“What on earth are you up to, Pons?”
“I do not like cruelty to living creatures, Parker, but I fancy there is something abominable in this box. As I have no wish to risk our lives to indulge Colonel McDonald’s sadistic instincts I intend to scald and drown whatever is within. There is no doubt it is a living creature for why otherwise would the air-holes be there.”
“We do not even know it came from McDonald, Pons.” Solar Pons shook his head with a grim smile, reaching out one lean arm to turn off the tap.
“No-one knew we were at this hotel, Parker. I have Miss Hayling’s word for that. It bears all the stamp of McDonald’s work. We know we are under surveillance by his emissaries. Why the special box and the special messenger. just pass me that long-handled scrubbing brush, if you please.”
I did as he suggested and watched in silence as he dropped the box swiftly into the boiling water, holding it under with the brush. There were some noises coming from it now but Pons swiftly blotted them out by turning on the taps. He held the box under the surging water for perhaps a minute his face grim and tense.
“Now, my dear Parker,” he said eventually, pulling out the drain-plug with the head of the brush. “We have need of your specialised knowledge, if you please.”
He was searching around the bathroom as he spoke and grunted as he came across a thin metal spanner at the head of the bath. He held it in his hand, waiting as the last of the water swirled down the drain.
“Let me do it, Parker. We do not want any accidents.”
I held the box, while he levered up the lid. There was paper inside, which had been made soggy with water, and we waited a moment to allow it to drain away. Cautiously, Pons parted it with the end of the spanner, his face concentrated and absorbed.
“There is no danger any more, Parker, I fancy.”
I stood looking sickly down at the monstrous, bloated thing which was curled in death at the bottom of the box. It resembled nothing so much as a huddled mass of brownish-black fur, though I knew it was the biggest spider I had ever seen in my life.
“What on earth is it, Pons?”
“You may well ask, Parker. A tarantula. One of the most deadly creatures known to man. One bite could have been fatal, had Miss Hayling been unwise enough to open the box.”
“Good heavens, Pons! I thought they inhabited only tropical climates.”
Pons shook his head, his face set like stone.
“They are found mainly in Southern Europe, Parker. But you are right. This could not have existed long in a place like Edinburgh in January. Hence the warm packing. McDonald is a specialist in such things. I hear on good authority that he has an esoteric private zoo at his Scottish estate.”
“Then this came from there, Pons?”
“Undoubtedly, Parker.”
My companion became brisk in his manner. He got up, unrolled his sleeves and resumed his jacket. Carefully, he eased the sodden mass out of the box and swirled it down the drain-hole of the bath. He had to force it through the grille with the end of the spanner. He let the water run for a minute or two, his eyes expressing his anger. When he had cleaned the bath to his satisfaction he replaced the spanner and the long-handled brush and rinsed his hands thoughtfully. Then he turned to me.
“Miss Hayling must know nothing of this, Parker. She is worried enough already.”
“But what are you going to tell her?”
There were little glints of amusement in my companion’s eyes now.
“I shall think of something, Parker. Have I your word?” “You may rely upon it, Pons.”
“Good. And now, I think we have already done a good morning’s work. It is more than time to join Miss Hayling for breakfast.”
6
The train shuddered and came to a halt. Thin mist swirled about the platform. I huddled more deeply into my overcoat and handed out the cases to Pons after he had assisted Miss Hayling from the carriage.
“So this is Inverness, Pons?”
“It would appear so, Parker, if one can rely upon the station signboards. I believe you said you had a trap waiting, Miss Hayling?”
“There should be one, Mr Pons. I specifically ordered Mackintosh to be here. Ah, there he is!”
A tall, bearded man with a ruddy, good-humoured face was materialising through the groups of passengers who hurried toward the station exits. Carriage doors were slamming, there was the hiss of steam and all the bustle that I invariably associate with travel. Mackintosh, who wore a heavy taped tartan overcoat gave Miss Hayling a respectful salute and took our cases, looking curiously at Pons and myself.
“This is Mr Solar Pons and Dr Lyndon Parker,” she explained. “They have come to help us in our problems.”
“You are welcome indeed, gentlemen,” said the gardener in a rich, smooth burr.
He extended a strong hand to Pons and myself.
“I have the trap just outside here, Miss.”
We handed the young lady through the gate of the smart equipage drawn by a sturdy cob and Pons and I settled ourselves down opposite her while Mackintosh stowed the baggage. Then the gardener took his seat at the reins as we busied ourselves enveloping ourselves in the thick travelling rugs provided.
As soon as we had left the town the mist seemed to encroach more strongly and the cold bit to the bone. Pons had been extremely alert all the time we were at the station and in the inhabited streets of Inverness and I noticed that the girl always walked between the two of us, so that we shielded her on either side. But now that we were on the country road that wound up between frowning shoulders of hill, Pons relaxed somewhat and sat leaning forward, a thin plume of smoke from his pipe billowing over his shoulder to mingle with the mist, his lean, aquiline features brooding and heavy with thought.
The atmosphere into which we were going obtruded itself more and more and was not conducive to conversation, so we travelled in silence, the gardener Mackintosh skilfully handling the reins, the sure-footed cob sturdily breasting the rises with its heavy load. We were still going in a northerly direction, despite the twisting and turning of the undulating road and it was soon obvious that we were straying into strange and lonely country.
Not that we could see much of it for the mist clung clammily to tree and hedgerow; but beyond the white blanket, which occasionally drew aside momentarily in currents of air, I could see bleak pine forests and the shaggy shoulders of mountain. The road itself dipped and fell so that Mackintosh eased the cob back to a walk and we jolted on through the damp, bitterly cold winter morning, each of us lost in his or her own thoughts.
Only once was there a change in the landscape and that was when another momentary break in the mist showed us the dark, sullen surface of a large black lake or loch which lay in a vast hollow beyond a fringe of trees to the right of the road. In response to my interrogatory look, Miss Hayling broke the long silence.
“Loch Affric,” she said. “We shall not be much longer before we arrive at our destination.”
“It is indeed a remote spot,” I ventured.
The girl gave a wry smile, her eyes fixed beyond our little group in the trap, as though she could penetrate the mist which had again descended, blotting out the dark and brooding aspect of the loch.
“Just wait until you have seen the estate, Dr Parker. Then will you and Mr Pons fully appreciate the situation in which I found myself.”
Pons nodded sombrely, his pipe glowing cheerfully as he shovelled smoke out over his shoulder at a furious rate. But I noticed that his eyes were stabbing glances all around and his whole attitude reminded me of a terrier or game dog whose every sense was attuned to this strange and bizarre atmosphere into which every beat of the horse’s hooves was leading us.