by John Buchan
The first thing he did, for he had put out his torch, was to fall with a great clatter over some obstacle. He lay still with his heart in his mouth, waiting for the far door to be thrown open. But nothing happened, so he carefully picked himself up and continued with extreme circumspection. There were chairs and tables in this place, a ridiculous number of chairs, as if it had been used as a depository for lumber, or perhaps as a council-chamber. He had no further mishap, and reached the streak of light safely. . . . There were people in that farther room; he could hear a voice speaking, and it sounded like Mastrovin’s.
Another thing he noticed, and that was the same odd smell of coarse scent which he had sniffed as the man passed him on the stairs. The odour was like a third-rate barber’s shop, and it came through the door.
He could hear Mastrovin talking, rather loud and very distinct, like a schoolmaster to stupid pupils. He was speaking English too.
“You are going away,” he was saying. “Do you understand? I will soon visit you — perhaps in a day or two. I do not think you will try to escape, but if you do, I warn you that I have a long arm and will pluck you back. And I will punish you for it.”
The voice was slow and patient as if addressed to backward children. And there was no answer. Mastrovin must be speaking to his prisoners, but they did not reply, and that was so unlike Sir Archie that a sudden horrid fear shot into Jaikie’s mind. Were they dying, or sick or wounded? Was Alison? . . .
He waited no longer. Had the door been triple-barred he felt that he had the strength to break it down. But it opened easily.
He found himself in a small, square, and very high room, wholly without windows, for the air entered by a grating near the ceiling. It smelt stuffy and heavily scented. Mastrovin sat in an armchair, with behind him a queer-looking board studded with numbered buttons. There was a clock fixed on the wall above it which had a loud solemn tick.
The three prisoners sat behind a little table. Archie looked as if he had been in the wars, for he had one arm in a sling, and there was a bloodstained bandage round his head. He sat stiffly upright, staring straight in front of him. So did Janet, a pale unfamiliar Janet, with her hair in disorder and a long rent in one sleeve. Like her husband, she was looking at Mastrovin with blank unseeing eyes. Alison sat a little apart with her arms on the table and her head on her arms. He saw only her mop of gold hair. She seemed to be asleep.
All that Jaikie took in at his first glance was the three prisoners. What devilry had befallen them? He had it. They had been drugged. They were now blind and apathetic, mindless perhaps, baggage which Mastrovin could cart about as he chose. There had evidently been a row, and Archie had suffered in it, but now he was out of action. It was the sight of Alison’s drooped head that made him desperate, and also perfectly cool. He had not much hope, but at any rate he was with his friends again.
This reconnaissance took a fraction of a second. He heard Mastrovin bark, “Hands up!” and up shot his arms.
There were two others in the room, Dedekind with his red pointed beard, and a sallow squat man, whom he remembered in the Canonry. What was his name? Rosenbaum?
It was the last who searched him, plucking the pistol from his breeches pocket. Jaikie did not mind that, for he had never been much good with a gun. For the first time he saw the clock on the wall, and noted that it stood at a quarter to eleven. If he could spin out that quarter of an hour there was just the faintest chance, always provided that Mastrovin’s reinforcements did not arrive too soon.
“I have come back,” he said sweetly. “I really had to get some decent clothes, for I was in rags.”
“You have come back,” Mastrovin repeated. “Why?”
“Because I liked your face, Mr Mastrovin. I have the pleasantest recollection of you, you know, ever since we met two years ago at Portaway. Do you remember the Hydropathic there and the little Glasgow journalist that you cross-examined? Drunken little beast he was, and you tried to make him drunker. Have you been up to the same game with my friends?”
He glanced at Archie, trying to avoid the sight of Alison’s bowed head. To his surprise he seemed to detect a slight droop of that gentleman’s left eye. Was it possible that the doping had failed, and that the victims were only shamming? . . . The clock was at thirteen minutes to eleven.
Mastrovin was looking at him fixedly, as if he were busy reconstructing the past to which he had alluded.
