The Screaming Gull Read online

  Maureen nodded, while Peter looked a little doubtful. But as the latter was about to speak there came a gentle rap on the door of the room and the hostess entered. Her thin, alert face wore an expression of apology.

  “The two local reporters,” she said, “would like a word with the gentlemen who overcame the villains on board the Kilkerran today.”

  “Not to mention the lady and the little boy,” remarked Peter with considerable sharpness.

  She smiled.

  “I tried to send them away, but… you know what reporters are! Shall I show them in?”

  “Please do,” said Lawson.

  With great speed and vigour the two newspapermen came into our presence.

  “Good afternoon!” they chorused, still panting from their exertions.

  “I’m from the Campbeltown Gazette,” said the short one with the red hair, whose age I guessed would be in the region of twenty-three. “My name’s MacRae.”

  “I’m from the Campbeltown Mirror,” said the other, a tall, lean individual with a pale face and mouse-coloured head. “My name’s Rattray.”

  “I also,” continued Red Hair, “represent the Glasgow Herald, Scotsman, Bulletin, Evening Times, Evening Dispatch, News Chronicle, Star, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Post and Oban Times.”

  “I,” said the leaner and younger one, “represent the Daily Record, Daily Express, Evening News, Evening Citizen, Daily Mail, Daily Herald, Sunday Mail and London Times.”

  “Good lord!” I exclaimed.

  Maureen burst into a peal of laughter.

  “Won’t you sit down?” she asked. “You’re making us quite nervous. Surely you’re not going to spread the news to all those papers?”

  “You bet we are, madam!” said MacRae. “Scoop of the year. All to ourselves, too!”

  “Great stuff!” remarked Rattray. “We want your statements. Got all the rest of the story from the skipper of the Kilkerran. Interviewed the prisoners, too.”

  “Hope you got something out of them?” asked Lawson, in his best Jewish intonation.

  “No, sir, not a thing,” replied Red Hair, “except some rambling talk about a Blind One’s vengeance. Told us to go to hell. If Rattray and I went to hell every time someone told us, we’d be cinders by this time.”

  “Names, please!” demanded the lean one. “Skipper gave us your descriptions. But that’s all we know about you.”

  To me their rapid speech and searching glances were definitely alarming. But Maureen remained cool.

  “This is Mr. Levison,” she said, indicating Lawson. “My name is MacNair. This is my husband and little boy.”

  “Ah! The little boy!” remarked the stout MacRae, glaring malevolently at Peter. “World’s sprint champion.”

  “World’s sprint nothing!” retorted Peter, fortunately remembering his accent. “All I can do is to run faster than some folk. I’m not too fat and I’m not too skinny.”

  “We’ll take your statement first, Mrs. MacNair,” said Rattray, ignoring Peter’s scathing comment.

  The interview lasted half an hour, and by that time I felt as if we had all been pumped as dry as empty wells. But at least we had established our adopted names and occupations firmly in the minds of two influential persons, and over the weekend we hoped that our assumed personalities would be still more widely advertised. Lawson was a Jewish archaeologist, while I was a Glasgow accountant, a close friend of his, travelling for my health with my wife and son.

  The reporters, still full of energy, were preparing to depart, having pleaded in vain for our photographs, when Lawson detained them.

  “By the way,” he said, “I wonder if you gentlemen could introduce us to some skiff-owner who would be willing to take Mr. MacNair and me out for a night’s fishing? I believe visitors are sometimes privileged.”

  Red Hair considered a moment. Then, turning to Rattray, he said:

  “Williamson’s the man, isn’t he?”

  The lean one nodded.

  “Good fellow, Williamson,” he explained. “Owns the most up-to-date boat in the fleet — the Noblesse. Best fisherman in the town. They call him the Hoodie. Why, I don’t know.”

  “We could take you to his house just now,” said MacRae, “before we begin work on that story.”

  “Many thanks,” replied Lawson.

  He and I, leaving Maureen and Peter to look after one another, accompanied the young men to a new quarter of the town, where we made the acquaintance of a small, chubby-faced man with a neatly clipped grey beard and twinkling blue eyes.

