Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated), page 662
‘No-o,’ he said slowly. ‘There was another thing. He behaved rather queerly about me. I was sitting behind the keel-pot cutting a whistle, and I heard all his talk with Mr. Stoddart and Mr. Nickson. I saw that he had noticed me when he arrived. He pretended not to know we were staying in this house, and when Mr. Stoddart said that you were here he looked surprised, and asked was that the General Hannay that he had heard about in the War? And then he said suddenly, “Sir Richard’s boy’s here. I would like to have a crack wi’ him,” and Mr. Stoddart had to introduce us. That showed that he must have known all about us before, and that I was your son.’
‘That was odd,’ I admitted, rather impressed by Peter John’s shrewdness. I asked what he had talked to him about, and he told me just ordinary things — what school he was at, what he thought of Scotland, what he was going to do when he grew up — and that he had laughed when he heard of the sheep-farming plan. Stoddart had given the two visitors a drink, and after an hour’s stay they had gone down the valley in Little’s car.
I said that I didn’t think there was any real cause to worry. But Peter John was obstinate, and then he added that which really alarmed me.
‘I thought I had better do something about it,’ he said, ‘so I asked Mr. Sprot — he’s the young shepherd at Nether Laver and lives nearest to Hangingshaw — to try to find out when he got home if this Mr. Harcus had been in the village before. Do you know what he told me? That he had been there for three days, and had been staying with Miss Newbigging at the post office. He said he had been to a lot of farms, and had bought the short-horn bull at Windyways that got the second prize at the Highland Show.’
That word ‘post office’ alarmed me. It was the very place a man would choose for his lodgings if he wanted to make private inquiries. There was no inn in Hangingshaw, and the post office was the natural centre for a big countryside. Also Miss Newbigging, the postmistress, was a most notorious old gossip, and lived to gather and retail news.
‘So I thought I’d better ask Geordie Hamilton to go down there’ (in this case alone Peter John dropped his habit of ‘mistering’ everybody, for it was impossible to call Geordie otherwise than by his Christian name). ‘He went off on his bicycle after tea. I thought he was the best man for the job, for he’s a great friend of Miss Newbigging.’
‘That was right,’ I said. ‘So far I give you good marks. I’ll have a talk to Geordie in the morning.’
I dressed for dinner with a faint uneasiness at the back of my head. It was increased when, just as we were drinking our coffee, I was told that Geordie Hamilton wanted to see me urgently. I found him in the gun-room with a glowing face, as if he had made some speed on his bicycle from Hangingshaw in the warm evening.
‘Yon man Haircus, sirr,’ he began at once. ‘Actin’ under instructions from Maister Peter John I proceeded to Hangingshaw and had a word wi’ Miss Newbiggin’. Sprot was speakin’ the truth. Haircus is no there noo, for he gaed off in the car wi’ Leittle the auctioneer, him and his pockmanty. But he’s been bidin’ there the last three days and — weel, sirr, I dinna like the look o’ things. I didna like the look o’ the man, for he was neither gentry nor plain folk. And gude kens what he’s been up to.’
Geordie proceeded with his report, delivered in the staccato fashion of the old Scots Fusilier days. He had found Miss Newbigging alone and had had a friendly cup of tea with her. ‘Yon’s an awfu’ ane to speak,’ he said. ‘She has a tongue on her like a pen-gun.’ The post mistress had been full of her late lodger, and had described him as a ‘fine, couthy, cracky body.’ He was Galloway bred, but had been a lot in the north of England, and his big market was Carlisle. He told her that he wanted to get in touch with the farmers in these parts, which he said were the pick of the Borders. ‘He was aye rimin’,’ said Miss Newbigging, ‘about this bonny countryside and the dacent folk that bode in it.’ She had been glad to answer his questions, for he was bringing trade into the parish. When asked if he had been curious about Laverlaw, she had replied that he had, just as every one would be curious about the Big House. He seemed to know all about Lord Clanroyden and to have a great opinion of him. ‘I telled him that his lordship was supposed to be in residence, but that I hadna clapped eyes on him for months. But says I, that’s naethin new, for his lordship comes and gangs like a bog-blitter, though I whiles think that he should pay mair attention to his leddy wife, and her no that strong.’ But Miss Newbigging had been positive that she had never given him the names of the party now at Laverlaw. ‘Though he might have read them on the letters,’ she had added.
