by John Buchan
Adam had learned to wear an impassive face in any crisis, but his brain was working busily. “I see,” he said. “Will you have a drink? I would like to hear more of your plans.”
“I’m afraid I have no time,” said Cecilia. “I came only to bring you the thanks of our brotherhood for what you have done. . . . Also to say one little thing. In this matter you have unconsciously been working with us, and we approve. But there was a certain incident some weeks ago in an English country house when you opposed us, and frustrated an important policy. That we do not forget — or forgive. You may have had reasons to justify you — that we do not yet know. But I bring you this message from Gratias. According to our laws you will be judged for that act — and if necessary you will be punished. You are one of us, and cannot escape us, though you took the wings of a bird and flew into the uttermost parts of the earth.”
Adam smiled. “I don’t quite follow you, but you have the same old rhetorical tricks, my dear Cecilia. Well, you know where to find me.”
The full mad eyes regarded him unwinkingly.
“We shall always know where to find you. Meantime you will please to go home — at once. There is a train this evening. You understand. Auf wiedersehen, my friend.”
Cecilia went back to his companion, and a minute later the two left the restaurant.
Adam finished his meal and drank a cup of coffee, while he made certain calculations on the back of an envelope. His plans still held, but now there had entered into them an element of desperate haste. He felt curiously at ease. The game was out of his hands, for destiny had taken hold of it.
CHAPTER II
Mr Creevey looked at the dying ashes in the stove, and, though he was warm with walking and the weight of his fur coat, he shivered. He opened the door of the salle-à-manger, and saw that the table was bare and the chairs stacked in a corner. Several times he shouted, and his voice echoed eerily in an empty house.
The thing was utterly beyond his comprehension. The breakdown of an aeroplane he could understand, but how in Heaven’s name could the pilot have blundered so far out of his course? And why without a word had he righted his machine and flown away? He was accustomed to an orderly world where all things were explicable, but this folly was beyond explanation. Unreason always exasperated him, and for a little his anger blanketed all other thoughts. Some fool would be made to pay heavily for this. It was a blunder — it could only be a blunder — he refused to admit that there could be any purpose behind it. To whose interest could it be to play so infantile a trick on him?
But the chill of the place and the silence cooled his temper. He began to sum up his situation. He was marooned in an empty inn in a remote valley, and he had not the dimmest notion of his whereabouts. He had no food except the remains of a little packet of biscuits and half a flask of sherry. There was no fire, and probably no bed — the place was empty as a shell. But it was less the immediate prospect that perplexed him than the next step. How was he to get out of this hole? The aeroplane might return for him; or he might make his way down the valley to some place where he could hire a conveyance; he remembered a little town many miles back of which he had had a glimpse through the fog. But he was not dressed for walking, with his modish clothes and his thin shoes, and anyhow he had never been much of a pedestrian. With a feeling which was almost panic he realised that he had been pitchforked out of civilisation into a barbaric world, and that he was ill-adapted to cope with barbarism. With all his power and brains the commonest day-labourer was better fitted for this situation than he.
He forced himself to be calm, for he had a great gift of self-command. But he was desperately uneasy, for the mystery tormented him. . . . Clearly he must spend the night here, for nothing could be done till the morning. The aeroplane might return — must return — that was his best hope. He liked the comforts of life, but he was man enough to forgo them if needs be; the prospect of a miserable night dismayed him less than the intolerable inexplicableness of the whole situation. . . . And something more weighed on him. He was not a nervous or a hypersensitive man, but there was that in this accursed place which sent a chill to his heart. Its loneliness weighed on him like a pall, for it was not the solitude of wild nature, but of a deserted human habitation. Deserted, and why? Could there be some malignant purpose somewhere?
