In this last sentence he lied, for what he said was for the most part not his own; it was the sermon which Janet Raden had preached him the day before in the clear air of the Carnmore tops. Mixed up with it were fragments of old discourses of his own to Wattie, and reflections which had come to him in the last ten years of a variegated life. The manner was staccato, the style was slangy and inelegant, but it was not a lesson learned and recited, but words spoken direct to those into whose eyes he was looking. He had found touch with his audience, and he held their attention in a vice.
It was a strange, inconsequent speech, but it had a curious appeal in it – the appeal of youth and candour and courage. It was philosophy rather than politics, a ragged but arresting philosophy. He began by confessing that the war had left the world in a muddle, a muddle which affected his own mind. The only cure was to be honest with oneself, and to refuse to accept specious nonsense and conventional jargon. He told the story from Andersen of the Emperor’s New Suit. ‘Our opponents call us Tories,’ he said; ‘they can call us anything they jolly well please. I am proud to be called a Tory. I understand that the name was first given by Titus Oates to those who disbelieved in his Popish Plot. What we want today is Toryism – the courage to give the lie to impudent rogues.’
That was a memory of Leithen’s table talk. The rest was all from Janet Raden. He preached the doctrine of Challenge; of no privilege without responsibility, of only one right of man – the right to do his duty; of all power and property held on sufferance. These were the thoughts which had been growing in his head since yesterday afternoon. He spoke of the changing face of the land – the Highlands ceasing to be the home of men and becoming the mere raw material of picture post-cards, the old gentry elbowed out and retiring with a few trinkets and pictures and the war medals of their dead to suburban lodgings. It all came of not meeting the challenge . . . What was Bolshevism but a challenge, perhaps a much-needed challenge, to make certain of the faith that was in a man? He had no patience with the timorous and whining rich. No law could protect them unless they made themselves worth protecting. As a Tory, he believed that the old buildings were still sound, but they must be swept and garnished, that the ancient weapons were the best, but they must be kept bright and shining and ready for use. So soon as a cause feared inquiry and the light of day that cause was doomed. The ostrich, hiding its head in the sand, left its rump a fatal temptation to the boot of the passer-by.
Sir Archie was not always clear, he was often ungrammatical, and he nobly mixed his metaphors, but he held his audience tight. He did more, when at the close of his speech he put his case in the form of an apologue – the apologue of John Macnab. The mention of the name brought laughter and loud cheering. John Macnab, he said, was abroad in the world today, like a catfish among a shoal of herrings. He had his defects, no doubt, but he was badly wanted, for he was at bottom a sportsman and his challenge had to be met. Even if the game went against them the challenged did not wholly lose, for they were stirred out of apathy into life.
No queerer speech was ever made by a candidate on his first public appearance. It had no kind of success with the Baillie, nor, it may be presumed, with Lord Claybody; indeed, I doubt if any of the distinguished folk on the platform quite approved of it, except Lamancha. But there was no question of its appeal to the audience, and the applause which had followed Lamancha’s peroration was as nothing to that amid which Sir Archie resumed his seat.
At the back of the hall a wild-eyed man sitting near Wattie Lithgow had been vociferous in his plaudits. ‘He ca’s himsel’ a Tory. By God, it’s the red flag that he’ll be wavin’ soon.’
‘If you say that again,’ said Wattie fiercely, ‘I’ll smash your heid.’
‘Keep your hair on,’ was the reply. ‘I’m for the young ane, whatever he ca’s himsel’.’
Archie sat down with his brain in a whirl, for he had tasted the most delicious of joys – the sense of having moved a multitude. He had never felt happier in his life – or, let it be added, more truly amazed. A fiery trail was over, and brilliantly over. He had spoken straightforwardly to his fellow mortals with ease and acceptance. The faces below him were no longer featureless, but human and friendly and interesting. He did not listen closely to Colonel Wavertree’s remarks, which seemed to be mostly about taxation, or to the ex-Premier of New Caledonia, who was heavily rhetorical and passionately imperial. Modest as he was, he had a pleased consciousness that, though he might have talked a good deal of rot, he had gripped his hearers as not even Lamancha had gripped them. He searched through the hall for faces to recognise. Wattie he saw, savagely content; the Colonel, too, who looked flushed and happy, and Junius, and Agatha. But there was no sign of Janet, and his failure to find her threw a dash of cold water on his triumph.
