Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated), page 490
“How do you mean?”
“Just lost. He never came back last night.”
“Why should he? He has probably offed it abroad — to give the election a miss.”
“Not a bit of it. He meant to go abroad to-morrow, and all the arrangements were made — I found out that from standing a drink to his second chauffeur. But he was expected back last night, and his car was meeting him at Kirkmichael. He never appeared. He has a staff like Buckingham Palace, and they were on the telephone all evening to Glasgow. It seems he left Glasgow right enough. . . . I got that from the chauffeur fellow, who’s new and not so damned secretive as the rest. So I went to Kirkmichael this morning on a motorbike, and the ticket collector remembered Craw coming off the Glasgow train. He disappeared into the void somewhere between here and Kirkmichael at some time after 7.15 last night. Take my word for it, a judgment has fallen upon Craw.”
“Aren’t you presuming too much?” Jaikie asked. “He may have changed his mind and be coming back to-morrow — or be back now — or he’s wiring his servants to meet him somewhere. Then you and the Wire will look rather foolish.”
“It’s a risk, no doubt, but it’s worth taking. And if you had seen his secretary’s face you wouldn’t think it much of a risk. I never saw a chap so scared as that secretary man. He started off this afternoon in a sports-model at eighty miles an hour and was back an hour later as if he had seen his father’s ghost. . . . What’s more, this place is in a state of siege. They wouldn’t let me in at the lodge gates. I made a long detour and got in by the back premises, and blessed if I hadn’t to run for my life! . . . Don’t tell me. The people in that house are terrified of something, and Craw isn’t there, and they don’t know why Craw isn’t there. . . . That’s the mystery I’m out to solve, and I’ll get to the bottom of it or my name isn’t Albert Tibbets.”
“I don’t quite see the point,” said Jaikie. “If you got him on a platform you might make capital out of his foolishness. But if some accident has happened to him, you can’t make capital out of a man’s misfortunes.”
“We can out of Craw’s. Don’t you see we can crack the shell of mystery? We can make him news — like any shop-girl who runs away from home or city gent that loses his memory. We can upset his blasted dignity.”
Dougal got up. “We’ll leave you to your midnight reveries, Mr Tibbets. We’re for bed. Where are your headquarters?”
“Portaway is my base. But my post at present is in and around this park. I’m accustomed to roughing it.”
“Well, good night and good luck to you.”
The two retraced their steps down the stream.
“This letter will have to wait till the morn’s morn,” said Dougal. “Craw was right. It hasn’t taken long for the opposition Press to get after him. It’s our business, Jaikie my man, to make the Wire the laughing-stock of British journalism. . . . Not that Tibbets isn’t a dangerous fellow. Pray Heaven he doesn’t get on the track of the students’ rag, for that’s just the kind of yarn he wants. . . . They say that dog doesn’t eat dog, but I swear before I’ve done with him to chew yon tyke’s ear. . . . I’m beginning to think very kindly of Craw.”
CHAPTER V. INTRODUCES A LADY
Jaikie was roused next morning in his little room in the Westwater Arms by Dougal sitting down heavily on his toes. He was a sound sleeper, and was apt to return but slowly to a waking world. Yet even to his confused perceptions’ the state of the light seemed to mark an hour considerably later than that of seven a.m. which had been the appointed time. He reached for his watch and saw that it was nearly nine o’clock.
“You never called me,” he explained apologetically.
“I did not, but I’ve been up since six myself. I’ve been thinking hard. Jaikie, there’s more in this business than meets the eye. I’ve lain awake half the night considering it. But first I had to act. We can’t let the Wire’s stuff go uncontradicted. So I bicycled into Portaway and called up the office on the telephone. I caught Tavish just as he was going out to his breakfast. I had to take risks, so I said I was speaking from Castle Gay on Mr Craw’s behalf. . . . Tavish must have wondered what I was doing there. . . . I said that Mr Craw had left for the Continent yesterday and would be away some weeks, and that an announcement to that effect was to appear in all the Craw papers.”
“Did he raise any objection?”
