 CHAPTER XI How a German engineer found strange fishing. I got to Hull about six o'clock, having left my car at the garage in York, and finished the journey by train. I had my kit in a small suitcase and rucksack, and I waited on the quay till I saw Dr. Newhover arrive, with a lot of luggage and a big broad-box. When I reckoned he would be in his cabin, arranging his belongings, I went on board myself, and went straight to my own cabin, which was a comfortable to berth one well forward. There I had sandwiches brought me, and settled myself to doze and read for thirty-six hours. All that night, and all next day it blew fairly hard, and I remained quietly in my bunk, trying to read Boswell's Life of Johnson, and thanking my stars that I hadn't lived a thousand years earlier, and been a Viking. I didn't see myself plowing those short steep seas in an open galley. I woke on the morning of the twenty-third, to find the uneasy motion at an end, and, looking out of my porthole, saw a space of green sunlit water, a rocky beach, and the white and red of a little town. The godrum waited about an hour, at Stavanger, so I gave Dr. Newhover time to get on shore before I had a hurried breakfast in the saloon, and followed him. I saw him go off with two men, and get on board a motor-launch, which was lying beside one of the jetties. The coast was now clear, so I went into the town, and found the agents to whom Archie Roylands had cabled, and learned that my own motor-launch was ready, and wading in the inner harbour, where the fishing boats lie. A clerk took me down there, and introduced me to Jan, my skipper, a big, cheerful bearded Norwegian, who had a smattering of English. I bought a quantity of provisions, and by ten o'clock we were on the move. I asked Jan about the route to Merdell, and he pointed out a moving speck a couple of miles ahead of us. That is Christian Egg's boat, he said. He carries an English fisherman to Merdell, and we follow. I got my glasses on the craft, and made out Newhover, smoking in the stern. It was a gorgeous day, with that funny northern light, which makes noon seem like early morning. I enjoyed every hour of it, partly because I had now a definite job before me, and partly because I was in the open air to which I properly belonged. I got no end of amusement watching the wildlife, the Comorants and Elderduck on the little islands, and the seals, with heads as round as Medina's, that slipped off the scurries at our approach. The air was chilly and fresh, but when we turned the corner of the Merdell fjord, out of the sea wind, and the sun climbed the sky, it was as warm as June. A big flat island we passed, all short turf and rocky outcrops, was pointed out to me by Jaune as Blackshawm. Soon we were shaping due east in Inlet which was surrounded by dark steep hills, with the snow lying in the gullies. I had Boswell with me in two volumes. The first I had read in the steamer, and the second I was now starting on, when it fell overboard, through my getting up in a hurry, to look at a flock of duck. So I presented the odd volume to Jaune and surrendered myself to tobacco and meditation. In the afternoon the Inlet narrowed to a fjord, and the walls of hill grew steeper. They were noble mountains, cut sharp like the edge of the Drakensburg, and crowned with a line of snow, so that they looked like a sugar-coated cake that had been sliced. Drakens came out of the upper snow-wreaths, and hurled themselves down the steeps, above a shimmering veil of mist, and below a torrent of green water, tumbling over pebbles to the sea. The landscape and the weather lulled me to a delectable peace, which refused to be disturbed by any looking before or after, as some poet says. Newhover was ahead of me, we never lost track of his launch, and it was my business to see what he was up to, and to keep myself out of his sight. The ways and means of it I left too fortunate to provide. By and by the light grew dimmer, and the fjord grew narrower, so that dusk fell on us, though looking back down the Inlet we could see a bright twilight. I assumed that Newhover would go on to Mordell, and the fjord's head, where the scarceau entered the sea, and had decided to stop at Haag, a village two miles short of it, on the south shore. We came to Haag about half-past eight in a wonderful purple dusk, for the place lay right under the shadow of a great cliff. I gave Yon full instructions. He was to wait for me, and expect me when I turned up, and to provision himself from the village. On no account must he come up to Mordell, or go out of sight, or hail, of the boat. He seemed to relish the prospect of a few days idleness, for he landed me at a wooden jetty in a great good humor, and wished me sport. But he thought I was after, I cannot imagine, for I departed with a rucksack on my back and a stout stick in my hand, which scarcely suggested a chase. I was in good spirits myself as I stretched my legs on the road which led from Haag to Mordell. The upper fjord lay black on my left hand. The mountains rose black on my right, but though I walked in darkness I could see twilight ahead of me. Where the hills fell back from the Scarceau Valley, that wonderful apple-green twilight, which even in spring, is all the northern night. I had never seen it before, and I suppose something in my blood answered to the place. For my father used to say that the Haines came originally from Norse stock. There was a jolly crying of birds from the waters, ducks and geese and oyster catchers and sandpipers. And now and then would come a great splash as if a salmon were jumping in the brackish tides on his way to the Scarceau. I was thinking longingly of my rods left behind. When on turning a corner the lights of Mordell showed ahead. And it seemed to me that I had better be thinking of my next step. I knew no Norwegian, but I counted on finding natives who could speak English, seeing so many of them have been in England or America. Newhover, I assumed, would go to the one hotel, and it was for me to find lodging elsewhere. I began to think this spying business might be more difficult than I had thought. For if he saw me, he would recognize me, and that must not happen. I was ready, of course, with the story of a walking tour. But he would be certain to suspect, and certain to let Medina know. Well, a lodging for the night was my first business, and I must start inquiries. Only I came to the little pier of Mordell, which was short of the village itself. There were several men, sitting, smoking, on barrels and coils of rope, and one who stood at the end, looking out to where Christian eggs boat, which had brought Newhover, lay moored. I turned down the road to it for it seemed a place to gather information. I said good evening to the men, and was just about to ask them for advice about quarters, when the man who had been looking out to sea turned round at the sound of my voice. He seemed an oldish fellow, with rather a stoop in his back, wearing an ancient shooting jacket. The light was bad, but there was something in the cut of his jib that struck me as familiar, though I couldn't put a name to it. I spoke to the Norwegians in English, but it was obvious that I had hit on a bunch of indifferent linguists. They shook their heads, and one pointed to the village, as if to tell me, that I would be better understood there. Then the man in the shooting jacket spoke. "'Perhaps I can help,' he said. "'There is a good inn in Mordell, which at this season is not full.' He spoke excellent English, but it was obvious that he wasn't an Englishman. There was an unmistakable emphasis on the gutterals. I doubt the inn may be too good for my purse, I said. I am on a walking tour, and must lodge cheaply.' He laughed pleasantly. "'There may be accommodations as well. Peter Björr may have a spare bed. I'm going that way, sir, and can direct you.' He had turned towards me, and his figure caught the beam of the riding-light of the motor-launch. I saw a thin, sun-burned face, with a very pleasant expression, and an untidy, grizzled beard. Then I knew him, and I could have shouted with amazement at the chance which had brought us two together again. We walked side by side up the jetty road and on to the highway. I think, I said, that we have met before, Ergodjen. He stopped short. That is my name, but I do not, I do not think. Do you remember a certain Dutchman called Cornelius Brandt, whom you entertained at your country-house one night, in December 15?' He looked searchingly in my face. I remember, he said. I also remember Mr. Richard Hanno, one of Guggenheim's engineers, with whom I talked at Constantinople. The same, I said. For a moment I was not clear how he was going to take the revelation, but his next action reassured me, and I saw that I had not been wrong in my estimate of the one German I have ever wholeheartedly liked. He began to laugh, a friendly, tolerant laugh. Kretseturken, he cried. It is indeed romantic. I have often wondered whether I should see or hear of you again. And behold, you step out of the darkness on a Norwegian fjord. You bear no malice, I said. I served my country as you served yours. I played fair as you played fair. Malice, he cried. But we are gentlemen, also we are not children. I rejoice to see that you have survived the war. I have always wished you well, for you are a very bold and brave man. Not a bit of it, I said, only lucky. But what name shall I call you now, Brandt or Hanno? My name is Richard Hanny, but for the present I am calling myself Cornelius Brandt, for a reason which I am going to tell you. I had suddenly made up my mind to take Gaudien into my full confidence. He seemed to have been sent by Providence for that purpose, and I was not going to let such a chance slip. But at my words he stopped short. Mr. Hanny, he said, I do not want your confidence. You are still engaged, I take it, to your country's service. I do not question your motive. But remember, I am a German, and I cannot be party to the pursuit of one of my countrymen. However base I may think him. I could only stare. But I am not in my country's service, I stammered. I left it at the armistice, and I am a farmer now. Do English farmers travel in Norway under false names? That's a private business, which I want to explain to you. I assure you, there is no German in it. I want to keep an eye on the doings of a fashionable English doctor. I must believe you, he said, after a pause. But two hours ago a man arrived in the launch you see anchored out there. He is a fisherman, and is now at the inn. That man is known to me, too well known. He is a German, who, during the war, served Germany in secret ways, in America and elsewhere. I did not love him, and I think he did my country grievous ill. But that is a matter for us Germans to settle, and not for foreigners. I know your man as Dr. Newhover of Wimple Street. So, he said, he has taken again his father's name, which was Nuoffe. We knew him as Christoffer. What do you want with him? Nothing that any honest German wouldn't approve. And there and then I gave him a sketch of the Medina business. He exclaimed in horror, Mr. Hanay, he said hesitatingly. You are being