Simon Page 2

  II

  THE PROCURATOR FISCAL

  The procurator fiscal breakfasted at 8.30, punctually, and at 8.30as usual he entered his severely upholstered dining-room and shut thdoor behind him. The windows looked into a spacious garden with a beltof trees leading up to the house from the gate, and this morning Mr.Rattar, who was a machine for habit, departed in one trifling particularfrom his invariable routine. Instead of sitting straight down to thebusiness of breakfasting, he stood for a minute or two at the windowgazing into the garden, and then he came to the table very thoughtfully.

  No man in that northern county was better known or more widelyrespected than Mr. Simon Rattar. In person, he was a thickset man ofmiddle height and elderly middle age, with cold steady eyes andgrizzled hair. His clean shaved face was chiefly remarkable for thehardness of his tight-shut mouth, and the obstinacy of the chin beneathit. Professionally, he was lawyer to several of the larger landownersand factor on their estates, and lawyer and adviser also to many otherpeople in various stations in life. Officially, he was procurator fiscalfor the county, the setter in motion of all criminal processes, andgeneralissimo, so to speak, of the police; and one way and another, hehad the reputation of being a very comfortably well off gentlemanindeed.

  As for his abilities, they were undeniably considerable, of the hard,cautious, never-caught-asleep order; and his taciturn manner and way ofdrinking in everything said to him while he looked at you out of hissteady eyes, and then merely nodded and gave a significant little gruntat the end, added immensely to his reputation for profound wisdom.People were able to quote few definite opinions uttered by "SilentSimon," but any that could be quoted were shrewdness itself.

  He was a bachelor, and indeed, it was difficult for the most fanciful toimagine Silent Simon married. Even in his youth he had not beenattracted by the other sex, and his own qualities certainly did notattract them. Not that there was a word to be said seriously againsthim. Hard and shrewd though he was, his respectability was extreme andhis observance of the conventions scrupulous to a fault. He was an elderof the Kirk, a non-smoker, an abstemious drinker (to be an out and outteetotaler would have been a little too remarkable in those regions fora man of Mr. Rattar's conventional tastes), and indeed in all respectshe trod that sober path that leads to a semi-public funeral and a vastblock of granite in the parish kirkyard.

  He had acquired his substantial villa and large garden by a very shrewdbargain a number of years ago, and he lived there with just the decencythat his condition in life enjoined, but with not a suspicion of displaybeyond it. He kept a staff of two competent and respectable girls, justenough to run a house of that size, but only just; and when he wanted todrive abroad he hired a conveyance exactly suitable to the occasion fromthe most respectable hotel. His life, in short, was ordered to the verybest advantage possible.

  Enthusiastic devotion to such an extremely exemplary gentleman was alittle difficult, but in his present housemaid, Mary MacLean, he had agirl with a strong Highland strain of fidelity to a master, and aninstinctive devotion to his interests, even if his person was hardly thechieftain her heart demanded. She was a soft voiced, anxious lookingyoung woman, almost pretty despite her nervous high strung air, and of aquiet and modest demeanour.

  Soon after her master had begun breakfast, Mary entered the dining-roomwith an apologetic air, but a conscientious eye.

  "Begging your pardon, sir," she began, "but I thought I ought to tellyou that when cook and me was going out to the concert last night wethought we saw _something_ in the drive."

  Mr. Rattar looked up at her sharply and fixed his cold eyes on hersteadily for a moment, never saying a word. It was exactly his ordinaryhabit, and she had thought she was used to it by now, yet this morningshe felt oddly disconcerted. Then it struck her that perhaps it was thered cut on his chin that gave her this curious feeling. Silent Simon'shand was as steady as a rock and she never remembered his having cuthimself shaving before; certainly not as badly as this.

  "Saw 'something'?" he repeated gruffly. "What do you mean?"

  "It looked like a man, sir, and it seemed to move into the trees almostas quick as we saw it!"

  "Tuts!" muttered Simon.

