“I remember saying something about the sunlight, and you suddenly dashed off.”
“To tell you the truth, I had very little faith in the theory that at this hour, above all, the spook of the Chemist’s Rock was active, until you pointed out that only about that time is the whole of the river course up to the rock, and the whole of the rock itself, flooded with sunlight. Then, when you made that remark, I suddenly felt that I ought to be on the cliff on the look out for this unknown yacht. We connect the two together in some way which we don’t yet understand, so I meant to go and have a look for the ship. I saw nothing of any importance until I shouted to you. Just then I was looking through the glasses at the shore. I turned them on the landing-stage and along the beach, and I had just lighted on the bay where we explored this morning when suddenly, for half a second or so, all the shadows of the rocks turned a vivid green, and then as suddenly resumed their natural colour again.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “Green again! Can you make anything of it at all, Garnesk? I’m sorry I’m such a duffer as to faint at the critical moment, when I might have been of some assistance to you. What in God’s name can it all mean?”
“I’m no further on,” he replied bitterly; “in fact, I’m further back.”
“Further back!” I cried. “How? I don’t see how you can be.”
“I’ll tell you what my theory was about all this affair, and it struck me as a good one—strange, of course, but then, this is a strange business.”
“It is, indeed,” I agreed ruefully. “Well, go on.”
“I had an idea, Ewart, that we should find some sort of wireless telegraphy at the bottom of this business. I had almost made up my mind that we had stumbled across the path of some inventor who was working with a new form of wireless transmission. I felt that in that way we might account for Miss McLeod’s blindness and the blindness of the dog. It also seemed to hold good as to the disappearance of Sholto. The inventor hears of the extraordinary effect of his invention, and is afraid he will get into a mess if it is found out. The yacht to experiment from fitted in beautifully. But now all that’s knocked on the head.”
“Why?” I asked. “It seems to me, Garnesk, that you are doing all the thinking in this affair, as if you had been used to it all your life. Your only trouble is that you’re too modest. I take it that because you didn’t see the yacht when you noticed the green flash you are taking it for granted you were wrong to expect it. I must say, old chap, I think you’ve done thundering well, as the General would put it, and even if you are prepared to admit your theory has been knocked on the head I’m not—at any rate, not until I have a jolly good reason. Yet it doesn’t seem to matter much what I say or do if I’m going to faint like a girl at the first sign of danger. If you hadn’t come to my rescue I might still be lying there waiting to come round, or something,” I finished in disgust.