第 7 页

Scudder, and the milkman, and the note-book, and my doings in

Galloway. Presently he got very excited and walked up and down

the hearth-rug.

'So you see,' I concluded, 'you have got here in your house the

man that is wanted for the Portland Place murder. Your duty is to

send your car for the police and give me up. I don't think I'll get

very far. There'll be an accident, and I'll have a knife in my ribs an

hour or so after arrest. Nevertheless, it's your duty, as a law-abiding

citizen. Perhaps in a month's time you'll be sorry, but you have no

cause to think of that.'

He was looking at me with bright steady eyes. 'What was your

job in Rhodesia, Mr Hannay?' he asked.

'Mining engineer,' I said. 'I've made my pile cleanly and I've had

a good time in the making of it.'

'Not a profession that weakens the nerves, is it?'

I laughed. 'Oh, as to that, my nerves are good enough.' I took

down a hunting-knife from a stand on the wall, and did the old

Mashona trick of tossing it and catching it in my lips. That wants a

pretty steady heart.

He watched me with a smile. 'I don't want proof. I may be an ass

on the platform, but I can size up a man. You're no murderer and

you're no fool, and I believe you are speaking the truth. I'm going

to back you up. Now, what can I do?'

'First, I want you to write a letter to your uncle. I've got to get

in touch with the Government people sometime before the 15th of June.'

He pulled his moustache. 'That won't help you. This is Foreign

Office business, and my uncle would have nothing to do with it.

Besides, you'd never convince him. No, I'll go one better. I'll write

to the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office. He's my godfather,

and one of the best going. What do you want?'

He sat down at a table and wrote to my dictation. The gist of it

was that if a man called Twisdon (I thought I had better stick to

that name) turned up before June 15th he was to entreat him

kindly. He said Twisdon would prove his bona fides by passing the

word 'Black Stone' and whistling 'Annie Laurie'.

'Good,' said Sir Harry. 'That's the proper style. By the way,

you'll find my godfather - his name's Sir Walter Bullivant - down

at his country cottage for Whitsuntide. It's close to Artinswell on

the Kenner. That's done. Now, what's the next thing?'

'You're about my height. Lend me the oldest tweed suit you've

got. Anything will do, so long as the colour is the opposite of the

clothes I destroyed this afternoon. Then show me a map of the

neighbourhood and explain to me the lie of the land. Lastly, if

the police come seeking me, just show them the car in the glen. If

the other lot turn up, tell them I caught the south express after your

meeting.'

He did, or promised to do, all these things. I shaved off the

remnants of my moustache, and got inside an ancient suit of what I

believe is called heather mixture. The map gave me some notion of

my whereabouts, and told me the two things I wanted to know -

where the main railway to the south could be joined and what were

the wildest districts near at hand.

At two o'clock he wakened me from my slumbers in the

smoking-room armchair, and led me blinking into the dark starry

night. An old bicycle was found in a tool-shed and handed over to me.

'First turn to the right up by the long fir-wood,' he enjoined. 'By

daybreak you'll be well into the hills. Then I should pitch the

machine into a bog and take to the moors on foot. You can put in a

week among the shepherds, and be as safe as if you were in New

Guinea.'

I pedalled diligently up steep roads of hill gravel till the skies

grew pale with morning. As the mists cleared before the sun, I

found myself in a wide green world with glens falling on every side

and a far-away blue horizon. Here, at any rate, I could get early

news of my enemies.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman

I sat down on the very crest of the pass and took stock of my position.

Behind me was the road climbing through a long cleft in the

hills, which was the upper glen of some notable river. In front was

a flat space of maybe a mile, all pitted with bog-holes and rough

with tussocks, and then beyond it the road fell steeply down another

glen to a plain whose blue dimness melted into the distance. To left

and right were round-shouldered green hills as smooth as pancakes,

but to the south - that is, the left hand - there was a glimpse of

high heathery mountains, which I remembered from the map as the

big knot of hill which I had chosen for my sanctuary. I was on the

central boss of a huge upland country, and could see everything

moving for miles. In the meadows below the road half a mile back

a cottage smoked, but it was the only sign of human life. Otherwise

there was only the calling of plovers and the tinkling of little streams.

It was now about seven o'clock, and as I waited I heard once

again that ominous beat in the air. Then I realized that my vantage-

ground might be in reality a trap. There was no cover for a tomtit

in those bald green places.

I sat quite still and hopeless while the beat grew louder. Then I

saw an aeroplane coming up from the east. It was flying high, but

as I looked it dropped several hundred feet and began to circle

round the knot of hill in narrowing circles, just as a hawk wheels

before it pounces. Now it was flying very low, and now the observer

on board caught sight of me. I could see one of the two occupants

examining me through glasses.

Suddenly it began to rise in swift whorls, and the next I knew

it was speeding eastward again till it became a speck in the

blue morning.

That made me do some savage thinking. My enemies had located

me, and the next thing would be a cordon round me. I didn't know

what force they could command, but I was certain it would be

sufficient. The aeroplane had seen my bicycle, and would conclude

that I would try to escape by the road. In that case there might be a

chance on the moors to the right or left. I wheeled the machine a

hundred yards from the highway, and plunged it into a moss-hole,

where it sank among pond-weed and water-buttercups. Then I

climbed to a knoll which gave me a view of the two valleys.

Nothing was stirring on the long white ribbon that threaded them.

I have said there was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat.

As the day advanced it was flooded with soft fresh light till it had

the fragrant sunniness of the South African veld. At other times I

would have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate me. The

free moorlands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the

breath of a dungeon.

