lobster-fishing to sail the Pomfret party to Eynhallow and call for them on the following morning, and so the preliminaries of the excursion were successfully completed. John Corrigall was privately convinced that they were all madâexcept Mrs Pomfret, whom he found to be an unwilling victimâbut refrained from saying so, except in the privacy of his own family; for a madmanâs money is as good as that of a man dogmatically and indecently sane, and, indeed, more easily earned.
On Midsummer Eve then, after dinner, the Pomfrets set sail. They carried baskets of food, for a night in the open is a potent ally of hunger, but no instrument of fire, such as a primus stove, for that, Joan said, would be an insult to the omnipotence of the sun, who should rule alone. They took rugs and cushions, and Mrs Pomfret wore a fur coat and Russian boots. They set a portable gramophoneâfor they were to danceâin the stern of the boat, and Otto Samways carried two albums of records. There was a heavy cargo aboard when John Corrigall hauled his sheet and brought the boatâs head round for Eynhallow. He landed them, without more incident than a faint protest from Mrs Pomfret, on a shingle beach, and left them.
And that is the last that has been seen of them.
When Corrigall returned to Eynhallow in the morning, he found the island deserted. He shouted, and there was no answer; he walked round the island, which is small, and found no trace of the midnight visitors. He sat on a rock and struggled heavily with thought, and then, because he was anxious to get back before the tide turned, he sailed home again.
It is, of course, an ingrained belief in the mind of the northern Scot that the English are a flighty, unreliable race. They travel far from home when there is no need to travel, they are wantonly extravagant (John Corrigall had been paid in advance), and their actions spring from impulse instead of emanating slowly from cautious deliberation. They are volatile (as the English say the French are volatile), and their volatility makes them difficult to understand. So John Corrigall said nothing, except to his wife, of the disappearance of the Pomfrets. He had no intention of making a fool of himself by raising what waspossibly a false alarm, and the whole day, which might have been profitably spent on investigation, was wasted.
In the evening, the chauffeur, an energetic man when aroused, went to make inquiries, and was astounded to hear that his master had apparently vanished. With the decision of a man who had lived in cities and learnt, before he took to driving one, the art of evading motor-cars, he told a little girl who happened to be at hand to summon the village constable, and ordered Corrigall to make his boat ready for sea. The latter protested, for the wind and tide were at odds and a pretty sea was breaking round Eynhallow. But the chauffeur was like adamant, and drove the constable and John Corrigall to the shore, helped to push out the boat, and after a stormy crossing landed, wet through, on the island. A thorough search was made, and not a sign of the Pomfrets could be found; nothing, that is, except a little tag of bright metal which was found lying on the grass, the significance of which was unknown to Corrigall and the policeman, who had no experience of modern toilets, and to the chauffeur, who was virtuous and unmarried. Later it was identified simultaneously by the maids as the end, the catch or hatch as it were, of a stocking-suspender such as many ladies wear. If Miss Joan had been dancing vigorously, it might have sprung asunder from the rest of the article and fallen to the ground, they said.
The three maids became hysterical soon after they learnt of the mystery; John Corrigall went home to his bed, convinced that it did not concern him; the constable was useless, having encountered no such case in his previous professional experience; and it was left to the chauffeur to devise a course of
On Midsummer Eve then, after dinner, the Pomfrets set sail. They carried baskets of food, for a night in the open is a potent ally of hunger, but no instrument of fire, such as a primus stove, for that, Joan said, would be an insult to the omnipotence of the sun, who should rule alone. They took rugs and cushions, and Mrs Pomfret wore a fur coat and Russian boots. They set a portable gramophoneâfor they were to danceâin the stern of the boat, and Otto Samways carried two albums of records. There was a heavy cargo aboard when John Corrigall hauled his sheet and brought the boatâs head round for Eynhallow. He landed them, without more incident than a faint protest from Mrs Pomfret, on a shingle beach, and left them.
And that is the last that has been seen of them.
When Corrigall returned to Eynhallow in the morning, he found the island deserted. He shouted, and there was no answer; he walked round the island, which is small, and found no trace of the midnight visitors. He sat on a rock and struggled heavily with thought, and then, because he was anxious to get back before the tide turned, he sailed home again.
It is, of course, an ingrained belief in the mind of the northern Scot that the English are a flighty, unreliable race. They travel far from home when there is no need to travel, they are wantonly extravagant (John Corrigall had been paid in advance), and their actions spring from impulse instead of emanating slowly from cautious deliberation. They are volatile (as the English say the French are volatile), and their volatility makes them difficult to understand. So John Corrigall said nothing, except to his wife, of the disappearance of the Pomfrets. He had no intention of making a fool of himself by raising what waspossibly a false alarm, and the whole day, which might have been profitably spent on investigation, was wasted.
In the evening, the chauffeur, an energetic man when aroused, went to make inquiries, and was astounded to hear that his master had apparently vanished. With the decision of a man who had lived in cities and learnt, before he took to driving one, the art of evading motor-cars, he told a little girl who happened to be at hand to summon the village constable, and ordered Corrigall to make his boat ready for sea. The latter protested, for the wind and tide were at odds and a pretty sea was breaking round Eynhallow. But the chauffeur was like adamant, and drove the constable and John Corrigall to the shore, helped to push out the boat, and after a stormy crossing landed, wet through, on the island. A thorough search was made, and not a sign of the Pomfrets could be found; nothing, that is, except a little tag of bright metal which was found lying on the grass, the significance of which was unknown to Corrigall and the policeman, who had no experience of modern toilets, and to the chauffeur, who was virtuous and unmarried. Later it was identified simultaneously by the maids as the end, the catch or hatch as it were, of a stocking-suspender such as many ladies wear. If Miss Joan had been dancing vigorously, it might have sprung asunder from the rest of the article and fallen to the ground, they said.
The three maids became hysterical soon after they learnt of the mystery; John Corrigall went home to his bed, convinced that it did not concern him; the constable was useless, having encountered no such case in his previous professional experience; and it was left to the chauffeur to devise a course of
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