Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart

that. I had my lies ready before I ever recognised him. I’d seen him earlier that night, here at the house, behaving in a way that made me very anxious to find out what he was doing here on Moila.’
    â€˜Here? You were here then? Everyone said the place was empty.’
    â€˜It was. I’d just arrived, and I hadn’t been up to the village yet, or seen anyone. Still haven’t, if it comes to that.’
    â€˜How did you get here?’
    â€˜I have a boat. Hired. Aunt Emily sold the one that was here; she had no use for it latterly. I came across from Oban – made a run for it, with the weather worsening all the time, but got here safely and made straight for our bay. Put the boat into the boathouse and made the doors fast, then came up to the house. I’d been to see my great-aunt’s solicitors in Glasgow and they gave me the keys. I’d bought all I needed in Oban, so I just came up here and got myself settled in. It was pretty late and I was tired, so I found my old room and went straight to bed. It was well after midnight, getting on for one o’clock, when I went to open the bedroom window, and saw someone coming up through the garden from the bay.’
    He stopped prowling at last, and dropped into one of the easy chairs facing me.
    â€˜Of course at first I just thought it was someone from a boat that had been driven in by the weather. You remember that night was pretty dark, so I couldn’t have seen if there was a boat tied up at the jetty. The chap had a torch. Coming to ask for shelter, I thought, though why he couldn’t sleep in his boat . . . As I said, it’s quiet down there in the channel, even in a storm. That made me wonder what he wanted, so I stood and watched. He got as far as the lawn, just out there, and then he stopped and stood, seemingly just staring at the house. That seemed odd, too, in all that rain. Anyway, I came downstairs. The front door was still locked and bolted – I’d only used the back one since I’d got here – and the keys were out the back, so I came in here to open these french windows. I didn’t put any lights on, and when I got into this room I was thankful I hadn’t. I found him trying the window.’
    â€˜Well,’ I said reasonably, ‘in that storm, and if he thought the house was empty –’
    â€˜I know. I thought so, too. But he didn’t just try the handle. He had some kind of tool, and he was trying to lever the window open. I stood there like a fool, watching him. Somehow one isn’t prepared for that kind of situation . . . Then I thought, well, I’ll have to tackle him somehow, so the best way, rain or no rain, was to go out the back way and take him from behind.’
    â€˜He had a gun,’ I said.
    That startled him. ‘Had he indeed?’
    â€˜I think so. But go on, please!’
    â€˜I’m not exactly a man of action – that kind of action. Who is, except in television series? There used to be guns in the house, of course, but it never occurred to me to look if they were still there. But I must have felt the need for some support, because I found I’d grabbed hold of one of my hammers – a geologist is always armed with a hammer – and when I got through to the back of the house he was there already, at the kitchen window.’
    â€˜Good heavens! So?’
    â€˜I’m not quite sure what might have happened then, but for some reason he gave up. He could have forced the window in time, anyone could, but he seemed suddenly to think better of it. One moment he was there on the sill, and then suddenly he was gone. I ran upstairs to see what I could, and there he was, torch and all, running down the garden and then dodging his way up to the cliff path, and fast, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Of course I knew the path led to the Camus na Dobhrain, and the lawyers had told me that the cottage was let to