honest with me? I swear by all that's holy, I am telling you the plain truth and the full truth. Newhover may have done anything you jolly well like in the war. That's all washed out. I'm after him to get a line on the foul business, which is English in origin. I want to put a spoke in the wheel of English criminals, and to save innocent lives. Besides, Newhover is only a subordinate. I don't propose to raise a hand against him, only to find out what he is doing. He held out his hand. I believe you, he said, and if I can, I will help you. He conducted me through the long street of the village, past the inn, where I supposed Newhover was now going to bed, and out on to the road, which ran up the Scarceau Valley. We came inside of the river, a mighty current full of melted snow, sweeping a noble curves through the meadowland in that uncanny dusk. It appeared that he lodged with Peter Boyer, who had a spare bed, and when we reached the cottage, which stood a hundred yards from the highway on the very brink of the stream, Peter was willing to let me have it. His wife gave a supper, an omelet, smoked salmon, and some excellent Norwegian beer. And after it I got out my map and had a survey of the neighborhood. Gaudien gave me a grisly picture of the condition of his own country. It seemed that the downfall of the old regime had carried with it the decent wise men like himself, who had opposed its follies, but had lined up with it on patriotic grounds when the war began. He said that Germany was no place for a moderate man, and that the power lie with the bloated industrialists, who were piling up fortunes abroad while they were wrecking their country at home. The only opposition, he said, came from the communists who were half-witted, and the monarchists who wanted the impossible. Men is not listened to, and I fear there is no salvation till my poor people have passed through the last extremity. You foreign powers have hastened our destruction, when you had it in your hands to save us. I think you have met well, but you have been blind. The you have not supported our moderate men, and have by your harshness played the game of the wreckers among us. It appeared that he was very poor now, like all the professional classes. I thought it odd that this man, who had a world-wide reputation as an engineer, couldn't earn a big income in any country he chose. Then I saw that it was because he had lost the wish to make money. He had seen too deep into the vanity of human wishes to have any ambition left. He was unmarried, with no near relations, and he found his pleasure in living simply in remote country places and watching flowers and beasts. He had been a keen fisherman, but couldn't afford a good beat, so he leased a few hundred yards from a farmer who had not enough water to get a proper rent for it, and he did a lot of trout fishing in the tarns, high up in the hills, and in the scarceau above the faus. As he sat facing me beyond the stove, with his kind, sad, brown eyes and his rugged face, I thought how like he was to a Scottish Moorland shepherd. I had liked him when I first saw him in Stumb's Company, but now I liked him so much that because of him I was prepared to think better of the whole German race. I asked him if he had heard of any other Englishman in the valley, any one of the name of Jason, for instance. He said no. He had been there for three weeks, but the fishing did not begin for another fortnight, and foreign visitors had not yet arrived. Then I asked him about the Sater Farms, and he said that few of these were open yet since the high pastures were not ready. One or two on the lower altitudes might be already inhabited, but not many, though the winter had been a mild one and the spring had come early. Look at the scarceau, he said. Usually in April it is quite low, for the snowfields have not begun to melt. But today it is as brimming as if it were the middle of May. He went over the map with me, an inch to a mild one I had got in London, and showed me the lie of the land. The Saters were mostly farther up the river, reached by paths up the tributary glens. There was a good-running road, the length of the valley, but no side roads to connect with the parallel glens, the Uradal and the Bremondal. I found indeed one track marked on the map, which led to the Uradal by a place called Snassen. Yes, said Guardian, that is the only thing in the way of what your soldiers would call lateral communications. I've walked it, and I'm sorry for the man who tries the road in bad weather. You can see the beginning of the track from this house. It climbs up, beside the torrent, just across the valley. Snassen is more or less inhabited all the year round, and I suppose you would call it a kind of sater. It is a sort of shelter hut for travelers taking that road in the summer. It is a paradise for flowers. You would be surprised at the way the natives can cross the hills, even in winter. Snassen belongs to the big farm, two miles upstream, which carries with it the best beat on the Skarsol. Also, that is said to be first-class liposhooting later in the year, and an occasional bear. By the way, I rather fancy someone told me that the whole thing was owned by or had been leased to an Englishman. You are rich, you see, and you do not leave much in Norway for poor people. I slept like a log on a bed quite as hard as a log, and woke to a brilliant blue morning with the birds in the pine woods fairly riotous and snipe-drumming in the boggy meadows and the Skarsol coming down like a sea. I could see the water almost up to the pathway of a long wooden bridge that led to the big farm Gadian had spoken of. I got my glass on the torret opposite, and saw the tract to Snassen, winding up beside it, till it was lost in a fold of a ravine. Above it I scanned the crown of the ridge, which was there much lower than on the sides of the fjord. There was no snow to be seen, and I knew, by a sort of instinct, that if I got up there I should find a broad table-land of squelching pastures, with old snow-drifts in the hollows, and tracks of scrubby dwarf birch. While I was waiting for breakfast I heard a noise from the high-road, and saw a couple of the little conveyances they call Stoke-Juice passing. My glass showed me Dr. Newhover in the first, and a quantity of luggage in the second. They took the road across the wooden bridge to the big farm, and I could see the splash of their wheels at the far end of it, where the river was over the road. So Dr. Newhover, or some friend of his, was the lisi of this famous fishing, which carried with it the shootings on the uplands behind it. I rather thought I should spend the day finding out more about Snassen, and I counted myself lucky to have got quarters in such an excellent observation post as Peter Boyer's Cottage. I wouldn't go near the track to Snassen till I saw what Newhover did. Zygodian and I sat patiently at Peter Boyer's window. About ten o'clock a couple of ponies, laden with kit in charge of a toe-headed boy, appeared at the foot of the track, and slowly climbed up the ravine. An hour later came Dr. Newhover, in a suit that looked like khaki, and were in a long Macintosh cape. He strode out well and breasted the steep path like a mountaineer. I wanted to go off myself in pursuit of him, keeping well behind, but Zygodian very sensibly pointed out how sparse the cover was, and that if he saw a man on that lonely road he would certainly want to know all about him. We sat out of doors after luncheon, in a pleasant glare of the sun, and by and by were rewarded, by the sight of the pack-ponies returning, laden with a different size and shape of kit. They did not stop at the big farm, but crossed the wooden bridge and took the high road for Medell. I concluded that this was the baggage of the man who Newhover had replaced, and that he was returning to Stavanger in Christian Egg's boat. About tea-time the man himself appeared, Jason, or whatever his name was. I saw two figures come down the ravine by this nascent road, and stopped the foot to exchange farewells. One of them turned to go back, and I saw that this was Newhover, climbing with great strides like a man accustomed to hills. The other crossed the bridge, and passed within hail of us. A foppy-shun man, my glass told me, wearing smart riding breeches and with an aquascoot him, slung over his shoulder. I was very satisfied with what I had learned. I had seen Newhover replace his predecessor, just as Medina had planned, and knew where he was lodged. Whatever his secret was it was hidden in Snasson, and to Snasson I would presently go. Guddian advised me to wait till after supper, when there would be light enough to find the way, and not too much to betray us. So we both lay down and slept for four hours, and took the road about ten-thirty, as fresh as yearlings. It was a noble night, windless and mild, and though darkness lurked in the thickets and folds of the hill, the sky was filled with a translucent amethyst glow. I felt as if I were out on some sporting expedition, and enjoyed every moment of the walk with that strung-up, expectant enjoyment which one gets in any form of chase. The torrent made wild music on our left hand, grumbling in pits and shooting over ledges with a sound like a snow-slip. There was every kind of bird about, but I had to guess at them, by their sounds and size, for there was no color in that shadowy world. By and by we reached the top, and had a light-cold wind in our faces, blowing from the snowy mountains to the north. The place seemed a huge, broken table-land, and every hollow glistened, as if filled with snow or water. There were big, dark shapes ahead of us, which I took to be the hills beyond the Uradal. Here it was not so easy to follow the track, which twined about in order to avoid the boggy patches, and Gaudian and I frequently strayed from it, and took tosses over snags of juniper. Once I was up against an iron pole, and to my surprise saw wires above. Gaudian nodded. Zasin is on the telephone, he said. I had hoped to see some light in the house, so as to tell it from a distance, but we did not realize its presence till we were close upon it, standing a little back from the path as dark as a tombstone. The inhabitants must have gone early to bed, for there was no sign of life within. It was a two-storied erection of wood, stoutly built with broad eaves to the roof. Adjacent there stood a big barn or hay shed, and behind it some other outbuildings, which might have been buyers or dairies. We walked stealthfully round the place, and were amazed at its utter stillness. There was no sound of an animal moving in the steading, and when a brace of mallards flew overhead, we started at the noise like burglars at the creaking of a board. Short of burglary there was nothing further to be done, so we took the road home, and scrambled at a great pace down the ravine, for it was chilly on the table-land. Before we went to bed, we had settled that, next day, Gaudian should go up to Snassen, like an ordinary tourist, and make some excuse to get inside, while I would take a long tramp over the plateau, keeping well away from the house, in case there might be