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father gave you no hint as to what it might be?” he asked. “After all, he was the one that helped them with the pipeline.”
    Jamie Todd thought for a few seconds. “The old Park Ranger helped as well,” he said eventually. “My father always said that
he
knew more about the MacArthurs than he cared to let on.”
    “But he died a while ago, didn’t he?”
    “Aye, but his son took over the job after him. Nice chap. I know him quite well. If anything’s going on in the hill then I reckon MacLean will know about it.”
    “Do you think it’d be worth paying him a visit?” frowned Sir James.
    “I’ll give him a ring and ask him to drop by. I’m sure he won’t mind and, with any luck, he might even know the way into the hill.”

    The Ranger, as it happened, was at home when Jamie called and, anxious to hear anything he could about the MacArthurs, arrived at the distillery ten minutes later.
    Sir James took an immediate liking to the tall, weather-beaten man that Jamie ushered into his office.
    “Ranger MacLean,” he smiled, rising to his feet and shaking his hand firmly. “Nice to meet you.” Suddenly Sir James was uncertain how to continue.
    “It’s all right, Sir James. I told John on the way up that we were losing a lot of whisky and that you wanted to ask him about the MacArthurs,” Jamie said helpfully.
    “You do know about the MacArthurs, then?” Sir James asked.
    “Aye, my father told me about them and ten years ago they rescued me from a snowdrift. I owe them my life.”
    “What exactly do they look like?” asked Sir James curiously. “I’ve never seen any of them myself, you see, and well … I’ve often wondered.”
    “You mean, do they have pointed ears and the like?” grinned the Ranger.
    “Well …”
    Ranger MacLean shook his head. “Actually, they look pretty much like us, but smaller. Otherwise you’d never know the difference. What I’ve always wondered is how
your
father got involved with them in the first place.”
    Jamie Todd leant forward and put his cup and saucer on the table. “It all started when my father noticed that small quantities of whisky were going missing from one of the vats.”
    “So he told my father,” continued Sir James, “and between them they set a trap to catch the thief. It was quite an ingenious arrangement and it worked with unexpected results because it wasn’t a man they caught but one of the MacArthurs; a young chap wearing a sheepskin jacket. Well, by the time they had fished him out of the vat, you could smell the whisky off him at a hundred yards. My father said that if he hadn’t been in the state he was in, he would never have taken them into the hill. But he did, and when they came out they were both changed men, weren’t they, Jamie?” He looked to his foreman who nodded solemnly in agreement.
    “Neither my father nor Jamie’s ever told us what happened in there but from that day on they were firm friends with the little folk and helped them rig up a secret pipeline from the distillery into the hill. That’s where your fathercame into the picture, I should imagine. Being Park Ranger they would have had to take him into their confidence. Of course, it has always involved us in a wee bit of double-dealing as far as Customs and Excise are concerned but they’ve never been able to prove anything … although,” and here he grinned wryly, “they’ve always had their suspicions. As I say, it hasn’t been much over the years but today they found a big discrepancy, a big discrepancy indeed, and I don’t mind admitting that I find it very worrying. In fact, if I don’t manage to get in touch with them to find out what is happening I might well end up in prison.”
    The Ranger looked thoughtful. “There’s something very strange going on inside Arthur’s Seat at the moment, but to be quite honest with you, I have no idea what it is,” he admitted frankly. “The children say that they haven’t seen any of the MacArthurs for