by John Buchan
Marrish automatically took the weapon and fired. He was within six inches of the knot.
“Let me try,” said Adam. His shot was an inch nearer.
Marrish fired again, almost repeating Adam’s shot.
Adam’s next attempt was wide, but he fired a second time and just grazed the knot. Marrish almost plucked the pistol from his hand and sent a bullet plumb into the knot’s centre.
“By Jove, that’s pretty shooting. Johnny was right. Hullo, the gun’s empty. Have you any more cartridges?”
Marrish seemed to awake to a maddened recollection. “Curse you!” he cried. “You’ve done me in. I wanted those bullets . . . I wanted them to-day for . . .”
“For what?” Adam asked, and once again he took the other’s hands — his hands, not his wrists.
For my enemy — the man who has ruined me . . . and a last one for myself.”
“So?” said Adam. “You’re a sicker man than I thought. There’s that small crooked devil to be got out of you. Now take your time — very slowly. I want to know all about that little devil.”
The hands in Adam’s grasp were quivering like a bird that a boy has caged. Marrish was talking rapidly, incoherently, words tripping on each other’s heels. His voice had lost its shrillness, and had become low and intense. . . . He told of his coming to Birkpool, his dreams and ambitions, his successes — and then the appearance of the other man who jostled him aside. He did not mention Utlaw by name — he was only “he,” as if the figure so dominated the world that even a stranger must recognise the incubus. There followed a long catalogue of injuries evidently carefully tabulated in his mind — many of them childish, but clearly to him a great mountain of wrongs. Little sayings were misconstrued, casual acts perverted, till all his troubles — his journalistic failures, the slights of his party, his poverty, his own ill-health and his wife’s — were made to spring from the one tap-root of personal malevolence. Adam let him talk till his confession ebbed away in a moan of misery.
He dropped his hands.
“Poor old chap,” he said. “You’ve made an infernal mess of things.”
“Not me . . .” Marrish began.
“Yes, you. For you’ve lost your pride. You’ve forgotten the man you once were. Do you mean to say that when you and Johnny were partners you would have ever admitted that any man could down you? When you took a knock you blamed it on the cussedness of things and not on the other fellow. But now, when you’ve taken a collection of knocks because you’re in the wrong groove and a world you don’t understand, you’re weak enough to put it all on the other chap. You’re a fool, Marrish. And a bit of a coward.”
“That’s a lie. I’ve faced up squarely . . .”
“Not you. You’ve knuckled under, and consoled yourself by putting it all down to an imaginary enemy, and nursing your hate for him till you can’t see daylight. That’s the behaviour of a sulky child. If you had faced up to things you’d have seen you were in the wrong place, cut your losses, and shifted yourself to a better. . . . Who, by the way, is the man you blame?”
Marrish muttered a word, and it was spoken not defiantly but shamefacedly. Adam had planned out beforehand every move in the game, and the slight change of tone told him that he was winning.
“Utlaw!” he cried, and then laughed. “Utlaw! Man, you’ve been barking up the wrong tree. Utlaw never had a hard thought about you. If he had, he would have scored heavily, for he has made you hate him, and that’s the worst affliction you can put on a man. Have you ever had a happy moment since you started this grouch? No. It has come between you and food and sleep, and it’s made the whole earth black for you. Utlaw would have scored, if he had wanted to — only he’s not that kind of fellow.”
“What do you know about him?” Marrish asked fiercely, as if he claimed a proprietary right in his enemy.
“I knew him in the war, where one learned a good deal about other people. Utlaw never in all his days cherished a grudge against anybody. He hasn’t time for it — his head is too full of his maggots. He’s a good chap, but he’s a fool — like you, Marrish — the same kind of fool.”
The other lifted his weary eyes.
“I’m a fool all right — Utlaw’s a scoundrel,” he said.
