SIR EDWARD LEITHEN'S MYSTERIES - Complete Series. Buchan JohnЧитать онлайн книгу.
and added to the depression of the dripping weather. A question was asked.
“No, it’s not Sir Archibald. He’s as disappointed as you are at not being able to welcome ye. He says if ye come back in forty-eight hours— that’s the time when I hope to give the place a clean bill of health— he would like to stand ye drinks and have a crack with ye.”
Five minutes later the doctor returned to the smoking-room. “They’re off like good laddies, and I don’t think they’ll trouble ye for the next two days. Gosh! They’re as feared of infectious diseases as a Highlander. I’ll give them a wee while to go down the hill, and then I’ll start off home on my motor-bike. I’m very much obliged to you gentlemen for your good entertainment…Ye may be sure I’ll hold my tongue about the confidence ye’ve honoured me with. Not a cheep from me! But I can tell ye, I’ll be keeping my ears open for word of John Macnab. Good luck to ye, gentlemen!”
The departure of Doctor Kello was followed by the appearance of Wattie Lithgow, accompanied by Benjie, whose waterproof cape of ceremony had now its uses.
“I’ve got bad news from this laddie,” said the former, lugging Benjie forward by the ear. “He was at Haripol early this morning and a’ the folk there was speakin, about it. Macnicol tell’t him—”
“No, he didna,” put in Benjie. “Macnicol’s ower prood to speak to me. I heard it frae the men in the bothy and frae ane o’ the lassies up at the big hoose.”
“Weel, what a’body kens is maistly true. Ye’ll no guess what yon auld Claybody is daein’. Ye ken he’s a contractor, forbye ither things, and he’s got the contrack for makin’ the big dam at Kinlochbuie. There’s maybe a thousand navvies workin’ there, and he’s bringin’ ower a squad o’ them—Benjie says mair nor a hundred—to guaird the forest.”
“Ass!” exclaimed Palliser-Yeates. “He’ll drive every beast into Caithness.”
“Na, na. Macnicol is not entirely wantin’ in sense. The navvies will no be allowed inside the forest. They’ll be a guaird outside—what’s that they ca’ it?—an outer barrage. Macnicol will see that a’ the deer are in the Sanctuary, and in this kind o’ weather it will no be that deeficult. But it will be verra deeficult for his Lordship to get inside the forest, and it will be verra near an impossibeelity to get a beast out.”
Archie looked round the room. “Dashed unsportin’ I call it. I bet it’s the young ‘un’s idea.”
“Look here, Charles,” said Leithen. “Isn’t it about time to consider whether you shouldn’t cry off this Haripol affair? It was different at the start. John and I had a fair sporting chance. Our jobs were steep enough, but yours is absolutely perpendicular…The Claybodys are not taking any chances, and a hundred able-bodied navvies is a different-sized proposition to a few gillies. The confounded Press has blazoned the thing so wide that if you’re caught you’ll be a laughing-stock to the whole civilised world. Don’t you see that you simply can’t afford to lose, any more than the Claybodys? Then, to put the lid on it, our base is under a perpetual threat from those newspaper follows. I’d rather have all Scotland Yard after me than the Press—you agree, Crossby? I’m inclined to think that John Macnab has done enough ‘pour chauffer la gloire’. It’s insanity to go on.”
Lamancha shook his head. “It’s all very well for you—you won. I tell you frankly that nothing on earth will prevent me having a try at Haripol. All you say is perfectly true, but I don’t choose to listen to it. This news of Wattie’s only makes me more determined.”
Leithen subsided into his book, observing—“I suppose that is because you’re a great man. You’re a sober enough fellow at most times, but you’re able now and then to fling your hat over the moon. You can damn the consequences, which I suppose is one of the tests of greatness. John and I can’t, but we admire you, and we’ll bail you out.”
It was Sir Archie, strangely enough, who now abetted Lamancha’s obstinacy. “I grant you the odds are stiff,” he declared, “but that only means that we must find some way to shorten them. Nothing’s impossible after yesterday. There was I gibbering with terror and not a notion in my head, and yet I got on fairly well, didn’t I, Wattie?”
“Ye made a grand speech, sir. There was some said it was the best speech they ever heard in a’ their days. There was one man said ye was haverin’, but”—fiercely—“he didna say it twice.”
“We’ve the whole day to make a plan,” Archie went on. “Hang it all, there must be some way to diddle the Claybodys. We’ve got a pretty good notion of the lie of the land, and Wattie’s a perfect Red Indian at getting up to deer. We muster four and a half able-bodied men, counting me as half. And there’s Benjie. Benjie, you’re a demon at strategy. Have you anything to say?”
“Aye,” said Benjie, “I’ve a plan. But ye’re ower particular here, and maybe ye wadna like it.” This with a dark glance at Palliser-Yeates, who was leaving the room to get more tobacco.
“We’ll have it, all the same. Let’s sit down to business. Stick the ordnance map on that table, Charles, and you, Ned, shut that book and give us the benefit of your powerful mind.”
Leithen rose, yawning. “I’ve left my pipe in the dining-room. Wait a moment till I fetch it.”
Now Dr Kello, on his departure, had left the front-door of the house open, and the steady downpour of rain blanketed all other sounds from outside. So it came to pass that when Archie’s quick ear caught the noise of footsteps on the gravel and he bounded into the hall, he was confronted with the spectacle of Colonel Raden and his daughters already across the doorstep. Moreover, as luck would have it, at that moment Leithen from the dining-room and Palliser-Yeates from his bedroom converged on the same point.
“Hullo, Roylance,” the Colonel cried. “This is a heathenish hour for a visit, but we had to have some exercise, and my daughters wanted to come up and congratulate you on your performance yesterday. A magnificent speech, sir! Uncommon good sense! What I—”
But the Colonel stopped short in mystification at the behaviour of his daughters, who were staring with wide eyes at two unknown figures who stood shamefacedly behind Sir Archie. This last, having no alternative, was trying to carry off things with a high hand.
“Let me introduce,” he was proclaiming, “Sir Edward Leithen—Mr Palliser-Yeates—Miss Raden, Miss Janet Raden, Colonel—”
But he was unheeded. Agatha was looking at Leithen and Janet at Palliser-Yeates, and simultaneously the two ejaculated, “John Macnab!”
Archie saw that it was all up. Shouting for Mrs Lithgow, he helped his visitors to get out of their mackintoshes, and ordered his housekeeper to have these garments dried. Then he ushered them into the smoking-room where were Lamancha and Crossby and Benjie and a good peat-fire. Wattie, at the first sound of voices, had discreetly retired.
“Come along, Colonel, I’ll explain. Very glad to see you—have that chair…what about dry stockings?…”
But his hospitable bustle was unheeded. The Colonel, hopelessly at sea, was bowing to a tall man who in profound embarrassment was clearing books and papers out of chairs.
“Yes, that’s Lord Lamancha. You heard him yesterday. Charles, this is Colonel Raden, and Miss Agatha and Miss Janet. That is Mr Crossby, the eminent journalist. That little scallywag is Fish Benjie, whom I believe you know…Sit down, please, all of you. We’re caught out and are going to confess. Behold the lair of John Macnab.”
Colonel Raden was recovering himself.
“I read in the papers,” he said, “that John Macnab is the reincarnation of Harald Blacktooth. In that case we are related. With which of these gentlemen have I the honour to claim kin?”
The words, the tone, convinced Sir Archie that the danger was past, and his nervousness fled.
“Properly speakin’, you’ve found three new relatives. There they are. Not