bide a wee, Mr. Logan: we’ll fetch a cup o’ tea for ye while ye’re here. Jeanie! Jeanie!” He shouted toward a back room. “Dinna fret, Mr. Logan: Jeanie’s my auld wifie. Jeanie! A cup o’ tea for a Yank gentleman!”
Around a door-jamb peered a worn face. Logan rose. “Na, na, Mr. Logan, sit ye doon: it’s but Jeanie. Jeanie, chat wi’ the Yank gentleman while I see wha’ can be done to obleege him.” Dowie slipped into the back room at the moment Jeanie entered. Taking a chair, she sat staring dully at the grimy floor, quite silent.
“Rather a clammy day, Mrs. Dowie.” Mrs. Dowie, who had a scarf tied round her head, said nothing at all. Dowie seemed to be telephoning from the back room; and Logan, an old hand at snapping up scraps of whispered evidence, contrived to make out a few words:
“Aye, Jock, a Yank, but no in Yank’s clothes. Quick, noo.” The phone was hung up, and Dowie returned, that fixed smile across his face. “Jeanie! Hae ye no been entertainin’the gentleman? Fetch the tea, lass.”
Jeanie went. “Well, now, Mr. Dowie,” Logan said, “have you found something for me?”
“Ye wudna wish to go where they’ll no be expectin’ye, wud ye, sir? And Lady MacAskival’s ower auld for company. Tak’ the plane home, Mr. Logan. Ye’ll do no business in Carnglass.”
“If you’ll do nothing for me, Dowie, I’ll go elsewhere. It’s getting late.”
The look of triumphant cunning was back in Dowie’s eyes. “Aye, but the tea, Mr. Logan; bide for the tea.” Jeanie returned with a wooden tray, a teapot under a cozy, and three cups. Logan stood up.
“I’m always in a hurry, Dowie. Thank you, Mrs. Dowie, but I haven’t time for tea.” There seemed to be voices raised outside in the wynd, now, and a heavy thud, rather as if someone had kicked the side of an automobile. “Good day to you.”
“But first, man,” said Dowie, sidling between Logan and the street door, “we’ll shake hands a’ roun’, should auld acquaintance be forgot.” Logan briefly took Dowie’s hand, and then Jeanie’s. “And ye’ll confess, Mr. Logan, that ye came here o’ your ain free will, an’ no invitation.” Logan agreed. “Ye heard, Jeanie,” Dowie muttered. “Ye’re a witness.” In the street beyond the mouth of the wynd, a motor started, and Logan thought he heard a car drive away.
“That may be my taxi leaving,” Logan said. He had his stick in his hand.
“Weel, noo, Mr. American,” Dowie told him, with what possibly was intended for a convivial smile, “I’m sorry I couldna serve ye. Cheerio the noo. I’ll open the door for ye.” He did. And the second Logan stepped out, the door was slammed behind him and bolted.
Mutto’s Wynd was shadowy. Yes, the taxi had gone; and lounging against the wall of No. 5 were four men. Logan faced them. They were very young roughs, three of them, with the greasy sideburns and the pimpled faces that went, in their sort, with a diet of fish and chips. The fourth man, a big lank fellow, older, wore a wide leather belt round his waist, and he had a very nasty smirk. By way of obstacle, the lank man thrust out a long leg.
“Hello, Yank,” the lank man said. The other three came slowly round Logan.
“Good evening, friend,” Logan answered. No one else was in the wynd.
“This is the auld Gallowgate, Yank,” the lank man went on. “This was where they hangit the gallows-craws. We’re gallows-craws, Yank.” He gave a short, harsh whiskey-laugh, and the three young roughs cackled in echo. “Ye’ll stand us a dram at the Dun Stirk, Yank?”
“I’m sorry, friend, but I’m in a hurry.” It was quiet and dark in Mutto’s Wynd.
The lank man smirked. “Damn ye, Yank, ye’ll no be in sic a hurry noo!” He flung himself toward Logan, one foot going out to trip him.
