CHAPTER TEN
Various Parties Converging on the Sea
A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from the Griffin
Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock sands which seemed the
size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles farther south and much nearer the
shore a small destroyer was anchored. Scaife, MacGillivray's man, who had
been in the Navy, knew the boat, and told me her name and her commander's,
so I sent off a wire to Sir Walter.
After breakfast Scaife got from a house-agent a key for the gates of the
staircases on the Ruff. I walked with him along the sands, and sat down in
a nook of the cliffs while he investigated the half- dozen of them. I didn't
want to be seen, but the place at this hour was quite deserted, and all the
time I was on that beach I saw nothing but the sea-gulls.
It took him more than an hour to do the job, and when I saw him coming towards
me, conning a bit of paper, I can tell you my heart was in my mouth. Everything
depended, you see, on my guess proving right.
He read aloud the number of steps in the different stairs. 'Thirty- four,
thirty-five, thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-seven,' and 'twenty- one' where
the cliffs grew lower. I almost got up and shouted.
We hurried back to the town and sent a wire to MacGillivray. I wanted half
a dozen men, and I directed them to divide themselves among different specified
hotels. Then Scaife set out to prospect the house at the head of the thirty-nine
steps.
He came back with news that both puzzled and reassured me. The house was
called Trafalgar Lodge, and belonged to an old gentleman called Appleton
- a retired stockbroker, the house-agent said. Mr Appleton was there a good
deal in the summer time, and was in residence now - had been for the better
part of a week. Scaife could pick up very little information about him, except
that he was a decent old fellow, who paid his bills regularly, and was always
good for a fiver for a local charity. Then Scaife seemed to have penetrated
to the back door of the house, pretending he was an agent for sewing-machines.
Only three servants were kept, a cook, a parlour-maid, and a housemaid, and
they were just the sort that you would find in a respectable middle-class
household. The cook was not the gossiping kind, and had pretty soon shut
the door in his face, but Scaife said he was positive she knew nothing. Next
door there was a new house building which would give good cover for observation,
and the villa on the other side was to let, and its garden was rough and
shrubby.
I borrowed Scaife's telescope, and before lunch went for a walk along the
Ruff. I kept well behind the rows of villas, and found a good observation
point on the edge of the golf-course. There I had a view of the line of turf
along the cliff top, with seats placed at intervals, and the little square
plots, railed in and planted with bushes, whence the staircases descended
to the beach. I saw Trafalgar Lodge very plainly, a red-brick villa with
a veranda, a tennis lawn behind, and in front the ordinary seaside flower-garden
full of marguerites and scraggy geraniums. There was a flagstaff from which
an enormous Union Jack hung limply in the still air.
Presently I observed someone leave the house and saunter along the cliff.
When I got my glasses on him I saw it was an old man, wearing white flannel
trousers, a blue serge jacket, and a straw hat. He carried field-glasses
and a newspaper, and sat down on one of the iron seats and began to read.
Sometimes he would lay down the paper and turn his glasses on the sea. He
looked for a long time at the destroyer. I watched him for half an hour,
till he got up and went back to the house for his luncheon, when I returned
to the hotel for mine.
I wasn't feeling very confident. This decent common-place dwelling was not
what I had expected. The man might be the bald archaeologist of that horrible
moorland farm, or he might not. He was exactly the kind of satisfied old
bird you will find in every suburb and every holiday place. If you wanted
a type of the perfectly harmless person you would probably pitch on that.
But after lunch, as I sat in the hotel porch, I perked up, for I saw the
thing I had hoped for and had dreaded to miss. A yacht came up from the south
and dropped anchor pretty well opposite the Ruff. She seemed about a hundred
and fifty tons, and I saw she belonged to the Squadron from the white ensign.
So Scaife and I went down to the harbour and hired a boatman for an afternoon's
fishing.
I spent a warm and peaceful afternoon. We caught between us about twenty
pounds of cod and lythe, and out in that dancing blue sea I took a cheerier
view of things. Above the white cliffs of the Ruff I saw the green and red
of the villas, and especially the great flagstaff of Trafalgar Lodge. About
four o'clock, when we had fished enough, I made the boatman row us round
the yacht, which lay like a delicate white bird, ready at a moment to flee.
