by John Buchan
Mr Creevey’s voice died in his throat from sheer amazement. He stood staring at the departing machine and saw the pilot turn his head and wave his hand. . . . The thing was beyond him, but his predominant feeling was anger, and anger with him always meant action. He gathered up the skirts of his fur coat and ran towards the hotel door.
He pushed it open and entered. He shouted for the landlord, but there was no answer. The place was fairly warm, and ashes were still red in the stove. But the hotel was empty.
In the library of the Embassy Jacqueline Warmestre had much to say to Falconet. He knew this imperious lady as one of Adam Melfort’s friends — a closer friend, he thought, than any other; but he had met her only a few times, and had never had more than a few words with her. He was a little surprised therefore at her cross-examination, but it fell in with his own mood. She was anxious about Adam, and so was he — acutely.
“I want the latest news,” she said. “You can give it me, I think. Where is Adam? In the summer we had — well, a difference of opinion — but we did not quarrel. We are good friends and we write to each other. I will tell you all I know. He has been acting as a kind of bodyguard for the German Chancellor. I got that from Mildred Lamancha. But now? . . . I am afraid for him. You see, he failed in what he was working at — other people let him down — but he will never give up. He is trying some other way, and it is sure to be very difficult and desperate. Can you help me, Mr Falconet? We both love him?”
Falconet was shy with beautiful women, but as he looked at Jacqueline’s face he saw something behind the beauty. There was a fierce loyalty in her eyes, and gallantry in the tilt of her small chin. This was an ally about whom he need have no fear.
“I will tell you all I know,” he said. “Adam is stalking Creevey.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. He was shadowing Loeffler in the early fall, and by all accounts had a tough job of it. He put it through and got the Chancellor safe to the London Conference. But of course that couldn’t be the end. Loeffler put him wise about the real trouble. To pull out he has got to have certain forces on his side that just at present are fighting against him. The biggest of them is Creevey. Well, you know Adam. When he sees where the mischief is he makes straight for it, though it’s as big as a mountain and as tough as hell. He is out to immobilise Creevey.”
“But how?” Jacqueline’s eyes were wide and perplexed.
“God knows. The old way, and maybe the right way, would have been to knock him on the head. But that isn’t allowed to-day, and Adam’s a gentle fellow, so he is trying another line. He wants to get alongside him, and have him to himself, and he thinks that the Almighty will do the rest. That’s his philosophy, I reckon. The Almighty is on his side, and all he has got to do is to give the Almighty a fair chance.”
“But it’s lunacy. He can’t argue Mr Creevey round — no one can, they say — he is the cleverest man alive.”
“Adam has allowed for that. He’s not trusting to his own power of argument. He is looking to what he calls facts, by which he means the Almighty. He wants to get Mr Creevey and himself away out of his familiar world, and he believes that something may happen then. It isn’t sense, I know, Lady Warmestre. But it’s Adam’s way, and I’m not going to say it isn’t the right way. He’s like an old-time prophet and has inspirations.”
“But how can he get him to himself? Mr Creevey is the busiest man going and he is surrounded by hordes of secretaries.”
Falconet grinned.
“There are ways — and means, and that’s where I can help a bit. We’re shepherding Creevey out of the flock into our own little fold. We brought him to Rome when he didn’t want to come, and, please God, before he gets back to England we’re going to shepherd him to other places where he doesn’t want to go. I would have you know that I’m not in big business for nothing, and I’ve got a considerable graft up and down Europe.”
Jacqueline put a hand on his arm.
“I want to know everything, Mr Falconet. Please tell me.”
“I don’t mind giving you the lay-out. First of all, way up in the north there is a valley in the mountains called the Val d’Arras.”
Jacqueline nodded. “I know. My father was a great mountaineer, and preferred the Italian side of the Alps, and he used to take me with him when I was a girl. The Val d’Arras runs up from Colavella. At the top is the Saluzzana pass leading to the Staubthal. An easy pass, except in bad weather.”