On further examination Geordie discovered that Harcus had been what the postmistress called ‘a usefu’ man about the house.’ He had helped her every day to sort out the mail, both the incoming and the outgoing. He had often been jocose about the former. ‘Here’s ane to Sundhope frae the Bank,’ he would say. ‘That’ll be about the over-draft for the beasts he bocht at Kelso. And here is a bundle for her leddyship. It’s bigger than I get mysel’ after the back-end sales. But I see there’s twa leddyships, Leddy Clanroyden and Leddy Hannay. There’s walth o’ rank the noo up the Laver Water.’
This had roused Geordie’s interest. He asked if Harcus had made a point of looking at the outgoing letters. Miss Newbigging had replied: ‘He did, now I come to think o’t. I was aye tellin’ him there was nae need, for the hale lot gangs to Laverkirk to be sorted. But he was a carefu’ man, and he had time on his hands, and he would set them out in wee packs as if he was playin’ at the cards. “That’s for Embro”, he would say, “an that’s for the West country, and that heap’s for England.” He was aye awfu’ interested in the English letters, comin’ as he did frae Carlisle.’
Geordie, having learned all he wanted, had taken his departure after compliments. Now he sat before me with his shaggy brows drawn down. ‘Ye telled me, sirr, to let naething gang by me, however sma,’ and there’s just a chance that there’s mischief here. Haircus doesna ken wha’s writin’ to the folk in this house, but he kens a wheen o’ the names that the folk here write to.’
That was precisely the point, and at first I thought that it did not matter. And then, when Geordie had gone, I suddenly remembered that though we were in a sanctuary our party was not complete. There was one absentee, one sheep outside the fold. Not Sandy — he could very well look after himself. It was Haraldsen’s child, his daughter Anna.
I started out to look for Haraldsen, but he had gone off with Peter John to dap for trout in the park lake. It was nearly eleven o’clock before they returned, and, as they entered the lit hall from the purple gloom which is all the night that Laverlaw knows in early July, I thought what a miracle recent weeks had wrought in Haraldsen’s appearance. He held his head up, and looked you straight in the face, and walked like a free man. When I called to him he was laughing like a care-free boy at the figure Peter John cut in Sandy’s short waders. It struck me that it was just in this recovered confidence that our danger lay.
He had often told me about his daughter Anna. She was at a well-known boarding-school for girls in Northamptonshire, called Brewton Ashes, under the name of Smith, the name he had taken when he sought refuge in England. At first he had looked after her in her holidays, and taken her to dismal seaside resorts which he had heard well spoken of. But as his dread of pursuit grew he had dropped all this, and had not seen her for nearly a year. It had been arranged that one of the mistresses, to whom she was attached, should look after her in the holidays, and Haraldsen must have paid for pretty expensive trips for the two, since it was the only way he could make up to the child for his absence. He had always been very careful about letters, writing to her not direct, but through his bank, and he had never dared to show himself within twenty miles of Brewton Ashes.
I turned the conversation on to the girl, being careful not to alarm him, for I didn’t want to spoil his convalescence. I pretended that Peter John wanted to write and tell her about Laverlaw, and asked how it was done. He told me that there was a choice of three banks, who all had their instructions.
‘It seems a roundabout way,’ I said; ‘but I dare say you are wise. Do you stick to it rigidly?’
‘Yes. It is better so. You never know. . . . Well, to be quite honest, I have broken the rule once, and I do not intend to break it again. That was last Monday. Anna’s thirteenth birthday was yesterday, and I made a mistake about the dates, for I have been so busy here that I have grown careless. I could not bear to think that she would have no message from me on that day, so I wrote direct to her at Brewton Ashes.’ His smile was a little embarrassed, and he looked at me as if he expected reproaches. ‘I do not think that any harm is done. This place is so far away from everybody.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I said. ‘You needn’t worry about that, but I think you’re wise all the same to stick to your rule. Now for bed. Lord, it’s nearly midnight.’
