by John Buchan
‘You’re not taking this business rightly,’ he maintained one night. ‘What’s the good of waiting for these devils to down you? Let’s go out and down them.’ And he announced his intention, from which no words of mine could dissuade him, of keeping watch on Mr Andrew Lumley at the Albany.
His resolution led to a complete disregard of his Parliamentary duties. Deputations of constituents waited for him in vain. Of course he never got a sight of Lumley. All that happened was that he was very nearly given in charge more than once for molesting peaceable citizens in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly and Regent Street.
One night on my way home from the Temple I saw in the bills of the evening papers the announcement of the arrest of a Labour Member. It was Chapman, sure enough. At first I feared that he had got himself into serious trouble, and was much relieved to find him in the flat in a state of blazing anger. It seemed that he had found somebody whom he thought was Lumley, for he only knew him from my descriptions. The man was in a shop in Jermyn Street, with a car waiting outside, and Chapman had – politely, as he swore – asked the chauffeur his master’s name. The chauffeur had replied abusively, upon which Chapman had hailed him from the driver’s seat and shaken him till his teeth rattled. The owner came out, and Chapman was arrested and taken off to the nearest police-court. He had been compelled to apologise, and had been fined five pounds and costs.
By the mercy of Heaven the chauffeur’s master was a money-lender of evil repute, so the affair did Chapman no harm. But I was forced to talk to him seriously. I knew it was no use explaining that for him to spy on the Power-House was like an elephant stalking a gazelle. The only way was to appeal to his incurable romanticism.
‘Don’t you see,’ I told him, ‘that you are playing Lumley’s game? He will trap you sooner or later into some escapade which will land you in jail, and where will I be then? That is what he and his friends are out for. We have got to meet cunning with cunning, and lie low till we get our chance.’
He allowed himself to be convinced and handed over to me the pistol he had bought, which had been the terror of my life.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll keep quiet. But you promise to let me into the big scrap when it comes off.’
I promised. Chapman’s notion of the grand finale was a Homeric combat in which he would get his fill of fisticuffs.
He was an anxiety, but all the same he was an enormous comfort. His imperturbable cheerfulness and his racy talk were the tonics I wanted. He had plenty of wisdom, too. My nerves were getting bad those days, and, whereas I had rarely touched the things before, I now found myself smoking cigarettes from morning till night. I am pretty abstemious, as you know, but I discovered to my horror that I was drinking far too many whiskies-and-sodas. Chapman knocked me off all that, and got me back to a pipe and a modest nightcap. He did more, for he undertook to put me in training. His notion was that we should win in the end by superior muscles. He was a square, thick-set fellow, who had been a good middle-weight boxer. I could box a bit myself, but I improved mightily under his tuition. We got some gloves, and used to hammer each other for half an hour every morning. Then might have been seen the shameful spectacle of a rising barrister with a swollen lip and a black eye arguing in court and proceeding of an evening to his country’s legislature, where he was confronted from the opposite benches by the sight of a Leader of the People in the same vulgar condition.
In those days I wanted all the relief I could get, for it was a beastly time. I knew I was in grave danger, so I made my will and went through the other doleful performances consequent on the expectation of a speedy decease. You see I had nothing to grip on, no clear job to tackle, only to wait on the off-chance, with an atmosphere of suspicion thickening around me. The spying went on – there was no mistake about that – but I soon ceased to mind it, though I did my best to give my watchers little satisfaction. There was a hint of bullying about the spying. It is disconcerting at night to have a man bump against you and look you greedily in the face.
I did not go again to Scotland Yard, but one night I ran across Macgillivray in the club.
He had something of profound interest to tell me. I had asked about the phrase, the ‘Power-House’. Well, he had come across it, in the letter of a German friend, a private letter, in which the writer gave the results of his inquiries into a curious affair which a year before had excited Europe.
I have forgotten the details, but it had something to do with the Slav States of Austria and an Italian Students’ Union, and it threatened at one time to be dangerous. Macgillivray’s correspondent said that in some documents which were seized he found constant allusion to a thing called the Krafthaus, evidently the headquarters staff of the plot. And this same word Krafthaus had appeared elsewhere in a sonnet of a poet-anarchist who shot himself in the slums of Antwerp, in the last ravings of more than one criminal, in the extraordinary testament of Professor M of Jena, who, at the age of thirty-seven, took his life after writing a strange mystical message to his fellow-citizens.