The next step was to compass an inconspicuous departure. Lamancha would be escorted in state to the four-forty-five train, and he must join it at Frew. While ‘God save the King’ was being sung, Sir Archie escaped by a side-door, followed by an excited agent. ‘Man, ye went down tremendous,’ Brodie gasped. ‘Ye changed your mind – ye told me ye were goin’ to deal wi’ foreign policy. Anyway, ye’ve started fine, and there’ll be no gettin’ inside the hall the next time ye speak in Muirtown.’
Archie shook him off, picked up a taxi-cab at the station, and drove to Frew. There, after lurking in the waiting-room, he duly entered a third-class carriage in the rear of the south-going train. At six o’clock he emerged on to the platform at Bridge of Gair, and waited till the train had gone before he followed Lamancha to the hotel. He found his friend thinking only of Haripol. ‘I had a difficult job to get rid of Claybody, and had to tell a lot of lies. Said I was going to stay with Lanerick and that my man had gone on there with my luggage. We’d better be off, for we’ve a big day before us tomorrow.’
But, as the Hispana started up the road to the pass, Lamancha smiled affectionately on the driver and patted his shoulder. ‘I’ve often called you an idiot, Archie, but I’m bound to say to-day you were an inspired idiot. You may win this seat or not – it doesn’t matter – but sooner or later you’re going to make a howling success in that silly game.’
Beyond the pass the skies darkened for rain, and it was in a deluge that the car, a little after eight o’clock, crossed the Bridge of Larrig. Archie had intended to go round by one of the peat-roads, but the wild weather had driven everyone to shelter, and it seemed safe to take the straight road up the hill. Shapp, who had just arrived in the Ford, took charge of the car, and Archie and Lamancha sprinted through the drizzle to the back-door.
To their surprise it was locked, and when, in reply to their hammering, Mrs Lithgow appeared, it was only after repeated questions through the scullery-window that she was convinced of their identity and permitted them to enter.
‘We’ve been sair fashed wi’ folk,’ was her laconic comment, as she retired hastily to the kitchen after locking the door behind them.
In the smoking-room they found the lamps lit, the windows shuttered, Crossby busy with the newspapers, Palliser-Yeates playing patience, and Leithen as usual deep in the works of Sir Walter Scott. ‘Well,’ was the unanimous question, ‘how did it go off?’
‘Not so bad,’ said Archie. ‘Charles was in great form. But what on earth has scared Mrs Lithgow?’
Leithen laid down his book. ‘We’ve had the devil of a time. Our base has been attacked. It looks as if we may have a rearguard action to add to our troubles. We’re practically besieged. Two hours ago I was all for burning our ciphers and retiring.’
‘Besieged? By whom?’
‘By the correspondents. Ever since the early afternoon. I fancy their editors have been prodding them with telegrams. Anyhow, they’ve forgotten all about Harald Blacktooth and are hot on the scent of John Macnab.’
‘But what brought them here?’
‘Method of elimination, I suppose. Your journalist is a sharp fellow. They argued that John Macnab must have a base near by, and, as it was
n’t Strathlarrig or Glenraden, it was most likely here. Also they caught sight of Crossby taking the air, and gave chase. Crossby flung them off- happily they can’t have recognised him – but they had him treed in the stable loft for three hours.’
‘Did they see you?’
‘No. Some got into the hall and some glued their faces to this window, but John was under the table and I was making myself very small at the back of the sofa ... Mrs Lithgow handled them like Napoleon. Said the Laird was away and wouldn’t be back till midnight, but he’d see them at ten o’clock tomorrow. She had to promise that, for they are determined ruffians. They’d probably still be hanging about the place if it hadn’t been for this blessed rain.’
‘That’s not all,’ said Palliser-Yeates. ‘We had a visit from a lunatic. We didn’t see him, for Mrs Lithgow lured him indoors and has him shut up in the wine-cellar.’
‘Good God! What kind of lunatic?’ Sir Archie exclaimed.