something to do in that barren region. Next morning saw the same cloudless weather, and we started off about ten o'clock. I had a glorious but perfectly futile day. I went up the scarceau, too well above the faus, and then climbed the north wall of the valley by a gully choked with brushwood, which gave out long before the top, and left me to finish my ascent by way of some very loose screes and unpleasant boiler-plates. I reached the plateau, much farther to the east, where it was at a greater altitude, so that I looked down upon the depression, where ran the track to Uradal. I struck due north among boggy meadows, and the remains of old snow drifts, through whose fringes flowers were showing, till I was almost on the edge of Uradal, and looked away beyond it to a fine cluster of rock peaks, streaked with patches of ice. The Uradal Glen was so deep-cut, that I could not see into it, so I moved west, and struck the Myrdaltrack, well to the north of Snosson. After that I fetched a circuit behind Snosson, and had a good view of the house from the distance of about half a mile. Two of its chimneys were smoking, and there were sounds of farm work from the yard. There was no sign of livestock, but it looked as if someone was repairing the sheds against the summer season. I waited for more than an hour, but I saw no human being, so I turned homeward, and made a careful descent, by the ravine, reconituring every corner, in case I should run into Newhover. I found that Godin had returned before me. When I asked him what luck he had had, he shook his head. I played the part of a very wee traveller, and asked for milk. An ugly woman gave me beer. She said she had no milk, till the cattle came up from the valleys. She would not talk, and she was deaf. She said an English heir had the ryper shooting, but lived in Tricycle. That is the name of the big farm, by the scar so. She would tell me no more, and I saw no other person. But I observed that Snassen is larger than I thought. There are rooms, built out at the back, which we thought were barns. There is ample space there for a man to be concealed. I asked him if he had any plan, and he said he thought of going boldly up next day and asking for Newhover, whom he could say he had seen passing Beter Boyer's cottage. He disliked the man, but had never openly quarreled with him. I approved of that, but in the meantime I resolved to do something on my own account that night. I was getting anxious, for I felt that my time was growing desperately short. It was now the twenty-fifth of April, and I was due back in London by the twenty-ninth, and if I failed to turn up, Medina would make inquiries at Fosse Manor and suspect. I had made up my mind to go alone that night to Snassen and do a little Pacific burgling. I set out about eleven, and put my pistol in my pocket, as well as my flask and sandwiches and electric torch, for it occurred to me that anything might happen. I made good going across the bridge and up the first part of the track, for I wanted to have as much time as possible for my job. My haste was nearly my undoing. For instead of reconaturing and keeping my ears open, I strode up the hill as if I had been walking to make a record. It was by the mercy of heaven that I was at a point, where an outjudding boulder made a sharp corner, when I was suddenly aware that someone was coming down the road. I flattened myself into the shadow, and saw Newhover. He did not see or hear me, for he too was preoccupied. He was descending at a good pace, and he must have started in a hurry, for he had no hat. His longish, blonde locks were all tousled, and his face seemed sharper than usual with anxiety. I wondered what on earth had happened, and my first notion was to follow him downhill. And then it occurred to me that his absence gave me a sovereign chance at Snasson. But if the household was a stir, there might be other travelers on the road, and it behoved me to go whirly. Now near the top of the ravine, just under the edge of the table-and, there was a considerable patch of wood, birches, juniper, and wind-blown pines. But there the torrent flowed in a kind of cup, after tumbling off the plateau and before hurtling itself down to the valley. Here it was possible to find an alternative road to the path, so I dived in, among the matted, hortle-berries and moss-covered boulders. I had not gone ten yards, before I realized that there was somebody or something else in the thicket. There was a sound of plunging ahead of me. Then the crack of a rotten log, then the noise of a falling stone. It might be a beast, but it struck me that no wild thing would move so awkwardly. Only human boots make that kind of clumsy slipping. If this was somebody from Snasson, what was he doing off the track? Could he be watching me? Well I proposed to do a little stalking on my own account. I got down on all fours, and crawled in cover in the direction of the sound. It was very dark there, but I could see a faint light where the scrub thinned round the stream. Soon I was at the edge of the yeasty water. The sounds had stopped, but suddenly they began again a little farther up, and there was a scuffle, as if part of the bank had given way. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be trying to cross. That would be a dangerous thing to do. For the torrent was wide and very strong. I crawled a yard or two upstream, and then in an open patch saw what was happening. A fallen pine made a crazy bridge to a great rock from which the rest of the current might conceivably be leaped. A man was kneeling on the bridge, and beginning to move along it. But as I looked, the rotten thing gave way, and the next I saw he was struggling in the foam. It was all the matter of a fraction of a second, and before I knew, I was leaning over the brink, and clutching at an arm. I gripped it, braced one leg against a rock, and hauled the owner close on to the edge, out of the main current. He seemed to have taken no hurt, for he found a foothold, and scarcely needed my help to scramble up beside me. Then, to my surprise, he went for me tooth and nail. It was like the assault of a wild beast, and its suddenness rolled me on my back. I felt hands on my throat, and grew angry, caught the wrist, and wrenched them away. I flung a leg over his back, and got uppermost. And after that, he was at my mercy. He seemed to realize it too, for he lay quite quiet, and did not struggle. "'What the double do you mean?' I said angrily. You'd have been drowned but for me, and then you tried to throttle me.' I got up my torch, and had a look at him. It was the figure of a slight man, dressed in rough home spun such as Norwegian farm lads wear. His face was shallow and pinched, and decorated with the most preposterous whippish beard. And his hair was cut roughly as if with garden shears. The eyes that looked up at me were as scared and wild as a dears. "'What the double do you mean?' I repeated. And then, to my surprise, he replied in English. "'Let me up,' he said. "'I'm too tired to fight. I'll go back with you.' He broke in on me. "'Don't worry, old chap,' I said soothingly. "'You're going back with me, but not to that infernal sader. We've met before, you know. You're Lord Mercott. And I saw you ride red prints last year at the house grind.' He was sitting up, staring at me like a ghost. "'Who are you? Oh, for God's sake, who are you?' Haney's my name. I live at Fawcay Manor in the Cotswolds. He once came to dine with us before the Hathrop Ball. "'Haney,' he repeated, stumblingly. "'I remember, I think. Remember Lady Haney. Yes, and Fawcay. It's on the road between.' He scrambled to his feet. "'Oh, sir, get me away. Days after me, the new devil with a long face, the man who first brought me here. I don't know what has happened to me, but I've been mad a long time, and I've only got sane in the last days. Then I remembered, and I ran away. But there after me—oh, quick, quick, let's hide!' "'See here, my lad,' I said, and took out my pistol. The first man that lays a hand on you, I shoot, and I don't miss. You're as safe now as if you were at home. But this is no place to talk, and I have the devil of a lot to tell you. I'm going to take you down with me to my lodging in the valley. But they're hunting for you, so we've got to go cannily. Are you fit to walk?' "'Well, do exactly as I tell you, and in an hour you'll be having a long drink,' and looking up timetables. I consider that journey back a creditable piece of piloting. The poor boy was underfed and shaking with excitement, but he stepped out gallantly, and obeyed me like a lamb. We kept off the track, so as to muffle our steps in grass, and took every corner, like scouts and reconnaissance. We met Newhover coming back, but we heard him a long way off, and were in good cover when he passed. He was hurrying as furiously as ever, and I could hear his labored breathing. After that we had a saved road over the meadow, but we crossed the bridge most circumspectly, making sure that there was no one in the landscape. About half past one I pushed open Gaudian's bedroom window, woke him, and begged him to forage for food and drink. "'Did you get into Snassen?' he asked sleepily. "'No, but I've found what we've been looking for. One of the three hostages is at this moment, sitting on your cabin box.' End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. OF THE THREE HOSTAGES. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Katie Payne. The Three Hostages by John Buckin. I return to servitude. We fed Merceau with tinned meats and biscuits and bottled beer, and he ate like a famished schoolboy. The odd thing was that his terror had suddenly left him. I suppose the sight of me, which had linked him up definitely with his past, had made him feel away for no more, and, once he was quite certain who he was, his natural courage returned. He got great comfort from looking at Gordian, and indeed I could not imagine a better sedative than a sight of that kind, wise old face. I lent him pyjamas, rubbed him down to prevent a chill from his ducking, put him in my bed, and had the satisfaction of seeing him slip off at once into deep slumber. Next morning Gordian and I interviewed Peter Bowyer, and explained that a young English friend of ours had had an accident, while on a walking tour, and might be with us for a day or two. It was not likely that Newover would advertise his loss, and in any case Peter was no gossip, and Gordian, who had known him for years, let him see that we wanted the fact of a guest being with us kept as quiet as possible. The boy slept till nearly midday, while I kept a watch on the road. Newover appeared early, and went down to Myrtle Village, where he spent the better part of the forenoon. He was probably making inquiries, but they were bound in his own interest to be discrete ones. Then he returned to Trussell, and later I saw a dejected figure tramping up the snus and track. He may have thought that the body of the fugitive was in some pool of the torrent, or being swelled down by the scar so to the sea, and I imagined that that scarcely fitted in with his instructions. When Merceau awoke at last, and had his breakfast, he