 CHAPTER 5 THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECTACLED ROADMAN I sat down on the very crest of the pass and took stock of my position. Behind me was the road, climbing through a long cleft in the hills which was the upper glen of some notable river. In front was a flat space of maybe a mile, all pitted with bog holes and rough with tussocks, and then beyond it the road fell steeply down another glen to a plain whose blue dimness melted into the distance. To left and right were round-shouldered green hills, the smoothest pancakes, but to the south, that is, the left hand, there was a glimpse of high heathery mountains which I remembered from the map as the big knot of hill which I had chosen for my sanctuary. I was on the central bus of a huge upland country and could see everything moving for miles. In the meadow below the road, half a mile back, a cottage smoked, but it was the only sign of human life, otherwise there was only the calling of plovers and the tinkling of little streams. It was now about seven o'clock, and as I waited I heard once again the ominous beat in the air. Then I realised that my vantage ground might in reality be a trap. There was no cover for a tom-tit in those bold green places. I sat quite still and hopeless while the beat grew louder. Then I saw an aeroplane coming up from the east. It was flying high, but as I looked it dropped several hundred feet and began to circle round the knot of hill in narrowing circles just as a hawk wheels before it pounces. Now it was flying very low, and now the observer on board caught sight of me. I could see one of the two occupants examining me through glasses. Suddenly it began to rise in swift whirls, and the next I knew it was speeding eastward again till it became a speck in the blue morning. That made me do some savage thinking. My enemies had located me, and the next thing would be a cordon around me. I didn't know what force they could command, but I was certain it would be sufficient. The aeroplane had seen my bicycle and would conclude that I would try to escape by the road. In that case there might be a chance on the moors to the right or left. I wheeled the machine a hundred yards from the highway and plunged it into a moss hole where it sank among pondweed and water-butter-cups. Then I climbed to a knoll which gave me a view of the two valleys. Nothing was stirring on the long white ribbon that threaded them. I've said there was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat. As the day advanced it was flooded with soft fresh light till it had the fragrant sunniness of the South African Velt. At other times I should have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate me. The free moorlands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the breath of a dungeon. I tossed a coin. Heads right, tails left. And it fell heads. So I turned to the north. In a little I came to the brow of the ridge which was the containing wall of the pass. I saw the high road for maybe ten miles and far down it something that was moving and that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a rolling green moor which fell away into woody glens. Now my life on the Velt has given me the eyes of a kite and I can see things for which most men need a telescope. Away down the slope a couple of miles away several men were advancing like a row of beaters at a chute. I dropped out of sight behind the skyline. That way was shut to me and I must try the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway. The car I had noticed was getting nearer, but it was still a long way off with some very steep gradients before it. I ran hard, crouching low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the brow of the hill before me. Was it imagination, or did I see figures, one, two, perhaps more, moving in a glen beyond the stream? If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only one chance of escape. You must stay in the patch and let your enemies search it and not find you. That was good sense, but how on earth was I to escape notice on that tablecloth of a place? I would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water or climbed the tallest tree, but there was not a stick of wood. These bulk holes were little puddles. The stream was a slender trickle. There was nothing but short heather and bare hill bent and the white highway. Then in a tiny bright of road beside a heap of stones I found the roadman. He had just arrived and was wearily flinging down his hammer. He looked at me with a fishy eye and yawned. Confund the day I ever left the herding, he said, as if to the world at large. There I was my own maester, knew I'm a slave to the government, tethered to the roadside with serene and black lacquer circle. He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement with an oath and put both hands to his ears. Merci on me, my heads bursting, he cried. He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a weak beard on his chin and a pair of big horn spectacles. A candidate, he cried again, the Serviaman just report me, I'm from my bed. I asked him what was the trouble, though indeed that was clear enough. The trouble is that I'm no sober. Last nick my Dr. Merrin was wuddit, and they danced till four in the bire. Me and some heathered cheels sit dune to the drinking, and here I am. Pity that I've a-lucked it in the wine when it was red. I agreed with him about bed. It's easy speaking, he moaned, but I got a post-carriage yesterday and saying that the new road surveyor would be round the day. He'll come and he'll no find me, or else he'll find me foo, and either way I'm a done man. I'll a-war back to my bed and say I'm no wheel, but I do that no help me, for they can my kind of no-wheel-ness. Then I had an inspiration. Does the new surveyor know you? I asked. No him. He's just been a week at the job. He runs about in a wee motor-car, and would spear the in-oot or a-welk. Where's your house? I asked, and was directed by a wavering finger to the cottage by the stream. Well, back to your bed, I said, and sleep in peace. I'll take on your job for a bit and see the surveyor. He stared at me blankly. Then as the notion dawned on his fuddled brain, his face broke into the vacant, drunkard smile. You're the billy! he cried. It'll be easy enough managed. I finished that bing of stains, and you're needing a chap on mere this forenoon. Just take the barry and wail a noch metalfrey young quarry dune the road to make a nither bang the morn. My name's Alexander Turnbull, and I've been seven year at this trade, and twenty-a-four that herding on leathen water. My friends call me eckey, and while specky, for a way of glasses, being weak, ye the sick, just ye speak to the severe fair and calm sir, and ye'll be fell pleased, I'll be back a midday. I borrowed his spectacle and filthy old hat, stripped off coat, waistcoat, and collar, and gave him them to carry home. Borrowed to the foul stump of a clay pipe as an extra property. He indicated my simple tasks, and without more ado, sat off at an amble bed-woods. Bed may have been his chief object, but I think there was also something left in the foot of a bottle. I prayed that he might be safe under cover before my friends arrived on the scene, then I set to work to dress for the part. I opened the collar of my shirt. It was a vulgar blue-and-white check, such as ploughman wear, and revealed a neck as brown as any tinkers. I rolled up my sleeves, and there was a forearm which might have been a blacksmith's, sunburned, and rough with old scars. I got my boots and trouser legs all white from the dust of the road, and hitched up my trousers, tying them with string below the knee. Then I set to work on my face. With a handful of dust I made a watermark round my neck, the place where Mr Turnbull's Sunday ablutions might be expected to stop. I rubbed a good deal of dirt also into the sunburn of my cheeks. A roadman's eyes would no doubt be a little inflamed, so I contrived to get some dust in both of mine, and by dint of vigorous rubbing produced a bleary effect. The sandwiches Sir Harry had given me had gone off with my coat, but the roadman's lunch, tied up in a red handkerchief, was at my disposal. I ate with great relish several of the thick slabs of scone and cheese, and drank a little of the cold tea. In the handkerchief was a local paper tied with string and a dress to Mr Turnbull, obviously meant to solace his midday leisure. I did up the bundle again, and put the paper conspicuously beside it. My boots did not satisfy me, but by dint of kicking among the stones I reduced them to the granite-like surface which marks a roadman's foot gear. Then I bit and scraped up my fingernails till the edges were all cracked and uneven. The man I was matched against would miss no detail. I broke one of the bootlaces and retied it in a clumsy knot, and loosened the other so that my thick grey socks bulged over the uppers. Still no sign of anything on the road. The motor I had observed half an hour ago must have gone home. My toilette complete, I took up the barrow and began my journeys to and from the quarry a hundred yards off. I remembered an old scout in Rhodesia who had done many queer things in his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part was to think yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said, unless you could manage to convince yourself that you were it. So I shut off all other thoughts and switched them on the road-mending. I thought of the little white cottage as my home. I recalled the years I had spent herding on leathen water. I made my mind dwell lovingly on sleep in a box-bed and a bottle of cheap whiskey. Still nothing appeared on that long white road. Now and then a sheep wandered off the heather to stare at me. A heron flopped down to a pool in the stream and started to fish, taking no more notice of me than if I had been a milestone. Then I went, trundling my loads of stone, with the heavy step of the professional. Soon I grew warm and the dust on my face changed to solid and abiding grit. I was already counting the hours till evening should put a limit to Mr Turnbull's monotonous toil. Suddenly a crisp voice spoke from the road, and looking up I saw a little Ford two-seater and a round-faced young man in a bowler hat. Are you Alexander Turnbull? he asked. I am the new county road surveyor. You live at Blackhope foot and have charge of the section from Laidlaw buyers to the rigs? Good. A fair bit of road Turnbull and not badly engineered. A little soft about a mile off and the edges want cleaning. See you look after that. Good morning. You'll know me the next time you see me. Suddenly my get-up was good enough for