“So,” he said. “I have more against you than I imagined.”
“You have nothing against me,” said Jaikie briskly. “I might say I had a lot against you — kidnapping, imprisonment, no food or drink, filthy lodgings, and so forth. But I’m not complaining. I forgive you for the sake of your face. You wanted me to tell you something, but I couldn’t, for I didn’t know. Well, I know now, and I’ve come back to do you a good turn. You would like to know where Prince John is. I can tell you.”
Jaikie stopped. His business was to spin out this dialogue.
“Go on,” said Mastrovin grimly. He was clearly in two minds whether or not this youth was mad.
“He is with the Countess Troyos. I know, for I saw him there this morning.”
“That is a lie.”
“All right. Have it your own way. But when you blow up the bridge here to-morrow you had better find out whether I am speaking the truth, unless you want to kill the Prince. Perhaps you do. Perhaps you’d like to add him to the bag. It’s all the same to me, only I thought I’d warn you.”
He was allowed to finish this audacious speech, because Mastrovin was for once in his masterful life fairly stupefied. Jaikie’s purpose was to anger him so that he might lay violent hands on him. He thought that, unless they took to shooting, he could give them a proof of the eel-like agility of the Gorbals Die-hards, not to speak of the most famous three-quarter back in Britain. He did not think they would shoot him, for they were sure to want to discover where he had got his knowledge.
He certainly succeeded in his purpose. Mastrovin’s face flushed to an ugly purple, and both Dedekind and Rosenbaum grew a little paler. The last-named said something in Evallonian, and the three talked excitedly in that language. This was precisely what Jaikie wanted. He observed that the clock was now at eight minutes to the hour. He also noted that Alison, though her head was still on the table, was looking sideways at him through her fingers, and that her eyes had an alertness unusual in the doped.
Suddenly he heard a shot, muffled as if very far off. This room was in the heart of the house, and noises from the outer world would come faintly to it, if at all. But he had quick ears, and he knew that he could not be mistaken. Was the faithful Newsom holding the bridge alone like Horatius? He could not hold it long, and there were still five deadly minutes to go before the Twenty could be looked for. . . .
Yet it would take more than five minutes to get the prisoners out of the house and the gate. That danger at any rate had gone. What remained was the same peril which had brooded over the library at Castle Gay, before Dickson McCunn like a north wind had dispersed it. These wild beasts of the jungle, if cornered, might make a great destruction. Here in this place they were all on the thin crust of a volcano. He did not like that board with studs and numbers behind Mastrovin’s head.
Again came the faint echo of shots. This time Mastrovin heard it. He said something to Dedekind, who hurried from the room. Rosenbaum would have followed, but a word detained him. Mastrovin sat crouching like an angry lion, waiting to spring, but not yet quite certain of his quarry.
“Stand still,” he told Jaikie, who had edged nearer Alison. “If you move I will kill you. In a moment my friend will return, and then you will go — ah, where will you go?”
He sucked his lips, and grinned like a great cat.
There were no more shots, and silence fell on the place, broken only by the ticking of the clock. Jaikie did not dare to look at the prisoners, for the slightest movement on his part might release the fury of the wild beast in front of him. He kept his eyes on
that face which had now become gnarled like a knot in an oak stump, an intense concentration of anxiety, fury and animal power. It fascinated Jaikie, but it did not terrify him, for it was like a monstrous gargoyle, an expression of some ancient lust which was long dead. He had the impression that the man was somehow dead and awaited burial, and might therefore be disregarded. . . .
He strove to stir his inertia to life, but he seemed to have become boneless. “It’s you that will be dead in a minute or two,” he told himself, but apathetically, as if he were merely correcting a misstatement. Anger had gone out of him, and had taken fear with it, and only apathy remained. He felt Mastrovin’s eyes beginning to dominate and steal his senses like an anæsthetic. That scared him, and he shifted his gaze to the board on the wall, and the clock. The clock was at three minutes after eleven, but he had forgotten his former feverish calculation of time.
