by John Buchan
Loeffler thanked him, gave some final orders to his driver, and stepped out briskly. He had many things to think about and was glad of this chance, for he thought best when he was alone and using his legs. He looked back once and saw his driver sitting on the kerb, lighting his pipe. He did not notice the workman, who had crossed the road and was following him.
The Chancellor had had for many months to submit to the perpetual surveillance of a bodyguard from the secret police. He submitted, for he knew that it was wise, since his life was not his own, but he did not like it, and he welcomed a chance to escape from tutelage. He felt happier mixing freely with his own people than set on a guarded pinnacle. He liked, too, the spectacle of the evening life of the streets — it was not yet ten o’clock and they would be thronged — and he enjoyed the soft dry air into which was creeping the first chill of the coming winter. He strode vigorously along, and had soon reached the entrance to the Ganzstrasse.
This was a narrower street with no tram-lines. At the beginning it ran through a new workman’s quarter of small houses interspersed with timber-yards. Here it was open and well-lit, and there were few people about. But presently it entered the old quarter of Altdorf, for it had been the principal street when Altdorf was a fortified town, whose inhabitants kept geese on the wide adjoining pasturelands. A good many new tenements had been erected, but between these rookeries were the bowed fronts of old buildings, and there were many narrow lanes running into mazes of slums. Loeffler remembered that Altdorf did not bear the best of reputations. There had been bread riots and other disorders in recent years, and he had a vague recollection of reports in which certain notorious suspects were said to have harboured here. The street certainly did not look too respectable. The broken pavement was crowded with people, sauntering youths and shop-girls, workmen, seedy-looking flotsam and jetsam, and the cafés seemed of a low type. He glanced in at a window now and then, and saw ugly heads bent over beer-mugs. But the crowd was orderly enough, and he noticed a policeman here and there. Somewhere, too, must be the watchful figures of his bodyguard. He had to abate his pace, and keep close to the wall to avoid being uncomfortably jostled. Several loutish-looking fellows had pushed against him, and one or two had peered suspiciously into his face. The height of the houses made the lighting bad. Between the lamps there were patches which were almost dark.
In one of these dark patches he found himself suddenly addressed. It was by a man in rough clothes, who had a cap with a broken peak and a knitted scarf knotted about his throat. The fellow rubbed shoulders with him and spoke low in his ear, and the voice and speech were not those of a workman.
“Excellency,” he said, “do not look at me, but listen. You are in danger — grave danger. You must do as I tell you if you would save your life.”
Loeffler in the war and ever since had lived in crises and had been forced to take swift decisions. Now he did not look at the speaker. In a level voice he asked: “What are your credentials? Why should I trust you?”
The man sidled away from him as they passed a lamp-post, and drew near again as the street darkened.
“I am the man Buerger who walked with you in the woods at Andersbach a month ago. We talked of St Augustine.”
“Good,” said Loeffler. “I remember. Tell me, what must I do?”
“Your bodyguard have been decoyed away,” was the answer. “There are men close to you who seek your life. In three and a half minutes, when you have passed the third lamp-post from here, shooting will begin farther up the street, and the police whistles will be blown, and the few people here will hurry to the sound. But the shooting will be a blind, for it is you — here — that matters. Your enemies will seize you. They may kill you now, if they are hustled, but anyhow they will kill you soon.”
“So!” Loeffler’s voice was unchanged. The news only made him slow down his pace a little. “And you propose?”
“When the shots are fired we shall be abreast a little slit of a passage. It is called the Ganzallee, and is very ancient. It turns south from this street and then runs parallel to it and debouches just where it meets the Koenigplatz. It is narrow, so that two men can scarcely walk abreast. You must turn down it and run — run for your life. If you reach the Koenigplatz you are safe, and within fifty yards of your hotel.”
“But they may catch me. I am not a young man.”
