We had engaged that room for ourselves, for there seemed to be a party of London holiday-makers staying in the hotel; at least so we judged them to be by the gorgeous tweeds of the men and the tourist kit of the women. Loud laughter rang in the corridors of the quiet, eminently respectable place, and before the door was a coach upon which the party were slowly settling themselves for a drive through the beautiful Glenkens.
At last, just as the coach drove away, and the old post-house settled down to its normal quiet, Fred Fenwicke opened the door and closed it quickly after him.
“I’m glad you fellows have come,” he said in quick excitement. “There’s something strange going on here. Yesterday I was cycling through here, and while passing down the road along Carlingwark Loch, the same road by which you drove the other day, I overtook Lady Judith. She was walking slowly, talking with an old hunchback.”
“A hunchback?” I cried. “Then it must be Graniani.”
“He was Italian, that’s all I know. I didn’t wait to acknowledge her because the fact struck me as very curious, and I thought it would be best if she were unaware that I had discovered her. So I ran on here, and on inquiry found that the lady, who had given the name of Miss Fletcher, had arrived on the previous day, and that the old Italian, who had signed his name in the visitors’ book so badly that it could not be read, had arrived that morning.”
“And they are both here! I wonder why?” I asked, amazed.
“Well, I suppose their visit has some connection with the search they intend to make over at Threave,” Fred said. “At any rate, I thought it best that you should be on the spot, and watch what was happening.”
“But the sale of the island?”
“Brooks wired me yesterday that the contract is signed, but the money is not yet paid over. The sale is to be completed on the sixteenth of September.”
“Ah, Lord Glenelg, too, evidently thought of the change in the calendar. Well, we must take our chances of a clash with him. Today is the fifteenth. On the day after tomorrow, at three-thirty, we ought to be at Threave and take our observations by the sun.”