The Mystery of the Green Ray - William le Queux (ebook reader .txt) 📗

your eyes!”

But I never thought of following his advice. Dennis’s immovable arm, pointing like an inanimate signpost up the river, fascinated me. Slowly I raised my eyes in that direction. Then I stepped back with a startled cry, lost my footing, slipped, and fell on my face among the rocks.

The river had disappeared!

CHAPTER XV. CONCERNS AN ILLUSTRATED PAPER.

The river had disappeared!

In front of us was a great green wall of solid rock, which seemed to tower into the sky above us, and to stretch away for miles to right and left. The curious part about it was that the rock was undoubtedly solid. The shrubs that grew upon it, the great crevices and clefts, were all real. I knew—though I had a hard struggle to make myself believe—that it was all a marvellous and indescribable delusion, for there could be no cliff where only a few seconds before there had been a mighty, rushing torrent.

And yet I could have planted finger and foot on the ledges of that solid precipice and climbed to the invisible summit. Hilderman was muttering to himself beneath his breath, but I was too dazed, my brain was too numbed to make any sense out of the confused mumble of words which came from him. Dennis held my arm in a vice-like grip that stopped the circulation, and almost made me cry out with the pain.

Hilderman staggered, his arm over his eyes, across the stepping-stones to the side of the stream. I found my voice at last.

“Dennis!” I shouted at the top of my voice, though why I should have shouted I can never explain, for my friend was standing just beside me. “Dennis, come away, man. Get out of this!”

I exerted my strength to the uttermost, but Dennis was immovable, rooted to the spot by the strange, snake-like fascination of the nightmare. Then, as suddenly as it had arisen, the rock disappeared again, and there before our startled gaze was a peacefully flowing river. Dennis turned to me with a face as white as a sheet.

“The place is haunted,” he said, with a somewhat hysterical laugh.

“Let’s get away from it and sit down, and think it over,” I urged, pulling him away. We made for the side of the river and sat down, at a very safe distance from the bank. I rolled up my sleeve, and had a look at my arm.

“Great Scott!” Dennis exclaimed, as I dangled the pinched and purple limb painfully. “What on earth did that?”

“I’m afraid it was your own delicate touch and dainty caress that did it, old man. You seized hold of me as if you hadn’t seen me for years, and I owed you a thousand pounds.”

“Ron, my dear fellow,” he said penitently, “I’m most awfully sorry. Why didn’t you shout?”

I burst out laughing.

“I entered a protest in vigorous terms, but you were otherwise engaged at the moment, and, anyway, don’t look so scared about it, old man; it’ll be quite all right in a minute.”

Poor Dennis was quite upset at the evidence I bore of his absorption in the miracle, and we postponed our discussion while he massaged the injured arm in order to restore the flow of blood.

“Where’s Hilderman?” I asked presently, and though we looked everywhere for the American he was nowhere to be seen.

“He didn’t look the sort to funk like that,” said Dennis thoughtfully.

“I should have been prepared to bet he was quite brave,” I concurred. “Well, anyway,” I added, “the main point is, what do you think of our entertainment? You’ve come a long way for it, but I hope you are not disappointed now you’ve seen it. It’s original, isn’t it?”

“By heaven, Ron!” he cried, “you’re right. It is original. It is even a more unholy, indescribable mystery than I expected, and I never accused you of exaggerating it, even in my own mind.”

“I’m glad that both you and Hilderman have had ocular demonstration of it,” I remarked. “It is so much more convincing, and will help you to go into the matter without any feeling that we are out on a hare-brained shadow-chase.”

“We’re certainly not that, anyhow,” Dennis agreed emphatically. “It is a real mystery, Ronald, my boy. A real danger, as well, I’m afraid. But we’ll stick at it till the end.”

“Thanks, old fellow,” I said simply, and then I added, “I wonder what can have become of Hilderman?”

“Gad!” cried Dennis, in sudden alarm. “He can’t have fallen into the river by any chance?”

We jumped to our feet and looked about us.

“No,” I said presently, “he hasn’t fallen into the river.” And I pointed a finger out to sea. The Baltimore II., churning a frantic way across to Glasnabinnie, seemed to divide the intervening water in one great white slash.

“I wonder,” said Dennis quietly, “is that funk, or isn’t it?”

We watched the diminishing craft for a minute or two in silence, and finally decided to keep an open mind on the subject until we might have an opportunity to see Hilderman and hear his own explanation.

“Talking about explanations, what about the left-handed schoolmaster with the red-headed wife, or whatever it was?” I asked.

“That was a bit of luck,” said Dennis modestly, “and I will admit, if you like, that we owe that to Garnesk.”

“Garnesk wasn’t there,” I protested.