looked a different lad. His eyes had lost their fright, and though he stuttered badly, and seemed to have some trouble in collecting his wits, he had obviously taken hold of himself. His great desire was to get clean, and that took some doing, for he could not have had a bath for weeks. Then he wanted to borrow my razor and shave his beard, but I managed to prevent him in time, for I had been thinking the thing out, and I saw that that would never do. So far as I could see, he had recovered his memory, but there were still gaps in it. That is to say, he remembered all his past perfectly well till he left Oxford on February 17th, and he remembered the events of the last few days, but between the two points he was still hazy. On returning to his rooms that February evening, he had found a note about a horse he was trying to buy, an urgent note asking him to come round at once to certain stables. He had just time for this, before dressing for dinner, so he dashed out of the house, meeting nobody as it chanced on the stairs, and, as the night was foggy, being seen by no one in the streets. After that, his memory was a blank. He had wakened in a room in London, which he thought was a nursing home, and had seen a doctor, I could picture that doctor, and had gone to sleep again. After that, his recollection was like a black knight studded with little points of light which were physical sensations. He remembered being very cold, and sometimes very tired. He recollected the smell of paraffin, and of mouldy hay, and of a trickily drink which made him sick. He remembered faces too, a cross-old woman who cursed him, a man who seemed to be always laughing, and whose laugh he feared more than curses. I suppose that Medina's spell must have been wearing thin during these last days, and that the keeper, Jason, or whoever he was, could not revive it. For Murso had begun to see Jason no longer as a terror, but as an offence, an underbred young bounder whom he detested. And with this clearing of the foreground came a lightning of the background. He saw pictures of his life at Alcester, at first as purely objective things, but soon as in some way connected with himself. Then longing started, passionate longing for something which he knew was his own. It was a short step from that to the realization that he was Lord Murso, though he happened to be clad like a tramp and was as dirty as a stoker. And then he proceeded to certain halting deductions. Something bad had happened to him. He was in a foreign land, which land he didn't know. He was being ill-treated and kept prisoner. He must escape and get back to his old happy world. He thought of escape quite blindly without any plan. If only he could get away from that accursed cedar, he would remember better. Things would happen to him. Things would come back to him. Then Jason went and Newover came. And Newover drove him half crazy with fear, for the doctor's face was in some extraordinary way mixed up with his confused memory of the gaps between the old world and the new. He was mad to escape now, but rather to escape from Newover than to reach anywhere. He watched for his chance and found it about eight o'clock the evening before, when the others in the house were at supper. Some instinct had led him towards myrtle. He had heard footsteps behind him and had taken to the thicket. I appeared, an enemy as he thought, and he had despairingly flung himself on me. Then I had spoken his name, and that fixed the wavering panorama of his memory. He came to himself literally, and was now once more the undergraduate of Christchurch, rather shell-shocked and jumpy, but quite sane. The question which worried me was whether the cure was complete, whether Newover could act as Medina's deputy and resurrect the spell. I did not believe that he could, but I wasn't certain. Anyhow it had to be risked. Mercer repeated his request for the loan of my razor. He was smoking a Turkish cigarette as if every whiff took him nearer Elysium. Badly shorn, ill-clad, and bearded as he was, he had still the ghost of the air of the well-to-do, sporting young men. He wanted to know when the steamer sailed, but there seemed no panic now in his impatience. Look here, I said. I don't think you can start just yet. There's a lot I want to tell you now you're able to hear it. I gave him a rough summary of McGillivray's story, and the tale of the three hostages. I think he found it comforting to know that there were others in the same hole as himself. By Jove, he said, what a damnable business! And I'm the only one you've got on the track of. No word of the girl and the little boy? No word. Poor devils, he said, but I do not think he really took in the situation. So you see how we are placed. McGillivray's round-up is fixed for the 10th of June. We dared to release the hostages till the 9th, for otherwise the gang would suspect. They have everything ready, as I've told you, for their own liquidation. Also we can't release one without the others unless by the 9th of June we have given up hope of the others. Do you see what I mean? He didn't. All I want is to get home in double-quick time, he said. I don't wonder, but you must see that that is impossible unless we chuck in our hand. He stared at me, and I saw Fright beginning to return to his eyes. Do you mean that you want me to go back to that bloody place? That's what I mean. If you think it out, you'll see it's the only way. We must do nothing to spoil the chances of the other two. You're a gentleman, and are bound to play the game. But I can't, he cried. Oh my God, you can't ask me to. There were tears in his voice, and his eyes were wild. It's a good deal to ask, but I know you will do it. There's not a scrap of danger now. For you have got back your memory, and you know where you are. It's up to you to play a game with your jailer. He is the dupe now. You fill the part of the half-witted farm-boy, and laugh at him all the time in your sleeve. Hey, a Gordian will be waiting down here to keep an eye on you. And when the time is ripe, and it won't be more than five weeks, I give you full permission to do anything you like with Dr. Newover. I can't, I can't! He wailed, and his jaw dropped like a scared child. Then Gordian spoke. I think we had better leave the subject for the present. Good Merceau will do precisely what he thinks right. You have sprung the thing on him too suddenly. I think it might be a good plan if you went for a walk, Hanne. Try the south side of the Fos, there's some very pretty scrambling to be had there. He spoke to me at the door. The poor boy is all in pieces. You cannot ask him for a difficult decision when his nerves are still raw. Will you leave him with me? I have had some experience in dealing with such cases. When I got back for supper, after a climb which exercised every muscle in my body, I found Gordian teaching Merceau a new patience game. We spent a very pleasant evening, and I noticed that Gordian led the talk to matters in which the boy could share, and made him speak of himself. We heard about his racing ambitions, his desire to ride in the Grand National, his hopes for his polo game. It appeared that he was destined for the guards, but he was to be allowed a year's travel when he left the varsity, and we planned out an itinerary for him. Gordian, who had been almost everywhere in the world, told him of places in Asia when no tourists had ever been, and where incredible sport was to be had in virgin forest, and I pitched him some yarns about those few districts of Africa which are still unspoiled. He got very keen, for he had a bit of the explorer in him, and asked modestly if we thought he could pull off certain plans we had suggested. We told him there was no doubt about it. It's not as tough a proposition as riding in the national, I said. When we had put him to bed, Gordian smiled as if well pleased. He has begun to get back his confidence, he said. He slept for twelve hours, and when he woke I had gone out, for I thought it better to leave him in Gordian's hands. I had to settle the business that day, for it was now the twenty-seventh. I walked down the fjord to Hauga and told Johan to be ready to start next morning. I asked him about the weather, which was still cloudless, and he stared at the sky and sniffed, and thought it would hold for a day or two. But rain is coming, he said, and wind, the noise of the fossils too loud. When I returned Gordian met me at the door. The boy has recovered, he said. He will speak to you himself. He is a brave boy, and will do a hard task well. It was a rather shy and self-conscious Merceau that greeted me. I'm afraid I behaved rather badly yesterday, sir. I was feeling a bit rattled, and I'm ashamed of myself, for I've always rather fancied my nerve. My dear chap, I said, you've been through enough to crack the nerve of a buffalo. I want to say that, of course, I'll do what you want. I must play the game by the others, that poor little boy, and I remember Miss Victor quite well. I once stayed in the same house with her. I'll go back to the cita when you give the word. Indeed, I'm rather looking forward to it. I promised to play the half-wit so that Dr. Newover will think me safe in the bag. All I ask is that you let me have my innings with him when the time comes. I've a big-ish score to settle. Indeed, I promise that. Look here, Merceau. If you don't mind my saying it, I think you're behaving uncommonly well. You're a gallant fellow. Oh, that's all right," he said, blushing. When do you want me to start? If it's possible, I'd like another night in a decent bed. You shall have it. Only tomorrow morning we shall accompany you to the prison door. You've got to gibber when you see Newover and pretend not to be able to give any account of your doings. I leave you to put up a camouflage. The next five weeks will be infernaly dull for you, but you must just shut your teeth and stick it out. Remember, Gordian will be down here all the time and in touch with your friends, and when the day comes you will take your instructions from him. And by the way, I'm going to leave you my pistol. I suppose you can keep it concealed, for Newover is not likely to search your pockets. Don't use it, of course, but it may be a comfort to you to know that you have it. He took it gladly. Don't be afraid I'll use it. What I'm keeping for Newover is the best hiding man ever had. He's a bit above my weight, but I don't mind that. Very early next morning we woke Merceau, and while the sky was turning from sapphire to turquoise, took our way through the hazy meadows and up the snazzen track. We left it at the summit, and fetched a circuit round by the back of the cedar, but first we made Merceau roll in the thicket till he had a very grubby face and plenty of twigs and dust in his untidy hair. Then the two of us shook hands with him, found a lair in a patch of juniper, and watched him go forward. A forlorn figure he looked in that cold half light as he approached the cedar door, but he was acting his part splendidly, for he stumbled with fatigue, dropped heavily against the door, and beat on it feebly. It seemed a long time till it opened, and then he appeared to shrink