第 9 页

of the pursuers. The police had evidently called in local talent to

their aid, and the men I could see had the appearance of herds or

gamekeepers. They hallooed at the sight of me, and I waved my

hand. Two dived into the glen and began to climb my ridge, while

the others kept their own side of the hill. I felt as if I were taking

part in a schoolboy game of hare and hounds.

But very soon it began to seem less of a game. Those fellows

behind were hefty men on their native heath. Looking back I saw

that only three were following direct, and I guessed that the others

had fetched a circuit to cut me off. My lack of local knowledge

might very well be my undoing, and I resolved to get out of this

tangle of glens to the pocket of moor I had seen from the tops. I

must so increase my distance as to get clear away from them, and I

believed I could do this if I could find the right ground for it. If

there had been cover I would have tried a bit of stalking, but on

these bare slopes you could see a fly a mile off. My hope must be in

the length of my legs and the soundness of my wind, but I needed

easier ground for that, for I was not bred a mountaineer. How I

longed for a good Afrikander pony!

I put on a great spurt and got off my ridge and down into the

moor before any figures appeared on the skyline behind me. I

crossed a burn, and came out on a highroad which made a pass

between two glens. All in front of me was a big field of heather

sloping up to a crest which was crowned with an odd feather of

trees. In the dyke by the roadside was a gate, from which a grass-

grown track led over the first wave of the moor.

I jumped the dyke and followed it, and after a few hundred yards

- as soon as it was out of sight of the highway - the grass stopped

and it became a very respectable road, which was evidently kept

with some care. Clearly it ran to a house, and I began to think of

doing the same. Hitherto my luck had held, and it might be that my

best chance would be found in this remote dwelling. Anyhow there

were trees there, and that meant cover.

I did not follow the road, but the burnside which flanked it on

the right, where the bracken grew deep and the high banks made a

tolerable screen. It was well I did so, for no sooner had I gained the

hollow than, looking back, I saw the pursuit topping the ridge

from which I had descended.

After that I did not look back; I had no time. I ran up the

burnside, crawling over the open places, and for a large part wading

in the shallow stream. I found a deserted cottage with a row of

phantom peat-stacks and an overgrown garden. Then I was among

young hay, and very soon had come to the edge of a plantation of

wind-blown firs. From there I saw the chimneys of the house smoking

a few hundred yards to my left. I forsook the burnside, crossed

another dyke, and almost before I knew was on a rough lawn. A

glance back told me that I was well out of sight of the pursuit,

which had not yet passed the first lift of the moor.

The lawn was a very rough place, cut with a scythe instead of a

mower, and planted with beds of scrubby rhododendrons. A brace

of black-game, which are not usually garden birds, rose at my

approach. The house before me was the ordinary moorland farm,

with a more pretentious whitewashed wing added. Attached to this

wing was a glass veranda, and through the glass I saw the face of

an elderly gentleman meekly watching me.

I stalked over the border of coarse hill gravel and entered the

open veranda door. Within was a pleasant room, glass on one side,

and on the other a mass of books. More books showed in an inner

room. On the floor, instead of tables, stood cases such as you see in

a museum, filled with coins and queer stone implements.

There was a knee-hole desk in the middle, and seated at it, with

some papers and open volumes before him, was the benevolent old

gentleman. His face was round and shiny, like Mr Pickwick's, big

glasses were stuck on the end of his nose, and the top of his head

was as bright and bare as a glass bottle. He never moved when I

entered, but raised his placid eyebrows and waited on me to speak.

It was not an easy job, with about five minutes to spare, to tell a

stranger who I was and what I wanted, and to win his aid. I did not

attempt it. There was something about the eye of the man before

me, something so keen and knowledgeable, that I could not find a

word. I simply stared at him and stuttered.

'You seem in a hurry, my friend,'he said slowly.

I nodded towards the window. It gave a prospect across the

moor through a gap in the plantation, and revealed certain figures

half a mile off straggling through the heather.