Macgillivray’s correspondent concluded by saying that, in his opinion, if this Krafthaus could be found, the key would be discovered to the most dangerous secret organisation in the world. He added that he had some reason to believe that the motive power of the concern was English.
‘Macgillivray,’ I said, ‘you have known me for some time, and I fancy you think me a sober and discreet person. Well, I believe I am on the edge of discovering the secret of your Krafthaus. I want you to promise me that if in the next week I send you an urgent message you will act on it, however fantastic it seems. I can’t tell you more. I ask you to take me on trust, and believe that for anything I do I have tremendous reasons.’
He knit his shaggy grey eyebrows and looked curiously at me. ‘Yes, I’ll go bail for your sanity. It’s a good deal to promise, but if you make an appeal to me, I will see that it is met.’
Next day I had news from Felix. Tuke and the man called Saronov had been identified. If you are making inquiries about anybody it is fairly easy to find those who are seeking for the same person, and the Russian police, in tracking Tommy and Pitt-Heron, had easily come on the two gentlemen who were following the same trail. The two had gone by Samarkand, evidently intending to strike into the hills by a shorter route than the main road from Bokhara. The frontier posts had been warned, and the stalkers had become the stalked.
That was one solid achievement, at any rate. I had saved Pitt-Heron from the worst danger, for first I had sent him Tommy, and now I had put the police on guard against his enemies. I had not the slightest doubt that enemies they were. Charles knew too much, and Tuke was the man appointed to reason with him, to bring him back, if possible, or if not – as Chapman had said – the ex-union leader was not the man to stick at trifles.
It was a broiling June, the London season was at its height, and I had never been so busy in the Courts before. But that crowded and garish world was little more than a dream to me. I went through my daily tasks, dined out, went to the play, had consultations, talked to my fellows, but all the while I had the feeling that I was watching somebody else perform the same functions. I believe I did my work well, and I know I was twice complimented by the Court of Appeal.
But my real interests were far away. Always I saw two men in the hot glens of the Oxus, with the fine dust of the loess rising in yellow clouds behind them. One of these men had a drawn and anxious face, and both rode hard. They passed by the closes of apricot and cherry and the green watered gardens, and soon the Oxus ceased to flow wide among rushes and water-lilies and became a turbid hill-stream. By-and-by the roadside changed, and the horses of the travellers trod on mountain turf, crushing the irises and marigolds and thyme. I could feel the free air blowing from the roof of the world, and see far ahead the snowy saddle of the pass which led to India.
Far behind the riders I saw two others, and they chose a different way, now over waterless plateaux, now in rugged nullahs. They rode the faster and their route w
as the shorter. Sooner or later they must catch up the first riders, and I knew, though how I could not tell, that death would attend the meeting.
I, and only I, sitting in London four thousand miles away, could prevent disaster. The dream haunted me at night, and often, walking in the Strand or sitting at a dinner-table, I have found my eyes fixed clearly on the shining upland with the thin white mountains at the back of it, and the four dots, which were men, hurrying fast on their business.
One night I met Lumley. It was at a big political dinner given by the chief of my party in the House of Lords – fifty or sixty guests, and a blaze of stars and decorations. I sat near the bottom of the table, and he was near the top, sitting between a famous General and an ex-Viceroy of India. I asked my right-hand neighbour who he was, but he could not tell me. The same question to my left-hand neighbour brought an answer.