“Right. Way up the Val d’Arras is a little summer hotel where there’s nobody at this time of year. Well, Adam’s notion is to get Creevey there. That has all been arranged, and it ought to work to plan.”
“But after that?”
“After that I don’t know. Adam may have his own notion, or he may be leaving it to the Almighty. I guess he means to get him over the Saluzzana, for my orders are to be waiting at Grunewald in the Staubthal. If Adam has gotten Creevey into the right frame of mind I might be able to put in my word.”
Jacqueline wrinkled her brows. “It sounds the wildest nonsense. That sort of thing isn’t done nowadays. Mr Creevey will either have the law of Adam for kidnapping, or he will get pneumonia and die. Perhaps you want the second.”
“No. Adam doesn’t and Loeffler doesn’t. They think Creevey is too valuable to the world to lose, if only his head could be turned in another direction. Still, that may be the solution the Almighty fancies.”
“Then Adam is in Italy?”
“Yep. And that is where my own private worry comes in. You see, Lady Warmestre, Adam has just lately been wading in deepish waters. To look after Loeffler he had to go way down into the underworld, and as a consequence I’ve an idea that some of those gentry are out gunning for him. I’ve seen one of them to-day, and I’ve heard of another. It don’t look good to me that they should be in Italy when Adam is here, and, besides, it shows that they have a pretty correct line on his movements. Now, if Adam is stalking Creevey, it will cramp his style if other fellows are stalking him. I’m going right back to my hotel to call up my man Blakiston in Milan, and put him wise to it.”
Jacqueline leaned forward with her chin in her hand and looked her companion in the face.
“I’m coming into this show, Mr Falconet,” she said. “I did Adam a great disservice, and yet all the time I was on his side, and now I’m going to atone for it. I think his scheme is raving madness, but he is the only great man I have ever known, and I want to help. I believe I could be of some use with Mr Creevey. When do you plant him in the Val d’Arras?”
“According to schedule about the evening of the day after to-morrow.”
“Well, I’m going to the little pink hotel. I needn’t hurry home. I have my car here and I meant to go back by easy stages. I’ll start out to-morrow morning and with any luck I’ll be in time. It’s a Lancia and can face the mountain roads. I’ll bring a friend with me — Andrew Amos.”
Falconet exclaimed. “The old Scotsman with the chin whiskers! He’s a crackerjack.”
“He is Adam’s watch-dog. Ken — my husband — adores him. I found out that the dream of his life was to see Italy, so I brought him with me as my courier. He doesn’t know a word of any language but his own, but you can’t defeat him. He can drive a car too.”
Falconet protested.
“It’s no place for a lady.”
“I’m not a lady. I’m a woman.”
“But Adam wants to be alone with Creevey.”
“We won’t interfere with their privacy. . . . If Adam is in danger, as you think he is, I’m going to plant Amos beside him, and if the good God is going to work a miracle a woman and an old Scotsman won’t be in the way.”
Jacqueline spent the night regretting her rashness. As she lay awake in the small hours she seemed to herself only a foolish child who had forced itself into a game where it was not wanted. She half-resolved to ring up Falconet in the morning and cry off. Falconet would be relieved, for he had not welcomed her intervention. In the e
nd she fell asleep without having come to any decision, and when she woke she discovered that her mood had changed.
As she dressed she found it difficult to disentangle her thoughts, but one thing was clear. She was wholly resolved on this adventure. At the worst she could do no harm, and if Adam did not want her she could go back. A clear recollection of the Val d’Arras came back to her. The road was bad after Colavella, but it was possible for a car as far as the little pink inn which she remembered well; after that there was only the mule track across the Saluzzana. She would leave her maid and chauffeur at Chiavagno, and Amos would drive the car; he was a first-rate mechanic and a cautious, resourceful driver. No one would know of the escapade but Amos and Falconet, and her hosts at the Embassy would believe that she was starting decorously on her journey home.