Scaife said she must be a fast boat for her build, and that she was pretty
heavily engined.
Her name was the ARIADNE, as I discovered from the cap of one of the men
who was polishing brasswork. I spoke to him, and got an answer in the soft
dialect of Essex. Another hand that came along passed me the time of day
in an unmistakable English tongue. Our boatman had an argument with one of
them about the weather, and for a few minutes we lay on our oars close to
the starboard bow.
Then the men suddenly disregarded us and bent their heads to their work as
an officer came along the deck. He was a pleasant, clean-looking young fellow,
and he put a question to us about our fishing in very good English. But there
could be no doubt about him. His close-cropped head and the cut of his collar
and tie never came out of England.
That did something to reassure me, but as we rowed back to Bradgate my obstinate
doubts would not be dismissed. The thing that worried me was the reflection
that my enemies knew that I had got my knowledge from Scudder, and it was
Scudder who had given me the clue to this place. If they knew that Scudder
had this clue, would they not be certain to change their plans? Too much
depended on their success for them to take any risks. The whole question
was how much they understood about Scudder's knowledge. I had talked confidently
last night about Germans always sticking to a scheme, but if they had any
suspicions that I was on their track they would be fools not to cover it.
I wondered if the man last night had seen that I recognized him. Somehow
I did not think he had, and to that I had clung. But the whole business had
never seemed so difficult as that afternoon when by all calculations I should
have been rejoicing in assured success.
In the hotel I met the commander of the destroyer, to whom Scaife introduced
me, and with whom I had a few words. Then I thought I would put in an hour
or two watching Trafalgar Lodge.
I found a place farther up the hill, in the garden of an empty house. From
there I had a full view of the court, on which two figures were having a
game of tennis. One was the old man, whom I had already seen; the other was
a younger fellow, wearing some club colours in the scarf round his middle.
They played with tremendous zest, like two city gents who wanted hard exercise
to open their pores. You couldn't conceive a more innocent spectacle. They
shouted and laughed and stopped for drinks, when a maid brought out two tankards
on a salver. I rubbed my eyes and asked myself if I was not the most immortal
fool on earth. Mystery and darkness had hung about the men who hunted me
over the Scotch moor in aeroplane and motor-car, and notably about that infernal
antiquarian. It was easy enough to connect those folk with the knife that
pinned Scudder to the floor, and with fell designs on the world's peace.
But here were two guileless citizens taking their innocuous exercise, and
soon about to go indoors to a humdrum dinner, where they would talk of market
prices and the last cricket scores and the gossip of their native Surbiton.
I had been making a net to catch vultures and falcons, and lo and behold!
two plump thrushes had blundered into it.
Presently a third figure arrived, a young man on a bicycle, with a bag of
golf-clubs slung on his back. He strolled round to the tennis lawn and was
welcomed riotously by the players. Evidently they were chaffing him, and
their chaff sounded horribly English. Then the plump man, mopping his brow
with a silk handkerchief, announced that he must have a tub. I heard his
very words - 'I've got into a proper lather,' he said. 'This will bring down
my weight and my handicap, Bob. I'll take you on tomorrow and give you a
stroke a hole.' You couldn't find anything much more English than that.
They all went into the house, and left me feeling a precious idiot. I had
been barking up the wrong tree this time. These men might be acting; but
if they were, where was their audience? They didn't know I was sitting thirty
yards off in a rhododendron. It was simply impossible to believe that these
three hearty fellows were anything but what they seemed - three ordinary,
game-playing, suburban Englishmen, wearisome, if you like, but sordidly innocent.
And yet there were three of them; and one was old, and one was plump, and
one was lean and dark; and their house chimed in with Scudder's notes; and
half a mile off was lying a steam yacht with at least one German officer.
I thought of Karolides lying dead and all Europe trembling on the edge of
earthquake, and the men I had left behind me in London who were waiting anxiously
for the events of the next hours. There was no doubt that hell was afoot
somewhere. The Black Stone had won, and if it survived this June night would
bank its winnings.