I tossed a coin - heads right, tails left - and it fell heads, so I

turned to the north. In a little I came to the brow of the ridge

which was the containing wall of the pass. I saw the highroad for

maybe ten miles, and far down it something that was moving, and

that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a

rolling green moor, which fell away into wooded glens.

Now my life on the veld has given me the eyes of a kite, and I

can see things for which most men need a telescope ... Away

down the slope, a couple of miles away, several men were advancing.

like a row of beaters at a shoot ...

I dropped out of sight behind the sky-line. That way was shut to

me, and I must try the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway.

The car I had noticed was getting nearer, but it was still a long way

off with some very steep gradients before it. I ran hard, crouching

low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the brow of

the hill before me. Was it imagination, or did I see figures - one,

two, perhaps more - moving in a glen beyond the stream?

If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only

one chance of escape. You must stay in the patch, and let your

enemies search it and not find you. That was good sense, but how

on earth was I to escape notice in that table-cloth of a place? I

would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water

or climbed the tallest tree. But there was not a stick of wood, the

bog-holes were little puddles, the stream was a slender trickle. There

was nothing but short heather, and bare hill bent, and the white highway.

Then in a tiny bight of road, beside a heap of stones, I found

the roadman.

He had just arrived, and was wearily flinging down his hammer.

He looked at me with a fishy eye and yawned.

'Confoond the day I ever left the herdin'!' he said, as if to the

world at large. 'There I was my ain maister. Now I'm a slave to the

Goavernment, tethered to the roadside, wi' sair een, and a back like

a suckle.'

He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement

with an oath, and put both hands to his ears. 'Mercy on me! My

heid's burstin'!' he cried.

He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a

week's beard on his chin, and a pair of big horn spectacles.

'I canna dae't,' he cried again. 'The Surveyor maun just report

me. I'm for my bed.'

I asked him what was the trouble, though indeed that was

clear enough.

'The trouble is that I'm no sober. Last nicht my dochter Merran

was waddit, and they danced till fower in the byre. Me and some

ither chiels sat down to the drinkin', and here I am. Peety that I

ever lookit on the wine when it was red!'

I agreed with him about bed.

'It's easy speakin',' he moaned. 'But I got a postcard yestreen

sayin' that the new Road Surveyor would be round the day. He'll

come and he'll no find me, or else he'll find me fou, and either way

I'm a done man. I'll awa' back to my bed and say I'm no weel, but

I doot that'll no help me, for they ken my kind o' no-weel-ness.'

Then I had an inspiration. 'Does the new Surveyor know you?'

I asked.

'No him. He's just been a week at the job. He rins about in a wee

motor-cawr, and wad speir the inside oot o' a whelk.'

'Where's your house?' I asked, and was directed by a wavering

finger to the cottage by the stream.

'Well, back to your bed,' I said, 'and sleep in peace. I'll take on

your job for a bit and see the Surveyor.'

He stared at me blankly; then, as the notion dawned on his

fuddled brain, his face broke into the vacant drunkard's smile.

'You're the billy,' he cried. 'It'll be easy eneuch managed. I've

finished that bing o' stanes, so you needna chap ony mair this

forenoon. just take the barry, and wheel eneuch metal frae yon

quarry doon the road to mak anither bing the morn. My name's

Alexander Turnbull, and I've been seeven year at the trade, and

twenty afore that herdin' on Leithen Water. My freens ca' me Ecky,

and whiles Specky, for I wear glesses, being waik i' the sicht. just

you speak the Surveyor fair, and ca' him Sir, and he'll be fell

pleased. I'll be back or mid-day.'

I borrowed his spectacles and filthy old hat; stripped off coat,

waistcoat, and collar, and gave him them to carry home; borrowed,

too, the foul stump of a clay pipe as an extra property. He indicated

my simple tasks, and without more ado set off at an amble bedwards.

Bed may have been his chief object, but I think there was

also something left in the foot of a bottle. I prayed that he might be

safe under cover before my friends arrived on the scene.

Then I set to work to dress for the part. I opened the collar of

my shirt - it was a vulgar blue-and-white check such as ploughmen

wear - and revealed a neck as brown as any tinker's. I rolled up my

sleeves, and there was a forearm which might have been a blacksmith's,

sunburnt and rough with old scars. I got my boots and

trouser-legs all white from the dust of the road, and hitched up my

trousers, tying them with string below the knee. Then I set to work

on my face. With a handful of dust I made a water-mark round my

neck, the place where Mr Turnbull's Sunday ablutions might be

expected to stop. I rubbed a good deal of dirt also into the sunburn

of my cheeks. A roadman's eyes would no doubt be a little inflamed,

so I contrived to get some dust in both of mine, and by dint of

vigorous rubbing produced a bleary effect.

The sandwiches Sir Harry had given me had gone off with my

coat, but the roadman's lunch, tied up in a red handkerchief, was at

my disposal. I ate with great relish several of the thick slabs of

scone and cheese and drank a little of the cold tea. In the handkerchief

was a local paper tied with string and addressed to Mr Turnbull -

obviously meant to solace his mid-day leisure. I did up the

bundle again, and put the paper conspicuously beside it.

My boots did not satisfy me, but by dint of kicking among the

stones I reduced them to the granite-like surface which marks a

roadman's foot-gear. Then I bit and scraped my finger-nails till the

edges were all cracked and uneven. The men I was matched against

would miss no detail. I broke one of the bootlaces and retied it in a

clumsy knot, and loosed the other so that my thick grey socks

bulged over the uppers. Still no sign of anything on the road. The

motor I had observed half an hour ago must have gone home.

My toilet complete, I took up the barrow and began my journeys

to and from the quarry a hundred yards off.

I remember an old scout in Rhodesia, who had done many queer

things in his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part

was to think yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said,