by J. R. Trtek
I was not unacquainted with Dumfries and its surroundings, having visited the area two or three times before the turn of the century in pursuit of trout, and as I caught sight of the old bridge crossing the Nith, I could almost imagine myself twenty years younger, coming back to my inn after a brisk walk down the road and back. Almost at once, however, I felt the weight of my valise, perhaps also the weight of years, and I crossed the river intent on finding Bullivant’s godson as soon as possible before beginning my improbable search for Richard Hannay.
Halfway across the water, I heard a train whistle in the distance and was reminded of Sherlock Holmes, who would not arrive in Dumfries, if he were to arrive there at all, until later that day.
I entered the town proper and shared its streets with shepherds traipsing about in the company of their dogs, as well as assorted old men in ragged tweeds, women with weathered faces, and gaggles of children who glanced at me with youthful curiosity. From memory, I located an inn where I had lodged during one of my past visits. Its interior was heavy with the accumulated odour of clay pipes and whisky, and upon entering I saw that it held only two grizzled men, who sat in a corner.
After a moment, a third fellow, whom I took to be the innkeeper, came through an open doorway as I closed the front entrance behind me. He was tall and thin, middle-aged, with a freckled face and bright blue eyes, and he warily stroked his clean-shaven chin as he noticed my valise.
“Greetings,” the man said with a curious nod. “You’ll be wanting a room, perhaps?”
“Well, I may require lodgings,” I replied, stepping to a counter and putting down my luggage. “However, I am most urgently attempting to locate the residence of an acquaintance.”
I took from my jacket a paper upon which Bullivant had written the name of his godson and directions to his grounds.
“I am seeking this man,” I declared, showing Sir Walter’s scrawl to the innkeeper. “Do you know him?”
“Sir Harry Christey?” the innkeeper said, raising his brows as he read. He frowned slightly and cocked his head. “Well, sir, I have heard of him, to be sure. His estate—called Dunfeardon, as it is written on this paper—is rather a bit off to the northeast. You must take the Lockerbie Road in the beginning and then after you—”
“How far is it?” I asked with slight impatience. “Do you know anyone who might be willing to take me there, by motor or cart?”
“It’s hine awa!” shouted one of the men in the corner.
“There might be one person I could ask,” said the innkeeper, ignoring the interruption. He gave me an oddly cautious look and then added, “Allow me a moment. I’ll find someone to fetch the individual I am thinking of.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “You are most kind.”
The man smiled and then stepped out the front door. I leaned against the counter, my gaze falling upon the pair in the corner. One of them, he who had shouted about Bullivant’s godson’s home being far away, raised his pipe to me, and I nodded with a smile.
“Ye be daundering?” he asked.
“Well, I suppose I am doing more than just strolling,” I replied, pointing to my valise.
“Be needing a gillie?” asked the second man.54
“No, I’m not here for sport, in truth.”
Both men smiled amiably and then slowly returned to their own conversation. I allowed myself to turn away from them, and my eyes caught sight of a newspaper sitting upon the counter: a copy of The Scotsman, whose pages had been folded so as to present a short posting about the murder in Hannay’s flat.
Glancing furtively at the two men as they mumbled to each other and enjoyed their pipes, I picked up the newspaper and quickly read its notice of the killing, which included a description of Hannay’s man Paddock seizing the poor milkman, who subsequently had been released. The paper indicated that the suspected murderer, whose identity was not revealed, was said to have escaped from London by rail and headed north. Hannay was mentioned only parenthetically, as the owner of the flat in which the murder had occurred, and no details of the murder itself were provided.
I put down the newspaper, wondering how extensive the manhunt had become, and hoping that Magillivray had managed to steer suspicion away from Hannay.
The front door opened, and the innkeeper stepped back inside.
“All is arranged,” he said with an air of anxiety as he closed the entrance behind him. “I’ve asked one of the lads to fetch someone to take you.”
“To Sir Harry Christey’s estate? That is excellent,” I replied, eyeing at the man studiously. “You know, I have stayed here before.”
“Oh? Here in Dumfries?”
“Yes, but I also meant here, in this inn.”
“Truly?” he said, his manner suggesting that he did not believe me. “Your face is not familiar.”
“Well, that was a good fifteen years ago or more.”
“Ah, I see. That was before my time here, to be sure.”
The innkeeper stepped behind the counter. He glanced at the copy of The Scotsman and frowned, and it occurred to me that he realised I had looked at it before replacing the paper upon the counter in a different position than before.
“I was just reading about that very gruesome murder,” I remarked.
“An uisge beatha seo,” intoned one of the grizzled men from across the room, holding up a glass of whisky.55
“Aye,” replied the other, and the pair of them clinked their glasses together before emptying them, their chuckles only just subsiding when the front door opened again and a young man in police uniform stepped inside. Behind the constable, who appeared to be barely twenty years of age, a small boy watched, wide-eyed.
“Halloa, sir,” said the policeman gently. “May I ask you for your name and place of origin?”
“Why, I am from London,” I said.
“And your name, sir?”
