The Leithen Stories. Buchan John
I flung myself down in one of the arm-chairs, for I was feeling pretty tired. The little table beckoned alluringly, for I was also hungry. I remember there was a mass of pink roses on it. A bottle of champagne, with the cork loose, stood in a wine-cooler on the sideboard, and there was an unopened bottle beside it. It seemed to me that Macgillivray, when he dined here, did himself rather well.
The promised waiter did not arrive, and the stuffiness was making me very thirsty. I looked for a bell, but could not see one. My watch told me it was now a quarter to eight, but there was no sign of Macgillivray. I poured myself out a glass of champagne from the opened bottle, and was just about to drink it, when my eye caught something in a corner of the room.
It was one of those little mid-Victorian corner tables – I believe they call them ‘what-nots’ – which you will find in any boarding-house littered up with photographs and coral and ‘Presents from Brighton’. On this one stood a photograph in a shabby frame, and I thought I recognised it.
I crossed the room and picked it up. It showed a man of thirty, with short side-whiskers, an ill-fitting jaw, and a drooping moustache. The duplicate of it was in Macgillivray’s cabinet. It was Mr Routh, the ex-union leader.
There was nothing very remarkable about that after all, but it gave me a nasty shock. The room now seemed a sinister place, as well as intolerably close. There was still no sign of the waiter to open the window, so I thought I would wait for Macgillivray downstairs.
But the door would not open. The handle would not turn. It did not seem to be locked, but rather to have shut with some kind of patent spring. I noticed that the whole thing was a powerful piece of oak with a heavy framework, very unlike the usual flimsy restaurant doors.
My first instinct was to make a deuce of a row and attract the attention of the diners below. I own I was beginning to feel badly frightened. Clearly I had got into some sort of trap. Macgillivray’s invitation might have been a hoax, for it is not difficult to counterfeit a man’s voice on the telephone. With an effort I forced myself into calmness. It was preposterous to think that anything could happen to me in a room not thirty feet from where a score or two of ordinary citizens were dining. I had only to raise my voice to bring inquirers.
Yes, but above all things I did not want a row. It would never do for a rising lawyer and a Member of Parliament to be found shouting for help in an upper chamber of a Bloomsbury restaurant. The worst deductions would be drawn from the open bottle of champagne. Besides, it might be all right after all. The door might have got stuck. Macgillivray at that very moment might be on his way up.
So I sat down and waited. Then I remembered my thirst, and stretched out my hand to the glass of champagne.
But at that instant I looked towards the window, and set down the wine untasted.
It was a very odd window. The lower end was almost flush with the floor, and the hinges of the shutters seemed to be only on one side. As I stared I began to wonder whether it was a window at all.
Next moment my doubts were solved. The window swung open like a door, and in the dark cavity stood a man.
Strangely enough I knew him. His figure was not one that is readily forgotten.
‘Good evening, Mr Docken,’ I said; ‘will you have a glass of champagne?’
A year before, on the South-Eastern Circuit, I had appeared for the defence in a burglary case. Criminal law was not my province, but now and then I took a case to keep my hand in, for it is the best training in the world for the handling of witnesses. This case had been peculiar. A certain Bill Docken was the accused, a gentleman who bore a bad reputation in the eyes of the police. The evidence against him was strong, but it was more or less tainted, being chiefly that of two former accomplices – a proof that there is small truth in the proverbial honour among thieves. It was an ugly business, and my sympathies were with the accused, for though he may very well have been guilty, yet he had been the victim of a shabby trick. Anyhow I put my back into the case, and after a hard struggle got a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’. Mr Docken had been kind enough to express his appreciation of my efforts, and to ask in a hoarse whisper how I had ‘squared the old bird’, meaning the Judge. He did not understand the subtleties of the English law of evidence.
He shambled into the room, a huge hulking figure of a man, with the thickness of chest which under happier circumstances might have made him a terror in the prize-ring. His features wore a heavy scowl which slowly cleared to a flicker of recognition.
‘By God, it’s the lawyer-chap,’ he muttered.
I pointed to the glass of champagne. ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ he said. ‘ ’Ere’s ’ealth!’ He swallowed the wine at a gulp and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘ ’Ave a drop yourself, guv’nor,’ he added. ‘A glass of bubbly will cheer you up.’
‘Well, Mr Docken,’ I said, ‘I hope I see you fit.’ I was getting wonderfully collected now that the suspense was over.
‘Pretty fair, sir. Pretty fair. Able to do my day’s work like an honest man.’
‘And what brings you here?’
‘A little job I’m on. Some friends of mine wants you out of the road for a bit and they’ve sent me to fetch you. It’s a bit of luck for you that you’ve struck a friend. We needn’t ’ave no unpleasantness, seein’ we’re both what you might call men of the world.’
‘I appreciate the compliment,’ I said. ‘But where do you propose to take me?’
‘Dunno. It’s some lay near the Docks. I’ve got a motor-car waitin’ at the back of the ’ouse.’
‘But supposing I don’t want to go?’
‘My orders admits no excuse,’ he said solemnly. ‘You’re a sensible chap, and can see that in a scrap I could down you easy.’
‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘But, man, you must be mad to talk like that. Downstairs there is a dining-room full of people. I have only to lift my voice to bring the police.’
‘You’re a kid,’ he said scornfully. ‘Them geysers downstairs are all in the job. That was a flat-catching rig to get you up here so as you wouldn’t suspect nothing. If you was to go down now – which you ain’t going to be allowed to do – you wouldn’t find a blamed soul in the place. I must say you’re a bit softer than I ’oped after the ’andsome way you talked over yon old juggins with the wig at Maidstone.’
Mr Docken took the bottle from the wine-cooler and filled himself another glass.
It sounded horribly convincing. If I was to be kidnapped and smuggled away, Lumley would have scored half a success. Not the whole; for, as I swiftly reflected, I had put Felix on the track of Tuke, and there was every chance that Tommy and Pitt-Heron would be saved. But for myself it looked pretty black. The more my scheme succeeded the more likely the Power-House would be to wreak its vengeance on me once I was spirited from the open-air world into its dark labyrinths. I made a great effort to keep my voice even and calm.
‘Mr Docken,’ I said, ‘I once did you a good turn. But for me you might be doing time now instead of drinking champagne like a gentleman. Your pals played you a pretty low trick and that was why I stuck out for you. I didn’t think you were the kind of man to forget a friend.’
‘No more I am,’ said he. ‘The man who says Bill Docken would go back on a pal is a liar.’
‘Well, here’s your chance to pay your debts. The men who employ you are my deadly enemies and want to do me in. I’m not a match for you. You’re a stronger fellow and can drag me off and hand me over to them. But if you do I’m done with. Make no mistake about that. I put it to you as a decent fellow. Are you going to go back on the man who has been a good friend to you?’
He shifted from one foot to another with his eyes on the ceiling. He was obviously in difficulties. Then he tried another glass of champagne.
‘I