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'With interest. There seems to be little doubt in your mind that Donner's up to no good, and yet you haven't given a single concrete reason.'

The old man shrugged. 'I spent thirty-five years in Military Intelligence, Chavasse. After a while, you get an instinct for things, a sort of sixth sense that tells you when something isn't quite as it should be. You must know what I mean.'

Chavasse nodded. 'I think I could say it's saved my life on more than one occasion, but I'd still like to hear your reasons.'

At that moment, the door opened and George Gunn came in with the coffee. Colonel Craig accepted a cup and settled himself comfortably into the armchair by the fire.

'To start with, I can't find any real reason for Donner's being here. Oh, he's been out after the deer of course, but the season's very short as you probably know. He hasn't bothered with the grouse at all and he doesn't fish. There just isn't anything else to do in this sort of country and he looks to me to be the last sort of man to want to bury himself in the wilds.'

'How many times have you met him?'

'Half a dozen--no more. He's always been perfectly civil, but he's refused my invitations and hasn't offered any in return. Now that just doesn't make sense, not in a place like this. Another thing--I don't like the kind of people he's surrounded himself with.'

'Who do you mean exactly?'

'Take this fellow Murdoch for a start. I suppose you'll have read his file? He was a captain in a good regiment. Cashiered for embezzlement. I understand he was mixed up in some shady affair in London that ended in a man's death.'

Chavasse nodded. 'He was tried at the Old Bailey for manslaughter five years ago and acquitted. He went to work for Donner almost immediately afterwards.'

'And then his house servants are a rum bunch. When I first moved in, I called to pay my respects. The man who answered the door was as ugly a looking customer as I've ever seen, I'd say he would have been more at home as chucker-out in a waterfront saloon.'

'Was he English?' Chavasse said.

'That's the strange thing. I couldn't tell. You see he never opened his mouth, simply waved me in and disappeared. I waited in the hall and finally Murdoch arrived and told me Donner wasn't in residence which was a lie because I'd seen that plane of his fly in the same morning.'

'So all your meetings with Donner have been purely by chance?'

'No, he called once to ask me not to fish in Loch Dubh.'

'Now this really does interest me,' Chavasse said and he took the ordnance survey map of Moidart from his pocket and spread it out on the table. 'You said in your report that you thought something odd was taking place on an island in the middle of the loch.'

'That's right,' Craig said. 'I was fishing at the lochside one day when some damned rascals Donner has taken on as keepers turned up and escorted me off the estate. They didn't give me much option in the matter either.'

'Who are these people?'

'Old Hector Munro and his sons. They're tinkers--the last remnants of a broken clan. They've wandered the high roads since Culloden, but there's nothing romantic about them, believe me. There's old Hector, Fergus ...'

'Will he be the one I had the run-in with earlier this evening?'

'That's right. He's got one brother--Rory. A big, dark-haired lad and as wild as they come.'

'And you say they ran you off the estate?'

Duncan Craig nodded. 'Fergus knocked George down when he tried to stop them. I wrote a stiff letter of complaint to Donner, mainly because I think it would have looked suspicious if I hadn't. I told him I was considering laying a complaint before the County Constabulary.'

'What happened?'

'He was on my doorstep next morning, smooth as paint, that secretary of his with him to turn on the charm. Now she's a nice lass if you like, though she seems to think the sun shines out of him. Pretty obvious what he keeps her around for.'

'And what did he have to say about Loch Dubh?'

'Gave me some cock and