  “It will be cauld work,” he warned us, “an’ ye’ll ha’e tae wait till Monday nicht. But ye’re welcome if it’s yer ain pleesure. Be doon at the quay aboot fower in the efternane.”

  *

  The following day — Sunday — was one of the most disturbing I have ever spent.

  First of all, as a kind of prelude to the exciting events of the afternoon and evening, there was the arrival of the Sunday papers, which, as a result no doubt of the frenzied labours of MacRae and Rattray, were filled with accounts of the remarkable outrage on board the Kilkerran. I was a little scared when I read the descriptions of myself, which, because my glasses were not mentioned and the fact that I was clean-shaven was omitted, seemed to resemble closely the text of the police notice. But then I was relieved to think that William Dunbar was known to be a bachelor, while William MacNair was apparently a happily married man — with a son.

  Peter, who had gone out by himself in the morning, returned at lunchtime, bearing the news that Wotherspoon and his precious friends had been taken away to Glasgow late the previous evening in a Black Maria.

  “I hope that minister gets the tackets!” he said fervently. “If they hang him I’ll stand and cheer.”

  In the afternoon we hired one of the hotel cars and had a run to Blaan near the Mull of Kintyre. There, from the seaside road, we had a distant view of the long, narrow island on which we believed the Blind One lived. The weather was grey and cold, and Ringan with its little dependency, Oa, seemed in the mist not unlike a great cow lying in a meadow, her calf by her side. The raised, shoulder-like land at the north end of the island and the great black reef curling round the southern extremity like a tail added to the illusion.

  The countryside was bleak and quiet, the only sound disturbing the Sabbath stillness being the ceaseless hissing of the waves on the shingle.

  We got out of the car and walked along the beach to where the black rock of Dunaverty towered above Machribeg Bay.

  “Let’s climb,” suggested Peter. “We’ll ha’e a gran’ view o’ Ringan frae the top.”

  “Accent, Peter!” Maureen reminded him. “Even Dunaverty has ears.”

  Lawson and Peter, between whom, I was glad to notice, considerable affection had sprung up, scrambled ahead, while Maureen and I followed more slowly. The path to the summit was steep and strewn with loose stones, and more than once Maureen gave me her hand when we required to steady one another. Once, with the ascent only half accomplished, she stopped and looked up at me. Her delicate little face was flushed with the exercise and she had taken off her floppy hat. Unruly curls of dark brown hair blew about her forehead. Despite the monstrous tweed costume that she wore, I caught my breath; for never before had I seen anyone look quite so lovely.

  “Aren’t you wishing, Bill,” she said, “that you were back in Stranraer, serving out yards of cloth to nice, quiet, uninteresting customers?”

  “No,” I answered steadily. “I don’t. I wouldn’t be anywhere except here with you for ten thousand pounds.”

  “But aren’t you a little afraid? …I am.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid, Maureen. I’m afraid of the Blind One for the sake of all of us — and for the sake of Britain. And I’m afraid of the police for my own sake. But most of all I’m afraid of myself.”

  Lawson and Peter had disappeared over the crest of the great rock.

  “Why be afraid of yourself, Bill?”

  “Because I’m weak
and foolish — and because something has gripped my heart which I knew nothing of before.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Her voice was low and warm and almost caressing.

  I wondered at the strange mood which had overtaken her She seemed to be so different now from the cool, efficient girl whom I had seen for the first time four days ago. Even with my incomplete knowledge of character I could perceive that in this moment she was eager for something, very young and a little disturbed. For the first time I saw Miss MacLaren, the cool unemotional calculating and steady-minded Secret Service agent, as Maureen, the affectionate and uncertain girl. For the first time she seemed to speak as if without thought, without remembering that she was engaged upon an important piece of work and must, therefore, be on her guard against all extraneous considerations.

  “I — I can’t explain, Maureen,” I answered. I had forgotten the big dark rock on which we stood. I had forgotten the chill mist floating in from the sea. I had forgotten Lawson and Peter on the summit. “I’m only a damned draper. You know that.”