The door opened. Out of a corner of his eye he saw that Dedekind had returned. He noted his red beard.
Jaikie was pulled out of his languor by the behaviour of Mastrovin, who from a lion couchant became a lion rampant. He could not have believed that a heavy man well on in years could show such nimbleness. Mastrovin was on his feet, shouting something to Rosenbaum, and pointing at the newcomer the pistol with which he had threatened Jaikie.
The voice that spoke from the door was not Dedekind’s.
“Suppose we lower our guns, Mr Mastrovin?” it said. “You might kill me — but I think you know that I can certainly kill you. Is it a bargain?”
The voice was pleasant and low with a touch of drawl in it. Jaikie, in a wild whirling survey of the room, saw that it had fetched Alison’s head off her hands. It woke Janet and Archie, too, out of their doll-like stare. It seemed to cut into the stuffiness like a frosty wind, and it left Jaikie in deep bewilderment, but — for the first time that night — with a lively hope.
Mr Glynde sniffed the air.
“At the old dodge, I see,” he said. “You once tried it on me, you remember. You seem to have struck rather tough subjects this time.” He nodded to the Roylances and smiled on Alison.
“What do you want?” The words seemed to be squeezed out of Mastrovin, and came thick and husky.
“A deal,” said Randal cheerfully. “The game is against you this time. We’ve got your little lot trussed up below — also my old friend, Mr Dedekind.”
“That is a lie.”
Randal shrugged his shoulders.
“You are a monotonous controversialist. I assure you it is true. There was a bit of a tussle at first before our people arrived, and I’m afraid two of yours were killed. Then the rest surrendered to superior numbers. All is now quiet on that front.”
“If I believe you, what is your deal?”
“Most generous. That you should get yourself out of here in ten minutes and out of the country in ten hours. We will look after your transport. The fact is, Mr Mastrovin, we don’t want you — Evallonia doesn’t want you — nobody wants you. You and your bravos are back numbers. Properly speaking, we should string you up, but we don’t wish to spoil a good show with ugly episodes.”
Randal spoke lightly, so that there was no melodrama in his words, only a plain and rather casual statement of fact. But in that place such lightness was the cruellest satire. And it was belied by Randal’s eyes, which were as sharp as a hawk’s. They never left Mastrovin’s pistol hand and the studded board behind his head.
Mastrovin’s face was a mask, but his eyes too were wary. He seemed about to speak, but what he meant to say will never be known. For suddenly many things happened at once.
There was the sound of a high imperious voice at the door. It opened and the Countess Araminta entered, and close behind her a wild figure of a man, dusty, bleeding, with a coat nearly ripped from his back.
The sight of the Countess stung Mastrovin into furious life. A sense of death and fatality filled the room like a fog. Jaikie sprang to get in front of Alison, and Archie with his unwounded arm thrust Janet behind him. In that breathless second Jaikie was conscious only of two things. Mastrovin had fired, and then swung round to the numbered board; but, even as his finger reached it he clutched at the air and fell backward over the arm of his chair. There was a sudden silence, and a click came from the board as if a small clock were running down.
Then Jaikie’s eyes cleared. He saw a pallid Rosenbaum crouching on the floor. He saw Randal lower his pistol, and touch the body of Mastrovin. “Dead,” he heard him say, “stone dead. Just as well perhaps.”
But that spectacle was eclipsed by other extraordinary things. The Countess Araminta was behaving oddly — she seemed to be inclined to sob. Around his own neck were Alison’s arms, and her cheek was on his, and the thrill of it almost choked him with joy. He wanted to weep too, and he would have wept had not the figure of the man who had entered with the Countess taken away what breath was left in him.
It was Newsom the chauffeur, transfigured beyond belief. He had become a younger man, for exertion had coloured his pallid skin, his whiskers had disappeared, and his touzled hair had lost its touch of grey. He held the Countess with one arm and looked ruefully at his right shoulder.
