The Leithen Stories. Buchan John
his Waterloo.
I LEFT BELGRAVE Square about a quarter to eight and retraced my steps along the route which for me that afternoon had been so full of tremors. I was still being watched – a little observation told me that – but I would not be interfered with, provided my way lay in a certain direction. So completely without nervousness was I that at the top of Constitution Hill I struck into the Green Park and kept to the grass till I emerged into Piccadilly opposite Devonshire House. A light wind had risen, and the evening had grown pleasantly cool. I met several men I knew going out to dinner on foot, and stopped to exchange greetings. From my clothes they thought I had just returned from a day in the country.
I reached the Albany as the clock was striking eight. Lumley’s rooms were on the first floor, and I was evidently expected, for the porter himself conducted me to them and waited by me till the door was opened by a manservant.
You know those rococo, late Georgian, Albany rooms, large, square, clumsily corniced. Lumley’s was lined with books, which I saw at a glance were of a different type from those in his working library at his country house. This was the collection of a bibliophile, and in the light of the summer evening the rows of tall volumes in vellum and morocco lined the walls like some rich tapestry.
The valet retired and shut the door, and presently from a little inner chamber came his master. He was dressed for dinner, and wore more than ever the air of the eminent diplomat. Again I had the old feeling of incredulity. It was the Lumley I had met two nights before at dinner, the friend of Viceroys and Cabinet Ministers. It was hard to connect him with Antioch Street or the red-haired footman with a pistol. Or with Tuke? Yes, I decided, Tuke fitted into the frame. Both were brains cut loose from the decencies that make life possible.
‘Good evening, Mr Leithen,’ he said pleasantly. ‘As you have fixed the hour of eight, may I offer you dinner?’
‘Thank you,’ I replied, ‘but I have already dined. I have chosen an awkward time, but my business need not take long.’
‘So?’ he said. ‘I am always glad to see you at any hour.’
‘And I prefer to see the master rather than the subordinates who have been infesting my life during the past week.’
We both laughed. ‘I am afraid you have had some annoyance, Mr Leithen,’ he said. ‘But remember, I gave you fair warning.’
‘True. And I have come to do the same kindness to you. That part of the game, at any rate, is over.’
‘Over?’ he queried, raising his eyebrows.
‘Yes, over,’ I said, and took out my watch. ‘Let us be quite frank with each other, Mr Lumley. There is really very little time to waste. As you have doubtless read the paper which you stole from my friend this morning, you know more or less the extent of my information.’
‘Let us have frankness by all means. Yes, I have read your paper. A very creditable piece of work, if I may say so. You will rise in your profession, Mr Leithen. But surely you must realise that it carries you a very little way.’
‘In a sense you are right. I am not in a position to reveal the full extent of your misdeeds. Of the Power-House and its doings I can only guess. But Pitt-Heron is on his way home, and he will be carefully safeguarded on that journey. Your creature, Saronov, has confessed. We shall know more very soon, and meantime I have clear evidence which implicates you in a conspiracy to murder.’
He did not answer, but I wished I could see behind his tinted spectacles to the look in his eyes. I think he had not been quite prepared for the line I took.
‘I need not tell you, as a lawyer, Mr Leithen,’ he said at last, ‘that what seems good evidence on paper is often feeble enough in Court. You cannot suppose that I will tamely plead guilty to your charges. On the contrary, I will fight them with all the force that brains and money can give. You are an ingenious young man, but you are not the brightest jewel of the English Bar.’
‘That also is true. I do not deny that some of my evidence may be weakened at the trial. It is even conceivable that you may be acquitted on some technical doubt. But you have forgotten one thing. From the day you leave the Court you will be a suspected man. The police of all Europe will be on your trial. You have been highly successful in the past, and why? Because you have been above suspicion, an honourable and distinguished gentleman, belonging to the best clubs, counting as your acquaintances the flower of our society. Now you will be a suspect, a man with a past, a centre of strange stories. I put it to you – how far are you likely to succeed under these conditions?’
He laughed.
‘You have a talent for character-drawing, my friend. What makes you think I can work only if I live in the limelight of popularity?’
‘The talent you mention,’ I said. ‘As I read your character – and I think I am right – you are an artist in crime. You are not the common cut-throat who acts out of passion or greed. No, I think you are something subtler than that. You love power, hidden power. You flatter your vanity by despising mankind and making them your tools. You scorn the smattering of inaccuracies which passes for human knowledge, and I will not venture to say you are wrong. Therefore, you use your brains to frustrate it. Unhappily the life of millions is built on that smattering, so you are a foe to society. But there would be no flavour in controlling subterranean things if you were yourself a mole working in the dark. To get the full flavour, the irony of it all, you must live in the light. I can imagine you laughing in your soul as you move about our world, praising it with your lips, patting it with your hands, and kicking its props away with your feet. I can see the charm of it. But it is over now.’
‘Over?’ he asked.
‘Over,’ I repeated. ‘The end has come, the utter, final, and absolute end.’
He made a sudden, odd, nervous movement, pushing his glasses close back upon his eyes.
‘What about yourself?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Do you think you can play against me without suffering desperate penalties?’
He was holding a cord in his hand with a knob on the end of it. He now touched a button in the knob, and there came the faint sound of a bell.
The door was behind me, and he was looking beyond me towards it. I was entirely at his mercy, but I never budged an inch. I do not know how I managed to keep calm, but I did it, and without much effort. I went on speaking, conscious that the door had opened and that some one was behind me.
‘It is really quite useless trying to frighten me. I am safe, because I am dealing with an intelligent man, and not with the ordinary half-witted criminal. You do not want my life in silly revenge. If you call in your man and strangle me between you what earthly good would it do you?’
He was looking beyond me, and the passion – a sudden white-hot passion like an epilepsy – was dying out of his face.
‘A mistake, James,’ he said. ‘You can go.’ The door closed softly at my back.
‘Yes. A mistake. I have a considerable admiration for you, Mr Lumley, and should be sorry to be disappointed.’
He laughed quite like an ordinary mortal. ‘I am glad this affair is to be conducted on a basis of mutual respect. Now that the melodramatic overture is finished let us get to the business.’
‘By all means,’ I said. ‘I promised to deal with you frankly. Well, let me put my last cards on the table. At half-past nine precisely the duplicate of that statement of mine which you annexed this morning will be handed to Scotland Yard. I may add that the authorities there know me, and are proceeding under my advice. When they read that statement they will act on it. You have therefore about one hour and a half,