by John Buchan
The searchers, puffing and bewildered, lost their tempers. Bannister found a pistol clapped to his chest, and turned on Mastrovin a pallid, terror-stricken face.
“What infernal maze is this you have brought us to?” the voice behind the pistol demanded. “Answer, you fool. There are people here, many people. Who are they?”
The butler was a figure of panic. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “You have seen the rooms of the staff. Up here no one sleeps. It is the old part of the house. They say it is haunted.”
“Haunted be damned!” Mastrovin turned suddenly and peered into a long, low attic, empty except for some ancient bedsteads. There was a sound without, and as he moved his head he saw the butt-end of a human form disappearing apparently into the ground. It was Tibbets, who was a little behind the others. The sight quickened Mastrovin’s paces. For a little he preceded Bannister, darting with surprising rapidity in the direction of any noise. But all that happened was that he hit his head hard on a beam, and, opening a door hastily, all but cascaded down a steep flight of steps. And his movements were enlivened by echoes of ghostly merriment above, below, before, behind him. . . .
In a secluded corner Alison, Jaikie, and Tibbets were recovering their breath. The girl shook with laughter. “Was there ever such a game of hide-and-seek?” she panted.
But Jaikie looked grave.
“We mustn’t rattle them too much,” he said. “They’re a queer lot, and if we wake the savage in them they may forget their manners. We don’t want anything ugly to happen. They’ll give up in a little if we let them alone, and go back to the library.”
But it was a full half-hour before Mastrovin left those upper floors, and, with each minute of failure to find what he sought, his fury and his suspicions increased. Alison and her two squires followed the party at a discreet distance, till they saw them enter the library corridor. Jaikie took a glance into the hall below, and observed that the Evallonian sentry was no longer there. He knew that he was now lying gagged and trussed in a corner of the cloak-room. The time had come for Mackillop and his friends to act.
The three squeezed into their little gallery above the fireplace, just as the Evallonians entered the library. Mr Craw was still writing in apparent unconcern. As a matter of fact he had written his name six hundred and seventy times on sheets of foolscap by way of steadying his nerves. Dougal was smoking and reading the New Statesman, Barbon was apparently asleep, and Charvill still deep in his novel. As they entered, Rosenbaum and Dedekind moved towards them, and there were some rapid questions and answers.
Something which the leader said woke all five into a sudden vigilance. The slouch and embarrassment disappeared, and their bodies seemed to quicken with a new purpose. The five took a step towards the table, and their movements were soft and lithe as panthers. They were no longer clumsy great-coated foreigners, but beasts of prey.
The sweat stood on Mastrovin’s brow, for he was of a heavy habit of body and had had a wearing time upstairs. But his voice had an edge like ice.
“I have seen your house,” he said. “I am not satisfied. There are people hiding in it. You will bring them to me here at once or . . .”
He paused. There was no need to put his threat into words; it was in every line of his grim face: it was in the sinister bulge of his hand in his ulster pocket.
Mr Craw showed his manhood by acting according to plan. He was desperately afraid, for he had never in his life looked into such furious eyes. But the challenge had come, and he repeated the speech with which he had intended to meet that challenge.
“This is pure brigandage,” he said. “You have not given me your names, but I know very well who you are. You must be aware, Mr Mastrovin, that you will not further your cause by threatening a British subject in his own house.”
The risk in preparing speeches beforehand is that the conditions of their delivery may be far other than the conditions forecast in their preparation. Mr Craw had assumed that the Evallonians were politicians out to secure a political triumph, and that, when this triumph tarried, they would realise that their audacity had defeated its purpose and left them at his mercy. He had forgotten that he might have to deal with men of primeval impulses, whose fury would deaden their ears to common sense.
At the sound of his name Mastrovin seemed to stiffen, as a runner stiffens before the start. Then he laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. He turned to his followers. “He knows me,” he cried. “He is not as innocent as he pretends. He knows of us from our enemies. They are here. We are close to them. Now there will be no mercy.”