There seemed only one thing to do - go forward as if I had no doubts, and
if I was going to make a fool of myself to do it handsomely. Never in my
life have I faced a job with greater disinclination. I would rather in my
then mind have walked into a den of anarchists, each with his Browning handy,
or faced a charging lion with a popgun, than enter that happy home of three
cheerful Englishmen and tell them that their game was up. How they would
laugh at me!
But suddenly I remembered a thing I once heard in Rhodesia from old Peter
Pienaar. I have quoted Peter already in this narrative. He was the best scout
I ever knew, and before he had turned respectable he had been pretty often
on the windy side of the law, when he had been wanted badly by the authorities.
Peter once discussed with me the question of disguises, and he had a theory
which struck me at the time. He said, barring absolute certainties like
fingerprints, mere physical traits were very little use for identification
if the fugitive really knew his business. He laughed at things like dyed
hair and false beards and such childish follies. The only thing that mattered
was what Peter called 'atmosphere'.
If a man could get into perfectly different surroundings from those in which
he had been first observed, and - this is the important part - really play
up to these surroundings and behave as if he had never been out of them,
he would puzzle the cleverest detectives on earth. And he used to tell a
story of how he once borrowed a black coat and went to church and shared
the same hymn-book with the man that was looking for him. If that man had
seen him in decent company before he would have recognized him; but he had
only seen him snuffing the lights in a public-house with a revolver.
The recollection of Peter's talk gave me the first real comfort that I had
had that day. Peter had been a wise old bird, and these fellows I was after
were about the pick of the aviary. What if they were playing Peter's game?
A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.
Again, there was that other maxim of Peter's which had helped me when I had
been a roadman. 'If you are playing a part, you will never keep it up unless
you convince yourself that you are it.' That would explain the game of tennis.
Those chaps didn't need to act, they just turned a handle and passed into
another life, which came as naturally to them as the first. It sounds a
platitude, but Peter used to say that it was the big secret of all the famous
criminals.
It was now getting on for eight o'clock, and I went back and saw Scaife to
give him his instructions. I arranged with him how to place his men, and
then I went for a walk, for I didn't feel up to any dinner. I went round
the deserted golf-course, and then to a point on the cliffs farther north
beyond the line of the villas.
On the little trim newly-made roads I met people in flannels coming back
from tennis and the beach, and a coastguard from the wireless station, and
donkeys and pierrots padding homewards. Out at sea in the blue dusk I saw
lights appear on the ARIADNE and on the destroyer away to the south, and
beyond the Cock sands the bigger lights of steamers making for the Thames.
The whole scene was so peaceful and ordinary that I got more dashed in spirits
every second. It took all my resolution to stroll towards Trafalgar Lodge
about half-past nine.
On the way I got a piece of solid comfort from the sight of a greyhound that
was swinging along at a nursemaid's heels. He reminded me of a dog I used
to have in Rhodesia, and of the time when I took him hunting with me in the
Pali hills. We were after rhebok, the dun kind, and I recollected how we
had followed one beast, and both he and I had clean lost it. A greyhound
works by sight, and my eyes are good enough, but that buck simply leaked
out of the landscape. Afterwards I found out how it managed it. Against the
grey rock of the kopjes it showed no more than a crow against a thundercloud.
It didn't need to run away; all it had to do was to stand still and melt
into the background.
Suddenly as these memories chased across my brain I thought of my present
case and applied the moral. The Black Stone didn't need to bolt. They were
quietly absorbed into the landscape. I was on the right track, and I jammed
that down in my mind and vowed never to forget it. The last word was with
Peter Pienaar.
Scaife's men would be posted now, but there was no sign of a soul. The house
stood as open as a market-place for anybody to observe. A three-foot railing
separated it from the cliff road; the windows on the ground-floor were all
open, and shaded lights and the low sound of voices revealed where the occupants
were finishing dinner. Everything was as public and above-board as a charity
bazaar. Feeling the greatest fool on earth, I opened the gate and rang the
bell.
A man of my sort, who has travelled about the world in rough places, gets
on perfectly well with two classes, what you may call the upper and the lower.