But I thought it by no means all right. It was infernally bad luck that Haraldsen should have chosen to be indiscreet just at the time when the mysterious Harcus was in the neighbourhood. I told myself that the latter would make nothing of a letter addressed to a Miss Anna Smith at a country address in England. But I have never made the mistake of underrating the intelligence of the people I was up against. Anyhow, I was taking no chances. I routed out Geordie Hamilton from his room above the stables and warned him for duty. Then I wrote a letter to Sandy in London, telling him all that had happened and my doubts about Harcus. I left it to him to decide whether any steps should be taken to safeguard the girl. Geordie was instructed to set off at once to Laverkirk, twenty miles distant, and post it there, so that it might catch the London mail — Laverkirk was on the main line to the south — and reach Sandy the following evening.
But I wasn’t content with a letter. I also wrote out a telegram to Sandy in a simple cypher we had often used before — a longish telegram, for I had to explain how it was possible that the enemy might have got the girl’s address. Geordie, when he had posted the letter, was to go to bed in the Station Hotel, be up betimes, and send the telegram as soon as the office was open. I had no fear of espionage in Laverkirk, which was a big bustling market-town with half a dozen post offices.
Then I went to bed with anxiety in my mind out of which I could not argue myself. The happy peace of Laverlaw had been flawed. I felt like the man in Treasure Island who was tipped the black spot.
CHAPTER IX. Lochinvar
Next day the heat-wave broke in a deluge, and by midday the Laver was coloured and by the evening in roaring spate. Peter John and I went out before dinner, and got a heavy basket with the worm in the pools above the park. The following morning it still drizzled, and we did well in the tributary burns with the fly known locally as the black spider. Burn-fishing has always had its charms for me, for no two casts are the same, and I love the changing scenery of each crook in the little glens. But after luncheon Peter John’s soul aspired to higher things. There was a tarn six miles off in the hills called the Black Loch, a mossy hole half overgrown with yellow water-lilies and uncommonly difficult to fish. We had tried it before in a quiet gloaming and had had no luck, though we had seen big trout feeding. Sim had always declared that it only fished well after rain, when its sluggish inmates were stirred by the swollen runnels from the hills. So we set off with Oliver and Geordie Hamilton, warning Barbara that we might be late for dinner.
We did not return till half-past nine. The weather cleared, the sun came out, and the warm evening was a kind of carnival for the Black Loch trout. They took whatever we offered them, but for every five fish hooked four broke us or dropped off. We had to cast over an infernal belt of water-lilies and pond-weed, which meant a long line and a loose line. It was impossible to wade far out, for the bottom was treacherous, and once I went down to the waist. To land a fish we had to drag him by brute force through the water-weeds, and, as we were fishing far and fine, that usually meant disaster. There were two spits of gravel in the loch, and the only chance with a big one was to try to manoeuvre him towards one of these, not an easy job, since one had practically no purchase on him. Peter John, who was far the better performer, managed this successfully with two noble fellows, each nearly two pounds in weight, but he too had many failures. Nevertheless, between us we had two dozen and three fish, a total weight of just over twenty-seven pounds, the best basket that had been taken out of the Black Loch in Oliver’s memory.
These two days’ fishing had put everything else out of my mind, a trick fishing always has with me. As we tramped home over the dusky sweet-scented moors I had no thought except a bath and dinner. But as we approached the house I was suddenly recalled to my senses. Before the front door stood a big and very dirty car, from which a man in a raincoat had descended. He had no hat, he seemed to have a baldish head and a red face mottled with mud, and his whole air was of fatigue and dishevelment. He was in the act of helping another figure to alight, which looked like a girl. And then suddenly there was a noise in the house, and from it Haraldsen emerged, shouting like a lunatic. He plucked the girl from the car, and stood hugging and kissing her.
