by John Buchan
Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the head office of the Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the manager. There was no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his native heath. The chief cashier received him with deference in spite of his unorthodox garb, for he was not the least honoured of the bank’s customers. As it chanced he had been talking about him that very morning to a gentleman from London. “The strength of this city,” he had said, tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, “does not lie in its dozen very rich men, but in the hundred or two homely folk who make no parade of wealth. Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all their life in a semi-detached villa and die worth half a million.” And the Londoner had cordially assented.
So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
“I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn. Those boys will get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor little souls.”
“Maybe,” said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he had last seen him. Somehow he did not think that peace was likely to be the portion of that devoted band. “But I’ve not come here to speak about that.”
He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle. The manager’s eyes grew very round. Presently these excrescences were revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into the hollow between ribs and hip. With some difficulty he slit the bags and extracted three hide-bound packages.
“See here, Mackintosh,” he said solemnly. “I hand you over these parcels, and you’re to put them in the innermost corner of your strong room. You needn’t open them. Just put them away as they are, and write me a receipt for them. Write it now.”
Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
“What’ll I call them?” he asked.
“Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, Esq., naming the date.”
Mr. Mackintosh wrote. He signed his name with his usual flourish and handed the slip to his client.
“Now,” said Dickson, “you’ll put that receipt in the strong box where you keep my securities and you’ll give it up to nobody but me in person and you’ll surrender the parcels only on presentation of the receipt. D’you understand?”
“Perfectly. May I ask any questions?”
“You’d better not if you don’t want to hear lees.’
“What’s in the packages?” Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
“That’s asking,” said Dickson. “But I’ll tell ye this much. It’s jools.”
“Your own?”
“No, but I’m their trustee.”
“Valuable?”
“I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds.”
“God bless my soul,” said the startled manager. “I don’t like this kind of business, McCunn.”
“No more do I. But you’ll do it to oblige an old friend and a good customer. If you don’t know much about the packages you know all about me. Now, mind, I trust you.”
Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke. “Did you maybe steal them?”
Dickson grinned. “Just what I did. And that being so, I want you to let me out by the back door.”
When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of a boy who had emerged with credit from the dentist’s chair. Remembering that here would be no midday dinner for him at home, his first step was to feed heavily at a restaurant. He had, so far as he could see, surmounted all his troubles, his one regret being that he had lost his pack, which contained among other things his Izaak Walton and his safety razor. He bought another razor and a new Walton, and mounted an electric tram car en route for home.
Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the Clyde bridge. He had done well — but of that he did not want to think, for the whole beastly thing was over. He was going to bury that memory, to be resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had been forgotten. Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when it was time to claim the jewels. As for the watchers, they must have ceased to suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of his knapsack and Mrs. Morran’s box. Home for him, and a luxurious tea by his own fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage’s nonsense had stimulated his literary fervour. He would dip into his old favourites again to confirm his faith. To-morrow he would go for a jaunt somewhere — perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of England, which he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country. No more lonely inns and deserted villages for him; henceforth he would make certain of comfort and peace.
The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of Eglinton street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun silvered the puddles. It was in such place and under such weather that Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing happened. I concern myself only with facts. Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug leaden little figure which simpered and preened itself and was hollow as a rotten nut. And he hated it.
The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right. He only played with life. That imbecile image was a mere spectator, content to applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality. It had been all right as a provision merchant, but when it fancied itself capable of higher things it had deceived itself. Foolish little image with its brave dreams and its swelling words from Browning! All make-believe of the feeblest. He was a coward, running away at the first threat of danger. It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly exposing its frailties! And yet the pitiless showman was himself too — himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable.
Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony. “Oh, I’m surely not so bad as all that,” he groaned. But the hurt was not only in his pride. He saw himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative was of the blackest. He fairly shivered with the horror of it. The car slipped past a suburban station from which passengers were emerging — comfortable black-coated men such as he had once been. He was bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of the great crowd of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal. “Why was I tethered to sich a conscience?” was his moan. But there was that stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his soul. “You flatter yourself you have done your share,” he was saying. “You will make pretty stories about it to yourself, and some day you may tell your friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit. But you will be a liar, for you know you are afraid. You are running away when the work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom you had the impudence the other day to despise. I think you are worse than a coward. I think you are a cad.”
His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial tubes. They could not guess at the tortured soul. The decision was coming nearer, the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable. On one side was submission to ignominy, on the other a return to that place which he detested, and yet loathed himself for detesting. “It seems I’m not likely to have much peace either way,” he reflected dismally.
How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines I cannot say. The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal. But suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives. He saw the face of the girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard. It seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness and fear. Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet — the wide-o
pen eyes, the solemn mouth. What was to become of that child if he failed her in her need?
Now Dickson was a practical man, and this view of the case brought him into a world which he understood. “It’s fair ridiculous,” he reflected. “Nobody there to take a grip of things. Just a wheen Gorbals keelies and the lad Heritage. Not a business man among the lot.”
The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of cloud, were altering their appearance. One was becoming faint and tenuous; the other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black. He lifted his eyes and saw in the near distance the corner of the road which led to his home. “I must decide before I reach that corner,” he told himself.
Then his mind became apathetic. He began to whistle dismally through his teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer. The car stopped with a jerk. “I’ll go back,” he said aloud, clambering down the steps. The truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw Janet’s face.
He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more energy on reflection. “This is a business proposition,” he told himself, “and I’m going to handle it as sich.” Tibby was surprised to see him and offered him tea in vain. “I’m just back for a few minutes. Let’s see the letters.”
There was one from his wife. She proposed to stay another week at the Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring her home. He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply, declining, but expressing his delight that she was soon returning. “That’s very likely the last time Mamma will hear from me,” he reflected, but — oddly enough — without any great fluttering of the heart.
Then he proceeded to be furiously busy. He sent out Tibby to buy another knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque. In the knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new safety razor, but no books, for he was past the need of them. That done, he drove to his solicitors.
“What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?” he asked the senior partner.
“Oh, very respectable. Very respectable indeed. Regular Edinburgh W.S. Lot. Do a lot of factoring.”
“I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place in Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter. I understand it’s to let, and I’m thinking of taking a lease of it.”
The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance telephone involves. “I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself... Yes, yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater... Good afternoon... Huntingtower. Yes, in Carrick. Not to let? But I understand it’s been in the market for some months. You say you’ve an idea it has just been let. But my client is positive that you’re mistaken, unless the agreement was made this morning... You’ll inquire? Ah, I see. The actual factoring is done by your local agent, Mr. James Loudon, in Auchenlochan. You think my client had better get into touch with him at once. Just wait a minute, please.”
He put his hand over the receiver. “Usual Edinburgh way of doing business,” he observed caustically. “What do you want done?”
“I’ll run down and see this Loudon. Tell Glendonan and Spiers to advise him to expect me, for I’ll go this very day.”
Mr. Caw resumed his conversation. “My client would like a telegram sent at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him. He’s Mr. Dickson McCunn of Mearns Street — the great provision merchant, you know. Oh, yes! Good for any rent. Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank, but you can take my word for it. Thank you. Then that’s settled. Good-bye.”
Dickson’s next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with him in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
“I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges,” he announced. “I’m not caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big.”
“For yourself?” the gunmaker asked. “You must have a license, I doubt, and there’s a lot of new regulations.”
“I can’t wait on a license. It’s for a cousin of mine who’s off to Mexico at once. You’ve got to find some way of obliging an old friend, Mr. McNair.”
Mr. McNair scratched his head. “I don’t see how I can sell you one. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do — I’ll lend you one. It belongs to my nephew, Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he came back from the front. He has no use for it now that he’s a placed minister.”