“No, he’s a fool. He’s like you — he’s in a game where he can’t win and he’ll eat out his heart in trying. He wants to build things up, and has all kinds of fine notions — just as you had once. But he is working with tools that will break in his hand. He is slaving for people who in the end will turn him down. That’s the curse of this rotten political game. In two years or five years he will be sitting with a broken heart in the dust among the ruins of his dreams. That is why I call him a fool. But he won’t be such an utter fool as you, for he won’t have invented an imaginary enemy and be torturing himself with hating. He has too much guts and sense for that. . . . You thought of putting a bullet into him? Well, if he deserved it he would still have scored off you. He would have made your life a hell with your hate, and you would be putting him out of the world before he had lost his illusions. Not a bad way of dying, you know — only of course he doesn’t deserve it. If you killed him it would be like murdering a child.”
Marrish had his eyes on the ground. Adam’s steady gaze exercised some mysterious compulsion, for slowly he lifted them and looked him in the face. The heat of purpose had gone out of him, and what remained was bewilderment, almost fear.
“You meant your last bullet for yourself? Well, you’d probably make a mess of it. Then you would spend some weeks in a prison hospital till they patched you up. After that would come the trial. If you were well defended, they might find you mad, and put you away during His Majesty’s pleasure. A nice kind of life for you! For of course you are not mad. You’re as sane as I am. If you were lucky the judge would put on a black cap and presently you’d swing. You’re a man of imagination — you started life with hopes and ideals — do you realise what the bitterness of those last days would be when you knew that they were all to end with a six-foot drop?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” the other muttered.
“Don’t be too sure. God never meant you for a murderer — you’re not a cool hand — when you saw Utlaw’s brains on the floor you’d be sick and scared and as like as not would blow away a bit of your jaw. It often happens that way. But assume that your shot went true. You’d be done with your troubles, you say. Maybe, but you’d also be done with life. You’re still a young man. You’ve been living in a bad dream, but you know that there are still jolly things in the world. This countryside, for instance. You came out to-day to have a last look at it? Am I right? That shows that you have not lost the capacity for pleasure. When I was talking about the Houtbosch I saw a spark come into your eyes. You’re not the shrivelled husk you think yourself. There’s still blood in your veins. Are you going to end all that — for a babyish whim?
“And there’s another thing,” Adam went on. “You’ve always been a proud fellow. You’ve been proud of yourself, and your friends have been proud of you. How are those friends going to feel when they hear that David Marrish has died shamefully — either by his own hand or by the hangman’s? . . . And what about your wife? You thank God that you have no children, though there was a time when you didn’t feel like that. But you’re going to leave a wife behind who trusts in you. You’ve been a good husband to her, but now you’re going to inflict on her the uttermost wrong. . . . A murderer’s widow. . . . Without a hope or a penny in the world. . . . You’ve been kind to her, and nursed her tenderly and stinted yourself that she might have food and medicine. And now you’re going to be savagely, brutally, hellishly cruel to a poor woman who gave you all she had.”
For a moment it looked as if Marrish would attack him. The man got to his feet and stood with a contorted face and uplifted arm. Then he seemed to collapse into a heap. He was weeping, bitterly, convulsively, and his meagre body was shaken with sobs.
Adam flung an arm round his shoulders.
“Poor old chap,” he said gently. “That’s right. Let the tears come. When you’ve wept enough, you’ll be yourself again.”
For some time the two men sat there as the afternoon lengthened. Adam’s arm seemed to comfort Marrish, and he lay back into the curve of it. Presently the sobbing ceased, and there was a long silence.
“I’m going to take charge of you,” Adam said. “Never mind who I am. Say that I’m a healer of sick souls, and that I intend to make a proper job of you. This country’s no place for you, and you’re going back to the place where your roots are. You’ve plenty of good work in you, and I’ll see that you get it out. Johnny Sprot wants you to join him. He has a tidy handful of propositions up in Rhodesia, and he wants a partner. Among other things, there’s a newspaper for you to run. You’re a good organiser, and there’s a field with Johnny for your talents. . . . Are you hungry? For I am, ravenously, and Amos seems to have gone over the sky-line with the lunch. I’ve got a little two-seater car and I’m going to take you back to Birkpool. Then I’ll tell you what you must do. Get shaved and tidied up, and you and Mrs Marrish will come and feed with me. I’m at the King’s Head. There we’ll talk about plans, and to-morrow I’ll take you up to London to see some friends. I’m in charge of this outfit, remember, and you must obey orders.”
