“Are you sure?” the girl asked anxiously.
“Quite sure,” said Dennis positively. “There is one motor-boat here, and that is all.”
“I suppose he took that to put Hilderman off the scent,” Myra mused, “and in that case he is probably quite safe. I daresay he’s gone to look for our friend von What’s-his name’s yacht or his house at Loch Duich.”
Dennis clutched at the opportunity this theory gave him to allay her fears, and declared that it was ridiculous of him not to have thought of it before, and he gave Myra his arm to the house. But he was not at all satisfied with it, and, as it turned out afterwards, Myra was not very confident about it either. Dennis knew me well enough to know that I should never have set out with the deliberate intention of stopping away overnight without leaving some more definite message for my fiancée. However, their thoughts were speedily diverted, for they had hardly reached the house before a strange man made his way towards them through the heather.
“Mr. Ewart, sir?” he asked.
“Do you wish to speak to Mr. Ewart?” Dennis asked cautiously.
“I have a parcel and a message for him from Mr. Garnesk,” said the stranger, a young man, who might have been anything by profession.
“Oh, indeed,” said Dennis, his suspicions aroused at once. Garnesk, he knew, had only arrived in Glasgow the night before.
“I see you are wondering how I got here and why I came down the hill, instead of up a road of some sort,” said the youth with a smile.
“Frankly, I was,” Dennis admitted.