So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his water-proof a service revolver and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop in Mearns Street. For a moment the sight of the familiar place struck a pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets. He ordered a great hamper of foodstuffs — the most delicate kind of tinned goods, two perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, and, as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of old liqueur brandy. It was to be carefully packed, addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter Station, and delivered in time for him to take down by the 7.33 train. Then he drove to the terminus and dined with something like a desperate peace in his heart.
On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be alone. As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the clear April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp air of the Renfrewshire uplands fill the carriage. It was fine weather again after the rain, and a bright constellation — perhaps Dougal’s friend O’Brien — hung in the western sky. How happy he would have been a week ago had he been starting thus for a country holiday! He could sniff the faint scent of moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been his first reminder of Spring. But he had been pitchforked out of that old happy world and could never enter it again. Alas! for the roadside fire, the cosy inn, the Compleat Angler, the Chavender or Chub!
And yet — and yet! He had done the right thing, though the Lord alone knew how it would end. He began to pluck courage from his very melancholy, and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness of life. He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and if that capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet reward him with a better. Tags of poetry came into his head which seemed to favour this philosophy — particularly some lines of Browning on which he used to discourse to his Kirk Literary Society. Uncommon silly, he considered, these homilies of his must have been, mere twitterings of the unfledged. But now he saw more in the lines, a deeper interpretation which he had earned the right to make.
“Oh world, where all things change and nought abides, Oh life, the long mutation — is it so? Is it with life as with the body’s change? — Where, e’en tho’ better follow, good must pass.”
That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory to continue. Moralizing thus, he became drowsy, and was almost asleep when the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
CHAPTER 7. SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but no passenger seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms white in the moon. At Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely transferred to the porter with instructions to take charge of it till it was sent for. During the next few minutes Dickson’s mind began to work upon his problem with a certain briskness. It was all nonsense that the law of Scotland could not be summoned to the defence. The jewels had been safely got rid of, and who was to dispute their possession? Not Dobson and his crew, who had no sort of title, and were out for naked robbery. The girl had spoken of greater dangers from new enemies — kidnapping, perhaps. Well, that was felony, and the police must be brought in. Probably if all were known the three watchers had criminal records, pages long, filed at Scotland Yard. The man to deal with that side of the business was Loudon the factor, and to him he was bound in the first place. He had made a clear picture in his head of this Loudon — a derelict old country writer, formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to get an unprofitable business off his hands with the least possible trouble, never going near the pl
ace himself, and ably supported in his lethargy by conceited Edinburgh Writers to the Signet. “Sich notions of business!” he murmured. “I wonder that there’s a single county family in Scotland no’ in the bankruptcy court!” It was his mission to wake up Mr. James Loudon.
Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel, a pretentious place sacred to golfers. There he engaged a bedroom for the night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance. He also had some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack, and filled his flask with whisky. “I’m going home to Glasgow by the first train in the to-morrow,” he told the landlady, “and now I’ve got to see a friend. I’ll not be back till late.” He was assured that there would be no difficulty about his admittance at any hour, and directed how to find Mr. Loudon’s dwelling.
It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a fanlight above the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend “Mr. James Loudon, Writer.” A lane ran up one side leading apparently to a garden, for the moonlight showed the dusk of trees. In front was the main street of Auchenlochan, now deserted save for a single roisterer, and opposite stood the ancient town house, with arches where the country folk came at the spring and autumn hiring fairs. Dickson rang the antiquated bell, and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored with oilcloth, where a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on the other the living-rooms. Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told, and he sent in his card. Almost at once the door at the end on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared flourishing a napkin. “Come in, sir, come in,” it cried. “I’ve just finished a bite of meat. Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what d’you mean by keeping the gentleman standing in that outer darkness?”
The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, with a red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp in the centre of a table. Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was a bachelor’s den in every line of it. A cloth was laid on a corner of the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be known as a “mason’s mell.”
