On a raw grey February morning Mr. Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse bade a polite farewell to the medical gentlemen who had escorted him thus far, and stepped aboard the little steamer sailing from a certain small and ancient port out into the northern isles of that archipelago. This medical escort was a typical instance of my uncle’s relentless thoroughness. He was not in the secret, and so all the way from Euston to those remote islands I had to endure the ordeal of sitting under the eye of a conscientious middle-aged gentleman with a strong Yorkshire accent and but one idea in his head:⁠—to keep in readiness to seize me at each station in case I leapt out of the carriage and headed for the refreshment rooms. We parted, I think, with equal relief on either side.

Under a heavy sky and a chilly wind we steamed through divers waterways, touched at divers islands, and shipped and unshipped many cattle. At last, when it had turned afternoon and the wind was beginning to feel wet as well as chilly, Thomas Sylvester stepped ashore on the modest pier at Ransay. Already he had noted from the deck his prospective host, pipe in mouth and hands in his knickerbocker pockets among a small knot of inhabitants, but to his relief there were no other familiar faces.

“Let me be firmly established as Mr. Hobhouse, the doctor’s new paying guest, before they look at me too closely!” he said to himself.

In the doctor’s blue eyes there was not a sign of recognition or suspicion. I noticed again his habit of glancing at one askance which had raised my ready suspicions last time we had met, but apart from that his greeting was cordial and pleasant enough.

“I’ve only got an open trap, Mr. Hobhouse,” he said, “and it’s a three mile drive. I hope you have got a warm coat.”

Mr. Hobhouse, I may mention, was a gentleman with an extremely polite, nervously effusive manner, who always agreed with everybody and blinked a little as he looked at them with apologetic friendliness through his gold-rimmed glasses. Those who have seen that sprightly comedy Heels Up may perhaps remember the not unsuccessful character of Sir Douglas Jenkinson Bart (played by Mr. Roger Merton). Mr. Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse would have reminded them of Sir Douglas forcibly.

“Oh yes, doctor, a beautifully warm coat; you needn’t worry about me at all. I shall be very comfortable⁠—very comfortable indeed, thank you,” Mr. Hobhouse assured him.

Dr. Rendall eyed his patient again, and there seemed to be a gleam of satisfaction in his glance, as though this were the kind of polite, acquiescent gentleman he liked.

There was a weary delay in getting my baggage out of the hold, and the February afternoon had grown greyer by the time we started in the doctor’s pony trap. As the road was heavy with mud and covered with patches of loose metal every here and there, those three miles proved the longest I have ever driven. By this time the wind was sweeping clouds of fine rain into our faces, and seen through this driving vapour the island looked another place from the Ransay of summer time. The flowers were gone, and the corn, and even the greenness of the grass, which now was of a pale yellowish-olive hue; and I thought that a nakeder, more inhospitable looking spot surely man had never visited.

Under such circumstances we talked little; the doctor only making a remark now and then in a dutiful way, and Mr. Hobhouse effusively agreeing with him. That gentleman was quite content to postpone his enquiries until he had got a little warmer and drier, and at times he even felt acute anxiety lest the bleak house that loomed ahead, visible afar over the treeless country, was actually moving away from them. They seemed to approach it so slowly.

Evening was near at hand when Mr. Hobhouse entered his teetotal haven, and his effusiveness was quite sincere as he rubbed his hands over a blazing fire in the doctor’s smoking room, and still sincerer when he faced an excellent high tea.

The conversation naturally turned on the war, and Thomas Sylvester showed an anxiety to learn his host’s opinions and an enthusiastic agreement with each one of them that seemed to please the doctor. He became more and more talkative and genial, but though his guest mentally went through his words with a tooth-comb as he uttered them, he had to confess at the end of a chatty hour that the doctor exhibited neither any special knowledge of military and naval affairs, nor any lack of zeal for the cause of his country.

“No treason so far!” said Thomas to himself.

Then with what he flattered himself was the art which conceals art, Mr. Hobhouse brought the conversation round to the subject of the doctor himself and his household. He enthusiastically assured his host that each arrangement he mentioned was the best imaginable⁠—from the doctor’s being a bachelor to his having no hot water laid on in the bathroom but large cans brought when necessary. And presently he blinked more amiably than ever and enquired,

“And do you often have⁠—er⁠—guests, doctor; guests such as myself?”

The doctor’s geniality seemed suddenly to contract a little.

“Occasionally,” he said briefly.

“Quite so,” agreed Mr. Hobhouse. “Too often would be a great nuisance. Occasionally⁠—yes, yes, that must be much pleasanter. Just when you feel inclined; I see. And I hope you get decent fellows as a rule, doctor. It would be very unpleasant otherwise.”