When we got nearer I saw that the man was Lombard, but very unlike the spruce city magnate with whom I had been lately connected. He looked tired and dirty but content, and somehow younger, more like the Lombard I remembered in Africa. ‘Thank God we’re here at last,’ he said. ‘It’s been a roughish passage. . . . What do I want most? First a bath, and then food — a lot of it, for we’ve been living on biscuits. I’ve brought no kit, so you must lend me some clothes to change into.’ As for Haraldsen, he went on behaving like a maniac, patting the girl’s shoulder and holding her as if he thought that any moment she might disappear. ‘My happiness is complete,’ he kept declaring. This went on till Barbara and Mary appeared and swept the child off with them.
I provided Lombard with a suit of flannels, and we ate an enormous late supper — at least four of us did, while the other three, who had already dined, looked on. The girl Anna appeared in a pleated blue skirt and a white blouse, the uniform, I supposed, of her school. She was a tall child for her years, and ridiculously blonde, almost bleached. She had a crop of fair hair which looked white in certain lights, a pale face, and features almost too mature, for the full curve of her chin was that of a woman rather than a girl. There was no colour about her except in her eyes, and I thought that Haraldsen deserved something better than this plain, drab child. I had whispered that to Mary in the hall before supper, and she had laughed at me. ‘You’re a blind donkey, Dick,’ she had said. ‘Some day she will be a raging beauty, with that ivory skin and those sea-blue eyes.’
When we had eaten, Haraldsen went off with the women to put Anna to bed and to look after her wardrobe, for she also was kit-less. Lombard had a couple of glasses of Sandy’s famous port, and when we adjourned to the smoking-room, where a peat fire was burning, he stacked himself in an armchair with an air of great content. ‘First score for our side,’ he said. ‘But it has been a close thing, I can tell you. Till about ten hours ago I wouldn’t have given twopence for our chances. I’ll have to do the devil of a lot of telegraphing tomorrow, but to-night, thank God! I can sleep in peace.’
Then he told his story, which I give in his own words.
Clanroyden (he said) had your telegram yesterday morning. There was a letter too, you tell me? Well, he hadn’t had that when I left, but you seem to have explained things pretty fully in your wire. He got hold of me at once — luckily I was sleeping in town, having motored up the day before. There were one or two small matters I had to arrange before I took my holiday, and I had finished them and was going home after luncheon.
He said I must get busy — that the other side had probably got the address of Haraldsen’s daughter and might be trusted to act at once. Possibly it was even now too late. I must go down to the school in Northamptonshire and fetch her back to town. He would arrange that she should stay with a great-aunt of his in Sussex Square till he made other plans. He would have gone himself, but he dared not, for he thought he was pretty closely marked, but I was still free from suspicion, and I was the only one to take on the job. He wrote me a chit to the headmistress, Miss Barlock, to say that he was Haraldsen’s — Smith’s, that is to say — greatest friend and managed his affairs, and that he had authority from him to bring his daughter to him in London for a few days in connection with some family business. He thought that would be enough, for the schoolmistress-woman was pretty certain to know his name, and my appearance, too, he said, was a warrant of respectability. I was to bring the girl straight to Sussex Square, where he would be waiting for me. He said he would expect me before four o’clock, but if there was any difficulty I was to wire at once, and he would send down one of the partners in the bank that paid the school fees.
I rather liked the job of saviour of youth, for I felt that I hadn’t been quite pulling my weight in this business, so I started off in my car in good spirits. It was the big Bentley, which I always drive myself. I was at Brewton Ashes by eleven o’clock, a great, raw, red brick building in a fine park, which I believe was one of the seats that old Tomplin, the oil fellow, built for himself before he crashed. Well, I sent up my card to Miss Barlock, but by the mercy of God I didn’t send up Clanroyden’s chit with it. I was told that Miss Barlock was engaged for the moment, and was shown into a drawing-room full of school groups and prize water-colours and great bowls of fine roses. The room rather made me take to the place, for it showed that the people there knew how to grow flowers, and there’s never much wrong with a keen gardener.
I waited for about ten minutes, and then Miss Barlock’s door opened and three people came out. One was Anna, who looked flustered. The others were a man and a woman — a young man in a flannel suit with an O.E. tie, a pleasant-looking toothy chap with a high colour, and a middle-aged woman in a brown linen costume and big specs. A maid took the three downstairs, and I was ushered into the presence of Miss Barlock.
