第 13 页

free man, able to go where I wanted without fearing anything. I

had only been a month under the ban of the law, and it was quite

enough for me. I went to the Savoy and ordered very carefully a

very good luncheon, and then smoked the best cigar the house

could provide. But I was still feeling nervous. When I saw anybody

look at me in the lounge, I grew shy, and wondered if they were

thinking about the murder.

After that I took a taxi and drove miles away up into North

London. I walked back through fields and lines of villas and terraces

and then slums and mean streets, and it took me pretty nearly two

hours. All the while my restlessness was growing worse. I felt that

great things, tremendous things, were happening or about to

happen, and I, who was the cog-wheel of the whole business, was

out of it. Royer would be landing at Dover, Sir Walter would be

making plans with the few people in England who were in the

secret, and somewhere in the darkness the Black Stone would be

working. I felt the sense of danger and impending calamity, and I

had the curious feeling, too, that I alone could avert it, alone could

grapple with it. But I was out of the game now. How could it be

otherwise? It was not likely that Cabinet Ministers and Admiralty

Lords and Generals would admit me to their councils.

I actually began to wish that I could run up against one of my

three enemies. That would lead to developments. I felt that I

wanted enormously to have a vulgar scrap with those gentry, where

I could hit out and flatten something. I was rapidly getting into a

very bad temper.

I didn't feel like going back to my flat. That had to be faced

some time, but as I still had sufficient money I thought I would put

it off till next morning, and go to a hotel for the night.

My irritation lasted through dinner, which I had at a restaurant

in Jermyn Street. I was no longer hungry, and let several courses

pass untasted. I drank the best part of a bottle of Burgundy, but it

did nothing to cheer me. An abominable restlessness had taken

possession of me. Here was I, a very ordinary fellow, with no

particular brains, and yet I was convinced that somehow I was

needed to help this business through - that without me it would all

go to blazes. I told myself it was sheer silly conceit, that four or

five of the cleverest people living, with all the might of the British

Empire at their back, had the job in hand. Yet I couldn't be

convinced. It seemed as if a voice kept speaking in my ear, telling

me to be up and doing, or I would never sleep again.

The upshot was that about half-past nine I made up my mind to

go to Queen Anne's Gate. Very likely I would not be admitted, but

it would ease my conscience to try.

I walked down Jermyn Street, and at the corner of Duke Street

passed a group of young men. They were in evening dress, had

been dining somewhere, and were going on to a music-hall. One of

them was Mr Marmaduke jopley.

He saw me and stopped short.

'By God, the murderer!' he cried. 'Here, you fellows, hold him!

That's Hannay, the man who did the Portland Place murder!' He

gripped me by the arm, and the others crowded round.

I wasn't looking for any trouble, but my ill-temper made me play

the fool. A policeman came up, and I should have told him the

truth, and, if he didn't believe it, demanded to be taken to Scotland

Yard, or for that matter to the nearest police station. But a delay at

that moment seemed to me unendurable, and the sight of Marmie's

imbecile face was more than I could bear. I let out with my left,

and had the satisfaction of seeing him measure his length in the

gutter.

Then began an unholy row. They were all on me at once, and

the policeman took me in the rear. I got in one or two good blows,

for I think, with fair play, I could have licked the lot of them, but

the policeman pinned me behind, and one of them got his fingers

on my throat.

Through a black cloud of rage I heard the officer of the law

asking what was the matter, and Marmie, between his broken teeth,

declaring that I was Hannay the murderer.

'Oh, damn it all,' I cried, 'make the fellow shut up. I advise you

to leave me alone, constable. Scotland Yard knows all about me,

and you'll get a proper wigging if you interfere with me.'

'You've got to come along of me, young man,' said the policeman.

'I saw you strike that gentleman crool 'ard. You began it too,

for he wasn't doing nothing. I seen you. Best go quietly or I'll have

to fix you up.'