“It is,” said Dr. Rendall with distinct emphasis.

“I trust I won’t be a nuisance,” said Mr. Hobhouse anxiously.

“Oh, no, no,” said the doctor hurriedly, “I was thinking of⁠—”

He broke off, and his amiable guest tactfully changed the subject. A little later, with what he hoped was equal tact, he returned to it again. Assuring the doctor of his anxiety to give no trouble, he said,

“I’ll do just as the last fellow did. You just put me into his shoes, doctor, and then you’ll always know where you are.”

There was no doubt about the oddness of the glance which Dr. Rendall shot at his guest this time. His answer was a murmur that might have meant anything. Mr. Hobhouse innocently rattled on.

“I presume he fitted into your ways all right and so will I if you tell me first what⁠—er⁠—you did mention his name⁠—or didn’t you?”

“O’Brien,” said the doctor.

“O’Brien?” repeated Mr. Hobhouse with a distinct air of distaste for so mild a gentleman.

The doctor looked at him quickly.

“Do you know him?” he asked sharply.

“Oh, no, no! Oh dear me, no! It’s only that I have a very foolish and very stupid prejudice against Irishmen⁠—as I presume he was.”

Mr. Hobhouse laughed pleasantly, and inwardly he laughed still more pleasantly, for his shot came off.

“So have I,” agreed the doctor, and there was no doubt that he was in earnest.

Mr. Hobhouse decided that he had probed the matter sufficiently for the present, and with what he was now beginning to consider his usual tact he changed the subject.

Before they parted that night he could not resist one touch of art despite the counsels of Sir Francis.

“Before we go to bed, doctor,” he said, with his most ingratiating smile, “do you think one little drop would do us any harm? I feel as though I might have a little cold coming on⁠—”

But the doctor was shaking his head, kindly but firmly.

“Well, well, better not; I quite agree with you, doctor,” gushed his guest. “Good night, doctor. Good night!”

“I wonder if the doctor ever had such a blinkin’ ass in his house before!” said the amiable gentleman to himself as he shut his bedroom door behind him.

Looking at myself in the glass with a kind of chastened complacence, I decided that the man who could perceive in Mr. Hobhouse any reminiscence of the mysterious young stranger of six months ago would have a singularly piercing eye. At the same time it was a sobering experience to gaze at that black-bearded gentleman, with his hair parted in the middle and brushed low down over his forehead, and his foolish looking pince-nezs, and reflect that there was no artificial difference between him and the vanished Roger Merton save those eyeglasses and a little hair dye. That was my own face, and my own hair, and, I presumed, my own natural latent idiocy blinking behind those glasses. I turned away from the mirror with mingled feelings.

As the hour was not late (early to bed being part of the cure), I put on my dressing gown and sat down to smoke and chew the cud of my evening’s conversation with Dr. Rendall. The more I saw of him, the more favourably on the whole the man impressed me. He was a gentleman and seemed a good fellow. Being a bachelor with outdoor tastes and an easygoing disposition, it was not at all impossible to understand his choosing the estate of his family to settle down on, isolated though it was. Certainly one could not honestly charge it against him as a suspicious circumstance.

By far the most interesting discovery was his obvious dislike to Mr. O’Brien. Not once but several times he had shown it in the course of our talk. He conveyed the suggestion moreover that the man had oppressed him in some way and that it was a relief to have got rid of him. In view of the fact that he had been so anxious to secure another resident patient, this seemed a little odd, and a theory began to take shape in my mind. Supposing O’Brien had in some way induced the doctor unwillingly to abet a treasonable scheme, that would account for his feelings very well, especially looking to O’Brien’s unpleasing personality. But on the other hand, events had made it clear that treason was going on without O’Brien, so how could the doctor have got clear of it? And if he were still in it, this theory of his relations to his late patient was manifestly weak.

“To bed!” said Thomas Sylvester to himself, after an hour of these reflections. “You are theorizing too soon.”

In the morning he was up betimes and downstairs a good ten minutes before he knew the doctor was likely to appear. Into the smoking room he went, shut the door carefully behind him, and made for the window. A grey and windy prospect met his eyes, but they scarcely glanced at it. Mr. Hobhouse had something else to think of. Twice or thrice he pulled the blind up and down, and minutely examined the string and the little brass pulley.

“That blind certainly does not come down at a touch,” he said to himself, “and there is not a sign of its having been repaired within the last few years. Therefore it did not drop accidentally six months ago.”