by John Buchan
It was the answer he expected, but he saw that further inquiries were going to be difficult. The porter was too busy and too proud — no chance of establishing confidential relations there. Jaikie emerged from the portals, and finding the Gods unfriendly, decided to appeal to Acheron. He made his way round to the back regions, which had once been stables and coach-houses, and housed now the electric plant and a repairing shop for cars. There was a kind of courtyard, with petrol pumps and water pumps, and at the corner to mark the fairway several white stones which in old days had been the seat of relaxing ostlers. On two of these sat two men, both in mechanic’s overalls, hotly disputing.
A kind fate had led him that way, for as he sauntered past them he heard the word “Kangaroos” several times repeated. He heard the names of Morrison and Smail and Charvill — he heard his own, joined to a blasphemous epithet which seemed to be meant as commendation. He sidled towards the speakers.
“What I say,” said one, speaking slowly and with great emphasis, “is that them that selected oor team should be drooned like kittens in a bucket. It wasna representative. I say it wasna representative. If it had been, we micht hae dung yon Kangaroos a’ to hell.”
“Ye’re awfu’ clever, Wulkie. How wad ye hae seleckit it?”
“I wad hae left Morrison oot, and I wad hae played” — here followed sundry names of no interest to the reader. “And I wad hae played Galt at stand-off half. It was fair manslaughter pittin’ him at wing three-quarter. He hasna the pace nor the wecht.”
“He’s a dam fine wee felly,” said the other. “Ye ken weel he won the match.”
“But he’d have won it better at stand-off. Yon Sneddon was nae mair use than a tattie-bogle. Ye canna pit Galt higher than I pit him, but the richt use wasna made o’ him. That’s why I wad droon the selectors.”
“I think I would let them live a little longer,” Jaikie interposed. “After all, we won against odds. Sneddon was better than you think.”
“Did ye see the match?” the man called Wilkie demanded fiercely.
“Yes,” said Jaikie. “And I still feel it in my bones. You see, I was playing in it.”
The two regarded him wildly, and then a light of recollection awoke in Wilkie’s eye. “By God, it’s Galt,” he cried. “It’s J. Galt.” He extended a dirty palm. “Pit it there. I’m prood to shake hands wi’ ye. Man, the wee laddies in Glesca the day are worshippin’ bits o’ your jersey.”
“It’s an occasion to celebrate wi’ a drink,” said the other man solemnly. “But we’re baith busy, and there’s nae drink to be had in this dam teetotal shop. Will ye no meet us in the Briar Bush the nicht? There’s mony a man in this toun wad be blithe to see J. Galt.”
The ice was now broken, and for five minutes there was a well-informed discussion on the subtler aspects of Rugby football. Then Jaikie gently insinuated his own purpose. He wanted to find out who was living in the Hydropathic, and he did not want to trouble the higher functionaries.
“Nae wonder,” said Wilkie. “There’s a pentit Jezebel in yon bewry that wad bite a body’s heid off.”
Was there no one, Jaikie asked, no friend of his friends inside the building with whom he could have a friendly talk?
“There’s Tam Grierson, the heid-porter,” he was told. “He’s a decent body, though he looks like a bubbly-jock. He’ll be comin’ off duty for his tea in ten minutes. He bides at the lodge ayont the big garage. I’ll tak ye doun and introduce ye. Tam will be set up to see ye, for he’s terrible keen on fitba.”
So presently Jaikie found himself drinking tea with the resplendent personage, who had removed his braided frock-coat for comfort in his own dwelling. Mr Grierson off duty was the soul of friendliness. They spoke of the match, they spoke of Rugby heroes of old days. They spoke of Scotland’s chances against England. Then Jaikie introduced the subject of his quest. “There’s a man whose name I’m not very sure about,” he said, “something like Collins or Allen. My friend, with whom I’m on a walking tour, is anxious to know if he’s staying here.” He described in great detail the appearance of Mr Allins, his high colour, his pale eyes, his small yellow moustache.
“Ho!” said the head-porter. “I ken him fine! He arrived last night. I don’t just mind his name. He’s a foreigner, anyway, though he speaks English. I heard him jabberin’ a foreign langwidge wi’ the others.”
