by John Buchan
Her name was the Ariadne, as I discovered from the cap of one of the men who was polishing brasswork. I spoke to him, and got an answer in the soft dialect of Essex. Another hand that came along passed me the time of day in an unmistakable English tongue. Our boatman had an argument with one of them about the weather, and for a few minutes we lay on our oars close to the starboard bow.
Then the men suddenly disregarded us and bent their heads to their work as an officer came along the deck. He was a pleasant, clean-looking young fellow, and he put a question to us about our fishing in very good English. But there could be no doubt about him. His close-cropped head and the cut of his collar and tie never came out of England.
That did something to reassure me, but as we rowed back to Bradgate my obstinate doubts would not be dismissed. The thing that worried me was the reflection that my enemies knew that I had got my knowledge from Scudder, and it was Scudder who had given me the clue to this place. If they knew that Scudder had this clue, would they not be certain to change their plans? Too much depended on their success for them to take any risks. The whole question was how much they understood about Scudder’s knowledge. I had talked confidently last night about Germans always sticking to a scheme, but if they had any suspicions that I was on their track they would be fools not to cover it. I wondered if the man last night had seen that I recognized him. Somehow I did not think he had, and to that I had clung. But the whole business had never seemed so difficult as that afternoon when by all calculations I should have been rejoicing in assured success.
In the hotel I met the commander of the destroyer, to whom Scaife introduced me, and with whom I had a few words. Then I thought I would put in an hour or two watching Trafalgar Lodge.
I found a place farther up the hill, in the garden of an empty house. From there I had a full view of the court, on which two figures were having a game of tennis. One was the old man, whom I had already seen; the other was a younger fellow, wearing some club colours in the scarf round his middle. They played with tremendous zest, like two city gents who wanted hard exercise to open their pores. You couldn’t conceive a more innocent spectacle. They shouted and laughed and stopped for drinks, when a maid brought out two tankards on a salver. I rubbed my eyes and asked myself if I was not the most immortal fool on earth. Mystery and darkness had hung about the men who hunted me over the Scotch moor in aeroplane and motor-car, and notably about that infernal antiquarian. It was easy enough to connect those folk with the knife that pinned Scudder to the floor, and with fell designs on the world’s peace. But here were two guileless citizens taking their innocuous exercise, and soon about to go indoors to a humdrum dinner, where they would talk of market prices and the last cricket scores and the gossip of their native Surbiton. I had been making a net to catch vultures and falcons, and lo and behold! two plump thrushes had blundered into it.
Presently a third figure arrived, a young man on a bicycle, with a bag of golf-clubs slung on his back. He strolled round to the tennis lawn and was welcomed riotously by the players. Evidently they were chaffing him, and their chaff sounded horribly English. Then the plump man, mopping his brow with a silk handkerchief, announced that he must have a tub. I heard his very words—’I’ve got into a proper lather,’ he said. ‘This will bring down my weight and my handicap, Bob. I’ll take you on tomorrow and give you a stroke a hole.’ You couldn’t find anything much more English than that.
They all went into the house, and left me feeling a precious idiot. I had been barking up the wrong tree this time. These men might be acting; but if they were, where was their audience? They didn’t know I was sitting thirty yards off in a rhododendron. It was simply impossible to believe that these three hearty fellows were anything but what they seemed — three ordinary, game-playing, suburban Englishmen, wearisome, if you like, but sordidly innocent.
And yet there were three of them; and one was old, and one was plump, and one was lean and dark; and their house chimed in with Scudder’s notes; and half a mile off was lying a steam yacht with at least one German officer. I thought of Karolides lying dead and all Europe trembling on the edge of earthquake, and the men I had left behind me in London who were waiting anxiously for the events of the next hours. There was no doubt that hell was afoot somewhere. The Black Stone had won, and if it survived this June night would bank its winnings.