By and by her thoughts arranged themselves and she realised the subconscious purpose which was moving her. . . . She had made her choice with open eyes and did not regret it. She had done the right thing for Ken and her child and all the long-descended world built up around them. She had played for peace and had won it for them. Ken was settling down into the life where he would be useful and happy. But for herself? She had had a glimpse of greater things and had turned her back on them, but they had left a void in her heart. She had chosen the second-rate — for others and for herself, but she was paying for her choice in an aching wistfulness. . . . She was not in love with Adam, for love did not belong to that austere world of his, but he had come to represent for her all the dreams and longings which made up her religion. She felt like some fisherman of Galilee who had heard the divine call and turned instead to his boats and nets.
Yet the cause from which she had held back others she might embrace herself — for a little only — for one small moment of restitution. Jacqueline had fatalism in her blood, and Falconet’s talk had given her an eery sense of some strange foreordering. She had come to Italy on a sudden impulse, for she had felt restless at Warmestre before the hunting began. In coming here she had thought that she was leaving behind the world which had perplexed her, and lo and behold! it had moved itself across the sea to meet her. This was destiny which could not be shirked. She had always guided her life with a high hand, for no man or woman or beast had so far made her afraid, and she had welcomed risks as the natural spice of living. But this was different. This was no light-hearted extravagance of youth and health, but an inexorable summons to some mysterious duty. Jacqueline felt strangely keyed up, but also at peace.
The mood lasted during the day while the car sped up the Tuscan coast and through the Apennines into the Lombard plain. It was still, bright weather, and as mild as an English June. But when Jacqueline and Amos left Chiavagno the following morning the skies had clouded and a sharp wind was blowing from the mountains. They stopped for lunch at Colavella, at the mouth of the Val d’Arras, and the little town set amid its steep woody hills bore the aspect of winter. The hotels were mostly shuttered, the vine trellises leafless, and the Arcio, foaming under the Roman bridge, looked like molten snow. Snow-covered peaks showed through gaps in the hills; these were not the high mountains, so there must have been a recent snowfall.
Their troubles began when they left Colavella. The first part of the road, which wound among pines, had been vilely rutted by wood-cutters’ waggons. When they climbed to the higher and barer stages of the valley, the going became worse. It was a lonely place, where few came except mountaineers seeking an easy road to the west face of the Pomagognon, or occasional botanists and walkers bound for the Staubthal. Now it seemed utterly deserted, for there were no farms on its shaly slopes. Moreover, the road was far worse than Jacqueline remembered it. There were places where landslips had almost obliterated it and Amos had much ado to pass. Jacqueline was puzzled. This might have been expected in the spring after a bad winter; but it must have been set right in the summer, and since then there had been no weather to account for the damage. It almost looked as if it had been wrecked by the hand of man.
They made slow progress, and presently ran into snow-showers which blotted out the environs. In one of these Amos violently put on his brakes. Ahead of them was what had once been a wooden bridge over the deep-cut gorge of a winter torrent. It had been destroyed, and the road came to an end at a brink of raw red earth and a forty-foot drop.
Amos hove himself out of the car and examined the broken timbers of the bridge.
“Queer!” he observed. “This brig has been cut down wi’ an aixe, and that no mony hours back.”
The sense of fatality had been weighing all day upon Jacqueline, intensified by the lowering sky, the cold, and the frowning hills. She had been like a child feeling its way into a dark corridor where fearsome things might lurk. But the sight of the broken bridge comforted her. Adam had staged the business well.
“Back the car into the trees,” she told Amos. “We can’t be far off. We must walk the rest of the road.”
Amos, laden with baggage, including some provisions which Jacqueline in a moment of forethought had added to the equipment, led the way down the side of the ravine, across a trickle of water, and up the farther bank to where the road began again. As they reached it, the snow ceased, and there came a long rift in the mist. It revealed a small square hotel about a mile ahead. In half an hour the dark would have fallen.
