The end of the rifle sling was still a foot short. The Colonel opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it with a snap. Little flecks of saliva dribbled down his chin. There was a mixture of anger, pain and regret in his eyes. Then the stems of the heather tore out with a convulsive movement and the head and arms whipped backward out of sight into the mist.
The dreadful cry which echoed and swelled from that terrible abyss I hear still in my dreams to this day.
Then it was cut off abruptly and we heard the sickening impact of broken flesh on rock as the body bounced from boulder to boulder until the sound died away in the distance. For a long time there was nothing but the patter of scree and small rocks rattling down the sombre depths.
Pons slowly dragged himself back to safety. He was white and trembling. Despite his efforts the rifle slid over to join its owner in the chasm below. I got up and we two sat on the edge of a boulder for several minutes to collect ourselves. Pons lit his pipe and soon had it drawing comfortably, his head wreathed in tobacco smoke.
“Well, Parker,” he said eventually. “Poetic justice, though I would not have had it happen like that.”
“You could not have helped it, Pons,” I said. “That dreadful creature would have murdered you in cold blood.”
He nodded without speaking, his eyes hooded and brooding as he stared into the misty deep before us.
“Fate is unpredictable, Parker,” he observed presently. “Unless I miss my guess it is somewhere hereabouts that McDonald’s tool Mungo Ferguson met his end.”
I stared at him, still too shocked to say anything. He looked at me sympathetically and roused himself.
“We must get back and inform the police, my dear fellow.” I nodded, my thoughts still elsewhere.
“What did you put in that telegram, Pons?”
“THIS MATTER MUST BE SETTLED BETWEEN US. YOUR TERMS OR MINE. PONS. I knew he could not resist the challenge. I accepted his terms, with the result we have seen.”
Pons sighed and I looked at him sharply.
“Unfortunately there was little in the case which appealed to my ratiocinative instincts, but it was not without interest. And it has disposed of one of the most dangerous opponents I have ever come up against.”
I nodded.
“The Colonel’s was an ingenious scheme, Pons. The shale-oil report was a stroke of genius.”
“Was it not, Parker.”
Solar Pons stared at me with a far-away look on his clear-minted features.
“Who knows, Parker, there may well be oil beneath Scottish soil and Scottish seas. Whether it will come in our time is another matter. We shall have to wait and see.”
He turned abruptly on his heel.
“Now we have a tidy step before us and it will soon be dark. And I really owe a most gallant young lady some detailed explanation.”