‘Don’t know. Mrs Lithgow was not communicative. She said something about smallpox. Maybe he’s a fellow-sufferer looking for Archie’s company. Anyhow, he’s in the wine-cellar for Wattie to deal with.’
Sir Archie rose and marched from the room, and did not return till the party were seated at a late supper. His hair was harassed, and his eyes were wild.
‘It wasn’t the wine-cellar,’ he groaned, ‘it was the coal-hole. He’s upstairs now having a bath and changing into a suit of my clothes. Pretty short in the temper, too, and no wonder. For Heaven’s sake, you fellows, stroke him down when he appears. We’ve got to bank on his being a good chap and tell him everything. It’s deuced hard luck. Here am I just makin’ a promising start in my public career, and you’ve gone and locked up the local Medical Officer of Health who came to inquire into a reputed case of smallpox.’
TEN
In which Crime is Added to Crime
By the mercy of Providence Doctor Kello fulfilled Archie’s definition of a ‘good chap.’ He was a sandy-haired young man from Dundee, who had been in the Air Force, and on his native dialect had grafted the intricate slang of that service. Archie had found him half-choked with coal-dust and wrath, and abject apologies had scarcely mollified him. But a hot bath and his host’s insistence that he should spend the night at Crask – Dr Kello knew very well that at the inn he would get no more than a sofa – had worked a miracle, and he appeared at the supper-table prepared to forgive and forget. He was a little awed by the company in which he found himself, and nervously murmured, ‘Pleased to meet ye’ in response to the various introductions. A good meal and Archie’s Veuve Clicquot put him into humour with himself and at ease with his surroundings. He exchanged war reminiscences, and told stories of his professional life – ‘Ye wouldn’t believe, I tell ye, what queer folk the Highlanders are’ – and when later in the evening Archie, speaking as to a brother airman, made a clean breast of the John Macnab affair, he received the confession with obstreperous hilarity. ‘It’s the best stunt I ever heard tell of he roared, slapping his knee. ‘Ye may depend on me to back ye up, too. Is it the journalists that’s worrying ye? You leave the merchants to me. I’ll shut their mouths for them. Ten o’clock tomorrow, is it? Well, I’ll be there with a face as long as my arm, and I’ll guarantee to send them down the hill like a kirk emptying.’
All night it rained in bucketfuls, and the Friday morning broke with the same pitiless deluge. Lamancha came down to breakfast in a suit of clothes which would have been refused by a self-respecting tramp, but which, as a matter of fact, had been his stalking outfit for a dozen years. The Merldands were not a dressy family. He studied the barograph, where the needle was moving ominously downward, and considered the dissolving skies and the mist which rose like a wall beyond the terrace.
‘It’s no good,’ he told his host. ‘You might as well try to stalk Haripol in a snow blizzard. Today must be washed out, and that leaves us only tomorrow. We’ll have to roost indoors, and we’re terribly at the mercy of that hive of correspondents.’
The hive came at ten, a waterproofed army defying the weather in the cause of duty. But in front of the door they were met by Dr Kello, with a portentous face.
‘Good morning, boys,’ he said. ‘Sir Archibald Roylance asked me to see ye on his behalf. My name’s Kello – I’m Medical Officer of Health for this part of the world. I’m very sorry, but ye can’t see Sir Archibald this morning. In fact, I want ye to go away and not come near the place at all.’
He was promptly asked for his reason.
‘The fact is that a suspected case of smallpox has been reported from Crask. That’s why I’m here. I say “suspected”, for, in my own opinion, it’s nothing of the sort. But I’m bound to take every precaution, and, for your own sakes, I can’t let a man-jack of ye a step nearer.’
The news was received in silence, and added to the depression of the dripping weather. A question was asked.
‘No, it’s not Sir Archibald. He’s as disappointed as you are at not being able to welcome ye. He says if ye come back in forty-eight hours – that’s the time when I hope to give the place a clean bill of health – he would like to stand ye drinks and have a crack with ye.’
Five minutes later the doctor returned to the smoking-room. ‘They’re off like good laddies, and I don’t think they’ll trouble ye for the next two days. Gosh! They’re as feared of infectious diseases as a Highlander. I’ll give them a wee while to go down the hill, and then I’ll start off home on my motor-bike. I’m very much obliged to you gentlemen for your good entertainment ... Ye may be sure I’ll hold my tongue about the confidence ye’ve honoured me with. Not a cheep from me! But I can tell ye, I’ll be keeping my ears open for word of John Macnab. Good luck to ye, gentlemen!’
