John MacNab (14 page)

‘Would you two gentlemen oblige me by watchin' this man while I rin back and get the fush? Bash him on the head if he offers to rin.'

The cyclists, who were journalists out to enjoy the evening air, willingly agreed, but Leithen showed no wish to escape. He begged a fag in a beggar's whine, and, since he seemed peaceable, the two kept a good distance for fear of infection. He stood making damp streaks in the dusty road, a pitiable specimen of humanity, for his original get-up was not improved by the liquefaction of his clothes and a generous legacy of slimy peat. He seemed to be nervous, which indeed he was, for if Benjie had not seized his chance he was utterly done, and if Jimsie should light upon his rod he was gravely compromised.

But when Jimsie returned in a matter of ten minutes he was empty-handed.

‘I never kenned the like,' he proclaimed. ‘That otter has come back and gotten the fush. Ach, the maleecious brute!'

The rest of Leithen's progress was not triumphant. He was conducted to the Strathlarrig lodge, where Angus, whose temper and wind had alike been ruined by the pursuit of Crossby, laid savage hands upon him, and frog-marched him to the back premises. The head-keeper scarcely heeded Jimsie's tale. ‘Ach, ye poachin' va-aga-bond. It is the jyle ye'll get,' he roared, for Angus was in a mood which could only be relieved by violence of speech and action. Rumbling Gaelic imprecations, he hustled his prisoner into an outhouse, which had once been a larder and was now a supplementary garage, slammed and locked the door, and, as a final warning, kicked it viciously with his foot, as if to signify what awaited the culprit when the time came to sit on his case.

Sir Archie, if not a skeleton at the feast, was no better than a shadow. The fragment of drama which he had witnessed had rudely divorced his mind from the intelligent conversation of Mr Bandicott, he was no longer slightly irritated by Mr Clay-body, he forgot even the attractions of Janet. What was going on in that twilit vale? Lady Maisie's Pool had still a shimmer of gold, but the woods were now purple and the waterside turf a dim amethyst, the colour of the darkening sky. All sound had ceased except the rare cry of a bird from the hill, and the hoot of a wandering owl . . . Crossby had beyond doubt been taken, but where was Leithen?

He was recalled to his surroundings by Janet's announcement that Mr Bandicott proposed to take them all in his car to the meeting at Muirtown.

‘Oh, I say,' he pleaded, ‘I'd much rather you didn't. I haven't a notion how to speak – no experience, you see – only about the third time I've opened my mouth in public. I'll make an awful ass of myself, and I'd much rather my friends didn't see it. If I know you're in the audience, Miss Janet, I won't be able to get a word out.'

Mr Bandicott was sympathetic. ‘Take my advice, and do not attempt to write a speech and learn it by heart. Fill yourself with your subject, but do not prepare anything except the first sentence and the last. You'll find the words come easily when you once begin – if you have something you really want to say.'

‘That's the trouble – I haven't. I'm goin' to speak about foreign policy, and I'm dashed if I can remember which treaty is which, and what the French are making a fuss about, or why the old Boche can't pay. And I keep on mixing up Poincaré and Mussolini ... I'm goin' to write it all down, and if I'm stuck I'll fish out the paper and read it. I'm told there are fellows in the Cabinet who do that when they're cornered.'

‘Don't stick too close to the paper,' the Colonel advised. ‘The Highlander objects to sermons read to him, and he may not like a read speech.'

‘Whatever he does I'm sure Sir Archibald will be most enlightening,' Mr Bandicott said politely. ‘Also I want to hear Lord Lamancha. We think rather well of that young man in America. How do you rate him here?'

Mr Claybody, as a habitant of the great world, replied. ‘Very high in his own line. He's the old-fashioned type of British statesman, and people trust him. The trouble about him and his kind is that they're a little too far removed from the ordinary man – they've been too cosseted and set on a pedestal all their lives. They don't know how to handle democracy. You can't imagine Lamancha rubbing shoulders with Tom, Dick and Harry.'