back in terror. The old woman cried out shrilly to summon someone from within, and presently Newover came out in a dressing gown. He caught Merceau by the shoulder and shook him, and that valiant soul behaved exactly like a lunatic, shielding his head and squealing like a rabbit. Finally we saw him dragged indoors. It was horrible to leave him like that, but I comforted myself with the thought of what Newover would be like in five weeks' time. We raced back to Peter Bowyer's, and after a hasty breakfast started off for Hauger. I settled with Gordian that he was to report any developments to me by cable, and I was to do the same to him. When the day of release was fixed, he was to go boldly up to Snasson and deal with the doctor as he liked, making sure that he could not communicate with Medina for a day or two. A motor-launch would be waiting at Myrtle to take the two to Stavanger, for I wanted him to see Merceau on board the English steamer. I arranged, too, that he should be supplied with adequate funds, for Merceau had not a penny. We pushed off at once, for I had to be at Flaxham in good time, and as the morning advanced I did not feel so sure of the weather. What wind we had had these last days had been mild breezes from the west, but now it seemed to be shifting more to the north and increasing environments. Down in that deep-cut fjord it was calm enough, but up on the crest of the table and on the northern shore I could see that it was blowing hard, for my glass showed me little torments of snow. Also it had suddenly got much colder. I made Johann force the pace, and early in the afternoon we were out of the shelter, of the rock walls in the inlet into which the fjord broadened. Here it was blowing fairly hard, and there was a stiff sea running. Flying squalls of rain beat down on us from the north, and for five minutes or so would shut out the view. It was a regular gusty April day, such as you find in spring salmon fishing in Scotland, and had my job been merely to catch the boat at Stavanger I should not have minded it at all. But there was no time for the boat, for in little more than twenty-four hours I had to meet Medina. I wondered if Archie Roylands had turned up. I wondered still more how an aeroplane was to make the return journey over these stormy leagues of sea. Presently the low-green lines of flaxen showed through the spray, and when Johann began to shape his course to the south-west for Stavanger I bade him go straight forward and land beyond the island. I told him I had a friend who was camping there, and that we were to be picked up in a day or two by an English yacht. Johann obviously thought me mad, but he did as he was told. There will be no one on the island yet, he said. The farmer from Rossmere does not come till June, when the hay-making begins. The winter pasture is poor and sour. That was all to the good, for I did not want any spectator of our madness. As we drew nearer I could see no sign of life on the low shore, except an infinity of Ida-ducks and a fine osprey which sat on a pointed rock like a heraldic griffin. I was watching the bird, for I had only seen an osprey twice before, when Johann steered me into a creek where there was deep water alongside a flat reef. This, he told me, was the ordinary landing place from the mainland. I flung my suitcase and rucksack on shore, said goodbye to Johann and tipped him well, and watched the little boat plowing south till it was hidden by a squall. Then, feeling every kind of a fall, I seized my baggage and proceeded, like Robin Crusoe, into the interior. It was raining steadily, a fine thin rain, and every now and then a squall would burst on me and ruffle the sea. Jolly weather for flying, I reflected, especially for flying over some hundreds of miles of ocean. I found the farm, a few rough wooden buildings and a thing like a stone cattle pen, but there was no sign of human life there. Then I got out my map and concluded that I had better make for the centre of the island, where there seemed to be some flat ground at one end of the lock. I was feeling utterly depressed, walking like a bagman with my kit in my hand in an uninhabited Norwegian isle and due in London the next evening, London seemed about as inaccessible in the time as the moon. When I got to the rim of the central hollow, there was a brief clearing of the weather and I looked down on a little grey tarn set in very green meadows. In the meadows at the north end, I saw to my joy what looked like an aeroplane picked it down and a thing like a small tent near it. Also I could see smoke curling up from a group of boulders adjoining. The gallant archie had arrived and my spirits lightened. I made good going down the hill and as I shouted a figure like an Arctic explorer crawled out of the tent. Hello, Dick. It cried. Any luck? Plenty, I said. And you? Famous. Got here last night after a clinking journey with the bus behaving like a lamb. Had an interest in evening with the birds. Lord, such a happy hunting ground for him. I've been doing sentry go on the tops all morning looking for you, but the weather got dirty so I returned to the wigwam. Lunch is nearly ready. What about the weather? I asked anxiously. Pass a bit, he said, sniffing. The wind is pretty sure to go down a sunset. Do you mind a night journey? Archie's imperturbable good humor cheered me enormously. I must say he was a born campaigner for he had made himself very snug and gave me as good a meal as I've ever eaten. A hot stew of tin stuff and curry, a plum pudding and an assortment of what he called delicatessen. To keep out the cold we drank Benedictine in horned mugs. He could talk about nothing but his blessed birds and announced that he meant to come back to flax him and camp for a week. He had seen a special variety, some kind of phallorope that fairly ravished his heart. When I asked questions about the journey ahead of us he scarcely deigned to answer so busy he was with speculation on the feathered fauna of Norway. Archie, I said, are you sure you can get me across the North Sea? I'll say sure, there's always a lottery in this game but with any luck we ought to manage it. The wind will die down and beside it's a ground wind and maybe quiet enough a few hundred feet up. We'll have to shape a compass course anyhow so that darkness won't worry us. What about the machine? I asked. I don't know why but I felt horribly nervous. A beauty, but of course you never know if we were driven much out of our straight course our petrol might run short. What would that mean? Forced landing. But supposing we hadn't reached land? Oh, then we'd be for it, said Archie cheerfully. He added as if to console me. We might be picked up by a pass in steamer or efficient smack. I've known fellows that had that luck. What are the chances of our getting over safely? Evens. Never better or worse than evens in this flying business but it will be all right. Dash it all. A woodcock makes the trip constantly in one flight. After that I asked no more questions for I knew I could not get in past the woodcock. I was not feeling happy but Archie's calm put me to shame. We had a very good tea and then sure enough the wind began to die down and the clouds opened to show clear sky. It grew perishingly cold and I was glad of every stitch of clothing and envied Archie his heavy skin coat. We were already about nine and in a dead calm cast loose taxied over a stretch of turf rose above the locks so as to clear the hill and turned our faces to the west which was like a shell of gold closing down upon the molten gold of the sea. Luck was with us that night and all my qualms were belied. Apart from the cold which was savage I enjoyed every moment of the trip till in the early dawn we saw a crawling black line beneath us which was the coast of Aberdeen. We filled up with petrol at a place in King Cardine and had an enormous breakfast at the local hotel. Everything went smoothly and it was still early in the day when I found we were crossing the Cheviots. We landed at York about noon and while Archie caught the London train I got my car from the garage and started for Oxford. But first I wired to Mary asking her to wire to Medina in my name that I would reach London by the 715. I had a pleasant run south, left the car at Oxford and duly emerged on the platform at Paddington to find Medina waiting for me. His manner was almost tender. My dear fellow, I hope you are better. Perfectly fit again, thank you, ready for anything. You look more sunburned than when you left town. It's the wonderful weather we've had. I've been lying basking on the veranda. End of Chapter 12 I Returned to Servitude Recording by Katie Payne Chapter 13, Part 1 of the Three Hostages This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 13, I visit the fields of Eden. There was a change in Medina. I noticed it in the following day when I lunched with him and very particularly at the next dinner of the Thursday club to which I went as his guest. It was a small change, which nobody else would have remarked, but to me, who was watching him like a lynx, it was clear enough. His ease of manner towards the world was a little less perfect and when we are alone, he was more silent than before. I did not think that he had begun to suspect any danger to his plans, but the day for their consummation was approaching and even his cold assurance may have been flawed by little quivers of nervousness. As I saw it, once the big liquidation took place and he realized the assets which were to be the foundation of his main career, it mattered little what became of the hostages. He might let them go. They would wander back to their old world unable to give any account of their absence and if the story got out there would be articles in the medical journals about these unprecedented cases of lost memory. So far I was certain that they had taken no lasting harm, but if the liquidation failed, God knew what their fate would be. They would never be seen again, for if his possession of them failed to avert disaster to his plans, he would play for safety and above all for revenge. Revenge to a mind like his would be a consuming passion. The fact that I had solved one conundrum and laid my hand on one of the hostages put me in a perfect fever of restlessness. Our time was very short and there were still two poor souls hidden in his black underworld. It was the little boy I thought most of and perhaps my preoccupation with him made me stupid about other things. My thoughts were always on the blind spinner and there I could not advance one single inch. Mount Gilverie's watchers had nothing to report. It was no use me paying another visit to Madame Brada and going through the same rig of my role. I could only stick to Medina and pray for luck. I had resolved that if he asked me again to take up my quarters with him in Hill Street, I would accept, though it might be hideously awkward in a score of ways. I longed for Sandy, but no word came from him and I had to strict injunctions not to try and reach him. The only friend I saw in those early days of May was Archie Roylands, who seemed to have forgotten his scotch-green shanks and settled down in London