the dreaded surveyor. I went on with my work and as the morning grew towards noon I was cheered by a little traffic. A baker's van breasted the hill and sold me a bag of ginger biscuits which I stowed in my trouser pockets against emergencies. Then a herd passed with sheep and disturbed me somewhat by asking loudly, What have become a specky? In bed with a colic I replied and the herd passed on. Just about midday a big car stole down the hill, glided past and drew up a hundred yards beyond. Its three occupants descended as if to stretch their legs and sauntered towards me. Two of the men I had seen before from the window of the Galloway Inn. One lean, sharp and dark, the other comfortable and smiling. Third had the look of a countryman, a vet perhaps, or a small farmer. He was dressed in ill-cut knickerbockers and the eye in his head was as bright and wary as a hens. Morning, said the last, that's a fine easy job of yours. I had not looked up on their approach and now, when accosted, I slowly and painfully straightened my back after the manner of roadmen, spat vigorously after the manner of the low scot and regarded them steadily before applying. I confronted three pairs of eyes that missed nothing. There's where jobs and there's better, I said sentiously, I would rather hear you or sit in a day on your hinderlands on the cushions. It's you and your muckle cores that wreck my roads, and if we had the rates, you'd should be made to mend what you break. The bright-eyed man was looking at the newspaper lying beside Turnbull's bundle. I see you get your papers in good time, he said. I glanced at it casually. In good time, seeing that people come at last Saturday, I'm just four days late. He picked it up, glanced at the superscription, and laid it down again. One of the others had been looking at my boots, and a word in German called the speaker's attention to them. You've a fine taste in boots, he said. These were never made by a country shoemaker. They were not, I said readily, they were made in London, I got them free of the gentleman that was here last year for the shooting. What was his name knew? I scratched a forgetful head. Again, the sleek one spoke in German. Let us get on, he said. This fellow is all right. Then they asked one last question. Did you see anyone pass early this morning? He might be on a bicycle, or he might be on foot. I nearly fell into the trap and told a story of a bicycle hurrying past in the grey dawn, but I had a sense to see my danger and pretended to consider very deeply. I was not up very early, I said. You see, my doctor was merit last nicked, and we kept it up late. I opened the house door about seven, and there was nobody on the road then, since I come up here there's been just a baker and the rich he'll heard beside you gentlemen. One of them gave me a cigar, which I smelled gingerly and stuck in Turnbull's bundle. They got into their car and were out of sight in three minutes. My heart leapt with enormous relief, but I went on wheeling my stones. It was as well, for ten minutes later the car returned, one of the occupants waving a hand to me. These gentry left nothing to chance. I finished Turnbull's bread and cheese, and pretty soon I had finished the stones. The next step was what puzzled me. I could not keep up this road-making business for long. A merciful providence had kept Mr. Turnbull indoors, but if he appeared on the scene there would be trouble. I had a notion that the cordon was still tight round the glen, and that if I walked in any direction I should meet with questioners. But get out, I must. No man's nerve could stand more than a day of being spied on. I stayed at my post till about five o'clock. By that time I had resolved to go down to Turnbull's cottage at nightfall and take my chance of getting over the hills in the darkness. But suddenly a new car came up the road and slowed down a yalla two from me. A fresh wind had risen, and the occupant wanted to light a cigarette. It was a touring car with a tonneau full of an assortment of baggage. One man sat in it, and by an amazing chance I knew him. His name was Marma Duke Jopley, and he was an offence to creation. He was a sort of blood stockbroker who did his business by toadying eldest sons and rich young peers and foolish old ladies. Marmy was a familiar figure, I understood, at balls and polo weeks and country houses. He was an adroit scandal monger, and would crawl a mile on his belly to anything that had a title or a million. I had a business introduction to his firm when I came to London, and he was good enough to ask me to dinner at his club. There he showed off at a great rate and patted about his duchess till the snobbery of the creature turned me sick. I asked the man afterwards why nobody kicked him, and was told that an Englishman reverenced the weaker sex. Anyhow, there he was now, natally dressed in a fine new car, obviously on his way to visit some of his fine friends. A sudden daftness took me, and in a second I had jumped into the tonneau and had him by the shoulder. Hello, Jopley, I sang out, well met my lad. He got a horrible fright. His chin dropped as he stared at me. Who the devil are you? He gasped. My name's Hanny, I said, from Rhodesia. You remember? Good God, the murderer! He choked. Just so, and there'll be a second murder, my dear, if you don't do as I tell you. Give me that coat of yours, that cap, too. He did as he was bid, for he was blind with terror. Over my dirty trousers and vulgar shirt, I put on his smart driving coat, which buttoned high up to the top, and thereby hid the deficiencies in my collar. I stuck the cap on my head and added his gloves to my get-up. The dusty road-man in a minute was transformed into one of the neatest motorists in Scotland. On Mr. Jopley's head I clapped Turnbull's unspeakable hat, and told him to keep it there. Then with some difficulty I turned the car. My plan was to go back the road he had come. For the watchers, having seen it before, would probably let it pass unremarked, and Mami's figure was in no way like mine. Now, my child, I said, sit quite still and be a good boy. I mean you no harm. I'm only borrowing your car for an hour or two. But if you play me any tricks, and above all if you open your mouth, as sure as there's a god above me I'll ring your neck. Savvy? I enjoyed that evening's ride. We ran eight miles down the valley through a village or two, and I could not help noticing several strange-looking folk lounging by the roadside. These were the watchers who would have had much to say to me if I had come in other garb or company. As it was they looked incuriously on. One touched his cap in salute, and I responded graciously. As the dark fell I turned up a side-glend, which as I remembered from the map, led into an unfrequented corner of the hills. Soon the villagers were left behind, then the farms, and then even the wayside cottages. Presently we came to a lonely moor, where the night was blackening the sunset gleam in the bog pools. Here we stopped, and I obligingly reversed the car, and restored to Mr. Jopley his belongings. A thousand thanks, I said. There's more use in you than I thought. Now be off and find the police. As I sat on the hillside, watching the twilight dwindle, I reflected on the various kinds of crime I had now sampled. Contrary to general belief I was not a murderer, but I had become an unholy liar, a shameless imposter, and a highwayman with a marked taste for expensive motor-cars. CHAPTER VI THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOLD ARCHEOLOGIST I spent the night on a shelf of the hillside, in the lee of a boulder where the heather grew long and soft. It was a cold business, for I had neither coat nor waistcoat. Those were in Mr. Turnbull's keep, as were Scudder's little book, my watch, and worst of all, my pipe and tobacco pouch. Only my money accompanied me in my belt, and half a pound of ginger biscuits in my trousers pocket. I sucked off half those biscuits, and by worming myself deep into the heather got some kind of warmth. My spirits had risen, and I was beginning to enjoy this crazy game of hide-and-seek. So far I had been miraculously lucky. The milkman, the literary innkeeper, Sir Harry, the roadman, and the idiotic mami were all pieces of undeserved good fortune. Somehow the first success gave me a feeling that I should pull through. My chief trouble was that I was desperately hungry. When a Jew shoots himself in the city, and there is an inquest, the newspapers usually report that the deceased was well-nourished. I remember thinking that they would not call me well-nourished if I broke my neck in a bulkhole. I lay and tortured myself, for the ginger biscuits merely emphasised the aching void, with the memory of all the good food I had thought so little of in London. There were paddocks, crisp sausages, and fragrant shavings of bacon, and shapely poached eggs. How often I had turned up my nose at them. There were the cutlets they did at the club, and a particular ham that stood on the cold table for which my soul lusted. My thoughts hovered over all the riotier mortal edible, and finally settled on a porter-house steak and a quart of bitter with a Welsh rare-bit to follow. In longing hopelessly for these dainties I fell asleep. I woke very cold and stiff about an hour after dawn. It took me a little while to remember where I was, for I had been very weary and had slept heavily. I saw first the pale blue sky through a net of heather, and a big shoulder of hill, and then my own boots placed neatly in a blackberry bush. I raised myself on my arms and looked down into the valley, and that one look set me lacing up my boots in mad haste. For there were men below, not more than a quarter of a mile off, spaced out on the hillside like a fan, and beating the heather. Marmy had not been slow in looking for his revenge. I crawled out of my shelf into the cover of a boulder, and from it gained a shallow trench which slanted up the mountain face. This led me presently into the narrow gully of a burn, by which way I scrambled to the top of the ridge. From there I looked back and saw that I was still undiscovered. My pursuers were patiently quartering the hillside and moving upwards. Keeping behind the skyline I ran for maybe half a mile till I judged I was above the uppermost end of the glen. Then I showed myself and was instantly noted by one of the flankers who passed the word to the others. I heard cries coming up from below and saw that the line of search had changed its direction. I pretended to retreat over the skyline, but instead went back the way I had come, and in twenty minutes was behind the ridge overlooking my sleeping-place. From that viewpoint I had the