“Your Excellency is not slow with your legs, for I have seen you. But I will lead the pursuit — and shepherd it. The others will not be allowed to pass me, and the place is so dark and narrow that they cannot shoot ahead. . . . Are you ready, Excellency? We are almost there.”
“I am ready,” said Loeffler. Under the last lamp-post he had glanced at the dirty, white face of his companion, and seen there that which he had recognised — something he believed he could trust.
The man slowed down a little, and Loeffler fell into step. It seemed to him that figures were crowding in on him on the pavement, all keeping pace with him. But he did not turn his head, though his eyes shifted to the left to look out for the crack in the masonry which was the Ganzallee.
Then suddenly a hundred yards up the street shots rang out, and at the same moment his companion hustled him. “There!” he whispered. “Run for your life and do not look back. Straight on. There is no turning.”
Loeffler cannoned against an iron post in the entrance of the alley, bruising his thigh. Then he charged into a slit of darkness, while behind him he heard a sudden babble like a baying of hounds.
Things moved fast in that minute. The shots up the street were followed by a tumult of shouting, out of which rang shrilly the whistles of the police. The crowd at the mouth of the Ganzallee thinned, for some fled back down the street, and others ran towards the tumult. One or two policemen with drawn batons passed at the double. But half a dozen figures remained and drew quickly towards the man who had warned Loeffler.
This man behaved oddly. He whistled on his fingers, and waved his hand. Then he shouted something which may have been a password. Then he turned down the Ganzallee with the half-dozen at his heels. Each man of them had a pistol drawn.
The place was as dark as a tunnel, but now and then it was pricked with light from some window far up in the ravine of old masonry. The men behind saw nothing of the fugitive, but it was quiet in there, away from the noise of the street, and they could hear him slipping and stumbling ahead. The ground was cobbled and uneven, but the soft-soled shoes of the pursuit did not slip, while those of the quarry were clearly giving him trouble. The contest looked to be unequal in another way, for the seven men ran confidently in the dark as if the ground was familiar to them, while the man they sought could not put forth his best speed, in case of colliding with the wall at the many windings.
The chase was mute, except for laboured breathing. The man who led the pack may not have been the slowest, but he was far the clumsiest. Unlike the rest he wore nailed boots, which scrawled on the cobbles and made him often stumble. Yet none of the others succeeded in passing him, for he had the trick — learned long ago on an English football field — of edging off a competitor.
Once they were nearly up to the fugitive — he could not have been more than five yards ahead — but at that moment the leader tripped and staggered, causing the next two men to cannon into him and thereby delaying the chase for at least ten seconds. A second time success seemed to be within their grasp, at a point where the alley turned to the right and sloped steeply towards the Koenigplatz. They could see the glow of an arc lamp dimly reflected, and in it the figure of the man they sought, twisting like a hare, as his nails slipped on the greasy stones.
Undoubtedly the pursuit would have caught him, for he was making bad time, had it not been for the mishap to its leader. For his feet seemed suddenly to go from under him, and he came down with a crash, blocking the narrow road. The next three men cascaded over him on to their heads, and the last three sat down violently in their attempt to pull up. For a minute there was a struggling heap of hum
anity in the alley, and when it had sorted itself out the fugitive was in the bright light of the alley’s debouchment.
“Our bird has escaped us,” said one of them after a mouthful of oaths. “God’s curse on you, Hannus, for a clumsy fool.”
The leader, whom they called Hannus, sat on the ground nursing a bruised shoulder.
“God’s curse on the cobbler that nailed my boots,” he groaned. “Who was to guess that he would turn in to this rabbit-run! Had I known I would have come barefoot!”
Loeffler had some anxious moments when he almost felt the breath of his pursuers on his neck. Even at the sound of the final cataclysm he dared not turn his head, and he did not slacken pace till he emerged, breathless and very warm, in the Koenigplatz, with the lights of the Kaiserhof just across the street. He had a glimpse of the upper end of the Ganzstrasse, where the row seemed to be over. He went straight to his rooms, and informed his secretaries that he was ready for bed.