for the season. He started playing polo, which was not a safe game for a man with a crocked leg, and he opened his house in Grovesner Street and roosted in a corner of it. He knew I was busy in a big game and he was mad to be given a share in it, but I had to be very careful with Archie. He was the best fellow alive, but discretion had never been his strong point. So I refused to tell him anything at present, and I warned Turpin, who was an ancient friend of his, to do the same. The three of us dined together one night and for old Turpin was rallied by Archie on his glumness. You're a doleful bird, you know, he told him. I heard somewhere you were going to be married and I expect that's the cause. What do you call it? Ranger yourself? Cheer up, my son. It can't be as bad as it sounds. Look at Dick there. I switched him on to other subjects and we got his opinion on the modern stage. Archie had been doing a course of plays and had very strong views on the drama. Something had got to happen, he said, or he fell asleep in the first act and something very rarely happened, so he was left to slumber peacefully until he was awakened and turned out by the attendants. He liked plays with shooting in them and a knock about farce, anything indeed with a noise in it. But he had struck a vein of serious drama which he had found so horrific. One piece in a speciale which showed the difficulties of a lady of 50 who fell in love with her step sonny, he seriously reprobated. Rotten, he complained. What did it matter to anyone what the old cat did? But I assure you, every one round we was gloating over it. A fellow said to me it was a masterpiece of tragic irony. What's irony, Dick? I thought it was the tone your commanding officer adopted when you had made an ass of yourself and he showed it by complimenting you on your intelligence. Oh, by the way, you remember that girl in green we saw at that dancing place? Well, I saw her at the show, at least I'm pretty sure it was her, in a box with a black bearded fellow. She didn't seem to be taking much of it in. Wonder who she is and what she's doing there? Russian, do you think? I believe the silly play was translated from the Russian. I want to see that girl dance again. The next week was absolutely blank, except for my own perpetual worrying. Medina kept me close to him and I had to relinquish any idea of going down to Fosse for an occasional night. I longed badly for the place and for a sight of Peter John and Mary's letters didn't comfort me for they were getting scrappier and scrappier. My hope was that Medina would act on Carama's advice in order to establish his power over his victims, bring them into the open and exercise it in the environment to which they had been accustomed. That wouldn't help me with a little boy but it might give me a line on Miss Victor. I rather hoped that at some ball I would see him insisting on some strange woman dancing with him or telling her to go home or something and then I would have caused a suspect but no such luck. He never spoke to a woman in my presence who wasn't somebody perfectly well known. I began to think that he had rejected the Indians advice as too dangerous. Carama, more by token, was back in town and Medina took me to see him again. The fellow had left clerages and was living in a little house in Eaton Place. Away from the glitter of a big hotel he looked even more sinister and damnable. We went there one evening after dinner and found him squatting on the usual couch in a room lit by one lamp and fairly stinking with odd scents. He seemed to have shed his occidental dress for he wore flowing robes and I could see his beastly bare feet under the skirts of them when he moved to rearrange a curtain. They took no more notice of me than if I had been a grandfather's clock and to my disgust they conducted the whole conversation in some eastern tongue. I gathered nothing from it except a deduction as to Medina's state of mind. There was an unmistakable hint of nervousness in his voice. He seemed to be asking urgent questions and the Indian was replying calmly and soothingly. By and by Medina's voice became quieter and suddenly I realized that the two were speaking of me. Carama's heavy eyes were raised for a second in my direction and Medina turned ever so little towards me. The Indian asked some question about me and Medina replied carelessly with a shrug of his shoulders and a slight laugh. The laugh rest my temper. He was evidently saying that I was packed up and sealed and safe on the shelf. That visit didn't make me feel happier and next day when I had a holiday from Medina's company I had nothing better to do than to wander about London and think dismal thoughts. Yet as luck would have it that aimless walk had its consequences. It was a Sunday and on the edge of Battersea Park I encountered a forlorn little company of salvationists conducting a service in the rain. I stopped to listen. I always do. For I am the eternal average man who is bound to halt at every street show whether it be a motor accident or a punch in Judy. I listened to the tail end of an address from a fat man who looked like a reformed publican and a few words from an earnest lady in spectacles. Then they sang a hymn to a trombone accompaniment and lo and behold it was my old friend which I at last whistled in Tom Greensdale's bedroom at Fosse. There is rest for the weary. They sang on the other side of Jordan in the green fields of Eden where the tree of life is blooming. There is rest for you. I joined heartily in the singing and contributed two half-crowns to the collecting box for somehow the things seemed to be a good omen. I had been rather neglecting that item in the puzzle that evening and that evening and during the night I kept turning it over till my brain was nearly addled where the sower casts his seed in furrows of the fields of Eden. That was the version in the rhyme and in Tom Greenslade's recollection the equivalent was a curiosity shop in North London kept by a Jew with a dyed beard. Surely the two must correspond though I couldn't just see how. The other two items had panned out so well that it was reasonable to suppose that the third might do the same. I could see no light and finally I dropped off to sleep with a blessed fields of Eden twittering about in my head. I awoke with the same obsession but other phrases had added themselves to it. One was the playing fields of Etton about which some fellow had said something and for a moment I wondered if I hadn't got hold of the right trail. Etton was a school for which Peter John's name was down and therefore it had to do with boys and might have to do with David Workleth. But after breakfast I gave up that line for it led nowhere. The word was Eden to rhyme with seed in. There were other fields haunting me names like Tothill Fields and Bunhill Fields. These were places in London and that was what I wanted. The directories showed no name like that of Fields of Eden. But was it not possible that there had once in all days been a place called by that odd title? I spent the morning in the club library which was a very good one reading up Old London. I read all about Voxel Gardens and Renla and Cremorn and a dozen other ancient haunts of pleasure but I found nothing to my purpose. Then I remembered that Bolavant, Lord Artenswell had had for one of his hobbies a study of bygone London. So I telephoned to him and invited myself to lunch. He was very pleased to see me and it somehow comforted me to find myself again in the house of Queen Anne's Gate where I had spent some of the most critical moments of my life. You've taken on the work I wrote to you about, he said. I knew you would. How are you getting on? So, so. It is a big job and there is very little time. I want to ask you a question. You're an authority on Old London. Tell me, did you ever come across in your researches the name of the Fields of Eden? He shook his head. Not that I remember. What part of London? I fancy it would be somewhere north of Oxford Street. He considered. No. What is your idea? A name of some private gardens or place of amusement? Yes, just like Cremorne or Vauxhall. I don't think so, but we'll look it up. I have a good collection of old maps and plans and some antique directories. So after luncheon, we repaired to the library and set to work. The map showed nothing nor did the books at first. We were searching too far back in the 17th and early 18th centuries when you went fox hunting in what is now Regent's Park and Tiber and Gallo stood near the marble arch. Then by sheer luck, I tried to cast near our own time and found a ribbed work belonging to about the date of the American War which purported to be a countryman's guide to the amusement of town. There was all sorts of information about cider sellers and groves of harmony which must have been pretty low pubs and places in the suburbs for cock fighting and dog fighting. I turned up the index and there to my joy I saw the word Eden. I read the passage aloud and I believe my hands were shaking. The place was, as I hoped, north of Oxford Street in what we now call Marlebin. The fields of Eden said the book were opened by Mr. Esquieu as a summer resort for the gentlemen and sportsmen of the capital. There of a fine afternoon may be seen Lord A and the Duke of B roving among the shady if miniature groves not unaccompanied by the fair nymphs of the garden. While from some adjacent arbors comes the cheerful tinkle of glasses and the merry clatter of dice and the harmonious strains of Signoria F's Italian choir. There was a good deal more of it but I stopped reading. There was a plan of London in the book and from it I was able to plot out the boundaries of that doubtful paradise. Then I got a modern map and fixed the location on it. The place had been quite small, only a few acres and today it was covered by the block defined by Wellesley Street, Epithlane, Little Fartle Street and the muse behind Royston Square. I wrote this down in my notebook and took my leave. You look pleased, Dick. Have you found what you want? Curious that I never heard the name but it seems to have belonged to the dullest part of London at the dullest period of its history. Lord Artenswell, I could see was a little netled for your antiquary hates to be caught out in his own subject. I spent the rest of the afternoon making a very thorough examination of a not very interesting neighborhood. What I wanted was a curiosity shop and at first I thought I was going to fail. Epithlane was a kind of slum with no shops but a disreputable foreign chemists and a small dirty confectioners around the corner of which dirty little children played. The inhabitants seemed to be chiefly foreigners. The muse at the back of Royston Square were of course useless. It was long since any dweller in that square had kept a carriage and they seemed to be occupied chiefly with the motor vans of esteem laundry and the lorries of a coal merchant. Wellesley Street, at least a part of it in my area was entirely occupied with the showrooms of various American automobile companies. Little Fartle Street was a curious place. It had one odd building which may have been there