Wildfire at Midnight Read Free Page A

water kelpie?" Then I stopped. His eyes, meeting mine, held some indefinable expression, the merest shadow, no more, but I hesitated, aware of some obscure uneasiness.

    The blue eyes dropped. "I imagine Murdo means—" But Murdo cut the engine, and the sudden silence interrupted as effectively as an explosion. "London . . ." said Murdo meditatively into the bowls of his engine. "That's a long way now! A long way, indeed, to come. ..." The guileless wonder was back in his voice, but I got the embarrassing impression that he was talking entirely at random. And, moreover, that his air of Highland simplicity was a trifle overdone; he had, 1 judged, a reasonably sophisticated eye. "A very fine city, so they say. Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, the Zoo. I have seen pictures—"
    "Murdo," I said suspiciously, as we bumped gently alongside a jetty, and made fast. "When did you last see London?"
    He met my eye with a limpid gaze as he handed me
    out of the boat. "Eight years ago, mistress," he said in his soft voice, "on my way back frae Burma and points
    East
    "
    The man called Grant had picked up my cases and had started walking up the path to the hotel. As I followed him I was conscious of Murdo staring after us for a long moment, before he turned back to his boat. That simple Skyeman act had been—what? Some kind of smoke screen? But what had there been to hide? Why had he been so anxious to change the conversation?
    The path skirted the hotel to the front door, which faced the valley. As I followed my guide round the corner of the building my eye was once again, irresistibly, drawn to the great lonely bulk of the mountain in the east, stooping over the valley like a hawk.
    Blaven? The Blue Mountain?
    I turned my back on it and went into the hotel.

Chapter 2
    IT WAS AN HOUR LATER. I had washed, brushed the railway smoke out of my hair, and changed. I sat in the hotel lounge, enjoying a moment of solitude' before the other guests assembled for dinner. I was sipping an excellent sherry, my feet were in front of a pleasant fire, and on three sides of the lounge the tremendous mountain scenery was mine for the gazing. 1 felt good.
    The door of the hotel porch swung and clashed, and presently, through the glass of the lounge doors, I saw two women come into the hall and cross it towards the stairs. One I judged to be about my own age; she was shortish, dark, thickset, with her hair cropped straight and mannishly, and the climber's uniform of slacks, boots, and heavy jersey exaggerated her masculine appearance. The other was a girl of about twenty, very young-looking, with bright red cheeks and straight black hair. She did not, I thought, look particularly happy, and her shoulders strained forward under her rucksack as if she were tired. The pair of them stumped up the first flight of the stairs and round the corner.
    In a minute or so they were followed by an elderly couple, both tall, thin, and a little stooping, with gentle well-bred faces and deplorable hats. They solemnly carried an empty fishing creel between them up the stairs, and on their heels another woman trudged, hands thrust deep into the pockets of an ulster. I couldn't see her face, but her hunched shoulders and lifeless step told their own story of depression or weariness.

    I yawned and stretched a toe to the blaze, and drank some more sherry. Idly I turned the pages of an old society weekly which lay at my elbow. The usual flash-lighted faces, cruelly caught at hunt suppers and charity balls, gaped from the glossy pages . . . beautiful horses, plain women, well-dressed men . .. the London Telephone Directory, I thought, would be far more interesting. I flicked the pages. There was the usual photograph of me, this time poised against an Adam mantelpiece, in one of Hugo Montefior's most inspired evening gowns ... I remembered it well, a lovely frock. Here was the theatre page—Alec Guinness in an improbable beard, Vivien Leigh making every other woman within