satisfaction of seeing the pursuit streaming up the hill at the top of the glen on a hopelessly false scent. I had before me a choice of roots, and I chose a ridge which made an angle with the one I was on, and so would soon put a deep glen between me and my enemies. The exercise had warmed my blood, and I was beginning to enjoy myself amazingly. As I went I had breakfasted on the dusty remnants of the ginger biscuits. I knew very little about the country, and I hadn't a notion what I was going to do. I trusted to the strength of my legs, but I was well aware that those behind me would be familiar with the lie of the land, and that my ignorance would be a heavy handicap. I saw in front of me a sea of hills rising very high towards the south, but northwards breaking down into broad ridges which separated wide and shallow dales. The ridge I had chosen seemed to sink after a mile or two to a moor which lay like a pocket in the uplands. That seemed as good a direction to take as any other. My stratagem had given me a fair start, and call it twenty minutes, and I had the width of a glen behind me before I saw the first heads of the pursuers. The police had evidently called in local herds or gamekeepers. They hallowed at the sight of me, and I waved my hand. Two dived into the glen and began to climb my ridge, while the others kept their own side of the hill. I felt as if I were taking part in a schoolboy game of hair and hounds, but very soon it became to seem less of a game. These fellows behind were hefty men on their native heath. Looking back I saw that only three were following direct, and I guessed that the others had fetched a circuit to cut me off. My lack of local knowledge might very well be my undoing, and I resolved to get out of this tangle of glens to the pocket of moor I had seen from the tops. I must so increase my distance as to get clear away from them, and I believed I could do this if I could find the right ground for it. If there had been cover I would have tried a bit of stalking, but on these bare slopes you could see a fly a mile off. My hope must be in the length of my legs and the soundness of my wind, but I needed easier ground for that, for I was not bred a mountaineer. How I longed for a good Africana pony. I put on a great spurt and got off my ridge and down into the moor before any figures appeared on the skyline behind me. I crossed a burn and came out on a high road which made a pass between two glens. All in front of me was a big field of heather sloping up to a crest which was crowned with an odd feather of trees. In the dyke by the roadside was a gate from which a grass-grown track led over the first wave of the moor. I jumped the dyke and followed it, and after a few hundred yards as soon as it was out of sight of the highway the grass stopped and it became a very respectable road which was evidently kept with some care. Clearly it ran to a house, and I began to think of doing the same. Here the two my luck had held, and it might be that my best chance would be found in this remote dwelling. Anyhow there were trees there, and that meant cover. I did not follow the road, but the burnside which flanked it on the right, where the bracken grew deep, and the high banks made a tolerable screen. It was well I did so, for no sooner had I gained the hollow than looking back I saw the pursuit topping the ridge from which I descended. After that I did not look back. I had no time. I ran up the burnside, crawling over the open places, and for a large part wading in the shallow stream. I found a deserted cottage with a row of phantom peat-stacks and an overgrown garden. Then I was among young hay, and very soon had come to the edge of a plantation of wind-blown furs. From there I saw the chimneys of the house smoking a few hundred yards to my left. I forsook the burnside, crossed another dyke, and almost before I knew was on a rough lawn. A glance back told me that I was well out of sight of the pursuit, which had not yet passed the first lift of the moor. The lawn was a very rough place, cut with a scythe instead of a mower, and planted with beds of scrubby-roaded endurance. A brace of black game which are not usually garden birds rose at my approach. The house before me was the ordinary moorland farm, with a more pretentious whitewashed wing added. Attached to this wing was a glass forander, and through the glass I saw the face of an elderly gentleman meekly watching me. I stalked over the border of course hill-gravel, and entered the verandah door. Within was a pleasant room, glass on one side, and on the other a mass of books. More books showed in an inner room. On the floor instead of tables stood cases, such as you see in a museum, filled with coins and queer stone implements. There was a knee-hole desk in the middle, and seated at it with some papers and open volumes before him was the benevolent old gentleman. His face was round and shiny, like Mr. Pickwick's. Big glasses were stuck on the end of his nose, and the top of his head was as bright and bare as a glass bottle. He never moved when I entered, but raised his placid eyebrows and waited on me to speak. It was not an easy job, with about five minutes to spare, to tell a stranger who I was and what I wanted, and to win his aid. I did not attempt it. There was something about the eye of the man before me, something so keen and knowledgeable that I could not find a word. I simply stared at him and stuttered. You see, Milahari, my friend, he said slowly. I nodded towards the window. It gave a prospect across the moor through a gap in the plantation, and revealed certain figures half a mile off, straggling through the heather. Milahari, I see, he said, and took up a pair of field glasses through which he patiently scrutinized the figures. A fugitive from justice, eh? Well, we'll go into the matter at our leisure. Meantime I object to my privacy being broken in upon by the clumsy rural policeman. Go into my study and you will see two doors facing you. Take the one to the left and close it behind you. You will be perfectly safe. And this extraordinary man took up his pen again. I did as I was beared and found myself in a little dark chamber which smelled of chemicals, and was lit only by a tiny window high up in the wall. The door had swung behind me with a click, like the door of a safe. Once again I had found an unexpected sanctuary. All the same I was not comfortable. There was something about the old gentleman which puzzled and rather terrified me. He had been too easy and ready, almost as if he had expected me, and his eyes had been horribly intelligent. No sound came to me in that dark place. For all I knew the police might be searching the house, and if they did they would want to know what was behind this door. I tried to possess my soul in patience and to forget how hungry I was. Then I took a more cheerful view. The old gentleman could scarcely refuse me a meal, and I fell to reconstructing my breakfast. Bacon and eggs would content me, but I wanted the better part of a flitch of bacon and half a hundred eggs. And then, while my mouth was watering in anticipation, there was a click, and the door stood open. I merged into the sunlight to find the master of the house sitting in a deep armchair in the room he called his study, and regarding me with curious eyes. "'Have they gone?' I asked. "'They have gone. I convinced them that you had crossed the hill. I do not choose that the police should come between me and one who I am delighted to honour. This is a lucky morning for you, Mr. Richard Hane.' As he spoke his eyelids seemed to tremble and to fall a little over his keen gray eyes. In a flash the phrase of scudders came back to me when he described the man he most dreaded in the world. He had said that he could hood his eyes like a hawk. Then I saw that I had walked straight into the enemy's headquarters. My first impulse was to throttle the old ruffian and make for the open air. He seemed to anticipate my intention for his smile gently and nodded to the door behind me. I turned and saw two men-servants who had me covered with pistols. He knew my name, and he had never seen me before, and as the reflection darted across my mind I saw a slender chance. "'I don't know what you mean,' I said roughly. "'And who are you calling Richard Hane? My name's Ainsley.' "'So,' he said, smiling, "'but, of course, you have others. We won't quarrel about a name.' I was pulling myself together now and I reflected that my garb, lacking coat and waistcoat and collar, would at any rate not betray me. I put on my surliest face and shrugged my shoulders. I suppose you're going to give me up after all, and I call it a damn dirty trick. My God, I wish I'd never seen that cursed motor-car. Here's the money and be damned to you.' And I flung four sovereigns on the table. He opened his eyes a little. "'Oh, no, I shall not give you up. My friends and I will have a little private settlement with you. That is all. You know a little too much, Mr. Hane. You are a clever actor, but not quite clever enough.' He spoke with assurance, but I could see the dawning of a doubt in his mind. "'Oh, for God's sake, stop jarring,' I cried. Everything's against me. I haven't had a bit of luck since I came ashore at Leith. But what's the harm in a poor devil with an empty stomach picking up some money he finds in a bust-up motor-car? That's all I've done, and for that I've been chivvied for two days by these blasted bobbies over these blasted hills. I tell you, I'm fair sick of it. You can do what you like, old boy. Ned Ainsley's got no fight left in him.' I could see that the doubt was gaining. "'Will you oblige me with the story of your recent doings?' he asked. "'I can't, Governor,' I said, in a real beggar's wine. I've not had a bite to eat for two days. Give me a mouthful of food, and then you'll hear God's truth.' I must have showed my hunger in my face, for he signalled to one of the men in the doorway. A bit of cold pie was bought and a glass of beer, and I wolfed them down like a pig, or rather like Ned Ainsley, for I was keeping up my character. In the middle of my meal he spoke suddenly to me in German, but I turned on him a face as blank as a stone wall. Then I told him my story, how I had come off an archangel ship at Leith a week ago, and was making my way overland to my brother at Wicton. I'd run short of cash. I hinted vaguely at a spree, and I was pretty well on my uppers when I had come on a hole in a hedge, and looking through had seen a big motor-car lying in a burn. I'd poked about to see what was happening, and had found three sovereigns lying on the seat, and one on the floor. There was nobody there, or any sign of an owner, so I had