In a voice that made Mr Craw jump in his chair he thundered: “One minute! I will give you one minute!”
He had his pistol out, and little blue barrels gleamed in the hands of the other four, covering Barbon, Dougal, and Charvill. Mr Craw sat stupefied, and his spectacles in the tense hush made a clatter as they dropped on the table. The gilt baroque clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter to midnight.
In the little gallery the estate mechanician had that morning arranged a contrivance of bells. There was a button at Jaikie’s elbow, and if he pressed it bells would ring in the corridor outside and in the ante-room. There by this time Mackillop and his men were waiting, in two parties of five, all of them old soldiers, armed with rifles and shot-guns. At the sound of the bells they would file in and overawe the enemy — ten weapons in ten pairs of resolute hands.
Jaikie’s finger was on the button, but he did not press it.
For the first time in his life he had to make a momentous decision. Dougal and he had planned out every detail of that evening’s visit, and believed that they had foreseen every contingency. But they had forgotten one. . . . They had forgotten how different these five foreigners below were from themselves. These were men who all their lives had played darkly for dark stakes — who had hunted and been hunted like beasts — to whom murder was an incident in policy — whose natural habitat was the cave and the jungle. He was aware that the atmosphere in the library had changed to something savage and primordial — that human lives hung on a slender hair. A devil had been awakened, a devil who was not politic. . . . If Mackillop and his men appeared in the doorway, if the glint of weapons answered those now in the hands of the five, it would be the spark to fire the mine. These men would fight like cornered weasels, oblivious of consequences — as they had often in other lands fought before. No doubt they would be overpowered, but in the meantime — In that warm and gracious room the Den had been re-created, and in that Den there were only blind passions and blind fears.
He did not press the button, for he knew that it would be to waken Hell.
As it was, Hell was evident enough. His companions felt it. Alison’s hand tightened convulsively on his arm, and as for Tibbets behind him — he heard Tibbets’s teeth chatter. Down below the four men, covered by the five pistols, knew it. Mr Craw’s face was the colour of clay, and his eyes stared at Mastrovin as if he were mesmerised. Barbon and Charvill had also whitened, and sat like images, and Dougal seemed to be seeking self-command by sucking in his lips against his clenched teeth. In a second anything might happen. The jungle had burst into the flower-garden, and with it the brutes of the jungle. . . . A small hopeless sound came from Jaikie’s lips which may have been meant for a prayer.
Suddenly he was aware that Mastrovin’s eyes had turned to the door which led to the ante-room. Had Mackillop shown himself?
“Stand!” Mastrovin cried. “Not another step on your life!”
A voice answered the Evallonian’s bark, a rich, bland, assured voice.
“Tut, tut, what’s all this fuss about?” the voice said. “Put away that pistol, man, or it’ll maybe go off. Sich behaviour in a decent man’s house!”
Jaikie was looking down upon the bald head of Dickson McCunn — Dickson in his best suit of knickerbockers, his eyes still bright with the memory of his great adventure on the Solway sands, his face ruddy with the night air and as unperturbed as if he were selling t
ea over the counter. There was even a smile at the corner of his mouth. To Jaikie, sick with fear, it seemed as if the wholesome human world had suddenly broken into the Den.
But it was the voice that cracked the spell — that pleasant, homely, wheedling voice which brought with it daylight and common sense. Each of the five felt its influence. Mastrovin’s rigour seemed to relax. He lowered his pistol.
“Who the devil are you?” he grunted.
“My name’s McCunn,” came the brisk answer. “Dickson McCunn. I’m stopping in this house, and I come back to find a scene like a demented movie. It looks as if I’m just in time to prevent you gentlemen making fools of yourselves. I heard that there was a lot of queer folk here, so I took the precaution of bringing Johnnie Doig the policeman with me. It was just as well, for Johnnie and me overheard some awful language. Come in, Johnnie. . . . You’re wanted.”