Exasperation and an overwhelming sense that at no cost must I

delay gave me the strength of a bull elephant. I fairly wrenched the

constable off his feet, floored the man who was gripping my collar,

and set off at my best pace down Duke Street. I heard a whistle

being blown, and the rush of men behind me.

I have a very fair turn of speed, and that night I had wings. In a

jiffy I was in Pall Mall and had turned down towards St James's

Park. I dodged the policeman at the Palace gates, dived through a

press of carriages at the entrance to the Mall, and was making for

the bridge before my pursuers had crossed the roadway. In the

open ways of the Park I put on a spurt. Happily there were few

people about and no one tried to stop me. I was staking all on

getting to Queen Anne's Gate.

When I entered that quiet thoroughfare it seemed deserted. Sir

Walter's house was in the narrow part, and outside it three or four

motor-cars were drawn up. I slackened speed some yards off and

walked briskly up to the door. If the butler refused me admission,

or if he even delayed to open the door, I was done.

He didn't delay. I had scarcely rung before the door opened.

'I must see Sir Walter,' I panted. 'My business is desperately

important.'

That butler was a great man. Without moving a muscle he held

the door open, and then shut it behind me. 'Sir Walter is engaged,

Sir, and I have orders to admit no one. Perhaps you will wait.'

The house was of the old-fashioned kind, with a wide hall and

rooms on both sides of it. At the far end was an alcove with a

telephone and a couple of chairs, and there the butler offered me a seat.

'See here,' I whispered. 'There's trouble about and I'm in it. But

Sir Walter knows, and I'm working for him. If anyone comes and

asks if I am here, tell him a lie.'

He nodded, and presently there was a noise of voices in the

street, and a furious ringing at the bell. I never admired a man

more than that butler. He opened the door, and with a face like a

graven image waited to be questioned. Then he gave them it. He

told them whose house it was, and what his orders were, and

simply froze them off the doorstep. I could see it all from my

alcove, and it was better than any play.

I hadn't waited long till there came another ring at the bell. The

butler made no bones about admitting this new visitor.

While he was taking off his coat I saw who it was. You couldn't

open a newspaper or a magazine without seeing that face - the grey

beard cut like a spade, the firm fighting mouth, the blunt square

nose, and the keen blue eyes. I recognized the First Sea Lord, the

man, they say, that made the new British Navy.

He passed my alcove and was ushered into a room at the back of

the hall. As the door opened I could hear the sound of low voices.

It shut, and I was left alone again.

For twenty minutes I sat there, wondering what I was to do

next. I was still perfectly convinced that I was wanted, but when or

how I had no notion. I kept looking at my watch, and as the time

crept on to half-past ten I began to think that the conference must

soon end. In a quarter of an hour Royer should be speeding along

the road to Portsmouth ...

Then I heard a bell ring, and the butler appeared. The door of

the back room opened, and the First Sea Lord came out. He walked

past me, and in passing he glanced in my direction, and for a

second we looked each other in the face.

Only for a second, but it was enough to make my heart jump. I

had never seen the great man before, and he had never seen me.

But in that fraction of time something sprang into his eyes, and that

something was recognition. You can't mistake it. It is a flicker, a

spark of light, a minute shade of difference which means one thing

and one thing only. It came involuntarily, for in a moment it died,

and he passed on. In a maze of wild fancies I heard the street door

close behind him.

I picked up the telephone book and looked up the number of his

house. We were connected at once, and I heard a servant's voice.

'Is his Lordship at home?' I asked.

'His Lordship returned half an hour ago,' said the voice, 'and has

gone to bed. He is not very well tonight. Will you leave a

message, Sir?'

I rang off and almost tumbled into a chair. My part in this

business was not yet ended. It had been a close shave, but I had

been in time.

Not a moment could be lost, so I marched boldly to the door of

that back room and entered without knocking.

