The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

expected so soon to find himself. He glanced across at him with a slightly deprecatory lift of the eyebrows, while Ardroy feared that he must be looking, as he felt, rather blank. It was well-meaning of the lad, but how could it possibly help matters?

      Colonel Leighton, however, glanced hopefully at the voluntary captive. “Well, sir, and so you have come to give yourself up. On what grounds, may I ask.”

      “Because,” Hector answered him easily, “I heard that my brother-in-law, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy here present, had been arrested on the charge of having entertained a suspicious stranger at his house. Now as I was myself that supposed stranger——”

      “Ah,” interrupted Colonel Leighton, shaking his head sagely, “I knew I was right in my conviction that Mr. Cameron was lying when he asserted that he had sheltered nobody! I knew that no one of his name was to be trusted.”

      “He was not ‘sheltering’ me, sir,” replied Hector coolly. “And therefore I have come of my own free will to show you how baseless are your suspicions of him. For if a man cannot have his wife’s brother to visit him without being haled off to prison——”

      “ ‘His wife’s brother.’ Who are you, then? You have not yet told us,” remarked Captain Jackson.

      “Lieutenant Hector Grant, of the régiment d’Albanie in the service of His Most Christian Majesty the King of France.”

      “You have papers to prove that?”

      “Not on me.”

      “And why not?” asked the other soldier.

      “Why should I carry my commission with me when I come to pay a private visit to my sister?” asked Hector. (Evidently, thought Ewen, he was not going to admit the theft of any of his papers, though he himself suspected that the young man did, despite his denial, carry his commission with him. He wondered, and was sure that Hector was wondering too, whether the missing documents were not all the time in Colonel Leighton’s hands.)

      “And that was all your business in Scotland—to visit your sister?”

      “Is not that sufficient?” asked the affectionate brother. “I had not seen Lady Ardroy for a matter of two years, and she is my only near relative. After I had left the house I heard, as I say, that my presence (Heaven knows why) had thrown suspicion upon Mr. Cameron, and I hastened——”

      But here Captain Jackson interrupted him. “If it was upon your behalf, Mr. Grant, that Mr. Cameron found it necessary to run so far and to tell so many lies on Saturday, then he must be greatly mortified at seeing you here now. I doubt if it was for you that he went through all that. But if, on the other hand, you were the cause of his performances, then your visit cannot have been so innocuous as you pretend.”

      Hector was seen to frown. This officer was too sharp. He had outlined a nasty dilemma, and the young Highlander hardly knew upon which of its horns to impale himself and Ewen.

      The Colonel now turned heavily upon Ardroy.

      “Is this young man your brother-in-law, Mr. Cameron?”

      “Certainly he is, sir.”

      “And he did stay at your house upon a visit?”

      Awkward to answer, that, considering the nature of Hector’s ‘stay’ and its exceeding brevity. Hector himself prudently looked out of a window. “Yes, he did pay me a visit.”

      “And when did he arrive?”

      Ewen decided that on the whole truth was best. “Last Monday evening.”

      “I should be glad to know for what purpose he came.”

      “You have heard, sir. He is, I repeat, my wife’s brother.”

      “But that fact, Mr. Cameron,” said Colonel Leighton weightily, “does not render him immune from suspicion, especially when one considers his profession. He is a Jacobite, or he would not be in the service of the King of France.”

      “You know quite well, sir,” countered Ewen, “that the King of France has by treaty abandoned the Jacobite cause.”

      “Was it on Mr. Grant’s account that you behaved as you did on Saturday?” pressed the Colonel.

      But Ewen replying that he did not feel himself bound to answer that question, the commanding officer turned to Hector again. “On what day, Mr. Grant, did you terminate your visit to Mr. Cameron?”

      “On the day that your men invaded his house—Saturday,” answered Hector, driven to this unfortunate statement by a desire to give colour to Ewen’s ‘performances’ on that day.

      “But Mr. Cameron has just told us that ‘Mr. Sinclair’ left the previous day—Friday,” put in Captain Jackson quickly, and Hector bit his lip. Obviously, it had a very awkward side, this ignorance of what Ewen had already committed himself to.

      Captain Jackson permitted himself a smile. “At any rate, you were at Ardroy on Thursday, and saw Doctor Kincaid when he went to visit the sick child.”

      This Hector was uncertain whether to deny or avow. He therefore said nothing.

      “But since you are trying to make us believe that you are the mysterious ‘Mr. Sinclair’ from Caithness who was treating him,” pursued Captain Jackson, “you must have seen Doctor Kincaid.”

      “I see no reason why I should not have done what I could for my own nephew,” answered Hector, doubling off on a new track.

      “Quite so,” agreed Captain Jackson. “Then, since your visit was purely of a domestic character, one may well ask why Mr. Cameron was at such pains on that occasion to pass you off, not as a relation, but as a friend from the North? . . . And why were you then so much older, a man in the forties, instead of in the twenties, as you are to-day?”

      “Was there so much difference in my appearance?” queried Hector innocently. “I was fatigued; I had been sitting up all night with the sick child.”

      “Pshaw—we are wasting time!” declared Captain Jackson. “This is not ‘Mr. Sinclair’!” And the Colonel echoed him with dignity. “No, certainly not.”

      “Is not Doctor Kincaid in the fort this morning sir?” asked the Captain, leaning towards him.

      “I believe he is. Go and request him to come here at once, if you please, Mr. Burton,” said the Colonel to the subaltern who had brought Hector in. “And then we shall settle this question once for all.”

      By this time Ewen had resumed his seat. Hector, his hands behind his back, appeared to be whistling a soundless air between his teeth. It was impossible to say whether he were regretting his fruitless effort—for plainly it was going to be fruitless—but at all events he was showing a good front to the enemy.

      Doctor Kincaid hurried in, with his usual air of being very busy. “You sent for me, Colonel?”

      “Yes, Doctor, if you please. Have you seen this young man before—not Mr. Cameron of Ardroy here, but the other?”

      “Perhaps Doctor Kincaid does not greatly care to look at me,” suggested Ewen.

      The doctor threw him a glance. “I had ma duty to do, Ardroy.” Then he looked, as desired, at the younger prisoner. “Losh, I should think I had seen him before! God’s name, young man, you’re gey hard in the heid! ’Tis the lad I found half-doited on Loch Treig side Tuesday nicht syne wi’ a dunt in it of which yon’s the sign!” He pointed to the bandage.

      “Tuesday night, you say, Doctor?” asked Captain Jackson.

      “Aye, Tuesday nicht, I mind well it was. I was away up Loch Treig the day to auld MacInnes there.”

      Captain Jackson turned on Hector. “Perhaps, Mr. Grant,” he suggested, “you were lightheaded from this blow when you thought you were at Ardroy till Saturday.”