pocketed the cash. But somehow the law had got after me. When I had tried to change a sovereign in a baker's shop, the woman had cried on the police, and a little later, when I was washing my face in a burn, I had been nearly gripped, and had only got away by leaving my coat and waistcoat behind me. They can have the money back. I cried for a fat lot of good it's done me. Those perishes are all down on a poor man. Now, if it had been you, Governor, that had found the quids, nobody would have troubled you. You're a good liar, Hanne, he said. I flew into a rage. Stop falling, damn you! I tell you my name's Ainsley, and I never heard of anyone called Hanne in my born days. I'd sooner have the police than you with your Hannees and your monkey-faced pistol tricks. No, Governor, I don't mean that. I'm much obliged for you for the grub. I'll thank you to let me go now the coast's clear. It was obvious that he was badly puzzled. You see, he had never seen me, and my appearance must have altered considerably from my photographs if he had got one of them. I was pretty smart and well-dressed in London, and now I was a regular tramp. I do not propose to let you go. If you are what you say you are, you will soon have a chance of clearing yourself. If you are what I believe you are, I do not think you will see the light much longer. He rang a bell, and a third servant appeared from the veranda. I want the Lancaster in five minutes. He said, There will be three to luncheon. Then he looked steadily at me, and that was the hardest ordeal of all. There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold, malignant, unearthly, and most hellishly clever. They fascinated me like the bright eyes of a snake. I had a strong impulse to throw myself in his mercy and offered to join his side, and if you consider the way I felt about the whole thing, you will see that that impulse must have been purely physical, the weakness of a brain mesmerized and mastered by a stronger spirit. But I managed to stick it out and even to grin. You'll know me next time, Governor," I said. Carl, he said in German to one of the men in the doorway, you will put this fellow in the storeroom until I return, and you will be answerable to me for his keeping. I was marched out of the room with a pistol at each ear. The storeroom was a damp chamber in what had been the old farmhouse. There was no carpet on the uneven floor and nothing to sit down on but a school form. It was black as pitch, for the windows were heavily shuttered. I made out by groping that the walls were lined with boxes and barrels and sacks of some heavy stuff. The whole place smelled of mould and disuse. My jailers turned the key in the door and I could hear them shifting their feet as they stood on guard outside. I sat down in the chilly darkness in a very miserable frame of mind. The old boy had gone off in a motor to collect the two Ruffians who had interviewed me yesterday. Now they had seen me as the roadman and they would remember me for I was in the same rig. What was a roadman doing twenty miles from his beat pursued by the police? A question or two would put them on the track. Probably they had seen Mr Turnbull. Probably Marmy too. Most likely they could link me up with Sir Harry and then the whole thing would be crystal clear. What chance had I in this moorland house with three desperados and their armed servants? I began to think wistfully of the police now plodding over the hills after my wraith. They at any rate were fellow countrymen and honest men and their tender mercies would be kinder than these ghoulish aliens. That they wouldn't have listened to me. That old devil with the eyelids had not taken long to get rid of them. I thought he probably had some kind of graft with the Constable Ray. Most likely he had letters from cabinet ministers saying he was to be given every facility for plotting against Britain. That was the sort of owlish way we run our politics in the old country. Three would be back for lunch, so I hadn't got more than a couple of hours to wait. It was simply waiting on destruction, for I could see no way out of this mess. I wished that I had Scudder's courage, for I am free to confess I didn't feel any great fortitude. The only thing that kept me going was that I was pretty furious. It made me boil with rage to think of those three spies getting the pull on me like this. I hoped that at any rate I might be able to twist one of their necks before they downed me. The more I thought of it, the angrier I grew, and I had to get up and move about the room. I tried the shutters, but they were the kind that lock with a key, and I couldn't move them. From the outside came the faint clucking of hens in the warm sun. Then I groped among the sacks and boxes. I couldn't open the latter, and the sacks seemed to be full of things like dog biscuits that smelled of cinnamon. But as I circumnavigated the room, I found a handle in the wall which seemed worth investigating. It was the door of a wall cupboard, what they call a press in Scotland, and it was locked. I shook it, and it seemed rather flimsy. For want of something better to do, I put out my strength on that door, getting some purchase on the handle by looping my braces round it. Presently the thing gave with a crash, which I thought would bring in my waters to inquire. I waited for a bit, and then started to explore the cupboard shelves. There was a multitude of queer things there. I found an odd vester or two in my trousers pocket, and struck a light. It went out in a second, but it showed me one thing. There was a little stock of electric torches on one shelf. I picked one up, and found it was in working order. With the torch to help me, I investigated further. There were bottles and cases of queer-smelling stuff, chemicals no doubt for experiments, and there were coils of fine copper wire and yanks and yanks of a thin, oiled silk. There was a box of detonators and a lot of cord for fuses. Then away at the back of a shelf, I found a stout brown cardboard box, and inside it a wooden case. I managed to wrench it open, and within lay half a dozen little grey bricks, each a couple of inches square. I took one up, and found that it crumbled easily in my hand. Then I smelled it, and put my tongue to it. After that I sat down to think. I hadn't been a mining engineer for nothing, and I knew Lentonite when I saw it. With one of these bricks I could blow the house to smithereens. I'd used the stuff in Rhodesia, and knew its power. But the trouble was that my knowledge wasn't exact. I'd forgotten the proper charge and the right way of preparing it, and I wasn't sure about the timing. I had only a vague notion too as to its power, for though I had used it, I had not handled it with my own fingers. But it was a chance, the only possible chance. It was a mighty risk, but against it was an absolute black certainty. If I used it the odds were as I reckoned about five to one in favour of my blowing myself into the treetops. But if I didn't, I should be very likely to be occupying a six foot hole in the garden by the evening. That was the way I had to look at it. The prospect was pretty dark either way, but anyhow there was a chance, both for myself and for my country. The remembrance of little Scudder decided me. It was about the beastliest moment of my life, for I am no good at these cold blooded resolutions. Still I managed to rake up the pluck to set my teeth and choke back the horrid doubts that flooded in on me. I simply shut off my mind and pretended I was doing an experiment as simple as Guy Fawkes fireworks. I got a detonator and fixed it to a couple of feet of fuse. Then I took a quarter of a lentenite brick and buried it near the door, below one of the sacks in a crack of the floor, fixing the detonator in it. For all I knew half of these boxes might be dynamite. If the cupboard held such deadly explosives, why not the boxes? In that case there would be a glorious skyward journey for me and the German servants, and about an acre of the surrounding country. There was also the risk that the detonation might set off the other bricks in the cupboard, for I had forgotten most that I knew about lentenite. But it didn't do to begin thinking about the possibilities. The odds were horrible, but I had to take them. I ensconced myself just below the sill of the window and lit the fuse. Then I waited for a moment or two. There was dead silence, only a shuffle of heavy boots in the passage and the peaceful clock of hens from the warm out of doors. I commended my soul to my maker and wondered where I would be in five seconds. A great wave of heat seemed to surge upwards from the floor and hang for a blistering instant in the air. Then the wall opposite me flashed into a golden yellow and dissolved with a rending thunder that hammered my brain into a pulp. Something dropped on me, catching the point of my left shoulder, and then I became unconscious. My stupor can scarcely have lasted beyond a few seconds. I felt myself being choked by thick yellow fumes and struggled out of the debris to my feet. Somewhere behind me I felt fresh air. The jams of the window had fallen, and through the ragged rent the smoke was pouring out to the summer noon. I stepped over the broken lintel and found myself standing in a yard in a dense and acrid fog. I felt very sick and ill, but I could move my limbs and I staggered blindly forward away from the house. A small mill-lade ran in a wooden aqueduct at the other side of the yard and into this I fell. The cool water revives me and I had just enough wits left to think of escape. I squirmed up the laid among the slippery green slime till I reached the mill-wheel. Then I riddled through the axle-hole into the old mill and tumbled onto a bed of chaff. A nail caught the seat of my trousers and I left a wisp of heather mixture behind me. The mill had been long out of use. The ladders were rotten with age and in the loft the rats had gnawed great holes in the floor. Nausea shook me and a wheel in my head kept turning while my left shoulder and arm seemed to be stricken with the palsy. I looked out of the window and saw a fog still hanging over the house and smoke escaping from an upper window. Please, God! I had set the place on fire for I could hear the confused cries coming from the other side. But I had no time to linger since this mill was obviously a bad hiding-place. Anyone looking for me would naturally follow the laid and I made certain the search would begin as soon as they found that my body was not in the storeroom. From another window I saw that on the far side of the mill stood an old stone dove-cott. If I could get there without leaving tracks I might find a hiding-place for I