In the remote, pas­toral lone­li­ness of Glen Aline, nes­tled with­in West­ern Gal­loway’s stark moor­lands, stretch­es a land­scape most­ly untouched by tourists or anglers, due to its lack of accom­mo­da­tion and unin­spir­ing fish­ing prospects. This des­o­late yet sub­tly cap­ti­vat­ing scenery drew the nar­ra­tor, seek­ing soli­tude from soci­ety and work on a pecu­liar writ­ing project titled “A His­to­ry of the Unex­plained.” Lodged at a shep­herd’s house, the nar­ra­tor rev­els in the sim­plic­i­ty and soli­tude, punc­tu­at­ed occa­sion­al­ly by soli­tary angling expe­di­tions to near­by water bod­ies like Loch Nan, despite the mediocre promise of cap­tur­ing any large trout.

One misty morn­ing, an unex­pect­ed fig­ure is spot­ted angling on Loch Nan, an occur­rence as rare as it is intrigu­ing due to the loch’s usu­al des­o­la­tion. After a mys­te­ri­ous dis­ap­pear­ance of this lone angler amidst a sud­den mist, and sub­se­quent odd encoun­ters where the fig­ure seemed to vapor­ize into thin air, the nar­ra­tor’s curios­i­ty esca­lates into an obses­sion, dri­ven in part by a vague sense of recog­ni­tion. The lone angler, a fig­ure that moved with a famil­iar stoop and donned a cler­i­cal hat, evokes a haunt­ing famil­iar­i­ty yet eludes direct con­tact, always van­ish­ing when approached.

On a final angling trip after a peri­od of fever­ish weath­er damp­ened by work, the nar­ra­tor’s paths cross with the angler’s in a dire cir­cum­stance, lead­ing to a life-sav­ing extrac­tion from the treach­er­ous peat bogs of Loch Nan. The mys­te­ri­ous angler, revealed as Per­cy Allen, a for­mer acquain­tance from col­lege days entan­gled in a regret­table scan­dal, offers a poignant twist to the nar­ra­tive. Allen’s sub­se­quent unjust fall from grace, based on a bewil­der­ing appear­ance at an auc­tion room which he did not phys­i­cal­ly attend, unfolds as a trag­ic tale of slan­der, inno­cence, and the often inex­plic­a­ble nature of human expe­ri­ence.

Hid­den with­in an old secret whiskey still, Allen’s makeshift home unveils a man who, despite his eru­di­tion and past enthu­si­asm for rare books, sought refuge in iso­la­tion, a fugi­tive not from jus­tice but from the mis­judg­ments of soci­ety. As the sto­ry unfolds, the lay­ers of Allen’s mis­ad­ven­ture in the realm of the unex­plained become evi­dent, reveal­ing a man caught in a web of coin­ci­den­tal ali­bis and psy­chic phe­nom­e­na unbe­knownst to the log­i­cal world.

The con­va­les­cence and mea­ger recov­ery of Allen in the shep­herd’s care, jux­ta­posed with reflec­tions on the fick­le­ness of human per­cep­tion and tes­ti­mo­ny, cul­mi­nates in a nar­ra­tive that not only explores the mys­ter­ies of the Scot­tish moors but delves into the deep­er unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ries of human con­science and con­scious­ness. “The Dou­ble Ali­bi” stands as a tes­ta­ment to the enig­mat­ic inter­play between the phys­i­cal realm and the land­scapes of the mind, where truths are some­times stranger than fic­tion, and the line between the explained and unex­plained blurs into obliv­ion.