‘Oh, come!' Sir Archie broke in. ‘In the war he started as a captain in a yeomanry regiment, and he commanded a pretty rough Australian push in Palestine. His men fairly swore by him.'

‘I daresay,' said the other coldly. ‘The war doesn't count for my argument, and Australians are not quite what I mean.'

The butler, who was offering liqueurs, was seen to speak confidentially to Junius, who looked towards his father, made as if to speak, and thought better of it. The elder Mr Bandicott was once more holding the table.

‘My archaeological studies,' he said, ‘and my son's devotion to sport are apt to circumscribe the interest of my visits to this country. I do not spend more than a couple of days in London, and when I am there the place is empty. Sometimes I regret that I have not attempted to see more of English society in recent years, for there are many figures in it I would like to meet. There are some acquaintances, too, that I should be delighted to revive. Do you know Sir Edward Leithen, Mr Claybody? He was recently, I think, the British Attorney-General'

Mr Claybody nodded. ‘I know him very well. We have just briefed him in a big case.'

‘Sir Edward Leithen visited us two years ago as the guest of our Bar Association. His address was one of the most remarkable I have ever listened to. It was on John Marshall – the finest tribute ever paid to that great man, and one which I venture to say no American could have equalled. I had very little talk with him, but what I had impressed me profoundly with the breadth of his outlook and the powers of his mind. Yes, I should like to meet Sir Edward Leithen again.'

The company had risen and were moving towards the drawing-room.

‘Now I wonder,' Mr Claybody was saying. ‘I heard that Leithen was somewhere in Scotland. I wonder if I could get him up for a few days to Haripol. Then I could bring him over here.'

An awful joy fell upon Sir Archie's soul. He realised anew the unplumbed preposterousness of life.

Ere they reached the drawing-room Junius took Agatha aside.

‘Look here, Miss Agatha, I want you to help me. The gillies have been a little too active. They've gathered in some wretched hobo they found looking at the river, and they've annexed a journalist who stuck his nose inside the gates. It's the journalist that's worrying me. From his card he seems to be rather a swell in his way – represents the
Monitor
and writes for my father's New York paper. He gave the gillies a fine race for their money, and now he's sitting cursing in the garage and vowing every kind of revenge. It won't do to antagonise the Press, so we'd better let him out and grovel to him, if he wants apologies ... The fact is, we're not in a very strong position, fending off the newspapers from Harald Blacktooth because of this ridiculous John Macnab. If you could let the fellow out it would be casting oil upon troubled waters. You could smooth him down far better than me.'

‘But what about the other? A hobo, you say! That's a tramp, isn't it?'

‘Oh, tell Angus to let him out too. Here are the keys of both garages. I don't want to turn this place into a lock-up. Angus won't be pleased, but we have to keep a sharp watch for John Macnab tomorrow, and it's bad tactics in a campaign to cumber yourself with prisoners.'

The two threaded mysterious passages and came out into a moonlit stable-yard. Junius handed the girl a great electric torch. ‘Tell the fellow we eat dirt for our servants' officiousness. Offer him supper, and – I tell you what – ask him to lunch the day after tomorrow. No, that's Muirtown day. Find out his address and we'll write to him and give him first chop at the Viking. Blame it all on the gillies.'

Agatha unlocked the door of the big garage and to her surprise found it brilliantly lit with electric light. Mr Crossby was sitting in the driver's seat of a large motor-car, smoking a pipe and composing a story for his paper. At the sight of Agatha he descended hastily.

‘We're so sorry,' said the girl. ‘It's all been a stupid mistake. But, you know, you shouldn't have run away. Mr Bandicott had to make rules to keep off poachers, and you ought to have stopped and explained who you were.'

To this charming lady in the grass-green gown Mr Crossby's manner was debonair and reassuring.

‘No apology is needed. It wasn't in the least the gillies' blame. I wanted some exercise, and I had my fun with them. One of the young ones has a very pretty turn of speed. But I oughtn't to have done it – I quite see that – with everybody here on edge about this John Macnab. Have I your permission to go?'

‘Indeed you have. Mr Bandicott asked me to apologise most humbly. You're quite free unless – unless you'd like to have supper before you go.'