argued that my enemies, if they thought I could move, would conclude that I had made for open country and would go seeking me on the moor. I crawled down the broken ladder scattering chaff behind me to cover my footsteps. I did the same on the mill floor and on the threshold where the door hung on broken hinges. Peeping out I saw that between me and the dove-cott was a piece of bare cobbled ground where no footmarks would show. Also it was mercifully hid by the mill buildings from any view from the house. I slipped across the space, got into the back of the dove-cott and prospected a way of ascent. That was one of the hardest jobs I ever took on. My shoulder and arm ached like hell and I was so sick and giddy that I was always on the verge of falling but I managed it somehow. By the use of out-jutting stones and gaps in the masonry and a tough ivy-root I got to the top in the end. There was a little parapet behind which I found a space to lie down. Then I proceeded to go into an old-fashioned swoon. I woke with a burning head and the sun glaring in my face. For a long time I lay motionless for these horrible fumes seemed to have loosened my joints and dulled my brain. Sounds came to me from the house, men speaking throatily and the throbbing of a stationary car. There was a little gap in the parapet to which I wriggled and from which I had some sort of prospect of the yard. I saw figures come out, a servant with his head bound up, then a younger man in knickerbockers. They were looking for something and moved towards the mill. Then one of them caught sight of the wisp of cloth on the nail and cried out to the other. They both went back to the house and brought two more to look at it. I saw the rotund figure of my late captor and thought I made out the man with the lisp. I noticed that all had pistols. For half an hour they ransacked the mill. I could hear them kicking over the barrels and pulling up the rotten planking. Then they came outside and stood just below the dove-cott, arguing fiercely. The servant with the bandage was being soundly rated. I heard them fiddling with the door of the dove-cott and for one horrid moment I thought they were coming up. Then they thought better of it and went back to the house. All that long, blistering afternoon I lay baking on the rooftop. Thirst was my chief torment. My tongue was like a stick and to make it worse I could hear the cool drip of water from the mill-lade. I watched the course of the little stream as it came in from the moor and my fancy followed it to the top of the glen where it must issue from an icy fountain fringed with cool ferns and mosses. I would have given a thousand pounds to plunge my face into that. I had a fine prospect of the whole ring of moorland. I saw the car speed away with two occupants and a man on a hill pony riding east. I judged they were looking for me and I wished them joy of their quest, but I saw something else more interesting. The house stood almost on the summit of a swell of moorland which crowned a sort of plateau and there was no higher point nearer than the big hill six miles off. The actual summit, as I have mentioned, was a big-ish clump of trees, furs mostly, with a few ashes and beaches. On the dove-cart I was almost on a level with the treetops and could see what lay beyond. The wood was not solid but only a ring and inside was an oval of green turf for all the world like a big cricket field. I didn't take long to guess what it was. It was an aerodrome and a secret one. The place had been most cunningly chosen. For suppose anyone were watching an airplane descending here, he would think it had gone over the hills beyond the trees. As the place was on the top of a rise in the midst of a big amphitheatre, any observer from any direction would conclude it had passed out a view behind the hill. Only a man very close at hand would realise that the aeroplane had not gone over but had descended in the midst of the wood. An observer with a telescope on one of the higher hills might have discovered the truth, but only herds went there and herds do not carry spy-glasses. When I looked for the dove-cart I could see far away a blue line which I knew was the sea and I grew furious to think that our enemies had this secret conning-tower to rake our waterways. Then I reflected that if that aeroplane came back the chances were ten to one that I would be discovered. So through the afternoon I lay and prayed for the coming of darkness and glad I was when the sun went down over the big western hills and the twilight haze crept over the moor. The aeroplane was late. The gloaming was far advanced when I heard the beat of wings and saw it volplaining down toward its home in the wood. Lights twinkled for a bit and there was much coming and going from the house. Then the dark fell and silence. Thank God it was a black night. The moon was well on its last quarter and would not rise till late. My thirst was too great to allow me to tarry. So about nine o'clock, so far as I could judge the light started to descend. It wasn't easy and halfway down I heard the back door of the house open and saw the gleam of a lantern against the mill wall. For some agonizing minutes I hung by the ivy and prayed that whatever it was would not come round by the dove-cott. Then the light disappeared and I dropped as softly as I could onto the hard soil of the yard. I crawled on my belly in the lee of a stone dyke till I reached the fringe of trees which surrounded the house. If I had known how to do it I would have tried to put that aeroplane out of action but I realized that any attempt would probably be futile. I was pretty certain that there would be some kind of defence round the house so I went through the woods on hands and knees feeling carefully every inch before me. It was as well for presently I came on a wire about two feet from the ground. If I had tripped over that it would doubtless have rung some bell in the house and I would have been captured. A hundred yards further on I found another wire cunningly placed on the edge of a small stream. Beyond that lay the moor and in five minutes I was deep in bracken and heather. Soon I was round the shoulder of the rise in the little glen from which the mill laid flowed. Ten minutes later my face was deep in the spring and I was soaking down pints of the blessed water. But I did not stop till I had put half a dozen miles between me and that accursed dwelling. End of Chapter 6 The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist Read by Adrian Pretzelis a mostly bald archaeologist. Chapter 7 of The 39 Steps by John Buchan This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The 39 Steps by John Buchan Read by Adrian Pretzelis Chapter 7 The Dry Fly Fisherman I sat down on a hilltop and took stock of my position. I wasn't feeling very happy for my natural thankfulness at my escape was clouded by my severe bodily discomfort. Those lentenite fumes had fairly poisoned me and the baking hours on the dove-cart hadn't helped matters. I had a crushing headache and felt as sick as a cat. Also my shoulder was in a bad way. At first I thought it was only a bruise but it seemed to be swelling and I had no use of my left arm. My plan was to seek Mr Turnbull's cottage, recover my garments, and especially Scudder's Notebook and then make for the main line and get back to the south. It seemed to me that the sooner I got in touch with the Foreign Office man, Sir Walter Balovant, the better. I didn't see how I could get more proof than I'd got already. He must just take or leave my story anyway with him I would be in better hands than those devilish Germans. I'd begun to feel quite kindly towards the British police. It was a wonderful, starry night and I had not much difficulty about the road. Sir Harry's map had given me the lie of the land and all I had to do was to steer a point or two west of south-west to come to the stream where I had met the road-man. In all these travels I never knew the names of the places but I believed the stream was no less than the upper waters of the River Tweed. I calculated I must be about 18 miles distant and that meant I could not get there before morning. So I must lie up a day somewhere for I was too outrageous a figure to be seen in the sunlight. I had neither coat, waistcoat, collar nor hat. My trousers were badly torn and my face and hands were black with the explosion. I daresay I had other beauties for my eyes felt as if they were furiously bloodshot. All together I was no spectacle for God-fearing citizens to see on a high road. Very soon after daybreak I made an attempt to clean myself in a hill-burn and then approached a herd's cottage for I was feeling the need of food. The herd was away from home and his wife was alone with no neighbour for five miles. She was a decent old body and a plucky one for though she got a fright when she saw me she had an axe handy and would have used it on any evil-doer. I told her that I'd had a fall I didn't say how and she saw by my looks that I was pretty sick. Like a true Samaritan she asked no questions but gave me a bowl of milk with a dash of whiskey in it and she sat for a little by her kitchen fire. She would have bathed my shoulder but it ached so badly that I would not let her touch it. I don't know what she took me for a repentant burglar perhaps but when I wanted to pay her for the milk and tender the sovereign which was the smallest coin I had she shook her head and said something about giving it to them as had a right to it. At this I protested so strongly that I think she believed me honest for she took the money and gave me a warm new plaid for it and an old hat of her mans. She showed me how to wrap the plaid round my shoulders and when I left that cottage I was the living image of the kind of Scotsman you see in illustrations to Burns poems but at any rate I was more or less clad. It was as well for the weather changed before midday to a thick drizzle of rain. I found shelter below an overhanging rock in the crook of a burn where a drift of dead brackens made a tolerable bed. There I managed to sleep till nightfall waking very cramped and wretched with my shoulder gnawing like a toothache. I ate the oak cake and cheese the old wife had given me and set out again just before the darkening. I passed over the miseries of that night among the wet hills. There were no stars to steer by and I had to do the best I could from my memory of the map. Twice I lost my way and I had some nasty falls into the peat bogs. I'd only about ten miles to go as the crow flies but my mistakes made it nearer twenty. The last bit was completed with set teeth and a very light and dizzy head but I managed it and in the early dawn I was