“Does anyone know him?” demanded my uncle.

“It’s the Scollays’ idiot son!” I gasped.

I heard an exclamation both from Jean and the doctor.

“Son?” said Jean. “What! Did you think Jock was a Scollay?”

“He was sent up here about a couple of years ago to be looked after by these Scollays,” explained the doctor. “We always supposed he was somebody’s⁠—?” he glanced at Jean and hesitated⁠—“er⁠—somebody’s son.”

“Good Heavens!” I cried. “What a fool I’ve been!”

Swiftly I ran over in my mind my first night with the Scollay household. Had I ever been told Jock was a son? No, I had simply assumed it, and gone on that assumption without ever once thinking anything more about the matter. And so, with this impenetrable curtain between me and all possibility of guessing the truth I had gone on uselessly groping.

“Fool!”

A harsh voice startled me. It was Jock, gazing viciously up at me and talking guttural English now. His face was still framed in the circle of the torch, and as I looked at it now I realised that the truth had actually been written there all the time for a closely observing eye to read. This man’s features differed vitally from the Scollays’ and, especially, there was no cast in his eyes.

“Fool!” he snarled, “yes, you have been a damned fool, you Hobhouse! Ach, if I had known, you should have been a dead fool!”

“You mean if you hadn’t been made a bit of a fool of too?” I suggested.

He was a brave man and a useful man to his country, but the German boastfulness would out.

“Ach, but I should have found you out soon! Me, you would have found out never!”

His eyes rolled round our party and I could see curiosity overcoming even his bragging.

“Who did tell you?” he demanded.

“If it is any satisfaction to you to know,” replied Sir Francis, “your machinations were discovered and you were tracked down and caught by a girl.” He turned to Jean and added, “An exceedingly clever, brave and patriotic girl.”

I am sorry to say our prisoner still further smirched his record. What he said was fortunately in German and the words at the beginning of his sentence were not the kind that Jean would know. Before he had finished it my uncle had struck him with the butt end of the torch on the mouth.

“Hold your foul tongue!” he cried and then turned away and I could see a kind of shiver run over him.

“God forgive me!” he murmured. “I never struck a man when he was down before!” And then he recovered himself a little and added, “But is a German a human being?”

Meanwhile Jean was already bringing a bundle of rope from the corner under my cousin’s direction, and in a few minutes his practised hands had knotted our prisoner up so securely that we were able to move aside from him and hold a hasty council of war.

“Now for the rest of the gang!” said my uncle. “Do you suppose they’ve heard us and bolted?”

“Do you mean the Scollays?” asked Jean. “Oh, I don’t believe they knew!”

“My dear young lady, it’s very painful for you to think your tenants are playing such games, but they simply must have known!”

“We can’t afford to give them the benefit of the doubt,” said Jack Whiteclett. “That’s absolutely certain. I am afraid I must arrest them, Miss Rendall, and the sooner it’s over the better.”

“Jack!” commanded our uncle, “this is a matter I think I could handle rather better than a hotheaded young man.” (Commander Whiteclett, it may be mentioned, was reputed in the Navy to have a remarkably cool head.) “Dr. Rendall, perhaps you will be good enough to keep watch over our prisoner for a few minutes while we are gone. Roger, give the doctor your pistol. If we hear you fire, doctor, we’ll be out in a few seconds. Jack and Roger, come along with me.”

Jack and I exchanged a look but said nothing. Our uncle still held the torch, and flashing it before him led the way out of the barn. We followed him, but my eyes I am afraid were over my shoulder. I saw Jean slip her own torch into the doctor’s hand and then she ran after me.

“May I come too!” she whispered.

“Of course!” I said, “you’re in command of the party⁠—or ought to be!” and out we went together.

The farm yard made rough walking, and there seemed every excuse for my taking her arm and none for her objecting; nor did she.

“Who is this delightful, arbitrary old gentleman?” she asked in my ear. “You never introduced me!”

“Our uncle,” I murmured back. “Jack and I both have expectations so we’ve got to give him his head!”

I must say Sir Francis stage-managed our entrance into the Scollays’ house very effectively. As he quietly opened the door, he got us all close behind him, exactly like a band of robbers, so that we trod on one another’s heels down a yard or two of narrow passage. The Scollays were all seated round the kitchen table when our uncle’s figure suddenly towered out of the gloom, his pistol covering Peter senior’s head, and his voice thundering:

“Hands up!”

At the first command they simply gasped.

“Hands up or I fire!” thundered Sir Francis again, and up went every pair of hands, and what is more they stayed up.

