“You are a pretty consummate scoundrel, are you not!” observed Ewen softly.
“Yet, whether he was asleep or awake, my Lord,” went on Greening quickly, “I submit that what I said was perfectly correct—no force of any kind was used. I certainly had no intention of misleading your Lordship on that point, when you asked me that question in order to satisfy . . . a somewhat indiscreet enquirer after Mr. Cameron.”
But Lord Loudoun, frowning heavily, declined to be drawn into a side issue. “It was playing with words, sir, to call information thus given ‘voluntary’. I am very much displeased at the means employed. And even so, as might have been foreseen, the matter was bungled, for the information itself, on which you led me to rely, is not complete!”
“Not complete!” stammered Greening, flushing. “My Lord——”
“No, sir, it is not complete—and only now, within an hour or so of setting out for the neighbourhood, has its insufficiency been discovered! The guide, who knows that district well, swears that there is no mountain of the name of Ben Loy anywhere near. And Ben Loy is the name you have written here.”
Captain Greening almost snatched the paper from the Earl’s hand, and ran his eyes feverishly over it.
“My Lord, the guide is perhaps mis——”
“I tell you that he knows that part of the country like the palm of his hand,” interrupted Lord Loudoun angrily. “It might, he says, be any of the three mountains whose names are written below. But how can I hope to surprise Lochiel if I have to go searching every brae-side near Loch Arkaig for this cave? And I tell you further, Captain Greening, that this ridiculous wrong name, occurring thus, gives me very much to doubt whether the whole description be not the product of . . . of a dream, or of imagination—whether this cave near a waterfall is to be found on any mountain-side whatever, be the mountain called what it may!”
In the extremely mortified silence which ensued on Captain Greening’s part at this, Ewen saw his opportunity.
“I was wondering,” he observed mockingly, “how long your Lordship would be before you discovered the real value of Captain Greening’s dirty work!”