“I thought he would, for this is the first time that Craw has advertised his movements, and I was prepared with the most circumstantial lies. But I didn’t need to lie, for he took it like a lamb. Indeed, it was piper’s news I was giving him, for he had had the same instructions already. What do you think of that?”
“He got them from Barbon the secretary?”
“Not a bit of it. He had had no word from Castle Gay. He got them yesterday afternoon from London. Now, who sent them?”
“The London office.”
“I don’t believe it. Bamff, the General Manager, is away in Canada over the new paper contracts. Don’t tell me that Craw instructed London to make the announcement before he was bagged by the students. It isn’t his way. . . . There’s somebody else at work on this job, somebody that wants to have it believed that Craw is out of the country.”
Jaikie shook a sceptical head.
“You were always too ingenious, Dougal. You’ve got Craw on the brain, and are determined to find melodrama. . . . Order my breakfast like a good chap. I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”
Jaikie bathed in the ancient contrivance of wood and tin, which was all that the inn provided, and was busy shaving when Dougal returned. The latter sat himself resolutely on the bed.
“The sooner we’re at the Castle the better,” he observed, as if the remark were the result of a chain of profound reasoning. “The more I think of this affair the less I like it. I’m not exactly in love with Craw, but he’s my chief, and I’m for him every time against his trade rivals. Compared to the Wire crowd, Craw is respectable. What I want to get at is the state of mind of the folk in the Castle. They’re afraid of the journalists, and they’ve cause. A fellow like Tibbets is as dangerous as nitro-glycerine. They’ve lost Craw, and they want to keep it quiet till they find him again. So far it’s plain sailing. But what in Heaven’s name did they mean by barricading the gate at the big lodge?”
“To prevent themselves being taken by surprise by journalists in motor-cars or on motor-bicycles,” said Jaikie, who was now trying to flatten out his rebellious hair.
“But that’s not sense. To barricade the gate was just to give the journalists the kind of news they wanted. ‘Mr Craw’s House in a State of Siege.’ ‘Amazing Precautions at Castle Gay’ — think of the headlines! Barbon and the rest know everything about newspaper tricks, and we must assume that they haven’t suddenly become congenital idiots. . . . No, Jaikie my lad, they’re afraid — blind afraid — of something more than the journalists, and the sooner we find out what it is the better for you and me and Craw. . . . I’ll give you twenty minutes to eat your breakfast, and then we take the road. It’ll be by the bridge and the water-side, the same as last night.”
It was a still hazy autumn morning with the promise of a warm midday. The woods through which the two sped were loud with pheasants, the shooting of which would be at the best perfunctory, for the tenant at the Castle never handled a gun. No one was on the road, except an aged stonebreaker in a retired nook. They hid their bicycles with some care in a mossy covert, for they might be for some time separated from them, and, after a careful reconnaissance to see that they were unobserved, entered the park by way of the bridge parapet, the traverse and the ten-foot drop. This time they had not the friendly night to shield them, and they did not venture on the lawn-like turf by the stream side. Instead they followed a devious route among brackeny hollows, where they could not be seen from any higher ground. The prospect from the highway was, they knew, shut out by the boundary wall.
Dougal moved fast with a sense of purpose like a dog on a scent. He had lost his holiday discursiveness, and had no inclination to linger in bypaths earthly or spiritual. But Jaikie had his familiar air of detachment. He did not appear to take his errand with any seriousness or to be much concerned with the mysteries which filled Dougal’s thoughts. He was revelling in the sounds and scents of October in that paradise which possessed the charm of both lowland and highland. The film of morning was still silver-grey on rush and grass and heather, and the pools of the Callowa smoked delicately. The day revealed some of the park’s features which night had obscured. In particular there was a tiny lochan, thronged with wildfowl, which was connected by a reedy burn with the Callowa. A herd of dappled fallow-deer broke out of the thicket, and somewhere near a stag was belling.
The house came suddenly into sight at a slightly different angle from that of the night before. They were on higher ground, and had a full view of the terrace, where even now two gardeners were trimming the grass edges of the plots. That seemed normal enough, and so did the spires of smoke ascending straight from the chimneys into the windless air. They stood behind a gnarled, low-spreading oak, which must have been there as a seedling when steel-bonneted reivers rode that way and the castle was a keep. Dougal’s hand shaded his eyes, and he scanned warily every detail of the scene.