He understands them and they understand him. I was at home with herds and
tramps and roadmen, and I was sufficiently at my ease with people like Sir
Walter and the men I had met the night before. I can't explain why, but it
is a fact. But what fellows like me don't understand is the great comfortable,
satisfied middle-class world, the folk that live in villas and suburbs. He
doesn't know how they look at things, he doesn't understand their conventions,
and he is as shy of them as of a black mamba. When a trim parlour-maid opened
the door, I could hardly find my voice.
I asked for Mr Appleton, and was ushered in. My plan had been to walk straight
into the dining-room, and by a sudden appearance wake in the men that start
of recognition which would confirm my theory. But when I found myself in
that neat hall the place mastered me. There were the golf-clubs and
tennis-rackets, the straw hats and caps, the rows of gloves, the sheaf of
walking-sticks, which you will find in ten thousand British homes. A stack
of neatly folded coats and waterproofs covered the top of an old oak chest;
there was a grandfather clock ticking; and some polished brass warming-pans
on the walls, and a barometer, and a print of Chiltern winning the St Leger.
The place was as orthodox as an Anglican church. When the maid asked me for
my name I gave it automatically, and was shown into the smoking-room, on
the right side of the hall.
That room was even worse. I hadn't time to examine it, but I could see some
framed group photographs above the mantelpiece, and I could have sworn they
were English public school or college. I had only one glance, for I managed
to pull myself together and go after the maid. But I was too late. She had
already entered the dining-room and given my name to her master, and I had
missed the chance of seeing how the three took it.
When I walked into the room the old man at the head of the table had risen
and turned round to meet me. He was in evening dress - a short coat and black
tie, as was the other, whom I called in my own mind the plump one. The third,
the dark fellow, wore a blue serge suit and a soft white collar, and the
colours of some club or school.
The old man's manner was perfect. 'Mr Hannay?' he said hesitatingly. 'Did
you wish to see me? One moment, you fellows, and I'll rejoin you. We had
better go to the smoking-room.'
Though I hadn't an ounce of confidence in me, I forced myself to play the
game. I pulled up a chair and sat down on it.
'I think we have met before,' I said, 'and I guess you know my business.'
The light in the room was dim, but so far as I could see their faces, they
played the part of mystification very well.
'Maybe, maybe,' said the old man. 'I haven't a very good memory, but I'm
afraid you must tell me your errand, Sir, for I really don't know it.'
'Well, then,' I said, and all the time I seemed to myself to be talking pure
foolishness - 'I have come to tell you that the game's up. I have a warrant
for the arrest of you three gentlemen.'
'Arrest,' said the old man, and he looked really shocked. 'Arrest! Good God,
what for?'
'For the murder of Franklin Scudder in London on the 23rd day of last month.'
'I never heard the name before,' said the old man in a dazed voice.
One of the others spoke up. 'That was the Portland Place murder. I read about
it. Good heavens, you must be mad, Sir! Where do you come from?'
'Scotland Yard,' I said.
After that for a minute there was utter silence. The old man was staring
at his plate and fumbling with a nut, the very model of innocent bewilderment.
Then the plump one spoke up. He stammered a little, like a man picking his
words.
'Don't get flustered, uncle,' he said. 'It is all a ridiculous mistake; but
these things happen sometimes, and we can easily set it right. It won't be
hard to prove our innocence. I can show that I was out of the country on
the 23rd of May, and Bob was in a nursing home. You were in London, but you
can explain what you were doing.'
'Right, Percy! Of course that's easy enough. The 23rd! That was the day after
Agatha's wedding. Let me see. What was I doing? I came up in the morning
from Woking, and lunched at the club with Charlie Symons. Then - oh yes,
I dined with the Fishmongers. I remember, for the punch didn't agree with
me, and I was seedy next morning. Hang it all, there's the cigar-box I brought
back from the dinner.' He pointed to an object on the table, and laughed
nervously.
'I think, Sir,' said the young man, addressing me respectfully, 'you will
see you are mistaken. We want to assist the law like all Englishmen, and
we don't want Scotland Yard to be making fools of themselves. That's so,
uncle?'