I paused for a moment, finding myself uncertain of a proper response. I had taken the alias of James Price on impulse, fearing that if German agents discovered that John H. Watson were involved in the search for Richard Hannay, they might suppose that Sherlock Holmes was on the case as well. I realised at once, however, that I carried no proof that I was Mr. James Price. On the other hand, I could present my letter of introduction to Sir Harry Christey from Sir Walter Bullivant, but that document referred to me by my real name.
“Who are you?” the policeman repeated.
I noticed the innkeeper’s rapt expression and saw that the two men in the corner had stopped mumbling to one another to listen as well.
“I am John—that is, James Price,” said.
“John or James Price?” asked the young constable.
“I told you: I am James Price.”
“Can you prove it, sir?”
“What need have I to prove my identity, officer?” I asked forcefully, trying to wrest of control of the conversation from him.
“You have my need, sir,” the constable replied calmly. “Once more, I ask you to prove you are who you claim to be.”
I thought again of the letter of introduction written by Bullivant, but now—having presented myself as Price—was of the opinion that changing my story would only compound the problem. Then I hit upon an obvious solution.
“I carry no identification,” I said primly, “for I am on a secret mission for the government. I was conveyed here in an aeroplane piloted by an officer of the Royal Flying Corps. He and his craft await me south of town, along the Abbey Road. I suggest you ask him to verify my identity.”
“Aye,” shouted one of the men from the corner. “There be a tale and half. He come falling oot of the sky to save us all.”
He and his friend began to laugh again.
“Well,” said the policeman, “I still must take you into custody for the time being, sir, while we confirm this tale of yours. May I ask what your exact business is in Dumfries? And—once more—where do you hail from?”
“I told you my mission is a secret one, and I
have already informed you that I arrived from London. I do not see why—”
“London be where that murder happened,” the innkeeper interjected. I turned round to face him, and he cringed from behind his counter as he asked, “You wouldna happen to know anything about that, eh?”
“I know only what I read in your newspaper there,” I said with a casual air.
“He called it gruesome just a mite earlier,” the innkeeper told the policeman.
“Yes,” I said in a fit of irritation. “How else would you describe the act of plunging a long knife through the chest of a man?”
The innkeeper’s freckled face contorted into a wicked smile, and he abruptly gained the confidence to step closer to me, though still from behind the counter.
“Oh, so that’s how it were done, eh?” he said, giving the constable a look of triumph. “I wouldna ken, having read only the newspaper here, which dinna give any details about the manner in which the murder was committed.”
I felt suddenly numb at realising my error.
“So how did you come to know that detail, Mr. Price?” said the constable, laying heavy emphasis upon his last two words. “Perhaps, sir, there is now even more reason why you should come along with me.”
I silently weighed the courses open to me and decided it was best to comply for the moment. I picked up my valise and turned to accompany the young policeman out the door.
“Just like Conan Doyle,” exclaimed the innkeeper as I stepped over the threshold. “Me and Sherlock Holmes, a pair of deductive twins we are.”
I stopped and turned again, only to witness the men in the corner salute the innkeeper with their empty glasses. Feeling the constable’s light hand upon my shoulder, I merely sighed, determined that silence was the better part of irony, and swept round yet again to leave the inn in the company of the policeman.
“I’m taking you a place where we may keep you for a while, sir,” he said, removing his hand from my shoulder. “I’ll trust you’ll make no attempt to escape and in return will make no spectacle of this.”
“I thank you for that small consideration,” I said coldly as we strode down a major street, the boy walking behind us while many passers-by gave us second and third looks.
“You are welcome, sir, and I appreciate your cooperation and understanding. You see, we’ve been alerted to watch for the fugitive from that Portland Place murder—”
“I am someone else.”
“I’m sure we will both be quite happy when that is proved, sir. Until then, I hope you are able to sympathise with my situation, for I feel I must keep you in custody.”
“How far are we to go?”
“Well, sir,” said the young policeman, “the fact is I have no place to hold you other than the prison itself, and so it is there that we are headed. It is about half a mile distant.”
Silently, I followed alongside the constable, marching back across the bridge spanning the Nith, and then to the right along the second street we encountered. Lugging my valise, I finally caught sight of the prison: a stone and brick fortress resembling in its way a latter-day castle, with turrets and steeples.
“I won’t put you in a cell, sir,” said the constable, finally shooing away the curious boy as we approached the building. “You will, however, remain under supervision.”
“Let me say again that, if you take the Abbey Road south, you will come upon a military aircraft tended by its pilot, a Captain Cecil Harper. He will identify me.”
“I reckon we will do just that, sir,” the constable said as he held the door open for me. “But all in due time. To your left once we’re inside, if you please.”
I was settled into a room whose furnishings consisted of a desk and three chairs, with a window that looked out onto a spacious lawn. I set my valise upon the tile floor and then selected what I judged to be the most comfortable chair in sight.
“I’ll return presently,” said the policeman before he closed the door. I heard a key being applied to the lock and then receding footsteps.
After a few minutes spent imagining how I might have avoided finding myself suddenly incarcerated, I got to my feet and slowly walked to the window. I spent a while staring through the pane, admiring flocks of birds that occasionally flew past.