“And by the way, Karl,” he said, “you might have up the police escort that Goertz insists on, and give them a wigging. They lost me to-night for the better part of an hour. Bad staff-work somewhere.”
II
The packet boat had scarcely passed the end of the breakwater which outlined the river channel when it encountered the heavy swell of the Channel, tormented by a north-easter. The tourist season was over, and it no longer ferried backwards and forwards crowds of cheerful trippers. Very few passengers had come on board, and those few were composing themselves in the cabins or in corners of the lower deck for several hours of misery.
But the steamer carried a good deal of cargo, and in the loading of it had fallen behind her scheduled time of starting. There were several touring-cars the owners of which had crossed by the quicker route, and left their cars to follow by the cheaper. There was also a certain amount of perishable fruit from the Normandy orchards. So the French harbour had witnessed a busy scene before the boat’s departure. On the quay there had been none of the usual sellers of picture-postcards and chocolates and cherries, but there had been more than the usual complement of stevedores and dock-labourers to assist with the cargo.
There had indeed been a bustle opposite the after-part of the steamer which contrasted with the meagre traffic at the passengers’ entry. The gangways to the hold had been crowded, and when the whistle blew for departure there was a scurrying ashore of blue-breeched dockers. One man, who had been fussing about the position of a motor-car and giving instructions in excellent French, did not leave with the rest, though he did not seem to be a passenger. He remained inconspicuously on the side farthest from the quay where a ladder led to the middle deck, and, when the ship was leaving the river and the bustle in the hold had subsided, he ascended the ladder, and found a seat in a place which the spindrift did not reach. He was dressed in a worn trench-waterproof, and he wore a soft green hat well pulled down over his brows.
Loeffler had come aboard early and had sat himself in a corner of the smoking-room with a novel. After much thought he had chosen this route across the Channel. It was of extreme importance that he should be in England before the other delegates to the London Conference, for he had many preliminary matters to discuss. Had he crossed from Calais or Ostend his journey would have been conspicuous, and would have been broadcast throughout the world, thereby raising suspicion when suspicion must at all costs be avoided.
There was another reason. In a speech at Bonn three days earlier he had said things which had been nicely calculated to prepare the atmosphere for the Conference, but which, as he well knew, meant a declaration of war against certain potent forces in his own country. He had repeated them in a statement to an international news agency. He was perfectly aware of the danger he ran, and understood that these words of his would make certain people determined that he should not sit at the London council-board. He was dealing, he knew, with enemies to whom human life meant little. His colleagues would have had him travel by some way where he could be securely guarded. An aeroplane had been suggested, but by air he could not preserve his incognito, since it was the most public of all methods of conveyance, and his arrival would immediately be known. The same argument applied against the ordinary routes. There, indeed, he could have been well guarded, but it meant publicity and that must be shunned.
So he had chosen the long sea-route from a western French port at a season when few people were travelling. It fitted in with his plans, for he had to have certain conversations in Paris which could not be missed. Instead of an escort he had decided to trust in the protection of obscurity. He had reached Paris inconspicuously, and there had been no official greetings at the station. He had met the man to whom he wished to talk in an obscure café on the Rive Gauche. His hotel had been humble, and he had driven to the coast in an ordinary hired car. His passport did not bear his own name. On the English side all had been arranged. There he would be met by his host and driven to a country house. Once in England he believed that any risk would be past, for he would have the guardianship of the famous English police till the Conference was over. Beyond that he did not look, for it was his habit, so far as he himself was concerned, to live for the day. If the Conference succeeded much of his task was done, and the rest was in the lap of the gods.
Loeffler was a good sailor, and did not mind the violent pitching of the vessel. His novel did not interest him, and he relapsed into those complex reflections from which he was never for long free. Much of his power lay in the fact that he really thought. He gave less time to official papers than do most men, for he had the gift of plucking the heart swiftly from them, but he gave many hours to thought.
