บทที่ บทที่ 7 · Chapter VII The Dry-Fly Fisherman

. Chapter VII The Dry-Fly Fisherman

I sat down on a hill-top and took stock of my position. I wasn’t

feeling very happy, for my natural thankfulness at my escape was

clouded by my severe bodily discomfort. Those lentonite fumes had

fairly poisoned me, and the baking hours on the dovecot hadn’t helped

matters. I had a crushing headache, and felt as sick as a cat. Also my

shoulder was in a bad way. At first I thought it was only a bruise, but

it seemed to be swelling, and I had no use of my left arm.

My plan was to seek Mr Turnbull’s cottage, recover my garments, and

especially Scudder’s note-book, and then make for the main line and get

back to the south. It seemed to me that the sooner I got in touch with

the Foreign Office man, Sir Walter Bullivant, the better. I didn’t see

how I could get more proof than I had got already. He must just take or

leave my story, and anyway, with him I would be in better hands than

those devilish Germans. I had begun to feel quite kindly towards the

British police.

It was a wonderful starry night, and I had not much difficulty about

the road. Sir Harry’s map had given me the lie of the land, and all I

had to do was to steer a point or two west of south-west to come to the

stream where I had met the roadman. In all these travels I never knew

the names of the places, but I believe this stream was no less than the

upper waters of the river Tweed. I calculated I must be about eighteen

miles distant, and that meant I could not get there before morning. So

I must lie up a day somewhere, for I was too outrageous a figure to be

seen in the sunlight. I had neither coat, waistcoat, collar, nor hat,

my trousers were badly torn, and my face and hands were black with the

explosion. I daresay I had other beauties, for my eyes felt as if they

were furiously bloodshot. Altogether I was no spectacle for God-fearing

citizens to see on a highroad.

Very soon after daybreak I made an attempt to clean myself in a hill

burn, and then approached a herd’s cottage, for I was feeling the need

of food. The herd was away from home, and his wife was alone, with no

neighbour for five miles. She was a decent old body, and a plucky one,

for though she got a fright when she saw me, she had an axe handy, and

would have used it on any evil-doer. I told her that I had had a fall—I

didn’t say how—and she saw by my looks that I was pretty sick. Like a

true Samaritan she asked no questions, but gave me a bowl of milk with

a dash of whisky in it, and let me sit for a little by her kitchen

fire. She would have bathed my shoulder, but it ached so badly that I

would not let her touch it.

I don’t know what she took me for—a repentant burglar, perhaps; for

when I wanted to pay her for the milk and tendered a sovereign which

was the smallest coin I had, she shook her head and said something

about “giving it to them that had a right to it”. At this I protested

so strongly that I think she believed me honest, for she took the money

and gave me a warm new plaid for it, and an old hat of her man’s. She

showed me how to wrap the plaid around my shoulders, and when I left

that cottage I was the living image of the kind of Scotsman you see in

the illustrations to Burns’s poems. But at any rate I was more or less

clad.

It was as well, for the weather changed before midday to a thick

drizzle of rain. I found shelter below an overhanging rock in the crook

of a burn, where a drift of dead brackens made a tolerable bed. There I

managed to sleep till nightfall, waking very cramped and wretched, with

my shoulder gnawing like a toothache. I ate the oatcake and cheese the

old wife had given me and set out again just before the darkening.

I pass over the miseries of that night among the wet hills. There were

no stars to steer by, and I had to do the best I could from my memory

of the map. Twice I lost my way, and I had some nasty falls into

peat-bogs. I had only about ten miles to go as the crow flies, but my

mistakes made it nearer twenty. The last bit was completed with set

teeth and a very light and dizzy head. But I managed it, and in the

early dawn I was knocking at Mr Turnbull’s door. The mist lay close and

thick, and from the cottage I could not see the highroad.

Mr Turnbull himself opened to me—sober and something more than sober.

He was primly dressed in an ancient but well-tended suit of black; he

had been shaved not later than the night before; he wore a linen

collar; and in his left hand he carried a pocket Bible. At first he did

not recognize me.

“Whae are ye that comes stravaigin’ here on the Sabbath mornin’?” he

asked.

I had lost all count of the days. So the Sabbath was the reason for

this strange decorum.

My head was swimming so wildly that I could not frame a coherent

answer. But he recognized me, and he saw that I was ill.

“Hae ye got my specs?” he asked.

I fetched them out of my trouser pocket and gave him them.

“Ye’ll hae come for your jaicket and westcoat,” he said. “Come in-bye.

Losh, man, ye’re terrible dune i’ the legs. Haud up till I get ye to a

chair.”

I perceived I was in for a bout of malaria. I had a good deal of fever

in my bones, and the wet night had brought it out, while my shoulder

and the effects of the fumes combined to make me feel pretty bad.

