Solar Pons opened the door of the telephone booth outside the station and emerged, rubbing his hands. It was a bright, cold morning with just a hint of mist, and our journey back from Inverness had been uneventful.
“Mackintosh is already on his way and should be here shortly. But let us go into the waiting room. There is a fire and we will be more comfortable than in the street.”
I followed him into the small chamber with its leather and horsehair benches, where a glowing coal fire gave off a cheerful radiance that gleamed on the brass fire-irons and coal-scuttle in the fender. I glanced at a coloured poster advertising the attractions of the Isle of Skye as I warmed my hands at the fire. Pons put his valise down on a corner of the bench and busied himself lighting his pipe.
We were alone in the room which shook and vibrated as a fast train went through on the down-line outside. Pons sat frowning for a moment and then fixed me with a steady eye.
“Well, Parker, I take it you have easily seen through Colonel McDonald’s little scheme.”
I shifted uncomfortably before the fire.
“I get the general drift, Pons, but I am not so sure I see the specific purpose of this blackguard’s operations.”
Pons stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe, a little furrow of concentration on his brow.
“Tut, Parker, it is simplicity itself. I had a good idea of what lay behind the sinister events enmeshing Miss Hayling before ever we left London. Her letters had apprised me of most of the details and I lacked only the motive. That McDonald was behind it was obvious. Not only did it bear all the hallmarks of his shifty schemes but Miss Hayling’s glimpse of him with that scoundrel Ferguson clinched the matter.”
He looked reflectively at the black-bearded porter who was vigorously sweeping the platform with a twiglet broom in the hard winter sunshine on the other side of the line.
“Unfortunately, there was little deductive prowess called for, though it was an exercise not without its points.”
“You talk as though the whole thing were over, Pons.”
“So it is, Parker, so it is,” my friend remarked dreamily. “Though I must confess that I am at some pains as to how to bring him out into the open. And I am still going to find it difficult to prove anything against him.”
He rubbed his thin fingers together and turned his eyes on the fire as though he could read the answer in the small blue and green flames which leapt and danced and sang as the coals shifted as they burned deeper into the grate.
“Ferguson is a danger to McDonald, Parker,” he said almost absently. “Something will happen or my name is not Pons.”
I came to stand in front of him.
“What do you mean?”
“We wanted to get that dog-cart up from the stream. Ferguson bungled it by having the thing burned.”
“But how did he know?”
“Tut, Parker, the simplest thing in the world. There are two small tenant farmers with properties adjoining. Mackintosh gives his farmer instructions about raising the cart yesterday morning. The other farmer, who is McDonald’s tenant, lives in a house only a few hundred yards away. It is my guess that we have been under observation through field-glasses in daylight hours during every journey we have taken in these parts since our arrival. They would have seen me at the stream and McDonald would have known soon after.”
“You cannot mean it, Pons.”
“I do mean it, Parker. It was only by going far off in our journey to Inverness that we have come close to the truth.”
“I am apparently excluded from it,” I said somewhat bitterly.
Pons glanced at me with sympathetic eyes.
“Surely not, Parker. We have both had the same set of circumstances before us. McDonald wanted the Haylings’ land. He failed by legal means to obtain it so he achieved his object, or so he thought, by the crude methods of Ferguson. That precious rascal or one of his minions half-sawed through the shafts of that unfortunate couple’s dog-cart. It had been carefully done and gave at the moment of greatest stress, the right-angle turn across the bridge. But McDonald had not bargained for Miss Hayling and her stubbornness. He found he still could not get hold of the land.”
“But why did he want it, Pons?”
My friend looked at me quizzically.
“You have already told me the reason, my dear Parker,” he said patiently. “It was surrounded by the Colonel’s property and was the only flat piece of land of any size for miles around. The Colonel had to have it for the latest gigantic swindle he was floating.”
“This is all supposition, Pons.”
My companion shook his head.
“Not at all, Parker. It is as plain as day. It was all there in the brochures and prospectuses I stole from the Scottish Land Trust offices. That gives a glowing and entirely erroneous picture of things, based on young Dermot’s report.”
My puzzlement must have shown for Pons’ face creased in a smile.
“Oil, Parker, oil! An oil boom which, to mix a metaphor, the Colonel wishes to convert into a gold-mine.”
I looked at him blankly.
“But there is only low-grade shale-oil there, Pons!”
“Exactly, Parker. McDonald is relying on this to give credence to his fantastic scheme. He is floating hundreds of thousands of shares in a specially set-up company, based on misleading statements from Dermot’s confidential report. It is all here. He wants the girl’s land for his drilling operations and plant to give the whole thing a plausible basis.”
He tapped the breast-pocket of his overcoat.
“There are thousands of gullible fools in this world who will invest in anything providing it promises them a reasonable return. This, if we are to believe the literature, promises them a hundredfold for each share. If McDonald owns Miss Hayling’s property and floats his company, I estimate at a rough guess that he will make something in excess of three million pounds before the bubble bursts.”
“Good heavens, Pons!”
I stared at my companion for a long moment.
“Exactly, Parker,” said Pons succinctly. “The problem is, how are we to stop it, with nothing concrete to lay before the authorities. This was the reason the Colonel was so anxious to get rid of me when he learned I was coming northward at Miss Hayling’s behest. And he is equally obviously behind the attempts on Miss Hayling’s life, using an odious tool like Ferguson, whom he employs as a figurehead and smokescreen.”
“But supposing Ferguson exceeds his authority, Pons?”
My friend smiled thinly.
“McDonald is relying on that, Parker. Ferguson, crude, violent and bad-tempered is ideal for his purposes. If anything goes wrong he would be the scapegoat. McDonald would have covered his tracks perfectly. No-one at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions would be able to link him with the Land Trust in any way.”
“He must be a devil, Pons.”
“He is, Parker.”
“Then he left Ferguson’s tobacco pouch in Miss Hayling’s grounds?”
“Not in person, Parker. But he would have given the instructions from far off.”
His brooding eyes looked into the heart of the fire.
“I would not like to be in Ferguson’s shoes when the Colonel reacts to our latest moves.”
He broke off as there came a grating noise from the forecourt outside the little station.
“Ah, here is the good Mackintosh now.”
The sturdy form of the gardener was indeed striding toward the station entrance and we hurried out to him for there was something grim and stern in his usually good-natured features. He came to the point straight away.
“A bad business, Mr Pons, though a relief for Miss Hayling. Mungo Ferguson has been found dead in a ravine near Glen Affric.”
Pons’ face became sharp and alert.