A remarkable figure entered from the ante-room. It was the Starr policeman, a large man with his tunic imperfectly buttoned, and his boots half-laced, for he had been roused out of his early slumbers and had dressed in a hurry. He carried his helmet in his hand, and his face wore an air of judicial solemnity.
“Johnny and me,” said Mr McCunn, “heard you using language which constitutes an assault in law. Worse than that, you’ve been guilty of the crime of hamesucken. You’re foreigners, and maybe no very well acquaint with the law of Scotland, but I can tell you that hamesucken is just about the worst offence you can commit, short of taking life. It has been defined as the crime of assaulting a person within his own house. That’s what you’re busy at now, and many a man has got two years hard for less. Amn’t I right, Johnny?”
“Ye’re right, sir,” said the policeman. “I’ve made notes o’ the langwidge I heard, and I hae got you gentlemen as witnesses. It’s hamesucken beyond a doubt.” The strange syllables boomed ominously, and their echoes hung in the air like a thunderstorm. “Gie me the word, sir” — this to Mr Craw—”and I’ll chairge them.” Then to the five. “Ye’d better hand ower thae pistols, or it’ll be the waur for ye.”
For the fraction of a second there was that in Mastrovin’s face which augured resistance. Dickson saw it, and grinned.
“Listen to reason, man,” he cried genially, and there was a humorous contempt in his voice which was perhaps its strongest argument. “I know fine who you are. You’re politicians, and you’ve made a bad mistake. You’re looking for folk that never were here. You needn’t make things worse. If you try violence, what will happen? You’ll be defying the law of Scotland and deforcing the police, and even if you got away from this countryside — which is not likely — there’s not a corner of the globe that could hide you. You’d be brought to justice, and where would your politics be then? I’m speaking as a business man to folk that I assume to be in possession of their wits. You’re in Mr Craw’s hands, and there’s just the one thing you can do — to throw yourselves on his mercy. If he takes my advice he’ll let you go, provided you leave your pistols behind you. They’re no the things for folk like you to be trusted with in this quiet countryside.”
Jaikie in the gallery gave a happy sigh. The danger was past. Over the Den had descended the thick, comfortable blanket of convention and law. Melodrama had gone out of the air. Mastrovin and his friends were no longer dangerous, for they had become comic. He prodded Tibbets. “Down you get. It’s time for you to be on the floor of the house.” Things could now proceed according to plan.
Then Mr Craw rose to the height of a great argument. He rescued his spectacles, rested his elbows on the table, and joined his still tremulous fingertips. Wisdom and authority radiated from him.
“I am inclined,” he said, “to follow Mr McCunn’s advice and let you go. I do not propose to charge you. But, as Mr McCunn has said, in common decency you must be disarmed. Mr Barbon, will you kindly collect these gentlemen’s weapons.”
The five were no longer wolves from the wilds: they were embarrassed political intriguers. Sullenly they dropped their pistols into the waste-paper basket which Barbon presented to them.
Mr Craw continued:
“I would repeat that what I have told you is the literal truth. Your countrymen were at Knockraw and dined here with Mr Barbon, but I did not meet them, for I only returned yesterday. As for Prince John, I do not know what you are talking about. Nobody like him has ever been in Castle Gay. You say that he was seen here this very morning. I suggest that your spies may have seen my friend Mr Charvill, who is spending a few days with me. . . . But I am really not concerned to explain the cause of your blunders. The principal is that you have allowed yourself to be misled by an ex-servant of mine. I hope you have made his rascality worth his while, for it looks as if he might be out of employment for some little time.”
Mr Craw was enjoying himself. His voice grew round and soothing. He almost purred his sentences, for every word he spoke made him feel that he had captured at last an authority of which hitherto he had never been quite certain.