It was during such a moment that I espied an aeroplane against the clouds. The sight gave me a turn, for I instantly feared that perhaps Captain Harper had seen fit to abandon me. Soon, however, those worries faded, for as the craft drew somewhat closer, I saw that it was a monoplane, rather than the biplane in which I had made my journey northward.
I observed the craft make slow, lazy circles whose centres gradually drifted toward the northeast. It seemed a suspicious pattern of flight to my untrained mind, and in time I attached an odd malevolence to the aeroplane. Whoever was piloting it, I decided with no rational justification, that person must have some purpose not altogether wholesome.
Just then, I heard the lock turn, and the door opened to reveal my young warden.
“You are still doing well, sir?” he asked.
“As well as might be expected,” I replied somewhat brusquely. “Has anyone interviewed the pilot I mentioned?”
“Not just yet,” the policeman said in a tone that suggested he did not take seriously the story I had told. “We will get onto that in a bit. In any event, sir, I came to ask if you would care for me to arrange an afternoon meal for you.”
“Yes,” I said, turning toward the window again. “If I am going nowhere, I suppose I might as well eat.”
“Very well,” the young man said awkwardly. “Oh, and I’m afraid I haven’t introduced myself to you, Mr. Price. Constable Charles Taylor, it is.”
I made no response, maintaining my vigil at the window.
“Well, I’ll be by to check on you later, sir,” Taylor informed me before closing and locking the door.
I sighed and stared upward through the glass pane. The monoplane was still visible, now circling nearer the horizon.
The late afternoon sun was lowering ever more as I neared the end of a book I had been lent by one of the other local policemen. As I once again imagined being rescued from my imprisonment by Sherlock Holmes, Charles Taylor opened the door, accompanied by another of his colleagues.
“Mr. Price?” he said timidly.
“Have you come to clear my table?” I asked with sarcasm, nodding toward the plate, utensils and cup that still sat next to me.
“Ah yes, I suppose I did neglect that, did I not?” said Taylor, stepping into the room while his companion remained at the open doorway. “In truth, Mr. Price,” he said as he gathered up the remains of my meal, “I’ve come to inform you that we have spoken to the army pilot who brought you here.”
“Indeed,” I said smugly. I thought to pull out my watch to underscore my irritation, but refrained from that excess. “Are you saying you now believe who I am?”
“We tend in that direction, yes.” Taylor held the plate and other items as he spoke. “There’s no doubt that the officer is genuine, and his vouching for you is good enough for us.”
“And so may I now go?” I asked calmly.
“Well, it’s not quite as simple as all that.”
“No,” I replied, setting the book down in the space just occupied by my plate. “It never is, is it?”
The young man was visibly cowed by my expression. “But you see, sir, we had already contacted Edinburgh, and they are sending some men here to talk with you.”
“Why? You just told me that Captain Harper’s identification of me is good enough for you.”
“For me—” the young man looked back at his companion—“For us, it’s good enough, yes, but it’s not good enough for Edinburgh. They insist on having their people speak to you as well, and we have been directed to retain you in custody until their representatives arrive.”
“But Edinburgh is a hundred miles away.”
“Actually, sir, I believe it’s just under eighty as the crow flies.�
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“In any case, will these men from Edinburgh be arriving shortly?”
“That’s just the point, Mr. Price. They won’t be here until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. You see, they have received other notifications of similar apprehensions or sightings, and Edinburgh has many investigators traveling about, looking into those reports. The ones who are to interview you hope by tomorrow morning to be in Moffat, and that’s just over twenty miles away.”
“Tomorrow?” I repeated.
“Yes, tomorrow,” replied Charles Taylor, cringing. “I canna help it, sir. We’ll have to keep you through the night, I’m afraid.”
“Here,” I muttered. “In Dumfries Prison.”
“In truth, Mr. Price,” said the young man hesitantly, “I should like to take it upon myself to offer you a bed for the night in my home. My wife and I have a spare room you can have, along with my sincere apologies. Dinner and breakfast are part of the bargain, of course. It’s the least I can do to make amends for the trouble caused you.”
I sat back and looked at my valise, which had sat untouched throughout the afternoon, and wished I had taken the precaution of packing more in the way of naïve hope.
The next morning, I woke in my small cottage bed at once determined to make up for loss of the previous day. Rising without hesitation, I dressed and prepared with alacrity for the hours ahead. Opening the door of my room, I entered the sitting room to find the constable’s young wife smiling over a full breakfast at the ready: eggs, link sausage and bacon, buttered bread, fried mushrooms, tattie scones, and black pudding, in addition to coffee, which I consumed in abundance.
“Once more, Mrs. Taylor,” I said as I lifted my cup, “you have prepared another exquisite meal.”
“You are more than welcome, Mr. Price,” said the woman.
I smiled at her, recalling the previous night’s dinner of Scotch broth, roast grouse, potatoes and pudding, with clootie dumplings for dessert. Her resentment at my arrival that evening had appeared to match my own sour attitude at being detained in Dumfries, but as the night wore on, we had found ourselves softening toward one another. With the excellent food and her husband’s conciliatory words both lightening the mood, we were all on quite genial terms by the time I retired to the spare bedroom.