“Your confederate is captured and has confessed everything!” announced Sir Francis.

The family visibly trembled but looked more amazed than ever.

“This fellow they call⁠—” My uncle looked over his shoulder and whispered, “What the devil was the fellow’s name.” And then in his stentorian voice again, “This fellow called Jock has confessed! So I know all about it. What have you got to say for yourselves?”

I saw their bewildered eyes wandering from one to the other of the family, and in a moment Mrs. Scollay asked in a quavering voice,

“What’s come over Jock, do ye say, sir?”

“He has confessed!” repeated my uncle. “We know that he is a German spy!”

He glared at each astounded face in turn and then exclaimed over his shoulder,

“By Heaven, I actually don’t believe they knew!”

“I think, sir, if you’ll allow me,” suggested my cousin, “I’d like to put a few questions.”

“Well,” growled our uncle, “fire away!”

We all trooped into the kitchen and the whole four of us cross-examined that family in turn, so that by the end of it we got a pretty good idea of how the land lay.

It seemed that two years before, the Scollays had been visited by a polite stranger apparently of the tourist species. This gentleman, after admiring the healthy yet retired situation of their residence, had suddenly been seized with an inspiration. The very place for an unfortunate young man of his acquaintance! he cried, and thereupon asked them if they could take charge of a blameless, helpless, harmless idiot. The stranger hinted that there were the best of reasons why the parents of this unfortunate wished him kept in the background. He had been boarded out previously, it appeared, but too near home, and now here was an ideal out-of-the-way spot for his retirement! The terms were so handsome that further enquiries on the Scollays’ part seemed superfluous, and so in a week’s time Jock had arrived.

His harmlessness had been absolutely guaranteed, provided always that no restraints were put upon him and that any little innocent fancy was indulged. Thus he wandered all over the island and at all hours, sometimes even wandering out at night when the foolish fancy took him, until this was accepted as the normal thing for harmless Jock. Another innocent whim he had of making a collection of rubbishy odds and ends and keeping them in a box in the barn. He had even repeated “Lock! Lock!” and stamped his harmless foot till they good-naturedly provided him with a lock and key for this treasure chest. And thus long before August, 1914, Jock was provided with a character that rendered his habits above suspicion, and a strong box which nobody would ever dream of examining.

Two or three times the same polite tourist paid a visit to the island to see how the poor demented young man was being looked after, and on these occasions he would take Jock out for quite a long walk, and afterwards assure the family that their guest’s health was benefiting greatly. But this gentleman had not visited the island since the war, it seemed.

This was the Scollays’ story and I think we all believed that in the main it was true. In fact, since then it has stood the test of all the evidence that could be got to check it. At the same time it seemed pretty clear that their greed had made them blinder than anyone without a strong monetary interest could possibly have been. For fear of losing their little gold mine they had shut their eyes when people of average common sense would have opened them pretty wide. Our questions convicted them of this much, and at the end Whiteclett said emphatically that the two Peters must depart that night with him for further examination, if for nothing more.

“I’ll leave you here with them, sir, for a moment, while I have a look at the other prisoner,” he said quickly before our uncle could begin to issue the commands that we knew were coming, and with a sign to Jean and myself, hurried out.

We were at his heels and followed him to the barn. There Jock was still lying bound with the doctor sitting over him.

“Has he said anything to you?” asked my cousin when he had called the doctor aside.

Dr. Rendall smiled under his grey moustache.

“He offered me £200 in gold to be paid on the nail if I would let him loose. We must have a dig for that money tomorrow, Whiteclett.”

“Anything else?”

“Not a word after I had refused, and it’s my belief you’ll never get another word out of the man between now and his execution.”

“He seems that sort,” my cousin agreed. “And now, doctor, you and I will carry him into the house and keep Sir Francis company. The three of us will have an eye on all the prisoners then, till I can get some fellows up from the drifter to escort them. Do you mind going down to the boat, Roger, and sending up a party? You can find your way in the dark?”

“I’ll make a shift to.”

“Perhaps if Miss Rendall is going home she might put you on the right road,” he suggested.

“Of course I will!” said Jean.

As I left him, Jack pressed my hand and whispered,

“Never say again I’m not tactful, Roger! Congratulations, old chap, you’ve brought off a triple event if I’m not mistaken!”

“Triple?”

“That’s one,” he said pointing to our prisoner, “Uncle Francis is another, and I’ll bet you sixpence I’m right about the third as soon as you shave that filthy beard. Get off with you now and don’t keep a lady waiting!”