“It must be the hikers, Donald, getting their party together before they walk home. Now poor Mr Fletcher will be able to get his dinner.”

“Oo-hoo! Oo-hoo! Gertie! Elsie! Winnie!”

“I never heard such vile sounds,” Ben Nevis declared. “There you are, MacIsaac. That’s the kind of noise these brutes must have been making on Drumcockie to scare the birds like that.”

The Chamberlain eyed the Chieftain a little nervously. He had kept clear of this hikers’ business by good luck, and he did not want to be involved in it now by being asked to go out and disperse the offenders. However, the next ‘coo-ee’ was less loud, and presently a faint ‘wolla-wolla-wolla-wolla’ floating back from far down the drive warranted the belief that at last the intruders were definitely bound for their camp.

A few more minutes passed.

“What is Mr Fletcher doing?” Ben Nevis asked fretfully. “Doesn’t he want any dinner?”

“I do hope he didn’t feel bound to eat the supper I arranged for those young women,” Mrs MacDonald boomed anxiously. “The good man is so very conscientious. He may have felt that his kindly advice would be listened to more attentively if he joined in their cold meat and bread and cheese.”

“I never heard such rank nonsense,” Ben Nevis spluttered. “Rory, go and tell Mr Fletcher that we’re at dinner.”

The gillie retired and presently communicated the result of his errand to Toker.

The butler stepped forward.

“Mrs Parsall, sir, says Mr Fletcher did not return to the dining-hall where the young persons were feeding. It would appear that he and Mr Macdonald busied themselves with the persons in the Raven’s Tower, and nobody has seen either Mr Fletcher or Mr Macdonald since that intrusion before dinner.”

“Where are they, then?” Ben Nevis asked.

“Oh dear,” Mrs MacDonald sighed vastly, “I expect poor Mr Fletcher had difficulty with that nasty little Mr Prew and has been wrestling with him.”

“Nonsense, Trixie. Mr Fletcher’s much too old to start wrestling with people at his age,” her husband declared.

“I mean arguing with him, Donald. I do hope he won’t feel he has to walk too far. He is so very conscientious.”

Toker stepped forward again.

“I understand from Alec, madam, that Mr Fletcher sent for his hat and coat, and which Alec brought him.”

“Oh dear, oh dear, that’s what he must have done. And the poor man’s had no dinner. We’d better send Johnnie after him.”

A quarter of an hour later word came that Johnnie Macpherson had brought back the Daimler empty. He had overtaken the hikers singing on their way back, but there had been no sign either of Mr Fletcher or Duncan.

Ben Nevis had been inclined to discount his wife’s alarm about the chaplain, but when he heard that his head-keeper was also missing he himself became alarmed.