He had left the door open, and he noticed that the twilight had begun. He went out and looked at the dismal scene. The valley was perhaps a mile wide, filled with coarse grass and big boulders, and with the narrow gorge of a stream in the centre. He could hear the water churning among its pot-holes, but for the rest there was deep silence. There was a sprinkling of snow on the ground, but the snow-scurries had ceased, as had the wind. Across the valley he saw the steep rise of the mountains — raw scars of winter torrents, cliffs of shale with stunted pines perched insecurely on their face. There was a little square mantelpiece of gravel before the door, and a number of green wooden seats from which summer visitors no doubt admired the prospect, and little iron tables where they had their meals. This sight seemed to put the last edge on his sense of desolation. He looked down the valley where the road, rough as a river channel, was presently lost in mist.
Then suddenly out of the mist came two figures. In a moment his mood changed. This infernal desert had after all its inhabitants. He hastened towards them, and saw that one was a short, square man heavily laden with baggage, and the other a woman. Peasants no doubt; perhaps the people of the inn returning.
He halted and stared. The man was an odd figure in a heavy chauffeur’s coat. But the woman he had seen before. She was wearing a tweed ulster with a collar of fur, and her light walk was not that of a peasant.
A minute later he had recognised her as Jacqueline Warmestre. He forgot all his dismal vaticinations, for he had now made contact with his old world.
She was the first to speak.
“Mr Creevey! I didn’t expect to meet you again so soon. Where have you come from, and what are you doing here?”
He felt at ease, indeed, he was pleasurably excited. The appearance of Jacqueline had taken all the unpleasantness out of the situation. It was less of a mischance now than an adventure.
“A ridiculous accident,” he explained, and briskly and humorously he described his recent doings. “The half-wit of a pilot left me — God knows whether he means to return — and here am I stuck like Robinson Crusoe.” He felt obliged to speak lightly, for he knew that Jacqueline was not apt to make much of the rubs of life.
“What atrocious bad luck!” she cried. “Well, we are companions in misfortune. I was motoring home and took a fancy to spend a night in this place. I used to come here with my father ten years ago. But my Lancia broke down some way back, and we’ve had to hump our swag and foot it. My ankles are aching from this terrible road.”
“A car!” He remembered his urgent business in London. “Can’t we get it going? I was flying back because of cables from home.”
“To-morrow morning we’ll have a look at it and see what can be done. Meantime I want food and fire. I’m rather cold and perfectly ravenous.”
“But the hotel is empty — deserted.”
Jacqueline stopped short. “Is there nobody staying there?” she asked. She had expected to hear of Adam.
“No guests, no innkeeper, no servants. Silent as the grave!”
She was puzzled. This was not quite the scene she had gathered from Falconet that Adam meant to stage.
“That’s odd. It used to be the snuggest little place. Antonio Menardi the landlord was a great friend of mine, and his wife made the most wonderful omelets. Do you mean to say that there’s not a soul there? Is it shut up? It used to be open all winter, for people came for the bouquetin shooting?”
“It isn’t shut up, for the door is open. But it is empty, though it can’t have been empty long. Here we are, so you can see for yourself.”
Amos dropped his packs on the floor of the little hall, while Jacqueline sat herself on a stool and
proceeded to remove gravel from her shoes. “Go and forage, Andrew,” she said. “You must find a lamp. It will be dark in half an hour.”
Amos’s heavy step could be heard pounding through the rooms and penetrating to the back regions. Presently he returned to report, carrying a lit paraffin lamp.
“There’s lamps,” he said, “and plenty o’ wud, so we can hae a fire. There’s bedding in some of the rooms, but no muckle. Otherwise it’s like the bit in the auld sang, ‘Neither man’s meat, nor dowgs’ meat, nor a place to sit doun.’”
Jacqueline laughed merrily. Her spirits were beginning to rise. No doubt Adam had a plan of his own, and he must soon arrive.
“Then thank Heaven we brought some food,” she said. “Andrew, get the stove going, please, and prepare some kind of supper. We are orphans of the storm, Mr Creevey, and must camp here and make the best of it. I hope you are grateful, for if I hadn’t turned up you would have starved.”
Soon a roaring stove and three lamps gave an air of comfort to the bleak little hall. Amos fetched a table from the salle-à-manger, and set out on it a variety of cold food.
“Wait on,” he said, “and I’ll boil ye eggs. I’ve fund some in a press in the back-kitchen. I’m nae hand at coffee, but I’ll get ye a cup o’ tea.”
