Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

talents—business talents, at any rate, even if he were not much of a thinker or teacher. He was accustomed to make men do what he wanted. He had the gift of impressing millions of people with his strength and wisdom. He must often have taken decisions which required nerve and courage. He had inordinate riches, and to Jaikie, who had not a penny, the acquisition of great wealth seemed proof of a rare and mysterious power. Yet here was this great man, unshaven and unkempt, sunk in childish despair, because of a situation which to the spectator himself seemed simple and rather amusing.

      Jaikie had a considerable stock of natural piety. He hated to see human nature, in which he profoundly believed, making a discreditable exhibition of itself. Above all he hated to see an old man—Mr Craw seemed to him very old, far older than Dickson McCunn—behaving badly. He could not bring himself to admit that age, which brought success, did not also bring wisdom. Moreover he was by nature kindly, and did not like to see a fellow-being in pain. So he applied himself to the duties of comforter.

      “Cheer up, Mr Craw,” he said. “This thing is not so bad as all that. There’s at least three ways out of it.”

      There was no answer, save for a slight straightening of the shoulders, so Jaikie continued:

      “First, you can carry things with a high hand. Go back to Castle Gay and tell every spying journalist to go to blazes. Sit down in your own house and be master there. Your position won’t suffer. If the Wire gets hold of the story of the students’ rag, what does it matter? It will be forgotten in two days, when the next murder or divorce comes along. Besides, you behaved well in it. You kept your temper. It’s not a thing to be ashamed of. The folk who’ll look foolish will be Tibbets with his bogus mysteries, and the editor who printed his stuff. If I were you I’d put the whole story of your adventure in your own papers and make a good yarn of it. Then you’ll have people laughing with you, not at you.”

      Mr Craw was listening. Jaikie understood him to murmur something about the Evallonians.

      “As for the Evallonians,” he continued, “I’d meet them. Ask the whole bally lot to luncheon or dinner. Tell them that Evallonia is not your native land, and that you’ll take no part in her politics. Surely a man can have his views about a foreign country without being asked to get a gun and fight for it. If they turn nasty, tell them also to go to the devil. This is a free country, and a law-abiding country. There’s the police in the last resort. And you could raise a defence force from Castle Gay itself that would make yon foreign bandits look silly. Never mind if the thing gets into the papers. You’ll have behaved well, and you’ll have reason to be proud of it.”

      Jaikie spoke in a tone of extreme gentleness and moderation. He was most anxious to convince his hearer of the desirability of this course, for it would remove all his own troubles. He and Dougal would be able with a clear conscience to continue their walking tour, and every minute his distaste was increasing for the prospect of taking the road in Mr Craw’s company.

      But that moderation was an error in tactics. Had he spoken harshly, violently, presenting any other course as naked cowardice, it is possible that he might have struck an answering spark from Mr Craw’s temper, and forced him to a declaration from which he could not have retreated. His equable reasonableness was his undoing. The man sitting hunched up in the chair considered the proposal, and his terrors, since they were not over-ridden by anger, presented it in repulsive colours to his reason.

      “No,” he said, “I can’t do that. It is not possible… You do not understand… I am not an ordinary man. My position is unique. I have won an influence, which I hold in trust for great public causes. I dare not impair it by being mixed up in farce or brawling.”

      Jaikie recognised the decision as final. He also inferred from the characteristic stateliness of the words and the recovered refinement of the accent, that Mr Craw was beginning to be himself again.

      “Very well,” he said briskly. “The second way is that you go abroad as if nothing had happened. We can get a car to take you to Gledmouth, and Mr Barbon will bring on your baggage. Go anywhere you like abroad, and leave the Evallonians to beat at the door of an empty house. If their mission becomes known, it won’t do you any harm, for you’ll be able to prove an alibi.”

      Mr Craw’s consideration of this project was brief, and his rejection was passionate. Mr Barbon had been right in his forecast.

      “No, no,” he cried, “that is utterly and eternally impossible. On the Continent of Europe I should be at their mercy. They are organised in every capital. Their intelligence service would discover me—you admit yourself that they know a good deal about my affairs even in this country. I should have no protection, for I do not believe in the Continental police.”

      “What are you afraid of?” Jaikie asked with a touch of irritation. “Kidnapping?”

      Mr Craw assented darkly. “Some kind of violence,” he said.

      “But,” Jaikie argued in a voice which he tried to keep pleasant, “how would that serve their purpose? They don’t need you as a hostage. They certainly don’t want you as leader of an armed revolution. They want the support of your papers, and the influence which they think you possess with the British Government. You’re no use to them except functioning in London.”

      It was a second mistake in tactics, for Jaikie’s words implied some disparagement of Craw the man as contrasted with Craw the newspaper proprietor. There was indignation as well as fear in the reply.

      “No. I will not go abroad at such a time. It would be insanity. It would be suicide. You must permit me to judge what is politic in such circumstances. I assure you I do not speak without reflection.”

      “Very well,” said Jaikie, whose spirits had descended to his boots. “You can’t go back to Castle Gay. You won’t go abroad. You must stay in this country and lie low till the Evallonians clear out.”

      Mr Craw said nothing, but by his silence he signified an unwilling assent to this alternative.

      “But when?” he asked drearily after a pause. “When will the Evallonians give up their mission? Have we any security for their going within a reasonable time? You say that they have taken Knockraw for the season. They may stay till Christmas.”

      “We’ve left a pretty effective gang behind us to speed their departure.”

      “Who?”

      “Well, there’s Mrs Brisbane-Brown. I wouldn’t like to be opposed to yon woman.”

      “The tenant of the Mains. I scarcely know her.”

      “No, she said that when she met you you looked at her as if she were Lady Godiva. Then there’s her niece, Miss Westwater.”

      “The child I have seen riding in the park? What can she do?”

      Jaikie smiled. “She might do a lot. And there’s your staff at the Castle, Mr Barbon and the rest. And most important of all, there’s Dougal.”

      Mr Craw brightened perceptibly at the last name. Dougal was his own henchman, an active member of the great Craw brotherhood. From him he could look for loyal and presumably competent service. Jaikie saw the change in expression, and improved the occasion.

      “You don’t know Dougal as I know him. He’s the most determined fellow on earth. He’ll stick at nothing. I’ll wager he’ll shift the Evallonians, if he has to take to smoke bombs and poison gas… Isn’t it about time that we had supper? I’m famished with hunger.”

      The bacon and eggs had to be sent back to be heated up, and Mrs Catterick had to make a fresh brew of tea. Under the cheering influence of the thought of Dougal Mr Craw made quite a respectable meal. A cigar would have assisted his comfort, but he had long ago emptied his case, and he was compelled to accept one of Jaikie’s cheap Virginian cigarettes. His face remained a little clouded, and he frequently corrugated his brows in thought, but the black despair of half an hour ago had left him.

      When the remains of supper had been cleared away he asked to see Jaikie’s map, which for some time he studied intently.