There seemed only one thing to do — go forward as if I had no doubts, and if I was going to make a fool of myself to do it handsomely. Never in my life have I faced a job with greater disinclination. I would rather in my then mind have walked into a den of anarchists, each with his Browning handy, or faced a charging lion with a popgun, than enter that happy home of three cheerful Englishmen and tell them that their game was up. How they would laugh at me!
But suddenly I remembered a thing I once heard in Rhodesia from old Peter Pienaar. I have quoted Peter already in this narrative. He was the best scout I ever knew, and before he had turned respectable he had been pretty often on the windy side of the law, when he had been wanted badly by the authorities. Peter once discussed with me the question of disguises, and he had a theory which struck me at the time. He said, barring absolute certainties like fingerprints, mere physical traits were very little use for identification if the fugitive really knew his business. He laughed at things like dyed hair and false beards and such childish follies. The only thing that mattered was what Peter called ‘atmosphere’.
If a man could get into perfectly different surroundings from those in which he had been first observed, and — this is the important part — really play up to these surroundings and behave as if he had never been out of them, he would puzzle the cleverest detectives on earth. And he used to tell a story of how he once borrowed a black coat and went to church and shared the same hymn-book with the man that was looking for him. If that man had seen him in decent company before he would have recognized him; but he had only seen him snuffing the lights in a public-house with a revolver. The recollection of Peter’s talk gave me the first real comfort that I had had that day. Peter had been a wise old bird, and these fellows I was after were about the pick of the aviary. What if they were playing Peter’s game? A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.
Again, there was that other maxim of Peter’s which had helped me when I had been a roadman. ‘If you are playing a part, you will never keep it up unless you convince yourself that you are it.’ That would explain the game of tennis. Those chaps didn’t need to act, they just turned a handle and passed into another life, which came as naturally to them as the first. It sounds a platitude, but Peter used to say that it was the big secret of all the famous criminals.
It was now getting on for eight o’clock, and I went back and saw Scaife to give him his instructions. I arranged with him how to place his men, and then I went for a walk, for I didn’t feel up to any dinner. I went round the deserted golf-course, and then to a point on the cliffs farther north beyond the line of the villas.
On the little trim newly-made roads I met people in flannels coming back from tennis and the beach, and a coastguard from the wireless station, and donkeys and pierrots padding homewards. Out at sea in the blue dusk I saw lights appear on the Ariadne and on the destroyer away to the south, and beyond the Cock sands the bigger lights of steamers making for the Thames. The whole scene was so peaceful and ordinary that I got more dashed in spirits every second. It took all my resolution to stroll towards Trafalgar Lodge about half-past nine.
On the way I got a piece of solid comfort from the sight of a greyhound that was swinging along at a nursemaid’s heels. He reminded me of a dog I used to have in Rhodesia, and of the time when I took him hunting with me in the Pali hills. We were after reebok, the dun kind, and I recollected how we had followed one beast, and both he and I had clean lost it. A greyhound works by sight, and my eyes are good enough, but that buck simply leaked out of the landscape. Afterwards I found out how it managed it. Against the grey roc
k of the kopjes it showed no more than a crow against a thundercloud. It didn’t need to run away; all it had to do was to stand still and melt into the background.
Suddenly as these memories chased across my brain I thought of my present case and applied the moral. The Black Stone didn’t need to bolt. They were quietly absorbed into the landscape. I was on the right track, and I jammed that down in my mind and vowed never to forget it. The last word was with Peter Pienaar.
Scaife’s men would be posted now, but there was no sign of a soul. The house stood as open as a market-place for anybody to observe. A three-foot railing separated it from the cliff road; the windows on the ground-floor were all open, and shaded lights and the low sound of voices revealed where the occupants were finishing dinner. Everything was as public and above-board as a charity bazaar. Feeling the greatest fool on earth, I opened the gate and rang the bell.
