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

whitewashed house, and the square of gravel by the front door. He had run fast and by the shortest road, and as he came in sight of the door the car had only just turned and was making its way to the garage. The household was still awake, for there were half-a-dozen lit windows.

      Mr Tibbets, still possessed by the idea of a smoking-room window, began a careful circuit of the dwelling. Keeping strictly in cover, he traversed a lawn with flower-beds, an untidy little rose garden, and a kind of maze composed of ill-clipped yews. The windows on this side were all dark. Then, rounding a corner of the house, he found himself on another rough lawn, cut by two gravelled paths and ending in a shrubbery and some outhouses. There was light haze, but it was clearly the kitchen and servants’ quarters, so he turned on his tracks, and went back to the front door. He was convinced that the living-rooms, if the party had not gone to bed, must be on the other side of the house, where it abutted on the heathery slopes of Knockraw Hill. This meant a scramble to avoid a dense thicket of rhododendrons, but presently he had passed the corner, and looked down on what was the oldest part of the dwelling. Sure enough there was a lit window—open, too, for the night was mild. He saw an arm draw the curtain, and it was the arm of a man in evening dress.

      The sleuth in Mr Tibbets was now fully roused. There was a ledge to the window which would give him cover, and he crawled down the slope towards it. There was a gap in the curtains, and he was able to peep into the room. He saw the back of one man, and noticed that his dress-coat had a velvet collar; the bearded profile of another; and the hand of a third which held a tumbler. They were talking, but in some foreign tongue which Mr Tibbets did not understand. Try as he might, he could get no better view. He had raised himself and was peering through the gap, when a movement towards him made him drop flat. A hand shut the windows and fastened the catch. Then he heard a general movement within. The light was put out and the door was closed. The three men had gone to bed.

      Bitterly disappointed, Mr Tibbets got to his feet and decided that there was nothing more to be done for the moment. All he had found out was that the three diners at Castle Gay were foreigners, and that one had a black beard. He had studied the bearded profile so carefully that he thought he should know its owner if he met him again. He remounted the slope, intending to pass the rhododendron clump on its upper side. With a dormant household behind him, as he believed, it is possible that he may have gone carelessly. For as he rounded the rhododendrons he was suddenly challenged by a voice from above.

      He yielded to the primeval instinct and ran. But he did not run far. He was making for the highroad and his motor-bicycle, but he travelled barely fifty yards. For something of an incredible swiftness was at his heels, and he found himself caught by the knees so that he pitched head foremost down the slope towards the front door. Dazed and winded, he found the something sitting on his stomach and holding his throat with unpleasing strictness. His attempts to struggle only tightened the constriction, so he gave up the contest.

      After that he scarcely knew what happened to him. His captor seemed to have multiplied himself by two or three, and he felt himself being bundled on to men’s shoulders. Then he was borne into darkness, into light, into darkness, and again into bright light. When he returned to full possession of his wits, he was in what seemed to be a cellar, with his wrists and ankles tightly corded and nothing to recline on but a cold stone floor.

      Count Casimir Muresco, while completing a leisurely Sunday-morning toilet, was interrupted by Jaspar, the butler, a man who in the service of Prince Odalchini had acquired a profound knowledge of many lands and most human conundrums. Jaspar reported that the previous night the two footmen, who were also from the Prince’s Evallonian estates, having been out late in pursuance of some private business, had caught a poacher in the garden, and, according to the best Evallonian traditions, had trussed him up and deposited him for the night in a cellar, which was the nearest equivalent they could find to the princely dungeons.

      Casimir was perturbed by the news, for he was aware that the Evallonian methods were not the British, and he had no desire to antagonise the countryside. He announced that at eleven o’clock he would himself interview the prisoner, and that in the meantime he should be given breakfast.

      The interview, when it took place, effectually broke up the peace of mind of the Knockraw establishment. For instead of a local poacher, whom Casimir had intended to dismiss with an admonition and a tip, the prisoner proved to be a journalist in a furious temper. Mr Tibbets had passed a miserable night. The discomfort of his bonds had prevented him from sleeping, and in any case he had only the hard floor for a couch. The consequence was that he had spent the night watches in nursing his wrath, and, having originally been rather scared, had ended by becoming very angry. Patriotism added fuel to his fires. He had been grossly maltreated by foreigners, and he was determined to make his wrongs a second case of Jenkins’s Ear, and, in the words of that perjured mariner, to “commend his soul to God and his cause to his country.” He was convinced that he had fallen into a den of miscreants, who were somehow leagued with Craw, and professional rivalry combined with national prejudices and personal grievances to create a mood of righteous wrath. He had told Jaspar what he thought of him when the butler had removed his bonds that morning, and he had in no way been mollified by a breakfast of hot rolls and excellent coffee. Consequently, when Casimir appeared at eleven o’clock, he found himself confronted with the British Lion.

      Casimir had the wit to see the gravity of the blunder. This was one of the journalists whom at all costs he must avoid—Barbon and Dougal had dinned that into him. He was apparently the most dangerous, for, being a student of the British Press, Casimir had a lively respect for the power of the Wire. The fellow had been gravely affronted, and was in the most truculent temper.

      Casimir was a man of action. He relapsed into broken English. He apologised profusely—he even wept. The ways of his own land (he did not, of course, mention Evallonia) were different from Scotland, and his servants had been betrayed unwittingly into a grievous fault. Not for the gold of Croesus would he have been party to an insult to the so-great British Press. But let Mr Tibbets picture the scene—the darkness, the late hour, servants accustomed to predatory and revolutionary peasants, servants knowing nothing of the free and equal British traditions. There was room for an innocent mistake, but he cast ashes on his head that it should have happened to Mr Tibbets. Then Casimir’s English began to fail him. He could not explain. He could not make atonement. Let the resources of the establishment be placed at his guest’s disposal. A hot bath? Then a car would await him, while his bicycle would be retained and sent on to Portaway.

      Casimir overflowed with obscure apologies. He conducted Mr Tibbets himself to a bedroom and prepared his bath. A bed was ready, with pyjamas laid out, and a pleasant fire burning. The journalist began to thaw, for he was very sleepy. He would do as Casimir suggested; afterwards, he told himself, he would pump these penitent foreigners on the subject of Mr Craw. He bathed and retired to rest, and, though he did not know it, the bedroom door was locked and the key in Casimir’s pocket.

      After a consultation with his colleagues Casimir rang up Castle Gay and poured his difficulties into the sympathetic ear of Barbon. There was now no defect in his English. “The man will go away full of suspicion,” he said. “I distrust him. He has not forgiven us, and will make journalistic capital out of his adventures… No. He does not know who we are, but he will make inquiries, and he may find out… You say he is the chief journalistic enemy of Mr Craw. I have a suggestion. He has been trying to enter Castle Gay, and has failed. Let me send him to you. I will say that we cannot express adequately our apologies, but that my good friend Barbon will do that for us. By entering Castle Gay he will be placated… There is no difficulty, for Mr Craw is not there. You will receive him as an English friend of mine who desires to add his apologies to ours.”

      Mr Barbon’s response was not encouraging, but Casimir continued to press his case, and at last prevailed. “I don’t want to be mixed up in this business,” Barbon said, “but Mr Crombie might manage it. He could talk to him as one journalist to another.” Barbon’s voice gradually became more cordial. He was beginning to think that such a visit might help with his own problem. If Tibbets came to Castle Gay, and was well received, and saw for himself that the master of the house was absent, he might be choked off his present dangerous course. There was no reason why he should not write a story for his paper about Castle Gay. It would all