“We must push forward,” he said. “If anyone tries to stop us we can say we’ve a letter to Mr Barbon from Mr Craw. Knowing Barbon’s name will be a sort of passport. Keep your eyes skinned for Tibbets, for he mustn’t see us. I daresay he’ll be at his breakfast in Portaway — he’ll be needing it if he has been hunkering here all night. We haven’t . . .”
He broke off, for at that instant two animals precipitated themselves against his calves, thereby nearly unbalancing him. They were obviously dogs, but of a breed with which Dougal was unfamiliar. They had large sagacious heads, gentle and profoundly tragic eyes, and legs over which they seemed to have no sort of control. Over Dougal they sprawled and slobbered, while he strove to evade their caresses.
Then came a second surprise, for a voice spoke out of the tree above them. The voice was peremptory and it was young. It said, “Down, Tactful! Down, Pensive!” And then it added in a slightly milder tone: “What are you doing here?”
These last words were so plainly addressed to the two travellers that they looked up into the covert, half green, half russet, above their heads. There, seated in a crutch made by two branches, they beheld to their amazement a girl.
Her face was visible between the branches, but the rest of her was hidden, except one slim pendant brown leg ending in a somewhat battered shoe. The face regarded them solemnly, reprovingly, suspiciously. It was a pretty face, a little sunburnt, not innocent of freckles, and it was surmounted by a mop of tawny gold hair. The eyes were blue and stern. The beagle pups, having finished their overtures to Dougal, were now making ineffective leaps at her shoe.
“How did you get up that tree?” The question was wrung from Jaikie, a specialist in such matters, as he regarded the branchless bole and the considerable elevation of the bough on which she sat.
“Quite easily,” was the answer. “I have climbed much harder trees than this. But that is not the question. What are you two doing here?”
“What are you?”
“I have permission to go anywhere in the Castle grounds. I have a key for the gates. But you are trespassers, and there will be an awful row if Mackillop catches you.”
“We’re not,” said Dougal. “We’re carrying a letter from Mr Craw to Mr Barbon. I have it in my pocket.”
“Is that true?” The eyes were sceptical, but also startled.
For answer Dougal drew the missive from his inner pocket. “There it is: ‘The Honourable Frederick Barbon.’ Look for yourself!”
The girl peered down at the superscription. The degraded envelope of Mrs Catterick’s did not perhaps carry conviction, but something in the two faces below persuaded her of their honesty. With a swift movement she wriggled out of the crutch, caught a bough with both hands, and dropped lightly to the ground. With two deft kicks she repelled the attentions of Tactful and Pensive, and stood before the travellers, smoothing down her short skirt. She was about Jaikie’s height, very slim and straight, and her interrogation was that of a general to his staff.
“You come from Mr Craw?”
“Yes.”
“When did you leave him?”
“Last night.”
“Glory be! Let’s sit down. There’s no hurry, and we must move very carefully. For I may as well let you know that the Devil has got into this place. Yes. The Devil. I don’t quite know what form he has taken, but he’s rampant in Castle Gay. I came here this morning to prospect, for I feel in a way responsible. You see it belongs to my father, and Mr Craw’s our tenant. My name is Alison Westwater.”
“Same name as the pub in Starr?” asked Dougal, who liked to connect his knowledge organically.
She nodded. “The Westwater Arms. Yes, that’s my family. I live at the Mains with my aunt, while Papa and Mamma are on the Continent. I wouldn’t go. I said, ‘You can’t expect me after a filthy summer in London to go ramping about France wearing tidy clothes and meeting the same idiotic people.’ I had a year at school in Paris and that gave me all the France I want in this life. I said, ‘Castle Gay’s my home, though you’ve chosen to let it to a funny little man, and I’m not going to miss my whack of Scotland.’ So I hopped it here at the end of July, and I’ve been having a pretty peaceful time ever since. You see, all the outdoor people are our people, and Mr Craw has been very nice about it, and lets me fish in the Callowa and all the lochs and treat the place as if he wasn’t there.”
