Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  But the wine put new life into him. He found he could use both arms, and he began wolfishly on the omelette, making a rather messy job of it. By this time he was feeling a remarkably vigorous convalescent, and he continued with the cold meat, till the cramp in his left shoulder forced him to lie back on the pillow. It soon passed, and he was able in fair comfort to finish the meal down to the last lettuce leaf of the salad, and the last drop of the claret. The Turpin who reclined again on the bed was to all intents the same vigorous young man who the night before had stumbled through that fateful door into the darkness. But it was a Turpin with a profoundly mystified mind.

  He would have liked to smoke, but his cigarettes were in the pocket of his dress clothes which had been removed. So he started to do for his legs what he had already achieved for his arms, and with the same happy results. It occurred to him that, while he was alone, he had better discover whether or not he could stand. He made the effort, rolled out of bed on to the floor, hit the little table with his head and set the dishes rattling.

  But after a few scrambles he got to his feet and managed to shuffle round the room. The mischief was leaving his body — so much was plain, and but for a natural stiffness in the joints he felt as well as ever. But what it all meant he hadn’t a notion. He was inclined to the belief that somehow he had scored off his enemies, and was a tougher proposition than they had bargained for. They had assuredly done no harm to his mind with their witchcraft, and it looked as if they had also failed with his body. The thought emboldened him. The house seemed quiet; why should he not do a little exploration?

  He cautiously opened the door, finding it, somewhat to his surprise, unlocked. The passage was lit by a hanging oil-lamp, carpeted with an old-fashioned drugget, and its walls decorated with a set of flower pictures. Turpin came to the conclusion that rarely in his life had he been in a dwelling which seemed more innocent and homelike. He considered himself sensitive to the nuances of the sinister in an atmosphere, and there was nothing of that sort in this. He took a step or two down the passage, and then halted, for he thought he heard a sound. Yes, there could be no doubt of it. It was water gushing from a tap. Someone in the establishment was about to have a bath.

  Then he slipped back to his room just in time. The someone was approaching with light feet and a rustle of draperies. He had his door shut when the steps passed, and then opened it and stuck his head out. He saw a pink dressing-gown, and above it a slender neck and masses of dark hair. It was the figure which he of all men was likely to know best.

  It seemed that the place for him was bed, so he got between the sheets again and tried to think. Adela Victor was here; therefore he was in the hands of her captors, and made a fourth in their bag. But what insanity had prompted these wary criminals to bring the two of them to the same prison? Were they so utterly secure, so confident of their power, that they took this crazy risk? The insolence of it made him furious. In the name of every saint he swore that he would make them regret it. He would free the lady and himself, though he had to burn down the house and wring the neck of every inmate. And then he remembered the delicacy of the business, and the need of exact timing if the other two hostages were not to be lost, and at the thought he groaned.

  There was a tap at the door, and a man entered to clear away the supper table. He seemed an ordinary English valet, with his stiff collar and decent black coat and smug expressionless face.

  “Beg pardon, my lord,” he said, “at what hour would you like your shavin’ water? Seein’ it’s been a late night I make so bold as to suggest ten o’clock.”

  Turpin assented, and the servant had hardly gone when another visitor appeared. It was a slim pale man, whom he was not conscious of having seen before, a man with grey hair and a melancholy droop of the head. He stood at the foot of the bed, gazing upon the prostrate Turpin, and his look was friendly. Then he addressed him in French of the most Saxon type.

  “Êtes-vous comfortable, monsieur? C’est bien. Soyez tranquille. Nous sommes vos amis. Bon soir.”

  CHAPTER XVI. OUR TIME IS NARROWED

  I lunched that day with Mary — alone, for her aunts were both in Paris — and it would have been hard to find in the confines of the British islands a more dejected pair. Mary, who had always a singular placid gentleness, showed her discomposure only by her pallor. As for me I was as restless as a bantam.