  "But there was two friends of ours meeting us in the road," she hurriedon, "and they thought they saw a man going in at the gate!"

  Her master seemed a little more impressed.

  "Indeed?" said he.

  "So I thought it was my duty to tell you, sir."

  "Quite right," said he.

  "For I felt sure it couldn't just be a gentleman coming to see you, sir,or he wouldn't have gone into the trees."

  "Of course not," he agreed briefly. "Nobody came to see me."

  Mary looked at him doubtfully and hesitated for a moment.

  "Didn't you even hear anything, sir?" she asked in a lowered voice.

  Her master's quick glance made her jump.

  "Why?" he demanded.

  "Because, sir, I found footsteps in the gravel this morning--where it'ssoft with the rain, sir, just under the library window."

  Mr. Rattar looked first hard at her and then at his plate. For severalseconds he answered nothing, and then he said:

  "I did hear some one."

  There was something both in his voice and in his eye as he said thisthat was not quite like the usual Simon Rattar. Mary began to feel asympathetic thrill.

  "Did you look out of the window, sir?" she asked in a hushed voice.

  Her master nodded and pursed his lips.

  "But you didn't see him, sir?"

  "No," said he.

  "Who could it have been, sir?"

  "I have been wondering," he said, and then he threw a sudden glance ather that made her hurry for the door. It was not that it was an angrylook, but that it was what she called so "queer-like."

  Just as she went out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr.Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke.The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angrytwitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen themaster do a thing of that kind.

  A little later the library bell called her. Mr. Rattar had finishedbreakfast and was seated beside the fire with a bundle of legal paperson a small table beside him, just as he always sat, absorbed in work,before he started for his office. The master's library impressed Maryvastly. The furniture was so substantial, new-looking, and conspicuousfor the shininess of the wood and the brightness of the red moroccoseats to the chairs. And it was such a tidy room--no litter of papers orbooks, nothing ever out of place, no sign even of pipe, tobacco jar,cigarette or cigar. The only concession to the vices were the ornate ashtray and the massive globular glass match box on the square table in themiddle of the room, and they were manifestly placed there for thebenefit of visitors merely. Even they, Mary thought, were admirable asornaments, and she was concerned to note that there was no nicered-headed bundle of matches in the glass match box this morning. Whathad become of them she could not imagine, but she resolved to repairthis blemish as soon as the master had left the house.

  "I don't want you to go gossiping about this fellow who came into thegarden, last night," he began.

  "Oh, no, sir!" said she.

  Simon shot her a glance that seemed compounded of doubt and warning.

  "As procurator fiscal, it is my business to inquire into such affairs.I'll see to it."

  "Oh, yes, sir; I know," said she. "It seemed so impudent like of the mancoming into the fiscal's garden of all places!"

  Simon grunted. It was his characteristic reply when no words wereabsolutely necessary.

  "That's all," said he, "don't gossip! Remember, if we want to catch theman, the quieter we keep the better."

  Mary went out, impressed with the warning, but still more deeplyimpressed with something else. Gossip with cook of course was not to becounted as gossip in the prohibited sense, and when she returned to thekitchen, she unburdened her Highland heart.

&
nbsp; "The master's no himsel'!" she said. "I tell you, Janet, never have Iseen Mr. Rattar look the way he looked at breakfast, nor yet the way helooked in the library!"

  Cook was a practical person and apt to be a trifle unsympathetic.

  "He couldna be bothered with your blethering most likely!" said she.

  "Oh, it wasna that!" said Mary very seriously. "Just think yoursel' howwould you like to be watched through the window at the dead of night asyou were sitting in your chair? The master's feared of yon man, Janet!"

  Even Janet was a little impressed by her solemnity.

  "It must have taken something to make silent Simon feared!" said she.

  Mary's voice fell.

  "It's my opinion, the master knows more than he let on to me. Thethought that came into my mind when he was talking to me was just--'Theman feels he's being _watched_!'"

  "Oh, get along wi' you and your Hieland fancies!" said cook, but shesaid it a little uncomfortably.