“Close shave,” he said. “The second time tonight too. First casualty in the Revolution.” Then he smiled on the company. “Lucky I cut the wires, or our friend would have dispersed us among the planets.”
The Countess had both hands on his arm, and was looking at him with misty eyes.
“You saved my life,” she cried. “The shot was meant for me. You are a hero. Oh, tell me your name.”
He turned, took her hand, bent over it and kissed it.
“I am Prince John,” he said, “and I think that you are going to be kind enough to help me to a throne.”
She drew back a step, looked for a second in his face, and then curtseyed low.
“My king,” she said.
Her bosom heaved under her tunic, and she was no more the Praefectus but a most emotional young woman. . . . She looked at Randal and Jaikie, and at Janet and Archie, as if she were struggling for something to relieve her feelings. Then she saw Alison, and in two steps was beside her and had her in her arms.
“My dear,” she said, “you have a very brave lover.”
CHAPTER XIII. THE MARCH ON MELINA
I
In Krovolin’s best hotel, the Three Kings of the East, Jaikie enjoyed the novel blessings of comfort and consideration. By the Countess’s edict Alison, the Roylances and he were at once conducted there, and the mandate of Juventus secured them the distinguished attentions of the management. The released prisoners were little the worse, for they had not been starved as Jaikie had been, and the only casualty was Archie, who had been overpowered in a desperate effort the previous morning to get into the Street of the White Peacock. The doping had been clumsily managed, for some hours before Jaikie’s arrival the three had been given a meal quite different from the coarse fare to which they had been hitherto treated. They were offered with it a red wine, which Archie at his first sip pronounced to be corked. Alison had tasted it, and, detecting something sweet and sickly in its flavour, had suspected a drug, whereupon Janet filled their glasses and emptied them in a corner. “Look like sick owls,” she advised, when they were taken to Mastrovin’s sanctum, where the overpowering scent was clearly part of the treatment. Mastrovin’s behaviour showed that her inspiration had been right, for he had spoken to them as if they were somnambulists or half-wits. . . .
On the following morning Jaikie, feeling clean and refreshed for the first time for a week, descended late to the pleasant restaurant which overlooked the milky waters of the Rave. The little city sparkled in the sunlight, and the odour and bustle of a summer morning came as freshly to his nose and ears as if he had just risen from a sick-bed. He realised how heavy his heart had been for days, and the release sent his spirits soaring. . . . But his happiness was more than the absence of care, for last night had been an epoch in his life, like that evening two years b
efore when, on the Canonry moor, Alison had waved him good-bye. For the first time he had held Alison in his arms and felt her lips on his cheek. That delirious experience had almost blotted out from his memory the other elements in the scene. As he dwelt on it he did not see the dead Mastrovin, and the crouched figure of Rosenbaum, and the Countess Araminta on the verge of tears, or hear the ticking of the clock, and the pistol shot which ended the drama; he saw only Alison’s pale face and her gold hair like a cloud on his shoulder, and heard that in her strained voice which he had never heard before. . . . Jaikie felt the solemn rapture of some hungry, humble saint who finds his pulse changed miraculously into the ambrosia of Paradise.
A waiter brought him the morning paper. He could not read it, but he could guess at the headlines. Something tremendous seemed to be happening in Melina. There was a portrait of the Archduke Hadrian, edged with laurels and roses, and from it stared the familiar face of Mr McCunn. There was a photograph of a street scene in which motor-cars and an escort of soldiers moved between serried ranks of presumably shouting citizens. In one, next to a splendid figure in a cocked hat, could be discerned the homely features of Dickson.
He dropped the paper, for Alison had appeared, Alison, fresh as a flower, with the colour back in her cheeks. Only her eyes were still a little tired. She came straight to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him. “Darling,” she said.
“Oh, Alison,” he stammered. “Then it’s all right, isn’t it?”
She laughed merrily and drew him to a breakfast table in the window. “Foolish Jaikie! As if it would ever have been anything else!”
There was another voice behind him, and Jaikie found another fair head beside his.