  “I wish I had never touched the thing,” I cried. “I have done more harm than good.”

  “You have found Lord Mercot,” she protested.

  “Yes, and lost Turpin. The brutes are still three up on us. We thought we had found two, and now we have lost Miss Victor again. And Turpin! They’ll find him an ugly customer, and probably take strong measures with him. They’ll stick to him and the girl and the little boy now like wax; for last night’s performance is bound to make them suspicious.”

  “I wonder,” said Mary, always an optimist. “You see, Sir Archie only dragged him in because of his rank. It looked odd his being in Adela’s company, but then all the times he has seen her he never spoke a word to her. They must have noticed that. I’m anxious about Sir Archie. He ought to leave London.”

  “Confound him! He’s going to, as soon as he gets out of hospital, which will probably be this afternoon. I insisted on it, but he meant to in any case. He’s heard an authentic report of a green sandpiper nesting somewhere. It would be a good thing if Archie would stick to birds. He has no head for anything else. . . . And now we’ve got to start again at the beginning.”

  “Not quite the beginning,” she interposed.

  “Dashed near it. They won’t bring Miss Victor into that kind of world again, and all your work goes for nothing, my dear. It’s uncommon bad luck that you didn’t begin to wake her up, for then she might have done something on her own account. But she’s still a dummy, and tucked away, you may be sure, in some place where we can never reach her. And we have little more than three weeks left.”

  “It is bad luck,” Mary agreed. “But, Dick, I’ve a feeling that I haven’t lost Adela Victor. I believe that somehow or other we’ll soon get in touch with her again. You remember how children when they lose a ball sometimes send another one after it in the hope that one will find the other. Well, we’ve sent the Marquis after Adela, and I’ve a notion we may find them both together. We always did that as children.” . . . She paused at the word ‘children’ and I saw pain in her eyes. “Oh, Dick, the little boy! We’re no nearer him, and he’s far the most tragic of all.”

  The whole business looked so black that I had no word of comfort to give her.

  “And to put the lid on it,” I groaned, “I’ve got to settle down in Medina’s house this evening. I hate the idea like poison.”

  “It’s the safest way,” she said.

  “Yes, but it puts me out of action. He’ll watch me like a lynx, and I won’t be able to take a single step on my own — simply sit there and eat and drink and play up to his vanity. Great Scott, I swear I’ll have a row with him and break his head.”

  “Dick, you’re not going to — how do you say it? — chuck in your hand? Everything depends on you. You’re our scout in the enemy’s headquarters. Your life depends on your playing the game. Colonel Arbuthnot said so. And you may find out something tremendous. It will be horrible for you, but it isn’t for long, and it’s the only way.”

  That was Mary all over. She was trembling with anxiety for me, but she was such a thorough sportsman that she wouldn’t take any soft option.

  “You may hear something about David Warcliff,” she added.

  “I hope to God I do. Don’t worry, darling. I’ll stick it out. But, look here, we must make a plan. I shall be more or less shut off from the world, and I must have a line of communication open. You can’t telephone to me at that house, and I daren’t ring you up from there. The only chance is the Club. If you have any message, ring up the head porter and make him write it down. I’ll arrange that he keeps it quiet, and I’ll pick up the messages
when I get the chance. And I’ll ring you up occasionally to give you the news. But I must be jolly careful, for, likely as not, Medina will keep an eye on me even there. You’re in touch with Macgillivray?”

  She nodded.

  “And with Sandy?”

  “Yes, but it takes some time — a day at least. We can’t correspond direct.”

  “Well, there’s the lay-out. I’m a prisoner — with qualifications. You and I can keep up some sort of communication. As you say, there’s only about another three weeks.”

  “It would be nothing if only we had some hope.”

  “That’s life, my dear. We’ve got to go on to the finish anyhow, trusting that luck will turn in the last ten minutes.”

  I arrived in Hill Street after tea and found Medina in the back smoking-room, writing letters.

