' Thus early does the mysterious figure of _the
other man_ haunt the evidence. The tenant's testimony was not regarded
as trustworthy by the Stewart party; it tended to prove that Allan
expected a change of clothes and money to be sent to him, and he also
wrote the letter (with a wood-pigeon's quill, and powder and water) to
William Stewart, asking for money. But Allan might do all this relying
on his own message sent by Donald Stewart, on the night of the murder,
to James of the Glens, and knowing, as he must have done, that William
Stewart was James's agent in his large financial operations.
On the whole, then, the evidence, even where it 'pinches' James most,
is by no means conclusive proof that on May 11 he had planned the
murder with Allan. If so, he must have begun to try to raise money
before the very day of the murder. James and his son were arrested on
May 16, and taken to Fort William; scores of other persons were
arrested, and the Campbells, to avenge Glenure, made the most minute
examinations of hundreds of people. Meanwhile Allan, having got 5_l._
and his French clothes by the agency of his cousin the pedlar,
decamped from Coalisnacoan in the night, and marched across country to
the house of an uncle in Rannoch.
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