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

      Lamancha, regardless of the condition of his nether garments, sat down heavily on an embroidered stool which Lady Claybody erroneously believed to have belonged to Marie Antoinette, and dropped his head in his hands.

      “Lord, I believe you’re right,” he groaned. “We’ve all been potting at sitting birds. John, do you hear? We’ve been making godless fools of ourselves. We thought we had got outside civilisation and were really taking chances. But we weren’t. We were all the time as safe as your blessed bank. It can’t be done—not in this country anyway. We’re in the groove and have got to stay there. We’ve been a pretty lot of idiots not to think of that.”

      Then Johnson spoke. He had been immensely cheered by Lord Claybody’s words, for they had seemed to raise Haripol again to that dignity from which it had been in imminent risk of falling.

      “I don’t complain personally, Lord Lamancha, though you’ve given me a hard day of it. But I agree with my father—you really were gambling on a certainty and it wasn’t very fair to us. Besides, you three, who are the supporters of law and order, have offered a pretty good handle to the enemy, with those infernal journalists advertising John Macnab. There may be a large crop of Macnabs springing up, and you’ll be responsible. It’s a dangerous thing to weaken the sanctities of property.”

      He found, to his surprise, a vigorous opponent in his mother. Lady Claybody had passed from mystification to enlightenment, and from enlightenment to appreciation. It delighted her romantic soul that Haripol should have been chosen for the escapade of three eminent men; she saw tradition and legend already glorifying her new dwelling. Moreover, she scented in Johnson’s words a theory of life which was not her own, a mercantile creed which conflicted with her notion of Haripol, and of the future of her family.

      “You are talking nonsense, Johnson.” She said “You are making property a nightmare, for you are always thinking about it. You forget that wealth is made for man, and not man for wealth. It is the personality that matters. It is so vulgar not to keep money and land and that sort of thing in its proper place. Look at those splendid old Jacobites and what they gave up. The one advantage of property is that you can disregard it.”

      This astounding epigram passed unnoticed save by Janet, for the lady, smiling benignly on the poaching trinity, went on to a practical application. “I think the whole John Macnab adventure has been quite delightful. It has brightened us all up, and I’m sure we have nothing to forgive. I think we must have a dinner for everybody concerned to celebrate the end of it. What Claybody says is perfectly true—you must have known you could count on us, just as much as on Colonel Raden and Mr Bandicott. But since you seem not to have realised that, you have had the fun of thinking you were in real danger, and after all it is what one thinks that matters. I am so glad you are all cured of being bored. But I’m not quite happy about those journalists. How can we be certain that they won’t make a horrid story of it?”

      “My wife is right,” said Lord Claybody emphatically. “That is the danger.” He looked at Crossby. “They are certain to want some kind of account.”

      “They certainly will,” said the latter. “And that account must leave out names and—other details. I don’t suppose you want the navvy business made public?”

      “Perhaps not. That was Johnson’s idea, and I don’t consider it a particularly happy inspiration.”

      “Well, there is nothing for it but that I should give them the story and expurgate it discreetly. John Macnab has been caught and dismissed with a warning—that’s all there is to it. I suppose your gillies won’t blab? They can’t know very much, but they might give away some awkward details.”

      “I’ll jolly well see that they don’t,” said Johnson. “But who will you make John Macnab out to be?”

      “A lunatic—unnamed. I’ll hint at some family skeleton into which good breeding forbids me to inquire. The fact that he has failed at Haripol will take the edge off my colleagues’ appetites. If he had got his stag they would have been ramping on the trail. The whole thing will go the way of other stunts, and be forgotten in two days. I know the British Press.”

      Within half an hour the atmosphere in that drawing-room had changed from suspicion to something not far from friendliness, but the change left two people unaffected. Johnson, doubtless with Lamancha’s behaviour on the hill in his memory, was still sullen, and Janet was obviously ill at ease.

      Lamancha, who was suffering a good deal from thirst and hunger and longed for a bath, arose from his stool.

      “I think,” he said, “that we three—especially myself—owe you the most abject of apologies. I see now that we were taking no risks worth mentioning, and that what we thought was an adventure was only a faux pas. It was abominably foolish, and we are all very sorry about it. I think you’ve taken it uncommonly well.”

      Lord Claybody raised a protesting hand. “Not another word. I vote we break up this conference and give you something to drink. Johnson’s tongue is hanging out of his mouth.”

      The voice of Janet was suddenly raised, and in it might have been detected a new timidity. “I want to apologise also. Dear Lady Claybody, I stole your dog…I hope you will forgive me. You see we wanted to do something to distract Macnicol, and that seemed the only way.”

      A sudden silence fell. Lady Claybody, had there been sufficient light, might have been observed to flush.

      “You—stole—Roguie,” she said slowly, while Janet moved closer to Sir Archie. “You—stole—Wee Roguie. I think you are the—”

      “But we were very kind to him, and he was very happy.”

      “I wasn’t happy. I scarcely slept a wink. What right had you to touch my precious little dog? I think it is the most monstrous thing I ever heard in my life.”

      “I’m so very sorry. Please, please forgive me. But you said yourself that the only advantage of property was that you could disregard it.”

      Lady Claybody, to her enormous credit, stared, gasped, and then laughed. Then something in the attitude of Janet and Archie stopped her, and she asked suddenly: “Are you two engaged?”

      “Yes,” said Janet, “since ten minutes past one this afternoon.”

      Lady Claybody rose from the couch and took her in her arms.

      “You’re the wickedest girl in the world and the most delightful. Oh, my dear, I am so pleased. Sir Archibald, you will let an old woman kiss you. You are brigands, both of you, so you should be very very happy. You must all come and dine here to-morrow night—your father and sister too, and we’ll ask the Bandicotts. It will be a dinner to announce your engagement, and also to say good-bye to John Macnab. Poor John! I feel as if he were a real person who will always haunt this glen, and now he is disappearing into the mist.”

      “No,” said Lamancha, “he is being shrivelled up by coals of fire. By the way”—and he turned to Lord Claybody—“I’ll send over the stag in the morning. I forgot to tell you I got a stag—an old beast with a famous head, who used to visit Crask. It will look rather well in your hall. It has been in Archie’s larder since the early afternoon.”

      Then Johnson Claybody was moved to a course which surprised his audience, and may have surprised himself. His sullenness vanished in hearty laughter.

      “I think,” he said, “I have made rather a fool of myself.”

      “I think we have all made fools of ourselves,” said Lamancha.

      Johnson turned to his late prisoner and held out his hand.

      “Lord Lamancha, I have only one thing to say. I don’t in the least agree with my mother, and I’m dead against John Macnab. But I’m your man from this day on—whatever line you take. You’re my leader, for, by all that’s holy, you’ve a most astonishing gift of getting the goods.”

      EPILOGUE