The Leithen Stories. Buchan John
and the next second his burly shoulder was in the gap. The hustlers vanished, and I seemed to hear a polite voice begging my pardon.
After that Chapman and I linked arms and struck across Mayfair. But I did not feel safe till I was in the flat with the door bolted.
We had a long drink, and I stretched myself in an armchair, for I was as tired as if I had come out of a big game of Rugby football.
‘I owe you a good deal, old man,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll join the Labour Party. You can tell your fellows to send me their whips. What possessed you to come to look for me?’
The explanation was simple. I had mentioned the restaurant in my telephone message, and the name had awakened a recollection in Chapman’s mind. He could not fix it at first, but by-and-by he remembered that the place had cropped up in the Routh case. Routh’s London headquarters had been at the restaurant in Antioch Street. As soon as he remembered this he got into a taxi and descended at the corner of the street, where by sheer luck he fell in with his Wensleydale friends.
He said he had marched into the restaurant and found it empty, but for an ill-favoured manager, who denied all knowledge of me. Then, fortunately, he chose to make certain by shouting my name, and heard my answer. After that he knocked the manager down, and was presently assaulted by several men whom he described as ‘furrin muck’. They had knives, of which he made very little, for he seems to have swung a table as a battering-ram and left sore limbs behind him.
He was on the top of his form. ‘I haven’t enjoyed anything so much since I was a lad at school,’ he informed me. ‘I was beginning to think your Power-House was a wash-out, but Lord! it’s been busy enough tonight. This is what I call life!’
My spirits could not keep pace with his. The truth is that I was miserably puzzled – not afraid so much as mystified. I couldn’t make out this sudden dead-set at me. Either they knew more than I bargained for, or I knew far too little.
‘It’s all very well,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see how this is going to end. We can’t keep up the pace long. At this rate it will be only a matter of hours till they get me.’
We pretty well barricaded ourselves in the flat, and, at his earnest request, I restored to Chapman his revolver.
Then I got the clue I had been longing for. It was about eleven o’clock, while we were sitting smoking, when the telephone bell rang. It was Felix who spoke.
‘I have news for you,’ he said. ‘The hunters have met the hunted, and one of the hunters is dead. The other is a prisoner in our hands. He has confessed.’
It had been black murder in intent. The frontier police had shadowed the two men into the cup of a glen, where they met Tommy and Pitt-Heron. The four had spoken together for a little, and then Tuke had fired deliberately at Charles and had grazed his ear. Whereupon Tommy had charged him and knocked the pistol from his hand. The assailant had fled, but a long shot from the police on the hillside had toppled him over. Tommy had felled Saronov with his fists, and the man had abjectly surrendered. He had confessed, Felix said, but what the confession was he did not know.
MY NERVOUSNESS AND indecision dropped from me at the news. I had won the first round, and I would win the last, for it suddenly became clear to me that I had now evidence which would blast Lumley. I believed that it would not be hard to prove his identity with Pavia and his receipt of the telegram from Saronov; Tuke was his creature, and Tuke’s murderous mission was his doing. No doubt I knew little and could prove nothing about the big thing, the Power-House, but conspiracy to murder is not the lightest of criminal charges. I was beginning to see my way to checkmating my friend, at least so far as Pitt-Heron was concerned. Provided – and it was a pretty big proviso – that he gave me the chance to use my knowledge.
That, I foresaw, was going to be the difficulty. What I knew now Lumley had known hours before. The reason of the affair at Antioch Street was now only too clear. If he believed that I had damning evidence against him – and there was no doubt he suspected it – then he would do his best to stop my mouth. I must get my statement lodged in the proper quarter at the earliest possible moment.
The next twenty-four hours, I feared, were going to be too sensational for comfort. And yet I cannot say that I was afraid. I was too full of pride to be in a funk. I had lost my awe of Lumley through scoring a point against him. Had I known more I should have been less at my ease. It was this confidence which prevented me doing the obvious safe thing – ringing up Macgillivray, telling him the gist of my story, and getting him to put me under police protection. I thought I was clever enough to see the thing through myself. And it must have been the same over-confidence which prevented Lumley getting at me that night. An organisation like his could easily have got into the flat and done for us both. I suppose the explanation is that he did not yet know how much I knew, and was not ready to take the last steps in silencing me. I sat up till the small hours, marshalling my evidence in a formal statement and making two copies of it. One was destined for Macgillivray and the other for Felix, for I was taking no risks. I went to bed and slept peacefully, and was awakened as usual by Waters. My man slept out, and used to turn up in the morning about seven. It was all so normal and homely that I could have believed my adventures of the night before a dream. In the summer sunlight the ways of darkness seemed very distant. I dressed in excellent spirits and made a hearty breakfast. Then I gave the docile Chapman his instructions. He must take the document to Scotland Yard, ask to see Macgillivray, and put it into his hands. Then he must ring me up at once at Down Street and tell me that he had done this. I had already telephoned to my clerk that I would not be at the Temple that day. It seems a simple thing to travel less than a mile in the most frequented part of London in broad daylight and perform an easy act like carrying a letter; but I knew that Lumley’s spies would be active, and would connect Chapman sufficiently with me to think him worth following. In that case there might be an attempt at violence. I thought it my duty to tell him this, but he laughed me to scorn. He proposed to walk, and he begged to be shown the man who would meddle with him. Chapman, after last night, was prepared to take on all comers. He put my letter to Macgillivray in his inner pocket, buttoned his coat, crushed down his felt hat on his head, and defiantly set forth.
I expected a message from him in half an hour, for he was a rapid walker. But the half-hour passed, then the three-quarters, and nothing happened. At eleven I rang up Scotland Yard, but they had no news of him.
Then I became miserably anxious, for it was clear that some disaster had overtaken my messenger. My first impulse was to set out myself to look for him, but a moment’s reflection convinced me that that would be playing into the enemy’s hands. For an hour I wrestled with my impatience, and then a few minutes after twelve I was rung up by St Thomas’s Hospital.
A young doctor spoke, and said that Mr Chapman had asked him to tell me what had happened. He had been run down by a motor-car at the corner of Whitehall, nothing serious – only a bad shake and some scalp wounds. In a day or so he would be able to leave.
Then he added what drove the blood from my heart. ‘Mr Chapman personally wished me to tell you,’ he said, ‘that the letter has gone.’ I stammered some reply asking his meaning. ‘He said he thinks,’ I was told, ‘that, while he was being assisted to his feet, his pocket was picked and a letter taken. He said you would know what he meant.’
I knew only too well what he meant. Lumley had got my statement, and realised precisely how much I knew and what was the weight of evidence against him. Before he had only suspected, now he knew. He must know, too, that there would be a copy somewhere which I would try to deliver. It was going to be harder than I had fancied to get my news to the proper ears, and I had to anticipate the extreme of violence on the part of my opponents.
The thought of the perïl restored my coolness. I locked the outer door of my flat, and telephoned to the