‘It’s old Lumley. Have you never met him? He doesn’t go out much, but he gives a man’s dinner now and then, which are the best in London. No. He’s not a politician, though he favours our side, and I expect has given a lot to our funds. I can’t think why they don’t make him a Peer. He’s enormously rich and very generous, and the most learned old fellow in Britain. My Chief’ – my neighbour was an Under-Secretary – ‘knows him, and told me once that if you wanted any out-of-the-way bit of knowledge you could get it by asking Lumley. I expect he pulls the strings more than anybody living. But he scarcely ever goes out, and it’s a feather in our host’s cap to have got him tonight. You never see his name in the papers, either. He probably pays the Press to keep him out, like some of those millionaire fellows in America.’ I watched him through dinner. He was the centre of the talk at his end of the table. I could see the blue ribbon bulging out on Lord Morecambe’s breast as he leaned forward to question him. He was wearing some foreign orders, including the Legion of Honour, and I could hear in the pauses of conversation echoes of his soft rich voice. I could see him beaming through his glasses on his neighbours, and now and then he would take them off and look mildly at a speaker. I wondered why nobody realised, as I did, what was in his light wild eyes.
The dinner, I believe, was excellent, and the company was good, but down at my end I could eat little, and I did not want to talk. Here in this pleasant room, with servants moving softly about, and a mellow light on the silver from the shaded candles, I felt the man was buttressed and defended beyond my reach. A kind of despairing hatred gripped me when I looked his way. For I was always conscious of that other picture, the Asian desert, Pitt-Heron’s hunted face, and the grim figure of Tuke on his trail. That, and the great secret wheels of what was too inhuman to be called crime, moving throughout the globe under this man’s hand.
There was a party afterwards, but I did not stay. No more did Lumley, and for a second I brushed against him in the hall at the foot of the big staircase.
He smiled on me affectionately.
‘Have you been dining here? I did not notice you.’
‘You had better things to think of,’ I said. ‘By the way, you gave me good advice some weeks ago. It may interest you to hear that I have taken it.’
‘I am so glad,’ he said softly. ‘You are a very discreet young man.’
But his eyes told me that he knew I lied.
SIX
The Restaurant in Antioch Street
I WAS WORKING late at the Temple next day, and it was nearly seven before I got up to go home. Macgillivray had telephoned to me in the afternoon saying he wanted to see me and suggesting dinner at the club, and I had told him I should come straight there from my Chambers. But just after six he had rung me up again and proposed another meeting-place.
‘I’ve got some very important news for you and want to be quiet. There’s a little place where I sometimes dine – Rapaccini’s, in Antioch Street. I’ll meet you there at half-past seven.’
I agreed, and sent a message to Chapman at the flat, telling him I would be out to dinner. It was a Wednesday night, so the House rose early. He asked me where I was dining and I told him, but I did not mention with whom. His voice sounded very cross, for he hated a lonely meal. It was a hot, still night, and I had had a heavy day in Court, so heavy that my private anxieties had almost slipped from my mind. I walked along the Embankment, and up Regent Street towards Oxford Circus. Antioch Street, as I had learned from the directory, was in the area between Langham Place and Tottenham Court Road. I wondered vaguely why Macgillivray should have chosen such an out-of-the-way spot, but I knew him for a man of many whims.
The street, when I found it, turned out to be a respectable little place – boarding-houses and architects’ offices, with a few antiquity shops, and a picture-cleaner’s. The restaurant took some finding, for it was one of those discreet establishments, common enough in France, where no edibles are displayed in the British fashion, and muslin half-curtains deck the windows. Only the doormat, lettered with the proprietor’s name, remained to guide the hungry.
I gave a waiter my hat and stick and was ushered into a garish dining-room, apparently full of people. A single violinist was discoursing music from beside the grill. The occupants were not quite the kind one expects to find in an eating-house in a side street. The men were all in evening dress with white waistcoats, and the women looked either demi-mondaines or those who follow their taste in clothes. Various eyes looked curiously at me as I entered. I guessed that the restaurant had by one of those odd freaks of Londoners become for a moment the fashion.
The proprietor met me half-way up the room. He might call himself Rapaccini, but he was obviously a German.
‘Mr Geelvrai,’ he nodded. ‘He has engaged a private room. Vill you follow, sir?’
A narrow stairway broke into the wall on the left side of the dining-room. I followed the manager up it and along a short corridor to a door which filled its end. He ushered me into a brightly-lit little room where a table was laid for two.
‘Mr Geelvrai comes often here,’ said the manager. ‘He vill be lat – sometimes. Everything is ready, sir. I hope you vill be pleased.’