“No,” my friend admitted, “he wasn’t there at the time, but he put me on the look-out for a left-handed sailor. I was very much impressed with his deductions about the man who stole Miss McLeod’s dog, and I determined to be on the look-out for a left-handed man. I also admit that I carefully watched everyone we met, especially the fishermen at Mallaig, to see if I could detect the sort of man I wanted. I was rewarded when we were pulled out to the Fiona by those two men of Fuller’s. One of them was red-headed, you remember? Well, that man was left-handed. It was very easy to observe that by the way he held his oar and generally handled things. Of course I was very bucked about it, so I paid very close attention to him. He wore a wedding-ring—ergo, he was married. It is not conclusive, of course, but a fairly safe guess when you’re playing at toy detectives. So when I found the knife I looked for some sign that it belonged to him, and found it. It was all quite simple.”

“I daresay it will be when you explain it, but you haven’t in the least explained it yet,” I pointed out. “How about the schoolmaster and all that, and what made you think the knife belonged to him.”

“Simply because he was very probably—working on the law of averages—the only left-handed man among the crew, and that knife belonged to a left-handed man.”

“But my dear old fellow,” I cried, “you don’t seriously mean to tell me that you can say whether a man is left-handed or not by looking at marks on the handle of his knife?”

“Not on the handle,” Dennis explained; “on the blade. Have you got a knife on you?”

I produced my pen-knife.

“I’ll trust you with it,” I declared confidently. “I’ve never held any secrets from you, Den.”

Dennis opened the knife and laid it in the palm of his hand. I stood still and watched him.

“You’ve sharpened pencils with this knife and the pencils have left their mark. If you hold the knife as you would when sharpening a pencil and look down on the blade there are no pencil marks visible. Now turn the knife over and you will find the marks on the other side of the blade.”

“Half a minute,” I said eagerly, “let’s have a look. The knife is in position for sharpening a pencil and the back of the knife is pointing to my chest. The marks are underneath.” I took a pencil from my pocket and tried it. “Yes, I’ve got you, Dennis. It’s quite clear. If I held the knife with the point to my right instead of to my left, as I should do in sharpening with my left hand, the marks appear on the other side of the blade. It is not quite conclusive, Den, but it’s jolly cute.”

“Not when you’re looking for it,” he said. “I was struck by the fact that the knife which, by its size and weight, was a seaman’s handy tool, had also been used for the repeated sharpening of a blue pencil. When I saw those indications I went through the motion and came to the conclusion that the marks were on the wrong side. Then I tried with my left hand and accounted for it. The blue pencil made me suspicious. I have no knowledge of a yacht-hand’s duties, but surely sharpening blue pencils is not one of them. Then the knife had also been carried in the same pocket as a piece of white chalk. The only sort of person I could think of who would carry a piece of chalk loose in his pocket and use a blue pencil continuously was a schoolmaster. So I stated definitely—there’s nothing like bluff—that the knife belonged to the left-handed man, who quite obviously had red hair, who appeared to wear the insignia of the married state, and who—again according to the law of averages—had at least one child. I naturally slumped the schoolmaster idea in with it, and there you have the whole thing in a nutshell. But it was Garnesk who set me looking for left-handed clues, and if I hadn’t been looking for it, it would never have entered my head.”

“But look here,” I suggested, “some people sharpen pencils by pointing the pencil to them. Wouldn’t that produce the same effect?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “I thought of that. But the marks would have been very much fainter, because there would have been much less pressure. I put that idea aside.”

“Good!” I exclaimed. “I should much prefer to swallow your theory whole, Dennis, but it struck me that might be a possible source of error, which, of course, might have led us on to a false trail. And, I say, those questions you asked about the time he stayed in port and the hotel. Were those all bluff? Or had you some sort of idea at the back of them?”

“I had a very definite idea at the back of them,” Dennis replied. “I thought perhaps the white chalk which was deposited in the blade-pocket, and was even noticeable on the handle, might be due to billiard chalk. But, of course, I didn’t mention billiards, because it would have given my line of reasoning away. I thought it was better to spring it on them with a bump.”

“Which you certainly did,” I laughed. “As a matter of fact, I thought you were simply having a game with us all. But now that you’ve told me the details, Den, do you remember what happened when you did spring it on them?”

“Well, of course I do,” he replied. “But even so, I hardly know what to make of it. I should like to feel confidently that Fuller is the man we are after. But we must remember that both he and Hilderman might very easily have thought I really had discovered something from the knife and been exceedingly surprised without having any guilty connection with the discovery.”

“H’m,” I muttered, “I prefer to suspect Fuller.”

“Oh, I do too,” Dennis agreed. “It is safer to suspect everybody in a case like this. But why are you so emphatic?”

“Well,” I explained, “we have a few little things to go on. Myra diagnosed that Sholto was taken on a yacht by Garnesk’s left-handed man in sea-boots. Then you produce a left-handed member of a yacht’s crew out of an old pocket-knife, and Fuller jumps out of his