  “But you’re far more than a draper, Bill,” she said, putting one little ring-less hand on the sleeve of my coat. “You risked your life for a man you never saw before. You’re still risking your life for the sake of that man and for the sake of your country. You’re more than a draper, Bill. You’re brave — and a sportsman.”

  I flushed and stammered.

  “I’m not brave. I did — er — a few things, because I liked Merriman. My heart was in my boots all the time.”

  “That’s why I think you’re brave, Bill. It’s the man who knows fear and has to fight both fear and his enemies that has the real courage.”

  I looked down at her. No one had ever spoken to me like this. No one had ever encouraged me or sympathized with my failings. Hitherto everyone had seemed tacitly to agree that I was a person to be regarded as weakly, fearful, and generally of little account. But Maureen’s words and the warm touch of her hand on my arm acted upon me like wine. I felt my head tilt straight and my chin jut out, firm and high.

  “But when I said I was a draper, Maureen,” I said, “I didn’t exactly mean — er — what you thought I meant. I… well, a draper isn’t on the same plane as — as a knight’s daughter.”

  “And why on earth not?” demanded Maureen. “What’s the difference between a draper and a knight? Aren’t there many drapers who are knights and many knights who are drapers?”

  “I know. But then, you see, I’m just a very ordinary kind of draper… Maureen, do you remember the story of the prince who gave up his kingdom to marry the beggar-maid? I used to think that was a very charming story; but just lately I’ve begun to imagine that it’s a piece of exceptionally poor psychology. I’ll bet the prince grew pretty sorry for himself after a year or two. He would become weary for his finery and his palaces and his power. Love wouldn’t make his rags seem worthwhile, against the memory of his old life… The reverse might also be true.”

  “Oh, goodness!” exclaimed Maureen softly, and her blue eyes, I saw, were shining. “What a talker the man is! And what huge words!”

  “But don’t you agree, Maureen? Don’t you think — ”

  “I’ll tell you what I think, Bill. I think that besides being a brave young man — and a very presentable young man, too, without those glasses — you’re an extremely foolish, proud and pig-headed fellow!”

  “I know — ” I was beginning.

  But as I spoke something snapped inside me. I went mad. I caught Maureen’s little trembling body in my arms and kissed her full on the mouth, as I had been wanting to do since that night in the Royal Hotel at Stirling. She gasped. And then for a moment I forgot entirely all my doubts and all my fears; for her arms had stolen round my neck and she had kissed me daringly, eagerly, in return. The perfume that she used eddied and clung about us.

  “Oh, Maureen, darling, darling!” I whispered. “Maureen, I love you. I adore you. I want you… I want you with everything that’s in me.”

  “Bill!” I heard her say, and her little straight nose was buried in the lapels of the coat. “Bill… oh, I love you, too.”

  After a while I said:

  “I’ve been wanting you and needing you since — since…”

  “Since the time you came to my room in Stirling,” prompted Maureen, tilting back her rounded chin and smiling up into my eyes. “Isn’t that true?”

  “How did you know?”

  Maureen glanced down again and began to fiddle with one of the buttons on my coat. Her dark hair blew out in little curls beneath her hat and hid her face from me.

  “I’ve got a confession to make about that night,” she said slowly, and her voice was very soft. “I told you, when you came in, that I hadn’t screamed. Well — I had screamed.”

  “Good lord!” I exclaimed. “What was wrong?”

  “Nothing. I wanted you to hear.”

  “Maureen! Why?”

  “So that you would come into my bedroom. Oh, Bill! I was kind of loving you then, too; but I wasn’t quite, quite sure what kind of man you were. I wanted to make absolutely certain, and I thought the best way to do it would be to — to tempt you. I was terrified when you kept on looking at me with such funny, strained eyes, and when I saw you struggling with yourself. And then suddenly your face cleared. You came over and kissed my hand so tenderly, and — I knew.”

  I flushed.

  “I was rotten,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bill, darling — you weren’t rotten. You were splendid. And you’ve nothing whatever to be sorry about. But I was rotten. I should never have doubted you. I should never have hurt you the way I did. I’m the one who needs to be forgiven.”