looking at Mr Turnbull's door. The mist lay close and thick and from the cottage I could not see the high road. Mr Turnbull himself opened to me sober and something more than sober. He was primly dressed in an ancient but well-tended suit of black. He had been shaved and not later than the night before. He wore a linen collar and in his left hand he carried a pocket Bible. At first he did not recognise me. War ye that comes through a wagon here on the Sabbath morning? He asked. I had lost all count of days so the Sabbath was the reason for his strange decorum. My head was swimming so wildly that I could not frame a coherent answer but he recognised me and saw that I was ill. Have you got my specs? He asked. I fetched them out of my trousers pocket and gave him them. You'll come for your jacket and whisk it? He said. Come in by. You're a terrible dune of the legs. Hard up till I get you to a chair. I perceived I was in for a bout of malaria. I had a good deal of fever in my bones and the wet night had brought it out while my shoulder and the effects of the fumes combined to make me feel pretty bad. Before I knew Mr Turnbull was helping me off with my clothes and putting me to bed in one of the two cupboards that lined the kitchen walls. He was a true friend in need, that old roadman. His wife was dead years ago and since his daughter's marriage he lived alone. For the better part of ten days he did all the rough nursing I needed. I simply wanted to be left in peace while the fever took its course and when my skin was cool again I found that the bout had more or less cured my shoulder. But it was a bad-ish go and though I was out of bed in five days it took me some time to get my legs again. He went out each morning leaving me milk for the day and locking the door behind him and came in in the evening to sit silent in the chimney corner. Not a soul came near the place. As I was getting better he never bothered me with a question. Several times he fetched me two days old Scotsman and I noticed the interest in the Portland Place murder seemed to have died down. There was no mention of it and I could find very little about anything except a thing called the General Assembly. Some ecclesiastical spree I gathered. One day he produced my belt from a lock-fast drawer. There's a terrible heat-osciller in it, he said. You'd better count it to see it's all there. He never even inquired my name. I asked him if anybody had been around making inquiries subsequent to my spell at the road-making. Aye, there was a man in a motor-car. He spayed where he had taken my place that day and I let on I thought him daft. But he kept on at me and sigh any mun be thinking oh my good brother fear the church that wires lent me a hoon. He was a Welsh-looking soul and I could not understand the half of his English tongue. I was getting pretty restless those last days and as soon as I felt myself fit I decided to be off. That was not till the twelfth day of June and as luck would have it a drover went past that morning taking some cattle to Moffat. There was a man named Hislop, a friend of Turnbull's and he came into his breakfast with us and offered to take me with him. I made Turnbull except five pounds for my lodging and a hard job I had of it. There was never a more independent being. He grew positively rude when I pressed him and shy and red and took the money at last without a thank you. When I told him how much I owed him he grunted something about a good turn deserving another. He would have thought from our leave-taking that we had parted in disgust. Hislop was a cheery soul who chatted all the way over the pass and down the sunny Vale of Annan. I talked of Galloway markets and sheep prices and he made up his mind that I was a pack shepherd from those parts, whatever that may be. My plaid and my old hat, as I have said gave me a fine theatrical scots look but driving cattle is a mortally slow job and we took the better part of the day to cover a dozen miles. If I had not had such an anxious heart I would have enjoyed that time. It was shining blue weather with a constantly changing prospect of brown hills and far green meadows and a continual spund of larks and curlews and falling streams. But I had no mind for the summer and little for hislop's conversation for as the fateful 15th of June grew near I was over-weighted with the lifeless difficulties of my enterprise. I got some dinner in a humble moffat public house and walked the two miles to the junction on the main line. The night expressed for the south was not due till midnight and to fill up the time I went up on the hillside and fell asleep for the walk had tired me. I all but slept too long and had to run to the station and catch the train with two minutes to spare. The feel of the hard third-class cushions and the smell of stale tobacco cheered me up wonderfully. At any rate I felt now that I was getting to grips with my job. I was decanted at crew in the small hours and had to wait till six to get a train for Birmingham. In the afternoon I got to Reading and changed into a local train which journeyed into the deeps of Berkshire. Presently I was in a land of lush water meadows and slow, reedy streams. About eight o'clock in the evening a weary and travel-stained being across between a farm labourer and a vet with a checkered blue-and-white plaid over his arm for I did not dare to wear it south of the border descended at the little station of Ayres-Tinswell. There were several people on the platform and I thought I had better wait to ask my way till I was clear of the place. The road led through a wood of great beaches and then into a shallow valley with the green backs of downs peeping over the distant trees. After Scotland the air smelled heavy and flat but infinitely sweet for the limes and chestnuts and lilac bushes were domes of blossom. Presently I came to a bridge below which a clear, slow stream flowed between snowy beds of water-butter-cups. A little above it was a mill and the lasher made a pleasant, cool sound in the scented dusk. Somehow the place soothed me and put me at my ease. I felt a whistling as I looked into the green depths and the tune which came to my lips was Annie Laurie. A fisherman came up from the water-side and as he neared me he too began to whistle. The tune was infectious for he followed my suit. He was a huge man in untidy old flannels and a wide-brimmed hat with a canvas bag slung on his shoulder. He nodded to me and I thought I had never seen such a shrewder or better-tempered face. He leaned his delicate ten-foot split cane rod against the bridge and looked with me at the water. Clear, isn't it? he said pleasantly. I back our kennet any day against the test. Look at that big fellow, four pounds if he's an ounce. But the evening rises over and you can't tempt him. I don't see him, said I. Look there, a yard from the reeds just above that sickle. I've got him now. You might swear he was a black stone. So he said and whistled another bar of Annie Laurie. Twistedn's the name, isn't it? he said over his shoulder. His eyes still fixed on the stream. No, I said. I mean to say yes. I've forgotten all about my alias. It's a wise conspirator that knows his own name. He observed grinning broadly at a moorhen that emerged from the bridge's shadow. I stood up and looked at him at his square jaw and broad-lined brow and the firm folds of cheek and began to think that here at last was an ally worth having. His whimsical blue eyes seemed to go very deep. Suddenly he frowned. I call it disgraceful, he said, raising his voice, disgraceful that an able-bodied man like you should dare to beg. You can get a meal from my kitchen, but you'll get no money from me." A dog-cart was passing, driven by a young man who raised his whip to salute the fisherman. When he had gone, he picked up his rod. That's my house. He said, pointing to a white gate a hundred yards on, wait five minutes and then go round to the back door. And with that he left me. I did as I was bidden. I found a pretty cottage with a lawn running down to the stream and a perfect jungle of gulderose and lilac flanking the path. The back door stood open and a grave butler was awaiting me. Come this way, sir, he said, and he led me along a passage and up a back staircase to a pleasant bedroom looking towards the river. There I found a complete outfit laid out for me, dress clothes with all the fixings, a brown flannel suit, shirts, collars, ties, shaving things and hairbrushes, even a pair of patent shoes. So Walter thought as how Mr. Reggie's things would fit you, sir, said the butler. He keeps some clothes here for he comes regular on the weekends. There's a bathroom next door and I've prepared a hot bath. Dinner in half an hour, sir. You'll hear the gong. The grave being withdrew and I sat down in a chintz-covered easy chair and gaped. It was like a pantomime to come suddenly out of Begedham into this orderly comfort. Obviously Sir Walter believed in me, though why he did I could not guess. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a wild, haggard, brown fellow with a fortnight's ragged beard and dust in ears and eyes, collarless, vulgarly shirted with shapeless old tweed clothes and boots that had not been cleaned for the better part of a month. I made a fine tramp and a fair drover and here I was ushered by a prim butler into this temple of gracious ease and the best of it was that they did not even know my name. I resolved not to puzzle my head but to take the gifts the gods had provided. I shaved and bathed luxuriously and got into the dress clothes and clean crackling shirt which fitted me not so badly. By the time I had finished the looking-glass showed a not unpersonable young man. Sir Walter awaited me in a dusky dining-room where a little round table was lit with silver candles. The sight of him so respectable and established and secure, the embodiment of law and government and all the conventions took me aback and made me feel an interloper. He couldn't know the truth about me or he wouldn't treat me like this. I simply could not accept his hospitality on false pretenses. I'm more obliged to you than I can say but I'm bound to make things clear, I said. I'm an innocent man but I'm wanted by the police. I've got to tell you this and I won't be surprised if you kick me out. He smiled. That's all right, don't let that interfere with your appetite. We can talk about these things after dinner. I never ate a meal with greater relish for I had had nothing all day but railway sandwiches. Sir Walter did me proud for we drank a good champagne and had some uncommon fine port afterwards. It made me almost hysterical to be sitting there waited on by a footman and a sleek butler