Mr Crossby excused himself, and did not stay upon the order of his going. He knew nothing of the fate of his colleague, and hoped that he might pick up news from Benjie in the neighbourhood of the Wood of Larrigmore.

The other garage stood retired in the lee of a clump of pines – a rude, old-fashioned place, which generally housed the station lorry. Agatha, rather than face the disappointed Angus, decided to complete the task of jail-delivery herself. She had trouble with the lock, and when the door opened she looked into a pit of darkness scarcely lightened by the outer glow of moonshine. She flashed the torch into the interior and saw, seated on a stack of petrol tins, the figure of the tramp.

Leithen, who had been wondering how he was to find a bed in that stony place, beheld the apparition with amazement. He guessed that it was one of the Miss Radens, for he knew that they were dining at Strathlarrig. As he stood sheepishly before her his wits suffered a dislocation which drove out of his head the remembrance of the part he had assumed.

‘Mr Bandicott sent me to tell you that you can go away,' the girl said.

‘Thank you very much,' said Leithen in his ordinary voice.

Now in the scramble up the river bank and in the rough handling of Angus his garments had become disarranged, and his watch had swung out of his pocket. In adjusting it in the garage he had put it back in its normal place, so that the chain showed on Sime's ancient waistcoat. From it depended one of those squat little gold shields which are the badge of athletic prowess at a famous school. As he stood in the light of her torch Agatha noted this shield, and knew what it signified. Also his tone when he spoke had startled her.

‘Oh,' she cried, ‘you were at Eton?'

Leithen was for a moment nonplussed. He thought of a dozen lies, and then decided on qualified truth.

‘Yes,' he murmured shamefacedly. ‘Long ago I was at Eton.'

The girl flushed with embarrassed sympathy.

‘What – what brought you to this?' she murmured.

‘Folly,' said Leithen, recovering himself. ‘Drink and such-like. I have had a lot of bad luck but I've mostly myself to blame.'

‘You're only a tramp now?' Angels might have envied the melting sadness of her voice.

‘At present. Sometimes I get a job, but I can't hold it down.' Leithen was warming to his work, and his tones were a subtle study in dilapidated gentility.

‘Can't anything be done?' Agatha asked, twining her pretty hands.

‘Nothing,' was the dismal answer. ‘I'm past helping. Let me go, please, and forget you ever saw me.'

‘But can't papa . . . won't you tell me your name or where we can find you?'

‘My present name is not my own. Forget about me, my dear young lady. The life isn't so bad . . . I'm as happy as I deserve to be. I want to be off, for I don't like to stumble upon gentlefolks.'

She stood aside to let him pass, noting the ruin of his clothes, his dirty unshaven face, the shameless old hat that he raised to her. Then, melancholy and reflective, she returned to Junius. She could not give away one of her own class, so, when Junius asked her about the tramp, she only shrugged her white shoulders. ‘A miserable creature. I hope Angus wasn't too rough with him. He looked as if a puff of wind would blow him to pieces.'

Ten minutes later Leithen, having unobtrusively climbed the park wall and so escaped the attention of Mactavish at the lodge, was trotting at a remarkable pace for a tramp down the road to the Larrig Bridge. Once on the Crask side, he stopped to reconnoitre. Crossby called softly to him from the covert, and with Crossby was Benjie.

‘I've gotten the saumon,' said the latter, ‘and your rod and gaff too. Hae ye the bit you howkit out o' the fush?'

Leithen produced his bloody handkerchief.

‘Now for supper, Benjie, my lad,' he cried. ‘Come along, Crossby, and we'll drink the health of John Macnab.'

The journalist shook his head. ‘I'm off to finish my story. The triumphant return of Harald Blacktooth is going to convulse these islands tomorrow.'

Early next morning, when the great door of Strathlarrig House was opened, and the maids had begun their work, Oliphant, the butler – a stately man who had been trained in a ducal family – crossed the hall to reconnoitre the outer world. There he found an under-housemaid nursing a strange package which she averred she had found on the doorstep. It was some two feet long, swathed in brown paper, and attached to its string was a letter inscribed to Mr Junius Bandicott.