  “Forgive you! Oh, my dear!”

  “But, Bill,” she went on, “you don’t know everything. If you hadn’t put temptation behind you that night, I don’t know what would have happened, for all at once, when you were staring at me, I was tempted, too.”

  “I didn’t know,” I answered quietly. “I thought you seemed a little cold and haughty.”

  And then, of course, her mood changed. She was an entrancing kind of a person.

  “But am I cold and haughty now?” she demanded, and in her eyes there was a certain twinkle which I rather liked. “Do tell me, Bill!”

  I was about to tell her in the only possible way when a sharp exclamation came from above us. We swung apart and looked up, to see Peter gazing down in wonder.

  “Ha!” he said. “This is a fine cairry-on!”

  “You young blighter!” I roared. “I’ll flay you alive!”

  “Not you!” remarked Peter coolly. “Ye’re so happy ye couldna kill a louse!”

  Maureen sighed.

  “What a terribly cheeky child!” she said. “And what a terribly strong man! But what would I do without them, I wonder?”

  *

  We clambered up, hand in hand, until we reached the vantage point on the summit of Dunaverty occupied by Lawson and Peter. The latter kept darting little glances at us both and the expressions of amusement, wonder, and anxiety which kept flitting across his ugly little freckled face were droll and bewildering. Lawson smiled at us once, his brown eyes lit up with pleasure, and thereafter he behaved as if he had noticed nothing untoward in the way Maureen and I regarded each other.

  Maureen seemed to me to have grown even more beautiful than ever; and when I thought that I had kissed those red lips and that those little strong hands had clasped behind my head I trembled ever so slightly. I think she was happy at that moment — happier than she had been for months.

  For myself my feelings were indescribable. I was madly joyful, madly courageous, madly incredulous and madly afraid by turns. Maureen loved me. She had confidence in my manhood. And these two considerations gave me an altogether new outlook upon events. I felt stronger, more fit to tackle the testing work on which we were engaged. And yet, nagging in my miserable mind, was the thought that I was unworthy of this sweet girl and
that deep down I was a veritable coward, whose cowardice would sooner or later assert itself. But, looking at Maureen, I banished the evil thought for a time at least.

  We stood hand in hand beside Lawson and Peter, and from our eyrie looked out across the heaving, foam-flecked sea towards Ringan and Oa.

  I hope one day soon to revisit Blaan and to stand again on the great black rock of Dunaverty; for on that occasion I think I shall be better able to appreciate the loveliness of the picture. On this chill day in January my mind was uneasy and unable to record a perfect memory.

  Far off to our right the dim blue hills of Antrim rose quickly from the water, with one dome-shaped crest belittling all the others. Behind us, when we turned, the black crags of the Mull of Kintyre, fringed by white foam, obscured our view of Islay and the Atlantic. I remember thinking in a vague kind of way at the time that the great headland resembled nothing so much as a gigantic knife stuck edgewise in a piece of yellow cheese. To our left stretched the rich, fat land of Kintyre, seeming on that Sabbath day incredibly dreary and desolate. The farmhouses lay scattered about the countryside like breadcrumbs on a tray. In many of the grey, wet fields, strips of brown earth showed where ploughmen had lately been at work.

  But it was in front that we looked longest and more carefully. For there, not three miles distant, were the islands which we had come to see. Oa, dwarfed by its companion, was circled steadily by flying gulls, and the sea beat on its rocky shores and flew in spray almost to its summit.

  On Ringan itself we thought we could distinguish the harbour situated towards the eastern extremity. But there were so many indentations in its coastline that we could not be sure. Maureen, too, believed that she could make out a rough track winding across the heather-covered heights. But again we could not be sure.

  With the mist hanging wraithlike over the whole scene we could distinguish no signs of life on the larger island; and it seemed to me as if the appearance of the Blind One’s home that day was altogether in tune with our adventure. All our future efforts, all our future lives were shrouded in the mist of the Blind One’s power.