‘It’s maybe no proper, for a’ that I ken,’ she urged, and only by invoking a local person of authority, and using the name of Mr. Macrae very freely, could Merton obtain the transmission of the despatch.

In another document Mr. Macrae ordered ‘more motors’ and a dozen bicycles, as the Nabob of old ordered ‘more curricles.’  He also telegraphed to the Home Office, the Admiralty, the Hereditary Lord High Admiral of the West Coast, to Messrs. McBrain, of the steamers, and to every one who might have any access to the control of marine police or information.  He wired to the police at New York, bidding them warn all American stations, and to the leading New York newspapers, knowing the energy and inquiring, if imaginative, character of their reporters.  Bude ought to have done all this on the previous day, but Bude’s ideas were limited.  Nothing, however, was lost, as America is not reached in forty-eight hours.  The millionaire instructed Scotland Yard to warn all foreign ports, and left them carte-blanche as to the offer of a reward for the discovery of his missing daughter.  He also put off all the guests whom he had been expecting at Castle Skrae.

Merton was amazed at the energy and intelligence of a paternal mind smitten by sudden grief.  Mr. Macrae had even telegraphed to every London newspaper, and to the leading Scottish and provincial journals, ’No Interviewers need Apply.’  Several hours were spent, as may be imagined, in getting off these despatches from a Highland rural office, and Merton tried to reward the fair operator.  But she declined to accept a present for doing her duty, and expressed lively sympathy for the poor young lady who was lost.  In a few days a diamond-studded watch and chain arrived for Miss MacTurk.

Merton himself wired to Logan, imploring him, in the name of friendship, to abandon all engagements, and come to Inchnadampf.  Where kidnapping was concerned he knew that Logan must be interested, and might be useful; but, of course, he could not invite him to Castle Skrae.  Meanwhile he secured rooms for Logan at the excellent inn.  Lady Fastcastle, he knew, was in England, brooding over her first-born, the Master of Fastcastle.

Before these duties were performed the motor returned from Lairg, bearing the two London detectives, one disguised as a gillie (he was the detective who had the Gaelic), the other as a clergyman of the Church of England.  To Merton he whispered that he was to be an early friend of Mr. Macrae, come to comfort him on the first news of his disaster.  As to the other, the gillie, Mr. Macrae was known to have been in want of an assistant to the stalker, and Duncan Mackay (of Scotland Yard) had accepted the situation.  Merton approved of these arrangements; they were such as he would himself have suggested.

‘But I don’t see what we can do, sir,’ said the clerical detective (the Rev. Mr. Williams), ’except perhaps find out if it was a put up thing from within.’