The parcel was clammy and Oliphant handled it gingerly. He cut the cord, disentangled the letter, and revealed an oblong of green rushes bound with string. The wrapping must have been insecure, for something forthwith slipped from the rushes and flopped on the marble floor, revealing to Oliphant's disgusted eyes a small salmon, blue and stiff in death.

At that moment Junius, always an early bird, came whistling downstairs. So completely was he convinced of the inviolability of the Strathlarrig waters that the spectacle caused him no foreboding.

‘What are you flinging fish about for, Oliphant?' he asked cheerfully.

The butler presented him with the envelope. He opened it and extracted a dirty half sheet of notepaper, on which was printed in capitals ‘With the compliments of John Macnab.'

Amazement, chagrin, amusement followed each other on Junius's open countenance. Then he picked up the fish and marched out-of-doors shouting ‘Angus' at the top of a notably powerful voice. The sound brought the scared face of Professor Babwater to his bedroom window.

Angus, who had been up since four, appeared from Lady Maisie's Pool, where he had been contemplating the waters. His vigil had not improved his appearance or his temper, for his eye was red and choleric and his beard was wild as a mountain goat's. He cast one look at the salmon, surmised the truth, and held up imploring hands to Heaven.

‘John Macnab!' said Junius sternly. ‘What have you got to say to that?'

Angus had nothing audible to say. He was handling the fish with feverish hands and peering at its jaws, and presently under his fingers a segment fell out.

‘That fush was cleekit,' observed Lennox, who had come up. ‘It was never catched with a flee.'

‘Ye're a leear,' Angus roared. ‘Just tak a look at the mouth of it. There's the mark of the huke, ye gommeril. The fush was took wi' a rod and line.'

‘You may reckon it was,' observed Junius. ‘I trust John Macnab to abide by the rules of the game.'

Suddenly light seemed to break in on Angus's soul. He bellowed for Jimsie, who was placidly making his way towards the group at the door, lighting his pipe as he went.

‘Look at that, James Mackenzie. Aye, look at it. Feast your een on it. You wass tellin' me there wass otters in the Larrig and I said there wass not. You wass tellin' me there wass an otter had a fush last night at the Lang Whang. There's your otter and be damned to ye!'

Jimsie, slow of comprehension, rubbed his eyes.

‘Where wass you findin' the fush? Aye, it's the one I seen last night. That otter must be wrang in the heid.'

‘It is not wrang in the heid. It's you that are wrang in the heid, James Mackenzie. The otter is a ver-ra clever man, and its name will be John Macnab.' Slowly enlightenment dawned on Jimsie's mind.

‘He wass the tramp,' he ingeminated. ‘He wass the tramp.'

‘And he's still lockit up,' Angus cried joyfully. ‘Wait till I get my hands on him.' He was striding off for the garage when a word from Junius held him back.

‘You won't find him there. I gave orders last night to let him go. You know, Angus, you told me he was only a tramp that had been seen walking up the river.'

‘We will catch him yet,' cried the vindictive head-keeper. ‘Get you on your bicycle, Jimsie, and away after him. He'll be on the Muirtown road . . . There's just the one road he can travel.'

‘No, you don't,' said Junius. ‘I don't want him here. He has beaten us fairly in a match of wits, and the business is finished.'

‘But the thing's no possible,' Jimsie moaned. ‘The skeeliest fisher would not take a saumon in the Lang Whang with a flee ... And I wasna away many meenutes ... And the tramp was a poor shilpit body – not like a fisher or any kind of gentleman at all, at all . . . And he hadna a rod ... The thing's no possible.'

‘Well, who else could it be?'

‘I think it was the Deevil.'

Jimsie, cross-examined, went over the details of his evening's experience.

‘The journalist may have been in league with him – or he may not,' Junius reflected. ‘Anyway, I'll tackle Mr Crossby. I want to find out what I can about this remarkable sportsman.'

