Part 59 (1/2)

Mr. Macrae looked at him rather curiously. 'You are dying of fatigue,'

he said. 'All your ideas have been excellent, but I cannot let you kill yourself. Ideas are what I want. You must stay with me to-day: I shall be communicating with London and other centres by the Giambresi machine; I shall need your advice, your suggestions. Now, do go to bed: you shall be called if you are needed.'

He wrung Merton's hand, and Merton crept up to his bedroom. He took a bath, turned in, and was wrapped in all the blessedness of sleep.

Before five o'clock the house was astir. Bude, in the yacht, steamed down the coast, touching at Lochinver, and wherever there seemed a faint hope of finding intelligence. But he learned nothing. Yachts and other vessels came and went (on Sundays, of course, more seldom), and if the heiress had been taken straight to sea, northwards or west, round the b.u.t.t of Lewis, by night, there could be no chance of news of her.

Returning, Bude learned that the local search parties had found nothing but the black ashes of a burned boat in a creek on the south side of the cliffs. There the captors of Miss Macrae must have touched, burned their coble, and taken to some larger and fleeter vessel. But no such vessel had been seen by shepherd, fisher, keeper, or gillie. The grooms arrived from Lairg, in the tandem, with the doctor and a rural policeman. Bude had telegraphed to Scotland Yard from Lochinver for detectives, and to Glasgow, Oban, Tobermory, Salen, in fact to every place he thought likely, with minute particulars of Miss Macrae's appearance and dress.

All this Merton learned from Bude, when, long after luncheon time, our hero awoke suddenly, refreshed in body, but with the ghastly blank of misery and doubt before the eyes of his mind.

'I wired,' said Bude, 'on the off chance that yesterday's storm might have deranged the wireless machine, and, by Jove, it is lucky I did. The wireless machine won't work, not a word of message has come through; it is jammed or something. I met Donald Macdonald, who told me.'

'Have you seen our host yet?'

'No,' said Bude, 'I was just going to him.'

They found the millionaire seated at a table, his head in his hands. On their approach he roused himself.

'Any news?' he asked Bude, who shook his head. He explained how he had himself sent various telegrams, and Mr. Macrae thanked him.

'You did well,' he said. 'Some electric disturbance has cut us off from our London correspondent. We sent messages in the usual way, but there has been no reply. You sent to Scotland Yard for detectives, I think you said?'

'I did.'

'But, unluckily, what can London detectives do in a country like this?'

said Mr. Macrae.

'I told them to send one who had the Gaelic,' said Bude.

'It was well thought of,' said Mr. Macrae, 'but this was no local job.

Every man for miles round has been examined, and accounted for.'

'I hope you have slept well, Mr. Merton?' he asked.

'Excellently. Can you not put me on some work if it is only to copy telegraphic despatches? But, by the way, how is Blake?'

'The doctor is still with him,' said Mr. Macrae; 'a case of concussion of the brain, he says it is. But you go out and take the air, you must be careful of yourself.'

Bude remained with the millionaire, Merton sauntered out to look at the river: running water drew him like a magnet. By the side of the stream, on a woodland path, he met Lady Bude. She took his hand silently in her right, and patted it with her left. Merton turned his head away.

'What can I say to you?' she asked. 'Oh, this is too horrible, too cruel.'

'If I had listened to you and not irritated her I might have been with her, not Blake,' said Merton, with keen self-respect.

'I don't quite see that you would be any the better for concussion of the brain,' said Lady Bude, smiling. 'Oh, Mr. Merton, you _must_ find her, I know how you have worked already. You must rescue her. Consider, this is your chance, this is your opportunity to do something great. Take courage!'

Merton answered, with a rather watery smile, 'If I had Logan with me.'

'With or without Lord Fastcastle, you _must do it_!' said Lady Bude.

They saw Mr. Macrae approaching them deep in thought and advanced to meet him.