  “Good man, Hannay,” he said; “make yourself comfortable. There are cigars on that table.”

  “Had a satisfactory time in Shropshire?” I asked.

  “Rotten. I motored back this morning, starting very early. Some tiresome business here wanted my attention. I’m sorry, but I’ll be out to dinner to-night. The same thing always happens when I want to see my friends — a hideous rush of work.”

  He was very hospitable, but his manner had not the ease it used to have. He seemed on the edge about something, and rather preoccupied. I guessed it was the affair of Archie Roylance and Turpin.

  I dined alone and sat after dinner in the smoking-room, for Odell never suggested the library, though I would have given a lot to fossick about that place. I fell asleep over the Field and was wakened about eleven by Medina. He looked almost tired, a rare thing for him; also his voice was curiously hard. He made some trivial remark about the weather, and a row in the Cabinet which was going on. Then he said suddenly:

  “Have you seen Arbuthnot lately?”

  “No,” I replied, with real surprise in my tone. “How could I? He has gone back to the East.”

  “So I thought. But I have been told that he has been seen again in England.”

  For a second I had a horrid fear that he had got on the track of my meeting with Sandy at the Cotswold inn and his visit to Fosse. His next words reassured me.

  “Yes. In London. Within the last few days.”

  It was easy enough for me to show astonishment. “What a crazy fellow he is! He can’t stay put for a week together. All I can say is that I hope he won’t come my way. I’ve no particular wish to see him again.”

  Medina said no more. He accompanied me to my bedroom, asked if I had everything I wanted, bade me good night, and left me.

  Now began one of the strangest weeks in my life. Looking back, it has still the inconsequence of a nightmare, but one or two episodes stand out like reefs in a tide-race. When I woke the first morning under Medina’s roof I believed that somehow or other he had come to suspect me. I soon saw that that was nonsense, that he regarded me as a pure chattel; but I saw, too, that a most active suspicion of something had been awakened in his mind. Probably Archie’s fiasco, together with the news of Sandy, had done it, and perhaps there was in it something of the natural anxiety of a man nearing the end of a difficult course. Anyhow I concluded that this tension of mind on his part was bound to make things more difficult for me. Without suspecting me, he kept me perpetually under his eye. He gave me orders as if I were a child, or rather he made suggestions, which in my character of worshipping disciple I had to treat as orders.

  He was furiously busy night and day, and yet he left me no time to myself. He wanted to know everything I did, and I had to give an honest account of my doings, for I had a feeling that he had ways of finding out the truth. One lie discovered would, I knew, wreck my business utterly, for if I were under his power, as he believed I was, it would be impossible for me to lie to him. Consequently I dared not pay many visits to the Club, for he would want to know what I did there. I was on such desperately thin ice that I thought it best to stay most of my time in Hill Street, unless he asked me to accompany him. I consulted Mary about this, and she agreed that it was the wise course.

  Apart from a flock of maids, there was no other servant in the house but Odell. Twice I met the grey, sad-faced man on the stairs, the man I had seen on my first visit, and had watched a week before in the house behind the curiosity shop. I asked who he was, and was told a private secretary, who helped Medina in his political work. I gathered that he did not live regularly in the house, but only came there when his services were required.

  Now Mary had said that the other man that evening in Little Fardell Street had been Sandy. If she was right, this fellow might be a friend, and I wondered if I could get in touch with him. The first time I encountered him he never raised his eyes. The second time I forced him by some question to look at me, and he turned on me a perfectly dead expressionless face like a codfish. I concluded that Mary had been in error, for this was the genuine satellite, every feature of whose character had been steam-rollered out of existence by Medina’s will.