Marrish turned on him a white tear-stained face. His eyes were quiet now and a little dim.
“I don’t know . . .” he began.
“You don’t, but never mind that now — you will in time. One thing you do know, that you’re the old David Marrish again. . . . Oh, by the way, you’ve another job before you to-night. You were going to see Utlaw — you had fixed that up, hadn’t you? Well, you must keep the appointment just the same. He knows that you’ve been talking loose about him. Tell him you have come to apologise and make up the quarrel. Say that you have been all kinds of a fool. That’s the amends that an honest man makes for an occasional folly. . . . If you like, you can tell him that he’s a fool also — that he has got into the wrong game the same as you, and will find it out some day.”
Adam took up the pistol from the grass.
“There! You’d better take that,” he said.
Marrish looked at it with a shudder.
“Take it,” Adam repeated. “You can’t leave it lying here. It’s your property.”
Marrish took the thing gingerly as if it had been a hot iron. But he did not replace it in his pocket. Holding it by the muzzle he hurled it from him high into the air. It fell in the middle of the stream, and he watched till the last ripple made by it had died away. He had the face of one performing an act of reparation.
That night Utlaw came up and sat on Adam’s bed. He looked like a man dog-tired but very happy.
“It’s all over,” he said. “I’ve seen Marrish. He asked for an appointment to-night and I gave it him. I did all you advised me — nobody about, the key lying on the table ready to hand him, nothing to defend myself with — but I felt like a criminal going to the gallows. I opened the door to him myself, and I can tell you my knees were knocking together. . . . Then a miracle happened. I didn’t offer him the key — I saw at the first glance there was no need. He looked quiet and sober and — and — kindly. Yes, kindly. He said he had come to apologise for playing the goat. Apparently he is leaving Birkpool at once. . . . We sat down and smoked a pipe together and had a long friendly talk. I blame myself for not having had it all out with him before — it’s a lesson to me I shall never forget. It was all a hideous misunderstanding. The man’s a thundering good fellow — a better fellow than me by a long sight. He has brains, too. He knows the difficult job I’ve got and talked acutely about it — told me I was a bit of a fool myself for trying to do the impossible. We parted like long-lost brothers, and he’s going to keep me posted about his doings. . . . Then I went round to see Florrie and took her out and gave her supper, for neither of us has been able to eat a bite to-day. We both felt as if we had got a reprieve. She’s fallen for you completely, Milford, and by God, so have I. You’re the kind of friend to go to in a fix. . . . As I say, I’ve learned my lesson. Never funk trouble. It’s Mount Everest when you fight shy of it, but when you face up to it it’s a molehill. . . . Whew! I’m weary. I’m going to bed to sleep a round of the clock.”
Adam did not go to bed. He sat and smoked long into the night. He thought of Utlaw; now that he had faced death in cold blood Utlaw would be twice the man he had been. But chiefly he thought of himself.
This was the kind of thing that he could do, for which his long training fitted him. But the other job — the main job? He believed that he had found the quality that he sought in three men, but it was still only potential, it had still to be shaped to leadership. At any moment one or the other, or all three, might crack in his hands. In his hands! That was the trouble. Had he the power, the brain, the mastery, to shape the career of a fellow-mortal? For a black moment of disillusion he felt that such a purpose was sheer arrogance. It was a task which should be left to God, and who was he to thrust himself in as God’s vicegerent?
CHAPTER II
I
As Adam dressed for dinner in his little Temple bedroom, which looked out on the top of a dusty plane tree and a flat-chested building of old brick, he had one of his rare moments of introspection when he tried to orientate himself with the world.
He was living a normal life again in close contact with his fellows. To that he had schooled himself — not without difficulty after his six years of solitude. He had a task before him which absorbed all his energies of mind and body, but he had early realised that he must fail if he regarded people as only figures in a mathematical problem. So he laboured to cultivate the common sympathies. But he knew that his success was limited. He understood them and could use them, but they did not deeply move him. Marrish was a case in point. He had saved the man from disaster, and Marrish’s letters now were full of a doglike worshipping affection. But for Marrish himself he had no strong feeling; he had been only an incident in Utlaw’s life. Utlaw was the vital matter. Yet how much did he care for Utlaw apart from Utlaw’s political career? . . . Adam laid down his brushes and regarded his face in the mirror. All his emotions were now tenuous things with a utilitarian purpose. Might not this lack of an ultimate human warmth be fatal in some critical hour?
It was the same, he reflected, with other things. He nominally shared in the ordinary tastes and pursuits of his kind, but how much did they mean to him? He was a brilliant fisherman, but he fished only to get solitude for his thoughts. Books he read only to extend his knowledge, the conversation of his fellows he welcomed only for the light it cast upon the talkers. The beauty of nature and of art scarcely affected him. He had no weaknesses of the flesh, no foibles of the mind. Had he any friends for whom he felt the true unself-regarding passion of friendship? Stannix, perhaps. Lyson, maybe? Kenneth Armine? He was not certain. He realised suddenly that he was living in a world where all things, except the one, were dim and subfusc and shadowy.
But was this wholly true? What of that steady exhilaration of his which was like a recovered youth? He had no need for stoicism. In his dingy Birkpool room, in the monotonous life to which for months he would condemn himself, he had never a moment of ennui. There seemed to be an inner fount of cheerfulness always flowing. His cause was an anchor to keep him steady, but it could not give this perpetual afflatus of spirit like a May morning.
He had no need to ask himself the reason. There was a secret world waiting for him across whose border he could step at will. It was only in moments of reflection like this that he understood how large a part Eilean Bàn played in his life. Half his time was spent among its cool winds and shining spaces. For him it was all that art and literature could give. How could he be rapt by the sight of a lush English meadow or a flowery woodland when his heart was given to his own place — the spire of Sgurr Bàn, the thymy downlands, the singing tides of the western sea? . . . And Nigel who trotted by his side and talked the
wise talk of childhood. He had retained humanity because Nigel and Eilean Bàn were the passion of his innermost heart. His secret world was no lotus-eating paradise where a man squandered his strength in dreams. It was rather a vantage-ground which gave him a Pisgah view of the things of common life and a half-contemptuous empire over them.
He laughed as he finished dressing, for he thought how inviolable was his secret. He went a great deal about in London and had been at some pains to keep up a pretence of the commonplace. A few people, his old friends, knew something of him, but they respected his desire to be inconspicuous. The others, the men and women he casually met, regarded him as an agreeable, well-mannered rentier who filled a place at a dinner-party, took a gun at a shoot, and joined in a rubber of bridge at the club. He was aware that he was popular, since he trod on no toes and stood in no one’s light. . . . Women rather liked him, but women interested him not at all. Jacqueline Armine perhaps was an exception. With her he had advanced to a certain intimacy, for there was something about her which reminded him of Nigel. One or two had shown a desire for friendship, or at least flirtation, but his reserve had warned them off. He could when he chose become as wooden as a fence-post.
As he filled his cigarette case he remembered that there were two people who had seemed to detect more in him than he wished to reveal. The first was Warren Creevey, who was becoming a very notable figure in the public eye. On one side he was a professional sophist, a master of brilliant dialectic, who delighted in maintaining paradoxes of his own and still more in shattering the platitudes of other men. But he was also a great figure in the City, a bold speculator in the wavering exchanges of the globe, and at the same time an acute economist who was frequently taken into the conclaves which discussed international settlements. Creevey had shown some wish for his acquaintance. They rarely met without Creevey trying to probe him with his delicate scalpel.