“Do you know Mr Craw well?” Dougal asked.
“I have seen him three times and talked to him once — when Aunt Harriet took me to tea with him. I thought him rather a dear, but quite helpless. Talks just like a book, and doesn’t appear to understand much of what you say to him. I suppose he is very clever, but he seems to want a lot of looking after. You never saw such a staff. There’s a solemn butler called Bannister. I believe Bannister washes Mr Craw’s face and tucks him into bed. . . . There’s a typewriting woman by the name of Cazenove with a sharp nose and horn spectacles, who never takes her eyes off him, and is always presenting him with papers to read. It’s slavery of some kind, but whether she’s his slave or he’s her slave I don’t know. I had to break a plate at tea, just to remind myself that there was such a thing as liberty. . . . Then there is Mr Allins, a very glossy young man. You’ve probably come across him, for he goes about a lot. Mr Allins fancies himself the perfect man of the world and a great charmer. I think if you met him you would say he wasn’t quite a gentleman.” She smiled confidentially at the two, as if she assumed that their standards must coincide with hers.
“Mr Barbon?” Dougal asked.
“And of course there’s Freddy. There’s nothing wrong with Freddy in that way. He’s some sort of cousin of ours. Freddy is the chief of the staff and has everything on his shoulders. He is very kind and very anxious, poor dear, and now the crash has come! Not to put too fine a point on it, for the last twenty-four hours Freddy has gone clean off his head. . . .”
She stopped at an exclamation from Jaikie. He had one of those small field-glasses which are adapted for a single eye, with which he had been examining the approaches to the castle.
“Tibbets can’t have had much of a breakfast,” he announced. “I see him sitting in that trench place.”
“Who is Tibbets?” she demanded.
“He’s a journalist, on the Live Wire, one of Mr Craw’s rivals. We ran into him late last night, and that’s why we couldn’t deliver the letter.”
“Little beast! That’s the first of Freddy’s anxieties. This place has been besieged by journalists for a week, all trying to get at Mr Craw. . . . Then the night before last Mr Craw did not come home. You know where he is, but Freddy doesn’t, so that’s the second of his troubles. Somehow the fact of Mr Craw’s disappearance has leaked out, and the journalists have got hold of it, and yesterday it almost came to keeping them off with a gun. . . . And out of the sky dropped the last straw.”
She paused dramatically.
“I don’t know the truth about it, for I haven’t seen Freddy since yesterday morning. I think he must have had a letter, for he rushed to the Mains and left a message for Aunt Harriet that she was on no account to let any stranger into the house or speak to anybody or give any information. He can’t have meant the journalists only, for we knew all about them. . . . After that, just after luncheon, while I was out for a walk, I saw a big car arrive with three men in it. It tried to get in at the West Lodge, but Jameson — that’s the lodge-keeper — wouldn’t open the gate. I thought that odd, but when I went riding in the evening I couldn’t get in at the West Lodge either. They had jammed trunks of trees across. That means that Freddy is rattled out of his senses. He thinks he is besieged. Is there any word for that but lunacy? I can understand his being worried about the journalists and Mr Craw not coming home. But this! Isn’t it what they call persecution-mania? I’m sorry about it, for I like Freddy.”
“The man’s black afraid of something,” said Dougal, “but maybe he has cause. Maybe it’s something new — something we know nothing about.”
The girl nodded. “It looks like it. Meantime, where is Mr Craw? It’s your turn to take up the tale.”
“He’s at the Back House of the Garroch, waiting for Barbon to send a car to fetch him.”
Miss Westwater whistled. “Now how on earth did he get there? I know the place. It’s on our land. I remember the shepherd’s wife. A big, handsome, gipsy-looking woman, isn’t she?”
Dougal briefly but dramatically told the story of the rape of Mr Craw. The girl listened with open eyes and an astonishment which left no room for laughter.
“Marvellous!” was her comment. “Simply marvellous! That it should happen to Mr Craw of all people! I love those students. . . . What by the way are you? You haven’t told me.”