and remember that I had been living for three weeks like a brigand with every man's hand against me. I told Sir Walter about tiger fish in the Zambezi that bite off your fingers if you give them a chance and we discussed sport up and down the globe for he had hunted a bit in his day. We went to his study for coffee, a jolly room full of books and trophies and untidiness and comfort. I made up my mind that if I ever got rid of this business and had a house of my own I would create just such a room. Then when the coffee cups were clear away and we got our cigars alight my host swung his long legs over the side of his chair and bared me get started with my yarn. I've obeyed Harry's instructions, he said and the bribe he offered me was that you would tell me something to wake me up. I'm ready, Mr. Hane. I noticed with a start that he called me by my proper name. I began at the very beginning. I told of my boredom in London and the night I had come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep I told him all Scudder had told me about Carolides and the Foreign Office conference and that made him purse his lips and grin. Then I got to the murder and he grew solemn again. He heard all about the milkman and my time in Galloway and my deciphering Scudder's notes at the inn. You've got them here, he asked sharply and drew a long breath when I whipped a little book from my pocket. I said nothing of the contents. Then I described my meeting with Sir Harry and the speeches at the hall. At that he laughed uproariously. Harry talked Dash Nonsense, did he? I quite believe it. He's as good a chap as ever breathed, but he's idiot of an uncle as stuffed his head with maggots. Go on, Mr. Hane. My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two fellows in the car very closely and seemed to be raking back in his memory. He grew merry again when he heard of the fate of that ass Jopley, but the old man in the maul and house solemnized him again. Again I had to describe every detail of his appearance. Land and bald headed and hooded his eyes like a bird. He sounds a sinister wildfowl and you dynamited his hermitage after he had saved you from the police. Spirited piece of work that! Presently I reached the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly and looked down at me from the hearth rug. You may dismiss the police from your mind, he said, you're in no danger from the law of this land. Great Scott, I cried, have they got the murderer? No, but for the last fortnight they have dropped you from the list of possibilities. Why? I asked in amazement. Principally because I received a letter from Scudder. I knew something of the man and he did several jobs for me. He was half crank, half genius, but he was wholly honest. The trouble about him was his partiality for playing a lone hand. That made him pretty well useless in any secret service. A pity for he had uncommon gifts. I think he was the bravest man in the world, for he was always shivering with fright and yet nothing would choke him off. I had a letter from him on the 31st of May. But he had been dead a week by then. The letter was written and posted on the 23rd. He evidently did not anticipate an immediate decease. His communications usually took a week to reach me, for they were sent under cover to Spain and then to Newcastle. He had a mania, you know, for concealing his tracks. What did he say, I stammered? Nothing. Merely that he was in danger, but had found shelter with a good friend and that I would hear from you before the 15th of June. He gave me no address, but said he was living near Portland Place. I think his object was to clear you if anything happened. When I got it, I went to Scotland Yard, went over the details of the inquest, and concluded that you were the friend. We made inquiries about you, Mr. Hane, and found you were respectable. I thought I knew the motives for your disappearance. Not only the police, the other one too, and when I got Harry's scrawl, I guessed at the rest. I'd been expecting you any time this past week. You can imagine what a load this took off my mind. I felt a free man once more, for I was now up against my country's enemies only, and not my country's law. Now let's have the little notebook, said Sir Walter. It took us a good hour to work through it. I explained the cipher, and he was jolly quicker picking it up. He amended my reading of it on several points, but I think I had been fairly correct on the whole. His face was very grave before he had finished, and he sat silent for a while. I don't know what to make of it, he said at last. He's right about one thing, what is going to happen the day after tomorrow. How the devil can it have got known. That is ugly enough in itself. But all this about war and the black stone, it reads like some wild melodrama. If only I had more confidence in Scudder's judgment. The trouble about him was that he was too romantic. He had the artistic temperament, and wanted a story to be better than God meant it to be. He had a lot of odd biases too. Jews, for example, made him see red, Jews and the high finance. The black stone, he repeated. Der Schwadze Stein. It's like a penny novelette, and all this stuff about Carolides. That is the weak part of the tale, for I happen to know that the virtuous Carolides is likely to outlast us both. There is no state in Europe that wants him gone. Besides, he has just been playing up to Berlin and Vienna and giving my chief some uneasy moments. No. Scudder has gone off the track there. Frankly, Hane, I don't believe that part of his story. There's some nasty business afoot, and he found out too much and lost his life over it. But I'm ready to take my oath that it is ordinary spy work. A certain great European power makes a hobby of her spy system, but her methods are not too particular. Since she pays by piecework, her blackards are not likely to stick at a murder or two. They want our naval dispositions for their collection at the Maranampt, but they will be pigeon-holed nothing more. Just then the butler entered the room. There's a trunk call from London, Sir Walter. It's Mr. Eath, and he wants to speak to you personally. My host went off to the telephone. He returned in five minutes with a whitish face. I apologised to the shade of Scudder. He said Carolides was shot dead this evening at a few minutes after seven. End of chapter seven. CHAPTER VIII. THE COMING OF THE BLACK STONE I came down to breakfast next morning after eight hours of blessed, dreamless sleep to find Sir Walter decoding a telegram in the midst of muffins and marmalade. His fresh rosiness of yesterday seemed a thought tarnished. I had a busy hour on the telephone after you went to bed, he said. I got my chief to speak to the First Lord and the Secretary for war, and they are bringing Royer over a day sooner. This wire clenches it. He will be in London at five. Odd that the code word for a sous-chef d'État Major General should be porker. He directed me to the hot dishes and went on. Not that I think it will do much good. If your friends were clever enough to find out the First Arrangement, they are clever enough to discover the change. I would give my head to know where the leak is. We believed there were only five men in England who knew about Royer's visit, and you may be certain there were fewer in France, for they managed these things better there. While I ate, he continued to talk, making me to my surprise a present to his full confidence. Can the dispositions not be changed? I asked. They could, he said, but we want to avoid that if possible. They are the result of immense thought, and no alteration would be as good. Besides, on one or two points, change is simply impossible. Still, something could be done if it were absolutely necessary. But you see the difficulty, Hane. Our enemies are not going to be such fools as to pick Royer's pocket or any childish game like that. They know that would mean a row and put us on our guard. Their aim is to get the details without any of us knowing, so that Royer will go back to Paris in the belief that the whole business is still deadly secret. For once we suspect they know that, the whole thing must be altered. Then we must stick by the Frenchman's side till he is home again, I said. If they thought they could get the information in Paris, they would try there. It means they have some deep scheme on foot in London, which they reckon is going to win out. Royer dines with my chief, and then comes to my house, where four people will see him. Whitaker from the Admiralty, myself, Sir Arthur Drew, and General Wynne Stanley. The First Lord is ill, and has gone to sharing him. At my house he will get a certain document from Whitaker, and after that he will be moted to Portsmouth, where a destroyer will take him to Havre. His journey is too important for the ordinary boat train. He will never be left unattended for a moment till he is safe on French soil. The same with Whitaker, till he meets Royer. That is the best we can do, and it's hard to see how there can be any miscarriage. But I don't mind admitting that I am horribly nervous. This murder of Carolides will play the deuce in the chancellors of Europe. After breakfast he asked me if I could drive a car. Well, you'll be my chauffeur today, and wear Hudson's rig. You're about his size. You have a hand in this business, and we are taking no risks. There are desperate men against us who will not respect the country retreat of an overworked official. When I first came to London I had bought a car and amused myself with running about the south of England, so I knew something of the geography. I took Sir Walter to town by the bath-road, and made good going. It was a soft breathless June morning, with a promise of sultryness later, but it was delicious enough swinging through the little towns with their freshly watered streets, and past the summer gardens of the Thames Valley. I landed Sir Walter at his house in Queen Anne's Gate punctually by half past eleven. The butler was coming up by train with the luggage. The first thing he did was to take me round a Scotland yard. There we saw a prim gentleman with a clean shaven lawyer's face. I've brought you the Portland Place murderer. Was Sir Walter's introduction? The reply was a wry smile. It would have been a welcome present, but this, I presume, is Mr Richard Hane, who for some days greatly interested my department. Mr Hane will interest it again. He has much to tell you but not today. For certain grave reasons his tale must wait for twenty-four hours. Then I can promise you you will be entertained and possibly edified. I want you to assure Mr Hane that he will suffer no further inconvenience. This assurance was promptly