Before I knew, Mr Turnbull was helping me off with my clothes, and

putting me to bed in one of the two cupboards that lined the kitchen

walls.

He was a true friend in need, that old roadman. His wife was dead years

ago, and since his daughter’s marriage he lived alone.

For the better part of ten days he did all the rough nursing I needed.

I simply wanted to be left in peace while the fever took its course,

and when my skin was cool again I found that the bout had more or less

cured my shoulder. But it was a baddish go, and though I was out of bed

in five days, it took me some time to get my legs again.

He went out each morning, leaving me milk for the day, and locking the

door behind him; and came in in the evening to sit silent in the

chimney corner. Not a soul came near the place. When I was getting

better, he never bothered me with a question. Several times he fetched

me a two days’ old _Scotsman_, and I noticed that the interest in the

Portland Place murder seemed to have died down. There was no mention of

it, and I could find very little about anything except a thing called

the General Assembly—some ecclesiastical spree, I gathered.

One day he produced my belt from a lockfast drawer. “There’s a terrible

heap o’ siller in’t,” he said. “Ye’d better coont it to see it’s a’

there.”

He never even sought my name. I asked him if anybody had been around

making inquiries subsequent to my spell at the road-making.

“Ay, there was a man in a motor-cawr. He speired whae had ta’en my

place that day, and I let on I thocht him daft. But he keepit on at me,

and syne I said he maun be thinkin’ o’ my gude-brither frae the Cleuch

that whiles lent me a haun’. He was a wersh-lookin’ sowl, and I couldna

understand the half o’ his English tongue.”

I was getting restless those last days, and as soon as I felt myself

fit I decided to be off. That was not till the twelfth day of June, and

as luck would have it a drover went past that morning taking some

cattle to Moffat. He was a man named Hislop, a friend of Turnbull’s,

and he came in to his breakfast with us and offered to take me with

him.

I made Turnbull accept five pounds for my lodging, and a hard job I had

of it. There never was a more independent being. He grew positively

rude when I pressed him, and shy and red, and took the money at last

without a thank you. When I told him how much I owed him, he grunted

something about “ae guid turn deservin’ anitherv” You would have

thought from our leave-taking that we had parted in disgust.

Hislop was a cheery soul, who chattered all the way over the pass and

down the sunny vale of Annan. I talked of Galloway markets and sheep

prices, and he made up his mind I was a “pack-shepherd” from those

parts—whatever that may be. My plaid and my old hat, as I have said,

gave me a fine theatrical Scots look. But driving cattle is a mortally

slow job, and we took the better part of the day to cover a dozen

miles.

If I had not had such an anxious heart I would have enjoyed that time.

It was shining blue weather, with a constantly changing prospect of

brown hills and far green meadows, and a continual sound of larks and

curlews and falling streams. But I had no mind for the summer, and

little for Hislop’s conversation, for as the fateful fifteenth of June

drew near I was overweighed with the hopeless difficulties of my

enterprise.

I got some dinner in a humble Moffat public-house, and walked the two

miles to the junction on the main line. The night express for the south

was not due till near midnight, and to fill up the time I went up on

the hillside and fell asleep, for the walk had tired me. I all but

slept too long, and had to run to the station and catch the train with

two minutes to spare. The feel of the hard third-class cushions and the

smell of stale tobacco cheered me up wonderfully. At any rate, I felt

now that I was getting to grips with my job.

I was decanted at Crewe in the small hours and had to wait till six to

get a train for Birmingham. In the afternoon I got to Reading, and

changed into a local train which journeyed into the deeps of Berkshire.

Presently I was in a land of lush water-meadows and slow reedy streams.

About eight o’clock in the evening, a weary and travel-stained being—a

cross between a farm-labourer and a vet—with a checked black-and-white

plaid over his arm (for I did not dare to wear it south of the Border),

descended at the little station of Artinswell. There were several

people on the platform, and I thought I had better wait to ask my way

till I was clear of the place.

The road led through a wood of great beeches and then into a shallow

valley, with the green backs of downs peeping over the distant trees.

After Scotland the air smelt heavy and flat, but infinitely sweet, for

the limes and chestnuts and lilac bushes were domes of blossom.

Presently I came to a bridge, below which a clear slow stream flowed

between snowy beds of water-buttercups. A little above it was a mill;

and the lasher made a pleasant cool sound in the scented dusk. Somehow

the place soothed me and put me at my ease. I fell to whistling as I

looked into the green depths, and the tune which came to my lips was

“Annie Laurie”.

A fisherman came up from the waterside, and as he neared me he too

began to whistle. The tune was infectious, for he followed my suit. He

was a huge man in untidy old flannels and a wide-brimmed hat, with a

canvas bag slung on his shoulder. He nodded to me, and I thought I had

never seen a shrewder or better-tempered face. He leaned his delicate

ten-foot split-cane rod against the bridge, and looked with me at the

water.