Logan was ready. He thrust the point of the thorn stick into the lank man’s belly, and the lank man screamed and stumbled back. But one of the greasy youngsters had his arm round Logan’s throat, from behind. Taking the boy’s fingers, Logan bent them backward: the rough yelled and let go. And now they were on him, all four.
Someone had a long razor. Logan caught the wrist that held it, striking with the point of his stick at the face behind; the razor dropped to the cobblestones, but someone else got Logan’s legs out from under him. He fell heavily on the wet stones, and took a kick in the ribs. Another razor flashed. Someone had a hand inside Logan’s coat. The mackintosh he wore hampered him. There came a kick at his head, though a glancing blow. He had hold at last of someone’s thighs, and was struggling upward. A kick in the back; and a razor slashed one sleeve of the mackintosh. All that saved him for the second, Logan knew, was that they were so close about him as to get in one another’s way.
This was no simple robbery: they meant to slash or cripple him, or something worse. Another fierce kick in his ribs. The man he had got by the thighs slipped and fell upon him. And as Logan fought clear, he heard steel-plated heels running over the cobbles. Someone was helping him up: a tall policeman. Another policeman was chasing four dim figures down the wynd.
The policeman who had lifted Logan had a bruise over one eye. “That was Jock Anderson’s lads, Donald,” he panted to the other policeman, returned from the unsuccessful chase. “Jock gie me the bash over the eye.” Logan was getting his breath back. “If ye’ll prefer charges, sir,” the policeman said to him, “we’ll have warrants out for these chaps; we know them.”
“There’s small harm done, constable, and I’m leaving Glasgow tomorrow.”
“Did they not take your money, sir?”
Logan felt inside his coat and discovered no billfold. “Yes, but I hadn’t much with me.”
If the gentleman would come to the station and swear to a complaint, the second constable told him, they might not have to trouble him further. “Your cabbie found us, sir; they forced him awa’.” Logan left a five-pound note with the policeman for the driver. “Were ye in No. 5 yonder, sir?”
Though the constable named Donald knocked hard at the door of No. 5, no one answered, and the building showed no light. “By this time,” Donald said, “Jim Dowie’s flitted, and his wife Jeanie with him. And I dinna think we could charge them. But we’re keepin’ watch on Dowie, sir: a slippery one.”
Then, in the Gallowgate, they found him another taxi to take him back to the hotel. And in India Street, Logan washed the grime of Mutto’s Wynd from himself. Stiff and bruised: but no ribs broken, and the razor had slashed only the mackintosh. There still was time to go down to dinner. Afterward, Logan had promised, he would go round to the station and swear to a statement.
In his hot tub, Logan tried to make sense of what had happened. The policemen took it for a simple case of pocket-picking, perhaps abetted by Jim Dowie, Commission Agent. But Logan thought that Dowie had meant to keep him out of Carnglass – possibly. Who was this Jackman that Dowie had mentioned? Lady MacAskival’s private physician, or merely some crony or invention of Dowie’s? And what interest had Dowie, or anyone else, in keeping him out of Carnglass? And why should Thomas Lagg the factor have a friend, and mail-forwarder, like J. Dowie? Logan felt full of fight. He would take the morning train to Oban, and there, no matter what the price, he’d find passage to Carnglass.
On going down to dinner, Logan stopped at the reception-desk to see if there might be a message from Carnglass. There was none. Presumably Dowie really had Duncan MacAskival’s cables in his desk. But also it was likely that Dowie, during this weather, had no way of getting word to Carnglass. If so, Logan would be quite unexpected when he landed. That might be just as well, supposing that Lagg had some connection with the queer business in Mutto’s Wynd.
As he turned away from the reception-counter, Logan felt himself being watched. Or were his nerves on edge? He glanced to the right, and a man’s eyes met his, but dropped away hastily. It was like looking into the eyes of a bird: little black eyes, darting and quick to flee. The man, he thought, had been looking at the top leaf of the