“What others?”
“The other foreigners. There’s generally a lot o’ queer folk bidin’ in the Hydro, and a lot o’ them’s foreigners. But the ones I mean came by the London mail last night, and your freend arrived about dinner-time. He seemed to be very thick wi’ them. There’s seven o’ them a’thegither. Four has never stirred outbye the day. One gaed off in a cawr after lunch, and your freend and the other are down in Portaway. Ye can come back wi’ me and see if ye can get a glisk o’ them.”
Presently the head-porter resumed his braided frock-coat, and, accompanied by Jaikie, returned to the scene of his labours, and incidentally to the grand manner. Jaikie was directed to an inconspicuous seat at the back of the porch, while the head-porter directed the activities of boots and waiters. At first there was a lull. The tea-drinkers had finished their meal and for the most part gone indoors, and on the broad sweep of gravel the dusk descended. The head-porter spared an occasional moment for conversation, but for the most part Jaikie was left to himself to smoke cigarettes and watch the lights spring out in the valley below.
About half-past five the bustle began. The Hydropathic omnibuses began to roll up and discharge new guests, and they were followed by several taxi-cabs and one ancient four-wheeler. “It’s the train frae the south,” he was informed by Grierson, who was at once swept into a whirl of busyness. His barrack-room voice — he had once been a sergeant in the K.O.S.B. — echoed in porch and hall, and he had more than one distinguished passage of arms with a taxi-driver. Jaikie thought he had forgotten him, till suddenly he heard his hoarse whisper in his ear, “There’s your gentry,” and looked up to see two men entering the hotel.
One was beyond doubt Sigismund Allins, the man whom Mr Craw had recognised yesterday in the Gledmouth motor, the man whom he himself had dined opposite at the Grey Goose Club. He was dressed in a golfing suit of crotal tweeds, and made an elegant symphony in brown. Jaikie’s eye passed to his companion, who was the more conspicuous figure. He was short and square and had a heavy shaven face and small penetrating eyes which were not concealed by his large glasses. He wore an ulster of a type rarely seen on these shores, and a small green hat pushed back from a broad forehead. As the light of the porch fell on him Jaikie had a sudden impression of an enormously vigorous being, who made Allins by his side seem like a wisp of straw.
He had another impression. The two men were talking eagerly in a foreign tongue, and both seemed to be in a state of high excitement. Allins showed it by his twitching lips and nervous hands, the other by his quick purposeful stride and the way he stuck his chin forward. Within the last half-hour they had seen something which had strongly moved them.
This was also the opinion of Grierson, delivered confidentially, as he superintended the moving of some baggage. “They maun hae been doun meetin’ the train,” he whispered, “and they’ve gotten either guid news or ill news.”
There was no reason why he should stay longer, so Jaikie took his departure, after asking his friend the head-porter to keep an eye on the foreigners. “I’ve my reasons,” he said, “which I’ll tell you later. I’ll be up some time to-morrow to have another crack with you.”
At the lodge-gates he encountered the man called Wilkie returning from the town. “How did ye get on wi’ Grierson? Fine? I thocht ye would. Tam’s a rale auld-fashioned character, and can be desperate thrawn if ye get the wrang side o’ him, but when he’s in gude fettle ye’ll no find a nicer man. . . . I’ve been doun at the station. I wanted a word wi’ the Knockraw shover.”
“Knockraw?”
“Aye. The folk in Knockraw have hired twae cars from us f
or the month, but they brocht their ain shover wi’ them. A Frenchie. Weel, there was something wrong wi’ the clutch o’ ane o’ them, and they wrote in about it. I saw the cawr in the town, so I went to the station to speak to the man. He was meetin’ the express.”
“Was he meeting anyone?”
“Aye, a young lad cam off the train, a lang lad in a blue top-coat. The shover was in a michty hurry to get on the road and he wadna stop to speak to me — said he would come back the morn. At least, I think he said that, but his English is ill to follow.”
“Did the new arrival speak to anyone at the station?”
“No a word. He just banged into the cawr and off.”