'Certainly, Bob.' The old fellow seemed to be recovering his voice. 'Certainly,
we'll do anything in our power to assist the authorities. But - but this
is a bit too much. I can't get over it.'
'How Nellie will chuckle,' said the plump man. 'She always said that you
would die of boredom because nothing ever happened to you. And now you've
got it thick and strong,' and he began to laugh very pleasantly.
'By Jove, yes. just think of it! What a story to tell at the club. Really,
Mr Hannay, I suppose I should be angry, to show my innocence, but it's too
funny! I almost forgive you the fright you gave me! You looked so glum, I
thought I might have been walking in my sleep and killing people.'
It couldn't be acting, it was too confoundedly genuine. My heart went into
my boots, and my first impulse was to apologize and clear out. But I told
myself I must see it through, even though I was to be the laughing-stock
of Britain. The light from the dinner- table candlesticks was not very good,
and to cover my confusion I got up, walked to the door and switched on the
electric light. The sudden glare made them blink, and I stood scanning the
three faces.
Well, I made nothing of it. One was old and bald, one was stout, one was
dark and thin. There was nothing in their appearance to prevent them being
the three who had hunted me in Scotland, but there was nothing to identify
them. 1 simply can't explain why I who, as a roadman, had looked into two
pairs of eyes, and as Ned Ainslie into another pair, why I, who have a good
memory and reasonable powers of observation, could find no satisfaction.
They seemed exactly what they professed to be, and I could not have sworn
to one of them.
There in that pleasant dining-room, with etchings on the walls, and a picture
of an old lady in a bib above the mantelpiece, I could see nothing to connect
them with the moorland desperadoes. There was a silver cigarette-box beside
me, and I saw that it had been won by Percival Appleton, Esq., of the St
Bede's Club, in a golf tournament. I had to keep a firm hold of Peter Pienaar
to prevent myself bolting out of that house.
'Well,' said the old man politely, 'are you reassured by your scrutiny, Sir?'
I couldn't find a word.
'I hope you'll find it consistent with your duty to drop this ridiculous
business. I make no complaint, but you'll see how annoying it must be to
respectable people.'
I shook my head.
'O Lord,' said the young man. 'This is a bit too thick!'
'Do you propose to march us off to the police station?' asked the plump one.
'That might be the best way out of it, but I suppose you won't be content
with the local branch. I have the right to ask to see your warrant, but I
don't wish to cast any aspersions upon you. You are only doing your duty.
But you'll admit it's horribly awkward. What do you propose to do?'
There was nothing to do except to call in my men and have them arrested,
or to confess my blunder and clear out. I felt mesmerized by the whole place,
by the air of obvious innocence - not innocence merely, but frank honest
bewilderment and concern in the three faces.
'Oh, Peter Pienaar,' I groaned inwardly, and for a moment I was very near
damning myself for a fool and asking their pardon.
'Meantime I vote we have a game of bridge,' said the plump one. 'It will
give Mr Hannay time to think over things, and you know we have been wanting
a fourth player. Do you play, Sir?'
I accepted as if it had been an ordinary invitation at the club. The whole
business had mesmerized me. We went into the smoking-room where a card-table
was set out, and I was offered things to smoke and drink. I took my place
at the table in a kind of dream. The window was open and the moon was flooding
the cliffs and sea with a great tide of yellow light. There was moonshine,
too, in my head. The three had recovered their composure, and were talking
easily - just the kind of slangy talk you will hear in any golf club-house.
I must have cut a rum figure, sitting there knitting my brows with my eyes
wandering.
My partner was the young dark one. I play a fair hand at bridge, but I must
have been rank bad that night. They saw that they had got me puzzled, and
that put them more than ever at their ease. I kept looking at their faces,
but they conveyed nothing to me. It was not that they looked different; they
were different. I clung desperately to the words of Peter Pienaar.
Then something awoke me.
The old man laid down his hand to light a cigar. He didn't pick it up at
once, but sat back for a moment in his chair, with his fingers tapping on
his knees.