‘You will not find out anything at all, at all,' said Angus morosely. ‘For I tell ye, sir, Jimsie is right in one thing – Macnab is not a man – he is the Deevil'

‘Then we needn't be ashamed of being beat by him . . . Look here, you men. We've lost, but you've had an uncomfortable time these last twenty-four hours. And I'm going to give you what I promised you if we won out. I reckon the market price of salmon is not more than fifty cents a pound. Macnab has paid about thirty dollars a pound for this fish, so we've a fair margin on the deal.'

Mr Acheson Bandicott received the news with composure, if not with relief. Now he need no longer hold the correspondents at arm's length but could summon them to his presence and enlarge on Harald Blacktooth. His father's equanimity cast whatever balm was needed upon Junius's wounded pride, and presently he saw nothing in the affair but comedy. His thoughts turned to Glenraden. It might be well for him to announce in person that the defences of Strathlarrig had failed.

On his way he called at the post-office where Agatha had told him that Crossby was lodging. He wanted a word with the journalist, who clearly must have been
particeps criminis,
and as he could offer as bribe the first full tale of Harald Blacktooth (to be unfolded before the other correspondents arrived for luncheon) he hoped to acquire a story in return. But, according to the post-mistress, Mr Crossby had gone. He had sat up most of the night writing, and, without waiting for breakfast, had paid his bill, strapped on his ruck-sack and departed on his bicycle.

Junius found the Raden family on the lawn, and with them Archie Roylance.

‘Got up early to go over my speech for tomorrow,' the young man explained. ‘I'm gettin' the dashed thing by heart – only way to avoid regrettable incidents. I started off down the hill repeatin' my eloquence, and before I knew I was at Glenraden gates, so I thought I'd come in and pass the time of day . . . Jolly interestin' dinner last night, Bandicott. I liked your old Professor ... Any news of John Macnab?'

‘There certainly is. He has us beat to a frazzle. This morning there was a salmon on the doorstep presented with his compliments.'

The effect of this announcement was instant and stupendous. The Colonel called upon his gods. ‘Not killed fair? It's a stark impossibility, sir. You had the water guarded like the Bank of England.' Archie expressed like suspicions; Agatha was sad and sympathetic, Janet amused and covertly joyful.

‘I reckon it was fair enough fishing,' Junius went on. ‘I've been trying to puzzle the thing out, and this is what I made of it. Macnab was in league with one of those pressmen, who started out to trespass inside the park and drew off all the watchers in pursuit, including the man at the Lang Whang. He had them hunting for about half an hour, and in that time Macnab killed his fish ... He must be a dandy at the game, too, to get a salmon in that dead water . . . Jimsie – that's the man who was supposed to watch the Lang Whang – returned before he could get away with the beast, so what does the fellow do but dig a bit out of the fish and leave it on the bank, while he lures Jimsie to chase him. Jimsie saw the fish and put it down to an otter, and by and by caught the man up the road. There must have been an accomplice in hiding, for when Jimsie went back to pick up the salmon it had disappeared. The fellow, who looked like a hobo, was shut up in a garage, and after dinner we let him go, for we had nothing against him, and now he is rejoicing somewhere at our simplicity ... It was a mighty clever bit of work, and I'm not ashamed to be beaten by that class of artist. I hoped to get hold of the pressman and find out something, but the pressman seems to have leaked out of the landscape.'

‘Was that tramp John Macnab?' Agatha asked in an agitated voice.

‘None other. You let him out, Miss Agatha. What was he like? I can't get proper hold of Jimsie's talk.'

‘Oh, I should have guessed,' the girl lamented. ‘For, of course, I saw he was a gentleman. He was in horrible old clothes, but he had an Eton shield on his watch-chain. He seemed to be ashamed to remember it. He said he had come down in the world – through drink!'

Archie struggled hard with the emotions evoked by this description of an abstemious personage currently believed to be making an income of forty thousand pounds.

‘Then we've both seen him,' Janet cried. ‘Describe him, Agatha. Was he youngish and big, and fair-haired, and sunburnt? Had he blue eyes?'

‘No-o. He wasn't like that. He was about papa's height, and rather slim, I think. He was very dirty and hadn't shaved, but I should say he was sallow, and his eyes – well, they were certainly not blue.'

