The Leithen Stories. Buchan John
from the worst danger, for first I had sent him Tommy, and now I had put the police on guard against his enemies. I had not the slightest doubt that enemies they were. Charles knew too much, and Tuke was the man appointed to reason with him, to bring him back, if possible, or if not – as Chapman had said – the ex-union leader was not the man to stick at trifles.
It was a broiling June, the London season was at its height, and I had never been so busy in the Courts before. But that crowded and garish world was little more than a dream to me. I went through my daily tasks, dined out, went to the play, had consultations, talked to my fellows, but all the while I had the feeling that I was watching somebody else perform the same functions. I believe I did my work well, and I know I was twice complimented by the Court of Appeal.
But my real interests were far away. Always I saw two men in the hot glens of the Oxus, with the fine dust of the loess rising in yellow clouds behind them. One of these men had a drawn and anxious face, and both rode hard. They passed by the closes of apricot and cherry and the green watered gardens, and soon the Oxus ceased to flow wide among rushes and water-lilies and became a turbid hill-stream. By-and-by the roadside changed, and the horses of the travellers trod on mountain turf, crushing the irises and marigolds and thyme. I could feel the free air blowing from the roof of the world, and see far ahead the snowy saddle of the pass which led to India.
Far behind the riders I saw two others, and they chose a different way, now over waterless plateaux, now in rugged nullahs. They rode the faster and their route was the shorter. Sooner or later they must catch up the first riders, and I knew, though how I could not tell, that death would attend the meeting.
I, and only I, sitting in London four thousand miles away, could prevent disaster. The dream haunted me at night, and often, walking in the Strand or sitting at a dinner-table, I have found my eyes fixed clearly on the shining upland with the thin white mountains at the back of it, and the four dots, which were men, hurrying fast on their business.
One night I met Lumley. It was at a big political dinner given by the chief of my party in the House of Lords – fifty or sixty guests, and a blaze of stars and decorations. I sat near the bottom of the table, and he was near the top, sitting between a famous General and an ex-Viceroy of India. I asked my right-hand neighbour who he was, but he could not tell me. The same question to my left-hand neighbour brought an answer.
‘It’s old Lumley. Have you never met him? He doesn’t go out much, but he gives a man’s dinner now and then, which are the best in London. No. He’s not a politician, though he favours our side, and I expect has given a lot to our funds. I can’t think why they don’t make him a Peer. He’s enormously rich and very generous, and the most learned old fellow in Britain. My Chief’ – my neighbour was an Under-Secretary – ‘knows him, and told me once that if you wanted any out-of-the-way bit of knowledge you could get it by asking Lumley. I expect he pulls the strings more than anybody living. But he scarcely ever goes out, and it’s a feather in our host’s cap to have got him tonight. You never see his name in the papers, either. He probably pays the Press to keep him out, like some of those millionaire fellows in America.’ I watched him through dinner. He was the centre of the talk at his end of the table. I could see the blue ribbon bulging out on Lord Morecambe’s breast as he leaned forward to question him. He was wearing some foreign orders, including the Legion of Honour, and I could hear in the pauses of conversation echoes of his soft rich voice. I could see him beaming through his glasses on his neighbours, and now and then he would take them off and look mildly at a speaker. I wondered why nobody realised, as I did, what was in his light wild eyes.
The dinner, I believe, was excellent, and the company was good, but down at my end I could eat little, and I did not want to talk. Here in this pleasant room, with servants moving softly about, and a mellow light on the silver from the shaded candles, I felt the man was buttressed and defended beyond my reach. A kind of despairing hatred gripped me when I looked his way. For I was always conscious of that other picture, the Asian desert, Pitt-Heron’s hunted face, and the grim figure of Tuke on his trail. That, and the great secret wheels of what was too inhuman to be called crime, moving throughout the globe under this man’s hand.
There was a party afterwards, but I did not stay. No more did Lumley, and for a second I brushed against him in the hall at the foot of the big staircase.
He smiled on me affectionately.
‘Have you been dining here? I did not notice you.’
‘You had better things to think of,’ I said. ‘By the way, you gave me good advice some weeks ago. It may interest you to hear that I have taken it.’
‘I am so glad,’ he said softly. ‘You are a very discreet young man.’
But his eyes told me that he knew I lied.
The Restaurant in Antioch Street
I WAS WORKING late at the Temple next day, and it was nearly seven before I got up to go home. Macgillivray had telephoned to me in the afternoon saying he wanted to see me and suggesting dinner at the club, and I had told him I should come straight there from my Chambers. But just after six he had rung me up again and proposed another meeting-place.
‘I’ve got some very important news for you and want to be quiet. There’s a little place where I sometimes dine – Rapaccini’s, in Antioch Street. I’ll meet you there at half-past seven.’
I agreed, and sent a message to Chapman at the flat, telling him I would be out to dinner. It was a Wednesday night, so the House rose early. He asked me where I was dining and I told him, but I did not mention with whom. His voice sounded very cross, for he hated a lonely meal. It was a hot, still night, and I had had a heavy day in Court, so heavy that my private anxieties had almost slipped from my mind. I walked along the Embankment, and up Regent Street towards Oxford Circus. Antioch Street, as I had learned from the directory, was in the area between Langham Place and Tottenham Court Road. I wondered vaguely why Macgillivray should have chosen such an out-of-the-way spot, but I knew him for a man of many whims.
The street, when I found it, turned out to be a respectable little place – boarding-houses and architects’ offices, with a few antiquity shops, and a picture-cleaner’s. The restaurant took some finding, for it was one of those discreet establishments, common enough in France, where no edibles are displayed in the British fashion, and muslin half-curtains deck the windows. Only the doormat, lettered with the proprietor’s name, remained to guide the hungry.
I gave a waiter my hat and stick and was ushered into a garish dining-room, apparently full of people. A single violinist was discoursing music from beside the grill. The occupants were not quite the kind one expects to find in an eating-house in a side street. The men were all in evening dress with white waistcoats, and the women looked either demi-mondaines or those who follow their taste in clothes. Various eyes looked curiously at me as I entered. I guessed that the restaurant had by one of those odd freaks of Londoners become for a moment the fashion.
The proprietor met me half-way up the room. He might call himself Rapaccini, but he was obviously a German.
‘Mr Geelvrai,’ he nodded. ‘He has engaged a private room. Vill you follow, sir?’
A narrow stairway broke into the wall on the left side of the dining-room. I followed the manager up it and along a short corridor to a door which filled its end. He ushered me into a brightly-lit little room where a table was laid for two.
‘Mr Geelvrai comes often here,’ said the manager. ‘He vill be lat – sometimes. Everything is ready, sir. I hope you vill be pleased.’
It looked inviting enough, but the air smelt stuffy. Then I saw that, though the night was warm, the window was shut and the curtains drawn. I pulled back the curtains, and to my surprise saw that the shutters were closed.
‘You must open