“Clear, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly. “I back our Kennet any day

against the Test. Look at that big fellow. Four pounds if he’s an

ounce. But the evening rise is over and you can’t tempt ’em.”

“I don’t see him,” said I.

“Look! There! A yard from the reeds just above that stickle.”

“I’ve got him now. You might swear he was a black stone.”

“So,” he said, and whistled another bar of “Annie Laurie”.

“Twisdon’s the name, isn’t it?” he said over his shoulder, his eyes

still fixed on the stream.

“No,” I said. “I mean to say, Yes.” I had forgotten all about my

_alias_.

“It’s a wise conspirator that knows his own name,” he observed,

grinning broadly at a moor-hen that emerged from the bridge’s shadow.

I stood up and looked at him, at the square, cleft jaw and broad, lined

brow and the firm folds of cheek, and began to think that here at last

was an ally worth having. His whimsical blue eyes seemed to go very

deep.

Suddenly he frowned. “I call it disgraceful,” he said, raising his

voice. “Disgraceful that an able-bodied man like you should dare to

beg. You can get a meal from my kitchen, but you’ll get no money from

me.”

A dog-cart was passing, driven by a young man who raised his whip to

salute the fisherman. When he had gone, he picked up his rod.

“That’s my house,” he said, pointing to a white gate a hundred yards

on. “Wait five minutes and then go round to the back door.” And with

that he left me.

I did as I was bidden. I found a pretty cottage with a lawn running

down to the stream, and a perfect jungle of guelder-rose and lilac

flanking the path. The back door stood open, and a grave butler was

awaiting me.

“Come this way, sir,” he said, and he led me along a passage and up a

back staircase to a pleasant bedroom looking towards the river. There I

found a complete outfit laid out for me—dress clothes with all the

fixings, a brown flannel suit, shirts, collars, ties, shaving things

and hair-brushes, even a pair of patent shoes. “Sir Walter thought as

how Mr Reggie’s things would fit you, sir,” said the butler. “He keeps

some clothes ’ere, for he comes regular on the week-ends. There’s a

bathroom next door, and I’ve prepared a ’ot bath. Dinner in ’alf an

hour, sir. You’ll ’ear the gong.”

The grave being withdrew, and I sat down in a chintz-covered easy-chair

and gaped. It was like a pantomime, to come suddenly out of beggardom

into this orderly comfort. Obviously Sir Walter believed in me, though

why he did I could not guess. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw

a wild, haggard brown fellow, with a fortnight’s ragged beard, and dust

in ears and eyes, collarless, vulgarly shirted, with shapeless old

tweed clothes and boots that had not been cleaned for the better part

of a month. I made a fine tramp and a fair drover; and here I was

ushered by a prim butler into this temple of gracious ease. And the

best of it was that they did not even know my name.

I resolved not to puzzle my head but to take the gifts the gods had

provided. I shaved and bathed luxuriously, and got into the dress

clothes and clean crackling shirt, which fitted me not so badly. By the

time I had finished the looking-glass showed a not unpersonable young

man.

Sir Walter awaited me in a dusky dining-room where a little round table

was lit with silver candles. The sight of him—so respectable and

established and secure, the embodiment of law and government and all

the conventions—took me aback and made me feel an interloper. He

couldn’t know the truth about me, or he wouldn’t treat me like this. I

simply could not accept his hospitality on false pretences.

“I’m more obliged to you than I can say, but I’m bound to make things

clear,” I said. “I’m an innocent man, but I’m wanted by the police.

I’ve got to tell you this, and I won’t be surprised if you kick me

out.”

He smiled. “That’s all right. Don’t let that interfere with your

appetite. We can talk about these things after dinner.” I never ate a

meal with greater relish, for I had had nothing all day but railway

sandwiches. Sir Walter did me proud, for we drank a good champagne and

had some uncommon fine port afterwards. It made me almost hysterical to

be sitting there, waited on by a footman and a sleek butler, and

remember that I had been living for three weeks like a brigand, with

every man’s hand against me. I told Sir Walter about tiger-fish in the

Zambesi that bite off your fingers if you give them a chance, and we

discussed sport up and down the globe, for he had hunted a bit in his

day.

We went to his study for coffee, a jolly room full of books and

trophies and untidiness and comfort. I made up my mind that if ever I

got rid of this business and had a house of my own, I would create just

such a room. Then when the coffee-cups were cleared away, and we had

got our cigars alight, my host swung his long legs over the side of his

chair and bade me get started with my yarn.

“I’ve obeyed Harry’s instructions,” he said, “and the bribe he offered

me was that you would tell me something to wake me up. I’m ready, Mr

Hannay.”

