Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online

started away up the long hill road to Gatehouse Station, which lies at the edge of the Galloway hill-country, looking away over the Fleet Valley and the viaduct and frowned on by the lofty scarp of the Clints of Dromore.
    The railway-station at Gatehouse is approached by one of those gates so numerous in the Border Country, which provide some slight restraint upon straying cattle but to the impatient motorist appear an unmitigated nuisance. As usual, however, at this point, an obliging old gentleman emerged from the little group of cottages by the wayside and let Wimsey through.
    Immediately beyond the gate, the road branches right and left into a rough, stony track, of which the left-hand side goes deviously down to Creetown, while the right-hand side wanders away to Dromore and ends abruptly at the railway viaduct. Wimsey crossed this road and kept straight on down a steep little approach, heavily masked by rhododendrons, which brought him to the station.
    The line from Castle-Douglas to Stranraer is a single one, but boasts of two sets of rails at Gatehouse Station, for the better convenience of passengers and to allow of the passing of trains. Wimsey approached the station-master, who was profiting by a slack period between two trains to study the Glasgow Bulletin in his office.
    ‘I’ve been trying to find Mr. Ferguson,’ said Wimsey, after the usual greetings, ‘to fix up a fishing-party at Loch Skerrow, but I’m told he went away this morning by the 9.8. Is that so?’
    ‘Ay, that is so. I saw him mysel’.’
    ‘I wonder when he’ll be back. Was he going to Glasgow, do you know, or only to Dumfries?’
    ‘He mentioned he was gaun to Glasgow,’ said the station-master, ‘but he’ll maybe be back the nicht. Angus here will be able to tell ye if he took a return ticket.’
    The booking-clerk, who shared the station-master’s office, remembered Mr. Ferguson very well, because he had taken a first-class return to Glasgow, an extravagance somewhat unusual among the artist community.
    ‘But of course,’ said Wimsey, ‘the ticket is available for three months. He’s not bound to return today. Did he leave his car here, I wonder?’
    ‘He didna come by car,’ said the clerk. ‘He tell’t me the magneto was broken down, and he was obliged to take the train from here, instead o’ drivin’ to Dumfries.’
    ‘Oh, then he bicycled up, I suppose,’ said Wimsey, carelessly.
    ‘Nay,’ said the station-master, ‘he’ll have come with Campbell’s ’bus. He arrived aboot that time, did he no, Angus?’
    ‘He did that. He was talkin’ with Rabbie McHardy when he came in. He’ll maybe have told him how long he thocht to be stayin’ in Glasgow.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Wimsey. ‘I’ll have a word with Rabbie. I wanted to charter a boat for tomorrow, but if Ferguson isn’t going to be back, it’s not much use, is it?’
    He chatted for a few minutes more, giving them a suitably censored account of the Campbell affair, and then took his leave. He had not got very much farther, except that he seemed to have more or less eliminated Ferguson from his list of suspects. He would have to check him up, of course, and see that he really had arrived in Glasgow. This might present a little difficulty, but it was merely routine work for Dalziel and his myrmidons.
    Wimsey looked at his watch. Jock Graham was at present the most promising candidate for criminal honours, but since he had disappeared, there was nothing to be done about him for the present. There was, however, still time to go and interview Strachan, and so round off his inquiries in Gatehouse.
    STRACHAN
    Strachan lived in a pleasant, middle-sized house handily situated for him a little way out of Gatehouse on the road that goes up to the golf-course. The neat maid who came to the door smiled kindly upon the visitor and said that the master was at home and would his lordship please step in.
    His lordship stepped accordingly into the sitting-room where he found Mrs. Strachan seated by the window instructing