A man of my sort, who has travelled about the world in rough places, gets on perfectly well with two classes, what you may call the upper and the lower. He understands them and they understand him. I was at home with herds and tramps and roadmen, and I was sufficiently at my ease with people like Sir Walter and the men I had met the night before. I can’t explain why, but it is a fact. But what fellows like me don’t understand is the great comfortable, satisfied middle-class world, the folk that live in villas and suburbs. He doesn’t know how they look at things, he doesn’t understand their conventions, and he is as shy of them as of a black mamba. When a trim parlour-maid opened the door, I could hardly find my voice.
I asked for Mr Appleton, and was ushered in. My plan had been to walk straight into the dining-room, and by a sudden appearance wake in the men that start of recognition which would confirm my theory. But when I found myself in that neat hall the place mastered me. There were the golf-clubs and tennis-rackets, the straw hats and caps, the rows of gloves, the sheaf of walking-sticks, which you will find in ten thousand British homes. A stack of neatly folded coats and waterproofs covered the top of an old oak chest; there was a grandfather clock ticking; and some polished brass warming-pans on the walls, and a barometer, and a print of Chiltern winning the St Leger. The place was as orthodox as an Anglican church. When the maid asked me for my name I gave it automatically, and was shown into the smoking-room, on the right side of the hall.
That room was even worse. I hadn’t time to examine it, but I could see some framed group photographs above the mantelpiece, and I could have sworn they were English public school or college. I had only one glance, for I managed to pull myself together and go after the maid. But I was too late. She had already entered the dining-room and given my name to her master, and I had missed the chance of seeing how the three took it.
When I walked into the room the old man at the head of the table had risen and turned round to meet me. He was in evening dress — a short coat and black tie, as was the other, whom I called in my own mind the plump one. The third, the dark fellow, wore a blue serge suit and a soft white collar, and the colours of some club or school.
The old man’s manner was perfect. ‘Mr Hannay?’ he said hesitatingly. ‘Did you wish to see me? One moment, you fellows, and I’ll rejoin you. We had better go to the smoking-room.’
Though I hadn’t an ounce of confidence in me, I forced myself to play the game. I pulled up a chair and sat down on it.
‘I think we have met before,’ I said, ‘and I guess you know my business.’
The light in the room was dim, but so far as I could see their faces, they played the part of mystification very well.
‘Maybe, maybe,’ said the old man. ‘I haven’t a very good memory, but I’m afraid you must tell me your errand, Sir, for I really don’t know it.’
‘Well, then,’ I said, and all the time I seemed to myself to be talking pure foolishness—’I have come to tell you that the game’s up. I have a warrant for the arrest of you three gentlemen.’
‘Arrest,’ said the old man, and he looked really shocked. ‘Arrest! Good God, what for?’
‘For the murder of Franklin Scudder in London on the 23rd day of last month.’
‘I never heard the name before,’ said the old man in a dazed voice.
One of the others spoke up. ‘That was the Portland Place murder. I read about it. Good heavens, you must be mad, Sir! Where do you come from?’
‘Scotland Yard,’ I said.
After that for a minute there was utter silence. The old man was staring at his plate and fumbling with a nut, the very model of innocent bewilderment.
Then the plump one spoke up. He stammered a little, like a man picking his words.
‘Don’t get flustered, uncle,’ he said. ‘It is all a ridiculous mistake; but these things happen sometimes, and we can easily set it right. It won’t be hard to prove our innocence. I can show that I was out of the country on the 23rd of May, and Bob was in a nursing home. You were in London, but you can explain what you were doing.’
‘Right, Percy! Of course that’s easy enough. The 23rd! That was the day after Agatha’s wedding. Let me see. What was I doing? I came up in the morning from Woking, and lunched at the club with Charlie Symons. Then — oh yes, I dined with the Fishmongers. I remember, for the punch didn’t agree with me, and I was seedy next morning. Hang it all, there’s the cigar-box I brought back from the dinner.’ He pointed to an object on the table, and laughed nervously.
‘I think, Sir,’ said the young man, addressing me respectfully, ‘you will see you are mistaken. We want to assist the law like all Englishmen, and we don’t want Scotland Yard to be making fools of themselves. That’s so, uncle?’
