesitate and her colour faintly rose. "You do trust me now, surely!" she said. "All the way, Miss Rendall. But these devils may be on to my track at any moment, and if they suspect you are in my confidence " "What nonsense!" she cried, "if there's any risk I want to share it.
He can't have been because he doesn't know a word of German. We ought to have thought of that clue ourselves. Bolton was on to it at once and points out that it puts out of court the whole inhabitants of the island except Miss Rendall who has a pretty good school-girl's knowledge of German, and her father who has been abroad a lot and knows a bit of the language.
I had expected some slight symptoms of alarm, but she answered with perfect composure and in a voice that matched the hair and blouse, "Yes, he is. Will you come in?" I bowed again and entered the mansion of Mr. Rendall. As I followed the girl through the hall, a man's voice asked, "Is that O'Brien?" "No," she said, "it's some one to see you, father."
Rendall at home?" I enquired. O'Brien laughed. "There are no ladies in this house, but just the doctor and me!" said he. So no modest matron or maid had pulled the blind down. It had been Dr. Rendall's study blind, whipped down obviously by the doctor himself the instant he heard a strange footstep, and now raised again. Why had it been dropped? What had it hidden?
Thus was I, with my companions, preserved from the most awful and perilous position in which I was ever placed. The vessel on board which we so happily found ourselves was called The Shetland Maid, her master, Captain John Rendall.
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