SIR EDWARD LEITHEN'S MYSTERIES - Complete Series. Buchan John

      “Will you marry me?”

      “Yes,” she turned a laughing face, “of course I will.”

      “I’m coming across,” he shouted.

      “No. Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.”

      She climbed the other bank and made for the bridge of larch-poles, and before he could prevent her she had embarked on that crazy structure. Then that happened which might have been foreseen, since the poles on Archie’s side of the stream had no fixed foundation. They splayed out, and he was just in time to catch her in his arms as she sprang.

      “You darling girl,” he said, and she turned up to him a face smiling no more, but very grave.

      Archie, his arms full of dripping maiden, stood in a happy trance.

      “Please put me down,” she said. “See, the mist is clearing. We must get into cover.”

      Sure enough the haze was lifting from the hill-side before them and long tongues of black moorland were revealed stretching up to the crags. They found a place among the birches which gave them a safe prospect and fetched luncheon from the car. Hot coffee from a thermos was the staple of the meal, which they consumed like two preoccupied children. Archie looked at his watch and found it after two-o’clock. “Something must begin to happen soon,” he said, and they took up position side by side on a sloping rock, Janet with her Zeiss glasses and Archie with his telescope.

      His head was a delicious merry-go-round of hopes and dreams. It was full of noble thoughts—about Janet, and himself, and life. And the thoughts were mirthful too—a great, mellow, philosophic mirthfulness. John Macnab was no longer an embarrassing hazard, but a glorious adventure. It did not matter what happened—nothing could happen wrong in this spacious and rosy world. If Lamancha succeeded, it was a tremendous joke, if he failed a more tremendous, and, as for Leithen and Palliser-Yeates, comedy had marked them for its own…He wondered what he had done to be blessed with such happiness.

      Already the mist had gone from the foreground, and the hills were clear to half-way up the rocks of Sgurr Mor and Sgurr Dearg. He had his glass on the Beallach, on the throat of which a stray sun-gleam made a sudden patch of amethyst.

      “I see someone,” Janet cried. “On the edge of the pass. Have you got it?—on the left-hand side of that spout of stones.”

      Archie found the place. “Got him…By Jove, it’s Wattie…And— and—yes, by all the gods, I believe he’s pullin’ a stag down…Wait a second…Yes, he’s haulin’ it into the burn…Well done, our side! But where on earth is Charles?”

      The two lay with their eyes glued on the patch of hill, now lit everywhere by the emerging sun. They saw the little figure dip into a hollow, appear again and then go out of sight in the upper part of a long narrow scaur which held the headwaters of a stream—they could see the foam of the little falls farther down. Before it disappeared Archie had made out a stag’s head against a background of green moss. “That’s that,” he cried. “Charles must be somewhere behind protectin’ the rear. I suppose Wattie knows what he’s doin’ and is certain he can’t be seen by the navvies. Anyhow, he’s well hidden at present in the burn, but he’ll come into view lower down when the ravine opens out. He’s a tough old bird to move a beast at that pace…The question now is, where is old John? It’s time he was gettin’ busy.”

      Janet, whose glass made up in width of range what it lacked in power, suddenly cried out: “I see him. Look! up at the edge of the rocks— three hundred yards west of the Beallach. He’s moving down-hill. I think it’s Palliser-Yeates—he’s the part of John Macnab I know best.”

      Archie found the spot. “It’s old John right enough, and he’s doin’ his best to make himself conspicuous. Those yellow breeks of his are like a flag. We’ve got a seat in the stalls and the curtain is goin’ up. Now for the fun.”

      Then followed for the better part of an hour a drama of almost indecent sensation. Wattie and his stag were forgotten in watching the efforts of an eminent banker to play hare to the hounds of four gentlemen accustomed to labour rather with their hands than with their feet. It was the navvy whose post was almost directly opposite Janet and Archie who first caught sight of the figure on the hill-side. He blew a whistle and began to move uphill, evidently with the intention of cutting off the intruder’s retreat to the east and driving him towards Haripol. But the quarry showed no wish to go east, for it was towards Haripol that he seemed to be making, by a long slant down the slopes.

      “I’ve got Number Two,” Janet whispered. “There—above the patch of scrub—close to the three boulders…Oh, and there’s Number Three. Mr Palliser-Yeates is walking straight towards him. Do you think he sees him?”

      “Trust old John. He’s the wiliest of God’s creatures, and he hasn’t lost much pace since he played outside three-quarters for England. Wait till he starts to run.”

      But Mr Palliser-Yeates continued at a brisk walk apparently oblivious of his foes, who were whistling like curlews, till he was very near the embraces of Number Three. Then he went through a very creditable piece of acting. Suddenly he seemed to be stricken with terror, looked wildly around to all the points of the compass, noted his pursuer, and, as if in a panic, ran blindly for the gap between Numbers Two and Three. Number Four had appeared by this time, and Number Four was a strategist. He did not join in the pursuit, but moved rapidly down the glen towards Haripol to cut off the fugitive, should he outstrip the hunters.

      Palliser-Yeates managed to get through the gap, and now appeared running strongly for the Doran, which at that point of its course—about half a mile down-stream from Janet and Archie—flowed in a deep-cut but not precipitous channel, much choked with birch and rowan. Numbers Two and three followed, and also Number One, who had by now seen that there was no need of a rearguard. For a little all four disappeared from sight, and Janet and Archie looked anxiously at each other. Cries, excited cries, were coming up-stream, but there was no sign of human beings.

      “John can’t have been such a fool as to get caught,” Archie grumbled. “He has easily the pace of those heavy-footed chaps. Wish he’d show himself.”

      Presently first one, then a second, then a third navvy appeared on the high bank of the Doran, moving aimlessly, like hounds at fault.

      “They’ve lost him,” Archie cried. “Where d’you suppose the leery old bird has got to? He can’t have gone to earth.”

      That was not revealed for about twenty minutes. Then a cry from one of the navvies called the attention of the others to something moving high up on the hill-side.

      “It’s John,” Archie muttered. “He must have crawled up one of the side-burns. Lord, that’s pretty work.”

      The navvies began heavily to follow, though they had a thousand feet of lee-way to make up. But it was no part of Palliser-Yeates’s plan to discourage them, since he had to draw them clean away from the danger zone. Already this was almost achieved, for Wattie and his stag, even if he had left the ravine, were completely hidden from their view by a shoulder of hill. He pretended to be labouring hard, stumbling often, and now and then throwing himself on the heather in an attitude of utter fatigue, which was visible to the pursuit below.

      “It’s a dashed shame,” murmured Archie. “Those poor fellows haven’t a chance with John. I only hope Claybody is payin’ them well for this job.”

      The hare let the hounds get within a hundred yards of him. Then he appeared to realise their presence and to struggle to increase his pace, but, instead of ascending, he moved horizontally along the slope, slipping and sprawling in what looked like a desperate final effort. Hopes revived in the navvies’ hearts. Their voices could be heard—“You bet they’re usin’ shockin’ language,” said Archie—and Number One, who seemed the freshest, put on a creditable spurt. Palliser-Yeates waited till the man was almost upon him, and then suddenly turned downhill. He ran straight for Number Two, dodged him with that famous swerve which long ago on the football field had set forty thousand people