‘Certainly, Bob.’ The old fellow seemed to be recovering his voice. ‘Certainly, we’ll do anything in our power to assist the authorities. But — but this is a bit too much. I can’t get over it.’
‘How Nellie will chuckle,’ said the plump man. ‘She always said that you would die of boredom because nothing ever happened to you. And now you’ve got it thick and strong,’ and he began to laugh very pleasantly.
‘By Jove, yes. just think of it! What a story to tell at the club. Really, Mr Hannay, I suppose I should be angry, to show my innocence, but it’s too funny! I almost forgive you the fright you gave me! You looked so glum, I thought I might have been walking in my sleep and killing people.’
It couldn’t be acting, it was too confoundedly genuine. My heart went into my boots, and my first impulse was to apologize and clear out. But I told myself I must see it through, even though I was to be the laughing-stock of Britain. The light from the dinner-table candlesticks was not very good, and to cover my confusion I got up, walked to the door and switched on the electric light. The sudden glare made them blink, and I stood scanning the three faces.
Well, I made nothing of it. One was old and bald, one was stout, one was dark and thin. There was nothing in their appearance to prevent them being the three who had hunted me in Scotland, but there was nothing to identify them. 1 simply can’t explain why I who, as a roadman, had looked into two pairs of eyes, and as Ned Ainslie into another pair, why I, who have a good memory and reasonable powers of observation, could find no satisfaction. They seemed exactly what they professed to be, and I could not have sworn to one of them.
There in that pleasant dining-room, with etchings on the walls, and a picture of an old lady in a bib above the mantelpiece, I could see nothing to connect them with the moorland desperadoes. There was a silver cigarette-box beside me, and I saw that it had been won by Percival Appleton, Esq., of the St Bede’s Club, in a golf tournament. I had to keep a firm hold of Peter Pienaar to prevent myself bolting out of that house.
‘Well,’ said the old man politely, ‘are you reassured by your scrutiny, Sir?’
I couldn’t find a word.
‘I hope you’ll find it consistent with your duty to drop this ridiculous business. I make no complaint, but you’ll see how annoying it must be to respectable people.’
I shook my head.
‘O Lo
rd,’ said the young man. ‘This is a bit too thick!’
‘Do you propose to march us off to the police station?’ asked the plump one. ‘That might be the best way out of it, but I suppose you won’t be content with the local branch. I have the right to ask to see your warrant, but I don’t wish to cast any aspersions upon you. You are only doing your duty. But you’ll admit it’s horribly awkward. What do you propose to do?’
There was nothing to do except to call in my men and have them arrested, or to confess my blunder and clear out. I felt mesmerized by the whole place, by the air of obvious innocence — not innocence merely, but frank honest bewilderment and concern in the three faces.
‘Oh, Peter Pienaar,’ I groaned inwardly, and for a moment I was very near damning myself for a fool and asking their pardon.
‘Meantime I vote we have a game of bridge,’ said the plump one. ‘It will give Mr Hannay time to think over things, and you know we have been wanting a fourth player. Do you play, Sir?’
I accepted as if it had been an ordinary invitation at the club. The whole business had mesmerized me. We went into the smoking-room where a card-table was set out, and I was offered things to smoke and drink. I took my place at the table in a kind of dream. The window was open and the moon was flooding the cliffs and sea with a great tide of yellow light. There was moonshine, too, in my head. The three had recovered their composure, and were talking easily — just the kind of slangy talk you will hear in any golf club-house. I must have cut a rum figure, sitting there knitting my brows with my eyes wandering.
My partner was the young dark one. I play a fair hand at bridge, but I must have been rank bad that night. They saw that they had got me puzzled, and that put them more than ever at their ease. I kept looking at their faces, but they conveyed nothing to me. It was not that they looked different; they were different. I clung desperately to the words of Peter Pienaar.