It was the movement I remembered when I had stood before him in the moorland
farm, with the pistols of his servants behind me.
A little thing, lasting only a second, and the odds were a thousand to one
that I might have had my eyes on my cards at the time and missed it. But
I didn't, and, in a flash, the air seemed to clear. Some shadow lifted from
my brain, and I was looking at the three men with full and absolute recognition.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten o'clock.
The three faces seemed to change before my eyes and reveal their secrets.
The young one was the murderer. Now I saw cruelty and ruthlessness, where
before I had only seen good-humour. His knife, I made certain, had skewered
Scudder to the floor. His kind had put the bullet in Karolides.
The plump man's features seemed to dislimn, and form again, as I looked at
them. He hadn't a face, only a hundred masks that he could assume when he
pleased. That chap must have been a superb actor. Perhaps he had been Lord
Alloa of the night before; perhaps not; it didn't matter. I wondered if he
was the fellow who had first tracked Scudder, and left his card on him. Scudder
had said he lisped, and I could imagine how the adoption of a lisp might
add terror.
But the old man was the pick of the lot. He was sheer brain, icy, cool,
calculating, as ruthless as a steam hammer. Now that my eyes were opened
I wondered where I had seen the benevolence. His jaw was like chilled steel,
and his eyes had the inhuman luminosity of a bird's. I went on playing, and
every second a greater hate welled up in my heart. It almost choked me, and
I couldn't answer when my partner spoke. Only a little longer could I endure
their company.
'Whew! Bob! Look at the time,' said the old man. 'You'd better think about
catching your train. Bob's got to go to town tonight,' he added, turning
to me. The voice rang now as false as hell. I looked at the clock, and it
was nearly half-past ten.
'I am afraid he must put off his journey,' I said.
'Oh, damn,' said the young man. 'I thought you had dropped that rot. I've
simply got to go. You can have my address, and I'll give any security you
like.'
'No,' I said, 'you must stay.'
At that I think they must have realized that the game was desperate. Their
only chance had been to convince me that I was playing the fool, and that
had failed. But the old man spoke again.
'I'll go bail for my nephew. That ought to content you, Mr Hannay.' Was it
fancy, or did I detect some halt in the smoothness of that voice?
There must have been, for as I glanced at him, his eyelids fell in that hawk-like
hood which fear had stamped on my memory.
I blew my whistle.
In an instant the lights were out. A pair of strong arms gripped me round
the waist, covering the pockets in which a man might be expected to carry
a pistol.
'SCHNELL, FRANZ,' cried a voice, 'DAS BOOT, DAS BOOT!' As it spoke I saw
two of my fellows emerge on the moonlit lawn. The young dark man leapt for
the window, was through it, and over the low fence before a hand could touch
him. I grappled the old chap, and the room seemed to fill with figures. I
saw the plump one collared, but my eyes were all for the out-of-doors, where
Franz sped on over the road towards the railed entrance to the beach stairs.
One man followed him, but he had no chance. The gate of the stairs locked
behind the fugitive, and I stood staring, with my hands on the old boy's
throat, for such a time as a man might take to descend those steps to the
sea.
Suddenly my prisoner broke from me and flung himself on the wall. There was
a click as if a lever had been pulled. Then came a low rumbling far, far
below the ground, and through the window I saw a cloud of chalky dust pouring
out of the shaft of the stairway.
Someone switched on the light.
The old man was looking at me with blazing eyes.
'He is safe,' he cried. 'You cannot follow in time ... He is gone ... He
has triumphed ... DER SCHWARZE STEIN IST IN DER SIEGESKRONE.'
There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had been hooded
like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk's pride. A white fanatic
heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time the terrible thing
I had been up against. This man was more than a spy; in his foul way he had
been a patriot.
As the handcuffs clinked on his wrists I said my last word to him.
'I hope Franz will bear his triumph well. I ought to tell you that the ARIADNE
for the last hour has been in our hands.'
Three weeks later, as all the world knows, we went to war. I joined the New
Army the first week, and owing to my Matabele experience got a captain's
commission straight off. But I had done my best service, I think, before
I put on khaki.
The End |