It looked inviting enough, but the air smelt stuffy. Then I saw that, though the night was warm, the window was shut and the curtains drawn. I pulled back the curtains, and to my surprise saw that the shutters were closed.
‘You must open these,’ I said, ‘or we’ll stifle.’
The manager glanced at the window. ‘I vill send a waiter,’ he said, and departed. The door seemed to shut with an odd click.
I flung myself down in one of the arm-chairs, for I was feeling pretty tired. The little table beckoned alluringly, for I was also hungry. I remember there was a mass of pink roses on it. A bottle of champagne, with the cork loose, stood in a wine-cooler on the sideboard, and there was an unopened bottle beside it. It seemed to me that Macgillivray, when he dined here, did himself rather well.
The promised waiter did not arrive, and the stuffiness was making me very thirsty. I looked for a bell, but could not see one. My watch told me it was now a quarter to eight, but there was no sign of Macgillivray. I poured myself out a glass of champagne from the opened bottle, and was just about to drink it, when my eye caught something in a corner of the room.
It was one of those little mid-Victorian corner tables – I believe they call them ‘what-nots’ – which you will find in any boarding-house littered up with photographs and coral and ‘Presents from Brighton’. On this one stood a photograph in a shabby frame, and I thought I recognised it.
I crossed the room and picked it up. It showed a man of thirty, with short side-whiskers, an ill-fitting jaw, and a drooping moustache. The duplicate of it was in Macgillivray’s cabinet. It was Mr Routh, the ex-union leader.
There was nothing very remarkable about that after all, but it gave me a nasty shock. The room now seemed a sinister place, as well as intolerably close. There was still no sign of the waiter to open the window, so I thought I would wait for Macgillivray downstairs.
But the door would not open. The handle w
ould not turn. It did not seem to be locked, but rather to have shut with some kind of patent spring. I noticed that the whole thing was a powerful piece of oak with a heavy framework, very unlike the usual flimsy restaurant doors.
My first instinct was to make a deuce of a row and attract the attention of the diners below. I own I was beginning to feel badly frightened. Clearly I had got into some sort of trap. Macgillivray’s invitation might have been a hoax, for it is not difficult to counterfeit a man’s voice on the telephone. With an effort I forced myself into calmness. It was preposterous to think that anything could happen to me in a room not thirty feet from where a score or two of ordinary citizens were dining. I had only to raise my voice to bring inquirers.
Yes, but above all things I did not want a row. It would never do for a rising lawyer and a Member of Parliament to be found shouting for help in an upper chamber of a Bloomsbury restaurant. The worst deductions would be drawn from the open bottle of champagne. Besides, it might be all right after all. The door might have got stuck. Macgillivray at that very moment might be on his way up.
So I sat down and waited. Then I remembered my thirst, and stretched out my hand to the glass of champagne.
But at that instant I looked towards the window, and set down the wine untasted.
It was a very odd window. The lower end was almost flush with the floor, and the hinges of the shutters seemed to be only on one side. As I stared I began to wonder whether it was a window at all.
Next moment my doubts were solved. The window swung open like a door, and in the dark cavity stood a man.
Strangely enough I knew him. His figure was not one that is readily forgotten.
‘Good evening, Mr Docken,’ I said; ‘will you have a glass of champagne?’
A year before, on the South-Eastern Circuit, I had appeared for the defence in a burglary case. Criminal law was not my province, but now and then I took a case to keep my hand in, for it is the best training in the world for the handling of witnesses. This case had been peculiar. A certain Bill Docken was the accused, a gentleman who bore a bad reputation in the eyes of the police. The evidence against him was strong, but it was more or less tainted, being chiefly that of two former accomplices – a proof that there is small truth in the proverbial honour among thieves. It was an ugly business, and my sympathies were with the accused, for though he may very well have been guilty, yet he had been the victim of a shabby trick. Anyhow I put my back into the case, and after a hard struggle got a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’. Mr Docken had been kind enough to express his appreciation of my efforts, and to ask in a hoarse whisper how I had ‘squared the old bird’, meaning the Judge. He did not understand the subtleties of the English law of evidence.