“I am perfectly well informed as to who you are,” he went on. “You, sir,” addressing Mastrovin, “I have already named, and I congratulate you on your colleagues, Messieurs Dedekind, Rosenbaum, Calaman, and Ricci. They are names not unknown in the political — and criminal — annals of contemporary Europe. . . . You have put yourself in a most compromising position. You come here, at a time when you believe that my staff is depleted, with a following of your own, selected from the riffraff of Portaway. You were mistaken, of course. My staff was not depleted, but increased. At this moment there are ten of my servants, all of whom served in the War, waiting outside this door, and they are armed. Any attempt at violence by you would have been summarily avenged. As for your ragamuffin following, you may be interested to learn that during the last hour or two they have been collected by my keepers and ducked in the Callowa. By now they will have returned to Portaway wiser and wetter men. . . .
“As for yourselves, you have committed a grave technical offence. I could charge you, and you would be put at once under arrest. Would it be convenient for the Republican Party of Evallonia to have some of its most active members in a British dock and presently in a British gaol? . . . You are even more completely in my power than you imagine. You have attempted to coerce an important section of the British Press. That, if published, would seal the doom of your party with British public opinion. I have not only my own people here to report the incident in the various newspapers I control, but Mr Tibbets of the Wire is present on behalf of my chief competitors, and at my request has put himself in a position also to furnish a full account.”
“But,” said Mr Craw, moving his chair back from the table and folding his arms, “I do not propose to exact any such revenge. You are free to go as you came. I will neither charge you, nor publish one word of this incident. But a complete record will be prepared of this evening’s doings, and I warn you that, if I am ever troubled again in any way by you or your emissaries, that record will be published throughout the world’s Press, and you will be made the laughing stock of Europe.”
Mr Craw ceased, pressed his lips, and looked for approbation to Dougal, who nodded friendlily. Mastrovin seemed about to reply, but the nature of his reply will never be known. For Dickson broke in with: “You’d better hurry, gentlemen. You should be at Fallatown within the next three-quarters of an hour, if your yatt is to catch the tide.”
This final revelation of knowledge shut Mastrovin’s lips. He bowed, and without a word led his friends from the room, after which, through the lines of Mackillop’s deeply disappointed minions, they descended to the front door and their cars. Dickson chose to accompany and speed the parting guests.
With their departure Mrs Brisbane-Brown entered the library from the ante-room, where she had waited under Mr McCunn’s strict orders. Jaikie and Alison, whose heads were very close together in the little balcony, observed her arrival with interest.
“Aunt Hatty has been really anxious,” said the girl. “I know that look on her
face. I wonder if she’s in love with Mr Craw. I rather think so. . . . Jaikie, that was a horrid strain. I feel all slack and run down. Any moment I expected to see those devils shoot. I wouldn’t go through that again for a million pounds.”
“No more would Mr Craw. But it will have made a man of him. He has been under fire, so to speak, and now he’ll be as bold as brass.”
“He owes it all to you.”
“Not to me,” Jaikie smiled. “To me he very nearly owed a bullet in his head. To Dickson McCunn. Wasn’t he great?”
The girl nodded. “Mr McCunn goes off in a fury of romance to see a rather dull princeling depart in a boat, because he reminds him of Prince Charlie. And he comes back to step from romance into the most effective kind of realism. He’ll never give another thought to what he has just done, though he has saved several lives, but he’ll cherish all his days the memory of the parting with Prince John. Was there ever such an extraordinary mixture?”
“We’re all like that,” was the answer.
“Not you. You’ve the realism, but not the sentiment.”
“I wonder,” said Jaikie.
Ten minutes later Mr McCunn was refreshing himself in the library with a whisky-and-soda and sandwiches, for the excitements of the night had quickened his appetite.
“I got the idea,” he explained to Dougal, “by remembering what Bismarck said during the Schleswig-Holstein affair — when he was asked in Parliament what he would do if the British Army landed on German soil. He said he would send for the police. . . . I’ve always thought that a very good remark. . . . If you’re faced with folk that are accustomed to shoot it’s no good playing the same game, unless you’re anxious to get hurt. You want to paralyse them by lapping them in the atmosphere of law and order. Talk business to them. It’s whiles a very useful thing to live in a civilised country, and you should take advantage of it.”