‘Are you certain? You only saw him in the dark.'

‘Yes, quite certain. I had a big torch which lit up his whole figure. Now I come to think of it, he had a striking face – he looked like somebody very clever – a judge perhaps. That should have made me suspicious, but I was so shocked to see such a downfall that I didn't think about it.'

Janet looked wildly around her. ‘Then there are two John Macnabs.'

‘Angus thinks he is the Devil,' said Junius.

‘It looks as if he were a syndicate,' said Archie, who felt that some remark was expected of him.

‘Well, I'm not complaining,' said Junius. ‘And now we're off the stage, and can watch the play from the boxes. I hope you won't be shocked, sir, but I wouldn't break my heart if John Macnab got the goods from Haripol.'

‘By Gad, no!' cried the Colonel.' Ton my soul, if I could get in touch with the fellow I'd offer to help him – though he'd probably be too much of a sportsman to let me. That young Claybody wants taking down a peg or two. He's the most insufferably assured young prig I ever met in my life.'

‘He looked the kind of chap who might turn nasty,' Sir Archie observed.

‘How do you mean?' Junius asked. ‘Get busy with a gun – that sort of thing?'

‘Lord, no. The Claybodys are not likely to start shootin'. But they're as rich as Jews, and they're capable of hirin' prizefighters or puttin' a live wire round the forest. Or I'll tell you what they might do – they might drive every beast on Haripol over the marches and keep ‘em out for three days. It would wreck the ground for the season, but they wouldn't mind that – the old man can't get up the hills and the young ‘un don't want to.'

‘Agatha, my dear,' said her father, ‘we ought to return the Claybodys' call. Perhaps Mr Junius would drive us over there in his car this afternoon. For, of course, you'll stay to luncheon, Bandicott – and you, too, Roylance.'

Sir Archie stayed to luncheon; he also stayed to tea; and between these meals he went through a surprising experience. For, after the others had started for Haripol, Janet and he drifted aimlessly towards the Raden bridge and then upward through the pinewoods on the road to Carnmore. The strong sun was tempered by the flickering shade of the trees, and, as the road wound itself out of the crannies of the woods to the bare ridges, light wandering winds cooled the cheek, and, mingled with the fragrance of heather and the rooty smell of bogs, came a salty freshness from the sea. The wide landscape was as luminous as April – a bad presage for the weather, since the Haripol peaks, which in September should have been dim in a mulberry haze, stood out sharp like cameos. The two did not talk much, for they were getting beyond the stage where formal conversation is felt to be necessary. Sir Archie limped along at a round pace, which was easily matched by the girl at his side. Both would instinctively halt now and then, and survey the prospect without speaking, and both felt that these pregnant silences were bringing them very near to one another.

At last the track ran out in screes, and from a bald summit they were looking down on the first of the Carnmore corries. Janet seated herself on a mossy ledge of rock and looked back into the Raden glen, which from that altitude had the appearance of an enclosed garden. The meadows of the lower haugh lay green in the sun, the setting of pines by some freak of light was a dark and cloudy blue, and the little castle rose in the midst of the trees with a startling brightness like carven marble. The picture was as exquisite and strange as an illumination in a missal.

‘Gad, what a place to live in!' Sir Archie exclaimed.

The girl, who had been gazing at the scene with her chin in her hands, turned on him eyes which were suddenly wistful and rather sad. As contrasted with her sister's, Janet's face had a fine hard finish which gave it a brilliancy like an eager boy's. But now a cloud-wrack had been drawn over the sun.

‘We've lived there,' she said, ‘since Harald Blacktooth – at least papa says so. But the end is very near now. We are the last of the Radens. And that is as it should be, you know.'

‘I'm hanged if I see that,' Sir Archie began, but the girl interrupted.

‘Yes, it is as it should be. The old life of the Highlands is going, and people like ourselves must go with it. There's no reason why we should continue to exist. We've long ago lost our justification.'

‘D'you mean to say that fellows like Claybody have more right to be here?'