‘I’m no’ a believer in this dark stranger,’ said one woman. ‘I think it’s just stories.’
‘Luckenlaw’s always had stories o’ this and that, but it’s nothin’ to do wi’ the likes o’ us.’ The speaker looked sharply around the room as she said this, then nodded. ‘Naw, nothin’ to do wi’ us.’
‘Aye,’ said another. ‘We dinna believe in a’ they bad spirits and ghosties.’
‘I assure you,’ I said, ‘if it were a spirit or a ghostie – if it were just a story, that is – no one would be more delighted than I, but he is real, he has attacked every month since March, although some have kept it quiet, and he will attack again tonight. He’s not going to hurt you badly, but we do need to stop him. Now, how shall we get you home?’
‘We both live on the green,’ said one woman. ‘And Cissie’s just doon the road fae the post office.’
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Three of you in the village itself. That’s going to be very easy. Four can squash into the motor car with me somehow. Now, where do you all live?’
Haltingly, and only too obviously still not believing, they told me. One was from a cottage in the Luckenlaw House grounds, one was from a road worker’s house down towards Colinsburgh, the third was from Kilnconquhar but she always came to this Rural and stopped the night with her sister who was married to Mr Fraser’s shepherd at Balniel, and the last was an ancient old lady who said she lived the back Largoward road and she couldna see any stranger making a beeline for her at her age, but mind if it was mothers he was after, who could say, for she’d had eleven of family all told.
‘That’s us off, Miss Lindsay,’ I called into the sitting-room door as we hurried out to where my motor car was waiting. I bundled the four passengers in, which was rather a tight squeeze, but they were diverted enough by the prospect of the ride not to care, and once they were snugly packed, we crawled up the school lane at a juddering pace behind the three walkers and waited with headlamps shining as they scattered to their houses and shut their doors behind them. Then we set off down the road to Balniel to the shepherd’s house, to the road worker’s cottage beyond, around to the little place tucked amongst the trees on the estate at Luck House and eventually to the Largoward road, the old lady directing me, although with some difficulty because as she said it was that fast in a motor she nivver had time tae think where she was afore she was away past it. Our arrival brought to the door an ancient man in a patched jersey and with a scarf tied over his chest and a middle-aged son with a newspaper folded open and a pipe in his mouth. I left her to do whatever explaining she felt was needed and trundled off again.
After a little confusion amongst the unfamiliar lanes, I finally got back onto the road at Luck House and sat with the engine idling, tussling with myself. Our arrangement had been that I should go straight home to the manse, but I could not resist it. If Christie were our man, Alec would this very minute be creeping along behind him somewhere, in the moonlight. If we had been wrong, however, my gallant Watson would be crouched in a field, watching Christie’s house and cursing, not a hundred yards from where I sat. I switched the engine off, stepped down and struck out along the lane. A cold, white light blanketed the empty fields, gave faces to all the stones in the dykes and turned every bush and gatepost into a silent, waiting stranger, but Luckenheart Farm was no more than a darker smudge against the greater hulking darkness of the law behind it. At the end of the drive I summoned all my courage and turned in.
‘Alec?’ I hissed. ‘Alec, can you hear me? Are you there?’
There was not a sound, not a breath of wind, not so much as a snapping twig to say that any creature was abroad tonight except me. Slowly, the same feeling of crawling dread began to spread through me, but I scurried on.
‘Alec?’ I whispered more softly than ever.
I was almost at the farmyard when I heard something at last; a groan and the sound of feet stamping repeatedly as though some animal were pawing the ground. I stopped, held my breath, and peered ahead. I could just make out a figure standing in the shade of a hedge on the other side of the field dyke. It turned to face me; I could see the moonlight glinting off its hair. My heart leapt into my throat like a trapped frog, but my feet were rooted, my legs trembling. You fool, Dandy, I said to myself. You might be a sensible married woman with children of your own but you’ve been a fool tonight and you are just about to pay for it.
Then the figure spoke.
‘Dandy? What the devil are you doing here? God, my back’s killing me! And both my feet have gone to sleep.’
I willed my quivering legs to propel me forward and tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke.
‘We were wrong then?’ I said. ‘Were we?’
‘Thumpingly wrong,’ said Alec. ‘Staggeringly wrong. Either that or they’re onto us.’
‘What do you mean?’ I had drawn up close to him now and was facing him across the top of the dyke, squinting to make out his features in the deep shadows. ‘Who’s “they”?’
‘In there,’ said Alec, gesturing towards the farmhouse. ‘Where’s the gate? I couldn’t jump over a wall now if all the demons of hell were after me. I’m frozen solid. I swear, Dan, this damned field must lie in a direct draught straight from the Arctic.’
‘Alec, please! Who is “they”? What’s happening?’
‘Well, as you could tell from the number of carts pulled up in Jock Christie’s yard – if your eyes were attuned to the dark as mine are, having been crouched freezing to death in it for the last hour instead of tootling about in a cosy motor car – our sinister stranger has a houseful of visitors tonight. Drew Torrance, Logan McAdam, Bob Palmer and Tom Hemingborough are all in the kitchen with him. They’ve stabled their ponies across the yard there as though they’re in for the night.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I crept up and looked in the window when I got here, just to check that I wasn’t too late.’
‘What are they doing?’ I asked.
‘No idea,’ said Alec. ‘They’re bent over something or other at the table, looking pretty intent too but I didn’t hang about long enough to see. It suddenly struck me that I – a stranger in these parts – was prowling around looking in windows and there were five large and rather handy-looking farmers whom I didn’t want to catch me at it.’
‘Are you sure they’re all still there?’ I asked. ‘One of them couldn’t have slipped out another way since you arrived?’
‘There is no other way, unless it’s a secret tunnel through the hillside. Not outside the bounds of possibility, I’ll grant you. No, I’ve seen this place from up the hill when I’ve been painting and there’s no side door. There’s no way that anyone could have left tonight without crossing at least one patch of bright moonlight and being spotted.’
‘But what else could they be doing,’ I said, ‘if not giving one another alibis?’
‘No idea,’ said Alec again. ‘Cards, dice and the demon drink, perhaps, as Mr Black said all along?’
‘And who is the stranger if not one of those five?’
‘Mr Black himself?’ said Alec. ‘Could Mr Fraser be giving his wife the slip?’
‘It could be someone else entirely,’ I concluded. ‘We could be right down at the tail of the snake again.’