Mr Creevey made his toilet in icy water, and borrowed a comb from Amos’s pack. At supper he was a brisk companion, for he was beginning to see merit in this adventure. Somehow, by plane or by car, he would get off next morning, and, though the delay was a nuisance, it was not disastrous. His position was too solidly established for petty set-backs. Meantime he had the luck to have as companion one of the most beautiful women in England, one who had always piqued him by her undisguised aversion. He was not accustomed to such treatment from women, and it did his reputation no good, for Lady Warmestre, though she concerned herself little with the ordinary social game, had a supreme distinction of her own and a host of admirers. To-night she had been very gracious to him and had treated him like a playfellow and an ally. Mr Creevey felt a slight quickening of the blood. This was a real adventure.
So at supper he exerted himself to be both discreet and agreeable. He spoke of common friends, of the humours of certain negotiations in which he had been recently engaged, of politics high and low. He spoke of Lord Warmestre. “Cincinnatus, they tell me, has gone back to the plough,” he said. “I am rather glad of it. Publicists and politicians are as common as blackberries, but we have too few capable landowners. You approved, I think?”
“Yes, I approved,” Jacqueline answered. She had lost her vivacity and her attention wandered. She had an odd air of expectancy, too, and seemed to be listening for something.
After supper Mr Creevey lit a cigar. The meal had been satisfying, and Amos’s strong tea had not poisoned but fortified him. Jacqueline was rather silent, but he was exhilarated by her presence. He had never seen her look lovelier, for Mr Creevey, while paying due homage to the voluptuous charms of Aphrodite, had a secret respect for Artemis. Her figure, now — there was no woman or girl in London who could compete with her there — every movement was a thing of precision and grace. She was wearing just the right shade of blue to go with her hair. Then her voice. That of course was famous for its caressing beauty. He wished that she would talk more and he laboured to draw her out. But she remained rather silent and distraite.
Twice she sent Amos out to look at the weather. The first time he reported that it was “black dark, gey cauld, but nae wund.” The second time he announced that the moon was up, a moon nearly full. “It’ll freeze the nicht, but there’s cluds bankin’ up north and there’ll be mair snaw or morn.”
“Is there no one about?” she asked. “On the road?”
“Not a mortal soul.”
“I thought that the inn people might be coming back,” she explained. “I simply can’t imagine why this place is empty.”
Mr Creevey had a sudden idea. It was not the weather or the return of the inn people that she had sent out Amos to investigate. She must be expecting someone. Had she chosen this lonely place for an assignation? He searched his memory for gossip about Lady Warmestre and could find none. She had always been a pillar of decorum, devoted to husband, child and home; free-spoken of course, and sometimes startling in her frankness, but that was only proof of her innocence. No one had ever credited her with a lover. The thing was unthinkable. And yet —
Mr Creevey made it his business to chatter freely, and to bring in the names of her friends. He did not want his suspicion to be confirmed — Jacqueline was too rare a being to have the foibles of many women of his acquaintance — but something puck-like in him made him itch to discover secrets. He had no luck. Her face did not change from its brooding expectancy.
Still he gossiped on. It was partly good manners, for long silences would be awkward, partly a desire to stand well in her eyes. He must appear to take misfortune airily, as she did. . . . Then he said something that roused her interest. He was describing his visit to Berlin in August, and giving, after his fashion, admirably clean-cut sketches of his associates. He mentioned Adam Melfort.
“You know Colonel Melfort?” she asked. “How well?”
“I know him as other people know him. The surface only, but I guess at what is behind. I believe him to be that uncomfortable thing which Lilah Pomfrey calls an apostle, and to understand an apostle you must be a disciple.”
She awoke to attention. Her eyes had a sudden light in them.
“That is true,” she said; “but even if you refuse his evangel you can recognise the apostle.”
“I remember now. Of course you and Lord Warmestre are friends of his. You admire him?”
“I believe in him,” she said.