  I was seeing Medina now at very close quarters, and in complete undress, and the impression he had made on me at our first meeting — which had been all overlaid by subsequent happenings — grew as vivid again as daylight. The “good fellow,” of course, had gone; I saw behind all his perfection of manner to the naked ribs of his soul. He would talk to me late at night in that awful library, till I felt that he and the room were one presence, and that all the diabolic lore of the ages had been absorbed by this one mortal. You must understand that there was nothing wrong in the ordinary sense with anything he said. If there had been a phonograph recording his talk it could have been turned on with perfect safety in a girls’ school. . . . He never spoke foully, or brutally. I don’t believe he had a shadow of those faults of the flesh which we mean when we use the word “vice.” But I swear that the most wretched libertine before the bar of the Almighty would have shown a clean sheet compared to his.

  I know no word to describe how he impressed me except “wickedness.” He seemed to annihilate the world of ordinary moral standards, all the little rags of honest impulse and stumbling kindness with which we try to shelter ourselves from the winds of space. His consuming egotism made life a bare cosmos in which his spirit scorched like a flame. I have met bad men in my day, fellows who ought to have been quietly and summarily put out of existence, but if I had had the trying of them I would have found bits of submerged decency and stunted remnants of good feeling. At any rate they were human, and their beastliness was a degeneration of humanity, not its flat opposite. Medina made an atmosphere which was like a cold bright air in which nothing can live. He was utterly and consumedly wicked, with no standard which could be remotely related to ordinary life. That is why, I suppose, mankind has had to invent the notion of devils. He seemed to be always lifting the corner of a curtain and giving me peeps into a hoary mystery of iniquity older than the stars. . . . I suppose that someone who had never felt his hypnotic power would have noticed very little in his talk except its audacious cleverness, and that someone wholly under his dominion would have been less impressed than me because he would have forgotten his own standards, and been unable to make the comparison. I was just in the right position to understand and tremble. . . . Oh, I can tell you, I used to go to bed solemnised, frightened half out of my wits, and yet in a violent revulsion, and hating him like hell. It was pretty clear that he was mad, for madness means just this dislocation of the modes of thought which mortals have agreed upon as necessary to keep the world together. His head used to seem as round as a bullet, like nothing you find even in the skulls of cave-men, and his eyes to have a blue light in them like the sunrise of death in an arctic waste.

  One day I had a very narrow escape. I went to the Club, to see if there was anything from Mary, and received instead a long cable from Gaudian in Norway. I had just opened it, when I found Medina at my elbow. He had seen me enter, and followed me, in order that we should walk home together.

  Now I had arranged
a simple code with Gaudian for his cables, and by the mercy of Heaven that honest fellow had taken special precautions, and got some friend to send this message from Christiania. Had it borne the Merdal stamp it would have been all up with me.

  The only course was the bold one, though I pursued it with a quaking heart.

  “Hullo,” I cried, “here’s a cable from a pal of mine in Norway. Did I tell you I had been trying to get a beat on the Leardal for July? I had almost forgotten about the thing. I started inquiring in March, and here’s my first news.”

  I handed him the two sheets and he glanced at the place of dispatch.

  “Code,” he said. “Do you want to work it out now?”

  “If you don’t mind waiting a few seconds. It’s a simple code of my own invention, and I ought to be able to decipher it pretty fast.”

  We sat down at one of the tables in the hall, and I took up a pen and a sheet of notepaper. As I think I have mentioned before, I am rather a swell at codes, and this one in particular I could read without much difficulty. I jotted down some letters and numbers, and then wrote out a version which I handed to Medina. This was what he read:

  “Upper beat Leardal available from first of month. Rent two hundred and fifty with option of August at one hundred more. No limit to rods. Boat on each pool. Tidal waters can also be got for sea trout by arrangement. If you accept please cable word ‘Yes.’ You should arrive not later than June 29th. Bring plenty of bottled prawns. Motor boat can be had from Bergen. Andersen, Grand Hotel, Christiania.”

  But all the time I was scribbling this nonsense, I was reading the code correctly and getting the message by heart. Here is what Gaudian really sent: