Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/90

80 Her father, on the other hand, seemed to view me with considerable suspicion, and I could easily discern that I was only asked to Rannoch because it was impossible to invite my uncle without including myself.

Leithcourt, who perhaps thought I was courting his daughter, was over endeavouring to avoid me, and would never allow me to walk with him alone. Why? I wondered. Did he fear me? Had Woodroffe told him of our strange encounter in Leghorn?

His pronounced antipathy towards me caused me to watch him surreptitiously, and more closely than perhaps I should otherwise have done. He was a man of gloomy mood, and often he would leave his guests and take walks alone, musing and brooding. On several occasions I followed him in secret, and found to my surprise that although he made long detours in various directions, yet he always arrived at the same spot at the same hour — five o'clock.

The place where he halted was on the edge of a dark wood on the brow of a hill about three miles from Rannoch — a good place to get woodpigeon, as they came in to roost. It was fully two miles across the hills from the high road to Moniaive, and from the break in the grey wall where he was in the habit of sitting to rest and smoke, there stretched the beautiful panorama of Loch Urr and the heather-clad hills beyond.

Leithcourt never went direct to the place, but always so timed his walks that he arrived just at five and remained there smoking cigarettes until half past, as though awaiting the arrival of some person