There was only one other man in the smoking-room, a plump gentleman in knickerbockers who was trying to write at a table, and finding it difficult. He was smoking a rank cigar and was bespattering himself with ash and ink. Loeffler lit his pipe to counteract the cigar, and half shut his eyes. But he found the place ill suited for his meditations. It was stuffy and smelly; each minute it seemed to hurl itself into the air and settle back with a disquieting wriggle, while the spray lashed at the closed windows. He took off his short overcoat, and laid it beside his big white waterproof. Then he changed his mind, put on his waterproof and went out.
He sought the upper deck, from which a bridge led across the hold to the after-part of the ship. All morning he had sped along the French roads amid scurries of rain, but now the skies had cleared and a cold blue heaven looked down upon the tormented seas. But from stem to stern the vessel was swept with salt water — stinging spray, and on the starboard side great grey-green surges. Loeffler had always loved wild weather, and his spirits rose as he inhaled the keen air and felt the drive of spindrift on his cheek. He put his thoughts back under lock and key and prepared to enjoy an hour or two of sanctuary.
Sanctuary — yes, that was the right word. He was enclosed between sea and sky in a little cosmos of his own. There was no sign of human life about, sailor or passenger; the vessel seemed to be impelled by no human power, like the ship in the strange English poem which he admired. Loeffler had been a mountaineer from his youth, because of his love of deep solitude. He was far from that nowadays, in a life which was all heat and sound and movement, but the gods had sent him a taste of it this afternoon. He strode the deck, his mackintosh collar buttoned round his throat. The seas were breaking heavily over the after-deck. He would like to go there and get wet, as he had often done when a boy.
There was another figure on the deck, and he saw that it was the knickerbockered gentleman of the smoking-room. He had finished his cigar, and had put on oilskins. A hat with the brim turned down almost met the oilskin collar, so that only a nose and eyes were visible. Loeffler realised that he had been wrong in thinking the man plump, for as he moved he gave the impression of immense strength. Those shoulders were overlaid not with fat but with muscle.
The man seemed to be in the same mood as Loeffler. He cried out in French about the weather, not in malediction but in praise.
He fell into step and paced the deck beside him, laughing loudly when a wave more insolent than the rest topped the bulwarks and sent its wash swirling round their feet.
They covered the length of the deck twice, and then came to a halt above the hold, where there was some little shelter from the wind. The capstan and anchors in the stern were almost continually awash, and waves seemed to strike the place obliquely and half submerge the staff from which the red ensign fluttered.
“We are well defended both of us,” the man cried in a jolly voice. “Let us adventure there. We can dodge the bigger waves. My God, that is the spectacle!”
Loeffler followed him across the bridge, bending to the buffets of the gale. A man in a trench-waterproof, ensconced in a corner of the deck below, watched the two and smiled. He had been getting uneasy about Loeffler’s sojourn in the cabin. He knew that if he did not leave it he would die there, since those who sought his life were determined to have it at all costs, but that they preferred another plan, with which Loeffler had now obligingly fallen in.
The starboard side of the after-deck was running like a river, but on the port side there was a thin strip which the waves did not reach. There were no bulwarks here, only a low rail; in quiet summer passages travellers would sun themselves here in deck-chairs and watch the track behind them outlined in white foam amid the green. There had been some carelessness, for several of the stanchions of the starboard railing had been removed and not replaced. For a yard or two there was no defence between the planking and the sea.
“What a spectacle!” repeated the large man in knickerbockers. “It is a parable of life, Monsieur. A line, a hair, a sheet of glass alone separates man at all times from death.” He was looking at the sea, but now and then he glanced forward over the empty ship ploughing steadily through the waste. Not a soul was visible. He did not see the man in the trench-waterproof, who had scrambled half-way up the iron ladder from the hold, and was now flattening himself under the edge of the after-deck. Nor could the man see him, though he could hear his voice.