The departure of Doctor Kello was followed by the appearance of Wattie Lithgow, accompanied by Benjie, whose waterproof cape of ceremony had now its uses.
‘I’ve got bad news from this laddie,’ said the former, lugging Benjie forward by the ear. ‘He was at Haripol early this morning and a’ the folk there was speakin’ about it. Macnicol tell’t him –’
‘No, he didna,’ put in Benjie. ‘Macnicol’s ower prood to speak to me. I heard it frae the men in the bothy and frae ane o’ the lassies up at the big hoose.’
‘Weel, what a’body kens is maistly true. Ye’ll no guess what yon auld Claybody is daein’. Ye ken he’s a contractor, forbye ither things, and he’s got the contrack for makin’ the big dam at Kinlochbuie. There’s maybe a thousand navvies workin’ there, and he’s bringin’ ower a squad o’ them – Benjie says mair nor a hundred – to guaird the forest.’
‘Ass!’ exclaimed Palliser-Yeates. ‘He’ll drive every beast into Caithness.’
‘Na, na. Macnicol is not entirely wantin’ in sense. The navvies will no be allowed inside the forest. They’ll be a guaird outside – what’s that they ca’ it? – an outer barrage. Macnicol will see that a’ the deer are in the Sanctuary, and in this kind o’ weather it will no be that deeficult. But it will be verra deeficult for his lordship to get inside the forest, and it will be verra near an impossibeelity to get a beast out.’
Archie looked round the room. ‘Dashed unsportin’ I call it. I bet it’s the young ‘un’s idea.’
‘Look here, Charles,’ said Leithen. ‘Isn’t it about time to consider whether you shouldn’t cry off this Haripol affair? It was different at the start. John and I had a fair sporting chance. Our jobs were steep enough, but yours is absolutely perpendicular ... The Claybodys are not taking any chances, and a hundred able-bodied navvies is a different-sized proposition to a few gillies. The confounded Press has blazoned the thing so wide that if you’re caught you’ll be a laughing-stock to the whole civilised world. Don’t you see that you simply can’t afford to lose, any more than the Claybodys? Then, to put the lid on it, our base is under a perpetual threat from those newspaper fellows. I’d rather have all Scotland Yard after me than the Press – you agree, Crossby? I’m inclined to think that John Macnab has done
enough pour chauffer la gloire. It’s insanity to go on.’
Lamancha shookhis head. ‘It’s all very well for you – you won. I tell you frankly that nothing on earth will prevent me having a try at Haripol. All you say is perfectly true, but I don’t choose to listen to it. This news of Wattle’s only makes me more determined.’
Leithen subsided into his book, observing – ‘I suppose that is because you’re a great man. You’re a sober enough fellow at most times, but you’re able now and then to fling your hat over the moon. You can damn the consequences, which I suppose is one of the tests of greatness. John and I can’t, but we admire you, and we’ll bail you out.’
It was Sir Archie, strangely enough, who now abetted Lamancha’s obstinacy. ‘I grant you the odds are stiff he declared, ‘but that only means that we must find some way to shorten them. Nothing’s impossible after yesterday. There was I gibbering with terror and not a notion in my head, and yet I got on fairly well, didn’t I, Wattie?’
‘Ye made a grand speech, sir. There was some said it was the best speech they ever heard in a’ their days. There was one man said ye was haverin’, but’ – fiercely – ‘he didna say it twice.’
‘We’ve the whole day to make a plan,’ Archie went on. ‘Hang it all, there must be some way to diddle the Claybodys. We’ve got a pretty good notion of the lie of the land, and Wattle’s a perfect Red Indian at getting up to deer. We muster four and a half able-bodied men, counting me as half. And there’s Benjie. Benjie, you’re a demon at strategy. Have you anything to say?’
‘Aye,’ said Benjie, ‘I’ve a plan. But ye’re ower particular here, and maybe ye wadna like it.’ This with a dark glance at Palliser-Yeates, who was leaving the room to get more tobacco.