I noticed with a start that he called me by my proper name.

I began at the very beginning. I told of my boredom in London, and the

night I had come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep. I told

him all Scudder had told me about Karolides and the Foreign Office

conference, and that made him purse his lips and grin.

Then I got to the murder, and he grew solemn again. He heard all about

the milkman and my time in Galloway, and my deciphering Scudder’s notes

at the inn.

“You’ve got them here?” he asked sharply, and drew a long breath when I

whipped the little book from my pocket.

I said nothing of the contents. Then I described my meeting with Sir

Harry, and the speeches at the hall. At that he laughed uproariously.

“Harry talked dashed nonsense, did he? I quite believe it. He’s as good

a chap as ever breathed, but his idiot of an uncle has stuffed his head

with maggots. Go on, Mr Hannay.”

My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two

fellows in the car very closely, and seemed to be raking back in his

memory. He grew merry again when he heard of the fate of that ass

Jopley.

But the old man in the moorland house solemnized him. Again I had to

describe every detail of his appearance.

“Bland and bald-headed and hooded his eyes like a bird.... He sounds a

sinister wild-fowl! And you dynamited his hermitage, after he had saved

you from the police. Spirited piece of work, that!” Presently I reached

the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly, and looked down at me from

the hearthrug.

“You may dismiss the police from your mind,” he said. “You’re in no

danger from the law of this land.”

“Great Scot!” I cried. “Have they got the murderer?”

“No. But for the last fortnight they have dropped you from the list of

possibles.”

“Why?” I asked in amazement.

“Principally because I received a letter from Scudder. I knew something

of the man, and he did several jobs for me. He was half crank, half

genius, but he was wholly honest. The trouble about him was his

partiality for playing a lone hand. That made him pretty well useless

in any Secret Service—a pity, for he had uncommon gifts. I think he was

the bravest man in the world, for he was always shivering with fright,

and yet nothing would choke him off. I had a letter from him on the

31st of May.”

“But he had been dead a week by then.”

“The letter was written and posted on the 23rd. He evidently did not

anticipate an immediate decease. His communications usually took a week

to reach me, for they were sent under cover to Spain and then to

Newcastle. He had a mania, you know, for concealing his tracks.”

“What did he say?” I stammered.

“Nothing. Merely that he was in danger, but had found shelter with a

good friend, and that I would hear from him before the 15th of June. He

gave me no address, but said he was living near Portland Place. I think

his object was to clear you if anything happened. When I got it I went

to Scotland Yard, went over the details of the inquest, and concluded

that you were the friend. We made inquiries about you, Mr Hannay, and

found you were respectable. I thought I knew the motives for your

disappearance—not only the police, the other one too—and when I got

Harry’s scrawl I guessed at the rest. I have been expecting you any

time this past week.”

You can imagine what a load this took off my mind. I felt a free man

once more, for I was now up against my country’s enemies only, and not

my country’s law.

“Now let us have the little note-book,” said Sir Walter.

It took us a good hour to work through it. I explained the cypher, and

he was jolly quick at picking it up. He emended my reading of it on

several points, but I had been fairly correct, on the whole. His face

was very grave before he had finished, and he sat silent for a while.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” he said at last. “He is right about

one thing—what is going to happen the day after tomorrow. How the devil

can it have got known? That is ugly enough in itself. But all this

about war and the Black Stone—it reads like some wild melodrama. If

only I had more confidence in Scudder’s judgement. The trouble about

him was that he was too romantic. He had the artistic temperament, and

wanted a story to be better than God meant it to be. He had a lot of

odd biases, too. Jews, for example, made him see red. Jews and the high

finance.

“The Black Stone,” he repeated. “_Der Schwarze Stein_. It’s like a

penny novelette. And all this stuff about Karolides. That is the weak

part of the tale, for I happen to know that the virtuous Karolides is

likely to outlast us both. There is no State in Europe that wants him

gone. Besides, he has just been playing up to Berlin and Vienna and

giving my Chief some uneasy moments. No! Scudder has gone off the track

there. Frankly, Hannay, I don’t believe that part of his story. There’s

some nasty business afoot, and he found out too much and lost his life

over it. But I am ready to take my oath that it is ordinary spy work. A

certain great European Power makes a hobby of her spy system, and her

methods are not too particular. Since she pays by piecework her

blackguards are not likely to stick at a murder or two. They want our

naval dispositions for their collection at the Marineamt; but they will

be pigeon-holed—nothing more.”

Just then the butler entered the room.

“There’s a trunk-call from London, Sir Walter. It’s Mr ’Eath, and he

wants to speak to you personally.”

My host went off to the telephone.

He returned in five minutes with a whitish face. “I apologize to the

shade of Scudder,” he said. “Karolides was shot dead this evening at a

few minutes after seven.”