Jaikie, having a good deal to think about, walked slowly back to the Green Tree. Another Evallonian had arrived to join the Knockraw party. Allins and his friend had been at the station and must have seen him, but they had not accosted him. Was he wrong in his suspicions, and had Allins nothing to do with the Evallonians? . . . Yet the sight of something had put him and his companion into a state of profound excitement. The mystery was getting deeper.
He purchased at the station copies of that day’s View and Wire as an offering for Mr Craw. He also ascertained from a porter, whom he had known of old, that a guest had arrived for Knockraw. “I should have cairried his bag, but yon foreign shover was waitin’ for him, and the twae were out o’ the station and into their cawr afore ye could blaw your nose. Ugh, man! since this damned election sterted Portaway’s been a fair penny waddin’. Half the folk that come here the noo should be in a menawgerie.”
Mr Craw was seated by his bedroom fire, writing with great contentment. He announced that he also had been for a walk. Rather shamefacedly he confessed that he had wanted to taste a butter biscuit again, and had made his way to the baker’s shop. “They are quite as good as I thought,” he said. “I have kept two for you.”
He had had an adventure in a small way, for he had seen Mr Allins. Alone, and wearing the russet clothes which Jaikie had observed at the Hydropathic. He had seen him coming up the Eastgate, and, remembering Jaikie’s caution, had retired down an alley, whence he had had a good view of him. There was no doubt on the matter; it was Sigismund Allins, the member of his secretariat.
Jaikie presented him with the two papers and sat down to reflect. Suddenly he was startled by the sound which a small animal might make in heavy pain. Mr Craw was reading something in the Wire which made him whimper. He finished it, passed a hand over his brow, and let the paper fall to the ground.
On the front page, with inch headlines, was the triumph of Tibbets. “Mr Craw Speaks to the World!” was the main heading, and there were a number of juicy subsidiaries. The prophet was unveiled with a vengeance. He preached a mercantile and militant patriotism, a downright, heavy-handed, man-of-the-world, damn-your-eyes, matter-of-fact philosophy. Tibbets had done his work well. Everything that the Wire had urged was now fathered on the Wire’s chief rival. The thing was brilliantly staged — the dim library at Castle Gay, and the robust and bright-eyed sage scintillating among its ancient shadows. Tibbets had behaved well, too. There was not a hint of irony in his style; he wrote as convert and admirer; he suggested that the nation had been long in travail, and had at last produced a Man. The quondam sentimentalist and peacemaker stood revealed as the natural leader of the red-bloods and the die-hards.
“What will they think of me?” the small voice wailed. “Those who have trusted me?”
What indeed! thought Jaikie. The field-marshal who flings his baton into the ash-bin and announces that the enemy have all the virtues, the prophet who tells his impassioned votaries that he has been pulling their leg, the priest who parodies his faith’s mysteries — of such was Mr Craw. Jaikie was himself so blankly astonished that he did not trouble to think how, during the last feverish days, that interview could have been given.
He was roused by the injured man getting to his feet. Mr Craw was no longer plaintive — he was determined and he was angry.
“There has been infamous treachery somewhere,” he announced in a full loud voice. “Have the goodness to order a car. I start at once for Castle Gay, and there I am going to — to — to wring somebody’s neck.”
CHAPTER XIII. PORTAWAY — RED DAVIE
Jaikie lifted his head in astonishment. This was a Craw whom he had not met before — a man of purpose, with his hackles up. He was proposing to take that bold course which Jaikie himself had urged at the Back House of the Garroch, to loose the entangling knot by cutting it. But, strangely enough, Jaikie was now averse to that proposal, for he had come to suspect that business was afoot which made it desirable that Mr Craw should keep at a distance from Castle Gay.
“That’s a pretty good score for you,” he said.
“What do you mean? It’s an outrage. It must be at once repudiated.”
“The Wire has been hoaxed. You’ve got them in your hand. They’ll have to eat humble pie. But I’m blessed if I know how it happened. Tibbets is no fool, and he would not have printed the stuff unless he believed it to be genuine. Who has been pulling his leg? It can’t have been Dougal — he must have known that it was too dangerous.”
“I shall find out at Castle Gay.”
