But when the minutes slipped by without news his companions began to be anxious. Three hours passed, and, at length, a search party was hastily formed.
Two hours later MacPherson’s body was found lying terribly mangled beside a big rock on the slope of a small tor. His gun, still loaded, was only three feet away. Beside the body lay a filled pipe and a box of matches. Evidently the man had laid down his gun to light his pipe and had been suddenly attacked and killed before he could raise a hand to defend himself.
A few minutes later, Lord Renstoke, Yvette, Dick Manton, and Jules were on the scene. Though all were familiar with the ghastly sights of war, they found themselves in the presence of a horror which overbore all their previous experiences.
Renstoke, whose experience abroad had made him familiar with many wild animals quite unknown to the others, examined the body carefully. At length he rose from his knees with a horrified expression in his eyes, and gave brief orders for the removal of the body to the unfortunate man’s home to await the inquest.
But it was not until they had returned to the Castle that he spoke of what he had seen. And his first words gave his comrades a terrible shock.
“No dog did that!” he said quietly, but in a tone of intense conviction.
“Whatever do you mean, Renstoke?” asked Dick quickly. “What else could have done it? There are no lions or tigers about here, you know.”
“Are you sure?” replied Renstoke. “I think we shall have to see Erckmann about this.” Boris Erckmann, he went on to explain, was a famous zoologist who lived in a big lonely house on the Renstoke estate some ten miles away. He had spent many years in wandering explorations in tropical countries and was known in the inner circles of science as a man of brilliant attainments. He did not advertise himself, however, living the life of a recluse, and to the general public his name meant nothing. Among his Highland neighbours, a dour people who concerned themselves very little with the affairs of other folk, little notice was taken of him. He lived at Lockie, a big house surmounted by a high wall and perched on a gaunt hill-side overlooking a lonely glen. Among his neighbours, who guessed nothing of his wonderful abilities, Erckmann passed for a harmless scientist and was affable and good-natured to those he chanced to meet during his incessant pilgrimages over the wide moorland which stretched for many miles around Lockie.
“Erckmann is said to have a lot of wild animals at Lockie,” Renstoke went on to explain, “and it is possible that one of them may have broken loose. I am perfectly certain MacPherson was not killed by a dog.”
“But what makes you so certain?” Dick questioned. “So far as I could see any big dog could have done it.”