when the fields of Eden flourished which now seemed to be a furniture repository of the sort with most of the windows shuttered. The other houses were perhaps 40 years old. Most of them in the offices of small wholesale businesses such as you would find in the back streets in the city. There was one big French baker's shop at the corner, a picture framer's, a watchmaker's and a small and obviously decaying opticians. I walked down the plane twice and my heart sank for I could see nothing in the least resembling an antique shop. I patrolled the street once more and then I observed that the old dwelling which looked like a furniture depository was also some kind of shop. Through a dirty lower window I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be Persian rugs and the bland face of a soapstone idol. The door had the air of never having been used but I tried it and it opened, tinkling a bell far in the back premises. I found myself in a small dusty place littered up like a lumber room with boxes and carpets and rugs and bric-a-brac. Most of the things were clearly antiques though to my inexpert eye they didn't look worth much. The Turkmen rugs especially were the kind of thing you can buy anywhere in the Levant by the dozen. A disheveled Jewess confronted me wearing sham diamond earrings. I'm interested in antiques, I said pleasantly taking off my hat to her. May I look round? We do not sell to private customers, she said, only to the trade. I'm sorry to hear that, but may I look round? If I fancied something I dare say I could get some dealer I know to offer for it. She made no answer but fingered her earrings with her plump grubby hands. I turned over some of the rugs and carpets and my first impression was confirmed. They were mostly trash and a lacquer cabinet I uncovered was a shameless fake. I like that, I said pointing to a piece of Persian embroidery. Can't you put a price on it for me? We only sell to the trade, she repeated as if it were a litany. Her beady eyes which never left my face were entirely without expression. I expect you have a lot of things upstairs, I said. Do you think I might have a look at them? I'm only in London for the day and I might see something I badly wanted. I quite understand that you are wholesale people but I can arrange any purchase through a dealer. You see, I'm furnishing a country house. For the first time her face showed a certain life. She shook her head vigorously. We have no more stock at present. We do not keep a large stock. Things come in and go out every day. We only sell to the trade. Well, I'm sorry to have taken up your time. Good afternoon. As I left the shop I felt that I had made an important discovery. The business was bogus. There is very little that any dealer would touch and the profits from all the trade done would not keep the proprietor in Virginia in cigarettes. I paid another visit to the neighborhood after dinner. The only sign of life was in the slums of Apweth Lane where frowsy women were chattering on the curb. Wellesley Street was shuttered and silent from end to end. So was Little Fardle Street. Not a soul was about in it. Not a ray of light was seen at any window. In the midst of the din of London it made a little enclave like a graveyard. I stopped at the curiosity shop and saw that the windows were heavily shuttered and that the flimsy old door was a strong outer frame of iron which fitted into a groove at the edge of the pavement and carried a stout lock. The shutters on the ground floor windows were substantial things. Preposterously substantial for so worthless a show. As I looked at them I had a strong feeling that the house beside the palisade was not as dead as it looked. That somewhere inside it there was life. And that in the night things happened there which it concerned me tremendously to know. The next morning I went to see McGilvery. Can you lend me a first class burglar I asked? Only for one night. Some fellow who won't ask any questions and will hold his tongue. I've given up being surprised when you're about he said. No, we don't keep tame burglars here but I can find you a man who knows rather more about the art than any professional. Why? Simply because I want to get inside a certain house tonight and I see no chance of doing it except by breaking it. I suppose you could so arrange it that a neighbouring policeman would not interfere. In fact, I want them to help to keep the coast clear. I went to the details with him and showed him the lie of the land. He suggested trying the back of the house but I had reconciled that side and seen that it was impossible for the building seemed to join on with the houses in the street behind. In fact, there was no back door. The whole architecture was extremely odd and I had a notion that the entrance to the castle street might itself be a back door. I told McGilvery that I wanted an expert who could let me in by one of the ground floor windows and replace everything so that there should be no trace next morning. He rang a bell and asked for Mr. Able to be sent for. Mr. Able was summoned and presently appeared a small, wisened man like a country tradesman. McGilvery explained what was required of him and Mr. Able nodded. It was a job offered no difficulties he said to an experienced man. He would suggest that he investigated the place immediately after closing time and began work about ten o'clock. If I arrived at ten thirty he promised to have a mean of entrance prepared. He inquired as to who were the constables at the nearest points and asked that certain special ones should be put on duty with whom he would arrange matters. I never saw anyone approach what seemed to me to be a delicate job just like assurance. Do you want anyone to accompany you inside? McGilvery asked. I said no. I thought I had better explored the place alone but I wanted somebody within call in case there was trouble and of course if I didn't come back say within two hours he had better come and look for me. We may have to arrest you as a housebreaker he said. How are you going to explain your presence if there's nothing wrong indoors and you disturb the sleep of a respectable caretaker? I must take my chance, I said. I didn't feel nervous about that point. The place would either be empty or occupied by those who would not invite the aid of the police. End of Chapter 13 Part 1 Chapter 13 Part 2 of the Three Hostages This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org After dinner I changed into an old tweet suit and rubber-soled shoes and as I sat in the taxi I began to think that I had entered too lightly on the evening's business. How was that little man able to prepare an entrance without alarming the neighborhood even with the connivance of the police and if I found anybody inside what on earth was I to say? There was no possible story to account for a clandestine entry into somebody else's house and I had suddenly a vision of the earing Jewish screeching in the night and my departure for the cells in the midst of a crowd of hooligans from Aplith Lane. Even if I found something very shady indoors it would only be shady in my own mind in connection with my own problem and would be alright in the eyes of the law. It was not likely to hit on anything patently criminal and even if it did. How was I to explain my presence there? I suffered from a bad attack of cold feet I would have checked the business there and then but for that queer feeling at the back of my head that it was my duty to risk it that if I turned back I should be missing something of tremendous importance. But I can tell you I was feeling far from happy when I dismissed the taxi at the corner of Royston Square and turned into Little Fartle Street. It was a dark cloudy evening threatening rain and the place was none too brilliantly lit but to my disgust I saw opposite the door of the Curiosity Shop a brazier of hot coals and the absurd little shelter which means that part of the street is up. There was the usual roped-in enclosure decorated with red lamps a heap of debris and a hole where some of the sets have been lifted. Here was bad luck with the vengeance that the borough council should have chosen this place and moment of all others for investigating the drains and yet I had a kind of shame faced feeling of relief. For this put the lid on my enterprise I wonder why MacGilvery had not contrived the thing better. I found I had done him an injustice it was the decorous face of Mr. Abel which regarded me out of the dingy penthouse. This seemed to me the best plan, sir he said respectfully it enables me to wait for you here without exciting curiosity I've seen the men on point duty and it's all right in that quarter this street is quiet enough and taxis don't use it as a shortcut you'll find the door open the windows might have been difficult but I had to look at the door first and that big iron frame is a piece of bluff the bolt on the lock runs into the sidebar of the frame but the frame itself is secured to the wall by another much smaller lock which you can only detect by looking closely I've opened that for you quite easily done but the other door, the shop door opened I found it unlocked he said with the ghost of a grin whoever uses this place after closing hours doesn't want to make much noise the bell is disconnected you have only to push it open and walk in events were forcing me against all my inclinations to go forward if anyone enters when I am inside I begin you will hear the sound and must take measures accordingly on the whole, sir I am inclined to think that there is something wrong with the place you are armed? no, that is as well your position is unauthorized as one would say and arms might be compromising if you hear me cry I will come to your help if you do not return within shall we say 2 hours I will make an entrance along with the nearest constable the unlocked door will give us a pretext and if I come out in a hurry I have thought of that if you have a fair start there is room for you to hide here and you jerk just thumb towards the penthouse if you are hard pressed I will manage to impede the pursuit the little man's calm matter of factness put me on my metal I made sure that the street was empty open the iron frame and push through the shop door closing it softly behind me the sharp was as dark as the inside of a nut not a crack of light coming through the closely shuttered windows I felt very eerie as I tiptoed cautiously among the rugs and tables I listened but there was no sound of any kind either from within or without so I switched on my electric torch and waited breathlessly still no sound or movement the conviction grew upon me that the house was uninhabited and with a little more confidence I started out to explore the place did not extend far to the back as I had believed very soon I came upon a dead wall against which every kind of litter was stacked and that way progress was stopped the door by which the US had entered lay to the right and that led me into a little place like a kitchen with a sink a cupboard or two a gas fire and in the corner a bed the kind of lair which a caretaker occupies in a house to let I made out a window rather high