There was a movement as if someone were coming from the back quarters, and he looked up, expecting to see Amos. Instead he saw a tall man in soiled tweeds, whom he recognised. Jacqueline had sprung to her feet.
Mr Creevey smiled, but a little ruefully. He was sorry that his guess about an assignation had proved right.
Adam finished his coffee in the restaurant and then walked leisurely to his hotel. It was important that he should be observed, for it was certain that Cecilia and his friends would be on the watch. At his hotel he gave instructions for his things to be packed in readiness for the evening train. Then he telephoned to the garage where his car had been ordered, and directed that it should meet him at a point on the east side of the town. He left the hotel by a back entrance, wearing an old waterproof coat and a tweed cap, and made his way by unfrequented streets to the place where the car awaited him. By ten minutes past one he was on the road, driving in a heavy drizzle of rain due east from Arsignano.
He was in no wise excited or perturbed. This was the way that fate had chosen to arrange the cards, and he must shape his game accordingly. His plan had always been to strike in on the Val d’Arras by the col from the Val Saluzzana, which would give him the appearance of arriving accidentally from a tramp in the hills. To have flown to the Val d’Arras, even had an aeroplane been obtainable, would have aroused Creevey’s suspicions, and the way thither by road was rough and roundabout. . . . Now everything was changed. Creevey was at the pink hotel — or would be there before the evening — and his enemies were drawing in upon him. He would be left alone for a little — but how long? Some time that evening or during the early night Cecilia and his gang would be upon him. How would they travel? Not, he thought, by air. They had already used the air so far as it was needed, and soon the plane in which Creevey had started would crash in its appointed place, and the passenger would officially pass out of the world. They would probably travel by road. All the more reason why he should avoid the direct route to the Val d’Arras.
His immediate business was to be in time. As to what he should do when he arrived at the inn he had no plans, and did not attempt to make one. If the enemies were there, his task would be rescue; if they had not arrived, the task would be escape. For ways and means he had no care
— these he knew would be provided when the moment came. Somehow or other he and Creevey would be enclosed in a lonely world of their own, and his mission would be accomplished. It might be that Creevey would die; that was one solution; but it must come only after he had done his utmost to keep him in life, for he felt himself in a strict sense this man’s keeper. If Creevey lived he was assured that he would live to a different purpose. . . . One precaution only he had taken. Years ago he had made himself a fine marksman, but he had never in all his life fired a shot at a man in offence or defence. Now he had brought a pistol with him. It was in the right-hand pocket of his coat, pressing comfortably against his side as he drove.
He was forced to make a wide circuit, for he dare not risk meeting Cecilia on the road, so it was half-past three before he had threaded the foothills and climbed to the skirts of the great mountains and entered the Val Saluzzana. The road had been almost deserted, for the weather, as he ascended, had changed from rain to sleet and from sleet to a powder of snow. But the surface was magnificent, for it was one of the great through-roads of the Alps. As every traveller knows, it ascends the Val Saluzzana to the hamlet of Santa Chiara, and then turns up a subsidiary vale and crosses the Staub pass to the Staubthal and Switzerland. The main stream descends from a trackless glen, at the head of which is the famous Colle delle Rondini, a route attempted only by expert mountaineers. The Saluzzana pass, threaded by a mule track and not by a highway, is not in the vale of that name, but in the parallel Val d’Arras, and why the name should have been transferred no geographer has yet explained. A little north of Santa Chiara the containing ridge is indented by a saddle, which is reached from the Val Saluzzana by a long tortuous cleft, and offers towards the Val d’Arras a descent by a series of steep but practicable shelves. There is a track over the col once used by smugglers in wintertime, and long ago, when Adam had been on manoeuvres with the Alpini, he had played the war-game, and this col had been the key of his plan. By it he had led a force concealed in the Val d’Arras to attack in flank the invaders coming over the Staub. He remembered the details as if it had been yesterday. Twice he had himself made the crossing, and he had no doubt about his ability to do it again in any weather. He could do it in darkness, he thought, and anyhow there would be a moon. But time was the problem. He dared not delay one unnecessary minute, for fate was busy beyond the hills.