'Ah, I see,' he said, and took up a pair of field-glasses through

which he patiently scrutinized the figures.

'A fugitive from justice, eh? Well, we'll go into the matter at our

leisure. Meantime I object to my privacy being broken in upon by

the clumsy rural policeman. Go into my study, and you will see

two doors facing you. Take the one on the left and close it behind

you. You will be perfectly safe.'

And this extraordinary man took up his pen again.

I did as I was bid, and found myself in a little dark chamber

which smelt of chemicals, and was lit only by a tiny window high

up in the wall. The door had swung behind me with a click like the

door of a safe. Once again I had found an unexpected sanctuary.

All the same I was not comfortable. There was something about

the old gentleman which puzzled and rather terrified me. He had

been too easy and ready, almost as if he had expected me. And his

eyes had been horribly intelligent.

No sound came to me in that dark place. For all I knew the

police might be searching the house, and if they did they would

want to know what was behind this door. I tried to possess my soul

in patience, and to forget how hungry I was.

Then I took a more cheerful view. The old gentleman could scarcely

refuse me a meal, and I fell to reconstructing my breakfast. Bacon

and eggs would content me, but I wanted the better part of a flitch

of bacon and half a hundred eggs. And then, while my mouth was

watering in anticipation, there was a click and the door stood open.

I emerged into the sunlight to find the master of the house

sitting in a deep armchair in the room he called his study, and

regarding me with curious eyes.

'Have they gone?' I asked.

'They have gone. I convinced them that you had crossed the hill.

I do not choose that the police should come between me and one

whom I am delighted to honour. This is a lucky morning for you,

Mr Richard Hannay.'

As he spoke his eyelids seemed to tremble and to fall a little over

his keen grey eyes. In a flash the phrase of Scudder's came back to

me, when he had described the man he most dreaded in the world.

He had said that he 'could hood his eyes like a hawk'. Then I saw

that I had walked straight into the enemy's headquarters.

My first impulse was to throttle the old ruffian and make for the

open air. He seemed to anticipate my intention, for he smiled

gently, and nodded to the door behind me.

I turned, and saw two men-servants who had me covered with pistols.

He knew my name, but he had never seen me before. And as the

reflection darted across my mind I saw a slender chance.

'I don't know what you mean,' I said roughly. 'And who are you

calling Richard Hannay? My name's Ainslie.'

'So?' he said, still smiling. 'But of course you have others. We

won't quarrel about a name.'

I was pulling myself together now, and I reflected that my garb,

lacking coat and waistcoat and collar, would at any rate not betray

me. I put on my surliest face and shrugged my shoulders.

'I suppose you're going to give me up after all, and I call it a

damned dirty trick. My God, I wish I had never seen that cursed

motor-car! Here's the money and be damned to you,' and I flung four

sovereigns on the table.

He opened his eyes a little. 'Oh no, I shall not give you up. My

friends and I will have a little private settlement with you, that is

all. You know a little too much, Mr Hannay. You are a clever

actor, but not quite clever enough.'

He spoke with assurance, but I could see the dawning of a doubt

in his mind.

'Oh, for God's sake stop jawing,' I cried. 'Everything's against

me. I haven't had a bit of luck since I came on shore at Leith.

What's the harm in a poor devil with an empty stomach picking up

some money he finds in a bust-up motor-car? That's all I done, and

for that I've been chivvied for two days by those blasted bobbies

over those blasted hills. I tell you I'm fair sick of it. You can do

what you like, old boy! Ned Ainslie's got no fight left in him.'

I could see that the doubt was gaining.

'Will you oblige me with the story of your recent doings?'he asked.

'I can't, guv'nor,' I said in a real beggar's whine. 'I've not had a

bite to eat for two days. Give me a mouthful of food, and then

you'll hear God's truth.'