Five surprised faces looked up from a round table. There was

Sir Walter, and Drew the War Minister, whom I knew from his

photographs. There was a slim elderly man, who was probably

Whittaker, the Admiralty official, and there was General WinStanley,

conspicuous from the long scar on his forehead. Lastly,

there was a short stout man with an iron-grey moustache and

bushy eyebrows, who had been arrested in the middle of a sentence.

Sir Walter's face showed surprise and annoyance.

'This is Mr Hannay, of whom I have spoken to you,' he said

apologetically to the company. 'I'm afraid, Hannay, this visit

is ill-timed.'

I was getting back my coolness. 'That remains to be seen, Sir,' I

said; 'but I think it may be in the nick of time. For God's sake,

gentlemen, tell me who went out a minute ago?'

'Lord Alloa,' Sir Walter said, reddening with anger.

'It was not,' I cried; 'it was his living image, but it was not Lord

Alloa. It was someone who recognized me, someone I have seen in

the last month. He had scarcely left the doorstep when I rang up

Lord Alloa's house and was told he had come in half an hour

before and had gone to bed.'

'Who - who -' someone stammered.

'The Black Stone,' I cried, and I sat down in the chair so recently

vacated and looked round at five badly scared gentlemen.

CHAPTER NINE

The Thirty-Nine Steps

'Nonsense!' said the official from the Admiralty.

Sir Walter got up and left the room while we looked blankly at

the table. He came back in ten minutes with a long face. 'I have

spoken to Alloa,' he said. 'Had him out of bed - very grumpy. He

went straight home after Mulross's dinner.'

'But it's madness,' broke in General Winstanley. 'Do you mean

to tell me that that man came here and sat beside me for the best

part of half an hour and that I didn't detect the imposture? Alloa

must be out of his mind.'

'Don't you see the cleverness of it?' I said. 'You were too

interested in other things to have any eyes. You took Lord Alloa for

granted. If it had been anybody else you might have looked more

closely, but it was natural for him to be here, and that put you all

to sleep.'

Then the Frenchman spoke, very slowly and in good English.

'The young man is right. His psychology is good. Our enemies

have not been foolish!'

He bent his wise brows on the assembly.

'I will tell you a tale,' he said. 'It happened many years ago in

Senegal. I was quartered in a remote station, and to pass the time

used to go fishing for big barbel in the river. A little Arab mare

used to carry my luncheon basket - one of the salted dun breed you

got at Timbuctoo in the old days. Well, one morning I had good

sport, and the mare was unaccountably restless. I could hear her

whinnying and squealing and stamping her feet, and I kept soothing

her with my voice while my mind was intent on fish. I could see

her all the time, as I thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered

to a tree twenty yards away. After a couple of hours I began to

think of food. I collected my fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved

down the stream towards the mare, trolling my line. When I got up

to her I flung the tarpaulin on her back -'

He paused and looked round.

'It was the smell that gave me warning. I turned my head and

found myself looking at a lion three feet off ... An old man-eater,

that was the terror of the village ... What was left of the mare, a

mass of blood and bones and hide, was behind him.'

'What happened?' I asked. I was enough of a hunter to know a

true yarn when I heard it.

'I stuffed my fishing-rod into his jaws, and I had a pistol. Also

my servants came presently with rifles. But he left his mark on me.'

He held up a hand which lacked three fingers.

'Consider,' he said. 'The mare had been dead more than an hour,

and the brute had been patiently watching me ever since. I never

saw the kill, for I was accustomed to the mare's fretting, and I

never marked her absence, for my consciousness of her was only of

something tawny, and the lion filled that part. If I could blunder

thus, gentlemen, in a land where men's senses are keen, why should

we busy preoccupied urban folk not err also?'

Sir Walter nodded. No one was ready to gainsay him.

'But I don't see,' went on Winstanley. 'Their object was to get

these dispositions without our knowing it. Now it only required

one of us to mention to Alloa our meeting tonight for the whole

fraud to be exposed.'

Sir Walter laughed dryly. 'The selection of Alloa shows their