given. You can take up your life where you left off, I was told. Your flat, which probably you no longer wish to occupy, is waiting for you, and your man is still there. As you were never publicly accused, we considered that there was no need of a public exculpation. But on that, of course, you must please yourself. We may want your assistance later on, Macagillivray, Sir Walter said as we left. Then he turned me loose. Come and see me to-morrow, Hane. I didn't tell you to keep deadly quiet. If I were you I would go to bed, for you must have considerable arrears of sleep to overtake. You had better lie low, for if one of your black-stone friends saw you there might be trouble. I felt curiously at a loose end. At first it was very pleasant to be a free man, able to go where I wanted without fearing anything. I'd only been a month under the ban of the law, and it was quite enough for me. I went to the Savoy and ordered very carefully a very good luncheon, and then smoked the best cigar the house could provide. But I was still feeling nervous. When I saw anybody look at me in the lounge, I grew shy and wondered if they were thinking about the murder. After that I took a taxi and drove miles away up into North London. I walked back through the fields and lines of villas and terraces, and then slums and mean streets, and it took me pretty near two hours. All the while my restlessness was growing worse. I felt that great things, tremendous things were happening on or about to happen, and I, who was the cogwheel of the whole business, was out of it. Royer would be landing at Dover. So Walter would be making plans with the few people in England who were in the secret, and somewhere in the darkness the black stone would be working. I felt the sense of danger and impending calamity, and I had the curious feeling too that I alone could avert it. Alone could grapple with it. But I was out of the game now. How could it be otherwise? It was not likely that cabinet ministers and admiralty lords and generals would admit me to their councils. I actually began to wish that I could run up against one of my three enemies. That would lead to developments. I felt that I wanted enormously to have a vulgar scrap with those gentry where I could hit out and flatten something. I was rapidly getting into a very bad temper. I didn't feel like going back to my flat. That had to be faced some time, but as I still had sufficient money I thought I would put it off till next morning and go to a hotel for the night. My irritation lasted through dinner which I had at a restaurant in German Street. I was no longer hungry and let several courses pass untasted. I drank the best part of a bottle of burgundy, but it did nothing to cheer me. An abominable restlessness had taken possession of me. Here was I, a very ordinary fellow with no particular brains, and yet I was convinced that somehow I was needed to help this business through that without me it would all go to blazes. I told myself it was sheer, silly conceit that four or five of the cleverest people living with all the might of the British Empire at their back had the job in hand. Yet I couldn't be convinced. It seemed as if a voice kept speaking in my ear telling me to be up and doing or I would never sleep again. The upshot was that at about half-past nine I made up my mind to go to Queen Anne's Gate. Very likely I would not be admitted but it would ease my conscience to try. I walked down German Street and at the corner of Duke Street passed a group of young men. They were in evening dress and had been dining somewhere and were going on to a music-hall. One of them was Marma Duke Jopley. He saw me and stopped short. My God! The murderer! he cried. Here you fellows, hold him! That's Henne, the man who did the Portland Place murder. He gripped me by the arm and the others crowded around. I wasn't looking for any trouble but my ill temper made me play the fool. A policeman came up and I should have told him the truth and if he didn't believe it demanded to be taken to Scotland Yard or for that matter to the nearest police station. But a delay at that moment seemed to me unendurable and the sight of Marma's imbecile face was more than I could bear. I let out with my left and had the satisfaction of seeing him measure his length in the gutter. Then began an unholy row. They were all on me at once and the policeman took me in the rear. I got in one or two good blows for I think with fair play I could have licked a lot of them but the policeman pinned me behind and one of them got his fingers in my throat. Through a black cloud of rage I heard the officer of the law asking what was the matter and mar me between his broken teeth declaring that I was Hannae the murderer. Oh, damn it all! I cried. Make the fellow shut up. I advise you to leave me alone, Constable. Scotland Yard knows all about me and you'll get a proper wigging if you interfere with me. You've got to come along with me, young man! said the policeman. I saw you strike that gentleman cruel hard. You began it too for he wasn't doing nothing. I seen you. Best go quietly or I'll have to fix you up. Exasperation and an overwhelming sense that at no cost must I delay gave me the strength of a bull elephant. I fairly wrenched the Constable off his feet, floored the man who was gripping my collar and set off at my best pace down Duke Street. I heard a whistle being blown and the rush of men behind me. I have a very fair turn of speed and that night I had wings. In a jiffy I was in Pal Mal and had turned down towards St. James's Park. I dodged the policeman at the palace gates, dived through oppressive carriages at the entrance to the mall and was making for the bridge before my pursuers had crossed the roadway. In the open ways of the park I put on a spurt. Happily there were few people about and no one tried to stop me. I was staking all on getting to Queen Anne's Gate. When I entered that quiet thoroughfare it seemed deserted. Sir Walter's house was in the narrowest part and outside it three or four motor-cars were drawn up. I slackened speed some yards off and walked briskly up to the door. If the butler refused me admission even if he delayed to open the door I was done. He didn't delay. I had scarcely rung before the door opened. I must see Sir Walter, I panted. My business is desperately important. That butler was a great man. Without moving a muscle he held the door open and then shut it behind me. Sir Walter is engaged sir and he gave it orders to admit no one. Perhaps you would wait. The house was of the old-fashioned kind with a wide hall and rooms on both sides of it. At the far end was an alcove with a telephone and a couple of chairs and there the butler offered me a seat. See here I whispered there's trouble about and I'm in it. That's the Walter knows and I'm working for him. If anyone comes and asks if I'm here I'll lie. He nodded and presently there was a noise of voices in the street and a furious ringing at the bell. I never admired a man more than that butler. He opened the door and with a face like a graven image waited to be questioned. Then he gave it to them. He told them whose house it was and what his orders were and simply froze them off the doorstep. I could see it all from my alcove and it was better than any play. I hadn't waited long till there came another ring at the bell. The butler made no bones about admitting this new visitor. While he was taking off his coat I saw who it was. You couldn't open a newspaper or a magazine without seeing that face. The grey beard cut like a spade. The firm fighting mouth. The blunt square nose and the keen blue eyes. I recognized the first sea-lord the man they say that made the new British Navy. He passed my alcove and was ushered into a room at the back of the hall. As the door opened I could hear the sound of low voices. It shut and I was left alone again. For twenty minutes I sat there wondering what I was to do next. I was still perfectly convinced that I was wanted but when or how I had no notion. I kept looking at my watch and as the time crept on to half past ten I began to think that the conference must soon end. In a quarter of an hour Royer should be speeding along the road to Portsmouth. Then I heard a bell ring and the butler appeared. The door of the back room opened and the first sea-lord came out. He walked past me and in passing he glanced in my direction and for a second we looked each other in the face only for a second but it was enough to make my heart jump. I had never seen the great man before and he had never seen me but in that fraction of time something sprang into his eyes and that something was recognition. You can't mistake it. It is a flicker, a spark of light a minute shade of difference which means one thing and one thing only. It came involuntarily for in a moment it died and he passed on. In a maze of wild fancies I heard the street door close behind him. I picked up the telephone book and looked up the number of his house. We were connected at once and I heard a servant's voice. Is his lordship at home? I asked. His lordship returned half an hour ago said the voice and has gone to bed. He is not very well tonight. Would you leave a message, sir? I rang off and sat down numbly in a chair. My part in this business was not yet ended. It had been a close shave but I had been in time. Not a moment could be lost so I marched boldly to the door of that back room and entered without knocking. Five surprised faces looked up from the round table. There was Sir Walter and Drew, the war minister whom I knew from his photographs. There was a slim elderly man who was probably Whittaker, the Admiralty official and there was General Wynne Stanley conspicuous from the long scar on his forehead. Lastly there was a short stout man with an iron grained stash and bushy eyebrows who had been arrested in the middle of a sentence. Sir Walter's face showed surprise and annoyance. This is Mr. Hane of whom I have spoken to you. He said apologetically to the company. I'm afraid, Hane, this visit is ill-timed. I was getting back my coolness. That remains to be seen, sir, I said. But I think it may be in the nick of time. For God's sake, gentlemen, tell me who went out a minute ago. Lord Alloa, Sir Walter said, reddening with anger. It was not, I cried. It was his living image but it was not Lord Alloa. It was someone who recognized me, someone I have seen in the last month. He had scarcely left doorstep when I rang up Lord Alloa's house and was told he had come in half an hour before and had gone to bed. Who? Who? Someone stammered. The black stone, I cried. And I sat down in the chair so recently vacated and looked round at five badly scared gentlemen.