I must have showed my hunger in my face, for he signalled to

one of the men in the doorway. A bit of cold pie was brought and a

glass of beer, and I wolfed them down like a pig - or rather, like

Ned Ainslie, for I was keeping up my character. In the middle of

my meal he spoke suddenly to me in German, but I turned on him

a face as blank as a stone wall.

Then I told him my story - how I had come off an Archangel

ship at Leith a week ago, and was making my way overland to my

brother at Wigtown. I had run short of cash - I hinted vaguely at a

spree - and I was pretty well on my uppers when I had come on a

hole in a hedge, and, looking through, had seen a big motor-car

lying in the burn. I had poked about to see what had happened, and

had found three sovereigns lying on the seat and one on the floor.

There was nobody there or any sign of an owner, so I had pocketed

the cash. But somehow the law had got after me. When I had tried

to change a sovereign in a baker's shop, the woman had cried on

the police, and a little later, when I was washing my face in a burn,

I had been nearly gripped, and had only got away by leaving my

coat and waistcoat behind me.

'They can have the money back,' I cried, 'for a fat lot of good

it's done me. Those perishers are all down on a poor man. Now, if

it had been you, guv'nor, that had found the quids, nobody would

have troubled you.'

'You're a good liar, Hannay,' he said.

I flew into a rage. 'Stop fooling, damn you! I tell you my name's

Ainslie, and I never heard of anyone called Hannay in my born

days. I'd sooner have the police than you with your Hannays and

your monkey-faced pistol tricks ... No, guv'nor, I beg pardon, I

don't mean that. I'm much obliged to you for the grub, and I'll

thank you to let me go now the coast's clear.'

It was obvious that he was badly puzzled. You see he had never

seen me, and my appearance must have altered considerably from

my photographs, if he had got one of them. I was pretty smart and

well dressed in London, and now I was a regular tramp.

'I do not propose to let you go. If you are what you say you are,

you will soon have a chance of clearing yourself. If you are what I

believe you are, I do not think you will see the light much longer.'

He rang a bell, and a third servant appeared from the veranda.

'I want the Lanchester in five minutes,' he said. 'There will be

three to luncheon.'

Then he looked steadily at me, and that was the hardest ordeal

of all.

There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold,

malignant, unearthly, and most hellishly clever. They fascinated me

like the bright eyes of a snake. I had a strong impulse to throw

myself on his mercy and offer to join his side, and if you consider

the way I felt about the whole thing you will see that that impulse

must have been purely physical, the weakness of a brain mesmerized

and mastered by a stronger spirit. But I managed to stick it out and

even to grin.

'You'll know me next time, guv'nor,' I said.

'Karl,' he spoke in German to one of the men in the doorway,

'you will put this fellow in the storeroom till I return, and you will

be answerable to me for his keeping.'

I was marched out of the room with a pistol at each ear.

The storeroom was a damp chamber in what had been the old

farmhouse. There was no carpet on the uneven floor, and nothing

to sit down on but a school form. It was black as pitch, for the

windows were heavily shuttered. I made out by groping that the

walls were lined with boxes and barrels and sacks of some heavy

stuff. The whole place smelt of mould and disuse. My gaolers

turned the key in the door, and I could hear them shifting their feet

as they stood on guard outside.

I sat down in that chilly darkness in a very miserable frame of

mind. The old boy had gone off in a motor to collect the two

ruffians who had interviewed me yesterday. Now, they had seen me

as the roadman, and they would remember me, for I was in the

same rig. What was a roadman doing twenty miles from his beat,

pursued by the police? A question or two would put them on the

track. Probably they had seen Mr Turnbull, probably Marmie too;

most likely they could link me up with Sir Harry, and then the

whole thing would be crystal clear. What chance had I in this

moorland house with three desperadoes and their armed servants?

I began to think wistfully of the police, now plodding over the

hills after my wraith. They at any rate were fellow-countrymen and

honest men, and their tender mercies would be kinder than these

ghoulish aliens. But they wouldn't have listened to me. That old