Shortly after noon on that same day Adam Melfort sat in a little restaurant near the aerodrome at Arsignano. He must snatch a meal, for he had much to do that afternoon. So far all had gone according to plan. The aeroplane which Creevey had ordered by telephone had just started for Grandezza. It had been a delicate business, depending on many minute arrangements, but, with the help of Blakiston’s organisation and his own network of queer contacts, it seemed to have so far succeeded. There was only one plane at the moment in the aerodrome suitable for a long-distance journey, and one pilot who could be selected — it had taken some doing to arrange that. This pilot, a veteran of the Alpini, had had dealings with Adam before, and had been brought into the conspiracy. His fidelity was beyond question, and his part was simple. He was to have a breakdown in the Val d’Arras and leave Creevey at the inn, while he flew back for certain repairs; he would lie low for such time as was necessary to complete the journey to England and back, and then present himself at the aerodrome in the usual course of business. Creevey had paid the fare before leaving. That afternoon Adam proposed to go by car to the Val Saluzzana, and cross the intervening ridge to the Val d’Arras by a col which he knew of. Creevey would be at the little inn in the care of a friendly innkeeper, an old acquaintance of his, and some time in the late evening Adam would join him, arriving casually as if on a walking tour. There would be a moon that night, though it might be obscured by the weather, but he knew the col well and had no fears for his journey. Then he would have Creevey to himself. The man would be in a fever to get home, and, when no aeroplane appeared, and the alternative was to tramp the long road back down the valley, Adam would persuade him to cross the Saluzzana with him to the Staubthal, from which return to England would be simple. Somewhere and at some time, at the inn or during the crossing of the pass, he hoped to bring him to another mind. He did not attempt to forecast the method of conversion — in that task he felt himself like a boy with a sling before a fortress — but he believed that behind him destiny might range great artillery.
The restaurant was a dim little place and at that hour almost deserted. Two waiters and an elderly man of the shopkeeper type were the only occupants when Adam sat down. His meal had been brought him, and he ate it greedily, for he had had no food that day save a cup of coffee. . . .
Suddenly, as he lifted his eyes from his plate, he saw that two men had taken their seats at the other end of the room. They still wore their ulsters, and seemed to have entered merely for a glass of wine. The one with his back to him had thick dark hair, and something in the shape of his head seemed familiar. About the one who faced him there could be no mistake. He saw a big man with a small bullet
head on a strong neck, and a flat face as hard as hammered steel. He knew him for that von Hilderling whom he had last seen in the upper room of a shabby eating-house in a Rhineland slum.
The two men were talking low to each other and did not look his way. Then the one with his back to him rose and came towards him. He recognised the trim figure, the fine oval face, and the deep mad eyes of La Cecilia.
Cecilia smiled and took a chair beside him, and his smile was not pleasant.
“Well met, Colonel Melfort,” he said. “May I have the honour of a word with you?” The Baron von Hilderling had poured himself out a glass of wine, and seemed to be absorbed in the contents of a small note-book.
“It would appear that we are on the same errand,” Cecilia said. “You have something to say to Mr Warren Creevey, I understand. So also have we. My instructions are to order you to drop out. We will deal with the rest of the business ourselves.”
“I wonder what you are talking about,” said Adam.
“Oh no, you don’t. You know very well. You have a grudge against Mr Creevey, for which we commend you, for we share it. You have been stalking him for some days and are very ingeniously manoeuvring him into a position where you can have him to yourself. I won’t ask what you propose to do with him, but I can guess. We know what we propose. We have been following his trail — and yours — for it is easy to stalk a stalker, and we have taken over your arrangements, of which we approve. This evening Mr Creevey will find himself in an empty inn in a remote Alpine valley. There will be no one in the inn — that we have seen to. The inn-keeper has gone to see a sick father in Turin, and will not return for a while, and the two servants have been dismissed on holiday. The plane which takes Mr Creevey there will proceed by the ordinary route to Paris, but will have an unfortunate accident on the coast, in which the world will regret to learn that Mr Creevey has perished. Meantime, up in the Val d’Arras we shall deal with him at our discretion. The pilot is not the man you selected, but one of ourselves — that is the only serious change we have made in your otherwise admirable arrangements.”