“There’s no need to go there — at least there’s no hurry. Telegraph to the View telling them to announce that the interview in the Wire is bogus. I’ll take it round to the office before it closes.”
Mr Craw was in the mood for action. He at once drafted a telegram, signing it with the code-word which he employed in emergencies and which would secure the instant attention of his editor. Jaikie took it and departed. “Remember to order a car,” Mr Craw called after him, but got no reply.
But when he reached the Post Office Jaikie did not send the telegram as originally drafted. It was borne in on him that this bogus interview was a disguised blessing. If it went uncontradicted it would keep Tibbets quiet; it had changed that menacing creature from an enemy to an ally. So on his own responsibility he altered the telegram to “Do not repudiate Wire interview for the moment,” and signed it with Mr Craw’s codeword. That would prevent any premature disavowal from Castle Gay.
Jaikie despatched the wire and walked slowly back. His mind was busy with a problem which each hour seemed to develop new ramifications.
There was first the question of Sigismund Allins. Jaikie was firmly resolved that Allins was a rogue, and his chief evidence was his own instinct. There was something fishy about the man’s behaviour — his premature and secret return from holiday, his presence at the Hydropathic under another name, his association with the strange foreigners. But above all he remembered Allins’s face and manner of speech, which had inspired him with profound mistrust. A hard and a varied life had made Jaikie a good impressionist judge of character. He remembered few occasions when he had been wrong.
That morning he had reached a conclusion. Mr Allins — for a consideration — had brought the Evallonians to Knockraw, and had arranged for the announcement of Mr Craw’s journey abroad. He was a gambler, and probably hard up. Mr Craw’s disappearance, if he was aware of it, must have upset his calculations, but that, after all, was the Evallonians’ concern: Allins’s task had probably only been to get them into Craw’s vicinity. There might be a contingent payment due to him if the Evallonians succeeded in their mission, and in that case it was to his interest to further their efforts. But he could scarcely do that at Castle Gay, for his connivance might leak out. No. It was quite clear that Allins had every reason to be absent during their visit.
Why, then, had he returned? To advise the Evallonians and earn his contingent payment at a safe distance? That was intelligible enough, though dangerous. There must be people in Portaway who knew him by sight, and a rumour of his arrival might reach Castle Gay. He had not disguised himself, except by posing as a foreigner, and he was walking about brazenly in the streets. . . . The more Jaikie thought about it, the less reason he could find for Allins’s return. It was a risk which no discreet
blackguard would take, and he believed Allins to be discreet. No, there must be some overmastering motive which he could not guess at.
His mind turned to the foreigners at the Hydropathic. Were they Evallonians, a reserve summoned to wait in the background? Jaikie regretted that his ignorance of foreign tongues had prevented his identifying their speech. He could think of no reason for their presence. The business was very secret and did not require numbers. The three plenipotentiaries at Knockraw were abundantly adequate. . . . They had behaved oddly, too. Allins and another had visited the station and witnessed the arrival of a visitor for Knockraw. They had not spoken to him or to the Knockraw chauffeur, and the visitor had left in a mighty hurry, as if anxious to be unobserved. But the sight of him had put Allins and his friend into a state of considerable excitement. He remembered their eager talk at the Hydropathic door.
His reflections came to a sudden halt, for an idea had struck him, an idea so startling that for the moment he could not compass it. He needed more information. The last part of his return journey was almost a canter.
He found Mr Craw still fuming over the Wire.
“I didn’t send your telegram,” he said. “As long as the interview goes unrepudiated it will keep Tibbets quiet, so I think we’d better let it alone for a day or two.”
Mr Craw disregarded this act of indiscipline.
“Have you ordered a car?” he asked crossly.
Jaikie pulled a chair up to the small fire, which had been lit by his order, and regarded his companion seriously.
“I don’t think you should go back to Castle Gay to-night,” he said. “You’ll only fall into the thick of that Evallonian mess. Perhaps Barbon and Dougal have got it settled, and it would be a pity to spoil their game. By eleven o’clock to-morrow morning we’ll know the position, and I think that you should wait at least till them. There’s no need to hurry. You’ve got the Wire in a cleft stick.”