up in the wall but I could discover no other entrance save that by which I had come so I returned to the shop and tried the passage to the left here at first I found nothing but locked doors obviously cupboards but there was one open and my torch showed me that it contained a very steep flight of stairs the kind of thing that in old houses leads to the attics I tried the boards for I feared that they would creak and I discovered that all the treads had been renewed I can't say I liked diving into that box but there was nothing else for it to open up at the top I found a door and I was just about to try to open it when I heard steps on the other side I stood rigid in that narrow place wondering what was to happen next the man, it was a man's foot came up to the door and to my consternation turned the handle had he opened it I would have been discovered for he had a light and lord knows what a mix-up would have followed but he didn't he tried the handle and then turned a key in the lock after that I heard him move away this was fairly discouraging for it appeared that I was now shut off from the rest of the house when I had waited for a minute or two for the coast to clear I too tried the handle expecting to find it fast to my surprise the door opened the man had not locked it but unlocked it this could mean only one of two things either he intended himself to go out by this way later or he expected someone and wanted to let him in from that moment I recovered my composure my interest was excited there was a game to play and something to be done I looked round the passage in which I found myself and saw the explanation of the architecture which had puzzled me the old building in little fardo street was the nearest slip only a room thick and it was plastered against a much more substantial and much newer structure in which I now found myself the passage was high and broad and heavily carpeted and I saw electric fittings at each end this alarmed me for if anyone came along and switched on the light there was not cover to hide a cockroach I considered that the boldest plan would be the safest so I tiptoed to the end and saw another passage equally bare going off at right angles this was no good so I brazenly assaulted the door of the nearest room thank heaven it was empty so I could have a reconaturing base it was a bedroom well furnished in the warring and guillo style into my horror I observed that it was a women's bedroom it was a women's dressing table I saw with big hairbrushes and augments of scents and powders there was wardrobe with a door ajar full of hanging dresses the occupant had been there quite lately for wraps had been flung on the bed and a pair of slippers laid by the dressing table as if they had been kicked off hurriedly the place put me into the most abject fright I seemed to have burgled a respectable flat and landed in a ladies bedroom I looked forward to some appalling scandal which it would never be hushed up little able roosting in his penthouse seemed to have a haven of refuge separated from me by leagues of obstacles I had reckoned I had better get back to him as soon as possible and I was just starting when that happened which made me stop short I had left the room door ajar when I entered and of course I had switched over after the first look round I had been in utter darkness but now I saw a light in the passage it might be the confounded woman who owned the bedroom and my heart went into my boots then I saw that the passage lights had not been turned on and that whoever was there had a torch like me the footsteps were coming by the road I had come myself could it be the man for whom the staircase door had been unlocked it was a man all right and whatever his errand it was not with my room I watched him through the crack left by the door and saw his figure pass it was someone in a hurry who walked swiftly and quietly and beyond the fact that he wore a dark coat with a collar turned up and a black soft hat I could make out nothing the figure went down into the corridor and at the end seemed to hesitate then it turned into a room on the left and appeared there was nothing to do but wait and happily I had not to wait long for I was becoming pretty nervous the figure reappeared carrying something in its hand and as it came towards me I had a glimpse of its face I recognized it at once as that of the gray melancholy man whom I had seen the first night in Medina's house when I was coming out of my stupor for some reason or another that face had become stamped on my memory and I had been waiting to see it again it was sad for Lorne and yet in a curious way pleasant anyhow there was nothing repellent in it but he came from Medina and at that thought every scrap of hesitation and funk fled from me I had been right in my instinct this place was Medina's it was the fields of Eden of the Rhine a second ago I had felt a futile blunderer he passed my door and turned on the passage which ran at right angles I stepped after him and saw the light halt at the staircase door and then disappear my first impulse was to follow tackle him in the shop and get the truth out of him but I at once discarded that notion which would have given the whole show away my business was to make further discoveries I must visit the room which had been the object of his visit I was thankful to be out of that bedroom in the passage I listened there was no sound anywhere there was indeed a sound of the air but it appeared to come from the outer world a sound like an organ or an orchestra a long way off I concluded that there must be a church somewhere near where the choir boys were practicing the room I entered was a very queer place it looked partly like a museum partly like an office and partly like a library the curiosity shop had been full of rubbish but I could see at a glance that there was no rubbish here there were some fine Italian plaques I knew something about these for Mary collected them and a set of green Chinese jars which looked like the real thing also there was a picture which seemed good enough to be a habema for the rest there were several safes of most substantial make but there were no papers lying about and every drawer of a big writing table was locked I had not the wherewithal of the safes and the table even if I had wanted to I was certain that the most valuable information lurked somewhere in that place but I did not see how I could get at it I was just about to leave when I realized the sound of music which I had heard in the passage was much louder here it was no choir boys practicing but strictly secular music apparently fiddles and drums and the rhythm suggested a dance this odd building about on a dance hall I looked at my watch and saw that it was scarcely 11 and that had only been some 20 minutes indoors I was now in a mood of almost full hearty confidence so I determined to do a little more research the music seemed to come from somewhere on the left the windows of the room so far as I could judge must look into Wellesley Street which showed me how I had misjudged that thoroughfare and I was in the room all tucked in among the automobile shops anyhow I wanted to see what lay beyond the room for there must be an entrance to it other than by the curiosity shop sure enough I found the door between the two bookcases covered with a heavy portier and emerged into still another passage here the music sounded louder and I seemed to be in a place like those warrens behind the stage in a theater where rooms are all kinds of shapes the door at the end was locked and another door which I opened gave on a flight of wooden steps I did not want to descend just yet so I tried another door and then shut it softly for the room it opened upon was lighted and I had the impression of human beings not very far off also the music as I opened the door came out in a great swelling volume of sound I stood for a moment hesitating and then I opened that door again for I had a notion that the light within did not come from anything in the room I found myself in a little empty chamber dusty and cheerless like one of those cubby holes you see in the strand where the big plate glass front window reaches higher than the shop and there was a space between the ceiling and the next floor all one side was made of glass in which a casement was half open and through the glass came the glare of a hundred lights far beyond very gingerly I moved forward till I could look down on what was happening below for the last few seconds I think I had known what I was going to see it was the dancing club which I had visited some weeks before with Archie Roylands there were the sham Chinese decorations the blaze of lights the nigger band the whole garish spectacle only the place was far more crowded than on my previous visit after and talk which rose from it added a further discord to the ugly music but there was a fierce ruckus gaiety about it an overpowering sense of something which might be vulgar but was also alive and ardent where on the skirts of the hall was the usual restockier crowd of men and women drinking liqueurs and champagne and mixed with fat Jews and blue back daggers the flesh face of boys from a barracks or college who imagined they were seeing life I thought for a moment that I saw Archie but it was only one of Archie's kind whose lean red visage made a queer contrast with a dead white of the woman he sat by the dancing was madder and livelier than on the last occasion there was more vigor in the marionettes and I was bound to confess that they knew their trade little as I valued it all the couples were expert and when now and then a bungler barged in he did not stay long with the girl in green whom Archie had admired but there were plenty like her it was the men I most disliked pallid skeletons or puffy latins whose clothes fitted them too well and who were sometimes as heavily made up as the women one especially I singled out for violent disapproval it was a tall young man with a waist like a wasp a white face and hollow drug to eyes his lips were red like a chorus girls and I would have sworn that his cheeks were rouged anyhow he was a loathsome sight but ye gods he could dance there was no sign of animation in him so that he might have been a corpse galvanized by some infernal power and compelled to move through an everlasting dance of death I noticed that his heavy eyelids were never raised suddenly I got a bad shock for I realized that this mannequin was no other than my ancient friend the Marquis de la Tour Dupin I hadn't recovered from that when I got a worse he was dancing with a woman whose hair seemed to be too bright to be natural at first I could not see her face clearly for it was flattened against his chest but she seemed to be hideously and sparsely dressed she too knew how to dance and the slim grace of her body was conspicuous even in her vulgar clothes then she turned her face to me and I could see the vivid lips and the weary old pink and white enamel of her dress pretty too and then I had a shock which nearly sent me through the window for in this painted dancer I recognized the wife of my bosom and the mother of Peter John End of Chapter 13 Part 2