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

me. I wanted to pass, and he wouldn’t let me, so we had a rough-and tumble, and through no fault of his he took a toss into a hole, and, as you see, broke his leg. I’ve set it and bound it up, but the sooner we get the job properly done the better. Hang it, it’s the poor devil’s livelihood. So we’d better push along.”

      His tone irritated Johnson. This scoundrelly poacher, caught red-handed with a rifle, presumed to give orders to his own men. He turned fiercely on Stokes.

      “You know this fellow? What’s his name?”

      “I can’t say as I rightly knows ‘im,” was the answer. “But ‘im and me was in the war, and he once gave me a drink outside Jerusalem.”

      “Are you John Macnab?” Johnson demanded.

      “I’m anything you please,” said Lamancha, “if you’ll only hurry and get this man to bed.”

      “Damn your impudence! What business is that of yours? You’ve been caught poaching and we’ll march you down to Haripol and get the truth out of you. If you won’t tell me who you are, I’ll find means to make you…Macnicol, you and Macqueen get on each side of him, and you three fellows follow behind. If he tries to bolt, club him…You can leave this man here. He’ll take no harm, and we can send back for him later.”

      “I’m sorry to interfere,” said Lamancha quietly, “but Stokes is going down now. You needn’t worry about me. I’ll come with you, for I’ve got to see him comfortably settled.”

      “You’ll come with us!” Johnson shouted. “Many thanks for your kindness. You’ll damn well be made to come. Macnicol, take hold of him.”

      “Don’t,” said Lamancha. “Please don’t. It will only mean trouble.”

      Macnicol was acutely unhappy. He recognised something in Lamancha’s tone which was perhaps unfamiliar to his master—that accent which means authority, and which, if disregarded, leads to mischief. He had himself served in Lovat’s Scouts, and the voice of this tatterdemalion was unpleasantly like that of certain high-handed officers of his acquaintance. So he hesitated and shuffled his feet.

      “Look at the thing reasonably,” Lamancha said. “You say I’m a poacher called John Something-or-other. I admit that you have found me walking with a rifle on your ground, and naturally you want an explanation. But all that can wait till we get this man down to a doctor. I won’t run away, for I want to satisfy myself that he’s going to be all right. Won’t that content you?”

      Johnson, to his disgust, felt that he was being manoeuvred into a false position. He was by no means unkind, and this infernal Macnab was making him appear a brute. Public opinion was clearly against him; Macnicol was obviously unwilling to act, Macqueen he knew detested him, and the three navvies might be supposed to take the side of their colleague. Johnson set a high value on public opinion, and scrupled to outrage it. So he curbed his wrath, and gave orders that Stokes should be taken up. Two men formed a cradle with their arms, and the cortège proceeded down the hill-side.

      Lamancha took care to give his captors no uneasiness. He walked beside Macqueen, with whom he exchanged a few comments about the weather, and he thought his own by no means pleasant thoughts. This confounded encounter with Stokes had wrecked everything, and yet he could not be altogether sorry that it had happened. He had a chance now of doing something for an honest fellow—Stokes’s gallant lie to Johnson had convinced Lamancha of his superlative honesty. But it looked as if he were in for an ugly time with this young bounder, and he was beginning to dislike Johnson extremely. There were one or two points in his favour. The stag seemed to have departed with Wattie into the Ewigkeit and happily no eye at the Beallach had seen the signs of the gralloch. All that Johnson could do was to accuse him of poaching, teste the rifle; he could not prove the deed. Lamancha was rather vague about the law, but he was doubtful whether mere trespass was a grave offence. Then the Claybodys would not want to make too much fuss about it, with the journalists booming the doings of John Macnab…But wouldn’t they? They were the kind of people that liked advertisement, and after all they had scored. What a tale for the cheap papers there would be in the capture of John Macnab! And if it got out who he was?…It was very clear that that at all costs must be prevented…Had Johnson Claybody any decent feelings to which he could appeal? A sportsman? Well, he didn’t seem to be of much account in that line, for he had wanted to leave the poor devil on the hill.

      It took some time for the party to reach the Doran, which they forded at a point considerably below Archie’s former lair. Lamancha gave thanks for one mercy, that Archie and Wattie seemed to have got clean away. There was a car on the road which caused him a moment’s uneasiness, till he saw that it was not the Ford but a large car with an all-weather body coming from Haripol. The driver seemed to have his instructions, for he turned round—no light task in that narrow road with its boggy fringes—and awaited their arrival.

      Johnson gave rapid orders. “You march the fellow down the road, and bring the navvy—better take him to your cottage, Macqueen. I’ll go home in the car and prepare a reception for John Macnab.”

      It may be assumed that Johnson spoke in haste, for he had somehow to work off his irritation, and desired to assert his authority.

      “Hadn’t Stokes better go in the car?” Lamancha suggested in a voice which he strove to make urbane. “That journey down the hill can’t have done his leg any good.”

      Johnson replied by telling him to mind his own business, and then was foolish enough to add that he was hanged if he would have any lousy navvy in his car. He was preparing to enter, when something in Lamancha’s voice stopped him.

      “You can’t,” said the latter. “In common decency you can’t.”

      “Who’ll prevent me? Now, look here, I’m fed up with your insolence. You’ll be well advised to hold your tongue till we make up our minds how to deal with you. You’re in a devilish nasty position, Mr John Macnab, if you had the wits to see it. Macnicol, and you fellows, I’ll fire the lot of you if he escapes on the road. You’ve my authority to hit him on the head if he gets nasty.”

      Johnson’s foot was on the step, when a hand on his shoulder swung him round.

      “No, you don’t.” Lamancha’s voice had lost all trace of civility, for he was very angry. “Stokes goes in the car and one of the gillies with him. Here you, lift the man in.”

      Johnson had grown rather white, for he saw that the situation was working up to the ugliest kind of climax. He felt dimly that he was again defying public opinion, but his fury made him bold. He cursed Lamancha with vigour and freedom, but there was a slight catch in his voice, and a hint of anticlimax in his threats, for the truth was that he was a little afraid. Still it was a flat defiance, though it concluded with a sneering demand as to what and who would prevent him doing as he pleased, which sounded a little weak.

      “First,” said Lamancha, “I should have a try at wringing your neck. Then I should wreck any reputation you may have up and down this land. I promise you I should make you very sorry you didn’t stay in bed this morning.” Lamancha had succeeded in controlling himself—in especial he had checked the phrase “Infernal little haberdasher” which had risen to his lips—and his voice was civil and quiet again.

      Johnson gave a mirthless laugh. “I’m not afraid of a dirty poacher.”

      “If I’m a poacher that’s no reason why you should behave like a cad.”

      It is a melancholy fact which exponents of democracy must face that, while all men may be on a level in the eyes of the State, they will continue in fact to be preposterously unequal. Lamancha had been captured in circumstances of deep suspicion which he did not attempt to explain; he had been caught on Johnson’s land, by Johnson’s servants; the wounded man was in Johnson’s pay, and might reasonably be held to be at Johnson’s orders; the car was without question Johnson’s own. Yet this outrageous trespasser was not only truculent and impenitent; he was taking it upon himself to give orders to gillies and navvies, and to dictate the use of an expensive automobile. The truth is, that